Country Life

November 17. I just barely catch the train from Newcastle to Tamworth. I was literally running down the street and they were closing the doors as I ran up. I got on though and began my journey inland.

I decided to head to Tamworth for two reasons. The country music and Jackaroo school. There was no real country music to speak of. It's only called the capital because of the big festival they have in January, which I will unfortunately miss. The Jackaroo school came through big time though.

There was a week in Tamworth that I actually really enjoyed. It's a town of about 35,000 people that range from farmers to gangsters. It's a great town with a beautiful tree lined main street and big hills to the north with great hiking trails and a marsupial park of koalas, 'roos and emus.

For the first few days I was the only one here, but then I was joined by a really cool girl named Lisa from Amsterdam. We hung out a lot and explored the town a bit. We then met a girl whose cousin runs the hostel in town. The three of us went out with some of her friends and partied it up. There is actually a big bar here that is like a club on the weekends and fills up with young, attractive people bumpin to The Presets.

Over the weekend everyone else doing the Jackaroo course showed up and we all started to hang out. There were 19 people in our course and only 4 were guys(blokes). I guess it's popular with the ladies. Some interesting people for sure. I am absolutely the only American I have met in the last two weeks. Which is actually quite a nice thing as I am continue to learn about other countries.

On Monday morning we were all picked up in a big bus and driven an hour out of town to thw farm. The drive in was one of the most beautiful drives I have ever done. Rolling green hills with wild roos hopping around and creeks swimming through whitebox and willow trees. It felt a little otherworldly. Can't wait to share the pictures.

We shacked up in a big bunkhouse and all the meals were cooked over the fire. We ate pretty well. Most of the staff was young backpackers that had done the course before and came back to run it. All of them were really cool. The course was Monday to Friday and I got to do so many things I have always wanted to. We got a little taste of everything on the farm including:

Fence Building
Natural Horsemanship
Mustering
Sheep Shearing
Calf Wrestling
Lassoing
Whip Cracking
Swimming Horses
Sheep slaughtering and butchering
Castrating! (ouch)

It was a lot of firsts for me and it was so worth it. I am really glad I decided to do it. A few people have found work on farms around here as they hire backpackers all the time for short periods. I am going to continue travelling up the coast starting Wednesday though and look for work up in Queensland when I get there. There are a lot more cattle up there and I could do some mustering work perhaps. I will also be passing through the town where they filmed Australia.

After we got back from the course we all went to see the film and it was fun to see a lot of the stuff we had just learned. As a little bonus, Paul Hogan(Crocodile Dundee) was in my row and the entire cast of his movie he is filming in town here. It was a lot of fun and a pretty authentic Australian experience.

So I have a couple of days to kill now in Tamworth and then I head back to the coast for some beach and sun. We had torrential rains on Friday night here and the river swelled up and flooded the town. The government declared it a state of emergency and the whole town was nuts. It was cool to see, but unfortunate cause there was a lot of damage back at the farm we came from and some of the dogs drowned as they were chained up. So today everyone is coming down from a bit of a crazy weekend.

So Jackaroo school was awesome and I recommend it to anyone who has ever wanted to be a cowboy. I will hopefully be able to get some pictures up soon. I don't think there is a computer here I can use so it might be later this week.

Hope y'all had a good Thanksgiving and ate way more than you should have. We had a big dinner at a buffet so I ate myself sideways.

I'm dedicating this post to the incredible, and Australian, Portia de Rossi.

-"I hate the Wetlands. They're stupid and wet, and there are bugs everywhere, and I think I maced a crane."