Joel & Nicola's Travelling Adventure: Surviving the Sh*t Pit

We hate to disappoint any of you out there who may have thought that Nicola and I were budding dairy farmers, but, the call of the country fell on deaf ears. Nicola and I had been talking about our future on the farm almost from the first moment we arrived, but after two days we didn’t feel that there was much chance of us sticking the whole three months. Talk soon moved to whether we wanted to remain until Christmas, at which point we would have been leaving to go to Sydney anyway and which would have meant 7 weeks on the farm and 7 weeks off our target of 88 days. Ultimately, we were not happy. We had been in Australia for around 2 ½ weeks and we were considering spending the next 7 – 12 weeks on a farm, working long days and seeing next to nothing of Australia. We soon realised we had jumped into farming too early, and despite starting to settle into the routine of life on a farm we knew we had to leave, and we decided to be straight with Hank and Peggy and let them know we wouldn’t be staying long. We broached the subject at lunch on the third day, and in fairness to them, they took it well. Their farm was struggling and they needed workers, but they knew we hadn’t settled and they knew that we were getting restless to see Australia. We told them we’d work until the end of the week, thus giving them time to find replacements (which they did before the day was out!).

Possum chilling in
someones bag...

That said, we still had 4 days left to work. With the cloud of farming lifted from us, the days passed by relatively quickly. There was no ill will between us and Hank and Peggy (they told us they had appreciated us being frank and letting them know early on, plus giving them a few days to find replacements) and Nicola and I spent our afternoons after the morning milking and before the evening milking walking around the farm; 200 acres of beautiful Queensland countryside. We were often accompanied by Socks and Blue, the two farm dogs, as well as Nicola finding time to fawn over Possum, the uber-fluffy farm cat (I don’t know if you are actually supposed to put farm in front of farm pets, but it makes them sound more exotic). The milking carried on being pretty much the same as the first few days…sh*tty, and the meals remained beefy (in fairness, the beef was just wandering around outside) but a gloom had been lifted, and we were relieved to be on our way.

There was one more incident of note. On the day before we were due to leave, Hank and Peggy asked if we fancied putting in a full day’s work. We thought, well, we’d walked most of the farm land (except for the long grass, which after watching too many Jurassic Park films and the snake chat from the other day I was still apprehensive around) so we thought why not…cue, Nicola and I acting as bona fide cattle herders. Our job was to round up all the cows and moo-ve them into a pen before trying to corral (cowboy chat for you) some of the heifers (farm terminology) into another pen so they could be transported into another paddock (clang, more farm terminology for you). Sounds easy, well it kind of was when you have a large stick and shout a lot (don’t be afraid to hit cows with the stick, it makes them listen). Nicola and I spent the early afternoon herding the cows before it was time to get them onto the back of the ute (the staple Australian flat back truck) and moo-ved to the other paddock. For some reason Nicola and I were asked to drive over to the other farm and back (in total 4 trips) in a separate car (ute’s only have two seats) so I got my first taste of driving out in Australia (funnily enough similar to driving in the UK) while we opened and closed gates behind Hank and Peggy as they moved around in the ute (they actually opened and closed the gates on the first two trips). The incident of note I had been building up to (you wanted backdrop to this story right?) was when we were asked to help corral an uncooperative young bull.

Well, we didn’t actually realise he was uncooperative when we started trying to herd him into the paddock (the lucky guy was being transported into a paddock with 34 lady friends). Provided with the helpful advice “stand there and stop him going down there” (literally, that was it) we stood there and attempted to stop the bull going down there. The bull (named Parvey if any of you were interested) strolled past us and towards the paddock. Job done we thought…not quite. After Parvey was walking towards the paddock we heard Peggy shout from behind us “Nikki, try and get him to walk into the paddock and Joel go open the gate and lure him in”. Armed with more helpful advice on how to manage young, testosterone fuelled bulls, we did manage to get him into the paddock, although I think the real lure were the number of heifers in the paddock (classic man eh?). That was when the tricky stuff started. With Nicola and I alone with Parvey in the paddock (Hank and Peggy took up positions outside the paddock, we tried to steer him towards the rampart that lead onto the back of the ute but he was not having any of it. I must add here, in fairness, Nicola was doing most of the steering, leading from the front as I was sensing tension in the air and my cow bashing stick looked a little small to be handling a bull and my courage was deserting me, I was trying to get Nicola to step further away from Parvey as he and the heifers in the paddock were getting quite agitated and I was worried about our safety in a 20 foot by 60 foot narrow paddock with a 20 stone bull that we were literally backing into a corner. What didn’t help was Blue (the farm dog) coming into the paddock and having a go at Parvey, resulting in Parvey lunging at and butting Blue, sending him scurrying out of the way. At this point, Parvey was very agitated and Nicola and I were caught up in this paddock, I ushered Nicola out and locked the paddock gate behind us after Parvey once more butted Blue out of the way as he had started to head back into the paddock. Hank and Peggy finally took over and forced Parvey into the cage on the back of the ute…although any attempts to squeeze another heifer or two into the cage with him did not bear fruit.

Joel and Socks

So, on Friday 2 November 2012, we hung up our wellington boots, sh*tty clothes and cow bashing sticks and entered an early retirement from the dairy industry. 6 days down, 82 to go…slowly, slowly, catchy monkey we’ll get there in the end!