A Bloody Hot Christmas

Hello Hello, Here I am still alive, not eaten by sharks or crocodills no no. very happy and alive.
Just have fun with reading. It was the first part of my travel the first 3 weeks. It was my first adventure and now I am a couple adventures further. That I will upload soon as possible.

So Candy picked me up and she was a bit surprised. ‘’you are dark?’’ Yess I am totally natural. I thought a blond tall woman was coming that is how they look in Iceland? I didn’t say much. Yess in Iceland women are tall and mostly blond, so they are in the Netherlands….and maybe I don’t totally fit the image of both country’s I am from one or the other.

She started to talk and talk and talk. She talked like she was a news reader. My g*d the people here talk so fast!! I couldn’t catch up. I think I felt a bit French and Spanish when they enter a English speaking country for the first time. My first impression of her was that she was a very passionate woman who knew a lot about horses. With her voice on the back I looked outside the window. Pouring rain, normal in tropical weather but it was something new. In the same time we drove into the hills, I saw so many tree’s, so many different kind of flowers. Everything was beautiful. After 2 years of greyness I may be forgot how colours look like.

I saw European tree’s, I saw palm tree’s, I saw kind of African looking tree’s and the same with the flowers. After a couple of days I really felt, that Australia is the country where all the continents are coming together. Parts of America, Europe, Africa with a Azian touch. ….Overwhelm by all the things that I saw on the small 30 min drive

There we were at my new place, I was planning to stay here for a while. I met Sam and Anna the two children of Candy. I saw the two little bit strange dogs, coco and molly. Then outside there were 6 horses. All I wanted for the last weeks was being with horses. Stop thinking, stop talking, just be with horses, work hard, play hard. The horse world makes me forget the rest of the world, makes me stop thinking. It makes feel every single vain in my body, it makes me calm so I was very excited.
I met the six horses, but it was slightly different than I expected.

There was Charlie and Minty. Charlie a fresh horse, normal nothing special, Candy told me he could be a bit a pain in the ass but he didn’t seem the be like that from the ground. Minty, the old, sick, cranky lady.
Then there was Benji and Romy an active love couple. Good horses. Candy told me they were to active and wild.
Then there was Johnny , the small active little stobbering friendly Johnny.
Last but not least my favourite, Cardy. Big horse, a bit older but still in shape. Calm but seem to be horse not for everyone. Candy told me he was not the most nices one. Some how I connect with this kind of horses.
They were nice horses but it turned out they all kind of passed their best time. So the work hard play hard was a wish that at the end not really came true. People make mistakes, mine was to have an expectation when I arrived. I was hoping to learn, to improve, to ride and my main reason was the natural horsemanship. Honestly my time was great, but not because of that, so what did I had?

Slowly the rain was fainting away for that day and a French girl came out of her little cave. Claire was her name. ‘’I am woofing here as well’’ She had her own little place outside the house and she came a few days before me. Basiclly from the first moment on we clicked. Most people know me and French people is not the best combination, but somehow me and Claire get along. ( I still have mine opinion and it didn’t change much) But if Claire is being in her French mood I laugh about it or I tell ‘’He frenchy drop it!’’

Day 3 came, feeling a bit annoyed, bored and not comfortable. The days started early. Easy work. Feed the horses, move them, fill up the water, clean the places, have breakfast, do the dogs and break time……then we needed to do something in the house, have a break again, go to the beach, do the horses, clean up after the family and done. Well that was not how I wanted to fill my days. Australia, the country where everyone wants to be, I don’t want to spill time with sitting inside, having breaks and doing nothing. Australia the place to meet people, to connect to have the time of your life, to laugh and cry your ass off. So far it was non of that and….Me, Ellen, almost 27, lots of working experience, for almost 7 years living on my own, being abroad for a while, I don’t need a new extra mom, I love mine with whole my heart but I don’t need a new mom telling me what to do, where to go etc…..
What happened then? ‘’Girls, Girls we need to talk’’ Claire and me looking at each other thinking the same thing. Okay in this crazy world there are many different kind of people. Sensitive people, angry people, cranky people, rough people, positive people go on and on. Candy was the sensitive rough kind of person. She just started to talk about her feelings how she wanted to have us working. My ears didn’t really heard, I am good in blocking things that doesn’t really make sense and then I just start my famous most favourite sentence ‘’I do understand how you feeling and I can totally see where your coming from but…..’’ I knew, be carefull with the but…..and yes her answer was ‘’It’s my way or the highway’’ conversation done. I was surprised cause I had been very polite in my part of the conversation, but she just went over it…We were left behind being a bit in a shock.

From there on the high way was only going up. We got our way in doing the horses, using our time smart, I fixed bikes so that we could have some freedom. Because mama’s wings were sometimes a bit too much. She drove us to many beautiful places. Byron is famous because of the beach but there is a small secret. Loving nature secrets. Behind the beach there is small lake…no not just a lake….a tea tree lake. Bloody red water, the smell of an organic oil shop and peace. Wauuuw it was beautiful, great and really something special.
We had our free time moments in Byron. Hippies everywhere, and I fell in love with the hippie atmosphere. Of course with having the Icelandic attitude of ‘’no problem’’ I didn’t expect not to fall in love. A lot of things were aloud and you had the feeling of freedom all around you. One evening we went out, girl time. Kind of a new experience after living with men. Having a couple of drinks, be relax, laugh and eat. On the way back there were so many small events going on the most impressive was a man with a beautiful voice playing guitar and people just started to dance on the street. This was life, this was the start of something new….

