Happy New Year everyone! I am only a bit over two weeks
late… And though I have had a day off in that time, typing was not on the list
of things I wanted/was able to do. Even now, my fingers are hobbling, more than
flying, across the keyboard. But let me start at the beginning…of the new year.
New Years Eve
We spent the last day of 2014 working. What else. Mangoes
show no mercy, not even on a day usually spent sleeping as long as possible and
preparing for an epic (or so one hopes) night. Instead, we worked 11h and then
dragged ourselves into the supermarket to get some last minute groceries to tie
us over for the one day off the next day. So there we were, with frozen yogurt
pops in our trunk, and the car won’t start. Great. New Years Eve. 8:30pm,
shortly before closing time. Dead battery (or rickety starter motor as it turns
out). One other car left in the parking lot… And lucky for us, it belonged to a
friendly guy WITH jumper leads!
The rest of the evening was spent on the couch in our
pajamas with a bottle of sparkling rose watching (Guardians of the Galaxy and)
the embarrassingly dreadful live coverage of the Sydney Harbour fireworks. Mind
you, the fireworks themselves were beautiful – even gave me goosebumps just
watching them on the screen – but the annoyingly giddy and drunk TV presenters
vj-ing the event were barely watchable.
Midnight came and went. Our glasses clinked, the obligatory
kiss at midnight happened and in the distance, somewhere in Ayr, three little
firecrackers exploded. And then all was still again.
I could barely keep my eyes open, Mo started skyping with
late afternoon Berlin and at some point in the wee hours of the morning (yes,
we actually made it to 3am or something like that), our New Years Eve ended.
The next day we were lazy. I woke up with a massive headache
(and I don’t think the half glass of sparking rose had anything to do with it)
and Mo with a tiny hangover – somehow not quite fair. I stayed in pajamas all
day – as is ususally the case on the 1st January – don’t want to be breaking
any traditions here. And we took a leisurely drive to Townsville to pick up
Rachel from the airport (which we found after driving through and across the
city a few times).
KFC, jumpstarting our car in the KFC parking lots and movies
on the couch ended our first day in the year.
Work, Work, Work
From the 2nd of January till the end of the
season on the 10th we spent 8am-8pm in the shed, sometimes a little
more, hardly ever less. Over 110h in those 9 days.
Needless to say, I have no exciting stories about that
period. Highlights of some random evenings during that time include: having
time to cut my nails and do laundry (not on the same evening though, of
course). We were to tired to stand, sit, think or converse most evenings and
mornings. Zombies with automated reflexes to cook, eat, prep food for the next
day, shower, fall into bed – crawl out of bed, eat, drive to work. Work. We
were understaffed and could have definitely used at least 2-3 more people in
the VHT during that time. The way it was going, I was pretty sure we’d finish
the season with a bang – the bang being me hitting the pavement in exhaustion.
But we made it! We packed all them mangoes and sent them off
to China and Korea and the last day of the season was such a relief.
More Work – Days In Which I Learned To Hate Cleaning
We had one full free to day to enjoy our fabulous house,
pack up our belongings and say goodbye (to the house that is). The next morning
we moved onto the farm. Into a green container. Into a quaint room right smack
behind the shed.
We had offered to help out in cleaning up the shed and so we
did. I’m not going to say I regret staying to help in general, but damn did I
wish we hadn’t while we sat, hunched over, on top of the mango machine removing
stickers and scrubbing out hundreds of cups for 8h straight. Or when we got to
scrub every single roller along the post-pack line. There are many MANY
rollers. I was more exhausted after 7-8h of cleaning, than on any of those 12h
workdays before. And those who know me know that cleaning is actually not one
of my pet peeves. I actually quite enjoy it. Well, not anymore. (At least, not
packing sheds).
Yesterday was our last day and I would not have made it any
longer. I got more mosquito bites yesterday than during the entire season. I
was sore and tied, my hands waterlogged and falling apart from all the cleaning
liquids, turpentine and scouring pads. At some point, I was bitten by a
mosquito, hit my finger while scrubbing a roller and bumped my head on the bar
above me in such comical slapstick succession, that I wanted to laugh, cry and
cuss at the same time (you can probably imagine which of those three blurted
out of me in that moment). We finished off by having to rinse bins and crates
with a high pressure cleaner. So my final day with Manbulloo was ended sopping
wet from head to toe, with a lump on the back of my head and a million and one
mosquito bites.
But at least our days were short and we had a few hours in
the evenings to enjoy the beautiful sunsets, illuminating the mountains (- the
type of mountains that look huge and far away but are actually not that huge
and not that far away). Flocks of many different birds live around the swampy areas
and sugar cane fields surrounding the shed, so watch them fly over us in big
V-formations and gather in the trees or on the fields. Every evening it was a
different spot. Kind of like they chose to have their parties in different
areas each night. A few wallabies hopped around here too during sunset.
Definitely a more picturesque home than in town.
And then, just when you started enjoying the closeness of
nature, the mosquitoes came out and ate you alive.
Rooooadtrip! As I type, Mo is packing up the car, as
we have spontaneously decided to hit the road today instead of tomorrow. We
wanted to fix our car, but first of all, it starts without problem and
secondly, we were quoted another 400$ by a mechanic that looked younger than us
and not really interested. Anyways, it’s not like we’re in the bush anymore.
(Just wait, we’re going to regret this move at some point in the next days).
Now we head south… What exactly we’re going to do, we don’t
know. We want to visit Emily and lie on a beach.
And there actually just might be another job lined up... but
more on that when it actually happens.
So, 3,5 months of mangoes to start off our second year here
in Australia. Thanks for reading and sticking through the season with us. Time for
something new…
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