Back in 'S´Traya'

From Brisbane Airport, we took the train to Ipswich, where Alicia picked us up. Coincidentally, it was her birthday, which we only found out after the flight was already booked, but she assured us that it was a wonderful birthday gift to see us again. Her daughter Erin, whom we first met as a sweet 14-year-old, looked even more polished and mature than during our last visit 14 months ago; she had also obtained her driver's license and her own car. Incredible how time flies!! Alicia and Chris recently separated amicably; for us, it wasn’t too much of a shock. During each visit after our first stay, it was almost daily that tensions flared, and tears were often shed. Alicia had already confided to us on the phone that she had lost interest in intimacy for a long time. They still live together in the house; Alicia sleeps in the guest room and is happy to be out in the field for half of the week. About 4 dogs are taken care of by whoever has time, as they have to be kept in two separate groups to avoid too much drama, and the same goes for the other animals. The chickens are no longer around, as the dachshunds sadly did them in. The fruit trees and native shrubs I had partly planted years ago are still there, thanks to the abundant rain this summer. So much so that there were widespread floods because, in Australia, a healthy medium for rainfall is quite rare. Alicia and Chris haven’t had much luck with backpackers in the last two years (lack of willingness/motivation), the girl they currently have will be the last one. Also, since there are no further projects planned for the property, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sold it once Ben finishes school. I think Alicia wants to move on as quickly as possible. She looks fitter than she has in recent years and seems more relaxed. The night temperatures didn’t make it easy for us in the hobby room on the humid upper floor, where we spent the first night. Afterward, we decided to set up the rooftop tent, through which a pleasant breeze blew at night, and Einstein-Johnsons’ rather special cat didn’t give us a near heart attack early in the morning. After a joint birthday BBQ with some family members we had met during our very first stay at Christmas 2019, we left the Johnsons' house. I had discovered quite an unusual animal-loving lady, whom we went to for our next woofing experience. Naturally, it was, yet again—typical Australia—not just around the corner but nearly a 7-hour drive south. But we had time; Matze’s planned university start isn’t until July, and one doesn’t want to just sit around twiddling their thumbs. We drove through the charming student town of Lismore, stayed overnight in a small private camp surrounded by wallabies and gigantic eucalyptus trees, and I could finally once again ride my bodyboard in the waves. As we headed inland from Port Macquarie to Elands, the weather made a 180-degree turn, and it rained almost non-stop all day. At times, the road our navigation suggested was unpaved, and it felt good to have an all-wheel-drive vehicle; it was quite evident that floods had washed parts of the road away. Effie and her two dogs welcomed us, and then we moved into our quarter with a view on the upper floor of the garage. There was only a mattress and no walls, practically right in the garage, but once we cranked down the garage door, it was pleasantly dark, and with night temperatures at a minimum of 18 degrees, we definitely wouldn’t freeze. Then we met Effie’s lively housemates—14 ferrets—who initially all looked cute and were sleeping (ferrets sleep about 20 hours of the day), but in the afternoon, the little creatures really became active. Besides the ferret that once lived with my dad, we had no previous experience with this animal species. We quickly found out that they were very keen on toes and fingers and loved to cause mischief. Because not all of them got along, Effie had different play areas in the house that she could separate with particleboard barricades and also had an outdoor enclosure. Tubes and cardboard boxes were scattered everywhere since ferrets like caves and dark corners. Because of this and due to their strong hunting instincts, they were used in Europe for rabbit hunting. Three rabbits live outside in an enclosure; Rob made an extreme effort while building it to make it snake-proof, as small animals of all kinds naturally attract “predators.” Just a few weeks earlier, Effie, who checks the outdoor enclosures every day, discovered a nearly 3-meter-long python in the ferret run, luckily before she brought the ferrets out. There have been deadly incidents in the past, unfortunately. Still, Rob and Effie have no prejudices or negative feelings towards snakes; they belong here. Effie has been vegan for over 15 years, but for the ferrets, she has to buy not only meat but even offal like chicken hearts, as offal contains various vitamins that ferrets need. They cannot digest plant parts! The same goes for the two cats, and for her two dogs, Effie cooks vegan food. Tessa, a Kelpie dog, was abused for breeding for the first 7 years of her life, receiving little human affection or exercise. That’s why she is now very clingy and wants to be around people all the time. She is non-aggressive towards all the other