The Prom!

This past weekend, Matt and I went to The Prom. Unfortunately, we were not able to take a limo, but we did get an awesome rental van from the place where Matt works. Most of the vehicles there are stick-shift though, so there was no way I was gonna drive, and it would be a bit of a challenge for Matt. After driving for a little over 3 hours, we finally made it (without stalling once!) to the Wilsons Promontory National Park on the southern-most point of continental Australia. The park is known for an abundance of Australian wildlife, such as kangaroos, emus, koalas, and wombats, so we were hoping to see lots of animals. On our drive in to the park, we didn't get to see anything exciting, so we decided to stop at a small beach before heading further south to the main campground of Tidal River, where we hoped there would be lots more to see.

The beach itself was really cold and windy (this being winter, after all), so we didn't stay there very long. Instead we headed in to see what else we could see, and if it would be possible to go to the southern-most point. When we got to Tidal River, we bought an overnight permit for a campsite ($18.60AUD in the off-season, compared to $15.50AUD fee for 2 days entry, so a pretty good deal!) then had a snack in the car park and decided on some hikes to do. While we were sitting there, we had a very friendly visitor:

These rosellas were really interested in getting Matt's sandwich, and clearly have been fed by plenty of visitors, we could practically touch this one! After looking at the park map, we realized that the only way to get to the southern tip was a two day hike, and we didn't have any gear to do that, so we changed our plans slightly. We decided to do a short hike up Mt. Oberon and then have plenty of time to set up camp and make dinner before dark. The climb was a fairly steep walk up a maintenance road so it was pretty easy. This is the view from the top:

It was pretty cold and windy still, but this made for a pretty cool rainbow to the south. We seemed to have pretty good timing, too, because we were the only people at the peak for most of the time. On our way down we passed lots of people coming up and realized just how lucky we had been. We then made our way back to camp, found a nice spot, and made some dinner. As we were cleaning up, around dusk, my wish was granted:

A wombat!! I had never seen one before, only heard about them from Matt and was really excited to see these big fuzzy marsupials. This one was very bold as, like the rosellas, they get fed a lot, but just lumbered off when we came near it. We managed to capture this one munching on some grass, instead of people food, before he walked within inches of our feet to find greener pastures.

Sunday morning we slept in, then decided to go on a short hike along the western coast of the Prom which promised beautiful beaches and awesome views of the nearby islands. It was in fact a really nice walk with great views, though it was also really popular, especially for families and school groups. We found some really cool spots though:

This is the view of the beach in the first picture from a rock above the trail out on a peninsula:

All in all, we hiked about 15 km (9.3 mi) and though there was little to no dancing, except maybe with the wombat, I'm happy to say that we had a great time at The Prom.

Eatin' Roo

We decided to take another look at the Queen Victorian Markets on Saturday.  While there we were able to find a butcher who carried Kangaroo meat ($19.88/kilo).  Strangely enough, it wasn't the red meat butchers who carried it, rather the poultry shops.  To cook kangaroo properly you sear both sides but do not let the middle cook very much, it is best eaten rare.

Rullo Orchards, Shepparton

Feb 19th - March 4th (pictures soon!)

Luckily, a few days after leaving the sketchy family farm, the harvest office sent us to work at Rullo Orchards. They had accommodation available on site and apparently a lot of work as one of the larger orchards in town. We began picking pears, then later switched to plums.

The organization of the farm was pretty cool, each picking team got their own tractor with bin trailers, so they could bring them in whenever full. The first day, we shared our tractor with two German girls, but by the end of the day, they were definitely feeling the work, and we were told we would get our own tractor the next day. The girls ended up leaving the next day as they didn't think they were going to be making enough money for how difficult the work is. We worked there for about 2 weeks total and actually made a decent rate.

Shepparton was nothing to speak about as a town, and the number of other pickers there was overwhelming. Apparently there were more people than usual, and less work, but overall, the town was a bit overrated. After leaving Rullo, we decided to just come down to Melbourne and see what the big city had in store for us.

A sad week

Thomas Angove, inventor of boxed wine (goon), died a few days ago.


Inventor Of Box Wine Dies At 92

Rest in peace.

Melbourne at first glance

I am going to do something I don't normally do, write a blog post!  We spent a week in Melbourne at Pint on Punt, located in St Kilda.  The location was great, very easy to jump on the tram and head to the Melbourne CBD (Central Business District), its also a big backpacker area of the city.  We met some fun people there, and it wasn't to pricey either, especially since they charged us $100 too little!  Pint on Punt is a good place to stay for a few weeks, but we suspect they may have had bedbugs.  Most of the residents are backpackers working in Melbourne.  See the full album here.

Melbourne is a neat city.  During our first week here we went from one end to the other.  From St Kilda beach to Federation Square:

Here is Jen looking for penguins as we wait for them to come back from hunting at the St Kilda Pier.  We waited for hours and only ended up seeing one or two, by then it was too dark to see.

Hanging out in the Royal Botanic Gardens:

Morris - Dry Red

Morris - Dry Red
$10.95? - 4 litres - 12.5%
A smooth well rounded dry red wine vintaged from grapes grown in traditional wine regions. The wine has an attractive colour and generous fruit flavour on the palate.

Once again, Matt has provided an accurate, if sexually explicit review of this goon; “Attractive, but not too attractive. Like the like type that would give you a blow job and like it.”
This tastes like a general red wine. Definitely not too generous with the fruit ‘flavour’ or any other flavors to be honest. After drinking really sweet, fruity goons, this is a welcome change. Not too dry or too fruity, this is a good wine for drinking and for getting drunk without realizing that you’re doing it. In fact, it was so nice (and cheap), we bought another box.

Rating (scale of 2-29): 19

Shepparton

We arrived in Shepparton like two weary pilgrims to Mecca.  We thought we had come to the land of milk and honey, we quickly found out that was not the case.  We found cheap accommodation at a caravan park near Tatura, west of Shepparton.  We spent over a week heading to the CVGT office daily to try and get picking work.  We quickly found out there were hundreds of other backpackers like us waiting for work. 

We had done some work months before we arrived, applying for work at orchards that had accommodation on site and steady work.  Some how it seemed we applied either too early or too late.  After the first week of waiting we decided to be overly aggressive and go first thing in the morning to the CVGT office and put our names on the "list".  After sitting around town for a few hours we headed back in to the office and managed to catch the eye of one of the blokes in charge.  He brought us in and within minutes we were on our way to a job 60 km away in Tongala to pick pears.

He gave us the address of the farm and a caravan park nearby (even calling first to make sure they had an opening) and we headed out. After checking in to the caravan park in Tongala, we called up the farm and they told us to come over and check it out. Upon first sight it seemed like an overrun, really small, family farm; these turned out to be approximately correct. The place is quite overrun, leaving us in constant fear of snakes in the tall grass, and the place is fairly small, though the family keeps lots of different animals and many different fruits and vegetables. The next day we started picking pears for $30 a bin, when not playing fetch with one of the dogs, though only got two days before it started raining.

Still not making much money, hoping the coming weeks will bring more consistent work.