Posts Tagged ‘work’

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Bugs, bags and a Bobcat

November 20, 2010

Sometimes when I cycle, or work, I suddenly think of something I would like to share with you. I then quickly write it down before I forget. This is what I wrote down the other day while working;

“A good thing about this job is it got me over my fear of spiders. Instead of jumping and screaming every time I see one I’m now not even slightly bothered by the sight of our eight-legged friends. Wich is good other wise my job would involve a good amount of jumping and screaming….”

It was only a minute later I jumped. And screamed.

I felt a terrible sting at the top of my leg and my first thought was of a spider…

I’ve seen many redbacks and they can be mean.

But as I pulled my pants down something fell on the ground and wriggled away. An enormous multicoloured centipede had found his way all the way across my shoes, over my socks and up my leg ’till it couldn’t get any further and bit me. That hurt.

It was a beautifull centipede. But no matter how pretty I still did not like it in my pants.

So after contemplating what to I decided to finish the job and make my way back to camp where I spent the rest of the day with a bag of ice between my legs… And feeling lucky it wasn’t a spider that bit me. Or worse even, a snake.

And now, to make my work seem slightly interesting, I pretend I’m on the hunt for new species, surely there is some out there. I take pictures of every spider, bug and lizzard I encounter instead of just re-habbing drillsites. (= taking away green bags)

And sometimes I do a little dance with my work mates,

Or I paint drums, I like painting drums.

 

 

 

To give you an impression of what I’m upto out here I put together another little video… So here you go:

:-D

I still seem to have a small issue with cars. I’ll take two wheels over four any day.

The problem is not that I’m a bad driver, eventhough I’m still surprised each time some one lets me drive a car (… ) The problem seems to be that cars don’t react as fast as I do…

-I can’t give you an example, the boss might be reading this-

The other issue I’ve got is trees and bushes jumping in my way, but -as I noticed recently- I’m not the only one with this problem. In this country, even rocks randomly jump behind the car when you least expect it.

In my world, driving a car is not something you actually do. It’s a foreign thing from a different world. The same place as where morgages and bills come from.. The kind of stuff I am completely un-familiar with.

That might explain my surprise when I came out of camp on my break and my phone wouldn’t work. Apparently in order for a phone to work you need to pay bills…

Who’d have thunk it?

I’ve now taken the bus a few times (safer then driving myself) It’s not as bad as a 5-hour bustrip might sound. You see nothing though, except for some exceptionally bad movies. It’s not a great idea to leave a phone sitting on the bus either… well, unless you enjoy trying to track it down and cancelling/re-activating accounts.

I can think of better ways to spend a break.

Like going to Esperance. A town at the South-coast of WA where the hills are green and the water is blue. You can see whales out there! And if you look very closely you might see Peter.

Peter spends most of his life underwater.

Looking for shell and looking out for shark.

But when he’s on land he doesn’t mind guests. So I went and stayed in his house :-)

 

And had a wonderful time,

He even made time to show me around and we took a trip up to Cape Legrande where the rocks hit the sea and where we heared whales scream. It’s great going new places, meeting new people and doing things you never done before…

Like a line-dance class with the Esperance Bay Bootscooters ;-) (yes she did..)

Or just chilling at the esplanade under the enjoyment of a coffee.

Talking about,

The other day, out in the bush, I discovered a brilliant new way to make a brew! Just heat the pot up by lighting a little fire under the bobcat, works a treat :-)

But I don’t take the bus to Esperance every break so sometimes I have to fly…

I don’t like it much. But with only one week off  a month a bicycle isn’t gonna get me far :-(

Last time I rented a car and talked a guy I met on the plane into getting in the car with me under the pretence of being nice and offering him a lift. While the actual motive was not wanting to drive into town by myself, I needed some one to show me the way. He found out quickly the plane was a lot safer. First thing I did was hit the curb. Seriously, those cars react so slow!

But ones out on the open road I’m good.

Well. That’s what I keep telling myself.

So I just keep driving (and it’s not because I’m too worried to park in case I hit something… true!)

I drove North, back to Veronica. My friend in Jurien bay whom I’ve known for over a year now. And further, past Dongara where I cought up with the farmers I worked for last seeding season and further up to Geraldton and Mullewa. Where the harvest is in full swing again. I can’t believe it’s been a year since I was there… Time really flies when you stay in one place for more then 3 months.

