January 17
Record Books 1, unexpectedness 1, pure random 50, coincidence 1 in 500,000
A couple of days ago Chris and I listened to a radio program about chances and it involved a girl writing her name on a balloon, and how that balloon was found by a girl with the exact same name 120 miles away. What were the odds of that.... well....... 1 in a very long shot. Now in order for me to properly explain what I have just experienced, I am going to have to leave the realm of everyday experience and enter into the realm of the.......unexpected. I was sitting on the couch after supper, alone as my traveling companion had already called it a night and packed it in, when a knock on the door pulled me out of my little reality, and into the realm of the totally unexpected. A 49 year old woman entered and so my roller coaster ride started. She told me she had a confession to make, she said that this morning she was behind the shop and saw a car parked out back and thought it was Adam's car. It is my car I said, that car out back is Adam's, because my name is Adam. Really, she said, "Your name is Adam to, that is so cool." Anyway, she said she saw my car out there and thought it was her friend's car (also named Adam). She saw my camera sitting on the seat, and then she paused in her story, and my imagination took off. Did she pull some kind of practical joke, what did she do I didn't lock the car last night? The camera was still there, did she delete some pictures, take some inappropriate ones? My imagination was flying to terrifying heights, and then she said she took some pictures of herself. My imagination cleared the upper atmosphere as it was joined by a companion called fear as the thought that there may be a picture of a naked women on my camera. But luckily it came crashing back to earth rather quickly as she read my mind and told me that she was wearing all her clothes when she took the pictures. Apparently she took some pictures of her feet, and then realised it wasn't her friends car or camera, and took some of the sunrise. She was coming to apologise for using my camera, and going into my car. I laughed and said that was fine, and according to the camera, it did look like a really beautiful sunrise. Well she left and I continued to ponder what just happened, when the second wave crashed into shore, or should I say the cat came back. She sat down and asked me to listen to a letter she had written for this other guy named Adam, yes the same Adam who she thought originally owned my car. The funny part was that the letter talked about Photos (Ironic, yes), sunrises (coincidence) and the idea of traveling (hmmmm). Anyway she wanted my opinion on the letter as she was leaving in a couple of days, and she wanted to read it to him, but he already left for the day. She thanked me for listening to her letter and we chatted for a few minutes before she went to bed, but not before she burnt the letter. I have to admit, it was a strange evening , and well worth recording. Well goodnight, I need to be up early tomorrow.
January 24
Well the last couple of days have been rather interesting as we have been working on a vineyard. For 2 days we pulled weeds, for the next 3 we split the grape vines, and then for another 4 we thinned leaves, a really tedious job actually. Anyway that has been the boring part of our time here let me get to the good part. Due to the extreme heat on our first day of work (+40) we worked in the early morning and later in the evening. When we returned to the hostel we were immediately invited over by Scott and Die for some wine and leftover homemade pizza. There I met the Adam I mentioned earlier, and discovered that for 2 years he lived just outside of Drayton Valley, which is kind of weird since he is actually Swiss, but still Drayton Valley and a guy named Adam, kind of cool. Anyway I also ran into the camera loving sister of Scott who I mentioned in my last blog, again. Then there was the Greek Pizza maker named Spiro, and what a pizza to, top quality, delicious, a much needed and much loved unexpected gourmet dinner. The last person we met that night was someone Chris recognized. It was the guy who worked at the tourist info center in Mt. Barker and sent us over to Scott and Die's. But here is the interesting part, it turns out that we were the last people he helped as, it turns out that was the day he quit that job, and he had only heard about this work on the vineyard a couple of hours before we had arrived. I think that is so cool. Anyway continuing along we have mostly been working and relaxing in the evenings as we are tired from working in the warm weather. But we took yesterday off and I went over to a locals place where I joined in and played Beach Volleyball for the first time. I have to admit that I like that sport, the ability to just dive for the ball into a bed of soft sand instead of the hardwood floors I am used to has it's advantages. Anyway I think my favorite play of the game is when I did a 1 fisted dive from the back row into the sand, hitting it an inch off the sand and somehow managed to aim it over the net and into the middle of all of the opposition was rather impressive. My second save of the night came when communications brokedown between my partner in front and me in the back, by the time I realized it was my ball I was forced to do a 2 legged frog jump and was able to just catch it before it hit the ground. The thing was I hit it with so much force the sound made my playing partner Ange flinch and duck, even though the ball was now where near her. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was surprised that I got that, as the other team didn't react until much to late. After the game we sat down and had wood fired pizza, and some beer. I met some really nice people there and had a really good time, even though it took me like 20 minutes in the shower to get the sand out of my hair, and even longer to get it out of my shorts. Non sports highlight of the night was when I was talking to a girl named Ange, our conversation went like so:
Ange "So what part of Canada are you from?"
Me "Edmonton, Calgary area"
Ange "You're from Red Deer aren't you?"
And I spilled my drink in shock. It turns out she lived in Banff for 2 years for a working/skiing holiday, and drove to Edmonton to see the mall. She said that she remembers driving through Red Dear, and filling up in Gasoline Alley. Small world, most definitely. I finished the night playing a game of Australian Trivial Pursuit. I was on a team of 1 Brit, 1 Sweed and 2 Australians vs 4 Australians that as it turns out went to university and studied Literature, Engineering, Physical education, and then lastly someone who I would later believe to have a mental IQ level that would equal my brother. My team only rolled once, and they never got a question wrong.
