To the lighthouse

Well, I finally made it to the famous Byron Bay lighthouse. I went for a run up there about 2 weeks ago in the middle of a torrential downpour (which was actually a rather exhilarating experience) but most of the surrounding view was obscured by rain and fog so I although it was eerie and beautiful up there that day, I couldn't get a real sense of the place (nor could I take any pictures).

So the other day, taking advantage of this rare bout of great weather, I grabbed a bike from the shop across the street with the intent of riding it up to the lighthouse to take some sunset pictures. I missed the sunset by about 5 minutes, and then realized that I had sand in my lens and it was making an ominous crunching noise every time I zoomed in and out. Perfect. I left the lighthouse in near pitch-blackness, praying all the while I didn’t hit an invisible pothole in the road on my way back. Well, that adventure clearly didn’t work out so well, but I would not be deterred and I resolved to wake up before dawn the next morning to capture some sunrise pictures. Prudently, I mentioned my plan to the guy who drives the hostel bus and he wanted to check it out as well. So he got some people together and drove us there at 5am (saving me the grueling ride to the top...thank you Dave!)

It was a lovely morning... I didn't find myself taking that many pictures of the lighthouse itself cause while it’s beautiful, it is ultimately just a lighthouse. And there was something dark and slightly foreboding about it that I saw on that rainy day that I wanted to express even though it was a beautiful sunny morning. So I focused on capturing the place as reflected in dirty panes of glass and playing with light and shadow. Here are some of the better shots of the morning.






I'm throwing this next one in here even though I don't love it just so you can see that there is indeed a lighthouse there!


I hope I’ll be able to get back over there for another sunset before I leave next week. I haven’t made any definite plans to depart as of yet, but I think I’ll be heading up the coast early next week, as there’s no point in hanging around with no job while the weather gets colder and colder. The idea is to use some of my remaining money to head up to Cairns where hopefully there will be work available. The weather will be very warm and sunny (though you never know with this insane weather pattern) and I hear there is more work available there. I’ll be so sad so leave Byron Bay…I’ve been living here for a month and it feels homey and comfortable. I’m not looking forward to living out of a bag again, but I am excited to see the Great Barrier Reef and all the national treasures up the coast, so that will be some consolation!

Good lord, I'm a bartender

Who’s bright idea was this?


Ok, it was mine. After 2 grueling weeks working at the hostel café, the manager of our hostel pulled me aside one morning and said, “You don’t like working at the café very much, do you?” Hm, well I wonder what gave it away? Definitely not the ever present scowl on my face. I replied, that no, I indeed did not enjoy the café work (truthfully, I couldn’t have handled much more of it, it was really that bad). So he pulled some strings for me and got me working behind the bar the very next night. I have to say, it's a lovely change of pace. You fill the fridges at the start of the shift, then chat with people for the rest of it (and try to avoid drinking the obscene number of Jager Bombs the manager keeps placing in front of you). Now that’s what I call working for accommodation.

As far as the job situation goes, it’s not looking too good. The surf photography job didn’t work out because they needed someone to start the very next day and I simply could not learn to drive the old stick-shift van in time. The guy who owns it is not an insured driver, so it’s understandable that he might not want me making a mess of his only mode of transportation. Needless to say I was very disappointed, as it would have been basically the best job ever. So now I’m still unemployed and have been going around EVERY DAY to every bar and restaurant in town pestering the managers about available positions. I’ve even gone so far as to post ads around town offering my graphic design services, but hardly anyone here even has a computer, so I doubt I’ll get any leads there. With nothing biting, and my friends in sadly similar positions, we started getting creative, Byron Bay style.



We sold 2 whole books that day and made a grand total of... wait for it... 5 dollars. Let the good times roll!

So aside from my general frustration at not being to be able to find any sort of work, I think Byron is really a pretty cool place to be. The weather has been very strange, with cold thundershowers moving through the area every day at intermittent intervals, making beach going extremely annoying. I have, however, been surfing every day at sunset and I can’t describe how breathtaking it is when these storms sweep through and send walls of water past the partially obscured sun, creating rainbows over the lighthouse. It makes for some deeply moving and spiritual moments when you’re sitting on your board in the warm ocean in the middle of a torrent of rain. These storms also make for some really beautiful sunsets on certain nights.


