Trip to America. Part one

Dunno what it was but ever since I was a kid I wanted to travel to America. Must have been from reading all those Lous L'Amour books and listening to Dads' Frankie Lane albums.... Anyway after I finished working at the Tanami mine I was cashed up a bit, so when me and Ben got back from Darwin I bought a ticket to LA, and a few days later picked up me old army bag and swag again, shook me old mans hand , said I'll see you in a while, and I was in the air. My first time on a jumbo, and it was unreal. A bit different to the little 8 seaters we used to fly to the mine in, where the pilot spent most of his time trying to squash the flies with his flight book. After I'd watched a couple of movies, I got out my little army daypack, pulled out a few rolls of roo lace and started to plait Kiyomi a belt. I was into making belts and stuff from kangaroo hide, something I'd learnt from the old ringers up in the gulf country. I started a dark brown 14 strand goanna plait with one strand green which made a diamond pattern, and I was gonna do a matching mini knife pouch. I always carried an old swiss army 'soldier' pocket knife, which had a really good marlin spike, and also a large swiss army that had a small pair of pliers, both of which I needed to work a plait. So I'd tie the start of the belt to the seat in front me, and with a mixture of beef dripping and soap in a small container, and two pocket knifes on the little table in front of me, flying into the USA, I made Kiyomi a belt. Lucky there was no air marshals back then. It took about 17 hours before we decended into the dark brown haze that's Los Angeles. First thing I noticed was as I walked out of the airport on a sunny day was that you had no shadow, like it was overcast, because of the smog. It was a bit of an eerie feeling. I wasn't quiet sure what I was going to do now I was in America. I thought I'd either go to Texas , or to Montana. Not sure which way to go, soI thought I'd better get into a backpackers first.

Looking back on it now I was bloody green. My first time overseas, I had no idea what I was doing. After I came out of the airport I started was peaking out a bit. It sort of suddenly dawned on me where I was. There was so many people everywhere, so crammed and busy and loud and I wandered around in a bit of a daze for a while. I ended up getting a taxi to Venice Beach Backpackers. Instead of pulling out half a dozen dollar notes I nearly gave the cabby 100 dollar bills. You should have seen his eyes light up. Thats what gave it away. Lucky I realised. All the notes look very similiar.

I booked into a bunkroom for a couple of days, thru me swag and me backpack on the bed and went for a walk around Venice Beach. That freaked me out even more. It was a mad place. Especially since I had spent the last 6 months in the isolation of the Tanami Desert. In N.T the black fellas drive around in cars like my old XD, but here the black fellas drove round in black Mercedes convertables, about 4 or 5 cars in convoys, with rap music blaring and about half a dozen blokes that all looked like Mike Tyson or Mr T sitting in each one. They were driving up and down the esplanade real slow, checking everything out. I tried to blend in with the crowd, which I don't think worked well since I was at the beach, with me jeans and black hat on, and everyone else seemed to be negros. There was bunches of people standing around playing bongos and doing these spaced out dances. I think they were smokin a bit of weed. Seemed like everyone was. There was a few good lookin sheilas walkin around in bikinis, except they all had a Mr T on their arm so I tried not to look too much. I needed a pair of sunnies.... Back in the territory fellas always used to say 'g'day bloke' or 'howyagoing bloke' and we got used to saying it too. As I was walking along thru the crowded esplanade I sort of got bumped into this huge black fella wearing a singlet and heaps of jewelry. I said quietly 'g'day bloke' as I tried to get round him, but he grabbed me and by the arm and said "what did you say!". He must have thought I said 'g'day black' to him, which he didn't seem too happy about. I repeated myself a bit clearer with strong emphasis on the word "bloke". I think my life was in the balance then, but he let me go. Whew! I was careful not to say g'day bloke to any more black fellas.

I got meself a hot dog and snuck me way back to the backpackers, without encountering any trouble. I was starting to feel a bit lonely and a bit stupid for coming over here on me own. I wasn't sure what to do. It was night time here now but for me it was the middle of the day so I couldn't sleep, and I lay awake on me swag listening to the helicopters flying over and the police and ambulance sirens racing past in the distance... . Then I remembered a bloke I met while I was working in north Qld who lived , I thought, in LA, and that he said if I ever come over to give him a call. Next morning I flicked thru me little book and found his name and number - Bob Curtis from Anaheim. I found out Anaheim is in LA over near Disneyland. So I went outside to the phone box on a side street to give him a call. Just as I put a quarter in the phone, another convoy of blackfella's pulled up at the lights just in front of me. About three cars and a dozen blokes all looking at me, standing there in me big black hat. I was peakin big time . I looked around but I was on me own. After a few moments looking at each other I felt sure they were gonna start pullin out handguns or something. I felt like making a run for it but for some reason remembered a documentry on grizzly bears where they said if you meet one in the bush, don't run or they will chase you down. The best advice was to play dead. I was thinking about whether this would work or not, when suddenly the lights must have changed and they were gone. I was shakin for a while , and felt like a bit of a handbag for being so scared. I quickly rang Bob, lucky he was home and remembered me. I have never felt so grateful when he said come round and I could stay the night.

I got me stuff, and jumped on a bus to towards Disney, thankful to be out of this part of town. Disneyland should be a bit more friendly. I got off at a servo and asked old mate at the counter if he knew where Bobs address was. The bloke buying fuel heard I was an Aussie and offered to give me a lift. Just as I enjoyed listening to their yanky accent, they all seemed to like ours, and once they found out you were an 'Oorstalian', they were mostly only too happy to help. Alan was a Frozen Yank, a retired bronc rider, and had lost all his teeth from a good horse kick one day. He'd also broken his back and most other things in his body it seemed and told me all about it as he drove me in his pickup to the front of Bobs apartment.

Bob was a legend bloke and we got on really well. I hung around with him and his mates for a few days, while I got accustomed to the place. Bob was a farrier down at the LA racecourse but busted his knees in a car 'wreck' so was starting out building kitchens with a few other fellas. One day I went to work for the day with his farrier mate Harry, down to the LA track and helped him shoe some racehorses with aluminium plates. I'd shod about 80 - 100 horses before working in Nth QLD, and was thinking about becoming a farrier, so it was unreal for me to be there watching a pro. He charged about 80 bucks a horse and each one only took about half and hour so by lunchtime he told me with a big grin that he'd made enough for the day and we'd knock off. He took me to a saloon and we spent the afternoon getting drunk on Budweiser, watchin the local talent behind the bar, and playing pool. Bobby had to come and pick us up.

Bob also restored hot rods, and had a 1932 blue Plymoth auto with a 486 cubic inch motor with a blower. He was just putting the finishing touches on when I came . We went for a ride one night , cruisin round Anaheim, stopping at the topless drivethrus, doin burnouts at the lights, and callin in at a few topless saloons. It was a real eye opening experience for a young fella from the bush. The plymouth had tyres about a foot and a half wide at the back and went off like a rocket at the lights. We had a wild time.

Bobby's hotrod.	My Honda XL600 loaded up at the Grand Canyon.

Anyway after a few days I had a good yarn with Bob, and he helped me work out a plan. He was moving back home to Okanogon, about 200 miles west of Seattle in about 6 weeks where he was gonna build himself a big two story shed next to his mums place, where he could live in the top and work underneath and start a new cabinet making business. I said I'd give him a hand to build it, and in the meantime I could have a look around. I didn't really have enough money to buy a car, so I thought I'd buy a bike. I had ridden from Victoria to Cairns on a 250 trailbike before, so we looked thru the paper and I found a XLX 600 for sale for about 900 bucks down the coast. The next morning I took a bus to have a look at the bike. It was only about a hundred miles away, and the bus was only a dollar, but it stopped so many times it was about 3 in the arvo when I got off, and about 5 by the time I found the place . The bike looked allright, but it was a few years since I had ridden, and then only a 250, and on the lefthand side of the road. The bloke told me it was registered for a while, but he didn't have the papers, and I reckoned it was probly knocked off, but I didn't feel like getting the bus home again. I took it for a quick spin round the block. She was a beauty. I gave him the cash, put the helmet on and next thing I knew I was riding me way up the freeway with a map between me legs hoping I could find Bobbys place again. Riding on the right side of the road takes a bit to get used to, especially since I was a bit unfamiliar riding a big bike for the first time. A couple of times at the lights I turned onto the wrong side , lucky there wasn't much traffic coming. Once I stopped on the footpath and asked a bloke for directions. But he said he wanted ten bucks before he'd help me. I couldn't believe it. I said donworrybouditmate. I finally found me way back to Bobs about 8 oclock. He was pretty worried.

The next morning we tried to get all my gear on the bike. I had an old roo skin I'd tanned when I was a young fella, that I shot out at Colgates farm, and I had always carried it wrapped in me swag. I tied it onto the seat of the bike, tied the swag onto the rear mudguard, and my old Army backpack I carried on my back , and it would sit just on the top of the swag to take the weight off my shoulders. My little Army daypack that contained all my leather and buckles we strapped it onto the tank, and then Bob gave me a box to put my hat in which we tied to the back of my swag. Now I was loaded up and set to go.

I shook Bobby's hand and we agreed to meet up again in about six weeks in Okanogan, Washington state. He gave me a few directions to get out of the city and I was off. The bike was really heavy now, and a bit wobbly, and I had to go pretty slow for a while to get used to it. I had a hell of a time getting out of the city. I was just trying to head west and follow the sun, but the freeways turned and twisted all over the place and I often found myself heading back towards the smog. I was really concentrating on the bike and the cars around me and a few times I ended up on an exit by mistake and had to ride down through the trees to get off the exit and back on the freeway. Anyway I finally made it out of the city limits and once I got into some open space I felt much better. I thought I'd ride over and see the Grand Canyon and for some reason I had thought it would be like driving out from Sydney to see the Three Sisters. But I didn't realise how big America was and it took me three days to get there. Wasn't much to do there anyway but take a few photos and have a rest for a bit. It was really touristy and very busy. I wanted to hike down to the river but I found out you need a permit and you have to book about 10 months in advance to get one. I met up with a Swedish bloke Hanse, who had a little hire car and was driving around on his own. We agreed to stick together for a while as we were both headed the same way which was back towards Vegas. It was also bloody hard work riding with me pack on and I could put all me stuff in Hanses car. It was heaps easier. We left the canyon and drove down to the mighty Colarado river, and back up the other side, through indian country. There were indians along the sides of the roads selling indian stuff, most of it looked like it was made in China, but it was pretty cool to see some 'real indians' I'd read so much about.

It was pretty cheap travelling on the bike. Petrol was $1.50 a gallon, which made it about 40 cents a litre, so it only cost me about three bucks to fill up, and I could ride all day on that. We arrived in a little place called Kanab which is in mormon country. After a long hot days travelling me and Hanse were looking forward to going to the pub and having a couple of cold beers, but we were dismayed to find out there weren't any pubs in Utah. Fairdinkum I couldn't believe it. So we had to buy a 6 pack from the supermarket and drink it at the backpackers. The backpackers was run by an Egyption looking fella who was about 60. He loved looking after the travellers and cooked enourmous feeds for everyone. I threw me swag and backpack in the room and then found an Aussie girl sitting on the verandah writing some letters . Her name was Bertina.She was from Maroochydoor, had left home at 19 , been travelling around the world for about three years and hadn't been home since. It was great to meet up with another Ausssie and share our experiences with someone who knew what you were talking about.

