25/01/2012

Some funny things have happened to me lately.

Today, I went to a burger shop with my friend Dave.  It's run by French people, has cheap and AMAZING food. They asked what sauces we wanted, I used their suggestion that I had last time of mayo and tomato and suggested Dave had the same.  He hesitated, and in this time practically the whole staff (about 6 people) had joined in the conversation. "seriously, Dave, get the mayo, it's good", I said, casually. The WHOLE TEAM joined in and actually peer pressured Dave into it, including the cook who said he'd been making burgers for 25 years and that Dave had to have the mayo. "YEAH DAVE, GET THE MAYO" they chanted".

Dave got the mayo. Didn't like it. The end.

Last night I was waiting at the bus stop outside that mystery show Lady Gaga played in the gay bar in Darlinghurst. It smelled like wees and vomit and I was wearing jandals.  It was awful and all I wanted to do wash wash my feet.

The day before, I was thinking about what I would like as one of my 3 wishes, when i got a magic lamp.  I decided on a wish, quickly found the loophole that sneaky genie would use and was relieved at my quick discovery.  I'm now mostly prepared for when I meet that Genie. Sneaky bastard.

I have lots happening, as you can tell. But I think I got a job and start on Friday.  On my trial they gave me bread, pastries AND a turkey sandwich. WINNING.

16/01/2012

From Tamworth, we drove probably North to Washpool National Park. Washpool NP has a quarter of Australian wildlife in it, or something. Feeling completely naive about the dangers of Australian National Parks, I asked my friends about what to look out for.  "Grizzly Bears" they answered, straight faced.  This was pretty much the theme of the trip- I trust my friends to teach me abouts the perils of Australia, who, in turn lie to my face about getting attacked by grizzly bears. 

We arrived at the campsite after a long drive crammed into a van, listening to French Music to find a picnic table that told us 'not to feed the Red-Necked Wallaby'.  I got pretty excited at the prospect, and even more excited to hear that there might be Lyre Birds walking around.  You may remember from a previous trip in Melbourne, the post about the crazy sculptor William Ricketts, who shouted loudly "MY TOTEM IS THE LYRE BIRD".  I saw one. I shouted it. A number of times.  The end.

The place was beautiful, apparently Koala country, though I didn't see any.  Our neighbour said she spotted a python, but I didn't see it as it probably got eaten by all of the Grizzly Bears.

What really matters, though, is that I got attacked by leeches. Six in total. My only experience of them previously was when I watched "Stand By Me" and he pulls one from his pants, hands covered in blood.
I'm going to be honest.  I freaked out a little.  When I say a little, I mean quite a lot. They creep me out; they don't even crawl, they hang off your leg like they're trying to burrow in, it was yuck.  I was calmed by Ellie who showed me show to flick them off before they leech on and you can't do anything but watch them feed. GROSS. It didnt hurt, more of a cold feeling, which alerted you usually in time to get them off. Freaking gross.  It showed me more reasons why I wouldn't win Survivor, other than that i'm a quitter. Sigh.

We had a little camp fire, went hiking, swam in the stream and I was forced to substitute coffee for black tea. I tried instant but I couldn't even drink it. I brought my uke along, we drank tea, sang musical numbers, danced naked in the moonlight and tamed grizzly bears.

From here we drove through beautiful country-side, filled with green fields, gum-trees, blue skies- it was bliss. We arrived at our campground in Ballina which had no hot water, broken BBQ's and crazy winds that eventually ripped our tent (fixed by shoving a plastic bag in the hole to protect us from rain- it worked). Ballina was pretty uninspiring, so we spent much of our time driving to the neighbouring suburbs.  My favourite was Lennox Head- we found a great little cafe called 'Lime" which had awesome coffee and service, we went there most days.  It was a little surfie town that served fish and chips, had a retro shop and a great community feel.  We often sat and chatted to older silver-haired women who had just spent the past 3 hours surfing. Awesome.

