Where we are, where we are

Back in June I wrote a blog about a bunch of things I had hoped to experience on our journey to Australia and its interesting to see how many things are actually happening.

"I'm excited to leave my possessions behind and feel what it's like to only have what I can fit in my backpack. I'm hoping to open my eyes a little more and take more photos. I'm hoping to break down my barriers and get out of my shell. To find what it is that holds me back from being outgoing, confident, forgiving and the person I want to be. I want to help other people who need it in whatever way possible. I want to find new music, meet new friends, drive on the wrong side of the road, see nature and all of it's beauty. I want to see new animals, conquer fears and try new food. I want to learn to fish, see different art and be surrounded by different accents :) I want to snorkel in the ocean and feel the sand between my toes. I want to wake up and write in my notebook and take photos in a place I've never been before and may never see again. I want to step out of my comfort zone. I want to get tired from walking and sleep on the ground while I'm young. I want to wake up to the sounds of the ocean and hang my clothes to dry on a clothesline tied between trees. I want to mail postcards home and skype with my family. I want to be homesick. I want to experience Christmas with the Akhursts and fireworks over Sydney for NYE. I want to kiss Jeff under those fireworks. I want to see how happy Jeff is while waking up on his birthday IN FREAKING AUSTRALIA. I want to take a boat to a small island to sleep for a few days. I want to walk for days just camping along the way. I want to wash my hair in the ocean and not wear makeup. I want to feel pretty those random times we decide to dress up and go out in random towns. I want to help in Bega valley with a Strawbale House and landscaping and be inspired to do the same here in Idaho someday."

We are exactly halfway through this four month expedition and I couldn't be more happy with what it has done for us. The obvious being that we have gotten to see another country and some incredible sights (Great Barrier Reef, many rainforests, Blue Mountains), animals (kangaroos, crocodiles, emus, koalas,wombat) and we get to hear a different accent on a daily basis. Australia is a beautiful place and everywhere we go we are finding to be our new favorite ;) I've tried new fish, started to say things like "heaps","dodgy" and "how're ya goin'?", jumped into the wide open ocean with huge fish, walked very long distances, dug stairs out of a hill made of clay and became comfortable with the greeting of a hug and kiss on the cheek instead of a handshake.

Jeff had met Nancy and Hedley on his last trip here a couple of years back and had told me over and over how great they are. Who else would tell three strange blokes at a train station they are welcome to come stay at their house? I'd emailed with them a bit leading up to our trip and couldn't wait to meet them in person. They truly are some of the most genuinely kind and caring people I've ever met in my life. From Nancy refusing to go through self check-out at the store because she wants to make sure the young checkers don't get put out of work to them taking care of people younger than themselves, to offering up their spare bedroom to us off and on while feeding us and making sure all is well. I can't even begin to explain how fantastic Nancy and Hedley are. Not only are they great but it seems the entire Akhurst family is following suit. We could never repay what they have all done for us but we believe in paying it forward and doing kind things for others (stranger or not) for the rest of our lives.

Jeff's trip to Australia in '09-'10 was great for building a foundation of trust in our relationship. We had only been dating for about 6 months and were about to spend time across the world from each other. It definitely strengthened our relationship! This time around is great for teaching us patience. Let's face it, you're bound to want to smack someone upside the head after spending 24/7 with them for weeks on end while not getting ideal amounts of sleep in sometimes stressful environments, I don't care how much you love them. Everybody's shit stinks. The great news is neither of us have smacked the other and our patience and love are growing by the day. Jeff may have learned my death stare by now that says "go ahead, do whatever repetitive noise you're doing one more time while I'm trying to concentrate" just like I know the look that tells me when I'm being incredibly stubborn and he might, just this once, be the one who is right ;) We are also learning when to "not sweat the small stuff" and love each other even during our most obnoxious moments. I truly love him more and more each day and am so fortunate to have a partner who is as adventurous as I am, who challenges and inspires me to be the best person I can be and loves me unconditionally.

I find myself finding beauty in everything and LOVE traveling by train. Even with the stinky, loud, piss drunk passengers we encounter I prefer it over flying! I can't really describe it but there is something about sitting back with your headphones on looking out the window watching the landscape change and kangaroos hopping by that is just fuel for the soul. I guess you could say we do the most thinking during that time (besides being out in nature) and we almost always start thinking of home. It's kind of like when you're completely in love with someone and when you're away from eachother everything reminds you of them. Bing Crosby, blue mountains, wood fires all remind me of my dad. Tons of music reminds me of my sister. When I was sick all I wanted was Lipton soup and my momma's company. Talking to Hedley about history reminds me of Dudley Reunions and my grandpa.

I've missed home to the point of actual tears a few times here. It's never as a result of not having a good time, but more so in a way that we feel so fulfilled already on this journey that we aren't constantly living in a state of excitedness. Dont get me wrong, we still get very excited about everything we are doing but if our trip were cut short we would feel far from considering this trip a bust. I'm so appreciative of my upbringing and the people who have been a part of it and this trip just constantly reminds me of that. My family means more to me than anything as well as the friends I hold dear to my heart and I'm always wishing they could be here to experience this along with us.

