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Last time I left you I was in a nice Air Con house with big screen TV's and gaming systems. Now we packed up and moved to Port Hedland. Port Hedland is basically only there so the mine workers have a place to stay. You drive into port hedland, and there is a huge salt mound in the field. It was pretty amazing to see a huge mound of salt. Port Hedland is right on the coast, hints the name PORT. They call Port Hedland the economic heartbeat of Australia, since they deal with so much iron ore. Seriously everything is a rusty red color, the houses, cars, small white dogs; seriously even the cockatoos are rusty red! I thought I was sun burnt the first day but it just turned out I needed to take a shower and wash off the dust. Being a mining town all of the accommodations are way to expensive.So we ended up staying at a caravan park. The tent sites had no shade at all and we had to put our tent on sand. It sucked because during the day the sand got hot and kept me sweating at night. The caravan park was pretty nice it had a nice shaded pool, and a pretty cool rec room with a TV. It sucked to sleep in a tent for a week because it gets so damn hot in the tent. I guess you could say I have accomplished one of my Australian goals, which was to see a monitor lizard or goanna in the wild. I went swimming in the morning and there was a huge yellow-spotted monitor lizard on the other side of the fence. So being me, I jumped the fence and starred it down. I had my towel with me and I tried throwing the towel on it but missed. It got away and I never say it again. That thing was big to it probably would have bit the s*** out of me. What was cool was that this caravan park was right on the water on both sides. One side had the ocean and the other side had a river with mangroves all on the side. When we would all eat at night something pretty awesome happened. I don't know if it was the lights or what, but from the mangroves thousands of hermit crabs would come up into the caravan park. I think they came up to feed. We would through our bones and scraps out to them and they would just pile on top of each other trying to get a piece. You know those hermit crabs you get at souvenir shops at the beach or they are in earthbound now. These hermit crabs were those kind. It was pretty awesome to watch, especially after a few beers. One of the best thing I think about traveling is meeting all types of people. I met new people every night, but some of the people stood out more than others. There was a couple that camped next to us. They were 61 and 53. They were traveling Australia with there big red Honda Goldwing. They are in a biker club, which only allows 40 years or older into the club. The old man was another kind. Seriously I probably would not be lying if I said that he read and memorized every joke/comeback book he came across in his lifetime. He was old so that was a lot of books. This guy was throwing out jokes left and right. I don't really remember any of them. He also had a comeback joke for everything said at the table as well. I do remember a joke he said, it was an irish joke, because we were also sitting with an Irish man and Scottish man. It goes like this, there was a couple that just bought a house and now time to paint it. The painter come over and went through the house with the couple to figure out what paint they wanted in each room. He started in the kitchen and asked the couple what color do you want the walls? They said o probably a beige, and a hint of blue. The painter said ok, and stuck his head out the window and said, GREEN UP!! They went to the next room and he asked the same question. They then said maybe a light blue, and white. The painter said great, and stuck his head out the window and yelled GREEN UP!!!!! They went to the last room and they said maybe this time we can go with a red and hint of light purple for the girls. The painter said we can do that, so he put his head out the window and yelled GREEN UP!!!! Before the couple left the house the guy asked the painter, ok Im a little confused, every time you we told what color to paint the wall you always said green out the window. The painter said O its nothing we just have an Irishman working for us and he is putting in the new lawn…! It wasn't the best of his jokes, but he went on all night. Like I said before we also had an Irishman and a Scottish man sipping beers with us. These guys had the thickest accents. Especially the Irishman, he talked so fast and seriously half the time I did not understand what he was saying. The management was crap at this park. Our nickname for the landlord was Hitler, because he told us to go to bed around 9. So the last night we decided to stick it to management and break a rule. We went swimming in the pool around 12. We went to the pool just so we could make noise and have management come out, but they never came out. The best part of it was that we convinced the old couple to come. These guys would not stop making jokes, seriously I almost peed my pants twice. That night was the funniest night I had in a long time on the road.
