Australia Day 2009!

Rhino Beetle

Happy belated Australia Day! Only 2 days late, that’s not that bad. Anyway, the night before Australia Day we were invited over to one of Diva’s co-workers’ houses, Rob, but ended up going across the street to friends of his for an impromptu house party. Long story short we had a little tree frog visit us on the patio and then later got caught in the rain at 3am in front of the bakery and didn’t get to bed til 4am, thus missing out on the Australia Day morning festivities, like free breaky at the Surf Club and the Paddle Challenge- a race of paddling on a surfboard from Wategos to Main Beach, a couple km.
It rained on and off all day, but finally in late afternoon the skies cleared and it was beautiful. We decided to go into town and see what was going on, but as usual went to Aquarius first and stayed there. We had good reasons though. First, if you bought a drink you got free Aussie Day BBQ (snags). Second, there was an Australia Day Quiz with sweet prizes ($50 bar tab for 1st!) so we had to stay for that. We ended up getting a little assistance from a few “key” people, aka the people who made up the quiz, but even without help we would’ve won. One of the questions on the quiz that is worth mentioning was the ‘Sink or Swim’ question- Would a jar of vegemite sink or float when dumped/spooned into a jug (a pitcher) of beer? It sank. And then the bonus challenge was for an additional 15 points would anyone chug the jug of beer with the vegemite sitting in the bottom? One guy gave it a try, but after about 2 sips gave up. Then a guy on our team did it, the guy with the freaking Australian Coat of Arms tattooed on his back! Anyway, we won by a landslide and I didn’t pay for a drink all night, YAY!
After the quiz there was a Meat Pie Eating Competition. There were 3 contestants and they had a pile of meat pies- apparently also called Rat Coffins because they used to make them with none other than rat meat!- in front of them and the deal was to see who could eat the most pies in 2 minutes. It was both hilarious and disgusting. Somehow no one puked.

Meat Pie Eating Contest

The rest of the evening was spent harassing a rhino beetle (he would hiss if you tried to pick him up and we later set him in a tree) and having a good time despite the Aussie’s who were celebrating in pure Aussie fashion. You see it seems that unlike Canada Day and Independence Day, Australia Day is not a day to come together, unite as a country under one flag and be proud, setting aside any disputes or bad blood. No, instead it is a day to drink beers with your mates and a good excuse to make racist jokes. Or at least that’s what we noticed from a few people who wouldn’t normally tell that type of joke. Someone told us that in different parts of the country they don’t make much of a fuss about the holiday, Melbourne was his example, and that perhaps what we were witnessing was a result of all the rednecks in the area… the theme of the Aquarius party was Bazza’s Bogan BBQ after all.

Tasmania Days 6, 7 and 8!

Binalong Bay, Bay of Fires

Day 6- Thursday 22 January
Chelsie, Diva, and Kate got up for what Diva called “The most underwhelming sunrise ever,” and then went back to sleep. I opted out as I’d already seen 2 sunrises this year (New Year’s Day and Sky Diving day). So around 9 we got up for real and had breaky and took down the tent and then went to clean ourselves in the ocean. I got slammed by a wave and ended up with a suit full of sand, it was pretty hilarious. We exfoliated with the coarse sand though and it felt great on the mozzy bites. When we were getting ready to leave it started to pour but didn’t last long. We headed back to the main highway through Binalong Bay (I washed my face at the public toilet sink there, not potable water and smelt like sulphur, and I’m pretty sure my face smelt like garbage for a few hours after that) and St Helen’s.

The windy roads continued and the road took us through a constantly changing landscape- flat farm lands, huge hilly gum tree and eucalyptus forests (you could smell the eucalyptus inside the car, sometimes it was almost suffocating it was so strong), lush pre-historic fern forests, exposed outcroppings of rock. Incredible! Or “Unreal” as Kate would say... often. Haha. We stopped for lunch at Pyengana Dairy Company and their Holy Cow Café where we did a cheese tasting and I had some amazing cheddar and chive scones. Then we went down the road and saw Princess Priscilla the beer drinking pig. Crazy. Then we stopped in Scottsdale for a bakery break and the Bridestow Estate Lavendar Farm. Acres upon acres of lavender, a show-off guinea fowl and a taste of lavender ice cream (soapy!). Next up was Launceston, Lausington to Diva, for the night. It’d been windy and rainy all day so we decided to go big and get a hotel room. It’d also been 5 days since my last shower and I got to charge my camera battery! Of course, like the rest of Tassie, everything closed at 5pm so it was an early night after dinner at half-decent Mexican place.

