OZ4: Gary & Sue

When we caught the bus back to Townsville from Ravenswood, we were breathing easy knowing we didn’t have to be around Al anymore.  Liz, our crazy new Scottish friend, had invited us to stay in her yard if we needed a place to crash.  We seemed to be going from one crazy person to the next!  :)  We were able to book a relocation vehicle from Townsville to Cairns for the next day, so we decided to stay with her.  She wasn’t around when we arrived at her house, so we just stashed our stuff underneath her house and went to find some food.

We couldn’t really find a place to eat, but we found an “Op-Shop” (thrift store) open and I found myself a new dress for only $1!  Come to find out later that it was a religious establishment and the low prices are to bring people in so the clerk can talk about Jesus or slip a pamphlet in the bag.

We became painfully aware of the weather again.  It was nice that we were able to leave our packs, because carrying them in the hot sun would have been murder, but it was still so hot and miserable.  I felt like I couldn’t drink enough water.

Maybe it was the heat, but at some point in our meandering, Joe and I started to fight.  It got quite bad, eventually coming to a point where we couldn’t continue to be geographically close to one another, so I walked away in tears, and he went in the other direction with probably the same amount of distress, with a less overtly sad evidence like crying.

We spent the afternoon apart, which was very hard.  My heart was hurting.  I can’t entirely remember what the argument was about, though I get the feeling it had something to do with the fact that Joe is a go-go-go kind of tourist who wants and needs to see everything a new city has to offer right now.  Maybe it was the wrong time of the month, maybe it was the oppressive heat, or maybe I’m just very lazy, but I didn’t want to be pushed that hard.  I wanted to enjoy things in a more relaxed manner.

I eventually headed back to Liz’s house.  She had made it home and I tried to pretend like nothing was wrong, but that Joe just wanted to see a few things and I had decided to relax.  I didn’t tell her that I was hurting.  Maybe she noticed but pretended not to.

She offered to take me out for fish and chips and to see the Strand, which was a section of the city by the water.  It was a very nice gesture and I readily agreed.  We stopped at an op-shop on the way and I found a fun new skirt for $4.  Being with Liz is so funny because if I am pensive, it’s actually quite easy to get away with because she does enough talking that she doesn’t even need a conversation partner because she’ll go from one subject to the next effortlessly without input from anyone else.

Anyway, we went to the Strand, walked around a while, saw a huge basketball player (is 7 feet possible?  I know nothing about max heights), took some photos on the top of a lookout, got some free Red Bull from some promoter girls in a Red Bull truck, and then headed to get fish and chips.  We planned ahead and made a little salad to take with us to eat with the fish, because Liz is a tight-wad like that.  I almost felt guilty for eating food we obviously brought in ourselves, but at the same time, I laughed it off because it was Liz and she’s just odd.  :)

When we got back to the house, I went around to the back where our stuff was, worried about what I would say to Joe if he was there and we were both still angry.  I had been a little sick to my stomach all evening thinking about this reunion.  As I walked back in the dark, a rustling stopped and I heard Joe’s voice say, “Em, is that you?”  I could hear the softness in his voice and instinctively I went to him and we hugged and apologized at the same time.  That’s love right there.  The butterflies and happy times are also love.  But I think perhaps successful love is willingness to fight, to work it out, and then to remember that Joe is worth more to me than being right.  It was a huge relief.

The next morning we woke up, packed our things, and then Joe went off to get the campervan from the rental place that happened to be just down the street.  The van was older and more run down than the last rental (I showed pictures of the one we had before with a stove, bathroom, dining area, huge windows, plenty of space), but it was still great.  We loaded up and headed out.

Our drive to Cairns was lovely.  Liz had told us of a few places to stop, including a swimming hole.  We found the swimming hole and were blown away!  We jumped off rocks and soaked in the crystal clear water.  We felt the air getting warmer and warmer.

We stopped for the night at Mission Beach.  As we turned off the highway, we saw the first of the “Cassowary” signs.  A cassowary is a large flightless bird much like an emu or ostrich, but more dinosaur-like and definitely more badass.  They are about four feet tall, their heads are bright blue, and they have a giant red fin on top of their head that makes them look like they’re perpetually wearing a hat.

We kept our eyes peeled because we knew sighting them was rare so we wanted to be ready.  Eventually though it gets boring and you stop being able to pay close enough attention.  And then of course in that moment that you’re not paying attention, there is the flash of blue and the huge charcoal-colored butt heading into the bush.  We flipped around to find him, but of course he was gone.

