Sydney to Young – Part 1

A backpackers perspective on getting a Fruit Picking Job for the first time . Written by Cecile – Check out her profile here

So its November,2010 we are in Sydney NSW and looking for fruit picking job, so we head to the

inte

rnet and see what we can find. After looking online we find a farmer who need pickers, after a quick call, we have the job, he is expecting us to arrive the next day in Young. The best resources were www.fruit-picking.com and www.australia-australie.com (French only site)

Young is the cherry capital of Australia, their farms supply most Coles and Woolworths across the country with sweet juicy fruit. Every year,

during the peak of the cherry season, the town hosts the National Cherry Festival.

We secured a job but being in Sydney a decision needed to be made whats the best way to get inland- Bus, train, lift or hitchhike ?

Needing to be there as soon as possible there’s no time to hitchhike or find a lift so we choose the cheapest and safest option; the train from Sydney to Cootamundra and then the country link bus to Young.

A few hours later, the bus drops us in front of the tourist information centre where Barry, the farmer was waiting for us. It was great to see him as we still weren’t 100% sure he’d arrive as we’d been given the job so casually over the

phone.Now that that burden was off our shoulders it was time for the cherry picking adventure too begin.

As we left Sydney in a rush, we completely forgot about purchasing working clothes and sunscreen. Barry reminds of the essentials, so, the first place we visit in Young is the Big W and get stocked up! Whilst Barry is waiting for us in the car park, Lisa and I rummage through the store to ensure we are ready and equipped for work. We met Lisa a few days earlier in Sydney and she has come along for the fruit picking adventure.

Barry then takes us to our ‘very exclusive’ camp site, let me explain what “ very exclusive” was in our case. All pickers are welcome to stay and pitch their tents on a parcel of land, next to the shed and a caravan uninhabited by people, yes I said people because it was full of spiders, cockroachs & mice…

But that didn’t deter us, after one bad night sleeping in our small tent, we decided to make the most of this caravan and we started a

massive clean up!

We gathered sprays against all kinds of insects, shook out the foam mattress, stuck tape into holes and emptied the fridge. We found 6 eggs when opening the fridge which had been there for a year and looks some mice were having a great party in there!

By the end of our 2nd day we had our “brand new” caravan, our home sweet home for the cherry season. Great timing as well as it started raining that night.

Please continue reading here for Part 2