Day 54 Mon 06/04/2012
Last Shift at Monty’s
“Roel & I had those brekkie Guiness to drink. I showed Milan some guitar riffs. Roel & I rode ‘borrowed’ bikes to the bottle shop. Today is a public holiday so most places are closed. Tom & I URBAN WAKEBOARDING! Tom, Frank, Craig & I walked to Domino’s for pizza. Slept a few hours before my last shift at Monty’s. Sweet! Good shift with Karen (Irish super hottie).
Karen has some good tunes on her phone, so we rocked out to those all night. Called the cops on an Aboriginal lady for fighting, throwing chairs, and pool ball in the pants.
There were some fun guys requesting GnR & Poison all night. I had the music on lockdown for them. They were loving it. Boulder Taxi drama’s. Some dumbass broke our last pool stick! Got some last pics with Karen and the restaurant. I played U2 for the last 3 hours of my last shift, and cooked a badass brekkie burrito. Two steak sandwiches toasties. I also finally came through for Geoff with his T-shirt toastie!”
Day 55 Tue 06/05/2012
Taco Night
“Had a brekkie beer with Tom back at the hostel after work. Bed. Woke up and wrote all of this in here for the past 5 days. Going to the store for TACO NIGHT stuff at the hostel. Thanks again Craig for your wireless internet (even if it is slow) & thanks steve for iTunes on your laptop. I really appreciate it guys.
Taco night was delicious. Cooked them for Frank & Sam. Was able to dish one out for Jacob as well. He had never eaten a taco like this.
Today Craig came up with this game where each player had to eat a weet bix cereal bar without using his or her hands and with nothing to drink. Claire had ran her mouth about how easy this would be so Craig immediately grabbed the cereal box while I grabbed the video camera.
The race began with both of them standing by the breakfast table with arms behind their backs. They would have to bend down and grab the block of fiber from a standing position by just bending at the waste. “Ready, GO!” They are off. Craig bends down, grabs the cereal bar with no issues, and is chomping away sending dried flakes into the air with every exhale and laugh. Claire decides getting on her knees and eating the cereal from the edge of the table is the best idea. She knocks the bar onto the floor within seconds of the start. She wants a new piece because eating dried cereal off of the floor is just not proper. Hahahaha!
After nibbling some on the second piece Craig has finished his goal and there is nothing left of his Wheet Bix. Congratulations to Craig. I really didn’t think it was possible to eat one of these without any milk or water to be completely honest. I figured this was setup by Craig to make Claire look silly, which in the end it kinda did. However she was a good sport and only slugged Craig once after the race.
Day 56 Wed 06/06/2012
Hammond Park & Kal Vegas
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| Craig, Claire & I going into Hammond Park |
“Once again back to unemployment. I am pretty sire this is the day I woke up early with Craig & we cracked open a couple of ciders. At noon we walked over to Claire’s & went to Hammond Park. It was a blast. Craig is goofy as anything, & Claire is not far behind. Han Solo stormed a castle. We saw kangaroos & Emus for the second and first time. A ‘macca’ cussed us out as well. Then we walked through a tree park or something. On the way back to Claire’s we stumbled onto a wicked BMX dirt track, Kal Vegas. They had just opened the track 2 weeks ago. Dang I wish I could have been there for the races. Craig & Claire had foot races though. Claire was really jealous of having to work the night prior while we had taco night, so we went back to Wooly’s and bought more. So good!”
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| Han Solo storms the castle |
There was one night this week we learned a card game from one of the older Irish guys here at the hostel. The details are a little fuzzy because we only played this one time after seeing how out of hand it can get fast. Right Frank?
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| Pink Cockatoos in Kal |
The game is called GUTS. You play with only coins, but the coins soon turn into $20 to $100. We all played tonight and had no idea what we were doing. Two minutes from the start Frank was in the hole with me $20. None of us had the money to be gambling, but the way this guy had conned us all in it looked like an innocent game. “All you need is change,” he says. Bull! Then why does Frank owe me $40 now? I would say Frank remembers the rules better than I, btu I felt like we were lucky this guy didn’t run away with all of our money, even though there was one of him and many of us. I guess if the cards had gone in his favor and he took all of our money we might have a say in it.
Day 57 Thur 06/07/2012
Gold Bar XXXX
“Karaoke Party! A ton of us went to Gold Bar XXXX. I was considering booking the train back to Perth today for tomorrow morning at 7:15. Leah gave me some great advice even though $200 and poor liver. I decided to book for Monday morning, which meant I had all weekend to do jack. Today a bunch of us just jammed at the hostel. After getting one hell of a pregame on we went to the Gold Bar. I had never been here before. Sang Beach Boys with Sam. Craig, Roel, & Claire sang… something. Maybe it was Bon Jovi. The DJ was a goob. He sang every fourth song even though there was a huge wait in order to sing. He was trying to be discovered. Toolbag. I sang Jackson with a girl named Beck I think. Ton of chix out tonight. Saw the nice London skimpy gal from the rowdy morning with Joe. She was super nice to me, which made Claire mad. We then went to Monty’s where poor Frank was having to work. Back at the hostel we played cards. Roel blew smoke rings at the table while somehow all 3 of us (Craig, Roel,& I) wound up with matching grey tank tops on. Tonight was also some Scottish gals birthday.”
