The Land of OZ

An Epic Year

2012-04-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

Dallas was still busy with classes till the end later in the week so he asked if I could come a little later in the week so I decided to do a 3 day trip out to Kangaroo Island.
Kangaroo is a 45 minute ferry ride off of the Fleurieu Penninsula (South Australia). It is a small island most of it being National Park and wildlife. There are a few little towns, they are small like Outback towns except, its not the Outback, it gets cold there! The tour itself was really relaxing, it was focused on wildlife and nature which was awesome. We saw kangaroos, wallabees (they hungout around our cabin), koala's (slept in the gum trees around our cabin), different types of birds, New Zealand Fur seals but, my favourite were the sea lions, they were amazing.
When we went to go see them I thought we were being taken to a sanctuary. We got to the beach and literally before you step a foot onto the sand and take in the sceneray of the ocean with it's rolling waves, with miles of beautful beach all with a backdrop of high cliffs you literally come face to face with hundreds of sea lions.   They were everywhere and may I say they had picked when of the best spots. Everywhere I looked there would be groups of them just sprawled out basking in the warm morning sun. Some of the mums were swimming with their pups, other pups cried for their mums, one full grown one actually kept walking up and waking other ones up and walking away to wake up another group.   All we did was sit their and watch, I had never seen them before, and to be so close in their actual environment was amazing. I really just wanted to sit their all day and watch them, it was so warm out and I felt so peacful watching them, I was quite disappointed when we had to move on.
We went into caves and hiked to beautiful beaches and sat around a bonfire at night and told ghost stories. "oh look a cricket" says our guide Clancy "I don't know why he is out right now it's not even cricket season. It's footy season!" he was such a jokester, he was always telling corney jokes, and if we were on our bus he would honk the horn twice after the punch line. "Where do bees go use the toilet? The BP station!!" Honk honk.
Even though I had slept in swag the week before I really wasn't up for it, it was quite cold and there was no fire.   Two of the other girls felt the same so we decided to sleep in our swags in the cabin...or so we thought.   There were so many bugs and we could hear the bats above us and within two seconds our swags and us were covered in beetles. So not having this we picked up our sleeping bags and moved ourselves to the bus, much better. The second night - which I would like to add was so cold I was in two pairs of pants, hat, hoodie and a windbreaker - we didnt take anychances and went straight for the bus.
"Well guys welcome to Australia...have any of you ever been here before" was what Clancy said to us when we got back to the mainland. "Do you guys see those big speaker like things" he said pointing to what looked like massive speakers on tall telephone poles "well it gets really hot here in the summer and the farmers play the animals music. It helps relax them in the heat."   We had no idea where he was going this, we knew he was joking but we weren't sure where it was gonna end up "it's true, it helps to relax them and when they are relaxed they are healthier meaning their meat is better. For the cows and sheep they play country...and for the kangaroos they play hip hop" Honk honk.
I had one night in Adelaide and then it was off to Melbourne to see Dallas. A ten hour Greyhound to Melbourne and strangley enough I have nothing to report about the Greyhound!
It was so good to see Dallas, he was really busy with classes and work but the time we did get to spend together was awesome as always. After a few hours sleep (my first day) I went into St Kilda to meet up with Nik (from Drax) and I went back to my old hostel and it felt so wierd one of my mates was still there.   After I met up with Dallas and we decided to go to the Peel for one hour, one drink...ya right.   We get there and two guys and a really hot chick get turned away at the door "don't worry sweetie you are going to get in" the security guard told me "I dont get it" I said to dallas" I'm in track pants, trainers a singlet, scarf and hat. How come I can get in and they can't. " "It's one hag per fag honey" and then we went in and partied with beautiful (gay) men till some late hours into the night.
I met up with a few friends I hadn't seen. Suzanne (roomie for Cali), Amy (friend from Cali), Aidan (one of our really good mates from the Island) and of course my Dallas. My plan after Melbourne was to go to Sydney to catch up with Ryan and some other friends but, there were some work issues back in Darwin so after five fun days in Melbourne I hoped on a plane and flew back to Darwin to pack up and leave for Bali two weeks early.
And now here I am, my last night in Australia after a year. It is so wierd...I'm a little nervous to be leaving. I have never spent this long in a country other then my own. I have so many friends here that I dont know if I will ever see them again, and there is still so much I havent seen yet.   I can't believe my year here has come to an end, it feels like I just got here, it all went so fast but man I gotta say...what a fucking Epic year it has been. I have had some incredible times, met amazing people and made some of the best friends of my life. To all my room 3 girls from St Kilda you were my first Aussie family and Bonnie I miss you heaps we still owe eachother that beer on the West Coast. To the most amazing peopole and place in Cairns-Calypso-Tracey, Jen, Axel, the skydive crew and Doofy. You guys are amazing and always made me feel like I was home whenever I was in Cairns and I am absolutely gutted that I couldnt make it out there for one more night of Agwa Bombs. Tracey you have no idea what your friendship means to me and I will always hold you close to my heart and Doofy, you are Calypso's heart and soul and a big part of that place is going to die when you leave and I am so greatful I got to experience the place while you were there.   My little Karumba family, even though I was never happy there it's one of the places I miss the most.   My island Donga Family, that was one of the highlights of my year, I was only their three weeks but you all were my world, Aidan and his lover Max, Justine with her counting system, Matty for great talks, Blair for being the best supervisor, Corey for never really knowing what was going on, Graeme for giving us safe bus rides and the best goodbye hugs, Nils for being the crazy German friend that every group has to have and anyone else who I haven't mentioned, those three weeks were unforgettable and are so cherished in my heart. To the Darwin crew - wow, where do I begin. I have had some amazing times but Darwin is the place in Australia that I consider my home, you guys are my heart and my family and I am going to miss you guys heaps. You all have been nothing but amazing to Dan and I and we love all of you. David and Jared just for being who you guys are, Trent for being a great boss and a great friend and Rosie for being nothing but amazingness.
There are a few special thank yous. First is Dallas, you are such an amazing friend. I am so glad this past year I have gotten to spend heaps of time with you, we have had tears and laughs, great nights, one night stands (not together) and amazing talks. I can't picture you not in my life and I am so glad we have managed to keep our friendship after California. If it wasn't for you I would not have done this trip and for that I am forever greatful. I will see you on the Red Carpet.
Ryan, unfortunately we didn't get to seee much of eachother but I am glad we got those two days together in Sydney. You will always be in my heart.
Alex, wow where to begin. We went from living together at a job and being acquantances to being inseperable when we were reunited in Darwin. I am going to miss you soo much. You have become my best friend and my sister , I am so going to miss our talks and man did we talk, we had the best ones. But dont worry, we have that road trip in Canada and we can catch up there.
Dan, my love. I kept pushing you away and you stuck around and now we are engaged and you are my future and I love you so much and am so excited to spend the rest of my life with you.
Last but not least, Australia. WOW what a country.   It's so isolated from the rest of the world that basic everyday slangs or laws or so different. YOu almost forget about the rest of the world when you are here. You can have any type of vacation here, beach, snow, tropics, bush, city, Outhback it's all here in this amazing country and man even though I have had some rough times it's been a wild adventure and an epic year.   I can't believe my year is at an end but its just onto new adventures. Next stop Southeast Asia!

Central Australia

2012-03-18T08:22:00.000-07:00

After my 22 hours on the Greyhound I spent the next 6 days going through Central Australia, or, what the Aussies like to call "the real Australia." It was AMAZING!
Our first day we drove for about 6 hours until we arrived at our first spot, King's Canyon.  2 hours before we got there Wookie (our guide) pulls over to the side of the road and says "alright guys this is your last toilet stop until the Canyon" "where is the toilet?"  "anywhere behind those bushes"   I peed!
At the start of Kings Canyon there was a 300 stair climb (and not just stairs but a rocky path that was considered stairs) up to the top. All I kept thinking was "Devils Staircase" from the Tongeriro Crossing in NZ, the 9 hour hike I thought was going to kill me.   Thank goodness for me and some of the others who had done Tongeriro it did not even come close to the Devils Staircase and took less then half the time. We were at the top within half an hour! and, lucky for me my vertigo existent. The canyon was amazing, the views were spectacular, we learned about how it was formed as well as the different vegetation that grows throughout the canyon such as Ghost Gum Trees - they are covered in a powder which makes them look like they are glowing at night and also works as a sunscreen on skin in the day time - and rock mint - mint leaves that grow in the rock which works as a rohipnol for kangaroos.
By the time we got back to our bus it was past 4pm and the sun would soon be setting so we made our drive to bush camp (not sure how long it took because I slept most of the way though I was awake to see the iconic rock in the distance which made me even more excited for our trek there the next day.
Before we went to the camp we had to go get enough fire wood to last us the night. We were told to break down old trees, they had to be this size, this thick make sure you take the branches off, thats to big, thats to small. Covered in scratches and dirt I looked at Wookie and said "this wasn't in the brochure" "it's bush life, just experience it" was his reply.
The sun had set by the time we got to bush camp. Wookie (our guide) pounded the song "Hwy to Hell" on the radio has he sped down a pitch black road out into the bus. Our dinner (chilli con carne) was cooked over the bonfire - which we all helped cook, and cooking just like the firewood wasn't in the brochure- and we all sat around the fire eating and enjoying a few beers. We cleaned up and did the dishes (not in the brochure) and then we all got into our swags and slept around the fire.   It was a little creepy at first. I mean out in the bush in Australia, with Australian bugs and snakes that can kill you. We were all using "bush toilets" because there was no way we were using the outdoor dunny. I wasn't even tired and almost everyone was asleep, I was so Dan sick at this point at least I cold snuggle him and feel safe, but I didn't have him so i just put on my iPod and looked up at the sky which was pretty amazing. I could hear a few voices which made feel better that I wasn't the only one awake and finally drifted off to sleep.
It was a 5am wake up the next morning. No one really slept that well and it turns out that mostly everyone thought everyone else was sleeping and they were the only ones awake haha.   We made use of the "bush toilets" which was kind of funny because all us girls went around the back of the same bush and you would turn your head and see someone elses ass stuck out while they made the morning tinkle and there was an akward "morning" with a giggle.
Once again off in the distance The Rock was there and the sign said "Uluru 150km" Imagine how big it is if we can see it from that far away. "Alright guys when I count to three I want you to yell it's name so it can hear you. I want The Rock to hear you. 1 2 3" "ULURU" "Again" "ULURU" "one more time" "ULURU' "Alright guys that is Mt Conner that you are seeing not Uluru. It is always mistaken for Uluru. The Aboriginals did not fight to get Mt. Conner back because it is considered to be bad luck and they say that whenever a storm starts it comes from Mt Conner" It really did have an eerie kind of look to it. It's like it was just sitting there looking down at us with it's blackness *shivers*
Our first stop that morning was Kata Tjuta which means many heads and Kata Tjuta has 36 "heads".   Kata Tjuta is so sacred that there is only one walk for the public eye, The Valley of the Winds, the rest is so sacred to the Aboriginal men that the Aboriginal women only get to see parts of it.   Our guide was not sure why it is so sacred because there is not much information known. The wierd thing is when I got there and stood infront of it I said "WOW! I feel like I am standing infront of something so sacred!" It was incredible. I had only seen it on postcards, I really didn't even know what it was I honestly just thought it was a few massive rocks, but it was so much more then that. The 36 heads stretch around for miles and every side of it looks completely different. The walk through the Valley of the Winds was like something out of a fairy tale. The heads just surrounded us with the bluest sky that made the heads almost look like a water colour painting settled in the perfect green of the grass which apparantly only happens every 50 years. I loved it! I could've set up camp and lived there but unfortunately I wasn't aloud and we still had Uluru to see, the real one.
I wasn't as taken with Uluru as I was with Kata Tjuta. Don't get me wrong its incredible but I think it's one of those things that is just so built up by others, so when you get there you are expecting more; but, with that being said what I learned about the rock took my breath away. The history of the rock and how important and significant it is to the Aboriginal Culture and Australian history is amazing. I would love to write about everything I have learned but when telling the Aboriginal Dreamtime you need to tell it word for word or else the stories and the facts get all muddled up and dont come out right. The guides are actually trained and tested on these stories. The Aboriginal take so much pride in their stories that you can not tell them wrong, so with that respect I am not going to tell any stories. But, I will say this; there is a walk up the rock.   Some business owners in the 60's decided they wanted to put a walk up it to create business at there road houses - water, food, camping etc.   When the Aboriginals got Uluru back from the white man one of the conditions was that the walk not be taken down.   The walk consists of metal poles and a chain that were put in in the 60's and never been changed therefore it is extremely unsafe. The Aboriginals are still fighting to take it down and not necessarily for that reason. If you go to someones house and they ask you to take your shoes off you do out of respect. If you go to there place of worship you respect it even if it is not your place of worship because you ahve respect. Well, it's the same for Uluru. It's like there Cathedral and people walk all over it (baby nappies have been left up top as well as other rubbish), it is not being respected. If we can't respect it then why should they share everything about themselves with us? None of us walked it. I thought it was just a rock, it`s so much more then that. It`s history!
That night we had dinner with wine watching the sunset over Uluru, it was pretty cool, especially when you look at that postcard picture you have seen so many times and now you are looking at the real thing. I missed Dan so much. Watching the sunset of the Iconic Uluru without him just didn`t seem as amazing as it should have. Same with sunrise the next morning, it could`ve used a little bit of Dan. Plus it was freezing. I didn`t even want to get out of my swag in the morning I was so cozy all curled up like a little catterpillar in it`s cocoon, I wasn`t ready to turn into a butterly that morning.
After sunrise we had the base walk around Uluru. Nothing like a 9km walk first thing in the morning. Some parts were alright and other parts were amazing. One spot jst took my breath away. I just stood there looking at it thinking ``wow, something great took place here`` I so wish I had a time machine so I could go back in time and watch the history of Uluru take place. We had a few kilometers to go when I realized we missed the waterhole that Wookie told us not to miss. Pete, Pedro and I turned around to walk back passing the others in the group. We walked fast checked it out and started making our way back. We were almost at the carpark when I see our bus driving up the street ``oh no not again. ``   ``there is no way thats our bus`` said pete ``well then why is Andreas hanging out the front windo waving at us. It`s definatly him I recognize his bright yellow shirt`` ``shit. do you think Wookie is mad, do you think they will stop`` ``I hope so`` we start running back where we came from. Wookie stoped at a little path and waited for us with a smile on his face.
It was a long drive back and I was pooped when we got back to Alice Springs. I was so looking forward to a goodnight sleep in a comfy (bunk) bed, though it was too early when my alarm went off the next morning at 6am as I had to be up for another 3 day tour to make my way to Adelaide.
This trip started off with a lesson in wild life. Whenever there was an animal on the road Diesel (our guide) would pull over to a yuey and stop, hop out of the car and pick it up and bring it over to us (except for the brown snake, the dingo and the bull) we definatley got some great photos. Our first stop was the NT and SA State borderline. I actually got to be in two places at once, who knew it was possible! After dorky pictures we hoped back in and made our way down to Coober Pedy. I was so excited! I have been wanting to go to Coober Pedy since I got to Australia. Coober Pedy is an opal mining town (I believe it`s 80% of the worlds opals) where everything, even the houses are built underground. I was couldnt wait...I had waited a year and finally the day had arrived that I would get to see my little underground town and sleep in an underground bunker. Diesel said it was awesome...he loves it there. All the roads and sidewalks are underground, they have an underground nightclub, there is a big elevator that lowers the vehicles down onto the road. Oh and when it rains it can get a little messy. I couldn`t wait. As we got closer we could see piles and piles for miles for the underground mines, it was quite an interesting site, we were getting closer. Finally the Welcome to Coober Pedy sign, my camera was ready.
As we entered my mouth dropped. There were streets, cars, houses...all above ground. ``I couldnt resist you were so excited. don`t worry 75% of the town is underground`` it so was not what I was expecting, I dont know what I was expecting but when you hear underground town your expectations are a little high. The town it`self is nothing much to look at, it`s actually quite ugly. There is no green, it`s all dust and sand, our underground bunker was cool but nothing special. I thought at least the underground nightclub would be awesome but no...it just look like a regular club with stone walls it actually sucked and the dj is putting your own money into a juke box and playing what you want. How corney is that, pfft. It was a pretty early night for all of us except the two German guys who decided to stay up drinking with the other tour group and lock themselves out so they banged on the door at 2am and kept me awake. I called them on it the next morning and they said I was being a child ``so because you got drunk, got locked out, banged on the door and kept me awake i`m being a child`` ``yes``` as if
It was a 430 wakeup and we were off to the Southern Flinders Ranges. On our way down we got to stop off at Lake Heart.   The lake itself is completely dried up and in it`s place...salt. It`s really wierd, I felt like i was walking on ice but yet it was so crystal like at the same time, I kept forgetting it was salt. It did have water on it that was about ankle deep, apparantly the water only happens once in awhile but it does happen and when you take your feet out they aer just covered in salt, they almost feel like they didnt get wet, it is such a high concentration of salt.
We got to the Southern Flinders Rangers and did a hike down to Alligator Gorge or Smelligator Gorge as there was a dead wallibee and it stunk up the place. We spent the night at a camp ground in doors and I got my own room which was awesome, no fireworks between me and the Germans. The next morning was a chilled out wakeup, we got to take our time and sleep in till 8am which was so nice. We drove through the little town Melrose which is the first town in the Flinders and it is absolutely stunning. Everything in SA is stunning, it reminds me a lot of NZ.
Now I am in Adelaide staying in Glenelg Beach. I honestly don`t know why I didnt come here sooner. It`s amazing! Glenelg is like the St Kilda of Adelaide except less grungy. I`m staying right on the beach and it`s gorgeous. The place has such a vibe, its got shops, cafes, restaurant, beach volleyball courts, a jetty that the kids jump off of into the water a beautiful park area on the beach and the palm trees give it that Santa Monica feel. The Adelaide CBD is beautiful, it`s got a vibe as well (though the Fringe festival was going on) it`s not busy and confined like most cities it`s a little more spread out and so relaxed no one seems to be in a hurry. The mall reminds me of The Grove in Hollywood...its so awesome. I keep telling Dan we have to move here lol.
I am so glad I have done Central Australia...the past week has been awesome and I feel so different towaqrds Australia. There is so much to it and so much of the worlds history takes place here and as for the Aborignals, it`is such ashame that we see the drunk ones living on the streets and begging because their culture is not only fantastic but it is the oldest one in the world. This trip down has given me a completely different respect for the culture and I am so glad I got to see and learn what I did.

1 year, Riding the Dog and a New Future!

2012-03-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

I have been gone a year now and WOW!!! What a fucking year it’s been! It feels like just yesterday I said my goodbyes at Pearson Airport yet, at the same time it feels like it’s been a lifetime since I left. I can’t believe the year I have had, I look back and think WOW this has been my life the past year…have I really done all that, is that really me in those pictures?!?

There is no point in me writing a blog and rehashing the year and going over events that you guys have already read about…and to be honest, it would be too long to write so I am just going to let you know what has been going on.

Though I have been gone a year, I still have not reached my year mark in Australia though, that part of my travels is quickly coming to an end next month. There is still some of Australia I have not seen which I want to check out before I continue on my travels with Dan next month. I have been planning 5 weeks trip (on my own) for my last few weeks. With a sad goodbye to Dan yesterday (as we have never really been apart the 5 months we have been together) I hopped on the Greyhound for a long ass 22 hour bus ride to Alice Springs.

Allright we all know how I love Greyhound (sarcasm – remember my venture out to Vegas with Pauly for my 30^th). Well to start off the bus was a half hour late, but the bus wasn’t full so I got to stretch out which is always a bonus. About two hours in we drove past Emerald Springs so I gave it the middle finger with a smile lol and about an hour after that we had our first stop in Katherine. There isn’t much to say about Katherine except never go there unless you absolutely have to it’s not the greatest town and it smells bad and so does the Greyhound Station where the toilets are infested with spiders and you can’t even eat a bag of crisps while you are waiting in the waiting area. We were only supposed to have an hour stop but because the bus coming from Perth was running an hour and a half late and there was one person on it transferring to our bus we ended up waiting around 2 hours instead of 1 hour and we were bothered by drunken aboriginals , I was never so happy to get back on a bus.

I was in and out of sleep all day as there is not much else to do on a lone bus trip and driving down the Stuart Hwy hour upon hour becomes menotenous. About midnight we stop off at Daly Waters which is this awesome pub in this out back town called Daly Waters. There is a pool table and peoples ID’s up on the wall as a collage, a decent sized bar where one side is a Takeaway. Out the back is this massive patio with a stage where live music plays few nights a weeks, I honestly wanted to spend the night. Anyways me and this older gentleman on the bus had to go to the toilet (the one on the bus was clogged with poo and we all know how I feel about poo these days). As I’m tinkling I hear something “no it’s a truck its alright” We get back out the front…THE BUS HAS LEFT US THERE!!! My heart sank. My phone, my money, my backpack everything was on that bus. I was panicking. “it’s ok they stop 7 km’s from here we will call the next place and tell them to let you know to wait for you. One of our bartenders will drive you.” Thank god! The older gentleman ( I never did get his name) was panicking too, I was so worried the bus wasn’t going to wait. This wasn’t the first time they had left someone behind apparently.

