Monday, October 18, 2010

Monday, October 18, 2010 – Life In Dingo. A Classic Tale

As you may have gathered from my first couple of posts on this booming town I live in, there is not a whole lot to do/see/experience in the town of Dingo. Why Dingo even exists is a mystery to me, but I guess I can see the purpose. From what I can tell, our roadhouse derives most of its business from truckers and workers stopping off before heading into the coal mines that are scattered throughout Central Queensland and people stopping off who are going other, more exciting places and just need a quick break!

The actual town itself though is a pretty meek affair. Located just off of the Capricorn Highway (so named because it runs along the Tropic of Capricorn), Dingo is a sleepy town consisting of about 150-200 people. Of this population, a good percentage is foreigners who have moved here for work or are temporarily working here, such as Leeanna and I. At the roadhouse, we’ve got a wide assortment of nationalities including Canadians, Brits, Irish, Americans, Kiwis, Swedish, Dutch, and of course lots of Aussies as well. It seems to me that most of the locals work at one of the two sawmills located in town that are the primary employer in the area. Other than that, there seems to be quite a few people who work in the mines, which pays quite well and usually has people working on something like four-on, four off or eight-on, eight-off, etc.

Most of the houses in Dingo are of the “Queenslander” variety, which as far as I can tell, loosely means “shitty, open air style houses with little insulation that are built on stilts in case it floods”. I’m not sure if this is the literal translation, but I’m pretty sure it’s got to be something close to that. In regards to the rest of the town, there are only a handful of public buildings, including a library the size of my bedroom that’s open two days a week; a small one-room pub that would not be out place in some Australian outback joke; and a general store that is well a general store. Outside of this, you’ve got an elementary school that houses 30-odd kids divided into two classes: Kindergarten to Grade 3 and Grade 4 to Grade 7. I’m guessing the kids all become pretty good friends, as there’s not a whole lot of selection available to you on the “friends” front. The only other structures of note that come to mind, are the two aforementioned sawmills, a couple of tennis courts, a race course, and a rodeo ring/horse jumping course. Yes, somehow in a town of only a couple hundred people we have a full-on racecourse and a proper rodeo facility!

After reading that, you’re probably asking yourself, what the fuck do people do for entertainment in the this place, Brent? I mean, besides drink at the pub and lick the backs of toads for hallucinogenic side effects.

On the home front, we watch a lot of DVDs, and boy do I mean a lot of DVDs. Once a week, Leeanna, Dan, and I borrow the roadhouse’s ute (see: small Australian pick-up truck) and cruise into the town of Blackwater that is about 45 minutes away. This trip usually consists of our grocery shopping, renting an ass-load of DVDs and on occasion getting a haircut that would make Jim Carrey’s character in “Dumb and Dumber” proud. Sadly, this outing to the small, mining town is usually the highlight of our week, because let’s be real, what’s more exciting at the age of 26 than a good ole Thursday afternoon grocery shop followed by a trip to the video store to rent some of Meryl Streep’s greatest hits? Nada.

A couple of other popular pastimes amongst the ranks here are our weekly poker games and the occasional tennis match. Due to the large number of bored travellers and workers, assembling poker games has usually not been too difficult as most weeks we draw between six and ten people, with me usually donating my money to someone else’s travel fund. Tennis meanwhile, has definitely been something I’ve enjoyed getting back into, as it was a major hobby of mine in my younger days. In the 15 weeks I’ve been here, I have played more tennis than I probably have in the last eight years of my life combined. Unfortunately for me, I still suck huge donkey balls, as evidenced by my choke performance in the Dingo Roadhouse Tennis League. There’s a good chance if my parent’s find out I lost a match, gulp, to an Englishman, they may trade me in for a box of used condoms or something to that effect.

