I have an influx of surfers coming in the next week which is good timing with the Cyclone & clean-up last week it was nice to have the time to myself but I’m looking forward to immersing myself into the travelling lives of others once again. The weather looks to be clearing up and it will be nice to have a day, or two of sunshine! I miss the sun. On Thursday we were 300mm of a February record rainfall. There is still a week to go and it rained all weekend!
So incoming I have Diana from Indonesia, despite the close proximity she is my first surfer from Indonesia. Then Seamus a guy from Belgium who is about to embark on a hitchhiking trip around Australia. Jenna and her partner Brian from Canada (I love Canadians!!!) and last but not least Paul and his girlfriend from Australia. Paul is a musician playing in one of our local clubs.
If the weather is nice I will probably head out to get the hilux a little dirty with some 4wding in the mud. One of the best things about the wet season. I also have my CS meeting at Duck’s nuts on Sunday. Its going to be a busy week I think.
What exactly do you look for when you browse peoples profiles to find a place to surf? I offer a mattress on the floor with a fan if your lucky and I still get tons of requests. But I think my place can be a little unique sometimes. There is one guy in Darwin who gives people an air-conditioned room, with a queen bed and makes a little welcome gift as well as feeding them. I guess living at my house is sort of coming into a gypsy commune. My adventures are a little out of the ordinary, from snake-catching to playing in the mud, to scottish dancing with my mum (not me but surfers have gone). I don't offer the comfort of your own hotel room but I do have a really relaxed friendly lifestyle and many people have commented on how happy they are at my place. My german couple last week said it was like home. They even called my mum Mara-Mum. My adventures are a little whack and I can't wait for the dry again I think I will be camping every second weekend.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Aftermath.
Just in case you cared but we survived the cyclone, LAME. Lost a few good trees, volleyball was cancelled and I only got two hours off work.. whilst my mother and sister got two days. But all the bad is negated because a new frog moved into my garden
He is a Desert Tree Frog and he makes a hell of a noise.
He is a Desert Tree Frog and he makes a hell of a noise.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Cyclone Carlos.
Well sitting at work right now and Darwin is right smack bang in the middle of a Cyclone, only Catagory one but destructive winds are up to 130km/h. My work won't let me go home until 2pm. Lucky for me my road home is relatively clear but a tree is down on my street going across the road.
All flights in and out of Darwin were cancelled.
Keep safe!
Thursday, February 10, 2011
couchsurfing is a reciprocal thing
When a host opens their couch to a surfer nothing is expected in return except respect of them and their property. However the more a surfer offers the more beneficial the experience becomes. It can begin with cultural exchange and good conversation and ends with a thank-you meal or a six pack of beer. It really doesn’t matter I personally never expect anything from my surfers except that they come to my house independently. They clean up after themselves and they interact with me on some level.
I just recently had a French couple staying with me, perhaps my first French in a while. I find it a little hit and miss with the French. There seems to be extremes SUPER AMAZING & Total take advantage of my hospitality. That being said my German guy previous took advantage of me.. So who am I to judge based on what country they are from?
Lucky for me my last French couple fell into the SUPER AMAZING half and I was treated to great company with good food and of course, great wine. The funny thing was I almost passed them up because of their profile. They had no references except two they had written about six months ago to other people. It makes me think that there is something wrong with them. There are a few people on my profile I haven’t left references for because I didn’t like them all too much, so when I see other references not returned I wonder why.
That brings me to another point I FUCKING HATE IT!!!! When you have a mutually good time and they don’t leave a reference in return. Couchsurfing is a RECIPROCAL thing. It depends on a referencing system and being so fucking arrogant and lazy as to not to give one back is just rude. I personally refuse to host people who don’t return the majority of their references. I guess I needed to vent a little there. I don’t care if they have 100000 positive references if they never left any in return they can sleep in a homeless shelter for all I care.
So on my weekend including awesome French couple I also had two Aussie guys from Victoria on their way back from Vietnam, A Highly excitable German couple about to embark on their Australian working holiday, and A German girl studying in Manly, Sydney. Friday night I had also had a Swedish couple & a Canadian girl. Saturday night we played Pictionary which turned out to be a bit interesting when English was not the first language of most of the players and it turned into a few heated arguments about the translation but all in good fun. It was a pretty intense weekend with a lot of people around.
Spent Sunday out at Litchfield with the Aussies & German couple. Was another instense wet season experience with rushing waters and thundering falls. There was a snake in the water at wangi but I couldn’t quite work out what it was. I was pretty tired from the entire weekend though, but we swam for a few hours in Buley Rockhole and the boys entertained themselves jumping off things.
