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mcrrisons · 3 years

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wooo hi friends!! s here FINALLY dropping this intro, you’ll now know that i’m late to everything O:) i have insane muse for this type of character so i’m sooo excited to be here! any questions lmk but now ........... *rubs hands together like a fly* let’s get to plotting

@mapleviewstarters

『 travis fimmel. fourty-six. cismale. he/him. 』 oh heavens, is that WELLS MORRISON from CHESTNUT DRIVE i see roaming around mapleview? minnie may’s always calling them -BELLIGERENT & -CONTRITE. i happen to think they’re not that bad! they’re a pretty cool at COLLECTING UNEMPLOYMENT and every time i’ve seen them, they’ve always been +CAPTIVATING & +OPEN-MINDED. i hope i see them around again!

TW: ALCOHOLISM, DEATH, ABUSE

GETTING TO KNOW WELLS

full name: wells irving morrison

age / birthdate / sign: 45 / november 18, 1974 / scorpio

gender / pronouns: cismale / he/him

orientation: hetero

height: 6′2″

hair color: dirty blond, some gray growing in

tattoos: a lot of drunken tats over the years, either cheap ones or ones that his buddies did for him for free. most of the actual WANTED ones covered up some scars he chose to ignore

drinks / smokes / drugs: big yes to all, no one left behind - but alcohol and cigarettes daily as those are more acceptable and easier to get

occupation: although collecting unemployment from the government, he often has plenty of odd jobs to make money under the books.

residence: mapleview, born and raised. still lives in the same plot of houses his great great bought / built years ago.

alignment: chaotic evil (but he tries his best............ ok)

parents: hank (deceased) & caroline morrison

siblings: 2 brothers (jeremiah & tucker) and 1 sister (addison) that he KNOWS of

children: lane morrison (intro here), and probably a few others but that’s for future plots!!

WHAT’S HIS STORY ?

wells’ blood runs thick through this town to a long line of morrisons, and they sure as hell make SURE everyone knows it. rumors have flown around about the morrison family for generations, eyes roll when they enter a space (at least in wells’ experience) & they own a reputation of chaos. scaring away newcomers just by being themselves. and of course, like it was in his dna, wells’ actions would align with those that preceded him.

he grew up on a plot of land bought many moons ago by his great great ... grandfather / uncle / (the story changes every time he hears it) w/ a few trailer-like one story homes with broken screen doors & random “antiques” in the yard aka things that people in fair lane were throwing out that everyone THOUGHT would be needed one day. (still lives here btw!!!)

growing up around family was FINE but it reminded him of his destination - what he was going to end up like anyway, DESPITE being kinda smart in school & having larger dreams. the family was scrappy, deceitful; wells learned at an early age how to manipulate people to get what he wanted. he was taught how to STEAL, lie, charm, and how to get by with what they had.

wells spent most of his childhood at his uncle’s home, just a few minute walk away on the plot bc his own home wasn’t ideal. he looked up to the guy A LOT, but hasn’t spoken since he left mapleview for bigger and better things when wells was just 15.

his father, a returned drafted vietnam vet, took out the anger of what he witnessed / how he was treated / how life was UNFAIR out on his family, and often times physically. he wasn’t involved in wells’ life all too much, only when he needed something or wanted to let off some steam.

his mother was a caring & loving woman, also mapleview grown (the two had been high school sweethearts), but loyal to a FAULT, always choosing her husband to back.

screams, crashes, fights, fires - you name it. needless to say, that plot of morrison homes never had it quiet, easy. cops knew everyone by first and last name and could drive the route from the station to the morrison’s home with their eyes closed.

wells’ father DIED when he was 19 (although wells hadn’t considered him alive for a while) & no one knew HOW so there was never any closure for him, his mother, his fam... all his death provided was another source for the rumor mill surrounding the morrisons. was it a bad bar fight ? did he have a bad fall ? wrong pills ? some say his mother was a killer but he knew better than that.

