The Adventure in AU

We left you off at the beginning of the Great Ocean Road. It was cold and rainy the whole time. It wasn't constant rain instead we would get to a stop and get out look at the sky and say "Nah it ain't gonna rain." and leave the umbrella and jacket in the car because in the sun it was warm. Then we would find out that to get to the look out you'd have to walk 3Ks and it inevitably started to rain halfway there. So we would run the rest of the way because I wasn't going to get rained on AND miss the view, snap a few photos and then race back to the car and drive along the coast to the next lookout. The 12 Apostles were as amazing as you can imagine though, fun fact, only 8 of the 12 are still standing because the rest have succumbed to the power of the waves crashing on them. My favorite stop was called the Grotto which was a tiny little alcove under an arch looking out at the ocean. Sooo so cool. From there the road leaves the coast and we made for Port Fairy. On the way we drove through dairy farm country that if you weren't thinking about it you'd swear you were in Northern Michigan but then you'd look over and catch a glimpse of the ocean and remember that you're thousands of miles from Northern Michigan! So crazy. We stopped for some local cheese in Warnambool and made it to Port Fairy just in time for some more rain. Port Fairy to Mount Gambier was a much nicer day. Stopped in Portland and was my favorite town along the whole coast. Was one of the first ports in Victoria and still is a busy one today. Then we got to Mount Gambier and checked out the town just as it was getting dark. We heard that the Umpherston Sinkhole was cool even at night. So we walked down into this giant hole in the ground in almost total darkness. You could feel that you had went below ground but couldn't see it. Then when we woke up we saw that in addition to being a giant hole in the ground it is also full of beautiful gardens and even has a bbq area. Drove out to the Blue Lake and looked at how blue it was then, very blue. Also the source of drinking water for the town. Then it was the most boring drive yet up to Adelaide. It took bloody hours and was supposedly the "coastal" route, but we never saw the ocean, just a line of muddy hills with some small shrubs. But worth getting into to Adelaide. It was such a beautiful old town. I know we keep saying that each new city is our favorite (minus Canberra), and we're not stopping here. Adelaide is my new favorite Capital City. Spent the night there, wandered town the next morning, then on the road back to Mildura.

While we were out touring the Great Ocean Road Sarah and Mairi we're staying in Mildura and had heard back from a dude about some work! We were stoked for them and stoked because we hoped if they got in they could talk to the dude, maybe get us in too. So we drove back to Mildura and got in late in the afternoon. The girls were out and we were in the process of setting up the tent when they got back. Glad to see them again, and they us (really!). But sad news, the dude had issues getting ahold of them over the weekend, even though Mairi was trying to call him several times each day, and had given their positions to someone he could get in contact with. Yeah, not cool and upset us too. Well, we're all back together again, so there was that. Yeah, its not as good as actually having work, I know. We stuck around for a few days, hoping to find work, see if anyone will get back to us. No one with work ready for immediate start did. We kept hearing though that if we give it about three weeks then, then the oranges will be ready and there'll be heaps of work. We didn't have three weeks to just sit around and wait though. We said our goodbyes and left Sarah and Mairi in Mildura again. They were going to give it a few more days and then they too plan to leave Mildura.

From Mildura we drove all freakin' day through Broken Hill (just because) to Port Augusta. This trip did have one cool feature, it let us go through three states in one day. Mildura was in VIC, near the NSW border, Broken Hill was north in NSW, and Port Augusta was over west in SA. We pretty much just put up the tent, slept, and then up tearing down the tent before 8 the next morning. Long day of driving ahead we thought. And we were right. Pushing for Coober Pedy, a mining town on the only dot on the map of supposed size for many, many, kilometers. Got into town by 3pm, much to our surprise. The landscape changed so much though, went from being on the coast and seeing grass and tall trees, to red dirt, small shrubs, and an occasional tree less than two meters tall. Coober Pedy it seems is the the center of Opal Mining and for kilometers around there are mounds of dirt and abandoned machinery. The mining here is so intense we pass signs every now and then warning you that if you dare venture off the road there is a high probability that you will inadvertently fall into an old shaft and die. So be careful, don't run, and don't walk backwards! We'd read online that in Coober Pedy there is a hostel that is underground. And churches, and houses, a lot of stuff was underground in town. We found the hostel though and stayed the night there. We were over six meters underground (that's about eighteen feet-ish)! So cool, it was so quiet and dark down there. Woke up and got ready for another long day of driving.