We pull up and the bus is there, my heart started to come out of my stomach and relax to it’s normal spot in my chest. We thank our driver and head to the bus. “Hey we are back” I said to the driver as we were climbing back on the bus “why would you get off the bus?” was his reply “I had to pee” “well that wasn’t a stop it was just a drop off. I am not Psychic how was I supposed to know.” “How are we supposed to know which ones are stops you are not announcing anything and the one before that you stopped for 10 minutes and the toilet on the bus is clogged and I had to pee. “ “Well it wasn’t a stop and you shouldn’t of gotten off” and he was being rude, he was almost yelling at me and the older guy. We both said to him “we were just telling you we were back there is no need to be rude we were just letting you know we were back” “I’m not being rude I am just telling you how it is” and being in Australia too long I replied “your being a cunt!” and got on the bus only to find out that someone on the bus had told him I wasn’t on the bus when he left and he said “It’s not a stop and it’s not my problem if she is not on the bus!” Fucking Greyhound.

We switched drivers at the next stop and then the stop after that was Tennant Creek where we had to switch busses and then wait around while the transferred all the mail around (the Greyhound is also the postal service here). As the mail we got moved around we all waited on the bus but there were a few people transferring to our bus and the driver wouldn’t let them on till he was done everything. He made them wait an hour with their bags so he could finish while we were all on the bus sleeping. Then we had to go through the mail drive through and pick up mail. After that as we were leaving Tennant Creek the driver realizes he has forgotten his log book so we have to go back to the bus station to look for it, where (lucky for them) to people had missed the bus because they fell asleep and were waiting.

It took another 7 hours after that to get to Alice Springs. At one point when I woke up we had pulled into the UFO Museum, through sleepy eyes I see green martian men. Apparantly this little place has the most UFO sightings, but it was closed. The rest of the trip I slept, or I tried to anyways. The driver (who was heaps nicer then the last) was listening to music with his headphones on and he sang all through the night. Though I don’t really know if you could really classify what he was doing as singing because he really wasn’t even singing words it was more gibberish then anything…and it was sooo annoying sleeping on a bus is hard enough.

I really wish Dan was with me. I miss him so much already. I mean, it feels really good to be travelling on my own again but it is so weird not having him with me…I feel like half of me is missing. Five weeks of us being apart is good for us though…we need the separation, and I need to know I am ok without him…which I am but I miss him like crazy. Though seeing him after five weeks is gonna be awesome and then we are off to Bali to get married!!! Yes that’s right…married!!! We got engaged two weeks ago and we are so happy and can’t wait. Some of you probably wondering what happened with Ryan. We are still amazing friends and are planning on seeing each other in two weeks…and we will always have a spot in our hearts for eachother…but our time is over (as a couple) and we both know that, though he knew that before I did ;)

So now here I am in Alice Springs in an 8 bed mixed dorm that consists of me and 7 other guys lol ya it’s really mixed. I have to be up at 5 am as I am doing a 3 day trip that I am so excited for. You will have to wait for my next blog for that one x

A Shitty Night!

2012-02-07T22:19:00.000-08:00

WEDNESDAY. "Babe why are our clothes wet?" "I don't know. Everyone was drinking last night, maybe something got spilled.   Do they smell?"   Dan smells them. "No." I smell our pile of wet clothes "hmmm. Maybe it's just water, it doesn't smell like Goon or anything I will put them in the laundry bag and get them dry later."   Dan open's the door to our hostel room and steps outside "WTF?!?" "What's wrong babe?" "My clothes are folded up on the chair our here." "So" I say coming outside, then I see what's so wierd. The clothes that were folded up neatly were clothes that he hadn't worn in months and when I say months I mean months...clothes he has not worn since we have been together and that is 4 months.

THURSDAY "Babe I am just gonna go wash the we clothes because my work uniform is in there do you need me to wash anything?" I say pulling the clothes out of the laundry bag and then immediately dropped them back in the back "FUCK! Babe, they are covered in piss!!!" "What!" Dan comes over and smells.   "You have to be fucking kidding me."   "Eww there are ants all in the bag! All over my underwear. It smells like a dog kennel.`` ``Who the fuck would piss on our stuff.`` ``Babe I don`t know but it is just pee. Worse things have happened in hostels.   It was just our clothes and nothing else. I will get them clean and then we will go down to the front desk and tell Rihanna.
I get our load of urine covered clothes in the wash and we head down to front desk. ``Really. Wow. Ok, well here you go. Enough laundry detergent to last you 2 washes.`` ``Gee. Thanks, that helps heaps.``

FRIDAY-SATURDAY Nothing much happened the next few days. Dan and I were reallly keen on finding an apartment and getting out of the hostel.   We liked the hostel, we loved the people but everyone was leaving by the next week and we really wanted to be able to have our own space and not worry when we rock up home at 7am from work. Plus, we were tired of the bullshit ass holes that worked at the hostel.   They had no respect for anyone staying there. I even got mad at front desk just walking into our room ``Could you knock.`` ``Excuse me`` ``Well, you always just walk in our room, it`s rude.   You`ve walked in when I am changing and what if Dan and I are having sex!!!   Knock when you go in, have some respect, you don`t just walk into someone`s room.`` The owner, his GF and head front desk girl were rude as and didn`t care about the people that were staying at the hostel.
Saturday night we got home from work at about 6am.   We couldn`t sleep, and our roommate was passed out drunk and snoring soo fucking loud.   Dan and I being little shits decided to paint his face.   I put on eyeliner, mascara, lipstick, rouge and I even painted his nails.   He didn`t move.   After a few laughs and some pictures we finally fell asleep! Only to be woken up, once again by the owners bitch ass girl friend at 10am.

SUNDAY ``Emmie, Dan! Do you two want to switch rooms`` WTF, we just fell asleep and they are waking us up again ``What`` ``Do you guys want to switch room!``   ``No we are checking out tomorrow we are fine.``   ``Alright.   Joe! Joe! You need to wake up! Joe!``   Dan and I are getting pissed off at this point we had only been asleep two hours and this isn`t the first time they had come in our room and yelled. ``Joe!   You need to wake up and clean!`` "Oh ya, because I love cleaning so much" "Well unless Emmie and Dan shit on the floor then you need to get up and clean it."   ??? I was confused. If someone had shit on the bathroom floor how in the hell would they know it's Joe and not only that Dan and I both knew Joe would never do that.   "Oh fuck!!! What the fuck!!!" Dan and I both sat up!   There on the floor by Joe's bed was a pile of human shit! It was so fucking gross and the smell....honestly I don't even like to talk about it. Writing this is making me ill.   They made the young girl at the front desk clean it!   The cleaner had packed up her stuff in the morning and left because they wanted her to do it!   Honestly I was mortified.   "Joe you need to clean it" they kept saying as he was puking outside "are you kidding me?" I said to front desk "well yes he did it" "alright you are blatantly blaming our roommate for doing it when you have absolutely no idea who did it.   We have been living with Joe in this room for a month and a half and he would never do that. How can you just stand there and blame him." "Well at least now we have it settled that he didn't do it. So who did?"   They were more concerned about blaming someone then actually making sure we were ok.   I was horrified.   Not only was it absolutley disgusting but to think that someone actually came in our room and did that while we were sleeping!!!   "Thats' it" said Dan "we are out of here" With two hours sleep we got up and found an apartment and went to look at it. "we will take it!" "when doyou want to move in?" "tonight"
I had to work till 10 that night so Dan packed his stuff up and went to get the key deposit back from the front desk.   "Ummm ya if you just want to come back in the morning before 10am with your keys and then we can give you back your deposit." "You must be fucking kidding me!   Our stuff has been pissed on, someone shit in our room and you did nothing for us but give us laundry detergent. Most places would be bending over backwards to make us feel better. You have done fuck all and now you dont want to give us back our key deposit a day early? We are moving across town, we work nights there is no way in hell I am getting up early to give you back your key. We are paid up until tomorrow and you are not even going to refund us so you are going to give me back my fucking deposit now and we will drop the keys in the box on our way out! Do you understand me?!?" "Alright now calm down" "Don't you dare tell me to calm down.   why do you care so much the guy just gives you a pay cheque he is an ass hole and sexual predator. Give me my deposit so we can pack up and leave"

Alright just a bit of a note but the owner of the place is (so we have been told my many people) a sex offender.   He was never convicted because he paid the girl off.   At first I thought this was a rumour but all our managers at work were telling us to be careful staying there because of him.   How he still owns and runs a hostel I do not know.   A girl we met staying there said that months ago her friends were staying and working there and the owner asked them to wash his car which they did and then he turned around and said next time do it in a bikini.   I already wrote in a previous blog what he was like when I was thinking of taking a job there.   I wonder if his girlfriend is really his girlfriend or if it's just a cover.   I'm trying to find some links or some info on it so I can post it.   This hostel should be taken off Hostel World and Lonely Planet should put a warning on it really is not safe for young girls. Please anyone traveling and planning to stay in Darwin do not stay here especially if you are a solo female

Anyways we moved into the apartment that night and sat on our huge balcony looking out onto the water and enjoyed a couple of beers.   Things are really good. We work heaps and really don't get to spend much time together.   Life is not overly exciting right now.    We are just trying to save as much as possible as we are leaving Oz in April, so we are working as many hours as we can get right now.   I think the best thing that happened this week was this Canadian couple tipped me a Toonie! Honestly I have never been so excited to see one....I have not seen my own currency in a year. I gave them the biggest hug and had the biggest smile on my face for the rest of my shift.   Well I am off as I have to leave for work soon.   Take care x

Man Flu...Fact or Fiction?

2012-01-12T03:56:00.000-08:00

Recently Dan and I came down with a cold/flu. It was awful, plus we were working and due to our late nights working at the club our sleeping habits haven't been the greatest so we were just feeling worse. Our bodies ached to the point it hurt to get out of bed, we had a fever and our nose was getting all stuffed up. I don't even know how we had the energy to work but we pulled it off.
"Baby I feel so sick." "I know babe so do I" "No, but like really sick I'm so cold and I hurt all over" "I know babe I feel the same, we just need to ride it out for a couple of days" and I leaned over and kissed him. "Oh baby I love you so much, it hurts and I'm so cold...you don't get it, I feel worse then you. I have Man Flu!" Man Flu?!? WTF?!?

Man Flu (taken directly from http://www.manflu.info/)
Man Flu is a crippling and debilitating disorder indiscriminately striking down male members of the human species without warning. The illness is often referred to pejoratively by female members of the species who are in fact immune from the illness as man flu is now known to exclusively attack the XY chromosome carrier. If Man Flu is kind enough not to kill the infected party it will definitely leave him weak, sick, hurting everywhere and in dire need of TLC.
Medical professionals now also widely recognise that self diagnosis by the sufferer is the best means of identification as the symptoms of Man Flu are far more severe than the simple common cold which predominantly targets the XX chromosome holders (i.e. females). This goes some way to explain the cynicism some women display towards their male counterparts.

Medical professionals now also widely recognise that self diagnosis by the sufferer is the best means of identification as the symptoms of Man Flu are far more severe than the simple common cold which predominantly targets the XX chromosome holders (i.e. females). This goes some way to explain the cynicism some women display towards their male counterparts.

You have to be kidding me right?!?
I remember my mum telling me about this when I was younger, she warned me a that no matter what pain and agony we as women endure, men will always say they have it worse.

The pain and suffering of Man Flu is similar to that of child birth

TRUE - Though at least with child birth it's all done and dusted in a few hours, but Man Flu can last for weeks...

haha ya right

I must say, the term "Mother knows best" is so true...she was so right about this thing called Man Flu.
"He is claiming to have Man Flu" "Oh man, Man Flu is the worst thing ever" yells one of the gus from the pool. "your kidding me right?" "no way, it's horrible it can kill you" says another one from the pool. "Yes but we are both sick and have all the same symptoms, I feel just as awful as he does." "No you don't he has Man Flu, you just have flu." "There is no way he feels worse then I do...he is not going to die."

Man Flu is simply a cold, the symptoms of which are greatly exaggerated by men.

FALSE - Man Flu is a serious and potentially life threatening illness, and will no doubt soon be on the Health and Safety Executive's list of Reportable Diseases. Man Flu is a distinct disease in its own right, and should not be misdiagnosed as a mere common cold.

"you guys actually believe this" "believe it? there is nothing to believe it exists and its horrible" "Babe they actually believe you." "Of course they do. Man Flu is horrible, you can never get it because you have ovaries"

Women can catch Man Flu

FALSE - Man Flu does not attack humans with the XX chromosome, only those with the XY chromosome. This genetic mutation effectively immunises females against Man Flu. This may account for the reason that women widely believe that Man Flu is actually just the common cold, but with a bit of extra drama thrown in for good measure.

The best cure for Man Flu is a cocktail of Night Nurse, Day Nurse, chicken noodle soup and whiskey.

FALSE - There is no cure for Man Flu. Once infected the afflicted can only hope that the gods roll the dice in favour of life rather than slow, lingering death.

"Baby I'm so cold, I think I see a 'the light' " "Ok now you are pushing it. I'm sick to and feel like shit and I am not winjing about it the way you are. Get out of bed."

The best way to deal with Man Flu is to just 'get on with it'

FALSE - Extensive research has proven that the only way to combat the crippling effects of Man Flu is complete withdrawal to the sofa and uninterrupted mollycoddling by the girlfriend / wife.

"I'm sick too you are not getting any sympathy from me." Then he pulls out his iPhone (obviously still capable of using it) and shows me a a page on a website - http://www.manflu.info/ (obviously not to sick to do that either). "Babe look" he says in a sweet little innocent voice.

So I read:

If you find yourself in the position of primary carer for your boyfriend or husband then DO NOT PANIC. As explained elsewhere on this site you are completely immune from Man Flu.
Your beloved will shortly become completely dependant on you, requiring you to tend to his every need. Do not shun any request, don't forget that the affliction that he's suffering from is hundreds of times worse than the simple affliction which you know and understand as the common cold.
There are three distinct stages to Man Flu and it's important you know your responsibilities :

"Wait a minute. Responsibilities?!? Babe come on now this is going over board." "Not if you want me to get better it's not. You want me to get better don't you?"

Stage 1 - I think I'm coming down with a cold. Don't forget, even medical experts recommend self diagnosis, and ALL men are experts at recognising the early stages. Here you will be expected to sympathise, any flippant comments now such as , "Oh I expect it's Man Flu is it?", will cause immediate deterioration. Preferred responses will be along the lines of, "There there, can I get you some chicken noodle soup and put your favourite Police! Camera! Action! DVD on?". This stage can last from one to three days.

Stage 2 - It's not a cold, it's the 'flu. Your beloved will barely be able to lift his fingers to work the remote control by now. - except of course to go on his iPhone and show me this website. I'm sure doing it almost killed him - There will be dramatic displays of coughing and chest holding. He will present a red and sniffly nose, and a phantom fever. Do not mention <begin sarcasm˃ Man 'Flu <end sarcasm˃. Instead continue to serve comfort food and provide him with a selection of men's magazines (such as FHM or Maxim) to take his mind off the illness ravaging his poor body. You may also be required to gently dab his forehead with a lightly dampened sponge or massage his feet. This life threatening stage may last from three to five days.

I here him laughing from the top bunk.

Stage 3 - It's not completely gone, but I think it's going. By now your beloved will be physically exhausted. He will have spent the previous seven days teetering on the brink of death only to have pulled through. However, he will start to feel less 'achy all over', and begin to move short distances away from the sofa. Hang in there with your pampering, you're nearly done. This stage can typically last from six to ten days. Please be aware that any sarcastic references to Man Flu at this stage can render the hapless victim straight back to the life threatening stage 2. He should be allowed a suitable period of convalescence (the length to be suggested by him) prior to being tasked with household tasks.
Good luck.

"haha good luck huh. Good luck to you baby!" "but it hurts" "your ass is going to hurt when I shove my foot up there in a minute."

Can you believe it? Man Flu? Really? Do they actually think we believe this? They are the simple minded ones not us

Anyways we are both better now, its just more of a sinus infection now with a cough. Yes, Dan survived, he didn't die, he is doing well....well enough to cook me dinner tonight!

*all in formation quoted was from the website http://www.manflu.info/ If you know any man that claims to suffer from it or a woman that has a man claiming to suffer from it ....god help them both!

A New Life in Darwin, A Long Winded Guide, An Orphan's Christmas and Ringing in the New Year

2012-01-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

It's been 3 weeks since we left the Springs and we are loving life!
Darwin is awesome.   It's small but yet has a great vibe, with shops and bars lining the main street (Mitchel St.) and an awesome infusion of restaurants; Thai, Indian, Italian, Vietnamese, Japanese, Shushi, Burgers and the food is awesome....finally some good food in Australia non of the tasteless stuff I have had to indure for the last 8 months lol.   Anyways, things here are great, we have an amazing job! We are both bartending at the most popular bar/club in Darwin, Monsoons, we serve till 4am so we work late -or should I say early- but it is so worth it. The money is awesome plus we make tips!!! Plus the job it self is just awesome all the managers are my age, some of them have been sponsored so were once travellers and they all actually work and I mean they bartend with us...there are bells that we randomly ring through out the nightl, Coyote Tuesday where 2 of the managers dress like cowgirls and dance on the bar and stage all night, ladies night on Thursday which is when we have topless bartenders (Dan's abs and chest or on stand-by) and a male stripper, we have water fights with eachother behind the bar, we deal with drunk wankers all night but it is great, we have soo much fun and just love going to work. I am also working next door at Wisdoms in the Bistro a few times a week for extra shifts even though it was suppossed to be my full time job and Monsoons was suppossed to be part time. Let me rewind.
After our first weekend in Darwin we went out with our CV's and just went around to the bars. We both really wanted to work at Monsoons but didn't want to limit ourselves. Within 20 minutes Dan had 2 job trials and I had 3 with one that night at Wisdoms which I fell in love with. They just threw me behind the bar, no training, didn't know where anything was on their bar or the computer system, and it was a busy night....it felt great to be behind a bar again. The next night they did the same thing which I was fine with. The next week I was put into the restaurant part so they could train me for both.   I talked with the managers and asked for a set schedule and hours so I could get a part time job on the side and have Wisdoms as my main income "no worries, we will give you 37 hours a week" "sweet awesome".   Monsoons they would give me 2-3 nights a week so everything was working out. Though, Wisdoms was worried about Monsoons stealing me from them "we like you here" "don't worry it's just for extra shifts they wont steal me"   Then the schedule came out the next week at Wisdoms - 15 hours! Three shifts in the bistro and nothing on bar, NOT EVEN NEW YEARS! "Em I feel so bad, just wait till next week I feel so bad" "Seriously no worries, I will just let Monsoons know so I can get some hours."   Well not only did I let Monsoons know but I changed all my tax info so I can make them my primary income and went full time as one of the night bartenders.   Not that I wanted to screw Wisdoms over but I can't sit around week by week hoping they are going to give me hours.   Anyways its all working out we are so happy and Darwin is both of our favourite place in Australia.   It's wierd you know there is a saying that goes something like - we travel the world only to look for comforts that remind us of home - Darwin reminds me of an oversized Blue Mountain Village, well at least the area we live in. It's basically all shops, and bars/restaurants, the people are a mix of locals, backpackers and other Aussies who ended up there because they love it (which reminds me of the collective group in Cwood)   If you work at the bars you pretty much have VIP everywhere and know all the other bartenders and everyone is friends with everyone and there is drama (just like the village). You have your grocery store and the beach around the corner and your resorts and hostels, there is hustel and bustle during the day and at night the place just comes alive. I guess in a way with the smallness of it but the closeness of the people; and the ppeople here I must say are pretty awesome (though there are always a few) I feel at home and so does Dan.  Some of the people here I have met remind me of people from back home which I guess goes into the whole "feeling like I'm at home" mix of things. It just sucks that we have to leave in less then 3 months as my Visa is up at the begining of April.
As the streets are lined with shops, bars and the hustle and bustle of people they are also lined with Aboriginals who sit on the side walks banging sticks and singing, playing the dijeridoo and begging for money, passed out drunk spread eagle on the sidewalks, emptying out their bodily fluids where ever and whenever they feell like it, fighting eachother and yelling at the people sitting out on the patio's....it's pretty nuts but they are a whole other story.
I originally had a job working reception at the hostel which seemed like a good deal, but.....the owner is a bit of a sleeze, all he did was look at my chest, I didn't even have any clevage showing at all, he then points to my chest and says "you have a piece of hair there." Everytime he walked past me he would have to "brush" past me....eww he is so gross. He actually has a really bad reputation in Darwin, we have even heard he has been shut down and has had charges against him from past employees.   Though none of that was the reason I quit.   I found out that the place is shutting down for renovations meaning that there would be no work "but I will need someone to look after the place when it is shut down so you would have free rent." "yes but I would have no money coming in." "yes but you would have free rent" so being responsible I told him that I didn't want to waste his time or my time with training if the place was shutting in 3 weeks and I would just have to find another job as I had to think of myself and my finances. Thank you very much but I don't think I will be taking the job "well then maybe you need to find another hostel where you can get free rent"   "I can afford rent thank you I just need to have money coming in" "like I said you need to find a place that will offer you free rent" He was so rude about it. this place is not backpacker friendly, don't get me wrong we love it here, it's small and the people staying/living here are awesome, it is a great group of people here, but the guy is so money hungry, he doesn't care about the people here. There is an old Italian woman staying here and she wanted a blanket because she gets cold at night they charged her $10 for it. The other morning our rent was due at 10am but because we work late we slept late (we usually pay a day early but we slept all day) they come in our room screaming at us at 10am when not only have we been here for 3 weeks and they know us, they know we are staying and not checking out and that we work till 6am. Your rent is due come pay, they screamed at us to wake up. "Sorry but we worked till 6am" Dan replied extremely annoyed that they woke us up, then they stood outside tapping their foot for us to get up right away. We slept another 2 hours lol. It's pretty chilled out and quiet during the day, people swimming or just lounging but at night once reception is closed it is a different story. The place comes alive and gets crazy, though we are usually at work so we don't partake in any of the festivities and on our nights off we are so sick of dealing with drunk people that we lock ourselves in our room lol, we have become the anti-social couple lol. Oh well....I told Dan having an old girlfriend is making him old.
We did a day trip to Litchfield National Park. The morning started off with a 2 hour boat ride into croc infested water. They swam right up to the boat and jumped for the food our guide had hanging on a stick. Some of them were massive and it was a little intimidating when they jumped out of the water, sometimes you could feel them swimming into the boat. After that we stopped off and leaerned about Cathedral and Magnetic Termite Mounds which were pretty incredible to look at but our guide was a little long winded. We really just wanted to get to the falls and swim so we were getting bored. I mean, it was alright, except that we were extremely hung over and our guide was shit. All he did for 12 hours was talk about how he was raised with the Aboriginals and he never saw a white man (he is white) until he was like 10 and then he went on to talk about Scientology for hours. Everyone was so bored except this one girl who just kept asking him questions, we wanted to hit her and tell her to shut up!   When we stopped somewhere he would spend an hour telling us about it then repeat it over three times, something that would normally take 10 minutes to explain took him half an hour and it was sooo hot.   At one point in the day a big horsefly got into the van so I killed it. He got out of the drivers seat opened the back door and lectured me about killing flies because they have a spirit and I don't have a right to kill them - "thats why the Aboriginals are covered in them. They don't kill them because they are there brothers" - ya I don't think thats why but I will bite my tongue on that one.
All Dan and I wanted to do was swim at the waterfalls....but it seemed like that was never going to happen.   Finally after 7 hours we arrived at Florence Falls. It was awesome! Two waterfalls, amazing refreshing fresh water that was super clear and amazing weather. It felt so good and our hangovers and bad moods were gone instinaneously. We swam under the falls and swam around underwater taking pictures and saw some fish, we wanted to stay all day but because we got there @ 2pm we only had 45 minutes before we had to go to the next swimming spot...Buley Rockholes. The Buley's start high up and flow all the way down, each small fall landing into small swimming holes. Soo much fun especially sliding our way from one pool to the next. We spent about 45 minutes there and then it was time to head back and watch the sunset in Fannie Bay. The sunset was incredible, the colours were breathtaking, they literally changed every 5 seconds and they were so vibrant, I would love to say the most beautiful I have ever seen but I have seen so many from different points of the country and other countires that they are so hard to compare, but WOW, I definately want to get out there and see another one.
Christmas was awesome, I called it the Orphan's Christmas as all of us were away from home and Celebrating with complete strangers yet it was one of the best Christmas's I have ever had, though at the same time it didn't feel like Christmas.   There didn't seem to be any Christmas vibe at all in Darwin. Places had lights up but it was more to match their decor then give off the Christmas Spirit. Plus the hostel didn't have lights up because the owner doesn't like tacky Dan and I slept till about 2p as we don't get home from work till about 6am - Monsoons serves till 4am. Joe (one of our roommates) cooked up a massive BBQ - lobster, shrimp, skewers, sausages and of course beer, bourbon chips and dip. Rob (our other roommate) came out dressed as Santa and everyone sat on his lap, it was classic. The boys played in the pool and we listened to music. By the time the evening hit everyone was pretty much in a good vibe so the drinking games commenced for a few hours and then we had to move ourselves inside as it rained like a bitch. At about 2 am the guitar started randomly out of nowhere - Oasis, Wonderwall- and as if on cue everyone started singing together, it sounded so beautiful.
We work most of the time.   My hours are nuts, working two jobs so I usually work 12 hour days but I love my jobs and Dan and I have a blast working at Monsoons, plus we love working together.   We worked NYE which was a blast. We got our midnight kiss and the managers had Jagerbombs lined up for us in the kitchen. Our liscence was extended till 5am so we didn't finish till 6am so we were knackered...but to our surprise thats when the party started. The GM said drinks on him all morning so we sat inside the restaurant till 10am (I think it was 10am) ! We were pissed, we actually had to leave because we were too drunk and we had both already puked.   We got back to the hostel and went for a swim and then slept till 7pm.   I have now had two days off and it is back to work in a few hours! Grrr...as much as I love my jobs I hate going to work after a few days off.
Anyways....I miss you all very much and I hope your celebrations of the introduction of the new year was a blast oh and I do hope Santa was good to you all.
Happy 2012!!!