wells’ mother is still live & somewhat well, living with his brother in a house about 20 minutes away. at her old age, it’s hard for her to do things on her own and it was decided that wells - the youngest of his generation - wouldn’t be able to care after her, let alone care for himself. she’s been there for about 10 years now and still complains every minute.

ok back to our boy. somehow wells managed to destroy every good thing that ever came his way. self-destructive due to self-hatred and REGRET which never got better as he got older and continued to well, destroy things. a slippery slope, for sure.

alongside his uncle, always dreaming of getting out of this small town, wells was good ENOUGH at school and that was his way. but of course it didn’t happen: 1. he fell into fulfilling prophecy of his predecessors, 2. he had not a PENNY to his name to leave (i.e. gambling addiction), 3. he had a child in his early twenties, 4. he tried to fight the admissions counselor at the nearby community college

having some sort of love in his life. didn’t happen: 1. he pushed/pushes everyone that dare get too close (mostly selfishly), 2. couldn’t change his addictive personality (i.e. alcoholism), 3. began to resemble his father, 4. has 0 emotional intelligence and cannot touch feelings/emotions

to get a job and be a normal person in society. didn’t happen bc: 1. has a narcissist complex, 2. would steal from the cash register, 3. would hit on customers, 4. doesn’t understand paying “taxes”

more to add here

BASICALLY, he’s lived a life. he acts as though his life is already over, there’s nothing to lose, nothing to gain and this is just how it will be for the rest of his time on earth. he’s despondent and lives far too much in the PAST, blaming himself for everything that came his way (but ok he’s not too far off tbh).

although MANY a regret linger in his mind before sleep, his largest regret is losing his family - the love of his life who LEFT the two high and dry just after about a year together and his son who moved out at just 16. the mother of his child was the only person he remembers that saw him for more than rumors, his facade and became a good influence to him - but OF COURSE he fucked that one up and she left. he blames himself big time, but would never show that. only hatred her way aloud.

his son, lane, left while still a boy just like himself, and it HURT to think that the apple hardly fell from the tree above, not able to be a good father. never TAUGHT how to be one. manipulative to a fault, wells would always say the younger was never appreciative, never UNDERSTOOD... and he’d convince himself that his son hated him as much as he hates himself. he’ll also say he’s the only reason he’s still alive. LOVE / HATE seems to blur so often for the old man here. always did.

the only constant throughout his life has been alcohol. the morrison’s start off early of course, and wells was drinking/etc on his own by the time he was 12. UNLESS you count the bourbon his father would feed him to sleep as a baby. what started off as social and partying as he grew older, became something much more ugly. his body didn’t just crave it, it NEEDED it to function by the time he was in his early twenties. it was easier to hide it then, all young and into a good time but it wouldn’t just last for weekends. he’d need a drink to get by mentally, and physically and became fully dependent. a depressant to match his mental illness.

WHO IS HE ?

he has a DEEP southern accent with a hard RASP that sounds as though he smokes a pack a day (because he does).

despite graduating high school (i KNOW, believe it), he doesn’t have a vocabulary too wide and will use larger words incorrectly all the time.

can have a bit of an old grumpy man aesthetic, easily belligerent, even though he’s only in his 40s and can be charming as hell too (that smile!!!! ok!!! knows how to manipulate.)

he doesn’t trust the government at ALL and is a bit of a conspiracy theorist, despite collecting money from the government each week for unemployment. he refuses to pay taxes so only does jobs under the books. will go on a tangent about how the government is creating diseases, hiding aliens; eat the rich, etc... he also doesn’t trust cops at all, despite being picked up and taken home by them at least once a week.

grew up on rock and roll! had a band in the 80s where he could’ve SWORN they’d be rich and famous. long hair, tight pants, acting out - wannabe motley crue.

drives (ILLEGALLY) an old ford from the 70′s that somehow still works, after losing his license years ago from too many DWIs.

i assume all of the town knows him as the town DRUNK. maybe it used to be funny back in the day, but now it’s just really SAD. he’s a nuisance.

