Life at the refuge

Lulu following meWally

Momma with joey

Roos behind the house

My time here at Rocky Creek is winding down. It's hard to believe I have almost been here for three weeks. The other night I spooked a mob of 20 kangaroos, I felt bad since they all went jumping away from me. Two stayed behind, I am pretty sure Sandra had taken care of them at one point.
The last three days we have had lots of rain, and we lost power one night. The rain here is much needed though, afterall most parts of Aaustralia lack water and it's a hudge issue. The drinking water comes from the rain water and is not filtered, which means it has taken some getting use to. Even washing dishes is a little different because you do not want to use so much water so you use the same water to wash everything. I see most people do it this way in New Zealand and Australia, I'm just not use to it.
The last two Fridays I have also gone to bible study here with Sandra and Jeremy. Now I can't say I have been saved, this was more to do with meeting new people and having a good experience. I was one of the youngest people there but really liked talking to everyone and hearing what they had to say. Having never been raised with any religion I still have a curiosity. They were so sweet to me and prayed for me before we left.
I still enjoy everyday here and love everyday I spend with the animals, I have my favorites of course!

Google map of where I am in Gungal NSW

http://maps.google.com.au/places/au/gungal?hl=en&gl=au

Rocky Creek Pictures

Jacqui and her mom

Twigster

girls being girls

Country road take me home!

Wild male Eastern Grey

Lulu in action

A game of patty cake

Rocky Creek Wildlife Refuge

Orri the baby

Rosey the rosella

One of the girls

Sandra and Jeremy feeding

Wally

Jacqui the wombat

Twiggy the piggy

Wally the wallaroo

The Mob

Lulu the red neck wallaby

Drivig to Sandy Hollow we passed a kangaroo xing sign, and I knew I was in for a treat! When I got off the bus at Sandy Hollow, I realized there were only two buildings around, a hotel and gas station. I went to call Sandra who owns and runs Rocky Creek but did not get reception. I went into the hotel and asked to use their phone. No one picked up and then I started to think about the movie I had seen the night before. For about 2 minutes there I started to freak out in my head about how I was probably going to be killed here in the middle of nowhere. I walked outside the hotel and herd a woman yell my name from the gas station, it was Sandra she had been there the whole time, and I was saved!

I had seen Sandra’s profile on the helper exchange about a year ago, it encouraged me to sign up for the website and write to her and ask about volunteering. Helper exchange is the same thing as woofing. You go to a farm, animal refuge or even a Buddhist retreat and work a bit every day in return for free room and board. Lot’s of backpackers do it as a way to stay neutral with their budget. I knew I did not have to do it, though it would help financially, but wanted the experience of working on a sheep farm or somewhere with wildlife. This was perfect for me, and ever since Sandra and her husbands Jeremy and I have kept in touch via facebook.

Rocky Creek Wildlife Refuge is located in the small farming town of Gungal on 200 acres of pristine Australian bush. There are a number of animals here, wombats, kangaroos, 3 dogs, 2 cats, 7 rabbits, 2 possoms, 2 donkeys and 2 horses. All have pretty much been rescued. Of all of these there are 5 animals that I bottle feed daily; Twiggy the baby grey kangaroo, Nickers the baby red neck wallaby, Orrie the baby wombat, Bobby (Wally) the wallaroo, and Jacqui the larger wombat. There is also a mammoth size wombat living under the house named scruffy. Among those domestics and rescued animals there are of course wild animals all around. There are snakes though I have not seen any and Sandra and Jeremy have seen very few snakes. A week before I was here though they saw in front of the house a Eastern Brown snake, the 2nd most deadliest land snake in the world. Needless to say my face is looking towards the ground where ever I walk, the chances of even coming across a snake is slim but because I sent my boots home, I only have sandals which leaves little protection on my feet and legs. There are also small lizards commonly seen and I have seen the tracks of a Goanna but still have not seen one yet though I am dying to! Sandra found a nest of baby Goannas in a termite mound in front of the house. There are also a number of birds, such as cockatoos, rosellas, grass parakeets, and Kookaburras. The kookaburra have a crazy laughing sound, they are just great to listen to throughout the day here.

