First of all, I apologise for the last blog entry, it was lazy. But seriously, not a lot happened anyway.

30/11/12

I was awoken by a phonecall from Amee saying the coconut tour is on. This is a walk & talk conducted by Carl, one of the gardeners, about coconuts, the health benefits and basically everything there is to know about coconuts. Before I came to Thala, I looked it up online and saw "Australia's only Coconut Tour!", I thought to myself; "No s***". But really, this was very interesting! I got back up to the lodge in time for lunch... and then the rain came. It's now 13:44 on the last day in November and the wet season has started. I hope that today is just a warning day before the Far North Tropical Queensland wet season properly starts. Only because this is now my last week here and I have quite a few plans/parties which rely on decent weather.

Tonight's work was pretty quiet again, but I some how kept busy. Last night, during a few beers on the porch with Joey, I got bitten a lot by mozzies and once by what appears to be a spider bite. I text the Sister happily informing her that I was bitten by a venomnous spider, not long after getting a text from the Father asking if I'm okay. Glad I'm still able to wind her up from the other side of the world. I am now aptly watching "The Amazing Spider-man" (A remake of "Spiderman"). I have 16 hours of work left, split in the following sequence: Work, Day off, Day off, Work. The weather forecast isn't predicting rain until Friday when I leave, and if this happens, I'll be a very happy man.

01/12/12

1st December, where has this time gone? Today, I was prepared for quiet a busy day. However at 3pm when my shift started, it was pretty quiet. Shame I was called in at 1pm because it was so busy. Hell, this pushes my final pay packet up, meaning that not once did I have a 'normal' week, working my rostered hours. I'm glad. If I had done that, I would only be sitting on just short of $5k, instead, I'm just touching $7k. Blimey, $2k is huge difference! So, I have 1 day of work left. This 1 day is after 2 days off. These final days will be spent on the beach, wakeboarding, building a beach shelter, eating coconuts, drinking around a fire and possibly being hungover for my last day of work, but it'll be worth it!

02/12/12

This morning I went down to the beach to take a few photos. About an hour in, I realised I had forgotten my water. Remembering what I learnt on the coconut tour, I found a young green coconut and tapped into the water inside and had a refreshing drink. I'm starting to think I could survive on a desert island if I needed to.

Wow, I guess the sun really got to me this morning on the beach. Looking pretty red right now. This afternoon was pretty cool, the new guy; Sebasitan arrived so I invited him to come wakeboarding with me and Joey. It's a lot more difficult than I thought it would be and it took me about 40 minutes of trying, but I got there in the end. Maybe it's the sun, maybe wakeboarding takes it out of you, maybe it's because I got up early, but I am shattered now. Probably all three, I've got to wait for the kitchen to finish so I can get in to make my Tirimasu for Tomorrow/Tuesday.

03/12/12

Probably the only time I'll get to write in this today, I woke up at 11:50 in time for lunch, sandwiches (psh). I spent the afternoon building a castaway beach shelter to rival the one I made before. And rival it did! I can stand up in it, it has a fire pit out the front, and this is where we will spend the evening. One thing I didn't do today, which I should've done yesterday is put suncream on. I figured I'll be wearing a shirt so it won't matter. I didn't account for opening a rotten coconut (the worst smell I'll ever experienced), the rotten water splashed over my shirt, which I removed and washed in the sea. Now topless, I continued to sit on the beach. Mistake. Now I am truely sporting 'Lobster Chic'. So anyway, less of my stupidity. This evening will be good, I mean, when has a fire on the beach with good people, good music and good drink EVER been a bad night?! Now I must go for dinner and get this party started! I don't know what dinner is, but whatever it is at least I know dessert will be good.

So it turns out I had a sensible head on, after the beach, to avoid having a sandy bed, I had a shower. It's 03:15 and the night, as a whole, was awesome. As expected, people came and went, the fire was big and small and best of all, everyone had a good time. Dinner was a mixed meat stir fry of lamb, beef and kangaroo made by Adrian, he gave me an absolute heap of it. Turns out in the last week people really do know me! The tirimasu was absolutely destroyed and everything considered; today may have been the best day at Thala. Everything was awesome.

