Week 6

It has been a month since I last wrote. I left Green Turtle Cay off to Nunjack Key. While I was sailing there, my engine overheated. I found that my belt had snapped off from the alternator and water pump, so I had to install a new belt, praying this one wouldn’t break as well. When I pulled up to Nunjack, my engine started having revving problems as it idled. I looked at it and thought, that can wait for later. Then my fresh water wasn’t working, so I couldn’t clean my dishes. Six hours later, I found out I was out of water and had to use my gallon jug to keep from getting dehydrated.

I met my mooring neighbors, Jim and Jean, at Nunjack, and they were concerned that I wasn’t going to make it to Marsh Harbor with this engine problem, so they joined along. I told them that I was going to take the cut but go to the shallows in Don’t Rock on the inside of the bay. We sailed for two hours to the north side of Treasure Key and then anchored in this really cool sandbar. There was a really nice resort that no one stayed at, and I used their outside shower with a heater in it—it was nice. That night, however, the waves came directly from the sea, and it was really rolly. I couldn’t see and maybe got five hours of sleep until it was time to go the next day.

We left early morning to time the tide right and went an hour through Don’t Rock. Everything went perfectly. We ended up in Marsh Harbor, where I would pick up my buddy Joe. Again, when I anchored the boat, the idle was stalling out, and it was a bit concerning. I already changed the air filter—maybe I have to change the fuel filters? I decided to wait until I was in Hope Town because I was going to stay a month over there. Joe flew in, and we hung out that night in Marsh and then went to Hope Town the next day.

When we got to Hope Town, I had no control over the engine. It would stall out and then rev up really quickly, but luckily, I had friends to tow me in with their dinghies. But it shattered my confidence in the boat and myself. For the next five days, Joe and I explored the island and celebrated my birthday week. Once he left, I spent that whole month trying to fix the boat. I checked all the fuel lines, replaced all the filters, and cleaned out the breather, but still, when I went on trial runs, coming back, the boat would stall just slightly. Also, I overheated pulling two dinghies on the side. I then cleaned out the heat exchanger and adjusted the throttle pin, and it appeared to be working fine, but I was still skeptical that it was really fixed.

In Hope Town, though, I had a blast. I was surfing and fishing and spearfishing. I met so many people to go out with and party or go to the beach or go diving—it was an amazing experience. It was really hard for me to leave because it was just so perfect there, but people were saying that I have to keep sailing and going with all the time I have, so I left a month later to Marsh Harbor, where I would meet a mechanic and find out the true problem with my engine.

My engine’s injector valve was worn, and therefore, there was not high pressure in the fuel injectors, causing weak and stalling flows at idle speed. I had the mechanic fix it the next day, and bam—problem solved. Now I am just waiting for my mechanical lift pump, which comes Monday, and I will install that and start heading south with new confidence. I am nervous about this 12-hour crossing to Eleuthera, but it must be done, and my fears conquered.

Thoughts Halfway In:

I have done a journey like this before, and I know how I behave and act. I always think a grand adventure might change who I am as a person, but it just doesn’t. I thought this trip would be an island-hopping oasis where I drank from the coconut trees, speared my food, read books about development, and started building my dreams in my line of work. It has not been that at all. It has been the same thing as my trip overseas.

I just meet new people all the time, and the Bahamas is centralized around drinking, and unfortunately, I love drinking—especially with people. I haven’t been sailing but just been parked in a mooring field like a van is parked in a mobile home park. I just have cheap rent at a nice island resort and spend thousands of dollars on food, drinks, and cigars that turn to piss, shit, and smoke. I wake up from a hangover and continue to have fun just like the night before with my friends—and repeat.

Little things in between I enjoy, like surfing and fishing, but it’s exactly what I do at home with my other friends. Just the scenery is different. This was supposed to be a sober trip, a trip where I traveled and didn’t feel like ass half the time. But no, I haven’t changed—I have way too much fun hanging out with people, and these people love to drink like I do. They don’t mind the hangovers or don’t get them. I don’t even drink that much—I have at max five beers of light beer and still feel down in the morning.