Christmas will be hard being away from home but we will also have a lot of love surrounding us from our new family away from home. New Years Eve fireworks in Sydney followed by a few days in the Gong will be a perfect way to end this journey and start a new one in our hometown where we have big plans in the midst!

Until then we will continue to have our minds blown by the natural beauty in Australia and appreciate every single moment here. Because in all honesty it has been the most eye opening, inspiring, kick in the ass that I could ever hope for.

If you don't eat, you don't shit and if you don't shit, you die!

After the last leg of our trip where we had travelled across the country and back in just a few weeks we needed some rest. The morning after we got back we awoke to heavy rain on the window and winds so heavy you could hear them well before they hit the house. Our plans to do laundry were definitely delayed (you can't dry your clothes on a hills hoist when it's pouring rain) and we spent the first half of the day relaxing inside listening to the radio about a town close by getting snowed on and the roads in the Blue Mountains being awful. Early afternoon the black skies disappeared and suddenly the sky was blue and the birds were chirping! So we set out for the store with Nancy and Hedley when Nancy said she wanted to go to the lighthouse to see the rough waves. Since the winds were so heavy the ocean looked like a bunch of giant white capped waves that would come crashing into shore when they would reach. Just walking around out there I swear it felt like any second we would be blown away! Nancy said it was the strongest wind she has ever been in and we all agreed. We did see some sort of whale or black sea creature out in the ocean while we were up there and spent a good 5 minutes trying to keep our eyes open in the strong winds long enough to figure out what it was. Link to news article on the crazy weather day

That night we went to Trivia night out in Dapto (a town that may be where all the weirdos live) with Nancy and Hedley, John and Sophie, and Carolyn and Jen where we ended up spending 5 hours and 8 rounds competing with 27 other teams for the win. There were group dances, lots of drinks, nibbles, random awkward lap dancing as we all tried not to make eye contact in fear of her coming for our table, and eventually before naming off the big prizes they went through about 500 raffle prizes (one-by-one) as we all started to laugh at the ridiculousness of the moment. But surprisingly we won! Each of us got $60 gift certificates to a nice restaurant which will be great to go to together.

The night before we were to set off for Bega we were invited over to Carolyn and Jen's house for dinner: homemade lasagna (best we had ever had) and delicious tart for dessert. The lasagna is Guy Grossi's recipe who owns the restaurant Grossi Florentino in Melbourne and the Tarts were a recipe from Jamie Oliver. Somewhere in our break I ended up getting my first Aussie cold unfortunately. Since it was the beginning stages I wasn't so sure how bad it would get and when Nancy and Jeff both suggested maybe delaying our trip to Bega by a few days I said I'd be fine (true to my stubborn Aries ways). I was too excited!

Carolyn and Jen's AWESOME patio

Fantastic Sun Room

A few lines are missing but I love this

Nancy and Hedley

Carolyn and cat

Lulu!

Best Lasagna EVER

A while back Nancy sent us a link through email to the blog Pearl and Elspeth. It is her granddaughter Annie's blog with her partner Genevieve that follows their adventure in building a self sustainable life on their 7 acres of land and the beginning of their Strawbale house. Since the first entry I read back in January in Boise, Idaho about them happily picking plums I have read every entry. From the sewing projects to the canning and bottling and the most anticipated posts regarding their plans to build a house out of bales of straw I was all about this blog and I'd never even met them! It had the perfect blend of humor yet still being informative and definitely unique.Plus there was a post about dancing around to the Decemberists and it being Annie's favorite band-- I knew we'd get along well.

Annie told me that they would have plenty of projects going on and that if we were looking for WWOOFing opportunities we were more than welcome to come stay on their land! I continued following their blog to see the progress as it went along and specifically remember driving to work the morning of their workshop where many of their friends and family had gone out to Bega to help put up the Strawbale house.

Skip forward 5 months and it was time to head out there ourselves and contribute and give their land some more love!

We arrived just after dark by bus and Annie was generous enough to come pick us up in town. On the drive up to the property we saw our first wombat as it slowly (very slowly) crossed the road in the headlights.Click here if you want to see an adorable Wombat! When we got to the property Annie and Genevieve allowed us to sleep in the couch area of their house for the night as we didn't want to set up the tent in the dark on a hill.. We stayed up with Genevieve and her father, John aka Peps, and had a few beers before getting some sleep. In the morning we woke up with the sunrise and what a beautiful sunrise it was!

Sunrise Glow 

Sunrise reflection on window

Jeff loves the sunrise

We searched for a "flat" spot to set up our tent, Dumbledore, and after a while settled on the closest-to-flat spot we could find. At least it was on top of longer grass so it created some padding underneath us! Little Olive came out and showed us where all of her "Fairy Gardens" are around the property which was the coolest thing ever. She pretty much creates these little landscapes out of twigs and rocks and places characters in them.

