My New Life on Gamboola Station

Friday's work just finished up and I thought that while I sit here mellowing out to Kenny Chesney's most recent album I'd write up another post for the ol' blog. I do that on paper now cuz my internet time is sporadic and sometimes very limited.

I remember putting so much emphasis before I move here about some of the statistics... 4 hours from a decent town, 2 hours from the nearest town of 200, mail and ambulance by plane, ect.. Yet now that I'm working out here, the isolation doesn't even seem to cross my mind for weeks at a time. Sure, I look forward to the day that I'm back in Texas and the big cities (God I never knew how much of a Texas guy I was until I left the state) but right now I'm exactly where I should, and more imporantly WANT to be.

It's another month or two before the contract musterers get to the station, at which point there will be 12 other jackaroos/jillaroos about my age to spend some of the evenings with. Mustering season (rounding up the cattle to the stockyards for sorting from all over the station) will last about two hard months, and there is plenty to do as we Tony and I prepare for it.

Most days Tony and I work side by side, recently either putting new timber into the stockyards here at the homestead or riding out all day for work on the miles (and miles and miles) of barbed wirce fences. During the wet season of Jan. and Feb. the waterways swell and mess the fences up something awful, so I think with 600 miles of it and MANY waterways it's fair to say that there's enough work to keep a few men busy year in and year out.

The weather is amazing, very few clouds and plenty of sunshine. Granted, the sun in the afternoon hours sometimes feels like an oppresive deamon straight out of hell... but hey, welcome to the Australian Outback eh?

Tony, my boss and manager, is 45 and a good man in all measures. He moved from Cairns out to the bush when he was about 18 to find life as a stockman, and he's very good at what he does. He's a hard worker no doubt, but lucky for me he deosn't have any desire for us to overwork ourselves. He says there's no point in running ourselves completly into the ground out here, and I couldn't agree more. He expects good work tho, so every time he leaves a job for me to do by myself, I make sure that I do it right. I decided the first day I got here that I was never going to make the man repeat himself or point out something done half-way. It's not like I can just make new friends out here or anything...

Lisa, Tony's wife, is an amazing cook. When you're on an isolated cattle station, you better be prepared to be in love with steak. Luckily I fit that bill. Even better, I have never had a predictable meal since I've been here. It's been nearly a month already (and MAN has that flown by) and almost every dinner has been something different. Heck we even had a great curry the other night. Speaking of eating cattle, the second week I was out here I had my first experience actually cutting up a beast. We drove out into one of the paddocks nearby and found a good fat cow with no calf, and an hour later we had a month's supply of cut up beef in the bed of our Toyota Landcruiser. Btw- I'm driving pretty well on manual these days.. after my lesson on the Gold Coast with my Auntie Jo and Uncle Jeff it's been a piece of cake.

I'm working 6 days a week right now as there is a lot to catch up on (seeing as Tony and Lisa didn't have any station help for a few months), and I told them that I had no problem at all working Saturdays.. "seeing as I don't have any hot dates lined up". When we knock off around 5, I head straight to the shower and mellow out to some good music. Uusally a 4X Gold Beer (the local favourite) is in order back near the main building as I chat with Tony and Lisa. I've been putting in a little less than an hour a day on the guitar, at which I'm still a beginner, as I decided that I might as well utilize my free time in the evenings to get much better at that. Dinner is accomanied by the show 'Two and a Half Men' which comes on every weeknight, and unless there's a good Bond of Indiana Jones movie on TV I'm out before 9pm.

While riding back from fence work yesterday I was thinking about the fact that I may go see the Great Pryamids of Egypt before I get back stateside. And then I thought about the fact that I COULD do that.. or darned near anything else that comes into my head. I'm enjoying it so much here that I might just end up staying here longer, which will help me put plenty of money away to make my trip back go through South Africa, Egypt, Italy, Germany, France, and Ireland a real possiblility. As long as I have enough away to get my own feet on the ground for a car and my own place when I get back (to wherever it is I decide to call 'home' for the next phase of my life).. anything goes.

Don't spend a second worrying about me out here, I'm having the time of my life out here.

The Song in my Head

Step one you say we need to talk
He walks you say sit down it's just a talk
He smiles politely back at you
You stare politely right on through
Some sort of window to your right
As he goes left and you stay right
Between the lines of fear and blame
You begin to wonder why you came

Where did I go wrong, I lost a friend
Somewhere along in the bitterness
**And I would have stayed up with you all night
Had I known how to save a life **


Meg and I went to a see The Fray live in concert on Janurary 29th, 2007.This was the lyrics to the title song of their new album. The next morning I found Dad. It's taken a long time before I could listen to this song...

