Wanderlust: Chasing Intrigue: May 2014

Friday, May 23, 2014

Road Trip Part 1: Barcy to Darwin

Day 1: Barcaldine to Mt. Isa (8 hours)

Really, this was a rather uneventful day....up until we got to Mt. Isa. Once we got there we decided to run to Kmart to grab some things for the trip. And, being the safety-cautious girls we are...we locked all our doors. Unfortunately this was a mistake. After our quick shopping trip we got back to the car only to discover the key wouldn't open the doors. It would unlock one of them but the door itself was stuck. And, none of the windows were down. So after much struggling and stressing, we called a locksmith who $150 later got us into our car. So we were off to find a caravan park! Sort of....because then she wouldn't start. So we sat and continued to stress for another 15ish minutes trying to figure out why our car wouldn't start and how we were going to do our trip. By the time we had gotten the car to start and actually were getting somewhere, the caravan park had closed and due to the fact that Mt. Isa is a mining town the cheapest motel we could find was $120. So...day one ended nothing like we thought. BUT, on the bright side, after a stressful day we got a much needed sleep before starting on our journey the next morning.

Day 2: Mt Isa to Daly Waters(10 hours)

This day started off quite well, because we had gotten a much needed rest, some tea and a good start to the day due to a helpful motel owner. And it continued to go well up until halfway through our journey when we broke down at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We freaked out a bit...but luckily some grey nomads (retired Aussies who buy campervans and travel Oz) came to the rescue. From this day forward we decided to just never turn the car off when we were on the road, in order to make sure she wouldn't have trouble starting up again. And eventually we got her going again and made it to Daly Waters. Daly waters was the first offficial place we would get to camp in our little tent and HAH you should have seen our faces when we started to put it up. Here we are in our little sedan and 2-man pup tent next to giant campervans with the most elaborate tent set ups. Needless to say, plenty grey nomads were taking the piss out of us for it. Luckily they were also there to help us out when we realized we didn't have a hammer to put in our pegs. It sounds obnoxious but honestly, we both slept well and were so excited to be at a caravan park, so much closer to where we were supposed to be and in our tent finally get some tea in us and smile about how our trip was going.

Day 3: Daly Waters to Darwin (6 hours)

So by day 3 of the road trip we were in dire need of some sort of distraction from driving. SO, we hit up Mataranka thermal springs and oh it was worth it. We didn't stay super long but it was so nice to jump out of the car and into a pool for a bit. After about an hour or so there we were back in the car on the road to Darwin!

Upon getting to Darwin however, we had an adventure as we hadn't planned out a caravan park and drove into the city to find out where the closest one was. Unfortunately in the midst of going from a single road and small towns to a city again I struggled a bit driving and almost destroyed a wheel avoiding someone, cut someone off on a roundabout and just generally struggled. To be fair, it was the first time i'd ever driven in a city in a left sided car. so we'll blame it on that cool? Cool.

Once we did get to the carravan park it was awesome. We had some Germans staying behind us so we enjoyed listening to their convos and trying to figure out what they were talking about based on what little i could pick up, and we thouroughly got an experience out of getting the tent up seeing as the ground was too hard to put pegs in. So, we tied portions of it to othe car and hoped for the best.

After that adventure we headed into Darwin to get food, see the ocean (WOOH!) and just wander a bit. It was wonderful and we even happened to run into an opera concert thing they were practicing for outside by the harbor and watched that for a while. Such a good night=]

Day 4--DARWIN

This day we woke up a bit early and just went to spend the day in the city. Meg ended up getting her tattoo which was AWESOME, albeit a bit painful for her. Afterwards we headed up to the art museum, grabbed some gelato, sat in the park, wandered the wharf and then made sausages for dinner before a hilariously wonderful and much needed night out (aka DANCING GALORE).

Day 5--DARWIN

Our final day in Darwin we slept in a bit for once before getting put together and heading off to the Darwin Military Museum to learn more about WWII and Darwin. It was quite cool but we were both a bit tired from the trek up to it...so we probably didn't appreciate it quite as much as we could have. But after trekking down again we took a quick nap in a park and then headed to the sunset market where we watched a street performer do fire dancing and just generally enjoyeed perusing the stalls.

Tuesday, May 20, 2014

Goodbye Barcy, Hello Road

ahhh it's happening. We're headed out. And it doesn't feel real yet...at all. We've bought maps, planned itineraries, started making to-do lists, bought a car and yet....it hasn't fully hit. Barcy has become home, and leaving just seems surreal. This is our family. These are people that have seen us at our best and worst and even on the roughest days we come back home knowing things will be fine. I have been here for the past 3 months and leaving seems so strange. In many ways this feels like leaving home all over again; except this tie we probably won't be back. Meg and I have talked over and over about how even if we do visit it will be off because they won't be in the same town or around the same people. The boys would be older and Mitch would be off elsewhere. It breaks my heart to think that this little family we have become---Mick, Sharon, the boys, Will, Mitch, Miia, Meg and me--will never be reproduced. We've had our time. It's been phenomenal but it's coming to a close. No more runs around town, no more freshly killed meat, no more laughing/dancing/being ridiculous with drunks on a Saturday night work shift, no more casual horseback rides, or water fights in the backyard. We have one more full day and then we're off. Goodbye Barcy. Hello Roadtrip.

Things that have happened in our last few weeks:

1. Found baby chicks wandering around while watering the horses. Had to gather them up in our shirts and put them in a bucket until we had a place to keep them.

2. Watched sheep get skinned and prepared...then had them for dinner.

A kidney....followed by a uterus.

3. Went out riding on young horses, saw a train was coming, had a brief freak-out moment and decided we'd trot up to the end and avoid the train whistle.

4. Watched puppies being born! Ended up being 12 in total and FRICK are they cute.

5. Saw baby guinea pigs hours after they were born. HUGE. I would not envy the mother.

6. BOUGHT A CAR!! WOOT WOOT!! But really. It's an older car, but Mick and a friend have checked it out to make sure it will get us there and it's got a SWEET sound system. boom baby.

7. Watched Captain America in a theatre built in the 1920s. It was basically a steel shed. Super cool albeit uncomfortable chairs though.

8. Dyed our hair purple briefly. I unfortunately don't have pics to prove this.

9. Watched Gabe (a baby palomino) get halter broken

10. In an attempt to register our car... Found out the court was closed and we might have to delay which we can't do. Panic set in but then we became adults figure out what to do and saved our butts. Long story.