...and some other stuff happened

This is Part Five and the final installment of my thematic recap of my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

So yeah, I did a road trip from Brisbane up through the Great Barrier Reef to Cairns, and this, this, this and this happened. And in a perfect world, I would have also already written about everything else we encountered: the deadly stingers (as if the cassowaries didn't freak me out enough), how a bar in Cairns actually managed to allow the potential excitement of girls dancing on the bar get boring, the breathtaking drive between Cairns and Port Douglas or my newfound love for premixed bourbon and coke or the Aussie Breakfast. I may find time for an ode to the premixed bourbon and cokes in a future post, but for the others, they weren't meant to be.

In what's (mercifully) my last post on my trip, I leave you with two special encounters that John and I had with some, ummmmm, interesting Aussies. Which, of course, won't sound nearly as interesting as they would have if I had written this four weeks ago when the details were fresh in my head.

First up is Airlie Beach. It's Christmas Day, we had just finished an epic drive throughout the night and nothing is open. A town full of backpackers and no one knew what to do with themselves. After some exploring, we find what seemed like the one caravan park that actually has someone in the office. So we pay our fee and get settled. Shortly, a bald-headed Aussie, armed with a XXXX Gold (the standard white trash beer in Queensland), comes over to us to inquire about our ridiculously-painted van. He's quite bemused. We start talking, he introduces himself as Mike and is thrilled to hear that John is in law school and I'm in banking. (The latter of which, of course, isn't true. But Mike couldn't seem to wrap his head around the fact that I work for an advertising agency whose client is a bank. So I gave up correcting him, and for the rest of the night, I was "the banker".) Armed with this knowledge about our careers, Mike goes off on a ten-minute diatribe about law, his children and property investments, often contradicting himself. John and I are, of course, bewildered.

Mike invites us over to his camp area, where he and his friend Paul have assembled a menagerie of characters: another Aussie girl, an English girl and her French boyfriend, two German girls and a group of Brazilian dudes. They all seem friendly, so what the hell, right? We grab the very few beers that we had the foresight of buying the day before and sit down with them. Meanwhile, Mike and Paul start to work on straight rum and are clearly on the fast track towards shitcannery. (Yes, a technical term.) Paul, who's missing his right ring finger and has some sort of form of Tourrette's that makes him yell out prick! dude! every other minute, is playing the guitar with one of the Brazilian guys. Which attracts over another Aussie and his guitar. And this new guy is far too eager to play for us. So he starts getting at it, and he's pretty good. But absolutely ridiculous. Imagine a caricature of Bruce Springstein, with the raspy voice and scrunched up face. Then multiply that by ten. That was this guy. And he would not shut up. So whatever, we let him play and continued to drink.

It all began to devolve right about when Mike disappeared (which, of course, went unnoticed by the group at the time) and it came to light that the Springstein wannabe had just been released from a Japanese prison. For what, we don't know. Paul tried to find out, believe me, but Springstein wouldn't oblige. So Paul pressed. And Springstein got testy. And a bit confrontational. So Paul, in one of his few rational moves of the night, backed off. Shortly after, Mike announced his location as he began heaving onto the ground a hundred feet away from us. And with that, we called it a night. Except for Springstein, who continued to wail away for a few more hours as we somehow forced ourselves to sleep.

We met our second ridiculous Aussie in a gas station outside of Ayr, on our drive from Airlie Beach to Mission Beach. As we're pumping, this piece of shit van pulls up across from us on the opposite side of the pump. And out walks this quite hefty man in a shirt two sizes too small, some short shorts and no shoes. Fine, whatever. But of course, the dude wants to talk to us. Because, yes, we are driving a ridiculously-painted van. (I feel like this refrain is turning into a Matt Foley-esque "Van down by the river!" shtick.)

We begin talking and it very quickly turns out that this guy is a millionaire several times over. That's right: crap van, crap wardrobe, millionaire. Many, many times over. How, you ask? China, of course! I wish I could remember what the profession was, but basically, this guy moved to some random city in China (I'd never heard of it, but of course the population is apparently like 8 million people), started up a business and boom!, he's a millionaire. So he's bragging about how he's sooooo important in China, he's buddy buddy with local governors, and John and I are just looking at this guy, absolutely bewildered. Yet again.

Five minutes into this conversation -- strike that, there was no back-and-forth here -- five minutes into this monologue, John and I are itching for a way out. And that's when I notice that the guy is still pumping his gas. Not because he has a massive tank or anything; instead, he's filled his tank up to the absolute brim, to the point where gas was leaking back out of the van. But every time the pump automatically stops, he turns it back on, as if he can somehow squeeze just that much more in there. Even if it all just trickled right back out of the van. But really, even if that gas somehow did make it's way in there, do you really need that extra little bit? Is it even worth it? How much further will that get you? Ten kilometers? It's at this point that I decide that I don't want to go the way of the Zoolander gas fight crew, so we wrap up that conversation in a hurry, hop in our van (have I mentioned that it was ridiculously-painted?) and we peaced out of there.

