Odd happenings

Yesterday, I helped some Aboriginals break into their car...which turned out not to be their car...awekward when the real owner rocked up.

Just kidding, I did help them break into their car, which was a bit unsucessful, so we had to call in a lock smith to open the door, which was pretty cool to see what tools they use, which was pretty much similar to my tools , but beefier.

Also had a gay Aboriginal prostitute crack onto me, which was really weird, but simply told him he was making me nervous, which made him leave me alone.

What else is new? If I don't score a job by the end of the week, I'm going back west where I hear there's a lot of work at the moment. Hoefully that'll stay true for when I get there, otherwise, I'll just have to head back East or sell all my stuff, and jump over to South East Asia and stay there for an undetermined amount of time.

Oh! And I found out that I could of maybe been a nurse already!!! My brothers wife informed me that when I was put onto the reserve list for the school, I should of been there physically during the roll call, for if any of the accepted people weren't there, they would then jump to the reserves. Intaaarrresting.

Here they are.

Darwin - Hell on Earth

It is hot here. Really hot.

But pretty good, I walk around shirtless more or less all the time, and just hang out. Read, watch some movies, etc. And I don't really eat too much since it's so bloody hot.

Where do I sleep? I don't want to write it here, just in case, but it's ok. I have to play hide'n go seek with the city rangers, which is pretty annoying, because I can't really sleep properly because I'm worried about a 130 dollar fine for illegal camping. Lame.

And it's hot as hell in the car when I'm sleeping, but it all got better after having shaved my head, everything is a bit cooler now.

Semi looking for work, can't be bothered, I just like relaxing and hanging out.

Mindil Beach Markets on tonight, so it's time for some great food tonight.

I'm sorry guys, just not in the mood to write anything....sorry.

I'll update it when I'm more up to the task.

Through the Looking Glass

Through the Looking Glass

 

"Should we keep on going or should we try to stay here?"

"Well, we can make it to the national park, around 13-14ish, do the hike, and then find somewhere to camp, how does that sound? Although, we'll have to do a bit of night hike just so you know, I'm okay with that, as long as you are."

"Urgh. I don't know, you're the Driver, you decide, I'm okay with whatever."

"Then let's go and kick some ass on the mountain top!"

 

The two smelly travellers pull out of the Coles parking lot in Tom Price and start making their way out to Karijini National Park. This park is meant to be very special, because of it's gorges. That's pretty much the only thing the park is known for as far as two travellers know. One of them has a look in the information leaflet they picked up in the visitors center, and finds out that Australia's second tallest peak is located in the park, and you can climb it as well. The one, supposed, crazy traveller accepts the challenge that the leaflet has presented to him. His companion is a bit lost, because she never read anywhere in the leaflet a challenge or anything remotely close the her partners manhood being put into question. She asks him why he loves mountains so much, and he replies "I don't know. Mainly the challenge of getting up to the top, and getting some sort of adventure." She responds with a simple okay of I-will-never-understand-him.

 

After putting Voa through her paces one more time, the two companions reach the base of the mountain, Mt. Bruce. And one of them began to think about the name. Mt. Bruce. It didn't really look like a Bruce, just like a mountain. Did someone see the face of Bruce on a cliff face, if so, then poor Bruce is ugly as sin or nature has been pretty active with the weathering of the rock to form a good shape of Bruce's face. We'll never know. Or it was just some dude named Bruce who wanted a mountain named after him.

 

Once they got their gear sorted out, they begin the tramp up. The beginning of the track was the hardest, mainly because both of them hadn't really stretched prior to the hike, and were slowly getting warmed up.

 

After about half an hour into the hike, on the south side of the mountain about 5-6km away, they could see a mine going full speed a head. What kind of mine? Iron Ore! It was an open air mine, and you could see all the earth that they had moved out of the earth to get to this important mineral.

 

They pass one family and two other couples coming down the mountain, and it's pretty clear that the sun is setting, and that on the way down, it will be pretty dark. The track wasn't too technical, but only on some parts, where you had to keep your eye out for the cairns. However, one of the travellers just thought, if you loose track of the cairns, just keep on going up, and you'll find the summit at some point.

