Creepy mustache required

As I was packing up my stuff to leave Byron Bay on November 8, the most common response I received from those who learned about my looming departure was "why?"

The Arts Factory, a hostel and campground in Byron Bay was one of the most unique places I have called home in Australia. Although I was there for only 12 days, I spent most of my time with travelers who were putting down loose roots in Byron for a few months by living in tents on the campground and held jobs in town. It was nice to stay in one place for awhile and consistently have the same people around... even if it was for only just short of 2 weeks. Mimi, you got it just right in your facebook message when you said it appeared that I had found my way to a "hippie commune in the 60s". Except for the addition of computers, the internet, a reception desk and the election of Obama; I felt like this was exactly where I'd found myself. And I loved every second of it.

The Arts Factory may be most well known as the hostel where you can sleep in a teepee. In addition to the campground, and dorms there is a large teepee with 10 beds, a bus converted into rooms, cabins, and The Pentagon. I was a resident of The Pentagon, which was a 5 sided tent with wood floors, electricity, and 4 sets of bunk beds. But of course I couldn't help but smirk every time I was asked where I lived and had to respond, "The Pentagon."


Bus rooms


Teepee

If I had time to stay much longer in Byron I would have looked into getting a tent and staying on the campground. This campground is not the type with defined lots where everyone gets equal amounts of space and plenty of room between themselves and their neighbors. It is more like a squatter’s village or refugee camp. Tents are sometimes only a foot or so from one another. There are tarps strung from trees to shade the tents, clotheslines hung all over and bushturkeys running about stealing anything they can carry. Many people stay long enough that it is worthwhile for them to put furniture (mattresses, tables, bamboo rugs, milk crates to use as dressers, etc.) inside their tents. Most of these items are purchased or adopted from former campground residents. Let's just say I was a bit jealous that I didn't have enough time to try out this lifestyle for myself.


Campground


Cooking in the kitchen at the Arts Factory


I remetup (is that a word?) with Dan from NJ who I'd met a month earlier in 1770 and since he'd been at the arts factory for a few weeks already, he'd already gotten to know the other long termers on the campground and brought me along to bonfires on the beach and at the quarry, a Halloween party at an actual house (!), Sunday nights when the fat lady sings at the Beach Hotel, bacon cheese hamburger night with the boys, rainy afternoon movie time on the porch of Ben's tent, the 24 hour (meat) pie shop, the drum circle and whatever other craziness was going on.


Bonfire at the quarry

One afternoon I'd joined a group of people having a barbeque on a beach that required crossing from one beach to another by scrambling around the bottom of a rocky cliff over the rocks as the surf washed in and out on the low parts. We hung out there for a few afternoon hours and I FINALLY saw the ocean life that people were always pointing out but I could never spot. Three dolphins, about 50 meters from shore were swimming and jumping out of the waves. It should have been a postcard.

Byron is one of the best places in Australia to learn to surf. And so when I arrived in Byron it was time to put the money that Rachel, Greg, Linar and Mike gave me for my birthday towards surfing lessons. It was raining on the morning of the first day of the lessons but the waves were very calm -- so good for beginner surfers that our instructor said that if we couldn't stand up today we should just give up on ever being able to do it. I stood up for every wave except one. I could have used some extra instruction on how to dismount without making a fool of myself though. We were surfing quite close to shore and frequently I was still standing on the board as it road up into about 6 inches of water on the beach -- and I usually flopped off the board onto my hip or butt (or my face) like a dying fish. On the second day the weather was awesome and the waves were a bit bigger but now we were responsible for figuring out when to paddle and stand up on our own so it was a bit more difficult. I had the next day off which was really lucky because it ended up pouring all day. The following day, the weather was nice again but the rain from the day before was the result of a storm out on the pacific which meant the waves continued to be large from the storm and the tide quite strong with the water washing back to the ocean at about an 80 degree angle with the beach. The ocean battered me again and again both on my way in and on my way out. I did stand up a few times... but still couldn't figure out how to get off the board gracefully.

I was in Byron for Halloween. Apparently Canadians do Halloween like we do, but no one else does. Australians don't do decorations, pumpkins or trick r treating. It seems that their only recognition of Halloween is the occasional costume party. Which means that when about 30 of us (mostly American and Canadian) walked through town in costume on our way to a party we attracted enough attention to qualify us as a parade.

