Malanda part 2!

Had a lovely time at the Travellers Rest yet again! Me and Sarah went on a couple of nice days out as Mike and Tracy let us use their car.
We went to a place called Coffee Works in Mareeba which was ok, even though I don't like coffee! Luckily as well as the unlimited coffee tasting (which I forced myself to try... still don't like it!) there was unlimited chocolate tasting too which I definitely took advantage of! 
We also went to a place called Kuranda. I'd wanted to go for a while so was pleased to finally get to see the place! It was a really cool village, very hippy! There were a couple of markets and nice little shops to look in. Me and Sarah both decided to get braids in our hair! Haven't had one since I was about 7 years old!! We then went on a walk to a Barron Falls which was pretty impressive!

Another day we decided to go on a walk around Lake Eacham which was good - we needed the exercise after all the yummy food we were being given! It was a pretty walk round the lake and through the rainforest. Towards the end of the walk was a lookout point where you cold see turtles swimming in the lake!

Next we went to Millaa Millaa falls where the Herbal Essences advert and Peter Andre's Mysterious Girl video were filmed! I'd been here before when I was in Australia with my sister 2 years ago but wanted to go back anyway! Although the water was pretty cold I still decided to go for a swim :)

On the days we didn't venture out we spent most of the time just chilling out or helping out making beds or packing beef jerky! So we had a really good time yet again at the Travellers Rest! I'm sure I'll be back there again in the future. 

Bye Bye Farm!

I have finally completed my 88 days farm work in order to get my 2nd year visa! Hooray!

Had a pretty non eventful last few weeks at the farm. Got back from Malanda and Jo and Paul left, then 2 weeks later Steph left. It was sad to see them go cos we'd all been together on the farm since me & Steph arrived! So for the last two weeks there was just 4 of us!

We had a couple of good nights though, we went to the 'DJ FM Party' at the Mareeba RSL which was fun, then had a house party for my birthday - not quite how I imagined I would spend my birthday in Oz, but it was still fun.

Sarah & Me at the RSL

Sean, Andy & Me at the RSL

My birthday party!

So on 15th September I packed my bags and left the farm! Bye bye farmer Helen, Hello backpacker!

Photos from the farm!

Nothing exciting to write about the farm so here are a few photos!

Our house.

 Mango trees.

Squash rows. 

Where the bees live.

The harvester.

The girls - all dressed up and nowhere to go!

The boys.

All of us - Andy, Me, Jo, Paul, Sean, Sarah & Steph!

Night out in Cairns!

Night out in Cairns!

Life on the farm...

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks!
Ended up really struggling to find a job in Brisbane, the only job I was offered was door to door sales which I really didn't want to do! So me and Steph (a girl I met in the hostel) flew up to Cairns and we are now working on a farm! I've decided I want to get my 2nd year visa and to do that you have to do 88 days farm work.

The farm is near a town called Mareeba which is about an hour and a half drive from Cairns. So we're pretty much in the middle of nowhere! It gets a bit boring being stuck at the farm all the time, as it's a $60 round trip in a taxi just to go into Mareeba! So we try to all go in together for a food shop and a few drinks in the pub about once a week. We're sharing a house with 6 other people who are all really nice. The house itself though is not so nice! You have to go outside to get to the shower and toilet, and they're full of cockroaches, bugs and spiders, yuck! And the sofas in the living room are old and horrible, so not comfy at all! Makes the hostels I've been staying in seem like luxury!

Our house.

Luxurious bathroom facilities...

Mine and Steph's bed bug infested room!

The work is really easy though. Picking and packing zucchinis (courgettes), limes and squash. Picking can hurt your back though, especially squash as you have to carry the buckets as well as being constantly bent over getting them off the plant! Zucchini picking is a bit easier as we have a harvester machine thingy that holds our buckets, and it has a radio so we can listen to music while we work :) Lime picking is the definitely my least favourite, even though it doesn't hurt your back. But all the branches of the trees are covered in thorns and the trees are surrounded by sometimes waist height weeds, also full of thorns! So you get really scratched even in trousers and long sleeves! Packing is pretty easy, but can get really boring and repetitive!
We start work at 7am most days. I've been working LOADS though, just finished my 3rd week and this is only the 2nd day off I've had since I got here! I'm thinking of the money though, and it's more days towards my 2nd year visa! I've done 19 days now so 69 more to go... lets hope I manage to stay here that long!

One thing you wouldn't expect to find on a farm though is a hot tub! Lester (the farmer's wife's dad) lives next door to us and has a hot tub which he let us use one evening! Did our aching backs a lot of good!! It was so weird though, being on a farm, in a hot tub, drinking wine! And Lester also made us a BBQ! So that was a good evening :)

Had a massive drama this week though. Me and Steph started getting horrible itchy bites, which we thought were fleas or something - turns out our room was infested with bed bugs! It was horrible, I had bites all over my arms, neck, shoulders and even on my face. It made me feel sick to think they'd been crawling on my face and biting me while I was asleep! 
So as soon as we discovered the bugs we went to tell the farmer, who didn't know anything about bed bugs and tried to offer us a can of insect repellent! In the end the farmers wife googled it and told us they'd phone pest control the following day, and in the mean time we had to sleep on the horrible sofas, which turned out where also full of bed bugs, so we still got bitten! After 2 more nights of very little sleep on the sofas, we all had to leave the house for 48 hours for the place to be fumigated! So we packed up all our clothes and bedding to be washed and moved to our new home for the next few nights - a shed! The farmer and his wife supplied us with mattresses and airbeds, and me and Steph ended up on the only one with a hole in it, so ended up sleeping on the wooden floor! So 2 more nights of very little sleep! 
Now finally we're back in the house and the bed bugs are gone, fingers crossed! I haven't been bitten again anyway :)

Anyway, haven't really got much else to report! Not sure when I'll next write on here, might not be for a while as farm work is not the most exciting thing to read about, might add a few more photos at some point! Bye for now :)