 

After a one hour and forty five minute hike, they reach the summit and feel pretty good about themselves. And on this summit, you had a full 360 view of your surrounds, which made the effort they put in that much more worth it.

 

The "photographer" of the two makes his way to the western most point of the summit, trying to find an unobstructed view of the sunset for some photos.

 

He finds one, and starts setting up his camera, trying to find all the right settings. But then realises he hasn't actually enjoyed a sunset for quite some time. And ignores his camera and decides to admire it more than trying to capture it. Which in turn, made the sunset even better for him.

 

Once the sun had set, and all the beautiful colours that follow after sun has disappeared over the horizon, and one of the two hikers begin to feel cold, they start to make their way down. As usual, one of them has a decent torch to light the way, and a spare one for emergencies or for some else to use. Which happened to be his mobile phone. They first use what remaining light there is from the sunset, and then have to turn on their lights to light the path a little bit better. After a while, they lose their way on one of the more technical parts, and the more able of the two goes a bit further off track in to find their way back again. As per usual, the two were only a few meters away from the track, so they just adjusted their course and kept on going. However, it didn't stop there. The two, now tired and bit hungry hikers, had now reached a cliff, something which they didn't really anticipate, nor did they climb up it in the first place. Standard practice for the two was to simply split up and find the route again, which wasn't too far off. They start to head straight down hill now, at more or less at a 30-40 degree decent, which was a bit trippy for the lead hiker, because when he looked straight out, all he saw was darkness, something which he had never experienced before. A feeling of fear and excitement welled up inside of him. For his imagination could sometimes take over him, and bring forth images of horrible creatures, monsters that belong in the depths of hell,  lurking, and waiting for fresh meat. The excitement was there because he didn't know what was going to come next. Or when.

 

They reached the point the part which the more experienced hiker was most concerned about. It was the part of track where something happened, he knew "it would suck if you fell," as he usually said. He wasn't too concerned about him, but more about his less experienced partner in crime, and simply decided to take the track as slowly as possible, to minimise the chances of anything happening. And while he was walking down, he figured that this would be an excellent opportunity to test a photography technique he's been wanting to try out, especially with his brand new flash!

 

He breaks down the plan to his partner, and she thinks it could be a pretty cool idea. So he leaves her where she was, and prepares the camera and flash for some fun photos. He's pretty excited now. He takes some test photos and decides that they can be in the photo now.

 

"Ok, we have 5 seconds to walk across ok, that should be long enough."

"Ok."

 

The flash goes off, the shutter opens, the two walk, and the flash goes off again, but brighter than the first time.

 

"Ok, cool, let's see what we got."

 

The photo wasn't too bad, but not what he had hoped for.

 

"Let's make it 8 seconds."

 

The two walk again, but still not what he was hoping for.

 

"Ok, walk behind the corner over there, and I'll press the button, and then I'll have 20 seconds to get where you are, when it flashes, we come around the corner, and walk towards the camera, yeah?"

 

"Sweet."

 

This was a little bit better, but not what he wanted. It took a few more tries to get what he wanted – more or less. The smaller of the two was getting cold and requested that they head back down the hill. The "photographer" says he just wants to get some night shots of the mine, and then they can go. He gets 2-3 shots, packs his gear, and the two start heading down.

 

"Do you see the lights over there?"

"What about them?"

"They haven't moved, do you think that's our car?"

"No, I'm pretty sure I turned off the lights, and besides, the car is facing the wrong way, it's not our car."

"Ok, but it's kind of weird that it's been there for so long."

"Yup."

 

Not to long afterwards, the get back to the car, seeing that the lights weren't turned off. That wasn't enough proof for one of them. He opens the driver door, and checks the light switch. He left it on for the whole time they were gone – they now had a flat battery, stuck in the middle of no-where. Sweet. This now gave them an excuse to camp there, where they weren't allowed to camp. There was another car parked next to them, containing a German couple which they had passed on the way up. They didn't have a legitimate excuse like having flat battery, and had planned to leave the site early in the morning to avoid confrontation with the ranger. Something all backpackers do.

