DAY 176: Hitting the Hey Man wall with a quad bike

23 Feb

Here’s a picture of a riderless quad bike. I refused to pose on my one.

THE downside of trying something new every day is that whatever you try you’re going to be shit at it. So basically, every day, you’re shit.

This ignites an impotent rage after a while; the sort of rage serial killers develop when women laugh at them in bed.

For four days now I’ve been doing the most ace, fun missions in ridiculously good-looking company, but I’ve been floundering about like a panda trying to play a ukulele while wearing water wings. You can only laugh gamely for so long.

Throughout my trip to the Otways I’ve been raring to have a go on the quad bike on the property I’m staying at, and there’s a good hilly terrain to take it out on. I’m told how to start it up, brake, change gear, yada yada yada… but somehow the bit about reversing fails to sink in.

I believe we only have so much space in our heads for instructions. The rest is taken up with thinking about amusing comebacks, rooting, what to eat next, and admiring scenery.

Over the past few days I’ve been taught how to operate a manual, a four-wheel drive, a bulldozer, a milking machine and a chainsaw, but rerouting my neural pathways has produced more of a series of pissling streams than a mighty Shenandoah. I’m starting to lose confidence in myself before I even crank up the quad bike.

I manage to fang around the property with a few near misses (have you tried steering one of these things?), before I wedge one wheel into a bush and then can’t figure out how to reverse back out again. I’ll be buggered if I’m going to trek off for half an hour to ask for help; I’m all out of sheepish grins.

Getting off the bike, I try to manually heave it free, but it won’t budge and just deposits a few more leeches on my legs. There comes an ominous thunderclap – that’s me officially cracking the shits.

I won’t describe in full the following scene, as it is a scene, but needless to say it involves leaving the quad bike in the bush for someone else to deal with and stomping off back to the house – which is quite a long stomp, as I’ve crashed it right at the top of a hill.

Keeper? I’ll be back. Just as soon as I find my smokes.

DAY 175: Four-wheel driving

22 Feb

THE bush pirate agrees with me that chicks look hotter driving stick, yet I can only drive automatic and that’s without a licence. Something needs to be done about this urgently.

It’s a shithouse day up here in the Otway Ranges, which seem to have their own weather system. A couple of times our 2WD ute nearly gets bogged down in the bush pirate’s expert hands, so when it’s my turn he yells out gear changes, trying not to instinctively slap his head and pull his hair when I crunch, stall and get shirty. Looking hotter by the minute, though.

Next up we swap the 2WD for a 4WD. How fortuitous that I’d put Cinderella’s classic ‘Shake Me’ on the mix CD – it’d been sticking out like a sore thumb up till this point, but now it captures the essence of the moment. We’re shaking so much, in fact, that the knackered tray door comes unhooked without us noticing and we lose various bits of fishing paraphernalia and petrol cans all along the track.

I finish off with some hooning down grassy hills, through deep puddles and up mud slicks. I don’t know if I’m looking hotter, but I’m feeling pretty flushed.

Keeper? Yes.

DAY 174: Milking filthy cows

21 Feb

Dangerous place to stand and sulk.

THINK you get shat upon at work? Don’t talk to me about it – I’ve just been in a shit deluge.

‘Relief milking’, which I’ve got up at 5.15 to do, doesn’t mean you’re ‘relieving’ cows, it’s the milking of cows when someone else doesn’t want to do it – which is completely understandable, as it turns out.

When I first arrive at Graham’s farm, though, I’m blissfully ignorant, and as I explain to the bush pirate, there’s no excuse not to apply lipstick and brighten everyone’s day just because you’re getting down to a bit of hard graft.

My job here today is to herd in 110 cows in groups of 10, pour in feed, hook ’em up to the milking machine by hoovering up their udders with suction cups, unhook them, hook up the opposite 10 cows, spray disinfectant on the first 10 and then herd them out with the aid of a big stick and some plaintive yelling.

My perception of gaily a-milking in clogs and pigtails dissipates in a stream of steaming urine (which smells pleasingly like porridge, I have to say). As I flounder around in the shit pit, dodging downpours, I try futilely to rinse fecal matter off my hands with a hose, and the high-pressure jet propels it into my face instead.

“Eeh scary!” Graham mimics of my little yelp.

Sparkling clean Graham.

“Does it hurt them?” I change the subject, tugging cups off teats while dodging indignant hooves.

“Don’t hurt me,” he shrugs.

Suck it and see.

An hour and a half later I’m well and truly splattered with poo and done for the day. The bush pirate asks Graham politely if he can borrow a towel for me to sit on: “It’s my dad’s car, you see.” Smirks all round. I feel like a child that’s just soiled itself.

Keeper? Ho no.