On a less competitive note, another Dingo high point for me was being asked to go into the school for reading week to read to the kids. In all honesty I was actually quite nervous getting in front of a bunch of little kids, but luckily for me none of them seemed to care too much. They just wanted to know about such pressing things as polar bears, squirrels, and what types of snakes I had seen. I kept my trouser snake jokes to myself and soldiered on through the books. Following the readings I was presented with more tough questions, such as, “what’s your favourite page in the book?” Difficult one to answer made even more difficult when the next kids asks, “what’s your second favourite page in the book?” Are these kids for real!? Seeing as how Dingo is such a small town and I talk with a funny accent, my readings at the school made me an instant target for the local youth, who it seems all love saying hello to me and want me to play sports with them. This inevitably led to my multiple rugby showdowns against the kids and my getting destroyed physically by a 12-year old man-child. It was worth it though, as I now know the rules to rugby and can say I would probably be competitive in an under 10s league. Then again, I would probably still suck.

Other than our weekly trips to Blackwater, Leeanna and I have only really ventured into real civilization once, and that was when we borrowed the ute for a day and drove to Rockhampton. The first thing we did when we got there, aside from notice that they had traffic lights, was head to a fast food restaurant. This was promptly followed by an afternoon spent in the massive shopping mall and a lovely dinner at a restaurant along the Fitzroy River called Cassidy’s. It was a nice change, and during our fifteen weeks in Dingo it was the only thing even remotely resembling urban life we ever saw. Our only other day trip was when Leeanna, Dan, and I went to the Blackdown Tablelands which is a national park located just outside of Dingo. It’s really a beautiful sight, if not a bit odd, as there are a bunch of mountains rising out above some of the flattest land this side of Sydney. It features some gorgeous walks and lookouts amongst the mountains and some swimming holes as well. Dan was the only one brave enough to tackle the murky waters, as Leeanna and I were content to watch him swim while we ate our crackers and imagines what was lurking beneath.

The last notable thing that comes to my mind when thinking about Dingo is what every Dingo citizen lives for, the annual “Dingo Trap-Throwing Competition and Race Day”. This was held in October and it’s the biggest event of the year in the town and draws a few hundred people out the racecourse (only time it gets used all year) for an afternoon of horse racing, beauty pageants, booze guzzling, and my personal favourite goat-cart racing. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried people. The day was a lot of good fun and was highlighted by the annual dingo trap-throwing competition, which consists of people throwing something resembling a bear-trap like it’s a discus, all in the name of a fairly healthy $500 first prize. This event is a great source of pride for the town and I’ve even heard the words “world famous” thrown around, albeit very loosely. Despite this, my favourite event was watching the little kids strapped into chariots attached to goats and race them down the track like it was the redneck Kentucky Derby. A close second would have to be the country-dance at the end of the night, which provided me with some good laughs, although at that point it may have had more to do with the 20-odd beers I had consumed during the course of the day. All in all, it was a fun day out at the country races and I must say I am disappointed that I had to work during the rodeo the other night, as I imagine that would’ve been a bucking good time. Yes, I know, worst joke ever.

And on that note, it was with only the fondest (my choice of words, not Leeanna’s) memories that her and I must vacate the green pastures of the Dingo Roadhouse for the Queensland coast. It’s been real and I must thank Kiwi Bob the manager for providing us with an excellent opportunity to save money over the last little while. And thanks to everyone who’s made our time here enjoyable/bearable, it’s been real to say the least. So with that I say to Dan, Shane, Tom, Amy, Max, Elin, Johnny, Adam, Liz, Andy, Allison, Dan II, Tony, John and anyone else I may be forgetting thanks for the memories and good luck with your future endeavours and your escape from Dingo (or settling in if that’s the kind of thing you’re into)!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Sunday, October 17, 2010 – At Least The Rent Was Cheap

One of the most attractive things to us about Dingo (aside from the town name) was the cost of our accommodation while employed with the roadhouse. Upon arrival, we were told that our rent would be $50 each per week. For those of you not so good with the numbers that worked out to $400 a month between the two of us, a steal of a deal no matter where you’re living. This helped greatly with the saving of travel funds, as rent was only one third of what we were paying in Melbourne and it was deducted right off of our pay cheques every week so we never really missed the money per se.

