Oops, I Probably Shouldn't Have Done That Part Deux

I've been wondering for a while when another episode would occur that would find itself worthy of being written about for you all under this genre. Well it occurred this week at the Billabong Sanctuary.

All was well at the park and it was just another day with nothing too exciting happening. It's been windy lately and we've had some American teenage tour groups come through (including one really smart girl from Tennessee who asked me "What are you? You can't be white, you're too dark. What are you?"), but thats about it.

I had done my morning run, helped out with some shows, and was able to feed all the baby pythons that we have with about twenty of them in all. Then I was asked by one of the rangers to take the extra mice he had dried out from the day before and feed them to the lizards. Here is where things got interesting.

Everything was fine at first, all the smaller lizards were good reptiles and ate their food when served. But last I was told to give the rest of the mice to the Gooey Lizards, also known as the Lace Monitors. These things are best summed up as a smaller version of the Komodo Dragon. They seem very peaceful at first, show no teeth when they first open their mouths, and have long claws and nails. I hadn't really taken much time to stare at them much, but they get up to 6 feet long and can weigh upwards of 75lbs. They're also known for their bacteria they have in those dirty mouths, so look out. I've supplied you all with a picture of the one that bit me.

So there I went to their inclosure to feed them (there are two). I walked up to the side and saw them sitting along the back wall. I took the first mouse--a nice big, fat one--and tossed it in. Now these guys will fight over them so I made sure to grab a second one and hold it up for the other one to see. Once it saw I had another one I began to move my arm to toss it in. Apparently these Gooeys are a hell of a lot quicker than I thought, I am not as quick as I thought, and these guys will climb up on the rocks in their inclosure and jump at the food (only afterwards was I informed that they have quarantined the third one because it keeps escaping).

Anyway, put all those things together and--innocently or not--the bastard bit my hand. Fortunately for me it just was going for the food and did not latch on to my hand and wriggle, which would have broken my hand most likely. Unfortunately I instantly felt a little sharp pain and saw that my hand was bleeding. A lot. As in I have never bled so much in my life. Honestly my first thoughts were "Ow that hurt....oops I'm bleeding...guess I should go wash it off." I did not realize how deep the cuts were at first, but ten minutes later when I was bleeding just as badly I figured something wasn't right.

Fortunately for me again, the rangers at Billabong are awesome and knew exactly what to do. I walked back to the main work area and one ranger immediately cleaned up the wound and got me to apply pressure to try and slow the bleeding. Not even ten minutes later the manager came and said she had already gotten me an appointment at the medical center to deal with my hand. And with that we were off.

I was seen right away at the doctor's office (so much better than at home where I'd probably wait in the ER for an hour), and only then did I see the cuts the Gooey had made--before there was so much blood that I never actually saw the cuts. The nurse there was nice and helped clean my wound, all the while telling me stories of the people she has nursed who eventually died of snake bites. Very comforting. The doctor came in and decided to glue the wound shut instead of stitching up my fingers. I've never had a wound glued before, and it's definitely an interesting way of doing it.

So the past couple of days at the park have been interesting with me only being able to do certain tasks and earning the nickname of the gimp. I've gotten lots of jokes like "The crocodile get ya?" about a thousand times from visitors, and one guy even tried to joke that a koala did it--god help the man who has such a severe bite from that koala.

Last night I was able to take off the bandages and see how the healing process has gone. And when I took the bandages off I actually got my first real good look at how many cuts I had. While my thumb and ring finger were taped up, they were really fine. My middle finger had a nice gash and the glue and blood have coagulated together quite nicely (the glue was purple, hence the color). And my index finger is the real winner: 6 bite lines, three real big gashes, and some ragged teeth marks that will make some awesome scars!

I guess the moral of this story is: when you see a big lizard, just toss the food in from far away. But no worries, shit happens, and now it's a great story with some cool scars on the way. Gotta love the outback! Hazaa!

Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary

I have now been in Townsville for two weeks and have been enjoying my volunteering at the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary just about 15 mins south of town. After two weeks and having gotten a real feel for how the park works and having done most things I thought it a good time to update everyone on what I've been doing.

For starters, if anyone is interested, you can check out the sanctuary's website here:

http://www.billabongsanctuary.com.au/

Billabong is a really great place for people who want to have a hands on experience with animals. They have tons of things there: koalas, wombats, several types of snakes, a cassowary, dozens of other birds such as parrots and cockatoos, crocodiles, kangaroos, bettongs, paddymellons, dingos, and more. If you're not sure what any of those things are, google 'em. People who visit the park are able to get up close to most of those animals and even hold some of them.

I'm staying at this little guesthouse/hostel on the north end of Townsville, and one other person, Emily from the UK, booked this program through Real Gap like me. Each morning the two of us are picked up at 6:30 and drive down to the park so that after saying hello to everyone and getting ready we are off and running by 7am. There are only ten people on staff for the entire park, and not everyone works each day; so, they really depend upon the help of volunteers to get everything done. At 7 we all split into three groups to do "runs." These runs break up the park and our jobs are to clean out the animal enclosures on our run, feed them, and rake the paths where all the leaves have fallen each day. Seems pretty simple, but it does take a couple of hours to complete.

Then at 10 each morning we all take a half-hour break when we relax, grab a snack, and just hang out. Then at 10:30 begin the morning shows. These shows are the koala talk, wombat talk, and reptile talk. One of the rangers usually gives about a 15 minute talk about these animals and then the public has a chance to get their photos taken and handle the animals. For the reptiles, there is usually some type of snake (my favorite is the Scrub Python, longest snake in Australia), a baby croc, a bearded lizard (there are more of these as pets in the US than there are in the wild in all of Australia), and a shingleback lizard (nicknamed the head-butt lizard for the kids; google it to see why). As volunteers we back up the shows, answer any questions is we can, and get to handle the animals and help place them on the heads/shoulders of the public when taking pictures.

After lunch there is another series of shows, but this time there is also a croc feeding, feeding the dingos, and feeding the cassowary as well. As volunteers we may help out with any of these shows, do the food prep for the animals--done during the day so it's ready first thing in the morning, and I actually really enjoy doing it--random maintenance jobs at times, or any other odd job here and there.

Come 3:30 our day is done (which always turns into 4 because things run late) and I head back to my hostel. I'm having an absolute blast doing this project. The people who work at the park are tons of fun to hang out with at work, and we have all gone out for drinks a couple of times as well. It's been a fantastic learning experience too; I love animals and learning about them, and I have taken in heaps of knowledge over the past couple of weeks about animals I've loved for years and ones that I never even knew existed. I've especially loved handling the snakes; guys aim for a 6-pack and She-Hulk, the female Scrub Python, is born with a 220 pack. Pretty awesome.

I promise to get plenty of pictures in the next week or so. There are so many cool animals at this place, and Emily and I (who have quickly become good friends and has made the experience that much better) are planning on making sure we have a free afternoon to go around and get pictures with all the animals. For now it's just enjoying each day of work over the next two weeks while trying to get some sleep each night as I continue to stay up past midnight to watch as much world cup as possible. Maybe someday I'll be smart and go to bed early, but for now I just can't resist.

World Cup Fever

If you read this blog you know how obsessed I am when it comes to sports. So when the biggest sporting event in the world takes place, I'm possibly even more obsessed than I usually am with typical sporting events.

The only issue that has come up is a big one: timing. While back home the games are usually on around 7 or 8 in the morning until later in the afternoon, here the games start at 9:30pm, 12:00am, and 4am. It's not the most convenient block of times, but it's worth losing a little bit of sleep over for the next few weeks.