Bryce Canyon, Utah. The indians reckoned the rock formations behind me were their ancestors.	The lowest point in the U.S, and my trip - Death Valley

The next day we went for a bit of a tour in Bertina's VW Scorocco. We drove up to some canyons and had a walk around and got some cool photos. Betina was an expert traveller, and I learnt a lot from her. . She had all the maps, and knew how to get free passes into the national parks and things like that. There's so many places to see in the states. Once you get off the coast most of Australia is pretty much just desert, but America the interior is full of mountain ranges and rivers and cities . It's an awesome place to look around. The landscape changes so dramatically. You can go from desert to forest to snow capped mountain range in a days drive. Anyway the next day I ditched Hanse as a travelling buddy for Betina, put all me stuff in the back of her VW and headed for Vegas. Betina had a boyfriend in San Francisco so she wanted to go there and I still had 5 weeks to drift around so it didn't really worry me where we went.

It was pretty mad to ride into Las Vegas. After spending most of the day riding along the highway thru the desert, we suddenly came across a bunch of massive power lines which was the first indication of a city out in the middle of nowhere. We got to a backpackers and met up with some other people and had a look around the strip that night. It was great to see for the first time but got boring pretty quick. All the casinos were the same inside and it all just seemed a waste to me. I went back to the backpackers and wrote a letter to Kiyomi and finished the belt I started for her. Me and Kiyomi had been writing constantly since I got her first letter in the Tanami. She wrote beautiful letters, very neat and full of really cute spelling and grammer mistakes. It used to take her all day to write a letter to me, checking everything in her dictionary. She had been sending everything to Dad in Blayney and he was forwarding them on to me which was always a bit tricky for him.
.......Betinas car wouldn't start the next morning, so we started having a bit of a look under the bonnet when a pommy backpacker came up and said he was a mechanic, and that he's fix it up. I said I thought we outa check the plugs, see if they were getting spark, cause thats what me grandpa had always taught me when I was trying to start his rusty old ancient mower when I was a kid trying to mow his lawns. The car was trying to start, turning over but not catching on. But the pommy reckoned it was fuel, and that the fuel pump wasn't working. So he pulled the fuel pump out and said we needed a new one. I told him again wot about ya check the spark mate, but he was a mechanic so I didn't argue, and you know what pommies are like, I didn't want him to start winging at me. So me and Betinna rang around the wreckers and found a second hand Scorocco fuel pump. We got it dropped off, cost Betina about 100 bucks which to a backpacker is a lot of money, thats 100 packets of maggi noodles, which is three months rations. Anyway the pom put it in and it didn't make any difference. Fair dinkum mate, give yerself an uppercut I felt like saying to him. I told Betina to get the pom away from her car, and I had another look myself. I got me plug spanner out from under me bike seat, and pulled a plug. Sure enough it had no power. We looked around a bit and I found a loose wire down under the fan shroud. Turned out it had a bogy wiring job, someone had wired up an electric fan, taken power directly from the coil somewhere, and the wire had burnt out, which was shorting the power. So I cut off the burnt out bit with me pocket knife, stripped a bit of wire and twiched it up again, wrapped some tape around it and told Betina give it a go. She started first pop. We thanked the pomy for all his help, and I told Betina not to drive it so hard next time, otherwise it might burn out again.

Anyway we got out of Vegas and had to cross Death Valley. It was a mongrel of a place. I only had an open face helmet and I wore some sunnies, but Death Valley was so hot the wind coming in through my helmet would burn my eyes, so I could only ride about 40 kms/hr. Then cause it was taking us so long we ran out of water and I started to get heat stroke. It was stinking hot. There was huge stone cliffs either side of the road for most of the way across, and the heat used to reflect off them and it was like an oven. I was a mess. Lucky I had Betina with me. I was dehydrating really quick on the bike, and I drunk all of Betinas water which was about three litres. If I was one my own I think the buzzards would have gotton me. After we were about 2/3 rds across, we come up to an oasis. It was really green with trees everywhere and I thought I was halucinating. Then as we came around the trees there was a little pub! I was saved. We spent the afternoon there rehydrating on Bud, and then camped the night there round the back.

The next morning we started off early to escape the heat and headed to Sequoia National Park and Kings Canyon. Death Valley is the lowest point in America and is 282 feet below sea level, and that afternoon at Sequoia nat. pk, we were 8500 feet above sea level with snow on the ground and I was freezing. We camped on a fire trail somewhere outside the Park, which is what we usually did each night. I'd get a fire going and Betina would cook a small meal usually some pasta and veges. She had a little tent she'd set up and I'd roll out my swag next to the fire. There were lots of signs around warning about the mountain lions and bears, and what to do if you get attacked, which was either run, play dead or fight back. Betina had detirmined that since she cooked tea it was my job to look after the bears if we got attacked. Maybe I should swap chores and start cooking a bit.

They reckoned this sequoia tree was over two thousand years old.	This was one of the tiny Sequoia trees.

We had a few walks through the Sequoia forests the next morning. The trees are unreal. I reckoned me Grandpa would have loved to see them. It took three photos going up to get them all in. There were groups of them scattered around the forest. You'd be walking along a trail in the light mist, and suddenly through the ferns and fog you'd see these huge trunks like a group of ancient skyscrapers bloking your path.. They were amazing and you could just stand there and stare up at them in wonder.

Yosemite national park was just up the road and we travelled there to meet up with Betina's boyfriend Ted and some other friends who had come out from San Francisco for the weekend. It was probly the most beautiful place I'd ever seen. A valley surrounded by mountains and waterfalls, grassy plains with deer running around, beautiful forests of trees, and a perfect river through the middle of it all. We met up with Ted, and their friends Karen and Wayne. We all went for a few bushwalks and then got a bit of a fire going and camped the night. It had started raining pretty heavy that afternoon, and I didn't have a tent so I pulled me swag under the awning of a big RV for the night. People over here don't have caravans, they drive these enourmous moterhomes just to go camping for the weekend. It was a pretty wet night and early in the morning a ranger was driving around telling people to get up and pack their tents as the river was starting to flood. We must have been on higher ground than a lot of others cause the river hadn't reached us, but when we went for a walk, there were tents wrapped around trees and camping gear floating down the river. Apparantly the rain had melted a heap of snow high up and there was a lot of water expexcted in a few hours. But the road out was already flooded and we were all stuck. We all had to pack inside the big tourist center, there must have been hundreds of people there. It was the headline story on the National news. Then after lunch the rangers told everyone the river had receded over the road a bit and they were going to try to evacuate everyone before the melted snow came rushing downstream. We were all lined up in a big traffic jam for a few miles waiting to get out. Ted and I were getting pretty bored so we scrunched up a heap of newspaper and covered it with tape to make a soccer ball. We grabbed some orange witches hats from off the side of the road and made some goals, and had a game of one on one. It was a bit of amusement for the rows of jammed cars and they started honking their horns when one of us scored a goal.

one of our bush camps, and the only photo I've got of Bettina	The falls at Yosemite Nat. Park in flood.

Finally it was our turn to go. The river was only about a foot deep but it had spread out across about a hundred meters of the road. We made it through and joined the long line of cars headed for San Franscisco. Karen's family lived there and we were all gonna stay there for the night. It was about a three hour drive and it was raining the whole time. I had me drizabone on but it was pretty old and didn't keep the water out for long. I was soaked thru. I was going allright until it started getting dark, so I had to take me sunnies off. We were going about 90 kms/hr and the rain was stinging my eyes and I couldn't see so I flashed my headlights at Bertina to get everyone to stop. We weren't sure what to do I couldn't keep going while it was raining and said I needed to get some goggles. This gave Ted an idea and he opened the boot of his car and rumaged around for a while and pulled out an old set of snorkeling goggles he said he'd found on the beach a few weeks ago. Only problem was they didn't fit inside the helmet. So he got some tape and taped them on the front. They stuck out about 6 inches in front of my face, lodged between the peak and the chinguard. It looked ridiculous but it did work, except I had no periferal vision at all. Which wasn't real good riding at night in the rain into a city on the wrong side of the road on a bike. I kept real close to the back of Bertina's car and Ted was close up behind to protect me. Everything was going well until we got off the freeway and started getting to some 4 way stop signs. I still hadn't worked out what the rules were with them. They have them where we have give way signs or roundabouts. The rules were that the first person to stop at the intersection is the first person allowed to go. But if a few cars pulled up about the same time it was very dificult to know who was first, and in the busy streets there would often be cars lined up wanting to go four different ways. Anyway I didn't know any of this and I didn't want to leave the safety of Betina's car, so each time she left, I'd follow as quick as I could. But once she moved, the other car would start moving straight away as it was their turn, and they'd have to slam on their brakes as this madman on a bike with snorkelling goggles taped to his helmet would come flying through. They didn't like it very much and always let me know it.

I was really relieved when we got to Karens house. I'd had enough for the day. We met her parents Lou and Ann. They were lovely people. Lou was a pretty typical American. He was also huge, about 300 pounds and very loud and delighted to have an Aussie staying with him. He would often slap me on the back which knocked the wind out of me and yell out " hey! Outback Jack !" which he thought was really funny. We had a great time that night . All the Americans I've stayed with were extremely hostpitable and all treated me like a son. And they prepare the biggest banquets with more food than I'd every seen before. I spose no wonder with blokes like Lou around. He was a pro baseballer in his day and gave me one of his baseballs from when he was playing.

After a long walk to the top, overlooking Yosemite Valley, just before the flood	me and ted in San Fransisco.He thought it was pretty funny to put your thumb up for a photo.

The next day Betina stayed with her friends and I went into town for a look with Ted. I'm not really into cities but I spose it was pretty interesting. Can't remember exactly what was interesting , except they had some really steep streets. Ted took off after lunch and I went and checked myself into a backpackers for the night. I went for a walk to get something to eat for tea, and I'd always wanted to go to a 'country bar' I'd heard so much about, where they play all country music, so I thought tonights a good chance to find one. After walking around the streets for a while, I saw a sign for a 'western bar'. I went in and they wanted 10 bucks and me drivers licence. When I pulled out me Qld licence, the bouncer yelled out, "hey this guys an Aussie!". A coupla blokes came over and took me to the bar and bought me a beer. I was surprised how friendly they were and remember thinking 'these city cowboys are bloody friendly blokes'. We were talking for about an hour and then I started getting a bit suspicious about how friendly they really were. And the barmen were wearin white singlets and looked a bit sus. And I couldn't see any shielas which was a bit of a worry. Actually they all knew I didn't know, and were having a bit of fun until I found out. But anyway shortly after a bunch of girls walked in, but they were all holding hands and hugging each other, but girls sometimes do that. I thought to meself, 'orr no worries I was beginnin to think this place was a gay bar or something' . I kept drinking for a while tellin stories about Australia to me new mates, and puttin Frankie Lane on the jupe box. Then this huge fella in blue overalls walked in, came up to the cowboy sitting right next to me and put his arms around him and gave him a big kiss. I couldn't believe it . I was shocked actually. I'd never seen anything like that before, at least not amongst the cowboys on the station out at Julia Ck. I put me beer down and started to walk out, and then they all started calling out to me a few rude things and laughing their heads off. They were nice blokes I spose but I sure wasn't gonna stay around. That was me first and last gay bar experience.