It was still exhilarating and we still count the sighting.  We headed on into Mission Beach where we cooked dinner, ran on the beach, and explored a bit.  By nightfall, the old and weary game came of finding a place to stash for the night to sleep in the camper.  We parked at the end of a road near a swamp, hoping that the crocodiles couldn’t eat their way through our wheel-wells and get us in the night.  Seriously though, one of the few times I have to pee in the night has to be when we’re parked next to a crocodile warning sign.

We slept poorly because of the fear of being discovered and handed a huge fine.  We were up early and after a quick look at Mission Beach again, we headed north.

We finally came across Cairns, where we quickly found the rental place where we were to drop off the camper.  And then of course there was the mad shuffle of getting all of our stuff back into packs to haul around again.

Our helpx hosts would be picking us up later in the afternoon, but I left enough time to hand out a couple of resumes.  I found a temporary staffing office nearby and walked there while Joe stayed with the bags in a park and read his book.  I spruced myself up as well as I could after a couple of days on the road and strode into the office, only to walk out two minutes later because their “application process” was a matter of sitting at a computer bank in the lobby and doing the online process, which of course I could do anywhere.  I left feeling a bit disheartened because I knew that the impersonal online process usually meant no dice.

I walked the long way back to Joe and we heaved our packs on our backs and started the walk to an easy location for Gary to find us.  We bought a newspaper with the intent of looking for jobs and sat at a bus stop to wait.

Gary finally found us a pulled over, helping us get the bags in the car.  We introduced ourselves and got in.  The first moments with a new host are always a little exciting because it is where you really get a sense of what you have signed up for.  It also feels a little fake because of first impressions, politeness, and a sense of newness.  It just feels chintzy for a bit.

What we didn’t know is that we had just begun a long and wonderful friendship.

Gary took us around the city to see the water, the Central Business District (CBD), and some of his old places of work.  He and Joe chatted very easily in the front seat.

We headed to their home, where Gary’s wife Sue was waiting for us.  We realized their age and that this was the first time we had had hosts that were of the age of retirement.  Sue seemed sweet and nervous, but took us to our room and let us relax a bit.

The room was pristine.  There was a cross breeze and fresh air, the bed was made up perfectly, with bright white sheets and an elegant half white, half delicate blue topper, and there were fluffy towels rolled and ready for us, and a super fragrant gardenia was sitting in the center of the bed.  Hands down the best room we had stayed in, maybe ever.

The next few days we talked to Gary and Sue, chatting easily at meals, and getting into such deep conversations that those meals sometimes stretched a couple of hours.  They were well-traveled and experienced.  They had two sons, one of whom had a male partner and twin daughters achieved through overseas surrogacy.  They handled the topics warmly and earnestly.

In the meantime we were working hard.  Gary worked right alongside us every day, which was refreshing for a helpx host.  It wasn’t that other hosts haven’t also worked hard, it’s just that other people tend to slip into a bit of a supervisory role.  That’s totally fair.  But also it was very genuine of Gary to basically be saying, okay, if I ask you to do something, I can’t be above doing it as well.  So every hour he worked, we worked.

Our first day of work we saw the pile of mulch in the driveway and thought, hmmm, this could be some serious work.  Gary thought it would take us maybe four days to tackle.  With Joe and Gary shoveling and piling the mulch into the beds out front, and me weeding a bed out back and then helping them shovel and pile the rest, we were finished with the pile by dinner time.  None of us could believe it.

At the end of the day we were achy and itchy.  The mulch got into everything.  We were tired, but accomplished, proud to have done it all so fast.  We took hot showers, changed into clean clothes, and enjoyed a beer with our new friends.

We apparently were so fast and efficient that we made a good impression on the neighborhood!  Gary and Sue’s neighbors to the front approached Gary to see if we would be interested in helping them out for money.  The offer was $20 per hour per person.  We accepted very readily.

The next morning we spent working at the neighbors’ house and while it was pleasant enough, we missed Gary and Sue.  We were glad for the money though, that was for sure.  Little did we know that $20 per hour is actually fairly standard, maybe even low.

We were back to the house by afternoon and started the next project—washing walls.  Gary and Sue’s house has a back porch area that is screened in where they eat casual meals and hang out.  The walls were yellow out there and had been for many years, and now that we had done four days’ work in one (and what would have taken Gary alone two solid weeks), we started the first step in the process of changing the walls over to white.

We sugar-soaped and scrubbed the walls meticulously, but finished early.  Over the next few days we would scrape, sand, wash, prime, and paint the walls.  Once that was finished we moved on to the laundry room, bathroom, hall, kitchen, and living room.  Of the three of us, Gary was oddly the least perfectionist, even though it was his house and they were his walls that we were painting.  He was going to look at them every day, but he sometimes just slapped paint on in an effort to finish faster.

