Rose and Sam's Excellent Adventure

Okay, I have this notepad in my pocket for the last week and a bit noting down in no more than 3 words an event that’s happened. It’s my blog list and this list, upon retrospection makes very little sense to me now as it’s chronologically chaotic and some things I write down probably don’t require me to write about it in the blog but I’ve decided if it was worth writing then, it’s worth elaborating on now. So here it is foolios. The headings in this post are exactly what’s written in the notebook.

New Camera.
Every now and then, our excellent adventure resembled a bogus journey when things like this happen but as Rose and I say, “We’ve taken one for the blog” which means in short, “fuck it, it’ll be funny on paper”.

We bought a new camera, a pretty schmick digital SLR, some rechargeable batteries and a memory stick. All up cost us about $330. We cranked it out and got some pretty nice shots of a cable beach sunset.

The next day, I had finished a shift at the Backwater Café, having fried about 55 kilos of bacon and cross contaminated more cold chicken pieces with the kitchen without a cloth (not kidding. More on that later) than I care to remember, when one of the omnipresent bottles of water Rose and I carry with us burst (top came off) and saturated the bag and the new camera.

Whipping the new camera out, which at this point was rapidly turning on and off again, I took the battery out as soon as I could and did my best at drying it out. Now it will turn on, camera lens will extend then it’ll turn itself off immediately. No places in Broome that fix cameras. Will send it home soon, I think Az will be the man to inherit this job of finding a place to drop it in and billing us the repair cost. What a pisser.

Ok, I better not elaborate so much on this entire list otherwise it’ll be an enormous post. Actually, fuck it. You’re either going to read it, or not read it. I’m going to rant and rant until I’m blue in the finger tips because I can. HA!

LOL, my neighbour just sauntered past. All he ever says is “G’day” but he slangs it even further and drops the D. So every time he walks past he’s giving me a sly smile and saying “GAY!”. This is a mighty peculiar town.

Backwater Café
Our first place of employment and our first place to quit.

Let me break this place down for you in pro’s and cons.

Pros.
We took one for the blog

Cons.
* There are no cloths in this kitchen. None. There are a couple of steel wool scourers, the ones that are banned from being used in hospitality near food as pieces of them break off and get into food. I have worked at a restaurant where a piece of this wool got stuck in the back of a child’s throat. These we’re used for washing dishes, scrubbing soot off the bottom of frypans and scrubbing the grill. By “these” I mean there were two and by the time I left, there was one. Black with soot and stinking of neat bleach.

* There were three staff under the age of 14. Two of  these kids were 14 and had been working there a year already and one was 13 and had been working there a year. I also saw these kids scrubbing hot fryers with steel wool with neat bleach with no gloves and also pouring non-diluted acid cleaner to a cooking hot stove while one of the cooks was reeling back with burning eyes and lungs. This was common daily practice.

There was many more cons and I won’t clog the internet with anymore hate (that’s a lie) but you get the idea.

WHAT THE FUDGEPACK! These weird jumping fluro green spiders keep abseiling down on my while I type. They think they’re so cool cos they’re fluro green but they’re not.

Bikes.
We got em bitchez. We’re mother loving mobile. Got two dodgy (new) hard-tail Malvern Star bikes. Single piece cranks, crappy brakes and a derailleur that never really puts the chain perfectly in gear, no matter how much you tweak it but damn it, we’re mobile.
We’re zoom zoom zooming all over the shop like a mad man shitting and it sure beats the 7klm walk into town or paying $14 round trip for us both. Sheeeeet. Goes without saying we got monster locks for them.

Sunset.
Cable beach sunsets are pretty damn good. Not sure what else I can say about that. They’re 100% Damascus bosticle gold.

Blockbuster
Guess what boys and girls? Sam and Rose are working at Blockbuster Broome! (Bvbro.. yo)
We’ve been trying to keep this a secret from most people to keep this news as a blog exclusive, especially to the cats we’ve worked with at BVOC. The crew there are pretty good and GOD DAMN IT. LOCKABLE DVD CASES ARE EVERYTHING I EVER HOPED AND DREAMED THEY COULD BE. It’s pure bliss!! It’s a bit surreal to be behind the blue veneer with Rose again to give you the honest truth. At least she won’t be telling me off for crossing the line all the time this time ;) Nuyak nuyak nuyak!

LOL. The tell-tale noise of a clean Nord. Squeak Squeak Squeak. The thong is king in this town, and a wet thong is king of comedy. Squeak Squeak Squeak from the ablution blocks to their respective Nordic hives. Germans everywhere. Their uniform is no longer the jackboot and double breasted coat. It’s the Havaiana thong and low-cut boardshorts so you can see their groin muscles. I prefer Auschwitz to be perfectly fritz. I mean Frank.

