THE BIGNESS OF THINGS
Recently, a friend and I took a road trip and along the way vistited many BIG attractions including the Big Banana. It was getting on a bit in the afternoon and the gift shop and cafe were already closed, so we decided to do the Sky Walk, which at the top overlooks the best of Coffs Harbour. So after checking closing times on nearby signs, up we trekked through the Banana Trees, taking pictures as we went. After we reached the top and "Ooohed" and "Aaahed" at the view it was time to head back down again. As we were chatting about how odd it was to have a snow sled in the middle of a tropical attraction we came upon the gate at the bottom... and guess what.... yep... it was closed and LOCKED.
We turned to each other and cracked up with laughter at the thought of spending a night amongst a Banana plantation.
"How are we gonna get out?" I cracked to my friend.
"Hmmm..." he replied. And before I could splutter a "are you Cra.." he had jumped over the railing of the sidewalk and was on his way through the bananas to fetch someone with a key to let us out.
I turned back to the gate muttering to myself what a great story this was gonna make....
**flash forward to real life where she takes a phonecall from an irate customer complaining that calling the company was costing 1 cent per second and could she "frigging" put him through to "Peter" (there's 15 Peter's in the company) right now or he'll send a letter.... oooh... yeah okay... I'll "frigging" put you through... let me just put you on hold for a short while... meaning for as long as you hold before hanging up..constantly amazes me how they think they can be rude to the front desk and expect to actually GET somewhere.. it's funny how he rings complaining it's costing him, hangs up.. then calls back and repeats the process.. like.. hello.. why keep calling?------------------Flash back to actual block after a hole is gone**
So anyway, before I was so RUDELY interrupted... I turned back to the gate, decided to sit down on the steps in the shade to wait.. Byron was taking an unusal amount of time to get me outta there... had he forgotten? had something gone wrong in the banana trek? My mind ran wild... So I sat patiently watching all the other tourists leave in their cars.
After what seemed like and age Byron appears under the Sky Walk and proclaims rather distressingly.. "nope".
"Nope what?"
"They won't let us out"
------silence-------
"WHAT ARE WE SUPPOSED TO DO!!!??" I cried.
He shrugs. "I went to the office, and they saw me coming and closed the door. So I knocked on the door and told them that my friend was locked in."
"And what did they say???"
"Well, they weren't particularly nice. They were like "'Didn't you read the signs?"'
"WHAT signs?!!" I said sarcastically
He shrugs again.
"So.... I'm just supposed to stay up here all night until they decide to mosey on into work tomorrow?"
"I asked if there was a key they could lend me and they said they'll ask the manager. They turn around and yell to him in the back about the key, and he yells back to tell me the manager has gone home with the key."
I laugh in disbelief.
"So... while you were standing there listening and watching everything they spoke to the manager who told them to tell you he'd gone home?!"
"Yup. They said that the only way to get out was to walk all the way back to the top of the Sky Walk and come back down through the Bananas and jump the fence."
I thought for a minute while I looked blankly at my friend.
"I'll climb back up the railing and do the walk back up with you." he offers.
--------silence-------
"You know what.... I'm jumping the railing!" I exclaim bravely, ignoring my fear of heights for exactly 4.5 seconds until I actually look over. "BUT..... I'm in a SKIRT!!" I stall.
At that moment the two people he had spoken to about a key had seen me and decided that that's when they'd try and be helpful. But me having the stubborn personality trait I do when someone treats me like I'm incapable I got that "screw you I'm doing it" look on my face.
"You can do it. I'll help you." cheers my friend.
So he points me round to a corner of the walkway where the beams all meet and instructs me to hand him the cameras and climb over the railing....backwards...
SO... skirt and all... over I went... trembling with utter fear at falling through the Banana Trees and into a small but strategically placed set of mushrooms.
Halfway down my friend lifts me in an 'Over the Threshold' kind of way and places me carefully amongst the mushrooms.
"HA!!!!" I yelled conqueringly "I don't need YOU and your stupid key!!!!" I say to no one in particular.
I felt so big at that point. Like I could have taken on anything. But then the disbelief that the staff were so unwilling to help kicked in and my bitching started.
"How could they just say NO!!! What if I was a mother and my 5 year old daughter was LOST amongst those Bananas!! HUH!!! What would they have done THEN!!??"
" I know" he says, "And did you see their reaction when they saw WHO was stuck on the Sky Walk?"
"YEAH... it's like... all of a sudden they wanted to help because they saw I was a chick and didn't think I would make it over."
And that's precisely what happened. Their conscious got them. But you know, it shouldn't have been that way. How hard would it have been to just unlock gate with the key the manager who had gone home had with him in the back room?
One thing is for sure though.. we laughed about it that night after the rediculousness of it all had occured to us.
The Big Banana wasn't the only such attraction we visted.
There was also the Big Oyster.... which had NOTHING to do with Oysters at all, in fact.. it was the sale office of a car dealership.
There was the Big Prawn... which we decided NOT to venture up to have our photo taken in the massive eyeballs for fear of being fishfood for the night.
There was the Big Golden Guitar...
And there was also a Big Lawnmower..... go figure.... someone sure does like their mowers.
The biggest part of this story... is my biting the bullet and jumping that railing... turns out it wasn't so big after all. Next stop.... bungee jumping....(without the skirt and cameras.... okay.. so maybe a disposable one as I go to my death)
So it's monday and I'm back at the 9 to 5-er.
With my big trip looming you might imagine that I am pouring over every single guidebook I can get my hands on for every area of my journey. Right?
