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June 20 - July 1st. Yabullum, Murray Falls.
- Grooming those tired Tully memories
We jumped on the Greyhound and within the next half hour arrived at out next destination...Tully! There is no escape! Actually there is, as our new WWOOF host Sizanne whisks us twenty minutes up the road to her farm, Yabullum, in Murray Falls.
Tully would remain ever present as we'd return to it every couple of days for grocerys but somehow it was less depressing now I wasn't actually living or working there, although if I had been after the sugar mill (the large chimleys and giant smog clouds of which dominate the skyline) started giving the whole town and unpleasently strong burnt sugar smell I'm not sure if I would have resisted the urge to simply walk home, giant oceans in the way or not!
But enough of Tully...
On her sizeable 160 acre property Sue had several large orgards of Lychees and Rambutans, as well as space for animals and
one paddock currently not in use. Half of the property, 80 acres, was as a nature reservce, quite rightly left to its own
devices. I mentioned animals, we'll start with the big ones. Three house cows, which are an almost pet-like cow, kept basically because you like cows and the occasional bit of milk - though none were producing whilst we were there. Three horses, 2 Clydesdales, a young one called Fergus and an older one called Lauchlan and a very old quarter horse called Mary. More on these later. One hyper energtic play-with-me! play-with-me! dog called Layla who would constantly, and I mean constantly, drop either a ball or stick (from twig to branch) at your feet (or 4 metres away if she'd decided to play fetch with you.) This could get a bit frustrating when we were working, especially if we were doing so under a roof wherein her barks would loudly resonate, but she was too cute to stay mad at for too long. Speaking of cute, whats cuter than a cat? 5 cats. Two males cats that resided in Sues bedroom, I rarely saw these and unfortunatly have forgotten their names. Two female cats lived inside the rest of the house, an 'I own this place' ginger strutter called Torty and Titty, a thing grey creature
who, just because the mood took her, didn't leave the chairs around the table for over 2 days. Last, but far from least, out in the big workshed lived Mowser (or Mouser perhaps), quite possibly the cutest cat I've ever met. Grey and (whisper it) a
little on the tubby side he was a stray that wandered onto the property and quickly became absorbed into the place. Despite having had to learn to defend himself from strays he's a massive softy, going as far as to let Sue hold him upside down like a baby. The urge to steal him was heavy but I resisted.
As you might have favomed we were surrounded by animals, it was odd/good how quickly this became normal however. They, especially the cats, seemed to give the place a comfortable homey feel and when we eventually left it seemed rather strange to no longer have such company.
The place we called home for a week and a half was a caravan undercover right next to the house. It was good to have our own space and it felt luxuruious after spending so much time in hostels, the novelty value of which has most definatly worn thin by this stage. The house itself was amazing, cramb full of charming, colourful, hippyish aesthetics with one wall open to the forest (there were shutters that could be closed but this didn't need to be done whilst we were there and seeing as it was the middle of winter I'd say them being closed is a rare event indeed!) It was a big place with plenty of rooms for workers (and guests or course) to stay, apparently its a busy place during harvest time, I can imagine living and working someplace like this would be somewhat different from what I'm used to! The biggest (be dum dum) surprise however was Sues room itself, we poked our heads through the door and...well, I think I've actually lived in houses smaller. Suddenly two cats living more or less soley in there made much more sense!
It wasn't harvest time during our stay and so our tasks largely fell under the upkeep and maintinance heading. Unlike previous hosts I've stayed with there wasn't a set day as such, more Sue just giving us odd 1 or 2 hour tasks as she thought of them. This meant that whilst we didn't actually do a massive ammount of work it felt like our time was fully taken up, at first this took a bit of getting used to but by the end I'd adapted to it. We did a whole host of small taks such as weeding (always a joy!), painting some pipes and throwing scoops of fertiliser under trees. Quite a few of our tasks were in one of the further away orchards which gave Liz the opportunity to drive around in a 4x4, which she seemed to enjoy!
Two larger project-type jobs were sorting out the shed and reclaiming the garden. One side of the shed was scheduled to have concrete put into it, currently the floor was simply much-trodden on soil, and so this meant everything from that side needed to find its way to the other side. There was a lot to move, from tiny things such as scews to massive things such as metal work benchs and concrette filled barrels...some of these provided beyond all of our lifting power and so ended up being lifted out on the back of a tractor forklift style. The garden had, as apparently it is every winter, undergone a massive vine attack, our task being to rip, pull and cut out all of the invaders. There was a lot of it, many wheel barrows full made their way to the burn pile and whilst at times it felt like our progress was slow looking at how utterly different it looks when we were through it turned out we were making good progress after all! Both of these tasks made me wish we'd taken before and after photos, something to remember in the future!
