Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Animals. Show all posts

Tuesday 11 October 2016

New Zealand Adventures : 18. Sal - The Dairy Farmer and The Love of Eros...

Kia Ora!

And now, the end is near, and so I face, the final curtain.....but not yet...

Greetings from my rather bumper animal themed blog post from the 'Land of the Long White Cloud' - Aotearoa, my time is nearly up for my travels across the far away land of New Zealand. But I have some last experiences to share with you.....first, in this blog post....from a Calf Nursery on a NZ Dairy Farm.



Being a curious person, I wanted to experience working on a Dairy Farm and see how the industry is run.

**At the time recording this video, I was naively unaware of the fate of these calves. At first, we are led to believe they are abandoned by their mothers but in fact are taken from them a couple of days after birth to be sent to be slaughtered and grieving mothers are impregnated again to lactate milk which isn't intended for human consumption. I struggle to find the moral well being of this and after seeing the true nature of dairy industries, I have personally chosen to not contribute to the industry by consuming beef/veal or cows milk for both ethical and environmental reasons...

Thursday 4 December 2014

Release of my E-Book! The Show Must Go On - Being with an Australian Travelling Zoo

Hello World! 

Today on this cold winter December day here in the UK is my birthday so.... I thought it might be an opportune time and occasion to say please BUY MY FIRST E-BOOK 'The Show Must Go On - Being with an Australian Travelling Zoo' which was just one of my many far-fetched experiences during my travels Down Under.

An adaptation of my story was first published overseas in German last year for travel book 'Australien wie wir es sehen' - so I've now brought you the uncut, full length English version for you to enjoy! will download from Amazon to all KINDLE DEVICES, IPAD AND IPHONES around the world.






Wednesday 7 July 2010

Australia Adventures: 14. So I Ran Away With The Circus...




Well not really....

Howdy! I've been non stop on the Aussie road for a while but have had quite an adventure...After crashing in a memorable backpackers in Cairns, I headed down the coast to Townsville failing to pick up a lift from another traveller and got my self a volunteer job on an animal and amusement farm that supply animals for fairs and rides for carnivals. My job was to be up at the crack of dawn to feed the menagerie of hungry squawking farm animals, ducks, guinea pigs, chickens, cows, horses, you name it... even bottle feeding adorable baby goats! and then repeat the whole process again in the evening.


Taking care of the kids....

In return as Aussie's love their sports as I do, the friendly neighbours 'The Cullens' who had a cafĂ© next door to the farm took me to a game of 'Polo Cross' which is pretty much like lacrosse but played on horseback, super skilled riders and was very impressive. My host also took me to see a NFL Football Game between the Townsville Cowboys and Canberra Raiders which was quite an experience sitting around hard core Australian football supporters. A night out to see the horse show 'The Man From Snowy River' was quite a treat - you ever seen a horse dance?


Sporting Outings in Oz
                                              



Two weeks later, I was asked to come on the road with them and their other showman friends Adrian the Snake Man, a motorcycle stunt man and a Family Circus.

We did shows down the East coast stopping off at towns towards Mackay, setting up a petting zoo and inviting people to come feed and pet them, which has been quite an unique experience (especially working with children and animals) chasing escaped pigs in the showground and rounding up baby ducklings that were let out and find hanging out at the pizza stand is a few of the mishaps that comes with working with animals as well as cruising the mountains on the stunt mans motorcycle (wheelies! no not really) I feel extremely lucky to been allowed to sample this exclusive carnival lifestyle as an 'outsider' and a 'Pommie Sheila' one at that. I count my lucky stars everyday, this is something not every traveller will get to do....


A common sign on lavatory doors for us 'Ladies' ha 


























On to the next show....


My nights were spent on the bumper cars, wandering the magnetising showground full of glow and folly, taking photography for the circus and trying to learn the more easier circus tricks aswell as sleeping on the circus stage under the big top..with the show snakes!



Trying to master the art of circus




  


Behind the curtain at the circus....I helped out backstage




The life of a circus performer...


