Hot to Trot

When I was a little girl, I used to obsess over horses. I drew them, dreamed about them, drooled over them—they were the embodiment of freedom, grace, and strength and I loved everything about them. Now that I’m a little older (and less coordinated, it seems), my sentiments have changed. As it now stands, I will be happy if I never get up a horse again…well, at least until I get myself some real medial insurance.


This really, really hurts. And if you can believe it, this mess of a face you see before you is not nearly the worst of my troubles (and this is already way better than it looked yesterday…my eye was totally swollen shut). When Dolly, the horse I was riding, decided for no apparent reason to stop short at a full canter and throw me off her back, I was pitched face first into the hard, red dusty road. My neck made a highly disconcerting crunching noise as my body followed my face, and I was pretty sure it was all over for me at that point. Somehow, I managed to roll over as quickly as possible to avoid being trampled under the highly agitated Dolly, and mercifully, the horse backed away. I stood up and was more shocked that I felt so little pain than at the fact that something warm and sticky was gushing down my face. My teeth, amazingly, were all in place, and though they had punctured the insides of my lips, it seemed that I had only superficial injuries and scratches. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was. John, the owner of the farm took me over to a sprinkler to wash the blood off my face before letting me take a gander at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Everyone was telling me it wasn’t that bad, which of course, meant that it was pretty bad. Later on that evening, while pressing a packet of frozen brussels sprouts against my rapidly swelling eye and mouth, I managed to have a few laughs about the whole episode with the crew. I mean, I was alive, apparently not terribly hurt, and given the way in which I hit the ground, impossibly lucky. But as I watched my face continue to swell over the course of the night and noticed a marked tightening in my neck and especially in the center of my back, the laughter turned to tears. John gave me a massage and some painkillers to ease my growing discomfort, but I think all that served to do was intensify the swelling in my face.

Just to give a little background about John (the guy who owns the farm), two years ago, he and his girlfriend at the time rode from the west coast to the east coast of Australia on horseback (Broome to Cairns). After catching 6 wild outback horses called Brumbys and training them (they needed horses well-suited and accustomed to the terrain), they rode them through the outback and it took them 5 months to complete the ride, not to mention the 5 years of planning that went into it. They were the first people ever to make that arduous trek, and though one functional eye that night, I watched the documentary that was made about their voyage (Dolly, that little shit, was even featured in the footage). The documentary hasn’t officially come out yet, but it’s really well done and engaging. It’s one of those deeply human stories that is just so inspiring… and he’s planning to do similar treks all over the world. I’ll definitely be watching his progress.

So anyway, where was I? Well, my experience in Darwin has been….how shall I put this… one series of unfortunate events after another. Everything was fine when we arrived in town from our road trip. I met up with my friend Dom from Sydney and he took us all over Darwin. One day, we went on a crocodile cruise in a small aluminum boat where we came into very close contact with crocs 6 meters long. This unfortunate creature had its arm bitten off by a shark. Australia is a perilous place if even crocs aren’t safe.


You have no idea how big a 6 meter croc is until you get up close and personal with it. Wild. Over the course of a few days, we went to a really nice swimming hole, saw a few movies, went to dinner at the wharf, and saw some gorgeous sunsets.


We also went to the Mindil Beach night market where we had the pleasure of watching one of the best didgeridoo players in Australia perform.

After the first fun-filled week however, everything started to unravel. Dom had offered to put me on a free company flight down to Melbourne whenever I wanted, and jumping at the opportunity to save some money, I decided against traveling to the west coast and opted instead to take him up on his flight offer to Alice Springs. I’d been wanting to visit Ayer’s Rock and the Olgas and was disappointed that we hadn’t made it there on our road-trip, so I figured now would be a great opportunity to check out all that I’d missed. But a last week, while walking down the steps to the outdoor cinema, Dom broke his hand while trying to demonstrate to us his ability (or lack thereof) to balance on the handrails. I had recently shown him this “motivational” poster and he jokingly brought it up again as he lay writhing in pain.


But all joking aside, the fracture put him out of commission and made it next to impossible to secure my flight on the following Monday. Had I taken the Monday flight, I would have been in the clear and would not now be the subject of pitiable stares. Or, had I simply gone west, I’d have been in the clear. I’m kicking myself for my decision to go south instead of doing the west coast as everything is now in total disarray. But I won’t kick myself that hard as I feel I have taken enough abuse.

