Kangaroos are friends... AND food!

Let me start off here by reiterating how kind and generous most Australians are. One of my mom's students, Jodie, and her husband Drew, showed us great generosity and hospitality, even though they only knew us for a couple of weeks. Drew offered to take Patrick and I kangaroo hunting one weekend with him and his son. Of course, we accepted.

He picked us up at about 3 pm on a Saturday, a few days after my birthday, and we drove about an hour out of town to a pine tree farm called Alaska. Drew knows the owner and has permission to go hunting there. We parked in a clearing, slung a couple rifles over our shoulders and started walking. You walk to hunt kangaroo, not sit and wait like hunting deer. We walked around 5 kilometers and spotted about a dozen kangaroo, but they were all hopping away through the trees, making it too difficult to get a shot at. Here's the ironic part - just as we were coming back to the car to take a break and get a drink, we spotted a mob of them right in the clearing where we parked. Patrick, Jacob and I hung back a bit while Drew crept close enough to get three shots off, two of which hit their mark. There was one more still hanging around as we all walked closer, and Patrick got to take a shot at it, but missed. We cut their necks to let them bleed out and had a cup of tea while we waited, then butchered them and packed the meat in a cooler. By that time we still had a good hour and a half before the sun went down, so Drew let us have some target practice at some pine cones and a cow skull. We got plenty of meat from the two, so we got to keep some, which I cooked later at the alpaca farm.

The best part of all that, I think, was getting to add another animal to my list of "have-seen's". While walking through the trees, trying to be quiet and keeping both eyes up and open looking for a good shot, Drew suddenly shouted 'Tiger snake!'. I was walking just ahead of the rest of them, so I first looked back to them, then to where they were pointing, at the ground only three or four feet to my right. The snake was maybe a little over a meter long, with black scales and a bright, vivid orange belly. A beautiful creature, really. It's too bad that one bite can inject enough venom to kill ten grown men.

Did I mention the generosity of Australians? Drew and Jodie invited the three of us to come to lunch and snorkeling with them the next day at a little-known spot right on the ocean. Drew, a professional chef, cooked an excellent kangaroo curry for lunch, and Jodie baked an apple pie for dessert.

There was no sandy beach at North point, the snorkeling spot, only boulders and masses of rock that gently sloped into the ocean. We donned out masks and snorkels and slid into the crystal clear water. There were plenty of fish of all different size, shape, and color, though I was only able to name the zebra fish and the grouper. Forests of sea weed covered the large boulders and coral, with swaths of white sand between them. After swimming for a while, I spent some time climbing around the boulders and exploring the coastline, and a cave carved out by the waves that went into the cliff a good 20 meters in different directions. 

My step dad John arrived late at night the next Friday. We all spent the next day swimming at the beach, and packing and preparing for the next big move. All four of us would be heading to Pentland Animal farm, just outside the town of Denmark, about an hour's drive from Albany, to WWOOF for the next five weeks. I, having moved to a new 'home' a dozen or more times in the past six months, was packed up and ready in ten or fifteen minutes. The rest of the group, however, was a little behind; understandably so, with a mixture of jet lag, stress, and nerves hindering the process. It was quite a task to fit all our gear into the car. Two bags or suitcases each, plus a big handbag for mom, plus several boxes of food and provisions for the stay at Pentland, plus a couple boxes of art Mom's art supplies, plus four bodies, all crammed into a four door sedan. The sight was quite comical once we fit it all in.

... Did I mention the generosity of Australians? A friend and student of Mom's very generously offered us the use of her car while we were away at Pentland, which has made things much, much easier for us. 

We're at Pentland Alpaca Stud now, taking care of all the critters large and small. We've got horses, donkeys, cows that moo; foxes, dogs, llamas and emu. Galahs, weiros, and aviary birds, with all these animals, comes plenty of turds. Ferrets and parrots, goats and sheep, lots of alpacas, and pigeons that peep. A pig and a camel, the humpbacked mammal. Guinea pigs, rabbits, and kangaroo, lots of chickens and plenty of poo!

Along with feeding all the animals twice a day and cleaning pens and cages, we have also been putting up a lot of new fence. Previously, the goat pen's fence had become rather beaten and worn over the years, and goats were squeezing through and under the fence. We were catching goats a good dozen times a day to put them back inside the pen. Now we've torn all that out and sunk big new timber poles in the ground and put up new wire fencing. Only Fudge, the most notorious escape artist, can still find a way out.

I have been keeping in touch with one of my WWOOF'er friends, Marcel from Germany, that I met on the first farm in Merriwa. He and a couple other travelers have bought a car and are driving across the country, and they just happened to be passing through Denmark while we're here. He and his mates stopped in for a while and we caught up while I showed them around the farm. They've found paying work now on a winery somewhere in the area.

