Louise's Wanderings “Not all those who wander are lost”

‘There’s something wrong with this one’ I think to myself. My fingertips have long become accustomed to the coarse skin of unripe pears, and this slimy softness is a shock to the system. I tentatively turn the fruit around, expecting a maggot infested mess. Instead I spy a bird dropping. ‘Lovely’. Then, out of nowhere the dropping scuttles away and I fling the pear on the floor in surprise. ‘What on earth was that?’

Yet another of Australia’s natural wonders apparently. Thankfully ‘Chief’, our seasoned boss, is adamant that ‘birdpoo spiders’ are harmless. The wildlife here continues to confound me. This creature is almost as mindboggling as the shark egg I encountered a week before, nestled in the impossibly white sand of yet another stunning beach on Adelaide’s perfect shoreline.

I set back to work, waddling through the orchard like a pregnant woman, with a 40 kg bag of pears strapped to my front. The sun is blazing, searing, scorching. We lay pears out on our windshield to ripen them. When we return their skins are burnt charcoal black.

At the campsite fruit pickers of all nationalities huddle together round the dancing flames of the barbie. While wallabies spring about in the neighbouring field we roast ‘roo sausages – smoky, juicy, gamey. The food here is local and we break our backs to harvest it. Of course, that makes it all the more tasty.

On my final day Chief ushers me up to the top of the orchard. My feet grind into the red soil as I traipse after him in the midday heat. The dust fills my nostrils, works its way under my fingernails and coats my skin until I feel I am part of the earth itself. Crickets chirp and tractors chug. Dripping with muddy sweat, I reach the summit. Chief shows me the farm’s kingdom. He recounts the devastating bushfires of Ash Wednesday. As far as the eye can see, rows and rows of orchards were all destroyed that day. Yet the farms have survived because the locals rebuilt everything from scratch. The food here has a story.