Wollombye!

So this stint of WWOOFing has come to an end, one month after it started. Time seems to be flying by as my 6 months in Oz merges to number 7 and the next chapter of my Adventure begins... after Christmas and New Year.

Santa shows us what the poor kids are getting this year...

Monday saw Lesley and Ruby go off to Sydney, so I was home alone, (sort of, Banjo was still here) with a few jobs to do including some paid work with Nico. For 4 and a half hours I was whipper snipping around an orchard (or two) like a baws,  but the weather was doing what it has always been doing this ‘summer’ and the ominous grey sky meant we’d have to finish grass cutting tomorrow, bloody weather. My opinion of the rain can best be summed up by this poem...

Rain rain go away,

Come again another day,

Or so the poem goes,

For everybody hates the rain,

Whether in verse or prose.

                                                          Ryan Whitwell, 2010

Tuesday and the bloody weather was OK, so for another 3 and a half hours I was back doing what I started yesterday and this time finishing before the temperature decided to rise to a level it is supposed to be at this time of year, so I was spared sweating to death. Nico and I went to the pub for a few cheeky beers after work and I was paid for a job well done. Remember how I was replacing a Nepalese guy? If you don’t remember me writing that then I was doing the work that some Nepalese guy was too unreliable to do and apparently I am a better worker than him. So $160 heavier I was feeling kind of chuffed, then I remembered I had to do some removalling for a couple of residents the next day... Joy.

Wednesday came around quickly and the day was spent moving stuff for a couple of Wollombi residents before they are forced to leave their rented property for reasons I don’t fully understand. Lesley and Ruby returned from Sydney and after the revisiting of my removalist skill base we had a BBQ and a few beers, then naturally we discussed various topics from Australia’s constant need to dig up minerals and sell them, to the subject of how terrible American actors are compared to British ones and how John Fogherty got screwed by the record label. I met a few more locals and had a right laugh with a guy called Brett, who was the crudest of all the people I have met so far over here. He did mention something about Lesley possibly having a ‘title’? Which is difficult to believe, but not impossible...hmmm... Anyway, I got my first Christmas present from Polina (previously misspelled ‘Pauletta’ due to my amazing name remembering powers) and Ilmar for helping them move (it’s obviously a CD, but Polina told me it is Ilmar’s old band from Russia, which is something I'm looking forward to hearing). Nico gave me a lift back to Lesley's and on the way we swerved around my first sighting of a Wombat, by the looks of it they are fat, slow and don’t know the green cross code as it didn't even bother to stop or even look up as we veered around the thing.

Stupid wombats

The next day I was tasked with dragging some dead trees out of the meadow and removing a lot of thistles from near a pond. Sounds pretty straight forward, but those two jobs ended up taking 6 hours thanks to some bloody big trees that needed to be cleared. As I worked I re-evaluated my ‘plan’ to visit Melbourne on the way to Tasmania. My original plan had me buying a car, but due to the expense of such a thing I have since decided to hold fire on that one. I am now wondering if I should do fruit picking in Victoria, save some money, then visit Tasmania... Even after a good ol' think I am unsure but a recent email from the place in Tasmania I wanted to stay asking me to ‘enquire about spaces closer to [end of January]’ has made me think playing it safe by calling some farms near Melbourne and work there would be the better option rather than gamble on Tasmania... I’ll decide after Christmas.

Oh yeah, Christmas. Well as it is the night before the night before Christmas it is probably a good time to wish all the people I know a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

So what have I learned over the past month? Well, lots of things, the kindness of strangers is something that will always surprise, I’m ‘cute’, the dentist’s office in Finding Nemo is on a spot where there are no dentists, I can beat the crap out of a cactus with minimal thorn based injuries, I love photography, moving a piano is OK as long as it is staying on the ground floor, moving a pile of timber is OK as long as you have a ute and a trailer, Russians like to insult people by suggesting they have small wrinkly cocks, it always rains in Wollombi - no exceptions, Christmas means Sydney traffic will be horrendous until January and I have no pension.

And what was the soundtrack for my first ever WWOOFing experience? Sia, 'Some People Have Real Problems', an album that both Nico and Lesley have played everyday since I first heard it after getting back from Hawks Nest. So ladies and gentlemen, here’s Sia with ‘Little Black Sandals’ ...

I know it's slow and the sort of thing my Mum would like, but I have heard it every day that I haven't had my  iPod on me to play something like this...

Rob Zombie, something my Mum won't like and so the equilibrium is restored.

Today is my final full day here in the valley and it has been the usual deal, do some labouring for a few hours, then it rains...

Too hot to dig...

Too wet to do anything outside.

I am particularly annoyed this time because I was tasked with building a barbecue for later today, which was going to be a pre Christmas thing for us and a few others. I was quite happy digging away a flat area with a raised centre that the barby would be built upon using bricks. I went with Lesley to wash a couple of horses as they had rain scolding or something, then Ruby went to see Santa outside the shop at Wollombi and then that familiar rumble bellowed from behind a hill and in no time the rumbles were directly overhead as the rain thumped the earth and scuppered any chance of me finishing/using a  barbecue... bloody weather.

Tomorrow I shall be back in Sydney for about a week to see in the new year, I still know not where I'll be when 2012 rings in, then I'm going to Melbourne, but I will have to think about whether to stay there or head straight for Tasmania and hope for the... Oh crap there was a big flash and poor Banjo is doing the usual dog thing as the inevitable thunder crash echoes through the valley... where was I...? Tasmania, yes, maybe, who knows? Until I figure out what I'm going to do in Chapter 3 of my adventure I'll wish you all a Merry Christmas again, no doubt those back in the northern hemisphere are wrapped up warm (except the poor people) and feel a bit more Christmassy than those of us in our rain coats and wellies, kind of makes this picture seem a bit stupid now...

...Doesn't make it any less sexy though! Have a goodun' folks!

Cue AC/DC!

They're gonna ride on your reindeer, honey, and ring the bell!