East coast to West coast

I've made it to the opposite side of this vast country, via a 3,446 kilometer (2,141 miles) flight from Cairns, Queensland to Perth, Western Australia. It's very hot here. Over 100* F each day so far, and expected to be above at least 90* for the next week. However, I've noticed the pleasant lack of humidity. Tropical North Queensland, however, boasted a stifling 70% humidity or more nearly every day. Perth is much bigger than Cairns (which means much more to explore), and much more like Sydney. Plenty of skyscrapers and expensive penthouses. Anyway, it's story time.

On Christmas day I checked out of the hostel in Cairns and took a shuttle to the airport. Check-out was at 10am and my flight was at 6pm, so I had plenty of time to kill. Unfortunately, I had no book to read. A week before, I had searched every known bookstore in Cairns within biking distance of the hostel for a certain book. Having no luck there, I had hoped to find the book I was looking for, which happened to be book 3, part 2 of The Game of Thrones series, at the airport's bookstore. Again, no luck. They had every book in the six book series except the one I needed. So I spent my time at the airport and on the airplane using the last of my mp3's battery, doodling in my notebook, and staring blankly into nothingness.

Soon enough (5 hours later), I landed in Perth. I nearly walked right by Perth Airport's bookstore without giving it a thought, but at the last moment I decided I might as well walk in and check. Despite being an exact replica of the store in Cairns, I was finally able to find the book. I then made my way outside to choose my mode of transportation to the city. Taxi, city bus, or 'Connect' bus were my options. I sat on the bench and waited ten minutes for the Connect bus. I didn't have any accommodation booked in Perth yet, so when my turn to get on the bus came, I handed the driver the $15 dollar toll, and told here I just needed a hostel. There are a number of hostels to choose from in this city, just the same as any other city of respectable size, so I just chose to get off at one with a name I recognized; the YHA hostel. By then it was near midnight.

The next day I set out to explore the city. I strolled through the Queen's gardens, walked along the Swan River, browsed a hobby shop, and by noon was thoroughly lost. No worries, that was more or less my goal for the day. As long as I knew what general direction my hostel was, and as long as my feet still worked, I would be able to get back. All together nothing too exciting. Perth is a big city similar enough to Sydney or Seattle.

I've been trying to find a helpx host, but to no avail. I've had a couple people respond saying they would be able to host me, but they have all fallen through for one reason or another. I do have one host that can take me on the 10th, but I'd rather not wait that long. It kinda sucks being here in the (very hot) city waiting for something to happen, but I really shouldn't complain. I've been lucky with my hosts thus far. I've been able to find someone to take me in without any delay, and they have all been excellent hosts. Should I have stayed in Cairns, where I had a bed and meals? Probably. But it's too late now, and I did save $300 on my ticket by moving on when I did.

And now, the bad news...

I've come to realize the harsh reality of my situation. I think I've always sort of realized it, but only now am I accepting the actuality of it. That reality is the fact that I will not make it, financially, a whole year here, as I had originally planned. I overestimated how cheaply I would be able to live and travel through Aus. I have made it one third of the way so far, and managed to do so by spending a little over half of my allowed budget for the year. Now, in my opinion, I've done pretty well so far. Very well even. It's cost me about two and a half thousand dollars, not counting the plane ticket here, to get this far. That includes transport, accommodation, food, entertainment, etc. That's pretty good, I think. $2500 to live very happily for over four months, travel over 2,700 kilometers so far (yes, I mapped it out), and experience countless new things, including animals, plants, and foods that I had no idea existed. I'd consider my trip so far a roaring success.

So, options? With this lack of funds in mind, I researched ticket prices for what it would take to get back home. I would want to make a stop back in Sydney, to spend another few days with Mike and Fee, then to Seattle, to visit my grandparents, Aunt, Uncle, and cousins, and finally back to Detroit. The plane tickets to do so would cost me approximately half of what I have left. This leaves me with less than two thousand dollars to stretch over as long a period as I can, hopefully another four months at least, landing me back home sometime in April or maybe May.

OR

I can sit tight in one spot for a while and find a paying job to re-fuel my ever-draining money tank. Which, to be honest, I'd rather not do. I'd rather keep moving and keep experiencing for as long as I can. On top of that I would, of course, really like to get back and see my family... and sleep in my own bed... and drive my JEEP! I'm not saying that I want to cut my trip short, but there would be pleasant side effects of running out of money prematurely. Well, we'll see how it goes in Western Australia from here.

