Princess Margaret Rose Cave & Blue Lake

Got the next three days off, so I thought I would put my new car to the test and have a drive around. Quiet a few people have suggested visiting Mt. Gambier just over the border in South Australia. They have a large blue lake which is worth seeing. So I set of after a while and started driving towards what I though was Mt. Gambier. After some hill billy ride around the area with who knows where I passed through I saw a signpost pointing towards the Princess Margaret Rose Caves, a cave which Stocky highly recommended me to visit. I arrived just in time for a guided tour through the cave system. Unfortunately it is currently school holidays and a lot of the group consisted of family's with younger children. With the fairly large group we walked down 68 steeps to the cave and the guide explained all about stalagmites, stalactites and different formations down there. Some of them not even been explained by science yet. After getting out of the cave I had a short walk down to the Glenelg River, which was the river that caused the caves to form. Had a break on a yeti with no other sound around except natures. No cars in the distant, no families, no loud people, just the birds and two swearing fishermen upstream. Don't know if they lost a fish, but I could hear them.

After that back towards my original goal of Mt. Gambier and after a few U-turns and a few extra k's of driving I arrived in the town. First thing was to get some info on what to do and accommodation. As I couldn't find any tourist info on any maps I asked in a kiosk at the roadside and got tons of information. She did advice me to go to the “proper” one for the accommodation question but before that I visited the Umpherston sink hole just outside the back of the kiosk. A sink hole that a guy back in 18somewhat turned into his own private English garden. A group of volunteers cleaned it up a bit a few years ago and the public has been granted access since then. It is deep. After that it was time to get lost in Mt. Gambier. After driving around in circles and wrong turns for a while (my navigation is pretty crap in that way, sun has got me completely screwed up) I ended up parking in a Coles supermarket and having a salad for lunch after which I had a haircut and a chat with the girls working in it. Australians are always surprised to hear that I am German.

After that I went up to the Blue Lake, the lake that Mt. Gambier is known for. It is freaking massive. I was expecting something but not volcanic crater rising a few hundred metres out of the ground with a lake that has a road running 3,6km around it. Stopped and had a walk around the lake which made it seem smaller. Met a load of joggers and arrived back at the car after about half and hour. Looked for accommodation after that, but most where camper sites and others to far from the bars and pups in the centre. In the end I opted for just parking in a supermarket car park and sleeping in the back of the car. Haven't got a mattress or pillow installed yet, but will do.

Had some dinner in an Irish pup just a bit away and a small chat with the pup owners and some locals about wildlife loving cars so much. Meet up with a two guys my age after they left and they turned in to a group of about ten people my age. Had a chat, a few drinks and went to one of theirs new home. Hasn't been furnished yet, thought. After a while the two I meet at first took me back to my car and hopefully for a nights rest. See where things go tomorrow.
Made a short vlog, which can be found at YouTube.

Working, Footy & Car searching

Before coming to Australia I had read a few blogs of people who had come to work and travel down under. Surprisingly, after a few months, they always seemed to have a lull in activity on their blogs. I don't know if it is for the same reasons as I have found myself in, but here comes the explanation.

After getting back from King Island to Reds, I had a week of just doing farm work on Reds property. Meanwhile I was looking for somewhere more permanent to work, so I could save up some Australian earned dollars to go travel. The ultimate goal was to buy a car that could take me pretty much everywhere, but didn't use a lot of fuel. Asking around and with a bit of help I found a more or less constant workflow in a dairy farm about 10km away from Reds. So after being introduced I started working for Stockys (as my boss is called). The first month was near constant work, as it was the season where all the cows are calving and have to be AI'd after that. The cows being milked don't care if it is Saturday or Sunday, so it was weekend work too. More so as Stockys other worker (“good” Jay, Digbys got a “bad” Jay too) has those two days off. On Wednesday evening I had off nearly every time as I tagged along with Red to go play badminton and also have a few drinks at the pub afterwards with the locals.

I helped Grinner with lam marking a couple of times. He just lives the other side of Digby. Luckily Reds mum Jossie let me borrow her car most of the time to get around and to work. We went fishing at night on the Glenelg river just over in South Australia in a riverside hut with Luigy and his girlfriend Marianne. Nearly all the names here are nicknames. I don't actually know most of the locals real names and they don't always coincide with the real names. Luigy, Marianne and me didn't catch a thing that night, but Red had two small fish on the hook which he had to throw back again.

