Down under in the land of Oz

After a very long flight from Uganda to South Africa to Dubai (in which I was in constant fear of NOT being allowed in one of the most guarded countries in the world for lack of a yellow fever vaccine) I arrived in Adelaide, Australia (and quickly cleared customs-they only took my little basket made of banana leaves). And where does my friend live? Oh yeah, RIGHT on the coast with this view out his front door. 

Definitely not in Kansas any more Dorothy. Even the pigeons are cooler-look at that mohawk!!

This was only the first of many animal crossing signs that I would see in Australia. This is a wombat. There are also signs warning of kangaroos, emus, cassowaries, camels, koalas and crocs.  

You can shorten nearly any word in Australia. Some of my favorites: brekkie (breakfast), arvo (afternoon), ta (thanks), cuppa (cup of tea), chook (chicken), mozzies (mosquitos), sunnies (sunglasses), snag (sausage).

My friend Aaron and I at the White Rabbit-an amazing brewery (lots of my trip can be summarized in breweries and wineries.) I met Aaron and his sister Tara back in 2008 while traveling in Mexico. They have both been to visit me at home once or twice and after 7 years I got to return the favor.  

Welcome to Spalding, South Australia: population about 212. My first job here in Australia seemed out of Psycho as one friend brought to my attention. I answered an ad online and was taken to the middle of nowhere to a small pub/hotel where I worked for several months. 

This is the town-all of it! haha, well at least the business side of town. There was the pub I worked at-the Barbed Wire Pub, a general store/servo (service station-gas/petrol), and that's about it!

The Barbed Wire Pub, with the largest collection of barbed wire in Australia. It had been assembled by a local man for several decades and my boss at the time bought it off of him and displayed it in the pub. Who knew there were so many types of barbed wire and the history surrounding it?!

Since not working as a kindergarten teacher I haven't had much of an outlet for my creativity, so my boss let me have at it and I made those displays of barbed wire in the bottles and suggested using the wheeled cart as a table. (I had LOTS of free time on my hands as you can see.)

And this was my job for nearly 3 months-bar tending-pouring beers, chatting with the locals. (I also was in charge of the accommodation-about 7 simple rooms we rented out and cleaning the bar and restaurant.)  It was a pretty low key job once I learned everyone's name and drink preference. The guy on the left came in every Friday for the drawing, sat at his chair and drank a Coopers.  When he or anyone else was finished with a bottle/glass, it would get left off the beer mat so that I knew to serve the next round. If the glass/bottle was laid on its side I knew that they were done for the night. 

From behind the bar. In the country people leave their wallets and change on the bar and it was my job to remember whose is whose and I had the right to go into piles of money and take what was necessary out to pay for the next round. I was however kindly reminded on a regular basis that they were NOT tips! (It's very rare to get tips here-which is fine because the minimum wage is much higher than what waitstaff make in the U.S.)

KANGAROOS!!!! This guy wasn't the first one I saw, just the first good shot I got. I did see one a day or two after moving to Spalding on a morning run. They are most active in the early morning and around dusk. A few times I was nearly running along side them. They are so powerful and so quick. 

When I arrived in Spalding the last few days of March which is their autumn, this is what it looked like. Very dry and brown. Planting would only start in May and crops grow throughout the cooler, wetter winter months of June-September. Did you know billabong is an aboriginal word for a small body of water like this?

Life in Spalding

Since land is usually so dry, instead of having greens on the golf course, there are blacks (stone dust). The land around it is used for grazing sheep so there are some out there while playing. There were a couple golf days while I was there and I would hang out with the guys as we walked around having a few beers. (Cold ones were delivered with a supercharged golf cart upon request). I even hit a few every once in a while. 

One day I helped a friend take about 300 sheep over to the abattoir. This is him up 3 levels on his truck. It was a smelly ride. 

Later that day I got introduced to the seeder-a huge machine that deposits seeds and fertilizer into the ground all at once. I got to sit inside the cab of the seeder and was impressed at all of the gadgets including a GPS that is accurate to an inch or so. Some seeders and other tractors on farms have TVs and DVD players since it's a long boring process to be out in the paddocks (fields) all day going back and forth, back and forth. However, it can be dangerous if you aren't paying attention since farmers have been known to go over troughs or down ditches. 

One day a farmer invited me out to help feed his sheep. Not realizing the scale of this job, I imagined hand feeding a flock of sheep. However, when you have hundreds of them, that becomes impossible. So we drove around in his ute (utility vehicle, our version of a pickup truck) with a feeder that is electrically powered to open and drop feed. Sheep can be shy unless they know you're feeding them.....then this happens! They charge the ute until feed starts falling and then they form a nice line along the line of feed. It's pretty cool to watch it take place. 

Another day a group of shearers who were in town for a few weeks doing a big job (shearers tend to get contract work and move around a bit) invited me to the farmer they were working on to see what it's all about. I got to hang out and do a bit of  "rouseabout" which is helping to pick up the wool and separate into different levels of quality. 

