Yuleba, the 'outback' experience

Hi Guys,

Last time I wrote to you I was on my way to Yuleba, a place 5 hours west of Brisbane. Today I'm writing from the Post Office. Every town here has a small post office with a computer. Here I have Wi-Fi . This is also the place where we have to pick up our post mail. The only service here you can get with Telstra. So I had to buy that before I came here. I feel like I'm in the 'outback' , but I'm not. That's why I call it the 'Outback'. A lot of people laugh at me when I call it this way. I Iive in Yuleba, a town with, I think 80-100 people. In this town you have one post office, a small supermarket and a pub. I work in the Yuleba pub as a bartender, never imagined that I would be a bartender ever. I work here 6 days (tue-sun) , and start at 12:00 till, most of the time, 21:00. It depends on how busy we are. Sometimes I have to start a little bit earlier or finish a little bit later. Most of the times we have locals in the pub. Well locals, they call themselves locals if they live 16- 25 km away from the town, so strange. But sometimes, when the weather has been shit we get workers. Nearby there is a workers camp. Here are a hundreds of guys and woman working for a gascompany. So sometimes my boss comes to my room and says that they are coming. Well, now I'm getting used to them. But the first time they came I was eating my breakfast and spit almost my coffee over the table because buses full of guys stoped in front of the hotel and the only thing I thought was, ' What the fuck, buses full?'

The locals are really nice. And every day I get them to know a little bit more. I'm starting my fourth week today and I feel like I'm here for a much longer time then I am. I'm living with Sally and Grant. I have my own room with a tv and fridge in a different building. Sally and Grant have this place for three years now and they are really nice to me. They make me feel like home. Besides me, Sally and Grant we have Kat. A lovely girl from England who's working in the kitchen as a cook and doing her sponsorship here. So we have a small team and that's nice because you get more part of the ' family' . The first Monday I had a day off Sally took me to Roma, the 'big' city. I call it that way because only 7000 people live here and this is the biggest city nearby. It's an hour drive I think. There is not much to do but you can do some shopping and of course we stopped at the Mac Donalds.

Last Monday I went out with a girl she lives in the next town. She's in  the pub sometimes. We went out for lunch and coffee in Roma and after that I saw here place. They live on a cattle farm. So many cows and they have a lot and a lot of space. There is no one around them except here parents. I think she said something about 70.000 hectare ground. And the cows and bulllocks are running everywhere. They asked me if I ever shot a gun, I had not. Well I thought about a handgun but when they came back with a shotgun. I have shot a jerry can, no animals, I could not bear that. I felt so amazing. It was so cool to shot a gun, and what kind of a gun!

You all saw the news of the cyclone Debbie on the news. I have not had a big storm here. We had a few days rain but not really much. A few ways around Yuleba were closed because of the flood, but I have not seen much. After the storm you could feel it is getting colder. At night we have 14 degrees and during the day 25.I woke up one day because I was freezing. It's getting winter here! It can be pretty cold here during the winter, below zero! And who's got no winter clothes? yes, me.

This weekend I had a party in the next town. It was really nice. They had a big fire, country music and a pig on a spit! The only thing what was missing where the cowboys. The party was so different then we all are used to. I love the music out here. In the pub we also have country music and it makes me happy. Something different then all the house, rock and R&b music in Holland.

I'm staying here a couple of months so I can save up money. The days are over before I know it. I'm getting used to it a little bit more. The first week were hard because I had not worked for a long time. But I like the place, the people and it feels nice to have a total different experience. I will upload some photo's so you can see where I'm living.

Liz