Day 7- Friday 23 January
We got up early because we had to get Chelsie back to Hobart for her 1:40pm flight back to New Zealand. We stopped only in Historic Ross along the Midland Highway to see the Four Corners of Ross, the main intersection in town: Temptation (Man O’Ross Hotel), Salvation (the Catholic church), Recreation (Community Hall), and Damnation (the old gaol). There was also an old bridge in Ross that was hand carved by convicts in the mid 1800s. Very quaint town.
We passed through a section of highway where a bushfire was being extinguished and kms of trees and fields and telephone poles had burned- we learned later that winds had reached 157km/h during the night, causing the poles to falldown and spark from the electrical wires they supported to start the fires. Crazy shit!

Bushfire damage from the highway

Once we got back to Hobart we returned the camping gear and car and said Goodbye to Chelsie (Kate and I will see her again in about 3 weeks in New Zealand!). Then we found a hostel and shopped old Hobart town for a few hours. We stopped in at the Lark Distillery and I tasted some Pepper Berry Bush liqueur, very good, but choked on the 2nd sip and made a bit of a scene in the nearly empty room. After a nap at the hostel we were getting ready to go to the hostel bar for $3.60 bottles of Cascade Green (carbon neutral, low carb, Tassie-made beer, complete with a sexy Tasmanian Tiger stripe bottle), when one of our dorm mates (8 share room) came in from his shower and proceeded to drop his towel in front of us and get dressed. Um, did that just happen? Yes. Yes it did.
After some beers we walked back down to the harbor for fish and chips at Flippers- a floating take-a-way place shaped like a fish, roughly. Then we headed over to Knoppy’s Retreat, a bar, where one of Kate’s Byron co-workers’s friend worked. He had a sweet moustache- fitting, as it was moustache day after all- and hooked us up with some free beer. The place had a good vibe until we went inside and sat down. We were instantly joined by a very short man named Lin? Len? And he said “Let’s get a bottle of wine!” Uh, okay. We’d been drinking vodka-sodas and rum and cokes, but he did offer, so we picked a wine and then he asked for $5 from each of us for it! WHAT! We end up giving him $10 between the 3 of us and he ended up being very lame. We thought that maybe based on his size he’d be at least funny, but we were sadly mistaken- he sucked. And his friend looked like Paul “Shit Break” Finch from American Pie and sucked also. Around midnight we finally left lame Lin and hit up the 24hour bake house. Once back at our hostel, we quietly walked into our room only to have naked guy sit up in bed and say “Sorry? Sorry? Sorry?” Kate replied with: “Oh sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you up.” Then he says, “You’re in my car. Get out of my car. It’s my car. I asked you to get out. Look. Just get out of my car!” I was laughing quietly to myself and Diva says “Uh, okay, we’ll get out of your car.” Or something like that. Naked guy’s phone rang a few times during the night and he failed to answer it or turn it off. Thanks naked guy.

Day 8- Saturday 23 January

Two-headed Devils at Salamanca Market

Got up, checked out, hit the famous Salamanca Market down by the harbor. Sampled about a dozen flavors of fudge and several types of goats, sheep, and cows cheese. I had the second best muffin of my life. It was a cool market, but a little pricey and full of Bric-a-Brac.
Back at the hostel, we waited for a cheap airport shuttle that never showed and ended up taking a taxi. Back in the Melbourne airport I found out my jeans can write! And then the flight from Mel to Gold Coast was long as the plane was full of families with young children who can’t deal with the landing pressure and are generally undisciplined and loud.
But we made it back to Byron Bay and our hell hole and it is nice to be home, but DAMN was Tasmania wicked!

Tasmania Days 4 and 5!