All the rescued animals brought here are usually orphans such as kangaroos and wombats whos mothers had been hit by a car and some caring person checked the mothers pouch for a baby. The horses and donkeys were adopted, as were the dogs and cats.

Above all my favorite part of the day is around 6pm- 8pm. This is when I go to feed Wally the wallaroo his bottle and hangout with the other 3 juvenile kangaroos in the roo run, a very large fenced area. Usually lulu a now wild red neck wallaby find me and follows me the whole time trying to catch up to me. I see the wild kangaroos every day here, grazing in the field. Sometimes they watch me and stick around but always with caution, other times something spooks them and like a herd of deer they take off, over and under fences. They are brilliant to watch jumping away and so graceful, well until they hit the fence which they sometimes do.

This property was purchased about 10 years ago and they have had people like me coming over to help for 7 years now. Jeremy fixes computers and Sandra was at one point a teacher, she even taught In Botswana for 3 years but now is going to school to become a vet nurse and the spends time working here with her wildlife which is a full time job in itself.

So here is a little of what I do each day, somewhat in this order. On days when it is not 110 degrees out I get some random jobs done around the refuge, but most days from around 12-6pm, I don’t leave the house! Can you blame me?

7am: wake up…Coffee, feed cats, eat, internet time

8am: Make 3 bottles for Twiggy, Orri, and Nickers. Feed babies while watching the news and give them new clean pouches.

9am: Start the laundry, feed rabbits, get bottle ready for Jacqui the wombat and go down to feed her. If it is nice out I take her for a short walk and we sit while she eats grass and leave once I start getting bit by ants.

10am: Vacuum floor, mop floor, do dishes, clean bottles, hang laundry, check horse and donkey water, bring babies outside while I clean, tell puppy to stop licking my legs.

12pm-2pm: If it’s hot, stay in and read, watch a movie, if it is nice find something to do. Start giving babies their next bottle, new pouches, and more laundry.

3pm-5pm: Still more time to myself, ahhh I love down time!

6pm: make Jacqui her bottle, go give it to her, give Wally his bottle (he makes a clucking sound at me and I make it back to him as his mom would), usually bring my camera and watch the wild kangaroos hanging around.

9pm: we have a late dinner and right before bed I give the three babies one more bottle.

So it’s not a lot of work, but when it’s hot you just don’t want to do much. There always is something here to get done though when the weather is good.

Every day here is so beautiful and I enjoy the company both human and nonhuman. I have had a lot of time to consider my future when I get home and catch up with people through emails. I also went to bible study lest week which is unlike me but they were having it here at the house. Jim the youngest person there invited me to an overnight BBQ the other day, it felt like I was the new girl in this small town and now was the center of attention. I turned him down though since I barely knew him and did not want to stay all night. So here I am in the middle of nowhere for 3 weeks but getting a real feel of what it’s like to live in rural Australia. Happy Australia Day by the way!

http://rockycreekwildlife.info/rcwr/

Newcastle

I departed Sydney at 7am on the greyhound bus. I was headed north along the coast to Newcastle. When I arrived I went to call my couchsrfer who agreed to pick me up at the stop. By accident I called the wrong couchsurfer; the man over the phone was having a hard time finding me. When we put two and two together we figured it all out and realized I had called the wrong couch surfer. I then called Nick my real couch surfer for the night. He picked me up and brought me to his place where I met his girlfriend Crissy. It was a really good just talking to them; I realized there was not much to do in Newcastle itself. We chatted and looked at his travel photos from Southeast Asia, giving me more ideas of places I want to visit. I walked around downtown for a bit but it was raining, so I came back to the house. Along the way I was stopped by two older gentlemen sitting at a bar, they encouraged me to sit and have a drink with them. I tried to say no but then I said ah what the hell; I never do anything like this, why not. It was very interesting speaking to them, one was a Greek immigrant 40 years ago, and he was impressed with the few Greek phrases I knew. My mom always had us speak Greek to the Greek waiters when we were young. The other man was a true blue Aussie, and I could not understand a word he said half of the time. I had my free drink and walked around the corner to Nicks home. We went out for Thai, which was cheap and good, the way it should be! I really loved talking with both of them. Afterwards we watched a scary Aussie movie called Wolf Creek. They cold not understand why I wanted to see it so badly; after all it is loosely based on actual events taken place in NSW years ago. Needless to say the movie left me scared shitless to go out into the Outback in my own car, good thing I got a tour bus. It actually scary the numbers of people that have gone missing in the outback, lots have been backpackers. You have got to be pretty dumb though to drive out to some of these remote areas alone and in beaters. The next day I left to my next destination, Rocky Creek Wildlife Refuge…my home for 3 weeks, I will see Nick again for a few nights after this experience.