WHO DOES HE KNOW ?

y/c HIRED him for some odd jobs, must be under the table.

HIGH SCHOOL BUDDIES who also stayed around mapleview. they can be friendly, enemies now, distanced, a lot to do here.

a BROTHER / step (which i might submit to the main :))

a ONE-NIGHT stand

a GOOD INFLUENCE who tries their best to get him working towards something better. fair warning, this would 9.99/10 times not work.

where wells is the BAD INFLUENCE to y/c, convincing them to drink a ton, giving horrible advice when they’re in their most vulnerable state.

a STORE OWNER that has banned wells from entering their establishment due to a prior mishap.

a DEALER of all things wells shouldn’t, but does.

THE HILLS by the weeknd - a plot where these two are hooking up or together but only in secret. whether that’s because they’re in different socioeconomic classes, have a bad history, the other is cheating... they have to hide.

WHITE KNUCKLES - they’ve previously had a bar fight, are known enemies. could’ve been something said about his family, his past.

#°。°。°。𝒾𝓃𝓉𝓇𝑜. °。°。°。#tw alcoholism #tw abuse #tw death #ugh yes his icon rn is a dumpster but i'll change it as soon as i open up photoshop and make a new pretty dash icon #but for now #it just Makes Sense :)

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rememberthattime · 5 years

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Chapter 46. Australian Bucket List

Australia is a big country. You wouldn’t guess by its population, but geographically speaking, it’s the sixth biggest country in the world. SIXTH! It’s basically the size of the lower 48 US states.

Now, what comes with geographic vastness? Rednecks. Nooo-Wait, actually yes. But also diverse ecosystems. Think of the US: Washington forests are nothing like the plains of Iowa or swamps of Louisiana.

Now, in our 14 months down unda, Chelsay and I have visited several unique Aussie ecosystems, but have mostly grown accustomed to Manly’s: “80 & sunny”. If Australia is the size of the lower 48 though, there are countless climates & terrains waiting to be explored.

So, for our 10-day Easter trip, Chelsay and I teamed up with our Manly fam Pete & Megan to see how many different Aussie ecosystems (and related footwear requirements) we could find.

Part 1: Sandals

The first stop in our Grand Aussie Tour was Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. This place is pure relaxation… but it’s also classy so you can’t just walk around barefoot.

Instead of cars, visitors buzz around the small island in golf carts like they’re in some Florida retirement community. Actually, Hamilton Island kind of reminds me of a picturesque island in the Keys. The Whitsundays are too manicured to be exactly like Florida, but if you catch Key West in the right light, it might resemble Hamilton Island’s palm-lined beaches, small community feel, and charming boutique (singular, as everything on this tiny island is).

The Whitsundays aren’t known for “being like Key West” though... They’re known for turquoise waters and bleached white beaches. Like, the best bleached white beaches in the world. And the best of the best bleached white beaches is Whitehaven, consistently ranked among the prettiest places in Australia. What makes it so great? One, it’s a beach – people love beaches. Two, its 4.5 miles of silica-infused white sand, bumping right against the bright blue Whitsunday waters. If that isn’t enough, on its northern end, the bright beach yields to tidal inflows forming Hill Inlet, where the white sand and turquoise waters fuse to form colors you’d only imagine on canvas.

Hill Inlet is more than a painting though, and the best way to see it is from above: *Aussie accent* choppaaa’.

It was Chelsay and I’s first time in a helicopter, so even the flight itself was fun. Surrounded by windows, we had unobstructed views for the heli’s bizarre maneuverers: vertical take-off, hovering without moving, side-to-side rotations… and of course the escaping-villain-feeling when the pilot accelerates and the nose of the helicopter dips forward.

Our pilot quickly passed Chelsay as the coolest person I knew, so I flooded him with questions.

Mike: “Have you seen the latest Mission Impossible – can you do a chopper flip like Tom Cruise??”

Pilot: “No.”

Mike: “Well can you do barrel rolls??”

