Australia is big. Very big. I sort of knew this before I got here, but it is only after you have driven through it that you get a sense of perspective.
This roadtrip had been in the pipeline for weeks and weeks. After much deliberation, many broken hearts and shattered dreams it was decided that the only six souls brave enough to undertake a task of such magnitude were the following:
Chris Hislop- chosen for his ability to look like several people, natural charm, commitment to getting out of bed early(!), driving skills, having "gangster shit" on his ipod and comic mind. Alas he was always going to leave a trail of women wanting him to stay in all the places he visited but it could not be helped.
Rob Weber- Shackleton, Columbus, Captain Cook, Alan Rowberry these are all names associated with adventure and exploring new places. (Alan Rowberry is a former Melbourne Connection resident- ASK him about Nepal!) Weber is not a name that has been associated with such a thing, until now. Calmness under pressure, ability to stop Jon Lee's driving from killing all members involved, sharpest comedy mind in the game, ability to play the English national anthem through the mean streets of Adelaide and rugged good looks were why you will now add Weber to that list of great explorers.
Jonathan Lee- Having come on the trip at the promise that we might see at least one Asian woman for him to get stuck into, Jon Lee proved an invaluable asset. One of two designated chefs, Lee provided intelligence, absolutely no common sense, amazing commitment to wildlife and the work of Charles Darwin, great levels of drunkness, facial hair and classic English good looks.
Matthew Phillis- The trip's Karl Pilkington. Leeds' finest. Phillis was a cert to be on the trip for his commitment to improving relations with German women, David Gray on his ipod, Justin Bieber like features, willingness to drive without a licence and ability to get out of bed way before the other members of his van.
Ben Wright- The youngest and some might say bravest member of the trip. The only member not to have lived in room 5 (where he belongs). Ben , or 'Lil Chris' was the second designated chef and a bloody good one at that. Despite not having a sleeping bag for the freezing nights, Ben was a brilliant addition to the trip bringing good vests, the ability to take a corner at 100kmh (without a licence), map reading, boyish good looks and pulling a girl in Darwin that regularly features in Zoo magazine Australia!
Simon Colenbrander- The Iceman. The flying Dutchman. Simon was always going to be on the trip. Not only to act as our bouncer, but because he brought a variety of skills and talents to the party. Driving without ever getting tired or losing concentration, comic genius when making up new swearwords in English, being the only person to rival Chris Hislop at staying in bed the longest, ability to put up with 5 Englishmen and love of Jonny Heitinga.
So with the motley crew assembled, we woke up early in Melbourne Connection- with some members still struggling after various activities the previous night. Final bits of packing were completed, bacon sandwiches and cups of tea consumed and then we began the task of saying goodbye to a place that had been our home. My home for around 4 months. I was very excited for the road trip so it had not really occurred to me that it would bring about an end to our adventures in Melbourne. Having had time to reflect, I've decided I'm definitely going back to Melbourne one day. With the exception of dickhead bouncers and certain things being really expensive it's an amazing place to live. I miss getting on the tram, the city at night, the shops, the cafes and the stuff there was to do every single day. Having said that, we knew that we had to leave Melbourne to get the trip under way. After some emotional goodbyes to both friends and family for me (Harriet is still at MC), the six of us trooped down to Southern Cross to get the train to Footscray where we would meet our vans.
We managed to get all of about 100 yards before Simon dropped his coolbox and the bag Rob was holding with some of our food in split. This chaotic start was a taste of what was to come over the next 12 days.
After a short train ride we arrived at the Wicked camper depot and were greeted by 2 of the crappest (literally in one case) vans that I've ever seen. Wicked are a company that design the artwork on all their vans and plaster them with supposedly funny graffitti etc. Jon Lee (chief worrier within the group) was not amused when he saw what we were going to be driving around Australia in! I thought they were pretty funny and was just willing to get moving. The four of us with licences- two in each van filled out lots of forms about trying not to crash, driving at night when animals are about etc. I found a couple of golf clubs which I chucked in the van for both protection and sporting reasons and then we were off on our way. Colenbrander and Weber were the first two get behind the wheels as they had driven much more recently than the rest of us. Lee, it turned out had not driven for 3 or 4 years! To start with, all three of the passengers in each van sat in the front, however, this was not going to happen throughout the whole trip.
