Miss lovely Jo & Ray from GKI
plus many other people I met there,
especially one funny laughing lovely Dutchie.

When you’re working and you suddenly see two familiar faces it makes you want to rush to them straight away. But when you’re in the middle of checking in people you can’t really do that. I was so torn inside with the desire to run and hug my friends and then the duty side of me telling me to work first. I just couldn’t believe my eyes! It definitely was the best surprise to see Ray and Jo standing in the reception! I was so happy to see them! And lucky they surprised me on a day I had an evening off! It was so great to meet with them and catch up. I’m still a bit shaken by their sudden appearance. When you’re made friends along the travels and you’re able to catch with them it’s so great. Next time I think it should be my turn to surprise and just arrive to GKI!

Not the kind of creature I'd like to find in my room!

Insects, the little creatures of this world, I can’t say I like them but at least I’m not really afraid of them, just don’t like them. And as I’ve learnt here my sister’s reaction to run to the other side of the swimming pool from the boys holding a redback in a glass jar is not too bad a reaction. I don’t think anyone really likes spiders, beetles and all kind of insects but some people really do have a severe phobia of insects. I could have never thought that someone could actually faint just seeing an insect. I might scream if a big spider landed on me but who wouldn’t? I can handle having a huntsman in my room – they are harmless after all, just a little bit ugly looking spiders. But given it’s a spider I don’t know what it is I surely go and get insect killer. I did have a hilarious encounter with a spider the other night. At first I just looked that it was a small huntsman on my door inside the room so I just went to have a shower and left it alone. But a while later I had a closer look and it wasn’t a huntsman, probably just some harmless one, but not a huntsman, that’s for sure. So off I went in my pjs to get the insect killer from the reception and walked back into my room. The spider was a really quick one and started to move towards me when I sprayed it. It took awful lot of the spray to kill the bloody bugger! And as you can imagine I was so full of adrenaline after the episode that sleep didn’t come too quickly! :D


Being on the other side of the world from all your friends and family can be sometimes hard.  When you travel and see new places all the time the time passes quickly and you hardly have time to be homesick. But when you stop for a longer time you start missing normal things like going for a coffee together, having a cup of tea over breakfast, popping in for a short visit. You start missing just talking and not needing to tell things from the past for the reason that they make you what you are today. But then again you meet these great new people who have their own stories to tell. And it’s a great feeling to start knowing someone and be friends. New friends who stay around don’t come easily or often in this town cos most of the people are just passing through. But then when you meet someone and make friends it’s great. Sometimes you meet people just for a fairly short time but you stay great friends, no matter what the distance. Without friends life would be quite empty. So please do all my friends know how much I appreciate you and how happy I’m to have you in my life.

"If you have good friends, no matter how much life is sucking, they can make you laugh."
- P. C. Cast -

Rain and chaos

It’s rain season here at the moment but we were blessed with mainly sunshine and great weather for a long time. A week ago it changed. On Saturday evening it started raining, and I mean really rain. It was like someone was pouring buckets of water on you, no sign of light rain. I walked at hostel’s car park ankle deep in the water in the evening. And the rain didn’t stop. At night you were able to hear the rain falling heavily on the roof. On Sunday morning when I got up the rain was as heavy as it had been all the time. Tiny harmless creek we have on the other side of the road from the hostel was just rising and already flooding to a side road. The rain was so heavy that it rained in through open doors even though we have a couple of metres of cover in front of the door! Driving to the bus stop at 7am in the morning was a nightmare: I could drive about 30ks an hour and some roads were really full of water, I just tried to go through the safest option with hardly any hills.

Around 9am the rain stopped. The rain, strong winds, high tides and big waves did its damage to the town. But we were lucky here. No one died and damage to the properties wasn’t massive in this town. But the storm that started up north in Queensland and made it way down along the coast damaged large areas in many places. Maryborough is about 35ks from us flooded fairly badly. Burrum Heads which is about 35ks from us was hit by a tornado. Bundaberg about 130ks north from here flooded in a bad way and it’s still isolated. In Rockhampton the river was still rising this morning. Whole farms been washed away with the floods. Thousands of people lost their homes in the floods. In Bundaberg a whole house floated about 200 metres with the flood waters.

