Ilona the girl from France

Ilona

So I'll finally let everyone off the massive tension from my "fire dancing in a park" cliffhanger from last post and tell you what the eff happened.

I was fire dancing in a park in Cairns just to practice and this girl came up to me and was all like "Where can I get one of those," so I was all like "In my pants," (just kidding) I was actually like "Juggleart" and then we were instantaneously friends.

Her name is Ilona and she does fire dancing too although she juggles more. We decided that we should go on some adventures together so the next day we drove up to the butterfly sanctuary in Kuranda. It was cool and she was all like, "Someone from my old Helpx said this was the best butterfly sanctuary in the world," Little did I know at the time that this old Helpx was the bees knees (foreshadowing!)

Anyway we butterflied it up and here's some pics.

Butterfly!

Butterfly!

Butterfly!

Multiple Butterflies!

Butterfly Porn!

Butterfly!

Butterflies!

Wow, amazing. Then that night we totally went down to the beach and fire danced with two other girls I met on couchsurfing. Damn I'm such a playa.

Me and Ilona hung out for the next day and she told me about this place called Parrots in Paradise which is an exotic bird sanctuary just north of Brisbane. It sounds far out, or rad, or whatever word you want that means good.

I asked her to call and she did and they said they could take me on as long as I came in my van. So suddenly I had an awesome back up plan and place to go in a month.

I said bye to Ilona then went to pick up the German girls from before so we could go work on a herb farm. We got the job the weekend before and decided to drive down together. Up the mountain and over to Mareeba we went. It took all the vans power.

We got there and were quickly pushed off to the side to camp. I was all like WTF and so were they because the woman didn't even say hello. We talked to the backpackers and found out the pay was 35c and bunch of herbs. We were like okay doesn't sound good. Then the next morning we got up early and did 2 hours work, worked out our pay then realized this was not cool. At all. So we left.

This pictures going here damn you Blogger!

Wow fire!

Wow cool!

I ended up in Mareeba with the girls living at a free campsite, farm hoping and employment agency hoping everyday. Out of the blue we landed a gig at the Laura Rodeo doing the catering. It was cool to get a free ride to the rodeo and $240 for two days of work. But, it literally was two days of work minus sleep hours so really the play wasn't good. The girls decided to stick around for more and I decided to GTFO cause nothing was happening.

So, where should I go. Parrots in motherf**king paradise (sorry mum). So yeh, I drove three straight days alone down the East coast until I hit the Glasshouse mountains. I got some free feed from an Aussie and Kiwi and picked up a French hitchhiker who gave me some organic banana bread. :)

Then I got to Parrots in Paradise. Basically I've been here for about 3 weeks and it's awesome. I'm working with exotic birds like Ecleptus parrots and because they need a super media make over I'm doing a website, videos and the photography for the place. It's not for profit and is doing well to stay afloat.

I've linked my video underneath. Hope you guys get a good look at the place. Anyway, I'll write another blog post eventually. See ya.

- James

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HR1jgctjGRE (I can't upload it for some reason)

Finally, the second half of the road

King's Canyon

After Kings Canyon, my road trip turned North towards Cairns. We began by trying to cut through an unsealed road that led to the West MacDonald ranges just north of Alice Springs, but a few minutes of intense rattling made me realize that there was no way the car would survive 100 km of it. So we turned around and took a fruit with us, which we later drew a face on and named Wilson.

I don't have a picture. It looks like a melon. Just imagine.

Anyway. we spent two days in Alice Spring where I bought two bush bags from the Salvation army for $15 which is a really good price for too full garbage bags of clothes. After my fashion show, we realized that half the stuff was XXXXXXXL size so I re donated it. Then we hit the road and headed up towards Cairns.

The road was probably less interesting going the other way, but Antonia drove once or twice and I got a good sleep. The next day we quickly arrived at Devil's Marbles.

The Marbles

Magnetic Island

According to the sign, Aboriginals believed that ghostly figures wandered Devil's Marbles beckoning to those alone among the rocks. Apparently if they asked you to follow you couldn't say no and would walk off with them never to be seen again. Naturally we all decided to go off in different directions exploring the rocks.

We moved on, and the road was desolate all the way to Townsville.

Now before we move on I just want to say, what kind of a name is Townsville for a town. They're not very creative these English settlers are they. It's like calling a road Streets road or a river Streams river. Thing is further North there is a town called Ingham. So in England there's Birmingham and Nottingham, but whoever came over on a ship couldn't thing of a prefix so called the town Ingham.

Anyway, we took Roads street to Townsville and then took Boats ferry to Magnetic Island with a tent and some supplies. Captain Cook thought the island was magnetic because when he sailed by his compass went haywire.

Sunset on the North side of Magnetic Island

I got a lot of good shots on the island, but then again it's hard to take a bad picture of a sunset. I think the best thing about the place was how small it was.

Jana on the Island

It was covered in the most beautiful beaches I've seen in Australia so far. Most people tell me that the West coast is the place to go for beautiful scenery but I haven't been there so I was still stunned.

There was a hostel on the island that hires people to work for free accommodation. It's an awesome place to hang out but I don't think I would have done it. Hostels are just full of people partying and getting drunk. That's fine if you want to do that but that's not why I came to Australia. Buying a van was the best choice I made.

We spent two days on the island before we headed back. Before we went, the car next to us had been broken into. Someone had thrown a brick though the window and I was hoping my van was still intact.  Luckily everything was fine and we all moved on and began our drive up the East Coast.

Sunset on the island

  After the island, we didn't really stop anywhere else. We went up into a mountain somewhere. There was a big swinging vine that everyone had a good time trying to get on and swing around. That was honestly the highlight of the drive. Then we arrived in Cairns: The city where everyone has so much to do and absolutely nothing gets done.

The Bug

I wasn't too happy to be back really, plus everyone parted ways and Antonia had to go home. So I was left alone in the van doing absolutely nothing for a little while. I needed to find a job, but only found a little bug. But that was when Antonia was still around. 

Three days alone and it started to get unbearable, then I decided to fire dance in a park. Then everything changed.

I'll continue later.

- James