Thi took me to the Airport on the 27th of November, from there I flew to Launceston where I spent the night.
It was lovely there. I went on a walk, visiting several parks, but the most exciting one was the Punchbowl Reserve where I sighted my first Wallaby (the first out of many). The only mistake that I did was starting to walk around the reserve at dusk, because these little creatures tend to hide in the shadows and stare into your soul (that’s scary, especially when it gets dark!).
I also only learned a few weeks later that the creature I saw was a Wallaby and not a small kangaroo, which shows that I was too uneducated at that point of my travels. Afterwards I walked back to the city centre, which was more than 45 Minutes away from the reserve. It was dark when I got back which meant that the Christmas decorations there were all lit up. They looked beautiful.
I did also tire myself out during that trip, falling into a deep sleep once I went to bed. What can be said about my accommodaBon is that I stayed at a capsule hotel, which was something new for me, but I can recommend staying at these kinds of Hostels, at least the two that I visited in Tasmania were comfortable and big enough to spend a night there without feeling cramped.
The next morning, before making my way to the farm, I bought myself one of the most delicious Chocolate-Croissants that I have ever tasted.
It took me about 7 and a half hours to get to the farm, which was really exhausting (though I did go to the beach near a city where I had to wait for 3 hours for the next bus to arrive which was very beautiful and relaxing).
Now I only wrote about what happened before I got to the farm even though this chapter was supposed to be entitled for the whole Farmstay program. But I must admit that I just do not like talking about my stay at the farm. Even if we let out the part where I had to leave the farm earlier than expected, the things that I learned about the farm are not really something that I would like to put out there. What I can say is that I learned a lot about the dairy farms in Tasmania and some things I did know beforehand just seemed crueller in person. Just to give you guys an example, the milking machines that they used where connected to a platform that moved in a circle, every cow that stood on that platform would go around the circle at least one time before they were allowed to go off that platform. The worst thing I witnessed there was, that a cow slipped on its own poop on that platform and started to slip off it. The platform was at least 50cm maybe even a meter above the ground, so it did not find anywhere to stand on to find it’s balance again and therefore started to freak out, luckily the other cows did not join in. At some point the cow then slipped of the platform completely and was led back to it’s herd. But seeing that cow struggle because it pooped, and no one cleaned it before the cow lost its balance just really got to me. I also learned how they got rid of trash and dead cows, an image that I will never forget and will not include in this blog post. But I did not only learn that I just cannot handle some of their ethics but that I also just am not made for this kind of farm work in general. When I do not know how to do some things, I will ask how it works before just doing it which was clearly not how things worked around the farm. They wanted me to just learn by doing. Which I completely understand, but what would have happened if I broke something?
Furthermore, the people that I stayed with were also disappointed by the fact that I did not talk enough with THEIR friends. It was not that I talked to little with the people that I worked with, but that I engaged to little with the people who I first did not know and second, did not know what to talk about. But that was not even the strangest part about all of this.
Another reason why I had to leave was, because I did not have a driver’s licence even though they knew that beforehand. They did try to teach me how to drive a vehicle for which I would not need to get a driver’s licence. But after just one session (where they said that I did a good job), they never talked about that opportunity again. So, I worked around the house most of the time.
On a sight note, I also learned that my medication did not really work well enough to keep my allergies away, causing me to rub my eyes etc, which is as thing that they misinterpreted. They thought I was bored, simply uninterested in the work I did just because I kept on rubbing my eyes. And so, before talking to me about it, they decided to let me go. I could have tried to explain those issues to them, but knowing that they wanted me to leave, got rid of my willingness to proof them wrong…
Looking back at it, it felt like I stayed there for weeks, but I left the Sunday the week after (1 1/2 weeks later). And my body thanked me for that because at that point I had a hard time breathing (especially at night) because of my allergies.
