Letters from Australia . . .

Just a note, maybe a little late, to let you know the waters here have started lowering, but with no promise they won't rise again. Still raining a lot on the coast, still lots of severe flooding elsewhere. The news is pretty hairy for Queensland. Cars being washed away, people climbing onto their roofs to escape the water, all a few hours from here. Crazy weather. Grape picking ended on Friday, as we picked all that could be reasonably retrieved before the waters closed us in. We boated in and out of work all of last week, and Friday and Sat I helped ferry all our pallets of grapes that had been sitting in a fast filling cool room across the road, that is, across the river, on someone's party barge that the owner borrowed. Two pallets at a time ferried over to awaiting trucks, maybe 36 pallets or so in total. A very interesting agricultural experience.

I am looking for something to keep me busy and make some money for the next week and a half, till I drive out with a couple friends from Germany, heading back to Sydney. Be there a couple days, then likely I'll headed to Tasmania! Maybe get some work picking apples or cherries down there, or maybe just woof, then spend some time hiking an eight day path around the island. That is what I'm most excited about doing over here. Visiting the natural sights with my feet and eyes. If I can't find work here till I leave, I'll probably be taking lots of walks looking for some roos to photograph. Got a few pictures from work. There was a roo that got caught in the vineyard because the water trapped him by coming up from all sides. The little farm dogs are having fun with chasing him around every day. If you're standing in the rows picking and you hear a thumping sound, hug the vines!! Traffic coming through! Sometimes I want to jump out and tackle him as he runs through, cause how cool would that be, but I hear they have very sharp toenails (seriously) and can cut you up good. Or maybe that's another of the stories Aussies tell to pull we foreigner's legs. They like to do that. But I've heard it from a few people.

~Jake the Elder