Melting

The truck driver pulled up to the house early in the morning, before sunrise at 6am. I was already awake and showered, since I couldn’t sleep with such anticipation. Annette told me that he wanted to get a really early start, and he meant it. Loading the sheep onto the truck took only about 45 minutes, and I quickly had breakfast while I waited to leave. The sun was just starting to come up when everyone came to the house to say goodbye, and I loaded my bags into the high cabin. He was in a hurry, so I gave hugs all around, and boarded my ride to Broken Hill. The sheep were restless and so was I.. I was ready to continue my journey west. [read on]

Sheep shearing finally started yesterday, and after such anticipation and build-up, it was slightly anticlimatic. Because the start date kept getting pushed back, we actually had quite a lot of free time on the station, apart from getting everything ready for shearing. It was initially supposed to start on the 20th of March, but some of the sheep had lambs late in the season, they needed to wait a few weeks to let them get a little bigger to be able to make the long walks from the paddocks to the shearing shed at the house. It is also really difficult to book shearers, and the station they were at before Polpah took longer than expected, so instead of the 27th, we started yesterday, the 30th. There is a lot to do around a station to prepare for shearing, everything from going into town to get supplies to cleaning the shearers quarters to repairing fences and sweeping out the shed. But because we had so much extra time, we were able to do some fun activities as well, and the wealth of things to do out here continues to amaze me. [read on]

It was starting to get dark as the sun set behind the few scattered trees and the main house. They were ahead of me in the truck, driving slowly to a large tree around the side of the house. I ... [Continue reading this entry]