Thoughts

This morning (Wednesday) I woke in a super blue funk. Dont know why but it was a combination of depression and ennui. It took a while to get going. But fortunately I've got a couple of things to attenuate those shitty starts to the day. Morning time "Intention Meditation" and a morning journal. With those I was able to break the worst of it. Today was just a long drive.

I've been sort of puzzling over how things have been going. To date it's been interesting but kind of stressful. I've spent a lot of time and effort getting things ready and probably spent more time than really needed. Yesterday, as I was driving up the coast on kind of long spaces in between, it occurred to me that if I were to go camping and exploring in the States I would likely have to drive a day or two before the adventure started. Driving in Oz is a lot slower so driving for 3 or 4 days to start something isn't really that weird. That made me feel a bit better about the time between my arrival and now. And I think that I was kind of assuming that it would just be a day or two of buying stuff and then off. Well, it's been weeks. I'm finally feeling a little better about it.

It's been mostly highway driving. These are 2 lane highways with a speed limit of 100 kph in most cases. Going through towns or built up areas the speed drops to 60.

Monday, 30 Sept 2024

Trying to write this blog is kind of difficult. I feel like I don't have a clue about what I'm doing. So I'll add some stuff to this post and then try to make things a little more sensible and coherent in the next one. I've made it up the east coast to the town of Townsville. I had to come here because I need a medical exam for my one year Australian visa. Right now I'm on a temporary visa. Anyway, I guess I've learned a few things on the way. My main goal is to make it to the tip of Cape York, northernmost point in Australia. There's a lot to see on the way north of here and the weather is warming up so I'm kind of anxious to keep moving for a bit.

Looking back for a couple of days. I decided that the main thing is to get to a couple of destinations so not to worry much about where I stayed in the interim. Looking for a good cheap place to stay put me camped behind the General Gordon Hotel on a Friday night.

It wasn't bad. The pub food was good but seemed a little pricy to me. It was a popular place on a Friday, with live music. Had dinner and a couple of beers and I was tired enough and far enoough away from the amplifier that I didn't have any trouble sleeping.

Yeah, check out those nuts!! I guess they're right, wouldn't want one of those to fall on me.

At one point I started to head to Airlie Beach. Supposed to be one of the prettiest beach towns in the Whitsundays. But at the last minute I decided to pass. Yeah, there are lots of pretty towns but a hipster stop along the way seemed like a waste.

Added on 6 October

As of today, I spent several days at an AirBnB in Cairns. During that time I went out and did a dive on the Great Barrier Reef. It was only moderately successful but I'll do a whole blog about that trip. I spent some time getting a few last minute things to head to the tip of Cape York. And today I'm up near Port Douglas and Mossman gorge. I'm going to spend another day here and try to get in a hike or two in the gorge area. Today's main goals are to figure out plans for the next couple of weeks, to get a couple of blogs done, and to do a little reading. That's the story for now.

Shit Happens

Today I'm pissed off, Bigly! I left Brisbane and drove up the East Coast just a ways to a campground in the region of Noosa National Park. Most of the drive was on the motorway so not too much to say. I thought it was going to be an outstanding place to stay. Habitat Noosa - supposed to be sort of an eco-campground. Well, it's fucking school holidays in Queensland. So the place is pretty crowded with lots of families with kids. Nothing wrong with families but I just don't really relish camping alongside them. And the killer was; I got in and went to make up the bed in the Troopy. I had washed sheets and stuff when I was in Brisbane. Well, I left my pillows in the AirBnB in Brisbane. I thought I was so damned careful to make sure I cleared everything out. But that was just one thing that I didn't see. I can kludge some stuff together to make it work and they were cheap pillows anyway but it just really pisses me off that I'm going to have to figure out how and where to replace them. I'm going to be here two nights. I've got a plan to download a shitload of maps that I didn't get done in Brisbane. Another screw up on my part. They've got wifi here and I was really hoping that it would extend to the camping areas. No such luck. Only near the clubhouse. I wanted to install a bunch of stuff on the Android Head unit on the Troopy. To do that, I need to park close to a wifi source. I'm gonna let this go until tomorrow and add to it. Maybe I'll be more chill by then.

Okay, a day later. This campground kinda sucks, a lot. There are some cabins, called the KangaRooms, if you can believe it. And a bunch of kind of fance glamping things. I don't even know what to call them. It's really crazy! The camping areas are kind of around them but you can't walk on the walkways between the glamps! There are little signs that say reseved. But in the evening the kangaroos come out and they don't give a rat's ass about signs so they chow down on the grass around these fancy places. I think these run over 200 AUD per night and maybe 25% of them were occupied.

