Buchanan Downs Station, Northern Territory.

Hello again - have you missed me?

Now, this blog is going to be in three parts. You may wish to read them in any order you would like, seen as they aren't interlinked or in chronological order. To make this easier for your decision, I'm going to give you a table of contents.

1. A general summary of where I am and how come there hasn't been a blog in so long.
2. A day in the life of the 'Uppity Pom, Nicole'.
3. A few brief descriptions of my most exciting and scary jobs so far.

Hope this helps :D


1. A general summary of where I am and how come there hasn't been a blog in so long.

Ok, so here I am in the middle of the Northern Territory in Australia, and I mean in the middle. For those not in the know, NT is more or less a square wedged in between Queensland to the right, and Western Australia to the left. The nearest town to where I am is called Dunmarra, which isn't really a town at all. It's a service station on Highway 87, and that's it. That's about 50 kilometres east of here (google map it if you'd like) That's the next bit of civilisation around here. So to put into context about as far as Cambridge to London I should think (Don't quote me)

There's five people (at the moment) working on this farm full time, and these people you spend all your time with, as it's quite a trek to see a new face, especially if you are an unlicensed driver like me. There's no local supermarkets, shops, banks, general convience stores. The nearest 'proper' town is Katherine, three and a half hour drive away, and the Woolworths (which is a supermarket here, strangely) deliver food here about once every fortnight, and we only get post once a week.

As you can probably guess it's pretty hard to communicate with anyone outside the quarter of a million acre cattle station we have here. There is no mobile signal in Australia outside the cities. Don't try and call me or text me. I won't recieve it. We have a phone, which has limited use, due to the fact that I can't really give out this number or call from it. I have a phone card but it's quite expensive, and the parents are highest on the list to call once a week, sorry guys!

The internet has only just been set up here - so of course it makes it easier now - however the hours here are long and the work is tiresome so I'm not going to spend more then forty minutes on it at a time, because I need my sleep!

2. A day in the life of the 'Uppity Pom, Nicole'.

You start work at 7am here, so my alarm goes off at 5.30am for me to have my twenty minutes of waking up time and then get up throw on my work clothes and go have breakfast. We sit and talk whilst the sun rises and at 7am, when it's nice and cool (around 28 degrees) we start working. There's a range of stuff to be done. For example, feeding the horses etc. At the moment one horse has a gash on it's neck, so I catch him and clean his wound every morning. Furthermore, because I am the girl of this station I clean the homestead of dead mosquitos, grasshoppers, big flying bugs and of breakfast.

We work through to 9.30am, when we have 'Smoko' which is smoke hour and a cup of coffee and a bit of rest. So then, after that, we begin to work again, either continuing what we were doing before or something new. For instince, since I was named 'the better driver' out of the two young 'uns here - I've been entrusted with the runaround ute, which I have fallen in love with, so sometimes I pick up the rubbish from the shed and take it down the tip or go out a few kilometres and do some fencing. We stop work again at noon, simply because it's too hot to work from the hours of noon till three. The other day it was 37 degrees in the shade, and you do sweat out our own body weight every day. So from three till six, you do some more work and then you shower and get changed into some undirty clothes, and eat dinner, which I usually make as, again, I am the one with breasts in the homestead.

We watch some tv - have a chat and go to bed between eight - ten pm - and then get up the next day to do it all again. It's a good job. I'm learning new things everyday. For example today, I'm learning how to fix a lawnmower. Yesterday we put up guttering around the shed so it drains into a tank and I learned from that. Of course there are also things like cleaning out a caravan and basic things like that, but when you're in the shade and cleaning, you're happy.

Throughout the day, I am called Nicole, because Australians are strange and don't quite get the concept that Nic can be a shortened version of another name, and Gordon, the manager, made a joke about expecting Nicole Kidman to arrive. I also discovered that when on the phone, the boss thought I was 'uppity' compared to the other Pom here (who is a Geordie). I think it's the accent I have - so god only knows how Graham is going to be recieved with her posh accent here ;)

3. A few brief descriptions of my most exciting and scary jobs so far.

First of all - I did not make a very good impression on my boss. She comes to the farm on the weekends, as during the week she is a helidoc for WA. One of the other blokes, Ray, went out in the Toyota in the evening, and then didn't return for a few hours. Anthea, naturally, was a tad worried and asked me to drive up the access road to see if he had broken down. There was a bit of miscommunication on my part and I drove on the highway and it got dark really quickly. Now it was night time and I didn't find Ray so I was just driving back. Now this highway is a dirt road with bush either side, and the entrance to the farm is just a gate on the left hand side. For three hours I could not find said gate and was lost. Thankfully, I knew Ray was driving out later that evening so I sat and waited whilst the mosquitos bit the - pardon my french - shit out of me and waited for him to save me, which he did. I got back to the homestead at midnight and got a true and royal bollocking the next day. Looking back on it, it's quite rightly so that she did since I took an unregistered car on a public road and I'm an unlicensed driver. Luckily, I'm still here.

As I said before, I cook for the homestead on most days. The kitchen consists of a gas cooker a work table with a toaster, a kettle (more commonly known as a billy) and a couple of old paint tins for utenisils, and about five fridges. Each night, there's a different cut of beef. You look in the meat freezer here and it's different parts of beef. Those who know me very well know that I don't actually enjoy beef that much, but have know, weirdly, discovered a liking to it. Maybe it's because it's all we have. I've been here 16 days, and two of those days we've not had beef. Generally it's a meat and two veg sort of deal. There's fresh pumpkin though, which is gorgeous cooked any way, shape or form. I can now make corned beef from a brisket cut. See - learning eveyday. And I have had some of the best steaks I have ever eaten here. Seriously yummy tucker.

It's a very different way of life here. It's hard, and testing. You've got to have the endurance to keep going and the motivation to do sometimes what seems like a pointless job, because eventually, it will be of use to someone or something. Being so isolated was a down point, but you become used to it, and now - God forbid the feeling get stronger - going on the internet is a chore that I don't particually want to do because it seems a touch unnecessary. However, I shall never stop as I know that you lot want to know what I'm doing and where I'm going and what I'm seeing (Ha - as I type that four kangaroos appear in the garden) :D

Now - I have some requests for you people who are coming over the the land of Oz sometime soon - tell me when! So I can finish work, meet with you and tag along ;)

Furthermore, a thank you to my uncle Gary, who I have been told is printing this off and handing it to my Nanny to read :D Hello Nanny!!

I've got to go get some lunch now.

G'day from NT

xxx