So I can’t say all that much about Darwin other than it’s unbelievably hot and seems to have a vendetta against me and my friends. I’m currently on a 24-hour train down to Alice Springs and my bruised and battered face bought me an upgrade to a sleeper car (that’s over $400 worth of pity). I can’t tell you how lovely it’s been to lay in my own private little room (complete with a sink and towels!) and just sleep without the constant banging of doors, shouting, etc. It also gave me a chance to develop without interruption an idea I’ve been pondering for a new series of paintings I’m pretty excited about. Who knows, maybe if I hadn’t been put out of commission I wouldn’t have given it so much time and thought. I feel so much better now that I’ve had a good night’s sleep and that I’ve been mildly productive to boot. I’m praying that the pain in my back is temporary and that it will not be a lasting injury… and it would be a bonus if I could get out of this without any scarring on my face. I’m growing a bit tired of people taking one look at me and going, “Holy shit! What happened to your face?” I’ve been tempted to make up stories, saying things like, “yeah if you think this is bad, you should see the other guy.” But in truth, I’m way more concerned about the inside of me than the external cuts and bruises. What a downer…I’m just hoping I feel well enough to do my camping trip on Sat. I think I’ll be ok.

Into the Wild

Readers beware, this is my longest post yet.

A few weeks ago, I posted some notices around port Douglas looking for someone with whom I could hitch a ride to Darwin (a city about 3-4 days drive away). I was feeling antsy for adventure again, and figured a road trip through the outback would be just the thing to satisfy my need for random ridiculousness. I got a few calls in response but most were from people leaving within the week I posted the signs and that was too early for me. To make life a bit more exciting, I managed to spill water on my already fragile cell phone, so I could occasionally turn it on long enough to check my texts, etc, but that was about it. I’d resigned myself to having to buy a new phone, but that meant having to get to Cairns (a larger city about 1+ hours south), and that also meant having to wait at least a week to find someone who would drive me there. In the meantime, I got a text from a boy named Sam who offered me a lift around the time I was looking to leave. I told him to come into the bar when I was working to discuss, as I had no way of talking about it over the phone. Later that day, I had sort of forgotten about that text, and when a tall, dark and handsome boy walked into the bar and said “are you Kayla? I’m Sam.” That was pretty much all the convincing I needed. We discussed preliminary trip details and all I knew was that we were leaving on August 15th and that we would be traveling in 2 caravans with 4 other people, all of them French. After a somewhat frustrating couple of weeks of trying to plan my next steps for my trip, it was such a relief to know that on a certain day, and a certain time, I would be leaving town with a stunning Frenchman to head off into the outback wilderness. The next night I went with him to meet our fellow travelers and thought they were pretty fun (although I got the impression, rightfully so, that there would be a LOT of French speaking going on).

My last night in Port Douglas was just the send-off I needed. We got to leave a day later than originally planned, so I was able to spend one last Fri night out on the town, in a new dress and borrowed heels (the first time I’ve worn heels since Sydney…God that felt good…people hardly recognized me out of my backpacker attire). It was a good night and I got to say goodbye to almost all the people I wanted to see. (Not sure why my head looks so abnormally large in this pic...)


I was somewhat drunk when I got home and unsurprisingly forgot to set my alarm for the next morning. I was none too pleased with myself when Dave, the hostel owner came into my room and woke me up to the news that a “latino-looking guy” was waiting for me downstairs. I was hungover, probably still drunk, and I hadn’t even packed everything! Sam had lost his phone the night before and so he couldn’t even have called me to wake me up. Awesome. Anyway, I threw my stuff together as quickly as humanely possible and went in his car with him over to his hostel so he could finish doing what he needed to do.

At about noon we were finally on our way. Our first stop was a beautiful swimming hole with a waterfall where we spent a few hours hanging out and swimming in the freezing water.


We arrived at our campsite after dark, but it wasn’t a big deal. The place was pretty well-lit and there was a really nice Irish couple next to us who invited us to sit around their fire (there was no way we could have collected any wood for one at that time anyway). It was a relief for me to be able to speak English freely. Even though Sam, Antoine and Thomas speak beautiful English, both Max and Elsa’s English is somewhat broken and the group often lapses into their native tongue. Given that I’m traveling with 5 French people, I knew that was pretty much inevitable, so when they do that I just kind of zone out and contemplate the vastness of the universe.

