I don’t know if any of you remember what happened when we last applied for work on a cattle station,. What an experience that was. The agency we went through virtually told me the cooks job at Anna Creek was mine, and the manager would phone and confirm it within a few days. That was more than two years ago – and I’m still waiting. Then the mad dash from the NT to the Qld/NT border for similar station jobs, only to be told by email the day we arrived they’d employed someone else literally hours before we arrived. After which getting employment on a cattle station seemed like a bad idea.

BUT, about a month or more ago I put a short advert in the Grey Nomads on line magazine asking for work for Paul and I and briefly outlining our skills. I didn’t really expect to get anything worthwhile from it. Least of all did I expect a call from a cattle station. We’d no sooner arrived at Mataranka when we returned from a swim to find a message on the phone from a cattle station.

A few days later, and the necessary checks have been completed, and we’re packed up and ready to move off at first light tomorrow, heading back up the road a bit to Queensland and up to the Gulf of Carpentaria. It’s times like this the old Aussie Country Mile comes into play – the ‘just up the road a bit. It’s actually 1700 kms up the road – but that’s nothing in the scheme of things in this big, vast, wonderful country of ours. In fact we’ll leave Mataranka and turn onto the main highway after around three kms. Then we only turn two more corners I think before we turn into the station. I think we’ll hit a couple of sets of traffic lights in Mt Isa , but that’s about it for traffic lights. I guess that’s hard for my UK readers to comprehend. Its what gives Dorothea MacKellar’s poem about this big sun burnt country it’s meaning, all the wide open spaces. I love that poem. For those of you not familiar with the poem, please google it, I think it’s called, My Country. It sums up Australia perfectly.

Anyway, details of the jobs are still a bit sketchy. I know I’ll be cooking for around 15. I think Paul is going to be a station hand/handy man. The job will last for the season, and will finish up before the wet season sets in at the end of the year.

We’re both excited. Paul will be pleased to be using some of his life/work skills. I think he actually misses his trade, so I think he’s hoping they’ll be in need of some welding repairs around the property, but even just to be out and getting ‘work dirty’ will be good enough. For me, I’m really excited to be getting back into cooking. And I couldn’t think of anyone better to cook for than appreciative hungry men with good appetites. At least I hope they’ll be appreciative, but I’m sure I’ll win them around once they realise I’m not going to poisen them, and they’re going to bed with a full, contented belly.

If any of you remember a scene from Forest Gump – the one were Bubba is talking about all the different meals made with Shrimp…. That’ll be me in a few months, only it’ll be beef instead of shrimp.

We don’t know the details yet. The station manager will phone us tonight.  I do know it’ll be full on, possibly hard, hot and dusty work for Paul, and possible long days for me. I’m sure my feet will feel it for the first week, but after that, I have no doubt I’ll settle into it well.

Despite  having worked the past 10 – 15 years in the tax office and in office administration, I’ve never felt like an office worker. I’ve always referred to myself as a cook as far as work goes, and I’m really excited to be going back to it. Hopefully it’ll work out well for both us and the station, and as we’re planning to be up in the top end around this time for the next few years, maybe we’ll be invited back. But I’m getting ahead of myself, we’d better wait and see.

One thing I know is, Internet and mobile phone coverage is sketchy there. We’ll endeavour to check each at least weekly, and update the blog when time and technology allows. So, please watch this space…..

We’re currently at Sarina Range doing a two and a half week house sit. The Internet is sketchy so blogs will be short while I’m here, if at all. I just lost a full draft because it wouldn’t save – only took me two hours to type it.

We’re looking after Titan the rescue dog, Tommy Tigger the rescue cat, and 11 head of cattle. And for now I’ll attempt to save this and update it bit by bit with more details and photos over the next few days  – if the Internet technology will allow it.

Tomorrow week we’ll be on the plane for Australia, all going well.

I haven’t dared think about it in case something went wrong, but all is looking good. In fact, we almost have everything done, and this week have time to spare.

Blue skies, wide roads, sunshine and relatively litter free footpaths. Australia we’ve missed you so much. Did I mention blue skies…..

We’re spending our first five nights in Melbourne where we’ll go to the Eagles/Hawthorn footie match. At footie matches in Australia the fans from both teams intermingle. I remember taken a friend to an Eagles match in Perth one day. He had just returned from a couple of years in Europe and was blown away by the friendly intermingling of fans both at the game and outside the grounds. But that’s Australia, we love our sport, but more than anything we love a laugh. Footy matches are usually places were rivalry is in a spirit of good fun.