I'm making my way further down south of Queensland to Emerald to meet my friend at the end of the month, we have a job at a mandarin farm this month - in the meantime, my circuit as a 'show woman' has ended and I've pressed on to Airlie Beach after getting a nice lil bit of money for the shows.

I have my eye on a pirate ship that takes you out to the Whitsunday Islands so we'll see....hope you're all well.












Bye for now!












With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia 




Friday 9 April 2010

Australia Adventures: 8. Woofin' The Yurtfarm

'The core of ones spirit comes from new experiences'


G'day!

Which you believe its April already and have a track record of existing in the Land of Oz for 2 and a half months now and I'm still alive!

I've ended up in the tropics of Cairns, Far North Queensland and it is scorching hot!! I feel I can’t stand outside for too long as the heat is so overwhelming but hey better than the cold! I flew here after slumming it on the floor of Sydney airport, I felt homeless, nice insight into the world but 20 other people were doing it too. I pretty much got little sleep so I pretty much crashed out when I found this earthy backpackers in Cairns city. There has been an oil spill on the Great Barrier Reef which is not good for its well being. So finally having time to sit down and reminisce about the adventures.

The reason for my whereabouts up here in the Tropics I owe to two people I was rooming with in Sydney - with my funds rapidly depleting, one Australian girl was kind enough to give me a phone number of a Avocado farmer she knew near Cairns who might be harvesting soon. Without a doubt I called him up and he could give me a job in April.....which was two months away.....so I had to come up with a way to stall my spending till then. Word was on the 'backpacker scene' about a scheme called 'Willing Workers On Organic Farms' or 'WWOOFing' as its commonly known. This was an organisation (which is all over the world apparently) which acted kinda like a cultural exchange getting you off the tourist trail. You buy the book with a membership fee of $60 which lists all the farms in Australia who take volunteers to come help out on their farm and for 4 hours work you get food and board. No money spending from there on and boy my money was scarce and the farm life would be so novel for me, having not really been involved with a farm except the petting farms we would visit on school trips.

Flicking through the handy sized book (which I instantly warmed to being printed on recycled paper and with plant based ink), I first saw advertised in the Sydney area a number and brief description of a WWOOF farm called the ‘YurtFarm’ it was in a country town called Goulburn home of the giant 'Big Merino' statue, 3 hrs away from Sydney.
Now I actually have no real idea what a 'Yurt' was and I am one for novel, unfamiliar experiences so I went for it and gave them a call to ask if they needed any help. I was in luck, I could go in a few days and could easily catch a train straight there from the city. 


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So I did......

and getting off into the small country town, I felt a sigh of relief to be out of the honeypot trap of Sydney and into the calmness of this little town with its buildings echoing the scene of a Western film set. I couldn’t get in touch with the farmers and then realised I would be needing some Wellington Boots - if I was going to be immersing myself in farm life for a while I needed the look for it. So I walked nearby and found an agricultural kind of place which catered for the labouring man (or women) but when I asked for 'Wellies' I got a strange look and was told 'Nah you mean Gum Boots' and taken to the Gum Boot department...... and that's when I saw them, we were the perfect fit......no other footwear needed.
After being preached to about Jesus by this old guy who introduced himself as Tony, now equipped with my hard wearing 'Boots' I was lucky enough to hitchhike up to the farm which was about 20kms out of the town, through the rolling hills and dusty road sides. Really it was pretty isolated but this was the adventure of it. I knew this was the right place as I recognised the farmers name on the cute little letter box on the roadside next to a sign clearly stating 'Yurtfarm' so you didn't have to be a moron to work it out.


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I entered pushing the long wooden gate, closing it behind me of course remembering the Country Code - and was met by an old VW beetle with wooden figures dressed in clothes sticking out of it which sort of confused me and proceeded to walk with 'Boots' of course down the main path channeled by these glorious pink flowers flourishing in the summer bloom. A little down the path, I became surrounded by a tree house and psychedelic decorated trees and shed making it look like some peaceful hippy retreat with signs saying 'To the Meditation Garden'. It was so cute, just like you'd imagine a chocolate box idea of a proper farm, barn, tractor and horses...... 


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Ahhhh!!!!

