Uncle Rossie's Mystery Tour

Hello internet world, Claudia here! This is my first blog post and I hope
I don't disappoint. I am in charge of telling you about our adventures in
Iga Warts and what adventures we had! If I could rename the place I think
"Crazy Farm" would be appropriate. Terry, later deemed Scary Terry, was
our main host with his wife Josie, who was not the nicest woman in the
world. When we first arrived Terry and the boys were not there so Anne
Meade and I got to chill out in our safari tent for a little bit, which
was surprisingly fancy and comfortable despite its name. When Terry
finally came to get us he said he would show us around the garden. Now, I
have to say the fact that he got lemon trees and vegetables and other
foreign plants to grow in the middle of the outback is pretty amazing but
the garden itself was a mess. There were plants everywhere, even in the
pathways. He showed us a section of three connected boxes that were
completely green with different weeds and plants that he told us he would
love for us to "turn-over" (which for all of you non-gardeners out there
is taking out everything and mixing the soil around). We asked him which
plants were the weeds, which looked an awful lot like his most prized
plant the Iga. As we walked around the garden Anne Meade and I were also
shocked by the whole horse leg bones with the hooves still attached and
the kangaroo legs with bits of fur still attached to them. After we left
the garden Terry took us into a shed where he dumped out three buckets of
miscellaneous parts and told us to look for the "connector" or the
"t-part" and other such terms that Anne Meade and I had never even heard
of before so this time consisted of us holding up random parts and Terry
muttering no and grabbing pieces off the ground or from our hands till he
found which pieces he was looking for. He then told us to put all the
parts back in the buckets and when we asked if he actually wanted us to
sort them out so they would be easier to find next time he replied, "No,
this is what I always do… I dump them out then make someone else pick them
up." Anne Meade and I could not even look at each other during this time
or we would start laughing at how absurd it was. I literally had to get up
and walk away a few times to stop myself from laughing in his face. That
night we sat down and had dinner with Terry and Josie and their daughter
Leah, her husband, and their two children. After dinner Josie grunted at
us that we needed to do all their dishes for them. Hmm… ok… Terry did not
give us a time to be up so being the Padens that we are we slept in till
around 10, which we thought was being considerate. Josie obviously didn't
as she took away the bread for breakfast as we were walking up to the
house and asked us if we had already been in the garden when obviously we
hadn't. We then trudged into the garden to "turn-over" the section Terry
told us about. This proved to be very VERY hard. The soil was incredibly
dry and each time we grabbed a weed it would just break off right at the
dirt, leaving the roots, which means it would just grow back. After an
hour and a half and a nasty blister on Anne Meade's hand later we were
done with the garden. We went to have lunch and Terry asked us if we
wanted to go on a drive with him and the boys after lunch, which we gladly
agreed to. We piled into the back of a truck with Uncle Rossie as the
drive, Terry in the front seat, and Phil and Andrew sitting in the back
with Anne Meade and me. Here is the time to mention that Uncle Rossie was
blind in one eye and that it remained closed most of the time. Obviously
we felt very safe as he drove us down a dirt road then into a creek bed,
the entire time the men kept saying, "We going on Uncle Rossie's mystery
tour". We stopped, got out of the car, were handed shovels, and started
walking through the bush where it had started raining. No one talked as we
walked, leaving Anne Meade and me giggling in the back saying we were
going on a treasure hunt, or they were going to make us dig our own graves
before killing us. Finally Anne Meade got up enough nerve to ask Terry
what we were doing and he replied, "We are looking for something Uncle
Rossie saw as a small boy that he has been talking about for years" then
walked away. Right. We actually were on a legitimate treasure hunt not to
mention Uncle Rossie was at least seventy! We got to another creek bed
where Uncle Rossie marked a spot on the ground and told us to start
digging. Anne Meade and I just sat there as we watched these men start
digging a hole. Terry kept asking, "Are you sure this is the spot" and
Uncle Rossie would reply, "Yes" until finally he started saying, "Well,
all of the creek beds look the same". Three holes that were about two and
half feet deep later and the men called it quits and we walked back to the
truck. Later we found out that we were actually digging for oil. Oil? In
the outback? Right… By the time we got back an actual tour group was
there, which was nice seeing that we had normal people to be around now.
Not so lucky… they were a mining group. Most of them were from all over
Australia, one girl was from Poland and one of the men was from New
Mexico. Most of them were boring, and the New Mexican was crazy telling
Anne Meade and me that he fought people often and wanted to run over
everyone in his mining group until there were tire marks all over them.
Great… Anne Meade and I avoided doing the dishes that night, instead
sweeping and mopping their entire building. The next morning we woke up
early to see more Aboriginal paintings where instead of listening to the
stories I mostly concentrated on not having flies fly up my nose and into
other orifices of my body. Came back, had lunch, then headed out again
where we visited the location of where the Aboriginal community had been
relocated by the missionaries back in the early 1900's. It was very sad to
hear how the white men just came in and decided they wanted the land for
grazing and kicked the Aboriginals off after they had been living there
for thousands of years, moving them to an area where each house was
crammed next to the other. The part that made it that much more real was
the ruins of houses we were looking at actually belonged to Phil's (who
was touring us around) grandparents and he had been directly affected by
the missionaries when they came in and started a school when he was young.
It was so crazy to think that this kind of cruelty and racism happened to
these men that were laughing and hanging out with us in such a relaxed
manner. We had dinner that night and this time really did avoid doing all
chores and instead got to go sit around a camp fire where Terry taught us
songs and Phil danced around with us. The next morning we had to wake up
even earlier and were taken to the ocre pits where the Aboriginals
gathered natural color from rocks to paint their bodies and walls with.
Phil painted us all up in white, yellow, and red paint, which was funny
and great. When we got back we said goodbye to the miners who were going
back to work and to Terry and Josie who were going to Josie's brother's
birthday. We relaxed until around two when I decided to go into town,
which was about an hour away, with the rest of the community to go see a
Christmas pageant. Anne Meade and I made friends with two young girls,
Tanisha (10) and Nikita (8) who were in pageant and wanted me to watch
them walk on stilts. Again, Uncle Rossie was the driver but this time he
was driving an entire bus with around fifteen Aboriginals and me in it.
When we arrived in town, Tanisha and Nikita grabbed my hands and started
pulling me around everywhere with them as they got ready to walk in the
pageant. When they were all set I went back up to hang out with the adults
who introduced me to about a million people who were all aunts, uncles,
sisters, brothers, cousins, and other family relations. I watched the
girls walk on their stilts in the pageant then got to meet more people and
drink beers and watch fireworks till around 11 at night when we piled back
into the bus and were driven home. The next morning Anne Meade and I were
picked up and driven back to Adelaide where I was happy to be back in
normal civilizations. So that is an account of our experience at Iga
Warta. It may seem like something out of a book but I promise you it is
all true. Crazy, but true.