25/03/13
I arrived at the bus stop to meet one of the helpers 'Heidi', my expectations ran wild. European maybe? She's definitely a girl which is a good start. Wrong. She was an Australian early 40s woman who isn't attractive at all. Now, I tend to avoid writing judgemental thoughts on here because anybody could read it online if they have me on facebook or know where I upload it. But putting that aside, running with the thought that Heidi won't be adding me on facebook, I can tell you that she is the exact sort of person I despise; An Outspoken Idiot. I met the others, 3 French guys, 1 British guy and 1 Chinese girl. Lacking on the female side, but the guys seem alright. The Pool table and the ping pong table are both pretty haggard and the flies. JESUS CHRIST the flies. So many and apparently today is a good day because it's not too hot. Al and Brenda, the owners are away for 10 days which means they'll come back when I have just over a week left. I got here and got put straight to work, weeding the vegetable patches. I think its safe to say I've had better jobs and definitely better ways to get my visa, but it's only for 19 days. I can do a s*** job for 19 days.

26/03/13
Steve Borland with the pitch fork, in the field. The outspoken idiocy increased, both last night and this morning. Luckily she doesn't live here, but she came over to make pancakes after dinner. This woman has no sense of direction, certainly no leadership skills and is lacking many basic social skills and it's driving me nuts. If I was to leave early, which I'm not, it would be because of her. We're weeding, quite happily along a carrot patch and suddenly we all have to go to the garlic field, scour the floor for cloves and plant them. We then started weeding along the garlic plants when we get dragged back to the carrots, for 4 minutes. Then it was off to the shade because it was too hot, fine. That one made sense, but the rest of the morning was all over the place. Erratic decision making which left jobs half finished and jobs which didn't need doing done. We finished at 11:30 because she was too hot and we have to come back in the afternoon and a bit longer tomorrow. I'll repeat, because SHE was too hot. A great leader trait, bunking off early, allowing your work force to finish early and then punishing them.

27/03/13
I promise I won't b**** about her every day, but I swear I got a headache because of her whiney stupidity. Something that really annoyed me today was her general short-sightedness and ignorance. We picked cucumbers which took 30minutes before going back to the carrots we were weeding yesterday, this reminded her that she needed to water these plants and turned on the irrigation. This made the ground soft and sticky, bringing the carrots out with the weeds. Numerous other things happened which make me want to go all Oscar Pistorious on her ass. Too soon? Anyway, the work is s*** and the one staff member annoying as hell, but I've got so much free time, I'm struggling to find things to do, but at least I have time to continue my German, likewise, in the field I can listen to the German tracks as revision whilst I pick, weed or prune.

30/03/13
I'm only going to write in here every few days whilst I'm at the farm, mainly because it's just the same every day with a few minor differences, but the last 3 days were picking, packing and weeding. Today was market day, so when Heidi and Harvé went to the market, they left me, Alex and Annie to weed the veggie patches out the front. Because we did extra hours on Thursday and Friday, we only had to do 4 hours today. In those 4 hours I finished my audio book; 'Catching Fire', the 2nd book in the Hunger Games trilogy. After that my ipod died and I had to do the last hour without music, it was terrible, brought me back to reality and time dragged. But just as I was hating life, legs and back aching, a coca-cola van drove past. It was with that image, that I realised, holidays are coming. I have 2 weeks left, and then, holidays. Then it hit me, I have 1 month left in Australia. 1 MONTH! That's crazy! I have a day off tomorrow and I intend to lie in bed for a while before getting up and doing nothing. Let's see what these next 3 dsys have in store!