The biggest nuisance for all travellers has been the fact that all the buses stopped operating on Sunday last week. All the roads getting out of Hervey Bay flooded. The highway was closed at several places due to floods. So there was no way in or out of Hervey Bay. On Thursday the buses started going down to Brisbane with restricted services but nothing north of Hervey Bay. Today the first lucky ones will be able to travel north to Agnes Water but that’s as far as you can get at the moment. Bundaberg is still isolated and the highway is closed in Rocky. No one knows when the buses start going north, they are hoping on Tuesday but no one knows for sure. Those who really had to get to Airlie Beach up north ended up flying up there via Brisbane. Some people paid $400 to fly from Hervey Bay to Brisbane. One couple paid $1200 to fly from Hervey Bay to Proserpine.





North of Bundaberg a bridge collapsed and floated down the river ripping of a major gas pipe. That is affecting lots of businesses in large area. Here in Hervey Bay many restaurants are closed because they don’t have gas to cook the food. At the hostel we don’t have gas either so we don’t have warm water, luckily the cold water isn’t that cold either and the air is warm anyway. Earlier this week some restaurants were closed because they didn’t have supplies to prepare food. On Wednesday there was even a petrol station closed – there was no petrol.

To put things in perspective: In Finland annual rainfall is around 700mm. Here in Hervey Bay in two days (practically in 15 hours) we got 250mm of rain, in Bundaberg the rainfall in two days was 370mm. So no wonder everything flooded. For people from other countries it seems to be hard to grasp the enormity of the rain and the damage it did. We got sunshine already on Sunday afternoon when the rain had stopped so for some it was hard to understand that damage around us has been bad. Even our beach is badly damaged. Basically all the beach accesses have been closed because the storm ripped off a few metres off the beach and now there’s about two metre drop to the beach from the beach accesses. A lot of trees have been uprooted due to storm we had and there’s a lot of rubbish on the beach. A couple of cafes that are situated right on the beach have been damaged as well. Here there’s damage but it’s small compared to the towns where houses have flooded up to the ceilings. A lot of people volunteered to help other people. Two fathers in Maryborough whom lost everything with their families in the floods took a tinny out and went to help other people to get to dry land from isolated areas. I do respect those people.

The wind and the waves washed away quite a bit of the beach.
Many of the beach accesses have been destroyed.

Uprooted trees are quite hopeless sight.

Not quite the normal sight to enter the beach.

Wonder where this sign is supposed to be, definitely not on the beach.

I was stuck with work for eight days and did some really long days. About 110 hours in 8 days took its toll on me and on Thursday evening I could hardly keep my eyes open anymore. The circumstances were new and unusual for me but I handled it well. Travellers staying here have all thanked me for everything I’ve done for them. And that’s what gave me energy to soldier on through those days. I’m not saying that I didn’t get tired but I did the best I could. I’ve never liked given speeches or speaking in front of many people but I got all people in one room and updated them all at the same time when I had something to update. I broke down once in front of everyone but so what, I’m only human. I’m so thankful that I had a great group of people staying here in the chaos.

The chaos is still not over but at least I got to rest for one day. So now I’m all ready for work again!

 

Even in midst of changed and ruined scenery you can find beauty.

 

 

I could say that I hadn’t been homesick for 11 months. But when you’re really tired and everything just gets to you, you just want your old friends beside you. The other night I was really graving for usual remedy: my friend’s couch, pots of tea and The Holiday. That’s been a remedy for so many things past years. Whether it’s been a broken heart, sad news in the family or just a really bad week that remedy has been making things better. I think the tiredness just got me feeling miserable. Normal teasing from a friend just got me crying. So it really wasn’t my night yesterday. Got into bed just after 9pm and put a movie on and curled up. Eventually fell asleep though and felt better the next day.  

 

I don't miss the snow but I do miss all those people to spend time with.