 

However, the two weren't doomed if no one did show up to help them. To get the car started, all they would have to do is close the relay that is used for recharging second battery, making a solid parallel circuit. The German couple jump out to see what's happening and see if they need some assistance. The McGuyver Boyscout of the four tries to use his pocket knife to close the circuit, but with little success. So they decide to push the car. No luck there either. Now Plan C comes into effect: Disconnect the second battery and connect directly in the primary batteries place. After some fiddling and screaming, the car gets started. McGuyver poser boys partner in crime, who is sitting in the drivers seat is told to give it some revs, and keep the revs going. But by giving some revs, the partner floors it instead, making the man crap his pants, because he saw an explosion in the air filter. Something which just shouldn't happen. He screams at her again, and quickly reconnects the primary battery, and while doing so, breaks a wire. The car keeps on going, and ignores it. The German bystander reckons it's just an earth, and isn't too important. The comment is heard, and quickly dismissed.

 

"This guy doesn't know what the f#ck he's talking about."

 

Now, the one doing all the work with the battery isn't the worlds best mechanic and admits to know squat when it comes to cars. But having dealt with the electronics of his car for a while now, he has learned that the earth is on the negative terminal, and makes a note to fix the wire as soon as  evening comes. He get the battery hooked up, chucks the second battery into the passenger seat well, and the two start heading down the road. The girl decides to put on the head lights to see if they'll work. Voa dies. The young man sighs and thinks "great."

 

He does it all over again, this time the car doesn't want to start. "Awesome," he thinks. The girl tells him she'll walk the three kilometers to the main road and see if she can't get some help.

 

Automatically he thinks about breakfast. However, he before he does that, he figures he should get everything reconnected, so when help does arrive, he's not standing there with his pants down, looking like a complete douche.

 

Once Humpdy-Dumpdy is back together again, he tries one last thing before eating his breakie. He takes some steel wire and connects the positive terminal inside the relay box, just to see what would happens. He figured if his all metal pocket knife didn't work, this definitely wouldn't, but he just had to make sure. With the two connected, and the circuit formed, and he pumps the engine, pulls out the choke, and turns the keys. The steel wire goes bright red from all the heat, and he quickly yanks it off before it does some serious damage.

 

"I. Am. F#cking. Awesome," he thinks. With a big smile on his face, he jumps into the car, and begins honking the horn like crazy, hoping that his partner will be able to hear him from where she's standing.

 

The closer he gets, the bigger the smile becomes. His partner jumps into the car, and they make their way onto their next adventure: Harmesley Gorge.

 

The End

 

Actually, that's far from the end. The end is when I'm dead. So, hopefully, we'll have a lot time to enjoy together before that horrible day.

 

You've endured quite enough pain for one evening, so I'll just quickly break down my time in Karijini.

 

Go.

 

It is an amazing place. Pretty much scenes out of movies, photos, travel ads, etc. The rock formations were insane, and you get a real sense of adventure when walking through the gorges. For the whole national park, they have a class system for rating the difficulties of the different gorges, and in the Hancock and Waeno gorge, you have a class 6 section for both of them, both of which are at the end of the gorge. What does that mean? You either need a lot of  safety gear, or some balls and skills to pull it off. At first I didn't want to go, because if something happened, then we'd be fucked. But, a younger, more ballsier boy than I went before us, and made it look pretty simple, as long as you went slowly, and as usual, I accepted the challenge. After first having scouted ahead, making sure I wouldn't be putting my camera at risk, because I can handle breaking my leg, but I can't handle breaking my camera. FUBAR, I know. Amy had to do it all a bit slower, which was good, because that put my nerves at ease a bit. We both had an amazing time going through there, and you have to check out the photos. We had to wade through water quite a bit, or swim, it varied. Anyway, I could of spend a week in the national park I think, longer if I had more gear and people with some more experience than me when it comes to canyoning. The place was surreal, and quite something. Later on, we made our way to Broome, which took two days, and stopping off in Port Hedland, which in my opinion is a dump. It's a mining town, and definitely booming, but it doesn't look like it at all. If you were to compare it with say Tom Price, another mining town, but smaller, Port Hedland look like the projects you see in American gangster movies, like hardcore ghettos.