Day 4- Tuesday 20 January
We got up early and headed back to Sorrell and the main highway. We stopped for some coffee and batteries at Chicken Feed (think Bi-Way). Back on the road we headed north up the East coast with Wineglass Bay in Freycinet National Park as our destination (I dare you to google image search Wineglass Bay). We stopped often to take in the sights of the open ocean and other things like an old church with stunning stained glass windows and Kate’s Berry Farm (berries aren’t ready until February, boooo! but we sampled all her jams, yum yum mingledberry). We made it to Freycinet after a short stop in Swansea for more groceries and then Cole’s Bay for a late lunch. At the Freycinet visitors center we were happy to learn that there were campsites available at Wineglass Bay so the 3hour return hike would be separated by a nights sleep and totally worth it (thought we might have to make it in and out in an afternoon, yikes). Chelsie did a little dance of celebration in the car park after we found out about the sites. Before we set out on the hike in an overly friendly wallaby came to say hello in the car park. That guy had NO fear.
The first half of the hike was up hill/up mountain to the lookout over Wineglass Bay on the sunny side of the hill, so basically I was dripping sweat by the top. As soon as you crested the hill/mountain/whatever the temperature dropped a good 5degrees and a breeze came in from the ocean. We spent a little time at the lookout taking pics and of course my camera battery died at that point, luckily the other girls got some great shots.
The hike down was steep and somewhat difficult, it felt like doing stadiums, burning on the way up and shaky legs on the way down (PS I was carrying our heavy tent on my back as well as a couple bottles of beer, 1.5L of water, and my clothing). At the bottom we found out the campsites were at the other end of the bay, another 45mins away. Kate wanted to give up and camp there, but we forged on, and it ended up being the right thing to do because the beach only got nicer. The sand got whiter and finer and the shells got prettier! We saw dolphins in the water, a wallaby on the beach, and big jellyfish washed up on the beach! And it was a long walk on one of the most beautiful beaches in the world (voted 2nd best a few years back) how could it not be awesome? We had dinner and drank beers and tired to go in the water (much too cold!) and saw dolphins have a feeding frenzy on fish that would jump out of the water in hopes of escaping. Incredible. We met some other campers, they’d been crayfish (lobster) fishing earlier that day and offered us half of one, which Diva and Kate happily accepted. Another camper, a gal from France on a break year, had been camping there for a week and planned to stay a full month at Wineglass Bay, hiking out only for food and water, crazy! I started an obsession/addiction on Wineglass Bay that I couldn’t shake until we moved inland a few days later: collecting shells. Boy was it bad for a while there. Something also happened between Diva, Kate, and a penguin, but I'm not at liberty to reveal the details of their association.
Anyway, after the mozzies became unbearable around dusk we hung our food and garbage in a tree (in plastic bags only, that’s all we had, and from the same rope since we only had a short piece that I'd found there. Recipe for disaster basically) about 10m away from our tent and went to bed. A few hours later we were all awoken from something, wild animals, Tasmanian Devils we think, eating our garbage and trying to get into our food. Diva and Chelsie both kind of cried out “There’s something outside!” at points, but I was more annoyed and all I wanted was for them to eat our food and go away so I could sleep. It went on all night and kept me up for most of it. [Byron Bay Edit: Kate’s and Diva's co-workers, both from Tassie, say it was probably Possums, not devils. But I’m gonna say they were devils because possums are lame and so what if Tassie devils can’t climb trees and don’t make that grunting noise.]

