Oilers
May 16th, 2006I thought I’d make a quick post in regards to the good old Oilers. I haven’t seen any games or seen any highlights and today was the first time while in Australia that I’ve heard any mention of NHL hockey on TV and that was on an International news broadcast and all they mentioned was the scores from Sunday’s games. I have been following the playoffs as close as I can and during the Wings series I had high speed at my disposal and could watch the highlights online but nots the case now. That I said I’m pretty stoked about the Oilers upsetting the Wings and now coming back from down two games to go to the verge of eliminating the Sharks has only got me more interested in the games. It’s a pretty interesting looking playoffs with so many teams being upset but like Gretzky was saying, there’s very little difference between 8th and 1st and anything can happen. From what I’ve read online and have deciphered through stats, I think the teams that are playing as a team and not relying on a couple main players, hot goalie or big line, are the ones having the most success. Save the Sharks all the teams that are left don’t have any one player carrying the team but are playing a solid team game and winning and it’s that reason that I think Edmonton will win the series and go onto the 3rd round. The Sharks have relied way too much on Thorton, Cheechoo and Marleau meanwhile Edmonton has been getting more spread out scoring. Yeah there’s a couple players that are playing pretty dam good and having some breakout games but there’s not that one player doing all the work and carrying the team. But again, I say all this without seeing a single game, getting all my information from articles and editorials written by commentators who didn’t give Edmonton a chance against the Sharks. In the third round though, Edmonton needs to look out for Todd Marchant, he’s the type of guy that I have a feeling would bite them in the ass.
So go Oilers go and safe travels
Troy
Big City Sickness
May 10th, 2006Another month goes by and I finally get around to putting up another update. I’m doing this on a slow ass computer with a dial up modem so there’s no nice pictures posted on here with witty captions but I did manage to upload all my pics from my little adventures, with links to them throughout the articles. I’m still doing this thing but it can be hard to find the time and computer to update it so patients is a virtue. So what has all happened in the last month? Well lets see, I left Kangaroo Island on a pretty high note having a great time out there. When Kate was dropping me off at the bus stop she had Willow, her dog, with her and got Willow out of the car to say good-bye to me. We made our good-byes and just as Kate and Willow were about to climb back into the car a truck drove by with another dog in the back of it, barking away as it drove by. Willow took off chasing the truck down the street after her with Kate and I on hot pursuit yelling at her to come back. As the truck got to the corner and slowed down to turn just about running over Willow who, with us chasing after her and yelling, started to make her way back down the street towards us. Meanwhile the other dog jumped off the back of the truck and started chasing after Willow as she made her way back to us. The two then stopped in the middle of the street and sort of had a couple quick snaps at each other before the other dog took off after the truck it was on, which by then had made it’s way around the corner and was out of sight. We caught Willow after that and nearly had a heart attack with what just had happened. After that I was waiting around at the bus stop for (guess guess) the bus and Torran came by to say good-bye. I reiterated what had just progressed and he was like, “That’s what all that barking was about. I was around the corner and could hear two dogs fighting and then saw another dog running down the street after a truck and jump onto the back of it.” So that was my Kangaroo Island send off. I managed to get all my pics up from Kangaroo Island which are here.I made my way back into Adelaide and set up a bus ride to go to Melbourne spending a day just hoofing around the city and I think updating this thing. I took the overnight bus to Melbourne and actually slept rather well on it having had the whole isle to myself.
Melbourne
I spent the next 3 days in Melbourne, checking out some of the sights, getting errands done, hanging out and getting a feel for the city. It’s a dam nice city and it really reminds me of Vancouver; I could see myself living there someday, if just for a short stint. It was pretty interesting getting back into the backpacker swing of things and I must say I definitely don’t miss the hostel scene. That said, the hostel had an arrangement with a local gym for free admission and I got to have a “proper” gym workout for the first time in 5 months of which I have mixed feelings about. I trudged around the city, bought myself some warmer clothes, as Victoria is dam cold and a pair of good official Aussie boots. They’re dam nice boots and I feel truly Australian now. I went to the Queen Victoria Market while on town, which is a huge outdoor market with everything you can think of from fish/meat to fruit and veg to shoes and clothes to chocolate and cheese to shoes and clothes. It’s a pretty cool market and I enjoyed just walking around seeing what was all offered, even though I didn’t buy much, just a $6 bar of chocolate. Yeah quite insane but I’ll get on that later.I also spent a bit of time just walking and bussing around the city checking out the different precincts and suburbs. I enjoy doing that as you can get a good feeling of the city by just jumping on a bus and seeing where it goes or hoofing around the central parts of the city. Melbourne is definitely a bustling city that is actually open at night time compared to Adelaide. It’s got a pretty good restaurant scene and an even better cafe scene from what I could see. From what I’ve read Melbourne and it’s people are quite the coffee snobs and really really enjoy a good cup of coffee, sounds like my kind of people and place. Although I do enjoy touring the cities like that, at the same time find it a bit depressing. Cities have a lot of really great stuff in them, especially Melbourne, lots of cool shops, restaurants and interesting sights but unfortunately most things and just about everything costs money, something as a backpacker you really don’t want to blow away. Markets, theatres, museums, restaurants and cafes; Melbourne’s got it all and then some, of which all cost a fair bit of cash. It’s hard to see people that are living their daily lives taking advantage of all these things, like a good cup of coffee on a daily basis, while you view something like that as a luxury and must remain vigilant not breaking down and blowing cash on them. It’s sad though as I find myself roaming the streets at times peering through the windows of these great looking restaurants and cafes looking at that the menus they have pinned up and thinking what I would order if I were to go in. It’s a constant fight it seems to be a cheap bastard. There is one thing that I went and did that was definitely worth it and that was a live game of Australian Rules Football.
AFL
What an amazing sport. I’d say it’s a cross between soccer, American football and rugby. I tried watching it on TV before but just couldn’t figure it out, but with one live game I managed to figure out most of the rules and got a good feeling for the game and what a game. The speed of it is great and I’ve got to say that the athleticism of the athletes is amazing, I haven’t seen any other sport where the athletes have such a broad range of fitness as these guy’s do. The amount they run puts them in there with a soccer player and long distance runner, yet they have to be able to explode into a full sprint at any moment, add in their huge vertical leap in order to catch the ball, along with the fact that it’s a contact sport where they’re all big powerful guy’s constantly fighting for position and you’ve got a mixture for a pretty Crossfit athlete I think. I’d love to see this game come to Canada as a summer sport. I’ve heard that it’s trying to expand a bit and they’re looking at putting some teams or even another division or league in Dubai. I’m told there’s also a game played in Ireland that’s quite simular to it and I guess they have a tournament each year where the best from both leagues play against each other with a compromised set of rules. Again, a great game and reasonably priced too, only $18 and after seeing a live game, it’s got me wanting to see some hockey but alas.Here’s what little pics I took of Melbourne.
Warburton
After a couple days in Melbourne I took off out to a small town east of city called Warburton where I had a wwoof stay already set up. Warburton is a small town up in the Victorian Alps, about an hour and 45 minutes outside of central Melbourne, surprisingly the public transport actually goes all the way out there. The town is right in the mountains, if you want to call them mountains and I guess on one of the higher ones it’ll snow on the top of it a couple times a year. The country side was pretty dam nice and things were very green. The town itself is pretty nice, with lots of nice walking trails through the little river valley that had a bit of a rainforest growing in it, quaint little stores that seem to be closed more than open and that’s about it. The town itself really reminded me of the town in Beatlejuice for some reason. It’s a real weekender town with people coming out from the city on the weekends and staying at a B&B and just checking out the nature. The people that I was staying with were Janet Sorden and Eric Felber (who originated from Switzerland), a retired couple that used to live in the city and set up a bit of a “hobby farm”, as they called it, on 5 hectares to work on as a retirement project. It wasn’t much of a farm and in fact my grandparents house has a bigger veggie garden than they do. I’d say Eric & Janet had what you would call a country garden; lots of nice trees/plants, landscaping, ponds and walking paths. It’s definitely a beautiful garden but wasn’t really what I was hoping it to be. I’m a bit ignorant; I figure if it doesn’t grow food or is a companion to growing food there’s not much point but like I say I’m ignorant. They’re house was up in the hills overlooking the town so at least the view was really nice. Work was pretty much general up keep of the place with clearing brush and picking weeds being the majority of the work. It was pretty dam easy work and rather boring. The people themselves, Janet and Eric were pretty nice people but were a bit aloof and antisocial. Being that Eric was a Swiss-German and their main meals of the day is lunch, which would also be our one meal per day that we would sit down and have a meal together. The food was great as Janet was an amazing cook but it was also really the only time we’d socialize and talk and even then, some day’s getting a conversation out of them was like pulling teeth, especially from Eric. At first I thought he just didn’t like me but as time went by I realized that that was just the way he and her too both were. They had a couple neighbours over for Easter, where Janet made this amazing rabbit stew (rabbit is good), and even there they were both pretty quiet, again especially Eric. They’re anti-socialness and little things they did started to get to me a bit and I felt a bit of tension from them. Little things bothered me quiet a bit like during Easter dinner, when I finished my plate they didn’t offer seconds or anything and it was their neighbour that made the offer, yeah sounds stupid and I’m probably over analysing things but… At night time it was even worse; a regular evening for them involved sitting down and watching an opera or a symphony play. Now I have nothing against opera and like a little symphony but watching it on TV, especially the symphony, is pretty boring and the operas they were watching were terribly bad. One night I was reading in the living room while they were watching an opera based on the New Testament but in I think French or Italian so it had subtitles. I knew it was the bible right off the bat when they mentioned the rooster crowing after Peter denied Jesus three times. Anyway, if it weren’t for the subtitles I would have had no idea what it was about as instead of the characters wearing robes and sandals and costumes, they all wore plaid, very ugly plaid at that. The setting also appeared to be in a cafe or a coffee shop. The different camera angles and shots they used were quite funny and a couple times i just about laughed out loud. So that was my Warburton experience, I’d work a couple hours in the morning and then we’d have lunch. From there the afternoon was mine and I’d usually head down into the town to the local footy/cricket oval, which had a great spot for pull-ups and have a workout, after that I’d head home and, make myself dinner, read, watch TV in my room and that was about it, not the most exciting people or work. After a couple days there I was pretty much ready to leave but changed my mind and decided to stay. I figured that it was an alright stay and that the only reason I had to leave was that I really wasn’t learning anything. The food was good, I got to cook some of my own meals, the work was easy, I had my own rather pleasant room with a TV in it and my own bathroom. A couple day’s later I then realized that if I wasn’t learning anything and I wasn’t socializing much with the hosts and therefore making some type of exchange, why was I here? To get free room and board? Plus I realized that I was breaking the number one backpacker rule and a rule that I try to hold for life in general; don’t fall into a comfort zone. So with those revelations I made a couple phone calls to a couple other farms in the area and found a new place. After I told Eric and Janet that I was going they seemed to almost open up to me a lot more, it was weird and when Eric was dropping me off at the new farm he gave me great reviews and told them that I was in the top 95% of the people that he had stay with them. This was all find and dandy but it sure would have been nice if he told me that or said a simple, “good work” over the 10 days that I was there. Regardless the stay there was a nice stay and Eric and Janet were both nice people and I truly appreciate their hospitality and generosity, it was very…nice. Here’s the pics I took of Warburton.
Large Black Pigs
After Warburton I went out to another farm that nearby that specialized in a rare breed of pigs, Large Blacks, which are just basically really big pigs that are black. I guess they’re a pretty rare species with only like 80 some in Australia. The farm was owned by Christine and pretty much was operated by another lady, Wendy. Chris’ son, Joe lived there too and helped out with a lot of things. Now this was a true farm and they raised the pigs as a free range product selling it to restaurants, delis and farmers markets and such. The days were a lot longer and the work a lot harder but it was good farm work and Chris, Wendy and Joe were all great. The first day I was there, which was a Thursday, Wendy gave me the low-down of what I would be doing as she had the weekends off and since it was Anzac day the following week, was taking a long weekend so I would be the one to man the fort for the next couple days. Work was pretty much what you’d think work on a pig farm would be, feeding pigs and cleaning up pig shit. Sounds pretty bad I’m sure but it was all good. Working with the pigs was pretty interesting and I’ve definitely have a different perspective and opinion of them. I always new them to be rather smart and considered them clever but I never really appreciated their intelligence until I started to work with them. I also didn’t realize the soft side that they have. You’d think these big huge lumbering 1200 lbs animals would be tough to handle and because of their intelligence would be rather unruly but that wasn’t the case, give them a rub behind the ear and they’re your’s. One thing about their intelligence though is that once you bring food into the equation, their IQ drops down to that of a chicken; they simply lose their cool and go nuts, it’s really quite funny. All the paddocks that they graze in have electric fencing and at a lot of the gates there’s an electric wire along the ground about a meter away from the gate, so you can get into the field without having to worry about them getting out. Now the funny part is the jostling for position that occurs when you bring food to them. They know about the electric wire and are very wary of it but that doesn’t stop them from getting precariously close to it and in that jostling and positioning there’s always one, sometimes two that getting bumped into the wire by the others and gets good shock and goes running off. I think it’s intentional by the others to do this and it reminds me of teenage boys hanging around a river or pond or electric fence, waiting for one of the others to drop their guard and shove him into it. So yeah pigs are pretty cool and I had a pretty good time taking care of them. There was also a couple other animals there that I had/got to tend to; milking goats, bottle feeding a lamb, chickens, ducks, doves, cockatoos and a parrot were also part of the daily jobs on the farm. The goats pissed me off as I found them to be really pushy and actually pretty stupid but getting a chance to milk them was a cool little experience. Now including raising the pigs for their meat, Chris also trained animals for television. Down here there’s a soap opera called Neighbours, which isn’t that popular down here but is huge in the UK. All the English backpackers I’ve met seem to have seen an episode or 100 and are quite knowledgeable on many of the shows going ons. The show is shot in Melbourne and at the backpackers I was staying at, they had every Monday a “Neighbours Night” where they’d take you to the street where the show is shot and you’d get to meet some of the cast. In my room there was an English couple and they were quite keen on the idea, as were a couple of English guys that were checking in when I was. Anyways, Chris is the one who owns and trains all the animals on the show, whish are 2 dogs, a lamb, and a parrot of some sort, so yeah, I got to bottle feed a celebrity lamb and change the water of a celebrity parrot, ha.Outside of the work, which was pretty fun, I got to socialize and live with some really cool people in Chris, Joe and Joe’s girlfriend Laura who came around on the weekend. I had some really great conversations with Chris and on the last night I was there met her sister Helen, who came over for dinner. We were discussing food, all things good and reiterated how I like to, taking the time, effort and money to really enjoy and appreciate something like good food, coffee/tea, chocolate… Well I guess there’s an actual group/movement that’s dedicated to this and the same mindset called “Slow Food“. Slow Food and food in general
I had heard of it before but really didn’t know what it was about, thinking that it was about eating your food slow or something. I guess there’s local chapters all over the world and both Chris and Helen are part of their local one, I even see there’s a Slow Food Edmonton, which is something I’m going to have to check out when I get back home. From what they tell me, there’s larger get togethers that occur and from there you find out about different workshops and events that specialize in a certain thing for instance; Chris and Helen went to a cheese workshop where they showed you what makes a cheese good, what to look for while eating it and generally how to appreciate the it, they also showed them how to make cheese. They also went to a chocolate workshop that showed and informed them on the processes and ingredients, makes a good chocolate plus what to look for while eating it and how to appreciate it. They mentioned there’s also wine and beer workshops and even a coffee one. I definitely have to remember to check this out when I get back home. Another thing that Chris talked about in regards to good food was this once a year, $120 a ticket, 5 course gourmet dinner that she attends that I think was ran by Slow Food. Now you think, “dam $120 for one nights meal, she’s got to be insane”, but she put it in an interesting perspective, instead of going out for dinner once a month for a crappy $10 meal, she holds off and attends a dinner that she knows is going to be dam good. Makes sense to me. The same goes for my $6 bar of chocolate; snickers and mars don’t stand a chance against this chocolate and when I do eat it, I take my time with it and have it very small pieces, something you wouldn’t do with a crappy piece of chocolate that you’d eat while driving down the road or in front of the computer mindlessly chomping away.Now a couple things on food and restaurants down under; there are no all night dinners at all that I’ve seen ala Denny’s, Humpty’s, Smitty’s and so forth, there is also very few franchise restaurants here like Boston Pizza, Red Robbins, Earls, Olive Garden, Joey (Tomato) and the likes. There is though lots and lots of privately owned restaurants , specializing in a certain food; Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, Nepalese… I view this as a good thing personally. There’s very little “coffee shops” but instead nice little cafes that seem to take pride in their coffees, this is especially prevalent in Melbourne. Again this is the way to do it. Instead of getting that 1/2 litre Timmies coffee through the drive-thru that you power down, you get a dam good cup of coffee that you’d want to actually sit and enjoy. I’m sure I’ve made no friends now by bashing the Canadian icon which is Tim Horton’s and in fact, the night that I left Canada I had a large black coffee from the drive-thru and plan to make that one of the first things I do when I get back home just for nostalgia sake.
