Northbound

One night about two weeks back I was browsing some plane tickets completely fed up with Melbourne. It was cold as a Finnish autumn. Temperatures topping at 15 degrees celsius and raining on a daily basis.
The job I had was good fun, but only just barely enough to pay my rent and get some food on the table. I was wasting my days away in a guesthouse -though a very nice one that is- doing nothing when I was supposed to be on my great Aussie adventure.
So plane tickets I did book and the cheapest option was Cairns. I was supposed to head to Perth because judging from Gumtree the outback jobs originated from there. But what the hell, I wanted to see Cairns also.

So on the set date I arrived to the airport with a new duffelbag filled with the clothes accumulated during the cold days in Melbourne.
There is a cliché going around that Finnish travellers always go around with a knife. I was no exception.
So when checking myself in I declared the sharp objects in my luggage and the machine instantly blocked me from going further and asked to contact a staff member. So I did and she said it was no problem and just check "no" on dangerous items. 15 minutes later I am happily reading a book in the boarding hall when I hear my name called for check-in desk 14. Didn't I just come from there? The same lovely girl greets me there and says: "when you said you had knives in your luggage, I thought of a swiss army one. I didn't expect a borderline sword!" I guess I should have been little more specific.
After chatting a while with this girl the AFP-officials finally arrive and we can go see my bags and what all the fuzz is about. Before one of them puts his hands inside my bag he double checks me: "are there any other sharp objects? needles or such?" I assured him all 4 of my sharp objects are in sheaths, although he should grab the machete by its cardboard container to avoid cutting anything. It was a nice chat with the guys and they let me depart with all of them, the kitchen knife, my army and carving knife and my Cambodian machete.
Apparently the last one is illegal in the state of Victoria but I had a valid reason for having it. A farming tool that can be useful while camping, etc. They thanked me for my happy disposition and back to my book I went having seen a part of an airport people don't normally see.

After spending a day in a guesthouse in Cairns I felt the atmosphere really antisocial and started looking for something different. The cheapest option was Asylum guesthouse so I decided to go take a look. When the staff heard where I was going they snorted and said: "You get what you pay for in Cairns."
I don't need en-suite bathroom in my dorm and Asylum seemed a little run down, but my friend told me he had good time while in there so I decided to give it a try. Within 1,5 hours after checking in the day after I had already met more people than I had in 2 days in my old guesthouse. Enough said.

Yesterday morning I was having my morning tea and decided to browse Gumtree yet again not expecting to find anything there since it had been really quiet in there and the banana season was still a week away. Somebody needed a deckhand on a mackerel boat and I thought: "Fuck it. the ad is posted 3 minutes ago so why not send them email. They won't respond anyway." I was wrong. 15 minutes later I had an email with a phone number asking to call him and talk further. Tomorrow when checking in to fly to Weipa I will remember to mention the size of them knives. I hope this 4 months will be the real start to the great Aussie adventure.


Seems Weipa is a little off the beaten track...