Ozlilly's musings...

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Who asked me recently what fruits grow in Australia? I just looked up Childers, where our youngest is picking mangoes for a couple of weeks. I checked out the Eco Lodge where he is staying. It has a review as the best back-packers accommodation in the area.

Otherwise, no published reviews in Trip Advisor.

Now, I just looked up mango picking in Childers (in Google, of course!) and really have to think of this poster hanging in my son’s room: “Respect your parents, they passed school without Google”. I can’t believe all the support and information and assistance available! How times have changed! You can find a place anywhere to pick any fruit or vegetable at any time of the year around Australia. Check it out: almonds, apples, apricots, Asian vegetables, asparagus, avocados, bananas, beans, berries, blueberries, broccoli, brussel sprouts, capsicum, cherries, citrus, coffee, cotton, custard apples, flowers, ginger, grapes, hops, longans/Dragon Fruit, lychees, mandarines, mangoes, melons, nuts, olives, onions, oranges, paw paws, peaches, pears, pineapples, pistachios, plums, potatoes, prunes, pumpkins, rock melons, stone fruit, strawberries, sugar cane, tomatoes, turf, various vegetables, wild flowers, zucchini, you name it, you can pick it! Fishing, scalloping and prawning, scallop splitting, Rock Lobster, pruning, tree planting, weeding. Go on a travel, back-packers holiday to Australia. But only as long as you are 18-30. And only if you are from certain countries. The information is too dynamic. Probably the webpages too, so check out with a search starting here: http://www.border.gov.au/

Many countries have bilateral relations with Australia allowing the visa arrangement for foreign students to travel and work. This site is just cut out for them. But not for Austrians. Not yet. The Aussies are still working on their bilateral relations with Austria. With a German, French or Belgian mother, you can do a backpackers holiday in Australia. But not if you only have Austrian citizenship. And the Austrians are still very restrictive with their immigration and citizenship rules.

Oh, how I love Australia (from a distance, here in the minus ten degrees cold in Vienna’s winter! Well, I just read, it is only minus two degrees right now in Vienna.) I never did the paid fruit picking bit, but we did go to the vineyards ever year to help Mr Osicka harvest his grapes when I was growing up!

I am sitting here with tears streaming down my face as I consider the possibilities and how things changed. When I left home to travel to Europe in 1973, I did not know any single person who had done that before me. I had the book: Europe on Five Dollars a Day, which later became Europe on Five and Ten Dollars a Day, and then Europe on Ten Dollars a Day. Not sure what it would be today.

When I joined the Unification Church in 1975, I did not know anybody who had done it before me.

When I had five sons and they all went to the Vienna Boys Choir (VBC), I had a couple of friends with sons at the Vienna Boys Choir.

When I did the role change with my husband to go to work, leaving my husband home with the two year old to earn the keep for the whole family of seven, there was no paternity leave (Karenz) for self-employed men, no pay for the stay-at-home Dad.

Oh, my oh my, how times have changed.

Finding my blog style. I go all over the place. I go off on a tangent. I don’t have time to finish telling the story. There are links throughout my review of 2016, for you to follow on every single tangent if you wish. And that story was told.

Childers fruit picking jobs link

Fruit picking jobs Australia

https://jobsearch.gov.au/harvest

I just love this open-minded attitude, welcoming the itinerant workers, not stigmatizing them. There is enough for everyone. Life owes you a living but you have to work hard to collect it. Don’t make it harder than it is with a self-centred, arrogant attitude. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.

About the author 

Lilly Gundacker

Lilly Gundacker is an Australian living in Austria, now in Vienna. With a loving husband and gifted adult children' she excels at Communication, Family, Marriage and is an Organizational expert. As a retired International Civil Servant and dedicated Unificationist she motivates, inspires, engages, and makes a difference!

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