Good Riddance

2011-12-23T22:58:00.000-08:00

We survived our 11 days straight of work. The last few days were hell but we survived. We were so happy Saturday morning that we had two days to relax though unfortunately we didn’t have access to any wheels and we couldn’t hitch a ride with any truckies because they only had room for one passenger. We really wanted to get out of the Springs for two days, I did not want to spend our days off there doing nothing and being depressed. We were in our room contemplating what to do when there was a knock on the door; it was the owner. “As of right now your employment is terminated so pack up your stuff and Jason is driving you into Darwin.” That was it! We packed up and left within half an hour.

We knew something was up, the last few days were getting pretty bad, the owner was treating me like shit. Infact, the night before he fired us Dan was behind the bar and when he looked down on the floor he saw my iPod. “Why is Emmies iPod on the floor?” “Well I hooked it up to the radio and that was the only spot I didn’t get any static” replied the owner ``so you take my missus` iPod and leave it on the floor in the most walked spot where anyone of us can step on it. How bout I take your iPod and leave it on the floor`` Dan picks it up and puts it on the stereo…no static ``gee, look at that no static!`` Can you believe that! My personal property and he treats it like that, it just shows you his respect level. Not only that, two of their former employees came back and they were both on bar…so now there are 6 of us on the bar? Nope, made sure he had staff before he got rid of us so he wouldn’t get screwed over…CUNT!!! Goodbye Emerald Springs.

Dear D & B, you are not the type of people who should be employing backpackers, you are selfish and a mean man who has no respect for anyone including a wife who is not well. You stand around giving out orders while everyone else works there ass off including your wife who shouldn’t be working as hard as she does. You don’t know to treat people or talk to them, and if you really cared about your staff you would’ve addressed the so-called issue with us early on to possibly avoid the termination and on top of that you would have actually listened to us when we tried to explain things about your prescious customer W who is an old fat cunt with no respect for others which is probably why you like him because he is just an older fatter version of you. You would’ve listened at the fact that he throws his money at us instead of handing it to us, I bet he never told you that Dan got mad at him and to not throw his money at us, you didn’t know that did you…Mr. W didn’t tell you about that did he, he just told you I was a bitch and didn’t like me, maybe that’s because I don’t like people who treat others especially me like shit for no apparent reason, do unto others as you would have done unto you, you treat people like shit so they treat you the same and you don’t like it. You wonder why you go through so much staff, why they leave in the night it’s not your staff, it’s you!!! Oh and about my iPod on the floor, how bout we put B’s there and see if someone steps on it, would you do that with your wifes iPod…haha I wouldn’t put it past you. Maybe you should lay off the fucking beer and the amphetamines that we all know you take but maybe you feel they make you a better person but I don’t think it’s possible for you to be a better person, you’re the type of person that I feel is a waste of space and doesn’t do anything good for man kind except give Aussie’s a bad name and a bad work experience. Your also a waste of breath and I have wasted too much writing this so I will sign off by saying, I hope for you that one day you wake up and actually see how beautiful the world is and that treating people with respect actually gives you a nice feeling inside, miracles can happen I think your miracle is B, she is a beautiful woman and I don’t know how you ended up with her, maybe you can give her a miracle by being a nice man. Merry Xmas and good fucking riddance.

Give Us Strength

2011-12-07T05:09:00.001-08:00

Things haven’t gotten better since my last blog though they haven’t gotten worse. I mean, when the owner isn’t working things are fine but it’s when he works!!! He makes me so mad and frustrated my blood boils. I can’t stand the way he talks to me, I just want to yell and scream at him and put him in his place. He talks to me like I am a fucking idiot, like I don’t know what I am doing and that I am incompetent of my job and living life itself, and when he is not doing that he doesn’t talk to me at all, he barley even acknowledges I exsist unless I am not doing something to his satisfaction- which seems to be all the time, correct me in proper English –which I can say his is bad or to degrade me in front of guests. For example today I was mopping the floor and a guest asked me about the Leukaemia function we had a couple Saturdays ago. I stopped mopping to tell him about the event when I hear from behind me “ya and you should be on the committee, standing there talking and doing nothing” and he wasn’t joking. “ A few hours later we had two women come in and order lunch but they put in 4 separate orders. I brought all the orders into the kitchen at the same time because they were all going to the same table. Not only did I get a lecture about bringing in the orders separately he then said “but you wouldn’t understand unless you work in the kitchen” “thanks but I’ve worked in kitchens” “ya, right.”

Later on in the afternoon he said “ok Sparrow is back” –one of our chefs-and he just walked out of the kitchen. The chef hadn’t even arrived yet and Dan and Jayson were left with no chef for 15 minutes and they had orders up.

He will sit with guests and talk and if you tell him there is an order up he looks at you with hatred and then with a condescending tone “yup” and continues to talk to the guests like we have inconvenienced him with the food orders. Yet if it was us that pulled that he would yell at us.

Honestly I am starting to lose it. We work crazy hours and work our asses off and we just get yelled at. A good day is when he has paid us any notice. I really want to give him a piece of my mind but both Dan and I can’t afford to lose this job. It makes me feel sick to my stomach that I am putting up with this, that I am actually letting someone talk to me this way and treat me like this…like a dog, because that`s basically how we are treated. I promised myself I wouldn`t allow myself to be treated like this and accept it but we don`t have options right now. I know Dan and I are better than him, it kills us to bite our tongues and take it…I am just praying for us to have the strength survive the next 7 weeks!

Even Hell Can Look Beautiful

2011-11-30T05:03:00.000-08:00

2 hours South of Darwin, in the middle of the Outback off of the Stuart Hwy is a roadhouse called Emerald Springs. It’s not your typical roadhouse, or what you would expect a roadhouse to look like (definatly not the type of roadhouse Patrick Swayze worked at in the movie). This is more like a casual bistro, almost a romantic setting with the walls a soft grey , fresh flowers are picked and put on the tables every day and candles light the tables at night. The patio is covered and has plants of all different kinds in all it’s corners; candles sit on the tables as well to light the nights and the beer garden is strung with pretty twinkling white lights. Out the back you have the donga’s where the miners from the surrounding mines live and stay during their work weeks. Off to the side is a house-like donga where all the staff live and in between the miners and staff living quarters is the campervan park. All of this is surrounded by beautiful landscaping of trees , bushes and beautiful flowers that I can’t even begin to name. Beyond this is nothing but bush and beyond that is more bush. When the sun rises the sky goes purple and then into pink and orange and when it sets it is just as colourful. Emerald Springs is just a place it’s not even a town, no population, it’s just a little stop off on your way across the Hwy. It sounds beautiful doesn’t it?

It is beautiful, and hot, soo fucking hot. By 11am it’s almost 40 degrees, and sometimes its just as hot inside as it is outside and you just sweat. We have snakes, and Cain Toads surround us – they like to great us on our front step – we have kissing geko’s, skints (a lizard type of thing), bush flies – they literally sit on your face and the rest of your body - and ants! Heaps of ants. They get into everything and I mean everything, you drop one thing without even noticing and next thing you know your floor is covered, they are in our sink, our bed, sometimes our food – I had the joy of sharing a bag of chips with 200 of them, I didn’t even realize they were in the bag, I’m sure you can imagine the rest – and our house is invest with Daddy Long Legs – I have learned to ignore them.

As beautiful and as interesting as it may sound we honestly don’t like it here…well wait, we do like it here, but the owner is crazy. His expectations in the work place are just above and beyond anything normal. He has OCD when it comes to cleanliness. We literally have to mop the floor every 45 minutes because if there are footprints he considers it disgusting and we have to clean with sterilizer that they use in hospitals and it’s still not enough. No mistakes can be made, we made mistakes on our first day and he said we needed to do better. You get in trouble if you talk to someone for more then 30 seconds and we are constantly told what we are doing wrong and not what we are doing right. Him and his wife went away our first weekend and when we came back he told Dan we did a really good job and then two days later he told Dan that the place was disgusting when they got back and we need to do better? He speaks very condescending and has no respect for women. He barley says two words to me but acts all buddy buddy with Dan. Today I brought something to the wrong table and he said “that is fucking uncalled for” he is always swearing and instead of telling us what to improve on or what we are doing right he just speaks down to us, especially me. The owners wife is sick with leukaemia and has good days as well as bad days. They want staff that can help take the work load off of her which we are more then happy to do, but he is the worst when it comes to helping. She will be out in 40 degree weather cleaning rooms and he is sleeping. He tells us what to do but is the laziest cunt I have ever met, he will yell and scream but wont do anything himself. We had a big function for leukaemia the other night, we all worked 12 hours plus, we were exhausted and all he did was point and give directions while all of us including his wife worked our asses off. The next morning we were all in there doing the buffet breakfast and putting the restaurant back together (once again including her) and he walked around with a beer talking to guests and shouting out orders. When he closes at night nothing is prepped for the next morning or cleaned because he expects me (I am the morning girl) to do it all when I come in and sometimes it slows me down, there is no sugar, coffee, there are piles of dishes, the toilets haven’t been cleaned, garbage bins are full up to the rim and then he will come in and give out orders. Now we only have two chefs because two left so he is working mornings with me and he should not be in the kitchen, even Dan says the same thing. He is too high strung. Dan can smell beer on him sometimes. One minute he is singing at the top of his lungs in the kitchen and then he turns around and swears at you. Today Kate and I were rearranging some furniture on the patio because it was still out of place from the event. We had to set it up in a spot that it is not usually in because we can’t move the pool table back. We just wanted to clean things up the way he likes things to be. You know what he said? “ that’s not where it goes!” “I know but everything was all over the place and we were just trying to clean up until the pool table gets moved” “The boys will move it later because that’s not where it goes” he didn’t even say thank you just told us it was wrong even though we were making the “presentation” look good and “presentation is the most important thing.” After the night of the event one of our chefs signed out and he had 16 hours, straight no break. “you are honestly gonna claim all those hours?” asked our manager. “ The night was for charity you are expected to donate some of your hours. I can’t believe you are claiming all of them” You know what, we worked our asses off, the chefs worked 10 days straight and then a 15 hour day and then anything over 12 hours we are expected to donate our hours to charity??? Get fucked!!! That is not right and they can’t make us. We didn’t even get a thank you, just shit the next day to clean up…well that’s a lie, Dan and I went in for a drink and his wife bought us a round but other then that nothing. It’s always you are not doing enough or your not doing it right or your not doing it my way because it’s the best.

The manager is the same way…he is a young English guy with no prior experience. Everytime Dan and I worked with him he was like do this, do that, this needs to be done that needs to be done while he did nothing. Dan and I did everything. He even had the odacity to show me step by step to wash dishes!!! I finally lost my shit with him and told him he does not need to talk to me condescendingly and treat me with more respect, I’m not an idiot. “Well if you did it right the first time I wouldn’t have to speak to you like that” “Excuse me!?! Just because I did something wrong doesn’t mean you have to talk to me like that. People make mistakes, it doesn’t give you the right to treat them like idiots. It’s not what you say it’s how you say it and it really needs to change. One night Dan and I were having a couple of drinks and sitting on the laptop, Dan went in to grab us another drink and the manager said “doesn’t Emmie work tomorrow? Should she be having another wine” I had three glasses in three hours and I am sorry but I am 31 years old, who do you think you are watching what I drink. He even does it at the house if we are all sitting around having drinks…”who opens tomorrow?” “can you guys turn the tv down?” ughhh. Though after my little talk with him things changed a bit, he gaveDan and I his car for the night so we could go to Darwin on our days off.

It was so nice getting out of the Springs for a night though the car ride there was …well…it sucked! Not that we should complain due to the fact we got a car but man did this car suck. It had no A/C so we had to keep the windows down. The stereo had an ipod dock that didn’t work so we had no music, the speedometer was broken so we didn’t know how fast we were going and it was soo hot and it is even hotter in Darwin because of the humidity. To top it off the stereo needs to be unplugged when the car is turned off because it drains the battery but the stereo got stuck and we couldn’t get it out to unplug it. It was hot and humid and all we wanted was a beer but we had to unplug this stupid thing. We were so annoyed because of the heat and we couldn’t stop sweating. My cleavage looked like Niagara Falls and Dan in just his shorts literally looked like he stood under my cleavage of the Falls because he was drenched. Finally after checking into a cheap motel and getting a knife we solved the problem.

We stayed at the Value Inn and let me tell you , you definitely get what you pay for. The room was so small I felt like I was back on the Clipper lol but it served it’s purpose considering we were only using it to sleep.

We went to Shennanigans (the place we met up with Nik last time in Darwin). Alex, one of the Canadians I lived and worked with in Karumba is living in Darwin so I called her up and she met us for drinks. Man did we get pissed up. She took us to this place called Monsoon’s where they almost didn’t let Dan in because he was drunk but I talked his way out of it. We finally get in and are having a drink when Dan trying to speak, slurring his words over his now intoxicated British accent “babe, can I have room key? Be back” “what do you need it for?” “to freshen up” I start laughing “you do not need to freshen up you want to go to sleep” he shakes his head. “Alright we will all go back” we skull our drinks and walk back to the Value Inn. I run in to use the toilet and when I come out Dan is beginning to take off his clothes “umm babe can you wait Alex is…oh, ok you want to take your pants off now” and then he is naked “Wow Dan I just saw your penis, good job there Emmie” OMG great first impression. Anyways like I knew he wouldn’t he didn’t freshen up he went right to sleep. Sweet, girls night! We had a fab time and tried to dance it up but we were too drunk, but it was great seeing her again and so good to have a girls night. The next morning it was back to the Springs.

We both are really trying, to like it here. Instead of saying how long we have been here we go how many weeks we have left. We talk about what we are going to do on our road trip after here and think about all the money we are saving. The money is great, we pull in over a grand a week so we are saving heaps due to the fact there is nothing here and with no car (unless borrowed) we are here at all times. I keep trying to think of the money we are making but sometimes I think sanity is worth more then money.

We found that if at work all we do is clean and wash the floor it seems to make the owner happy but then one thing happens and he just loses it there is no room for error and I am sorry I am human mistakes will happen. It’s stressing me out and I am always walking on egg shells. I am stressed out to the point that I have headaches every day, my appetite has gone down, my stomach is upset and my mouth hurts (one of my stress signs) plus on top of that I am dehydrated from the heat so I feel like shit all the time. Dan is calm and chill but some days I can tell he just wants to bust. Now we have 10 days straight of work but then we have two days off so we are going to Darwin for a few days. We wanted to go to some of the Falls but because of wet season most things are closed off till April so we just head to Darwin for drinks and whatever else we can get ourselves into, maybe some new ink? What do you think mum? Lol you know it’s gonna happen!

Just like Karumba this is an experience, and I know I will look back on it and smile just like Karumba. I try not to stress but it’s hard with someone like the owner, Dan has literally been my sanity I don’t know what I would do without him. Now we just have to push on 9 more shifts and then it’s time for Darwin!!!

Evil Cows, Waterfalls and Job Decisions?

2011-11-09T03:30:00.001-08:00

I was pretty stressed out when we got to Cairns. I had spent heaps of money in Airlie and my funds were decreasing fast. Our plan was to find work as soon as possible but we were not having any luck. Dan really wanted a day where we could just enjoy ourselves and take our mind off things for a bit so we decided to go on Captain Matty’s Barefoot Tours - $85 – perfect for our budget.

We got picked up at 7:15am out front of the hostel. This orange and white hippy van pulls up infront with a musical horn and out jumps Captain Matty a 32 year old full bearded dreadlocked hippy. “Good morning you must be Dan and Emmie! Come here give us a hug!” He embraces us in a huge bear hug with a kiss on the forehead (just me not Dan) “Allright then Dan where are you from” “England” “Ahhh a POME. Nice. Emmie where are you from?” “Canada” “Are you afraid of the dark? Apparantly Canadians are afraid of the dark!” I knew right away this was going to be a great day.

Every time someone new joined he would hug them. His energy and vibe was amazing and before we got to our first stop he knew everyone’s name and where they were from and, of course, had a little anecdote or fact about them. “Alright now you Irish as much as you deny it we all know that you guys are not very good swimmers so everyone here please keep an eye on them. Team America – Fuck Ya!” He sang to the 2 couples in their 50’s. “ Now guys, please do not talk about bombs and terrorists because it makes Team America really nervous.” “Emmie, Miss Canadia. Is it light enough in here for you? It’s going to be dark on our way back but don’t worry I have night lights so you won’t get scared.” He had something for everyone! “All right guys welcome aboard my name is Captain Matty and the bus…her name is Shh Ka Ka. We are on no time limit if you want to spend 5 minutes or 1 hour at our sites be my guest, this is a chilled out laid back tour so take your time. You can eat on the bus and drink (soft drinks) and just enjoy. Questions, concerns, comments anything about butterflies? I am currently learning about butterflies so please feel free to ask me anything about them. NO? Well I will tell you anyways!”

