A couple of points worth mentioning;
* Bulls that broke out of the old fenced paddocks trying to get them back in. * around sunset the ammount of beatles that started flying, making a really really loud buzzy sound. Pretty funny driving around that time thinking people shoot with paintball guns at your car.. * Huge falling star breaking in half while on the phone with little sis;) * Steve chasing bulls for challanging him. Really REAALLY funny sight seeing a man running into a still standing bull, faced forwards, with just a couple of metres apart, the bull starts running away and Steve running behind it chucking rocks at him.. hahah. * Ozzie slang; Rip snorta! whatsmadingybob. mydooby. *

The time we spend at the farm we tried to sell our van. Let me explain. Jeff (we painted his house) had a van he used for work with his collegues to carpool. Not too long ago he got offered a better position and took the offer but that meant no carpooling with the guys anymore. Different story for the rest of the guys but all in all no one would use the van anymore so they wanted to sell it. The van has less km’s, it’s an automatic, cruise controll and air conditioning + the seats are way more comfy than the other van. It hold’s 5 seats so less fuel costs and more fun! A good reason to sell it we thought. The last day of the 4 weeks we put it for sale on internet and putting it in front of the road with a big FOR SALE sign, a guy rocks up with his motorbike and wanted to have a look and some information about the van. Neil took him for a drive and he was happy with the result so after a chat he bought it! The same night we took over Jeff’s van. After a big clean up pictures will follow of course !

Last day’s.
We sold the van and around that time our friend micko got back from work & holidays. We caught up on things which was really good but had to say goodbye on friday morning. We had breakfast/lunch and then took off back to the farm to pick up our last things aaand… go shooting! A friend of Steve bought a biiig biig rifle (.223) and got it that week so planned to bring it out to the farm on friday. It took him 6 months to get it. A lot of paper work but first of all, to be able to buy a rifle that size you had to have a property of minimal 1000 acres. As i said… biiig gun.. So Steve left the quad bike for us behind so we could get to the other side of the mountain where Steve and his friend Will would be. Will took a .22 too to play around with sort off. They had already put down some target so we had a bit of a go with the .22. I let Steve shoot first so i would know how big the bang was which i imagined louder than the actual sound really was. Then it was time for the real thing. Steve and Will both already whot with the .223 and damn what a sound.. Neil gave it a go first. Aimed for the target which had a diameter of 25 cm and was 200 metres away. The three of us went for a look but don’t actually know where the bullet went. What did happen,.. the backfire shot the scope against his nose so now he’s got a little bruise there haha. A temporary memory. It was my turn now and aimed for the same target. A big bang and the target slowly tumbled down. shot! what a feeling haha. What everyone did wonder though how i hit it because it didnt fell quick. The target was standing on a rock so it might had hit the rock and so we went for a look trying to find where the bullet hit. after a little search around the target Steve all of a sudden starting acting really surprised. He found the bullet, straight through the middle.. haha I’m still smiling.
We haven’t made pictures of the actuall shooting but the rifle looks a bit similar like this but no tri-pod:
http://www.kopjerifles.com/images/rifles/varmint/big/varm_223Rem%20700.jpg

Fun time was over, a quick drive to Perth where we stayed at Neil’s parents the first night. The weekend is and was planned for catching up with friends and finding other backpackers to share our costs with to Darwin. We’ve had a very good time so far and it was really good catching up with all these very kind people. Today is set for finding some camping gear cause we’ll leave tomorrow! First stop will be coral bay and probably the next stop & update will be in Exmouth.

Thanks Micko, Steve, Carlos & family, Sam and Ramona for letting us stay at your place and having a good time. & Alex, if you read this,.. you’re a pannekoek !

PICTURES! (More will follow in part 3 post!)

I have no clue where to start. I was going to write an update but first had to check what was the last thing i wrote on here,.. I’m sorry it took me a while to write something new but i hope i can make up for it with this long update!

