Our first morning in Barraba was insect free! We drove over to the hotel where our host Hadden served us a cooked breakfast! We thought this luxury wasn't going to last!

After breakfast we were put to work in the hotel mopping, vacuuming, washing up, cleaning, sweeping endless leaves, arranging and setting tables. We then were sent to the shops in Barraba, which took about two minutes as it is so small, and met some of the local residents. Barraba is the sort of town where everyone knows everyone, they leave their keys in their unlocked car and the front door at the farm is open day and night! It doesn't even have a handle on the outside, if it blows shut with the wind, you just use the open backdoor! It's no surprise the house is full of critters! There are gauze doors to try and keep some things out. Plus, a two minute journey to the shop takes at least half an hour as everyone stops you to talk to! The topics of conversation here are different to what we're used to and often include, grass types, water levels, and the best type of lawnmower to tackle the fore-mentioned grass types. We just nod along and makes the appropriately toned oo's and ah's. The town is also home to a high proportion of elderly people. On walking down the street, 3 out of the 4 people we spoke to were in mobility scooters. But, everyone is really lovely and welcoming.

Hadden likes to wind us up where possible. He was explaining to us where the phone is in his house and explained it was the room with the coffin in it. He then went on to tell us his father had been embalmed in the coffin. As he was so straight faced and serious and our British politeness made us keep quiet and start to believe this, vowing never To go in that room! It wasn't until later he told us it wasn't true and we now don't believe a word he says. Although there is a coffin in the house which we still find a little strange!

After lunch we went back to the house for some time off an utilised the swimming pool. We also made use of the free washing machine. However, when we went to hang it out to dry, we were attacked by huge biting ants! There was a massive ants nest inside the washing line. Therefore, we had a workout dancing around trying to hang up the washing without out feet getting swarmed with ants!

That evening we were served a leg of turkey with red wine gravy and roasted vegetables which more than made up for our lack of Christmas dinner on Christmas day. After this we used the cinema in the hotel to watch 'Across the universe'.

In arriving back at the house we checked our rooms from top to bottom for bugs. I found some poo on my pillow which wasn't nice although Hadden thinks it was frog poo, I'm still waiting for a frog to jump out from my bed! Jades room contained centipedes which needed removing before she could go in, and Ruth was disturbed most of the night by the rats banging about in the roof!

After surviving another night we went to the hotel and spent most of the morning washing up and chopping vegetables.
With our time off in the afternoon, Jade chose to stay inside and watch a film. During this, she saw a mouse running around so had to retreat outside to get away! This was followed by more exercise washing too avoid the ants again!

That evening the hotel had a big party for a Christening so we were required to set up and do a little bit of waitressing and lastly more washing up! A couple of the guests from the hotel sat and talked to us about the deadliest animals in Australia and what to avoid! Apparently 8 of the 10 deadliest animals in the world reside in Australia. They did however insist we would not catch bubonic plague while we were here (phew!) as we were all very worried about that... This was followed by the couple having a domestic over the royal family, so we chose this time to retire back to the zoo of a house! Here, the house was invaded with leaping insects, Ruth found a dead mouse under a cabinet -we are still not quite sure why she was looking under there! - and me and Sally were attacked by a gang of frogs in the bathroom, so were sen screaming out of the bathroom! Then when trying to go to the toilet more frogs jumped out from behind it! We had to resort to the other spider infested toilet that night.

Over the next few days our jobs have included, cleabing out the outhouse so Haddens godson Patrick had somewhere to sleep when he arrived that night, weeding the garden, mowing the lawn, raking, driving the truck, strimming, vacuuming the pool, pruning the walnut trees, moving furniture at the hotel for conferences and functions, flower arranging, babysitting the chefs children, cleaning hotel rooms and lots of washing up. Andrew, Hadden's partner and the owner of the hotel arrived back with Hadden's godson Patrick and both are lovely friendly people. We have been watching a lot of films at the cinema at the hotel and they say they want to 'challenge' us with the films they choose. So far we have watched, 'The sweet hereafter', 'The tree of life and a dogme style Dutch film called 'Festen' (translates as 'celebration'). When Sally asked if we could watch a comedy for a change, we were treated to a black and white comedy featuring Marilyn Monroe, 'Some like it hot'. We have also watched a bit of 'The smurf movie' and 'Rio' when kids have been in the hotel and we have nothing to do.

We usually have a break in the middle of the day to do what we like. At late afternoon Hadden has taken us out to the lookout point to watch sunset over the hills. Then another afternoon he took us on an Australian safari where we stand on the back of his truck and drive along. We saw our first wild kangaroos the second day we were here, and were lucky enough to see a roo with a joey in its pouch! Since then we have seen a lot more, one just stood right on the edge of the road as we drove past before hopping away! We have to be careful of kangaroos hopping across the road, which they often do, during early mornings and late afternoons when they hop across the fields to find something to eat. We have then been introduced to the bird wildlife and seen poisonous spiders called red-backs. We know how to spot their eggs and me and Ruth have become professionals at killing them (bearing in mind they can jump up to 3 metres) when clearing out some old furniture at the house. When sent to turn the river pump on to provide water to the garden hoses,we were shouted to 'watch out for snakes!' which was a little unnerving. After this we were then given a snake lesson in what to do if you walk in the path of a snake and it rears up, including distraction techniques and how to get away. We are then meant to get an old fire poking metal rod from the house, and return to the distracted snake to beat it and break its back. However, if or when this occurs, I can imagine these rules will be at the back of our minds and we will just run away!
On our evening safari we were also taken to wild horses and an old woodshed where Hadden had to help out as a child. We were given the full low down on the initial wool production line, from catching the sheep to shear, to packing the wool into crates for the lorries to take away. Patrick took us out for a drive one afternoon to the old asbestos mine which was exciting(!) but we did see some more kangaroos and kookaburras.

The weather has been quite hot and humid so the pool is appreciated! One evening there was a massive thunder and lightening storm that rocked the seats we were sat in while watching a film. It did seem to drive the insects out of the house though, which was a nice relief for one night! Since the storm, the days have been clear and hot, with the nights and mornings being a little cooler which is a nice break from the heat.

During our time off one afternoon, Hadden had invited his friend from a neighbouring farm to bring her five children over to use the pool. This family also own the supermarket in the town. Her husband and brother in law came over later on and we enjoyed a glass of wine in the pool! It is a nice lifestyle we could get used to! The family kept talking about going skiing for 1 or 2 nights at the weekend and we had no idea what they were talking about as there is nowhere around here to ski! But they were actually talking about water skiing an invited us along as they have their own boat, but unfortunately we have already had plans made for the weekend.

We bumped into the mother and eldest daughter later in the week in the town. It really made us feel like we fitted in as everyone here does known everyone, so it was nice for us to have this experience and talk about weeding that we had done that morning and how the rain levels have helped. We felt like real locals! We can now walk in the green grocers to be addressed by name which is nice!

The other major perk of this location is the food we have been given! Hadden, Andrew and the cooks at the hotel are fantastic and we have enjoyed some good pasta dishes, a spinach and feta pie, barramundi (a popular Australian fish) with sweet potato, nice curries, home made cakes, fruit salads and lovely homemade coconut and pistachio ice cream. It is a more than fair swap for the work we do!

We our currently halfway through our stay here and have really settled in and may even be slightly getting used to the surrounding wildlife. We will see what the rest of the week holds.

Amy. x