As we drove the Atherton Tablelands Matty educated us on butterflies, Kangaroos, Koalas and the evil cows in the fields. ``See the little white birds in the fields next to the cows. They are terrorists and they tell the cows to charge at tour busses filed with backpackers so we need to be really careful. Look how all the cows are facing the same way…sitting there staring at us and it goes through every field out here. Just keep your eyes peeled, it`s dangerous around here.``

At the first stop we decided to roll a cigarette. “I will roll that for you” Captain Matty said and took the half rolled cigarette out of my hands “you can have one if you want” “nah mate, I quit but I love rolling and I love the smell so just blow your smoke my way. You can’t smoke on Shh Ka Ka but if it’s green be my guest!” Our first stop was the Cathedral Tree. A tree, in which its roots wrap themselves and swirl in every direction up the base of the tree and the leaves starting 100 feet up. It was awesome! Our next stop was Lake Eacham, or what they call a lake. It was basically a really big pond. “Are you sure this is called LAKE Eacham?” I asked Dan “ya that’s what Captain Matty said” It was the size of our Mill Pond. I wonder sometimes about the Aussies, they call something the size of a pond a lake but yet they say some of our beach aren’t beaches because they are fresh water?!? It makes no sense. Anyways after Dan took a morning swim in the “Lake” we had the morning tea and biscuits Captain Matty had prepared for us. “So Emmie how old are you?” “31” “Sweet I am 32. Dan how old are you?” “25” “Good job mate. Are they real?” “Yes.” “Good on you!” Said Captain Matty slapping Dan on the back.

Next we went to a “really big hole.” There really is no other way to explain it; it`s this really big whole with water in it, but it is not known where the water comes from or how deep it is. One diver went down to 95 meters and there is still no answer of how deep it is or if it is connected to another body of water. When the rivers around flood the level of the water in the ``really big hole`` stays at the same level. To be honest it wasn`t that beautiful but yet at the same time it was breathtaking.

After that we went to our first waterfall ( I can`t remember the name) where we swam around in the fresh water and kissed under the waterfall. Next we stopped in Milla Milla at the pub for a beer and lunch and then we headed off to Milla Milla Falls.

You know the Herbal Essences commercial where the girl is under the waterfall and she is moaning orgasmically well that is Milla Milla Falls and it’s amazing. We could’ve stayed there all day. We swam right out to the falls and went behind them. It felt like we were in a storm back there, it was so loud that you had to yell to talk and water kept blowing in my face so it was hard to see. We swam underneath the falls and took pictures and enjoyed the coldness of the fresh water. Matty took pictures of everyone whipping their hair back even the guys posed for pictures. I honestly wanted to sit and have a picnic and spend the rest of the day there but it was time to move on. We went to two water falls – Zillie Falls and I can’t remember the other one – which we couldn’t swim in and then we went to our last stop Josephine Falls. This was awesome!!! The falls rand down these huge rocks which have become a natural waterslide. It was so much fun! You just climb up the rocks and then you slide down on your stomach, back or like I did on my bum. Some of the locals actually run and slide all the way down on their feet. We must’ve spent about an hour going down the rocks and swimming, well swimming as much as we could, the current was really strong and would always pull you the opposite ways so finding a rock ad perching yourself was the best way to stop and take pictures. After we made our way back to the car park Matty had prepared evening tea with chips and dip. My favourite! We snacked for about a half hour and then loaded back on the bus for the ride back to Cairns only to find out he had tv’s and a DVD on board and we got to watch Ice Age.

By the time we got back to Calypso we had been gone for 12 hours. It was one of the best tours I have done in my 8 months of travelling. It was laid back, entertaining and all the places we went to were awesome, we had so much fun and it was so nice to not stress out for a day, though that didn’t mean I didn’t get back on the stress the next day.

It was now Monday and we still hadn’t found a job. The Night Owl across the street was hiring for two positions but I didn’t want to spend the next few months working at a convenience store. We had answered to heaps of ads on Gumtree, Happy Travels ad Peter Pans and still we had heard nothing, and I had started cleaning at the hostel so we could get free accommodation. Tuesday we devoted most of the day to researching jobs and sending out our resumes. At 4pm Dan said to call it quits “we have been doing this all day, give it time for responses.”

The next day (Wednesday) his phone wouldn’t stop ringing with job offers. We got offered 5 in 20 minutes. There were two we were really keen on. We got offered one in the Torres Straits on Thursday Island which we were really stoked about. Not many white people get to go there as it is Aboriginal so we knew the experience would be amazing. The other was helping run a lodge in the Northern Territory Outback. We didn’t know which one to take. We made our decision only because one of them said we could start right away while the other said we had to wait 10 days and we couldn’t afford to wait around Cairns for another 10 days.

We booked our flight for Friday morning but as we were boarding our flight got cancelled due to technical difficulties. So we had to go through customs and baggage claim and then wait around in the lobby for 2 hours before we could check in to a flight 7 hours later. Jetstar was putting us up in a hotel at our destination for the night as our new employers were picking us up but we were landing too late so we had to spend the night after we landed.

So now here we are in the Outback working at a Roadhouse/Lodge just off the Stuart Hwy. There is no population here as we are not even in a town. There is just us employees and all the miners that stay onsite here during there work weeks. It’s so incredibly hot here. It’s about 30 degrees at 5am when I start work. It’s beautiful here though. The landscaping is beautiful and the roadhouse is set up like a bistro and our house – we get free accommodation and meals – is massive. The sunrises here are so beautiful, the sky turns purple!

We are so stoked to be in the Northern Territory. We even got to spend the afternoon in Darwin before Dallas (our employer) having drinks at Shennanigans with Nik! You all remember Nik! My mate from Dracula’s who I used to walk home with. He was out here visiting his parents so we met up for some drinks. He was dying in the heat. You can always tell the Melbournians, pastey white and dying in the heat lol.

Well, we are spending the next three months here in Population 0 and we are super excited. We both love the job, the owners are great and the other staff are pretty cool. There is not much to do out here unless you have wheels so we are hoping to buy a car within the next couple of weeks.

Till next time.

The Clipper

2011-10-31T00:18:00.000-07:00

I left you all off with me waiting to go on The Clipper,   a backpacker boat in The Whitsundays with a reputation of being the craziest party boat!!! Let me tell...The Cipper definately held up to it's reputation. To be honest, I wished I was in my early 20's again so I could've really gotten involved as much as the younger ones did. It was a mix of Jersey Shore and Spring Break in Cancun on the water for 2 nights....that's probably not the best way to describe it because it makes it sound horrible and not give it the justice it deserves but those are the only words that seem to fit with an explanation of my experience on the boat. In other words AWESOME!!!! Come on, we all know I love JS!
Anyways, I had to walk to the Marina, it was only a 20 minute walk but with my overnight bag, a box of Goon and massive humidity it was brutal. I was swearing at the company under my breath about how much money I spent and there could at least be a bus. I was sweating and my goon was heavy and I had absolutely no idea where I was going. They said follow the path but it turned and then disappeared and with my sense of direction I was ready to turn around and go back to the hostel and let the boat keep my $400, but with determination and asking for directions I finally made it.
We all boarded the boat put our stuff in the bar area and went upstairs to the main deck to have our orientation. Jimmy one of the decky's comes out and says "alright guys we are only suppossed to have 53 people on this boat and we have 55 so we need to find out who the idiots are before we can leave." He begins reading off names and everyone is saying here, here, here. After about 10 names this girl said "did you say this was the Clipper?" "Yes" "Ummm ya we are the idiots, sorry guys" we all clapped and waved them on there merry way. Jimmy says "wow this looks fun lets just randomly walk on a boat filled with backpackers and see wehre it takes us!" Anyways with all that figured out we finaly set sail and
had a bit of an orientation that went something like "welcome to The Clipper....please use our toilet paper not your own as ours is made for the toilets....your goone is in the beer fridge....ladies no strings no wings in the toilet....the music and beer fridge close at midnight....there is a spa on the lower deck....please do not jump into the waters tonight there are sharks.... guys those little rubber things you "sometimes" use please tie a knot at the top and place them in the rubbish bin....for all of you drinking goone the cups are in the cupboard that say cups so please do not ask where we keep them. Tonight is a night of drinks and music so grab your goone and whatever else you backpackers drink and party!  Definatly my type of boat already.
I ended up sitting with 4 girls that I spent the next two days with, Amy, Selina, Emily and Ketchup...yes that's right Ketchup. She is Dutch and when people can't say her name properly it ends up sounding like Ketchup so that's what she calls herself.
A few hours later I was pretty pissed and I looked over the side of the boat and I say " OMG guys look at the sharks!" "ummm Emmmie they are dolphins and they have been swimming here for 2 hours!" I'm sorry I was drinkning goone we all know what happens when I drink goone...it's like tequila for me I take one sip and say "see you guys tomorrow" which is exactly what happened. I ended up passing out at 10pm and when I woke up the next morning to Jimmy singing at the top of his lungs to wake us up I didn't even remember I was on the clipper. I was so confused. With bleery eyes I got dressed into my wet shorts and bathing suit and made my way up for breakfast. Jimmy after his singing said "alright guys get your bacon and eggs up in the bar area!" So all the guys roll out of bed and race up the stairs only to find toast and fruit, lol too funny.
"My clothes are still wet from being thrown in the spa last night" I said when I sat with the girls at breakfast. "Thrown in? No Emmie you went in willingly" "oh dude really, fuck, I remember getting thrown in." "nope you went in willingly and then you flashed the guys" "oh no really? oh...and now that you mention it I remember...I swear it's the goone I am a completely different person when I drink it!"
Our first stop that morning was to Whitsunday Island where we would get to spend the morning hours at Whitehaven Beach.   Before going to the beach you head up a hilll to the look out. Now everyoe is extremely hungover and dying on this trek complaining how hard it is and that they feel like dying...me who would usually be winjing myself was so used to hiking up and down the island hills that I was like "hard? come on guys suck it up this is an easy trek" honestly living on the island and having to hike to and from work everyday has totally helped my fitness level. Anyways the look out is where all the pictures of the Whitsundays are taken for postcards and let me tell you the view from there was postcard perfect. Blue blue water with swishes of the whitest sand swirling through it. That's all I can say to describe it, I don't think there is anything to describe what it loooks like except "you have to go see it!" Seriously that's it! I don't know what else to say. It was beautiful, it was breathtaking, stunning, incredible...whatever else you can think on is probably just the tip of what it looked like. I could've looked at it all day but the beach was calling my name, so me and Stu (one of the guys I met on the Clipper) made our way back down the path to head to the beach.
As we are walking we hear a rustling sound in the bushes and see something "oh my god what is that?" said Stu stepping back. - Stu is quite new to Australia so not overly used to the wildlife here. Me on the other hand don't freek with snakes and spiders anymore and am picking up bugs with my fingers...I know I know but what can I say. - Next thing you know an oversized lizard slowly, taking his time walks out on to the path in front of us and making his way down the hill. "It's just a Guana, don't be such a pussy" I said calmly getting out my camera as I had never seen one and wanted a picture.
Whithaven! WOW! Fucking incredible! I loved it as much as the beach in Abel Tasman. It was so incrdibly beautiful. The first view of the beach when you leave the tree covered path to the white sand is incredible. The sand is the whitest sand you have ever seen and so incredibly soft on your feet, and you see miles of white that eventually meets the clearest water you have ever seen.
The sand is made with silica, it's the only beach in the world with sand like this. You can shine your silver, rub and wash your skinn with it making it soft like a new born baby's bum, brush your teeth to whiten them it was amazing.   The water is crystal clear...I mean crystal clear. You look down at your feet and it's like you are standing in a bathtub looking at your feet in the water. It was so refreshing and felt so good.   We sat all morning in the water hanging out and playing around using Stu to put us up on his shoulders so we could get photos. Washing our skin and brushing our teeth with the sand which didn't feel the greatest when rinsing the our now hot bottles of water.   We could've stayed all day but it was time to head back to the boat so we could get our mid day feed and head to Hook Island for some afternoon snorkelling.
I wasn't overly keen on going snorkelling. The girls were all planning on going but I had already gone in Cairns and ended up struggling to much and not enjoying myself so I was gonna hang back on the boat with Stu and a few of the guys and enjoy the waterslide and the divingboard, but when I saw that the snorkellers and divers were being dropped off on Hook Island not out in the open water like in Cairns I decided I wanted to go. I grabbed snorkel gear and hopped on the dingy boat with Amy.
The first bit of snorkelling wasn't the greatest or should I say the first part of the water wasn't the greatest. There was this brown algae on top of the water that stinks and makes you feel like you were walking through poo...I had to hold my breath...but it only took us a minute to wade through it and then we were off. I am so glad I went. The water was calm and the sun was shinning and I didn't have to struggle with my swimming like the time before. Amy hadn't snorkelled before and was a little nervous which I was ok with because I was still a little nervous in the water.   They gave floating noodles to go out with so we doubled them up and just chilled out and took our time.   We ran into Selina, I mean swam into Selina...so she joined us and we snorkelled around together. Amy finally had the nerve to look in the water and loved what she saw. It was really awesome! The coral itself wasn't what I had seen in Cairns but the fish....there were so many of them. There were heaps of Dori fish and Zebra fish that at one point I felt like I was at the zoo in the Zebra section. "Wow, my fish Jack would love it here. It's short for Jack Daniels. I also have Smirnoff but Jack would definatly love it here!" "Selina I don't think this would be overly safe for your fish" I said as I put my head back in the water. "I know but he would love the coral and all the fish he would have so many friends." "Selina...haha are you still talking, here we are snorkelling away and you keep talking about your fish Jack. Stick your head in and enjoy it" " I know, I'm just saying the would've loved it. He died awhile back." Amy and I started laughing. "Still he would've loved it."
That night was a fucking crazy as party. First we all had to go in these big bins and grab clothing and put it on. The clothes stunk so bad lol. You could tell they were clothes people had left behind and were covered in alcohol and sweat from previous parties on the boat.
The guys...of course...put on dresses and got their makeup done. I don't know what it is with boys and dresses, I swear they all want to be women.  One of the guys Stu wore a bra on his head. Amy stuffed the front of Lukes shirt to make him have boobs, they were so uneven and saggy it was awesome.   The staff was dressed up and was involved with everything.   The whole night was to see who the King/Queen of the Clipper was. People got illiminated every round and when they got eliminated we had to sing "nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, goodbye"   NO! I was thinking....that's what they sing when you leave the island lol I really don't want to hear or sing this. The games were crazy we had to pretend to be zoo animals, one round theycalled freeze and we had to hold our positions we couldn't move or laugh, even if they tickled us we couldn't crack a smile. While holding ourselves still the staff came around and put us into sexual positions. There was a guy and girl standing beside me. They bent her over and put him in a position with his beer botthe up to his mouth and made him hump back and forth the whole time. This was the only thing I could see and I was doing everything not to laugh and I survived the round and moved on. One round the guys were Eucalyptus trees and the girls were Koalas and we had to climb them and hold onto them. Next round we had to be letters of the alphabet. "Right lets make the letter B" So I jumped up and wrapped my legs around one of the girls and curled up in a ball.   A third girl curled up at the bottom of her legs. " Her head is in my croch" "Thats ok" I replied "I am actually resting my ass on her head and my face in your boobs...this isn't akward at all. My name is Emmie by the way"   The next round is where I got eliminated. We had to pretend we were in a rowing competition, we had to keep together and row as fast as we could. I never want to be a rower. It was hard work, I think we even moved a foot across the boat we were rowing so hard. I was a little upset I didn't make it on to the next round but when I turned around and saw that almost everyone still left in the game were naked I was so thankful I could just drink and watch the craziness that at one time in my life I would've been involved in and loving. There was music and strobe lights and singing, it was insane, if we were on the mainland we would've shaken the ground.
I was one of the last ones up...I know it's amazing...I wanted to go to bed early but Stu kept saying "no Emmie you have to stay up tonight, enough of this sleeping business." A few of us hung out upstairs on the main deck with Jimmy he told us when they were cleaning out the spa that morning to refill it, it was clogged with someones underwear. "honestly, his said there have been so many things I have seen on this boat it's incredible."
The next day we were heading back to Airlie but we got one more snorkel off of Hayman Island. THE best snorkelling I have done in Australia so far. The colours of the reef were incredible and there were so many things I hadn't seen before. At one point I was completely surrounded by Dori fish and I mean surrounded I could stick my finger out and touch them they were so close to my face.   One of the staff had thrown in fish food so they would come around and boy did they ever. There were so many you could see them pop out of the water and feel the swim up against you. I was a little freaked out but it was worth it.   There was this massive fish (I don't know the name) they call Elvis that we could pet and swim with. It was amazing,   I wanted to stay in all day, I didn't want to get back in the dingy but we had to start heading back to the mainland.
When we got back to the Clipper we really wanted to do one time down the waterslide.   Awsomeness! plus there were these huge blue fish swimming with us it was cool.
That night there was an after party at Phoenix and a drink and half a pizza for $5.   The girls and I went but after I ate my pizza I was ready to go to bed. "You do too much sleeping for my liking Emmie" said Lee. I didn't actually go to bed I was meeting up with Aidan and Max as it was Aidans last night so I went for a few drinks with them and headed off to bed.
I had a message from Dan telling me to call HR when I got back. They had found me a job and were going to move him and I into a double room. Once again I got the run around for 2 days finally with an answer "sorry Emmie but Vickie won't let you back" I waited around for nothing!   I didn't know what to do or what my plans were but then Dan quit his job on the island because he wanted to come with me but he still had to stay another work. My friend Siimon hooked me and Alexa (from the island) up with his friends apartment for 4 nights rent free. All we had to do was clean the apartment. Perfect. The days went slow and were boring, Dan and I were counting down the days until I got to go to the island. I was going back on the Tuesday night (his last night) as his guest for the night. It was so much fun and felt so good to be back, the boys were happy to see me and so was everyone else. "Party tonight boys" "of course Emmie your here" "Umm it's my last night" Dan says "ya but Emmie always throws parties...Emmie wants to get drunk party...Keep me on the island party....I'm leaving the Island party....I want to party party....andd we love them you can come though"
The next day we made our way back to Airlie and then booked the bus to Cairns for the next day. Honestly 10 hour bus rides are not fun, but we went with Premiere and they have more leg room then Greyhound and they play movies almost the whole way so we really couldn't complain.
So it was back to Cairns. It feels good to be back, my Aussie landing ground. I walk in the door and I hear "Emmies back!" Everyone wants us to stay but we really want to find work in the Outback for the next 3 months. I know, more isolation but it is the best way to save and make money, and it is quite nice being away from technology.

what was the thing i need you to remind me about the clipper

The Run Around

2011-10-14T20:42:00.000-07:00

By the time I got to my second week I knew I wanted to extend. I had met incredible people, I loved my job and I was living in paradise, what more could I ask for. After a shift I said to my manager “I would really like to extend for about 2 weeks” she said she had to talk to my supervisor and she would get back to me. While I waited to hear back I talked to some of my mates and they said I might as well stay longer, the longer I stay the more money I save and then I can travel for months and not work. Why not I loved it there anyways. Five days later I still hadn’t heard anything back so again after work I asked “have you talked to Jim yet” (my supervisor) “no I haven’t, I will tomorrow” “ok, well I would really love an extension, I love my job here and really want to stay till at least mid-November possibly January. I then went to HR to talk to them. ( My manager has to go to HR who has to go to the Chief of Village of final decisions. )

I was a little on edge for the next little while. I still didn’t have an answer therefore I didn’t know what was going on and I was getting stressed out. One day at work I asked my supervisor what was going on he said they were cutting staff but there were two spots available. They were 100% keeping Jarrett because he wanted 3 months and that someone from FnB (food and beverage) had put in a request to transfer. Nothing against my work ethic but that was the decision. Then as I went to sign out at the end of the day my manager says “Emmie I am cutting down to 7 staff so I’m not giving you an extension!” Just like that, in front of everyone. I was a little embarrassed and upset. I went right up to HR and told them I would do the three months. That I really wanted to stay and I wasn’t ready to leave.

I was far from ready. Everything was amazing on the Island. I lived in the best spot, I had amazing friends who I adored and I kind of started dating someone. Everything was just perfect and didn’t want it to end.

The next day while putting up curtains with my supervisor he said “you should’ve said you can stay for three months” and then continued to tell me about how the French Canadian guy Christian got the position and that all the paperwork was getting done that day. The next day I see Christian and his wife Nadia. “Hey Emmie did you get any good news about your extension?” “I didn’t get it! You got the position!” “No! they told me to come back that no decision had been made.” “they told me all the paperwork got done yesterday.” “they give you information they don’t tell me. It is your job I don’t want to take it from you.”

I was so frustrated. I didn’t know what was going on. I went to speak to HR again and she said I wasn’t the only one trying to get an extension and that I should be prepared to leave the following Tuesday when my contract was done; but then that night at disco she said “Emmie I don’t want you to leave I am doing everything to keep you on the Island.” Dan and I had no idea what was going on, we didn’t know if I was coming or going, staying or leaving, packing or settling. He even wanted to get me in the kitchen with him as a dishy but they don’t allow girls to be dishy’s. WTF!!!

I was gutted! I didn’t want to leave, everything was perfect and I was so happy. In honour of myself I threw a Keep Emmie on the Island Party where I took marker (that we borrowed from kids club) and wrote in big letters on a club med towel to make a banner that one of the guys wore as a cape. It was a success the boys showed up and got pissed up and then we all headed to the disco.

Head’s of departments were telling me not to worry something would come up, looking to see if they could find a spot for me anywhere on the resort. Then Scottie, gardens supervisor said “hey I need another person in gardens would you be interested” “HELLS YES!” “allright then let me just run it by Luke.” Well Luke said yes, all he had to do was talk to HR. Oh great here we go again…the run around. 5 days later I still hadn’t heard anything it was always come back, we haven’t spoken, your fine don’t worry, I have a meeting I will know tomorrow. I was getting so anxious it was the last day of my contract and I still hadn’t heard anything! And to top it off HR was closed for the day!! Dan kept telling me not to worry, that I had massive support to be kept on the Island there is no way I was leaving. Finally, I was told to be at a meeting the next morning to get everything sorted out. It sounded really positive and raised my spirits a little bit, it’s the closest thing I had to a reply in days.