We've been totaling up the kms that we've traversed since leaving Mildura, we're over 2000 and today we arrived at Uluru! The photos you may have seen just don't do it justice. When you see it yourself, it just feels so powerful, you just want to keep looking at it. It dominates the landscape. We got out there in time to watch sunset cascade across it, changing the color of Uluru as the sun dropped lower. We're camping at the resort thing nearby, its all there is out here and the resort is set up like a city, with the different hotels spread around, a shopping center, and the cheap campsite where we're staying shoved in the back. Getting up tomorrow to catch the rock at sunrise, see some of the other sites around, and then drive up to Alice Springs!

We stayed in Melbourne until our friends Andrew and Mary left for Adelaide and then our Scottish friends drove up to Mildura to look for work and call on some of their Scottish friends who are working that way. Nance and I had decided to drive south and see the Mornington Peninsula and from there to Phillip Island. We left Melbourne a bit later than intended so we drove part way down the peninsula and then turned and drove towards Phillip Is. We camped in a nice caravan park and then checked out the island. It was larger than I thought oh and even though it's an island it's connected to the mainland via a bridge so no exciting ferry rides or anything. So first stop was a place called the Nobbies and that was the southernmost point of the island. You look out over the Tasman sea and there is nothing from there to Antarctica. There is also a few camera of a seal colony on a island a bit off the coast. The Nobbies are some huge rock formations that you can almost literally see being eroded by the intensity of the sea. Such a cool spot. From there we went to the info booth and booked us some tickets to the penguin parade. Learned that it takes place at dusk when the little guys come in from a long day in the ocean to their nests. Wasn't sure what to expect but the lady said that they had 600 and some penguins come up the night before. We got there and met our ranger who explained how they count them every night and have been doing so for the last 30 years or so and that the population has been ever so slowly increasing especially after they got the land made into a national park. So with our ranger we walked down to the beach and met up with that night's designated counter. Her job is to start counting from the first 5 penguins who cross the beach and then count for 50 minutes. She explained how the little penguins form 'rafts' out past the breaking waves because they are the most vulnerable when traversing the open stretch of sand. The rafts were just dark patches in the distances so you have no idea how many penguins have amassed until they come ashore. And boy oh boy do they come ashore. It was a slow progression at first but then they started arriving in droves. One raft alone had over 100 penguins! So we watched from the counter's platform for a but and then headed down to the beach and watched many many many more waddle their way home. They would slowly emerge from the sea and then one would start running across the sand and then the rest would run after. It was a spectacular sight and one I'll never forget! We spotted our ranger as we were leaving and asked what the total was and it was 1599! He said that we picked the best night we could have because as the winter comes more and more penguins spend 2-3 weeks at sea and their numbers are less each dusk because of it. Sadly they ask that no photography be taken because it's dark and the flash isn't good for their eyes but if you're ever in the area it is more than worth a visit.

From there we went and did the Mornington Peninsula properly which of course included fish and chips for lunch and some aimless wandering along the piers that dot the towns along the way. Nance's friend from back home Brian has a relative who lives on the Peninsula so he'd given us her contact info and we dropped in for dinner and stayed with her for a night. Was so wonderful to not camp! Her name was Deb and she was actually Brian's mum's cousin so almost a distant relative but she'd spent her childhood around Reed City and was close to Brian's mum. She lives in a beautiful house and is neighbor's with a very cool little art gallery. We didn't know it but it was her daughter's birthday that day so when we came in the door we got to sing happy birthday to her. She was going out with some friends and had left for work before we had gotten up but was great to meet her.

