I started to miss all the guys id been travelling with, Adam was ment to be coming, Sam was still packing for her farm work in bundaberg and Gemma was fruit picking. Matt was having an awesome time in surfers paradise and working as a taxi biker but within 2 weeks everyone was on Maggie's with me, everyone was either fed up of their job, it fell through or they were skint and I knew of a fair few jobs going on the island, including the cleaning one with lindy I still hadn't been paid for yet.
Adam and Sam arrived with Milla and William. Adam sweet talked the busy hands owner lindy into taking him on along with everyone else and even managed to bag an apartment with a communal pool with a hefty discount on the rent. It was a tight squeeze, as Sam and Adam had to share a double bed,
(Which in theory I thought didn't matter
Since they shared a womb for 9 months) and the other two shared a single bed in the same room. there was a small kitchen area and a small bathroom but it was a cheap roof over their heads. As high season was ending the working hours was less so lindy could only keep Adam.
She was pretty crazy anyway and accused William of showing up to work drunk costing him the job.
Sam and milla soon found a job waitressing
When Matt arrived on the island it was early hours of the morning. He hitch hiked the equivalent distance of Manchester, UK to Athens, Greece in the space of 36 hours and I woke up to a couple of missed calls and a txt to say he'd got off the ferry. I panicked and made my way to pick him up around an hour after he'd arrived on the island
I found him lying asleep on his bag next to a supermarket not far from the ferry port. it was scorching and I don't know how he was able to sleep in the heat but then he had barely slept at all in 2 days and he wasn't from wales so I barely had a definition of heat in comparison to this New Orlean lying on the grass. I tried shaking him and calling his name but it didn't wake him.
I didn't know Where he was going to go so I dropped him off at base hostel where I knew they had places to pitch up tents with showers close by. Although you had to pay for this, Matt, as usual had no money so I told him to just risk it as I'd never seen anyone check if campers had payed or not. he wasn't so thrilled with the idea as there was no security. He couldn't stay with me on Fred's boat as Fred didn't like the sound of a guy staying over especially as it sounded like he was depending on me for a lot. I appreciated Fred was just looking out for me and he'd done so much for me I wasn't going to push the matter.
Matt wasn't sleeping very well in the tent and got kicked out anyway. He ended up moving in with everyone else in their tiny apartment with the communal pool lindy was renting to them which gave me a bit of a break because I kept worrying about him and what he was going to do. I tried to do my best with him but, ultimately the whole thing was stressful so I distanced myself from him, Fred agreed this was the best thing to do as he needed to take care of himself and not rely so heavily on others.
I felt bad because matt and I were a team back in Bundaberg when we were farming and we were the best of friends but once he started to rely on me too much I think something changed between us and and he felt it too. Eventually though matt was fairly settled with a caravan. He'd taken (stolen) bed sheets from the hostel to make curtains and made it as much of a home as he could. I admired matt, for the luck he had and the help he got from total strangers. He met a man at the last hostel who had lost his licence and made a deal with matt, that if he drove him everywhere in the car he could use it any time he wanted otherwise. All he needed now was a job but in the mean time we made good use of the car and the mans blow-up kayak he let us borrow. We drove to West Point, we very poorly used the kayak and went too far out, fell out a few times, got scared of the jelly fish and as safely as we could made our way back to enjoy the sun set. West Point hosted the best view of Townsville and as the sun set, the sky made an array of colours and the city lights shone in the distance. I timed my go pro to take pictures of us every 3 seconds so I got some brilliant shots of us laughing and just sitting together admiring the view.
Work was busy so it wasn't until a few days later I saw matt again and it was the 3rd time he'd invited me to stay at his caravan. I can imagine it got quite lonely so I stayed much to Fred's disappointment, even though he was quite happy to drive his dingy back to shore at stupid o clock to pick me up if I wanted to, bless him he was so good to me. He was also concerned and didn't like me hanging around with someone who was steeling things, even if it was just to get by. Fred really was like a responsible dad taking care of me, I bloody miss that man!
When I arrived at matts caravan we made my bed a bit better we chilled out and Talked for most of the Evening. He was traveling because he had lost someone who had cut their life short to drugs and wanted to explore the world because life was too short and that woke him up enough to do it now. It was nice to think that something devastating, which usually has a negative impact on people meant that it had a positive impact on matt, so his friend didn't die in vain. I like to think that people above us at this point are rooting for us like: HELLL YEAH!!! YOU GO BOY!!!
Matt was definately one of a kind. he spoke of his past experiences, and I could tell he had so much left to learn. He had been hurt and he was still holding on to his past.
I realised how much I had learnt from my own experiences, how much I had grown and how much I had left to learn, I guess that when they say you "find yourself" traveling I think you find yourself in other people, you look at what you like and what you dislike in others because you associate yourself with each individual, thus you are learning who you are and who you would or wouldn't like to be. I think this is why I was once told that university or traveling is important, if you don't do one then do the other. A lot can be said for meeting people of different backgrounds, ethnicities, cultures and passions.
A man arrived, drunk and bleeding with bite marks up and down his arm, holding a snake. Apparently a bit of an annoying but funny neibour of matts. He encouraged us to hold the snake. Matt keen as anything held the snake, not a care in the world. Obviously I asked if it was poisonous. It was a diamond python, just a regular common snake and after much hesitation I had it weaving in and around my legs and eventually held it. That night it slept in the caravan with us and matt would have to count sheep or something because he wouldn't stop talking to me.
Another evening with matt in the borrowed car we were driving around the island when we had to stop for a crossing koala. Amazing photo moment. Finally a clear shot where it wasn't in the tree at a distance!
There was a lot left unsaid between matt and I before he left magnetic island. I feel like I should have helped him more. He even said that he came all the way there for me, i mean i used to call him every now and again and encourage him to come. I told him to come because I felt it was an easy place to find work and be in paradise if he wanted to escape the city. things got a bit weird where I wasn't sure if he felt we should have been more than friends. One time he waited on shore for me for over an hour because he was bored. I just wanted to chill on Fred's boat that day though. I felt bad but I didn't want to have a conversation with matt where he felt awkward and it probably wasn't worth it any way, I was probably just being a typical woman and over thinking the situation. if you tell a guy you like ed Sheehan and he downloads the album, pays for it with money he doesnt have and stops the car to listen to it with you and arranges to watch a sun set with you, alarm bells go off. he'd do these sweet things and I wouldn't know wether He was just being nice, that I was jumping to conclusions or If I was actually being totally nieve. then on the other hand he'd say something a bit too personal, a bit too insulting about my appearance that would make me think that I was daft for thinking too much into those niceties and he's just being Matt. It was really no wonder I distanced myself.
I missed Craig and things subsequently got tough between us but considering the distance and the time apart we were doing really well, I just had to let him know what was going on, include him a bit more, otherwise conversations consisted of "hi u k?" Yeah gd u?" and then 1 of us would be in bed soon after because of the time difference. I was counting down the weeks for him to come to Australia.
No comments:
Post a Comment