The next morning after my meeting I went straight to my room to wake up Dan. “How did it go?” “it didn’t” “it didn’t” “what do you mean it didn’t” “they said there is no budget and I have to leave tomorrow morning” I couldn’t believe it! Actually no one could believe it. “What do you mean you didn’t a get transfer” “that’s bullshit” “why do they always get rid of the good ones” “I just don’t get it” people I have barley even spoken to knew I didn’t get it and were coming up to me. The guys were knocking on my door asking for hugs and how they heard. Dan had told everyone when he saw them at work. “there is nothing else I can do to keep her here. We’ve tried everything.”

I was told of a few spots opening up in a couple weeks but I had to leave and come back if they accepted me into the job. It seemed pointless. So unwillingly I packed up my little donga all day and got prepared for my last night with my Island family. It was a really nice night, all the boys showed and even some of the chefs popped up when they were done work to say goodbye. As much as I didn’t get to stay the love and support I had from everyone was enough for me.

It was a sad goodbye on the jetty the next day. I didn’t let Dan come and say goodbye. “it’s bad enough I am leaving I don’t want to have to say goodbye, besides you are coming to Airlie in a couple days I will see you then.” The guys came down with me “Emmie why are you crying we will see you in Airlie on Friday” Graeme the bus driver got out and hugged me. “you take care of your self sweetie. I love you.” Then he looks at me “oh don’t you start crying” then it came to my goodbye with Shira. Shira is the reception manager and me and her became mates one night over some wine. I had spent a half hour in her office the previous morning crying when I didn’t get my extension. She came up to me put her arms around me and we hugged so tight (well as tight was we could as I had on my massive backpack) “emmie you are such a beautiful person, good luck with everything and never change.”

I so did not want to get on the ferry. The guys were taking pictures of me leaving, everyone was waving and singing “na na na na hey hey hey goodbye.” I hated every minute of it. There were a few of us leaving so at least I didn’t have to do the travel on my own. It took us hours to get back to Airlie. By the time I checked into the hostel it was 4.5 hours later. It was such a long day.

I ran into a friend from the Island so we hung out for a couple days at the bars during happy hour. I even ran into a mate from back home that I hadn’t seen is 6 years, it was so random. Dan came out on Thursday for two nights. He told me the girl who got the PA position was leaving in a week and the spot was opening back up! WTF! Aidan and Max (2 of our mates that just finished their contracts, also PA) said that it was 100% that she was leaving and my one supervisor was trying to get them to hire me back. It’s retarded! Plus there are ad’s up all over Airlie for immediate work on the Island?!? It makes no sense to me what so ever. Dan left today and he is heading straight to HR to find out what is going on.

Oh well, I’m just thinking of this as a mini vacay and the fact that there is a gastro outbreak on the Island I don’t mind not being there. We had a wicked two days. Shopping, watching movies, bar hoping, swimming in the pool. It was really nice to have some time away from the Island. Now to continue my vacation I am heading on to a boat called the Clipper. One of the best party boats to go on through the Whitsundays. Honestly, even with the run around I have had with the Island, life is great and it just keeps getting better.

The Magic Ingredients to a Perfect Life on an Island

2011-10-11T22:32:00.000-07:00

I have a log book that has logged every day of my travels. It includes stickers of the places I have been, quotes from people and letters from people I have met along the way. I recently made a really great friend on the Island who unfortunately was done with her contract and left . It was sad saying goodbye though unfortunately with travelling it happens often, you meet great people but you blink and they are gone, it sux but thats apart of travelling. The night before she left she wrote me a beautiful letter in my book that almost brought me to tears and wanted to post it.

The Magic Ingredient to a Perfect Life on an Island:

The people I have met!

I live in a little box where they succeeded in making fit a tiny little bed, a shelf, and a broken fridge. But the rest of the time I stay with my dongas family spending the time messing around drinking a few beers on the floor of the “living room” or watching a movie: 7 people in 1 bed! And then we get ready for the Disco! Every Wednesday and Friday, and the main question the morning is “who is getting NBO?” or “How and when the held did I get home?”

We pet Elvis and Pete the cockatoos, go to discover the island and try to swim back the current without drowning, count how many points we made last night, try to wake up and go to work on time but it never happens, hunt turkeys with craig and fishing line, nominate the queen/mother/god…of the dongas, count how many flies we’ve killed in a day, look at the NBO’s party pictures, kill our hangover by the pool talking about the gossips, debat on who are the new hotties and GO’s assholes, take pictures when we party so we can actually remember what happened, have to open 4 different rooms to find our belongings…and so on!

And now it is time to go. Not because I want to but because I have to. I’ve been dreaming for this moment for so long, but now that it’s here, I just don’t wanna leave. I feel exactly the same as when I left home 11 months ago to do my world tour, this weird feeling in my stomach because I’m leaving my family/friends/routine, and now the real world is calling me…but I don’t wanna go. Now I’ll have to go to a supermarket and cook my own food, meet strangers in the street, have to take the bus to go to the beach, lock my door, have to pick up the phone when it rings (I don’t even remember my phone number), be a backpacker again and pack everyday (which I hate!)

So, yeah! This is it, 5 months on Lindeman. Awesome time with awesome people. I really hope that you will experience it as longs as you can cause you deserve it little crazy mother donga’s ! J

Make sure we meet up again, why not south America when this beautiful Argentinien will have stolen my heart haha! Or in Europe and get crazy and catch up this time that we didn’t spend together and I wilsh we had but I left too early or you came too late…

Take care of the Donga’s as you are the new feminine representant and only girls rule J

I miss you and all of you already. Keep smiling and getting shit faced but not NBO!

Xxx Justine Mother/Queen/Donga’s!

I don’t think it could’ve been said any better then that. Those really are all the ingredients though you have been the only ingredient missing these days. You have been missed and I always say that the party is missing something…you. I hope all is well and that we get to meet up somewhere in this crazy world again. Take care and I miss you!

Your Replacement Mother Donga xox

Living in Paradise.

2011-09-30T05:47:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks have been crazy, I feel like I have done sooo much!!! From leaving Karumba, to being back in Cairns and then doing the long trek down to Airlie Beach to live in the Witsundays! It has been insane. But; before I get to my adventure getting here and telling you about island life I have to tell you a story.

Behind where I lived in Karumba was the old staff housing, an old blue house with two levels that are now boarded up and locked. My last week in Karumba (before I knew it was my last week) Liz, Cass and I grabbed wine and bundy rum and drank into the wee hours of the morning. On this very drunken night after we danced on our front porch and sang along to the iPod I pop up and say “you know what I have wanted to do since I got here? Break into the blue house!!!” Well, the girls thought it was a great idea, so off we go to the forbidden blue house. We walk up the steps to the top level. Locked. “Cass cough” “What?” “Cough really loud” as she coughed, I – thinking I’m tough – kick the door hoping to break it down? Ya right it didn’t even budge. Defeated we walk back down and were ready to call it a night when I said “there is a door on the ground level” Cass walks up and turns the handle and the door moves, she pushes it again and it opens a crack but something seemed to be blocking the door. Liz joined her and pushed on the door. They get it open enough for all of us to squeeze through. There was a huge king size mattress blocking the door which of course happy and excited we got in had to act like toddlers and jump on the bed.

The place was pretty clean, not overly dusty or covered in cobwebs. There were other rooms with mattresses that didn’t seem to be old or rotted. Liz found a scarf, there were empty beer bottles and a full set of golf clubs and of course deciding we just needed them for no apparent reason took two of them home with us. Cass found a lamp shade glued to the ceiling in one of the rooms “I like this she said” and ripped it down and wore it as a hat. The place seemed pretty cool and we wondered why it had been shut down. To be honest, the place gave me the creeps. I felt weird in there, that something was hiding in the shadows, as fun as it was I was happy when we left. Also, just to add, I had not been drinking goone like my last BnE lol though I was not at one of my most reasonable moments.

Karumba. I do miss it out there and even though I left there two weeks ago it feels like it was a lifetime a life time ago. I went back to Cairns for 4 days and felt like I was home again, I had an absolute blast and got to catch up with people and then Jarrett (one of the guys who used to work at Calypso Hostel where I stayed)and I applied for a job with Club Med Lindeman Island and got the job. So 24 hours later and drunk as skunks after a big party night at the hostel we boarded the Greyhound with yet another 11 hour bus trip ahead of me.

So now here I am living on Lindeman Island in the Witsundays, Paradise, and pretty much a haven for backpackers. The views here are amazing! We are surrounded (360 degrees) by mountainous Islands for endless miles all with golden lines of beaches. The water is so blue and sometimes so calm it is like glass. The wild life here is amazing. Bush turkeys that constantly squak and chase eachother and wild cocatoos that fly into our canteen and steal peanut butter. Elvis (one of the resident cocatoos) flys in grabs a packet and flys back into his tree where he peels the lid back and sits up there cleaning out the whole packet with not a trace of peanut butter left. When he is done he just drops it to the ground adding to the pile of the packets previously enjoyed. One day he even ate it off our fingers. He very slowly walked up to us and like a tame cat just licked it right off our fingers. They are really curious birds and seem to have no fear of us. They will fly up right behind us and just sit there looking at us, turning their heads and fanning themselves out. Then there are the spiritual birds (I’m not sure what they are called) they have long skinny legs and their feathers have the most interesting brown and black design, some parts almost looking like the spots of a leopard. They have the blackest eyes and they just stand there not moving for minutes at a time, staring at what I don’t know. They make this weird clicking-hissing sound and then they run towards whatever they are hissing at. It is said they are warding off evil spirits and if you purposely kill one your number is up. I love watching them.

There are butterflies, snakes (which I have not seen), moths, horribly big marsh flies that bite, green ants that bite but apparently taste like citrus and spiders, big ones, but I am dealing with them ok. The weather here is so hot, almost flawlessly hot, I am tanned as, working outside in a polyester uniform really isn’t the greatest fun. What am I doing for work? I’m a PA. No no not personal assistant, Public Area. We mop the floors, clean all the toilets, pools, tennis courts, pool areas, rubbish bins and our living area GE Land. GE Land is made up of shack like appartments A-D block and the Donga’s which is where I live and the best place to live. We each have our own rooms though we share toilets and showers but its incredibly social here and everyone gets a long great. My door is always open unless I am at work, I would like to say it is closed when I sleep but usually I pass out with it open when I nap. Even when there are parties here I fall asleep with the door open and do not wake up to the loud music lol. There are three parts to the Dongas. There is oneside called the Monga’s – they are quiet and don’t party, then there are the Donga’s which has two blocks there is the end part which is clean with painted doors which I call Beverly Hills and then there is my block which I like to call Harlem. This is where all the parties take place on our doorstops (mine being one of the main ones), garbage and cigarette butts that I try and clean in the mornings but is back to the way it was by the end of the night and graffiti on the doors, sounds ugly but we love it though and wouldn’t change it. GE Land is set up on a hill away from the resort and guests are not aloud here, we have a gym (with rusted equipment), ping pong room (that has holes in the walls containing aspestos but they have been checked and it is safe), a canteen where we eat all our meals (3 meals a day done buffet style, yum yum), a pool, a bar, laundry facilities and the shoe tree. The shoe tree is massive covered with heaps of shoes, when leaving the island if you have a pair of shoes that are ruined and need to throw out you put them on the shoe tree so they can stay on the island. Work isn’t really that bad. PA is one of the best jobs to have on the island and I actually really enjoy it even though I am cleaning toilets. I’m happy and always smiling at work even when I sweat like a pig in heat I smile. Our polyester shirts just sit on the sweat and the mesh at the side to help you breath…not so much by the time I am done work I feel so grungy I can’t wait to get into a shower. My shifts are 630am till 3pm everyday, early I know but I like the hours. I have even been napping in the evening so I can party at night. We have a disco on the resort which is pretty much all staff, it kind of sucks but it is nice to go out and see the GO’s which is the other side of the staff. The GO’s are the FOH (front of house) staff and have different accommodation from us so it’s nice to see them.

It’s really cool working and pretty much knowing everyone since we all live here. Everyone is great! I’m having a blast, I’m even trying to extend my stay here so I can stay and save some more money. Plus there is so much to do here. Snorkel (as we are on the outer part of the Great Barrier), camp outs on one of the island beaches, kayaking, weekends at Airlie Beach, helicopter rides over the Witsundays, hikes up Mount Oldfield where you get a 360 degree view of our surroundings which is absolutely breath taking, watching sunsets from the 8^th hole of the golf course which are probably some of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen. I DID have pictures of most of this stuff but I lost my SD card so I have to take the pictures again so please be patient.

Anyways I know I am lack of blogs lately but so much happens its hard to keep up so I will be trying my hardest to keep you updated. I must go though, there is an epic night waiting to happen at the disco tonight and I must join in the festivities of my Donga-ites and get ready for tonight. I just napped for 4 hours as I have to wake up at 6 and clean…guess what…the disco haha.

Take care

PS It is my 7 month anniversary!!! Miss me ? J

On the Road Again!

2011-09-15T19:22:00.000-07:00

Alright so it grew on me, Karumba actually grew on me. The people, the dry landscape, the heat, the fishermans cologne it all grew on me and I fell in love with Karumba. The only thing I was struggling with was the job, I never settled into it. I tried but even to pretend I enjoyed it I couldn't do.   They changed the rules on us and worked against our RSA and the old guys that sat at the bar everyday were C ____s (I won't write it because I know mom doesn't like it).   To top that off Steve and Yvonne were acting really wierd towards me and everytime she spoke to me she was condescending; like I wasn't capable of doing my job properly. Every thing I did she spoke to me like I was a child and I was getting really frustrated. I don't care if I am a backpacker and we get the shitty end of the deal I am still a person and you don't talk to me like that.
By last Saturday I had enough, I was ready to quit but I actually had a feeling I was getting fired. The schedule came out on Sunday, the other girls have 45 hours and I barley had 35, that was it, my last straw after my shift on Sunday I was going to give her my notice.
"Emmie can I talk to you" says Yvonne as I was signing out and just about to ask her if I could talk to her.   She pulls me into the office and I knew before we even got in there what it was about. She said she had complaints and then blamed me for losing them business!!!! She said that people had stopped going there beccause of me. "I was coming to tell you that I was leaving" I told her "Well good then you can leave on Tuesday with the rest of them" and that was it.   I had less then 48 hours to pack, get a bus ticked (which I had to pay for) and find myself a ride there. I went online and talked to one of my mates from the hostel in Cairns. He booked me in for the next night and was picking me up at the station when I arrived.
"What do you mean you are leaving?!?" asked one of the locals "I got sacked! She told me I lost them business. That people stopped coming here because of me." " What people? it hasn't changed since you got here.   Did you get a warning or . anything?" "Nope, just less then 48 hours to leave!" "What a bitch. YOu know that people stopped coming here because of her not you." " I know but it's ok, they obviously weren't happy with me and I wasn't with them so it is for the best." The locals were really surprised and some very unimpressed. They couldn't believe I got sacked, even the ones I gave grief to and kicked out said they couldn't believe it. The next day the new girl to replace me arrived. They had already put an add through the agency and hired someone. They saved their asses before they threw me out on mine. CUNT's (sorry mom).
I didn't realize how much I loved Karumba until I was on the bus.   You don't just become family with the staff, its the locals as well you become part of their community and their culture therefore they becomes part of your family. I was feeling Karumba sick on my way to Cairns.   Me leaving had happened so fast that I really didn't even have time to think about it. I was stoked to get back to Cairns but sad to leave my little Karumbian world.
The bus trip was long though there were four of us. Liz was off to Fiji and Becky and Luke are heading home, plus I had thrown my back out in the morning so 11 hours on the Greyhound with a sore back is not fun. The closer we got to Cairns we got the weirder I felt. It was so wierd to get back into "civilization" and plus how green it is. Everything is so dry in Karumba and so green here it felt wierd to actually see some colour.
It has felt so good to get back to Cairns. I honestly feel like I am home again. I missed it so much here.   Matthew has come by the hostel for drinks and we have been talking about doing Asia together.   I have seen other friends that I met last time I was here and to be honest I don't want to leave. Cairns has been my favourite place. Yesterday heaps of us from the hostel went down to the lagoon all day and just hung out in the sun, listened to music and went swimming. It was such a wicked day, one of the best I have ahd in a long time. I just want to stay and live at the lagoon everyday, but...lucky me...I got a job lol.
One of the guys (Jarrett) who used to work here was planning on heading down to Brisbane to find some work.   I on the other hand wanted to do some excursions and head down and hopefully find some work in about a month. There was a job posting in the hostel and we applied together. We got the job, we leave tonight at midnight for an 11 hour bus trip haha love those.
Whats the job you ask. Working at a Club Med Resort in the Witsunday Islands. It's gonna be great. I'm not overly excited because I just came back from work but I would be stupid to give this up, it's money and it's only a three week contract. Apparantly they had heaps of replys but they only had 3 spots available, so awesome.   It's gonna be so amazing out there!  Everything in life happens for a reason. If I hadn't of gotten fired I wouldn't have had this opportunity. On the road again!

Poop, it Keeps Your Feet Warm!

2011-09-06T21:34:00.001-07:00

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!!!

Karumba Life GaGa Style!

2011-08-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

Now that I have gotten all the mushy stuff out of my system about being homesick I can write about Karumba life. It’s an interesting little place to be that’s for sure, and I don’t mean that in a way “wow that’s really interesting” I mean it more of a ….well….I don’t even know how to explain how I mean it to be honest lol. Let’s see if I can explain this.

The Animal Bar Regulars, they are something else. Some are awesome and others you just want to knock out their remaining teeth. There are the late afternoon regulars who come in everyday around the same time, sit at the same spots at the bar and drink the same thing every day. When they are done their drinks they will put it on the bar and wait for you to notice it, and if by chance you don’t notice one of 3 things happens. 1. They wave their empty stubby or tinny at you so as to get them a new one 2. They will say “am I going to get any service?” and 3. My least favourite they say “yes please Emmie thank you” I think it is so rude!!! They never ask they just expect and to top it off they leave all their money on the counter and expect you to count it all out for them, they are so lazy. If this was back home they wouldn’t get served, it just erks me the way they expect so much, they have no manners. There is this older woman that comes in every morning for 2 or 3 pots of XXXX Gold. She used to work at the bar years ago so if she is finished her glass and you are not there at that moment she will get up go behind the bar and pour herself a drink!!! Honestly back home, if the bartender is not their you wait for your drink, it happens sometimes and that is what really bothers me they don’t want any time in between their drinks, they want them right there right then and when you don’t ask or get your own to me it is just rude to the bartender. One time I asked one of the regulars if he wanted another one and he said “no I have to go” a few minutes later he was gone so I grabbed his glass dumbed what was left (which was barley a sip). Next thing I know he is at the bar asking what I did with his glass “I thought you left you said you had to go” “ya I went to the toilet and you dump my beer” what would your impression be if someone said they didn’t want another drink because they had to go??? So I poured him a full beer on the house. Cunt!

There is Gator…me and him do not get along…he is this old drunken fisherman that comes in. He is apparently a great guy when sober but unfortunately I have never seen him sober and get the shitty end of the stick. He never showers so he smells and is dirty and his personality is well let’s just say he is not my cup of tea. He makes comments and what he thinks are jokes that I personally don’t find funny “You don’t have much of a sense of humour do you.” “yes of course I do, but I only laugh when I think something is funny” “so you don’t have a sense of humour then.” “like I said when something is funny I laugh, I don’t think you are funny.” Steve (manager) said “if gator gets drunk kick him out, if he talks back or rude kick him out, if he starts shit kick him out in fact if he comes in just kick him out!” So the other day Gator comes in and of course as soon as he sees me he starts. “see that girl right there, she doesn’t like Australians. She doesn’t get the Australian humour, she doesn’t like us.” “Excuse me!” I said “Don’t say those things Gator” “But that’s what you said when you were standing right there” “Excuse me! Don’t you dare stand there and put fucking words in my mouth that I did not say.” “But you stood right there…” “I said nothing of the sort and I would appreciate you didn’t walk up to people and say that I am saying these things.” “But its true you don’t get the humour or like us you don’t laugh” “no I like Australians Gator and I do laugh but not at you I don’t think your funny now fuck off” Later Steve said “don’t argue with him while working it doesn’t look good just kick him out next time.” Next time was about 10 minutes later, I went to pick some glasses up from a table and as I walked by Gator says “you’ve got a little bit of fucking attitude don’t you.” “Get out Gator!” Everyone starts laughing. “I haven’t finished my beer” “That sounds like a personal problem!” Out he went lol, it’s funny now but man he gets my blood boiling. There are always people like him coming in and out, there are quite a few drunks in there every day with no shoes, no shirts with the scent of the fisherman’s cologne –fish!!! Sometimes I can’t even tell if they are drunk are sober it’s almost like they are the same either way plus their eyes are always bloodshot so most of the time I don’t know. There is one woman who will remain nameless who is a drunk and a drunken bitch at that. Who argues with me when I won’t give her what she thinks she deserves. We had a promotion going on and had run out of prizes so she got mad at me and wanted to talk to the manager. I told her he was on vacation and that talking to him wouldn’t help we had no more prizes left and she still continued to argue with me. I hate serving her when she comes in because she is always half in the bag.

