Tag Archives: Cow Hide

Turning Over To A New Chapter – Airlie Beach

Being back on the road did feel a little unusual again after being stationary at The Brook for the past month.  The sensation of being so free and roaming Australia was far from being dull.  We were excited for the next week to come as Nay’s family had decided to come up for a break in Melbourne’s winter to see us!!  Allowing ourselves three days to travel to Airlie, we made the most of a full sunny day and pulled the cow hide out (officially named “Brook”) to allow her to dry out.  It was a great opportunity to catch up on ourselves and prepare for wild week with the Johnsies!  Unknown to us, the day we had decided to burn across to Airlie came with a great thunder storm. The rain pelted down for a solid 24 hours just to make the trip interesting and created flash flooding in some areas.  We did however, still manage to stumble past the “Big Mango”. The beautiful Airlie everyone had talked about didn’t quite look the same, with ferocious looking clouds casting a dark and gloomy shadow over the town.

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Needless to say, waking up the next day, there was not a cloud in sight and blue skies welcomed the arrival of Dave, Maj, Tez, Charls, Livs AND Mark’s bday!!!  As Gobs was busy at work he joined in on the shenanigans halfway through the week.  The day was full of celebrations – beginning with breakfast, we went out for the first time on the trip to The Fat Frog.  Then followed a lazy day on the beach until we made our way to the Big 4 Caravan Park to meet up with the others.  We continued the celebrations late into the night with espresso martinis!

This entire week at Airlie Beach with the Johnsies seemed to fly by in a blink of an eye!  We had many activities to keep us all busy including copious amounts of swimming, smashing each other at tennis and seeing who can get the most hole in ones at mini golf!  We’d spent some time at the lagoon in town and went for a stroll and stumbled across a sand sculpture which was very creative.  There was also many a froffies and great discussions had on the deck.  We had made the most of being in the one spot for a long period of time and let the hide out to dry on the roof of the condo (the process continues!).

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As quick as the excitement hit us for their arrival, we were finding ourselves a week later saying goodbye to our visitors after having such an amazing week.  Finding ourselves back on the road seemed a little from the norm.  From being at the station, then a week at Airlie we were now back on the road with no idea where were to stay that night.  After a little research we found ourselves beside the croc inhabited Constant Creek, a little south of Airlie, which we were more than happy to be sleeping in the roof top tent!  After this quick stay over we found ourselves in a magical little oasis by the name of Notch Point.  It’s salty ocean waters also made home for crocs but the breathtaking views were well worth not being able to swim.

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We had decided to bunk a couple of nights along the foreshore to muster up a plan of attack in what we were going to do over the next few weeks.  The world was our oyster once again and the freeways down south looked welcoming…

The Brook – The Final Weeks

After the past massive week we had just accomplished, we were ready to have a lazy weekend around the homestead.  The farmer had advised us of a waterhole only a stones throw away which could be a nice day trip.  Packing a small lunch we went exploring.  After an hour of walking we came across the creek and what we had thought the waterhole was (later finding out the actual “waterhole” was still 1km past where we had gone).  Along side this beautiful place was the Basalt Wall which had been created by a local volcano.  We were careful not to venture too deep, as one could easily lose their bearings on an overcast day with the surroundings looking ever so similar.  It was indeed an amazing piece of The Brook.

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Back to our working reality, Monday-itis was slowly kicking in. The final two weeks seemed to fly by as fast as the holiday had so far.  We found ourselves in the house more regularily completing the jobs we were originally hired for.  We were still never up for a boring day, doing such a great variety of work.  From cleaning, mowing with a ride on, looking after the kids or just general handy work around the station, we were away from our standard 9 – 5 jobs and loving it!  They quickly discovered that we were seasoned painters as well and soon enough we were outside giving the school a make over with a fresh coat of paint.  We did however, only just hold back the urges of painting each other!

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As the next weekend rolled in, we were given details about the Cattlemen’s Ball in Greenvale (still over 2 hours away).  Deciding it could be fun, we packed our best flannies and went for a night out!  Totally different from what we had expected, it was still good fun.  As soon as we walked in, it seemed all eyes were on us as we were obviously not from the area.  Needless to say we made friends with some local youngsters who knew of The Brook station and with that, we partied the night away.  We also ended up being the only ones who actually camped behind the pub (making us stand out even more as tourists) as we were expecting a few swags from what was mentioned in the brochure.

Coming into the final week of work, we had really felt the last three had slipped by far too quickly.  Slowly running out of meat, the farmer was in need of a kill.  Mind you the meat before this seemed endless with delicious beef coming in all ways (even gigantic T-bone steaks!)  Lucky for us we were able to head along with the farmhand for this fascinating process.  He lead us through the complicated steps from when the cow was simply shot in the field, to the detailed process of making sure he didn’t taint the meat with any unwanted flavours.  To our suprise, he even let us skin it!  After enjoying a well earnt beer from this life changing process, we queried the farmhand in making a rug from the hide.  His response was simply “It’s very easy!  I’ll show you how to peg it out, salt it, rub it with a coarse stone and in time it will be beautiful!”  This was definitely going to be one project to remember.

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With the week wrapping up we finished the variety of small jobs around the house by playing more games with the kids and the odd handyman fix up.  By this stage we had also gained quite a loyal companion by the name of Lucky who was their farm dog that spent far more time with us than at the homestead.  Mark was even able to live another life long dream of mowing the airstrip in an old school tractor!!  The final day we were in the yard Nay was able to drive the Bacho over to the far yards (took a solid 45 mins) but sadly we both just missed a calf being born.  We watched in awe as the calf was standing and drinking milk from its mother in under an hour from birth.

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As the final day arrived there were emotions flying around from both parties.  Excitement was buzzing as we were onto the next stage of our adventure.  It was a strange feeling knowing we would probably never return or hear much from these amazing people who had let us into their homestead.  Even though we were there to work, we had gained such life experiences we could never have imagined.  So jumping in the car (with Brook the cow hide strapped to the roof rack), we were heading away from the property and had our sights on Airlie Beach where the first of our visitors were coming to see us…