Day 5- Wednesday 21 January
When we woke up in the morning I was expecting a raccoon-like mess from the Tassie Devils, but it really wasn’t bad at all. They’d totally cleaned out the lobster shell and only got into our loaf of bread and a banana. We packed up our stuff (after cleaning up the garbage of course) and headed out for our 1.5hour hike to the car park. It was 7:25am when we set out and we easily did the entire hike in less than an hour. It felt good to start the day with vigorous exercise.
Back on the road and feeling dirty we grabbed coffees in Cole’s Bay and then stopped at Friendly Beaches (also in Freycinet National Park) for a quick swim and fun with kelp! Next stop was Bicheno for a look in their great tide pools/ a very educational ‘field trip’ lead by marine scientist Chelsie! My shell obsession reached new, somewhat alarming, heights.
We stopped at Douglas-Apsley National Park next for a short walk down to a freshwater “water hole,” of course none of us brought our swimsuits.
Next stop was Lagoons Beach because as we went further north the beaches and landscape only got more beautiful and we just had to stop and take it in. Chels and Diva frolicked in the surf, Kate tried to protect herself from the sun, and I collected shells (Don’t worry, I didn’t keep all the shells I collected, I only kept a few at each place, and almost all of them had holes in them from snails boring through the shell and then sucking out and eating the mullosk inside, hence why they were on the beach in the first place. I managed to get a nice little collection at every beach we stopped at and then selected a few to keep).
St Helen’s was next, a town full of weirdos, for a late lunch and groceries for dinner. Then we were on to Binalong Bay, the gateway to Bay of Fires (also once voted 2nd Best Beach in the World a few years ago), for info on free camping and snorkeling. We hit up the Glutch for a quick snorkel, too cold for me, but great shells! We set off up Bay of Fires to find the best campsite, it was crowded compared to Wineglass Bay, but after doubling back we found a sooty site right on the beach (Cosy Corner South), possibly the most beautiful beach I’ve ever been on: white sands, beautiful rock outcroppings, and such a variety of blues in the water it was jaw-dropping gorgeous! Only problem was that the temperature of the water was still freeeezing! We set up camp and drank wine on the beach and took it all in. When the mozzies got bad we moved into the tent and watched the stars through the open fly. The ground kept us warm that night since it was sand and had been baking in the hot sun all day- a geothermal wonder!

(Sorry, no pics with this post, our internet is NOT cooperating today, grrrr)

Tasmania Day 2 and 3

Day 2- Sunday 18 January We woke up and checked out of the hostel for 10am, after a night of what Diva called ‘A Symphony of Snoring” and went to get the rental car. Then it was down to the harbor for breakfast and to find a new hostel for the night. Both were achieved after a short detour at the Steve Irwin- the Sea Shephard ship- that was in port re-fueling for a few days before heading back out to the Southern Ocean to chase Japanese whaling boats. We talked to a first mate for a while and then got a short tour of the ship. Very educational and a rare experience indeed.

Aboard Sea Sheppard's ship the Steve Irwin

The rest of the day was spent window shopping, finding a place to hire camping gear, and driving up to the top of Mount Wellington, which overlooks Hobart. The road up was narrow and f*cking scary! Tassie’s are maybe the most reckless drivers I’ve ever come across! But it was worth the nerve-racking drive for the view from the top. Stunning!

View of Hobart from the top of Mount Wellington

Later on we had dinner and then picked Kate up from the airport and went to bed early in anticipation of the journey ahead!

Day 3- Monday 19 January
First Day on the Road! We hit Woolies for groceries before heading towards the Tasman Peninsula. I made the mistake of reading in the car along the super windy roads and felt carsick for most of the time spent in the car. We stopped in Sorrell for their famous fruit farm to find that apricots were the only thing ready for picking. Did I even like apricots? Well I do now! We picked about 3 dozen and of course hilarity ensued, a reoccurring theme of the trip.

APricots, not Ape-ricots

Next we passed on paying the $25 entry fee at the Tasmanian Devil Conservation Park and opted instead for the Federation Chocolate Factory just across the highway for some free samples. We also stopped at Eaglehawk Neck, the Blowhole that was through DooTown, and a few other places of interest before checking out the Port Arthur Historic Site: officially the most popular tourist attraction in Tasmania, and one of the first convict settlements in Tas (and the site of a 1996 massacre that resulted in 35 deaths). Former home to some of the worst criminals from Australia, England, and even Canada, it was built entirely by convict labor and some of the remaining architecture is quite beautiful, as are the grounds. We had some fun in the ‘Separate Prison,’ where the really bad guys were kept, and our tour guide, Tom, was very entertaining and definitely the highlight of the afternoon.

Port Arthur grounds from the water

Main convict barracks

After a few hours in prison we found a campsite (total rip-off) on White Beach and watched the sunset over the ocean! In the campsite next to us we saw some sort of marsupial inside a dining tent, it had pretty much trapped itself in there and was banging against the screen walls trying to escape. I told the woman who’s tent it was it had been in there when she came back and she told me it was probably a Potoroo, and that they look like rats, and she doesn’t like rats, and she said rats so many times I couldn’t remember the name of the animal so he became Jimmy-Rat Pettigrew for the rest of the trip.