The Blue Mountains

G'Day mate!

Emma and Suzan

The Three Sisters



So I went to catch my train down the street to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. I missed it by 3 minutes. I waited for the next one and the ride up which was lovely for some of the way, and took about 2 hours. I had booked two nights as the YHA since I had herd great things about it. I had to walk a bit to find it and it was soooo hot, finally I found it and could see why it was rated so highly. It was huge, clean and I got my own room off of the main one. I went to my room and was right away greeted by two Dutch girls named Emma and Suzan. After spending 4 days hardly talking to anyone, it was a relief to finally find nice people. They invited me to go do a hike with them to a waterfall. I had some lunch and out the door we were. It was blazing hot but we stopped a few time, the walk to the Three Sisters was not far at all and just down the main road. I saw lots of cockatoos and rosellas along the way. Three sisters were really pretty but the waterfall was not so great. There were so many tourists around and so much trash, not what I was use to in NZ. I really got on well with the two Dutch girls, they were very down to earth and we ended up hanging out later that night. The next day I woke up at 7 and was ready to do a 3 ½ hour hike around the three sisters. A cable car or a pull car would take me back up from the bottom. I had to walk down 900 stairs to get to the bottom. It was cool and foggy out which was good since I was trying my best to avoid the heat. I ended up being the only person on the trail which was cool because I had been slightly annoyed with tourists lately. Before descending down the giant’s staircase I could hear all the noises of the bush bounce up from below. It was so loud, louder then the rainforests I have been in, well besides the ones with howler monkeys. You could see the white flocks of cockatoos; I closed my eyes for a bit just to take it all in. The stairway was not bad at all, in fact the hike was really easy I think, it took me 1 ½ hours to finish and by the end the sun was already coming out and I was ready to go back. Did I mention I wore my outback crocodile Dundee hat, oh yeah that’s right! Later at the hostel I just tried to escape the heat, and then walked to the local antique store. It was so cool, for years my parents dragged me to them and I hated it but I really like them now. Maybe it’s a sign that I am getting old and more like my parents….oh no! I loved looking at everything, and bought a wooden kiwi from NZ and a ceramic platypus. Now in my room was a lady in her 60’s she was kind enough to drive me to the train in the morning so I did not have to walk up the hill, she was leaving anyways. She also invited me to her place 5 hours south. I went back to Sydney and while walking around in the business district was stopped by a man just starring at me, I thought he was crazy but then realized I knew him. His name was James and a week before we had a few drinks together with a few other guys from my hostel in Paihia. I remember he said he lived there but did not think he would be there when I was…small world. The next day I met up with Emma and Suzan again. We went to a $5 buffet (definitely becoming my parents) and went out to my hostel bar. It ended up being a pretty fun and late night. I had to be up at 5:30 to make the train north to Newcastle. I actually got up like it was nothing. I was sad to say bye to Emma and Suzan but we are planning on meeting up on the west coast. Oh yes I have had a slight change of plans since NZ. I decided on only going as far as Brisbane on the east coast then flying to Perth and going north to Broome. The west is supposed to be well worth seeing and less touristy. The diving there is also suppose to be better then the GBR because much of that reef is now bleach and dead, I have already paid for my diving lessons in Exmouth and whale shark swimming there as well. I also got a volunteer job with the dolphins of Monkey Mia for about a week as long as all goes as planned. Much to look forward too!

