Days 457-463! Woo! Another week in the books! That it’s already April is pretty insane… in a month I’ll be turning 27 and then soon after that I’ll be heading to the US for a very exciting visit with friends and family! But there’s still plenty of time in Australia to have some fun! This week I worked, surfed, and even… went on a date?!

Thursday, April 3rd was another day of rain to add to the books. So… no work for me today!

But, I did have the spare time to go on a date!?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been on one, but I’ve felt like I’m getting to a place where I’d be ready to give another relationship a go (it’s probably been since 2021 since my last full on one)!

Now, the criteria for dating me right now is pretty strict on the fact that they want to travel the world too. But even if not, it was nice to dip my toes back into the world of dating.

We met up at a cafe called “Spilt Milk” for breakfast and had a really nice time chatting and getting to know each other better. I’m going to spare you most details since it’s my personal life, but it is an interesting story of traveling and dating. She did bring her dog which was an added bonus!

The only downer was it was drizzling on and off as we sat outside with the dog, but it still was a good time.

We then went on a walk with the dog around town for a bit, continuing to chat, and then sat at a cafe to chat some more! All in all, it was a good date. I didn’t feel any sparks or any strong desire for a second one, but nonetheless I’m really happy to have taken a step towards finding a special someone in my life!

I’m in no rush, but throwing out into the universe that it’s okay to send someone my way! AND I have a much better grasp on myself after this year plus of traveling, alone time, and reflection.

The afternoon was dedicated to finishing my overdue book. Which, thankfully, you don’t accrue late fees with this library branch! I made a good effort of finishing but still had a few chapters before I got tired of reading. Before I finished though, I was really moved by the book and was actually brought to tears!

I don’t think a book has EVER made me cry! It was such a beautiful scene that did it though.

Friday, April 4th I was back to work on the farm!

I spent the day working by myself as the farmers were busy elsewhere. I just continued on screwing the trees into the support wire for the entire day. It’s a tedious job, but listening to music and podcasts makes it go by pretty quick!

Also the weather, coming into fall and winter, has been beautiful! It’s the perfect working outside weather. In the morning it’s cool and crisp outside, and then as the sun comes out it gets warmer, to the point where by the end of the day I’m ready for a surf!

Unfortunately today, the water was still gross from the recent storms, so I took another day off from surfing.

But… that gave me the time I needed to FINALLY finish the 4th book of the Stormlight Archives, Rhythm of War!

I’m super glad I stuck with it because the last quarter of the book was so hard to put down!

I went on a walk to the library to drop it off after I was done and then relaxed the rest of the night.

I woke up Saturday, April 5th to another day of work on the farm!

It’s such a pretty area to be working in! Evens out with how tough, physically, the work can be!

Again, I spent the day doing the same work as the day before. So nothing too crazy to note of this work day.

The day got super fun when I clocked off, made my way home, and finally went for a surf at Pippi’s Beach. The water looked clean enough and the waves looked nice, so I raced over on my bicycle for a much needed surf session.

Not only was this a super fun surf session where the waves were only a few feet, had a nice pause between them (wave period), and were breaking smoothly. I also met two travelers from the UK, Lucy and Hugo, who were out surfing as well! They unfortunately weren’t staying in Yamba super long, but we exchanged numbers and planned to hopefully surf more before they left!

At one point, Hugo and I traded boards and I tried out his 5’6” fish short board (fish is how the board tail is shaped). Andddd let me just say, I need to stick to longer boards! It was a bit short for me. But I was happy to let Hugo have some fun rides on the longboard.

While waiting for a wave, an eagle ray FLEW out of the water! It probably 2.5 or 3 foot wingspan and came a good few feet out of the water too! It’s my second time seeing one while surfing, and pretty much at the same spot too!! It was SO cool! Now to just see one while scuba diving…

I ended up surfing with Hugo and Lucy for almost 2 hours! It was such a blast! But I knew I was going to be sore tomorrow especially since I worked all day before the session.

With all the time off from work because of the rain, there was no time to rest! Sunday, April 6th came and it was time for, yet another, work day!

But… when I woke up, I had a bit of a fright! The sun was UP when my alarm went off! I was so nervous I overslept! Turns out, the clocks went back an hour this morning. So I was in the clear! It just meant I was going to have a sunnier morning of work!

I spent the day doing the same thing as the previous two days, a common trend on this farm! Lots of the same task to do every day. I’m getting pretty proficient at it and have been checking off sections of the farm! I’ll probably have done this task about 5-7 thousand times before I finish up working at the farm.

After work, I made my way to Pippi’s again for another surf! But today… there were massive rip currents and the surf wasn’t great. So I only went out for about 20 minutes, caught a couple waves, and then decided that I didn’t feel comfortable being in the water when it was so hectic and got myself out.

