Nov. 17 - The B&B from hell and so many BATS

We packed up and worked on the computer with our pictures for a long time then headed off for an early start to the last Airbnb which was supposed to be near the airport but ended up being 6 houses up the road. We should have known better. Maybe it was lovely but she had just had surgery so you could account for some of the problems but definitely not everything. As we approached the buiding our own steep steps to our unit had police caution tape everywhere at the bottom and top. That doesn't seem like a good start. We went around the back where all the construction was which was not mentioned on the website. Up the stairs, a lovely young lady showed us to our room and the tiny kitchen with no table and told us the living room was off-limits if she was there which she was most of the time.
Now I'm not suggesting that she was running a brothel but there were three different men there at different times and a lot of wine which we were not offered. I sound judgmental but mostly bitter and jealous.
We were very spoiled at the previous place where she offered us a bottle of wine upon arrival. Our new host said there was Wi-fi but it's only in our room. There is air conditioning but it's only in our room. The rest of the house has all the windows and doors open in the 35-degree weather damn it all. Air con means air-conditioning throughout the house. Ok she's off on a technicality.

She'd only been open a few weeks and had three good reviews. I don't have any idea how that was possible. The window in the bedroom did not have a screen and I'll be damned if I'm sleeping with even more bugs. There was a spider (ok wannabe- daddy long legs) in the bathroom and spider webs everywhere.
Somebody vomited in the toilet overnight and it was a mess. I guess that explains the mini party they had going on till 1 a.m. which was quite loud. The bathroom ceiling is covered in mold, the walls needed painting desperately. The stove did not work so she had a single hot plate for a meal to be cooked. The taps in the kitchen and bathroom did not work. Sadly she was competitively priced with all the others Airbnbs in the area but she did not offer anything close to what they did. And no breakfast of course but that's the airbnb way unless you are a Superhost. She did say she'd only been open briefly and giggled please let me know if there's anything, anything at all you can suggest. Boy is she in for a rude awakening. Gives Airbnb a bad name but the funny thing was, from when I just reviewed, she has had 6 young reviewers that were 5 star. Maybe I'm just more fussy. That's a good thing, right?

We did get away around 6 o'clock with other tourists to sit at the city council building who hate the bats so much to watch the onslaught of bats take off from all of the trees throughout downtown. Oh my God it's so spectacular. The noise level is crazy the smell is wild and then suddenly one takes off and they all take off and the sky is covered; for at least a half an hour you could hardly see out of it. I must have taken a hundred pictures and videos. My daughter got pooped on and was not very impressed. I'm not sure if I actually swallowed something so if I come down with some disease that's the reason. You don't look up and go "oh my God" and leave your mouth open for too long. Back home to bed.

Millions of these sleeping bats overhead

City hall hates the bat poop on everything.

Shocking to see really.

And these are the trees that host the monsters. This particular tree, a banyon, is one long tree with millions of offshoots that span a city block. It's gorgeous.

Nov 16 - A Traditional Aussie Day

I'm having a very traditional Aussie day today. We relaxed and did not have to change our accommodation for a change. Suddenly we remembered, oh shit,, that we had to return the van and clean it before the hostel  closed its doors in the afternoon. Got it spic and span did not have an accident and actually made it back to the return center with a bit of a refund which was nice. We sweet-talked the guy into taking us down to the Lagoon to soak in the baths and take more pictures of Cairns. On the way back we had our traditional ice cream and the bats we're just starting to wake up. Apparently they fill the skies around 6:30 pm and first thing in the morning around 5 ish. I am dying to see them again. So we came back for the BBQ at the hostel and a bit of entertainment with the didgeridoo- it was a little competition and when it ended I tried the didgeridoo and I was actually pretty good at it- ok brilliant!  I would totally have rocked the contest. The young'ins have no idea how to blow...the didgeridoo. Lol.  We also ate kangaroo and crocodile and we finished off the evening with tim tams that my friend Jim suggested. Damn they're really good. Finishing off our Aussie stay with a bang. We only have one more day here until we both get our flights with me heading solo to New Zealand where they just had a 7.9 earthquake in the south. By the way, I like the concept of a hostile and mixing with all kinds of people but I'm always the oldest one there. And you always figure it's somewhat substandard until you go to your last Air B&B. Then you see what you really had when you had it.

Nov. 15 - #1 on the Bucket List- The Great Barrier Reef & PUKING

Big day today, scuba diving The Reef. We had to be there for 7 so we checked out very early and found the boat. I had a bad feeling...I've been on these small boats too many times before and they should be named Pukatoriums where people go to die. Nice people but 2 hours to get to the outer Reef and oh it was rough. Massive waves and me filling puke bag after puke bag. I kinda thought the Reef was some rocks above ground to make a cove that would be smooth. Nope, Massive waves! I had booked a private tour and he was a wet towel. I felt so sick entering the water but instead of going down immediately, he suggested we swim above water to the front. OMG! I think I sucked the air dry before we even saw anything, stupid waves. Finally we swam to the Reef and surprisingly it was just like Thailand.  How disappointing. He swam ahead and mostly ignored me and I was afraid he'd knock my mask off. Finally it changed.  The colours of the coral were brighter, not bleached. The fish more abundant. I saw a coral that looked like a ginormous clam as big as me but the second time I saw another one and he motioned that it was a real clam and it was bright purple and gorgeous. Apparently my daughter was circling above me the whole time and that I even waved to her but hardly! I was probably air deprived. At 50 you must go back but we weren't.  Running out of air kinda scares me so eventually we slowly went back. I did see another fish he said was a puffer but I don't think so. It was huge and solid with little sharp teeth and we were eyeball to eyeball with him giving me the stink eye..it was the only time I was a little nervous.