But I kept driving and made a big loop back to Perth airport, where I managed to return the little car unscratched.

A proud moment indeed.

Just before heading back to camp I noticed a bicycle,

It was loaded up and standing next to a lady fiddling with straps. Ofcourse I had to go and check it out. The lady was Anneke. A fellow Dutch-woman. Who, now she’s retired, figured she might as well visit her daughter in New-Zealand and cycle back home! An excellent idea.

At first she seemed a little apprehensive when a random stranger came up and started interrogating her… But quickly we discovered it wasn’t that random at all. She’s been following my blog for ages and was excited to meet me, she even told me she got some inspiration from my blog.

That is nice to hear :-)

3 coffees and a lot of talking later it really was time for Anneke to start moving South and for me to hit the road up North. If you like to see how she’s getting on check her out @ www.annekeopdefietsmetpensioen.waarbenjij.nu (in Dutch, and if you’re not Dutch… try and pronounce that :-)

Back in the Netherlands my niece turned two last month (happy birthday Stella!)

And she got the best birthday present a little girl could wish for, A bike!

Here a picture to compare.

 

She might just follow in my tracks… Although, looking closely. She’s got a slightly less frantic look then me on her face… She might be just fine :-)

Although I don’t seem to ride my bike much these days.

It’s sad.

But untill I find a way to get cash without working I better get jobs every now and then. (now that is…)

There is a little ride coming up though!

And Im rather excited about it.

I’ll let you know more about that one next time.

-x-

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Digging Deep and Flying High

September 28, 2010
Being at work I get to have terribly little time to spend on my bicycle. That makes me sad. 

 I do though, get a good bit of time with my computer. And that makes me happy, because now I can show you this;  

  

And more will follow… :-)   

  

I look at the landscape here and think;” WOW, Look at that view!!!”  

The geo’s look at the same thing and wonder if there’s any mineralisation in that rocky outcrop…  

Or they come back from holidays with a rock. And the other gets all excited and wants half of it…  

Did I mention it is a rock…  ?

Some of them think I’ll be the same in a while. But for me a rock is a rock is a rock…  

although, I did find a pretty one today… ;-)   

I would not want to see the world through a Geologist eyes.  

And don’t think that will happen. I like the world the way I see it now.  

Pretty, and colourful, and full of exciting things to discover. Not just iron ore. Or gold. Or copper. I couldn’t care less.  

But it’s a job. And a good one at that :-)   

It’s beautiful out in the scrub. Probably my favourite place in Australia. I only wish I could take my tent out and sleep in the bush more often.  

My job involves lifting heavy bags, and counting uptill 302… that’s howmany meters deep a hole can get.  

I’ve spend a bit of time at the drill rig too, where it gets very noisy and very dusty, so you wear a mask that makes you look like an alien. And I siv. I siv whatever comes out of the ground for the Geo to stare at.  

OK. I might not be using a lot of brain… but, by the end of this, I’ll be able to keep cycling for years and years to come.  (And I’ll have some huge muscles in my arms… hehe ;-)

And that is what I like.  (the cycling-for-years-bit… ok, the muscles-bit too)

  What I also like is two new family members back in The Netherlands. That’s right! Two of my sisters had baby boys. I can’t wait till they learn to ride bicycles and I can take them on trips with me! So Gijs & Tieme, when you guys can read this… Lets go!  

At work we have no mobile phone coverage, it’s a good way of keeping your phone bill down. Another good way is losing your phone. What I just seem to have managed…  

 On my last  break I talked to a friend when I got back into network-area. He mentioned he was at Perth airport on his way to Sydney. Without thinking (as usual) I replied; “Oh fun! Can I come too?” “Sure”, he said. So four hours later I was aboard a plane on my way East. So strange to think had I stayed on my bike I would probably have arrived in Sydney around this time too… It would’ve taken a little longer then 4 hours though. I hope I still will…  

On the plane, a whole new experience, I realised I wasn’t gonna get any food, water or tv unless I paid. I never thought of keeping my wallet on me… About two hours into the flight I read the free magazine front to back and studied all the emergency procedures and tried looking over the shoulder of the girls in front of me to see what’s on the telly…  

Finally I turned to the guy sitting next to me and asked: “Is that a really good book you’re reading or would you maybe like to have a conversation… I’m really bored you see…”  

Good move, we chatted the rest of the flight and in no time at all the wheels hit the tarmac.  

