An hour west of Cairns, where the rainforest meets the Outback, lies Jaques Coffee Farm. A farm where a small group of international volunteers pick coffee in exchange for fun like you've never seen.
Working on a farm was a right of passage. If you were a backpacker in Australia, it was just something you did. However, while my travel companion and I wanted to engage in this foreign ritual, we couldn't help but steer towards skepticism after some of the stories we'd heard; crawling through mud covered tomato vines at 4am, snakes popping out of banana trees, and general spider-infested fruit plantations. But we were in the northern city of Cairns, after a six-week journey from Sydney, and we were ready to plant our feet somewhere. Naturally, we couldn't refuse the offer when we saw the posting for Jacques Coffee Farm:
Looking for a few fun people to help out on a coffee farm in exchange for waterskiing, motorcycle rides, badminton, and other fun outings and games. Hours are 9-1 Monday through Saturday, the rest is free time. Stay for 2 weeks and get an all expense paid camping adventure on a remote island. Call Nat for details.
We called Nat, and he picked us up the next day and took us to his farm in Mareeba, where the rainforest meets the Outback. The property was several acres, although we only became familiar with only a few of them. There were about 50 long rows of baby coffee trees that needed to be hand picked.
With the help of Nat, his two sons, two German backpackers, me and my travel companion, we began our first day of work the very next day. We wore thick gardening gloves, large brim hats, and loads of sunscreen, and began picking the bright red beans. Nat's pickup truck stayed close by, supplying us with music and holding burlap bags filled with raw coffee. We talked, joked, and sometimes even sang. I never saw one snake and only a couple harmless spiders paid a visit.
The Jacques family did all of the coffee processing on site and it gave me a whole new appreciation for every sip of my morning addiction that I've taken since. The beans are washed and dried, peeled and roasted, ground and bagged. It takes a couple days from the initial picking until hot and steamy in a cup, but each morning we had the freshest coffee humanly possible.
As promised, we had plenty of time to play. Nat and his sons enjoyed being our tour guides. They took us into town, to lakes and waterfalls, flying in their two-seater airplane, and of course, to our reward island adventure on Russell Island. Lingering somewhere over the Great Barrier Reef, only eight campers at a time were permitted on this speck of land that spanned just one kilometer in circumference. It was a part of Australia most Australians hadn't seen.
My friend and I returned to Cairns with satisfaction. Satisfaction that we, too, were veteran traveling farmers, that we survived two weeks living in a trailer and bathing in a creek, and that we were privy to a lifestyle beyond our wildest dreams. Most importantly, in the three years since my return, my favorite stories still begin with, "So I was picking coffee on this farm in Australia"¦"