Some of the locals are also very judgmental, the comments that come out of their mouth are unbelievable and they are the last people who should be commenting on others. If you do your hair nice to work they asked you what you did to it. If I where my hooded dress it’s Red Riding Hood, if I wear my sundress it’s “so not Australian”. I have had one man sit there and tell me how he didn’t like my tattoos but he wasn’t knocking them, another woman tell me I had too many piercings in my face. Yesterday at the bottle shop this old fat guy with no shirt got upset with me and told me if I took my nose ring out I would be able to think better. I looked at his fat disgusting body that was not covered by a shirt and bit my tongue all I said was “maybe you should shut up and hand me your money to pay for your alcohol and get out of my face.” The other night there was this obnoxiously drunk guy who wouldn’t stop staring at me and he creeped me out because his eyes looked like a deer caught in the head lights. He was driving everyone nuts “Emmie when do you get off work” “when you are in bed sleeping” I replied everyone laughed. He then stood there and told Tony (one of the regulars) how he would like to kiss me and sleep with me. So gross. Honestly, I love bartending but I have never hated it so much, the way some of the people are here just makes me want to poke my own eyes out. I would rather work for tips, we make good wages but to me I can still make way more at home and with the shit I put up with $20 an hour doesn’t seem to be enough lol. Oh and have I forgotten to mention how the men here especially the old ones where really short shorts!!! It’s so gross! The heavier ones where them too and when they sit down the shorts tighten and all you can see is the “moose knuckle” bulge and you can almost see right up their shorts – I think I just puked in my mouth a little while I typed that.

Now don’t get me wrong as much as there is the shitty people there are also the awesome people. There is Chicken who we all absolutely love. He is one of the nicest and genuine people up here, he doesn’t hound you for a drink he knows you will get to him when you get the time. Camo - an older fisherman - drinks Strongbow Dry and always puts a smile on my face when I see him. Sloanie who drinks a Sloanie, yes they have named a drink after him. Another guy comes in but I can’t remember his name but he always (just like the other regulars) drinks the same thing and when somebody makes a comment at me or to me he tells them not to piss me off because he knows I am feisty behind the bar and won’t take shit. Cowboy who is an older gentleman who always where’s a cowboy hat (a Calgary one), he walks slow and shuffles his feet across the floor and talks so quiet you have to strain your ears to hear him. When you hand him a drink he says “thank you young lady” he is so sweet. There is the daytime crowd Dave and Neville who have taken Liz and I croc spotting a couple weeks ago. We saw 15 of them. Neville stayed at the front of the boat and was the official croc spotter, he would bang on the boat and point when he saw one. They are long and look like logs the only difference is that the crocs have a white tint to them. He even hopped off at one point to wrestle a baby croc so we could get a picture but it stealthily crawled into the water before he could get to it. Some of them were massive, and they are very creepy looking though at the same time they are so beautiful, we actually got really close to some of them and got some awesome pictures. When they get into the water all they leave out are their little round eyes and their nostrils, CREEPY! After all the croc spotting we took the boat out to the point and enjoyed a beautiful sunset with some drinks. By the time we got back to the dock I had to pee soo bad. I could barley hold it in, it hurt so bad. Neville told me to run, “are you crazy! It will squeeze out of me” I felt like I was going to burst! After a wonderful trip to the toilet we headed back to Dave and Neville’s place for a bbq with local seafood. Man let me tell you how good it was, prawns, mud crab which are soo good and bugs. Yup bugs, they are a type of crayfish and let me tell you they are fucking amazing. I was covered in seafood by the time I was done, I was in heaven. Backpackers do not get to eat seafood too often as it is not cheap but this is a fishing town so there is a ton of it and the locals give us free seafood, it’s great.

There are the girls that come in Sam, Tara and her mom Pat. They are really sweet and we usually have drinks with them at the bar. Liz and I met up with them last Saturday at the Karumba Catch Seafood Festival. I had so much fun. I was debating whether to go or not. It’s not that I didn’t want to but I was arguing with myself whether to spend the money or not. I am up here to work and save money but I don’t not want to enjoy my time up here, if I am going to spend two months up here I might as well enjoy myself right? So after a bit of an argument with myself I decided to go out and enjoy myself and man was it worth it. It was tropical theme so we put on pretty dresses and drank $5 marguerita’s. Man were they ever good and so strong, there was so much tequila in them. I took one sip and said “see you tomorrow girls.” We just sat at the table and the only time we moved was to go to the toilet or fill up on our margs. There was a band and games, kids did the limbo – they are so funny to watch, a jell-o eating competition, I sat back with my margs and just enjoyed. When our cash ran out and they ran out of margs at the bar we went back to Animal and had some drinks there till it closed and then about 20 of us headed down to the docks for dock drinks and partied till about 2 in the morning.

I woke up the next morning feeling a little under the weather but I slept in and then showered and felt fine everyone else on the other hand…not so good. Becky had to clean rooms and was sick three times and had to nap on one of the beds while she was cleaning. A few of the other girls were really ill the next morning…so glad I was feeling fine. I mixed so bad and was able to keep myself together…its because I am Canadian ;).

So to go off track a little bit; when I was in Cali I had the nick name Lady GaGa (I might have written about that in Cali blogs). Here I am literally in the middle of nowhere and the regulars-I’m talking about men in their 50’s or older) calling me GaGa. I can’t believe it, I couldn’t even believe they knew who she was lol. The name has literally followed me to the other side of the world. Personally…I think it’s great…love her…so I don’t mind. GaGa in Karumba…haha who would’ve thought.

Its taken me almost 3 weeks but I am really starting to love it out here. I love everyone that works here, it’s like a little family. When I work I tell myself this is a place I will never come back to and that thought makes me appreciate it so much more and even though not everything about this place is enjoyable it is such an experience and am so glad I have the opportunity to be in a place like this.

I Miss...

2011-08-23T17:58:00.001-07:00

It's been a couple weeks since I have written a blog. When I write them I like to make sure I have been waiting to tell you of some massively crazy story about my time so far here in Karumba and to be honest my mind is a blank. Not that nothing has happened just nothing really overly exciting.

Life here is alright. My body has climatized to the heat here and I now wear stories or something funny to write about, so I have a cardigan when it is 25 degrees here because that is a cool day lol. We have ants in what we call the kitchen and our kitchen sink and I found one in my bed. We have geko's in the 6 pack as well, there was one in my room the other night. I turned the light on and you see something literally fly at top speed across the wall, the little fuckers move so fast. We had a toad in the kitchen sink. I went to turn it on and it hopped out on to the faucet and I screamed. My housemate came in and we stood there for 5 minutes staring at the running water with the toad on the faucet trying to figure out a way to turn it off without it jumping. Liz picked up a spatula and stuck it out and tried to turn the faucet but it obviously didn't work, finally after moving with slow agility she turned it off. The door handle fell off one of the bathroom doors and Liz got locked in and had to knock and call my name to get her out. We don't watch tv because we only have 5 channels, news, sports and one music station. Work is alright, it's definatly a different experience working in a place like this - but that is another story for another blog. I am loving having my own room, itt's really nice having my own space and some privacy considering we live and work together everyday. The other morning one of the girls was up early and I was thinking, please don't come in the room I just want to sleep and then remembered I had a room all to myself, it's so nice having space away from others. I love being able to come home and close my door, put on some music watch a movie, change in privacy. I ‘ve been taking advantage of my own space as much as possible. It does get boring but it's like this quote ( I can't remember it word for word) it's along the lines of "we travel just to search in places for the comforts of home" it's so true, I miss home. I've been really homesick since I have gotten out to Population 600. I miss Tim Hortons, moms cooking, hugs, my friends, my closet though I wouldn't know what to do with all the clothes in it. My clothes have gone to shit. Everything is either riped, stained, has a whole or has been worn so much you can't even say it's material anymore. All the washing machines are ruining everything I wear or just wearing them constantly is wearing them down it is so depressing. I have even gotten rid of stuff, given stuff away or gotten people -Ryan-to take stuff home for me because I can't fit it in my bag. Miss Fashionista has turned into Miss Lack-of-fashionista, it's so depressing. If I was home I would be wearing my ripped jeans, stiletos, my blue shirt, knitted grey jacket and jewellery, oh my jewellery how I miss thee lol. It's actually really depressing how lack of clothes I am. My leggings which have become my staple pants are so ruined my black pair have holes all in the ass so I have to wear a long shirt with them and my jeggings are covered in bleach stains...I DON'T USE BLEACH!!! I'm sick of noodles, expensive alcohol and over priced food and food with no taste. I miss people that sound like me. Having an accent is fun at first but the novelty wears off after awhile. I miss my car which means in my case I miss my licence, I miss my parents and I miss my furry bundle of joy curling up with me when I go to sleep at night, I miss my big bed with all of its pillows and its big fluffy doona. I miss curling up on my couch with wine and pizza with my mom and CJ and watching movies, I miss getting drunk with Pauly, I miss maternal hugs, my own bathroom and my big tea mugs where I can make bottomless cups of tea. Man there is so much I miss but, I wouldn't want to be anywhere but here right now. As much as I miss those things I don't miss them enough to come home, it sounds wierd but it's true. Next week I will have been gone 6 months!!! 6 months can you believe it!!! I can't believe it's almost that long or should I say short? It feels like I have been gone forever but yet it feels like I just left yesterday. I look back on my pictures and can't believe all the things I have done, places I have been, people I have met. There have been tears, laughter, broken hearts, adventures, parties, movie nights, road trips, arguments, conquering fears amazing friendships and so much more that I can't begin to list them off. I think " this has been my life for the last 6 months...and it's incrdible and I still have so much more to go. I am so looking forward with what the rest of my travels have in store for me.

With that being said, the ripped clothes, lack of wardrobe, a noodle diet, expensive food and alcohol and constantly living with others, ants, singing geckos in my room having tea in small tea cups is all worth it, and as much as I am homesick I wouldn't give any of it up it's all part of my adventure and I know I will look back on all of this and smile even on my time here in Karumba.

I miss you all xox

The Outback by the Sea

2011-08-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

I have done pretty much nothing in the last week but yet I have so much to write about. I am currently in the Gulf Savannah in a little town called Karumba. Let me rewind a little bit. The day mine and Nicole’s skydive got cancelled I went to a job agency to see what was available-the reason I came to Cairns was to find farm work for a few months. There was a lodge 11 hours outside of Cairns looking for a new bartender as one of theirs was leaving. I was interested but there was a catch. This agency charged you a fee, they wouldn’t even call the place until you paid them the fee, plus on top of that my bus fair to get out there was almost $150 and I was so skint on money at this point. The agency fee gives you a year membership, free internet at their locations and free coupons for local pubs and shops but once they get you the job they have no responsibility for you and when you get back and want to find another job they charge you a fee again. I know, bullshit right? Well it was either this or go work at the burger shop around the corner…I paid the fee and 3 days later at 6am I hopped on the Greyhound for a long 11 hour ride.

We stopped off at a place called Innot Hot Springs where the water is hotter than the hottest days in the outback. It was a quaint little resort like place, with a pool a shop, cabin like rooms and I believe spots for campervans. It was quiet and really hot but I could’ve spent a few days there. I met this little Maori woman who was 4ft nothing, skinny as a beanpole, a cigarette in one hand and a coffee in the other. I asked her where the hot springs were. “oh this way this way” and she would just keep talking spilling her coffee everywhere and smoking that cigarette. The gate was locked “ahh look just do this” and she opened it. “Come on, just come through” I couldn’t believe her skinny little legs were strong enough to hold her up. “oh my coffee” the cup getting emptier and emptier. She was so cute I couldn’t stop smiling. “Oooo feel the wata it’s hat” by the time we got back to our bus she barley had any coffee left and I can tell you she didn’t drink it most of it was on her hand and in the grass.

The bus ride was a little painful. There really wasn’t much to see at all; blue sky, straight road, trees both dead and alive and lots of cows. At some points the road can only fit one vehicle so when there was one coming at us both vehicles literally had to drive on the shoulder-or what there was of a shoulder. Thank god for iPods and an external hard drive full of movies and of course the tiny cat naps I had along the way though it didn’t make the ride go any faster. Finally at about 5:45 I had arrived. “Is anyone picking you up?” asked an older couple “haha I hope so” I hadn’t called them to make sure they were going to be there but they did say on the phone “see you at 5:30 on Friday” so I was hoping that someone would be there. “Emmie?!” “Yup that’s me” I said with a smile and a bit of relief “hi Im Yvonne” we grabbed my stuff, put it in the trunk and off we were to my new home.

So now here I am in a little remote town called Karumba with a population of 600 located in the Gulf Savannah, a vast stretch of remote northern safari land abounding with wildlife also known as the outback by the sea; and the outback it is. It’s so fucking hot here. The locals tell me it’s cold because it’s winter but fuck! I could not survive a summer here, infact I am wondering how I am going to survive 2 months here. There is a tiny café, a grocer which is so expensive, a clinic a school, a library which includes one wall of books and two shelves in the middle that are pretty empty and 4 computers with internet –which is where I have to go because my internet dongle doesn’t work out here, no cellphone – only one service works out here which isn’t mine but I figure I don’t need one when I am out here. There is the little flea market which we went to the other day; its oversized clothing and nicknacks this is the only place you can buy clothes!!! There are two lodges with restaurants, Sunset Tavern and the Karumba Lodge which is where I am. There is not much to it, the lodge part has 24 rooms, there is the Sauve Lounge which is the dining room and all the pokie machines and on the other side is the Famous Animal Bar which is where I work. Back in the day the Animal Bar was the most dangerous bar to work at in Australia! There were so many fights that everything was bolted down to the floor so people couldn’t throw anything. It’s all open concept, with a long bar, 3 pool tables, 3 long high tops with stools a few smaller tables and 3 picnic tables on the lawn. It doesn’t get busy, but the locals drink enough to keep the place going we have to cut people off all the time. We are what they call Barmaides which I think is funny. We have the walk up bottle shop which is attached to Animal so during our barmaid shift we are also serving at the bottle-o (as they call it here). I can not get over how much the locals love their cask wine or better known as Goon, lol it’s kind of funny. The lodge and bars are run by a couple, Steve and Yvonne. They are really nice and are great to us. We live behind the Animal in the Six Pack which is basically an oversized portable with six bedrooms (hence the name six pack), a main room with a couch or more or less a broken couch three arm chairs two of which are broken, a table with two chairs to eat at, a tv with 4 channels, a dvd player but we have no dvd’s. I would like to say we have a kitchen but I don’t know if you would call what we have a kitchen it consists of a long wooden table that we use as a counter, a microwave, a toaster, toaster oven, a hot plate our sink is on the other side of the six pack where we have an ant infestation so we cant leave anything in the sink and a washing machine that doesn’t work so we have all our dishes on it. Two ceiling fans but only one works and it gets so hot so its usually left on all day, we also have an A/C in each room which is a heaven sent. We have two bathrooms each with a shower; my first morning I went in to use the toilet and couldn’t figure out why it looked like there were little poop pellits on the counter “that would be the gecko’s, they come in and like to poop on the counter. Oh and sometimes we get frogs in the bathroom. And the other day there was a brown snake in Animal” “are they dangerous” “yes one of the most deadliest!” You can imagine how I felt when I first got there. I asked myself the famous question “what the fuck did I get myself into?”

Yonni, Alex’s man friend, took us out on my second day. We literally went and drove around in the bushes, drove to the dump to see pigs but we only saw a dead one. Yonni pulled over so Alex and Cass could chase the birds. I look back “guys you left all the doors open to the car my stuff is in there” “do you see anyone around here, we are in the middle of nowhere” I look around, yup nothing definatley in the middle of nowhere. We finally saw some pigs. 3 baby ones ran into the bush so Yonni disappears off into the bush. We were walking around picking stuff up when we heard the pigs snorting and squealing. “Not a fan of that noise” I said “ya me neither” so we start walking back to the car. Then we see the 3 baby pigs running in a line out of the bush and across the horizon then like a bat out of hell you see Yonni running full speed after the pigs, haha it was so funny. I am definatly going to learn a new definition for fun while I am out here. There are no Roo’s here but there are wallabies which Yonni kept stepping on the gas to hit them. “Yonni please stop trying to kill them it’s not nice” I said “but they are a pest they need to be shot” “how would you like it if you came to Canada and everytime we saw an Australian we stepped on the gas and said lets hit him they are a pest” he starts roaring with laughter “I think that would be hilarious.”

The locals here are really nice, they will drive us around or take us out on boats and croc spotting which I have yet to do. There are also the local fisherman who will bring us in mud crabs. The miners are great. Every Wednesday we get a new set of miners in as they get one week on one week off. Dale will order dinner and then order us garlic bread and ice cream – they get a $30 allowance every day for dinner so they keep us fed and we each have ice cream in our freezer because of the miners. Plus I am the new girl, I am a smarty and they are the fat kids, you can imagine!!! It’s so different out here and boring lol though I have been writing (not just my blog) and reading so its nice. Matthew (roomie from Fiji who I was hanging out with in Cairns) was actually jealous that I got to come out here. “Emmmie, that is real Australia! You get to experience what a lot of backpackers don’t get to experience, it’s going to be amazing.”

Well I have been here a week and the place is starting to grow on me. The girls I live with are really nice, Liz (English) and Alex (Canada), there was another Canadian here named Cassy but she left on Wednesday morning, she was the one I was replacing. There are only three of us living here so we get our own rooms which is awesome, it’s really nice to have my own space even if it’s for a short time. There is not much to do here so on our nights off we usually just go for a few drinks at animal or drink at the six pack. It’s nice being able to leave for work a minute you have to be there lol, or not really having to go home after work because you are already there. Saturday is my day off which I am looking forward to, it’s the first day I have something to do. Liz is done work at 4, one of the locals is coming to pick us up and take us on a boat to go croc spotting and then to a real Aussie barbecue with mud crab, bugs (not sure what they are yet) prawns, vegies and drinks. I am actually really excited, it’s going to be great, its going to be a real Aussie experience, I think I’m gonna like it here!

From the Bottom of the Sea to the Top of the Sky!!!

2011-08-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

What an incredible fucking week I've had in Cairns!!! I have just had some of the best days of my life! The fears I have conquered, the things I have done and the people I have met in the past week have just been incrdible!!!
Friday I was sitting outside at my hostel having a cigarette when these two guys told me to come sit with them. I had a few drinks with them and soon learned that they were skydivers. One sentence led to another and next thing I knew I had booked a jump for the next morning.
The next morning I woke up and thought "I am jumping out of a plane today!" I get dressed, go downstairs to wait for my shuttle. CANCELLED!!! Due to high winds.  They pushed it to 3 but I never ended up jumping. Well it is was Friday and the guy I was jumping with wasn't working on the weekend so I wanted to wait till he was back on....but I really didn't want to sit around for 2 days and wait.   I had a lot on my mind lately and I just couldn't bare the thought of sitting around doing nothing and being depressed. So I asked the front desk if there was an over night trip on the Great Barrier Reef. I ended up with a trip for 2 nights and 3 days on a liverboat for the price of 1 night 2 days and was leaving the next day.   I booked my skydive for the morning after I got back, packed my bags and was off the next morning for the Great Barrier Reef.
I wasn't gonna go to the Reef, I don't like the openwater, well actually I am afraid of the open water, fish creep me out, I am terrified of sharks and I have a tendancy to get a bit sea sick; but hey, what is the point of travelling if I am not going to try new things so I figured I would give snorkelling a try.
It took about two hours for us to get to the liverboat and it was a really rocky ride, people were puking off the front and the back of the boat.   My head did feel a little funny but I had met this Canadian guy named Kyle and we stood right out the front and talked the whole way over to our boat. It was so bumpy, I was holding on for dear life not wanting to fly off  and to top it off it was raining so we were soaked.
My home for the next three days was the Kangaroo Explorer, 3 meals a day, free tea and coffee all day and snack time and 5 dives a day. My sea legs took a bit to get used to but I did like being rocked to bed at night I found it relaxing though when I woke up the next morning and go up for breakfast I did fall over lol.
We had lunch, and then a meeting about where we were snorkelling and then it was time for our first snorkel. I was nervous. I don't like the open water and it was quite rough out there and I am not the strongest swimmer. Our guide told me to stick near her.   It was sooo beautiful. First of all the water out there is so blue, I have never seen anything like it, its like freezy blue/Rev blue it was amazing and the reef was incredible there was so much to look at it is a different world under the water I really cant explain the beauty. I was so proud of myself when I got back, swimming in the open water was a big accomplishment for me and I was looking forward to our 4 o'clock snorkel. By the time the second day rolled around I was a little over the snorkel thing. The water was rougher and I wasn't a strong swimmer so it was difficult for me to get out to the reef and I still wasn't overly comfortable with the open water thing, it was still uncomfortable and I panicked a little bit. Now dont' get me wrong I loved being out there especially with the dolphins swimming along side our boat first thing in the morning and how with the first snorkel of the day the ocean was alive because everything was waking up but it was just so much work and such a struggle to get out there that I wasn't enjoying it.

I was over the water thing. The water was even rougher and it was a struggle for me to get out to the reef and I still wasn’t comfortable swimming in the open water…but I wanted to be down with the divers oddly enough. Once in a while I could see them swimming below me and it looked way better then where I was; plus I thought if I could swim down in the water instead of on top of the water maybe I would feel more comfortable.

There was a meeting for an introductory dive that night, I wasn`t going to go till the next morning but sat in on the meeting anyways. Martin, one of my snorkelling buddies and Emily a girl I had met on my last snorkel (who doesn`t like open water either) and a few others were all going that day so I figured I might go as well.