Brian also brought up a good point when we were skype-ing. He said: "Did you think you'd get it exactly right the first time? It's a miracle you haven't gotten lost or something yet."

Which is true, when you think about it. *Knock on wood* Nothing has gone horribly wrong for me so far; I haven't lost anything (other than one pair of undies, still don't know where they went), I haven't gotten injured, I haven't gotten (very) sick, everything has been positive and smooth sailing. Yes, it's a shame I won't be able to stay the whole year, but it's been an excellent trip so far, and I am very much looking forward to the next few months.

Happy new year everyone!

See the vegetable man, in the vegetable van

With a horn that's honkin' like a mariachi band! -Beck

Well here I am in Cairns, working at the Nomad's hostel. I get three seven hour shifts a week driving a thirteen passenger van between the hostel, airport, and city center. In between routes I have a simple cleaning list to go through, like sweeping the lobby, washing dishes in the kitchen, etc. In return I get a two person room (currently to myself), breakfast, and dinner. I have ample amounts of free time and I'm having a bit of trouble finding ways to use it all. So far I've walked into the city everyday, which is about a 20 minute walk, and explored the shops and markets and such. Today I bought a cheap bike from a pawn shop so that I can explore a much larger area. It's got really squeaky breaks and shifts a bit rough, but it was only 50 bucks, and it works for me! Hopefully I'll be able to sell it back at the end of my stay here to recoup my loss.

Something I meant to add to the Bloomfield post: I tried a new fruit called a Soursop. Hands down the most delicious fruit I've ever eaten, and the texture was something entirely new to me. I also ate whats called a Miracle fruit. It's more like a berry, about the size of a thumbnail, with a reddish pinkish color. They call it miracle fruit because after eating one, everything you eat afterwards tastes like miracle fruit. The more miracle fruit you eat, the stronger the reminiscent flavor. This lasts for a good three or four hours, or more depending on how many you eat.

Sorry, no pics for this one!

Bloomfield wrap-up

I'm getting a little behind myself in my posts. Too much is happening too fast for me to write about it all. I'm back in Cairns now, working in a hostel. More on that later.

The weekend I mentioned in my last post was a very exciting one. Brad and I went to visit his girlfriend Kerry, also a helpx host, in Rossville, which is about a 45 minute drive north. I got to drive the whole way there; my first time driving a left-hand drive vehicle on public roads. Despite my habit of wanting to drive on the right side of the road, it went rather well.

In Rossville I was introduced to two new species of beetles. A Rhinoceros Beetle, who's large pincers look menacing and painful but can hardly grip hard enough to cause discomfort.

No, I don't wear that shirt every day. It's just a coincidence.

And the Cane Beetle. They are a plague to sugar cane farmers. Cane Toads were introduced into Aus to try and rid the fields of the beetles, but since the beetles usually stay at the top of the canes, the toads were of no use. Now Cane Toads are a problem, and new species have been introduced to kill them off as well.

That Saturday morning was moving rather slowly for everyone, so Kerry suggested I take her dog for a walk and check out the local river up the street. I happily agreed.

Little Brother, a Rodesian Ridgeback crossed with... bull mastiff? Maybe not, can't remember. Anyway he's very friendly, and despite knowing me less than 24 hours, followed on my heels all the way to the river and back home.

The strip of fur on his back growing in the opposite direction is where the breed gets the name 'ridgeback'.

We rock-hopped up the river for a few hundred meters, and I tried my hand at some long exposure photography (2nd and 3rd pics).

It's hard to do it right without a tripod...

Later that day the three of us went up to Cooktown, the town where Captain Cook crashed in 1770. He actually crashed on the reef just off the coast, then eventually got his ship to the beach to repair. On the way there we passed Black Mountain; a large hill of black granite boulders that used to be one solid structure. Over the years, Mother Nature has split the one huge rock into many many Smart Car sized boulders. There is a lookout on the side of the road there, and we stopped for a looky and a picture.

Someone had drawn a four-foot member on the rock I was standing on. Classy.

