A Pirate's Life

It's a wonderful life, it's a pirate's life for me.

Sailing the seven seas and exploring desert islands in search of hidden treasure, despite resembling the storyline of the famous R. L. Stephenson novel, actually quite accurately describes the most recent of my adventures. Bottles of rum have been replaced with bags of goon (which, for those of you who have never backpacked around Oz, is just cheap boxed wine - a staple of any backpacker diet) and my trusty tourist essential - my camera - is my most valued weapon. But with the sea air in my hair and sand permanently between my toes for over a week, I felt like a true adventurer.

The first port of call, Magnetic Island, was a hidden treasure in itself. A beautiful peaceful island with jungle covered mountains, rocky cliffs and stunning beaches, you would expect to be swarming with tourists but was surprisingly deserted with our bungalow bay hostel a perfect match for the island's tranquility. If we weren't visiting the in-house koala sanctuary we were lazing around by the pool in hammocks hung between the palm trees. After a hard day of sunbathing we went to feed the wild wallabies and then trekked by the moonlight through the mountains back to our bungalow. Things got distinctly piratical at around 4pm each day when the multi-coloured cloud of parrots descended and landedd, not only on your shoulder, but anywhere that stuck out just enough for them to perch (i.e Louise's bottom).


The expedition became much more nautical as we sailed between the next set of islands down the coast, The Whitsundays, on our very own pirate ship (which was in fact a bright red catamaran but the Jolly Roger flag flown on the mast make it a pirate ship, in my opinion). The crew - Captain Ash and Good-looking-cooking Glenn rivaled Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom. On the most famous destination of the islands - Whitehaven beach we found some booty in the form of the world's purest sand (98% silica) as well as giant spiders as we walked barefoot up to the hilltop lookout and our very own beached mermaid. By day, we snorkeled at Manta Ray Bay and Hook Island. By night, we played silly games accompanied by goon and slept on deck in a giant sleepover.

From sleeping on the deck of a boat, we were brought back to basics further on Fraser Island, camping on the sand dunes, washing-up in the sea and bathing in lakes (not to mention the whole-in-the ground toilet usage). The wildlife became a bit of a worry as I heard dingos breathing next to me as I lay in my tent and who ended up demolishing our food supplies. But it was all worth it for the rugged coastline we drove along, the spooky shipwreck and swimming in the black lake (made black by a high concentration of tea-tree which made your body glow orange in the water). The group morale was high as we gathered around the one table and single light in our camp to play an epic game of Ring of Fire. Fun was had both day and night with a fantastic group of comrades - despite the crazy Italian drivers in our truck, we also managed to survive!

Hopefully these might paint a better picture for you.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151395268125301.820817.698710300&type=3
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151425002615301.825064.698710300&type=3

'Food Girl' has left the building

After 9 weeks, 5 pairs of black shoes and thousands of succesfully ordered meals my time at P.J O'Briens has come to an end. My role as 'food girl' (as I was commonly known around town, which is ironic really considering how much I love food) was hard work but also very rewarding, not least due to the free food from the boys in the kitchen, but also the extra dollars earnt dancing on the bar for their bar crawl competitions. I have learnt an array of new skills at P.J's including how to pour a pint of Guinness (not a perfect one, I'm sure) and how to hold myself upside down on a pole. This skill is even more impressive considering the amount of chips, pizza, pies and other fatty food I have consumed over the past 2 months. I have a permanent food baby that I have named P.J after his place of conception. I will miss every one of my work colleagues, even the temperamental head chef, and definitely my fantastic room mates from my hostel. Moving on has been an exciting prospect but the thought of never returning to Cairns, my home away from home, brought a tear to my eye.

The last few weeks have been hectic to say the least, visiting waterfalls and going for posh meals for my birthday, on my days off, in between lots of hectic shifts on the food counter. It's amazing how many ways there are to order your food; Americans want to 'grab' it, Europeans will 'take' it and Asians 'want steak and chip' - not realising that I then needed to ask three more questions for each steak they wanted. In my last week at work I managed to save over $800 working pretty much every waking hour 7 days in a row.

But all the hard work is paying off now, having already used most of my earnings to book an amazing trip down the east coast including my recent skydive which I am still buzzing from. In the next month I will be a complete tourist once again, seeing the main sites of The Whitsundays, Fraser Island, Byron Bay, Sydney, Melbourne and Great Ocean Road. It is all go over here and I better get going, got a sailing boat to catch!

https://picasaweb.google.com/115396624801108203436/Cairns

https://picasaweb.google.com/115396624801108203436/Cairns2