Innisfail!! The dream dies and bananas rule!
Date: 1st June
So, 1st removal job was fine. 3 of us set off down the coast to pack the van and deliver furniture. It's mighty hard work packing a van of heavy boxes in 30C heat and direct sunshine. As Richey will tell you, a beer from the customers is an absolute godsend!
BUt that was day 1, when things were fun. The next day I got to go on a few jobs with the boss, Mad Frank. I originally thought he was ok, giving me 14$ an hour, tax free. Then, the stories started.
The first one...
Date: later...
...started pretty innocously. He began bleating on about spiritual healing. It then turned out HE was the local healer. Laying on hands all over the place, removing cancers, long term illnesses, even flu!! It all sounded a little far-fetched to me. "$100 at the beginning of the night and you're set up for a good one!"
Anyway, after several hours of 'stories', we finished the removal job (bloody huge pool table between 2 of us) and I got paid and went home. Never to return. The money was good, but the company just wouldn't do!
Date: later still... in June
So, after sitting in the house for a couple of days with richey for company, (the other Oirish all had farm jobs), Dave (the guy whio erm, runs the hostel and finds the jobs, drops in with a new job for me. Marvellous. I'm working the next day, be ready for 6am. Great. To those that don;t know me in the morning, 6am is not a good time for me. But I made the sandwiches, went to bed at 9.30pm and jumped on the bus to Cecil's farm.
Most farms at theis time of year are harvesting the bananas, and I thought that'd be my job too. But no. Cecil had other plans first. I had to lay the old irrigtaion pipes in the field where the squash was gonna be planted next month. Great.
So, first things first, I learn how to drive a quad bike!! Exellent!! Turns out in order for me to get around the farm I need some wheels, So I get the bike. And I totally make use of it, DUDE! flying around the fields pulling hoses all o'er the place. Ripping up the carefully layed plastic sheeting, tearing up the ploughed field, losing my sunnies, a spanner and probably other stuff i haven't noticed yet! What fun! Strange it took me all day to do a half-day job though eh?!
The next day was different.
6am start again.
I should mention this is actually when Innisfail is at it's best. The town is busy with people heading to work, the sun is just peeping over the horizon and the fields are filled with hazy fog. It really is beautiful. The farms are all surrounded by rainforest and mountains, and if you're lucky you get to meet the local wildlife (kangaroos, kookaburras, etc) before you start work.
Of course, all this romantic, lovely fog is descended on the paddocks of banana trees lying waiting for you. The whole place is drenched with water.
The day begins at 6.30am when you jump, on the back of the trailer and head out to the paddock. All the bunches are covered in coloured plastic bags which denote when (roughly) you can chop them down. SO you head to the first aisle, jump off the trailer and follow your "Cutter" around like a puppy dog. The cutter is the guy with the machete (be nice to him!) who chooses the bunches and then cuts the tree. A banana tree only yields one bunch and is then discarded, so the cutter hacks a cross into the soft flesh of the trunk and pulls the bunch donw to shoulder height. The "humper" (me) rests the bunch on his shoulder and begins walking to the trailer at which point the cutter swings down just behind your head and slices throught the stalk. Easy. I'd just like to mention a few things first though.
1) Bunches of Bananas are HEAVY!! The average is about 70kilos (my total body weight) and the record is 130kilos. Eek. Imagine carrying these things for 9 hours a day, around 60 bunches per trailer, 10 trailers a day between only 2 of you. It's hard work.
2) If the cutter doesn't cut properly, the tree falls on top of you. So thats 70kilos of bananas AND a whole tree resting on your shoulders. Ouch.
3) The ground is 2ft high in wet grass and slippy huge banana leaves. Whilst carrying 70kilos this can cause much hilarity with your fellow workers!
4) The wet ground all day gives you World war 1 Trench foot. Nasty.
5) Rats, imported from Europe on the first boats, like to nest inside the bag of bananas. Once the bag is on your shoulder you occasionally hear a squeak and then 2 or 3 rats may run down your arms, shoulders, back, jump on the floor and scarper! This is NOT a pleasant experience.
6) Rats wee. All over the bags. You can catch a pretty nast disease called Leptosporosis from it and it wipes you out. Do not get the water from the bag in your mouth or any cuts on your body, most of it contains rat wee wee too. Yikes!