When we got to Cooktown, we went up to... well I forget the name of it, but it was a big hill looking out over the town and the ocean. I didn't realize how small the town was until we got up there. This is basically the extent of it.

A rose compass was set in the ground at the top of the lookout hill. Each line pointed to major cities around the world, as well as some local ones, though it's a bit hard to distinguish in the picture. Just for reference, that's Tokyo and North at the top.

Found a Cooktown Gecko running around Kerry's house.

I also got to visit the local waterfall, which was deserted, save for myself. I'm horrible at estimating distances (especially in metric), but I'd say from where I stood to the top of the falls was at least 50 meters (~150 feet). The way the cliff was shaped and formed made almost like steps, and the river was 'stepping' down, forming a pool on each one. The rock face made for good climbing, and the pools for good swimming. However, I was feeling extra cautious that day, thinking about recent comments from my brother about climbing without gear, and only climbed to the third one up.

I can only imagine how amazing this sight would be in the wet season, when the water would really be flowing.

That'll do it for Bloomfield. This morning I took the bus back to Cairns, where I'll be for about a month. I'm driving a bus 21 hours at a hostel a week in exchange for room and board. Right now I have a two-bunk room to myself, but we'll see how long that lasts.

I'm going to go check if the supermarket carries Egg Nog...

Likes: long walks on the beach...

Where to start... It's Monday the 10th, and I am finding that I have too much to write about and too little time. This past weekend was another big adventure deserving its own entry. I'll get it written as soon as I can, but I have more to write about first.

Last week, Brad and I went to pick up a friend of his who had been camping up the coast a bit. We launched his bigger boat in the morning and loaded up. From the river mouth at the coast, we headed north up to where the Cedar Bay National Park meets the ocean. Brad told me that it was a big hippie pilgrimage spot back in the 1970's, where people went and basically just lived on coconuts and rice and did drugs. He also warned me in advance that his friend that we were picking up is one of those hippies. But that's not the exciting part of the story.

It was about a 25 minute boat ride from the river to our destination. I got to drive the last five minutes.

I got dropped off a kilometer or so up the beach from the camp spot, so I could walk the beach, check the area out, look for seashells, whatever, and Brad would go up the beach and pick up Kelsey and her kids. When we were pulling up to the beach, where the water was no more than four feet deep, there was a reef shark, maybe four feet long, in the water. I tried to get my camera ready for a picture, but it sped off before I could snap one.

I jumped out of the boat and when my feet hit the water, it was like jumping into a bathtub. Okay, maybe not quite, but the water (Pacific Ocean) was very, very warm, and very clean and clear. Not too warm though, it was perfect. As Brad turned around behind me, he shouted "Watch out for feral hippies! Don't let 'em bite'cha!"

The sand was clean and white, and all hosts of tropical rain forest trees and plants lined the coast, including many coconut trees. There were many old, dried coconuts and husks laying around, but I managed to find a nice green one. I shook it to make sure there was milk inside.

I continued up the beach a while enjoying the scenery, the sun, the waves; casually searching for good sea shells or maybe another reef shark in the water. Nothing of the sort was to be seen, however. After a while I - wait. What's...

Is that...

A sack of onions!?

Yep, sure was. No hippies, no campers, no soul in sight. No clue where this could have came from.

I found a nice Nautilus sea shell a few minutes later.

Anyway, back to that coconut. As I walked, I worked at removing the outer husk. Now this is no small task, especially considering that I had no tool whatsoever that would help me in doing so, only my hands. I eventually got it all off, and ended up with this.

I found a piece of broken glass on the beach to puncture one of the 'eyes' to drink the milk. This alone took me another ten minutes of sitting there working on it, trying to get to the sweet nectar locked away within the tough shell. And how sweet it was! I finally got a hole punched and drank it all up. Then I found a good rock and smashed the nut open, and continued to devour the inside flesh. 

This picture is actually taken in the direction I came from. The opening to the Bloomfield river is ~2 km down the coast from the other side of that hill.

Beyond the ten meters or so of beach, there was nothing but super dense, thick rain forest.

That's about it for this one. I met Brad, Kelsey, her kids and dogs up the beach, and we all loaded up and headed back home.

