The Agrinautica

   This past Saturday my dear friend Billie came up to visit. She used to live in this area but since moving several hours East she hasn't been out this way in years -- usually I'm going over there to visit. But she was going to attend the airshow that's in this general area (well that's still an hour east of me) on Sunday she decided to come visit me. We decided to go visit some waterfalls.
   She arrived at 0800, and I think we talked over coffee for at least an hour before heading out. Then our first stop was the magic book shed in the next little hamlet over -- it literally just looks like a nondescript shed but has a "BOOK SALE" sign out by the street and when you go in it's densely packed with shelves of books! I bought a Bill Bryson book (A Walk in the Woods) and Billie bought three books -- we're both big fans of books. (:
   As for waterfalls, I thought I'd been to all the publicly accessible waterfalls but had more recently noticed one I hadn't been to -- "Sabine Falls," so we headed that way. To get there we a fair bit down a road I hadn't been down before deep into the Otway forest. The trail itself is official so it was well maintained, but because it's one of the lesser known waterfalls we didn't see anyone else there and it seemed much less trafficked, so that was nice. It was about a kilometer through thick foliage to get there. At the end there was a little viewing platform looking across across a foliage filled gorge to the waterfall. It was hard to get a good picture of the waterfall from there so here's the picture from my "Waterfalls of the Otways" book. It's apparently one of the tallest in the Otways.

   After we got back to my car we wanted to find another waterfall from the book, which has the details of 226 local waterfalls in it ... but the damn book, while it does have maps in it, it doesn't have the waterfalls MARKED on the map. It just has a generic regional map. And the waterfalls have their GPS coordinates (in a kind of weird half decimal notation without punctuation (that is without the degree symbol or the decimal dot) so it was hard to figure out how to input even one waterfall into the phone to find its location and not really feasible to figure out which waterfalls were where from leafing through it. But by looking at a different waterfall brochure I had (I've got all the waterfall stuff!) we determined there was another waterfall we hadn't been to not too far away, just off the Great Ocean Road (the GOR).

   So we drove down to the GOR and to the carpark for this other waterfall (Carisbrook Falls). The only other vehicle in the parking area was a van of the type people living the #vanlife live in, and moments after we parked a young man climbed out of the back pulling his shirt on followed by a young woman fixing her hair ... we suspect we interrupted their sexytime. It was a very short walk to this waterfall, during which Billie pointed out several interesting things about plants that I've already forgotten. Like Sabine Falls, this one also one couldnt' get very close, here's the picture I took from the viewing platform.
   Then we crossed the road and poked around the tidepools a bit before continuing on.

   We drove to the town of Apollo Bay and had a light lunch of prawns and scallops at a fish and chips place (actually the "fisherman's co-op" just by the marina). The view from here was really nice:



   The guy sitting next to us overhearing us talking about various trips we've either taken across Australia or want to take, joined our conversation with some recommendations of his own. He apparently has a youtube channel about his sailing adventures.

   From there we headed to a waterfall that we both actually had been to but not in a few years -- Marriner's Falls. My big book and all online sources reported it as closed, but we both had been there after the alleged date it was closed so were confident we could get in. I had stumbled upon it rather by accident I think and just stepped over the gate at the time.
   It was at the back end of the valley Apollo Bay is located in, at the end of the road. Even though it's been closed since 2011, the carpark is still maintained. One can no longer simply step over the gate, there's a tall fence, but we found one just needed to cross teh river (I kept my feet dry stepping across stepping stones, Billie just sloshed through it), and there was a decent trail on the far side. The trail was obviously not maintained by the Parks Department, there were fallen logs one had to step over or crawl under and blackberry brambles closing in on the trail enough to pluck at passersby -- but someone was obviously maintianing the trail enough that there WAS a trail through the blackberries. We suspect the landowner just beside the trailhead, who appears to host people in yurts on his paddock, is probably happy to keep the trail maintained as his private trail due to it being officially closed. Anyway the fact that some bushwacking was required made the journey all the more fun.
   Like all the best of these waterfall trails it led through a narrow gorge full of moss and ferns. The picture at the top of this entry is Billie during one of several river crossings. When we finally got to the waterfall, it was gorgeous -- a good flow of water coming down a solid cliff face like a wall, with moss and ferns on it. The waterfall fell into a pool of crystal clear cool water -- we took off our shoes and stood in it, it was very zenful and serene.