Done and done.

There are cane toads, there are kangaroos... and then there are cassowaries

This is Part Four of my thematic recap of my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.



It's been one month since I finished my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef with John, and this is my fourth of what I was hoping would be many more entries on the trip. So it's time to get on it and combine a few entries, because, well, the details are fading. Fortunately, the one set of memories that will be engrained into my memory for perhaps the rest of my life is night driving on this trip.

We've all driven at night. We've all probably had close calls with animals while driving. We've all driven during rainstorms. And I'm sure we've all done looooong night drives, all the while fighting fatigue.

Combine all of those and you get the drive that John and I did on Christmas Eve into Christmas Day.

You see, we had taken our time driving north our first few days. Noosa was fantastic (and mostly rain-free!) and Rainbow Beach was a compulsory stop because beyond being our gateway to Fraser Island , we found a great campsite right on the water. But after taking our time, we realized we had to get on it. So after spending Christmas Eve Day on Fraser Island , we hit the road at 8, hoping to make it to Airlie Beach (959 kilometers north) by the next morning. After a brief detour through Tin Can Bay (read: we got lost... again), we were back on the main highway and heading north. And pretty quickly, as it became dark, we were blindsided by a cacophony of dangers:

• It began to pour. Not a drizzle, not a steady rain, not heavy rain. No. It was pouring.
• Driving down the road, it quickly became apparent that we weren't alone. Nope, standing on the side of the road every few kilometers was a kangaroo, just waiting to hop on out in front of us.
• And what beings were on the road with us? Hundreds -- nay, thousands -- of cane toads.
• Finally, heading down this two-lane "highway" at 100 kilometers per hour, we had 18-wheelers flying by us in the opposite direction, kicking up water and wind as they flew by.

So there we were, crouched over the wheel, as dusk turned to the pitch black of night, trying to look past the rain-soaked windshield to (a) stay in the left lane (a challenge that was difficult enough in its own right), (b) keep an eye out for kangaroos ready to hop in front of us and (c) trying to keep control of the van as big rigs flew by us.

Fortunately, the one thing we didn't have to worry about were the cane toads, for they absolutely riddle the road (they've completely overrun Queensland and the Northern Territory -- think The Simpsons episode where Bart unleashes them in the country), so there's really no sense in trying to avoid them anyway. Instead, every minute or so, we'd simply make some cane toad pancakes.

Anyway, as the night wore on, the weather calmed down. The roos and cane toads were still out, yes, but at least the visibility was much better. And it being Christmas Eve/Christmas, the roads were pretty much empty. So, in between the many stops for coffee and other artificial products to keep us up and listening to some ungodly talk radio, we started making good time. That is, until about 5am, when the sky opened up and unleashed a torrential downpour the likes of which I've never seen. I thought earlier in the night was bad? Nope, this was bad. And so there I was, on a highway with a speed limit of 110 kph, going maybe 30.

Now, I'm rereading my post up to this point, and it really doesn't do that night justice. So I'll pass on Exhibit B, with photographic evidence. For a few nights later, John and I headed into Mission Beach. And what do you know, but we were facing pretty much the same exact conditions: rain, roos, cane toads and big rigs. But this time, there was a twist. For we were driving through one of the only places in the world where cassowaries are still native. What's a cassowary, you ask? The photo to the left... that's a cassowary. And it is the ugliest thing you have ever seen. Honestly, John and I had seen one face to face in a wildlife park only a few weeks before this trip and I had to divert my eyes. It's absolutely huge (some grow to be over six feet!) and has a gigantic bone protruding from its head, a nasty turkey-like wattle and a piercing, intimidating stare.

Oh yeah, and then there's this video and this lovely quote from the Wikipedia entry on cassowaries: A cassowary's three-toed feet have sharp claws; the dagger-like middle claw is 120 mm (5 inches) long. This claw is particularly dangerous since the cassowary can use it to kill an enemy, disembowelling it with a single kick. They can run up to 50 km/h (32 mph) through the dense forest. They can jump up to 1.5 m (5 feet) and they are good swimmers." What the hell is this beast??!? Some sort of a freakish cross between the T-1000 and a velociraptor??!?

So driving down the winding road to Mission Beach, imagine the same scenario again: rain, roos, cane toads and big rigs. But now, thanks to signs like in the picture on the left (!!!), we were all too aware that there was some sort of beast looming in the forest besides us, just waiting to step out onto the road, demolish our van and then disembowel us with a single kick! So there we sat, bracing for what I quickly talked myself into believing was an inevitability.

