Well Folks,

We made it out alive. No need to send the authorities out in search of us!

Firstly, a very Happy New Year to you all. So what can I tell you about Badgingarra? I can tell you that we enjoyed our time up in 'Badgi' working in the roadhouse flipping burgers and serving customers and occasionally pumping petrol. We also saved a lot of cash (safely stashed in our medical kit!) which was the main aim of the game.

However, there's two sides to every story and if I was to tell you that on our first day I was tasked with cleaning packets of extra strong mints and Kate nearly sliced her finger off twice and constant power cuts you might get a different idea ......

In the main Kate was working in the kitchen and I was operating the till serving customers though we both did a bit of everything. We tended to rack up around 40 hours a week over 6 days, some with early starts (6am) though they were more for Kate! The people running the place and those working with us were really friendly and made us feel right at home. The initial thoughts that we'd be getting burgers every night for tea proved to be wrong (thankfully) and some nights we were treated to big T-bone steaks, spare ribs, crayfish, tiger prawns, lamb cutlets and much much more. The best bit being that they cost us no more than $5 (2 quid). The caravan accommodation that we were provided with left a little more to be desired (like an extra 3ft's width for the bed for example), initial thoughts were, this is horrible but once start spreading your stuff around it's fine. Having said that it was a vast improvement on the Mango picking accommodation.

The main downside to the whole thing was what to do with our time off, not having transport and all meant we were left with sleeping, watching DVD's, reading, watching England give the Ashes away (obviously this made Kate even more bored), sleeping, reading, watching TV, sleeping, reading, ...... you get the idea. The heat somedays made it impossible to do anything else anyway, even with the air-con. One day we reached 43 in the shade and outside in the sun people told us it was 51 degrees!

As you may have noticed Christmas and New Year has been and gone for another year. Ours was what you might call unconventional (well for us at least - though our first together strangely enough). We did have Christmas day off and spent the morning opening pressies and cards, so thanks to all the people that sent those. We then enjoyed an Aussie Christmas lunch which was still turkey but with salad and a few other meats, again very nice. After glugging a bottle of wine we got on the phone to speak to our families which was really nice. It being sunny and 35 degrees outside makes it not really feel like Christmas at all though.

New Year was an altogether different kettle of fish, we finished work at 8pm on New Years eve and promised to head to the Bagingarra Tavern for a few drinks which we did, but as you get into rounds with people it becomes harder and harder to leave, then it's 11.45pm and you think you might as well stay and see the New Year in, then a few beers, sambucas, slippery nipples, absinthe and champagnes later it's 1.30am and Kate has to be up at 5am to start work at 6 cooking greasy fry-ups for the very people who'd been feeding her alcohol the night before - ouch! As I said we got home at half one and I put my head down went out like a light and promptly got up again to be sick - twice! The main reason (well one reason) being, that Kate was clever enough to realise she had to be up early so kept saying "No I won't have that shot, I've got to be up early, give it to Rich!" (of course I was lapping up the free drinks at the time) Boy, did I regret it????? To my credit I managed to get up and start on time at 8am and last through till 1pm, although it was a struggle I can tell you. Thankfully everyone else must have been in a similar state cos it wasn't busy and the guy replacing me at 1pm looked worse then I did and he'd only just got up! A Christmas and New Year not to be forgotten in a hurry!

So that was Bagingarra, another unforgettable experience, something totally out of our comfort zone but good fun all the same. We're now back in Perth for a couple of frantic days before heading to the South West and onto more adventures, we now only have 4 weeks left in Australia (scary) and still so much to see and do - to the time machine!

Oh, before I leave you, the title of this post refers to the famous 'Badgi' burger and as its the most common question I was asked at work was (well apart from 'What brings a Pom to a little town like this?' or 'What's the score in the Ashes?')......

Customer: What's in a Badgi Burger?

Rich:A Badgi is a Homemade Hamburger Pattie, Bacon, Egg, Cheese, Onion, BBQ Sauce and salad if you'd like.

Customer: Sold.

So if you'd like one, we'll be opening our own 'Badgi' joint when we arrive home (and Kates a mean Badgi burger chef) so place your orders now ........ Having said that we can't guarantee an exact replica 'Badgi Burger' cos the boss was very secretive about his hamburger recipe that even his wife didn't know it - and she's the co-owner!

Does that fill in the last 7 weeks for ya?

Take care

Rich and Kate