An old new begin

18 December i landed on Belgian soil. A flight without problems, even my luggage was there. I just walked out of the airport like an ordinary tourist. 

I was empty , drained of all my energy.  Like a zombie i walked outside to catch my ride home. But nobody there. I looked around to find a glimpse of my ride .  My exhausted hart turned a beat over. I saw a woman with red hair. Could it be ? I walked closer and yes. This was a welcome surprise . My search of beauty was over.  I found the rainbow i was looking for after my trip to hell.

The following days were all a blur. To much emotions, to many thoughts. Too many things were coming at me. It wasn’t my regularly trip overseas. This time i didn’t had a return ticket in my pocket. This time i wasn’t on a holiday. Things needed to be organised. Mrs, D wasn’t sold yet. I still had my mobile connection with Australia. Over here i only had my Belgian mobile number and a farm that asked a lot of man hours of work. No kitchen, no bad, no bed.

The following weeks just passed by running from one place to the other. A new passport and a new identity needed to be ordered. A new job has to be find. But first things first. i just had a hell of a job finished and i still had a jet lag coming. As usually the next days i felt a sleep at times you don’twant to know and I was trying to recover the kilos fat that i left at Warraga. No i needed to relax. Enjoy the beauty of my rainbow. 

Xmas was closing in without knowing. But still it was a Xmas to remember. Mattresses were brought down, and a living room was created in a relaxing lounge. What a difference this was with four weeks ago, when i was sleeping in a swag in the entertaining room of an abandoned mining town. And i have  to confess , i liked it, i really do. My mind was relaxed , and just enjoying the company. I even had the time to take up my former artistic talents.

And suddenly it was January, Old year was gone. Just my memory of fireworks and a night of games told me that it really has passed by. In the mean time i was fully recovered of my jet lag, and my mind was starting to tell me that i wasn’t here for a holiday. 

Slowly i started to do little tasks to keep my mind at ease. My mind had thousand and one issues where it worked at. And my body was just running after it. But slowly , piece by piece things were getting organised. Paperwork was almost at his end. A road was starting to form. 

A bath and even a kitchen that was get rid of at the right time , was installed in my future home. But the need of a job was getting urgent and was taking my good humor away. Thousand of jobs available but none straight away. To keep my good sense and rest , i attacked the farm. I kept my mind busy from dawn till dusk for improvements in the little farm. I kept myself so busy that i forget about my surroundings. 

Forget about more important things. Forgot that i wasn’t alone in my little farm. That there is a life out there.

Especially one that gives me a lot of beauty.

My last week

Exhausted , marked and 10 kilos lighter i was spending my last week in the promised country.  Trying to organise the last details. Trying to erase my existence at the yard 58. 

I stuffed the bin of the yard for the last time full of stuff my over weighted bag couldn't.t take. The last memories thrown away . My last precious things where i spend my adventures with were sold. My never malfunction Engel , who always has given me the cool refreshment in those warm hot days , was gone. The roof top tent where it all started with. The idea to travel the Kimberly's ,but never was realised, and to spend the nights on top of the roof far away of the crocs, was gone. A gen set, travel books and my black baked cooking gear gone, even my black billy who always made delicious coffee above the campfire gone. I saw it all go , telling myself again and again i made the right choice. 

After 5 weeks that my mind didn’t had the time to think. Now my days were just filled with time to think. No more work, Just plenty of time just wondering what to think. And as we know a mind has a way of his own.  One Day felt like a week, an hour felt like a day, a minute as an hour , and a second as a minute. Time just creeps on. 

A good thing that happened was , that i was on my way to pick up a good mate at the airport. A mate with the same background and history. We spend my last week at a relaxing mood. Mrs D. had here last trip , showing her best qualities on the dirt track. As ever , she just cruised to the difficult Boggy Hole. Me and Koen spend the night under the millions stars that the Australian sky offers. My last time i was at my favorite camping spot.   Even the dingos were howling me goodbye that night.

Still there were things that occupied my mind. We went to a few goodbye barbies of the community of the central dessert. A farewell party of a bush team member and a culinary dinner at the back of the workshop. A night that was filled with laughter and pure honesty. Nights you seldom are able to participate.

And then suddenly it was time. My last morning in the red centre. Time to clean 3 square metre area that i called home for the last two years. In a minimum of time all that history was wiped away. Just an orange coloured mark of candle wax on the wall says , Hansy was here. The taxi arrived , i looked back for the last time. Mrs D. looks abandoned. The lonely towel on the cloth line just hangs there waiting for the next one who comes a long. No trumpets and no sirens, just a normal day. Two guys who are taking a cap to the airport. Koen was heading to Melbourne again, and i was going a bit further.

My luggage was checked in , all the way to my destination. It was all going smoothly. Just relaxed cruising from one flight to the other, and there were a few that were a head of me. A short flight from the red centre too the world city Melbourne. This was the time Koen was heading his own way and i had my last 5 hours in the land of Oz. 

11.35 P.M.  Time to step on the plane, while texting the last messages that i will be out of the air for the next 12 hours. 

