First off, here is a rough sketch of the route we took (outlined in purple) – we really did cover most of southeastern Australia, it was a fantastic overview:
It all started two Saturdays ago, September 25. Despite our good intentions of leaving college at 6am and the miracle of my actually waking up at 5:30, neither Rob (the Australian from my college who drove us around all week – if you’re reading this, THANK YOU!!) nor I are morning people, so by the time the car was packed and we had picked up our third musketeer, Michelle (another American from my program), it was quite a bit after 6:30. No worries though, we made it down to Surfer’s Paradise (a beachside town that’s just as touristy and fun as it sounds) just in time for breakfast! And by breakfast I mean pancakes, made from scratch (again, thanks Rob!), complete with banana, blueberries, and honey, on the barbeque at the beach. Freaking lovely.
We grabbed some coffee and were back on the road, but not for long! Day one featured lots of stops, including Honeyworld (heaps of, surprise, honey products!), Tropical Fruit World (where we sampled heaps of fresh, delicious fruit ranging from custard apples to mangoes to pineapple to chocolate fruit; it was here that we also bought the infamous guacamole ingredients, more on that later), and plenty of gorgeous beaches. Australia is incredible. As we drove south along the coast, spectacular views of the Pacific Ocean laid themselves out before us what seemed like every ten minutes. Each time we turned a corner and were treated to one of these seascapes, Michelle and I couldn’t help but ask, “Is this real life?” (a question I have actually been asking myself all semester!) A few times we all had to get out and explore!
Beach on the Gold Coast
Somewhere south of Byron Bay...I was a fan!
We drove past stuff like this almost all week, amazing.
As the sun was setting that evening we hopped out at another beach and walked along a path among lots of vegetation (we were also instructed to watch out for snakes!) to a rocky headland where we sat and watched the sun go down while the waves crashed against the rocks below – a pretty good place to write a novel, hey? I think this was also the night when Rob pulled into a dark, sketch side street to show us the stars and Michelle freaked out and screamed (during these sketchy episodes, which were plentiful, we kept joking that, “This is the part where he kills us!”...I’m actually kind of surprised he didn’t, I don’t think I would have blamed him!). Afterwards we went and found dinner - fish and chips (quintessentially Australian) on a pier that jutted out into the ocean in Coffs Harbour, which was lovely except for Rob’s snide remarks about my attitude (30 days, was it?) and the etch-a-sketch walk back to the car. Honestly though, I laughed more during that dinner than I can remember laughing in a long time...a trend which, little did we know, would continue throughout the entire week. Unfortunately, dinner put us in a sleepy mood, so we had to pull over and nap shortly after getting back on the road. By the time we woke up it was close to midnight (so much for the rule about being off the roads by 5:30pm to avoid hitting kangaroos, which will total your car...), but we had already booked a hostel in an area called Port Stephens, so we decided to keep on going. Looking back I’m not sure that was the best idea, considering how punchy Rob and I were in the front seat (again, uncontrollable amounts of laughing, so glorious!), and finally at 4am, still driving south, we decided to just pull over and sleep in the car. It actually ended up being pretty fun - it really felt like we were roughing it road trip style. Plus, we got to wake up to a gorgeous view of the water, so we decided to abandon our plan of staying in hostels each night and sleep in the car more often instead!
What we woke up to...
...'cause we slept here!
On the morning of day two we stopped at a grocery store, despite our fresh-from-sleeping-in-the-car-and-not-showered appearances (acceptable in society?...questionable, at best) for cereal, milk, and sugar. We also stumbled upon a little outdoor market where we picked up some fabulous homemade raspberry jam and morning coffee (we ate a ton on this trip, don’t judge). Our breakfast spot the first morning was a beautiful beach in Shoal Bay, I believe, and after that we headed to another nearby beach for a swim to “clean off.” Although the water was FREEZING, it was so refreshing; an amazing way to start off the day. We also found real showers at this beach, so no worries, we didn’t rock the grunge look for long that day. After exploring a couple of other beaches in the area, we were headed south again towards that night’s destination: the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.
One of the beautiful beaches we explored
We stopped for lunch in Newcastle (Subway, not so Australian this time!), admired more amazing views of the ocean, and were shown back to the highway by possibly the nicest couple I have ever encountered (we had heaps of angels helping us out on this trip, I swear!).