Anyway I will leave you with a great “cheap” recipe. Tastes good, is healthy and won’t break the budget.
SUPER tuna PATTIES
1 can of tuna
½ cup of breadcrumbs
2 eggs
Cup chopped fresh spinach
1 grated carrot
1 onion diced
Teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 fresh lime juice only
Any other spices you like. I’ve thrown some basil in it was good!
Mix everything together then shape into patties voila YUMMY. The patties freeze well and are delicious hot or cold!
I just recently had a French couple staying with me, perhaps my first French in a while. I find it a little hit and miss with the French. There seems to be extremes SUPER AMAZING & Total take advantage of my hospitality. That being said my German guy previous took advantage of me.. So who am I to judge based on what country they are from?
Lucky for me my last French couple fell into the SUPER AMAZING half and I was treated to great company with good food and of course, great wine. The funny thing was I almost passed them up because of their profile. They had no references except two they had written about six months ago to other people. It makes me think that there is something wrong with them. There are a few people on my profile I haven’t left references for because I didn’t like them all too much, so when I see other references not returned I wonder why.
That brings me to another point I FUCKING HATE IT!!!! When you have a mutually good time and they don’t leave a reference in return. Couchsurfing is a RECIPROCAL thing. It depends on a referencing system and being so fucking arrogant and lazy as to not to give one back is just rude. I personally refuse to host people who don’t return the majority of their references. I guess I needed to vent a little there. I don’t care if they have 100000 positive references if they never left any in return they can sleep in a homeless shelter for all I care.
So on my weekend including awesome French couple I also had two Aussie guys from Victoria on their way back from Vietnam, A Highly excitable German couple about to embark on their Australian working holiday, and A German girl studying in Manly, Sydney. Friday night I had also had a Swedish couple & a Canadian girl. Saturday night we played Pictionary which turned out to be a bit interesting when English was not the first language of most of the players and it turned into a few heated arguments about the translation but all in good fun. It was a pretty intense weekend with a lot of people around.
Spent Sunday out at Litchfield with the Aussies & German couple. Was another instense wet season experience with rushing waters and thundering falls. There was a snake in the water at wangi but I couldn’t quite work out what it was. I was pretty tired from the entire weekend though, but we swam for a few hours in Buley Rockhole and the boys entertained themselves jumping off things.
Anyway I will leave you with a great “cheap” recipe. Tastes good, is healthy and won’t break the budget.
SUPER tuna PATTIES
1 can of tuna
½ cup of breadcrumbs
2 eggs
Cup chopped fresh spinach
1 grated carrot
1 onion diced
Teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 fresh lime juice only
Any other spices you like. I’ve thrown some basil in it was good!
Mix everything together then shape into patties voila YUMMY. The patties freeze well and are delicious hot or cold!
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Crazy Kiwi Surfer
What is wrong with people that need 1 million friends on thier facebooks/couchsurfing profiles I prefer quality over quantity any day. Sure when I first started I scraped the barrel a bit more to buff up my awesomness but now I just want to have the real referances. The genuine people.
I have this Kiwi girl who I met briefly in a bar as she was being hosted by another one of my surfers she has about 100 friends/referances. I didn't really like her because she requested me to pick her up at the airport at 1am and I told her at the bar (ok I was drunk and aggressive) that I thought it was rude to expect a host to do that. She brushed me off, fair enough then I walked off and talked to other people. She then went home and bitched about me to my host's roommate. Fine, we obviously didn't get along and I thought that was that.
Lo & Behold the NEXT FUCKING DAY she adds me a friend and leaves me a stupid neutral two line referance saying how great I am. Is she serious? I asked her to delete it and she ignored me, didn't even reply.
New years comes round and I get this message from her
"happy new years!!
where are you now?
love from saigon, vietnam
maxin"
Quite obviously a spam message to everyone on her list if she really cared she would know that I was still in Darwin and would have at least put Hi Amanda!
To which I reply
"you are the fakest person I have ever met. I don't know you, you don't like me as you made it clear to other people, why bother with this. All I asked was that you deleted your referance to me and I will delete my own so I can forget I ever met you."
Once again I get ignored. Ok so I shouldn't let this bother me but this isn't what couch-surfing is about. Its about real connections, real people and buffing up your resume with a lot of bullshit referances does not represent who you are.
So I left her a negative referance. Hopefully now she removes me from her life.
