On the Monday whilst grape picking I saw my fist Redback spider. We had been warned that if one bit you, you would need to go the hospital straight away. I was a bit shocked when I came across it. To think such a small creature could inflict so much pain. Well I didn’t hang around and continued picking the grapes around it, moving on as quickly as I could.
The following day there was no work so Adam and I visited the local dvd shop to hire a film all the Aussie’s in our gang recommended called “The man from snowy river”. It was a lovely Australian film about a young man whose father was killed from a stampede of brumby’s (wild horses) and so had to try and find a job and fell in love with his bosses daughter. I enjoyed it and the scenery in it was amazing but Adam thought it was too soppy. That afternoon Amanda had invited us to her house for a bbq so off we went.
Not all the roads in Clare had got tarmac (or as the Aussies call it bitchamin) so there was a number of times where we felt we were off roading it- where is there a 4x4 when you need one? – our rental car had a condition that we should only drive it on tarmac roads – oops! They had a long driveway and when we arrived at the house we could see they owned a fair bit of land. 90 acres in fact. We met Amanda’s mother Eidel (originally from Germany), her sister Stephanie who was in year 12 at the Clare High School, and Amanda’s new boyfriend Jake. Amanda’s parents had separated but her dad Steve who was also in our grape picking gang lived in the retreat which was on the land they owned. After the bbq the 5 of us went for a walk around the property and Amanda took us up to a hill where we sat to admire the views and watch the sun go down.
She then took us to show the retreat which was a cabin style building fuelled only by solar panels, a small wind turbine and the water was rainwater. From there was another amazing view, overlooking fields and hills and in the distance we could see a wind farm. As it was getting late Adam and I said goodbye and made our way home.
The following day I had got chatting to a man called David Box who owned a vineyard of his own but an organic one. He had mentioned that his grapes would be ready for picking on the weekend so we offered our services in return for him putting down the number of days we had worked on our 2nd visa forms which he agreed to.
On Thursday whilst picking the gang pointed out a bearded lizard to me. It was a funny looking thing which just blended in with the trunk of the vine. The gang was always good with things like that, being a typical “pom” they knew I enjoyed seeing kangaroos, lizards and spiders and would always call me over if they came across anything so I could get a good look. Adam had made good friends with a guy nicknamed Yogi who had been grape picking for the past 9 years (funny story as to why he is called that, you will have to ask us when we get back). I remember the first thing Yogi said to us and that was have you seen Wolfcreek? Adam and I were the only poms, there was a kiwi called Brett and the rest were all Aussie. Adam, Brett and Yogi would constantly try and belittle each other’s countries and the conversations amused the rest of us and even got some people joining in. We had conversations on the pronunciation of words i.e. data and yoghurt to the government and politics. I had a misconceived perception of what I thought “fruit pickers” would be like, but to my surprise they were all lovely, intelligent people who unfortunately were not able to get other jobs because there was just not much around in Clare and it was too expensive to move anywhere else. A woman called Lisa who also worked for Knappstein winery brought Adam a couple of beers that were produced at Knappstein for Adam to try and it was little things like that, the kindness of people which helped us to really settle into the place. That evening Adam and I decided to visit Bob and Sam’s place to have a game of poker. We got there to find 3 guys sitting on a sofa drinking beer outside their house. They told us that they hadn’t got home yet but to make ourselves comfy so we did and chatted to them whilst waiting for Bob and Sam to arrive. When they got home the poker started more or less straight away. We played in the shed which was a large storage area almost half the size of their house and had a pool table, dartboard, a little chill out area and the all important poker table. Throughout the evening more and more people turned up so this was obviously the party house. By about 9.30pm I was in the lead and it was between me and Bob but as it was getting late we both went all in without looking at our cards – he won!
On Friday after work Adam and I left Penwortham to go to Jamestown where David Box (Boxie) lived and where Christophe was staying (a French traveller who found Boxie via WWOOF). In the evening Boxie threw a party and we all (Boxie, Christophe, me and Adam and 2 other travellers Mirja and Iliane) enjoyed good food and a lot of Boxie’s red wine. Our bed for the night was a double swag set up in the lounge. A little bit different but with our mozzie guard plugged in (the mozzie’s were rife and usually took a fancy to Adam) we had a good night’s sleep.
Saturday was an early start. We began picking the grapes which we found very small and there were not many big bunches but Boxie told us that it was the skin of the berries and not the berries themselves that gave the wine flavour.
I found out that a lot of Boxie’s friends were coming to help pick throughout the day and this had been the case for the past couple of years, in exchange for a bbq at lunch and a party in the evening. As the afternoon came, it started to get very hot and out came the flies. To the point where I had to put on my fly net and eventually so did Adam. We stopped for an hour for a bbq lunch and carried on until about 4.30pm. After a quick shower we got ready for the party in the evening. I enjoyed watching Boxie stir fry some vegetables in the BBQ he had made himself.
It held a large stir fry pan and a grill area for the meat to cook on. After eating lots of food and chatting to the local policeman (a good friend of Boxie’s), Adam, myself, Ili and a guy called Georgie started a game of poker. It went on throughout the night and Boxie (who was quite drunk at this point) decided to join in too. Even though he was in a bit of a drunken state as were some other people I think he secretly knew what he was doing even though he pretended not to because he beat us all.