7) SNAKES love rats. Snakes are often found curled up inside the bags sleeping, hunting and generally not getting very happy when the unsuspecting humper grabs hold of them instead of the banana stalk. Watch out for Taipans, Death adders and other nasty bitey things!
8) Banana sap. Innocous sounding, but this stuff leaks all over you, and it can burn. If it doens't burn, it goes sticky, like glue and sticks bits of you together, like your eyelids. NOt very nice when you're desperately watching out for the rats, snakes and spiders! When it doens't burn or stick, it ruins anything you're wearing. Daz never had a go at stains like these!
9) Wages. NOt enough. At $12.50 an hour BEFORE tax ($2.60 to the quid) this is hard, dangerous and badly paid work. Why Am I here??!!!
So, after a days hard grafting, avoiding the nasty stuff and managing to keep cool, I head home. Normal night in. No beer, crap food, no tv, just asleep at 9pm.
So, after you just get used to this work, they pull a fast one and take away your cutter. This means you have to chop the tree, hold the banana bunch and then swing wildly behind your head to cut the stalk. After this (with the bananas on your back) you turn, chop the tree down, hack it to pieces and then head to the trailer, which may be parked up to 50yards away. This is harder work.
Then you get an easy day. Cutting leaf spot from the trees. We ahd an inspection due so ALL leaf spot had to be removed. IMagine a scythe, now imagie it stcuk to a 5m long pole. Now imagine swinging the damned thing around in the air trying to chop huge rotting banana leaves off the trees... for 9 hours solid. I slept that night looking upwards. My neck was so sore I couldn;t look down to tie my shoes and had to do it by feel alone. An easy day. Pah!
So you can imagine, when the work ran out it didn;t really bother me that much. I bought fishing rod and went to the pier (avoiding barras and crocs) and fished for dinner. Never caught anything, but it's better than humping!!
The next job came a week later, and just in time as my money ran out. Pawpaws.
Date: The last few 'free' weeks in June
Pawpaw picking IS easier, but it's still pretty horrid. Firstly the fruit are huge and are about 6m or 7m in the air attached to the tree of course). So you need this big hydraulic platfrom to raise you up to pick them. Sounds ok, but some of them are still too high, so you have to clamber on top of the ahem, 'safety railings' and haul the tree towards you, then pull the fruit off. Of course this would be fine, except the trees can't take your weight (they're far too skinny) and if you slip you will fall and rather nastily hurt yourself.
The other problem, is that the rotten fruit must come off the tree, and they are quite literally full of rotting flesh, flies, maggots and grubs. The way to remove them... smash them with your hand. NICE!! The other problem, the sap from these things REALLY burns the skin. Why can;t tropical fruits be EASY, like apples or something.
Anyway, the fruit picking wouldn't have been too bad, except the family that owned the farm. MY GOD!! They were THE most miserable bunch of "insert unpleasnt swear word" I have ever met. So 2 days was enough and I quit. Then it was back to Cairns to wait for Anna.
Aideen and Dutch...
Eric and Jury...
The list is actually quite short!
Worldfamous Home Page... see earlier travels with the boys, or catch up with Gonzo and Astro.
Text by: Jackal
Text by: Jackal
Then the 'real' stories started. A few years ago Innisfail was a hub of sugar cane activity. A real farming boom town, especially iun the summer during harvest time, when the guys would turn up for harvesting work and the girls would set up brothels to take all the guys money away at the end of the week. Innisfail was a proper hick town with prostitutes, ladies of the night, scarlet women, bordellos, cat houses and the like. I reckon you get the picture. They're all gone now, but Ol' Frank remembers them well! Now, when the 'urge' arrives he has to go all the way to Cairns and pick throught he local personal ads (bit more explicit than the ones back home!) and find himself a lady.
Text by: Jackal
I will say it gets HOT out there too. I managed to get through 8LITRES of water in 9 hours of work, and no weeing either! Goddam' I sweated out there.
So you start your first day BANANA HUMPING!!!
Text by: Jackal
The rest of June was spent in a mostly hazy kinda world. I stayed at the U2 hostel, with miserable Simon the owner at reception, Brett working weekends and the comings and goings of the guests. It's a good atmosphere though so Loads of people stick around meaning many nights on the beer and many laughs. In fact too many to tell.
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