Like I said, I've still got plenty more to write about. I'll get around to it eventually :)

How to gut a rooster

I've only been here in Bloomfield for about a week, and I've already been on plenty of rain forest adventures. The second day I was here, Brad took me on a quick tour of the river in his boat. We explored a couple of the coves and side-streams along the Bloomfield River, then made it out to the ocean. The water was much too rough that day to go any further in his little 'tinny' as he called it. We checked and dropped a couple crab pots, then headed back home.

That weekend Brads girlfriend Kerry came down from Rossville to stay the weekend. On Saturday morning Brad asked me if I was ready for an adventure. "Always", I said. All they told me was that we were headed to the river to have a picnic. Of course, they left out all the good details of the in between parts.

We had a day of fun planned, but there was still work to be done. The first of a few garden beds we were building was finished now, and needed to be filled with soil. Early in the morning, to beat as much heat as we could, we went a got a load of dirt. Fun fact - scrub hens, or wild chickens really, like to build very large nests to bury their eggs in, acting as an incubator. They use all kinds of sticks and leaves and whatever they can find on the rain forest floor, thus making the nest a big compost pile. These nests are where a lot of locals source their dirt and soil for gardening or whatever. We took two truck loads and filled up the new garden bed. Job one done. Job two: take care of that noisy rooster. I told Brad earlier that I stayed on a chook farm earlier in my travels, and he asked if I knew the right way to kill a chicken (because he didn't). So we went down to the chook pen, and I showed him how to snap a chicken's neck like a pro. Then we took the corpse back up to the house, where he showed me how to gut and clean a chicken (or rooster, in this case). Why would we bother gutting and cleaning a rooster? Because rooster: it's whats for dinner.

So come noon, Brad, Kerry, and a friend of Brad's loaded our goodies and supplies into his truck and headed out, me following on the motorbike. After a few minutes on some back roads we ended up at a very steep incline heading up into the hills. Brad and I switched places here so he could take the bike up the hill. At the top, we switched back. The road here was more of a two track trail. It quickly got very rough, and I found myself wishing I could take my Jeep down those trails. It was similar to the bus trip up here, only more intense. Deep ruts, water channels, wash-outs, river crossings, rocks, clay, dirt, etc. From the top of the hill I was allowed to go ahead of the truck, only stopping every once in a while to let it catch up. So, being given the freedom of a track empty of other vehicles, I abused every bit of it. Even though it was the most rough terrain I had even been on on a motor bike, I was still going faster than I probably should have been. Especially considering the bike's not-so-perfect condition. Anyway, I had a blast. The scenery around me was stunning, the air fresh and clean, and the heat and humidity gave way a bit in the higher altitude.

The rain forest pressed in thick around me, opening up and clearing out only in a select few spots. I even rode through a few acres that had been burned somewhat recently. I pulled up at a gate, randomly placed in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, and waited for the truck. When it came, Brad gave me quick directions to our destination, called 'the Lookout'. I sped on ahead and found it a few minutes later, where I set up my camera on a rock with its self-timer:

Views to die for

Another 20 minutes down the track, and we arrived at our final destination. A beautiful, calm, serene river crossing. 

We went for a swim, had a picnic lunch on the banks, and chilled out for a few hours.

A Bloomfield school teacher had drowned here years ago. His grave is set on the top of a small hill just off to the side.

There were a bunch of these termite mounds throughout the rain forest. This one was a bit small, but others were five to six feet tall. 

On the way back home, we stopped and grabbed another truck load of dirt from a scrub hen nest, and filled the garden bed. We wrapped up the day with a couple of brews on the veranda and a roast rooster dinner.

Still more to come...

Deep in the Daintree rain forest...

I awoke early Monday morning, the 26th, to get to the bus stop 2 or 3 km's up Cairns' boardwalk. I was supposed to arrive 20 minutes early to the pick up location for the 7:00 AM departure. I woke up at 5:00 AM without an alarm. Thanks UPS, for making me an early riser :) I finished packing and checked out at the reception, then set out on my way up the boardwalk. Even though the morning air was still cool, the humidity was very high, and I was sticky-sweaty before long. I got to the bus stop a few minutes before the bus, and sat and waited with a half a dozen other passengers. I was pleasantly surprised to see my bus when it rolled up. It was a Unimog style vehicle, with the 'bed' converted into a ~18 person coach bus. This pleased my inner off-roader, because a Unimog military vehicle to an off road enthusiast is like a Ford GT Super Car or Nissan Skyline GTR is to a fast-and-powerful car enthusiast. The Unimog's axles are extra strong, and use complicated drive line technology to provide otherwise unheard of ground clearance.