Anyway I slept well that night and the next day we took off somewhat late to start heading west into the outback. We drove for only part of the day and hung out at this beautiful beach spot for lunch. That was the last water we’d be seeing for a while…we were about to head off into the interior of the country. There’s obviously not much to describe by way of scenery along the route, but the lack of scenery is what’s so amazing. I felt as we were driving like the emptiness of the desert was eroding the plaque-like buildup of my jumbled thoughts these past 2 months. It was very meditative, and very silent as well-- the MP3 player was broken and we didn’t have any music to listen to. We camped that night off the beaten path in the bush. There was no one around and it really felt like we were in the wilderness. Plus there was an incredible sunset to keep us company as we set up our tents.


Thomas, one of our travel companions, is a chef (seriously, what luck) and he whipped us up this delicious chicken and rice dish that I took no time in scarfing down. We had a pretty decent fire going, and luckily the frenchies were in their English-speaking mode so I was able to join in the conversation. The night sky was spectacular with the full moon illuminating the same cloud formation that had been present at the sunset. Beautiful night.


We went to bed somewhat early and I set my alarm so that I could see the sunrise. It was by far, the most breathtaking sunrise I’ve ever seen. I took about a hundred pics, The pinks were just so hot and the sky was rippled with this gorgeously pock-marked cloud formation that spread all the way across the desert sky. I’d been hoping to get the chance to see a sunrise like that just once on my trip, and I was not disappointed.



I went back to sleep for a bit and we woke up at around 8, had breakfast, and hit the road. We drove for a good portion of the day and nothing eventful happened. We camped that night off to the side of a rest stop, had another great meal courtesy of our chef, and created a massive blaze. It was really fun, we were all drinking and sitting around the fire and chatting. I slept fitfully that night…it was FREEZING out and I think the wine I drank was also making it difficult for me to stay sound asleep. Then the birds started in at around 4:30am (they literally sound like a mixture of braying sheep and screaming women) so that was it for any attempt at decent rest.

Anyway, we spent that whole day driving, and it was a looong drive. At mid-day we had a shower at a public roadhouse and continued on our way till well past dark. We arrived at the next campsite too late to bother making a fire, so we had dinner and I prowled the premises looking for cool stuff to take pictures of. I did manage to get some interesting shots, but because it was so dark out, I couldn’t get the right focus and some of the shots are way blurrier than I would have liked. This was one of the better ones… (the swirling light is me walking swinging my flashlight around trying to create a kind of magical effect).


So the next couple of days consisted of driving and driving and camping and camping. Here a few random pics from along the way...








The sun was beating down hard during the day and as we worked our way north it only got hotter. At one point, we stopped at this funky little outback pub and had a “night out.” It was pretty silly. The women had to go onstage and howl like wolves at the command of the singer who was putting on a show for the crowd that evening.




The first real break in routine came when we got to Mataranka national park. This park is famous for it’s warm thermal pools of crystal clear water, and it was a truly special place. Palm tress and gorgeous natural vines graced the riverside, and the weather was beyond perfect. There were busloads of tourists around in the main pool area, which was highly annoying, so I ventured out into the main river where, it was warned, fresh water crocs resided. I splashed about by myself for a while, jumping off of whatever I could swim to, and it took some convincing, but I finally got the rest of the gang into the water the next morning. We were, thankfully, left alone by the crocs.



After spending virtually the whole day in the thermal pools, we camped out and left the next morning for Katherine Gorge. Exhausted, a certain member of our tribe decided to take a nap... wherever he could get it.


We stopped first in the town of Katherine and I was saddened to see the downtrodden and drug-ridden state in which the aboriginal population there lived. Alcohol was introduced to them as recently as the 1960s and many have abused it so heavily that they were kicked out of their villages and have since begun populating the urban centers. The result is shocking. The Australian government belatedly apologized for wreaking havoc on their culture and on their family structures by removing aboriginal children from their homes to send them to live with white families, but the apologies don’t go very far and many aboriginals fell victim to drug abuse, alcoholism, and crime. What we see in these northern and outback cities are the worn out shells of a once thriving aboriginal culture.

The following morning, bright and early, we rented canoes and took them out on the beautiful river. We found some insanely high rocks to climb up and jump off. We were so high up that it brought back bungee jumping memories as we took running leaps off the cliff face into the water.



