Hi everyone,

It has been a few months since my last update. This because I've spent all this time in the same place. I have been working on a sheep farm, Brindley Park, in Merriwa, NSW. I will be leaving in a few days (1 April). I have been living in Merriwa as well for all this time in a house with my belgian housemate, and co worker, Wendy. It has been quite the 'Aussie experience', meaning that I haved lived in an Australian community and worked together with Aussies. It has given me a great insight in 'Australia' as a society. Living in a town in rural Australia is quite different from living in a town in 'rural' Belgium. Here you have one town and the neighbouring town is 50 ks (km) down the road. This makes that communities are still tight and everybody knows eachother (maybe not personal, but they know the person through someone else or just by sight). I felt in the beginning that Merriwa was like a town 'stuck in the seventies'. Lots of people have been born here, raised here and stayed here. It's their world. For me that was quite fascinating as I come from a place where these situations occured 40-50 years ago. I also came to the realization that it's probably like this everywhere where the population density is low. Belgium is more globalized, (rural) Australia is not.

Living in Merriwa also made me realize that I could live in this kind of place IF I had a way to get a more populated area quick. I like, no... love nature, but I'm too globalized. I need to be able to go places. Three months in Merriwa without leaving town a lot was sometimes quite a challenge. But, overall, I liked living there.

And about working at Brindley Park... I think I have felt every human emotion while working there. I have learnt a lot about myself as well. First of all, Brindley Park is a 'boys' farm. Except for Wendy there are no girls working there. And not just boys but 'rural boys'. I got along with everybody which doesn't mean I've never felt like a volcano ready to explode when I had to work with someone. But I guess that happens to everyone and everywhere. The things I loved most about my work was actually 'taking care' of the lambs at the feedlot. I've been told more than once I felt too much sympathy for the animals. But in my philosophy a 'happy' lamb that doesn't get stressed a lot will give the best meat. I wanted to do my work to the best of my ability. If I spilled some food when feeding the lambs I wanted to pick it up and put it in their trughs, if the feedlot looked like my bedroom I wanted to clean it up, if there was a dead lamb I wanted to remove it as quickly as possible out of the pen, ... The worst things that could happen was that, while handling the lambs, a lamb dropped dead because of too high stress levels. However, I realize everything has to go fast because there is so much to do. I am quite a perfectionist and I take a lot of pride in the work I do. I experienced that sometimes I couldn't do a job like I would like to do it (the best of my ability) and in times this made me feel frustrated. But there is always another side. Life is not perfect. My happiest moments were when I was working all day by myself at the feedlot and I could complete my jobs like I wanted to do them. 'And he looked at the feedlot and he say it was good'. What will I never forget? I will remember the time when one of the lambs got under the wheels of the bin behind my tractor (chaser bin), I will remember driving around with the chaser bin in the Ferguson (Fergy) tractor (my favourite tractor), I will remember the 'self-study' approach when it comes to operating vehicles (which is a good thing) and so much more!

The last 3 months have been awesome thanks to living in Merriwa, working at Brindley Park and one other factor. In my previous updates I have mentioned a few time a girl named 'Tiphaine'. To refresh your memory: Tiphaine is a girl I met during my conservation volunteers project in October in Auckland, New Zealand. We got along really well, but we would only spend a week together. But then we met again with New Years' Eve in Sydney. In January she started working in a town named Walgett, which is located 5-6 hours from Merriwa. During my 3 months in Merriwa she visited me 3 times, each time for 2-3 days. I went once to Walgett. The first visit took place on the weekend of my birthday where we discovered there had been feelings from both sides for quite some time. Long story short: We are a couple and I couldn't be happier! I have found my special someone! If you would like to know more we'll discuss it in private.

My next chapter will start on 1 April when I leave Merriwa on a bus to Dubbo where I will catch a bus to Walgett. There I will move in with 'my Tiftif', in 4 days, 3 hours and 5 minutes. I'm not counting.

I am ready for 3 months living and working in Walgett and then start travelling in July with Tiphaine and (in July) with Margaux, one of my best friends who will come to visit me! You rock my world!

I realize I am extremely lucky. I have lived for a year in Paraguay (2010-2011), I have spent an amazing 5 month internship in the Melia Salinas Hotel in Lanzarote, I got my bachelor degree in Hotel Management, I'm halfway realizing a life-long dream and I met Tiphaine. I coudn't ask for more!

Stay well and till my next update!

Thomas