One thing I really want to do is get a tattoo before I leave oz...just something really small and out of the way...not even really for anyone to see....just somewhere secret and VIP....I have been contemplating getting the licence plate of my first real car somewhere....like even if I change the way it's written and do something creative with it...or make the triangle part of the plate into something delicate and feminine...perhaps incorporate some wings on it........

Oh sweet Judley how I love thy.....it's home is in Melbourne which I am so happy to be heading in that direction...to be honest the way Jud has been running I would be extremely happy if he made it to even Airlie......However if he made it to Byron I would almost be convinced that I am comprised of the most lucky sparkles in the universe...

We will see..

vroom vroom.......

The above is a picture of the pizza parlor in Karanda...followed by me being greasy after a night of work and then stopping by the hostel bar for a quick hangout...I worked crazy hours all weekend so there is me being lame with my big bottle of water........pft

Yet more random pictures.............

Twister @ the hostel...This was me right before I fell...The guy bent over is the one I'm working on the tree farm with....The other two are just weird signs I saw at this place called Green Ant Burgers. Yuki and I went on a post midnight convenience store run and had fun with Mentos packs...And Lisa and I pretending to act real serious in the pokie room in Karanda *that hippy town I mentioned a bunch of times before*.....I love the colour in the room it's outstanding

These pictures are all kinda scattered as I should have put them in a better sequence but it's too late for me to sincerely care....There is a condo being built behind the parking lot of my hostel that is real easy to go into @ night...The dudes and I went and did some cheese core graffiti....I actually really admire good graffiti art a lot more now...especially when it's in awkward places...it was fun because we climbed this ladder and went up pretty high too.....The one picture is the stairs going up....

The other picture is just some random weird old shared house that is abandoned and kinda creepy. It felt like in the movie Candy Man when that chick was investigating the msytery crime scenes and taking pictures with that camera that makes that funny noise (except mine doesn't...it's more of a friendly beep bop so sound)....The next is actually kinda dumb but I thought it was a pretty free drink called a sour cockadoo or something I got as my staffy after a hard day @ work. The bar that I work @ is a gay bar and really nice and artzy......Some gay guy tought me about rekei (I have no idea how to spell it).....It was really interesting and strange.....He did all the pressure point stuff and then looked at me and was like "SOMETHING HAPPENED fourWEEKS AGO....IT'S NOT SORTED BUT IT WILL BE SOON"...he said it with such confidence too...it was cool cuz we found out about the tires and bla bla and some other dramas happened that doesn't really involve me but is not 'blog worthy'. He then took the 'bad energy' into a ball and blew it away and released it to the earth....it was interesting...Maybe one day I will go to India and learn more about that or something...I'm interested in that kind of stuff.

Past my bed time?

I reckon that it just may be............
Actually it shouldn't be, but I was lucky and scored a casual day job tomorrow which I start @ 7:00 in the morn....so hurrah and boo to me....Basically my job is to go to a magical forest where there boys who climb trees and cut down the branches. I will pick the remains of the branches and throw them in a chipper...It pays cash and isn't that long of a day...I'll be going with a dude I know, and the bus will pick me up between 7-8 in the morn. (supposed to be 7 though) It kind of sucks a tad because today is a Thursday one of my favourite days of the week, and everyone is out playing and running a muk somewhere in Cairns, and dancing it up drinking free champagne on ladies night....booo

Anyways life is alright....I'm starting to teeder-todder how long I should stay in Cairns for...I will spare the gory details but someimes my boss can be the biggest spaz ever. The staff generally drop like flies that were lucky enough to not die on the sticky tape. I don't mean to sound like a whiny bitch either....I think I just get antzy easily now because I can, and it's all become too easy. Since I have everything in one bag (gererally soon I will have to send home a box full of crap or somehing)....it's so easy to just pick up and move somewhere better when I get bored/feel like a change....It's cute because I left Canada because I got bored of routine, but now my routine has changed to moving places radically, and quickly....I may just be addicted to this, until I actually find a place that is 'sweet as' enough to get a proper apartment/job etc. In my sweet innocent mind that place is Melbourne. I am real excited to get there...I really look forward to not being in a hostel and having my own bubble, and all that stuff......In the meantime I will work for sleezy gay bosses, and crazy cooks, and enjoy my free Thai green curry chicken.

Just for the record I don't mean that in a complaining way..more just a blast of self reflection and random thoughts............

