Camfield Station, Katherine NT.

 

 

(the last of the back ordered blog posts).

The first thing that is hilarious about the title of this post is that although the station is technically in 'Katherine' NT, it is actually 380kms away from Katherine. That's just how BIG and REMOTE the Northern Territory of Australia is. The second hilarious thing about is that I am now working on such a farm, some 380kms away from 'civilisation'. By civilisation I mean Katherine, which is a town of 9000.

Even through the remoteness means I can't just go somewhere and be back in an hour (or in a day), the cattle station is like a whole little world. Not the mention the fact that its like a million hectors so there's plenty of places to wonder about (including a lake with fresh water crocs in it!). I went to check it out the first day we were here but didn't see any. This may have been because I was exercising an extreme degree of caution as I don't want and still want to avoid all 'dumb canadianism' that seems to occur to travels whilst travelling. Plus the closest hospital is well.....it would require airlifting.....which sounds expensive. Near the front entrance is where all the cattle pens are (which is for loading cattle to be sold, or moved, and unloading cattle newly arrived, etc). There are also some horse stables, then further along is the staff accommodations, the kitchen, outdoor dining area, the 'social club' (which is every day from 6 until 7), a couple of offices, guest houses (for truck drivers, pilots, etc).

When we arrived we met Marty. He saw us and came over to say hello when we first arrived. He gave us a little tour, and took us over to our house (that we are sharing with two young jackaroos), and then introduced me to the kiwi cook on her way home for Christmas. The cook then gave me a quick once around the kitchen, gave me a binder, told me everyone eats four meals a day and that I should try and not waste any food (move it along is the game here too!). The room we are living in is nice, is the oldest and probably most run down on the property. The toilets and showers are disgusting, but luckily the cook showed me her 'secret shed' which had a clean shower, toilet, washing machine and bathmat (I keep it my little secret).  As casual 'backpackers' I don't even think we make any sort of 'pecking order' in terms of where we get to stay, although I am the cook and I can make their culinary lives as I wish so they have to be nice to me. In actuality, the people here are great, really nice, friendly and well, cowboys who like to talk about cattle, horses, beef and cars. There is one other female on the farm, who is the managers wife (but her, the manger, and their 8 month old kid live in the house on the top of the hill looking over the property and so there isn't much informal chatty-ness between the two of us). Other than her, I am surrounded by cowboys ranging from 18 to 65. As they get older they get harder to understand though (I think it's the combination of Aussie accent and mumbling). Most call me Jessie, which I find amusing as well.

My job at the cattle station is the cook. I work when the boys work. This means I have to have breakfast, smoko (morning snack/tea), lunch and dinner made for them. This also means that I have to get up 45 minutes before them to make breakfast.....which has to be ready by 5 30....AM.  Smoko is at 9 30, lunch at 12 30 and dinner at 7, then i clean up my dishes (the boys clean their own), then I am off for the night. I can take a break in the afternoon.  Because we are in remote country, the stock room is stocked with the basics in terms of canned goods, meat, cheese, flour, etc. Not much is ready made (except for bread).....which is why they employ a cook full time. Up until this morning, I can safely say that I have never baked anything at 6 30 am before....nor have I ever baked Muffins, Scones, Potatoes (for lunch) and a Chocolate cake before 8 30. By 9 30 I had smoko of the table, and lunch half made. (for those interested, smoko was banana muffins, brownies (that I found in the freezer from the previous cook), scones with left over breakfast sausages and cheese melted on top, and some oranges, lunch was potatoes skins with left over corned beef (that I boiled myself!), veggies and cheese, and coleslaw, and dinner was bolognaise). I have eaten more beef in the last few days than i have my whole life.  But luckily because I am the cook, I can make my own meals (so I do), i can't handle the beef!!!

 

Things a city girl finds amusing about living on a remote farm.

 1) Mail arrives by plane once a week.

 2) Food arrives by transport truck one a fortnight (bi-weekly) for fresh stuff and monthly for dry goods

 3) The closest gas station charges over 2 dollars a litre for diesel.

4) There are frogs in the toilet.

5) A Frogs poo is half the size of my pinky finger (a fact I found out a couple of days after I got here...until then I thought we had rats....)

