Hello again, folks.

I have been meaning to write an update for a long time, but work duties and the general inconsistency of the internet around here rendered it a waste of time until now. My apologies to anyone waiting on an email from me – the internet has not been working, and the visitor internet is the absolute most painful thing to deal with…slow torture in the form of seeing an email from your parents, for example, but every time you click on it…five minutes later…the words “cannot display page” laugh at you. Ah, the Outback!

And in truth, it is GLORIOUS! I’ve come a long, long way since that last update. Bar, kitchen, hotel rooms…you name it I’m like a hospitality ninja, can whip out a chicken schnitzel burger at the snap of a finger, can pour you a drink in one hand while giving you change with the other. For someone who has a long standing fear of being a waitress, this is a big deal. Sometimes I feel like I was made to work behind a bar, getting paid for chatting to people and making friends, bridging cultures, pour by pour, glass by glass.

One of my favorite things about Windorah are the locals. There’s Mick, who lives next door and we all know exactly how much ice he likes and what kind of glass, and believe me you’ll hear about it if you get it wrong. There’s Brownie, who has the most glorious handlebar mustache I’ve ever seen in my life, who with a twinkle in his eye will tell you about his banjo skills, if you’re lucky. He travels to the U.S. often to play in folk festivals, and one night when I mentioned the yodeling workshop I did in Melbourne, that man opened his mouth and yodeled as if every Swiss maiden in the Alps would come running to his call. Tarpot is a gent in his 80’s or 90’s, I would say, who has lived in the same tiny one room house ever since…ever. At least, that’s how the story goes. We make him dinner at the pub every night and walk it over to his house – which in this small town of 80 people, isn’t far. Most days you can find him sitting on his porch, watching the day go by…I love taking dinner to him and having a quick chat. There is also Caveman, the toothless ringer who blows in to town and after a few drinks dances and sings the way I imagine children do before they are conditioned to harder or sadder things in this world. He’s like pure joy, with missing front teeth, and an energy that will dance and sing for anyone and everyone willing to join…or at least watch. There are countless others…just some of the loveliest people you will ever meet. On a regular day or night, they will pay for a drink and then leave their change, or wallet or purse, at the bar. Everyone will have their own little pile and when you hear a crinkle of a can, you turn around…see that empty can next to it’s own change pile…and you replace it, take the money out, and put back the change. Often if there is a serious dart or pool game going, they just can’t be bothered to actually order the next drink from you, which is fair enough. The best is when someone wants to use their debit card…so many times one person has come up with a card to make a purchase, and when it comes time to enter their pin, they yell across the bar “Oi! Honey what’s our pin number?” and “Honey” always hollers the pin number out…across the bar…for all to hear. This is a far cry from back home where people hide their keypads with nervous fingers and paranoid eyes!

Another one of the locals, Dale, is an absolute treasure and I am so thankful to have her as a friend. She seriously looks like a starlet straight out of 1920’s Hollywood and has the brightest smile and one of the best attitudes of anyone I’ve ever met; she sees the good in everyone, which is something that meshes very well with myself. Not only has she gotten me hooked on Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series (the first S. King books I’ve ever read; they’re fantasy, but about a gunslinger – sort of Lord of the Rings meets The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly – BRILLIANT!) but she also takes us pub girls out on our days off to experience Windorah. My first day off we headed to the race track, where the rodeo was held, and played golf. She’s got a set of clubs and someone has dug holes and set up flags and rakes and all that along the course. We’ve gone driving through the sandhills, which are gorgeous, but due to all the rain they’ve had the past year are covered with vegetation, so they aren’t the pure bright red sand hills you see in the post cards from here. We had some extra back packers over the past few weeks (more on that later) and we all went to the sand hills accompanied by their body board, “Bob”. They tried surfing down them, but at a maximum speed of I would say .0000000000000001 mph, I passed on my turn. The drive to the sand hills was interesting; again, due to the rains, the locusts are on the move…we are talking thousands upon thousands of flying grasshoppers, HUGE, I swear they are like flying turkeys. I took a video of it, and am going to attempt to post it soon, but fair warning there are plenty of girls screaming on it so you might want to turn down your volume.

Sheesh the past weeks have been such a blur, I’m trying to think of everything that might be of interest…there are 9 kids in school here, all ages, all lovely. They come over most days after school and I’ll teach them gymnastics or we’ll do yoga poses in the front yard. I reckon Windorah wasn’t quite sure who the heck this Texas chick was teaching all the kids these weird poses in the front yard, but it has really caught on – almost every day they come see if I can quit work to “do yoga” with them. I love it, of course. Being from Texas still seems to excite the people passing through…everyone wants to know why on earth I’m out here, and of course, “is everything really bigger in Texas?” I have to laugh at this…in the bar, there is a great map of Australia, and within in it, a map of Texas. Folks, Texas isn’t even ¼ the size of Australia. I like to tell the inquirers that while we may not be bigger, and may not need helicopters or motor bikes to muster our cattle, the reputation comes from our hearts and generosity (and perhaps sometimes from our big heads, but SHHH!).

Normally my days consist of waking up, either opening the bar, cleaning hotel rooms, or starting in the kitchen…with a break in between…and then walking around town to catch up with Dale or Trudy, or go across to the servo (gas station) run by the blind man Merv, nicest son of gun and completely in charge of that store.

