EACH year, thousands of young people make the pilgrimage to experience culture and life in a different part of the world.
Those of a farming ilk make the journey to learn more about the way another country grows its crops, runs cattle or tends to its sheep.
Nigel Body is the fourth generation of a farming family on Romney Marsh, Kent. It’s been 30 years since his time in the Land Down Under but he remembers it like it was yesterday.
“When I was in Australia, we hitched from Sydney straight to Mackay so I missed everything in between,” he said with a laugh.
“That was in 1990, a long time ago.
“I worked on a fishing boat in Queensland, we went up, got a boat out of Townsville and worked off of Dunk Island ... that sort of area.
“I then spent a year picking fruit in Western Australia, grape harvesting in South Australia and went on to Tasmania to pick persimmons.”
His last adventure involved picking apples in Victoria.
Plans to harvest sugarcane further north came undone when he decided to go home and work on the family farm instead.
“Back then there were no conditions on the youth visa, you literally had two years to work in Australia before you had to go back,” he said.
“More of us went to you, than you came to us.”
He said his experiences were not only a thing of the past within Australia but within the United Kingdom too.
“The past few years have been hard when it comes to migrant labour,” he said.
“Covid and lockdowns have not helped the situation at all. It hasn’t been that easy to travel and work.”
The 55-year-old works his 324 hectare farm alone after inheriting the land from his father who inherited it from his father. He has two sisters, neither of whom farm or live nearby.
Mr Body and his wife Shuna have no children and when extra hands are needed, cousins who live nearby are there to lend a hand.
“Today’s world provides young people with easier opportunities to make money than spending long days doing hard physical farm work,” he said.
And he was unsure who would take over his farm when he was no longer able but for now is enjoying life on the land. And right now, that’s enough