Day 262 Sat 12/29/2012
Tent Down
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| My Darwin, NT found tent is DONE |
“Today the rain & wind beat my tent to hell. After my bike ride I found the tent crushed. I poured 2 liters of water out of on of my cowboy boots. Whoops. This is miserable. It’s time to change things. Ali is staying in the all girls dorm at Beaches next door to Magnum’s. All other hostels are fully booked for New Year’s, so I am in trouble. Ali offered the couch in her dorm. This sounds good to me. It’s dry. More rain!”
Day 263 Sun 12/30/2012
Rain Dancing
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| South African's LOVE Rain |
“Tamara, the Dutch girl who came out onto the Rum Runner Cairns as I left, has come into town looking for work. She is staying in Ali’s dorm too. She checked in & saw me sitting on the couch. Haha! Tonight we three were having dinner at Beaches when the rain hit so hard the streets were flooding. We had a great idea to go dance in the rain. Ali was diving face first into the storm water run-off. Hilarious videos.”
Tamara was super surprised to check into the all girls dorm room and see my sorry self on the couch. It was a good thing I hadn’t made any of these girls mad yet, because one call to the front and I would be on the streets or in my shredded tent. Actually I am pretty sure I trashed the tent after yesterday’s rain event. The whole time we were at Beaches I remember the girls saying “Go get your stuff, it must be getting soaking wet.” No way. I didn’t even care. If it gets wet it gets wet. Well it surely did.
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| Ali & Tamara dancing in the rain |
At dinner we were all getting wet sitting under the cover it was raining so hard. This was some sideways rain. Ali & Tamara went running off into the parking lot with me following camera rolling. They were like 5 year old kids who had never seen rain before. Ali found a storm ditch with a foot of water in it and just plopped right down in it.
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| Alexandria, from South Africa, & Tamara, from Holland |
Day 264 Mon 12/31/2012
New Year’s Eve
“I’ve really not been in the mood to party lately with the thought of losing my job & maybe my ability to dive due to my ear. But Ali put on this hot red dress & all the girls wanted me to have a good time tonight. Normally this would be very easy for me, but not so much this time.
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| Dayna is ready for the New Year! |
Ali ended up having a little too much to drink too fast. She laid a big kiss on Tamara at one point. Then she wasn’t allowed into any of the bars. I don’t even remember where we watched the ball drop. New Year’s kinda sucked this year.”
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| My Canadian friend, Dirty Dayna |
I was in a hostel dorm room with a half a dozen or more girls who are all getting ready to go party for the New Year’s, and I was in a terrible mood. Pull it together, man! I know that we were out in the back cabins of Magnum’s with some friends having some drinks. Ali just stood up and let out some battle cry at one point. “Oh boy, she is toasted,” I thought. This is going to be an interesting night. Even with me being more or less sober I was not able to talk the door guy at the Irish Pub into letting her in for the ball drop. I had to put her to bed on the couch, which meant I slept on hard tile for the night.
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| New Year's Fireworks down by the lagoon in Airlie Beach, QLD |
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| My dorm room! Essex, London, Holland, South Africa & Tennesee! |
Day 265 Tue 01/01/2013
A New Year & New Day
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| Mark, the skipper from the Yongala Shipwreck |
“Ali & I went for a good brekkie first thing today. I had the eggs benedict. Deliciouso! Then we rallied the troops & went to the little beach bar out back of Nomad’s. POOL PARTY! AliCatRampage.mov”
We ate at the Sidewalk Café. Yes it was good. Ali was feeling pretty good considering the mess she was last night. If you watch the short video I took today at Nomad’s pool you would have thought she never sobered up though. Bahahaha! We were sitting at a picnic table with many of the girls from the dorm. There was a live band playing right with us. We ran into skipper Mark, from the Yongala Dive. He joined us for the session. When the band, which had a lead singer wearing a southern Texas t-shirt, started playing Dave Matthews I began filming Ali. The second she realized it was the South African DMB she lost it and began to scream lyrics. Back at it again today.
