Days 401-407! This was a very exciting week! I got a lot of beach time in, plenty of time with friends, and I started my new job working on the macadamia farm! As fun as the week was, it was equally as exhausting. It’s going to be a big shift from my lazy days and busy nights to early mornings and work out in the sun. BUT I think I’ll be able to handle it!

I woke up bright and early on Thursday, February 6th. It was time for a surf!! I loaded up my surfboard, hopped on my bike, and I made my way to Pippi Beach.

When I arrived, I had the entire beach to myself! We’ve finally gotten past the super busy summer season in Yamba and we won’t see a big influx of tourists until March. So I enjoyed a beautiful day all to myself!

After a few bad surf sessions, this one went pretty well! I only caught a couple waves… but they were GOOD! Full on paddle, pop up, make the descent down the wave, and then the waves rolled into a beautiful backhand wave.

Surfing in the morning is just the perfect way to start my day! It also is a very good workout and my shoulders get tired pretty quickly. I’m hoping with all the sessions over the next few months they’ll get stronger and stronger!

When I got out of the water, there were these huge gelatinous blobs dotted across the shore. Turns out they were jelly fish, but I guess they aren’t a type that will easily sting you. I did see blue bottles on the beach the other day as well… so I guess I need to keep an eye out a bit to avoid getting stung!

I sat on the beach for a little while before setting off back home to continue my day.

After relaxing for a bit, enjoying my last day off for a while, I hopped on my bike again and set off towards K-hub (the smaller version of K-mart). Tomorrow, I would start my new job as a farmer! So there were some things I needed to buy to be ready for work.

I got work shorts, a nice floppy hat (to copy my mom and to keep the sun off me while I work), work socks, and a lunch box with containers so I can bring lunch to work everyday! All stuff that would make my life a lot easier on the farm. I did contemplate getting a dinosaur themed lunchbox… but opted for the cheaper, nicely shaped one instead.

I had put in a delivery for groceries the day before and not long after I got home from K-Hub, they arrived! It’s always nice to get food for the week. This time I got a lot of cold cuts to use as my lunches for work! Going to put tuna aside for a little bit.

I contemplated going back out to the beach for a swim because of how sweaty I got. But instead I decided to shower and relax at home because I had a big day ahead of me the following day.

I made myself dinner, my lunch for the following day, and then called it an early night to prepare for the farm! It’s been a LONG time since I’ve had to pack myself lunch and it was nice to do again.

The sun was just peaking out of the horizon when I woke up on Friday, February 7th. My new boss, Glen was coming to pick me up at 7:30am. So I woke up at 6:45am to get up, shower, eat, and hustle downstairs to meet him.

He picked me up in the work truck they’d eventually lend me and we made our way to the farm! Glen’s a super friendly guy and we chatted the entire way to the farm, which was about a 20 minute car ride.

When we arrived to the farm, I received a warm welcome from all of his kids who were just about to set off from school. They were all very eager to say hi to me which was cute of them. Then Glen and I hopped on their Kubota (pictured later, but essentially a 4×4 vehicle to get around the farm) to show me around some more and to explain what was needing to be done.

Today had two main tasks. The first was picking up macadamia nuts that had fallen from the trees, this is how you know they’re ready to be processed. We took hand held dolly collectors out to the orchard and got to work!

It was hot out but it was nice to be working outside! Glen and I just chatted as we went too but suddenly he asked, “is it alright if I take your picture? We do this on day one for all of the workers we’ve had.” I of course said yes, so here’s the photo!

I kind of feel like I’m collecting bingo balls with this device. The sound of the nuts clattering together is a very soothing sound too! Sometimes though, I had to get on my hands and knees to collect ones that weren’t getting picked up by the roller. And by sometimes, I mean a lot of times. It was time to turn into a farmer boy and not care about the bugs, dirt, spiders, etc.

After a few hours of collecting, we switched over to the second major tasks, pruning trees. These two tasks are going to be the majority of work I do over the next few months and since I’ll be working by myself a lot of the time, Glen wanted to make sure I knew what I was doing right off the bat!

The pruning process was a lot more tiring than the nut collection (lots of nut jokes will probably ensue over the next few months too, hopefully you won’t crackup too hard). This task is trimming the tree up so the skirting at the bottom is removed. There’s a truck that needs to go through to spray the trees so the branches at the bottom need to be removed.

