Cool Bananas Backpackers Hostel
The Friendliest Hostel on the Australian East Coast
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Uncategorized backpackers, diving, fishing, great barrier reef, land based fishing, love bug, queensland, snorkelling, solo travel, surfing, travel

Love and Travel go Hand in Hand😉

coolbananasbackpackers 2 Comments July 13, 2020

How do we find love?

Whether it be a chance meeting around a campfire, a shared adventure, perhaps skydiving in Byron Bay or gazing through foggy snorkels in the Whitsundays, love will take a chance when you put yourself into the world of travel and seek out adventure.

From the cosy little coastal town of Agnes Water/1770 https://www.visitagnes1770.com.au/ the love bug has struck in many forms. We’ve been a part of secret love surprises, love triangles, love on the run and long-term love…. Soon, we hope we will have our very first wedding at Cool Bananas Hostel.

Why is Love & Travel such a world phenomenon?

Is it because when we are travelling, we feel free of the ties of everyday life that we open our heart to the possibility of something magical? Do we feel more deserving or richer with time? Is it that we have more in common with other travellers’ than we would back home in our own little worlds of work/family/friends???

There is no doubt that when humans travel, they find love. Now I guess I am talking in the sense of ‘true love’ but I’m also talking about chance meetings, a fling, a one night stand, a holiday romance or even a deep friendship that will last a lifetime. All of these types of love have found their way into our hostel and we are always blessed by the happiness that surrounds our life in paradise.

Fate & Chance Meetings

One UK Couple’s Australian & New Zealand Journey

A cute couple whose names I will just call K & A, travelled solo from the UK to Australia with the purpose of work, meet friends and start a new life abroad. No plans of returning to their hometowns any time soon. As if fate had brought them to Cool Bananas, they soon became great mates, and part of our staff family.

It became obvious to us keen observers there was a spark here, and they fell in love. Needing the money to continue their travels, like so many backpackers, they made the hard decision to venture off to work on local, ground-fruit farms. They soon realized this was not for them! Instead, they called the banana phone and asked, ‘can we come home?’ Hahaha, so lovely to hear those words on the other end of the line. Instead of K & A digging their holiday hands into hard worked Australian soil, they returned to Cool Bananas to enjoy the beach, the surf and the serenity once again.

Travel does not involve sitting too long

It was not long before they both felt that well-known ‘travel itch’ in their barefoot, sandy toes. K & A made the difficult decision to move on from their Australian home and travel to new unknown destinations. This not only took them to popular cities like Brisbane to work for 6 months but to Cairns, Darwin and Perth and countless little towns in between. With sometimes only a few dollars between them, they found themselves the recipients of many a ‘good deed’ by Australians all over the country. These destinations they’d heard discussed around the campfire of an evening or whilst eating a communal evening meal in the courtyard. The pull was so intense, once they made the decision, they packed up their few travel belongings and left us.

One day, whilst enjoying a lovely day amongst our amazing guests, I received a long-awaited text message. A smile instantly sprawled across my face. I realized that K & A were returning to us, not next week or next month – they’ll be here this afternoon! What! Well that just demonstrates their love of spontaneity and respect for the Cool Bananas Family!

Where are they now?

Where are they now I hear you ask? They made for themselves a lovely home in New Zealand. Working, exploring and making a pretty sweet life for themselves. Sometimes living in their van, short stays in hostels and some camping too. However, as the world now knows, a pandemic hit all our coastlines, inland sweet spots and homes. K & A decided that family and friends back home were at the top of their list. A difficult course of action considering their travel adventure had lasted more than 2 years and taken them around the whole coastline of Australia and across the Tasman Sea. So, they’re back home (UK home, not Cool Bananas Home!), for now spending precious moments with family and friends. I’ve no doubt they’re planning, dreaming and manifesting that day when they can take their love back on the road once more.

Comments from ‘K’ herself

“I fell in love the second I walked through the door. I fell in love with how the place made me feel, by welcoming me with the warmest of hugs. Everyone that was there and everyone that came was just like a breath of fresh air.

I met my best friend there, which I soon learned was more than my best friend. He was my soul mate. We spent an amazing 3 years travelling in vans and working on farms and visiting every city! We spent weeks at a time staying on golden beaches or deep in forest gorges. But nowhere compared to Agnes Water.

Being barefoot all the time, the surf, the yoga, the campfires, the walks and the lookouts. Every evening the sun would light up the sky with the most beautiful colours and every night to be followed by thousands upon thousands of stars. Cool Bananas brought us together when we didn’t know we were looking for each other. But when it happened, it was magic. We returned a few times, it’s just so hard to stay away when you’ve found your slice of blissful paradise. We called this our Australian home.

The owners were just the best, from giving health advice on my swollen foot, my burnt leg and to love advice that ended up giving me my ‘A’ for the next adventurous year in New Zealand. I’ll be forever trying to get back to Agnes Water, definitely to see Linda and Cary. I have so much love for them both and their families. We made bobble heads of Linda and Cary, I hope their still doing alright!”

