Waiting for shit to Happen

Our Cheeky Banner (made by the beautiful Susie) at Anahdale Park

Coming over the brow of a hill, down towards the junction after Yeppoon, we noticed the flashing headlights, the gesticulating, waving, smiling person behind the wheel of a monster 4x4, and guessed correctly it was Leah, who motioned us to follow her down the track and to the homestead. Kicking up dust we were outback fellas now; off the beaten track, in the scrub, out bush.
Making a turn at a house curiously coined by someone who took a very relaxed approach to nomenclature, named 'It'l do', and driving along a long track, we saw the huge fields containing the fury bottoms we would be keenly watching for the nest few days. (a ‘paddock’ they call them here, but that, to me, doesn’t do them justice. A ‘paddock’ is where animals have a little hay and a bit of a prance, maybe a chew, and a slight meander from fence-post to fence-post to scratch their arse. These paddocks are the size of Nova Scotia and an arse scratch on yonder eastern fence-post, will mean a three week yomp to far-flung western post to alieveate that itch the tail cant reach) and the scarcity of neighbours, the parched land and the wide open spaces. One thing Australia has a lot of is open space. It’s a phenomenal experience.
Driving along in the van, and you see it all the time but never get sick of it – “there’s some! and there’s some more! Look at the size of that one! that’s a wide open space if ever I saw one.”
“Where?”
“There! By that huge range of open space there”.
“Oh, yeah, a good one that one”.
I mean a lot! It must be good for you too, to be surrounded by all this openess and space, widespread for you to imagine whatever you want about the world. Coming up the driveway, we were met by the whole family, who had come to meet “The Nudists” as we found out later we were being called. We said hello to everyone and were ushered to the big family table outside (everyone in Queensland eats outside. It’s a wonderful way to have a meal. Sit, relax, eat, drink, take in the view, the open space again, and if the dog farts, who cares?) where we made proper acquaintance with everyone, as we ate, drank and made merry. It took us about twenty five seconds to feel at home enough to be laughing like idiots and enjoying ourselves thoroughly.Leah introduced the family to us. To her daughters Charlotte and Anne, her sons, David, Davy, and Jonathan, to wwoofers Nathan and Emily, to the five retrievers, and five cats, pointing to the alpacas and llamas in the (über) paddock. Shortly after we started to eat, David, the husband and father , came home, from a day out at the Golf Club, one of two days from the year he gets to go out and get absolutely shitfaced. He had us all in stitches, laughing until beer nearly came out of Anne’s nose. He gave us some travel advice gleaned from his eldest daughter Anne (as much as she tried to quieten him pleading ‘dad!”) telling us that a left in Paris will more than likely see us end up in somewhere France. However, were we to meander a hop-skip-and-a-jump up and right a bit, then we might find the trip to Norway could get confusing, especially if we didn’t happen to know in advance which of the Eight Norwegian Countries we happened to want to see. Did we know there were eight of them? ‘Course not. But all’s not lost, because as Bloody Pommies we can always go and console ourselves down the local pub, the commonly found Sausage and Fox.
It was a pleasure to be in the presence of this large, extended family group, who are very comfortable in each others company, who enjoy making one another laugh, and love joking with each other and talking, making for a real family atmosphere, if you happen to be family or not.
We were then fed our first piss-up of the trip, inhaling beer after beer as they kept on coming, supplied by Leah’s son David (not that David, but the other one, and yet another son is called Davy – long story) with beer as soon as the empty stubbie hit the table-top. A seeming anathema to all honest-to-goodness Aussies, the empty stubbie bottle represents all that is wrong with the world. It seems to stand for bad manners and sobriety, for poor form and lack of breeding. Why would you want to sit there, in front of an empty bottle, you wierdo? So, as things should be in a perfect world, it is be shunned aside, removed from play, forgotten about, and never talked of ever again. Then, the glistening, dew-frosted freshun takes it’s place and the world is restored to order.

It really was a pleasure to participate in this. We may be doing this trip with the intention of raising money for Book Aid, but the process , as we’re finding out, involves us being invited into peoples lives, as part of their daily life for a small period of time. And the time we have there is precious to us, so, without any conscious decision on our behalf, we throw ourselves into the time we have, enjoying the people we meet as they present themselves. So this becomes our reality for the time being, living as the people hosting us live. To be able to jump in and be a part of someone else’s life, seeing how they live and what they do, gives us a privileged insight, and a new way of looking at things. The way different people live, the myriad ways there are of existing, the plethora of alternatives there are to find your niche, these are the most exciting, and interesting, things about the way we are traveling.

