Vichuquén- Witch Country

Since coming back from our little trip, which of course was only a couple of days ago- I have notice when we talk about where we went, when we went to Vichuquén, I don't think anybody we have met along the way had been there before. Places like Pichilemu are pretty frequently visited, and places further down the line a few people seem to have relatives who they occasionally visit, but this area, this was the middle of nowhere it seems.

Our path took us from a place called Lo Valdivia, where we encountered a few cows on the road- not an uncommon feature back in Australia once you get out into the countryside. The middle Chile landscape was a lot like the Australian landscape, and I guess that gets helped along by the plantations of Blue Gums all throughout the countryside. We found out later that wood is mainly used for fence posts or firewood...

The road took us along the Western side of Lago Vichuquén, which in itself is a fairly large lake. Of course it's a blip on the map when looking at all of Chile, but it was quite a nice place to go alongside. At the base of the lake - Aqualarre we stopped for some ice cream, it was a pretty hot day after all, and then made our way into the town itself, which is located a bit further south.

As you can see in a couple of the pictures at the beginning of this post, it was fairly heavily struck by the earthquake in 2010. Most other places we went you couldn't see too much damage, it had either been fixed already, or they were lucky to avoid damage. But here in the middle of Chile, the cracks (literally) were showing. There is a museum in town which is highly recommended, however I think the real display is simply walking around and taking a look at the houses and other buildings. The town itself is almost 500 years old and was declared as a typical area in the early 90s- similar to being on the Heritage Listing in Australia. The town is also known for brujas y brujos (witches and wizards)- apparently due to a perfect triangle between two other towns, and in this zone they would perform their magic- (righto...)

We had lunch there in Vichuquén, a pretty big feed- as they always are in Chile. By the time we finished our almuerzo it was about 3pm and we still had a long, long way to go. Dad had originally said he wanted to take the coast road, but our best option may have been to stay on the tar from Bucalemu. In the little book there was a picture of a very nice wave at Pelluhue, and the Lonely Planet kicked back in at Buchupureo, which they gave a very positive write up for. I had also seen some pictures of the Iglesia de Piedra, a cool looking cave formation in Cobquecura, so my idea was to navigate along that way.

After passing by Constitucion I started doing the numbers, if we went that way, our final destination in Chillán was still going to be hundreds of kilometres away. It was time to do a bit of a restructure. We stopped in Chanco, a smalll little town which is known for its cheese- a bit like Bega, really. On a side note, you can buy Bega Cheese in the supermarkets over here. Just like at home, it's too expensive for me.

Once getting to Chanco we had a bit of a wander around, and it seemed we had a new friend. I think Dad was pretty keen for a coffee as he had been driving through the whole day with the curves and everything, and was feeling the journey. So this nuevo amigo took us to a small little places, and at the end of the day waited at the corner to wave us off. Maybe they will talk for months - did you see those Australians come through town. Just south of Chanco it was time to head inland. The road further south became dirt, and the mention of more gravel I think had Dad shuddering. So we had a driver change and Francisca got moving through towards Parral, where would join up with Ruta 5, the main highway which runs right through Chile, from end to end. Unfortunately this road, and actually all the roads we had driven through, were full of roadworks- of course there is still a lot to be down in response to the earthquake.

We stopped again in Parral, which is probably similar to a lot of the cities along the Panamericana (Ruta 5), lots of huasos (cowboys) around, similar looking shops and a bit of a dry feel to it. It was only once we were heading out of there that it seemed we were actually getting close to our destination.

It was a different feeling gunning it at 120 down the freeway, after an average speed for the day of about 40km/hour. So it didn't take us too long until we were turning off a little south of Chillán, on the road to Concepcion, and then inland, over a very wobbly one lane bridge, to arrive at our destination- Fundo Membrillar.

Bucalemu and Beyond

The next day we went down for a surf check to kick off the day. There was no need to wake up early, it seems there's no dawn patrol here. The surf was looking smaller and I still had the memory of some pretty fresh water from the day before, so I suggested we head a bit further down the coast, possibly in search of another wave.

There were no waves to be found, but we had an interesting little trip anyway, we drove down to Bucalemu, which was about 30km from us. On the way we picked up a hitchhiker, which of course was much to Mum's satisfaction...although she couldn't argue when Dad used the excuse that he picked the bloke up to practice his Spanish. The guy we picked up spoke no English at all, so me and Mick were getting by with the little that we knew between us. It seemed he was going to Bucalemu for work and then back to Pichilemu in the afternoon. He also had 6 kids, 5 sons, 1 daughter.

Once we arrived in town, I must say we were all surprised to see a student protest- a student protest of primary school kids! They were playing their drums and waving banners and blocking the road. Our new mate suggested we just drive straight through them, or tear down the opposite (wrong) side of the road. Dad displayed patience as we eventually found a place to get around them, come to think of it that was a bit of a surreal experience.

We got down to the beach and had a bit of a walk around, there were a bunch of fishing boats coming in, and it sure looked like the pescadores had worked hard out in the seas- each of the boats were packed with fish. Old ladies would come down and put in their orders- 1000 pesos ($2) got one lady 3 filleted fresh fish- try getting anything for $2 back home...

