We're camping, and pretty much roughing it, the army-surplus store's definition of a two man tent and mine differs greatly. We don't have the luxury of a powered site and scavenge electricity in the laundry/bathroom whenever we can. Mobile phones just don't seem to work in Gingin, there's a total lack of 
(a) mobile phone signals (especially vodafone).
(b) polite shop staff.
(c) regard for road safety
(d) understanding of normality

I've got plenty of stories associated with this place, but I think I'll drip-feed them to you...
A couple of days ago, a man turned up at the campsite, driving a battered Holden ute, plastered with Bundy Rum and novelty stickers. He heaved himself out of his vehicle and scratched his sizeable beer-gut, grunting and farting as loud as he could muster. He is a character from Deliverance. Sullen features and permanent 'you aint from these parts'  facial expressions abound. Anyway, he got out of his ute, sat on the bonnet, fixed his stare on the two girls who were camping next to us, and began picking at (and examining the produce) of his toes.... for close to an hour. After his supply of toe-cheese was exhausted he came over and attempted to start conversation with us.
"How's it?" says he
"Not too bad... how about yourself?" says I
"Work was bloody awful - they've got a new boss there"
"What do you do?"
"I treat skin"
"oh"
"Sheep skin mostly"
"ah"
"Yeah they take the skin off the sheep and cattle and give it too me"
"oh"
"It's not too difficult, probably the best job there"
"hmm" says I, desperately trying to think of an excuse to leave. But he won't stop talking at me.
"The abattoir where I work, killin' ain't bad, but I's reckon tanning is better"
"oh...yeah"
"tanning's what they used to call it, now it's just treating skin"
"oh" 
I looked around and noticed that everyone I was sitting with has just ran off to the toilet block, I raised my gaze from the cigarette I was staring at to look at him. I noticed that the singlet (vest) he wore was caked in some kind of grease, that he had cultured some form of elaborate comb-over to cover his beaming forehead and he was staring at me. The thought crossed my mind that he was wanting to turn me into a new sofa, or maybe a pair of shoes. When I stood up the guy stepped closer, and between fits of giggles said
"Those two girls there have stolen my pitch"
"Stolen your?"
"My pitch, my camping space"
"Oh"
"When I go off to work tomorrow"
"Yes??" After I said this he started making a noise like a chugging engine gng, ging, ging ging ging. I was papping myself, waiting for him to whip out a chainsaw or something.
"I'm going to rev my ute's engine, make sure they get woken up"

I made my excuses and made it to the toilet just in time.

We have since left that campsite.

E

It's coming into bush fire season here, and the fire danger rating today here is 'high'. There's a wrecking yard a few clicks west of here that's still on fire and has been for most of the day this picture on the other hand is a bush fire me and Cindy drove past a few weeks ago, on our way to Mandurah (a town an hour or so south of Perth). 
So today we've just been preparing ourselves for another bout of camping-this time we'll be making sure that we have plenty of water for when we get there, last time we drank about nine litres a day. Also we'll make sure to re-apply sun cream as often as we can, I never want to feel my ears peeling again. There's been something on the local news, they're complaining about travelers coming over and stealing work! The reason the work's there is because no one else wants to do it! I laughed my ass off when I saw that come on the TV. . If you go into any major town in England, odds are you'll see an Australian. It's interesting to be a minority - even if there are 100,000 Poms doing exactly the same thing every year. 
Talking of England, here's the downstairs toilet in the staff accommodation in Rugby. I took a hell of a risk taking this photo. This was definitely an emergency toilet, you wouldn't go near it if you could avoid it. Its a flattering photo too, I can't remember but I hope I just held the camera to the ground. Never again.
It seems to be my season for 'nevers' I've vowed never to work in a Walkabout bar again, never to take a coach any long distance, never spend a night in Heathrow's arrival lounge , and never ever work as a Melon farmer.
New years is on the way though and its nearly time to make a resolution. I should try and give up smoking or something but I don't think that would be a resolution, it would be more of a lie, especially seeing as I'm hoping to be in a pub at new years, and there's no way to quit smoking when there's beer around. I should aim for a resolution that I can achieve like:
- Stopping myself from saying sorry for things that aren't my fault, like when people walk right in front of you in shops and train stations.
-  Not eating fast food.
- Not Taking photos of toilets
I think I'll go for one of the above.

I

The view from the back garden at night.

Me and Cinds down at the beach at Freemantle. Honestly, this is what everyone down here wears to the beach.

A street in Freemantle - Look at those streets! It's all going off! If you look real closely you'll see a mystery man about to walk into a wall. I've just noticed that these photos all have a lean to the right. Dagnamit.

Perth Central

Another of Perth's skyline, taken from the south of Perth over the Swan River.

Nearly forgot, a blog entry just isn't complete without a picture of me looking somewhere else.

W

We were really excited about starting work, it didn't even register how hard the work was going to be. The only thing that we thought about were the pros: Owen was (and is) a nice guy, the farm looked impressive, and the stereotypical wildlife was the icing on the cake. So we went to sleep on our not-quite-fully inflated airbed, and froze ourselves to sleep.
At around 6.30am we defrosted ourselves in time to set off for work where we met Trevor.
Trevor is as hard as nails, chain-smokes cigarettes wherever he goes, a hardened farmer and another top bloke. We could kind of tell he thought we wouldn't last, but we were arrogantly determined to prove him wrong. We started packing and weeding some of the melons.

The first five-hundred or so wasn't too bad, you just squatted weeded and packed them in. But then after about four hours, your legs just seize, we could barely move. We were standing there and staring at the melons, and trying to force ourselves through the pain to kneel down. It was like I was trying to pull the weeds out of the ground with the power of my mind. The only way to get down to the plants was to force yourself to drop to the sand, and heave back up again. This pain only really kicked in during the hottest part of the day and hundreds of flies attached themselves to most irritating parts of your face. I had flies attached to my eyelids, crawling around my nose, scrabbling across my forehead and all the time a constant buzzing in my ears. I lasted two hours in a T-shirt, despite my practical headwear and generously applied mega-high factor sun cream, my skin cooked quickly. For the rest of the day I had to wear the one item of clothing I had with me that would cover my arms - a really warm winter hoodie. From a tiny crack of skin that was exposed momentarily on Cindy's back when she bent down, she got a stripe of sunburn. We'd already been warned to keep our necks covered to avoid sunburn. It wasn't even that hot! But then again as our mate Jules pointed out a while ago, you forget there's a huge void above Australia where there should be Ozone. 
There's also windburn to deal with, especially as the sandy soil gets whipped up and blasted in your face. After we'd done half a field, we hopped onto Trevor's quad and were driven off to another field -chased by the farms resident dogs. The sand gets into every pore! When I looked at myself in the mirror it looked like i'd wet my face and shoved it into a bowl of sugar.

After all this, we went back to the tent and somehow convinced ourselves that it would get easier, we went back the next day. Another day of the same, this time made easier by the addition of hoes to remove the weeds with. But the damage was done, half way through the third day we had to hand in our notice, we'd begun to crawl from plant to plant, and our legs were (and are) completely seized up. Big thanks to all those at the farm, they completely understood and didn't make it in anyway difficult for us to leave, sat down and had a good chat with Owen, and went on our way.

I can't believe how much we hurt now though, getting in and out of a chair is nearly impossible and we come close to tears if we have to pick  up something we've dropped on the floor. We'll rest up for a few days and try and find some more, less painful work.

At least we know what our limits are.

W