The Unexpected

• Saturday, 12 March: Woke up early, snoozed; had free breakfast, went to beach, took surfing lesson with four others on nine foot softy boards, managed to stand a few times!; had lunch at the room, swam in the pool, computed, read book; went back to the beach, swam, sunned; grocery shopped for healthy dinner, got lots of fruit; hung out with English roommate for the evening.
• Sunday, 13 March: Up early, packed, breakfast; caught a cab with another girl heading to the airport; easy flight to Cairns; got a ride from Gilligan’s backpacker van from airport to the backpacker; got cheapest dorm room; walked around with Hina, Japanese girl I met on the bus; grocery shopped; to bed around 11pm, with music thumping; still thumping, but louder, at 2:30am.
• Monday, 14 March: Up early to pack and head to the piers; got on Osprey V and met two German girls who I hung out with much of the day; did intro dive, then certified dive with a guide; lots of snorkeling; great day on the boat and Great Barrier Reef; made myself dinner back at Gilligan’s; no thumpy music but a loud interruption at 1:30am by security.
• Tuesday, 15 March: Woke up feeling a cold attacking; went on Captain Matty’s Barefoot Tours Tabletop waterfall tour; gray day but many pretty waterfalls; very tired and feeling poorly most of the day; switched backpackers when we got back late in the evening; two nice English girls, Amy and Haley, in my $10, four-bed, quiet room.
• Wednesday, 16 March: Forced myself to stay in bed most of the day; went out only twice, to use free internet and find a new book to read at a used book store, and to eat free dinner at a nearby restaurant; to bed fairly early.
• Thursday, 17 March: Got up, packed and ate breakfast fairly early; checked out; used internet; caught airport shuttle to the airport, caught flight to Darwin, everything went smoothly; checked in to Chilli’s backpacker; wandered a bit around town and had a quiet evening, not feeling so hot; exchanged books at another hostel.
• Friday, 18 March: Skyped with parents; visited two Aboriginal art galleries; had a nice vegetarian lunch out; napped in the afternoon; helped roommate color her hair; soaked in the “spa,” a cool water jet tub at Chilli’s; another quiet day and evening.

The last few weeks have been a real mix of good and not so great, of sunny days and rainy days, and of experiences both exciting and dull. There are two particular “Oh!” moments that stand out, though, and that is what I’ll write about today.

THUMPS IN THE NIGHT

Gilligan’s, a backpacker in Cairns, had been mentioned to me by a girl I stayed with in Coolangatta, so it was where I went first thing upon arriving. I was able to snag a $17 per night ten-bed dorm, the cheapest they had, so I was happy. Having gotten up fairly early that morning, I decided to turn in early and was in bed by 10:30pm. Gilligan’s is not just a backpacker, but a club and a restaurant and a tour organizer. So I wasn’t surprised, then, when I could feel the bass from the club music reverberating through the floor. It was a bit shocking that, on the top bunk, I could feel the metal bars of my bed vibrating, but I was able to fall asleep around 11pm.

At two thirty in the morning, I woke up abruptly, sucking in my breath as some shock I couldn’t quite place. It took me several seconds of my brain repeating, “What the…?”, but then I understood what had awoken me: they’d turned up the volume, and the the bass, in the club, which turned out to be directly underneath this room. As I lay there somewhat dazed, I could feel my legs shaking in time with the beat. I had a bottle of water in the corner of my bed and I watched as it rippled constantly. Still half asleep, I thought, “Oh! Who needs that much bass?!” It may or may not surprise some of you to know that I fell back asleep after a few minutes.

BATS

Sometimes just walking around a neighborhood can be a fun way to explore. As I ambled towards the public library in Cairns’ downtown area, I came across a lovely huge tree, whose trunk seemed to made of twining and twisting roots. It was huge and turned out to really be two trees of the same kind of trunk, whose canopies had mixed and tangled, creating a huge umbrella of leaves. As I admired it, I became aware of the chirping and screeching of what I took to be birds, a huge cacophony of noise going on and on. As I followed the path of the trunk with my eyes, though, I realized that there were several large things hanging from the branches. No, not several: dozens, maybe hundreds! All of the sudden, I realized what they were and said out loud, “Oh! They’re bats!” And they were. Huge bats. Creepy, vampire-like bats. All these bundles of bodies, wings tightly wrapped about them, hung upside-down from the various branches of this huge, twisty tree. In the late afternoon light, they were clearly defined shapes once I knew what they were. I got the chills just watching them twitch and realizing that the shrill shrieks were theirs.

Just two hours later, as I was walking back to Gilligan’s, I looked up and saw a trail of bats flying by, their dark, hooked wings, furry big bodies and little feet trailing after all visible against the darkening sky. On and on the stream went, with chitterings and shrieks accompanying the creepy sight. I hurried on my way, feeling slightly apprehensive as I glanced occasionally up at the sky to see the gliding bodies soaring past. I gave a good dramatic shudder.

--Z