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!
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
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.
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.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
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.
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.
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