My fourth roommate at the Cambridge Lodge in Sydney was man named Nigel from Leeds, England. A couple of days before I left for Melbourne, he took off for a cattle station somewhere in New South Wales where he would be helping with the stock and other duties as assigned in exchange for room and board. When I asked him how he found the gig, he told me about a web site called Help Exchange, or HelpEx.  I had heard of this concept before – in fact, a major reason why I decided I could travel longer was because of ideas like this and house sitting. An exchange? Well, why not? And if one can save the cost of accommodation? So much the better.

    Before I had secured the Mylo-the-Verbal-Cat gig, I had decided that I wanted to make sure that I got out of Melbourne to take a look around. After all, I’m in the area for about six weeks – too long to stay in just one place. So I looked at the HelpEx site and found everything from assistance needed at a Bed & Breakfast, to cleaning up after horses, to milking the house cow, and so on. Most of the things looked like a pretty good deal. (Well, all but the ones that required help with child care.) The fee to join was nominal, so I paid it and formulated my profile. This was on a Tuesday afternoon.

    By Tuesday evening I had a call from a woman on King Island (between Australia and Tasmania) inquiring about my availability. She wanted someone to work in her dairy immediately and stay at least through Christmas. There might even be pay involved if I had the right sort of Visa. (I do not. Unfortunately.) I had to turn her down; my budget doesn’t allow for a plane or boat ticket over to King Island, nor was I interested in working in a dairy.

    Wednesday morning, I had my second call, this one from a man, A., who lives with his partner in the Gippsland region of eastern Victoria, just outside a little town called Marlo. He said that my name was the first he saw when he logged in on Wednesday morning. He clicked on my blog and read a bit, decided I might benefit from work rehabilitation, and thought he’d give a call to see if I’d like to spend some time out in the far eastern part of Victoria, where the Snowy River (yes, as in “The Man From …”) meets the sea. I said I’d get back to him.

    I’m not accustomed to getting calls from foreign men inviting me to come on out and spend some time with them miles from not much. But he did also mention D., his partner. A. also told me that he and D. had been hosting couch surfers for the past year and really enjoyed meeting people from all over the world. The references on the couch surfing site were good, so I decided to go out to Marlo, population 340.

    When I spoke with A. initially, I asked what he needed help with, since the whole idea was to be helping. In exchange. You know, Help Exchange. He said, well, he could use some help catching up with housekeeping. Some things had gotten away from him, and the windows needed washing, and maybe some work out in the yard and garden … Sounded fine to me. Since each host and exchanger determine the routine, A. thought three to four hours of help a day would get me a room and board. I agreed, and arranged to take the train out to Bairnsdale where he would pick me up. I said I’d be the one without a funny accent.

    I have not ever been on a train for more than a few minutes at a time, and I enjoyed the trip thoroughly. I’m a fan of VLine. Someone else driving? I can write, count my arm hairs, play iphone Solitaire, even look at the scenery. When I could tear myself away from other absorbing activities, I saw rolling hills, mountains of a sort off in the distance, small towns with fresh subdivisions, probably for commuters. Cows. Sheep. Horses. Hay bales. More small towns with auto repair shops and farm implement dealers and even one grain elevator close to the tracks. Commuter parking lots. Victorian vintage train stations that never fell into disrepair, their red brick and gingerbread trim a fact, not a feature. For $32 I traveled First Class and watched rural Victoria roll back beside me.

    Turns out that Bairnsdale is a hub of activity and the place that A. and D. get most of their groceries. Aldi is a much loved chain over here, so that’s where A. and I went. He asked me several times if I wanted anything in particular, if I had any dietary restrictions, if there was something that I didn’t like at all. Since six months have passed since I had a real kitchen of my own, those questions baffled me. We got groceries – and a few more groceries – then proceeded toward Marlo, via Lakes Entrance where we got a bite of lunch. Lakes Entrance is actually the name of the town, named thus because it is, oddly enough, the entrance to the Gippsland Lakes. Actually, the town was named Cunningham in the late 1800s, but some master of the obvious changed the name in 1901.The unimaginative name did not affect the spectacular view.

    We stopped in Orbost on the way back, as well, about 14 kilometers north, population 2,452. It’s the town where there are schools, where there’s a couple grocery stores and a baker or two, where D. teaches school.

   Then, on to Marlo. The town is located at the mouth of the Snowy River. There’s a hotel, pub and a couple caravan parks (campgrounds), a boat ramp, post office, convenience store and, of course, residences. Some of the homes are vacation places that are inhabited weekends and holidays. Since Marlo is an inconvenient distance from Melbourne, it’s not a place where folks come for a long weekend. However, around Christmas, the summer season starts and there will be more traffic through Easter. My host relayed this information with a sigh of resignation as we were driving the coastal road from one beautiful scenic point to yet another breathtaking scenic point: “In a few weeks you won’t even be able to move around here.”

    According to my sources, James Stirling was the first person to occupy the Marlo area around 1875.  The name “Marlo” thought to be a derivation of the aboriginal word “marloo” meaning “white clay” which might refer to Marlo Bluff, or “murloo” which means “muddy banks.” Stirling built a two room structure of bark with earthen floors and a shingled roof. It grew to nine rooms, and became the Marlo Hotel, where we ate on Saturday night. The hotel was variously a general store, hotel, unofficial post office. Its deck affords one of the best sunset views in Marlo.

