Bryce's Adventure

My last month in Byron Bay was a blur. I worked during the day, and partied at night. After work consisted of playing pool, which I have gotten much better at. Due to playing, around 20 games a day. We also played Texas Hold em for money, usually it was a $2 buy in, or if we felt in a good mood then it was $5 a buy in. I usually never won, because I got boredway too quick, so I would just go all in.

Money was slowly draining, as it had been for the past 4 months, and it was near impossible to find work, so I was searching on the internet for work in a different city. Preferably, somewhere warmer since it was getting very cold at night in Byron. Everyone was wearing long pants, hoodies, and toques.

After searching for weeks, friends leaving to go home or to another city, it was a good time to move on. A friend at the hostel who I have been hanging out with mentioned he got a job up near Cairns (which is a 2 hour bus ride north, plus another 2 hour flight north) at a kids camp named 'Mungalli Falls'. He was leaving with another good friend of mine named Sam. I called Andrew who is the manager, and told him I was also looking for work. He said I got the job without sending my resume, or without asking me to many questions. Seemed kinda sketchy, since we weren’t 100% sure what the job consisted of. All we needed to do was be in Cairns by Monday, which was only a week away. So the 3 of us all decided it was time to find work, make some money, and see the rest of Australia. After planning out how we were going to get to Cairns with the hostel travel agent (Belinda), we booked a shuttle from Byron Bay to Brisbane. Sam booked her ticket with greyhound since she already has an open bus ticket up the East Coast. The 3 of us booked our ticket with Jetstar to fly from Brisbane to Cairns. Now the only thing left to do was plan our last night in Byron Bay...

We didn’t come up with much of a plan, other than get drunk, go to the night club 'Cocomangas' and have a good time. During the last full day I packed my bags since I didn’t want to save it for the last minute before my shuttle leaving, and I knew I was going to have a hang over. The last night, the hostel had a little good bye party for us. After a couple beers 'Cold' from the hostel bar, and a few Jagger Bombs it was time to go too 'Cocos' don’t remember much after that, guess it must of been a good night.

I woke up surprising early the next morning (around 9...) gathered by stuff, and said good bye to everyone. It was sad to leave Byron, guess I got sucked into the Black Hole of Byron, as everyone says. Before me and Dillon left to catch our shuttle bus to Brisbane, we walked over to Sams hostel to see if she missed her bus. She was gone, but I wouldn’t of been surprised if she was still there asleep. Things were looking good so far. Dillon, and myself caught our bus at 10:30am, and some of our closest friends were there to wave us good bye.

We arrived in Brisbane shortly after 12, and told Sam the day before that we would meet her at the greyhound bus stop when she arrived. Weird how she left before us, and yet arrived after us by almost an hour. So we put our bags into locker storage at the Rose Street bus station, and waited for Sam to get here. Once she arrived, we put her stuff into a locker, and then walked around town to pass some time since our flight wasn’t until 9:15pm that night. We walked around the malls, didn’t buy anything since we were all dead broke. Then we went into the "free" art gallery. Looked around, marvelled at the HUGE chandelier, it must of been 3 stories high. After we got bored, we decided to go to the domestic airport and wait for our flight. We took the train there, got off and walked around the airport for a safe place to lay our bags down and take a nap. It was a tiny, airport and everything was closed. So we slept under some stairs for a couple hours. Finally 90min before our flight they started letting people check there bags in. Once we passed security we sat around bored, and read almost all the magazines at the gift shop. The flight wasn’t anything special, we had to pay for our own water which costed $3. We arrived in Cairns just before midnight, and didn’t have a clue where we were going to spend the night. We called around and everyone said they were full, luckily the Serpent Hostel said they had a couple rooms available. He said he would pick us up at the airport in the next half hour. Grabbed our bags, and then sat outside waiting for the van to pick us up. Once we got to the hostel, they said they didn’t have any rooms available 'BUT' they did have 1 double bed available. Our only option, so we had to do it. It wasn’t a pleasant sleep, for having 3 people in 1 bed and it was like 25'c outside. Before we went to bed we walked around town since we were starving to find some food. It took us almost 2 hours to find anything. There was a lot of drunk people walking around town yelling, and pushing shopping carts into cars around 2 in the morning. The next morning, we wanted to call Andrew (manager of Mungalli Falls) to see if he could pick us up a day early since we didn’t want to spend another night in Cairns because we couldn’t afford another night and didn’t like the city. Andrew said that would be fine, and would pick us up in a hour. So, we checked out of the hostel gathered our stuff, and waited for Andrew. He pulled up, and we threw our stuff in the back of his car. We expected he would take us to Mungalli Falls, but instead he took us to his house. The 3 of us felt like we were intruding, but we were getting roast for dinner and a free place to sleep.

