Everyone from Glen Ayle out on the porch

My really big bruise

Shearing the sheep (or something!)

It doesn't really hurn 'im

A kangaroo with bad aim

"I drew tons of pictures,
we went swimming
in the gravel pit"

Utes are the pick-ups around here

At the rodeo

Which way to...

A park

A real Australian tea!

Some pretty flowers

At the zoo

Sunset in Oz

Camping in the park

Me and Aunti Linda at Ayers Rock

Waiting in the airport lounge

January 5 January 15 January 27 February 7 February 10 March 2

Journal Entry - March 2, 2003

Well, I am back in Perth. What a great time I had. duh. The flight was delayed, I got in to Jundee late but I was immediately in the bush. The runway was dirt and the public toilets were outhouses. The first thing I did after meeting the two Colins in thier hats was go to the bathroom. First I slammed my finger trying to latch the door then jumped at a little lizard scooting around as I tried to get back out. Hi-yiy, I can't even handle going to the bathroom out here. After that it was total confusion. We walked on over to the truck as Colin apolagised for not bringing the truck. Alrught, a semi truck is thier truck and this little pick-up was a flatbed landrover. We needed to go to some town called Melrose. There was a stop at a bar that was for the miners so it limited how many drinks each person could buy. So I was given some money for a 6 pack and we were on our way. There was a stop by a cattle trailor and there was a house nearby but it was owned by the mine. Like I said, i was lost. 45 min. later we were at a station. "We're here," Glen Ayle already? They had said it was a 3 hr drive!. It turned out to be Milrose, a station, not a town and they were related to the Glen Ayle people and I had called them as another potential wooffer family. Whatever. A 3 hr drive and another stop and I was at Glen Ayle in the semi truck. They also brought up 2 german girls that were visting Milrose. One of my first outback experiances was feeding the cats and dogs. That meant zooming around in the sand with a gun toting driver who quickly shot, gutted and quartered a kangaroo. The legs were hung on the bull bar for the trip home and then thrown out on the lawn. A bit differant than the petting zoos.

First thing was helping to put up a yard, basically carrying chainsaws, watching the guys carry rails and feeling like a total wimp. The next day was checking fences, I got to learn to use a wire stretcher which they call a strainer. I dug posts, split old rails and Colin even let me drive. Awesome. I still felt like a total wuss as a huffed and puffed while I dug that first hole. Once we were back in the car I found I already had a torn blister. One post! Within the next 3 holes I had 6 blisters. After that I wore gloves and didn't close my hands much. On Sunday morning the parents left for Geraldton and Perth and I was left with Colin, Colin, Jessica and Henry, the grandfather. Ages: 22, 19, 18, 82.

So, I slowly figured things out. This is a sort of slow time, no big mustering or anything going on just maintance and things. Days varied of course but all in all a normal day was something like this: I woke up and stared at the clouds then I'd wait till the sun was fully risen and shining in my eyes. I would take my wrought iron bed and drag it back under the overhang. I slept in the quarters. There were 4 rooms 2 had beds, one had Colin's stuff. Now, one way to avoid confusion is that on the station there was Colin and Colin Laurintson. From now on I will call the hired help Lawrence. Got it? So Lawrence had his stuff in one room and his bed out under the over hang. The last room was a bathroom. These places have a bathroom and a toilet. The toilet was out around the corner.

I would get to the house at about 6:30. Everyone sleeps somewhere on the wrap-around porch so it was easy to see who was still in bed. I would heat up some bubble and squeak, also known as twitter and whistle (left-overs for us boring english speakers). Mix up some formula for the calves, feed the cats. These cats also had real cat food, I think it was sort of a morning treat. Sometimes there was dishes but no usually. There was usually clothes to hang up. I would hang up my clothes to dry and they'd be dry by 9:00. Everyone else was up by 7:00 or 7:30. We'd have brekky, Henry would come over for his tea and then it was sort of lazing around, packing an esky (cooler) and heading out to drive some long distance. Lunch for 3 people had everything, fruit cups, crackers, lamb chops, cordial (pronounced cor-dee-al), bread, jam, butter, soy sauce, garlic salt, sometimes cake, coke, and ice of course.

