Dead kangaroos and Utes.

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Another summer, another continent. What would a summer be without me leaving the country in search of a little adventure!? I have decided to revive the long-lost "travel blog" in hopes of documenting my first and possibly final four months in clinical veterinary practice. For those of you who haven't heard, I have taken a locum position (short-term) in Australia - and not just anywhere, but Chinchilla, Queensland, Australia at the Chinchilla Veterinary Services. If you take a look on a map, just go about 500km west of Brisbane in to the abyss of the outback. If you mosey on over to googlemaps.com and look up Chinchilla, you'll probably have to (i) zoom in to appreciate any relevance to this town and (ii) splash yourself with water to wake-up from the feeling of boredom that you instantly feel. If you then proceed to click on the pictures that are available in this renegade village, you'll find three gems: (i) the Chinchilla scrap yard (ii) someone's house being torn down and (iii) "toilet art" (as it is entitled - but in reality, it's a large concrete outhouse with grafitti painted all over it). So, you get the sense of this town. Regardless, it should be an entertaining and educational summer. I will be working as an associate Veterinarian (oh - and as an update - I'm now Dr. Tyler O'Neill BSc DVM MSc (candidate)...working on alphabet soup behind my name) at the mixed animal practice but will be doing primarily cows, some horses and a few small animals such as dogs & cats. However, if you want to ensure the continued existence of your dear fluffy I would recommend another doctor!

I am currently writing on the plane just about 2 hours from Sydney. It has thus far been an uneventful trip. I left the ol' YYZ at 20:30 on Thursday night, arriving in Vancouver at 22:00 local time. After a brief layover (where I hoped to see my good friend Meg Raudnask - the honorary 6'footer - but alas, the crew of Air Canada wouldn't let us leave the security area; so I enjoyed an overpriced Starbucks cookie...) -- we left for the long haul to Sydney. I thought that the flight from Toronto to Beijing was long, but this has been nuts! The flight from Vancouver to Sydney was 15 hours! Yikes! Including a 5 hour flight from Toronto to Vancouver...Once I arrive in Sydney, I'll quickly have to get through customs, grab my bags and then change terminals to catch my flight to Brisbane (about 2 hours). In total, I figure it will be 22hrs of travelling plus an additional 4 hours of layovers! But hey, it's a tough life as a jet setter on someone else's dime!

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It is now 1 week later and here is an update on what has happened since my left writing on the plane just a few hours away from Sydney! After arriving in Sydney, we had to sit on the plane while they sprayed the cabin of the plane with an insecticide (which a woman with a baby loudly protested - but I explained to her that there was no danger since the insecticide only acts on enzymes that insects have! - finally, that vet school is paying off...). Anyway, we finally got off the plane and I had to boot it to the other terminal to catch a Qantas flight. With minutes to spare (actually, seconds - imagine the beginning of Home Alone, running through the airport - and of course, the gate was at the opposite end of the terminal!). Regardless, I made it to the gate in time just as they were closing the doors. I slept all the way to Brisbane, since it was 10:00am local time (and I didn't sleep much on the way to Sydney). When I got in to Brisbane (or Bribie as the locals call it), I ended up waiting in the terminal for about 2hrs. The people that were supposed to pick me up thought that I was coming in from Toronto and were waiting for me at the International Terminal. The good thing that worked-out was that I was able to get a bunch of free coffee grinds for a French Press (in Aussie talk = Plunger) since they own a large coffee chain in the city. I went to their house in for a bit which was quite nice. They have a large home with a rolling back yard looking out on to the tropical forest in the city and in the distance was the Pacific Ocean. They also have a large salt water pool. It would have been nice to spend the summer there!!!! Myself and Sandi's (the owner of the Clinic) friend started off on our trek to Chinchilla. We spent a nice 4hr drive to Sandi's place in which we went through the Darling Down's. This is the area between the coast and the outback. Quite nice scenery with volcanic topography. It was, however, very rural and became so very fast! I had some great conversation though with my ride-mate so it went by quite quickly. Instead of going straight to Chinchilla though, we went to Sandi's place as she was having a going away party for her ex-boyfriend. It was quite odd though - but nice to meet a bunch of locals as well as the people from the clinic in a more social setting. Everyone was very welcoming and I instantly felt at ease and happy about my decision to work in Australia for the summer (as it was difficult to leave a new special lady in Toronto this summer). I was also the witness of several kangaroos (!!!) on our drive from Sandi's to Chinchilla! Wow! How great is that!? Apparently, they're quite dangerous though; similar to white tailed deer in Ontario. Everyone has large guard bars on the front of their "utes" (SUVs) to protect from kangaroo & wombat smacks to their vehicles. I was exhausted though by Saturday night & got a good sleep!

