January 7th, 2014 - Coolum Beach, QLD, Australia
Hello again! Marina here this time with one of the last blogs ever for our great journey.. We're counting down the days until we return to Canada at last!! And we are so excited.
Unfortunately I have been seriously disorganized in terms of email writing, and I have a fair amount to catch up! We'll split it into two or three emails.. By the time you get those, we'll be on the plane back to Canada! SERIOUSLY.
So we left off upon reaching Adelaide. Welcome to our world of being city bums. There wasn't too much for us in Adelaide. We discovered that we were horrifyingly short of cash, so we posted a dread ad and sat in a parking lot and waited for people to respond. Actually. We were lucky to find a parking lot on the side of the road not too far from the city that we literally just sat in, waiting for dread clients to call. We didn't really have the cash to drive around every day, and there wasn't much else for us to do, so we just hung out and watched our new favorite show Scrubs on youtube waiting for the call.
We did get a few calls! And we managed to make a bit of money. We made enough to decide that we wanted to leave. The great city of Melbourne was not far off, and we felt it calling us with it's music, art, dreads, and good friends. Thanks to our Perth clients' word of mouth, we had one client waiting for us in the little township of Digby, in the middle of nowhere between Adelaide and Melbourne, and we decided to head off.
I won't bother to describe too much of the trip to Digby. We have done a LOT of driving and this short distance didn't wow us too much. We had some difficulty finding the turnoff, but with helpful directions, we arrived safely that night. The next morning we got to work!
Our client was actually a 7 year old! Her mother had gotten in contact with us to do her dreads and we made a special trip to their tiny town for our youngest client yet! Jazzie was a very wild and free little girl with extremely tangly hair. Her mother Tammy had attempted to do dreads herself, but needed help, and had called in the professionals! Jazzie was very patient and well behaved, but she was still 7, and a total of 5 hours of work ended up taking all day beacuse of the extremely frequent breaks we were taking for Jazzie to run free and stretch her legs.
But we were okay with breaks as Tammy's six children were keen to show us around their beautiful farm. Crisp moist air, tall rich green forests and thick luscious grass was the landscape in the rainforest world. Peaceful farm animals roamed freely about the property, and we enjoyed soaking up the simple peace of the country lifestyle. An epic game of hide and seek brought us back to being kids again and gave us a closer tour of the property. Goats for milk and cheese, chickens for eggs, sheep for wool, a horse for riding, dogs, cats, bunnies, guinea pigs for playing... What more could a kid need for a perfect childhood? Or an adult for that matter...
The next morning we said a fond farewell and hit the road again. This time, the drive was part of our destination! The Great Ocean Road is one of the top things to do/see in Australia. It runs along the south coast of Victoria (the state) starting from just past the South Australia border all the way to Melbourne. The road is famous for its gorgeous ocean views of the rocky, stormy, wavey coasts, and for its winding, swooping curves as the road follows the free form of the mountainous coastline.
We stopped at such gorgeous sites as The Twelve Apostles: 12 giant towering rock spires that rise out of the water seemingly out of their own accord and defy the power of the huge waves that repeatedly crash against their narrow bodies. An amazing look to the west showed the glare of the setting sun, with the massive sillouetted bodies of the apostles standing firm in the ocean spray.
It seemed like every 5 kilometers there was another pullout for some other amazing rock formation created by the waves in some surreal shape. The were spires and pillars, archways from land to island rock formations, archways between giant pillars, secret tunnels where waves would force themselves through with immense power, and lone bird inhabited grassy homes that somehow developed way out to sea in this majestic place.
High atop the mountains where the road spiraled along the coast, the views of the coastline were surreal. The massive waves were tiny white specs, massive boulders were tiny pebbles, and the ocean stretched away to infinity.
Along the way there were peaceful little towns that I absolutely LOVED. With only a single tiny strip of shops, most of these towns revolved around this country's greatest love: the ocean; and the most loved thing to do in the ocean: surf. Every single town felt like a potential future place to live; I could totally imagine living in a cute little house near the ocean in a tiny hippie town one day... One day!
After our enjoyable and extremely winding drive down the famous Great Ocean Road, up towering cliffs with stunning ocean views of dramatic swells and shorelines, and around the sharp turns of the shapes of the mountains, we were finally approaching the great city of Melbourne.
Melbourne! Home to 4 and a half million people, and considered the arts and music centre of Australia. We were so excited to visit and enjoy this cultural city.
So it was back to the city life. (Or so we thought.) I went out and got myself another barista job, and we found a place to stay with some friends. It was nice to settle down even if for a short time. But so much changed for us in that such short time... You can never rely on anything! But that's the beauty and secret to enjoying life.