For example, Leah insisted on asking everyone to voice the best and worst things to happen to them that day. Starting from the youngest to the oldest; everyone spoke, the answers ranging from being short and sweet to little anecdotes about something that happened that day. Mundane stuff really, and who cares, but! here’s the thing; the fact that such trivialities are talked about fosters a trust, an intimacy, the confidence that talking about your highs and lows is not an issue, but normal, and this is so vital, so important to a healthy psyche, surely! This coupled with the wide open spaces, the ability to roam about, (or career around in a 4x4 Monster Truck – Jonathan) contributes to the understanding that the world has enough room to accommodate you and your wantings. It’s really that simple. Consider how many alternatives there are to the way life can be lived and then consider that you can most likely conjour up whatever you most desire.

After eating at a whole-hearty meal we headed to bed, our heads bubbling with the echos of boisterous laughter and good food happily swimming around in beer filled bellies. We had our beauty sleep in amongst the cats, dogs, birds, red-back spiders, alpacas, lamas, reunited brothers, sisters, friends, girlfriends of friends, monster trucks and other Wwoofers. We would need all the rest we could get to prepare for the poo collection and open day event.
In the morning the gates opened at ten sharp and the plaster cast bound Anne (A Grice family daughter of excellent moniker) manned the door with a donations jar. Charlotte (youngest daughter) sold bags of alpaca poo, an excellent garden fertilizer, and donated all her earnings to buy us some fuel. How wonderful! As Leah had advertised the open day and our arrival in the local paper, all the hard preparation work had been done before we even got there, and people started arriving promptly. This job of collecting alpaca poo pellets was one of the first chores we had been offered and we were looking forward to doing it as much as Kelly-Higgins Devine was of hearing about it.
Anne dons a silky soft alpaca tash
Families, couples, men, women, children, visitors and locals alike walked among the alpacas and lamas and to talk to us about our adventure so far and to feed the newly sheared, doe eyed animals. We met some great supporters of our goals, people who seemed to be interested in helping us out in their own various ways. The great thing about our quest is that everyone can get involved, everyone has something to offer. If it were not for those who bring their skill to us, then our journey wouldn’t be possible. For example, the great networking skills of Leah, making the Open Day possible, or a lady called Kerry, a journalist from Thailand, who sent the story up north ahead of us, using her connections in the newspaper business to bring attention to our cause. People brought non-perishable food stuffs to us, offered advice, came to find out about Book Aid, and most of all, to bring us good cheer and a hearty ‘Good on ya mate’.
Alpaca and alpaca poo facts
Their feet are padded and do no damage to the soil.
They nibble gently at native grasses and do no harm.
They make communal "poop piles," choosing favorite locations which they all use. this makes things easier for raking and collecting but difficult to distinguish whose poo is whose for samples.
They produce a sustainable luxury product: fiber! They even produce a useful by-product "Paca Beans", which make great fertiliser for free
They are smart and trainable and funny, each animal having its own very distinctive character.
They do not like being patted on the head, but don't mind their necks.
Alpacas do not have any top teeth, with nothing but a gummy pallet on top they can pull some great faces.
Alpaca poo does not smell!
They spit! I was unlucky enough to look at an alpaca's pint the wrong way and was given the paca spit shower. Puke! Charlotte, Glenis, Leah, Anne, David and the Cheeky Gang
The Open Day was a great success, with money in the bank for the charity and fuel in our tanks we were happy as a three Brit piggies in erm…alpaca poo, however, with all our talking, we hadn’t left ourselves with enough time to do our promised work. That special treat was kept for the another day.
The following afternoon, Gareth sat stagnant on a bucket, willing an alpaca with his eyes to poo. Every time the tail lifted in a teasing manner he would wait with anticipation for some sphincter action, for hours, to no avail . Having been told that dinner would not be served until he collected the sample Leah needed, he stated that he had never been so happy to see an animal defecate just before dinner and that he was over the moon that sometimes, thank God, 'Shit happens'.

Charlotte and her gekko
The Grice family are an example to us all in good family management and relationships. All three of us will take a little something special with us from the way this family interacted with each other to enrich our own family life. Thank you so much to the Grice family for showing us such a wonderful time and for all you have done for us. We will never forget you!
To visit the Grice family Alpaca Farm (their doors are always open to visitors) please visit http://www.anahdalepark.com.au/index.htm