Sandalwood Farming

So after a couple of months of working at the Pump House Restaurant in Kununurra, it was now time to get on with the work I had really come to this isolated town to do, farming. Now if you want to stay in Australia for more than a year on a Working Holiday Visa then you have to do 88 days of ‘hard labour’ otherwise know as working in a agricultural business, for doing this as long as you are under 31 when you apply for the visa, you can work in Australia for another year.

While working at the restaurant I had met a couple who owned a sandalwood farm on the edge of Kununurra, who were also good friends of the owners of the restaurant, so after talking to them agreed that I would go and work for them on their sandalwood farm. At this point I had no real idea of what was involved with sandalwood farming or what it was even used for, only that it main a lot of money and is now the dominant crop in the Ord River Irrigation Area.

Well working on any farm is hard work I know that, but at least working in a place like Kununurra you are guarantee wall to wall sunshine, the average temperature when I started working was around 30C everyday, now writing this 8 weeks later it has been 37C everyday this week, and we have had some days up to 39C, but have yet to break through the 40C mark. The only other thing you don’t get in Kununurra is rain, it has not rained here since the end of the wet season (March/April).

So life on a farm well am up every morning at 5am, when I started it was not even light as the sun was not coming up until about 6am, which is when we are expected to be out in the fields doing our given tasks for the day. At about 5.45am the owner Bruce and his supervisor arrive at the accommodation area on the farm and generally start off by reminding us it is “another day in paradise”, then letting people know if it is carry on with what you where doing the day before of if he needs you to go and work in a different field of farm, as they have a total of 5 farms in the Ord Valley.

So what actually do you do on a sandalwood farm, well the main task is called ‘de-vineing’ which is a bit like weeding your garden at home, only it is done with a machete instead. This gives you an idea of some of the weeds we deal with, the hard part is that while everything growing around the trees are technically weeds some of them are good weeds which they plant at the same time as the sandalwood. The 3 main ones we have to remove are all types of creepers which like to get in the trees and when are really large are a pain to pull out of the ground, if they are in the tree rows we have to remove the roots, and some of the plant from the tree. The other task which I have been involved in while on the farm is helping with the irrigation, which involves syphoning water out of the channels along one side of the field and into the rows between the trees. This is a task which is being done all the time, although after you have put water on the field you have to wait around 5 days before you can walk in the rows, and 14 days before any tractors are able to go on the field.

The work although tedious is not to bad and the days have gone past quickly, we only work for 2 hours at a go in the field then have a half hour break, with an hour for lunch at 1pm and so are finished for the day at 4pm. The worst part of the day is the shift before lunch when it gets the hottest of the day, after about 3pm it starts to cool down which is good. Even in the evenings the temperature will only now get down to the low 20s.

The town of Kununurra

So after a 3 hour flight up to Kununurra I was picked up from the towns airport by one of the girls who worked at the restaurant, who then dropped me off at the accommodation which the owners had which was provided for the staff at the restaurant.

After having a chat with my new house mate who gave me directions on how to get to the restaurant I decided to walk out the place which at last I had found out was called ‘The Pump House Restaurant‘. Slight mistake in walking to the place as it turned out that it was actually about 3-4 km outside of town, was not described as that far to me.

Met the owners who were very nice and gave me all the paper work which I needed to fill in and asked if I would be able to start work the next day on Sunday. Which was of course no problem as I need to get earning money.

The following day which I was actually called and asked if I would be able to come in early as they were very busy for lunch, (looking good I thought), then at about 2pm most of the staff left for their couple of hours break before coming back for the evening which was actually pizza and live music from a local band, this actually happens every Sunday throughout the year and is a very popular event with the locals and tourists alike.

The history behind the Pump House makes it one of importance to the town as this was the first part of the Irrigation Scheme in that after the Diversion Dam was built just a bit further down river this enabled then to start building up the water by Kununurra and then pumping it into the M1 channel in order to get water out to the farms which required the water. It was stopped being used about 5 years after it opened with the completion of the dam at Lake Argyle as then the water channels could be gravity fed by the Dam. The Pump House then was used for a variety of different things for the next 10 years before being decommissioned. When back in 1998 the owners of the restaurant saw the place and thought it would be a great location for a restaurant, it would take the next 10 years for them to get planning permission from all the different government departments. Before finally opening in August 2008.

