Living on a vineyard

It all started with grape picking on Kangaroo Island. No, the story really begins in Melbourne. The city that ate a large chunk of my skinny budget. Damn you amazing restaurants, funky bars and expensive festivals. But it's hard to say no to all that goodness. Like tons of other broke backpackers who love wine but can't afford it, I woke up early and started picking grapes. After snipping away for five hours, belly ache due to a highly developed grape addiction and one hundred thousand cuts in my fingers, I decided I loved it.

I told the family that owns the vineyard I would like to stay, work and taste all of their wines. They welcomed me in their house and for the first time I had the garden all other gardens are jealous of: a vineyard. A shiny green vineyard for me to run around in, to ease my childish brain and to eat grapes until the sun went down. I worked there for a week and enjoyed every second of it. My romantic soul would play cheesy love songs as I made idyllic evening walks between the vines. But my stomach would scratch the record every time the smell of dead kangaroo reached my nose. Farewell romance.