White Beach Sunset

TASMANIA!

Wineglass Bay from the lookout

After a long travel day (see below), my first impression of Tasmania was that it was too cold. I had of course packed like an optimist for warm weather and ended up wearing pretty much the same thing all week long. The days did get warmer and were sunny as the week went on and the landscape only got more diverse and more beautiful. I also developed a little bit of a problem while I was there, stay tuned to learn about that in a few more posts.

I think Tasmania might be my favorite place on earth? That might be too strong a statement since my time down under is still quite young, but dang, did it ever make an impression. Maybe after I get all my pictures up you'll be able to understand why!

Day 1: Saturday 17 January
Diva and I took an airport shuttle from our front door to Gold Coast/Coolangatta Airport at 6am. We arrived at the airport at 5:59am (time change upon entry to Queensland) and proceeded to check in at the kiosks. The kiosks only gave us 1 boarding pass for our 2 legged trip. We thought this odd and asked a woman behind a counter, she said we could just get our next boarding pass in Melbourne. It was early in the morning, we were yet to have our coffee/espresso, and we knew we had nearly 2 hours layover in MEL. Welp. First our flight was delayed 30mins due to ‘technical operations.’ Fine, we could spare 30mins. Then once we were on the plane we sat on the tarmac for over an hour as the flight attendants took headcount after headcount after headcount. When an older female flight attendant was counting a man put his hand up and asked what the hold up was, the flight attendant replied “We’re doing a headcount. I want to be home now too, I have plans this afternoon. Thank you for supporting the crew” in a snotty tone, then turned and went back to the front of the plane to start again! The mid-section of the plane, where this exchange had taken place, erupted in chatter as she walked away. Once at the front she whispered something to another flight attendant and he made this announcement: “Please allow the crew to carry out the headcount uninterrupted. Thank you for your support.” The chatter went silent and the woman continued to count. And three other flight attendants counted too, one with a clicker counter thing. Finally one of them stopped and told us what was going on. Apparently, the headcount on the plane wasn’t matching the numbers the ground crew had, something to do with international passengers making their connections onto our flight. WTF, mate? Isn’t that what computers are for?! I felt like I was in the middle of a SES project assigned to 6th graders! Today’s assignment- Run an airline! FAIL!
So we finally took off and made it to Melbourne and as we were deplaning they announced my name over the PA telling me to meet the agent on the terminal, but Diva’s name was said. I had a bad feeling about that. Off the plane they are waiting with my next boarding pass for the Hobart flight that leaves in 20mins. We ask where Diva’s boarding pass is, but she ends up not being listed on the flight manifest and she’ll have to go to customer services, outside security (which is so lax compared to North America), to get this sorted out. Diva asked me to stay with her, so I got put on the next flight to Hobart at 4:30 (it was currently 1pm!).
So we went to customer services and they tell Diva that they can’t move her the 4:30pm flight because she had actually booked the late one, at 9:30pm! WHAT? ‘No I didn’t!’ says Diva, ‘I’m sure I didn’t.’ The guy was a jerk and says he can’t change her to the earlier one unless she can prove that she was on the one we just missed. So we went and found an internet kiosk to check Diva’s email and sure enough she’d booked the wrong one from the get go. Really weird since we had all sat side-by-side booking these flights. So we hang around for a little and then go back to customer services and a different lady is working and says Diva can try stand-by. So we go to the Virgin terminal (we flew Jetstar) and try to get a message to Chelsie, who is waiting in Hobart airport for us, thinking we’ll be there in an hour! Then we wandered around some more and got coffee (Diva’s 3rd of the day, she felt sick after). I got on the 4:30 flight but Diva was next in line and didn’t get on. What else could go wrong? I probably shouldn’t have been even thinking that I suppose! The 3 hour wait in the airport wasn’t that bad, we kept ourselves entertained.
Once in Hobart I turned on my phone while still on the plane, like normal, and Chelsie called. As I was deplaning, still on the phone, the flight attendant stopped me and told me I had to turn my phone off because there could be a $10,000 fine! So I hung up on Chelsie, luckily I had gotten the name of the hostel from her, went through Tasmanian Quarantine and then took the airport shuttle to the hostel. Chelsie and I went down to the harbor front for dinner and a little walk and called it a night. I waited up for Diva and then we hit the hay. What a long day.