Ocean in Newcastle
From what I remember most of the afternoon was spent driving, until we got to a suburb of Sydney called Parramatta, which served as our dinner location. More specifically, we ate in a rando sports field on the grass (oddly enough, not the sketchiest place we ate that week). Dinner consisted of chicken, lettuce, and mayo sandwiches, which is also apparently pretty Australian. I’m not sure if I was on “crack rocks,” as Michelle would say, or what that night, but I must say I was in rare form. Between making Rob rip up the chicken, balancing three sandwiches on my thigh at one point, and cracking up even harder than the night before, I’m pretty sure I convinced my patient companions that I was INsane (a dilemma I blamed on being “antsy” from sitting in the back seat...). After dinner we made the obligatory petrol station paddle pop stop (chocolate ice cream popsicle things – we ate more of these and Macca’s (Aussie for McDonald’s) 50-cent cones than I care to admit that week), then spent close to an hour driving in circles trying to find the highway again. Most of our wasted time was spent looking for the highway each time we got off it to explore, which was usually funny at first but became fairly stressful after about 20 minutes...God’s sense of humour, yeah guys?
I think we reached our destination earlier on this night than on any of the others – it was before 10pm! The hostel in Katoomba, a town in the Blue Mountains, was incredible: huge, clean, well-decorated, and much more like a hotel in my opinion. After checking in we drove about five minutes to a lookout point at the Three Sisters (one of the Blue Mountains’ most famous sites - legend has it that three sisters fell in love with men from a neighbouring tribe, but tribal law forbade their marriage so there was a battle during which an elder turned the sisters to stone to protect them, but he was killed during the fight so they remain as rocks), where we enjoyed views of the lit-up rock formation, then went a little further in search of a good view of the stars (star-gazing was a big thing that week). Then it was bed early for us, considering our 5am wake-up the next morning!
After finally getting Rob to wake up (yes y’all, I, the ultimate non-morning person, woke someone else up!!), the three of us headed back to the Three Sisters to watch the sun finish rising over the Blue Mountains. Despite the cold air, I definitely feel like if everyone got to wake up that way every day, the world would be a much better place.
Back at the hostel we ate breakfast and got a recommendation for a good bush walk, then peaced out to Wentworth Falls, about a ten minute drive down the road. We were all chipper and in good spirits when we started our hike around 8:30am, a mood that lasted for a good three hours. The views of the mountains, rainforest, and waterfalls were absolutely stunning, and the path we took was ridiculously interesting. It was rated “hard,” an evaluation we didn’t take too seriously until we started having to descend ladders and use ropes to climb down rocks in order to continue on the path.
For real - ropes!!
We also went off the beaten path, if you will, a couple of times, the most memorable being when Rob, seated on top of a huge boulder we all clambered up, decided he wanted to check out the view from a ledge in the middle of the neighbouring river. Ok, cool, except then we actually did it. I definitely almost ate it a few times on the wicked slippery rocks as the water rushed around our feet, but I have to admit the view was really amazing. The trek back to the path, which included using a vine and my knees to scale down a six-foot drop back to the path was slightly more embarrassing, but also cool.
The area we were walking in, too cool
Our adventurous attitude seemed to putter out with about an hour left, though: as it started to drizzle, we seemed to be making more and more stops to check out the view and chat. We kept on keepin’ on, though, despite the last harrowing twenty minutes of nothing but climbing up stairs (which were so steep that it was easier to go up on all-fours!). One of the highlights of the week: upon stumbling over the last step (stair?) I automatically exclaimed “PRAISE GOD!”...then noticed the unsuspecting woman trying to enjoy the view a few feet away. She laughed as I apologized for my outburst, but I think that, along with our dirty, sweaty appearances, made us a little less convincing as we tried to tell her the walk to the bottom was worth it. Oops. (Sorry this description was so long, this hike was my favourite part of the trip, which is saying a lot considering all of the fabulous things we did, so I indulged a little!)
All of us after the hike, photo courtesy of Rob's camera
We all finally piled back in the car, quite proud of finishing the 4-5 hour loop in just four hours, and grabbed lunch at a nearby bakery. Understandably, we were soon in need of a quick powernap, which we took on our good friend, the side of the road...looking back, we were so homeless that week, it was great! Once back on the highway Rob suggested that we stop at the Sydney Olympic Park. If you know me and my obsession with the Olympics at all, you know this absolutely made my day!
