Well, have decided the best way to deal with our time in
Kimba is to do a little story of the experience… So here goes the Kimba story,
but first a few facts. Kimba population,
roughly 636 and the annual rainfall is 339mm, most of which fell sometime mid
June!!!! It is home of the Big Galah which
perches a proud 7 meters tall and tends to have tourist perched between its
legs, I speak from experience. It is
also supposedly half way across Oz, which apparently is causing a little debate
but it appears that it is a first come first serve basis and no one had thought
of it before!! In Kimba is also the Whites
Knob lookout with a great sculpture of Edward John Eyre and Whyllie, his
faithful aboriginal sidekick, the statues are excellent & worth a visit. So now onwards, we (I) have been threatening
to visit Joyce in Kimba since we first met a quilt encounter about 6 years ago. We attended the same tutorial and spent most
of our time talking and getting very little work done, much to the teachers
dismay. Little did we know. I had been in contact with Joyce about our impending
visit for some time, and when we left Ceduna I told her we would be there in
about 1 week we wanted to take our time visiting all those places. As you know despite seeing everything and
celebrating Paddies day we still managed to do it in 2 days, so 2 days later we
were heading towards Kimba when the phone rang, Joyce wanting to know what was
happening. Her reaction when I told her
we were 40Kms out of Kimba was priceless.
Having said this I must set the scene just a little, Joyce
had heard all about Momo and all the various trials and tribulations of my last
5 years, and she was looking forward to seeing Momo and also meeting Colman and
had invited us and asked us when we would finally visit, on many occasions. I was a bit perturbed when, after finally
telling her we would be there in a couple of months, to find they had sold the
farm, bought a house in Adelaide and were moving soon!! No need for this I thought, if you didn’t
want us visiting, just say so.
So we were 40kms out of Kimba, they had a shack in Arno Bay
they were about to head off to and we were told in no uncertain terms that we
needed a holiday and were to come with them to Arno. Right, next was the
detailed explanations of how to find their farm. Not sure if I have mentioned at this stage
that Momo had no reverse gear, so we needed to be a bit thoughtful about the
whole thing. Anyway Joyce explained,
7kms our side of Kimba, windmills, red roof, Chapman’s road etc etc. I got off the phone and explained to Colman
that it was just outside of Kimba and well there was other stuff but I forget, anyway,
how hard can it be to find. We were just
passing the 80kmph sign when my phone rang.
Did you just drive past the windmill, the red roofed house and Chapman’s
road???? Cause I’m sure I saw Momo!! I won’t
repeat what Colman said, might I say, complimentary it was not! We pulled over,
got out Suzi and drove back to the farm, which was exactly where Joyce had said
it would be, oh well!! Colman had never
met either Joyce or her husband John, and I had met John only once, so let’s
see how we all get along. I failed to
mention to either Joyce or Colman that the other was Irish, so there was the
first common bond, they hit it off. I
liked John at the first meeting and that hadn’t changed, Colman also seemed to
find lots to talk about. John and Colman
headed off to get Momo in a manner that did not involve reverse gear and Joyce
and I continued where we left off last July at Quilt Encounter. They were in the midst of packing and were
due to head off to Adelaide in 4 weeks, all worked out well in the end. Momo and the boys returned, we had coffee,
packed a handful of things, locked up and headed off to Arno by with J&J.
The overnight trip turned out to be great fun, we all got on like a house on
fire, their shack turned out to be less of a shack and more of a mansion
overlooking the dunes and bay. Walking
out of their back door you walk across the dunes and you are on the beach. We
went to the hotel for dinner and conversation and laughs didn’t stop, the
following day we went for a huge walk along the beach & boardwalk, a lovely
part of the world which we didn’t do justice to the first time we passed
through. The boardwalk was built with
the aid of the local community and meandered through the mangroves, about
2-3kms long, it was lovely and well worth it.
I also found Johns weak spot in the form of the most comfortable
recliner, which I took up residence in much to the dismay of both John &
Colman, Joyce thought it funny I had usurped “the Chair”, but even now on
“holidays” in Arno Bay again many weeks later typing the blog, I am in The
Chair, so there John!!
We returned to Kimba the following evening and talked about
what we planned and what they were planning on doing. We were offered to stay on the farm in their
(well actually now belonging to someone called TC’s) backyard as long as we
wanted. So at this point in time we
decided to hang around, we were going to Adelaide for Easter in about 3 weeks
so it all kind of fitted in. Joyce
needed a bit of a hand packing, so the two of us stayed put and helped out
where we could and basically had a great time doing it. J&J made sure we met lots of people
including the new owners, some of their friends as well as the son of a lifelong
mate of Johns, who turns out might be looking for someone to help seed in the near
future. Colman had the ‘interview’ with
RL around the kitchen table at the farm, and a couple of days later was told
the job was his. The start time depended
very much on the rain, and the duration also was weather dependant, but it
seemed like a good opportunity and RL seemed like a very nice guy. We spent most of the time with J&J and
only did a little bit of sightseeing to start with.