I was pretty keen to get out of the city the next morning, so I took me gear downstairs, loaded me bike up, threw away the parking ticket that was tucked under me seat ( I had me bike chained on the footpath to a no parking sign )and headed north over this huge red bridge that looked like the harbour bridge. I pulled over on the left hand side of the road to get some petrol at a servo. It's a bit hard to fill up cause you have to pre pay, but you don't really know how much to give them, so you have to give the cashier extra money and come back for your change. I'ts a real pain in the arse, especially with me big heavy backpack on. Anyway after I filled up, I got on me bike, started her up, and took off fast onto the road, looking right as I came out, and rode straight thru a gap in the oncoming traffic. A car braked suddenly and skidded and blared it's horn, and I was still looking to the right. It was all so quick, but I'd been so lucky I was about a second away from being smashed by this car. I was just lucky I had gone thru a gap in the cars as I was watching the other way. Normally I'm consious to look left, instead of right like we do here in Aus, but every now and then you just forget. It didn't really click what I'd done for a few seconds, and then I pulled over off the road and stood there and shook, as I realised how close I came to maybe being killed. "whew , that was a close one Sutto" I thought. I sat in the gutter for a while until I settled down a bit then hopped back on and carefully kept going.......I'd arranged with Betina to meet up with her again in a few days a few hundred km's north at a little town on the map called Stewarts Point. I had actually got a bit lost again as I came out of the city, and ended up heading up the inland freeway, whereas I wanted to go up the coast road. Now I would have to cross the coast ranges. I found a bit of a road on the map that looked like a shortcut across the range. It was a beautiful ride, with a narrow windy road thru the hills, on the big 600 Honda it was awesome fun.
..... But once I got into the ranges, it turned really cold and not long after that it started raining. I put all me jumpers on, which was only one ( I thought America was gonna be hot in April ) and me drizabone. But again, it wasn't long before I was soaked right thru. The higher I went the colder it became, and soon realised I was getting into trouble. It was raining really heavy now, and I was freezing. It was foggy and I must have took a wrong turn cause the bitumen ended and it became a dirt road. I hadn't seen a house for over an hour now, and it seemed I was in the middle of a huge state forest. The road was really slippery, and although I had a new front tyre, the back was really worn, and was slipping a lot. After a while I got to a sign that said "road closed - mudslide". Shit! I had to turn around. Now I was wet, cold and lost. I must have missed a turn cause the road on the map was supposed to be tar all the way to the coast. I started heading back but had to go pretty slow. I was really cold and couldn't pull the clutch lever in to change gears so I just crunched thru them. My fingers were frozen and I could hardly move them. I started feeling really tired and I think I was starting to get hyperthermia, remembering the warning signs from when they had taught us about it in the Army. So I kept count on the odometer on the bike, and every 3 miles I'd stop, get off and do ten pushups in the middle of the dirt road, which with me wet pack on was all I could manage, then I'd do 10 misserable looking starjumps, trying to stop myself from freezing up. I was thinking I would have to stop and rig up a shelter somewhere and try to get a fire going , when I saw a driveway that looked like it led to a house. I rode up and found a little house amongst the trees and I knocked on the door. An old lady looked thru the curtain of the glass sliding door, and told me to go away and then shut the curtains again. "Thanks a lot I thought", as I looked around and me bike fell over in the mud. The lady must have been on her own I can't blame her for not letting me in. I went back to me bike but I couldn't pick it up with the heavy wet swag on the back. I couldn't take me pack off cause I wouldn't have gotten it on again, and it was wearing me down a lot. I felt like sitting down in the mud and giving up. Maybe if I lay down and looked like I was dead or something the old lady would come out and take me inside and stand me by the fire and give me some hot soup..... It was the most miserable time I could ever remember. I was cursing meself for being so stingy and buying a bike instead of a car, standing there in the rain, wet thru and frozen to the bone and wondering what I was gonna do. Lucky it was only about 3 oclock, I still had time on me side, if it was any later I would have been in real trouble. I found some courage from somewhere, and started untying me swag from the bike. Then I managed to get the bike up standing again and retyed the swag and what was left of me hat box back on. The bike was hard to start at the best of times, with the decompression not working, and I knew it would be flooded and a mongrel to start now. I climbed on, stood up on the footpegs, and gave it the best kick I could, which was pretty pitiful, but someone must have felt sorry for me, cause to my surprise she started. I rode back out to the road, and kept going, stopping every 3 miles to do me decreasing number of pushups and starjumps on the road. I finally came to a turn that had a sign pointing to Stewerts Point, and that lifted me spirits a bit. I had missed it in the fog. Another half an hour riding and I could see the ocean thru the trees, then I finally got to Stewerts Pt and to my dismay there was nothing there except a a general store. I carefully stood me bike up and went inside. The bloke looked at me and said " you need some coffee son" and came back with a styrene cup full of coffee. I had never drunk coffee before in my life, but before I had the chance to drink it , my arm started shaking really bad and 3/4 of the coffee shook onto the timber floor. I can't really remember much about the shop after that but Betina was nowhere around so I must have kept going. I got to the next little town just as it was getting dark, and I was completely buggered and frozen and felt like I was gonna fall off me bike at any moment, when I saw a few houses and shops and a pub. I have never been so relieved to get back to civilisation again. I rode up to the pub, which had a big verandah that came right up to the road. There were two Harleys out the front with plastic over them, and I pulled up beside them, and leant myself against the verandah post, too cold and tired to even get off my bike. The two blokes who owned the harleys were sitting on the top balcony and watched me ride up. If you've ever riden you'd know how bikers on the road are all mates a bit, usually waving to each other as you pass, with a unique bond of something in common. So when Ricko and Daryl saw me lean against the verandah post and not move, they came straight down and helped me off the bike. They got all me gear and took me upstairs to their room, took me drizabone off and stood me under a hot shower with all me clothes on. I hadn't really realised what was going on until the hot water started soaking thru me clothes and I warmed up a bit. I felt I was gonna survive. Then I noticed me two new best mates looking at me and we grinned at each other. "Thanks fellas". I said. They left me there to have a good shower and come back to life. I found some semi dry jeans and a shirt in me pack and came out to sit at the fireplace with Daryl and Rick. They had some hot food and beer for me and I was feelin good. We sat around yarnin for ages. They were two mates ridin around for a week in their holidays, camping sometimes when the weather was good, and staying in pubs when it was bad. They showed me their bikes the next morning and were much better prepared than I was. They had full face helmets, walkie talkies and tape players, and all leather riding gear. They reckoned I was mad for riding around like I was in jeans and a drizabone and open face helmet with no gloves. Anyway they were keen to get going as the weather had cleared, so we shook hands, took a few photos and they roared off.

.....I hung around for the morning and thankfully that arvo Betina turned up. It was good to see her again and we quickly caught up on all the latest news. I threw all me gear back into Betinas car, and we kept going up the coast of California. Ricko had showed me a coastal track down to the beach on a map the night before, and we turned down the dirt road. It was magnificent country. We were riding high up on the ridge running parallel with the sea, and had a spectacular view.

me bikie mates Ricko and Daryl	Californian coast , north of 'cisco

In contrast to yesterday, today was perfect. The weather was clear and warm, I flyin along a dirt track on me bike, and Betina was about ten minutes behind me carrying all me gear and food. The track ended up down on an isolated beach, with rocky shores and huge piles of driftwood lying around. We went exploring along the shore for the afternoon, then got a big fire going and cooked spagetti with tomato, corn, tuna, mushroom, garlic, cheese, tomato paste and poured that over stale bread rolls. It was bloody fantastic. We sat round the fire that night and swapped stories of our previous travels, me around Australia, and Bettina when she lived and travelled thru the middle east and worked in the kaboots.

The next morning the track wound its way up into really dense scrub, almost like a rainforest, and the track started to get very wet. Soon there were big grey mud bog holes everywhere, I remember thinking it would have been great to have been with Dutchy in the old falcon. It was no worries on the bike, but Betina's scorroco was front wheel drive, with fairly bald road tyres and quiet low to the ground. Hardly a mud machine. We couldn't really go back cause we'd driven most of yesterday and today, but we couldn't afford to get stuck either, as we had no recovery gear, not even a rope. The VW was the first car Bettina had owned and she'd never driven on the dirt before but she was doing really well. When we came up to a big mud hole, I knew from me last trip around Aus what to do. I rode across on the bike, then took me boots off and rolled up me jeans and walked back thru the hole. One of the problems also was there had been heaps of 4WD's along here previously, and had worn deep wheel ruts thru the mud, some of them knee deep. Our only chance to get through was to drive on the high parts of the ruts, which were very slippery, and also often underwater, which made it real tricky. So I had to wade back and forth thru the mud feeling out the the best path, and where the track went under water, I'd peg it out with sticks so I could see where to go. Then I'd hop in the car and attempt to drive thru. I had two techniques, if the bog hole was short I'd back back, get a run up and hit it with a little speed, trying to get just enough momentum to carry us thru, or if the bog hole was long I'd drive real slow , following me line of sticks, with Betina in front waving her hands and pointing all over the place. It was exciting stuff. We were all covered in the grey mud, and it was very slow going. But it was working, so far. One of the last holes was a good ten meters across, with a bend in the middle. It was gonna be tricky. We pegged it out again with a heap of little sticks pushed into the mud, and I started driving thru slowly until I got to the bend, then give it some. The wheels were spinning like mad and the revs shot up, we went round the bend, and were nearly thru when just at the last moment the rear wheels slipped off into the rut, and the VW faultered, but the front wheels were out of the bog and with Betina cheering like mad the little car clawed its way out. The techniques worked, and we were very lucky not to get stuck..... The track now climbed higher on the range to where the ground became more solid, and we were right. Then next thing you know , after about a half hour of good going thru the forest, we came across this old bloke in a F250 ute with a moterhome thing on the back. There was a tree fallen across the road and he'd been stuck there since yesterday. The bank on the left was very high and steep, and the tree was in the air about 2 1/2 meters high, and a normal 4wd could go under, but not old mate with his three bedroom apartment on the back of his truck. When we came across him, he was standing on his bonnet with a tiny tomahawk trying to hack his way thru, but the tommy was blunt and he was gettin nowhere. He was pretty big, and had sweat dripping of him everywhere, and he seemed pretty happy to see us. We sat down and had a cuppa with him, while he told us his story. ..... I can't remember much of it, just that he lived in his truck on his own and travelled around everywhere.
...The tree was about 20 inches thick, and it was only about a foot too low for old mate to get past, so I reckoned if I could lift it up a bit, he could scrape thru. So we cut off the underlieing branches, and then I cut a pole with a v in the end, and put it up against the trunk towards the end of the tree. With me liftin, Betina directing, and old mate driving he managed tojust scrape under.

We said good bye to the old fella and kept going. It wasn't long before we started seeing some houses and then came out of the forest into cleared land. We came to a town I think it was called Eureka and was on the highway. I found a bike shop and bought a new back tyre, a front sprocked, a chain, and some goggles. The goggles were a luxury, after riding all this way without any. The bloke fixed me bike up and then we headed out of town to find somewhere to camp for the night.

We found a rest stop on the coast and pulled into the car park. Like some of the National Parks around Aus now, there were signs everywhere telling you what you couldn't do. No overnight parking, no camping on the beach, no collecting driftwood or firewood, no fires and no fishing. So we parked the car and bike for the night, had a big fire of driftwood, fished and camped amongst the sandhills. It was the first time I'd ever seen the sun set over the ocean, and it was really cool. We had some spagetti with sand and the last of our stale breadrolls from Karens mum for tea that night. The wind came up across the ocean and it became very cold so we hit the sack pretty early. Me swag was half covered in sand the next morning.

