Happy by staring into space

So I went to the dentist two days later. She was very happy with my teeth, no holes or anything bad, and praised the great work of my German dentist. Don’t know why, but she charged me 50 bucks and said, that’s a general fee for overseas visitors. Still pretty cheap.
So now, that I already was down there in White Cliffs, the lovely lady from the hospital arranged me an appointment with the doctor, to get that check and my 2nd visa. Luckily, he was there the same day, cause he’s only out here once a week. No worries. Well... some worries: This nice guys from the Royal Flying Doctor Service told me, that he’s not authorised to do the kind of examination I needed. And the nearest, authorised doc would be either in Adelaide, in Melbourne or in Sydney! Yabbadabbaduuuh! Shit.
The problem is the money: A trip to... say ... Adelaide would cost approximately 600$ for transport, 500$ for the examination, 100$ for food and accomodation plus ca. 300$, that I’d loose, because I couldn’t work here for 4 days. Adds up to 1400$!!! What the f***?
So I wrote an email to the Government, hoping for any useful reply, maybe I can do the check later or do it here ot sth like that. Richard supported me with writing an email himself, telling those guys that I became a very important staff-member, and he couldn’t run the motel for 4 days without me. Nice chap. :-)
What I found out while dealing with all this stuff: I urgently need a health insurance! Always thought, my current insurance would pay for general examinations, but – no way, they refused to send me a single cent! Beautiful. I love aifs and the description: You needn’t worry about anything with this insurance package. *§%/&=)§#*


There’s some more news out here: We might get another staff-member tomorrow, a 65-year-old lady. No one knows, why Richard wants to employ her, we think, he might feel sorry for her, she’s a widow and unemployed. Richard says, she’s very slow with working, and us Germans are afraid she might ripp some of our precious hours off. We weren’t really happy to hear about that – we thought, that we had done a good job so far and ran the motel very well... maybe we did, maybe we didn’t. Ozzies are not good in critisising someone or telling the truth about what they think. They’ll always tell you no worries, no matter, what happens.

Last week, I worked almost 50 hours. Was very happy. Richard wasn’t. He said, he can’t pay me that much. But – where’s the difference, if he pays another person or me? Don’t have a clue.
There’s quite a lot to do: Many rooms need to be made, Daug and I had to spray the walls of the new tunnel with boncrete, so they won’t break down as soon as they dry, and I learned how to clean the pool. In my opinion, I earned my money with good, hard work.


Richard explained to me, that the season might slow down by the end of October, so probably my stay out here’s gonna end sooner than I thought. What a shame, I already made my calculations what to do with so much money... in this case, I might have to work again somewhere else. We’ll see.
The boss became a little stricter, told us, we’ll have to pay for our own breakfast in the future and maybe for other stuff like milk and bread as well. Wouldn’t impoverish us, but it’s still not nice to hear. We all thought we could save every single cent we earn. Seems as if we had thought wrong.
The good news is: I got a tax refund estimation from the Government, and they told me, I’d be entitled to get all my tax back! We’re talking about 1000$!!! That’s gonna be a big party! Just have to wait for two more group certificates, and off we go.

Denise and I already bought 10l of ice-cream. Just in case... you never know, what’s gonna happen. And I’m sure, we’ll be damn happy about it, cause it gets up to 50°C out here in summer! Oh yeah, and we’ll sit in the pool, relax and eat heaps of ice-cream. Life’s good.

Ey, eating reminds me of a premiere: Markus ordered a pigs head, cooked it and fried the brain. Was worth an experience to try that, even though it won’t become my favourite meal, that’s for sure...
He also showed me how to bake proper bread. Pretty handy here in Australia, where there’s normally just toast on a backpacker’s plate!


Denise and Martina are making big plans about their future: They might wanna travel on together, see the good parts of Australia. Maybe they gonna buy a car out here, even though I dissuaded them from that. There’s only one single car for sale in White Cliffs, no choice. I advised them to go to a bigger city, and I think, they’ll listen to me.

The four of us became a great crew over the last few weeks, we love sitting together, having endless chats, watching hours of movies or – go to dig for some opals! One sunny afternoon, we grabbed two shovels, a hoe and a spade, walked 500m into the Outback and started digging. Good fun for the first 15 minutes, after that everyone became impatient and annoyed because of no huge opals, but thousands of flies instead, and we headed back home. Was still worth a try, wasn’t it? *g*


All in all I’m still happy out here. The sun is shining, haven’t had a single drop of rain since I’m underground. All I miss is a hammock, or maybe a deckchair, to sunbake. Because of the lack of one I always sit in piles of dirt, on stones or lie down on the ground. The surrounding is spectacular, I can sit outside for hours and just gaze towards the horizon – it hypnotizes me somehow. And I always feel unbelievable happy by staring into space...