Soon we reached Sydney itself, and decided that going over the Sydney Harbour Bridge was an absolute must. Questionable decision. The bridge was wicked cool the first time, but I think by the second time (yeah, whoops) we were all ready to be back on the highway. I enjoyed driving around Sydney in the evening for awhile – it reminded us a lot of New York, and the sunset was gorgeous – but eventually tensions understandably started to run high. We decided to take a break at a nearby beach (because when you’re in Australia, it seems like there’s ALWAYS a beach nearby!), then set off southward for Merimbula, that night’s coastal destination.
Sydney Harbour Bridge, first time!
We stopped for dinner in some town (I forget which!): kebabs (they’re Greek but really popular here, I think we call them gyros in the States), so good. Right before this dinner, though, we got pulled over, not by the police but by a detective decked out in a suit with a “huge flashlight” ;] . He knew the town Rob was from, apparently because they ran his plates before stopping us. Kinda weird, but we weren’t about to question him. Well (and I’m not sure I totally understood this story but I think this is right), a couple of days later Rob’s mom informed him that they had been following our car down the coast because the route we were taking was a popular one for drug runners, and Rob’s Queensland plates were also pretty suspect in New South Wales (the next state down). We all got quite a kick out of that, and it explained the whole detective thing.
That night we drove along the Grand Pacific Drive between Sydney and Wollongong (which features a bridge that extends out over the ocean, it’s kind of too bad we did that in the dark) where we used “nature’s bathroom” (a good friend that week) only to find real bathrooms five feet away, ran from murderers in the bushes, and stopped at a beach where Michelle walked into a fence then immediately tried to scare me but fell on her butt instead. We also did not get even remotely close to our goal destination. That’s okay though, because remember – we were sleeping in the car!! That’s one more reason I really liked avoiding hostels, it gave us SO much flexibility.
Pulling over onto the side of the road to sleep in the car was always fun because it was pitch dark when we did it, so we never really knew our surroundings as we went to sleep. That made waking up in the morning really interesting, and every time the view was GORGEOUS! On this night I remember falling asleep to the moo-ing of cows, and waking up to this:
So now it’s the morning of day four. We ate our cereal in a petrol station parking lot, and brushed our teeth in the toilets (that’s what they call bathrooms here) there. As Michelle and I washed our dishes with bottled water in the plants nearby I couldn’t help laughing at how ghetto, or “rustic,” if you will, the whole trip was. So awesome. That morning we continued on to Canberra in the Australian Capital Territory, basically like what DC is to the States. We saw a speech being made by the Prime Minister on Capitol Hill, got a bit of a driving tour of the city, then stopped at a coffee shop called Suga Cube for coffee, raisin toast, and banana bread.
As we (yet again) struggled to get back on the highway, Rob refusing to heed my advice to turn around, he claimed that he “figures we’re heading southeast.” That’s when I turned the compass to face us and ascertained that we were, actually, heading northwest (aka the opposite of southeast). By far the funniest moment of the week.
Once we finally righted ourselves a good 45 minutes later, we spent a few hours driving through some of the loveliest country farmland I have ever seen. We stopped at a pie shop for lunch (meat pies are quite an Australian dish), then headed on to Bega, a small town famous for its cheese factory. There we got some shredded cheese for the Mexican night we had planned (never happened, oops), and also enjoyed afternoon tea. I’m pretty sure this is about the time Rob taught me how to change the fuse for his cigarette lighter in his car (which we blew with the iPod at least 10 times that week), so I’m pretty much a mechanic now (he also taught me how to check the oil in Adelaide, so I’m legit).
Meat pie for lunch, yum!
That afternoon we entered the next state, Victoria, which does not allow fruit to be brought in due to issues with fruit flies...a detail we forgot when we bought tons of fruit and the previously mentioned guacamole ingredients the day before. So, instead of dumping everything, we pulled over, yup, on the side of the road, and enjoyed some delicious fruit and not-so-delicious guacamole (despite Michelle’s best efforts, those poor avocados weren’t even close to ripe, something she could not, we found out, cover up by adding TONS of herb salt...). My friends then apparently thought it was a good idea to drive 5 k’s down a dirt path to find a quarantine bin for the rest of the fruit...but really Rob just wanted to play in the dust in his car. So ridiculous.
