October 2009... Mango Madness!

Hi guys,

Time for another update on my traveling progress.

Not too much to report this time. I have spent most of the last month attending one of the worst mango harvests in living memory! It wasn't my fault... promise...

So I spent about 4 weeks on Tous Garden mango farm, in the Northern Territory, about 100 km south of Darwin... (That is in Australia for Americans and other geographically challenged people out there ;)

I did one day of picking, but most of my time was spent in the packing shed. I had the most important job in the shed (so my boss told me). I was in charge of pouring mangos into the sorting machine and making sure the correct mix of chemicals got sprayed onto them. Luckily this meant that I didn't have to take any responsibility for the grading of the mangos (very tricky and boring job), or for the packing the mangos into boxes (even trickier and boringer).

The photos from this time can be found here...

Apart from the farming I pretty much kept my head down on the farm and took advantage of the air conditioning in my room. I didn't get involved with any of the scandals in Tous Garden in this time. Not too much to tell really... just some people getting drunk and rowdy... The usual...

The problem with this being one of the worst seasons in living memory was that there wasn't too much work. In a normal season once the season starts properly the work is full on, ten plus hours a day, six days a week, until all the mangos are gone. This season the work was very start-stop, with some half days, some days off and some days when we were working sun-up to sun-down, and beyond. This all also meant that we didn't make quite as much money as we would like. Thus we will have to search for another job sooner then anticipated... never mind.

After leaving the farm we spent a couple of days in Lichfield park, seeing magnetic termite mounds and swimming under beautiful waterfalls... pics here...

So... the plan over the next few days is to get my van looked at, and then to do a loop through kakadoo national park, and from there head south to Katherine and then West to Western Australia... and maybe even find a job there...

Until next time guys...

Trev