After a long intermission, I'm now back online, ready to update the ol' journal.

At present (August 30th), I'm back in Broome (round 2--http://www.broomecam.com" title="http://www.broomecam.com" target="_blank"http://www.broomecam.com), working full-time at the Mangrove Hotel in their kitchen.  So far, work is good: it's 40 hours a week, spread over five or six days, and I'm paid a casual rate of $17/hour.  The other cooks in the kitchen are all professional and laid-back, good team workers and not hard-asses like the last restaurant I was at in Toronto. 

While the food at the hotel is not as sophisticated (or pretentious) as at Lobby, the work atmosphere is considerably better and accordingly this makes for a fun and interesting workplace.  The restaurant is called The Tides Garden Restaurant and it overlooks Roebuck bay with its massive intertidal mudflats.  Clientel sit on a large terrace that is lightly speckled with palm trees, lawn, and brick patio paths.  The kitchen pass is connected to the outdoor bar and sometimes there is an evening breeze that comes into the kitchen, bringing with it the smell of the ocean and the nightime chirp of the local insects.

I've been at the restaurant now for two weeks and my scheduel (the roster) is variable: some days I work from 4pm to close (around 930pm), others 2pm-close, or alternately 11am-3pm (for lunch service) with a break from 3-5pm and then work again from 5pm-close.  When I can find a bicycle (a push bike) I'll take it to Cable Beach on my breaks--a fifteen minute ride.  Last week was a fairly busy week, as I moved out of my friend Mike's house and into my own room I found in a house in Old Broome.  I also lost my glasses last weekend in the last leg of a great beach party and spent the next five days at work visionless.  Added to my continual problem of being unable to understand what people say to me on account of their accents I've been pretty much deaf and blind...  par for the course, really. 

Where was I last?  Ah-yes, Tantabiddi and Exmouth, on my way out to Broome (round 1)...

Tantabiddi-Exmouth-Broome (Friday, July 9th)

The morning of the 9th saw me pack up my gear, eat an omelette made for me by Micah, and draw up a farewell card for the Jenners.  Gear in hand, we motored to the ramp, said goodbye to Curt, and drove with Miche and the kids into Exmouth.  I left my gear in these neat electronic storage lockers that were at the bus station, bought my ticket to Broome (leaving at 1230am Saturday morning).  When she had finished her errands, Miche and the kids wished me good luck and so I there I was, time to kill, ready for the next leg of my journey.

I spent most of the day hanging around--but come sunset, I was picked up at the bus depot by Bill and Sherry Bagby to go and see "Space Jam" at the outdoor cinema.  Bill--Captain William F. Bagby, U.S. Air Force, Commander of the Learmonth Solar Observatory--is the military astrophysicist recently installed in Exmouth by the US military only two weeks ago.  Miche had met the family in church in their first weekend in Exmouth and had formed a fledgling acquaintance with them--and I was riding that acquaintance for what it was worth.

Bill and Sherry have three boys, crew cut, action oriented, and roughly between the ages of 8 and 12.  The movie was horrible--the sound was off, Michael Jordan was intolerable as an actor, the story just awful--but the experience was great.  The cinema is set on the old baseball grounds of the military base, the screen set between the pitcher's mound and second base.  Outdoor, under the stars, is a great way to see a movie, even if it sucks.  The Bagby's also believe in snacking, so I had a great deal of chocolate, anzac biscuits (Bill's favourite!), candies, and pop.  Micah was also in attendance, as she was sleeping over at a friend's house in town that night (to Tasmin's great upset: "Why does she get to sleepover!?').

As my bus was only leaving at 1230am and it was chilly out (15-20C), the Bagby's brought me back to their house, offering kindly to drive me to the bus depot when the time was right.  They fed me dinner, we watched some footie on the television, and Bill--big, tall, broad shouldered--invited me to to see the observatory up close if I was ever back in Exmouth again.

At 1130pm we drove to the bus depot in their massive, shiny new Toyota Landcruiser, gratis the US government, and I said my thanks to Bill.  Shivering slightly from the cold, I went to the neato electronic locker to free my gear and get out some warmer clothes for the bus ride. 

Allow me to explain how these nifty lockers work: you place your money in a slot and then work a touch-screen to get a locker.  You first enter the length of time you  require the locker and then you enter in your personalized pin code, after which a locker is randomly assigned to you from the bank of twenty or so that run on either side of the touch-screen.  The individual locker only has a red button on it that  flashes when you unlock the locker (via the touch screen) and which you press to lock after you are finished with you locker business.

At 1135pm I touched the screen, entered my pin and... and the red button flashed, some noise was made in my row of locker banks but the door to my locker wouldn't open!  Shit! I said, and kicked the locker a few times.  What appeared to have happened was that while the electronics were working, the locker bolt was not withdrawing from the bolt hole.  Earlier in the day I had noticed, too, that my locker had appeared to have been jimmied some time in the past, but as my locker appeared to open and lock with no problem, I was not disturbed.

Oh oh--time to go to work.  I'll continue with the narrative tomorrow!