Four days of work is a good enough
reason to have the whole following week off. It's not by choice, but
it fits in so nicely with my plans that I cannot believe my
subconscious desires did not play a part in it becoming a reality. As
a perennial bad luck charm on every farm I work on, as soon as I
started on the corn in Orbost, productivity plummeted. Bad news for
someone saving to return to Asia in June. Great news for someone
desperate to return to Melbourne to see the Symphony Orchestra
perform Beethoven's 9th.
The fourth movement of Beethoven's
'choral' symphony is widely known as 'ode to joy'. Or wider still,
the music from the Olympics, or any other sports show where heroic,
humanity-inspiring feats require an equally impressive soundtrack. I
admit I hardly look like the sort of person who would enjoy a
symphony recital, but even though I have less musical ability than
what Mozart had in utero, I grew up listening to classical music and
often find the performances far more moving than contemporary music.
As for Orbost, have you ever walked
through a cow paddock and had every bovine eye trained on you
attempting to ascertain your strange features, covert intentions, and
ability to walk on two legs?Every foray into the thriving metropolis
of the 20 or so shops that make up the CBD
feels like going balls out on the catwalk for an underwear show. I
hardly look like the sort of person who would come to a small town
without the intention to rape and pillage, so the extra attention is
not taken personally. According to more than one resident, the only
thing worth doing here is getting pissed or stoned, so giving a
newcomer a once, twice or five times look over is just a normal way
to alleviate the boredom.
Having said that, everyone we have spoken to has been amazingly
friendly, and even the Australians we work with seem to be a likeable
bunch. Recollecting past experiences with Australian farmers, I
feared the worst when our Irish connection told us that everyone bar
one other was a local. This was all part of the job offer that Ronan
and Elaine presented to us 2 hours after returning from Tasmania. Had
I known that work was so imminent, I wouldn't have...no wait, I still
would have bitched about the unbelievable price of everything in
Tas-money-a.
The boss sounds as well loved as most bosses are, but we are yet to
meet him as a California Corn Convention kept him out of everyone's
hair for a week. That sounds riveting, but necessary when research
and development is the name of the game. We don't have to work in a
lab coat or carry a clipboard with sharp looking pie charts on it,
and minimal intelligence is required to complete the tasks. It
basically involves bagging pollen and inseminating corn silk, the
sort of stuff normally left to the birds and the bees.
The highlight of my short time in Orbost was a trip to the beach, as
is often the case. An overly friendly, stereotype-breaker of a
Serbian funny man called Nandor took Shane and I on a brief roadie to
nearby Cape Conran. Nandor's beach experiences were the dreams of his
everyday life back home when he escaped the rat race for 10 days
every year and totally submersed himself in the sort of lifestyle
that I have been lucky enough to enjoy for most of the last two years
of my life. All three of us approached a long, arcing crescent moon
shaped bay with perfect 1 metre barrels under a clear blue sky with
the same boggled-eyed child like enthusiasm though.
Nandor also approached the pre-rolled joint with child like
enthusiasm that would have been a concern to any child physchologists
that could have been hanging out with us dumb asses. I remember
promising my Mum that I wouldn't drink and swim for its obvious
effect on ones survival chances. I can't remember if I ever said the
same thing about weed, but I probably should of for my oft held
desire to grow gills and live underwater whenever I venture into the
water universe stoned. The waves were far too ripe for rippin' not to
be rippin' them, and not even water inexplicably colder than in
Tasmania's more southerly location could stop us for shredding like
nerds trying to look cool by exhausting their dodgy collection of
pseudo surfing expressions.
Nandor was out with me as the water seemed like a spa to his Eastern
Bloc ice lake swimming blood. Shane had been drown proofed in his
army training (being deliberately drowned and then resuscitated by
his drill sergeant) and should have had nothing to fear, but frozen
white tootsies was too much for this hard nut to handle. These waves
were big and clean and so easy to catch that I tried to mix it up and
go a bit new school. I thought that holding my ankles behind me would
help me aqua-plane me across the wave face like a majestic man
missile of physics defying grace. Instead, a cannonball of impending
disaster had some sandy ocean floor sense smashed into it before I
even had time to evaluate the imbecility of my crafty new technique.
Miraculously my teeth and nose remained in their original
configuration, but surprisingly I had lost my fervent desire to cheat
death and peer incredulity. For today at least.