Darren, the owner of the roadhouse, has three houses that he uses for some of his workers. When we first arrived in the booming metropolis of 150 people though, his houses were all full, so for the first four weeks, Leeanna and I lived on the premises at the roadhouse in one of their motel style units. The room was like a smaller version of something you’d see at a lower-middle of the road hotel. While the room was clean and modern, with a TV and mini fridge, it was also very small, especially when there’s nowhere for you to go. Making matters worse was the fact that we were often working opposite shifts and on different sleeping schedules. But we made it through that first month and were thus moved into the “big, Queensland house” that we now call home.

When we were finally told that we would be moving into one of the houses we were more than ready to move out of the roadhouse accommodations. We moved in with an English bloke who also worked in the kitchen by the name of Dan. Dan, Leeanna, and I had become good friends while we all lived at the roadhouse, and often enjoyed such leisurely activities as tennis and drinking beer and drinking beer while playing tennis. Sadly, when we moved in, our four bedroom house was pretty short on furniture, consisting of a couple couches, an armchair, and a couple of non-functioning televisions. So like the troopers we are, we set out to round up some beds, a table, and some mismatched chairs from the roadhouse storage area. Naturally, Leeanna and I opted for two single beds, as if there’s one thing we love more than each other’s company, it’s sleeping on our own!

The last piece of the “make-it-a-home” puzzle was working out what to do on the television front. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that there were two fair size televisions in the house. Naturally, neither of them worked and we were forced to scrounge up a small 13” television from one of the other houses. In addition to this, our house had no television signal or DVD player, so being the criminal that I am, I permanently borrowed a DVD player from one of the roadhouse rooms. No one’s noticed yet. A few days later, we were blessed with good fortune for once when one of our co-workers found us a 27” TV in the electronics dump and picked it up for us for $5 after hearing about our sorry state of living. It goes without saying that since that time, we have watched an abnormal amount of DVDs and television seasons on DVD.

For the first while, there were only three of us living in the house, although we were eventually joined by a couple of young British guys, Johnny and Adam, who were big partiers. When they weren’t getting silly drunk, they were generally trying to get in the pants of these two German birds that worked at the local pub. It definitely changed the dynamic of the house, although it was not meant be, as they did not last in Dingo and headed back to Brisbane after only a few weeks.

For a while after that, there were only three of us in the house, although we’ve recently been joined by a nice Irish couple, Liz and Andy. They are definitely a lot quieter than our other housemates and are thankfully a lot tidier as well!

In addition to worrying about what kind of housemates we might end up with, a constant concern for pansies like Leeanna and I was what kind of critters would find their way into the house. We try and keep the windows closed most of the time, but things still manage to get in. We had one mouse living in our kitchen, but he eventually succumbed to peanut butter poisoning. Frogs and geckos are common intruders in the house, and I am proud to say I am turning into quite the capturer of amphibians. What we were really afraid of was cockroaches, but in the eleven weeks we’ve lived here, I have only seen one of the giant beasts. For the most part though, most of the wildlife we see has been outdoors. Dingo is overrun with cane toads and green frogs, which at night can be found everywhere patrolling the sidewalks. Leeanna had an encounter with a mob of kangaroos while she was out walking, although she became quite frightened and promptly ran away. My personal favourite sighting is when I saw a King Brown Snake, which is the second deadliest snake in the world. Luckily for the snake I was in a truck, or else I would’ve went Chuck Norris on his ass.

After all the wildlife sightings and roommates, one question remains, where’s the dingoes in Dingo?

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Saturday, October 16, 2010 – Just Call Me Employee Of The Year

Immediately upon our arrival at the roadhouse at 10am, Leeanna and I were given the option of starting work that day at 3:00pm. Bob, the manager, had a very strong selling point, and that is, “you’re here to make money, aren’t ya mate?” I couldn’t argue with that statement and therefore we jumped in headfirst. I was told that I would be working in the kitchen and Leeanna would be working on the counter. I almost had a heart attack when I was told this, as I can barely cook Easy Mac let alone trying to cook steaks and fish and other exotic greasy spoon cuisine. Bob reassured me that it would be easy, and it was just like working at a McDonald’s. One problem: I never worked at a McDonald’s or any fast food place for that matter! I did feel a little bit better though when we were told that we would be making $20.50/hour on weekdays and $28.50/hour on weekends, with overtime after 38 hours a week paid out at $30 and $40 respectively. Not bad for working at a gas station if I say so myself!

