Tag Archives: vagabonding

The Last of the Outback Boxing Tents

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As unlikely as it sounds, there was logic behind my decision to partake in an outback Australian tent fight. There’s usually logic behind the decisions I make, albeit often convincingly disguised as recklessness or folly.

It started back in Melbourne.

The cozy interior of the Rollerdoor cafe.

It was the day before I left for Queensland. I was saying bye to the folks at Rollerdoor Cafe, our back courtyard neighbors. While there a gent, hearing I was leaving and knowing I was a fighter, mentioned the tent. At this point it was just a comment, a legend. “I hear they have this traveling boxing tent up in Queensland where fighters will take on anyone who wants to challenge them for cash.” How delightfully old school. How fucking outback. But shit like that didn’t still actually exist.

. . . Did it? Continue reading →

Photos added

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Additional photos (19 of ’em, to be exact) have been added to the photo essay ‘Mellish in May‘. The pictures are largely of baby piglets, and cattle nomming the shit out of some lick.

I was, for no particular reason, in a poor mood today. Looking at photos of adorable/hilarious aminals proved to be a good task choice. Hopefully their tiny snouts and satisfied faces bring a bit of joy to your day as well.

 

SQUEE.

The 19 photos added are from Mellish Park Cattle Station in North Queensland, Australia. Taken throughout May, 2013.

Click here to view them via the Flickr.

Or here to view via the Facebooks.

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So Here’s What Happened: Mellish to Sweers

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It happened because:
1 – I am a chatty bitch and
2 – It was the second Thursday of the month.

The greater part of the muster was done and Al and Bev had some friends they wanted to visit in the South. But ‘The Oldies’, as Eth and Eileen are affectionately called, wouldn’t be joining them. In their late 80’s and 90’s respectively, the gals understandably need a bit of help and looking after. Bev usually takes care of this, and asked if I could fill in for her.

I was reluctant in the sense that it makes me nervous to be responsible for the well being and safety of someone else (likely because I frequently fail to maintain my own). Continue reading →

New Photoset: Yard All The Things

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Because once you get em home you need to do something with them.

43 photos from round one muster at my current home/place of employment: Mellish Park Cattle Station in North Queensland, Australia. Taken throughout April, 2013.

Oh, guys. I know it’s called the ‘crush’ and all but this is. . .incorrect.

Click here to view them via the Flickr.

Or here to view via the Facebooks.

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New Photoset: Muster All The Things

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54 photos from round one muster at my current home/place of employment: Mellish Park Cattle Station in North Queensland, Australia. Taken throughout April, 2013.

Click here to view them via the Flickr.

Or here to view via the Facebooks.

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July

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It’s a testament to the awesomeness of the Snows that they can make time in Sydney, Nova Scotia fly by so quickly.

Much like my birthplace of Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Sydney (or, more accurately, the area around Sydney) is beautiful, and the options for hiking, driving and general outdoorsy sightseeing abound. But, as a town to live in. . .well, without mincing words too much, it’s a bit shit. Continue reading →

Our Heads Are Assholes

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Thurs, Jun 21, 2012

My head was screaming at me in a language of shrill white noise, a tangle of displaced emotion and swirling, half-finished thoughts. When I wasn’t fighting off the urge to go and sob uncontrollably in the corner or just stop and ragdoll in the middle of the floor, as though someone had flipped my emergency ‘off’ switch, I was drowning under the dual crushing weights of self-doubt and self-reproach (In the very moment I originally typed this, I was actually fighting off an insistent urge to just curse, and hurl the computer across the room. This is fucking useless. I suck at writing. I LOSE AT LIFE).

What catastrophe, might you ask, was looming on the horizon? What could compel such a strong, crushing emotional response from this shining example of human strength and stability?

I had just booked my flight to Australia. Continue reading →

So. . .This Isn’t a Travel Blog?

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Uh, well. . .sort of. Whether or not you can call On the Road to Ithaca a ‘travel blog’ depends a great deal on what you consider travel to be. I would call it a travel blog, for two main reasons.

One, the shoe fits. I am traveling. I am from Canada. I was in India. Now I am going to Australia. But what about once I arrive in Melbourne? Once I find an apartment and a job and settle in for a bit am I still traveling? How long can you stay in a foreign country before ‘travel’ becomes ‘immigration’? Continue reading →

Wait. . .What?

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As absurd as it sounds, there was a logical process of thought behind my decision to try prize fighting. I had reasons for choosing to do this, now.

First, there was sheer curiosity. Which is admittedly a stronger driving force for me than is perhaps healthy. But when I get a question in my mind it fucking burns until I get an answer, man. Especially when it’s a question of ‘Can I [insert task here]?’ I need to know. And this one had been nagging at me for a long time: could I hold my own in a cage fight?

I’d trained in martial arts before. But I’ll admit readily – not a lot. There was some Shotokan Karate back in my last year of high school and some half-assed Jeet Kun Do back in my short-lived university days. But the style I really loved was Muay Thai, in which I had trained during my early years of tattooing in Newfoundland, as well as for a while in Ireland back at the start of my travels.

And I loved it. Which brings me to my second reason: Desire. Continue reading →

And Now, For an Abrupt Change of Plot. . .

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5 years ago I made what, at the time, seemed a terribly difficult decision. At the tender age of 25, I had been preparing to leave the sheltered Canadian province of Newfoundland and go traveling overseas with the unequivocal love of my life. Unfortunately, one month prior to departure an ill-timed and particularly heart-wrenching break-up left me with an awkward choice: Should I still board that plane, even though ‘we’ had become just ‘I’? Or should I abandon plans and allow my limping heart time to heal before hurling it halfway across the world, over an ocean and into foreign lands and potentially disastrous situations?

In the end, it just seemed easier to go. Flights had been booked, visas arranged; momentum was behind me and it would have taken more effort to cancel plans rather than just follow through with them. Still, I deliberated the choice up until the very last moment, having approximately 4 panic attacks in the remaining interim. But in the end, I did board that plane.

Lil’ ol 25 year old me preparing to head off.

Making the decision may have been challenging as all hell but actually leaving my home and job to begin traveling with a broken heart actually turned out to be one of the easier things I’ve done. Continue reading →