Heya

So I thought I would share two more amusing tales from the ever exciting town of Bowen! P.S I left Bowen after 9 weeks on Monday the 18th

The other day I went to the bathroom in the grocery store, nothing too unusual about that. It wasn’t till I was in the stall and looked over that i noticed that the top of a pine tree was poking up over the stall next to me. Needless to say I did a double take it’s not everyday you see a tree in the bathroom stall. Now I was confused but interested so I opened the door of the stall. Packed inside this one small bathroom stall was the stores Christmas decorations. Were in the month of May it’s not like this is two weeks after Christmas and there in a some kind of bind trying to find a place to store these things. No this is there permanent storage unit.

Its seems that the town of Bowen has come under seize! By what you may ask.... Bird eating spiders! Now I understand that the first time you read that you may get confused and think “yeah I can imagine a bird eating a spider”. No no no its the other way around. There is apparently a invasion of spider with the capability to take down an entire bird then commences in eating it! Apparently they also have enough venom to take down cats and dogs as well. I only have one thing to say about that.... Only in Australia would such a spider exists.

Oh soo just to prove the excitement that i have been living with daily, i though i would inform you that Bowen is known as the “Mural Town” meaning that every where you go there is a mural painted on a wall so i took some pictures by them enjoy.

(you can just see me in the window)

Cheers
Fredrick

EKK

Image this your walking to the ATM to check your account balance, you open up your wallet to pull out your card. When you look down you realize that all your bank cards our missing.
Well that’s what happened to me on the Saturday of Easter long weekend. Now normally having all your cards stolen on a regular day would be bad but you would still be able to get to a bank and sort everything out. For those who don’t know apparently Australians take Easter very seriously so much so that they give themselves a 4 day holiday. Now amplify that by the fact that I’m living in such a small town that absolutely everything closes down not even a grocery store was open (I was a little happy that by chance I happened to have done my grocery shopping on Thursday) so I could not go to the bank to get out any money, and I had just the day before deposited all the money I had in cash into my bank. And to add just that extra pinch of shit I’m a day ahead of everyone back at home so it would take even longer to get new cards sent out to me.
One piece of good news in all of this is that there was only one charge put on my visa before we cancelled it.

Oh yeah some written irony came into play when I read my horoscope for this month saying “Not lending to or borrowing from friends prevents later discord.” now I have been borrowing money all week from my friend because I have yet to received my new bank cards!
Praying for better day to come

Cheers
Fredrick

update

Sorry about the delay in update the town of Bowen has some kind of worm hole that just sucks you up. The hours go by painfully slow but the weeks will pass you by in a snap.
So I guess now your wondering what I have been doing for such a long time in such a tiny town. Well the answer to that is waiting on farm work that I was promised would start a month ago. I have had a few days of work here and there which is nice but not really raking in the doe yet.
When I say I’m doing farm work I think I should really say I’m doing what I call “gorilla gardening”
Work stars at 7 so that means a 5:30am wake up, because I have to get driven out to the farm. Work basically conceits of taking trays of 68 “supa seedling” (aka little egg plant or pumpkin sprouts) bending over and punching a hole in the ground with your index finger place in plant in the whole then cover it up with dirt. Do this for about 8 hours out in the 30+ sun while having a farm contractor standing by you watching making sure you don’t go to slow or screw anything up. Most days I work in just my bear feet enjoying getting all muddy from head to toe :P
There are two different kind of backpackers

“Flash packer” "backpacking with flash, or style"

And a “Backpacker” "a form of low-cost, independent international travel. Terms such as independent travel and/or budget travel are often used interchangeably with backpacking. The factors that traditionally differentiate backpacking from other forms of tourism include but are not limited to the following: use of public transport as a means of travel, preference of youth hostels to traditional hotels, length of the trip vs. conventional vacations, use of a backpack, an interest in meeting the locals as well as seeing the sights."

First let me say I’m so far from being a flash packer it’s not even funny. When you have to debate wither you should by a sandwich from subway you know your in trouble. But by being forced to be so thrifty I have learnt a few money saving tips.
1) When shopping in a grocery store keep your eyes open for any packaging that is damaged because chance are that if you ask at the check out you can get it for free.
2)Don’t buy the things you want. Sounds easy but it can get hard.
3) become a freegain for those who don’t know a frergain is a person whos lifestyle involves salvaging discarded, unspoiled food from supermarket dumpsters, known as dumpster diving. The foods may have passed their display date, but haven't passed their edible date. Freegans salvage the food as a political statement, rather than out of need
I have already found a couple things :)
4) start enjoying the taste of water because coffee, tea, and pop are all things that just suck your money up. Take it from an ex-starbucks employee who has not had a cup of coffee for over a month.

cheers
fredrick

My FISH!!!

