660. Day of travel
19.530 km
Alex and I started to pick cherries in Woodstock on the 12. January. It’s a small orchard, only 10 acres. But we were nearly 30 pickers. In the beginning we had to look for the right color of the cherries. If they are to red, we aren’t allowed to pick them. Also the cherries have to be picked with the stem and separated. Our supervisor and owner of the farm checked our lugs randomly and told us if he wasn’t satisfied with the quality. The cherries in Tassi are much more bigger then I know from Europe, during the day I eaten a lot of course. After the first week of picking, we didn’t had to look out for the color anymore. On my best day I did 24 lugs. One lug is 8 kilo and we got paid 8 $ per lug.
Our camp was 5 km far to Woodstock, we found a great place in the bush, surrounded by rocks. We cycled to work everyday. The sun in Tasmania is very intense, sometimes I got sun sick and was happy about to take a bath in the Huon River. After one week we got two other travelers staying with us. One was Wouter from Holland. He is also traveling by bike and picks cherries on another orchard. The other traveler is from Taiwan, her name is Yen (nickname “Polly”). We met her in the Apex Park in Huonville, were we hang around after work. Yen is a wallflower. At first I didn’t paid much attention to her, but Alex did his best to bring us together, what I really appreciate.
When we finished the picking after two and half weeks in Woodstock, I got a job on Hanson farm, also as a cherry picker. Wouter and Yen were already working on this orchard. But Alex couldn’t get a job there. He got another job in Geeveston, were we worked before. On Hanson farm I picked only 7 days, but I made good money there (around 200 $ everyday). I didn’t had to use a ladder or carry the full lugs to the end of the row. The trees are smaller and the branches are flexible, also there were lugboys who carried the full lugs away and brought me empty. Work started at 6 am, I had to stand up at 4:30 am, this was hard. On my best day I did 30 lugs (240 $), while other picker, who had more experience, did 50 or 60 lugs in 8 hours. On the last day we did a lottery. Everybody in my team donated one lug and put his number in an empty lug. After we picked the last cherries, one pulled out a number and it was mine. I won 40 lugs of cherries. That’s 320 $ worth.
In the end I got the girl AND the money. So I was very happy and told Yen that I will buy her a bicycle that we can travel together. What I really did. A couple of days later I went with Yen to Hobart to buy a second hand bike. Randomly the seller was a taiwanese girl, who worked on Hanson as well (but we didn’t know us before, they are so many people working on this farm). The girls made the deal in taiwanese. We got a 28″ Specialized Bike (made in Taiwan) for 250 bugs including rack, helmet, lock and bike tool. On our first trip we want to go to Bruny Island. My friend Alex didn’t want to travel, he wants to work in Tasmania only. A few days after we got separated, he flew back to Germany where he stays for a couple of weeks, before he will go to Canada. It was very nice to stay two month with a German friend, we had good conversation and he helped me a lot. Thanks Alex.
