They like it Big in SA

Dave and I are all about doing things big. From the big banana to the big Lobster at Kingston SE. We love all the nation’s big icons. We travelled along the Limestone Peninsular heading for the big apple they call Adelaide down here. We came head first into a Steam Train (which the troppy one) to the best German places in Australia. A touristy town of Hahndorf is the oldest German town in the country so without hesitation we explored and went the whole way; to the oldest pub and with a Stein of beer for Dave and a 300ml Ale for me (cheers to Thomasu in Germany) we thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere. All we needed was more beer and those German girls with their jugs.

We spent two nights at Hackney Caravan Park which was a 20 minute walk to the city. This place was a major introduction to the local Adelaid’ians. The guy who owns the CP drove everywhere in his golf cart and expected everything his way when he asked very directly “how long is your vehicle exactly?” without a hello or any sort of acknowledgement. I said roughly 5.5m and a little more for the ladder. So he seemed pissed off about the length and then even more so when we couldn’t fit into his preferred site. To truly understand how precise he was we needed to record it but under the pure shock of his attitude and correctness we forgot. If anyone has met my father, think how he uses numbers, directions and figures and times that by 10 with a grumpy attitude. After he directed my reserving in the site to the exact angle he wouldn’t let me out of the car until I heard the 10 commandments of the park. The full on drill! Once he left, we got talking to this lovely couple Julie and Daryl and soon realised it just wasn’t us he add an attitude towards, laughing in disbelief. So maybe this Adelaid’ian needs some better social skills.

The next day our new friends were lovely enough to give us a lift into the city;it was all about going shopping...for farm boots. The highlight for me was having a nanny nap on the river and Dave’s was meeting Jamie Cox the Australian cricket selector/opening batsman for SA and AUS the day Ricky Pointing chose the step down. Dave missed his opportunity to asked who the next captain would be...good one.

Day 2 - Great Ocean Road and more

Some of the most iconic land formations were the highlight of the day. I'm obviously talking about the 12 Apostles and the London Bridge. I'm sure everyone knows what these formations look like and what is expected when you’re on this part of the Great Ocean Road and honestly, everything went perfectly to plan unlike most days when either the weather is horrible or we’re running late/being lazy. 

12? Huh?

Nice try

We checked out a few port towns along the way and made camp at a place just outside Portland. It was a few kms off the main track but worth the travel when we saw at least another 30 campers in a massive shady area. When we drove in, it seemed like there was an unspoken rule of where you should camp; as one area had all caravan’ers while another had mostly tents. We needed a good sleep that night so instinctively we camped near all the caravans.

 However, late that night just on nightfall a SS Commodore Ute and a Pulsar with neons rocked up and camped ridiculously close to us. So I’m thinking...”thats ok..I guess... just as long they don’t make too much racket”. So getting to sleep was fine but....always a ‘but’, at 1.58am I woke up to an axe and a saw cutting through these huge pieces of wood. Not only that but also them digging out the wood pylons that separate the camping areas. I was so close to getting up but the chick yelled half drunk “that’ll do babe...I’m tired, come to bed”. Thankfully I didn’t hear anything else that night.

Petrified Forest

We got up early to check out Portland and found it pretty bland but found Cape Bridgewater a little hide away secret. There we could get within a fence distance from a windmill (frick’n huge), walked to this volcanic/limestone formation called the petrified forest, and got to walk for 2 hours to briefly see Australian Fur Seals from 50m away which only looked like a speck. 

Sigh, sometimes you can win but mostly you lose.

The best part of the day was yet to come! Dave and I had our first bakery item in 2 months! When basic meals and hardly any snacking are involved, the slight idea of a bakery item makes us salivate. We took at least 15minutes to gorge ourselves and enjoy what luxury we had before 3 months of isolation.

Quarantine was our next stop before entering a new state. Luckily we timed our meals right and had little to bin but annoyingly the thought of wasting perfectly good vegies and fruit had its limits. We may not have binned everything.

The first SA town we were introduced to was Mt Gambia. This town is known for its high water table and the abundance of sink holes and underground caves. I’d say it’s a town hovering over a hole. The sights were worth the visit thankfully. The Blue Lake, which is slowly filling with all the extra rain, and Umpherston Sinkhole which has a beautiful flowering garden inside. So the visits were limited therefore our time was as well. We stayed not far up the road on the edge of a lake for free...we may have bypassed the self registration both. 