The wheels were lifted from the ground. I lost touched with the Australian soil. My mind was questioning it self. I looked in the distance, leaving behind 7 years of memories and flying to a known place and a future totally unknown.

Again !!!

Back from hell (part 2)

The job wasn’t finish yet, The steal coffin needs to be cut halfway in the height. The height of the building was something machines couldn’t reach. It was up to the human body ,torch and our little cage of the scissor lift .

There was only one team left over at the war zone. The Russians were send home for trespassing certain unwritten bush rules. The suites and breathing mask were the past.  It was a time of fires and burns.

11 hours a day we were swinging in the basket of the scissor lift, oxy cutting steel frames. Against the wind and with the wind. Dropping down tons of steel .Cursing in Belgian slang and cursing in German slang. At the end of the day , when we had the ground back under our feet we weren’t able to walk straight. Coppers would fine us immediately without a drunk test. 

Living at heights for the last weeks is a strange feeling. You get used to be in the air. The arms of the scissor lift are stretched every day a little bit further till you reach the full lenght. Every day we try to maneuver the flexible arm trough and under the steel skelet while the basket dances on the flex of the steel. Whole days we are looking down at the fires we started with the oxycutting. Looking down at the steel we dropped from a height of 38 metres. And once and a while a tool drops down in the chaos underneath us, disappearing for ever. 

We started to look more and more as B- actors out Mad Max 5 . My face grew harder and harder, And with every hot spark of melted iron that was flying down on me, my mood and patience were going down too. Even the rain transformed the war zone in a chemical wasteland. Everybody has a safe zone where he function in a social acceptable behaviour. Once fatigue, stress , the absence of beauty, lonelynes and a spark that lands on private parts ,you step out that safe zone. You become as destructive as the environment you live in. Anger becomes a part of you, not even knowing why. And if a destructive world were i was living in comes in contact with another part of the world it can go wrong.

After 5 weeks working 7 days for 12 hours, the bitch was going down. The end of an era of gold and copper mining was finally closed. The only thing standing was a skelet of melted and twisted frames of steel in the chemical wasteland. The once majestic asbestos building was no more. We had finished the job. 3761 sheets of asbestos were laying somewhere in a abandoned water pool, 63 ton of steel was laying twisted on the ground waited to be cut in small pieces and to be transported to be melted.We did it ! Me and my German friend. We survived,

It’s time to escape from hell. It’s time the war ends. It s time to step in the car , to drive away to look for beauty, to look for a bird , a living tree, to enjoy a rainbow.

Back from hell (part 1)

Finally, another bush trip.

A new team , a new kind of bush trip. An old gold and copper mine build in the sixties, Warraga , the place build out of asbestos.

First we had a learn and go course about asbestos. An international bush team, two Russians, a German, a Belgian and one Australian learning about the dangers and handling about this dangerous stuff. It s a strange thing when they tell you that it only damage your body after 50 years. Makes you wonder if i look do that young? 

Yes , a bush job, happy as i was , we were heading to the old mine site. But i did’t know where i was heading too. Once at site my smile wasn’t that big anymore. A small camp in the middle of a war zone. A world of destruction. Not a single building was intact. Not a single tree was a live. Not a single bird was decorating the endless blue sky. 

One immense large coffin was standing in the landscape. Our job.

3761 sheets of asbestos , waiting to be pulled down by our international team. A scissor lift was waiting , lonely, for his habitants for the next weeks. Two teams were made, German/Russian and Belgian/Russian. The scissor lift ready to be tested to her full capacity and beyond . The first sheet came down, the second one pulled down, the third one placed in the cage, the fourth one taken of the wall. Going down to deliver the sheets, and back up to number 32, 33, 34 ,35 ,36 . So the days went on. After a while you lose the count of numbers and happiness, Decontamination showers were taken every break. Nerves were tested.

Slowly the walls were getting stripped. The first wind after 50 years was howling trough the building. The dust gathered in those years was taken away and blown away to new places.  And slowly impatience grow, private spaces were invaded. And by the time the walls were stripped ,the teams were also torned apart . It became cold war 4 , Russians versus Europeans. New teams were made naturally before some war acts could take place. Living on the edge of fatigue and exhausting , survival instincts are taking over your mind and body. No mercy for the weak, no mercy for stupid jokes, no mercy for meaningless talk. Every little bit of energy that could be spared , was spared.

The asbestos roof was the only thing left over that needs to be brought down. The Russians were wisely send away to do other jobs on site. It was only me and the German on the 47 metre high roof pulling down sheet by sheet. I was reliving past memories. All suite up, masks and climbing gear walking up and down the endless roof. 45 degrees heat, the sound of your breathing, the sweat dropping in your mask, your mind numb, not feeling. not thinking, just moving. It was a memory of a day in the Swiss alps. 

But slowly, very slowly, Sheet number 3759 was pulled down, 3760 was taken away. Suddenly there was only one more sheet left over. Me and the German looked at the lonely sheet , is that it? Is this the last sheet? We smiled to each others as real conquerors. We did it.

But how could we know, it was just a warm up. The bitch wasn’t down yet.