So I may possibly quit this weekend, or stick it out one more week...I reckon sticking it out one more week would be the wise thing to do...we will see......STAY TUNED (dun dun dun)....

No other real exciting news....lately I pretty much wake up hang out, on on my date and fig run and then go to work...this is good though because I'm doing pretty more then alright with saving money. I have no idea how I'm saving, but somehow I am....possibly more then in Tully???? That is a possibility.........perhaps maybe????? In theory I didn't spend any money today because some drunk guy bought two wing dings and a dim sum and tipped me 9.50$....sweeeet as.

So the time is now 1:06 and I still have an irking to post lots of stupid pictures of random crap......Today was cute because I was sitting @ the hostel computers breaking every rule...I felt like quite the rebellious young lady...Drinking tea, uploading pictures (and saving them to the hard drive *gasp*)....All while stealing free Internet...I could feel the eyes of the owner peering over at me, as I could feel I was pushing my luck....I think their starting to crack down on the Internet stealing a little....(very little).....They have the dumbest system here though for internet...In the morning you "pay" (I payed twice in the past three weeks)...and they give you a password that gives you "30 minutes"....But you can go on whenever you want and the password is good till the next morning......Apparently the owner came back like a tornado last night all pissy, about all the backpackers stealing and abusing the system....PFFTTTTT.....In my opinion if their going to have that stupid of a system it's a sin not to steal Internet....Maybe I'll pay once more before I leave...not likely though....VERY unlikely *evil grin*

Gee Golly I have written quite a lot for someone who was border-line complaining about how it's past my bed time...The time is now 1:14 leaving me about 4 hours of sleep if I make it to bed by 2. I figure two is a good time....I haven't drank tonight so waking up will be a breeze. I think either getting 4 hours sleep or 8 is good...in between can be awkward sometimes..........hmmmmmmm

The above post will include some cheesy pictures bla bla bla

Love
Chrissy

Here are some randon pictures that Yuki burned onto CD for me. Not only did she do this, she also decorated it and put pretty sparkly stars on it. She is amazingly cool....Anyways the first one is us drinking "koolade" by the Esplanade in Cairns. Followed by this greek guy with a scottish accent Gary and I in our shed in Tully....how pimp huh? The other pictures are not flattering @ all...but it's me @ the Crocodile farm in Inisfil. Inisfil is another town nuts about bananas...Everywhere you look there is heaps of the stupid things. The farm was really fun. We got to hold snakes, and crocs, (Travis and Osker got biten by some)...We also got to feed crazy birds and kangaroos. Yeppp

Today is........

A very long day, and I don't mean that in a whiney way...I'm just stating the truth. I'm fortunate to have gotten good hours as a matter of fact....7-4 @ the hotel, and then 5-12 @ Chinos.......mmhmmm

So I'll make this entry real quick, as I need to run upstairs, and change into something that isn't annoying black pants. Today I was incredibly clutzy and dropped champagne on a really nice woman. For some reason champagne glasses are just so much harder to carry on a tray....One of my bosses was a little pissed @ first but then appologized and said I was cool and bla bla....I felt a little bad, however I care a lot less knowing I'll be out of Cairns in a week or two. I think I'm alright at a lot of things, but sometimes (most of the time) co-ordination is not one of them. I never thought I would even try serving, but @ least I am giving it a go. meh meh meh.....

Tonight the cafe will be very slow I presume, but that's alright. There is some work party for some people that are leaving tonight. I find myself trying to think of excuses so I don't have to go...I'm sure I'll get my free knock off drinks but mehhhhhI secretly would rather save money and play twister with people @ home........how granny am I????

Anyways above are some pictures of things
Bye now

uhmmmmmmmmmmmm so ya

My internet usage has gotten out of hand

I went to my favourite internet cafe with the head phones

So that I could listen to my happy music and envision ducks

To be honest I don't really have anything too new to write

I just figured I'd kill some time before my song is up

...........All my inernet errands have been completed.......

I *heart* my job it's absolultely great and funny...I work with quirky and zany aussies, and get to drink for free after work, and take home food for myself and the fam. I'm working an abundance of shifts this weekend...I figure sometimes with me it's real all or nothing...I would rather work from 7 in the morning until 12:45 @ night three nights in a row then have a bunch of short shifts throughout the week....

I've been a hippy long enough, and am really happy to start working in civilization and getting some serving skills...I'm so clumbsy sometimes though....I hope I don't drop anything on someone...Tomorrow I'm working a buffey style banquet and then @ the cafe/restaurant........weee..........