Dave insisted

Day 1 - Great Ocean Road

When travelling there are particular trends that happen...regularly. When something gets fixed another problem comes around; now we have a wet mattress and bed sheets. The night we stayed at Bendigo we didn’t do up the tent properly and somehow in the pouring rain, water had seeped in and made the whole bed soaking in water. Sigh, that night we engaged our plan B sleeping arrangement and thankfully slept in our sleeping bags. It wasn’t the most comforting night with the temperature getting down below 8 degrees and sleeping on nothing soft. So a caravan park was inevitable to dry everything out.

 But on the way down towards our chosen park we happen to miraculously stubbled onto the Great Ocean Road. It was a miserable day with on and off rain and random sunshine but sometimes you’ve just got to take what’s given. The GOR started around Torquay which is known for its surfing community and the famous international Bells Beach which was a definite sight to see with all the amazing wind surfers in the rough seas. Further down the road was a beautiful town of Lorne which showed off double story cafe’s looking out to the ocean and spacious green areas to lay about. But the most amazing drive was still yet to come; a few kilometres down, we see our one lane road curve around the cliffs with the abundance of motorhomes in our way.

I didn't think a U-Turn was possible here

Thankfully for them, we had to slow it down as the road was become narrower with only a vertical drop down on one side and a vertical climb up on the other and the only thing slopping us going over was a little piece of steel frame. Somehow, I didn't think that would've stop a 3.3t troppy going at 50km. Most of the pictures will illustrate the road.

We stayed at a caravan park near Apollo Bay which wasn’t in the budget but well worth the money for warm sheets and a hot shower. 

The Murray and Beyond

Good news to start the blog with; our windscreen finally got fixed. It was a late job but at least we didn’t have to drive anywhere unnecessarily. We left Robinvale and the table grape farm early in the morning heading towards Echuca and particularly somewhere on the Murray River for the night. Last time we were down in Victoria before Tassie, the Murray was overflowing and many of the townships were completely isolated. On the way along the Murray Valley Highway we saw some pretty unique things.

 The sheer amount of water along the roads was amazing especially around Kerang where a whole kilometre of road has been washed away from the recent floods. Both Dave and I loved Echuca which had a outback yet modern charm about it highlighting the old Victorian style hotels and town hall architecture. That night we camped at Christies Beach right on the Murray River which did require a 4WD to get into with all the massive pot holes and puddles which Dave couldn’t keep out of. One day it’s going to bite us in the arse when a puddle decides to conceal its true dept and we both go flying into the front dash. The campsite was very insightful; we could see the previous height of the River on the embankment but generally the site was quite peaceful. We had a roaring fire, cool breeze, and a beautiful sunset over the Murray. One issue, I attempted to get some washing up water from the river and didn’t realise how bloody muddy it had become. I stepped one foot onto the beach/sandy muddy area and fell in up to my knee. Sigh, you may never know how difficult it was to get out without using my other foot and all the while Dave is laughing up on the banks. Good supportive help.

The next morning we cruised through town and made our way slowly to Bendigo where Ebony, Dave’s awesome friend from Fitness First had arranged for us to stay at her parents place. We were spoilt rotten; these lovely people welcomed us into their home, feed us, kept us warm and very dry (pissing down rain outside), and even gave us a bed to sleep on. It was such a horrible night with constant rain and wind we felt so luckily to have this treat.Plus, I really enjoyed the hot rods both Jan and Colin had done up..the roar from the engine is intense; somehow I was expecting fire to come out the exhaust. I would like to thank Ebony and her family for such a welcoming afternoon and night. Thank you again to Jan for the cheap oil and to Brooke for her excellent hospitality.

The next morning we had a full ‘to-do-list’. Did an oil/oil filter change on the car and got extremely black hands and arms but nothing a little Degreaser can’t fix. Went Opp shopping for some jeans and long sleeve cotton shirts for the farm; Dave was easy but I did manage to find a Sass and Bide pair of brown (very outback) extra long pair of jeans for the lovely price of $5.99 from St.Vinnie’s. Very happy with my awesome deal! Also attempted to buy some leather boots for the farm as well but found this a little more challenging. Dave’s got a too bigger foot to fit any Saddlery shoes and the work wear boots are too wide for his size. Ebony’s sister Brooke was able to help out and give Dave a pair of Blunderstone tie up steel capped boots for free (curious of her unknowing partner). So that was one down, one to go. I’ll back to ya.

After all that we drove onwards down to Daylesford and stayed in an old asteroid crater at Mount Franklin Reserve which was very cool and 'eary' at the same time. All around us were big green pine trees which for most of the night made a ghost noise whenever the wind blew.