The next morning, we drove around town to do a couple errands and then made our way to Mungalli Falls, which is about a hour and a half SW of Cairns, near Millaa Millaa if anyone cares. We didn’t really know what to expect so we were all opened minded to what we were expected to do. Once we got there, we started work almost immediately. Everyone was running around preparing the lodges for the schools that were coming the next day. We were riding on the back of trucks and moving bunk beds. It was crazy, really red neck here. During the next week we had around 500 kids coming and going, everyone was busy, there was 23 Japanese staff working here. We felt like we were thrown to the wolves, but we caught on quick. Its really easy, we basically just have to take care of kids, and make sure they don’t shoot themselves with arrows or drown in the dams.

After the first week, the 23 Japanese people left, and only 6 remained. Its interesting living with a completely different Nation. They eat dinner when everyone is off work, meaning we usually eat dinner until around 9-10pm. Before everyone eats we put our hand together and say Eas-ta-dak-e-mas.. or something like that. It means thanks for the good meal. I am slowly learning Japanese. Just the basics. I bought a "Learning the basics hand book" at a shop when we were in Cairns for my birthday. It wasn’t what I thought my 21st would be. I always told myself I would want to be at Las Vegas for my 21st ever since I first visited the city 3 years ago. But I guess I had to settle for cheap wine by the ocean where we couldn’t swim.

Work is great, I usually work about 50 hours a week. I once worked for 3 weeks in a row without a day off. Not bad when you came here specially to work, save as much money as possible and then leave once you feel you have enough saved up. I’m not sure exactly when I want to leave. Dillon is talking about leaving the first week of September to do Whitsunday’s, and Fraser Island. His plane ticket to leave Australia is September 20th, and then he goes to Thailand. It would be great to do those 2 trips with someone I know, and Sam will be coming with us too. But if it were up to me, then I would want to stay here until I have around $5000 in the bank. Maybe I will leave with Dillon and Sam, and then come back here after too continue working. Sam said she will be going back to Byron, and try to find work there. I might join her, and try to do the same thing. It is the best time of the year to find work, there at that time of the year because its just before the peak season. Hopefully that would work out.

From July 23rd, we had 3 days off and the whole next following week. So Dillon, Sam, French girl named Flo, and I decided to go camping around northern Queensland. We didn’t really have a plan on where to travel, or where we were going to sleep. But that’s what travelling is all about... Improvising. We borrowed a 5 man tent from Mungalli Falls, loaded up a box of food from the staff house, and then left here Thursday around 5pm. We got to Cairns and spent a couple hours at the Night Market, ate some food, and shopped. It was an Asian market, with people selling you fake watches, clothes, and everything you can think of. It got annoying when people followed us around asking if we wanted to get a massage. I guess this is what Thailand will be like. Later, we went to Port Douglas, once we arrived we heard about this camp ground that is supposed to be great (Doggies, I think it was called), but once we got there they said they were full. So we met this French guy outside, and said he knew a great place to camp for free. So we followed him, he led us to the Port Douglas Yaught Club parking lot. By this time we were absolutely smashed, and didn’t care where we slept. So we set up the tent right in the middle of the parking lot, and blew up our mattresses. I still cant believe we managed to set it all up in the condition we were in. After that was all finished, we went back to Doggies, and kept on drinking. I'll leave out the rest of the story because my parents read this.