We would pile into the Land Rover. I sat in the middle between Lawrence and a .248. Shoot, I can't remember numbers, I think that's the kind of gun it was. Lawrence heald onto his .22 which he used to randomly shoot at the emus. Driving started out quiet and was always bumpy. You would watch the road to see how the dirver was going to maneuvar throgh the ruts and bumps, rocks, dead trees. You could watch the land scape for things to shoot at like camels and dingos or you could watch the dash board to see what was going to jostle into your lap. Will it be the knife? A cassette tape or the belt of .22 bullets? The day was an endless rotation of mixed tapes. most were made from the same 6 cds.

Our destination was to check on windmills, there are 55 on the place, or fences. The porperty is sort of oblong. 180k E to W and 40 k Nto S. So there is the East run, West run and Sheep paddocks in the south. They have 4000 cattle and 4000 sheep on the side. The major part of driving was to bait traps. Kill dingos. They would take a camel hump, let it set for 2 days and get real rancid then cut it into little cubes, poke a hole in each and stuff a pill in. These were laid out every 400 m or so along the road, 2 to each spot. we layed about 100 at a time, that's a lot of stops. It was sort of strange. Killing something was such a major part of the day. Besides the baits and camels, and dingo to watch for there was also the occasional sick or wounded kangaroo, including the one that jumped infront of us. We'd be off doing that then Colin would spot some camels in the distance and we'd veer off the road, line up the sights and Lawrence would drop them one by one. The others would sort of watch, just blinking. When a couple would fall the others would start loping but as soon as you got to the last camel it would stop and just look around at it's friends till Lawrence dropped that one too. It was real sad. The first day was spent explaining to me why everything had to die. Like, I'm a vegan. I still felt bad. I heald the bullets so Lawrence could reload faster. It took quite a while to convince them that I know some country stuff. Do I know what a halter looks like? Do I know that tadpoles turn into frogs? There was still the confusion with accents and lingo. My favorite for that was car talk. Colin was explaining bucket seats and bitch seats. Excuse me? Yes, the back seat was a bitch seat. I didn't want to know why this was called that. But I hoped it was just a misunderstanding. I kept asking Colin questions so he had to keep saying bitch seat until it clicked that it was bENch seat. They say "binch" I told that to the family later that night and Colin was just greatful I hadn't slapped him on the spot. Hey, I never thought of that. I had been sitting in the backseat though.

We had some water fights, I got bit by thier dog in the process, I drew tons of pictures, we went swimming in the gravel pit, there was weeding and I automatically became the cook. I tried to immitate thier mother. Tea (supper) was pumpkin (squash), beans, steak, potatoes, salad, canned pineapple, and bread. All these supplies are brought on the mail on Thurs. I was talking to the grandmother and she said that the mail truck used to bring the gas, and feed as well as the food and the mail. The mail man stays for supper when he arrives around 7:30 or 8:00. Tea was usually at 7:30.

I was to take the same flight home on Friday the 28th but I got bumped. See the miners fly in and out of Jundee and any open seats are available to the public. Well, Friday had a bunch of head honchos fly up and so I was out a seat. Lucky me, Jessica and Lawrene were leaving for Geraldton over 400k away. It was a great road trip. I met Lawrences family, saw Wiluna and Meekatharra. Little towns. In Wiluna there was a shuttle bus of miners. They come to the one conveniance store, sit out front and catcall to all the girls and rip on the guys. We all 3 got it as we did our various stuff. Lawrence drove his ute and we were in Jessica's. Utes are the pick-ups around here. They deck them out with roll bars, bull bars, flood lights and bumper stickers but they are an El Camino. Just wierd. In Geraldton I got shuffled around, met all the relatives that I had seen photos of and heard stories about and then got to see Lawrence ride in the rodeo. I got to go to a rodeo. My firts ever. Oh I got heck for living in th US and never going to a rodeo. I told them they were too far away. Poor excuse, I guess. From Geraldton I caught a bus to Perth, got in late last night and stayed up talking with the other hostelers. When I had left it was full of Germans, now it's Irish. I can't get over how funny the irish are. I was talking to one of them about jokes. They don't have jokes, they are just cracking stuff all the time. Last night whenever the girlfriend would go off to assist some guest her boyfirend would start yelling out,"hey, hey, I'm timing you two. I've killed a man before. With my bare hands. And a gun." Time is running out. My bags are packed and I'll be getting on the train to Sydney once again. Ugh. Talk to you later.

