Welcome To Poosville

It’s been so long since I’ve updated this. I do apologise.

We’ve done loads of stuff and been to loads of places since Sydney, but that’s not what this post is about. This is about the maddest day we’ve had yet.

We set off from Adelaide in the sliver bullet, heading towards Perth. Now Perth is miles away, something along the lines of 3000 kilometers (about 1900 mile) and after the first 1000km the towns are very rare. We spent a few days going from place to place, staying the night and carrying on until we stayed in a place called Wudinna. We set off that morning full of high hopes but about 80km later the temp guage on the bullet went off the scale and we figured we’d best stop.

Steam was pissing out of the radiator and we were in the middle of nowhere. Naturally we shit ourselves.

We’d just passed a town called Poochera, so we figured our best bet was to try and get back there, at least then we might be able to get someone to take a look at it.

We put some cold water in the radiator (just incase) and set off, we had to stop a few times on the way back (the last time the engine was smoking, bye bye head gasket) and eventually got back into town.

When I say town…. I mean, a few houses. And a pub. Oh and a petrol station.

We pulled up at the pub, and got a hold of the local mechanics mobile number (how they got their mobiles to work out there is beyond me) and we gave him a ring. Naturally he wasn’t answering so we went over to the garage to see what was going on over there.

There wasn’t much there either so we sat and waited, trying the number every now and again, wonder what the hell we were gonna do if we couldn’t get it fixed.

Eventually we got through to him and he said he’d come and have a look in a few hours. When he turned up the engine was still too hot for him to do anything with so he said he’d be back later, but at a first glance he wasn’t all the optimistic so he said we should see about getting somewhere to stay at the pub (it was also a caravan park) and he said he’d be back later.

We went over to the pub and asked about somewhere to stay and we got a caravan for the night for $50. Things were starting to look up, it seemed. We at least had somewhere to stay. Ha. yeah.

We went for a little look at our ‘caravan’. Think of the worst caravan you can imagine, then double it and thats what we were supposed to sleep in. You know those really small ones that you see getting pulled behind cars, the round ones? One of those. The door didn’t even lock and there was no electricity. One cruddy bed and one cruddier sofa. We both looked at each other and almost cried. We pretty much decided there and then if we had to spend the night, we were sleeping in the van.

We went back to the pub and waited for Jim to turn up, when he did we went for a look at the van again, and after a quick look over it and a few little tests we decided that it was screwed, the head gasket had went, and it would probably be cheaper to just get a new engine, but of course it would take a while.

One of us commented that it would probably be cheaper to just buy a new car from somewhere, and that’s when Jim mentioned if we wanted to get out we should just take the bus. The Bus!! There was a bus!

Because it was the main road between Adelaide and Perth, the Greyhound and other bus services run on it. We basically jumped at the chance to get out of poosville and back into civilisation. So we booked some tickets, and packed up all the stuff we wanted into as many bags as we could carry and left the rest in the van (which we sold to Jim for a few hundred dollars) and went to the pub to drown our sorrows (or toast our escape) until the bus came at 9 that night.

All the time I was wondering to myself whether or not we were being screwed over. Most of what he said about the engine I knew to be true, and I was almost sure he wasn’t bullshitting about it being totally knackered, but the whole situation just seemed like one big scam that the whole town were in on. Using the threat of having to stay in that shitty caravan for the night would make most people part with their cars at the drop of a hat.

I’m not even bothered if we did get ripped off. There is no chance either of us were staying the night, and even if we did we couldn’t have spent another day there either. Everytime you were outside there were about 15 flies buzzing around your face, no joke, that many. Murd would have cracked up, seriously.

Finally we got on the bus and set off, very uncomfortably towards Adelaide. We got there at 6:30 the next morning, aching all over from being in retarded bus seats, tired from not having any sleep and generally pissed off about the whole thing. We got a taxi back to the last place we stayed (a quite nice hotel called the Rockford) but it was all booked up. We tried all the local places and all of those were booked up. Eventually we managed to get booked into a motel out of town for a few nights. When we finally got in there I’ve never been as happy to take a shower ever. Joy.

Anyhow after that little misadventure we decided to not do as much traveling and settle down for the rest of the trip. Brisbane was very kind to us when we were there last so we got a flight here, and are planning to get an apartment/flat and chill out for a while.

