If You're a Tourist and You Know It, Clap Your Hands....

Lushness Galore

At least put a conditioning treatment through your beard love

I had a few moments over the last week that made me wonder for the love of god why I ever left Byron Bay.  But then I'd go shopping at the IGA in the industrial estate, scope the clientele and wonder no longer.  No offence....sort of.....But those long, long grey locks could really benefit from a trim and some Nice 'N Easy.  Plus it's now time to overhaul the wardrobe you took acid in during the 60s.  Just saying.  Not that I'm condoning frocking up to go and buy a barbecue chicken, but it's obviously been the outfit of choice for quite a few tie-dyed years.  Luckily tie-dye has made a resurfacing I guess, but regardless, it's not a recommended choice to wait out 30 years in the same clothes until they come back into vogue.

Keep waiting out the age of Aquarius dudes

Happy in the sunshine

The weather was bullshit.  That's another factor that makes me doubt my mental factor for shacking up in Melbourne during July/August.  But come summer when your house in the Byron Hinterlands floods again, the mould grows thick on your favourite cowboy boots, while driving into the township risks death by drowning - you just want some relief for fuck's sake.  Nothing beats the sheer natural beauty of the place though.  So incredible that it takes your breath away every time with out fail.  And if you manage to be blase about your surrounding environment, whales and dolphins will jump up from everywhere going "How about NOW??? Does this finally impress you, you jaded cunt??"  I'm sure all the wildlife call us "cunt" by the way.  Wouldn't you?

Unpaid babysitters are the best kind of babysitters

Shattered first thing Monday

I had a bloody great time over the last week that was for sure.  Party because my parents were there footing the bill and looking after the rat pack, and partly because I swanned around like I owned the place, chiefly pissed.  But mostly, because I got to hang out with old friends that I miss and indulge in my all time favourite past-time - talking shit.  Life was good.  In fact you know you're having a good time when you find yourself standing on the beach on a Monday morning retarded on champagne and stuffed full of almond croissants from the gourmet french patisserie.

The Calvenator

Kundy Kunds and Tanika

Splish Splash

I did touristy things as well.  That's always a novel approach when you go back to your former hometown when you basically did jack for years because you were too broke, and/or lazy as shit.  I took a nausea inducing boat ride to the middle of the ocean to watch whales leap out of the water about 10 metres away from my face.  Apparently no-one really knows why whales breech.  Theories abound, about them trying to shake off parasites, scratch an itch, or communicate better.  But I know why they really do it.  To call us "cunts" to our face of course - it can be hard to hear abuse shouted underwater, as we all know from when we used to scream "fuck you shit poo dickface" to our mums while submerged in the bath.  I was a warm, loving, and respectful child.

I look like I'm loving it.  I am not.

I also jumped out of a plane with my father.  This is something I am not getting over in a hurry, so take this as warning to anyone who chooses to hang out with me in person in the next month - this is all I am going to be talking about, and you will have to sit through a DVD and photos that encapsulate my terror from every angle.  And yes indeed, there was terror.  Jumping out the door of a plane 14 000 feet above the ground goes against everything you know to be be acceptable behaviour for prolonging longevity.  The sensation of falling at 200kmph to your death is so ridiculously shocking that you actually kid yourself you are having the time of your life.  The feeling when the parachute is released, and instead of dropping like a rock to a gruesome and bloody death, you are floating peacefully high in the sky soaking up the beauty of the environment is like the greatest thing that has ever happened to you.  Luckily I didn't crap myself in terror, as I had already started my poos of panic at 5am that morning after a particularly bad nightmare about jumping to my death with a bogan instructor who had never done a tandem jump before.  It wasn't good.  On a brighter note, the fear and sense of impending doom gave me a clean out far better that the three colonics I'd paid 230 bucks for last month.

Dad nails it

Unbeatable feeling of thwarted death

I was first out of the plane.  This was a very good thing.  I don't know if I would have coped with seeing 8 other people sucked out of a plane door before I made my exit.  Including my own father.  He admitted that he didn't enjoy watching his daughter fall to her imagined demise.  But the way I see it, it was all his fault.  He came up with the skydiving suggestion the week before.  I just ran with it to humour him until I knew he was serious, and then by then it was too late, and I didn't want to be the gutless one who pull the pin on the death defying fun. On the way there, I suggested driving past the airstrip and heading for Dreamworld to ride the rollercoaster instead, but he didn't think I was serious.  I was.  Once it was all in motion, and the harnesses were strapped on, there was no going back.  My only consolation was that my instructor was hot, and if I was going to die, it was going to be with a hot young spunk on top of me.  Death could be so much worse that that.  Eaten alive by large spiders, drowning in a septic tank, being skinned and then rubbed with lemon and salt......obviously I've given this particular topic far too much thought.

So proud of him

But as fleeting as the experience was, the memories linger on.  I've always been close with my Dad, but this has given us something else to bond over, and that in itself is priceless.  I completely and utterly recommend it to anyone who loves thrills, and is willing to do something outside what they ever thought they were capable of.


My old mantra, when faced with a difficult situation used to be  "I've pushed two humans out of my vagine, I can do anything".  But my new one is now definitely "I jumped out of a FUCKING plane, this is NOTHING!!".

Yippeeeeeeeeee