I cooked with kangaroo for the first time while staying here at Pentland. I used the leg meat and back strap that Drew gave us from the hunt, and cooked it with a peanut satay sauce. It. Was. Delicious. My improvised version of the recipe is at the bottom of this post.
We have fairly limited internet here, and it costs a pretty penny if you go over the data limit, so I'm not able to upload all my pictures this time around. But don't worry, there will be a flood of pictures once I can access a better internet connection. 

Satay Beef (kangaroo) Wraps
600 grams is about one and a third pound

600g beef, cut stir-fry style

2 tbs kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce)

2 cloves garlic, fine chop

1 red onion, fine chop

1 long red chili, seeds removed, fine chop (we could only find short red chili which were a bit hotter, and I left the seeds in, but I think the spicy-ness was just perfect)

1 lemongrass stalk, finely grated

2/3 cup roasted salted peanuts

2 tbs brown sugar

juice of 1 lime

1/2 cup coconut milk (we used regular milk, worked fine)

2 cucumbers, finely shredded

1 cup coriander sprigs, chopped

1/4 shredded coconut (we skipped that)

8 mountain bread 'tortillas' (we used Lavash bread which was great, I think Naan would be just as good)

Olive/sunflower/whatever oil

The recipe says to marinate beef in 1 tbs kecap manis and half the garlic overnight. I made a marinade with kecap manis, worcestershire sauce, and garlic, then oven roasted the kangaroo for ~3 hours

Satay sauce:

Cook onion 4-5 in frypan over medium heat

Add chili, lemongrass, garlic, cook 2-3 minutes

Crush peanuts in food processor (we just chopped them by hand), then add to pan with brown sugar, lime juice, coconut milk, and 1/2 cup water. Simmer 8-10 minutes until thickened and reduced.

Stir in 1 tbs kecap manis

Beef:

Heat oil in separate fry pan over medium-high heat. Cook half the beef, turning, for 5 minutes. Add 1 tbs satay sauce from above, cook another 2 minutes. Repeat with rest of beef and another tbs satay sauce.

^seems a bit pointless to me. If the pan is big enough, I would just do it all at once. Since we cooked the roo beforehand, I just threw it all in the satay sauce pan to get it back up to temperature.

This is meant to be served as a wrap in Mountain bread, with the cucumber, coriander, onion, shredded coconut, remaining satay sauce, etc. We piled it on lavash and got messy instead.

Never in a million years

In the not so distant past, I never in a million years would have thought that I'd be spending my 21st birthday in Australia, let alone with my mom and youngest brother. It's pretty crazy the way things work sometimes.

I've been staying in Albany, Western Australia, which is right on the Princess Royal Harbor; beautiful old town, beautiful landscapes, beautiful ocean and beaches, and a very, very pleasant relief to the extreme heat and flies. I have yet to see 100 degrees or a single marsh fly while here. Correction from my last post: Albany is the first settlement in Western Australia, not all of Australia.

Mom and Patrick met me at the bus station

This creature is the thing I have to -err, I mean get to spend the next six weeks with.

My mom, the artist, is teaching classes and workshops and things at the Vancouver Art's Center here in Albany. She and two other artists have accommodation in a house next to the center, which are built on the side of one of two hills that Albany is built between; from which, we get a great view of the bay and the wind farm built on the hills on the opposite side of the bay. It was here on the veranda, one day, that I was sitting watching the sunset when a flock of Pelicans (yes, a flock of Pelicans. No, I didn't know they flew in flocks either) appeared all at once from behind a line of trees and flew directly over the house, a few of which circled back for a second and third pass. A flying Pelican looks just as strange and awkward as a flying Peacock.

The next morning, my first full day in Albany, Patrick and I hiked up Mount Melville, the hill the Albany is built onto. The hike itself was fairly easy, and only a couple kilometers long, but we spent an extra hour or so climbing the boulders at the top of the hill. There are plenty of small lizards and skinks around here, and I even caught a quick glimpse of a snake before it slithered off a rock and into the grass.

You could see the house and Art Center from the top

There were some tight squeezes and precarious angles through the boulders

For my first few nights in Albany, Patrick and I stayed at the house at the art center as well, however we don't get free residency and it costs for us to stay overnight. To avoid this cost, we accepted the gracious offer of one of my mom's students to stay under her roof for a while. In exchange we have been helping her with various work around her place and as well as with her job (professional gardener/landscaper). She, Liza, and her husband Alan used to run a B&B from their home and cottage on their property just outside of town. They no longer run it, but the cottage is fully furnished, with its own kitchen, bathroom, and two beds, which is where me and Patrick stay for most of the week, returning to the VAC for a few nights to stay with madre.

