Banana farming in Innisfail

Have you ever combined travel and work? In this blog post I will tell you about how I got my 2^nd year Working Holiday Visa by working in a banana farm in Innisfail Australia for three months.

Work is holiday

If you have a chance in your life to try the working holiday, I would warmly recommend to use it. During normal holiday, you will only get small scratch of the place, and maybe you will miss out the full experience. Working holiday visa allows you to stay in the country for longer period than normal tourist visa.

And the best part is; if you run out of money, you can work few months and then keep traveling again. And what comes to Australia, there is lot to travel and explore.

Best parts of Working Holiday Visa:

• Meeting people all over the world (making connections and friendships for life)
• Connecting with locals
• Exploring the country in different ways
• Live like a local
• New experiences
• Work as you go

Got interested? Read more about the visa from Australia’s Working Holiday Maker program.

Farm-life

I worked on a eco-banana farm. There were backpackers from the same hostel harvesting, cleaning, sorting, dipping and packing the bananas. My job was to “dip” the bananas in the red wax. That showed to the buyers that the product is organic.

Harvesting was hard work. It was diving the tractor and picking up the banana bunches. I was happy to be working “indoors”, especially after all the stories and pictures of the insects and animals they saw in the field.

When the bananas were brought to the farm, harvesters hung them on the belt and cleaned them. And when I say cleaned, I mean searched if there were any free passengers like tree frogs, spiders or snakes. I had to do this sometimes and have to say it wasn’t my cup of tea at all. And even now when I’m writing this, I get goosebumps.

The next step was the sorting point. Bananas were dropped into the water, and we picked all the weird looking and bad ones and threw them away.

Bananas came through the belt, and we dipped the tips of the bananas in the wax. I remember the first days how messy and difficult it was to dip them nicely and evenly. And how accurate it was to have the right wax temperature. After a while, it was fun and we had some competitions with fellow “dippers” who can dip most in a minute. The last task was to pack them in poxes.

To sum up

We worked long days doing the same thing. Your arms got tired, feet ached and you were covered in wax. Sometimes you found spiders and cockroaches hiding under the punches and running on the belt. Even though I didn’t become a banana farmer, this is one of my best experiences. Farm life was full of surprises and hard work, but after a long day, it was nice to go back to the hostel and spend rest of the day with your friends.

Let’s get back to the question. Have you ever combined travel and work? And if you haven’t, is that something you would like to do?

Tell me about your stories, I would love to read them.

Sonja