We spent some time in Byron Bay, which was beautiful.  It was my first swim of the year and it really was perfect. The weather was amazing, usually about 35 degrees and pretty muggy, so the ocean was amazing.  We went to a little beach called Watego I think, which wasn't too busy, and a little surf beach called Sharpes Bay.  It was great to sit in the ocean, watching/perving on surfers, surrounded by green and blue and having no plans all day but to relax and swim. I think I properly relaxed for the first time in a while.

We visited Byron but it was pretty busy and wanky.  Pretty much a mix of hippies and hipsters; hipsters being too cool for you and overcharging for their crappy coffee, or hippies selling woven bracelets and dancing on the streets at 1230am. Wasn't really my scene but was a beautiful place. We took a little bicycle cart out to the Buddha Bar, which is definitely worth checking out if you're in the area- it was open mic night and had a mixture of older surfie guys who performed there every week, young guys singing badly about KFC, young surfer Jack Johnson types, bands, you name it.  My favourite was a guy playing a didgeridoo while another guy beatboxed along.  It was amazing, I filmed it and I'll try to put it on facebook, crap quality but you can see what's happening.

The next day we headed to Lismore and I found a kick-ass little espresso bar called "The Republic of Coffee" which was great.  I chatted to the guys for a couple of hours about coffee, roasting, cafes etc.  They used a machine I hadn't seen before called a trifecta - sort of a plunger meets aeropress meets espresso...it was weird and had a lovely soft, sweet flavour- like a black tea texture. They gave me ristrettos on their beautiful Della Corte and we talked about me wanting to open a cafe- it was good.  It was good to be taken seriously by a bunch of guys as well, who were willing to share their knowledge and wanted to know what I thought. It was fun.

The trip was pretty amazing.  Swimming every day, eating good food, drinking good coffee and enjoying my friends.  I feel so blessed to have made such wonderful friends and I laughed more than I have in a while. Plus now I'm an off-white colour. Not quite tanned, but good for me.

Most importantly, I spent time in the forest, beaches and campground and wasn't attacked by snakes, jellyfish, spiders or bears.  That's a win if i've ever seen one. Yusssssss.

0dv5/01/2012

I am currently on a TAMWORTH ADVENTURE; the Australian country music capital!

Venturing into the wild where, statistically (and according to very good sources such as Bill Bryson and Louise Gibson), I was probably going to be bitten or stung by some poisonous animal, where I would die a quick yet painful death. Turning up in Tamworth, I made fun of the funny name of a place, only to be told casually that we couldn't go there because there was a murderous rapist on the loose.  Playing along with the "all Australians are killer rapists anyway" way of thinking, I joined in on what I thought was good fun, but turned out to be real.  After killing his family and living on the land for 7 years (eating raw wombat, according to some), he recently shot a cop and is now on the run again. It's pretty much just like Ned Kelly, minus the Irish accents.

It is so beautiful here.  We're staying at Em's parents house on the hill, which has a huge pool overlooking the wilderness, a deck, beautiful open spaces and a serene feel.  It's huge.  Her dad is a doctor and country music singer (was recently nominated for a gospel award in the golden guitar, or something, pretty much super famous) and her mum is an abstract artist.  So the house is full of artworks, guitars, books and cool furniture.  Yesterday I jammed with Em's dad, played the banjo and we did a recording of 'amazing grace' which was good fun.

I saw a wild kangaroo last night.  Apparently there are echindnas and goanas as well, but haven't seen any yet. Pretty excited.

Road tripping has been great, it's a whole bunch of girls; Ellie and Em, who I met in India, Niki and Meredith, who are friends and current/past roommates of Em and Ellie, and Marie-Cecile, a friend of Ellie's from Paris.  It's such a weird group but great because we're all quite different and share the same humour. I've laughed a lot.

Last night we saw the golden guitar and went to a local pub, this evening we're going to an art exhibition opening and chilling.  We have a couple more days here before we go to Ballina, then to Byron Bay.

The weather is super hot but really clear, we have a great view from the place, luckily everything has air con as it's so hot here. We miss out on the Country music festival by a few weeks, which is a shame, but it means the town is a little quieter.  I also found an awesome little coffee shop that serves Allpress and knows what they're doing. Thank goodness.