Jul 2007

Hey Guys

Well I've managed to stay alive so far in bundaberg, and it looks like I've only got a couple days left! I'll be leaving for Brisbane in just 3 short days! I cant wait, literally everyone I know on the east coast is going to be in Brisbane for this comming weekend. I'm gonna be busy!

Since I last wrote, I've been to a monster truck show, and 1770 for an inpromptue day trip, signed up for and mostly completed my PADI diving, and actually had some fun!

But lets get some form to this thing I try and call a blog. lets see...right. Bundaberg Life.

Well, as of my last writing I hadnt actually been able to experience very much of life here in Bundy. But now I've been here for almst a month and I can actually say that I've experienced at least a little. i've been to most of the "clubs" here and done diving. And its actually not that bad! In a strange way, I think I'm going to miss it here. rolling out of bed to a freezing cold unit at 6am, packing sweet potatoes, fighting for a spot in line for the shower, having to turn the elements on the stove all the way up just to get some semblance of heat in the living area, sneaking alochol into the unit, watching movies that I've seen a million times, and actually watching tv! well ok, that last one I'll probably actually miss. Its been a little weird but for the first time since I got to Australia, I've actually been relatively up on current events. I finally found out that England has a new primeminister, heard about the Glascow Airport tradegy when it happened instead of 3 weeks after, and kept up on the trial of a Doctor from the Gold Coast (just South of where I am) who was accused of co-conspiring on the plot. Its been interesting.

I wont bother to relate most of what goes on in the hostel because its pretty dull. we usually just get home and head to the supermarket. its been to cold for most people to venture out of their seperate units at night, so you usually just hang out in your own room and watch tv or read or something. Lately though, I've been spending Monday nights watching this hilarious british car show called mm.. Top Gear. Its got these 3 british car enthusiest (they may have been famous before, I dont know) who go through cars and in a very comedic way, either reccomend or um dont recmmedn them. I realise after reading that it must sound like the lamest excuse for a TV show ever, but let me assure you, it is almost but not quite anything but lame. For instance, the hosts usally have a challenge relating to something on the show. In one that I saw, they had a rocket car versus a jet engine proppelled Kyack up in some frigid place ... and oh well Never mind. You have to see it to understand, so just look it up on you tube. i'd do it for you, but I'm lazy.

Right, so other than TV there isnt much that goes on in the hostel in the evenings or really on the weekend days either. So instead, a bunch of us who work for joyce's potato farm (where I work) decided to pick up one Saturday and do a day trip to the quaint little town of 1770. Never heard of it? I'm not surprised. I only know about it because its the last surf beach on the coast. Its a lovely little town though combined with another small town called Agnes Water. between the 2 towns there are about 2 gas stations, a surf shop, a really cool little pub on the beach, and some assorted supermarket / take away shops. its tiny! In a whole new way. it would almost give the qauint little rainbow beach a run for its money, but 1770 is nicer.

Anyway, we planned (a laugh here @ planned) to be out of the hostel and on the road for no later than 9:30am so we would have time to explore the area before we had to head to this place where we booked our "Choppa" ride. (A Choppa is a mini Chopper .. or an engine strapped to a tin can really) As per usual, we didnt get out of the hostel until closer to 11:30, but none the less, we were on the road to a new place! There were 11 of us in total, 5 girls and 6 boys split into a camper van and a car which was probably made long before I was born. The trip there was .... interesting we arrived safe and sound though, with about an hour and a bit before we had to go to the choppa place. We had an epiphany while we were exporing the surf shop, and decided that we would top off our day out with a BBQ on the beach! What better time for a beach BBQ than the middle of winter right? But I digress.

Anyway, we went and bought all our BBQ supplies, and promptly found a fish and chips take away shop where the boys decided to feast instead of waiting for the BBQ. Thats fine though, we didnt have enough time before the tour to do it anyway, so we would postpone it till after the bike tour.

We piled back into our vehicles and headed off to the Scooter-Roo (yes that was their name) rental place. We got in, imediately got excited at the site of the bikes, and rushed in to pay for it, eager to pick out which Choppa each would ride. They had cool designs like the Chopper from Natural Born killers, some hells angels design I think and a bunch with flames on them. Anyway, we went in only to be told that just a couple hours prior to our arrival, a hostel had called and booked up most of the choppers, which meant that 5 of us would be stuck on scooters! It was a little annoying, but I was alright with a scooter. I felt all cool on my little vespa (It was cheaper too)

Anyway, we took a little while going over the safety stuff and getting started on our bikes/scooters, but once we got going, it was time to hit the road for a 3 hour tour of 1770 /Agnes water. It was a pretty uneventful ride through beautiful country until one of the girls I was with crashed her scooter She was hurt pretty bad, but being the determined scottish person she is, she got straight back on her scooter and finished the ride! I was amazed, I think I would have been bawling on the side of the road for like 20 mins! The tour wound through the streets and finished up at the lovely pub I mentioned before, where we watched the sun set over the picture-esque beach with a nice cold beer and some wedges. Ahh Sunset, it was lovely. However, what wasnt so lovely was the ride back to the rental office! It was freezing cold and very dark. One of those things you forget when they mention watching the sun set is that it means you are going to be there when it gets dark ... and cold. Several of the guys didnt bring their sweaters, so they were more than a little chilly by the time they got back!

