Running around Cairns at 6am

Last weekend it was the turn of Murray falls to provide the necessary distraction from life in Tully. We set off early Saturday morning and I don't think I'd slept much the night before because when I look at some of the photos from Murray falls my face looks like a shit wax model approximation of my face that had melted in the sun.

Murray falls is about a half hour drive from Tully and is set in a beautiful surrounding forest area. What actually is Murray falls? Well it's basically a big arse waterfall with a few smaller waterfalls nearby and then some lakes and other water shit nearby. While not as breathtaking as when you first see Mission beach, it still provides a bit of wow factor when you arrive. 

It was a nice day - good weather, people hurling themselves off cliff edges, a BBQ at the end of the night. It provided a nice distraction from the major head fuck that was happening at the time. Ya see I didn't know whether to go back to my job or not. I had thoughts about leaving etc and I was convinced the satanic farmer would sack me anyway. I literally couldn't make a decision. I annoyed everybody by changing my mind every 5 minutes to the point that when I piped up again, people just glazed over and waited for me to stop speaking.

Sunday night came along and I'd still not made up my mind so I decided to do... nothing. I would just wake up in the morning and feel which way the wind was blowing. So Monday morning came and went and I still did nothing. Effectively I'd resigned my position as farm whipping boy. But what now?

Christian was fed up with Tully and was due to go back to Melbourne on the Tuesday, I considered going with him. We´d been traveling together for the last 7 months so it was sad to see him go but as always with traveling these things work themselves out and I know we'll catch up later down the road. Still, who was I going to make stupid noises with now? I try and make one of our jokes with someone else and they look at me like a dog that's just been shown a card trick.

By the middle of the week I was feeling the pressure of having walked away from a job. The caravan park I was staying at wouldn't get me anymore work and my opportunities to find something were shrinking. There's a hostel that gets people work but you have to schmooze the lady behind reception. Me and Zena (not the persons real name, obviously) had visited this lady several times over the past few weeks trying different ways to chat her up. We'd heard she liked couples at one point so we walked in draped over each other but it didn't get us anywhere. We seemed to be getting close at one point but then this past week she rebutted us and made it sound like we wouldn't get work in Tully if we stayed there for 5 billion years. I couldn't mentally face jumping again. Imagine, 8 weeks of standing on a street corner at 6am waiting for a job everyday. Nah. 5 weeks was enough.

So yea, it was getting a bit precarious. I was sat in the canteen at one point just staring. Staring at nothing. It's interesting to watch the unemployed fill their day in the canteen. The early optimism of finding work replaced by anguish and regret. All you can do is stare. 

Then suddenly... bang! Something happens that puts the wheel of change in motion. The charisma laden Swede Jonna came home from work on the Wednesday and immediately declared "we need a car so we can get the fuck out of here". Yes! And before we knew it, we were walking a few miles to a garage to ask an old fella Sid about a car. I could feel the blood pumping around my body again, the tingling of excitement that traveling is supposed to stir up inside of you. After that all I could focus on was...getting...a....car. Zena had piss poor luck in getting a job, sometimes it seemed the universe was intent on keeping her unemployed by coming up with preposterous coincidences that would prevent her from earning money. So me, Zena, Jonna, and Jonna's brother were all in. 

Buying a car is never straight forward and being a backpacker you have the added pressure of limited funds and people trying to scam you. We searched Gumtree for cars but one major stumbling block was the fact that registration and to get the car declared road worthy could be very pricey so you had to figure that into any cost of a car. You could think you've found a smashing deal but when you calculate all added costs it's not so smashing anymore. One problem is that with Tully being the size of a postage stamp, there aren't many people selling cars their. Cairns was the obvious place to look to for a car. Me and Jonna arranged to meet one guy selling a car in Cairns on Saturday morning which meant us catching the 3:35am bus. They only have 5 buses a day to and from Tully which is so Tully. I was bloody knackered on this bus and the guy next to me was Mr Hyperactive. He kept jigging his leg which meant it occasionally brushed mine, which was annoying. Just chill out mate it's 4am. I considered asking the driver if we could sedate him for the rest of the journey. 