Kate, don't read this. You won't think it's funny.

Last night Kate and I were chilling in our beds and I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. I knew it was a cockroach, they came to visit us upstairs every once in a while, big ones only though. So I got up to get rid of it with a shoe and had it under the shoe and I swear it made a crunch, but then the little fucker ran out from under the shoe and went under the bed!
Shiiiiiiit! What do we do now?! Just wait for it to come out? Try to move this giant wooden twin bed and find it under there? Pretend it didn't happen and let it lay eggs on our faces in the middle of the night?
We opted for B.) Try to move the bed and kill the fucker! I thought it was pretty hilarious when I was standing on the bed frame, holding two twin mattresses in the air so that Kate- with flashlight in hand- could locate the roach. She found him and went downstairs to get the bug spray (the pest was under one of the supporting beams, upside down. Pretty much impossible to get at and kill with our hands or any type of tool, hence the bug spray), leaving me still holding up the mattresses. I laughed a bit to myself and when she came back upstairs suggested taking a picture. She replied with something like: "No. I don't want to remember this!" Picture or not, my stance will stick in my memory. Needless to say, Kate sprayed the shit out of the roach and then it kind of disappeared. We assumed it was dead and put the bed back together. About a minute later I saw the struggling/dying roach half under the closet door. That fucker! We moved the sliding doors (they're the double doors on tracks closet doors) until he was exposed and then I killed him with a shoe and crushed him good, after he'd tried to jump away and continued to try to get away even when he was missing a couple legs.
So no roach-eggs-laid-on-our-faces-in-the-middle-of-the-night for us last night.

Still Alive to Tell About it!

Incredible! INCREDIBLE!
If there were one thing in life I would recommend everyone have to do it would be to experience a free fall/ skydiving.
Today at around 6:30am, Laurie, Kate, and I jumped tandem out of a plane from 14,000ft.
After a horrible night’s sleep, where I woke up more than once in a cold sweat (falling to my death dreams?) and the stripper’s sister started a fire in the backyard fire pit at 2:30am (long story but our room now smells like campfire) we got up at 5am for our 5:15 pick-up, but weren’t actually picked up until 5:30. When we were getting ready we asked Diva, still curled in a ball in the warmth of her bed (it was sooooooo cold this morning!), if she was going to come and she said no. But a few minutes waiting on the curb and she appeared, had changed her mind, and was ready to document our experience. The ride was short to Sky Dive Byron Bay’s air field about 10 minutes up the highway.



I was expecting some sort of classroom setting type crash course on what to do, but all we did was fill out some forms- forms that said be ready for close personal contact, people often get injured, you might die- were given dive pants and then strapped into a harness. Then our tandem partners came along and did up our harnesses and told us what was going to happen. First, before we leave the plane, I’ll be sitting on the edge and you’ll be hanging out the side, do this with your legs and put your head back and hold the harness with your hands. Then we’ll jump and when I tap your shoulders put your arms out and arch your back to make for a smoother free fall. Then after the parachute opens do this with your harness to make it more comfortable, and then when we land I’ll tell you to put your legs out straight and up and we’ll slide on to the ground. Uh, okay, okay, okay. Got it… I think?







Next we were whisked on to the plane, I think there were 8 of us on there, 3 pairs and 2 solos who were filming a few of the dives ($120 extra, no thanks). The ascent seemed to take a while and I was getting uncomfortable being crammed in there like a sardine. My partner kept asking if I was nervous because I kept moving my hands since I couldn’t find a good position for them. The view from the plane was incredible. We could see the whole bay and even as far as Surfer’s Paradise at one point. Once we’d reached 14,000ft and the correct GPS bearings the door was opened and people started jumping out. Since we were near the front of the plane and further from the door we were 2nd last to jump. The wait at the door I was anticipating didn’t happen, I was just scouted up and then tipped out. It was wild. I screamed at the beginning but quickly felt at ease and just enjoyed the view and the feeling of it. It is pretty much indescribable. The free fall was about 70seconds but felt longer. Near the end of the free fall the ground started to approach really fast and I started thinking “uh, why hasn’t he opened the chute yet?” But then I noticed the other divers below us had just pulled theirs and then ours was opened and it was about another 5 minutes of drifting to the ground and relatively uneventful landing (my partner kind of feel over me). After that we were unhooked from our partners, took off our harnesses and pants, and were given a certificate saying we did it.



