2-15-10

2/15/10

Yesterday I packed up my things and left Bondi to meet Viki, my WWOOF host at Pennant Hills Station outside of Hawksbury. She is amazing… 60 years old, drives an ‘83 Mercedes station wagon run on biodeisel, and has bright orange henna dyed hair. We ran some errands and then met up with a few of her friends that are a part of her acapella singing group. I went with them to their practice which they have at a really really old pub called The Settler’s Arms. The building was beautiful, all made of stone and decorated with old iron farm tools. Everyone there had a dog with them.

After singing we went to her friend Gaia and Tony’s place and they cooked us an amazing dinner. We spent the night chatting over wine. It was really nice to be out of the city and in horse country. (According to Viki, this region has the most horses of any in the southern hemisphere).

The valley is incredible! There are wallabies everywhere with their little babies in their pouches, and they stand and pose for pictures holding their hands together. The little teenager wallabies are really cute also. There is so much wildlife here!

Viki has 2 horses on the property and one of them has just turned 4. Her name is Orly and she is learning the basics J. She’s an enormous black shire cross which is my favorite type. We’ve started doing ground work with her and plan to ride tomorrow if the weather holds up.

My little cabin is adorable! The front side is screened and it has a little futon with mosquito netting around it. Its nice to be out of the dorms for a change and get a little privacy. Viki lives up on a sandstone cliff formation. To get there I have to walk up a lot of stones arranged as steps and over a log bridge, its quite steep! Her house is really interesting, covered in eclectic art and photos, and she has a little yurt that she sleeps in. She runs everything off of solar power and the toilets are composting.

Viki has a little greyhound mix dog named Lola haha. Lola only has one eyeball but she’s really cute and sweet. There is also a peacock that lives on the property names Alf. He’s friendly but he loses his tail at this time of year which Viki claims gives him a temporarily bad attitude. According to Viki, there is also a python that likes to live in the roof of the house a lot of the time, but she hasn’t seen him in several weeks. I saw some pictures of him though and he’s got to be about as thick as my leg and over 10 feet. She told me not to worry he knows we’re too big to eat and besides when he eats one possum he isn’t hungry again for over a month.

Viki is an accomplished student of homeopathy and has been teaching me a lot about that sort of medicine. She “doused” me and determined what my compositional formula is, and then made me some to keep. It seems like a really complicated science and I don’t really understand how it works but I don’t believe that it can harm me so I’m giving it a shot.

Xoxoxox- K