Gingin Part 1: We arrived in Gingin a day early in order to meet our first house sit owners and for them to take us through their property. Finding Gingin was no problem at all; Literally three long roads took us straight into the countryside so within 45 mins we was there. The property was lovely: set on 25 acres the house was a large 5 bedroom bungalow surrounded by fields. Their was 7 sheep, 2 horses, 13 hens, 4 dogs and 2 cats to keep us occupied whilst they were away. All animals would keep themselves to themselves and would only need feeding on a night time. Only the dogs would need attention, however as they were so boisterous they wouldn't really need walking due to them chasing each other all day. Carolyn and Jeff were very friendly and as they took us through the different things to check on within the house, we was sure that we would be fairly comfortable for the next 5 weeks. We finished the afternoon with a trip into Gingin to check out the village. The village is shaped like a cross, with one road intersecting the other road in the middle. In the intersection of the cross is the village park complete with a very expensive coffee shop. One road is lined with houses, a petrol stations and a caravan park, and the other intersecting road holds all the village shops. The village shops consists of around 6 stores including a minimart, liquor store, butchers and bank. It literally takes about 3 minutes to drive around the whole village!
As our trip to Gingin didn't take us very long we stopped on the park for a coffee. Finishing the coffee, Jonathan kindly offered to take our cups back into the shop. I automatically told him 'don't drop the cups' after observing the awkward way he was holding them. Reassuring me he was fine, he set off back to the coffee shop and 10 seconds later the shattering of cups rang out! Luckily the waitress was sympathetic and didn't charge us for breaking her pottery!
Due to them inviting us to stay a day early they were very hospitable and also made us tea and supplied us with wine! During our tea time chit chat we asked about the resident snakes and spiders. Jeff told us that although they get the highly poisonous King Brown snake you never really see them. The Tiger snake was more likely to rear its head and he told us a story about running two big snakes over on his driveway a few years back. Also he told us to be careful when lifting things off the ground as the poisonous red back spider likes to lurk underneath! However due to winter it is less likely we would encounter these creatures so we definitely breathed a sigh of relief at that news! We also learnt that Jeff was born in Preston and that on their coming holiday they would be venturing to Ashton, Ribbleton and Deepdale to meet some relatives! You realise it's a small world with us being in their home and them going to our home! Meeting their two children Mark (16) and Sara (18) we was quite lucky that we had started our first sit with some nice people. With Mark at school we would only see him on the evenings/weekends, and Sara would also be home weekends from uni, so we would be on our own the majority of the time.
The following day whilst they finished packing we decided to go exploring and to head back into Perth to stock up on food as the minimart in Gingin was expensive. Heading back into Gingin we noticed there was a few wineries, olive farms and a honey shop on the outskirts of the town. Stopping at the honey shop we decided to buy some for breakfast; A large variety of honey to choose from all mixed with other natural ingredients. After some tasting testing we decided on the wildflower honey. As the woman took us through the other different honey flavours and explained there properties I asked if they make the honey on site. Her being a smartarse told me that the bees make the honey... She would definitely have lost her sale if it hadn't tasted so good!!
Arriving back at the empty house we decided to begin the search for some jobs. Obviously the remote location of Gingin and the lack of amenities nearby meant that this could be a difficult task and as thought there was nothing listed on the Internet. I also put another list together of what I thought needed doing. Being alone in the house meant I could nosey at things properly and look about the kitchen etc, the house was lovely and I was certain that as soon as it was adjusted slightly I would be most comfortable.
We finished the afternoon with a walk to the nearby fields in search of Kangeroos. Dusk and Dawn is the most ideal time to spot them and as the sun slowly went down we saw them grazing in a field in the distance. Our first successful spotting of Roos and hopefully next time we will see them more closely. Walking back to the house and admiring the sun going down over the fields, it was a very pretty place to live. Bright green parrots whoosh over your head and there are alot of old gnarly looking trees which silhouette nicely with the sky and grass: Very picturesque!
That night we settled down for one more look at gumtree to see if any jobs had come up. We struck lucky and seeing an advert for weeders on an organic vegetable farm we emailed straight away. Upto 4-8 days of work available, 6 hours a day and 20$ an hour, which we thought wasn't bad pay!
The following morning at 5am my phone beeped with a text to say to start at 8am if received on time. As it woke me up we headed to the farm to begin our very first job in Australia!
Till next time Hayls and Jonathan x