   By this point it was around 7pm, fortunately it's still light out late and it was still pretty well lit but we realized we'd have to hurry to get food before most kitchens closed at 8. So we hurried back out of there. It was after 8:00 by the time we got back into Apollo Bay but fortunately the pub there keeps its kitchen open till 8:30. It was a lovely evening and we sat in the outdoor area looking out at the rising moon:



   Unfortunately we still had to take the curvy road up through the forested mountains in the full dark of night, and me with only one working headlight. But that went without incident -- I did actually see a koala starting to cross the road from the other side, but there was nothing for it but to wish the fella the best of luck.

   Fortunately my housemate Trent had moved out literally the day before, so I had a guestroom for Billie. She departed at 6am for the airshow and I spent Sunday doing beekeeping stuff, and trying to recover my voice from all teh talking I'd done on Saturday! The end.

   This upcoming Saturday I'll be on a major Melbourne radio station garden show (talking about bees obviously), and Wednesday next week I'm presenting at a Melbourne beekeeping club meeting. That's all the latest!

   I was planning on writing the sequel to last entry the next day but gosh it's been a busy week and I've either been busy or exhausted from being busy every evening.

   Anyway so continuing from where I left off, I was hanging out with friends in the mountains of east central victoria (kind of like how in California we consider San Franscisco to be either about the center or even northern "northern california" when it's really only half way up, here in Victoria when people talk about "Central Victoria" they are usually referring to an area around the center of western victoria. Really Melbourne itself is about the center of the state (or north of melbourne), but the east side of the state seems to be generally disregarded the way we disregard northern northern California).

   Last Sunday the plan was to just four-wheel-drive down to an abandoned steel waterwheel way out in the bush but.. only two of us would make it that far in the end ::the narrator says in an overly dramatic tone::

   First we visited the dam site again because the two friends who had joined us halfway through the day before, councilwoman Kerstin and her boyfriend Dan, hadn't seen it yet. After this Billie's twin Lek, and Sel, departed on an important mission to console a friend who'd just been dumped by her deadbeat boyfriend. The remaining four of us proceeded up the dirt roads and fire roads to the east of the reservoir lake.
   Shortly after we turned off the main dirt access road onto a slightly more four-wheel-drivey road, we crossed a patch of thick mud Kersten and Dan's car became stuck in (wish I could remember what kind of car it was, which might inform the reader as to how well it could have been expected to handle adverse conditions, but I don't recall becaues everything about cars make me snoooore. Billie's car, however, is named Surf, because it's apparently a Hilux Surf which is the Australian name of the Toyota 4Runner, if it interests any of you to know these things). Quickly noticing they were no longer right behind us Billie somehow pulled a U-ie and returned to the scene, where we found them stuck in the mud. They were able to reverse out of it relatively quickly and it was decided that we'd all get in Billie's car, so the other car was parked at a convenient wide place just near there and then...and headed
   ...Billie's car wouldnt' start. She'd had some trouble with the (alternator? the battery not charging while driving as it should) of late. The timing and location of this problem coming up was really remarkably ill-chosen. We had jumper cables and at any of the other many times we'd stopped and started throughout the last few days we'd have had another vehicle to jump it but now we were quite pointedly on the wrong side of a mud puddle the other car couldn't cross!



