Australia 1999 – part 1

Visited: February to May 1999

Duration of visit: 98 days (1999 – 85 days; 2023 – 13 days)

Capital city: Canberra

Population: 26.6 million (2023)

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

• Picking-up grapes and pears to earn money for further travelling.
• Beautiful cities of Melbourne, Adelaide and especially Sydney.
• Sunrise and sunset at Uluru and The Olgas sacred mountains in desert of Central Australia.
• Out in the bush being attacked by flies, whenever I stopped and walked out of the car.
• Learning to play the didgeridoo in Alice Springs.

In 1999, Asia was the main destination and somehow, I added Australia, because it was not far, offered a good opportunity for quick money earning and it sounded very exotic at that time. Therefore, Australia was the starting point of the 15-months long Big Asian Tour from Australia, through South-Eastern Asia and China to India. I visited most of the countries in the Southeast Asia and spent almost three months travelling and working around Australia.

In this article I describe the first part of my trip to Australia in 1999: exploring Melbourne, picking-up grapes and pears, walking around sacred mountains of Uluru and The Olgas, surviving 50°C at the largest opal deposit in the world, combating the flies and learning to play digeridoo. More articles about Australia adventures are available here:

The heat at Melbourne airport was much more bearable than during stopovers in Sydney and Denpasar in Bali. 48 hours after having left my home in Slovenia, I only wanted a bed in one of the youth hostels, as the discomfort on the planes and airports from Ljubljana to Melbourne really tired me out. The old house in the beautifully landscaped city center offered me the cheapest shelter, simple kitchen, useless TV without a working channel and friendly roommates from Japan.

During the night, the ground floor evolved into a quintessential Australian pub, filled with lively music that was sometimes overshadowed by the raucous shouts of men, who were consistently partaking in refreshing ice-cold beers. I eventually found out that it is literally a sin in Australia not to drink beer and that there are very little sinners.

Melbourne is a typical modern city with many contemporary buildings clad in shimmering glass that look appealing from afar, but from close up it fills me with fear and question of where the modern space constraints are leading us. The lack of space is not an issue in the endless expanses of Australia, as there is an abundance of territory with the exception of mayor metropolises.

A town of Shepparton is, beside Mildura, the most important area with fruit trees in Victoria state, so it was a perfect place to try finding a temporary job. I was expecting problems with state authorities, as it is officially forbidden to work with a tourist visa.

On the other hand, everyone knows that most travelers try to extend their stay with occasional work, because the locals are not interested in poor payment and hard work. They have excellent social packages that enable them to survive comfortably without working too much.

Early in the morning I set out in the search for any owner of the pear plantation, who would give me an opportunity to show my skills and will to earn money. It took me a good half an hour of walking to reach the fourth plantation, when I finally came across the first pickers. “No visa, no problem!“ replied John, with a smile on his face.

Nicknamed Giovanni, a middle-aged man born in Australia, who considers himself a Frenchman, despite having visited his parents’ country only once so far. He handed me an antique tractor and a trailer with three large empty containers that needed to be filled with pears. “I will pay you 19 Australian dollars for each container you fill up and you can work as much time as you want!“

He showed me a few speed moves and tactics to be successful and I was ready to go. There were so many pears that it would take at least a dozen hands to follow my eyes.

I stayed at Giovanni’s farm for two weeks, getting up at six in the morning, walking half an hour from camp to work, picking pears for 10 or 12 hours with half-hour break for lunch.

In the evening my girlfriend prepared a delicious dinner the always overcrowded kitchen of the camp; part of which was packed for our lunch the next day. In addition to the killer rhythm, the biggest nuisance were small flies, and extreme, unbearable heat of 35°C.

Fruit picking is an underpaid job for most Australians and they prefer not to do it at all due to difficult conditions. It makes much more sense to use government support of 800 AUD per month and enjoy idleness.

Giovanni left us alone most of the time, always repeating the same phrases in rare conversations, so it took me quite some time before I realized how bad his English actually was. He criticized government policy over and over, Australians’ laziness and the situation in Albania.

“Albania is very bad!”, one day he struck like a cannon in broad daylight and I watched him, surprised at how knowledgeable he was about the situation in the poorest country in Europe. I could barely contain laughter and was joking many times later about his stupid phrases. The truth is, he owned a huge farm in Australia, while I was smart and educated, but poor, picking-up fruits from his trees and walking on foot to a provisional home – my tent.

A town of Mildura replaced Shepparton, pears were substituted by grapes, while the daily routine remained pretty much the same. If picking up pears is more suitable for men due to work on a ladder with a heavy bag on the chest, working on grapes is easier for smaller, more skilled people, particularly women.

Countless times I cursed devils metal baskets, which needed to be filled with white grapes. Because of rain just before the harvest season, grape berries were falling to the ground as soon as I touched them gently and often ended up in tall grass instead of the desired destination.