The end of Halloween was not the end of the excitement for the weekend. November 1st marked the 1st day of Movember, and there were many razor anxious guys around Byron ready to participate. Movember is an Australian and New Zealand fundraising event where guys sport ridiculous and usually creepy mustaches during the month of November. They ask their family and friends to sponsor their facial hair to raise money and awareness for prostate cancer and men's mental health. Since living in a tent with very little belongings often also means shaving is optional, there were probably more guys who removed facial hair to leave a mustache behind than those that had to start growing from scratch. There were way too many excited participants at the Arts Factory. So if my pictures appear to be full of creepy looking mustache clad characters, you now know why.

A few days after all the mustache excitement began was the day we'd ALL been waiting for... American election day. Since New South Wales is currently 16 hours ahead of EST, when the poles started to close at 7pm EST on the 4th, it was already 11am on the 5th in NSW. Sooo, election day monitoring for us happened on the 5th. This day happened to be quite rainy, which meant that rather than being on the beaches, or playing guitars on the campground or wandering about town, many people were seeking shelter on the kitchen balcony and covered area below the kitchen. Danny, from England, set up his laptop in this area and was consistently monitoring the BBC website. Grant, from Virginia, initiated the phrase, "Happy Obama Day", early that morning way before any polls had closed. Dan, from NJ, brought the celebratory beers. Claire from Canada, downloaded the acceptance speech from youtube on her laptop and a crowd of us "huddled around 'a radio' in a forgotten corner of the world" to watch. And unnamed people participated in another celebration titled "Bongs for Obama."

Throughout the remainder of the day we Americans received congratulations from Australians, English, Canadians, Israelis, Germans, and quite possibly much more. Liz from PA remarked that she was relieved because this meant that maybe she would be ok with going home again someday. Claire from Canada commented that this was a good day for Canada too because "the last 8 years for Canada has been like having a retarded siamese twin."

A few days before the election I was at a bar and an Australian woman must have heard Dan and I talking and came over and asked if we were American. She then followed this up with a phrase that was a first for my time in Australia. "I like Americans." I'm pretty sure we both looked at her with dropped jaws. Haha just kidding. I said, "Really? That's not something we hear often." She said something along the lines of, "Americans are loud. And they can be loud and annoying. Australians are loud and annoying too. But Americans have conviction. They get things done. So I like Americans." That reminded me of what the Italian girl Gulia said way back in Cairns when a bunch of us were discussing the meteorite that is predicted to come dangerously close to earth in something like 2020. She said, "I'm not worried about it. The Americans will do something." So maybe some of the world does believe there is a hope and a use for us yet. :)

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"So this is why they call it the bush" Continued

After returning to Brisbane from Cannondale I joined our team leader, Cameron at his friend Amanda's apartment for some beers. That's the second real living dwelling that I've been to in this country. We sat on her balcony (which they call a veranda) and she had a beautiful view of the city. Apparently both Cameron and Amanda normally don't care for Americans... ok I think they might have used the word "hate" but that's kinda harsh so I'm pretending they didn't say that.

But I passed the acceptable test and of course we had to discuss the reasons why this is the case. I think it all pretty much comes down to an ignorant self-centered cockiness that has been their past experience with Americans. Amanda was extremely well-educated about American politics. She said she thinks our candidate choices are really sucky and she doesn't think either one is a good pick. But I asked her if she could think of someone who would be a good option and she didn't have an answer for this. However, she did comment that my reason for voting for Obama is the best argument for either candidate that she has heard anywhere. (I think that was the moment I passed the American test.)

On Saturday morning I joined a tour group to go to Morton Island for 2 days and 1 night. Morton Island is another sand island, just not as large as Fraser Island. This adventure included snorkeling among ship wrecks, sand tobogganing in the desert, visiting a fresh water lake, a lighthouse and another beach with rips strong enough that it was not advisable to enter the water even just up to your knees. Unexpected adventures included: breaking down in the 4-wheel-drive truck on the inland sand track, witnessing a bird/duck creature pluck a fish out of the water that was twice the width of the bird’s neck and swallow it whole, rain, and my first Australian campfire.

Saturday night’s sunset from the western beach might have been the most beautiful sunset I have seen in this country yet... and I've seen a lot a sunsets.

On Sunday night we returned to Brisbane. Technically I was no longer supposed to be staying at the CVA house in Brisbane. But since I only took one small bag to Morton, I had to go back to the house to get the rest of my stuff. And the house sleeps 20 people and I knew there was only 1 person scheduled to be there on Sunday night. Annnd since I knew the door code, it seemed a waste to not just sleep there for one more night. So I went back to Albion and crept quietly around that creepy old house. Luckily the one other person staying there, who I hadn't met before, wasn't frightened by my presence and I got a free place to stay for the night. I packed up early on Monday and crept out without anyone from the office noticing.