We took off early before a ranger came around, and stopped in to have a look at the Redwoods for the day. They're similiar to the Sequoia trees but not as thick and much taller, supposed to be the tallest trees in the world. The forests are really magical. It reminded me of the star wars movie and I half expected to see little Ewocs jumping out of the undergrowth. There was this massive clover growing on the forest floor, sometimes you'd come across a tree that had fallen over, and in the dark undergrowth it was like a semi trailer parked there. It was so quiet and still amongst the trees that had been growing there since before the calander started. You just stood there in awe. No wonder the indians used to worship them. If you were quiet enough as you walked along, you'd see or hear some deer moving around.

leaving crater lake, loaded up.	Crater lake

We soon crossed into Oregan, and our first stop was crater lake. We were back into snow country, and although the weather was fine, it was very cold on the bike. I had to get a spare singlet out of me pack and I cut some holes to see thru and wrapped it around my head inside the helmet. We got there about lunch time, and it sure was a beautiful place. I got a hot chocolate to try and warm up a bit and we had some lunch in the cafe. Betina reckoned she wanted to have a look around the area for a few days, and then try and catch up again with her boyfriend Ted but I wasn't real keen on riding around in the snow, and I was getting anxious to get up to Bobs and get started on his shed, as I'd been riding round now for 5 weeks. So we decided to part company. It was sad to leave Betina we had become good friends, travelled a long way together and shared lots of good campfires. She helped my load all the gear back on my bike, gave me a big hug and we promised to catch up again somewhere, and I was off.
It wasn't long though before I had regretted leaving, as the bike was very heavy with all my gear on, and the weather soon turned cold again. The roads were icy as well, which made it really hairy riding. Once I got down off the mountain the snow left me but it started to drizzle. All that day I was wishing I had had a bit more money and could have bought a car, with a windscreen, heating, and a radio.

It was a long, cold and tiring ride the next couple of days, and I stopped at a place called Bend, in central Oregan for the night. I stayed at a backpackers and after spending the last night on the side of the road, it would be luxury. I thought it would be safe to try again to find a 'country bar', being a fair way from san franscisco, so I walked into town. I found a bar, and went in. The bouncers again asked for my I.D, since I was only 24, and yelled out to everyone, "hey this guys an Aussie, do you know Mick Dundee?" It was pretty embarrasing, but they always showed a genuine friendship and interest towards me, especially the girls, they'd always ask me to "say something" so they could hear my accent, but I'd never know what to say, so I'd always reply "whaddyawantmetasay" or "imdryazadeddingosdonga, doyerwannabuymeaschoona?" Anyway, I went inside and it was just as I had imagined. A band playing country music, everybody looked like cowboys, and heaps of sheilas around. But most of em were city cowboys, in brand new hats and boots, linedancing away, a lot different to the wild bush dances up in the gulf, like at the Normanton rodeo. But one bloke stood out. He had a worn in Stetson with an eagle feather stickin out the back, a weathered face and a huge moustach that made him look like Sam Elliot from the western movies. He was sitting at a table on his own, so I went up to him and said howyagoinmateallright? His name was Wayne, and he was a top bloke. He was a carpenter, and had a business building log cabins in the wilderness of northern Canada. We hit it off straight away and not long before we were sinkin Millers and yarnin like old mates. He reckoned he had met a lady a few weeks ago at this bar, had a quick dance with her, but she'd left without him getting her number, so he came back every weekend to see if she turned up again. After it appeared she wasn't coming , he said lets go I'll show you some good pubs. We climbed into his old pickup and drove down the road to a town called Sisters, to one of his favourite bars. It was a karaoke bar, first time I'd been to one, but drunk enough to give it a try. Wayne suggested we do a duo. I hadn't realised that most of the people there werent drunk, and came to the bar to sing, not to party. I've got a terrible voice, can't sing at all, but when I'm really full, love to yell out John Williamson , or Frankie Lane songs. Anyway, just before we got up on stage we looked thru the song resister, and I saw "Land Down Under " by men at work. Where I came from that was the second best pub song behind Khe Sahn, so I told Wayne that was my pick. The music started , my eyes were too blurred to read the lines on the screen, but I knew the words, and started yelling out the song, like we used to do with Frank and Colgate down at the Clubhouse in Blayney. I was jumping around, having a great time. Wayne was a really quietly spoken bloke, and was doin his best to keep up, but I was drowning him right out, and the two things I remember was the strange looks from the crowd, and the bloke running the show turning my mike down. I reckon he might have cut the song off short too. Anyway , it was Waynes turn, and to my astonishment he chose "Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy" by Johny Denver. . I thought fair dinkum Wayne, go outside and give yerself an uppercut mate, but lucky for me the bloke wouldn't let us on again, so we sung it on the way home in Wayne's pickup.

Wayne and his log house, out in the scrub in central Oregan.	me with Waynes pet cockatoo.

.....Next morning I woke up on his lounge , dry as a dead dingos donga. Wayne came out not lookin too good, got himself a coffee and me a cuppatea, and had a bit of a laugh bout what we got up to last night. I pulled out my John Williamson CD's from my pack and showed him. They were the first things I packed before I left home. Wayne loved them, and we sat around listening to Johny's "Road thru the heart albumn" and yarning most of the morning, and each time a new song came on I'd explain the story .
.....Wayne showed me thru his house, it was unreal. He built it himself from logs, using a technique called the Norwegian Scribe Method, where the logs are scribed and cut so they fit together perfectly. The entry doors were huge and heavy like in a castle, and he had a log staircase going up to the bedrooms and an upstairs bathroom with a bath and basin each carved from a single log. It was a beautiful house, and he was really proud of it.
.....We hung around for most of the day recovering, and I pulled out me little bag with all me roo hide, and started plaiting him a 14 strand goanna plait belt with brass rings, and Wayne put " the man from snowy river" on the video. A lot of country Americans are into horses, and I was to find out they loved the movie with a passion. All the people I stayed with had a copy of the movie, and Marva's family ( who I was to meet later on ) would all sit round and watch it every Christmas morning, and Steve Darwoods little boy could recite the whole movie from memory.
.....Anyway by the end of the movie I had finished his belt and gave it to him. He was a bushy himself and really appreciated the leather work. Most leather craft work in the US is calf or deer skin, which is no match for the roo hide , one of the strongest per weight leathers in the world. I think he had a tear in his eye when he put it on, he really thought it was special.
.....The next day we went for a drive around in his old pickup, he showed me his brothers house out in the scrub that was built the same as his, and he showed me some jobs he was working on in town. He was working as a chippy in town for a few months for $10 bucks an hour until the weather was warm enough up in northern canada when he and his brother would fly up there and build log houses out in the wilderness for several months. There was no power, they'd just use chainsaws and hand tools. If I wasn't going to Bobs place I could have gone with him in another month or so, we talked about it but I was already committed to Bob, but it would have been a brilliant experience.
..... The next day Wayne had to go to work, so I carefully loaded up my bike again, shook his hand and said we'd catch up somewhere one day, and I was off again.

I was still heading north to Bobs place, and was thinkin of stoppin in at me bikie mate Rick's brother Jeff, who lived in Yakima, which was just over the border into Washington. I crossed the mighty Columbia river, which like the Murray forms part of the border. Stopped at a place called George, in Washington State, and got a nother hot chocolate. I gave Jeff a ring on the public phone. The phones here are bloody terrible, we had a much better system in Oz. For a phone card, instead of sticking it in the phone, and just ringing the number like me an Dutchy used to do in Darwin, the phone cards here had a 16 digit number, plus a four digit pin, which you had to press in, and then the number , which is also pretty long . Usually somewhere along the thirty numbers or so, you'd press one in wrong, or it would just get lost and you'd have to start again. Or some phonecards, you had to ring an operater and tell them the number, which was even worse, cause they all sounded pakastani or something, and neither of us could understand each others accents. It was bloody hopeless. Anyway I got onto his house and their son Jason answered. Ricko had rung before so he knew who I was, and he gave me directions to his house. I got there that afternoon, and met Jeff, his wife Jan and Jason. They were really nice people, and seemed delighted to have an Aussie just drop in on them. It turned out that Jasons school was having an excursion to Sydney in about a month. Not a bad excursion I thought. So we had lots to talk about.
.....The next morning it was again pretty cold, and Jan must have felt sorry for me cause gave me a pair of thermal under wear and a balaclava. I put them on and thanked them for letting me stay, they were so friendly.
.....I rode in the rain and wind most of that day and the thermals were a lifesaver. I really wasn't prepared to ride around on a bike, but I thought it was supposed to be summer. The wind was really bad that day and blew me around all over the place, which was very tiring. I finally got to Okanogan that arvo, and was completely buggered.
. .... Okanogan is a little country town in the north of Washington state, about a few hundred miles east of Seattle. It was where Bob was moving back to from LA, where he had grown up. I found his mum's place and pulled up out the front. No-one was home so I sat down on the front lawn and started plaiting another belt. Turned out that Katherine, Bobs mum, had driven down to LA in the old truck (she's 70) to help Bob get all his gear, and they wouldn't be back for another 4 days. Kath had told all her friends to look out for me, as I may turn up while they were away, and if I did to take me round to Sheryls place. (Bobs sister).... And then someone had passed me on the road the day before who recognised who I was, and mentioned it around town that the Aussie on the bike is nearly here.
So after a while a bloke called Daryl drove past and he pulled up. "You the Ooorstalian? " he asked me. Yep I said. "jump in then" . I got into his giant old blue pickup, and he took me round to Sheryls barber shop. She was really cool, and I was to find out a bit of a legend around here. She was the town barber, so she knew everyone, and had a shop with all old horse and wagon stuff lying around. I stayed there all afternoon and talked to her and her customers. She'd always introduce me "this is my friend Luke! " in a real american accent.
.... Sheryl was into everything, and had so many stories about all sorts of things. She had a dozen acres about ten miles out of town, where she was building a big two story log house, and her mum Katherine would come out and help with the hard parts. She'd always be asking the blokes as she was cutting their hair about how to build it, and get tips off them. It was a bit of a long project, and had already been going for a few years. She didn't have a plan on paper, just started in the middle and sort of worked outwards. She took me out to see it that arvo when she knocked off , and it was an amazing place. It looked like something a Sydney architect would have designed, I had never seen anything like it. It had a large hexagonal type frame all built with thick logs, and then another frame going around that which formed like the verandah, then a big frame on top for the second story. The logs beams were all joined together with steel plates, and once the frame was up, she'd fill in between. She pointed right up the top to some wobly looking scaffold, and said thats where Kath had been nailing the shingles on the roof.
..... We walked around her little ranch and she showed me her cattle she was breeding. I can't remember if they were cattle or oxen , but they were huge, standing nearly seven feet tall at their shoulder. They were bloody giants. I was thinkin lucky there wern't any micky bulls out in the gulf stations that big. But they were very quiet and you could walk right up and pat them. She sometimes used to take her oxen into schools and teach the kids about them.
.... Sheryl was also into training racehorses for an Arab prince, she was a seamstress and made goretex racing suits that all the top jockeys wore, and was a photographer, mostly of horses. (If you have encyclopedia britanica's, have a look under quarterhorse, you'll see one of her photos, and underneath it will say "photo courtesy of Sheryl Curtis) She was an amazing woman, and great fun to be around.
.. We went back into town and had tea at the 'Breadshop Resturant', where she introduced me to everyone there, so I knew most of the town by now. After tea she took me back to Katherine's place and showed me around inside. Kath had made up her own bed for me to sleep in, and had the freezer full of meals to last me the next few days until they got back. (she hadn't even met me yet ) Sheryl said she had arranged for her boyfriend Jerry King to call round in the morning and take me for a ride up in the hills. Then she would call back the next day and take me out to where she trains the racehorses and there was an antique auction on she wanted to go to. She said goobye for the night, and there I was, on me own, looking after Kaths house until she got back in a few days, and the town of Okanogan looking after me. It was great to unpack some of my gear, get properly cleaned up after several weeks on the road, and heat up one of Kaths meals she had left for me. I was anxious to meet Katherine, after hearing so much about her. I was surprised at how relaxed and friendly the American people I had met were. They were all just lovely people, and very resourcefull. We had heard about that from other backpackers when me Ben and Dutch were travelling Aus several months ago, about how friendly they were, but you really don't know anything about another culture or country until you experience it.

riding a couple of Jerry's colts, overlooking the Okanogan Valley.	Jerry King, and the house he built on his own.

