Relaxing in Ecuador was pleasant, but we were antsy to be on the move and decided a long ocean passage to Puerto Montt, Chile might be an interesting way to bide our time till the optimal season for our Pacific crossing.
Read MoreToday we are looking back to a visit to a farm in Waroona, Australia. We met Laurie and John at our Just A Little Further presentation the other night at the Club and sat next to them at dinner that same evening. Laurie is an American who fell in love with Australia when she visited during her university years more than 50 years ago and subsequently emigrated, married John and raised her family here. John is a native South Australian whose family has farmed and raised cattle for export for generations. When they invited us out to their farm in Waroona, we couldn't believe our luck and jumped at the chance.
We took the 35-minute scenic route to the pleasant little town of Waroona (population ~2,000). Laurie remembers a time when the roads were all dirt and hand-dug irrigation ditches for watering the fields were the norm. She took us to the top of the Waroona Dam which supplies water for the farm, which now uses huge pieces of irrigation equipment. Laurie's knowledge of the area made all the difference. She's authored a book about the area, in fact, entitled Drakesbrook Days and Waroona Years: An Illustrated History of Waroona Shire.
Their 2,000 acre farm is only one of three family farms in the area. Additionally, they lease over 3 million acres of government grazing lands in the Western Australia outback as cattle stations. The trek out to their stations, where the bulk of their beef cattle are kept, is an arduous 16+ hours over rough 4-wheel drive roads. Laurie showed us a panoramic picture taken from a few years back. John explained that the horses and camels originally used to muster (round-up) the cattle have been replaced by 4-wheel drive vehicles and helicopters.
Laurie and John still live in the family homestead which has been added onto over the years. The first section of wooden clapboard was built in the late 1890's with a brick addition added in the 1920's. An enclosed breezeway connects the two and serves as a place for morning tea. A picket fence encloses the front yard where roses were still in bloom. A stately old Moreton Bay fig tree shades the yard. A major renovation is planned soon which will upgrade the house using modern materials including the addition of central heating.
When we arrived, all hands were involved in “drafting”, the process of weighing and sorting the cattle, in this case heifers, which were bound for Israel as live export. The cattle are primarily Shorthorns with an occasional cream-colored Australian Droughtmaster in the mix.
Closer to the house, we spotted four little calves frolicking around in a corral. These little guys were orphans and being raised by hand. I asked about feeding them and Laurie said it was done by a Calf-eteria, a system of feeding the calves when the mother was not around. Clever name, huh? There was also a lone alpaca in the corral, recently shorn … not sure how he got on with the calves, but it didn't seem to be a problem.
It's not that David and I have never been on farms before. My aunt and uncle owned a huge poultry farm and I spent many weeks every summer as a kid feeding chickens and collecting eggs. Another aunt and uncle owned milking cows and we spent lots of time in the barn and worked hard during haying season bringing in the harvest. David participated in a couple of trail drives on horseback in Colorado bringing cattle from the summer to winter grazing grounds. Certainly, however, visiting a farm in another country is a novelty and seeing how things are done and what things are called made for an interesting day and a significant change from being on Nine of Cups.
It's almost time to leave the Cocos and we still hadn't taken the ferry to the other side of the lagoon to visit West Island. It's the ex-pat Australian side of the atoll, the Admin Center, the larger supermarket AND the place we needed to visit to check out and get our clearance papers. We consulted the ferry schedule and there were no ferries from Direction Island until Thursday, so we dinghied over to Home Island, tied the dinghy securely to the long pier and planned to catch the ferry from there.
As it turned out the Federal Police were on Home Island for the day and we were able to check out there which was quite convenient. It was a quick, efficient, painless procedure to get our clearance papers for Rodrigues and our passports stamped. Plenty of time to still catch the 10:30 ferry to West Island. We met up with some German cruising friends and boarded the ferry for the 20 minute ride, bought our tickets for $2.50 each and enjoyed a very old Tom & Jerry cartoon en route.
I'm not sure what we expected West Island to be … the big smoke of the Cocos, I guess. We caught a mini-bus at the end of the jetty for a 7km ride into “town”. The supermarket took up a small portion of the Cocos Shop pre-fab facility … the other shops were closed. It didn't offer much more than the Shamrok market at Home Island. I bought a couple of onions, a cabbage and some apples … that was about it. We did see, however, “Bun Spice” which caught our attention. After a long passage, perhaps this might be considered an essential.
Though Wednesday was the big shopping day, nothing seemed open. We found the small Info Center and learned there were two places open for lunch … from 11:30 to 1pm only. We chose the more casual (and less expensive) Tropika which was a basic burger and chips kind of place with a lovely covered porch out back facing the ocean. The views were great. The food was mediocre, but David's “cheeseburger in Paradise” was just what the doctor ordered.
Other than a few souvenir items at the Info Center, there was nothing to buy. We indulged in a Magnum ice cream as we checked out the Cocos airport. The golf club is right next to the airport and evidently in order to play through all nine holes, the golfers must play across the runway.
After looking at a few more pretty views, we settled down to wait 1-1/2 hours for the return bus to the ferry dock. We'd seen pretty much all we could see that was open and available here. Most of West Island seems to be dedicated to tourism … motels, guest houses, car and sports equipment rentals, tours. Quite the disappointment. We had expected a bit more. Home Island with its resident Malay population offers more “village charm”. But, heck, you couldn't visit the Cocos without at least making a trip to West Island to make sure you weren't missing anything.
We watched the ferry arriving just as we got off the bus. We bought our tix and had an uneventful ride back to Home Island. The dinghy was just as we'd left it. We clambered down from the jetty and headed back to Cups. We had lots to do to get ready for our departure.
Hi there and welcome to Just A Little Further!
We are David and Marcie Lynn and we've lived aboard our Liberty 458 cutter-rigged sailboat since 2000.
What began as an urge to travel slowly and economically at our own pace ended up an adventure of a lifetime.
Well, here we are ... nearly 90,000 miles under the keel, 5 continents, 5 Great Southern Capes, 36 countries and almost two decades later, still taking one passage at a time and going just a little further.
