Leaving Greenvale

Things started to tense up further at Mels. I  had asked one of the locals, magic,  Mels friend, standing outside of the pub, to get me some food since they were going to charters towers. When magic asked me why I needed food I explained i have a really big appetite and I can't limit my eating, i just can't function when I diet, neither can I live off peanut butter and the general stores stock can be expensive. It's not like I'm obese either, I just burn it all off. I also said I felt bad I was eating Mels food etc. so all of this got back to Mel, not because of magic but because of her colleagues overhearing at the bar, and perhaps got twisted because she asked if I could not talk to anybody about her.  

Mel decided she could no longer afford to pay me with the rate at which I was eating food.

Matt and Elliott were about to go in a few days and I'd heard they were getting a lift to Townsville so I'd asked them if I could join them but there was no space. Mel also got wind of this. I guess that's the down side to being in a small community. It can be like big brother. I trusted the guys hadn't said a word, one of the locals must have over heard again, not that I was just going to go without saying a word, just that I wasn't sure if Mel would continue to let me stay once she knew I wanted to go and I was just being cautious. Though I had a feeling that's not how Mel had seen it.

 So it was all drama and I had to get away. Mel arranged for me to go to Townsville with shalene, another local that Zoe was nannying for. I loved shae, she was another who helped me with scott. 

The last remaining days with Mel were icy cold, the nights she had drinks with friends I no longer cleaned up the bottles and cans all over the garden and generally stopped making any extra effort at all which Mel had noticed. i was spending most of my time outside of the house and going back just to eat peanut butter or rice. As childish as it may sound I made the lack of effort a conscious decision since I wasn't being paid, I'd spent the money shed given me on food over the 2 and a half weeks and it cost me over $200 just to get there which didn't seem to be appreciated. I'd said goodbye to Scott who didn't seem particularly fussed which i was gutted about and Mel, in her room just responded "bye"

I felt really bad about how things ended with Mel. I know that she is a good person with a big heart and there was probably a lot of things I could have done differently to have eased the drama. 

The journey back involved taking 2 separate cars as one was to be sold in townsville. zoe and i and the dog in the back in one, shalene and the kids In the other. We had radios to communicate with each other in the car too so it was fun to talk to shae. we passed a military base and she told me about that. We also spotted an emu too and Zoe told me all about her travels. She'd been to Africa before Australia and It sounded like she had an amazing time. Before we reached Townsville we sweeped around mountains that made me feel like we were making a journey to South Wales till I saw the view. Along the side of us was an incredible stretch of flat land surrounded by mountains, the landscape looked African. 

Finally we arrived in Townsville.

Lucky Downs Cattle station

I was really lucky to get the chance to go and stay over at Megan's. a local who had a cattle station, "lucky downs", 20 mins drive from Greenvale. Her place was beautiful, she lived right next to a fresh water river. It was so clean they pumped water from here directly to their home, you could drink from it! Megans girls, scott and i ran down that day as the sun was just starting to set and I carved a quote onto a tree stump. the area was beautiful, banks full of long grass, the trees in australia are so different, the bark an ash white on some. not as green and full as ours. One large hollow bark lay on the bank and one of the children ran over it while the other ran through inside, they spoke of games of hide and seek and swimming in the river. Scott started to madly slam sticks against one tree. "Go on Scott let it all out kid..." I don't know if it was him just being a boy or he had a bit of kept anger.  I was concerned but I thought it better to not think about too much.

Fruit trees and sunsets in their back garden, a baby cattle who's mother had died was being weened on a milk contraption attatched to the fence which the dog would also sneakily feed from.  We fed 3 other collie puppy's that were outside dogs. 1 smaller fuzzy white mop of a dog was their only inside dog. That night Megan let me use her Internet and it was such luxury, as was sitting in front of the TV and watching satellite TV. I helped with the meal while the kids played on the trampoline and Megan was so lovely giving me advice, telling me Scott enjoyed jigsaws and all the things I could do with him which she knew he enjoyed. This kind of information really helped and once she caught on that I was pretty confused at mels and the food issue she continued to give me some more, much appreciated  advice. She had also traveled her self and it was great to hear about that. Her husband was away a lot with work so I guess it was hard for her and times got lonely. she had a really incredible poem hanging up in her home about how woman struggled, how woman waited and how much work they had to do years ago, it was so inspiring. Pictures of generations of familys in "lucky downs" also hung up on the walls and she told me about how people lived in the outback in the days when cars were a luxury, biking for days for education, things like that. so interesting that they had all of these stories that had been passed on. 