To do this, I have a handy dandy automatic clipper and a mini electric saw. Dangerous of course, but fun to use!

We took a 30 minute break for lunch, where I ate the food I packed for myself. Glen and I chatted for a bit and then set back out into the sunny day. And of course, lots of sunscreen was lathered on the entire day.

Glen had some trucking to do, so I was sent out by myself to prune up more trees! His wife, Aly, came out at one point to check on how I was doing, but she liked what she saw so I just kept chugging away by myself.

At one point, I finished my water bottle, so I made my way back to their house to fill it up. And on my way out, their almost 1 year old farm puppy, Evee was determined to join me. So I had a little companion as I headed back out to prune more trees.

Evee just hung out in the shade as I made my way along. I listened to music as I worked and it was quite enjoyable! It’s fairly monotonous work, but it was a pleasant day out. Also, this part of the job has instant gratification seeing a tree go from messy to nice and clean!

I finished up work at 3:30pm and Aly drove me back home. The plan was to hand over the keys to the Ute on Monday, but Glen had a different plan for me the following day.

When I got home, I didn’t have much time to lounge about! I saw on my pub schedule that I was working… but I had just spoken to my manager and we agreed I’d only be working Saturdays and Sundays. Well, it turns out he forgot to take me off the schedule! So I was working from 5-close… I had enough energy so I said I could of course still come in if he needed me. But he pushed my start time back to 5:30pm so I had a little time to lay in my bed and relax.

It was a good thing I was there, because the dinner rush was a bit busy. But after dinner, it started to quiet down a ton. So THANKFULLY, my manager sent me home early around 10pm. I was exhausted and had pretty much been on my feet all day. It’s going to be a lot working both jobs, but I really enjoy the job at the pub and I don’t want to be done with it quite yet.

I woke up early again on Saturday, February 8th, made my lunch for the day, ate breakfast, and then met Glen down out front of my place to head to work again…

But when I got down to the truck, he asked me if I wanted to try and drive it to work.

He thought it’d be a good idea for me to try driving it with him in the car, and I thought so too! So I hopped in the driver seat and we set off towards the farm.

I was a bit nervous to drive on the wrong side of the road and inside the car. But surprisingly, it wasn’t nearly as bad as I had expected it to be. Maybe it was because I’d driven my motorbike in countries that drove on the left or the many weeks of sitting in the passenger seat in Australia. But either way, I made it from my place and to the farm without a hitch!

Glen gave me some pointers from his experience driving on the opposite side in the US and also gave me advice on some of the more specific driving laws in Australia. For example, you have to signal in and out of roundabouts.

Work today was a day full of pruning! Glen was busy using the Kubota, so I took my truck around the farm… I don’t think I ever thought I’d be saying that in my life. I made my way back to the section I left off on and kept chugging along!

There’s lots of pruning to be done, so this will be a task I get very used to. And as I said yesterday, it’s a really satisfying task! I’ve kind of found creativity in the jobs I’ve picked up in Australia. At the pub, pouring a perfect beer feels like an art and here on the farm, I’m taking liberties to trim up the tree to fit the needs of Glen and Aly.

Pretty crazy they already trust me to go out on my own and get the job done! But I’ll have plenty of time working by myself over the next 3 months.

While I was going about, I found a skeleton of a bird. My guess would be a magpie, since there’s a bunch around the farm… but not sure what would’ve left it pretty much as a full skeleton!

I had lunch with Glen, Aly, and their kids who were home for the weekend. Then I got back to work trimming trees until it was time to head home!

Originally the plan was to get the Ute on Monday… but they decided to send me home with it today! So it was time for my first solo drive in Australia.

As on the way there, it was pretty easy! It definitely takes a bit more concentration than driving back home, but because it’s not a very busy stretch of road, it’s a perfect one to start on!

When I got home, I had enough time to shower, clean my lunch box containers, and sit for 10 minutes before having to high tail it up to the pub! I’m going to keep walking to the hotel, no reason to stop doing that now. But man, I was just on my feet all day and was about to have another farm into bar day.

I ended up working till close, but what was different, from Friday night, was I wasn’t planning on going to the farm on Sunday. So, working till close wasn’t the end of the world. My legs were definitely aching by the end of the night, but I survived and had a good time bartending. I really enjoy it!

We finished up the shift, played some pool, had a well earned beer, and then I got a ride from my friend Sam home. I immediately fell into a deep sleep pretty much as soon as I got home. I was exhausted.

