Our Farm Work Story (Part 2)
When I last wrote about our Tully experience, we had barely started working at the banana farm and were feeling hopeful and positive about our time in this small town. After leaving the working hostal, our lives got 1000 times better and when we started getting into the swing of things, the days started to go by a lot faster.
We never expected to come out of our farm work experience learning anything. We just wanted to do our days and get it over with, so we could get our visas as soon as possible. But gradually, Tully began to grow on us. Things we once dreaded, like the slow rhythm of life, seeing the same faces day in & day out, and the repetitive work tasks, started becoming things we actually enjoyed.
Which is why I wanted to share my biggest life lessons from our time in Tully.
Lesson number 1: sunrises never get old. NEVERRRRR
After living in Sydney for various months, my life rhythm was pretty hectic. There's just so much to do in the city, so many people to see/meet, so many brunch places to try, so many activities happening simultaneously, so many work hours, so many beaches to visit... you get the point. Even though I loved every minute of life in Sydney, I hadn't really noticed how busy I constantly was. Which is why it was so great to take a step back, and return to having zero responsibilities (other than actually working haha).
Though at first I wasn't too pumped about seeing the same people day in and day out, this was something that changed (mostly towards the end). The farm we worked at was really small, with only 25(ish) people. It had a good balance of backpackers & locals. I got to meet people with completely different backgrounds. People who have travelled the world, and people who had never left their small town. People who had been working at the farm for years, and people who were only here for their visas (like we were). People who started out as work acquaintances quickly became good friends. People who I thought I had absolutely nothing in common with, turned out to be pretty similar to me.
Nats the tractor driver 🍌🍌🍌🍌
I learned that first impressions are usually incorrect. I had unknowingly been putting people into categories when I first met them. And the more I got to know these people, I realized they couldn't be defined by just one category (for example, I initially thought all backpackers were basically the same person, which is obviously, not true). There was no longer any need for these boxes... so I began empathizing with each and every person and understanding their backgrounds and life circumstances instead of just what I saw in two or three months.
As for my job, when I first started, I didn't realize how good I had it. My first few days driving the tractor consisted of lots of rain and loooots of mosquitoes. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it. Then one day, when we finished cutting the bunches and headed back to the shed, I helped out with the sorting process, and omfg, I was introduced to the single worst job in the shed. Sorting consisted of picking which bananas were good and which bananas were rotten, ugly, bruised, etc., which might sound ok, but consider doing the same repetitive motion, for 8 hours straight, with the same shitty music playing on repeat on a loud speaker, EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Some of my coworkers had already developed wrist injuries because of the repetitive hand motions. Some (like Pabs) were straight up triggered every time a song began playing for the third time in one day. I realized how lucky I was. I got to do some other jobs in the shed, like scrubbing the conveyor belt and cleaning the shed at the end of every week, or helping Pabs out with his stacking job. Some jobs were better than others (i'd take stacking over sorting any day) but no job was as good as the tractor.
Pabs worked as a humper once or twice but usually stayed in the shed
One of the main perks of my tractor job was working outdoors with the cutting crew.
As Pabs once pointed out, we were the rangers beyond the wall (sneaky GOT reference hehe), while the people in the shed had to stay at "the wall" and do all the nitty gritty work.
We'd leave the shed every morning at 6:30 AM and see the most spectacular sunrises. We'd drive to a different paddock everyday; sometimes it'd be a 5 min drive, other times it'd be closer to 20. The crew consisted of three cutters and two humpers, and their job was to cut the banana bunches from the trees and take them to the trailers my tractors carried. I'd sit in the tractor while driving at a slow pace, keeping up with the cutting crew. Once every trailer was full, one of the cutters would take it back to the shed and the rest of the crew would stay in the paddock waiting for the next tractor/trailer to come. Sometimes we'd wait 5 minutes, sometimes half an hour. When I knew it would be a short wait, i'd do some yoga poses and practice my balance, which was my idea of 5 minutes well spent 😅. The cutters and humpers would cut some dead leaves & trunks and throw them at each other, which was probably a lot more fun in their eyes haha.