Sydney here I am!!!!  

  

I couldn’t believe I was there. Mentally I’m not capable to travel as fast as I just physically did, so every now and then I had to look around, jump up and down and scream WHOOAAH, IM IN SYDNEY!  

And, although I thought it would be a big scary city, turns out Sydney is as ‘little’ as WA. First thing I noticed coming out the train station was a big sign saying ‘MENZIES’… Well, that’s our village back ‘home’. Although the building wearing the sign can probably hold hundred times our population (which is 80)…  

Next thing I walked into a shop, got chatting to the owner, turns out he knew the guy I was catching up with that very afternoon. I knew there where only 2 degrees of separation in WA, I didn’t know it counts for the whole of Australia…  

The guy was Leigh. We met in February in Albany at the Ulysses-meeting. And as a proud (ex) Sydney-citizen he couldn’t let this opportunity to show me his city pass.  

It was great!  

He showed me the less-obvious side, we walked up to Kings-Cross and lots of little back alley-ways where he knew an authentic little Thai-place, felt like I was back in Bangkok for a while, and the food was just as good!  

Then he showed me the first terrace-houses in Australia, build in 1845, he used to be the caretaker. But now he’s got a place up in the mountains. The old houses are still there though, conveniently located right next to a pub where they served pizza’s with crocodile on it.  

It was an excellent day.  

I had already walked around the obvious sights and was pleasantly surprised to see that the harbour really is rather pretty. I took the compulsory opera-house picture and found my way into a massive rugby-ball that was there, together with a bunch of dancing and singing Maori’s, to promote New Zealand. For now I’m still enjoying it here, but it’s next on the list…  

Of course I had to go and have a look at Bondi beach. Which I did. And after two days (nowhere near long enough) I flew back to Perth. Where I had a first aid course to attend to. Shame I never realised I had to finish a book with lots and lots of questions before attending the course. I found out around 2pm the day before… And it’s supposed to take about 8 hours. It did.  

It felt like being back at school where you had to stuff weeks work into half a day right before an exam… well, I did.  

It was good fun though, I learned that if I get bitten by a snake in the bush I’ll die. I kinda knew this.  

But now I’m sure. Lucky we always carry a satellite phone (so you can let some one know…).  

But not to worry! I’ve only seen one snake around work, and that one wasn’t even alive itself.  

I have seen lot’s of other funny and interesting creatures though.  

One of my jobs is emptying old bags at drill holes from long ago. All sorts you find doing that. My favourites are the multi-coloured centipedes, but lizards are nice too. Lots of spiders who don’t even worry me much any more. Except the big fat ones. I still don’t like them… I even found a scorpion one day. And then there’s the ants. But they don’t excite me much. And flies… They haven’t been too bad in the cold weather.  

But now it’s warming up and we had some rain you see more animals and the flowers are starting to come out too. I realise that where I’m cruising around in the big white car, one day in the future there might be nothing but a big huge hole in the ground…  

Ah well.  

“Such is life”  

  

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;-)   

  

  

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Rocks & Red Clay

August 22, 2010

I might have mentioned it before, but one thing I really enjoy when travelling is that you really never know what is going to happen next.

Even if you plan as good as you can, organize permits and buy maps, one moment you can be camping out in the bush with your bike, the next you could be cooking for millionaires..

It happens.

The thing is; I do not cook. Every body who knows me, knows that my culinary exploits usually end in disaster. I only just manage to boil pasta and open a tin of tuna… And here I found myself. Preparing dinner for ‘important’ people.

But let me tell you how I got there.

I’d left my bicycle and gear to hitchhike the 300km back to Menzies for a 5-day job… I was lucky enough to get a lift with a couple on their holidays. So along the way we stopped off at every site or spot of interest that was along the ‘Golden Quest Discovery Trail’.  And when we weren’t stopping to take a picture of the view/ a mine/ a hill, I made myself comfortable on the couch in the back of the camper van, talk about travelling in style!

