Leaving Melbourne

Wow, am I tired from the farm work; one week and I can feel it in my body. I'm really happy with my day off today. But first things first; My bike is awesome! I love riding it, thoug riding it is a lot more tiring then I expected. Probably because of the adrenaline.

My first ride after my last log was from Melbourne to Donald for a music festival, only about 290 km's. When leaving Melbourne I realised how BIG Melbourne actually is. I mean I stayed mostly in the CBD (Central Business District, remember? :P) which starts to feel even small after a month because you see a lot of familiair faces everyday. Going to the suburbs makes it look bigger, but still everything was reachable on my skateboard. But now on my bike, in traffic hour, it took me like 2 hours to leave the city. It just kept going and going until I hit the country side and then; WOW!

Immediately I saw how big this country is; barely any houses for as far as you can see. Lots of km's between villages and then the villages are smaller than anything you can find in the Netherlands. I felt so small, a 196cm guy on a probably 240kg bike (including bagage) and I was a mere nothingness in this vast piece of land that just kept going and kept amazing me.

I stopped for a minute to check the map and immediately I noticed the flies loved me here... After checking the route I wanted to continue and then my bike would start in neutral but shut down instantly when I put it in gear. SHIT! Already bike problems?! No Way! Panick, this 196 cm insect had just lost his wings in the middle of nowhere. Desperately searching online I just turned out to be a huge rookie; The bike is protected from starting in gear when the side stand is out... derp...

I didn't reach my planned destination, maryborough, in time. I was really tired after "just" 2-3 hours of driving (in a car I can make 6 easy, what's up?!) and I had to take a lot of coffee brakes to keep me going. The sun was going down too and I've been warned about kangaroo's jumping in front of the headlights at night. Dangerous for a car, lethal for a bike. So I asked the friendly guys at the gas station if they thought I would make it in time. "Maryborough? Oh man that's really bad for kangaroo's! A teacher here in preschool died last week because he hit a kangaroo on his bike. But maybe you'll make it if you leave now."

Considering this option... No way, I'm way to tired to drive another hour with hyperfocus for kangaroo's. "Do you know any free camping places around here." I got advised a camping spot just 5-10 minutes away, called mount Franklin. After searching for it (stupid google maps sending me wrong) I arrived just after sundown. Already saw a few kangaroo's just before sundown, so good call. Met a really nice older couple there and we ended up talking and drinking wine till like 1 am. Next morning up early for a nice around mount Franklin and then off again.

A few hours went fine, but at some point I just got tired again. My eyes are not used to such a long time focusing on traffic, road conditions and possible critters in the bushes. I did finally arrive in Donald at the festival. Cool! Well except the 2 hour line with no shade. But oh well, how things go at a festival, I made friends before entering and could chill in the car with airco of the polish guy behind me.

Lots of people, including the security guards had the utmost respect for me that I came with a motorbike. It definitely helped me to get in with my drinks (that weren't allowed :P) The festival was great. I stopped my bike at a random spot and walked up to the party tent of the people there "can I use your shade for a bit?". Boom; friends. It just clicked straight away and I found my base camp for this festival. Good music, beautifel decorations, lovely people; amazing!

After the festival I left on the bike for Shepparton to get a farm job. I made it in one day so I guess I'm getting more used to the long driving hours already, though the sunglasses I found the last night of the festival definitely helped to calm my eyes as well. I was advised by a friend I met in Melbourne to go to a specific caravan park in Merrigum. It is definitely a nice place. Lots of people here working on the farms, because oh well, not much more to do here; it is a pretty boring area. Though I gotta say that the small towns with the very noticeable "everybody knows everybody" atmostphere definitely has it's charm.

Within 2 days I had a farm job picking pears. I picked together with a german couple, the first day we worked 7 hours with barely any break. We made $53 (about 35 euro's), shit! The work was okay, the supervisors were nice and funny and I did get to ride a oldschool tractor which was really cool, but for that money it wasn't really worth my effort. The second day we made $64. Okay maybe time to get another job.

When I wanted to leave the farm my bike wouldn't start. SHIT! Luckily the farmer and his brother, who was living there, are bike enthusiasts as well. I probably left my handgrip heating on that morning which drained my battery. So I disconnected that funtion immediately. They had the right equipment to charge it for me, but it would take a while. I could borrow the battery from the farmers bike for that day and exchanged it the next day. The bike still gave an error light (FI), which we couldn't understand, especially since everything worked great the same morning. It would start and then after a few seconds turn off and turn on the light. The brother tried a trick that helped him in the past; run it and then hit the killswitch and try again. It worked! I still don't know why; software bug from the dying battery maybe? Well it has been running like a breeze since, so I'm still not sure what it was.

That day my friend quit his job. They were still looking for a replacement cause none of the tomato pickers at the farm wanted to do it. $19 an hour for helping a tractor remove irrigation pipes out of the field. SURE! Well, it was more heavy than I imagined. Making double knots in dried up bicycle tire kind of material all day does something to your fingers. Oh yeah it needs to be under pressure as well, so rope pulling is also part of it. Oh and did I mention you have to chop rocks with a hammer if the line goes through them?! And no shade, all day!

Well all that effort does not matter if you have a nice and understandable supervisor, which I have NOT! He's sitting in a airconditioned tractor all day and barely leaves it. He wants to work 10 to 12 hours and makes difficulty when I'm saying I'm tired and need to quit for that day. 2nd day: "Well if you want to quit early you'll have to call my boss"; Sure I'll call your boss! Well he didn't seem to expect that answer. The boss was absolutely fine with it and was just hoping I'd come back the next day since I was the 6th employee for that job in 2 weeks! I'm starting to understand why...

3rd day went fine actually after my rest and I managed to make 11 hours minus a 30 minute break. That got me on 28 working hours (times $19 = $532) in 3 days, not too shabby. Today I would get off and I'll probably be welcome back soon for an easier job for the same pay. Let's hope it wasn't an empty promise to make me persist till the bitter end. I'll just see, it's getting colder here at night as well so summer in victoria is pretty much over. I guess I should move to Adelaide in a few weeks anyway, so whatever happens happens. My fingers are atleast very happy for my day off cause this morning I had trouble making a fist...