Surf's Up, Dude!

I’ve surfed! Not very well, but I did stand up several times and there is photographic evidence. But let’s recap things in order, shall we?

After leaving Bingara, I spent all day on a bus to get to Byron Bay. Byron is a small town of about 20,000, about an hour or so from the border of Queensland. Byron was supposed to be my “relaxation” weekend, but when one is staying in a party hostel in a party town, relaxing is not so easy. Every time I got up to go to the bathroom I felt like I was walking through a frat party. Lots of chubby dudes hanging around, shorts falling down revealing the butt crack, multiple beers in hand. It was not my greatest weekend accommodation wise. I did learn a very important lesson though, if I ever stay by myself again in a party town, then perhaps it may be worth it to spend the few extra bucks on regular person accommodation, so that I can avoid the drunken meatheads. Most backpackers that travel Australia work their way up the east coast, going from Sydney up to Cairns, partying their way up coast. Byron is a very popular stop on that route, so every party animal with a backpack in Oz tends to pass through at some point.

It’s a cool town though, great beaches and the locals are all pretty much hippies. Lots of Volkswagen buses floating around, tons of organic and earth themed shops and restaurants, and plenty of stores such as the one below:

Mix all that stuff in with cool restaurants, laid back bars and surf shops, and you’ve got a recipe for a popular destination.  It’s a fun place to chill out for a bit with friends, but not the best destination for blogging, sleeping and journal writing! I did enjoy the walk I went on though, I headed up to a lighthouse on a hill that is the most easterly point of the Australian mainland:

That’s the closest I can get to home in Australia!

Surf camp started Monday morning. We had to meet at the Byron bus stop, and took a Greyhound bus about 2 hours down the coast to the first of 2 surf camps that we stop at. The camp was 5 days and 4 nights, with 2 nights at one camp and 2 nights at another. The first camp was called Spot X. It was a pretty neat little place, it sort of reminded me of what sleep away camps look like, only everyone is older and there are surfboards and alcohol involved. Here’s the dorm we all stayed in at spot x:

We had our first lesson as soon as we got there. They gave us big boards, which are easier to stand up on. They also have a photographer who takes pictures of all of the lessons, so I didn’t have to worry about bribing someone to stand on the beach while I attempted to stand up. I actually did pretty well the first lesson, I stood on the second or third attempt. The waves were perfect that first day as well, which definitely helped. Here’s the main event folks, me standing up on a surfboard, on my very first lesson!

How cool am I???

The food at the camp was quite good as well, and then after dinner my little group headed down to the beach to chat and to get to know everyone. I had missed the liquor store run, but one of the girls was kind enough to share some of her wine in a box with me. Goon, as the Aussies call it. After the beach we joined everyone else at camp at the fire pit, and hung out there for a bit. Eventually a mass game of flip cup was started. Ahhhh, flip cup! Haven’t seen the likes of you since my college years! Not that I played flip cup so often at Cornell, but on those Saturday nights where I was busy watching Lost reruns, I think that’s what the other kids were out doing…

The bed wasn’t too uncomfortable, and even though all of us were in the same giant room I slept pretty well. We did have a couple of visitors in the middle of the night though. Someone left the door open, and we had possums running around. That was a bit scary, but I imagine it was scarier for the possums once we all started screaming.

The second day at spot x sucked for me surfing wise, it was incredibly windy and therefore the waves were rough. I did horribly, both in the morning and the afternoon. Of course it doesn’t help matters that I am a bit scared of the ocean. I had sort of forgotten about that. Waves scare the crap out of me, and surfing requires heading straight into them, going through them, and diving under them, all while maneuvering a giant ass 12-foot long board that hurts when it smacks you. The instructors kept telling me not to hold my nose every time I went through a wave, but that is not how I operate. That’s why I stink at diving too. Must hold the nose when going through water. No exceptions. The wind was also brutal in terms of getting the surfboard from the camp to the beach. Have you ever carried one on a windy day? It acts like I damn sail. There were times when I could not physically move forwards, and sometimes I just spun in circles. Of course everyone else in the group was much stronger/less spastic than I, so I spent all week being the last one out to the beach. I also didn’t carry the board most of the time, I just sort of dragged it around. They probably frown on that. After the second lesson we went to a driving range. I obviously did not go for the golf. I went because the golf course is known for being swarmed all the time with kangaroos. And it certainly was, there were oodles of them!

