King Island

A long time no update. Sorry about that, a bit to myself as well. The weeks have just been full of work, sometimes some fishing trips and a bit of spotlighting in the evenings. Also my internet connectivity isn't the best in the world, I am spending less and less time actually on the computer (most of the times just to read a book now and then).

Katherine came back to the farm after two weeks of absence, once again to help along a bit. I managed to slowly digitalise James farm (only the Heifers till now, but it is a start) to get him more opportunities in future. April (the abandoned twin calf) has been getting stronger and stronger with every litre of milk she gets and is complaining about not being fed enough. Got a few early morning pictures of the fog coming up the creek valley in Tahara and lots of other small bits and pieces. Got whacked in the shin by a 310 kg Heifer which has left a bit of a bruise, but no problem otherwise.

I have moved on from James's farm for now, who knows, perhaps I might spend a bit of time on his farm again in the future. See how things are going. He took me along to his pheasant shooting weekend on King Island, where an old friend of his (also named James) lives and accommodated us. Getting there was interesting, as the only real standard commercial connection is a small aircraft from Melbourne to Currie which only has eight seating places, including pilot and co-pilot. James had his two dogs (Lola and Oscar) with him and we ran out of space in the passenger plane, so he tagged on along in the freight plane. Barten, one of James's friends also came along and the weekend was spent together with Nick and John out in the paddocks of King Island looking for the birds. We spotted heaps of wallabies and I saw my first pointer (type of dog) in action, pointing out the position of a pheasant. I also caught my first edible fish and we had an evening filled with fries, fish and fun. Weather wise we where really lucky, as the southern hemisphere is moving in to winter, King Island tends to take on the qualities of a well known island in Europe. Instead we had (mostly) sunshine with some windy weather coming in on Monday. Looking at the sea on that day we could fully understand why so many ships have been wrecked on the rocks of the island. Massive and brutal rolling waves coming in on the shores of the island, only leaving a few small sheltered lagoons for the ships and fish to seek shelter in.

On Wednesday morning James and Barton left and I started my stay on King Island, staying with James, his wife Carmen and children Ethan and Gipsy. First day of work was getting some planks of wood treated, so they wouldn't have splinters in them any more. All day long we lifted the wood with Roger (a carpenter and joiner), his apprentice Dave, James, Carmen and me. We managed to get it all done and back to James and Carmens soon to be house before dark. Went back, chopped up some firewood and had a nice evening meal prepared by Carmen before starting to make some home made bread. After that a shower and some time on the laptop to update stuff.

Greeting from King Island to everyone, an Island small but similar in weather condition to England.