Well the application I use to write my travel blog crashed and deleted my entire blog. Luckily, as I saw it was crashing, I hit print screen, so I managed to save most of it. I think I missed a line or two at the top, but hey... I'll type up what I managed to salvage:

28/09/12

Yesterday was fairly standard as far as the shift went but this weekend will see an increase of arrivals getting us up to 100% capacity,

bring on the hell! It rained last night, absolutely poured, from about 1am-11am. It might've been the rain, it might've been the coffee at 9pm, it might've been something else, but I didn't sleep much last night. And now, as I'm getting ready for work I opened my cupboard for the horrible reminder that we've got new shirts for work. Going from a professional beige colour, to this horrendous aboriginal art style shirt, the kind that Dustan Hoffman would wear in 'Meet the Fockers'. Apparently because it doesn't show sweat and stains as much, I just think they fancy a laugh.

29/09/12

I've been asked to start at 12 today because of the 40 arrivals. Hopefully Frankie's shift is extended until 6pm too, that'll ease things a lot. Still, I'm safe in the knowledge that at 11pm tonight I can relax for 2 days. Annoying that those two days are Sunday with increased pay, and Bank Holiday Monday with ridiculously increase pay. I think they said it's like $43 p/h. And I'm off. Annoying. But I'll just have to make sure I use those days doing awesome stuff. I spy another super relaxing beach day!

30/09/12

It's 08:52 on my days off, so why am I at the beach, already having had a swim in the ocean? Because I don't need to be awake for anything today, that's why! Mumford & Sons' new album playing, I'm lying in a hammock until Lloren finishes work. .. When I wrote that, I didn't account for getting eaten aive by tiny ants and massive flies. Went back up to the lobby for lunch, so with the overcast sky, I'm writing up my bucket list! ... Johan just called with the tag line "Your wildest dreams have come true" I'm working 3pm-11pm tonight. What he meant was my dreams have been shattered. I can't really complain as I did offer, and Sunday pay is very good, but it means my plans to spend the afternoon and evening with Lloren have been cancelled.

Well this looks ridiculous. Just got back from work and I have mild sunburn on my chest from this morning when I slept on the overcast beach for an hour. I have 2 patches where my ipod and phone were. I've never been a whisky drinker, but the bottle I received as a gift last week seems to be going down rather well, especially after days like today. I've also realised I think waaaay too much into things. I'm not going to say I'm going to stop, surely it's what makes me, me? But what I will do is try to take it easy. Not let it consume me as much and generally empty the cache every once in a while.

01/10/12

Day off: Take 2! It's 14:17 and I may be playing with fire by saying this, but I haven't had a call. Today, I will definitely be spending the afternoon & evening with Lloren. Tips this week were pretty good, cashing in at $89. Port Douglas for dinner tonight! (This is when the application crashed, so I've just typed all that up) Now! On with my day off!

02/10/12

The rest of my day off was perfecto and uninterrupted. The busses in and out of town were free because guests were using them, we got into Port Douglas at about 17:30, shared an ice cream, walked to the marina, sat there whilst the sun set (even though it was cloudy), went to get food but as the restaurant was full, we had to wait for 20minutes, so we grabbed some beer and wine from the bottle-o and sat in the park like a pair of teenagers. When it was time to eat, we headed back and got the Aussie tasting plate for 2, a trio of meat: Kangaroo, Crocodile and Emu. We'd both tried the Roo and Croc before but Emu was new, and good! Served extremely rare, it was like a very rich duck. We shared a pizza and I ordered an amazing cocktail for dessert. Called 'The Toblerone' It was all the things a dessert cocktail should be; Rich, Creamy, Chocolaty and expensive. I've had meals cheaper than this cocktail. But my god was it good. After the food, we finished the wine and headed back to Thala. It was a ridiculously perfect date style evening which wouldn't have gone better if I had planned it. But now, it's Tuesday, and the start of my working week. Having just had lunch, there is some bad news and some good news. The good news is that Neighbours have just released an omnibus on Sundays at 14:30 on Eleven! This makes me amazingly happy. However, it dawned on me that everyone's leaving relatively soon... Lloren in 2 weeks on Friday, Charlotte, Jo and Matt; 28 days, Angie, Richie & Luke; 35 days. I don't know if they'll be replacing many people, coming into the quiet season, but I know that I'll miss the first team I worked with here at Thala.