I went to the corner shop the other day and order lunch (was too busy working to make anything!) for myself, well it was kind of really late breakfast – 1.30pm! :D Said I would go and pick it up in a while. I returned to the hostel to do some paper work before driving the next shuttle. And as I was almost ready to go and pick up my toast for lunch I got it delivered straight into the reception – how nice is that! Couldn’t really imagine the same happening in Finland or in a big city here. Living in a smaller place has its own advances. :)

When you know that you have less than a month left on your visa it makes you worry and think what to do if the plans don’t come true. It’s stressful to just wait and do nothing. The knowledge that there’s nothing anyone can do to make things move quicker doesn’t help either. I’ve gone through in my head the scenario of not getting a visa to stay. Going back to Finland is not an option. All you back in Finland don’t think I don’t miss you, I do. But I’m not ready to come back yet. At the moment my life is here in Australia and I can’t imagine being anywhere else. As funny as it may sound since I come from a country with cold winters and often cool summers I feel that I’m home in this country of extreme heat and the tropical climate. I’ve dreamt of staying here so it’s going to be a huge disappointment if I don’t get to stay.

Very hot weather has been beating many areas in the country. I’m happy I’m living in a coastal town, not in the inland! The temperature has risen to +47 degrees in some areas. It’s hard to even think how hot that must be. Our hottest so far in this heat wave has been +33 degrees, so far off from the top temperatures. And even Aussies are saying it’s too hot! And it really is. All the clothes just stick to your skin and you just sweat doing nothing! But I must say that I way rather take this heat than -15 degrees – no question. Don’t miss the cold temperatures at all.

 

The other day I went for dolphin cruise, just to do something different on my day off. And I must say it was nice. Can’t really complain when the sun is shining, nice sea breeze is keeping you cool enough and the view is beautiful. We did find a few dolphins but how hard it was to try to take a picture! But seeing Fraser Island’s west coast was great, empty beautiful beach and turquoise water – picturesque view.

"I always knew looking back on the tears would make me laugh,
but I never knew looking back on the laughs would make me cry."
- Unknown -

When you’re used to work during the New Year celebrations behind the bar it doesn’t feel bad to work just for the morning on the New Year Eve. At least I knew I could actually enjoy the evening and spend it in good company. I knew it wouldn’t be a wild night out cos I had the morning shift the next morning but still an evening off. And giving my colleague a chance to go out and have fun and then have to stay at the hostel myself didn’t bother me either. Maybe not quite the kind of New Year celebrations as I might have thought it to be on the other side of the world but it was great.

It did feel a bit funny to be swimming in the ocean and sitting on the beach on New Year Eve. But it felt great. I hadn’t been swimming almost for a month so it was great to just sit in the water and talk with a friend you haven’t seen for a while. Sitting on the beach talking one minute and then next minute just sitting without talking watching the world go by in comfortable silence. It’s funny how with some people you can be without seeing for months and just pick up from where you left. It feels like you had met just yesterday, no awkwardness at all, just comfortable time together.

The rain was unwanted on New Year Eve but nothing much you can do about the Mother Nature. Luckily the rain didn’t last the whole night. It did delay the dinner cos didn’t really want to get wet but we made it in the end. Never thought I could miss the fireworks on New Year but seemingly it’s possible! :D Well, they did have a funny time to have the fireworks: 9pm! We were still having dinner and the trees blocked the view. Well, maybe better next year!
Back in Finland the shops close at 6pm on New Year Eve and are closed on New Year’s Day. Didn’t happen quite like that here! The shops were open normally on New Year Eve, supermarkets open until 9pm. New Year’s Day felt like any other day cos most of the shops seemed to be open. Maybe with a bit shorter opening hours but still they were open. Not normal at all.

A friend of mine was eating a ham and cheese toast yesterday and it smelled really good. Since I haven’t had any red meat for fifteen years it was a bit funny to even want to taste it. Even funnier was to realise that it actually tasted really good! I had to go and get my own and test if I can really eat it all and still think that it tastes good. It did. I’m not saying that the one toast will make me eat meat but I guess I might be able to taste at least from time to time. No matter what some people might wish for, I think chicken and fish is still going to be mostly on my shopping list, not meat. So sorry for those who cook dinners with me – still no cooking meat.
I didn’t really think of making any new year’s resolution but thanks to my tasting of ham toast my friend decided it for me: if you have a chance you’ll try it. I’ll try to but I might fail badly. Well I guess only the time will show how it goes.