I think the plan as of now is to stay in Byron for another 2 weeks or so, then move on. I had no idea it would be this difficult to find work, but the effort is really starting to wear on me and I’m about to give up (of course something will come through just as I’m leaving). I’ve made some really fantastic friends here and I want to hang around until they take off, but when they go, I’ll go too. I’ll be making my way up the coast to some really beautiful spots (including the great barrier reef), so I promise this blog will get more exciting soon!

As an aside, we had "staff movie night" (where we all pile on a mattress in our room and stuff our faces with unimaginable amounts of chocolate) and cried our eyes out over Into the Wild. It made me miss home so much!

The good news…

is that I got a job!! A photography job! The guy I’ve been stalking about it called me this morning whilst I was slaving away in the café. He said one of their employees was leaving sooner than expected and that they needed someone ASAP. I almost shrieked with excitement. It’s really hard to find work around here, let alone fun work that pays relatively well. The main crux of the job involves frolicking about in the sea taking pics of the surfers standing up on their boards for the first time. Really taxing work.

And now for the bad news. I have to drive to the lessons… in a MANUAL car. I have no idea how to drive stick (other than the few lessons I got about 6 years ago from a certain Rachael Shipkin before our epic drive from MD to FL). I also have to burn disks after the lessons are over and drop them off around town at whichever hostels the students are staying. Anyone who knows me well knows that my sense of direction is not one of my saving graces. There are about 4 roads in this town, which means I’m pretty much guaranteed to end up in New Zealand (I can’t even be trusted with one road…I inevitably go the wrong way). Oh, and did I mention they drive on the wrong side of the road here? I can’t even figure out which way to look before crossing the street. This should be interesting.

So the guy in charge of hiring said he’d give me some driving lessons. He was working at the surf school part time as a photographer, but broke his leg and is pretty much bed-bound for a while. I’m sure it will be very entertaining for him to watch me totally thrash his car. (Ironically enough, he’s the same guy that was working here at the hostel and because he broke his leg, I had to work at the café instead of the bar. Funny how that one lost opportunity directly led to another one opening up for me). I’d call it serendipitous, but I have no idea how this will all turn out so I won’t say much more about it until I think it’s a done deal. And it very well may not be because of the driving issue, but I’m preparing myself for disappointment. If this doesn’t work out, I’ll just stalk the other surf company until the cows come home. I also met a photographer on the beach while I was surfing the other day and he offered to take me with him to assist on his shoots around the area. I’d have jumped right on that opportunity, but he’s an older gentleman and I worry that he may be more into hitting on me than helping me. So I’ll have to go with my gut on that one.

And now for the even worse news… a boy was killed here the other day by a shark. He was a 16-year-old out with his friend on a nearby beach early in the morning yesterday when a shark came up and bit off his leg. His friend tried to save him, but he had lost too much blood. It was the first shark attack since 1993. So sad and scary… these waters around here are no joke. Also kind of scary that I joked around about a shark attack on my last posting about the jellyfish and the red ant attacks I endured last week. I guess one shouldn’t ever really jest about sharks.

Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll keep you posted on my driving misadventures…I daresay that given the current state of my knowledge about driving here, I’d be safer in the water.

Nasty Creatures (the land and sea variety)

I’ve been working in the hostel café for about 5 days now, and I have to say I absolutely dread going in for work. I don’t mind cleaning in the least, but you can only wipe down tables, walls, shelves, etc so many times before you actually start to wear the metal down from constant scrubbing. There’s so little to do in there, and when it’s slow, I’m convinced the clock actually follows suit and runs slower. Sometimes, I’m tempted to dump the contents of the salt and pepper shakers into the grass so I can kill some time refilling the empty containers. It’s not only the boredom, it’s having also to deal with 2 rather unpleasant women who call me out every time they see me standing around looking for something to do and ask, rather derisively, if I’ve “checked the list.” Um, actually, I CLEANED the list. So yesterday, a few minutes after my shift had ended, I was making myself some food and one of the women pushed an order towards me to run it out to a table. Normally I would have dropped what I was doing and run the food out just to be helpful, but something in me snapped and I just looked at the clock and shrugged my shoulders. She didn’t like that too much, but there wasn’t much she could do about it other than to say some nasty things about me to the other woman and get on with her work.

It strange that after all the time I spent living in NY, I still have trouble fighting fire with fire. My first instinct is always to be nice and ever helpful when I’m in the workplace, but niceties weren’t buying me any attitude shifts on their part, so, against my natural inclination to want to help, I opted to push back. We’ll see what happens. It does really pay to have a job here, in that you get meals, accommodation, and steep discounts on internet and board rentals, and drinks, but I’m not sure it’s worth feeling like I’m constantly fighting to keep in check the imminent loss of my temper.

