my last blog entry

after noosa, i made a quick 2 night stop in hippie-ville/byron bay. the first few hours were less than stellar. my roommates were nice, but not friendly. so i was just kinda doing my own thing. i started off to a bar w/ live music and this dude came up to me and asked if i hit his friend. he seemed nice enough and believed me when i laughed at the accusation. then he said, "just keep walking". surrounded by 5 dudes, i took his advice. then this drunk-ass gets in my face and asked why i hit him and why i was all "chinese" with him. reasoning w/ him wasn't working, so i asked his friends to hold him back so i could finally get to the bar. they did that twice, but both times he got away and back in my face. now, do you really want to fight a guy who can hardly stand and are his friends who manage to surround me each time gonna join in? i eventually convinced his friends to hold him back so i could inch closer to the bar. when i got there, he didn't follow me in. phew! sure wasn't expecting that. i wasn't worried about the drunk guy, but i had no idea what all his friends were going to do. i'm fearing the backlash of comments for this story, though.... ("you should have hit him you wimp!!!"...)

but only a couple hours later, things picked up. i met two really cool irish chicks and basically spent the rest of my time in byron w/ them.


we went to the bar until 3am the first night and played some really really bad pool. and check out the mixed signals i got:



despite not going to bed until 3:30am, i was up @ 7am looking to do this mtn biking tour. all booked up. canoe tour? canceled. so i worked a bit and then went for a quick hike to this lighthouse that had an amazing view. so many beaches w/ no one on them:


and seeing the waves basically forced me to fo surfing. you didn't expect me to hold out this WHOLE time i was here? so i went for a little surf session. sure missed my wetsuit! shoulder doesn't feel any worse, so that's good.

now, if you are under 18 or one of my parents, aunts, uncles, this is where you stop reading. seriously. the trip is over. stop reading. mom, i mean it! STOP!!!! grant? no chance. move on buddy. now sammy, if you are reading this, that's amazing. most kids don't read before they are 2. so giddy up if you are.

onwards. (mom, i'm serious! stop reading!) for my last day in hippie-ville, the irish connection & i took a tour named, "jim's alternative tours". (mom, seriously. stop!) basically, this was a "go to a town to buy pot cookies & travel around to strange places and listen to good music" type of tour.


here's us with our cookies. i ended up eating four. 1/2 was supposed to work, but it didn't. but i tell ya, 4 certainly did. (mom, i warned you to stop reading!)


this town (nimbin) basically survives on tourists buying pot & stupid nicknacks. there's even a political party dedicated to making pot legal. and that's their only agenda. of course, if they make it legal, then no one is gonna take this tour. i don't think they thought that far ahead, though. wonder why? also included in this town was a "design room":


i'm not sure why it was closed on this big shopping day, but i think there was something really stellar in it. i'll have to do this tour again....

they also let us tour a free museum. i can't tell you how upset i'd be if i paid for this tour. it was basically like touring a college dorm room decorated by drunk hippies.


then we took a trip to the bus driver's friend's house. he's described as the "biggest dirt bag alive". it was an accurate description. when he started ranting about how how all animals have the same intelligence, i knew we were in trouble. i kept wondering how this could be part of a tour! but then the cookies started kicking in and just about anything was entertaining. pictured is this remote shack where we ate fruits & nuts. it's like the driver expected us to have the munchies or something...



and i have to admit, the drive on the bus was awesome. driving through the forest listening to good music and, umm.... having the influence of a few cookies.


i don't think it's possible for me to write down the bizarre thoughts & feelings i was experiencing. besides, i can't get my mom to stop reading this blog entry and that might freak her out even more. at one point, the driver put on "one of these days" by pink floyd and timed the decent of this one hill perfectly. at the end, he was so happy, he practically jumped out of his seat and said, "YES!!!!" i have to admit, it was pretty cool.
here's a quick video clip:
drugs and bus ride

now i'm sitting at a hostel waiting to catch a bus to the airport and i'm faced with a serious dilemma. see the picture below:


you know where i'm going with this. should i take that dollar or not? i mean, they are going to clear out these notes & stuff eventually. and who's going to use an american dollar here? should i take it and buy myself something nice? decisions..... let's start placing bets on whether or not i take it....

thanks for reading my blog! i hope ya'll enjoyed it! i'm getting on the plane in 3 hours! :(

a time to mourn: tragedy strikes freeman...

as many of you have no doubt come to suspect, i go just about everywhere w/ my little travel companion. traveling w/ this little guy makes people stare & wonder what's wrong with me, but i don't care. he's responsible for many of my pictures here and is dear to my heart. on this trip, he's fallen out of my bag and down a flight of stairs, sat with me in the rain while i check email and still always hung in there. i should have known that the calm before the storm was going to yield terrible results. i dare not post his picture here as it will be hard for many of you to stomach. but if you must see the devastation i've suffered, here it is. who'd of thought a backpack buckle could be so ruthless?

