16 DAYS TO GO

SUN, SUN: sun, sun, sun, sun, sun.

I had this thought in my head that perhaps getting four days up in beautiful, UV-soaked northern Queensland might give me my sunshine fix and leave me relaxed for my last couple of weeks in Sydney. Of course it just made me more desperate – it was just a lousy tease of what’s to come over the next few months. 

Adam had the right idea. He’s already up and away on his travels – Rockhampton now, on the Sunshine Coast, where “How’s it going, mate?” is a one-syllable slur of a sentence without any movement of lips or tongue (“Howzigahmate?”) and the weather sits at a comfortable 25 degrees. Soon to Darwin, where men are men and women are often also men and the weather sits at a nice, sweaty 28. After that, he’ll have only a couple of days to shiver and bitch in Sydney before the flight to L.A., where women spend twelve hours a day wearing nothing but bikinis and rollerskates (or so I’ve gathered from television).

The four days Erin and I spent in Townsville and Mission Beach with my family were incredible but too short. Every day we spent lounging in the ocean while staggered waves of clouds passed overhead, or tossing a football around the backyard or bushwalking past mammoth trees straight out of Jurassic Park and dinner plate-sized spiders hanging in their webs, straight out of Arachnophobia. (Honestly, I don’t mind spiders generally, but I’ve never seen any even close to the size of these ones and it gives me douche chills to think that they’ll probably be even bigger in the Amazon.) 

And then, like any good family gathering, each night quickly devolved into endless card games and drunken bickering about the endless card games. It was excellent. Possibly the last time I’ll see mum and dad before I go, and almost certainly the last time I’ll see my little sister, it was a wonderful weekend and I miss them all already.

Now all that’s left is to power through these last two weeks of work. Both Adam and I felt the effects of the Yellow Fever vaccine last week, coming down with aches and pains, fevers and chills. The entire length of my spine, from my hips to my skull, burned and ached – if that was a taste of the real thing, I’m hells glad we got those vaccinations. There’s one more to come – the final rabies shot – and then we should be immune to everything (except bus accidents, snakes, spiders, gunshot wounds, Colombian paramilitaries, Mexican drug cartels, active volcanoes, piranhas, jaguars, drug overdoses, drowning, decapitation, Dengue fever, quicksand, stabbing and well-aimed karate chops). We’ll be practically invincible.