Working after 9 days we finally were allowed to jump on a horse. Happy as a child! I was just walking in circles not doing anything special but for that moment it was good enough. From that moment on we could ‘’work the horses out’’ we could groom them, we had some walks in the macadamia (nuts) forest, and the new horse duke had some health problems and we could doctor him. That was all a lot of fun. If it was challenging? Did I learn something new? No not really. I am not a dressage rider any more so going back to there was very hard anyway. In my horse riding career I always heard that I sit very nice. But the expert lady told me I was not sitting right. No no, I should put my legs more up, you know the style that you have your knees under your kin and my arms….well let’s say I could touch the ears of the horse with my fingers if she wanted me to sit, like she wanted me to. I did it, cause it was her way of the high way, but at the end of the day I have my own believes about horse riding.

Slowly we were going toward Christmas. We just lived our easy lives and accepted everything for the way it was. Some days our job was just to take the horses for a walk. Well that was nice. I was doing woofing, which means I worked for her and she gave me food and accommodation. During our e-mail contact she asked me if I wanted to stay for Christmas. Of course I said yes. A couple days before Christmas she asked me if I could pay her money for Christmas. I was amazed, shocked and again I knew that saying what I was thinking wouldn’t work out in the best way. So my answer after a small one way discussion, I told her ‘’I would think about it’’ she asked for 50$ and I simply didn’t agree!!!! This was another time she was driving me NUTS. I run into Claire’s little castle and told her ‘’I need to get out of here, I have enough!!!’’ New years I don’t want to celebrate here. I can’t drink, can’t go anyway, can’t be myself. I have enough, I am walking on the top of my toes! Claire agreed we needed to get the h*ll out of there.

During my stay in Iceland I met a family. I was helping them all week with planning trips, solving their ‘’problems’’ etc. At the end of the week Linda (the mother) told me, if you ever will be in Australia, then let us know. I wrote Linda an e-mail that I was planning to go to Melbourne, that I was looking for a place to stay and some work. I just asked for tips etc etc. A couple days later I got an reply 1 sentence: ‘’You can stay over here with your friend if you want, love Linda’’
I couldn’t believe it. We booked our ticket and had something to look forward to.
Christmas came. What and experience was that! Somehow the lady of the house was slowly defrosting and we started to share story’. Very slowly the atmosphere changed. We helped were ever we could and started to do things our self as well. Me and Claire decided to do some simply Christmas shopping. Very simple. We went into the shopping centre. ( I don’t like shopping centres, I think it is one of the less social areas in the world, they are cold, they stink, there are to many people running for…yeah for what? Spending money and have silly conversations) No a shopping centre is for me not the place to be. Yes I studied fashion, but that doesn’t say anything about this. Anyway back to our shopping we latterly run into 2 stores and were done. Then we went to the liqueur store and this was like we were teenagers buying illegal alcohol. We bought 4 bottle of wine in total. With our hearts in our (keels) we walked back to the car were she was waiting for us. ‘’oooww you bought some wine, that is very nice, good on you ladies’’ I thought I was speaking to a new person. Did she leave her angry face behind? What about her mother attitude? Did we loose her? Can we then start drinking now? Of course we kept quiet.

Christmas night is in Australia not really something big. We went to a choir a very special place. Rich people, fancy place, champagne and ‘’special’’ food (so big as your pink, so small you couldn’t even taste it) but… what did made is special? The normal people, the hippies, and the few aboriginals living there, being connected with the nature we have around us. They started to sing the songs. Many of them I heard now in Dutch, German, Spanish, Iceland and now in English, no hearing them in English is not that special, but you know what…Australian English a just a slightly bit different then what we learn at school :D
Christmas was special and different. Very strange as well. I hear you thinking ‘’being without friends or family” no that was not the case, cause in some way I start to get used to be without them.

First of all the Christmas tree. You can imagine in a country like this it is slighty warm for the real Christmas tree that we all know. So you just put some branches in a vase decorate it with some silly things and you are done. It looks a bit like the eastern ‘’tree’’ We all sing about Rudolf the red nose render, let it snow, in the middle of a winter night etc….uumm well it was 45 degrees, no Rudolf, no let it snow, and winter nights? No no no!!! So the first day of Christmas we first opened the presents. Yess Santa also comes ALL the way to Australia, to bring me some presents that was very nice. Some surfer shorts, some nuts, and some smelly thingy to put in your bag. Yes while you are traveling, and you have for a while your clothes in your bag it will get a funny smell. This was the perfect solution so I was happy.
Then the most strangest part of the day. We went all to the beach. No snow walk, no snowball fight, no hot chocolate. No…a white beach, blue sea, sandy hair, sunscreen and bottle of water, that was my Christmas but it was special. I looked up in the sky and thought about all the other Christmases that I had in aaalll the years before. I never could have imagine to be in a place like this with Christmas. I was thinking about my family, what they would do. I started smiling thinking about the (little bit loud) conversations we would have. Of course I was wondering when I would celebrate Christmas with them again. It is also very normal to think about the once that you lost during Christmas, that is what I did as well. But Christmas at a white beach with the blue sea, in my free time being surrounded by horses….brought me somehow closer…
In the evening we made a place outside ready for dinner. We put a tent, tables, Christmas lights and we were ready for Christmas dinner. Sitting outside, in your summer clothes, looking at the stars, with candles and Christmas light was very very special. I went to sleep with a smile on my face. I was working on a dream.

The second day of Christmas called boxing day was nothing very special. Just finishing the food, slowly clean up. Etc. Me and Claire started to be very very excited to go to Melbourne. A couple days after Christmas it was time..
Bye bye, typical funny family, time for a new adventure,

Melbourne it is…