Two English girls Josie and Sophie and a German boy Flo had arrived the day before to start work there and told me I could find the farmers partner Judit who was busy shearing sheep in the barn when I turned up with two daughter Ruby and Tess. The farm was abundant with art work from past Wwoofers and cultivated the idea of a primitive 'Back to Basics' ethos which really attracted me to the place with various signs saying 'No T.V' and 'Live Life'. I knew I was going to like it....

Mike the farmer came home from town and showed me his Yurt Village about 2Km away from the main farmhouse on his 1175 acre sized land which he's been building since the 80's. I was extremely impressed with his self made village with 13 different coloured Yurts looking very much like giant cupcakes dotted around a lake. Mike invited youth groups and visitors to come stay in the village to learn how to be self sufficient and adopt a more country 'back to basics' lifestyle, something that has faded in the digital age of the today's world. But these places still existed and I was enchanted by the womb like bubble of the farm like Peter Pan's NeverNever Land where you don't have to grow up and are free to release your spirit in the simplicity of the place



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In case you're wondering - a 'Yurt' is a wooden round house taken from the idea of the Mongolian Yurt tents and made into houses – they are WICKED everyone should have one. You can make them for any use, and they have open fires and are cheap to make. He got the idea to bring them to Australia when he was broke in the USA after the wool industry collapsed and was forced to close his Merino sheep farm. Mike discovered the Yurts at a self help centre in California and brought them to Australia as a new business in Goulburn and is pretty famous here for doing it, he was on the TV and had magazine interviews the lot.

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Mike proudly showed me around his village after a quick knock of Ping Pong in one of the Yurts and was astonished to find he had constructed a crazy golf course, a sports field, a workshop where he would teach kids to build mini boats, a flying fox, a bathroom and two toilets whos walls were adorned with inspirational messages from past visitors and the like.

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      Hand on heart - I absolutely loved the place and its ethics.

So life as a farmhand....its great fun and has given me the opportunity to do thing I'd never had the chance to do in life before. I'm kinda converting to a country girl. The great thing is that everyday was unpredictable and would wake up not knowing what we would be doing as everyday was never the same. We had our own WWOOF House which was a charming little cottage sharing it with the Huntsman Spider 'Spartacus' (you get used to them, they are harmless). We started work at 8:00am till 12:00pm where we squeezed in a 'Smoko' (a break), Mike getting out his guitar to sing us a few Aussie country songs 'Home Amongst the Gum Trees' and recite some Aussie poetry before the heat of the day crept up on us. I've actually wanted to do more than 4 hours because I had enjoyed it so much.

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Insy, winscy Huntmans Spider....they're harmless
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First glimspe of Boots and I....

I even learnt how to throw a boomerang which were primarily hunting tools by Aborigine huntsman....and it came back first time! haha

When kid camps came to the farm, we got stuck in helping out with them, learning how to herd sheep and light fires, taking care of the farm animals, picking fruit and just helping to entertain them even pretending to be a ghost in the forest ha! (now this is where my experience at USA summer camp came in handy)

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The type of work we had to do involved us really getting stuck in regardless of your background or where you came from, which was the Australian country way of being - gravelling the roads, making signs, picking grapes, stripping bark, collecting firewood and even milking the old cow Princess like a maid..ahhhh


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In our free time I would go running in the farmland, canoeing, golf, teaching the kids and Mike Tennis on his home made tennis court which is nice because we were also allowed to get involved in the families life as I would take Tess and Ruby to the country show, playing cricket, riding in the trucks with them and playing practical jokes. The sort of life I'd craved for such a long time. I was even around for Mike's 70th birthday so he had a big farm party from everyone he’s known for years rocking up to the farm.

My next blog will be about my night I spent in the Australian bush alone.....watch this space...















With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia 

Friday 29 January 2010

Australia Adventures: 4. Philip Island and First Encounters of the Aussie Animal kind...

