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Still Wwoofing in Eden

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

Day two in Brokenhead Beach. It feels so good to physically create something with your hands. This morning we started out with weeding and mulching the organic garden. Weeding is a good task for someone whose a little ADD like me. I even mulched the weed plant. HeHe! It looks FABULOUS now!

For a good part of the day, we sat around waiting to see what was next. Greg had several people stop in, so work was halted.

In the afternoon, we began rebuilding the earthen stairs. I guess we just cleaned them up a bit, but it involved back breaking hoe work. We had to hoe the area to pull up the very deep grass roots and level out the stairs. I’m really sore, but it was satisfying work.

I think you get such a sense of accomplishment through physical labor and seeing concrete results of your work. I’m afraid most of my techno-saturated generation is very much missing out on that feeling.

This evening, more visitors arrived. A DJ from Melbourne and his manager are here to stay for a few days. We had another fantastic dinner with pesto made that day with garden fresh vegetables over pasta. Yummy. Then we started working on drinking our several bottles of wine that we can’t bring back to the states because of the nazi liquid restrictions.

And we got our first digiredoo lesson. Fun times.

– Carrie

The Legend of Brokenhead Beach

Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007

Brokenhead Headland, the place where we’re Wwoofing, has an ancient and significant role in the aboriginal history of the area. Much like every other coastal area in eastern Australia, they have an aboriginal slaughter story. It’s horrific, but not uncommon. A large quantity of flower was stolen from the trading post. The aboriginals were blamed for the theft and slaughtered by gunfire. That is actually much more humane than some other areas where the white men poisoned the aboriginals by lacing their gifts of food with strychnine.

The legend dates back to aboriginal times and has to very distinct and interesting ending.

A woman, Gorgogan was born and lived in Woodenbong to the north of Brokenhead Beach. She magically flew south to the beach and became a spirit. During the day, she would appear as the black rocks on the shore along with many other women spirits. At night she would

Ending One: Appear as a light at sea and lure certain men to their deaths.

Ending Two: Appear as a light at sea.

The differences of the two tales are fascinating to me. Which men were lured? Who was responsible, the men or the spirit. The questions can go on indefinitely. I love it.

According to a local aboriginal authority, the second version is most likely the original. Aboriginal takes generally have ambiguous and peaceful endings.

– Carrie