Australia Week 3

I'm going to do something a bit out of character with this post: write in reverse chronological order. Well, not entirely, but just a bit so I can share with you the more memorable, less disheartening experience first rather than depress or bore you with my complaints about Noosa to start. If anything, I'm just following journalists' inverted pyramid organization that puts the most important information at the beginning of the article. Might as well write in accordance with the guidelines of my future career, right?

When Brianna and I were planning our route, I let her for the most part grab hold of the reigns since this trip is primarily her post-graduation escape before entering the real world (I thankfully still have three more in the la-la-land of college). So, when we skypyed to choose which hostels to stay at, and she said she wanted to plan the entire itinerary around a farm stay at a cattle ranch called Myella in Barelaba, Queensland, I shrugged and happily agreed. Animals are fun and I could never turn down fresh beef.

Myella proved to be much more than just a rural area used to raise animals for sale and slaughter. Yes, the have 300 cattle grazing their 1,068 hectare ranch, and, yes, all the sausage, steaks and beef patties I ate were once the wide-eyed, curious cattle whose grey tongues would curl around the stalks of grass I held out. But, just as Lyn Eather intended when they converted part of her family's business into a farmstay in 1993, Myella shows its visitors truly the way of life of a small-scale, Australian cattle farm. For the first four of five days of our stay, Brianna and I were the only lodgers there solely for the farmstay, so Lyn and another employee, Shane, divided most of the labor between the two of us. We were responsible for collecting the horses in their stalls from their grazing area to feed them a mixture of buckwheat and medicated meal, milk the cows, collect chicken eggs, and feed the rehabilitated cockatoo. 

Brianna and my most important responsibility, though, concerned a baby kangaroo named Bendy. Bendy was found by a family on the side of the road after a car had killed his mother. The car also ran over, broke and bent his foot, hence the name Bendy. He is about two feet tall with grey fur with brown highlights and dark brown eyes barely discernible from his seemingly dilated pupils. He spends his time gently hopping around the farmyard next to the chicken coop and the dairy cow paddock nibbling on grass, laying pressed hard into the rectangular, metal gate around the fire pit, or standing fully erect sucking on his fingers like a baby with its thumb constantly twisting his ears forward and back to catch every sound passing through. Within a day of staying there, we practically adopted him, feeding him kanagroo milk formula three times a day from a bottle. He'd follow us around everywhere, whether we were lying on the grass reading or walking through the cattle paddocks. He even let us scoop him up under his tail and craddle him on his back. No matter if we scratched his back or his stomach, carried him or let him bound by our side, he always resorted to his perfect, upright posture with his fingers in his mouth. If it weren't for customs, Brianna and I no doubt would've taken him home to raise half the year in upstate New York with her and half in Colorado with me. Who knows, maybe he'd be the first kangaroo to learn to ski!

During the day when we weren't tending to our animals, we spent most of our time riding horses and dirt bikes. I've only ridden a horse about five times, and the last time I did was when I was probably eight years old in Colorado. When my family and I were waiting for the ranch owners to give us our horses, I whispered to my mom, “I hope I don't get that horse.” That horse was cement colored with dark brown spots splattered around its shoulders, and only had one eye. Of course, which horse do I get? The one without both of its eyes. Every rocky slope we went down, my horse's hooves would slip uncontrollably and jerk me to the edge of the saddle. Eventually, I started crying and continued until we finished our loop around the farm. Although I never had qualms about riding a horse afterwards, my last experience to say the least was not ideal.

Good news, I didn't end up in tears this time. In fact, if anything, my experience on my speckled shell white horse, Atlantic, bolstered greatly the respect I have for ranchers herding their cattle by horse. When I watched Shane on his horse, he conveyed assertively and smoothly to his horse where exactly he wanted to be, how slow he wanted to walk or how fast to trot, and whether or not it was the proper time to stop for grass, all while recounting Australian military history, farming practices and personal tales without a single hesitant glance at his reigns. Meanwhile, Brianna and my passivity from lack of experience forced us to accept inferiority to our horses. They'd ignore our steering commands and led us into a dense patch of leaves, launch into a trot as if racing with each other, and pull harder down on the reigns if we tried to deny their snack time. Part of me feels a bit ashamed for not trying harder to gain respect form this horse, but even just from the off-beat rhythm by which I bounced on and off Atlantic when he trotted, the horse could read lucidly my inexperience. Regardless of my competency, just watching the relationship grounded in mutual respect of a serious rider and a competent horse is an inspiring example of mutualism between humans and an intelligent, strong animal that has been the basis for most of the early advances in our civilization.

