Second and last week of work!

Yesterday was our last day of work on the tomato farm! Woohooo!! And our second week was completely different and much more pleasant than the first. The first week consisted of 7 days of work, averaging 10 hours per day. It was sooo exhausting! We started on a Tuesday and thought that we would have a day off at some point in the next week. But that was a mistake. By the middle of our first week, we were told that we would have a day off on the weekend. Then on the weekend, we were told that we would have a day off in the middle of the next week. And in the middle of the week, we were told that there would be a day off on the weekend. Maybe. The little word "maybe" was always present. Eventually, we got fed up and decided to take a day off. That was last Wednesday. We just couldn't go on anymore. We needed a break physically and mentally.

Taking a day off was quite complicated. We had been asking when we would have a day off since the weekend, and on Monday, we said that we wanted to take Tuesday off. They told us that we should come on Tuesday and if there were too many people, we could go home. So we went on Tuesday, hoping to have Wednesday off. We also wanted to work on Tuesday because we didn't want to wake up at 4:00 to go to work and then potentially go back home. Once you're awake and at the farm, you might as well work. When we found out on Tuesday evening that we wouldn't have Wednesday off either, we immediately asked our supervisor if we could have a day off the next day. He told us to talk to Alan. When we got back to the hostel, we asked Alan for a day off. He was offended at first and said that the supervisor had no say and that he couldn't make that decision either. He told us to call the farmer, Phill, and he would give us his number. Then he added that we could get fired if we just took a day off like that. I was so angry! What were they thinking? We are human beings, not machines!! And especially, there were constantly too few people, why would they fire 2 good pickers just because they wanted to take a day off after 8 days? Total nonsense.

Because I was so upset, Andi decided to call Phill. I listened to the conversation and as soon as Andi mentioned the words "day off", Phill hung up. Quite cheeky. Two minutes later, his wife called and told us to call Michael (a kind of manager who is always out in the fields during the day and looks after the machines), he takes care of personnel matters. After he didn't pick up the phone, we sent him a text message, not asking for a day off anymore, but informing him that we wouldn't come to work the next day. It was already after 7 pm and we didn't want to wait for a response. In the end, we didn't receive any reply and we didn't go to work the next day.

Sleeping in was sooo nice! I woke up for the first time at 7:50 and thought, great, I can go back to sleep! We stayed in bed until half past nine, just because we could. It wasn't too hot (like in the car) and we had no obligations. When we got too hungry, we finally got out of bed. For breakfast, we had eggs with bacon and rolls with cream cheese. All with a paradisiacal view from the balcony. Lovely.

We took the day very easy, went into town and then drove to Horseshoe Bay. It's a small beach just 100 meters from our apartment. Usually, you can snorkel there because there is a reef, but on that day it was too windy and the waves were quite high. But we still had fun! Besides, it was the first time we swam in the ocean in Australia! Excluding the artificial bay in Darwin, of course. It is now mid-October and the jellyfish season officially starts in November. However, a woman told us that the sea is already unusually warm and there might already be jellyfish. But in the bays with the surrounding stones, it is protected, so we weren't too worried. But we will have to see about the jellyfish in the coming weeks.

Thursday and Friday were work days again, but thanks to the day off, the work went much easier. On Friday evening, Alan organized a BBQ as a thank you for our work, and of course, we didn't miss out on that. At first, we thought Alan had some ulterior motive and didn't just invite us to dinner, but it turned out to be a very nice evening. It started at 7 and we arrived shortly after 7. Some people were already there, but most of them came in the next half hour. There was one pitcher of beer for every 2 people. That's a jug from which you fill small glasses. I don't know how many liters are in there. Probably just over 1 liter. Around half past 7, there were hot dogs with really good sausages. The bread was like hamburger buns, but it worked. While eating and drinking, we talked to lots of nice people (including from Germany, Denmark, and Japan) and the evening was quite fun. Unfortunately, the party started to dissolve around 9 o'clock, and by 10, there was only a group of 12 Germans left. The others had either gone home, to some house parties, or to another pub. When we left, Andi and I said goodbye while the others went to the other pub. After all, we had been working that day and had been awake since 4:00. I didn't want to drink much anyway, so I was able to drive home.

