Troy Archie – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Note: Alright, finally got all my pictures loaded and added a few more things in this update so you might want to give it a quick glance over for whatever else I added.

I’ll start off with a supplemental entry just as a catch up and what not.

This is Howard who I worked with at Homestay Plantations in Carnarvon.

Chris, who along with her husband Ken owned Homestay. I got a nice little Christmas present from her of organic dried bananas before I left. I thought that was quite nice and shared the generosity with others that I was with.

Bones and Nikki.

A Ute also known as a Utility Vehicle. This one is a pretty dam nice one and would be compared to probably an S10 pick-up back home. The ones you’d use for work have more of a flat bed on the back and are usualy pretty beaten up.

These are mangos. Now I don’t even know if they even sell mangos in Canada but I had never had one until I got to Sydney and Mike bought one for me to try. The are dam good and dam expensive so expensive I wouldn’t consider buying one for myself. The cheapest I’ve seen them was about $3 a peice. Yes, $3 for a single piece of fruit and that was the cheapest I’ve seen them, most places they go for $5 per. ANyways, at the farm I was staying on in Carnarvon, they grow mangos but they weren’t ripe yet or even close so I was out of luck there but my luck did change. In the middle of the road one day was a pile of mangos that looked like they were on there way to being ripe. Chris noticed them and told me that I should go get them if I wanted any. She figured that some kids were stealing them from a farm down the road where they were a bit more ripe. So I loaded up a milk crate full of these road mangos and Chris verified that yep, they’re big enough and well on there way to ripening. She pulled out the special tissue wrap, wrapped them up like the ones in the markets and loaded them into a box. There was probably about 2 dozen of these things so Christmas came early for me this year. It was a damn heavy box and I ended up giving as many away at Christmas as I could and will try to spread the joy more during New Years.

One thing that I’ve realized I really like about my wwoofing experiences is that it makes other things seem that much more worth it and well earned plus I really like the barter system that it’s all about. I’ve had a bad experience and the work can be tough but I’d rather work a bit and get a free meal and place to stay out of it then a check at the end of the day right now. I don’t have to work, I could take an entire year off, travel the country, go on every single Adventure Tourist thing that they have set up in this country and sit on the beach all day but I don’t. Instead I’ve been doing this wwoofing thing and have really enjoying. Everyone that I’ve met who has picked fruit has pretty much nothing to say about fruit picking other than, (Insert name of fruit/veggie here) is hard or pays well or was easy or was borring, that’s it. No interesting stories, no funny experiences of ironies, just a check at the end of the day. Yeah I guess if you need the money it’s a means to an end but so many people just don’t see the point of doing any work unless they have that colored paper in their pocket at the end of the day. I try to post as much stuff as I can about my wwoofing experiences and some of the stuff that happens but I know I’m not even scratching the surface of what I’ve done and seen.

Lot’s of pumpkins
As I had mentioned before there was a lot of pumpkins at the farm in Carnarvon and I was getting my fill of them. As I went along I collected the seeds and put them on a tray and put them into the oven to let them dry. One thing you need to know about australia is that everybody has ants somewhere in their house no matter if it’s a brand new place or an old delapitaed house, my caravan wasn’t an exception and the ants had made a home in my oven. About the third day of collecting these seeds I opened up the oven and to for the entire try covered in small little ants busily chomping away at the left over pulp that was on the seeds. At first I was just going to toss them but then I noticed they were not going after the seeds. I figured that since I’ll be going to Asia and while up there I plan to give any food a try including bugs, why not give them a try down here. So I lit up the stove and roasted them with my pumpkin seeds. Unfortunately they were pretty small and pretty much distintegrated so I guess I’ll have to wait before I can try bugs.

And while I’m on the topic of bugs I’ll mention that there’s tons of them down here including huge spiders. In my caravan there was a round window with a square screen over it next to my bunk that I was sleeping in. I had the window open for a couple days at first but that all quickly changed one night when I was laying back reading and I looked over to the window and noticed a big white spider that was probably a little smaller than a CD (leg to leg) sitting in the corner of the window, on the other side of the screen, where the square screen and round window overlapped. Nice. I took a fork and kind of poked at it to chase it out of the corner, quickly opened the screen and closed the wondow. Needless to say I kept the wondow closed after that.

