In Sydney, heading out on a road trip with my Cousin this afternoon. There was an amazing storm here last night, with crazy lightning flashing over the harbour. Today the winds are nukin', Don, hope you are getting use of the stuff. Hellos to Lina, Kelly, and Meagan, friends of mine back home who are all starting new lives as grad students in the near future. Suckers.

I want to get back to the 29th of August, when I was arriving off the ferry from Magnetic Island and trying to rent a car. The first snag came when I needed to give Avis the contact number, and I didn't have a phone. Now, this "cell while travelling" thing is different from what I'm used to. When I travelled Canada, cells were available, not surely not common place. Guatemala just doesn't (didn't) have cell service, and thus I just got used to travelling without. The fact that you are cut off from the world is part of why you go... like camping. But here (not meaning Sydney, but this batch of travel) everyone has a phone... they spend a chunk of their downtime texting and calling... I know they are easy to get, in fact my plan at home was offering to give me one... well, not GIVE give, you know what I mean.... I just don't want to have one, and since I'm always moving and not looking for work, no one is really going to call me. On the otherhand, if I was here on a year long work visa, staying in places for several weeks or crossing my fingers that some guy will let me pick mangoes for 12 hours a day, I would definitely change my tune.

The Avis guy said that when I arrived at my destination, I could give him the number of where I was staying. "And where would you be going?" Uhhh...... At the time, I was thinking Mission Beach, as I had passed it on the bus on the way down, it was rife and bubbling with cassowaries apparently (part of the Cassowary Coast - protected land, yet they are expanding the highway through it), and rumoured to be laid back. I had felt a twinge of regret when I'd ridden by, and so figured that's where I'd go with the car. Reading a brochure over lunch, I read about this mountainous, rainforested national park called Paluma near Townsville, and it was roughly on the way to Mission Beach, and en route Paluma was Crystal Creek, the divin' hole. Itinerary. I said I'd call the office that night when I got to Mission.

With my new set of wheels, a grey Holden Getz, I cruised around Townsville, and ended up taking a "surf-and-sand" bath on the main beach before I jumped in the car. Hey, I was greasy.
I headed north on the Bruce Highway, and after about an hour, reached the turnoff to Paluma. 18 km to Paluma, and 7 to Crystal Creek. Perfect. Of course, the road forked, with one sign pointing to Little Crystal Creek/Paluma, the other Big Crystal Creek, both 7km.... Why was THIS the first time I heard of this Little/Big stuff?..... Ummm..... I decided to go to Little Crystal Creek, as it was en route to Paluma. (none of the maps I'd seen had mentioned that there were two Crystal Creeks, and stupid Frommer's didn't even mention Paluma), and besides, I had the car, I could check it out tomorrow, but I COULDN'T, because I was going to Mission Beach. I drove along the road, which quickly evolved into mountain driving - 1.5 lanes, with a wall on one side and cliff on the other, second gear all the way up. The views of the mountain range were beautiful when I could see them, but spent a good deal of the time winding through dense forest that overhung the road. Eventually I reached Little Crystal Creek, basically a set of rapids and a stone bridge built by hand in the '30s. (Actually, the whole road I was driving was built by hand as a Depression-era makework project.) Wild turkeys were squawking all around the parking lot when I stepped, but the novelty of those birds would soon wear off, as they are everywhere in this part of Queensland. I took a look at the tourist board, and saw a number of different trails around here and further up in Paluma. It was already 3:30 in the afternoon, and in these parts it gets dark at 6, and quickly at that. I wanted to do these trails, 'coz the views of the rainforested valleys were breathtaking. There were no hostels in the area, and it would be hard to see anything at all and still make it to Mission. A couple of B&Bs were located in Paluma apparently, but hadn't done anything about booking, and due to lack of cell, couldn't book now. Then I remembered some advice from my friend Jesse back home, "You can always sleep in the car."

Perfect.