04/12/12

I am a broken man. The sunburn on my shoulders, my aching arms from wakeboarding, the drunken injuries on my feet from last night all need to be in full working order to work as a porter. Good job there is only 1 check in. Wakeboarding will now forever be known as 'Acheboarding' I struggle to lift my backpack. If these injuries don't go by Friday, I'm seriously going to struggle to be a backpacker; Lifting a heavy bag onto my shoulders and walking? Nice one. But that's enough of that. I was surprised to see almost everybody at lunch, not one bad hangover amongst the group. (This was until I saw Lisa later, oh dear...)

What? 3am again? Not drunk though, just had a couple after work, oh god, work... I'll get to that. So, after work; Joey, Max and Sebastian chilled at mine, had a couple of beers to celebrate our last day. After which, me and Max fulfilled the final taboo at Thala: The pool. My god, that pool is amazing. In parts it's so deep you need to equalize. For those of you that haven't even seen the pool: There is a top level jacuzzi, a second level still pool, a third level deep main pool and a forth level shallow pool with a grotto. Apparently we spent 2 hours chilling and swimming in there. Crazy! So anyway, work? It was quiet, but didn't drag. The one check in gave me $1 tip, not Australian dollars; American. They were French, go figure! I got $10 tip for delivering 2 bottles of champagne to a German guy who hosted a party in his room though, so that was good. Tomorrow we go to Kuranda, do the sky rail and whatever else there is up there. Meeting in the car park at 10am, so I guess I better get some sleep.

05/12/12

Today was another awesome day trip like the Cape Trip day. We went to Kuranda! It started out with waking up at 9:50 to meet Lisa, Joey & Max in the car park for 10am. Still had a shower and wasn't late! We drove to the sky rail up to Kuranda, soaking in the spectacular views on the way. Got up to Kuranda and it was not what I was expecting. A hippy style town heavilly reliant on tourism. We walked around and found a quirky little café along the main street. I had a steak sandwich and a very large vanilla milkshake, followed by a large affogato. Feeling tired, we hit up the 'Koala Gardens', basically a miniture zoo with lizards, crocs, koalas and walabees. Oh, and Wombats. Max's favourite part of the day "When the woman was hitting the wombat". My highlight of the day is when a woman selling hot sauce asked if Joey wanted to try some. Renound for eating spicy food, he ate it in one. I've never seen Joey experience the sensation of something too spicy, this was the first time. On the way back we got some ice cream (it's not a day out without ice cream) and jummped on the scenic railway. That train journey was so boring. Sure, there were some decent sights, but the skyrail did all that earlier. This was just slow. We were all pretty knackered by this point, so it wasn't what we wanted. Still, had to be done. Got back about 18:30, had food and now; Me, Lisa and Max are going in the pool. Dammit, that pool is too good not to go in!

I am sooo tired. Swam until about 8:30, got the last of my washing and went to the shed with Lisa, watched How I met your Mother whilst the washing was being done, got my pineapple trophy, got back at about 11pm and started packing. It's now 00:22 and I've just finished. Surprisingly; everything still fits! I mean, it's not like I was expecting my bag to have shrunk or anything, but people always say once you settle somewhere for a while, you can't get everything back in. Guess I didn't really buy any new stuff. I've also managed to attach my Uke case to the outside of my bag. Up for an 8:30 breakfast in the Restaurant, Jill said to Max she'll "Sort us out". Well that sounds like something I can't refuse!