Day 3 was a morning surf lesson, which also did not go swimmingly for me. I went out tandem at first with the instructor into deeper water, which was kind of fun since I got to go for a longer ride and didn’t have to worry about balancing the board.

But then I had to go back to the beach, get my own board, and join them all out in the deeper water. I tried. The ocean won, and I stayed behind in the shallow end like a loser because I couldn’t physically get myself out there. That was a tad depressing. Had lunch and then hopped another Greyhound bus to the second surf camp, which was about 2 and a half hours down the coast. It started raining while we were on the bus, and pretty much didn’t stop until after surf camp was over. The second camp, Crescent Head, was more in the bush than Spot X, and is known for having giant ass mosquitoes. But since it rained the whole time I was always covered from head to toe anyway so I didn’t have to worry about being eaten alive. As we neared Crescent Head though, I finally saw a sign for koala crossing! I’ve seen signs on the road for kangaroos and wombats, but never for wild koalas! I stared up into the trees searching for them, but I imagine they stay far away from the main road anyway.

Got to Crescent Head in the pouring rain, dropped off our stuff, and then went for a quick tour of the campground. This place was more like a campground in the wilderness than Spot X. No mobile reception, no internet, and no drinkable tap water. We were being shown the dining area, which is basically a cabin with one side completely open, when the Greyhound driver came back holding up a wallet. I looked at it. It looked like mine. He turned it over. Holy crap, it WAS mine. I’m an idiot. I left my wallet on the Greyhound bus. That’s the first time in my life I’ve ever actually lost it though. Thank god for the driver being a nice guy. I called Greyhound after camp was over, and left my positive feedback. I hope it reaches him or his boss, because that guy saved me a lot of phone calls and what would have most likely been a tearful emotional breakdown once I realized it was gone.

There was another Mojo camp at Crescent Head as well, only instead of going from Byron to Sydney they were going from Sydney to Byron. Had dinner with them, and then dinner turns into everyone drinking until the wee hours. Surf camp really was just as much about the boozing as it was about the surfing. I hung around until maybe 11 or so, before going to bed. Both my group and the other group all stayed in the same room, but for a 24-person mixed dorm room, it was actually pretty quiet. People did their partyng at the dinner/fire pit area, and then came back to the room to just sleep. I slept better those last 2 nights in the giant dorm room than I did my last month in Enmore.

Surfed the next morning in the pouring rain. Putting on a wetsuit that’s already wet, while you are being rained on, is not the funnest thing in the world. Had to schlep through the bush to get to the beach, but because of the bad weather the waves were a bit rough and I stank it up again. We had about 3 hours in between getting back from the first surf to heading out for the second. At this point pretty much everything I owned was wet. I had to pack up at Spot X when things were still wet, and because of the bad weather nothing put out to dry at Crescent Head dried either. The bathrooms were a bit of a walk away, so every time I had to go I got wet. Wet wet wet. So I put on my wet bathing suit, the wet wetsuit, and headed out into the rain. The second surf of the day was more of a surf for fun instead of a lesson though, and since there weren’t any instructors to help me I ended up sort of putzing around before giving up without really trying. Should have just stayed behind and read a book! Quite a few people did, but I wanted to at least give it a go. The water was too rough for me though, and with no one to help me my discouragement got the best of me. Oops!

Dinner was quite yummy again, we had burritos. Had a nice evening afterwards, chatted with the one other American there, to whom I happily spoke to in feet and inches and miles and pounds and Fahrenheit. Chatted with some Dutch guys and a guy from Germany as well. That is one neat thing about traveling around here, you get to meet people from all over. I’m always impressed with how good everyone’s English is too. They don’t get all of the slang sometimes, but most people’s vocabularies and comprehension were really super impressive. My French was never anywhere near that good. I should mention that this day was Thanksgiving. A few people have asked me recently what I did for Thanksgiving. Well, I had an epic failure of a day at surfing, ate a burrito, drank some Malibu and cokes and learned that the Dutch view Belgium sort of like New Yorkers view New Jersey. I was so proud of myself too, I stayed out till the end of the night! There were four of us left at the end of the night, all from my group, and I was one of them. How cool am I? Such a little party animal!

