Harvest in many areas this year has been a near-perfect result — and one young farmer has even more reason to celebrate.
Eighteen-year-old Aimee Gladigau, from Bulla Burra Farms at Alawoona in the South Australian Mallee, was driving chaser bins with a spring in her step on Wednesday, having woken to the news that she had received an ATAR of 99.05 from Loxton High School.
"I'm on night shift so I sleep in quite late — so when the results came out at 8.30am I was still asleep," she said.
"One of the front office ladies called and told me my ATAR and, being half asleep, it took me half a minute to process.
"I had to ask her a few times if she read it correctly.
"So then it was a 30-minute drive into town to get some photos taken and race back to get to my shift for harvest."
Congratulations flood in
As is the case with many farming properties, phone reception was poor where Aimee was working, and that meant another challenge.
"I was getting all these congratulatory phone calls but we were in a paddock in the middle of nowhere, so dad had to drive me up a hill so I could get service," she said.
This is the first year Aimee has helped with harvest and while she does not plan on farming as a career, she said she was having a great time.
"It's very different to what I want to do in the future, but it's a great experience and learning to work in a team like this will be really beneficial in the future," she said.
"The dream is to study a Bachelor of Creative Arts (Entertainment Design and Visual Effects) at Flinders University.
"I really want to do concept art for video games and films; I'm really passionate about visual story-telling and creating art and telling stories through that, and that's what I want to do with my life."
