It keeps getting better

Hello. Greetings from Carnarvon still. We left the hostel last weekend because, well, it sucked. But also because the farmer that Jo and I are working for offered us free (!!!) accommodation on the farm while we’re working for him. Nice! So yeah, we got our own little place again, it’s not the most luxurious shack on the block but it has got character.

Last week we finally finished weeding the plantation. I don’t think we’re going to be up for doing that again, or any work that involves bending down for 8 hours a day. Ah well, we got paid for it I guess. After that, Kim, the farmers wife, came out and told us we could paint their house. Way better job.

On Wednesday, all a sudden, Blair (the farmer) came out and told us they were going on a holiday and wont be back till Sunday. OK. I was thinking, great time to piss off I guess. No, they gave us a key to their house, told us to keep an eye out, feed the dog and cat and gave us huge lamb roast. Somebody doesn’t have any trust issues. We basically had the whole farm for ourselves, we got paid work with no supervision and a frikkin’ lamb roast. I’d say that’s a step up from eating noodles every day.

We’re not sure if there’s going to be any work around next week. If there is we’ll hang around here for a bit, otherwise we’re going to head up a bit more up north, to Exmouth perhaps.

See ya later yeah!

Out with the goats, in with the melons

 

Hi. It’s us again, back with some more news and tales from far far away. We left Kalbarri last Saturday after a month of catching wild goats. It was a bit sad to leave because we had such a great time there but it is time go and make some sweet moolah.

Of course we had no choice but to throw ourselves a goodbye party on our last night on the station, any reason will do. Calum, the boss farmer, entertained us a with stories of ghosts living in the homestead. For dinner we got steaks (born, bled and then bbq-ed on the station) and the best roast potatoes ever. We had also 5 new workers there who didn’t mind having a few (17) beers with us. It was our first late night in a month, so we tried to make the most of it.

And off we went the next morning, drove about 4-5 hours to Shark Bay where we camped out for the night. We got to this free campsite, not listed in the tourist folder, far away from all that is civilisation. We slept with the ocean only a couple of steps away from us, beautiful clear, starry night. Yep life is good.

On Sunday afternoon we arrived in Carnarvon and apparently that’s also the day this town doesn’t work. Nothing open, not even the check-in desk of the hostel. Great. Another night camping out then I guess. So yeah, work, that’s what we come here to do. We drove around to all the farms the next morning trying to find work. We learned that big signs saying “NO WORK, NO ENTRY” means exactly that. But eventually after 7 or 8 farms we found this guy Blair (I thought  that name only existed for rich people in a white polo) who did need some workers. Hooray! So we spent last week de-weeding his melon fields, without seeing him again after that first day. We just turn up at 6AM take his ute to the field and work till when we want to. Then we give his wife our hours and we get paid, easy does it. Next week we can even move into their cottage they have on the farm, free. Nice. We’ve also got another job painting their house. Eventually when they don’t have any more work for us I think we’re going to move back to a caravan park. Cheaper and more relaxed then the local hostel. The hostel isn’t bad but management is a bit too stressed.

I think that’s it for now, you can carry on your life again beloved reader. Thank you. To see pictures you can always go to my Flickr page.

There’s is one more thing I want to share with you guys though, it’s a saying from the farmer back on the goat catching station who doesn’t like whiners; “If you want sympathy you can find it in the dictionary between shit and syphilis.”

Great stuff.

Onya Mate!

Time for a bit of an update.  I know… It’s been a while. So where to begin? Oh yeah, we are in Australia now! We got to Perth from Singapore on the 5th at like 1AM, we got dropped off in the city centre at 3AM. So we were pretty knackered and wanted to find a bed somewhere. But everywhere wanted to charge us for a whole night and we had to pay for another night at like 10AM. Sod that! So we did what everybody else would do in that situation, we went to a 24h McDonalds! We a had big mac meal at 5 o'clock in the morning and played chess while chatting to the homeless and drunks. Those are the only people who are up on a weekday night. It could’ve been more fun if I wasn’t so tired. But it did save us like 50bucks.

Its been a hectic first week here, just sorting all the paperwork out and trying to get a job. We got a car as well, a cheap but beat up Ford Falcon stationwagon. The important thing is that it runs good and we’re getting a few things to make it a bit cooler. My idea of spray painting flames down the side didn’t go down to well with Jo. We’ll see. But we are leaving Perth on Sunday morning. On Saturday we’re driving to Jo’s cousin Gemma who lives just outside the city here. We met up with her and her husband Didier and her brother Ben last night, we ended up spending the night at their place, having a Kangaroo BBQ feast and goon night. Lovely.

So we left Perth on the 14th of February, drove about 700Km north to a little town called Kalbarri. We rang up a farm there a few days before that needed some help mustering feral goats. Who could say no to that? So up north we drove, as soon as we got out of Perth and the suburbs we got back into the big empty space of Australia. I do think everybody should experience a proper roadtrip in Oz at least once. Very zen indeed. Only the heat might drive you a bit crazy. So all went well and that evening around 6 we got to Kalberri. We camped out that night before going to the farm the next morning. We slept on the roof of the car most of the night (the rest falling off) doing a bit a star-gazing which was pretty brilliant.

We got to the farm the next morning, where everybody was getting ready for the goat mustering. We got handed a walkie talkie, then got dropped in the bush being told we had to start walking east. Right. Do they realize it’s our first time doing this? Where’s east? When do we stop? Let’s just say our first mustering could have gone better. The next few days we were “carting” goats. That means getting them out of the “traps”, the pen they get mustered in. So we have to build a bottleneck with fences and a ramp to back the truck into at every trap. Then the fun begins, chasing the goats down the fences into the bottleneck then up the ramp. That works all really well till one of the big billie goats up front turns around and starts ramming int0 everything. Including myself. So yeah, they can be pretty stubborn. The means used to get them on the truck aren’t always kosher. But it does give you a proper workout.

We’re getting some proper offroad driving experience as well. Most off the traps take about an hour drive to get there and there’s no tarmac in the outback. We got all sorts of extreme 4WD tracks around here, as the property goes from the coast to the rocky hills inland. We usually go in 3 vehicles to the traps, on average about 2 tyres a day get fucked. The truck or the ute get bogged in the sand at least once a day. Towing or changing tyres isn’t nice in 50degree midday heat but shitloads better then being stuck in traffic going to a 9 to 5 job that you hate.

So yeah, we’re doing all sorts of stuff here, my favourite is mustering goats on a quadbike. Every guy wants to be a cowboy I reckon. It’s great fun trying to make them go where you want them. Just make sure you look in front of you occasionally, I've been banged up by trees and rocks a few times already. Great times.

Alright then, I think we’re staying here for another week or so, nothing is planned yet. I did give the owner of the hostel in Innisfail where we picked bananas 2 years ago a ring. He still remembered us and we’ll go there in a few months and get our old jobs back. So again, sorry for the delay in updating this thing, I’ll try to do it more often again. But as a surprise here is our newest video, “Farm Madness”.

See ya later yeah!