The last surf lesson was the best one since the first one. I actually had fun again, and the time went by fast. I stood up a bit more, and got lots of help from the instructors, probably because they all pitied me at how bad I still was, but that’s ok! It was a good time, and I’m glad I closed out surf camp having fun, instead of being frustrated or swallowing massive amounts of seawater, which happened a lot in the middle of the week. There was, however, MAJOR drama after we got out of the water. Someone mentioned that because we were all waltzing through flooded bush land, we should probably check for leeches. I looked at my foot. There was a brown line on it. A thick one. I poked it. It did not move. A LEECH!!!!!!!! There was a leech on my foot. He was stealing my blood. This was NOT ok. I squealed like a pig. One of the mojo staff poured some salt on the little bastard and he let do and was killed, but the damage was done. There was a little bloody spot on my foot after. It was all quite horrid and very traumatic.

The other group left for Spot X around 1 in the afternoon, so the few of us that were left just sort of hung around until our bus came at 6. Half napped through Avatar, attempted to watch Black Swan at one point, and stared blankly at the screen while we watched some British show about cars. Greyhound came on time, and then off we went. Got back into Sydney around 12:10 am, and luckily for me I was able to scrounge up a hostel for that night. I was going to stay with Cheryl, but she had to work and the bus got back in too late, so the staff at Spot X managed to find me a spot at the Railway Square YHA, which is right near the bus drop off. My room was even in an old railway car!

The next morning I checked out of Railway Square, schlepped over to Glebe YHA to dump off my stuff, then headed over to Darling Harbor to meet up with some surf camp people for a couple of hours. We ended up touring the submarine and battleship at the maritime museum, which was kinda fun.

I then headed off to Cheryl’s to pick up my bags that I’d left behind. We had brunch in Randwick, and then I successfully managed to transport my 2 heavy monster bags back to Glebe. Dropped them off, then did some shopping back in Enmore. It was a long day filled with carrying lots of heavy bags.

Spent the rest of my time in Sydney running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off, catching up on writing and blogging and various other random things that needed taking care of. My phone screen died, so I had to buy a temp one that looks like it’s from circa 2001. The employment agency messed up my retirement contribution, so I had to figure out how to roll that over. I also stupidly repeatedly punched in the wrong pin number at an ATM, so the machine told me it was going to eat my card, and eat it did. None of this was fun. I did do some more positive things though. I went to gymnastics for the first time in a few weeks, went out for Mexican food with a new friend from Jillaroo school, hung out with some of the surf people for a bit in the city, got my nails painted with some fancy crap that involves UV light and no drying time, and went on another double dumpling dinner outing. But oh man, lesson learned! I need more down time in between trips. After New Zealand I will take at least a week to sit and stare at the wall to unwind.

Speaking of New Zealand, I’m off! 40 days in the land of the Kiwis. I’m doing a hop on hop off bus tour of the country, and I’m incredibly confused about how the process works. Wish me luck that my giant suitcase and I don’t get stranded in a sheep pasture somewhere.

And as an end of blog entry bonus, for everyone’s viewing pleasure, here is a picture of me wiping out!

 Off to Middle Earth!!!!!!

Jillaroo-ing at Garrawilla

Back from Bingara! I successfully completed the 2-week Jillaroo course without falling off a horse or any other (major) injuries. What a couple of weeks it was! Let’s start from the beginning:

The course takes place at a farm called Garrawilla, which is about a 20-minute drive outside of a tiny town called Bingara. Bingara is quite small, only about 1300 people. It has one street with stores. That’s it. Pretty rural. I took a 6-hour train ride from Sydney to Tamworth, and then a 2-hour bus ride from Tamworth to Bingara. We all stayed at the Sportsman’s Hotel in Bingara for the night, before meeting our host/teacher the following morning to get started. I’ve been trying to think over the past couple of weeks how I was going to tackle this entry, since there is just SO much to cover, so instead of giving you all the daily play by play, I’ll just cover things in categories instead. How does that sound to everyone? Good! Not like you had a choice anyway… J

1)   John & Cathy: They were our hosts for the 2 weeks. They actually live in Bingara, and have the Garrawilla farm for most of their animals and to hold the course. John was with us all the time, and Cathy popped in from time to time, mostly to cook dinner. John was a lot of fun, very patient with those of us who didn’t know squat about anything, and was really quite the character. Not sure how else to describe him, he was wildly entertaining. He’s been working with horses forever, and I was quite amazed at not only how much he knew about everything (obviously a horseman is going to know his stuff), but at how he knew who all the horses were and who their parents were. Impressive stuff.

