when i last wrote i was staying in the backpackers in Devenport. It was a sweet deal because i was getting free accomodation in exchange for cleaning the rooms and kitchen everyday. It was great, but i wasn't actually making any money; so when i was told that there was several months of work available near launceston, i went for it.
This job was in a small town called Perth, close to launy, and not to be confused with the much larter Perth- capitol of Western Australia. I moved into the farm of friends Evan and Jen, and everything seemed great... except that after my 1st day of work, they told me; thanks for coming in today but we don't need you to come in tomorrow... actually we're not sure when there will be more work because this job depends on how many orders there are and unfortunetly there aren't any orders right now sorry, we'll call you if we hear of anything. HOW MUCH DOES THAT SUCK? so much. i left the place with free rent because they told me i could work for several months, and then after the first day they told me that's all there is. Now that i'm thinking about it, i wish i had told the lady what i was really thinking- i would have told her she's a jerk for doing that. GRR...
anyways, so i stay at the farm for a week, hanging out, reading alot, but i realize i should move on because im not making any money and i couldn't afford the rent. I had the oppourtunity to do some W.W.O.O.F.ing, which stands for Willing Worker On Organic Farm.
I was staying with a lady named bronwyn at her house (it wasn't actually an organic farm) at the base of mount roland, a beautiful place. I stayed there for over a week. I helped out with a number of things she was working on, and with various other chores including putting together a package for the Sheffield councilors in regards to some social work she wants to do, computer help, and carrying firewood. I also helped her return 2 televison sets to K-mart.
At one point i climbed the mountain. I was told there was a path to the top, but it wasn't advertised in the tourist information agencies becuase it was rough and 'scaley', which i guess means the path is crumbling and steep. I leave at 2.30 in the afternoon, and climb the mountain, climbing all day, racing to the top to see the sunset- i was taking alot of photos, so i really ran for the top, but i just missed the sunset, and as i finally made it to the summit, it was beginning to get dark. Oh well, thought paul, I guess i'll have to climb down the mountian in the dark, no big deal, it's a full moon anyways. It actually was a big deal, I couldn't see much at all. I waited around for a while untill the moon was above me, and then slowly made my way down the path.
The path was easy to follow during the day because of these pieces of orange tape that were attached to trees along the way. Unfortunetly for me, i couldn't see them at night and i stumbled off the path almost immediatly. It was quite dangerous, and at one point i was climbing down a large rock, and i guess i didn't realize that it was really steep untill i was sliding down it way too fast- i saw that when the rock came to an end there was a cliff and a dropoff with darkness and more rocks below. I pretty much knew that if i fell of the cliff i was dead, so i grabbed the sides of the rock i was sliding down to save myself, and i did save myself, which is great, but i ended up breaking my thumbnail in the process. I didn't notice it for a minute because i was so pumped up from nearly dying, then i saw all the blood and felt the fingernail flopping around. it was really awkward because it was too painful to rip off the huge hangnail, so i ended up climbing down the rest of the way, it was intense and scary, took me hours. I remember one moment, walking through the dark, i was confused about where i was standing and realized i was in a big rotten tree. There were lots of huge felled trees, and large rocks, and other dangers, but finally i found a stream of water flowing down, which i followed, and eventually found my way to a type of road that had perhaps been cleared by a bulldozer or something, and i stumbled my way down for a while untill i heard a voice calling my name; it was bronwyn- somehow she knew where i would end up and was waiting for me! it was amazing. I probly met up with her at 11pm, exhausted after my adventure, and very glad she was there waiting. It was quite an awsome adventure, or, spirit quest as i like to call it.
Bronwyn was putting together a type of resume, which summarized her lifes work and stated her objectives involving a tourist center, kindof a pioneer village type thing, and also another thing that would help youth who are having problems in school. This involved putting together a large package full of awards she's won, letters of reccomendation (there were lots of these, including one from the prime minester), and various other information she wanted to include. This took a long time because she needed 6 copies of it, and i put them all in books with clear plastic pages- it was quite alot of work. There was also lots of oppourtunity for me to use my technical support skills- i spent hours trying to fix a problem with the printer, and i finally got it going by turning it off and on again.
It was great because Bronwyn had a camera, so i was able to take a few shots of the area. The landscape is really beautiful around mt. Roland, and i ended up taking 450 pictures while i was there. Lots of boring scenery, especially from high up while climbing, and i also took alot of shots of these cute little animals called Paddymelons, which are small shy marsupials and i would feed them small apple cubes. I went out alot to take photos- sometimes climbing the mountains or just driving around. There are lots of mountains in the area, and i climbed a few different places.
One thing happened that was weird: I came home after a long day of climbing around. It was steep at times, and i had been walking for hours, so i was pretty tired when I got back to the house. I go into the kitchen and i see bronwyn- she hadn't been feeling well for at the time, and had spent the past two days in bed. Bronwyn comes into the kitchen and starts picking things up, asking -" what's this doing here? Who put this here? What's going on here? Something's not right... something's not right..." I noticed something was strange, she was confused why there were flowers and some parsley in water on the windowsill. I started asking her questions: Don't you remember going shopping? You bought the parsley when we went into town on monday, remember? do you remember going to Devenport and returning two television sets? .... she didn't remember any of it, she was asking me what day it was, and she was asking me what happened to her television sets. It was so weird, because the Bronwyn i know is really smart, and now she didn't even remember what happend 2 days before. In fact, she was quite suspicious of me for a little while; I could almost tell by her face that she didn't belive me that we had gone into town to return to the television sets, and that perhaps she suspected me of stealing them. It was kindof scary, because i knew she had lost her memory. I asked her lots of questions, she wasn't too sure of much. She was asking me alot of questions too, but really she was just repeating the same 3 questions, which i would answer and then she would ask me again almost immediatly after: why am i still in my pajamas? What time did you leave this afternoon? What happened to the TVs? Why am i still in my pajamas?.... I realized that i had to call someone, so i looked in her cell phone and called about 10 numbers but noone was answering, or helpful. I knew i could call her son Ross, but she didn't have the number written down anywhere and she couldn't remember it- i guess it's a number she always remembers... she didn't even remember my name, or my mothers name and my mom's a good friend of hers. Finally i called the directory assistance number, and once she was talking to her son she seemed to slowly get better, which was a relif. I ended up hearing about 10 different expressions for 'going crazy', some of which i've never heard before. she said: I must be losing my marbles! I've gone round the bend! I'm off me rocker! (she said that one alot), and i can't remember all the other ones. But yeah, i was so glad she found her way back to reality... maybe it was caused by her fever, or sickness or whatever it was. im not sure... but later that night she made me dinner, and she asked me alot of questions about what happened. The next day we talked still more about what went on while she was in her state of forgetfullness; she didn't remember anything of what happened, it was so weird. She said nothing like that had ever happened to her before.


I guess alot of things have happened since then but i'll write about that stuff later. i can only type so much....