Megan was inspiring, there was sadness there but she appreciated all that she had.  I guess living so far from it all for so long has its toll and doesn't mean a great social life, I would personally find that incredibly difficult, but like her, so many generations in the past lived a secluded life. It's luxury for some I guess and I guess the highlight is that she doesn't get involved in the drama that, sometimes, a small community can have.

When I left Megan's she gave Scott and I a "goody bag" haha. mine was filled with a container of tasty leftovers, potatoes and tomatoes she grew and some rice crackers. I was over the moon. FOOD GLORIOUS FOOD :D 

I was sad to leave Megan's she had been the nicest, most generous person and I will always be grateful to her for so much she did to try and help me and Scott.

Jervoise cattle station

It looked like an American ranch, a big wooden sign "jervoise" and flat, dry fenced off land as far as you could see with the typical ash white trees. it was far from what I was used to back home in Wales. Hills, mountains, soaking mud with a hint of grass (I'm kidding Wales is beautiful). I chased kangaroos one morning at sunrise to try and capture a good setting, jumping across the broken plain where floods in the wet season had caused banks to fall apart and left a bit of a playground for me to make my way across one piece of the crumbled puzzle to the next.

during the day I watched the family (I had the pleasure of staying with, round up the cattle) this was called mustering and It was such an experience to watch, they would use wips and shout to get them into a small fenced off area where they would later open a hatch that would lead to the vehicle that would transport them. Usually if you live on a cattle station, generations have owned the station before you and I guess every technique is passed on from parent to child. I watched as one of the girls trained her horse in the back of the house, simple side steps and cantering, kicks of the heels and voice commands. It was so relaxing to be sitting on the porch or laying on the trampoline over looking this and I wondered If the family appreciated their surroundings as much as I did. this family also had the same domestic kind of problems any average family does and of course no matter how beautiful your surroundings it doesn't make these problems go away. I appreciated that I could just run wild and free wherever the wind took me so I set off that evening to chase a sun set, which involved chasing more kangaroos and finally the best pictures and amazing scenery. The colours of the sky here are so different to back home. The clear sky was a rainbow of colours, oranges, deep purples and midnight blues that all graduated perfectly, darkening and changing as the sun set and the moon and the stars were so incredibly bright. I ran back before it was pitch black and realised I had been gone a lot longer than 20 minutes (which I'd planned to go without actually telling anybody) I had to attempt to high jump over a barbed wire fence - just about made it before arriving back at jervoise. Mel and Scott were riding a quad bike as they passed me they did a U-turn. Mel had had been worried something had happened and had wondered where I'd gone. Oops. It is  So like me to just wander off, I guess I got caught up in everything.

The morning before I left I was ecstatic to find an old piano. A couple of the keys were mute but it didn't matter, I had missed my piano back home so much and played appreciating every Minute. 

I got an applause once I'd finished and was embarrassed to see I'd had an audience but I was told that it was appreciated somebody was able to play it. 

Mel and I listened to country western music on the way back which is really popular over here, kind of a nice ending to the ranch-like experience I'd had, though I mus not say that and compare the way i do, It was a real Aussie experience!

The outback!

3 hours inland, we arrived in Greenvale, "the tropical outback" which consisted of around 10 streets of houses, 2 small general stores, a post office, a school, a communal pool, a pub/hotel Mel worked in, a trailor park where you could get the bare minimum phone signal and a water tower 20 mins walk away where you could get slightly better phone signal. it was around 7/8pm and i was hungry but I was put to nannying straight away. Scott was playing play station in a flat behind the pub but was still apart of the pub Mel worked in and I was to keep an eye on him. I met two Scottish guys Elliot and Matt It was going to be a bit of a big night in the pub and they offered me a drink, I said i probably shouldn't and they said since It was my first night I should ask Mel, Mel said of course and I should get to know everyone, I said I'd still keep an eye on Scott and that was fine. I made my self a drink with the boys rum in the flat and went to see everyone in the pub but I just didn't feel comfortable leaving Scott at all and I was really just sitting there while everyone else was conversing I was just the exhausted, hypoglycaemic stranger in the bar who probably looked the least social and the least approachable so I sat next to Scott and watched him play playstation. My eyes started to droop, I was just sitting there doing the most boring thing and eventually I fell asleep. 

Mel woke me up (I think Scott had gone to his mum to tell her he was tired so Scott was taken to  mels friends earlier when I was sleeping) and we picked Scott up and went to mels place. She couldn't get over how tired I was or why since I was young and what had happened to me after one drink and found it quite funny that one knocked me out. I guess the coach journeys getting there, lack of sleep and my previous night in a hostel not being in a quiet place at all (surrounded by Irish bars) and the fact that I hadn't eaten since the afternoon didn't help.