Australia, a country of tolerance. A place where, ‘she’ll be right mate’. Australia – our home.

After much soul searching, we’ve decided to return to Australia for now.

A crystal ball would be wonderful so as we could know for sure if we’re doing the right thing, at the right time. Legally, I have to return now as my visa time is almost at an end. Enquiries indicate getting an extension won’t be easy. We’ve done enough head butting with bureaucracy over the years, and aren’t up for it any more. So, for better or for worse, we’re abandoning Pauls dad.

We have booked our return flight for 29th March, and will spend the coming month putting as many things in place as possible to help dad to manage on his own. We can’t do it all though and he will need to put more effort in to his own well-being than he had been doing before we arrived. Indications are that he’s capable, but living on his own complacency has set in. There’s no doubt that he’s now on a downward slide but with a small amount of determined effort he can manage a better quality of life than he was living before we arrived. Whether or not he’ll put the effort in and for how long, only time will tell. He has a habit of smiling and nodding at suggestions that indicate, ‘yea, not likely’.

So, a few weeks in Tassie getting the van and car serviced should see us on the road again. It’ll be wonderful to get back to living the Life of Riley on Wheels.

The paperwork for our wheat silo jobs has held up our start date, so we were able to extend our time on the farm by a few days. Currently, we’re still not sure when we’re going to be starting, but have agreed to get there around the end of next week. The site we’re going to need us to start sooner rather than later, but head office (who doesn’t have to face the farmers) is dragging it’s heals with the paperwork. The idea is that if we’re there, the site managers can then try and nudge head office along. So, we’re now set to leave our lovely little farm on Tuesday morning.

Paul is thrilled that he has managed to get several of the cows eating fresh picked grass out of his hand. We’ve now been here long enough to start giving some of the cows names. So far we have Doe Eyes, Short Horns, Long Horns, and Blue (the four red cows). The two small brown cows we’ve called Murray 1 and Murray 2 – that’s because they’re both of the breed called Murrays I believe. The blacks are harder to identify with the exception of, Testie (so named because he has a huge growth that resembles, you guessed it, a rather large testicle), and the only female is, Missie.

Murray 1, Short Horns and Blue all eat now from Paul’s hand. Some of the others do as well, but those three will always come up for a nibble. Short Horns up until today was tentatively letting let Paul give him a bit of neck rub. Today though he actually seemed to be enjoying it and was making his neck accessible without any sign of reticence. Murray 1 and a couple of the others are just starting to warm to him give their neck a bit of a rub.

We’ve been walking out over the farm quite often and have come across two huge rabbit warrens, both of which the dogs are well aware of, unfortunately. They’ve bought home two dead baby rabbits and two dead adult rabbits. We’ve told them off each time, but yesterday we gave them a right good scolding. We managed to catch Riley and severely scolded her while showing her the dead rabbit, and we put her in the old bird coop (which is now the ‘dog house’, for when the dogs need to be put into the ‘dog house’, I believe). Abbey slunk away and hid under our caravan, so she escaped ‘the dog house’, but not a good tongue lashing. They’re both very quiet today, so I think they’re still sulking a bit that their beloved minders got really cross with them. They thought they had us wrapped around their little paws.

I’m sure they’re only doing what comes naturally to dogs though. Riley, being foxy cross, is a natural for heading into the burrows to chase the rabbits out. And I’m sure Abbey gets excited by the thrill of the chase when one makes a run for it. But they do seem to look very guilty when they’ve forgotten themselves and dragged their ‘kill’ home for us to discover. Ratbags.

We’ve loved staying on the farm. It’s been an experience we wouldn’t have missed. So, thank you to Kaye and Paul for letting us have a share of your little piece of paradise. It’s only been for a short time, but the joy has been immense.

We had our medicals for work this week. The first was at the Grafton Medical Centre and took close to two hours each. We were weighed and measured. We were tested for asthma. We had our hearing and sight tested. We had our balance tested. This involved standing barefooted in one spot for 30 seconds with our eyes closed – not as easy as it sounds.

We were given a breathalyser to ensure we were alcohol free. All our reflexes were tested and our limbs and joints tested to make sure they all worked well and could rotate in all the directions they’re supposed to rotate in. We had to squat walk across a room, and we had to touch our toes. We provided urine samples which was checked for protein and other possible abnormalities. Our blood pressure was taken, and all our medication checked and noted.