After ‘Earn Your Stripes’

What have I been doing since ‘Earn Your Stripes’ finished?

After we all finished our last tour of the south west of Australia ending up in Perth. For the next couple of days myself and Romy spent the next couple of days at the Billabong backpackers with some of his friends, on the blag.

In this time finished all those blogs for STA, so felt pretty blogged out at this point so might explain why it has taken so long to write anything since then. Once our blag at Billabong ran out I moved to the Old Swan Barracks in Perth as this was a bit closer to the main part of town and was one of the cheapest places in Perth city to stay. From here I was to spend the next three weeks job hunting, mainly at the start looking for farm work so I could extend my visa for an extra year.

After a couple of weeks found myself starting to need a job as the money was starting to run out (never a good position to be in), so was looking for anything which was going, found myself a job for the weekends for a couple of hours working as a rep for McWilliams wine company promoting some of there different wines in bottle shops in the Perth suburbs.

This was a good job for me as I had a keen interest in wine and quite a bit of knowledge about the subject, from the years of work in restaurants and working on wine fairs, before I started to go travelling. The work was not too bad and the only really main downside was that I would only work for 3 – 4 hours a day.

During the following week I saw a job working in a restaurant in somewhere called Kununurra in the job shop after chatting with the girl working there she said if I was looking for farm work this would at least leave me in the right place to find a job. The town of Kununurra was created due to the damming of the Ord River in the 1960′s and the creation of the Ord River Irrigation Scheme.

So after three weeks in Perth yet again with no job I booked myself on a flight to Kununurra which was 2300 km north of Perth in the north east of Western Australia, for the next part of my adventure.

Almost Famous

So after all the fun of doing ‘Earn Your Stripes’ I sundley get an email from someone who had been looking at my pictures on flickr asking if they could use one of my pictures on their website. The seventh edition of Schmap Perth Guide this is a non profit company who use photos to help show people what a place is like. You are also able to link to their site with your iphone when exploring an area, so all very cool.

STA Travel – EYS in 60 Seconds

Q1)      All good things come to an end – what have been the three highlights of your STA Travel ‘Earn Your Stripes’ experience?

Getting to work at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) has to rate as one of the best things to have done, never would have had the chance otherwise. Doing the tours of south Victoria was really good and getting to see the penguins. Doing the different wine tours while in Margaret River which is something I am interested in.

Q2)      Everyone gives advice, but what would be your three recommendations for anyone in the UK thinking about working in Australia?

1) It is not easy to find work at times in Australia, after ‘EYS’ finished it took me 3 weeks to find work, and there was other people who had been looking longer.

2) Be willing to travel for a job, you might get an opportunity to work somewhere in the outback which is thousands of km’s from anywhere but you will save a lot of money and have a great experience.

3) Talk to people you will always find people who have been traveling longer than you, and they are great for information and can may tell you other places to go.

Q3) a) How would you say the experience at each work placement has benefited you as an individual and traveler?

It has shown me different areas of the country which I might not have gotten to, meeting different people and lifestyles. In Bright people are a lot more relaxed than in Melbourne where life is faster.

b) What did you enjoy the most about each work placement?

MCG – Nice to be in a city for a change, great team of staff, benefits

Bright Brewery – Country lifestyle, relaxed

MRVC – Interesting was cool to explore the caves, and nice to be back working in customer service (what am I saying)

c) Which placement best suited your personal requirements as a working traveler and why?

Most likely both Margaret River and MCG as in Melbourne it was great to explore the city and have the bar/club life, and in MR it was nice where you had easy access to beaches.

Q4)      How did each of the hostel facilities compare to those experienced in other parts of Australia, and throughout your wider traveling
experience?