Aunti Linda, you and Gary have to come to Glen Ayle. They are so nice, they'd show you around, you could see another cattle place and I bet Gary would like shooting the camels.

Kimmy, don't you waste any time either. I'll be sendig you pictures of your Colin. And his ute.

Journal Entry - February 10, 2003

well, I'm off, it's been great to be able to keep on top of E-mails these past few days. A couple people asked for the address of where I'll be staying. What a great idea. I would love to get mail. So, I fly out Feb. 28 so any time between now and then I could recieve mail! Can you believe that? Glen Ayle is the station, Wiluna is the town it's nearest and then that's the zip code. That's it. NW was just an afterthought because I couldn't believe that's all it would take to get a letter out there. You might be able to even find Wiluna on a map. I haven't looked. I'll talk to ya'll later.

Dad, can you send me the website for sunsets and moons and all that. You can follow dates and times anywhere, right?

Love,
Rachael

Journal Entry - February 7, 2003

so, it seems like weeks ago I took the train back to Brisbane to visit Justin my old contact in Paris. The few days I spent were pretty fun. We didn't do much, went to the beech met some of his friends, I got to ride in a car. I didn't realize what a rare thing that is. He was very welcoming and it was hard to explain that I really needed to keep traveling. I was real restless to go to Perth. Well, everything worked out. I was able to highly offend him and I left as planned. I'm actually a little paranoid to talk about it because it makes me wonder who else I am able to alienate with one sentance. Well, I guess you know me retty well? I will just say it was my radical religous beliefs, he's a little too modern to ccept an opinion. All ties have been severed. Interesting relationship. Meet for one day in Paris in Sept 2000, meet up again for 3 days in Brisbane in 2003 and then never speak to each other again.

From Sydney to Perth it is 3 nights on a train and some hours. I used Aunti Linda's pass to get myself my own 2 seats to lay across but they booked us across the aisle from each other. I met a great lady named Jacabed (with a "Y" sound for "J"). She even bought me food. I wanted so badly not to buy any food but I gave in when we stopped in Brokenhill. I bought 3 kilos of oranges and 3 grapefruit and some All Bran and milk. It was cheap stuff. All I had was a can of fruit and a handful of crushed Meusli. Anyways, she was very very nice. I found out in Adelaide that no fruit is allowed in Perth so I was gorging myself with oranges. I think it was about 14. I finished the last one when we were about 15 min from the customs checkpoint and then I found the 3 grapefruit. I ended up handing over one grapefruit. I was pretty proud of myself for not wasting much fruit but I don't think I'll do it on the way back. So, I left Sydney at 2:55 on Monday morning and arrived in Perth at 9:30 Thursday morning, the time differance makes Perth 2 hr. earlier.

I found a great hostel right up the road from the train station. Perth is wonderful, free trains and buses to town, the internet here is free, free toast and tea in the morning (the complimentary hostel breakfast). I went shopping as soon as I dropped my stuff. It's like I had to make up for all my saving on the train. I spent so much money, clothes. There is a reason to my madness I have an awesome trip coming up on Tuesday. I've been calling around to cattle stations hoping to get the real outback experiance. Did I tell you about WOOFF? It's a program where you pay $50 for a book of addresses all over Australia of places you can work at in exchange for room and board. I saved the $50 and copied a couple of promising addresses and went from there. I actually got redirected by one of the cattle stations to another place. Glen Ayle, over 700,000 acres, 4,000 head of cattle. They are the nicest sounding people. It's a husband and wife, their son and daughter, who I think are my age or older and a hired hand or two. I'm not sure. On Tuesday I fly in some 40 or 50 passenger miner plain. I guess it transports miners who are changing shifts. It will be a 2 hr flight to Jundee and I will be picked up by Collin and Collin, the son and hired hand. From there it is another 3 hr drive back to thier place. The nearest town is 280k away. SO COOL. It was funny, Pam, the mother couldn't believe I wanted to come. She kept reminding me how hot and isolated and far away it all is. "Do you still want to come?" She kept asking. I don't know if they have horses or not, I didn't want to be disappointed. The thing they don't have is a computer, let alone internet. So I have access to this free internet till Tues. morning, I'll be checking and writing more and after that it's into the outback. My return in already arranged for Feb. 28. I'll probably be coming and staying here again till March 3 when I take the train back to Sydney. I have my plane ticket to New Zealand for March 11. Alright, got that all? For a while there I had so many dates an times to hold on to. It's real nerve racking. My whole trip is in an envelope. Other than that, that's about it. Just one more thing, in about 5 yrs if I start talking about letting someone else cut my hair please stop me. I don't want to talk about it.

