After reaching the
harbour we let the boat in to the water and got everything ready to
leave. Left the harbour on calm waters with a load of other hobby
fishermen already out. We went about 15 kilometres away from Portland
and started to drift towards the harbour town. Roods where out and a
few fish where caught strait away. I got some venomous type of
stinger fish, a few small “snapers” and a squid (which got away).
None of it was fit or legal to eat, so I would have normally gone
hungry. James caught a variety and lots of fish, most likely due to
years of experience. His catch for the day was a legal snaper, which
have to be larger than 30 centimetres to keep. His was 32. Catherine
caught a squid which will be turned into Calamari rings. It shot out
a spurt of ink before surfacing and made a bid for freedom by
shouting halfway out of the bucket it was put in.
After some time we
where joined by an Albatross, a medium sized bird when it is in the
water. Once airborne the wingspan is just massive. It ate two of the
fish we caught and threw back in again. The fish didn't swim down
fast enough. We ended up having four around our boat and they would
sometimes even go after the bait. After a relaxing day it was back to
the farm and to get the pump fixed up again so we could have running
water. After that some leftovers for dinner and then an early night
to get ready for work the next day.
Woke up at a more reasonable time, eight in the morning, to get to
work. Had some breakfast and then went of to feed the cattle with hay
bails same as a few days prior. As James wanted to get a Paddock
ploughed for grain to be sown, Catherine and me were in charge of
getting the bails to the paddocks. A tractor driver was needed to
load up the utes with the bails, so I got a crash course (not
literally) in driving a tractor. James and Catherine disappeared of
with the first two loads so I was left with a tractor and nothing to
do. I tried to hand feed some nearby and after some time they (or
more like one specific heifer) decided I wasn't trying to butcher
them and took some. As soon as they noticed my hand was there and no
hay they where gone very fast. After some time Catherine came back
and took me to the other ute and we got to delivering the paddocks in
earnest. I got to deliver the Paddock the furthest away from the rest
and got a brilliant off-road experience in a beautiful landscape (see
pictures). A neighbouring farmer had already delivered his load of
hay to a paddock next to James and all of his cattle was pressing
against the fence to get to the wrong hay. They got one from me soon
after and whilst the cows ate the calf's played around in the hay or
tried themselves at eating it. We herded in a renegade heifer which
took some quick action driving as it didn't want to get in the
paddock. Once we had nearly finished of we headed back for some
lunch, for which I picked James up in the paddock he was ploughing.
He had gone on one of his quads, but a rain cloud was moving in so I
got him in a ute. After getting him we had a home made omelet, with
eggs from the farm, mushrooms from the fields and chives, parsley and
garlic from the garden. Good thing about Victoria is you can grow
nearly everything yourself.
After that I headed out
for the last bail for some expecting cows near the farm and had a
photo tour of the area with my camera. I tried getting the chainsaw
to work later on to cut up some more wood, but for some reason it
wouldn't start. Weird, as it had been to the mechanic the day before.
Instead, I built up a warm shelter for April (the rejected calf)
instead, but due to not finding all the proper tools it will have to
be done more professional tomorrow).
A fun day delivering
food to all the cattle, whilst having some off-road fun and more
scenery.
No comments:
Post a Comment