And while Gary matched us hour-for-hour of work, Sue matched us hour-for-hour cooking and cleaning.  She loved tinkering in her kitchen and would make some of the best food I had ever had.  We were glad we were working and therefore burning off a few calories.

Gary and Sue were agreeable to the idea of us leaving some gear at their house after one week of work with them in order to take a trip to the Daintree rain forest.  We did ressearch on buses north of Cairns to find that it was quite expensive to get a bus transfer, but the YHA in Port Douglas offered free transfers from Cairns to their hostel with the purchase of at least two nights at their hostel. We booked for the first night and the last night of our five day excursion.

Gary took us to the bus and dropped us off.  The trip north was nice—the drive was gorgeous, along white sand and cliff beaches, with rainforest and eucalyptus to the west.  The YHA in Port Douglas was lovely, with a small pool and floating lounges, a nice-sized kitchen, and simple bungalows lined up in the trees.

We went for a walk, first out to the beach and then towards town.  Port Douglas was beautiful.  The beach (called Four Mile Beach because it actually is at least that length) was long and curving and at the end was a point that we walked up to, looking out north and south.  The town was charming and small and we stopped for groceries, including ice cream!

The walk back to the YHA was a little long, but as dusk started to fall, we got to witness something that we had only ever seen in Fiji, but it amazed us both times—the fruit bats started to move for the night.  They were crisscrossing each other, traveling in all three dimensions.  In Idaho when you see bats, they’re little guys that sweep one at a time barely perceptible on summer nights, but the fruit bats are so large and so numerous that it looks like a scene from an old vampire movie.

That night back at the hostel we met a few people, including Dreadlock Dave and a young man (maybe his name was Nathan?) who was still a fresh young face to traveling.  He was frequently seen around the common area journaling about his trip.  I don’t mean to make fun of him or judge him for that, because if I were that driven to write and remember things, I would do it.  As it is though, I think I am a little too veteran to have that kind of motivation and drive.  That makes me sound arrogant, like “back when we were traveling…”  But in all seriousness, it’s a little sad when you lose that drive.  I think that is why I am almost a year behind here on my blog.

Anyway…

The next morning we got up and packed our bags, walked out the beach and towards the turnoff to Port Douglas from the Captain Cook highway.  We had a bit of weight, even after having left some at Gary and Sue’s, or maybe it was the combination of a medium amount of weight with high temperatures and humidity.  Either way, we got tired fast.  We had to take several breaks on the beach to drink some water and sit in the shade.

Finally we decided to take a path back up towards the road off the beach in order to start finding the right intersection.  We found a little neighborhood that would end up later being important to us (spoiler alert?).  We walked to the Port Douglas highway, where we would wait for a while in the sun.  It felt like a waste after a while to not be moving anywhere, plus it can be very draining on your self-esteem to smile at car after car, as they whizz past without so much as a smile back.  We started to walk in the direction we were going, throwing our thumbs out here and there.  It was hot.

                                                                                                                 

Finally someone stopped, but we were immediately wary when we noticed the car was bright yellow, with a black-checkered stripe around the middle like a taxi.  It even said taxi on it.  But when it stopped along side us, we were even more wary than we were.  The smell coming out the window of the car when the driver rolled it down was like musty clothes that are lived in for too many days in a row, with a faint scent of urine.  There were Gatorade bottles and granola bar wrappers all over the floor.  The driver’s voice sounded different—handicapped? drunk? Severely back-woods?

Joe did his normal check when he has a suspicion of the driver and asked where the man was going.  He replied that he was headed north, maybe eventually to Cooktown, which was the direction we were going.  He seemed nice enough, but we were still wary.  Joe sat up front and I in the back, as we always do it when we are passengers with one other person.  He got the car back on the road and off we went.

The ride was interesting, to say the least.  Grahame, as he introduced himself, seemed to have a screw loose, but he seemed like a genuinely nice dude, with a slight potential towards being a full-blown psychopath.  The car had indeed been a taxi cab at some point in Melbourne, but he had purchased it and never bothered to paint or change it in any way.

He was a kind man, offering to take us to a few of the tourist sights along the way.  Joe and I offered to pay his Mossman Gorge entrance fee if he wanted to take us there and see it with us.  Mossman Gorge is a simple walk of a couple of kilometers through the rainforest and gorge, but Grahame seemed to think it was very hard.  He said he hadn’t walked that far in ages.  He definitely wasn’t prepared—Crocs-type sandals and corduroy pants.  He was also amazingly slow, made worse by the fact that Joe was peppering him with questions and Grahame would turn around, sort of answer while sort of still walking.  He cooed about being in our photos and the possibility of us sending some to him, as if he had not been photographed in years.  He was a study in being an isolated oddity.