Pilot: “No.”

Mike: “Have you flown anyone famous??”

Pilot: “Oprah flew with us once.”

Chelsay chimes in: Oprah voice* “We’re FLY-INNNGGGG!”

…Chelsay has retaken her coolest person title.

Back to the flight. Our itinerary had us flying 20 minutes from Hamilton Island to Whitehaven Beach, landing on the beach, kicking it for an hour, then returning to Hamilton Island. Bad news though: the weather during our first leg was dreadful. Dense grey clouds and a sheet of rain meant we couldn’t see anything… Not the pristine beach, not the bright blue water, not the Hill Inlet. Plus the pilot wouldn’t do a barrel roll.

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The rain actually yielded a bit as we landed on Whitehaven, so the pilot pulled out a picnic basket: fruits, cheeses, and two bottles of champagne. Now, on one hand, it was 9:30 am. But on the other, we’d just taken a private helicopter to a secluded beach. Morning champagne must be protocol for rich people vacations… along with bathrobes and hotel rooms with HBO.

Luckily the clouds soon parted and we took advantage, playing around in the sun, silica sand, blue skies, and warm water.

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On the flight back, we were treated to the tidal fusion of Hill Inlet and the gleaming turquoise coastlines of the Whitsundays. Still no barrel rolls though.

The remainder of our time in Hamilton Island was spent relaxing. These few days took on a quiet, tranquil routine: slow starts with coffee on our back patio, homemade lunches (the best of which were our steak, egg, & tater breakfast burritos), cocktails starting at noon, and maybe a leisurely afternoon activity (hill-top hikes, critter catching, or throwing rocks into puddles so that we could capture the splash in slow-mo). Read those activities again, and then consider they came after the midday cocktails. Makes sense.

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We’d wrap up each peaceful day with colorful sunsets from One Tree Hill, before breaking out the board games: the newlyweds game, Bananagrams, and our homemade version of Pictionary. How do you draw koala chlamydia?

As the first stop in our 10-day tour, the Whitsundays were meant to be a transitional limbo between the mental mindsets of work & play. Before heading to the really extreme Aussie ecosystems, these couple days in Hamilton Island gave us all a chance to exhale.

Part 2: Flippers

After flip-flop friendly Hamilton Island, our Manly fam was heading north for a few days on the Great Barrier Reef. Although the Whitsundays also border the GBR, remote “Far North Queensland” offers more pristine diving.

We had an extra day before our live-aboard departed from Cairns, so we decided to roadtrip up from Hamilton Island. On a map, this doesn’t look too far… They’re both in North Queensland and have easy access to the GBR, right? No. This is Australia. It’s a 7.5 hour drive.

This is actually a really impressive gauge for how big the GBR is: we drove 7.5 hours along the coast and didn’t leave the reef. Anyway, the drive wasn’t a problem for us: we were more than content with the West Cork murder podcast, beautiful sugar cane plantation views, and a brief stop at the Cardwell natural pools.

Flipper-based activities began the next day. Our overnight liveaboard gave us six dives in 24 hours, all further offshore than any day-trip could venture. This is the beauty of a liveaboard: the boat is always moving, so you aren’t anchored to nearshore dive sites. In fact, our liveaboard was so far out, it didn’t even come into the Cairns’ port: you have to bum a “taxi” ride via day-tripper boats.

The ride with the day-trippers was an experience in itself. Joining a liveaboard means you’re probably pretty ocean savvy: you’re committing to a bed that rocks back-and-forth with the waves all night. On the other hand, the day-trip boat is for those with less experience seeking a taste of sea life… Unfortunately for many first-timers, that taste was barf.

It was chaos. Imagine the Battle of Winterfell scene where the living are swarmed by the Army of the Dead… Pete, Megan, Chelsay and I were the living. One of us was Brienne with her back against the wall. One of us was Greyworm, white-faced zombies crawling all over our legs. I was Sam: in the corner, crying among the chaos. While the boat’s crew bravely carried on explaining how to put a snorkel mask on (seriously!… the mask is shaped like a face!), roughly 10% of the passengers were throwing up off the stern. One guy didn’t even make it to the back and just threw up in a towel. I tried to escape the carnage in the boat’s bathroom – as I was in there though, some guy ripped open the lock in sheer panic. God bless the crew who probably deal with this every single day.