The next day we took off for Mildura to pick chillies with Sarah and Mairi! We left Deb's a bit later than intended so we didn't get into Mildura until late so not much to report from that day except that all I wanted was a slurpee from 7 Eleven and they were all practically on the other side of the road until we were out of Melbs. Story of my life. Haha though since we were way out in the middle of nowhere they don't have gates on their railway crossings and we came up to a surprisingly long queue of cars waiting and waiting and waiting until some of them just started going even though they lights were flashing. When it came to our turn we could actually see the train just sitting on the tracks maybe broken down or something but it felt strange to just blatantly ignore the flashing lights and go. We are such rebels I know. Got into Mildura and set up the gazebo and tent and got pumped for picking chillies.

Ugh picking chillies...worst 6 hours ever. We got there and got handed a bucket and told to pick 'good' ones only. Umm ok but what are 'good' ones? Turns out good, which is of course a relative term, is also different to the same guy. I would go up and mine were too orange so I'd go back tell the group and then someone else would go up their's would be too soft. I'd go back up and mine were too this or too that. He told everyone something different. I picked 4 buckets and just called it a day. Made all of $36 bucks to boot. He said he'd call us tomorrow and let us know a time and when he didn't call the next day we didn't even bother calling him. He did end up calling us like 3 days later but we were 'busy'. We instead hung out with Sarah and Mairi's friends Karen and Martin who had just came up to Mildura a few weeks prior because Karen got a teaching job. Days were warm enough to hang by the pool and call around for jobs. When we had spent a week doing this with no luck Nance and I decided to go do the Great Ocean Road for a week or so and try again then.

So here I am. Apollo Bay YHA Eco Lodge spending my first night indoors since Deb's almost 2 weeks ago and the last day indoors before then would have been...Canberra YHA way back in March, wooft! We do love us some camping. Anyways the Great Ocean Road as far as we've driven it has been great. It's May so it's cold but that doesn't stop the views from being magnificent. Well that brings us up to speed let's hope that the weather warms up because we're going to see the Twelve Apostles tomorrow which is one Aus's most photographed places and I'm sick of being cold!

Sorry peeps that the last post was so broad and vague but we had to breeze through so much and I wanted to get to the present. Not only because I've sort of forgotten a lot of it and we we really did work a lot so there wasn't too much to tell.

So we left Canberra and made for the coast. After being inland and going for the longest stretch without seeing the ocean since we got here, it was a no brainer. We chose Merimbula as our destination because our friends Sarah and Maira worked and have friends there. We camped on some cliffs just down the road from the main beach and spent three days, soaking up some sun and getting reacquainted with the ocean. It was great. We went to the restaurant/aquarium that Sarah worked at and it was very very cool/very very delicious. It's right next to the Merimbula Fishing Wharf which in the warmer months you can jump the 15 feet into the ocean. Looking off from it we got to see some giant and I mean GIANT manta rays swimming around all over. It would have been awesome to jump from because Merimbula sits on a bays so the water there is smooth and clear as glass. Sadly no one was game enough to take the plunge with me so I'm saving for my next trip. The aquarium features all local marine life and taught us heaps about the local fishing culture. We went out with one of Sarah's old coworkers and had quite the fun night out even if it was pretty tame being a small town.