All people I talk to (especially the one who never tried) always try to convince me hitch hiking is dangerous. I don’t think it is. The girl who picked me up next didn’t think so either. But when I thanked her for not murdering and hiding me in the bush she reminded me we still had 10km to go… But she was, like all people who’ve helped me out along the way, good as gold.

Back in Menzies, a big truck was waiting to take me the remaining 125km to camp. 

Hobbling along on the dirt, music playing up high in the cab while the sun was setting and the endless road stretches ahead I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

We arrived at the ’Camp’ that soon would turn into ‘home’.

But I didn’t know this yet.

This ‘home’ came with a family too! And a fairly multi-cultural one at that.

We’ ve got an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotchman. It’s no joke. It is very funny at times though… Then there are people from Bulgaria, Tanzania, China and Indonesia. Even one Australian!

I reckon it was a great idea to pick a bunch of people from different places in the world, put them out in the bush together and see what happens… Sort of ‘big brother’ except that no one is watching.

It would be a good show though! Where else would you dress-up with drillers, bake special-shaped cookies with geologist or watch Tanzanians dance on Slim Dusty…

But, not to forget, it is a job. I help the Geologist here with processing core. It means I look at rocks. It also involves a lot of driving through the bush in big 4WD-vehicles and lifting bags of samples. It is great! I’m finally getting some muscles in my arms :-) I get to write things like; ‘Felsic porphyry ortho clase’ No idea what it means. But it sounds interesting… right?

And I got my own room, my 1st own room since leaving Ireland 3,5 years ago… I even planted flowers in a pot and bought a gnome. ‘Cause home is where the gnome is’…

The 5-day job turned into two weeks and from that into 2 months…. Who knows when I will leave.

In my 3rd week here the board came to visit. This is how I got to prepare dinner for millionaires… We haven’t got a cook yet. And since I’m still here and everybody is still alive I reckon my efforts weren’t all too disastrous.

I now work 3 weeks and get 1 week off. My first break started great! I had to travel from camp to Kalgoorlie together with the crowd I’d just been cooking for. We had a small bus and stopped off at the mining hall of fame where we looked at (some more) rocks. And the super pit… At the airport, after checking in we went through the ‘special door’ where you find the big cushy seats and free drinks! So yeah. Lounging before boarding. Just sooo ‘me’…

I haven’t completely abandoned my dear Multicycle… On breaks I still get the change to get out there and explore. Or so I thought.

I got to Kalgoorlie and set off west. I had a mission. I’ve seen the name of a rock on my map and since I don’t see enough rocks at work yet I though I go and see some more. The only way to avoid the highway was going along the railway.

According to the lady in the information centre I couldn’t do this… This is a silly, silly, thing to say, I remember someone years ago telling me I couldn’t cycle to Australia. You’ve seen what came from that ;-)

So after a couple of nights at my friend’s place (I even have friends! It’s getting real homely) I set off along the tracks and with not much difficulty found my way out of town.

The plan was easy. Ride along the track untill I hit Southern Cross (300km) and then turn right.

There was a little bit of a drizzle I hadn’t expected. I’m still shocked each time I see rain in Australia. In my mind this is wrong. It’s a hot dry country and so it should be. That is why I do not carry any rain gear.

The 1st day was dry…

The 2nd night I build camp at an abandoned station where I pitched my tent in an empty room, while Shane rolled out his swag in another.

Shane had passed me earlier that day. He stopped, wondering what I was doing. At this stage I was wondering the same thing since the sky had grown darker and darker the past few hours. He told me he worked on the railway and would meet me later at the station. So we had a nice evening of cooking, listening to music and making shadow-puppets on the wall.

I was rather happy my tent was pitched inside because that night the wind picked up and it rained like I hadn’t seen it before… Also, I had recently discovered a pole has gone missing. This doesn’t make a tent any stronger.

Shane was away early in the morning, but not after giving me his phone nr ‘just in case’…

By the time I left I realized that was very lucky indeed since after pushing my bike about 200 meters from the homestead I noticed I wasn’t going anywhere. The dirt road had turned to mud overnight. And not just mud, thick gooey red clay clogged up my wheels and I couldn’t move forwards or back…

So I rang Shane and he came to the rescue. Like a knight in a white railway-vehicle to safe a damsel in distress. Or well, me. Actually.

