Emerald City

12th August

temp 22C

Emerald

Here I am at residential school in Emerald for one of the termly “mini-school” weeks with the two children.

I should start by talking about Emerald itself. It’s a city, apparently. It has an airport (my entrance and exit to the bush), a huge mine and really not much else. Yes, in fact there are a number of motels that serve the miners, there are a collection of schools and three shopping centres that house Coles, Target, Big W etc., There are also your regular dumping of fast food places and really to be honest, not a lot more. People who live in the bush travel for miles (sorry, here that would be kilometres, but it doesn’t right does it?) to get here because it’s got the big supermarkets and clothes shops that the little towns (of course!) don’t have. It’s got the banks that they don’t have, doctors and a hospital or two and even a train station, where I could take a train to Brisbane if I wanted, if I am prepared to sit on it for 12 hours.

And that really IS all there is to say about Emerald….

bush diaries – life in the bush

Life in the bush – 3 weeks in…

I have been here for almost three weeks, and already it feels like an eternity. Not in a bad way, it’s just that despite some fairly surprising elements to life here in the bush, it was relatively easy to slot in.

I now know to flush to loo before I use it, as the frogs tend to tuck themselves under the rim of the toilet, and slip out when it’s flushed. That saves me fishing them out when I’ve done what I needed to do…

I also now shake my hand towel before drying my hands or face after a lizard dropped out of its folds onto the floor the other day.

My washing machine seems to need to be asked to work about 4 times before it reluctantly shunts into gear and has a go at washing my clothes. It does a fairly good job and I have got over the fact that my clothes can never be worn more than once without washing because a dog has jumped up to say hello, I’ve done the burning or gone for a muddy walk. The burning is done everyday. All food scraps go to the chooks (who since I arrived have doubled their daily egg contribution to 10 and upwards every day!) and everything other than glass and metal is burnt. This bothered me at first, but then I wondered who was going to travel out here to collect rubbish or recycling.

My afternoon walks don’t seem to be accompanied by my two legged bushes anymore, but a group of my four-legged friends instead. The Chocolate Labradors are not working dogs, so always around the in the afternoon, and the pregnant Collie is on maternity leave from mustering duties (more about her later) so they have accompanied my on my afternoon stroll and we’ve become a good team. Maggie, Missy, Milo and Kelly came along with me once they smelled the sandwich in my bag.

Kelly, the pregnant Collie was due to be shot last week for being a lazy dog. Did you gasp? Yes, me too. But farm life is ruthless and animals cost money, so if they’re not pulling their weight, or perhaps in her case, pulling too much, they are done away with. We looked at her and M said “Oh, look at Kelly, that’s a puppy tummy! I’ll tell D not to shoot her.” I hadn’t realised she was due for extermination and helped plead her case. She seems to have taken a shine to me, and likewise I have to her. She visits me at least once a day for cuddles, maybe she notes my own motherhood desires…

My regular meetings with ‘roos are always fun. The other day on a solo walk I met a kangaroo and instead of bouncing away from me he bounced closer. We sat and looked at each other for what seemed like ages. He bounced to the left and right a few times, but didn’t seem scared. We just relaxed in each other’s presence. I kicked myself for not taking my camera but enjoyed taking a good look at this absolutely marvellous creature that I’d waited 7 months to meet and now see daily.

Bush life is not bad. Not bad at all. If fresh air, wildlife and isolation are what you want or need, I can’t think of a better place to be right now.

bush diaries – and then came the rain…

Bush Diaries: and then came the rain…

So, the fun thing about this far is that if it rains, you can’t leave it.

Living 135km away from a town, on a dirt track makes it a little difficult to find escapism, although living here could be considered the perfect escape. I can hear nothing other than a braying cow or the squawk of one of my two students.

So today I woke up at 6.30 as usual. The plan was to go to Clermont for a football match. Little boy plays every Saturday in “neighbouring” towns and it seems a good way to get off the far for a bit, but this weekend, not possible. It has rained and rained and rained. Ordinarily ( and yes, because I am British) I wouldn’t mind, but when you have very limited weatherproof clothing because you naively believed it to a sunny and bright, and just going to the toilet means you have to wade through a puddle and when everything on the farm turns orange you tend to get a little pissed off!!!

So Saturday was a school day and tomorrow will be too, as we can do absolutely NOTHING outside when the heavens are as open as they have been today.

bush diaries – killers and carcasses

Bush Diaries: killers and carcasses

Friday 1st June

Weather: drizzle

temp. 18

Today we killed a cow. I didn’t kill it, of course, but now I am considered part of farm life I am told what is going on and invited to be part of it should I desire.