I’ll go for 3–5 days sober, finally feeling normal on day 3, and then day 5 comes—the weekend—where everyone is going out. You should have a beer—let me buy you the first couple rounds so you can join in and have fun. I always join in, and from there, the bender begins throughout the weekend to early week, and I repeat back to sober. This trend has happened this whole trip, and it still happened yesterday and the day before, with me now trying to be sober before my big crossing.

For the next three months, there do need to be goals so I am less bored on days when I have to hunker down because the wind is too strong to move or it’s storming. I need to start designing and planning to build my own home that is sustainable. I have three free months where I do not work, so I should make use of that. I know if I start getting the train going, I will be happy.

It’s amazing when you grow up and have traveled a lot already. You do appreciate the different cultures and scenery, but I know Florida is where my heart is. That is where I like it the most and will be for the rest of my life. A week to three weeks is great to travel, but I am no nomad. I am a man that likes to travel but longs for a nice home to go back to with a dog and one day a wife and family. Being solo is nice because it is supposed to give self-perspective, but I have already done this eight years ago and knew what it would mean to travel again.

I had to do this trip to make my 18-year-old self proud. My 18-year-old self, looking at all the sailboats, dreaming that one day when I’m 30, I’ll travel through the Bahamas with my own sailboat, being powered by the wind.

Yes, my younger self would be streaming with joy to know that I did this—I made it happen—and that is what has made this trip for me the most.

Well, my next goal is on my mind now, and it focuses on Florida and sustainable buildings. I have manifested this dream so much in the past few months that it is my new drive and new vision when I get back home and work again. I also want a dog and want to find a beautiful woman and partner that will share experiences with me and life and be my best friend and partner. I have sacrificed what could have been great relationships for my own selfishness and need to change that immediately when I get home and take a chance at love again.

The pushing away for this go of two years was not good for me, but everything happens for a reason, and I will let myself find love wherever it will be when I get back home. Those are my thoughts while I sit here, bored on a windy day, awaiting one of the last big winds of the season.

Thoughts

I have traveled far and for a while in search of something that makes me understand my place in the world. I have experienced new places, new things, and new people. After 8 months of traveling and being out of my comfort zone I have only learned a few things about myself. One, is that I am a survivor. Put me in any country in the world and a guarantee I’ll probably do just fine. Two is that I need to find a job that makes me happy. I’m debating whether to go into construction as a project manager for a marine construction company or become an environmental engineer. The sea is my home and any project that works on improving beach erosion and restoring estuaries sign me up. If not construction, environmental engineering sounds nice and I know I will make a little less money but will have more of an interest in the subject matter. That brings me to the third thing that I have learned. Money isn’t everything. Why be rich but be miserable for 8-10 hours for five days and then pray for the weekend. Yeah early retirement sounds nice but fuck that.

It blows my mind asking people what do you want to do when you retire and most people will say travel the world. But fucking do it man to see if you actually like it. See what the hypes about. I guarantee you’ll like but you’ll just get used to it like everything else. The high for seeing something new will settle and you’ll start to get the high only time to time on something that is a true magnificent experience. Imagine when that shit hits you when you 60 years old and you’re like damn this is what I really worked for? It could make or break you. And why wait till your old when you travel with ignorance molded deep inside already. Wouldn’t you want to travel when your young like me and meet certain people and certain cultures that change you view on the world itself? Have these experiences shape you into a better person and a wiser human being? Wouldn’t you want that experience for later wisdom in life if you do ever go traveling again? Then you already know what’s up? Even when you do get to travel when your older you don’t even get that culture experience because your rich old ass is staying at the nicest place going to the most touristic areas and doing it all wrong. Go young and go deep. Fucking get in that forest and experience the true culture of each country. Stay at a hostel and meet people with the same motives for experiencing the new and I guarantee you’ll gain something. Place yourself in dodgy situations like I did in Jaipur, India going to the worst slum in the city and hanging out with some real gyspy’s that live on a 15ftx15ft slab with 12 people under one blanket. That’ll open your eyes a little bit. Again, it blows my mind. I think everyone should travel when they are young like the Germans, the French, and the English do. Just see the world and get something from it. Try to find out more about yourself like the three things I found out about myself. Yes they may not be revelations and epiphanies that will forever change me into a new man and all of a sudden I’m Steve Jobs coming back from India. These simple ideas however were something that was always sitting in front of my face and traveling made me realize true happiness isn’t going to be from trips across the earth but something that was sitting right in front of me back home.

