Australia

The Australian Wildlife Conservancy owns a wildlife sanctuary about half way between Broken Hill and Wentworth in Western NSW. There, they are fighting on the front line of Wild Life conservation and are literally bringing critically endangered species back from the brink of extinction. We were lucky enough to work there for a month in October 2008. This was a tremendous privilege as we got the chance to work with endangered mammals.

We feel like we have been around the world a couple of times or maybe more after leaving Melbourne. We spent a lovely three days with Viv and her girls, Jessica and Olivia. It was an action packed few days one of which we had the girls for the whole day. Exhausting affair even with Olivia napping twice and Jessica almost able to amuse herself with her favourite toy (a trampoline spring in an ice-cream container called Captain Hook). Anyway, we had a lovely time chatting and catching up and marveling at how much the girls had grown.

After Puckapunyal it was off to Bec and Aly's new pad for the Grand Final. We stayed for six days re-acquainting ourselves with Canberra and more importantly the new Canberra Centre - awesome, love a big shopping centre. We had a great time hanging out with Bec and Aly and the cats. We even headed to RMC for old times sake.

After Canberra we had a night in Wagga with Peta and Bwett. We had a fantastic dinner avec magheuritas at Montezumas and then we 'got ourselves a convoy' to the Scotia turn off for the next day. After having a good chat to Peta and Bwett about our impending employment and the possibility of using scary power tools we felt much better about the job in general.

Our arrival at Scotia was hassle free as we set up our relatively luxurious accommodation. We have a whole corner of one of the buildings complete with massive kitchen / living area, bedroom, bathroom, sunroom and verandah. Fantastic!! Our first few days we spent cruising around with Tony who has worked here for a couple of years. We learnt a lot and realised that there were plenty of fences, compounds and gates and that we would get lost consistently over the next two days. The parts of Scotia that we are working in are called stage one and stage two. Stage one and two have been declared free of feral animals which was an enormous job. In these areas there are a number of endangered species being managed for release or for insurance. It is pretty cool. On our first few days here we went out with the ecologist and helped with bagging, checking and releasing woylies (a cute little hopping mammal) into stage two. We have also bee entrusted with feeding the bilbys and the bridled nailtail wallabies. The wallabies all wait around for feed time and they are just lovely. We have taken some good snaps of these little guys. Our main job over the last four days has been building pens for the wallabies - a few of them are getting relocated and the pens are for any potentially sick ones that get trapped. Hopefully they won't have to use our work of art at all!! The pens are almost finished but there has been dramas and blood, sweat and tears already. Adam did bang in a star picket upside down which is quite a big effort. Ian, who is sort of supervising us, really only comes up to laugh which is fine by us!

We did manage to get a trip into Mildura - or the Big Smoke as we now call it - to pick up a vehicle and some other stuff. Very exciting trip which also included ten minutes in Coles for a power shop.

So we have been pretty busy here working up to ten hours a day. At least we won't get bored! We also have four days off starting tomorrow which we will hopefully spend with Peta and Brett in Broken Hill. We will most definitely need a resupply of interesting food. The day our cashews ran out was a sad day indeed!!!!

Anyway, that's all from us for now. We are both well and still loving it up here!!

Well we are in our fourth week at Scotia and it has been quite a busy one!! We spent a lovely four days with Peta and Brett in Broken Hill relaxing and not doing any fencing whatsoever. It was a nice change. We visited Peta at School of the Air (just in time for morning tea as it turned out - nice one) and checked out the ultra modern studios and equipment. It was really fantastic and well worth the visit if you are in the area. They have tourist sessions but of course we got the private tour.

On return to Scotia it was all systems go with a news crew and fund donors arriving to watch the release of the rest of the Woylie (little hoppy mammal thingamys) population into stage two. It was all very exciting - hopefully some of you caught the story on Channel Ten National News . . . . We also had to finish off our wallaby pens in preparation for the release of most of the Bridled Nail Tail Wallabies into stage two. This was a huge program which required four all nighters in a row. A big team from Adelaide including the Head Vet from Adelaide Zoo arrived to do all of the vet checks and treatment of the sick animals. The rest of us were pretty much involved in the trapping, transporting and releasing of the wallabies. Adam and I also got a stint in the lab which was very interesting. It was an incredibly busy five days with many lessons learned. The first lesson learned was that our wallaby fences were not high enough. Two sick animals were placed in the first pen on night one and subsequently became the first escapees. This seemed quite amusing early on until we had to renovate and build a second storey. This took some imagination and a lot of scrounging but the end product looked pretty good and, shock horror, actually kept the wallabies in!!

