Working in Mildura

To find some work, we decided to drive North to Mildura a little town with so much Grapes, you
probably could cover the world twice. Our problem was just it wasn't season yet... Anyway the first day we arrived we slept in the car, in front of a petrol station. So we bought our breakfast there and ask the cashier if there is any work around. It just happend to be, that she is the daughter of one off the biggest Grapes farmers "Don Marciano" so she gave him a call and he hired us on his Farm (out off season) to prepare the Grapes for picking (covering, spraying, etc).


from left to right, Thomas (Dons son), Thomas (whom I traveled with), and Don Marciano. He is a talker like no one else... when the pay was wrong he manage to talk himself out off it in no time.

For the first month we didn't much else than covering the Grapes with those huge plastic covers. Unfortunately those covers had to be nailed to the wires covering the grapes (by hand), so after the first month our finger were saw as hell...

By that time, we were accommodated in a workers shed (the one in front), as I sad every Hostel was the Four Seasons compared to this ;).





So after the first month, picking season started and we worked in the shed all week long. even tow we got one day of per week it was rather normal to work 10 hours per day, from 10am to 8pm with one long Lunch break (from 1 to 2). At the end of the week we had a paycheck of about 400$. At least we didnt payed much for our accomodation ($20).
In the shed we had to sort the grapes and pick out the bad ones from the bunch. Even tow I'm smiling, picture that 6 days a week from 10 to 8 ... do the math ...

But here comes the upside... still we managed to have a lot of fun, especially with our co-workers who soon became friends. The majority came from the Cooke Islands, like Lui (the guy standing at the Boxes) who was as Uley (the long guy in the left pic) a entertaining and great guy.












But propably the most fun gave us Arnold (sitting on Lucas shoulders) whom we teached stuff his mother had to blame us more than once for ;) By the time we left he just sat in our car and resisted to come out. We also met two chicks from the Netherlands travelling together, even tow we tried to play more than one trick on them, they still talk to us. So my best regards to Natalie and Tanja.