Mini Adventure Series No2 (21st-22nd April)

The Snowy Mountains (minus the snow)

So off we went for another weekend away. Well Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Shearing Saturday meant I had to work the morning. I was given a warm clothes warning. I soon became very skilled at packing a very small 'any eventuality' bag. This time though we ended up in the Snowy Mountains.


We got to Tumut, our main destination in time for a good night out. Turned out there was a rodeo in town that weekend so despite it only being a small town, the night out was very good and memorable. Casey unfortunately is not a fan of rodeos, so when wee headed off on Sunday morning he didn't stop at the rodeo, but promised if it were still on when we came back later, we would stop. No such luck.

Our day started off with a quick stop at Blowering Dam, which was basically just pretty views. Did start off my roadsign pictures collection. Original I know!






Then on into the Kosciusko National Park and spectacular mountain views and Australia's highest peak.




Somewhere along the way we stopped off at Yarrangobilly Caves which were beautiful and surprisingly free. While it wasn't deep caving or anything like that, the features were quite beautiful. Lots of stalagmites and stalactites and crystals. We had a really nice wander through anyway!

Onwards to brumby spotting, though we actually failed to spot any, and we didn't get as far as the ghost town but we did go up to the snow fields, that didn't have any snow. Generally we had a nice day just wandering around the Snowys.

And though we didn't get back to Tumut in time for the rodeo, we did stop off at 'Dog on a Tucker Box', a little highway service village that seems to exist solely because of that statue!

Fire!

Or Burning Paddocks.

Basically the stubble on a paddock doesn't decompose here. It's not wet enough. So to get rid of it, it gets burnt. Obviously this is only done in the right weather conditions. There's a fire ban over the summer and you have to take into account the wind direction and
such.


So, with the fire truck on standby, you go around the edge of the paddock, with the wind blowing inward, spreading a small amount of petrol which you then light.

It is a little bit more complicated than this but I was just sat in the fire truck, ready to rush in where needed. I only burnt stubble in rows myself which was much simpler.




After the whole paddock is burnt, the fire truck then goes around and puts out any remaining fire, old tree trunks and the like. Simple as.

Little Red Tractor

So part of, well really a lot of my job, when it didn't involve sheep, involved driving the tractor, sometimes for 11hours a  day! That is a Case III, 220hp tractor, with wheels taller than I am.


Actually it's quite easy to drive a tractor, you just put it in gear and steer. if you want to go faster, you click it up another gear. Simple!






I started off with the harrows. A 32ft piece of machinery which basically breaks off and flattens all the stubble in a paddock. you drive up and down, up and down all day. The thing you have to remember is, you have a width of 32ft behind you. That's quite a turning circle at the end of the row. You also have to lift it to go over rocks, and you can't reverse them, so no getting stuck in corners. Really you do have to just go quite slowly. these particular harrows were also pretty twisted so untangling them every so often was also necessary, and quite annoying.

Then there were the harrows that didn't just break and flatten the stubble but gathered it up to be dropped in rows. Not only do you have to look out for rocks and other obstacles; not get stuck in corners; watch your turning circles; but you also have to watch your rows to ensure you're lifting the harrows at the right moment to drop the stubble in perfect lines across the paddock. Eventually one of the hydraulic rams started leaking and that was the end of the harrowing, left out in the middle of a paddock, probably for years to come.

But not the end of the tractor work. Once the paddocks had been harrowed and burnt (next entry) then they had to be sown.
The seeder here was a horrible machine, well maybe not really. It was actually quite straight forward: 2 seed bins, one for grain, one for fine seeds; a bin for fertilizer (or supa); a series of cogs and chains to release the seed at the right rate (which was determined by an equation I can't remember); a row of oscillating disks at the front to dig the furrows; double disks behind each furrow to guide the seeds in; and a press wheel behind to cover the seed. In theory, quite simple.
The horrible part was how many little things could go wrong: A disk fall off; a press wheel fall off; a seed tube fall off; a seed tube get blocked; bearings in the disks disintegrating; one disk sowing too deep; a disk sowing too shallow; the release rate too fast or too slow. Just loads of little things. You have to stop every 15mins just to check everything was working okay. Luckily it was all easy enough to fix and if it wasn't, there were enough spare parts around to just replace the offending part.
The machine itself (for anyone actually interested) was a Great Plains Seeder from Texas. Apparently a load of them got dumped in Australia quite cheap when a deal with Japan I think, fell through. Just a little trivia for you.