My first shift, everything seemed like a blur. Having never stepped foot in a kitchen before, it was all a little overwhelming. First thing I was shown is that all of our food is cooked on either a pizza oven, in a microwave, or in a deep fryer. The orders came in fast and furious, and I quickly learned that in this place cooking skills don’t mean shit! The biggest thing was knowing how to stay cool under pressure and how to multi-task and handle lots of different things at the same time. Luckily, all the guys in the kitchen were pretty decent dudes, so they were patient with me and passed on all of their roadhouse wisdom to me.

As ridiculous as it sounds, you would be surprised what you can cook in a pizza oven. We cook all of our burgers, steaks, fish, sausages, bacon, toast, eggs, lamb chops, etc through a pizza oven. It’s really quite easy and fool proof. Now I’m not gonna say we serve the greatest food in the world, but it is certainly edible and to my knowledge I haven’t killed anybody yet. When I one day have a kitchen of my own, I am now contemplating gutting the whole thing and just installing a pizza oven. When life gives you lemons, get a fuckin’ pizza oven!

On that note, the deep fat fryer seems to be a staple of every roadhouse in Australia. If you ever want to be turned off of eating greasy shit just try operating one of these for a few hours. The fryers get used to cook up a ton of gross looking shit I had never seen before that gets displayed in our “hot box” out front. The hot box is basically just a glassed in enclosure full of cheap, quick, hot food that people seem to flock to the Dingo Roadhouse for. Most of it was shit I had never heard of before such as Chicko Rolls, Corn Jacks, Kabanas, Pluto Pups, and my two personal favourites seafood sticks and crumbed sausages. It also has more traditional fare such as French fries, spring rolls, and sausage rolls. Just really nasty shit to put it bluntly. But Australians, and more specifically truckers speak with their stomachs and they say loud and clear that they love the hot box!

As the roadhouse, is a 24-hour facility, there are three different shifts that we were required to work: 7am - 3pm, 3pm – 11pm, and 11pm – 7am. The overnight shift seemed to be the favourite amongst most of the backpackers, as it was never overly busy and you got really good at making bacon and egg muffins (72 a night) and cold cut sandwiches (150 a night). So just a little FYI, if anyone back home is in need of a muffin/sandwich making man, while then I’m your guy! I worked a fairly even balance of all three different shifts, while Leeanna only worked midnights and afternoons. It has led to some really piss poor sleeping schedules, and I am currently writing this at 5am in the morning while drinking beer and eating cereal. On that note, there’s a good chance you won’t see me in a Weetabix commercial anytime soon.

While I mostly slaved away in the kitchen, Leeanna spent most of her days toiling away on the counter. It’s pretty much like working as a store clerk/cleaner/hotel receptionist/waiter all in one. I also had the privilege of being trained and working sporadically on the counter and must say it was much more enjoyable, and decidedly not as hot as the kitchen. In addition to the gross amounts of hot box food most truckers consumed, they also are apparently all big fans of the pornographic magazines. I’m pretty sure that the owner Darren would be able to put his kids through college just on his sales of magazines like Juggs, MILFs in Heat, and Black Tail! I’m sure it gets lonely camping in your trucks at night, but shit how much porno do you really need to own?