 

Things a city girl has learnt about people who live on remote cattle farms.

1) They are very resourceful.

2) They never stop working, and there's no end to the work that has to be done (including my job(s)).

3) They like beef. And lots of it.

4) Dirt is a way of life.

5) People must plan. Especially when the closest thing resembling a town is 300kms away.

6) "just around the corner" could mean 600 kms away, but, you will make three turns in that 600km, so I guess 'around the corner' is correct.

7) any farm smaller than 2000 Hectars is considered a "hobbie farm"

Coober Pedy, S.A. a.k.a White man in a hole

 

Coober pedy is translated from the local aborigine peoples translate as 'white man in a whole'. It is where 90% of Australian opal is mined. Australia is the largest exporter of Opal in the world, so if you're wearing opals chances are they came from a mine around here (or there, i guess). For anyone interested, currently the largest markets for bulk opal sales are (in order), China, India, Germany, and Russia. Opals are sold in three different ways, solids, doubles and triplets. The solids are exactly as they sound. They are solid opal and cost the most to buy, doubles have two layers (see? Very simple), the top layer is the opal and the second layer is dark backing (brings the price of jewellery down). The last type is called a triplet, and has three layers. The first layer is the black backing, followed by the opal (this time a sliver), and topped with a layer of clear quartz. You can tell a triplet is a triplet if there is a clear bubble on top of the jewellery. This is the cheapest way to make opal jewellery essentially because you are buying only 1mm of opal (compared to a solid opal which can be much much bigger!). As our Vietnam tour guide, Phat, would say "You get what you Pay for". To mine opal, miners first go prospecting.

The first thing a prospector does is look for a fault line. (The fault lines were created by a series of earth quakes a ba-zillion years ago). To find a fault line they essentially walk through the desert with two metal rods held in parallel lines. When the rods open that signals the beginning of the fault line. Once they've found the beginning, they continue walking (ideally through the fault line until the medal rods criss cross. This marks the end of the fault line. (Nota Bena: I can't remember if the crisscross is the beginning or the end of the faultline, so what I just said could be backwards). Once they've found the area where the fault line is they drill a 20cm by 10-15m whole to bring up the rock, sediment, and sandstone. The opal will be in the sandstone, if there is opal, and enough of it, the prospector turns into a minor and digs a bigger whole (this time 1 m wide) and goes down to inspect their potential opal score. They take a black light with them because opals glow under a black light. (Apparently this is the allure of opals in the Indian market, they glow in the nightclub, and also a way of telling whether an opal is real or fake). Oh yah, and the opal will be in the sandstone. If the miner decides that he (or she) wants to get at the opal they have two options. One, they use tunnelling machine to make a bigger whole (to become a mine). A very strong electric vacuum cleaner helps get rid of the earth (which makes those mounds of soil all over Coober Pedy). The second option (for those who can't afford the tunnelling machines), use homemade bombs and up to 1000 per day. Traditionally the miners wives would make the bombs at night, for the miners to take with them the next day (along with their lunch, it also explains the love divorce rate in CP, a short fuses are easy to make.....). The bombs used to cost 9 cents per bomb, but now due to new rules and regulations post 9-11, the materials needed for the sticks cost 9 dollars and require seven different licenses, meaning that the price of opals with increase and the 'little' opal guys are out of business. All the bombs are lit by hand. The bomb lighters follow three basic rules, 1)once lit, either leave, or turn on the vacuum cleaner (and walk about 7m away from the bomb), if you stay 2) open your mouth and put your hands over your ears (to be protected from the shock waves), 3) count the explosions. If they plant 10 bombs, they have to make sure they all go off. If they don't they have to go find them....... Once the mine is made the miner takes their black light and hand chisels every single opal out of the sandstone, then they are cleaned, sorted and sold. In Coober Pedy, there are 2.5 million prospector wholes of varying sizes. Tourist apparently fall into them while walking backwards taking pictures. There are tourist caution signs all over town advising everyone to watch out.

