When you need to "escape" for a bit (from life) where do you go and what do you do? What helps?

Read a good book, anywhere I happen to be.

I take myself to lunch and see some obscure movie at a local indie theater. And I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. way to live on the edge, likeradar.

I need to sit by the ocean, but here too many crocs so I just take the dogs for a walk in the bush, not as good as the ocean but not too bad. Quiets my mind and soothes my soul.

Bathtub soak with a book

I take a red-eye to New York City.
Wait! Is this a ticket in my pocket right now? Yes it is!

I usually like to just get in my car, drive and cry and cry and cry.. It’s relaxing for me and I do feel better afterwards.

I go to a dark bar and drink until I see little brown gnomes with slingshots in their hands.

I also, like many flutherers it seems, take my car out.
And go through a drive through car wash.
And depending on how bad I’m feeling, pick a cycle. (regular if its just something small, supreme if I’m really upset)
and then I just… well, explode in my car until the carwash is over.
and go on with my day =)

I live by the ocean too, so I have been known to go there. As I mentioned on another question, I have a thing for biking so when I want to get away for a while, I will usually just get on my bike and go anywhere. It’s a lot of fun.

I guess it depends on my mood; sometimes I’ll be productive and wash my car or revamp my room, while sometimes I’ll just find a comfy spot and read, veg out on the couch in front of the tube, or go for a hike with my puppydoo.

I take off for a walk in the woods. We have many trails right outside our doorstep that I take full advantage of. It’s very calming for me and always puts me in a better mood.

My options are limited because my 2 year old still thinks the umbilical cord is attached… but I try to meditate, watch a musical, or eat a raspberry chocolate Luna bar. Hahaha… that sounds so douchey! I live on the edge.

@rooeytoo Do what I do, wander around the shore or the riverbank with a .308. I know it is frowned upon, but I have shot every croc that I have seen in the wild for the last thirty years. There are way too many croc fatalities due to the attitude regarding protecting them – there are more crocs now that there were five hundred years ago. They are not remotely close to being an endangered species and in recent times it seems that they are killing innocent people every few weeks. That little girl a few weeks back should not have died. I often anchor in estuaries in the Gulf and see the big salties all the time. The .308 with my green laser sight never misses. I won’t kill sharks or freshies, (or kangaroos), but I feel guilty if I let a salty get away – I know it will possibly kill someone one day.

When I need to get away, I go sailing – for just a few days or on occasion – a few months if I can afford the time. I am fifty-five and in that time I have spent twelve years living on a yacht or boat of some kind. I’ll sometimes head for a coral sea island and camp ashore. No people (unless I take a companion) no noise other than my music, complete serenity. I have my Revere Osmosis water system, fish and crab traps and a seed/sprout germination system to add to the dried or canned vegetables. You don’t need much more.

@DarkScribe – well they are a protected species and it is against the law. Plus I am not sure how I feel about the whole culling situation, everyone who was taken was taken in a place where they were foolish to be. Drunks swimming in the river, parents allowing their children to play in flood plains. Now they are proposing a cull of all crocs within a 50k radius of Darwin so if you get killed at 51k out, then what? and after the initial cull how do they keep them from coming back.

If everyone gets a gun and starts shooting, there will be dead croc hunters everywhere. Guy in Vic copped last week while hunting.

@rooeytoo The problem is that they should NOT be a protected species, they have bred up to a population that exceeds their levels when Australia was colonised. They are no longer hunted as juveniles by Aboriginal tribes, they have no natural predators and it is ludicrous to allow a threat to people who are in rural areas. It is Green idiocy gone mad. They need to be contained, culled in populated areas, not eradicated entirely. This question was about where you can go to “escape”, and as you pointed out, some of the better choices are dangerous because of an uncontrolled crocodile population. I was born in Darwin (on the Navy base there) and am very experienced with Salties, I saw my first person killed by one when I was five. In walking distance from the base.

I either curl up in my favorite chair in my office and read a book – home office, mind you or go to a local pond and sit on the rock formation on the south side of the pond and watch people try to catch the fish that are too busy feeding on the duck food to mess with the worms on the hooks. The fish have it all figured out, I rarely see anyone actually catch anything at that pond.

