Great barrier reef (enough said)

We decided to really splash out on Monday and headed to Lady Musgrave island (google it!), one of the southern most islands and areas of the Great Barrier Reef, about 75 miles off shore of the town 1770 (where Captain James Cook first landed in said year). It was quite the adventure from the start as we were warned repeatedly that at least 5% of us would get sick on the 2 hour journey to the island. We heeded the lady's advice as we had had to rebook the trip as it was too stormy to go on Sunday as we had originally planned. So ginger tablets in our stomachs and the thought of being sick fresh in our minds we headed off.... only to find that about 5 of the 20 people on the upper deck where we sat were sick within 2 minutes of starting the journey.... I think the 3 m waves contributed to that. Lets just say it was a rocky ride and my knuckles were white by the time we got there but Dan and I both managed to hang onto our breakfasts (and ironically he had become hungry...). That brings the sick count of the trip to Dan: 1, Ash: 0 (I won't go into too much detail but Dan wasn't feeling so hot on a bus one day in LA after a night out...)

Anyhow, the sight when we arrived made it all worth while and we were set free to do all of the snorkelling and exploring we could.

It really was amazing as we were expecting a few blocks of coral and the sighting of a few fish but were delighted to find a 3000 acre lagoon which we could calmly snorkel in as it was protected from the ocean by the reef itself and a large sand barrier. Dan jumped right in and I followed rather tentatively. We snorkelled around the edge of the reef for a while and were absolutely amazed by the thousands and thousands of fish we saw, some in schools of hundreds and some lone narfish which scared the living daylights out of me. The tide was beginning to lower as we arrived so when we ventured further into the reef there was only about 1.5m of water between the reef and the surface of the ocean. After swimming calmly for a few minutes with Dan I suddenly realized I was far too close to all of these fish and the things that suck the dirt off of the coral for my liking and I was getting the hell out of there. It is rather difficult to communicate with a snorkel and mask on, plus Dan was ignoring my frantic gestures so all he saw was me motor off into the safety of the deeper waters of the lagoon. He found this quite amusing and proceeded to tell everyone else on our boat how I "panicked". I have no shame as I had a childhood fear of leeches and as I wasn't wearing a wetsuit all I could envision was one of the footlong "suckers" (as I called them) stuck to a place where I did not want him.

The rest of the day was pretty spectacular as you could feed the fish off of the landing and they came in droves to eat. The highlight was definitely finding the elusive sea turtles which were huge (about the size of a dustbin, according to Dan) which we were able to swim right up close to. Dan got a great shot of me with the turtles on our underwater camera and I got a great shot of his legs swimming up to the surface with the turtle nearby - I will send that one to you Vicki! When we were all snorkelled out we took a glassboat tour in hopes of finding George, a 4 ft cod that hangs out in some coral not far from the island but alas it wasn't meant to be.

Fortunately for all of us the ride back from the island was much calmer and all in all it was probably the best day of the trip so far. Our time off is coming to an end and we are back to the grind of tomato planting in the next day or two. We have made some great friends at our campsite and recently have had the addition of some new people that are nice enough, but ask us on a continual basis whether or not we are leaving our jobs anytime soon.... they must be the new cherry tomatoes pickers as I can see the desperation in their eyes.

I leave you all with a picture of a GIGANTIC kangaroo that we saw on the way back from the island - he was very kind and posed nicely for us. We are in the midst of planning where we will head next as our days of planting may be numbered. We recently joined WWOOF, willing workers on organic farms which allows you to do free food and accommodation on farms in exchange for 4 hours of work. The descriptions of some are astounding and who knows, in the upcoming month we may be blogging from a crocodile farm in the Northern Territory or a 2442 km squared cattle ranch in Western Australia. Only time will tell....

Lots of love to everyone, ash and dan xxoo

Finally some Down (under) time!!!

Right, sorry for the delay but we have been flat to the boards working for the last few weeks. After 3 straight weeks of planting and vigorous tractor driving we have some time off, which we have both used very wisely and have done loadsa shiz!! First off, as requested from england here is the newly modified house;

Please note the spacious living quarters, storage room and porch. Along with off street parking!

And to give you an idea of the working day. Here is where big Ash parks her behind for up to 11 hours a day.

And here is the selection of beasts that I roar around the plantation on. (Have already had a stern warning about my speed between farms!But a guys gotta get something out of the job!!).

Right enough about our crib and the humdrum of tomato picking because got alot to fit in. So with our first day off we ventured out of the Childers area and to a different beach and body surfed in the 1/2 meter waves created by a cyclone just off shore!! A place called Bagara beach (apparently have to write that). Then as we were driving back we stumbled upon a rugby league match...which although clearly amateur the standard was immense, it was like 2 teams of those big black ozzys and kiwis that seem to regularly pop up in the english leagues that us mere mortals have come to fear!!!! big hitters and big shiiters!!!

Next day we went to Snakes down under and had an almost personal tour of the park by the owner and local snake catcher!! Loads of reptiles and the 5 most deadlly snakes in the world...not to mention the 5m crocs!

We also got to handle a couple of them aswell; (course i was cool and calm but ash was in a state of panic...(which was a big feature of the next day).

