British expat left with rash after picking mangoes at Emerald farm in Queensland
How a British expat got a horrific rash all over his body after an allergic reaction while picking FRUIT on a farm: ‘I looked like an elephant man’
- Alex Bayliss left as ‘the Elephant Man’
- British expat had severe reaction to mango juice
A British expatriate has revealed his gruesome farm work experience that left him looking like an ‘elephant man’ after he developed a severe allergic reaction to the mangoes he was picking.
Originally from Sunderland in the north of England, Alex Bayliss did his compulsory farm work on the mango farm in Emerald, north Queensland, four years ago.
He had been picking the fruit for 10 days before being hospitalized with a rash that spread all over his body and made him look like “Elephant Man.”
Mr. Bayliss relived the gruesome episode of farm work as a warning to other travelers, detailing his appalling living conditions, dirty kitchen and trashed bathroom on the first farm he stayed at.
Alex Bayliss (pictured) was hospitalized for three days after suffering a severe reaction to the mangoes he was picking while working on a farm in Queensland
Mr. Bayliss’s fingers (pictured) remained severely inflamed from the allergic reaction to the mango juice
“Three years ago I was working on a farm in North Queensland, Australia,” explains Mr. Bayliss.
“The reason I did is because if you’re not from Australia – I’m English – you have to work 88 days or work on the farm to get a second year visa.”
He added: “I had to work ten days in a row. I had a day off and I woke up in the morning looking like an elephant man.”
“Elephant man” was the nickname given to Joseph Carey Merrick – a deformed Englishman who worked as a professional “freak” in the second half of the 19th century.
Despite wearing gloves and taking antihistamines, Mr Bayliss’s allergic reaction was so bad that he developed a rash all over his body and ended up in hospital for three days.
He said he was glad he was “alive to tell the story.”
“Mango rash is a huge thing, especially in Australia,” he said.
“I think about 50 percent of people who pick mangoes get mango rash. Of course I knew that, but I didn’t realize how much I could actually be affected by it. I thought you’d get a little rash on your arms.’
Bayliss warned others to be careful if they had a job picking mangoes.
He’s the latest expatriate to open up about the tough realities of working on an Australian farm, while others claim to have made a small fortune from the grueling work.
A French backpacker claimed to have saved $15,000 in just three months while working on a farm.
Mr Bayliss said he is glad he ‘lived to tell the tale’ after his horrific work on the farm
Mr. Bayliss shards images of his appalling living conditions during his work experience on the farm
The man claimed that on a minimum wage of 50 hours a week he earns more – he operated a cherry picker to harvest fruit and “cut down some trees” on a farm in Western Australia – than as a professional marketer with a postgraduate degree in Europe. .
“So that’s my question, how can you be poor in Australia?” he said in a video posted to TikTok.
The French national is one of 112,335 people with a working holiday visa in Australia on December 31, 2022.
Many of them choose to work in agriculture as this can extend their stay by up to 12 months and open the door to an even longer visa in the future.
“I get paid the minimum rate of what you can get paid here in Australia,” he said.
The minimum wage in Australia is $21.38 per hour with 25 percent tax to $26.73 per hour for casual work.
“I do maybe 50 hours a week… I try to make a lot of money,” he continued.
“And in three months I might have $15,000 in my savings.”
The backpacker then claims he makes more money doing a “s****y job on a farm with a cherry picker and I cut down some trees” than when he worked in France with a master’s degree.