{"id":138,"date":"2015-12-23T11:16:48","date_gmt":"2015-12-23T16:16:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/?p=138"},"modified":"2016-01-01T13:45:23","modified_gmt":"2016-01-01T18:45:23","slug":"28-9-7-00-catching-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/?p=138","title":{"rendered":"28: 9-7-00 Catching Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catching Up<\/h2>\n

6:55 PM<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Wallaby\"

Wallaby<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Kangaroo

Kangaroo & Joey<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Emu\"

Emu<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not a Yank, it\u2019s a septic tank.\u201d I don\u2019t know. According to Paul, Aussies love us Septic Tanks. Again, I don\u2019t know. Anyway, why don\u2019t I fill in the gaps; from days previous as well as today.<\/span><\/div>\n

So back to when I first headed for Rocky. On the train, sitting next to a fat, little Aborigine kid who smelled bad. Saw lots of cows, shacks, junked cars, and my first <\/span>wallabies<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>kangaroos<\/span><\/a>, and <\/span>emu<\/span><\/a>. Finally. And that was about it for the train ride. Got into Rocky, and saw my first tropical sunset. Beautiful.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last night\u2019s sunset: beautiful. Tonight\u2019s, when I was ready with my camera? Not so much. So anyhow, I get to the modest YHA in quiet little Rockhampton and I have no food. So I walk down the street to find something to eat. I walk and walk, it\u2019s dark, I\u2019m hungry, and i can\u2019t find a single thing that looks even <\/span>remotely<\/span> decent. So I finally decide that the next place I see, I\u2019m eating at. The next place is Cactus Jack\u2019s Mexican, 9,000 miles away from Mexico? And a<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jose

Jose Wales<\/p><\/div>\n

picture of <\/span>Jose Wales<\/span><\/a> w\/a Dirty Harry pun (go ahead, make my margarita)? I should have turned back to the Red Rooster. But I went in, ordered a Haun (thumbs down) & the \u201cchile\u201d. It had rice, lettuce, and sour cream. Don\u2019t get me wrong, it was good. It just wasn\u2019t chile. And the \u201cside of suicide\u201d? Please.<\/span><\/p>\n

So that was my first night here in Rocky. Can\u2019t imagine why I didn\u2019t record it sooner. Last night was better. Bought some food at Woolies, had some dinner, and spoke with Lincoln from the UK. Cool guy. PhD in engineering, studied in Bethlehem, PA, traveling with his lady. Really cool. Then I went into the TV room: met two girls from the US studying in Brisbane. Tamar, from Austin, and What\u2019s-her-name, from West Palm Beach. Chatted with them for a while, then this other British guy came in & joined in. Kind of annoying. He asked us about the US, guns came up again, Hah Hah Hah. I went to bed.<\/p>\n

So now to today. Hopped the bus from the cultural center, and rode it into town. Milled about the strip for a bit, then into the Jungle Bar. After all, I still had over 5 hours until my train was leaving. The bar was full of half drunk (and completely pissed) locals. You should have seen the looks I got! But it was all good. Finally, FINALLY, I got the experience that I had been wanting.<\/p>\n

\"XXXX

XXXX Beer<\/p><\/div>\n

I sat down and ordered a schooner. Don\u2019t have schooners, the barmaid told me. So I got a \u201cpot\u201d of <\/span>XXXX<\/span><\/a>. Next to me sat this old man, brown leathery skin, silver hair tucked beneath a black cowboy hat. \u201cSchooner?\u201d he muttered through a thick beard, \u201cYou sound like you\u2019re from New South Wales.\u201d \u201cThat\u2019s where I\u2019ve been,\u201d I told him.<\/span><\/p>\n

From there he proceeds to ask me about my travels. Asked if I was going to \u201cNever, Never Land\u201d — the Outback. \u201cAlas, I\u2019m not\u201d I replied. \u201cThat\u2019s the <\/span>real<\/span> Australia.\u201d The man knew what he spoke of. He drove cattle between QLD <\/span>[Editor: Queensland]<\/span><\/i> and Darwin. <\/span>This<\/span> was an Aussie. I tried to carry on an intelligible conversation with him, but between the beard and the beer, it wasn\u2019t working. Then Paul comes up next to me and strikes up a conversation. Oh, we talked about everything. Cairns, rivers, the US, Australia, Septic Tanks, WWII, and on and on. He even bought me a beer. Wonderful. What I\u2019ve been waiting for. So eventually time caught up with me and I hoofed it towards the bridge. On the way I stopped at an Arcade for an onion, cheese, and potato ball, a doughnut, and half an episode of Gilligan\u2019s Island.<\/span><\/p>\n

I eventually made it back to the YHM and into the kitchen. Had some food to eat before I left. There I met Kim, a red-head from Toronto. Nice girl. A bit pretentious, but nice. I told her about bushwalking on Fraser (she was going to skip it). So we bull shitted a while over dinner. Too bad I had a train to catch. Oh, the Japanese guy\u2019s map! He had a great idea. He wanted people to write their name on the map and draw a line to their home town. I was his first American. But here\u2019s the funny part: the map had Columbus & Cincinnati switched! I\u2019ll be sending them an email.<\/p>\n

KC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Catching Up 6:55 PM \u201cHe\u2019s not a Yank, it\u2019s a septic tank.\u201d I don\u2019t know. According to Paul, Aussies love us Septic Tanks. Again, I don\u2019t know. Anyway, why don\u2019t I fill in the gaps; from days previous as well… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thewalkabout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=138"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":371,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138\/revisions\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/KevinCroll.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}