When I was in Europe family visits came almost monthly for me, the 4 hour journey was a pretty efficient way for them to get a nice little holiday under the clever guise of visiting their beloved child or sister. However the disgustingly long trip to Aus and the $$$ that it takes was apparently enough to dissuade any promised pilgrimages this time, so when my middle brother, Jake, told me that other plans had fallen through and he could probably consider visiting I took this as a definite.
We had two weeks for Jake to see a reasonable portion of Australia, with the relatively small time frame we decided that renting a camper van and driving a chunk of it would make the most sense. Picking our home/transport was pretty easy, Jake had managed to find a decent sized hatchback that converts into a bed for cheap. We planned a route that would take us from Melbourne to Sydney via Canberra and as much coast as we could, all that was left was for him to fly for a day and meet me.
True to form, I was of course late to collect Jake from Southern Cross Station but that's besides the point, with a couple of days to kill in Melbourne I figured this was as good a time as any to learn what the hell is going on in AFL. Along with my cousin and her very helpful Aussie mates we had the rules explained and reexplained over the course of a game, and I don't mean to brag, but I'd say I understand around 80% of what's happening. Having never been particularly into sports, I was delighted to find that I actually enjoyed watching this, there's tons of points, loads of players and an almost continuous string of pointless fights. Much more exciting than football I have to say.
Day 1
With Melbourne’s highlights ticked off we collected our chariot and begin the monster of a drive we'd planned. Our “decent sized hatchback” that we had picked must have gotten lost in translation somewhere along the way as what we came face to face with a Suzuki Alto the size of one of Jake’s shoes. Excellent. Yet on we soldiered, the first day's drive was planned to be the shortest of the trip to ease Jake into driving and also because we were dying to see the penguins on Phillip Island. The idea of penguins in Australia is still bizarre to me, but they're here, and in abundance. We watched with childlike enthusiasm as they poured in from the ocean and scuttled their way across the beach to their respective homes. Quality entertainment right there.
As it happens, we are definitely the two less practical of siblings, if our older brother had been present he would have suggested that the first time we assemble the car/bed it should probably be daylight, and he would definitely realise that we had no pillows or blankets… But we're not Nik, so it was by phone light that we attempted to construct our home and it was towels that constituted as bedding.
| Jake with 'Big Mikey' |
Day 2
After a very restless night (every time I moved I hit the horn) we began our second leg to Lakes Entrance. With the mix-tapes in full flow the journey flew by, having only really travelled large distances via bus here you actually miss a lot. There's something truly fantastic about driving on a road for 3 hours and not seeing another soul that puts the whole mass of Australia into perspective a little bit.
Prior to Jake’s arrival I had spent multiple dollars on an app that I'd been told would make paying for a campsite a thing of the past. The first night we had weaned ourselves into camping by paying and having a surprisingly lovely shower and power sockets, however tonight we would go full Bear Grylls. If you've ever seen the film Wolf Creek you will understand why when we arrived at our “campsite” we were aptly terrified. A clearing in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere would be our home for the night, which would have possibly been alright if mine and Jake’s phones hadn't died and my iPad and only source of maps wasn't on 10% (Nik would have also brought a map). The night was spent with zero forms of entertainment and the constant fear of abduction.
After a very restless night (every time I moved I hit the horn) we began our second leg to Lakes Entrance. With the mix-tapes in full flow the journey flew by, having only really travelled large distances via bus here you actually miss a lot. There's something truly fantastic about driving on a road for 3 hours and not seeing another soul that puts the whole mass of Australia into perspective a little bit.
Prior to Jake’s arrival I had spent multiple dollars on an app that I'd been told would make paying for a campsite a thing of the past. The first night we had weaned ourselves into camping by paying and having a surprisingly lovely shower and power sockets, however tonight we would go full Bear Grylls. If you've ever seen the film Wolf Creek you will understand why when we arrived at our “campsite” we were aptly terrified. A clearing in the middle of the woods in the middle of nowhere would be our home for the night, which would have possibly been alright if mine and Jake’s phones hadn't died and my iPad and only source of maps wasn't on 10% (Nik would have also brought a map). The night was spent with zero forms of entertainment and the constant fear of abduction.
Day 3
Another broken/terrified sleep later we began the longest leg of our journey, a trip inland to the nation's capital, Canberra. I had been told/warned several hundred times to steer clear of Canberra, but I liked the idea of visiting the capital and I reasoned that they surely must have invested some time and money into this place. I was wrong. But we'll get into that later, the drive itself was by far the best of the trip, miles and miles of dead straight roads, beautiful weather and we even crossed three state lines that day. After treating ourselves to a night out in the capital (most places were shut and you could walk across the centre in around 20 minutes) we decided to hit up parliament the following day. When you think of the places in the world where all the major decisions are made, The Houses of Parliament, The White House, The Reichstag, you cannot imagine them not being coated in a dense layer of human pollution. This is not the case in Canberra. Including Jake and myself there was no more than 11 people clustered around the façade of the underwhelming structure, after nosing around inside for a little bit we concluded that every person who had warned me off Canberra was in fact correct and went on our way.
Day 4
With the debacle that was Canberra behind us we headed back to the coast in search of Wollongong, this I'll be honest was a pretty uneventful leg of the journey and a pretty uneventful place. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with the place, but in this case it is quite literally nothing to write home to my mother about.
Day 5
| Hiking around the Blue Mountains |
Until now the car had done a reasonably sufficient job, speed was not its strong suit, but we weren't in a rush, the bed was cramped and a bit of a pain to assemble, but it's part of the adventure but hills were another matter entirely. Before heading into Sydney centre and whilst we still had the car we ventured from Wollongong to the Blue Mountains, a stunning and enormously vast mountain range tucked away just a few hours out of Sydney. The Alto was best suited to downhill slopes, we had even been to known to overtake people on these slopes, but this was a predominantly uphill journey, and by uphill I mean upmountain. I swear at some points we were going in reverse. Having been to the Blue Mountains previously I was pretty excited to show it off, it's difficult to explain just how enormous this place is and how tiny it can make you feel. Much to my pleasure Jake was as impressed as I'd have hoped. With great excitement we left the mountains, the hills now on our side, and made our way to a hostel with an actual bed and shower and plug sockets.
And that's where our journey in the Alto over, we spent four more days in Sydney doing all the things you're supposed to do in Sydney, returned the Alto, which we had actually grew quite attached to and flew back to Melbourne. Jake went back to England with a suitcase full of Tim Tams and Pizza Shapes and I've since returned to finish off my 88 days of farming.