We finally arrived in Merimbula (remember? Our goal for the night before?) sometime mid-to-late afternoon, what a joke. Unlike the other days, we actually had to make it to Melbourne that night because (a) we had a hostel booked and (b) we were meeting Elaine, Rob’s Canadian friend, there. We did stop for dinner – fish and chips again, though not as good this time (I think at this point all of our stomachs were mad at us for the abuse we’d been inflicting...siiiiick) – during which Rob inquired as to which of my eyes he should look at since one of them is lazy hahaha, but other than that I think that evening/night consisted of a LOT of driving. The roads were gorgeous, especially as the sun was setting – we drove through forests with enormous trees, and even saw a few kangaroos hop across the road! I think we drove over 1,000 k’s that day, which I definitely believed as we rocked up in Melbourne at 3am. It was actually pretty cool driving through the city at that hour, and it got me excited to explore it the next day. Once we finally found the hostel, close to 4am, we checked in (thank goodness for 24-hour check-in!) and Elaine woke up and came down to meet us. Then it was up to our rooms for about four hours of sleep (such weird sleeping patterns that week; remember, two mornings before this we had woken UP at 5am!).
When we woke up Rob headed to the Uni of Melbourne (he’s going there in a couple of years for an engineering degree) while Michelle, Elaine and I walked into the city. Elaine and her amazing memory directed us to Desgraves St., a little alley full of cafes where we enjoyed some delicious coffee outside (despite the chilly temperature!).
Melbourne is quite an artsy city, apparently the most European city in Australia, and also the fashion capital here, so there was plenty of good shopping! We all intended to go to the Victoria Markets, which are apparently pretty famous, but they were closed the day we were there. Instead we all accompanied Rob back to the uni where we got to explore the beautiful campus and sample some yummy desserts. By the time 3pm rolled around we were all starving, and Michelle picked a great Chinese buffet for a late lunch. Then it was on the road again!
Flinder's St. Station, one of four train stations bordering Melbourne
Alley in Melbourne
A residential college, aka dorm, at the Uni of Melbourne...ridiculous
We reached the Great Ocean Road after dark, and decided to drive part of the way but save the most iconic part for daylight the next day. Dinner that night (which was preceded by a snack of Tim Tams – who says dessert can’t go first??) was one of our more ghetto meals – petrol station food in a petrol station parking lot. We are so classy. We continued driving until a little after midnight, passing by the Otway Light Station (Australia’s oldest lighthouse and the ONE contribution I made to our list of must-see’s before the trip, just sayin’) and parked it for the night on the side of the road on a inland part of the Great Ocean Road. Though we had tried unsuccessfully to find a patch of beach to park near, this spot ended up being really beautiful in the morning.
That morning, Thursday I believe, was rainy and cold, but we were all so pumped to see the Great Ocean Road. We stopped for coffee and cereal at a little cafe (note to self though: three and a half Tim Tams before breakfast is a BAD idea) and freshened up in the toilets there (the water in the sink was so freaking cold), then headed off to our first landmark: the Twelve Apostles. These rock formations are really famous, you can find pictures and postcards of them everywhere, so seeing them for real was pretty crazy.
All ready for the Twelve Apostles!
We stopped at a few other beaches and lookout points on the way to Port Campbell, where we had more meat pies for lunch next to the ocean. This was also the spot where I squirted tomato sauce (ketchup) all over myself in an effort to figure out how the packet worked, fail. We also took a few minutes to check our emails in this cute seaside town, so it’s where I found out I will be serving as a Site Leader during ASB this year (Get Rhythm in Nashville – GO APPLY!!!)! Our progress was a little slow going that afternoon. First it was the 16 k (or something like that) detour to find another, this time non-existent, cheese factory (after that we decided no more stops for cheese were allowed). Then we decided to take a walk along the coast on a 1.5 k trail we came across, and for some reason when we got to the end we decided Rob would run back and get the car to pick us up. Bad life decision. The next hour consisted of the three of us girls waiting awhile for Rob, then starting to walk along the road in the direction of the car to meet him, but upon not seeing him after a half hour turning around to walk back to where he had left us. During said walk back we encountered an intimidating sheep that stared us down from 10 feet away while we walked (crunched) over BONES strewn over the side of the road...one of them was big enough to be my forearm, I don’t even want to know. This was another situation that was funny at first but ended up pretty stressful. We finally got back to where we started and met up with Rob there; apparently he had come to get us but didn’t see us because we were still on the path, then went back to the first parking lot to wait for us but fell asleep when we didn’t show up. Guys, remember how we said it would be funny looking back on it? It is.