Wet suits on, flippers with socks (they didn’t have any small enough for my feet) and a tank-thought I was gonna fall over and it was time to dive! Your telling me when I jump in with this tank I am gonna float? Yup I floated. So now I am in the water holding on to the boat waiting my turn to get 5meters down to the safety bar. I had my face in the water looking down practicing my breathing. What is your automatic reaction when you put your head/face in the water? To stop breathing right? I had to keep telling myself to breath normal, I have had this horrible broncular cough wich has been making me out of breath plus my nerves about diving and I was anxious (I didn’t know if you have anxiety you are technically not supposed to dive). Anyways Ned got Emily down and she was waiting for us on the safety bar, now it was Lisa’s turn, good I can still practice my breathing. Lisa panicked (her me and Emily do not like the open water). Ned wanted to give her some time to relax so it was now my turn. Down we go or attempted at least I not very far down I felt the pressure change and I felt like someone was sitting on my chest and I felt like I couldn’t breath so Ned brought me back up. We did this a few times. I kept looking down at the safety bar thinking “I want to be down there, but if I am down there and I feel like I can’t breath it is a long way back up” I kept psyching myself out. “I want to try again” so down we go. I panicked a little bit but he kept me there and pointed at his eyes so I would concentrate on him then he took my right hand and put it over his heart so I could feel his relaxed heartbeat. I started to come down I could feel us getting lower in the water, then I felt like I couldn’t breath and I panicked. Up we went and back on the boat. I was so frustrated!!! “It’s ok diving is not for everyone” all I wanted to do was get down there. I had booked a sky dive for a couple days after this and if I can jump out of a plane and conquer my fear of heights I wanted to conquer the water as well. I planned to try and dive again the next morning.

The next day I skipped the 6:30 and 8:00 snorkel. I wanted to be relaxed and not exert my lungs before my dive. I was ready for the dive, I was going to get down to the safety bar, I was really determined to do it. Now just to stray away from the dive for a minute there are hand signals that you they teach before you get in the water. The ok sign with your thumb and pointer finger together – ok. Thumbs up – lets go up, hand from side to side – something is wrong, and we learned other signs for certain fish. “Ok” I say to the girls “we need a sign in case one of us is panicking so the other know. Just raise your hands and shake them by your head!”

Wetsuit, flippers with socks and tank – you get the big one this time- I felt like I had my backpack on it was so heavy. Into the water we get. It was Emily, Lisa and I and Joel the instructor. Emily goes down first (as she had gone yesterday and had already conquered her fear) then it’s my turn. Down we go and up we go. Down we go and up we go. I still felt like I couldn’t breathe. I was getting so frustrated because all I wanted to do was get down to the safety bar but I didn’t like the feeling. Down we go again. Now we are at the bottom stair of the boat. Joel points down, I shake my head, he points to his mouth piece – just breath, we get a bit lower. We equalize. He gives me the ok sign, I give it back we go a bit lower. I look down, Emily is sitting there with her camera so I wave. We get lower. Next thing I knew I was down near the safety bar, I was so excited I could barely hold on to it. I had one hand on but I fell off and was kicking around. Joel puts me back on but my hands were all over the place he takes my hands and places them properly – I was like an excited toddler that need there parent to calm them down. He gives us the ok sign and swims up to get Lisa. I look at Emily and wave, she waves and takes a picture. I was so excited I just wanted to hug someone so I slid a little bit across the bar, she slides back a bit. I slide again she slid back again, I slid she slid so I gave up and just sat there. I looked around. All I saw was blue, it was like I was sitting in a Rev bottle and the sound is relaxing yet eerie. A bit of panic set in. I tapped Emily and moved my hand from side to side, she puts her hands face up and shrugs her shoulders, I wave my hands beside me head and then slid closer to her this time she didn’t slide back. Then like an angel coming down from the heavens Joel and Lisa were just above us. Thank god!!! He linked arms with Lisa and me and we were on our way.

He started going deeper and I tapped him, pointed down and shook my head. “Are you fucking crazy” I was thinking “this is deep enough” yet slowly but surely he got me down to the 10 meters. This was so much easier then snorkelling, no fighting currents and waves and there was no struggle against waves and I was breathing normal I felt quite relaxed, and it was so quiet. The sound down there is a little eerie I kept thinking about a song that should be playing while we were down there. Then out of nowhere we were surrounded by the reef. It was so beautiful. The colours, the fish, the underwater life all in a three dimensional perspective. Everywhere I looked there was something to see, I just wanted to reach out and touch everything, it was like nothing I had ever experienced before. There was a big clam and I mean massive, the thing was huge, Joel and Lisa touched and it closed and then blew out from its center which honestly looked like the female genitals. We swam around looking at Nemo’s and coral and the most colourful fish I have ever seen and at one point the clouds broke and the sun just shone right down into the water and the colours got even more intense. I could’ve stayed down there forever but it was time to say goodbye and head back up to the boat.

We were so proud of ourselves when we got back on the boat. Lisa and I definatly felt like we had conquered a big fear and were floating around the rest of the day. The sun was shining and everyone was literally laying out on every spot possible basking in the sun enjoying our last few hours before the boat came to pick us up and bring us back to land.

I had just gotten used to my sea legs and being back on land was a bit of a struggle. I actually felt a little nauseous and I fell over a bit. Showering was really weird, I was moving and swaying from side to side but the rest of the world wasn’t , it was so weird.

The next morning I was up bright and early for my skydive. I was going with one of the girls that I had met at the hostel –Nicole . I was so happy when I saw her in the morning, it was nice to be going with someone and not on my own. We got really nervous on the bus on our way over but our excitement and anxiousness died down when they had to postbone it for a few hours due to high winds AGAIN! We wandered around Cairns hoping we would get to jump but in the end all jumps for the rest of the day were cancelled. I booked in for the first flight the next day and unfortunately Nicole had to cancel because she was going White Water Rafting the next day.

We went for dinner at the Woolshed and met up with some people I had met on the boat, Hamish, Emily and her friend Richard that she met bungy jumping that day. Lisa and her boyfriend ended up being there so we of course took pictures and gave eachother hugs and then Nicole and I went back to the hostel because we both had to be up early the next morning.

I wasn’t even nervous or excited when I woke up. I was sick of getting worked up for it and it not happening. If it got cancelled one more time I was just going to say forget it. We watched the training video and then they piled us into the bus. Ok I have now made it further then before this is a good thing. All they instructors were like “who is so and so? Hey I’m so and so and I am jumping with you.” All I get from Coops is “Emmie sit at the back” and then he sat at the front, “gee thanks!” We get to the airport and he puts my harness on me and then we all start walking to the plane. “oh shit, I forgot about the plane thing. I am ready to jump but I forgot I had to get in a plane I hate planes!” Everyone starts laughing. This plane was so small. They basically squish like 15 of us in this thing. There are two benches on either side and everyone is straddling one another and the first jumper sits on the floor. Man I was sweating when the plane took off – Sally-one of the girls I met on the bus held my hand because I was freaking out. 9000 ft! This is where Sally and her friend Penny get dropped off. I’m looking out of my window thinking I don’t know if I want to go any higher than this, this is really fucking high. The door opens! I push myself against the wall! “you don’t’ like that door do you?” says Coops. “I’ve got to jump out of that fucking door” I was thinking. Do you have any idea what it is like to watch somebody jump out of a plane? You see them go and the next thing you know you hear a loud sucking sound and they are gone! I was freaking out! What the hell did I get myself into this time. Sally and Penny both jump, door is closed and we keep climbing. The door opens again “we are going third” Coops tells me. Again I am watching people get sucked into the air. I was fucking scared but I really wanted off the plane… I was so not enjoying the plane ride. Ok it’s our turn. We scooch to the door, Coops crosses my hands over my chest and puts my head back. I open my mouth scream and the next thing I know I am falling through the sky. THIS IS FUCKING INCREDIBLE! IT’S NOT EVEN SCARY! FUCK AM I HAPPY TO BE OUT OF THE PLANE! I couldn’t believe what I was experiencing. I kept trying to scream “woohoo” but nothing was coming out. Our free fall was 60 seconds and we fell 10,000 feet, but you don’t even feel like your falling, you don’t see the world coming at you and your stomach doesn’t go up to your throat, it’s a feeling of pure freedom. There was a videographer that jumped who was filming and we were waving at him. It’s so weird to be falling through the air and then you meet up with someone along the way, he even went through a cloud with us! Coops pulls the shute and we get pulled up and the camera guy just got smaller. This is when my stomach went up to my throat. He spun us around as the shute opens up, oh this part doesn’t feel to good, a little queezy here. Then we are floating slowly in the sky. “It’s a bit cold in that cloud isn’t it?” honestly the temperature dropped quite a bit and had made me a little cold. I got to steer my parachute around, Coops would make us do big swoops but when I told him it made me a little queezy he stopped as he has been puked on before. He pointed everything out to me like a tour guide, the sugar cane fields the mountains…to be honest I really don’t remember the view I wasn’t really paying attention I was concentrating more on how I felt and I felt amazing…actually I felt better then amazing, there are really no words to describe it. I was buzzing for the rest of the day. I had never felt this before, I wish I could feel that alive everyday! I couldn’t stop talking about it or watching the video. I started drinking with some of the guys around 3 and just kept going to the late hours of the night. It was such a great night, man we drank so much. Coops and them came by the hostel as they usually do and we just threw back the drinks. Emily stopped by to say goodbye, I shed some tears. In the three days that we were friends she had such an impact on my trip and we had incredible conversations that I didn’t want to say goodbye and being overly emotional that day and being drunk the tears flowed out. I don’t usually cry when I say goodbye to friends I have met traveling, but there have been a few on this trip that have really touched my heart.

The next morning I wasn’t feeling quite up to par, I was really hurting from the night before but had so much stuff to do as I was leaving the next day and was already behind schedule because I slept in. I went into town, bought my skydive shirt and groceries and went to go grab the hostel shuttle. A few of the guys from the hostel were getting dropped off and decided to kidnap me and take me for food and beer because it was my last night. I got to listen to them talk about how they lost their virginity…it was actually quite funny. Anyways that night was an early night for me as I was off the next morning to the middle of nowhere for two months.

I know I say this quite a bit when I leave a place but I was really gutted to leave Cairns. The 8 days I had there were amazing and I met some incredible people and overcame some major fears. I could’ve stayed there and gotten a job but I didn’t want to get sucked into a place again, I want to keep going and that’s what I am going to be doing in no man’s land.

Sydney and a Little Bit of Paradise.

2011-07-29T07:39:00.000-07:00

I'm guessing a lot of you are wondering if I have or plan on seeing Ryan as he is back home in Australia. The answer is yes! He was actually the reason I was stopping in Sydney for two days. After spending the night in the terminal I wasn't sure how fresh I would feel by the time he met me at the airport but, the flight was pretty much empty with a middle isle of 4 seats that were empty so I got to stretch out with my new stolen doona cover and sleep the whole way.

He laughed at me when he saw the size of my backpack - no other backpacker I have met has one like mine - but unlike Dallas did help me carry my things on the bus and train till we got to the hotel. Yup thats right, HOTEL! No noisy roommates or bunk beds, thin pillows, small doonas and cold showers for two whole days. Nice big bed, balcony that had a perfect view of Hyde Park and the Anzac Memorial, a kitchenette, nice bathroom and breakfast in our fridge, for a backpacker this is living like royalty!!! The only thing Ryan was upset about was that there was no pool. We were gonna fill up the sink in the kitchenette and put on our swimmers but we thought it could end up dangerously.

We dropped our stuff off and then headed out into Sydney.

What a city! Probably my favourite city so far...it's so beautiful. Its bigger then Melbourne but it's got this cozy warmth to it with a really nice vibe. Our first stop...was Sydney Harbour. So beautiful. We walked all the way around it until we were smack dab infront of the Opera House!!! Exciting, I had told Ryan I really wanted to go see it. We grabbed a drink at the bar/restaurant right out the front of the Opera House on the Harbour where we had a perfect view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There were tons of seagulls and all I could think of was Finding Nemo...mine mine mine. "They are saying it" Ryan told me "no they are not it doesnt even sound the same" "thats because they are saying it in Australian"...dork! "you know I sang at the Opera House, on the stage" "you did not" "Yes I did" "Ryan you can't sing I dont think they would let you on the stage" " I so did, in a choir" I couldve hit him, he made it sound like it was all just him up there on that big stage singing, he wants me to ask his mom about it. After that hewanted to take me to his favourite place in Sydney, Darling Harbour, but I of course couldn't miss the chance for a photo opp so I made Ryan take pictures of me in front of the Opera House - just like every other tourist in the world lol.

Darling Harbour is beautiful. Massive boats covered the water, beautiful boats that barly looked like they were used they were more like show pieces. The Harbour is surrounded by big buildings and expensive apartment buildings lined the walkway. I was trying to take pictures but it started to rain so we ran for cover hoping the rain would let up but it didn't so we ducked into a store, bought an umbrella and walked along the bridge to the other side of the Harbour. We went to a cigar lounge called Cohibar and sat with some drinks on their patio that over looked Darling Harbour. What a sight. By now the sun had set and the lights of the buildings twinkled and reflected off the water and some of the boats were lit up as they bobbed in the water. I could've stayed and looked at it all night but we had other plans. We were going to grab a bottle of Bacardi (for old time sake) and head back to the room, listen to music and just chill and catch up. So we grabbed a bottle and then some hangover pills "do you have anything for a hangover?" the woman looked at Ryan really confused "not for right now but we are gonna have a wild night and are gonna need the pills for tomorrow" Man did we ever need them the next day. We drank almost the whole bottle of Bacardi plus all th drinks we had had before we even got back to the room. We had so much fun though, acting like dorks and just catching up and making phone calls to friends. We ended up passing out at midnight.

We felt like shit in the morning. The pills didn't work they just made our stomach upset so we decided to go back to bed for a nap and get back up in an hour. We went and grabbed some Asian food for lunch...Sydney is all about the Asian food even more so then Melbourne, it is everywhere! I could barly eat I was so hung over and we had a lot of food. We packed it up and dropped it off back in the room and went for another nap. We got up about an hour later and walked through Hyde Park and looked at the Anzac Memorial where it is actually against the law to sit on the steps. Then he wanted to take me to his favourite store. It was the Lambourghini dealership. "I thought he was at least going to take me somehwere that he could buy me something" I told the salesmen. Ryan sat in a couple of the cars and told me how good they felt and talked about the beauty of the cars. He is so passionate about cars like really passionate, the way they are made, the way their curves go, how they are built and its just incredible really how much he loves cars, its really beautiful how passionate he is about them. Me on the other hand I liked the yellow one! After my car lesson we headed over to Kings Cross to see the famous Coke sign and walk through the streets of the Cross.

The Cross is a great area, dodgy but great. The streets are really small with clubs and nudey bars at every second door and some not so nice looking people sitting outside smoking their cigarettes. Almost kind of like the St. Kilda of Sydney except once again like Sydney a warm coziness to it and a different vibe. After walking around for an hour we went and searched for Boost Juice (kind of like our Booster Juice) I was so dehydrated and wanted something fruity. After about 45 minutes and a 10 minute wait I finally got my Boost only to leave more then half of it in the cup because we fell back asleep when we got back to our room. I know so much sleeping but man that rum killed us...I'm not used to drinking the nice stuff anymore and Ryan, well surprisingly he could keep up with me but usually he is a light weight lol.

We got up around 530 because we were suppossed to meet up with his friend for drinks, but had to cancel because he was sick. Still wanting to have a night out on the town we dressed up and went to the Sushi Train for dinner.

It was sooooooooooo good, I had never been to one before. The chefs are in the centre of the restaurant and around them is a kind of like a bar where everyone sits and all the sushi is put on conveyer belt type of thing and you take off what you want as it goes by. We had tuna sashimi, fried oysters which were amazing, Ryan had eel, crab balls oh man it was soo good, definatly not a backpacker meal. We were stuffed but satisfied. We hopped into a cab and we were off to some of the most riztiest and high class clubs in Sydney. We went to the Establishment for a drink and then made our way to the Ivy. I dont even go to places like this back home. Both clubs are not over done at all, almost plane but so classy. We stayed at the Ivy for quite a while and just drank and got into deep conversations about life and a bunch of other deep stuff. We hit one more bar and then got back to the room and fell asleep.

It was soo good go see Ryan, I had missed him so much. It had been 8 months since we had last seen eachother, a little too long for me but we are both doing our own thing. We werent even suppossed to see eachother while I was over here because he was suppossed to be back in LA so it was really nice that we got to do this. He was a great tour guide, he knows so much about Sydney and the history of the buildings and who owns the buildings, pointed out where he used to work and live. It was really great, I couldnt of asked for a better guide, I am so glad he was the one to show me around Sydney. I really hope I get to go back and spend more time there.

Talking was so easy, almost like no time had passed. Its wierd to think that a year ago I said goodbye to him in Cali and a year later almost to the day we were sitting in a classy club in Sydney. We both went out of our budgets but we never got to splurge and go out when we were in Cali we were always so broke so it was so nice to be able to go out and see and do things. Of course when Wednesday morning hit I was my upset self like I usually am when I have to say goodbye to him. He came to the airport with me, had some lunch and then he had to hop on a train back to New Castle. As usual we had or should I say I had my teary goodbye and we parted ways. We are maybe going to see eachother in the summer but plans can change, keep your fingers crossed though.

Now I am in Cairns. It is so nice up here. Its so tropical up here and the weather is beautiful and I love the locals up here they are so friendly. The hostel I am staying at is awesome. It's got this beachy feel to it with a nice pool with rocks to jump off of, picnic tables, pool table, a bar, couches, music playing all day, the rooms are clean, the toilets and showers, though kind of out door concept are impecable. They have free shuttles to and from the airport as well as a shuttle every hour to pick up and drop off in Cairns Central. The staff is great. They have giveaways, happy hours twice a day, they can book any day trip you want, brand new computers and it is so chilled out. You cant hear the music from your room, well it depends on which house you are in. The houses almost look like beach houses with lower and upper levels, there is really no inside (except your rooms) everything is pretty much open concept, the bar and pool table area is just a covered area that have big wicker lights hanging down. It is it's own little paradise. We are not to far from town. You can walk to the foreshore strip in about twenty minutes. The forshore is right on the water, its a strip of restaurants, cafe's and shops. Across the street is the grassed area where people just lay out in their bathing suits tanning and beyond that is the lagoon, a saltwater pool surrounded by sand and kind of concrete decks that is free and it overlooks right onto the beach. HEAVENNNNNNNN!!!! It's great here and I have met some really nice people. I even met up with Matthew my first night, remember my dormmate from Fiji who was with me in Auckland? He is living up the street from here so he came by for drinkks. I think Cairns is exactly what I needed, I have had an emotional few weeks and haven't felt the greatest and this I feel will be the perfect remedy.

New Pets, Falical History and a Big Butt!!!

2011-07-24T11:57:00.000-07:00

Perth; located in Western Australia, is the most isolated capital city in the world. WA takes up 1/3 of the Australian map, Germany can fit into it 7 times and Texas (which is a pretty big state) can fit into it about 3 times. They say the wet season -which is now-is the greenest time and even still its not the luscious greens that we are used to during our wet season its differen shades of green that look like they have been faded in the sun yet some of the country side had the greenest grass with a back drop of a light blue that rolled into a darker blue with white fluffy clouds. Some areas were just sand with green grass sprouting randomly in spots like a young guys chest who is going through puberty. The roads were exactly how I have alwasy pictured Australia, straight, one lane going each way and dark clay like sand on either side, blue skies, white clouds and yup even kangaroos!

The day trip was 12 hours, a lot of driving and great sights. Our first stop was Caversham Wildlife Park. The first thing we got to see was roos. Even though I had some one on one time with roo's a few days earlier I was still excited. There were tons of them. They came to great us as soon as we walked in the gates. We were the first visitors of the day and they wanted to be fed. The hopped right up to us and followed us through the roo area over to the feeding area. They surrounded us eating right out of our hands. We even got to pet them. The Kangaroos at this park are the Red Kangaroos though there were white ones as well. These were also Red Kangaroos but had been genically (I know that is the wrong word) made to be white not albino. We only got about 5 minutes with them before we had to move on. Most of them stayed where they were to watch us leave, it kind of looked sad like they were saying "goodbye new friends its been a slice" while other hopped there way right to the gate. I can't explain the way they look when they hop but it is so cute! Our next animal encounter was a wombat. Now I know a lot of people have an image of a flying squirrel like thing but they are far from that. These things are huge, and heavy and fat and the one we met was Big Bubs which means Big Baby and boy was she ever. She literally sat in the park workers arms on her back and did nothing she was so cute and I wanted to keep her but after a quick pat and picture we were on our last encounter. Koalas. These Koalas were curled up sleeping in their eucalyptus but we still got to pet them. They are so soft, soft like a teddy bear. I am definatly going to get one as a pet and bring it home, I love them!!! Mom we are gonna have so many pets, I'm sending them all home via airmail! It was really amazing to be so close to these amazing animals, it was hard to say goodbye but it was time to go to the lobster factory. On our way to the lobsters we stopped at this roadhouse. This road house was literally in the middle of nowhere. They have this huge windmill called the Southern Cross Windmill ( I cant remember the history of it). There is a fence around the bottom and across some of the property because they have 3 emus that live there (the fence is for protection for them and us) these things are massive and kind of creepy. The one we saw mustve been over 6 feet with the redest eyes that were so intimidating and the feet were gross. It has three toes and the middle being the longest and biggest looked like an abnormal big toe. We could feed it fruit scraps, me not being an overly huge fan of birds - especially ones this size - I just watched one of the guys feed it!

