My Georgetown song! 🙂

It is now though bye bye Georgetown and hello road trip!!! :-). It is most wonderful to be reacquainted! 🙂

My time in Georgetown has been interesting. As has listening to the preconception of the ‘backpacker’ here… Some lessons learnt for sure, I had to battle the itchy feet feeling more than once ;-). A friend’s wise words of ‘follow the money’ echoing, they kept me here and to my plan. Staying in staff accommodation for $80 a week with a pretty comfy bed and air con, having stayed in worse, it wasn’t too bad at all for staff digs. With an external bathroom, bugs roaming around, it has reminded of zucchini picking in Katherine a lot :-). My roommate not liking them at all, they actually don’t bother me unless they are of the cockroach variety… I actually find the geckos presence reassuring. The crickets have become familiar visitors and I’m always perplexed by ants in the sink… Got a death wish on their hands ;-). Or feet ;-). For they get washed away…

Managing to eat relatively healthily, cheaply and efficiently, it is probably one of my best efforts to save money whilst in Australia. Especially as we are the supermarket and my hard earned money returns to my employer…! You want to try and keep as much of that as possible! Taking a $100 shop with me from Cairns, definitely a good idea, pasta, tuna and rice have featured heavily in the past few months ;-). As have multi portioned meals. Spag Bol in particular ;-). One of the most expensive single things I’ve eaten? A $4.90 cucumber… $4.90 and I only managed half of it… Pretty sure they are about a dollar in the supermarket… Actual madness.

Some of the Georgetown randomness:

• I have fallen out of love with timtams… I know Clem, I’m sorry, but I’ve decided mint slices are better… Don’t worry, I will still send you some!
• I received some very strange advice – “If it moves and it shouldn’t – duct tape. It if should move and it doesn’t – WD40!” I don’t want to know ;-).
• I was asked if we sell ‘Shoo roo’s.’ A whistling device that can apparently be attached to a vehicle to try and stop kangaroo’s jumping in front of you. Not a product we stock, I told the man he’d have to fashion his own ;-).
• I was also asked for a saddle. Not for a horse, mind but for a wire 😉
• A customer looking for a container for bitumen bought five metal containers of milo (a drinkable with milk or water chocolate and malt powder), emptied it, put the milo into plastic containers then left ALL of the milo for us…! Madness
• People watching, noticing some interesting people, I had to ask if two were just workmates or a couple? 😉 A married couple working together as marriage counsellors was the answer! Wow. I want to know much more about their story now 😉
• I’ve developed an aversion to cardboard boxes. I actually can’t cope with them! Retail bred through and through, the stock either needs to be on the shelf or out of the box waiting for it to be put on the shelf…!
• I have watched a lot of the same adverts! A lot of them play EVERY ad break. I’m starting to sing the songs before they play ;-). One has become a Georgetown song ;-). What is most bizarre is the amount of ads for businesses in Alice Springs. Over 2000km away! Granted it is one of the bigger places to the west, but this is the equivalent of advertising Polish or Czech Republic businesses in Scotland as local ads distance wise! It is far away! Not so many adverts for Cairns, they must assume most people travel west through Georgetown…
• Having to hotspot myself a lot, spending more than I would in a city with free wifi, I received a phonecall from my phone network provider, Telstra. They wanted to help me get a better deal for my money… Nearly two years after I started using them and three weeks before I leave the country ;-). Bit late now Telstra! If only I’d known how long I was staying I would have got myself a contract 😉
• Rain!! Signalling the end of the dry season, twice with very heavy showers, smelling amazing, you certainly know you are not in Scotland when the locals are excited about it!
• I was very angry at two boys who took advantage of a girl that wanted to leave the nearby mango farm. Charging her $130 for a lift for the same $26 journey by bus, upset and the next bus to Cairns not leaving for two days, we facilitated a lift for her and tried to give her some food. Not accepting a sandwich or even breakfast the next day for free, she gave us mangoes and wrote a thank you note and left it on the counter. Hoping she has a less stressful journey onward to Cairns, I hope the boys don’t rip anyone else off…
• I managed to faint and bang my head… Yes silly Jane I know. I blame the heat and no breakfast… Julie taking good care of me, I saw the inside of Georgetown hospital and left all ok except for a very big bump on my head… Given the day off work, it took me six days to feel back to normal. Sporting a black eye as a result, prompting many an interesting conversation, I think I’m going to be remembered as ‘that one who fainted on us!’

A different kind of roadhouse, perhaps the biggest roadhouse supermarket between Cairns and Karumba, it is very much a retail focus rather than bar and dinner service. With a local pub in town, therefore no bar and closing at 7pm, not so many people hanging around with fewer staff members than the last roadhouse I worked in, it hasn’t been quite as much fun as my time there… There have been many reminders though :-). A few ‘maybe maybe’s’, and a fair few “thank you ma’am’s” have made me smile… Different things important at different times though, I very much have appreciated managing to sleep within ‘normal’ hours, have felt the benefit of being given a break during my shift and have done well in mastering the art of chilling out ;-). I’ve done far more swimming than I ever expected to :-). In a beautiful setting as well.

Road tripping our way back to Brisbane, where it all began, I can’t quite believe the Australian adventure is coming to an end… Only a few weeks left, one last stretch of Australia to go, I think I’ve done very well traversing the country! Stopping in on Thailand on the way home, stepping onto a different part of Asia, I’m very much looking forward to a change of culture ;-).