IM BACK BABY!

I’ll start off by saying “big up” to Uncle Toby’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Granola Bars. MMmmm. Mad respect for having such a gay gay name, but being so delicious. Uncle Toby is pretty much like the leading snack food producer here in Australia.

I haven’t written anything on this here blog for so long because Curtin University doesn’t allow me to post for some reason? But I came up with a solution! Thanks to my beautiful and willing girlfriend (hi Maria) I can still post on the blog. I now just have to email her the posts. Then she applies my words from the electronic-mail to the World Wide Web via her web browser. Technical stuff, sorry- you probably don’t get it.

Last week was sick-nasty. We had off 10 days from school so, of course we planned out the most rad vacation possible. That would be to Cairns, North Western Australia. Cairns (pronounced ‘cans’) is a little port city surrounded by sugar cane, bananas and amazing jungle beaches. Most of the time was spent lazin’ on the fantastic white sand beaches, staring off into the emerald water that is as clear as a pool. Not one of those shitty YMCA pools in mid-july, but one of those nice ones that you see in the Corona commercials. Wooord.

The first 3 days in Cairns we spent about an hour North of Cape Tribulation. There we were surrounded by the most stereotypical rainforest you’ve ever seen. We had spider-monkeys, Toucan Sam, Jurassic Park plants, Huge-as-heck Crocs, and dredy locals that got drunk and swam naked in watering holes. Maybe you don’t think of rainforests with locals, but our forest had them. Me and my CREW (Mags, Dukers, Moose-Trax, Anna Tolnake, and Mike Finer-than-hell) made some sweet bon fires on the beach both nights in Cape Tribulation. These were no ordinary bon fires though, as the pictures above detail. These were aboriginal-influenced flames from spirits of our great indigenous ancestors from thousands of years ago. That, and we used hollowed out coconut to dig the hole for the fire pit. So maybe it was just more like being Tom Hanks in Cast Away, with out all the Fed-Ex packages. Whatever. Forget you. The fires were sweet. Next story.

SKY DIVING! That’s right. Sitting around the dinner table at calypso (our backpacker’s hostel) Nick, Maggie, Moose and myself decided it would be fun to sky dive …. In 12 hours. $250USD later, and my balls in my chest, I found myself 2 hours south of Cairns, and deep in a banana field with dirt roads getting ready to take off in a single engine plane with an Aussie strapped to my back telling me “don’t worry mate! I’ll explain what to do once we get in the air.” Sweet. As we approach our 14,000ft destination well above the clouds, the man securely strapped to my back tells me “all ya gotta do mate is cross yer arms an’ toss ya head back, I’ll do the hard shit, we’re next. Lets go!” At this point, Nick Duke had already gotten ripped out of the airplane and was long gone, hurling towards the great barrier reef--- which approached at 120 MPH.

**SIDE NOTE** Steve Urwin [croc hunter] has passed away, taken by the very same reef that we were diving 4 days prior to his death. flippin’ sting rays. Australia is in shambles. RIP Steve.

OK, so nick is screaming like a little girl somewhere about a mile below me. I’m trying to control my bladder (which was successful, good thing peter wasn’t flying with us). On the count of 2 the instructor throws us out of the plane and all I see is plane, ground, sun, plane, ground, sun, plane plane plane plane. Spinning in a beautiful uncontrollable tornado of excitement we finally level out to the position you think of, when you think of people skydiving. The curve of the Earth was right in front of my face. I wasn’t falling, I was flying! After 60 seconds of freefall, Aussie-man yanked the ripcord and the deafening wind came to a still on my face, and I could take in the reef, the beaches, the mountainous jungle, and the excruciating pain the harness was placing on my inner thighs and wiener area. As soon as it began, it was all over. My feet were sinking into the sand and my face was overcome by a grin that wouldn’t leave my face for 2 hours. Man, that was a really descriptive narrative. You’re welcome.

This is turning out to be pretty long. Whoops. OK, well- I will finish up some stories later on. Things you have to look forward to:
1Swimming with the turtle-dude from Finding Nemo
2Driving on the other side of the road.
3Me eating this subway cookie on my desk.