Becki and T had secured work on a tomato farm on the Sunday as the farmer only wanted girls to work there! This left Matt and I with nothing to do in a Town were there is seriously nothing to do..... I felt like I was on the DSS. This particular farmer had a bad reputation from the moment we arrived in the backpackers. It was the standard joke to see how long you would last. It was run by a lady with a serious chip on her shoulder and was notorious for sacking two or three employees a day. Most within the first few hours. Good luck girls! Donna wishes everyone luck before you leave for work.

While the girls were working hard the only option Matt and I had was to go down the pub - at lunch time. Needless to said that by five o'clock I was pretty pi**ed and the girls turned up after a hard days slog in the fields. The farmer had lived up to her reputation and was a really slave driver and not nice with it! T had got the sack at the end of the day and Becki had made the cut to return the next day. The bad news was that Matt and I had been drafted in for the next day so it was time to sober up as I was going to have to be up at 05.30 in the morning.

My first day at the tomato farm went OK. Matt was sacked with in two hours and becki got the marching orders at the end of the day but I managed to make a return trip the next day. It was a hard days work and I mean hard. You have to pick two and a quarter buckets (nine liter buckets that is) an hour of cherry tomato's and that is not easy. You are bent over in the direct sun light for seven and a half hour with no breeze. You are sweating buckets and going like the clappers just to make the bear minimum. I managed to survive the whole week at the tomato farm to the amazement of Donna as in her word 'I can't believe it, especially as you are a cheeky pomme!'. On the thursday I had picked water melon's for her and this was a much easy role. Although they weigh a ton and you are picking them all day, the tomato picking was a much hard role and far more back breaking. On the friday the farm had decided not to work on the weekend and this was the catalyst for me to retire my tomato picking days and see if I could get on the mango picking trail as there was more hours available.

Rosalyn had put on a cracking buffet and drinks as to show her appreciation for the workers, as Donna had called her to let her know everybody wanted to leave as she was a dragon. The buffet was amazing and it was the best feed I had had since arriving in Oz. I also managed to sink four bottles of Carlton Draught too in half an hour with was a good start to the friday night out! Becki, Matt and T, Paul and Jen were all off that weekend so it was a really good laugh. The two nights out were good too with numerous shapes being throw into the arena.

That weekend also saw me play my first game of poker for over six months. There was some good regular players who played in a local league involved. I managed to win all three games and win a few dollars which was a nice surprise and helped me out when buying a big crate from the bottle shop. As there isn't anything to do in the evening and Becki, Matt and T working 10-12 hour days, I decided to enter the local poker competition. I decided that I was going to play really aggressively as all the regular players will have not played against me before. There was forty five players that entered and I was well nervous to start with. But on the very first hand I wiped out a player and doubled up straight away! I continued to play aggressively and at the first break I was the competitions chip leader. Three hours later I was still playing and had made the final table. I ended up finishing seventh and earning league points. I was well chuffed with my first poker competition efforts. I did enter another competition about a week later but didn't play very well to be honest and really didn't want to enter but Jaye talked me into it. I still came with in the top twenty five which is ok but I did play bad. Also I was totally put off by the bar lady. When I first entered the bar and ordered a drink I was served by a girl who was just in her knickers! I must admit that I was a bit surprised by this but being a pretty liberal person just got on with it. When we were playing poker she was wondering round getting the players drinks and everyone seem to see this as a normal thing. However this wasn't the problem! the problem was that one of them was noticeably bigger than the other one - this really did affect my game... as it took me a while to work out what was annoying me lol!!

On the Monday I had been sent on my own to work, spot picking, on a mango picking farm. I preferred this to the tomato farm as you are consistently moving so it was a changing environment. I didn't suffer from mango rash or burn so I was really lucky. The farmer was a stereotypical italian and made me laugh. Every break he would go on about how you must eat or no work! and then give me water melon and mango's to eat. I liked that. I worked at his farm for five days and then he decided not to work the weekend as the mangoes needed a couple more days to ripen.

Luckily Donna managed to get me work for the Saturday which was cool. She sent Paul and I off too fill up pot plant bags with soil to plant mangoes trees in. We were going to be paid on contact and it was 18 cent a bag. Went we turned up there was two tones of soil just sitting there. It was a quality day and we managed to pack 1400 bags of soil and make 135 dollars each with was a good days work. Especially when lunch was provided in the farmers house. Oh and the beers after work too!

When we returned to the hostel we had all decide to have a bbq and a party. Paul had bought sparklers, balloons, invitation and party hats. We had a great laugh and it was a really good night. Fortunately/unfortunately donna had organised work for Paul and I the next day. We had to be up at four thirty to travel an hour to work and I was driving! I did see my first wild kangaroo's on the journal, swerved but unfortunately missed it lol. It would of been a cheap tea! It was a hard day work for nine hours and especially as the temperature reached a high of 40 degrees. But it was a good days work and we got 145 dollars for our efforts. At the end of the day the farmer pulled up at his lychee tree farm and we stood there for ten minute eating lychee off the trees. I have never tasted lychees like like it - they were beautiful. He also gave us two crates of mangoes to eat as well.

Although the two weeks in Ayr were serious hard work I really enjoyed my time. I met some quality people and had some great laughs but it was time to move on and relax again.

Bye for now

Miffy x x x