La Bimba

I've been working at an organic restaurant here in Apollo Bay called La Bimba.  But for the past two weeks the restaurant has been closed so my housemate Joel and I have been working up on their farm, where most of the produce for the restaurant comes from.  The farm is about 20 minutes outside of town tucked away up on rolling green hills overlooking the ocean separating us from Antarctica.  Here is a picture I took from the tractor looking out towards the ocean.  That's Bella standing in the middle of the path... not a fan of the tractor.  

Here is a picture facing the other direction of the "beacon of hope" we've been building.  As soon as we have a day of good weather we plan to gather everyone from the restaurant for a celebration around what will be one of the biggest bonfires I have ever seen.

And now for some introductions.  First up is Tom Dooley, better known as Tom Tom.  His job on the farm is to shepherd the sheep and be guardian of the lambs.

This is one of my housemates, Joel.  

The cows. 

The mischievous piglets, George and Mildred.  They have an entire vegetable garden but they still prefer the neighbors lawn.

The chickens.

The big mama pig, Dolores, with one of her newborn piglets.

This is Jonah, a lamb who was abandoned by her mother at birth but nursed to health by Steve, the owner of La Bimba and the farm.  Now she thinks and acts like a dog, complete with tail wagging and a noise that sounds like a mix between a baaaa, a bark, and a yell.

And lastly, we have Mia, the queen of the castle.

It really doesn't feel fair to call this work.

Apollo Bay

Here I am standing on a beach along the Great Ocean Road en route from Melbourne to Apollo Bay.  I flew into Melbourne and stayed with the two couchsurfers (Joel and Nathalya) who had stayed at my place in Phnom Penh.  I was only in Melbourne for a few days before we packed up their house and made our way down to Apollo Bay via another couchsurfer who offered to drive us there out of the kindness of his heart and for some fish and chips upon arrival.

This is about 30 minutes outside of Apollo Bay in the town of Lourne where we decided to stop off at a bottle shop (liquor store) and indulge in celebratory drinks for the remainder of the drive (legal in Australia to have open alcohol containers in a vehicle as long as the driver isn't drinking).

After a lunch of fish and chips we made our way to our new home and began to settle in, a sense of excitement bubbling in all of us.  Afterwards we took a walk into town (which is a total of about four blocks along the Great Ocean Road) and stopped into a supermarket.  Here is some of the local cuisine that Australia has to offer...

The town is very small and lovely, right along the ocean just two hours southwest from Melbourne.  Every person I've met here has been very warm and welcoming and seem to want to go out of their way to help you.  The population here is around 1,500 but during the tourist season jumps up to 9,000-10,000 due to school holidays and vacation time.  Right now we're in the middle of a rainy winter but come the end of November it will start to warm up, making the ocean much more appealing to dive into.

Over the following week I took many walks in and around the town.  Essentially, working back from the ocean there is the water, the Great Ocean Road, the town, farms, and then forest (referred to as "the bush").  Here are some pictures of my aimless wandering...

Eucalyptus trees, the best place to spot Koalas.

I feel very at home here in Apollo Bay.  There is something inexplicably beautiful about living next to the ocean and being surrounded by so much nature, it is very calming.  Going to sleep and waking up to the sound of waves crashing is a sensation I will never tire of.  Here are some pictures taken from the from my front porch at sunset...

And just like that I find myself in yet another perfect situation.  I had some feelings of uncertainty leaving Phnom Penh, being that there were quite a few options before me, but I moved forward and followed my intuition and couldn't imagine myself anywhere else.