So, the next morning we woke up to the sound of a bus pulling up to our tent, and unloading a full bus of old people. We quickly packed up the tent, threw everything into the car and drove away. We found a camp site and set our home up there. Once that was finished, we drove into town and shopped for a couple hours. It was a great feeling knowing I had money, and could afford anything I wanted. First stop was to find something to eat, so we went to Coles (the supermarket). While eating my cinnamon bun and chocolate milk outside Coles. I saw that the book shop next door was selling the magazine 'Adbusters' I had been looking for this magazine since I first came to Australia. I bought that and got myself some new shorts and a hat. That night we walked into town and went to the local pub
and listened to some live music. Didn’t do much after that because Sam was to hung over from the night before. The next morning we decided to leave port Douglas and make our way up to Cape Tribulation. But before getting there, we stopped off at Daintree and Mossman to check out the touristy things, like walking around the rainforest, and seeing some of the rivers. It wasn’t that exciting, since we all had been living at Mungalli Falls for the previous month. On the way to Cape Tribulation, we had to stop and get a ferry to take us to the island. It costed us $18 for the car, and it was only a 2min ride. I could of thrown a rock across the water it was that close. It was a national park, full
of rainforests and great beaches. We didn’t know where we were going to spend the night, so we drove around and found a camp ground, but the office wasn’t open on weekends, and you needed to phone them to get reservations. So we kept on driving, and then found another site which costed us $12 a person. Expensive for what we got, once we pulled up to our site it started pouring rain. Dillon and I had to set up the tent while getting absolutely drenched, while Sam and Flo waited in the car. Once we finished it stopped raining... That night we had a couple beers on the beach and watched the stars.

The next day, we went to about 5 different beaches while making our way back to the ferry to get off the island. We spent the day walking around Port Douglas, which is a beautiful city and cooked some fish on the free bbq's for anyone to use. After that flo got a call from her English friends who she had been travelling with a couple months before. So we met up with them just south of Port Douglas, on the side of the highway at a free camp ground right on the beach. We set up base there, and gathered fire wood while we still had some sun light. That night we drank beers by the camp fire, and had a full moon.
The next morning we were woken up at 6am to the sun rise, it was beautiful, we slept on the beachand the sun was right outside our tent. Took some pictures, and then tried to get a couple more hours of sleep.

Around 8, we got up and took the tent down. We shortly left after that, saying good bye to Flo's friends. We had run out of food by this point, and instead of buying more we decided to head back home and restock our supply since it was only about 2 hours away. On the way back, we stopped off at Blazing Saddles, which is the sister company to Mungalli Falls. 4 of the workers there had worked at Mungalli Falls the first week we had arrived there. it was good to meet up with some familiar faces. They let us ride around on there ATV's for about 30min. It was awesome, doing 360's and going off jumps. After almost killing ourselves twice, we decided it was time to go back to Mungalli for dinner and spend the night there. We arrived back, and everyone was surprised to see us. Ate some food, and then went to bed.

The next morning we resupplied our food, and left behind some things we didn’t need. We decided to travel south this time, and go to Mission Beach. We spent the next 2 nights here. It wasn’t that amazing, stayed at a great camp ground which only costed us $12 a night for all of us. The owner was a very friendly man, who knew everyone’s name at the camp ground, even there dogs name. We spent the day on the beach, and walking around town. After 2 nights at Mission Beach, we decided we had enough of Flo and her grumpy mood, so we asked if we could all go back to Mungalli Falls.

We spent our next 3 days off work walking around the rainforest, and laying in the sun. It really feels like spring is coming, because the days are getting warmer, and the nights aren’t as cold as they used to be.

I guess the next month will consist of working as much as possible before we decided to leave.

Take care for now!

