Few from the northern hemisphere understand blazing heat over Christmas. (Hears a shout out to all my Florida people!) But here in Australia, it only adds to the tradition of cold beers and food having been cooked the day before Christmas to be chilled for lunch on Christmas day. (As an example, the heat this week reached 42 C, or 107 F. Other parts of the region hit 50 C, or nearly 130 F.)
My Australian family took me in once more, this time for a week of shenanigans.
The heat hit early in the day, making the tent poles that we were assembling to be unbearably hot. Once set up, the trailer/tent that became my accommodation was quite comfortable with the breeze.
With the heat continuing to build, we improvised a pool out of a tarp and an empty trailer, which supplied hours of splashing.

(Ashlee and I climbing trees)

(Amy on makeshift karaoke night, that girl has a set of pipes!)

Christmas eve was spent peeping for the big day, with every square inch of the fridge accounted for, hams, seafood, salads and deserts occupied every vacancy.
We stayed up to track Santa and watch Christmas specials, before drifting off for Santa to visit.
Christmas morning everyone was crowded into the small yet comfortable living room for presents and scratch offs , then gathered outside for our amazing Christmas-lunch spread.
Christmas dinner was a blur of awesome shenanigans. At a large family gathering and barbeque, Ashlee and Amy and I indulged in leches (a small gooey fruit) and enjoyed the child like delights of christmas goody bags while laughing along with the jokes of the crazy aunt. (Every family has that one aunt or uncle that provides the entertainment just by showing up. Yeah, Jenny was it.

(Two crazily cool chicks! My Aussie sisters, Amy and Ashlee.)

(My Aussie family. The kindest people, whose dysfunctionality made me right at home. I love these people, and will always consider them family.)

Once Christmas was over, it was time to go back to work. Working new years eve was made up for with wondering on down to the rodeo in Goomari once we cut out for the day.
The rough and tumble of the rodeo was welcomed, since I am used to small town rodeos, and I met back up with Ashlee, Amy and crew to enjoy the festivities.

(Notice rider, then notice the saddle. Ouch!)

(8 seconds is a long time)

I had to bow out early, not only having to drive home that night, but having to be up early the next morning too.
Over that week, not much had happened besides finding guineafowl chicks around the farm. But by the end of the weekend, I had received word that the family I had been nannying for wouldn’t need me anymore. And back to Wondai I went.
Within a few days I had a job lead with a hotel that I applied to before I started nannying. This hotel isn’t quite ‘Crocodile Dundee’ or ‘Red Dog’, but it has the unmistakeable spirit of ‘small town’. Everyday Cowboy and Trapper will wonder through those thin double doors, and I almost have all the drinks the locals order memorized… After all there’s only a dozen regulars at most.
The town is an intersection. The hotel, and a gas station, with the neighboring buildings, that once housed vendors and shops, standing vacant beside the Anzac memorial (veterans memorial) park. The big bold letters “lest we forget” sit, almost poetically, against the forgotten old buildings.

Stay tuned for more adventures from the hotel, and the ghost stories that accompany them.