 

We left Broome today, with a heavy heart, because Broome is one laid back place man, and a somewhere I could imagine settling down for a while. We checked out the worlds oldest open air cinema and watched "Bran Nue Dae." A locally shot movie, which was pretty entertaining and worth the money. It was sort of like a musical, actually, it probably would be classified as one. Not going to say what it's about, but check it out. I guess I liked it because it was so simple, and had some famous actors in there too. Well, famous-ish. You would recognise them from other movies you've seen before. The day we left, we went to the local market, which was well, by hippies, and for well...whomever. Not all of it was hippy based, but easily the majority of it. It was awesome.

 

Now we're heading up to Darwin, and that's probably when you'll be reading this, when I get there. Hopefully I'll of had uploaded some photos for you guys too, because I have a lot now. Like...heaps. So many photos I had to buy another external hard drive. But that's partly due to the other media I've been collecting along the way.

UPDATED:

In Darwin now, and it is hot and pretty scary to sleep in my car. If I'm not worried about the ranger waking me up, then I'm worried about not waking up at all since it's border line like sleeping in a sauna that has just be turned off. I'm drinking probably the minimum of liquids I need to be doing, so I'm trying to get better at that. And I'm looking for a job now as well.

So here is the current plan: Work for two months, then the three weeks in October drive up to Cairns and down the East Coast to Bellingen, celebrate my birthday there, go to the Blue Mountains out side of Sydney and do some canyoning. And here is the tricky bit, what afterwards? A part of me says go to Canada and spend a season on the ski slopes, become a good snow boarder, and then in the summer just play paintball and do some mountain biking. But then I think about doing the nursing. And then I think about doing a Krav Maga course in Thailand....too many ideas.

Exmouth

Ok, in Exmouth, time is limited on the internet.

I've seen hump back whales, snorkeled with sharks, manta rays, and sea turtles!

Car is running fine, having some issues with the 2nd battery, but will resolve it. Camped at a caravan park for free (because we met some awesome people), was given a massive fish for dinner, and more adventures to come!

Going diving on Thursday, and whaleshark snorkeling on Friday.

What else...hmmm...yeah. I'm exhuasted. Super tired.

Hard to find internet for free, and so that's why I haven't updated lately, and also because I'm trying to rest my wrist.

Talk to you later!

North Bound

Ok, have to make this short since it kills to type with my wrist now.

Left Perth with a heavy heart. I wanted to stay behind and play some more ball, but I knew that it wouldn't be fully worth it. Can't explain it, but yeah. Also, the job I had was pretty good. Good money, good people, and a great boss. Hard to find.

However, this is the...3rd time I give up a good thing for the unknown. I guess it's going to be a habit now.

Rebuilt Voa, so there's a big bed inside of it. It's basically two levels now. Top one is the bed, and the underneath it is storage. However, we use the bed as storage as well, because we have way too much stuff. So, I need to go through my gear and see what I don't need. Not going to be fun.

Weather has been pretty good to us the past few days, but today it was pouring down, and has finally calmed down now towards the arvo.

Been cooking in toilets, around the toilet blocks, and trying to live as cheap as can be while still being as comfortable as possible. It's all good.

Will post some photos later on!

Oh, I bought a circular polarizing filter and a flash for my camera! May the fun begin! And I wanted to buy a 50mm lens for it, and one store wanted 149AUD, another 229AUD! Absurd differences!!!

Ok, going to bounce! Talk to you later!

Perth and Beyond

Pieces Falling Together

Finally, it's all coming together, piece by piece.

I now live in a house not too far away from the city, but still in the suburbs, which is something I prefer. I live with an Aussie guy with his Thai girlfriend who have only lived in the house for a month themselves. The room is big, and the deal isn't too bad either. A lot better than staying at a hostel - I think.

I have a job now, which pays pretty well, but also gives me my daily exercise at the same time. What do I do? I lift tyres all day. No joke. But no bike tyres or anything, only car/truck/forklift tyres, which can vary from one kg all the way up to about 50 kg. Don't worry, I lift everything correctly, and trying desperately not to destroy my back. Also, the company I work for is going to be implementing SAP into their computer systems, which is a perk, since I have some experience with it. And the second I heard that, I started talking to the boss and started to whore myself out, which in turn has given me more or less a permanent position for the next 3-4 months, or as long as I want to stay there. It's awesome.