More Food
I have yet to eat out for dinner on my own choice and under my own wallet in my entire 6 months over here. I’ve been taken out for dinner about a 6 times, all but one I would have rather of just stayed at home and eaten a can of tuna and oranges or something healthy instead of the pizza or whatever I was taken out to. Now the only exception to this was the first meal I was taken out to by my cousin Mike in Sydney when I first arrived to Australia. He and his girlfriend Susan took me out to this amazing little Thai restaurant that was around the corner from his place, thanks again Mike. That was the only eat-out meal that I’ve had here that I would have paid for myself and that I would have wanted to go out to under my own free will. So that said, when I get back onto the mainland I have decided to treat myself to a dam good meal, blowing like $20 for a plate of food. Adelaide has quite a few really nice looking Asian and Indian restaurants that I’m planning on hitting up, ordering (guess) a curry. I’m thinking about going for a duck curry as I’ve never had duck before. I say that now but again, there’s a good chance cheapness with prevail and I’ll go down the street to the grocery store and get a can of tuna and oranges.After a great stay at Large Black Pigs I made my way back to Melbourne and then to Adelaide. Before I left Melbourne though I broke one of my own rules and treated myself to an espresso at a reputable looking cafe. It was pretty dam good and I must say I really enjoyed it. It was a nice little cafe on a busy street and I just sat back, enjoyed my drink, listening to some music and did some people watching. I’d really like to do more of that but when an espresso goes for $3 I’m sure the next time I do that I’ll either be home or in a country that’s like me, cheap.
Here’s my pics from Large Black Pigs.
Back in Adelaide
I don’t know if I could leave this town unless my life depended on it, saying that, it is a pretty nice city. I’d say it has everything that Sydney and Melbourne has but Sydney and Melbourne is x10 that of Adelaide. I spent just one day in town, again taking the overnight bus from Melbourne and again having a surprisingly good sleep on the bus but this time had to share the isle with another guy and awoke to find both of us spooning one another. My day pretty much was spent running around doing errands and getting shit done before I got out to Kangaroo Island and am cut off from the rest of civilization. It seems that’s all I do in cities these day’s, errands. I did do something really cool though, went and saw Xavier Rudd live. Rudd
So I’ve ranted and raved about this guy in the past and I noticed a month earlier before I left Kangaroo Island that he was playing in Adelaide at the end of the month so I figured that I might be able to pull off seeing him just before I got back out to the island. Now Rudd has a lot of different instruments in his music, ranging from didgeridoos, to a wooden xylophone, different string instruments, multiple style drums, chimes and tons of other percussion instruments. I totally thought that he would have backing band playing all these different instruments but to my surprise it was him and all him. He had this crazy set-up with like 3 didgeridoos, chimes, different drums and pretty much every instrument that you would hear on the album with his roadies passing him different string instruments depending on the song he was playing. All in all I wasn’t disappointed and was very impressed by his live performance, which allows me to plug him even further by the fact that he’s coming to Canada in the next couple weeks with stops in Edmonton on May 28th and Vancouver on June 2 so if you’ve heard a couple of his songs, like what you heard, take the chance and see him live, you won’t be disappointed.
Back on the Island
I’m now writing from Kate’s place on Kangaroo Island, it was a nice little trip to Melbourne and civilization. I figured that if I didn’t go to Melbourne and Victoria in general I wouldn’t have gone at all and I’m glad I did get the chance to check it out. I really liked the city and the country side. I could easily see myself living there at some time if all works out as I would like it to. My only complaint of Victoria was that it was dam cold and dam wet. Everyone always thinks, and I WAS guilty of it myself in the past, that it’s Australia, it doesn’t get cold there, it’s always a warm paradise. Wrong! The weather out there was pretty cool and I swear one morning there was frost on the ground plus you have to realize temperature is all relative; if you’re used to +30 and it goes down to +19, it’s going to feel cold. Same when it’s -30 and it goes up to -10, it feels a lot warmer.
My arrival back onto Kangaroo Island wasn’t as exciting as my departure but a bit funny. I got dropped off by the shuttle bus at a corner in the middle of nowhere where I was told either Torran or Kate would pick me up. I ended up waiting there for a bit wondering if it was the right corner and must have looked quite the sight to the people that drove by with me standing on a deserted corner in the middle of nowhere playing with a yo-yo, which I had just recently purchase, definitely a good travel toy.
It felt good to get back to Kate’s with the extreme beauty that surrounds her place plus getting to see and hangout with her and Torran again, even if it was only for a short while as they were off to South Africa in a couple days leaving me in change to make sure all the animals are happy and the house doesn’t burn down, or this time around get flooded.
When I arrived I pretty much hit the ground running. The next day was to be the closing of the cafe and Kate was planning a big party selling soups and bread as the meals, wine and beer for refreshments, a live band for entertainment and a bonfire for warmth. Before that though we needed to make enough soup for about 100 people so after unpacking my crap we dug right into the kitchen and started cooking soup. As I mentioned before, one of my favourite things about my stay at Kate’s was cooking with both her and Torran. We’d dig into the fridge and see what we had, pull out the spice box and just start throwing things together. This night and soup cooking was not the exception and we were back cooking up a storm with what we had. In the end there was like 6 or 7 different soups ranging from vegetable, beef vegetable, pea and ham, pumpkin, dhal… It was good fun.
We were up pretty dam late that night getting everything ready and had a pretty early start the next morning with Torran’s parents coming over and his dad showing us how to fill and make compost in the huge bin the two of us had previously made. I guess Torran’s dad was the compost man at one time. Him and Torran’s mom are a bit hippyish and used to just travel around from different community and such offering what skills they could for a living and picking up a lot along the way. I guess in a couple of these communities he would produce enough compost to make a large enough garden that could grow enough food to support up to 100 people. He was saying that in one bin that he made, it took only 3 weeks to turn all the materials into dirt. Later on he used to hold workshops for people that wanted to know how to make good compost so needless to say we were in pretty dam good hands. It was pretty interesting and I’m glad I got to see how to properly stack and heap the materials to make good dirt, which I’m sure will come into hand someday. I’m already eager to go back home and try my own hand it with a small bin. Yeah I am a hardcore dork aren’t I?
After that the party started and people slowly trickled in. At first I was to be the door man and collect the money for people that wanted soup and just generally chat up the people as they arrived but as more and more people started to get there and eat soup and such, we ran into problems like soup getting cold, running out, running out of bowls and spoons and cans and bottles piling up rather high. So from there I was pretty much bussing tables, stocking up the soups and bread and cleaning dishes. It was tough work but a lot of fun. It ended up being a fuller than full day for all of us and I’m sure I must clocked in about 16 hours of work but it was a lot of fun and the next couple day’s we pretty much sat around and did nothing but take the odd catnap and make an attempt to do something but would soon quit.
A couple days after the party Kate and Torran took off to South Africa, leaving my in charge of the house and animals. Things have been going and were going pretty smoothly up until the other night when there was this huge storm. The wind was crazy hard and I was sure it was one of those once in 10 years storms but to my surprise was told they happen like 2-3 times a year during the winters. All the animals were ok except for one of the joey kangaroos, Winger, who’s blind. Because the wind was so heavy he couldn’t hear anything else and was really spooked by it all. He took his bottle though and ate his apples but he was clearly unhappy by what was going on around him and fortunately the next day he was fine and back to his hopping self. There was also a lot of water that seeped into the cafe and I had to sweep it out and mop it up before it flooded the whole place and ruined some of the art works that Kate had in storage. I thought for sure that there’d be a couple trees knocked down and some damage done to the bird aviary and such but everything held out pretty good, except for one thing; the veggie garden.
All gone
I spent a lot of time working on that thing with both Sarah and Torran. While I was gone Torran put up the walls for the garden that were to be high enough to keep any pests out and trenched into the ground to prevent them from digging under the walls. Well the wind pretty much caught the walls, completely ripped them out of the trenches and uprooted most of the poles that supported the walls. I was pretty disillusioned by the sight of all that hard work laying on the ground in a twisted pile of metal and wood. I don’t even know if I’ll end up working on it much the next couple weeks as I have no idea where to start and wonder if there’s a better way to put it all back together without having to disassemble is all. On a positive note though the 3m high compost bin stood the test and didn’t get knocked over. Other than potentially dismantling a destroyed veggie garden my tasks and jobs for the next couple weeks are pretty much taking care of the animals and doing a couple little project that Kate has left for me to do. I’ve gotten a lot of the projects done thus far but there always seems to be something that comes up that I have to fix or scramble to save like during the storm, water started to seep into the cafe and puddle in a lot of areas so what was to be a quite night ended up to be a mad scramble but other then that, the animals are my number one priority. I’m really liking the kangaroos and spend up to an hour a day just hanging out with them feeding them their bottles and then feeding them cut up apple. They are the cutest little critters I’ve seen in a while and I feel pretty fortunate to be able to have this experience as I think it’s very Aussie. I also really like the cockatoos. At first I was a little freaked out by them but as time has gone by I love hanging out with them and have them fly around, landing on my head and seeing what I’m up to, they’re always good for a laugh.
Package from the north
When I arrived back on Kangaroo Island I got a nice little care pack from back home of some things that I had requested so I thought I’d throw on what I wanted and got.
- Cinnamon – I swore that cinnamon tasted different down here, it’s a lot more bitter and powdery tasting and I think it doesn’t taste the same so I asked for a package of cinnamon to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough I was right and it does taste different.
- Toque – Yep it’s toque weather and I wanted mine. It’s funny though because down here they’re called beanies so every time I call it a toque people just give me a blank look and wonder what the hell I’m talking about.
- Tea – Dragonwell, good stuff and couldn’t find it down here but then I did and now I have lots of it. It’s called Lung Chin in China and found it in an Asian food store.
- Track Pants – Yep, cold again and need them for working out.
- Newspapers – This one was a surprise and got like 4 Journals and a Leduc Rep, it was pretty nice actually but I found my biggest interest in the ads. It was cool to look at them and think, “I remember those”, or “Wow, that’s super cheap compared to here”, and so forth. It was a bit bizarre though and I had to give my head a shake at one point because as I read them I was listening to the radio here and they were announcing Australian news. See the ads from the IGA and comparing the prices I see that food is so much more than I had thought down here, which confuses the hell out of me. This is a warm climate and albeit is very extreme, you can potentially grow food year round whereas we have to import everything, but I guess that because we import so much there’s a surplus on the market or something, rambling on now…
- Crocks – This one was a surprise. I’m told they’re quite popular back home and in fact saw an article in the paper about them. At first I thought, great something else I have to lug around and thought it was rather inopportune as I had just bought so nice official Aussie style boots. I was thinking about ditching them (sorry mom) but after wearing them for a couple days have decided to hold onto them.
6 Month Review
As of May 4th I have been away from home for 6 months now, pretty crazy. The time has flown by but at the same time it doesn’t feeling like it has and I think it’s because I’ve been doing, experiencing and seeing so much more than just a computer monitor and inside of a cubical. It’s been a great 6 months and I look forward to the next 6 here in Australia. When I first came down here I didn’t know what I wanted out of my travels. I read back to one of my first posts and I alluded to wanting to perhaps “have some sort of religious awakening, an epiphany of some sorts, perhaps figure out the meaning of life or find myself”. Out of all those things I’d say that I have found myself a little. That probably sounds a little pretentious and rather pseudos-philosophical but I think it’s partially true. I’ve found out a lot about myself in these past 6 months something that I didn’t think would happen; like really how can you not know things about yourself? Sure enough though I’ve found out more things about me, who I am, what I want out of life, my future goals, what I hold important in life, what I like and what I don’t like since I’ve left home. I look over many of these things and really wonder how I didn’t see or realize them before I left home but I guess exposing myself to all these different experiences has allowed me to grow and see myself and my life in a different light and point of view. I guess I haven’t really “found myself” but have learned more about me and also grown a little more as a person, which I know now is what I want out of my travels and I think life in general wether it be through work, family/friends or just simply exposing yourself to different things.
Future Goals
After house sitting out here for the next month I figure I’ll have about 3 and a half months left before some of my family comes down here for a visit and I go to where ever afterwards. I’ve been thinking, what do I want in that remaining time and what do I want from my following travels? Well for starters, what I want out of all future travels is new experiences, to find out more about myself and grow more as a person. I feel my main priority and things that I hold dear while travelling is meeting other people, seeing how they live and being exposed to different ideas and ways of life. Australia isn’t that different from Canada in many of those regards but it is still different and I’m hoping that I’ll be exposed to much different cultures and experiences from what I’m used to in future travel. Food is also a major goal to fulfil but I think that you can bunch that together with culture in general.
Australia
What do I want out of the remaining time I have left down here in Australia? I’ve wrote in the past I thought a lot of people were missing out on a great experience by not doing something like wwoofing and that they weren’t getting as much as almighty me when all they were doing was working a crap job, partying and caring way to much about making money. I looked down my nose at a lot of these people, which are probably just about the majority of working holiday visa holder’s down here, for quite some time thinking that it was nothing they couldn’t do back home. I was going to write about how I felt like an outcast in the city and staying in the hostels and how I thought that all the people there are foolish for coming all the way to Australia and working some crappy joe job and living in a derelict hostel. I’m now realizing though that I don’t know shit. How do I know what they’re getting out of their travels and how can I be so sure that they’ve experienced nothing but partying? Perhaps they’re getting as great and introspective experience as I have but on a different turf. Just because I’m not a big party animal or a partier in general doesn’t make me better than them. So in saying all of this I’m realizing that I think the time has come for the end of my wwoofing experiences. I’ve been doing it now pretty much straight out since the end of January and including the short stays I had when I first arrived, I’ve been doing it about 6 months total now and I’m thinking that it’s time for a change of pace. I feel that I’ve gotten just about all I can and want out of it. I’ve had so many great and amazing experiences that at times it’s left my head spinning and on a natural high and most importantly I’ve learned a lot about myself and what I want out of life. So now where do I go from here? Well after my stay out here house sitting on Kangaroo Island for Kate, I’m going to join the rest of the pack, land myself in a big city, most likely Brisbane, find an alright hostel until I find a more permanent dwelling and look for a job, something that I’ve never done before and most likely will never do again. I’m thinking about simply bussing tables at a restaurant or cafe something that allows me to work and socialize with people, working to make just enough cash to cover my expenses and maybe have an extra $100 in my pocket at the end of the month. It’s all part of the main reason why I’m here; experience and I’ve had many great ones thus far plus I figure by doing this I could possible take advantage of all those nice cafes, restaurants and cool markets that seem quite prevalent down here. I really hope my plan can take off but who knows, I seem to change plans and goals on a weekly basis.
My only thing with this plan that I foresee myself not liking and just about going insane over is having to live in a hostel for a while. I plan to find a shared flat with some other travellers if that’s at all possible but there’s no way I could live long term in a hostel. I don’t mind the living situation or the dorm rooms and such, I just can’t stand to kitchens. Cooking, for me is such a huge stress reliever but in a hostel all it turns into is an event that makes me want to tear out my hair. While staying at the hostel I was in Melbourne, I pledged never to cook another meal again in a hostel, it was just too much. Back to tuna and oranges.
Miss
In being gone for 6 months now and although I’m glad I’m here and not back home there are things that I miss and look forward to doing again someday, many of which are those little things in your daily life that you can easily take for granted.
- Family – First and foremost for sure and I by family I also include good friends
- Canada – People often say that they’d travel their own country before they travelled abroad. I think it’s better to travel a different country first and then see your own, it gives you more of an appreciation of where you live, that is unless you hate your country…
- My bedroom – Looking back at the last 4 bedrooms that I’ve had, I must say they were all extremely comfortable and I miss them all but perhaps I just miss my bed.
- The Gym – I miss Flex FX in Leduc, it was good gym and I miss bringing myself pain in that place.
- My ice cold shower – Right after my workout, while I was still dripping with sweat and nearly overheating I’d have an ice cold shower. I always started it off rather tentatively but once I got in there I would love it.
I think that’s about it. Wow, that’s not a lot now is it? I’m sure I’m probably missing some but those are the major ones.