I am a cheap bastard. I didn’t think I could get much cheaper but lone behold I have discovered a way; Sardines and cabbage. You can buy a head of cabbage for like a dollar down here, which will last me like a week plus it’s great steamed with a curry over top of it, which I discovered tasted amazing from my stay at the Wests’s farm. As for Sardines, well they don’t taste too great, in fact they’re a bit tastless but for $0.57 a can how can I go wrong? Right? Right? Yeah there’s really no excuse for the sardines but don’t diss the cabbage curry combo or the cinnamon pumpkin until you’ve tried it. Sure as hell beats gross ass unnutritional starchy pasta that everyone else lives off of. That said, I figure I had spent less than $1000 for the month of December untill I bought a plane ticket, which I figure is pretty dam good and I’m managing to do it all the while having a great time meeting cool people and having some rad experiences. Regardless of all this odd food yes I’m still making friends so it’s all good. That said, I know it wouldn’t hurt to just let go a bit and slurge a bit…

Sarongs. Sarongs rule. They are basically a thin sheet of fabric that be used for anything ranging from a beach towel, shower towel and blanket plus they fold down to pretty much nothing. The original towel that I brought down here was this little kid towel that had hockey players all over it. It was very…Canadian. It was pretty small as it was for kids but it still took up way too much space in my pack so I ditched it and bought one of those fast drying super compactable towels for like $25. I then forgot it at a hostel a few weeks later. I manged to get away with not having one as all the hostels had a towel service but then at Homestay Plantations I had to bring my own towel so I went out and bought this little tea towel that I was using to dry my entire self off. Finally after much serching though I found myself a manly sarong and bought it Christmas Eve as a present to myself. I wore it around with great happiness and hung it up to dry at the end of the day. I went around at the end of the day to collect it again and it was gone. I was pretty pissed off; who would do such a thing and especially on Christmas? So I went around and started to ask people if they had done any laundry that day but to no avail. After much questioning and detective work I went back to the clothes line area and sure enough it was there again, hanging up to dry. I figure I either sweated them out or someone took it by mistake. Anyways, sarongs rule and if you are going to do any light travel (backpacking) get yourself a sarong over a towel.

One problem that I’m starting have that I really have to watch out for is I’m starting to “reckon” things. I’m hanging around with too many Australians on my wwoofing stays and the Aussie slang is starting to rub off on me.

Well Merry Christmas everyone, I hope you had a great Christmas, as I know I did. I spent the 23, 24, 25 and 26 in a place called Coral Bay which is a small tourist resort town north of Carnarvon and south of Exmouth in Western Australia. It’s a nice little town, with a great hostel but I guess things are going to be changed around as Hilton has just won a contract to build a 200 room, 5 star resort here after years of fighting. I’m using a guide book that’s about 5 years old and it even lays mention to this and the on going fight to build this place up. Anyway, it’s a pretty small town right now of about 100 or so permenant residents which I’m sure they all work in the tourism trade. SInce it’s so small the grocery stores cost a fortune but I was warned about this and came prepared with enough dam food to feed an army which included a huge pumpkin from Homestay farms 2-3kg bags of oranges and a crap load of tuna. It has a really sheltered bay and you can basicaly walk out from shore with some snorkel gear and see tons of marine life and coral; hence Coral Bay.

Time has no meaning here.

So what did I do for these oh so holy of day’s you ask? Well if you took the exact polor opposite of what I would normally do during this time of year you’d get my Christmas. For example, for Christmas Eve I’d usualy spend it with with about 20 some family members, stuff myself full of homemade Ukrainian foods and junkfood, have a nice gift exchange with my family and pretty much chill out with everyone. Not this year. For Christmas dinner this year it was cabbage, tuna, pumpkin and peanuts which I will add I did thouroghly enjoy, especialy the pumpkin and cabbage. I spent the night with people that were basicaly perfect strangers up until the previous night or that day. After dinner we went out the local pub and had great time at the local watering hole.

Now that brings us to Christmas day. Back home we would get up around 8-9, have brunch, open presents, visit for a bit then go for a second round of eating tons of Ukranian food and junkfood and then finish the day with feeling sick a regretting all you ate. Good fun.

Coral Bay

Enter bizzaro world redux: This is how I started the morning; Me and the big man himself.