I wish all the best for this New Year for all my friends and family around the world.  Hope to see many of you later this year. ♥

"Don't be dismayed by goodbyes.
A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."
- Richard Bach -

The other day I went into a post office. Yes, I knew it’s getting near Christmas and that there probably would be quite many other people too. I was right. The queue went all through the post office and outside through the sliding doors. Well, I did have time to wait so I just joined the queue. An elderly lady sat on a chair waiting while her friend queued for her. No one complained or looked badly when the lady walked to the front of the queue. No one was complaining about how long it takes to queue and get service. You could hear people chatting all around. You could see families queuing together. You could see people talking to total strangers. Behind me in the queue was a mother with a about six-month-old baby, never complaining about the time spent in the queue even though she had the baby on her arms the whole time. People around her talked to her, an older woman gave her son a mint box to play with. When he managed to drop all the mints on the floor no one minded. Women around just said that there have definitely been worse things on the floor than a few mints. No one complained to a woman whose child was screaming loudly from time to time. When you got to service desk the staff didn’t look stressed. All were smiling and talking to every customer with friendly voice and wished you merry Christmas when you left.

It’s funny to think that Christmas is only nine days away. I haven’t quite realised it yet. One reason might be that I’ll be working on Christmas so it won’t make that much difference. And even though there are all these Christmas things in the shops the hot and sunny weather fools you. Also the fact that backpackers are travelling whether it’s Christmas or not makes Christmas feel like any other day of the moment, or at least almost. We will get our Christmas lunch and we don’t have to work that much but it doesn’t feel that Christmassy. We do have our Christmas tree up and I have my Christmas hat which I’m wearing already (well, at least I’m trying to wear it). For me baking Christmas cookies is part of the Christmas and since I haven’t done that this year I don’t realise that Christmas is around the corner. Maybe I’ll realise it when it’s actually already Christmas day. :D   

 

In Finland when the winter comes people start getting sick with colds and flus. During the summer people just don’t get sick that easily. So I really associate having a cold with cold and gloomy weather, not with hot weather and sunshine. But my body must feel compassionate for all the people in my home country because I have the worst flu I’ve had for years. And when it’s +30 degrees and the sun is shining you don’t really feel like lying in bed doing nothing. It feels waste of time to do nothing. Going to the beach wouldn’t be good because I would just be tempted to jump into the water. It’s hot so I love eating ice cream but no, my doctor denied that from me. People are telling me to take it easy and rest but there’s only as much as I can do nothing and I’m over the limit.

Sometimes when you’ve stayed in a place for a while you stop seeing all the beautiful things around you. You get into a routine and stop enjoying the scenery around you. I thought it wouldn’t happen to me but I was wrong. Just last week I went for a walk on the beach with a friend and realised how much I had missed just walking and enjoying the view during the low tide. Or how wonderful it was today to watch waves (yes, we actually got some waves today!) wash over to the street. The water is my element and I could sit on the beach for hours just watching the ocean.

"Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets.
So love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't and believe that everything happens for a reason.
If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it.
Nobody said that it'd be easy, they just promised it would be worth it."
- Unknown -

It’s good to be back home. No need to travel every few days and pack and unpack your backpack all the time. No need to carry your food around and to estimate what you eat in a couple of days. It’s good to have your things on shelves and your food nicely in the fridge. You know where to go to buy things and in a supermarket you know you’re way around, no need to go around looking for things. You know where to go for a bit of exercise and which route to take when you don’t have that much time for a brisk walk ( I do not run!). And there are people you know. Someone you don’t need to start with the usual where-you-from, where-have-you been and so on.

I haven’t been going out that much while I’ve been travelling and I didn’t even really realise that I missed going out. But you need to get out there and have a bit of fun now and then, we all need that. I must admit that it was extremely nice to go out with a few familiar people and just have fun yesterday. I must say I was happy that there were guys in our group who were able to save you when you didn’t want to go dancing with some random drunken person. Good night out it was.

Familiar sight in Sydney. I love the city.

I had a bit of trouble speaking Finnish a few weeks ago. A Finnish girl was amused by my lack of finding words and the difficulty of speaking Finnish, my first language. She even said to me: “You can talk English but I’m going to speak in Finnish now.” In environment where I’m used to using only English, speaking Finnish seems unnatural. It doesn’t come easy. Luckily for my mum I was able to speak Finnish pretty well while she was here. Just sometimes I had to think a little bit for Finnish words. :D But all in all it went well. But now I’m happy to go back to speaking English and only English, it just is so much easier!