A cow was going to be shot in the paddock today and skinned and cut up for family consumption. Did I want to watch? No thank you. The little girl (E) did, as this is something that happens about once every 4 months or so, so she had the afternoon off classes to watch the event. Lovely.

I went into the house at about 4pm and found a trail of blood going from the front door through to the kitchen. I looked at the floor, looked at the dad (D), then looked at the trail again.                                                                 

“Trouble is,” he says: “ this house isn’t designed very well, so the beast has to be carried through it all to get in there”. By beast, he means the cow that was killed today. “No one has been injured, don’t worry” he adds, realising why I was puzzled about the trail of blood. “Spose I’d better mop that up,” he adds as an afterthought.

We go for a quick walk before dinner, just up the track to give the 9 DOGS a run! During our little jaunt I learn and am tested on all the dogs names. In case you are interested: Milo, Missy, Maggie, Middy, Henin, Shake, Kelly, Kaneesha and Yana. Milo is bounding along with a large item that looks like a piece of severed rope in his mouth. What is it? The cow’s throat. Enough said!

Later, in the kitchen again for dinner, I spy a few pieces of meat that the mop missed, still sitting on the kitchen floor. “Take a look in the cold room Grace” says the mum (K) “Nah, don’t out her off her dinner” says dad (D). Well, I don’t want to see it, but should have a look in case I forget and go to put something away in there after dinner.

I open the cold room door and am greeted with a scene that would fit well in a horror movie. In my face are four piece of carcass hanging from meat hooks. The floor is covered in newspaper decorated with pools of blood. And then I am told it has to hang there until Monday when it’ll get butchered. Won’t be helping myself to anything cold til Monday then.

 

bush diaries: day one

Bush Diary

Day 1

Emerald Airport: smaller than Bournemouth used to be. It had one check-in gate, one departure gate, one luggage belt and weirdly about 6 flights a day to and from Brisbane.

The “short drive” to Trelawney was over 3 hours and half of it was along a dirt track. We passed a few wallabies, kangaroo rats, echidnas and a great deal of cattle. “You don’t get car sick do you?” I was asked. “No,” I replied relieved, as this would be a horrendous journey if that were the case: 1 3/4 hrs drive mostly along a dirt track to the nearest town. I then got a nose bleed, which I tried to make out was no big deal, but wondered if I had burst a blood vessels on the rough terrain.

I arrived at the farm and was shown to my “room”. A shipping container. I thought she was joking when she told me on the way, but she wasn’t. I live in a metal box that has one window. It also has a kitchenette, fridge-freezer, table and chairs, tv and very uncomfortable bed. My “bathroom” is another outbuilding and I have camped in places that have more inviting washing facilities.

The toilet, I was warned, could be shared with a few frogs, as they seemed to like it, and sure enough the following day I peed on one! I will now always check the toilet bowl, because scooping a very pissed off frog out of the bog after I had flushed was not a fun way to start the day!

Day one on the farm and in the classroom I am assured was not a normal one. At about 9am a chopper arrived carrying passengers who had come to have detailed talks about the building of a railway that will cut through the farm land to assist the mining communities around here.

After “school”, I was taken for a bush walk by the two children. We did about a two hour round trip across the land, sadly camera-less rain was descending on departure. My two bare-footed “bushies” tramped along without a care in the world for Brown snakes or cow shit and found it funny when I repeatedly asked them if it was SAFE to step off the path. The first kangaroo I saw made me squeal with joy and the following regular appearances of wallabies where just as fun to spot. Camera will be taken next time without doubt.

Important facts learnt so far:

• I am 135km west, along a dirt track from the nearest town, which has an occupancy of about 800 people
• If it rains, we simply cannot go there, as the track is too dangerous
• There is such a creature as a Wallaroo: a cross between and roo and wallaby
• There are about 7000 cattle here, of about 4 breeds
• This is a cattle station, not a farm!
• There are 9 dogs, 3 cats and about 20 horses in residence
• It’s not very hot. At all.
• Brown Snakes and Red Back Spiders live here. Possibly the most deadly of both animal
• Nearest coast is about 600km
• Osicones are the knobs on top of a giraffes head

Dinner tonight was a prime cut of home-grown beef, which I know I would have paid a fortune for in Melbourne. This is going to be a fulfilling time in more ways than one!