Cairns Randomness

I've experienced a lot of 'firsts' in the last eight months. First time I've been blessed by a cripple; first time I've seen a one-armed man playing a guitar; first time I've eaten conger eel - that sort of thing.


The first thing that happened once I'd walked from the tarmac and through the door into the terminal at Cairns was a young blonde Irisher asked if I'd like to buy her car. Dinner certainly, but not a car.
Of course, if she'd been raven-haired and had lips that were all dark wine and lurid promise then I would have become a car owner again.

I stayed with a Marly mate, Lenny, and met up with two other ex-Marly foreigners; Mads (Tasmanian) and Youcef (Canadian).
Lenny is living a blissful bachelor existence where the milk has made the leap to cheese, and the bedbugs have made the leap from the previous residents to Lenny.

During the week we had the Cairns Film Festival.
They were:
Rocky 2 - shithouse.
OngBak - Impressive. But the girl wins the most annoying and penetrative voice of all film history award.
Pirates of teh Carrybean 3: Cool, but I'm not sure what Chow Yun Fat was doing plotwise. Pretty though.

Up in Cairns I met a bunch of people who have a different way of life. They offered me a place with them. And special footware. And a special one-piece zip up costume ala dodgy James Bond villian type. They initiated me into their special sign language, and then informed me that I could only leave if they paid me money.
I know what you're thinking, but it's not a cult at all!

It's legitimate and non-exploitive. They've shown me things I've never seen before.

"Welcome, brother!"

Ok. So, I joined a cult.


See how happy I am with my new friends?
I would be smiling in this photo, but we're not allowed to until after 4pm.

Cairns pics

I was going to by some presents but I didn't want to get anything brilliant, impressive or merely good.


The mudflat was created by mangroves which have since been cleared. The difference between high and low tide is not great at all. Each pebble that stands above the mud is a palm sized mudcrab. The mud is glutenous yet beckons so temptingly "Walk on me".


So I walked up one of these channels which had sand on it's bottom rather than mud which I figured would mean it was firm under foot. It was thus I am a genius. About halfway to the water I found a patch that was not so firm, sunk up to my knee and snapped a thong. I handed in my 'genius' hat back at the sand.

Cairns.

We walked the two blocks to the water's edge. A wide expanse of mud stood between the strip of sand and the open water.
Crabs glistened wetly in their thick coats of chocolate sediment. Come low tide they had emerged from their holes and hollows and spent the hours picking over the mud like scavengers behind a retreating army. The sun flashed off them as they moved.
We continued past the red stemmed and gold stemmed palms, and onto the boardwalk. Small waves slapped the rocks beneath.
Tinnies returned from their open ocean errands and cruisers released their tourists on the marina.

It was here she said goodbye.

The experiment was over. There were no coals to rake through nor angry words to be exchanged. Ending it was a formality devoid of histrionics and pleas for reconsideration.
I wandered to where the waves caressed the sand and with a rhythmic shushing, lulled it to sleep. I sat and stayed until she'd had enough time to pack then made my own way back to the apartment, squinting into the sun.

Pairs of small speckled doves they sell in petshops down south scuttled out of my way. A couple of tiny olive coloured honeyeaters inspected the epiphytes on the fig on the corner. I stopped to watch a gathering of green tailed ants mill undecidedly on the curb, then I went inside.
I sat down with a bottle and one of those glasses that are too small for a swig and too big for a sensible shot, alternately cursing her and mourning her til the bottle was gone.

Then I waited for high tide to take me away.

Rob Pullar... Cairns

Adventurerering Indoors

When a program of Adventurerering outdoors suffers from Can't Be Arsed Syndrome.


Basement Books in the tunnel at Central + $112 = Instant classics collection plus stuff wot looks interesting.

I went to Cairns but forgot to write about it.

But I'll get around to it.
In the meantime I have started kitchen-handing so as to become a short-order chef down the road.

To: Fyodor
From: Harry

Master.
I went to Gould's secondhand bookshop in Newtown and, for $11.90, picked up the Nebula and Hugo awards winning "Ringworld" and it's sequel "The Ringworld Engineers".
I'm ready for the next level of my training.
...
....
...
Hey, since I'm now a split level cook/Scrotum-model do you reckon I should sacrifice Charisma for Fortitude and thereby improve my "resist heat" stat?

Nuts and Islam

I am resuming my previous position, and employment, as a scrotum model.
I'm also doing abdomen.
On the info they emailed me I saw that abdomen requires fasting.

From: harry
To: ASMI

I see that abdomen requires fasting.
How long do I fast?
Am I also required to kill infidels?

Allahu Akbarr.

Harry