Ill let ash do the next day (shes makes better with words than me)!

Love to all!!

weathering cyclone Hamish...

First things first: thanks everyone for all of the very wonderful birthday greetings! I received many lovely messages and a very amusing e-card from Vicki! I would have said so sooner but we have now moved on from the world of picking tomatoes to planting them (via a week of lemon picking but I will fill you in on that a bit later). Gone are the 4 hour work days and sweltering heat as we are currently in the midst of waiting out a cyclone off the northeastern coast of Queensland. We are in the target area though we live about 50 km from the coast so hopefully we will just have a few more rainy days with a touch of wind :) We have been evacuated from our campsite (our tent doesn't keep the rain out too well let alone falling branches) and are staying at the very accomodating motel Panda. We even got our first day off in 10 days on account of the storm so it really hasn't been too bad thus far.

Anyhow, on to the money making! We received the good news last week that spaces had opened up picking lemons and that we were to start the following morning - good bye tomatoes forever (or so we thought). That was great news as some friends from the campsite had been making good money doing this by filling as many meter x meter x meter (couldn't figure out how to make a "cubed" sign there) bins of lemons a day at $100/bin. Dan and I managed a hefty 2 and a half per day so would take home $250 dollars (and a few scratches from the thorny trees). After a fulfilling 5 days doing that we learned of a new job planting that would require us to stay on for a minimum of 6 weeks. After about a 10 second deliberation we decided to go for it as that would give us ample money to do a trip to Fraser Island and hopefully some snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef which would be a very welcome break after the rigors of picking/snipping/planting. The only catch was that we found this news out at around 9pm amidst a bit of a celebration that the weekend had arrived and we had to be at the place by 515 the next morning.... oh boy.

When planting we work in teams of 3 with one man driving the tractor and 2 lovely ladies sitting on these little seats behind planting the tomatoes in rows. Now Queensland is rather sexist as they balk at the idea of a girl driving the tractor or a guy planting but I put it down to the fact that anyone can drive a tractor in a straight line but it takes a lot of precision and technique to get the plants in just so :) I plant with a lovely Korean girl named Eun Ju who speaks about as much English as I do Korean so we tend to run out of things to talk about after a while but the days go by quickly in spite of the repetetive nature of the job. Yesterday morning in the beginning stages of the wind and rain of the cyclone things were a little tough but fortunately we were allowed to leave at 10 and today have the day off to catch up on some things!

We are really enjoying our stay in Australia so far as it seems very much like a home away from home and the people here are extraordinarily friendly. We haven't been taking as many photos as we would like but we will try and get some up in the next week or so of our campsite, the town of Childers and some of our friends here as well. To tide you over for now I have included shots of me at the beach, one of the many "beware of the roo" signs, Dan and the dreaded cowboy hat and the cyclone watch program on the tv!! Hope everyone is doing well and thanks for reading! Lots of love, Ash and Dan

A day in the life of a cherry tomato picker...

4:30 am - alarm sounds
4:31 am - spend next 15 minutes rummaging around in the dark to find the flashlight/car keys/sanity etc. etc.
5:15 - arrive at work to be greeted by 15 other tomato-picking comrades (NB: to pick cherry tomatoes you must be one of two things 1. backpacker 2. Over 40 Australian male with a beer belly, mustache/goatee, and say sentences composed primarily of expletives)
5:30 - pick red/orange/yellow and a few green tomatoes off of vines and put them into a 4 gallon pail ensuring the top layer is primarily red
6:00 - decide it is getting hot
7:00 - decide your back aches
8:00 - wonder why the Australians aren't covered head to toe in red dirt but you are?
9:30 - finish early - AGAIN!
9:35 - wonder what you are going to do for the rest of the day??!
10:30 - showered and (somewhat) clean, watch morning Australian television (almost as bad as Canadian broadcasting)
11:30 - desperately try to find somewhere in the shade to lie down where you won't get eaten alive by bugs or pooped on by a bird
12:30 - hone your table tennis skills
1:30 - another shade break
2:30 - more table tennis
3:30 - talk to the germans for a while
3:35 - decide you have nothing to talk a bout with the germans and play more table tennis
4:00 - go into Childers to use the (free!) internet at the library
5:00- head to the supermarket to buy your 4th loaf of bread this week
6:00 - eat dinner
7:00 - watch Simpsons
8:00 - lights out

As you can see our day is very complex as it takes a very creative mind to fill a 12 hour day on an Australian campsite in teh middle of nowhere when your tent is in the 35 degree sun all day! Luckily we have a table tennis thingy and some friendly European companians!
The tomato picking itself is quite alright however the crop is not quite ripe enough to work full days so we usually find ourselves finished before 10 am. This wouldn't be so bad but our wages depend on how much we pick... and we could use a couple of extra hours to put a few more "0's" on the end of our paycheques . Nonetheless we are having a great time and the germans aren't really so bad at all :) We are weighing our options as to what to tackle next and are hoping to have a new job next week with more regular hours and the opportunity to make a few more bucks. We haven't ruled out working on a ranch and are going to contact some people this afternoon and will let you know how everything pans out! Lots of love, don't hesitate to call, Ash and Dan