The one bigger excursion we did was to Mt Ive station which
is up near Lake Gairdner, this is the Mt Ive adventure and then I will return
to the excitement of Kimba & country life…
We left Kimba in Suzi, this was going to be a camping &
four wheel driving trip, Momo was being looked after by Joyce. It had been coldish in Kimba so we both took
warm things and 1 pair of shorts & 1 singlet each just in case. How does
that saying go, don’t think it’s not your strong point what can I say!! We headed north, John said to go via
Buckelboo and then passed the silos and go straight, you can’t get lost. Well refer to above quote again.. We did some
geo-caches, one of them needed to be done it was on Buggery road, I wonder if
this was named by Matthew Flinders on an inland excursion, for those in the
know, I have an obsession with old Mat, and this road just fitted (as such)
into his life style, well according to me anyway. So having done the GC I decided we could continue
on the road because according to the satellite photo on my phone this road
eventually links up with the one leading to Mt Ives. I hadn’t thought too hard about what a satellite
photo is and it only dawned on me as we were 30 minutes into the drive that the
image picks up everything, including farm tracks, private tracks, cow tracks,
sheep tracks and tractor tracks. We were
basically heading straight through farmers paddocks, Colman had to take down
fences for us to get through (putting them back up again after of course) and
we went through gates that hadn’t been opened what looked like years. Colman was not really happy and I just kept a
look out for the farmer with the gun.
Luckily we mounted the last ditch and there in front of us, through
another fence was the road we were meant to be on. When we looked at a proper map later, not one
road is to be seen anywhere we were driving.
John was horrified when we told him and thought it very lucky we hadn’t
encountered the aforementioned crotchety farmer. Never mind on we went. We eventually arrived at Mt Ive station, and
as advertised, it was an outback station, nothing more or less. Mt Ive station is 900 square km and was
established in 1862, it is a pastoral sheep station in the heart of the Gawler
ranges, bordering on Lake Gairdner.
We went to check in and a woman wandered over from one of
the houses to sort us out. Admittedly,
checking in tourists every so often would be fairly tedious, but less enthusiasm
you’d be hard pushed to portray, we managed to get a couple of bits of
information, “yes its hot”, “yes we have 4WD tracks”, “no we don’t sell bread”,
and other assorted ‘yes’ and ‘no’s as Colman persevered to talk and get
info. We ended up buying a book of the
4wd mud-map tracks to be done around the property, all up there was about 8
tracks that could be taken, we decided to do them all!!
One of the things your one did manage to impart was that the
shearers were here and had taken over a toilet block and the kitchen, fine by
us so no big deal, shearers are usually happy people with campfires, sing-along’s
and good stories – little did we know.
We headed off to set up, found the single tree in the area, well not so
much a tree as a scraggy looking tall bush and put up our tent. We had brought along the mosquito tent my
mother bought No1SIL and after much protestation from himself we put it
up. Best thing ever, flies, now I’m not
talking a handful or two, this was serious, more flies I have rarely seen, a
few juicy details later!! I would say if
you ate outside the tent half your protein would have come from these
beasts. Ughh… it was getting late so we
went for a walk, came back and organized dinner and then had a glass of wine
and watched the world around us. We saw
a girl and a guy (we presumed the shearers) heading off on trail bikes up into
the hills, on the way back the girl stopped and had a chat to us. How cute, she was a Kiwi Maori, she was
wearing short denim shorts, a singlet, a couple of strings of pearls, a bright
red scarf and thongs, all on the back of a 400 Yamaha her name was Billie. She told us that her and the group were here
for another couple of nights and if we wanted to come and watch them and say
hello the next day we were more than welcome.
That sounded good and would go on our agenda for tomorrow. Bed sounded
good to so off we went for the shower.
The shower was clean but primitive would be an understatement, the hot
water was heated by a donkey. Spending
several minutes pondering how a donkey would heat water my confusion was
cleared up. The donkey a big wood powered
water heater which the guest are requested to feed with the supplied wood. Here is a little prose about the donkey:
I’m a beast
of burden and I’ll work just fine, as long as you are out there, all stay in
line
If perchance
I’ not lit bet there’ll be a shout or kick, cause when it’s time to hit the
shower, I’m sure you’ll learn I’ve got no power
I like to be
fed regular that’s true, but please not to heavily or I’ll spew. A log in time will be just fine, so keep me
burning is all I ask.
Don’t stoke me
up, and boil my ass.
Day 2 - Good night
sleep until 6am, when the generator kicked in, it was at the other end of the
campsite but it was huge, oh well up we got.
Someone had turned up the temperature, it was substantially warmer then
it was yesterday and it was only first thing in the morning. Hmm, 1 tee-shirt, one pair of shorts each and
4 days to go. After breakfast we went off to the shearing shed, Billie saw us
and we got a big hello and introduction to the gang manager who then invited us
in. Turns out there were 5 shearers
(including a couple who will get a mention a bit later, 2 roustabouts (one of
who was Billie), a wool classer and a bailer (he who makes up the bales –
obviously) as well as the head of the team.
