In Cairns and free of hassles

Well Mel and I had a brief stop in Mission Beach, we got bored of small towns so we rushed up to Cairns! It's been great here. the weather is perfect, city is not TOO big but has everything we need. I've done some shopping and lots and lots of tanning and lying by this gorgeouse little Lagoon. We met up with one of Mel's friends, Rich, from England, and now Mikey the Canadian guy we worked with in Childers is comign to meet up with us here. We're goign to rent a stationwagon and drive up to Darwin which should take us at least a week. Should be good fun.

Oh and I am happy to announce that I am officially free of having anything to do with the van or the cranky girl inside of it. I had a great time living and travelling in it for 4 months. But after Joan visited me in Childers, and about 10 phone calls from her bitching at me for this and that and complaining about everything, I realized I would be absolutly miserable going on travelling with her. I just couldn't handle it anymore it stressed me out pointlessly. I figured I'm dishing out mass amounts of cash for this trip, and I decided, selfishly i must admit, that it would be best for me to head my own way. I lost a few hundred dollars in the process of doing so including a few of my person things, but at least I'm happier than ever!!!

Townsville and Magnetic Island

We only spent a night in Townsville, it was nothing too exciting we were just visiting a friend Mel had made in Airlie beach.

The morning after we hopped onto a ferry to Magnetic Island. After partying it up we were ready to just laze around for a bit and soak up some sun in peace and quiet maybe even read a book. The first day we arrived it was SO gorgeous and sunny and perfect, we decide to book an extra night right away. But unfortunatly for the past 2 days it has been miserable. Its been nothign but rain. And since we're on an island with nothign to do but lie by the pool or lie by the beach or in a hammock, we've been bored mindlessly...
We leave tomorrow to Mission beach, hopefully the weather will clear up by then.....

Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays

After a 12 hour bus ride we arrived at Airlie beach! The beach is gorgeose there. It was so nice to be back near the water. In Airlie we met up with our 2 Irish friends Seamus and Eimear from Childers. We went all out there and partied it up hard. It was so nice to see some new face and go clubbing a bit. Needless to say I feel much better and glad I got it out of my system for a bit.

I did a 2 night sailing trip around the whitsundays and OH MY GOD was it ever beautiful. For the first time in my life I saw a beach that actually looks exactly like it does on the postcard, it was breath taking! I also did some snorkelling which was a bit scary for me considering I have a fish phobia (don't ask I don't know why I have it either) but the coral was still amazing, I'm glad Mel made me go with her. Besides I did a lot of tanning on the boat and ate some tasty tasty food that they cooked up for us.

We left a few nights later after a few more drinks onto a 4 hour bus trip to Townsville.

What happens when a group of extremely bored girls get together and drink?

They forget they're too old to do the things they did 15 years ago...

Needless to say our heads weren't the only thing hurting the next morning..

HAHAH good times, i miss these guys

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

....classic!

Going to miss my family and home in Childers

(most of the gang at the caravan park)
In the past 4 years of travelling around the world many people have passed through my life but never have I met such an amazing group of people. I lived in the Grand and Smut patrolled with a group 10 ish people. Everyone was from a different part of the world and had complete different personalities but it all meshed together so nicely. I have to say I am going to sincerely miss each and everyone of them, and hope we'll stay in touch!!! We also can't forget about the Trailor park boys we worked with, we had some good parties at their caravan and also hope I keep in touch with them.

(at work)
I have to say my 3 month experience in Childers or as we called it "Limbo" was a unique one. Eventhough I was working my ass off and lived in a tiny little town that would have made a perfect setting for a horror movie and had a 3 to 1, person to tooth ratio, it was really a great experience.


(this is where i lived for 2.5 months)

I leave today with Mel ( one of the English girls I met on my hunt for work 3 months ago) to go continue travelling North. My first stop is Airlie beach, where I will be sailing the Whitsundays, I can't wait it will be nice to get back to the real world and out of limbo!

I finally have a day off!