 



Great scenery on Fraser Island.

I did have great three weeks with my mum. It was good to see her. It was pretty intense three weeks. Sydney, Blue Mountains, Brisbane, Hervey Bay, Fraser Island and Noosa in that time, not really a relaxing holiday! But I was glad to show places for mum and get her to see why I like it here so much. And I think she got to see it. Three weeks by in a flash and before I knew mum hopped onto a shuttle bus to the airport and I returned home.

 
The weather is a great factor for staying here. It just is so much warmer here and it’s not cold and dark like in Finland at the moment. Now that summer is here I must admit that even the winter wasn’t bad. For some the heat of the summer can be too much but I’m not complaining. Having a work out in the heat of 29 degrees is fine. 37 degrees that we had here yesterday felt hot but wasn’t unbearable. I just love it when you can wear shorts and a top all day around, no need for long-sleeved shirts. And the nature is just beautiful. I could sit on the same beach every day and just marvel the scenery – never getting bores. People here are more easy-going and relaxed than people in Finland. People are helpful and welcomes you into their country with open arms and help you all the way they can. I just love it here.

"Home is where the heart is."

I must say that Darwin was too hot and humid even for me even though I love the warm weather. Darwin is a nice city but that’s it. There’s not that much to do. Might be different if you had your own car and you could easily go and visit one of the National Parks nearby for a weekend but backpacking and relying on walking and public transport your possibilities are limited. You can walk in the park or walk to Mindil Beach but even in the evening it can be quite an exercise when it’s still +29 and the air is humid. For backpackers Darwin seems to be quite a party place (like so many other places too). I rather spend my money on something else than partying every night, but don’t think I didn’t go out at all!

Thanks to a tip from my roomie I got a good price on a 3 day Kakadu & Litchfield trip. If people think it’s early to go to Fraser Island leaving at 7.30am they should try going to Kakadu and being at the travel shop at 6am! I’m not really a morning person but I made it. Our trip was awesome! Huge termite mounds were our first stop before even getting to Kakadu National Park. We saw amazing wetlands with different birds. We also walked to wonderful lookouts to look at the view around us. Aboriginal paintings on the rocks were part of our trip as well and our guide Nathaniel was extremely knowledgeable on history, nature and indigenous people’s life, habits and history. For his young age he was a better guide than some older ones I’ve met along the way. It tells quite a lot that he had spent dozens of hours to make a weapon aboriginal people use. After all the sweat we shed on the first day was rewarded on the second day when we spent almost the whole afternoon playing in the water underneath and above waterfalls, nature’s wonderful playground. We also went on a cruise to spot crocs. We did see big crocs straight away, there were plenty of them. We also saw many birds on the way too. I think a jabiru was maybe the greatest of the birds we saw, small kingfisher was probably the cutest. The whole trip was amazing with all the walks, wonderful sceneries, clear fresh waters, all the wild life, didn’t even mind the early mornings or the rain we got on Sunday morning.

I did my first trip to Australia almost nine years ago and I must say that some things never change. You’re in a night club and Bryan Adam’s Summer of 69 starts and everybody is just dancing and singing along. And same happens with 500 miles by the Proclaimers. It’s funny how some things haven’t changed over the years. And you can be sure I was there with everyone else dancing! Can’t remember when I would have been dancing as much as when we went out with the group from Kakadu trip.

If you get a meal deal for $5 you don’t ask questions. You’ll just accept it nicely and happily drink your cold beer and enjoy the food. And no matter how many thoughts you had about going to bed early as your companions did too you can’t deny that cold beer tastes good and another drink won’t hurt, you can still leave just after that. But if you’re out with a Scottish and a Canadian there’s no going to bed early, at least not when a jug of cider is cheaper than a pint! Surely one more won’t hurt. 
 

Even a thought about going back to Noosa and Hervey Bay brought a broad smile on my face and I started to get excited. The thought about going back to something familiar sounds so good. And I’m more than happy to see all those people again, I’ve missed them.

"A hug is like a boomerang - you get it back right away."
- Bil Keane -