After the introduction I wandered about a bit while Colman talked to the
classer, Billie took me to sit and watch one of the shearers. So I sat and watched. To say the air was thick enough to cut with a
knife would have been an understatement.
Sitting and watching the interaction between the younger crowed (the
shearers & roustabouts) would have been any psychologists dream, not a
civil word was heard, well in fact not a word was spoken by these guys. What
roused me from my reveries was a massive bang, which turned out to be one of
the shearers(1 half of the couple) smacking the shed wall. The atmosphere (if possible) worsened and
Colman and I decided to say a big thank you and left with a “we really must be
off so much to do so little time” comment.
As we left the big black cloud stayed behind, we took time to look at
the shorn sheep and decided we could possibly to a better job than some of
these based on the cuts on some of the poor sheep. The grading is based on a number of things,
density of wool, cleanliness, bugs in the wool as well as amount of skin on the
wool. This farmer was not going to get a lot of money from this lot. Anyway we headed off to do the first of the
4WD tracks, down to the wombat holes. There was a field with wombat holes
created by the hairy nosed wombat, some of these things were huge, the entrance
area would be about 2 meters across and the actual hole about 1 meter in
diameter. Would hate to meet this guys
on a dark night.
We did a GC which was at a submarine built right next to the
entrance of the station. From a distance
it looks pretty realistic emerging from the ground, with the conning tower (the
big sticky up thing on the submarine) just breaching the surface, someone had
some time on their hands. We then took
off to Kath’s castle which is actually a
formation of rhyolite rocks, they have 5 or six sides and look like organ pipes
and were a result of volcanic eruptions about 1600 million years ago. We also saw a dam called The Embankment which
was built in the late19th century and still holds water now to the delight of
the local goat herds, emus and kangaroos, all of which are in plenty supply,
we’re talking hundred. It was fairly
warm, fully fly ridden but we had fun nevertheless. Came back to camp, relaxed (in the fly tent),
which I must actually talk about a bit more.
Whilst in Adelaide Colman got a electric fly zapper, sounds fairly silly
but Colman liked it and brought it on our trip – thank god. The method for getting into the tent was as
follows, done in the steps as described and in a maximum of 30 second
period. Unzip tent, whip off fly screen
hat and turn it inside out to trap flies, brush flies off back, leap inside,
waft hands about lots, zip up fly screen, get out zapper and start waving it
about like a lunatic and spray whatever flies are missed by the zapper with fly
spray, collapse into a chair and pour a stiff drink! You made sure you didn’t do that too often
cause it was more exercise then was really needed. The next day proved to be an interesting one.
Day 3 - We were awoken somewhat differently this morning. The smack I had heard the previous day had
turned out to be the male half of the couple smacking the wall after an
argument with the female half, who had proceeded to storm off while we were
around. Colman saw this as I was busy contemplating shearing! The previous evening we had watched the guy
heading off doing 70kmph on his trail bike up into the hills, and her stalking
off into the other direction. This morning we were awoken to the sound of
yelling, one “F” didn’t wait for the next one (don’t forget these guys were
staying about 100 meters away from us), more yelling, more screaming and then
another thud and silence. Then the
generator kicked in. Ahh, mornings in
the country – what can you say. Now my
theory is as follows boy asks “other” girl to come for a ride on the trail bike,
“other” girl puts on the pearls and the red scarf and they head off, girl finds
out that boy and “other” girl have gone for a trip into the hills and goes
ballistic and that’s how it all started.
I was explaining my theory to Colman at 6.15am, can anyone think of
another way to spend the first 15 minutes of a new day. We did laugh over coffee, but all delusions
about happy happy shearers were out the window, scary bunch! We got ready and headed off for our next 4WD
trip. We went to the east side of Lake
Gairdener, a little about the lake. Is
about 160km long, 48km wide, 4800square km and is Australia’s 4th
largest salt lake and usually dry and the salt cover is about 1 meter thick, no
need to bring the salt shaker here. It
is famous for several things, the Dry Lake races are held here annually in
March and includes cars and bikes, and the fact that many speed records have
been broken. The top speed at one of the
races on a bike was 218.9mph, 352.39kmph, apparently they advise not to walk
around the track when these guys are racing.
The races were cancelled this year cause it’s too wet, damn global
warming!! It is also famous for having a
Bollywood film made here as well as several commercials, for something we all
know but have now forgotten (sorry). We
walked around a little, had a picnic in the car as there was way too much
protein in the air and decided to head home to Mt Ive. We went for a little wander around, until the
flies wore us down and we did the tent dash.
Colman did wander over to some new comers to say Hi, 2 caravans had
turned up and he wanted a chat so off he went.
I settled in for a bit of reading but he was back in 5 minutes, very
unusual. Turns out they were the
miserable sort of campers you sometimes have the misfortune to run into, Eyre
peninsula was overrated, Streaky Bay was over crowded, Gawler ranges national
park was messy(?!?) and Ceduna was boring.