The rest of the afternoon consisted of more driving along the Great Ocean Road and stopping to see the must-see rock formations, mainly London Bridge and The Grotto.
London Bridge!
The Grotto!
We also stopped for a snack of tomato, cheese, and crackers by the ocean, where Michelle ate the chocolate off of chocolate-covered raisins and fed the raisins to the seagulls begging outside the car. What a joke. That night we stopped to give the poor car a vacuum (well, Rob vacuumed while we girls speed-skated, snuggled, and took pictures in the parking lot), as well as grab dinner at Red Rooster, a fast food chicken place. This was also the night that we came dangerously close to running out of petrol. The towns in that area were each at least 50 k’s apart, and a lot of gas stations close early, so it got a little stressful as we drove through a few successive towns with closed gas stations and our tank bordering on empty. No worries though, we (thankfully) found an open station and were good to go. The roads that night were so pretty and also kind of eerie. They were lined with really cool trees, and we almost hit a huge wombat as it ran across the road! We also made a stop in Robe for a powernap, and before getting back on the highway Rob finally found me my lighthouse! Definitely worth the extra driving around town, if you ask me. We had all definitely had enough of driving, though, as we rolled into Adelaide...at 6am. Not gonna lie, the last twenty or so minutes of this drive was the only time I was actually nervous about Rob’s driving...we were all pretty sleepy. On the plus side, we kind of saw the sunrise over the city. On the negative end, the hostel didn’t have our reservation (probably because check-out was in four short hours...), but thankfully we got it settled (I believe the phrase “We’re just so tired mate, we’ll pay it for the few hours of sleep,” or something similar, was used), and we got to snooze from about 7-10:30 (they were super nice and gave us both a discount and late check-out, love it).
After what can only be termed a nap, we walked a few blocks to Funk Coffee + Food for a fantastic breakfast and coffee outside (the weather in Adelaide was much more pleasant than Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road!). After brekkie (Australian for breakfast, and surprisingly Word recognizes it as an actual word in Australian English!) Rob needed a phone charger (due to our bad luck in the Melbourne hostel – we lost that, his glasses, and our towels from the dryer, lame-o), so he did that while we girls played and took pictures in an outdoor mall. We then headed to the farmer’s markets (markets are apparently huge in Australia as a whole, not just in Brisbane) where we got organic fruit and, yes, more avocados. On the way there we saw some lovely churches – apparently Adelaide is called the City of Churches because it has so many.
Breakfast in Adelaide!
At the farmer's market
After some Macca’s coffee and our staple 50-cent cones, we were off again, this time headed northeast into the outback of South Australia. That afternoon was one of my favourites, just because we made a lot of random stops for random wonderful things. Once we stopped between a dog food factory and a field of brilliant yellow flowers (these lined the highway for awhile; another feature of the sides of the road around these areas were emus!) to snack on some crackers and jam in the car. We then proceeded through the breathtaking countryside until we found the perfect red dirt road (so outback Australia) on which to have a photo shoot! Rob did an amazing job posing all of us and getting pictures with the self-timer. We joked that they would go on our CD cover if we started a band...between all of the rocking out we did in the car and these pictures I’ve borrowed from Rob, I think it would be a wise idea!
Ready, set, start a band!
We made a few other random stops that afternoon: to explore an etch-a-sketch abandoned house on the side of the road (in the above picture); to pose with a kangaroo sign; to have yet another fruit-eating binge (remember all that fruit from the farmer’s market that same morning? Well apparently there’s an area of South Australia where fruit is also prohibited...bright side, the guac this time was much better!); and to watch the sunset over a field on a random little dirt road (Rob had a habit of slamming the car to a stop and turning down these rando little roads, but we always ended up somewhere beautiful – it was quite impressive!).
Kangaroos!