    I’m quite sure that A. thought at many times that I was a ditzy blonde – or a dumb American. Or both. During the drive back from Bairnsdale, I saw a yellow road sign bearing the silhouette of a kangaroo, the universal symbol for “this here is a kangaroo crossing area, little missy.”  I said something really smart like, “hey, was that a kangaroo crossing sign?”

    The answer was yes.

    “There are kangaroos out here?”

    The answer was nonverbal, yet perfectly clear.

    “Well, I just didn’t … I mean, they’re here?

    “Yes, Kimbel. There are kangaroos in Australia.”

    “Yeah, I know that, I just thought they were, you know, out in the middle of the outback somewhere. Not, like, right here.”

    Silence. He was probably considering how to tell me we were heading back to the train station.

    “Maybe I’ve been watching too many National Geographic specials.”

     He nodded.  “Maybe.”

    Back to the whole helping thing.  Windows. Cool. Windows. No problem. Then I saw the house. Lots of windows. Large windows. Two stories of windows. He had remarked that the house was “not the Hilton.” Nope. It was much better. A. and D. built it themselves. Half of it is a two story photo studio with some ancillary furniture if they care to relax. The other half of the second story is an office area and master bedroom. The kitchen is downstairs, as are two other bedrooms and another bathroom. I had complete privacy, my own room (quite comfortable) and my own bathroom. A. is also a terrific cook – lamb chops, steamed veggies, baked potatoes, leg of lamb, pizzas – the list goes on. I contributed Swedish limpa bread and a flourless chocolate cake. A. and D. also had plenty of chocolate on hand, showing that they are indeed civilized individuals.

    Because house cleaning is largely the same the world over, I will not bore you with details about washing windows and screens, vacuuming floors and sills, sweeping cobwebs off of siding. Even though I know you want me to. I won’t do it. Because the real value to the Help Exchange is that the exchange is really a cultural one. A. and D. and I had terrific dinner table conversation – everything from American foreign policy to Australian use of the English language and much, much more. The whole point of going off into the boonies and meeting other people was to meet other people. Live like a local. Learn about the country. Attempt to explain why Americans aren’t doing anything (effective) about Wall Street running our government. And so on.

    A. and D. live on what is referred to  a lifestyle block, which means that they have a larger piece of land and are out of Marlo a few kilometers. The additional land allows them to keep a garden (in the works, probably for the next HelpEx person), build a chicken (or chook) run (already done before the house) and of course, keep a guard cat named Houdini (because he escaped certain death when he was adopted by D.). The chooks contributed to the household good by providing fresh eggs, which were much appreciated as an ingredient in flourless chocolate cake. Houdini provided constant supervision as well as plenty of fuzz to keep me busy with the vacuum cleaner.

   A. and D. were also happy to play tour guides, and one evening we went out in search of kangaroos. Turns out that kangaroos act sort of like deer. They snooze during the day in the shade, and come out at dusk to graze, sometimes by the side of the road where they can get startled by automobiles and dash out in front of them. A. and D. said that sometimes the ’roos come up onto their lawn and graze. Barely down the road, one dashed – hopped – sprung? – across the road. Out at the Marlo Aerodrome (yep, there’s an airport there) they were grazing, but it had gotten dark enough that even with the flashlight (torch) we could barely see them. But, on the way out to the aerodrome, we saw emus. Actually, I had to be told that they were emus, because they looked like large shrubs. Clearly, their heads were somewhere else (under a wing, in a hole, etc.) so in the dusk, they just looked like lumps. I understand that they are not afraid of cattle, and have been known to chase cows. Sorry to have missed that.  Wombats also populate the area, but no luck on a wombat sighting, either.

    One afternoon, we drove to Cape Conran , stopping at superb lookouts where the Snowy River flows into the Southern Ocean. The Cape Conran Coastal Park has pristine beaches, rocky cliffs, walking tracks and the occasional hysterical site. The West Cape offers scenic views of Salmon Rocks. The East Cape boasts a scenic coastal boardwalk, which we didn’t take. We even stopped at a river that is brown, not because of mud but because of a tree (the ti tree) which colors the water like a tea bag would. Nothing wrong with the water –  it won’t stain skin or bathing suits. It just resembles iced tea. A goanna lizard (lace monitor) zipped across the road and up a tree.

    When I mentioned that I would be near the Snowy River, friends and family immediately thought of the movie. In fact, when I called my brother on Thanksgiving evening, they had been watching the film. But although I was near the Snowy, I wasn’t in the area where The Man did his famous ride.

The movie was inspired by The Man who was immortalized in A. B. “Banjo” Paterson’s poem of the same name. Some say that the setting of the poem is in the region of what is now Burrinjuck Dam, northwest of Canberra in New South Wales.  Others say that the ride does not take place in the Snowy River region at all.

    The little town of Corryong on the western side of the Great Dividing Range claims stockman Jack Riley as the inspiration for the character, and uses the image of the character to attract tourists.  Among their claims is that Paterson met Riley on at least two occasions. Another possibility is that The Man was Charlie McKeahnie, who was an exceptional and fearless rider and when he was only 17 years old (in 1885) performed a riding feat (unclear exactly what) in the Snowy River region. Paterson would have been familiar with the story of McKeahnie as well. There’s another poem about McKeahnie by Barcroft Boake.