Pool Water Temp
This is also a commentary on how we’ve acclimatized. We jumped in the pool the other day and we were like “OOOH! CHILLY!, only to find out that the water temp was (flicks off yet another fluro spider) 30 degrees C. How hot it was outside, not sure….

Moving through this notepad list like a champion here. These Gecko’s still freak me out how they make that chirping quacking noise. One day, I’ll encounter one big enough that I can’t fight it off and I’ll be overcome by their sucker-pads and cute demeanor.

Bike Tourers.
This one is really for the Section Eights M.C.
Had two motorbike tourers camp next to us the other day for a few days. One was riding a beautiful BMW GS, one that I hadn’t seen before and the other one was on that Yamaha TTR250 lookalike bike, the Suzuki Dualsport 650cc.
Both had on those riceboy BMW steel panniers and they were packed for sucsess. Made me wanna join keels on the ride up here like a Nordic Backpacker wants to wear low-cut boardshorts and to scream “IIZZZZ BRROOOKKAARRNN” while wearing a neck-brace, cutting an onion with a blunt knife with a broken neck he obtained at Margaret River…. But I digress.

Mosquito Rosie-Rape.
Rose has been MOLESTED by killer mosquitos. I’ve been bitten about 3 times, but Rose has been savaged. To the point I can hardly explain. Her right back-hip part (the part of a woman’s body you try to explain without calling it a love-handle) is one big mossie bite. It’s made of about 20 bites, and they go all up her back, down her arms and legs and hands. She’s got about 50 bites on her at the moment. Started first aid them up a bit cos she’s a bit scratchy-scratchy and one of em is getting a bit south of cheese if you know what I mean. Oooh AND LOL!!! One bit her twice in the butt-crack. LOL!! Not sure if the internet is ready to hear about Rose’s itchy bum-cheeks but shit, it’s just gunna have to cos I’m preaching the gospel of the funny itches.

To share Rose’s shame here, I’ll share a story where in primary school I was bitten on the penis by a mosquito and spent most of my day at school scratching it. But again, I digress..

Note to all future campers. Don’t put up a tent next to us then fly an Australian flag from your tent if you want to make friends.

70-year-old bikini girl.
Saw this leather-skinned tanned woman with white bleached hair and full on makeup walking down the street in a tiny tiny bikini, smiling at the bus I was in, GLEAMING in her 70+ year old glory. She wasn’t fading away quietly. Not much more I can say about her except I’m pretty sure the bus driver hasn’t been the same since. He looked like he wants to say something funny about her, but he was actually quite perturbed by the sight and was unable to find any words.

Keely, just warning you about the Pee-wit situation in Broome before you come up. They travel in gangs here and fear nothing but a Frisbee. I’ve had to defend queen and tentry with a Frisbee more than once and I pray-hear, they’re well organized at counter-attacks.

Aborigional Molester.
Rose was alone at a bus-stop reading a book when one of the many retired full-bloods sat down next to Rosie asking where she was going and if she had a husband. She replies no, and that her boyfriend’s at work and making a cupping motion with his hand, he commented on the obvious fact that Rose has quite nice breasts then tried to grab a handful of said breasts.

Rose obviously didn’t respond well and parried the ill-fated attempt and he proceeded to ask rose, while making kissy noises “Is your boyfriend good at” and continued kissy noises.

Rose now reports saying “YES” and edged away from kissy kissy local man.
”Do like” *kissy noise* “in bed, and making <aboriginal word> in bed”.
Now, anyone knowing Rose, knows she’s a big fan of what is and isn’t appropriate and I believe this man had crossed the line. She told him that this was private information, and she wasn’t at liberty to discuss this any further on the grounds that it may incriminate her.

He then delivered my favorite pickup line “What’s the time” and after Rose divulged this information to said gentleman of the night, he departed on his merry way, I’m sure to blog about the event to his friends back in Perth.

Big Bug.
HOLY SHIT, IT WAS THE BIGGEST BUG I’VE EVER SEEN. Don’t be like “ooh yeah, I’ve seen big bugs. So what”

Shut up! You have no idea what I’m talking about. This bug was no bug. It was a fucking mech warrior. I was looking for the Transformers logo. It was about a foot long, with enormous wings that were red. It was HUGE. Rose accidentally ran over the back of its abdomen and it was dragging it’s ass away off the pavement. It might have lived, not sure. But it was huge. If anyone wants the video of it, sms “LOLBUG” to 0430 459 643.

Curtley Ambrose Gag.
Ok, this totally isn’t blog worthy but it’s on the list. The other morning, Rose and I woke up in a bit of a delirious mood and we were giggling in the tent when I looked down at my legs and noticed my tan had stepped up a notch.
I meant to say “Ooh my god, I look like Kelly Slater!” (the white surfer) but instead accidentally yelled out
”Ooh my god, I look like Curtley Ambrose” (the 7 foot black cricket ledgend).
This caught my funny bone and I spent the next 10 minutes dilapidated and unable to move as I was laughing so hard I was crying.
Rose eventually got quite annoyed because she wanted to get out of the tent and start the day and all I could do was roll over every now and then and say “Check out my Curtleys!” or “I have 2 guns, and 2 curtlys!” then resume my hysterics.
That’s all I got to say about that.

