Do you have the kitchen sink in there?

There is a sign along the side of the highway as you enter Brisbane (pronounced briz bin) that says "Brisbane - Australia's most livable city." Who was in charge of writing taglines that day? Debbie Downer?

For the last 4 weekends I have arrived in Brisbane on Friday or Saturday and left on Monday. Brisbane is the largest city outside of Melbourne that I have been to in Australia so far. Cairns was a "city" but the downtown (or CBD as they call it) is small and exists pretty much only for tourists. And everything outside of Cairns CBD is really just a large suburb. So arriving in Brisbane for the first time on Saturday October 4, I was greeted with familiar city sounds and sites for the first time in over 2 months. Brisbane is still pretty small as cities go but it has experienced a great deal of growth over the last 10-15 years.

When I arrived in Brisbane on the 4th I was traveling with Jess and Alex, the 22 year old English girls that I originally met in 1770 and had traveled to Fraser Island with. After parting ways with the rest of our Fraser Island group, Jess, Alex and I went to Noosa for one night and then continued on to the Australia Zoo near Gimpy (yes, there is a town called Gimpy). We brought all our luggage with us to the zoo and locked it up in lockers for the day.

Australia Zoo, is the "Home of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter." This is where many of Irwin's crocs live as well as plenty of animals with pockets and spikes, and venom, and crazy wacko names. There were of course plenty of kangaroos, wallabies, koalas and lizards. There were cassowaries and dingoes, emus and wombats, tasmanian devils and every one of the 10 most poisonous snakes. There were non native species like camels, otters, elephants and american alligators (probably just for the sake of comparison to the ginormous salties). We went to see the croc show at the Crocoseum where in addition to hand feeding the crocodiles chunks of meet, they also released all kinds of colorful and huge tropical Australian birds. There is no roof on the Crocoseum so the birds really could have just flown away. But they circled in and out and around and all came back to their trainers. I used the $41 from the 50/50 the New York Caresers held on behalf of my trip went to pay for my ticket to visit the home of these crazy marsupials. Thanks guys! I heart animals with pockets!




I didn't technically need to be in Brisbane for another week but I decided that it would be more fun to go to the zoo with Jess and Alex and spend the weekend with them in the city than to venture on my own again. Plus, the Canadian and English guys from our Fraser Island trip were living in Brisbane for another 2 weeks and we'd made plans to go out with them on Sunday. Turns out we were super tired by the time we arrived on Saturday and just spent the evening uploading pictures and checking email. The boys had been at a music festival for the day and when they called around 10 to see if we would want to come out, we sillily passed on the offer to save our energy for the following day. What we should have foreseen was that the boys would been in worse shape on Sunday and would therefore back out on those plans. Boys! But the 3 of us made it out to the Normanby Hotel (an old hotel turned into a bar) anyway and had a good time.

I parted ways with Jess and Alex on Monday morning. They were continuing further south and I headed back north a bit to a town called Mooloolaba (pronounced MOO lu la ba). Since I was backtracking I couldn't use my Cairns to Sydney Greyhound pass or I would run out of kilometers about 100k short of Sydney and they'd have to chuck me off the bus into the bush.

So instead I took regular Brisbane area public transportation. This involved taking the train to a bus. Brisbane's transportation system is pretty good. And it's very new, easy to use, clean and not crowded. As I boarded the bus to the hostel with all my gear, a woman who I believe was in her late 70s asked me, "do you have the kitchen sink in there?" I chatted with this woman for the bus ride and it turned out that she was born in England but had been living in Oz since she was about 10. She has some grandchildren who are now back living in England (Who knows why!) To keep in touch with them she has a small device about the size of my fold up keyboard when it is open (like 10 inches by 4 inches) and she can type out emails and send them via cell service... just like me. I showed her my phone and keyboard. Funny that the only person I've encountered in my travels who is able to send emails remotely like myself is a woman in her 70s. Love it.

Mooloolaba is a bit off the normal backpacker track. There is only one hostel and many of the people there were in town to find work as strawberry pickers. They get picked up at like 6:30 am and pick until about noon, but after that it is too hot so they send everyone home. They get paid by the amount that they pick and average is about $50 in a 5 hour day. For those who are thinking that this is strange that travelers are working as strawberry pickers, here is the deal. Australia does not directly border any country... especially any developing country with people who are willing to do manual labor for very little pay. Therefore, there is a constant shortage of people to work in agriculture jobs. The solution is that jobs that in America would frequently be filled by Mexicans and Central Americans, in Australia are filled by European, Asian and American travelers in their 20s. These people are often college educated and come from middle class backgrounds but are desperate for some quick cash without commitment in order to fund their journeys. You must have a working holiday visa in order to do this work (that is the visa I have) but other than that you can usually show up in Mooloolaba, or Bundaberg or Bowen or any of the many other base locations for agri work and make arrangements to start picking capsicums, or mangos, or pineapples, within a day or so and quit whenever the trauma of the heat, the thorns and the repetition conquers your psyche. As an added incentive, any traveler who does 3 months of agricultural work can get an extension on their visa to stay for a 2nd year.