Then the appointment was made for two days later for drug screening. We were separately taken into cubicles where we were required to wash our hands without using soap, then presented with a tray of specimen containers and requested to pick one. They weren’t allowed to hand us one! The cubicles had a toilet one side and wash basin the other which were separated by a curtain. On route to the cubical I had to lock my handbag in a cupboard, I wasn’t allowed it with me in the cubical. We were both required to empty our pockets.

Then with the curtain half drawn we were required to pee into the container whilst the Dr stood about two feet away on the other side of the curtain making sure we didn’t substitute a drug free sample for our own. Again we had to list all medications both prescription and non prescription that had been taken over the last month. We were again breathalysed for alcohol.

It was a surreal type of experience. We think we’ve applied for seasonal work on the wheat silos. It’s usually around an eight week season, the work is laborious, and we’ll be working in hot, dusty conditions. It’s repetitive, unskilled work and is amongst the lowest paid type of work in the country. It’s akin to fruit picking basically. Anyway that’s what we think we’ve applied for. But after the tests we’re not so sure. Perhaps they have us earmarked for something really amazing – perhaps we’ll be working as Rocket Scientists!

How absolutely bazaar. The mind boggles….

One year ago today we picked up our rig from Lithgow and headed for Bathurst. The grass was white and crisp on our first morning, and we froze.

It’s been a great year. Next week should see us heading for South Australia to do our first bit of work – about 8 – 10 weeks on the wheat silos. Training starts on the 7th October. The season’s short so hopefully bearable. It’ll be a new experience for us both, and that’s what we want now from life – new experiences (preferably ones that have us saying, “what a pleasure!”) We’ve had lots of occasions to say that over the past year, and in fact it’s becoming one of our favourite sayings.

The rig has evolved and changed somewhat since we picked it up. We’ve had new lifter legs fitted, new axles and new tyres, by necessity rather than choice. At the same time we had a huge storage compartment fitted to the underneath of the van. It’s like a very big tunnel boot, and holds most of our outdoor furniture. The outdoor table and chairs used to travel on our bed and I was constantly worried what creepy crawlies we were bringing into the van with each pack up. This is proving to be a priceless addition. It’s a massive amount of extra storage and holds a multitude.

The two single mattresses have been replaced with a pillow top double recently. It’s very comfortable and better than having the two singles zipped together. Both TVs have been replaced. We’ve changed our original barbecue for a Baby Q, which we love, and this week we bought one of those little portable glass turbo ovens. We’ve only cooked once in that so far – roast pork. The crackle was the best ever, and the potatoes were brown and crisp. Very entertaining to sit outside and watch the pork cooking too.

Currently, we’re trialling doing away with some of the seating and increasing our kitchen area. We have seating for 6, yet the kitchen is barely adequate. It makes sense to reduce the seating by two seats, and increase the kitchen and bench space. We haven’t made any permanent changes yet until we check which of two options is the going to be the most suitable. Living in a caravan isn’t free of maintenance or update expenses. Can’t complain though, it’s a lot less than in a house.

We’ve put some plans in place for the next year, including a 6 – 8 week trip to the UK and Italy. It’s our 60th in May, so we’ve booked ourselves a 12 night tour of the Amalfi coast through to Puglia (not sure if I’ve spelt that correctly – the heel of Italy’s boot). It’s a small coach tour with only around 16 passengers, and it goes to some main tourist destinations but also quite a few villages that are off the beaten track. We’ve read lots of reviews on different tour companies, and Amber Roads sounds like it’s the real deal. Fingers crossed that our homework pays off and gives us lots of occasions to say, “what a pleasure”.

We combining that trip with going to see Paul’s dad and cousins in the UK. It’ll be rather nice to have some time to spend there this time, knowing we don’t have to rush back to work.

We’re going to try out the premium economy seats on Cathay Pacific. It’ll cost a bit more, but we’ll forfeit stopovers, so should end up costing around the same all up. It won’t be anywhere near as good as business class of course, but hopefully better than normal economy. Anyway, it’s only money – not that we have that much of that, but what we have is no good to us once we’re gone. We figure about half our life time to earn it, and the other half to spend it sounds about right. Not sure what happens if our maths is way out though, and the 2nd half ends up being greater than the first half – guess there’s still such a thing as ‘pauper’s graves’…. LOL!!!