On days when I either can’t drive or don’t feel like driving, as long as no one else is by the pool, I head to the backyard and sit by the pool. Just watching water calms me down.

For a really quick “unwinding” a long, fast ride on winding stretch of highway my motorbike is extraordinarily relaxing. Wind in your face, virtually unlimited power and acceleration, the skill in throwing the bike around tight bends,

I have an old cedar meditation bench in my woods, next to a stream with a little waterfall, mossy rocks and wild ferns. There are bird songs. So I sit, listen, look and think about nothing…until Milo shows up, jealous and cantankerous and looking for attention. A workable combo. He is scared of the things that inhabit our woods (foxes and not crocs, thank goodness) so needs a guard dog. (That would be me, I guess.)

Wherever I go, there I am. Life cannot be escaped. Children make chilling impossible.

Pop a pill and sleep.

Disneyland
Or I watch some Buffy.

<—————- as all good gnomes know…
head for the trees… nothing like the forest!!

@daloon says “Children make chilling impossible.” but on the other hand, making children is a good way to chill.

@hungryhungryhortence I looooove reading in the tub! :D

I like to take a long long walk… or maybe go to a nearby coffee house and bring along my diary

I usually don’t go anywhere, but I like to sit down and draw. Usually a humorous comic because laughter helps me feel better whenever I am upset. Sometimes I post my drawings online later on.

Since I started doing yoga, I haven’t felt the need, but I usually would go for a hike in the foothills, or take a long drive with the stereo turned way up, or go to the archery range and release a couple hundred arrows.

I take a walk down to the river and skip stones..:)

I go to the huge ass grass front yard of my church. Where I remove my shoes. Take a moment to connect to God, then I tumble, trick, and fip. Oh, yeah baby! Nothing clears my head and give me strength more than a hard session of acrobatics.

Music. A good novel.

I’m with @tinyfaery. I’m going to DISNEYLAND today!

@DarkScribe – my last response was modded because this whole thing is way off topic so I will bring it back. If you need to “escape” and chill for a bit and choose to wander in an area where lions live and you get eaten by a lion, should lions be culled? And if you choose to escape and chill by swimming in known croc infested waters, should the crocs be culled??? It would be hard to chill and escape if everyone was carrying a .308 and shooting everything that moved in or near the water.

Seems like everyone has an opinion on how to chill and escape and a lot are experts on how to cure the croc/people interaction as well.

The mother of the young girl allowed her daughters (11 & 7) to chill and escape by swimming in a flooded creek during the wet when everyone knows there are crocs about, no life guards, no adult supervision and dangerous rapidly moving waters. If the croc had not been there, she could have drowned by getting caught in debris as several others have this wet as well.Not a good way for a child to escape the trials and tribs of life.

I do like to chill by sitting by the ocean but when there are crocs & stingers in the water as there are everywhere here, I sit further back and marvel at the strange people wading and playing in the drink. Guess we better cull the stingers too, they are killers and more prolific than crocs.

If I need to escape by wandering in an area comprising hundreds of thousands of square kilometeres where people reside, areas that were safe when I was child, but are dangerous now, then that danger needs to be curbed. The focus of this question is what do you do when you want to get away from everyday life. Many people want to be able to go – safely – to a remote area. I do, I enjoy that very much, be it in a yacht at sea, or just “going bush” either with a backpack or, as I sometimes do by kayaking. When I do go into a remote area, I make sure that I am safe, that I can defend myself. For some people that adds to the appeal of such a break, for me I would rather not have to do it. As for your comment regarding that little girl who was eaten a few weeks ago, saying that “Everybody knows there are crocs about” and blaming her mother, that is not acceptable. Nor was it so for the old guy a couple of weeks before her – he was experienced with crocs, just wasn’t aware that they had migrated. There was no previous history of sightings or attacks in either case, it was not a known high risk area and nor were many of the other recent fatality areas. There are risks in many of the things people do to relax or “get away from it all” but it is sad when completely unnecessary risks are ignored for no good reason. There is no reason to allow the croc numbers to build to the level that they have nor to migrate into previously safe areas as they are doing. If that risk wasn’t there, I would have a very different answer to this question, as one of my favourite ways of “getting away from it all” was to go Barramundi fishing in a Kayak in some of our Northern rivers, camping on the banks at night. The areas where I used to go now have signage warning of the likelihood of croc attacks. I haven’t been Barrumundi fishing using a Kayak in remote river areas since the late seventies when the croc numbers really started to climb. When you see those who do go – in tinnies – they all have rifles. Even with some of the popular fishing shows when focused on Barramundi, you’ll see rifles in the boats.