I stayed in Mooloolaba from Monday through Thursday nights. It was a pretty quiet week. I didn't make much of an effort to make friends because I was really hoping for some time to myself to read on the beach and wander around and keep things inexpensive. However I did have one adventure that week -- in the mall. On Thursday it was cloudy and cool so I decided to go to the mall so that I could see a movie, buy a new shirt or two (clothes get worn out quickly when you wear the same things several times a week), and find a new book to read.

Well it turns out that in Australia I look like a criminal. I was taking my sweet time in a H&M type store called Supre. I was debating a lot because when you have to carry everything you own on your back, and you aren't earning any money, you don't want to make any rash purchasing decisions. Anyway, the store employees didn't seem to think that my slow method of shopping was as innocent as I did, and they suspected me of shopping lifting. They told mall security that they thought I might have put clothes on under my clothes in the dressing room. Fair enough, considering my speed and the number of times I went in there... but if they had used their brains it would have only taken one glance at me to realize the absurdity of this since I was wearing a WHITE TANK TOP... the kind where the only thing I could hide behind it would be a neutral colored bra. Or maybe a pair of stockings. And since this store didn't carry either of those items, there wasn't anything I could have gotten in there that wouldn't be just as obvious as writing thief on my face. But even so, the mall security guy took me to his little booth and made me empty out my bags. Amongst my wallet and cell phone and sunglasses was my white sweatshirt, which thankfully has permanent dirt stains on the sleeves, my plastic box with my sandwich for lunch and my water bottle. Maybe these items weren't helping my case since they made it look like I was a bum in need of a day of shoplifting. But after pointing out the white-tank-top aspect of the ridiculousness of this scenario to Mr. Mall Security Guard, he agreed that I was just a traveler with whole lot of time on my hands and sent me on my way strip-search free.

And that was the end of my time in Mooloolaba.

Leaving Australia zoo.


Can someone tell me what this sign means?

Everybody eats.

I just ate a cup of fruit pulp. Sounds pretty gross but it is really just frozen pieces of fruit put into this machine that churns it up real fast and pumps it out looking like icecream. It was quite good but some hot fudge, or even Nutella would have made it better.

I bet you don't even know what Nutella is. It is a brand name for hazelnut spread...like peanut butter but made from hazelnuts instead of peanuts. It is dark brown and so it looks like chocolate and also manages to taste like chocolate. It is as common around here as a topping for toast as butter. Another common toast topper is vegemite. Don't know about that one either? In england it is known as marmite. Oh wait, you wouldn't know it by that name either. Vegemite is a vegetable extract turned into a paste. It looks the same as hazelnut spread but tastes VERY different. I have not actually tried vegemite out here since I had a lovely introduction to it during the New York Cares Staff Day blind fold taste test in July 2007 which was rigged to favor the english staff members (How can you guess a food you've never tasted or even heard of, escpecially while gagging? Haha, just kidding, Mel!)


Anyway, it seems people either hate or love vegemite. But enough people despise it that the crew of Spank Me used it as a punishment for breaking the rules of the boat. Any plastic bags, papers, beer cans, cigarettes, clothing, etc blows or slides overboard, becoming a death trap for turtles and dolphins and you receive a vegemite fine -- a spoonful of vegemite to be eaten by itself. Stand on the stairs and block traffic -- vegemite fine. Put on Jack Johnson or U2-- vegemite fine. Knock over the skipper's coffee -- vegemite fine. Wave to your friends while snorkeling using the universal distress signal -- vegemite fine and a very angry wet crew. Anyway, those few that do enjoy the vegemite claim it is best on toast with butter. I've also seen it with eaten with butter AND melted cheese.

Speaking of butter or margarine, it has recently come to my attention that the whole world puts margarine on their sandwiches except for maybe me. Am I crazy? No one in NJ does this, right? NY? The whole east coast? Have I forgotten? The aussies do it, the europeans (all kinds) do it, even the canadians do it. If you purchase a sandwich it will have butter. I don't get it. Aren't there enough other flavors on your sandwich that you don't need butter too? On the last day of our fraser island trip we had no more margarine left. I said, "No more butter, now you all have to eat your sandwiches like americans!"

The grocery stores here are like scaled down versions of our. Makes you realize really how much excess we have. In Australia you can find anything you might want. You just might not find it in every single store, or in 17 different varieties. Unless we are talking about kitkats... they have tons of different kinds of kitkats. There is a cookies and cream kitkat that is amazing. Cookies are called biscuits, unless they are chocolate chip, in which case they are cookies. There is a "biscuit" here called a Tim Tam. It is sort of a square chocolate covered waffer with an oreo like cream on the inside. Other than Tim Tams I have been too impressed with the cookie selection. There are a lot of plain type cookies that are type people like to dip in tea. They do "tea" here, like england.

I still can't believe how many people have watched me make a sandwich and put jelly on top of my peanutbutter and say, "Peanut butter AND jam!? That's weird." I had no idea PBJ was really so american. I mean I knew it was a quintessental American food but I would have thought the idea would be so simple that it would easily spread. It's even more of a shocker to see how many people think that the combination is gross. I mean I'm sure they have sung about "peanutbutter jelly time"...