Oh yeah and I almost hit a giant Kangaroo! well maybe almost hit isnt right since he was about 15 - 20 feet infront of me when he jumped out, and giant probably isnt accurate either but he was bigger than most roo's I've seen!

Anyway, look for some photos in face book on that. After the scooter ride, despite Lindsay being hurt and it being freezing cold, we had a BBQ to do! So in true backpacker nature, we picked up a flat of beer and headed for the beach and the free gas barbeque facilities located there-in. We cooked up our lovely meat feast in short order, and enjoyed an unspoilt view of the Milky Way over the ocean before loading up and heading back to Bundy. It was an amasing day that left us all exhausted! (and Lindsay with 7 stitches and an inability to work for 10 days!)

Not long after that, Maria (a Swedish girl) and I were starting our Dive course. We started on Thursday July 19th at 9am! we arrived bright and early to join our class ... of 1 other person! We were more than a little surprised that the class was so small, but at least that meant lots of personal attention if it was needed. Day 1 was pretty uneventful, filled mostly with watching a video and reading a text book ... and a visit to the doctors! In Australia, local law requires that you complete a dive medical before you can take a dive course, so it was off to the medical center with Maria and I.

We filled out our forms in the car on the way over, and Julian (one of our lovely instructors; seriousy nice guy) Brought us in. Now I had been joking w/ Maria about how they were going to hand us a little plastic jar and wouldnt that be funny ... well yeah, they did hand us one, and no, it wasnt funny! Well ok it was, but still! How humiliating So we did our thing, and then after a little while they called us to do the first round of checks. We had to do the whole height and weight thing, followed by a lung capacity test, blood pressure, and hearing test. I think I nearly failed the lung capacity test >.<

After that, they shunted you back to the waiting room to wait for the doctor to be ready to see you and do the rest. First he goes over your medical sheet that you filled out (listing illnesses, surgeries, and family illness history etc) So he saw that I have Migrains and I had childhood asthma. Not a good combo apparently. He warned me that diving might trigger my migrains, so to be prepared. (ick!) Then he informed me that because of my asthma Id have to do a couple more tests than everyone else (nothing like being singled out!) Anyway, he did his thing, then, with a sadistic grin, informed me that I had to jog up and down these fake stairs of his while he did my paper work because he wanted to make sure I didnt wheese when i was out of breath. Great! I passed though, so thats all that really matters :0

Day 2 kicked off with another classroom session and some review, then if was off to the pool! We picked out wetsuits, BCDs (Boyancy control devices) fins (flippers) masks, regulator rigs, and boots! The pool session was actually pretty fun, we basically suited up and hooked all our gear up ourselves then demonstrated some o the skills we had been learning about. things like making sure you exhale if you drop your regulator, that you equalise your ear pressure as you go down, that you can clear your mask if you get water in it etc. It was all fun and games ... until Julian chucked our masks to the other end of the pool and told us to go get them! I asked f I could swim along the top, and he said no, I had to do it at the bottom That meant swimming with my eyes open and nothing blocking the water getting into my nose. I did alright though, I only swallowed/inhaled about 1 litre of pool water hahah.

Day 3 meant Ocean! Finally! haing proven that we were at least a little compitent in the pool, we were taken out to the marine park (fake reef) off the coast here Maria and I were really excited! we were joined here by the people doing anothe form of scuba class, called SSI (Scuba Schools International) which was a cheaper, but less recognised version of certification. There was Helen and Sarah who got pink and purple wet suits .. which caused them to earn the nick name of the teletubbies (not by me ) and some really funny french and italian people. We got briefed on what we'd be doing out there, then we suited up and carried all 30+ kilos of gear down to the water (over sharp rocks ouch!) When we got down to the water, most of us were out of breath. Then it was time to wade into the rocks and put on our fins. Lucky me, I got to go first! it was alright though, the instructors helped me into my fins, then told me to walk to where the water was a little deeper so I coud swim over the rocks and out into the open water. Easier said than done with fins and a suba tank on! I didnt walk so much as fell over, causing everyone to laugh, then I couldnt swim over the rocks because the tide wasnt quite high enough and I wasnt used to the fins, so I was stranded between rocks like a turtle! I think Maria almost peed herself she was laughing so hard. After a bit of a struggle though, I was in the water! A short tme later, we were headed for the bottom. Now, in the pool, it wasnt hard to sink down. In the ocean though, its a whole new story. Despite the weight belt and having no air in my vest, I couldnt stay down on the bottom. I'd get down, try and settle on my knees, only to be pulled slowly back up! The ended up having to load up my vest with rocks so I coud get to the bottom. It was funny.

