Last Update

Well, the inevitable has arrived-- I am back home in Cary, IL, literally 100 degrees colder than I was a few days ago. Luckily we crammed a lot into our last few weeks in Australia, which explains why I haven't updated in several weeks. 

After Fraser Island, we spent a couple days in Noosa, home of Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. The zoo is small but well done. We got to pet koalas and feed elephants and kangaroos, which thrilled Shana since she had yet to see a kangaroo. We also saw Terri Irwin host the crocodile show, though unfortunately her wannabe Miley Cyrus daughter Bindi couldn't make it. All in all I'd say it was one of the most wholesome days we've ever had, since we went home to Julia's divine homemade macaroni (our roommates were shocked by our portions and even more shocked when we calmly finished them & tucked into our XL chocolate bars....just doing our part to uphold the piggish American stereotype.) The next day at Noosa was spent at the beach, then we Greyhounded down to Brisbane, spending the night at our British friend Jamie's apartment. It was strange to say goodbye to him, because he is the only person we've seen throughout our trip, and now we'll probably never see him again. Ah, well, such is life.

One more Greyhound trip later, we were in Sydney, where we dropped off our luggage and immediately departed for a camping trip in the Blue Mountains with the boys we met in Bondi Beach at the very beginning of our trip. The boys were super-nice, the food was good, and the scenery gorgeous, but the sleeping situation was grotesque. Our tents were....sub-par, and our preparation skills were less than mediocre. It was absolutely freezing and we didn't have enough sleeping bags....and this was compounded by the fact that it poured the whole night, resulting in me & others "sleeping" literally in a puddle all night. It affected our moods negatively, to say the least. We had a good time, but I sure was glad to get back. 

I had a much better time surfing the next day. I was nervous about this, since Julia spent hours trying to teach me how to body surf in Noosa and I never got the hang of it. Looking back, I'd say I was right to be nervous. Julia, I believe, is part mermaid, and born to be in the water-- she was really good. Shana was excellent as well. Meanwhile, while they were casually sitting on their boards and waiting for a choice wave, I was being pushed into waves by the instructors and alternately bellyflopping/backflipping off the board moments later. After 5 hours of this, we all hobbled back into our hostel feeling like shit but agreeing we had a great time. 

And that's it. We spent our last day on the beach and our last night hanging out with the Bondi boys, and then we flew home. My immediate plans include Mardis Gras in a few weeks, then finding gainful employment for 6 months or so before heading off on another adventure abroad. If my life is exciting enough to keep updating this thing, I shall do so, but chances are it shan't be. Thanks for reading, everybody!

News

Update: Pirate just friended me on facebook!! His real name=Mladen Rakic.

Review of the Whitsundays and Fraser Island

Did you know that Julia's hair changes from blonde to dark brown when it hasn't been washed in several days? Or that Shana can suffer a horrendous sunburn in only five minutes? These are things I learned whilst on our sailing trip in the Whitsunday Islands and our camping trip on Fraser Island, where we were outside and filthy all the time. General discomfort and beautiful landscapes basically sum up the trips, but as I am wont to do, I will break it up and go into more detail than is appropriate.