06/12/12

What a breakfast! We had a choice of the normal menu, on which is Gum Tree Breakfast. It's essentially an english fry, just without the beans or mushrooms. Hiding my disappointment, I odered it and helped myself to toast from the buffet. When the fry up came out, Paul, the breakfast chef had loaded on a steak and lamb chop. What a lad. After breakfast, I booked our hostel for the weekend and the bungee jump on Sunday. If you're reading this, it means everything went well. I'll upload on Sunday. Let's get serious for a second; A bungee jump is the one 'extreme activity' I am afraid of. Heights without a fence give me the creeps as it is. Jumping off willingly is a totally different story. But! BUT! Before you say "Well, don't do it then?!". I'm going to test the theory "Face your greatest fear and nothing can stand in your way". After we booked that, I did a few things online. Including making Christmas cards for the fammily, you probably have them by now. They were the photos I took on Saturday morning, quite pleased with them too so I hope the cards come out okay. The last lunch I could have was terrible. Not even worth mentioning. I went down to the staff house and collected some wood for the party tonight. What's a party without fire, eh?

I write this with a burnt, blistering thumb. A party without fire is probably a party without injury. Withdraw that statement, it's usually fine, I just really hurt right now. Most people came for one or two drinks, then left pretty early. The guys stayed drinking until 3am.

07/12/12

That is all I wrote, I couldn't really type well with the burn which is now a blister, plus I was shattered. Feeling a tad hungover, I woke up with panic remembering I hadn't set an alarm. It was 2 minutes before I was planning to set my alarm. I found out last night that Lloren isn't going to Sydney for Christmas, so the chances that I'll see her, maybe ever again, are very slim. So that sucks.

It's 17:07, I've been in Cairns for 5 hours and I've spent it relaxing and being a backpacker again. Ate a $10 lunch at an Asian restaurant, swam in the lagoon, went to a shopping centre and didn't buy anything and finally; played pool and had a beer. Tonight we're going to the woolshed for food and then getting an early night for the bungee tomorrow. *Gulp*

08/12/12

On the 8th December, I faced my biggest fear: heights. I climbed up 164ft, let some crazy b****** tie some piece of elastic to my feet and I jumped off. This isn't as simple as it sounds. As I climbed the tower, my heartbeat got faster and faster. I got up there, and waited... I waited 5 minutes whilst this dumb b**** stood on the edge and panicked. At this point I told myself, no matter what, I'm jumping on the first go. You have no idea how quicky this changed. The bungee master made small talk about my genie pants, stood me up and told me to walk towards the edge. I shuffled half a foot forward and froze. This is petrifing. I am terrified. He reassures me and I manage to shuffle another half a foot. Feeling this scared about something is horrible. You feel sick, your heart in your throat. "You need your toes over the edge", He says. I do it. This is it. "Now just let go of the side". Psh, like that's going to happe..... I did it. What am I doing?! 5, What?! 4, Okay, you have to do it, 3, I have no blood in my feet, 2, f*** is this actually happening?! 1! As I jump I know I've drilled the psychology into my brain "After 1, you jump and shout 'Bungee!'" I do it. I bend my knees, lean forwards and... instead of leaping forwards, I just fall. In the least elegant way possible. What else do you expect, THIS IS MY GREATEST FEAR! As I fall, you hear on the camera my fear, coming out in the word of "fffFUUUUUUUUUCCCCKKKkkkkk...." Then, when I bounce up, "f*** Yeh! Fucccckkk YES!". A.J Hackett's quoted to have said "Every day do something that scares you, it lets you know that you're still alive. This is not wrong. I knew I was alive today. Roller coasters aren't that scary, all you need to do is sit down, the rest is taken care of. This; YOU need to jump, you need to make the leap and I tell you what, the G-force is incredible. I got him to loosen the cable slightly and make me touch the water, I didn't really notice this, but I know I fell 164ft and survived.

Afterwards, me and Max watched Skyfall, then made our way to Lisa & Daniel's hostel where we had a few beers and said goodbye to them. This was nice (especially as it was beer Daniel had left over). Dominos followed, drinking games at the hostel and an awesome night out to follow.

This was the final days in Far North Queensland. Well, I have one more day, but being 4am and pretty pissed, I'm making the assumption that tomorrow will be a write off and this is it. So having left work and having survived a 164ft drop, I go to bed, ready to start the trip down the coast, I intend to keep it in one blog, so don't expect a new one until the 21/12/12...