Australia 2017 - Troubles

I’m being terrorized by an Australian crow. Several nights ago, I was rudely awoken by its incessant chirps (and chirps is putting it lightly). I reached under my bed to grab my noise cancelling, Beats headphones, but they were powerless to block the sound waves of this demon. After a while, I decided enough was enough and I went outside to have a look. There he was, perched on a palm tree, squawking away like a maniac. I tried to shoo him away, and he cocked his head and contemplated leaving, but then he went right back to business. I began looking for something to throw at him, but there was nothing of use in close range. So I reluctantly went back to bed, not an easy task.  To my dismay, he returned again the next night. And I dreamed of ways to eradicate my bird problem. In my dream, I went to get my gun, but then realized I didn’t have one. And when I woke up, I realized further that even if I did, my aim wouldn’t be good enough to kill one bird with one bullet.  

Something nice: Trish invited me to go with her and some friends to visit Byron Bay...

...which I’ve heard wonderful things about. Friday night came and I took the train to Helensvale station (about 1 hour 40 min away) where she picked me up and took me to her house. I got to snuggle with Timone, Lychee and Monte again. Monte wasn’t too thrilled about it, but you can’t win em all. We stayed up laughing with her housemate, Matt, and then finally drifted off to sleep. Unfortunately, I woke up with an itchy throat. I had been taking Herbal Wellness Formula recommended to me by my very naturopathic sister. It usually works quite well to knock out any sickness if you take it soon enough. But perhaps I had been around too many sick people and the odds were against me. It seems there’s been a nasty bug going around.

Trish’s friends had invited us to stay with them in a backpacker’s hotel called Aquarius, but when they arrived, they found that it only had room to sleep 3 people.

So Trish and I started exploring Airbnb options. One that had a pool and was close to the heart of the town was unavailable, so we opted to be a bit adventurous, despite my mounting sickness, and rent an Airbnb “Bohemian van” which appeared to be parked right on the beach.

Once we booked the van and paid for it, it became clear that it was not parked on the beach, nor parked anywhere near it, but 10 minutes away in an industrial park. It would be our responsibility to drive this big old van wherever we wanted. We were told that we could park it at Clarke’s Park, right near the beach, even though camping wasn’t allowed there. Kylie-Ann (our “host”) told us that she did it all the time and it shouldn’t be a problem. I was feeling uncertain, but we’d already paid for it, and she was so friendly and nice that we just went with it. I was certainly not going to drive it because these Australians drive on the opposite side of the road than we do in America, and I would surely crash us into oncoming traffic. Trish was also apprehensive because she’s never driven a big van like this, so she had a small lesson and test drive around the block. Once she was sure she had the hang of it, we drove into town.

We parked the van where we were told, and noticed a sign that said camping and parking between 1am-5am were prohibited. We sent a pic to Kylie-Ann to make sure this was the right place. She said it was, and we shouldn’t have a problem if we were “discreet.”

So we traipsed off to meet Hannah, DJ, and Nina at a local pub inside Beach Hotel. I asked the bartender to make me a Hot Toddy to soothe my throat, which Trish kept calling a Hotty Toddy. Which name is better? You decide. They did not seem to have time for my BS, and I left empty-handed. We contemplated bringing the van to a spot on the street in front of Aquarius where camping wasn’t allowed, but overnight parking was. But once we got there, no spots were available. We decided to trust Kylie-Ann and believe that we wouldn’t get a fine for parking overnight at Clarke’s Park.

While eating dinner at Aquarius, I was beginning to get feverish and achy. I opted to stay in the hotel room while the rest of the crew went out for drinks. I miserably laid on the double bed and slept for a couple hours.

Hannah and DJ returned, but Trish and Nina did not. So, I worried and shivered all night long in the single bed. Trish’s phone was dead and I prayed that she was not. In the morning, I felt like I had been hit by a hammer all over my body. Thankfully, Trish was alive and came back at about 8am. DJ was nice enough to give me some of his codeine for my body aches, and Trish and I set off to find some food and check on the van. When we returned, we found that at 4:23am we received a $110 fine for disobeying the parking sign. Plus, we’d paid for an Airbnb that we didn’t even sleep in. This probably worked out for the best anyway due to my sickness and need to use a bathroom every few hours. We returned the van and left the key in a lockbox and bounced.

The codeine started to kick in, and my aches were subsiding so we took a little detour to look at the ocean in Cabarita.

Standing in the sun with my feet in the soft sand was rejuvenating.

Here's a little boy looking super epic and pensive.

So we took another detour and visited Tropical Fruit World, “a successful tourist attraction and commercial farming operation distributing quality tropical fruit produce…”

Trish is friends with the owner’s grandson, but he wasn’t there. We saw a bunch of people getting on a tractor train and we hopped on for what we thought was a free tour.

This “slow as” tractor took us, along with several Indians, Chinese and Australians to see jackfruit trees, banana trees, soursop trees, and many more exotic fruit trees.

We got to stop off and taste some banana, orange, and crack our own macadamia nuts.

Back on the tractor train, I started getting the shivers again so we asked a grandma in front of us if she knew how long the tour was. She answered “about two and half hours.” If only you could see the look of shock on our faces. She showed us her brochure, which had a payment receipt stapled to it. Apparently, you have to pay for this tour, which we most certainly did not. It just goes to show that if you look like you know what you’re doing, you can get away with a lot. So, at the next stop we asked the driver if there was a way back to the car park. She radioed for a buggy to come and escort us to the entrance. The man driving took us on a little detour first to show us some things we hadn’t yet seen. We had a private little tour and met some sheep, emus, kangaroos, ducks, etc.

We finally made it back to Runaway Bay, where Trish lives, and picked Matt up. They kindly drove me to get some dinner, more medicine and then dropped me at my dorm room which I never thought I would be so happy to get back to.