Then we sat around for over an hour waiting for the shuttle back to town. So all that by 9am, not a bad way to start my week!

Buddha, La La, Beachie, Pancakes, 14,000ft. In that order.

Last night we went to Buddha Bar for a few drinks and listened to a kinda shitty DJ. We all drank Byron Bay Premium Ale, it tasted a lot like a Canadian beer I've had before but we couldn't figure out which one... maybe Lucky? Anyway, after Buddha Bar closed at midnight (only 4 places in town stay open past 12) we headed over to La La Land and the rest is insanity. I really like Diva's account so check it out at DivaSurfs.

In other news today is pancake day aka we're having pancakes for dinner! But first we are going to see Lisa Hunt again at the Beachie. This morning Laurie and I had brunch at Diva's work- Satori- and I uploaded other 150 pictures. Click the "Byron Bay Part II" pic for the link!

Also, tomorrow I will be jumping out of an airplane (tandem) from 14,000ft and free falling for 70seconds at 6am. Go big or go home, right?

First of many Dance Party 2009s

On Wednesday night I almost didn’t go out and then it ended up being one of the funnest nights in Byron yet! Diva and Laurie went to the Beachie to see Donavon Frankenfreter or something play (wasn’t free this time) and Kate and I went to the Aquarius bar because one of the crew there was leaving the next day and she wanted to say goodbye. There was a kid in the bar that night from Kamloops making a scene, stoned off his ass, throwing bottles and whatnot. There was another young alone on the dance floor just ripping it up (badly I might add). We ended up getting a ton of free drinks and dancing the night away after the bar had closed. Welcome to the service industry says Diva. Kate’s co-workers, Meg and Chris (Chris is the bar manager, hence the 100% discount), had a few friends in town from Melbourne who told me that Byron is the place to be in Australia and that people will be impressed that we’ve lived here when we travel to other places around the country. One of their friends was a Kiwi and he told us of a few things to see while we’re in New Zealand next month.
Diva and I stopped at the 23 hour bakery for a dry cookie on the way home and it was quite a scene in there too, but I can’t remember exactly what went down. I do remember eating just the crust of a beef, bacon, and cheese pie as we walked to the bakery and I think it was why I didn’t have a hangover. Pies are magic I tell ya!

Flying

Kate and I booked our flights to New Zealand yesterday! We'll be there February 16- March 2 and it will be the beginning of our travels away from the middle East coast Australia. After New Zealand we are planning to hit Sydeny, Canberra, Melbourne, Adelade, Ayers Rock, and Perth.

Also, next week we might go sky diving. weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Also, today I found the secret pathway from our house to the beach (really not that secret), saves us maybe 5mins walk. Yippie.

NYE 2009

White's Beach

My New Year’s Eve was both awesome and ridiculous and bad. We went to a beach that was in the Broken National Reserve called White's Beach. Since Kate and Laurie both had to work early on New Year's Day, we had arranged with the Canadian couple who invited us and also had to work in the morning, to get a ride there and back that night from them. Problem of them getting back for work in time solved, it was our biggest issue of going to this beach that was out of town. To get to this beach we had to drive quite far into the park and were beginning to think it was going to be deserted but when we pulled up to the parking area it was packed. We got there around 7pm just when the sun was starting to set and it was absolutely beautiful. The surf was pretty good and there were some surfers there who later left as darkness fell and then there was another group of people with a big campfire going. Our group had maybe a dozen people in it.

Our alcove

Anyway, we started drinking and having a good time and it was good times all around. The stars were incredibly bright and most of us stared at them for most of the night. The natural beauty/wonder of this place was pretty wicked/indescribable. We all felt lucky and glad that we'd come to celebrate the New Year there. Once it got dark we discovered that there were phosphorescent algae or something all in the sand and in the water. So when you kicked up the sand it would kind of glow or waded through the water it would glow too.

There were these twins there, Brod and Darcy, and they claimed to be able to read auras. They said mine was blue, like a tree. Hilarious. I learned later that they were on mushies.

