Jan 29, 2010

K, so it's been FOREVER since I've written. Two reasons: first, I don't have wifi, so I have to use the hostels public computer... not fun. I can't really focus in this room. It's hot, full of bugs (especially the biting ones), and there are millions of people pouring in and out. Second reason, nothing interesting has been going on. I'm trying to get onto a scuba trip but the weather here has been pretty much crap. It's still warm and I got pretty pink yesterday, but the sun hasn't been shining and there has been rain every day. Yesterday it was on and off raining with heaps of clouds, but we insisted on getting SOME outside time so Vera and I laid out and managed to get pretty well fried. Today it's died down a bit, but I'm still a little pink. Vera's birthday is tomorrow so we're meeting up with her friends (working at a hostel in N Mission) and going out to The Shrub for dinner. The cook, Pete, supposedly makes amazing food so I've been hoping to eat there since I arrived but never had the occasion. Tonight is this occasion. Pete and Christian are leaving for holiday in the US this week :( so Pete's been training his replacement for the past week or so, but I was strictly told that he will be cooking my meal tonight. I'm hoping he's telling the truth. We've invited the other workers, but Vinny and Claudia have been fairly distracted with eachother, so it's probable they won't go, Engin may have to work, and Joey may not want to go. It may just be me, Vera, and her two friends. I'm cool with that. We're wearing dresses and drinking wine, it will be amazing. Peta suggested a trip to Cape Tribulation in the near future. I really wanted to do the jungle canopy tour, but I didn't want to go up there for JUST that but she said that the diving out there is phenomenal, so I'm gonna try and get that going. That'd be another weekend trip, so I'd have to take time off to book that. Other than that, things have been pretty slow. The cyclone some have heard about was only a level two, and in Cairns, so we only got a rainstorm. I saw lightening for the first time last night, and heard one shock of thunder last night as well. It is scheduled to come back around this weekend so the weather won't be picking up any. I have been trying to semi-plan the rest of my year. At least get an idea of the route I want to take and a general idea of how long I want to stay. As of now it's a little scattered. I'm okay with it for now, but I'll need more money. I was hoping to do fruit picking straight after this, but it looks like the banana barracks in Tully are pretty well booked, so there are slim chances for it now. I heard that NZ right now is AMAZING, so I may go to NZ, then come back and see if there's more work around. I went on a few rainforest walks. Well, one was a beach walk to Clump Point. It wasn't meant to be a beach walk, but we lost the path so we just wandered the beach. We ended up hitting a huge floor of huge rocks, so we just climbed the rocks for a bit, took some photos, and came back. Really pretty, wouldve been better if there was sun. There's a walk, 3hrs long, that everyone RAVES about. We finally did it this week. It was wonderful. We saw a massive snake sleeping in a tree, saw some wallabys hopping along a cow pasture, and some gross spiders. It was really beautiful. Same thing, it wouldve been better with the sun out, but I was thrilled. Can't put up new pics until wifi works because the computers here SUCK for FB. Soon though, real soon (hopefully). Other than that, nothing.