We never bothered going back to say Hi, why waste perfectly good breath
on people like that!
Day 4 – Did the Billy
can track where you follow black Billy cans (paint pots!!) strategically placed
throughout the property, some lovely bits of scenery and it makes you realize
just how vast the area is. We also went
up Mt Ive with Suzi, a rougher dirt/rock track we had yet to encounter but
after about one hour of being tossed
pillar to post we arrived at the top, an extra encouragement was the fact that
this was the only place in the area where you could get telephone reception, so
the first 5 minutes up there were spent listening to our phones beep and whine
will it updated everything there was to update.
Interestingly enough this is where I received an email advising me that
I was one of the lucky Apple winner of $900,000USD, all I had to do was send my
name, date of birth and occupation and they would start the proceeding for me
getting the money, ehhmmm, I sent off the info as requested. Rang mother,
answered another couple of mails and then we noticed the weather was turning
and big black clouds rolling in, the rain was starting and there was that clap
of thunder, time to head back down.
Something that cannot be done in a hurry, and when we got back the fun
started. How exciting, a thunderstorm
was my comment, I poured us a glass of red and suggested we sit down and watch
the weather. Colman looked a little
concerned and started to tie things down, put things away and generally do
sensible things while I told him not to be so silly and just enjoy it. Just then the heavens opened seriously, the
wind started and kept on going up and up, we abandoned our mossie tent and
legged it to our sleeping tent which at this point was almost horizontal, in we
went and attempted to prop up the corners that the wind was hitting the
hardest. I went into the bedroom part
and there I stood on our mattress with a glass of red in my hand trying
desperately not to get blown over (and spill the wine quiet apart from all the
other dire consequences) Colman was in the other section of the tent also
struggling not to get blown away. We both eventually had to slug our wine,
throw the glasses down and put some serious backbone into keeping the tent
poles from snapping and the whole tent disappearing into the distance. While all this was happening the rain was
throwing down, this in turn kicked up all the red dust which was turning into a
red quagmire as we watched and covered everything on or vaguely near to the
ground in red muck. Don’t you just love
nature! After about 20 minutes of this the rain stopped, the wind stopped and
the sky turned a lovely color of blue followed by a most spectacular sunset. And we were in hysterics, nothing was broken
(pure luck), half our stuff was covered in red muck, half our clothes were wet
but hey – no flies, right where’s the wine?
We decided at this stage we would make dinner and just ignore the rest
until the morning. It’s not something
that could be washed at the tent, we needed to head over to the camp kitchen
and tomorrow is another day.
Day 5 – up and at them, packed up all the assorted stuff and
headed over to the camp kitchen. Now
this was early morning (thanks to the generator) and my morning temperament is
only good as long as no one hassles me, argues, disagrees or just generally
annoys me (this does include stupid looks or smart comments to no one in
particular). We arrived in the kitchen/dining
room area to find the shearers cook had commandeered the whole thing. Colman did the nice thing and was told by
this stupid looking skinny runt of a Sydney mardigras participant that we
couldn’t wash the dishes there but would need to do it elsewhere, surely we had
the gear in our camping setup. I tried
to stay absorbed in the great selection of books that they had in the dining
room but it all overcame me, as Colman walked off to find somewhere else to
wash up, I advised this wee git that the options were as such, he shift and we
wash or we’ll be back in 15 minutes to collect our clean dishes. Choice was his but not doing the dishes was
not an option, so deal with it and get over it.
By this stage Colman had returned and the aforementioned runt told him
to talk to the campground owner and maybe she would let us wash in her kitchen,
otherwise we would work something out. Colman and I went next door to find the
owner, Joy to see what next, she turned out to be a lovely lady. 2 hours later
we went back to our tent having heard all the latest. Shearers were crap, receptionist who booked
us in was leaving, someone else who had worked there was threatening someone
else, etc, etc, etc, it was a bit like days of our lives outback style. We had a great few hours chat, coffee, washed
the dishes and then were invited to come back after we had packed up for lunch.
We did just that and came back for lunch, which the shearer cook had made for
her, A) he did not know we were to partake in lunch so no poison included, B) I
can see why the shearers were unhappy, who in their right mind throws
cauliflower, broccoli, raw beacon and eggs and cheese into a pot and shoves it
into the oven for a couple of hours?
Anyway the conversation was fun and we were invited back if we were ever
looking for work, something to remember.
