Olive Picking - The Secrets to Becoming a Fit and Happy Octogenarian

Henrietta and Donald MAcKenzie

Henrietta and Donald MacKenzie, run an olive farm just out of Esperance town. After reading our request for odd jobs for charity Henrieta offered us work picking olives. Sounds interesting I thought. I couldn't picture what an olive grove would look like and I was interested in learning more.



Smoko at the olive grove; well earned homemade muffins and flask coffee...Mmmmm

We landed around 8am in the morning ready to work but when we arrived it seemed the couple had been hard at work already for a couple of hours tending to their horse, dogs and laying out netting around the tree in preparation for our arrival. After brief introduction over tea we headed down to the grove at the bottom of their garden.



With nets on the ground around the olive trees, we were shown how to rake the olive from the branches, allowing them to drop and be caught by the net. Henrietta and Donald worked with us all day, with full vigour and energy. It’s not easy work, arms up in the air raking at a height all day but every time I thought of giving myself a break I would look over and see Donald with his new knees pushing the wheel barrow I could barely lift and notice Henrietta powering away, putting my weak stamina to shame.



Can you believe he has just had new knees and beaten cancer?

It was surprising enjoyable work. Satisfying….like popping bubble wrap all day the olives would pop of the branches and drop to the net with a satisfying thud.



At the end of the day we three were knackered. We sat at the kitchen table over a cup of tea but Henrietta and Donald, like Ever Ready Bunnies were out tending to the animals then preparing dinner.



Anne loves to rake olives, it's the pooping as they come off the branch

Over a delicious home cooked Shepard’s pie Donald told us stories of his et setting life living in Europe, Africa and finally Australia. The couple have led such an interesting live; climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, building three homes from scratch and trying out various farming trades.



Henrietta and Donald were such inspiring people. I’ve never met an octogenarian couple so full of vim and gusto, joi de vivre and a lust for life. Retirement for them meant being as active and as busy as ever, producing Olive Oil for sale as others their age complain about daytime TV but watch it all day just the same.



Of all the days on this trip I think I learned more in the twenty four hours with Henrietta and Donald than with anyone else. I have witnessed a lifestyle for elders that I hadn’t come across before up until this point. I hope I remember to model my years on that on this amazing couple as I reach my eighties. Donald has managed to beat cancer and Henrietta is an extremely active community member, volunteering with the pony club among other interests. With an incredible past shared together they are of sharp mind, are of great physical strength and have a great deal of love for each other. This is everything most of us wish to achieve in life.



Gareth, just about to gather the olives in the net

As we said our good byes Donald handed us a signed copy of his book. Over the next few days we each read it with much interest. What an amazing couple, a pleasure to meet, an honour to talk to and a joy to work with.



With more wages for Book Aid we headed for the dreaded Nullabor.
Read a cheeky bit more!

Fishing! We catch fish.....but alas, we don't get to eat them.

Brett Thorpe, a friend of Bruce's, took us out in his boat The Ant, the day before we left Esperance. Discovering we hadn't yet caught a fish while in Australia, he vowed to correct this anomaly, promising without doubt that we would have fish on hook in no time. A bold statement said with the conviction of an Aussie who knows fishing is Australia's biggest past time, but who is ignorant of our ability to maintain highly embarrassing fishing failures.



The ride out was great, holding on tight for fear of falling out we bounced around our seats. Once we stopped the engines to fish the boat started to take a gentle roll around the sea. Unfortunately, it was this gentle rolling that brought about an irresistible urge to sleep, a sign of sea sickness, and I slept off the final half of our fishing adventure in the cabin.



Bret Thorpe takes us fishing on The Ant

With modern equipment using sonar to locate shoals of fish we anchored up near the edge of a reef and dropped our pre baited lines in. Our first catch was hooked within seconds of our lines reaching the sea floor. We caught nannigai snapper, 'blackarse' bream, skippies, queen fish, swallow tails, and the boat pitched and rolled, and drifted, and all our previous, sad, pathetic and comedy attempts to fish, were forgotten, as Thorpie attached weights to lines, to hooks and not only actually used bait, but the proper stuff too, not just crusts of bread, and we caught fish, actually caught fish.





It took us just over half an hour to get to our fishing spot and we fished for just over three hours. The boys were able to relieve themselves over the side of the small boat easily, for me there was nowhere to go. I could hardly hang my bum over the side of the boat, and definitely not in such close proximity to four men who were taking up most of the available room on the deck. The bumpy ride home was painful, motoring against the wind and it took us about 90 minutes to get back. And I counted down the seconds in every one of those minutes.