   Fortunately after a little fiddling we got Billie's car started, and Kerstin and Dan and their two dogs (a greyhound and one of those small curly haired dogs that looks like some kind of teddy bear crossed with a dog.) got in and we proceeded. However, now in an unfamiliar car on a rocky ride sometimes proceeding down slopes at a precarious angle the greyhound was breathing heavily enough that Dan thought it was stressing out and about to hyperventilate or something. So they all got out and Billie and I proceeded down the track a further few hundred meters to see if it got any better, but it didn't, so we returned, re-collected them, and returned from whence we came, back across the mud puddle, and then bid adieu to them and they parted company with us.


   From there Billie and I proceeded up the main gravel road to the nearby summit of Mt Useful, upon which stood a fire tour, some communications antenna, and a whooole lot of guys with mullets and southern cross tattoos, wearing plaid jackets and shorts standing beside their four wheel drives drinking beer. Like literally 80-90% of them had mullets. There was a magnifiscent view from here looking south into the lowlands.



   From there, having studied the map a bit more, we determined that there was another route to get to the steel waterwheel (not that Billie's hilux couldn't have made it down the other track without a hyperventilating greyhound, though her truck is not currently in tip top shape, but mostly I think we had become a bit demoralized with the first track we attempted after having to abandon it halfway so taking a different route was at least a change of scenery.
   This new route proved do-able, the dirt track following along the steep side of the river valley. And it always amazes me that 4x4s going opposite directions somehow manage to pass eachother on these roads. One such vehicle that came past us happened to be some of Billie's former coworkers with DWELP (Bureau of Land Managment equivalent). They gave us permission to bypass the "trail closed" tape they'd just put across the trail to the waterwheel, advising us to just not lean against the bridge rail.
   Shortly later we came to the trailhead. There was space to park a few cars by the river, though we were the only one, and sure enough yellow caution tape blocking off the start of the trail at a footbridge across the river which made out of one solid log. We ducked under the caution tape and didn't test the structural integrity of the hand rails.



   Personally I much prefer hiking over 4x4ing and it was really great. It was a nice sunny day, the birds were chirping, flowering plants were all around us. As we hiked we reminded eachother several times that this was prime snake weather and season, and sure enough, by and by "snake!" Bille exclaimed, holding up her hand for me to stop. There across the trail in front of us was a large snakeB that she identified as a tiger snake, which is fairly venomous.
   Without further incident we reached the steel waterwheel, seemingly completely by itself in the wilderness, though after some searching I found evidence of a building foundation nearby. I climbed up into the waterwheel and Billie took a photo of me there that I think would have been a cool photo.... but her phone was accidentally smashed at work the next day and she hadn't sent it to me yet.


And I took a photo of the informational sign because I rightly foresaw that this same information wouldn't be as readily available on the computer internets

   From there we proceeded west along the 4x4 tracks, which included some crossings of severel-foot-deep rivers but Billie's truck had them well in hand. Just past one river crossing, quickly climbing again, I saw this perfect photo opportunity. Well it would have been better if half the photo wasn't in shadow but hey one can't help that. But 4x4s camped in a remote river bend, insanely steep 4x4 track running up the mountain behind them, this is the Australian offroading dream:



   From there we proceeded to Billie's place, ate the rest of the venison burrito/taco fixins, and I headed off, it being now around maybe 6pm? Which was way too late to catch the last ferry so I had to drive right through the dark heart of Melbourne which was as stressful as I expected. I think you can maybe get right through the city by taking a tollroad but I'm too cheap for that (despite that I'll pay $72 to avoid the whole thing via ferry, but tollroads are bougousie tools of the capitalist pigdogs! ..plus also I haven't the faintest idea how you actually pay the toll since there aren't toll booths and its deducted straight from your soul or something), but without taking tollroads one has to zigzag through surface streets with cars opening their doors along the curb edge (or "kerb" edge as these spelling maniacs spell it), nightmare inducing "J-turns" in the inner lanes, trams, and all kinds of other mischief. I took two wrong turns due to incomprehensible signage, may have been going wrong way in a major street for a moment, I'm not sure it was dark and terrifying, but anyway eventually survived the city to come out the other side and continue home, the end.

