ancient doctor, seasick and hippy haven

I've been travelling up the coast of New South Wales and have now made my way into Queensland. I thought I would cover a lot more territory in the past month than I actually did but I found myself getting stuck in some places for a little longer than I anticipated. I met loads of people that I didn't want to leave and I decided to do my PADI open water scuba diving certification. This is something I never thought I would do but it just seemed like the perfect opportunity. This brings me to my first stop outside of Sydney in Coffs Harbour. I took a very painful overnight bus and arrived in Coffs at 6 a.m. I immediately befriended two Israeli's, Shlomi and Yuval who just finished in the army. We got there absolutely exhausted but decided to make the most of our day and went out canoeing for hours. At this point I only thought I'd be spending one night there so I needed to do as much as possible. When we got back from our beautiful canoe trip, I found out about the diving course. It would last four days and we would get 4 open water dives for a cost of 355$. I would also have to pay for a 70$ medical examination. This was the biggest pain in the ass because I already have a 17 page sealed and signed examination from my doctor at home that they wouldn't allow me to use. The Australian government is very picky about these issues so I didn't put up a fight and went for my appointment. I don't know how they can be so uptight about issues as such when the doctor examining me just celebrated his ninetieth birthday. There were only four of us in the course, an American, two Swiss and myself. We all walked into this old, idiodine smelling private clinic. The doctor walked out of his office and we all thought he was a patient. He was small and quite frail with white hairs bursting out of all his sensory holes, hardly any left on his head. The hunchbacked man slowly walked from his office to the front desk to collect all of our pee specimens, dropping one on the ground. I don't think I can stress enough how old this man was. His secretary had to come and pick it up because he couldn't bend over himself. I was called into the office. It was a very informal examination. I sat in a chair beside his at his desk. The desk being completely invisible from all the papers sporadically spread out. I sat there patiently waiting for him to read through my medical form and came across his diploma on the wall. The paper looked like it had been dyed with tea bags. You know how in school if you were ever doing a project that was set years ago, you would make it look older by dabbing it with tea bags to give it a yellowish colour? Well, the rusty paper read, Dr. B.H. Dolman O.A.M. M.B, 1942. Honest to God, he has to be THE oldest practicing physician in the WORLD. Please look it up, I wouldn't be surprised. Blood pressure time. He put the cuff around my arm. Flakes of dead skin from his decrepit hands fell like feathers onto my arm. I was worried that he didn't have the strength pump. He did, but it took a very, very, very long time. Finally once the cuff was completely inflated, he listened and listened. I thought he fell asleep. My arm was about to fall off. My fingers started turning blue, my elbow tingled and felt like I badly smashed my funny bone and my veins began bursting out of my skin. Eventually the old man told me that I had a nice low blood pressure. I think he made it up. Next in the examination he made me do a "new" test, a test that I have never done before because according to his standards new is maybe 1945. It was to check my balance and he made me stand with my eyes closed and my feet touching eachtother. He told me to stand there as long as I could. Immediately this worried me. I could stand there forever, he would all asleep then die and I would still be standing like a fool in his office with my eyes closed. He made me touch my nose then raise each arm in the air. I passed and I only had to stand there or about 3 minutes. Next on the list was the eye test. The doctor decided to check my urine sample while I was doing the eye test; only the sink he was checking in was right in front of the eye chart. He kept on interrupting my test by blocking the letters so my 20/20 vision was not as sharp as it normally is. I kept on repeating the letters cause he would slowly dodge in and out o the chart so I would forget which letter I read last. The final thing he had to do was listen to my breathing. During this he had a nice stare at my breasts. That's o.k. though, I gave it to him. He needs something to keep him going. So I allowed him to take his time, which was an extremely long time but I felt like I did a good deed. It was an interesting experience at Dr. Dolmans office. Our group o divers were the last to see him. They decided it was about time to change doctors. I must give it to him though.