After all that we headed off for a night near Lake Gairdener, I really
wanted to see it by sunset and sunrise, and really why not. The campsite had no facilities but for 1
night we decided it would be fine. Did a
couple of GC on the way and eventually arrived at the lake. Stopped the car and Colman had a chat to a
4WD crowed that was camped there, right at the entrance of the park and nowhere
near the lake, I wanted to be down by the lake, so we headed down and found
ourselves a perfect spot overlooking it and then about 50 million flies found us –
included the dreaded horse fly (or March fly as it’s called). Now I hate these things and when one lands on
me I usually do a little dance involving screaming, smacking myself and
anything within distance with a thong ( I almost lost a thong (the plastic
kind) out the car window one day when a horsefly came into the car, Colman
almost crashed the car he thought it was hysterical – not nice I say)) and
jumping up and down like one of those African tribes. Colman usually just stand still and laughs
until it all gets too much and he sends me inside where we are both safe! We set up, me doing the inside part and
Colman setting up the outside, we then kitted up in our mossie face nets etc
and went for a walk out onto the lake, it was spectacular. Everything is white and glistening, it’s like
walking on crunchy snow except its 30 degrees, the salt carves itself around
everything that is on its surface and turns it crystalline, it looks
spectacular. Apart from that you can see
the tracks of the emus loping across the lake surface. The funny thing was the distances, there was
an island in the distance and I thought it would be something we could walk out
to, at the same time I looked at some GC in the area I had downloaded and one
of the comments was “do not attempt to walk out to the island unless you have
plenty of time, it looks close but it is almost 6 km away”, very
deceptive. You can just imagine these
explorers coming over the hill and seeing this huge lake glistening in the sun,
you get closer and you think something might not be quite right, its glistening
like ice, then you get to it and its pure crystal salt. Bugga!!
Apparently there are 6 fresh water creeks that flow into the lake, as
well as some fresh water sinks, to find out where they sinks are you need to
look where the animals congregate to drink.
We never did see it but it was still beautiful, sunset was not as
spectacular as I hoped but still lovely.
One thing I do have to mention is the flies, now I know I have been
whining about the amount of flies, but I was wrong (yes I know…), the amount of flies was
phenomenal. Colman was wearing a white
(will now kind of browny grey) tee shirt but the back was black with flies, my
hat and mossie net were black with flies.
I took a photo after I brushed them off Colman’s back and it looked like
someone had dropped a huge bagful of raisins in front of the camera. It got to the point where the feeling of a
squillion flies on your skin made you feel sick, but imagine if you were one of
the early explorers, there is always a worse story than yours! However here are some details on flies as
promised earlier (always educational), flies can produce several generations
with the space of one year. Let’s assume
that a fly lays 120 eggs per generation and half of these develop into females,
a single female fly can give rise to 5 million flies within a year. See the dilemma! We managed to get back to base before it got
completely dark and ended up sitting around watching the moon come up over the
lake, drinking lots of red wine and taking heaps of weird and wonderful photos
of which we deleted most in the cold light of day!!
Day 6 - We got up early the next day because we wanted to
see the sun come up over the lake and that was well worth it, it’s funny when
you look at nature and the colors that it manages to mix together. Being a quilter (as such) there are colors I
would never thought to put together, but here mother nature tosses them all in
and the whole affair looks absolutely brilliant. The camera was not spared. We then headed back to the camp, packed up in
record time, managed to avoid most flies and hit the road. We had now been wearing the same cloths for 4
days (excluding knickers), had not had a shower and had sweated none stop since
yesterday morning’s shower. Sorry
guys. We headed back to Kimba via the
Gawler ranges and stopped at the Paney Homestead, a 3 bedroom house in which lived
Mr Murdoch McKenzie with his wife and 11 children, hmm almost like the Herbig
tree but posher!! A poem by one William
Crawford McKenzies which I like and was at the front of the cottage, a
‘restored’ National trust house.
A Dream of
the Past
We travelled
down past Scrubby Peak along the sand hill track
We mustered
all the twelve mile plains ad brought the shorn sheep back
The ridge of
Paney Bluff recalled those halcyon days of yore
Brought back
familiar faces and the scenes I knew once more
Then back to Kimba via a couple more GC including a early 19th century de-salination plant, an old school
site with a huge water tank still holding water as well as an original old
horse buggy from somewhere 1920. So much
to learn from geo-caching, mind you sometimes half wits out there put stuff in
places you just need to scratch your head and wonder why. Another piece of trivia as you are hurtling
down some dirt road outback – don’t hit any sleepy lizards, they actually mate
for live, so be careful!!
We arrived back at J&J’s place and basically told them,
don’t come near us you may not survive, could we just use your shower and then
we can have coffee/wine and talk. Joyce
said she was surprised we lasted that long with the heat and the flies – but
we’re made of tougher stuff (I think!!) a lovely night, clean, in clean sheets,
in a soft bed and no flies – does it get better? We were then asked if we would like to attend
their farewell from Kimba organized by their friends from their church. It was a very good night and we managed to
meet a lot of the locals and taste some lovely country home cooked food, but no
alcohol(!!)
J&J had visitors from Hahndorf (Joyce brother Edward
& wife Di) who also help pack and we all had a great couple of days packing
and eating & laughing. J&J left
Tuesday afternoon and it was sad, weird, unsettling to see them leave and know
that after all this time of threatening to come visit we did and they left, yes
I know! We rolled around like a ball in
an empty box for a day and then got our act together. I started work at the Library a couple of
days later and a couple of days after Colman started seeding with Rhett.