Anyway, I instantly knew I was in for an off road adventure. The first hour and a half or so of the trip was spent on a winding, nearly deserted road right along the coast of northern Queensland. On one side of the bus (my side, window seat) was the ocean and the beach. On the other side were steep hills thickly populated with rain forest. Beautiful views either way I looked. Soon enough we curved off and headed up into the hills, and into the trees, though still providing glimpses of the ocean every once in a while. The further on we went, the rougher the terrain. The paved road ended and red-dirt and clay road took its place. Tire ruts and water channels carved their way through the road, and I felt like I was back in Michigan, two-tracking up north in my Jeep. Except this was countless times better because of the scenery, wildlife, and the fact that it was in Australia. At one point we had to cross the Daintree River on a ferry. The ferry was one of those cable-pulled types, with a cable secured to land on either bank of the river, and a motor attatched to the cable that pulled us across. Soon enough we came to a sign that read "4x4 Vehicles Only Beyond This Point". Past this sign, the road got even more rough, complete with river crossings. It was still technically dry season, however, so the crossing were never more than a foot deep. Every few kilometers there was a 'Cassowary Crossing' sign.

All of the stops along the way seemed to be in the middle of nowhere. There always seemed to be nothing around but rain forest, but then out of nowhere a backpacker's or rain forest resort or small town would appear from out of the thick trees, and we would stop to let a passenger or two off the bus. It was no different for my stop. Brad had told me earlier via e-mail to ask the driver to drop me at Degarra in Bloomfield. I had no idea what Degarra was, but I imagined it was the name of a store or street or something in Bloomfield. Nope. It was a corrugated piece of steel propped up in a piece of wood with 'Degarra' spray painted on it, with no buildings, people, or vehicles in sight save for Brad and his truck. All the roads here are red dirt. No gravel or pavement to be seen until you get into closest town, called Wujal Wujal.

Brad's place was only a minute's drive from the drop off point. We pulled into his driveway and came first to a small shed that he calls the 'Donga'.

 "This is your house," he said. "It's a bit of a work in progress, but it's got everything you need." The floor and walls are unfinished, but it's got a satellite TV, an AC unit, and a tea kettle. Good enough for me! I dropped my bags and we went up to the main house where he gave me the grand tour of the three rooms, which took all of 30 seconds. One huge main room with a kitchen, dining area, and living area, with access to a huge veranda; a bathroom; his bedroom. It sounds simple enough, but I really like the house and property. The whole house is set on a hill, so the veranda is raised, essentially a second story deck, giving views above the trees and into the rain forest canopy.

Brad brews his own beer and spirits. He doesn't have any spirits made at the moment, but his beer is quite good, and pretty strong too.

On his property, Brad has a Purple Mangasteen tree, six or seven banana trees, a grape vine, tomato plants, plenty of young pineapples, Pumpkin plants (not the Halloween type pumpkins), a Tamarind tree, the seed of which is used in making curry and can be picked off the tree and sucked on like a loli-pop; a Mango tree, Paw Paw trees (Papaya), a Sour Sop tree, Bread Fruit tree, Custard Apple tree, and some others I'm sure I'm forgetting. A job we have been working on is making some raised garden beds for veggies.

Purple Mangasteen, tastes a bit like kiwi, but not really like anything else I have ever eaten

Brad has two cats, a dozen or so chickens, and four peacocks that kind of just hang around the property.

It turns out peacocks can fly quite well. I always thought them to be like chickens; only able to hop and flutter a few feet in the air. I figured this out when one of the males flew right over my head and up into a tree 50+ feet up. It was a strange sight to see the big bird flying up there with his long tail feathers trailing behind him.

Huntsman Spider. Nearly as big as a Tarantula

We have been on plenty of adventures already, and I have met a few of the locals. There is plenty more to write about, including butchering a rooster, and the best views I've seen in Aus yet. And of course plenty more pictures. All of which will be included in the next couple of entries. For now, I'll end it here, as I am about to take the motorbike up to the creek to have a swim.

Cheers! Happy Holidays and all that good stuff!

