SECOND HELPX – SHEPPARTON
CHARLIE LIVING ON THE (H)EDGE
In between leaving Castlemaine and going to our next HelpX, we went to Mildura for a few days and took a paddle steamer ride on the Mighty Murray. Apparently because there had been a lot of flooding many of the red gum trees had drowned and as you’ll see from the photo above were very eerie looking. We discovered another phrase ‘Fly in Fly out’ which is the name given to workers who work on remote mines and fly in to work and fly out to go home. We met a woman who had been a Fly in Fly out but was now retired. Because she had never been at home enough she had no family or friends to keep her there when she retired, so, she bought a campervan and was now travelling Australia, one of the large number of Grey Nomads roaming that vast continent. It gave us the notion to try a campervan, which you will learn about later. As you will see, Charlie wrote this part of our blog.
Our next HelpX was still in Victoria but in a rural suburb called Shepparton – or Shep, as our Aussie hosts, Marg and Kerry, affectionately referred to it. Their home was set in five acres of land which boasted beautiful gardens where weddings were held as they provided a wonderful backdrop for photographs. There was also an abundance of huge hedges on which I would spend most of my time. There wasn’t a hedge under 9’ tall and 5’ wide so this work required every micro inch of my 5’4” body being stretched. I think I’ve grown an inch since starting this job. I had my porridge every morning and set off under my mozzie net as I would be making a few beasties homeless with my petrol driven trimmer. Phew this was hard work, especially in the hot sun. However, after two weeks myself and Charlie Dimmock (aka Marion) had the gardens in pristine condition for a forthcoming wedding. While I was on the hedges, Marion was weeding, mowing on a tractor mower, and painting. It was while we were cleaning chairs for the forthcoming wedding that we saw one of Australia’s most deadly spiders – a red back. We also saw a couple of snakes and a couple of huge Huntsman spiders large enough to put a saddle on.
It wasn’t all work, of course, as Marg and Kerry included us in their social scene which included going to various festival events that were on at the time and to attend a wine tasting. Wine is a big thing in Australia, so we were guests at quite a few wine tastings during our travels. This allowed us to meet a lot of people, one of who was Bob the beekeeper who claimed to have Scottish ancestry and made me think of Matt McGinn’s famous Wee Effen Bee song. Visiting other places on our days off was also good fun. The best was Bendigo as there was a St Patrick’s Day parade and celebration when we arrived there.
Working as a Helpexer led to several friendships, the first of which were Pascal and Ines, a young French-Canadian couple who were also working on the homestead in Shepparton and it was while talking to them we realised the French don’t pronounce ‘h’ – hence the (h)edges referred to above. We met up with them several times during our travels in Australia and became friends. So much so that when we visited Montreal a couple of years later, they let us stay in their apartment.
We finished off our placement by making our hosts an Irish Stew after which I played guitar while we all sang a selection of Irish and Scottish songs to celebrate St Patrick’s day.
Next time third HelpX in Gladstone in the Flinders Ranges.
If you would like to receive my blog posts direct to your email inbox, click here and enter your email address where it says subscribe.
If you would like to see the books I’ve written, click here and it will take you to my Amazon page
MARION MACDONALD 