Jan 17, 2010 pt 2

I went rafting today again. The managers of RnR came by the other day asking if I had a famil yet. I explained that I went with RT, so they insisted on me going with them as well. They didn’t have to twist my arm! Alarm was set for 7am, and I slept straight through it! I’ve never in my life done that. I’ve turned it off then fallen back asleep (like once), and I’ve forgotten to turn it on, but I’ve never slept through it! I woke up a few times throughout the morning checking the time thinking I had a bunch of time. I woke up at like 720 but I must have thought that I needed to be up at 8 because I went back to sleep. I woke up at 752 and realized the bus was picking me up at 750! I peed, changed, grabbed a banana, and I ran out to the bus. Luckily I packed my bag the night before, but I forgot my towel. Oh well. I was dirty, and didn’t brush my teeth, but it was alright. This trip wasn’t the “extreme” trip like the one before was, but it was still good. The water wasn’t as high either, so it made for a little different trip. Our boat had 4 people on it; pretty sweet considering I thought 6 was a light load. Unfortunately we had to take a lot more breaks. They had a lot of crew jumping out helping through rapids compared to the other company. The random crew guys would jump in random boats and ride with us, which was entertaining, but waiting for them to jump in and out and having them there to help instead of letting us work it out ourselves annoyed me a bit. It was a great time though. This time, I brought my own waterproof camera so I took a lot of photos. It’s not a digital camera so I have no idea how long it’ll take to get them developed, and I don’t know if the place out here will be able to give them to me digitally haha. Old school town. We got to swim a lot more than last time, which was nice. It was a bit cloudy for most of the day and not too sticky so it was a pretty good day for rafting; warm, but not unbearably hot. We got to get out of the raft and ride down more rapids than we did last time. There was one that we rode in the boat… we had to lay on our stomachs toward the front of the boat and when we hit the bottom, the boat tipped and we all fell out. It was a short, but steep drop. At the bottom we swam around for a bit, then we were given the option of riding that rapid alone, without the raft! I had to climb through the jungle, jump in the water and have three guys instruct me on how not to die while going down. I had to float on my back, arms crossed in front of me, hold my nose and stay as flat as possible going down. Once I hit the water I’d go underwater pretty deep and I’d have to equalize. So they said to take a deep breath, equalize and rise back up. The fear that they gave me was way worse than the actual drop. I have photos of the actual drop, and I think of people going down, so I’ll be sure to label accordingly. The rock jumps were a lot easier this time. There were only two this time around instead of three. The first, I just took a breath and jumped. The next I hesitated for a minute, but I went without a hitch. I think me jumping out of a 14,000ft plane made jumping off a 15ft rock fairly easy haha. Their base is at a hostel and it turns out it’s the hostel Joe has been staying at. I didn’t think about it early in the morning, but on the way back I did. I checked with the front desk and they told me where his room was. Before I went and stalked him down I called and he said he wasn’t at the hostel. He didn’t seem disappointed that he wasn’t going to get to see me (I’m not surprised), but I wrote him a note that said “You owe me a visit” and put it in his swim shorts that were hanging outside his room. I know I won’t get that visit, or even a comment about the note, but I’m pumped I did it. Driving home, the bus was small with three rafters and four guides. I chatted with two of the guides most of the way home, and the two other rafters joined in for a bit. I really enjoyed all of them. One of the guides was fairly young, and seemed like a huge charmer. If it weren’t for his rat tail, I would’ve said he was adorable.

I got home and found out the bus was headed to The Shrub in seven minutes. I showered and practically got ready before they were ready to go, but the bus was full so they left without me and came back later to drive Vera and I. Dez was there when we got there so we chatted with him for awhile. He noticed the huge bruise on my arm and I said that it was from skydiving with him. He gave me a puzzled look. I said that I didn’t understand how, but that Peta insisted that’s what it was. He was like, come here. I went closer, held up my arm, he grabbed my shoulders, turned me around, and grabbed my arm from behind and we noticed that his fingers made a perfect imprint of where the bruise was. So apparently, at some point in the dive, he must have grabbed my arm and squeezed or something because it’s definitely his hand that bruised my arm. I gave him shit about it for the next thirty or so minutes. Good stuff. As always, we always enjoy the bar. I got to stick around for a bit of the live entertainment this week. Normally we leave just as it’s starting, but we stayed a bit later. A guy, Dave Cooke, played something called a didgeridoo. I’d never seen one played before, but it was pretty awesome. He was a lot of fun to listen to. Vinny bought the CD, so hopefully I’ll get to listen to him a bit more. Anyway, a few drinks at the bar and some visiting, then headed back for the night. I’m a little exhausted after the rushing around all day. Finally got to relax a bit at The Shrub, but I’m happy to go to sleep fairly early tonight.

Jan 17, 2010

K, so I wrote this last week but never published, oops! Another tomorrow hopefully!