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| People always ask where I get my explosive energy from. I found this at the hostel (Magnum's I think). |
The pool session was insane. I actually got into the water and felt like my ear was OK. It was not though. It hurt after I got out again. Ali was throwing futbols and beach balls at people like she was Godzilla. She grabs a ball and chucks it right at Mark. She misses big time and we all laugh at her. This made her want to blast him directly in the face with a near-by beach ball. She grabs the ball, and with an over the head throw misses him from point blank. She is out of ammo now. What to do? She just does the worst dive into a pool I had ever seen. It was so limp. The video is priceless.
On our way out I toss Mark’s thongs back into the pool. He acted like he didn’t want to get wet again even though he had just been in the pool for an hour. He was not too happy going back in after them. I thought it was a riot though.
Day 266 Wed 01/02/2013
Back 2 Magnum’s
“I checked back into Magnum’s & they put me in a nice cabin near the back of the property in the deep forest. We met Moh & Rudy from Germany today.”
Day 267 Thur 01/03/2013
DJ Moh
“Moh played his JAW HARP for us tonight. He has a pretty wicked techno beat going with this instrument.”
Day 268 Fri 01/04/2013
Jasper’s Picture
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| Jasper & a whale shark in the Philippines |
“Today Jasper, my Dutch friend from back in Cairns, posted a picture from The Philippines of him SCUBA diving with a WHALE SHARK! It is such an amazing photo.”
“Thanks to Ali I have gotten some work lined up helping an Aussie miner with some yard work. His property was up in Flametree, which was just a 10 minute car drive from Airlie Beach. It felt good to do some work finally, even if I was just moving brush around.”
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| Farmwork in Flametree region. Notice the plane flying in. |
This morning first thing Nick was coming to the hostel to pick me up to do some labor intensive work today for him on his land. I was excited to have some work to do, and I really needed the money. Ali had brought the flier Nick posted the second she saw it. No one else had a chance to call him for the work. I was his man.
Nick had a good piece of land out in Flametree with his wife, Presley. They even had a few horses on the property. He had been clearing brush out in this field and had a huge burn pit. I would be cutting and dragging brush, wood, trees, so on and throwing it into the burn pit. I was also on fire control. The whole place looked like it had just been set ablaze as well.
It was so hot out here with a fire going, in the sun, and no air moving. I wore a sleeveless shirt, and I started to feel my shoulders roasting. I had to go find Presley and ask for sun screen. I remember small passenger planes flying over every 15 minutes. The approach to the Airlie Beach landing strip was up this valley. I would have loved to have a plane ride to see this place from the air. I felt like Paul Hogan would come out of the bush any minute and show me how to skin a croc in this place.
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| The fire pit I was working on |
Nick forced me to take breaks. There was no way I was going to get caught sitting on the job. I was super excited when he brought me a Subway sandwich from one of the local sub shops. I would have worked all afternoon on the farm just for that meal. Of course, when the work was done he had the beers ready. The Aussie way! Yea mate. Thanks goodness he only wanted to drink one beer. I was toasted and so happy to get some cash for the work.
As Nick dropped me off at the hostel he asked me if I was game for some more work some Monday. Of course I was. He would call me. Thanks for the opportunity Nick & Presley.
Day 270 Sun 01/06/2013
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| View from my cabin at Magnum's Backpackers in Airlie Beach |
Rain Forest Hostel
“Today I hung out at Magnum’s in my own personal rainforest with Ali.”
Day 271 Mon 01/07/2013
Stomper’s Battle Cry in Dive Booties
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| Nick in Flametree |
“More work out at Flametree today building a rock wall & planting hedges. This was very enjoyable work. The money was much appreciated too. Thanks Nick & Presley!
Tonight Ali & I are going out with Scott & Dayna.”
Nick had a load of mulch in the back of his tray-back Toyota LandCruiser. This vehicle is a brand new 2012. It’s a kickass ride. I had to drive it around some. Nick didn’t care. You can’t buy this kind of vehicle in the USA. We were going to plant hedges at the front of the house today. I also recall moving a good bit of furniture around at some point for Presley. I build a bed too.
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| Stomper, deckhand from A3, in borrowed dive booties |
The party was on tonight. The Anaconda was coming in for the night. Scott was off work. His girlfriend, Sego, was out on the boat she cooks on. He was a free man tonight. We met the crew down by the water at the bar they all liked to start at when back from a trip. I cannot remember the name of this place! Ali??? Dayna?? Do either of you recall? Anyways, Stomper, one of the A3 deckhands, comes off the boat wearing dive booties. He has lost his shoes somehow and commandeered one of the diver’s boots. These booties look stupid on you when in a full wetsuit, so they looked very dumb on Stomper’s huge feet wearing board shorts. We all got a laugh at his expense. He didn’t give a flip.