There were tons of fish down there and lots of corals, it was really cool On the first dive of the day we saw a skate (which is a flat fish that burries itself in the sand to wait for its prey) and lots of fish. You might think the array of color was interesting, but even gong down only a few feet the color in things was sucked right out! One of the girls had red nail polish on and as soon as we were on the bottom it looked dark purple. The first dive was uneventful and we surfaced after touring around a bit and getting used to being in the water. It was really cool
The second dive was better since we saw sting rays and a sea turtle! The turtle was missing a fin though I felt bad for it. I also saw this freaky fish thing that imitated a piece of coral, sitting with its mouth up looking like a rock formation or something, but with eyes and teeth! We werent allowed cameras on our first dive day or I would have gotten a photo. Oh yeah, and an interesting thing about the sting rays I didnt know what they were at first, they looked like little black sheets ruffling in the breeze with these tails that pointed down. I think the tail only comes up when they know you are near, and we were a fair ways away from them. Anyway, we practised our skills in the water, then headed on home.

Day 4 started early again but we had finished with the classroom the previous day so there was nothing to do but load up our gear. We headed to the marine park again, but the water was too choppy so we wouldnt have been able to get in and out without the posibiity of getting seriously hurt So sadly that meant going to the river mouth at a beach called Elliot heads. Its an undesireable location because of the strong river current and presence of stone fish Oh yeah, and because there is nothing to see! We were down and instructor for this day, so they split the group up into 2 smaller groups of 5 to do the diving. Maria and the rest of the girls went in the first group, I was stuck in the 2nd group with the boys beause I lent my mask to a diver in the advance class that was tagging along. We messed around on the rocky beach while the girls did their dives (they combined the 2 dives into 1 because of the cold) then suited up to do our dive. And let me tell you, because the water was moving so fast it was damn cold! It was actually warmer than the day before, but again because of the movement it didnt feel like it!

We were to go in and swim across the current to a bouy in the water where we could use the rope to drag ourselves down withour being swept away. I had to do a full mask clear here, which was my only skill for this dive left (id done the other the day before) Nick (the instructor) had me do that first since it would get it out of the way. So at his sign I pulled my mask off, and put it back on, promptly inhaling and swallowing a good amount of sea water. As soon as I had the mask back on though, it felt as though something had smashed me in the back of the head. It just hurt like you wouldnt believe, so I signaled nick to let him know I had to go to the surface as I was fighting panic, and because of the sea water still coudltn breath right. He wasnt going to let me up at first but I think he saw I was panicking, so he showed me to grab the rope and pull myself up slowly. At the surface, he asked me what was wrong, and Im amazed I was able to tell him that I had a migrain. He asked if I was ok to continue which I wasnt, so he grabbed the other isntructor. All I can really say is that my brain felt like it was exploding and the pain was getting exponentially worse the longer I sat there. Finally kevin (the other instructor) surfaced and was able to help me swim back to shore. I managed to get my fins off and stumble back to where my bag was where i thankfully had packed my Advil. From there the shore instructor got Maria and Helen to get me. They got me up to the van and I wont go into further detail here, since just thinking about it hurts.

Anyway, they had me breathing pure oxygen and everything and took me to the hospital, where I paid $70 to basically lie in a darkened room with a blanket over my soaking wet clothing. I dont know how long I was there, but Maria was with me, and the headache wore off to a bareable level about 3:30. A doctor needed my room to do stitches for someone, so she gave me the once over and sent me on my way (I wasnt complaining) So Maria and I headed back to the dive center. i was entirely embarassed because I hate being helpless and being a burden to people, but everyone was glad I was ok. Maria filled out her certificate and I signed up for another dive then we went and washed our gear. Now you might think the best thing to do after such a horrible experience would be to go back to the hostel. But everyone from the dive was heading out to Bagara Beach for a few drinks and such and I couldnt pass it up. They were really fun and realy great people! We piled into severa cars and headed t the bottle shop then to the beach. All in all, despite the headache, it was a fabulous evening! I exchanged phone numbers with Helen and Sara with the promise to meet up on friday in Brisbane (where they are from) and with Kevin who was actually a backpacker doing his Dive Instructor course here in Bundy.

And that pretty much brings us up to date Now i have my train ticket booked, one more day of work left, several huge reunions to do in brisbane, a rum tour to do Thursday, and a dinner to cook tonight so I'll leave yas here, the next time I update i'll be back in good ol' Brissy! Cant wait!

Love you and miss you all!

Amy

ps. sorry for the spelling mistakes, i'll re-edit later with a spell check on.