2)   The Farm: Garrawilla sits on about 3,000 acres in the New South Wales countryside. It’s as far north as I’ve been thus far, not too far away from the southern border of Queensland. You have to take a dirt road to get to the farm, and there’s no Internet or mobile service. The farmhouse itself is pretty nice though, one section has 3 dorm-style bedrooms and a living room and den (complete with a stash of old celebrity gossip magazines!), a separate building connected by a verandah houses the kitchen and 2 bathrooms, and then there is an outdoor bathroom & smaller external cabins. The verandah is huge, and overlooks one of the paddocks. A lot of the backland is hilly, untamed bush. You could get lost on their property and not find your way back out again. There is a saddle shed for the horse gear, and a yard to get them all tacked up, but there are no stables. The horses, when not being ridden, just hang out in on of the many fields. John said that paddock horses are friendlier and less kooky than stable horses.

3)   The Trucks: There were two of them, with enough space for the driver and two extra people to very tightly squeeze in on the passenger side. Everyone else had to ride in the flatbed part, hillbilly style! Riding around in the back of the trucks was actually a lot of fun. When you’ve got one of the coveted standing positions (sitting sucked and was responsible for quite of few of my bumps and bruises) and you’re off-roading through the bush at high speeds, it feels like flying.  I loved every second of it. That was one unexpected plus of the 2 weeks. Riding around in the truck everywhere. It was phenomenal! Best off road adventures I’ve ever been on by far. Here’s a picture I took, during a 4 hour excursion out into the bush one day:

4)   The Animals: Well, what would a farm be without animals? Garrawilla, in addition to being the Jackaroo/Jillaroo school, is also a horse breeding facility, so there are hundreds of horses around. Lots of foals as well! New ones popped out during our 2 weeks too, although I didn’t get to see any actually being born. The newborns are so funny looking. They are literally all leg. Horses are born with nearly fully sized legs, so it’s just the bodies and heads that are super small and oddly proportioned. They are quite gangly looking. Some of the horses on the farm are saddle horses, who are the ones who get ridden the most. Some are the breeders, whose job is basically to bone to make more of them. There are some that just get “broken in” (they learn how to be ridden) and then are sold off. Quite a few of them get sold to the Northern Territory. Then there are others that are “bush horses,” and they hang out in the hills doing their own thing, and sometimes aren’t spotted for months at a time. None of the horses have shoes, and they aren’t pampered an excessively groomed like the ones at Cornell were.

John also has quite a collection of cattle, including a GIANT white bull who doesn’t belong to him. The bull hopped a neighbor’s fence one day, and decided to set up shop with John’s cattle instead. I nicknamed the bull “Balls.” This should be pretty self-explanatory as to why.

Sheep! There were lots of sheep. They are pretty cute, especially the little lambs. But they are painful to pet, since their wool is all full of burs that they pick up from walking around in the fields.

Piggies! John has 3 grown pigs I think, and two sets of piglets. We spent 2 weeks trying to catch the piglets, but no one succeeded. They may have short legs, but those things run FAST. John finally caught one for us on the last day, which was an exciting moment. The pigs ate up all of our scrap food too. Any leftover food or peels or anything went into the “pig bucket,” which then got dumped into the paddock once a day. Pigs really do eat anything. I felt bad when we fed them the leftover bacon though, that just seemed wrong. Watching them happily crunch on eggshells was also a little gross.

The dogs. There were 18 I think. There were two pets, Bella and Ruby. Ruby is about 6 months old, and does not stop barking. Nonstop talking. Cute dog, very friendly, but she’s a bit of a menace with the constant chatter. Bella, on the other hand, was the strong, silent type. She has breast cancer though, so her teats hang down and waddle back and forth when she walks. John called her Titty. She’s still going strong though, and is such a smart dog. She’ll even walk all by herself from the farm to John & Cathy’s house in Bingara, which is about 14 miles. Even after a few trips in and out of town, I still would get lost if I had to walk it! And she never gets into the car with any neighbors who pass her on the road. She just keeps going, unless John or Cathy goes out to pick her up. The rest of the dogs were the working dogs, all kelpies. They lived in cages for the most part, although sometimes they’d spend the night out on the verandah. They scared me a bit at first, but they are actually all amazingly friendly and super desperate for love and affection. I had to distract one of them during sheep herding one day, since he was being a bit detrimental to the process, and even though it’s in his nature to round them up and go after them, he was happily distracted when I picked him up and carried him like a little prince until we got back to the farm. Here’s a picture of Ruby wrestling around with 3 of the kelpies:

A few of the dogs usually came with us on horse rides, typically Ruby and Bella and one or two of the kelpies. They would also follow the truck whenever we rode around. Once or twice there I thought one went under the wheels, but they’re pretty good at dodging the tires. Scared the crap out of me though.