Anyway, after a luxurious sleep in kaths bed, that next morning Jerry King turned up to take me for a ride. He was an awesome bloke, and we quickly become friends. He drove a 1962 model pickup he had restored to perfect condition, and we drove up to his ranch in the next valley. We caught and saddled some colts, and we made our up the hills until we could overlook the whole valley. Jerry was so interesting to talk to, he had just retired after working for the forest service where it was his job to ride around the massive areas of mountain forest on horseback surveying the animals and plants. He had incredible eyesight and could pick out deer on a hillslope what seemed like miles away, and say old old it was or if it was a doe or whatever a male deer is called. And could tell you all about the trees, bushes and grasses we rode past. It was a fantastic morning , learning about the life of an American bushman. My colt had slipped his bridle while we went for a walk , so we walked back down the hill till we found him and then rode back to Jerry's place. He had built a beautiful house on his own, with a laid stone floor and fireplace, and a pitched roof made from pine logs, he was very proud of it. He said he was going away for a few months soon, but he never locked his place up, and if I ever needed a place to stay I was welcome here anytime. I was hopin I could take him up on that, it would have been a lovely place to stay. I made him up a two tone 14 strand with solid brass buckle that night, and gave it to him the next morning. He couldn't believe I had just made it, and was thrilled when he put it on. It fit perfectly, and I was as happy as he was.

Anyway after a couple of days with Jerry and Sheryl looking after me, Bob and Kath turned up from the long trip from LA. It was great to see Bob again, and meet Kath who was everything I had thought her to be. She was the loveliest lady, really looked after me in the coming weeks, tried her best to put a bit of weight on me, and we become close friends.

It wasn't long before we were into building mode. The block next door to Kaths place was where Bob was gonna build his shed. The plan was to build it 80 x 30 feet, with a second story over the back half . Bob was gonna start a cabinet making shop in one half, and restore his hotrods in the other , and live in the top section.

Me , Kath and Bobby pullin out the old fence	Bob, Sheryl and me starting to build the laminated beams.

We started by pulling down the fence between the two blocks, and then me and Bob set out the externals with string lines and lime ready for the backhoe to dig the footings. The building methods were a bit different from back home, I think cause of the soil structure being pretty sandy, and because the ground gets so cold during winter. The backhoe came and dug the trenches, then we boxed up the footings using 6 x 2 lengths of pine and pegging it out with lengths of re-bar as they called it ( steel reinforcing bar)We poured this with concrete, the next day stripped the boxing and build up a 2 foot stem wall on top using these special brackets and sheets of ply ripped in half. We poured this the next day, and pushed the hold down bolts in which would secure the bottom plate of the wall frames.

Rick, me Vern and Bob, pouring the footings.	Starting to pour the stem walls.

It was bloody hot working , and I wouldn't have believed it but in six months time this whole place would be covered with 4 feet of snow. But now it was around 40 degrees and very dry. We had the footings finished, and I worked out a timber order from the plan, and then me and Bob took the old truck up to a local timber mill and filled it with lenghths of 6 x 2 pine for the frames , 12 x 2 for the beams, and several packs of ply to line the frame and roof with. Bob had a couple of blokes from LA that he used to work with who were gonna fly up for the long weekend and help build the frame and put the trusses up. He called them the super carpenters and he wasn't exagerating. They would be here in a few days and we still had a lot to do to get ready. We had to make up the beams that went over the garage doors, they would be 14 foot long, 2 foot deep and six inches wide, and were bloody heavy. We made them up ourselves out of the lenghts of 12 x 2. We'd glue, screw and bolt them together until they were one large beam. It was lot of work, and we worked from 7 in the morning till 10.30 at night for three days getting them finished. Katherine was as ever amazing. She'd cook enourmous meals 4 times a day for us, and had 5 big chest freezers ( two in the laundry and three in the basement ) all chocked full of food. Bobby had told me when were down in LA " no one goes hungry in moma Kaza's house " and he was bloody right. I put on a fair bit of weight there, I think I was about 64 kgs when I left. Me and Bobby were having a lot of fun building. Bob was always muckin around and telling jokes the whole time we were working. It was hard to concentrate on the job cause I was laughing most of the time.

Sheryl, me Clark Rob and Bobby.	Standing the top floor frames.

..... Clark and Rob the supercarpenters turned up. They had been working together for a long time and seemed to know exactly what each other was thinking. They worked in perfect harmony , not wasting a single movement. Clark was nicknamed the 'calculater', cause he could work out any measurements and dimensions in his head in an instant. He'd be walking round the job like a film director setting out the plates and calling out numbers all over the place, with me and Bob both on saws cutting studs and plates trying to keep up with him. Rob was the brawns of the team, he was built like a tank, and was throwing everything together with his nailgun. It was a bit tricky measuring in inches, with Clark yellin out something like "Aussie, I need 15 at 12 foot seven and five eights." It was hard adding and subtracting also, but once you got used to it it seemed a fairly practical was of measuring. We ended up building all the frames and standing them, threw the trusses up and battened most of them out in 2 1/2 days with four blokes and Sheryl, who was worth two blokes easy.
....As we'd finished the majority of the structure, Bob had promised to take the super carpenters finshing. A mate of his owned a ranch with a large private lake stocked full of rainbow trout. We had two little dingies, with me and Bob in one and Clark and Rob in the other. With a bit of what looked like orange putty on the hook, we soon started reeling them in. Bobby,as always was getting real excited, and he started fishing with two rods, one in each hand. One little rod he had owned since he was a kid and was like a treasure to him. Anyway not long before he was fighting a fish on each rod. He'd wind one a bit then put it under his foot and wind the other in. He put the little rod down and I saw Clark give a massive yank on his own line and Bobs little rod flew into the water. Bob yelled out in panic and lunged after it and nearly capsised the boat but he just missed it and he watched it being towed away to the bottom. Poor Bobby he was devistated, and Clark and Rob were both lying in the bottom of their boat laughing so much they nearly capsided their own dingy. Next thing Clark reeled in Bobs little rod out of the water, he had hooked Bobs line, not a fish. Soon we were all lying in the boat killing ourselves laughing, it was the funniest thing i'd seen. .... We ended up catching about twenty rainbow trout in half an hour, which was plenty so we packed up and took them home for 'moma Kaza' to cook up for us.

Bob with his two fishing rods.	A nice rainbow trout.

Well the supercarpenters left, the frame was up, the roof was on and now me and Bob could finish the shed at a bit easier pace. We put the plumbing pipes in and ran the electrical wires to the fuse box. In the states, you don't need a qualified plumber or sparky, you can do it yourself, and you just need an inspection before the walls go up. I'd tell Bob what it was like in Australia, how you have to get a plumber to run all your pipes, and he laughed and said, " the only thing you need to know to be a plumber is that shit flows downhill and payday is on Friday!" Anyway it wasn't that hard , we ran all the pipes for the toilet and basins, and ran some upstairs for the kitchen. If we got into any trouble we could always get Moma Kaza to come out and do it.
.....We kept working for several days and then Bobs mate who did all the concreting asked if he wanted a job for a while. Bob asked if I could work as well, and they put me on too, but his mate said I would have to be off the books and make sure his wife didn't find out. ( she did all the books ) It's the same as here with insurances and everything and with so many mexicans around they had strict rules about employing people. Anyway me and Bob were now "concrete men" as he used to keep telling me with a big laugh. Bob used to laugh at nearly everything he said, and I usually did too. We were on 12 bucks an hour, which was pretty good, and we worked with Rick the boss and Vern, ( the blokes in the photo ) who was a labourer. Rick had a F350 for a work truck, like most blokes did, which was really impractical to work from, but it was big , and used lots of gas so they loved it. It was so big you could hardly even see over the side, let alone get anything out of the back, you had to practically climb in. I was always giving them shit about their trucks, and a lot of other things too, and they gave it back to me. Bob reckoned me blunstones were slippers, but they wore these huge lace up boots about twice the size of army boots, that took about half an hour to lace up. When we came home for tea, i'd take me slippers off and be halfway thru me dinner before Bob got his boots off. ...And during the day they never had any smoko. It was something I couldn't get used to , so I always sat down for a few minutes at ten and had a sandwich. They'd all think it was a great joke and would all yell out "smoka time boys " or "come on boys the Aussie's gotta have his smoka break!" about ten times each and crack emselves up laughing.
...Anyway we did do some work. Our job was to box up the footings and stem walls for a street of houses. The soil was very sandy so we didn't dig footings, just laid the boxing on top of the sand. It was fairly trick to set out, and they only used single steel pegs placed at the intersecting points to set the string lines, so if the peg moved a bit, it would put the line out on two planes. Also the string could be wrapped around the inch thick peg either way which also could put it out, whereas here we run the lines past to profiles and saddles and everything is exact. But we managed to get it all pretty close. Then we'd box up the same as we had done with Bobs shed, using lengths of 6 be 2. Or 2 by 6 as they always would say. (loudly)
.... The place we were building was low cost housing for poor families. The government had a program to help them get their own house. We'd lay the foundations for about ten houses up the street, then all the families would get together and build one house at a time until that street was finished. No one could move in until they were all completed. There was only one foreman supervising about twenty people who came and went as they needed, all of them having no idea about building a house. Some people came for half an hour for their lunch break, some people came after work, or just for a few hours, many of them were women and would bring their kids and friends or relatives. A lot of them were mexican and couldn't speak proper english. So you can imagine what it would have been like. I watched them on the other side of the street sometimes, and it was pure caos. It would have been terribly frustrating for the foreman to organise everything. But looking at the neat little houses from last year in the other streets with trimmed lawns there was no sign of this pandemonium, so everything must have worked its way thru. The houses weren't perfect, but at least the people owned them, and it would have created a great community anongst them.
.... We'd start at seven each day and nock off about 4, when me and Bob would sometimes head down to the bar for a couple of schooners, and he'd tell me stories about him growing up and working in the US. It was all facinating to me. Before he became a farrier, Bob was a "smoke jumper.' There was a big smoke jumpers base over in the next valley. I'd never heard of them before, but they were like a crack firefighting unit, extremely fit and well trained. Once a fire was spotted from a network of watchtowers, they'd load into an aircraft and parachute down to the fire. The US (especially the north west ) has vast areas of wilderness mountains and forest, much of it inaccesible to vehicles. So Bob and his men would parachute in, and with mostly rakes and shovels would build a fire break around the spot fire. Obviously the trick was to get in there fast and get the fire out before it got too big. Then the hard part was they had to hike out to the nearest pick up point, which sometimes took days.......... Firefighting is big business over there. The 'forest' firefighters are all professional, and their equipment turns up in convoys of semi-trailers. ... Anyway then we'd head back to Mama Kaza's for tea. The first thing I would always ask her was if I had any mail from Kiyomi. Mostly it was no, but about every 10 days Kath would say no but her eyes would be twinkling as she tried to hide a smile. She knew how much I waited on Kiyomi's letters and really enjoyed giving them to me. Usually she'd have them hidden under my place mat at the table. We had been writing now for about 4 months, and I was really keen to see her again. I asked what about I fly over for a few weeks, but her mum panicked when she heard this idea, and said no bloody way. They had never met a 'westener' before, and didn't feel comfortable about me just dropping in for a while. So I wrote back what about we meet in Hawaii, as it's about half way between Japan and the US. She said she'd love to, but would have to try and get holidays, and she'll let me know when she can.