I'm still in Childers now. I just spent the last 14 days working straight, I FINALLY have a day off today.
I now live ontop of the local Pub in Childers. I also invested in some earplugs. I'm working really hard, and hopefully will be for the next month or so until I continue with my travels. Eventhough I'm workign hard, I'm still having a great time, I still like my job, though it does get tiring and I have great company!
Here are some random pictures to of random things I've done here:

I am a Smut Inspector

Just as my bank account hit 0 and my credit card was maxed out luck has turned around! All four of us got a job as SMUT INSPECTORS. Eventhough it sounds like my job involves me going to the corner store and checking out the top shelf of the magazine rack, it is nothing of the sort! I am actually working for the government of Queensland looking for a disease in sugar cane called; Smut, in order to try to keep this outbreak under control.
The best part is I get paid about quadruple what I have been, lunch is provided, and I get to wear a really cool uniform. I am guarenteed a minimum of 5 days a week, and double time on week-ends. WOOO!!!!
All 4 of us live in a really cute (and very small) cabin.
As always my luck turned around just when I desperatly needed it to, just as it always seems to....

A pointless mission all the way to Emerald

After changing my mind about a million times, I decided to go all the way up to Emerald ( which was a 9 hour drive north and inland) to p[rune some grape vines. On the bus up there I met 3 English girls that were going to the same place. Thank God!!! because the place was a nightmare. The place looked like a concentration camp. We were each placed into seperate white box-like rooms.
Within hours of being there I had my food stolen. To make things even worse our employer tried to scam us by making us do 2 jobs at once but only paying us for one. After a few days we broke free having earned 0$$$. Though it felt a bit like I was escaping from prison.



Wooo! good times in Emerald!
So we took a bus 6 hours BACK south!! to a place called Bundaberg where we were promised at least 5 days a week of work. We lived in a 2 bedroom apartment with 3 other people (that makes 7 of us in atimy little place)....Well a week passed, we watch a LOT of TV and only got one full day of work. Well that got us 35$ richer!!
I wasted more money thean made money there.
So we headed even further south (only a half hour from where I origingally started) to a place called Childers.

Fraser island

So I finally packed my bags and moved from the van. My first stop was to Hervey Bay where I met up with Beverly, my Canadian friend I met while telemarketting in Surfer's Paradise. Together we went on a 3 day self drive Fraser Island trip. This is where they put 10 random people together give us a 4x4 and ship us off to an island made entirely of sand. We sleep in tents the entire time we're there and EVERYTHING gets sandy! We lucked out and had a great team, including bev's friend JP whom I absolutly adore! All in all we had a greattime, it rained a bit but we some great lakes, sandunes, and DINGOS!! Also made some tastytasty BBQ, yum

ABORT MISSION!!

Well a few things have happened again to change all my plans completly. I ended up getting a job with some rich guy painting his massive boat. That was pretty cool until he descided he didn't want me to work for him and wanted me to be his prostitute. HAHAHAHAHAHAHa well that was the last time I spoke to him, now my crazy canadian friend has moved on without me, I'm not working for the perve anymore (obviously) and I'm having a hard time finding a picking job. Well I'm being persistant, and it looks like things should be sorted out within a week. But now unfortunatly I will be on foot/busses. No more vans for me for a bit. Oh well!!!

being my usual random sporadic self

Well I've been in Surfer's Paradise for over a month now...looking for work. Looking so much that I have been to the beach twice since being here, and gone out at night only twice as well. We've done NOTHING but look for work. I did the door to door marketting thing trying to sell 4000$$$$$ vacuums. that obviously wasn't for me. then I did telemarketting for 4 days, which didn't work out so good either.

So I'm sick of surfer's, everybody is rich, snobby and superficial here. They're not hiring anyone for another month, and not that I have anythign against Joan, but after spending the past 4 months together, sleeping, eating, peeing, BREATHING together 24 hours a day, we could defineltly use some time off. (even though it will be the weirdest thing)

I descided to randomly whisk off to Brisbane on my own, meet up with some random Canadian girl I met telemarketting. RENT a van (HAHAH I'll own 2 vans but still can't drive) for about 7 $ a night, meet up with her Gay english friend, and head back off into some farms to earn some good money. We'll do some other things along the way but nothings planned yet.
I leave sunday night, it'll be weird packing my bags and takign a bus. It'll also be the strangest thing being away from Joan. She wants to stay in Surfer's for a little bit longer, and try harder to get some kind of bar work.
I'm also going to spend a week while we're waiting for J.P. (the English guy) standing on street corners begging people to give me money for fundraisers (not my own cause). Oh the things I subject myself to for money!! HAHAHAHH
Well that's me being random again, I wonder how it'll work out, and I wonder when I'm going to see joan and the van again, hmmmmmmm

emotionally crazy week!