The next day was our official day off! Finally! We actually didn't need it anymore, but it was still nice. Especially after the party the day before. So we could sleep in again and enjoy breakfast with an ocean view. Then we took a little walk along the beach next to our apartment and then went back to Horseshoe Bay. We had arranged to meet with some of our co-workers there. They are Elena and Ylva, who are traveling together, and Jaci and Alina, who have been traveling together for a few weeks. The four of them live together in one of Alan's hostel houses. Anna and Pascal, who just started working recently, were also there. We met a few other colleagues, it was quite funny. The beach was windy again, so we played in the waves together. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible to just lie down comfortably because the sand kept flying around everywhere. So we wanted to switch to a beach with less wind. But before that, we went to a lookout point, from which we had a magnificent view of Horseshoe Bay and other stretches of coastline in Bowen. It was quite windy up there, but the view of the wavy water and the mountains in the distance made us forget about everything else.

When we got back down, we walked to our private beach. We sat down in the grass and played Uno. We didn't manage to play many rounds because we were all too chatty :D We could really have a good conversation with them, so we sat there until half past 5 in the evening. Then it got cool and the others wanted to go shopping. Unfortunately, Woolworths closed at 6 on Saturdays and they didn't make it there in time. But the day was really nice and they didn't regret it, even though it was annoying.

Andi and I then had a relaxed evening, made fish sticks and beef pies, watched a series, and went to bed. It's so cool that we have a freezer and could even buy ice cream, for example. We bought one on sale during our first week and it lasted until the end. It was really delicious. We could also buy frozen beef pies and bake them in the oven. I really liked them :D When there was an offer of various bread and rolls, we bought a bit more and froze them. That was quite practical. So we made full use of and enjoyed the two weeks with the fridge, freezer, and oven.

Sunday, October 16th, was our last day of work. We actually thought we could still work on Monday, but because we had already stayed overnight at the hostel from Monday to Tuesday at the beginning and started on Tuesday, we had to check out again on Monday. The other 4 girls got the same deal, they basically got an extra night because Alan asked them if they wanted to work again on Sunday. There are quite a few people leaving at the moment and not enough new arrivals, so there is a shortage of staff. They were supposed to check out on Sunday, but instead on Monday. The same went for us with working again on Monday but for some reason not, we would have had to pay for an extra night. But we didn't want to do that, so 6 people (and I think a few more that I didn't know) had their last day of work on Sunday. Thank goodness we managed to pick quite a bit that day and were able to make some money. The days before, our machine was driving slowly because there were some new people and there weren't many tomatoes on the bushes. That was a bit slow. But Andi and I found a good way to occupy ourselves and not think about our own situation all day: audiobooks! It made the work much more bearable and exciting. You can download some audiobooks on Spotify, but because the WiFi in our apartment only worked on the tablet and not on our phones, Andi downloaded various books from YouTube and then transferred them to our phones. One evening, we even went to McDonald's and downloaded some books there using their WiFi. So I was able to listen to "Gut: The Inside Story of Our Body's Most Underrated Organ", the second book about the London Big Issue seller James and his cat Bob, "The World According to Bob" (highly recommended!), as well as the second and a half of the third book in "The Dragonkeeper" series, of which I had already read the first book. Unfortunately, we only tried the audiobooks in the middle of our second week, so we only had 3 days left to listen to them. Andi downloaded several short books and therefore managed to listen to more than I did. Among other things, he listened to "The Million Pound Bank Note" by Mark Twain, "The Old Man and the Sea" by Ernest Hemingway, "The Sandman" by E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Meditation for Skeptics - A Neuroscientific Explanation", and a few Sherlock Holmes stories. He tried a lot of different books :D When we go on a longer car trip again, we want to continue with the audiobooks. For example, we downloaded "Bad Karma", which we both wanted to listen to.

When our last day was over, I felt so relieved! I was really happy that the 2 weeks were over, even though it was an exciting experience. Farmer Phill even came to us and shook our hands and thanked us for our work. I was quite surprised, but I thought it was really nice. I don't know why he even knew that we were the ones who had their last day. He didn't do that with the other girls. I guess we left a lasting impression ;) By the way, no one was mad that we took a day off and we were able to work again on Thursday without any problems. So Alan was just talking nonsense again.

