I’ve recently begun work on an avocado farm or avo farm as they would say in Australia. I arrived in Australia just short of 2 months ago and have already seen quite a bit. I was fortunate to meet someone at my sisters wedding in early March that said his parents were looking for people to work on there farm. So obviously I said yes.

Im lucky enough to have my sister already living here in Australia and her and my brother in law were very helpful in getting me set up and sorted. I managed to buy a car quickly and set off not long after I received the call saying the job was available when I was.

I drove from my sisters house and arrived in Comboyne where the farm is located at the end of March along with a french backpacker who arrived via train, we were both given a warm welcome by the owners Penny and Ernst, they had cooked us a lasagna and we had a few drinks and introduced ourselves and our lives and so on. They have had an incredible life traveling, Ernst being Dutch and Penny from Australia both met whilst working in India, and have done a lot of travelling between them before they settled down back in Australia and bought this farm.

My plan is to stay here for a couple of months so I can save some money to travel elsewhere but to also complete my 88 days farmwork which will then let me apply for the second year visa.

I had arrived first so got first dibs on the accommodation, It was a choice between a caravan or a shed like building! I chose the shed as it was much roomier and looked comfier. The accommodation is only $50 per week which includes the living quarters, a fully equipped kitchen and a toilet block. My shed which is called the Olympian due to the fact it has Sydney Kings Olympic basketball court as its floor and walls. It has a small veranda as I walk out my door which has an amazing view of the hills far away and perfect for a sunrise.

So… to the work, there’s plenty of it, our first job is to tackle the weeds and other trees growing around the avocado trees. On our first day we were given a bucket with a pair of secateurs, loppers, a pruning saw, a recycled spray bottle filled with round up (a poison to spray on the cuts we make to prevent them from regrowing) a jar of salt, some insect spray and a pair of gloves.

Below is an example of before and after

It’s not a skilled or difficult job it just takes patience and hard work, some of the trees are pretty easy and have little to nothing underneath them but some are heavy with undergrowth, we have done a couple of blocks of weeding now and are about 3 weeks in.

The worst part is Choko’s, a fruit that grows on climbing vines that gets tangled in the trees, they are a nightmare to untangle and trim but we also have to collect all the fruits as they are full of seeds which will just make the amount of vines next year, even worse. I’ve managed to collect around 25 sacks full just by myself so there is quite a lot of them.

In Comboyne it tends to rain quite a bit, we can work easily in light rain but once your soaked it’s pretty uncomfortable so tend to stop if we get too wet. We usually have days off when it rains all day and that’s when we go to the nearest town of Port Macquarie to see sights and do our shopping.

The other lad I’m here working with takes everything a little slow. When we work I tend to do 3 times the amount as him, his excuse is that he’s on holiday but last time I checked it is still a job and should be putting a little more effort in. But the owners leave us to it so hes free to do what he wants. When we go shopping he tends to take an hour for a 15 minute shop, I mean I drive him an hour to the shops and he still makes me wait. I mean It may just be me as when I have things to do I like to get them done so I can relax and enjoy the other parts of travelling.

He recently told me that he used to be a firefighter in Paris… so now we know why Notre Dames roof burnt through, everyone was waiting on him to get ready. Just a giggle I have to myself when he’s going super slow.

There is plenty of wildlife on the farm from leeches to the occasional wallabies. The leeches are very annoying, attach to you out of nowhere and start sucking your blood, it feels almost like an ongoing ant bite. I had one the other day inside my belly button which was pretty grim, we are provided with salt (which you are supposed to put on the leech so it drops off but I tend to just rip them off) and insect spray but they still find a way to get to you even if you cover yourself head to toe.

Only managed to see a few wallabies as they keep pretty far away but they are here and hopping about.

We were warned at the start, of the snakes. The brown snake, black snake and python but have thus far only seen 3 pythons, the least deadliest we are told.

The farm is 500 Acres, 200 of the acres are avocado trees and the rest is empty space full of trees, small weirs a river and some waterfalls that I’ve not actually yet seen. so we have a 4×4 mule to get ourselves around, somehow two have broken down on us whilst we’ve used them, so third time lucky.

“To be a farmer is to be a student forever, for each day brings something new”

John Connell