I took an 8:15am train from the house to the main station in the city where to get the Greyhound bus to Byron Bay. The train was full of people going to work -- in offices! I had tuned that part of life out of my head for so long that I'd kinda forgotten that not all people in Australia are environmental team leaders or tour guides who don't wear shoes. But even so, sitting in a coffee shop in a train station in Brisbane and watching people go to work, I noticed that they looked so much more relaxed, so much less frantic, and so much less crowded than people in New York.

I spent 4 weekends in Brisbane and initially I wasn't so impressed. But by the end it had begun to grown on me. It reminds me of Denver…except with palm trees and purple trees and a beach not so far away and people who conclude every paragraph with "no worries".

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"So this is why they call it the bush."

Picking back up on my earlier comment that I spent 4 weekends in Brisbane, when I left Mooloolaba my destination was to return to Brisbane. I was scheduled to arrive at the Brisbane CVA office in South Bank around noon. I successfully navigated the bus to the train into the city but then ended up walking entirely around the outside of the train station (with all my stuff) looking for the bus to south bank before figuring out that I could have just stayed on the train one more stop to get to my destination. I purchased another train ticket, boarded the train, encountered an Australian guy who said, "You're crazy for trying to walk around this city with all that", exited the train, walked about 400 meters uphill in the wrong direction, turned around and reoriented myself and walked about 600 or 700 meters to the correct location of the office. Then I wanted a nap. But at least now I know that I can walk a kilometer with all my stuff.

Brisbane CVA differs from other CVAs in that they have a house just outside the city that can house 20 volunteers on the weekend but during the week they send all volunteers to assignments outside of Brisbane.

The CVA house in the city looked like the kind of place a horror movie could be filmed in. The architecture was old, the rooms were in a maze like pattern and the front door which had no porch light was mysteriously open all the time. Haha... no, that's just how people do it in Australia, doors spend most of their time open.


Sign in the bathroom. There was also a 4 minute sand timer hanging in the shower.

The other spooky thing about the Brisbane house was that it had 3 other Americans in it! There were only a total of 7 of us staying at the house that first weekend I arrived. Corey, 22 and from PA; Pat, 18 and from Buffalo; Will, 20 and from NJ; Maxine, 21 and from England (I volunteered for one week with her in Cairns as well); Anita, 19 and from Germany; Stefan, 19 and from Germany; John, 23 and from Korea. Everyone was there on their own. Corey had just graduated from Pratt and was spending 2 months in Australia before getting a job; Pat had just graduated high school in June and although he was super smart he didn't get into any schools that he really wanted to go to and so decided to take a year off to volunteer and travel as well as fill out applications to reapply to college; Will was attending Lehigh but would have been required to declare a major this semester and since he was unsure between engineering and something that would lead to law school, he was taking a semester off to figure it out; Anita and Stefan had both just finished high school in Germany where it is normal to go to high school until 19 if you are tracking yourself for Uni as well as common to take a year or 2 off to work or travel before actually going to Uni). Anita wants to go to Uni for marine biology but would prefer not to go to a German Uni since they have no ocean or "sea" as she says. She's in Australia for a year or two trying to figure out if it will be financially possible for her to go to Uni here. Stefan is completing 13 weeks of volunteer work with CVA in various places all over Australia before he will go back to Germany to fill his public service requirements. In Germany there is a lottery that everyone gets put into for public service at age 19 or 20 and if your name gets called you are required to spend a year in the army or as a firefighter or paramedic. Stefan is doing his voluntarily because he will get free training as a firefighter and paramedic and if he likes it enough, then after a year he can start getting paid to continue doing that work. John is in Australia working and traveling before going back to Korea to finish his degree in tourism, at which point his family would look down on a decision to travel because he would be expected to put his degree to work. Maxine, who I first met in Cairns in early September, will be completing 12 weeks with CVA over 4.5 months. She just finished a degree in dance and creative writing and is in Australia to travel before she has to look for a job at home.