When we arrived in Cairns we staggered to McDonalds and stuffed our faces amongst all the piss heads and crazy's. One crazy got chatting to me and Jonna and the conversation started out normal before it plunged into talk of telepathy and extreme weight loss techniques. 

Still, we were enthusiastic and motivated. But then we got a text stating the guy we'd arranged to meet wouldn't be able to make it. This was at 6:30am. Cheers mate. What to do now?

The backpacker haven known as Peter Pans, with its free internet and giddy employees wasn't open yet so we just had to wander about for a bit. It also started to piss it down and Jonna nearly broke her foot. She smashed it into the ground on account of her crap flip flops and then bizarrely questioned whether her toes had swapped feet. It gave us a laugh for a few minutes as we paraded up and down the streets of Cairns. We thought we got very lucky when we stumbled across an abandoned car. It was the perfect size, had all the necessary paperwork, and looked drivable. There was a sign on the car stating the police would seize the car if it remained left standing. I thought I would be able to ring the council up and arrange to take the keys and drive off with a car for free. Nah. I rang 'em up and this hag on the other end of the line flushed my dreams of a free car down the toilet and before I could ask any follow up questions she hung up the phone. And I thought I was bad at providing customer service!

After that dream was dashed we tried to ring a few more people about cars but we didn't really get anywhere. No-one would answer their phone. No-one. Do these people want to sell their cars or what? Answer the bleedin' phone!

It got to the middle of the afternoon and we were both starting to worry if we would ever find a car. We started to consider the possibility of not getting one but then, another check on gumtree solved our problems. A German lad was selling a pre-historic Ford and needed a quick sale. All the registration and road worthy bollocks was already taken care of. Boom! Me and Jonna called him 3 minutes after the advert had been placed. Luckily he was right around the corner from us. We met him and had a look at the car. It was in a really good condition considering its age and it came with a ridiculous amount of camping equipment. Me and Jonna tried to act cool whilst we sealed the deal but we both had that look in our eyes "oh my God". 

When all the paperwork was signed and the cash exchanged we drove out of Cairns with our new car. Zena rang us to check on our progress and we decided to tell her that we were still searching so we could go back and surprise everyone. I may have overstated it though when she rang. I told her we hadn't found a car and that we may have to stay in Cairns overnight and try again on Sunday which would mean "sleeping on a bench for the night".  It was the worst bit of acting since all of Keanu Reeves. 

Back in Tully we rolled up and showed people our new wheels. So what now? We thought that we should try for another week to get work in Tully before setting off. If we could just get work for a couple more weeks then we'd have more cash for the road. Tully, as usual, didn't provide however. We then set about contacting farms in Queensland to try and arrange work which we could then drive to. Again this was unsuccessful with most responses varying from "the number you have dialed has not been recognised" to "Sorry mate this used to be a farm but I've retired now".

The best response we got was from the West Coast. And that's where we are heading, tomorrow in fact. It has a different feel about it going west. Entering a vast desert that will no doubt be spectacular. I've been in Tully 2 months and when I reflect on the experience I feel as though it just wasn't meant to be. For some people Tully was an amazing experience but to me it feels slightly like a waste of Visa time. I think I will look back on it more favourably when I've gotten the hell out of it. At the very least I've had some interesting experiences here that most likely won't happen again. So in that respect it hasn't been a waste of Visa time. 

I was looking for a job...

Four or five weeks I'd waited for a job and then a chance visit to the caravan park office solved my unemployment issue. I can't remember why I'd gone to the office but the girl behind the desk said she'd tried to ring me about a job. Normally I have my phone glued to my forehead in-case it rings for work but the one time I didn't have it on me and I get a call.