Well me and Bob's life as 'concrete men' was going well, we were getting into the rythm of setting out, boxing up, and pouring the footings and stem walls, stripping it and moving on to the next house. Then one day the boss's wife rang Kath and said Bob needed to come into the office for a blood test. ( they did random drug tests ) Kath, not realising I was not on the books, and working illegally, said "well what about Luke does he need one too?" Well that was it. Aparantly her husband, our boss, got in big trouble so I was sacked. We didn't know until we came home from work and Kath told us what happened. Poor Kath , she was terribly upset, but she didn't know. Well me and Bob sat down and open a beer and I said "whattdaya reckon I should do now Bob?" Bob said he knew a bloke over in the next valley, who ran pack mules doing trips into the mountains for hunters, and he could give him a ring to see if he needed anyone for a while. Sounded like a bloody good idea to me, so he rang Claude, who said send him over and I'll have a look at him.

So I rode over the next morning to the Methow Valley and met Claude Miller, and he said he'd give me a try. Claude was a 2nd generation mule packer, and his father had helped open up much of this area, bringing in supplies with his mule trains which was the only form of cartage back then. He was 52 when i met him, and looked a tough old bugger, with a big american white cowboy hat, long boots, jeans, and a permanent bow in his legs. He told me his boots were either for a stirrup on his saddle, or the accelerator of his pickup, but not for walking. He was a pretty legendary man around here, and every one knew him. Anyway just after I met him he handed me a bridle, pointed out a a bay mare and showed me the saddle room. "ere son you can ride this one" he said, "saddle him up and load im on the truck". So i saddled the bay and loaded his horse and mine onto the old stock truck, and jumped in the front. Claude said he had gotten a call that some of his cows had wandered off his range and we had to push em back into the hills.

Claude's got a lease on about 12 square miles of mountain range at the foot of the Cascades, with 200 breeding pairs ( cow and calf ) roaming loose. It didn't seem much of a mob to me at first, as on Millungra up in the Gulf where I worked as a ringer, there was 40 000 cattle on over 1 million acres. But I soon found out how much work it was to look after them here. The country was densly covered in douglas fur and pine, and real mountain country, some of it terribly steep. But our job today was easy, as we found 8 pairs stretching their heads thru a fence at the neighbours grass. We just pushed em up a trail for a few miles and left them. Claude pushes all the cows higher and higher thru July August and September, until October they are right up the top at the snow line, where the grass is thick and lush. He leaves them there for a month to fatten up then brings them all down again and trucks them a few hundred miles south for the winter.

Claude also runs an outfit at a place called Sun Mountain Resort. It's a large motel and sits on a plateau next to his range, not far from where we were now, with an awsome view of the mountains. The North Cascades Mountain Range are very ragged on the skyline, and apparently are one of the roughest in the world, as they were relatively new and hadn't had time to weather down. They were all still covered in snow when I showed up. Sun Mountain was a resort for rich people from Seattle, which is only about 5 hours drive away over the range to the west. It's very luxurious and expensive, and the guests are usually wealthy businessmen and their families. In winter they can cross county ski, and summer they can mountain bike, bushwalk or horse ride. Claude has about 30 of his quiet horses here, ( he has over 300 horses and mules altogether ) and a few girls look after the place and take the guests on half day horse rides. They also had what's called a Buckaroo Breakfast or Cowboy Dinner, where the guests could either ride a horse or a wagon down to a little meadow amongst the forest for breaky or tea. Over the next several months I worked here off and on, and used to love going down for tea. I'd help old Charlie Flag the wagon driver harness up his two old draught horses and hook em up to the wagon. Charlie was a fantastic old bloke, a typical cowboy 'old timer' and reminded me of old 'Spur' from the Man from Snowy River, sitting on top driving his wagon. I also worked with a lady Kit who was sort of the boss of this operation, and a girl Misty who was the first american girl my age I'd really met, and she was great fun to be around. We'd all ride down with about 20 guests to the little clearing where there was several tables and a few cooks getting tea ready by the time we arrived. Sometimes there was a bloke singing country songs on a guitar. After we'd tied all the horses up we'd help with tea or Misty would try and teach me how to lassoo a bale of hay, with not much success. It was a real step back in time.
.......But anyway back to Claude..... after we'd finished with the cows, we were just walking single file along a trail, with Claude interested in hearing all about Australia, and we were about 5 miles away from Sun Moutain where he had arranged to get picked up. I think he had planned to see if I could ride or not, which was important, and would depend on me getting a job. All of a sudden he looked around and said 'follow me son' and in an instant turned off the the trail and was off thru the trees. I raced away behind him, urging my horse on but couldn't catch sight of him, only hear his horse crashing thru the forest ahead of me. It was a while since I had riden fast like this thru trees, back when I was chasing cows thru thick gidgee scrub in the Gulf, and it's not easy to do as you can get wiped off your horse pretty easy. But I did me best not to lose him. I was having trouble too with the saddle. I'd never been in an American saddle before, and you have to sit in them differently, sitting more back and down with a longer rein, where the aussie saddle you lean forward with a short rein, which was what I was trying to do, but theres no ears on the American saddle to hold you in...... I raced into a small clearing and at the end the ground dropped right away from us, down so far I couldn't see where it finished, and there half way down I saw Claude whippin his long reins back and forth on his horse flying down the hill in a cloud of dust. If I hadn't seen him I wouldn't have thought you'd get a horse down there. I hesitated for a second but my horse had done all this before and he was off down the hill after them, with me desparately trying to stay in the saddle. I couldn't believe how good the horses were, powerful, fit and sure footed, born and bred mountain horses. We'd been riding fast for a few miles now and me horse wasn't breathing hard yet, not as hard as me anyway. We slid our way to the bottom and came out onto a dirt track , where Claude was a hundred yards ahead and I soon caught up to him. He turned around and had a big grin on his face, and so did I. 'how you doin Aussie' he said,..... 'yair allright.'
It was a bit flatter now, we rode side by side and broke into an easy canter for the rest of the way to Sun Mountain, where we loaded the horses onto a truck and headed back to the ranch.

I think Claude was gonna give me a go, cause when we got back he showed me around the ranch, and the bun khouse where I could stay while we weren't in the mountains. He had about 12 acres here, where he kept about 70-80 of the working plant (horses and mules) for the packing season. Most of the land in the Methow valley is quiet dry and has to be irrigated, as the Cascades Mountains block most of the rain. But theres lots of rivers flowing west full with snow runnoff, so all the paddocks have aluminium 4" pipes running everywhere, and often they'd be a young Mexican bloke who's job it was to move them around.
......Next to the Claudes house, there was a huge old timber shed that's used as a stable, and a set of yards running off the end. Whenever we needed horses, we'd run em into the yards, and with a heap of halters would move amongst them and pick out which horses and mules we needed, then lead them up to the stables. Inside there was about 60 american saddles, and even more pack saddles, all stacked up in long rows.
......I met Claude's wife Patty and the other wrangler Rob. Rob's about 30 and used to be a farrier in Seattle. We shared the bunkhouse, and Claude said we'd be working together once the season started. Christy is Claude and Patty's daughter and married to Chris. They live about an hour south in Wenanchie. Chris is a firefighter and he works two twenty hour straight shifts, but is only on duty for 2 eight hour shifts, and the rest of the time is just on call. So in 2 days he's clocked up 40 hours and has the rest of the week off. Not a bad job heh. So they usually come up to the ranch for the rest of the week and he works for Claude clearing trail. They've got a little boy called Brent, whose 3, and after a few months everytime I saw him he'd stick his thumb up and yell out "g'day mate!!" as loud as he could.... I dunno where he got that from, but he thought it was really funny. He was a top little kid.
...... Then there was Al Gardner, an old fella who had retired, and he was a champion. I learnt a lot from Al. He hung around most days and helped with whatever needed doing, whether it was driving trucks to the trackheads, helping shoe the mules, or fixing up the saddles in the tack room. Marva and Lyn were the cooks, both real mountain ladies, and the most important part of the trips... These are the people I was to live and work with for the next several months. They're all wonderful people and we were to become great friends.

For the first few weeks before the packing season began, I was to work with Chris cutting trail and pushing cows in the hills, and he could teach me the basics of packing and working mules. We headed off early the next morning with two horses and Corona , a quiet red mule in the back of a horse float and drove to a trackhead near the Ashenola River. Chris showed me how to saddle and strap up a mule. The 'decker' saddle has a wooden frame covered in thick canvas with two large brass handles at the front and back, and a long rope attached to each for tying the load down. Then theres chest and rump straps to be hooked up and a special way to girth him up so if you get into trouble you can get the saddle off quick. Chris told me that if I worked for Claude in the mountains he's got three rules. Always tie up your horse, always leave the keys in the pickup ( often people can get into trouble in the mountains, whether it's Claude's outfit or other mule packers, and he wants a vehicle with the keys in it ready to go in case someone comes out in a hurry ) and thirdly always carry a knife. When you're leading a string of mules wrecks are sometimes inevitable. ( a mule string can be up to a dozen animals long, all with heavy packs, and all tied together. Although mules are very intelligent and well trained, somtimes one will get wrapped around a tree the wrong way, or tangled in each other, or one might slip off the edge on a steep trail. If you can imagine all the mules walking forward at a fast pace, all that momentum and weight tied together, and suddenly from the back something gets stuck, the mules get strung out very quickly and very tight. Mules will also instintively pull back when they get in trouble, and won't let in, which makes it worse. Thats what they call a wreck. If you get a bad wreck, they can be strung out so tight that they will choke to death on their halters.The only way to save them is to start cutting ropes as quick as you can) . Chris told me Claude had a friend who watched half his string die in a wreck. They were stretched out so tight that theres no way he could untie them and he didn't have a knife.

.... Anyway, after he showed me how to saddle im up properly, he started to teach me how to tie things on. This morning we only had two blocks of salt, an axe and a crosscut saw. Everything has a special way to be tied. Each time you tie some part of the load, you finish with a mule packer knot, to secure it, then keep going. At the end there may be several knots, but the end of the rope is never passed thru, ever! This is so when you have to untie the packs, one it's a lot quicker, cause you just keep pulling one end and the whole thing comes apart, and two, if you're in a wreck, you can get packs off quickly. Chris tied the two salt blocks on first, then the 6 foot two man cross cut saw, which is flexible and folds over the top of the load, and then pushed the axe in tight between some ropes.

Chris , with a big log to cut.		Chris leading home Corona, after a day clearing trail.