Maxine and I went out that first Friday night and met up with 5 Irish girls I'd met on the Whitsundays and 3 Irish girls she'd met on the Whitsundays. The first bar we went to was filled with Australians who'd come straight from work all dressed in their work clothes. It was strange but they seemed so foreign to me that it was almost like I forgot that I'd ever actually been part of that professional working world. It was a bit weird and awkward as so we eventually peaced out for the comforts of... what else but an Irish pub.

And it was here that I met Canadian Chris who surfs in Canada. I didn't know that was physically possible. But apparently with a good wet suit and a whole lot of conviction, one can surf in Vancouver. He's out in Australia for a year enjoying the warm water. He'd just spent a number of months traveling from Cairns to Brisbane and living in his van. He was in Brisbane for about 2 weeks hanging out with people he'd met along the way through couchsurfers.com. (I’m not going to explain it. If you are curious check it out.) He’d also come to Brisbane to sell his van before flying down to Melbourne to spend another 3 months surfing there before the end of his visa would send him home. Over the course of our conversation he revealed that he did not usually like Americans but that he did pay more attention to our politics than to Canada's. When at the end of the night we exchanged Australian phone numbers he commented that he could not believe he wanted the phone number of an American. I guess now I know what it is like to be the stereotyped minority. Except unlike minorities whose culture is evident on their faces, no one knows my identity until I open my mouth and share it.

So back to that CVA business. On Monday my team consisted of myself, Maxine, Will, Pat and another Korean guy named Kim who joined us that morning. Our teamleader was Fab. And our assignment for the week was Happy Valley on Fraser Island! The trip would take us 4 hours back up the highway along the coast and 2 hours on the beach "highway" on the island. We were making this trip in a 4wd "troopie" as this group called it -- which meant sideways bench seats and occasionally flying off the seat resulting in the addition of a few new bruises to the collection on my legs as well as a bump on the head.



Our accommodation on the island was another one of these Australian structures that is caught somewhere in between of being inside and outside. The bedrooms had 4 walls but like any campground type structure were inhabited by spiders in every crevice. The kitchen and bathroom could be described the same way but the common area had 2 walls that were really just screens overlayed with a metal grate. This kept most bugs out but not wind, rain or temperature. The floor was like a wooden deck raised a few feet above the ground. There was about a half inch between each board and so when we swept you never needed a dust pan because you just swept all the crumbs, dirt and sand into the cracks and down onto the ground. There was real furniture (ie not outdoor or waterproof furniture) in the common area and a tv with dvd player so it was a bit disorienting as to whether you should think of yourself as indoors or outdoors. This was highlighted on Wednesday night when we experience a torential downpour while we watched a dvd in the dark. We had to turn the volume up because the rain was so loud -- and because there was no wall between us and it. (For those who were wondering, the movie was either Predator, Alien, Alien vs. Predator, Wagons East, Blood Diamonds, or a Kiwi film called Eagle vs Shark. We watched them all that week. Oh yeah and Kiwi means a person or thing from New Zealand.)


Dingo






Our work on Fraser was just weeding. We sat on the ground and pulled out crows foot on the campground in the mornings when the tide was too high for us to drive from our accommidation in Dundaburra to Happy Valley. And in the afternoons we went to Happy Valley and pushed through the bush looking for Easter Cassia, which we pulled out of the ground and hung upside down from the trees so that it didn't reroot itself. Easter cassia is fairly easy to pull out but finding it, which meant plowing through branches and brush and vines and the insects that inhabit them was not my favorite. But we did occasionally push through to the top of some hill and could see out to the ocean that was perpetually in earshot and the sight was another one to make you stop in your tracks -- well either that or a sharp wait-awhile vine that snagged you around the shin.


Anita, me and Stephen

On Friday we headed back to Brisbane and went out for a few drinks at a very typical backpacker bar called Down Under. And on Saturday Maxine, Anita, Will, Stefan and I took a two hour train and bus ride to Surfers Paradise to spend the day. Contrary to the name, Surfers is not really the most ideal place to find good surfing waves. It is however, a great place for nightlife. Unlike all other Australian beaches I have seen, the beaches in Surfers are lined with tall buildings and feels kind of like what I'd imagine Miami would be like. Maxine commented this beach reminded her of European beaches.

My favorite part of Surfers was the talking bathrooms. Just off the beach was a series of individual toilet units that on the outside were reminiscent of a porta potty. But once you got inside, this was no temporary nasty toilet. When you closed the door, the bathroom spoke to you to inform you that you had 10 minutes to use the toilet and that you should lock the door. Then "All You Need is Love" began to play. There was no button to flush the toilet but the toilet would flush automatically when you turned on the water to wash your hands (I was also in another one where the door unlocked when you washed your hands). It was like using the bathroom on Star Ship 9.