Other that that little glitch, my situation here is actually pretty sweet. I somehow managed to score myself a virtually private bedroom. It’s connected to the main staff room here, and one of the girls left and no one wanted it, so I jumped at the chance to be able to actually close a door and have some precious privacy. I can’t believe my luck… oh to be able to actually change my clothes without a towel wrapped around me! To be able to close a door and stifle the bleeping of the much-used Xbox! It’s the little things in life. The other plus side is that my fellow work-for-accommodation travelers are really cool. We all hang out together and it’s getting to be a comfortable little family. Also, I don’t want to jinx it, but I may be able to get a photography job at the surf school here. I’m going to harass them until they have no choice but to let me have the job, but as a plan B, I’ve dropped my revamped and totally fabricated resume off at various bars around the area just in case the job doesn’t come through early next week. I went through a funny process when it came to redoing my resume in giving the bar/waitressing work I did when I was younger more prominence than the design work that has defined the last 5 years of my life. It felt so weird, but at the same time, it made me realize that work really does not define who we are… that at the end of the day none of that stuff matters all that much. Work is work, money is money, and it’s all part of the experience of being here to do whatever it takes to fully invest oneself in the day-to-day life of a place (though that does not include allowing myself to be talked down to as if I were a child in need of a remrimand…)

In other news, I took a surfboard out the other day and was all excited to get out on the waves. I noticed that there were very few surfers out and that the waves were also pretty flat. As I approached the beach, I saw why the ocean was practically bereft of surfers. Bluebottles. Nasty little blue jellyfish that come in according to certain wind patterns. They were everywhere, lying in clumps on the water’s edge and looking highly menacing. I was so annoyed that I hadn’t though to find out about the little monsters before I came out that day, and even more annoyed that I had lugged an overly large board out with me all the way to the far beach. I saw that there were a few surfers in the water (maybe 3 or 4) and I asked if they’d been stung yet and they said no, so I figured I’d give it a go. (Bluebottles won’t kill you, even though they do apparently hurt a hell of a lot). Well, it took all of 10 minutes for me to get stung. The tail end of a bluebottle wrapped itself around my waist and my leg. Then it got itself caught in my surfboard and I couldn’t get away from it, so it got me even worse. Fun times! I hightailed it back to shore to assess the damage. Eh, it was pretty painful and was leaving very strange welts that looked like strings of pearls embedded under my skin. I’d liken the pain to a bee sting. Not screaming, white hot pain, but enough to make me never want to get near the water’s edge when there are jellyfish in sight ever again. Sometimes, I just have to tempt fate, and then I pay the price! Later that day, I went for a run and was doing crunches in the grass when I felt a deep, burning sensation in my shoulder. My crunches seemed to have blocked the path of a wayward red ant. OUCH. I think it’s safe to say the pain was actually worse than the jellyfish sting. I had to laugh though…I mean, what next? A shark? (I really shouldn’t joke about that, there are sharks around here).

Anyway, that’s about as exciting as it gets at the moment. In a few more days I’ll have some idea about how I’ll be spending my next few months. If the job comes though, I’ll be here for about one or two months, and if not, then I’ll just peace out and finish my trip up the coast before settling down in Sydney for a while to do some design work. I’m starting to miss it!

Alternative Adventures

Celine and I had a few days to hang out together in Byron Bay, so we did what any backpacker with a little time on their hands does…we went 1 hour north to Nimbin on a tour called “Jim’s Alternative Tours.” Nimbin is a one-street town, and it’s basically one big shrine to marijuana. With store names such as “Bringabong” (a play on Billabong, the surf company) and Rainbow Café, you get the impression very quickly that this is a pretty, um, liberal place. Busloads of backpackers arrive daily on busses called “the Happy Bus” and “Grasshopper.” You get the picture.



The cops leave Nimbin alone, as there seems to be very little they can do to crack down on the lifestyle there. So people just take out their joints and bongs and light up on the street. We got to talking to a local guy, and a burnt out/cracked out old hippie woman came by and started pestering him about her disappointing pot brownie sales for the day. He then introduced the woman to us as his mother. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that Nimbin is not the ideal place to raise one’s child.