I want to work a job that doesn’t want to make me take shots at the club on Friday night and be hungover on Saturday and then dreading Sunday because you work the next day. I want a job where I am like fuck yeah works on Monday. I want a weekend where I’m enjoying life and being out fishing or hunting or picking up a new hobby. Something that betters myself as a person and makes me become closer to becoming what I define successful. Again, all this traveling shit I have been doing and drinking and clubbing I look around and just think there’s more to than this shit man. All I’m doing is pissing out money and hurting my body and losing life. I can’t settle on a job coming back. I have to find the right one. The biggest fear in my life is settling. I have one fucking life and I need to take risks in order to have rewards.

Anyways there’s all my preaching and wisdom I have the capacity to write down and it’s getting pretty late. Unfortunately, there will be no pictures again for this blog. If the people that just enjoy the pictures I take I’m sorry but I’ll take some tomorrow for ya’ll. My writing skills funny enough are still pretty poor after writing so many blogs but whatever man it feels good to get this shit out and reflect on it looking back. Currently now I am in Medillan, Columbia the town Pablo Escobar used to live in. Tomorrow I will tour is mansion and his prison and a few other places. Should be quite the experience. I have 19 more days till I come home. 7 days will be here in Medillan and then 11 days I will be tanning on the beach and relaxing reflecting on my adventures and the experiences I gained from them. Until then so long.

Last Day In Australia

The final day has come. I’m officially moving on from Australia onward to Columbia. I will pass through Hawaii on the way and sleep there for the night and then have another long journey through California, then Texas, to finally Bogota, Columbia. I was first planning on working for a few more weeks to save up enough cash for two months to visit Columbia and then Costa Rica, but the type of work offered to me ran out unfortunately and there was no way I was going to do another shitty backpacker job in Australia. Plus on top of that, my road worthy inspection for my vehicle ended up being horrible and the car need about 3000$ of fixing plus 800$ for registration and then another 400$ for insurance. I bought the car for 2750$ and the thing ran sketchy and overheated so I was like fuck it I’m not driving it until I have to sell it. I was lucky enough to have this job in the middle of nowhere for a month and free accommodation at the place I was working so no need of driving anywhere.

I literally lived where I worked. The guy I worked for was a bipolar dick (just my luck). He was some millionaire that made is fortune in Papa New Guinea off gold mines and the people that I had to hang around with constantly told me the stories of the horrible things he would make these Papa New Guineas do in order to make him extra cash and save. For instance, instead of buying sand from a supplier he would have each worker swim across a crocodile infested river in order to retrieve a bag full a sand and would have to somehow swim and carry this full bag of sand back over without being eaten. Other things they told me on the day of the arrival was that he treats backpackers like shit and the guy that has worked for him for a long time accounts days where he would literally fired people and take all their bags and things and leave them outside to hitchhike. Hearing all this shit I was like okay what the fuck. Why is my fucking luck so shit most of the times and fuck this guy who I’m about to work for. On top of that it was a carpentry/builders job with people that have experience, and the only experience I had was helping the dude nailing shit in by holding shit up. The first couple weeks were great. This madman guy that I was working for was super chill and founded alright if I didn’t know what to do as long as I somewhat got the concept and then figure it out by myself. Then after a two week mark, the man snapped on me one time for not handed him cord for the TV fast enough. I just stared at the man and all these stories flushed into my mind about the guy everyone called a madman tyrant. These episodes with the crew happened about once a day for the next three weeks and the only thing holding me back from snapping on was one, the money I needed bad and two, I had free accommodation and couldn’t drive my car anywhere. The saddest part to all this is the man knew this was both me and this German situation and knew we couldn’t even speak back or else we be thrown out of the job site like the last few backpackers. Within this month I worked there, his loyal right hand man and a good man couldn’t take his shit anymore and just let. Like literally took all his tools from the site on a Sunday and left on Monday with his camper. The next day Mike my bosses name is, just asked me where did he go? since I was the only one working and I just shook my head and played dumb and said I don’t know Mike. The good man never answered any of Mike’s calls that day or week and never heard from him again. Mike eventually found two highly skilled builders with 20-50s experience and the week they were hired was amazing and disappointing at the same time. They were amazing Australian people with wonderful stories and wisdom. The guy that had 50 years experience taught me a lot about building just in a couple days of work and opened my mind on different ways to approach certain things to build. I truly did like what I was doing this last month even know I have never done any of things he asked me to do. I was learning what exactly I wanted to learn though. How to basically build a house from roofing to flooring to timber, electrical, pluming, irrigation, cold rooms, cabinets, and etc. The only bad thing was the dick boss, but I could handle that for sure because everyday I was mind blown on how you actually built this and that. Well the week when the guys got hired was the week where there was no more work for me. The type of work that was being done was required by one individual and really two working on the project would be a waste of money so I saw that side on that. During that week Mike did try to keep me busy and gain me money till the end of the week but Friday after I built my last cooler room for the beer storage Mike unfortunately told me that he has skilled workers now and wished he could keep me but there are no projects in the near weeks that could make him profit and keep me busy. Was Mike a bad guy in the end though. I still think yes. Maybe he had a bit of bipolarness to him and when these ticks came the would go just as fast and he would be smiling again. It was very bizarre to say the least. The man once bought me a smoothie for building a concrete slab for him all by myself in under three hours which was brutal and would say very good to a lot of my shit because it was very good (I had to prove myself to this guy). One thing that made me believe that he’s just a dark man was this. When he said there was no more work for me I was just like Mike I completely understand but can I stay in the hotel till Sunday to figure out what to do with my car and my options. His reply was of course you can but just after tonight you have to pay 70$ a night for this room. The room by the way was a dorm room with four beds in it with mice and cockroaches all in it. Bad guy for sure.