From the information provided above, one can probably guess that we went on an Opal mine tour while visiting Coober Pedy, a pretty desolate town 680 km south of Alice Springs. Coober Pedy is also known for their unique style of living. Underground. Why you say? Because underground the temperature stays at 23 degrees all year round (where as outside, in summer the mercury rises to 50 degrees C, and winter nights can go below freezing!). So underground is the best option (not to mention the savings on air conditioning). The first underground homes where old mining shafts, but now they are specifically dug to the specifications of the home owner. It's a pretty cool idea, but the only problem with underground homes is that the curb appeal is lacking. As my trust Lonely Plant book describes it, " with swarms of flies, no trees, ...   cave dwelling locals and rusty car wrecks in every second front yard, you might think you've arrived in a post-apocalyptic  hell hole" But the locals are friendly, from all over the world (literally, Germany, Scotland, Sri Lanka, Croatia, Italy,etc). Thereare also a Serbian Orthodox Underground Church, and underground Catholic Church and I think a protestant church (but I am not sure if it was underground).  It also drives home the aborigine translation of the town's name. They really are white men in holes (whether working, or living in them).

When we arrived in Coober Pedy (and after taking the MUST picture of the town sign), we went to find a place to stay the night. We ended up at  a place called Redeka's underground hostal were we got a room 6.5m below ground. It was really like a cave / bunker style and slightly creepy. I had to remind myself that this was just like sleeping in a basement sans windows or natural light, but it was still kind of creepy. In the morning we actually woke up with some of the ceiling minerals on top of the covers.....and it was  cold and damp night. I am assuming the proper homes of the locals have a bit better ventilation, the church we visited did . But it was an experience, right? The toilets were alright, although 6 toilets for more than 40 people meant that there were lots of traffic jams. The guy at the reception reminded me of an old country hill billy complete with proper outback rimmed hat and a long straggly salt and pepper beard and white tank top (called a singlet here). There was also a giant winch, which was really pretty at sunset. Also, the giant wench sits atop one of the highest points in CP  where you can see the whole town, plus the vast-ness of living in the middle of the outback. CP is also home to the Outback drive in, which coincidently was playing a film the night we were there. It was the facebook movie "The Social Network". Best outback big screen in the outback.

We left Coober Pedy bright and early Sunday morning (along with all out food in the Hostel fridge). Woops.

Woomera, South Australia

 

This morning we woke up in Woomera, South Australia. We were headed to Coober Pedy, but decided to first explore the tiny town of woomera. Like I said before, it's an old space science town. I am not sure if there is a standard definition to describe what exactly a 'space town' is, but still it's the best thing I can offer.

 

 Seeing Woomera in the day light made it clear that it was a town built in the 60s, even the bus stops had a night 60's art deco flare to them. It was also evident that the town was once much bigger, and perhaps more important, than it is today having its own swimming pool, three churches, a movie theatre (which shows movies every other Saturday these days), a couple of large playgrounds and the huge hotel (once the housing for the scientists). Not all the scientists moved out, just the foreigners left, the Australian National Defence department still have offices there (and I think they must still be testing things here, I guess the best place to test rockets is in the desert, right?).

 

 The city's past is documented in the heritage centre (which is also a cafeteria, bowling ally and souvenir shop), the lions club of Woomera supports the Woomera Missile Park, which is a park with left over rockets, bombs, planes and anti-aircraft machines in the town centre. It was really neat to see them all just there in the middle of the city centre assembled like a little park. It also drove the point home about the history of the town itself.

 

Along the way to Coober Pedy we drove 350 km through the outback passed huge dried up salt water lakes, which are massive and have a layer of salt on top of the sand. It actually looks a bit like snow. There was one where we actually got to park the car and walk around the lake. The salt crystal was impressively big and perfectly square. The middle of the lake also had remnants of the old Ghan railway that was moved to higher ground in the 1980s because lakes like the one we stopped at kept washing out the tracks. Walking to the lake (which was about 200m, there was also a old rusty car shell which has definitely seen better days).

That’s Serious Road Kill

Port Augusta to Pimba and Woomera, South Australia.

We weren't too too impressed by Port Augusta, i think primarily because it was bigger than the standard towns we'd visited over the last two days and we didn't feel like figuring out where everything was. We've grown accustomed to towns where everything you need is within a 5 block square radius, we're spoiled by simplicity I guess.   We decided to hit welcome centre for maps and a quick chat with one of the people there about the highway conditions and things we should know (like where petrol is, and where the last water stop is etc).We  then  ventured another 170 km north along the Stewart Highway to a small town called Woomera.