Our taxi eventually arrived at the liveaboard and Pete, Megan, Chelsay, and I disembarked as quickly as possible. The liveaboard’s vibe couldn’t have been more juxtaposed: in the large, wood-clad foyer, other visitors were lounging on leather couches, enjoying tea, coffee, and fruit, and comparing different sea life they’d seen that day.

We weren’t on the liveaboard to mingle though, so we geared up and were 30 feet under in no time. Rather than write dive-by-dive, I’ll speak broadly across our six dives.

The sea life was vibrant and abundant: bright pink, electric blue, lime green, highlighter yellow. And that could be just ONE fish. Chelsay compared it to wearing those 90s Starter jackets.

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The reef was also in better shape than I expected. Although we’d intentionally visited well-preserved sites in Far North Queensland, I’d still heard discouraging reviews. Maybe this set lower expectations, but we found packed gardens of hard and soft coral, thriving fish communities, and reef structures larger than any we’d seen in the Maldives or Indonesia.

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Chelsay and I also did our first night dive. I didn’t take a video (you wouldn’t be able to see anything), but it was a bizarre experience. 20 feet under the surface, you’re surrounded by pitch black. Your body is moving forward, but you have no bearing of direction: am I swimming up or down? Left or right? Towards safety or into a shark?

Diving already feels like floating through space, but completely void of light, the experience is even more extra-terrestrial. We used flashlights sparingly, which illuminated some strange nocturnal sea life: a crown of thorns starfish, a giant five-foot potato cod, several moray eels, and a venomous lionfish. At one point, the instructor gathered Pete, Megan, Chelsay, and I in a circle and had us turn off our flashlights. She then swiped her hands toward the middle of the circle and, through the pitch black, blue specks floated through the void. Bioluminescent plankton had been illuminated by her movement.

This bioluminescent plankton was probably the most bizarre sea creature we saw, but it certainly had contenders. In our day-dives, we also saw a color-changing octopus, a flying feather starfish, a flat flounder (whose eyes can migrate from one side of their face to the other), several 5+ foot reef sharks, moray eels, giant clams, and a HUMAN-SIZED BARRACUDA! These fish probably had similar reviews of the four bizarre humans they saw:

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To wrap up this flipper-based section, I’d like to reiterate that we were 30 feet underwater for 6 hours in a 24 hour period. That’s a lot of time in a different world, but also a lot of time plodding a heavy metal tank along the bottom of the ocean… Based on the GBR’s vibrant colors and scale, unmatched anywhere else on Earth, I wish we could’ve been down there longer.

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Part 3: Shoes

Now comes the portion of the trip where we had to wear shoes, a real bummer until you consider the exciting destination: Daintree Rainforest.

Daintree is the oldest rainforest in the world, formed during the JURASSIC period 180 million years ago. Wait, WHAT!? Just read that sentence again. Dinosaurs first appeared ~220 million years ago, and went extinct 60 million years ago. For reference, the Amazon is only 50 million years old. That means Daintree saw the entire rise and fall of the DINOSAUR SPECIES, while the Amazon slept in & missed the whole thing.

Back to present day. The entrance to the park is a short ferry across the Daintree River. Let me paint a picture for you: here we are, four homo sapiens sitting on one-side of the prehistoric Daintree River, waiting for a ferry to take us into the National Park. I can’t even comprehend the scale of Earth’s history that stared back across that river. At some point in this forest’s life, a stegosaurus drank from this same water way. Meanwhile, I’m sitting in a Mitsubishi ASX, streaming the West Cork murder podcast from my iPhone. That stegosaurus was 60 million years too early to see a human, let alone our species’ invention of commerce, capitalism, the wheel, automobiles, satellites, the murder mystery genre, microchips, gorilla glass and every other advancement that made my existential reflection possible. This time scale is impossible to grasp, but the thought of a stegosaurus popping out onto the road felt like a real possibility in this prehistoric jungle.