@DarkScribe : Breaks for the aging eyes, please.

It makes reading here so much easier.

Thanks

@DarkScribe – Here is an interesting article for those who want to escape and chill out safely, from The Age. I think some people just like to feel macho and go around killing things, the Crocodile Dundee syndrome, I think it is called…....and the fishos here mostly carry mozzie spray, not rifles

“Crocs, bah, horses the deadliest animals
Jano Gibson
July 5, 2008
AUSTRALIA’S deadliest animals don’t lurk on the banks of muddy Northern Territory rivers or slither on hot rocks. Nor do they hunt in the shallows of the sea or crawl on eight legs.

Horses are the creatures most likely to cause a human death, national coroners’ statistics show. Cows are the next most dangerous, followed by dogs.

Sharks are in fourth position, while crocodiles and spiders account for only slightly more deaths than emus, cats and fish.

Out of 128 deaths linked to animals that were investigated by the National Coroners Information System between 2000 and 2006, 40 were caused by horses. Most of these occurred when riders fell off them, including one that resulted in a coroner recommending helmets be encouraged in commercial horse riding ventures, and be mandatory for tourism operations.

Cows, bulls and other bovine were linked to 20 fatalities, usually after a car hit the animal or swerved to miss it.

Dog-related incidents left 12 people dead, including two from cars trying to avoid them, two from people falling over them and seven from being attacked by them.

This week a 57-year-old man was found unconscious at a rural property near Tamworth, NSW, with a dog bite to his ankle. He was unable to be revived.

Of the country’s traditionally most feared creatures, sharks caused 11 deaths, snakes eight, crocodiles four and spiders three.

Following the death of a man who swam in crocodile-infested waters in Kakadu National Park during a tour, a coroner recommended that a licensing and accreditation scheme be established for tour operators.

Two people were killed when their cars struck emus in separate incidents.

Thirty-four deaths occurred on streets and highways, 28 at homes, and 22 on farms. Others happened at sports fields, mines and schools. Four of the deaths occurred during gardening.”

@gailcalled Sorry – I was using voice dictation and not asking for paragraphs. I am more awake now – I have had my first two coffees.

@rooeytoo I am very aware of the horse stats. As a motorcycle rider I have often pointed out to those who decry motorcycles as dangerous that far more injuries have occurred with horse riding. You (or the article) missed out bee stings, people with allergic reactions often die from bee stings. A bit like Africa in the nineteenth century, lions and their ilk didn’t cause the most deaths, water buffalo did.

If I was to nominate the animal in Australia that caused the most deaths, I would go for kangaroos. Countless road fatalities are caused by either impact or people swerving to miss them, a stat that can only be guess at when you find a vehicle inexplicably smashed on the side of a highway. I have had three Roo incidents, after the first every vehicle I own has Bull Bars.

@DarkScribe It’s one thing for you to be poaching crocs, but quite another to kill them and leave them to rot. When you’re out getting away from it all and killing crocs, do you dress them and take the meat?

Also, a good place for you to get away is to your natural resources agency and see what it would take to legally hunt crocs in Australia. I would love to chill in Australia and hunt crocs with my bow. Is there a season? if not, and there are so many crocs, maybe you should focus your efforts on getting a hunting season established.

Biologists can count the crocs and make sure their numbers stay strong, and we can have a hunting season. Australian tourism could increase as other hunters went there to chill out for a while.

@ru2bz46 I don’t “hunt” them, I am not a hunter, I eradicate them when I have the occasion arises. I don’t go looking for them, I go where I want to go, what is known here as “going bush” and if one makes its presence known I’ll make my presence known. And no, I have no interest in eating them, their own kind do that in very short order. You can get a licence for limited hunting, but I not interested. I am only interested in remaining uneaten, and seeing that any who follow me remain in the same state. I don’t kill freshwater crocs, only saltwater crocs – they are the “killing machines. Freshies are ok, easy to scare them off. Incidentally I have yet to meet anyone in the areas that I am talking about who doesn’t go armed. I am not unique.

