3:47 p.m. - 2003-08-28
29 straight up! Casino crazy in Cairns
2003-08-26
I'm in Cairns now, had a good flight from Brisbane along the coast. Struggling a bit being in a hostel again. It�s a really nice place in a converted Queenslander called Tropic Days. Haven't met anyone yet, except for another smoker in my dorm called Alistair, but the hostel only has 35 guests so it should be easy to make friends. I'm really spotty at the moment. Bugger. I'm going to go and look for a cheap tent now. I can�t afford to pay $11 per night indefinitely. There is a small patch in the garden with a few campers on it.
I left behind beautiful weather in South Queensland to be greeted two hours later by rainclouds. It still hasn�t cleared up and is raining intermittently. There is so much to see and do here, that it�s overwhelming. There is no beach however, but a lagoon. I would love to learn diving but it would cost me at least $500. I�d have to pick a lot of fruit to make the money up.
I�ve arranged to stay with a family in Kuranda to look after their horses, dogs and chooks. Then I�ll go to Cape Tribulati
on to stay at a rainforest retreat. I�m so glad I�ve got some weed left. I got caned and wandered around town getting lost. I felt a little more relaxed then I have been. I noticed the thought for the day by the lagoon on the front read:
"It doesn�t matter how slow you go, as long as you don�t stop."
2003-08-30
I�m still in Cairns, been hanging out with some great people AND I�ve been enlightened. My group is Alistair (English), Andy and Steph (Yanks), they are a sweet hippie couple with dreads and they make jewellery and stuff out of hemp. We took a trip to Cape Tribulation in a hire car on Sunday and had a bit of an adventure. It�s stunning up there; it�s where the rainforest meets the reef. It�s wild and where crocodiles and deadly snakes live. We even saw a Taipan; the deadliest snake in the world. We climbed Mount Sorrow (600m), that took five hours round trip. It was tough, but I had the stamina because it was the third mountain I�d climbed in one week. We didn�t take enough water, we were advised to take at least three litres and I took one. I�d drunk most of it halfway. The rainforest was dense and the climb steep. We couldn�t see any view until we�d reached the top and received our reward; we were overlooking the ocean. We camped on Noah�s Beach. I�d bought a tent just before we left Cairns for just $29 in K-Mart. It was wild out there, trying to sleep in the middle of all this wildlife in the pitch dark, listening to all the weird noises of the insects and animals scuttling around outside the tent. Alistair had to share my tent, it was a bit of a squeeze but he�s quite little. When we got up the next morning we saw huge two-foot long Lace Monitors patrolling the campsite. They�re really aggressive in their hunt for food. Andy tried to pick one up and it went for him.
On Tuesday we went to the �Blue hole,� a gorgeous part of the creek that�s good for swimming. It was too cold for me though. That�s where we saw the snake. We spent so long hanging around there looking for scary creatures, that we were too late for the Daintree River cruise to spot Crocodiles. We were all really disappointed.
That night we went to Port Douglas and camped at Dougie�s Backpackers. Port Douglas is a gorgeous resort town. It�s a bit posh, the sort of place my parents would like. It�s very small with loads of atmosphere and cute restaurants and fairy lights everywhere. We had the best pizza and garlic bread I�ve ever had there too. Andy and Steph are a good couple, they seem to be well matched and have a healthy relationship. I sense lots of good energy from them.
So the four of us smoked the entire weed I had left over from Gloucester and we went back to Tropic Days on Wednesday, which was �pension� day. Steph and Andy had been given some really good weed by this guy in a dodgy pub called The Railway, last Wednesday. They also bought a little bit. So we planned to go there again and score. This place was dodgy as. It was a real spit and sawdust place with Abo's wandering around trying to bum smokes and drinks. Round the back was a brothel, and the hookers weren't pretty. We found our man (his name was Billy Bronco!) and scored and then went to the Casino to play on the Roulette wheel. Steph and Andy won $160 and Alistair won $100. Steph won $55 by accident: she left one chip on a street instead of picking it up after she'd won the last game. I saw this happen but I thought that maybe she�d meant to do that. When her line came up and no one claimed it, the croupier asked who's it was. Steph had walked off to talk to Andy and I called her over. They checked the video footage and sure enough, she�d carelessly dropped a chip from her winnings! So lucky. Everyone else won too, and I would have won a lot if I'd listened to my gut feeling. The weirdest thing happened - I was watching the table when I heard someone mutter in my ear "rhubarb, rhubarb, something or other - 29" I looked round and saw this silver haired guy hovering near me and then he walked off. I couldn't tell if he was giving me a tip or just muttering to himself. I told myself to act on it, but all I did was tell Steph and Andy what had happened. I didn't have any chips in my hand, but if I had I would have put at least $5 down on 29. Two spins later, 29 came up. I was stunned. I could have kicked myself, but that's gambling for you. Dangerous but fun. Highly addictive too, it really is.
Thursday night, being greedy, we went to try our luck again. Steph wasn�t keen; she pointed out the flashing neon lights of the Casino sign were telling us �NO� and �SIN�. We should have taken heed because we all lost at least $20 that night.
We've been three nights in a row now; I was lucky last night. I put $5 on a street and 4 came up (I had a strong feeling it would, but I bottled it and didn�t put it square on the four) I won good though and I overall I left with $100, so I'm $60 up! Andy gave me the most amazing book called �The Power of Now� by Eckhart Tolle. It tells me what deep down I have known all my life, but illustrates it so clearly. It says to live in the present and not to think about the past or worry about the future. It�s about giving up your ego and realising that you�re not your mind. Our mind controls us and we need to silence it and just be. Then life is free flowing energy. I read it in two days and I feel different now. Totally relieved and content. I feel like my enlightenment, or awareness, or whatever it is, began in New Zealand. The day I left Queenstown and noticed the quality of light. Then I met Alexandra who taught me so much. She told me not to worry and not to feel guilty about being lazy. She said if job hunting was getting me down (as it obviously was), then I simply shouldn�t do it. When I stopped putting myself through that fruitless ordeal everyday, that�s when the cleaning job fell into my lap. After Alex was Nick, who gave me confidence and now I�m here. It�s getting really interesting; I�m very excited about my journey. I think that truly wonderful things can happen now. I have good energy, so I will only attract good energy.
Yesterday I was sitting on the esplanade with Steph and Andy, when this old guy with a long white beard came over. He�d met the other two before and had some blue topaz to show them. He�s a gemologist and had dug it out of the ground himself. His name was Spirit of White Horse (!) and he�s a spiritual healer. He gave us some crystals to hold we had to feel if they were male or female. If the crystal pulses in you right hand it�s male, left and it�s female. If you hold both, the energy flows through your body. He healed my back by holding his palm above mine. I didn�t have any pain, so I don�t know if he did any good�
