So Long Victoria

The comes a time in every almond factory workers life when they need to decide weather they will settle down in Robinvale for the rest of their life, stake a claim, raise a family, and train in the next generation of almond baggers and color sorters, or to pack up camp and hit the road.  After much debate we have decided to pack up camp and hit the road.  The road to Brizzy!  Where the camping climate is less freezing and whatever else about Brisbane might be better than Robinvale.  Who knows.  Here are some commemorative photos of our lovely time at the factory:

Dan, a cool guy

Trevor, another cool guy

excellence

major award

lots of nuts

GIF#1

GIF#2

GIF#3

pushing buttons

more buttons

turning a knob

more buttons still

Bush Life

 Now that our almond packing career has planted us smack dab in the heart of bush farming country, we have had to give up the big city dreams for something a bit more rural.  Here are a few snap shots from our new country home.

The road home

 

Squeaky clean

All the comforts of home

The biggest attraction in town

Everyone is a show off

Our newest creation, Bacon Campfire Donuts

We're Not Dead

When we threw in the grape-picking towel in search of a more lucrative and less finger-breaking career, we hoped we’d find it in the night-scottrading business.  No dice!  Instead, two sleepless and harried nights later, we found ourselves in the lap of the unique and resume-building opportunity as machine operators at an almond factory.  I bought my first pair of steel-toed boots per almond factory policy three weeks ago and have been wearing them ever since.  Adam didn’t have to buy steel-toed boots because the camper cruiser came with a pair, size 10.5 US.  What a deal!  Adam is in charge of the inshell almond bagging machine and the inshell almond bagging boys.  He gets to stand around and push buttons occasionally and tell the bagging boys to do their job.  Which is a really good deal for him because he’s still a sore duck from the accident.  I get to push buttons on these very large machines called satakes that sort up to 25,000 kgs of inshell almonds per hour and send the good almonds to Adam and the bad almonds to be cracked out to kernel.   Yes, it may indeed sound glamorous, but at times it’s not.  Mainly the times when Adam becomes overwhelmed with almonds and the overflow almond belt becomes overwhelmed with almonds and you get pelted by almonds raining from a height of many many metres above.  Ouch!  But we don’t get paid the untaxed big bucks for nothing, I guess.  


In the down time, we are a well-oiled (bacon-fed) camping machine.  But more on the camping life and the food you eat while camping and the food the australian animals in your medieval  gazebo tent eat to come.  Later, goannas!

BIG DAY

Grapes of Wrappiness

You know you have picked lots of grapes when you start to fantasize about having grape-picking super powers.  Like unrotten grape honing vision and grape stem laser beam eyes and inspector gadget box holding arms.  And then you know you have picked even more grapes when the idea of having a grape-picking intern makes you laugh hysterically for no less than five minutes.  Hysterical laughing for no less than five minutes over the idea of having a grape-picking intern is actually one of the stages of grape picking exhaustion and I would tell you the other three but believe me you don’t want me to.  But when the grape-picking day is over, you have the 4 b’s to look forward to.  Bacon, back rubs, bon fires and business ideas.  Business ideas like bacon and pasta food carts.  Time stamp.  Other things you have to look forward to when the grape-picking day is over that don’t start with b are as many grapes as you would ever want to eat ever, authentic Indian meals made for you by Mewa (incidentally, he started feeding us after he caught us catching escargots for dinner one night), and log-like nights’ sleep.

Murray River sunset

bonfire

tailgate fire

so many grapes, so little time

grape-packing skills 

catch and release and catch and eat.  phase release.

green porno

Fred the grape farm dog

Accidental Oasis

South Australia, Bananas

As of this morning, we were on our way to Perth (west coast), but then our hearts told us to turn around and go to Brisbane (east coast), so we did.  What I mean by that is we talked to a girl who made 23 AUD’s an hour making coffee in Brisbane, which apparently is the going rate, so after a short discussion regarding finances (specifically the $300 in petrol money we’d save not driving to Perth and the draw of a lucrative barista career in Queensland), we promptly turned around.  The drive west wasn’t totally in vain, as we did stay at a couple lovely campsites (we are developing very refined tastes in campsites) and got some great drive-by pictures of Adelaide.  But this kind of indecision comes at a price when you are getting 5.5 k’s to the L and petrol is $1.50/L.  To crunch those numbers into a meaningful/American figure, every mile costs us about 50 cents.  Whatever.  But then we got a flat tire in the middle of the South Australia bush.  And then the spare tire got flat too and so we got stuck in the middle of the South Australia bush until further notice.  And then we found out that the only west-bound highway within many many k's is closed until even further notice.  I would say nevermind about the $300 we saved, but that wouldn’t make any sense because thank goodness we aren’t in the middle of the Western Australia bush with a flat spare tire with no useful highways within many many k's.  Brisbane here we come.