....Our job today was to clear the trail up as far as we could so the cows would follow up later, and drop off the salt blocks. I couldn't understand at first why we'd bother cutting out fallen logs, when you could just go round them, but I soon found out. The mountains are so thickly forested with trees, and so steep in places, that every draw (gully) had to have a trail leading thru it to move the cows. The tall softwood pine trees tend to fall over easily in the winter when loaded up with snow, and the trail can become completely blocked by the fallen logs. And as Claude's range is classified 'wilderness', it means nothing mechanical is allowed in, so no chainsaws can be used.
....We started off on the trail, headed for Wolf Creek. (or Crik, as they call it) The first 5 miles was used by hikers and the forestry department kept the trail cleared, but once we turned onto the cattle trail we soon found work to do. Anything over 6 inches thick we'd cut with the crosscut, and anything under one of us would get off and hit with the axe. We tied up the horses here and pulled off the 'missery whip'. (the crosscut saw) It's extremely sharp with a long vertical handle at each end to hold on to, and theres a lot of technique to using it. You only pull towards you, never pushing, and let the weight of the saw so the cutting. But when two fellas get used to working together, and can get a good rythem going, you can 'get on the saw a bit' , where you both put a little weight on it. It surprising how fast it cuts thru the logs, but all the same was bloody hard work. Trying to stay on your feet was sometimes the hardest, it was so steep inplaces and the ground fairly loose. Often if I was on the lower end of the saw, Chris's feet would be level with my chest. You get to be pretty good mates quickly doing this sort of work. You'd be pullin on that saw in a steady rythm on a two foot thick log, and glance up from under your hat brim and see the sweat dripping from each other's eyes, and you couldn't help but grin. We'd be testing each other at first, see who'd be first to call a break. But usually unless it was very thick, we wouldn't stop until we cut right thru. If it was a big log, you had to cut it twice, to cut a piece out of it, which was then still a big log sitting on the ground, and often jammed against the cut, or on a tree stump or rock. So we'd have to cut a strong sappling to use as a lever to try to roll the log away, or we'd just put our shoulders together and dig our heels in. I kept thinking of the VB commercial "straining till you thought you would burst". I was pretty sore after the first few days but but my body quickly got used to it.
.... Chris was one of the fittest men I've known. He competes in a lot of mountain bike and triathlon races. He has once done 5 kms in 15 minutes. When I was in the army, I was at one time was the fastest over 5kms from all the bases in our district, and the quickest I ran it was 16 minutes 40 seconds. So he was bloody fit. In the winter time when theres a few feet of snow on the ground, he's got a pack of hunting dogs and he'd chase cougar on foot in snow shoes thru the mountains. The dogs will chase the cat and try to tree him, when in the old days the hunter would shoot him, but now Chris just takes photos and lets the cougar go.
.... Sometimes we'd be working on a trail that had been used by the mountain men a hundred years ago. They'd marks the trail by blazing trees every hundred yards or so with an axe, and Chris would point them out to me, and once you knew what to look for they were fairly easy to find. They had grown over but the scar was still quiet visible. It reminded me of one of Banjo's poems... "Pioneers"

They came of bold and roving stock that would not fixed abide;
They were the sons of field and flock since e'er they learned to ride;
We may not hope to see such men in these degenerate years
As those explorers of the bush - the brave old pioneers.

'Twas they who rode the trackless bush in heat and storm and drought;
'Twas they that heard the master-word that called them further out;
'Twas they that followed up the trail the mountain cattle made
And pressed across the mighty range where now their bones are laid.

But now the times are dull and slow, the brave old days are dead
When hardy bushmen started out, and forced their way ahead
By tangled scrub and forests grim towards the unknown west,
And spied the far-off promised land from off the ranges' crest.

Oh! ye, that sleep in lonely graves by far off ridge and plain,
We drink to you in silence now as Christmas comes again,
The men who fought the wilderness through rough, unsettled years -
The founders of our nations life, the brave old pioneers.

....About 4 or 5 in the arvo we'd turn around and head out. Chris would always want to travel pretty quick going out. When the mules are loaded, they can only walk, as a trot would soon dislodge the packs, but empty they can break into a ground eating extended trot and fit animals could travel like that all day, covering about 8 - 10 miles an hour without raising a sweat.
....Chris told me the story about Claude when one day he was coming out of the mountains with a long string of empty mules, when he passed a group of hunters with horses just saddling up again after stopping for coffee. As Claude walked past, one of the hunters made a smart remark about being stuck behind a bunch of slow old mules, and they may as well put the coffee pot back on the fire. (Claudes mules are enourmous animals, they're percheron draught horse crossed with a mammonth jack donkey, with 80 years of Claude and his fathers breeding behind them. They are among the finest mules in the country. ( You'd get a lot of respect from other mountain men or packers when you said you pack for Claude Miller ) During the summer packing season, the mules get worked constantly, often walking 15 - 20 miles a day with up to 200 pound packs on and by the end of the season can easily clock up several hundred miles of hard mountain walking. ) So Claude challenged the city cowboy and their expensive stable bred ponies to keep up with him and his bunch of slow mules the 12 miles to the trackhead. He knew they never had a chance. While the fat city slickers cantered off with their horses all loaded up with lassoo's, rifles and huge double saddlebags filled with the junk these people bring, Claude stopped for about 10 minutes while he adjusted his string and had a bit of tucker, before pushing his horse and mules into a ground eating trot and caught them all within half an hour.
.... Chris and I got back to the pickup, loaded up and headed back to the ranch........ We did this work together for about two weeks without a break. I was getting used to handling the mules, and leading them behind me, with their lead rope looped one and a half turns around the saddle horn, and the end tucked under my leg. After a few weeks we started mustering the draws and pushing the cattle up the tracks we'd cleared. Most of the time we were riding the new mob of painted colts, that had just been broken, and it was a good chance to get them used to working in the hills and used to the cattle or the mules. They were always pretty frisky but a hard day in the mountains would quieten them down a bit. They were good fun to ride though. It's incredibly tough work for the horses, especially pushing cows. they are constantly up and down steep hills, and if a cow breaks out and heads back, you have to get round it pretty quick or he'll be gone. Sometimes the terrain would get so steep or matted with fallen timber you'd have to get off your horse and let him make his own way down and slide down on your bum behind him. One day, we were pushing about 40 pairs up past Wolf Crik, when a cow and her calf broke out and started heading back down the hill. Chris was on the top side of the mob, so I turned back and cut out after them. ( When chasing a cow like this you can't just race after them, as you will only push them away faster, you have to cut out wide, get in front of them and turn them back.) As I was trying to get round them, I pushed my horse down thru a tiny creek choked with sapplings. We were going a bit quick and my horse tripped amongst the trees, lost her feet and stumbled. As she hit the ground a sappling branch about 3" thick and several feet long broke off and speared straight thru my stirrup iron and ended up poking up into my horses belly. Straight away I knew I was in big trouble cause my boot was jammed so tight I couldn't move it, and I could feel the stick poking into the horse. She started bucking, and I yelled out to Chris to come quick. You should have seen him come flying down the hill, he could tell by the tone of my voice I was in trouble, and he skidded to a stop about 20 yards away so as not to spook my horse any more. I was so lucky today I was riding an experienced mare and after she bucked for a few seconds she calmed down and just stood there, although we were both shaking a bit. I'd never been so grateful for having a horse with a good head. I did me best to keep her calm until Chris got the stick out and he looked up at me, "lucky you weren't ridin one of them paint colts " he said with a grin. We both knew a colt would have gone crazy, having a stick jammed up into the sensitive part of his belly like that. ( One time back in the Gulf at Millungra Station, I was half dozing trailing a bunch of weaners, when the colt I was riding walked over a tall clump of grass which tickled his belly, and I was outa the saddle before I'd even opened my eyes and I sat there and watched him buck like mad for a good hundred yards. )

We had started to see some sign of bears, and once Chris showed me mountain lion tracks. It's very rare to see a mountain lion though. Sometimes I had me horse smell them, which makes them terribly nervous, so they were around. Bears were easier to find though, and it wouldn't be long before we ran into one. I was anxious to see my first bear. There were only really black bears around here, the grizzlys had pretty much been shot out I think, but there were heaps in Canada, which the border was only about 50 miles away. Everynow and then while on a trail over the coming months I'd meet a hunter or someone who reckoned they saw a grizzly. But I dunno, I think they might have been seeing things. Everyone carried guns though just the same. What surprised me one day was I met a group of bushwalkers, with packs on and they all had 6 guns in holsters around their waist. I was coming over the hill with several mules behind me and there was all this shooting. It really stirred the mules up and as I came into the clearing they were standing there shooting at dead trees. I've done a lot of bushwalking before but never seen anyone packing a six gun. I put me hands up and surrended though so they let me pass.

I had a horse go down on me one time. I was cutting trail again with Chris and I was on a new cream filly that had just come back for Claudes 'heaven and hell' treatment. ( he's got another 30 horses over in Seattle at a girl guides camp, where the horses get pampered and spoilt rotten, and after a while some of them will play up a bit. So Claude trucks them back and get us to ride them 2 or 3 days in a row pushing cows in the hills. After a few weeks of the hell treatment, they are usually only too happy to go back to heaven with the girl guides and behave emselves ) Towards the end of the day she must have had enough, and pretty much just stopped. We were zig zagging up a really steep trail, I had been having trouble neck reining her and couldn't get her come around, so I spurred her a bit on the shoulder and she chucked a fit on me, backed up and reared a little, then lost her footing and rolled backwards down over the edge, but I stepped out of me saddle in a second and tumbled down after her. You learn to ride with your downhill foot very light in the stirrup, so if anything happens you just step off. But you gotta be bloody quick cause it happens in a heartbeat. I had a razor sharp bowsaw slung over my shoulders so lucky I didn't cut meself.

Me with Corona the mule and the horse that chucked me.		Behind me is Claudes range, you can see the snowline where we have been pushing the cows to.

....Chris often use to bring Claudes red cattle dog Boomer with us. He was a top old dog, bloody tough. He had all his front teeth kicked out and a hole in the top of his head from a horseshoe, which knocked him out but a few hours later got up and caught up with everyone. Claude wasn't sorry for him but cause he'd been heeling the horses at the time (nipping their heels) which is a really bad habit for a dog to get into. It's in a cattle dogs blood but causes lots of trouble with horses and mules. Claudes last cattle dog had been heeling horses one too many times so he pulled out his 30-30 from under his saddle and shot him between the ears. He dropped down, but the bullet had just grazed his head, and like Boomer, a few hours later he was back. Claude reckoned he deserved a second chance and thought the dog would be smart enough not to risk another 30-30 bullet. But it turned out he wasn't and the next time he bit a horse Claude dropped his aim a few inches.