four-legged housemates, but when the ferrets quarrel among themselves, she barks, perhaps as a warning to the humans in the house or because she hopes to “settle things.” Sometimes Tessa has the urge to herd other animals, which leads to considerable confusion with the cats. Effie never leaves any of the animals unattended with the ferrets, especially because of their hyperactive and nippy nature. The somewhat rough-looking Buddy, on the other hand, is generally relaxed but likes to do his own thing and wanders the property, which Effie doesn’t like because she worries that he might injure a wallaby or another animal or himself. All her animals are rescues from bad housing or from people who simply “bit off more than they could chew,” which unfortunately is often the case with ferrets. They look like cuddly, easy animals, but they are not. In Queensland, the state where Brisbane is located, it is illegal to keep them, but it is not in New South Wales. Several of the ferrets come from people who unknowingly brought a ferret from another state to Queensland and then tried to get rid of it. If the government finds out, the animals are killed. There are only a few rescue stations for these very special animals, and Effie receives no support from the government. For that, she would need to find at least two more people who would register. Elands is a village with very widely spaced properties; some people know and like Effie and her work, but many think she’s a bit off. Vegan and 20 animals in the house… She was so grateful that we got along with the ferrets and weren’t “afraid” of them; the last two backpackers had massive problems with the nippiness of the little creatures and ran away hysterically—not a good idea when you don’t want to provoke the hunting instinct of the little predators... In the mornings, I usually helped Effie clean the cages and feed and rotate playtime for the ferrets; otherwise, I assisted her with her vegetable garden work. I also continued painting the walls in the garage, which she used as her artist studio. She wanted to open a studio soon to show and sell her artworks to tourists and other travelers on the weekends. That way, more people would know about the animal rescue and possibly donate. Effie didn’t like to take long drives to markets, especially since the ferrets had to be fed and let out at very regular times twice a day. She had more experience in handling the animals than her partner Rob, and although her 13-year-old stepson Zee wasn’t afraid of the ferrets, he was in classic teenage rebellion and only listened when he felt like it or when Rob spoke up. I loved the quiet environment and working with the bustling four-legged creatures, although it could be quite nerve-wracking when standing at the stove in the kitchen, while one of the ferrets busts through the barricade to hunt down any patch of bare skin. Therefore, I wore thick fluffy socks despite warm temperatures when the little rascals were out and about. Matze mowed and trimmed bushes and trees, took care of some repairs, and built a second outdoor run for the ferrets. In the evenings, we all ate together; Effie was a fantastic cook, and I learned some new tricks and recipes. On a beautiful sunny day, we went to a secret local swimming spot where one could slide down a cascade on a water mattress. I passed on that since I had previously hurt myself quite badly going down a seemingly harmless slide. Further up, in search of a slightly deeper pool for swimming, I spotted a Redbelly Blacksnake, which glided hurriedly but elegantly across the water to the other side. One of my personal highlights was creating a wall mosaic above the stove in Effie’s kitchen; I had no prior experience in that and found it incredibly enjoyable. Way too quickly, the two weeks were over; we had to start focusing on our flat-sharing plans and therefore needed to drive back to Brisbane. With heavy hearts, we bid farewell to the animal-loving family and the many furry housemates. As a memento of us, I painted a small artwork on the wall of our sleeping area upstairs; Effie had generally given me free rein to use her materials and beautify the wall. We first made a detour to Crowdy Bay, an unknown place. Numerous kangaroos frolicked at the camp, even some mothers with their nearly adult offspring. The weather could have been better, but we enjoyed the beautiful nature around us and the spectacular coastline. We also stopped in Bellingen, which we had accidentally visited for the first and only time during the folk festival weekend in 2019. Unfortunately, it rained almost continuously, and we couldn’t visit the brewery again this time because a party was taking place there, the entrance to which was a bit too expensive for us. We then found something nice to eat in a small restaurant next door, and there was also quite good live music. From Bellingen, we drove through the Dorrigo National Park, which is considered the leech capital of the state. We weren’t disappointed; the leech density was high, thanks to the persistently gloomy weather, and we encountered some people whose unwanted popularity was evidently hard for them to handle. Several times, I had to really stifle my laughter. Furthermore, Matze nearly stumbled over a little Brown Snake, which is rather atypical