love,
Rachael

Journal Entry-January 27, 2003

Well you should be landing in Minneapolis as I write this Aunti Linda. She flew out yesterday afternoon. What a bummer. These last few days sort were sort of ho-hum. I was distracted about thinking of what to do next. I had no plan. I did a lot of walking and asking. I am trying to find the amazing deal to New Zealand but it hasn't popped up yet. I don't knw if that means that I should just wait or what. I did get a reservation to Brisbane. So I will be going up there once again. This time I hope to meet up with an old pal that I met in Paris in 2000. Isn't that wierd? By the way, this is unlimited access e-mail so prepare for a long drawn out message.

These past few weeks: We stayed a couple nights in Adelaide, I watched tons of movies and we went to the immigration museum, very interesting. No parks. In Melbourne we did some hostel hopping and ended up staying at the Oslo Hotel. We did go and appreciate the beech, it had a naked lady, a crazy man and a group of guys that couldn't throw a football. I wanted to throw with them so badly. Show them how it's done. They were almost below my level of ability. That's pretty bad. We spent a sleepless night on the train, met some nice and generous ladies. And now I've been in Sydney for 6 days. I am really looking forward to leaving. I want to get to the out back. I'll be going to Perth and making the most of my train pass soon. I want to work on a cattle station. Writing about plans is a waste of time. This is my distracting dilema right now. There is a pair of cool Dr. Marten sandals on sale for $90 AUS. That's $54 US. I'd never find Dr. Martens for that price at home. They are supposed to be great and last a long time and my sandals are almost shot- but $54 when I'm trying to drastically cut my budget? Hmmm. I think I'm sold. We went to the aquarium for one day. How's that for travel adventure? Last night I walked down to the frieght liner loading docks and talked to the guard about a stewing travel idea. I think I'm getting drowsy from lack of movement. 6days, it's time to go, the hostel people are hostile. There's a backpacking girl from UK with more high heels with her than what I have at home- ok, I don't have high heels- she has more than my mom has at home. Look at that I got back to the topic of shoes. Sorry you guys. I'll talk to you later.

Love,
Rachael

Journal Entry-January 15, 2003

So, how long has it been? First of all, I can't believe all the e-mails I got thankyou! I guess this is the best way to get people to write to you. Hey, all. We are about to head out on the train to Melbourne in 4 hrs. Justin, I'm going to call you and see about coming to Brisbane but I won't even be thinking about it till after Jan. 27.

These last days have been quite interesting. Did I tell you that we were overbuget? The $125 tour in Cairns. Not worth it. Well, we've been doing a lot of sleeping out, some ramin noodle meals. The train ride from Alice was overnight so that was a free night. Did I tell you about the Aborigines we saw? We're sitting there in the shade and a lady walks up to a man and wacks him in the head with a huge rock, or a dried clump of earth. Not sure. A lot of noise, ruckus. I missed the swear words since they were in another language.

