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.
See more pictures at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37703&l=84251&id=802088251
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=37701&l=74cc5&id=802088251
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