Luckily, I met a friendly Slovenian family Stubelj in Mildura, which offered me a shelter. I temporary settled down in an old garage with comfortable bed. It was far from a luxury hotel, but after hard working day I only needed a good shower and a comfortable bed in a clean place not too far from the working field. The biggest advantage of the garage was its location – only 3 minutes walking from Stubelj’s vineyard and free of charge.

A week later, the grapes were finished, but I quickly found a new position at the next property. Temperatures rose even higher than in Shepparton, fatigue escalated and I was in a bad mood; the big boss every Friday deducted a few dollars from well-deserved payment for no real reason. After three weeks of hard work I had enough; It was time to start travelling and discovering new places, which was the main reason for visiting Australia.

Adelaide is the starting point for a trip into the Australian bush, towards the famous Uluru mountain. Besides visiting some museums from converted warehouses to modern exhibition spaces, the main task was to find cheap transportation to Alice Springs, from where I would later somehow find my way to Uluru.

The ideal option would be somebody with a car that travels alone, needs a companion with whom to share the cost of gasoline and, preferably, has the interest to visit similar places on the way as me. The perfect match appeared to be a British traveler Phil with a twenty-year-old Ford Falcon. He met all my criteria. Next day, when another Australian girl joined us, we set off on a thousand-mile drive towards central Australia.

The first stop – Cobber Pedy – one of the hottest places in Australia, was reached in the late afternoon after a twelve-hour drive through a boring desert landscape.

Temperatures here rise above 50°C in summer and drop to 0°C at night in winter. Due to such extreme conditions, many residents live in underground dwellings, where the temperature is constant at around 25°C throughout the year.

These houses are former opal mines that have been converted into below-ground residences with rooms, installations and facilities, which have similar characteristics of regular houses – called dugouts. The only drawback is the lack of light as there are no windows.

Coober Pedy area is known as the largest opal deposit in the world, because of the quantity of precious opals that are mined there. They are beautiful stones of transparent color that reflect red, green, blue and other colors when they are exposed to sunlight.  Rich deposits and profitable mining are probably the only reason why people settled in this nonromantic place. Unfavorable climate, infertile soil and lack of water are the reasons for the complete absence of green areas. There were approximately only 1,500 people living in this area.

For two nights, we settled into an underground camp that was nothing more than a large tunnel dug a few meters below the surface. The camp was located a few miles from downtown area, fostering a sense of security that was lacking in Coober Pedy, where drunken Aborigines wandered aimlessly through the streets, often seeking trouble.

The sacred mountain of Australian original inhabitants, Aborigines, is located in the center of the continent at 863 meters above sea level. It is called Uluru in Aboriginal language or Ayers Rock in English. A large sandstone rock formation rises high out of the desert, as if it had fallen out of the sky. Uluru was created by millions of years of erosion of the softer surrounding rock. Beneath the surface, Uluru extends at least another 2.5 kilometers.

One of Australian most recognizable natural landmarks – beautiful orange – brown – red rock, Uluru attracts thousands of tourists from all over the world each year. I had seen this image many times before, but the amazing feeling when approaching it live for the first time is impossible to describe. There was no ending to my enthusiasm even after walking around Uluru along a 10-kilometers trail. The red color changes its shades during the day and comes to life again in all its splendor just before the sun hides behind the horizon.

For Aboriginal people, Uluru is a sacred mountain, so climbing on it would show contamination and disrespect.

But tourists wouldn’t be tourists if they didn’t do just that. I had decided long time ago to honor the will of the Aborigines and observe Uluru only from below. In addition, the climb is extremely dangerous and unsuitable for many of unfit visitors, who usually hurry climbing up and down to stop for a very short time to take photos.

The second sacred mountain, Kata Tjuta, also known as the Olgas, located 25 kilometers from Uluru is just as impressive as its famous neighbor. This collection of large domed rock formations that elevates out of the arid landscape more than 546 meters is also sacred to the Aboriginal people of Australia. The c olors of the sandstone changes just like Uluru, from bright red and orange to dark red at sunset.

In ten days, when driving around Southern and Northern territories, I spotted only eight kangaroos along the road, all dead.

It is because they become active at night when temperatures drop to a more tolerable level. In those moments they heedlessly jump around and end up under the wheels of extended trucks with multiple trailers, called road trains.

In Alice Springs I learned the basics of playing the traditional Aboriginal instrument digeridoo, made from hardwoods, especially eucalyptus. In order to play this wind instrument, a special breathing technique, called circular breathing, has to be learned; playing by maintain the lips vibrating to produce a continuous drone while exhaling.

During a basic lesson, we were training how to exhale continuously through the mouth, while maintaining short and strong inhalation through the nose. The best practice is to use a straw in a glass of water. As soon as the bubbling stops, something is wrong.

I never became a good player, but I purchased one of the most remarkable souvenirs as a backpacker – a quality tuned digeridoo with original Aboriginal decoration.