My new ….

This day I made 9 bins in 12 hours:). My goal for the day was 8 and I did one more. I was very proud of me :). After mango picking I quickly changed  my clothes and went off to my second job: first day at Dominos‘ pizza delivery. When I had arrived there a guy was waiting for me with a friendly welcome, introduced me to everything I would have to do and accompanied me to my first delivery.

…uniform 🙂

We delivered three pizzas, one garlic bread and a sprite by car. 🙂 Having  returned to  Dominos‘  I had to wash some dishes. It took about an hour, when  I had to do my  first pizza delivery all by myself. I got the Dominos‘ car and typed the address in the navigation system.:) Then I delivered two pizzas, one garlic bread and a coke to a young lady. 🙂 It took me about 10 minutes and the boss was very happy with my service. Later on he tested me on a scooter to find out whether I can drive one.

Me on the scooter:)

Easily I passed the test and he told me, that he will send me a note as soon as he needs my help this week.

Sapburn :(Mangorush:/

When I woke up at 8 am this day ( I had a day-off from mango-picking)

I started to cut my hair today.

Before having my hair cut:$

After having my hair cut (undercut):)

I was just preparing myself for jogging, having changed my clothes, when I got a call from a man who needed a worker for today. So I changed again my clothes, and got picked up by Jimmy, who needed some help for painting his living-room and cleaning his tools.

Jimmy at work

Living-room before I had painted it

Living-room after I had painted it (nice colour) 🙂

The living-room (nice house)

I had been working for 3 hours and earned some good cash for the day. 🙂 Then Jimmy dropped me off at the hostel and I did some jogging.  Then I went shopping, expired my stay at the hostel, and applied for some jobs in Australia and New-Zealand 🙂

The following week I had been working everyday from 5:30 am to 5:30 pm. After 4 days I got my first mangoburn (on the knees),it burnt and itched very hard.

I

Every morning I woke up with pain in my fingers but my only thought was to earn as much money as possible and not taking too much damage to myself . :/ On Sunday I became a cherrypicker (it was meant as a gift from the host-father, because I was a good, reliable and strong worker. Cherrypicking means, that you are picking mangoes from a machine (like a crane) which you can navigate by your feet (there are three pedals, the left one for going right, the right one for going left, and the one in the middle for moving  up and down). 🙂 It sounds easy but in fact, it isn’t. I started to work… but it wasn’t long, when I happened to crash heavily against a mango tree and ended up with a very huge cut in my finger ( later on that day one of the other cherrypickers broke his finger, because of such an accident, so I have to call myself lucky). Later on my water bottle (10L) fell down, and my lunch box, too. :/ No meal and no drinking for 12 hours? :0  After 5 hours of hard picking-work without having anything to drink, luckily the supervisor gave me some water. 🙂  I was going to spend 13 hours on this machine,  all alone, in the middle of mangoe rows. I felt absolutely lost and lonely, while always, at the same time, I  had to keep control over the machine. :/  After two hours I  started to talk to myself,  because I was so desperate and needed to get myself in a better mood. I started to make fun of myself and let my mind wander ( family and friends I MISS YOU SO MUCH 🙁 <3 ) I was slowly starting to cry  and  felt relieved afterwards. Towards the end of  that day I had filled 3 bins ( 35 AUD per bin), that was definitely not as much as I had hoped to earn, and worst of all:  I got sap burns in my face, too. I wasn’t satisfied at all

My camera has given up so I couldn’t take photos while I was cherrypicking but I will  try to buy a new one as soon as possible. 🙂

Today I got up at 4:15 am to prepare for my first day on the mango farm (Pappalados Farm).

The bus (van) picked me up at 4:30 and we drove half an hour to the farm (3 other guys from  my hostel and me ). As we arrived there, we saw many guys with spots in their faces and I had already heard about the mango sap burn and mango rash.

So I asked them whether mango rash looks like that. They agreed. I felt very uncomfortable after that information but, nevertheless started to work after a short introduction by the boss. I was in a team of 5 guys. There are four working-steps in picking mangoes: One guy drives the tractor ( on the tractor is a huge tank with water in it), two guys pick the mangoes from the top of a trailer with long sticks with nets at the end ( like cherry picking sticks), one guy washes the mangoes, and the last one collects the mangoes from the ground or the ones, the two others couldn’t reach.

In our team we agreed to the rule that each guy has to do each working step  and that he has to change to the next step, when one bin is full. It’s paid per bin ( 100 AUD per bin divided by 5 guys). :I It’s okay. After 5 hours working and doing every working-step twice the first one got a sap burn on his finger. It looked awful, there were blisters all over his finger, and he was suffering terrrible pain. (The caustic sap of the mangoes may not come into contact with your skin, because it causes really serious burns). Once the stem is removed from the fruit, the mango releases this highly caustic sap, which can burn both the fruit and your skin. To avoid a sap burn and preventing a mango rash you always  have to pick mangoes away from your body. 🙂 But sometimes it’s hard, and you are always in a hurry, because you and the whole team  want to earn good money, and so, if you are not very careful, you can easily get a sap burn. After 13 hours work with one break (drinking, eating and taking off your wet clothes, wet because of sweat) I hadn’t got a mango sap burn and returned – very happy and exhausted – to my hostel and enjoyed eating a mango with Jan ). Wow, they are so tasty, especially since I know what hard work it is to get them. Tomorrow I will work again 🙂 Hopefully I won’t get burned neither from the sun nor from the mangoes. 😛

Sorry about the blurred pictures, my camera got water in it and now the display doesn’t work  anymore.