The first days driving was pretty painless. Colenbrander drove to Geelong which is a city not far from Melbourne, we had some food at Souvlaki hut and then it was the turn of Hislop aka Lewis Hamilton Button Alonso Mansell to get behind the wheel. After some difficulty getting the van to reverse in the car park we set off to hit our first significant landmark- The Great Ocean Road.
The Great Ocean Road is a 241 kilometer stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. The road is the world's largest war memorial, dedicated to casualties of World War I. It is one of Australia's great scenic coastline drives. (Props to Wikipedia)
It is only around 100 odd miles long but my god that doesn't take into account the number of bends that you have to deal with. I was glad to be behind the wheel for this drive as it was quite breathtaking at points, though I tried not to look all the time for fear of killing us all. We made loads of stops along the route, Rob and Simon had already done this before so would make calls (over the walkie talkies we bought) on when to stop for photos etc. One of the more exciting things we saw was the Lighthouse from popular 90's childrens television programme Round the Twist. As someone that watched quite a lot of it even into my university years this was quite the spot. We took pics at all the big tourist points along the route- London bridge, the grotto, 12 apostles. Due to the weather being pretty cold, it's currently winter in Australia, (yes there is such a thing) we didn't hang about for ages but got a good number of snaps of the various sights and various messing about.
Like I said, this trip had been in the planning for some time and we had already completed some rough plans regarding where we wanted to be by certain dates. By the end of day 1 it was decided that we needed to be as far as Apollo Bay. We made this happen quite easily, pulled into a quiet camping area by the sea and set about using the kitchen for the first time. Spaghetti bolognaise has never been so difficult to prepare, but we got there and it tasted alright. Recovering from a VERY heavy previous weekend in which we saw Kutz at a sick dubstep night and Simon Colenbrander took more pics than a japanese tourist, we had decided to go easy with drink on our first night and preferably not have any at all. This soon changed as we have very little self control. A quiet drink in a pretty lame town pub turned into us getting invited to a private leaving party of a woman we had never met by Taylor- an Aussie chef who stayed at Melbourne Connection but was from Apollo Bay.
We went to this party on the promise that it was going to be massive. Taylor was very excited about it and I guess we didn't want to miss out on anything exciting regardless of whether or not we were still very tired. We made our way round the corner to a Tapas bar- dressed in an array of joggers, flip flops and looking very out of place considering the theme of the night was Johnny Depp movie characters. Everyone at this party- all 13 or so of them stared at us throughout, I heard several remark "who are these guys". The 'party' was absolutely awful and the only highlights were eating lots of free food, drinking sangria which tasted quite nice and the girl whose party it was being off her face and asking us why we weren't partying hard and asking us for any funny stories. To which Rob brilliantly replied; "we don't have any, we are all very boring". This put the stupid mess in her place and we decided to head back to the van, leaving behind one of the worst social events I have ever been to.
Day 2 got kicked off with a very early start- something that myself and Simon struggled with straight away. After brushing our teeth at a nearby water feature, we headed off for a bacon and beans breakfast cooked on our portable stoves. After this culinary delight I hit some tennis balls at the vans with the golf clubs and we jumped into the vans off on our way. By this stage, Simon's I-trip was up and running and we were chilling out to various music as we carved our way through Victoria. Second day involved a lot more driving along the Great Ocean Road- all of it very scenic, and then we headed inland to a town called Hamilton. Here was where we found a shop called "The reject store". This is where we first had the idea of a trip 'kitty' and we went mental buying LED lights for the vans, pillows, socks, razors, noodles. You name it. Crate of beers for each van were also a welcome addition. After cracking open my first one I really felt like we were embarking on something big.