It was weird to finally get a job.

"Shit, I don't have a job!"

Gets a job.

"Shit, I've got a job!"

The girl in the office warned me that the job I'd been given was very 'strenuous'. This strenuous job turned out to be spading. I'd not even been aware a job like this existed but when I started to tell people this was the job I'd gotten, everybody warned me about how hard it was.

So the initial joy of getting a job was soon replaced by outright fear. I didn't sleep a wink the night before I started the job. Me, a pampered office worker, was to suddenly be thrown into the world of spading. I tired to reassure my own brain with thoughts like "at least I'll get in shape" and "at least I'll be working outdoors", but my brain would usually scream back "you're too unfit to do this, you might die".

When the morning came, a new, grim 5:00am reality dawned on me. It was still dark outside and suddenly I felt like a boy on his first day at school. I stood outside some random building and waited for the farmer to come and pick me up in his van. The other guys were there, all banter and machismo, whilst I stood around trying not to look terrified. When the farmer pulled up in his van I crawled on and sat at the front with a lad called Chris. He was also starting his first day and so we chatted about all the small things to cover our nerves. I remember feeling like I wanted to be sick. What a great first impression that would have been? Chundering all over the farmer.

About half way through the journey the farmer said that he needed both a spader and a deleafer. He swiveled around on his chair and eyed up me and Chris. Chris is 6 foot 4 and built like a bear. And I'm not. Deleafing requires you to be nimble and good with your fingers. The farmer asked if either of us did martial arts, we shook our heads no, but I told him I was good at ping pong. Why I did that I will never know.

He told me I would be deleafing and I thought I'd won the farm work lottery. Deleafing is dead easy compared to most other farm jobs. You just swan about cutting leaves, how hard could it be? I was taken under the wing of a French guy who with his strong Parisian accent made everything sound dramatic and epic. I asked him how long he'd been at the farm, "too long' he replied. And so the day began and I started to deleaf. The guys told me not to worry about being fast, but just make sure I was doing it correctly. Great, I thought. Until the next day....

The second day and everything changed. The farmer bollocked us for not doing enough work the previous day and threatened to underpay us. Bit harsh I thought. He spoke to me like I'd been working on a farm all my life. Sorry mate, that privilege belongs to Yorkshire Water.

This farmer by the way. He's the antichrist with a cowboy hat. A genuinely terrifying man. He shouts, balls, complains, calls you a c*** 18 times a day. I had a big run in with him a couple days into working. We had to inject poison into these little sucker trees and I was given a gun to use. There were 4 of us and we all set off when it suddenly became clear my gun was fucked. It wouldn't pump the poison. One of the other fellas tried to help me but scurried off shortly after as he was worried about not clearing his own patch of work. This left me stranded and clueless. I had no fucking idea how to fix this gun. The antichrist wasn't anywhere to be seen and so I desperately tried to fix this piece of shit gun myself. Panic mounted but I managed to fix two tubes which the poison pumped through together as I couldn't unhook the one that was broken. I finally managed to get it working when I heard the screech of a van. Lucifer was back. He jumped out of his van and eyed up my invention. He then scowled and screamed about what a "dumb fucking idea that was". He shouted at me for a few minutes, I can't remember what he said but it involved calling me the c word a few times and I had to mop his spit off my face when he was done. What a lovely thing to happen to you at the age of 30...

Anyways,  he did some farmer magic and sorted the gun out. He looked at me as if to say why couldn't I do this? Well unlike Satan, I wasn't birthed on a farm with a shovel in my hand.

When the day is done there is immense satisfaction. You've worked your bollocks off for 8 hours and everything seems right in the world. The farmer reverts to being a normal human being and you think to yourself that you might just be able to see this job out. This changed the week after though.