coffs harbour at sunrise

The diving was worth every penny and even more. The course ended up being postponed two days because the sea was so rough. This kept me in Coffs Harbour for a total of one week. The weather in Australia has been the worst in history. It is good for the country because this year is the break of the 100-year drought, but it is not the best for my summer of travelling. It has rained around 23 days in the past month. The diving conditions were still great. The water was clear and blue and the visibility underwater was around 8 meters. The first day we went out on the boat I learned two lessons. The first was NEVER drink the night before diving and the second being take Kwell's to avoid seasickness. I learned both of these the hard way. I was going on 5 hours of sleep and a heavy night of wine drinking. I will never do this again. Not many people can say that they have spewed 15 meters below the sea. I can. I vomited nine times that morning and one of those times was into my regulator under the water. It was the best way to attract all the fish because schools of them surrounded me to eat the little pieces of food coming out of my regulator. One might ask how you throw up under water? Well, you do it right into your breathing tube (regulator) and it comes right out the side If you take your regulator out, you have a huge risk of inhaling water and choking to death. Every time I surfaced, I had an accident. It didn't help that I hadn't taken the Kwell's. The second day, I got 11 hours of sleep and took the Kwell's the night before and the morning of.  My dives were astonishingly different from the previous day. I think it is the closest I will ever come to flying. Diving is so therapeutic and liberating. It is effortless. I had the privilege of diving in a spot where Grey Nurse sharks have a colony. These sharks are harmless to humans. Their teeth are curved in so they can only eat things that they can swallow whole, which excludes humans from being eaten. A grey nurse was lingering over my head, only about 3 meters up and I wasn't even afraid. I was the only lucky one in my group to see it. We saw a couple of wobbegongs, carpet sharks, plenty of stingrays and an abundance of fish.

shlomi and yuval

By the time the diving course was over, I had met many friends to travel with but people were going in all directions. I continued on with a fellow Canadian named Brad and an American named Kristi to Byron Bay. Brad and I really hit it off and he became my tennis buddy. It is so much easier to meet men when travelling alone! I did have a special connection with an Irish guy that I met in Byron except it was spoilt when he asked me when we would get married. He told me that I was the "perfect bird" and that he wanted to bring me home to Dublin to marry me. As soon as he said that I distanced myself. Up until that point, we had a great time together but he just freaked the shit out of me because he was completely serious. Alrighty, bye bye buddy.

canoeing

Brad and I went on a tour to a place called Nimbin, just an hour outside of Byron. Nimbin is the marijuana capital of Australia. A mere 200-meter town set up with bakeries, shops and a herb superb museum. We went with a bus called Jim's alternative tours, which was lead by a true hippy. He was completely stoned the entire time. The moment we stepped off the bus locals surrounded us. All of them had the same monologue "want any buds, magic mushrooms, special cookies, I've got the best rates. Follow me. Walk with me. Come on now." The sketchiest thing about this weird little hippyville is that it is completely illegal. There are only 8 police officers that patrol the area and when the dealers see a cop they abort. The bus driver informed us of the special code to remember if there are any suspicions of the police. If the word TAXI is yelled out, the dealers disappear and if you are in the middle of a deal you just casually walk away. Brad and I bought a couple of cookies thinking we would be ripped off but we would try for fun anyways because they were so cheap. By the time we left Nimbin after about an hour and a half, the entire bus was completely stoned. The tour guide played the best tunes as we rolled though the green hills. It felt like something out of a movie. I couldn't believe we were all in the same state. On the bus tour there were adults and teenagers. We lost a couple people in stops along the way but they were all found. We spent around an hour eating macadamia nuts and melon in the middle of the forest where this American hippy has been living for the past 28 years. In between smokes he would plant trees. Now, he has his own forest where he lives as a hippy with the bare essentials. He was completely insane. Nobody could follow what he was saying at all and it wasn't because we were high. He was just nuts! I guess anyone would be if they lived in the forest for 28 years without leaving. We went on to explore a fascinating waterfall where we were all in awe. Once they dropped me off at my hostel I crashed for 3 hours.

yuval and I

I stayed at a hostel called The Arts Factory that won the award for the #1 hostel in NSW in 2007. This place was amazing. It was its own little village with multiple accommodation options. You could either stay in a dorm, a tepee, a wagon, a bus, a tent or a cabin. I was going to stay in a tepee but in fear of the common huntsman spiders I stayed in a dorm. I went out that evening at the hostel bar called Buddha Bar for trivia night. I ended up winning a 125$ value prize of sea kayaking with dolphins but the surf was to high that I couldn't get out before I left for Brisbane. Now I am in Brisbane staying with Ali and Stafford who I spent Christmas with in Canberra. Ali took me on a city tour yesterday on her Vespa. It was so much fun! I spent the afternoon in the sun at a man made beach that is in the heart of the city. It is unbelievable humid in Queensland compared to where I've been so far. There are skin cancer clinics all over the place. I've got two days more here and then I head off to New Zealand to meet my mum! My adventures in Australia have quickly come to an end but I am looking forward to the future.

Israeli's vs. Chileans

It not so chile in Oz

water flooding

b/w

pretty

muttonbird island

without the regulator

under the sea

yannick

starfish

on the surface

group shot

the boat