We also visited Melbourne a couple of times. The drive there is pretty arduous, taking a few hours (three to four) and the road not being in the best conditions. Mostly it was dark on the way back, so the Roos are a constant threat as well. Just coming back last Tuesday, Red just managed to dodge one just outside of Hamilton. It wouldn't have been as bad as it could have been, as we where in his UTE and it has a Roobar on the front, but still, avoiding is better than hitting.

A few weeks back we went to visit a football match in the MCG. We where acompanied by Luigy and Marianne again, as Red and Luigy are Horthorn supporter and can get free entry (plus one extra) when they play. Marianne supports the other team, but was still aloud to come along. Horthorn beat the others, but everyone said that was nothing unexpected. Due to that the stadium, that can accommodate 100.000 people, only had 30.000 people watching.

And one of the last times in Melbourne was last Tuesday. Red has left for Perth yesterday, visiting a friend for a party and going fishing. As I have saved up enough in the two and a half months I have worked at Stockys and the one month before that on King Island, I finally wanted to purchase a car. A car grants a lot more freedom on this vast continent than a bus, train or any other form of public transport does. Inside the city's it's no problem, but outside is were they really pay of. Without a car I would have never met all the people around Reds place. I consulted the internet before buying one and had a look at the market on the internet for a period of time, but you still want to go and actually look at what you get before buying. We actually wanted to go two weeks prior to that, but due to a wave of sickness passing through the area that left me weak and most farmers around here bed ridden for at least a few day (Red was one) we had to scrap that idea and recover. But on Tuesday we managed and visited a few dealers. My price limit was set at 3000$, so I wasn't expecting anything new and flashy looking. The things it had to have where a low fuel consumption, a long body (so I can sleep in the back if necessary) and, if possible, 4WD. That narrowed it down to a few models and in the end I got a 1999 Subaru Forester. On average it had 100.000km less on the odometer and it looked cleaner and well looked after. As the dealer that sold it hadn't got the road worthy certificate for the car yet but was confident it would pass, I signed the buying papers and drove back home with Reds. As they need to take it to a licensed garage for the RWC it would take at least a day for them. Due to Red leaving for Perth on Friday anyway he drove down and I picked it up. Drove back home after tanking in a fuel station where the computers where dead (one angry customer just up and left) and headed out in the thick of rush hour. I was back at Reds place at half past nine at night, luckily not finding any kangaroos or wallaby's.

So, now I have a car. And I cant wait to get rid of it and the money it is costing me. From fuel, repair parts, registration and insurance I hope it is worth it in the end with granting me the freedom that only a car can over. I'll be working this and next weekend for a bit of extra cash, go and do “backpacky” things in the week and then head of in about one and a half weeks. Probably along the coastline from Melbourne to Sydney.

Flight from King Island & A Day in Melbourne

Due to a weather front coming in I had to leave King Island. Na, I just unfortunately could not find a job on the island as they are currently stuck in the middle of winter where there is not a lot of work on the island.

So on Tuesday morning I had everything packed up and was ready to leave. I said my good byes to the rest of James family, the kids have currently got school holidays, and was taken to the airport by James. Going there you could see the winter weather rolling in from the sea, rain clouds. The actual plan had been to fly back on Monday, the day before, but due to the plane being fully booked out I took the one on Tuesday.

Boarding the plane we where only five people (plus one pilot) this time and I got a front seat (co-pilots). Didn't mind that in the slightest, got a superb view flying back. Taking of we flew over King Island for a bit before we hit the open waters of the Bass Strait. Being in the front the propellers where making a hell of a noise and I was a bit envious of the pilots earmuffs. Just before getting out in to the open water airspace we broke through the low hanging cloud cover and went further up to just skimming the clouds. We had lots of sunshine up there and the pilot had his pair of sunglasses out and on. You can tell they do that flight quite a lot. So we carried on just above the clouds flying around , above, below and through cloud formations. Best flight I have ever had so far, considering I was also getting cooked and blinded by the sun. Just before reaching Melbourne we broke back down through the cloud cover and where treated with a view of down town Melbourne. Landed at Moorabin and left my stuff there for James to pick up later in the day. Luckily, for me, he had a dentist appointment that day in Melbourne, so he was coming anyway. After leaving my stuff at the airport I got a taxi to the nearest train station. The driver didn't know how to get there so I navigated him there before taking the train to central Melbourne. 

On the way there I caught up with Michiel, a fellow ski teacher from Germany who had spent a few months in Melbourne. He himself was on Kangaroo Island in South Australia, but gave me a few tips on what to do whilst I was there. Walking through downtown Melbourne I had very good internet connection, compared to most other places I had stayed before, and gave mum and dad a ring over the internet. I stopped by the MCG, a giant stadium in Melbournes sport district, capable of holding 100 000 people. Walked past a lot of artistic buildings and objects (including a singing bridge) and for the last thing of the day I went up the top of the Eureka tower, the highest tower in the southern hemisphere. Had a wonderful view down on Melbourne and once James had finished, him, is sister and me had an evening meal before taking the long drive back to Tahara.