Dad was keen to get back in to the water, but it just didn't look appealing to me, so Alison went out in my place, with no wetsuit. She would have been cold. We had eaten some pretty enormous empanadas for lunch- as a matter of fact I ate two, so maybe I was in no condition to be floating around in the surf- maybe there would not have been so much floating in that case...

We had a very good dinner at the hostel, and directly after dinner we made the dash down to the beach so we could see the sunset. The oldies took their time, so there was no sunset to see by the time they got down there. During the middle of the night, somebody had the audacity to call me at 4:30am- I didn't get the chance to answer it and give him a serve- but shortly after I felt my first earth tremor. It measured 5.4 on the Richter (nothing, they say) and gave the house a good little shake, but it was only short lived, a few seconds. Half of our gang didn't even hear it, and Dad wasn't sure if he dreamed the earthquake up.

The next day we took our time to get going, which was a pretty major rookie error. The fact was we had a long way to go, whichever way you looked at the map, and the course I selected for us was probably the longest, due to the windy dirt roads throughout. We passed through Bucalemu again, and although the Spanish guidebook- kind of like an NRMA book covered the territory, there was no mention of it in the Lonely Planet. We passed through localities such as Lo Valdivia and through windy mountain roads filled with blind corners, before coming to Lago Vichuquén. It was still a while until the roads got any better, and that I will fill in over the next posts.

Hay Pie In The Sky Match

Not sure if it was the desperation for the real season to begin, or a desire for adventure that took our two travelers across the plains for the Pie In The Sky match. A formidable lineup mainly made of former Raiders greats was the reason for heading to Hay.

We left Canberra after work on Friday afternoon, bound for Wagga. We made pretty good time and beat the Google estimation of when we would arrive. We stayed with TreesMenz, an old workmate of mine. Conveniently enough, she had two single beds spare in her house. When we arrived, the doors were wide open, but nobody was home. Turns out her mum lives a couple of doors down, and it's Wagga so no worries about robbers. Anyhow, we decided we would get a pub meal for our dinner. The first place we stopped by, the Union, it seemed pretty expensive, but not that impressive, so we decided to continue the tour of the town. We came across a big outdoor concert, and a man told us to hurry along the bridge as there would be fireworks in 90 seconds.

The man must have been wrong, because we were at the table in Romanos pub, ready to be served our meal when the fireworks had finally kicked off. Funnily enough, there were fireworks on when we last went to a footy match, the trial in Bega.

We had our meals which were all pretty good, I had a big steak, which was probably a bit too big, but is there really such a thing? We weren't really keen for a big night out on the town, so we went back and watch the comedy channel, then went to bed.

Plenty more driving the next day, with no hills to be seen. Flat as a tack the whole way, bound for Hay. I had driven the journey yesterday, so it was my turn to sit back and relax. We listened to the local ABC, and they had a match preview for the game we were heading to. Matt Geyer was on as a guest from their live broadcast from Hay, he was saying how it would be good if there was a more formal system of these matches in the bush, but it's something the CRL is simply not interested in.

After the early sports section, the Weekend Woodies took over, I wasn't really interested in old ladies and their creaky floorboards, so I put on the appropriately titled "Small Town Stories" from A Death In The Family.

The fruit fly exclusion zone requested we drop our fruit in the rubbish or receive a heavy fine. Though I thought there would probably be no inspectors out on the weekend, I didn't want a heavy fine, nor did I want to be single handedly responsible for destroying the Riverina. After eating a couple of bananas, we decided to simply hide the fruit in the bushes, and collect it on our return journey.

We stopped to meander in Narranderra for our morning tea break. There were signs of wealth that you don't usually see in the country. Even the cricket ground had a very shiny fence, reminiscent of North Sydney Oval. I stopped in at the skatepark for a quick roll around, I've got to say it's not one of the highlights of the various skateparks I've been to. Right up there with the worst to be honest.

The Gaslight Anthem carried us on our way and Lostprophets brought us into the town of Hay itself. We had a lunch at a local cafe, The Long Paddock. It was a bit disappointing and a bit too expensive. We located the field, and I stopped by another skatepark. A kid riding some sort of 3 wheel tricycle contraption told I was "heaps good ay", and to be honest, even though he was wrong, I was stoked.

We checked into our cabin at the Hay Caravan Park. It was a pretty small area, I'm not sure how many they claimed it could fit, but if you filled it to the maximum, you would want some pretty small children filling the triple bunks.

I played some Footbag and was playing quite well actually, there was a small brick area just outside our door. Some fellow Raiders fanatics came by, Kenrick, better known as KW, that bloke on the radio who sometimes tells how the fans are feeling about each week's match. He said something about being pretty good with the old Hacky Sack. Instead of being a jerk and saying it's Footbag mate, I just muttered some thanks and talked about the game ahead.

Soon after we were off to the game. It wasn't a long drive into town, and we could park quite close without being in an area that looked like it would be havoc after the game. We walked past the old Hay skatepark on the way in, which was definitely one to miss, simply a couple of quarterpipes on an old concrete block. Excitement plus. To one side of that Laurie Daley was sitting down with Brad Clyde and a bunch of TV cameras, I guess it was a small segment for Fox.