The past two weeks, however, have been a different story. Birdsville, a town not far from here (meaning a couple 100 kilometers) has their annual Birdsville Races, which apparently are quite famous, and people from all over Australia flock there every year. Many of them pass through Windorah, and our big lead up to the Birdsville Races are our very own Yabby Races, held on the Wednesday before. As already mentioned, we imported 6 additional backpackers to help out with the festivities – some truly great people – and boy did we need it. Folks, I have never ever in all my life worked as hard as I did at those Yabby Races. Sure, we worked 8:00 am to 1:30 am that day. Yes, I had a stomach virus the day before with 102 degree fever and threw up so much that I was stuck in a permanent fetal position until I was yanked out of bed to work. None of this matters. What matters is that our tiny, tiny bar, with a maximum capacity of, oh, say 50 – was bombarded by about 800 drunk people crazed with the idea of winning the Yabby Races and simultaneously fearful of being stuck in Windorah and missing the Birdsville Races, thanks to the rain. What do you do when nervous or in doubt? Drink, of course! They did. By the end of the night, I could not feel my fingers anymore, after opening that many beer cans and stubbies. Literally could not feel them. I had slices all over from thrusting my numb hands into gallons of ice searching for a drink for someone. Hey, at least I couldn’t feel the cuts! People screaming at you to go faster from both sides of the bar…people screaming that their Yabby didn’t win…what is a Yabby, you ask? It’s a sort of lobster looking thing, except blue. Pretty neat, huh? Well, I didn’t see one that night…things looked mighty fun outside but we never left that bar. Each Yabby cost about $1200 to race. Teams of people buy the Yabby, then they are all dropped in the center of a large circle drawn in the street in front of the pub. The first Yabby outside the circle wins. I tell you, pure hysteria it was. And it “pissed down” rain, as they say, in the middle of everything.

Now, the rain was a problem. Windorah is located in what they call the Channel Country, referred to as such because when the rivers and lakes flood, the waters form channels all over this area. Floods are common enough that many people cancelled their trip to Birdsville because of the rain, knowing that it might be weeks before they could get out again. Those who continued on were certainly stuck there for at least a week; we had people calling constantly to see which roads were open, if any. For us this meant that many of those people who were just supposed to be passing through ended up staying much longer than they intended…so it was a busy few weeks here, to say the least. Additionally a biker rally group rolled through a week after the Yabby Races, 400 in total…we served dinner buffet style, but I tell you that line stretched on for a mile down the street. I’ve never served food so fast.

There really is so much more to tell, I just have no idea where to start or how to fit it all in…things like the birds that sing all day long, even in the middle of the night…I forget what Dale calls them, but the message is “get to bed, you’re up to late if you can hear me sing!”. Bathing is always exciting…there is usually at least one brown tree frog and one lizard in there with you; sometimes larger green frogs come for the fun, and more lizards. Forget HD TV, it’s like National Geographic, brought right to your…shower. None of the kids wear shoes, except to school. My favorite thing to do on a break is to go in the back yard and have a lie in the grass, though it is getting so hot here that it is becoming almost uncomfortable to do so. Should make my next job interesting.

Speaking of my next job….in one week, I am being picked up and carted off to a local station to be a JILLAROO!!!! In other words, a female ringer; in more words, I will be mustering cattle on horseback and other various duties – really I have no idea, and I don’t care, as long as I’ll be on horseback! Most of you know my history with horses…I can’t believe I am going to be back in the saddle again, I am so elated about it that I am almost nervous, nervous that it’s not really going to happen, nervous that I’ll feel like a foreigner in a saddle after so many years away. But I know that’s not true. It’s where I’m meant to be, really, I’ve just taken the long route back. The station is Tanbar, and they’re known for being really good with their horses.

On Wednesday Trudy and I, and her two girls Abby and little Billy, left at 7:00 in the morning to drive 3.5 hours to Longreach, the closest town with shopping. She helped me pick out jeans, work shirts, a cowboy hat…the hat is a necessity so you don’t burn whilst spending hours under the Australian sun. She’s also lending me a swag, which is like a sleeping bag/tent combo. It’s what I’ll use to sleep in when we’re at camp with the herd. Trudy’s generosity has been absolutely incredible. She is one of the most genuine, fun, sincere, and hilarious people I’ve ever met! And she’s absolutely gorgeous – one brown eye and one blue eye, something I’ve never seen. I love spending time with her and her lovely family – I’m gonna miss being able to see them every day when I’m on the station. I’ll be there until early November, at which time Joey and I are meeting in Wellington, New Zealand, for a series of bushwalks through that beautiful country. Something inside says that that isn’t enough time for me at Tanbar, but – we’ll see how things unfold, and what is meant to be.

For now, I’m going to wrap this up…and end with a few new Aussisms, of course. :)

1. Piss. This is a very important term in the Aussie language, and can really be used for anything… “It’s about to piss down rain”. “Aw she was just taking the piss out of him” (making fun of him) “Are you getting on the piss tonight?” (Are you drinking tonight?)

2. Sweet as, nice as, easy as, etc… “Man these jeans are so cool and they were cheap as!” “Nah mate, I just did it online, easy as…” Basically implying that whatever you are referring to is the sweetest, nicest, cheapest, etc. thing that could possibly be thought of. So much so that it is not necessary to define what said thing is.

3. Fair dinkum. Definitely a country phrase, “fair enough” or “good thing”. Usually a response to someone else’s story or sentence.
4. Righto. My new favorite phrase. I must say this at least 20 times a day. Means “sounds good” or “will do” or “check”. “Hey don’t worry about it I’ll just pick it up later.” “Righto!”

5. Too lovely. Means exactly what it sounds like. A drink well poured? A happy story? A pretty dress? A good mud fight? (As happened here recently.) “Too lovely”.

Until next time, loved ones…ta.

:) Nancy