Even though I returned to the Northern Hemisphere on November 19th, I still have blogging on the brain. So, I’m going to knock this one out and then call it a day—er—blog because I don’t particularly feel like typing out my diary entries from the third farm Caroline and I visited. I guess those memories are going to remain all my own.
Due to the theft of my computer, I no longer have the extensive notes I was typing up night after night while WWOOFing at Ned and Dee's. However, the day before I left the Land Down Under, I went through Caroline’s 1,426 Australia photographs (she is officially more of an obsessive documenter than I am), and I’m confident that I can accurately recall much of what happened in the last few days at Ned and Dee's farm. I bet you were hoping that I would spare you the blow-by-blow. Unfortunately, that just ain’t gonna happen.
OCTOBER 11
“Here’s one! Come look!” Ned called out, pointing urgently towards the center of the shallow stream. George, Dee, Caroline and I rushed over to him, and the five of us waited, huddled together on the riverbank, until the object of our interest scurried out from underneath a submerged log. It was a blue crayfish, its brilliant red claws and antennae clearly visible in the pristine water.
To Caroline’s and my delight, Ned and Dee had announced that morning that we were going to spend most of the day adventuring with their friends George and Sonia in the nearby Mount Lewis Rain Forest Reserve, one of the 17 World Heritage sites in Australia. In Ned and Dee's indestructible fat-powered vehicle, we climbed a misty unpaved road leading from the Reserve entrance to the top of the mountain, where we were greeted by lush ferns, a variety of trees draped with thick vines, and a trickling creek (home to aforementioned crayfish. Clearly).
As soon as the car rolled to a stop and we had all filed out, Dee knelt by the stream, filled a little tin pot with water, and began to heat it on a camping stove she had apparently lugged along in her backpack. “Who wants tea?” she asked casually as the water came to a boil. Shocked by this woman’s dedication to her midmorning cupper, I turned down the creek water tea and instead munched on the koala-shaped cookies she had whipped out as well. Caroline did the same.
As the others sipped their drinks from grimy mugs that ALSO happened to emerge from Dee's bottomless sack, I pictured the tiny mosquito larvae that they were surely slurping down with their tea. The look of apprehension on Caroline’s face suggested that she, too, was envisioning the various water-borne diseases and microscopic creatures that were now entering our companions’ esophagi. Trying to suppress the grimace that was desperately trying to take a hold of my face, I reminded myself that the water I’d been drinking for almost a week was pumped directly from a river. Whether I liked it or not, I’d probably already consumed my fair share of larvae.
When teatime was over, the group was ready to adventure upstream. Ned, Dee, George and Sonia kicked off their thongs and began to wade barefoot, but I decided to keep my hiking boots on and leap from rock to log to rock instead. I was having fun playing “Lava Monster” with myself. Plus, it was a good workout. Caroline, too, tried to conquer the wet jungle obstacle course with her sneakers on, but she quickly threw up her hands, ripped off her shoes, and began to creep gingerly through the water.
The stream eventually seemed to end at a daunting barrier of boulders. I assumed we would turn back, but Ned hoisted himself up onto one of the massive slabs of rock. “The creek might continue a few meters beyond this wall,” he said to no one in particular as he barreled onwards. Ignoring Ned's unyielding curiosity, the rest of the crew stood planted knee-deep in the pooled water and began to make conversation while they rested. But I was intrigued by the idea of the stream’s glorious rebirth on the other side of the wall, so I jumped up onto the nearest boulder and began to follow Ned.
The two of us clambered across boulder after boulder, peering down into the mountain of rocks at times to look for evidence that water was somehow managing to trickle underneath. After several minutes of exploring, however, Ned and I silently acknowledged that we weren’t going to find the other end of the rock barrier any time soon. It was time to turn back. We stopped to catch our breath, and as our panting subsided, my awareness of the rain forest noises around me was suddenly heightened. I stood perfectly still, and Ned seemed to know what I wanted to do. He froze, quiet as a cloud. I closed my eyes to note every bird cry and gust of wind that weaved through the trees, and the corners of my mouth rose into a half-moon smile. I glanced over at Ned, hoping to catch him savoring the sounds with his eyes closed, too. But he was gazing absently into the convoluted depths of the forest, lost in that mysterious, cavernous mind of his.
I felt grateful for the intimate moment I was unexpectedly sharing with Ned. It was rare and precious; something all our own, and borne out of a quiet understanding and appreciation.
A few hours afterward, the whole crew was back in the car and winding further up the mountain looking for a spot to each lunch. At the very end of the foggy road, we found a three-sided tin hut that Ned and Dee guessed was a deserted ranger’s shed. We all helped cart food, blankets and pillows from the trunk of the car into the empty building, and as Dee quickly threw together some sandwiches and boiled water for tea (surprise, surprise), Caroline and I spread out the blankets and I plopped down onto a pillow. Grabbing chips from the pile of grocery bags and backpacks that had accumulated on the concrete floor, Caroline joined me on the pillow and ripped open the bag. Her and I then began tucking into it, devouring the sinfully salty snacks.