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| Presley's Horse in Flametree |
Scott, Dayna, Ali, & I met over at Nomad’s where Dayna was staying. Some cask wine (GOON) to begin. Tonight is the night Stomper let out a battle cry like I’d never heard before while in the official after trip party spot, Club Phoenix. We somehow got that on video too. HOOOOOOOOOOO…OOOO…OOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! It was scary. Mark joined us for drinks as well. Chase, one of Stomper & Luke’s good buddies and fellow crew on another dive boat here in Airlie, was in usual form tonight. He literally gets BLINDED every time he drinks.
“Hey Chase! How ya goin’ mate?!?!” I ask him.
“Blinded mate. BLINDED!” Every time. In his defense though, he is a very kind drunk. You can’t say that about all of them.
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| Goodbye GoPro |
Day 272 Tue 01/08/2013
Bed Bugs!
“I tossed my GoPro Camera in the trash today along with the other broken stuff I didn’t need any more. Today some new Asian backpackers in my room brought bed bugs in. The hostel staff moved me even farther back into the rain forest to a more isolated room.”
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| Georgie is a True Blue |
The two new backpackers in my room spoke very little English. They had just come from somewhere in Asia, and had lied to the hostel about something regarding their travels. I didn’t seem to be bothered by the bed bugs, but according to the staff these two had infected the hostel next door and been thrown out for lying about where they had been the day before. I had no signs of the bed bugs biting me, maybe because I was too stinky, but I was moved out anyways so the staff could bomb the room. To kill the bed bugs they just put space heaters in the room pointing directly at the infected areas and beds. Roast them out.
So far in Australia I have been in beds or in bunks that had signs of bed bugs. I remember Bart getting bitten by bugs one night, and I was only a few feet away from him. I had determined that I was either too smelly for bed bugs to like me or I didn’t show signs of bites. It was near impossible to say I had not been in direct contact with them multiple times.
My GoPro needed to get trashed. It finally had enough after taking it swimming in Litchfield with Frank & Roel. Adios muchachos. It was a good run!
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| Georgie & I at Magnum's |
The cabin I was moved to was all the way in the back of the complex. There was another kitchen back there not many backpackers knew about. I was now in the worker’s cabin. I like it here, and I think I will stay. I asked the front staff how I could keep this room. I was in there all alone. I was told I could volunteer and stay there for free. No way! This sounded too good to be true. It was!
One option was to be the guy who opens the luggage door for guests. There are three rooms out back that are strictly used for guests who are going out on the water for a trip and need a place to stow their backpacks. Boats do NOT want your backpacks going onboard for the sake of space and bed bugs being transferred. There are only two shifts to do this luggage checking. I chose the early morning shift. This was from 7AM to 1:30PM I think. The second and last shift was from 1:30PM to 8PM. I would have to report to these doors every 30 minutes to make sure no one needed to get to a bag or store a bag.
Day 273 Wed 01/09/2013
Luggage Boy
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| <3 |
“Today I met another super fun Kiwi girl here at the hostel, named Janina. She is from Auckland, NZ. Today I start working for my accommodation by opening and helping people with their luggage storage. It’s an easy job from 7:00 to 1:30 every 30 minutes. I wore a different funny outfit down there every time.”
Janina is hilarious. You gotta love the Kiwi accent. I woke up after last night ready to start earning my free baller room here at the hostel. I was there on time. There was no one there. How long should I wait? I have to be back here in 30 minutes again to let people in. So I can’t really wait any more than 5 minutes after the hour and half hour. I’m outta here.
I get 10 steps away and here someone yelling at me to get in there. The couple was nice about it, so I let them in. Well it took then 10 minutes to find their bag. There are no luggage tags, and there is no system in place to help find bags. There are 3 different color doors. It would be nice to give out colors of doors on the tags at least, so when these backpackers go out on the water and get trainwrekt they might could have this tag with a color on it. By the time they found their bags I had 7 minutes to get back here and do it again. CRAP! I have been ROOKED!