The Stewart Highway is long and flat. And is the only sealed road up the middle of Australia. When we turned onto the highway, our GPS told us to drive 1250km then turn left. 1250 KMs to Alice Springs! Take a 8 km detour through the town and continue another 600km to our final destination. Along the way we saw several road trains (that have now doubled in size and have fixed roo bars on them). In Port Augusta we were told to be careful of animals on the highway (and the highway has caution signs in five different languages),  and i noticed an increase in cars with roo (also called bull) bars.....used for night driving in the outback. It was here that I saw my first road kill of the trip. A cow. Yes, a 300kg specimen of road kill........most likely hit by a transport truck.......serious road kill my friends.....

Woomera is a pretty neat place, established in 1947 as a joint project venture between Australia and the UK to test rockets and missiles. It was here that Australia's first satellite was developed, and sent into orbit called the 'Red Stone'. The town later became the home to the European Launcher Development Organisation and then NASA moved in 25 km from Woomera to get some action in the space development going on in the area. Acutually, the Americans were here operating a deep space tracking station.....The whole town was actually closed to the public until 1982. While still administered by the Australian military today (and it looks like it too! Very military style), there is one hotel.

The Eldo Hotel. It once was the residence for all the European and American scientists living and working in the area.  Its organised into blocks and is huge! Very clean, very nice and very interesting, cinderblocks included. It actually looks like a 1970s university dorm. I was glad that there was vacancy in the hotel as the next closest hotel was 175 km away......

Tomorrow we're slated to explore the rockets on display at the Woomera town centre, and then head to Coober Petty, translated as 'white man in a whole' in the local aborigine language.

Broken Hill, Silverton and Mannahill. The Road to Katherine Continues....

 

 

Day two of driving in the outback left us 750 kilometers from Broken Hill, through an additional quarantine station (and impromptu pig out on apples, cucumbers, and a carrot all banned from entering South Australia), past Port Augusta to the small outback town of Woomera. We left the hostel bright and early Friday morning, did a quick twirl around the city, checked out the mines, streets off the highway,  and headed to a petrol station to fill up the tank for the long drive ahead. We also stopped in an outback store and I got a hat (yes, one of those cowboy hats that we were told to bring to the farm), some mozzie repellant for the bruuuuutal mozzies and a head net (for the blasted flies that seem to love smashing into one's head).  The hat is very comfortable and leather and well you know what they say about being in Rome, right? We also supported a small local supplies store and not a k-mart, which I think is a good thing.

After the impromptu shop, we took a 25 km detour to a small, ghost town called Silverton. The town made famous by the Mad Max movie and currently has a population of 8 across the hotel, cafe, mad max museum and a coin carver. Yes, a coin carver a chatty old man named Andy Jenkins who carves the back sides of Australian pennies (not in circulation, everything here is rounded up or down) and sells them as pennants. We stopped in to see the action and had a lovely chat with him. He told us that he'd grown up in Broken Hill and is planning on moving south once his wife retires. We stopped to have a look at the Mad Max Museum, and had a snack at the cafe. I had a spider, which turned out to be a coke float. I'm not sure why they call them spiders though...i should have asked, even if it meant i'd have to play the stupid tourist card.. the town itself was neat to see, although due to a lack of building materials in the area, most of the homes that once were in Silverton are actually in Broken Hill (which were moved after the boom-town of Silverton lost it's boom at the end of the 19^th century). They had a couple of other things to do and see including the Silverton Gaol (and old jail built in 1888, Australia was a convicts island after all), the Silverton hotel, and two very tiny churches. By tiny i mean enough to hold about 10 people.