Well that's true to some extent. But there's only so much you can do with a guidebook before you trek off to the destination that's making that bug itch. So what else can you do? My answer was to watch The Motorcycle Diaries. Now don't get me wrong, I am no extreme leftist guerilla soldier... but I am travel addicted, and I seem to be drawn to anything inspiring and The Motorcycle Diaries is just that.
At the core, it's a beautiful tale of friendship and new discoveries. Friendship between Ernesto and his friend Alberto, frienship between them and the people they meet and friendship between the two men and the lepor patients they volunteered to help treat. Watching this story only made me want to move my trip forward and leave straight away. But it got me thinking about a few certain things.
I think I may go insane if I don't leave soon. I am sick of the money hungry businessmen who think they alone are the most important people in the universe. Like booking their parking space for their meeting is a life or death situation. It's amazing how they can feel so big about themselves when a life or death situation in Africa boils down to whether or not you'll get your bag of rice for the month. It pales in comparison to the parking space dilemma. God forbid he has to pay the $2 metre fee to park on the street.
Sometimes I feel so insignificant to any of this. What is the point in it all? I come to work, I sit at my desk, I play the game to get my pay, I go home, I sleep, and wake up to do it all again the next day. And for what? To provide a service to someone who could care less what my name is and then expect me to be all "yay, go team"... as though the "team" actually mattered to anything but producing more money.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Oh she's just another jilted girl who's sick of her boring job. And honestly, I am sick of the job. But my main question is, what is it all for? Think about it... if you're a telemarketer, secretary, an administration assistant in ANY large company.. do you really think they believe all that team propaganda they put out? Some people are happy to be one of the masses and have the routine I described above. It provides stability, an income and a profession if they choose to take it seriously, and that's fine if that's what you want. But I feel I want more. I don't feel that the 9 to 5-er is something that I would strive to achieve.
Here's an example of what I am talking about. Every year the company I work for has a huge.. let's just say... party.. for interests sake... to report to its faithful employees what's in store for the year ahead. It's normally a pretty fun thing once the boring business centered speeches are over and the bar tab kicks in... but I just find the whole thing so rediculous in the big picture of things. It's supposed to be all about team building and I am expected to go. But... in the "team" that I am supposed to be a part of, it'll be just me going to this event! You see, my boss is having the day off, my partner is on leave for two weeks, the admin co-ord is taking leave and the admin junior is also not going.. so that leaves me. So you can see my gripe? It's just all so fake. It makes so much more sense NOT to spend the money on rediculous events like this, give everyone a cash incentive and let them get to their jobs so they can earn their money, go home and forget about the crap job they have! LOL. But I digress, I am being cynical. It's a reflection of my frustration with the mundane.
All in all, the job isn't what I am bitching over, the job is fine. It's all the people I describe above. The people who call up and abuse the first person that takes the call because one of the hundreds of people the company employs hasn't returned a call in the past .3 seconds, the people who, even though they are aware you did not personally reject their cheque insist on you doing something yourself to get it authorised and that if you don't they will report you to your respective manager, or the people who call and ask for "Chris", and when you ask which Chris, they respond with "I don't know, couldn't you find out?".... like... YEAH... I'll happily put you on hold to make dozens of phonecalls to every single Chris in the building asking if they called someone from Adelaide WHILE taking every single other call that comes through AND deal with every other issue that happens in that exact instant.... right. Sure, I'll put you on hold... but as far as calling around... forget it. I really love the whole business world. It's so friendly and rational.
Anyhoo.... so here I am at work... wishing I was elsewhere.... I'm sure you all feel the same way.
Luce
Just a picture of me running away from the camera in pitch black darkness. The only light came from the speedlite on the camera.
My friend and I took a road trip up the NSW coast and stayed in Byron Bay for a night before heading onto Queensland. We were camping at a ground just outside of the town centre and were hiding out in our tent because of the mass of Canetoads that had invaded the campsite outside. Some red wine and some music from the guys camping next to us and we had an instant party... which... somehow included me fixing on the speedlite and stumbling around the camp ground at midnight happy snapping at the campers whose only issue was that we made sure we had red eye reduction on!!!
I was always under the impression that cane toads were only in Queensland mostly, but Byron Bay is quite close to the border and even at the town of Maclean. We stayed in Maclean where the sugar cane grows higher than the roof tops with friends of my friend Byron and on the first night I was forced to "hold" a cane toad. Not exactly something I set out to do, but managed to amuse everyone with my girly squeals as it squirmed in my hand.
| You Are Buffy the Vampire Slayer |
 "We saved the world. I say we have to party." |
What Superheroine Are You?
Hmm.... no surprises there I suppose. **listens to Kait laugh**http://ynr.blogthings.com/whatsuperheroineareyouquiz/
I took this picture at a place called Paterson which a friend and I ended up at by accident because it wasn't on the map. Paterson is in rural NSW and consists of a one street strip of shops, a pub, a set of boom gates and this church. The haze in the picture is caused by the misty rain that was falling that day.
Just testing the waters
Has anyone ever been to Tamworth NSW Australia?
It's definately an experience, especially if you like country music.
I like SOME country music, but mostly I just view it as the music of pain. No one can write love songs like those country folk.
I am travelling a lot further in June though, heading off on a world trip and going to live in the UK for a while. ALONE..... yes, alone. Very scary.
If you see this it would be great if you logged on and told me some travel horror stories.. yeah that's a good idea, let's talk about those. Where did you get stranded? Did your luggage get stolen by gremlins? Or maybe..if you're Australian... you were "framed" with drug smuggling? Whatever the mishap I'd love to hear it.
I recently got locked in at the Big Banana tourist attraction at Coffs Harbour NSW Australia... nice.
So log on and post away!
Okay so this is me trying to figure this out....