(Quick sidenote on this last picture. Really? Really??!? You're worried about the cassowaries? I mean, I know they're a protected species, but let's reread this passage from Wikipedia again before we jump to conclusions on who exactly we're protecting.)

Of course, the inevitable did not come to fruition. And after driving probably 20 kph to get into Mission Beach, praise be to whoever the praise is due, we survived without any encounters with (let alone seeing) any cassowaries. For which I am -- and always will be -- supremely thankful.

We ended up staying in Mission Beach for two nights because, during the day, it was frickin' gorgeous. However, come the day we left, we hightailed it out of there in the very light of day. And for the rest of the trip, we never drove at night again.

To the left, to the left (but on the right, on the right)

This is Part Three of my thematic recap of my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

Prior to this trip, I'd (legally) driven on the left side of the road once in my life -- in New Zealand -- and about twenty minutes into that escapade, I think my fellow passengers were quite close to just pushing me out the door and taking their chances from there. And I can't blame them. It was bad.

Enter this trip. Danger Doom is booked and I immediately realize that not only will I have to drive, but I'll be doing the lion's share of it. Because compared to John, I'm obviously a lot more experienced with the roads here. For example, I can say with absolute certainty that I've mastered the art of crossing the road here. Look right, then left and then -- if you're really going to follow your Mom's advice to a tee -- look right again. John had not yet mastered this skill. So the onus to drive, at least in the beginning, fell on me. And if I can cross the street with no problems, then driving on the left should be a walk in the park, right? Right???

So there we are pulling out of the Wicked Campers parking lot, and the mantra is, "Stay to the left, stay to the left, stay to the left." Which I did quite admirably.

First stop is the petrol station around the corner, and we make it there without any incident. But now, how the hell to fill up the tank? There's no place for a credit card, so I ask inside and find out that we fill up first and then pay! Really? You're going to trust me to do that? I mean, I know that we did that in the US in, what, Nineteen Dickity-Two, but we can still do that here? Fantastic!

Naturally, we fill up, have a Zoolander-inspired gas fight and peel out of the station without paying, all the while screaming, "America, fuck yeah!!"

Back on the road, we have verbal directions to the highway north: "Follow signs for the airport and you can't miss it." Easy enough, right? Nope! Ten minutes later and we're in the middle of nowhere. Already lost! Good, good times.

Anyway, thanks to directions from some locals in a nearby meat pie store, we find our way back to the highway and start cruising north. I'm still getting the hang of driving, and since we (Americans, that is) drive on the left side of the car and hence are used to aligning ourselves on the left side of the lane, I find myself drifting into the lane left of me at times. And we're getting stares from people. Uh oh.

I quickly get quite self-conscious and continue the mantra, with a little twist: "Stay to the left but align on the right, stay to the left but align on the right, stay to the left but align on the right." Which of course is far more than I'm able to process. And we're still getting stares! What the HELL!

But then I remind myself that I'm driving a ridiculously painted van. I mean, it's ludicrous! Of course people are going to want to see what sort of loons are driving it! Or at least that's what I tell myself for the rest of the day. And the day after that. And the one after that. And so on and so forth.

Anyway, the driving got easier and by Day #3, John joined in on the act. There were some growing pains there as well, but soon it was smooth sailing. Well, not entirely. For on the roads of Australia, we soon found that our own ineptitude at driving was the least of our worries. And that, my friends, we'll cover next time.

Danger Doooooooooom!

This is Part Two of my thematic recap of my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

I first hatched the idea of renting a campervan for the trip during my weekend in Forster in early December. Now, if you do the math, you'll (shockingly) find that there isn't much time in between early December and later December. Weeks, one might say. Combine this with the fact that late December is summer break for kids and many companies give employees the two weeks off during Christmas and New Year's (read: it's warm and everyone's on vacation), this is kind of high season to travel. So I initially found some difficulty in finding any company who still had campervans available. At first I was somewhat picky, but I was soon calling any company who had a phone number.

Enter Wicked Campers. I call, they (somehow) have some vans available, I book, and we're all set!

A week or two later, Jez is in town.

"So you got a van, hey?" (I'm of course paraphrasing here, and added the "hey" because it's one of my favorite Aussie expressions. The "hey" in this context can be compared to Fluff. It's completely extraneous and serves absolutely no conversational purpose -- just as Fluff serves no nutritional purpose -- but God dammit, it's fun.)

"Yup, I had some trouble at first but thankfully I found a company who still had some available!"

"It's not Wicked, is it??!?"

(Yes, he said it just like that. In italics. And with that, my heart sank.)

"Uhhhh, yeah, it actually is."

"HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!"