After it was all said and done though, nothing too crazy ever really happened at work. Most weeks we worked 40 hours, although some weeks we worked 48 hours and there were a couple of weeks where we only worked four days. Other than that, I did manage to burn myself a ton of times between the insanely hot oven and the deep fat fryer, with my best burn coming when I overflowed the deep fat fryer and the oil went through my shoe. It all happened so fast that I thought my foot was on fire, but I was lucky to escape with just two of the biggest burn blisters you’ve ever seen. I’m sure the customers out front thought that somebody had been shot, as I let out the loudest scream of “FUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKKK” you’ve ever heard. Leeanna’s main entertainment came in the form of truckers hitting on her, and she even managed to get a few invites from the boys wanting to show her their trucks. What exactly “show you my truck” means is still a very debatable point.

With only two shifts left to go in the kitchen at the roadhouse, I can look back and say that I honestly had a good time working there and was also able to save a lot of money between the semi-decent wages and the total lack of places to spend the money. Now there’s only one thing left to do with all the money…head back to the coast and pump it right back into the Australian economy!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Friday, October 15, 2010 – Yes, The Town Is Actually Called Dingo

After surviving my bungee jumping episode, I felt there was nothing left for me to conquer in life, except to watch a UFC pay-per view on another continent. So, that’s exactly what we did Sunday morning, as it was one of the most highly anticipated matches of the year featuring Brock Lesnar and Shane Carwin. The previous day we had seen an ad in the local paper advertising that they would be showing the fight in one of the big bars in town so we headed over. It definitely seemed a little odd watching UFC live on a Sunday morning instead of a Saturday night, but needless to say the beer still went down easy and the chicken wings were greasy! After such a strenuous morning, a nap was in order, followed by a visit to one of our new favourite Australian franchise restaurants, Fasta Pasta. The name says it all, and not only is it quick, it’s delicious!

July 5th was to be our last day on the tourist trail, as we had burned through well over $12,000 in two months on the road and it was time to get some work in. Unfortunately we had to switch rooms for our last night, as the hostel was full, so we ended up shacking up in a 3-person room with some random girl. Before we could get back to working and such though, we had some unfinished business in the form of catching up with some friends we had met up in Broome, Jamie and Hannah. We had constantly been trying to catch up with them but we always seemed to be slightly ahead of them on the tourist trail. This just led to Leeanna and Hannah (sounds like the title of a TV show), becoming texting buddies until they finally arrived in Cairns just as we were preparing to leave. In honour of our finally meeting up, we decided that one last trip to the Woolshed was in order for us. To put a long story short, many drinks were had, an ass load of stupid photos were taken, and fun was had by all involved. At some point there may have even been some dancing on tables if my foggy memory serves me correctly. Naturally this was all followed by Leeanna and I being ignorant and undoubtedly waking up the poor girl in our room who I don’t think was going to be adding us to Facebook anytime soon.

The morning of our departure we had some nasty hangovers. Fortunately, we had decided to do all of our shopping and errands the day before so we were able to recover before making our way to the bus terminal to catch the bus that would lead us to the next part of our journey…the booming town of Dingo, Queensland!

As mentioned, by the time we arrived in Cairns, money was starting to become a thing of the past. Before we had arrived there, we had decided that we would try and look for work in that area, as it was warm during the winter months and there was a big tourism industry. Shortly after arriving though, we were greeted with the cruel reality that the jobs were few and far between as apparently every backpacker in Australia has the same idea, and that is to work in Cairns during the winter months. This also led to an abundance of low wages in the area, as employers know that a lot of travellers will take any work they can find. After talking to a few people and scouring the internet, I concluded that we may have to look elsewhere for work. Although neither of us really wanted to work on a farm, this seemed to be the next logical step as it seems almost everyone who travels Australia works on a farm at some point or another. But alas it was not meant to be. After calling what seemed like every major farm in North Queensland that hires backpackers, I was told that none had work and that I was basically shit-out-of-luck. Around this time, I no doubt started to worry and thinking that I may have to succumb to male prostitution, although I’m not sure I am pretty or fit enough for this occupation anymore. Leeanna and I started talking about the possibility of moving down to Brisbane and thus started looking for jobs online down there. During this time though, I was also scouring Gumtree (Australia’s version of Craigslist) for any jobs that caught my eye. We really did not want to end up in Brisbane, as this would involve finding an apartment, etc. Then, just as I was about to commit suicide, I found a job that seemed perfect for us. It read something to the effect of: busy roadhouse in Central Queensland, looking for couple to work on counter, kitchen, cleaning, etc. I sent off our resumes to a job agency and low and behold, the next day I was talking to Bob, the general manager of the roadhouse, on the phone arranging for Leeanna and I to start working.