Let's get Crackin

So the days of picking are becoming long, hard and mostly boring; therefore, a solution is needed. Thanks to Amy and Tom back in Tasmania we had arranged a possible work experience at a sheep station (better known as sheep husbandry) as a farm hand in the bloody middle of nowhere. The family who hired us have two stations that have around 7,000 sheep and is roughly 140km north of Port Augusta and will require us to do pretty much anything...possibly including any of the following: shearing, tagging, riding dirt bikes and quads, mustering sheep, fixing fences, looking after the sheep, cleaning paddocks, driving all sorts of machinery, and probably general handy man work. Yahoo, the days of mundane, tedious, and repetitive work (all synonyms) are finally over though we have learnt a few things like knowing how to pick a good grape bunch at the supermarkets, the value of a well earn dollar, an increased level of patience, the general outlook of the grape industry, and how to play many orchestrated cricket games in the sand.

Now the fun begins or insanely hard work, depending how you look at it. The farm is located in the absolute definition of  in middle of nowhere based in the Woomera Prohibited Area which is a designated flat, normally dry, 127,000km square bit of land used for military test activities. Eeek! The website for the Woomera Test Range (WTR) area states that:

“A number of pastoral stations and homesteads are located in the eastern section of the WTR (US), with the land being used for sheep and cattle grazing. Arrangements are made to evacuate pastoralists and other personnel on a short-term basis when necessary for the safe conduct of trial activities”

Holy shit! Frick’n atom bombs are a goin’ off. Dave quote: “we’re screwed”

Lame..I know

Look through their website and see how long the list is for military missile trials. I’m mostly interested in the PRISM  Electronic Welfare Trails which reminds of PRISM Towers in Command and Conquer Red Alert. Just thinking of this Australian painted prism tower placed in a random area and a Soviet tank, or in our case a PzH 2000 Howitzer tank drives by and explodes all in our back yard. Nerdy yes, appropriate, probably not.

Plus there is a shit load of water! Great, 4WD LOW RANGE TERRITORY


But seriously, there is no issue with the location or the people!

We have arranged to be on the farm by the 2^nd of April, so our trip resumes from Robinvale following our noses heading through Murray River country, Bendigo for an oil change, the Great Ocean Road trail to soak up the beach atmosphere, then off NOW partially green and dry heat country to Adelaide and beyond. 

One up for the little guys...so far

How come there are always problems when you deal with big corporate companies? Sunday is our day off and so having a beautiful day we drove to Mildura to check out the area. The drive was very straight, one lane, with plenty of semi-trailers, and washed out parts of the road from all the rain up here. Put all those elements together and we have a very, very serious bullet/crack in our windscreen 5cm wide with little shards of glass coming off. So, we say “this is fine, we have comprehensive insurance with unlimited windscreen repair” and with a call to NRMA, the lady on the phone explains that all will be looked after and O’Brian will be in contact with us very shortly to organise a time and place. We were getting excited as they called back within 5 mins..yay!! the system works. But, they did explain that there was no O’Brian store in Mildura however, there was a representive worker that is used for Sunday and emergency work locally. So after an hour we’re not so excited as the lady from O’Brian stated that the rep worker wasn’t answering his phone. It was getting later and later in the arvo we still didn’t know whether the windscreen was going to get fixed so we arranged with O’Brian to have someone come out to the farm later in the week. Tuesday comes and the rep called firmly stating that under no circumstances would he drive the 1 hour trip to Robinvale because he apparently didn’t have the time nor the man power to do so. So now we are getting really pissed off; why do we have to drive the hour costing $50 in diesel plus taking a day off work with an opportunities cost of up to $150 because the rep didn’t answer HIS phone. We did some serious bitch’n to O’Brian who didn’t want anything to do with us saying it was now our problem to fix; so we did. NRMA was the next call up and luckily got a lovely lady who actually understood us and organised extra payment for the rep to come out and fix the windscreen.

ONE UP FOR THE LITTLE GUYS!

GLORY, GLORY, GO TEAM BRUCE

GLORY, GLORY, GO TEAM BRUCE

GLORY, GLORY, GO TEAM BRUCE

CAUSE YOU AIN’T GUNNA F#@K WITH US NO MORE

May I say that the windscreen has not been fixed yet...Wait until Tuesday FOR MORE ISSUES

So the days of picking begin

So the days of picking begin.  Picking fruit is not rocket science but it is an art; having the right eye and attention to detail makes the difference. In Dave’s case, he should really focus on the attention to detail bit as he has already nipped his fingers 4 times and we’re quickly running out of the essential bandaids. In is defence, he is working extremely quick earning us money. The days of picking are hot and long ranging from 6-9hours in the direct sunlight with temperatures ranging above the 30 degree mark with low humidity, just raw beaming heat. I made a make shift shade thing to so it wouldn’t be so ‘direct’ which includes an umbrella that is cable tied to an extender pole then strapped to the steel work station; a real engineering break through. It does actually work by giving me shade but not so well in the wind. The pay is based on how many buckets/crates you do and roughly on average people do anywhere from 20-100 depending on how long you’ve been doing it for. On our first day we did 35 crates (not so good) next day was 49 (better). It goes up by there. There is one Tongan here that has been doing it for the last 10 years and is able to do 100 buckets by himself per day. On a good rate there worth $2 per bucket, not bad pay. I’m getting close with a personal record of 45.