Actually using the machine was quite simple. Things to remember with this one were... you can't go around corners because it bends the disks. So you have to lift it up at the end of rows, and every time you want to go around anything. The paddocks really do look like obstacle courses for tractor drivers!

In my time at Wallendbeen I must have sown just about everything; oats, wheat, conola, mustard, mixed grasses which I had the fun of mixing beforehand. I really did get quite skilled with the seeder; fixing it; judging the depth to lower it to; the width of the rows so they lined up nicely on each pass; judging how many hectares I could do before needing a refill; backing up to the grain bin. That was the fun one. Going from having never backed a trailer before to backing a huge tractor and equally big piece of machinery to a very exact spot next to the grain bin. There was very little room for error and I always had to do it myself. I'll confess... despite mastering that bit of backing, I still can't back a pick up and little trailer at all.

I managed though, and I really do not know how many hours I did in the tractor or how many acres I covered. I do know that some paddocks I did were 100acres a paddock and I did dozens of them, well at least a dozen. what with harrowing and sowing I probably would have covered at least 800acres at Wallendbeen, which is one hell of an introduction to tractor driving. And despite it normally meaning ridiculously long hours on my own, it was probably some of the most enjoyable work I did there. At least I felt I'd achieved something at the end of the day!

Mini Adventure Series No.1 (5th-7th April)

Bateman’s Bay

My ‘Mini Adventure Series’ will be my weekends away from Wallendbeen with Casey, from Young. Generally exploring little bits of NSW, interspersing them with bits of working I guess.

So Bateman’s Bay, or as he tried to make me believe, just Canberra. In fairness we did start off on Friday by going to a house party in Canberra. However at about midnight we decided to set out for the coast, 2hours away at least. The original plan I think, had been to head straight for the coast and not stop at the house party but there’s nothing wrong with spontaneous changing of plans, except the original plan hadn’t involved sleeping in the car. Now I really don’t mind sleeping in cars, I’ve done it enough before and since, but in the middle of Autumn, in the Great Dividing Range, with nothing but one small, thin blanket is rather chilly and doesn’t make for a very good night’s sleep.

When Casey decided it would be a good idea to stop, he had a nice plan of a particular town about halfway along, with a nice view of the river when we woke up. After which we could tackle the windy mountain road by daylight. Unfortunately Casey’s memory wasn’t that great. Nelligen, the town he was thinking of was in fact on the other side of the mountains. Having worked this out we searched in vain for a rest area, instead having to pull into Buda Wang National Park. It was actually great waking up after the little sleep we had to a covering of green trees and even better as we pulled into the park we were greeted by two wombats shuffling  across the road.

 

The drive down the mountains in the morning was brilliant. Roads as twisty as a rally stage, and we did finally stop in Nelligen for breakfast.

Our time in Bateman’s Bay consisted of beaches, lots of beaches. Yellow sand, clear blue water. Casey even decided to go fishing at one point, having brought a new fishing rod just for the occasion, not thinking to bring one with him. I gathered shells. His fishing amounted to no fish, I gathered many shells.

And after pizza and a lot of sleep in a proper bed, Sunday was yet more beaches, there seemed to be no end of them! But not before breakfast. I got to have pancakes for breakfast! (it doesn’t happen as often as it seems to from this journal).

The water was a gorgeous temperature. I’m not sure I’ve found any that perfect since.

And then back to Canberra, by way of Braidwood sweet shop and to sightseeing, more specifically the Telstra Tower, from which you can see all of Canberra, and then Sunday evening back to Wallendbeen.

Puppies (2nd April)

Somewhere in the middle of the night, I believe it was about 2am, I was woken up. Now waking up in the middle of the night is nothing new to me. I normally just fall straight back to sleep but not this night. The dogs just would not stop barking, so I get up to investigate. No torch, in my pjs. Lucky it was warm and the moon bright.

So up to the yard I walk and I hear what I think to be a possum trapped in the back of Mitsy’s kennel. On closer inspection 2 puppies. Poor Charlie then gets woken up at 2am to help me organise a separate cage and kennel with a rug and a high protein bowl of food for Mitsy, ie. Dog biscuits, bread, milk and egg.