Popped over to the local paintball field tonight too, and showed my face, and scored a job for the weekend. And the owner or manager seemed pretty interested in me too when I said I played PRO in Sydney and Div 1 in Sweden. I doubt I'll play anything, but who knows. Don't worry Herk, I won't ask you to send my gear over again, too much of a hassle. But I really want to find a team to coach so I can mold a small division of kick ass soliers. It would rule!

I also went paintballing the other weekend with my Belgium friends, which was expensive as hell, but good fun and yet so irritaing. For some retarded reason, they said that head shots don't count, and gun shots too. Gun shots I get, but head shots, come on!!! The amount of head shots I got isn't even funny! Also, I witnessed something that I told my rental groups to do, but they never did, and that is when you get in close, you tell the person to just give up and not shoot them. It's good cause you help make it more fun for beginners, but you also lose out on hurting people up close and personal. Someone did that to me, but I shot them because I didn't know of that rule. I walked off, and he kept on playing. And in one game, I shot someone on their side, and saw the paint break. He was out, I screamed at him to walk off, but he kept on playing. He was hiding behind a bunker with his buddy and there wasn't a lot I could do, so I start taunting them trying to make them show themselves. No go. A team mate runs past me to the right and hides behind a tree, causing a diversion, and making the guys infront of me freak and hide behind their bunker. In my mind, I saw red and a golden oppurtunity to bunker (shoot them close, real close) the shit out them and make them pay for cheating me. I run to the right of the bunker, while still running forward, twist and turn my upper body so I'm shooting them backwards, sort of. And kept of running until I got to their base and shot another person. Three guys with my one move. It felt good. And I pissed the two guys off cause I showed no mercy...*sigh*....revenge is sweet! And for the final match, we had a free for all: everyone vs everyone. A guy starts running away from me, and so I start chasing him, and when we start running parrallel, I unless my fury and start shooting him in the same spot while I'm still running and until I run out of paint. Sadistic? A little bit. If I can punish some douche bag who cheats me, I'll do it, hands down. Lucky for him he was wearing a vest, so it didn't hurt him that much. Yup, I need paintball to control my anger/energy, it's a good release.

Not a whole lot to report.

All is well.

OH!!! Almost totally forgot. This Saturday that was, I went kayaking! It was freaking sweet! I wanted to do a hike with some people from CS, but they did it on a Friday, while I was working, and I replied to the post on CS who lame that was and that I wanted to join them. So the organizer contacted me said he was going to kayak to Rotnest Island off the coast of Fremantle and was wondering if I was interested. How could I say no to that?! I meet up with him an hour later at his house and we drive down to the beach where we would be starting from. Now, I could hardly see the island from the shore, but I could see two cargo ships out there. He said that they would be about half way, and how wrong he was. About the real halfway mark, I ask him how far away the island is, and he said that it's 19.7km from shore. I started laughing! Yeah, an insane distance for my first long distance kayaking trip I thought. And right around the half way point, we could see the bottom of the ocean! Ok, it was maybe max 10meters deep, but non the less, it was pretty awesome! We also saw a turtle breach the water and then dive back down. Only down side was that we were on the island for only an hour before we had to grab the ferry back to land. Forgot to say that it took us just over 3 hours kayak that distance.

Man, I'm tired. Really tired. Ok, I'm off.

_____________

Crumbling of the Cookie

Ok, news update, the cookie has crumbled! RUN LIKE HELL!!!

What's the story you ask. Well, upon arriving out to Burracoppin, I was truly shocked and surprised about the place because it's really out there. Not as remote as it could get, but pretty remote. Or, the most remote I've ever been at least. I waited at the pub for the wife of the farmer to come and pick me up and show me to where I was going to stay and so I could meet "Chris and the Boys". First, we go to the donga, the house which I'm going to be staying at. There was a fridge, with food, and freezer drowning with meat. I would get a plate for dinner which I just had to toss into the microwave and make my own breakie and lunch. Sweet as. My room had a double bed, a heater, a closet, and some drawers. That's it.