Wednesday morning I woke up and had work at 11am till close which I usually finish around 3pm. I had zero energy to do anything. Closeing the cafe was extremely hard cleaning everything up, washing all the dishes when your to tired and have no energy. No Mom and Dad, I wasnt hung over. When I finished work I went to bed, and slept the rest of the day. I had Thursday and Friday off, which was great because I began to feel ill when I woke up thursday morning. I had a head ache and it began to get worse and worse. I think it got worse because people kept coming and going through the room and turning on lights, and every night at 5pm the hostel bar starts playing loud music. Its impossible to find a place to escape light and noise when staying in a hostel.
Friday I woke up and had a high fever, all throughout the night I kept waking up every hour shivering but I was hot and sweating. I had my first shift at a restaurant washing dishes. When I got there I was doing alright. Proably because I had been in bed for the last 36 hours. After working in a hot kitchen the size of a bathroom, I began sweating even more, so I asked for a glass of water. I sipped some every once in a while and felt like I was going to throw up. So I went to the bathroom and spewed int he toilet. I know this isnt what everyone comes here to read about some guy in Australia throwing up in a toilet. So I'll cut this scene short, and give youy the short story instead. I threw up about 5 times in a garbage can beside me, while washing dishes. Talk about first impressions...
I started work around 5:30 and finished at 11:30. Went home and went straight to bed. Next morning I still felt like crap, but had to work here at the hostel but luckly not untill 11. So I got to sleep in, which is impossible because people start waking up in the staff room around 7am. I got to work and told my boss Rob how I've been feeling for the past 4 days and he told me to go to the hospital and get checked out. It wasnt busy at the cafe at the time, and hasnt been for over a week now. Byron is getting really quiet now as its getting closer to winter. So I went to the hospital and it cost me $64 to see a doctor and she told me to drink lots of fluids and get lots of bed rest. Quickest way I spent $64 in 5min...
When I woke up today I was feeling the best i've felt in a week. Still have a small head ache and a little fever. I worked today at the cafe, it went well. Wasnt busy and I could take my time doing work. Hopefully tomorrow I feel %100.

Sorry about the delay and not putting up a new post in a couple weeks now. Not a lot has happened since I arrived here back in Byron Bay. I went back to the Aquarius hostel I was previous staying at when I was here the first time. I'm in a different room. Theres 2 floors, kinda like a loft. Its during the slow season here, so the prices have dropped and sometimes in a 10 bedroom dorm, theres only 3 people here.
I have started to look for work, buts its a lot harder to find work in a small town where everyone wants to stay for a couple months. Dog eat dog world. I have manged to get myself a job at the hostel at the cafe. I work 20 hours a week (4 shifts of 5 hours). Washing dishes, preparing the food, and busing tables. It's really easy work. I don't get payed, but I get a free bed, free meals on the days I work and a discount on the days I don't, and free internet. Still looking for a paying job, so I can save up some money for when I decide to leave Byron Bay.
Weather here in Byron now is starting to get into the winter season. Sometimes at night you have to wear a hoodie, and during the day it can get very hot; high 20's. Last week the weather was good one minute, and then bad the next. But this week its great. I've never seen the waves as high during the time I've been here. At least 12 foot waves. You catch one a bad way, just pray you had enough air in your lungs to keep you alive while your being trashed around under water. Pretty scary. Supposed to keep getting better until early next week.
Since I've come back to Byron Bay for the second time, I've found a group of Canadians that are planning on staying here for a couple months. We all now work at the hostel doing different jobs from cleaning the kitchen, cafe, driving the bus to pick up backpackers, and laundry. Great group of friends, and having a great time here.
I have moved into one of the staff rooms. There's 8 of us in there. Really interesting room, lots of character to it. The bathroom is really disgusting. The shower head broke off a long time ago, so now its just a metal pipe sticking out of the wall. There isn't a roof to the bathroom, you can see all the wires and pipes. Other then that its great. Has a TV in the room to watch movies. Since I've been in Byron for one and a half months I have not watched TV. I tried to watch it and couldn't sit still because it was way to boring. Just doesn't entertain me anymore. Wonder if I will ever start watching TV again. I'd prefer to read a book or talk to someone.
2 weeks into my trip to Australia my iPod broke, and haven't been able to listen to music for over 2 months. It really sucks when your laying on the beach and everyone is listening to music, and you have nothing. So I broke down, and convinced my mum and my brother Brennin to buy me one, and get Rob to load it up with music. THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I now have music, and speakers so everyone in the room can listen to music. Many people at the hostel thank you all back home, and have commented on the variety of songs on the iPod. Thanks Rob! Love you!
Since I don't have a paying job, and running very low on money I have to spend it very wisely. Basically I eat the biggest meal at the hostel cafe the days I work, and eat canned soup and ham/cheese sandwiches, and lots of goon. I still haven't bought a box of goon since I've been here, I just drink everyone else's. Goon is a 4 liter box of wine, and costs $10. Tastes really bad, but gets you drunk. Everyone else buys goon, and is more then willing to share it. I've been using my Tim Horton's coffee mug as my glass to drink the goon. Thanks Grandma for the mug! I have become quite popular because of the mug. All the Canadians come up to me and ask where I got it from. I tell them its a gift from my grandma and they think you are the coolest grandma ever.
Last week I went to the Arts Factory which is another Hostel to see a movie at there theater. We saw Stranger then Fiction. The cinema we saw it in, is supposedly the worlds most comfortable theater. I almost fell asleep during the movie. Everyone gets a huge chair thats reclined, a foot rest to put your feet on, and your practically laying on the floor its so reclined. When the movie was over, only a couple people got up during the credits and the ones that didn't were asleep. After the movie we went to the hostel bar (Buddha Bar) and they had a fire twirling show going on. It was amazing. They put on a show every Wednesday, I will have to go again and take some pictures to show everyone.
Not much else has gone on here, just chilling out on the beach. I'm thinking about buying a second hand surf board and teaching myself how to surf since I will be here for a couple months. Wont be for a while since I cant afford one.
I will try harder from now on to update my blog more often since I get free internet at the hostel.
Take care everyone. Love you all!