The Land Down Under

Sitting at the park

A Koala yummy

St. James Park

Cockatoos in love

Me at Bondi Beach

The Opera House

Kukaburra sits in the old gum tree

my inspiration

The amazing Flying Fox

Who's balloon?

Myself at the Opera House

More flying foxes!

Sydney Opera House from the Gardens

I left Auckland early that morning while the nightlife was still going on. The plane ride on Air New Zealand was by far the best ride I have ever been on, good food, movies to pick from, and clean. I swore that when I flew down to Australia I would play the song by Working Men, Land Down under, and ya know what, I did!

My dream of Australia goes back to my childhood, before I even knew New Zealand existed. As a kid it’s no surprise I spent a lot of time studying maps and globes. I had an old Atlas and marked off a town in Australia that I would one day move to. The name was Waga waga and the only reason I chose this was because I liked the name. I loved everything Australian, the wildlife, The Croc Hunter, the indigenous culture and of course the lovely Aussie movie stars like Hugh Jackman. I also love the fact that pretty much anything here could potently kill you. I was always convinced I would meet a man of the outback and end up living here, now after seeing some parts of OZ, I am pretty sure it’s just too bloody hot and if I were to live anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere it would be NZ…more my type of climate.

I landed and phoned my hostel to pick me up, got a new sim card to make calls here. The hostel was called Original Backpackers in Kings Cross the Red light district of Sydney. I had been told it was good but during my 4 days there, I can honestly say it was one of the dirtiest hostels. When I first walked in the room there was throw up all over, the girl working there picked up some of the pasta from it and said “what’s this”. I never took my flip flops, jandels, thongs or whatever they are ,off! I kept my stuff as far away from the crime scene and even once it was clean I still found it all very dirty. I asked to move rooms but none were available. The hostel was in a good location, not far from the Opera house and Botanic Gardens. I first went to get food and then I walked to Opera House. It was nice but not as I had built it up in the last 15 years. It was not as white as I had pictured it, maybe only from a distance. I sat and looked at it for a bit and walked back through the Botanic Gardens. On my way through I knew I herd a familiar sound, sure enough there was a flock of sulpher crested cockatoos in a tree, later I saw at least 20 of them in the park. As the week went by I spent lots of time picking some of cockatoos up and well pretty much became the crazy bird lady of the park. I also stumbled upon thousands of flying fox bats, which along with the cockatoos are my favorite attraction in the city. The flying fox are so fun to watch; they fight, hang, glide and make lots of my noise as well as bat guano. Around 6pm they start flying out along with the birds, it is a sight not to be missed in the city, and I came out a few nights to watch them. It reminded me a lot of Gotham City; I could just see the bat signal in the sky!

The rest of my days in the city I visited the Australian Museum; it had a whole display on dangerous animals in OZ which was good to study. The free Art Gallery, The Rocks, Walked the Sydney Harbor Bridge, all of the parks, the Toranga Zoo, The Sydney Aquarium, Bondi Beach and the Sydney Festival. I can pretty much say I saw it all. I found pretty much everywhere to be way too overcrowded. Bondi was overcrowded and to my suprise I was stopped by two Japanese men and they asked to take a picture with me (little do they know I am so not a Aaussie). The Zoo was alright but I could have lived without it and done something much cheaper instead. I did get the chance to see a Tawney Frogmouth and koalas..something I had been looking forward to. The aquarium was great; there were platypus and dugongs there as well! Most of the free stuff ended up being just as nice like the Sydney Festival.

When I first arrived to this hostel though I had not really met anyone and when I did they were leaving the next day. I think this is mostly because people staying there also were working there and were usually gone or had their own thing going on. When I switched to the Wake Up hostel in the city center, I met a lot of people and wished I had stayed their in the first place so I did not have to do everything like Bondi beach, and the zoo alone. I spent 4 days in Sydney then went to the Blue Mountains for two nights, then back to Sydney for 2 more nights, a well thoughtout plan and just the right amount of time to really see the city. Sydney is by far now my third favorite city next to Chicago of course, and Edinbourgh in Scotland.