After our relaxing time in Merimbula we decided to book it to Melbourne because our picking friends Andrew and Mary were camping there for a few days before they head to Adelaide to fly home to Canada at the end of the month. It was a long day of driving and we drove through some beautiful country and saw some nice little towns that would probably be nice to stop over in but we had been lazy long enough and I was super keen to see Melbourne. We got to the outskirts before I realized that we were going to be trying to drive straight through the city to the other side to camp with Andrew and Mary...during rush hour. That coupled with the fact that Melbourne has this tram system that we've been hearing about how crazy it is since we got to Aus. They were not wrong. The trams run in the same lanes as cars do AND they have a whole other set of traffic lights just for the trams and everyone is always dodging in and around them. It was hectic. We also had gotten a text from our other friends who had driving into Melbourne two days prior that the tolls were pretty dear so we took the risk and got off the highway and were cutting through the city itself. We survived but it was some of the most nerve wrecking driving I've done. It was also Cory's first trip into a big city since the Brisbane fiasco so I was nervous about car problems the whole time too. Cory drove like a dream thank goodness. We found the campsite in one of the outer suburbs and got the campsite right next to Andrew and Mary! Rich and Scaff were in town too but were taking off to Tasmania for a bit so will see them again when they get back before they leave the beginning of June.

Today we went into Melbourne city and since it doesn't really have anything that you HAVE to see like Sydney has the Opera House or Canberra has Parliament we just wandered. Andrew and Mary and Mary's sister Nancy (it's so confusing having two Nancys around) have been in Melbourne for a few days so we caught the tram in with them and then met them in the evening for drinks in St. Kilda before catching the tram back. In between all that Nance and I toured anything that looked appealing and I had some delicious cheap coffees. We had lunch at a little back room asian restaurant for only $10 each! I love Melbourne! While we were wandering through a shopping centre we happened upon an advertising promo for a bar in this super cool atrium where they were filling 170 balloons with helium and going to float someone up through the 100 foot atrium. It wasn't the best laid plan because the guy they wanted to float was too heavy so they kept filling more and more balloons and when that wasn't going to work they tried to use another guy but even though he weighed less he only bounced around 40 feet up and then came back down. Might not have been worth the 45 mins we waited around but still pretty cool. Am looking forward to spending more time around Melbourne in the coming future because we are hoping to work around here for a few weeks if we can swing it. Also we are going to go see the penguin parade on Phillip Island too! Really starting to set in that we only have 14 weeks left and we still have so much left to do!

So its been awhile, hasn't it? Um, when last we spoke it was March and we were ever hopeful about the joys of grape picking. Well now that it is April I can say that our hopes on the picking were not misplaced, as we have had heaps of fun, made some money, and met some great people.

We started by working at Surveyor's Hill Winery, where we met the previously mentioned Anthony, and through him and the owner of Surveyor's Hill, Lee, we were put in touch with the other Wineries in the area, when were not needed at one, we could usually be found at the neighbors. First there was Jennifer, who normally would machine harvest, but due the very wet weather, any attempt at getting the machine in would find the tractors bogged down in the mud. We worked alongside the Canadians we met over at Surveyor's and we were soon joined by two Scottish girls going for the required 80 days of agriculture work to qualify for a second year visa. Working at Jennifer's came with a perk though, although trying to get tractors up and down the rows was unavailable, we were able to drive a quad with a trailer behind carrying a bin into which we could dump our buckets. It was way nicer than carrying them from one end to the other. We worked there for three days I think, she provided us with coffee and tea at breaks, which was great. We worked for her through the end of the week. On Saturday we worked in the morning for another Winery, Pankhurst, which is across the road from Surveyor's. That wrapped up the season pretty much around here for the white wine grapes.