After the painting jobs done and all the pretty much temporary work Eileen told us that her parents had a farm not too far from where we were staying and asked us if we wanted to work there. A deffinite yes because we really needed the money for our amazing mission possible around Australia. She took it over to her parents and after a week or so we got to hear that we could start immediately from that point on! We had to help Steve out on the farm. Steve has a contract for replacing all the fences that are on the farm. He thinks it’s going to take about five years so he was happy with us giving him a hand. The first 4 days we worked very hard trying to get a long bit of fencing done. On friday it looked like we were going to finish that part by noon and Steve was really happy with our much apreciated help (his own words) and said that if we’d finish it he would take us for a spin aroud the farm so we could see what was the actual size of it. (i found it hard to imagine the size of the farm cause the land went from flat into mountains.) So together with checking out how the fences were holding in the back and if the water troths were still working and all random bits, we could see the area.

A little information about the farm. it’s a 800 acre farm for cattle (cows) and has horses that stay for their retirement but also new borns getting ready to be trotters and racing horses.

I had my own quad bike. Neil had his own quad bike and Steve on the motor bike. The front bit of the farm was flat and thats where we had done the fencing all week so all we looked up to was the west side of the mountain. Full throttle upwards having a bit of fun with the bikes in a carefull way of course… we went up the mountain. After opening and closing a couple of gates we got on top of the mountain. What a View! My mouth dropped. A gorgeous valley lying below us with a creek crisscrossing through the middle in an elegant way. A surprise really.. we went down on a slow pace enjoying the view. Down the valley we had a bit of fun on the bikes again where we went back up on the other side of the mountain spotting our first kangaroo’s about a couple hundred metres away. Neil had a bit of a problem getting up the hill since his quad bike was the old one without brakes and really,.. really bold tires.. haha. Once back up the highest point of the mountain we stopped and enjoyed the scenery. You could see the ocean from there which was about 40 km. away. Down the mountain we checked the last water troth there was to be checked and on our way back we spotted some kangaroos but this time up close, starting to jump away! WOW. Adrenaline! Steve flew away with his motor bike and i followed on the quad trying to go as quick as possible avoiding the rocks in the mean time on the ground. Such a wonderfull view watching these animals going as fast as they can from up close. What a power. We might have scared them a little bit but in the end left them with no harm behind. Try to imagine it..

Mustering cattle. There were two paddocks who had new fences all around. In one of them was cattle and the other one we just finished building was empty. The cows barely had any grass left to eat so time to get them into the other paddock who had and probably still has plenty! The only thing was though, that the bull in that paddock had to stay in the old paddock. Steve and his little boy Ben (4? years old) on the old quad and Neil and i on the new quad. We opened the gate between the paddocks and you could see the cows had been waiting for this moment. They knew exactly what was happening. The first couple of cows started walking quickly towards the fence. I followed Steve around the cows not to be in their way to the other paddock and tried to keep an eye on how the cows but most importantly the bull was behaving. Once behind the cows Steve and I placed ourselves between the bull and the gate but at the same time Steve told me to go get the cows in the back to get them to hurry up a little cause soon enough the bull would be well aware of what was going on and probably take a shot at the gate. So he did…. i was about 30 meters away from Steve & bull getting these cows to hurry up which started running at the time and the bull took off around Steve and Ben straight for the fence. Steve turned around and cut him off quiet quickly and got him to a stop. I got the cows pretty much pushed and close towards the gate and the bull took it another go. This time he outrun Steve the first couple of meters and i knew i had to jump in so got the new quad bike wich is deffinitaly more powerfull with full throttle towards the gate and placed myself and Neil in between the two, Steve cought up, we pushed the bull from the gate with full speed towards the fence. Once he realised there was a brand new fence in front of his nose he pushed his four legs straight forward, but in very wet soil, slipped for about 3 meters and crashed head first straight into the fence. hahaha, what a sight. Neil and i were kind of suprised, and with the adrenaline going we forgot that we were in front of the gate, still open and a bull being a bit dizzy in front of us looking at us what was going on. So Steve standing on the other side of the bull quickly shouted to close the gate so i jumped off and quickly closed the gate. You could see the bull knew it was over and walked away from all of us.

We’ve got to go now, but ill write a second part soon! So much more to tell…

B&N

We’re back!