The fries here are called chips and the chips are called crisps, unless the fries are the big fat kind, then they are called wedges or if they come from McDonalds then they are called fries. There is a sandwich at McDonalds right now that comes with avocado. I got a breakfast wrap with avocado. Are they adding avocado at home too or is this just because the avocados here are abundant and perfect? There is also a limited edition sandwich called the McAustralia. In case you can't make it out in the picture, the description says, "Traditional damper bun, 100% Aussie beef, premium bacon, juicy pineapple, and bbq sauce."

Oh but back to those chips fries crisps. They have meat flavored potato chips. I mean bbq flavored is one thing. But there are chicken crisps, and roast beef crisps and steak crisps. Apparently these are also common in Europe. Do we have this and I just not noticed? I was quite amused to discover this snack.


There is one ingenious item that has been a regular in my diet. They make small single serving cans of tuna in a flavored sauce. These are awesome for a traveler because it means you can make a sandwich out of just the loaf of bread and the can of tuna (both of which travel and store well) without needing an mayonnaise or anything else to flavor the sandwich. You can also make a salad and add a can of tomato basil tuna and you won't need to buy any salad dressing because the sauce with the tuna is enough for the whole salad. This is also crucial since you can buy a single serviing of salad dressing and since the remaining bottle would have to be refrigerated, which is not an option on long bus rides and days when your bag is locked up in a locker at the zoo.



-Bell peppers are called capsicums.
-Bagels are almost non existant.
-The closest thing to a tostito is a plain dorito.
-Pizzas only come in small sizes, ie personal pizzas or dominos type pizzas. I have yet to see a large slice of pizza.
-Peanut butter is not as good.
-Granola bars suck.
-Organic is hard to find. (I miss kashi)
-All the produce is perfect and delicious (maybe this is just compared to JC).
-Ground beef is called mince.
-Dishes referred to as curry are quite common and are not what I would think of as curry expect that they are spicy.
-The bloomin onion was invented by Outback and exists only at Outback.
-Ketchup is often called sauce.
-Salad dressing is often called sauce.
-Cheddar cheese is sometimes called tasty cheese and sometimes called cheddar cheese and i've yet to figure out the difference.
-People will put cheddar cheese on their spaghetti dishes.
-There is no "american" cheese.
-The english love their beans on toast and spaghetti on toast, and although that idea is quite foreign in the US, you can find it on menus in Australia... along with plenty of fish and chips.
-I haven't yet been able to find any black beans... just baked beans, red kidney beans, and chickpeas.
-Raisins are called sultanas.
-I think coronas taste different, but there is no reason why, since they are all bottled in Mexico.
-There is no hershey chocolate. But there are many varieties of Cadbury and kitkats, and anything made by mars.


- Burger King is Hungry Jacks.
- Pretzels are not easy to find.

I've given up taking the nutritional value of foods into account when making my purchases. I consider the price, I consider the protein to carbohydrate ratio in my meal, I consider the potential leftovers and if I can hold on to them until my next meal; but if I turn the package over, the nutritional information means nothing. This is because most items don't list calories, they list energy using kilajewels (kj) I believe. I have no scale on which to judge this measurement. And everything seems to have more fat than I am used to seeing on the package. At first I thought the unit was different for this as well but then I remember we also measure our fat and protein in grams. It probably always seems higher because there are not so many low fat and lite varieties for food here.

I have heard that Australia recently passed the US for the fattest nation. And yet people keep asking me"is everyone in America fat?" Dude, are you looking at me? If EVERYONE was fat, and I walked around looking like this, don't you think I'd be reduced to a pancake by now? And so I carefully explain that Australia actually now has a higher percentage and so if they walk around on the street in Australia they can assume to see a similar sort of ratio of fat to thin in America.

Speaking of pancakes... Australians love their pancakes. I even saw a pancakes stand in the food court at the mall in Maroochydor. But they seem to like them with things like lemon and peanut butter and jam on top. Not with syrup. Or maybe syrup is just to expensive to be included in a free backpacker pancake breakfast.

I probably average about $13 a day on food. Many hostels have free breakfast -- which is really just toast. But when it is available I always eat it. Some hostels also have a $5 meal each evening (one option only) available for about 1 hour. Common $5 meals would be barbeque (sausages, onions and potatos), pasta, pizza, chicken snitzel, or burritos. I have one square plastic box that I frequently carry around with a sandwich in it for lunch -- that is whenever I have access to ingredients for making a sandwich. However, my major weakness to keeping the food budget in check is icecream. Gelato, frozen yogurt, sundaes and even fruit pulp that looks like icecream is everywhere, and I just can't resist.

Sand in places you didn't know existed

Today is the 8 week anniversary of my arrival in Australia. It will be another 9 weeks until I arrive in Melbourne to settle for a bit.

In the last week I have been involved in several conversations about how all of us travelers are perhaps the luckiest people on earth. And how we don't understand why more people, specifically Americans, don't take advantage of life, youth, freedom and their two legs and get the hell out to here or there or anywhere.