By morning there was 5 puppies. That’s what you get if none of the dogs get the snip. Only one was kept in the end. A crazy, hyper, fat little thing that after many name changes was called Rea.

Yummy Eats!

 Nobody seems to know what Australia’s traditional dish is, well other than the ‘barbie’. Apparently people like to argue that Pavlova is an Aussie dish though. I can’t say I’ve tried much in the way of new stuff but I’ve had a fair few bbqs. An interesting point, for me at least, if I were to say sausage to anyone at home they would think pork, unless otherwise specified. A sausage in the UK is generally pork. Not so here. A sausage here is beef. And I meal I would 9 times out of 10 cook myself if I were alone at Wallendbeen?- Honey Sausage, Soda Bread and salad with sea salt and balsamic vinegar. Simple but delicious.

I love my soda bread. A loaf would disappear at dinner. Any left overs would be eaten, by me, with honey. There was a bucket of honey in the office/study at Wallendbeen. When I say bucket, I mean an actually bucket. There was a local guy who would come out and put his bees on your property for a couple of months. In return for which you would get a bucket full of your own honey. Yummy!

Anyway, returning to bbqs. I said I haven’t tried much in the way of new or typically Aussie foods. Maybe that’s not quite right. I have tried a kangaroo steak. It was delicious. Nicest stake I’ve ever had. Very lean, absolutely no fat. Simply falling apart. A little bit gamey but not too much so. Completely melt in the mouth yummy!

Since I’ve decided this is a foody entry, I’ll slip out into the veggie garden and the orchard… starting with the fig tree. It’s a really old tree, in full fruit shortly after I arrived. Very full fruit, I was picking a mixing bowl full of fresh figs every day. There were more than anyone knew what to do with. I ended up trying a multitude of figgy recipes from syrup baked figs, which were incredible with ice cream; to fig jam, which was my biggest success. My fig jam was beautiful. It worked perfectly. So good was it that the full batch had been eaten long before I left Wallendbeen but unfortunately all the figs were long gone too.

About the same time, the veggie garden was throwing out equal quantities of zucchini (courgettes) and cucumbers. More than anyone knew what to do with. Apparently though you can’t gift these as well as you can figs so the chickens got a lot of them, but not before abundances of grilled zucchini, stuffed marrow and cold cucumber and tomato soup were served with dinner. From that you may realise there was then an abundance of tomatoes, and the veggie garden became my little pet project. I would go pick all the ripe fruit and veg every morning. I even tried making sun-dried tomatoes with the extras. It probably would have worked but the weather was cooling off a bit, so that was one failed experiment. Never mind.

What else did I have in my little garden? I planted rows of broccoli, leeks, broad beans and peas. Don’t think the peas will make it, particularly with no one looking after them. They went in a bit late and only a couple had poked their heads out by the time I left. Everything else was flourishing though. Unfortunately I won’t be there to eat them but they were looking brilliant. I even created my own bird netting to protect my little seedlings!

Then there were the fruit trees. They had two fully fruiting pomegranate trees, heavy with fruit and they never even ate any. Okay so pomegranates take a bit of time to eat but they are definitely worth it. But no one there bothered. Pomegranate trees were for ornamental purposes only apparently. I bothered and they were messy and delicious, though I never worked out how to tell when they were actually ripe.

Then there were the apple trees, pear trees, plum trees and peach trees that weren’t in fruit when I was there. The crab apple tree was though. This was my second preserve attempt. It failed. I attempted to make crab apple jelly but somehow managed to set it almost rock solid. It was delicious when you actually managed to warm it enough to spread it, which was very difficult.

There was also a persimmons tree. I haven’t managed to work out exactly what a persimmon is. It’s bright orange, a soft fruit, has a smooth skin, slightly bigger than an apple, roundish with a slightly pointed end, texture quite like a mango, and I’ve never seen one before. The taste was nice but the texture was too slimy for my liking. A new discovery for me though.

But yeah, FOOD! And to finish off… Milo!!!! It’s not hot chocolate and it’s not chocolate milkshake, but you can treat it like either. It’s a chocolate flavour malt powder or something like that and it’s yummy!

Easter Funs! (31st March)

Easter Sunday!

