Life at The Rock....

This blog is brought to you by Jake aka Baby Jake all the way from Ayers Rock, Australia!

Howdy how, peeps. Greetings from the hot, sandy, red centre of Australia.

Mumma D has been bugging me to write another guest blog from my new diggs here in Yulara. That’s Ayers Rock (I prefer Uluru, personally) not Alice Springs, which is 4-5 hours away, so it’s like mistaking Bundy for Brisvegas. It is an interesting town, with very diverse people. A lot of people only stay 3-6 months, some even less. But I have met people who have been here 10+ years and/or coming back for second and third times.

By a long way the residents are mostly Anglo Aussies/Kiwis, but we also have large Korean and Indo-Pak communities with a few other nationalities thrown in for good measure. There’s also a push for more indigenous employees with the new ownership. And for the most part everyone gets in together; I mean you’re always going to have cliques but the vast majority of people seem to get along okay.

What do I miss, living here in Yulara?? Well the obligatory answer has to be friends and family. And while I do indeed miss them, not as much as most would think. You see I’m not so much the social creature and I don’t see my family all that often. In fact I probably talk more to mum out here than when we were in the same house. She definitely doesn’t get to speak to me as much as she did back home, however, damn the telcos and their “fair go” policies.

I definitely miss the things I did with those people back in brissy. Like crazy arse drives with McGee at god-awful hours, or laying the smacketh down on Jimmy-Jam on Playstation. Definitely miss the ranga dog, I’ve got no one to eat the crap I drop on the floor. Though there are positives; nobody is drinking my alcohol, throwing chips at me in the spa, or chewing holes in my underwear. I’ll leave it to you, as to who’s guilty of what??

I definitely miss Foxtel, I honestly don’t know how people carry on with less than 100 channels. I’ve never liked channel nine and its retarded cousin Imparja isn’t much of an improvement. Though I have come to enjoy programs like The Mentalist & Harry’s Law in my squalor, never seen them before. Hopefully I’ll get Austar hooked up soon.

It is also incredibly hard to get my WWE fix, and it definitely chews into my 3G bandwidth. Unmetered ADSL2+ is a forgotten luxury, I never thought twice about downloading a season of Stargate overnight, yet now I have to question whether I really need to watch that College Humor clip. Sad panda.

Also really missing my couch, if it was even remotely practical to bring it out here it would be here in a flash. Nothing worse than a couch you can’t stretch out on and my couch is just superb for a siesta. It’s gotta be almost 10 years old but I’ve never found a more comfortable couch that isn’t strung between two trees; speaking of which, I’m also missing my hammock. Okay, not necessarily MY hammock as it was a cheapie I picked up on a whim from BCF. But I am an avid Hammocker (yes, that’s a thing) and missing my training sessions (hey, as long as golf, cricket and fishing are considered sports – it’s open to anything).

But the one thing I am missing most is the mighty Coug. Now not everybody understands the connection you can make with a car, but I assure you that it is real. I bought the Cougar in November of 2008 and fell in love with it instantly. She’s not the fastest beast on the road, but trying telling QPS that. There’s every reason in the world not to own her but they do say that true love is blind. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a car person; couldn’t fix anything on it to save my life. But I miss my Coug, opening it up on the Gateway, heel-toe downshifts around Mt Mee, even having a kip in the back down at Dohles Rocks with the tunes cranked up.

But nostalgia be damned, I’m still having a good time out here. Starting to assimilate into one of the locals. Haven’t struck up life long friendships just yet but hanging out with some cool people. Some play money would be nice but isn’t that always the case. Accommodation is bland, but I’ve got a single so it could be far worse. And I tell you I haven’t caught a bus this much since school, luckily it’s free. But when the bus isn’t running, it’s foot power all the way; lots and lots of walking.

Now the job is okay, not exactly what I had in mind when I accepted but we’ll just see how it all plays out. It is very different from Bunzl-land, sometimes in good ways, sometimes not so much. I’ve gone from dealing with $20,000 orders of foam cups over 8 weeks of sales to $200 orders of ‘roo tails over 3 days of sales. It’s a bit of a change of mindset to wrap my head around. And get this, good ol’ Bunzl Adelaide supplies its amenities, go figure.

Oh well, that should suffice for one entry. I’ll make a deal, I’ll write another one when I drive out here in the Coug.

Let me know if you’re out my way, I might just be able to score you a deal.

Adios mis amigos.