picture of destruction

now, on to some brighter things....


while in mackay, i met two classic blokes. "yeee.... aye beeen to californya. it ain't that good. mickey mouse has no dick. minnie mouse has small tits. it sucked."

so after 3 beers & two hours w/ these guys, it was time to move on.

i did a 3 day tour of frasier island. here's me climbing a vine.


this was a really strange plant. it grows out of the side of trees and gets nutrients from rotten leaves that it catches. really weird!


this is also weird. these vines start from the top & then grow down. over the course of 100 years, the tree becomes completely covered up. it then dies and the vine continues to live for another 100 years. during last 100 years, the tree rots away leaving a totally hollow center.


back in the day, the japanese purchased an old cruise liner to use for scrap metal. a storm hit while they were towing it and the boat was washed on shore. there were a bunch of funny stories about the passengers not knowing where they were and refusing to get off the boat as they thought the aboriginals were cannibals, etc.


this was a really cool hike. in the span of 10 feet, you could find around 6 different colors of sand. then over the hill in this picture, the rainforest started. one minute you are on the set of spaceballs, the next you are on the set of rambo. kind of a strange thing to think about while hiking, i suppose....


while on one of my hikes, someone spotted an eel. so we got in the creek and took his picture. they don't bite, right?


spelling your name in the sand? damn..... he's a freakin crab and he acts like he's never been to the beach before...


this is what i look like to a fish. or a crab underwater, i suppose....


after my 3 day frasier island tour. i wanted to do a 3 day canoe tour of the noosa everglades. but since i'm out of time, i had to join the rest of the local senior citizens and take a "cruise". i guess there are worse things. but for the first time in my trip, i saw some bathroom air freshener. so being the white trash guy that i am, i decided to freshen up my shoes. you call it cheap, i call it resourceful. anyway, here are some pictures i got from my cruise:





my trip is basically over. :( i've got 2-3 days to get to sydney to catch my flight home. i'm going to stop at byron bay for a day to hang w/ all the hippies and then catch an overnight bus to sydney. i feel like i've just wet my mouth and i'm going to need to do this all over again a little more thoroughly. i'm thinking i need a year.... who's with me?

see ya'll soon!

a 'nothing has happened since the last post' post

no yongala dive for me!

it's apparently still too windy, so the world best shipwreck dive will have to be seen on another trip. the best chance to get out there is from the lovely town of ayr. (sarcasm about the town being lovely.) i left what was basically a beach resort to come to this hostel: (crab pictured)



seeing the in-town dump behind the sign didn't give me the best feeling in the world. so i sprung for a hotel. before you get too impressed w/ my spending spree, it was only 30 australian dollars. now i know why this city isn't in my tourist book. anyway, i just worked the last 2 days waiting for the dive to hopefully not get canceled. now that it's been canceled, i figure i'll throw out some blog entry that has some of the pictures i wanted to put up before.

here is a "teeny weeny" shark:


i'm not sure why he thinks it's so funny to take pictures of sleeping people, but Mr Crabs is at it again... these were taken on the way to the reef.


close up of the reef. the little fish didn't photograph well, but they were actually one of my favorite parts of the dive.


after a long night (was in the video clip from previous post), the hung over skipper needed a break. so Mr Crabs took over. that little shit gets everything he wants. drive the boat? no problem? take pictures w/ girls? sure! and did he offer to pay for part of the reef trip? no.... i'm telling you, don't get a pet crab. they're a pain.



on the way back from the dive, these rocket scientists held on to the back of the boat while we took off. the guys in the back did get a little bit of a show, i must admit. normally, i wouldn't post nudity on my blog, but this case seemed like a good exception.


see, i work!!! (yes, the crab is in this one)


while on magnetic island, Mr Crabs & i took a hike. this was a lookout post built for WWII in case the japanese invaded.


this looks like a scene straight out of the game Myst. Mr Crabs is prolly tough to spot.... this area is where the aussies would have shot from had they had something to shoot at.


here's a quick collage of a few people Mr Crabs has run into....


i arrived in mackay pretty late and every hotel/motel/hostel was booked. so i stayed a few kilometers out of town in the plush hotel. check out my view:


tomorrow, i'm off to brisbane where i should have some more stories for you. i've just been working lately since the weather hasn't cooperated for diving or sailing. can't believe my trip is almost over!

cairns baby! f'in cairns!!!!