Well my week hasn't been the best in Australia. I found myself a telemarketting job which compleltely sucks. The day before I was supposed to start (on mothers day) I found out my Dad had a Heart attack... He's alright now, from what i've heard, but it still such a helpless feeling when you're on the other end of the world and something like that happens.
..Well the job sucked just as bad as i thought. 5 days later I'm jobless again. It was half our descision and half the boss'. The boss pretty much senced our enthusiasm about the whole thing...
So I'm completely broke now and don't know where I'll work, I started going to the gym, but I had to stop that too until I know where I'll be working. We might head inland again to go pick some fruit... I think everything will sort itself out soon enough though.
Well as negative as this blog may sound, things will look up, we also finally met some cool girls to hang out with. They live in a nice apartment with a pool and hot tub. So that should be fun.
They're also having the same luck trying to find a job as us, we actually met them at work, and they lasted even less there than us...
.... So things aren't great now, but i guess they can't always be!!!

I went to a PSYCHIC FEST!

yup I did, and it was pretty interesting. I had my palms read and had some psychic lady tell me about myself and my future. strangely enough what they both said pretty much was the same as eachother.
So now let me give you a bit of insight about my future.
The first thing the psychic lady said is she sees a man with me ( dead man) with dark hair who travels. He's the reason I get along with guys alot more. There was another dead lady with me,who had a lot of love and respect for me. She came from a cottage had a tough life and was surrounded by lots of mountains. She had soft features and light brown hair. (I then told her I don't know any of my relatives so she dropped the whole dead thing and moved on)
I'm goign to keep travelling like this for 2 more years (only TWO more years!!!)
there's going to be some study in my futrue, no university degrees, but more school for sure
I'm having 2 kids, and meeting my soul mate at 29
she spoke of 3 men that are currently around me or in my near futur
man:
1) someone I supposedly met reletively not too long ago. We have a deep connection, he's 6 feet tall (at least) has dark curly hair, likes to party alot. She saw him standing on beach with no shirt on with really baggy shorts (hmmmmm)
I'll end up having a reunion with him and we'll travel together for awhile.
2) A light brown hair boy with blue eyes, I may not even know who he is, but he knows me, and is waiting for me to come home, and stop my travelling way...His family is wealthy ("not that you care" the psychic lady said) his family is involved insome kind of fishing or boat type thing...
3) Black hair, gorgeous guy in the north of Australia. He's 26 years old that I'll fall for, but shouldnt.......
I don't have much of a clue who any of these guys are, but interestig nonetheless...
So it was also mentioned that I am going to come home early, to canada, cuz someone related to me is going to be in an accident or get sick suddenly (she mentioned pneumonia briefly)
It was mentioned that I have a lot of safe energy around me. "If I'm in a bad situation, I'm always in a good situation"
apperantly I will have guns pointed at me at some point, and I'll come out of it ok.
hmm what else what else...
Oh I'm going to have people try to scam me 3 times in money on my way up the east coast (what else is new??).
I'll also end up seperating with Joan for a bit but meeting again.
So I am supposedly a great emotional and spiritual healer. The lady saw me leading young people and helping them in the future.
I'm spiritual (she emphisized not Religious)
The palmist guy said I am not meant to work for anyone. I hate being told what to do, and I'll work for myself or something.
They both told me I should take down my writers block, because eventhough I think I'm creative and have lots of interesting things to write.
I was also reassured I am on the exact path I'm supposed to be. I have to get all the travel out of me to settle down, and also have to gather as much wisdom as I can for my future career.
They said I was lonely, also saw the 2 significant relationships I had and it was mentioned it was really good I ended the last one whne I did, or it would have gotten much more physically aggressive. (the palmist really hit that one right on)
They said a bunch of other things.
So I'm pretty skeptical about this stuff, but I have to admit these guys are pretty good. They didn't ask me many questions, and I barely mentioned anythign about myself and they got pretty close on a lot of things.
Well whether this was bullshit or not, it did make me realize eventhough I'm living my life a bit different than most, I'm still doing what I'm supposed to. It was good to hear that coming out of someone elses mouth, whether they were pulling it out of their ass or not.