Once we secured the job, we arranged for a bus down to what would become our new home, or bum-fuck-nowhere as I like to affectionately call it. The bus ride was a gruelling marathon that lasted over twenty-one hours and took us about two-thirds of the way down the Queensland coast from Cairns to Rockhampton. From here, we transferred buses and travelled another 150 kilometres inland towards the coal fields of Central Queensland. The bus driver kept half-joking with us and asking us if we were REALLY SURE we wanted to get off in Dingo. We assured him that we were ready for whatever laid ahead. Or so we thought.

What awaited us when we stepped off the bus was like something from another universe. Here, seemingly in the middle of nowhere was the Dingo Roadhouse, a 24-hour service station that also acted as a 13-room hotel, restaurant, convenience store, and all around mega-truck stop. The place was insanely busy, with a combination of truckers and travellers all queuing up to spend their hard-earned money. For the life of me, I could not figure out where all of these people came from.

Over the next few blog entries, I will try to describe briefly what life has been like in the town of Dingo over the past three and a half months. As I write this, we are down to our final four days of living here, and to sum it up, it’s been an experience, one that I will not soon forget (although Leeanna says she is going to try and suppress her “Dingo” memories).

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Saturday, July 3, 2010 – Bungee Jumping, Rafting, and Binge Drinking. The Extreme Sports Trifecta.

Due to the fact that when I first arrived in my current location of Dingo, Queensland I was very lazy and did not want to type out any journals, I fell very far behind on my entries. To top it off, about a month after arriving my piece of shit $300 netbook was laid to rest as it decided it no longer wanted to work. Thus, I have not written an entry in over three and a half months. So, I shall start off way back in the end of June in Cairns before I get into very briefly what has happened in my fifteen weeks in Dingo (fuck load of nothing). Without further ado, it is now October 15 and I shall take a trip back in my hot tub time machine to June 29, 2010…

Our first night in Cairns in the far north tropical part of Australia brought about one of the scariest moments of my life...seeing a cockroach that was clearly longer in length than an average male’s favourite appendage. I mean, I’m pretty sure the thing may have had teeth although I wasn’t ever going to get close enough to find out. Or so I thought. Early the next morning I awoke in my room thinking that a cockroach was crawling all over me. I saw nothing (except my heart beating out of my chest) and dozed off back to sleep. Shortly thereafter I awoke again and this time was certain that Mr. Cockroach was indeed taking a dump on me. After scrambling around the room, Leeanna and I eventually cornered him under our fridge and got him out after half an hour of looking like two of the biggest pussies in the world. If you had just walked in on us, you would’ve thought we had cornered a highly aggressive and venomous snake, or two, not a scared insect. What can I say; simply put I am one with nature. After our early morning fright, Leeanna and I made our way over to the scooter rental place and rented us some scooters. A wise man once told me that riding scooters is like riding fat chicks, it’s cool and fun as long as your friends don’t find out. Well let me say, I am huge scooter fan these days! After Leeanna got trained up on how to drive, we made our way out into the streets of Cairns and headed towards the rainforest outside of the city. Upon reaching the outskirts of the city, I promptly got us lost before we headed into the jungle to check out such sites as the Crystal Cascades (waterfalls and shit), Barron Gorge (big gorge), and Lake Placid (no not the one from the Samuel L. Jackson movie). By far the best thing I saw all day (aside from Leeanna riding a scooter in city traffic and being in sheer terror most of the time) was the sign warning of us “stinging trees”. What exactly a stinging tree does to you I don’t really want to know and luckily I never had to find out. That evening, we made our first trip over to the Woolshed Pub for dinner and drinks, which is a semi-famous place amongst Australian backpackers. As luck would have it, they were also selling mixed drinks that night at a rate of five for ten dollars, so it was all aboard the whiskey train. Next stop: Hammersville!