Now after all that we both worked so not that much happened
but a few things that made us laugh need to be mentioned, so here is a little
snapshot of the country way of life.
Kimba is a great place, most people are very friendly, some people are
lovely, some you see and avoid, kind of like the city except everyone knows
everyone else – so rule number one – keep mouth shut. Problem number one – it’s me were talking
about!!!
Life in the country, names have been altered to protect the
identity of the innocent, oh and my butt also!
I have discovered there are several rules in country life,
and first and foremost is that everyone knows everyone else, and even if
everyone doesn’t like everyone else, they still prefer these individuals to
anyone from the “outside”. And based on
that one fact, keep your mouth shut, and if you can’t do that at least think
before you put your foot in your mouth.
Based on that all my dear friends would know, I tend to open my mouth
simply to change the position of the foot, and nothing has changed…Having said
that, luckily the people involved have seen the funny side. As I said earlier we were invited to attend
J&J’s farewell at the local church, although it was held at the church by
their friends who were in the church it was not a church thing (whatever I mean
by that). My first laugh came when I
asked Joyce what I could bring, not even wanting to compete with Joyce’s
cooking skills I suggested we could bring some wine. Well apparently, this was a tea-totler
occasion, and so it began. The first
person I saw on the evening was someone I worked with and let’s just say we
never did agree on anything – At All. Turns
out to be someone of consequence that everyone appears to know and like, Strike
1. Then I had a great conversation with
another lovely lady who then asked me if I would like to join the congregation,
I think my somewhat hysterical squeak of “No No thanks” gave her a fright, and
thankfully Colman jumped in to say he was a lapsed catholic and wouldn’t feel
right joining, Strike 2. I then started
to chat to the wife of the person who now owns the property we were to stay on
after J&J left, I thanked her for allowing us to stay and that we would
look after the property and if they wanted anything done to let us know and we
would be more than happy to help out.
She had no idea who I was and had no idea what I was talking about –
Strike 3. Colman also had plenty of
funny stories but the one that does appeal to me was when we were cross
examined about our hobbies, reading – yep reading club please join, sewing –
yep sewing club please join, photography – yep there is someone into that will
let you know, I think at this stage Colman had enough and told them his favorite
hobby was scuba diving. The silence was
deafening and then everyone went to get another drink (coffee of course), food,
piece of cake or whatever. We both had a good night, not sure what sort of
impression we made but there you go.
The rhubarb story. On
the day J&J were due to leave Joyce asked Colman if he would mind digging
up the rhubarb for her as she wanted to take it with her. No problem.
After about 20 minutes Colman came back in looking a bit the worse for
wear and asking Joyce for another bucket cause there was a lot of rhubarb
around. Joyce looked perplexed, both
because Colman was looking a bit shattered but also because we wanted more
buckets, she only had 1 little rhubarb plant, what on earth was he doing. So upon further investigation we discovered
he had been digging up that which looks like rhubarb but is not, Joyce had many
of these plants!! Well wouldn’t you just
think that an Irish country boy knew his rhubarb –wrong!! It certainly was the cause of great hysteria,
and I suspect he will never live it down.. and I think everyone was able to use
a good laugh. They left late afternoon
after the removalists turned up about 4 hours late, assorted friends came round
to say goodbye and we eventually waved them off about 3pm, I believe the
‘Rhubarb’ kept them laughing a part of the way.
The removalists eventually left about 1am!! So a long day was had by
all.
So after J&J abandoned us in their backyard we were due
to experience some country life and I have just listed a few highlight stories
below.
Went into the local grocery shop on Monday morning, milk – sold
out, OJ – sold out, bread – sold out, garlic – sold out. Fail.
The groceries are restocked on Tuesday and Thursday, if you want
something that is not tinned or frozen, that’s when you shop. Interesting fact, the Kimba Backhouse was
built in 1923, prior to this Kimba got its bread by train Monday & Fridays. Move forward 90 odd years, Kimba gets its
bread by truck Tuesday & Thursday the Backhouse is now the local
supermarket and there is no bakery!
I decided on my first Saturday morning alone to head into
town, pick up the paper, have a browse through the shops and then have a coffee
& read the paper. Fail. Had to go to 3 shops to get the Australian
(not everyone sells that here!), the shops as well as the coffee shop were
solidly closed.
We thought we would go out for a nice dinner at the local
pub, luck was with us we got a parking spot right in front of the pub. Headed in full of anticipation. Hmm, were do I start, atmosphere – fail,
waitress service – fail, food – fail, the best thing was – the waitress did not
ask us if we enjoyed our meal or why I had eating 2 calamari rings and left
everything else. Watching some of the
other patrons was a bit scary, enough said.
I did head to one of the local get together that I had been
invited to which was an eye-opener, within 10 minutes one of the younger
attendee informed me of every bit of gossip in the town. I was able to go home and explain to Colman
where the local lady of the night lived, her hours, and what she charged for
what service and the names of a few locals who could vouch for her
ability. I never did go back!
