Mataranka & Katherine

John helped me bring my luggage to the bus stop and we said goodbye. It was only about a 4 hour bus ride to Katherine. It was even hotter and mugger there! 40 C the day I arrived. Katherine is a small town, but with quite a bit of residency. Many aboriginal people sitting in the parks with their family in circles, and always barefoot.

I got picked up at the bus station and brought to the AREA office. This company was not very well organized. No communication at all. I understand that their trying to manage 300 backpackers for work and accommodation, but they really need to talk to the people about their new job description and wage, what gear they need, any health risks involving the job, about where their staying, what kind of amenities are nearby and transportation availability and costs. Also when payday occurs and how it works. They only pay you for a certain amount of hours a week. If you worked more, they take it off your first weeks pay, then add it to the second. But, they'd also do the same to the next paycheck. Doesn't really make any sense to me, but that's how it is.

After getting the paperwork done, I roamed town to find the secondhand stores to buy 2 long sleeved shirts and running shoes. I already had a pair of pants from painting in NZ.

Then I caught my bus to Mataranka, about 1 hour down the road from Katherine. Colin, my supervisor, picked me up and took me to Territory Manor Caravan Park, where I slept in my tent the first night. It was so hot. My face was dripping sweat like a facet just sitting inside and it was night time already. Luckily, there was room the next night in a cabin with air conditioning :)
And guess who I saw at the camp? Ben and Steph from France! Same couple from my Kakadu tour. It was great to see them again! Nice to catch up. Everyone was really friendly there, and wanted to meet the new recruits. Really liked that. They were a good bunch of people. Everyone felt really close.

We started work at the Oolloo Farm at 5:45 am. A bus drops us off there and drives us back to the camp everyday. Normally, we work 6 days a week and we try to pick 40 bins a day (our goal, each bin has 300 kg of mangoes). So, sometimes we work 10 hours, it depends on how fast we are or how big the fruit is. It needs to be dry as well, if it rains we stop picking. The water is absorbed into the fruit and it will bruise to easily so that's why we can't pick it if it's wet.

So, with my skin all covered up, we start picking. You grab the mango from the bottom and snap it off the vine, making sure you snap away from you as the sap will spray once the stem is broken. Then you tip the fruit upside down so the sap drips to the ground at not down the fruit as it'll bruise it. Also, the sap is acidic, so you don't want it on your skin. If it does get on your skin, it burns the skin either turning it dark brown or making a blister. We use the mango wash on our machines to rise our hands and skin off in case of exposure. And trust me, we get burned. You can always tell whose a mango picker as their fingers will be stained dark brown until the skin peels off. Nice.

After the mango's picked we toss it into the machine were it gets washed off, runs along the conveyor belt and deposited into the bin on the end that sits on a forklift. Once filled, we drop the bin, cover it up with a label so the tractors can pick it up to bring to the packing shed. Then we put a new bin on and go again. Of course some of the mangoes are to high to reach on the tree so we have to use cutters. Tricky to catch sometimes. The cutters have a grabber on the side so we don't drop the fruit but sometimes it gets stuck on a branch and if it hits the ground, another bruise. So, we try to catch it or drop it into the machine. We try to do this extremely fast as supervisors are constantly telling you how slow you are and you'll get fired if you don't speed up, blah blah blah. Same thing everyday. I just did what I could.

It was super hot out there! The job itself was easy, it was just so hot! Wearing all those clothes in 40 C and +80% humidity and warm drinking water... ugh! What I would have given for cold water, not just to drink, but to dump over your head. We did this a few times a day. You're already wet from sweat anyway, so might as well have a few rinses during the day :) I've never sweat so much in my life, just constant dripping!

On my first day off, I jumped into some of my fellow workers van and we drove to Katherine to get our weekly grocery shopping done and any other errands. Amazing how that takes up a good portion of the day.

Once we got back to camp, I walked down the road to Bitter Springs Thermal Pools, which is a natural hot spring in Elsey National Park. Now, you may be thinking, if it's so hot, why go to a hot spring? Well, seeing how the water is 30 C and the air temp is 40 C, it actually feels cooler. And it was lovely, so crystal clear. And no crocs! Yay. I went in the evening after everyone else left, so I had it all to myself.

Then, I went back to my room, whom I shared with Rick, the bus driver (a local) and Ray from Hong Kong. Ray is still learning english, so every night I teach him new words and phrases. It was fun, and he's a great student. You hear him repeating the words over and over through the days, practising. :) I told him, if he had a chance to watch english TV children's shows, it would help. You know, the picture of a dog on the screen, barking and someone saying, "look, a dog." That way, you can recognize the picture and sound to match up the word. And seeing how we didn't have that option in the room share, he went out and bought kids books from Salvation Army! He did really well at reading them on his own. Only a few times I'd have to explain a word or phrase. Well, we had an early night to bed, usually around 8:30 pm as we have wake ups at 4:30 am. Another day, another dollar! As the saying goes.