The following Monday, Will, Pat, Corey and Stefan had all left for their next destinations and my new team consisted of myself, Maxine, John and another Korean guy named Martin. Our teamleader was Cameron and our location was Kennelworth in the Cannondale Mountains about 2 hours outside of Brisbane. Our task was more weeding -- but this time the foreign plant of choice was Lantana.

Each day began with a 3 km hike out into the woods -- but this time with the luxury of a trail -- to meet one of the (power) rangers. Lantana is a plant that was brought here from Europe by the english to create hedges. It grows all twisted and entwined in itself and generally grows about 6 or 7 feet tall, although if it latches onto a tree it may creep even taller. The roots come out of th ground fairly easily but getting yourself in close enough to them to get a good grasp is a bit tricky. Also it's branches are stiff like sticks, not flexible like a flower stem, and so when they do come out they are pointing 7 feet in every direction and sometimes a power ranger might pull one out and stab an innocent American girl in the eye. But no worries, my contact saved the day -- even though it subsequently fell out into the dirt. But I'm like a master bushwalker and managed to find a way to clean it and pop that sucker back in.

Of all the places I had been so far the Cannondale Mountains poised to biggest threat in terms of deadly Australian nature. Several species of poisonous snakes were known to live in those woods; including the brown snake. A trapdoor spider joined us for smoko one day, but the funnelwebs stayed away. There are leeches, jumping ants, plenty of breeds of ticks and stinging trees inhabiting these woods too. I'd always thought that you only find leeches in the water but I was wrong, they live on ground too. Our teamleader, Cameron, had 3 leeches on him in one day. Jumping ants literally jump to about knee (or in my case, hip) height and they bite. Based on the Martin's expression after falling victim to a jumping ant, I deduce that it is as painful as the Australian’s claim. But this pain subsides -- kind of like a bee sting. The stinging tree on the other hand keeps you in pain for weeks/months. These woods were home to GIANT stinging trees, which means that they are about as tall as a 6-8 story building and they have leaves about the size of your hand (not my hand -- your hand) that are covered in silia containing a poison. The silia just need to brush your skin to become embedded and when this happens they will continue to sting until they come out. And it usually takes a long time for them to get out. They are too tiny to pull out with tweezers, although sometimes a bit of tape will do the trick. Temperature changes aggravate the exposed area even more, so showers -- both hot and cold -- are extremely uncomfortable. But you must be thinking, “ if the leaves of a giant stinging are located 6 stories up into the air they can't be much danger to people, right?” No, no, you silly American; these leaves fall to the ground and their silia continue to be capable of stinging you for 100 years after they fall. That's right, dead leaves that want to hurt you are hanging out all over the ground, crumbling up and disgusing themselves as innocent rubbish. What kind of place is this where even the leaves are out to get you?

Then there is the ominous bush turkey; who won't bite but will steal your lunch. I may have mentioned bush turkeys before. They are black, about two feet long, have a red face and a yellow hangy neck. They creep around looking for things to steal and bring them back to the mound that they build out of leaves and sticks and flipflops (or thongs or pluggers or whatever you'd like to call them). They make a noise that sounds like "HHMMMMMM". They can't really fly but they do jump and manage to get up into trees, especially ones that have plastic bags containing ham sandwiches tied to them, but their balance isn't so hot so occasionally they fall out of the trees. Their thievery doesn't end with food products as we discovered when Martin informed Cameron "Turkey steal you cigarette." And sure enough, a bush turkey had run off with the whole box.


Bush turkey


Refilling my waterbottle in a creek. Tasted and looked like perfect bottled water.

Pulling out lantana is not so much fun so we managed to entertain ourselves with a hike up a dry creek bed one day, a hike along the edge of a wet creek another day, and a hike to a waterhole with a waterfall to go for a swim on a third day. Only Cameron, Maxine and I went out to the waterhole, and we arrived to find that we had it completely to ourselves, which Maxine commented would be impossible to find in England.

When we wrapped up in Kennelworth, on Friday, we headed back into Brisbane. After checking on facebook and my Morton Island plans for the weekend I joined Cameron and his friend Amanda at Amanda's apartment in Fortitude Valley. It was great to chat with a few Australians on a level that wasn't restricted by their tourguide or teamleader status…

OK I am tired and so this post will have to be continued at a later date.

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