The people I worked with at the library were wonderful and
thanks to them I also met & got to know assorted other people including
Anna who is from Austria and her partner Stoney who told me one day that many
years ago him and his then wife walked out to have a look at the unusual cloud
in the distance, turns out it was the mushroom cloud associated with the
testing at Maralinga. Apparently when
they let the bomb off they had miscalculated the wind & weather and instead
of harmlessly (!?) heading off inland it turned and came to Kimba. Also turns out the many of the sheds that had
been abandoned at Maralinga were carted down to the farmers here and sold to
them. Scary.
T’s sister & her husband parked their caravan on the
other side of the house and did some work on it for a while and we got to know
them too. After much too do in the local
pub (which they managed for a while) they now plan to travel around Oz also, so
we will very likely run into Di & David along the way, our port collection
(or theirs as the case may be) will never be the same. We found out a little while later we shared a
great liking for port & laughter, so again some fun times were had. We hope to catch up in Roxby somewhere down
the track.
We also had Ike & Sandy come visit a couple of times for
dinner and coffee, they were the 4wd drive crowed we met in Port Lincoln and
the ones we are heading off with mid July.
It was great to see them and we have organized lots for our trip.
The other side of the coin is that you meet so many people
and (especially me being scatty) remember only a handful. The amount of conversations I have had with
people where I walk away afterwards and thinking – “I have absolutely no idea
who that was”. Luckily I have discovered
that if I talk to Katrin who I work with in the library and give her all the
details she usually puts names to faces for me – phew
So while Colman heads off daily starting somewhere between 6
and 8 am and returning after 6pm and cruising round in ever decreasing circles
I flit around. I will try and get Colman
to tell me a few stories to put in here, but that sort of stuff is always a bit
difficult.
I did spend an afternoon on a tractor so have some idea what
it’s like. I had set myself up in the
house to sort out all my quilting & craft stuff so during the day I would
spend a couple of hours in there sorting.
One afternoon T walked in (frightened the bejesus out of me) and asked
if I wanted to hop on the tractor. He
took me down where TC (the other TC)was
seeding, asked me if I had met TC and then basically dumped me to make my way
over to do ????what??? Anyway, TC looked
as confused as me but we ended up having a great afternoon chatting and him
explaining some of the finer details of seeding and the machines used. The one I was on was 50 foot wide (in meters
- pretty wide) but apparently in the US
some of these things are up to 150 foot wide, you’d really want to know what
you’re doing. These things use air
pressure to push the seeds and the fertilizer into the soil. Having said that after hours of going round in ever decreasing
circles I was pretty much over it, fun was had but if I had to sit by myself in
a tractor doing this it would not be nice, I feel for Colman…. I did end up
getting both Colman and TC a Listening book, where someone reads a story on the
CD. I think TC listened to his, but sods
law – as few books as Colman reads, the one I got for him – he had read!
Bugger!
Now about the ongoing saga of the winning Apple lottery, I
received an email from someone to tell me that as I reside in Oz the easiest
way for me to claim my winning was to have it organized by a lawyer in
London. There were certain fees involved
including Power of Attorney, International insurance and transport/postage
costs, a small fee totaling $1395.00 which compared to my near million win was
nothing. Anyway, I suggested that I’d
fly to London, we’d meet up and I would collect the winnings and then leave
him$2000 as a thank you gesture. I
received a short email to say I would need to be there within 7 days, I wrote
back saying “no problem’ would that be calendar or working days – never heard
from them again. Strange….
While wandering around the supermarket one day I ran into M
who invited us to her 40th party in a couple of weeks. It was at the
local golf club, we chatted to many interesting people including some where you
walk away and wonder why?? It appears
that some people are considered lucky and some appear not to “Get Lucky”, it
was a very entertaining story but something maybe not for publication! Another amusing incident revolve around my
memory seeming to be somewhat shot, especially when it comes to people, faces
and names (that really hasn’t changed I hear you say!!!), so I spent the whole
night looking for someone I had met a couple of times and who I had actually
had a great chat to on the night. It was
only when I talked to Colman about it and the fact that I did not see that
person the whole night that he looked at me very very strangely and wanted to
know who I thought the person was I had been talking to…. Oh dear, luckily I
think I got away with it, but it did give a few other friends something to
laugh about when I told them. One thing
to be said for the golf club, their volunteers cook better then the “chef” at
the local pub – sad really!
We also had a little Momo dinner party when friends from the
library rang to say they were coming around with food and happy to eat on their
laps. It was a great night, Sangria was
had and much great food was eaten and many stories told by everyone. The weather was absolutely shocking on that
night and just as everyone was packing up someone asked about the water pouring
in through one of the lights in the kitchen – oops, not a good thing. Interestingly enough it has not done it again
since that night, mind you the heavens have never opened as comprehensively as
they did that night either.