The next day consisted of a lot of recovering during the first half of the day. That afternoon we set out on foot to check out all that the city had to offer. We perused the esplanade and night markets before deciding that it was time for me to visit a barbershop. That night our hostel had a big barbeque that consisted of a whole bunch of good BBQ food, including everybody’s favourite overgrown rat meat…errr kangaroo.

Thursday morning (Canada Day) it was back to spending money like it wasn’t a thing in the form of a white water rafting trip. I tried desperately to convince Leeanna to come with me, but she was having none of it, so I headed out on my own. The tour company was really busy that day, so our rafting crew consisted of six boats with eight people each tackling rapids on the Barron River. The river was rated a Class III out of a possible five, so it had some okay rips, but nothing two crazy. The best part was seeing some guy go overboard on one of the other rafts and all the tour guides losing their shit trying to get this guy back in the raft as he was drifting down river. All-in-all it was a fun day out, although if I went again I think I would like to tackle something a little more dangerous. That day, Leeanna hit up the mall to get her hair chopped and for some retail therapy. For dinner we again headed out to the Woolshed Pub before making our way over to a joint known as the Rhino Bar for some Canada Day festivities. In honour of our great nation the bar had some Canadian themed games such as shooting a square puck at a makeshift goal with a children’s hockey stick. Needless to say, I’m a legend and was the only person in the bar to score multiple times and was rewarded with some free beers. I also finished second out of about 30-odd people in a heads and tails competition, although it was winner take-all so I was just another loser as they say. The club was full of Canadians and people wearing ridiculous Canadian apparel, although it got really out of control later in the night when they had “ladies hour”. During this power hour, ladies were entitled to unlimited free champagne. Apparently in Cairns this is a weekly open invitation for men to cross dress and get shit-faced for free. A very clever approach I must say, although I did manage to get lots of free booze just wearing my regular wankerific outfit. In conclusion the last part of the night I entered full on blackout mode, which was sadly displayed in the pictures and videos Leeanna and I had taken that night. I may not remember all of it, but it sure looks like I was having fun!

Friday was another one of those super lazy days I’ve become quite accustomed to. The missus and I spent the day chilling out at the hostel and the highlight of the day was going out the Woolshed for dinner and drinks, yet again.

As I was starting to run desperately low on money, I figured that I might as well spend the last of it wisely. The smartest thing I could think to do on a Saturday morning was go down to the Tour Desk and book myself into a bungee jumping session that afternoon. With reservations made, Leeanna and I boarded the “bungee bus” and made our way to the outskirts of Cairns to A.J. Hackett’s facility. A.J. Hackett is the guy who actually invented the sport and now has a handful of jump spots around the world, including New Zealand, Australia, and China. After arriving, Leeanna decided that she was not going to jump, so I was left on my own to throw myself off of a ledge towards the ground. Before even jumping, I decided to purchase five jumps instead of one, as one jump cost around $140, while the four extra jumps were only $100 more. When in Rome…or tropical Australia for that matter. My first jump, I was ridiculously nervous and kind of just timidly stepped off the edge and just started screaming my head off. Without question it was the most intense three seconds of my life! The following four jumps I tried a variety of different jumps, including; the reverse (go off backwards), reverse elevator (backwards with your elbows locked under your chin so you look towards the bungee tower falling away from you), and the pendulum (they dangle you off the edge backwards and keep pulling you back and teasing that they will let go). I can honestly say that each jump was just as terrifying as the one before and even after jumping five times I was still shitting my pants each time walking up the tower. After my jumps were done, we watched some of the videos and had a good laugh and I even bought some of the company’s pictures that is something I normally refuse to do on the principle of it’s always a rip-off. That night, after trying to wipe the adrenaline-inspired smile off my face we headed to the Woolshed yet again for some eats before hitting up the local movie theatre for a screening of the latest Twilight film. Yes, I watch awesome movies. I know!