Day 62 in the Big Brother house… I mean the Berri Backpackers. The ritual of life in the hostel can be just like Big Brother (that’s Big Boss for our Indian readers!) without the cameras. The daily churn of gossip, bitching, tears, romance, boredom and dry humping (we’re told) is enough to keep anyone hooked. Sixty people in one house all vying for the same jobs – there has to be a TV programme in there somewhere.

We’re both working now. I’m picking nectarines and Marie’s packing them. The work is boring and physically strenuous, especially on the very hot days. I climb a ladder into a peach tree, pick the best fruit, climb down and move on to the next tree in a seemingly infinite line. Not exactly horizon broadening but it pays the bills and gets the days clocked up for the 2nd year visa. Marie’s indoors at least, but she has to stand in one place and pack fruit for 11-12 hours a day 6 days a week. We’re a bit like immigrants at home – doing the jobs no sane locals would do. There are plenty of insane ones happy to work with us, though. We work every day waking at 5am, come home and have a swim, cook, eat, have a beer and go to bed. That’s pretty much it. Just being able to go to the supermarket with Marie is a notable event. Thus we haven’t got lot of travel news to report. So here’s some titbits of daily life…

We’ve become experts on the rather dull subject of stone fruit. I can, at this stage, look at a nectarine on a tree and tell you roughly how many days it will take to ripen, or whether it is more likely to go soft and rot and should therefore be picked early. Marie can tell you the exact variety of nectarine as well as the fruit’s class in a flat second. It won’t win us any table quizzes.

The Murray River newspaper, which we have discussed extensively in the blog thus far, has a lost and found section which we make sure to read every week. People write in and tell you about the valuable things they have misplaced. “Lost:”, it said last week “Orange fountain pen. Renmark area.” We’ve kept our eyes peeled.

Wednesday night is poker night. It’s the only external entertainment the hostel gets. The backpackers head over to play in the local poker league in the Berri Club and we don’t do too badly at all. It’s a free game, and it’s good fun, but some of the locals take it so seriously. Wearing sunglasses at night so nobody can read your eyes when playing a free game of poker is overkill, methinks.

The most interesting thing about Berri is that the local bingo night is called Pacemaker’s. The only other interesting thing is the sky. It must be something to do with the land being so totally flat to the horizon all around, but I swear the sky is bigger here. Everywhere you look you see sky. It’s so bright that the clouds look like they’re in HD. It makes you feel very small – and the constellations are stunning at night (but upside down).

Insects in the Riverland are ubiquitous and annoying. Dozens of flies follow you down the road and they’re the most persistent flies I’ve ever seen. They just won’t be persuaded to go away no matter how many times you swat them. So you kind of get used the them crawling all over your legs and arms all day because if you let it annoy you it’d drive you mad. At the moment there are also swarms of dragonflies (who we like because they eat mosquitoes) and grasshoppers (who we like because they hop). You can stand outside at dusk and, if the sky is clear, watch dragonflies hunting midges and birds hunting dragonflies in a kind of carnivorous dance. The grasshoppers hide, predictably, in the grass in large numbers and all take off simultaneously when you walk towards them. They don’t seem to have any ability to direct their hops and regularly bump into your legs and each other. So walking along the little patch of grass that forms a roundabout down the road you’re preceded by a cloud of grasshoppers making lots of noise and followed by a cloud of flies being very annoying.

That’s about it for this blog update. Hot Christmas on the way.

PS: Today coming out of Wollworths I noticed a hand-written sign on the public notice board. “LOST” it said in large scrawl “ORANGE FOUNTAIN PEN.” We really should have put more effort in to looking for that pen. It could have made someone’s Christmas.