Started off pretty early, comparing that I was out pretty late and went to hit the beach for a workout. Lonebehold a big crowd was ammasing on the beach wating for Saint Nic’s arrival on a speed boat. After he same and went I did my workout with a sandbag that I had just made but unfortunately it broke halfway through so I figure I must have been a bad boy this year. After that I went out for a quick snorkel as having mentioned before you can walk off the beach and into some great coral with lots of cool fish and other marine life. I finished the morning with a special Christmas brunch of pumpkin, (which again I will say is amazing with cinnamon) oranges, peanuts and the cremde la creme, a can of salmon. Unfortunately the canned salmon down here tastes like crap and I was very much dissapointed. Well at least the cheap stuff tastes like crap, I’m sure the good stuff tastes good but dammed if I’m paying more than $2.50. After brunch the Christmas Crew and I went out to the beach to spent the day soaking in the rays and doing some snorkelling.

Starting from the left; Corin, Erin and Simona. Erin is from where of all places? Edmonton. She was living in Brisbane doing a student exchange from UBC. It was pretty cool running into someone from home and talking up shit that no one else would know or understand like West Edmonton Mall and the Oilers who I see are number one in the Norstwest division right now; what a time to be away from hockey…I’ve been searching the net to see if the channels down here will be showing any hockey during the winter Olympics, yeah I’m hurtin’. Way in the back we have Steve on the right and Tom on the left.

Corin and Simona are from Switzerland and were going to school in Perth to learn English. Now that they’re finished school, they’re travelling Australia.

In here we have Tom, from Ireland who’s been on a round the world trip for the last 7 months, Steve from England who’s also on a round the world trip, and Cukumy(sp) from Japan who’s travelling up the west coast to Darwin for a short get away. The blond lady was on vacation from Perth and I can’t remember her name. She came up for the sunset and popped up now and again to hang out.

Here’s another person I spent Christmas with, Joe. Joe’s a 73 year old Italian imagrantliving in Perth, travelling up the coast all the way over to Brisbaine to visit his family. He said it’ll probably take him 2-3 months to do it as he is in no rush and because there’s plenty to see along the way. He was one of the nicest most generous guys I have ever met. Now you ask what’s the point of all this and why are you hanging out with some 70 year old man? Well my point is for starters is that you don’t need to be a 20 some year old person to stay in hostels and be part of the “backpacker community”. Hostels are a place where anyone of any age, creed and sex can stay, met other people of any age, creed and sex. Yeah some of them are a bit dingy but you can eventualy spot them from a mile away. You share a bathroom and kitchen, which is nice as you can then cook for yourself instead of alsway eating out. Joe stay’s a hostels because he wants to meet people and because they’re a lot cheaper than going to a hotel. All hostels have different sized rooms ranging from 10 person dorms to 2 person private rooms and that’s what Joe rents. Another case example is this one guy that I’ve been traveling with, Steve. He’s about in his mid 30’s and has travelled pretty extensively but has always stayed in hotels and such. This time around he decided to stay in hostels and he says he’s having way more fun simply because he’s meeting people. So where am I going with all this? You don’t need to spend $2000 for a 5 star all inclusive resort bull shit to have a vacation and see the world. Check out a hostel, meet people, cook some of your own meals and do it for a fraction of the cost. Mom & Brad, Dad, Booboosh & Mike and anyone else who thinks that traveling like this is for kids, well it’s not. I emplore you to spend a couple nights in a hostel and see what it really is like.

I met this German guy who had travelled across Canada and stayed in hostels the whole time. I was surprised to find out that most places in Canada have hostels but sure enough they do. Edmonton I guess has quite a few, even Jasper and Banff have one each so really, even travelling on Canada can be done for very cheap. After talking to that guy I would really like to travel Canada and actualy see my own country. Canada is so divided politcaly and culturally that I think it would be really interesting to travel across it and see other people’s perspectives in different corners of the country.
Rant Done.

Chillin’ on the beach.