For dinner that night (it’s Friday at this point) we collected the most random assortment of unhealthy food imaginable at a grocery store and ate out front in the car, the front of which was smeared with more dead bugs than I’ve ever seen. Ga-ross. That night we pulled onto another dirt road in order to get off the highway (by the way, when I say highway, I mean a two-lane road – Aussie highways are not like the ones we have at home!) and away from car headlights to look at the stars. As we laid on the hood of his car (the poor thing is now dented and scratched, way to take one for the team!), we were treated to one of the most spectacular displays of stars I’ve ever seen. There were also heaps of shooting stars – I think all of us saw at least two or three.
It was crazy to remind myself what I was doing – hanging out in the middle of outback Australia with an American, a Canadian, and an Australian, watching out for snakes in the grass, lying under the same yet utterly different sky I know from home. Again I have to ask, is this real life? Well yes, it is, and I can prove this using the battle wound on my foot and hole in my pants as proof; in other words, I got into a very real fight with a barbed-wire fence that night, and lost. One drawback of pulling over to sleep in a random spot is that you can’t see what’s underfoot while you brush your teeth, which resulted in my putting my foot right through a piece of fencing (yeah guys, I’m still a klutz!). After spending a few minutes debating whether I needed a tetanus shot or if the one I got a few years ago would cut it, we decided to take the risk and go to sleep (turns out I’m good, yay for up-to-date vaccines!).
The next morning we ate our cereal at yet another petrol station, but this one featured some nice, freshly-painted picnic tables for us to use (I think the painters got quite a kick out of our travelling situation, especially while we brushed our teeth in the toilets). We then headed back out into the outback, eventually pulling down another rando dirt path where Rob made good on his promise to teach us to drive his car – a stick-shift, or manual as everyone here calls it (apparently it’s really common for people to drive sticks here - they’re mostly surprised when I say I don’t know how). That was super fun and easier than I anticipated, though it’s not like we were on an actual road or anything. We were in a gorgeous spot by a little river though...after last week I’m pretty convinced you couldn’t escape beauty if you tried in this country!
Driving a stick AND on the wrong side - unstoppable!
The area where we drove
We stopped in another charming little outback town along the way for coffee; though I was raised in a pretty small town, it was fascinating even for me to me to think about growing up in a place like that. More driving towards Hay (our goal destination from the night before – seriously, such a good thing we didn’t book hostels!) led us to a strange but beautiful lake with lots of dead, twisted trees spread in and around it (Rob had seen it from the highway and drove around until we found it, another successful adventure).
Soon after that photo shoot we stopped at a windmill for another one, finally arriving in the adorable town of Hay by lunchtime. We ate at a fantastic little cafe, then we girls waited around while Rob pretended to drive away without us, which I think is more amusing now than it was then...
Cute girls at a cute post office!
The evening consisted of stopping at another windmill surrounded by the most beautiful flowers, as well as hanging out and taking pictures on the side of the road (again surrounded by gorgeous flowers) while the sun started to set. We caught the rest of the sunset in another little field; I am still amazed at the number of incredible sunsets we got to see, the world is such a beautiful place! I think this was the afternoon where our creeper candid picture taking reached its peak; we all got some good ones while the others weren’t looking!
Our roadside hangout!
Dinner on Saturday was one of the more delicious Hawaiian pizzas I’ve ever had in a cute little town with Christmas lights strung over the street. Our goal for the rest of the night was to find a spot in the national park near Parkes and sleep under the stars, but unfortunately that was easier said than done. We did stop at an enormous satellite dish/telescope, which was hugely impressive at night. After driving back and forth where the national park should have been and then driving through Parkes itself attempting to find a place to build a fire for s’mores, we decided we were too tired and called it quits – another night on the side of the road! These last few nights were much more comfortable, at least temperature-wise, than the one on the chilly Great Ocean Road.
On Sunday, the final morning, we woke up and had breakfast at a really cute restaurant we saw advertised along the highway...I forget what it was called, I think it started with a V. I also don’t remember what town it was in...it might have been Dubbo, our goal destination for the previous night (hey, at least we got there before mid-afternoon the next day!). Regardless, the food and coffee were great, and we also picked up some Anzac biscuits to try (Australian cookies, they’re like hard oatmeal raisin cookies without the raisins). After brekkie we stopped in a random clearing in the woods to build a fire and have morning s’mores, since we had been unsuccessful the night before. Graham crackers don’t exist in Australia and most of the people I’ve talked to don’t know what s’mores are, so I had Dad send me the required materials so we could show the Aussies how it’s done! Needless to say, they were a hit.