Next plan is to look for a job somewhere to earn enough money to be able to afford a car and have a drive around, but I'll see how that goes.  

Penguins & Australian Football

Life on King Island has been a load of fun. After Red and Barten left I started working on James and Karmens farm. The first day was spent with getting some wood planks for their new house through a thickener (I think it's called like that). Worked all day with the local carpenter/joiner Roger and his apprentice Dave. James and Karmen coming to help put the planks through the machine and driving it back to their in-progress house. The next couple of days where spent doing all sort of knick knacks around a farm. Getting a ventilator fitted on their organic toilet, feeding a roll of hay to some cattle and doing a lot of fencing. I had to learn from scratch how to do that, but we got a rhythm in the end, so we completed quiet a bit of it. Some of it looks a bit crooked, but it is only following the shelter belt. Shelter belts on King Island are rather important. They are rows of trees to make sure the cattle, grass and pretty much everything on the island are not blown of by the strong coastal winds.

We visited some penguins on the southern coastline of King Island. The so called “little penguins” are native to the island and come out of the water every evening/night to rest in the shrubs of the coastal areas. Evan and Gipsy where given torches with red foil in front of them (disturbs them less) and I took my GoPro to try and get some film footage. Turned out to be to dark for that, but I saw my first ever wild penguins and they didn't sound to happy with us being there after the amount of racket they where making in the hedges. So we left them in peace and went to the Grassy Club to have an evening meal, where I met a few other backpackers that where spending time on the island. A German, a Dutch and two English guys which are working on cattle farms on the island. We found out after some time that we would meet each other the next day, but on opposing sites as is described bellow. 

I visited my first ever football match (ozy rules) last Saturday. Evan (oldest son) is playing for the northern team and was competing against Curry. The island only has a population of 1400 people, but still manage to have three football teams. Most of them are understaffed and I was approached by a lot of people from all three teams to play for them. In the end I though “What the heck? I'll give it a try”. Me living at James's I went to Northern training on Tuesday and Thursday and had my first match this Saturday, right after Evan had played. Me being a pretty tall guy I was placed on the position of rook immediately. That sort of seems to be the place the lest amount of people want to have. It involves jumping high up in the air, flying towards the opposing rook and trying to direct the ball towards your team mates at the start of a match. My first few second of the game where spent trailing the enemy rook around the field after getting a knee in the gut and being a bit winded, but the recovery was pretty fast. As the game progressed everyone started limping more and more (it is a kind of brutal sport) and I acquired a small split in the head after getting an elbow from not jumping high enough against the opposing rook. In the end I managed to get a mark (catch it save) and helped a bit along, but we'll have to see how it continues. After getting my head injury glued back together I went with the team to have something to eat and drink and then went back home for a nap and hopefully not to sore muscles in the morning.  

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.

Seasick Fishing

The week was full of various farm work. Catherine left on Thursday, heading back up to Falconbridge. That meant that James and me had a bit more work to shoulder, but the stressful week of cattle sorting is over for now. Sometime in the near future it will have to be done again, as some cows are still with calf. The week was packed with driving out hay to the various mobs in the paddock, repairing an old Chamberlin tractor, repairing a seeder for sowing some fields and checking on the still expecting cows with a quad bike in the setting sun of the evening.

For the weekend a bit of relaxing was in order. Once again fishing on Saturday. The weather was forecast with good conditions and we set of in time this time. Just James and me, thought, so we went to Portland again. Driving there we saw a load (or in Victorian Australian “a s**tload) of kangaroos. They where just everywhere, on the roads, beside, in the gumtree forest, on the fields. Heaps and heaps of them. They are not very well liked in the area, as they are part of a lot of car accidents and eat away the grass which the cattle should be getting. They still are interesting to watch, especially the way they hop along and come in a lot of sizes, from just coming up to a meter to standing taller than me at over two metres. We arrived in Portland and there where already a lot of other boats out, gone far out to the continental shelf (about 40km out) to try catching some tuna. We just went of the coast of Portland again, had a lot of bites last time. Whilst James was driving out I was reading through the manual for a sonar he has bought and got it up and running to see some fish underwater. Was a bit empty and after stopping the motor and putting out the roods we spent a while not getting anything. James caught a flat head which are excellent to eat and a few parrot heads over the day, which where thrown back again as they don't taste that well. I spent the majority of the day being seasick. Not the real bad seasick, just not felling very well. Third time that has now happened to me in my life and I didn't learn from last time. James took some anti-seasick pill in the morning and I