For all those who know me well, know of my love for animals and I took a day out of Melbourne in search of some funky Aussie Animals on Phillip Island down the South Coast and East of Melbourne. This was a really cool trip to take out of the city for me to see the real country of Australia. We first stopped off at a Wildlife Sanctuary where I took the opportunity to hold a carpet python snake which tends to just hang on to you - he was a cool dude, snakes aren't slimy, they are really dry and scaly so that was a first time for me - especially holding a snake in Australia of all places. In the wildlife park, l went to see lots of iconic animals of Australia whistling at Dingoes and chirping at Emu's and Kookaburra birds who sound like they're laughing.


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In the park, we were allowed to walk in the outback area of 'Wallaby Walk' where you can just walk around with the Wallabies (they're like mini Kangeroos!) but they are sooooo cute and especially like you if you have some food around. What was really cool for me was when I came face to face with a KANGEROO - after the initial 'wow' factor and being slightly intimidated but it's HUGE size, I shook my bag of food and Mr. Roo came bouncing happily over to me - he was a cool dude - I love the Kangeroos. They have big long feet and long claws for all that bouncing around. I hope I can be around them more and learn about them, I find them fascinating.


Hello Mr Roo....my first encounter with Skippy

Hello Mr Roo....my first encounter with Skippy


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There's an Island next door called Churchill Island where I visited a farm to watch some good ole Aussie country Sheep Shearing and then bizzarely enough - the farmer Ken started to recite some poetry he had written for us! ahhhhh......after wiping the tears away from his moving poetry,


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we headed to the special Koala Conservation Centre where you can see the Koala's up in the tree tops of the 'Gum Trees' the native trees here in Australa. I can't begin to tell you how CUTE Koala's look in real life, pictures just don't do justice! all of them were sleeping so it is quite rare to see one awake because they sleep 20 hours a day because of their low energy diet of eucalyptus leaves. They also have massive bums for them to sit comfortably in trees...ahhh...i'm determined to hold one.

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Now what Australia is famous for - the beach! and with over 1,000 beaches fringing the shores of the continet, the first beach in Australia I visited was Cape Woolami, it hosts the Rip Curl Pro Surf Competition and shame it wasn't on when I turned up - would have been nice to see Kelly Slater in action. Plus there are sharks out there, kind of weird looking out onto a ocean knowing there are sharks patroling the deep waters. The sand is beautiful though with all those Surf Watch lifeguards in their iconic red and yellow outfits - so Aussie.

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From the brochure to entice you in....

The main appeal of heading down to Phillip Island for the night was to see one of the most unique acts of nature in Australia - 'The Penguin Parade'. Every night, little penguins about 30cms high, swim back to shore and emerge waddling up the beach to their burrows. After penguins are about a year old, they take to the sea alone to learn how to hunt swimming 15 - 20 kms a day (good fact ay) they come back a year later for new feathers. The experience was so cool as people gather on the beach with popcorn like they are watching a movie! but seriously when I saw them, my heart melted coz I've never seen anything sooooooooooooooo sweet in my life, with little penguins emerging from the sea and waddling towards you. You can't take photos because the flashes blind them and they'll be disorientated and really confused wandering around awwwwwww. The amount of how many will come is not always known. but the night I was there......800, no kidding!!!!! we had to check under the tour car incase any were hiding out there, as some of them waddle up to their burrows in the car park awwww!!!!!That's been my favourite day so far, besides going to the tennis of course......I've met alot of people already, but at the moment they are just coming in and out of my life, a travellers life is all about losing and gaining I guess. The hostel I'm in is cool, right on Flinders Street near the Yarra River and Batman Avenue (not named after the superhero!) it was only a matter of time before I inevitable lost my room key so I had to run down 4 flights of stairs and sing a song to them at reception to get another one! ha! already experiencing the Aussie sense of humour.

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Tomorrow, unfortunately there's no more room at the inn here in Melbourne for the tennis finals (Murray's in the final!!!!!) so armed with my boomerangs, I'm jumping on a train heading 3 hours north of Melbourne to a town on the Murray River (funny that) called Albury on route to the hub of Australia.....Sydney home of the 2000 Olympic Games.......... but Federer v. Tsonga tonight, it's gonna be a beauty!

See ya later!
















With Lonely Planet Travel Guide Australia