5)   Willy!: Willy was my horse. I rode him every time. Willy was a good beginner horse, because he was old, and therefore slow. He was happy to follow what everyone else was doing, so I didn’t need to direct him much. He usually cantered when all of the other horses started cantering as well, but as soon as he saw the lead horse slow down, Willy was more than happy to take it back down to a trot and then walk. I think he actually did jump over something at one point though. We were going pretty fast through the bush, and there was some sort of branch on the ground. We may have gotten a bit of airtime, but I’m not 100% sure on that. Here is Willy and I:

I liked Willy, he reminded me a bit of Eeyore, in that his head was always down and he always looked a bit sad. He sometimes got a bit cranky with the other horses (he tried to take a chunk out of a few of them…) but he was always nice to people. I bought Willy some apples and carrots as treats when we went into town in between week 1 and 2, which he happily munched on. My only problem with Willy was the very last day. He was in no mood to be ridden, and it took about a half hour and then help of one of the trucks to catch him.  I wanted to leave him alone since he obviously didn’t want to go, but John didn’t want him to “win” the battle. Right before we left the farm at the end of the day, I ran about a half mile down the road to where Willy was grazing to give him one last apple, and he was still in no mood for people and ran away from me. That was sad. I did not get to have a proper goodbye! But he was a character though. Here is Willy enjoying the sprinkler on a particularly hot day:

6)   The Tasks: We did a lot of different things that I’d never even seen done before. We worked on breaking in horses, which is taking a young horse who has never been ridden, and teaching him to, well, be ridden. Some horses are easier than others, depending on their natural temperament. The horse we worked on the first week was a maniac, while the two from the next week were pretty calm and were being ridden well by the end of the week. We also worked on drenching, which is putting a tube up the horse’s nose directly into the stomach, and then feeding them de-worming medication. John did this to the ones who he was selling, as no one wants a wormy horse. I administered some of the medication into the tube with a syringe. I’m practically a doctor!!

We also worked with the foals. John likes to capture them when they are young and stick a bridle-like thing on their face, that way when they are older, they have already had experience being touched and having something on their face like that. Capturing them is tough stuff though, they do NOT enjoy it. Once caught, they get tied up and are released once they stop trying to tear the bridle off their face. Some foals get it quickly, and others are a bit dumb and take more time to grasp concepts.  Another aspect of dealing with the foals was, uh, shooting them when necessary. We killed one the second week. He wasn’t a foal really, he was more like a teenager, but he was born with a cockeyed neck and wouldn’t ever be useful, so he got shot. I closed my eyes when the shot was fired, because I didn’t want to see the poor thing go down, but I opened them just in time to see John slicing the neck to make sure he was dead. Lovely. I won’t go into too much detail about this part. Anyone out there remember what happened to Drew Barrymore in the opening scene of Scream? Yeah, it kinda went something like that. I did take pictures, which won’t be going up on the blog or on facebook because they really are quite gruesome, but if anyone is interested then send me an email and I’ll pass them along.

Other horse work included separating them in the pen for various things (I was not good at that), bringing them oats and grains out in the fields, and castrating the males who weren’t going to be used for breeding. Ouch. Ever wonder though, what happens to a horse’s balls when they get chopped off? The ones at Garrawilla become a snack for someone...

Bella loved them. She always waited so impatiently until John handed them over. Once he put them in his own mouth, partially to tease the dog, and partially just to completely gross us out.

Of course the horses were also used to muster cattle. Ever mustered cattle on horseback? It’s kind of interesting, heading out into the bush on your horse, the dogs trailing behind, off in search of cattle to bring back on home. The cattle aren’t too bad to gather though, they basically follow each other once you get them moving in the right direction. We also did a bit of calf branding, ear marking, and de-horning. That was tough to watch. That’s a lot of pain for a baby animal to go though all in one shot. Especially if it’s a male calf, because then he gets castrated too.