Insane Rambling
As a traveller that I’ve learned to enjoy and consider myself a conusor of showers much like George Costanza is with bathrooms. People say that I should write about book about my travels but I was thinking that I’d write a shower travel guide and rate the showers in different countries and places. When I got back to Adelaide from Kangaroo Island there was one thing on my mind, a hot shower. The weather was pretty cool and wet so I was eager to get inside of a nice warm hostel and jump into a hot shower with good pressure. Out at Kate’s place the shower was much to be desired with practically no pressure and not the warmest water in the world. Now after staying out on the Island and spending pretty much no cash, I could have easily went out and stayed at a nice place, hell even got my own room but the problem with that is, is that I view my cheapness as a matter of pride and something that I must be vigilant with. So instead I booked into the good old Hampton House, which has got to be the crappiest hostel in Adelaide but also the cheapest. Last time I was there it was insanely hot inside and the water pretty much came out of the head as steam even if it was just the cold turned on. This times things had changed, with the cooler weather brought a cooler hostel and cooler water pretty much destroying my wish for an amazing shower, for now. After a night on the bus and finally arriving in Melbourne, I was feeling pretty funky and found myself in All Nations Backpackers and much to my pleasure finally had the shower I so eagerly had wanted when I got off of Kangaroo Island. After some wonderful showers there I was out in Warburton at Eric and Janet’s beautiful house. Their house was probably the nicest house I have been in thus far in Australia and the bathroom, which I had all to myself was good enough for Caesar himself, that is except the shower. What a joke, I mean come on, with that nice of a house you could have something better than that sorry excuse for a shower, which the water pretty much fell out of the head and was barely luke warm, Needless to say I was very disappointed and was thinking fond memories of the shower out on Kangaroo Island but all was to be redeemed at Large Black Pigs. The shower there was great, wonderful pressure and heat, heat I tell you, it was wonderful.
Readings
One good thing about my short stay at Warburton was that they had a great library of books, especially Eric and while there put aside what I was currently reading, “Reading Lolita in Tehran” and picked up “Siddhartha” by Herman Hesse. It was a short read that took me about 4 days to read but what a great read it was. It’s a really good travellers book for sure, about a young man who leaves home in the search of wisdom and pretty much the meaning of life. The book follows his life, the different experiences he goes through, the different types of persons he becomes, roles he lives and wisdom he gains through all these experiences. Eric told me it was derived from the life of the Budda but I’m not sure about that. I recommend this book to everyone and anyone. It’s a quick read of only about 150 pages so give it a try. I’d give it 5 out of 5.
After reading Siddhartha I again, put aside Lolita and picked up “Pride and Prejudice” by Jane Austen. Eric highly recommended it to me saying that it was as an English classic as an English classic could be so I figured I’d give it a go. I started off reading his copy but with my eventual departure on the loom I manged to find a copy at the local Warburton book shop for $4. I’m currently about half way through it, am really enjoying it and would recommend it to all. Before I started reading it I had the notion that it was a “chick book” and think a lot of people that haven’t read it have that same mindset. The only thing more English classic then it would have to probably be Lord of the Rings, which everyone should read too.
The Maple Leaf
I have, like every other Canadian traveller out there, a Maple Leaf on my backpack, mine being on the back end of my luggage information tag that was given to me for my birthday. Before that I had no intention of having a Canadian flag on my pack. I think most people put them on there because they don’t want to be thought they to be American or something, which is stupid, thinking that everyone in the world loves Canadians and that they’ll get treated differently because of it. I remember the mindsets of some of the people back home who said that I should have one or I’d be shot, stabbed, rolled into a carpet and thrown into a dumpster, which is pretty small minded. Other than the American thing I couldn’t see another reason why I or other Canadians have the leaf their packs and would always be questioned by other travellers about it leaving me a bit speechless and searching for a good answer. I’ve finally come up with a good answer and reason as to why. For starters I am ,and I assume most other people are, proud of my country. Canada is one of the best, if not the best places in the world to live and I’m proud of that fact. Now most other travellers are proud to be German or French or whatever yet they don’t seem to advertise where they’re from, that’s where the maple leaf comes in. The maple leaf is a pretty cool and pretty distinguishable emblem, especially when you’re comparing it to other countries flags like France, Italy, Germany, Norway and Sweden that have just 3 coloured stripes, which is dam boring if you ask me. Factor in how much the maple leaf is marketed to us through beer and clothing alone and you can see where it all comes from. I know 2 people that have the maple leaf tattooed on them plus if you go to a beach on a hot summer’s day your bound to see a couple others with the same thing. It’s the playoffs and a Canadian team is playing? Well other than the teams emblem you’re bound to see quite of few people wearing a maple leaf too. Mystery solved.
Hotel Babylon
This is my show that I watch down here. It’s about the only TV show that I take an interest in and make an effort to see every week. It’s a British show, which right off the bat you’d think would mean it would suck but surprisingly it’s actually rather good. It’s based off a book by this guy who worked in a 5-star hotel for years and wrote about all the crazy happenings that occurred during his employment there. It’s pretty dam funny I think. I don’t know if you would get it in Canada but if you did it would probably be aired on a channel like Showcase or Bravo, check it out.
That’s my update for this time around and I hope you’ve enjoyed it. I plan on making another entry before I leave here so I’m hoping that it won’t again be a month plus between entries. Kate and Torren get back here on June 7 but I’ll probably spend a couple days out here catching up with them and hearing about their stories in South Africa leaving on like the 13th or 14th from which I will probably head off to Brisbane, finally leaving Adelaide behind me. Of course all this could change as I seem to change my mind quite a bit.
Safe Travels
Troy
The Island of the Kangaroo
April 5th, 2006April 28 update: I added a whole slew of pics of Kangaroo Island which can be found on the following link.
pics here
It’s funny when I first got to Adelaide, I heard some people talking about Kangaroo Island but saw how much it cost to get out there and that the only way to really see the island is to either have your car or go on a tour. I hate tours, if you haven’t noticed and I don’t have a car so I really wasn’t planning on getting out there. Ends up, thanks to the greatness of wwoofing I managed to get out to there and ended up having one of the best times during my trip thus far. Fishing, sightseeing, working on cool projects, having some great introspection and most importantly, meeting amazing people and has pretty much been the name of the game during my stay out here.
The Best Thing About my Stay: Great Friends, Kate and Torran.
Kate and Torran were the best things about my stay out here, I’ve left Kate’s place not feeling like some worker for her but as a friend. I’m always a bit apprehensive going into a stay, and so I should be, but two times in a row they’ve been amazing experiences with this one being the best so far. From going fishing and working on the compost bin with Torran to simply hanging out and living with Kate to cooking dinner with the two of them was so much fun and just a great experience and I feel like I’m walking away from here with some great friends that I’m leaving behind. They’re humour, generosity and patients with me has been great. I’ve broken so many dam dishes of Kate’s, or at least it feels like it and yet all she has done is just laugh at me and call me clumsy. Every time I’ve gone out with Torran fishing I always seem to screw something up like crossing the lines or hooking Willow and yet he’s just shrugged it off. Yeah I hooked the dog Willow and still feel like shit about it and still see her in my head running around trying to figure out what’s biting her and why Torran and I are franticly yelling at her. I makes me cringe but she was alright. She was pretty shaken up at first but about half an hour later she was back to her old rad self and all was forgotten. Speaking of Willow, she is such an amazing dog that if/when I get a dog someday it will be a kelpie. They are so loyal, smart, cute and just generally great all around dogs. The only bad thing about Willow is that she jumps on you lots but I can think of a little dog back home that does the same too…little bugger.
More Work
So I’ve been on Kangaroo Island for just about a month now and in that time we’re done some major construction on the veggie garden and compost bin. It’s been a pretty interesting experience to be a part of this, and in some cases in charge of it all. There has been a couple major lessons in building that I’ve learned is such as:
Make an account of all your materials – We’re using all recycled and old building material for it all, this includes all the lumber, steel panels, posts and all the way down to the nails. We’ve run into some pretty interesting snags along the way but fortunately we’ve managed to overcome them all without having to go out and buy more materials. It might sound odd to do it that way but we’re cheap plus town is like an hour and a half there and back.
Get Proper tools – I would have loved to have had a simple level and a long rope to align all the posts but alas.
Regardless of all the snags and with outs we’ve put together a pretty decent set-up that should make loads of compost and keep the critters out. If I were to start it from the start though a list of materials would have been the first thing to do and I’m sure I would have started the construction completely different, that said there was so much stuff that we added as it went along like the shed and greenhouse. I have to laugh at that as I make it sound like minor additions.
I’ve also helped out a little in the cafe when it was really busy. Often after I was working outside I’d head into the gallery to check on Kate and see if she needed any help, some day’s it would be really busy and there’s be a big pile of dishes to clean and tables to clear so I’d go at it and help where I could. I really enjoyed this as I found it a lot of fun to go around to table to table and simple talk and mingle with the people. I think if I were to look for a job down here it would be just doing that, clearing tables just so I could talk and mingle with the people as they came and went. In saying that I realize how I really need to get out of my career as a draftsman as the social contact is pretty much nil. Nursing was right on top of my list when I left home, for a future career and as time goes by it only seems to cement itself as what I would like to do someday. Perhaps I have a bit of a romantic view on it all but the idea of getting to work with and help people really draws me in, plus it’s got to do with health and to an extent fitness, which I could talk even longer about than even farming. I sort of view the meeting of the people almost like meeting other travellers; one day they’re there and the next they’ve made a full recovery and are heading back home or up to Cains to work on a banana farm.
Sarah
We had another wwoofer come by for a short stay so it was nice to have some company, plus she was a great worker and her and I got lots of stuff done on the veggie garden. Her name was Sarah and she was from, guess guess, Germany, regardless of that fact she was pretty cool. I feel really shitty though because I know I was bossing her around way too much on what to do and how to do it but at times I felt she looked a little lost. She eventually snapped at me and my only regret is that she didn’t do it sooner. Again Sarah I’m sorry for being such a bossy asshole and I’m glad you said something. In that little confrontation I feel I learnt a valuable lesson in working and dealing with others. Not everyone wants to hear how you do something or a certain task and everyone has their own way of doing things. I myself don’t mind being told how to do things and appreciate the input as I feel it can be a way to improve myself but I can easily see how it can come across as that we being the right way and another way wrong. A lesson lived, a lesson learned.
The Sights
Outside of work I’ve been privy to going out and seeing a lot of the tourist attractions at a nice leisurely pace. There’s loads of national parks and conservation projects on the island so with Kate letting Sarah drive her car around, we got to see a lot of the tourist sights.
Seal Bay – A Seal colony on the south coast., one of the few remaining colonies left on the island and it’s unfortunately shrinking as the females are pregnant for something like 18 months and they don’t migrate form place to place like the seals back home.
Little Sahara – There’s lots of things like this Australia where you’ll be driving around and out in the middle of nowhere there’ll suddenly be some weird object like for instance a whole lot of dessert.
Remarkable Rocks – Again, another weirdly insane object in the middle of nowhere. There’s lots and lots of rocks in Australia that a lot of people come far distances to see and take pictures of, this was another one of them but I felt that this one was pretty cool; a lot cooler than Ayers Rock, which I still want my money back for.
Vivonne Bay – A pretty nice little bay that we stopped at for a bit.
Stokes Bay – This was a pretty cool place as to get to the really nice beach you had to go through this cool tunnel of rocks and cliffs.
Now these were some the tourist spots that we went to around the island but as far as I’m concerned the entire island is a tourist spot with amazing views and scenic spots just about everywhere. Another place that we went to was Kate’s friend William’s rare breed farm, which I must say was a lot more interesting than all the other tourist spots we went to, odd that I’d find talking and seeing a bunch of farm animals interesting. As I mentioned before he collects and shows rare breeds of farm animals that are on they’re way out. He was telling me something that like every two weeks a species of farm animals (chicken, duck, cow) goes extinct, pretty crazy numbers. One of the breeds of chooks that he had, that was originally bred as a meat producer, took 9 months to be fully grown where as the modern “hybrid” chooks that are bred for meat take only 4-6 weeks. Again, I’m sure it’s all boring stuff for many of you but for some reason I’m sure I could have stood there and talked farm animals with the guy for hours.
Doing Over Seeing
I’m finding that I’m enjoying doing things over seeing things. Sure I enjoyed Seal Bay, the rocks and all the other tourist stuff but I must say I would rather have gone fishing or something like that instead, and I think this whole wwoofing thing is a good indication of that. I look back at before I started wwoofing heavily and it seems all very bizarre and transparent the way that I was travelling in fact I don’t even want to call it travelling, touring seems to be a more appropriate word for it. I’d go around to hostel to hostel, sitting around, maybe going on a tour or something, hanging out with other travellers and jumping town to town always seeming to be in a rush to be someplace or go somewhere. When going around like this I really didn’t see myself staying in Australia for too long where as now I know I will stay the whole year, or at least until my family comes down here in October.
Anyways, I’d rather of gone fishing than seeing all those tourist spots. The last day that Torran and I went out, we hiked about 2-3km on some pretty steep rocks along the shore, it was really cool and in some instances, really dangerous. We were trying to get to this fishing hole we could see in the distance but we couldn’t quite make it to it because the rocks just got too steep so we turned back and headed back to our regular spot. A little after we got there I looked over and about 10 meters out from the rocks we were on was a pod of about a dozen dolphins swimming by jumping in and out of the water, it was rad, I didn’t have my camera with me but I really don’t care. The bad thing about the dolphins though is that they scared away a lot of the fish so things were pretty rough that day, the only fish we caught was a sweep that I pulled in, luckily it was a pretty decent size. To attract more fish Torran threw in a bunch of fish guts and left overs a.k.a burley, which instead of bring in a bunch of fish brought in a bunch of sharks, there was probably about 6 of them swimming around the rocks we were on. We tried and tried to catch one but they kept biting through all of the lines when they got a hold and we didn’t have any wire lines so we had to go home empty handed. It was probably for the best that we catch one as the hike back home was up some major steep hills and carry a 20kg fish would have sucked big time no matter how good it might have tasted, plus we would have to have gutted, de-finned, and beheaded it all in the dark. That said we were punching ourselves for not catching one the whole way home.
Dogs in Australia
People here in Australia hardcore spoil there dogs, you can go to any grocery store and find a section in the cold food isle dedicated solely to dogs and cats with all the food being of a real meat variety. Now of all the places that I’ve stayed at pretty much all of them fed their dogs this stuff. They would literally cook dinner for their dogs, whether in the for of a mince or kangaroo leg and of all these dogs, they had one thing in common; they were all fat asses. Now some of the dogs were inside dogs but most were farm dogs which makes me think how sad it is that there’s such thing as a fat farm dog. Now the only dogs that were in good shape were at the West’s farm and here at Kate’s place with Willow, both places they just fed the dogs regular kibble.
More Dogs
Torran, Kate’s boyfriend, and I dogs. We’re both very obsessive when we start something and seem rather relentless about it. The compost heap for example, I pretty much worked a full 8 hour day on Saturday when we were working on it but I really didn’t care simply because I was right into it. Another case in point, fishing and fig picking.
Figs
So there’s this huge old fig tree down by the retreat that Kate works at part time. It’s a pretty nice tree and they have an area under it with table and chairs for people to have candle lit dinners under it. Anyways, this year the figs were exceptionally good because of the unusual large amounts of rain this summer (weather is weird everywhere, I’m finding and hearing), so Torran and I reckon we’ll go down there and grab a bunch. Two big ass bags later we’re on our way back to Kate’s with one thing on our minds; what the hell are we going to do with all these figs? I came up with a pretty decent recipe but Torran got his hands on a recipe to dry them so he cooks them all and sets up this drying rack and sets it so no ants can get at it. We kind of thought that the crows were going to go after them and put them outside in the sun on blind faith. Everything was going fine and dandy until I noticed about mid afternoon a strange buzzing sound. I poked my head around the corner of the house at where the figs were sitting and found hundreds of bees swarming the figs. Didn’t plan for that one. Fortunately the bees seem to have just gone after the juice and syrup form the cooking process and they’re actually turning out quite nice.
Pure Bone-headedness
As I mentioned before Kate and Torran have great patiens with me and all my clumsy little accidents and such that I seem to be having out here. I don’t know what it is but this place is bring out the worst in me when it comes to that kind of stuff, I’m normally not very clumsy but out here I seem to be breaking plates and glasses left and right and everyday I seem to do some other stupid move. Take for instance today’s little misadventure; As I had also mentioned previously, I had collected all this wood and branches that were laying around the area into a huge pile to burn in a couple months time as there’s currently a total fire ban in effect. It was a pretty dam big pile of wood; was being the key word. It was raining today so Kate just got me to clean out the Cafe & Gallery giving it a good fall cleaning while she was at work so it was just me out here. It’s fall here and it’s getting a bit cool some nights and this morning we had a fire in the fire place. We also burn all of the millipedes during our morning sweep of the gallery so there was bunch of ash collected from the last couple day’s and I decided to clean out the fire place. I’m sure we can all see where this is going, but I’ll relate it anyways. Since the burn pile was all wet I threw all the ashes from the fireplace onto the burn pile thinking no worries. I guess there was some hot coals left in the ash but I didn’t notice them and I didn’t see any sign of smoke or fire at all and I was in sight of the pile for about an hour and a half after I threw the ash out. Well I went away for about an hour to take a phone call from my mom and when I came back outside I found a huge fire and ball of smoke where the burn pile had been. Smooth move Arch. I tried to put it out but it was just big and way to hot to even get close enough to do much. Fortunately there was really nothing to burn around is so it didn’t have a chance to spread and the ground was pretty wet too so that helped out. So much for the full fire ban. I wish I could of had a picture taken of my face when I first saw that fire though, it would have been worth a pretty penny.
