The Sun Always Shines In Orange....

The Sun Always Shines In Orange!

*Quick Tip - If you want to see the pics bigger...just click on them

As beautiful as the afternoon sky was over the sweltering heat in the onions fields of Hay, we decided that Hay wasn't for us. We made contact with the winery in Orange who originally had some work for us. Turned out the job was still on and ready to go, so we packed ourselves up for the long journey back. It was a great experience out there in the middle of nowhere NSW, and we learnt a lot (especially a new found respect for where our fruit and veges come from)....however Orange was calling us back!

Harley second pic is for you. Middle of outback NSW, dry onion fields at 40 degrees. Campervan with 3 surfboards on top (a couple of guys passing through for a bit of cash work). Thought you'd enjoy that contrast. Hope those pics are now big enough to your liking mate :).

Before we left though, we spent some time in the caravan park pool in Hay. This saved our lives for the few days we were there. First pic is Dom working (Dom's IT online stuff) in the pool, second photo is both of us enjoying a well earned Rolo Chocolate Dessert for our hard work in the fields, and third is the very lovely, glamorous Leonie catching some sun. The Hay Caravan Park were really lovely and the lady even returned some of our cash for some of the extra days we had paid for. If you are ever in the area, this is a great place to stay overnight and such. Hay Caravan Park Also the guys we worked for in Hay were very honest guys, they usually only pay you if you still around for the entire week (on Thursdays) actually, but after we called and explained to him that we needed to take the work back in Orange, he very quickly and efficiently put what he owed us in our account the next day. So a hard place to work in but a great boss really. So if any of you are ever in Hay or Griffith and need some work, hit Rumel up for some work 0413 602 010. 

On the way out of Hay we decided to quickly check out the Shearers Museum. These guys were/are crazy. Some of them hold records of shearing 230-280 sheep in ONE HOUR....and many of these were done with manual scissor type shears in the early 1900's (not electric ones like now). How? We don't know. But it takes a special breed no doubt. Second pic in the museum? No idea what 'Placenta Cream' is. Anyone? Tess?

On the long drive back, we took our time (left Hay at around 1pm and got back into Orange at around 7:30pm). Leonie did some driving too (you can see the seriousness in her face in the above first pic). We went a different way back (through Forbes) so we got to see other areas. Such a lovely countryside. Even though everyone says it's drought around here, we could see a huge difference between the dryness of Hay and more grass and greenery as we got closer to Orange. 

Forbes surprised Dom, we were only passing through for a fuel stop and Dom for some reason has an image of Forbes being a bigger city with some taller buildings. What we really saw was, everything was very flat (one story high) and it was pretty small. They have a beautiful looking garden in middle of their town. That's all :) We used the re-fuel as a chance to get a pic of some working dogs on the truck next to us. You can see the bluey likes a pose, but the other black boy wanted nothing of it with Leonie.

Robbie these are for you! First day back in Orange and we were straight to Harris Farm Market to get the lovely grass fed Cape Grim Beef from Tassie. These ended up being monsters when we cut them in two (around 750g per steak I reckon). Leonie cooked them up beautifully (Tess they are supposed to be a bit pink stop cringing) with a nice fresh coriander/tomato/onion chutney on the side. All washed down with a pint of Rogers Ale and bottle of SA Rose. Rob I thought of you as I bit into the first bite. Miss you guys.....

 (love heart shape for Dom's amusement)

We finally started our job for Belgravia Wines. A local family owned winery who own a wine bar in town too. Great guys who paid us well for packing export pallets of wine and helping label 9800 wine bottles for the Chinese market. Interesting stuff we found out. All these bottles going to China have red tops. Purposely done because the Chinese consider this colour strong and lucky, and they love labels that have words like bank, money, etc...and have pics of money on it. Crazy stuff we reckon! It's all about status they say. The Chinese just scull the wine down and don't know anything about it or how to appreciate it, but the rich ones that have lots of money are paying through the teeth (apparently like the equivalent of A$100 a bottle), so they can feel important and do what the westerners do. Bit disturbing really...that they feel they have to be like us to get somewhere. Being yourself is more important no?

Anyway....you can see from the pics that it was a mammoth job. First day we did 9am - 5pm, but on the second day when we had the deadline to get all the bottles labelled, we went from 5am - 11:30pm that night....and during the peak of labelling we had 14 people in there doing it. Job completed! Dom wrapped off each pallet like he was back at his old export job at Anspec (Tess you'd remember those days). Thank you very much!

p.s. We learnt that we were TOO GOOD for our own TOO GOOD. We had most of the work done with time to sit around and twiddle our thumbs while the country folk were labelling one bottle at a time. The Sydney speed serves us well sometimes :)

A local granny smith apple tree on a walk. It was cute. That's all.....