So on Saturday the 26th it was back to the VAC (Vancouver Art's Center) for the extended weekend and to help set up an art exhibition for the three artists. The 26th also happens to be Australia day, and I was showing my patriotic spirit by sporting an Australia flag patch on my jeans, conveniently covering a hole I had worn through. In the morning I walked down the street to browse the weekly farmer's market, and got myself some fresh local honeycomb... yummmmm

Mom's display at the show

Other days have been spent exploring the streets of Albany, browsing op shops (thrift stores), strolling through parks, gardens, and memorials, and swimming at the various beaches in the area.

My birthday was just about as perfect as I think it ever could have been. I woke up before six, as I have been nearly ever day now, to a beautiful sunrise that turned into a picture perfect sunny day. Mom made an amazing breakfast, then me and Patrick walked into town to the get next book in the series I'm reading. After lunch, the three of us walked back into town to a really neat organic store that my mom wanted to show me, where I bought the last ingredient (walnuts) for the bread pudding I was making for dessert. Mom and I spent the afternoon preparing meals and setting up for the party. I meant to take a picture of the finished dinner and desert I made, but I was four beers deep at that point and kinda forgot. I made a chicken cheese and rice casserole, and for dessert bread pudding with raisins, dried cherries and currants, and walnuts. I also made a topping for the pudding from a recipe that I found in one of my hosts' cook books. I know it sounds interesting, but it was absolutely delicious. Mashed avocado and bananas (recipe called for blended, but we didn't have a blender), with whipped cream and honey.

Birthday breakfast, french toast with home baked bread and apricot chutney, eggs, tea and OJ

I realized something kind of neat while typing this. I have always wanted to have a summer birthday just once, so I could go outside and enjoy the day rather than freeze half to death. Well I finally got my wish this year :)

It's all been easy going here in Albany. Trim a few hedges, pull a few weeds, learn about plants, that's pretty much the worst of it. Reading, bush walking, playing in the waves, napping, cooking, eating, and writing makes up the rest. It'll be sad to leave on February 9th when we head to our Denmark helpx farm, but I'm also excited to go. They run a petting zoo of sorts; alpacas, kangaroos and wallabies, and - what I'm really excited for, as I haven't seen one yet - koalas.

Oh, and we're going kangaroo hunting tonight :)

Time Keeps on Slippin'

Today marks five months of being here in Australia. Kind of strange to think about; It feels like it’s been a lifetime, but at the same time it feels like just yesterday that I was hugging my Dad goodbye in the Detroit Airport.

Just yesterday that I was saying goodbye to all my Baldwin family in Washington

Just yesterday that I was exploring the streets of Sydney

Just yesterday I was falling in love with the Merriwa country side…

All of that is gone and passed now, and I've started the next step of my journey. I’m in Albany now, the first proper settlement in Australia, and I've met up with my mom and youngest brother. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me fill in the gaps...

Perth

I'll start with some pictures of Perth, though I neglected to take as many as I should have. This is a large park and walk/bike path that runs along the Swan River. A great place to chill out and read a book on the benches.

On one of my walks through the city I took a detour through the Queen's Gardens. There were a number of birds around the gardens, including a black swan that chased off a pelican.

Statue of Peter Pan

Window Seat

I boarded the train in Perth at 9:30 New Year’s Eve morning, to arrive in Walpole at 4:30 later in the afternoon. I had plenty of time to sit and think about the decisions I would have to make in the next few months. I was delighted to see, as I boarded, that I had been assigned a window seat yet again. Somehow I've been fortunate enough to get a window seat on every single train and coach bus that I've been on so far. I much prefer a passing view of the Australian landscapes than the back of people’s heads in front of me.

I arrived in Walpole and waited in the car park for ten minutes or so until my new host Trevor came in his Ute (pick up truck) to pick me up. Trevor actually isn't a helpx host, like all my others have been so far, but rather a friend of the helpx host I was previously planning to stay with. Something came up and he had to delay, so he found a friend, Trevor, to host me in the meantime.

We ran a few quick errands in town, then headed to the local pub for dinner. Walpole is a very small fishing town with a population of only 500. However, it is a huge tourist destination and the town gets flooded with thousands of extra people around Christmas and New Year’s. The Pub’s walls were covered with decorations of local fishing records from over the years, as well as many fishing trophies including, but not limited to: eels preserved in jars, large shark jaws, shells of all sorts and sizes, shark eggs, MASSIVE lobster (or crab) claws, a five foot dried whale’s penis (decorated in holiday tinsel), and a nautilus shell, the size of which put mine to shame (see pic in Bloomfield post). I was treated to a few beers and a steak dinner.

