"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"

As my time here in Moree begins to get closer to an end, I wondered what this town really has that might be considered "interesting." Lo and Behold, I found something. At least something that I consider interesting. A connection to the author Charles Dickens who wrote Oliver Twist, and A Tale of Two Cities to name a couple.

Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens

Charles Dickens had quite a few children, the youngest being Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens and for some reason he was nicknamed "Plorn." From the brief research I did, Plorn was spoiled and wasn't really very good at anything and failed to impress his father, which was a concern to Charles as it was suspected that Plorn was his favorite child, hence the fact that he was so spoiled. "A shy boy with no idea of what he wanted to do in life, he had been taken out of school at fifteen and was sent to an agricultural college in Cirencester." As pointed out by Claire Tomalin, the author of Dickens: A Life(2011).

Around that time Plorn's older brother Alfred had been living in New South Wales Australia and owned or ran a sheep station. Charles decided to send Plorn here and wrote Alfred asking if he would take care of him, with hopes that maybe Plorn would become something impressive.

From the time Plorn arrived in Australia until his death, his life was filled with business failures and gambling losses. He did hold public office for a brief time as a member of the State Legislature, but was quickly overtaken by a member of the Labor Party. At one point, Plorn borrowed 800 pounds from his brother Harry and for eighteen years he never made any attempt at paying the debt. Just in case you were wondering, 800 Pounds in 1880 would have been worth roughly 40,000 pounds today, which is about 60,000 US Dollars. Some historians expect that Plorn gambled the money away with hopes of bolstering up his failing business dealings.

In the end, Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens died with nothing, no money, no children, no property, and was buried right here in Moree, New South Wales.

Another Interesting thing about this town is the Natural Artisan Hot springs. Artisan means that the water from the ground comes to the surface naturally without needing to be manually pumped. Over the years Moree has been famous for these hot tubs, and people come from all over because they think the water will heal them from something. Usually when my roommate and I go it is early in the morning and the pool is filled with old, fat, deteriorating Serbians, but the pool is still hot and relaxing. 

Aisling and Me at the Moree Artisan Hot Pool

The inner workings of a cotton gin in Moree, NSW Australia

Greetings from New South Wales Australia. Lately, time has been scarce as work at the cotton gin continues. Whenever I tell anyone that I'm working at a cotton gin, they always ask what a cotton gin does. A simple explanation is that a cotton gin gins cotton. A more complex explanation is that is take cotton, which has dirt, seeds, sticks, and other contaminates in it, and cleans all those out leaving only the cotton. Invented by Eli Whitney, the cotton gin changed the course of American history and played a crucial rule in the industrial revolution. Ironically, I'm in Australia.  And that is where I have been working for the past couple months. I work night shift, 7pm to 7am, and after work I usually just got straight to sleep.

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Putting out a fire in one of the Gin Stands

Using the Moon Buggy to put cotton into the feeder bay

The good thing is that I have been able to save up a considerable amount of travel money. The bad is that I don't have time to participate is the extremely exciting events that the city of Moree has to offer. Due to the fact that most of you have no idea about Moree, I will tell you now... That last statement was a joke. There is nothing to do in Moree except drink, which is likely why the locals and aboriginals get along so well here.

A simple illustration of how a cotton gin works. 

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For all rights and purposes, Moree is located in the North-East region of New South Wales, however the locals consider Moree Western New South Wales. The reason for this is likely the fact that if you travel any further west of here, there is hundreds of miles of uninhabited desert known as the Australia Outback.  Moree consists mostly of Aboriginals (which are very much similar to modern-day Native Americans), A small amount of locals (who usually have a different variety of Australian accent. It sounds more like a mix of hillbilly mixed with Australian and it is very difficult to understand at first), and seasonal workers mostly consisting of Irish backpackers, one of which I am currently sharing an apartment with. My roommate Aisling works at the gin with me and we have the same shift. She talks in her sleep and isn't very clean, which I am not unfamiliar with after growing up sharing a room with my older brother who at the time had the same tendencies (even now I'm sure he still talks in his sleep, though I dont know for sure), and it doesn't help that I'm not the tidiest person either, which makes for a nice place..

Ginning season will likely be over around the beginning of August, at which point I will likely head to brisbane and then North to see some of Australia before heading down to Sydney and Melbourne for the summer. Though it seems that plans always tend to change themselves and I am simply forced to adapt to them, all of this is of course tentative.

Hopefully I'll have more time to update the blog in the future, but for now this is all you get. Enjoy

GoPro Byron Bay Video and an update on how things are going in Australia.

I know it's been a while since my last post and I apologize for that. On the upside, I edited the video from Byron, so enjoy that. Things here in Australia have changed quite a bit. After Byron, I got back to the farm only to find that they had ran out of work, which would have been great information to know before I went to Byron, but I guess you can't expect that kind of communication out of a billion dollar cotton business. All in all it ended up working out better because I got a job at a cotton gin which ends up paying almost twice as much as what I was getting at the farm, and I dont have to spend the day doing bitch work like pulling out weeds and taking out trash while all the other guys drive tractors.

I found a cheap place to rent in town, and the cotton in is 10 minutes down the road. I work 12 hour shifts at night from 7pm to 7am, which I actually like a lot. The days go by fast and the money fills up in the bank account as well, but there really isn't much time for anything else which is good because it helps keep the bank filled.

Byron Bay was pretty much the most amazing thing ever. Travelers and backpackers from around the world who lack inhibitions, morals, and money. I fit in perfectly. So perfectly in fact that after ginning season is over I'll likely go back and begin my East Coast tour of Australia from there. My plan is the head north for the Winter, and then work my way back South for the summer finally ending up in Melbourne.

On another note, I cut off all my hair.

Don't bother asking if there is some grand explanation for the haircut because there is not, I just simply got tired of it and felt like something different. And with leaving the farm and coming to the gin I figured that it was as best a time as any. 

Another reason for not updating the blog lately has been my lack of internet. It wasn't until recently that I finally got internet, so I can now update when I do happen to have time, though that doesn't appear to be the case in the near future. Not until the ginning season is over at least. 

For those of you who dont know what I gin is, it is a factory that takes the cotton from the farmer and turns it into clean cotton by taking all the stick, seeds, and dirt out of it. It's actually a pretty amazing process. 

Well, here is my Byron Video, enjoy

Australia Sunset

So I set my new camera up to get a time lapse sunset here at the farm. The time lapse video is still processing, but I managed to pull this frame out because it just looks cool.