Camping @ Narromine

Happy Easter everyone!!! I just got back from camping over the weekend. A group of 8 of us (Claire, Lucy and Nolan from Aussie, Percy from Mexico, Nicole from MD, and 2 Aricans- Brian and Deep) went to my friend Claire's farm in Narromine. We left friday around 11 from IH to pick up Claire's friends from Africa who live off campus... we stayed there for about an hour, trying to get them to come out of their dark, dirty, cave of a house with about 10 other Africans - it was pretty scary just to be inside. Lesson learned this weekend - African's have no sense of time.

So we finally hit the road for about a 5 1/2 hour drive west. We took Lucy's old Applause and my roommate Ben's car ( 1994 Holden Executive wagon.... it was a miracle this car even made it. The odometer has been broken for years, so it's stuck on 214,000 KM - didn't even put a KM on it this trip! We didn't wanna take it but couldn't find another car. Wouldn't mention it to mom and dad before because it was pretty unsafe to ride in for that long time, but fate was on our side!) The scenery we passed was magnificent, which made driving not so bad. We stopped every 2 hours, as per Aussie rule on their signs "Stop. Revive. Survive. Every 2 hours." We finally pulled onto a dirt road which was Claire's street... Clarie was driving my roommate's car and goes, "Oh they re-grated our road how nice!" Ummm, it was the bumpiest, roughest dirt road I've ever been on. We kicked up a dust trail a kilometer long, which wasn't too good for Lucy's car.

After another 15 minutes on the dirt road, we pull into the Webb family farm. Impressive. Her mum and dad had built their dream house on the front of the property about 10 years ago, and had a massive "shed" which could hold about 20 tractors. Her house was very luxurious for a farm house - all her lights in the house went on when you walked into a room/hallway, crown molding all around, flat screen TVS - and every room had an awesome view of the crops. Their old house is pretty run down and in the back of the farm, and is currently being rented out to someone.

So we meet her parents, and all her 5 brother's were home for Easter. We were there for about 2 minutes when her whole family comes revving up from the fields with everyone in the back of the yoot and her parent's driving - quite the grand entrance. Everyone was really nice and friendly, her dad and bro's drank with us all weekend. Her one bro is nicknamed Bluey cuz he wears blue singlets all the time (didn't let us down this weekend either) and one of her other bro's name is Angus. So I asked why they call him Angus, thinking he loves steak or something - she goes, "Well that's his name."

We loaded up her yoot (truck) and her Pajero (4WD) and headed out to our campsite. Her farm is 1,400 miles - the same number as the population in Narromine. About a 15 minute ride we arrive at the campsite which is located just next to a giant marsh. We pitched the 2 tents with not too much trouble, and started a fire for the night. Had 2 eskies filled with some drinks and started the night. We actually ordered take away of fish and chips that night (had to ease ourselves into the rough camping scene). We stayed up till about 5am, then finally called it a night.

Campsite:




We awoke at 8am to rain on the tops of our tents (pretty relaxing actually), but there were puddles forming, so we headed to her house for brekkie. Had another barbie of eggs and sausages (sausages were featured at every meal. they don't do hot-dogs or burgers). It was pretty crummy weather all day saturday, so we kinda bummed around the house, played XBOX 360 on her flat screen, and played with her 2 sausage (hot dog) dogs. We all decided we liked Claire's idea of camping.

The weather finally broke around avo, and we went fishing for yubbies (mini lobsters or giant cray fish). Claire has a bunch of giant lakes on her farm with traps set, so we got to pick through the little fellows which we threw back and kept the big ones. We threw the big blue ones into a bucket but not before pulling the claws off em - apparently yubbies live to kill eachother, which is why they have massive armor and claws. We headed back to the house, cooked em up and started the evening. They were delicious too, tasted like shrimp- the claws were the best part. After some drinks, we headed back to the campsite and started the fire (which amazingly still has ambers) and kicked off the night.

Here's a vid from the back of the yoot driving to the campsite:



That night I decided to sleep out under the stars in a Swag (kinda like a heavy duty sleeping bag but double the size, with a mattress pad inside and blanket and a pillow). It was amazing laying under the stars by the campfire falling asleep. But we sadly awoke at 6am to rain... on Easter Sunday. The weather proof swag had some faults to it and we started to get wet. Puddles were forming around the tents too so we all packed up camp and headed to the giant shed which had an office in it where we slept till mid morning. Apparently Narromine never gets rain in the autumn, and hasn't for the past 15 years - the one weekend we come it rains every morning! Figures! But it was still cool waking up in the rain.

