The Land of Deadly Animals: November 2018

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."

- Walt Disney

As I write this, a stomach bug is going through the new family I am with. Let me tell you, it is not fun to have a sick 2 year old, a teething 6 month old, and a sick mom. But aside from the current sickness it has been such a fantastic change from my previous position. But first let me review the last two weeks. I left my last position on a Friday and flew back to Perth. There is splurged on a nice hotel room and had the weekend to relax and explore. The best part was going to the grocery store and seeing all the options! I can have hummus again!

On Saturday after sleeping in I went to Fremantle, a city just outside of Perth on the seaside. I visited the Fremantle Markets which were first opened in 1897. The markets are only open on the weekends. It was fun to walk through and see what was all available.

And this is the moment when I found out Australia has Target! I called my family in the store, I was so excited!

I also spent time at the Western Australia Maritime Museum. It was really cool to see how shipping has impacted this area of the world.

This boat circumnavigated the world 3 times, which is pretty crazy as this is not a very large boat.

On Sunday, I made a trip to the Perth Mint. This mint was opened in 1899 to process gold from the gold rush and mint British coins.

This is the largest minted coin in the world. It weighs over a ton and is worth more than $50 million.

The mint also housed huge gold nuggets. Still to this day huge gold nuggets are being found in Australia but amateurs with metal detectors. Maybe I will happen upon a giant gold nugget while I am here!

They had a scale that would tell you how much you would be worth if you were made entirely of gold.

The coolest part of the tour was watching a gold bar being poured!

This is a statue of the first prospectors to find gold in Western Australia. I just love their shocked expressions.

The best part of the new house is this giant bathtub! I have not had a bathtub for 3 years!

Last week we took a trip to the city of Bussleton. Its a cute seaside town famous for its mile long jetty that juts out into the Indian Ocean. Its so long there is even a train for you to take to the end. Also how cute is this baby? Meet Baxter. He is 6 months old.

But even cooler than the jetty was this amazing playground!

On the left is Malakaye. He is 2. He attends daycare two days a week and this week was his daycare's Christmas party at the local wildlife park.

The kids didn't really care about the animals but I did! How cool is it that I got to feed kangaroos? They are also so incredibly soft! Almost like a rabbits fur.

I loved that they had a refuge area where the children can't get to the animals anymore.

I'm also about a 10 minute drive to this beach! How beautiful is that?

I am so happy with this family and am getting along really well with the mom. Right now the dad is working away so I haven't met him yet. We will all move to a different city further up north hopefully in the middle of December. Until the move I am playing tourist here and the mom is giving me manual driving lessons! It is so hard to concentrate on shifting gears and driving on the opposite side of the road!

"When life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

-Unknown

I am writing this second Australian post from a cushy hotel room in Perth! I left the station yesterday and am feeling so good about that decision! I'm still very happy that I went and was able to have so many good experiences in my month there.

Like seeing all the kangaroos! Now, kangaroos are seen as pests by the station owners but I still think they are adorable and love seeing them everywhere!

My favorite times on the station were when I was able to get out and help with actual station work instead of watching the kids. Because the station is in the middle of the desert, the only way the cattle survives in by having wells and troughs throughout the land for them to get water. This also means that the station owner has to constantly go out and check to make sure these troughs are filled and the water pump is working. I was able to go on a couple of "mill runs" as they are called to check the water. Another really cool thing about the desert is that things do not rot and deteriorate as they do where I am from. So things like this timber sheep paddock that was built in the 30's is still in almost perfect condition.

I also got to hang out with this handsome bull and see some of the wild horses and donkeys.

Not really sure what the real name of these are but the family calls them breakaways. Its amazing how many different colors are in these rocks.

So an old couple decided they wanted to live in the middle of nowhere, so they brought this camper up and built the veranda area, planted a garden, and started putting in solar panels for power. Then they just up and left. This place looks like someone left for the day and will just be back. So strange and eerie.

Most of the water is pumped to the surface using windmills. I cannot get enough of the red dirt, blue sky, and windmills!

I was able to go mustering one day. Mustering involves gathering all the cattle up and walking them to a place where you have set up fences to gather them in. In movies mustering looks so exciting, I can tell you it is in fact extremely boring. Cattle are not fast walking animals so we got to drive in front of the herd at a snails pace for 3 hours. Its lucky that there was beautiful scenery to stare at.

The next day though I helped process the cattle. That involved weighing the cattle, cutting the horns, putting ear tags in, and separating based on size and gender. I was so excited to be able to try my had at putting the ear tags in, just like piercing ears for not so pretty earrings.

The station owners no longer brand their cattle but instead use this tool to mark the cattle's ears. So each station has a registered shape and placement. The station I was at had the V shape at the top and the other shape at the bottom of the ear.

How's this for a stick bug? Or as my sister put it a branch bug?

These should be up higher in the post but these are the vehicles used for mustering. They can easily drive into the bush to gather up the cattle.

This cute little guy is named Moose. His mother is unfortunately nowhere to be found so he is going to hang out on the families lawn until he is big enough to go out by himself.

The room on the right has been my home for the past month and the room on the right is the "classroom."

Up until this point putting the ear tags in was definitely the highlight. That is until a helicopter came!!!!!!! So the helicopter is at the station as part of the governments bio-security team to deal with invasive species. In the US that usually means a weed or zebra mussels being moved to different bottles of water. Here those invasive species are camels and donkeys. So the helicopter is there to do aerial shooting, as in a guy with a gun sits out the passenger side door taking out any camels and donkeys they find. In one day they can find over 200 donkeys and camels.

I was lucky enough to get a ride in the helicopter!

We only went up for about 15 minutes but it was an incredible 15 minutes!

Photos just cannot do this place justice!

After the helicopter ride I was on a high and had second thoughts about leaving. Then the 7 year old got upset and threw a plastic lawn chair at me and all those second thoughts disappeared.

But I will always have the fantastic memories of kangaroos, ear tags, and helicopter rides!