After Silverton, we got in the car and headed west, stopping at a roadhouse for a stretch and a toilet. The town was called Mannahill and had a population of 7.  Outside the toilets, there was a sign for a roadhouse, selling goods, coffee, etc. It also said that the owners were having trouble keeping the place going, and that every dollar helps. We decided to check it out. Inside the Roadhouse there were three large tables, a little Christmas display (by the fireplace), and a small women behind the bar. We ordered some coffees and while she was preparing them, went into a tiny history museum of relics the women had collected from around the town. We later found out that the town used to be bustling when it was a train stop on the Ghan railroad, the famous and only rail line running from Adelaide to Darwin. The train stopped coming in the 60s and the town went from 200+ to 7. We were also told that recently someone moved into town and opened a refreshment shop 50 m from the road house and had stolen her business. From there we drove anther 150 kms through the outback, a road that is so straight that you can't see the end of it, and very very flat. At some points you could even see how the earth curves. The occasional transport truck livened things up...and towns were few and far far between.

After the coffee break, we got back on the road to South Australia, stopping only to have lunch, consisting of eating all the fruit and vegetables we were carrying that were banned from the state. It's funny because we had an impromptu fruit binge the day before when we entered our first quarantined area....I down two apples and a peach in 10minutes ....entering South Australia also meant that we were only 200 km from our initial final stop, Port Augusta. Port Augusta is the last stop before heading North, and the only place in Australia that connects to every point in the city.  En route we made a detour to elephant gorge, climbing a large hill overlooking the Flinders Range, and went to see a 500 year old Gum tree. Oh, and we drove through several swarms of lotuses, which in the heavy bits sounded like a mix of hail and pebbles hitting the car .After hitting a few swarms of them we could barley see through the front window due to all the guts from the lotuses. It was so bad,   It took us twenty minutes of DIY carwash scrubbing to get all the remnants of the bugs out of the car front.....

 

On the Road Again!

(this post is post-dated).....

Yup, 'tis true we're on the road again...this time via the great Australian Outback (which is unfortunately not the famous red dirt road....it's currently green because of all the rain this year). While the plans were to slowly make our way around this massive country (and continent), the tides have turned and a neat job offer on a cattle station has left us packing up the 16 year old 4WD and driving 4000 km through the desert.  Sounds like an adventure right?

Although I haven't finished (or hell, even started to talk about Vietnam and Cambodia)), I thought it best to skip through them and periodically venture into the world of Asian blogging in the future. For now, I must capture the now and with the help of a trusty laptop this can be done!

We left Sydney on Wednesday (a day early, which is why I haven't called home yet). We decided to get a jump start on the road to ease a bit of the driving allotted for the first day. It's good we did because it took us a while to get of the Blue Mountain Range west of Sydney. We brought a tent along for cheap accommodations (and a true 'outback' experience), and stayed the first night in Mudgee.

The camping ground wasn't exactly Ontario Parks style; in fact, it felt more like a trailer park to me.  We made camp in the 'grassy' open field behind all the semi to fully permanent caravans, which at first seemed nice as we were the only ones in the field. ....then I noticed the birds, then when they stopped attacking each other, the mozzies and flies showed up.  Oh man, by the time we got the tent pitched, a dinner half cooking we'd collectively received closed to a million bites, and I had more bugs flying at my head than I cared for. I think I few might have even ended up in the frying pan (We could barely see the food, and when it was done we quickly scooped it out, then inhaled it so we could get out of the flies (I guess the 'no food in the tent'  rule has stuck with me). Within 15 minutes of this occurring we were sleeping.......i guess when times dictate it, one really can get a move on....and one can suddenly become very tired at 9pm....

Going to bed so early i guess isn't so bad when one is awoke at 5 am by the very same birds that so pleasantly greeted us on the way in....this time the noise was like a symphony though, and while a 5 am wake up call is not ideal, the  Galahs waking up a sleepy camper is a much better alarm than the standard buzzzzzzz of my travel alarm clock.....we spent enough time to eat, pack up and use the 'facilities', then sped off 800 km to a small mining town called Broken Hill.

While the swarming bugs, moths and all things flying were enough to make even a bug lover nuts (is there such a thing as a bug lover?), the morning toilets were pretty interesting in terms of bugs.....there was one that looked like an ordinary house fly who ate an enlargement cookie from Alice in Wonderland. It was the size of my entire hand!  I would have taken a picture, but my approach to this sort of thing was 'do no disturb the unmoving thing, it has wings, and you don't want it flying at you". I told max about it and he told me that when those things get stuck in a mosquito electric trap, then tend to sizzle.....ewwwwwwww

Leaving the camp site at 7 am, arriving in Broken Hill at 7 pm, with a short sojourn in Dubbo meant a very long day of driving.....at one point the GPS said, "in 100 meters enter roundabout. Take third exit. Drive 547 kilometers"..... you could practically see that 547 kilometres in the distance (the road is THAT long and THAT straight). I think this is probably what the Canadian prairies look like....minus the 'watch out for kangaroos' signs posted everywhere.