We arrived at the match and a couple of the youth academies were playing. The scores on the scoreboard didn't seem to match up with the scores the announcer was giving, but when we arrived, the score was 18-6. By the end of the match, the team we thought was Hay- though neither team was actually a Hay team, were up 24-18, but the other side scored a late try. The kicker from the corner went wide and it was game over, 24-22.

Not long after the main game was about to kick off. I wondered who the guy in the middle with the big gut was, and was surprised to see it was Big Mal, rather than a muscle man, he now sports a huge belly. Though nowhere near the size of front row forward Mark Tookey. As the ABC commentators said, the team came out in "a variety of shapes and sizes".

The team that came out was something along the lines of:

K Nagas

M Bai

B Clyde

L Daley

M Geyer

M Meninga

A McFadden

Q Pongia

S Woolford

M Tookey

B Roarty

D Furner

S Millard

On the bench they had a number of young players from the Hay side with Ricky Stuart pulling out a couple of weeks ago and Jason Croker a late withdrawal.

Things were not looking good for the old blokes early on, with one of the Magpies, carrying the name of his town, Harley Hay, capitalised on a dropped ball from Laurie Daley and found winger Ryan Gash backing up for the first points of the match. 4-0 down it was time for the all star lineup to get serious. It was a long, long time before the Hay Magpies crossed the line.

Kenny Nagas was the star of the first half, scoring the first two tries. The first involved some crafty footwork, leaving a number of the Magpie players bamboozled, while the second try he basically pulled out of his arse. The ball had bounced after a short break from Simon Woolford and he picked it up at almost full pace, reaching out behind him and knocking over a few defenders to score. This was vintage stuff, and the whole reason we had come out to the wild, wild west.

With so many of the big name players from the early nineties Raiders glory days, it was no surprise to see a similar style employed, something between that style and that of the Harlem Globetrotters being played. It was no match for the farmers and whoever else lives out in Hay, who were led by Gareth Price, a former Welsh international, who I'm not entirely sure what he's doing in Hay, but he has signed on as Captain/Coach for the season.

The points kept flowing in, with David Furner getting something to show the boys back at Raiders training, this is how you score a try mate. He bopped off a few would be defenders and charged over the line.

The game was played in four quarters, each one of varying length, somewhere between 15-20 mins. It was a hot day, so I'm sure the old blokes were happy to take a rest. Each time between quarters, half the crowd would swarm across the field and they would have to wait until they meandered back off to the other side before play resumed.

After the third quarter, the ABC team said coach Arthur Beetson gave Laurie Daley the worst pass award for the day, for a long ball, a few metres forward, that landed a little ahead of Marcus Bai on the ground, which he knocked on.

The second half had plenty more tries, Andrew McFadden chipped through and then soccered the ball again to find support, while Simon Woolford ran further than he ever did in his NRL career to score a 60m try. He took no further part in the game after that.

As the clock ticked down, you saw a few players looking for a reprieve, but there was no way the players on the bench were going to be getting back up from their chairs, so whoever was still on, stayed on. With a few minutes left, the Magpies were attacking the line, after a dropped all at the back. After a suspicious amount of tackles in the count, the ball was placed somewhere near the line (probably in front of it), but with no video ref, Bill Harrigan pointed to the spot. The scores remained unchanged, the All Star lineup victorious by 50 points to 8.

For a 3-2-1 I would give

3- K Nagas

2- D Furner

1- A McFadden

After the game we headed back to the Caravan Park and had a swim in the pool. It was still fairly hot at about 6pm, so it was a good way to spend the rest of the day. We headed to the South Hay Pub just down the road and ate a pretty mean mixed grill. We had seen a truck outside and thought it was a trucker getting a good feed, but when the covers came off, there was a band playing inside.

The old tavern looked like it would be a fairly wild place that night, and after Jonathan won $270 on the pokies, after an outlay of $1, we hit the road. We were back in the cabin and had the cricket on with Australia vs Sri Lanka.

I watched for a while, then continued with F Scott Fitzgerald's "The Diamond as Big as The Ritz and Other Stories". I had gone to bed with three wickets down, and I wouldn't have missed much more action as heavy rain stopped proceedings.

We were up reasonably early to kick off the long drive home. We got our breakfast goods from the local Foodworks, which was advertised on the radio station, just after they played "Bang On" from the Propellerheads.

I drove the first leg, across the flat and then we switched over at Narranderra, before collecting our fruit, good as new, where we had left it the day before. We powered through to Gundagai where we stopped at a Chinese restaraunt, probably the only place open in town. They had some $10.50 lunch specials...there was not really any surprise that we were the only ones there, so the meals came in no time.

From there I was back in the drivers seat, and it was not all that long until we were back in the "big smoke" (in comparison to where we had been) of Canberra.

Some of those players we went to see, they've still got it, while others are a long, long way off being in their prime. When you think it's almost 20 years since some of them retired, it's pretty impressive they can still get out and play a match every now and then.

It was a lot of fun going to the match and seeing all the old heroes, it was also good to explore somewhere I had never been before.