In the evening, Ylva, Elena, Jaci, and Alina invited us to their house to celebrate. Since no one else lived with them, no one could be disturbed or report that visitors or alcohol are not allowed. This time we took a taxi so that we could both have a drink. The distance from our apartment to theirs was about 5 km and we thought that the price would be reasonable, but it still cost 19 dollars. Quite expensive actually. Especially since the taxi driver was extremely unfriendly, he didn't even say hello and his response to Andi's "How are you?" was just "Where do you want to go?". But at least we can say that we've been in a taxi in Australia now.

The evening was really nice, we talked a lot, drank, and played Kings Cup. And we finally had a chance to buy the famous Goon! That's a term for wine in a Tetra Pak and it's popular among backpackers because 4 liters only cost 10 dollars. We had wanted to try it for a long time but didn't find it in Alice Springs or anywhere on the way. Elena and Ylva bought one too and they chose fruity because it was recommended to them. But it didn't taste like wine at all. It was like a bitter grape juice with a salami aftertaste. Really disgusting. Fortunately, we bought medium dry and it was enjoyable. It even tasted like wine, although I've had better.

We said goodbye around 1:15 because everyone was really tired. They had already worked that day, after all. The moon was really bright that night (maybe it was even full moon) and we felt like taking a little walk. So we decided to walk home and ended up walking the entire 5 km. The last part was along Queens Bay beach and it was really dreamy. The waves were glittering beautifully in the moonlight and since it was low tide, we could walk in the shallow water of the sandbar. In the end, we didn't get home until after half past 2, but I really enjoyed that night walk. Of course, it dragged on a bit at times, but we didn't want to call a taxi again. Especially because we didn't want to give the unfriendly guy any more money. We went to bed at 3 and only then did I realize that we had been awake for 23 hours. Quite long :D But we fell asleep immediately.

Today, the alarm went off at half past 7 because we had to check out by 10 and we had to pack up all our stuff and carry it down to the car. But before that, we enjoyed a delicious breakfast with an ocean view. We were at the hostel office to check out at 10:15, but no one was there. So we called Alan, he didn't pick up, then we sent a text message. We sat down and waited and thank goodness he came right away. After that, we were really free again! And we didn't even have a plan for where we would go next. The only thing we knew was that we wanted to stay in Bowen for a few more days because we wanted to do something with our roommates Mara and Fabian. They had also worked in the cornshed all of last week and thought that they would probably have a day off tomorrow, so we could do something then. We'll see if that works out. Until then, we wanted to visit a few other beaches in Bowen and simply enjoy the beautiful weather and the ocean. So right after checking out, we drove to a small shopping center where we bought snorkel sets. We now each have a diving mask and a snorkel to explore the underwater world. Now we're driving to Rose Bay and then we'll see what the next few days bring.

Oh, and I haven't told you about our earnings yet! On Tuesdays, it's always pay day, and last week we received $914 gross for our work, which is $761 net. That's pretty good! But we also worked 7 days. If you calculate it down to an hourly wage, it comes out to about $12.50 gross and $10.50 net. And that's not much when you consider that the minimum wage for hourly pay is about $20 gross. Plus, we had to work physically hard in the blazing sun every day. But that's just how it is with farm work, and we already made good money. Some people who have been there longer told us that sometimes they didn't make enough money from work to even cover the rent for the week. And that's really tough. Also, someone told us that they had done several farm jobs before and so far, tomato picking in Bowen was by far the worst paid. Well, I guess we really did everything right with this job! :D Tomorrow, we will receive the money for the second week of work, but it won't be as much because we only worked 4 days. I'm curious. Oh, something else funny: I had an extra earning of $50 because I found this manager guy's cell phone in a row :D We were stopped again and were supposed to pick back in the rows when I noticed a cell phone on the ground and gave it to our supervisor. He then told me that I had earned $50 and I thought, huh, why? But there was actually a kind of finder's fee for whoever found the cell phone because it was very important to the guy and blah blah. The next day, he actually gave me the $50 and I was really happy :D

So that's it for now, it's already become such a long entry again. A lot has happened in the week and I didn't have time to write anything during work. But anyway, I still have to tell it all :D