In the 700 km between Dubbo and Broken Hill we drove through exactly three towns.  One, Nyngan, two, Cobar , (the first mining town on the route, copper is the name of its gain), the third town was Wilcannia.....I don't even remember going through this one....really...primarily because by 'town' they could mean anything from a small town to a gas station on the side of the road….then we hit  Broken Hill, population 18 000, home of BHP Billiton, the largest mining company in Australia. (this is where it started).  The town itself is quite large for outback standards, and we were excited to see a town after driving for 3 hours, passing exactly four transport trucks (called road trains here), and two other vans of backpackers. One neat thing about Broken Hill is that they have an art gallery with Picasso and a Dali painting (which is impressive seeing as it is about 800km from a town over 30 000 people, and all the streets in this town are named after metals. We stayed on Argent street (at a backpackers),  other streets included Silver st, Cobalt St, Bromide St, sulphide st,  and garnet street. Pretty cool I thought.

 

Tech-in-da-Bush

I (think) I've finally figured out how to work technology in the Bush....so they'll be plenty of post coming your way!

Right now, I'm thinking about everyone, especially those remembering Garnie, a lovely man with a kind heart and even funnier sense of humour. Mac-a-momo anyone?

 

So many people have contacted me asking where I was, why I was there and how did I get there. Easy questions with long adventurous answers, and so I shall retell them over the course of the next few days.....as I wrote them on the long drive up here (to where I am, which is the Northern Territory of Australia). 360 km from anywhere bigger than a roadhouse.

 

As an update from my end, in the middle of no where, things here have gone slightly mental. We had something like 15 people here for a couple of days (which meant waaaay to much cooking....having to make 30 and35 eggs every morning for four days was splendid ;)). really at 4 45 am... a greasy breaky is the last thing I want to see, touch, or smell.....I also have made some Canadian/North American things and had to laugh when I watched the aussie eat them. For example, Tacos. We had to explain to one of the guys what to do because he was dumbfounded by all the bowls of toppings sitting on the table in the kitchen. I think he looked slightly scared. Second, baked potatoes in foil (400 degrees, 1 hr Thanks Dad and Kelly!). Everyone looked at me and asked what to do with them. Then when I told them they were potatoes they looked at me like I hadn't finished making dinner, then took them out of the foil before putting them on their plates. I later found out that this was not a typical aussie thing . Then I made that famous 5-layer Mexican dip (you know the one with beans, and sour cream and cheese and salsa?). hehe. they ate it like soup, in a bowl with a spoon.

 

In terms of weather. We have been lucky that the flooding hasn't hit us. It's been raining and the yards are really muddy, but the heat of the searing sun in the afternoon usually wipes away all traces of rain anyway.

 

In terms of bugs. they are still here.  We was an infestation of flying ants/termites (that come with the rain) for a couple of days, it was annoying, but interesting all these ants arrived by flight, then shed their wings and roamed around. (of course, they didn't clean up after themselves, so we have ant wings all over the place). Apparently they are a sign of rain. It did rain for three days after that (including one massive thunder storm). The lightening storms occur almost every night, and they are really neat to watch because the farm is silent, but the sky just lights up like fire works. The storm is too far away to hear the thunder (or bring rain), so you can just stand outside watching it fairly comfortably…..last night was particularly cool because there were four of them happening at the same time (in different parts of the sky).

 

There are still lots of toads hopping around, but we have a bit of a toad cemetery on the main road of the station when Des, the truck driver came through with his transport truck. He managed to smooosh 6 rolling into his parking spot in the back of the 'camp'.

 

Lastly, I still think early mornings are evil.

 

So the next few posts will be out of order, recounting the 4000 kms to Camfield. Enjoy!

 

p.s. I would and should and wish I could post some pictures but the internet speed will not allow it. You'll have to endure more detailed accounts I suppose. Sorry J