Now back to the coworkers. I stayed with the two Canadians, the Dutch girl, and the Swedish girl in port Hedland. The two Canadians also had two of their friends from Canada fly in and meet us at the caravan park and stay with us. At this point I tried to get a long with the crew, and gave them a chance to get to know me but they seemed not interested. I'm mainly just talking about Maike the Dutch lady, and Jessica my team leader, which is one of the Canadians. The Swedish girl and the other three Canadians were fun. It felt like they didn't acknowledge that I was there. I was always quite at night because nobody would really talk to me and when I did talk nobody would listen. The funniest thing was Jessica the team leader would say that she didn't like drama queens, but she would complain and b**** about our boss and the heat everyday. It kind of sucked to be around because I felt bad for being happy, because she wasn't.. Now the s***tyest part of the crew was the week after. At this time I was with my new crew, which I will talk about later. I went to tom price and the old crew I was originally with went to broome.The second day of the week our boss called us and told us that the whole other team quit! Without warning all six of them decided to quit. I can understand that if a job sucks you quit, but give your boss at least two weeks, if not at least a week notice. Don't just decide to quit. That just shows what kind of people they are.
Now on a lighter note, My new team is awesome! I am with Kim who is from New Zealand, and two youngsters which are a couple that are from London. They speak "proper" English. Kim is the juggernaut of fundraising, seriously I could have sworn she signed up two dogs the other day. She is amazing. The two "proper" londonites are drama freaks! Fay never seems to slow down only when she is eating, and dan is the man. The first week I was with them we went from Port Hedland to Tom Price. On the way we stopped at Karijini National Park. BEAUTIFUL!!!!! The best part is that it is in the middle of the desert. It's a massive oasis. We hiked down to fortisque falls, which also had a clean cool pool. The waterfall was awesome. There was a little cliff that me and dan decided to jump off of. We then hiked to fern pool, which was a type of natural pools you see in all of the tropical island movies, and magazines. It was super cold, which was good, because it was super hot outside. We then went back and I saw my first fruit bats hanging from the trees in the evening. Those things are huge! We then moved into the Tom Price Caravan Park. This is week two of my tenting experience. Tom Price is a town I could see myself living in, don't worry mom I won't. It was nice weather and the scenery is amazing, rolling rocky hills all around. The best part was that we camped right behind Mt. Nameless, which is the highest peak in Western Australia.
My job consists of knocking on doors all day everyday. I have met some very interesting people. The first day I knocked on the door of one of the local snake catchers. He didn't sign up, but he showed his collection of snakes. He had a black headed python, and some other snakes. He also showed me a death adder he caught out at the local mine. I also knocked on a house with two very nice New Zealand people. I sat and talked to them for while, and they told me of the local animal sanctuary. So we ended going to this sanctuary. The owner, Bob, was a typical local Australian. He seemed to permanently not have a shirt on, tattoos, thick slurry Australian accent, shorts, and work boots on. He was the primary snake catcher. He also was missing probably about 4 fingers. This place mainly had kangaroos. It was cool to see them up close and personal. I went there to see some snakes, but he had already relocated them. I was told he had a 15 foot long Olive Python. He also had an injured wedge-tailed eagle. That thing was huge! I met one more guy in this town when I was door knocking. It was my last day and knocked on his door. This man was 81 years old and had four huge cages in his front yard. He had about 20 different birds in these cages. I talked to this guy for at least an hour. He was full of stories about everyone of his birds. He said he was in the bird business for 81 years. He used to sell them and export them, legally he said. The best part was that he had a one of kind bird inside. He had a 49 year old female red-tailed black cockatoo! This thing was amazing. He had it for 49 years! It was the biggest parrot I have ever seen. Its beak would literally chop a broomstick in half! The crazy thing was that it is twice as old as me! He keeps it inside, because he could sell that bird for at least 10 grand! He doesn't want people trying to steal it. Its very hard to see them in the wild, since they are endangered, so to see it up close and personal was a one of kind experience. On Saturday of that week we decided to climb mt. nameless. That was pretty nice. At the top you could see the local mine on the other side, which looked huge from the top of the mountain. That night we went to the local race track. All the locals came out parked their cars, drank some beer, and watched the races. First was formula 500 which were the small versions of the sprintcars. Second was quad racing, then go-kart racing, youth which were 15 or 16 year olds driving little minis. Then the promotion cars raced which are basically stock cars. And then there was the sprintcars. They are the big vehicles with the big funny looking spoilers on top. It was actually really entertaining. Me and dan were betting on the promotion cars. I won with my pick, number 77 dingo de! I thought my trip didn't have enough thrill that week so I decided to lose my phone at the track. I woke up the next day and my phone was gone. We went back to the track couldn't find it at all.
I am in newman now. Next time I will tell all about newman, broome, Catherine, and Darwin. Cheers until next time!
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