Airlie Beach and Cairns

I'll start this off one off by telling you about what Aussies call 'Schoolies'. Schoolies is the week after final exams for seniors in high school. This marks the end of their high school education, and basically every single high school senior within driving distance of the east coast of Aus flocks to the beaches of Byron, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Airlie Beach, etc. for a week long party. The Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast seem to be the most popular for this even, as those are the only places ever mentioned on the news. For this reason, I expected to avoid the crowd when I went to Airlie Beach. Well, I expected wrong.

The overnight train from Gympie to Prosperpine was long and uneventful. I arrived at Proserpine station and took a 30 minute bus to Airlie beach. The city was very familiar to me, and just as Brian and I had left it last year, with the addition of some 3000 students. Because of this, I was unable to find a room in any of the seven or eight hostels along the main strip. I ended up having to spend $100 on a hotel room for the night. An unwanted expense, but a welcomed luxury. I had my own private room and bathroom, balcony, wifi, the works. Lucky for my wallet, that was the last day of Schoolies, and I was able to find a hostel room the next night.

I had looked up some (free) local attractions for the area before leaving Mothar Mountain. After getting checked into my hotel on the first day, I grabbed a city map from the information center, and found my way to the Airlie Creek Track; a two hour return trip walking track through the rain forest hills just behind the main strip of the city. I came to the end all too soon, and found myself wanting to keep exploring. The end of the track was rather open-ended, so I just kept going. It quickly turned from walking into climbing boulders and cliffs. There were vines growing up (or down?) a cliff face that looked like they would be good to use to climb up. So I did just that.

A bit further on, I came to some steep, rocky terrain that also made for good climbing. To capture this pic, I set my camera up on a rock and put it on its ten second timer, and made it up as far as I could before it snapped the pic. I only fell once on the way up :)

Later, I found an information/tour center and asked if there were any good rain forest walks in the area. I was given a map and shown the way to the Great Whitsunday Walk. The lady told me that is was a two hour trip up and one hour down, because of how steep it was. I figured out later that the real Great Whitsunday Walk was actually a three day trek. The part I did was only a small leg from the start of the trail to a lookout point.
I had to check out of the hostel at 10 AM the next morning, so I woke up early to give myself time to do the whole trail, come back and shower and pack. The trail was indeed very steep, and even in the cooler early morning hours I was sweating heavily only a half hour into the walk. Now in case you didn't get it before, let me say that this trail was steep. It wound its way up and through the hills behind Airlie Beach, through thick rain forest inhabited by many species of birds and countless small lizards and skinks.
 The Mount Pilchuk hike in Washington was pretty difficult, but I could handle it just fine. This trail, however, left me sweating buckets and stopping to catch my breath; but I kept pushing through to the top, and was rewarded with an amazing view from the lookout at the top.

It wasn't until I got to the lookout that I realized how long the trail was, and how far I had gone. Where I'm pointing is roughly the location of the main Airlie Beach strip, and where my hostel was.

The marina in that picture, just to the left of my finger, is where Brian and I boarded the Tri-maran for our 3 day reef diving trip we took last year.

Fast forward a bit, 12 hour overnight Greyhound to Cairns. Again I had no luck with finding a hostel room. I think from now on I'll book in advance online... Anyway, I managed to find a decently cheap hotel for two nights. I checked in and made my way by memory to the McDonalds that I remembered had free wifi. I sat there for a while and people-watched and caught up on emails and such. I noticed that there was a larger Aboriginal population here than anywhere else I had been so far.

My stay in Cairns was pretty relaxed and uninteresting. Browsing through downtown Cairns, the souvenir shops, the art galleries  etc. On the second day, I wandered into an Aboriginal art gallery. I looked around for a few minutes before coming to the didgeridoo section. The man working there must have noticed how interested in the instruments I looked, because he came over and greeted me, and offered to tell me about them. He told me the natives make and use the instruments for more of a ceremonial purpose. They would spend most of a day making each didge, play it during the celebration or ceremony that night, then actually toss it into the fire at the end.
I was also offered a quick lesson on how to play them; of course, I accepted. At first, the noises I was making sounded more like I was farting through a wooden tube, but before long I was impressing myself at the notes and pitches I was able to make. Each instrument is unique and no two sound or look alike. Of course, this makes sense because they are made from tree limbs, no two of which are ever the same. Because of this, it takes some testing to find out which one works best for the player, so I was advised to go around and test different didge's. I spent the better part of an hour in the gallery playing them, and I was very, very tempted to buy one and send it home. The $400-$3000 price tags finally convinced me otherwise.