03/10/12

Yesterday I got called in 30minutes early because they were busy. But that was the only busy bit. Until yesterday I had an old name badge with my name on a sticker over the other name, but today I got a proper name badge! I've been asked to work 9am-10:30 on Friday as it's going to be panic level busy with all the Americans leaving, and I'm getting Sunday shifts! Yes, it means more money, but it also means the good news about Neighbours yesterday is void. Speaking of American's, I had to pick a couple of them up to give them a ride to the restaurant. Chatting as you do, I mentioned I'm from England, to which he responded "Hey, England ain't too far from here, ay?" He then proceeded to give me $3 tip, USD. Nice one America.

04/10/12

I got another $2 tip USD. Fair enough, giving me tips is nice, but the ignorance is just annoying. I don't know if they're doing it because they're using credit cards and don't need AUD in cash, or because it works out cheaper for them, or because as far as they're concerned, it's dollars at the end of the day... But hey, I feel like I'm constantly writing about yesterday. So on with today! Went up for lunch and Nigel said he received an email from my friend. I'd told Max to email him in prospect of work. Looks like they're checking his references this arvo and if all is good, he'll be asked to start asap! This is good for a couple of reasons: When everyone leaves, I'll still have someone to hang with up here AND when we make our way down to Sydney for Christmas, I won't have to drive to Brissie by myself to pick him up! It'll be a full on road trip from Cairns to Sydney! Speaking of which, I just got an email a couple of helpxers asking if I want to join them on a road trip from Cairns to Sydney on the 16th November, arriving on the 20th December. It seems to fit in perfectly, we'd get to see the eclipse up here, have an awesome, extended road trip with random people and arrive in Sydney the day before check in. But. It would mean missing out on about 3 weeks pay and they'd probably want to see a lot between here and Brissie, all of which I've seen. I'm going to have to think with my head on this one.

So all we're waiting for is Kathy to call Max's previous employer to get a reference and he's set to come up on Monday! Tomorrow will see the departure of ~100 Americans. In for 9 to deal with the bags.

05/10/12

What a mad rush of panic. I was only needed for an hour, and never has $21.31 been so tough to earn. Frankie passed out before we'd started. I don't know what was wrong or how he is, but this is the 2nd time an Ambulance has been called whilst I've been working. This may sound selfish, but I really hope he's okay because he's covering my shift on Tuesday. The one day Lloren has a day off and I'd got my shift covered. In other news, I got a call from a drunken Selina. She's been accepted to study in Brisbane! She'll be over here in January, when I intended to get my 3 months regional work done in Tasmania. I can always trust Selina to get her timing wrong. Many options running through my head right now, one of which is to do 2 months in Tassie, finish at the start of March, do the great ocean road to Adelaide, fly to Brissie for my birthday then do the red centre and find 1 month regional from there. I've said this before, it's impossible to produce a solid plan whilst travelling, there will always be something that will change. (The irony in that last sentence is that I edited it).

06/10/12

Doing 11hours today because of Frankie's turn yesterday. 12 hours on Saturday pay is good, if my calculations are right, I should top $1k again next pay day! ... Following a skyping with the rents and Selina, I forgot to mention that I took a car door to the face yesterday, giving what can only be described as a Harry Potter style cut on my forehead. And after a long skype session with Alice, I literally can't be bothered to write about today's events. Something about a lot of Germans checking in and it being really busy. There's a cold beer in my fridge waiting for me, thank God.

07/10/12

Feeling a little bit more alive, I feel like I can write about one of the best things that happened yesterday: Tips. Prior to yesterday, the most tips I'd gotten in one day was $35, on "The day the guests kept giving", this was dwarfed by yesterday's $58. I now have about $95 (AUD) and $5 (USD). This was a very good week. Was chatting to a guest about how close to the line I got before coming here, he travelled Australia in the 80s and said the best opportunities appeared for him when things were bad. Last day of work today before two relaxing days off, plans include eating pizza on the marina and having a lazy day with Lloren.

08/10/12

Finally my day off! I say finally, but in reality, time is flying. I've been here a month?! In that time frame in July/August, I; Scuba dived the Great Barrier Reef, Sky Dived at Mission Beach, learnt to scuba dive on Magnetic Island, Sailed the Whitsunday Islands, Worked at a bird sanctuary and explored Fraser Island! 4 out of 12 weeks down, I guess that means that I'm 1/3 of the way through my time here at Thala. I had another ending written to this blog entry, but I think this one is more fitting to how I feel. Time is going down, money is going up. Yes I'm working, but without the bitter baby, the sweet, just ain't as sweet.