First job

First Job

“Here we are. In this special place. What are you gonna do here?”
"What show or song are we gonna get from you?"

Waterboys

We were never going to be this far North. A series of recommendations by friends new and old saw us rock up to Denham, Shark bay. Not a bad place to be after all. Every time we roll over the hill at the entrance of town the turquoise water of the bay just takes your breath away. Julie had rang up for a possible cleaning job going in Denham and scored an interview. It was a cleaning position at holiday apartments. The era of dreaded dunny polishing had begun. We were both required to front up for a meeting. We rode our bikes along the stunning Denham foreshore. For the first time ever we attended a job interview dressed in shorts and T-shirts. We were greeted by the lady owner and stood around awkwardly as no seats or drinks were offered. In the office she berated a cute fresh-faced child that had taken over her computer. “I can't wait for the holidays to be over" she muttered. The husband came in to introduce himself and proceeded to tell his wife to focus on the job at hand. How uncool! We had decided Julie would be the one to start working as it was only two weeks since I had finished working and Jules had been a hard working lady of leisure for..... 

How long?

 



Julie finding better toilets to clean elsewhere.

It wasn’t long before Julie worked out how much hard and fast work was required. Maybe it should be put that Julie was not paid an awful lot for cleaning a sea of units and their bathrooms, floors and kitchens. “How spoilt are you?” you must be thinking. I can tell you, it wasn’t the work or the money Jules was adverse to or that the boss was tough.  It was the way she was treated. Isn't it always the way? We are on this quest around Australia full of smiling energy that it makes your jaw hurt. We are looking for a certain meaningful change of direction. Exposing ourselves to people who are a deflated burnt out mess is not high on our agenda right now and does not fit the plan. No matter how hard Julie tried, short abrupt answers were used as chosen reply. At no time during Julie's fleeting relationship with the boss was any attempt made for extended niceties let alone a conversation. A friendly, but polite phone call was made, after three days of tasting Windex and Pine-o-clean.

Meanwhile….

I was recovering at the Denham tourist park from this horrible corky I got when I decided to test to the car to see if it would move at all if I walked into it real fast. It didn’t. Sitting with iced-up leg, elevated on stool, I managed to send an e-mail to the volunteer coordinator of Parks and Wildlife in Perth. “Does the ranger need any help at all?” Surely there must be more to life than sitting around this beautiful place while the missus is slaving away picking grime out of cracked kitchen floor tiles? The answer luckily was yes. Within a matter of a few days, the Ranger Chris emailed, called and picked us up for induction as voluntary camp ground hosts at the Peron homestead. All very impressive! Right?

That day of the induction I fought hard to ignore the pain from that corked leg. I walked almost as normal and managed to kneel down to change a sprinkler or two. This was an opportunity to good to miss. In the end we all got along like a house on fire and even managed to bribe Ranger Chris with some coffee and cake back at the caravan park.

A male emu running away with chicks at the homestead.

On the way to our new posting we had to drive 6km over a red dusty road. About 3km's in of our leisurely cruise it was halted by two male emus with his 6 chicks blocking our way. While we were waiting Chris explained to us that the male emu does the nesting and takes care of the chicks. He went on to tell us that at the homestead the male emus are known to fake fight each other. They would puff out their chest and make themselves as tall as possible. Whoever was the winner would end up looking after the all the chicks combined. Numbers of the flock could rise dramatically. Chris recalls seeing 26 chicks with one father.

"In my opinion the winner here is the real looser" said Ranger Chris.

After several minutes waiting we chose to carefully overtake the running herd. Carefully, but at high speed. They ran on and on, in front of us until, finally, exhausted, one of the males took a right-hand turn into the bush and immediately disappeared with every other emu in tow. What an introduction to our new work place.

For years I have been dreaming of this kind of work. Lots of diesel and dust. Being surrounded by deathening silence. Time to think and grow. Create.

Write.

The deathening silence of the diesel generator waiting to be refuelled.

There it is! Only after three weeks of travel. We are the new camp hosts of The Peron Homestead,

Shark Bay.

Night falls over the homestead.