G'day peeps! Darren and Kerry again here from downunder! We're now in a large town called Shepparton and have had a pretty interesting couple of days which we'll give you a quick catch-up on:

Tuesday 23rd January

Made our way North to Ballarat today, the largest in-land city in Australia and one of the first places in Victoria to experience the gold rush in the area that is now known as the Goldfields. We arrived and headed straight to the Eureka Visitor Centre to find out the prices of the caravan parks in the area and to find out about costs for visiting Sovereign Hill, which we wished to visit the following day. Ended up camping in the Eureka Stockades Caravan Park, which was only $18 a night, much better prices than Geelong and they also had a swimming pool next door that we could use for free.

After setting up our tent we headed into the main town of Ballarat to search for a hat each for when we start fruit picking but we had no joy so we headed back to the campsite and sat around the outdoor pool for the afternoon as it was a pretty hot day. The batteries on my head shaver had ran out the previous day half way through shaving my head so I was unable to take my bandana off and go for a swim without fear of people laughing at my half shaved head! Spent the evening making dinner in the campsite kitchen and got talking to to lovely girl called Sarah and her brother Stuart, who were from Tasmania. Sarah was a teacher had spent the last three years teaching over on the West Coast and her brother had flown out to meet her and make the long drive back across the Nullarbor Plain to Melbourne. We swapped e-mail addresses with them and shared some chocolate. We also spoke to a gentleman named Colin, who used to live in Rayleigh and went to Glebe School and a gentlemman named David who lives on the campsite.

Wednesday 24th January

Up early today to make our way to Sovereign Hill, an excellently recreated goldfields township set over 25 hectares on a site which forms part of the richest alluvial goldfields the world has ever seen. A kind of living museum, Sovereign Hill has costumed staff dressed like people from the gold rush era and fully recreated buildings and mines. We got to experience blacksmiths, a traditional sweet shop, candle making, traditional bakery and we even got to pan for real gold in the stream that runs through the town. We found a few tiny specs and stored them in a small bottle, purchased from the gift shop. The staff in costume were really funny, especially one bloke called Jess in the main town who remembered us every time we walked past and kept saying that we looked like two shipwrecked people. A really impressive part of the show was getting to watch a genuine pouring and moulding of a bar if gold worth $82k! We also discovered that the worlds second largest gold nugget was found in the area, in it's day it was valued at $10k but in todays money it would be worth between 60 and 100 million dollars!!

In the afternoon we left Sovereign Hill to make some dinner and then returned again in the evening to watch the night time show Blood On The Southern Cross, a light and sound spectacle telling the story of the Eureka Rebellion, a dramatic battle between gold miners and Government forces at Ballarat on 3 December, 1854. The town looked completely different all lit up at night with explosions going on and a truly impressive sound system that makes you believe you're watching actors even thought the show doesn't contain any. Half the show is also done in an area of the town that you don't get to see during the day.

Thursday 25th January

Today we travelled from Balarat to Shepparton, the infamous fruit picking area, in our search for picking fame and fortune. Upon our arrival we headed for the CVGT Employment Agency, based in the City centre. The office was huge, much bigger than my Coast Recruitment's (my company at home) tiny space. The people there were helpful and as soon as they had they taken details of our passport and visas they had also found us work. We shall now be trained for one month in pear picking! Darren says that he likes to pick a nice pear, but I have no idea what he means?! We were given the address in East Shepparton, about 4km away from the centre and headed to the farm (the name of which has bypassed me for now) When we arrived at the farm we met the owner, an Italian guy called Joe. The main advantage of carrying out work at this farm is that they provide you with free accomodation (free being a price which is both mine and Darren's favourite). He showed us our separate room and kitchen area and we immediately felt as though we were back n Bali. (Or the set of a horror movie) The fluorescent tube lighting is hanging by a thread from the ceiling, there was an inch of dust everywhere, the mattress is really stained, there are exposed wires everywhere, the kitchen light flickers on and off, the table is actually a broken TV, the wardrobe's door is hanging by one hinge and the only water available is bore water, which resembles weak coffee. All in all it isn't the best place we have stayed in, however it is FREE, and that at the moment is the main thing, as we need to slow down on the spending. The wages for pear picking is $31.50 per bin. Apparently after the first few days of crying and moaning about cronic back pain you push yourselves through the pain threshold and can pick a bin every hour and a half, which considering we are required to work 7 days a week for a month makes for good pay. The farm that we are staying on holds a variety of fruits. The majority of trees are laden with William Pears, but they also have figs, grape, plums, chillis etc. Apparently if we see this month out Joe may have some work for us after that too. There will be five of us picking fruit in total; Darren and I, a French couple called Alex and Celine and a sweet 76 year old expert picker called Albert. Hopefully we start picking on the 31st and stay in the free room until then. The farm is beautiful and we were able to watch the 'McNaught's Comet' crossing the sky, like a lit tennis ball. It is far bigger than I thought it would be and it was the first comet that either Darren or I had seen. It was quite romantic to look at the stars together and watch the tail of the comet slowly edge across the noir backdrop, although some say that it's just a big ball of ice and dust. Alex and Celine, who have been in Australia for four months, are our age so we spent our first night there talking with them until 1am. They are very friendly and we are glad to be sharing the living space with such a down-to-earth couple.I was very grateful for the three glasses of 'goon' that I had, as I managed to get to sleep straight away, a feat that I thought in that room would be impossible!

Friday 26th January

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!!!!! Today is a Nation Bank Holiday here and we were told to expect partying. We thought that the 'parties' would start from the afternoon, however they started at 10am and we missed the parade through town. Whoops! We spoke with Joe again today who has now stated that we should be starting work from the 1st February. It crossed my mind that on my birthday (the 7th) I shall be crippling myself up a ladder, picking pears as fast as my little fingers will allow. Still, it is something new to do for my birthday and beats going to the same local Rayleigh pub for the 'umpteenth' year. Today was spent with four hours of srcubbing everything in sight. The fridge, sink, bedroom etc are now officially clean and I feel much more at home. The amount of dust and dirt that accummulated was disgusting but the cleaning gave me a reason to listen to my ipod and have a four hour Country Music fix. It was worth every broken nail! The rest of the day was spent talking with Alex and Celine, who I hope will become close friends. We all lazed about in the sun reading our books and generally chilling out. Darren and Alex took a tour round the farm today and said that the grass is nice and short so there shouldn't be any snakes around. In the afternoon we went for a nice walk around the lake in Shepparton. The lake is surrounded by gum and eucalyptus trees, which are silver in colour. This, and the fact that there were a lot of ducks on the water, reminded of a typical English lake, surrounded by Birch trees. By 7pm it was still 32degrees and the scenery was perfect. We shall definitely be going there again. Due to the fact that the scenery is like England we felt a little homesick and both called our Mums, although Mumma Frost was on answerphone. Speaking to home put me in a happy, smiley mood for the rest of the day. After arriving back at camp we made some dinner and spent the evening talking with the other pickers. Alex and Celine's English is getting better every day and maybe they will teach us some French?? Watch this space...