Australia, my new home

Canonbar, and the conductor assured me that it was one stop before Nyngan. The platform was just long enough for one carriage. I was in the outback for sure. The country was as flat as Sapowice, the property where I grew up. I took an immediate liking to it. A car came to pick me up and take me to Miowera Station, where Mr. & Mrs. Muir were the managers. They offered me hospitality in their home.

Shearing was in full swing, and I was roped in straight away. The shed had places for six shearers, who kept the classer and the helpers busy. My task was to keep the classing table and the floor around it clean from locks and other pieces of wool, as the classer was very particular about the fleeces. As I was familiar with all the different types of wool, I could make myself quite useful in the shearing shed.

Bruce was the jackeroo on the station. He too stayed with the Muirs. One day the shearing could not continue as the sheep were all wet. Bruce took me on horse back around the station. We came to an emu nest with about 15 large, green eggs. Bruce collected one: "This should be enough for scrambled eggs for the whole family."

"Can you eat emu eggs?" "Sure, you must try." "Do you think it is still fresh?" "Yeah, he hasn't sat on them yet, they are still all cold." "You said 'he', doesn't the female incubate the eggs?" "No, she only lays them, the male incubates them and looks after the chicks."

What a strange world, I thought, everything seems to be upside down. Then we came across a wild pig family.

"We should try to catch one of those little piglets. Mrs. Muir can fatten it then. You can't eat the big ones caught in the wild, they have too strong a taste."

It wasn't easy to catch one, but eventually we succeeded. Mrs. Muir was very pleased about the piglet and the Emu egg. I loved the open air and the country side, riding there with Bruce in charge, and not a care in the world. I took a lot of photos on our rides and also of the sheep and the station. I would develop them myself at the YMCA, and I promised Bruce that I would send him some of himself and the horse.

The mornings were crisp and frosty. It looked like snow outside, but the days were beautiful and sunny. The evenings were spent in front of a huge blazing fire, talking about all sorts of subjects. I was surprised at the wide range of knowledge these people from the bush had.

The classer took me back home to Sydney in his car, after the shearing was all finished.

A friend of mine in the wool trade, Len van den Hout, wanted to sell his Lambretta motor scooter. To be motorised would make a big change to my life style. I would no longer be dependent on public transport, particularly at weekends, when very few buses and trams were operating. So I decided

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