So this is another backlog notice. It has been so busy with the cattlework until yesterday that i haven't had any time to post or even much to write. It's pretty hard to do anything but come home and crash right after feasting. so just read the post right under this one first if you care about timelines. however if you happen to be a time traveller you are probably used to stuff like this so don't worry about it.
There have been major continental shifts in Delmore life
over the past couple days. Tom, a fixture of Delmore life, has left for greener
pastures, and the time of my new friends Espen and Rasmus has been cut
unexpectedly and unfortunately short. Delmore downs will miss the touch of
Danish in it’s accent for a long time coming. A few days ago it was just
Rasmus, Espen, Tom and I, and now there are seven new backpackers. There are
two English girls (Bridgett and Helen) an Aussie girl (Chloe) two Aussie guys
(Masa and Ji) a German girl (Tina) and Moroccan girl (Celine).
The arrival of Celine last night was extremely unexpected.
Ji was outside starting a fire and icame out to see how it was going. I said
“oh yeah Ji that looks good” and then I realized that I was talking to three
people that I had never seen before. You can’t imagine my shock. The only thing
that was running through my mind was how did they get here? We weren’t
expecting anyone because Don hadn’t told us anyone was coming let alone that we
should pick them up and we are in the middle of nowhere. But it turns out that
Celine’s boyfriend and a friend of his work on perma-culture in the aboriginal
communities in Utopia so they are familiar with the area and they just dropped
her off. I had a very interesting chat with one of the guys about working with
the aboriginals and how different projects work or don’t, and about how the
Australian government doesn’t really understand what the aboriginals want or
need. Waves of projects come in to the communities to try to help bring them
housing and this or that not really understanding the aboriginal worldview and
the projects always fail. For instance, western people live in houses, so we
see people sleeping in the dirt by the fire and we think “oh they must be poor
or uncomfortable”. But that is how they have lived for all their lives and
generations before that, so if you come in and build them a house they are very
likely not to see it as a house as an interestingly stacked pile of firewood.
And so on. So they are working on building gardens and orchards WITH the
communities and in the right places so that tey will feel they have more
ownership of it and be more likely to take care of it. But they were very cool
guys and Celine’s boyfriend lives in Darwin so I may have found myself a place
to stay when I go up there.
Anyway, so I learned to drive a car with snow on the road. I
learned how to drive a manual car driving cattle through the Australian bush.
Not only am I starting to get the hang of driving stick, but I did it while
herding cattle in the bush. You want the cattle to go really slow so they will
eat while they are walking and not burn too much energy, so you end up troding
along in first maybe second gear and going that slow in the bush it’s really
easy to stall out. So you get a lot of practice starting into first which was
the last thing I was trying to figure out how to do smoothly. But I got it and
I managed to get in some tearing around chasing cattle because at the end they
decided that they were just going to turn around and go the wrong way. While I
did do what I think was a good job herding the cattle, I did manage to put a
nice big spiderweb shaped crack in the windshield. We were walking them along
the edge of a creek and there were suddenly a lot of low scrubby trees around,
which the v8 ute I was driving usually passes through like they were paper, but
I found a branch that was just a bit too big AND bumped over some big logs at
the same time. I had to dig the back wheels out of the sand and seriously work
the four wheel drive, but we made it out.
I
have also been given the full (or mostly) bore tour of delmore so I am now set
to do some bore runs, and there are new people to look after the shop if need
be so I should see a bit more action than before I think. I’m moving up the
ladder.
It’s
funny, it’s really hard to think of what else has happened these past few days
despite the fact that so much crazy stuff has been happening. The crazy is
second nature to me now I suppose. *eye twitch
But
it is very strange having people that were like family just up and leave, and
I’m not really used to seeing this many new people all at once for a place so
remote. But I have so many friends here, I’m sure we will be even close over
the next few weeks as we live and work together we will be a new family.
Also with Tom leaving,, that makes me not only the oldest
person here, but the one here for the longest which is a bit weird being a sort
of elder on a cattle station. I didn’t really see it coming. . . . . . . .
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