A lot has happened since the last
update in Tasmania. At the present time I am writing from Germany
again. Fortunately I wasn't deported and it is a short visit.
Once mum and me finished up in Tasmania
we returned the car to the dealership in Melbourne without them
knowing we had ever been in Tasmania with it. After that we spent a
while in Melbourne and then grabbed a train towards Hamilton. Along
the way we met Katherine, quite a coincidence actually, as I had
thought that we would see her the next day at Reds farm and not all
be travelling at the same time. The next four days were spent at
Reds, showing mum the way I had lived for most of my time in
Australia. On the third day mum and Katherine set of to Sydney and on
the fourth I got a call from Matthew for work. Up until just before
Christmas I then spent the time working as a hay contractor again,
which was a lot of fun. Thinking about all those poor backpacker
working on fruit farms and here I am sitting in an air conditioned
tractor.
Around Christmas and New Year I didn't
do to much. Visited a few people and had a Skype chat with my
siblings, mum, Grandma and Aunty Lesley. For a few weeks after that
work sort of stopped, so I racked up a few hours of swimming in
Hamiltons local pool. Around that time I also applied for my visa in
the next country, New Zealand. Why not, whilst I'm down here? Then I
thought I really should visit some people at home and booked a flight
back to Germany for a few weeks visit. I told dad about it, but kept
it a secret from mum so I could surprise her. Shortly after dad asked
me if I wanted to go sailing with him in Croatia for two weeks whilst
I'm there. I agreed and next thing you know both my siblings are
going to and I'm visiting Rhiannon in China before we both depart for
Europe.
Also around that time New Zealand
started getting a bit in to me about not being a British Citizen (the
passport I had applied with to go there). As a British person you can
stay two years if you want to, but you have to have lived in England
(which I found out later). Being born and raised in Germany that
didn't apply to me, but fortunately I had gotten my German
nationality prior to leaving for Australia. It was a bit of a hassle
and took a few trips to Melbourne, but eventually I got it four weeks
later after New Zealand had declined the visa application and I then
applied with my new passport, which was accepted fast.
By that time I had finished working for
Matthew and returned to Reds, to spend the last few weeks there and
give him a hand. Australia seemed to not want to let me go without a
mark and between looking after puppies, tagging calves and fishing I
also managed to pull something in my back, which left me unable to
walk for two days, and twist my ankle rather badly, but I left the
country without any snakebites. Although there was my closest snake
encounter I had...
I managed to go to one more rodeo, too.
Luckily I avoided getting on to a bull and the following days I
visited a lot of people and said my good byes. The last day before
leaving Red had a friend come around and we had a bit of a test on a
new rifle.
On the day Red drove me to Melbourne we
also sold the last of Cokes pups (Red Kelpie), so they wanted
delivering to Melbourne. The pups weren't to happy about the car
drive. Half way along one ore more of them threw up all across the
cage (luckily Red has a Ute) and by the time we got to Ballarat the
cage was clean. How that happened I'll leave out, but it didn't
involve any human intervention.
On the way mum called to, so being in
hast Red and me thought up some half baked story about going fishing
and being out of phone service. We stayed the night at Reds cousin
and left for Tullamarine airport early to get on time. At the airport
I said my goodbyes to Red, got checked in, did some last minute phone
calls with the hospital in Hamilton about a bug I'd had a few weeks
earlier and then boarded the plane that took me from Melbourne to
Sydney and then Sydney to Beijing.
Goodbye Australia, all the people I
know there and I'll miss being in this awesome country.
PS: I'll be back for four hours when I
fly to NZ.
PPS: The snake story I mentioned before
involved me walking towards Possum (Kelpie dog), her hiding behind
her kernel and a Tigersnake moving away from the half way point
between the two of us (about three metres away)