Trevor, like Pooh Bear, lives in the 100 Acre Wood. Quite literally, actually. He’s lives in 100 acres of dense Jarrah forest. I stayed in a caravan a short walk from the house, and I got to share it with a few of these little guys. 

For my first day of work, I went about clearing the very overgrown backyard with a whippersnipper, which is Australian for weed whacker. Trevor suffers from permanent muscle damage from a car accident twenty years ago, making it hard to keep up with maintaining his property by himself. There was plenty of cleaning and upkeep work to do around the house, shed, and property. I've been clearing overgrown brush, organizing the house and work shed (larger than the house), chopping and chainsawing wood, and cutting and burning TONS of blackberry.

Now, let me tell you about the horror of Marsh Flies. These flies, some of which can be as large as a thumbnail, are horrible little bastards. Starting at about ten in the morning they start coming out, and as the day heats up they get more ambitious and come out in greater numbers. They wouldn't be so very bad if they were like other flies and just buzzed around. But no, these things bite, causing pain like a bee sting. Thankfully, they only hurt for a few seconds, and don’t leave an itching mark like a mosquito. You could guess by their name that they flourish around marshy areas and bodies of fresh water, like the stream running through the property. And there is no beating these things. That first day of work, I found that out the hard way. I was out in the backyard whippersnipping in shorts and a t-shirt, obviously, for it was well over one hundred degrees. At first just a few of these flies started coming about. It’s easy enough to kill them when there’s only one or two, because they stall a few seconds on your skin before biting, and they aren't scared away very easily. In fact, you can pick them right off by the wings if you try. Before long, I looked down at my legs (they seem to prefer legs to arms or face) and was shocked to see each leg covered with at least a dozen flies. Trevor came out to check on my progress and I asked him, “These flies don’t give up, do they?”

“Nope. That’s why you wear long pants and sleeved shirts. And they’re attracted to dark colors,” he said, gesturing at my black shorts.

So there I was, in jeans, canvas long sleeve work shirt, hat, and boots sweating buckets while clearing brush on the back slope. Finally it was time for a break, and we went and jumped in the creek. The water was beautifully cold and infinitely refreshing.

The country down here is beautiful. Nearly the entire region is heavily forested with Jarrah, Minjarra, and Karri trees, with some cleared cow or sheep pastures, cut through with rough winding dirt roads, its pattern broken occasionally by a small one street town like Walpole.

On a calm, sunny weekend day, Trevor took me and a couple of his friends out on his 15 foot fishing boat. Walpole is built right on the Nornalup Inlet which exits out into the Southern Ocean. We explored the inlet for a while and went out to see the mouth and the ocean, then docked at a small jetty where a local tour group docks every day. We had perfect timing, and I tagged along with the tour as they walked up the stairs over the dune and onto the ocean beach on the other side. This is one of a few occasions over my trip thus far that I should have brought my camera, but didn’t. I broke off from the tour group and walked down the beach towards a series of shipping container-sized boulders strewn across the shore. In the water there were large smooth rock surfaces, some above but mostly below the water’s surface. I walked across the top of them and became entranced at how the water flowed around, over, and through the formations. At one point I was standing on one rock totally dry, when a few seconds later the waves brought the water up to my thighs, which was then temporarily trapped in the formation before slowly receding through maze of rocks creating eddies and swirling tide pools. Moments later the pattern repeated.

I realized the tour group was gone and slowly made my way back over the dune. When I got back to the jetty, the tour group was gone and a family was fishing. Their young daughter shouted and pointed to a sting ray in the water. I wish I brought my camera.

 Flirting with Danger

The next day, after completing the day’s work, Trevor, his girlfriend, his dogs and I went out to peaceful bay where we went kayaking in the ocean.