Sunday I woke-up and met Sue, the vet that I replaced here at Chinchilla Veterinary Services (CVS). She was trained in South Africa (Pretoria U.) but had to leave due to danger a few years back (apartheid and all...). She is great, and has a large herd of great Australian Cattle Dogs! I'm sad that she's not going to be at the clinic because she's been practising for 20 years and would be a wealth of knowledge of which I would be a sponge to! She said that I can call her whenever I need to though if I have questions/need support (something that I already did after one "incident" this week in surgery...). All in all though, the first week of work was pretty straight forward and it should be a decent summer of learning before going back to school this fall.

Last Sunday night was the Labour Day weekend festival in Chinchilla and they had a bull riding competition with some crazy brahmas (and some even crazier people on top!). I went to watch for a bit and met some entertaining locals who were more drunk than a retiree on a Tuesday afternoon at the Legion. It was fun though - got to meet some people around my age (however, I have to be careful what I say/do in a small town, now that I'm a "responsible" member of professional society - will have to leave my antics at home for a few months! haha). As well, on Monday there were camel races with dromedaries and sheep catching. Good thing PETA is not in Chinchilla; would have been a disaster! The object of the sheep catching was to have 3 kids per team and 3 teams per pen (therefore, three sheep per pen). Each team had to catch their sheep and put it in a wool packers bag. It was funny, but I was waiting for one of the sheep to have a heart attack and keel over. There was also a dog-jumping contest which was pretty cool. Essentially, the dog had to jump in to the back of a "ute" - and the dog that jumped the highest "won". They were all pretty determined to get in to the back of the box - it was interesting to say the least this small town life! I left after a bit because it was just too much excitement in Chinchilla for one day! hah!

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Myself plus a few people went out to the local "RSL" (returned service league -- essentially, the legion). It's the best show in town for cougar-sightings; and they were out en mass this past friday night. It was quite entertaining to sit back and watch 40+ divorcees pick up 20-something drunks. The people I went with figured I'd have a pretty good chance being a foreigner and all, but I passed (for the obvious reasons which are too numerous to list here). We called an early night though since Sara (the other young vet at the practice) was on call and she had to work at 8am the next morning. On Saturday morning I got up early and drove to Brisbane & then up to the Sunshine coast and sat on the beach for a bit. It was a 4hr drive, but worth it. It was quite warm (albeit windy) and sunny in the afternoon. The only drawback to coming to Australia in our summer is that it is "winter" here - and that means the sun sets at 5pm (or so)! But I suppose it beats the 40C weather they get in their summer! I was going to stay the night on the coast, but the only hotel I could find was $200 - forget it! I really wanted to go to Australia Zoo on Sunday (today), but it will have to wait for another day. I met with some friends for supper on Saturday night in Brisbane and then I ended up driving 4hr back to Chinchilla last night which probably wasn't the best idea (and I won't do it again!). Not only was I tired, but it's really quite dark on the country roads and kangaroos + wombats are rampant on the roads at night. Luckily I didn't run in to any though. I did, however, see a "road train" (transport truck with about 36' of trailer behind him, flopping all over the road - two trailers to one truck) hit an emu! I ended up getting back to Chinchilla around 3am this morning. But I suppose I saved the $200.

As for driving here, I've figured things out pretty quickly. I still walk to the right side of the SUV to get in to drive. The only thing I have problems with is turning. I almost had a head-on yesterday with someone because I was turning right out of a drive way yesterday and I turned in the near lane (as I would at home), but that's the direction of oncoming traffic! Other than a honk from the lady in the road boat, we all survived. As well, gas ("unleaded" as they call it - not petrol...oh, the language barrier!!!), is very expensive! About $1.38/litre! I can't believe it - it costs about $80 to fill up my Kia SUV. However, it is quite good on gas, but I had to put $100 worth of gas in it yesterday!

Today I'm just laying around (pretty tired!), and going food shopping - another thing expensive in Australia! I suppose that it's more expensive in the rural areas since they have to truck it so far. The nice thing about food in Australia, however, is that it's almost all domestic since they can produce almost all types of food. Too bad Canada wasn't able to do that (or at least only sell things that we ARE able to produce - i.e. why do we sell US potatoes when we can sell Canadian.....that's a conversation for another day). I'm on call for the next 2 weeks, which will put me working for 19 days straight! Oh well, I'm here to learn lots and make money since grad school, believe it or not, doesn't really pay much above the poverty line! haha.

Anyway, will update soon!
-t

--> Ari -- i didn't know you were trying to call before I left! Thanks for the going away video. I thought she "retired" from music????...
--> DVM amigos -- best of luck to you all in your first few months in practice!!! See you when I get back in September -- and alex, hope you don't feel too crowded with teats & jp staying at the bottom of the stairs...

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Photos

kangaoo!
roadkill....

Chinchilla Veterinary Services
Where I work!

Glass Mountains
tropical queensland - just near the Sunshine coast

Comments

[AJ Hammer]

I am still blushing from the personal shout out... suppppppppppppper psyched that you resurrected The Blog :)