Mango Lovers United

Fresh from completing 53 hours of Mango picking with sore hands, scabbing legs, rashes and the inability to use our thumbs without pain we’re enjoying a day off! Mango picking isn’t difficult it’s just mind numbingly boring as it is repetitive work over 10 hour days. You pick the round, plump looking mangos that aren’t yet ripe from the trees and throw them into a huge, noisy mango washing machine that is driven alongside you whilst you pick. Each time you pick a mango, you break the stem and an acid sprays out which burns skin and can turn your skin a reddish brown colour as we have both found out!

Some facts for you:

·         Each 400g bin filled with Mangos is worth $4000 to the farmers

·         Generally there are four picking teams that collect over 100 bins a day

·         Mango picking can cause trench foot

·         Every harvest the company makes around 4 million Australian Dollars from the Mangos

·         Kat and Chris had to throw away 4 pairs of socks due to a smell that just wouldn’t leave

·         All the Mangos are just for the Australian market

·         There is a high turnover of staff

·         You can buy one of our handpicked mangos from the supermarket for $1.75 (just over £1!)

We met some great people whilst picking and Kat even got to use her medical skills to assist with an industrial accident where a picker got run over by one of the mango washing machines which got as far as his chest before reversing off – amazingly he was fine, just very bruised!

Would we do it again? Yes, but only once we’ve recovered from these past six days! The next fruit we might try our hands at once we’ve driven the West Coast are strawberries or cherries.

C & K xxx