I have this Kiwi girl who I met briefly in a bar as she was being hosted by another one of my surfers she has about 100 friends/referances. I didn't really like her because she requested me to pick her up at the airport at 1am and I told her at the bar (ok I was drunk and aggressive) that I thought it was rude to expect a host to do that. She brushed me off, fair enough then I walked off and talked to other people. She then went home and bitched about me to my host's roommate. Fine, we obviously didn't get along and I thought that was that.
Lo & Behold the NEXT FUCKING DAY she adds me a friend and leaves me a stupid neutral two line referance saying how great I am. Is she serious? I asked her to delete it and she ignored me, didn't even reply.
New years comes round and I get this message from her
"happy new years!!
where are you now?
love from saigon, vietnam
maxin"
Quite obviously a spam message to everyone on her list if she really cared she would know that I was still in Darwin and would have at least put Hi Amanda!
To which I reply
"you are the fakest person I have ever met. I don't know you, you don't like me as you made it clear to other people, why bother with this. All I asked was that you deleted your referance to me and I will delete my own so I can forget I ever met you."
Once again I get ignored. Ok so I shouldn't let this bother me but this isn't what couch-surfing is about. Its about real connections, real people and buffing up your resume with a lot of bullshit referances does not represent who you are.
So I left her a negative referance. Hopefully now she removes me from her life.
Monday, January 31, 2011
My German weekend in melbourne
With flights no more than $200 return, Melbourne was looking like a good way to spend the weekend. Darwin had just hit its 50th day straight of rain and to be honest I was starting to feel wet right through to my bones.
One of my original surfers Ilona a talkative german girl with an addiction to texting was now living in Melbourne and I was looking forward to catching up with her since we had become pretty good friends over her short stint in my home town. So now is the story of Host turns surfer and she picked me up Friday afternoon to take her back to her place and my home for the next two days.
We started quickly downing six $3.00 champagnes at Charlies between 6:30pm & 8:30pm where an old friend from Darwin Dan Horner & Alice another one of my ex surfers showed up to indulge with us. After finishing up our drinks we headed outside and found a lonely Austrian wandering the streets. Yes yet again another ex-surfer of mine. Ducking into a liquor store I was shocked to see prices at least $10 cheaper for a carton of beer. Why am I living in Darwin again? We grabbed some booze and headed back to Ilona’s after that things got a little blurry but there is some random video footage of the German and the Austrian acting out some strange dance.
Somehow I think around Midnight we made it out and headed to a bar Section 8 where I met up with Ciaran & Jaesper two irish folks, I worked with Ciaran in Canada for two ski seasons – he basically saw me learn to snowboard! (and laughed at me a lot)
Once again things got blurry and we ended up at my friend David’s club where he Djs hardstyle. I think I was the only one in the whole group who enjoyed hardstyle lol. Ilona puts on a brave face and actually danced.
Saturday we were all so tired we just hung out on St Kilda beach and chatted, then I met these two German guys and another german girl and we went out dancing again. Ilona came to, I kind of felt like I was in Little Germany!! They were all so nice and talked English around me though. It makes me wonder with the amount of German’s in Australia why don’t the major cities have little Germany? Honestly I love a good bratwurst!
So my “early” night turns into possum catching in the park at 4am. Not only did I fail to catch the possums but it meant I was only going to have about five hours of sleep before my big LOOONG day at Big Day Out which was the main reason I was in Melbourne!
Sunday was fucking hot, I was tired and a little hung-over. I couldn’t be bothered walking through the thousands of irritating teeny boppers to check out the bands. But there were a few that stood out. CSS a Brazilian rock band were surprisingly awesome, Crystal Castles also rocked. Special mentions goes to Deftones, Airbourne and Iggy & the Stooges. Gyroscope was not bad but my head needed something lighter… then cue Ramnstein who fucking killed! I was so pumped up listening and watching their show that when the highlight of my day Tool came on they just didn’t live up to my expectations. The lead singer decided he wasn’t showing himself for the festival because its “about the music” which seems pointless to me because if it was “about the music” I would put on the fucking CD and save myself $150.00. I think he was never even there they just played a tape…
So Ramnstein had me reliving my days as a 16yr old when I would reply Du Hast over and over again. I think the last time I listened to them was literally 10 years ago now, but I think I will check out their new stuff I have a new found love for the German weirdos… I just realised how fucking German my weekend was :D
I went back to Dan’s warehouse and was exhausted so passed out quite early about 1am. The next morning he brought me breakfast and then Dai Zaobob an amazing Japanese fire-dancer/performer and the man who created buugeng (which honestly that was the first time Id heard of them.) did a little private show for me. I was starting to think I could deal with the hippy lifestyle and decided to forgo my shower for the day just to prove it.