One of the things that I love about Joe is that he will become anyone’s positive energy when he feels like they need it, so there he was slyly getting Grahame to walk more and more and then making him feel good about it.

We got back in the car and back on the road after the walk.  Grahame told us that he had spent some time in a mental institution recently.  He said he and his mother and brother shared a house near Bundaberg, but he had had troubles with his brother, who once had left the room and then when he re-entered he had blood on his hands and face.  Grahame had felt trapped in isolation with his family and had hopped in his car and started the drive north.  This was what had led him to us.

We were alarmed, but patient.  He really seemed to open up to us about something that really hurt him.

We offered to pay the ferry fee to get the car across the Daintree River.  This worked in our favor as well because the ferry did not allow pedestrians to cross.  This preference for cars was a theme.

We stopped a few times as we went more into the rainforest.  And while Grahame was kind, we were still nervous about his mental stability and the potential that he did not have our safety in mind.  He had said several times during the drive that he would take us where we wanted to go because he was flexible, which of course was a red flag.  But then suddenly as we got to a few shops, he suddenly lost interest in taking us any further.  We were worried that we would have to be the ones to politely exit, but he was sort of like, well okay here you are, I’m going to head south again.  We shook hands and he gave us his email and then just like that he got back in his car and turned around and left.  It was almost abrupt.

It was only a bit before sundown, so we headed out to the deserted beach, intending to sleep out under the stars if possible.  We slept, but very poorly, and when I groggily tuned in to the sounds in the morning, I heard someone muttering angry words under their breath.  I got nervous and told Joseph that maybe we should begin packing up.  I didn’t really voice why, but I was uneasy that the angry person would come back.

Since I didn’t really voice my concerns, Joe was not exactly being efficient at breaking camp.  Before too much longer the man was back and this time he was audibly and physically threatening.  He came right up to us with his dog and started a fight.  He called us pieces of shit, fucking backpackers, and other obscenities.  We tried to de-escalate, but basically everything we tried brought us closer and closer to a fight.  The man was medium build, but strong and intimidating, like maybe he had done some jail time.  He found every sentence Joe spoke as provocation and he would throw his chest out and menace himself forward as if one more word and he would attack.  I was terrified.

Finally he seemed to feel indignant enough and unprovoked enough that he threw some last obscenities at us and stormed off.  How dare we camp on HIS beach.

I waited until I knew for sure that he was gone and then I fell apart into scared tears.  I was so angry!  It felt so unfair!  We were sleeping on a world heritage site beach, yes.  We were trying to get something for free that other people didn’t take for free.  But we had also TRIED to do it right.  We had wanted to camp in some campgrounds with our tent that we took with us.  Joe had gone through the online process for reserving a site in the Daintree area, but the form would not submit without a license plate.  We tried this several times, and we even tried putting dummy numbers in.  But since we didn’t have a car, we couldn’t reserve a campsite.  And online was the only way to reserve spots.  Paying for a hotel room would have been very expensive and not the way we wanted to do it.

So we camped on the beach.  We knew it was a bad idea, but we were hoping to get away with it because of the high prices of accommodation and because we couldn’t do a campground the right way.  I would much rather have had a campsite in a campground because that way we would have been able to set up a tent, have some shelter, and not have to sleep in the sand.  Plus, this was Tropical North Queensland, where crocodiles could be anywhere.

We were so frustrated to not only be barred from doing things right because we didn’t have a car, but then also to be on the bring of violent attack for sleeping on the beach.  My tears were tears of fear, but also tears of hatred for the way Australia does things.

We walked down the beach for a while, fearing that we would see the man if we went back towards the road and the town.  After a while we went inland towards the road so that we could follow it to the campground south of where we were.  After walking uphill with our heavy packs, we heard a car pass and then stop right in the middle of the road.  The owner of the car yelled out, “Need a ride?”  We accepted this random offer of transportation that we hadn’t even hitched for!  It made my heart happy when I learned this kindness was extended by a man and woman from South Carolina!  If there is one thing I like about Americans it is that their kindness tends to be fairly unmatched.

It wasn’t long until we came across the campground, which was almost a bummer because the ride with the two nice Americans had been so short.  But we got out, thanked them, and walked through the campground and out to the beach.  We spent the next several hours reading and nursing our damaged mental stability after our near-fight earlier in the morning.  Okay, and when I say that I mean that I was nursing my frail countenance, not Joe.  Joe is a little stronger than I am.  :)

This was the campground that we tried to book before the trip whose form would not submit because we didn’t have a car license plate to enter.  We looked around for a way to complete the booking, but the sign simply said that all reservations needed to be made online ahead of time.  We had no cell service, much less data to try again.  Even climbing the mountain to get data was useless, as we were told.  So we shrugged and called it good.