Getting up is brutal. Your alarm starts to ring and your'e just devastated. Everybody is depressed on the way to the farm. I try to get some extra sleep during the journey to the farm and kid myself that it's actually possible. Once you start work however, it's okay. The day moves along and before you know it, you're off home again. I try to pump as much shit as possible into my body to help me get through. I've got mars bars and energy drinks coming out of my arse.

Today is Friday and yesterday we had to smash a lot of acres deleafing. We were doing well but then the team leader said we would take a late lunch. This killed me off. I started to slow down badly and unfortunately some grass saw this and told the farmer. At the end of the day when we were heading home the farmer uttered the words I'd been dreading, "tomorrow Steve, you'll be spading".  I felt aggrieved as I'd busted my hump all week and was getting better. Thursday night I considered my options, leaving Tully, going back to Melbourne, going somewhere else, going back to England... I'm not arsed about another year in Australia and I don't want to waste my last 3 months here being ordered around by the prince of darkness. He's already threatened to sack me numerous times and has made it clear I won't be given time to get used to spading. I have to hit the ground running...with a spade.

So this weekend I will have a mull over my options.

This traveling experience continues to surprise me, even in the harder moments it's still interesting. Whatever road I take I know it will continue to be a fascinating journey.

Birthday and that.

The great thing about traveling is that you start to appreciate the small things - a clean t-shirt, a mattress, not living in a fucking tent. Yes, I've finally hauled myself out of the tent and got myself a cabin. I'll miss the tent in a way, especially at night, but it's nice to be able to sleep on a mattress rather than a bit of rubble.

The cabin now means I can organise my clothes. I'm still wearing the gear I bought from Primark before traveling which includes generic t-shirts and daft Hawaiian shorts. The shorts in particular have been subject to much derision from fellow travelers for their flowery patterns. I only expected to wear this shite in Thailand but hey-ho, here I am 7 months later looking like a reject from Miami Vice, or Scarface, or something else from the 80s.

The cabin gets pretty hot during the day which  is kind of like saying the surface of the sun is lukewarm. I once went inside the cabin in the afternoon and my face melted off. I don't care though I'm just giddy to have 4 walls again.

'twas my birthday last week. I turned 30. 30! I wondered what a birthday in Tully might be like? Would I visit the Gumboot? Head over to Alligators Nest (false advertising, if I ever saw some)? Climb the mountain?

Naaaaah, I got drunk at the beach. Yay. I got on it at about lunchtime and didn't stop until I had no concept of time anymore due to alcohol poisoning. It was great. We stayed at the beach until about 3 and then headed back to the caravan park. The guys I'm traveling with all made a big effort to make my birthday in Tully great which I'm really thankful for. I got some interesting gifts including a box of crunchy nut cornflakes, a kind of broccoli and green bean flower bunch, and a ukulele. Getting a gift like a ukulele is great although because it's a gift there is pressure to actually learn that shit. I've tried to learn guitar a few times in my life but normally give up when I can't play a Led Zeppelin tune within a week. I'm going to try and take baby steps learning the ukulele but it's a bit shit at the start. You have to learn to strum and tune your ukulele.Yawn. Ah well, it's not like there's anything else to do in this place is it?

After the gifts I was serenaded by some other people at the caravan site. I didn't know most of them but they still came over and sung happy birthday to me. I don't know what tipped them off? Maybe the big flashing badge I was wearing that said 'Happy 30th, birthday boy'. One guy took the opportunity to sing happy birthday to me on his own. He has one of those x-factor/boy band type voices and sings Man in the Mirror everyday in the kitchen. It was flattering but a little weird and being the socially awkward goon I am I kind of squirmed whilst trying to look like I enjoyed it. Fair play to the guy though, he powered through and I gave him a hug afterwards.

I think the day after we climbed the mountain. The days in Tully blur into each other so I'm not actually sure of the time-frame. I exhibited 4 out of the 5 symptoms of a heart attack whilst climbing up but it was totally worth it. The views were stunning and it wasn't too dissimilar from looking out over the Ilkley Moors. It was a nice moment only temporarily obscured when one of our lot did a big fart when another group of hikers arrived at the top.Climbing the mountain means we have officially done everything in Tully there is to do, I'm amazed it took 3 weeks to be honest.

