Bad Banana Banter

So next stop on the coast – Tully, the self proclaimed Wettest Place in Australia! So far so good! The general plan was to land in and spend two weeks living and working in
Tully on the countless banana farms which would hopefully aid the financial department in the upcoming spending spree. After the first few hours, we realised this wasn’t going to be as easy as expected!


We were shown to our ‘room’ and got ourselves sorted before finding out our working deployments for the next day. Unfortunately, Hubbs got separated from Baz and Dach and went off to work with some Scottish lesbians while we headed off the Steven Lowes Banana Farm. We were greeted on the first day by the local workers who had obviously only ever worked with bananas all their lives and didn’t take to kindly to ‘foreigners’ intruding in their daily lives. We soon got to work – 8 hours of tying banana trees together to stop them falling over – who even cares if they do!! All this was done in torrential tropical rain – all day long!

The next few days were followed by similar easy, but seriously monotonous jobs! Due to possible food or water problems, Dach took ill on the Wednesday night complete with some serious vomiting etc. This resulted in a cushty day-off for the Russian while Baz and Hubbs went off to earn the days money!! By this time the Wizards had decided that they had had their fill of Tully, bananas and rain, so it came it as a relief that the week was drawing to a close when Baz took ill on Thursday meaning another missed day of work..

As a conclusion, Tully was the worst town any of us had ever been to, the worst hostel any of us had ever stayed in and the worst job we’ve ever had too…
Pretty sure we all hate bananas now!

Cairns to Mission Beach via the Croc Farm!

After spending just over a week in Cairns, we came to the mutual decision it was time to move on. We originally thought we would be able to pick up jobs in the capital of North Queensland, but it wasn’t to be. The work was mainly seasonal and being in the wet season (thanks for telling us STA travel) we were stone out of luck. No great loss though as none of us really thought much of Cairns as a city. We had an amazing time because it was the first stop and we were all together, but the time had come….

So 0630 we got up after yet another well lubricated night and headed around the corner to the pick up point for the Oz Experience bus ride south. We were greeted by a few familiar faces all in the same boat heading south on the oz tour. We set off and it soon became clear there was no chance of catching up on missed sleep. The party bus as the Oz experience is known for was in full flow. Ice breaking was first up, front of the bus for all of us to talk about all things embarrassing and funny in our lives, we all stood up well but Deych brought the house down.

The great thing about the Oz Ex bus is that it hits the back roads and takes you to places of interest along the way. First stop was the Water hole near Innisfail, we all had chance to take a dip and relax before the rest of the journey……..its hard to imagine the distances in OZ.

So there we were back on the bus, it was all getting to easy, the sunnys were on and the wizards were in full flow, operation dominate the bus was complete, things were to get a little more frantic at the next stop.

Crocodile Farm, not so much a problem we thought as everything would be penned in and out of harms way. We hadn’t been there 2 minutes when yet another Steve Irwin wannabe came bounding out with lizards galore rapped around him. Before Hubbs had chance to tell him he pretty much hated snakes, he had put a constrictor around his neck. Baz and Deych spent there time trying to ‘tickle’ the snake so it tightened up on Hubbsy. The shades stayed on so as to hide the fear.

We were then treated to an attack show from the big crocs, the biggest being over 5 metres, one of the largest in captivity apparently. There was also the chance to get some arhhhh photos, Baz stole the show with this one. Good one for the nans.

Back on the bus and we were soon in Mission Beach. We stayed at a really chilled place called Scottys. The weather was still mixed, with really heavy showers of rain one minute and blistering sun the next.

We made the most of the chill time and knocked around the pool for most of the day before cooking up a serious BBQ in the evening followed by a few beers and a game of cards. Next stop Tully. We were warned.

The Great Barrier Reef

Despite getting myself a desmond (that’s a 2.2 for the uniformed) in zoology at University, I am a true naturist by nature so I felt that I should be writing the barrier reef up…

Due to our previous nights of ‘generally having a good time’ we thought it unreasonable to get to the boat by the appointed time of 0730 to start our voyage into thick cloud between us and the reef. We did however make it just after 0800 but unfortunately there were some later than us holding up the boat so we missed out on the sarcastic clap that we greated the others to. After a meet and greet with the crew led by crazy marine biologist/entertainment man/chef/El Capitano and general fruit loop, we set off at 0830 into the storm. Cruising at 25kts we got some good air time off the waves which led to some classic American tourist needing to take to take to the side of the boat.

We however being ‘lads’ decided to put on our board shorts and aviators and sit out on front being pelted by the warm tropical rain which felt like small stones hitting you. After a good 10 minutes in the rain we came out the other side of the cloud to be awaited by blue skies and the floating helipad in the middle of the barrier reef. Our first reef stop was Normans reef renowned for its big fish and sharks due to the 25ft drop from the boat to the coral in some areas. Us eager beavers got straight in with our wetsuits (jelly fish proof) and fins on and donned our horribly tight masks. As soon as we hit the coral hundreds of different fish were seen dashing around and in between the different formations. We spent about an hour or two at Normans reef unfortunately seeing no sharks or turtles but seeing some amazing stuff, before returning to the boat for a massive lunch which definitely did not help with the buoyancy later on.