So besides goign to psychic fests, I've been keeping myself busy handing out 9847593465349724 resumes. Unfortunatly no one likes to hire travellers because we're all unstable. I'm staying in Surfer's Paradise. which is really nice. It's a pretty big city right by the beach, so its perfect..
Unfortunatly looks like I might end up doing some telemarketting here. Not as bad as montreal telemarketting but still eeeeeeeuuuuuuuu. Oh well, I'm living on my last 40$ so I best not be too picky!
I'll start workign monday, if anythign better comes along I can always quit and do that.
Just incase anyone is wondering, its been 2 weeks since we got the van fixed and he's still purring liek a kitty.
That's about it for the excitment here. As always we met some more people who felt bad for us an invited us to sleep in their beds while they sleep on the couch HAHAH.
But our van is so perfect right now we rather sleep in our own bed.

7 mechanics and 2 weeks later....

Well our van is purrrring like a kitten, It only took 7 mechanics and 2 weeks of patience and about 5 different parts to make it run like that. Luckily and somehow we managed to pull this all off for barely any $$$ at all.
So Now we're pretty happy. We've met a bunch of other random people, and scammed our way into a few other free rooms and beds. People seems to pitty us when they ask "where are you sleeping" and we point to the big white van on the side of the road. Meh works for me. Eventhough the van provides me with everything i need, it's always interesting waking up in a new place with new people. We went to "BLACKBUTT reserve" where we got to see some Walibees and kangeroos, and the cutest animals ever here: KOALAS, man they're so cute and sleepy.
We're finally headed up the coast now. We stopped in a tiny town called Forster, nothing to exciting. Then we drove another 10 hours north and ended up in Byron Bay. Oh man this place is crawling with people. The night life is crazy and oh god, i thought we were original with the campervanning around Australia, but it seems that every second person here is doing the same. What a crazy bunch of hippies.
To make things even crazier here, there's a huge Blues Festival going on all week-end, so people from all over Australia are here. Well sadly its raining today and there's not too much to do,.
We bought some chocolate eggs and we're going to hide them in the van and go for an easter egg hunt later.
HAPPY EASTER!!!

Living in a crazy world with REALLY nice people

Well the past few days have just been weird...and crazy...After finishing up with our farm work we descided to take the 10 hour drive to Newcastle. this wasn't such a bad drive. Everything went pretty smoothly. We parked in the middle of a parking lot as usual right by the beach. But by midnight we realized we were surrounded by a bunch of idiots drinking in the parking lot being loud and showing off their cars. After someone shook our van to see if we were inside we descided we would wait till no one was around, hop out of our van, into the front seat (in our pjamas) and drive to somewhere more quiet. this seemed like it would be simple. so we drove about 50 meters, and our car just stopped HAHAHAHAH. And wouldn't start up again. So this left us in the middle of the road at 2 am, pushing the car in our pjamas. HAHAHAHa. It was pretty funny. At first no one stopped to help us. Even the police drove right past us, even practicly waved, but just kept going. EVENTUALLY two guys stopped, helped push our car into the parking lot left us a number for a mechanic. We hung out with them for a bit, and they've been showing us around the town for the past few days. after those guys left a car full of young drunk guys stopped, offered us some beer. Apperantly one of the guys was in the process of becoming a mechanic. But he didn't help much. they pushed our car even further into the car park, on to a hill so we could push start it in the mornng. So we had a couple of beer with them in the parking lot. It was a bit of a hassle to get rid of those guy, but eventually they left. we went to bed and by the time we got up we were surrounded by cars and couldn't leave even if our car was working. so we were stuck there again. Well the mechanic never showed up the day later. So as we were hanging aroudn the beach trying to figure out what to do, we met a woman in the bathroom, we were making small talk and complaining about our broken car. Well the woman mentioned her girlfriend had been studying mechanics for 2 years. She came and had a look at our van. She more or less figured out what was wrong. She got the van started and invited us to stay at their house, and hooked us up with an HONEST mechanic who would help us tomorrow morning.
So right now we're staying at these REALLY nice lesbians' house, with their daughter and 2 doggies.
So we've been getting home cooked meals, HOT showers (we've been showering in public bathroom's sinks haha) and they're even doing our laundry. I almost feel guilty for all the hospitality they've been showing us. And for the time that they're at work, we're goign to call up the first boys we met and they're going to take us out and show us the city. Our star has definetly been shining. In away I'm glad our car broke down, because had it not we would not have met all these nice people and had our crazy little adventure.
Anyway, Newcastle is great!!1 It's a smaller city, and has gorgeouse beaches and has a huge university, so there's always a party going on. And coincidentally the biggest surfing competition in Australia is happening right now and for the next week or so, So we'll probably stick around here for a bit.

