So heres a little update on how things are going in Shepparton. We got here on Monday, fresh faced and naive to be handed the numbers of a load of farmers who really needed pickers so we thought that we might as well give it a go as we dont have any work arranged till next week. Our campsite is pretty cool with a pool and a massive inflatable bouncy pillow shaped thing. So ahmed the lebanese australian pear farmer agrees we can start work on tuesday and he will pick us up. So at half 6 tuesday morning we are waiting outside for him, he calls at 7:15 and says he will be half an hour. He gets here at 7:45ish and we get in this filthy fly infested van with him his wife and 13 year old son. We get to the farm and his 13 year old soon starts driving us around in a tractor. We are shown where we will be picking and it turns out the farm is flooded with about a foot of water, which pears have fallen into and been rotting for a few weeks and the grass inbetween trees has grown to about a metre high. We get 33 dollars per bin, we work until 4 and get 2 bins each, not great but everyone says it takes a while to get good at this so we try again the next day when we're told to go back and do the tops of the trees that the other workers missed the day before. Takes us 4 hours to fill 1 bin each as the ladders get stuck in the mud and the grass. The trees are broken from the wind and half the fruit is either yellow, brown or too small which we're not supposed to pick. We do it until thursday when we decide it is a massive waste of time and we say we're not going to come back on friday. At this point we're told that they wont pay us for the work we have done because we haven't picked the tops of the trees. We kick up a fuss and ahmed says he will pay us on friday and will take us home. We start driving the tractor back to the shed (yes they let us drive the tractors which we've never done) and we get stuck in the mud, so we leave it for them to sort out which is super awkward. Friday Ahmed says he will bring us our money, he turns his phone off and doesn't show up. He then rings late and says he will bring it on sat morning. We move to a cheap hotel that is close to our new job. The hotel is infested with crickets, we pull back the bed covers and the beds are covered in little black bug things. Anyway Lee says I'm taking too long but basically we moved out of there and back to our old campsite and Ahmed after a lot of fannying around has given us our money...yay!!! We're camping in a tent for 3 weeks now because it's cheap and the job we're going to is an actual proper job which pays legitimately and has safety checks and real tractor drivers so hopefully that'll be ok.

SO basically Shepparton has been full of interesting but not necessarily positive experiences!!!!