Diva having her aura read...

The other group on the beach were a bunch of old hippies. One of them was a fire twirler and that was cool. So we went over and mingled with them a little. They had drums and a guitar and a flute and played some forest fairy tunes. I thought they were kinda lame.
Midnight came and I got my wish of the first thing that I did this year being to jump in the ocean. At this point Kate was off somewhere with a boy, and the couple who was our ride wanted to leave. We started yelling for Kate and she showed up just as we were starting to climb the stairs (big winding pathway up a cliff basically) but Diva was so loss-of-motor-skills drunk that she could barley walk, let alone climb those stairs in the dark. Diva and I said we would stay and get a ride back with the others in the morning. Diva had also misplaced her phone at this point and we were going to rely on someone staying the night to find it and then return it, but us staying sort of solved this problem too (we found it in daylight, after it had beeped of waiting messages and dying batteries all night).

So the two of us continued to drink and party and have a good time and that’s when the bad shit started to happen. First I started to puke from drinking too much and mixing it with too many Doritos (Thanksgiving weekend party all over again). A bit later I was puking the rest of my guts out, by now there wasn't much coming up, and I saw Diva walk by, so I went to check on her and when I got to where she was, like around some rocks, she was lying on the ground with her bikini bottoms around her knees and a bloody lip/nose! She'd been trying to pee and somehow smashed her face on the rocks in the process. We got her pants up and I made her open her mouth to make sure she hadn't broken her teeth again and she hadn't, her face broke her fall this time. This was all by the light of my cellphone. We walked back to the fire and gave her some ice from an eskie, a cooler, but there wasn't much left by then. There wasn't much blood and we wiped it up, me and this aura twin, with the only clean thing we could find- a slice of bread! and Diva was pretty upset and kept saying it hurt. I told her to go to sleep and kept insisting it would be fine. So we tired to sleep, but it was freeeezing, and the surf was so loud. I probably only slept an hour or 2. All I wanted was the sun to come up and to be warm. I kept thinking “I’m going to get hypothermia and die on a beach in Australia in the middle of summer, WTF!” After giving up on sleep I watched the sun rise, as did the twins, and a few people got up and left that I didn't really know. I checked on Diva and her upper-lip was so swollen and looked painful. Poor Divs. We sat around and warmed up and watched a few hippies wonder out of their area in the nude to do yoga by the water. A few surfers showed up as well. Then we cleaned up the garbage and empties and went back up the cliff stairs and our friend Dane drove us home (Dane looks kinda like Doogie Howser).

When we got home we went to bed for a few hours, and were woken around noon by the heat, it was a hot one, like 37 humidex. And then Diva got up to take a shower and was trying to clean the blood off her face and apparently fainted a bit in the bathroom and then was walking in the hall back to the room and then fainted for real. All I heard was a big thump. We figure the sight of her face and the blood gave her a bit of a shock. So she had some water and laid back down. She had an ice pack on her face all morning and the swelling was going down slowly. There are a few nicks but the big cuts are a scrape on her nose tip and above her upper lip. It's not pretty but seems to be healing well. Kate brought us some pies home from work and they pretty much cured my hangover… maybe that’s why Aussie’s can drink so much- pies.
Later in the day I went for a short swim hoping to cool down, but the water was as warm as the air, so no dice. Then we had baked brie and went to bed early.

In other news, the stripper drama continues. It was pretty bad New Year's Day, she apologized about it yesterday, saying she was so out of it the day before and couldn’t remember anything. MESSY. She started puking when I was downstairs yesterday morning and mid-vomit her son said to her “That's why you shouldn't drink so much beer." He’s not even 5 yet.

Happy New Year!

Welcome 2009!
Look for a full report on my New Year's Eve shenanigans tomorrow or the next day. It was both an awesome and terrible night. After a day of reflection and the hangover subsiding I've decided it was more on the awesome side.

Best Wishes in the New Year and Good Luck with your resolutions (should you have any)!

P.S. Only one more year until I can open my time capsule! wooooooooooo!
Also, my hangover and lack of sleep last night prevented me from spending the day at the beach, hence no pic of me welcoming the New Year via zinc message on my back... Maybe next year?