Sunshine State & North Stradbroke Island

Life is finally as it should be. Yesterday a new Aussie friend of mine let me
borrow a skateboard and an acoustic guitar. I'm the happiest kiddo alive.

Everything’s okay now. It’s all really challenging you know, traveling around and living together with people with extremely diverse interests and needs. I’m like used to live pretty much on my own, have my own bathroom in my own flat etc. And why is normal hygiene always a big issue among flatmates? Fuck, pardon my language. I seem to have grown into a nagging old freak or something. Probably not that bad, but I can’t wait to be the queen of my own castle again. Won’t be that long though. Just ordered flight tickets to Perth, where I’m going alone to visit some family for about ten days. November 6th – 17th. Lovely! Can’t wait. Even though they got sharks, the surf in Perth is said to be awesome. I’ll go there four days after I come back from our two week trip to Vietnam where we travel as a group. I also ordered tickets to the Harvest Festival in Brisbane – November 18th. Santigold, Dark Dark Dark, The War On Drugs, Fuck Buttons, Dark Horses, Grizzly Bear, The Dandy Warhols, and Sigur Rós are some of the headliners. !!! Anyway. Saw some autumn pictures from Norway earlier today, and I noticed that the only thing I miss except my folks are the colours. Explored more of West End of Brisbane together with my new friend James yesterday, and found a music pub which serves nachos and live music. For my major assignment I have decided to explore how up-and-coming bands in the Queensland area can afford to keep on traveling around playing gigs, record and make music. My main focus will be how new bands work their way up from nothing to become recognised bands that actually get paid and gain profit from their concerts.

Most common, just like for us back in Norway, independent and unsigned bands play gigs for free just to get recognised by the audience. There’s a long way to go – to get acknowledged by the bigger crowds. I’ve been to a couple of band-stand nights already, but I guess there will be more research and digging into the musical environments here in Brisbane the upcoming weeks. Think I’ll place a holdon the AC/DC bibliography at the library. Gotta start somewhere. Now I have to focus on environmental issues faced in Norway and Australia. Minor assignment. Yay. Outside the sun is shining and the city streets are overflowing with kids and families back home on holiday. Tomorrow, hopefully, I’ll go to Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise or Byron Bay. Been trying to get someone or anyone from my class to join me for like three weeks (I seriously can’t believe people can be that dull), and I’m starting to realise I’m a lonely weirdo on this trip. But, now that I got a skateboard to follow me I guess I don’t mind fooling around on my own.

Last week we visited North Stradbroke Island, located in the state of Queensland, 30 km southeast of the capital Brisbane. Wikipedia says that before 1896 the island was part of the Stradbroke Island. In that year a storm separated it from South Stradbroke Island, forming the Jumpinpin Channel. It is known colloquially as Straddie. To get there we had to take a ferry from Cleveland to Dunwich for about forty minutes, and then our hippie bus took us to the other side of the island, up North to Cylinder Beach where we went for a swim in the Coral Sea. Afterwards we went back to near Dunwich for a boomerang and digeridoo workshop.

It’s a jungle out there! Heading for the salty water. Finally.

I’m a crazy tree lover so you can imagine how fascinated I get. The forests in Aussie is far more interesting than the boring Norwegian ones. Last week I climbed one just to get away from everything and everyone, at Kangaroo Point where I live. Trees. Haha. Recorded and made a song of it too. Monkey in a tree, that’s me.

A shame we didn’t go to the other side of the island, Main Beach, where the surf spots are located. Next time!

Since I came to Aussie I’ve been swimming in rivers, hot springs, pools and stuff, but nothing beats the ocean. I almost started crying when we finally got there. I’m too sentimental, I know.

Awesome! Looks just like the woods in Jurassic Park! And there’s baby dinosaurs all over the place! They say Australia has 755 species of reptiles, making it the country with the highest number in the world.

I just love sand between my toes. Sand, sand, sand. Waves, waves, waves. Ah, life. I guess I love my life right now.

Best feeling ever, except from surfing green, sweet waves.

Me and some other classmates at the beach!

Guess the picture speaks for itself. We had fun there body surfing and splashing around for an hour or so before we saw …

A live koala in a tree!!! Unfortunately he or she find herself living in the middle of a street in neighbourhood where you find dogs, cars and other things that would kill you – if you were a koala.

Then we went to learn some more about indigenous dance and music traditions.

Digeridoo. Women aren’t allowed to play, but lucky me has tried one of those back in Norway. The man who led the workshop was carzy good at it, and we were all dragged into the atmosphere and sounds he created with the digeridoo. He demonstrated and played us a song or a story, imitating different kinds of birds, water, humans and so on while he was playing.

Me and some of my classmates. Photo by Henriette Gauteplass Rygg.

Anne Berit in the mood. Instruments used for all sorts of occasions – like dancing traditional dances. We also learnt some hunting and fishing dances, but I didn’t get any pictures from it.

I had to try them too!

Indigenous face paint. Afterwards the awesome digeridoo-man painted all of our faces with clay, the native way.

Our mission for the day. Painting our own boomerangs!

All in deep concentration. Focused. Just like children’s school – we kids loved it!

Then suddenly it started raining, a storm on the way, and I had to finish my boomerang under a table. Photo by Una Brännström Sverdrup.

Photo by Una Brännström Sverdrup.

Me and my crappy painted boomerang. Photo by Una Brännström Sverdrup.

Haha. Then we we’re throwing boomerangs till the storm arrived.

Raining outside, happy kiddo and her new toy. Photo by Henriette Gauteplass Rygg.

Storm. It was raining cats and dogs and cows and whales and what have you. Photo by Una Brännström Sverdrup.

TUNEZ TODAY: FOO FIGHTERS – ONE BY ONE. Been listening to the album on repeat the last couple of days. And to the rest of you readers, I’ll be back with more photos and updates from Aussie later. Love K.