We had about a week of no work, broken up by a few days of putting up bird nets over the red grapes at Surveyor's and a new winery, Brindabella Wines, owned by Roger and also home of the actual Wine making facility, ran by Brian. Putting up the nets isn't so bad, it takes four of us, Jeff and I and the Canadians usually, plus Anthony driving the tractor. Three people walk behind the tractor, which carries the net on a big spool, two out in the rows that are being covered pulling the nets down and one right behind the tractor making sure there are no snags in the net. The fourth person walks behind us and using little plastic clips, clips the nets down so they don't blow away in the wind. On Sunday we were back at Pankhurst, first foray into red grapes and met some friends of the Canadians that they knew from picking grapes up in the Hunter Valley, Rich and Scaff. They've come into the area from Adelaide to pick up a few weeks of work with us. We got a call from Anthony about picking at another vineyard, this one called Wallaroo, they're looking for as many as they can get to pick for the next couple of days, they usually machine harvest as well and have a lot of ground to cover. We go out there on Tuesday and meet the owner of a local contractor company called Vineworx, he's one of the angriest men I've ever met. Even though we don't work for him, we were brought in and paid by the owners of the vineyard themselves, he still yells at us and isn't really helpful. He leaves though and we go about picking. The grapes here are so rotten that we would walk up and down the row with only one bucket and never fill it before reaching the end of a row. It started to rain so we cut out around 4. Called from Jennifer, who was managing the vineyard while the owners are away, not going to bother trying to pick anymore, there just isn't enough there to justify going after it. On Thursday we were back at Brindabella, picking shiraz grapes. We're down to only six of us, the Canadians left the night before, they're flying home soon and have many things left they want to do. Over the weekend we're headed about an hour north to another winery called Mt Margeleux to take down nets and pick. Its a smaller vineyard, the owners only do it as a weekend sort of hobby. Two of us go up on Saturday to take down the bird nets and all of us will go up on Sunday to pick. Jeff and Scaff go up Saturday to a day of hard work. Since they're small and only do it as a weekend thing, they don't have the machine mounted nice net handler, it all has to be done by hand. So Jeff rode around on the back of a trailer pulling the net in by hand and stuffing it into bags while Scaff unclipped and pulled the nets free. They were gone for most of the day while the rest of us lounged around. On Sunday though, picking there was so nice, only 23 rather short rows, and since they have the time to keep the vines pruned, picking was a breeze. There was no disease in the grapes, no rotten ones, so we could just go down the rows cutting everything. We worked for about six hours and finished just as it started to rain. We pile in our cars to drive up to the house, Jeff and I go up and park when we get called from the girls, their car won't start. Crap. None of us own jumper cables, so we have to ask the owner if he has any. He does! He'll go up and find them, if one of us will ride up with him to bring them back down. Cool we think, so Jeff and I park off to the side and wait. But then only Rich walks back down carrying the cables. Oh, so we're going to jump their car, got it. We drive up to the house, they offer us some of last year's wine to try and we settle up. On Monday we're back to picking around Canberra for a few days at Brindabella and Surveyor's. On Thursday though, we're headed to another new vineyard, this one called Gundog Estate and owned by Geoff Burton, a famous cinematographer. Really nice to work for, gives us breakfast and lunch as well as pays us quite generously. He has about 18 rows to do and we worked with some other people recruited for the day, we finished around 1, had lunch and came back. The girls left us after the Easter weekend to meet friends of theirs in Melbourne, we're down to just four of us left. Jeff coined "The Family that picks together, sticks together" weeks ago, but our family is slowly dwindling. We picked at Surveyor's for the week, but on Thursday we finished up at noon and for us, that was it. After five weeks of being in the Canberra region picking grapes, it was time to move on. We said good bye to Lee and Anthony (who gave us a bottle of home brew rum, good, but potent, it'll put hair on your toes) and the following morning we packed up the camp site, a sad occasion, as the Canberra Motor Village had been our home for the entire time.

Now Canberra wasn't all about picking grapes, though that took up most of our time, we also camped at the Motor Village next to Sarah and Mairi. We camped with them, hung out with them, picked grapes with them. We met them and in less than 2 weeks we had a bought a gazebo together. And that gazebo saved our lives. Canberra was pleasant enough when we got there but the week before we left it was getting down to 0-5 C every night. Let me tell you camping is NOT pleasant in that temperature. It is far far from it. Though no one succumbed to hypothermia so no harm no fowl. Between the cold and the mozzies I think we would have died but with the gazebo at least we didn't get bitten as much. Mairi has the unfortunate tendency to develop welts so she might have been the most excited. Our fellow pickers Rich and Scaff also stayed at the Motor Village for a spell so we could frequent the local pub together and drown out grape inspired woes in a pint together. By the time we left we had made some pretty awesome friends and might be lucky enough to meet them again in Melbourne because we all have that pegged as the next stop.