It was just so totally different to my first nannying position. Andrea made everything so clear, what I had to do, when I had to do it, how I had to do it and everything I needed to know about her child and her expectations etc. at least everything was clear so I knew where I stood. Little things like where the cleaning things are kept (I can't clean if the Hoover and mop - unknown to me -  is in a room I'm told i can't go In because its the owners storage room?!?!)  I appreciated how laid back Mel was though at this point and I was pretty happy to just cruise along. 

It's occurred to me that readers are probably horrified I neglected a 9 year old on my first day nannying by falling asleep. Literally sleeping on the job, in my defence Mel had told me to have a good night that night and get to know everyone, now if the most responsible person in charge was ok with me having a few drinks in the pub, I assumed Scott's safety and security in this area was nothing to worry about, especially since his mum was about 3 rooms away and in any emergency the kid could wake me up.

So, while Scott was In school, my days were filled up with, well i couldn't do any light cleaning so I started to organise Scott's clothes a lot better and just do, generally what I could without using the things I couldn't find. Followed by walking the dog "two dots" named by Scott haha. I didn't really know what Scott liked except playstation so I decided we could just walk the dog because anything was better than a kid In front of a TV. I felt sorry for Scott and I really liked him and I genuinely really wanted the best for him. My little brother max, at home, i missed so I could at least do activities with scott I once did with max. Little lads are easy. Go out, kick a football around, show em a big field, some trees, ya know they love it. And the smile on Scott's face sometimes afterwards, it's the best feeling knowing you've made a child's day, hour, minute even. It was challenging sometimes, trying to get him away from that dreaded playstation. it could be terrible sometimes, the fuss he made over it, so I just limited it, it all felt like I was doing a lot more mothering than nannying and I just ended up being bad cop a lot of the time trying to put Scott into an actual routine which he hadn't had before (his mum had been travelling Australia before setting in Greenvale) but it was still all totally worth it for that smile. 

The following days passed in total confusion, Mel was actually pissed off that I fell asleep on my first night and it meant I didn't get off to a great start. I wasn't told anything really and constantly had to ask questions, however Mel would always let me know where she was going to be or what the plans over the days would be. I could go on and list a dozen things that went wrong with me nannying for Mel. All I can say is it was partly a lack of direction which would lead to talks which i appreciated and things would get better once I finally knew what I was doing. Mel had never had a nanny before so I guess it was all new to her, she really appreciated the things I was doing though and made that clear which made me happy. a really big issue was still food. The cost of petrol to get to charters towers is simply too much to make frequent visits to shop so most people would visit once a month. There was a small general store and a van that would deliver groceries at a more expensive cost once a week so I would have to eat less because I was eating her out of house and home. I felt awful and decided to cut portions down and fill up on peanut butter from the general store. 

If Greenvale taught me anything it was community. Everyone was there for one another and I met some amazing, kind hearted, charitable locals. Mel included, raised money for a woman in Greenvale who went through a really hard time with an illness and the community got involved and contributed which is what every community should be like eh? Greenvale will always stand out to me for that one reason. it's also the reason Mel decided to settle there, perhaps she needed the security like I did and I appreciated her taking me in when I was stuck in a rut and appreciated I got to see Greenvale. The simple thing like not having phone signal, well, that was a blessing, everyone at the pub was talking, nobody would sit there on their phones, memory's were shared, story's and jokes, it was all just an amazing experience. I got to go fishing for the very first time with all the kids and the locals, Scott and Mel included and 4 backpackers Elliot, matt, Zoe and Anna in a beautiful cattle river. Us girls all had one thing in common other than the ambition to see the world and that was photography. We just got along really well. Anna and Zoe were also nannying and like mums, we found we spoke about the kids a lot which was really nice and funny at the same time. 

I felt better to know that Matt and Elliot, like me hadn't really done the typical - come to Australia, do the east coast, do all of the touristy things, see all of the attractions and beaches etc. They had an amazing time never the less. You cant really compare your time to anybody else's, you make your own journey, your own experiences, some say sydney is amazing and they lived there for months, others say once you've  seen  the opera house and the bridge thats it. it just depends on your own company and your own experience. the guys, looking for work, saw an ad on gumtree to be extras which they applied for, which had a brief description of what the roll would entail but no idea what they would be extras in. it turned out the be a film staring Angelina Jolie, which they were paid really well for and for a number of weeks they got to live on an island where all food and stay was provided, so although they didn't scuba dive or snorkel in the great barrier reef, for example (on the top of my bucket list anyway) they still had an amazing time and had something they would talk about for years. They wish to come back another year and save more money to do the things they missed out on which was my plan also, unless I managed to save enough some money in the future and do it all before I came home (however I was currently spending half the money Mel gave me on food)