After some weeks without news we finaly have something new to tell you all. We traveled from the Stirling range to Donnybrook. Though my grandparents friends we’ve met up with a very generous lady who was willing to let us stay in her house for the time being while we tried to find a job. After a week of job hunting and fishing without luck we got a reply on one of our gumtree adds. (gumtree is a website where you can sell your rubbish or look for work. gumtree.com.au). This was our add:

Hard working guys need work
We are with the two. Doesn’t matter what we do we work hard, long days. We have previous farm experience, no cattle in particular but some with horses. fencing, fruit, painting. tell us what to do and we’ll do it. cheap price for a murder

Haha let me explain;
We had an add running already but it didn’t seem to work. It was a very formal and a well described text about what we are capable of and a little background information. So I decided to put another add online which would be more straight to the point australian outback style. Now when we got the call we said yes to the job straight away but when we hung up the phone I immediately wondered to wich add he replied. You can immagine it was a bit of a laugh when he said he replied to the cheap price for a murder.. his excuse was he couldn’t find any other add…

Mick is the guy we worked for. After some days you get to know eachother and he’s a really really nice guy. He used to travel quiet a lot too and soon back on the road again because he misses it. He was already painting his house for a week and couldn’t put up with it anymore so thats why he called us. first day was a long day, second day was a lond day, third day crabbing.. haha. You’ve seen the picture. Out on the boat in the morning with Dave and Mick for what they call, pulling the pots. It’s for crayfish, some might know them as lobsters. The pots are crates in the water. You leave them there with some bait in, pull them up to see if there are any crayfish in there, if not you drop down the crates and come back the next morning. No luck that time but since then Dave has cought a couple of crayfish. Dave is one of Mick’s neighbours. A retired fisherman with a good dose of humor. If you’ve ever seen Married with children he comes close to Al bundy. Same humor, same love for beer, only a bit more fortunate and happy with life. After pulling the pots, we went to another spot and went crabbing. we caught a little over 20 crabs, back home cleaned them all and had a big cookup!
We had a day painting after our day off and on Sunday we had a visit from our friends who we met a few months ago in Perth and stayed for two nights. More days off. We took the girls crabbing and sightseeing in Busselton and the second day we went dolphin spotting in Bunbury. It was a good weekend! The day the girls left we needed a day off again haha. Some rest for the next day, last day painting!

The house looks good, now we could start at his brothers house next door.. but before that,.. camping trip and surfing! It’s on a secret spot so no names here but if you’re eager to know, once you’re in Australia i’ll ask Mick if he’ll take you there . We arrived in the dark but the place already looked amazing by moonlight. Simple camp spots made the place even more attractive. Very clean, simple yet in the middle of nature. Absolutely perfect! We met up with some of Mick’s friends, set up tent, had a bit of a dinner (sausage and bread and went to bed to get ready for an early morning. The reason we didn’t have the van is because the area is only reachable with a 4×4. It took us about half an hour off road to get to the spot.
Next morning all set to kill some waves! We drove to one of the tops of the mountain next to the beach to see which side of the beach was best to go surfing. The guys weren’t too happy with the waves and they looked pretty small from the top, but when we walked down and eventually in the water i could tell these were high enough for me.. In the water i took time to look around first. The nature in it’s pure beauty, untouched with the sun coming up from behind the mountains. At some point Mick pointed Neil to a stingray swimming below us. In the back of my head hoping he wasn’t getting away from a shark haha. Right,.. ready to catch some waves. We got washed away.. hahaha. The guys were good and Mick caught some waves as well. No match for these experienced surfers but awesome! After a small two hours everyone was dead tired and freezing cold! What an experience. If i’ll ever go back to Australia this is definitely one of the spots i would revisit, no doubt.

We started painting Mick’s brothers house next door and Mick was starting to prepare for work. He works on the rigs. Two weeks work and two weeks holiday.. sounds like a great job doesn’t it? Painting the house of his brother Jeff & Eileen took a long week and in the mean time Mick was gone to do his job. We could and still use his house even when he’s away. Everyone is happy with the paint job and now we’re looking for some other work. We already had a couple of days work. Really horrible work actually, digging dirt all day.. But it makes money and thats what we’re after since we’ve made up our minds on the what to do of our last months in Australia.

Mission possible:
We’re trying to find work for the next month at least and then we want to travel up north to Darwin and back south to Sydney where we eventually have a month to sell the van, maybe do some work and leave to New Zealand!
If someone has any tips on visiting certain places do let us know! Please don’t come up with; bring enough water because we’re not stupid..

So far for now and some pictures to end the show:
Have a party on us the 31st of may and 14th of june!