That night as we were setting up the tent, a little friend came into the headlight radius.  He looked at us interestedly.  Joe shooed him away, but the little possum came back several times, very curious about what we were doing.  We decided to keep all the food items in the tent with us.

The next morning we were up reasonably early, making breakfast and coffee.  Just as we were finishing the last of packing up, we saw a ranger a few sites down.  We got nervous and stupidly decided that rather than trying to explain ourselves, it might be better to just take off before he made it to our site.

We chose very poorly.  He came after us.  He caught up to us and scolded us, treating us like dirty backpackers.  I was so sad.  We tried to explain our situation and how the website hadn’t worked, but he didn’t seem to want to hear it.  I was sad that we had tried to leave before he saw us because that just communicated to him that we were scum.  We offered to give him the money right there, because we would have spent the money on the campsite had we been able to online.  He didn’t want to because that was not the normal process.  He walked away frustrated at us, and we at him.  His impression of us was a bad one, which I regretted.  First the near fight, now this.  We should not have tried to sneak out.

We walked slowly down the beach after this encounter.  I cried a little more.  This trip to Daintree was turning out to be unpleasant.  We agreed that we were tired of doing things the wrong way and decided to head back to Port Douglas early.

We headed towards the road to hitchhike south.  It took many cars for one to finally stop, but finally one did and we rode with the young Frenchman until the Daintree Discovery Center.  Maybe we would have gone to the Center had we felt a little better, but since it was very expensive and we were feeling like jerks.  So we stuck out our thumbs to keep going south.

A car finally stopped and the man agreed to take us with him as far as he was going.  He moved the machete off the seat for Joe to sit down.  At Joe’s feet were shotgun shells.  We had good conversations with the man, but after we got out of the car we decided that perhaps Australia was not as good to hitchhike in, especially considering he had mentioned his jail time.  He was nice enough though, and the jail time had been for taxation reasons rather than violent reasons.

He dropped us in Mossman, where we found shade long enough to eat a little something.  Before long we had our thumbs out again, but this time it took us quite a bit longer.  Eventually someone did stop and we climbed into this older man’s little red, sporty looking hatchback.  He reminded me of a less Jersey Danny DeVito.  He talked easily as he zipped off in his little car.  He was headed towards Cairns, but offered to take us a little way in on the road to Port Douglas.

He was a really interesting man.  I have always loved people who have started to move past the mourning stage of an ended relationship, and this guy was on to the slightly embittered, but mostly empowered stage.  He and his ex-wife had ended things and he was living life to the fullest, buying a new zippy little car and doing anything he wanted.  We also found out that he worked for Ergon and probably knew Gary & Sue’s son Leon.

He graciously drove us a little ways into the Port Douglas peninsula and we were within a few blocks of the YHA.  Since we had already booked and paid for our second night as per the two-nights-free-transport-to-Cairns deal, we couldn’t move the booking up a day and head back to Cairns a day earlier than planned.  So we paid for that night, would stay for the night after as planned, and then head back to Cairns.  It was a bummer that we couldn’t move our transport a day up, but at the same time we were feeling pretty crummy and were glad to have some relax time.  We sat in the pool, walked and read on the beach, and just pampered ourselves.

When we got back home to Cairns and to Gary & Sue, it was lovely to spend time with them again.  A small break for all of us did great things for us.  Especially where Joe and I had been having such rough encounters, it was so lovely to have such welcoming faces to go back to.

We had originally all agreed on a one week stay arrangement, but by the end of our trip to Cape Tribulation, we didn’t really have that much of a plan after that, so we decided to work a few days more, as long as we were enjoying each other so much.

During the second week we did research for the best reef trip and decided on Reef Experience, a full experience for a pretty good price with the option to add on a dive or two for extra.  We booked it for the end of the week and worked really hard to make sure that we were worthy guests.

On the day of the reef trip, Gary took us down to the marina early in the morning and we waited in the chill for the boat to be ready to board.  We were on the boat by eight and were issued flippers, masks and wetsuits.  They served breakfast (simple but delicious ham [their idea of bacon is more like our idea of smoked ham] and cheese on hot rolls) and the boat pulled out of the marine and started our journey to the reef.

I can’t remember how long the trip is from the marina to the reef.  An hour or hour and a half maybe?  The boat was pretty fast, which was nice unless you got seasick.  The crew stashed the seasickness patients on the stairs that led from one deck to the other, comforting and handing out sick bags.  Most of the sick stayed there for the entire journey.  The speed of the boat meant that the bumps and rolls were magnified and more intense.