 declined thinking I would be okay. I regretted that decision in the long run and wasn't fishing at all after a while. James had a few roads out just being manned by him. One was attached to a shark hook, but the only thing it ended up catching was an albatross. The bird had grabbed the end of the hook with the fish on and got it caught in its wing, so James reeled it back in, bird still on the line. I grabbed it by the neck whilst James got the hook of and how does the large bird say thank you. Bites me in the arm. He wasn't that strong and I was not hindered in any way, nor did I get injured. He did manage to bite a hole through my rain jacket, unluckily. After not catching anything else except a flat head after nearly seven hours we set back of towards Portland, just to be caught in a highway of boats returning back from tuna fishing. Shortly worded, we got out, found out we had done something wrong, had to get the boat back in and then on properly, all in a high stress area.

On the way back we visited James's cousin Brian and had a long chat with him, his wife and their child about a lot of things. They own a horse farm and their son takes part in rodeo, some activity I was offered to try, so I'll see when I can get down there to do that. Took back a dog that Brian didn't need anymore (or found) to look for an owner and had a pizza before heading home for some rest.

Relaxing day but could have done without the seasickness.  

Hayday

Rise and shine with the sun, up early shortly before eight. After some toast and jam for breakfast, April was once again feed. Calfs drink a lot of milk

Once the morning necessity had been completed, Catherine and me where back to delivering hay bails to cattle. James took a few load in the beginning but went of on his quad to who knows where in the end whilst us other two had a drive around. We had a check up on the the young cows with calfs in paddock “Five” where there where some dead cows lying around. Well, that is how it is. Lots of calfs and a few dead cows. We saw no cows in distress, but in the paddock “Driveway” a cow had had twin calfs. That always seems to be a fickle situation. James said that in 25% of cases one twin dies, 30% both die. This cow had left the stronger, mewling calf behind and was tending the weaker calf by her side. Without intervention the stronger one would die of hunger or cold after a while. So we rounded her up and dropped both her calfs and her in to a smaller paddock with hay. That way she would have a reason to stay in the paddock with the two calfs. We where lucky the birth was seen soon enough, as any longer out in the paddocks further away from the house would have left one calf dead. That seems to be a pretty common thing, actually.

Once we had that sorted out we had some lunch. James shot a rabbit a few days ago that was eating the bark of his new trees, so that was our lunch. As the rabbit had been hit with a shotgun round you had to make sure you weren't eating any shotgun pellets. After lunch I had a check run for the spooked cow and the calf. We still weren't sure if the calf was hers or if she had accepted it and James had only seen her in the morning on a check tour, not the calf. Coming over the hill in a ute I saw from quite a distance that they where together and turned around and left them alone. Coming back I took a drive with James to one of the further away paddocks, “Lucern” and “Top”. We took a tour up the top of the hill at “Top” and let the hay bail roll all the way down until we had a nice stretch of hay. The cows and calfs appreciated it and we left. Getting back James took his tractor with a contraption for hay sorting on the back to another part of the farm whilst I started to get the chain saw running to cut up some wood. I managed a few tree trunks when the chain saw gave up and I had to readjust a screw. In the meantime James had returned and was getting an old saw running for smaller stuff. A disc saw you powered with the back of your tractor. As he had done some repairs and changes he was the one to try it first whilst I cut him up some pieces. By the time it was getting dark we stopped with a bit of a bigger pile for fire use.

After some chicken dinner Catherine and me had to feed the fresh twin calfs some milk, as we weren't to sure the mother had. A bit of a drama in the dark. We got to one calf but it would just not take the milk. By that point the mother had lost her fright of us and was getting closer so we backed of. The one we had been trying to feed got up and followed her whilst the other one was standing in one spot. Luckily this one did take two bottles of milk and will most likely have enough energy to survive until the morning. The other one was scampering around the cow, but to stupid to figure out how to feed from her teats. We had one problem, the cow was thirsty and there was no water in her trough. What does a cow do? Go to another place with water. A fence in the way? Squash that. After lots of VERY SLOW arm waving (don't want another spooked cow) we got her back in her pen. Next thing, fence is squashed again. Catherine and me lost her and her following calf whilst we got the other one beside some dry hay and just closed of the whole area in the end. Catherine spotted a shadow moving across somewhere and after some looking with the torch, two pairs of eyes shone back from the other end of the enclosed space. We left her and her following calf at that and went inside for me to write the blog and the rest to go to bed.