Next stop, meet Chris. We drive for a few minutes and then I see the behemouth machine that I was going to be driving in a few days time. Chris is a chubby man, with a round face, and just looking pretty relaxed, but on the ball. He looks like a farmer. When he talks to you he doesn't always look you in the face. Either past yours, at the ground or at something else. A characteristic I find interesting. And one night when he was talking to his brother, hardly any eye contact was made, they were both looking at the ground, I guess it helps them imagine what they were talking about. Anyway, he tells me to jump into the tractor (aka: header) and we would get started.

The wheels are at about eye level, you have to climb up a small ladder to get into the cabin, and there's eight wheels on the tractor! Two on each axle, pretty awesome. One of the other tractors had three wheels on each axle. Behind you is the seed box containing the seed and super (fertalizer) and attached to that is the bar. The bar is the plough and seeder, and how it works is that the tynes plough up the ground, and directly behind the tyne is a tube which shoots out seeds and super in a steady flow. Behind the tynes and tubes are a bunch of wheels, called press wheels which push the seed and super into the ground and make everything ready for germination. Oh, and it's about 40 feet long, so turning one of these things is a real bitch of thing.

Oh, and the header is articulated, which means that when you turn the wheels don't turn, it's the entire body that shifts from the middle, so turning is really something and backing one up with all of these extras behind you is a real skill. Something which I don't have. Will write about that.

That night I met just about the whole crew, minus one, and they were all pretty good people, making me look forward to woking with everyone. My house mate was from Zimbabwae, one of the white farmers that got chased off his land. Not very cool. But he is a pretty cool dude. Althouhg it was pretty interesting to hear him talk about his time growing up on the farm, and days after that. Mainly because when he would talk about some of his workers, he would say that they were black, pretty casually. Now, he never said anything derogortory about them, it was just like "yeah, I had this black fella etc." For me, I would imagine that after a whole life time of living amongst another race, you would simply refer to him/her as a person minus the colour of their skin. I talked to him about this, and he said you say that over there to make things clearer for the person listening, because, well, simply put, the black people work differently from how the white people work in Zimbabwae. We had a big talk about it, which made things a little bit clearer.

Any who, the first day for me was running around with one of the brothers and sorting things out like filling up diesel and preparing spray for the next day of work. And on the 2nd was just some more general running around and driving around. Day 3 I got to drive the air seeder, which was daunting, but I wasn't too nervous since I had some previous experience driving big machines. And from that point on, I was stuck in the tractor, only having a 2 way as communication between me and my collegues. I would maybe see two people in person, maybe 2-3 times a day. It was good.

However, after a few paddocks, and I got to move the machine myself, I kinda screwed up. I ended up hitting a fence, bending a piece of the rear bar (the press wheels) and bending a piece of the fence. Boss wasn't too happy, but yeah, he was willing to except it.

This is more or less when it all started. Long story short, I had 5 fuck ups in 5 days. Some big, some small. But still five for five! That is a new record! And so, when we were done with seeding, I was told there's no more work. However, a few days before when I asked, they said they would find me more work. Ok, now then, here's time for my arguments!

Hands down, I don't blame them for telling me that. I felt like shit fucking up so much! I wanted to pack my own bags and just leave. I've never done so much harm in so many days!!! But, I wish that they had taught me a little bit better and given me clearer instructions as how to use the machinery properly. Oh well. Not a whole lot I can do now.

They were really cool about it, or that's what they were showing on the outside. Typical farmer, if they like you they won't bitch you out, if they don't like you, they'll rip you to pieces. I was spared, which is a good sign, but still a bummer. They paid for my whole night, dinner and beer and all! Even after everything I had done, I just don't get it. They're mentality is just something else and something I truly admire. Patience is what flows through their very veins and soul, it's pretty impressive.