Whitsundays: Basically it was a 3 day, 2 night trip on a catamaran with 23 other people. It was.....alright. The first day and half was pure hell. We excitedly climbed aboard to meet everyone, and unfortunately no one was cool-- all were very immature and ready for a booze cruise, which sucked a lot because they drank all the alcohol they had brought, and then all the alcohol we had brought. The worst was a tall, skinny, Dutch freak whom we named "pirate" because he wouldn't stop screaming "YAARGGH!!!!" and trying to climb the mast. We hung out with the crew mostly, who were a lot cooler and more mellow. Sleeping consisted of placing mats on the deck of the catamaran, which would have been great except that it was pouring rain and freezing. Furthermore, the drunkards, led by Pirate, were carousing 10 feet away, one of them choosing to prance on Shana's back. In frustration I moved to the luggage closet to sleep, and Julia chose to sleep in the mattress storage closet. We were awoken at about 5:30 to rough seas, and the remainder of the morning featured about 8 people lining the decks, vomitting over the side. One of them was Pirate, who was decidedly less enthusiastic about the booze cruise as he crawled ever 10 minutes or so to retch into the beautiful cerulean water. Another one of them was Shana, who had turned the truest shade of green I've ever seen on a human face. We got a break around 10am, when we finally arrived at the beautiful Whitehaven Beach and played in the enormous waves for a couple hours. Later that afternoon we snorkelled around and fed giant fish, which was pretty cool. The best thing, I think, was that the place we anchored for the night was full of phosphorous plankton that glowed when agitated, and we watch schools of fish glowing and gliding all over the bay. The second night passed without incident, and in the morning we went ashore to take a look at some 2300 year old aboriginal paintings, followed by a swim in the bay. I was pretty nervous about the swim, since it was really deep, and I became horrified once I got out and a girl told me that it was called Shark Bay because there were so many hammerheads in the water. Yikes. Anyway, all we had to do after that was head home. It was an okay trip, I'd say, and it would have been a lot more fun with better people and better weather.

Fraser Island: Fraser Island was A LOT more fun. This was a 3 day, 2 night trip that consisted of 11 people in a truck driving around the island and camping. The group was a lot better. There was an Irish couple, a German girl, two Dutch girls, two Swiss guys, and an Israeli girl. Everyone was more mature and laid-back, except for the Israeli girl...but we just sort of ignored her most of the time because she was annoying. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, and the most visited place in Australia, yet it was not touristy and fairly secluded for how many people were there. On the first day we went to Lake Wabby, which was this neat little lake right in the middle of enormous sand dunes. That night was spent casually drinking beer and hanging around chatting, which contrasted with the crowd on the booze cruise, was a great time. The next day was spent at Lake Mackenzie, which is absolutely gorgeous. The sand was pure white and the water was the brightest blue I'd ever seen. Julia was upset because there is a picture of us in the water and it looks like a manufactured pool....but it's not. On the third day we went to Indian Head, which is the easternmost point of Australia. It was pretty romantic for Julia and I, since we had previously visited the westernmost point of Europe together (Ireland). Then we visited some shipwreck that I'd like to give a rave review but I suspect it was just a tourist trap. Maybe I'll google it and find out for sure. The best part, I think, was just the people and the general scenery. The ocean was beautiful but laden with enormous jellyfish. Julia disobeyed the rules and went in anyway, and then a huge tiger shark was spotted, so she didn't get in after that.

Now we're in Noosa, about to go to the zoo. Should be fun. As we head south it gets much cooler, and we felt that we needed sweatshirts last night...then looked at the temperature and realized it was about 75 degrees. Chicago is going to be rough when I get back (in less than two weeks) (sob sob).

Whitsundays & Fraser Island

First of all, happy New Year, everyone! We celebrated it about 16 hours ahead of you, which was pretty weird. We did some weird bar crawl thing, which guaranteed us "the best time ever." It was pretty fun, but unremarkable, I'd say. Eager to leave Cairns, we attempted to book our flights to Uluru, only to realized that tickets have gone up in price about four hundred dollars. So instead we walked into a travel agency about an hour ago looking for some advice, and now we're booked to sail on a boat around the Whitsunday Islands....and then camp on Fraser Island for a couple days more. It's very whirlwind and exciting, and fits in with our new gameplan of having no gameplan. We're leaving Cairns in about seven hours, so there's a lot to do, like take a shower for the last time for at least a week.

Also, in the excitement of spontaneity, we very nearly cancelled our tickets home and bought new ones bound for Thailand.

Talk to you all in about a week.

Happy Christmas at the Banana Barracks

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all enjoyed the holidays, with plenty of wonderful gifts, food, and friends/family. I had all that as well, albeit in a more unorthodox fashion.

