Australia Week 6, Bendigo

Its been a wierd week! I think i would have rather been back in England with the snow, everyday we have had rain and thunderstorms and today there was even a hail storm that blew down 4 trees into the road, the hail stones were about 2 inches big and nearly cracked our car window and theres been flooding all around the area. So much for a great Australian summer. On the plus side thought, its looking like England are going to win the ashes, which is good news because i was getting constant greif from the team leaders about how they were going to wipe the floor with us!



Dispite the weather, its been a easy week, the work wasn't too hard and we finished early almost everyday because of the weather. We were doing fencing again and had finally finished all the fences we had to do when a tree fell and completely smashed a large part of the fence (we pretended it didn't happen and left quickly). I didn't have my camera on me so i took a picture on my phone but my phone is now broken because it got too wet so i've lost the pictures.
I almost got bitten by a redback spider whilst i was tieing off a wire. My had was about 4 inches away from it and i saw it just in time to pull my hand away. Apparently they are the second most venomous spider in OZ.

I've got my sky dive on sunday, i'm not going to say much about it because i don't want to think too much about having to throw myself out of a plane. I don't know why i'm paying money to do it. Hopefully it'll be sunny in Byron bay so it won't be cancelled. Its my week off next week so i'm flying to Byron bay for 4 days than spending a few days in Sydney before i start my last six weeks of conservation work.

Australia week 5, Creswick

Spent most of this week working on the great dividing trail build bridges and steps etc. We were working in an average of 32 degrees which was really tiring  but the work was good. On one of the days we got rained off so had to do some indoor work making posts for the trail.



Two days this week we finished all our work by 12 so our team leader to us driving around some 4 wheel drive tracks through the bush where we would end up at the chocolate mill, a chocolate shop 10km into the bush that served the best chocolate milkshake in the world!
This week was probably the most eventful week. For starters we went to see the new harry potter film which was pretty good, on thursday we found an old gold mine in the bush which our team leader took us in, it went back for about 100 meters and half way through we nearly fell down a 300 metre shaft which was a little exciting. Today was the most eventful day of the week though, we were putting fences up on some farmland when the French guy got bitten by a Bull any (about an inch long ant, there bites hurt!), he complained alot but but then things went from bad to work for him. Firstly our jeep got bogged in a field for 40minutes so we went looking for rocks to put under the tires. While we were looking for the rocks, the french guy picked one up and got bitten buy a spider so we had to take him to hospital.



This weekend i'm going back to melbourne as it will be the last chance i have to go there. I've also booked my week off and will be staying in Byron bay. I have a 14,000ft sky dive book. I'm terrified! Thats about it for this weekend!

Week 4, Bendigo

This week i have been fencing in Bendigo. Conservation volunteers are building new fences for farmers who's fences were damaged by the 2008 Victoria bush fires which burned accross the state for almost a month and killed 173 people. The project has been on going since 2008 and it is estimated all the fencing will be complete in about a months time. We have pulled down around 3km of damaged fencing this week and rebuilt it. It was quite hard work as we were out in the sun all day with no shade and the wire from the fence has cut me up a treat. But good weather meant lots of BBQ's and cold beers so it's been a good week.



I've got two weeks left doing conservation work before a well deserved week off. I'm planning to go to the Gold Coast and Byron Bay on the East coast of OZ. I'm in the process of booking accomodation and flights (flying is cheaper than getting a bus and the busses take up alot of time, i want to make the most of my week off). I'll finish my week off in Sydney before starting work again. I also get $150 allowence from my charity which is much needed as Australia is sucking me dry!



Week 3, Ballarat

Last week i was working in an area of bush next to one of the old victoria gold rush towns, Ballarat. We were doing track work along the Great Dividing Trail. This is a 280km public bush walk trail that links the old gold rush towns at the heart of Victoria. This winter in Australia has been the wettest in about 12 year and had cause alot of flooding in the area that has damaged large areas of the trail. We were putting in new guide posts along the track and building new foot bridges where they were needed. The work was very hard this week as we had to carry alot of timber up to 2km into the bush where the 4x4 couldn't go. As well as all the carrying the lowest temperature that week was 27 degrees and got up to about 33 degrees, which made it even more tiring. Building the bridges involved digging foundations, cutting the timber, putting hand rails up where needed and constructing the actual bridge.

We saw a fair amount of wildlife that week, including Kangaroos, Wallabies, Lizards and a Brown snake (apparently they are quite venomous). One of the Kangaroos we saw was crossing one of the bridges we had made, its good to know our hard work was not in vain!



I spent the weekend in Melbourne with friends from college. They've got a house sorted, we'd planned to have a bbq and see some of the sights in Melbourne but it threw it down all weekend so all we managed to do was go to the christmas parade and a few pubs!
I also ate a kangaroo steak and some Kangaroo sausages the other day, i'd recomend the steak, it was beatiful.