The night I was leaving 1770, I was sitting outside, writing the previous post, at the best hostel I have been to yet (Cool Bananas) and I met Dan and Tim, from New Jersey! Eight hours, a few beers, and a dinner of bangers and mash later we were still sitting at the same table discussing our journey's -- where we'd been, why we decided to come to Australia, and how it all compares to our home state. We discovered that we have a mutual friend -- a guy I knew in college and they knew from their hometown. It was such a relief to speak to people who knew, amongst other things, what I meant when I used the acronym TCNJ. But they were getting on a 2am bus to Noosa at the end of those 8 hours and so it was time for another round of goodbyes.

I moved on to Rainbow Beach the next day with Jess and Alex (both from England), and Andrea (from Switzerland) who I'd met at Cool Bananas. We were all going to Rainbow Beach to travel out to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. Fraser Island also has a very unique eco system in that it is virtually the only place that rainforest grows in sand. Minus a few paved parking areas inside fancy resorts, there are no paved roads on the island. The island is only accessible via ferry -- the kind that carries vehicles. Your vehicle must also be 4WD since you will travel the length of the island by driving on the beach. For a package price, a hostel called Dingos in Rainbow Beach arranges for rentals of 4x4s, sets you up in groups of about 10-11, provides tents and other camping equipment, purchases food for 3 days and 2 nights, and gives you a map and some tips. The tips include: how to drive on sand, how to avoid being one of the 300 vehicles that get swept away into the sea each year, how to finding places to camp, and how to avoiding getting eaten by dingos.

Jess, Alex, Andrea and I decided to stay together as a group and quick grabbed a group of 4 guys -- Tim and Josh from England, and Ford and Skylar from Canada -- to join us. We were later assigned 3 more girls; Yolanda from Holland, Anne from Denmark and Barbara from Switzerland. Amongst our group we had 2 nurses, a paramedic/firefighter, a mechanic, and even two lawyers. In the case of any emergency, we'd be covered.



4 trucks left from Dingos Tuesday morning with 10-11 people in each. I think my favorite part of the trip was just driving around in the truck on the sand "highway". Since it was high tide we had to take an inland path on the southern part of the island the first day. This was also made of sand but went through the jungle rather than along the beach.


The first afternoon we stopped at Lake Mackenzie -- a freshwater lake with water clear enough to see through to the bottom in many places. By 2:30 we headed out to drive an hour up the island to a shipwreck in the area where we'd been advised to look for camping. All 4 trucks met -- although our team -- the A team -- arrived first and choose the spot... all others followed. This was to be a theme for the trip. The A-team was pretty much always first, fastest, and most efficient.



Before the sun had set, 16 tents had been set up, trucks and tarps were in place to block the wind off the ocean, steaks and potato salad had been cooked and eaten, the beer and goon had been opened and our 43 person beach party had begun.

On day two, we took our time packing up camp because the tides would not allow us to drive until late morning. We boiled some eggs and introduced a few europeans to peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while we waited. Next stop was Eli Creek, where you can hop in the shallow and again insanely clear water and float along with the current (perhaps practicing a crocodile immitation) out to the beach.

After Eli, we headed up to Indian Point, where we climbed a few rocks up to a place where you can see the ocean on two sides and can frequently spot sealife. I was able to see a sting ray, 2 dolphins and an eagle's nest. This spot was another one of the many places that I keep thinking, "this is so beautiful, nothing could top this." And then inevitably, a day or two later something does.





We traveled back south along the island to find a camping spot for the 2nd night and again it was the A team that did the scoping out and the choosing of the location. Before we settled on a spot we had to dig the truck out of a few sand drifts but we beat out the other teams anyway. One truck never found us that night and had to camp on their own. Too bad for them because the site, the food and the party was even more memorable... or I should say NOT so memorable... for some.




By day 3, our hygiene had deteriorated pretty badly. But since the tides again did not allow us to drive in the morning we walked our stinky behinds 2 km up the beach and 2 km inland to Lake Wongai. The shore of one side of the lake is a huge and very steep hill of sand -- which of course taunts anyone with testosterone to run down and dive into the water.

After our hour long walk back from the lake we sat down for a lunch of eat-any-random-leftover-you-can-find with a side of sand. Then we headed back for the ferry to Rainbow Beach.

It was another awesome time. I have been really lucky so far with my random groups on trips like this. The people can make or break the experience. Our group was so much fun that I have decided to continue to travel with Jess and Alex for a few more days. And we will meet up with the 4 boys in Brisbane on Sunday as well. They've all been in Australia for almost a year and so their visas are coming to an end. Skylar and Josh will be heading home, at least for a little while, and Ford and Tim will go to Southeast Asia for the next 4 months or so.

Its addicting this traveling thing. Especially when you can travel and then work just enough to fund more travel and then travel a bit more. I might be hooked.

Watch video:


Video also available on my facebook page. Will load faster from there.

See more pictures at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35537&l=1fc93&id=802088251
AND
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35546&l=777c9&id=802088251

Life as a fish

I am writing from the beach in a town called The Town of 1770, usually referred to as just 1770. Who names a town using a number? I've met many an Australian and New Zealander who joke that Australians just name things exactly the way they are... nothing fancy--the blue-tongued lizard, plates and tables coral, the territories of Western Australia or Southern Australia. 1770 got it's name because this was the year that Captain James Cook first landed in Australia and at this location.