We sailed onto to Hastings reef, by this point getting slightly sunburnt. Having failed to see any jelly fish at the last place and thinking only of our tans, we did away with the wet suits (not jelly fish proof). 5minutes later we were far out over the reef taking in the surroundings, only to look up and see a jelly, Deych and Hubbs played it cool, Baz however took one glimpse and turned around and swam in the opposite direction forgetting that there is a whole ocean to swim around it…we did manage to rendezvous with the Irish girl soon after!

After a few more near misses with jellies we spotted our first recognisable fish…the scorpion fish (once again poisonous if provoked) luckily there is a no touch policy at the reef otherwise our ladish curiosity may have got the better of us. After some classic underwater camera shots some not suitable for a friendly family site, we saw a blue headed wrasse which weigh about 150kg each. They look slow and docile however as we chased it down with our limited lung capacity we soon realised this was not the case!!! We spent a further 40mins or so at Hastings and luckily survived even though Hubbleday gave us a massive fright! As we milling around looking at some coral, Hubbs makes a sudden dash backwards kicking his fins into the abyss, naturally being in Australia Deych and Baz thought it was a shark so legged back as well, but when we surfaced to discuss what had just happened Hubbs says he saw a jellyfish the size of his head, not a major issue seeing as they travel at roughly 0.5mph…a bad use of adrenaline I think!
We powered back to Cairns dosing off out on deck topping up the sunburn to round a very good day out! Tally ho

Deytrikh's 22nd Birthday

0000 hours, serious rainfall and by the time we had crowned Deych 22, we left the pub to find that the rain had turned the streets to rivers. No joke. At least 2 foot of gushing water was flowing down the road. We made a run for it and got the boardies on. We seem to inspire our friends from over the pond, as before long they were all out in the street. After the usual 'lets splash each other' we began the international belly flop competition. curb side. To be fair we were outclassed, by a NUTTER! who did a remarkable impression of a parachutist exiting an aircraft pulling the cord, in perfect balance. A true hero, not a flinch was seen, but a bruise a plenty the next day.

After getting to bed rather late, we awoke on the 8th Jan taking the periphery of the offshore cyclone! Determined to do something we looked at half day activities and thought that 2hours of rainforest quad biking was the order of the day! At 1pm we made our way to the pickup point only to be met by what we saw as Steve Irwins twin. He spent the whole journey scaring us 'poms' about all sorts of crazy creatures that want to do us some harm, little did we realise that we were about to take care of that ourselves.

Once equipt with our helmets and bikes we set off in the mud and rain pushing our limited skills to the limit......and beyond. Not long into the session, Baz decided to literally take a break and broke down in a small lake, Deych and Hubbsy ploughed on regardless, every man for himself isnt it? Now the race was on, surely 1 hour into a session Deych and Hubbs were capable of holding their own on the track. They hung back from the field so as to lose the boring reps ad people who supposedly couldnt do it, ie. girls. After rounding out of a particularly sharp bend it was peddle to the metal.

Clearly going to fast for our own good, teeth gritted and engines reving hubbs hit a puddle followed very closley by the only tree in the middle of the path! He later claimed to have pushed himself away from the bike, all we can sayis its the biggest crash weve ever seen. So hubbs found his large self horizontal and airborne heading for the ground. 5metres later he rounded out and landed in a similar fashion to his first solo landing at the yuas...needless to say he lay motionless face down in the mud! deytrikh actually managed to look semi serious for once and looking concerned casually drove up and assited hubbs who by now was trying to put on a brave face, shame the quad wasnt doing the same....later we all managed to gain some unwanted air time however nothing quite as spectacular. In true Wizard form we all rode back to the ranch together and headed indoors for a brew and bite to eat.

The birthday night continued in the same fashion as the quad biking with much high octane action and fuel consumed! With Gilligans being the regular watering hole, the wizards continued in a similar fashion to nights past, meeting and greeting nationalities from all over the globe.........only fair to keep up international relations. The night ended successfully with a casual visit to a professional dance establishment and some acute memory loss!!! bravo.

Cairns

We arrived in on Friday to be greated with 35 degree heat at 8 in the morning, to say our clothing choice left a little to be desired is an understatement........hoodies were not a good choice. We hitched a ride into town and settled into our sharing room. For the first few days weve managed to do a lot of talking about doing things but never really progressed any futher....todays the day!

Weve already employed the students in ourselves and found all the local happy hours and meal deals in town, theres a lot of competition between the pubs and places to go, so weve done pretty well on economising.....shame about the spending after happy hour finishes and were clearly not as drunk as we need to be.
Weve made some good friends already, seems like the place to be in town, so hats off to Deych or Baz that found this place (giligans). We managed to book in for another few days here.........at 5 in the morning after a night out, so lets hope that its actually tonight that were booked in for otherwise i think the bench in the park has our name on it.

Theres a cyclone sitting off the shore so there is plenty of tropical rain falling but the temp is still way up there. Just means were going to delay our rainforest trek and reef dive for a little while.

Singapore Airport

Arrived safely from Heathrow - long flight (12.5 hours) - to the beautiful Singapore Changi Airport. More like a luxury hotel than an airport so we have a few hours to browse around before boarding the next flight to Cairns. We've heard rumours that there are pools to be swam in so we're gonna see if we can blag our way in for free to some nearby hotels!!!

Only one minor glitch so far - we were refused to be served any more beverages of the alcoholic variety on board the flight - either because they ran out or because we were too rowdy - still haven't worked that one out yet...
Deytrikh succeeded an hour later while the other two slept - Russian blagging skills - a world ahead!!

Ciao for now...

Baz / Dach / Hubbs

x x x