The packing season wasn't far away now, but every arvo after cuttin trail or pushin cows we'd alway head home to the ranch and do a few chores before Patty or Christy would have tea ready for us. One of our first jobs was to give the horses and mules some hay. Cause they work pretty hard they need some extra feed, and Claude had a few hundred acres leased up the road that he put into lucerne and alfalfa. The square bales that came off it are about twice the size of square bales back home, and are really bloody heavy. Every night, usually me and Rob, had to load 20 bales onto the back of Claudes old red F250 pickup. We'd stack the bales up high on the truck, and then we'd take turns in either driving around the paddock or sitting up top cutting the twine and throwing the hay off. One day I was driving, and I went thru the gate like we'd done so many times, and stopped for Rob to close the gate and waited for him to jump on. After waiting a bit I started off, driving quiet slowly giving Rob time to get the bales off. You can't really see from inside the truck whats going on, as the bales are stacked hanging off the sides and block any view from the mirrors. This day, for some reason Rob had to go back and get something from the shed, and wasn't on the back of the truck when I started off. By the time he got back to the gate I was half way across the paddock, slowly driving around on me own with the horses in a pack following me. Rob walked up to the house where Claude, Patty and Christy were having a drink on the back verandah, which overlooks the paddock, and they all watched me wondering what the hell I was doing. I kept driving slowly along, round in a big circle, oblivious to what was going on. I was in a bit of a daze, thinking about Kiyomi, and our planned trip to hawaii in a few weeks, and then thought 'geez Robs a bit slow getting the bales off tonight' , as by this time they should be coming off from the sides off the truck. It wasn't until I'd nearly done a full circle, that I noticed there was no hay on the ground, where usually they'd be a long trail of hay and horses strung out along it. I got out and and had a look and every bale was still there, but Rob wasn't. Then I heard them all laughing and looked over to see Rob and everyone on the verandah cacking themselves. I felt like a bit of an idiot at the time, but at least they had a good laugh out of it.
.... Most nights during tea, Claude would tell us what was going on the following day, and termorra he said I could come with him and some of his mates to chase some cows. So next morning we were up early again, I went round the paddock on a bike and pushed all the stock into the yards. Rob was there with a bunch of halters and we started catching the ones we wanted to ride that day. They were always very frisky in the morning, and with about 60-70 animals in two small yards, there was always a few bights and kicks going on. If a horse backed round and lay his ears down, which he'll do just before he gives a big kick, all the horses within range will scramble out of the way. And we're moving amongst them all, trying to get a rope round one of them, so you have to be pretty careful not to get knocked over, but you always end up getting trodden on sometimes which bloody hurts like hell. I caught Claudes horse, mine and a few more for his mates, lead them up into the stables, then came back to give Rob a hand. Rob had been spending the last week shoeing, and he said after today I could help him finish off. He had to shoe all the horses and mules before the first pack trip which was in about a week. I helped him catch what mules he wanted to shoe today, then let the rest of the stock back out into the paddock. I saddled up our horses and loaded them onto the stock truck, and while I was waiting for Claude checked the oil and water on the moter. All the stock trucks here were Chev 350 V8 petrols, where in Aus on all the stations they have Jap. diesels which are a lot more economical, but petrol was dirt cheap here so I spose that's why. They were pretty mad, noisy old trucks, with 5 gears and a splitter, and Claude told me how to drive them as we headed down the dirt road on the way to the trackhead "son, when you're driving one of these trucks, don't try and steer them, just herd them back towards the center of the road when they get to the edge!" Sounded like good advice..... To get the horses off, he'd just find a bank on the side of the road somewhere, and back into it, then we'd drop the doors down, leave the truck where it was half blocking the road, get the horses out and jump on. Claude's mates were along for a bit of fun and they had followed us in their pickup. We all rode into the forest and wasn't long before we came across some cows, and started getting a mob together. Me and Claude stopped for a bit of smoko for a few minutes, which was a few slices of thick german sausage and a drink of water. We spotted a cow and calf amongst a thicket of trees, so Claude went off to get them , while I pushed the half a dozen or so we had back to join the mob, which his mates were slowly moving up the valley.
...Ten minutes later he came walking back covered in blood and half his shirt missing, leading his horse. He'd staked his horse pretty bad underneath his flank and hit an artery in the groin area. It was a pretty big wound and he'd ripped off his shirt and shoved into the hole to try and stem the bleeding. With the cattle heading in the right direction, he decided to call it a day, and sent his mates ahead. It was gonna be a long walk out and there was no point in them hanging back. His horse was still bleeding badly but there was nothing we could do. A big animal like a horse can loose what seems like a lot of blood to us before they're in real trouble. But Claude was the one in trouble now, cause we had a long way to go over tough country, and like I said before, he doesn't like walking any further than from his pickup to his saddle horse. I offered him mine several times but I knew he wouldn't take it. Anyway after a few miles of hills he was completely buggered and he gave in "righto Aussie, you walk up the hills and I'll walk down 'em." "no worries" I said..... We ran into a black bear and two cubs on the way out. Claude was in front and he put his hand up and, then pointed them out to me. We must have been downwind and were lucky cause they hadn't seen or smelt us yet. We stood there and watched them for about 5 minutes, it was a moment I'll always remember. The mother was picking huckleberries from a bush, and the two cubs were mucking around with each other. They were black as could be, and their coats gliztened in the sunlight. Black bears aren't real big, and this mother was I reckon only about 4 foot tall and the cubs about half that. Suddenly she turned and looked us straight in the eyes, we were about 30 yards away, then she gathered her cubs in front of her and they all shot up a tree in a flash. the cubs went right up the top and sat there clinging onto the trunk like little black koalas, then the mother came back half way down and watched us, almost daring us to come any closer. We didn't , and gave them a wide berth and kept going. So now I'd seen a wild black bear, and couldn't wait to tell Kiyomi about it in my next letter.

Steve Darwood (left) and Al Gardner, tipping a horse over on the table.		Steve grinding the hoof flat, ready for the shoe.

When we got back again to the ranch, it was only just after lunch, so while Claude tried to patch up his horse, he said I could give Rob a hand shoeing. I met a nother farrier bloke called Steve Darwood who had bought his shoeing table along. Al as usual was helping and Chris's dad Clive had come up for a few days also. Rob, up to now had been only shoeing the horses and mules with problem feet, or any that wouldn't go on the table. It's terribly hard work shoeing a large mule, and they can be quiet unco-operative sometimes too which makes it even harder. With the horses up at Sun Mountain, the horses and mules at the ranch and a few others around, there was about 120 head all up that had to be shod. And cause it was the first time they'd been shod since the long spell over winter, their feet were fairly overgrown and needed a lot of work. A good farrier would normally charge about US 40 - 50 bucks to shoe a horse, and could do about 8 in a day. But with so many animals, it just was too big a job and too expensive to shoe them normally. That's where Steves table came in. I'd never seen or heard about one before. It was on a trailer, and Steve had it parked in the stables. When it was upright, it was like a cattle crush, you led the horse in and closed the gate behind them. The lead rope was tied down, then Steve would pass two wide straps around the horses belly, and they'd get tied up at the back, and then winched tight. so now the horse or mule couldn't move. They didn't like this part much and sometimes would try to rear up or thrash around. But once you got em tied down they really couldn't do much. Then Steve would flick a switch and the table would slowly tip over on a big hydrolic ram until it was horizontal. Then it was my job to move in and try to strap down their feet, which was always a bit dodgy You'd have to grab one foot, pass a strap round it and buckle it down, without getting kicked by the other feet. But it got less risky as you went along, until all the feet were strapped down. Now we'd all move in five of us would work on the horse at once. I went in first and pulled the old shoes off, if there was any on. Rob would come in behind me with the nippers and cut their hoof back. Normally, next a farrier would get out his rasp and file the hoof nice and flat, ready to take the shoe. But because the horse was tied up, Steve would come in behind Rob with a small Makita angle grinder fitted with a sanding pad, and grind them flat. While he was doing this, Rob was shaping some shoes on an anvil, and sitting them next to the hoof, where Steve would then come back and nail them on. After a while he'd only put two nails in to position the shoe, then let me hammer the other four nails in, cut them off clinch them over. While we were doing this, Clive was getting the next horse ready, and Al Gardner would be standing on the other side of the table behind the horses head, and clip their long mane with a set of electric shears. A long mane would get matted, and would tangle in all the ropes, also you could easily tell which horses had been shod, just by looking at their mane, so they always got neatly clipped. So that was it. It was very easy, and took about 15 minutes each horse, so we could do about 35 in a day.

Late in the arvo as we were finishing up, I was giving Rob a quick hand to finish off a mule that we couldn't get into the table, so had to shoe him the normal way. I had his front foot between me legs clinching the nails over when Claude turned up and he threw a pair of boots at my feet. " ere son try these on." He'd been in town to get some vet supplies and bought me a pair of long cowboy boots. He hadn't said anything about buying them, and didn't know my size. I had always had trouble buying boots that fit me well, and I thought how the hell are these gonna fit. But I sat down, pulled off me Blunstones and pulled on the new boots. To my astonishment they fitted perfectly, and were really comfortable. I strapped me spurs on and they fitted just right too. ( they never did sit well on me Blunstones ) I was as happy as a rat with a gold tooth. "thanks Claude" I said as he walked away, thinking they were a present, "that's allright , I'll get Patty to take them outa your pay. They were 80 bucks. " he said over his shoulder.
.... I ended up spending the next few days working like this, until all the horses and mules had new shoes on, manes neatly clipped and ready for a few months work. We had a our first pack trip tomorrow, so me and Rob started getting all the gear ready. We were taking two families from Seatle into a place called Hidden Lakes, which was about a 12 mile ride. There was still a lot of snow around so this was one of the only tracks open so far. North Cascade Safaris was the name of Claudes company, and he usually worked in two groups. I was to spend the next few months packing with Rob and Marva, while Claude would be working with Lyn, then he had a nother bloke who used to do drop trips. I can't remember his name but I used to call him the Marlbrough Man, cause he really thought that's who he was. He had a white hat, used to wear these big chaps and seemed to be always carring a lassoo. And always reckoned he'd seen a grizzly every time he came out of the mountains. Drop trips are where you take hunters in with all their gear, leave them there for a week or so, then come back and pick them and their bear skins up.
Rob and I checked all the gear we'd need and loaded it into the back of the pickup. There was a big old canvas tent, an iron wood stove and chimney, kitchen boxes, food boxes, axe, crosscut saw, salt blocks, shovel, horse bells, half a bag of grain, a heap of mannies and mannie ropes. We needed some new mannie ropes and Claude had bought a big spool of rope so we'd have to make some up later on. A 'mannie' was a piece of white canvas about 8 foot square, and was used to wrap all the gear up in, and the mannie ropes were to tie it all up. Then we went into the stables and checked some of the saddle gear. There was constantly repairs to do on the masses of saddles, halters, bridles, mule saddles, chest plates, and there was a room full of leather tools, copper rivets and buckles where we could fix anything up. I used to love that room, and the smell of the leather. Over the next several months any spare time I had while I was not in the mountains, I spent in there, fixing up the huge piles of old saddles or bridles, or anything that broke while on a trip.

That night after tea I went back out next to the stables with Clive, and we sat there under the night sky, with a spool of rope between us and just chatted while we made up some new manny ropes. They were about 8 yards long, and had an eye splice in one end and a back splice in the other. He was a top old bloke Clive, and it was special for me to sit there and yarn to him, while we spliced the rope. You can really learn a lot from talking and listening to old blokes, cause they've been there already, and then had the chance to reflect on what they'd learnt. I just always found it interesting talking to men like him. He told me all about his adventures growing up in the mountains, about the people important to him in his life, about the places he'd been to and the experiences he'd had. It was well into the night when we realised what time it was, and since I had me first pack trip the next day, we decided to hit the sack.

Old mate Clive, finishing off an end splice. He's wearing the plaited belt I made him.		The main street of Winthrop. We used to often go and have a beer at 'Three Fingered Jacks' saloon.

I heard Rob rustling about in our little bunkhouse so I sleepily got up, got dressed, put me hat and boots on, and started to pack all me things for the trip. I threw a spare shirt and jeans onto me swag, then a woolen jumper, me bag of leather, me roo skin, and rolled it all up together and tied the swag off with two leather stirrup straps. Me drizabone and another jumper was always tied across the back of me saddle so that was all I needed. We went and had a quick cuppa, got the horses in and started saddling up. Rob said there was 6 guests, so 6 horses for them, one each for me Rob and Marva plus one spare, and we'd need 10 mules. Normally we'd need a mule for the kitchen boxes, one for the dry food boxes, one for the frozen food boxes, one for the stove and tent, and about a mule for each guests , unless they were hunters, when you'd need two mules for each bloke. By the time we had all the stock saddled and loaded onto the trucks, it was about 7, and we would then drive into the little town of Winthrop and have breaky with the guests at the saloon.
....Winthrop was a magic little place, and looked exactly like you'd see in a western movie. It started out in around 1820 and was just an outpost where miners and trappers could get supplies, and was serviced first by mule train about every six months, and then by wagons. By 1890 it had started to grow into a little town, with its first business 'The Methow Trading Company"