Still here in Tolga, doing my fruit picking. I managed to get away from the series of grumpy farmers and have a day off in Atherton, where Gareth (a kiwi who is here as well) and I spent the day just relaxing away from the hostel. There's not much to do at the hostel, so the day was spent gambling on the horses and dogs! We never put major bets on, only a dollar here and there, and after a few good wins and a few losses, and a lucky 7 dollar win on a poker machine in a pub, I was only 3 dollars down for the day, which I didn't mind, because I had a good time.
The next day, I was working again, this time packing potatoes in the shed (so I was out of the sun) for a good farm that don't treat you like dirt, and I've spent the last 5 days there. To give you an idea of what I was doing, I was sorting potatoes for the most part, taking the bigger potatoes out of the small channel, and if you've ever seen Men In Black 2, imagine the alien in the post office sorting the mail, and I was pretty much like that!! Arms flailing around all day long! It's boring stuff, but the fact that the farmers are nice people made it bearable. I finished up there today, but they want me and another guy back on Wednesday to start picking some dragonfruit, which is pretty cool.
On Saturday night, the 3 of us went to the pub with a few girls from the hostel, and almost got in a fight! It was pretty funny, this Aussie who was no more than 20 was really drunk and was dancing with one of the girls, who then started dancing with us as well, and the guy seemed to think that made her a slut! So he started mouthing off to her, and when the boys stepped in, it was clear he wanted a fight, but Trevor went over to the barman, and got the guy thrown out. He hung around for a bit staring at us through the window, but ended up getting bored and going away. It was quite funny, cos the guy was about 5'8" and fairly slender, and his cousin, a bit older and a bit stockier was even shorter, and they were looking for a fight with a 6' glaswegian, a 6'2" martial artist, and a 6'4" kickboxer! Who the hell did he think was going to win that one?!
I've been rostered on for watermelon picking tomorrow, which is apparently quite hard work, and not many hours, but I'm quite pleased with that cos I wouldn't have minded a day off anyway. Then I'm back to the good farm ( I forgot to mention, the farmers wife made us lasagne and pie for lunch today, completely free, and delicious as well!) for at least a day, possibly more.
We're leaving the hostel on Christmas Eve, spending christmas day in Cairns, and then going to Cape Tribulation (rainforest) on the 27th and on to Magnetic Island for new year, where there is a thing called a full moon party which should be good fun! Hopefully meeting up with Helen and Laura (girls from our Ozintro group) for new year as well, so it will be good to see them. They are having a pretty miserable time of it at the moment though, they've got work fruit picking as well, but the farmer is a bit of a pervert and they don't really have much choice about where to go. Helen even wants to go home as a result, which is a shame, but hopefully they'll pick up a bit when among friends.
I'll sign off now, but keep letting me know what you're up to, some of you haven't even posted once!! You know who you are! I want to hear from you! Byeee! xxx