The rest of the day was spent making our way up to the first national park we were to visit on the trip- The Grampians. We'd decided to visit here as it is a national heritage sight and Matt recommended it as having wildlife and good treks to do. Now, when you rent a van in Australia, the idea is not to drive at night, this is because all the animals come out and are attracted to your headlights. Due to us wanting to be inside the Grampians by the end of the day, we sort of ignored this advice and carried on driving. Two near misses involving a rabbit and a wallaby later, and we eventually rocked up to Halls Gap, our home for the night. Within minutes, we had found wild kangaroos to play with. Out came the stoves and it was time to make a vindaloo, in the middle of a mountain range! Luckily, Australia comes with a lot of facilities, so we set up our station by some huts with bbq's and cracked open some more beers. Halfway through what was a barnstormer of a curry, we were joined by a geordie and his box of wine. He was a nice lad, and took a shine to Si as he loved Holland. We sat and discussed all kinds of shite. From Japan's attempted invasion of Australia in WW2, to football. When he found out that I was related to a former Newcastle goalkeeper, he couldn't believe his luck and we all talked about Newcastle United for bloody ages. Strangely though, he thought that all of us were related to Shaka. Considering we are all from around England (and Holland) and look nothing alike, this was a strange assumption to make. Must of been the alcohol. Knackered from a good 10 hours on the move, we headed off for an early night in the van.
Day 3. This is a day that will always remain a memory, and not for entirely good reasons. After getting up early, and me dressing in my 'hiking' gear of joggers and plimsolls, we all headed off to do a walk up some mountains and then down again. This should take 2 hours. Or so we thought. With Matt Phillis as tour guide, the walk started off not too bad, if a little difficult after a bellyful of beer the night before. The views were very impressive and after only an hour we were very high up. Due to various stop offs to take pics and water breaks, we were going up at a leisurely pace (albeit with a lot of huffing and puffing). It was a round the 2 hour stage that things started to go wrong. Despite me insisting that we were going higher when making what was supposed to be the descent, we continued on and found ourselves horribly lost. With only a litre of water between 6 of us (you are supposed to take at least 2 each), we faced up to the prospect of having to walk 8km just to get back on the right track.
Needless to say, I was not a happy boy. With only a nutella sandwich in my stomach, I really wasn't into the idea of another few hours of walking. With most of us dragging our heels in a silent strop, we soldiered on through the mountain ranges. No one at all expected that in total we would walk around 15 km mainly uphill and get back to the vans 5 or 6 hours later than expected. Looking back I can say that it was fun, but by the time I got back I was knackered, sweating, starving and very thirsty. All of us absolutely destroyed some food (including kangaroo kebabs) and then we jumped back into the vans. Welllll behind schedule. The rest of the day was spent absolutely flooring it towards South Australia and the city of Adelaide. After doing a fair bit of driving, past Emu's, kangaroos and the like, I let Simon take over and settled into the back of the van for a kip. Chilling out here was perfect, whilst there was no seatbelts, there was mattresses and pillows and books and ipods. I absolutely loved the time in the back, thinking about people back home, what I wanted to do next, listening to music and readin about the places we were about to visit. When I came around from my little slumber, we were on the outskirts of Adelaide and I thought it best that I got into the front and put on a seatbelt.
Not having done any planning regarding where to stay in Adelaide, we drove around for ages, couldn't find any hostels that were reasonably priced and had parking, and as a result all got a bit stressed. Getting pulled over by the police for not stopping at a junction did not help, nor did being moved on from a camping spot by a little jobsworth. Eventually, after struggling to get the vans up the biggest hill in the world, we set up camp in a very strange car park. Straight away it became clear that we had disturbed a couple in a parked car. I'm not one to make rash assumptions, but they were definitely having an affair. Soon after, another car with a couple turned up and there windows became steamy, finally, a couple walked down from the hill and got in their car. We were then convinced that we had joined Phil off of Eastenders and Stan Collymore as people who have been to a 'dogging' site. Understandably, all of us were a bit on edge. It was pitch black and we were surrounded by sexual deviants. After hiding out in the van, debating just how we were about to get murdered (whether the bodies would be found) and peering through the curtains at what was going on, we decided to brave going for a walk.