My friend Chantelle happened to be on the beach that afternoon! So I sat and chatted with her for a bit before she went off to work at the pub. I then sat for a bit longer, enjoying some beach time and watching some short boarders catching some barrels (when the wave goes over their head and they still come out of the wave)!! It was super cool to see!

Because of the clock change, the sun went down super early… which was a bit disorienting. But just another thing to get used to!

Monday, April 7th (a month until my birthday?!) was another beautiful morning for working on the farm.

Glen was using the Kubota buggy to spray weeds, so I was using the Ute to drive around the farm. The farm dog loves hanging out with me, which is very sweet, and was very excited for a ride in the truck.

She was a bit confused why I didn’t let her back in after she got muddy though.

I spent the day screwing more trees into the support wire. Woo! Don’t worry, in the afternoon we spiced up the work day a bit and actually picked up nuts! There’s been a late drop, apparently, across all macadamia farms this year. The farmers aren’t sure why, but there were plenty to pick up. I also had a nice phone call with my friend Josh from back home while working! We caught up on life since our last phone call. It’s always nice catching up with friends and hearing about the news on their lives!

I decided to go for another surf after work… and today I braved the iffy water of Turners Beach.

The water has been pretty gross looking here for the past few weeks. Basically ever since cyclone Alfred! I saw a bunch of people swimming in it today, some decent waves for longboarding, and the surf life savers out lifeguarding the beach… so I thought why not!

The water wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t as bad as the first surf session I had after the cyclone. I had a fun time catching waves and was the only one out surfing! I tried my best not to swallow the water but, of course that was unavoidable with falling off a surfboard.

I’m definitely going to miss having access to the beach and surfing every day! But I’m sure after my stint in the US I’ll find myself back to an oceanside town or island somewhere in the world!

I spent the rest of the night relaxing, playing guitar, and catching up on the TV show Invincible (Josh asked if I had watched the new season, which I didn’t realize was out).

It rained during the night, so when I got to the farm on Tuesday, April 8th I spent the morning waiting for the farm to dry up a bit. I started off cutting more pieces of tubing for the tree’s support system and then got to screwing the trees into the support wire.

I spent the afternoon picking up 4 rows of nuts. Nut collecting is the new task for the next week or so!

Unfortunately, the waves after work weren’t surfable. So I spent the afternoon and evening relaxing, playing guitar, and watching some TV.

These weeks are flying by and it was already Wednesday, April 9th! Today started off as a regular day of mundane work but then turned into quite a special day!

We started the day collecting nuts. Today Glen and I were working together and chatting periodically which made the work much more enjoyable. When lunch rolled around, a rainstorm came through, perfect timing! It left just as quickly as it arrived and the afternoon was rain free.

Here’s a couple pictures Glen took today:

We spent the rest of the afternoon collecting nuts as well… BUT what made the workday special was that Glen taught me how to operate a tractor!

We’re using the tractor with a fork lift to carry around a hopper for the nuts we’re collecting. Since I’ll be doing it without Glen at some points, I needed to learn how to drive the big tractor! Definitely a bucket list being checked off!!

It was actually pretty simple, since the hard part is when a trailer is attached (reversing a trailer is very difficult). But there was still things to learn and wrap my head around since the tractor has a clutch, learning how to operate the fork lift arm on the tractor, how to control the speed and turning, etc. I picked it up pretty quickly and was able to move the tractor between rows!

It was pretty freaking cool!

(I’ll get a picture of me operating it soon)

I got home from work and the yet again, the ocean wasn’t wanting me to surf since the waves were bad again. Luckily I had plans to get dinner with my friend Max, so we just got dinner on the early side!

We went to BRGR Spot again and enjoyed yet another excellent meal. Two of Max’s friends were there, so we sat with them. It was great getting to hang out with a group of people my age and chat.

After eating, Max and I headed across the street to the pub to play pool!

Usually, even with my many months of training in Thailand, Max kicks my butt at pool. I don’t think I’ve beaten him 1 on 1 before. Today however, was the turning point… not only did I beat him, I beat him SIX TIMES! Originally he beat me 4 times and then we played an extra game, so the score ended 6-5. We both played some great pool too!

It wasn’t about the winning, but it did feel good to play well and win (finally). It was also nice to say hi to my friends behind the bar, who I don’t get to see much anymore!

Overall, this was another great week in Yamba! I went a bit out of my comfort zone and went on a date, clocked off another chunk of work days, surfed, and hung out with friends. Not a bad week at all!

At the time of this post I have 17 work days left for my 88 days of farm work!! The end is in sight and I’m counting down the days! I will say, farming and surfing every day has been doing wonders for my physique, might’ve found the new fad.

I’m looking forward to seeing what next week has in store! I have a feeling it’ll involve a whole lot of work…

But we’ll see!!

– Elie