Sheep shearing was another task on the list, although we used the dogs for that most of the time. At one point myself and another girl had to get out of the truck and chase them ourselves though. Sheep are sneaky things, tough to corral. They aren’t like the cattle, they just run every which way. Here is me surrounded by a bunch of sheep that we caught:

One day we needed to catch one specific sheep, since she had maggots and needed to be sheared in order to get rid of them. One of the dogs got a bit too tough, and bit a hole in her face right down to the bone. She had also just had a newborn lamb that morning. The poor thing was gushing blood the whole ride back. She was sheared though, and hopefully she’ll be okay. I heard a rumor that the lamb had gotten trampled on by a horse though. It’s a tough world out there sometimes for livestock.

7)   The Stuff on the Side: It wasn’t all work work work of course. We did some random stuff too, just for fun. I fired a weapon! Look, photographic evidence:

We all took a shot at a rock maybe 80-90 feet away. I think I grazed it, although I didn’t hit it head on. I did keep the shell from the bullet, or whatever you call it, as a souvenir. We also sat on one of the bulls that was caught during a cattle muster:

I rode a real bull! Sort of. He was tied up, and I did hold on to the fence in case he went bananas on me. But a real bull! Not like the silly mechanical ones that they have at bars! I attempted to learn how to crack a whip as well, but on my very first attempt I accidentally hit myself in the face, which stung a fair bit, so I retired early from whip-cracking. My career was over before it even began J And driving. I MUST mention driving:

This part deserves all caps I think I’ll bold it as well: THAT IS A PHOTO OF I, DARA LYNN EPSTEIN, DRIVING A STICK SHIFT CAR WITH THE STEERING WHEEL ON THE RIGHT SIDE. Please everyone, take a moment and re-read that sentence, just so it sinks in. Not only was I driving on the wrong damn side of the road, but that was a MANUAL car. I had to use the clutch and shift gears and the whole sha-bang. Amazing stuff! Vide to be posted on facebook as well, probably when I get back to Sydney.

There were also a few rides to the river to cool off. The ride to the river itself is nice, beautiful countryside to canter through, but stripping off the saddle and riding the horse bareback is pretty neat too:

8)   I’m getting old. Seriously: I had 2 injuries during the course of the 14 days. Now there were of course minor cuts and bumps and bruises, along with a couple of mosquito bites, but I had 2 actual problems. One was my right ankle, which was just an accident. I got off the horse and landed wrong, so I crunched it a bit. I then did the same thing again about an hour later, and really crunched it that time. It only swelled up a teeny tiny bit, but I had to be careful on it for a few days, and sometimes going up or down stairs I’d lose stability in it. It’s all healed up now though (I think). The real major issue thought was my left knee. As soon as I got up on the saddle on day one, the left knee got tender, and riding hurt for the rest of my time at Garrawilla. I was really worried about it after the first ride, because the pain was quite sharp and my knee stayed quite tender for the rest of the night, but was fine the next morning. However as soon as I started riding again the pain came back. It was very confusing. I think it might be some sort of pinched nerve, and something about the angle of my leg while riding or the specific pressure on it sets off the pain. It always started within 1-2 minutes of riding, but other than the first day, I was usually able to walk it off within a half hour or so. Getting off the horse was tough though, I couldn’t get off on my right leg because my ankle couldn’t take the weight, and I couldn’t get off on my left leg because my knee wasn’t ready yet to take the impact. Good times! So while my confidence on a horse improved greatly, I didn’t get to hone my riding skills at all, which was disappointing. Once the pain started, I needed to keep my knee as immobile is possible, so little things like posting while trotting, kicking the horse to make him move, and asking him to turn was all painful, and downright near impossible once I was on the horse for an extended period of time. Good thing Willy was a follower, so I didn’t really have to direct him much. But sometimes some of the girls would leave the group and go after stray horses or cattle, and I could never try that because I couldn’t physically ask the horse to leave the pack. Once I get back to the real world, and have a job with insurance and all that, I will most certainly have a doctor look at this funny knee of mine. 20 bucks says he tells me I’m insane and there’s nothing wrong with it.