I'm really glad we decided to go for a walk as we found a really good view of the city. In addition, fresh from my adventures spotting other wild animals, I heard a rustling in the bush. After making everyone shut up, we wandered over and spotted this fella.
*PICTURE COMING VERY SOON*
This was a nice little find as it was the first koala I had ever seen and he was much bigger than I expected them to be. The striking thing for me was that they really don't care about human interaction, and every time we tried to get him to do something , he just ignored us and carried on eating eucalyptus leaves. After seeing a cuddly little koala we stopped thinking about getting murdered and settled down for a decent sleep in the vans.
Day 4 started with all members having survived the night without being raped/murdered and we decided that after 3 nights it was time for a shower and other such luxuries. We found a cool little hostel opposite the bus station and enjoyed a brilliantly hot shower. A couple of the trip's members did not have as much fun initially as I decided to hide their clothes like a little child. Now feeling fresh we wandered into Adelaide and had a look around the shops, I bought an American Apparel hoody and we ate the nicest burritos ever. Other than that, the day was spent wandering around, commenting that Adelaide just felt like any old English city, and thinking about what we would do that evening.
Couple of hours later and we were tucking into a Beef stir fry, rustled up in a proper kitchen by our two chefs and drinking Chang and Sol beers delicately selected. After this little warm up we headed into the centre of the city for what we hoped would be a good night of shenanigans. Unfortunately, this was not to be. After encountering a funny drunk, who proceeded to rattle on about having really expensive headphones, (despite them being shit and him living with his parents aged 30 or 40) being amazed that Simon had not heard of any of the dutch dj's or graffitti artists he mentioned, got us to listen to NWA on his CD player and walked off after repeatedly hugging me and telling me that he had my back if anything happened. A true friend.
After this, Bee and Agneta, two German girls from Melbourne Connection turned up and decided they wanted to come out with us. I was not overly happy about this as we had talked of it being a 'boys' night out and I knew that girls would just slow things down. This is what happened as Rob and Matt went awol after we spent an hour in a really chavvy (or Bogen as the Aussies say) bar with their previous conquests and us others were left to explore Adelaide ourselves. Incidentally, the next time Rob saw me and Simon it was when we were trying to rip a metal sign down. Very juvenile behaviour yes, and I feel guilty that Simon has been exposed to some of our English aggression, but we were very angry after being refused entry to a club on the grounds of Si's driving licence being paper apparently. The bouncer was an absolute moron, clearly had no clue about European I.D and then to top it off tried to bribe us $100 to get into what I'm sure was a poor club. After laughing in his face, we walked off defeated to another club. Second club wasn't much better and so we went and ate some food.
In summary, Adelaide was rubbish. Apart from the laughs we had, particularly at a boy screaming "I've got a tampon in me mouth" (and yes he did have a tampon in his mouth), it really was a dull place. To round things off, I had a stinking hangover and one of the vans had a parking ticket. Luckily, we had Jon the negtiator with us. After a brief conversation, which I imagine was about Charles Darwin or history, the guy let us off and we were back on the road. Next stop, Barossa Valley.