I woke up Sunday, February 9th feeling like I had just partied the night before. I was dehydrated, tired, and groggy. All this work was definitely starting to take a toll on me. So for the majority of the day, I spent it lying in bed, watching TV and drinking a ton of fluids.

This rejuvenated me a lot, which was good, because I couldn’t lie in bed all day. I had a shift at the hotel to get to!

This shift was another good one, but it was very slow. As we get further and further from the summer rush, the town is reverting back to how it was when I arrived.

Around 9pm, it was slow enough that my manager sent me home to get rest, which I really needed. This farm work is exhausting, BUT I’m glad to have something so physical to do with my day. Before this I spent way too much time lounging around waiting for the bar shift to start. I had surfing and swimming at the beach, but this addition is great!

I woke up on Monday, February 10th to a perfect overcast sky. I made my lunch, ate breakfast, and then hopped into my work truck and headed across town to the farm. My aim, now that I can drive to work, is to get there around 7:30am, which means a 6am wake up!

Today, it was all hands on deck! Aly, Glen, and I spent the entire day picking up the fallen macadamia nuts.

Their farm is on the younger side. And after a couple floods, they finally have their first small yield of nuts. But, their grass is also grown too long and they use it for fertilizer on the base of the trees. So the plan is to pick up the nuts now, so they don’t get covered by the grass cuttings.

So we needed to pick up the nuts all over the farm, which would take several days.

A common trend I’ve seen so far with the nut gathering is Glen and Aly assume there won’t be many nuts in an area because of how young the trees are or because of the flood damage… but when we get to picking them up, there’s WAYYYY more than they thought initially.

This is definitely a good thing, but it takes much longer than they anticipated.

We had lunch and then set back out for more nut picking! 3pm rolled around and it was time to head home. The day flew by, I think it was due to working with Aly and Glen and also the overcast weather made it perfect for outdoor work.

On my way home, I stopped at Cole’s for some groceries I needed… what a novel concept, driving myself to the grocery store! I actually ran into a couple friends while I was there, classic small town things! But the most important thing that I got was something my parents actually introduced me to.

Dark chocolate mint Tim Tams! Why have I been settling for the other chocolate mint snack… these are HEAVENLY! I’m so glad my parents had them first and keyed me into knowing they existed.

The excitement didn’t last long as it was now or never for this next activity. I was headed to the beach!

I wasn’t going to let exhaustion keep me back from surfing. So I hopped on my bike and rode out to Pippi Beach, hoping there might be some good waves in the windy afternoon.

Well, it turned out, the waves weren’t great for my level of surfing. But I gave it a go anyways! There were unfortunately a lot of people out enjoying the north side of the beach (where I normally surf). So I attempted to surf further south where the bigger waves are.

I ended up getting knocked about by the waves and at one point it felt like I was in a washing machine. The joys of surfing! I took a break after a number of nosedives and failed waves. I wanted to reevaluate the beach, grab some water, and get a breather!

It’s a good thing I like getting my beat up by the waves, because they were doing a good job of it! After sitting on the beach for a while, I noticed the swimmers had almost all left the water. So I decided to give the surf another shot!

I ended up doing a lot of paddling and a lot of sitting… not a whole lot of standing up on my surfboard. But I was glad I gave it another go! Surfing is really tough! Especially when the waves aren’t in my favor. Hopefully I’ll be able to find the time for a lesson soon.

I rode back home, feeling very glad I pushed myself to go enjoy the beach, and made dinner. I was VERY tired, so I played some guitar, watched some tv, and then called it a night.

The clock turned to 6am and it was time to wake up for another day on the farm! Tuesday, February 11th was about to be a hot, sunny day.

I set off on another safe drive to work where we immediately got back to picking up nuts!

Aly and I spent the day together collecting the macadamia nuts all across the farm. The sun was pretty brutal today and just like the other days, I put on a ton of sunscreen. I was missing the overcast day from yesterday.

Aly and I chatted as we went along, talking about life, traveling, family, the usual small talk. I really lucked out on my bosses because they’re both really friendly and easy to be around! When we weren’t chatting though, I was listening to music. I went through multiple playlists and albums throughout the entire day. But as long as I have good music to listen to, I feel like I could do most jobs for a short period of time!

On today’s animal skeleton find, I think I found a rat skeleton.