Another working hazard was getting hit with a mango. I got belted 3 times. One fell on my head, another hit me in the eye and another whacked me in the ribs from rebounding off the machine from being tossed to hard. And mangoes are solid! It's like getting punched. I was lucky not to get a black eye, just a red mark in the corner of my eye near the bridge of my nose. Good times.
After 9 days of picking, I woke up with a wicked skin rash over my shins, arms, wrists, hands, chest, neck, ears and face. All red, swollen and extremely itchy. I remember being itchy during the night, but I thought it was just bugs. Silly me. I went to the doctor that day and she prescribed me some oral steroids and told me "no more picking." I also asked for something to help with the itch, but there's nothing. She said I could use steroid cream once a day, Calamine lotion and avoid soap as it irritates it more so to use a special tea tree type gel. Hmm, didn't that smell lovely :(
See, what they neglect to tell you, when taking the job, is that the mango tree is in the same family as poison ivy and poison oak. It has an oil based allergen called urushiol that causes the dermatitis. So, hence the reason for the awful itchy rash. Boo to that!

So, I had to leave the picking job. I went back to AREA and they were able to place me in a packing shed working for 7 Fields. So, I had sunday off to get into new accommodation in Katherine and start work monday morning.

I went back to Territory Manor and said goodbye to everyone. We were all like family, worked all day together, ate and slept together. I was really going to miss everyone.

On sunday morning, before I had to go, I went to the pond by the restaurant on camp to watch the Barramundi feeding. These fish get quite large for fresh water fish! Wow! The owner was hand feeding, and was even able to pick one up to show us the size. Something they're used to obviously, as the fish was so calm. Not worried at all about suffocating. Neat.

Yiva and Danny from Germany, gave me a lift back into Katherine. Such a nice couple. Were good people. Goodbye Mataranka. Not a lot there, but it was nice. Just an aboriginal village, 1 clinic, 1 bar, 1 mini supermarket, a car lot and 2 gas stations. Otherwise, all parks. Quiet place.Wallabies jumping around everywhere, and lots of beautiful birds. Colourful parrots. However, they don't make the prettiest of sounds. Guess that's why they have the looks ;) Ha ha.

Nice thing about Katherine, it's still a small town, but there's a grocery store, internet, cinema, bank, secondhand stores and a post office. Also 7 Fields was only a 30 min walk from town, so I could save money on transport and just walk.

I ended up staying at Palm Court Hostel. Small kitchen, but not busy before 7 pm and it was fairly clean. My room was very spacious and with it's own bathroom and mini fridge! I only had 3 beds in my room and only 1 girl, Annie from Germany. Everyone at the hostel were currant mango workers, either picking or packing, though at different farms. Annie was working at the same packing house as me, and we got along great. She even transferred all her movies and songs from her laptop onto my new netbook so I'd have something to do on long bus rides. And, I dyed her hair. Came out lovely... I think I might try that colour in my hair one day... nice reddish brown.

The packing shed was alright. Noisy, but easy. Again, you don't have to think. There are different stations, one side of the room is premium mangoes (no sunspots or scratches or marks over 2 cm) the other side, standard mangoes. If the mango is really banged up, it goes to the juicing area. We also have different rows that we are stationed at to pack the mangoes according to size. Many conveyor belts moving along. We just pack the boxes with the correct amount of fruit (depending on their size), making sure the quality is good before placing it in, then slap a label on the box and put it on top of another conveyor belt so the boys sticker them and place on wooden slats to load into trucks for the grocery stores. Yup, that's pretty much it. Only thing is, they're longer days and you get no days off. Lots of the people had been working for 28 days straight already. Lot of noise and boredom :( Poor kids. Glad I jumped in at the end of the season.

My rash was getting better with the prednisone, but 3 days after I finished, I got the rash again! Ugh, so incredibly itchy! I know why animals will gnaw their own leg off and self mutilate. Unbelievable. At least if it was pain, you could take something for it to make it go away. This was torture! So, I had to stop working with mangoes completely. Only lasted 1 week at the shed. But it takes 2-3 weeks after contact with the fruit for the rash to disappear. A long time! I just couldn't start from square one again. Had to give up the job.

Before I left town, I went for a walk along the Katherine River riverbank to Katherine Hot Springs. All along the river were thousands of Flying Foxes. Couldn't believe how active they were during the day. Fighting over roosting space, flying from tree to tree. Cool. Got lots of pictures. However, they don't smell the greatest. That sweet acrid mix of fruit and guano. Nice. Come to think of it, that's what the whole town smelt like. There were just so many of them.

The spring was closed to swimming since the wet season had the river over flooding and the salties were around. I even saw one in the river! Neat, eh?

I chatted with some of the locals at the spring and made my way back to town. Then, went to the cinema to watch (don't laugh) Twilight's Breaking Dawn pt 1. I know what you're thinking, but I love it, ok! I like my vampire teeny bop movies, lol.

Then I booked my Greyhound bus ticket to Alice springs for the next day. Doesn't leave till 5pm so I have some time to kill today. The hostel owner said I could just hang out in my room till 4pm since it's air conditioned and no one else was checking in, so that was nice. Good to get some computer work done as well ;) 14 hr bus ride to come! Yahoo! (yes, I'm being sarcastic, lol).