Parents
So Kate’s parents came out here all the way from Columbus, Georgia to visit Kate and see her new cafe, which she only put up last year. Now to start off Kate’s adopted and she’s very unlike her parents, in fact they’re pretty much opposites. She also hasn’t seen them in 4 years so she’s a bit stressed and such but all is good. They’re both really good people and I thought her dad was a good guy, he’s someone who you could talk with for hours on end about just about anything so long as it doesn’t have anything to do with religion, social or political undertones. I talked farming and dogs with him for a good while. He was telling me that it only takes 6 weeks before a rabbit is fully grown to slaughter and that like one buck and two sows could produce easily 200lbs of meat a year; lots a lot of good eating. Well I’m way off track now, so anyways, a couple weeks ago was my dad’s birthday, he turned 61. Now I didn’t have the best relationship with my dad before I left but since I’ve left home it’s been dramatically changing for the better. Before we didn’t talk that much and when we did it was all just small talk. I usually went to my mom for advice and to someone to talk to but now I’m going more and more to my dad and it’s been great. So for my dad’s birthday I sat down and wrote him a letter. This letter basically covered exactly how I felt about him now and in the past. It was one of those letters that write and then tear up or burn but instead I sent it out. I guess he wasn’t having the best of day’s up to that point but it brightened up his day and I hope his life. I think it has and will open up our relationship and get things out between us. Afterwards he emailed me and told me how great the letter was and something else that really stuck with me. He said that it was great that I had wrote that letter and told him all that because most people never get the chance to or when they do, it’s while they’re parent is lying in a hospital bed dieing or worse, to an open casket. That got me thinking that how right he is and that I think everyone should take the time out of their life and do that, even if it’s in the form of a letter, just to get it out there. I think can help lots of people with bring their family members closer. Hell even if you’re really close with you’re parents do it anyways, tell them what you think of them and you’re relationship in the past and where it’s going, there’s a good chance that it’ll get you over that parent/child role that so many families play to the people/loving person role that we should play. I went the other day to drop off Torran at his parents place and to meet them. Now Torran lives with his parents on the weekdays and with Kate on the weekends because of driving distances and because his house just got building approval. So it had been 3 day’s since he had last saw his parents yet when he go to their place he hugged and kissed them both like he hadn’t seen them in like 3 years. I found the whole scene to be pretty interesting and quite touching, I don’t know why exactly but I did and it’s made me realize, even more so, just how important family is.
Food
One thing that I think is kind of funny is how Australia is not know for it’s food, yet how much I’ve learned about cooking, preparing and food in general so far down here. Makes me wonder what I’ll learn and be exposed to when I get to countries like Thailand, Vietnam or India that are known for their great foods. Kate’s parents go to France like 2-3 times a year simply for the food, I respect that so much and think it’s the coolest. I’m thinking that when I get up to Asia the food will be a major experience I’m after.
I was talking to Sarah about this but I think you can equate food and the preparation of it as an art: There’s no right or wrong, just too much and too little and it’s all about opinion. I think the same can be said about coffee and tea preparation too.
As for spices that I’ve discovered lately:
Coriander Seed – I discovered this at Maslin house, it’s good with pumpkin and zucchini both a little bit of lime/lemon. It also goes well with potatoes. I know most people eat potatoes on a regular basis so try sprinkling in a bit with your next serving of mashed potatoes.
Sea Salt – Kate’s got sea salt at all the tables in the cafe and It’s so much better than regular salt.
Garam Marsala – A mix of spices like curry but with a completely different taste, almost a little bit more on the sweet side.
The Best Things in Life are Free
The last night at my stay at Maslin House I went out to see the sunset at the beach, the clothed one and I must say it was the best sunset that I have seen. Now why I brought this up is because I have to laugh at all the people, myself included, that filled up the parking lot in nice little perfect rows and all the buses that were loaded with people at Ayers Rock to see the sunset. There was probably a good couple hundred people there that night I was there just to watch the sunset on it and this was the low season, I’m told during high season you can get up to 1000 people out there a night no problem. Now this doesn’t included all the other people around the general area doing guided tours by either bush-walks or camel back or even the people that were ripping around on ATV’s to see it. Now what did they get? A big pile of crap as far as I was concerned. Millions of people each year go out to watch the sunset there and pay dam good cash to see the sunset there and as far as I’m concerned we all got ripped off big time. Instead, on a casual night, in a much more temperate climate, I went out for a leisurely walk and saw the best sunset I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately I forgot my camera because I wasn’t expecting it at all but I think it just might be for the best as I don’t know if a picture could do it any justice. Now if they’re raking in millions of people each to go to Ayers Rock to see the sunset, which sucked, I wonder how many they could rake in down at Maslin which had an amazing sunset, plus they get to see some pure unadulterated nudity while they’re down there…That experience there made me realize that while travelling, you NEED to get off the tourist trail. I want my money back.
And speaking about sunsets and amazing skies, here on Kangaroo Island I have been privy to some of the most amazing spectacles of nature that I’ve ever seen. I’ve seen some great sunsets and skies and I know everyone talks about how great the skies are back in Alberta, but home’s got nothing on this place. You’re pretty much guaranteed at least twice a week to see an amazing light show when the sun starts to set. It’s unreal just how consistent it is.
Mom and Brad
Just thought I’d give a congratulations to my mom and Brad for their recent marriage. The two crazy kids flew off to Maui and got married on March 21. I was told that they had gotten “unofficially engaged” a few weeks earlier and got an email a couple day’s before they were married that they were in Maui. I managed to put one and one together and kind of had a rough idea of what might be happening. Sure enough they ran off to Maui and tied the not. I was thrilled when I got the official news and am extremely happy for the both of them. Brad’s a great guy and the way I see it I only gain more family out of it all and that’s great.
Smelly Feet
I’m finding that my feet have a distinct odour, an almost salty smell. I seem to be the only one who notices it, fortunately and I’ve yet to have any complaints even when asking. Anyways, I think it’s kind of cool that my feet have this odd smell and kind of enjoy it. Why? Well I think that one day when I’m back home back at the old daily grind, I’ll get the odd whiff of that smell and be reminded of my trips and travels, odd I know but most things are when travelling it seems, you just don’t know it.
Music
Music that I’ve been exposed to lately out here at Kate’s:
Xavier Rudd – I got a bit of a sample of his new stuff on the radio when I was in Adelaide and at Maslin house and thought he was alright. End up Kate’s got two of his albums and I haven’t been able to put them down since I got here. Amazing stuff, check out the songs “To Let” & “9 Times a Day” for starters and then go out and buy the album “To Let”, great stuff.
Swiss Cheese Incident – Kate’s got a burnt copy of these guy’s from one of their live shows. I guess they’re from Colorado and a friend sent it to her so I don’t know how easily it is to find them. They’re very bluegrass sounding and are a definite festival band.
Ozomatli – A Latin band that I think Jurassic 5 does some stuff with. The album Kate has is just of them and it’s a in Spanish and is very Latino, I rather enjoyed it.
Jack Johnson – Was not a fan of Jack for the longest time but since coming out here to Wind in Wings I’ve started to appreciate him, very rainy day music.
John Butler Trio – These guys are from down under here I think, very alt-country with a pretty good sound.
Readings
I finished off When the War Was over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge Revolution a while ago but never wrote anything about it. It was a pretty good book I’d give it 3.5 out 5. It was basically a history into Cambodia, the rise and fall of the Khmer Rouge, how 3 million people died in the country and how, again, no other country seemed to do anything about it because of pointless politics. Give it a read if you’re into world history and life in other parts of the world.
When I got out to Kate’s place I picked up a book she had laying around called “The Celestine Prophecy”. It was a quick little read but pretty interesting. It was about the discovery of this manuscript somewhere in Peru that was to help bring mankind to the next level of evolution by helping us understand human nature more and how we interact with one another. It was written like an adventure book, kind of a cheesy adventure book, but with a lot of basic philosophy, psychology and human nature in general into it. Some of the stuff was pretty interesting how it described how people acted towards one another and why. I’d give it 4 out 5. Now it’s not better than When the War Was over but I think because it was such a short read and because the author kept it simple, it got that extra .5. I’d reccomend it to someone who’s into philosophy, and human nature who wants to have a fun little side book on the go.
I traded in When the War Was over for a book called “Reading Lolita in Tehran” a couple weeks before I came out to the Island. It took me a while to pick it up and start reading it and I got side tracked with The Celestine Prophecy but the last week or so I haven’t been able to put it down. It’s about a group of women that start a reading group in Tehran, Iran reading and discussing books that are banned and cencored by the government and “Morality Squad”. They relate and find similarities and parallels in their own lives with the characters in the novels, of which are mainly stories of tragedy. I haven’t finished it yet but so far I’d highly recommend it to just about anyone thus far, especially people who are interested in life in other parts of the world and women in general.
Enjoying Good Things
One thing that I’ve discovered lately about the things that I enjoy, coffee, tea, food, good chocolate, is that you need to spend time and energy on them in order to truly enjoy them. I’m thinking right now that I could quit coffee and caffeine in general with no problems as I’m finding that I’m not addicted to the caffeine but the art and culture of it all. I love the sounds of the water boiling, the smell of the coffee when it brews, the clinking of the cup with the spoon, and most importunately, the simple act of sitting down and drinking that cup of coffee/tea. I used to run around and have a cup of tea or coffee somewhere in reach but I’ve stopped that now, when I have a cup I devote my time and energy to that cup and really enjoy it, same goes with chocolate. I’ll set myself up in front of a nice window, play some music in the background and maybe even have a good book at hand to read and simple put energy and time into enjoying it all. Now you’re probably thinking that I’m sounding insane as usual so I’ll put it in good old boy, working class terms; beer. I kow lots and lots of people love to come home from a hard day’s work to an ice cold beer. Now instead of coming home to some generic beer like Molson’s or worse, Black Label, come home to a nice bottle of a dam good beer, something that might cost a little bit more but something that you really love. Maybe you’ll only have 4 in the fridge at most but so long as they’re drank with you spending energy and time enjoying them it’ll all be worth that extra cash, and again, turn off the TV, put some music on and really enjoy it. Keep those bottles of Molson’s & Black Label for when you’re buddies are over or you’re at a party and save the great stuff for occasions when you can really enjoy it.
I’m finding that this is and should be the same way that you approach food. Yeah not all meals are worth doing it to as they might be just quickie meals, but I think that if you spend the energy preparing a good meal, you should spend the energy to really enjoy it. Don’t eat it in front of the TV or even while reading, maybe have some good music in the background but that’s it. Also with food that I’m finding is great is being in good company. Most dinners out here at Kate’s we would pull out this big box of spices that she has, empty the fridge of all the food and come up with whatever we could; experimenting and playing around with what we had. We’d then sit back, eat, having great conversation and great laughs. That actually has got to be one of my best memories of my stay here. I must remember to get together with good friends and family more often for dinners when I get back home.
So yeah, those are some of the things going through my mind currently as I slowly go insane in Australia. I am having way too much fun down here, it’s amazing the way this trip has turned out and how it’s continuing to progress. I arrived here with stories of what others had done and seen of the country, their experiences and wanted a piece of it. I wanted those same experiences but instead I’ve found my own experiences and my have my own stories that are quite different from what my friends and others had experienced and related to me and quite frankly I’m glad for it. I’m sure a couple of you out there that had been to Australia must think that I’m off my rockers for what I’m doing out here but I’m loving it and couldn’t imagine seeing this country any other way.
I’m heading off to Melbourne now and looking for another farm stay down there for a couple weeks. At the end of April I will be heading back to Kangaroo Island and back to Wind in Wings Gallery to housesit & animal sit for Kate while her and Torran, and his parents, head out to South Africa to visit his sister who’s living over there; It’s “down there” for you guys but “over there” for me. They’ll be gone for 5 weeks but I’ll get there a couple day’s before they go and probably stick around for a day or two when they get back just to hear stories. Kate will have a list of jobs for me to work on plus I’ve got 2 joey kangaroos, 3 cockatoos, 3 possums, an owl, 4 ducks, 2 chooks and Willow to take care of. Hehe, I have to laugh at how seemingly bizarre that all is but it seems that while you’re travelling, what seems to be the strangest of situations and predicaments (taking care of strange and exotic animals, house sitting for someone you just met), while you’re at home, seems like no big deal and nothing out of the norm while you’re on the road but that’s a whole other monologue unto itself.
It’s starting to get a bit cool down here and I have a feeling most of the other backpackers are starting to make the migration north up to places like Cains, Darwin and Broome as that’s where Sarah was heading. I on the other hand will be staying down here for the fall and a bit of the winter, sticking around for the “cold” and I’m happy about that. Already things are so much more green here and I can see grass changing from the dead brown, of which I’m so accustomed, to a lush green, I can almost see a change on a daily basis. It’s kind of nice, the cooler weather and the rain, it’s a lot like the west coast back home and what I’d imagine the UK to be like. It’ll be a nice change of pace, as like I say I’m accustomed to what I call “outback brown” as far as the eye can see.
So I’ll be out here at the farm with Kate’s room mate and her boyfriend here periodically plus I’ll have people dropping by to check on me, I’m sure too many people actually. Kate also said that if I wanted to I could go work for some of the other people around the area if they need the help so I’m sure I’ll end up at Williams place for a couple day’s. He sounds like he’s got lots of work and I’m sure I could talk farm animals with him for days, lots to learn from him I reckon. As for food, I order it buy fax and it gets dropped off with the mail and I’ll probably catch a ride into town once a week for precious nuts, Lavazza Il Perfect Espresso (delicious coffee) and Lindt 85% extra dark chocolate, oh and I guess to wash clothes but that’ll be a side venture. Other then that those are my general plans as of now and if anyone wants to send me a little care package or letter from home you can send it to:
Kate Venable
RSD 29-FCS Snellings Beach Via Kingscote, Kangaroo Island SA 5223 Australia
I’ll be here from the end of April to the beginning of June but just make sure it’s something that I won’t have to lug around with me.
Enjoy the massive amounts of pictures that I took and until next time:
Safe Travels
Troy
Kate’s Place
March 19th, 2006There’s no pics in this update as I’m on a dial-up modem and that would take years to put the pictures up. That said, there will eventually be lots of pics. There will be lots of the surrounding area I think and that’s because the scenery is amazing but I will do my best to get plenty with people in them.
So right now I’m out on this island called Kangaroo Island off of the coast of South Australia a couple hours from Adelaide. I’m staying at a place on the Island that is near Snelling Beach for those of you with a map. There’s no town here but in fact, just a beach. A dam nice beach at that, but unfortunately it’s a bit of a walk to it but I’m very content to the area I’m at. The closest town is Kingscote which is to the east about 45 minutes drive away. I am living with a lady named Kate who hails from Georgia. She’s been living on the island for I think 9 years and has owned this property for 4 and owns a piece of paradise as far as I’m concerned. The land and her cafe is situated on a huge hill, right on the coast with a great view of the ocean and is dotted with really old growth trees. She’s pretty young, 36 and I was a bit afraid that she was going to be a bit of a hippy when I first talked to her over the phone and met her but she’s not. She’s definitely a greenie but so are most people out here. Or maybe she is a hippy and I’ve just become one too and don’t notice it… On her property there’s her cafe/art gallery “The Wind in Wing” which also doubles as her living quarters. There’s also an old farm house that she rents out to her friend Jess and puts some wwoofers in but I am in the caravan which is across from the house.
The Island (cue steel drums)
Kangaroo Island gets it’s name because the kangaroo on the island are a certain species that are found only on this island. When the island broke away from the mainland all those years ago, the kangaroo here evolved quite differently than the ones on the mainland. They also have a lot of koalas on the island but they’re not native, instead they were introduced to the island a number of years ago in hopes that they could breed and conserve them. Well the program worked, too well in fact and now they have a major koala problem and they’re having to go around sterilizing a number of them. It seems even with our best intentions we seem to screw things up. Kate’s boyfriend, Torren, is a park ranger out here on the Island and he’s been in on the capture and sterilization of the koalas.
Like I mentioned before a lot of people here are into conservation and producing organic foods and the like. The “Kangaroo Island” label is pretty high end with really popular wines, free range eggs and olive oil that I’ve seen being advertised all over Adelaide. Even the people that I’ve met out here are really into it. Kate owns acres of land out here and all she’s planning on doing with it is replant it and let it grow wild again, something a fair bit of people seem to be doing out here. Her friend William has a farm that houses rare domesticated farm animals like sheep, pig, chicken and cows. Sounds weird but he was saying that something like every 2 weeks a species of farm animal goes extinct. At the rate we’re going if there’s no genetic diversity amongst the animals what will happen is all it will take is one disease or virus to wipe them all out, just like the Irish potato famine.