We planned to stay almost til the end of our trip. We rented a room in a house share with two lovely ladies, Anna and Aiala (pronouced Ay-ella) and planned to stay til halfway through January. We unpacked the van and got cozy in our new fabulous home. Rich red walls, hardwood floors, high ceilings, stained glass... It was truely a fabulous room!
But things have changed for us... After months on the road, complete freedom, income coming to us solely from our now thriving dreadlocks business, the life of the 9 to 5 work no longer gelled with our flow. Orion just couldn't seem to find a job that worked for him, and I started to hate mine with a passion! Cafe life just isn't for me any longer.
We set aside all attempts at having "normal" jobs and focused on the dreads. Suddenly we were booked solid!!! We decided to leave Melbourne early and clients came far and wide, and we were busy with work straight through. As we planned our departure, our bank account slowly filled back up, and our smiles got bigger as we confirmed our suspicions that doing what you love ALWAYS pays the best.
Another amazing and unforgettable opportunity came our way in Melbourne as we dug into the music scene. We met an amazing guy, Steve, from Chasing Records, who offered to set us up with a second OM album, for free!! Incredibly talented, and owning a full glorious studio set up, but new to the market recording scene, our exchange was a new album for us, and a handle on a solid work profile for him! Both of us getting major benefits. We set a date and got right to recording.
Throughout our Aussie travels, Orion had been writing some really unique and different material. Busking on the streets of Melbourne helped him solidify and arrange the songs to his liking, using a street battery amp and a loop pedal. (I hadn't been involved in this much because I was busy working at the cafe... Yet another reason why a "normal" job just isn't for me!) When we started making plans for the album, Orion and I started arranging the songs for the two of us and it was so exciting seeing our new sounds and ideas take fruition.
The music is all loop based, as it was mostly written with a loop pedal. There's a lot more of an electronic vibe to the songs when you combine some gnarly tasty synth basses with some sick hip hop drums. Steve, our incredible producer, happens to kick ass at programing drums, and it was such a delight to combine his skill with Orion beat boxing, which is what he had been using for street performances. Orion's lyrics are mostly hiphop verses, with sung choruses and random things from me here and there. It will be so great to hear the final collaboration. We began to see that we really had a musical connection with Steve, and our vision for the music was really similar.
We spent two 12 hour recording sessions recording and recording and recording and finally all the tracks were down and semi organized. When our stomachs were gnawing at our rib cages with hunger, after 8 hours straight on the first day, we ordered pizza. The second night, Steve's lovely partner Amy cooked for us. Such beautiful people!
We are now wriggling in our seats WAITING for the finished product to come through. It will be such a delight to deliver these fresh juicy tracks to you Canadians when we arrive home in LESS THAN A MONTH! What an amazing thing to look forward to. Gratitude!
So with all our dreading slots booked up and finally completed, the album tracks recorded and ready to be produced, mixed and mastered by Chasing Records Steve, we were ready to hit the road once more!
Our plan was a nice simple journey to the capitol city of Australia to visit a former dread client from Darwin, lovely Anna, with her sweet 2 year old Jade and husband Justin. And no everyone, the capitol of Australia is NOT Sydney. That is correct. NOT Sydney. It is a random, and small, and isolated, and somewhat odd city called Canberra. For a capitol city, there's not many people. Its VERY hot and VERY dry and dead. There are a lot of memorial monuments, fountains, fancy government street names, buildings and signs. All in all.. BORING. Though a swim in the river was extremely refreshing after the insanity and wild ride of our attempt at a drive there.
But I'm getting ahead of myself... Yes, our "nice simple" trip to Canberra turned into a ridiculous 3 day hectic fest of madness, engines, hoses, petrol, toxic fumes, 40 degree heat and outback exposure, and not knowing HOW we were going to survive this. All this taking place only a few days before Christmas! As they say, shit went down.
Unfortunately for your now peaked interest, you'll have to brace yourself for the next email!!! Haven't you ever heard of a CLIFF HANGER?!
I will spoil it slightly and tell you all that we did survive and are perfectly okay, and eventually exactly where we intended to end up. Somehow the world always works out that way if you trust it to...
Until next time,
Marina (and Orion)
P.S. Happy belated Christmas and New Years! We will be flying home on the 28th of January straight home to little Vernon, B.C, Canada. We would LOVE to see some of your lovely faces when we get there. Keep in touch! Look forward to a sweet CD release party soon after our arrival as well! (As soon as we can get album art and printing and all that fun stuff done...)
P.P.S. Check out Steve and his work with Chasing Records at www.chasingrecords.com.au
P.P.P.S. Happy birthday to me, I live on a beach, happy birthday to me, while all of you freeze! :)
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