1770 is the only place on the east coast where you can dive and surf. It is the end of the reef and therefore the start of the surf. I arrived here on the overnight bus at 9:30 this morning after a 9 and half hour ride from Airlie Beach. Not the most comfortable of places to sleep but at least I saved $25 on a hostel for the night.





(COOL BANANAS IN 1770)

So let's back up a bit from where I am now and fill you in on the time I spent at Airlie Beach and at the Whitsunday Islands. Airlie Beach actualy does not have a beach -- which I guess contradicts the theory that Australians name everything exactly the way they are... hmm. What Airlie does have is an inlet of sorts with really calm shallow water that at low tide is just a shelf of mud. But to make up for this there is a man-made lagoon and beach area.

Anyway, 8 days ago I left Magnetic Island to head to Airlie Beach. On the ferry ride from Magnetic to Townsville I met three American (gasp!) girls from Connecticut. Megan, had been living and working in Sydney for the past year and Erin and Catelyn, who are twins, had come out to travel with Megan two months ago. I took the bus with them and although we were staying at different hostels in Airlie I met up with them each day for some time on the "beach", dinner and some long overdue beers.


(Me, Meagan, Erin and Caitlyn)

Where Mission Beach and Magnetic Island were really nice quiet places to visit, Airlie Beach has an actual nightlife, even if the main strip consists of only 3 streets. We happened to be in Airlie for the weekend -- Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights -- and on top of this it also happened to be the start of the September school holiday. This is a holiday (for no particular reason as far as I've been able to gather) for both public schools and universities. Therefore, being that it is also spring here, the closest thing I can equate it to is spring break. It is in no way as crazy as American spring break (at least not in Airlie) but it does bring many Auustralians to the beaches and the bars. Which was awesome because it has been otherwise uncommon for me to be around Australians outside of tour guides and the people who run the CVA projects. Even many of the people who work at the hostels are travelers and not Australian.

The hostel I stayed at for the weekend in Airlie was called Airlie Waterfront and was situated in exactly that location -- waterfront. The view... from the kitchen, not from my room... was flat out perfect..

However, the room itself was still one of my favorites because... there were NO BUNKBEDS! It was a 6 bed dorm and I was there for 3 nights and in that time every bed changed owners every night except for 19 year old Andy who had been staying in the room for 2 weeks but had just gotten his diving license, a job at a restaurant and a room to rent and moved out on Saturday. He plans to stay in Airlie about 2 - 3 months and says he hates England and is never going back.

Some other roommates were two Irish brothers, one of whom is living in Sydney and gave me his business card and said to call if I were ever in trouble(?); Mikel from France who came to Australia on a year-long work and travel visa 12 years ago, found a job to sponsor him and has been here ever since; Emily from England who had just arrived in Airlie from the Snowy Mountains where she had spent the winter working at a ski resort and now that it was spring was looking for work and a room in Airlie. Alex from Norway, who told me that I was the first intelligent American he had met, to which I responded, "I don't know if that is a compliment or an insult." In any case, I needed to introduce him to some more intelligent Americans, so he and his friends joined me and the connecticut girls at beeches that night.

All these stories aside, all of us were in Airlie for the same reason -- the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsundays are 74 small islands all intermingled with the reef. There are tons of different boats you can take out to the Whitsundays -- there are snorkeling or diving boats, there are boats that just sail and visit islands, there are party boats and there are even tall ships that fly pirate flags and look like they just sailed out of... I don't know... 1770.

On advice from Judith, (remember the German girl I camped with at Cape Trib?) I signed up for a boat called... Spank Me.

The other Whitsundays boats are called things like "Wings" or "Apollo". So having to respond "Spank Me" whenever asked what boat I was taking also results in good conversation. As people were arriving on the pier to board the boat, a german guy would ask each arrival, "Are you going to Spank Me?" At the time I thought he must know what it was that he was saying and think that he was being funny. However, just before boarding the boat he turns to me and says, "What does this word mean? Spank?"...

Spank Me was formerly a racing sailboat and won some big race that has Sydney in the name of it... hmm facts. It is now retired and instead sails around the Whitsundays taking passengers on 3 day, 3 night diving, snorkeling and obviously, sailing trips. Although Spank Me sounds like it would also qualify as a party boat, since the trip was 3 nights instead of 2 like most boats, it was also a bit more money and therefore was not appealing to the very young partier-backpacker crowd. Not to say we didn't have a good time -- just not the type of good time that involves people falling overboard.

The girls from Connecticut had chosen to do a 2 night trip on another boat and so we said our goodbyes on Monday with plans to meet up again further down the coast.

You are only allowed to bring one small soft bag plus alcohol on the boats. So I packed up my small backpack, put the rest of my stuff in storage for $5, hid some food in the back of the fridge at Airlie Waterfront, hired myself the required stinger suit (like a wetsuit but doesn't do much to keep your warm just to protect you from deadly invisible jellyfish), bought a 6 pack, and located the pier. About 15 minutes later 5 girls walked up each carrying a 30 pack, and some also with a box of goon (Australian for wine in a box). Mike from England and I, who had both choosen to bring minimal alcohol, exchanged looks of concern regarding our purchases and hurried back to the liquor store for more.

