11 | Melon fever

This is an epic tale of a 3 day disaster!

Starring Oliver Bell & Matthew Leadbeater and many brave comrades.

So where do we start? Melons! Green ones, white ones and even Jamaican ones... who knew there was such a variety.

After the 4 hour bus ride to a town called Chinchilla in the middle of nowhere, we began our short lived melon picking career. As we arrived we were told that we were replacing an Irish couple who survived the job for just one day, ALARM bells starting to ring yet??? We arrived at the campsite by nightfall and settled into a 50 year old caravan stripped bare apart from two lonely looking beds and a door which did not close properly so we were joined by at least 20 mosquito chums every night.

Each day started at 4:45am, we were told to check our boots for funnelweb spiders each morning before dragging ourselves to breakfast. After a 30 min commute on a 1960's looking coach covered in red dust, we would eventually arrive in the field to start work at 6:00am.

The first words from the melon supervisor... "if you miss a melon, your SACKED. If you fall behind the tractor and conveyor belt, your SACKED. If you pick a melon which is not the right colour, your..." I bet you can guess by now. I am a big fan of motivational speeches.

A few hours in I got to know some of my comrades. To my surpise they had all been sacked before when the farmer blew his top for the team picking too many green looking melons in one day. A french lad who stood in the lane next to me had been fired 4 times but was still on a final warning. Everyone seemed to be working hard but that was not good enough for the farmer who pulled up in his truck looking at us through his binoculars trying to find an excuse to get rid of anyone.

After a 9 hour day involving one 20 min break in a morning and a 25 min break at lunch (if we were lucky) we would all be spent and fall asleep on the journey back. Some of the guys there had managed 8 weeks of this routine and to be quite honest it looked like it had taken a mental toll on them. They were even dreaming about melons. Once back in camp we had the luxury of showering in brown looking creek water which we shared with these bright green looking frogs who also hid in the bottom of the toilets. Dinner was at 18:00, the best thing in the day. A home cooked meal which this lovely lady used to bring in for us all to feast upon. Once we had our fill, we would make lunch for the next day and retire to the caravans for around 20:00 to recover from our back breaking labour.

So thats the routine eat, sleep, pick melons and repeat!!

What a life!

By day two I found out more about the Scottish lads in the group. I asked if they had managed to save much which was met by a few interesting stories. On average, they would spend $200 in the only pub in town each week and unfortunately one had got involved in a mass riot in the towns McDonald's when someone abused his mate which led to him getting pepper sprayed in the face. Worse was to come in his blind state which meant he grabbed the officers foot on the way down to the floor; assulting a police officer! So that landed him a healthy fine. Another one got fined $400 for urinating in the street after one of the weekend sessions so as you can imagine, the lucurative melon salaries have not lasted long. Nevertheless these guys were top blokes and a good laugh in a miserable job which kept us all going and I have full respect for how long they had lasted doing this unenviable work.

Day 3, the final chapter!! The day was a slow one filled with the usual uplifting quotes of the sack looming over us all.

By around 14:00, I began to lose focus with hardly any break and the heat of the sun bearing down on me. I looked across the row to see what looked like a scene out of the walking dead. 20 guys wirily walking up the rows searching amongst the reeds, spiders, cockrooaches and snakes for the bloody precious melons.

Thats it I thought, there is no way we are staying here after today. So to survive the afternoon I took my snippers and drove them into the side of mellons which were unpickable. These gave me a wierd satisfaction so I continued for a while. I looked up shortly after to see another Yorkshire lad joined my new found hobby and was also joining in the fun to pass the time.

By the end of the day we were all getting back on the bus when a call came out "who was on the 8th row?" oh shit I thought. The lyrics it wasn't me from Shaggy crossed my mind before I replied "me". "your in trouble mate" oh boy I thought, they may have found my sabotaged mellons. I walked to one end of the field to find I had missed 10 pickable melons out of the thousands I had picked. The Scottish lads mumbled this is bullshit before the supervisor said "I like you. You worked hard on the second row yesterday and that's the only reason why you will be given a chance tomorrow." Now as much as I would have liked to join the elite group of final warning pickers alongside my French and Scottish companions, this was the final nail in my melon career. I had not travelled to the other side of the World to be treated worse than cattle.

After 3 memorable days we left the next morning on the first bus available. For the first time in my life, I was really happy to return to a big city and not be offended by the city boy jokes which followed.

I would like to give a final big shout out to all the hardworking melon pickers out there, a lot of RESPECT for you guys!

#Farming