The life on the boat - Murray River Queen -

Just for three and a half weeks, the life on the boat as the orange picker was done. Orange picking was extremely tough and it is not an over expression. In addition to that, the money I can get from this job was really poor. 

Income is decided according to how many bins you get. You may have to pick approximately 800 oranges to fill up a bin, though it depends on the size of oranges. You can get $22 per bin and you can normally fill up 2 or 3 bins each day.

If the job can be done easily, I might have kept working more. Unfortunately, however, it was really tough. 

First of all, I couldn't work for a long time due to the serious heat wave. The strong sunshine burnt my skins and it was hot enough that I had to take a break under shade many times. 

Second of all, I got wound on my arms and legs because I had to put my arms inside the branches or to climb the trees to pick oranges there.

Finally, how many bins I could fill up depended on farms. I sometimes could pick lots of big oranges in a tree, but I sometimes had to clean up trees with very small ones. When I did cleaning up work, I could fill up just a bin per day even though I worked for more than 5 hours!

From the reason I mentioned above, I decided to change the situation which let me go to Melbourne. To be honest, I didn't expect to go to Melbourne or Sydney because they are too big cities to live and it would be so expensive. However, according to the living in Adelaide and Waikerie, I realized I can't find a job there. I was really pathetic when I was in there because I was the only one who can't speak English fluently. 

Especially on the boat in Waikerie, the workers are full of the people from the UK who are, needless to say, native English speakers. I met Canadian, Irish, Dutch, Belgium and French. Some people's English was not perfect, but apparently I was the only one whose English was really poor. There were no Asian.

This was actually the situation I craved for. I wanted to be surrounded by lots of native English speakers, and at the same time, they are foreigners. This place must have been the ideal place to stay to improve my poor English. But unfortunately, I was kind of overwhelmed. I really felt silly and pathetic. I couldn't make an enough conversation with anyone. It was too hard to keep making an effort. 

Since I don't want to run away, I will never give up. I will go to Melbourne to get over this problem. I believe I can be a part of the people who I met on the boat when I finish the working holiday in Australia.

By the way, it was 45 degree on this Friday... It was extraordinarily hot. I hope the heat wave will disappear soon.