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| Lucas after jumping his cardboard frog |
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| Shahin's jumping frog |
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| Luke & Roel sharing some KS4 |
Day 58 Fri 06/08/2012
Pub Crawl
“Slept late. Woke up straight to beers with Craig. We pulled another group together to rally for karaoke at the Criterion, where I still have free drink vouchers. Kyle (Aussie), Craig & I scored free Irish car bombs as long as I sang the owner anything Elvis. Two more freebies after singing Cash. Sam & some guy named Daniel claiming to be an MLS player from England sang Drops of Jupiter. Scott & Kyle also took a turn singing.
We saw Ben working at the Gold Bar! Ben is my Maori friend who took part in tossing out the bottle thrower that Friday night at Monty’s. I gave them free food a couple of times for that & I was very excited when he stopped what he was doing to come say HEY & he knew my name.
I tried to get the DJ to play some Bob Sinclair – Tennessee, but he didn’t have it. Grey & Black shirt party. Must be in style. Went to Monty’s to see Joe, Frank, & Roel. Free drinks from the older guy, Hugh, who remembered me from cooking his Surf N Turf ‘the best he’d ever had’. Sylvesters (this is the crazy dance club that when it finally closes all the rowdies come to Monty’s). I had to count change to get in this place. Somehow made more friends.
Well I am no longer working and everyone that couldn’t go to karaoke last time has been dying to go. The owner came out and was handing out drinks when she saw me. She asked me what I wanted, and Kyle said “Car bombs.” She went and got three car bombs for Craig, Kyle & I. Kyle wanted to buy them and when he tried to pay the owner told us they were free as long as I sang her more Elvis. Since we had just gotten here and I hadn’t sang yet the group thought they must be in for a treat if the owner came out from the back with free drinks for us and was already putting in requests. I felt like somebody for a moment.
After everybody took a few turns belting out some songs we left for Gold Bar. I was excited to see Ben working crowd control inside. I figured he would remember me but for him to stop what he was doing and come over to call me out by name really felt great.
Frank and Roel played me a song a few weeks back called Tennessee. It was slowly becoming the group’s theme song, and everybody was coming to see TN. I had to ask the DJ if he had it. He did not have it, or he had it and didn’t want to play it.
I have noticed by now that Craig and I both have on black shirts with horizontal grey stripes. I see another girl here with a similar shirt. Minutes later there is a fourth matching shirt spotted. I had to get a picture. Craig was game, but I felt like the other two people thought I was crazy. Maybe, but this was funny. We looked like a rugby team! It’s the small things, right? This was funny to me and still is now as I type this completely sober.
Next we jumped over to Monty’s to see Country Joe, Frank, and Roel. I had to order a Red Cruizer and go stand by the wall by the hole left from my near miss. The drink was nasty, but the photo op was good. Hugh was there and he had to buy us all some more beers again. He still was talking about that Surf n Turf I cooked for him. Thanks goodness I got one order right. I can think of more horror stories from here that I haven’t even mentioned yet. “Running out of chicken” being one of them. Catching pizzas on fire is another.
Lastly we head to Sylvester’s. I guess this would be considered the rowdiest place in Kal. It is a dance club with blistering loud music and your typical rave scene. I had enough beers in me to put up with this environment for a little while. I remember having to count change to get into the place though. We danced around like fools and headed back to the hostel.
Day 59 Sat 06/09/2012
Nederlands vs Denmark
“Slept almost all day. Worthless! Frank & Roel were going hard today because they were both off work tonight & Holland was playing Denmark in the Euro Cup Tournament tonight at midnight. Denmark beat Holland 1-0 & the guys were not happy. Craig & I took Frank to Monty’s to see Claire, Joe, & Joanne to take his mind off of the loss. Two Heineken’s helped. Also hearing that Joanne is stripping at the Gold Bar Skimpy next Saturday helped. She lost a bet when Ireland’s rugby team lost a big match. We stayed up most of the night watching Frank.”
Day 60 Sun 06/10/2012
Last Night in Kal
“Paid $220 rent to Geoff. Was completely worthless other than packing up all my stuff. We did watch a good X-Men movie & cook the rest of my sausages.”
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| Franz & Roel! My shirt from the unclaimed bin |
I made sure I was fully paid up with the backpacker. Everone was in recovery mode from the weekend festivities. I have written about my Kalgoorlie times from memory and these notes in my journal. I am 100% sure if I looked through the photos taken during this time I could write three times more about all of the fun we had and the amazing people I met. On this final day I had a very hard time saying goodbye to everyone here in the hostel. This was my first hostel experience and it was a great one. I had only been here just over a month, but I felt like I had known this crowd for ages. Leah had informed me working hostels were much different from other hostels. In a working hostel you have a family. People are at the hostel because they need a place to stay and rest while working towards the next goal. Lots of the backpackers I met at this hostel had been here before or had been here for months. Lizzy is the mama duck of the place. She looked after us. If she saw people going overboard with drinking or blowing all of their hard earned money she moved in and helped out. She even held a few backpackers pay checks for them and rationed out his or her funds to help them not blow everything.
Here is the letter I wrote and left on the fridge before I went to sleep.
“To All of the Kal Backpackers,
Thanks for such a good time over the past month. From the ROWDY Dutch hardcore parties, table tennis (Ping Pong)m matches, bottle-o bike runs, sun sessions, urban wake boarding, Monty’s Get Wrekt events, karaoke nights, skimpy bars, Guts$$, Wizards, Damn Dutch Scrabble, 7 movie weekends, Super Pit Trip, BMX racing on foot, museum sights, camping in the park, & many more epic times I can’t recall right now because I am sleep deprived & my lived is shut down for the time being.
You guys & gals have made Kal a time to remember for the rest of my life. I will miss you ALL & cannot wait to see yall again.
Love Michael McNair from Tennessee J”
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