My travels into the bush

At the beginning of February I had to travel for a few weeks for a project I was working on. The client is looking at ways of supporting people living in rural areas and thinking up new ways of providing them with rural industrial information past radio, newspaper, and simple websites. So, for three weeks I was traveling through three states (New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania). I was planning on going to South Australia but a colleague went instead and was planning on going up to Queensland but this was just after the massive flooding that wiped out large swaths of farmland. All in all, i spoke with wheat, canola, sheep, pig, oyster, and cherry tomato farmers. Financial planners, agronomists, forestry plantation advisers, and a stock and station agent. i went to fields, houses, greenhouses, vineyards, offices, packaging plants, and cattle auctions.

I went to towns called Moe, Devonport, Mt Gambier, Wagga Wagga, Geurie, Bathurst, Dubbo, and Tamworth. these are places that most folks here have heard of but hardly anyone has been to unless they have family out in the bush. The towns are regional hubs for a sprawling agricultural and mining industry that not only serves Australia but the insatiable China and India as well. Living on the land in Australia is tough. When it's not raining (10 year drought just ended) its flooding. Family farms are being sold to escape the crushing debt of years of failed crops and falling prices while large consolidated industrial farms are moving in chopping jobs and slowly killing some communities. It used to be that they could grow sheep and sell them at the market in town with little thought, but now everything from the price of the dollar to the food riots in Africa effect how much money they get that year. It was interesting to see, for folks who live in the boonies, how global of a perspective they must have. But every single person I spoke with loved their job and wouldn't have had it any other way. so there you go.


So, as for me, I had some time to for enjoyment along the way. (If you want to skip the stories and go straight to the pictures, they are here and here) I spent two separate days in Melbourne. The first I managed to spend walking around the city, had a look at the Crown Casino, which i distinctly remember from the last time I saw it 10 years ago and then stumbled onto a lovely wine bar and stumbled into a fascinating conversation with an Indian/Australian couple who had lived in NY and DC, and most recently Sydney. By the time I picked my head up to order food, the kitchen was closed. My second day in Melbourne (2 weeks later) I spent in the Yarra Valley wine tasting and visiting a delicious cheesery (all with free tastings of course!)




In Bathurst, my hotel was on the Mt Panorama Speedway. There is a full-on race track with straight-aways and a pit road and all which becomes public road when there are no races. My hotel happened to overlook the speedway and I took the truck out for a spin through the curves (at the speed limit of about 40mph). embarrassing videos are here and here.




 In Tamworth, I visited a cattle auction. For those of you who have never visited a cattle auction, and I'm assuming there are one or two, it is one of the smelliest and loudest places you can go. There are little cows being sold to fattners, bulls for breeding, heifers for nursing, meat, leather. Cows of all different kinds and colours. And the stockyard is a maze of swinging doors with cattle moving from truck to pen to truck herded on by men in jeans, cleanly pressed button-down shirts, cowboy hats and accompanying boots with large colourful batons for motivation. The agents stand on a walkway above the pens while the buyers (farmers, processors, feed lot owners) stand in a covered walkway between 2 rows of mooing, generally displeased bovines, cowboy boots on the rail, hats tipped back listening to the agent/auctioneer do his best impression of the micro-machine guy as they silently nod, wink, wave, or point to indicate they are willing to pay the dollar to kilo price being repeated and repeated by the agent. i have never stood so still. I'd be pretty embarrassed to have to submit a receipt to the company for 12 heifers because i sneezed! 

That leaves Tasmania. But I think I've written enough for now, so I will leave my 5 day jaunt across Tassie for next time.

Pictures from NSW and Victoria