OK, so I am going to make this fun. Full SCUBA gear is put on for the next shift. I walk up with 10 people waiting to get in the luggage claim. I just open all 3 doors and let them have it. Half the kids don’t have tags at all. I feel like bags can be compromised to easily. Actually, they gave this idiot wearing full SCUBA gear a key to the doors, so what the hell else can go wrong? People loved it though.
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| <3 New Year's with Ali & Dayna <3 |
After showing up as a cowboy, a straight up red neck, a mountain biker, and a beach bum (I was a total beach bum), I had to move onto wearing other people’s clothes. Janina & Dayna went and got me a dress. Girls clothes until the end of my shift.
When I went to go return the key for the second shift they told me they had no one to take over for me. This meant either I could help them out or one of the front gals would have to run back there every 30 minutes, and they clearly had their hands full up front booking cruises for guests and dealing with the hostel rooms. I told them I would help, but I was not a fan of spending my whole day opening a luggage door. I was allowed to report every hour and they gave me 2 free nights. Deal! They said they could ask the maintenance workers if they needed any help with projects around the place for tomorrow.
Note: I forgot to mention that I had checked my own bags into this luggage system when we first arrived in Airlie Beach. With the Anaconda Trip I was given 4 days of luggage storage for free. After that they wanted $5 per day. Well I had never left the boat. All of my bags were, hopefully, still in there. So by being the luggage guy I was able to get my bags out of there for FREE. They had been in there for weeks now. Just a side note: who got ROOKED??? Actually, everybody wins.
Day 274 Wed 01/10/2013
Garbage Guy
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| Garbage Duty at the hostel |
“Luggage Boy is a crap job. I got on with the maintenance guys today. I work 9AM-12 noon and it’s very easy. I take out the garbage & jam to music. I broke my tooth one night this week. This sucks!”
One night while eating a McDonald’s cheese burger I broke a tooth big time. It doesn’t hurt, but it is jagged as all. It is cutting my tongue and cheek. Damn Macker’s! Ceci has come back to Airlie Beach to have a go at the hostee job on the A3. She was at the hostel tonight. I let her stay in my huge jungle rain forest dorm out back. We listened to the Last of the Mohicans Soundtrack a few times. She also loves that movie.
Garbage Guy is way more fun that Luggage Turd. I can slam through all of the trash in no time. Other backpackers here think I am crazy. They think I am Aussie, and that I love taking out people’s garbage. Today there was a group of hotties who just got in last night. I went to knock on the door at 10AM. Mind you my job is to take out the big bins on the front porches of the dorms and cabins. There are cleaning ladies who do the insides. Well I had to see if they had trash inside. They were obviously all sleeping and snapped a “NO” at me. I let them know that if they had any trash issues to let me know, because I was on it. They thought I was the biggest tool.
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| Me with Sego & Janina |
“Yea mate! Do you have any trash that needs taking out?” I said it as happily as I could. Oh I got such a laugh at this. They didn’t have any trash though.
Day 279 Tue 01/15/2013
“Room 25?”
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| from Left: Moh, Alex, Me, Thomas, & Scott |
“I’ve been looking for a ride outta here. Ali leaves soon & I don’t know when my ear will allow me back into the water. I’m meeting 2 Austrian brothers, Alex & Thomas (for a possible RideShare south). They are very nice guys, and both are avid rock climbers. It looks like we will head to Sydney together on Friday or Saturday. Played midnight table tennis with Moh tonight.”
I have gone to the Dr in Airlie to have my ear checked. I cannot believe I went to have a Dr look into my ear and say, “I can’t tell if it is ruptured or not. Just stay out of the water.” What did I really expect? What a waste of money. I need to move on. I have been looking on the internet every day after working for my free accommodation at the hostel. By the time I get to this point ina town I barely want to even write about it. However, these guys are very nice.
We have been hanging out with my crew buddies, new buddies Moh & Rudy, and now these two Austrian brothers. They are game to have me come along with them, but they are going out on the Whitsunday Islands for a few days. I told them I would wait for them.
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| Adam from Canada - another dive instructor |
Tonight I went to down the way to Scott & Sego’s house. Adam, from Canada and friends with Scott, is working as the DI (Dive Instructor) on another boat here. He meets me at their house for the night. We are relaxing and talking future plans when Adam looks at me and says, “Hey, there is a huge party going on at room 25 at Magnum’s Backpackers. Do you want to go with me?”
