100 Days Down Under

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

For all those who are wondering what its like to catch the bus all the way to Darwin from cairns I urge you to keep wondering and never find out. Certain words come close to describing it: painful, torture, agony, hell, exhausting. Really all you need to know was it took a long time, 41 hours, and it’s a lot like an endurance test. I didn’t crack but boy did I want to, the only thing that stopped me leaping off the bus is not wanting to be left out in the middle of nowhere in one of the ‘towns’ we stopped at. So I endured and crazily was able to walk through the melting heat of Darwin’s afternoon to find my hostel. Now here’s the really insane part, after such a journey you expect to be exhausted right, well I was, however I didn’t sleep that night. Instead I met Kate who is a filmmaker and Reiki teacher and we took a walk and stayed up all night talking about films and Reiki and whatnot, amazing how awake a good conversation can make you. When the sun had risen we decided to head back to the hostel and finally I got a bit of rest, rising in the afternoon. So in total I was up around 70 hours before finally getting to bed, truly a long day.

The next day I met up with Marc who had flown over after I left on the bus, we went to the Crocodile Cove which I was unhappy to pay for but figured I may as well considering I was there and he wanted to see it. It was, after all my annoyance, pretty damn good, I got to hold a little Salty, saw some big Salties and I mean BIG, these fella’s weren’t pretty. But they were very cool, we also found about 100 babies in a big enclosure, which was also awesome, so now I have seen a ton of crocs, including all the various breeds around the world, stuffed mostly, and even old Charlie’s skull, complete with axe wounds. In the evening I visited the famous night market with Kate, which was very fun, a colourful array of stalls selling all kinds of things a lot of it very good quality, and we ate the food she had made earlier and talked some more.

One of the most hilarious things I have ever seen happened at her last hostel, we went over there to swim in the pool as they had shut ours and after we’d had our swim, were sitting, talking and chilling out, the lads arrived. In a big chain, quite akin to the way ants will run in a line, they streamed into the pool and began to run around the edge anti-clockwise, running faster and faster until they had created a whirlpool and eventually collapsed, the current they had created being so strong they could just lay back and get dragged around the pool. This was by far the most bizarre thing I have witnessed so far on my journey; just the suddenness and randomness of it totally surprised me, but what an idea! I had not my camera with me, otherwise pictures and film would now be online, so instead of filming I jumped in and joined them on their quest to make a raging current in the confines of a swimming pool.

For most of my time in the north I talked, with Kate, about all kinds of extra ordinary stuff as if it was totally ordinary. Again those of a sceptical view should look away at this time. We spoke about Past Lives, Angels and Reiki; she informed about most of the stuff I needed more information about, like how Reiki actually worked, where it came from and about Angels and their ways, and she also told me about Indigo and Crystal Children, which I still need more info on, there just wasn’t enough time to fit all the information in, even with staying up all night. Mainly our talking consisted of me asking questions and Kate filling me in on various subjects, her knowledge is a little more comprehensive than mine. We swapped Reiki treatments, and I found out my Reiki isn’t proper Reiki, great. We also talked about some slightly more normal stuff, including our trips round Oz, what she was doing in Darwin and the recent films we had made. Hers being a short film shot from the point of view of a crocodile called Sweetheart, and actual famous croc that lived near Darwin.

One thing I have to say about Darwin is the heat! My god the HEAT! It’s so hot you open the door and think you’ve just opened the oven door; just sitting down is a sweat-inducing task. The main reason Kate and I stayed up so late to talk is that during the day you simply cannot think, and only at about 2 in the morning does the heat drop to a still humid 30 centigrade which is just about bearable. Around perhaps 5 in the morning the heat tended to be around a pleasant 25 and this made it the best time to chat. However as soon as the sun rises the heat shoots straight back up so sunrise was bedtime, ahh air-con!