By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
About forging fortune Yep, that’s part of a backpacker’s life in Australia: Accepting any ridiculously underpaid job just to collect your 88 days in rural work, enabling you to extend your visa for a second year. And honestly, 88 days of suffering is a small price for being able to stay in this huge adventure playground of a country for just a bit longer, isn’t it? Well, 90 % of wretched backpackers drudging on these mafia-style fruit picking farms would utterly agree with that. Complaining, crying, whinging every day. But I’ve had enough of it. If you don’t take action, nothing will ever change. So I packed up my stuff and headed westwards – into the outback! Online I had found a cattle station that hired me as a farmhand. How could it possibly be worse than this hell of a fruit picking slavery? How easily I was proven wrong: This was not a farm, this was a dump! I was prepared for dirt, dust, and even – yes, believe it – spiders! But it was a pure miracle that this ramshackle hut was still standing. Big parts of the walls had tumbled down, the floor was not distinguishable from the soil outside anymore, and one could only suspect where once the kitchen must have been – now covered under an impenetrable layer of grease. Still, this was not the worst part: I was completely all alone in this godforsaken place with a schizophrenic farmer, who would start his day, first thing in the morning, with a rum coke. There was no use in panicking. So I decided to make the most of the situation and give my best to survive. And admittedly, despite of the housing arrangement and the unfavourable company I enjoyed this cowboy life with every inch of my soul. Pushing wild cattle from one paddock to the other; crawling through the red dirt inhaling the sunburnt dust; and simply driving off-road in my beloved, slowly disintegrating Toyota Land Cruiser through the vastness of this sparse yet oddly charming wasteland. Even though I was most of the time absolutely clueless of what I was doing, my effort was appreciated and my boss’s furious outrages were less and less directed towards me. Nevertheless, this kind of living circumstances was no durable solution. I had to escape somehow. And as often in my life I did have literally more luck than understanding: Two blokes out of town were hired to repair some fences. Spotting me they were visibly confused. What the heck was I doing here all by myself? During an unwatched moment they approached me, assuring me that they would do some phone calls and find me a better job. The next morning already everything was settled and they could bring me to my new home straight after work. It was quite a challenge to tell my boss that I would quit this instant. And trust me: There is not much in my life I am as proud of as the diplomatic skill I had proven that day! My new farm was just ridiculously beautiful, owned by a lovely old couple, which treated me like their granddaughter. I didn’t expect to find a family out here in the deepest bush of Australia. And I am not only thankful for the dazzling adventure and kindness I was favoured to experience. I am also grateful for my loony and lonely drunkard of a farmer, who lured me out there to find a piece of happiness. Some people use shit to build themselves a castle. I used my pile to climb up to heaven.