There were 26 passengers and 5 crew on Spank Me. As we boarded the boat, our shoes were taken from us and we were directly to the two giant cooler compartments on deck to store our drinks. As the 5 girls carrying 30 packs boarded the boat, the skipper commented, "You girls must be Irish." Oh and they were.
The average age of this group was older than most of the people I have met in Australia so far. There were actually 7 of us who were 27!! Hooray, I'm not so old! 27 year old Shane and Noel were Irish guys spending 2 months traveling Australia and Thailand; 25-27 year old Norita, Caroline, Norma, Kate and Dee were 5 Irish girls driving the coast in a camper van after spending 5 months working in Sydney; 32 year old Christoph was a Polish guy who had been living in Bondi beach (near Sydney) for 4 years, mostly surfing with a little contract IT work on the side, and he was traveling with his best mate Bart who had come to visit for a few weeks with his wife, Evelina, and her sister, Anna (Bart and Evelina were Polish but had been living in Dubai for the last year); 3 german girls, 24 year olds Clara, Sabrina and Ulla, and a swedish girl, 27 year old Sophie, who were all studying together at Gold Coast University; 27 year old Mike from England who had just finished up his degree in arch
etecture and was traveling for a few months in Australia, Thailand etc; Mikel from Denmark, whose story I never really got; Patrick from Germany who had a round the world ticket and had been to Machu Picchu earlier in the year; 22 year old George from England who had 8 weeks left on his round the world ticket and had been traveling in the US and Mexico earlier in the year among many other places; 20 year old Leanne, from Oregon who came to Australia with plans to stay for months but was trying to figure out how she could switch to the year visa; 19 and 20 year old Isabell and Brita from Sweden who had met in Australia earlier in the year and were now traveling together; and 27 year old Tobias from Germany who had just finished a degree in politics and was traveling and diving around Australia and Thailand, and to whom I had to explain the meaning of "spank".

The deck of Spank Me was void of anything not absolutely necessary to a racing boat. This makes sense, since in order to be fast the boat must carry very little. All this meant for us was that the only place to sit was on the floor. It was so relaxing to have such limited options as to how to spend your time for 3 whole days. You were either sitting on the floor and talking to your neighbor, laying down on the floor and sleeping, sitting on the floor and eating or drinking a beer, or in the water. Well I guess you could have been in bed or in the bathroom, but who wants to be there when you have perfect weather and perfect scenery and 30 awesome people to hang out with?

Included in with our trip, you got your first scuba dive for free. For licensed divers, this meant the first time they hopped off the boat in scuba gear. For unlicensed divers this meant a 30-minute introductory session in groups of 4 with the dive instructor. We did this on the first day and of course I got put in the first group and was chosen to be the first to jump off the boat all geared up with airtank heavier than my all my backpacking gear combined, weight belt around my waist, stinger suit, vest, mask, flippers and of course, regulator (the thing that you breath through). Taking that step off the side of the boat feeling like you are carrying so much weight that you won't even be able to stand up much longer is damn scary. What if they didn't really put the right about of air in your vest and you don't float right back up the surface? How far down will you drop with all that weight before you rise up again? But they don't leave you very much time to panic. They just sort of
set you up, tell you to look at the horizon, give you enough time to throw out a few choice vulgar words and insist you take a giant step off the boat.

Once I had surfaced, Priscilla, the deck hand, instructed me to grab onto the rope on the side of the boat slide down out of the way of the next jumper and wait for the rest of the group. Since this was only a 30 minute introduction, everything happened very fast. We each had to display to the instructor, Shawn, that we could perform 3 breathing and water clearing tasks just below the surface. In order to do this, Shawn would press a button on a tube attached to your vest that made you less bouyant and cause you to sink until your head was below the water. You could still pull yourself back out of the water if necessary but it took a great deal of effort to stay that way. I ended up having some issues with finding a mask that fit and they had to throw down 2 different masks for me to try before I found one I was happy enough with. Because of this delay and subsequent rushing through the 3 skills, I didn't feel entirely confident under the water. One other girl opted to get out of the
water because she couldn't get the hang of it, but I couldn't bear the idea of giving up after all this so I joined to the group and headed out away from the boat anyway. Shawn changed the pressure on our vests and we sunk down holding onto a rope that went about 10 meters deep. Eventually to my surprise, Shawn waved to us to let go of the rope and we swam around the (mostly dead) coral. It was definitely a unique feeling swimming like this underwater and having the option to go not only forward and back and side to side but up and down. However, there wasn't much to see that was all that interesting. The reef I saw on my Cairns snorkel trip was much nicer and much more colorful. I ended my diving day though when I managed to get water in my mouth, tried to remedy this and ended up also getting water in my mask, so I panicked a bit and swam up to the surface holding my breath. Shawn practically beat me to the surface with questions of "why did you take your regulator out of your mouth?", to which I had no response other than, "I don't really know what happened, I panicked." So anyway, I am glad that I did the intro dive, but if I were ever to dive again, I would want to do a real dive course where they start you in a pool and give you plenty of time to get comfortable with the equipment.

