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The traditional process of picking olives burns a huge amount of calories. This is a great form of exercise compared to the current methods of harvesting.

Olive tree ripe for picking

The traditional method of picking olives from the trees is by using a stick to beat the branches. The olives are still harvested this way at Laharum Grove from early June to mid July. Unlike the neighbors of this Victorian Olive Grove at the foothills of the Grampians, they still use traditional methods of harvesting.

As the trees are very established it’s difficult to get a shaker machine around the trunk and this can damage the trees. The traditional method is harder work but just as effective according to the owner Dierdre Baum.

These trees form part of the original grove planted in 1943 by Jacob Friedman. They were part of an investment project which unfortunately left many investors high and dry. The demand didn’t align with the sales projections. Other stories speak of an Italian immigrant who hand planted the grove with the help of ex POW’s and convicts.

Harvesting olives using stick

This is very physical work with a olive picker filling 2 x 500kg bins per day. The process begins with covering the ground with a meshed sheet that collects all the fallen olives.

Placing nets on ground before harvesting olives

Great care is taken not to accidentally step on the olives and crush them as they are then worthless for oil extraction.

Traditional technique picking olives with stick

Next comes the fun part, by using a stick that may be made from bamboo, the picker faces the branch with the fruit side on. They then use a follow through action to skim the edge of the branches to ensure maximum extraction.

Collection of sticks to collect olives

Different sized sticks can be used to either reach the higher fruit or the branches drooping close to the ground.
It’s a good idea to ensure that you give your arms an even workout and change sides regularly unless you want to have a dominant arm.

Fallen Olives after harvesting

Collecting olives

The next stage is to collect the fallen olives and deposit them into the smaller baskets that hold up to 25-30kgs. These are carried over to the larger bins.

Sifting leaves from olives

The smaller branches amongst the olives need to be sifted prior to being deposited into the larger bins.

Bins full of picked olives

Well we managed to fill 2 bins in 2.5 hours, the first bin at 625kg and the second at 645kg, not a bad effort considering that this takes a whole day for a single picker.

The olive tree before harvesting by hand

The olive tree after harvesting with stick

This process is extremely efficient as the fruit is stripped bare from the tree.

Enjoying the harvested olives

Now the best part, enjoying some el fresco dining with olive oil and bread, olive oil paste and olives.

For those looking to experience the pick and press themselves, Fitstyler will be running our own event with competitions to add some more excitement. You can also contact Laharum Grove.

The last part of the process is getting the olives pressed within 12 hours, preferable 6 hours to stop deterioration and the fermentation process commencing. This is just one of the 9 prerequisites for the oil to be qualified as extra virgin olive oil.
So with a yield of 10%, that’s a lot of olive oil to be processed.
Fortunately for us, Lanarum Grove has access to the pressing facility at Toscana Olives which forms part of the original plantation dating back to the 1940′s.

If you’re looking for a challenge, then try and beat the record set last week when one of the older pickers from Toscana picked 1400kgs in a day, pretty amazing when 25 of us picked 1300kgs.
Now that’s some exercise, starting at 8.30-9.00am and finishing by 5pm as the olives must be at the press to process. Even more impressive is Diedre’s mum and dad who will pick a ton a day.

The traditional olive picking techniques uses more energy expenditure than modern tree shaking techniques using machinery.

Today olives are picked using something from either the Thunderbirds or Batman with a highly sophisticated system of clamping the tree and applying a vibrating action to dislodge ripened olives.

Traditional olive picking technique

The traditional method of picking olives was very energy intensive that required great core strength and all over fitness to swing a stick for 8 -12 hours per day.
The calorie burn would have been quite high as this is extremely physical work.

As olives hark back to Egyptian times with the migration of olives to the Mediterranean countries such as Italy, Greece and Macedonia their popularity grew.
With increasing demand and the growth of mechanised farming came some very ingenious inventions to streamline the harvesting process.

The advent of pneumatics gave rise to the ability to create the shaking/vibration action that is critical to dislodging the fruit.

