I have seen the light. But it is slowly dying inside.
50m+ underground, Tarlee Station, NT (Glen Saunders)
click on pics for more details / high res on Flickr
I am slowly turning into a buckle bunny
click on pics for more details / high res on Flickr
My first day as a jillaroo…
Well.... When I said that I was not going to update this space very often due to poor access to internet connection, I did not know how much I was going to be right about it!
I am leaving this morning for my first day at work on a cattle station.
Yes, my first experience as a jillaroo !!
Well yes, I see you coming here, maybe I have watched "Australia" too many times (is three times too many?)
But it is not going to be as glamorous as Nicole Kidman would like me to believe, riding horses in the sunset in stunning landscapes (although I am in the same area where the film is supposed to take place)
There will be probably more of de-horning, de-sexing, shots, marking and running in the yards involved, although I will make sure I wear the appropriate jeans, checkered shirt, leather hat and boots (I now understand much better the concept of "boot cut").
Anyway I will let you know as soon as possible :-)
And who knows, maybe I will meet my personal Hugh Jackman there...
Or I will be back in a week crying for my mother and begging to wear a business suit again.
A little company for the night
This evil green monster was concealing itself in the dark, probably waiting to dig its filthy fangs into my flesh to draw the life out of me.
That will teach me to turn the lights on before washing my hands.
Especially since I saw the frog AFTER I was done.
Shake, rattle and roll
Last night I experienced my first earthquake.
Actually, it was more of a tremor reaching Darwin just a few minutes after the 7.0 that shook Indonesia just 700 km north from here.
A few minutes before the shaking and rumbling the dogs were scratching the door trying to get in, and I had some weird heart palpitations (I don't know if it was related but a quick search on Google shows that it might be) that I voiced out loud to my friends. Then my couch suddenly started shaking quite strongly underneath me.
It was a very strange sensation.
And not a very comfortable one.
In a flash, the feeling that there was nothing I could do, and nothing I could control popped into my mind and clenched my guts, and although I could feel it wasn't very strong and not life-threatening, an animal-like fear was raising and racing through my brain like a freaked-out rat, frantically looking for the exit and screaming 'out, out, OUT!'
But I put a smile on my face, stayed shaking on my couch, and laughed about it with my friends.
We are not animals, aren't we?
Well... maybe.
La resistance
A cheezy clip but some special thoughts for a special someone going through some personal turmoil I can relate to.
We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone*
They have just left me after 8 days on the road, and I miss them already. It was probably tough for them, camping out in the wild, but I am happy we have done this together...
Sharing a tent, cooking on the fire, trying out new recipes for damper (very tasty one with coconut milk), swimming in waterfalls and water holes, spotting birds, snakes, discovering 50 000 years old rock art, tasting green ants, playing with soap tree, getting stung by caterpillars, dreaming of a cold shower...
I am a bit sad tonight, as they are flying to Cairns to discover the Great Barrier Reef for their last days in Australia. Hope to see you again soon, dear roommies!!
*Orson Welles
There are two sides to every coin
My roommates, Sébastien & Pitichat, are now only a couple of days away... After a big roadtrip from Sydney to Adelaïde, they are now in the vincinity of Alice Springs to visit one of the wonders of the world... Uluru!
On Thursday they will take the Ghan, an historic train crossing Australia from the south to the north and arrive in Katherine on Friday morning.
Then we will hit the road quite quickly to go out bush for almost 10 days, so I can give them a taste of outback Australia... That will be quite a big change from our life in Paris :-)
Litchfield National Park and Kakadu National Park are on the program, along with nights under the stars, cooking straight on the fire in a cast-iron camp oven, swimming in water holes with goannas, watching saltwater crocodiles bathing in the sun, and of course a lot of bitumen, unseal roads and red dust.
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To give you a glimpse of what we are going to see, a small serie of three shots taken on the Yellow Water River, in Kakadu National Park, NT (very little post prod, just a bit of vignetting)
The area was buzzing with wildlife (birds and saltwater crocodiles) yet nothing was troubling the peaceful mirror-like surface of the water...
high res on Flickr
Never approach a bull from the front, a horse from the rear, or a fool from any direction.
Saturday was a special day in Katherine, NT. The rodeo show was in town!
Organised to raise funds for a breast cancer association, the show was featuring bronc ridding - saddle bronc and bareback - bull riding, the dangerous steer wrestling, barrel races (a women-only event) and team roping.
The Katherine showgrounds were quite busy as a lot of the spectators had made the trip from cattle stations some as far as three hours from the Northern Territory town.
Cowboy hats, leather boots, high-waist jeans and checkered shirts were the norm among the crowd, and many were wearing a pink-adorned outfit to show support for the cause.
Although the level of testosterone was pretty high that night (life can be quite lonely for those guys on those remote cattle stations), I must recognise that a lot of those country guys are truly behaving like gentlemen - surely the results of being brought-up by a badass mother (there were a lot of those women around at the show - tied up in jeans and cowboys boots, pink cheeks and tough frames from living outdoors although keeping a certain femininity, you really don't want to mess with them)
The event happening at night it was quite a challenge to come up with decent pictures, so here is a quick resume I have put together in video.
After spending a couple of hours eating dust and being galvanised by the adrenaline (and the testosterone) overflowing everywhere, it is quite difficult not to fall hopelessly in love with one of those cowboys and dream about long rides in the sunset, mustering the cattle, fencing together under the unforgiving sun...
high res on Flickr