I just got back from Magnetic Island today I left Saturday morning and got back Monday evening. I woke up Saturday to a rainy and cloudy day in Mission Beach. I was hoping it wasn’t going to be that bad in Townsville, but it was. The instant I got on the bus a girl commented on my spoon purse and we chatted the entire 4hr ride to Townsville and rode the ferry together. Her name was Jenna and she was traveling with her boyfriend JF. They were from Canada, and were so sincere and so completely nice. I adored them. They were staying at Bungalow Bay and I was staying at Base across the island, but I had plans to make it out to Bungalow at some point, so I said I’d track them down. The ferry ride was pretty bumpy from the rain. The weather was just rainy and windy, but the water was quite rough, which made for a rough ride. It was short though. Once we got to the island, the rain had stopped, but it was still quite cloudy. There was a Cold Rock Creamery at the ferry station, so I HAD to get some. I’ve been craving Birthday Cake Remix for ages so I was pumped thinking they’d have it, but they didn’t. They didn’t even have the fixings for it! The next bus to the hostel was another 1.5hrs and the walk was said to be about 20 minutes, so I opted to walk. I didn’t bring much for luggage, just a messenger bag and my spoon purse, so it wasn’t a heavy walk. It took closer to 40 minutes though. Anyway, as soon as I checked in, it started raining again! I got to my room and started chatting up Claire, my roommate. Because the weather was crap and it was like 5pm, I figured I’d read a bit of my book, and then head down to the bar. I managed to sort of befriend all of the 6 people staying in the room but ended up heading down with Claire a bit later. The bartender was a bit of an ass, so we ordered two drinks and avoided the bar the rest of the night pretty much. We ended up spending a good half hour talking to some 50yr old ladies that were there for a birthday party. I think they were on some sort of team, but they were all dressed up insanely and dancing and singing. They were so funny. Clare was taking diving courses at the hostel with two others, Steph and Nick, so we hung out with them. Claire was from England, and Steph and Nick from Melbourne. We basically just sat around chatting about silly stuff until it started raining again, and then went back inside. The music was so loud that we had to start entertaining each other with hand gestures. That didn’t last that long and then we went to bed. It was probably only 11pm but it was a nice night. The next day I swore I was going to do something productive. I really wanted to go diving, but there was no way with the weather. I opted for a walk instead. On the bus to the walk I overheard some guys talking about going on the walk as well, so I walked with them. It was a 4km walk meant to take 1.5hrs. I think it took us about 2.5 because we stopped so many times. We read that it was probable to see wild koalas so we were on the lookout from the very beginning. I kept seeing the knots in tree trunks and I’d get excited thinking it was a koala and it wasn’t. Finally I saw a clump of trees and thought that this had to be the place. I looked for a minute and finally saw one! No idea how I managed because it was so far away and up in a tree, and not looking at us. We stopped and took photos for a good twenty minutes. A few other walkers saw us, took some photos as well, and walked with us the rest of the way. The walk itself wasn’t that entertaining, but it was an uphill/mountain walk, so there were a lot of beautiful lookouts on the way up. I managed to spot all of them before everyone else so I got a few good pics and then called everyone else over. The end of the walk is a WWII fort at the top of the mountain. We got to the top of it and just admired the amazing view for a while, and then headed back. We walked from the walking path toward the beach, but I stopped at Bungalow Bay for the Koala tour they had. This hostel has a wildlife tour that lets you touch and hold different wild animals. I got to pet a cockatoo and have it eat a sunflower out of my mouth, hold and kiss a crocodile, hold and pet a koala, and hold a snake. It was really cool! I have a bunch of photos! A koala doesn’t feel like I thought it would. I imagined it’d feel like a chinchilla but it was more like felt. It was a very chill koala too. It looked bored being passed between people. I was the last to hold it, so the guide wanted me to continue to hold it while she fed it the rest of the eucalyptus. Everyone only got to hold it for a minute while getting a photo taken, but I got to really enjoy it and watch it eat and check it out a little. Very awesome! While waiting for everyone else to hold the snake later I heard a loud bird above and looked up to see a huge white cockatoo. How freakin cool is that. There was this insane exotic bird just flying around above me. And looking at a tree close to that we saw another koala! Unreal! On the way out of the tour I could hear an insanely loud noise coming from the tree. It sounded like, and was, a shitload of lorikeets, a beautiful rainbow colored bird. The tree was pretty beautiful, but having it full of these gorgeous birds was unreal. I stood underneath for a few looking and taking photos until someone suggested that they might poo on me, so I moved. Dinner was with Claire, Nick, and Steph. We went back to Bungalow Bay because they had a band there. We walked down to the beach for a few, looked for the southern cross (still have yet to see it), had two desserts, then went back to the hostel to bed. I pretty much left straight away Monday morning after breakfast and more icecream. The weather this time around was much better so it was smooth. I read my book most of the way back and didn’t really talk to anyone. Nice weekend. I wish I could have done a dive, but I’m not in any huge rush. Hopefully the weather will stay decent and maybe I can do it back in Mission.

Jan 6, 2010

I went skydiving today! I sort of never thought it was going to happen. I had waited awhile and then it was going to happen last week, and then it didn't so I figured today wasn't going to happen either. I was scheduled to be picked up at 1pm so I helped Dani clean rooms this morning and then went to the front desk to work until 1230, and then hang out for a bit before the pickup. The bus came at 12 so I had to rush to get my stuff together and get going. That was probably a good thing because it distracted me for a bit. The bus ride from the hostel to the airport was about 20 minutes, most of which I spent chatting with Des and filling out paperwork. Des is one of the owners of the hostel and he also jumps with one of the skydiving companies here, hence the free skydive. He and I have gotten along really well and did that trip to Cairns a few weeks back, so we're buddies. Anyway, I had been trying really hard not to think about what was about to happen. Last night I started picturing me leaping to my death and I had to stop myself so I wouldn't get nervous. Des had taken me to the airport before so that wasn't anything new. When I say airport, I mean a small little building and a tiny little slab of pavement for one little airplane. Anyway, I did my paperwork, but I wasn't scheduled to jump until the next load, so they sent me back on the bus to watch the first load land, and then I'd go back to the shop and get all hooked up. That was fine, but that gave me more time in a bus to think about what I was about to do.

