30/06/2024
Ok, let’s start at the beginning. Let’s find out who Haylz is, how she became Mrs Choppy & living in some remote outback places.
[Chapter 1]
As I sat flicking my pen and taking absolutely no interest in what happening around me in a cold uni building, I felt there was more to life. At that time I was living in Wagga, where in the winter the old pipes would freeze and the fog didn’t lift until lunchtime…sometimes it didn’t at all. I was attending uni to become a TAS teacher. That is a secondary teacher who teaches Agriculture, food, textiles, you get the picture. I was majoring in Agriculture and my minor was Textiles. I had already been living in Wagga the year before doing TAFE and those units helped me scrape a yr off my teaching degree. But I didn’t want to be there anymore. I wanted to get out of there. I wanted adventure. As soon as that lecture was finished, I was straight to my brothers place to get on the Internet. I was going to find my ticket out of that place!
I came across a website looking for Nannies & Au pairs. Scrolled and found the ones I liked. I knew I wanted to go to a place where other young people were, so it wasn’t just me & the family.
There were families looking for their next nanny from the NT & QLD, on some really iconic places, to families on the coast. I wanted to head bush though. I found one that really intrigued me. The ad read something like this…
‘Nanny wanted for 10month old girl. Family living on a large scale cattle station 80km from Cloncurry North West QLD. Mum works full time in station office & Dad is the chopper pilot.’
I thought, this is the one, looking after 1 baby girl, I can do that. So I applied, had a phone call with Louise the mum and bang, I was on my way to a place near Cloncurry. It didn’t take long to pack up and get out of there!
2500 odd kms via Grafton to drop my gear and re pack, I was road tripping to outback Cloncurry with Mum in my little red camery named Cooney ready for adventure. We arrived at the Devoncourt Station a day or two later. I immediately feel in love with the place. The weather was perfect, no frozen pipes there. I couldn’t wait to meet my ‘family’ and the beautiful little baby I would soon look after. This was exciting. I was excited!
*stay tuned for the next part, & hear about my adventures at Devoncourt.