First, though, I feel I should describe our time spent as migrant workers on banana plantations. We wake up at 4:45am each morning, silently getting dressed in our work clothes (filthy shorts, filthier shirt, baseball caps, long black socks, tall black rubber boots, and about a gallon of sunscreen), and catching our rides at 5:45. Shana worked at a different plantation than Julia and I did, and her ride was an actual legitimate bus. My transport was a white utility vehicle with benches nailed in the back for all 10 of us to cram into (only Julia and I spoke English natively.) A silent 30 minute ride ensues. Once there, we are assigned to do any number of things. Julia was on the stringing team, which meant she tied trees together with twine for 8 hours. I was on the irrigation team, which meant I walked around and fixed sprinklers all day. I also made a brief foray into the leafing team, which consisted of me holding a scythe (a la the Grim Reaper) and cutting leaves off banana trees. It's kind of fun, actually, except that it gets really hot, and also myriad spiders/snakes/frogs (all poisonous, I hear) live in the grasses. The only time Julia and I spent together was when we did a banana-sorting shift in the packing shed. Giant bananas come down a conveyer belt filled with water, and either Julia or I break them apart and the other inspects them and picks out the bad ones. I hate it. It's really boring, and breaking banana bunches apart is pretty difficult, surprisingly. I may or may not have carpal tunnel and new spider veins pop up every 10 minutes or so. Our day ends at 3:10, when we pile back into the truck. A silent 30 minute ride, smellier than before, ensues.

We count ourselves lucky, though, because the Banana Barracks owner has taken an extraordinary liking to us and got us jobs within 24 hours and also letting us bartend in exchange for free accomadation. So we are in high spirits, I'd say, both because of our good fortune and also a really nice Christmas. We got a teeny tree, put up some lights in our shanty, and bought each other cheap little presents (Julia got me a toothbrush, for example, and I got Shana a new loofa). The whole hostel all got together for a Christmas buffet lunch, and it was really neat to just be sitting around with people from dozens of different countries. Also we accidentally got pretty drunk, which was weird and somehow seemed wrong on the birth of Our Lord. Nevertheless we pushed on, going to bed at 6am and waking up at 8am to go to Dunk Island and drink more there-- it was really fun. I drunk-dialed Mom (sorry).

We're leaving Tully on Monday, headed for Cairns for New Years Eve (we'll be in 2009 16 hours ahead of you, weird.) Then who knows. Sorry I haven't been in touch with anybody, but there is only one computer for about 100 of us. Anyway, thanks for the Christmas emails/updates, and have a great New Years!