So I found myself in the smallest private train I ever been in on my way back to Kalgoorlie, back to Paul’s place where in the meantime more people I worked with on the farm had arrived…

They laughed.

And then took me to the neighbours where with the joys of alcohol, a karaoke-machine and a lot of people from New Zealand we had a rather pleasant evening ’till the wine kicked in and I choose not to remember the rest of that night.

Only a couple of days later while walking into a random pub for a quiet sunday-afternoon beverage we happened to run into the same crowd and few hours later I found myself in a country-club, being swung around by pensioners who just commemorated the Vietnam war. And enjoying another great line-dancing display. It happened to be exactly the same as the one I witnessed 4 months ago at the Nullarbor Muster! It was another memorable night that ended in the kebab-shop… And with me on the front page of the Kalgoorlie miner….

No! Nothing bad… truly!

Oh, here; You can see for yourself :-)

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Work and Play

January 23, 2010

Ah!

A new year.

Where will my bike bring me in 2010…It’s not as uncertain as before.

For the first time (ever) I’m fairly convinced I will stay in one country for a whole year!

My application for a 2nd visa has been granted so there we go,

Australia is not going to get rid of me any time soon.

Just when I was about to have a nice quiet x-mass in Geraldton I got a phone call,

Andrew (Byro station) invited me to come down to Dongara to celebrate with his fiancé Lynne’s family.

A few days of drinking beer and eating seafood combined with going to the beach for a bit of spear-fishing and snorkelling.

Gary (Lynne’s dad) even let me have a go at scuba-diving, something I’ve never done before. Completely un-natural to be under water AND breath at the same time! I must say I think I rather be 5000m above then 3m below sea level… (funny coming from a Dutch person huh)

A lovely lunch and even a present made it a special day. But the most wonderful thing was, after 4 months with a sore thumb, Gary managed to get a splinter out that has been bugging me ever since I stayed at Yarrie-station! His trick was to cover my thumb in soaked bread for 24 hours. In case you ever have a splinter that just won’t come out, this is the trick.

For the excitement of the day we found a red-back spider, this lovely little creature that doesn’t look very scary is Australia’s most dangerous spider. A bite will hurt. A lot. This is a female; the males are only a few mm big and are known to be eaten by their partner during mating…  Ouch.

I spent New Year’s in Dongara as well, this time with two work-colleagues…. They reckoned they’d show me ‘the Australian way’…. It involved drinking beer. And drinking some more beer. And then drinking even more beer… The weirdest thing happened though. I got ill. And I haven’t been able to touch any alcohol ever since. That’s abnormal, anyone who knows me knows I really enjoy a beer…  Ah well, no need to make any new year’s resolutions. This one just happened all by itself :-)

After I finished driving the tractor at harvest I had enough cash to go cycling for a good amount of time, but remember Michael? The guy who first plucked me off the road in Mullewa…

He needed an extra hand on his team.

Since I didn’t need money that urgent I told him I work in exchange for a new camera, my old one has been broken for a long time. He agreed and I’m now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 500D :-D

My time with Michael’s Tarping-Team proved interesting and rather entertaining. Some of those blokes I’m working with are ridiculous, one of them was absolutely horrified when I ‘let one fly’…

They joke and do all sorts of stupid stuff with each other, but he reckoned he had NEVER heard a girl fart…. Shock horror.

The work is not particularly hard, it’s just very hot and dirty. The flies drive you crazy and with temperatures reaching into the high 40 it was sometimes impossible to work during the day.

Another factor you have to take into account is the wind. You can’t ‘tarp’ when it’s windy.

So instead you go to the pub. Logic.

On one of those evenings I was very surprised to find the barmaid completely naked apart from her (very VERY) short skirt.

An Australian phenomenon called the ‘skimpy’. For reasons unclear to me on random days (a Wednesday in this case) in random places (the Mullewa pub) a girl serves drinks undressed. No surprise that I was the only other girl in there. A mineworker’s x-mass party was having the best of times…

When there’s no ‘skimpies’ the guys entertain themselves with games of pool and sleeping.

But as soon as it cools down and work conditions are good we drive to one of the sites. The different CBH grain-collection points that we cover lay in a 250km radius, so a lot of driving is involved. That’s where my newly acquired drivers licence comes in handy. Michael even figured I’d be fine to drive the truck…

So my designated job became driving the truck and handling the Hiab.