for such dense subtropical rainforest and weather conditions. We continued over Mount Hyland, along majestic eucalyptuses and beautiful viewpoints. The weather had calmed down, but we had the unpaved roads all to ourselves. Finally, we paid a visit to the Gold Coast, where we browsed through a few nice thrift stores and tried a new brewery. On March 1st, we started another woofing stay, this time less than an hour’s drive from Brisbane, in Highvale. Located not far from stunning waterfalls and hiking trails at the foot of a mountain range, Vanessa, Dave, and Tobi live in “Lofty Meadows.” Vanessa and Dave both worked for years as teachers at the local Steiner school—that’s what Australians call Waldorf schools. Afterward, Vanessa worked at a school for neurodivergent children until an unpleasant incident occurred; one of the students had become physically aggressive. Vanessa, who experienced an extremely traumatizing childhood full of violence, was severely impacted, and since then, she has been unemployed. As a teenager, she suffered a nasty knee injury and has had chronic pain and mild walking difficulties since. About a year ago, she ruined her other knee in a motorcycle accident. She could hardly walk for months and has had intense pain attacks repeatedly. There’s hope for a replacement, but the public waiting list is long, and a private procedure would cost around $30,000. A few months ago, Vanessa had to have her greatly enlarged thyroid removed and has since struggled with reduced vocal volume and dull pain in her throat. She was once in a band with Dave, he mostly played bass while she sang. Both have two children from previous relationships who are now standing on their own two feet. We lived in a cabin slightly above the house, where the girls previously had their rooms. As the walls were only constructed later, you could hear every sound from the adjacent room. In Tobi’s case, it was his extreme cough and the constant buzzing of his fan that ran all night—not just for warmth, but because he apparently needs the noise to fall asleep. I'm the complete opposite and love silence and deep darkness; I really can’t understand a longing for noise to fall asleep to. After a few nights, I managed somewhat to tune out the annoying noise. Tobi plays a lot of basketball and is 2.05 meters tall, which makes him tower over his already tall dad, Dave, by over 10 centimeters. We helped organize the hopelessly cluttered shed in the first days. Generally, there isn’t much covered storage space; the living area itself is an extended shed with a corrugated iron roof, and nearly half a meter of wall is missing in the bathroom, so all sorts of small creatures gather there at night, attracted by the light. In addition to the usual geckos and spiders brought in from Indonesia at all sizes, various pythons are not uncommon in the house. Vanessa has made this crystal clear on her Helpx profile since there have been backpackers in the past who were completely overwhelmed by so much closeness to nature. On the third day in the shed, we found a thick rolled-up python in the top shelf compartment; I left the things right next to her alone for now. It was only after two more days that the snake was gone, with only a large white poop leftover as evidence. She must have been busy digesting, as our bass-heavy music and clattering around didn't seem to bother her much. Just two rows further down, while clearing out a cardboard box, I discovered a Brown Tree Snake, which is also a non-venomous snake species. We carefully carried it to the edge of the forest, where it quickly vanished between the trees. We didn’t encounter either snake again, which is remarkable considering how open Vanessa and Dave's house is. Vanessa’s passion for recycling and creatively reusing old items is aided by two not too distant public “Treasury Islands,” where affluent locals regularly dump their unwanted household goods and various other items that other people can then take for free. After a few visits to these places, Vanessa infected me with the fever. Besides collecting various goods, which of course feeds the “Lofty Meadows Chaos” rather than minimizing it, Vanessa loves to cook and work in her garden. Matze and I helped her with the latter, as she was still struggling with mobility restrictions, and the property isn’t very level. For the first time, I learned how to create a hill-culture garden, and even though working with machetes, saws, and shovels was quite sweaty, I had a lot of fun. Within a few weeks, the planted seedlings shot up rapidly. Once, a woman in Brisbane needed help clearing her residential garden. Sean stopped by in the afternoon; we hadn’t seen him for almost 2 years and were thrilled. When Vanessa and Dave shortly came by to collect the cut grass as mulch for their garden, there was an even bigger surprise: Vanessa knew Sean and Lynnette. They had met at a party thrown by Sean and Lynnette’s German landlord and roommate, Michaela. How small Brisbane is! We met friends and neighbors of Vanessa and Dave, many of whom were quirky and alternative figures. Living on the property, in a small house on wheels, is Ben, who spends most of the week, however, with Michaela in Brisbane—the same German woman with whom Sean and Lynnette had once lived. Along with