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Springbrook Farm
Monday, 07.06.2010
So today,
my journey finally takes me to Goomeri and Springbrook Farm. Two Guys from England took
the same Greyhound to Gympie and there are a few more people joining us.
We’re nine
people in Goomeri: Holly (England)
and Krystin (Germany)
are going to Justin and Lyndal’s Farm to do some horsework. Tom and Ben (England), Paul, Jens and Lida (Germany), Freddy (France) and me are going to
Springbrook Farm. After finishing the paperwork and “shopping” we meet our
trainers at Springbrook. It’s Karen and Daryl who have their own property of 90
acres a few kilometres away.
We’re
having our first motorbike lesson and are driving round the “garden” until it
gets dark.
The dinner
at 7pm is cooked by Juliet (Namibian), just as it is to be done the following
days. Angus (Scottish) is lighting a fire and we’re watching “Inglorious
Basterds”.
Tuesday,
08.06.2010
Our day
starts at 8:30am when Daryl and Karen arrive. We had breakfast before and are
ready to work. We get split into two groups. Lida, Paul, Freddy and Beth (England,
arriving at Lunchtime) go with Karen and start with tractor driving and
chainsaw operation in the afternoon. Me, Ben, Tom and Jens are going to go
horseback riding with Daryl. We’re making our way along the fences and having a
great view of the beautiful property: that’s just what I’m here for! It is time
to have a chat with Daryl and we’re talking about what job I’d like to do. My
hope to get a job on a cattle farm grows. It sounds just perfect.
My horse
Fungus seems to be a bit lazy and we don’t get our horses into a throttle for
more than a few metres. But it was just amazing.
After
lunch, we’re going motor biking. Off road and up and down the hills. Completely
different from what I’ve done at Marek’s garden or what we did the day before.
It is so
much fun, but really scary at the same time. The “roads” are very rocky and
during the whole tour every one of us fell at least once. There is a really
steep hill that none of us (except Daryl) made in the first try and as I made
it up in my second try he said “I know only three girls who got up here”. Yes I
am proud of me and I have to show off with it :-D!
But I
slipped away on one rocky section before so I got some really bad bruisers from
that day as well!
Wednesday,
09.06.2010
Now it’s
our turn to do the tractor driving and chain sawing. It is not as cool as
Tuesday but we learn a lot. And all the stuff you can/have to do with the
tractor is really confusing. Driving is easy, when you can drive a car. But all
the lifting up of the fork or any machines… And driving with a machine in the
back is the same as driving a car with trailer, but that’s not the easiest
thing when you never did it before. At
least we all moved the hay bales the way we were told.
Our whole group
was a bit scared before the chain sawing but it was much easier than we all
thought. And we wore some safety gears such as protection pants and helmet. All
looked like lumber jacks…
And another
“highlight” of the day was lunch at Dan and Joanna’s house. Wow, what a nice
view. Their house is on the same property but it is on the top of a small hill
and the view is just wonderful. Unfortunately I took my camera neither to
dinner nor to one of our lessons so I can’t show you this wonderful landscape.
Oh and what
you should know is that “Lunch” is Sandwiches and sometimes sausages and Dinner
is the real meal of the day. I think one of the reasons is the heat in the
summer so you don’t want to eat a huge meal at midday and you don’t need a digestion
break.
Thursday,
10.06.2010
We start
with a fencing lesson. What I could not tell on that Thursday is that what we
did is totally different from what a contract fencer does. But I’ll talk about
that later.
Our fencing
lesson was not bad. We put up 50 metres of cattle fence…. What means steel pegs
every few metres and four strips of barbed wire. We did it all manual;
hammering the steel pegs in the ground, strain the wire. It was okay for this
lesson but I think a whole day would kill you ;-).
In the
afternoon we had the choice between Horse exercise and motor biking to collect
the firewood we cut the day before. I chose the horse work because I got the
opportunity to get a cattle mustering job on horseback and I hoped to improve
my riding skills. I will need them in that job. Unfortunately we didn’t go
riding but longed two of the horses. That was interesting as well, so no loss
at all.
Friday,
11.06.2010
So today is
the big day: we muster the cattle, some of us on horses and some on motorbikes.
The only “problem”: The cattle on Springbrook get mustered every Friday. So our
job was not really hard, we didn’t have to chase the cattle as it is usual on
big cattle farms, because the cattle there see human beings only every three or
six months.
But the
nice calm Springbrook cattle made their way to the yard and we just followed on
our horses. On our way to the cattle Beth started galloping with her horse and
all the other horses joined in. That was really scary because all the boys were
total beginners on horses and I’m not professional at all. The whole thing got
out of control and it probably was just luck that nobody fell off his horse. I
rode another horse (Roman) who was very strong and I needed much more power to
stop him or make him go where I wanted him to go.
In the yard
we tagged 10 male calves and branded and castrated one. I think it was very
interesting but the boys were all obviously hurt by watching the castration.
Angus wanted to cook the testicles for dinner but I think he forgot it, so we
had just steak for dinner and that was very good.
Saturday,
12.06.2010
At 9:00am
the small Pursers bus arrived and took us the four hours way to the Brisbane
Transit Centre. We all went into a hostel few minutes from the transit centre.
The “Tin Billy’s”. Not bad for a hostel, a bit too big in my eyes (four floors)
and not very familiar, but clean and with bathroom in each room. We were nine
people and got split in 3 different rooms. Beth, Tom and Ben were in room 29,
Krystin, Jens and Paul in room 26 and Freddy and me in room 34. Unfortunately
the English people weren’t seen after check in. I tried to activate my
Australian sim card. Not as easy as it sounds and I had a really pissed,
stressed and fucked hour in which I tried to call my parents. No good idea
cause they were naturally worried when the heard my nice message on their voice
mail… well shit happens!
I found the
other three Germans and they helped so I finally got my mobile phone started. We
went with Freddy down to Brisbane
River and had a good
Dinner in a nice Italian Restaurant.
When we got
back to the hostel I watched “Because I said so” with three very cool girls who
lived in the same room. A great evening after this fucked day! We had probably
the cleanest and best room compared to 26 but the night was not over yet.
I went to bed early because the Greyhound to my
first employer was going to leave at 7:30am. At half past midnight our last
roommate, a guy from Taiwan
came home and had obviously one drink more than he can take. He fell out of his
bed (the one under mine) at 1 am and started puking on the carpet and his
suitcase. Of course our whole room was awake, turned the light on, and got a
guy from the reception. As Danny was not even able to speak the guy from the
hostel called the ambulance. When the first-aid men arrived Danny recovered
pretty fast. So they left him at the hostel, he had to take a shower get back
in his bed someone cleaned the floor. I think I fell asleep again at 2:30 or
3:00. As you can imagine I was not very fit when my alarm clocked rang at
6:30am. I had to take a shower in another room cause our shower was still full
of puke and I almost missed my bus. What a night.