Jethro, Kelpie x Bordie Collie, was ALWAYS trying to play fetch

Guinness, Black Lab, always trying to ruin Jethro's fetch

 I had never been in a kayak before, let alone on the open ocean. On my first attempt, I boarded the kayak where the water was barely at my shins and tried paddling my way out. Moments later I was flung aside by the breakers and found myself floundering around in the shallow water, nearly losing my glasses. At Trevor’s suggestion, I tried boarding the kayak further out this time. I waded out up to my waist, beyond the breaking waves, and paddled out with ease. I was able to move much faster than I expected, and before I knew it, people and dogs were just ants on the beach behind me. This didn’t bother me; I was having great fun and had no idea of the danger that lay ahead of me. The day wasn’t as clear as the one before, when we were boating, and there was plenty of movement on the water. The rolling swells gradually got bigger until they were over my head before they took the kayak up and over them. Still no fear of danger, they were just swells after all, not breaking waves. The going was easy, and despite the clouds and wind, and even a spittle of rain, it was pleasantly warm. It wasn’t until I saw the tumultuous breaking waves going every which way ahead of me that I decided I should turn back. I knew this action of the waves meant there was something under the surface -rocks or reefs or otherwise- that I probably shouldn’t be paddling over anyway. So I turned back and found that Sara (Trevor’s girlfriend) was trying to flag me down. I just waved back and kept paddling. When I got back to land, they both started telling me how close I had been to getting into real trouble out there and that they were worried they might lose a WWOOFer! Trevor had the number dialed in to his phone to get ready to call the coast guard. He couldn’t believe I just paddled straight out over half a mile. Apparently tons of tourists and out of town-ers get in serious trouble and often drown in that very ocean every year by under estimating the power of the waves and currents. But, you know, whatever. I was just having fun :)

The next day Trevor took me and the dogs out to the local boat launch/park area where we went kayaking some more and practiced ‘ditch-and-recover’, so I knew how to get back onto the kayak in case I actually did get over turned. It was a perfect day for being out on the water; shining sun, not too hot, no wind at all, and pelicans, albatross(es?), and seagulls all over.

One day, walking around Trevor’s property, I thought I spotted a small huntsman spider (‘small’ huntsmans are about as big as your palm) skittering across the dirt. I stopped and looked closer to notice that it was actually dead, being dragged by a very large wasp-like insect. This thing was easily four times the size of any wasp I’d ever seen, with thick, deep orange stripes rather than yellow. Not something I wanted to mess with.

Everyone here is always warning about all the deadly snakes and telling to watch out for them, but I had never had a very close encounter with any of them (besides nearly running one over on motorbike) until Walpole. Previously I hadn't worried at all about snakes or being bitten. Then, when I was least expected any trouble from snakes, Trevor got bitten and had to go to the hospital.

One day while walking through some shin-high grass, clearing black berry, I came within about 6” of stepping on a Dugite (Doo-got) snake. I just happened to look down at the perfect time and froze with my foot above the ground, involuntarily shouting ‘Holy shit!’ as the meter long black snake slithered away into the grass. I stood there for a minute, heart racing, re-evaluating my opinion of the danger of snakes.

Bush fires (wild fires) are a huge threat to basically all of rural Australia, as well as urban. There is a homemade sprinkler system running around the perimeter of the house, and 'fire breaks' strategically placed throughout the property. In case of extreme emergency, Trevor has started to build himself an underground fire shelter, which I thought was pretty neat.

His house

Jethro, of course

Jan’s Place

Three days before leaving to go meet my mom and brother, I finally went to go stay with the host I had originally come to Walpole for. His house was a bit more formal than Trevor’s timber cabin out in the woods, and he had a beautiful view of his dam through his kitchen window. Over the three days I spent here, I did a LOT of chain sawing and hauling logs around in a wheelbarrow. My arms, shoulders, and legs are still sore, but it wasn’t all work and no play. The first day there, after work, we went to Peaceful Bay - the same place I was nearly lost at sea – and went snorkeling in the reef while Jan collected sea weed to use as compost in his garden. The reef wasn’t anything near as colorful and spectacular as what Brian and I had seen in the Great Barrier Reef in our 2011 trip, but it was really cool nonetheless.

The next two days included plenty of mountain biking through the Bibbulman Track, where I ate it pretty hard twice. The bruises and scrapes are still healing. Jan’s cooking was excellent, which included a zucchini soup made with veggies right from his garden, a chicken and spinach curry, and kangaroo steak and roasted pumpkin (all squash in Aus is called pumpkin).

Back of the house

View from the back

Part of the garden

I’ve left Walpole now, and I’m staying in Albany with my mom and Patrick; yet another beautiful town. The suburb that our accommodation is in is built onto the side of a large hill, the peak of which is great for hiking up and catching amazing expansive views. Patrick, who was already familiar with the area after being there for a week, took me up to the top where we spent a couple hours bush bashing and climbing the great boulders. I'll add more content and pictures of Albany in my next post, as plenty more has happened already and it deserves its own post. 

And now we’re up to date! We’re going swimming out in the bay today. Next Saturday is an art workshop run by my mom and the other two artists staying here, and the following Tuesday is my 21^st birthday! Pictures of these events and updates will come sometime around then.

Loving living life