January 30th

So, today was my first day working on a farm! FARMVILLE EAT YOUR HEART OUT! :D
We got up and headed off around 6:30am. Getting up was a lot easier than I'd thought it would be, surprisingly enough. First mini-shift was 6:30-9:00 which went really quickly. Basically, we're weeding. Its not amazingly fun, surprisingly enough.. but its alright, as work goes. Using a hoe to pull out big weeds, then pulling out little weeds around the base of the plants by hand. They're called 'Echinacea' plants - basically its an organic herb farm so its quite cool :)

Around 9:00ish we came back for breakfast, massive breakfast to keep going for the day haha which consisted of sausages, toast, and muesli. Its all really healthyish food here, no crisps and things because the two owners are firm believers in healthy eating and all that. Although today they did randomly buy us two bars of chocolate between us, yum yum. Anyway, headed back around 9:45. To do more weeding. Exciting.. you can see my blog entries for the next few weeks being well exciting, right?

Today we finished at 1pm, which was good - a half day. Normally we'd come back for lunch at 1pm and then go back at 3pm til 6pm and then finish. However today, being a Saturday and being mine and Jurgens first day we finished at one, and then we headed down to the damn! The damn is basically a giant ass lake, it looks really nice although I didn't go in today. I'm a bit paranoid about what may be lurking in the beneath.. dunadunaduna! The Jaws theme doesn't translate particularly well in text, but heeey! They have a little kayak, which I mght have a go on tomorrow whilst in swimming stuff - didn't want to fall in today whilst wearing normal clothing, don't think that would have been fun! Though apparently its quite hard to fall in, but meh!
Back to the cottage around 2:30 for lunch, sandwiches, nummy. I'm just enjoying normal food, believe it or not! Katie turned up at one point with loads of stuff from a nice big shopping trip, so our fridge and freezer are all nice and stocked and tonight we're having vegetarian spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread... yum.
I've not been doing a lot since then really.. taking advantage of the free laundry facilities. Having a shower (god that was nice, I was so filthy from the fields!) and then writing blogs! Its a pain because of no internet so when these get online finally they will all be backdated, but I'm trying to keep up to date anyway cos I know what I'm like - I'll forget everything thats happened! Tonight at some point I hope to phone mum, we're also watching 'Michael' which is apparently about John Travolta as an angel or something. Yay? I do not know.

My hands are currently hurting quite a bit from holding the hoe all day. Other than that I feel quite alright? It is hard work, farming, but not too hard. Besides, I came here for experiences? Maybe. I definitely did come with the intention of losing weight, and doing that much work and sweating that much in the heat should definitely help me on my way. The thing that bugged me the most today was the flies - they're incessant. I was mostly covered up, full length jeans, three quarter sleeve shirt, gloves and a hat but still the flies managed to just bug me all day long - buzzing around and landing on my arms I can handle, but for some reason they feel the need to try and go up my nose and in my mouth? Its gross. I swear one did go up my nose earlier though I may have imagined it, however it made me feel really ill for a good ten minutes. They were so bad that now I'm still imagining the noise is there, and I keep seeing little movements out of the corner of my eye of flies which don't really exist.. thank god for fly nets on cottage doors and windows!

There is three weeks work here and I'm not sure if I'll stay for that, although I do really need the money. Three weeks would be $450 and that would be good - I'm planning on going to Brisbane after here though probably not staying for too long, and then heading on to Byron Bay / Surfers Paradise. However, I do need three *months* work to extend my visa and although I have until next January to do that, I'd rather get them done sooner than later as I don't want to end up screwed over! I am going to try my best to stick it out here for three weeks, and possibly a month if the work is available - but I'm not staying any longer than that.