Anyways I’m always looking on the bright side of things and the bright side is the man gave me work and a place to stay for a month and let me work for him even though I didn’t have any skill in the profession. I’m a damn Engineer man not a builder I’ll admit that. Unfortunately Karma’s coming for the middle-aged greedy man because both builders that came in experienced the Wrath of Mike that week and when he walked away they both decided that this job isn’t worth it and won’t be showing up at work on Monday. Even the German I worked with didn’t tell Mike he was leaving on Tuesday which is today back to Germany. I can only imagine how this week is going for him. Don’t yell a people like their worthless ya cunt. With some money saved up I have decided to go to Columbia. While I’m up with cash get out of Australia and go enjoy yourself for your last hoorah of my 8 month journey. The day after I left my old job I posted my camper van online for 700$ and headed back to Cairns to sell. I told myself I would give myself till Monday to sell it or she’s going to the dump. Lucky me, that day I put it on I got 10 messages from people and one guy in particular was in the small town Mareeba that I stopped at for some McDonalds. I told the guy all the problems that wrong with it and etc and he tried to talk me down to 400$. I said to the man my bro I got 10 other people calling and I’m a nice dude practically giving away this car at 700 and the price will not go up or down. The man made a deal and said if he buys the car for 650$ and take me to Cairns a 1.5hr drive would we have a deal. I said deal. So boom now I have an extra bit of cash for this trip and stay in Cairns till today and now I’m at the airport.

For Columbia I don’t know what to expect I hear it’s a beautiful country with beautiful people and a lively culture. My plan is just to meet people in Bogota and then head to Medellin for a week and then for the rest of my trip chill in a bungalow by the beach with a pine colada in my hand reflecting on my travels. A true vacation after a long vacation. Three weeks no more no less and then back to the greatest country in the world and unarguably one of the best states, Florida.

Here some pictures though Australia was amazing with nature and stuff:

Australia In Words

Hello good people of the world it has been awhile. I have been in Australia for almost two months now and I have been grinding for the past month. When I got over here I needed a job asap. I found a job just outside of Sydney for a company that seemed promising and I bought a campervan to live in while working. Well the company was shit in the end and bit me in the ass, and I worked one day for that company and quit. The reason? Well they lied about day shifts on the interview and put me on a night shift. The night shift was from 5pm at night to 7am in the morning with no dinner break. Straight 14 hours of work and it was all bullshit. No one knew what to do. They tried to get me to drive an 18 wheeler that was manual and I was like I can’t do that shit I have never driven an 18 wheeler and just started to learn stick. Everyone was just standing around and a 6 hour day turned into a 14 hour day. So when that happened and I quit, I freaked out. I was down money and had this damn campervan. Luckily enough I landed a job with this other construction company out in Parramatta, a 30 minute drive from Sydney.

