The Country Party

So, here we go again and it has hardly been a week since my last entry! I'm improving as we get closer to the (bitter) end. Hey, it's actually easier to write when you only have around six days of events behind you instead of 30.

The infamous country party is now history and we certainly had a blast down there in Budawang. Quite a few people flaked out right before the event, which was a shame, but mostly on their part as they really missed a great party and an awesome spot. My flatmate Andrew, a classmate Gordon and I took off quite early on Friday and started driving along the extremely congested M5. After making our way to Goulburn, we stopped to have dinner and at this point Andrew also noticed that he had forgotten his wallet…sooo, the weekend was conveniently sponsored by Tero Airaksinen. All rights reserved. No harm done there, though. After Goulburn, the roads started to deteriorate one after another. Braidwood was the last real "town" before our final destination - Andrew's ranch in Budawang. We arrived there around 8pm after 5½ hours of driving...or maybe 3 hours of driving and 2½ crawling in the traffic.

Andrew had talked a lot about the wombats, which, apparently were a real pain in the ass for the people over there as they have reproduced rapidly and dig their holes everywhere. I had never really seen one up close outside of a zoo, but was about to. As we were making our way towards the front gate of the ranch in complete darkness, we accidentally ran over a wombat with our pickup truck. I saw it as it was approaching us from the gutter but Andrew apparently did not and completely swept it under the car and over it. The tires did not, however, hit it, which caused the unpleasant event of the wombat staying alive paralyzed and trying to make it off the road. Also, there was a baby wombat on the road that probably fell out of its mother's pouch when we hit it. That, however, died instantly. Well, there wasn't much to be done other than driving quickly to the ranch, getting a pick axe and a shovel and hurrying back to let the poor animal out of its misery. Mind you, those creatures are pretty big - around 35 kilos and the height of a normal size dog.Andrew smashed it with the axe but I think it had already died at that point. Then we needed to drag it out of the road, which was also surprisingly difficult.

After that unfortunate but a rather interesting event, we could start the preparations for the main day and hit the sack quite early. Around ten of Andrew's friends from Sydney drove over for the weekend on Saturday afternoon. After hiking around the Budawang area in the morning, we drove to meet them at Braidwood, where we also bought some more groceries for the evening. Booze was well covered - we don't work for an alcohol importer for nothing. It was a gorgeous day with temperatures hovering around 25 degrees - perfect for some football out on the pasture…just needed to be careful not to step on cow manure. There were lots of animals represented there. Cows, sheep, horses, big lizards, kangaroos and of course wombats. The ranch itself is pretty historic. It had been built in the late 1800-century and had three buildings adjacent to one another. The landscape is rolling, which is also something you don't really see in Finland. Otherwise it did not differ a whole lot from a weekend trip to a summer cottage back home. Grilling, chilling and binge drinking. Just in a more interesting area than usual. A lot of vodka, whiskey and Cointreau was consumed and I have to admit being fairly wasted. The following day was as slow as can be imagined and I did take a pass on the morning hike to the bush. We made our way back to Sydney quite late in the evening after having a nice dinner served to Andrew, Gordon and I by Carla, Andrew's Brazilian friend.

Monday was still dedicated to recovering from this bash, but I did manage to finalize my last assignment in this University and submit it as well. I would say it felt good but in fact I felt physically like s*** that day so it kind of shadowed the euphoria. Anyways, it was great to get that one done. Now there is only one open book exam remaining on the 20th of November - Friday. I will probably study for that one this weekend, although there are some distractions. Riku and Wade (Hurricane) are coming over for their power-trip on Saturday and will be spending three days in Sydney in total.

Life's good. Weather's great. Just came from the beach. No complaints whatsoever. I will get back to some serious thinking in due time and discuss my opportunities in the future. Until then, stay tuned as usual and enjoy your crappy fall! Check out the pics from our adventures in the bush too.

Cheers.