Pulling wallabies out of traps proved to be a bit of a challenge. Surprisingly they don't like being in the traps and then getting dragged out by their tail and shoved into a bag head first isn't popular either. As a result everyone ended up with a few (and in some case - a lot of) scratches and for the boys the inability to produce children. All in a night's work I say!! Adam spent a lot of time trapping and I spent a lot of time releasing the little guys into various places at Scotia. The experiences we had are some of the best of our lives and once in a lifetime. We were hands on all the time and got to handle lots of the animals. The best part was releasing them. They emerge out of the bag like pouch babies and are happy to sit there while you pull their little front paws out to encourage them to venture out into their new world. Some needed more encouragement than others and some didn't make it which was a little heart breaking. Generally though we had a very high success rate. We also got to help with joeys that had been kicked out of the pouch as well as helping to put them back in. I also had the pleasure of sexing and measuring the pouch young in the lab which was amazing. On more than one occasion Adam and I had little joeys stuffed down our jumpers to keep them warm. It was an exhausting four nights and some tempers ran high at various times but apart from that it was fantastic. Plenty of personality clashes and some interesting stories to tell. . . . for another time perhaps. Anyway, we have attached some photos of our four nights - we hope they're not too boring.

Our time at Scotia is drawing to a close and we are looking at leaving on the 1st of November - and it will be with heavy hearts because we have really enjoyed our time here. We still have some fencing and so forth to do so we are going to be busy until the day we drive out of here. We are looking forward to a few days in Broken Hill with Peta, Brett and Annie which will be awesome.

Love to everyone

What a few weeks we have just had.

İ know we have been slack with the photos but İ promıse we will upload a heap soon.

We wish you a Merry Christmas.

The flight back was uneventful except for a burning desire (satisfied) to by Megs a new laptop in Dubai. We were picked up at the airport by Annie and taken straight to The Basin, for our date with Bacon, lots of Bacon. Breakfast over, we went our separate ways for a week.

I can’t explain how strange it was to be away from Meaghan, my best mate, for a week, after having spent every day, every night for nearly a year, away from home together. I missed her before we had even left the front driveway. Whenever we are apart even for a day İ am constantly reminded why she is my best mate. İ feel like İ should be explaining some huge secret or some overwhelming sense of connection but it is actually something very plain. Her constant companionship and consideration is what İ miss when she is not around.

It was so good to be back home though, we realised that it is actually easy to be away. The novelty doesn’t really wear off, on the road you are always meeting new people, in new places with new beer. Sure we had missed home but we had also been very busy. It wasn’t until we were home, doing nothing, just hanging out at home, that we realised just how much we miss it.

First date on the social calendar was a wedding of two of our best friends, Kate and Ossie. In 50 words or less this wedding went like this: Pole dancing on the Hens, Ferry sinks on the Bucks, A lovely ceremony (Adam starred as the Usher), beautiful reception (Megs starred as MC) and kicked out of the bridal suite at 330 am by Matron of Honour. A great night was had by all.

Then we spent a really relaxing few days in Tasmania with Megs parents which was really nice. Then Christmas week at home. For me it was the first home Christmas for years and it was great.

Then, all too soon, we were on the plane back to Istanbul, and our new jobs (uncomfirmed), new apartment (unconfirmed) and new suburb (unconfirmed).

"Get the scales"
"The kitchen ones?"
"Yep"
When looking at upgrading the trusty tent, weight and packed size were the major selling points... hence the scales. Didn't work so until the MSR tent arrives we won't know exactly how good the purchase was. This was the story of our lives... and so begins the epic...

When I think about packing up our lives and saying goodbye to all things familiar, I don't feel anxious at all, because I am going with Adam. He is pretty similar. It isn't the 'home is where the heart is' or having a 'soul mate' to share things with - it is having someone to blame when things go horribly wrong, and they will - that is the only certainty, for the next few years at least.

We had a great Christmas catching up with friends and family and of course going to the MCG for the Boxing Day Test and a One Day International.

We went to Broken Hill for a great New Years Eve (and a dodgy firework!!) with Peta and Brett and managed to be there for the Fifty Year Storm. We slept through the house flooding . . . haha!!

We even had a little party at Denmark st with our roomies (Jen and Stephen), Jon and Shivaun, and Eddie. The weather was ridiculously hot therefore requiring us to drink ridiculous amounts of beer. It was a great send off.