Männid kastanis: The cotton harvesters

As it seems to happen to us this time in Australia, we found a new job quite quickly. As soon as we decided that ’now we are going to start looking for a job seriously’, Erik found an ad, that seemed to have something to do with his skills base and since we did not have any direction or plans as to where we wanted to go next, we decided to drive 500km to a job interviw in Moree. So the next day after getting there, Erik disappeared for four hours for his interview and when he got back, he said ’I basically took the job. I am going two hours south from here tomorrow for an unknown period. And you have work tomorrow as well. The future of whether you will get a job in the same place is uncler though’. So Erik flew off the next morning (quite literally, as the new boss flew him to the other town in a small plane) to start the job as a ’go get’ at a cotton harvesting company. On the field, he is the guy who helps doing the maintenance to the huge picking machines and supplies them with fuel, water, and whatever else is needed. while the picking is going on, the people driving the pickers do not have time off during daylight hours, so he often also does the grocery shopping etc).

About my first day of work... everyone who has been in Australia, especially in rural or remote areas of Australia have encountered big machines being transported from one place to another and they always have the escort cars in the front and in the back with big signs ’oversize load ahead’ on them. So on my first day I was the one driving the escort car on the back, while one of the pickers (that covers two lanes of the road... which means the whole road in these areas) was being transported from one town to another. I guess they were satisfied enough with me (despite all the prejudice looks that I got for being a small girl with dreadlocks) because the next day, I was told to pack my things and drive to the same place that Erik was sent to (near Walgett, who wants to follow us on the map) because they were putting me in a tractor. I think I mentioned in my last post that I just recently started driving a car.... oh well...

Anyways, the pickers go over the fields and spit out huge bales of cotton, which look like... you know when you were a kid and there were no cotton pads in anybodies household. You just had rolls of cotton where you had to tear a piece out of. Well the cotton bales are like that roll of cotton wool, only they are 2,5 tonnes heavy and quite big. I bring them out of the field with a tractor (and a ’bale grabber’attached to it) and put them neatly in rows by the fields in sets of twelve bales.Before I even sat into the tractor, I had heard from four-five people about eight times in total that ’whatever you do, do not break the bales’. So on my first day I was quite worried about that. But so far (three weeks and 900 bales later) it has been a clean run. When the picking is going on then our work starts at 6.30 in the morning and goes on until at least 6-7... sometimes later.

Our longest day so far was quite a marathon. I started grabbing the bales at Walgett at 6 in the morning (the pickers had already gone to the next place days ago with Erik and everyone else. I was still there because my tractor had broken down and I had to wait wor the spare part to arrive.) I knew that I had to finish the whole field on that day and also drive the tractor to the next place on the same day. It was going to start raining the next day and the farm I was on, really was not a place that you wanted to get stuck in when it rains. Their soil is mostly clay, so when it rains, the water stays on th ground for a while. The previous year when it had rained they could not reach the highway by anything else but a boat for three months. Of the 14km that separated them from public highway, 10km were under water. So yeah. Since I did not want to wait for the rain and tractors are not allowed on public roads after dark, I was whizzing around the field the whole morning like a lunatic, not even stopping for five minutes. I finished at 1pm, cleaned the tractor a bit (it was covered in pieces of cotton plants and cotton) and hit the road. I drove all the way to the next place (again without any stopping for breaks) on side roads, full of kangaroos, sheep and cows but no people going max 40km an hour, because that was the fastest that my tractor goes... which is quite fast for a tractor. I finally reached my destination by six o’clock (I was guided to the field, where one of the pickers from our company was, through a two-way radio because it wa alredy pitch black by then). The only other vehicle that I saw on the last hour of my journey was another tractor, with a guy in a cowboy hat waving at me. By that time I had been working for 12 hours straight without a break. I even ate my sandwitch while driving. So I casually started cleaning my tractor and was planning to finish my day (the boss said that he would pick me up from the field soon). But then I was asked if I could work some more, because everyone were afraid of the rain and wanted to get as much done as possible before that (the quality of cotton deteriorates significally when it rains and so does the price). So I spent another couple of hours grabbing bales - I warned the boss that I was already seeing halucinations because of the fatigue and I was planning to work the rest of the night in slow motion, just in case. He was fine with that and said taht it was completely fair. So I finihed the field at 10pm, called the boss to ask, if he wanted me to do another field and got the orders to wait until I was picked up and driven home. Ten minutes later the boss came and said ’guess what. Someone has broken a bale and we have to pick it up today. So we drove to another farm (there were ten picking machines on the field in the middle of darkness, each one as big as a house). We picked up a bale, which is a very very sh***y job, because the only way you can pick it up is to do it piece by piece by hand and feed the small pieces of cotton back to the picking machine. And little pieces of cotton and other plant parts and dirt keeps flying around you, so if you do it without a face mask (which no one could locate in the middle of the night) then after you are finished, everything in your throat and behind your nose is covered with cotton fibres and much much more.

After we had done that, me and Erik were allowed to go home fortunately (he had been on the big field with all the pickers the whole day and pevious days), we were just asked to transport a big water tank on a trailer back back to the workshop. So we got back to Moree at midnight, after an 18-hour workday and decided to get something to eat. As it happens, the only place to do that, is McDonalds. So we decided to go there. After we had ordered, we encountered a small trouble. With our brains fried by the overworking we had forgotten about the little detail of the big trailer with a water tank behind our car. Well... we only got stuck for a little while and had to reverse out and I had to explain at all the next drivethrough windows, why I was not in my car (it is not allowed to walk through a drive-through in Australia). In the end, most of the workers and other customers (who also had to back out of the drive-through to let us out) were very interested in who we were and what we were doing and in the end cheering for us when we got our food.

After that day there have been many days working in the workshop in Moree, as we can not go on the fields when it is wet. By now we have cleaned and serviced all the machinery and have started reorganizing and bettering the shed (covered from head t tow in different oils and fuels at the end of the days) . We even went out to the field for one day, before it rained again tonight. So now we are waiting for the fields to dry out again (some more fixing stuff in the workshop) to get back in the action. The time flies much faster on the field than it does here.

We also live at the workshop (which is a big shed with lots of tools and parts and a break room, shower etc.) We live in a tent and have put up a large tarp that keeps away the rain. It is nothing fancy, but it would be stupid to pay for a hotel room or sth if we only come ’home’ to sleep on picking days. Since there is not much time to cook even, we have started to discover the world of frozen food. I must admit, some frozen food is not as bad as I would have thought, but whenever I have the chance (like the day off today) I still like making fresh food. Some other workers live here as well, but thay are a bit better off at their caravans.

We are counting the days to going to the next continent. The job right now is a good money boost for our travels and we do appreciate it a lot (in four days of working here I earned the same money as I earned being a teacher in Estonia in a whole month... and that was with all the bonuses and pay rises that I have gotten back there). But a change of scenery and culture is most welcome. Everyone who has been in South America is welcome to recommend any cool places and give other tips. We do not really plan ahead, so all suggestions are welcome .

Ps. The pictures are of a very bad quality because they are from my phone which is often covered in sand and oil etc. But I thought taht you understand what I am writing about a bit better if there is some visuakl aid. We’ll get better ones before leaving here.