Oh my God, back on the boat - thrilled it was all over with, thrilled to have seen it all, thrilled to have knocked this off my bucket list and dying to go home. I still feel really sick and they were serving lunch so I waited a long time. I finally ate and then puking started again. Why when you're very delicately puking do all the men in the room just sit there staring at you making you freak out? Finally one of the staffers took me to the back and made me sit there. It did help but I continued all day. At one point the bag I was holding made of teeny tiny goody sack bags of paper just dissolved and I was covered in my own vomit. Oh yeah I was happy. When I was counting how soon I'd get home we got an announcement from the captain that we were doing an emergency rescue so they started the boat up Full Throttle thousands of meter High waves and off we went again with me filling more bags. I have such good memories of the reef. LOL We caught up with a man and they went into rescue mode and it was very impressive but I couldn't  see between changing bags. When he got off the boat he knew the police will be waiting for him because the helicopter  search and rescue was involved too . I couldn't even function. I almost kissed the ground when we landed but when we went back to the room exhausted and I close my eyes all I could feel the waves like when you get off a trampoline. I will never forget this place. I don't know if that's good or bad.

Night came fast until I heard there was a possible break-in at my place. Luckily I have a number of people living there and checking on the place so it was not successful.

Nov. 14 - Cairns...Here we Come

My daughter saw the spider dome and  yup we were done with that place- packed up. We were going to go swimming but parking was gross so blew that off.  First day driving without using any medication and it was getting difficult. Getting here we saw so many fields of banana plants and what's funny about that is each one of the trees has a big grocery bag hanging off it with the bananas inside. Not sure if that prevents the other animals from eating it but I would hate to be buying that bag complete with the heebie-jeebies inside. Chance reminds me of Vancouver . It's spread out  and seems large but in this case it probably is not. We just continued down to Cairns and now we're at a beautiful super host Airbnb place with a pool and a big TV and a lovely hostess. She greeted us with our choice of a bottle of wine but scuba diving, i had to pass. I guess the scuba diving and snorkeling will begin tomorrow. Number one on the bucket list. I don't think this part of the world is ever going to see rain. 35- 40 degrees Celsius. We drove downtown near the beach and couldn’t wait to use their baths- inter swimming pools. We saw the night market had a quick bite I'm going outside to walk the park. It look like hundreds and hundreds of people on a small Bridge staring out of the water in the sunset was behind them another Bridge staring out of the water but we couldn't figure out what they were looking at. There was music in the background and suddenly somebody pointed end supermoon came up they were so lucky to get that photo cuz it's the brightest one for 70 years that they're going to see. Then as we were walking to the car we saw the coolest phenomenon. There were thousands of bats in the near dark in the downtown Skies. Oh my God it's fantastic! Of course I left my phone in my car so I couldn't video it but I'm going to get it tonight. When back to our place, talked Trump for a long time with the Aussies and I crashed early.

Nov. 13 - PTSD Costa Rica at Pacha Mama

We packed up the tiny cabin that was perfect for our needs had a huge breakfast and headed off to the Townsville baths. another hot day with no rain in sight. So they climbed to the top of the lookout and we dropped him off and continued on our way. We spent a good portion of the day looking for waterfalls and the app Campermate, that has done very well, was misinformed. We worked in the hot sun up up up the mountain walk. The 10 minute walk was a full hour we didn't make it. when we got to the rock pools near the top it was a death-defying walk over the rocks to get to the pools. Everybody did it and could be nice but it was quite scary and at one point in between some rocks that I wanted to get over a  huge snake came out and i decided at that point maybe I did want to swim. I'm not afraid of snakes but I'm supposed to be in Australia. We were pretty cranky then we went back down to the beach to swim some more and drove to the second 5 star rainforest retreat. We had to get picked up in a 4 by 4 and taken down hugely steep roads to get to camp. It seems to be that all of the owners of these rainforest camps bitter men. we found our tiny casita with just a bed and a fan and a lite. Around the corner was an alfresco shower and toilet and wash basin. When I was alone I looked up and saw in the seventh layer of Hell a monstrous spider or two eating a bird they got caught in the net webs from above my head to many feet above. I knew I was done with that idea of a shower and so was my daughter. We swam met some lovely people read a lot which I haven't done for the whole trip and I stayed up late reading till 10:30 if you can believe it. As crazy as it sounds, I think I have a little bit of PTSD residual from the Costa Rican rainforest that I went to. Everywhere I looked on this site were creepy insects and things that I remember all too well from a few years back. I'm covered in insects bites from head to my feet so I finally broke down and bought deet but I'm sticky all over.  I Remember All Too Well sleeping alone in my casita covered in bugs -used their sticky bug spray and hot in the sweltering non air-conditioned cabin praying for death. last night was no different. I think I'm done with the rainforest.