Now this started with making sure I hurried back from Young in time for Easter celebrations. Of course I needn’t have bothered as no one was up for hours. It did mean I had time to make a stack of pancakes for breakfast. 40days late, I know but still appreciated.

Family tradition at Wallendbeen is an Easter Egg Hunt. Hunting this year were Charlie, Rosie and I. it isn’t a big deal I know but I had fun. We followed a trail of little silver eggs all around the garden, each claiming any of the trail we spotted.

And where was the main prize? Really it was the most obvious place imaginable if you stopped to think about it… in the chicken nest boxes.

Not eggs though, mine was a chocolate Bilby. I had never heard of Bilbies before coming out here: little bandicoots, extinct in 3 states and adorable. The money from chocolate Bilbies at Easter goes towards their protection.

In the evening, a big family meal next door.

So nothing really special, but a little something for Easter. And the best bit? Of course Mammi sent me a little prezzie. Who else would post duckie socks 10,000 miles?

Time Trundles Onward

So just a little insight into life on the farm after a couple of months.

The work I was doing was incredibly varied. Still getting up at 7.30 but sometimes not actually doing anything other than switching the pump off and feeding the horses until after 10am, not because I didn’t want to but because I never knew what I was supposed to be doing on any particular day. I did wish I had the stability of a big industry type farm, where I would always know what needed doing and always have something to do. I’m sure Wallendbeen would have been fine, if I’d had the bottle calves that I’d been told would be my job. I would have at least had something consistent to do for part of the day and that would have been my job!

As it is I was doing something completely different every day, whether it be stripping vehicles to clean, fixing machinery, fencing, sheep work, cleaning sheds, mowing lawns, fixing water pipes, or working on the tractor. A lot of these things weren’t too bad, and having the variety was good. The worst days were the ones there was nothing significant to give priority to, or it was raining so the important jobs couldn’t be done. Those days were horrible. I’d find myself pottering around, doing this and that, trying to find enough to do to fill the day and ending up feeling completely unfulfilled and as though nothing had been achieved.

Then there were the days when there was just so much to do, like a full day working with sheep or out in the tractor. Those days were brilliant. So good to feel like you really got something done. No time to wander if you’re actually enjoying what you do on other days, just enjoying a full day of work, just doing it. And even not finishing until 7pm could be great too.

Downtime at Wallendbeen was strange though, mainly because there was so little to do. Evenings my routine became: shower, read, have tea, maybe watch TV or read a bit more, go to bed. Early in my time there days off would be just doing my laundry, anything else I needed to do for me and retreating into corners of the garden, out of the way so I didn’t feel guilty for not doing work. Later on laundry and cleaning the kitchen became part of something I just did in day to day work and by the end of March weekends were spent in Young, a town about 40km away where I had finally made some friends!

Impromptu Sydney Trip (9th & 10th March)

So a little impromptu trip to Sydney, decided upon just two days before going. Not really sure why I went. Just to get away for the weekend I suppose. 4hour train each way though.

In typical Rachel style I did a lot of wandering; through the Botanical Gardens, which I have to confess I didn’t think were anywhere near as good as some of the gardens I’ve wandered around back in the UK.

From there my wanderings took me to the Opera House. Amazing how many people use that particular path for their morning jog. There is no denying how impressive a building the Opera House is. Up close all the different parts, what would you call them? They’re not quite arches… curves? Feather? I don’t know. Anyway they’re quite incredible. I would love to be able to look at that building with a knowledge of architecture, though from a dramatic, theatrical point of view, I have heard that the main stage has compromised on acoustics and sight lines to accommodate the aesthetics of the building. It’s still incredible though and I would love to see a performance there.

Onwards my wanderings took me to ‘the Rocks’ district of Sydney. Somewhere near Darling Harbour, I think. Irish pubs; cafes; chocolate shops; little, boutique arcades; a tiny museum; and market places. So much fun. I spent hours wandering around and could have spent a fortune. I didn’t though, just had plenty of free samples and brought a few little bits and pieces.

There was however an incredible artist at the back of the market place and I really regret not getting a picture of his work and how he did it. Anyone going to that area should really go and check him out. He seemed to be a permanent fixture.

