Travelling Australia as a fruit picker
From seeing a white kangaroo to walking by crocodiles, Over60 community member, Dennis (Wombat) Murray – who turns 69 this month – shares his story about travelling around Australia working in the fruit industry.
“When my wife and I got together I wanted to show her Australia so we went on our way to explore this great country of ours, our first stop was Swan Hill in Victoria on the Murray River. We went looking for work and found that there was plenty to be had fruit picking.
Our first job, 28 years ago, was picking grapes. I remember my wife was worried about doing this as when we arrived to start picking we asked people who were old hands at it how hard it was to earn some money, we where told, “Don’t worry as long as you don’t mind the heat and the spiders you can earn $100 dollars a day”. We soon found out that the spiders where nothing to worry about and the hat wasn’t so bad either.
On our first day as we where picking, a car drove down into the vineyard at about 9.30am and someone called out “Smoko”. We noticed everyone was walking over to the car, as we got there the car boot was opened and in there was a spread of hot scones and plenty of tea and coffee, this was something that was done on all the vineyards at that time. We thought how nice of the boss to do this. A few days later one of the workers thought he was having a heart attack so I drove him to hospital. There, to my amazement, a very angry matron confronted me. “You bloody fruit pickers are all the same,” she yelled. “You drink too much, don’t have any breakfast and finish up in here thinking you are dying of a heart attack and take us away from more important work.” I looked at her in shock and said, “ I have been fruit picking for only three days, I don’t drink and never have and I have a big breakfast every morning.” She apologised for yelling at me and said that every fruit season it is the same. Today, you will find, things are a lot different compared to back then.
The next funny experience was the money problems of our fellow fruit-picking workers – you see the pickers had explained to my wife that even though they worked hard and made good money it was gone by the beginning of the week and they would be broke again until payday. My wife told them that if they gave her their pay she would only give them one seventh of their pay each day that way they would have money every day. At first they thought it was a silly idea until they ran out of money again and then they gave her their pay each payday. She would only give them one seventh of it each day; they loved it especially on the day before payday when they still had enough money to buy a few beers. So when we finished our stint there and as we said goodbyes, I swear these big tough guys had tears in their eyes as we drove away know that they soon would only be able to have beer on three days a week again.
Next we went to Mundubbera in Queensland and soon found work picking oranges. We quickly learnt that oranges were a heavy fruit to pick and that even though oranges are much bigger than gapes, so are the bins you have to fill, we only stayed for a couple of months as in that time we had seen everything there was to see there, even the oldest fish in the world. We did enjoy our time there, as there was good fishing and plenty of bush and wildlife to see, including sighting our first wild dingo.
As we worked around the fruit-picking crowd we asked where were the best places to work. We soon had a good list of phone numbers to call to find work. Our next stop was Bowen in north Queensland – and little did we know on our way there that we were to fall in love with Bowen.
Located between Mackay and Townsville, Bowen is the north end of the Whitsunday Islands. The beaches are fantastic, there is plenty of seasonal work there in the winter months the weather is great as well. The fishing is good and it is a good base camp from which to spread out and explore. The caravan parks were clean and not expensive. We used to go snorkelling and there was coral close to shore at Rose and Murray bays. I loved that there were so many fish to see – I used to just enjoy floating with my head down and watching so many different fish coming to see me.
The main thing to do if you want to follow the fruit season around Australia is to talk to everyone you meet along the way doing the same thing. You will soon have a list of places to work and when it is available. Another good thing to do is to have a visitors book next to your caravan door and ask everyone who visits you to sign it and to include phone numbers and addresses, soon you will have friends all over Australia – this can also come in handy if you have a breakdown and need emergency acclamation.
We travelled like this for seven years before my wife went back to university as a mature aged student. After that I stayed working in the fruit industry where I remained for 28 years. My wife became a agricultural scientist and managed orchards – which meant that I then had a hard boss, my wife. She now has a masters in sustainable agriculture and is now doing a PhD in teaching as she now teachers others about working in the industry. I am still out there doing all the different jobs that have to be done working on an orchard, this has kept me fit – I will be 69 in October and I can still throw around 40 kilo bags of Urea.
It is a big country and you could spend many years going around and following the fruit season and every year follow a new path and see just how different this country is from one end to the other. We found roads made of marble, we found fire flies at our camp and night, we saw white kangaroos, witnessed dingoes that came very close to us in the outback, and at night out in the middle of nowhere, the stars are so amazing, no TV show can do justice to them. I have walked my canoe past crocodiles as they watched me go by. We walked on white sands so clean they squeaked, we have looked into water so clear that even at hundreds of feet deep we were able to see the bottom. We brought ice of a lady in Chillagoe and this ice didn’t melt even though it was in our Esky for two weeks. This lady was in her 80s and has never been outside of Chillagoe. She had freezers all around her veranda; we think the ice we got could have been 10 years old.
We also saw a car that was only a couple of weeks old that pulled into a service station we were at, every panel on it was smashed, talking to the driver and he told us that he got out of the car to relieve himself when he heard a big bang looked around to see a huge bore smashing into his car. He didn’t go near the car until the boar left. The car was a mess and, according to this chap, the boar was unhurt.
I could go on for ages about all the things we have seen over the years but I think you get the idea. There is a lot of whole country to explore out there. It is the friendliest and best country in the world. It is our country, it is your country – go and see it now!
I am Yorta Yorta man, my wife is first generation Australian, her mob comes from England, and we both enjoyed out journeys the same.