Next year I might even get my truck-licence 8-)

While being on the road we often call into pubs for a meal. You find mainly people working in the mines, on the roads or (like us) for CBH in the small country pubs this time of year. So you can understand my surprise when I sat down for a bite in ‘Watheroo-pub’ and the lady walks in saying; ‘You can’t sit here in your work-clothes…’ She couldn’t come up with an answer when I asked her why.

The other people in there were a couple of truckies in singlets and thongs… So it wasn’t that there’s a strict dress-code. For a moment I contemplated just taking my work clothes off and eat naked. But I decided against that and walked out instead.

I still can’t understand the problem. If I would’ve been a lawyer, or a truck driver, or a teacher… would I still not be allowed in work clothes…? Obviously I didn’t tip her. Actually I didn’t pay at all. Silly Lady.

I’m starting to get used to the distances here. In the last few weeks I’ve gone to Perth 3 times, a distance that’s the same as driving to Paris from my hometown. And I’ve never been to Paris…

Last time I actually drove the land cruiser back, all by myself. This made me particularly proud because the biggest town I’ve driven a car in so far was Morawa (population 1200)

I was a bit nervous, turned out I didn’t need to be since I was the biggest car around most of the time, so everybody would get out of my way… HA ;-)

The idea was to help Michael out ‘till the end of tarping and then jump on my bike. I got her all clean, oiled and ready to go. Then I started falling apart.

First I hurt my back. So I couldn’t move, couldn’t work and couldn’t cycle. Then I hurt my tooth so I had to go see a dentist who abused me for a bit but reckons it is fixed. It still hurts though.

Sitting still with nothing to do I figured I might as well build myself a brand new website…

And TADAAAA!!! This is it :-D

I’m not completely finished yet. But I’m working on it.

And as soon as my back stops hurting I’ll be back on the road. Because, I’m sure, there is a whole lot of exciting stuff just waiting to happen out there this year. Not least of them becoming an aunty… again :-D

happy new year.

HUG

Mirjam

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h1

a Harvest Holiday

December 17, 2009

I’ve had a great time riding around on my beautiful big red tractor.
With 485hp and 3,5 meter high it’s easily the biggest thing I’m ever likely to drive.
And, over the past six weeks collecting roughly 15.000 ton grain, I’ve made a good amount of money doing so. A nice side-effect….

There’s few things you must think about when operating a machine this size.
First of all, and obvious, don’t hit anything. I’m a 20 ton tractor with a 30-ton trailer, if you hit something it’s not likely to survive… I’ve managed that one alright,
Another rule is not to drive into the crop. Ever. I’ve managed to stick to that one too.

Farmers can do everything right, but if the weather doesn’t help they’re pretty much buggered.
Like when it starts raining during harvest.
The moist-level in the grain is a measure you have to take notice of. When it gets too high you need to stop working.

It’s a beautiful sight to see the dark clouds rolling in over the paddocks, with lightning and thunder… that’s another problem though. If lightning strikes on dry land a fire is easily started.
Every farm has to have a fire-fighter car in the corner of the paddock they’re working in. And when a fire is detected everybody has to stop work, ‘cause if another fire starts there will be real trouble.
All surrounding farms will send their fire-fighters to the blaze and try to control it. It’s a real threat so while working you keep an eye on the horizons for smoke.

It’s a good job; actually it’s a great job! I’ve spend up to 90 hours a week in my comfortable cabin where I’ve got all possible luxuries, from air con to a DVD player. It’s truly glorious.
Funny how you spend a lot of time working with a few people, but you never actually see them outside the machines. Apart from 1st thing in the morning and last thing at night…

I am staying in Tony’s and Judy’s house, the farmer and his wife. They’ve been like a mum and dad to me while here. They’ve got 4 kids of which the three sons work out here on the farm. Daniel and Tim both live on the property with their own families while Jerome, the youngest, comes home for the busy times and has been travelling the world over the past 5 years.
Then there is Barry, Tony’s 73 year old uncle who operates the other chaser bin and Connor, on the header, a 18 year old English lad who’s just over for the harvest and will go straight back home when we finish.