My dirt bike, I think, liked me a bit more than the horse even though I dropped it while walking it down a hill before even learning how to ride it. As the rain steadily pitter-pattered on the tin roof of the garage (for the first time there since April, might I add), Shane taught us the basic functions and controls of the motor bikes. The bikes were manual, which wasn't an issue for me since I drive manual at home, but added yet another layer of confusion for Brianna. We didn't need to use the clutch to shift to any gear except for first from neutral, which of course is the most sensitive switch. I can't count how many times Brianna stalled during that shift. I don't blame her, since when I learned stick shift at home, my dad and I spent an hour in the middle school parking lot shifting from neutral to first, afterwhich I swore I would never drive stick again. I had my occasional stall too, but only when I came to a full stop and didn't down shift all the way.

At dinner the night we first rode, the contractors who stayed at the farm (who all saw me drop the bike) asked with a snicker how our lesson was, expecting us to recount tales of falling face first into the mud on the slick, dirt driveway on which we spent the afternoon doing laps. Granted the shins of our jeans were died completely orange from the clay-colored gravel, so they did have reason to believe our afternoon was spent deflecting scolds of disappointment from Shane. Instead, though, we simply smiled and replied, “Neither of us fell.” 

The contractors all shook their heads and blink hard in disbelief that these two, relatively small American girls, one of which dropped the bike within two minutes of touching it, had mastered the bikes. The next night, when they asked us what we had done that day, we told them, again, with pride that we had graduated from laps on the driveway in 3^rd and 4^th gear to the 7 km dirt bike track that ran through the cattle paddock in 5^th (the highest) gear. I wish they could've witnessed us standing up tall with our shoulders parallel to the handlebars as the bike cruised at 40 km/hr over the dried mud holes and convexities of the track. We even surprised the cows on the track, who would skittishly gallop away from these mysterious figures whose identity was indiscernible because of bulky, yellow race helmets. 

Despite their low expectations of our dirt biking abilities, Brianna and I made friends the contractors, three in particular, who Lyn would cook breakfast for at five in the morning and would return at night for dinner. They'd tease us about not nursing Bendy properly, remind us of the proper Australian slang words used to replace normal English words (ie. Thongs not flip-flops, State of Union not rugby), and chastise us for 'taking all of the food' even though their plates looked more like volcanoes. Brianna and I matched their sarcasm and threw all their jokes right back at them. I guess they appreciated it since on the last night, two of them taught (well, tried to) us to crack a whip (I ended the night with a couple quiet cracks and a red ear). 

In addition to the contractors, a group of local aboriginals were part of a workshop-documentary about becoming teaching aids in aboriginal towns. For Brianna and I, these conversations allowed us to see the white-aboriginal relationship and compare it to the white-Native American relationship in the United States. I found that the Australian government, on paper, tries to support and advance the aboriginals but has lost a bit of hope in their ability to change (not to say the should or should not, I'm merely recording inferences). For the aboriginals and the Australians working with them, we were able to debunk countless American stereotypes, like the famous notion that everyone in New Jersey is like Snooki and J-Wow and that all arrests are like those in Cops. 

All these experiences wouldn't have been possible without the hospitality and warmth of both Shane and Lyn. Shane not once faltered in patience with us, no matter how obvious of a question I asked or how large of a dent Brianna made in the motor bike when she crashed into a barb wire fence. No matter what, he had a story to tell from his service in the military, from the ignorance of a guest (one girl arrived to her motor bike lesson in a bikini), or from his interactions with the farm animals. If it weren't for the lure of adrenaline from the motor bikes Sunday and Monday when Shane had his days off, we probably would've wandered into the bull's paddock and broken a couple of ribs.

 Of course I have to thank Lyn as well, who cooked us incredible meals night after night, from homemade sausages with a sweet and regular potato bake to bacon meatloaf with string bean casserole. She even tolerated 10 km of running and listening to me blabber about whatever entered my stream of consciousness. I guess I shouldn't say tolerated since by the end, she could call her brother-in-law bragging about her accomplishment and I could walk away with an invaluable life-lesson to add to my collection from yet another corner of the world. Plus, she may have gotten us on the Youth Hostel of Australia website with a photoshoot with Brianna, Bendy, the orange YHA sign and I. Because of them and the rest of the Eather family, Brianna and I experienced five-star quality hospitality, gained a new furry family member, became double the bad-asses by learning to dirt bike, and may become famous among backpackers, when all we asked for was a bed to sleep in and a cow to milk. Oh, and they stretched this signature smile wide across my face. Thank you Myella. 

Just to confuse you (maybe even more), back track nine days to June 7^th. Please? For me? K thanks.