i Caught this fish all by myself it only took like 7 mins but i got the job done

Bowen

I arrived into Porsipine at 6pm to one of the most rink-dinky airports that I have ever seen. Basically it was a shed placed by a long paved rode that people just happen to be waiting for plans in. The waiting area to board your plane was a small patch of land no bigger then an average size kitchen surrounded by a 12 foot high chain link fence. It was like going to the zoo and looking at all the depressed animals in a cages, except these were humans and not animals.
From the airport I had to take a car ride to get to the town of Bowen. I got into a car along with an Irish couple; the guy was one a man of very few words and the women was a little how to put this... A little slow. So it was a long ride, about an hour in total. When I got the Bowen the driver then informed us that it would be $40 each! Can you say RIP OFF. We then had to meet up with a man named Alan to take us to our house. This is where the first unnerving things started to happen.

Alan had been at the bar that night, but I knew I had no choice but to get into a car with someone who had been drinking a very questionable amount of beer. Glancing around at each other with worried looks we all pilled into the van.

When we were pulling into the driveway of our houses Alan told us that there where plans to “tear down these houses this year and build a 200 bed hostel”. That was the first clue to the current state of these houses. I wanted to get a twin room while the other couple wanted a double bed, which meant we were going to be put in two different houses. The houses were both over 100 years old, some of the “oldest in Bowen” and let me tell you there was no way these houses should have still been used after 50 years let alone 100!

The house had 5 beds but I was the only person in it. I was scared shitless, left alone in a house that by any standard would have been condemned many years ago.

The floor boards where about to give way any day because the floor was bumpy and sunken. The water in was undrinkable, so I had to boil the water then put it in the fridge and the bathroom was outside the house with a door the would not even close all the way. When I trying to lift the toilet seat to make sure that there were no spiders hiding underneath the lid fell clean off. The sink was yellow due to the iron rich water, and to add to the ambiance, there were cockroaches and lizards crawling over the walls. The TV looked so old I was not sure that it was going to be in color. I was so terrified that someone was going to break into my house at night, my fear was only amplified by the fact that I knew if someone really wanted to break in there was nothing I could do to stop them. The front and back door had only a pad lock on them to separate me from any potential loons. But this meant basically nothing because the floor and wall did not even meet all the way and the wood was so rotten it would not hold up to a good shove. I tried to barricade myself in the house by moving the furniture in front of the door. The next problem was the windows; most of them would not close all the way or were broken because at some point a rock was hurled through them.

I slept with by bedroom door open with the living room light on and the TV on. I was not brave enough to sleep underneath my blanket, so I just laid on the top sheet. Another little treat was that there was swastika craved into the wood above my bed. To add on to all this when I was trying to go to sleep I could hear drunk people walking around out side my house as well as cars screeching away into the night. Little to say I did not get much sleep and woke up about every hour of the night.

Bowen, What a Strange Little Town
It is said that the people from Queensland are backwards people. I would have to totally back this statement because they all seem to be just little bit off.

The town of Bowen is very small, quite dull and extremely hot. Sounds awesome right?

I went on a walk yesterday in search of a grocery store and found one that was about a 15 minute walk away. When I was approaching the store I noticed a very familiar logo on the building beside it. It was a TARGET! I was jumping for glee and surprised by the fact that in such a small town there could be a Target, but I had no real reason to be idea exited because upon further inspection I noticed a sign that read “Target Country”. Slightly confused between a “Target” and a “Target Country” I entered the store. The difference is Target Country” sucks! It about the size of two convenience stores. So I know I don’t need to elaborate at the amount of selection there was. Needless to say I wont be going back anytime soon.

More to come about bowen in next post...

Cheers
Fredrick

So it’s been awhile...

So it’s been awhile...

I’ll try to catch you up on what’s been going down. First off I spent 8 days in Brisbane which is an awesome city. If anyone tells you otherwise they are lying. I stayed at a hostel called Brisbane Backpacker Resort; the people staying there where not always the friendliest, but I did manage to meet some cool people as well as a few cards.
A great thing about Brisbane is that there is always live music playing somewhere. Just walk down the streets at night and listen for the sound of a acoustic guitar filtering out of a cafe or bar. The Brisbane art galleries had some amazing art work as well. I was admiring one of best paintings in the gallery when one of the gallery “attendants” came up and told me that the man who just left the room was the artiest. I was shocked and wish I would have been able to tell him that his work blew my mind.

From Brisbane I took a bus to the town of Noosa. I stayed there for five days in total. I was only going to stay for 3 days, but I got trapped there because there was a cyclone on its way down the coast. It never got that bad, but I did get a cool picture of the newspaper with the head line “RUN FOR THE HILLS”.