The lobster factory wasn't the most exciting. We learned the history of the factory and then we got to walk through the factory where they were sorted in to their grades, packed and shipped off. It smelled kind of funky but I did buy a lobster tail and enjoy it for lunch. Yum, Yum.

We then had about a two hour drive out to the Pinnacles Dessert. This was awesome! The sand was yellow, like yellow yellow and there are these massive things jutting out of the sand. Some small and some towering over your head. The dessert is about 850 acres. You are told to stick with your guide as you can get lost in them. E|very which way you look it was just yellow sand and Pinnacles sprouting from everywhere. When we first got there the sun was at a perfect spot and it was litterally like walking into a desert of gold. It's one of my favourite places -so far- in Oz. I just, I don't know I found it really amazing and that scientists still don't know 100% how they were formed make it that much more incredibly. An unexplainable natural beauty. The following is from wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pinnacles_(Western_Australia) The raw material for the limestone of the Pinnacles came from seashells in an earlier epoch rich in marine life. These shells were broken down into lime rich sands which were blown inland to form high mobile dunes.

The mechanisms through which the Pinnacles were formed from this raw material are the subject of some controversy, with three mechanisms having been proposed:they were formed from lime leaching from the aeolian sand (wind-blown sand) and by rain cementing the lower levels of the dune into a soft limestone. Vegetation forms an acidic layer of soil and humus. A hard cap of calcrete develops above the softer limestone. Cracks in the calcrete are exploited by plant roots. The softer limestone continues to dissolve and quartz sand fills the channels that form. Vegetation dies and winds blow away the sand covering the eroded limestone, thus revealing the Pinnacles.

they were formed through the preservation of casts of trees buried in coastal aeolianites where roots became groundwater conduits, resulting in precipitation of indurated (hard) calcrete. Subsequent wind erosion of the aeolianite would then expose the calcrete pillars.^[1]
on the basis of the mechanism of formation of smaller “root casts” occurring in other parts of the world, it has been proposed that plants played an active role in the creation of the Pinnacles, rather than the rather passive role detailed above. The proposal is that as transpiration draws water through the soil to the roots, nutrients and other dissolved minerals flow toward the root. This process is termed "mass-flow" and can result in the accumulation of nutrients at the surface of the root, if the nutrients arrive in quantities greater than needed for plant growth. In coastal aeolian sands which have large amounts of calcium (derived from marine shells) the movement of water to the roots would drive the flow of calcium to the root surface. This calcium accumulates at high concentrations around the roots and over time is converted into a calcrete. When the roots die, the space occupied by the root is subsequently also filled with a carbonate material derived from the calcium in the former tissue of the roots and possibly also from water leaching through the structures. Although evidence has been provided for this mechanism in the formation of root casts in South Africa, evidence is still required for its role in the formation of the Pinnacles.^[2]

^{Though the aboriginals have their own beliefs. It is said thousands of years ago a young boy came to a point in his life where he had to go off into the wilderness and become a man. The elders would say "don't go into the dessert as you will be swallowed by the quicksand" The young men thinking the elders didn't know what they were talking about went into the dessert and were - as told - swallowed by the quicksand. It is said that the Pinnacles are the young mens fingers reaching up to the world. Though to be honest it looked more falical (is that spelled right) then anything, either way it looked awesome!}

^{Our last stop was the sanddunes in Lancelin. That was fun. We got to ride boards on our but and go down these big sanddunes. I didn't have so much luck though. My board didn't move to fast or much at all, this upset me. I have put on some weight maybe about 10 lbs but I didn't think my ass got that big and heavy to make a sandboard non-mobile. Even after I waxed it - not my butt, the board - I didn't move to well. I was actually just riding on a tire track and not a soft spot which made me finally get down the hill but I was a little jaded at this point so I put the board away. I got some pictures of me on the board, they look great, to bad I was stuck in one spot and not actually moving - though you can't tell in the pictures :) After the sandboarding we hopped in our big bus/truck and wend 4x4ing through the dunes. Now that was fun. There were points where it felt like we were at a 90 degree angle and going face first into the sand the whole bus would go "ahh, oooooh" it was so funny. My my stomach and heart switched places a couple of times. The dunes themselves were a site. White, white, white sand and the sand was so soft and it was just massive white hills of sand with the Indian Ocean off in the distance and behind the white dunes was a periwinkle blue sky as the sun started setting.}

^{Western Australia has been great. I wish I had more time here as there is so much I want to do so I am hoping to get back here at some point before I leave Oz. I am now spending another long night in an airport terminal. I am at the Perth airport waiting for an early morning flight to Sydney. Nights in airport terminals by yourself are long and boring and I am so exhausted as I haven't slept much in the past two nights. The hostel I was staying at just outside was nuts. It was really nice and small which is always nice but the front lobby turns into a nightclub Friday and Saturday nights and our rooms are just down the hall. Friday night I went to bed early - or tried anyways - because I had to be up early for my day trip, I only got 2 hours sleep. Then last night due to a long day and barly and sleep I passed out at 10pm with my earbuds in on full blast to drowned out the sound of the music. Then my roommate comes in and talks loudly on her phone. Then at some time in the wee hours of the night/morning some drunk cunt decides to run up and down the hallway banging on all the doors and screaming!!! Then to top it off everyone decieds to stand outside my door and talk loud, ughhh. I have stayed at party hostels before but WOW! this was too much, no night time security sucks. Though the manager did let me steal? a doona cover slip so I would have a blanket for the airport, "you were a good guest just put it in your bag and don't tell me" :) I'm hoping I catch some zzz's on the plane to Sydney.}

Beaches and Kangaroos!

2011-07-20T09:12:00.000-07:00

The worst thing about travelling by yourself is the long nights in airport terminals. I was so bored. I finally dozed off only to have the voices of the 3 German (I think they were German) backpackers enter my dreams making everyone in my dreams speak German...it was really confusing. I woke up with the terminal busy and everyone lining up to check in. I was on my plane within an hour and on my way. The flight was really good. We flew over the Great Australian Bight - the bottom part of Australia that looks like a bite has been taken out of it - it was massive, you don't see land for hours, food on the flight was expensive as always and they charged $4 for a tea so I made sure to ask for seconds on hot water.
Western Australia, I love it out here! My first stop was Cottesloe Beach for two days. The hostel was right on the beach. The front common room was floor to ceiling windows with the Ocean right in perfect view. There was a courtyard through the back and surrounding it was a tv room, movie room and some other sort of lounge. You had to take a set of stairs up to the rooms. The hallways were a bright yellow with high cathedral like ceilings and wooden floors. The rooms were beautiful. I was put in a girls dorm (and usually the girls dorms are super nice) I walk into this room with high ceilings, wooden floors, four bunks a toilet and there is so much space. I then see that there is another part to the room. I walk to the back and step into another room that has one bunk, lockers and a wall that has massive windows with an almost perfect view of the ocean and the sunlight just pouring in. Do I want dark and cozy or bright and sunny? At this point I really didn't care I wasn't the happiest person. I had only gotten maybe 2 hours sleep on in the terminal and could not get any sleep on the plane. I could barley keep my eyes open when I got to my hostel. After deciding on the bed in the sunlight and calling Sue (a friend from the hostel in Melbourne who was now in Perth) I literally climbed up to my top bunk and just passed out on top of the linen.

After about a 2 hour nap I freshened up with a nice shower got ready and went to meet up with Sue and some of her friends. The weather was nice enough to wear a sundress and flipflops! OMG! I felt so free, I had been so confined by layers for the past couple of months in Melbourne I almost felt naked...it was great!
The front desk didn't tell me there were two trains stations so I went to one and Sue went to the other. I ended up just having to walk back down near my hostel and meeting her there. We bought some beers and took them down to the beach. We sat down there, talked, ran around on the beach and took pictures and enjoyed a beautiful sunset. It was a perfect day. I'm so glad I got to see Sue again, it was really nice to catch up and Amy took a long trek from Rockingham to come and meet up with us on the beach for an hour.
The next day I went into Perth CBD with two of my roommates Sarah and Jen (from Ireland). I originally wasn't going to go. After spending 3 months in Melbourne I am really sick of shops and cafes, but Jen had come upstairs from the bus stop and said the bus hadn't come yet and I should go with them. Why not! I'm here I might as well.
I quite enjoyed myself. The city is small, it kind of reminded me of Auckland. Smaller streets lined with buildings where the sidewalks are covered by overhangs on the the buildings so not to get wet when raining (and it was raining). It's not all fashion like Melbourne and people are way friendlier! We looked in some shops, grabbed some lunch, tried going for a drink at this bar that was completely busy. We finally found one table against a wall that we moved to suit our comforts better, only to leave 2 minutes later because we looked at the menu and the drinks were definately not for a backpackers budget. Sarah had to get her flight home changed so we went to get that done. The building had the smallest lift I have ever been in. It was so small we were almost kissing in it so when we left I asked if there were any stairs we could use - the stairway is key access only - "I am claustrophobic" I told the ladies behind the desk. "wussy" one of the ladies replied. I just looked at her. I couldn't believe she actually had the odacity to acknowledge someones phobia that way - though I am not claustrophobic, I actually have a fear of lifts and Sara isn't overly keen on them either so I was trying to get out of us having to go on it again. Well, after a full day in the city we headed back to have a couple drinks.
We had a drink at the pub next door. We didn't want to spend bar prices so we went to the bottle shop next to the hostel or rather attached to the hostel and had some drinks in the courtyard of the hostel. For a hostel that is meant to be alcohol free I did a pretty good job of getting wasted. I drank a little too much but managed to get myself up in time to check out and head to Rockingham to go see Amy.
I hoped on a train to Fremantle and then grabbed a bus to Rockingham. I wasn't exactly sure where to go from the train station so I asked one of the personelle. When I showed her my ticket she basically laughted in my face and said "you really think you are going to get from here to Rockingham on that fair?" "Well I didn't know!" "You should always ask for help" haha ya that would've been nice if there had been someone working there. I payed more money and hoped on the bus for an hour long journey. To be honest, when I have on my iPod and my backpack and I am heading somewhere I have never been, those are my happiest moments. Looking out the windows and my surroundings, heading to a place I have never been before and everything I own on my back...I love it!! Those are my favourite moments.
Just to rewind a little bit, Amy had stayed at the hostel in Melbourne my first month and her and I had been planning a visit in Perth (which is where she is living with her boyfriend) so we were pretty excited to spend some time together. We grabbed some drinks and went down to the beach and then came back to their place for some drinks, played some drinking games and in bed before midnight.
Amy had to work for the next few days but luckily enough her boyfriend Chris had just finished his six months at his job and decided to show me around. We went down to Peron Point and took pictures of the water and the rocks. It feels so good to be out of the city and near water and nature again, its so refreshing.

We took a drive out to Serpentine. When we got to the park there were kangroos right under the trees. I got really excited so Chris pulled over. We hoped out, grabbed our bag of Doritos and I got my camera ready. Chris walked up to them but I was a little hesitant. It was a mother and her baby and didn't know how the mum would react but as soon as she saw Chris with the bag of Doritos she slowly put her front paws down to the ground, leaned on them and hoped forward and did this until she was really close to Chris. She ate the chips right out of his hands. So I stuck my hand into the bag and pulled some out. They came right towards me and started eating the chips. They were so gentle and they licked my hands clean and just kept wanting more. It was amazing, I couldnt believe I had these wild kangaroos eating right out of my hands, I couldn't stop smiling. Chris still had the bag in his hands and the mother stood right up on her hind legs to look in the bag. She almost towered over Chris it was almost intimidating. After our little snack with the Roo's we walked up a path to a swimming area. A water fall came down this rock wall and into a pool of water. The pool was surrounded by a massive rock wall almost making it look private. Apparantly in the summer its busy with swimmers and people jumping off the rock wall into the pool. "It's really nice from up there its pretty easy to climb" yes well of course with my vertigo and slippery shoes I struggled up and down the rocks but it was definatly awesome sitting at the top and looking down.
Yesterday Chris, Dave and I went to the Botanical Gardens in West Perth. It was really pretty and we could see the whole city from up there. We even climbed up the DNA tower which is a tower of stairs in the gardens so you can look out at everything. Half way up my vertigo -again-kicked in but of course I made it to the top.
The guys cook dinner every night so I have been spoiled. I even had kangaroo for my first time last night it was so yummy - I definately tried not to think of the roo's from the previous day.
Tomorrow we are getting up at the crack of dawn for a day trip that I am really looking forward to, Wave Rock. You are gonna have to wait for the next blog to find out what it is. xox

A Grandma is Perfection

2011-07-18T07:10:00.001-07:00

I don’t know how to write this. I am struggling for words and we both know that I never run out of things to say. I have words in my head but I’m struggling putting them down on paper and this is like nothing I have ever written. I want this to be written right, whatever that means. I guess I would consider myself a bit of a writer, and it’s the easiest thing for me when it comes to releasing emotions but I don’t know if the way I write is going to be good enough for my last words to you. I just really want this to be written right, whatever that means; if there even is a right way for a eulogy its not like there is a template to writing them. I just want it be heartfelt, sincere and get down into your heart. I want it to be perfect. But what is perfect ? Is perfect how you always let me play in the kitchen sink with water up to my elbows and flood the kitchen. Is it when you always made my favourite snack- celery and cheese wiz-so I could sit in the big chair and watch the Mini Pops and the Ewoks. Or is it how you let me get away with anything, even when I hid in the closet for an hour and you couldn’t find me, or how no matter how tacky and gaudy they were you always wore the broaches I gave you with pride – I’m sure you have one from every single year since I was born. Is perfect how we go out shopping and you would by me my “Christmas present” and then when Christmas morning came there were still five presents under the tree for me. What about how you always had ice cream in the freezer, how you would sit and tickle my back for hours without ever stopping or saying you were too tired, how you cut up my toast into little soldiers and how your breakfast eggs were soo much better then Mom’s and didn’t tell her so we wouldn’t hurt her feelings. What about how every Birthday and Christmas we all knew that there would be a small paper that would fall out with a cash amount on it, how you loved Michael Buble, you could sing –a-long to all the old classics, and how every time I wore my ripped jeans you asked me why I couldn’t afford a good pair. The stories of when you were young about how you and Grandpa met or school girl tales and you could remember everyone name but you couldn’t remember the day before, how for years you wouldn’t get a hearingade because you didn’t believe you were going deaf and we had to almost yell for the past 10 years. You always looked good and ready to go but no matter what you would always end up with food down the front of your shirts – we could dress you up but couldn’t take you out. Your wet kisses, your pea soup, how you would always move your foot when you listened to music or rocked yourself in your chair, scrabble, how you always had ice in your wine, your love for pizza and of course your love for all of us. I don’t know if I could write anything perfect enough for all of the perfect things you have given me. There are no amount of words in this world that could even come to close to what a Grandma means to a grandchild. I’m sorry that I am not there today, you did promise me you would still be here when I got back, you were supposed to stick around forever, you were my last one left but I guess promises are meant to be broken. Your with Grandpa now and I’m ok with that. I can just picture you up there with all of them, Grandpa, Uncle Bud, Uncle Al, Aunty Doe. The men must be going crazy having two of you up there now. I can see the poker table and the drinks flowing…you better keep them in line.

As I said before I am sorry I am not there today and please don’t think it means I love you any less because that’s not the case, I just couldn’t get back so I have written this hopefully perfect enough eulogy but I guess if it comes the heart then its perfect enough right? I know you didn’t always get me, 30 (almost an old maid as you would call me) and no serious relationship, not a career girl and not settled down with a house and really no plans for the future and hated me traveling and backpacking the world (especially by myself). I want you to know that I don’t have any regrets and I am really happy with all the decisions I have made. I just really hope that you are proud of me. I guess that’s it…I don’t really know what else to say I don’t really know how to finish one of these off so I’m guessing the best way would be to way the way you signed off on everything. LOVE YA!!!

Trammies With a Little Bit of Ginger the House Cat and a Smoke Show!

2011-07-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

My means of transportation in St Kilda and Melbourne is the trams - they are like our trollies in Toronto - and way faster then the buses. St Kilda is a very interesting area with lots of prostitutes, trannies and drunks who like me use the trams for transportation. These interesting people are what I like to call Trammies. There is the Sensation - he just says sensational very loudly the whole time he is on the bus. There is the DrunkTart - obviously drunk, she swears the whole time, yells at the driver and pulls the maps out of their holders and throws them everywhere. We have Cloak and Dagger - one day on my way to work this couple got on the tram and the woman had a neck brace on so I adjusted myself so she could sit down. . Then she rips the neck brace off puts it in a plastice bag and started talking to her husband like everything was ok. I think they had just come from the chemist or a lawyer or something. I was blown away, I actually almost wanted to start laughing. They are definately screwing the system for something. We have Twiggy - now I have never seen her on the tram but she lives in the area. She looks about 50 years old and she is maybe 5'7" and probably weighs less then 70lbs. She is so skinny. She always where leggings and her hip bones jut out horribly. Its actually kind of sad. One day walking to the tram I saw her bent over the concrete (waist high) wall out the front of what must've been her house and all I saw where these skinny little legs and what was left of her but and I thought she was dead, I didnt know if I should check on her and call an ambulance...turns out she was weeding her garden. Then there is Tweek. I have seen Tweek quite a few times in the 3 months I have lived in St Kilda. The first time was on the tram. He was ranting away (to a stranger) about drugs and the government, his legs wouldnt stop twitching and you could just tell her was flying off something. The other passengers were trying to ignore him, he was making everyone feel uncomfortable.   Then he gets up and holds on to the hand holders and starts swinging himself and smiling. The next time I saw him was on the tram again. I was sitting on one of the benches facing the front and he sat on the one infront of me but this one faced out the adjacent window. Beside me on the bench was a small plastic bag from a store. He reaches over and picks it up and starts rummaging through it, seeing if they had left anything interesting in it and checked the bill to see what they had bought. There was a girl on the other side beside me and she was watching him and she would just look at me and smile. When he reached over I so thought he was going to touch me or grab me, kind of freaked me out. Another time I saw him sitting on the street in the city. Tweek makes me sad.   I dont think he is much older then me, he is tall, dresses pretty good, looks clean and is not bad looking but the drugs have done some damage to his skin. You've got people who pass out slouched over their knees showing their ass crack, the drunks who talk loud and shout out racist comments, a man that asks everyone for change and when you say no he gives you an evil stare. I have to say my tram rides are always interesting, there is never a dull moment.
As you all know I have been living in a shared house for the past month now which has been pretty good. About the 2nd day I moved in I noticed this orange cat that used to hang out on our front wall and sometimes took it upon herself to come in and check the place out. Lately she has gotten so comfortable she has been spending the night. She curls up infront of our fireplace all day and sleeps and I mean all day. The other morning I walked out into the living room and there she is sprawled out in front of the warmth completely happy.   She loves tuna and milk and she is so polite. Barly comes up on the couches, doesn't go into the rooms, but follows Kesi around especially when she is in the kitchen hoping she can get her to pour her some milk. It's been so nice having Ginger around - no I didnt name her that,it's the name on her tag - I've really missed my Rea so having a little house cat for a few weeks was really nice.
So remember my housemate - Ray Brower? So wierd. He got his friends to come over at like 3am last week and I guess he sold them some pot or something. He looks at them and says "alright guys I am going to bed" and just leaves them there in the livingroom with me and Kesi. He is so random. Anyways we haven't seen him for like the last week. I was wondering if he got himeself involved with some people and something happened to him. We were all wondering if maybe he died in his room, but there was no smell, well his room had a smell but it was normal. Our landlord comes over Monday night to pick up rent and goes in Ray's room - FUCKING GONE! THE KID DID A SMOKE SHOW!!! Haha OMG way to funny! Thats why they take a deposit, smart guys.
Now, I am sitting in Tullamarine -Melbourne Airport - waiting for my flight to Perth. My flight is in about 5.5 hours. There were no shuttles that ran earlier then 5:15am and my flight is at 6:15am so after work I came straight here and am spending a long boring night by myself sitting on the carpet in Terminal 3 with no cigarettes and a long night ahead of me. I am sad to be leaving Melbourne, its time away from Dallas, and also I became comfortable here so I am having that fear of the unknown which I haven't had in months. I worked my last shift at Drax tonight. I was so gutted...I almost wanted to cry when I was saying goodbye to people. Drax has been such a major part of Melbourne for me. I have been so excited to go to Perth that I really didn't realize how much I will miss it.   It was weird, leaving the house today, knowing I wouldnt be home tonight watching movies, or I can't see Dallas everyweek, and knowing I will never work at another place like Drax. I lugged everything to work with me today. My backpack is massive and I know have another bag filled with stuff. I even got rid of stuff. But you replace one big thing with a few small things and it's the same amount of space. I'm definatley going to have to really cut back on some stuff. I was suppossed to grab the train to SouthernCross Station but the train I needed wasn't running. So I walked up to the next tram stop where nice couple told me where to get off. When I got on the tram I asked the driver how many stops till the street I needed and he just sat there giving me a rude look. When I didn't move he said -i'm guessing repeated - very rudley "4" So sitting down, which is next to impossible with my backpack. I am looking out trying to count the stops. Then this guy says to me. You have two more stops. We got off at the same stop and he says "are you getting SkyBus" "ya are you?" he wasn't but he was telling me where it was. I was wondering how he knew where I was going "I guess my backpack gave it away" but he didnt really answer, doesn't matter, he was my Angel today!!!
Anyways I am off to a new spot, Perth. I am really excited, as much as I am sad to leave Melbourne I will be back in the summer. Thanks to everyone I have met, the last three months were awesome and you all have played an important roll of my time here, you wont be forgotten. See you in the summer!!!