So I left the hostel I was originally staying at, and went to the new one where I had booked for 3 nights at the Palace Backpackers Embassy. Extremely clean hostel, and has a nice movie theater room where I watched South Park while I waited until 1:30 when I could check into my room. I checked into my room, and took a nap because I wasn't feeling very well. I woke up, and started talking to one of the roomies. We went out to the movie theater and bought tickets for the movie 300 (Highly recommended by my Dad) it didn't start until 8:40pm, and we had 2 hours to wait until then. So we decided to grab some dinner, we walked around the city for the cheapest meal. We found a backpackers bar that had a $6 meal and you got a good size steak, mashed potatoes and a salad. I will have to eat there again. It was getting close until the movie started and we walked in without any checking our tickets... Not sure if the ticket person was in the bathroom, or its not customary in Brisbane. The theater was the best I've ever seen, the seats leaned back, and you could move the arm rests beside you up so you could take up 2 or more seats. If you were lucky enough and didn't have anyone on both sides of you then you could probably lay down. The floors were carpet and wasn't sticky. Really good movie, I might see Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles today since its yet another holiday today and everything is closed.
Tuesday April 11th, I woke up early and went to the Australia Zoo. Run by the Steve Irwin family. It was awesome. You get to interact with all the animals, and they have shows you can go to and learn about the animals, or watch them get fed. At 11, they had a show going on at the Crocseum where you learn about Snakes, Birds, and Crocodiles. During the Bird show they asked the crowd who wanted to have birds land on there arms. So everyone jumped up, screamed and waved there arms. I was one of the lucky 4 to get picked, and we had to hold our arms out and make bird noises. Then they let the birds out of there cages, and they flew away. It was planned that they flew away, to embarrasses the 4 of us, and everyone laughed. The 4 of us were given a free voucher to get our picture taken with a animal. I picked to get my picture taken cuddling a Koala. Looks really good, its 6x8 and it costs about $16 to get it done. But I got mine for free! Got to see them feed the crocodiles, and Terri Irwin came out and helped feed them. At the end of the day, as I was heading towards the exit to wait for my bus I saw Bindi Irwin, who I think is 7 or 8 years old. She was singing and dancing to music, and there was a huge crowd of people around here taking pictures. On the bus ride back to the train station, the driver told us that Steve named his daughter Bindi after a Crocodile. It was a long train ride home, and I couldn't let myself sleep because I didn't want to miss the stop I needed to get off. So once, I got back I went to bed.
The next morning I called hostels in Byron Bay (yes I know I've already been there, but I love the town and miss it) and no one had room available for the weekend. I had forgot about 'Camp Mojo Surf School' they come to Byron every weekend from Sydney. I have learned my lesson, to call ahead at least a week in advance to book a room. So now I am stuck in Brisbane for a couple more days until the weekend passes, and they have room available. After checking out of my hostel, I had to check back in again... The next couple days were very boring, I didn't do much. I bought a cell phone (they call them Mobiles here), and went to the Museums and Science Centre. Learned about animals, and the aboriginal people.
The hostel room that I'm staying in now, has some guy in his late 30's, who goes out to the bar and doesn't come back until 5 or 6 in the morning, and sleeps into about 5 or 6 pm. Why am I the more mature one? Its a extremely clean hostel, has a theater room where people watch DVD's, but isn't a very social hostel. Majority of the people staying here are from Asia and don't speak English very well.
Tomorrow I leave for Byron Bay, I have my hostel booked. Not sure what I will do tonight, maybe check out the markets that are open on weekends and the man made beach about 15min from here.