During this time I lived in an unreality bubble. In this bubble I didn't care about jumping, or a job, or money. It was quite refreshing to forget about that stuff, at least for a few days. On the Saturday we went back to the beach but decided to camp out there for the night. I wasn't convinced I was going to stay there the night so I was completely unprepared, but when we arrived and started a fire I just knew I couldn't leave. It was ridiculously picturesque with the moonlight reflecting in the sea and marshmallows roasting on the fire.

There was a sour incident involving garlic source however. I'd been drinking gin for a couple of hours and when we were cooking food I was holding a torch so the people making the food could see. I'd been standing there like a pleb in a gin fog holding a torch and when it came to my burger someone slathered garlic sauce all over it. In my mind this was act of war and so I ranted and raved for a couple of minutes. There was an awkward silence in the group and I was worried I'd ruined this insanely good evening, luckily things got back on track a bit later.I'm not allowed to have gin anymore.

We slept at the beach that evening, our fire keeping us warm through the night. It was marvelous but I'm still shaking sand out from every orifice.

On a completely unrelated note, Oliver, a lad I used to work with in Melbourne messaged me on Facebook saying I look like Bron from Game of Thrones. The cheeky, grime loving, Coventry bastard.This is the same lad who told me about "drop bears", which fooled old Browney, and when I started warning other people about them they explained to me it's BS, like tartan colored paint.

I got the body armor as a birthday gift.

Mission beach and that.

Mission beach - what a shit hole!


Weekends in Tully are interesting. There's no point in jumping, and if you don't have a job you kind of sit around waiting for the universe to provide you with some form of entertainment.

This past Saturday Jonna (the charismatic Swede) whipped us all up into a frenzy by suggesting we visit Mission beach. She was smart about it though, she downplayed the beach itself "yea it's okay" and "it's okay if you're into that type of thing" etc. This meant I was sufficiently unenthusiastic enough not get my hopes up, although to be fair a day outside of the caravan park was enough to get anticipation levels rising.

We waited for our bus to whisk us away from Tully and whilst doing so I ran into Hiro again.

Hiro is a Japanese lad that I would bump into at least 7 times a day in and around Tully. He's a very nice guy but unfortunately there's a bit of a communication breakdown between us as he speaks limited English and I know fuck all Japanese. Our conversations were limited to saying hello and enqueuing about each others employment situation. By the 7th encounter of the day however, we would kind of grimace at each other before politely waving and wondering when the next meeting would be.

That's not the biggest communication breakdown I've had however. That would be when a French guy asked me at 4:30am what job I used to do(at least, that's what I thought he asked) and I said "call center" before gesturing a telephone in my hand. He then said something else that my sleepy brain couldn't quite digest so I nodded and smiled. Christian started to laugh and said "that guy now thinks you work in a call center to get your second year visa". A couple of times since he's asked me how my job is going, I just say "no work today", he must think I'm a lazy bastard. Why can't I speak Japanese and French, what a dick!

Me and Christian when jumping one morning were so delirious that we started to fantasize about working in a call center in Tully. It would be dead easy we thought.  There'd be 4 people working and you'd get about 10 calls a day. Christian gave this example of a potential call "Hello?...Yes bananas are still yellow...bye".

Anyways, Mission beach. After a 10 minute bus journey we arrived at said beach. You don't see the beach at first until you plunge your way through some bushes and trees, but when you see it...wow! You feel like you've stepped into some perfect Google image of a beach. Your brain starts to spasm with joy as you try to take in the breathtaking surroundings. We walked for a few minutes before picking a spot of the beach to slump on. The sea was gorgeous, warm and inviting so I spent most of the day in there. We learned a couple of days later that you should NOT go in the sea at Mission beach due to jelly fish. I'm not scared of jelly fish, I'm from Yorkshire, I'm hard me.