a few gardening jobs that we had gotten thanks to Vanessa, we looked for an apartment together with Shannen and Joshy. We organized a meeting with both and immediately had a good feeling. Shannen viewed most of the potential houses, as we were often busy in the mornings, and she had a pretty flexible laptop job. We looked at three houses as well, one of which we liked very much, and subsequently, we were a bit down when we received a rejection. On April 9th, I was busy pulling stubborn weeds from one of Vanessa’s overgrown flower beds when my phone rang. It was Shannen at the other end, extremely excited: We had been approved for a house! Her sister Regan had applied as well, as the house had 6 bedrooms, and the total rent was almost $1,000, which had drastically improved our chances. Still, we were quite lucky, considering how many people were currently searching for an apartment/house, Matze and I couldn’t provide proof of income, and Shannen had two dogs. Just 6 days later, we entered our new home. On the way from Highvale to the south, we picked up a free double bed from Shannen's friends, so we wouldn't have to sleep in the rooftop tent. The house felt enormous and somewhat intimidating; the only items that did not belong to the existing kitchen area and cabinets were a variety of board games. Except for us, no one slept in the house the first night; the others would wait until the weekend to move all their stuff. In the middle of the night, I was jolted awake by a loud noise; with a pounding heart, I ventured out of our room and turned on all the lights. The culprit turned out not to be a burglar, as I realized later; we had a horde of furious possums on our roof. In the coming days, we took care of acquiring a couch for the small living room at the back of the house and a refrigerator. When Regan then moved in with all her stuff on Saturday, we already had most of the needed furniture, including a washing machine and dryer, as she had previously lived with her partner in an apartment. She also brought her two cats with her, both of which were very shy and only allowed us to admire them from a safe distance for the first few weeks. On the last day of April, we finally gathered all the documents for the student visa (the deadline was May 1st); Matze had just managed to apply for an official English test in time because the one from 5 years ago wasn’t recognized. After hours of document collecting and a mental half marathon (among other things, the Australian government wanted to know on the second to last page of the online form the names and exact dates of all countries we had visited in the last 10 years), we had initially gotten the paperwork out of the way, now patience was needed. Some days a week, we traveled to Samford, where we gardened for people and then stayed overnight at Vanessa and Dave's. I offered to buy food myself or give her money, but she insisted on cooking for us every evening because we had done more work than necessary. Eventually, new backpackers arrived, a couple from France and a Japanese-South African couple. Initially, everyone seemed nice, although they all smoked quite a bit of weed, but over time, their behavior and work ethic worsened drastically. On May 11th, Vanessa DJed at a friend's birthday party, and she invited us. Most of the older crowd left by 10 PM, and thereafter, the spacious deck that served as a dance floor was rather empty. It certainly didn’t help that it rained; however, we still had fun and played pool with various friends of Vanessa and Dave. We were pretty sure we were the soberest people at the event, but we had already had a drink the night before, and there’s no need to do what everyone else is doing. We found the other four backpackers by the tents; they had brought a tin of Vanessa's grass brownies. I know Vanessa baked them two days earlier, carefully keeping all the questionable ingredients out of reach of her gluttonous dachshund, Martin. And the thought that her 17-year-old son might catch a whiff of it didn’t sit well with her either, so she brewed a strong coffee at 10 PM—though it later came out that he knew all about it. The other four helped themselves to the brownies; I had had unpleasant experiences with them in the past and gladly abstained, Matze also had no interest. Later, we were all the more relieved that we remained sober because the tent that had been set up for us held up against the rain not one bit. So, around 1 AM, we drove to Vanessa and Dave’s house and set up our rooftop tent there. No music or noisy people kept us from sleeping, and we felt refreshed the next morning for our gardening job at Susanne’s. When we returned to Vanessa’s in the evening, the atmosphere was very tense. The South African-Japanese backpacker couple had simply taken the brownies from Vanessa's car; Vanessa had offered beforehand that each of them could take one, but they didn’t put the box back in the car. So Vanessa only had a few brownies left, which she had put in her DJ bag for her friends and the birthday celebrant, for whom she had primarily baked them. Since the brownie thieves had crashed into bed stoned and were anything but helpful the next morning, Vanessa had to pack up most of the lighting and sound equipment herself. Additionally, Martin had a sort of