I love this one of Elaine!
The rest of the day consisted of heaps of driving (Rob and your car, you guys are troopers!). I think that was also the day I finally fell asleep in the back seat and the others were able to snipe a much-desired picture of me passed out – such a fail on my part, since it was my goal to avoid giving them the satisfaction of seeing me asleep (Michelle, on the other hand, with her “narcolepsy,” was sleeping most of the trip!). We got to enjoy lovely views, as well as switchback roads at rather high speeds, as we drove through a national park, and the sunset was, yet again, gorgeous.
Vamos!
We stopped for dinner in Goondiwindi, Rob’s dad’s hometown. We ate at an etch-a-sketch playground, and dinner was, you guessed it, guacamole! Rather fitting for our last meal, if you ask me – although, this was both the first time it was planned and the first time we actually had chips! We had to prepare, eat, and clean up dinner quickly because the mozzies (mosquitoes) were out in full force that night. After din we continued driving to Toowoomba, Rob’s hometown, where we stopped at his parents’ house for a cup of tea. I think they found our sleepy, quite grungy appearances rather funny. It was really cool to see where one of my new friends lives and to meet his fam; definitely a unique experience! We didn’t stay long, though, since it was 11:30 at night and we still had an hour and a half to go until Brisbane.
Gundy dinner spot, aka Sketchville
We finally rolled into our city around 1am, dropped Michelle and Elaine off at their apartments, and I had a glorious and much-needed shower before basically collapsing into bed. At least I didn’t have class the next day (yay for Mondays off!) – I feel bad for the rest of y’all having to go to school, way to be champs!
Well, three hours (on and off), eight and a half single-spaced pages, and almost 5,700 words later, that’s our trip. Pardon me for indulging a bit - I plan to use this blog to remember my semester here and this week was a hugely important part of it, so I may have gone slightly overboard! The title of the post refers to a song by Evermore, a New Zealand band, called “Real Life”...I really like it, and as we were listening to it in the car I had a moment when I realized that this – the views, the adventures, the travelling – is real life. That sounds silly, but what I mean is, a random, somewhat spontaneous road trip spent soaking up so much natural beauty and making tons of random, sometimes sketchy stops isn’t something I’d normally do, but why not? Why not do something fun solely for the purpose of discovering and enjoying the world we live in? That is so real, and so wonderful!
I said in the entry before I left that I hoped the trip would be a chance for me to re-prioritize and re-focus. Well, they say if you want to make God laugh just tell Him your plans, and that’s so true – it actually turned out to be quite a de-stabilizing week for me, in a few ways. But I got to know some of the most amazing people, see some of the most spectacular places, and I learned more than I can even begin to get into here. I think my love for this beautiful country was really solidified during that trip. Like I mentioned in the last entry, now that break, which served as a kind of barrier guarding against the end of the semester in my head, is over, I’m finding myself quite reluctant to think about going home. While I’m sure I’ll be back here someday, it’s kind of scary not knowing when or how. As most of you know, I’m not good at not knowing things, at not having a plan, so the idea of leaving Australia, a country with which I’ve formed quite a relationship, makes me uneasy. Which is funny, because I was so freaking out about leaving Vandy and the States just a few short (but so, so long) months ago. Especially with this whole semester abroad thing I feel like life is in such a constant state of change, like nothing stays the same for too long, and that scares me, honestly. But that’s a whole other issue I could write for nine pages on, so I will leave you with a concept in which I have believed for a long time, but which I have experienced acutely here in Aussieland: everything happens for a reason. It does. And sometimes...a lot of the time, actually...we can’t see or understand the reason, but that’s just because we don’t need to. It’s not up to us, because it’s not in our hands. Thinking about things that way is quite comforting, don’t you think?
Well, if you’ve read everything to this point, you’re a saint. Doneski. Love ya.
You are amazing, this whole post was insanee, yes i read it all while notttt studying. I am so glad you are loving it so much, considering yess the minor anxiety before leavingggg, your more than halfway doneee which is exciting for mee, because i expect you in RI the second you get back.
ReplyDeleteBut you seriously sound like you are doing so so so good!
Love , D