Here’s a few different random stories:

I went on a hike through the national park and along the beach in Noosa. It had beautiful and breath taking views around every turn. Even thought some of the paths had ominous sounding names such as “Hells Gate” everything went great. It was only at around the halfway point that things took a turn for the more unsightly. The hiking path I was on cut right through a nude beach. Now this was no small nude beach, it took about 30 minutes to walk from one end to the other. The thing you have to come to terms with when entering a nude beach is that your never going to be the same as you were before you came. This is because there’s always a large number of men over the age of 40. I don’t know what it is about men once they reach the age of 40 that makes the idea of taking there pants off on a beach irresistible. Some people say “being naked is natural” well to them I say go to a nude beach and tell me that that should be natural.

As I mentioned before, there was a cyclone warning for the coast of Queensland. The storm was predicted to be a big one, a Category 5 (Katrina was a Category 4). Frasier Island and Whitsunday National Parks were either closed down or evacuated as a precaution. Because of all this, the hostels in Noosa became fully booked. I had already stayed 3 nights, so when I tried to get another night naturally they were fully booked. This forced me to pay $20 for the privilege of getting to sleep in a chair. It was not the best sleep especially because I was sleeping in a living/gathering area. It was like when you go to a sleepover and you really want to go to sleep but everyone else is still up and talking. Eventually I got to tried and just fell asleep in the middle of the room in my chair.
The next night I had exactly the same problem only this time the hostel I was staying at would no longer sell the chairs. I was busy calling all the hostels in Noosa with no success when I women over-heard me talking and offered me a bed in her “holiday home”. It was a God sent! The apartment was amazing, by the beach, very modern and clean! One of the best parts was not having to wear flip flop in the shower :)

One of the great things about traveling in Australia is that you will never have to guess at what the name of the town your in or passing through, just look at the store names. Most every one will begin with the name of the town. For example, if your staying in a town called “Bowen” there would be a good 20 stores with a name that began with the name Bowen. Ex: “Bowen cafe” “Bowen ice cream” “Bowen in and out store”.

Cheers,
Fredrick

Studying the Three S’s... Sun, Sand, and Surf

“Studying the Three S’s... Sun, Sand, and Surf”

Review of the time I spent on a 4 day long surf camp... It was really fun and really tiring. When you have to spend over 15 minutes battling against the break just to get out into the waves you start to get the feeling that the ocean really does not want you there. You keep trying to get back in and it just keeps throwing you back out. To add on to that one of the hardest things to do when your only 1.5 inches tall is carry and 9 foot surf board. It’s a good thing that gnomes are know for there upper body strength or this would be impossible. I ate allot of good food which was a next break from the “backpacker” dinners I have been eating. I even had a kangaroo barbeque at surf camp! It was tasty, I still want to try a kangaroo burger because there suppose to be very good. I posted some of my surfing photos on my face book.

After surf camp I went to Byron bay, and I took the 13 hour Greyhound bus ride to get here. I really enjoy taking the bus I thought it was going to suck because it was going to be really long (in fact I could be back in America for the same amount of time). I found that taking long bus rides is nothing like long plane rides. I left on the night bus from Sydney at 10 pm during the ride we had three breaks and I got lots of sleep.

I have now left “Byron Bay” and am in “Surfers Paradise” awaiting my bus to “Brisbane“. Here are my thoughts of the time I spent in “Byron Bay” and “Surfers Paradise”...
When you first arrive in the town of Byron Bay it embraces you with a warm hug. It appears to be the place that you have be searching for! A small surfing town with a laid back vibe located on a beautiful beach. Everywhere you look you see young hippy hipsters casually walking around with fedoras adorned on there heads. Small shops line the street with stylish garments and funky jewellery. It not until you spend a little more time in the town that you realizes that the person who gave you that welcoming hug was infected with chicken pox and now you cant stop itching.

The whole time I was there I don’t think I meet one Australian. Its like you been dropped off on some island where all the different countries have agreed to be a holding pen for there un-wanted backpacks. Some of the people are nice while others are so stoned they just look at you with a vacant zombie stare while saliva runs down the side of there mouth. The nice thing about the town is that you will never feel under dressed you could walk around wearing a paper bag claiming that it was more earth friendly then wearing cotton and before you know it 10 other people would be sporting your eco design. So I guess you can say I was happy to leave Byron Bay the only problem was my next stop was Surfers where I would be staying just for one night.

Surfers is basically just the opposite of Byron Bay but also exactly the same.
“Surfers Paradise” is a town built by the water with tons of backpackers as well.

The difference is that all the people here seem artificial. Walking around I felt like I was visiting a town of the future where robot humans existed and were living among us. You often see people huddled in groups. It’s like all the “cool kids” from high school built a town where they could all live together a continuing to live in their “coolness“.

In Brisbane now and it’s heaps better!!!

Cheers
Fredrick