Australia: Redleaf Farm- A *ovid Story

The 5 Ds of Dodge-covid-ball: Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge.

*ovid. We avoid speaking about the pandemic that shall not be named, as like the majority of Planet Earth, it took all of our exciting travel plans and promptly threw them in the bin. It made finding paid visa-qualifying paid work very tricky in 2020, with employers becoming increasingly concerned about backpackers joining their workplaces and the risk of the virus spreading, as well as ever-changing interstate border closures. Not too long after arriving back from Kuala Lumpur, we picked up a job and made a very brief "trip" to a feedlot in Rowena (it was a resounding NOPE to accepting work for any more than the 3 days that we forced ourselves to do). The hours and days that turned into weeks of looking for suitable work afterward felt fruitless. After frantically searching for anything else that we could pick up, we were thrown a lifeline. We were sent an email presenting an opportunity to volunteer on a small hobby-farm in the Southern Highlands.

For many who saw any news of the 2019-2020 bushfires, they ravaged eye-watering hectares of Australian land and native wildlife. In February of 2020, backpackers were granted permission to volunteer to help with bushfire recovery efforts across Australia after the summer blazes choked so many homes and businesses. We had initially made enquiries into the recovery programmes being set up but many volunteer camps had actually closed as a result of ongoing pandemical issues. Our farm was located in the heart of an affected postcode but was extremely fortunate- a last minute shift in the wind direction saved the owners from losing everything, and in the end remained largely unscathed aside from the very outer edge of their land. There we completed our last ever 3 months of working holiday visa work; a small, yet pretty awesome accomplishment. Living in Sydney during the first of Australia’s lockdowns, whilst nowhere near as strict as that of other countries’, still felt incredibly uncomfortable and claustrophobic. We made the 2 hour trip to Fitzroy Falls feeling certain we’d be pulled over by the Police; it was the closest I’d felt to being on the TV show “Hunted”, and I can’t say I’d be in a hurry to sign up to that show now! Arriving on the farm felt like a literal breath of fresh air. Whilst not that far from the local townships of Moss Vale and Bowral, the farm felt secluded enough and being free to walk around the fields was liberating. It felt like a good place to dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge our way from *ovid. Our 3 months saw us clearing land ready for new pastures and caring for pigs, sheep, cows and a plethora of winged characters. For two months of stay, our home was a converted 1900s train carriage, fitted with a little kitchenette, and heaters that kept us warm when the Highlands winter temperatures plummeted. Our weekly entertainment comprised of Scrabble, Uno and Catan, which surprisingly didn’t lose its novelty after 13 weeks. While our bank balances missed being fed with money, our stay paid us back in other ways.