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Moving on, I’d say our main activity while in Daintree was sweating. It wasn’t that hot (around 80), but the humidity had to be at 10,000%. We went on two different hikes and I was drenched no more than 10 steps in.

Our two hikes were Mossman Gorge and Jindalba, with the latter being a true jungle bush walk. Mossman was nice, and included some of the strangest vegetation I’d seen: massive buttress roots and vines so heavy that they choke the trees from which they hang.

That said, Mossman was pretty touristy (gift store, crowded parking lot, boardwalks), but Jindalba felt far more natural. We genuinely had to brace buttressed roots for grip along the red jungle floor, all the while on the lookout for massive bugs, leaches, wild pigs, and cassowaries.

Beyond the whole “age thing”, Daintree’s other unique trait is that it bumps directly against the Great Barrier Reef. Underwater and overwater jungles side-by-side. Our best views of the reef meeting the rainforest came at Cape Tribulation, where we used Pete & Megan’s drone to take in the stark blend of green treetops, white sand, and turquoise waters. When you look at the below picture, just remember how many bugs there are in the dense green part.

With the unique mix of rainforest vegetation and saltwater nutrients, Cape Trib also hosts several mangrove forests, where Daintree’s oldest living tenants call home: crocodiles. These salt water residents can grow up to 15 feet long, and have been roaming Daintree for its entire existence (again, 180 million years). Let me take a quick pause: I’m writing about Day 6 of our 10-day trip, and to this point, I’d only seen 1 or 2 crocs in my life – they were in zoos. Over the next 3.5 days though, I’d see at least 100.

That’s jumping ahead though. Our next stop in Daintree was Emmagen Creek. After Cape Trib, we were debating whether we should just head back to Port Douglas for dinner… and a shower. We were REALLY sweaty, but it was also only 3:00, so we guilted ourselves into one more walk. We’d read about the Emmagen Creek hike, but there just wasn’t much information available. For reference, this is probably the internet’s longest article about Daintree.

We traversed an unsealed road to the trailhead, and packed for the unknown: plenty of water, bug spray, sunscreen, and bathing suits just in case. With numerous croc warnings, we didn’t expect to swim, but there’s no harm in bringing suits.

We started down the trail, again without much information where we were going, and quickly realized the trail wasn’t as long as we expected. After just 10 minutes, we hit Emmagen Creek. There was a long rope swing hanging from the tree, and we arrived just as someone was Tarzan swinging into the creek. Shouldn’t we worry about crocs? There were other people hanging downstream, so I guess they’d be easier prey.

After hiking through 10,000% humidity, cooling off in the creek was the perfect way to end the day, and a welcome surprise given how little we knew about the hike. We played around on the rope swing: Chelsay did some cannonballs, Megan showed Olympic-level steeze, and I… took a different approach.

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We’d leave for our fourth Aussie ecosystem the next day, but not before stopping at Hartley’s Crocodile Farm to learn about Australia’s deadliest animal. Our guide had been doing croc shows for 30 years, and therefore quickly replaced Chelsay as the coolest person I know.

Some highlights from his show:

Aussie crocs have the strongest bite ever recorded – 3700 lbs/sq inch, compared to a lion’s bite of 1000 or a human’s bite of 150.

Australia’s most poisonous snake is an inland taipan – one drop of its venom could kill 250,000 mice or 100 humans.

Cassowaries are just velociraptors with feathers, and I'm glad we didn't see one in the wild.

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I’m glad we learned all this after our day in wild Daintree.

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Part 4: More shoes

Hartley’s taught us about Australia’s crocs, snakes, and spiders… And now I’ll never where sandals in Australia. That’s especially true in our next destination: Kakadu National Park.