The company was small and focused on structural construction of condos. When I heard about this I was like perfect. I am an engineer that wants to learn about the construction side of things and be hands on with the process. They said I would be helping the foreman in anything he needs, and the job site that I will be on has just started last month. I said to myself finally a job that I can do for a couple months and learn what I need to learn. Well so I thought. I worked for this company for a little over three weeks, six days a week. I did hardcore labor, and I mean hardcore. I was lifting 200 lbs of steel every day for hours on end, and digging massive trenches to expose the capping beam. Digging these trenches was extra hard because the soil in Australia is all clay. Every day for three weeks my arms and legs would bleed from rubbing rebar and my back would be sore from moving massive amounts of dirt. I cleaned everyone’s trash on site and was basically the bitch. I learned nothing about building and that was a problem. All I saw was how things were being built like as I saw when I was an engineer. The only difference is I was doing bitch work while watching and being an engineer you just watch. I had to leave this joint but was forced to stay because of money issues so hints the three weeks of work. I have made no friends for these past few weeks because I have been working constantly and I have no time since I can only shower at the gym because I live in a camper van. Good news though is that I have saved a couple grand and plan on traveling up the east coast of Australia from Sydney to the Gold Coast. Sydney is just not the place for me. Too much like New York and not laid back at all. No hospitality and the beaches are just alright. I want the true Australian experience and I think Gold Coast is that place.

My campervan is a little bitch. She was running pretty the first week I bought her and started growling at me after. Me learning stick shift didn’t help and her having 340000km on her didn’t help either. The van is a 1998 toyota townace. I picked it up from a surfer bro in Sydney leaving for Germany. I told him my situation and asked to please not fuck me on this deal and tell me she drives good and she won’t break down. He said she drives good and you should have no worries. Well for a week she did and then I had to change the oil and fix the clutch. That set me back about 800 dollars and now the battery light is on the day before I head on my adventure up north. The engine also overheats a lot and the coolant runs out quick. The mechanic tells me it’s just because it’s old. What the fuck kind of mechanic answer is that. Anyways hopefully she makes it up there tomorrow I might buy a new battery in the next town.

So now I am currently at a hostel. I have finally found power to charge my Mac and type this shit out. You’d be surprised what you don’t have when you live in a campervan. The biggest thing is a toilet. Every morning I wake up at 6am at some soccer field park and the restroom facilities are locked till 8am. So I have to hold in my shit and piss till work at 7am. You have no idea how hard that can be some days and some nights. The second thing is electricity. For some reason there are no outlets anywhere in parks in Sydney. I don’t know why. When I get home from work there is literally no place to charge my shit other than my car. Well you might say, why don’t you just go to the library or go to some fast food place to charge your shit for an hour or so. I’ll tell you why. It is because I work 8-10 hours a day doing hardcore lifting. Then I have to drive 10 km to my gym to shower and workout, if I have enough strength. Then I have to go to the grocery store every two days to restock up on ice and food and then cook the food and then finally its 9pm at night I have to be asleep by 10pm to get 8 hours rest for work. Time is the bitch in this case and I cannot go a day without showering because I’m filthy after work. To solve this electricity problem I have bought a marine battery and a solar power set up system costing me 350 dollars. Unfortunately solar sucks ass and it takes 72 hours to charge the battery I have so on 4 hours of direct sunlight I get 30 percent battery charge out of my phone from this battery. Sydney is clouded as fuck too and parking under direct sunlight is near impossible with all the trees. 350 dollars I think is wasted with that. The last thing with a campervan is uncontrolled temperatures. It gets down to 50 degrees at night now and I am freezing my butt off. I have to get some extra blankets or something else to control the temperature.

Nature I have not seen that much and hopefully I will see some more on my journey up to the Gold Coast. I have been to the beaches here in Sydney and they are not as good as Florida beaches. Everything I have taken advantage of in Florida I have started to realize coming here to Australia. Everything that you hear about a country I am starting to understand is over exaggerated. I will tell you one thing though. The views at the national parks I have been to are stunning.

The Big Drive:

I have made my way up to Coff’s Harbor from Sydney. My engine sounded fucked the next day after I left the hostel plus I had a massive hangover on top of that for the first stretch. Can you blame me for the hangover though? I made first contact with people my age and like me traveling, and they were all drinking! Plus, I was trying to find a candidate that would travel with me on this voyage but no luck with that. Anyways, the first day was rough. My google maps was not working properly and took me on a scary route into the heart of Sydney. I was driving stick on a messed up high revving engine in the middle of skyscrapers and taxis on a hangover. I was freaking out! Plus, I had to look down at my phone every five seconds to see the blue lined route of roads I had to turn on because google maps couldn’t find me for some reason in the world. Luckily after 30 minutes I escaped the city and was onto this place called Cave Beach. It was a small town that looked like a good resting point for me. In agony for two hours on this drive from my headache I finally made it, but when I started to slow my speed down off the Pacific Highway my engine was screaming with high revs like I was flooring it. It did this all the way to Cave Beach parking lot and then I turned it off and the thing kept rumbling and going, trying to get all the gas out. I middle age man came up concerned and tried to check to see what the problem was. I told him it could be my battery causing it because the same day I took it into the auto store seeing why my battery light was on and they said it was all good, just needs a recharge (meaning your alternator isn’t working right). The dude said no it’s probably your timing belt and took a look at it and said I don’t know take it in to a mechanic and see what they say tomorrow. So with all this bad news I decided to relax on the beach all night and wait for the morning, bring out the ukulele and chill my mind.

In the morning, I decided to clear my mind on top of the night before, and woke up for the sunset and did some yoga on the beach. That shit helped a lot and I was like alright fantastic let’s go to the mechanic. I called one mechanic that said he would check it out and went there and we looked and I told him everything that was going wrong and in the end he told me I had a blown gasket! My heart sunk and I thought my journey was over but I told the mechanic there’s no way I checked the oil and it looks good and check the gaskets yesterday and looked for stuff in the coolant. Everything was clean. The guy even did a chemical test on the radiator to make sure and the blue stuff didn’t change color meaning no blown gasket. I decided to take a chance and try to make it up to Port Macquarie, a two hour drive up north. I thought well if it’s fucked it’s fucked and I can’t fix nor sell her so what the hell. The whole time driving the engine was revving and I pulled over once to cool the engine down, fill her back up, and keep on going. I then stopped for gas on a quarter tank left and started to get going again and the engine didn’t turn on. Like the auto store guy said, the alternator isn’t charging the battery. I was literally in the middle of nowhere and fucked with no jumper cables. I saw this dude next to me pumping and I said, “hey man you mind rolling me down that little hill so I can jump start it in second?” The good man said yes and boom she was back running again. I made a decision that I had to get the alternator fixed that day or at least recharge my battery so I stopped in this boon dock town by a river and took it to an electrician mechanic. Guy took out my battery and charged it and then took out my alternator to see that the brushes were completely wore down. The mate gave me new brushes in the alternator and tada I was driving again and my engine finally sounded normal like she did the first day I got her.

I have made it now to Coffs Harbor and slept by the beaches on my way up. Each time the beaches have been getting better and today the beach I went to was aweing. This was what I was looking for in Australia and hope has been restored. Money is a little down more than I like obviously with these fixes but I am determined to make it up to Gold Coast and surf the waves and wakeboard the rivers and meet some awesome people. There I will find something sweet and true. I know it. More pictures will be added to the next blog and it will be more soon I promise. Again this blog is just a reflection of my travels in the most general ways and sorry this shit’s 2100 words. Till next time.

