Tuesday 5 May 2015

Birthday and that.

The great thing about traveling is that you start to appreciate the small things - a clean t-shirt, a mattress, not living in a fucking tent. Yes, I've finally hauled myself out of the tent and got myself a cabin. I'll miss the tent in a way, especially at night, but it's nice to be able to sleep on a mattress rather than a bit of rubble.

The cabin now means I can organise my clothes. I'm still wearing the gear I bought from Primark before traveling which includes generic t-shirts and daft Hawaiian shorts. The shorts in particular have been subject to much derision from fellow travelers for their flowery patterns. I only expected to wear this shite in Thailand but hey-ho, here I am 7 months later looking like a reject from Miami Vice, or Scarface, or something else from the 80s.

The cabin gets pretty hot during the day which  is kind of like saying the surface of the sun is lukewarm. I once went inside the cabin in the afternoon and my face melted off. I don't care though I'm just giddy to have 4 walls again.

'twas my birthday last week. I turned 30. 30! I wondered what a birthday in Tully might be like? Would I visit the Gumboot? Head over to Alligators Nest (false advertising, if I ever saw some)? Climb the mountain?

Naaaaah, I got drunk at the beach. Yay. I got on it at about lunchtime and didn't stop until I had no concept of time anymore due to alcohol poisoning. It was great. We stayed at the beach until about 3 and then headed back to the caravan park. The guys I'm traveling with all made a big effort to make my birthday in Tully great which I'm really thankful for. I got some interesting gifts including a box of crunchy nut cornflakes, a kind of broccoli and green bean flower bunch, and a ukulele. Getting a gift like a ukulele is great although because it's a gift there is pressure to actually learn that shit. I've tried to learn guitar a few times in my life but normally give up when I can't play a Led Zeppelin tune within a week. I'm going to try and take baby steps learning the ukulele but it's a bit shit at the start. You have to learn to strum and tune your ukulele.Yawn. Ah well, it's not like there's anything else to do in this place is it?

After the gifts I was serenaded by some other people at the caravan site. I didn't know most of them but they still came over and sung happy birthday to me. I don't know what tipped them off? Maybe the big flashing badge I was wearing that said 'Happy 30th, birthday boy'. One guy took the opportunity to sing happy birthday to me on his own. He has one of those x-factor/boy band type voices and sings Man in the Mirror everyday in the kitchen. It was flattering but a little weird and being the socially awkward goon I am I kind of squirmed whilst trying to look like I enjoyed it. Fair play to the guy though, he powered through and I gave him a hug afterwards.

I think the day after we climbed the mountain. The days in Tully blur into each other so I'm not actually sure of the time-frame. I exhibited 4 out of the 5 symptoms of a heart attack whilst climbing up but it was totally worth it. The views were stunning and it wasn't too dissimilar from looking out over the Ilkley Moors. It was a nice moment only temporarily obscured when one of our lot did a big fart when another group of hikers arrived at the top.Climbing the mountain means we have officially done everything in Tully there is to do, I'm amazed it took 3 weeks to be honest.

During this time I lived in an unreality bubble. In this bubble I didn't care about jumping, or a job, or money. It was quite refreshing to forget about that stuff, at least for a few days. On the Saturday we went back to the beach but decided to camp out there for the night. I wasn't convinced I was going to stay there the night so I was completely unprepared, but when we arrived and started a fire I just knew I couldn't leave. It was ridiculously picturesque with the moonlight reflecting in the sea and marshmallows roasting on the fire.

There was a sour incident involving garlic source however. I'd been drinking gin for a couple of hours and when we were cooking food I was holding a torch so the people making the food could see. I'd been standing there like a pleb in a gin fog holding a torch and when it came to my burger someone slathered garlic sauce all over it. In my mind this was act of war and so I ranted and raved for a couple of minutes. There was an awkward silence in the group and I was worried I'd ruined this insanely good evening, luckily things got back on track a bit later.I'm not allowed to have gin anymore.

We slept at the beach that evening, our fire keeping us warm through the night. It was marvelous but I'm still shaking sand out from every orifice.

On a completely unrelated note, Oliver, a lad I used to work with in Melbourne messaged me on Facebook saying I look like Bron from Game of Thrones. The cheeky, grime loving, Coventry bastard.This is the same lad who told me about "drop bears", which fooled old Browney, and when I started warning other people about them they explained to me it's BS, like tartan colored paint.

I got the body armor as a birthday gift.


























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