The Breakdown, P. Diddy and The Bush Turkey!

It is the first day on a road trip of a lifetime and we had set of in the evening, we drove through the night playing drinking games and creating ‘the list’ of utterly ridiculous tasks to complete on our journey:

1)      Everyone must be sick from a moving vehicle

2)      Pick up some hitchhikers

3)      Drink 100 boxes of wine

4)      Stage a kidnap

5)      Get a pet

6)      Create a bus song

7)      Put a hand in a kangaroos pouch

8)      Kill something

We had drove for a couple of hours north and made it to Lake Macquarie, were we settled by the shore for our first night’s sleep, if you could call it that; we had 11 people and 11 backpacks in a Toyota Hiace. Three in the front, Harry was on top of the bags (I think), Hanna and Jess in the first row, me in the gap between the seats, Adam on the next row, and three more in the back with 5 of us sharing one seat for a foot rest. This was truly the most cramped night’s sleep of my life, and then it starts, Kelly, Hanna, Ryan and Jere have got to be the most horrific snorers I have ever heard, it was constant. I sat on top of my backpack slowly rocking and crying waiting for the sun to rise.

When the sun finally rose I was grumpy as shit, and was then presented with a knob (processed chicken and ham flavoured tube of meat – that doesn’t contain any ham) and cheese sandwich, yummy. We got all of our stuff together and set off on our journey heading towards Port Macquarie. Around an hour into our trip the front of the bus makes a huge bang and the engine starts to cut out so we pull over, this seems relatively normal as we usually have to stop every 30-60 mins to let it cool down, but we couldn’t start the engine again. We made some signs on a towel, asking for a mechanic but no one would help us, we also tied someone to a tree, just for shits and giggles.

After an hour we admitted defeat, and thought that we were here for the day as it was a Sunday and no were was open, so we pushed our car into the nearest layby, this was our new home until that bus was fixed.

So this was it, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, literally miles from civilisation in a layby. We had limited food, water and alcohol and it was beginning to look a bit bleak, so we formulated a rather silly plan of action. Jere and Harry would hitchhike to the nearest town for supplies, the girls would set up camp and Adam and Ryan would go for a drunken hunt in the forest to see what they could find. Jere and Harry left first, and then Adam and Ryan; dressed in stupid hats and armed with a pocket knife and a box of wine they headed out to the forest.  Me, Clare and Jess decided to collect some fire wood and ripped down a tree with our bare hands, which was more to pass the time than anything else.

After a couple of hours, Jere and Harry returned with some people who asked us to watch their budgie for them whilst they took the boys to town, which was apparently 12miles up the road. Task number 5 had been achieved; we had acquired a pet budgie named P. Diddy that we looked after in our bus for an hour or so, until they returned with no food or water but $60 worth of wine!

In that hour we had received a rather worrying text from the guys in the forest, Ryan wrote “we are lost, and I have been stabbed by Adam, but we are ok” he then turned off the phone! As the sun began to set we all began to worry about the guys in the woods, as it was a massive forest full of wild animals and they had promised to be back before now. I was especially worried, as I knew that Adam was terrified of being in a forest at night because of The Blair Witch Project, so a group of us headed into the woods after them. We walked for an hour screaming their names to no reply; they must have gone in deep. When it got dark the boys convinced us that we had to go back in case we got lost as well.

We were all panicking and discussing what to do next, should we call the rangers or wait till morning? Then we received another text “we are lost, but we have caught a bush turkey and have found a road we will be back soon” after the initial relief that they were ok we all thought “how the hell did they catch a freaking bush turkey”!!

 When they finally returned; they had apparently been picked up by some local Christian farmers who spoke to them about scripture and then took them to their farm, where they were having a party. They plucked, stuffed and half cooked the turkey, gave the boys a rotisserie and some booze patched up Ryan’s hand from were he had been stabbed and dropped them back at camp. I can honestly say that this day was genuinely the most bazar day of my life so far, and it was also the first time I realised that Oz is very different to the UK – in the UK this would not happen.

Meet The Locals

I just wanted to do a post dedicated to all of the fabulous locals that live in The Kings Cross area in Sydney, it most probably holds the largest population of colourful characters in a small area on earth; From the weird and wonderful to the slightly scary you can find them all here, this is my small rundown of the best and arguably the worst characters to see:

My favourite is the black transvestite, whose name is apparently Kelly Fabuloso!!! He / she can be seen on Darlinghurst Road form around 12pm until 12am, usually on the bench outside of the Sugar Loaf, sporting a spectacularly tacky dress but always looking fabulous - of course. This is my favourite person always happy and usually dancing he / she once proposed to my friend Harry as he looks kind of like prince harry, and apparently he / she was apparently the princess of Nairobi cast out from the family, as he / she fell in love, he / she was then abandoned at the altar and is now on the lookout to marry a prince!! On a separate occasion he / she also told me that he / she had been a runner up on Australia’s Next Top Model!!! Love it.