So thats all I have to say bye now

P.S.

For anyone who has too much time on their hands and wants to see what Gilligans looks like here is the link

http://www.gilligansbackpackers.com.au/

mmmmmm just pretend it's me behind the counter.... yay

Sorry I'm just giddy

Kay gotta go now crazy bohemia resort lady is staring @ me...

Happy Day to Chrissy and all on this fine rainy/sunny day

So today was great success!!!!!!!!!!

it seems as though along with the drought in Oz there maybe a similar situation with job vacancies. This leaving me with heaps of jobs opportunities, full of rainbow and promice.

I woke up nice and early 7:00 am...after a humble night last night..(first one of the team to go to bed)....Made my magic oatmeal, and headed to the staffing agency...They are going to get me work for next week which is awesome..I filled out a bunch of forms and life seems to be going smoothly for that. They also said once it picks up at the end of the month they may fly me out to an island to work for a few weeks....could be cool....we will see!!

I figured since I was already in my job clothes that I may as well go and drop off resumes all over the place....I got a job trial @ Gilligans on Monday @ 8:30 for reception which is pretty rad. It's the nicest hostel I've ever seen, it's more like a hotel....Also when I was on the computer some mystery person called me. I am almost 99% certain that I never applied @ this place, perhaps they got the wrong number...regardless I am going in for a trial @ 7:00.....It's called Chinos from what I could make out from the guy...I hope it's a cafe....I would so much rather work with coffee, then deal with really drunk people in a loud club....It's in the night club(ish) district though so hmmmm we will see.....what to wear?????

Anyways I've kinda pushed my luck with getting free internet @ the hostel...I got busted before I started writing this and I just said that I paid (which I did) and didn't use up all my time..hehe....by the time I proof read and bla bla...she may be ready to pull out my brains and eat them so I best be going...bye now..

The hostel that I'm @ right now is probably home to the biggest bottle shop that I have seen since being in Australia....Bottle-O's are sweet here....much better then Canada...One thing that is still kinda foreign to me though, is all the mixed drinks in cans....such a simple thing really, why Canada has not done it yet is kinda dumb....

Of course I wouldn't know since I have never tried alchohol before...I may try some beer tonight..not sure though.....probably should play it cool.........(tsk*...) I hear it makes backpackers crazy.

Anyways when I saw this @ the bottle-O I couldn't help but take a picture. Why Australia has CC in a can and not my motherland is beyond me...but meh...it makes us Canadians look like pretty fun loving/easy goin hipsters I suppose...

I was poking through some older pictures on the CD I had burned and decided to post a few extra....These are mainly Joshephine Falls....I think we will go back this weekend as it was really nice......The Banana picture of will kinda made me laugh, because it reminded me of our many lunches/breaks we once had sitting in silence....Wills spirit was probably broken for three days when this picture was taken (he worked for 5)....

Here are some pictures of Cairns as well.....Cairns is full of outstanding scenery, and of course is the home to the great barrier reef.....It has a real friendly small town feel, but is a small city.......There are about 90,000 people who live here I believe...before I leave I'm gonna go snorkling and all that cal...can't wait.....

Here are some pictures of Kuranda....The sky rail is really cool....would love to check it out....It was a shame I didn't see any pictures of the actual town as it has a sweetness to it, that I will get pictures of on a later date. The third picture is the spot half way up that you can stop your car and get a good glimpse or how high up you are...it's neat because you can see Cairns and the ocean.

Good Day to all my sweet cupcakes on either side of the world

I sit pretty with a smile as I exploit my free internet privledges I have obtained from Travis (Thanks Trav) Password = Dorm (shhhh don't tell)

Anyways the weekend was great...as mentioned before my great/lovely friend Mr. Trinity came up for a few days and good times were had...Lots of responsible koolaide drinking, and nice festivities....Today he made me laugh so bad that I almost choked on my coffee...twas pure grade two styles (ya know the milk out of the nose) ...uhhh....sooo clumsy I am, I hang my head in shame as I write this....Anyways moving right along.......

We went to a really cool town outside of Cairns called Kuranda, it's an aboriginal town full of art and hippy love.....Really cool place though..we went to this place called Top Bar and met a handful of locals who we played pool with and such...visited a honey store and learned a little about bees....Also met some cool people in an art studio that we should meet up with again...the drive up is really cool..it's at the top of a big mountain with a really cool look-out point...(we went last night and then today as well)...

