With one day's notice Anna and I had to get us some camping gear, pack some farming clothes and get ourselves to Wandin Vale Orchards by train and bus! Anna found a great deal on gumtree; a full set of camping gear including a 3 man tent, 2 sleeping bags, an air bed, pillows, pots and pans and cutlery, all for just $100 between us! So off we went to the farm with a lot of gear! We were picked up at the nearest town, Seville by one of the orchard managers Phill and brought to the farm camp site where we set up tent and met the other pickers who were mostly French. And so the 88 days began. We stated picking at 7am every day, coffee break at 10am, lunch at 1 and then picking until all the ripe fruit was picking, so we finished anytime from 4pm to 7pm each day. The first few days were long hot days with a lot of ripe fruit. More and more people arrived to pick everyday and eventually there were 30 backpackers staying in vans and tents on the farm campsite! We made friends with a Northern Irish couple; Kerry and Mark, some English girls; Louise and Katie, a French guy Florent and a German girl called Sophie. Anna and Sophie and I spent a lot of afternoons escapong the farm after work by going to the local towns of Seville, Monbulk or Lilydale to hang out at a cafe or get Thai food! Sometimes we took a day off and went back to Melbourne for the a night, which was only 1.5hrs away by public transport. We went to the St Kilda festival, a free outdoor music festival on the beach, and Melbourne White Night, an all night party on the streets of Melbourne. We had lots of little adventures together making the tedious picking days a lot more bearable. As abruptly as it began the picking season ended and we had no more work on the farm, we packed up our tents and went back to Melbourne with 35 days completed out of 88.

Then our little group split up, I said goodbye and flew back to Brisbane the next week so that I could go on the trip to Fraser Island which I had won at work last November! I stayed with my French frined Isis who lives in a beautiful Queenslander sharehouse in West End with some lovely housemates, a huge couch, nice balcony and a hammock. I called in to the office one morning to say hi to all my old work mates, lots of hugs and so happy to see everyone again. I spent a few days catching up with friends and visiting old haunts in Brisbane, then off we went to Fraser Island for 3 days all exenses paid. It was a lot of fun, we stayed at a lovely resort, had buffet breakfast each morning by the pool, did a tour of the island traveling across bumpy sand dunes and stopping a fresh water creeks and lakes, nights were spent partying at the island's one nightspot; Dingo Bar.

After Fraser I made my way to Gayndah for part of of the harvest work adventure.....