There is of course the old lady, who randomly joins peoples tables in bars and has a little rant - oh how I miss her, my favourite line from her was “F**k you lot, I’m going to be late for my taxi to Darwin” as she left the bar! That is one expensive taxi ride.

I cannot forget Animal – king of the pimps! One morning me and some friends popped out for some breakfast and found ourselves at a table full of pimps and a Marilyn Monroe impersonator, I was asked if I wanted to be a stripper and ride on his bike – I politely declined. You will recognise Animal if you are from Sydney he is the crazy looking dude on that Harley.

The crying girl – I have never met or seen this one, but I have heard her repeatedly outside of my window at night time just screaming “its night time, its night time” …. Yes we F*****g know it’s night time and we are trying to sleep.

Finally there are the classics who I will never forget: man with singing deer robot, man dressed as old pregnant lady, prostitutes, and junkies and of course Terry Tibbs. I love and miss seeing every one of these people every day – they are all just so god damn intriguing to watch. The Kings Cross locals are awesome.

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The Blue Mountains

Whilst living in Sydney I made two visits to The Blue Mountains; the first visit was an innocent affair, me, Adam and Martjin caught a train from Sydney to Katoomba, and then walked down to the three sisters. The Blue Mountains do look incredible – not so much the three sisters which is essentially a rock formation, but the sheer vastness of it all; Bushland that stretches for miles on end. Walking down to the base level at the bottom can take hours but you will see some truly stunning scenery; cascading waterfalls, a possible koala and beautiful bushland. There is a train that takes you back to the top again and I would suggest that you take it, because I didn’t and the walk back to the top was arduous and, funny enough, not as enjoyable as the walk down.

My second trip to The Blue Mountains was not nearly as innocent a little visit.

Roommates

After a few days of living in the hostel we were told that we were going to be moving into a smaller room, as our room was having its door fixed. We were going to be moving into that room with our new long term roommate Dee, and our on again, off again roommate Martjin.  I just thought that I would post about these two people as I would be living with them for a considerable amount of time, and they will inevitably become a part of my travels. Soo how do I describe Martjin and Dee - well I think that I will start with Martjin.

Anything But Clothes

On my second day living in Brado’s “the party hostel” I felt slightly embarrassed about the night before, I mean I did get really really drunk and have to get carried home – and my boyfriend did, kind of throw up all over the hostel. I tell myself that “Today is a new day, and I will not embarrass myself”. The next thing I know the cleaners come into the room to find me huddled in a blanket, looking like death asking me what I plan to do about Adams sick – and now I’m embarrassed already!

Other than the sick issue my day goes without a hitch, I spend another day being all touristy and doing touristy things around Sydney. Upon return to the Hostel Tom and Liam tell us that everyone is going out and that we can’t wear clothes!!

Selling Lightbulbs

When a potential employer asks me “what is it you were doing whilst you were in Australia?” I like to reply I was an Energy Consultant advising CEO’s of mega corporations on energy efficiency, or I was part of a direct marketing team focusing on energy efficiency within the B2B market or maybe I was simply a lighting specialist. From any of these “job descriptions” you may think that I was doing something clever, important and high paid – you would be wrong. Although each description is technically correct it in no way describes the job at hand. Let me take you back to my first day:

 

Charity Collection

So when we landed in Sydney we had approximately $500 between us – for a year- this is very bad times.  So we joined TAW (Travellers At Work) and applied for every job under the sun I heard back from the first job within the hour and then from another later in the day. So off I popped to the tacky Chinese shop to buy an interview outfit; a black dress – blazer and shoes. We are now down to $450 this had better be worth it!!

So interview number 1 The Green Guys Group – it’s my first meeting with Ben, he asks me some sales questions – I give good answers – I get the job. I hot foot it across town to Zest Marketing. Now I was really excited about this job as I studied Marketing and they were asking for an Account Exec. This was an extremely miss leading job title to say the least. There is me and another girl in the interview room – both in high heels. We get chatting and find out that we are both backpackers – her name is Hope.