Animals
Because of the wide diversity of animals out here, the national parks and the fact that the island is one big conservation park, there’s a lot of animals that get injured or orphaned and a lot of people adopt these animals and raise them, Kate’s no exception. Out here she’s got some cockatoos (macaws), an owl with a crooked wing, some ducks and chickens, 3 possums and most cutely, 2 joey kangaroos. I want to take one home with me. Getting to play with them, bottle feed them and sneak cut up apples to them when Kate’s not looking, makes me rethink the whole eating kangaroo thing. Working with cows, sheep, pork and chicken I don’t think that way but those two dam little buggers are too cute. William had been raising an orphaned joey also but his little guy didn’t make it. He said after bring in “Stevie” he just can’t bring himself to eating kangaroo again yet he feels the same way as I do about the other farm animals and that’s even raising them as pets too. She’s also got a kick ass dog, Willow a kelpie, who is the best dog that I’ve met in Australia, she’s a blast.
House Sitting
Well I got out here and met Kate on Tuesday and her and Torren were taking off on Friday to go to the music festival in Adelaide, WOMAD so I was left with pretty much house sitting for a complete stranger in the middle of nowhere. It makes me laugh; I was kicked out of the house at one wwoof stay because “I couldn’t be trusted, gave them a bad feeling and was a snoop”, then be asked to stay longer at another because I’m just that good and now asked to house sit for them after only meeting them after 3 days. I have to say albeit the McKenna stay, where I was asked to leave, was my worse experience here in Australia to date, it was one of my most memorable. I don’t know why but I seem to always look back at that one, shake my head, roll my eyes and laugh.
So here I am, just me and the dog for the next 4 days, basically out in the middle of nowhere. William was to come by and feed the animals so that was taken care of and down the road is this “retreat” which is just basically a bunch of 5 star guest houses. Kate works there as a side thing, so does William and so does Jess. It seems like pretty much everyone I’ve met out here hold a couple little odd jobs to keep their main dreams doing. At this retreat they’ve also started taking in backpackers to do a sort of wwoofing so I’ve got to meet some cool people down there including a couple from Toronto.
The Cafe was closed while Kate was gone and I was left with a list of things to work away at. Things went pretty smoothly the first couple day’s, had a surprise visit from some guy that said he owned most of the art in Kate’s gallery who came by with his drinking buddies. Was also taken to a beach to look for penguins with William and the backpackers from the retreat but had no luck finding any. Things were going pretty good up until the last when the power went out. Now power outages are a very common occurrence in rural Australia since the entire power infrastructure has been privatised. There were a couple blackouts when I was at the West’s fish farm so I wasn’t too worried but there were a couple things that confused me. Ends up that the power was just down over at Kate’s place because some safety switch went off. Other then that no worries.
Work
So far works been pretty good, I’ve done a mainly farm work thus far and little odd jobs here and there. Some of the stuff that I’ve done includes tearing down these old fences that are around the property so kangaroos don’t get tangled on them, made an enclosure for the ducks, cleaned up all the dead branches and brush that was laying around the cafe/gallery, help with cleaning the cafe and the racking up and collecting of hay for compost.
Torren and I have also been making a compost bin the last couple days. You’d be proud Brad, the help that I gave you before I left laying in those posts left me with a bit of knowledge and came in very handy as we had to dig holes and bury these 3.5m long posts into the ground for the compost bin. It’s a dam big bin measuring 2m X 2m X 3m high; that’s a lot of compost. It’s a pretty cool project and good learning experience. It was a bit of a gong show with me and Torren trying figure out how to get the posts perpendicular and evenly 2m apart from one another. I can now see from the perspective of all those welders who came to me at Mastco asking how they were suppose to build something with the measurements that I had given them. I really enjoy doing a project like this because I know that bin will be there after I’ve gone and something that they can use. I also spent a good couple racking up one of the paddocks and collecting all the horse manure that dotted it for the compost bin. Now again, you think what a shitty job that must have been but with the view that I had right next to me I really couldn’t complain, plus while doing this job and not really minding it I realized some a couple other things about myself.
When I grow up
I am, to a degree a farmer. I really enjoy doing work like this and as I’ve mentioned before, I really enjoy growing my own foods. As I find these things out about myself I realize that someday I will have my own plot of land, maybe only 25 acres or so, and have my own little hobby farm on it. A couple chickens for eggs and a couple others for the odd roast, some turkeys for Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, breed rabbits for their meat, maybe even a cow for my own beef, a nice little orchard of fruit trees and of course the most important thing, the veggie garden. A green house for year round fresh food would be great to. Yeah it’s just a dream and it probably sounds pretty insane and odd that a 24 year old guy would be wanting to do something like that but someday it’ll happen, who knows where and when though. I find it interesting that I came down to Australia for a new experience and to find some stuff about myself and it ends up I find out that I want to be a farmer.
The Hardest Part About Travelling
I’ve realized that the hardest part about travelling is trying to figure out what you want out of it and from there, how to get it. Once you get those two things figured out, travelling is great. When I got to Adelaide I was pretty much ready to leave Australia and head to another country, someplace different and unusual where I could “discover myself” better and have a more wordily experience. I’m now realizing that I’ve found how to accomplish what I want out of this trip and I’m having a blast doing it.
Getting Away from it all
Another great thing about wwoofing is how it allows you to get off of the tourist trail. The other night Kate, Torren and I went to a BBQ with a bunch of people that Torren works with and I got to say it was dam fun. It was a really cool mix of people and I had a blast plus I got to see what a real Aussie BBQ is like and it beats the pants off of what we’ve got going. Pretty much what happens is everyone brings their own food to the BBQ, meat, salad, dessert, veggies, whatever you want to bring plus enough to feed 10 others. It all gets cooked up, thrown out on a table and everyone digs in, it’s dam good. All the people at the BBQ were in the Koala catching program with Torren as their job was basically catching Koalas. Now Torren doesn’t do any catching himself as he needs a bit more training, he just does the spotting and recon work, the other people do all the catching which is basically them, climbing up a tree with one of those animals catching poles that have a rope attached to it and grabbing the koala. Now at first I thought, “Man that job has got to suck, there’s no way you’d catch me climbing up a tree to capture some animals that’s biting and clawing at you.” but everyone there seemed to love the job and told me how much fun it was. They showed me some of the bite and scratch marks they got and they were nothing compared to the cuts and scratches that I get from a couples day’s of farm work. So yeah, Aussie BBQs are dam rad and I’m definitely going to have to have a BBQ like the when I get home.
Fishing
The last couple days Torren’s taken me out fishing. The first night we went out all I caught was these little crap fish that taste like…crap so we just threw them back. Torren caught some nice ones that we had for dinner, a Sweep, a Flathead and a couple King George Whiting if I’m not mistaken. Now from here I was thinking about writing up a big “The big one that got away story,” and see how many people would believe me or call bullshit. Well the next day we went out again and it turned out to be a dam good day, so good that I don’t have to lie about it. We walked out from Kate’s place down this steep ass hills and cliffs to a fishing spot that Torren said was alright. It was on these rocks and I guess because of the full moon the water higher than he had remembered it and we’d get the odd large swell and get our feet soaked. My first cast out I caught a little crap fish and I thought for sure it was going to be that type of day. Things were pretty dry for a good while and all we were pulling up was seaweed for the longest time, not even crap fish. Things started to bite then with me pulling in my first edible fish, a good sized Sweep. Torren then started to have some success and pulled in a King George Whiting, another sweep, a Red Mullet and to top it off a decent Trevally (sp?). By then it was getting late, we were running low on bait and Torren started to clean the fish up as I finished what was the last of our bait. I’d had cast out once and when I pulled it back one of the baits (we were using two hooks) was gone, which isn’t usual. Being lazy by that point I decided not to rebait the empty hook and recast out that’s when I got the big one. It put up a pretty good fight and at thought at first it was seaweed or a really big crap fish like I had caught earlier but it wasn’t, instead it was dam good sized Trevally. The thing sprayed shit and blood all over me when I pulled in; it was great. Torren got a good picture of me with it and I’ll eventually get that posted up. It probably only weighted about 1-2kg but Torren was saying that that was a big one for that type of fish and he hadn’t seen one that big in a long time, in fact he was saying that I showed the picture he took to someone on the mainland they wouldn’t believe it was caught out here. Plus they taste dam good, which is the most important thing to me. So it was a dam successful day, with a good meal to finish it off and enough fish for a couple others. For the longest time I never really “got” fishing but now I do. It’s definitely nice those moments of just sitting there and enjoying the view but when you catch something the adrenaline gets going and you get pumped up. Fishing is something that I definitely want to give more a go of while travelling and when I get back home. I’d also really like to go hunting…maybe I could get Mike’s dad to take me out when I get back home…
Edit: Dinner
One Big Circle
I’m realizing that my interests all go in one big circle. My main interests are in health and fitness which, I want to be stronger, faster, better…basically higher performance. To achieve this I need to master nutrition. Since nutrition is all about food and I love eating food so I might as well eat good tasting food I have an interest in cooking. That interest has spurred my interest in growing/raising my own foods, having my own farm and now has spurred my interest in fishing and perhaps even hunting to provide myself with my own food. Food that you grow yourself, fish/hunt/raise yourself tastes so much better than the crap you buy in the grocery store plus I imagine it’s got more nutrients and such in it. That higher yielding and fresher food is good for my health and a healthier me has a better chance to perform and increase my performance level…
Acclimatization
The weather here on Kangaroo Island is pretty dam extreme and even on the mainland in Adelaide it was pretty wonky. On the Saturday when I was in Adelaide, it was around 38 above with no wind. I was staying in the hostel that I was in before which has no a/c and seems to absorb the heat and hold onto it. I swear it was cooler 15 feet bellow on the street than it was in that building. I don’t know why I went back to that place and while I’ll probably go back again, oh yeah, I keep meeting cool people there. Where was I? So on Saturday it was around 38 outside and like 42 inside the hostel. 3 day’s later the temperature drops and it’s down to the low 20’s. Sounds pretty nice right? I froze my ass off. It’s amazing how acclimatized to a temperature you can get and how a quick change to a seemingly more reasonable one seem pretty extreme.
Now as for the weather here out on Kangaroo Island. Someone told me, “If you don’t like the weather on Kangaroo Island, wait 5 minutes.” I’ve heard that one like a million times back home but back home has got nothing on this place. When I got here Tuesday it was in the low 20’s and dam windy and again I froze my ass off. During the night I reckon that it dropped down to about 10 and I ended up using 4 blankets, my silk sleeping bag and using a space heater, for a short period, in the caravan I’m staying in. What a wuss huh? 2 day’s later it heats up to about 36 and I end up using the fan that’s on the heater to cool down my caravan and sleep with just a sheet. Even the day’s are pretty extreme with one moment you thinking that you need a jacket and jeans to wanting to put on shorts to wondering where your rain jacket is. Needless to say it’s pretty extreme and pretty cool, in an interesting sort of way that is.
Millipedes
Again , the weather’s pretty extreme and the other day it rained pretty dam good, which brought out these hundreds, if not thousands little millipedes averaging about an inch in length. They are Spanish millipedes and since they were introduced to the island, they have no predators so they’re basically everywhere. These things were everywhere the first day after the rain and seemed to get worse as the day’s progressed. They were covering the floor and walls inside Kate’s place and were all over the outside walls of the house that Jess lives in. I’ve had to sweep out the entire cafe of these little things a couple times each day, it’s an on going battle, you turn around after sweeping an area and thing, “Didn’t I just do that area?”. There’s also a couple dozen in the bath tub when I go to use the shower in the morning. A more timid person would be grossed out by all this but I just consider it part of life in Australia.
Xmas List
– A good how-to book on being self-sufficient, like how to make a veggie garden, how to slaughter a rabbit/chook, how to set-up a greenhouse…Something that really pertains to Canadian/Albertan weather
– A Palaeolithic eating cookbook. Palaeolithic eating is basically eating like our ancestors and keeping things basic, unrefined and natural.
Note: I’m added this Xmas list idea not so much expecting others to buy them for me but as a reminder to myself of what’s currently going through my mind in regards to what I’d like to buy for myself or get as a present.
Maslin Memories
A couple other little things that I remembered that happened at Maslin house that I thought I’d throw in for shits and giggles. Also, I think I got the amount they spent on the conference messed up. I can’t remember it was $1350 or $3500, yeah big difference I know but for some reason I’m thinking it was $3500 as it’s more of a shocking number.
– Just about every night for dinner they got Peter to demean himself by going out wearing a little hat and blow a toy trumpet as each of them entered the room to a round of applause and the announcement of their titles.
– As I mentioned before Darren is supposedly a self made millionaire. He and the organizers signed a contract to pay certain amounts of money by certain dates with the last payment happening in the middle of the conference. Unfortunately he kept on backing out of the initial contract and keep on putting off paying the bill until Peter threatened to shut it all down the next day unless he kept with the initial agreement and pay. Needless to say he paid, albeit late.
– During a lot of the speeches that Darren gave out the people attending would give out rounds of applause. Now theses weren’t just a regular applauses but where standing ovations with whistling, hooting and hollering, like as it was 1989 all over again and Gretzky passed the puck back to Lemuiex who fired it past the Russian goalie in the dying seconds of the third to put Canada up 5-4.
So yeah, this is just a quick update to let you all know where I’m at and what’s happening. I’m having a great stay out here so I’m staying until probably the months end. Next week, on the 20th, there’s suppose to be another wwoofer coming out so that should be cool. Unfortunately it’s an other “G-word” but I’m sure we’ll get along. Also coming out is Kate’s parent’s all the way from Georgia, so that too should be interesting. Other then that, pics will come up when I get back to civilization which will be at the end of March/beginning of April. From there I’m planning on hitting up the great ocean road and going towards Melbourne, potentially stopping somewhere in between for a stay. The other day Kate gave me an interesting proposition for me to think about and I’m sure for her to think about to. Her and Torren are going to South Africa in May to visit and travel with his sister and she has asked me if I’d be interested in coming back out to the island to house sit and take care of the animals. She said she’d pay my way back onto the island, as it costs $70 to get out here, and right now I’m thinking that I’ll probably do it but only on a couple conditions, Torren leaves me a fishing rod and someone periodically drops me off some bait. So that’s what I’m up to lately and what’s new. I’m in good health and having a real hoot out here. Kate’s got some good rocks for working out and a wicked spot to do pull-ups so I’m a happy boy, plus she buys me pumpkin so it can’t get much better. Her and Torren have been great and we’re getting along really well. You can just cut the sarcasm out of the air with a knife it’s so think.
Safe Travels
Troy
Where, what, who, when why?
March 5th, 2006Well hello, It’s been a while and I don’t even know where to start. Yes, I am still alive and yes, I’m still doing this blog so I guess we’ll get started from the beginning. There’s a whole slew of other pictures to go along with this of the house if you want to see what the place looked like and such. I’m currently writing this in Adelaide before I head out to another wwoofing host out on Kangaroo Island, which is located just off the coast. I had already had one setup but when I called back a few weeks later they back out but fortunately I managed to find another stay out there so now I’m heading out there on Tuesday, the 7th. After that my plans are to head off towards Melbourne and try to do a wwoof stay or two along the way before I get to town. After that I really don’t know where I’m going. I was thinking about Tasmania but I’m thinking that by the time I get there it’ll be too cold but I guess I’ll see. I’m going to try and put down on here as much as I can but being that it has been a month, a shit load has happened and I’m heading off again here right away, there’s a good chance some will get missed out. Anyways, let the rant begin.
Well for the last month and a bit I’ve been out at Maslin House, in Maslin Beach which is a suburb south of Adelaide. Maslin House is a 5-star bed and breakfast run by Peter Douglas. He runs it himself with help from people like myself working for our food and accomidation aka wwoofing. When I first arrived there, I started working with another guy, Daniel from, guess where? Germany. Yep, more Germans. In my emails with Peter he said that there’d be another guy starting the same day as I and that his name was Daniel. I prayed that he was anything but German but sure enough thee odds were against me and he was from Deutchland. Regardless he was a really cool guy and I had a great time working with him. Note: I have nothing against Germans, they just seem to be everywhere in Australia.
Our days would start at 8:00am and we’d go to about 1:00pm with a break in the middle for tea so we wer working about 4.5 hours a day. Work was pretty broad ranged covering everything from picking weeds, cleaning the rooms after the guests have left, cleaning windows, cleaning the gutters, cleaning the dinning room, watering the garden and flowers, tending to the chickens and pretty much an odd jobs that needed to be done at a farm/B&B. This was more of a bed and breakfast than a farm but the majority of the work was “farm-style” work.