Nov. 12 - Hitchhikers Dude at the Caracas Park Mini Cabin

So we picked up our first hitchhiker. He was actually only the second hitchhiker we've seen on our travels. The first one we didn't pick up because every time I go to turn left to pick up somebody I put on the windshield washer so I gave up. This time  I was fast enough to figure out which way to go. He's a young one, in his twenties, traveling the world with a smile as big as a billboard which I'm pretty sure he's been living off of for free for a very long time. Moved into a roadside Caravan cabin for 3 so I invited him to join us and I ended up having to pay the extra person supplement- bloody hell. Too late to tell this poverty stricken boy. Now we're all swimming in the pool getting ready to use the free Wi-Fi laptop walk the beach do some shopping swim in the city rock BATHS. Cooked up a gourmet dinner as I'm sure this lad has not had in awhile - i saw his groceries all bread and pasta. I'm surprised if his system doesn't shut down with the salad. In bed by nine and still didn't get to watch the free DVD rentals.  It was a good night.

Nov 11 - No Waterfalls, no Sunset Cruise - the Rainforest Retreat #1 & EATEN ALIVE

Still in shock that Trump is now the president. I don't think that horrifying feeling ever go away. Valerie only charges $50 a night for a room and then she serves as $50 worth of breakfast fresh fruit cereal. She's amazing. And this is the best part of my trip - I'm 100% caught up on my blog on my phone. If only she had a computer or Wi-Fi here. I've never been to a place that had no Wi-Fi. I will have the entire blog done and only be able to post it when I arrived back in Canada.

We stop every day to make sure the car is full of gas, sometimes $1.14, sometimes $1.35. Either way it's over $50 to fill for a half to a full tank and it's killing me because my Prius would do so much better. We always break up the trip even if we don't stop by getting ice cream or sharing a chocolate bar. I'll be seven hundred pounds before I return.

We drove many hours today , as usual, to see a waterfalls but when we arrived the water had dried up and it was just a nice little pond so we visited with everybody there and continued trying to find somewhere to stay I almost had convinced one of the swimmers to let us stay at his house with his yacht but he waffled too long.

Well 12 days in and 7 more days in Australia and 7 more days in New Zealand then it's home to Canada snow sweet home. I have no idea what city we're in or where we've been but we move every night. It's exhausting and really nice. We've  met so many wonderful people especially with Airbnb. We came into this town which just finished a music festival and everything is booked solid. Christelle was on two cell phones and about 10 different websites trying to find anything hostels Airbnb, Bed & Breakfasts, caravan parks, cabins and Couchsurfing for three solid hours. Very stressful. We ended up at a rainforest retreat at three times the price we normally pay.. so $95 whole dollars. I'm looking out over mountains, beaches that goes on forever which is the start of the Great Barrier Reef and hundred and eighty degrees of trees. I'm overlooking almost the top of the trees. I don't expect to see any Wildlife but there's a lot of birds.  Early in the daytime it's quite hot like 35 to 40 degrees and as we get closer to Cairns, I'm told that the humidity will be unbearable. I have to make sure we always have an air-conditioned place with Wi-Fi. Sadly this place does not have Wi-Fi.

We had to drive up what looked like a straight incline and I was petrified. I was freaking out because I didn't think I'd ever be able even go down the hill again. we park the car facing down on what felt like a straight up and down incline and every time I would back up, it would go forward closer to the cliff. I could hardly breathe. I'm dreading going down the hill but the place turned out to be wonderful. There's the main area where you can swim in the lobby hang in the hammocks check out The Overlook. So many things to do.

We even booked a sunset Cruise on a sailboat but after we paid for it they canceled it because of the wind. That's okay I don't think I could get back in the car voluntarily to do the incline that we have to do tomorrow. While swimming at the reception I noticed I am absolutely covered in bug bites I'm looking forward to getting home in the snow and no more bug bites.

So the Resort we're  staying at is a big cabin with for private rooms with their own bathroom and we all share the kitchen. Right now we have two German couples one of them on their honeymoon another couple just checked out and my daughter and I. They're having a very lively visit but I'm in my room scratching my bug bites- do I know how to party or what.

Each one of the rooms was filled up with foreigners and people coming and going and it was so nice to just sit around and share stories and of course advertise Spoiled Rotten. The main area’s sweltering and opens to the deck and the rain forest with the individual rooms having air conditioning so they're always overly a/c’d and I'm freezing my butt off. I know. First world problems. Close quarters,  always sharing a queen bed, and pregnancy hormones could be the death of us. I found that while driving, if tension is high, I stop to get gas every day and I buy an Oreo chocolate bar to share. We are stopping A LOT for the chocolate. LOL