At this point in our Aussie adventure, we’d visited some of the prettiest beaches in the world, the oldest rainforest ever, and the largest organic structure on Earth... Yet somehow, Kakadu might be the most impressive of the bunch.

It’s a land before time. I realize Daintree is much older, but Kakadu felt truly pre-historic. It’s half the size of Switzerland yet somehow only has two hotels, four gas stations, and two paved roads – the rest is just red dirt tracks! Only about 500 people live in the park (mostly Aboriginal), and they’re outnumbered 20:1 by crocodiles! Also, literally NO ONE I know has been there. Not even the Aussies. Maybe because the closest town is Darwin, a city closer to Malaysia than it is to Sydney.

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Kakadu really is unspoiled. Just pure, perfect, and pristine nature. That isn’t to say it’s untouched though. Aboriginal people have called Kakadu home for nearly 65,000 years... They just haven’t screwed it up. Kakadu’s Aboriginal residents live by the laws of nature, looking for subtle signs in their surroundings to guide their daily, seasonal, and annual activities.

A perfect example is their land management techniques. In 2018, California experienced devastating wildfires that resulted in $3.5 billion in damages. Forest fires spark a number of ways, but they’re really fuelled when the fire catches dead brush – then they become uncontrollable. To avoid the same destruction this year, the state has taken extensive measures to clean out brush before the upcoming dry season, including dispatching brush-eating goats. This is 2019… and the big solution is goats.

Aboriginal people have had this under control for thousands of years! And it all comes from listening to the seasons. In Kakadu’s Aboriginal calendar, there are six seasons. We happened to visit during the dopest season: Banggereng. Banggereng (known by Aboriginals as Knock Em Down season) is like spring: it’s at the tail-end of Kakadu’s wet season, when up to a third of the park is flooded in 3 feet of water, but it’s not quite dry season, where wildfires become a risk. That makes it the perfect time for controlled burns to clean out the brush and avoid larger, less controllable fires during dry season. The crafty Aboriginal people didn’t need goats… They just paid attention to the season and acted accordingly.

I took an important lesson from this lifestyle. Aborginal people have lived off of and through the land for 65,000 years. By my brief observations, they didn’t have video games, or Instagram, or many other modern complications. A lot of the people I saw didn’t even have shoes! And yet, their needs were met. They were content, and smiling, and happy.

Now, I’m happy almost all the time, but there will always be things that frustrate me: traffic, work, the wifi signal dropping. Seeing the Aboriginal people’s much simpler lifestyle, but equal happiness, gave me perspective. Miles and miles away from any wifi signals, there were much simpler connections available.

That was a great pun, but I’ve digressed. I’ve written an entire page about Kakadu and not a single word was about what we did there.

We arrived in Kakadu in the late afternoon, and our first activity was a two-hour sunset cruise through the Yellow Water Billabong. If there is one place that inspired the past 600 words about my love of Kakadu, it’s Yellow Water. Our cruise guide’s family has lived in Kakadu for generations, and she used her knowledge of the billabong to show us the abundance of life it supports:

The jacana or “Jesus bird”, who walks on water by lightly hopping from lotus to lotus. Fun fact: they also hide their chicks in their feathers. Chelsay got a shot of one family snuggled up.

The black-necked stork

White bellied sea eagle

Hella saltwater crocs, sneakily poking their eyes above water, or showing their teeth to intimidate the boat

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The scene was just incredible – so natural. Green grass filled the flood plains, ripples from the Jesus birds dotted the blue water, and the blazing red sun set under the horizon. Our guide’s commentary significantly enhanced the experience, as we learned how her family adapts to Kakadu’s divergent seasons and lives from the land. Because our sunset tour was around dinner time, her take on “living from the land” seemed especially food-focused: our guide would point at a bird or plant, then just talk about how she eats it – “We bop it on the head, stick in a ground oven, and let it cook.”

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Needless to say, we loved the billabong tour, and actually did the exact same tour the next morning for sunrise.