ignore my crazy face, just wanted to show you my masterpiece leaf bed 🌿
Sometimes we'd just sit and talk about life. When I knew it would be a long wait, i'd cut some leaves up and make a bed out of leaves on the ground. I'd occasionally take naps while waiting for the trailers (oops). Might be a bit frowned upon to sleep while working but heeeeyy waking up at 4AM everyday made me real sleepy 🙈 (ain't no shame in my game). When i'd tell my friends back in the shed that i'd taken a nap, they would all groan with jealousy haha
But the best part of my job wasn't the naps (though that might have been a close second), it was being surrounded by so much nature. I got to see SO many animals:
Not pictured: bats, rats, the most beautiful butterflies i ever saw and way too many mosquitoes. also, bird eating spiders (i know, WHAT!?) and Kookaburras, Australia’s carnivorous, badass birds.
Another massive perk of driving the tractor, was listening to podcasts. I spent 7 hours a day driving, and during my first few weeks I didn't listen to anything but my thoughts. I realized it was getting too crazy up in my brain, and I needed to find a way to get distracted while also learning something if possible. I knew podcasts were great but I never thought i'd get as obsessed as I did. I started listening to a wide variety of podcasts on a daily basis. We’d have 2 breaks a day, and I’d always come back to the shed super excited about sharing my new found knowledge and thoughts with Pabs, and he’d report that he’d just listened to Ed Sheeran’s current top hit for the 8th time this week. That’s when I realized my privilege. Not only was I outdoors doing an a simple job while the rest of my coworkers were suffering through the top hits of the moment… I was also nurturing my brain with new thoughts, conversations, facts, and theories. And eventually, Pabs & I would get out of Tully and back to nurturing our brains in our jobs, studies, or conversations, but the people working at farms, factories, or other mind-numbing jobs don’t really get a chance to “train the brain”. I suddenly saw the long-time farm workers in a different way.
dripping wet, sucks to be youuuu
One of the things I loved most about this job, was the fact that Pabs and I worked at the same place. In Sydney we had different work schedules, and most times I would work weekends or evenings, while he had a 9-5 job. But in Tully, we would wake up at the same time, walk to our pick up point together, ride to work in the same truck, have breakfast, breaks and lunch together, then ride back home, together. We had the same boss, the same coworkers, the same paycheck. And though we didn’t really see each other while we were working, there were a few odd days where they’d assign us to the same paddock and we’d work side by side. Like this one time he had to insert diesel into the banana trees to prevent pests (beetles, specifically). It was a smelly job (which made me realize that most of the bananas i’ve eaten in my lifetime were probably full of pesticide.. gross but necessary, i guess), and it was pouring rain while we worked (I was under the tractor roof so all good hehe) but at least we were togetherrrrr (lol I sound so clingy).
On one of these morning walks to our pickup point, we thought to ourselves.. “Are we in purgatory?”
Weird thought, yes, but let me explain. Our days felt like a loop. Every day was basically the same as the last (#sameshitdifferentday). Some days we wanted to quit and give up on our visas. It was physically straining, mind numbing work, and it was easy to think of all the negatives and become overwhelmed by them. But other days, the sheer beauty of nature and the STRANGENESS of the whole situation felt incredible. We were living in a small town, working at a Banana farm. We lived with people from Philippines, China and the US. We were saving money. We lived in a house, and we had a WHOLE ROOM for ourselves (WITH A CLOSET!). This was a huge improvement from our life in the hostel we lived at before.
For every negative thought or experience we had, there was always a positive counterpart. Yeah, we got really dirty at the job - but getting out of the shower after work felt GLORIOUS. Yeah, Pabs had a physically straining job, but he lost over 10kgs without stepping foot on a gym! Yeah, we had to share a house with people who were extremely different from us, but when we finally lived alone months later, we felt a newfound appreciation for our privacy. I guess it all boils down to perspective. We could have been depressed during our time there, but we found a way to make the best out of our time there.
As I mentioned at the beginning, Tully grew on us. We learned to love the small town life, and became really grateful for the small things. The whole experience taught us a lot about gratitude in general. We never planned to live in a small town in Australia, let alone work at a banana farm. But it happened, and it was hands down one of the best experiences of our life. Even though I ended up not finishing my farm work and therefore not getting my visa, we’ll always look back on this time fondly, and look forward to boring our kids with our farm work stories FOREVAAA.
Here are some more photos from our time in Tully. If you made it this far, thanks for reading!