For me all of the hostels had there own unique things, All Nations was in my view what a large place should be like, it was in an old building and had a nice feeling to it never had any issues. At Bright that was very much a family run backpackers which the owners took the time to get to know you and was very relaxed. At Margaret River the backpackers was a brand new building so very clean and modern, almost could be called a flashpackers.

Q5)      For anyone concerned about traveling across Australia, how did you find it and what were your overall impressions of Tiger Airlines?

Traveling across Australia is a big task, to get anywhere it is a long way, the whole map of Europe fits into Australia with plenty off room to spare. So you do need to fly a lot of the time to get to the big cities, this is very easy in Australia as they are use to it so you have a bout 2/3 low cost airlines like Tiger Airlines who can get you there with no frills. Tiger themselves fine no issues a standard low cost airline, if you are tall get there early and ask for an emergency aisle seat, more leg room.

Q6)      Which one photo taken during your Earn Your Stripes journey encapsulates the experience?

Good question, took to many although the one Isla put comes close.

Q7)      This is the first time STA Travel, the Melbourne Tourist board, Tourism WA and Tiger Airlines have undertaken this kind of activity – If they were to do this again what suggestions would you put forward to them?

Provide the people taking part more information, as at times we where left unsure of what was going on with the whole program, specially the holiday stage. Also Tiger Airlines each time we checked in had as down as standby, what would of happened if the plane filled up. But Matt was great he must be glad it is over having been emailing us pretty much everyday during the first 6 weeks.

Q8)      For anyone planning on traveling to Melbourne or Perth, what are they like, (people, facilities, landscape etc), what should they do and check out?

Perth is a great place to start from for exploring the west of Australia, and the city itself is very spread out and has a relaxed atmosphere to it, bar  Northbridge  at the weekend which is just buzzing. In Melbourne you have a good bar culture and have to explore the city to find where all the different bars are as a lot are hidden away.

Q9)      Final words – over to you!  ‘Being an STA Travel ‘Earn Your Stripes’ explorer has…’

been stressful, but only in the sense of ahh  I have not blogged in the last 3 days or more. On the whole it has been a great experience and was something which I never expected to do when I first started planning to go traveling. It has enable me to get to see places and things which I might not have done otherwise.

Back to Perth

Got told the night before that we would be leaving at 5.30 am (you what), how might have been a good idea to have gone to bed before the 1am we did, specially when you have to get up at 4.30am in order to grab a bite to eat and actually load the trailer up to leave on time. We all managed to do this although in the end Phil had to steal Romy’s bedding off him to get him out of bed.It works out at about a 12hr drive to Perth from Esperance which is why we have to leave at such an early time in the morning.

After a couple of hours we had a stop at a garage in order that everyone could grab some food for breakfast, we then carried on eventually getting to the town of Hyden which was our first place to go, here we visited Wave Rock, which is a natural rock formation carved out of the local rock face, it is 15 meters high and because of algae on the face it is streaked giving it the appearance of a wave. From here we walked along a trail about 2km to Hippo’s Yawn which from the side looked like that.

We then headed into the town of Corrigin where we stopped for our lunch, and a relax after being on the bus so long. Then we went and paid our respects to mans best friend at the Dog Cemetery. Also in the town they have the World Record for the most dogs in a yut queue. We then carried on to our last stop the town of York which was the settlement outside of Perth, when people first came to the region.

This was then the end of our tour and we stopped on the edge of one of the parks to get some group pictures, before everyone was dropped back to their accommodation.

Day in Esperance

So after a easy start to the day, only got up at about 7 ish, so did not leave until 8.30am which was nice we headed off to our first place of the day, which was a climb up a place in Cape Le Grand National Park, called Frenchmans Peak, which is only 260m high, but you know that you have climbed it, the start is easy but then you have to climb up the rock itself but the trail up is well marked and not that challenging, as we all kept stopping for funny pictures at the start soon our group was at the back, and so I decided that I want to try and get to the top first, but could see that the little old Italian lady was well over halfway up, I pushed on and managed to make good time getting when I got to the first plateau she was only a short way in front and busy taking pictures of the view, so after having a seat for a couple of minutes, mainly to get my breath back and slow the old ticker down, I tried to scale the side of the last bit which had a slight slop, only got half way up and this point so had to slid back down on my bum. Then worked around to the other side and found another point with which to climb up, which I scrambled up and managed to get on to the end of the top of the rock so ran along and got up to the highest point, far to competitive at times, then had a chat with the Italian lady when she walked around to the top. The views from up here made it worth while to do the climb up to the top.