Katherine Gorge was beautiful, but our next stop had something that Katherine Gorge didn’t. Massive waterfalls...and massive termite mounds.



Litchfield is a national park that encompasses 5 magnificent waterfalls and natural rock pools, and the water is fresh enough to drink (well, we took a chance anyway). We spent 2 days at this park doing nothing but swimming in every river we could find, and it truly felt like paradise (minus, of course, the presence of all the tourists).




Sleeping was difficult, as 2 of us were in the van and we had to leave the doors open to let in some fresh air lest we suffocate in the stagnant heat. This turned the van into a bit of a torture chamber, as I spent the entire night not only insanely overheated, but constantly scratching my fast-multiplying mosquito bites. We were exhausted the next day and Sam was sick as could be with a throat infection. Our group of 6 has been sharing water, food, etc without regard for germs so I fear it’s only a matter of time before we all come down with the plague. Time to stock up on vitamins.

We finally arrived in Darwin yesterday, exhausted, dirty, and covered in mosquito bites, but the trip was fantastic and was just the kind of rustic craziness I was looking for. We camped out at a site on the edge of the city and we’ll be hanging out here for the next couple of days. After spending over a week camping in the bush, it’s such a luxury to have hot showers and a real sink in which to wash our dishes. It’s funny how my perception of physical comfort has changed so much… I never thought I would consider it a luxury to have a working electrical outlet, but hey, that’s gold to me now.

Since I’ve made absolutely no plans for the last month of my trip before I go home, I have some options I need to consider in these next coming days. I can go with Sam in his caravan to the west coast and camp out in the wild for the next month, or I can stay in Darwin for the next 2 weeks in my friend’s company house and then fly to Sydney for the remainder of my trip (serendipitously he will be getting to Darwin in the next 2 days and I had no idea that he’d be here before I planned my trip). I’m trying not to worry about what to do, as I know things will work out just how they are supposed to (the result of making no plans and going with the flow was this beautiful trip, so I’ve come to embrace the role of chance in my life more and more). Regardless, the next month should be pretty fun, so stay tuned for more posts (hopefully ones less long-winded).

Reef Madness

I finally made it out to the reef! This was the first time I’d been diving since I got my certification, and now I can see what all the fuss is about. It was a somewhat rough start, as I had to close at work the night before so I didn’t get to bed until past 3:30am. Add to that excitement about the impending dive and anxiety about not waking up in time for the 8:00 pickup, and what that equates to is the worst night’s sleep ever. (I had already pulled an all-nighter the previous night…it was beach bonfire night and me, my co-workers, and some members of a band that plays here stayed up singing and playing guitar all night until the sun came up over the sea). So, I was totally wiped out before I even started the day, and you can imagine my glee when the members of the crew informed us that because of the very windy conditions, we’d most likely get seasick. Um, yeah. Standing up to put on my wetsuit was a miserable undertaking… I was pretty much the color of the water by the time we made it through some of the rougher patches of the ocean.

But luckily, once I jumped out into the crystal blue water, all my discomfort faded away. I was in total awe. The undersea world here is totally surreal. Visibility was excellent, and we were extremely fortunate to see both a sea turtle and a reef shark on our dives. The first dive was amazing, but the second dive was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Because the dive was free for me, I splurged and rented an underwater camera. I probably spent more time taking pics than I should have, but that’s par for the course. These pictures in no way do justice to the real colors of the reef, but these give a pretty good idea of what it was like down there.











Gotta finish off with the dorky thumbs up pic.

So I’ve had a great last couple of weeks here. Last Friday, I had the night off work and I went out with a bunch of friends from my hostel. I was pleasantly tipsy when I heard my name being called on stage. The lead singer of the band that sometimes plays around here was inviting me up on stage to sing a song with his band!! He’s a good friend and had told me earlier in the day that he had a surprise for me, but I had no idea it would be anything like that. I put down my bag and got up there and sang Mr. Jones…and somehow managed not to totally screw it up. Amazing feeling. After that, we all stayed at the bar until well after close and then went back to my manager’s house to keep the party going. Somehow, dawn snuck up on us so we ran outside to check out the sunrise (the first I’d seen in Port Douglas). When we got to the beach and saw just how deeply pink and gold the sky was, I burst out in tears!! I couldn’t even help it, it was just so overwhelmingly beautiful, and after such a good night, it was almost too much. Now whenever my manager sees me, recalling the famous line from American Beauty, he says (as he sniffles), “Sometimes, I think there’s so much beauty in the world, I can’t take it.” Haha! I’m not gonna live that down. But he did tell me later that it made him realize how little he appreciates things, so if my tears served the greater purpose of making someone more aware of life’s simple pleasures, then my embarrassment was not for nothing.