The following day there was no work so Adam and I visited the local dvd shop to hire a film all the Aussie’s in our gang recommended called “The man from snowy river”. It was a lovely Australian film about a young man whose father was killed from a stampede of brumby’s (wild horses) and so had to try and find a job and fell in love with his bosses daughter. I enjoyed it and the scenery in it was amazing but Adam thought it was too soppy. That afternoon Amanda had invited us to her house for a bbq so off we went.
Not all the roads in Clare had got tarmac (or as the Aussies call it bitchamin) so there was a number of times where we felt we were off roading it- where is there a 4x4 when you need one? – our rental car had a condition that we should only drive it on tarmac roads – oops! They had a long driveway and when we arrived at the house we could see they owned a fair bit of land. 90 acres in fact. We met Amanda’s mother Eidel (originally from Germany), her sister Stephanie who was in year 12 at the Clare High School, and Amanda’s new boyfriend Jake. Amanda’s parents had separated but her dad Steve who was also in our grape picking gang lived in the retreat which was on the land they owned. After the bbq the 5 of us went for a walk around the property and Amanda took us up to a hill where we sat to admire the views and watch the sun go down.
She then took us to show the retreat which was a cabin style building fuelled only by solar panels, a small wind turbine and the water was rainwater. From there was another amazing view, overlooking fields and hills and in the distance we could see a wind farm. As it was getting late Adam and I said goodbye and made our way home.
The following day I had got chatting to a man called David Box who owned a vineyard of his own but an organic one. He had mentioned that his grapes would be ready for picking on the weekend so we offered our services in return for him putting down the number of days we had worked on our 2nd visa forms which he agreed to.
On Thursday whilst picking the gang pointed out a bearded lizard to me. It was a funny looking thing which just blended in with the trunk of the vine. The gang was always good with things like that, being a typical “pom” they knew I enjoyed seeing kangaroos, lizards and spiders and would always call me over if they came across anything so I could get a good look. Adam had made good friends with a guy nicknamed Yogi who had been grape picking for the past 9 years (funny story as to why he is called that, you will have to ask us when we get back). I remember the first thing Yogi said to us and that was have you seen Wolfcreek? Adam and I were the only poms, there was a kiwi called Brett and the rest were all Aussie. Adam, Brett and Yogi would constantly try and belittle each other’s countries and the conversations amused the rest of us and even got some people joining in. We had conversations on the pronunciation of words i.e. data and yoghurt to the government and politics. I had a misconceived perception of what I thought “fruit pickers” would be like, but to my surprise they were all lovely, intelligent people who unfortunately were not able to get other jobs because there was just not much around in Clare and it was too expensive to move anywhere else. A woman called Lisa who also worked for Knappstein winery brought Adam a couple of beers that were produced at Knappstein for Adam to try and it was little things like that, the kindness of people which helped us to really settle into the place. That evening Adam and I decided to visit Bob and Sam’s place to have a game of poker. We got there to find 3 guys sitting on a sofa drinking beer outside their house. They told us that they hadn’t got home yet but to make ourselves comfy so we did and chatted to them whilst waiting for Bob and Sam to arrive. When they got home the poker started more or less straight away. We played in the shed which was a large storage area almost half the size of their house and had a pool table, dartboard, a little chill out area and the all important poker table. Throughout the evening more and more people turned up so this was obviously the party house. By about 9.30pm I was in the lead and it was between me and Bob but as it was getting late we both went all in without looking at our cards – he won!
On Friday after work Adam and I left Penwortham to go to Jamestown where David Box (Boxie) lived and where Christophe was staying (a French traveller who found Boxie via WWOOF). In the evening Boxie threw a party and we all (Boxie, Christophe, me and Adam and 2 other travellers Mirja and Iliane) enjoyed good food and a lot of Boxie’s red wine. Our bed for the night was a double swag set up in the lounge. A little bit different but with our mozzie guard plugged in (the mozzie’s were rife and usually took a fancy to Adam) we had a good night’s sleep.
Saturday was an early start. We began picking the grapes which we found very small and there were not many big bunches but Boxie told us that it was the skin of the berries and not the berries themselves that gave the wine flavour.
I found out that a lot of Boxie’s friends were coming to help pick throughout the day and this had been the case for the past couple of years, in exchange for a bbq at lunch and a party in the evening. As the afternoon came, it started to get very hot and out came the flies. To the point where I had to put on my fly net and eventually so did Adam. We stopped for an hour for a bbq lunch and carried on until about 4.30pm. After a quick shower we got ready for the party in the evening. I enjoyed watching Boxie stir fry some vegetables in the BBQ he had made himself.
It held a large stir fry pan and a grill area for the meat to cook on. After eating lots of food and chatting to the local policeman (a good friend of Boxie’s), Adam, myself, Ili and a guy called Georgie started a game of poker. It went on throughout the night and Boxie (who was quite drunk at this point) decided to join in too. Even though he was in a bit of a drunken state as were some other people I think he secretly knew what he was doing even though he pretended not to because he beat us all.
Sunday was a similar day, another early start, a bbq lunch (you can’t beat a good Barbie) and dinner. There was another party going but Adam and I had to leave to get ready for work the next day.
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