What a busy harvest!!

2 months have gone by so fast, and with that I realise I havn't exactly been keeping up my end of the bargain with the regular-ish updates.  So, as my last (short) post states, I have been a very busy chap.  In the past 8 weeks I have worked 730 hours, with the past week or two being relatively slow weeks due to bad weather.  So what have I been doing?  I suppose I better tell you :D

To start with it was mostly maintenance days, 

repairing and preparing the header (combine harvester) and chaser bin for the months to come, and with machinery this big, it takes a long time to get them ready.  An example, an oil change on you car, will probably take about 5 litres of oil and one small oil filter.  On the header, it has 4 oil filters, a precleaner and requires 49 litres of oil.  And that was just for the engine, there is also the hydraulics, pneumatics and about 20 different belts and chains to replace and so much more.  But anyway, once the work started, it was all systems go.  I started off by driving the chaser bin which is a large tractor towing an even larger trailer, which my trailer carried over 25 tons of wheat.  The task of the chaser bin is to drive alongside the header(s), allowing them to unload their wheat whilst they still harvest, then race to the silos and unload before the headers fill up.  You have to be a bit mad to do this job, not la la loopy mad, but its either full throttle or go home.  Even when fully loaded, you have to drive as fast as you can to unload in time, driving over rough terrain and bog holes with 25tons behind you going over 40mph in something taller than 2 land rovers parked on top of each other, tis fun :D

After a month or so, we started going to harvest jobs where they already had there own chaserbin, so we didnt need to take ours.  And with the main header operator getting tired of the job, he just drove the chaser bin back to the home sheds and I took over the header.  This was great, as initially it was just me and him going to the jobs, living in hotels, but now this was my show.  I had the invoice book, header, ute, work credit card and a list of jobs to go to.  For a month, I was my boss.  Organise trucks for transport, look after and maintain the machine, work my own hours, it was great.  Even the boss was really pleased with how it was going.  Every now and then he would call to ask how it was going, and every time he was happy.  But now it has come to the end, cant find any more jobs, as with how poor the weather is, a lot of farmers have lost their crops due to severe rain and hail, so now we are packing up.  Tim (my boss), has been so impressed with how well I have be doing, he desperately wants me to come back next year, and do the header from day one.  Even talks of him sponsoring me for a permanent visa.  Its tough for an average joe like me to get a permanent visa, its a different story if your a doctor or really rich.  Only way I can get a permanent is to either marry an aussie girl or part own a business.  So Tim has offered to sign over the lease for the header in to my name, go 50/50 with me on the payments and splits on the profits.  Which is a great deal for me, and also for him, but its a huge step, so I will take the year to think about it and decide next harvest what I would like to do.

So unless we find another job today or tomorrow, I have 2 days of driving the header back to the homestead, then I am finished.  Plans, hmm, not sure.  Ideally find a job for 2 weeks, but that will probably be impossible.  So will stay with Tim for a few days, then head to Melbourne and try to live a cheap life in a hostel for a few weeks.  As I'm flying out of Melbourne, I will just book one hostel for the entire time I will be there and get comfy.  Will most likely be X-Base St Kilda, which I have stayed a few times and had so much fun there.  I tried to get a hostel in Sydney for new years, all the hostels require a minimum of a 10 day booking, and with the cheapest place I could find at $55 per night, I wasn't going to pay $550 for new years!

Money wise I have done well, I figured out I would need $10,000 to pay for all my training, accommodation, travel and living costs.  Once I get my last wage from Tim which should be in a few days, I will have saved over $14,500, which for me is a hugely amazing achievement.  For those of you who know me, I don't save money well, never have.  And to have managed to save this amount is a big personal goal, and will mean that I can enjoy my time in Thailand diving and doing all these courses, and not worry about whether I am within my budget.  Obviously I will still be very careful, as I have worked so hard for this money, dont want to just waste it away.

Looking forward to getting away from these small towns, and get back in to the city and enjoy my backpacker life.  Although I will be trying to save money I'm excited to start hanging around other backpackers, enjoying the odd bag of goon, eating pasta, and spending my days lazing around St Kilda.  Hopefully will be visiting some family too, so it will be good to see them too.

Will update you again soon, a lot sooner than last time :p

Ryan xx

You cant even comprehend how amazing a lightning storm is until you have been over here, it is just out of this world!