(And yes, he said it just like that. In bold. And my heart sank further.)

"What's wrong with Wicked?"

"Oh, nothing, if you don't care about having a hideous paint job on your van and probably breaking down. Dude, it is the ultimate tourist van."

Faaaaaaaaaaaaantastic. Anyway, Jez probably noticed the dread that swept across my face and began to retract some of his statements, saying that it wouldn't bad, that we'd have a great time, but the damage was done. I was annoyed, and my day was ruined. (Wait, strike that. I recall that day being quite drunken and amusing.) And I was fearful for what I had signed John and myself up for.

Jump ahead a few weeks and John and I are in Brisbane, fresh (or not at all) off a 16-hour train ride from Sydney and breakfast with Adrian and Joe. We walk towards Wicked's location, and there it is: a parking lot full of ridiculously painted vans. You cannot miss it. Among the dozen or so parked out front, there's a van with a koala smoking a joint, a van with The Eagles on it and a van basically inferring that its inhabitants were drunk. ("Yes, let's joke about driving while wasted out of our minds! If people can do it in Texas without any ramifications -- or at least until they inevitably plow into a McPlayground -- then why not here!")

(And yes, that last DWI comment was directed towards a certain someone.)

Our van turns out to be named Danger Doom, which, compared to others, was (thankfully) on the tamer side. And I'd love to show you a picture of Danger Doom, but over the seven days that we spent with it, I somehow managed to not take even one frickin' picture of it. And this has me flabbergasted. How did I allow this to happen??!? It's absolutely unforgivable. So you'll just have to trust me when I say that it was basically a van with a picture of a cartoon mouse and a thought bubble with "Danger Doom" in it. What does that mean? I have no idea. But it could have been worse. A lot worse.

And off we went, driving down the left side of the road. But let's leave that discussion for next time.

Make it rain on them GBRs

Just like my back did a week after my first cricket session, the pain from New Year's is slowly subsiding. And that's a good thing, because (a) I have to get off of this self-pity train and (b) I'd be quite remiss if I didn't start to write about my trip up to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef the week prior to NYE. Even if every time I drive down the road, I want to jerk the wheel into a goddamned bridge abutment.

Anyway. The trip.

Much like when Scott Storch, Fat Joe and Lil' Wayne enter a strip club, it rained. A lot. (Well, I guess it was a slightly different type of rain than what Storch & co produce, but you get the point. And I had to somehow refer to the title of this post in here.) Being the wet season and all, I guess you'd expect it to rain, but I somehow never really accepted the concept. But there John and I were, trying to lie out on the beach or take a day trip, and it rained. Every single day. Literally.

Now, when you live and sleep in a caravan that should never, ever house two full-grown adults under even the best of circumstances, there's not much to do when it rains. No hotel room to take refuge; just our two front seats and "bed" in the back. So what did we do when it did rain? Drive, baby! "Oh, it's raining again? Well let's just drive further!" But as we made our way up the coast, I turned to John at one point and said, "You know, we can't just keep on driving. If we do, we'll just get to Cairns (our destination) like three days ahead of schedule."

The premature arrival fortunately didn't happen. Because the 1,700 kilometers that we had to cover turns out to be a really, really long distance. So we went about our business (albeit very wetly), saw some stuff and managed to have a grand old time.

Now, I started to write up a big recap of this trip and realized that it was getting out of hand. I have no patience in writing 10,000 words in one post and I'm sure that you have no patience in reading it. So I'm breaking this baby up and we'll cover the trip over the course of a few posts. And to really spice things up, I'm not doing it chronologically. Instead, we're doing this thing High Fidelity-style and breaking it down thematically. So consider this post's theme RAIN. Which will probably be covered in every other post as well, because really, it was a huge part of our trip. Huh-YUGE.

Off to the Reef

Beyond my nonsensical -- and one could probably even claim lazy -- stream of consciousness post yesterday, I know I've been a bit delinquent recently in posting things on the blog. Unfortunately, that's gonna get worse before it gets better because in another nine hours, John and I hop on an overnight train to Brisbane. We get into town early tomorrow (Saturday) morning, meet Adrian and Jo (for those that know them) for breakfast, then get in our van and head north towards the Great Barrier Reef.

There still isn't much of a set itinerary, but it will most likely include any or all of the following along the Reef: Noosa, Hervey Bay, Fraser Island, Airlie Beach, Whitsunday Islands, Port Douglas and Cairns. (Not that any of these town names will mean anything to anyone.)

I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures, and once I find some time to write a recap (at least of what I can remember), sometime in 2008, I'll post some stories here.

For all my gentile friends, I hope you have a Merry Christmas. And to all, a Happy New Year. 2008 will be 0.0498% better than 2007. Do the math. It's true.