Working Experience in Australia
A moment lived in Australia by Becca, a traveler from Germany
My best and also worst travel experience are the same. I was working on a cattle station in Western Australia a couple weeks after arriving in this country.
It was the last week of my 88 farm work days. In Australia, you need these days to be able to apply for a second-year visa. I went inside the pen with the big bulls to get them into the next truck. While most of them were just running out the door when I stepped in, one of them was sleeping in the corner. I went closer because I hoped to make him move, but it was too late. He woke up and was frightened. He probably thought: “I am alone with a human being! Where is everybody?”, and was going crazy. He ran me over and broke my rib. I was trying to climb on the fence as quick as I could. I could still feel him behind me, pushing me with his head from behind. As soon as I was sitting on top, he was looking at me calmly and was shaking his head. Thinking about it later, it felt like he was asking me if I had enough. Calmly he turned around and run after his friends. He wasn’t angry or aggressive, otherwise, I wouldn’t be alive. But it was an unreal situation and I wouldn’t like to experience again.
Now I can laugh about it, but I could have been dead. I was lucky the bulls were ready for transport and their horn got to cut the day before. The boys, I worked with, called him Thomas the train like the kids show on TV. I didn’t go to the hospital straight away because I didn’t think it was serious. But after a big bruise the next day and me not being able to breathe properly, I decided to see a doctor. He gave me a couple of painkillers. I still had a couple of days to do for my visa and didn’t want to stop working. I can’t believe I worked with a broken rib for 4 days. My boyfriend was coming back a couple of days after from a job down in Albany and couldn’t believe what happened. We went back on the road, exploring more of beautiful Australia, while my rib was still hurting for a while, but it was healing “pretty quick”. I was lucky and unlucky at the same time. Since then I hate being close to cows or everything with horns!
This traveller has a blog: Kanguru Adventure
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