UNDERNEATH bird netting that spans eight hectares, Peter Gudgeon talks of his life on the road driving trucks around Australia, trawling for prawns off the coast of Townsville, and growing lychees.
His house sits beneath the bird netting, a protection Mr Gudgeon implemented on his lychee farm 10 years ago to combat bats, which would take 75 percent of his produce before harvest.
"If someone was paying you a wage, and something took three-quarters of your wage, you would not be happy," Mr Gudgeon said.
Up until recently, Mr Gudgeon would harvest 70 tonnes of lychees a year, which were sold wholesale at markets in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne.
Today Mr Gudgeon describes himself as semi-retired and he harvests just 3t. His harvest team has dwindled from 30 pickers to just himself and wife Chris.
"The wages have changed and now it is a waste of time," Mr Gudgeon said.
Prices for lychees have been stable for 20 years.
Early in the picking season, which spans the Christmas period, a 5kg box of lychees sold for $120 but dropped to a meagre $15 once production and competition grew in other producing areas like the Atherton Tableland.
Also, the quality of the sweet delicacy has to be great.
"The more nurtured, the higher the price," Mr Gudgeon said.
With 16 years' growing experience behind him, he knows this rule well.
Before switching to farming, he was somewhat of a gypsy, trawling the South Pacific Ocean for crabs, prawns and fish weeks on end before returning to Townsville and then going out again.
He said trawling was hard on the skipper mentally because of the pressure and responsibility for the crew.
Prior to hitting the ocean for some of its best produce, Mr Gudgeon drove trucks around Australia.
When NQR asked how it felt to be stuck in one place for such a long period of time, Mr Gudgeon (pictured) said it was a great change.
"Farming has been the best lifestyle," he said.
"When I was always moving around, all I wanted to do was grow something."
Mr Gudgeon got into lychees because they were the thing to grow, plus the prices were not too bad.
His dedication to farming has also reaped benefits for North Queensland.
In 2002 and 2003 he won the North Queensland Lychee Association Grower of the Year.
Since then Mr and Mrs Gudgeon have notched things down a little because "they just can't keep up" with the produce of 1250 lychees and 100 carambolas.
Maintenance responsibilities remain the same for the Gudgeons, despite the smaller business they now operate.
Once they even grew mangoes, but Mr Gudgeon said trying to make a dollar out of the popular fruit was a waste of time, because of the early harvest in the Northern Territory, whose growers in return grab the best prices.
Out of all the industries Mr Gudgeon has been involved in, perhaps trawling and farming shared one similarity - the chance to "pig out" on what you were chasing.
"When I first started in the prawn and lychee industries, I just could not stop eating them," he said. "Prawns are absolutely beautiful fresh."
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