RIP The Silver Bullet. You shall be missed.

Sydney

So after Port McQuarie we went to Sydney. Been here for about a week now, not much to report. We haven’t done anything backpackery, just seeing the sights and chilling out.

Sydney is a strange city, it has a run down feel to it. Reminds me of London in that sense.

When we first got here, we headed for Kings Cross cos that’s where I stayed last time, and got a few nights while we looked for someplace in the city centre, which we found. Smack bang in the middle of Chinatown.

Sydney is full of chinese and japanese, more so than Brisbane, and Brisbane was chock full of them. It’s all good tho.

Anyhow, after we got settled in the CBD we spent a few days taking in a few sights. Went to the zoo and the aquarium (made us want to go SCUBA diving again) and got a few ideas of other stuff to do, theres the Sydney Sky Tower which is the tallest thing here which you can go up on a viewing platform. And theres also some helicopter ride thingy that looks really cool. Oh and theres another aquarium where you get to go swimming with the sharks, we might do that.

We went to the IMAX too, that thing is amazing, the screen is huge, which is nice in itself but the 3D stuff blows you away. I was shocked at how good it was. They only show the last bit of Harry Potter in 3D tho (that was the only proper film on show), shame really, they should make all films in 3D nowadays. Theres other stuff on show thats specifically made in 3D for IMAX, might go see them.

Just checked out of our place in the city and headed back to Kings Cross for the night, cos all the rooms were taken at the old place. We’re back there tomorrow tho, and staying there for another 2 weeks. That should give us enough time to do the other stuff we wanna do. Then it’s time to head off again. Might go snowboarding

Oh yeah, all the world leaders are here in Sydney for the APEC annual summit meeting, or something, I don’t really know what it is. But they’re here and the cops are out in force, with riot fences all around the circular quay, apparently there’s gonna be big Anti-Bush protest marches and such. I wanna go watch them to see people get arrested and shot with rubber bullets. That’ll be funny.

300 Apples

When we were in Byron, it rained a lot, so we needed something to do.

We ended up recreating the 300 film using stop motion. If you haven’t seen 300 yet you probably won’t get this at all. And if you haven’t seen it, WHY THE HELL NOT!?

Check out the Scottish sounding God King.

ByRAIN Bay

We stayed in Brisbane for a while longer then headed south, aiming for Sydney but knowing we wouldn’t make it in one go, so we just decided to stop wherever we see that looks decent. After driving for a little while we saw signs for Byron Bay and the Lonely Planet book said good things about it.  Great beaches full of surfers, and a really nice town with good nightlife. So we headed there.

We got there and saw some advert for holiday apartments right in the centre of town, we had a look at them and got one for a week, really cheap too. Must because its winter, off season.

The next 6 days we got solid rain, and pretty strong winds to make things really homely. So yeah, we got to see very little of Byron Bay, shame really, cos it really did sound nice.

We kept ourselves busy through the week by making little trips out, one of which was to a place called Nimbin. A few people we’d met previously had mentioned it, and told us to go. Apparently it’s a crazy hippy town. So we were expecting weird, but wow.

I mean, I’ve been to all these festivals, I’ve sort of grow accustomed to things, and can’t get surprised by things, but this was something else.

Imagine if you will, a bunch of hippies that usually live in caravans and mud huts or whatever, and they grouped together and built a town. That town would be nimbin. We were walking down the street, pretty much 20 meters from the police station (smallest house on the road, btw) and about 10 different people asked us to buy pot. There’s even a marijuana museum. Then you have your 90 year old hippy women painting mad tie dye patterns on plates and pots and stuff in the street, right in front of their houses.

It was a crazy place, we had planned to stay all day, but we lasted about 30 minutes before we bailed. Too freaky.

Anyhow, after our week in Byron, we left and headed father south, trying to drive through the storms. Eventually we got to Port McQuarie (I think that’s spelled right…) and got a few nights. It seems like a nice enough town, very quaint and ideallic. Like a retirement village.

We’re heading out tomorrow and gonna try and hit Sydney. Maybe not tho, depends on the how long we can be arsed to drive.

Hmm, sounds like the rain has caught us up. Awesome.