Despite my limited knowledge of wine, I have heard of Barossa Valley and have seen it on various bottles of the stuff. I wasn't particularly into drinking after the previous nights excesses so didn't know what to make of our trip here. The drive to the Valley was very picturesque, as is most of Australia. After stopping off for various photos, we pulled into the home of Jacob's Creek wine. The complex had obviously had a lot of money spent on it as it was very sleek, with lots of glassand shiny things. After milling about for a while, we discovered that we had missed the last tour, and it cost money anyway. This was when we were discovered by a helpful man whose name escapes me. He then proceeded to allow us to taste about a thousand red, white, sparkling, rose, dessert wines, for free! Some of them were very expensive, some of them cheap and some only available in Australia. This was really interesting, with him expertly answering any question we had about weather, grapes, how the wine is stored/made, why some is corked etc. I t was also really good fun, with a lot of the wine being very nice indeed. After over half an hour of free sampling, we decided to get a few bottles to drink when we were at Uluru (Ayres Rock).
Having done quite a lot of the driving up to this point, I was again behind the wheel when we pulled into Jacobs Creek. However, after too much in the way of wine, I felt quite tipsy and had to have a lay down in the back of the van. Needless to say, I fell asleep within seconds. After a bit of a recharge in the back, and Simon having to deal with pretty dangerous driving conditions due to the rain, we arrived in Port Augusta. Port Augusta is considered the last normal town before you hit the outback. It may well be that, but it is also an absolute dump. We spent ages looking for a safe place to sleep for the night and eventually settled on a lovely little spot underneath a bridge, with loud traffic passing directly over our heads. After polishing off a tuna pasta dish and witnessing a drunk topless mess and the police walk past the vans, we settled down for an early night. The outback beckoned.
Was another early start as we prepared to say good bye to (relative) civilisation for a long while. The next stop was Coober Pedy, an underground mining town. But first, we had the task of driving hundreds of miles. The first thing that strikes you about the outback is the miles and miles of driving you do without seeing a person. Also, the roads are completely straight and you see literally nothing other than the occasional animal. It's like the moon. Not much to report on the drive other than it was hard to concentrate, we stopped at a couple of ridiculously expensive service stations and managed not to die in the manner of the film; 'Wolf Creek'.
Arriving in Coober Pedy was a bit of a shock. I had heard it was the Opal mining capital of the world and that some of it was underground but the place was literally mental. Pulling in, the first thing we saw was two aboriginal women having an argument. One holding a brick, the other a stick. The brick was then thrown in the direction of a car! Pretty much everything in Coober Pedy is undergroud; hotels, bars, restaurants, churches. The main reason for this, other than it making the place lots of money, is that the place can get up to 50 C when its hot. This obviously forces people as far away from the sun as possible. After wandering around the place and generally being quite weirded out by it, we had some food and polished off a load of beers. The following day was about exploring the town some more, so we went into the underground church and had a mooch around, failed to feel even slightly religious and then went inside an underground opal museum and the hotel. With it being a Sunday, there wasn;t the usual mining activity going on as people were not working. Even so, in the massive empty spaces around you could see big piles of dirt and huge mechanical cranes that were used in the week to search for precious opals.
In conclusion, Coober Pedy is a one-off. I don't think there is anywhere else so far away from civilisation, so uniquely weird and inhospitable in the entire world. If it wasn't weird enough, it also has loads of props lying around from films such as Mad Max and Pitch Black- both filmed at the place. It's when you see places like Coober Pedy that it's clear just what a diverse place Australia is. From beaches to rainforests, deserts to skyscrapers, it really has everything. This tiny mining town is just a bizarre example of this diversity.
Next stop was Kings Canyon. After driving out of South Australia and into the Northern Territories, the terrain got even more harsh. This area is referred to as 'The red centre' and it became clear why. The sand is a deep red, with very little in the way of animals or plants able to live there, other than a few trees. A couple of worrying things I noticed whilst driving were the number of abandoned and often burnt out cars we passed, and the number of graves also. The outback is a ridiculously dangerous place, if you happen to encounter any sort of problem, it's literally hours until help will arrive, if ever. Having said this, until now, the only problem we had to deal with was a crack in the windscreen.