We then headed on to Lucky Bay, which is rated the best beach in all of Australia, there was a couple of kangaroos down on the beach when we got there as well. We then got to see what made it different as you stood in one place you would slowly sink in to the sand, moving your feet a bit helped even more, soon was down to just above my knees. We then headed around to Hellfire Beach, where we all went in for a swim, sadly the sun was not really out that much so it was a bit on the cold side. We then got to have a BBQ here as the parks department provide large built gas BBQ at a lot of sites, after lunch we then went back in for another swim.

We then headed into Esperance for a look around the town and then out to a lookout point above the town on Wireless Hill. Then we headed down to Twilight Beach (I think) down at the far end near the point is a group of rocks which you could swim out to, this info was provide by Jenai who grew up in Esperance, so me, Phil and Jenai swam out to the rock as we wanted to see what this washing machine was which she had told us about, to say it was cold is an understatement what with the sun setting at the time we were swimming as well, but the washing machine effect was really good and this is going have to be a highlight of my whole holiday.

We then drove up around the windmill farms they have near the town, before having a drive past the pink lake, which at the moment is a bit blue, although you could not really tell as it was dark by then. After getting back to the hostel we had a quick dinner and a few drinks, then I went out with the girls from Australia to the local bar which had karaoke on.

Off to Esperance

For the start of our 3rd day we drove up to Mount Clarence, which gives some amazing views out over King George Sound, up here is the local ANZAC memorial, this area would have been the last view of Australia, the troops would have seen as they left on the troop ships to go off to WWI.

We then had a walk along the local boardwalk which goes around the coast to Middleton Beach, then we topped up with fuel and food, and started the long trip towards Esperance, this is around 423km, which is about the distance from the Cornwall border to the other side of London and up into Essex. Along the way we stopped at a place called Castle Rock in the Porongurup Ranges, you could then walk up to a place called Balancing Rock, although I decided not to go the whole way up as my leg was playing up.

We then went to a local winery for lunch, and another tasting although this was more Riesling which is a wine I don’t like, after this we made our move and carried on the drive to Esperance, this was a long drive so a group of us ended up laying various games with Jenai, this included ‘Celebrity Heads’, where have a name written on your head and you have to ask questions to guess who you are, this kept us going for a good couple of hours, and then various card games.

When we got into Esperance, we were all in one big dorm for the whole tour group, and they had put on dinner for us so no-one had to cook which was good, so a quick visit to the bottle shop was in order as we were not going to be starting very early the next day.

Augusta to Albany via a bloody tall tree

Was told the night before we would be having a lot of early starts each day as we had to do a lot of driving to get everywhere and to see all the tings they had planned. This meant a 5.30am wake up which is never nice, for the first time I think ever Romy actual got up before everyone else and was in the kitchen before the rest of us (shock).

We then headed off to our first destination of the day the Bicentennial Tree, one of the tings which was happening on the tour was that Jenai had hurt her ankle a couple of weeks before, and had been told not to drive which meant that the trainees were driving this morning Malcolm was driving, most of the times very good but first thing in the morning when your half asleep still it is not nice to be going around corners at 100km making it feel like the bus was going on to the gravel at the edge of the road.

When we got to the Bicentennial Tree, had a look and it was a long way up, it is 75 meters tall and was once used as a fire watch platform, the way you climb the tree is, using these spikes which have been stuck in the tree, you have no safety line only some netting around the side of these stakes, then you climb up some platforms which come out of the top of the tree, only I made it to the top, out of the 3 of us. We then went on to the valley of giants, and the tree top walk, these trees are the third tallest trees in the world. The walk goes through the trees and is a bit wobbly but provided some really good views. We then had a walk around some other trees at ground level, which had huge openings in the trunks which you could stand in for some photos.

