Well, it's been just over a month ... I am finding it hard to want to write much because I can't give a proper opinion of Australia until I've seen more of it! I've been out on the farm mostly, doing stuff I hadn't really imagined before: I've sheared (some of) a sheep!!..I've been in the pen with a hundred or two of them, cooing slash yelping at them to help usher them to their new paddock (field), I've been driving huge old farm machinery from acreage to acreage (on the left side of the road on the right side of the ute (truck)). I've seen kangaroos in the wild, probably 50 so far... they're like deer, as they are so common, but where a deer will walk onto the road and freeze and stare at you (..in headlights), the kangaroo will just hop alongside you and then casually leap in front of your vehicle and hop like hell until you've nearly swerved off the road..!!!... And I've been horseback riding for the first time, I've seen a stingray, I've been jumping around in warm crashing waves, and I've come to a point in my life when I can tolerate 16 flies crawling on my skin without twitching like mad to get them off.
Things have been so wonderful, relaxing, and rather domestic... lots of household duties, gardening, pruning roses (which there are a plethora of around here, I love it!), and hanging laundry out on the line...
I've just borrowed a car from a new wonderful friend of mine, while she was in Bali (it's very common and cheap for Aussies to go to Bali, it's like our Mexico), and I took off for a week's trip to some of the beaches in WA. Some camping and hostelling, and singing :), and wandering in awe and complete safety around the forests here. The deadliest thing in the woods is a snake... no bears or cougars of ferocious coyotes and wolves... just a tiger snake or two. And if you get to the hospital in time, you still live happily ever after. It's a cool feeling to be alone in the trees and be completely at ease.
All of the trees and birds are completely different here. Well, some birds are very similar... like there are loads of magpies, but they're mostly white with a little black.. and there are crows, but they make the weirdest sounds... like a dying baby alien...(first thing that comes to mind)...(it's a little disturbing at first)...But then there are these beautiful green parrots and tiny bright blue fairy wrens, and big white cockatoos, pelicans, kookaburras, and I have yet to see an emu... but they're around. Anyway, there are so many birds amidst these huge and hugely different trees, that it just creates this warm magical jungle feeling in a cacophonic symphony. Gorgeous.
Between decoding the lingo and laying on the beach, I'm finding myself ever so happy to NOT be in the snow this winter... and thus, I reckon this arvo, I'm gonna skull heaps of stubbies from the esky round the barbie with my new mates, and get loose as. Bloody oathe! :) xo
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