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| DJ Moh from Germany |
I think for a second. Wait a second. “That’s MY room! Who told you there is a party?” It was Moh & Rudy. They figured since I was working there and had the cabin all to myself that it was a party spot. Other than Cecilia staying there some I pretty much had the place to myself. Of course I want to go to make sure all my stuff isn’t getting thrashed. My bike is locked up there at cabin 25, I assume room 25 and cabin 25 are the same.
I assumed right. In all honesty there were only a few people there. I knew most of them anyways, so it wasn’t a big deal. The news was a bit of a scare at first though. There was table tennis setup at the lagoon, and when Moh heard I played we had to go see who was better. I truly think the wind made the game useless, and we determined that both sides and all supporters just had to finish his or her beer when the game was called. Moh might argue this though. ;)
Day 280 Wed 01/16/2013
Stuck in a Rut
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| Rude & Moh, Ceci & I at the Irish Pub. Tonight there was a live band playing. Rudy grabbed a guitar and played/sang Part-Time Lover. Ceci later grabbed a mic and sang Supersticion. Awesome show!!!!! |
“Cecilia, my Danish buddy, had come has come back to Airlie Beach to get onto the Anaconda III for work & see Luke. She went on one trip as a volunteer hostee. They are not offering another trip, so she is flying out today. I cleaned my room today &watched How I Met Your Mother & Futurama. I threw away a ton of stuff too. All of my friends are on the Anaconda III. This stinks.”
The boat currently has too many hostees. Ali is training Dayna to take over. Gemma is already fully trained. The only way for Ceci to get on is if Gemma was leaving anytime soon, which I don’t think is the case. Regardless, I think it is a good idea for both of us to leave this place. It was fun, but the fun is taking its toll on us.
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| Rudy & Moh from Germany |
Actually I guess Dayna was off a trip today, because we hung out at Magnum’s near my cabin under the pavilion this afternoon. I showed her how to make a necklace out of a handkerchief. The only handky (is that spelled even close to right) the only hanky I had was a USA American Flag design. Hahaha, and Dayna is Canadian of course. She succeeded in making a great necklace, but decided to turn it into an anklet. Then ultimately figured she didn’t want an American flag on her, so she cut it off with my dive knife. What an ass! Oh well, it occupied some of our time today, since neither one of us had busy schedules for the next few days.
I painted a picnic table today and power washed a bunch of other outside furniture for my free accommodation. Then we grilled out with a Sydney Aussie who was here on vacation. Back at Dayna’s place at Nomad’s we got into some goon. My life is waking up to work for a $30 hostel cabin, go on a bike ride, look on PC for work/flights out, and drink with 3-7 girls daily. I can’t decide if this is Heaven or Hell. I know one thing, I am making zero ground financially and there is no diving involved.
Day 281 Thur 01/17/2013
Cannon Valley
“More maintenance work at Magnum’s. This is good because the worker’s cabin is nice. I rode my bike all the way to Angela’s house, the owner of the dive company on the Anaconda III. I had to finish some paperwork so I could get paid. It was a long ride.
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| Sego & scott |
I packed up all of my gear then met everyone getting off of the boat at Beaches. Ali, Dayna, Tamara, Moh, Rudy, Thomad, Alex, Scottie, Sego, Claire & Justine. Claire & Justine are the two French gals riding south with us tomorrow. Then Natalie, the diver I went on my first Rum Runner trip with in Cairns, joined us at Phoenix. Dayna almost got into a fight tonight with some angry drunk gal.”
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| Working on some of the walkways at the hostel |
Today I woke up and started building walking paths through some of the very remote cabin areas. I would gather rocks from the creek bed into a wheel barrow, stack them appropriately, and then go get mulch to lie down to create the path. This was all fun and games for me until I got into some snake eggs. I was wearing my biking gloves while doing most of this work. The snake eggs were rotten, and they stunk like no other. I had to throw my gloves away. I had two pairs, and these had seen better days. It took many hands washes to get the stink off of my hands as well. Even taking out all of the garbage everyday didn’t create stink this bad. I was one stinky guy, which is pretty normal for me I guess.