The best part so far was the first game for the U.S. My friend who is volunteering with me and staying at the same hostel is from England, so we both got up early for our first game and I continued to make jokes about how bad her goalie was when he allowed in that joke of a goal (personally, I think he'd make a great matador). Wake up calls are always at 6am, so usually I have to be in bed by the start of the second game, but if I'm lucky I'll catch the last 10-15mins of the late-late game.

The only sad part so far has been Australia. They lost 4-0, and their best player got a red card. But to be honest, people here would rather watch rugby. I, however, and pumped for our next game in a couple days. It's on at midnight here, and I'll be enjoying each moment knowing it's one less moment of sleep. But hopefully it'll all be worth it.

The End of the Oz Experience

Now that I have arrived in Townsville again for the next program during my travels, I thought I'd take a quick moment to review what I just went through over the past three and a half weeks.

I started all the way down in Gerroa, two hours south of Sydney. I made my way all the way up the coast to Cairns, the equivalent of driving from London to Moscow and basically another road trip like the one I did with Liz back home in the fall (except far too little mini-golf and no trips to Dairy Queen...now I really want a blizzard).

I've walked miles along beaches, seen dolphins, kangaroos, and cassowaries, met people from about a dozen different countries, slept above the bars at hostels, wanted to soon thereafter leave said hostel; I've sat on buses for hours at a time, seen some of the back roads and had a chance to take part in the real rural Australia. I've done touristy things and sat by myself for hours just reading a good book. I've eaten way too much and terribly unhealthy things as well, but I'm glad I've had the chance to taste everything this country has to offer (except for the Vegemite, I could have gone without that nasty stuff). I've gone rafting, jumped out of a plane at 14,000ft and submerged myself 90ft under water while scuba diving the most incredible reef in the world.

At many times I've made a fool of myself and/or been that American guy, but all of those things come along with the journey. I've taken a gazillion photos and written down copious amounts of notes. But most importantly for me and best of all, I've had the time of my life, enjoyed just about every minute of it, and hope to one day have another chance to come back and do it all over again.

Scuuuuuuuuuuuba Diving

At the beginning of my trip in Australia scuba diving wasn't even on my mind to be honest. When I finally got onto the Oz Bus and one of the drivers recommended I do it, I decided to give it a shot. Turns out that was one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I signed up to do a five day course with the Cairns Dive Center, the #1 dive company in Australia. The course involved two days of classroom studies and pool work followed by a three day/two night stay on their live-aboard boat with a chance to dive up to nine times.

The first couple of days were pretty simple. They involved lots of paperwork, watching a dvd of how to scuba dive, and actually doing some homework in answering about 100 questions our study book provided. I did the class along with five others--all around my age--two girls from the UK, one from Germany, and an Italian couple; they were all tons of fun to hang out with and really made the whole experience a blast.

In retrospect it seems kind of crazy that I went from one day having never worn scuba gear to two days later actually being out at the Great Barrier Reef. It's a weird experience being so far under the water and still being able to breathe; it's really like nothing else I've ever done.

We spent two hours on a smaller boat that took us to the live-aboard on our first day, and right after we got there and had lunch it was time to hop into our gear and get going. Practicing in the pool in one thing, actually being out in the water was--to be honest--a little nerve-racking to say the least. Fortunately things couldn't have gone better for me during our first two dives on day one.

However, day two wasn't as kind. Before we are certified divers (after the 4th dive), we are not allowed to go past 18 meters. For the 6am dive on day two, I happened to go to 18.4m. The punishment? A large spoonful of Vegemite. Vegemite is disgusting in small amounts, but a large spoonful that has to be swallowed is just plain wrong. But since I went past the limit (and instead of just saying I couldn't be certified), my instructor made me and two others eat it. It was by far the most vile, disgusting, horrible, nasty taste I have ever experience. It was like rotten fish eggs or something. I managed not to throw up, but I sure came close. Do not ever eat that stuff; I know I'm not.