Well, we spent about an hour and a half in the town, had a delicious lunch, then left to look at some waterfalls and took a tour of a huge tropical garden. The man who owned the place gave us some mini-lectures about god, religion, string theory, and philosophy in general, then led us on a half hour walk though his beautiful property. Yes, it was leech infested and yes, one attached itself to my foot. Pretty nasty, but no biggie, I came prepared with band-aids. All in all, I'd say Nimbin was probably the most random/hilarious tour I’ve ever taken.

After Nimbin, Celine and I spent a few days just hanging out around Byron. We made friends with our roommates and went out surfing with them, which was so much fun. I was very tempted to buy a board, but that might just be crazy me getting the better of logical (almost broke) me. I started poking around for a job, but the leads were few and far between. (I decided not to do the surf camp job right now because I really can’t make any money doing that, and I imagine it might get boring given that there’s no town there to speak of. I can always go back later in the season). There are temporary jobs here for backpackers, but most of them are sandwich shop kind of jobs and it may be snobby, but I can’t help but feel like I don’t want to work at Subway. I was so excited the other night because a great job working at our hostel bar sort of landed in my lap. Basically, you work behind the bar at the hostel for 2 hours each night, meet everyone and hang out, and in return, you get accommodation and food for free. It’s an amazing deal, considering the nature of the “work” and the fact that I’d basically be living for free and could get a day job to help finance the rest of my trip. I signed up to get my RSA (a certificate that enables you to serve alcohol) and was generally good to go.

Well, I was all set to start work last night, but one of the guys that runs the bar here ended up in the hospital for getting into a fight, so the job sort of disappeared into thin air. I still don’t understand what happened, but I was left jobless and a bit flustered as to what to do next. I was all prepared to take any sort of work here, but then all of a sudden there was absolutely nothing available. Not even laundry duty. I was told to check with the hostel café, and the woman acting as manager for the day told me they didn’t need any help there either. Celine left yesterday morning for a town up north called Noosa, and I was about 2 seconds away from buying a bus ticket to go join here up there for a few days. I mean, I’m fine being on my own in general, but on the rare occasion that you meet someone you enjoy traveling with so much, it’s really hard to let them go.

After much deliberation and thumb twiddling, I decided to hang out in Byron for one more night. I had a feeling a job would open up and that the woman I spoke to in the café wasn’t the final word. I got into the café as soon as it opened and was able to speak to the manager who told me a 10-12 morning time slot just opened up that day and that they really needed someone to fill it. I jumped on it… I mean, it’s not ideal, but it will save me the cost of the hostel, plus dinner, internet, and surf board rental. I think that works out to about $30/hour for doing very very little actual work. So basically, at this point, I’m not spending anything and can focus on getting a part time job during the day (hopefully something photography-related).

And now, my friends, let me tell you about my new lifestyle. I’ve moved into the long-term/staff “suite,” and have a top bunk in an 8-10 person room. There is a TV in here, which seems nice until you realize that it’s on ALL THE TIME. I’ve grown used to not watching any TV at all and it’s kind of jarring to hear it. But the people here seem really cool, so that’s a plus. There are some nice girls to hang out and surf with, and it’s refreshing to have people around who aren’t constantly on the move and with whom you can form more enduring relationships. The café work is so mindless that I even take customer orders. I basically clear tables, stock food, run orders out to tables, and when it’s slow, I clean. I cleaned TOILETS today. Not my own, mind you. I cleaned the restaurant toilets. Picture it! A far cry from my cushy advertising job in NY! Ha! But oddly enough I don’t really mind. It’s a better job then cleaning the nasty kitchen or folding laundry, so I’ll take what I can get…it’s just too bad the bar job didn’t pan out. Plus, as I’ve said, my idea of luxury has really changed since I’ve been traveling, and my standards are, shall I say, a bit lower when it comes to temporary backpacker work.

I have no idea what’s around the corner, but I guess that’s all part of the adventure. Hopefully I can find a semi-interesting job to keep me busy for a few hours a day because lying on the beach all day is going to get really old really fast. I’m gonna spend tomorrow fishing around for leads. As always, I’ll keep you posted…

Blues and Bumper Cars

Byron Bay has this amazing 5-day Blues festival each year and I timed my surf trip to land me here in time to check out the concert. It’s the busiest weekend of the year in Byron, and the energy of this little hippie town is simply out of control. My friend Celine and I got to the festival at around 1:30 on Saturday and met up with all the surf camp instructors/employeees later in the day. They are out of their minds.



