A tractor is not a car...

They have four wheels, like a car. Two wing mirrors, like a car. A steering wheel and a gear stick, like a car. Six hydraulic levers, like a...hold on a second! 

Whilst in Australia I plan to work on a farm, like so many others entering the country on a working holiday visa. Doing this is important for two reasons: To save more travel money and to enable a second year down under. Both are pretty good reasons in my opinion.

After a little research into harvest times and wages I learnt I could earn much more by getting a tractor driving job. Brilliant I thought to myself I grew up on a farm, of course I can drive a tractor, hell, I've been driving tractors since I was 5!

Over Christmas I went up to The Farm to visit the family. One not so exciting day my dad and uncle got one of the tractors out to fix a couple of fences.  Here's my chance for a little brush up course before I go.

With not too much persuasion I convinced my dad to take me out for a quick lesson before lunch. I heaved myself up the three huge steps and into the cockpit, the first difference between a tractor and a car, and sat myself in the driving seat, my feet swinging freely as I couldn't touch the floor. 

As I looked around I could see an abundance of levers, switches, pedals and dials. No, this certainly would not be like driving a car, and no, I certainly had not been able to drive a tractor since I was 5. I had sat on my dad’s knee and steered. Much to my surprise, I was about to find out driving and steering are very different.

"So I suppose we best start you in a field. Pop it in't gear and let’s be off down lane". I looked at the levers in front of me, pushed my foot as hard as I could into the clutch and tried to move what I had determined must be the gear stick. Dad looked at the clutch which, despite my best efforts, hadn't really moved, pulled his phone out and made a call back to the house "hold off on lunch, I think we might be a while".

It didn't really get all that much better from here. We drove very slowly up the lane to an empty field where my dad instructed me to stop so he could open the gate. "Stop here. Just here is fine. Now, Charlie! THE BREAK!" This is when I realised I could just do an emergency stop and hit the neutral button, unlike a car in which the break is applied slowly. Hindsight would say this was a bad moment to let dad know I hadn’t driven any motorised vehicle since 2010, asides from a gokart which I crashed and broke my ankle.

Slowly but surely my dad, who is slow to anger and rarely raises his voice, got more and more frustrated as I drove the tractor through the field, mildly avoiding ditches and hedge ways coming within inches of their lives.  

Just 10 minutes after entering the field I went over a sizeable mole hill at a speed and my dad was bumped out of his seat! I quickly stopped and helped him off the floor of the cabin apologising profusely. After a few minutes of awkward silence I went to set off again before my dad quickly interrupted “think it might be best if I take it from ‘ere”.  We were then left with the awkward act of trying to swap seats in the tiny cabin. I quickly decided it might be best for me to just walk home, and climbed down the steps, stumbling on the last one, jumping to the floor and slipping in the mud – “I’m fine!” I shouted up to my dad as the tractor door shut and he set off home.

When I eventually got back to the house – I took my time on the short walk in an attempt to avoid some embarrassment that was inevitable – I found the family sat around the kitchen table eating a ploughman’s lunch. I shuck my muddy boots to the corner and avoided eye contact with anyone until my aunt tried to point out some mud on my forehead and they exploded into floods of laughter, including my dad.

The conclusion of this nightmare? No, I don’t know how to drive a tractor. No, I won’t be getting a tractor driving job in Australia. And no, I do not make a very good farm girl.