A gull hovers around the boat waiting to steal our catch

Queen snapper














Laury catches a big cuttlefish



On our return to land we received a lesson in how to fillet a fish. We watched in awe as an enormous, colourful, pile of tropical fish were turned into a relatively tiny pile of neatly prepared fillets. As this was our final day in Esperance we had no time to actually eat any of the fish we caught and we couldn’t take it with us for lack of refrigeration. So, we only half fulfilled one of our dreams of catching a fish and eating it. We will simply have to go fishing again. Woo hoo!



Nannigai snapper



Laury is given a lesson by Bret on how to fillet different fish varieties







Gareth buries the fish in the garden



The happy three with their catches of the day, notice Laury has the biggest smile Read a cheeky bit more!

Travelling Australia without Money - Free Travel but Not Exactly a Working holiday

Picture from the Post Newspaper, Perth

We have been on the road for more than half a year now without spending a cent. We have travelled nearly 20,000kms around Australia and we have received the help of hundreds if not thousands of people.
Who would have thought it would have been possible? But living in the modern day world without the use of money is no breeze in the park and the trip is taking it's toll on us.

It isn't easy travelling in this manner, we have done everything and anything to earn money for Book Aid and some days are easier than others. Looking in the mirror we feel we have aged quickly during the last six months. The simplest of necessities becomes a trial to aquire, turning something which is usually a no brainer in life before the cheeky challenge into a stress filled challenge.

Below are some more links to people covering our story.

AS Cheeky As You Can’t team members Phil Carr, Anne Race and Gareth Owen slowed traffic last Friday as they performed odd-jobs in nothing but swimwear and a garbage bag to raise money for Book Aid International.

TRAFFIC literally came to a standstill on Esperance’s main street last Friday, as cars slowed down out of curiosity to watch three scantily clad people scrub the roundabout at the intersection of Andrew Street and The Esplanade.The three friends, Anne Race, Phil Carr and Gareth Owen, make up the As Cheeky As You Can’t fundraising team, currently travelling Australia to raise funds for Book Aid International.
To raise funds, the teams have been accepting odd jobs in the towns they have visited, however they quickly agreed that Esperance people had some of the oddest jobs on offer.

Nomads Tour for Charity
PHIL Carr, Gareth Owen and Anne Race don’t have a cent between them but they’ve managed to travel across Australia and, in the process, raise $20,000 for the charity Book Aid International.
The trio left their homes and jobs in the UK with little more than the clothes on their backs.
They rely on the generosity of those they meet for everything from their food and accommodation to phone cards and fuel.
Read more here in the Busselton - Dunsborough Mail



Bin There, Done That
There are all sorts of people travelling around Australia at any given time and it is this diversity of people that you meet that helps to make it such a special experience......Grey Nomads


Going all the way with 'cheeky' Oz challenge

BARE ESSENTIALS: Phil Carr, right, and pals Anne Race and Gareth Owen, relinquished all possessions except bin bags as they started their challenge

22,000 Italians watch a home made video of us at the begininning of our journey!!!!

See the link here

Below are some pictures that Mike Gilbert took of us filming in Perth









As lovely as the bin bag look is, we are looking forward to getting back into our own clothes at the end of our journey


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Esperance Brumbys (Wild horses) - Apex and Rotary Club together to help us and Book Aid

Glorious Esperance

Luke Winter, host of the morning show on Radio West invited us into the studio and as we waited for our spot (us media types have 'spots', not appearances, they are for the GP- general public) we were made aware of the pranking that was going on, the April Fools Day Grand Fooling. Luke was spreading the story going round that ACDC were coming to town, for one night only, only for a night, and that tickets were available from Ross Beckett at the Civic Centre, and to get on down there if you want to see the worlds greatest rock band performing in Esperance Civic Centre Music Hall.



Our 4X4 tracks on Cape le Grande beach

Many went, and when they found out it was an April Fool’s hoax a few found the joke in it, some were irate and didn't see the funny side at all, and we were on air just after Luke came clean, presumably our story was drowned out by swearing and cursing and slippers hurled at radios. How can the appearance of three idiots dressed in binbags and budgie smugglers compete with the rock-it-to-the-core get-on-down of ACDC?



We stop to admire the beautiful views

We also that day went to see Paul at Esperance Glass and he agreed to fix the window that was smashed by those drunken youths, which since Perth has been patched with cardboard, sticky-tape and a plastic bag flapping in the gap to give a raggle-taggle gypsy style to the van. He was amused by our story and so agreed to help out, just bring the van in early next morning and jobsagoodun bigfella.