Olive shaking machine

Positioning Olive tree for shaking

Lining Up olive tree for shaking

Opening canopy to catch falling olives

Loading collected olives into bins

Bins full of picked olives

The great thing about the shaking process that it doesn’t damage the trees if the trees are clamped correctly.
The risk to the tree is clamping the truck where their is a fork as this will cause a split and ultimately kill the tree.

So with the tree shaking machine able to fill to bins per hour, there is little chance for a person to hand pick more than 2 bins per day.

Work Exercise, you can’t beat building The Great Ocean Road by hand.

While many of us have enjoyed driving the world-renowned great Ocean Road in Victoria’s southwest, many people would be unfamiliar with the back breaking work of the returned soldiers and local community who helped forge this magnificent road.

And it would never have come to fruition if it weren’t for the dedication and financial generosity of the Geelong mayor, Alderman Howard Hitchcock, a wealthy businessman from the district.

While there had been earlier attempts at joining the coastal towns from Lorne to Geelong, it wasn’t until The Country Roads Board envisaged that “this impassable coastline could be breached” using the services of repatriated soldiers from World War I.

The Great Ocean Road Trust was founded in 1917 with the road serving as a war memorial to commemorate the services of those soldiers who served in the World War I from 1914 to 1918 while providing employment as well.

Work officially began in 1918 and involved thousands of ex-servicemen. While modern road construction and excavation involves using hydraulic rock crushing machinery and bulldozers, such luxuries were not afforded to the workers. The use of dynamite was not allowed and most of the work was carried out using picks and shovels and occasionally some machinery.

This high level of physically exertion on a daily basis would have burn’t a lot of calories.

However, anecdotally there was some respite from the arduous work when a tall ship laden with passengers and cargo ran aground. While there were no injuries, there was a need to jettison cargo so that the ship’s weight would be reduced significantly enough to ensure that on high tide the ship could return to deeper water.

Given the wealthy passengers on board there was a prize booty of cargo including much alcohol and exotic food. In recognition of the hard work undertaken by the servicemen on the project, the construction company gave them three weeks off to enjoy this bounty

While our goods and rubbish are transported by motorised trucks and courier vans, some countries still utilise human labor for transportation purposes.

For thousands of years man has been transporting goods, building and construction materials, food and rubbish by using buckets, urns and other carrying devices.

In Thailand where there is motorised transport for to ferry hotel guests to and from the connecting boats, the Thai workers still transport heavy loads using a rickshaw type arrangement.

This may seem an efficient means of transporting goods while leaving zero carbon emissions, there has to be some consideration as to whether the workers are experiencing any injuries as a result of moving such heavy loads.

Fortunately most of the workers have good posture and core strength that minimises the risk of damage to the lower back. Most importantly there are 3 workers per cart to help spread the load.

Many elite sportsmen use towing a weighted sled behind them as a form of training for building up leg strength.

In today’s modern life with the advent of increasing technological advancements and the outsourcing of industry to China & India, we are slowly becoming a more sedentary society. We have motorised everything, from can openers to leaf blowers, slowly removing the need to exert any any energy.

So if you’re looking for some extra exercise on your next holiday, maybe volunteer your services but just remember to maintain good posture at all times:))

While talking to a taxi driver in Malaysia he had an interesting story of how his mother extracted latex from rubber trees and the transportation involved.

The process of extracting latex harks back to the traditional methods called tapping, which involves making an incision in a spiral like pattern around the trunk of a palm tree. Every day the tapper will collect the latex that had weeped from the palm tree into a little bowl on the side of the trunk. On average a person tap 100 to 150 palm trees per day.

The most interesting part of this story was that the taxi driver’s mother tapped up to 500 palm trees per day and collected 728 gallons of latex or 25 to 30 L (the equivalent weight of 25/30kgs). The most amazing part is that at the end of every day his mother who was 55 would carry the day’s worth of latex over her shoulders into 2 aluminium buckets connected by flexible timber rod and travel 2 -3 kms to the deposit zone.

On average the tappers would work from the age of 18 to 55 years old with the children clearing the ground around the canopy of the palm trees of weeds and other plant material. This work was very physically exhausting with minimal pay which made this a very demanding type of work exercise.