The setup there was pretty sweet. We, as in the wwoofers had our own little dorm style room with bunk-beds, our own toilet and our own bathroom. I don’t think I ever mentioned it but here in Australia, the toilets are separate from the sinks and bathtubs/showers so the area you shower in is the toilet meanwhile the shower area is the bathroom. There was the TV, with satalite TV that was our own area, shared with Peter obviously and the kitchen was our disposal so long as we cleaned up after ourselves. Peter had a great kitchen and I must say I’m think my cooking skills have gone up a notch or two after my stay there.
The area around Maslin House was super nice with the beach being a couple minutes walk away and beautiful sceanry all around us. Even some days of being hunched over all day doing weed picking or digging a big ass trench, it was hard to think, “This sucks” when all you have to do is look around at the beauty that surrounds you.
My cosy little bunk and corner of the room.
The girls chilling out in the sun. They’re long and short coat chiuauas.
Dan and I doing some road work.
“Is that a banana in your pocket Dan or are you just happy to see us?”
Peter looking quite evil.
While cleaning out the chicken coupe I sort of accidentally stepped on a chicken and gibbled him up pretty good. Oops.
Peter then stepped in to finish him off. It pisses me off because right afterwards I realized I should have been the one to do the dirty work.
I dug this trench one day it was some tough-ass work but I felt dam good about it afterwards. My meal afterwards tasted extra good like I had really earned it. Plus it was a beautiful trench and it makes me think maybe I should start my own trench digging service.
Digging a trench
The Finished job – a thing of beauty…for a hole in the ground.
After a hard days work there was plenty to do, like I say the beach was a short walk away, a hot tub, satelite TV with good movie channels and a really nice deck area to chill out in. I spent most of my free time in the hot tub drinking espressos and eating Lindt 85% dark chocolate.
Ahh, the tough life.
I also spent a good time cooking and again I must say I think my skills have gone up a notch or two after my stay there. I can whip up an amazing curry and because of the conference, which you’ll read about later on, I can cook up some damn good stuff just using the toaster-over, microwave and a couple spices. I’ve also realized, even more so now, how I would really like to start growing my own foods. Sounds cheesy and sad but I tell you, it was so rad to go down to the veggie garden, pull up some fresh zucchine, cuccumber, tomatoes and onions, take it all inside and whip something up. I tasted so damn good now that I’m back in town eating out of the markets and grociery store I can easily taste the difference.
The “veggie isle”. I swear, the tomotoes I’m buying at the market right now taste like crap compared to what Peter was growing.
Like I mentioned before the beach was a short walk away so hanging out on the beach was pretty nice too. It was a super nice beach and water was great. Now there was a couple different parts to the beach there in Maslin that were broken up into different sections.
Here’s one beach that had really good water for us crappy swimmers which was split up by a huge cliff.
Now on the other side of the cliff was a different beach that was a little bit more popular most of the time. It was really nice too but the water was pretty rough, oh and there was something else interesting about that beach.
Yep, the sign says it all.
And the view from the other side.
I took this picture naked, butt naked.
This one too.
So yeah that’s Maslin Beach and yes, I did get naked. It was pretty cool and very weird all at the same time. It was odd passing by a person who was also naked and then pass by a person that was fully clothed but regardless, it was good fun. I was expecting someone to do an google search of “Maslin Beach”, read about it and then get a whole bunch of emails from people giving me a hard time about it but that wasn’t the case.
The sign into Maslin Beach. I was clothed for this one.
A New Drug
Also at Maslin House I became addicted to a new kind of drug that took up a large amount of my time thanks to my good German friend Dan. Oh Dan, f*!k you. My new drug is from Japan called Sudoku. Sudoku is a little number game thats in most newspapers and is becoming very popular. Dan’s girlfriend sent him a book and through watching him constantly playing it I decided to give it a try. At first I thought I wouldn’t be able to play it since I sucked at math but I soon realized that it’s not about math but about logic and after that I was addicted. Thanks again Dan.
Dan in deep Sudoku thought.
Dan in more deep Sudoku thought and Jasna eatting food on the deck.
So yeah, for about 2 weeks thats what life was like at Maslin House. 2 weeks in we had another German girl, Jasna, come in and join Dan and I in our stay. About a week after she arrived, Dan left and it was just her and I doing the upkeep. She was a pretty cool girl and we ended up having a lot of fun.
Jasna
Dan and I just before he left
Why?
Now your problably wondering why? Why do this? Why do all that crap work when you don’t have to? Aren’t you on vacation? Why spend such a long time there? These are all questions that I’ve pondered long and hard about, while I was picking weeds or cleaning out the chicken coupe I questioned just what the hell am I doing, which I think answers the underlying question of what do I want out of this trip and my travels in general. It’s things like this, this wwoofing that I “get” something out of. When I went out with people to the bar for a night of drinking and partying, at the end of it all I would look back and think, “yeah that was fun” but other then that I felt nothing. I didn’t get anything out of it as a person, no new experience or insight, just the same old thing. Same goes when I went on tours or out to Ayers rock, all I had was the same experience that probably a couple million people have also had before me and millions more will have after me. I saw nothing special or different than the rest of them. Through wwoofing, these farm stays, work in general that I’m doing and the places I’m staying, I’m get my own experiences, my own insights and in return I get what I am out here for in the first place.
Person Growth
It all seems so simple now but for the longest time I had forgotten about it. I listed it as a reason why I want to travel but I never viewed it as a reason of what my travels would be like, at least in Australia that is. As I mentioned in past posts, Australia is a lot like Canada but the tourism industry is set in overdrive trying to sell everyone some package tour. Now there’s nothing wrong with just doing those tours and being a part of that Australia but I’ve realized that that’s not what I want. I had no personal growth from a night at the bar or going on a tour of someplace, sure I had fun and fun is one of the main reasons why I’m here but at the end of the day I just felt hallow. So in turn I wwoof, have fun and get a great experience, it’s all that I want in a nice neat little package.
A lot of people just don’t get the whole wwoofing thing since you’re not getting paid, to that I say you’re not spending money so really, what’s the big deal. I spent $136 Australian in the entire month of February and that was on dumb ass stuff that I normally wouldn’t have boughten and consider “luxury items”, like really good coffee and almonds. Yes almonds. Peanuts are dirt cheap but almonds cost an arm and a leg but I digress. I guess another complaint people could have about it is that you can potentially be a million miles away from anywhere and there might not be a lot to do. I dunno, I seem to enjoy sitting around and doing seemingly nothing. Reading, working out, listening to music, Sudoku (DAN!!!!) take up a lot of my time as they are things that I enjoy. Wwoofing also allows me to settle down, unpack my things and chill out for a while plus through that settling down, you get a sence of homeliness(yes it’s a real word) and from that a sence of family, which is really good when you’re a million miles away from everything you traditionally know.
Take your time
I’m also realizing that I need to take my time. Really, what’s the rush? I’m 24-years old I have a one-year visa and I’m not spending a hell of a lot of money. While travelling with Steve, Tom and the Swiss girls I got caught up with them and their timetables. They had to be certain places at certain times so they were always rushing to meet their deadlines and such. For myself, I have no deadline, no place I have to be so really, why not stay at a place for a month or two? I remember Steve saying that when he got to Caines he had a whole week to spend there, talking like a week was nearly forever. I look back at that and laugh and laugh at how I had planned to stay at Maslin for 2-3 weeks, which at the time seemed like a really long time. Well time flew by out there and I could have easily stay longer but I felt it was time to move on. I now plan to make my next stays, so long as they’re good places to stay, at least 2-3 weeks.
One day on the BBC I saw a little feature they did on Ft.McMurry and how the economy is going in full gear and how it’s the world’s second largest oil deposit. They had clips of the area and short little interviews with some local people and one with a CEO. All the interviews that were with the local people were taken place in bars and pubs, which I thought was quite fitting and pretty much everyone interviewed was just a big ass redneck hooting and hollering at the camera talking about how they’re making their fortune and such. After seeing that little feature clip I realized how glad I am to not be there or Nisku, which instills the same work your life away mindset. I said that to Jasna even after I had been in the hot sun all day picking weeds and cleaning chicken shit out of a chicken coop. Even before I saw that clip, for a couple days I had found myself thinking about Mastco, Nisku and my life in general before I left home. Everytime I thought of these places and my life before I noticed a strange phenomenon would occur; I wold get really pissed off. I don’t know why really, I was happy, or so I though, but I would just get very disgruntled and bitter with these thoughts yet I’d spend a day on the boiling hot roof, cleaning out gutters and I wouldn’t be mad or annoyed that I would have to be doing a menial job. Perhaps because it’s something new and different or that I know if I acually hated it that much I could just leave…
Life’s Priorities
Well you can obviously tell I’ve had a lot of time for thought and introspection the last month and another topic that I’d like to get on is how I will never be a rich man, financially that is. You see my priorities in life are as followed in that exact order; Health/Fitness, Family, Finance. Now health/fitness covers everything from body to mental health and personal happiness. That’s the number one priority in my life. Next is family, which includes close friends also. Lastly, finance; this ones at the bottom of the list as I would never risk my health/fitness/personal well being for it nor would I neglect my family for it. Now of corse there is contradictions to this whole thing like for instance Darren, most people would consider him healthy and in tip-top shape plus he’s dam rich so the guys got it all. That said from what I saw of the guy I think he could be in a lot better shape if he picked up some Crossfit action plus who know’s what’s going on inside his head. From what i saw and heard he sounded like he had a bit of an ego and could use some therapy but perhaps I’m just saying that out of bitterness.
Music
I got a lot of emails from people who seemed to be quite worried that I had no music out there since my Mp3 player broke. Well fortunately, my mobile has a radio on it and I just listend to “Triple J”, the national youth radio that’s down here, which I will say again kicks major ass and it’s commercial free. That said, about a couple weeks into my stay at Maslin I recieved a care package from home from my goddess of sister, containing a brand new Mp3 player loaded with seemingly all the songs that were going through my head at the time. now its only like 256megs and ain’t no 5gig Apple ipod but I wouldn’t a high end one as I expect everything I have to break or get stolen. Again, thank you Tiff, you are truely a goddess. Also on the topic of music, listening to Triple J has alloud me to be exposed to some really great bands that I thought I’d recommend:
- Belle & Sebastian – check out Funny Little Frog
- Placebo – These guys are really good. They seem to be big everywhere but north america yet they’re from the states. Check out “Song to Say Good-bye”
- Tegan & Sara – It’s really sad that I have to go all the way to Australia to be exposed to a band from Canada
- Xavier Rudd – He’s from down here and has a real strong folk sound, kinda sounds like Paul Simon I think
- The Gossip – They’re from the US and their female singer has an amazing voice. I’ve heard songs by them ranging from a punkish-rock sound to covers of country music they’ve done in an alt-country style. Check out “Standing in the way of Control”
Hockey
Well I heard Canada lost but the odd thing is, is that I really didn’t care. I don’t know why, maybe because there was more advertisements for the Commenwealth games in Melboune then there was olympic coverage or that I was going so hard working the conference that I just didn’t really take much of an interest in it. I’ve got to say though, the whole thing seemed like a million miles away and even after all was said and done and Canada lost I still don’t really care, which is odd because I still follow up with the Oilers and have my mom text me the scores when the games are over…anyways.
Christmas
It’s odd but for some reason I feel like it should be Christmas and I find myself yearning for it. I think it’s probably because I didn’t have it the way I usually have it makes me feel like I’ve missed it and that it should be coming around the corner soon. That said I’ve compiled a list of things I want, so start shopping dammit.
-Dark chocolate. something in a 85%+ variety
-Coffee flavored dark chocolate as dark as you can get it
-Really top end espresso coffee beansReally good light roast coffee beans
-A cooking encyclopedia – something that you can look up a herd, spice or food, see how it’s prepared, what it goes well with, a short history on it, what to look for when buying…
-A gardening book for growing food in Canada/Alberta.
Homesick?
People have asked if I’m homesick yet. As I write this I realize that I’ve been away 4 months, which seems like a long time and at the same time seems like it has just flown by. I have gotten homesick a couple times but I think homesickness is more to do with the yearning to go back to what you’re comfortable with, what you know and are familur with. You miss the comfort of having someplace to settle down and put your stuff after a days of work or travel. I could make it easier by ditching some of my “luxury” items and I intend to, eventualy. I yearn for days to be back home, in my own bed and back to my comfortable little life but then I’m reminded of the Friday and Saturday nights I’d sit at home alone or all the overtime I would work because I had nothing better to do and just the feeling that I was going nowhere. I think of these things and any thoughts of being homesick are pretty much gone. Yes I miss my family and friends dearly but I know where they’re at and when I do finaly come home they’ll all be there. I’ve been trying to look at the experience I’m currently having through the eyes of myself in say 5-10 years time and what I’ll remember and think about to about this journey. I’m finding that it’s much easier to appreciate what you’re doing and seeing when you look at it that way and you really want to take a lot more of it in.
Well how’s that for an update? The people that put the conference together took a whole slew of pics of “Team Maslin” so I’m trying to get my hands on them. As for myself, I’m in good health and spirits, I’ve been working out as per usual (made a kick ass pull-up bar there) and eating good, perhaps a little too good. My stay at maslin house was amazing and I now know more of what I want to get out of this trip. I know there’s tons more that I’m missing but I’m pressed for time so some stuff I’m just going to have to leave out and maybe put on later. I would like to have writen more about the people there, some other funny stuff that happened and the conference in general but I’ve been writing for the last 4 days and well, that’s just too much. Anyaways, untill next time, which I hope isn’t a month.
Safe Travels
Troy
Quicky
February 4th, 2006Yes, I’m still alive and I’m doing very well. Been at Maslin House for 2 weeks now and plan to stay longer. Here’s a couple pics of the place. I took a bunch more but they didn’t turn out or got deleted. I guess that’s what happens when you use cheap batteries in your camera. Unfortunately Peter, the owner/operator of Maslin House won’t let us use his computer on account of previous problems so I’m in town for the first time today in 2 weeks checking my email and doing other internet crap. The stay has been really good and the place is great. Work includes general cleaning of the rooms and house to yard work like picking weeds (arrg) to cleaning windows and cleaning the gutters. Work is 8-1 with a break in the middle of the shift. After that I get to do whatever I feel like. The beach is a 20 minute walk away, there’s a hot tub at the house, great padio for chilling out on and satalite TV so I’m pretty much set.
Still working out hard but I’ve unfortunately have had lapses in my diet that I end up beating myself up over. “I wash away my sins with the sweat of my pain.”
Here’s a pic of my shaved head.
Safe Travels and more to come.
Well Rested
January 18th, 2006I’d just like to thank everyone who emailed me, posted messages this last little bit and actually anyone who reads this. I had some rough times there and those little comments really help out; Mom, Dad, Tiff, Jesse, Colby, Dan, Yolanda, I really appreciate it. I’m feeling much better now after a week of pretty much just chilling out but I’ve been getting a little “itchy” the last couple days sitting around here in Adelaide and I’m really looking forward to getting out to the farm that I’m going to. It actually looks a lot more like a bed and breakfast then a farm and a pretty posh one at that so I’m thinking this could be a pretty cool experience. The only thing that’s been biting me the last couple days are mosquitoes but they’re getting everyone else too and they’re laughable compared to the ones back home.
I think one thing that had brought me down there for a bit is that I was watching too much what others were doing and not what I was doing. Yeah that’s great that a lot of people want to go on tours and just see the sights and there’s nothing wrong with that but I’m realizing that that’s not entirely for me. Getting bed begs, having a crappy farm stay and whatever else bad things that have happened to me are just part of the reason and the only reason why I’m here; The experience. I’ve had a lot of good ones and I’ve had a couple bad ones and yeah Colby, some days I do miss my own bed but then I think back to where I was a year ago and I can’t help but laugh and shudder in fear of being back there. Around a year ago it was about -30 and I was toiling away 10 hours a day at a job that I really didn’t have too much of an interest in. I remember quite well that it was right around this time of year that I was spending my days in the dark confines of a large rusty mudtank, which was in a large dusty and cold shop, taking measurements of the tanks and trying to make some kind of decent drawings out of them. It pretty much sucked big time. If I was back home sleeping in my comfortable bed I’d have that, or something to that effect to look forward to everyday and well, I’d rather have bed bugs everyday then that.
I changed hostels from a 5-star one to a place that was just a mess and super crowded to a place that was above a bar. At first I wasn’t too sure about it, being it was above a bar but I took a look around inside and it was clean so that’s all I really cared about. Sure there was no TV room, the kitchen,yet clean was a bit crammed and there was no laundry room but since I’d rather not sit around watching TV and I handwash all my clothes I really didn’t care. Plus I paid the weekly rate which came out to like $13.50 a night, mix that with buying food from the market and I’m living pretty dam cheap. It’s almost more of a guest house than a hostel and I figure I’m going to have to remember places like this and keep an eye out for them. I found with the 5-star YHA it was tough to meet and talk to people and that the atmosphere in the place was really bad. Here since it’s pretty small, it’s almost impossible to not talk to people.