Anyway, I got all strapped in and ready to go, did the 5 minute instructions saying how to jump out and how to land, and then we found out that there was a storm cloud brewing over the jump site so we had to wait about 30 minutes to jump... another 30 min to think about what I was doing. I think I was a little bit in lala land. I was forcing myself to NOT think about what was ahead of me, so I was in a daze a bit. There were about 13 of us in the plane, all super squished together. I just watched out the window at the beautiful coast as we kept getting higher and higher and higher. We went ABOVE the clouds... OMG! Eventually Des said I needed to adjust a little to get strapped in a little tighter. The girl next to me and I started panicking a tiny bit. I still wasn't THAT scared, probably because I was still trying not to think about it. Then they opened the door. My heart started pounding a little and then people started jumping. It was so fast. You'd think that you'd have time to freak out and panic, but you really don't. They just roll out of the plane one after another like it's no big deal. No turning back! We were the second to last out of 5 jumpers so I saw a few people ahead of me. After each jumper we scooted closer and closer to the door. Finally it was my turn, he said to get to the door, and all of a sudden, BAM, we were out the door. I had been told before to keep my eyes open for the flip, so I closed them in panic for second, then opened them up right away. The initial flip out the door felt like the stomach drop from a rollercoaster and I HATE that feeling so I was terrified that the whole free fall was going to be like that, but it wasn't. After a second of that, it was just a huge gust of air like sticking your head out a window but your whole body. I was a little panicked, but I felt okay. Somehow I ended up screaming for the entire free fall. I don't really know why because I wasn't scared but I think it was like the rush and excitement, like a whoo hoo scream. The photos are all of me with my mouth wide open and looking terrifiedhaha. With the air rushing in my wide open mouth I had to re-wet my mouth a few times but I kept reopening it and screaming again hahaha. The wind was so loud that I could barely hear me screaming, but I most definitely was. I can feel it in my throat now haha.

From what I've been told about skydiving in Mission Beach, this is one of the best places to do it because of the view. Dunk Island and the other 10-11 islands around it are right there and they are all awesome to see. The photo attached is of Dunk from the sky... pretty much what I saw as I was plummeting to the earth. They are covered in rainforest and all small and close with beaches and trees, so it's so cool. The coast itself is beautiful with beaches and palm trees. There are rainforest covered mountains inland a little ways too so it's just nothing but an amazing view no matter where you look. I wish I had more photos of the view and not just of me screaming, but it was so amazing to see. It's like seeing it from an airplane, but you have a much better view. After 60 seconds of the freefall, the chute opened and all was good. I stopped screaming and Des and I started chatting about how beautiful everything was and he pointed out a few things to me. We wizzed around a little and I just took in the amazing site. I couldn't imagine doing that multiple times a day. It's sad because I think he must be sick of it by now but I'd love to go again just to be able to appreciate the view. Landing was interesting. We were going parallel to the water along the beach and then somehow turned a bit to head INTO the water. We were heading INTO the ocean instead of the sand. I was excited when we ended up with our feet in the water but apparently that's the wrong way to do it because we had a few guys rushing over to us rushing us backwards out of the water. Then the other divers were giving him shit about it the rest of the afternoon. I kept saying that I thought that was a perfect ending so I was thrilled. I think all dives should end that way! The whole thing happened so fast that it's still sort of weird to think that I just jumped out of a plane! I think because I wasn't panicking or anything, that the 5 minutes of me in the air was the only rush I felt so it really was pretty quick. Amazing, but quick.

Tomorrow Dani, Rob, and Annika are leaving. I'm completely sad. It was a sudden decision too, which makes it harder. All of them just got a call last night for a new job so they spent all day packing and they will be gone tomorrow. We've already found a new bus driver, but not a new cleaner. We drank a little at the hostel, then went out to the Shrub for one last night together. The bar is pretty dead on Wednesday nights, which was perfect for us. We got free food and drinks from lovely Christian and just sat around chatting and reminiscing. I'm going to be so sad when they leave. Now it'll be just Vinny, Engin, and I. Vinny's looking for a new job too so he might not be here much longer either. I'm looking forward to new people, but it will be different.