So, I pack my gear, and shortly before I leave, I pop over to the farmers mothers house, because she's the one who's going to pay me. She was sceptical as to only paying 13% tax for me, but I showed her I had only payed 11% at my other job, and then I saw that they had deducted 50 bucks for food. I asked them what the deal is, and they said it was standard, when in actualality they said it was all included. I claim that the agency and Chris had told me that the food was included, but then she says I should be happy that they didn't deduct the damage I did to the equipment. So I said with a big happy smile that I'm sorry for even bringing up the subject and that 50 bucks for 10 days of food is more than fair.

I more or less literally throw my gear into my car and just zoom off, looking forward to seeing Amy again. When I'm making my way to the highway, I was maybe going too fast, and take a corner too fast. Way too fast. I almost lost control of the car and would of ploughed into an on coming car if I were truly unlucky. But, I just had to stop to change my underwear, and make a serious mental note to take it easy around corners. Especially when the car is fully loaded and decreases my braking power and increases my braking distance. Pretty scary.

Haul ass to Kellerberrin and meet Amy around lunch time. She was working the evening shift and wasn't getting off until 10ish, so I grab her netbook and go to some hot spots she told me about. I tried to be ninja about it, but I stick out hardcore in a town like that, especially my car. People were watching me big time. A few days later in the same spot, two of the local women come over and kindly ask us what we were doing and claimed we were hacking peoples networks. Networks which were fully unprotected, and that I was accessing their computers and that she would call the cops. She was a bogan to the core and didn't know what the hell she was talking about, and I knew that no matter what I said, there would be no good coming out of it, so I told them we would leave. Amy was pretty pissed because she had been there before, and not been busted. It just goes to show, I was in a destructive zone at the time...so lame.

Anywho, after being eye balled by the locals, I drive my car back to Amy's house, and just chill outside of it, watching some movies. Once it was dinner time, I popped over to the pub to get some grub and see if I could talk to some of the locals. Got the food, but there were only road workers there, all of whom were really cool. Got talking to one of them, and he ended up buying me a few beers and I educated him on the country with in Australia (Principality of Hutt River - true story).

Amy has to drive me back to her place and we just crash. I was destroyed from the drive and just a long day. Next day we hang out and get caught by the bogans and described previously. Next day I call my boss to tell him I was coming back into Perth and was hoping he could get some work lined up for me. Amy's boss hears that and tells her she's fired and that she should leave to Perth with me. Neither of us were having luck with jobs out there. Her story is different, but it mainly revolves around that she didn't feel at home there, and yeah, I don't know the owners side of the story, sO I don't want to say anything. We throw her gear into the car and come back to the CS host we had previously, and then I start working the next day at another tyre company. My previous wind catches wind that I'm back in town and the next day, I'm back at my old job at the tyre company. People were surprised to see me back. But it felt good to be back. Good money, good hours, and something familiar. I told them only to expect me for one more week there, and the boss was happy enough with that. I worked today doing stock taking and also using some SAP, which was weird, but cool at the same time. This bloody smart ass I had to work with who thought he was hot shit was a bit surprised I knew something about SAP. I guess looking like a fool makes you a fool. Hmm...I love my camoflauge. He also wanted to come to the paintball field to teach me a lesson, and I was more than happy to accept the challenge, but he quickly backed down when he found out I was ranked as PRO here in Oz...ahhh...dumb asses, you can never get enough of them, and you can't ever get away from them. And speaking of judging book by their covers and camo, I wore all the shittiest clothes I could find, and rocked up to the local paintball field, was lent some gear from the owner and lowe and behold, I surprised people there as well. It was awesome. I didn't play as well as I could of, but I didn't do as badly I thought I would of. Hopefully I'll play some tomorrow.

Now what? Finish off this week, and leave Perth by Saturday and head up North towards Darwin, and take about a month doing it. Oh, and try to build a level in my car so I can get a full size bed in there, since Amy is coming along and we don't want to have to find a place to pitch the tent all the time or one of us has to sleep in the passenger seat.

Ah yes, I changed the oil in my car at the farm before I left. Never done it before and it's not hard at all! Well, I had to drive a big screw into the oil filter to remove it, but that's all.

Mmmmkay, that should be enough for now. Sorry for the delay guys!

Photos.

And if you check out my Aussie map on Google, you can see all the paddocks I sowed with the header!