Pete Goes Down Under!

That's one thing I've heard WAY too much over here, it's that song from the bloody South Park movie. Every second person who finds out I'm canadian just belts out "BLAME CANADA! BLAME CANADA!" It's driving me crazy.

But on a good note, I've just about gotten over my cold. My sense of taste is back (hooray!) and my nose is almost completely cleared. The sun has been out a lot lately and the rains seemed to have left for a while *knocking on wood*.

The other day (January 26th) was Australia Day, more or less the same thing as Canada Day. A big celebration in the summer to celebrate the day we became more or less independent from the monarch and established ourselves as a "real" country. Of course, just like back home, there are problems with the day. In Canberra (the nation's capital) a group of aboriginals protested the day about how it is actually "Invasion Day" as the call it, the day of their oppression and burned an Australia flag. Sounds kind of familiar....

The day itself was more or less the same as any other, just louder drunks in the evening. No violence in the streets or anything like that, after all this IS Byron Bay, the only thing here are tourists and wannabe hippies. I'll get out of here eventually...probably around middle to late february, actually. So don't worry Holly, I'll make it down to Sydney before you leave (but like Geoff asked, where are you going? Leave a nice, detailed blog for us please!)

Cheers folks!

And I really miss hockey. I had to actually go out and rent Slapshot to get my fix. Luckily, the winter olympics are starting soon and I've heard rumours of ice arenas in both Syndey and Perth...

Posted by Pete at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Go for the juggler!

I havn't quite figured out how, but I've managed to get myself a cold. How do you get a cold in Australia? Had a headache but now everything's settled into my nose. Wonderful. I havn't tasted anything in 3 days! This happened once before, and I lost my sense of smell and taste for a few weeks. But at least I can eat everything I didn't like before! Anyway, I said I had new pictures so I better get on with it.

Well I finally got ahold of a picture from Christmas...you can either go to the Christmas/New Years post or just click here!

I also managed to get hold of some other really good pictures, not taken by me but taken by some friends who graciously gave me permission to put them up here (good girls, them french-canadians). Anyway, I think this is a sunset shot, and my camera is telling me I need to get a couple of these myself, they look phenomenal! In fact, whenever I see them I get Deep Purple playing in me head. Smoke on the water...

Fire in the sky!

One of the thing I've noticed in Byron Bay is that some guy with my name has decided to go around spraypainting it everywhere. He must have tagged as much as he could, cause "PeteR" is everywhere! I rode my bike around and snapped off a few shots of them, these are all within a 5 minute ride from my house.

What's REALLY odd is how he's chosen to tag, with the P and the R being capitilized. I mean, Peter Rose or Pete Rose which could be PeteRose and then PeteR. Crazy! Or maybe I'm just pulling at strings.

Well, that's all for now! Although I may have figured out a rough date to get out of Byron Bay, late february for sure. Cheers!

Posted by Pete at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've made a decision:

I am hereby writing a letter and sending a bill to the Tourism Association of Australia demanding compensation for the past 4 days of straight rain. It's full on. And the worst part is, my tarp failed me and the garage decided to flood on me. There were a few brief moments of panic when I realized my ticket was wet, but everything important is now dry and in good condition. Junior, (the spider) unfortunately didn't survive the flooding. Didn't even stand a chance...

Anyway, my room is now dry and everything is more or less in order, but I've decided as soon as Will leaves (one of my housemates) I am hereby taking his room. It's right beside mine and is more or less underground, so it will be nice and cool and I won't have to worry about flooding under the garage door. Until then, I've got the Factory's handyman (and houesmate) to take care of the door by putting a flat piece of rubber along the bottom, acting as a seal so I don't even have to worry about my tarp. My problems are nothing compared to some the hostel was faced with. The campground, which is right next so a swampy pond, half flooded with the rain. There were at least 20 tents under about a foot of water, and most of the others were absolutely soaked through. I tried to snap off a few pictures but none turned out well at all. Let's just say the water level was raised a good amount. Gotta love the subtropics.

Havn't been out for a surf lately...the weather has been bad and if it gets sunny I find I'd just much rather go for a swim. Maybe I should sell my board...no point in it sitting there doing nothing. Well, that's about it for now!

Cheers!

Posted by Pete at 5:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I promised you another entry, with more content, and I'm following through!

The "Byron Effect" as I have come to know and love it, is more or less how Byron Bay sucks you in and doesn't let you out again. It's like when you're in the ocean and you get caught in a rip. There's no use struggling against it. You just go along for the ride, knowing that eventually it will stop and you can swim away from it to shore. I've figured out how it works: you get sucked in with the easy, lazy lifestyle and the relaxed vibe comming from the place. Every day (especially when you're awake all night and sleep during the morning) seems to easily flow into the next, and before you know it you've been here for a week, then a month. Should you choose to partake into any alcoholic beverages, the effect is even stronger. Not that I'm complaining, I really do love it here, and what else can I say, other than "life is good". I'm literally living in a paradise of sun and relaxation (not that I want to rub it in for all of you in winter).