Now............ not all life can be sunshine all the time I suppose. If everything were always peachy keen then it would be hard to appreciate the many beautiful things in life such as ducks and dates...uhhh ya....

The story is that we seemed to have some car troubles on the way up....We were lucky that Trin is pretty good with cars and he sorta banged a few things making it work enough to get up the mountain and then back down (Thanks).... It started PISSSSSING rain after about an hour of being in town....we were lucky good old JUD didn't decide to die...Poor darling little car...If Jud were an object I reckon he would be something with a lot of duct tape holding it together....perhaps something like how my wallet often looks....(I'm real stubourne and centimental about wallets and refuse to get ride of them until they explode like poor old George Costanza....(great episode)....

Another good piece of news is that the tyre (that's how it's spelled here) mystery has been solved. I'm not going to get into details, but what I can say is it wasn't Will....What does matter is that we got new tyres, and will be getting our money back. No dramas.....the culprit who shall remain nameless will just not be a part of our lives after we get our money (no violence or anything Mom and Dad don't worry/I will not ruin our great Canadian stereo-types)....That's all I'll say about that though....

hmmm what else...........OOOO uhmmm ahhhh not too sure really......one weird thing that happened was that today when Trin and I went to get stuff from the car in the lot we met some cops that took our info because some homeless guy died in the parking lot in a bush and was apparently there for a few days or something... (Natural causes though, no signs of foul play or anything).....it's weird because we were all hanging out there the night before too, hmm???? We met a weird guy in town that carries HEAPS of straws in his pocket and we were hoping that it wasn't him....He was an interesting fellow though....just tons of straws in every pocket and he kinda has matching sunglasses that he wears low on his nose...he always goes around and chats the people up asking for smokes and things....We were walking down the road today though and bumped into him...I tipped my imaginary hat and said hello......There are not many homeless poeple in Australia, and the ones that you do meet are not like the ones in Toronto....I wonder why there are so many homeless people in Toronto a little more now....They seem to be complete different breeds...up in Cairns everyone is real laid back so it's not really very awkward when you talk to a 'tramp' <--aussie/pom for homeless. I was really interested in learning why he has so many straws...I asked him and he was just sort of like ya just cause...no real answers to my inquiries......I wish I had a green straw...I would surely give it to him they would complement his sunnies....I will keep on the look out for them.

I think those are the main highlights though.........I wont babble on anymore I'll just steal a bunch of pictures from the internet and post them above

Good Night/Morning to you all
Love:
Chrissy

I'll make this quick because I was on my way to drop off a resume and get a job...bla bla...Anywyas I'm in Cairns now...my little promiced land. Life is good here..heaps of jobs, darling little streets....Places to buy high quality figs and dates, along with nice lagoons and scenery....Anyways it's was a pretty good weekend. Got to go to the crocodile farm in Inisfail which was really cool...Saw lots of crocs eat chickens, fed kangaroos, and watched Travis and our German friend Oskar get bitten by a snake (if you did you would get a free Coke)...(It bled for quite a while too)...Our awesome friend Trin is in town as well he flew up from Melbourne....

I had some camera troubles I wish not to talk about so my pictures are limited until I steal my fellow comrades photogs.....Anyways in the meantime we went to Murray falls last week which is really nice....The bottom part was nice and calm for swimming, and the falls were huge and impressive...The other is self explanitory just me on my way to play in the mud driving the tractor while the farmers hump bananas....I'm glad to be out of the banana industry and back into civilization with grocery stores that are open past 8, and not AS MANY crazy peoples trying to pick fights......euk...........Tonight I think we're going to some really weird town that apparently you can get a really 'nice salad".....I reckon I have not eaten any salad and deserve a treat after all my hard banana work................Anyways that's some of my story.....ttyl

Love:

Chrissy

Here are some pictures of Josephine falls the greatest place on earth. The pictures really don't do it much justice...I can't wait to go back it's so nice. I'll be sure not to swim on the top of the falls though.

The picture of Jud is self explanatory, very sad stuff (but at least everything worked out). On a bright(ish) note when I was in the tow truck today the driver pointed out someone elses tires got slashed as well......@ least then in my mind I can make myself believe it wasn't someone that I knew...I hope so, because we really were angels and really didn't piss anyone off....

