GERMAN backpacker Nina Brueckner has been enjoying experiencing Murray River life in the Riverland by taking part in a volunteer workers’ exchange program.
As part of the Workaway program she spent a week during January at Bruce and Susan Armstrong’s ‘Lone Pine Farm’ at Taylorville, north of Waikerie.
It is the first time, the 19-year-old who finished school in March last year has left Europe to travel overseas.
Nina told SA Farmer, travelling around Australia and working on rural properties has enabled her to have a break from her usual weekly routine, which often involves working from Monday to Saturday.
At her home at Mainz in Germany she works as a waitress and also teaches sailing and circus performance to children.
Nina arrived in Sydney in August last year and travelled to Gippsland in Victoria, where she had her first Workaway experience, helping property owners at Narracan south of Moe look after 17 goats.
She then visited Wilsons Promontory on the southern tip of Victoria and travelled to Tasmania where she enjoyed mountain climbing before taking a second Workaway posting in the Blue Mountains in New South Wales.
Nina then welcomed in the New Year in Sydney before travelling to South Australia to take up her third Workaway experience with the Armstrongs.
She enjoys discovering new things and being part of the exchange program that involves working four to six hours a day for accommodation, food, and the chance to explore the locations she is visiting.
“It is a nice thing to do, it doesn’t cost any money, and I love seeing the real Australia,” Nina says.
During her stay with the Armstrongs, she helped pick certified organic watermelons, rockmelons, squash, and zucchini and also packed some of their produce.
“I get to drive the tractor, if we are picking watermelons, and every time we do some weeding, I can take the quad bike,” Nina says.
“I have never had the chance to drive these before or experience farm life,” she says.
“It is really great, I love it.”
Nina also had the chance to learn about Bruce’s classic cars and helped clean his 1969 Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 before meeting his friends from the Mustang Owners Club of SA.
She also had a chance to get close to some Riverland wildlife.
“I saw a scorpion for the first time in my life, that was crazy and a bit scary,” she says.
“We went on the Murray River, and I did some canoeing, and I saw heaps of pelicans around me, and flying above me.
“I really enjoyed paddling in this beautiful river surrounded by cliffs,” Nina says.
She says Bruce who loves to talk, has been an entertaining host and has taught her a lot about the region.
“It is great, you learn a lot of things,” Nina says.
“He has lots of ‘fun facts’ I have learnt a lot about this area, which is really great.”
Nina says her time in Australia has helped her grow as a person and she is now more relaxed when her plans unexpectedly change.
She will visit Sydney again before heading to Byron Bay, Queensland, and New Zealand and may return again to see some of her Workaway hosts before leaving Australia.
She plans to be home by June and her ultimate career goal is to become a Maths and Physics teacher.