I've got hoes, I've got hoes, in different areeeeaa codes, aaaaarrreeeaaa codes....

Well I found myself the perfect job. I do "Cotton chipping" this job pretty much involves me wandering through cotton fields with a HO (its a tool). The cool thing about this job is, just when u start getting really pissed off at the flies or just frustrated that your wandering around in the heat, you find some huge weeds, and get to chop the hell out of them. It's hilarius to watch, it looks like you're murdering someone from far away. Once you're done, you feel much better and get to continue on with your calm, cool self.
My boss doesn't have a whole lot of work for us and seems to like having us around, so he told us to really take our time and take lots of breaks. I bring my music with me to the fields, stop to bust some moves once in awhile to kill time. They also have ATVs (the 4 wheel bike thing) that i get to drive, god they're so fun. also they give us a car to use. I had my first lesson on manual driving yesterday hahaha, i rather, mess up on that car then our van. The best part about this job is it pays TRIPPLE what the grape picking did plus we get free accomidation. The perfect job. Though I'm SO far in the middle of no where its not even funny. I drove almost an hour to find this TINY little town that has a library for me to use the internet.
Eventhough the farm life has been fun, and the scruffy weird guy who gives us movies and cooks for us once in awhile is really nice, I'm ready to head back into civilization and get some sun and get rid of this UGLY farmers tan.
(Wayne, the really nice guy we lived and worked with while in Griffith)

picking fruit in the country

Well the adventures have now really begun. Living in the van so far has been pretty amazing. We never know where we're going to sleep and we always wake up in the coolest places.
The first night we slept in the van we descided to park in an empty parking lot right by the beach. Oh man this was th funniest night so far. within an hour or so of going to bed we hear a girl yelling to her friend in Spanish "Hey imagine if someone was in there." So this peaked our interest and we descided to have a look outside...hmmm she was waving her ass up in the air at us...she thought our van a good place to take a piss.....interesting...HAHAHAH
so we went back to sleep and woke up at about 5 am to a noise. again we peek outside, there was a man, blocking off the entrances and exits. this was rather troublesome to us. But we ignored it and went back to sleep only to wake up in the morning to be surrounded by dozens of people and lots of white vans and trucks. Turns out they were shooting a commercial around us. So we groggily climb out of bed. We met the director, who appologized for having woken us, and offers us some coffee, and a beer if we wanted,. (it was a commercial for Victoria Beer)
Another night we slept right on the cliff overlooking the beach, and probabaly the most beautiful scene was at the top of a mountain overlooking the city, god it was beautiful, and to make it even nicer it was a full moon and a complete clear night...
So we've been cooking on random BBQs in parks snd using our portable gas stove ( that came with the van) we've also mastered the art of making our own baileys using whatever we can find.
We went up into the mountains for awhile where we did some cool hikes through the jungle.
and for the past few days we've been living in a caravan on a farm. we've been pruning orange trees and doign other random things to help out. Yesterday we went to a Wine grape farm to pick some grapes. We descided that we would make more money collecting cans on the streets. So today we went to pick pumkins. Never again! oh god my back, but good money for a days work. We're probably heading back to the original farm and are going to hang around the orange guy some more.
The most beautiful thing about being out here in the middle of no where is the sky at night. WOW I pitty anyone who has never had the chance to see a clear night while being in the middle of no where. It's beautiful!
Anyway I wish I was a better writer. I can't do ANY of my adventures justice, not at all. But at least you can get a rough idea as to what I'm up to.