Anyway, since I've been here for a while I've had the chance to do a LOT of cool stuff, and I finally managed to get some pictures of stuff I like to do while I'm here.

First of all, because I was such a good sport and worked Christmas and New Years (not that I had much of a choice!) the management at the Factory sprung for the cost of me making a didgeridoo at one of the workshops there.

My didge!

Playing the didge. Sometimes it sounds like a dying animal of sorts, but I'm getting better!

As I knew that I'd be here for a while (I realized after a few weeks that I was not getting out of Byron) I decided to take the plunge and by myself a surfboard. So I did! I'm still trying to get the hang of the thing, but it's a lot of fun. I'll go every so often, maybe 3-4 times per week depending on how much I work and that.

Heading out for a surf.

The rest of the time, I've either been hanging out at the Arts Factory or at the beach. Every so often I'll go into town and get some food or grab some internet time, too. I've also been taking the time to take a few more pics. I saw this van and realized it is the PERFECT way to describe Byron Bay.

Old VW, old hippies, and hippie wannabies. It's great.

After one of our crazy rainstorms, I popped out my door and snapped some shots of the tree right outside the house. Turned out pretty well.

Of course, there's only so much you can go to the beach and hang out at the Factory. So what do we do with our down time? Well, the Blue House is more or less full of guys, and we have two pairs of boxing gloves. From time to time we bust them out and have our own version of "Fight Club". But after a while, even THAT gets a little dull. So what do we do? Search the house for spiders and have "Spider Fight Club". The spiders never do end up fighting in the end, but it's always exciting anyway. That's Byron Bay for you.

This guy is the latest one I just captured this morning, and probably the biggest one we've caught so far. I've put two pictures in, one with some standard clothespins so you can have a scale on how big these spiders can get. And no, these spiders aren't dangerous at all. They run away as soon as you get near them (which makes catching them a challenge) and are extremely fast. Anyway, here's "Junior":

That's all for now. I'll try to keep my posts more often now that I can see how much I post with that handy calendar Geoff set up for me (thanks Geoff).

Cheers!

(By the way, if any of you want to see where I'm working, go to http://www.artsfactory.com.au/)

Posted by Pete at 6:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, not much has been happening lately. I've grown accustomed to being awake at such odd hours now and I can still go out and get some sun on the beach even though I spend most of the day sleeping. Just thought I'd pop on and let everyone know that I'm still alive. The next entry will be larger and have more detail, I promise!

Posted by Pete at 2:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A double-post today, here are the pictures of the "re-vamped" Blue House (not much has changed, but it looks nicer now):

The half kitchen, now with a half fridge! It's half-fantastic!

The main room, couches and tv have been moved for "optimal viewing" as Will said. It's a much better, I have to admit.

The "foyer", now much cleaner and featuring the 'WorksWell' fridge, which we found on the street with a free sign on it. So we hauled it back! What a day that was!

Thats all for now, Cheers!

Posted by Pete at 4:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The holidays are definately different down here. Aside from the obvious lack of snow and rain and the scorching sun, the whole attitude is different. There's still the whole "santa brings presents" deal, but its not nearly as forced in the media. It really is geared toward spending time with family and friends, like the holidays should be. And turkey isn't the "Christmas" meal, either. It's prawns! Prawns everywhere you look.

But for my Christmas, I got to work! Both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. But I didn't mind too much. On Christmas Day I went to bed at 7 am, woke up at 12 pm and went out for a bbq with people from work on the beach. Tons of fun (no pictures, but I'm going to see if one of my housemates has some on his camera) and after I went back home to catch up on some sleep before I started work at 10. I'll get some pictures of the day up soon, providing I can get some pictures from friends. I left my camera at home that day!
But lo and behold, I've got a picture from Christmas day! These are some of the girl's I've been hanging out with in Byron, two are Canadian and one is from Paris.

Ahhh, what better way to spend part of Christmas Day, eh?

New Years was also a pretty good time. Again, I had to work. But it wasn't too bad, the hostel hired a couple actual security guards to come in and there were 8 of the hostel security on staff, so being near the top of the security heirarchy, I didn't have to do a whole lot. Clean up some beer bottles and cans and what not, and I spent the rest of the night talking to people. Great way to make $25 an hour! Come to think of it, the night was really quiet considering it was New Years. And, lucky me, it was quiet enough that the manager said I could take off at 4! So I hopped on the shuttle into town and walked up to the lighthouse to watch the sunrise! Here are the pictures from that:

Pre-sunrise, a nice shot along the fence we were sitting against.

The sunrise!

Spreading my artistic eye, I suppose

I thought the clouds would prevent some good pictures, but I was definately wrong!

Something should be said here about starting the new year with a new bloom...

So that's more or less my holidays all wrapped up in a nice little package. I'll post the Christmas pictures as SOON as I get them, I promise. And for those who have been asking, some pictures of myself are on the way, just be patient! Being behind a camera prevents me from being in a lot of pictures.

Posted by Pete at 3:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)