But the rest of the trip was a blast. The next dive we were certified and have it all captured by a videographer. That night we were able to do a night dive, which not only freaked everyone out at first but also is one of the most surreal experiences I think anyone can ever have. And the next morning we got to do a deep dive--I was 90ft below the surface!

Oh, and there were tons of fish and other animals too. I saw lots of angel fish, butterfly fish, a sting ray, a white-tipped reef shark during the night dive, and we even took a moment to watch a real-life Nemo in an anemone. They are quite defensive of their homes, and luckily for us we even got to see a baby Nemo, which couldn't have been bigger than a fingernail.

So now I'm back from diving, certified and specialized in deep diving, night diving, and navigation whereas less than a week ago I couldn't tell you much anything about scuba diving at all. Incredible when I think about it. And luckily for me Townsville, where I will now be staying for a month, offers a shipwreck dive that is considered one of the top ten dives in the world. So my scuba adventures are only beginning.

15 Random Thoughts So Far

I like lists. Lists are fun. So I thought I'd put together a few random thoughts and things I've noticed on my trip so far that I haven't mentioned. Without further ado...

1) Having been up almost the entirety of the east coast, I still think that the first town I visited--Byron Bay--is the one that I enjoyed the most. Simple hostel, tasty and relaxing restaurants, and the best beach I have walked along for sure. Great sand, dolphin sightings, and clear, blue water.

2) I feel a part of a British Invasion. Almost 75% of backpackers I have met are from the UK, and they all smoke. So I'll probably have cancer by the time I get home from all the second-hand smoke.

3) Australians are obsessed with Subway. They are everywhere. Signs are everywhere. there are even signs that read "Subway, 40m back and across the street" and "Subway, 4km back on the highway." Really, how desperate can people be?

4) Speaking of weird food obsessions, Australians also love McDonald's. They even refer to it as "The American Embassy"...except now Australia has a higher percentage of obese people than America does, so take that Aussies.

5) I've been bitten by bed bugs! I feel like such a backpacker. They itched for a bit and then the bites went away after about ten days. But here's what really bothers me: many hostels and boats that do overnight trips ban sleeping bags because they fear backpackers will carry them. Then the sheets they provide for you have the bedbugs. Those sheets they say are washed and then have long strands of hair on them as you make your bed. Yeah, real clean.

6) Apparently goat meat is the most commonly eaten meat in the world. I was told this at the Kroombit cattle ranch, and I still don't believe it. Maybe I'm just a naive American, but does anyone else think it's a crazy idea?

7) T-shirts here are hilarious. One shirt, instead of saying I (heart) Japan said "I (atomic bomb explosion) Japan." And an Asian man was wearing it too.

8) Most embarrassing moment so far, which happened while meeting a Dutch guy in a hostel:

Him: So, where you from?

Me: The States.

Him: Which one?

Me: The United States.

9) Soap bushes are awesome. Take the leaves, rub them in your hands with water, and tada, you have soap.

10) Signs for Koalas are hilarious. Go ahead and google one. It looks like the Koala is giving you the finger.

11) You cannot see the North Star in the southern hemisphere (which I did not know for the first two weeks here and greatly confused me). Instead they have the Southern Cross, which points to due south. Many Aussies also have it as a tattoo.

12) I met an Irish guy named Paddy. Too perfect.

13) Once on the bus we watched "There's Something about Mary." At the end in particular there are two very American jokes, one about football team rivalries and another about the pronunciation of Brett Farve's name. I laughed loudly at the jokes. No one else did. Not awkward at all.

14) While walking into an internet cafe the man who owned the place, before even saying hello, says "Are you Israeli?" I said no, caught off guard, and he eventually explained that he was expecting a large group of Israeli guys shortly. Sure.

15) I've gone on a reading spree, having read four books over a couple of weeks. Everyone should immediately read The Kite Runner if they haven't, and I would also recommend Khaled Houssini's other book, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which I think is better. Running with Scissors is quite good, and now I've started a kick of reading classics with Of Mice and Men. It's nice to have time to read a lot again.