I took my big, heavy camera with me and was kind of annoyed I had it until I started snapping shots in the afternoon. I had so much fun with that thing, and people respond really well to you when they think you’re an official concert photographer…

Here are some of the shots I got over the course of the festival. Just tried to generally capture the mood and the energy of the concert-goers. I've never really shot people before so this is kind of new for me, but I think I could really enjoy doing more portrait work.










We stayed at the show till the very end and it was a great way to end a fantastic week.


We listened to some really amazing acts, including John Butler (I think I may have actually shed a tear, he was so good), Gotye, Rodrigo y Gabriele, Cat Empire, Beautiful Girls, Agnes and Julia Stone (really worth the listen) and many others. We had a three-day pass so we went each day and put in some serious hours. The acts were true quality and I’m so excited to have had the opportunity to listen to so many artists I’ve never heard of.

So that about wraps it up for now! Today is Tuesday, figure out my life day. I think the reality has really begun to set in that I need to find a job, but not working for 2 months has completely spoiled me and I have no idea what to do with myself! Yikes!

The insanity that is surf camp

What do you get when you combine massive quantities of alcohol, 6 hours of surfing a day, and surf instructors who seem most comfortable conducting their lessons in the nude? I have no idea, but I’m still recovering from the experience.





I’m battered and bruised, scraped, and sore. My fingers and palms literally look as if I’ve run them over a cheese grater (probably due to my death grip on the foam board), and my leg is one big blotchy mess. But it’s all good cause now I CAN SURF! Ok, I can only get up on the smallish waves; I tried a few big ones at the back and managed a few, but overall, they still scare the bejesus out of me. I’ll definitely keep it up though, cause it’s a fantastic workout and it also looks pretty cool.




So to recap, after getting back from NZ, I spent last weekend in Sydney catching up with a few people I met there, and headed for the surf camp bus bright and early on Monday morning. It was rather painful getting up at 5am and knowing I was gonna have to surf that day; given that that weekend was St. Patrick’s day and there was no peace and quiet to be found within a 100 mile radius. I arrived at the bus and cringed…it was 95% girls. My first thought was that there was going to be a LOT of drama, as large groups of girls tend to get that way. But as the week went on, I was pleasantly surprised that not only did the group gel extremely well, but I also made a few great girlfriends out of the deal.

Our days went like something this: Wake up at 7, hike the 45 minute walk to the absolutely stunning beach, surf for 3 hours, eat a huge lunch, take siesta, surf for another 3 hours, eat dinner, then party on the beach. It’s a rough life for the employees I’m sure. We surfed at two different beaches over the course of 5 days. The first was totally isolated, pristine, and intimate and our group had all of it to ourselves.



The second place, called Spot X, was more commercial… lots of different tour groups and a bigger, more populated camp. I got along really well with the employees of that camp and they offered me a job there if I wanted it. I’m seriously considering going down to work at the camp for a month or so to help out with surf photography. The deal is, you work for 4 hours a day and all your accommodation and food is covered. Any extra hours you want to work are paid (only $10/hour, but you don’t need any money there anyway cause it’s pretty far from the nearest town). Why not right? It would be prefect way to practice my photography, a great way to learn to surf, and a damn good time.

So on the last day, we divided up into teams and had a surf competition. The rules were that you had to catch two waves and do a trick on the board to score extra points. Looking retarded also scored extra points, as did stripping off one’s clothes. Well, we were wearing wetsuits, so we won no points for nudity, but our team spirit carried us though and we tied for first place with the boy’s team. To break the tie, we had to stand in a line and each of us had to down a raw egg, relay race style. It was truly disgusting. Our team would have won if one of the girls hadn’t chickened out (sorry, pun intended). She just couldn’t stomach it. I felt like a frat boy. I have some pretty funny pictures of this, but I lost my scan card and can't get my pics off my camera. :(

We all arrived in Byron Bay on Friday night and unbeknownst to us, the bars all shut down at 10pm for good Friday. I was a bit disappointed as that was the last night the whole group would be together, but I was so beat down from the week that it was probably a blessing in disguise. I tried to get some sleep, but there were literally 15 people staying in the room that night and from 6am till 10am, people would not stop moving around, packing, talking, etc. Sweet. It was extra frustrating given that a few of us were going to the blues festival the next day and I really wanted to be physically prepared for being on my feet all day. Oh well…

Tomorrow I’ll be updating with Blues Fest pics. I’d have done it today, but we have one more night to go so I’ll wait on it. For now, let’s just say it was a perfect end to a perfect week. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post!