[If you'll excuse me I think I'll take a quick break from the Mountains of the Moon and the Great Blue Turaco to fast forward and instead try to cram the last two months in Victoria, Australia into one entry before I get too behind in THIS adventure]

Friday, December 18th, morning - As I walked out of the Melbourne airport into the summer sun, I didn't quite know what to expect. I knew a taxi driver was waiting for me but I really didn't know quite exactly where he was taking me. That's okay, I like a good adventure. I had left California on a winter Wednesday night, skipped over Thursday entirely, and arrived on a Friday in the summer.
   The taxi driver turned up huffing and puffing from the short walk from the car park across the street (he was er NOT in the best of shape). I of course immediately tried to get in the wrong (right side) of the car, welcome to Australia, where the world is upside down! We proceeded south on the highway through rolling countryside, but I quickly fell asleep due to the harrows of jetlag. I was not infrequently jolted awake though by the taxi driver drifting onto the rumble strips on the highway shoulder (!!), suffice to say I was gravely concerned about the driver's health and fitness to actually be a driver.
   We passed through Geelong ("j'long") and continued on what would become a much more familiar route for me, the half hour between the farm and the town. This is the area I now spend my time in, and it consists of rolling golden hills (now finally starting to be tinted with green), spotted with rectangular black cows or brailled with haybales (no longer rectangular, but rolled up like giant cinnamon rolls), and stitched with lines of trees along the borders of the fields. In sum, it's absolutely beautiful country, especially at sunset.



   We finally turned off the highway, drove down a short one lane road for a bit, and finally arrived at The Farm. There I met my boss for the first time -- he was much more friendly and outgoing than his rather stern picture on the company website had led me to anticipate! The farm I guess you'd call a "hobby farm" just because it's not his main source of income and I think he only keeps it up for entertainment, but it consists of a number of fields and he employs a full time farm manager as well. He seems to have a particular interest in aviculture, as there are chickens, geese, turkeys, guineafowl, and peafowl (ie peacocks and peahens). Also five dogs and five cats. The Boss, an Irishman from Kilkenny and Wexford (I lived and attended school briefly in Kilkenny myself!) has named the farm "Ardtarmon," Irish for "hillfort" since it sits on a hill overlooking Lake Modewarre. I like to refer to it as "Modewarre Station," in my mind because so many things in Aus are "X Station," and I like the sound of it.
   The boss lives on a house overlooking the Lake, which has been dry so long now it's entirely grown over with tall grasses and shrubs, but in the morning the mist collects in it to create a lake of fog down below us. He kind of apologetically showed me a furnished double-trailer beside the vegetable garden that I could stay in until I get on my feet and normalized here, but it's actually quite nice. Last time I was in Australia (6 months in 2012/2013) I swore I'd never live on property owned by a boss again after two bad experiences (one expected me to live on his porch and pay $100 a week for the privilege, the other was a decent place but unexpected inspections by my boss were very annoying, especially since he would criticize me for the epic mess my flatmate always made), but so far I'm really loving the non-commute to work, ducking into my own kitchen for lunch, and having been adopted by one of the farm cats. The only real downside is the principal of the thing that I live in a trailer, and also the kitchen and shower and such all being tiny (if I stood up straight the shower ceiling would be level with my chin (I'm 6'2" btw), so showering currently gives me a crick in the neck).

   Having done the relocation thing before I had some tricks up my sleeve, and joined a bunch of meetup groups before I even left Cali. As such I had a pool party to attend in the Geelong suburbs the very next day (again, middle of summer!), which was fun. This group has been great, they also had a New Years party (which was just a week or so after I arrived), and have had several bar trivia nights (one thing I really missed back in the states. Sure tehre are _some_ trivia nights, but nothing like the abundance of them in Aus). Altogether between official meetup events, "unofficial" social events with the same people, and some other things, I've been having at least two or three social events a week, which is actually way more than I was even doing back home!