seizure in the afternoon and had since become very weak on his feet, Dave had him wrapped in a blanket on his lap. Vanessa suspected that the gluttonous dachshund had somehow gotten into the tin with the brownies; Brett (the South African) claimed to have hidden the brownies safely, but it was more likely that he just left the box on the ground beside the van and Martin found it. No matter how small and frail that old dog may seem, he is extremely clever and athletic when it comes to getting food. I was unsure whether a marijuana poisoning was the real reason; Vanessa admitted that Martin hadn't been on his Anti-heartworm treatment for a while. Given that Martin was increasingly coughing, it could also be heartworms, and then that would be a definite death sentence at that stage. Also, the next day, Martin didn’t look any better, and we left Highvale with very mixed feelings. Vanessa was glad to be rid of the other backpackers; although it had started quite well with them, the stress of the last few days and their irresponsibility had worn her down mentally. No matter how demanding Martin could be with his extreme gluttony and tendency to always walk in front of one's feet, everyone liked the little rascal. Two days later, however, we got some good news: Martin was back to 100%, as greedy as ever. In my free time, I tried my hand at embroidery for the first time in my life and surprisingly found much joy and motivation—well, at least for about a week. On May 25th, there was another party with Vanessa as DJ, this time a 60th birthday for someone whose partner had been at the previous party and had liked Vanessa's style very much. Dave played with his seven-member ska band, and we were officially hired as helpers for setup and teardown. Alastair Mc Leod, a quite well-known TV and Michelin star chef, traveled in for the catering of the guests. He had his serving and preparation help with him, so we stood in the kitchen and chatted during our free minutes. We had already had a pretty full week, I had applied as a sales assistant at a vegan bakery a few days earlier and had already completed a trial shift. I really enjoyed it and would have loved to spend my officially permitted 25 hours there. Unfortunately, Shai, the owner, wanted an experienced barista for that position after all. I couldn’t provide that, I had quite a bit of à la carte and event restaurant experience, in every cafe where I had worked temporarily, there was a permanent barista, so I hadn’t been able to gain experience after my basic course. So it stayed that I worked at markets and alongside that we gardened; Matze had also been required to attend TAFE Acacia Ridge three days a week since July 8th. The temperatures finally climbed above the 20-degree mark, which made us very happy. I spent much of my free time in the garden, and on weekends, we explored our surroundings or hosted game nights at our place. At the end of July, Regan then moved out. For the general atmosphere in the house, this definitely had a positive effect, as there had frequently been tension between the two. Mainly because Marshall, one of Shannen's dogs, liked to sneak into Regan's bathroom to snack on cat litter—ugh. However, I found it a bit of a shame that the two cats moved with her; for the last few days, the usually extremely shy Oswald (a weird name for a female cat) had jumped up on the couch with me in the evenings, enthusiastically allowing me to pet her. Regan and her partner Daniel found an apartment on the north side. We were hired as moving helpers and therefore got to see it; when I laid eyes on the ugly pseudo-brick facade and the extremely low ceiling, I became aware of how tastefully and comfortably our house felt. A few days later, Matze brewed his first beer, a Märzen, with the equipment he had recently bought via Facebook Marketplace. It was meant as a birthday beer for me, I find it a lovely gift, homemade and original. The next day, we did a hike up Mermaid Mountain together with Pooven. I had actually been firmly convinced that this was uncharted territory, but then realized that the parking lot looked quite familiar. We had climbed the mountain with Sean in 2019! The paths rose steeply and dropped, and my fear of heights pushed my pulse even higher alongside the sheer exertion. At the summit, a merciless fresh west wind whipped at us; we still enjoyed our peak picnic and the view. Pooven had his camera with him, and we found a few good motives; unfortunately, we never caught sight of the Yellowtail Black Cockatoos (the Platypus of the parrot world) that we heard off and on nearby. We were almost back at the parking lot when I heard a loud rustling in the bushes next to us as is normal for most lizards. A monitor lizard—a large lizard—was climbing an extremely smooth eucalyptus tree at an astonishing speed. While we had frequently encountered these fairly impressive yet somewhat shy and only slightly venomous creatures while hiking in drier forests, it was Pooven's first encounter. We were thrilled to share that moment with him! The monitor lizard climbed quite high, but Pooven managed to snap some fantastic photos. The claws of the lizard looked extremely sharp and dangerous upon zooming in, drawing immediate parallels to the raptors from the last Jurassic Park movie!