Yes ‘K’ the bobble heads are great! They watch over us every day and remind us of the love in our lives.

My Favourite Love Story

I’m going to name this sweet pair Apple Pie (AP) & Whipped Cream (WC) because – well – they just ‘go together’! They were with us for such a brief moment but this meeting of hearts has stayed with us.

AP & WC arrived separately. On the first evening, only minutes after his arrival AP made a special request. Could he use one of our dorm rooms, decorate it with candles and create a surprise for WC. You must know that WC had no idea that AP had already arrived and in fact she thought she was going to be arriving prior to him! Confused?? HMMMM…… ok, so AP arrived at Cool Bananas early to surprise his soulmate WC. Oh my this was about the most romantic gesture I’d seen. His enthusiasm and excitement to create this special moment was touching to say the least. Of course in hearing about this, the word through the other staff quickly spread and they all had to, in their own way be a part of this special surprise.

Between all the staff, we managed to set up a special room, candles, chocolates, 2 single beds made into a double and some romantic music in the background. You can only imagine the electricity between us, even the guests could not wait. AP with his chocolates in hand, candles lit and romantic eyes all ready, he waited patiently in the room. WC arrived off the bus and was shown to her room – of course not knowing what she was about to be met with.

Let’s take a step back….

It is important to note here that AP and WC had not seen each other for 3 months. They had met by a waterfall in Cairns the year before, romantic right!!! They’d quickly realised they had a connection and spent many months traveling around Australia together where their relationship grew in intensity. It was obvious to each of them, this was not a holiday romance but a love that they would definitely have to explore further when they decided to go home at the end of the year. As they’d organised separate activities throughout their trip they regrettably parted company with the promise to meet at Cool Bananas Backpackers in Agnes Water/1770 when all their pre-planned activities were done. Ok, back to now….

I think we as staff were more nervous than AP!! Wobbly legs and barely able to contain the surprise, we all waited patiently to hear squeals of joy coming from the room. We were not disappointed. First came an excited scream, then silence, then laughing, then silence (kissing perhaps???) then more laughing followed by excited chatter. Oh how we all wished to be flies on the wall at that chance moment. Needless to say the sounds of sheer excitement from the surprise was enough.

Once again, Cool Bananas had produced a moment in time that would last with us all and provided the chance to see the good in people and the desire to please others. We had all been shown how love can make us do crazy things, make us involve strangers in the most intimate of moments and be willing to wear our hearts on our sleeves.

Where will your next love story take place? https://www.facebook.com/CoolBananasBackpackers1770/

campfire 2
Uncategorized

May the Music Touch Your Heart

coolbananasbackpackers 2 Comments July 6, 2020

Music & Hostels just go together

It was only the other day I walked into our reception area to hear a distant melody. Not coming from the usual stereo but from the acoustic sounds of a guitar. Santiago was humming the words to Hotel California. As you can only imagine you only need to hear a few bars of this song to know it’s hard to get it out of your head! For the next 3 days and nights I found myself singing Hotel California inside my head…. and out!!! I don’t sing……. Well… not in a way that makes people want to stop and listen anyway! And from there, it started a trend with staff and guests. Soon, it became apparent that we had to turn this into something special to share with the world.

Before long, staff, Santiago and Dan started strumming their own guitars and putting together the melody of ‘Hotel California’ with new lyrics to tell the beautiful story of ‘Hostel Cool Bananas’.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CdYQchnoXeI

(see very bottom for the lyrics)

Consistency was the key

Each day we’d walk into the courtyard to find the musical duo casually sitting on the steps strumming, humming and discussing various combinations of lyrics that would eventually become the hostel anthem. When people were busy buzzing around the hostel readying for their next tour or surf lesson, they took the time to stop by these two strumming guitar gurus to sing along and chat about common music interests and share their love of music.

As time went by, over a number of weeks, we participated in many a jam session. We drank icy cold beer, discussed and played with the lyrics. Eventually we had a combination of lyrics and melody that would produce the first of a series of staff & guest created music. Now, instead of the words to Hotel California, roaming around in my head, I had the words to Hostel Cool Bananas instead! Oh… it was going to be fun!!

At long last…..

Production night was finally upon us. Cool Bananas staff grabbed their lighters (for affect of course) and practiced their lyrics. They excitedly got ready to perform the song they’d been practicing not only in the courtyard but in the shower for weeks! Our singing, guitar strumming comedy duo, Santiago and Dan had a great idea to finish the song….. at the end we would each and individually say ‘Welcome to Hostel Cool Bananas’ in different languages/accents; Dutch, Swiss, German, Irish, Spanish and English to name a few. This combination of cultures is at the core, the very essence of any hostel around the world and at the very heart of Cool Bananas in 1770 Australia.