I’m sad to say my time on Port Douglas is coming to an end. On one hand, I’m just starting to feel like I really live here, and it will be hard to give up the small measure of comfort I have established for myself. On the other, most of my friends have already left and the place just feels different without them. I’m leaving town on the 15th with a bunch of randoms who are driving across the outback to Darwin. I had put up some notices around town last week looking for people who were headed in that direction, and turns out a group of people is looking for a final person to join up with them on a camping adventure! I’m game. I think I’ve saved up enough money at this point to live for the next couple months without a problem, so in one week, I’m headed out in to the great beyond with a bunch of people I hardly know!! Woo hoo! Now that’s Australia.

Oh, beautiful reef, the wait is over!

Victory is mine at long last! I finally scored a free trip to go diving out on the reef (valued at $200) with my newly acquired karaoke skills. This past Sunday, I got off work early and hit up karaoke night with a bunch of friends from my hostel. I sang three songs over the course of the evening, and I can’t tell you how good it felt to have the entire bar, and I mean everyone, chanting my name at the end of the night. That has never happened to me before. I felt just a little bit like a rock star… I think I may have even shed a tear. So with my mission to win that trip complete, there isn’t much I have left to do here other than to spend a few more weeks saving up more money to begin the next leg of my journey--whatever that may be. My living situation is pretty good aside from the fact that I live out of my suitcase and that the only way I can get a moment of privacy is to duck into my fort (basically, my bottom bunk with a sheet hanging down acting as a curtain). I live here for free as the hostel owner has discovered that I know my way around a computer and has me doing all the design work for the hostel (the menus, the website, the wall art, and a series of travel websites he’s needed logos for). It’s a great way to cover my rent and food, and I get free internet to boot which to me, is a gold mine in and of itself.

With all my living expenses taken care of, I can put all the money I’ve been making at work straight into the bank and have been able to get back on my feet, financially speaking, very quickly. Work is sometimes great fun, and other times, it’s a nightmare. I always wanted to try bartending and I discovered I’m actually quite good at it. I can now whip up some pretty fancy cocktails, serve people standing at the bar, and take care of putting all the bills through… all at the same time. Then, late at night, when the restaurant turns into a nightclub, an entirely different skill set is required. Lining up tons of drinks and doing quick math and tripping over the other 7 bartenders in my effort to get to the till as fast as humanely possible makes the hours between midnight and 2am go by faster than you can say “drunk idiot.” People don’t seem to understand that when I serve them a drink, they will be required to pay. I tell them the price and they look at me with dumbfounded expressions on their faces for a full 10 seconds before fumbling with their wallets to produce 2 tons of change for me to pick through. I’ll tell ya, being on the other side of the bar gives one a very unique window on the world of intoxication, and it’s highly unattractive.

But enough about work. I’m preparing to say another round of goodbyes and I’m not happy about it. Most of the friends I’ve made here will be leaving within the month. I’ve been so lucky here in Port in that I’ve found such amazing, supportive people with whom I share pretty much everything from secrets to late-night “illegal bakery” runs (the bakery here opens up its back door at about 2 am and sells pizzas and meat pies to all the drunks stumbling out of the bar). There is a cast of characters here to whom words can do no justice. We have Nico, our token crazy Italian, who gets fired from every job he has gotten here in town (he’s such a ridiculous person, he’s practically a caricature of himself). There’s Piet (pronounced “pete”), our roommate from Norway. He has the social sense of a 3-year old and good-naturedly steals everything “free” he comes across. He recently presented to us his latest conquest; a Palmolive shower gel left behind in the one of the stalls, and my friend Chris, our other roommate, was like “Piet, that’s MY shower gel! I JUST bought that yesterday!” Piet kept it and we all had a good laugh and teased him mercilessly about his thieving ways. Then we have Dahlia who absolutely kills me with her caustic and hilarious sarcasm. Here's a pic of us on a typical night out, and this is only about half of us:


Our group of friends ranges from 18-year old Jack to 32 year-old Richie, and virtually every country is represented in our clan. I feel more accepted here than I have ever felt in my life. I was always craving that kind of openhearted acceptance in NY, but the pretence and the general isolation I felt in the city always prevented me from feeling like I was ever truly a part of things. Either the people here are way different, or I have changed in some major ways. I’m sure it’s a little bit of both.