In the last couple days in Byron Bay I called ahead to Surfers Paradise to see if the hostels there had any room for the Easter weekend. Everyone said they didn't have room, a couple had doubles available but they were charging around $80 a night. So I had to completely skip Surfers Paradise unless I wanted to stick around Byron for a little longer until room comes available, but I didn't want to pay the extra fee for the Easter weekend, plus the 5 day Blues Festival was going on in Byron Bay, and every hostel was overcharging. So I decided to go straight to Brisbane. Even trying to call around Brisbane to see if anyone had room available for the weekend. I called maybe 12 different places, and finally found 1 that was right in the middle of Fortitude Valley which is the part of the city where all the pubs/clubs are. Wasn't sure if this is where I wanted to stay for a long time, so I only booked for 2 nights and will try to move to the downtown area of Brisbane once Easter is over and rooms become available.
I left Byron bay around 3:00pm Friday in the pouring rain. Haven't seen it rain and thunder so hard in a very long time. I arrived in Brisbane around 6:30, and had to find my way to the hostel. Its a very weird feeling when you get dropped off in a city you've never been before, and you need to make your way somewhere and have no idea how. So I got out my Australia book, and found a map of Brisbane and found out how to get to the hostel. I walked downstairs of the bus station where there was a city train that will take me to the train station that I need to get off and walk to the hostel. I bought my ticket and the wicket, and asked the lady what station platform I needed to go she said "at number 9 theres one leaving in 3min. You can make it if you hurry". So I started running to number 9 which happened to be at the very end of the train station. Its hard running with a monster size bag on your back, and a didgeredoo in your arms. I felt like I was in the amazing race for a moment trying to run to this train. I got on the train just in time, and got off 2 stations later. I walked to the hostel, and noticed that theres a lot of police cars in the area. Not a very safe area I've been advised by a couple people. I checked into my room, and its a 8 bed dorm and the 7 others have been here for about 2-3 months working. 2 of them work at McDonald's and Bad Girls which is a strip club. The others work in sales, or install bars in jail cells.
Really interesting group, but not my kind of people. I will be happy to leave on Sunday and go to a less crazy hostel.
Sunday, I checked out of the hostel and walked to Global Gossip, which is a internet shop all around Australia and the only place open on Easter. I sent home my Didgeredoo and CD's. Hopefully they get home in 1 piece and theres no problems. Should be there in a couple months, sent it by sea mail.