So we bummed around Claire's house again that day, but since all her family and their girlfriends were there, plus the 8 of us - we decided to get out even with the bad weather. It finally stopped raining and we took a tour of the farm - well part of it... it's massive! We also headed into town with her bros to watch the big Rugby game - Sydney VS New Zealand. Realllly small town... The pub was pretty cool though with old locals - everyone routing for Sydney. Unfortunately they played like shit and lost 20-30. Good game though and I finally had the rules/scoring explained to me! Rugby is so much better than american football - faster paced and higher impacts. One of the African's went out for a smoke and met a local Aboriginee who was at the pub in Narromine. They got to talking and the local told Deep he just got out of prison, Deep asked what for and he replied, "For slitting a guys throat." Deep then said nice to meet you and came inside to the rest of us.... later we asked Claire's father and he said, "Ohh, Darrel, yep, true story."

We got back and headed down to where we would sleep that night - the woolshed. I had gone to the Woolshed bar in Cairns but never knew what it meant - duh, it's the place where they shear the wool off the sheep. Yup, we had a woolshed party and slept on the dusty floor where thousands of sheep have crossed. Oh and the smell was delightful.


After about 30 mintes you didn't notice the smell, but if you went to the outhouse (yes she has one) the smell came right back. That night we decided we needed to end big in order to sustain a night sleeping here.


We had a few beers with Claire's Dad who told us the history of the farm... then he asked me about the presidential election - Aussie's are really into politics. He asked soo many questions, some I could answer but some I didn't know myself, I felt like I should have researched or just known them though... We had another barbie of sausages and salad and started drinking games - Mafia is sooo fun, I'm bringing it back to Towson! Say you have 8 people playing, you'll get 2 red cards = mafia, and 6 black cards = everyone else. You randomly deal the cards out so no one knows who is who, and then everyone puts their heads down, the 2 mafia's raise up so they know eachother, then heads back down. And people accuse other's of being the mafia and you have to defend yourself if voted on. Eventually everyone has to decide to kill someone they think is the mafia, then heads down, mafia heads back up and they pick someone to kill, then everyone heads up and the accusations start again. It's pretty cool and fascinating b/c each time, the 2 mafia's were left alive in the end and everyone else dead. You get 1 person accusing someone else and everyone follows.... people are very easily persuaded.

After way too much drinks, Claire's bros came and brought some home-brew beer with them - that stuff was potent. We then played around in the woolshed.

Playing mini cricket - harder than it looks!



And Percy attempting to throw me down a sheep shoot. They herd all the sheep up in the back, then bring one out and shear it, then down the slide it goes into a loading zone until all the rest are finished. But the one's waiting to be sheared are standing directly over the rest, so you get all the nasty animal functions on the others - and Claire was sometimes the person who had to go down below and pray she wasn't hit.



Percy then drank too much and volunteered to send himself down :



Picture of a giant walk in freeze they had with feakishly long boots which reminded us of I know what you did last summer :

These next few pics are for Dad - you might be the only one to appreciate them.
The old sheep shear's woolshed, circa hundred years ago. Clare's dad sheared sheep here, and he said it was built from trees on the farm that were cut to size. Indured a floor 6 feet deep, and still standing :


OOOLD kerosene fridge!


Dirt bikes used to herd up the cows/sheep (although they still use dogs which I met). There's a spot on the back of both for the dog's to ride on - saw Clare's dad pulling away with Sally dog (one of the best herders) on the back, riding the curves like Sherwin used to in the truck on the way to loch raven :


Eventually we all passed out in the swags on the dirty floor and awoke at 8am monday to start packing up. The africans slept till noon while everyone else disassembled the tents and loaded up the cars. We said the goodbyes and were on the road. I drove the entire time back- driving on the left is pretty natural by now. I had Percy riding shotgun which was good - we bonded a lot this trip. But we also got stuck with the 2 Africans in the back seat. African's smell. We stopped at Macker's got a quick lunch that turned into an hour ordeal - the lines were out the door. The workers (all white and super friendly) have this really cool hand held palm pilot. They walked around to the lines and took people's orders then gave us a ticket so when we got to the counter, the meals were ready (in theory, still took some time) and we just had to pay. Pretty sweet idea.

The African's got their food - at liquor land. They got 2 bottles of rum and 1 of scotch. The next 4 hours driving, they drank a bottle of rum a piece and half of the scotch. Incredible. All they do is drink and smoke. Percy and I were gagging at the smell of alcohol... and at the end of the drive, they didn't even act drunk.

It's tuesday night now, raining, night before classes start (not too bad considering I have a 1 day week now!). Just finished our traditional movie night - cartoon theme this time. We watched the Lion King (always a classic) and Lion King 3 (pretty cool, same story but from the point of view of Pumba and Timon), then Corpse Bride (reallly cool Tim Burton movie).

All in all, it was a different but good easter weekend. Hope everyone had an equally enjoyable and exciting easter!