Anyway, I’ve been seriously entertaining the idea of doing some volunteer work in SE Asia for a month or so. I’d like to experience some real culture for a change, and I’m growing a bit bored of the local population here. If I may go off on a tangent for a moment, (this is a major generalization, and probably isn’t as true about people in bigger cities like Melbourne and Sydney), I have found that even the smarter and more educated locals can be truly bigoted and make inane remarks about people of other races and religions. One woman came up to me at the bar and asked if the old man she was with could take his unfinished bottle of beer home with him. I explained that because of licensing issues, one can’t take alcohol out of the bar. She informed me that the man was “old and Jewish” and that was supposed to explain why he was being so stingy about the beer. Hm. And that wasn’t’ the first time I’ve heard remarks of that sort thrown about casually. When I was in Yepoon, I was having dinner with a family there and my host said something about a group of people at a restaurant not tipping. He described them as real “Jewish types.” I neglected to say anything as I didn’t want to create tension, but in any other situation I would have, and have done so. Oh well, what can you really do or say? They don’t mean it maliciously; it’s just ignorance and lack of tact I guess.

So, where was I? Well, In terms of my travel plans. the only real problem I’m facing is that I have to come home in October, and that will make it very difficult for me to commit to a long-term volunteering stint. My other option is to come back at the end of October and do SE Asia right. If I learned anything from my NZ trip, it’s that one month is not nearly enough time to attempt to traverse an entire country. If I can come back after October, I can spend at least two months or more in Asia instead of trying to rush it now, and I can also ditch all the stuff I’ve accumulated and travel lighter. Oh, decisions decisions. I’m going to spend the next 2 days I have off of work figuring out my next steps.

PS, a few of took out some bikes today and rode over to the wildlife center. It was a really fun day… here are some pics of the sights we encountered along the way.

I heart Port Douglas

I’ve been here in Port Douglas for a little over 3 weeks now and I apologize for not updating my blog more frequently, but truth be told, I haven’t had that many crazy adventures as of late (unless you include being pushed down the street in a shopping cart by 3 drunk Americans). It’s been slow at work as we are just coming into busy season now, so I’ve been spending an inordinate amount of time sitting on the beach, hanging out at the pool, and playing (losing) chess. I’ve also been working on a photographic project that I’m hoping to have exhibited in one of the main shops in town, and my hostel owner discovered that I’m an artist so he put me to work drawing on large chalkboards for the lobby. I got a few nights of free accommodation for these little beauties:


Now chalk art may not be my calling, but I’m pretty excited to say that I will soon be putting my atrophying paining skills to good use. The hostel is undergoing major renovations and I guess I got here at the right time because they have asked me to paint some huge murals on the walls. I’m really excited about the project because it’s a hell of a lot cooler than cleaning the toilets to score free accommodation, and the walls will equate to some of the largest canvases I’ve ever painted on. I’m doing the sketches now and I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Yikes! But I can’t tell you how happy I am to get the chance to do something creative at last. I’ve been feeling rather like a piece of dust in the breeze, questioning everything, and it just feels so good to have some creative energy running through my blood again.

In other fun news, I went out to the bar I work at for karaoke night a few nights ago and sang a few songs. I had met these really cool guys from Sydney who were here in Port Douglas for the weekend and was so busy chatting to them that I failed to realize that I was a finalist in the karaoke competition (I hadn’t even been aware that there was a competition on in the first place). The winner would score a trip to the reef and I ended up coming in 2nd place to a guy who was singing Madonna (he was actually really good). I did, however, manage to land myself a free day trip to Mossman Gorge and Cape Tribulation (2 beautiful rainforest areas about an hour north of here). Turned out the guys I was talking to were headed up there the next day and they invited me to come along with them in their car. At least I didn’t come away from karaoke night totally empty-handed!