After my delayed flight home, stepping out into 80% humidity I failed and had a shower before bed.
One of my original surfers Ilona a talkative german girl with an addiction to texting was now living in Melbourne and I was looking forward to catching up with her since we had become pretty good friends over her short stint in my home town. So now is the story of Host turns surfer and she picked me up Friday afternoon to take her back to her place and my home for the next two days.
We started quickly downing six $3.00 champagnes at Charlies between 6:30pm & 8:30pm where an old friend from Darwin Dan Horner & Alice another one of my ex surfers showed up to indulge with us. After finishing up our drinks we headed outside and found a lonely Austrian wandering the streets. Yes yet again another ex-surfer of mine. Ducking into a liquor store I was shocked to see prices at least $10 cheaper for a carton of beer. Why am I living in Darwin again? We grabbed some booze and headed back to Ilona’s after that things got a little blurry but there is some random video footage of the German and the Austrian acting out some strange dance.
Somehow I think around Midnight we made it out and headed to a bar Section 8 where I met up with Ciaran & Jaesper two irish folks, I worked with Ciaran in Canada for two ski seasons – he basically saw me learn to snowboard! (and laughed at me a lot)
Once again things got blurry and we ended up at my friend David’s club where he Djs hardstyle. I think I was the only one in the whole group who enjoyed hardstyle lol. Ilona puts on a brave face and actually danced.
Saturday we were all so tired we just hung out on St Kilda beach and chatted, then I met these two German guys and another german girl and we went out dancing again. Ilona came to, I kind of felt like I was in Little Germany!! They were all so nice and talked English around me though. It makes me wonder with the amount of German’s in Australia why don’t the major cities have little Germany? Honestly I love a good bratwurst!
So my “early” night turns into possum catching in the park at 4am. Not only did I fail to catch the possums but it meant I was only going to have about five hours of sleep before my big LOOONG day at Big Day Out which was the main reason I was in Melbourne!
Sunday was fucking hot, I was tired and a little hung-over. I couldn’t be bothered walking through the thousands of irritating teeny boppers to check out the bands. But there were a few that stood out. CSS a Brazilian rock band were surprisingly awesome, Crystal Castles also rocked. Special mentions goes to Deftones, Airbourne and Iggy & the Stooges. Gyroscope was not bad but my head needed something lighter… then cue Ramnstein who fucking killed! I was so pumped up listening and watching their show that when the highlight of my day Tool came on they just didn’t live up to my expectations. The lead singer decided he wasn’t showing himself for the festival because its “about the music” which seems pointless to me because if it was “about the music” I would put on the fucking CD and save myself $150.00. I think he was never even there they just played a tape…
So Ramnstein had me reliving my days as a 16yr old when I would reply Du Hast over and over again. I think the last time I listened to them was literally 10 years ago now, but I think I will check out their new stuff I have a new found love for the German weirdos… I just realised how fucking German my weekend was :D
I went back to Dan’s warehouse and was exhausted so passed out quite early about 1am. The next morning he brought me breakfast and then Dai Zaobob an amazing Japanese fire-dancer/performer and the man who created buugeng (which honestly that was the first time Id heard of them.) did a little private show for me. I was starting to think I could deal with the hippy lifestyle and decided to forgo my shower for the day just to prove it.
After my delayed flight home, stepping out into 80% humidity I failed and had a shower before bed.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Darwin Couchsurfing Community.
As the self-proclaimed unofficial ambassador of Darwin’s couchsurfing group I have become the organisers of our monthly meet-ups and in general attempt to kick-start the group. Our previous ambassador it appears doesn’t even live in Darwin anymore.
I recently acquired a deal with Duck’s Nuts establishment to get discount beverages & free snacks. So Sunday the 23rd we had a meet-up and I was blown away by the attendance. I guess the whole cheaper drinks thing doesn’t help. A heap of hosts came out of the woodwork who had never been to a Darwin event bringing the total including surfers up to about 40 people. I never did a final count. I drank to many beers and ended up chatting excitedly to whoever was in earshot of me.
My friend Glen ( bluewater fishing back in October) was there which was a surprise since I hadn’t seen him in ages and he is a hard person to get a hold of. He is off to South America in a month and was telling me all about the trip. I found it funny he is staying in this expensive hotel that releases oxygen into the air over a period of time to get them climatised to the height of Maachu Piichu. So I just started laughing, Heather and I did the climb the hard way and consumed copious amounts of coco leaves to get through it :D 50km of hiking through sweaty jungle, the blisters, aching legs, the almost dying when some people threw planks of wood down the trail barely missing us, the lack of water, extreme temperatures from freezing to sweating like crazy, the horrible bathrooms. Wait ..why was I laughing at HIM again.