We are taking a hiatus from being men of leisure to pick grapes a little ways out of Canberra. This means that we are staying in Canberra for the longest time we have stayed anywhere. Canberra is alright but it's deliberate lack of a city centre is a bit annoying. I spent all of Sunday morning after the fail on finding a church, just looking for a nice coffee shop to spend a bit of time in and couldn't really find one. Sure it means that there isn't really any traffic problems and it sort of feels like it's a small town in the midst of a large park, but I miss having a main street you can just meander down. What I'm saying is that I'm looking forward to moving on from Canberra but with it's plethora of museums and galleries I wouldn't be opposed if life brought me back through someday.

Anyways, picking of the grapes. We're picking grapes in a small vineyard that sells some of what they grow to other wineries and then makes a few wines for themselves. It's the same sort of set up as when we worked with table grapes in St. George except that these are much more over grown and we are doing the actual picking not just working on the trellises. So all you do is get yourself a few 5 gallon buckets and a pair of snips and go to town. Down one side then back up the other. These rows are probably 300 meters longs or so and depending on how many people are picking it can take an hour to do a side or it can take 20 mins. The work isn't hard just really really boring. The career pickers, or the people who are employed by a company and just travel around and pick, plug in the headphones and just go. They are serious. When they are there the Nance and I are charged with ferrying the full buckets to the end of the row and tipping them into the bins and then taking the empties back down. When there is a good group picking that is all we do. Walk up and down the rows constantly. The buckets of grapes aren't heavy but after a while you just get sick of walking and walking and walking and talking to weird guy and walking and walking. His name is Anthony and he works for the same guy that hired us but is in charge of taking the full bins to the winery and whatnot. He is just an all around weird guy. So we did that all last week and were told that we are needed until Tuesday at least and after that we are talking to one of the picking crews to see if we can join them for another few weeks of fun. If we can and make enough money then I will be a Man of Leisure until we leave in August! We met two Canadians (surprise surprise) who also are working for Lee and trying to get in a picking crew so will see them Monday and Tuesday. Both are from British Columbia and have a very nice accent not like those one's we've met from Alberta.

We have the weekend off and went to the The Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex yesterday. Did not communicate with any aliens but did see a moon rock and learn heaps about NASA and what they've been up to. Apparently when we landed on the moon the picture that was relayed to NASA in California was upside down so they actually used the footage that went through Australia for the live broadcast that was shown to 600 million people. They were quite proud of this fact. I guess it was upside down in Cali because they had a switch flicked the wrong way but those clever Aussies had done it properly so the pride is well earned I suppose. Is a fair ways out of town and there is only one road that you can take to get there and of course we started going towards it from the city and that half of it is closed still from all the flooding the past few weeks so we had to drive all the way around this mountain and come from the South. It was worth it though. The ask you to turn off any receiving devices prior to your arrival so they can "hear the whispers from space." I enjoyed it immensely and even learned that there might be an ocean under all the ice on Pluto! Who knew? Also hopes are high that life will be found on Mars. Not like Marvin the Martian life (though it'd be sweet) but single cell organism life. Also learned that August 7th this year the newest Mars Rover will be touching down and we might learn whether there is life. If only we weren't flying out on the 8th! Because of the time of day it is expected to occur the Canberra Deep Space Communication Complex has been favored as the international viewing stage for the event so if you're around you could see first hand the landscape of Mars! Well now we have the day to catch up on laundry, clean the Corolla, and other errands because finally we aren't working AND it's not raining!