*Inhales*
It's been a busy to say the least.
I really have no idea where I should start and which stories are worth including so I'll just start with the diving. Hard to go wrong with a wonder of the world right?
In Cairns there are three types of buildings; empty ones, restaurants and dive shops.
My kind of town.
After repacking my stuff in the dark into a bag for home and a bag for travel, a van stole me away from my hostel and shuttled me to the docks where I was given milk and a slice of cake and told to wait while they took all of my stuff and put it in my cabin and fluffed my pillow for me
The cake was delicious.
Much to my delight the cake was a constant fixture in life on the dive boat, our schedule started at 6 in the am and went something like this:
Dive cake dive breakfast dive cake dive cake and lunch dive cake dive dinner and cake dive dive
...cake.
It was wonderful.
For all you fish freaks out there I saw so many fish I couldn't even begin to try and list them all here......what's that?? You want me to try anyways?? Well if you insist.
I saw Anemone Fish, Maorie Wrasse*, Bumphead Parrot fish*, Parrot Fish, Butterflyfish, Butterfly Fish (there's a difference), Angel Fish, Black spotted puffer, Yellow Spotted Puffer, Orange and Black Puffer, Brown Puffer, Grey Pipefish*, Yellow Pipefish*, Lionfish, Grey Reef Shark*, White Tip Reef Shark*, Black Reef Shark*, Mako Shark*, Common Hermit Crab, Silver Fish, Common Coral Trout, Black Banded Triple Fin*, Common Reef Lobster, Red Sea Bass, Round Ray, Shovel Nose Guitar Fish, Greenback Turtle, Various Trigger Fish, Surgeon Fish, Forcep Fish, Reef Eel, Cardinal Fish, Little Blue Annoying Fish, Big Blue Annoying Fish, Spiny Sea Cucumber*, Hairy Sea Cucumber, Totally Gross Sea Cucumber, Giant Clams*, Less Than Giant Clams, Panicked New SCUBA Diver, and of course the Goofy American Fish.
* = something that was bigger and/or longer than me
For those of you playing the home game and who are slightly less interested in the specific names of all the fish, I saw the entire cast of Finding Nemo.
Got there autographs.
Went out to lunch and pitched ideas for their next movie and how I will direct it.
(Minus Bruce)
If we weren't underwater than we were on the top deck eating cake or dancing or running face-first off the edge and falling to the water 25 feet below us.
I saw a crocodile. It was a baby, but it coulda ate my toes.
The city of Melbourne was built to order just for me, I am convinced of it. The layout was originally designed with wide streets for moving large carts of goods, which the citizens promptly ignored and created their own intricate system of alleyways and tunnels to get around the town.
This city is alive, and when you cut it bleeds adventure.
I have been here for about a week and a half and have been exploring from sunrise to sunrise and have maybe worked my way over half of this city.
Maybe.
Big Maybe.
There are two sets of doors here, the ones that are open during the day, and the ones that are open at night... With that in mind let's say I've only seen a quarter of the city.
Most stores don't have signs, the good ones are only accessible through the back of another store and the best ones are in the back, around a corner and down a flight of stairs. And you have to knock.
I pet (petted?) a Kangaroo. It was dirty.
There is a massive open air market here that sells all sorts of discount wares and fresh foods and fried foods and fried discount wares.....and a homeless man having a butterfly painted on his face.
I get on an airplane for the states tomorrow and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
The Melbourne International Jazz Festival runs from April 26th to May 2nd.
Excuse me while I wipe the drool from my face
*wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipe*
The festival and its events however were hidden from view, to the uninitiated you would never know that jazz talent and appreciators from all over the world were converging on the city to share and experience alike the new flavors and old recipes being traded in back alleys and on performance hall stages.
Walk down any given empty alley and knock on the right door, it would be opened to reveal a packed house, stretching to point an ear towards the corner stage where the likes of Jim Black, Charlie Haden, Marc Hannaford, Katie Noonan and countless others were letting the music do the talking for them.
It was unreal. If the city bleeds adventure then it certainly Screams, swoons and cries jazz
Now there is a certain matter which is most unfortunate but we all must address together.
My trip is ending, and soon (Tomorrow Soon). However my adventures will not be ending, if I have anything to do about it. I will be rumbling around the central valley for about a month before heading off again to work as Ranger Director on Catalina island, and then after that, who knows??
I should mention that I lived in a van for a week in the Grampians National Park. Also google the 12 Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, they were awesome.
The question is, should I keep tip-tapping at my keyboard to share my experiences, accidents, ravings and discoveries? Or should I leave it as a tribute to the epic journey that these last 4 or 5 months have been?
I will definitely return to at least share some pictures that I feel represent the various highlights of the trip, as I know you are all just tripping over yourselves to see exactly what I have been rambling about.
But before that, I have one more night to try and trick this City into showing me what she's hiding, so until then
Cheers,
The Wayward Hoover