White Trash Subway
We have been camping for about 3 weeks now, and after that length of time in a tent, trying to get nutrition from the food we buy in town on a half-hot burner in the Nordic infested camp kitchen.
Rose and I went to Subway and got footlong subs, large soft-drinks and 6 cookies and my god… We we in HEAVEN. I looked at Rose and for a minute felt a little insecure as she was looking at this foot-long with pure blissful relish.
We’re white trash. We decided that Subway is the best place to eat out in Broome and we’ve gone there since and it’s been a delight. Bottomless soft-drinks Annabelle. BOTTOMLESS SOFT-DRINKS! Come for the weather, stay for the endless sugar-summer.

Mysterious Monsoon of the 24th.
We sleep with the mosquito fly on the tent only as it’s too hot to have the waterproof cover on at night. It was 1:10am when we were awoken by enormous rain-drops and a downpour to rival any monsoonal season and we fumbled in the dark to get out of the tent. Rose turned to me upon tent exit and said “What’s happening” to which I replied to the effect of “It’s raining you dickhead, get out of the tent!!”

We fumbled out of the tent into the humid night air, tripping over stuff as we were still very groggy from the half-awake half-asleep thing we do in Broome and I grabbed the waterproof fly.

Rose grabbed it, and being more inclined to philosophical thought, paused as she was applying said waterproof fly to the tent as she realized as did I at the time, that the rain was hitting my back, but not my front, and at times, one of us was getting wet while the other was dry. I quickly reminder Rose that she should not stand there with that “What’s going on here” look slapped over her Chevvy Chase and she put her end on and the tent was saved.

We jumped in the tent as the realization washed over us like luke-warm bore water that it was the, until now unseen, pop-up sprinkler system that had mysteriously opened fire on the entire block we’re in.

Keep in mind, this was the middle of the fucking night and there were campers fumbling around like virgins in a brothel grabbing laptops, mobile phones and the like away from their tent windows while Rose and I had exited the tent to watch the pandemonium. We spent the next 15 minutes laughing our asses off on the road as we realized our sheet, mattresses and pillows were saturated, we had job interviews the next day and there was no where else to sleep.
We took one for the blog and went to bed.

Broome’s ‘White is right’ transport.
They charge $3.50 on their busses here to keep it white. Took me a week to figure it out but it’s to keep the Cable Beach Resort yuppies happy me thinks.

Pearling Industry Corruption.
Upon about 15 minutes of reading into the pearling industry and the birth of this town they’re so proud of here, it’s blindingly obvious that the entire pearling industry is built on a bed of blatant corruption, imported ‘coolie labour’ slavery, racism and murder which was completely supported by the government of the time.

And to finish with my favorite Broome story.

Nordic Cordial
Now, the Nords have been trying to win our love by bribing us with things from time to time. Today, one gave us a Citronella Candle, one gave two eggs.
That day we’d been given a litre of milk and a bottle of pink, viscous, easily foamed liquid which one might use for cleaning dishes. This pink, sweet smelling liquid was kept in a “savings” mineral water container.

To the more domestically trained among us, this liquid was obviously dish-washing liquid but to some people around this campsite, especially the Red-headed ones, this label was not to easily obtained.

The nord who gave us the mystery liquid told us that it was “Verrry nniice smeeeelling” and I happily excepted it telling Rose, in an equal german accent that it was “Veehhhrry nooiicea scchhmmellinngg” and she was happy with that.

We went to the kitchen to make food and I brought the pink-present with us and put it on the sink… The sink where dishes as cleaned. I put a thick, fragrant pink liquid onto the sink, where the dishes are washed.

I turn my back for 2 minutes and Rose, in her thirst (for cordial, not knowledge unfortunately in this case) grabbed said bottle of “Veeehhryy nooiicee schmeeeling” liquid and took a hit.

I came back to the kitchen to find a very unimpressed and blushing Rose Newbury-Freeman post washing her mouth out to which I nearly soiled my pants when I realized she’d taken a swig of the Nordic Cordial. I tried to enquire through fits of red-faced hilarity if she had bubbles coming out of her mouth to which she confessed “yes, lots of them”.

She’d really committed to taking the swig too from what I could tell as she was quite thirsty. Every time I pickup either cordial or dishwashing liquid I remind her with a snyde but deadpan request if she wants some cordial.

This gets the play of the day. No doubt.

Stay tuned kids for more news next week.
 

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This entry was posted by Sam on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008 at 1:48 pm and is filed under Travel Plans, broome, rant. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.