The picture of the bat is from these people that we met. His name was Kevin (awe just like my brother...) And they took care of it in Tully...They would pick maggots out of the bin and feed it to him...how darling.

e




Finally some pictures that I can put online...that makes me happy........I had some memory card troubles yesterday and it was 50$ to fix...I'm just glad that I got my pictures back though...puts a smile on my face....This is some of my ode to the banana collection....Above you will see a picture of me doing some 'banana inspecting'. I have included a picture of a triple banana for your enjoyment. Chances are you will never get to see a triple banana because people like me keep the world safe from them. On a bad day I wrote some profanities on the banana and took a picture. The picture above is the pg-13 version..OooO....

Anyways today was a good day........We got Judders fixed which puts big smiles on my face. It only costed 220$ including the tow and the dude even dropped it off central for us again. We met some cool people in Cairns @ the hostel. We hung out with Yukiko, a girl from Japan who the craziest and most awesome chick ever....We had a picnic by the esplanade and walked around the city. We tried to sneak into the reptile rainforest place above the casino but were chased down and kicked out. We just "pretended" like we did not know..."Opps sorry"......We saw two skinks though, crocodiles will have to be saved for another day....Anyways I need to get back on the banana wagon and go back to Tully...euuhhh wish me luck......

Drama on the east coast...

Well I'm in Cairns right now for the weekend, and unlike Tully there are many more then three computers in the whole city. I actually really like Cairns and am supposed to move here next week after another week of bananas......Cairns is a city small enough that you can walk from one end to the other (would take a while though)....but has a real darling quality to it, with a lot of personality. It's very friendly here too unlike Tully....Tully is kinda like a ghost town everything on the main street closes after 4 (pretty much)...even on a Saturday after 12 everything closes....Lots of creepy locals too....I don't really leave the hostel @ night...

Anyways

Allow me to back up though and take you back to one week and 12 hours ago...it has been a rocket ship ride full of weirdness...

Last weekend Travis, Will, and some hostel mates that we made went on a road trip to Cairns for some good old fashioned backpacker fun. We had a great night, there was some shopping cart rides down hills, cheesy dancing, and perhaps a cider or two....Our group got a little separated as this is very likely to happen, during a night on the piss. We stumbled back to the hostel, where there were some Dramas, with others however we didn't' get involved in any of it.....Everyone grew sleepy quite quickly and we all passed out on our nice foam bunk beds. When we all awoke, eager for water and dirty bird greasy spoon breaky we noticed something odd. We saw our car and made a comment that we thought had no merit at the time. The comment along the lines of...........

"Gee Jud (our car) seems pretty low to the ground"

So as we approached our darling sweet ride (uhm) we couldn't help but notice that every single tire had been slashed. There sat poor Judwick Tatum with no feet for driving us home, on a Sunday where everything is pretty much closed. What a messed up situation huh?

We made the best of our day, and turned our lemons into lemonade however still were quite distraught about our sweet darling. We ended up scoring a ride home with our friends from the hostel and had to leave it in a bottle-o parking lot for the week (we were lucky it didn't get towed). So our crew came up here another weekend and we have to take work off tomorrow and get our tires sorted out....That's all I'm going to type about that....I'm not going to get into the over analyzing that we have done trying to figure out who it was...what's done is done and there is not much more that we can do except take our car to the hospital and fix his legs tomorrow.

On a brighter note we went to the most amazing water fall yesterday afternoon. Josephine Falls it was called. It was like a backpacker utopia with three levels of falls that you could swim in. People were climbing trees and dropping into the water it was absolutely breathtaking. 100% the most amazing place I've ever seen before. It was crazy scary at one point because the current was insane. Three of us were swimming at the top layer and the current sucked me in and shot me down this crazy rock slide. I was really freaked out, but it was fun.....If I go back I wont go back on the top like that again....the current is seriously really freaky...People @ the hostel were telling us that there are rumours it's haunted there and lots of people have gotten really hurt or died.....I figure I'll play my cards carefully....

hmmm what else....I've been driving the tractor @ work all week while the trees get sprayed....it's real boring but better then sorting bananas. I fear I may have had an allergic reaction to the chemicals because since the spraying I've developed a terrible allergic reaction....it really sucks and once I leave the farm I got a detox program that I'm going to start....crappy ....I have the worst luck with stuff like that it really annoys me....

Anyways I guess I'll leave it @ that...those are the good/bad highlights of the week...I'll post heaps of pictures soon (a cd is in the process of being burned)....

Mwah
Chrissy