 

Market Update:

spare of the moment photo

After talking to the farmer over a nice very cold Carlton Draught (the local beer) I decided to call Nat and Tim from Tasmania to see whether or not they would be interested in some work as we have a shortage of workers on the farm. A few days pasted and voila, they decided to come down for a week in attempt to make up money spent on their 1996 troopcarrier transfer case and rear diff set up(a lot of money spent there but it’s basically brand new now). Tim told me that while they were fixing it up the mechanics notices that the front leaf springs were on the WRONG way; 50mm out and on back to front meant that the leafs were dinting the shock absorbers and probably mucking up the rear drive shaft somehow. Apparently the suspension hasn't been touched since the factory...so well done Toyota and your recently hired apprentice in the suspension section.

We are very lucky to be at this farm as I’ve been told that most of the surrounding farms are all owned by Italians with massive houses like the ones you can win by buying tickets in from Boys Town or something. These farmers pay a ridiculously low rate and expect high quality and volume and if it’s not up to their standard, mainly because you’re rushing to make a decent hourly rate, they tell you to bugger off and replace you with Asian works who don’t complain. These 'workers' are usually working for half the minimum wage plus getting a 25% cut taken out that is usually given to the supervisor and/or contractor; sometimes two. Dave and I are thanking our lucky britches that we’re actually making a far bit of money because the John the farmer gives us a decent wage at the end of the week. How nice...he deserves a carton of Carlton.

Robinvale, the success of money

We arrive at a little place called Robinvale on the boarder of the Murry River which is massively rich in citrus, avocados, and table grapes. We got this grape picking jobs through the national harvest trail government site which seemed all fine and dandy at the start however, on the way up here Dave and I were wondering to why we had to meet this guy called Sherro (apparently worked at Madec employment agency) at the little country corner shop when we got into town. So around 8pm we arrived at Robinvale (population 300) at this corner shop in the middle of nowhere. So now we are really thinking this is suss; does wolf creek mean much? So after a call to him and 5 minutes later, this big, overweight guy with an old rusted Ford 150 Ute turned up. We were shitting ourselves! (I may have written down the number plate and hid the postit note in the car)....yeah yeah, always a good ending, we arrived safe and well only 2 minutes up the road at this table grape farm and met the owner John who is lovely Aussie bloke with a real care free attitude. He showed us where we could set up camp, the free power and filtered rain water, the hot shower and the outhouse. It’s fricken amazing! He ended up chatting with us for a while and having a few jokes but in general this place is fantastic. Later I’ll update a video of us working.

Bye Bye Tassie

Bye bye Tassie. It was time to leave this beautiful mini version England but with 10 times less the people. Dave and I have been discussing with each other what our favourite highlights of this state are. With many hours gone by and talking with others we have made our top ten list:

1.      1    Bruny Island and the Pennicott wilderness tour

2     2    Bay of fires campsite

3     3    Mt Wellington with snow on a clear day with rainbows

4     4     Freycinet National park -Wineglass bay/Hazards Beach walk

5     5    Franklin Gordon National Park - Gordon River Cruise

6     6   Mt Field National Park – Russell Falls

7    7    Cradle Mountain on a beautiful clear day

8     8    South Bruny Campground like the Whitsundays

9     9   South East Cape – great white pointer sighting

10   10  Meeting all the awesome people including Tom and Amy/Tim and Nat

The night before the boat over to the mainland we caught up with Tom and Amy (they were catching the same boat over) and had a few drinks by the fire reminiscing about the great times and amazing adventures we found. The great thing about Tassie is the free camping and the awesome attitude of travellers knowing that there is always somebody there willing to help out and have a chat with a beer. We also thank Tassie for the lucky weather we had having only to deal with two nights of server wind and only 7 days of rain.

One day we will return to finish off those little adventures that we didn’t have time for this trip; a good excuse really.

There will be a slow down on the blog now as Dave and I head towards Robinvale for inevitable work to restock our bank accounts. I will update as much as I can but I seriously doubt people will want to know how much fruit picking we do each and every day.