In comes a man in shirt and tie – he has the crazy eyes, but I let this go. He starts asking us if we drink and what are strong points are, not two questions that usually go together but OK! 

He then asks us to walk with him down to Central Station with him as that is where his team is working. This is not sounding too much like an interview for an Account Exec. So I and Hope follow this man with the crazy eyes down to Central Station – a 15 min walk in heels. On the way my concerns that this may be a crazy man are confirmed when he is laughing wildly at his own jokes and making some odd noises in general. Then I realise what this is.

Pubs - Pubs & Other Drugs!!

So in a bid to escape from the terribleness that was a hostel with a no wine policy we head to a relative of my boyfriends that can remain nameless, alright for the purpose of this post I will call him Steve. So Steve’s house was the very opposite of a Hostel with a no wine policy in fact when around Steve, it very much compulsory that you drink wine; for Steve you see is an alcoholic.

Zorbing

So after an amazing time chilling in Taupo’s hot pools we head up beck up to Rotorua to go Zorbing. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and you just have to do it when in New Zealand – right – wrong.

Hot Water Falls

So after the amazing day at Franz Joseph scaling the glaciers we had to start the arduous task of hotfooting it back up to Auckland to catch a flight because we didn’t really think of flying out of Christchurch. If you are going to be traveling NZ - fly into one airport and out of the other!

Glacier Walking

We wake-up in the morning, tired and aching from the day before but are excited and ready for another action packed day. Today we are climbing a huge ice glacier up a mountain.

White Water Rafting And UFO Sightings

So we arrive in Queenstown – New Zealand the adrenalin junkie’s paradise. The whole place is picture perfect, an awesomely cool town with a backdrop of snow-capped mountains. I don’t know why but the whole town reminded me of something from a Tony Hawk game, it just had some sort of cool Americana skater town vibe.

The Day I Climbed A Mountain And Lost My Pride

We arrive in Wanaka buying our Easter Eggs on the way I got a Crunchy, Adam got a cream egg. Anyway we arrive and are all set and excited for skiing – except there is one tiny little problem! There’s no snow : (

The Crazy Man

So during our many swaps of the campervans we decide to stay at this random farm just outside of Christchurch to wash all of our stuff – just in case!

Bed Bugs!!!

So around the time that I was in Christchurch is around the time that I first discovered that bed bugs are real!


I had always thought that they were some sort of mythical creature like unicorns or dragons and that the saying “night, night don’t let the bed bugs bite” was kind of like the warnings of the Boogy man i.e. fictional. They are not and oh boy, do the bed bugs bite!

Christchurch A Ruined City

After 3 fabulous days in Kaikoura we decided against all advice to go to Christchurch; it can’t be that bad right? Oh it was, it was shocking. On entering the city we found we could go no further than the outskirts as the centre was closed off.


Even the outskirts were affected I saw a church turned to rubble the sides fallen off people’s houses, all their possession’s destroyed. The most shocking thing that I saw was the side of someone’s house had fallen off and you could see a fully furnished nursery. The cot was full of rubble.


It was sobering to think what must have happened here. At home we never really think about the effects of a disaster because it is always so far away, seeing it makes me wonder if I could actually ever cope with such a tragedy!


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Kaikoura And Playing With Seals

We have no plans and no clue - about what where doing and where we are going on the south island; so to get a tip off from a guy about heading to Kaikoura - this was a God send, otherwise we would have missed this little gem!

Wellington

We travelled to Wellington over two days stopping at some place with a black sand volcanic beach that was covered in sticks it was Magic!

We got to Wellington for Adams birthday. We spent the day at Wellington Zoo which is a shockingly good zoo considering its size. They had new born chimps they were adorable, they also had the most ridiculous sign posts I have ever seen in my life, “Don’t feed the monkey, the monkey will die” accompanied by pictures.

Glow Worm Caves Waitomo

We arrive and are told to change into our wet suits as we are going Black Water Rafting in the Waitomo Glow Worm Caves. So after a massive struggle to get into my suit and getting on my children’s wellies I am ready to enter the cave.

There is a ladder in a field that leads into a tiny hole in the ground, I struggled to fit into it, and goodness knows how the fat German lady managed. I scale down the ladder and am the first in the cave. It’s dark and wet and completely awesome.

Egg Town (Rotorua)

We arrive in Rotorua and the first thing that hits you is the stench. The whole town stinks of eggs this is due to all the volcanic activity and sulphuric acid in the atmosphere. The smell however, can be excused in Rotorua because it’s awesome.