17,000km

A few days of apple picking was enough. The work was frustrating because the fruit was very small and as a result the money not too good. Not horrific like some shockers I’ve been told about but still not good. We had to strip all fruit from the trees but when most of the fruit you’re picking is not going into the bin and instead being dropped onto the ground it feels like you’re throwing money away. In addition to that nightly rain meant that we couldn’t start picking until the fruit dried to prevent bruising it. The total wage worked out at about $6 per hour. Back in town, KFC were offering $19 per hour.

I needed the money and could have stuck it out but I listened to the inner voice telling me to get the hell out of there! The only problem being that I was now in no position to head back to Melbourne and follow the coastal route to Sydney. The new plan that formulated was to get to Sydney, collect my things from my friend Ben in Brisbane and get back to Melbourne where I would find a job and earn vast amounts of sweet coin. Brilliant! So I put it in motion.

So out of Shepparton I went east through some pretty but not spectacular country. It’s still flat all around here, just a few little lumps to contend with along the way. After a day of solid riding I arrived at Wodonga quite late because of headwinds and pretty tired. I could have bush camped out of town but after doing some shopping it was completely dark and I wasn’t all that keen on trying to find a good spot in the dark. So I found a campsite on the edge of town. The lady running the place was crazier than Tom Cruise! She enjoyed a full on conversation with herself in between telling me the intricacies of the complications with her ‘dislocated back’! It was funny for a few minutes but the longer she went on the more scared I became, she was shouting at someone – that I couldn’t see or hear – to stop bothering her. The woman was completely deranged, but not so far gone that she didn’t take my money! Eventually she went away to answer a phone that wasn’t ringing – I couldn’t hear it but I was thankful that it rang nevertheless.

Passed the 17,000km mark since the journey began. Should end up close to 18,000km by the time I get to Sydney.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 11:22 pm by Ross and is filed under Australia, Victoria. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.