Another highlight of all Whitsunday's trips is the visit to White Haven beach. The sand here is like baking powder in both it's color and texture. The water is entirely clear and calm. The only way to access the beach is by boat and the only permanent man made structure on the island is a bathroom. We spent an afternoon on this beach enjoying the steady ground under our feet.

One of the perks of Spank Me was that you could participate in putting up the sails on the boat.



We had great weather right up until the early morning of the last night when the boat began to sway in a way that had many people wondering if they would fall out of bed. Once we put the sails up and began sailing back to Airlie, the boat took some pretty steep tilts, several of which had most of us holding on to keep from sliding across the deck.

I could probably go on and on about the sailing experience but this post is getting quite lengthy and I have to go get myself ready for a trip to fraser island -- where I will be spending 3 days in a 4x4 with 10 people on an island with no roads.

See more pictures by going to facebook and viewing the group "Spank Me!!"
Or go to:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=35972&l=7e35f&id=802088251

Magnetic Island

Yesterday, a python was wrapped around me and its head was sitting on my arm and she looked at me and opened her mouth big and wide. Everyone around me gasped. I didn't flinch. Something is wrong with me.

The python was named Amanda. I guess it must have been a snake yawn because there were no fangs and she didn't lunge at me. Maybe she found me really boring.


I am at Bungalow Bay Koala Village on Magnetic Island. This is both a YHA hostel (rooms are actually cabins), campground, and a koala, bird and reptile sanctuary. I took the tour of the sanctuary yesterday, during which I held a baby crocodile, touched a Koala, had the little incident with the python, and allowed a bird to stand on my head.




--Did you know that crocodiles have evolved very little in the last 60 million years. They have just gotten a bit smaller as they have gone from eating dinosaurs to eating possums.

--Did you know that of the 42 people who have been killed by crocodiles in australia in the last 100 or 200 years (I can't remember) that 32 of them were drunk, 4 were drunk backpackers and 2 were drunk American backpackers (the other 2 were drunk German backpackers).


--Did you know that Koalas are not bears. They got that reputation because when Europeans arrived, a bear was the most similar thing that they knew that a koala looked like. But koalas are marsupials and therefore are related to kangaroos and wallabies. They evolved completely independently of any bears.

--Did you know that baby koalas eat their mother's poop for their first 5 days of life. And they must do this so that they can develop the bacteria in their stomachs that they need in order to eat a diet consisting 100% of eucalyptus leaves.

OK enough facts. I also saw an echnid, many lizards, a talking cockatoo, and the crazy screechy colorful birds below.





I arrived on Magnetic Island on Wednesday morning via a ferry from Townsville after a horrible night in a hostel in Townsville. The night was kind of reminiscent of a Saturday night in a freshmen dorm, except that I had 5 roommates instead of 1, they were Irish, and I was no longer 18 years old. OH and my top bunk with no ladder was concave enough to qualify as a hammock.

Anyway, after departing my new drunk Irish friends (who woke me up several times including one purposeful one around 330 am so that john could find out who I was, where I was from, and apologize for waking me up), I put half my stuff in a locker at the ferry terminal and skedaddled out of Townsville on the 10 am ferry. Magnetic Island has a population of 2000 people. It also has wild koalas. I arrived at the koala village and immediately realized I needed to stay more than just the 1 night I had originally planned. Maybe the experience from the night before was getting to my head but I just did not want to leave this place. So I changed my bus from Thursday to Friday, pushed back my reservation at my next destination and I am staying another day.

Last night I treated myself to a personal pizza and a beer and sat down with my little keyboard to send some emails. As always, you are never really alone for long around here because before I'd finished my pizza I was in the middle of a conversation with a couple from Manchester, England, a grandfather from Newcastle, Australia, and a (humorously drunk) guy from New Zealand. We discovered that we all had the experience of initially waiting for our "mates" (friends) to want to travel with us and then finally deciding to stop waiting and just go on our own. But once we'd arrived we discovered that this is the best possible way to go about it anyway! (The girl from England had been here for 6 months before her boyfriend joined her.) Traveling alone means you never have to compromise because every decision is yours. And you make more of an effort to meet new people if you are alone--hence finding yourself in a conversation with people representing almost all of the major English speaking nations of the world.

Grade 4 rapids

Back on the bus. Going to Townsville and traveling there with two Welsh girls, Anwen and Bev.

Quick story though.

Went rafting today. Amazing. They needed 6 more people to participate in the extreme rafting trip so they upgraded myself and 5 others (including the two Welsh girls) for free. Extreme rafting just means that we go to the head of the pack and don't have to wait in line behind the other rafts at each rapid, that because we move faster we get to stop and jump off rocks from 5 meters up, get out of the raft and body surf down a section of rapids (not actually that much fun), slide down a rock and get forced down underwater for 10 seconds if you have a normal amount of body weight (5 seconds if you are me), and it means that your guides are hotter.