Oh, this morning a guy ran down to the front desk screaming that there were Cassowaries out his window. Cassowaries are very rare birds, like 1500 left in the world so seeing one is a huge treat. I saw my first on my way rafting, took a photo, and figured I'd be lucky to see one again. This one had three babies with it! I got pics but I haven't uploaded yet. Very cool to see even though they are super ugly and I hear they are mean as well. On the way to the diving this afternoon we saw another too. BAM, that's 6 cassowaries in 4 weeks. Rob's leaving tomorrow after 2.5 months here and he hasn't seen one haha.

Jan 1, 2010

2009 was great to me. I'd say it was the best year of my life to date. Highlights were NYC, my nape piercing, Europe, Vegas, the Jetta, the multiple concerts and shows, the PLove family reunion, and clearly moving to Australia. Awesome times this past year, but I'm really thinking 2010 will take the cake... I'm hopeful anyway. So far, we're off to an awesome start. We'd been told of a waterfall not too far away but it's about 50 minutes away so getting to it with all of us was always a bit of a challenge. Well, Peta was amazing and had us only work a half day today giving us the rest of the day off. They put on a BBQ at the hostel for lunch with sausages, salads and chips. After that they offered to take everyone to Murray Falls! We were thrilled! Tom had been a few times and he talked it up pretty good. It's a freaking huge waterfall that we can swim around. Well, actually, we weren't supposed to swim there. There are signs all over saying not to swim and not to get off the boardwalk but we did both. We agreed (after a few shots) the night before that we'd all do the highest jump. As soon as we saw how big it was I think we all changed our mind haha. Immediately Tom jumped in since he was pretty familiar with the place. We all kind of waited for his instructions and all went down the little slide. The water was actually cold! The pool at the hostel and even the ocean have been sooooo warm that it was so perfect to have cold water! It would have been perfect if it was hotter out, much more refreshing, but we got used to it pretty quick. It had been raining all night so it was the perfect time to do! There's the big fall, which goes to the bottom pool, then over a bunch of rocks to another pool, then more rocks to a stream that curves around and down. The rocks that go to the stream are pretty flat and you can go down it like a slide! We did that a few times, then swam around to the side and climbed up a bunch of rocks until we were on the side of the waterfall. Right below is a little cove that had calm water and was, as Tom told us, very deep. We had to jump! So exciting. I think I jumped four times. I think they guessed that it was like a 20ft jump. After each time I jumped I was more excited to jump, but as I'd go to jump the next time I was more and more nervous! There's a pic of me terrified because I didn't want to jump! Everyone was at the bottom screaming at me to do it and I was horrified! The last few jumps I didn't plug my nose good so I had a lot of water up my nose. Something happened with my ears and they don't feel like they equalized very good. After we did that for an hour or so we dried off a bit, then decided to actually take photos. We went up to the higher lookout and Cheryl and I climbed out to get to a bigger rock to take photos. It was just her and I and I slipped on a wet rock, landed on my ass and hit my head on the rock. Pretty shitty but I was thrilled I didn't start bleeding or slide down into the rapids below! Everyone still on the lookout were a bit concerned as I was laughing my ass off at how ridiculous I must have looked. We took heaps of photos. On the way back we stopped in Tully so I could see the boot. Not sure why, but I have been so hyped up to see this stupid oversized boot in Tully, but no one ever wanted to go. They kept saying that it was just silly and stupid... exactly why I wanted to see it! Who makes a huge boot? No one, it's silly! Anyway, you can normally take some stairs to get to the top but I think because of the holiday it was locked. I was pissed! I'm satisfied with my pictures of me sitting and standing on it though. If I don't make it back, I'll be okay with that. It was a pretty perfect day.

Last night, New Years Eve, we headed up to The Shrub. Basically in the small town of Mission Beach, there's not much in ways of parties, so 'the thing to do' for the night was to go to the bar. It was raining pretty hard so we had to stay inside. There were bands playing all night, so entertainment. We had drinks and found a seat in the restaurant corner, ordered some fries and hung out there most of the night. I was the ONLY person in our group without a date (until Vinny got off work) so I was pretty much the 7th wheel all night. No biggie. We didn't do a whole lot... just sat around and drank. The owner/DJ knows our hostel really well so we got hooked up with some free drinks and food, awesome. All of a sudden the music stopped and the countdown started, and whoo hoo, happy new year. The rain stopped so we went outside and hung out there for a bit. At about 2am we decided to head back. We drunkenly walked 45-50 minutes along the beach back to the hostel. It was a nice walk. The rain had stopped so it was cool and breezy. It was a bit cloudy, but a full moon through that so the sky was fairly bright. We got back, I made a grilled cheese, then went to bed. Relaxing New Year, but I wouldn't have asked for anything more. I prefer that to a big night out any day!