   Another thing that's helped a lot with normalization of life here is that I've been given use of the "farm ute" (ute being Aussie for pickup-truck), so I'm free to roam! On the first several weekends I immediately set about exploring. The city of Geelong (pop 200,000) is about half an hour east, but I usually don't have to go any further than the closest suburbs for shopping, and sometimes into downtown in the evening for pub trivia. (I've come up with two epic team names I'm quite proud of: "Rock the Quiz-ba," and "Don Quiz-ote & the Flailing Windmills"). Closer at hand the nearest place with a (tiny) general store is Moriac ten min down the road (I feel like a lot of places here sound like planets in Star Wars. "Colac" is ther other nearest large town), just a village really with just that one shop. A slightly bigger small town maybe fifteen minutes the other direction, but best of all, 30-40 minutes south, on the far side of the Otway National Forest is the Great Coast Road, along a great coast!! Both a forest and a coast!
   Those first weekends I immediately set to driving up and down the coast, which as one would expect, is dotted with cute yet touristy seaside towns. I drove as far as I could east until I got to entrance to Port Phillip Bay and the beautiful little town of Queenscliff full of beautiful colonial style buildings and punctuated by a grand red brick fortress guarding the bay.



   Another day I set off west along the coast, and this direction the highway is hemmed in closely by the forest so you have the crashing waves below you, long mostly empty beaches below the cliffs, and just steep forest-blanketed hills on your right, as you wind down the coast. It's these views that make one really think "god I'm lucky to live here." By the Cape Otway lighthouse I saw koalas in the wild for the first time. Some tourist tried to get too close to one and man can they bellow! There aren't terribly many roads through the national park but returning I intentionally took a smaller road and found myself winding through deep rainforest, the forest floor hidden under giant ferns. And then, unexpectedly I came upon the unmistakable towering mass of a grove of redwoods. I'd heard about these redwoods but had no idea they were on the obscure rouate I was on. Even though the sun was setting and I was in a hurry to get out of the forest before dark, I reversed back to the turnoff and explored the redwoods. According to the sign they were in fact California Sequoias planted in 1938. I love all foest bu there's somethign about redwoods. They seem to deaden sound or something, so that when you're in and among them, it's so serene and peaceful, and the air smells and feels so fresh. The sun was slanting in at a very low angle (it was after 7pm with a 9:15 sunset), and I've alwasy felt the evening light in Australia is unusually golden, so the serene redwoods plus this Australian twilight combined for just a beautiful zenful experience. Add to this that being from California myself and having a great love for the redwoods there there was a bit of nostalgia added in as well. I'll definitely be going back to visit the redwood grove!!!
   From there I had to hurry on my way, first winding through more thick forest that looked like jurassic park and then through the fields as the hay bales' shadows stretched across the hills, reaching for the East, and shadows pooled in the valleys beneath a purpling sky.



The Laver's Hill Adventure, or The Sudden Death of Kermit
Saturday, January 16th - my friendfrom meetup, Billie, and her twin sister (they're actually triplets!) invited me to go to Otway Fly with them, a place in the forest where ziplines and canopy-level catwalks had been built. So I ran to my car and drove out to where they were, which was about an hour away, west by south from me, mainly along the route I'd returned from the redwoods by, and I'm going to keep saying this, but I took note the countryside was just beautiful along the way. Got there around 2pm. We opted not to go ziplining because it was expensive, though I'd like to go some time. The catwalks themselves were pretty fun. I think we were about 75 feet up, and one viewing tower was about 150' (47 meters) -- which I noted was about as tall as the tops of the masts of the Swedish ship Gothenborg or the barque Star of India, but sadly didn't swing through the air nearly so much. Still made me nostalgic for the smell of tar, but hey I was in the middle of a forest with two beautiful twins, who's complaining?? Both on the catwalks and on the ground level walk there were informational signs about some local flora and fauna, which as a nature lover I love to stop and read. Apparently there's a carnivorous snail here!