I mentioned burn piles in the above paragraph. These are more or less what you'd expect, big piles of rubbish that are burnt when enough has been gathered. We helped to light (AKA carried and handed newspaper to Sue) several of these, which felt
somehow in massive contradition to years of fire steward training! Bill, a person helping out around the property and camped down by the lagoon in the nature reserve, seemed to be a minor pyromaniac, or at least very adapt at making good fires...its an enjoyment I can understand! Some of his burnt down into such quality small fires that Sue decided it would be a crime if we didn't immediatly wrap some potoatoes and pumpkin in foil and cook them within the white hot centre of these...an ace idea that resulted in some of the tastiest food in some time! (Don't worry mum, there'll be more on food later!)
The only consistent work was with the horses, we didn't go down quite every time but for the most part the first happening of each day would be heading down to groom and feed the horses and the final task of the afternoon would be to feed them again.
In the morning Sue would take Fergus out for some training, he was being very dominant and difficult and so was in need of lots of attention. Whilst this was happening Liz and myself would go in to groom Lauchlan. Knowing just a little more than me (I struggle to remember whether I'd actually touched a horse before this point) Liz took charge of the majority of this task, though towards the end of our time there I did do a bit of grooming myself. Lauchlan was a good horse for me to learn on
because he was extreemly well behaved and obediant, almost a direct contrast to Fergus really! When feeding time came typically Sue would feed Fergus, Liz would feed Lauchlan (who had his food seperate from the paddock as he needed a different type of food to build him up, having not yet fully made the transition after being moved here from down south, evidient in the numerous bleeding and sore patchs where he'd been itching himself because of flies) and I'd be left with Mary. She'd evidentally not had the greatest life and was extreemly wary of people, not letting them near her at all. Still, when there was food she'd muster the courage to come over to the electic fence (which, as Liz learnt, its not wise to lean your skin on!) and slowly eat. It would do her food to learn to speed up a little because as soon as Fergus was done with his, or sometimes before, he'd charge over and demand the rest of hers. We did our best to prevent this but sometimes she didn't get as much as she might. It was interesting to work with horses, its certainly a fair throw beyond my comfort zone and, whilst it did begin to take on the feeling of just another daily chore by the end, I feel it was ultimatly a worthwhile experience.
The food paragraph. Or, we ate...and it wasn't entirely pasta! Two things pop to mind the warent a special mention. Sunday lunch was simply amazing, Bill brought up some meat and along with potoatoes and vegetables (including pumpkin which I ever so slightly find fantastic), not to mention some delicious white wine, it was perhaps the best meal I've had since arriving in this country. It was a good thing me work was needed that afternoon! Also, Custard Apples. I'd never heard of these and kinda expected just another sort of, apparently soft, apple. Such low expectations gave no indication to what might well be one of the most tasty, sweet, fruits I've ever had. I may have to find some in the UK to demonsrate what I mean...such purchases (which, of course, you would make) would purely be for your own benefit of course! When we were up in Cairns immediatly after we left here the urge to buy some Custard Apples at a market we strolled through provided a substantial challenge!
On occasion we also went beyond the farm, I've already mentioned visits into Tully for grocerys etc (etc being a look around the woeful but good effort guy! markets at the weekend and for various mechanical parts.) On the Thursday Sue was kind enough to take us up the road to Murray Falls, which were awe-inspiring even if apparently they're much more impressive in the wet season...they were more than good enough for me! After a picnic in the scarsly populated campsite we made the brief half hour trek up to the top of the falls, which allowed us more amazing sights than I could possibly list (which is a cheap way of saying I'm not going to try) through the forest and up, up, up to the top. Sue knew absolutly loads about the wildlife and Aboriginal beliefs attached to the area and it was really interesting to listen to such details and think more deeply about things that if I had been by myself I would probably have walked right by without a second glance. Once we came back down we headed even further south to Cardwell for some vegetables and also to visit Sue's friend Margaret, who lives in an amazing dream-like house right in the hidden away centre of a national park. The whole visit had a not-quite-real feeling to it, as we had billy tea and cake whilst birds competed to drink from a bird table to our right. As we were sadly leaving we also had
the pleasure of watching a baby Cassowary walking by, this heavily endangered bird a large, dominate, yet oddly graceful presence even whilst still young.
It was also good to simply do some boring-sounding yet absent for the last 5 month things such as watching some TV (Doctor Who! An Aussie version of Never Mind the Buzzcocks perhaps called Spics and Spiks! The Beatles Musical - Across The Universe!
A darkly comic english film called Beautiful People!) Sue also lent us books by an author called Richard Brautigan, who has been added to the ever lenghining list of people I need to check out once I return to the Uk and, heaven fobid, actually get to have some deciding choice in what I read again.
All in all it was a really great, inspiring week and a half and I was more than a little sad to have to leave. It was a near perfect introduction to WWOOFing on the East Coast and with a bit of luck such a trend will continue as we progress south!
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