On another sporting note, I watched a game between University of Adelaide and Bendigo in women's basketball. With 2 seconds left, Bendigo down by 1, Bendigo hits a 3 pointer at the buzzer. The girl who did that did it one other time, in the semi finals, when she played for Canada, I was really proud.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Hand Grenades and a lack of Horseshoes
January 12
Well, we appear to have run out of horseshoes, and the luck they bring. Yesterday we hit Margret River as grape picking starts in about January, we have started looking for work just doing some labor while we wait to see if we got jobs working in the mines. Well, it looks like our timing seems to be out, as we have spent the last 2 days driving around hitting the different orchards/vineyards/packing facilities, to no avail. It sounds like nothing is going to start up until around the start to mid February. Which puts us in a little bit of a bind, as Chris was really banking on getting some work here pretty quick. I was just wanting something to do. I need a change of pace from traveling. I am not looking forward to sitting around for another month waiting for work, Chris doesn't have a problem with it, other than he isn't making money. I am just getting ancy, I am almost contemplating tearing apart the engine, and re-assembling it just to give me something to do. I actually enjoy doing some work, I am tired of twiddling my thumbs on the road. I just like to tinker, to be active, to work towards and accomplish something, even if it is picking grapes. Yes I know some of you are probably screaming at your computers right now about how you would willingly trade spots with me regarding their jobs, but if you hate them that much quit and buy a ticket to Perth, and don't say you can't, because you can, it just might require 3 flights. At least the weather is wonderful, though in the evening we have had to trade our shorts for pants as it cools off a bit. Anyway, this does put a kink in our plans. We are debating if we should head North and look for work in Broome, but Chris can't afford to head North if there isn't a guaranteed job there. We are currently staying about 30km East of Donnybrook. Well wish us luck, might look for some more work tomorrow. Until later, farewell.
Well, we appear to have run out of horseshoes, and the luck they bring. Yesterday we hit Margret River as grape picking starts in about January, we have started looking for work just doing some labor while we wait to see if we got jobs working in the mines. Well, it looks like our timing seems to be out, as we have spent the last 2 days driving around hitting the different orchards/vineyards/packing facilities, to no avail. It sounds like nothing is going to start up until around the start to mid February. Which puts us in a little bit of a bind, as Chris was really banking on getting some work here pretty quick. I was just wanting something to do. I need a change of pace from traveling. I am not looking forward to sitting around for another month waiting for work, Chris doesn't have a problem with it, other than he isn't making money. I am just getting ancy, I am almost contemplating tearing apart the engine, and re-assembling it just to give me something to do. I actually enjoy doing some work, I am tired of twiddling my thumbs on the road. I just like to tinker, to be active, to work towards and accomplish something, even if it is picking grapes. Yes I know some of you are probably screaming at your computers right now about how you would willingly trade spots with me regarding their jobs, but if you hate them that much quit and buy a ticket to Perth, and don't say you can't, because you can, it just might require 3 flights. At least the weather is wonderful, though in the evening we have had to trade our shorts for pants as it cools off a bit. Anyway, this does put a kink in our plans. We are debating if we should head North and look for work in Broome, but Chris can't afford to head North if there isn't a guaranteed job there. We are currently staying about 30km East of Donnybrook. Well wish us luck, might look for some more work tomorrow. Until later, farewell.
Leaving the G And J Estate
January 10
Well today we finally left Gerard and Jane's place. They are really nice people, and must think of a special way to thank them when I get the chance. When we pulled out though I could swear that I saw Jane jump up into the air and click her heals together, but that could have been a trick of the light. Anyway we never planed on staying as long as we did, and I hope we didn't become a burden on them. It was strange though, I really liked their place, but it was time to get a move on, though that was harder than I thought. It was almost like home, and when I left that G&J estate, I was almost ready to go home. I was almost tempted to drive to the airport and go, but know that I am back on the road, it has faded some. We didn't get that far from Perth in the end, we headed south and stopped at the exhibition center which was hosting a huge book/movie/cd sale. We spent a couple of hours there and picked up some music for when we head north. There were some cd's that were only about 1-4 dollars, so we grabbed quite a few of those, we will grade them and tell you later if they were worth what we paid for them. We are currently parked just off the road about 100km south of Perth. We will head down to the Margret river area tomorrow, and see if there is any work down there. I really like Perth, more than Sydney, or Melbourne, well laid out, and car friendly with lots of public transit. Oh, and I need to e-mail Gerard in order to ask him where to pick up a shark tooth necklace. Well, goodnight, I will get more information up when we return to civilization.
Well today we finally left Gerard and Jane's place. They are really nice people, and must think of a special way to thank them when I get the chance. When we pulled out though I could swear that I saw Jane jump up into the air and click her heals together, but that could have been a trick of the light. Anyway we never planed on staying as long as we did, and I hope we didn't become a burden on them. It was strange though, I really liked their place, but it was time to get a move on, though that was harder than I thought. It was almost like home, and when I left that G&J estate, I was almost ready to go home. I was almost tempted to drive to the airport and go, but know that I am back on the road, it has faded some. We didn't get that far from Perth in the end, we headed south and stopped at the exhibition center which was hosting a huge book/movie/cd sale. We spent a couple of hours there and picked up some music for when we head north. There were some cd's that were only about 1-4 dollars, so we grabbed quite a few of those, we will grade them and tell you later if they were worth what we paid for them. We are currently parked just off the road about 100km south of Perth. We will head down to the Margret river area tomorrow, and see if there is any work down there. I really like Perth, more than Sydney, or Melbourne, well laid out, and car friendly with lots of public transit. Oh, and I need to e-mail Gerard in order to ask him where to pick up a shark tooth necklace. Well, goodnight, I will get more information up when we return to civilization.
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