One good thing about this place is that they actually brew beer and have a fairly nice place to sit and drink one while accessing their wifi.

And like I said above, it's Queensland school holidays. I was warned about this before I even camd down here. So the place is full of families with kids. There's nothing intrinsically wrong with that. But it's not my style at all. Kids riding around on bicyles all over the place. And making all of the kid noises when they're messing with their friends. That's fine at times, just not now. Lots of caravans and camper trailers and they set up some amazing tent structures around their campsites.

To put this one to bed...I'm learning a bunch about camping in Australia. It's a bit different than in the US. Or maybe it's just my perspective on US camping. But there's a lot more people who camp in some fashion down here. Well, maybe not more but a much higher percentage. One of these days I'll do a whole blog on camping...maybe including some info on my Troopy.

On to Brisbane

OK, I left Byron Bay and it took a little self control to not rush to the next stop. I'm trying to learn to take my time and see some of the sights along the way. I'm usually like the horse who can smell the feed back at the home corral and am rushing to get there. So, I took a little time and went to the lighthouse on the top of Cape Byron. It's actually a pretty cool lighthouse. But it turns out that there are a lot of whales hanging around in the general area.

It's almost impossible to get a reasonable photo of the whales blowing. You never know when they'll pop up. But here's one just surfacing. Maybe you can believe there's something there!!

Been a bit of a challenge. I've always (or it seems like always) had this thing about keeping moving. One of the things I want to learn on this extended trip is to chill a little. Take a little time to check a few things out rather than rushing to the next place. Maybe spend time learning something new. So that's why it took a little effort to drive up and take pictures of the lighthouse. The next thing that I decided I wanted to do is to get a real Aussie hat. I thought a little about the Crocodile Dundee type but decided for something a little different. It ended up being a bigger pain in the ass than I expected. I'd decided to get one from a company whose "main" shop is in Currumbin, Will and Bear. On the map it looked straightforward. Currumbin is between Byron Bay and Brisbane so I'll just stop on the way. Well, Currumbin is a kind of beach town and they are having a sort of festival on the beach verge. Traffic coming into town and along the beach really sucked. Of course the store is right in the middle of everything.

I've gotten used to driving on the left and even pretty comfortable with the size of the Troopy on the road. But there is no way I was going to try to park along the beach. So I ended up parking back in a residential area and walking about 1 km to the store. It's worth it. I haven't been getting the exercise I need anyway and it was valuable to see the hats in person and try them on. There it is. Now I've got the problem of trying to figure out how to carry it without smashing the hell out of it. The headrests in the Troopy are too big to put it on the passenger seat like on someone's head.In the end, I also got a chance to check out some of the installation artwork along the beach. there were some clever sculptures but this one was intriguing.

I wish I'd gotten a clearer picture, showing the alien in the cockpit.

I'll give a quick summary of Brisbane or better, my experience there. I was trying to make all of the final preparations before heading out to much less populated areas. So, the first thing was to get the Troopy looked at by a mechanic and try to find any little things that should be repaired before heading to the tip of Cape York. Of course, they found something. Rear brakes needed new pads and there was a minor problem with the front end. I made an appointment for a few days later and they fixed it. I'm feeling a bit better about heading up the coast now. Maybe I'll write a more complete review of Brisbane in a couple of days. I feel like this one has kind of hit the end.

Byron Bay.

Drove in, in the late afternoon. Staying at Glen Villa Resort. It's a caravan park with lots of little cabins of various types. The sites are close together but overall it's not too bad. But the weather didn't cooperate in the least! Rainy and pretty chilly all afternoon and evening. I'm tired of the shitty weather.

The campground is a little expensive, by my standards, but I wanted to be close in to town so I could walk around and see stuff. In that respect it's worth it. I'd read a bunch about the town. It was a kind of hippy colony back in the 70's and 80's. And it gets a lot of good press. Yeah, the beach is really nice.

And there are a number of curious historic buildings. I guess it was a shipping point for all sorts of agricultural stuff and even for seafood. Ships would come right into a long wharf that stuck out into the bay.

But now it's become totally hipster. Lots of cafe/bars. Plenty of little places to eat. Clothing stores, you name it. It's a pretty enough town, including the residential areas but just waay to hipster for me. But, I'm glad I stopped here.

Camping has had interesting aspects. On one side of me are two young couples in a pair of tents. They are from South London and apparently have been in Oz for 7 or 8 months. Working and hanging out. Today a rental campervan pulled in on the other side and it's a couple from the Netherlands who are cruising Australia for about 6 weeks. And in the common areas, I hear languages that I don't really recognize. So, it's a place for international travellers.