As soon as Ned and Dee sat down on the blanket, however, I suddenly realized that Caroline and I had eaten a LOT of chips (well, those bags are, like, a third air, right? Maybe the damage hadn’t been as bad as I had thought…), so I passed the bag over to them and hoped they wouldn’t notice.
Only about a minute went by, though, before Caroline asked if she could please have more chips. Dee and Ned didn’t respond, and I was nervous about handing Caroline the bag because I thought maybe we had been rude by hogging it at first. But I didn’t want to ignore Caroline, so I gingerly picked up the bag with my thumb and forefinger and lifted it towards Caroline like a toy crane machine. But as Caroline was reaching her hand into the bag to nab another handful, Dee snapped, “I haven’t even had any yet!” I winced.
Caroline, well-accustomed to Dee's random moments of grouchiness, continued to grab a couple of chips for herself but then immediately handed the bag back over with a smile. She didn’t ask for it again.
Caroline, well-accustomed to Dee's random moments of grouchiness, continued to grab a couple of chips for herself but then immediately handed the bag back over with a smile. She didn’t ask for it again.
Later, when we were all having one more romp in the river before heading back home, Caroline bowed out of the creek crawl early because she was getting cold and wet and wanted to sit in the car. George, Sonia and I didn’t know that she had left, though, and at one point I asked, “Where did Caroline go?!” George laughed. “Eating potato chips, no doubt!” Sonia, Ned and Dee cackled. I forced an awkward grin, trying not to show that I felt vaguely offended.
“Greaaaaat,” I said to myself. “We have officially managed to confirm the stereotype of Americans as greedy grease-guzzlers…”
Upon returning to the farm and saying goodbye to Sonia and George, Dee and Ned told us that they needed help shoveling sand out of the riverbed. “We’ve gotta have a deeper ditch so that our pump has access to more water,” Ned explained. I utilized the trusty smile-and-nod, secretly thinking that shoveling sand sounded about as appealing as chewing rubber. But I sucked it up and slipped on my Teva’s. The four of us grabbed shovels from the tool shed and then walked past the outhouse through the bush until we came to a ravine (dry now, but it’ll apparently hold a roaring river come flood season). The only liquid visible was in a tiny pond in the deepest part of the trench, where Ned had inserted a pipe and motor to suck up the groundwater.
We hopped into the ravine with our shovels in hand. Ned and Dee kicked off their flip-flops and immediately began digging furiously. I realized that they had the right idea about the no-shoes thing—my Teva’s were filling up with sand every time I took a step—so I ripped apart the Velcro straps and tossed the sandals aside. Immediately, though, as I stepped into the murky little pond, I stepped on a sharp stick jutting upwards in the sand and cut the bottom of my foot. Sigh. It would have never happened to Ned or Dee with their presumably rock-hard feet, but even my calloused stompers are far too yuppitastic for my own good. I should’ve trained for WWOOFing in advance by walking on a bed of hot coals or two.
Regardless, I wanted to be a good sport, so I continued to shovel away without complaint. In case you didn’t know, heaving mounds of wet sand is no easy feat, and I was forced to invent various methods of transporting the sand from around my feet to the outskirts of the watering hole. My arm muscles weren’t strong enough for repeated use of the simple lift-and-throw method, so I quickly resorted to a new strategy: I'd dig into the ground to fill up the bed of the shovel, balance the tool on my knee, and then catapult its contents a few feet to my right. Slightly embarrassing, but very effective.
I looked over at Ned and Dee after about fifteen minutes, and I couldn’t help wondering why the hell they were shoveling when they both have bad backs. As if she could read my mind, Dee let out an exasperated groan, dropped her shovel, and hobbled up and over to the side of the hole. She collapsed onto one of my particularly impressive sand piles, holding her back and wincing. She then yelled at Ned to stop. “Ned! Do you want to be stuck in bed for two weeks again?!”
Ned didn’t acknowledge her; he kept shoveling diligently, his impressively toned arm muscles flexed. I was shocked by the information that Super Ned had been bed-written for weeks because of his back, so I, too, began to plead for him to stop. “Let Caroline and I do it!” But Ned just kept on going, stopping only when he, Caroline and I were completely exhausted—both from the shoveling (definitely the most physically challenging task we did at Dee and Ned's...well, besides ditch-digging) and from Dee's barrage of frustrated sighs and eye rolls. Hey, at least this time they were aimed at Ned and not and Caroline and me!