Went to the pools yesterday for some fun in the sun. A welcome relief from the warmth down here.

We are very excited with our local health food store. We found our favourite cultured hand churned butter 'Pepe Saya' and 'Mojo' Kombucha drinks. Heaven!!! Yes Dom is due for a haircut...incase you wanted to know.

These pics are from the 'Orange Slow Summer Festival Night Market'. We sampled a bit of wine, Dom ran into a few people he knew from Sydney who live down here now, and we finally got our hands on some slow roasted pork (as you can see in our happy satisfied faces). The Dessert Chardy wasn't too bad either. We decided we'd spend Australia Day at some local wineries, and then Sunday there is a big Aussie party down by the local beach (river). A BBQ down there with a few cold ones will satisfy us. enjoy your Australia Day peeps!

Ahhhh...we love Orange.....sigh......look for work?.......ohhhhhhh........next Monday!

Flies Don't Stop Landing On You Even When It Rains

Well! What the hell has happened in the last 24 hours? Or should I say, a lot can happen in 24 hours...

So we were in Orange, enjoying the laid back vibe and culture but no work there unfortunately. Wine job fell through and we are there too late for cherries and too early for apples and grapes. So we had to make a decision to move on quickly and chase the work that is available. 

We both liked it there and feel that maybe we could return for more work down the track but at the moment....we have done 'Sam & Frodos Journey' to middle of nowhere :) An onion picking job down in Hay. Where the f%$^ is Hay? Just around 5 hours that way (south west), one winemaker pointed out to us. Vipassana Meditation prepared us for 'everything is subject to change'. So we were off...

Pretty little town signs on the 5 hour journey through middle of nowhere to somewhere? What?

Middle of nowhere, driving for ages without seeing anyone, and wondering what kind of crazy, disturbed people are living in small houses in middle of nowhere, and what do we see....a BLOODY ECHIDNA going to cross the road. We told him to look to the left, look to the right, then look to the left again..then we decided to tell him to go back (to avoid being echidna pancake). He was a withdrawn quiet chap, who sort of went into his shell a bit. So cute though...their feet are very strange, like a cross between a miniature elephant and an orang-utan foot (Leonie thinks so anyway).

Amazing sky across the NSW outback, we drove all afternoon and all night from Orange and as we did, we watched the sun slowly go down across middle NSW. Beautiful. The horses weren't very co-operative for Leonie's silhouette photo shoot though. Stunning pics all round (We just loves the third one there...it captures everything the outback is).

Started seeing heaps of these signs on the way into the Riverina Area (Griffith). Fruit fly pests aren't wanted anywhere. We dumped our cherry pips at a bin that was set up just for this, on the way in. Leonie started panicking about the tomatoes and mango we had in our fridge. I assured her that at 9:30pm on Thursday night in middle of nowhere, we probably wouldn't be pulled up by highway patrol to search for hidden fruit. Then again, you never know who is watching. Griffith is/was Mafia capital in NSW....

As we drove well into the night, we couldn't believe the amount of bugs (perhaps fruit flies or something) flying into our headlights.....going towards to light, seeing the light...that's the last light they see. If we were buddhists (who believe each living thing has a soul and we can come back as anything), we would be repenting and paying back this Karma for at least the 1 000 000 deaths we created last night. Luckily we aren't and we just were kind of...wow'd out by the fact that they were going for mass suicide on our time. This pic is the aftermath this morning when we took a look in Griffith.

This is Willow Park in Griffith where we stayed overnight. It's a nice little rest stop for RV's. It was ridiculously hot though and the first time we have slept in the van. We laughed at ourselves as we tossed and turned in the sweltering heat of the van, turning on the car every 30 mins for a good 10mins of aircon (we burnt about 1/8 tank of fuel on it). Very frustrating night but one we are sure we'll look back on in the future and have a giggle about. Two grown adults navigating their way around the back of the van looking for window mozzie nets, torches, etc. All the time I was seething thinking about how I could have put a small split system aircon in the back or had the car aircon connected up to the second battery.....aaaahhhhhhh!

This morning, we went and got 2 bacon and egg rolls which took 35mins to come out......yes seriously. Leonie was going to punch them (so buddhist like of her). We rocked up to the employment agency we had spoken to the day before who said get down here for the onion picking job...but no guarantees it will still be here.

She didn't know what we were talking about, saying there wasn't any work. I politely said 'we drove all night to get here so get the agent on the phone who we spoke to'. She finds out that he is at the Hay office not Griffith. Dom nearly punched her!

The agent's response to Leonie was get here asap and I'll send you straight to the farm. So off again we went on 'Sam and Frodos' journey to middle of earth to find this F&^*ing job. Hay was another little 150km (2 hours) from Griffith. 

