all care cleaning

By midday the house is clean and most things have been aired our, repacked and reorganised. I am averting my gaze from the yard, which is another mountain altogether. I take time to sit back with a book and a cup of tea, assuming a position that will be familiar in the months to come.

lean times at the market

The mess must wait while we attend the weekly market. At this time of year the variety of fruit and vegies is limited, and I wonder what the hell I am going to make with what’s available. The spoiled West Australian taste buds and coddled mind are confronted by the reality of little choice and finite quantity. The locals rely on rice as the staple for every meal. Take this out of the equation and we are left with five pathetic carrots, six seedy cucumbers, a big bag of bayam (amaranth leaves), six Asian eggplant (not our favourite raw veggie), a pumpkin, eight small slabs of tempeh, two knobs of ginger and about 50 bananas. Gourmet raw this is not. Luckily we are aiming more for 80:10:10 (www.foodnsport.com), but the lack of fruit is an obstacle to success.

Greg, the American manager of the village resort, drops in to welcome us back. He senses that the house will not be clean by sunset, and invites us to dinner.

home to the filth & decay

The hotel kitchen does not have any fruit; only eggs and cardboard bread that would survive an atomic bomb. So with no brekky, we leave for the ferry terminal and the promise of home by early afternoon. The “Strait of Death” is glassy, a bonus of traveling at this time of year, when the lack of wind and swell make the conditions far from menacing.

We are met at the wharf by Nixon, our regular bemo driver, who barely raises the corners of his mouth in greeting. A wet fish handshake and we are on the road. We stop in the island’s main town for an uninspiring lunch of rice with green beans, and visit the new marketplace to stock up for dinner. The middle of the island received reasonable rain over the wet season, but as we travel south, the green recedes to brown and the land is almost as parched as in July.

Home, sweet home is a mess. The decay over five months is astounding; if you left for over a year there would be a ruin to return to. Goats got into the back garden and ate what little green they could find and termites attacked the tank stand, two floorboards, the daybed and the island cupboard. Everything is covered in a film of dirt and salt scum, with piles of gecko & cockroach shit, dead ants, spiders and rust. The furious scurry of roaches from their nest in our bathroom cupboard nearly sets off a panic attack, and the smell of the waterfall of shit down the shelves has scarred my olfactory sense.

The job ahead is overwhelming and I want to run home to my mummy and a nice cup of tea. Tom is equally fraught; however we set ourselves short term goals and begin. My aim is to get the bedroom ready before dark, while Tom takes down the tarps and tin cocooning the main house. By sunset, the bedroom is habitable, with a clean mosquito net and new sheets. The kitchen is still a no-go zone, so we take our meager ingredients to Gerry’s house next door and use his facilities.

QZ 781 is now boarding

An aspiring female shaman, an expat architect and a redneck miner’s TA. Brought together by half a bottle of Jack Daniels, a decompressed cabin atmosphere and intimate seating arrangements. Blocked from the aisle by an obese specimen, we are trapped for three hours, entertained by the rapidly deteriorating drunken dribble of egos competing in delusions of grandeur and encounters with the paranormal. Are we there yet?

countdown to season 2010

When the nectarines lose their sweet crunch and the cool mornings call for an extra layer, the draw of the tropics verses through us. We leave behind the joy of crisp new season apples, and the beauty of clear autumn days, for the promise of warm water, shirtless nights and juicy papaya.

My aim is to entertain and inform you regularly throughout the season. Village politics, local produce reports, experimental raw food recipes and surf reports. Enjoy the ride through season 2010.