That's about it for Cairns. I got on the bus to Bloomfield early the next morning, which is where I'll start in my next post.

Giving Thanks

I am thankful for being alive and healthy in this wonderful wide world of ours.

I am thankful for my extraordinary family. I am thankful that each and every member of my family is loving and caring, generous and welcoming. I am thankful that each and every member of my family is a respectable human being, which is sadly becoming less and less common these days.

I am thankful for the clothes on my back and the shoes on my feet. I am thankful for the food in my belly. I am thankful for having a roof over my head and a pillow beneath it.

I am thankful for my three amazing brothers, each of whom I could probably write a novel about. But I'll keep it short, since most of you know them anyway :)

I am thankful to be born to the most wonderful parents ever to raise children; who would, and have, sacrificed much in the name of giving the best for my brothers and I; who taught me honesty, respect, love, and good morals; who gave me a good education; who are there for me whenever I need them; again, a novel for each of them, but I don't have that kind of time or focus.

I am thankful for the opportunity to go out and explore and experience the world.

I am thankful for my gorgeous golden-red locks.

I am thankful for having the means to buy new socks, should I get tired of the holes in my current pairs.

I am thankful for my little magical plastic box that plays all my favorite music whenever I tell it to.

I am thankful for bananas. They're delicious.

I am thankful for the internet. Without which, it would be much harder to keep in contact with you all.

I am thankful for the invention of glasses and contact lenses.

I am thankful for being given the freedom and opportunity to do and be what I want in life; whether it be a doctor, a business owner, or a bum.


I used to be so hasty to grow up and graduate from the kids table at grandma's house every Thanksgiving. Now, I would give just about anything to be back at that table.

I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and happy holidays! Love you and miss you all!

On the road again!

Tomorrow afternoon I'm back on the train, headed up to Airlie Beach. Then I'll head up to my next host near Cairns.

This past weekend Kath took all the helpers to the Mothar Mountain rock pools, just a five minute's drive from her home. The area was very similar to the Whian Whian Falls that I visited on the tour I took when I was in Byron. It was a very cool, calm, relaxing place. It would have been a great place to go swimming, were it warmer that day.

Rolling thunder over the horizon prompted us that it was time to head home. The storm chased us all the way back, and the skies that were clear five minutes before looked like this when we stepped out of the car.

The pictures don't do it much justice, but this was one of the darkest and most sudden, fast moving storms I'd ever seen. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the whole thing passed right over us.

*Now that I'm actually seeing these pics on a computer, I can see they didn't turn out well. I was experimenting with   different settings on my camera to try and capture the light and darkness differences in the clouds, but it just doesn't look right.*

Another thirty minutes later there were pools forming in the yard and it sounded like the tin roof of the house was going to come down on us any second from the rain. Apparently this was all part of a very large and unexpected storm system. Brisbane took the brunt of it, and is still cleaning up the after math.

Found this little guy creepin' while I was planting some palms.

Diggin' holes! That day left me sore all over. (Insert "Holes" theme song here)

This is a recently added zen garden in the front yard. I helped plant the rows of young trees along either side of each path.

Kath, who is a masseuse and healer, gives each of her helpers a free massage before they leave. I just had mine a few hours ago, and it was absolutely wonderful; probably the most relaxing thing I have ever experienced. I had never had a proper massage before that. Who knows when (or if) I ever would have done, or be doing things like this, had I not come to Aus?

I'll be on the overnight train to Airlie Beach tomorrow night. I'm going to stay in a hostel for a day or two and check out the area. Then it's up to Cairns, which is getting into crocodile country. I take a bus from there to my next host, so I may arrive there a day early and spend the night in the city.

Mothar Mountain critters

I managed to get some pics of one of the possums. Turns out there is one friendly one that will pose for a picutre out of the group. The ironic part is, the friendly one also lost half his face in a fight. Poor guy.
Also included are pics of a small Green Tree Frog, an unknown toad, and an unknown leaf bug.