I never couch-surfed in South America. I say its because I never knew where I was going to be until a day before but reality is I was a little tentative for safety reasons. Here I am the woman who drove across the USA by myself and stayed with countless strangers and I was worried about my safety. Honestly its bullshit and now I wish I’d made more of an effort. I preach about how Couchsurfing is safer then hostels a lot of the time and I let a few misconceptions about South America get the better of me. I did meet up with one guy, we went out Dancing in Arequipa, Peru. He hit on me after about an hour. The scariest thing about the whole night was how much shorter he was then me.
I have heard the most amazing stories about people travelling through South America from surfing it makes me wish I’d tried it out. Next time for sure! I still have a few countries to cross off the list.
Its also funny to see the different kinds of hosts in Darwin. You notice the more experienced ones stipulate more and more rules whilst others will bend over backwards for their surfers and get quickly taken advantage of. Darwin is such a popular town to the young backpackers and can get quite expensive in our main holiday season. So many of my surfers were at some point just camping in the bushes packing up every morning so as not to get fined. Not that they would pay anyway
So being such a popular town to young backpackers you get the very inexperienced surfers who really only want a free bed and have no concept of the couchsurfing spirit. They make a brief profile and after Darwin will probably never surf again. So after you host for a while in Darwin you start to discern between the different types and quickly become a much harder person. My friend Steve hosted his first girl, a Kiwi. He picked her up from the airport at 1am! I had actually already refused her because of her impersonal message and asking me to pick her up. I often pick people up, generally as it suits my schedule since I work full time but if someone asks me to do it I usually don’t.
Anyway lesson learn to him, he said “never again”
I recently acquired a deal with Duck’s Nuts establishment to get discount beverages & free snacks. So Sunday the 23rd we had a meet-up and I was blown away by the attendance. I guess the whole cheaper drinks thing doesn’t help. A heap of hosts came out of the woodwork who had never been to a Darwin event bringing the total including surfers up to about 40 people. I never did a final count. I drank to many beers and ended up chatting excitedly to whoever was in earshot of me.
My friend Glen ( bluewater fishing back in October) was there which was a surprise since I hadn’t seen him in ages and he is a hard person to get a hold of. He is off to South America in a month and was telling me all about the trip. I found it funny he is staying in this expensive hotel that releases oxygen into the air over a period of time to get them climatised to the height of Maachu Piichu. So I just started laughing, Heather and I did the climb the hard way and consumed copious amounts of coco leaves to get through it :D 50km of hiking through sweaty jungle, the blisters, aching legs, the almost dying when some people threw planks of wood down the trail barely missing us, the lack of water, extreme temperatures from freezing to sweating like crazy, the horrible bathrooms. Wait ..why was I laughing at HIM again.
I never couch-surfed in South America. I say its because I never knew where I was going to be until a day before but reality is I was a little tentative for safety reasons. Here I am the woman who drove across the USA by myself and stayed with countless strangers and I was worried about my safety. Honestly its bullshit and now I wish I’d made more of an effort. I preach about how Couchsurfing is safer then hostels a lot of the time and I let a few misconceptions about South America get the better of me. I did meet up with one guy, we went out Dancing in Arequipa, Peru. He hit on me after about an hour. The scariest thing about the whole night was how much shorter he was then me.
I have heard the most amazing stories about people travelling through South America from surfing it makes me wish I’d tried it out. Next time for sure! I still have a few countries to cross off the list.
Its also funny to see the different kinds of hosts in Darwin. You notice the more experienced ones stipulate more and more rules whilst others will bend over backwards for their surfers and get quickly taken advantage of. Darwin is such a popular town to the young backpackers and can get quite expensive in our main holiday season. So many of my surfers were at some point just camping in the bushes packing up every morning so as not to get fined. Not that they would pay anyway
So being such a popular town to young backpackers you get the very inexperienced surfers who really only want a free bed and have no concept of the couchsurfing spirit. They make a brief profile and after Darwin will probably never surf again. So after you host for a while in Darwin you start to discern between the different types and quickly become a much harder person. My friend Steve hosted his first girl, a Kiwi. He picked her up from the airport at 1am! I had actually already refused her because of her impersonal message and asking me to pick her up. I often pick people up, generally as it suits my schedule since I work full time but if someone asks me to do it I usually don’t.
Anyway lesson learn to him, he said “never again”
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