Arriving at Gamboola Station

Friday afternoon and the week's work is done. Time to sit down and use my limited internet time..

I first want to start out by commenting on just how wide open Australia's arms have been in welcoming me and helping me so far. Not just my family, but complete strangers as well. EVERYONE has been so eager to serve the greatest of hospitality, and to show off their own small piece of Oz. I gotta say, it's pretty humbling to feel so welcomed..

My week on the Gold Coast was filled to the brim. A barbque at the next door neighbor's was held, the second one in as many weeks in my honor. The first being a family one in Adelaide in which I got to see my cousins Paul and Simone. Not that I particularly deserved a barbque, I think Aussie's are just that quick to use any excuse they can find to have one.

The best part of the Gold Coast, hands down, was watching the sunsets from my Auntie Jo's backyard. A lawn chair overlooking a big water channel, a XXXX beer, country music blaring from the stero (Thanks to my ipod), and a bit of family to harass. Nothing could be better.

Here's where the 'making connections' goes from funny to absurd. So the lady I met on the plane that found me the job on Gamboola lives in a small town called Chillagoe of about 200 peole. Half my graduating high school class. Well it just turns out that my Aunt's next door neighbor GREW UP in Chillagoe. Well, she was kind enough to call up her dad (the one man cop of Chillagoe 20 years ago), who called up his old friend in Cairns, who in turn offered to pick me up from the Cairns airport, show me around town for the weekend, and then personally drive me the 4 hours from Cairns all the way to Gamboola. Talk about luck (and kindess of heart). Oh, and plus the neighbor's daughter was nice enough to teach me 'twinkle twinkle little star' on the chello. Oh yea.. I'm cultured now.

Charlie Marino and hiw wife were as great of hosts as any others, and Charlie knew PLENTY of old history of the area.. so we got along great. We were walking down the Espande St (waterfront upscale restraunt district) and Charlie was pointing out a nice Itallian restraunt which used to be the building he grew up in. As we walk by it, the manager drags us in and insists on sharing a bottle of expensive French champagne and an hour of interesting conversation about his family in Austria and so furth.. I tell ya, the twists and turns of this trip are as interesting as they are unexpected.

A four hour drive through the middle of nowhere and I am suddenly at a place I now call home:

Gamboola Station
Private Mail Bag 21
Cairns Mail Center
4870
QLD, Australia


The address is Cairns of course because that's where the mail plane takes off from. I got to see it land today as the airstrip is about 100 yards from the stockyard the manager Tony and I were working on.

Gamboola Station is a MASSIVE property on the Cape York Penninsula. To get an idea, think about the 1000 kilomters of fence that we will be checking in the coming months. That's a enough fence to strech from Austin to Dallas, back to Austin, and back to Dallas again. The homestead has three main buildings. The kitchen, which has vistor's quarters upstairs (hint hint), the house of the manager Tony and his wife Lisa, the ringer's quarters. The ringer's quarters has about 4 bedrooms, a bathroom and laundry facilities, and the single bedroom is my own. The others will be occupied by the 12 contract musterers that will come in 7-8 weeks and stay for about 3 months.

You couldn't create a place that was more of what I was looking for. I can honestly say that I'm very very happy with the place and excited for what the rest of the year will be like living here. Tony is smart, hard worker.. but he takes the time to explain everything. I've been honest with him about what I do and don't know about this sort of work, and he's very patient in teaching. In return, I've just make sure to work hard and make sure he doesn't have to repeat himself. The first week we begun work on an extension to the stockyard.. a lumber fence made from raw materials cut on-site. I've begun learning how to weld, as well as driving manual 4 wheel drive vehicles. I've oiled my saddle and bridal, and will begin riding next week it looks like.

A normal day:

5:30 Wake Up
6:00 "Brekky"
6:30 Work Begins
9:30 "Smoko" - short break for some freshly baked snacks
12:30 "Dinner" (lunch)
2:00 Back to Work
5:00 Shower, read some Tom Clancy, and do whatever
7:00 "Tea" (Supper)

One good thing so far has been the fact that wallabys are such a normal site that I've begun noticing them as much I would a common deer. As long as they stay off the dirt roads, we'll get along. A danger of the place tho is the sun. The radio often reminds me that the UV index is "10... extreme". Extreme? I didn't know it went that high. Long sleve shirts, a broad akubra hat, and sunscreen every few hours is the only way to go. The lecture my mother has been giving me for YEARS on sun protection has only now decided to settle in.. but better late than never.

I know that this has not been my most 'flowing' post, but there has just been SO MUCH going on and also I'll throw in the exuse that I'm pretty tired after spending an entire day working on the stockyard fence. Hope everyone is doing great..