My job is to chase the boys around the paddock and offload them before their headers overflow.
We’ve got a bunch of guys carting the grain to Geraldton in Road trains.
Mike and John come in most regularly.

On one of the rare days off John figured I should see a bit of the area. So we took his car and cruised up the ‘Batavia-coast’ towards Kalbarri. A very scenic drive passing some peculiar pink lakes, beautiful windy coast roads, and cliffs. Climbing up a hill to have a look at this statue of a man on a bike we got a bit stuck in spider webs… lucky they weren’t dangerous ones…. (the spiders, obviously the webs weren’t)

John had told me he got me a birthday present, but I needed to come to Geraldton to get it…
So after work on the 8th I hopped onto his truck and off we went.

I happened to have the Best birthday Ever.
Better than cycling in pouring rain in Indonesia (29th).
Better even than sharing pizza with 14 strangers including a Buddhist monk in Kathmandu.. (28th)
Better than building a snow-lady in Sweden …(26th) Although the bicycle-birthday cake I got there deserves a mention…
Better than getting my hair & make-up done and be all pretty and girly in Derry (25th).
Better than hiking across Spain (24th) and most definitely better than sitting around on an airport (23th) or living in a closet in Edinburg (22nd) …

It might be because it was my first birthday in summer, or it might be because John took me to the airport and in a tiny little plane we took off to the Abrolhos islands. It was a beautiful trip and from the air you see all the coral reefs and small islands where fishermen and pearl farmers are trying to make a life in harsh but pretty surroundings.
We could even see dolphins from the air!

It also happens to be the exact spot where the 1st Europeans set foot on Australian soil back in 1629 when the Dutch VOC-ship the ‘Batavia’ hit the reef and sank, leaving the passengers and crew stuck on those desolated islands where they stayed and survived till some of the crew rowed to Indonesia to get help. Most were brutally murdered, but some survived and made their way to Indonesia and eventually back home. Some were punished for their crimes and either hanged or let loose on the mainland. Where, so the story goes, they might have mingled with local aboriginals. From the 341 people who set sail from Holland only 77 survived…
A small fort still stand on the island these days and I flew right over the top to see the first European building in Australia. I find it funny to think that the first people here were Dutch and at least for this one day, the last one was too….

Then we spent half a day snorkelling around the Island and after my first worry to encounter sharks or other deadly creatures that live in Australian waters I thoroughly enjoyed watching the little (and not so little) fish, sea-cucumbers and stars and even a stingray. I stayed well clear of that one… we all know what happened to Aussie legend Steve Irwin….

Back on the picture perfect white beach our pilot/tour guide set up a table full of rolls, fresh salads and seafood. Even a bottle of champagne wasn’t missing! Wow! Happy birthday to me :-)

After a stroll around the island where it kept amazing me how people could’ve survived with the lack of fresh water and… well anything really. I did spot 3 of the small wallabies that inhabit the island and have done so forever, they were a food source for those first shipwreck-survivors as well.

On the way back to the farm there was a bit of a hold up as half the country seemed to be burning, we’d already seen the fires and the smoke from the plane.
After some time and with a police escort we were taken down the road where the glowing trees and burning fences were quiet a spectacular and rather Christmassy sight.
Shame it does so much damage…. 3.000 hectares just went up in flames in no time at all…

Now I’m 30 and since there seems to be no signs of settling down mum & dad gave up hope of me ever walking down the aisle. So instead of buying me a wedding gown, like they did for my sister, they decided to give me the money.. That means I can keep cycling an extra half-year at least with the rate I’m spending! Hurray!

I’ve got another job lined up straight after harvest, its back with the crew I worked with just before I landed myself on the tractor.
Tarping.

It means getting up around midnight to go and cover the grain in bulkheads. It’s hard work and the reason we do it at night is it’s cooler than the 40 degrees it reaches during the day. Also the wind settles down a little. Last year a guy died when the tarp he was working with took off and sent him flying…
Wading knee-deep through grain while dragging a 360kg tarp with 5 others is fairly heavy. That’s a good thing after sitting still on the tractor where I seemed to expand at an alarming rate… ;-)

Can hardly wait to get back on two wheels.
It will probably be just after new years.

So for now I wish you all a merry Christmas.
We’ll see what the New Year will bring.

-xxx-

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