They picked me up the next morning and we went for an aboriginal tour through native forest. It was a really cool walk (even through the guide seemed to be using the group atmosphere as a forum to vent about her divorce/life woes). She showed us how her ancestors survived in the rainforest and walked us through several survival skills ranging from making paint from the ochre in the river to washing our hands with soap leaves (when you rub these leaves in your hands, they actually lather up and clean as well as a bar of soap). I have no idea how people figure that stuff out; their breadth of knowledge about medicinal properties of plants was astounding. After the tour, the three of us ventured up to Mossman Gorge where we went swimming, and following that, we drove up to the Cape to check out the views. It was a cloudy and chilly day, so I didn’t bother taking any pictures, but try to imagine a beach. That's what it looked like. Oh well, had the weather been better it would have been much more impressive, but that's ok, it was a great day anyway. We got back into town at around 6 and I was so exhausted that I was in bed by 8. Now all I have to do is win that reef trip and my title as queen of the freebie will be sealed!

Things are looking up! (fingers crossed)

After leaving Magnetic Island, I had a few days to kill before arriving in Cairns, so I made a 2-day stopover at Mission Beach for a white water rafting trip. In all honestly, had I not booked the trip the month before, I probably would have opted out of the rafting due to my current financial situation, but it was a great time (and now I can say I went rafting on one of the most technically challenging grade 5 rivers in the world). Within the first 5 minutes of the rapids adventure, the girl sitting next to me on the raft lost control of her paddle and it landed squarely on my lip. This pic was probably taken moments before the swelling began in earnest.


It was rather painful (it’s been a week and my lip still hurts), but luckily she didn’t manage to knock out a tooth as well. You can get seriously injured on those trips due to people falling out of the raft and landing on your head, getting wayward limbs wedged in between rocks, etc… it’s a rough sport and made my NZ rafting trip look like a walk in the park by comparison.

Anyway, after Mission Beach, I headed directly up to Cairns for 4 nights (2 of which I barely remember). The first night, I drank boxed wine for the first time since college, and now I know why I continue to fork over the cash for alcohol products NOT made out of fish eggs. Yes, the ingredients boggle the mind. I literally could not even make it out of the hostel... the stuff is poison. The next night of partying was even worse…I have no idea why I drank so much, but I think it was a result of several days of stressing over jobs and where to go next etc, and having a ton of people I’ve met up the coast all in one place (namely our balcony). Something in me just wanted to really, uh, let loose I guess. Once again, I only made it to one bar before having to call it a night. So lame… not to mention pretty embarrassing.

Well, when I wasn’t out acting like an 18 year old by night, I checked out the job scene in Cairns by day and it was looking pretty grim. Everyone there wants a job as it’s pretty much the end of the line for most travelers, and it’s really difficult to get work of any kind. I met a cool girl in my hostel there that was headed up to Port Douglas (a small, beautiful town an hour north of Cairns) to look for work, so I figured I’d join her. After all, there was no use spinning my wheels in Cairns for another few weeks looking for that elusive job like I did in Byron Bay. We planned to leave Cairns 2 days later, but before I left, I had to get some sunset shots. by the esplanade there (I also set my alarm for 5:30 am for dawn pics, but that didn't really work out so well).





So we arrived in Port Douglas 2 days ago, and within 30 min of being here, my friend got both a job at the hostel working for accommodation and a bartending job at a local bar. I couldn’t believe how quickly things had fallen into place for her, and although I was happy for her, I was getting more and more depressed about my own joblessness. But that afternoon I did another round of resume dropping and, much to my delight, one of the managers at a really cool bar/restaurant offered me a trial run. I started my shift at 5 last night and was totally thrown into the deep end, but it was fun and I got along great with all the staff, so I think it’s all systems go. As I was walking back to the hostel after my shift, I met some locals who offered me a room in their place for $100/week (which is insanely cheap). I also might be working some days at a crocodile farm! (Details on that will be made available if/when the job comes through). I thought the night couldn’t get any more eventful, but at around 11:00 a few of us went down to the beach as we’d heard rumors of a big bonfire party. When we arrived, there were only a couple other people milling about looking for a fire that just did not exist. So instead of going home and conceding defeat, I started gathering some firewood and brush from the trees along the beach and convinced the 6 people there to start our own bonfire. Within 30 min or so, we had a pretty good blaze going, and an hour later there were at least 100 people there playing music and talking. Insane. I got home at 4am and I might now know half the town. All in all, it was a pretty awesome night for a sleepy little vacation town. I think I’m gonna like it here.