This is probably a good thing for the farm, since the rats have been gobbling up the nuts before we can get a chance to pick them up! There’s a little bit of a war between the macadamia farmers and the rats that live around their farms. There are also different types of worms that bore into the nut as well and grow by eating the nut. Lots of critters to keep an eye out for in this industry!

An hour before I was done, Aly needed to head off to pick up their kids from school. So the last hour I spent picking up nuts by myself. I wish I had some sort of SHELLter because it was still very hot out and only getting hotter.

But I had the fix for that! My friend Paddy had asked me the day before if I wanted to go surfing with him and our friend Alex after work. So when I got home, I immediately chucked on my swimsuit and met them with my board.

Alex drove us down to a beach I haven’t been to, but have been really wanting to go to. The beach is called Back Beach and it’s next to a well known surf spot called Angourie Point. Back Beach is known to be perfect for longboard surfing, so I was excited to finally surf it myself! But… when we got there, it was extremely windy and the waves looked like Pippi’s from the day before.

I of course still gave it a go since I was surfing with them. But after we paddled out I quickly confirmed my suspicions that the waves were wayyyy too big and fast for me. So I boogie boarded my board back in and then made my way to a more sheltered part of the beach. Here I only caught one short wave, but I caught one!! Otherwise I took many tumbles which were not as fun as catching the wave… but at least I was out enjoying the waves.

Hopefully I’ll get to come back to this beach in a better day and see it in all of its glory!

I got dropped back off, yet again very exhausted. I cleaned up, did my laundry, and ate dinner. After dinner I played guitar and folded my laundry! I’m really enjoying the daily routine of work, surf, guitar, sleep. Not a bad life!

My friend Sam asked me if I wanted to join him and his family at The Mexican. I was flattered that the Mcleans invited me to yet another family outing, but I was far too tired to go out. I would’ve loved to though, but I definitely need to take care of my health and mind first.

It started to rain later in the night, so I was hoping it would clear up by the following day… otherwise I might not have a day of work on the farm (which sounds good, but I need all the days I can get to count up to my 88 total days).

The rain had cleared up by the morning of Wednesday, February 12th. It was a very cloudy morning, but that would mean a cooler working environment. When I arrived to the farm, there was a haze over it from all the condensation.

Thankfully, Glen had a pair of mud boots (heavy duty rain boots) for me to use on the off chance it was super wet out. I set off to pruning trees where I didn’t need the mud boots in the end, but I was glad to have them.

After lunch, the sun came out and I switched back to my regular work boots. I kept on pruning trees, which is a very all in task. I have to sit under the tree, reach into the tree, and get at all the branches that need to be removed. And of course these trees have leaves that leave nice and little cuts! So that’s fun.

But what’s even more fun, is what I got up to after work! As I was leaving the farm, I spotted a very cute frog that had stuffed itself inside of a fence post.

I drove home, showered, and immediately changed into clothes for my next outing… which was golf with some of my friends!

I haven’t golfed in well over a year, but I was excited to take a crack at it and hang out with the fellas. Max, Hayden, Sam, Bryce, Connor, and I met up at the Yamba Golf Club, rented carts and clubs, and then set out for our 9 hole round.

This has to be the most Australian thing I’ve seen. There were KANGAROOS all over the golf course. They had no fear of the golfers or golf balls and just were hopping around, grazing. My friends didn’t care for them, they are deemed a nuisance to Australians… but I was super excited!

It took a few holes for my driver to connect, but once it did I was having a good time golfing! We played a 2v2v2 scramble and had a blast hanging out, laughing at our atrocious shots. Hopefully we’ll do it again sometime!

The night of fun wasn’t over yet and we made our way to the hotel for a very delayed “holiday party.” Most of the staff was there hanging out, having drinks, and chatting with each other. We had some pizza and played some pool too! It was a very nice event, but I couldn’t enjoy it to the fullest as I had work at 7:30am the following morning!

So 9pm rolled around and I went home and got ready for bed.

This was a really great week! I got some surfing in, started my farm work so I can secure my second work holiday visa, and even got a lot of time with friends! This new work is physically tough and waking up early is tiring. But my new bosses are great people and I think I’ll be able to stick it out for 3 months! With the second visa dangling infront of me as a reward, I’ll keep chugging along until I get it!

Thanks for following along and reading about this week! If there’s anything you want to hear more about or go into detail more on, let me know in the comments! But if not, I’ll see you next week!

– Elie