For the rest of us the journey was interesting.  Part way through, a marine biologist gave us a presentation of what we might expect to see.  The thing that struck me was how everyone in the world knew the clown fish as Nemo.  People adore Nemo.

Both of us decided to buy the one dive, and since I am a certified diver, I would dive separately from Joe, who would do an introductory dive.  Since this was the first time I had dived outside of my course, I was still nervous about it and paid the $10 extra to have a guide on the dive.  Paying the extra was entirely unnecessary since there were only two of us on the boat that were certified and so we basically had a personal guide anyway.  But no matter.  I was happy to feel like I had a little bit of guidance.

Joe and I decided to rent an underwater camera for the day even though it was a bit expensive, and then it worked out even better when the other girl who was certified asked if we would like to split the cost and share the camera.  We were happy to do that.  Joe took off for his orientation for the introductory dive while my certified partner and I went to ours.

I was really nervous.  My course was a long time ago.  I remember how much trouble I had had with regulating my buoyancy, as well as figuring out navigation underwater.  I think I was shaking as we got our gear on.  My partner snapped a nice picture of me before we got in the water in which I look much more peaceful than I actually was.

Once we got in the water it was a bit scary.  I’ve never been great at trusting snorkel or a regulator.  But I consciously calmed myself down and slowly started to descend.  I was thankful to have a mooring line on which to descend.

The girl (I do feel bad that I don’t remember her name) had said she had done many dives outside of her course, and some fairly recently.  I was worried that I would look like an absolute noob once we got down there, but as it turned out, because I was being calm and deliberate I think I did better at regulating my buoyancy than she did.  That elevated my spirits a bit.  I still was not that great at it though.

Our leader took us around to a lot of different spots and the views were amazing.  We weren’t very deep, which was okay for nerves, but a bummer for excitement.  There was a lot of color which, as we learned in the marine biologists’ presentation, is actually the coral being stressed.  By that token, a very colorful reef would mean very stressed coral.  But I think what people are referring to when they say that the coral and reef are in danger is the dull grey color that the reef takes on when it dies and is covered in what looks like underwater dust bunnies.  Because that is a really sad state.

The fish were amazing.  In my diving course in Spain I was diving in a really bad spot and a really bad time of year, so I saw a total of perhaps two fish, with the one highlight being an octopus who my instructor pointed out which disappeared within moments.  The Great Barrier Reef fish, however, were all colors and very plentiful.  I looked for “Nemo,” but never saw one.  I was hoping to see a turtle or a shark as well, but never did on this trip.

But the fish were good enough.  There were huge bright green parrot fish munching on the coral, delicate black and white striped fish swimming in packs of two and three, and bright neon colored tiny fish coming in and out of their coral cities.  There was so much more to see here!

I traded off with the camera with the other girl, which was fine by me anyway because I liked to snap some pictures, but also to be camera free and enjoy it.  Later we would discover that she had taken a perfect Nemo picture!  I got to take a video following a school of large black fish up and down and around.

This was all so easy.  I had been so nervous that I would be really bad at diving like I had been in my course, but I did really well.  Many years ago I learned to snowboard and I was so bad at it.  I really wanted to be able to do it, but I just kept falling down, hurting my knees, and going home with a butt so wet and cold that it took hours to warm up.  Finally I gave up for a couple of years and stuck to skiing.  I remember having a dream or two here and there in those couple of years.  When I strapped the board on again, I was putting together turns and going much faster than I had ever been before!  Granted, I was still not very good, I still fell down a lot, and faster mostly meant that I maintained movement rather than stopping and falling down.  But I was way better!

I think diving may have been the same thing.  I think my body and mind had enough time to consolidate.  I did a research project in high school about dreams and in my reading I had found that the brain consolidates memories and often works through ideas and concepts while you sleep, or so the theory goes.  That is my best guess for why I struggled with both boarding and diving, but then after a break of a few years from each sport, I re-entered the snow and the water being calmer and having an easier time with each.

Probably bogus, but I’ll choose to believe it.  Thanks, dreams.

I was sad when the dive ended because I was having so much fun with my own abilities.  I didn’t even feel like I had hurt my lungs like I used to.

We got back in the boat with time to spare, since we were the first group to go out, having already been initiated by being the only two certified divers.  The intro groups were still going out one group at a time.  I got my flippers, mask and snorkel back on and got back in the water.

After a little bit of exploration, I found a group with my little intro diver in it.  Joe was holding onto the hands of two other divers, who were at all kinds of depths.  I recognized Joe somehow, despite the fact that everyone looks the same underwater.  Perhaps it was the very non-conventional swimming.  He gets an A+ for effort, but it’s always been just a tiny bit apparent that he didn’t get used to swimming as a kid.  He’s still a great swimmer.