We went into town and popped in to see Stuart Ward, at Bay Automotive, the Holden dealership in town, who we met the night before, and he introduced us to Bruce Kelman, his partner in the business. Between these two we were subsequently to find ourselves better looked after than Queen Elizabeth's prize corgis, if those corgis be pampered then plied with more alcohol than a herd of prize rhinoceroses could manage. More on that to come though.



Look at the angle this 4X4 is riding down a rock on! We were 'holdin on tight to the Jesus bars'.

Not only were we extremely looked after in terms of work to earn money for Book Aid but we were given the star treatment in private tours of the area. Barry Wroth, another Apexian and Laurie, our home host and resident policeman were our guides for the day. In Esperance there are two kinds of people; those with a 4x4 diesel powered truck, and those who want one. And as we thundered along the sand, riding the curve of coastline from Esperance Bay towards Cape La Grande and Frenchman's Peak I wanted to hurl Barry out of his seat and into the dunes aim seaward to take this badboy into Ultimate Off-Road Territory and tear up the motherlovin seafloor. Returning to sanity as my head bounced off the roof of the car, I mentally apologised to Barry as we rebounded over yet another compacted-solid drift of sand ("oops, didn't see that one coming", said Barry, repeatedly, again and again).



Laury runs into the cool clear waters at Cape le Grande





View from the top of the rock we climbed in the 4X4s









Slowing only momentarily along the 24 kilometre stretch to observe some Brumbies (wild horses) we wasted no time in getting to Cape La Grande. But this sighting of two brumbies and their foal was, we later learned, an extremelyspecial event. For the past four year Laury, an equestrian finatic, has been hoping to sight them. We were extremely lucky to see such magnificent wild animals galloping along the beach.





Brumbies grazing in the sand dunes, Cape le Grande

The walk down was a swift one, and we careered from Cape la Grande towards Esperance Bay, along the sand again with as much head banging, jolting bounce as we had on the way ("oops, didn't even see that one coming", said Barry) and back to Laurie's, for a barbeque, some beers, and then more beers once Bruce turned up.



Later in the week, at Stuart's behest and Bruce's insistence we joined them for dinner at the Loose Goose Restaurant, then after the meal (Phil cut loosy-goosy and enjoyed the local favourite of a Lamb's Brain starter followed by a Pigs Nipples main course) we went to Sin City Niteclub, a by-invitation-only venue, a select few get to enjoy, where the chosen ones are plied with drink and forced to have fun. In Stuart's immortal phrase, "so let's get you lot fucking mashed".



Sin City; Stuart's play room



Before we got too lathered



The night gets messier



It's all Stuart's fault, he hides his horns well

Sin City is the upstairs games room in Stuart's home, replete with pinball machines and video game machines, a juke box, pool table and bar, we did what we were told and went drink-for-drink with the Stuart and Bruce, cut loose, and as everyone in turn fell, staggered, collapsed, danced around and with decreasing competence played pool and with increasing gusto sang along to the music, we got absolutely hammered, totally shitfaced and we all woke up with sore heads, inside and out, bruised temples , sore legs, red-eyed and feeling like a herd of wildebeest were rampaging through our heads, but all the better for it.



This photo and the following photos none of us can remember taking, they were all found on the following day, mementos of what happened after our memories failed us





Blurred, out of focus and underexposed pictures taken by who knows who but the carnage is noticable anyway

We were very well looked after in Esperance and the two day hangover that came after our night in Sin City was symbolic and apt. Stuart and Bruce had also collected supplies for us: food, clothing, beer, soft drinks, jerry cans, and we were overwhelmed by their generosity. From our visit to the Bay Rotary and Rotary clubs, we made more friends and more donations, helping out at the Relay for Life, serving brekkie, and receiving another $250 from Lee McKenna, Rotary President, and later fuel from the rascally lovable rogue Jock 'The Wrecker' Murray before we left.



The Rotary Club meeting

Staying with the Seatons was a lot of fun. With their three energetic children keeping us entertained there was never a dull moment.



Laury riding his horse



It was a truly amazing experience in Esperance, and that word is not here used lightly. From the scheming of Derek, to the generosity of Stuart and Bruce, to the charm of the Seaton's, and the warmth and gregariousness of everyone else, we had been treated to a real community's efforts to welcome us, and help us raise the money. That we had to strip down and smuggle-up to benefit from this overwhelming tide of positivity and munificence was the least we could do. Frostbite yer todger? In a heartbeat.





Rachel, one of the most energetic ladies we have met



Rowan



Sarah



Liam





We start work at 5am to help make 500 breakfasts for Relay for Life participants, well done to all those who participated



Phil with Rotary Club president, Lee






Brian and Paul of Brumbys Esperance donate bread for our Nullarbor trek

Read about us in Esperance local paper here Read a cheeky bit more!