Blueberry Ticklers

We got picking jobs!! Matt and I are now working on a blueberry farm!

On Tuesday we left Byron and the Arts Factory (finally!) and took a bus down the coast to this little town called Corindi Beach. Well, technically, we took the bus past Corindi to Woolgoolga and had to take a taxi back up. The only reason I mention this is because the name is so awesome.

Here in Corindi we're staying at the Caravan Park, which is mostly pensioners (old folks) and families here for the holidays, though there are a fair amount of other travelers like ourselves. In fact, many of them also work with us at the blueberry farm, and we were lucky enough to meet two German guys who drive there! The farm is fairly big, and seems to be practically the whole reason this town even exists, though the beach is really nice, too.

After our indoor orientation yesterday morning, they sent us out into the fields to begin working. We met our supervisors, who told us the best way to pick blueberries quickly was to grab a branch and 'tickle' the ripe berries off of it. Though this sounded really funny at the time, we are quickly becoming expert berry ticklers! Hopefully we should be able to make good money doing this and have enough to buy a sweet caravan in no time at all.

We are already making decent money after a small scare, we thought the pay rate was based on trays as opposed to kilos! Our current rate is $2.40 AUD per day. We picked at a rate of $13 AUD a day so far!

We've been trying to think of something special to do or someplace to go for Christmas, but in truth, this seems like as good of a place as any. The beach is beautiful (and right next to the park), there's a pub down the road, and plenty of nice people to enjoy the holidays with.

Picking the best time to Pick

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2009/11/15/2743324.htm - 15 Nov 2009

Cherry growers in Young in southern New South Wales say they have had a five-fold increase in the number of applicants for picker jobs this season.

This article hit the web one day before we left.  Talk about bad timing!

Hello World

Almost a week into the Australia journey we have a blog!  All the lavish dreams of a nice hosted site with a cool domain name using WordPress have gone to the wayside, as time for that sort of thing is fleeting.  Still getting settled over here, job search is on going but starting, as of today, to look promising.  Currently staying at the Arts Factory in Byron Bay.  The campground and whole complex is real hippy-dippy but has a good vibe so we decided to stay longer then initially planned.

We hit Byron Bay at the worst time imaginable, the town is littered with almost 20,000 schoolies.  Schoolies are all the kids who just graduated from High School and now traditionally spend two weeks mucking it up in various locals around Australia.  Byron Bay happens to be one of them.  Schoolies week is like spring break but with barely legal 18 year old instead of college students.

Currently checking out options wwoofing in case jobs picking fruit take longer then expected to get.  It is slightly harder to get good harvest jobs then I initially thought.