After touring a croc-infested creek, it only made sense to visit one of Kakadu’s most famous swimming holes: Gunlom. Obviously we’d done our research to make sure they were croc-free, but to quote the guy sitting next to me on the Darwin flight: “It’s not the crocs you see that get ya.”

Actually, before talking about Gunlom, I’ll quickly mention how lucky we’d timed our trip. Earlier, I wrote that we visited Kakadu during Bangarreng, the transitional period between wet & dry season. As previously stated, Bangerrang the dopest time of year, but it does come with some risks. As wet-season flood waters recede from the vast plains, roads slowly open and croc-inspections begin. There are 10,000 crocs in Kakadu and its half the size of Switzerland, so it takes the rangers a bit of time to give the All-Clear. I checked the park website and found Gunlom’s average opening was mid-May, but we were travelling at the end of April.

Lucky for us, it was an especially mild wet season, which meant Gunlom opened just in time. Pete, Megan, Chelsay, and I would be the Guinea pigs testing the water. Joking, the park rangers don’t mess around. There’s actually a TV show that follows Kakadu’s rangers around – like the Aussie version of Cops. “Bad crocs, bad crocs, whatcha gonna do?”

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The Gunlom Pools are nearly as famous as the park’s croc-fighting cops, and were featured in Crocodile Dundee (which only emphasizes how ‘Straya they are).

The pools sit above Gunlom Waterfall, and the views from the top were just stunning. A slow-moving creek tumbling between tiered pools, red stone walls sharply descending into the deep dark water, all with elevated views over the surrounding plains.

It was 95 degrees out, but our group stayed comfortable in the cool water. Things felt easy going here. Gunlom didn’t have an epic or ethereal feel – it was just an ideal natural setting to casually kick it: we had a bottle of wine with us, we were splashing around, just taking in the views. I’d consider living in this remote speck of Australia, forced to “bop” things on the head for food, just to relax in the Gunlom pools whenever I wanted (...and let my legs weirdly float up - see picture below).

Gunlom is in the south-western end of Kakadu, and our accommodation that night was way up in the north-eastern tip. To break up this big drive, we made a pit stop at Nourlangie Rock, one of many Aboriginal rock art sites in the park. These paintings document Aboriginal legends (e.g. the Lighting God, who brings the floods preceding Bangerrang) and life in the region over the past 20,000 YEARS. I might be misinterpreting the drawings, but it looks like they liked to party.

It was getting close to sunset, and I’m basic, so we visited nearby Nawurlandja Lookout to enjoy Kakadu’s natural nightly show. After a short hike, we perched ourselves atop a rocky outcrop, and quietly took in the kaleidoscope of colours changing above the Anbangbang floodplains. The cliffs of empty Arnhem Land glowed red in the distance, while Chelsay went all Annie Lebowitz with the camera.

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The next day was the last of our trip. We started with a morning hike to Mirai Lookout, before our long trip back to Darwin. With plenty of daylight left, we decided to stop in Litchfield National Park on the way up.

Litchfield is like Kakadu (swimming holes, crocs, etc), but a bit smaller & closer to Darwin. That said, it still has some stunning waterfalls, as we stopped at Wangi, Florence, and Tolmer Falls. While cooling off in our 17th swimming hole of the trip, Chelsay impressed some young’ns with her back flip abilities -- ”Still got it”. Later in Litchfield, our Manly fam also “captured” a few new Aussie Pokemon: two dingos and a water monitor.

Whew – made it! That was our 10-day Aussie adventure. This was a long post too: 4500 words.

I’m thinking about how to pull this all together, and I keep coming back to the fact that Chelsay and I are nearing the tail-end of our time in Australia. Plans are afoot & moves are being made, but I’ll save all this for a later post.

That just means this could be our last big Aussie escapade, and if so, it was a bucket-list adventure fitting for our final trip: four iconic Australian geographies, four distinct ecosystems, and a range of related footwear requirements. If this was our last adventure Down Unda, we went out with a bang(errang).

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