The Day I…Did A Shit In A Broccoli Field!!

With travelling comes strange and amusing stories. This one, though slightly disgusting just highlights the amusement you can look back on, and in this case laugh at myself a couple of years down the line. Did I really shit myself in a broccoli field? Yes!

I ended up doing extensive broccoli farming for about 3 months, on 13 different farms in Tasmania!! It was an amazing experience and I would highly recommend it. Cutting broccoli for a living was fab.

If you’ve ever done processed or manual broccoli cutting you will know that a tractor follows you down the countless paddocks of broccoli, you just cut it as fast as you can and throw it into the crates on the tractor. The thing is, once you start a row, you have to go to the end. There is no respite – so basically carry water in your pocket and sip it at the end of each row, where you can also go to the toilet if you need. Admittedly this is much easier for guys.

One day I was working on a massive farm in East Sassafras, in Northern Tasmania. There was a hill at the top of the paddock and once you go over the hill you are miles from the base (the place where you park your car, eat your lunch and they have a portable toilet there). Now I was an experienced broccoli cutter at this stage.

It was 18th March 2010, the morning after St. Patrick’s Night, so a few of our team had gone down to Molly Malone’s pub, myself obviously included to meet another travelling Northern Irishman, Chaz Fitzsimmons.

Next morning was a 7 a.m. start as usual and nothing was a problem. After lunch however, we were about half way through a stretch of broccoli when I knew I needed to go to the toilet, of the number 2 variety. It was the first time this had happened while on a broccoli field. Our boss and top lady, Rebecca Gaby was working alongside us that day and I yelled over, “I’ll catch you up, I need a shit” and off I ran. Initially I was going to run all the way back to the portable toilet but it was about a kilometre walk, so I pulled over at the side and crouched down in the paddock. It was out of control let’s just say.

A few seconds after taking my trousers and boots off which wasn’t easy I then had to use leaves from broccoli pants to clean myself. It wasn’t enough so my underpants were used as toilet roll and then dumped behind a tree near the fence. It was then that my team and tractor appeared back at the top of the hill. They knew I had ran for a shit, but now they saw me with my trousers down, running desperately back to cut more broccoli.

It was a good day in the field apart from that. Later  that night, I washed all my clothes, shamelessly admitting I couldn’t tell the difference between mud and shit. Don’t Stop Living!

My Video of Life on a Farm in East Sassafras:

PS – If this post offends you, you might also be offended by the content in the posts below…