Going on a picnic. Yeah, on a horse.....well not me, but my friend whose birthday it was and some of his friends who ride took their horses. The rest of us drove. 

FINALLY some real cowboys! I was so disappointed that most farmers don't use horses any more and no one says cowboy since here it really means a boy. But these guys kind of fit the mold. 

I finally got to rock climb, something I've been meaning to try for a while. A friend I met in town wanted to check out a new spot and was such a good coach that I got up this high! It was one of the proudest moments of my life. 

Remember how it looked when I arrived? Well this was less than 3 months later. I couldn't tell you which crop, but it would be wheat, barley, canola, peas or beans. It was amazing how fast the crops pop up and make the land turn this vibrant green.   

Inside the general store, morning town meeting. Not quite, but close enough. The man to the right is the shop owner and one of the finest Aussie bull****ers I've met (a highly valued quality here).  He also makes a pretty mean cappuccino. 

I started walking the shop owners' dogs for them once a day to give them some exercise. We'd go to the town oval (the field used mostly for footie (Australian rules football) and other town events.) Oppie would often lay in wait for Pig and then charge him. It scared me the first few times but then realized they're just playing. 

I had an outing one day to a neighboring town (the closest towns to Spalding were at least 40km/24miles away) where we descended into the tunnels of an old brewery that was used to film a few scenes from Wolf Creek an Australian horror classic.  I have been told I must see this as it relates to travelers. I have decided to NOT see it till I'm leaving the country. (Oh and some of the first few scenes in The Water Diviner with Russell Crowe were filmed out this way as well.)

My two escorts for the day of horror-a local farmer in the hi-vis (hi visibility jacket-a must for anyone working in a possibly hazardous situation, which seems like most jobs that work outside) and his German helper. Oh and Rex. 

It was amazing how quickly I settled into the town, met some amazing people who took me in and made me feel at home and then it was time to go again. 

On the road again....

But the road calls me. So I met up with Tara in Adelaide and we headed off on an epic week of travel. First stop were the Naracoorte Caves. These caves are famous because they,  "preserve the bones of megafauna that became extinct around 40,000 years ago and is Australia's most complete marsupial fossil record for the past 500,000 years."  (I cut and copied that). So although these might look like dinosaur bones, they're really the skeletons of the ancestors of kangaroos and other large mammals similar to them. There is a huge hole in the ceiling of one cave and animals would fall into it and over thousands of years built up an impressive collection. 

After passing through another wine region or two we arrived in the Grampians National Park. We did a few hikes, saw some beautiful waterfalls and had lots of picnics.
(Mike-this is for you.) 

I could never stop admiring the colors in this country. Whether it's brown, or red or green, it all looks so amazing and especially the contrasts are spectacular. We stopped here to check out this tree, because, hey, why not?

Before leaving the Grampians, we got in a bit of culture and I saw my first rock paintings!!!! It was so exciting. The hand stencils were done with red ocher and may symbolize people who went there for special meetings. It's pretty difficult to determine the true meaning of aboriginal art. People tend to be very guarded about what details they offer so most of the information posted is vague and not very helpful. But it was still interesting and exciting to see. This one I believe is the Gulgurn Manja Site (Hands of Young People). 

THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD-the largest war memorial in the world! It was created in honor of those lost in WWI, built by returned servicemen. It is 244km/151miles long, following the coast with these gorgeous rock formations. This was the London Bridge until 1990 when it fell and left stranded 2 tourists (who may or may not have been having an affair-just a juicy story to stir up tourists I think) for several hours before being rescued by a chopper.

It also became the Great Ocean Road brewery tour! We stopped at several "boutique" breweries (microbrewery, boutique is used for anything not commercial) along the way. Remember it was winter, so curling up in front of the fire with a tasting paddle was called for. Oh and then the owner invited us into the brewing room and we got to sample a red chestnut IPA-delicious!

I found several of these throughout Australia, so if you got a postcard from me, there's a good chance it went through one of these bad boys!

Melbourne!!! (But don't pronounce the "r", there are several words like that here) The end of the road trip landed us back at Tara's home where her dad had tickets waiting for us to see an AFL game. They are avid Hawthorn Hawks fans and I didn't get much of a say in this one. Although their team colors are so sweetly referred to as "poo and pee" by the haters, they are one of the best teams around (and went on to win the Grand Final in November!!!)

AFL-Australian Football League- is a cross between soccer, NFL (which they call "gridiron") and rugby and it's the oldest football league in the world. It's nonstop, very physical and involves running with the ball hooked in your arms, and either kicking it or punching it to a teammate and eventually kicked through the field goal. This is the game of choice for most Australians, having played it in childhood and watching it religiously later on. And other people watch it because of the extremely short and tight uniforms (I've had guys point that out to me ;) )