   Billia and Lexie were planning on sightseeing in the area all day, camping somewhere, and continuing the next day. I hadn't been part of this original plan but they invited me to come along with them to their next destination or two. So next we went to nearby Triplet Falls (Triplet Falls with (two of) Triplets!), which had a beautiful 1.5ish km kilometer loop hike through the forest and along the series of falls that forms the triplets. It was quite lovely, I've added it to the ever growing list of places to take my parents when they finally visit.


One of a set of triplets on one of the Triplet Falls!

   From there they planned to have dinner on the coast and watch the sunset, (and after that go see glow worms somewhere, but.. never got that far! dun dun dun) so we continued along, to where the road came to the little town of Laver's Hill and turned off toward the coast there. Upon reaching the coast the road turns back east towards Apollo Bay, which is about as far as I'd gotten previously following the road from the east. We stopped briefly at a viewpoint on the coast and sdmired the beautiful beach way down below for a few minutes. Then we got back in our respective vehicles, me in the ute, them in Billie's green sedan she's named Kermit... but Kermit wouldn't start, the engine wouldn't even roll over. We tried this for awhile, readjusting the clamps, giving it time, nothing worked. As it happens there was no cell phone reception on this remove ocean overlook, so Billie and I went off looking for somewhere we could get some help.
   To the east the road descended steeply into a valley, with a cluster of four houses and the ruins of some bigger building with little more than stone walls and a big chimney remaining overgrown with tall grass. A short distance down that way the map said there was a town called Glenaire so we headed that way. After driving ten minutes though my gas tank was running on E (I wasn't expecting this much adventure when I started!) and there was no sign of Glenaire (404 town not found!). No other civilization was expected until Apollo Bay some distance away, so we turned around and came back. On closer inspection on the return we determined that the small cluster of houses WAS the "town" of Glenaire. I've found Austraia is full of these ghost "towns." If you investigate carefully many of them once had a schoolhouse or post office, probably before modern transportation made it possible for them to go further afield for these things, but I've found plenty of "towns" on the map which appear to have no remaining physical manifestation at all, just fields and maybe one family dwelling.



   We touched base with Lexie again and then went the other way to Laver's Hill. By now I was crossing my fingers I wouldn't run out of gas, thus leaving us with two nonfunctional cars and no reception!! I was veritably praying to Odin that Laver's Hill had a (diesel) gas pump. First place with a pump was out of order. 404 gas not found! Breaking into a nervous sweat we headed to the Lover's Hill roadhouse.. and they had a diesel pump!! So I was greatly relieved to gas up, and Billie called her uncle, a mechanic, who said the battery may have failed completely but if we unhooked it and bypassed it by connecting the jumpers from my truck directly to her battery leads we should be able to start her car.
   So we returned to the overlook *over 'Castle Beach' I think for those of you following along at home) and made dinner first. Since they were planning on camping they had a camp stove and pots and cans of noodles or rice or something, with tomato sauce. The sun was setting as we did this, so at least we got our sunset, though it kind of smouldered off into the sea haze. Then we set about making the fix ... but we had no tools to unbolt the battery leads!! 404 pliers not found! Despair!
   So we put their swag (Aussie for a sleeping bag that's enforced against the elements so you don't need a tent too) and overnight stuff in the back of my ute and all piled in the cab, which was a really tight fit for three, and headed up the hill.
   The Lover's Roadhouse had an adjacent field in which other people had already pitched tents, and I don't think they even charged us for the privilege. I joined the girls for a drink in the roadhouse before heading home. I'd have liked to stay but i hadn't brought my swag unfortunately ):
   This roadhouse was the kind of delightful quaint place on fears doesn't exist any more. It was warm and cozy inside, with the kind of stuff on the walls places hope they look like when they put kitsch on the walls, but it just fit the place in this case. It seemed overstaffed with like five people who appeared to be staff and a dozen patrons who seemed mostly tourists. The staff were hilarious though, constantly ribbing eachother, and the owner full of self deprecating humour and sarcasm. I wish the place was closer I'd love to hang out there more.
   Alas by and by it was time for me to go (around 1am I think!) so I bid the girls goodnight and embarked on what felt like a VERY long journey through twisting roads that veritably tunneled through the thick forest. At one point I had to slam on my breaks as a large deer bounded across in front of me (deer were imported, are now an invasive species, typical). Finally arrived back at the farm and took a moment to marvel and the millions of unfamiliar stars sparkling like diamonds in the black sky above.