This is not rafting like we do in Pennsylvania in July. On the bus on the way to the Tully River, one of the guides explained to us that a grade 6 rapid is a rapid that is considered deadly and undoable. As soon as some one rides that rapid and survives it becomes a grade 5. We would be on many grade 4 rapids.

Also while on the bus on the way to the river we stopped at some railroad tracks because a train was crossing. While there an Australian girl says to the driver, "Hey can you open to door for a second?" The door opens and she jumps out of the bus. Everyone starts saying, "What is she doing? Is she going to puke?" She hops back on the bus 30 seconds later, puts her hand in the air and says, "It is! It's a bag of weed!"

Which indeed it was.

Sea creatures

I burnt my butt. I forgot that when you snorkel your butt needs lots of sunblock. Whoops.

Snorkeling was absolutely awesome. I went snorkeling once before (in the Bahamas) and found it quite difficult. Water kept getting in my mask and I felt like I was drowning. And if I remember correctly, we might have been drinking a bit of that mysterious rum punch beforehand? Maybe it was just a hangover. Or maybe it was residual drunkenness from the day before? Do any of my Bahamian spring breakers remember?

Anyway, this time all my gear was worked well and my head was sober and unhungover.

Not to mention it was the GREAT BARRIER REEF we were looking at. The night before my snorkel trip I went to a program called Reef Teach. This is a 2 hour long presentation where you learn about the fish, sharks, whales, turtles and corals that you could encounter out on the reef. You learn how to identify different creatures, where to find them, what is ok to touch, and what to swim like hell away from. The girl doing the presenting was American (woohoo!) so I didn't have to do any sort of accent or phrase translations as she spoke. I'd recommend attending this if you ever find yourself in Cairns about to go out on the reef.

The boat ride out to the reef was about an hour and a half. We did about an hour or so of snorkeling and then we had the option to hop onto another boat with a glass bottom for a ride around where you could check out the reef without actually being underwater. Then we hopped back on our big boat for lunch. Next we sailed out to another location where the tide was going out and revealing a sand cay. We snorkeled out to the cay, hung out a bit and snorkeled back to the boat.

I saw Nemo and Dora. I saw a sea turtle from the boat but didn't get to swim next to one--although others on the boat did get to do this. I held a blue starfish and a cucumber fish.

Every way you turn there Is something new to see. And it usually comes in colors that are shocking to believe occur in nature.

I'll be snorkeling again next week in the Whitsunday Islands and am very much looking forward to it.

On Sunday I started the first leg of my long journey on the greyhound. I bought a hop on hop off pass from Cairns to Sydney. The pass is good for 6 months and I can get on and off the bus as many times as I want between those two locations. Each time I want to get onto a bus I go onto the Greyhound website and book myself a seat on the particular bus I will get on. There are usually about 4 buses a day leaving from any location along the route so you have your choice of times. The other two bus companies, Oz Experience and Premier, offer only 1 bus a day and sometimes only one bus every 2 days. Which means that with them you have to go when the bus is going.
With me, I like to make the rules.

Anyway, what I was getting at was that on Sunday morning I started my bus pass and took the bus 2 hours to Mission Beach. Now this is where traveling light actually becomes important. The hostel I was staying at was called Absolute Backpackers and was located 200 meters down the road from the bus stop. Therefore this hostel does not offer a pick up service. And I can't call a cab to take me the equivalent of about 2 city blocks. So I have to be able to put one foot in front of the other for 200 meters--and not end up with a hump on my back. This walk would be the first test of truly traveling like a backpacker. That morning I'd eaten as much oatmeal and raisins and I could in an effort to drop a few ounces from my food bag. So with my big bag on my back, boots hanging off the side and sleeping bag underneath, and my little backpack on my front, and a medium sized pocket book in one hand and a green canvas grocery bag (filled with my tree planting clothes) in the other hand I set off
I arrived about 10 minutes later with cramps in all kinds of crazy places.. but with all belongings still in hand.

I've been trying to figure out if I actually have more stuff than other people. Most people have two backpacks and a grocery bag, just like me. But everyone comments that they can't see me under my bags. But I think I have the same amount of stuff as others... I just have less surface area on my body on which to carry it all.

So I passed the first luggage test. But I will still be ditching a few more items here. My rule is, if I don't use it in 3 weeks then I don't need it--except for a few long term necessities like 9 months worth of contact lenses.

There is not much in Mission Beach, and especially not much in Wongaling Beach where I am actually staying. This is where people come to skydive. Mission Beach is the only place in Australia that you can skydive onto the beach. Since I'm going to be skipping that activity, l will instead being going White Water Rafting on Tuesday on the Tully River in grade 4 rapids with two Welsh girls I met yesterday.

Today I walked the 5 km along the beach to the tiny town of Mission Beach, checked out every single shop in town, and walked the 5 km back along the beach. The beach was like walking into a postcard. There are very little people around here so during my 5 km walk I encountered maybe 12 people, about 5 of whom I watched arrive on the beach via parachute, and 1 of whom was a completely nude guy standing at the edge of the rainforest.

It was an excellent slow and timelineless day. But tomorrow will be exactly the opposite.