Staying in the campground has been kind of interesting on its own. Lots of different varieties of camper vehicles. Caravans to simple tents. I love this tiny rooftop tent on this car. I think that there was just one guy staying in it.

And here are my Londoner next door neighbors. Look at the double swag in the background. I'm going to have to get me a swag before too long. Maybe in Cairns. But I don't know where the hell I'd put it. The Troopy is already filling up.

And here's how tight it was: my Troopy next to my Dutch neighbors in their rental van.

It was a couple of days pretty well spent in spite of the rain. So now moving on to Brisbane. I'll be staying in an AirBnB so I'll have plenty of internet and time to get a few things done before heading into slightly less populated area.

Just a few ruminations!

OK, been on the road for about a week. Time to go back and reconstruct some of it and try to move on in the coming posts. When I first got here the Troopy was in flux. They had done most of the really serious work but outfitting the main interior was not done. Here’s a couple of photos of what it looked like when I got here.

So I spent a week in an AirBnB in the far Sydney suburbs, near Project Overlander, trying to purchase things that I’m going to need. Mostly stuff like a cookstove and pots and pans and sheets and towels.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t very well organized so made what seems like countless trips to Target and Kmart. At one point, driving through the Sydney outskirts, I decided to hit up Ikea. Yeah, that Ikea. It actually worked pretty well. I was able to get a lot of the “kitchen” gear I wanted. Then I was ready (sort of) to test it out. I spent a couple of nights in parks not far from Sydney. There was a big 4WD/Adventure show at the Sydney Dragway over the 6 through 8 of the month. I decided to go to it on Friday to see if I couldn’t buy some of the needed gear at a discount. It did work. But I ended up spending a shitload and feeling like I’m hemorrhaging bucks. Logically, these are items that I need and things that have to be purchased from high quality manufacturers. Things like ropes for recovery. Who’d want a rope that might break when used? So, from a practical perspective it made sense but emotionally signing the credit card slips got pretty tough. Well, it’s almost done. Still a few things that I need and I’ll get them in Brisbane.

I’m making my way slowly north. Spent a couple of nights in the Glenreagh Recreation Reserve. Didn’t take any photos. It started raining on my second day and it’s been shitty since. But I had good cell signal so I did all of the paperwork for a one year visa. Now I just need a medical exam.

Today I drove to Byron Bay. I was looking forward to exploring this beach and ex-hippy town. But it’s rainy, breezy, and the temperature is between 12 and 18 degrees. Just really shitty!

So far, it’s been OK but really mostly driving through relatively populated areas. Up near Glenreagh, it’s really pretty agricultural countryside. Lot of cows, some greenhouses and green grass. But no real adventure. And most of the driving has just been divided highways.

Well, that's the story for the moment. I'll try to get some stuff about Byron Bay later.

NSFW in NSW

In case it matters to the reader: I've decided not to spare words in this blog. In other words you may, at times, find obscenities and inappropriate references. So don't let your boss or your eight year old kid read over your shoulder. After almost a week in Australia I feel like I haven't gotten enough accomplished. You would think that it would only take a couple of days to purchase all of the small stuff needed to start touring. Maybe that's right but I've been at it for a week and feel like I might be halfway there. What do I need? Well all of the kitchen and cooking gear from a stove to knives and forks. Most of the bedding and linens. Lots of recovery and operating gear for the Trooopy. And then all of the tools and spares that might be needed in the middle of nowhere. So, what I've decided to do is to get as much as I reasonably can and then head off camping for a week on my way to Brisbane. There are a bunch of good stores in Brisbane so I can fill in when I get there. And I've wasted a lot of time with car rentals. My original rental company pretty much fucked me over - twice. First of all, my flight was cancelled and I was a day late. Called them from LA and they said they couldn't return any money because the car was already there. I mean I called about 15 or 0 hours before I would have been on the ground. At the airport I asked if I might extend the time if needed and was told, "Yeah just let us know about a day ahead". So I called early in the morning before and the dude told me he had to talk to the boss and he'd call back. Well, no one called so I called them around one in the afternoon and was told no way. That meant I had to return the car and rent another one from a different company.

So I spent a shitload of time driving into the airport in Sydney dropping off one car and picking up another. So, although they were pretty cheap and the folks I talked to at the actual site were pretty nice, I'd not recommend Simba car rentals, just because of their relatively inflexible policies and way of working. Ended up with a Goldcar rental and they were pretty good but I ended up paying more than I would have.

Nothing more in this posting, just some whines. I'll go ahead and put this up and will write some more reasonable stuff in the next one.