After Hobart we cycled to the south of Tasmania. Around Huonville we looked for farms to pick cherries. We found a cherry farm were we could start in January. Usually the cherry picking starts after Christmas, but this year the summer starts late in Tassie, that means the cherries need more time to get ready. We tryed to find another work before the picking starts. Therefor we got help from very nice people.
I called a warmshower host in the south of Tasmania and asked if we can come to stay. Katie and Chris received us in Geeveston and took us to their home in Surges Bay. The road along the Huon River gives an outlook to a beautiful scenery. We wanted to stay two days, but then we stayed three weeks!
Chris organized us work. Our first project was to place the waste pipe for a little house. I had no idea how to do this, but Alex is a professional plumber and he instructed me what to do (most of the time I digged holes). Later we painted this house from outside. Another project was to paint a family house inside. For these jobs we got paid cash with 20 $ per hour. Then we did volunteer work with Chris in the community centre of Geeveston, we build wooden flowerpots. Also we helped Chris two times to load a trailer full of firewood from the forest and chopped it at his home, it’s for the next winter.
We spent a lot of time with our host family. Their little son Jack is very alive and was always present. Alex and I shared one room in the house. On Christmas Day we drove together to a bush resort, were we camped one night. Here I’ve got very sick cause of some food. After spending one day with vomit, I recovered. For New Years Eve Alex and I hitchhiked to Hobart to see the firework at the harbor, it was nice. And it was quiet, except of the public firework there are no firecrackers allowed in Australia and alcohol in public is forbidden as well.
It was very nice to stay such a long time in a house and sleep in a comfortable bed. We played games, watched movies and got dined well. Also I used the time to apply my second year visa for Australia online, it cost 420 $. Now I can stay till March 2015 in Australia! Alex applied for his canadian visa, after Tasmania he wants to go to Canada for a year. We didn’t had the intention to leave Chris and Katies place anymore. But one morning, Alex watched out of the window and sayed the baby chicken are so big now, its time to leave. When we arrived they had some new born chicken in the cage and now they are tall and running around the proberty. So we left the place on the 12th January and got a call on the same day from our orchard that we could start picking right on the 13th January in Woodstock.