I packed my bags for the trip. Thomas and Alex have decided we will leave tomorrow or the next day. Either was fine for me. In order to lighten my load more I left my snorkel I had found on the ocean floor of the Great Barrier Reef, along with a few other choice items, in the back kitchen of the hostel with a sign saying “Please give me a home, I am FREE.” The snorkel was actually a bargain for someone who knew anything about diving. It was a no frills fail safe snorkel. I liked it because I had found it, but there was no need to carry it anymore. I also left my PADI Dive Master laptop bag there. Sad days.
The ride out to Angela’s house was a good one. The boss of the diving company on the A3 lived out in Cannon Valley. I was having trouble getting paid for my tips due to a paperwork issue. The boss had made it very difficult to get the right paperwork filled out. Instead of providing me with the paperwork, I was responsible for getting everything printed myself. This was such bullshit. If you were a fulltime diver on this boat you have one evening per week when you are not working and able to get tasks done inland. For example, the boat leaves on a Tuesday night. Crew are there getting the boat ready around 2PM. This is a 4 day trip. So the boat comes back in Friday morning and leaves again Friday at 7PM. You MIGHT have a few hours inland depending on what broke that trip and how much the owners harp on cleaning the boat. The boat will return to port on Monday morning. Your time off is from Monday morning to Tuesday night. Needless to say I had not found a printer in town and paid half an Aussie Dollar a page for a 20 page bunch of paperwork.
Anyways, I finally did so in order to get paid. Angela was super nice and helped me through all the paperwork.
On the way back into town from Cannon Valley I stopped by the store to buy some frozen meat pies for tonight. Sego & Scott were having me over for to hang out one last time. We heated up the pies and had some beers before going to meet the rest of the gang. Their place is so nice. The view is outstanding, but their driveway is almost impossible for me to pedal up. It is super steep! Their roommate, (For the LIFE of me I cannot remember his name), is a mess. We had gone out for his birthday just a few nights prior. Sego will have to help remind me of his name. He is English I think.
With the left over pie Sego and Scott showed me the eagle that lives near them. Wait, maybe it was a falcon. Well this bird of prey would fly over and Sego could throw the pie up into the air and the bird would catch it and take the food back to the nest. It was quite fun to watch. |
| Dayna cutting off her USA anklet immediately after making it. |
After pies we met all our buddies at Beaches Bar for ciders. It was full on from there out. It was great to see Natalie again. We took her out with us for a bit, but the night got ended short when we had to leave Phoenix due to a possible cat fight. Dayna was ready to bounce this drunk girl who was being a complete ass. It was sooooo funny watching Dayna get serious about something. Stupid tourists thought they could walk in here and act like a fool. Little did they know this bar was the crew bar hangout most of the time. With all the girls working on these boats being here with us this girl would have gotten pummeled.
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| Sego going crazy on a pie |
We go for pies again at the late night Pie Shop. Sego goes nuts for pies after she has been partying. She is a riot! Her French accent saying “Scott (pronounced SCOOT)… SCOOT, I want a pie. Let’s go get pies.” It is never a question. She demands pies when she has had a few beers. Tonight as she is devouring her own pie(s) she leans over and has some of Dayan’s. Then she wants a bite of Scott’s pie. He tells her she has her own. This answer is not taken well. She ends up getting a bite of his. She wants to try every different pie. Scott goes back in for another pie from the Pie Lady. Sego jumps up and says, “I am just going inside to tell the pie lady something.” She has some advice for the pie lady. We all explode with laughter. She is a mess, but boy does she love her pies.
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| Sego & Scott's house - they were always very good hosts |
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| Girls loving some pies |
Day 282 Fri 01/18/2013
Phone & Laptop
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| The iPhone is in trouble |
The screen on my phone is getting worse. It even has a purple otter box on it, but this wasn’t enough to save the screen from continuing to crack. My laptop is also worse for wear. One picture says it all. I leave in the morning to head south with the Austrian brothers and the two French ladies.
It is sad to have to say goodbye to so many new friends. I was here in Airlie for just shy of one month, but I have had many great experiences here along with some hard times. All damages here could have been prevented, but that’s life.
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| Goodbye Airlie Beach, it's been MORE than FUN! |
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