The night before C’s birthday we had dinner at The Bosses
place, their place is identical to J&J which makes it very weird (well
there is one difference), and it sits up on a hill overlooking Kimba, which
from that view point and with the lights on looks huge. D&O were also there and some great
conversations were had and lots of red wine was drunk and good food was
eaten. There were a couple of funny
moments including when D tucked into her dinner and was promptly rebuked by her
son for “being worse than the children about waiting to start eating”. As we had the conversation very early on
about joining the local congregation she was trying to be diplomatic but got into
trouble with son instead!!
Colman’s birthday in Whyalla – oops Port Lincoln. I spoke with a friend about heading off to
Whyalla for Colman’s birthday and she looked a little surprised, apparently
there isn’t even a good restaurant there.
Having only ever been there diving with the cuttle fish (of which there
are none this year!!) I couldn’t say and hadn’t really thought about it. After a little chat we decided that PL might
be a better option and so the great subterfuge started. I contact some of our friends to see who was
available and when and ended up planning a busy weekend (we unfortunately
didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to).
I told Colman when we left Kimba that K had given me a better road to
Whyalla, kind of via Lock. As this meant
nothing to him he was ok about it, when he saw the sign for Cummins he became
skeptical, once we had passed through Cummins he had worked it out. We then went down the track of, are we
meeting up with the crew at the Church?
Nope, main instigator is away, where are we staying – campsite, how
about R&S, nope they were busy, and I didn’t have T&L number so
couldn’t contact them, but did manage to make a few other plans. So we booked into the Lincoln Hotel, room
with balcony & ocean view, straight to Del Giornos for coffee & a
nibble and then back for a cocktail.
Then we headed over to the Pier (aka The Church), where the whole gang
awaited us! A great night was had, sadly
The Greek Sheila was still in Adelaide but we did manage to chat on the
phone. Next morning we headed back to
Del Giornos for a great breakfast and some fantastic coffee and then off to Coffin
Bay to get some oysters, place was closed but after a quick phone call we got
our 4 dozen oysters ($7.50 pd). Back to
the hotel, nana nap and then off we went again.
Dinner at R&S, great food,
great drinks and wonderful company, we eventually dragged ourselves out of
there well after 1am. Yet another
successful surprise. Up the next morning
and a little breakfast at the hotel and off to T&L’s place, where they
piled us into the car (this was a surprise to me also), blind folded Colman
made him put on a wig, a pink boa, badges and assorted other silly things, cranked
up the music and off we drove direction Coffin Bay. Got lost on the way a problem which was
solved by Toni half charming half bribing one of the locals to escort us to Gino’s place
which was probably 10 Km’s away, all the time C… is in the back with the wig etc on (T is amazing) . Gino lives in Kelidie Bay, his property spans
the two kilometers between Kelidie Bay and Dutton Bay and is about 800 acres
with about 2 Km’s of shore line on each bay belonging to him (worth an absolute
fortune) . His house is like something
out of Dynasty and the Porsche he has parked under the house is beautiful. As is the yacht, assorted other vintage cars,
the D900 bulldozer, the 2 graders
& enough other huge machines to put in a small highway The house with its 4 two meter chandeliers, polished
everything, grand piano ,probably 20 ft ceiling has to be seen to be believed. He was a very nice, genuine & interesting
man who had in the 60ties & 70ties had been a racecar driver. He had even
raced among others against Sterling Moss in a Tasmanian rally .We had a great
afternoon being wined and dined next to an old forge which he had set up as a
covered “outdoor bbq area” with the view to die for. After about 5 hrs of wine and food we then headed back to T’s place for coffee
and cake before driving back to Kimba. I
think C enjoyed the weekend and we certainly had heaps of fun.
We are now a couple of days away from leaving Kimba for me
to go to Quilt Encounter and Colman to house sit and socialize before heading off
to the 4WD trip around Alice
Springs. It’s been a great stay here on
Chapman Road, we’ve met some wonderful people and have thoroughly enjoyed
it. It has made me realize (think about)
the life of a farmer and I think it’s very different to how me (and probably a
lot of city folks) perceive it. I still
find it terribly hard to get excited about the rain, or to even wish for it,
but I now see why. It’s much harder work
then I expected, with hours that are just ridiculous but there really isn’t
much of a choice about it if that is your life.
As for living in a small town, we were lucky that we became involved
with some great people and this really had much to do with our introduction by
J&J. I can see how difficult it
would be to try and become a ‘local’ but we never actually felt like real
outsiders either but I think that was more due to luck than anything else. Another thing which this episode on our
travels has thought me is to accept that some things don’t happen today, they
may not happen tomorrow either but they will.
If you really want to cook Ouso Bucco tonight and you find the butcher
apprentice has thrown the cut away because “well who would eat that anyway” ,
there is only one choice, Get Over It!
So much more to be said but it will start to get boring so I will stop,
however I will say that I’m sitting here typing with a grin on my face and ever
so happy that we had these 3 months here in Kimba. Well we are now back in Adelaide and Quilt
Camp is imminent, have organized to catch up with lots of friends and then
straight after camp we head off to Kimba and 3 days later join the 4WD crowed
for The Bush. Can’t wait. MoMo&Co.xx