Then we headed down to Williams Bay National Park, which is on the coast, here you could have a look at some rock formations or go for a swim in Greens Pool, I went for a swim with the Joy and Phil (both from Ireland) and Sarah (an Aussie), although the water was cool after a few minutes you did not notice and it was very sunny so you kept warm.

We then headed on to another section of the local coast to see some of the south’s natural costal phenomena, The Natural Bridge and the awesome Gap, these made for some excellent pictures, and we then stayed here for sunset as well, before heading on to Albany where we were staying for the night.

South West Tour

Back on the road today, with another morning start have to ready and outside Billabong Hostel for 7am to be collected to go on the next tour which is a 5 day trip in Western Australia covering South West, Albany, Margaret River & Esperance. The tour bus arrives on time a good sign and our guide jumps off and shows us where to put our stuff in the trailer, she ten introduces herself Jenai and explains that she has 3 trainees who will be working with her over the next week, Malcolm, Elisha, Inga. We then head into the city picking up a few more people from some of the other backpackers in the area, once we get in to the main center they drop off most people and then a load more walk over to join us this will be the peeps we are traveling with for the next week, a good mixture of people our age and older, the oldest being a lady who is 74 from Italy, and turns out in the end fitter than all of us.

In the end we head out from Perth a bit late as they had forgot to pick up one of our group Philip from Ireland, as we then start to head south, Jenai explains what is happening over the next couple of days, then goes into detail about what we will be doing today, then comes the hard part where we all have to introduce ourselves to everyone else on the bus, we end up with a good mixture of people from around the world including people from Australia, UK, Ireland, France, Italy, Holland, Turkey, Korea, and Germany.

We then head on down towards Busselton which is our first proper stop, we did stop for a quick second breakfast at a bakery for another steak pie. When we got into Busselton we went and visited the Jetty there which was the longest in the Southern Hemisphere at 2km long, although at the moment you can only walk along a short part of it as they had to close most of it just before Easter as it is unsafe at the moment. Had a ice cream while here as it was produced by a local company from the milk from the dairies in the area.

Then we headed off to the mystical Ngilgi Cave, it was good to visit this cave as this is not one run by the MR visitors center, so was completely different to the others, this was a deep cave going right down to 42 meters. It was a bit more of an adventure cave as they only guide you down into the cave and then there is another guide down near the bottom, they also have a bit off a adventure section where you can crawl through a tunnel with the walls really close. When we where right down near the bottom the group who I was with realised that we had only 15 minutes left before the bus was due to leave so as we made our way back up through the lower section when we came out into the main area, we managed to scare a child, who asked there parents why we where out of breath from running, to which we replied that we had been chased by a cave monster.

We then made our way down to a local brewery where we could have our lunch and try some of the beers they made, then we headed over to a local winery sadly one I had been to before Moss Bros, but I still had another try of the wines, last time this was the last place we went to so did not really get to enjoy as much. From here we headed into Margaret River, with a quick stop at the chocolate company, we had a wander through the town center and made our way into the visitors center and said hello to the staff there, but as it is a public holiday only a couple of people working.

From here we went down to Prevelly Point surf break to see the local surf and the mouth of the Margaret River, had to of course go and have a quick paddle but was a bit cold at that time of the day. From here we headed on down to Augusta making our way through the big Karri Forrest, and then down to Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse to take a couple of pics of the sunset and the lighthouse at dusk. We then headed back into Augusta and to our accomadation for the night, then we had a bbq for dinner in which Romy played head chef which was very good, everyone had to take part in helping out with the different things we had to do each day. While we were all eating was chatting with Maggie who was from England and explaining what we were up to with the hole ‘EYS’ thing and she was like, your those people, yes its amazing someone had actually heard of us, made our day, and made Matt’s day even more when we told him when he phoned in the evening.