The Production

With lighters in the air, singing voices tuned up and immense excitement we recorded the most fun, heartfelt, personal production for our Cool Bananas family that I could have imagined. Only viewing the video on Facebook will you get a small glimpse of the sense of love between the staff members. The pride that we all took in creating and being a part of this special event. Luckily there were enough singing voices to drown out the ‘not so talented’ lol.

Not a 5-star film clip

But 5 s-star heart and soul….

Are you expecting a 5-star edited music video with all the editing trimmings of a famous movie director, lets say…. Beyonce or Spike Lee? What you will find, in the first performance anyway, is a raw video, minus any editing, just a couple of minutes of good vibing (is that a word?) energy.

Needless to say, we walked away from this feeling like this bunch of bananas would be in our hearts forever…. And we were right. It is amazing how music can touch your heart and soul and create bonds that span the globe years after the event.

You’ll be able to follow the YouTube link below to see some of content. So… keep reading.

The 2nd instalment

So inspired by our story was another young potential singer/song writer, Lachan, also a member of the Cool Bananas staff family, that she had to ‘re-invent’ the lyrics and the production, to put together a ‘daytime’ show for the next instalment. She interviewed a number of staff and guests to get the right combination of feeling that matched the story of Cool Bananas Hostel and staged yet another amazing combination of experiences, voices, love and harmony……. Now I’m getting carried away…. Just telling this story makes me teary… For travellers to be with us momentarily in our lives, work for us for only a number of weeks, sometimes months, to be able to capture the essence of a place and the people within shows that something special is definitely happening within these walls.

A never ending tale

So by now…. You’re thinking, wow…. How many versions of Hotel California can there be? I’m hoping that we can never answer that question and that this magical, musical tradition continues throughout the Cool Bananas story because as every guest and staff member that enters the hostel doors, we learn so much about the world. In the voices of our guests and staff we hear stories of families, pets, careers had or dreamed of, love stories (that’s another blog altogether!!!), adventures, mishaps, ‘once in a lifetime’ experiences and finally how those people will forever touch our hearts.

The song ‘Hostel Cool Bananas’ doesn’t just demonstrate what amazing talent we see come through the doors but what affect travel has on one’s soul. To embark on a solo or group travel adventure across the world, cross borders, get out of your comfort zone, try new food, make new friends, learn new skills, take on international jobs and become part of a family is just about the most significant endeavour any one person can do – apart from finding the partner of your dreams and creating your own family – of course!

A final note

To this end, I have to say, I cannot wait for the next instalment of ‘Hostel Cool Bananas’ because I am excited about the new family members we will welcome in, the stories we will hear and what they may have to teach us. We are forever learning and growing and feeling fulfilled by our travellers’ that we often feel like we have been on a holiday ourselves. Wow! I feel blessed to be able to say that. What other job can you say that you feel like you have been on holidays, when you haven’t actually left your own backyard.

If you wish to see any of our other musical talents, follow the links below.

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipPOZxOV2QMYzZ6cN64gMablo6wy9_arz8zXvntw

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMY6pu40WKk5oJI_UrRn7WDbJEyuC_8sf5HCKEN

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipMVZ-SBw5Y6dCddl_xVmndMmy-U2_uDO4qSQPF2

https://photos.google.com/photo/AF1QipOXTOZJU8UObgxyq5aKYFS_ulS7U_QAEjTbH_qW

Many thanks for touching our hearts forever

Thank you, Santiago and Dan, for starting this tradition, thank you Lachan for continuing and embracing the next version and thank you to all the staff and guests who were a part of both productions. Will you be in the 3rd production? How will it sound? What essence of Cool Bananas will be picked out and told? What would you do differently? I can’t wait to find out!!!!

Welcome to Hostel Cool Bananas …. What a lovely place…..

https://www.facebook.com/CoolBananasBackpackers1770/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCotSLF1nPpOnFCxZFEvlv1Q?view_as=subscriber

Lyrics: 

(to see the ‘not so professional but totally lovely’ video head to:

Lyrics: Hostel Cool Bananas

Verse 1: On a dark desert Agnes, warm wind in my hair, loud shuttle bus music, rising up through the air. Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light, it was Cool Bananas, where I spent my first night.

Verse 2: There was Linda in the doorway, I saw Cary as well, and I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell. Then they gave me a banana, and showed me the way, there voices in the corridor, I thought I heard them say…

Chorus: Welcome to Hostel Cool Bananas, such a lovely place, (such a lovely place), such a lovely face. There is plenty of room at the hostel Cool Bananas, any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here.

Verse 3: I sat next the fire, drinking my goon, you can hear the guitar, sounding till noon. And still those voices are singing from far away, they were playing Wonder Wall and … Have you ever Seen the Rain..

Chorus

Chorus

Cool Bananas Backpackers Hostel
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