As we drove towards our destination it started to get dark, after pulling into a service station for a place to stay the night, we were approached by a Belgian hitchiker. He asked if we were heading towards Uluru and Kings Canyon and would we mind him jumping in the van. I sent him into the other van and we headed towards a campsite. The Belgian hitchiker incidentally was an absolute nutcase. He had been hitchiking around Australia on his own for 9 months, you could tell he'd been away from civilisation for a bit as he did smell, and had a crazy bush like haircut. However, fair play to the lad being able to live in a tent in the freezing night for such a long time fending for himself. Luckily, we found a campsite as it started to get pitch black. Shortly after our arrival, we saw first hand what happens when you drive at night with animals around. As we were setting up for dinner, a car driven by German backpackers rolled in and asked where the reception was. The car was an absolute write off after colliding with a cow. Somehow, they all escaped without injury, but were very shaken up after escaping death by not very much. I have no idea how the cow fared.
*PICTURE OF SAID CAR, COMING VERY SOON*
After a freezing nights sleep in the van, we were up bright and early to take advantage of the shower and hit the road. Arriving at Kings Canyon a few hours later and after stripping off to shorts and t shirts we set off on a bit of a climb. Hoping to have more success than the Grampians disaster. The start of the climb is nicknamed 'Heart attack hill' due to its steepness, so it was a little tricky to start with. However, after taking it steady, we started to enjoy the views and saw some wildlife. As you can see from the pictures, it's another environment completely different from anything I have seen before and is quite breathtaking.
After a few hours messing about in the canyon , it was time to move on and try to get to Uluru to witness the famous sunset. Uluru was the reason we first decided to do a roadtrip, we all agreed it was symbolic of Australia and we couldn't go home without seeing it. After some rapid driving (not too fast as it rinses your fuel, and our fuel gauge was now broken), we pulled into Uluru national park, having been teased with glimpses of the rock for the last hour. We were slightly suprised to discover that there was a price to pay for entering the park- $25! After a brief discussion, we decided that despite it being expensive, of course we were going inside. We arrived with perfect timing as the sun began to set. Uluru was an incredible sight. It's over 1000ft high and nearly 10km around. The striking thing for me was that it changed colour as we drove closer and closer. I was genuinely taken aback by the size of the rock and it was at this point, the distance we had travelled became altogether worth it. I imagine I will never go and visit Uluru again, but I am massively grateful that I got the chance to see something so stunning. After taking a load of pics in the various lights, we jumped back into the vans and went off for some food and to drink all the wine (and whiskey) we bought.
The following day saw us return to Uluru to have a look from up close. After being wowed the previous evening, I found myself a little disappointed with the rock during the day. Yes it was still massive and breathtaking, however, the fact that tourists were climbing up it and there were loads of tour buses around soured things a little. You are specifically asked not to climb due to the site being an area of massive importance to the native aboriginies (plus the fact people are constantly dying climbing it), I found it a little disrespectful that people were climbing it regardless. Nevertheless, Uluru is a place I'd urge people to visit as it's symbolic of Australia and when seen at sunset is quite the sight indeed.
After a walk around Uluru we got back into our illegally parked vans and were back on the open road. Our task was to drive about 5 hours back up the road we had previously driven and then a further god-knows-how-many hours to Alice Springs. This part of the drive was very boring as we had already seen what little there was to see before. I needed constant loud music and banter to keep me from falling asleep. Arriving in Alice Springs around 6 in the evening enabled us to get out and have a wander, having just booked into a hostel for the night. First impressions of the place were that it was quite nice, despite having heard that it had a reputation for alcohol abuse. That night we checked into the hostel, pleased to have a proper bed for the night, had a couple of beers and loads of pizza from a nearby Italian. Our walk back to the hostel was very bizarre. Basically, Alice Springs and the Northern Territories are home to a lot of aboriginies and despite being harmless, it is quite strange to see dozens of them roaming the streets like zombies, all very drunk and not at all 'with' it.