We’re still at the farm in Elland, and aren’t in any hurry for it to come to an end.

We use the kitchen and laundry in the house, but we sleep in the granny flat Most of our meals we eat out on the patio where the chickens, wild birds and dogs continue to entertain us throughout the day.

Some of the animals have real stand out personalities. Izzy, the smallest of the chooks is such a plucky little bird, (at the moment almost literally.) She’s the leader of the chooks in getting up to mischief, and we’re constantly chasing her out of the garden. She knows she’s not supposed to be there too. When she’s scratching in the garden, we only have to stand up and she’s running for her life. When she’s not in the garden, if we stand up, she’s more inclined to follow us to see if we have any tit bits on offer. She also taunts the dogs sometimes by approaching their food bowls. The dogs seem to have no problems with the chooks sharing their water bowl, and will happily share breakfast on the lawn with all the birds. Their food bowls though are seemingly, strictly out of bounds, again, something Izzy seems to know only too well.

But she does taunt them. She watches them as she sneaks up to their bowls, and one move from them and she’s again running for her life. Hence the almost literally, ‘plucked chook’, at the moment, I think she was a little too slow on one occasion, but that was before we arrived, (and I’m only guessing that’s how it would have come about).  Her feathers are now growing back, but plucky little thing hasn’t learnt any lessons. She continues to taunt the dogs. I fear one day she’ll get a little more than ‘plucking’!

The dogs too are so funny. They love to walk up the driveway and back with us, which we usually do twice a day (1.4 kms in total each walk). Riley, the little foxy generally seems to be ‘boss dog’, and Abbey doesn’t seem to have any problems with her designated place – most of the time! Abbey won’t touch either food bowl until Riley’s had a nibble. So, Riley nibbles first at one bowl with Abbey watching, then after a few minutes moves to other bowl. Only then will Abbey start to eat. They have a larger sized kennel, which was obviously meant for Abbey, and a slightly smaller one for Riley. Riley, though takes her pick, which varies from day to day. If Riley takes possession of the larger kennel, Abbey will squeeze into the smaller one without any complaint.

Abbey always carries a soccer ball when she walks with us, which Paul kicks for her to chase. And this is the only time where it seems Abbey becomes, ‘she who must be obeyed’. Riley’s clearly not allowed to participate in the game in any way. It’s fun to watch them though when Riley decides to put up a challenge. Abbey drags her by the ear, or the front leg, or the back leg, or the collar and neck away from the ball. Once Riley realises she doesn’t stand a chance with the ball, she’ll go and pick up a pine cone to carry. If she only carries, it seems to be allowable, but sometimes she drops it at our feet obviously intent on us throwing it for her. Then it’s on again. Mind you, Riley seems to love every minute of it, and just like Izzy the chook, she knows when and how to taunt Abbey to get the best reaction. I suspect the ball is Abbey’s game, and for Riley the game is to taunt her pretending she’s trying to get in on the act.

So, the animals continue to amuse us. There’s a lot more here though than the animals keeping us contented and happy. I could write a book….. From early morning with the sunrise chasing the mist from the valley, to sunset with the sun again bringing a special life to the valley as it drops in the western sky – it’s all shear magic, and the type of place that must inspire poetry. This chapter in our ‘book of life’ will be always remembered fondly.

Excuse the expression, but Paul’s as happy as a ‘pig in mud’. I think it has something to do with men’s toys and men’s sheds. There is one huge shed here with 4 roller doors, and behind each roller door there’s more than enough room for a full sized caravan. That’s just one of the sheds. Currently it has a big bale of hay for feeding the cows, a tractor and all it’s attachments, and Paul’s moved our van in there where he’s giving it a good cut and polish. The shed’s more than half empty…..

There’s also another huge shed with two big roller doors on it. This one houses all the quad bikes, motor bikes, ride on lawn mowers, normal lawn mowers and loads of other stuff that only a man could understand.

There’s more out buildings too, but those are the two that are like candy to a man.

And what does a man do with a shed like this, he attaches the trailer to one of the quad bikes, Abbey sits behind him with her head resting on his shoulder, Riley sits in front of him on the seat. Then he drives from one shed to the other and loads the trailer up with hay, and drives out to the paddock to feed the cows. Result – happy cows, happy dogs, happy man!