DAY 173: Bulldozing shit

20 Feb

I FIRST meet Stevo down the logger’s pub, where he turns up at five on the dot every day, or else. With the lube of VB, he’s easily persuaded to give me a go on his bulldozer, so the next day I locate him and his machine halfway down a muddy mountain of tree stumps. It’s like the Orcs have been through and destroyed everything.

Stevo’s a man of few words, but he teaches me well and I soon get this thing shifting a wall of mud from one spot to another. It’s got seven levers, but I only have to shift gears from neutral to first/reverse, wave the digger around, work the decelerator and brake, and use two more levers to steer left and right. Easy.

“Woman drivers, eh, mate?” Stevo yells out to the bush pirate, but thankfully then falls silent again.

Keeper? Sure – great fun!

Whee.

DAY 172: Getting my chops with a chainsaw

19 Feb

It wasn't like this.

BY rights, this should be an incredibly hot scenario. This should be me straddling a tree root, brandishing a chainsaw and spraying chips until a trunk comes screaming down in supplication. In the middle of a goddamn forest!

Unfortch, my chainsaw has all the traction of a butter knife with my technique and weighs a sodding ton. And then there’s the hard hat and chaps I’m being forced to wear. And not Xtina Aguilera-style chaps, either.

I keep hacking away at my tree, trying to get the angle right, but the saw’s so heavy that I can’t hold my spindly wrist straight. By the time I step back and survey my handiwork, it just looks like the tree’s been self-harming.

Don't hold it like this.

The lumberjack (I notice HE’S not wearing hard hat and chaps) steps in to make a wedge for me so that I can finish it off with a deft slice to the back, but my blade seems to only tickle the trunk, and whenever I pull it out in a huff it stalls. Jeez, it’s always awkward cracking the shits in front of someone you don’t know very well yet, isn’t it? Still, can’t be helped…

In the end we leave the big trees be and I fell a mighty sapling.

No worries.

“Some assignments are an A, some are a B-minus,” the lumberjack says generously as I order a latte in the logger’s pub. And that’s a D-minus for the availability of the latte.

Keeper? Well, I’m supposed to be going for my licence, so I’d better persevere.

DAY 171: The night of the shooting

18 Feb

“I’LL just let the boys know you’re not comfortable shooting roos,” the bush pirate says, as I try and tell him an actual hunting trip’s out of the question without sounding like a big wuss. “I’m sure they’ll compromise with some foxes and rabbits or something.” Eep.

By the time we get to the campsite it’s around 11pm and the rum is in full flow. I can’t understand any of the conversations around me as they’ve become 90% more vowelly than the usual country talk, thanks to Sir Bundy. Nod, smile. Nod, smile.

One bloke keeps spraying a can of Aerogard into the fire for an interesting pyro effect, while another, upon seeing us, grabs a giant surf-style fishing rod and takes us yomping off down to the black river to set it up, tripping over various dogs as we go. The second his back’s turned he gets a bite and reels in an eel, which gets chucked back in after a bit of yahooing.

We’re here to fire his rifle though, so we all pile on the quad bike and take off to a bit of paddock away from sleeping children and cows. I’ve fired guns before, but this one’s got a sniper’s sight, for that extra “holy shit!” factor. It’s the heaviest I’ve held, as well. It lets off a mighty kaboom, and I let off a shriek, and then we’re hurtling back to the camp again for a Bundy update.

Keeper? If I find myself in this situation again, sure.

DAY 170: The Day of a Thousand Fucks

17 Feb

Screaming next to the abyss.

“YOU get used to that,” the bush pirate says, every time I nearly break my neck, impale myself on a tree or have to grip on to some death-ute or other. “That’s what we do in the country.”

Today we’re doing some rainforest regeneration. This gully used to be a scramble of blackberry bushes, but now it’s home to tree ferns, ground ferns, myrtle beeches and satin boxes, with eucalypts on the ridges and spurs. And it’s ringing with urgent profanities.

“You start digging some holes down there,” the bush pirate points to a sheer drop with a stream audible somewhere at the bottom. I head off down it with my spade, and my boots send rocks tumbling endlessly down to the water, where there’s a distant splash. There are no discernable footholds and I keep sliding down the ravine, reaching out to grab handfuls of handy nettles and thistles. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

This must be some kind of rookie-nobbling joke, surely?

I manage to anchor myself long enough to plant six saplings, sit down to have a fag and spot the bloodthirsty leech sitting atop my fly. Nice.

My first leech.

Keeper? I’ll think about it.

DAY 169: Streaking in the rainforest

16 Feb

He didn't come skinny dipping, if you're wondering.

KINDA cool that I dreamt I was skinny dipping last week and now here I am, lolloping into a swimming hole at 2.30 in the morning.