02/04/13
I've learnt to tolerate that infuriating woman. The cake she bought us to say thanks for the hard work this week might have had something to do with it. Also, knowing that at least Alex feels the same is good news, able to vent the frustration. In other news, I can't say I'm really looking forward to meeting the boss tomorrow; the girl that was meant to be arriving has been told not to come because she text Brenda at 3am asking about the place. If that happens, it's probably just a mistake or misunderstanding, there's no need to flip and tell her not to come. Maybe I'm just bitter because it would have been nice to have a girl here besides Annie. But at least I'm about half way though, just 11 days remaining, and I realised I haven't said much about the place I'm living! When I arrived I was sharing a room with Ben, a french guy, he left 2 days after I arrived and now I have my own room with a double bed and a very decent sized tv. Not that I really watch it, there's never anything interesting on, and if there is, it's usually something we all want to watch. The farm itself is huge which is unfortunate for us because it means there is always weeding to be done. The presence of 'love grass' is all too obvious when you're working, the heads of the grass stick to your clothes and work their way deeper and deeper, a b**** to get out and constantly rubbing on your skin. I hate this place.

08/04/13
So almost a whole week gone and it's been probably the most eventful week; I met the owners of the farm: Al & Brenda, some new people arrived, we had a Saturday night session and I actually got off the farm for an afternoon! Al and Brenda are very nice, Brenda even confessing that she stays away from Heidi because she knows she's annoying. This gave me a piece of mind that it's not just me and Alex. The Saturday night session was for the arrival of the Frenchies; Charline and Roman. What a night, I got a fantastic action shot of Alex throwing up, we drank and got to know the new couple. The next day started horribly, I had a massive hangover and vague recollections about the previous night. But it ended with me cooking a roast dinner for the 6 of us, so let's face it, it ended pretty good. In the afternoon, before the roast, we went to the beach. Or so we thought, what looked like a beach on the map turned out to be a river, didn't stop me having a refreshing swim though!

10/04/13
Every day after work I feel like I've just finished a 5 day stint at Glastonbury. The blistering heat, getting grubby, aching in every inch of my body, feeling tired. The good thing though, is that I get to have a post Glastonbury shower every day, one of the best feelings this planet can offer. 4 days left, consisting of 2 half days and 2 full days, unfortunately in that order. To you, the reader, it will seem like it's gone really quickly, because of the lack of writing I've done since I've been here, but I can assure you, it hasn't. This morning we heard news of 2 french girls arriving tomorrow! This is in the wake of Harvé leaving, and in my wake? A British bird. Ah well.

14/04/13
My last day here, my last f***ING day! Despite the b****ing and moaning, it was an enjoyable experience, particularly the last 5 or so days, I know you're hoping that these 2 French girls turned out to be sexy Europeans, alas, the opposite has to be said. Weird ugly French girls. 1 left after 1 day and the other has pretty much been in her room, not coming out to eat or socialise with us. But, because Roman and Charline are so easy to get on with and quite a bit of fun, it's been better. Today I spent the morning packing, watching TV, playing ping pong, and pool, in the afternoon I baked a cake. After work yesterday, which was around 5ish, I tried to call the bus company. Apparently they can swing by and pick you up at the end of the road, however they are only open Mon-Fri 9-5. b******s. Roman is thankfully driving me the 5k to Virginia in time for the 7:15 bus for my 1 night in Adelaide. I have a couple of skype dates scheduled and meeting Alex for a beer. Oh I almost forgot! When I was picking tomatoes yesterday, I was going along, casually picking them and almost walked into this massive spider. It wasn't massive. Probably about the size of my palm, but its abdomine was HUGE! You'll see in the pictures, having that on my face would not have been funny.

15/04/13
Although it doesn't seem like it for you, that was 3 weeks. I checked into the hostel this morning, and got a cheeky upgrade. Usually hostel upgrades aren't that noticeable; from an 8 bed to a 6 bed or just and 8 bed with an en-suite, but as I already had a 4 bed, I now have a twin bed, no roommate and a desk. The wifi isn't working, so I'm going to sort that out, but it's good to have some space, a desk and be able to play my music in my room! Tomorrow morning I start my 2 week tour of the Red Centre. I feel like running out of the hostel with my bags on my back holding my hat and shouting, "I'M GOING ON AN ADVENTURE!" Because this is not just the start of the red centre tour, it's the start of my Asia trip too, back2back, they run straight into each other. This is going to be fun!