9)   The people: One of the major things that sucks about travelling is that as soon as you make friends, it’s time to pack up and leave them. Some of the girls I met at Garrawilla I know I will see again, but others, who knows? I had 2 wonderful roommates, Rosemarie and Britta, and I even learned some German at them farm, since Rosemarie is from Austria and Britta is from Germany. Britta taught us a German kiddy song, which I made myself memorize, and proceeded to drive everyone nuts with singing non-stop for the duration of the trip. Both the week 1 group and week 2 group (about half of us stayed the full 2 weeks) were wonderful, and in addition to having so many wonderful farm experiences, I am grateful to have met so many cool new people.

So that was that! We spent our last night together in Bingara, at the Sportsman’s Hotel again, and a few of us just had a grand ol’ time chatting away in the room. I even got a free massage, just for sharing my Internet access! While I certainly won’t miss 7 am (and sometimes 6 am) wake ups, fucking flies EVERYWHERE, and constantly having my shoes covered in poop, I had an amazing time at Jillaroo school, and was very happy with my decision to do it. It was so nice to be surrounded by so many animals. Such a cool experience, and I’ve got 500+ photos to remember it forever and always!

It’s off to Byron Bay now for the weekend, which is a hippie beach town of about 20,000 an hour south of the Queensland border. It’s sort of an Ithaca-by-the sea type place, only with more backpackers and nightclubs. After my weekend of Internet catch up in Byron, it’s off to surf camp! I’m starting in Byron Bay, and will surf my way down the coast back down to Sydney over the course of the week. For those of you out there who seem to be fixated on the idea of me getting eaten by a shark (you know who you are) this is ACTUALLY the first time where I’ll ask you to say a little prayer for me J

I’ll finish off with the quote of the trip, that only my fellow Jillaroo-ers who stumble across this will giggle at: piss off, dickhead!

Farewell, Sydney!

Well folks, the title of this one pretty much sums it up, doesn’t it? I’m out! Tonight is my very last night (ever, in all likelihood) of being a resident of Sydney. I’m starting this entry from my little townhouse in Enmore, although I imagine it will end up getting finished and posted sometime during my travels tomorrow. It’s been 4 months since I landed here, jobless, dazed and confused, not knowing a soul, with my 130 pounds of luggage and nowhere to live.  I’m now no longer confused, have been meaningfully employed, and probably have about 160 pounds of luggage. Success!

I’m a bit ambivalent about this phase coming to an end. While I’ll be back in Sydney several times before I get on that long flight home next summer (or winter… July. Let’s just call it next July), this is the end of me living and working here, and just enjoying being a resident. It would be so easy to just stay here, but I must remind myself that I did not set out to live for a year in Sydney – I set out for a year in Australia, so perhaps I should go out and see some more of it!

My last week here was quite the whirlwind. After my mother and aunt left, I headed in to my very last weekend at HSBC. It was pretty easy stuff, since Manila took most of the hours of phone coverage, which left us with the administrative stuff only. My last call ended up being informing a merchant as to why we couldn’t use the document he had sent in. Then 6 pm came, and that was that! My grand tally for number of calls taken? Any guesses? Anyone? No? Ok, ok, I’ll just tell you then. The grand total for 3 months of HSBC phone answering: 1,933. Now that number has a margin of error of about plus or minus 5. I kept track of my calls on an excel spreadsheet, and while I was super anal about it, it is possible that somewhere along the way I recorded a call twice, or perhaps skipped over one during a very busy time. But yeah, I answered the phone 1,933 times. In 3 months. I wonder how many calls I picked up at Bernstein in 3 years? Probably nowhere near that figure!

Sunday the 30^th was my last day, and it worked out nicely that Cheryl’s Halloween party was that night, so I had somewhere to go and unwind after a bit of a bittersweet day. I had asked Cheryl if she could make her famous “piggies” for me for dinner (everyone else at the party was going to get store-bought frozen dumplings), and she said of course, but asked if I could bring some Long Island Iced Teas with me. We had found them at one point pre-mixed in a 4 pack, and they were quite yummy. I said of course! Homemade chicken dumplings, in exchange for running to a liquor store and picking up a 4 pack.? No worries, mate!