With our minds mellowed by the peace and love reverberating throughout Nimbin, Brianna and I were ready to drift into a long sleep for our 14 hour bus ride to Noosa. Even hippie vibes as strong as those straight from the spirits hiding in the Nimbin museum couldn't repel the momentous frustration thrust upon us by multiple sections of the Australian transit system the next 12 hours. We took the hour and a half bus ride from Nimbin to Byron Bay, then the four hour ride to Brisbane. We knew we had a layover in Brisbane, so we hopped off the bus at 7:25 PM, and gathered our bags. I noticed that the Greyhound Australia ticket desk was closed, so I asked our driver how we knew which gate the bus to Noosa would depart from. “Oh, well that bus doesn't leave until 7:30 AM tomorrow morning. There are some hostels about 500 meters up the hill from here that you can stay at,” the driver said. We didn't move, and I dropped my backpack and cooler of food without even thinking.

There was no way we were wasting twelve hours at a hostel we had already stayed at just to wake up early the next morning to drive three hours to Noosa, especially since the 500 m hill was more like a Colorado 14er with our packs on. I would have slept in the transit station before wasting my money and energy on that hostel. We needed an alternative: the train. So, we went up to the train ticket desk and told the employee we needed to get to Noosa. He handed us tickets to Nambor, and told us we would have to take a cab from there to Noosa which inevitably would be expensive. Fine. Don't care. Just get me to Noosa. As soon as we got on the train, though, the conductor told us we had to get off two stops later because there was track construction. Seriously? We hadn't even gotten to Nambor and were already diverted to yet another bus. And, of course, when we finally arrive in Nambor at 10:30 PM, there isn't a taxi in sight and the bus driver is snickering at us in the corner for our 'ignorance.' I wanted to throw my pack at him and yell, “I'm a stupid American, okay I know!” I restrained myself, though, knowing he was our ticket of information out of here. He gave us the number for a taxi that cost over $100, but at least we made it to our hostel.

Not so fast. Our hostel room was canceled since we had expected to arrive the next morning. I was ready to flop on the couch in their TV room or set up my hammock in a train next to their parking lot at this point. For the first time on this trip, nothing had gone as planned. Thankfully, even after overbooking this particular night, someone had given up their room last minute, so we, for the next two nights in Noosa, slept in a private, double room 100 m from the beach. The next morning when my parents answered my Facetime, I told them what had happened, and my mom's response was, “Well, you look pretty awful.” Thanks Mom. I never would've guessed I'd have bags under my squinty eyes after 8 hours of torturous travel.

To say the least, Noosa didn't start well, nor did it continue well. It rained the next day at the beach, and we hid in our room with Breaking Bad and ravioli from the Byron Bay farmer's market that night. Oh, and the next day, when we were kayaking through the Noosa Everglades, it not only poured the entire day, but the wind was also howling and the waves were unbearable choppy. We managed to kayak for four hours, three of which were spent charging against the wind, current and rain to retreat to the parking lot two hours before we expected to be picked up. Although we laughed away the rain drops pelting us in the face with a lengthy photo shoot, Noosa was still not our friend. 

Our next stop was Hervey Bay, which we realized was mostly used as a gateway to the famous Great Barrier Reef site, Fraiser Island, not a destination itself. We managed to make it a destination, though, after meandering cluelessly around the marina before finding a...er...beach. This beach had neither waves nor people. Seriously. I don't know whether it was because it was winter or weekdays, but we were alone on the beach all three days. It was truly wonderful, though. I could read my mountaineering book, Epic, without having to reread a sentence four times over because I instinctively started to eavesdrop on a conversation between a couple or a fight between a mother and her child. I could fall asleep without fear of my Australian lover that Brianna and I have been searching for seeing me drool onto my towel. And I could take selfies with pelicans as I wanted without a surf boarder scaring them away as the rode a wave onto the shore. Especially with our cruiser bikes we rented to bike to the beach every day, we returned to our zen contentness with the simplicity of a calm life we had captured in Nimbin. 

I learned a couple things this week. First of all that I will never, no matter how many people tell me how wonderful the beaches are and even though I saw a wild koala, return to Noosa. Noosa is cursed, and that's that. I also learned that non-tourist towns can either be a relaxing treat or a frightening burden. Hervey Bay and Rockhampton, I'm talking about you here. And lastly, I have added Myella to my forever growing list of places home to strikingly amiable people that have welcomed me into their world so different from my own. I'm just surprised I made it back to the Greyhound Station in Rockhampton after staying at Myella with Brianna at my side and without our kangaroo friend, Bendy, tucked away in one of our packs. 

For more information on Myella, check out their website at http://myella.weebly.com/