   Now my part in the adventure ends there but the next day apparently Billie got someone (a police officer?) to lend her tools, they hitchhiked back to the overlook, getting a ride from a British couple who actually stayed with them for the rest of that day's trouble. Were able to detach the battery leads and jump the car that way ... but as soon as the car powered on the doors locked, with her keys inside!!! At this point I would have screamed and cursed the gods I think. So this couple drove her and her sister to Apollo Bay where they were able to get a locksmith or tow truck or some such to return with them to get the doors open AND start the car (which had then been running all the while since the keys were in it in the on position?). I don't recall if Kermit was able to return to Geelong under her own steam or had to be towed but anyway it was a lot of shenanigans!

   But wait, there's more! Sometime during this Billie's wallet fell out in Laver's Hill, and was found and the good samaritan (maybe this was the police officer) called her. So she had to return to fetch it (keep in mind Laver's Hill is at least an hour and a half from her). On her return from this trip she encountered a motorcycle cop who looked stranded by the side of the road ... his battery had died! Seeing him Billie pulled off the road behind him, which as she commented was kind of a funny reversal of the usual roles, walking up to him saying "what seems to be the problem officer?" So she was able to jump his bike for him and return the karma.


Aus Day
   If I knew what was good for me I'd end the entry there with the completion of the story arc and warm ending, but I don't! You can consider this an epilogue though maybe? I just want to get caught up so I'm going to power through this last bit of adventure I'd like to mention!

   The first three waves of human migration onto the Australian continent between 40,000 and 10,000 years ago leaves no memorial date, but the fourth wave, triggered when Great Britain found they could no longer send their criminals to America and instead raised the flag in Australia, is celebrated on January 26th. My last Aus Day we got 21 inches of rain in Bundaberg, I waded through knee deep water to get to the local bar to celebrate (and in retrospect its kind of hilarious it was still open and having traffic), getting out again just before the roads closed and my town became an island, but anyway, that was 2013.
   This time Aus day fell on a Tuesday. Billie invited me to a celebration the preceding Saturday in a place called Beeac out in the country a ways (Yeah I thought she'd typoed the name first as well, nah mate, it's actually spelled that way). Here I found a good ole country gathering, with a homemade aboveground pool constructed of (old style rectanguler) hay bales and carpet. Unforunately it turned out to be a kind of a cold blustery day (weather here is entirely unpredictable! Christmas was 103f and two hours later sideways rain) so the pool didn't get much use but there was a hot tub! And a pig roasting on a spit, that had been raised on that very farm (doesn't get fresher than that!). We partied on into the night with bonfires and then I slept in my swag out in the field. The next morning we had fresh fresh bacon, did some clay pigeon shooting, and hung out the rest of the afternoon. That evening Billie and went back to our respective homes, changed into much nicer clothes, and reconvened to hurry on down to Melbourne (again, like an hour and a half away) to attend a comedy club with some other friends of hers. Altogether a great weekend.
   And then that Tuesday we had a pool party with the meetup group.



   Anyway, as you can see I've been staying busy, and the adventures continue! (not to mention I was in the Philippines last week, but that's definitely another entry) Oh Billie is calling, we're off to the rodeo! The adventures continue!