My home for a week.
View of China town from the balcony
So I spent a couple days just chilling out in town and seeing the free sights. I went to the musuem by myself one day but was too itchy from bed bugs and couldn’t concentrate on the displays so I had to go back home. I went a couple days later with the French Canadian chick I had travelled from Alice Springs with and an American guy, both of which were very cool. They had some pretty cool exhibits there, specifically to do with the Aboriginies.
All the natives that I’ve seen thus far have been big huge people sitting around under trees in parks. Now Chris, the lady who owned the farm in Carnarvon, said that that’s how they socialize as in they are a very public people and don’t hide what they’re doing. I hate to assume that all they’re doing is sitting around getting drunk in there little groups but from what I’ve seen that seems to be a lot of it. I wanted to take a picture of them in their little groups but I figured it was a bit impolite and quite frankly, they scare the shit out of me. They’re all very heavy obese people and I thought it was just the way they always were but form the pictures that I saw at the museum taken in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, they were a pretty stacked group of people.
Some pipes that they used.
This one is made out of a crabs claw.
Thus far I have a very mixed view of them. From what I’ve seen of their history and earlier way of life I have a huge amount of respect for them but from what I’ve seen of them in real life and the way they currently are I have this perception that they’re like children. They scuttle around town, yelling and squabbling amongst one and other and seem to have no jobs or a real earge to do anything. I think I’ve seen the last of them though, since I’ve gotten to Adelaide they’ve pretty much all disappeared and it’s not like there’s no parks in Adelaide for them to sit around in, in fact from what I’ve seen of Adelaide it’s all park. I guess they’ve all been pushed out of the large cities and now just live in the smaller communities which explains a couple things to me. One of the mindsets down here is that a lot of the down problems here and what’s “wrong” with the country are due to imagrants moving into the country. They mainly live in the large cities and are seen by everyone yet from what I’ve seen I think one of their main problems is their natives but since they’re out in the smaller towns and in the woodworks, no one sees them and sees their problems except the local people living with and around them and a lot of their opinions seem to be that the natives can only blame themselves.
I was thinking that I probably shouldn’t point out all these problems with a country that I’m visiting but I decided I should since it’s part of my experience here. I know the natives and my country in general have a lot of problems too and I’d be really interested in looking at them a lot closer when I return home. I wonder to myself, “When was the last time I went to an Indian Reserve?”
I’ve been to the market a couple times the last couple day’s and it’s pretty dam cool there, super cheap fruits and veggies and the atmosphere is great. Each time I go there I end up getting carried away and buying way too much stuff but it’s all good since it’s so dam cheap. I went on Saturday which is the busiest day there, last day of the week it’s open and the most insane. It was just wall to wall people with everyone pushing and shoving to get the best deals, it was great. I should have worn hockey equipment it was getting so rough. The shoppers were pretty crazy at some stalls but it wasn’t until about 2:00 before it closed when the vendors really lost their minds and started slashing prices to get rid of anything and everything; that’s when shit really hit the fan. People yelling and screaming numbers, handing you bags of fruit calling out a price, general mayhem took over. I spent like $20 and got a weeks supply of fruit and veggies so I’ve been eating good this last week and have probably been doing too much cooking when I should be out and about seeing the city and such. I’ve been making a lot of curries lately and have been dishing out some pretty dam good ones. The secret is coconut milk/cream.
I also spent a day in the botanical gardens, which was pretty relaxing. It was some pretty nice gardens and they had some pretty cool little wooded trails to hike through.
Rose Garden.
Some big building by the rose garden that I had to pay to get into so I didn’t go in.
Nice walkway.
A tribute to the king onhis birthday.
One thing that I’ve been meaning to talk about is pack sizes. I am carrying with a 45 liter pack which is a bit small, moreso when you compare it to other peoples. I had done a fair bit of reading and reseach when deciding what pack size I needed and pretty much all of the articles said to get a smaller pack ranging from 40-55 liters. The theory behind this is to force yourself to travel light by taking a small pack, makes sence. Now so far from what I’ve seen of others I have the smallest pack in the world and I figure I am carrying pretty much nothing with me. I constantly see people lugging around 70-90 liter packs with things hanging from them and wearing an other small daypack on the front of them. Back in Perth I met this English chick who had to get other people to carry her pack for her from the bus or where ever, now that’s insane. I constantly see people lugging around with them shit that makes me scratch my head. Stuffed animals, hair dryers, what appears their entire wardrobe of clothes and just other shit that they really don’t need.
The first couple weeks were the hardest; my pack seemed so small and it was so stressful packing things up that at one point in Perth I was walking around looking to see how much new ones costed and if I could trade mine in. Fortunately now, but unfortunately at the time, there are laws in places in WA that don’t allow shops to trade in packs so I was stuck with the little one I had. As time marched on I became a better traveller and packer (it’s all about rolling your clothes up), traded in a luggy towl for a sarong and just downsized a lot of stuff to the point where I can put everything I have in my bag with plenty of room to spare and that’s even after I went out and bought clothes to work in. Albeit, I don’t have a lot of clothes but how much do you need? I handwash my clothes that I wore the day before so my stuff always clean and I try to keep it simple when it comes to other stuff. What a great traveller I am, I have only what I need. Actually no, I’m probably worse then all the rest.
I have my fair share of “luxury” items that I don’t need but lug around with me anyways. I started out with the following:
Workout Gear – I have with me a large elastic band that I use for resistance, home made gymnastic rings and a jump rope to workout with. I don’t need all that stuff, albeit I think I do.
Coffee/Tea Plunger – I like my coffee and tea and have been carrying around a plunger with me since day one. There’s days that I have cursed the dam thing but more days that I have bowed down to it’s caffinated goodness.
Coffee and Tea – I usually have with me some coffee and right now I have 3 different types of tea. As I have mentioned before everyone down here drinks instant coffee at home meanwhile in he streets cafe culture is ripe in the big cities. No Starbucks, Tim Hortons or any “quick and easy” equivalent.
The way I see it, I love fitness and working out and not doing it would kill me, mentally that is. As for the tea and coffee, well I figure I’m saving myself a good chunck of change by not having to go out to cafes and such to buy coffee so a penny saved is a penny earned.
Now things is where things are starting to get ugly.
Spices – Being that I always cook for myself, enjoy cooking and enjoy eating moreso, I have with me a variety of spices. At first it started off simple with just some pepper but as time has worn on it’s expanded into a monster on it’s own. I now carry with me 7 different powered spices and herbs: pepper, curry, oregano, mint, cinnamon, basil and hot peppers.
Espresso Maker – I don’t know what I’m thinking and I need help. The other day I noticed that they have these little 3-cup stovetop espresso makes for super cheap. I figured, “I have room for that” and bought it. Silly me but DAM it makes a good cup.
More Coffee – Well I’m going to need some good espresso style coffee for my espresso maker right plus I need some for my plunger.
So yep, I’m slowly losing my mind by stocking up on all these things that I really don’t need. I’m realizing though that with all these things they all point to one thing; Thefiner things in life; Good coffee, good tea, great food, good workouts and now good chocolate. Yep, I’m eating a bit of chocolate now too but it’s the good stuff. Lindt’s dark chocolate with 85% cocoa is what I’ve been nibbling at. I allow myself only little peices each day but enjoy each bite. It’s odd, as a kid and teenager I was a chocolate-oholic and had pretty much cut it right out of my system for a long time (becoming lactose-intollorant also helped with that). Now when I eat regular milk chocolate I find it way too sweat and don’t like it at all compared to the really really dark stuff, whereas when I was a kid I hated the dark stuff.
Also, I finally broke down and got a mobile phone. Yeah another thing to lug around but it was becoming a pain in the ass to get a hold of people in the local area using the pay phones and even more of a pain in the ass getting a hold of people back home. Because of the time delay I’d end up having to sit around until late morning/early afternoon to try and call home and it would be a major pain in the ass if there was no one there. Now people can call me, which I don’t expect them to because I think it’ll cost a fare bit but I do have text messaging, which is extremely popular down here and rather cheap. At first I thought I was just out of the loop when it came to texting and that everyone back home texted but me but I guess not. I’m hoping that others out there have text messaging so we can keep in touch. The charges for me are like $0.25 a message so it’s not that bad. My number is 04-0500-8583 and the Australian international dialing code is 61 so throw me a hello or even throw me an email with your cell number.
Tragedy
One little thing that has happened to me that could very well be a terrible terrible thing is that my Mp3 player broke. The battery top peice snapped off and now the battery won’t stay in. I got it for free from Tiff (thanks again) so I’m not too upset yet but I’ll see what happens to me after a couple weeks without music.
Other then that I’m feeling pretty good right now and I’ve pretty much have been just sitting back relaxing and getting things ready for my farm stay at Maslin House. As it looks like a really nice place I’m hoping to do a longer stay this time around if the situation is good. Got a hair cut or actualy gave myself a haircut with a pair of clippers that a guy at the hostels had so I saved some money there to make up for all the other crap that I bought the last couple days. That said, I’m still doing really well for money and with this wwoof stay should do even better.
Many people might not have any idea of where some of the places that I’ve been to are located in Australia so if you go here, you can click on each link and roughly see where they are.
Safe Travels
Troy
Out of the Desert
January 11th, 2006In Adelaide now and I must say I am dam glad to get out of the desert. This is the first true city that I’ve been in since I left Perth over a month ago and I’m a bit glad to get back to civillization but I don’t know how long that feeling will last and in fact I think it’s already starting to leave and is being filled with a feeling of ill-contempt.
My last couple day’s in Alice Spring’s I went to a Desert Park with a guy from the hostel that I met, Dave. Dave is from Sydney and just finished off a 6 month wwoofing stint in Queensland near Brisbaine. I guess he is pretty big on organic foods and perma-culture living, took a course on it all and then went to go and live it for a couple months. I don’t know if I could do that for 6 months.
The Desert Park was pretty interesting; it had a lot of the natural vegetation and flaura in the region and how the natives managed to live off of it. I got to say that the natives in this country were a pretty resilient group of people to manage to meek out a life in this harsh climate; I’d be dead in a hour if you left me out in the desert to fend for myself. Unfortunately though I think most of that life is gone for the natives here too.
The heat in Alice Springs was pretty steady teh rest of my stay in town and I pretty much just chilled out by the pool the rest of the time I was in Alice. I’m sure that I jumped into the pool at that hostel more times than my entire previous 2 months in this country.
A big ass bird of prey that was hanging around the park. The picture doesn’t give it any justice but it is a big bird. There was suppose to be a feeding but the birds were being very unruly so they had to cancel it. When Dave and I first walked to where the feeding was suppose to be, we saw one of them swooping at some lady. That was cool.
The bird of prey was big but it wasn’t this big. I’ve got to find a super market where they sell emu…
Lazy days. He almost looks drunk in this picture…
Until Broome it had not rained once my entire time here then it was just down pour there. I flew to Alice thinking that I’m out of the wet yet it rained more in Alice Springs than anywhere else I had been save Broome. Now I’m not talking a major down pour or anything, in fact it was just a sprinkle but it was rain sure enough.
To get to Adelaide from Alice Springs I took a tour bus that would normally go from Adelaide to Alice Spring’s taking about 5-8 days, stopping along the way at all the interesting spots. Instead of heading back to Adelaide empty, they pretty much charge people a small fee to head back south, stopping over at a town called Coober Pedy, the Opal capital of the world and where a number of the residents make there homes underground.
If you’re travelling Australia, learn German
The bus took off pretty early in the morning and was filled with 6 travellers and the driver. I wouldn’t really call this thing a bus but more of a van with 2 benches in the back for people to sit on. There was pretty much no A/C in the back and where I sat the sun always seemed to be on me. The people in the van were all young travellers, 2 German girls, a Swiss-Germans couple, a French-Canadian girl and myself. The french Canadian girl got to sit up front (lucky her) so I didn’t get to talk to her too much while on the road. I didn’t manage to find out who she would have voted for if she was back home but she was pretty nice. I was thrown into the back with all the Germans. At first it was all good, everyone was talking, exchanging stories and having a good time. As time wore on though the inevitable happened; everyone started to speak German. I guess it was my own fault since I somehow managed to fall asleep amongst the uncomfortable, twisted mess of people in the back of the van and when I awoke, I was in Germany. There are a lot of Germans in this country as I guess just a couple years ago they aloud them the working-holiday visa so they’re just flooding in when they finish off high school. Lot’s of Swiss too but most of them are here for vacation or school in the instance of Corin and Simona.
We drove from about 7:00am to I think around 5:00pm the first day with stops at the roadhouses along the way. There only 5 towns in the entire Northern Territory of Australia and the rest is just little shit hole roadhouses in the middle of nowhere charging an arm and a leg for anything and everything. I don’t understand how or why other travellers spend money like they do, $7.00 for spaghetti and toast is just simple not a good deal. Either is a $4.00 bag of chips but sure enough, everytime the can stopped, they got out and bought some sort of over-priced junk food. The only thing that I find is good about the roadhouses is free peanut butter they have in little packages for breakfast. Unfortunately I think I’m out of roadhouse territory now.
We spent one night in Coober Pedy, which is also the opal capital of the world. Now, there’s no major company that does the mining, it’s just local people and from what I can gather, most have a regular job and then dig in their spare time or support someone else to dig for them. I asked if anyone strikes it big and then takes off for a nice beach or an early retirement but it doesn’t sound like it as most of the people do it for the thrill.
As I had mentioned before, some peoples houses or at least part of their houses were underground or built into the sides of hills and that included the hostel we stayed in. The underground dwellings were old mines that they stopped mining and started living in as above ground it’s just barren rock as far as the eye can see and often gets over 50 degrees. In a lot of places all the sand and rock they dug up from mines they just dump out in the middle of nowhere and there’s plenty of nowhere out there. Underground though it’s a nice cool constant temperature of around 24 degress.
The pictures I took of inside the hostel didn’t turn out so here’s the outside.
This looks as if it might have been someones house at one time. I figure from the amount of spider, bugs and snakes I’ve seen in this country there’s only going to be more in there.
Part Coober Pedy’s residential zone.
More desolation
We stayed at a hostel that was underground the night we were there. It was pretty cool but nothing too exciting. We had to get up at like 5 to be on the road by 6 so I didn’t get too much time to soak it all in. So back on the bus we go for a nice 10 hour drive of hell and misery before we get to Adelaide. For pretty much the whole day it was German that I had to listen to so it was a very long drive. The night before we went out to a bar and they were playing the remake of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the TV there. In the movie there’s a German kid that wins one of the golden tickets that’s a very stereotypical german; fat and pudgy, love chocolate and in the background his dad was making sausages. All the Germans were so adament that it was not true and such a cheesy stereotype, the German guy was especially adament about it yet he fitted the stereotype to a “T”. He was always munching away on chocolate, was rather plump and was overall very jolly.
So far on my journys of Western and Centrel Australia, I’ve gone to and seen some great and interesting but as I leave that place I always have the thought in the back of my mind of, “Who in there right mind would want to live there?” There are so many isolated little towns and roadhouses in some of the most inhospitable places that I can’t help but question what the hell people are doing out here. Case in point; Port Geraldton. I don’t think I wrote about Port Geraldton before because all we did was drive through it on the way to Broome but that drive through was enough for me to see to just keep moving. The town is hardcore industry with a major railway and sea port for it’s huge steal and salt industry. Because it has such a huge steal industry, everything in the town is red from the dirt and then baked in the sun from it. The town is located in the Pilbara region of Australia and it’s notoriously hot there. Marble Bar, which is just north of Hedland has a record of 161 days above 37.8 celcious. It was a bizzare town, I was glad to leave and I can’t help but think that the people living there are just a little tiny bit crazy. Coober Pedy was another town like that. I left there thinking “Why?” Alice Springs is another one of those towns too. It;s in the middle of the scorching desert and the only thing they’ve got going is a big ass rock near by. So far from what I’ve seen of Western Australia and the Northern Territory there’s a lot of these places and you have to be just a little teeny-tiny bit insane to want to live there.
This is what passes for as a lake in Australia; salt flats. I guess it fills up with water sometimes.
More Coober Pedy Pics
When we finally got to Adelaide I was hot, miserable, didn’t like Germans and very itchy; I guess I got a nice batch of bed bugs from my stay in Coober Pedy. I was unsure where to stay, was tromping around town looking for a decent place and just about checked into a real hotel with my own room where I could unwind but I resisted. Instead i checked into the local YHA which was the 5-star resort, creme de la creme of hostels. It was easily the nices hostel I have ever stayed in; great kitchen, cinema room, good internet computers, nice rooms, 2 TV rooms, a good quiet room and just an overall beautiful place. Unfortunately it was $25 a night with is a bit out of my range. I was just going to stay for one night but ended up staying for 3 on account of being very itchy from bed bug bites. I’ve changed hostels now to a different place just down the street that’s $21 a night but I don’t know if it was too good an idea yet.