So I approached the group and tugged on Joe’s fin.  He looked down, then he kept looking down until he was in a full body flip, while still holding the hands of the other bewildered divers.  It was hilarious.  I could us a crass word to describe the whole intro diver group’s formation, but I’ll leave that one alone.  I was bemused though.

I left the camera with Joe so that he could take some photos from his dive, but then I swam away from his little group so they could continue their exploration and I could do some of my own.

The snorkeling that day was as impressive as the diving.  The tide was a bit low, so there were moments where you were floating only a few feet above the reef.  There were phosphorescent green parrot fish munching away at the bright reef, there were tiny little fish with sharply contrasting colors moving in and out of crevices, and duller colored schooling fish flowing through the reef like a river of blacks, whites and browns.  I have never been anywhere with that amount of diverse life and color.

Back on the boat at the end of the session, we talked excitedly about what we had seen and a simple lunch was served.  It was the perfect temperature, but a little too crowded.  We were asked about a second dive in the second water session of the day, but they seemed disappointed when we declined.  The trip was cheap, but I think the company makes the largest margin of profit by up-selling the dives.  I had a great time diving, but I thought I would leave it on that note.

We got in the water for the second session and spent lots of time taking pictures and exploring.  I even did a free dive that Joe caught on video where I went down and touched the soft purple flesh exposed between the wavy-sided shells, which made the clam pull in its purple and snap shut.  Pretty awesome.

We got cheap wine and cheese/crackers on the ride back to Cairns, which was bumpy and windy.  It was unfortunate that there were so many people on the boat because it meant that all of the sun lounges on the top deck were jealously guarded and always taken by young backpacker girls eager to get a kiss from the sun.  Most of them ended up getting really burnt of course, including one Irish girl who had a burn so angry it looked as if she had had an all-over beating.  Her friends had let her fall asleep.  I was burnt a bit as well, but only just.  I was thankful for that.  Does that mean that I am growing up?

We were tired by the time we got to Gary and Sue’s home.  Our eyelids were droopy.  Sue fed us another awesome meal and we went to bed shortly after.

We decided to push out our departure from Gary & Sue even more.  We were so satisfied, and so were they, that it didn’t seem necessary to leave.  We would put in a few more days, finish up some projects, and try to put in enough work to make the exchange for the lovely room and gourmet meals worth it for our new friends.  But then we extended, and then we extended again, and then again.  We ended up staying with Gary and Sue for a full month.  It was one of the best months we had had in a long time.  Conversation was easy.

I sent off many applications for the Cairns and Port Douglas area in our downtime.  I love helpx, but it surprising takes a large amount of time.  After we would do our work for the day, we feel obligated to make conversation and be pleasant.  So getting applications sent in was actually quite the accomplishment.

We were looking for jobs the whole time we stayed, without a whole lot of luck.  I eventually got a call back from a temporary staffing agency.  They wanted to start me as an as-needed housekeeper.  I accepted and went through the introduction, making sure to read the contract very carefully to see if I would be able to back out at a moment’s notice if something better came along.  The contract seemed easily managed for that.

Sometime around our third week Gary and Sue offered to take us up to the Atherton Tablelands.  We had been talking about going up to see the area because we had heard that it was one of the attractions.  When Gary and Sue approached us about making a day of it, they did so very carefully, making sure that we knew we could say no if we wanted to be alone.  It was very sweet.  And we were delighted to have their company.

They took us all around the area, showing us the place Sue had grown up, the hippie markets in Kuranda, the old pub in Yungaburra, and some of the lakes along the way.  When we went to fill up on gas and Joe made the sneaky move to pay while Sue wasn’t looking, she went red in the face and demanded that Joe accept the cash to replace the cost.  They insisted it was their treat.  It was the first time I saw Sue legitimately angry.

The Tablelands are exactly what they sound like—a suddenly elevated part of the inland.  The drive back off the mountain was freaky with winding turns and steep grades.  Gary told us one of the saddest things I had ever heard.  With a career as a reporter for he Cairns Daily Post, he was called one day to the scene of an accident.  A bus full of high school seniors had been on a field trip at the Tablelands and were coming home in the bus when the driver lost control and brakes and the whole thing had gone straight over the cliff.  Gary said that even a veteran reporter like himself was sick seeing all the body bags lined up along the road.

Around the fourth week with them, I got a call to interview in Port Douglas at the Pepper’s Beach Club for a housekeeping position.  I took details and set up a time for the coming Thursday.  We researched prices to get me up there by bus, but once again Gary and Sue stepped in and offered to make a day of it with all four of us.  This was an excellent idea.