He’s a spray can artist but not in a graffiti sense. He paints landscapes. He was painting a storm over a lake when I saw him. Layers of colour just in exactly the right place, scraping off the paint to make clear lines and definitions. The way he worked was incredible. Had I been sure I would be able to get a painting home without damaging it, I would have brought one. But it’s really worth just going and having a look at him work.

Took a ferry to Manly on the Sunday. Gotta love a place that has ferries as public transport. Can’t say I was overly impressed though. Nice as it was to see a beach, I do like to actually be able to see the sand not just the people, and it’s always better to be able to get to the water.

So while I didn’t really do a great deal in Sydney that weekend I did make a few plans of things I’d like to do, like going back to climb Harbour Bridge and spending some time walking in the Blue Mountains. Something to look forward to.

Canberra (1st & 2nd March)

As my little book (thank you Jenny) tells me… “Canberra was created in 1909 to stem the ego battle between Sydney and Melbourne, who both fancied themselves as a federal capitol. An empty space between the rivals was chosen- a paddock with a ready-made population of 20,000… sheep.”

 That makes Canberra not only Australia’s capitol city, with its own little territory: Australian Capitol Territory (ACT) but also a planned city, which, to my mind makes the layout quite interesting. It’s all straight lines in the centre of the city, with every sight line planned. The war memorial, straight to Parliament House, with the New parliament House on the hill directly behind. That particular line goes straight across Lake Burley Griffith, with the fountain falling exactly on the same line.

While the tour around Australia’s federal parliament building didn’t really interest me, the embassy buildings did. Unlike most cities I know of where the embassies just occupy normal buildings, in Canberra each country has been issued a plot of land to do with what they will. Some remain empty; some have nice, normal if somewhat posh buildings; and some have really gone all out: A traditional long house, complete with stilts, wooden roof, etc; a Thai palace; and the USA… Forte Knox!... walls so high you couldn’t climb over, topped with wire; more security lights and cameras than imaginable; huge barred gates; plain unimaginative building; and of course a no stopping sign outside!

At the opposite end of the road; the War Memorial, was brilliant! It was huge, and I’ve been to a lot of war memorials. 4 floors dedicated to all the wars fought by Australians, from settlement to modern day. WWI and Anzac Day, April 25^th 1915, where Simpson’s donkey played an important role.

I guess I could call this trip particularly cultural. To start with, a trip around Canberra’s ABC studio. That’s like the BBC: National TV and Radio. Even sitting in (very quietly) on a radio show. But my main reason for coming was the ‘Morning Star’ Performance. An aboriginal ‘dream time’ story. One of their sacred spiritual rituals, performed on stage for the first time ever I believe. It was incredible. The performance combined modern dance with the aboriginal ritual of storytelling through movement, sound and music. It was completely captivating and impossible to explain. Just wow!

The gallery where the performance was held also had an incredible array of aboriginal art work. The paintings, like the stories supposedly tell of journeys but in a non-linear way. How you read them though I have no idea. The techniques however was incredible. Thousands upon thousands of tiny dots making up each painting, the colours changing at just the right time somehow. And the bodies and faces, there’s something just weird and uncanny about them. Brilliant though! I wasn’t quite as keen on the techniques being used in modern style paintings. I felt it was much more suited to the muted, earthy colours and traditional subjects, but that’s just my feelings. The sculpted, painted dingoes were great though!

So a trip to the theatre, art gallery and to the museum, admittedly only briefly. I just focused mainly on Aussie history. Some brilliant exhibits; highway men, Ned Kelly and his exploits; original plans and models for Sydney Opera House; and settlement history, how the buildings were built to resemble those in the UK, including a photo comparison of an Aussie church to the one just around the corner from the flat in Aberystwyth. Also they have eisteddfods out here, which they still call eisteddfods, though I’m not sure many people know where the name comes from.

But the best thing, well second to the performance, was that it just happened to be Canberra’s  Enlighten Festival. The whole city, particularly the ‘official’ side was just full of street lighting shows on the Friday night.




Whole sides of buildings projected in spiralling lights and huge pieces of artwork. Mini shows with torches and fairy lights and lanterns on the edges of paths.


It was great, but best of I discovered Canberra was home to one of James Terrell’s Sky Spaces. Turrell being an artist or scenographer who works with light. The disadvantage being  that the full effect of the space is best appreciated at sunrise when it becomes an incredible light show. So up at 5am next morning… so worth it.