Adventures Galore

Yikes, it's been a LONG time since my last update, and a lot has happened. Shana, Julia, and myself embarked on whirlwind tour of adventures that only now has the promise of settling down. I guess the best thing to do is highlight each adventure by location....so here we go. I hope you're ready for a long read:
Brisbane: Where we started, obviously. Spent a lot of time planning our ensuing adventures, spent even more time swapping stories about barmaiding.
Cairns: Flew to Cairns last Saturday, really hungover- I don't recommend it. Skydived on Sunday, which was really cool. We jumped from 14,000 ft., freefell over the Pacific for 60 seconds, then floated over the rainforest and Great Barrier Reef for 10 minutes or so before landing on Mission Beach. We spent the rest of the day playing in the ocean, which sounds refreshing, but the water was warmer than my shower water. Shana purchased a DVD of herself skydiving, ask nicely and maybe she'll show you. After skydiving, there was nothing else for us to do in Cairns but pick up our cute little white hatchback rental car (we named her Lucy) and head to Port Douglas, about an hour north.
Port Douglas: We bought a shitty 2-man tent for all three of us and decided it was a great idea to stop at Dougie's Campground and campt there. The only problem is that Port Douglas is in the tropics, so the temperature hovers around 90 degrees, with 80% humidity. Also it's monsoon season. So we "woke up" (oh wait, we never slept) soaking wet and laying grimly side by side. Awful. Luckily it was all worth it, because that day we went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef! Awesome, absolutely the coolest thing I've ever done. We did three 1/2 hour dives on the Agincourt reefs, each one cooler than the last. Actually, I don't remember much about the first dive because I was so nervous (I'm afraid of deep water.) When you jump in the first time, you hold on to a rope underwater and they make you take your regulator out of your mouth, drop it, find it again, and put it back in your mouth (just in case it happens deeper down.) That was the only time I sort of freaked out, because I just kept swallowing sea water and couldn't get the thing in. But I calmed down, worked out how to swim around, and then could appreciate everything around me. The first thing I saw was a reef shark. We also saw a couple turtles, a ray, a lot of clown/lion/angel/trumpet/trigger fish. On my last dive, I went through a coral tunnel into a coral cave that looked just like Ariels grotto, minus the snarfblatts and dinglehoppers. This underwater heaven made going back to Dougie's & the nightly monsoon that much harder....so we left the next day.
Crocodylus Village: A totally empty hostel in the middle of the Daintree Rainforest. Like actually in the middle. We stayed there for four nights and went on hikes in the jungle during the day and ate meager rations at night (because there was no grocery store....because we were in the middle of the jungle, duh.) Our biggest adventure was hiking Mt. Sorrow, which was 3.5k and 6800 ft. high, which creates a rather dramatic slope. It took 6.5 hours, and was horrible. Oftentimes it was hand over hand climbing up vines and rocks, and there were giant spiders and leeches everywhere, I pulled off at least 50. We were sore everywhere, but are very proud of ourselves. Julia has some very dramatic photos of us that I'll make her post later. We also found something called the Blue Lagoon, which is like a jungle oasis, a swimming hole filled with the clearest, bluest water I've ever seen. We don't think there are any crocodiles there. Crocodylus was really cool/surreal, but it was nice to leave and get back to civilization again, ie. eat more than museli and peanut butter for every meal.
Tully: We left Crocodylus with no plan and now find ourselves in Tully, QLD, waiting to secure a job packing bananas. We were going to camp, but we drove into the "campsite", aka an open field, aka a refugee compound, and decided it didn't look safe. There were too many people crouched under tarps, eating noodles out of a pot and shooting us wild-eyed glances for my liking. Now we are more comfortably ensconced in a glorified shanty village named the Banana Barracks Hostel. Our home is a small clapboard shed with a flickering light and a leaky sink, named Mambalo No. 5. Hopefully we'll get some work for a couple of weeks so as to have a little extra money and some good stories.

What a life.

Back in Brisbane

Hooray, we are finally reunited! I left Aramac on Saturday, which was actually sadder than I thought. Friday night was a fun last night, though, with a lot of shot-taking and all the bonding that entails. I'll miss Axelle, who ended up understanding my sarcasm and being pretty funny. Upon leaving, I was presented with a genuine Aramac Hotel cap and a homemade pumpkin pie, in honor of Thanksgiving. Wonderful! (side note: nobody here has ever heard of pumpkin pie. weird).

I got to Tambo on Saturday evening to hang out for Julia's last night and meet the main characters of her barmaiding experience. Pretty fun, nothing too wild. Tambo has TWO pubs, THREE gas stations, and a real grocery store-- it was like a metropolis! All that was missing were the stoplights and teeth in people's mouths. Anyway, we finally left the outback on Sunday evening, via a 14 hour Greyhound journey. The all-night bus ride was obviously a good time, but nothing compared to seeing Shana again. We're all happy to be back together and are excitedly planning our imminent trip to Cairns for snorkelling and whatnot. We have found, however, that the novelty of drunken backpacker bars has worn off somewhat, and I personally am happy to leave the cities and just explore the dozens of national parks.

This was very general, but the next couple of weeks should be a frenzy of travelling/seeing beautiful places. Look forward to it.