There is a feeling of freedom when shooting a gun…an anxious sort of excitement. Now I am not one for guns; I have never liked them and they scare me, the only guns I like are the toy ones that I can fill with vodka lol…no, but seriously they scare the shit out of me, yet shooting that .22 Magnum felt so good.
I was afraid to hear the sound of the shot as cowboy held the rifle and concentrated on his target. I mean , I was thinking a hand gun but instead he loaded the trunk of his car up with 5 rifles and drove me us out into the middle of the bush and I mean the MIDDLE of the bush. There was absolutely nothing around except for dried out trees, sand and flies – Karumba is surrounded by flood plains. “Oh perfect” I thought “this is the perfect setting to for horror movie, did you not pay attention to Wolf Creek!” No worries, some of the other girls have gone shooting with him so I knew it was safe.
As he got the guns ready I looked around and took some pictures. Man it was so fucking hot, my clothes were soaked and the backs of my knees were sweating and the flies would not leave me alone. It had to be about 37 degrees out there and there is no water holes or anything and if there was you can’t swim in them because of the crocs. “It’s hot out here in the bush isn’t it?” Said Cowboy “so hot” I replied “We are lucky it’s the middle of winter” he finished and started laughing. I noticed these big brown piles on the ground that at first I were what was left over of a tree stump and then I asked “is that poop?” “yup, cow poop” “eww” “stick your feet in it and it will keep your feet warm.” I looked at him and laughed. “Seriously if it ever gets cold just stick your feet in it, you are from Canada, don’t you know about that?!” he giggled. “Ummm, we have thermal everything we don’t need cow poop for our feet” I answered thinking, why would they need to keep their feet warm out here, you can’t wear anything more than shorts or a singlet because you would melt in anything else.
“Ready?” it was my turn to shoot. I was a little scared as I stared through the target hole and concentrated on my X…I even had a conversation with myself. I have done so many other things that scare me in the last 6 months why not this? Because guns are scary and it can kill me?!? You jumped 14,000 ft out of a plane, that’s pretty risky! I know but this is a gun…and then I pulled the trigger. There was barley a sound and the trigger moved so smoothly and the gun was so light I could hardly tell I had shot the gun. “You got that in the centre of your target, that’s incredible for your first shot!” I finished off the magazine with almost all perfect shots and moved on to another gun – the .22 magnum – and then a bigger gun after that. After I shot from the third gun I went back to the .22 magnum. The first gun was to light and quiet, the third one was a little heavy and made my arm tired but the .22 felt so good. The sound was just perfect so that you knew you shot the gun and when you shoot the bullet the gun throws back a bit into your shoulder just enough so you know you have actually shot the gun. I fired a bullet, brought the gun down, pulled the leaver to fill load another bullet, brought it up, focused and shot. I did this over and over again. I couldn’t believe how amazing this felt. I was trying to focus and aim so perfectly but when I lined up my target I would start to shake a little and my heart would start racing with excitement. I would try and relax and breath and calm down but as soon as I got it close enough it would start again, I just wanted to keep shooting the gun. We were out there for 3 hours!!! What a way to spend the first part of my day!!!
It has been so hot out here and the temperature has been rising. I can’t wear more than half my clothes because it’s just too hot. I have to sleep with the A/C on in my room full blast, if I don’t I will wake up by 9am just absolutely drenched. It does cool down at night sometimes, the temperature might drop to about 24 and those nights you wear a cardigan – I know a cardigan on a night that’s 24, we pray for those nights back home - other nights it might stay at about 30. Sometimes its unbearable, especially since only 1 ceiling fan in our main room works and it’s usually hotter in there then it is outside, I sweat just eating dinner. With the rising temperature comes all the little flies, weird looking beetles and lots of toads! One dropped from the ceiling behind the bar today while I was working, thank god not on me!!! I would’ve lost my shit, and just like everything else in Australia there are poisonous ones up here so we can’t touch them, just kick them out of the way. Gotta love it!!!
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