i got into cairns a few days ago and then hopped on a boat to dive for 4 days at the barrier reef. and to keep my audience happy, the first thing i did when i got to cairns was to find some free internet access. and look at the name of the wireless lan at the bottom:


what's funny about that picture is that it had "2" at the end.... meaning that someone somewhere probably had the original name. i didn't spend time looking for it. sorry.... but i had a blast in cairns & met some really fun people. this was the best part of my trip so far. my advice to you, my loyal subscribers, is to skip sydney all together and just go straight to cairns! well, i supposed a day in sydney won't kill you.

anyway, onto the dive pictures. i meant to bring Mr Crabs down, but i just never did. sorry. maybe on my next dive. you'd think a crab would be anxious to get in the water, but he just wanted to hang out in my room all day. here are some dive pictures for ya:





me being my usual serious self:



this is probably my best do-it-yourself picture ever:


found this guy sleeping. we ended up chasing him around a bit. pretty smart, no? i just had the best group of people to dive with. sure made the trip that much better. eddie kicked ass.


on the 2nd night, everyone was really beat. i almost fell asleep at 9pm. it was supposed to be a mellow evening. "just one beer." but then we managed to somehow stay awake until the bar closed. and what do you know? we opened the bar for ourselves! as you can see, i'm not very good at pouring beer: (but this was after quite a few beers...)


i kinda thought we might get in a little trouble for opening the bar, but then i realized that we were drinking with the skipper of the boat. just b/c he's passed out here doesn't mean we should close the bar, does it?


the skipper also instigated "suicide" shots. you snort salt, squirt lime in your eyes and then do a shot of tequila. austrailians are really crazy. seriously. since eddie represented the USA, i didn't have to do a suicide shot. pictured here is jordan doing a fine job of representing canda, eh?


all of us were eventually out done by "rob the chef" who snorted cheyanne (sp?) pepper instead of salt. he also opened his eye really wide and put tons of lime juice in it. later that night, he apparently got naked and ran into some of the crews rooms. and yes, he was the boat's chef. this night got really ugly. remembering what happened last time i stayed awake too long, i decided to go to bed @ 5:30AM. we were jumping off the top deck of the boat, some people went for a drunken night dive and general disarray was left where ever we went. the funny part about this night was that the group actually got larger as the night progressed. i guess our noise was waking people up. rob the chef woke up @ 1am to get a snack and immediately caught up w/ our drunken state. the camera guy (dave) did the same around 2am. we had an absolutely great time. and epic night for the books.

here's a quick video for ya.

i'll be in townsville (magnetic island actually) and will be doing the SS yongala dive tomorrow (pose to be the best dive in oz) and then i'm off to mackay to sail around whitsundays. i'm not sure about the 'net access at any of these places, so i'll update the blog when i can.

cairns baby!!!! f'in cairns!!!!!

miss you all! and congrats to the dball team for opening a can of....

still not in cairns!

several people have requested that i update my blog more often. i really haven't done much since the last one since i've been working in sydney. but i got a few things i can throw up here. i leave tomorrow for a couple hour flight to cairns. then i fly south after a few days of diving. of course, i seemed to have misplaced my diving padi card. doh!! we'll see if they let me dive anyway. i have flights to return me to sydney for the last week of my trip, but i'm going to ditch those and take a bus to hit all the small towns. smaller towns & nature hikes are way more fun.

so this pic was in the blue mountains. this band was super fun. check out what the lead singer has in his hand....


and this chick had no idea where Mr Crabs has been!


in the blue mountains, we hitch hiked to some cool hiking trails. Mr Crabs is hitchhiking too. see his claw raise a bit? i'm surprised he didn't get run over... most people don't look for crabs in the street when driving in the mountains....


this was another really cool hike where you scale the wall of the cliff. i don't know how many stairs i've climbed during my blue mountain stay, but it's several thousand....



this german dude took the crab a bit too seriously. i mean, using an SLR to take his picture? overkill.


"sweet nectar of gods! mana from heaven!!!!!"


Mr Crabs (in left hand) accompanied me to the shark tank. this was really freakin cool. the sharks get so close to you. as in, 4-5 inches. you can see their nasty little beedy eyes. no cage. no protection. and since i dove on a sunday, that means that was the longest time they had gone w/o eating. (they eat MWF.) the scary thing is that they swim right behind you without you knowing. they don't seem to make a lot of noise. i turned around once and the dude was like a foot away from me swimming towards me. Mr Crabs almost shit in his little plastic water bag.... he's so brave w/ kangaroos & random chicks, but when it gets down to it, he's no more human than the rest of us.


off to cairns tomorrow!!! send me emails or comment on the blog! i love hearing from you all! and if you don't have a blog account, you can still leave a comment by selecting "other" and entering a cute little name. you know, like "wyld stallions", etc... :)

see you all soon! wait, maybe not that soon. :) and go support my dodge ball team this thursday!!!!