Our second day in Alice saw me put my foot down and demand that we went to look at the reptile centre. I have a bit of an obsession with dangerous animals and wanted to see some snakes and crocodiles, no matter how much it cost. We managed to rock up halfway through a 'petting' session which basically involved a load of children and a collection of snakes and lizards. Unfortunately we were too late to join in. Sidestepping this, we wandered about looking at everything there worth looking at. This included a taipan (second most venomous snake on the planet), some pythons, some weird little dinosaur lizards and a massive crocodile. Whilst it wasn't as good an experience as I had hoped, it satisfied my urge to see some dangerous creatures... for a while.
After some admin on the computers, pushing a car across a car park trying to jump start it and a wander around in the sunshiiiiiine, we ticked off Alice Springs. Unfortunately, not coming across any of the tons of CIA operatives that apparently work at a listening post here.
As we got back into the vans it began to dawn that not only were we coming to the end of our trip, but we had seen more than we could have ever imagined on the way.
The next leg of the journey would see us drive through the harshest parts of the 'red centre' and travel miles and miles without seeing anyone other than at one of about 3 service stations en route. The distance we needed to travel to the next town was too great to do in one day so we spent the night in a layby with a load of other campers. Matt got talking to a fellow northerner (60 odd year old man) and we chilled out, eating and listening to Ricky Gervais podcasts.
Our next task, if we chose to accept it, which we did of course, was to travel up through the tropic of capricorn and onwards to Litchfield National park. As the name suggests, when you go above the tropic it becomes warmer, which was a massive relief from us having spent the last couple of months in the cold Australian winter. After stopping at some weird service stations (including one decked out like Area 51) we cut through the outback like a knife through 'I can't believe it's not butter'.
Litchfield was pretty coool, despite getting lost several times, me getting a big splinter in my wrist and us going down a dirt track I'm sure we weren't supposed to be going down in our vans, we made it and enjoyed the various sights on offer. We saw some very big waterfalls, rainforest, huge spiders, gigantic termite mounds, bats and a ton of other stuff that you cannot see in our usual habitats. Unfortunately, the giant saltwater crocs that inhabit the area did not feel like saying g'day on this particular occasion.
After a bite to eat, including more kangaroo for some, we jumped back into the vans for the final leg. This leg included; seeing eagles and falcons hovering over our vans and actually causing a smaller bird to fly into our van and die because they scared it so much, listening to some of Si's crazy dutch dance music and flying through literally thousands of locusts and them splattering all over the windscreen. It was also the time where I decided I would fly to Western Australia for a while, so I could say that I have been to all (the ones worth seeing) of Australia's states.
Cruising up to Darwin, a place closer to Indonesia than Melbourne(!), and the realisation was that we had done it. With only two quite big cracks in the windscreen and a broken fuel gauge (both on my van incidentally), we had successfully travelled over 3500 km, the equivalent of driving from Sweden to Turkey. No deaths (other than all those locusts and the poor bird, oh and possibly a rabbit), no major arguments and no members jailed along the way. As we basked in the tropical evening, pulled our vans into the hostel, we could all be forgiven for feeling a little bit proud of ourselves, and each other.
Our time spent in Darwin involved finishing things off in style. 2 big drunken nights were ordered so that we could end our time together in the most fitting way. These nights included; John being such a mess he could no longer communicate (John is a cleaver man who usually doesn't have a problem speaking), Ben pulling an Australian girl from Zoo magazine, Ben losing his wallet and ipod, Rob wearing a binbag in a comical way, us having a shouting match with some Australians (one of which said something about me being Israeli?), throwing and pushing a trolley down the street like the juveniles we are. The days were spent relaxing in the 31 degree winter sun and enjoying each others company for the last time.
This had been an adventure, from start to finish and we had loved it. I wont forget the 2 weeks we spent together for a number of reasons. It was hilarious, never boring, frightening, exciting. When I'm old and boring, I'll tell people the stories of what we did, saw and felt, and hopefully they will want to experience it too.
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