Yeppoon: Wwoofing, Llama Love, and Alpaca Kicks

After a soggy short day of riding we made it to our farm stay outside of Yeppoon. Bumping along a dirt road leading to the llama and alpaca farm we arrived at the long drive way marked by a mailbox with a sticker saying "Life's too short to own ugly animals. Get an Alpaca.". At the gate we were met by a gaggle of barking Labradors and one barking small pink pig. All bark and no bite the labradores offered nothing but sweet love once we'd gotten inside the gate.



Soon we were met by the whole family arriving back from Yeppoon in their 8 seater LandCruiser. Leah and David run the farm with the help of their 4 children Anne, Charlotte, Davey, and Jonathon - all teenagers now. We were shown where we'd be staying; a private room in a mother-in-law type house behind the main house. Great windows, a chest of drawers, a small coat rack... oh and a real BED! We unpacked and settled in quickly so we could get a tour of the farm. We were introduced again and by name to all the dogs: Tilly, Mingus, Sheila, Rufus, Lucy, and Maggie. Then the cats: Buddy, Jublyt, Pellon, Ron, Nuke, Brick, and Shwankey. The Alpacas and Llamas are too numerous to name but we'll give you the highlights: there's Bon Jovi, Matador, J.J. and the list goes on... There are 6 camels, a few big cows, and 5 horses. There are three baby cows; Maisy, Daisy, and Crazy, that get bottle fed every day (twice a day!), a whole host of goats, a small flock of chickens (including turkey chickens and silky chickens) and a rescued wild parrot. I think that about covers it for animals... oh let's not forget Rosie pig! The animals are all great and you can tell that they are treated with great respect and an immense amount of love, which makes them all pretty good cuddlers! We have more than gotten our fix of dog pats and have found that we both really enjoy giving the camels a scratch at the end of the day too. (Leah's facebook will give you all a good idea of who everybody is here.)

Two of the boy camels plus Zach:

Rosie: Pig or Dog?

There's plenty to do around the farm but the required work load for the four of us is very reasonable leaving us at least a couple hours each day to read, nap, and enjoy tea (the kind you drink). Each morning the WWOOFers let the alpacas and llamas out to their respective grazing paddocks - which are gender segregated so no fights or babies result from intermixing. Next we feed the dogs, calling them by yelling "Jonathan! Feed the Dogs!" which brings them running to the feed shed where they offer us sits and hand shakes while they wait for their kibble. After that we mix up bins of feed for the pregnant alpacas and the one baby cow that won't take a bottle because she was weaned too early. The two baby cows that will bottle feed get a bucket of sweet smelling milk powder mixed up with water in a bucket. They suck this down through black rubber nipples attached to lengths of hose that sit in the bucket, and they can get quite pushy if you're not ready for them in time mooing and butting each other out of the way as they vie for position at the first available nipple. At this juncture the milk dispenser person has to be wary of the pig because she'll jump in and tip the bucket over at the first opportunity. If she's foiled and doesn't at least get her face well into the bucket she protests loudly squealing and screeching until she either scores a dish of milk off one of us or returns dejectedly to her pig pellet breakfast... mind you most of the time she's already enjoyed the left over porridge from our own human breakfast. What a PIG!

When feeding's over we shovel alpaca/llama poo moving it all to the poo pile where poo buying patrons come and fill bags ($7 a piece for a big bag full) to use in their own gardens. We clean and fill water buckets, check the chicken coop for eggs and do odd jobs around the farm as required. I should mention that we're accompanied here on the farm by two other WWOOFers who are wonderful and ton's of fun. Maggie has come to Australia from Wales and is working on extending her visa here. This is her second WWOOF stay so she's the most experienced of all of us at this stuff. Laura is here from Bavarian Germany for 7 months to do some traveling, hoping like Zach to sort out what she might like to study at University when she returns home in September. In fact all us WWOOFers here are in a similar state of limbo, each spending time and energy to sort through the expectations, experiences, and possible futures of and for ourselves. Seems like Australia is a popular place to go when you're trying to sort out the course of your life, or perhaps just to take a break to consider the course you're already on.

Since we arrived on the farm we've come to learn a lot about llama and alpaca love by helping with their mating. When we left for this bike tour never did we imagine we would spend hours 'assisting' alpaca sex. (We are doing you all a favor and sparing you all the gory details...). On the big Sunday work day we set up a run for the alpacas and llamas to weigh in. This exercise involves shoving the animal from behind down a narrow fence gauntlet, often having to carry them wheel-barrow style, and convincing them that they want to stand still on a slippery metal scale for a moment. We found that sometimes we had to lift the entire animal onto the scale because they have gone into cush (lying down). And in a rare successful attempt at catching a male alpaca, who's especially known for his surly attitude, Elise recieved a hard kick right in the thigh (don't worry though not even a bruise!).

Our time here has been beautifully chaotic and we are sad to leave the farm and family. The family has been wonderfully hospitable, welcoming us into their family and giving us a glimpse into their incredible lives. We've shared many laughs around the biggest dining room table we've both ever sat at, were included in a friday night with their friends complete with pig cuddling, and even made an appearance at the local Yeppoon pub to sit in as part of the "Llama Farmers" trivia night team (We came in a respectable 4th out of 9)! We were also refreshed to find that T.V. wasn't a major fixture and I don't think either of us even watched 10 minutes during our whole stay!

Pending monsoon-like showers we plan to leave the farm tomorrow morning. There are still storm systems coming in over the top end of Australia but we feel the need to push on in order to make it to Townsville by a reasonable date allowing us enough time to explore the Northern Territory. It will take us a number of days to reach the majorly flooded areas of Queensland so we hope most of the rain will have passed and that the roads will be open (cross your fingers!). We have been checking the Australian Bureau of Meteorology "the bomb" for their latest updates - wish us a dry ride!