Today we woke up at 7 o’clock and wondered, that the host hadn’t us woken. :/ Then I went to have a shower and had a chat to the girl from the reception, who told me, that we have to be ready at 9 o’clock for pumpkin-picking. 🙂 So we were ready at 9 o’clock but didn’t start before 12. :)We left our car in front of the hostel and drove to the farm together with 3 other guys. First of all we had to pick pumpkins in the field ( very annoying movement). I was totally covered in sweat  (because of the heat 34°C) and the suncream stung in my eyes :P. See the pictures :).

After that we went to the sheds to pack the pumpkins into boxes.

After 5 hours work the host said, that we should finish for today, and we drove back to our car.

I went jogging and prepared dinner (rice with meat and tomato sauce). Then I talked to the host and he said, that every day he will give me a new job on a different farm. Monday I will start to work on a mangofarm separated from Jan. 🙂 But that’s okay, because both of us need some time for ourselves 🙂 Today I earned 20 AUD per hour, so I will be able to save a lot of money for the rest of my trip around the world. 🙂

Today we woke up at Jimmy’s  (tried his motorcycle )  left to Derek’s home again for breakfast and ask him whether he possibly had an air mattress for us because we had lost ours. :/

Again he served us a nice breakfast and helped us with other stuff, but hadn’t got an air mattress.  Jan and I decided to leave the place and headed off for Ayr (because we heard that they were offering lots of farmwork-jobs over there ). It took us 6 hours of endless driving (once we nearly ran out of petrol, but then we saw a petrol station … CLOSED) In the end we just made it.  We arrived in Ayr and were totally exhausted.

First we tried to check in at a caravan park but it was booked out. Then we asked at a working hostel. But it was also booked out. Fortunately the host told us that there is plenty of work to get done and that  we can stay and sleep in our car for a low price. 🙂 We will have to pick mangoes ( 12 ½ hours a day) but well paid: 20 AUD per hour. 🙂 So I won’t be able to write too much in my blog for 2 or 3 weeks, because here we won’t have internet (contact only by my phone). 🙂 I will tell you later, guys,  about this forthcoming „hard“ job. But there is one thing I really want to tell you now: it is so much hotter here than in the south (32°C).

The next day we continued our trip to the Beach of 1770. 🙂

After 2 hours drive we came to Lake Awonga. As soon as we had arrived there we jumped into the water and enjoyed a refreshing swim in the nude. 🙂

First there was not a soul to be seen, amazing. 🙂 After a while I spotted a man next to a boat and some kajaks and I asked him whether he could lend us the kajaks for free. He said yes  ( because it isn’t holiday season in Queensland) and we started our water trip. The lake is huge and we decided to have a rest for sunbathing in the middle of the lake. 🙂 It was so amazingly peaceful, no noises, just water lapping against the boats, sunshine on our heads and the beautiful landscape surrounding us. After having spent some moments of such wonderful relaxation  we started a little race in our boats and I won (it was very similar to rowing :)) We had a lot of fun.  We  had  to dry our wet clothes in the sun. 🙂 At 3’o clock we continued our trip and after a two hours drive arrived at Derek’s home. 🙂 He is a friendly old retired  guy who is living in a big house in a kind of  minimalistic style. See the photos. 😛

Although he cooked us a dinner and we spent some nice time together we decided to move to another place ( we could quickly arrange) because if we stayed at his place we would have had to sleep in our car in his yard. But we had the chance to sleep at Jimmy’s house, were we could sleep inside. So at about 9 o’clock we said good-bye to Derek and drove off to Jimmy’s home. Another very friendly guy. We had a lot of fun together and enjoyed the conversation with him. Later we spent our time watching a film together.

On Tuesday we left Alex’s house and continued our roadtrip to Agnes Water.

On the road we picked up Keno, a German hitchhiker, and gave him a lift to Agnes Water.

In Agnes Water we went to a job-agency and applied for all kinds of different jobs. Then we went to the beach but couldn’t go for a swim because of stingers. 🙁

The beach wasn’t as nice as the ones we had been used to (we have already seen so much better ones :/) so we drove to the town  1770 (historical city because of the explorer James Cook) and came to stop at a car park because of the beautiful sunset. We had dinner, watched a film and went to sleep. Have a look at the photos 🙂 Tomorrow we will stay at another couchsurfer-host in Rockhampton (2 hours drive  :))

I hope you are all fine and love to read my blog.

G’day fellows

The last few next days we had been  searching for jobs, enjoyed the weather and cooked meals. One day our host picked us up and took us – together with the two Finnish girls – for a ride through Bundaberg. He showed us the beach, we visited several  farms to ask for a job, but nobody seemed to need our help. So we drove home, played darts and cards, and enjoyed ourselves.:)