@ru2bz46 – There is always “talk” about allowing safari hunting for big crocs here in the territory. But so far it has not been allowed for a lot of years. It is illegal to kill any croc in Australia, they are a protected species. In the NT you can get a lot of jail time for killing them, more than you would get for killing a human in a lot of cases.

The traditional owners for the most part are not thrilled about having balinda (white fellas) coming into their land and killing their crocs. And the main benefactors of such safaris would be the tour directors and the taxidermist so until some politician has a relative who is in the safari business it probably won’t happen, but you never know.

But if you like fishing, the NT is the place to come. Last week I caught a 112 cm barra, that is a trophy and a personal best for me. It is a great way to “escape” and forget your problems.

@DarkScribe I don’t have a problem with someone actually defending themselves while relaxing and getting away, but simply shooting any croc that you see is just wrong. We once did that with the buffalo here in America. We’re not proud of that.

@rooeytoo It sounds like your politicians learned a lot from our politicians. I’m sorry for that. Maybe you can get your cousin, the tour director, to run for office. ;-) I’m not too good at fishing, but those barra sound like fun. I’d like to visit down there sometime.

@ru2bz46 Yes, but the Buffalo wasn’t about to eat you. These things attack at unbelievable speed and without warning.

@DarkScribe That is why I don’t have a problem if you are actually defending yourself or others from immediate danger. Simply killing an animal that might someday do harm is unacceptable.

But if you are not entering the domain of the croc you won’t get eaten! They don’t attack you while you are walking down the street. Anyone who kayaks in croc infested waters is asking for trouble. There are always pics in the paper of guys surfing beside crocs or dancing drunkenly on top of croc traps. That is why people get taken, they behave in an unsafe manner. And there is no way to eliminate crocs completely unless you kill them all. Every year when the wet comes and the lands flood, crocs can get into areas where they may not normally be.

You know what Territorians are famous for telling people who come here to relax and chill and then complain about the place, if you can’t take it here go back down south to Queensland or where ever you came from. The only crocs in southern Qld are at Steve Irwin’s zoo so it’s safe.

I get high. Its the best way to unwind after a long day. It’s the total chillax feeling.

@ru2bz46 We will have to disagree on this issue. These animals are breeding up to numbers that we have never experienced and are moving south into areas that have been populated for a hundred years or more. The problem is recognised at Government level, just not enacted on in any significant way as yet.

They are deadly, all of them – it isn’t a matter of some of them being rogue, and they are not in any way endangered. They are farmed, killed and eaten as food – mostly exported – although I can buy Crocodile Steak in Woolworths meat department, so what is the problem with killing one when sighted in a publicly accessible area? As for me, once I am within a few feet of one when in the bush, I sure as hell am not going to turn my back on it, I’ll shoot it. I don’t go looking for them, I don’t hunt them, I don’t trap them. I just shoot them when I see them. I have done for thirty plus years – maybe my efforts have made no difference, maybe I killed one that would otherwise have eventually eaten someone. I have no way of knowing, but I do know that I won’t stop. Most of the Top-Enders who I grew up with feel much the same.

@rooeytoo Go back to Queensland where I came from?

I said yesterday that I was born in Darwin. Did you miss that?

@DarkScribe Yes, we will disagree. If you think they are not endangered (and I would agree from the stories I’ve seen or heard), then try and get the Government to lessen the restrictions. You are not a hunter, but anti-hunters and many non-hunters see you as a hunter. They are the ones who make the laws against hunting. You are making it harder for legitimate hunters to enjoy their (my) sport. I also do not agree with wasting animals/food. Killing is for eating, population control (monitored by trained biologists and without wasting the meat), and self defense.

A place where these practices take place is where I like to get away from it all and relax.

Sometimes I’ll just get on a train and go out of town somewhere. Like on the Long Island Railroad and take it out to Montauk to sit on the beach. If I can afford it, I fly to visit my sister. She and her husband have a very cozy and peaceful home, and I can sit in her yard watching the little lizards scooting around or splash about in her pool, and my brother-in-law can fix me yummy meals where I don’t have to lift a finger.

Read and meditate

I am here doing it right now.