Dumbledore and our view

Olive showing me a Fairy Garden

See it? 

Olive's note to Fairies, "Dear Fairys, I love you, This  Fairy garden's for you, xoxo"

Slight slope

For brekky we had decious Muesli with yogurt and milk and cups of coffee, very delicious! We browsed through the list Annie had made of possible projects we could work on and decided we would start on a series of steps up the little hillside behind the house to their Orchard/duck/bee/top dam precinct. Since Peps has all the knowledge and seems to know how to do everything without admitting it we wanted to see how he would start and get his advice first. Jeff helped him with a small few steps going from the driveway to the composting toilet so we could get an idea where to start while I went up and started the measuring and putting up guidelines for digging.

Jeff and John

Ducks

Bees and area steps lead to

The beginning

While we were starting this project Bruno, the electrician, showed up to get started on installing their off grid solar system! So the four of us all busily worked on our projects to the noise of hammering, drilling, shoveling and Oscar playing while Genevieve calmly prepared lunch and dinner for us and looked after the wild and crazy Osky. After a while Annie returned from work with Olive and they had found a turtle crossing the road! Jeff and I hopped into the car and drove down to the lower dam with Annie, Olive, Oscar and turtle so we could get some water for the plants, food for the ducks and free the turtle into the water.

the rough draft of our steps

Fire bath below 

Composting toilet

Property across the road

Who wouldn't want a view like this when taking care of their business?

Add caption

Turtle!

Jeff with the buckets

Annie and Oscar

Olive and Oscar

Oscar testing out our steps

Delicious Dinner!

Throughout the next 2 days Jeff, Peps and myself continued to work on the bloody stairs and a little chicken house while Bruno worked on installing the Solar Panels. Genevieve is an amazing cook and was always preparing the best homemade meals for us to recharge at the end of each day along with some beer/wine and great conversation. It was during these breakfast and dinner conversations that we talked about things like American Politics, future plans, self sustainable life and that if you don't eat you dont shit and if you dont shit you die. The neighbor's dog, Ollie, would prance around the dinner table waiting for scraps to fall or mainly Oscar to start slipping him whatever he was eating. They also have a firepit going out of an old recycled washer drum we would sit in front of each night and drink beer/wine/tea before heading to bed. Unfortunately for me the cold that had started to develop back in Wollongong was starting to get worse each night (camping doesn't exactly give you the best quality rest, especially the kind you need if you're trying to fend off sickness).

Those bloody steps were quite the "head scratcher". When your high school Algebra teacher tells you that you'll someday use that information and you laugh at him because "yeah, right... when will I ever need to know how to calculate the long side of the triangle is or use words like Obtuse?" listen to him/her. There will be a day where you're doing something like digging steps out of a clay wall and you have so much distance to work with and a certain rise so you need to know how far apart and how deep each step needs to be... We did pretty well at guessing how far apart the steps would be and how deep to make them but forgot to look at the materials we had as far as putting stoppers in front of the steps. The boards we had were not as tall as the steps were deep so after hammering posts into the ground we found out we would have to pull them back out and use different materials. We all decided railway sleepers would be the way to go. Those steps would be the death of us! All along the way John was there to give us a lot of tips or show us efficient ways to get things done but always in the most humble way. He reminded me a lot of my dad and it made me miss him.

When Bruno finished putting up the Solar Panels we got to witness the lightbulb being turned on for the first time in their little strawbs! It was actually quite bright! They said that they felt as if their strawbs had lost its virginity.

The next morning we had planned to go with Annie to a little old whaling town called Eden to walk around the coast and explore what it had to offer while she did a workshop at the Primary school that involved kids making sea creatures out of recycled materials! Since I had started to feel pretty awful we also decided that we would stay in a hotel in Bega that night so we could get a proper nights rest. I had started to get a pretty bad fever but we did enjoy sitting on the beach watching the waves for a bit. Since we would be going to the blue mountains right when we'd get back to Wollongong and then off for a month up north after that we decided that we would head back to Wollongong early so I could get a few days of rest and hopefully get better before leaving. I was not keen on the idea at first because even though I was sick I really was having a fantastic time in Bega and didn't want to leave!

So we packed up our things and went to The Commercial Hotel where we were booked into a room right above the bar where a live band would be playing that night. Annie, John and Oscar came by to say goodbye to us and then we slept the rest of the afternoon. We woke up to go get some dinner for about an hour and even though you could feel the bed shaking from the music we were both tired enough to pass right back out that night and slept soundly. In the morning we were walking to the bus area when John and Genevieve pulled up so we were able to say goodbye to them and right before getting on the bus as I was standing on the corner waving to John, Annie drives through town and honks her horn and waves too! It was a nice little moment where we all just kind of ended up right there in the middle of Bega at the same time.

Riding away from Bega that morning while listening to my ipod and thinking of the great time we had I actually shed a little tear. We can't wait to go back and help some more!