On the way here, coming out of a seaside town, we see a koala sat in the middle of the road, having a breather. After escorting the furry fella away from the white lines, my cohort takes me to the top of the Otways to do some ‘pirating’. I’d thought this would involve treasure coves and jolly rogers, but instead we’re pulling up young myrtle beech trees that are due to be slashed for increased road access. These’ll then get replanted elsewhere in the bush pirate’s reforestation efforts.

Job done, we go for a ‘walk’ through the rainforest, which turns out to be a near-vertical trek up the ridge, hauling ourselves up on vines, tree ferns and dead branches: two steps forward, one giant arse-slide back, for the most part. En route we pass endless pockets of glow worms and hear bats and barn owls flying overhead. Then off for a nudey swim to wash off those leeches.

Keeper: Yes!

DAY 168: Kung Fu fighting

15 Feb

STAB with your fingers, smash with your palm, lunge with your front leg, keep your weight on the back leg, go “fft”, go “hngh!”… Every martial art I’ve tried so far tells me something different.

Today it’s, “Punch with your last two knuckles.” The instructor shows me how the bones leading up to the knuckles of the forefinger and middle finger slant at an angle into the arm and are thus more easily broken. By using the knuckles of the little finger and ring finger, you’re keeping everything dead straight.

The vibe in this Wing Chun school is quite mystical, and I’m not talking about the earnest men with ponytails and ornamental beards. You get them everywhere. No, there’s a pledge on the wall, curious, ancient-looking, human-sized wooden mug trees to slap, and lots of bowing.

As we’re not padding up and actually hitting each other today, I’m finding it impossible not to say “doof doof doof” when I throw punches, as though I’m eight years old and watching The A-Team, bouncing on the sofa and taking a flying leap over the coffee table.

 The enthusiasm’s a bit much, actually, as I get reprimanded for leaping nimbly around like a mountain goat when I’m supposed to be merely stepping aside. I might need a bell on my neck for next go, to warn me when I’m doing it.

Keeper? Yep – signed up for 10. Ask to see my clap and punch.

DAY 167: Talkin’ bout you and me and the Games People Play

14 Feb


FIRST published in 1964, Games People Play is one of the lasting texts on the ways in which we manipulate one other. My folks even used to have a copy lying around the house… which I shan’t pass comment on.*

In any given scenario you might act as child, adult or parent – these are your ego states – and it’s the child and parent personas that can be most misused. While the different interactions Dr Eric Berne identifies might all elicit a sheepish “aw, yeah” response in the reader, his refusal to be personable himself makes this a slightly patronising rumble through his various classifications.

I reckon if I’d gone to see him way back in the day, he’d have sat at his mahogany desk with leather inlay, fiddled with his fountain pen, cleared his throat a lot and looked distantly over my head before prescribing some Valium. His script would be inscrutable and his hands would smell of cigarettes, brandy and cologne, much like my father’s…

But anyway, I digress. I’m going to observe how many Berne-approved games I play in one day.

6.25am, on the train

There are no seats left, so a man and I are forced to lean in the corridor opposite each other. Even though I am concentrating on tapping this sentence into my iphone, I cannot help but notice through years of experience that he is glancing at me. Damn his eyes. I’d like a kraken to swoop down and peck them out of his skull. Without pause, I respond with a sweeping look that also manages to take in his shoes and fly. I think I only need to do that once.

Game: Second Degree Rapo, more colloquially known as Buzz Off, Buster. (I didn’t come up with these names, incidentally.)

Adult rationale: My fellow commuter has nowhere else to look and is probably feeling awkward, having not had the foresight to bring a book or his own form of entertainment. Alternatively, he might be playing a hand of Kick Me. I’ll give him a civil smile… oi, you fucking pervert, what are you looking at? Oh dear.

8.30am, at the coffee stand

It’s not that I’m needy, but I do find it odd that that the French bloke who serves me my coffee every morning not once gives me a flicker of interest or recognition. I mean, it’s not just that he’s French – he seems to actually lack the ordinary human impulses that make us ponder “yes, no, maybe” when interacting with a member of the opposite sex. I’m simply curious as to what personality disorder he might have, which is why I hold his gaze a fraction longer than is necessary.

Game: I’m Only Trying To Help You.

Adult rationale: He’s probably gay.

6.30pm, driving lesson

I’ve had heaps of trouble with instructors. They get a bit… clingy. This one’s not too bad but he always keeps his foot on the brake, so that I mysteriously slow down whenever taking a corner. This attention-seeking tactic provokes an indignant reaction from me, which thus allows him to apologise profusely, thereby making me feel bad, which then allows him to get away with further behaviour, like critiquing my parallel parking. Foul!

Game: Schlemiel.

Adult rationale: As soon as I pass I can go as fast as I like.

Eric went on to write 'Bodice of Love'.

Keeper? In troublesome situations, I intend to keep asking myself: “What would an adult do?” Deal me…

* This was a quick demonstration of Now Look What You Made Me Do.

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