On the way to Hay, temps reached 42 degrees outside (we saw how hot it was in Sydney and we felt bad for you all too). Aircon was going in and out of a seizure and what did we come across....A MUSTER! A REAL LIFE MUSTER. It was just amazing to see on the highway, and the work that the couple were doing and their trusty dogs. Eventually we got passed the cows. Third pick shows cow number 42563-78 wondering what kind of cow our black delica is.

We arrived in middle earth....I mean Hay, went straight to employment office, got all details, bought some gloves and dodgy cheap hats from the local discount store, and went off to the farm. Cause it was so hot they stop work around midday and maybe go back later on. We settled in at local caravan park (ohhhh they have a pool), and checked out the town. Small, supermarket...shit. It will have to do for a bit while we are here.

If we are still here next week, I am going to treat Leonie to country chinese all you can eat at the local servicemans club. Very excited...just like Murriels Wedding (country spring rolls....yummy!)

We eventually went over to the onion farm to start work. They quickly showed us how, with the cool sheers we were given (gee these could do some damage), and off we went. Leonie is like a fish in water. She was already at third bucket while my mind was at the pub and just starting my second. As you can see in above pics, we got into the spirit of it...the gorgeous Leonie reminds me of that starlet from 'Footloose'. Not that crap 2012 version but the original 1984...oooooooo yeeeaaahhhhhh.

Doing this work makes you feel really great (well at first anyway, I'm sure there will be times when we can't stand the sight of another onion), and really makes you feel that you are contributing back to what the earth has helped grow. It's a great feeling. 

A storm came in as you can see in the background of the third pic, but we decided to work through it. All in all 2 hours, 15 buckets of onions and we are on the way. Flies were a bit of an issue for us (not really...for Dom) and they insisted on staying around even in the rain. So tomorrow Dom has decided to have a Aeroguard bath before we start work at 5am.

This work will go for a while as you can see in pic behind Dom there are still heaps of rows. Doesn't look like much but it's amazing how many onions you get out of a small condensed area.

We could still be around after this, we could not! Apparently next is rock melons to pick out here. Let's see where the wind blows us.

This is the aftermath of working in the soil/clay, picking onions in the rain. We have well and truly worked our boots in :) 

The Start Of Our Travels

So we finally left the Blue Mountains... A few family hugs and kisses first...

Second a sacred saging ceremony to bless ourselves and our van and the long journey together.

 

Then we were off for Central NSW and all that Orange had to offer. The time had arrived at last...and left us with an air of excitement, but also nerves.

The smooth, picturesque drive to Orange was pleasant and soothing (especially with Yol's dance trance spiritual mixes she left us with :). It was so strange, less than 2 hours from the Blue Mountains and we were welcomed into Central NSW. The air changed, the scene changed, the dryness of the land really became apparent. We looked at each other and wondered 'could we really be in central NSW already'. Apparently so...we felt that we were so close to our family in the mountains yet so far far away.

The time finally arrived, we had hit our first destination. The excitement was overwhelming as we began to see winery signs and country style homewares shops...and local cherries ($5.99 kg) too. We made our way slowly into Orange and to our 'Colour Caravan Park'. True name I kid you not. We laughed as we checked it and looked around. For a moment, we felt like trailer trash from the wrong side of the railway tracks. We are pleased to say though, that there aren't 50 000 000 little kids running around in dirty clothes. Instead we have a nice quiet spot next to the Orange Showground, and the bathrooms and showers are some of the cleanest you'll ever see (you know...that big shower head that hits you so hard it's like a massage all over your body, but makes you feel guilty that there is such a wastage of water :)

We decided we'd slowly give back our crystals to nature all around the country....slowly, mindfully, one at a time.

Like good tourists, we drove around in town after setting up camp/tent, to find a decent place to buy some groceries. Wollies...hopeless! We were hoping that being in a country town we might be blessed with a supermarket that supplies good quality local grass fed meat. Unfortunately not the case. We were going to go on a mission to find some, somehwhere! Anywhere! And low and behold....we were saved by Harris Farm Fruit Market. Believe it or not we got CAPE GRIM TASSIE GRASS FED MEAT. Dom's mates back at GRUB Butchers in Vaucluse would be very proud indeed!!

Let's just say the photos of our first meal speak for themselves. Leonie was so excited she couldn't contain it and had to take photos of our dinner and message it to everyone from Bondi to Hobart...hehehe! All this was washed down with a couple of nice glasses of Jansz Sparkling from Tasmania (thanks very thoughtfully to Wendy, a former client of Dom's who gave us this bottle to enjoy on our first night on the trip. Much appreciated!!)

This is our very romantic candle lit dinner......aweeee love! 

Now it's time for bed for us because we have a big first day tomorrow.....oh yeah forgot to mention that we picked up some work at a winery for a few days (Belgravia Wines), that starts tomorrow for us. It's all started.......