So, our first night in Port Douglas started out normal enough. We walked around the town, enjoyed happy hour from 5-6 and played some euchre for a while. Then, we felt a bit peckish so we went to a bar called the Iron Bar and sat at a tractor table. I tried kangaroo loin and it was delicious. So overall, pretty normal right?
Well, then this guy comes up to our table and asks us to watch a comedy show about cane toads and human jockeys that race them (for $5). So we thought, sure, lets partake. Firstly, the man had to explain that the cane toads are misunderstood, and that their poison venom is inside the pockets of their cheeks and this is only released when under intense squeezing or biting. Thus, he said as long as we didn't bite the toads heads then we would be safe!
In the first two rounds, people were selected randomly to race toads from their ticket numbers. They each had to kiss the toad and place it in the bucket to start the race. I think they do this so that people get comfortable with touching the thing. The toads had cool names like Jerry Springer (everyone is to say Jerry, Jerry!), fat bastard (man he was a fat frog!), ozzy ozzy (to bring out the ozzy cheer of oy oy oy!), gay freddo (named after the chocolate bar - he had a pink harness), and my personal female favourite - camel toad ;-). Once the man said go and lifted the bucket, every jockey had to focus their new years paper noise maker at their toad's butt to try and get it off the table. Once off the table the toad was free to be grabbed by the jockey and placed in the winning bucket. This is harder than it seems because once the toads have freedom they can hop pretty darn fast!
For the final round they replaced the two toads that were poor performers and added two new toads and auctioned off the lot. Gay Freddo was doing pretty well so he garnered $25 in the auction, followed by Fat Bastard at $20. I thought I would get in the game and bid on Camel Toad (who came in 6th and 2nd in the last two races) for a mere $10. What a steal! From then on, the thoughts in our heads went like this.
Astrid: Oh my god. Did my bid just win? Yikes, now I actually have to race this thing in front of all these people...I can do this, its just a toad right? I watched other people do it? Though I talked to a woman in the bathroom from a previous round and she was right grossed out...hmm..here we go, I'm being called up to get camel toad. Its not so bad its just her and one other toad left in the bucket. Just grab it, say woo hoo, and put in other bucket. Done. Oops, I need to kiss the darn thing, so I picked her up again and did so. Must have helped because now she's raring to go. Let's look around at the competition. Mostly old bittys...I can take them down. I think the prize is good, and even if it sucks, its all about winning right? I'm not competitive at all, nope. Its down to camel toad and I to make this happen. And we're off. She's already heading for the table. One quick little push from my noisemaker and she's at the edge. She jumped! What do I do? Oh ye, grab her and place in the bucket. No more jumps for you my friend, you're mine. And in the bucket you go. How did I do? Oh my god! I won? Syd, I won? That's awesome! ;o)
Camel Toad: Frick, I have to race again? Why can't they put me back in the wild so I can continue to populate thousands of babies? This is such a bore. Oh, here comes my new jockey. She seems kinda cute, and certainly on the ball...maybe we can take this one home. Oh, there we go, into the bucket with the other loser toads. Oops, she's picking me up again, time to get my juices moving and my legs warmed up. That kiss helped, thanks lass. Okay, here goes, maybe if I'm the first to jump out the bucket I'll have a head start. Here we go! You leave my butt alone, I can find my way on my own thank you very much. There's the edge! I'm going for it! Yay! Freedom! Or not, that lass grabbed me already, damn she's fast. Doh.
So that's how it all played out. I ended up winning a full day snorkel trip ($165 value) on a ship called HABA, and bragging rights for the rest of the night. Sweet eh? We then changed our itin for the next day in Port Douglas and got up early to get on the boat! We used the certificate and upgraded me to diving for $60 and Syd paid for his own dive trip. If it hadn't been for that great toad, we would have just lazed around the entire day and missed 2 brilliant dives on the Great Barrier Reef. Thanks Camel Toad. ;o)
Astrid.
No comments:
Post a Comment