The 5-star YHA Resort.
This time I know they were bed bugs because they are up my legs and arms in lines and itch like crazy making a bit tough to sleep. I was starting to really upset and over this; I keep getting biten and it seems very reoccuring and it makes things very frustrating and not a lot of fun. To top it off I feel rather ashamed; I’m a clean guy, I shower each day, twice right now with all these bites and I hand-wash all my clothes just about everyday in hot water. I’m told it’s not my fault but bad upkeep by hostel managers but that doesn’t give much solace when it looks like you have leprosy. I do think that this time around it was my own fault because when I got to Coober Pedy I was pretty tired and didn’t want to go digging for my sleep sheet so I just laid down right on the matress, that had no covers or anything and fell asleep. Bad move. I’m hoping that now that I’m back to civillization, things will be better. A guy in my room reccomended using Tea Tree oil on the bites and I’ve found that to make a huge difference. Stuff is expensive though a $5 a small bottle and I’ve been dousing it on like crazy but I can feel it working.
Woe is me.
Leprosy
All in all I feel that traveling thus far is tough work. I always seem to have a cut or two on me and being eaten alive by something feels like it’s the norm. At times I feel rather beat up and I think to myself that if I can barely mange this country what will happen when I get up to Asia? At this rate I’ll be dead in a week up there.
So here I am telling people in one entry to go to hostels, stay there, meet people, do it for the fraction of the cost and then a couple posts later I post all these horror stories of being eaten alive and getting cut, beaten and bruised.
Anyway’s I’m finally out of the outback and into a decent sized city. Adelaide is a pretty nice city and is a lot more temperate compared to the harsh desert, no bugs and no dust. So far on my travels I’ve yet to find a place that I could see myself living in but Adelaide is probably the first, that said, my view is probably slightly skewed comparing to where I was the last couple months but I think that again is changing and I’m already starting to miss the laid back small places like Coral Bay and Broome. Meanwhile a German guy that I met says that he thinks Adelaide is rather bland and doesn’t like it that much, he of course is coming from the opposite way that I am and was just in Melbourne and Sydney.
There’s a strong Asian presence here and it’s a pretty multi-cultural town, which is a nice change of pace. There is an amazing fresh food market here with super cheap fruits, veggies and cool little Asian markets. I went a little crazy there and now I’m walking around with way too much food with me but whatever, I’ll eat it. I seem to be a sucker for these places and just the Asian atmosphere, I can just walk around in these markets for hours on end not necessarily buying anything but just soaking in the atmosphere.
The market
I’m told there’s a really nice museum, botanical gardens and beach close by and they’re all free. The internet at the library is free too and I found a free chocolate factory tour in town too at some famous chocolate producers. Yep free is good plus with cheap food from the market, I can’t go wrong. Free is also good because it looks like I’m going to be kicking around in town until the 20th of this month, waiting to get onto a local place for a wwoofing stay. The place is a bed and breakfast called Maslin House and looks pretty posh. If things go well I might end up staying there for up to a month. Until then I have to find things to occupy my time and free things are the way to go.
There’s lot’s of Canadian and Americans here in the hostels. I’ve met like 4 Canadians and 2 Americans on the west coast but so far here I’m hearing a lot of people without accents, in fact one of the guys in my room was from Spruce Grove and a couple days later his brother came to town. I seem to be getting back onto the tourist trail and from here I hear it’s a lot of big city lights and which is where I think my ill-contempt lies:
Everything is so commercial
I think it was always there but I just didn’t notice it that much at first but everyone and their dog wants to sell you some package tour where they load you up on a bus drive you to something out in the middle of nowhere, you get out, take some pictures, jump back on the bus and go off to the next thing, which in this country more often then not, seems to be a rock. You then stop someplace for lunch, jump back on the bus and repeat. For me there’s just no appeal in any of that. They take a simple thing like going to see the sun setting and find a way to sell it, for instance doing it on camel back or by quad-bike. Add in the word “Adventure” and suddenly it’s marketable.
A Low?
I don’t know, I’m feeling like I’m getting a bit bitter and since I’ve gotten back to Adelaide I’ve questioned, “What am I doing here?” Everything is the same as back home. I don’t think I’m homesick but just…I dunno. Perhaps it’s a whole mix of things like the bed bugs and a new city and area.
The thing that I’m liking the most so far is just meeting other people but it’s hard to break out of that travellers bubble and get in with the real people. I much more prefer to meet people that actually live here and are part of the culture, which can be a very hard thing to do. My only exposure to “Real Australians” seems to be through wwoofing thus far. To top it off, from what I’m told it’s only going to get worse the more I go up the east coast as it gets more and more commercial. The one guy from Spruce Grove I met was saying that if he was in my shoes he would just get a regular job at like Subway or something and just live here for a while. I didn’t come halfway around the world to make sandwhiches, I came here to try new things and experience life. I guess it’s hard at times to keep in sight the many new things that I have done thus far and the many new things that I will do. At times I think that perhaps I should stop being so damn cheap and go on one of these big tour packages but then again not too many of them really interest me and most of them just seem fake.
Regardless, I have a wwoofing stay starting up here in a weeks time so hopefully I don’t get too borred kicking around town. It should be interesting to get back onto a farm and such and I guess I’ll see how I’ll feel when I’m out there.
Well, that’s about enough gripping for one post. Here’s some pics from Adelaide that I’ve taken thus far and I’ve updated a few more from my last couple days in Alice Springs
Safe Travels
Troy
Alice Malice
January 5th, 2006Well here I am in hot ass Alice Springs which is also known as the “Red Center” and when I say hot I mean hot; it’s averaging about 40 degrees everyday. I thought Broome was pretty rough at first because it was so humid but I got used to it rather quick and I must say I rather liked it. The weather was very tropical and it was a really comfortable hostel where I really enjoyed just laying back and listening to the rain, reading and chilling out. The rain cooled things down a bit but of course it posed a huge problem when you wanted to go out and do something. There was also tons of lizzards and frogs in Broome; the frogs croaked like ducks and the lizzards were everywhere, the kitchen, bathrooms, along the walls…I enjoyed my stay in Broome, with plenty of good games time spent just hanging out and bullshitting with people and of “Go Fish” with the gang.
Another thing about Broome that I noticed was there was a lot of Aboriginals, actually there’s lots of Aboriginals everywhere here but in Broome they seemed to be a lot less segregate from the white community as they are here in Alice. In Broome there were lots of them at the bars, going out clubbing and caring on with there buisness like anyone else. Here in Alice, they weren’t aloud into any of the bars and there are a lot more on the street making a lot of noise.
Now my west coast section of Australia is over though and it’s been a blast. It feels odd, almost like something is ending but at the same time I know something new is begining, I just have no idea what it is. I had only planned to travel as far as Broome and from there it’s been pretty much a shotgun approach.
I feel a bit dissapointed about the west coast in one way that since it was the off season there wasn’t a lot going on and a lot of the places where pretty quiet but at the same time I know when I start getting into bussier places with more people I’m going to have a lot more contempt for it all and look back at my time out west with fondness of how laid back it was and how quite it was. To top it off I met lots of great people all up the coast and my last leg of it spent it with some really cool people. I can’t decided if either Coral Bay at Christmas or my stay at the West’s fish farm was the high point for me. My high point at the West’s farm went something like this: Albert and I had both just spent the day working pretty hard, digging a trench for the water pipe and filling it back in, moving a bunch of stuff around the farm and then finished the day with a pretty decent fish harvest. We came back to the house with some fresh fish that we just harvested and he cooked them up for us. We here eating away, me sitting to the left of him and him at his place at the end of the family table, when he stopped eating, turned to me and said, “We got a lot done today, huh?” I stopped eating, looked over at him and said, “Yeah, yeah we did.” and we both went back to eating. It sounds stupid, it sounds simple and probably a little odd but in that simple little exchange of words what was exchanged was respect.
Anyways, here I am in Alice Springs and it’s hot. The temperature is averaging 40 degrees everyday in the shade but it’s not as bad as it sounds. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hot and while just sitting around your sweating but it’s not to the point where you just can’t handle it anymore and you’re going to snap. I guess I’m aclimatized to it to a bit, which is interesting because in the last week or so I’ve gone to some pretty extremes. In Coral Bay it was amazing weather, holding out at about 32 with a nice sea breeze and the odd cloud in the sky. From there I went on a 18 hour bus right and got out about 1400km north in Broome where the humidity hit you like a brick wall. After a couple days of that I jumped on a plane and got out here in Alice Springs where there’s no humidity at all but it’s a good 10 degrees hotter out.
The River Through Alice.
How they manage to get such green grass is beyond me.
Alice Spings; One hot little town.
I have been travelling with people that I had met in Coral Bay for about week and a half now and we just all finally went our own ways. We were all heading out on our own tours of Uluru and from there going or seperate directions so we had a final night out together on New Years. As I had mentioned in my previous post, I landed into Alice on no sleep but from there I couldn’t fall asleep. I figure I was away for about 38 hours with about a hour nap on the plane somewhere in the middle. Fun Stuff.
For our last night together we just went down to local pub, chilled out, joked around as usual and just simple enjoyed each others company. I had only been travelling with these people for about a week an a half but I felt rather close to them in the short period, I don’t know if it was because we spent Christmas together or something like that but I had a great time with them all. From here Tom is heading off to Brisbane, Simona & Corin are off to Tasmania, Steve is off to Cairnes and I’m heading south to Adelaide. First off though, Uluru (Ayers Rock).
Yep, the big rock that everyone has to see.
To be honest with you, I wasn’t too excited to see Uluru, I was even planning on skipping it but felt that I should see it just for the sake of seeing it. It is just a big rock and one thing we joke about is that there’s lots of rocks in this country that everyone seems to flock to and takes pictures off; regardless I felt I had to see it.
Not wanting to go on one of the mulit-day “Adventure Tours” that cost an arm and a leg, Steve and I decided to chip in together, get a rental car and drive out there. We had gotten word from one of the girls at the hostel we were at that there were some people out there with a farm who let people just park and camp over night there. We figured it all sounded good, got the car and headed out. We were out late again the night before for our last night with Tom and the girls so again, we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep for the day.
Mt. Connor another big rock but this one no one goes to.
We got out to Uluru about 4 in the afternoon and took a look around at the “Cultural Center” that they have there. To enter it costs $25 per person, now I know a lot of people get upset about having to pay for National Parks and such but I see it as an upkeep fee and really have no complaints in coughing up the cash so long as I get something decent in return. Well unfortunately, that was not the case here and I walked away from the Cultural Center and facilities dissapointed and digusted. The center that they had there was a joke, it had absoultely no reference on how Uluru was formed, how old it is and any bit of it’s geological significance. Instead it had the Aboriginals version of how it was formed and what it’s significants it is to them. All of that is rather interesting and just as important as the geological history of it but the way it was delivered was awful. I think it was suppose to writen from the perspective of the Aboriginals but if you took all the text they had there, wrote it down in crayon on construction paper you’d automatically assume it was writen by a child. The way the story of the rock was told and the grammer used was a joke and I honestly walked away thinking that the Aboriginals are some simple child like people, which I know they are not.
What I found really dissapointing about the Cultural Center is that pretty much all around Uluru it’s basically Saskatchewan but with no farms. It’s extremely flat and goes on for miles and miles and miles and miles. How did Uluru get there? What is it made of? How old is it? These things weren’t answered at all and now I have to go online and figure it out myself.
After the crappy Cultural Center Steve and I went out walking around Uluru as is what you’re suppose to do when you’re there I suppose. It was pretty cool; there was some neat ancient Aboriginal art on the sides of it at one spot and some interesting little spots here and there. After a short hike we went for the sunset which was a fair bit of a disappointment as it was clowdy out but it still changed a bit.
Now somewhat of a popular thing to do is climb Uluru but the thing with that is that is it’s considered a sacred sight to the Aboriginals and they don’t like you climbing it so it comes down to a moral question. Some people do, others don’t. I personally didn’t get the chance to climb it; if the temperture is forcasted to be over a certain point (I think it was 36) they don’t let anyone climb it after 11 am. If I had the chance I think I would have given it a go. Hate to disrespect the Aboriginals but from what I’ve seen I really don’t hold them in a very high regard.
After that we went to go and try to find this mythical free camp ground that was somewhere out in the country but couldn’t find it so we just ended up staying at the camp ground at the resort and slept in the car, again for the third night in a row having a terrible sleep. Even at night time it scorching hot out here but the worst thing is is that there’s lots and lots of bugs case in point:
Now this isn’t from Uluru but from the Hostel we stayed at the night before which was pure shit. They’re not bed bugs but mosquito bites or at least thats what I was Jo, the owner/operator of the current hostel I’m at said, I think they were ants though as I noticed some on my bed during the day. At first they didn’t itch that much but as time has worn on they’ve gotten itchy as hell. Regardless of all the bites I still have a dead sexy back though.
I should have known better because when I first got to the hostel there was a girl with similar bites all over her legs and the guy at the counter just kind of laughed and shrugged his shoulders, what an asshole. I should have ran then and there. Shit like this isn’t suppose to happen to me while on vacation, it’s suppose to happen to Mike (haha, love ya man). The hostel I got this from was called “Annie’s: The Friendly Backpackers”. It was such a dive. It had in-suit bathrooms but the door had no lock on it so if you were taking a dump or having a shower there was a good chance the door was going to swing open on you. There was also no glass on one of the windows so I’m sure that didn’t help keep the bugs out. The kitchen was so incredibly dank, with barely any pots, pans, dishes and cutlery and to top it off they didn’t have cups. They had signs saying people kept stealing them so they didn’t give them out anymore but instead sold them, I later found out that they keep such a shitty kitchen and sell the cups so people go to there bar for meals and drinks. I also noticed that the fridges were barely on which I’m sure was thought out to let food go old and you have to go and buy food and drinks from them. As you might be able to tell I’m really pissed off at this place and am going to post a couple reviews on backpacker sites.
I changed hostels to a place called Alice’s Backpackers Resort which is one of the best backpackers I’ve been to thus far. The guy running the show, Jo is a great guy, is super accommodating and runs a tight ship. I think the main way that I rate a hostel is the kitchen area, again thinking with my stomach and just the little things that you don’t normally notice and quite often take for granted. Speaking of thinking with my stomach, I found this amazing ground kangaroo mince for super cheap at the grocery stores so I’m stepping up a bit.
Kangaroo tail…looks interesting but I’ve yet to try it.
After a terrible sleep in the car we were up at 4:30 to go see the sunrise on Uluru but this time from a different location which was near Kata Tjuta National Park and the Olgas. It was a bit of a dissapointing sunrise over Uluru as there was a slight haze but the Olgas looked great and the sunrise itself was pretty dam nice. I left my camera in the car so no pictures for that but I don’t care, it’s all in my head.
From there we went to go and climb the Olgas. Now the Olgas are another big ass rock in the middle of nowhere about 45 minutes from Uluru. Now I thought these rocks were a lot more interesting than Uluru. We had a great hike through them seeing a lot of really cool rock formations and nature. Now this place was worth $25 but unfortunately they didn’t have anything written up about them at the Cultural Center or even at the Olgas so I get to look up on the internet now and see for myself how it was all formed.
The Olgas
From there we headed back to town. I wanted to check out King’s Canyon which is just north of there but we didn’t have enough gas. We had enough to make it to the next roadhouse but from there we’d have to double back another 75km plus we were beat to shit after the last couple days. We also needed to get back to town because the next day Steve had to do a rental car relocation to Cairnes and had to head out pretty early. I slept a good distance on the way back to Alice Springs and slept good that night, save the odd scratching season. We booked into a different hostel for the second night and it’s 1000 times better and I’ll most likely be staying there for a couple days as I’m still trying to figure out how to get to Adelaide. I met this Swedish guy at the hostel who’s been on a sheep farm for 3 months up until the other day. He’s a big hockey fan so he and I were pretty excited to talk hockey with someone. In fact as I type this I get to listen to the Oiler’s play the BlackHawks so hooray for me.
I got to do some driving with the rental car on the left hand side which was pretty cool. I only found myself on the wrong side of the road once or twice but kept on turning on the windshield wipers instead of signalling but there was no accidents so all is good.
Steve and I just parted ways with him heading off to Carines so I’m on my own now for the first in a bit. I really enjoyed travelling with Steve and will miss the guy. Again, a person I only knew for a couple days but felt I really hit it off and bonded with the guy. As much as I loved travelling with everyone I had met I’m looking forwards to this next little bit of alone time and know that in a couple days I’ll be probably find another group of people to travel with. In Adelaide I hope to hook up with someone with a car and travel with them for a while.
Me and Steve with Jo in the back.
Here are the rest of the pics for Uluru, the Olgas and Alice Springs.
Safe Travels
Troy
misfittroy