I was very impressed with myself, if I do say so myself, because I made a very bold move.  I called the Ramada Inn in Port Douglas where I had submitted an application for a food and beverage attendant.  I reached the manager, introduced myself, told him I was currently located in Cairns but would soon move to Port Douglas, would be in town on Thursday and would like to meet with him about my candidacy.  He agreed and I figured out a good time for him.  I felt very avant garde.

I dressed in the simplest and nicest clothes I had for the interview on that Thursday.  We made it to Port Douglas with enough time to spare and we got our bearings straight.  We went for a nice cup of tea by the beach and relaxed.  Then they took me to the Pepper’s (in case you don’t remember, I worked at a Pepper’s in Lake Tekapo, which is the most convincing bit for the Pepper’s in Port Douglas—that I already knew the Pepper’s standard).

I was very early, so the front desk woman had me take a seat while I waited for my interviewer.  After not very long Robyn came and introduced herself to me.  She was a pretty lady, with smile lines and a warm face.  Also, come to find out, she was the General Manager.  I felt honored.

The interview went very well.  By the end of it, Robyn told me that she liked the way I presented myself and couldn’t outright say I was hired, but basically I was.  I was ecstatic.  Very flattering.

She asked me about where I was living and I said we would be moving to town as soon as necessary, but that I didn’t know where we would live yet.  I asked her for suggestions on where to look.  She took me to the front desk and introduced me to the concierge, Drew.  He struck me as a fraternity boy right off the bat.  He said that one of the girls living in his house was moving out in a week and we could take a look at it and move in if everything went well.  I took his number and his girlfriend Tanja’s number.

I walked out of the resort feeling confident and accomplished, like I had nailed it.  Of course this is the struggle of my life—sometimes I nail an interview, and sometimes I botch it entirely.  Performance anxiety means that on days I pep-talk myself into playing well on the soccer field, I can’t get my foot on the ball.  On days where I don’t try, I get mention in the local newspaper for the great game I played.  True story.  It’s typically luck when things work out for me—like landing the job at Peppers… I was just on that day.

We followed up with Drew’s girlfriend and went to see the house.  It was simple, with sparse but comfortable furniture, pretty clean, and complete with a swimming pool in the courtyard.  Drew said $180 per week for both of us would work.  For a tourist town, this was pretty good.  And we like living in nice, comfortable places, so we mostly accepted, pending on the actual signing of the contract for the job at Peppers.

Next came my other interview and I marched right into the beautiful Ramada complex, asked the front desk where the restaurant was, and walked through the gorgeous tropical center until I reached a small, open-air building overlooking peaceful pools with croaking frogs and lily-pads.  It was such a relaxing atmosphere.  I asked for the manager and Tjaart, a super tall, stocky built man with softly critical eyes invited me to sit down at one of the tables.  He launched straight in to questions and I was surprisingly well-prepared.

Because the last restaurant job in Tekapo had been so up and down, and was particularly hurtful for me because of Phil’s attitude and manner of addressing issues, I answered questions a little more forwardly than I usually do.  I told Tjaart in a non-threatening way that I was not at all looking to work in a place whose atmosphere wasn’t positive and team-oriented.  I hinted at the struggles I had had with Phil and when asked about them, I told the truth, respectfully, that my previous manager and I had butted heads and that I wasn’t looking to be under someone who was 100% critical and 0% constructive.  I told him that I was a hard worker and would want to work very hard for him, if the atmosphere was positive enough for employees to thrive in.

I took myself by surprise at being so forward about it (though as respectfully as possible) and walked away from the interview feeling proud of myself, if slightly doubtful of the impression I had made.  I wasn’t going to count on getting the job, but I knew I had at least tried, been true to myself, and other than the honesty about not wanting a bitchy superior, I knew I had made a good impression.

It was so nice to get back in the car after the interview.  I felt good about the interviews and was relieved not to have to do any more that day.  We were free to relax.

There wasn’t much more to do in Port Douglas, so we headed back down to Cairns that afternoon.  Oh man did I feel good.  We all relaxed, though I could tell that Joe felt a bit more pressure now that I had at least one job in the bag.

We spent a happy last few days with Gary and Sue, but saying goodbye to them was not easy, even though we weren’t moving that far away.  Our month with them was one of the happiest months we have spent so far.  A testament to her sweetness, we could tell that Sue was holding back tears in her happy eyes as she waved goodbye from the garage.  Gary took us to the bus and it was a warm goodbye.  We loaded our bags into the bus and were on our way to Port Douglas.