Yeah, 17 liquor stores later I finally handed the merchant my debit card to pay for them. I went all over the CBD, Newtown, Enmore, and Paddington, before finally stumbling back into the place where we had found them originally, in Darlinghurst. 17 liquor stores in about 30 hours. I’d never faced so much rejection in my life. I had no intention of drinking any of them when I first set out to buy the pack, but I did drink some in the end. After 30 hours of searching, I wanted to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Anyway, the party was lots of fun, there was even Halloween themed trivia! There was also a pumpkin to be carved, because apparently pumpkin carving is a North American thing, and Aussies don’t do it. Towards the end the four of us that were left hung out on her balcony on the “patio furniture.” It was a good night.

Monday was back to work! New work anyway. I’d managed to get myself a part-time gig at a company called Red Balloon. I worked for the whole week, from Monday to Friday, 1 pm – 5 pm.  Any Australians out there, if you bought an “experience” voucher from Red Balloon during the week of October 31^st, then I was the one who mailed it to you!

www.redballoon.com.au

The work was easy and mindless. I mailed out the orders every day, and did a bit of stock work and data entry. I was able to wear jeans and sneakers too, which made me happy. The same place that had gotten me the Aquabocci drain gig back in July (my more diligent followers may remember that job) was responsible for this job as well. I really like that firm. They were great at keeping in touch with me, and seem to be good at coming up with super random short term gigs.

Red Balloon afternoons meant that I only had the mornings to get all my stuff done. It was a very stressful week. I had hours of journal writing to catch up on, about 5 loads of laundry, food to cook for the week, future trips and accommodation to book, a computer to back up, and an apartment to pack up and move out of. Plus there was NO way that I was cutting out gymnastics (I went to my usual Tuesday and Thursday night classes), and I had one last dumpling-a-thon to attend on Wednesday as well. Everything had to be packed up by Friday morning, since I had to get my stuff over to Cheryl’s for storing.  I think I have too much stuff. Getting those bags out of the house and up the street to the intersection where I could catch a taxi was NOT easy. Passers-by kept commenting on how heavy my stuff looked. You know what? If you see someone struggling with 130 pounds of luggage in hot, humid weather, walking UP a hill, then unless you are going to HELP them, then keep your peanut gallery comments to yourself. In the span of about 5 blocks, there must have been about a half dozen people whose faces I wanted to bash in.

In the end, I got it all done though. I got myself packed up and moved out, got my journal all caught up, went to gymnastics twice and had a lovely dumpling dinner outing with Cheryl and a couple of my HSBC coworkers. Soup dumplings at Din Tai Fung, followed by dinner part 2 at Chef’s Gallery. The food was all amazing. Sydney might have super crap pizza and crap Mexican food, but the Asian stuff is outstanding!

My last night in my little house in Enmore was spent booking the next phase of my excursions here. I am now set for plans up until January 9, 2012. So For the next 2 months, I more or less know where I will be going and what I will be doing. I will certainly miss my little house (even though it was a smidge dumpy J) and my comfy duvet and my queen-sized bed, but it was time to get out there and see what else awaits me! Phase 1 of the Australia trip has been ginormously successful. One of the things I wanted to do here was to live in one of the big cities, and make it my own home away from home. I certainly did that quite well. But now what, you may ask? Cattle mustering, that’s what!

Yup, I’m headed up to Bingara, in the northern past of New South Wales. I am going on my very own “City Slickers” adventure.  One of the other things I wanted to do in Australia was to spend some time up on a cattle station or ranch, so that’s what is being tackled next. Two weeks up in the country, living in a big farmhouse with no phones and no Internet. Horse riding, sheep shearing, and cattle mustering will fill my days, instead of phone calls, dumplings and gymnastics. I even had my mother bring me a Mets hat from home. I somehow neglected to bring one when I left, and if I’m going to be doing my own version of City Slickers, then I must wear a Mets hat! That’s what Billy Crystal wears in the movie, so that’s what I want to wear in my pictures as well. Yes, I am that big of a dork. After my two weeks at the cattle station, it’ll be off to Byron Bay for the weekend, and then surf camp!

I don’t anticipate having access to the internet again until after the cattle station class is over, so you’ll just have to wait on the edge of your seats for 2 weeks to find out how good of an Aussie Jillaroo I’ve become. In the event anyone is interested in the gritty details, here’s the website:

www.jjoz.com.au

So that’s that! Wish me luck everyone! Hopefully I won’t get trampled by a horse or knick a sheep while shearing it – I’m pretty sure they don’t enjoy that...