Much Further Down The Road:

Holy shit, I have jumped on my computer reading this old shit that I have typed out and never posted on WordPress. I am deeply sorry for the readers of this blog but shit man this journey has been no other than a fucking journey. Alright let me tell you the rest of my story till the point of now. I went up the east coast all right, all the way up to Byron Bay. I was worn down from my journey from Sydney and thought I’d found home. I landed at a hostel named The Arts Factory Lounge. It was a hippie oasis for the stoners and the wanderlust minds of individuals to live in the present and not live in the future. I could dig it but I couldn’t do it. This place was unique with hundreds of tents and individuals my age, older and younger just living life day by day and slowing it down. The average individual at this camp I would rather call it, would wake up and bake. Sit for hours on end and maybe, just maybe head out of the hostel to the beach and relax. Come back to the hostel, cook some dinner, smoke some more or do shrooms and await the same day. This life style wasn’t me. Especially every day. I want to do something with my time and some days, yes, some days I will do absolutely nothing like this but not every day. The hostel was booked full every night with nowhere to park. I was that sketchy guy that walked in like he lived in the place well in fact just parked down the road behind a dumpster and slept in my van. Hey it beat 20 dollars a night for just parking, and in Byron Bay you get a ticket sleeping in your van on the side of the road, but not this guy. I stayed in Byron Bay for two weeks and heard the words of the stoners that Gold Coast was no good and a waste of time to live. I couldn’t find a job in Byron Bay though nor did I like the lifestyle living there knowing it would only affect me badly, so I decided to drive again 2 hours north to the Gold Coast.

Gold Coast was indeed crap. I am sorry whoever lives there and probably could argue there are some sweet spots that only the locals know but again I am a Florida boy. I put my ad on gumtree on about how I was an engineer and I have worked in construction and etc. and then I thought to myself what the fuck am I doing. This whole time I have been surviving and struggling in Australia and I am settling down in a crappy town trying again to find a crappy job. Scared as fuck about my shitty van I sat quietly in a park mid-day on my bed, weighing out my options. I was seriously scared shitless about heading up north to Cairns and the 24 hour journey ahead of me because I’m only going 80km/hr in this van and the consequences I will suffer if I break down. It took two hours for me to decide and I said fuck and decided to go the route, go big or go home. I went fucking big. I drove those 24 hours and the van purred the whole way up. I drove 6 hours a day for four days straight and finally made it up to Cairns with 2000 of aus dollars that I still had in the bank. Filled with euphoria and goodwill I set on a journey to find a job within a week or else my time is done in this country and I have done the best I could making my time in Australia. I luckily landed a job in a small town named Dimbulah 100 plus kilometers west from Cairns in the start of the Outback. City population of 500 people. The town is small and relaxed and I am working on a job as a carpenter renovating an old hotel into a hostel for a millionaire. My boss acts like a tyrant making his riches from Papa New Guinea on gold mines run by aboriginals. He still acts like he did back when he ran a gold mine and treats people as peasants and only is there for his own self gain. It is very fascinating for me to watch this man and hear some of the words that come out of his mouth when the project isn’t running smoothly. The way he treats people is off putting and he himself has raised questionable words with me but retreats most of his anguish knowing I am more than a weary traveler eager for pay. The work however is pleasing to me because I am learning and relearning the ways of building a house. Something I’ve always dreamed of knowing how to build and what goes into it. Also, I am staying in one of the rooms of the hotel and using the kitchen anytime that I please which is a big step up from what I was doing.

Living out here has been relaxing and nice. The people out here live simple lives and enjoy good company. I have heard great stories from the locals at the bar and feel like I’m living amongst true Aussies. I will continue doing this work for a month or two, and then head to Columbia in South America. Australia has not been what I hoped for. I pictured myself with a great paying job and cool aussie friends hanging out after 7 hour work day on the beach with a beer after a nice surf sesh. Instead I have gotten 10 hour work days with very few friends and 100 km from the beach. In life you have to try things to see the true meaning behind it or else you never know. I am glad I have came here and I have tried, but Australia is no place for me and in a couple months from now I will try my luck elsewhere. What I have learned from this experience? that I am great at surviving and believe in myself in the worst times. I know that I am a great person, that is nice and kind and tries to be the best person that I can be no matter the influence. You are who you are and can be what you want to be because you are everything that you think, control, act, know, and want to become. I have faith in myself because I know myself and I know no matter what happens I will always find a way. Take the road unknown from that of a highway you might find something you never known and might find more that you have known about yourself. Till next time.