At one point when I absorbed my beautiful surroundings I actually thought this makes Tully worth it. If I can go to this beach regularly then things won't be so bad, right?  We will be heading back to the beach this weekend for my birthday, I'm turning 20.

What? Stop laughing.

How the f*** did I end up in Tully?

It's about 11pm, I should have been asleep at least an hour ago as I have to wake up at 4:30am to go "jumping" (I'll explain later). I'm fumbling around trying to organise my bed, my bed being the floor,1 pillow, and a sleeping bag. Yes, I live in a tent.I've got my torch on and I'm trying to re-arrange my pillow and sleeping bag in a way that means I won't wake up the next day paralyzed, but so far I'm failing. It also doesn't help that mosquito's find me so bloody attractive and want to feast on me at every opportunity. Mind  you, living in a tent on your own I'm happy for the company sometimes....

To be honest, living in a tent is pretty cool (sometimes). At night when I'm laying back and all that seperates me from the stars above is a thin bit of fabric, you can't help but feel some kind of cosmic togetherness with the universe. In the morning though, I fucking hate it.

I don't want to paint the picture that I'm stuck in the middle of a field somewhere, miles away from civilization and abandoned by society. I'm actually at a pleasant caravan park waiting for a job in a place called Tully.

When you arrive at Tully the first thing that strikes you are the forested mountains which stretch almost 360 degrees around the place. They look intimidating and challenging to climb but it's one of only 3 activities Tully has to offer (the others being; visiting the supermarket and getting your laundry done). When you take your gaze off the surrounding mountains and focus in on Tully, you come to realise how tiny the place is. There's 1 street with a couple of shops on it, a library,a swimming pool and about 7 churches. There's also this boot. A giant boot. I think this is Tully's main tourist attraction, they seem dead proud about this boot. There's an entrance at the bottom and then you climb up some stairs and you can poke your head out at the top.Cheers Tully.

The people here seem very nice, I got chatting to an older woman in the charity shop who was the daughter of Italian immigrants.In post second world war Italy where money and food were few and far between, her father took the chance of a lifetime and made the trip to Australia in the late 50s. I wonder if a lot of people in Tully have similar stories? Maybe Tully is made up of a collection of people who don't fit in anywhere else? Or maybe I'm reading too much into a conversation I had with one person?

I'm a backpacker so I'm just here for da money which has not been forthcoming at the moment. I'm hoping to get a job humping bannans which my 11 years working in a call centre has trained me well for. Trying to get work here is a bizarre experience. Your advised to go jumping every morning. You wake up at 4:30am bleary eyed and foggy brained and stumble to a street corner in the hope a farmer will pull up on the road side in his truck requiring an extra worker for the day. You wait for an hour and a half and when you do actually see a truck pull up you have to waddle over and ask if they have any jobs going. When they say no, you have to shuffle back to your spot and wait for the next farmer to rock up. One of the girls who I'm traveling with called Maura will frequently shout "I have a degree" half way through the jump. I know Maura, we all do. And the farmers don't give a fuck. The feeling of 'what am I doing here' grows every day though. When jumping is over you return to your bed for a couple of hours before waking up again with the prospect of nothing to do for the whole day. We'll normally occupy ourselves with games of ping-pong ( I was unbeaten until our charismatic Swedish friend Jonna had the audacity to beat me), cooking food, and trips to the library.

If this blog sounds like I'm feeling negative about the experience then that's not my intention. I had an amazing 5 months in Melbourne before, but it was time to move on and experience something new. If Tully is anything, it is new. I've traveled here with 4 other people and I think at times we have all felt the strain. When you aren't working and in a place where there isn't much to do, you end up thinking...a lot. I hope in 3 months I can look back on Tully and feel good about the experience, what it taught me etc. Until then I'll be in the tent dreaming about mattresses.