So, Adelaid. We walked all over the town from south to north then found out that they have a free bus. Of course. It was also wine country and after a bit of debating we were on a bus down south to McLaren Vale. A nice little town surrounded by hills and vineyards, we walked around looking for a cheap campsite, ie free and slightly illegal. I can't believe my aunt is so gung-ho for this. Well, we spent our night in the corner of the cemetary, quite peaceful, cold. The next morning was some wine tasting and then back to Adelaid. Adelaid is surrounded by parks and we were feeling pretty resourceful so we scoped out a place near the train station, hung out and waited for the sun to go down. Well, we'll say we had a slight incident, something about a scraggly hippie who is actually the chief of the rainbow tribe of the world. He was speaking to his black brothers, the park dwelling wine drinking aborigines, in the middle-finger language. There was some wounded feelings, big sticks, yelling, swearing, a slight misunderstanding (would you mistake the chief of the rainbow tribe as being "our man"?). No worries, we set them straight, made friends , were included in the circle of black families and took our leave when the next fight broke out and they abandoned us. We walked nearly a mile back into the center of town, away from the parks, past the police station (where we got a glimpse of one of our hostesses) and to a hostel. What a lovely sleep.

We have since been in Murray Bridge where we got to see and sleep in a criket field, stayed in a rip-off campsite. We met some crazy Oz kids who just about burnt down a gazebo grilling on the barby. There was a free beer garden concert and a church social (seperate events). Found some guys billfold, hey Ben and Casey guess what his name was, Bruce. He had a brand new bank card with his pin number and account balance in it,$432. That took care of our budget problem and gave us a few beers as well, not bad. I hope you guys know I am kidding and that I had a fun time talking to the police and seeing how the aussie justice system works. Linda says thier cop cars looks like taxi cabs, good point.

Our arrival in Ararat found us a lovely park which is kept green with piss water. Lovely aroma. Seriously, aunti Linda doesn't appreciate that wording, it's "reclaimed water." They had free electric grills and shelter that we used. It was no help with the gail force wind. Clattering leaves, thumping noises. We were visited by a cat which was really a possum which is really a squirrel-monkey-thingy. Harmless, cute and bug-eyed. I was sort of asleep and ignoring blaring sirens until a BRIGHT ORANGE GLOW caught my eye. Not a main tourist in Ararat I am sure. I mean it was a huge roaring, spark shooting blaze! So we ran and hid in the stanky lady's toilet- sorry that would be a "short drop dunny." We could just see the police blaming the darn tourists. After that we just kept pushing the button on the grill to warm our hands. Coffee and a shared breakfast at McDonald's helped. Guess what! Highlight of the trip, soft serve cones are 40 cents here!! That's like 25 cents american. I've had 4 since yesterday.

Yesterday was an excursion to the Gampions, a national park area which means that they double the price of everything. We went on a little hike to the pinnicle. What does 8 kilometers convert to anyways? A heck of a lot of complaints! Man alive, do you know how many rocks and steps and things we had to climb over? The 4hr hike which we didn't complete took us a total of 7 1/2 hrs. Of course we had to bring along our 3 kilos of oranges, all our cooking supplies, bedrolls, tent, all my art stuff, and 1 liter of water which we shared.

Last night we spent the night on the botanical garden path of the Alexander Gardens the one with the view of the fire. The fire was actually a hedge. We even put up the tent. It was that much more between us and solid tar. We're thinking of investing in a foam mat. Alright, library time is soooo up and no one has even looked at us mean yet so I don't want to push it. I must go. We are having a great time in case you missed that part. Talk again later.

Love,
Rachael and Aunti Linda

Journal Entry-January 5, 2003

Hey, guess where I am. Some people I have not e-mailed in a long time but I just wanted to let you know that all is well and warm here in Alice Springs Australia. The outback for sure. Yes, I am on another trip, hopefully a year long one but that all depends on when my money runs out. For the first month of my trip I have my dear aunty along. Her first major trip and she thinks that I can lead her along. So far I have misread our train schedules numerous times and we have nearly gotten of at the wrong stop. Try this: "you-an-guy" and "you-rang-ga" say that with an Australian accent. Those are the names of two towns. Eungai and Urunga. We've been to Sydney up the E coast, flew to Ayers rock, and took the bus to Alice. People are great and friendly. I really should have e-mailed more often. So much has happened. Highlights though would be eating pine apple that cost .75 for a whole friut. We ate it till our mouths bled. We were sore but laughed at each other's bloody pineapple and kept eating. We also snuck into a park and slept the night, we also got rained on. We met authentic Australian partiers as well. Each fantastic party experiance that they told us about ended in someone being maimed. They were as enthusiastic as crocadile hunter.