Later that day we had a good Christmas dinner with again, for myself curried pumpkin, crappy salmon, steamed cabbage and a special treat, tomatoes. I didn’t but them, they had BBQ Christmas Eve here at the hostel and they were going to throw away all of the tomatoe ends so I took them (as I mentioned before I’m cheap as shit) and cooked them up my new favorite way; fried with pepper. After dinner all went out to watch the sun set, which was a bit dissapointing as it was clowdy out in the horizon but was great regardless. The wind was pretty strong but it’s really nice and warm here, holding around 32 so it was a great sea wind. The wind has been a lot less of a nusence here and pretty much in Carnarvon too so sitting on the beach and swimming has been great.

So needless to say I had an amazing Christmas day, I wouldn’t say it was my best Christmas ever but just extremely different and that’s what makes it so cool.

One of Santa’s Reindeer.

I had a great time snorkelling in Coral Bay but as I have mentioned before I am the worst swimmer in the world and even before I really started out and went into any deep water I was going to go back to the rental shop and rent out a life jacket. What a wuss. After some practice though I got the hang of it and realized that it’s pretty hard to sink as the water there was very salty and the flippers keep you pretty bouant. Regardless I had a great time snorkelling and saw some really cool stuff. I really wanted to see a manta or turtle or shark but had no such luck but I still say lots of really colorful fish and lots of great coral. There are tour packages that will garentee you to see certain things but I found them to be a big much and just kept to swimming from the shore, which was still quite amazing how much stuff you can see from just walking into the water. Steve saw a turtle twice when he was out there and another guy saw a couple smaller mantas.

Sunset on Coral Bay on my last night.

You’ve got to really watch the sun out here because it’ll get you. My mom and sister complained to me that I looked very pale and asked if I had been out in the sun at all. I had been covering up pretty good, especially while working and had been doing my best to put on sun screen and stay in the shade. Well my first day at Coral Bay I went all day without sun screen and a shirt and I got pretty fried. Fortunately it was cloudy out so I didn’t get burnt but I got very brown which I guess is for the best but it made me realize just how it can creep up on you. A lot of Australians that I have met looked so old because they never covered up or wore sunscreen. At the McKenny’s farm, Angela looked like she was 60 but was in her mid 40’s; Mom you looked like you are 20 year’s younger than her. As for Graham well, he had one ear removed and a huge scar from surgery due to skin cancer. Scary shit.

I’ve ended up spending an extra day in Coral Bay and had a great time and after an 18 hour bus ride I am now up in Broome. I was going to stop in Port Hedland to go to this national park there but none of the tours were running due to Christmas and New Years and I really didn’t want to stay there as it’s just a big dirty industrial town. Everything was red there from the iron ore mines and it was pretty dam hot there to top it off. So I, along with Steve, Corin and Serina went straight up to Broome together. It wasn’t too bad of a bus ride but I now know why people warned me about going up here and why they call it “The Wet”. I’m currently sitting in the Broome Library and it’s absolutely pouring outside. It’s extremely humid and all you do is sweat. It’s probably around 33 but the humidity is pretty high. It’s not all that bad and I’m getting a bit aclimatized already but I don’t plan to go any farther north from here. I would really love to see the Kimberly which is the area around Darwin but it’s all basically closed save for a few things due to the rains. Broome was my destination when I left Perth over a month ago and from there I really had no idea what to do next. It’s taken me a while to get up here but it’s been great. I have met lots of great people and have had an amazing time but it feels weird as it feels like it’s the end of a journey. I think it’s just that from here I’ll be setting off from some people that I’ve been traveling with for longer than I have anyone else. I was hoping to find a vehicle that I could relocate for the rental companies to Experence, which is along the south coast east of Perth but with no such luck so since I don’t want to go north up to Darwin(yet) and I’m not going to go back down to Perth and retrace my steps I’m booked a flight to Alice Springs. Unfortunately the flight goes only on weekends so it was either I catch a flight late New Years eve or early New Years morning or wait a week sitting around in Broome. I decided for the New Years day flight which should be interesting. From Alice Springs I’m planning on going south towards Adalaide, over along the Great Ocean Road towards Melborne, across to Tasmania, up the eastcoast and from there up to Darwin. I figure Darwin will be a bit cooler and dryer by the time I circle around and get there but I’m planning to far ahead right now and have to think about today…

Here’s a couple pics of our bus ride and such.

Here’s another middle of nowhere Roadhouse sign with the distances to other places.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Here’s the last bit of pics from Coral Bay.

Safe Travels

Troy

Tags: Australia

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