A Big Wash Out

I'm knackered!

We've been constantly on the move for what seems like an eternity, it's time for some rest and relaxation. New Zealand was hectic and the last 4 weeks back in Australia haven't been slow paced either.

Unfortunately our 4 days in the desert were, not ruined, but...well, kinda ruined by the weather. I have
to say I was really excited about going to the Red Centre, seeing Uluru at sunrise and sunset and especially camping under the stars. But just like everywhere else i've been on this journey there has been some crazy highly unusual weather pattern affecting the area which no-one has ever seen before and it sucks.

Alice Springs (where we were staying) saw more rain in one day than they usually have in a whole YEAR, and it's been raining 8 days flat. It was only the day we left that the sun began to shine and clouds part...if i think about it too much i'll cry!
So yeah, the tour was fun but we didn't get the experience I wanted, especially gutted about not seeing one star the
whole time. Maybe a millionaire will helicopter me back for a sunset dinner there in the future, that'd be good.

However, what we did do was fun and Tina and I were in hysterics most of the time, probably from the early starts and lack of sleep. On day 1 we were picked up at 6am and began a 5 hour drive out towards Kings Canyon, it was actually quite pleasant to have some cloud cover and cooler temperatures as the walk from one side to the other was 3 hours and would've been a struggle in 40 degree heat. I went to see the doctor in Adelaide and was diagnosed with inflammation of the knee cartilage (which is why it's been hurting to walk all the time) so bought one of those tubigrip supports and hoped that would help, instead it just made me look like the weakest link of the group as I hobbled over the rocks in a disabled fashion.

That evening we arrived at our camp site (a patch of dust with a dangerously unstable looking rain shelter) and set up camp. The rain held off long enough to have dinner round the camp fire which was fun but it promptly started up again as we rolled out our 'waterproof' swags and climbed inside. I probably shouldn't have looked but wanted to make sure I wasn't sharing my swag with any uninvited guests so got the torch out to dig around down in the bottom. To my delight I pulled out a dead cockroach and let out a piercing scream of joy that echoed around the desert.

Another issue was the 'bathroom' situation. Tina and I are a really, really bad influence on each other and if one of us goes, so does the other, and because we'd had a few beers before bed that night we ended up having a bit of a midnight adventure trip to the 'dunny', a wooden shack with a hole in the floor. We were flashing our little torches around looking for spiders and scared snakes would bite our behinds so it must have been a funny sight for anyone watching us from the camp!!

On day 2 we entered the Aires Rock national park and spent some time walking around the area (still bandaged up like a granny). We were supposed to witness the stunningly beautiful red rock at sunset but all we got was a gradual transition from light cloud to dark cloud and the memory of Tina and I yet again sneaking off behind the bushes with the loo roll.

Day 3 was a 4.30am start in order to see the stunningly beautiful rock sunrise but again all we got was a dark cloud to light cloud transition, whoop-de-doo.

After leaving Alice Springs we flew to Brisbane for 4 days which turned out (as we suspected) to be expensive and too long, it's an ok city but we were only hanging about to see what it was like at the weekend anyway. We spent our time just walking around the city, going to the cinema and craaaaving to be back on a beach!
Seeing as Brisbane is a river city and not a sea city the Brisbane council built a fake beach on the South Bank of the
river which was quite nice but no supplement. It was weird walking over the South Bank bridge, looking around I
noticed their white 'city eye' big wheel, the metal suspension bridges over the river, the gross brown river water, the ominous dark grey sky and heavy rain drops landing on my rain jacket...'hang on?!' I thought....am I back in London?!

Those last few days in Brisbane i'd been making the effort to talk to a French girl who had been staying in our room, she didn't speak much english which must have been fairly scary for her so seeing as i'm working on my French it was good practice to try and help out.
The gesture obviously paid off as when she saw me queuing up for the computers she offered me use of her unlimited free internet on her laptop! It took a few minutes to understand what she was talking about but we got there in the end lol.

From Brisbane we cruised down to Byron Bay via an over night stop in Surfers. It was so weird to be back when I wasn't sure i'd ever see it again and was bombarded by flash backs from my time there before Christmas. Amanda came to pick Tina and I up as which was awesome, so good to see her again and then we did the obvious...drove straight to Max Brenner for a chocolate brownie! We also squeezed in a drive down to Kirra where a Quiksilver surf competition was on, had dinner at one of my old favourite cafes and popped into build a bear to check out the new stock.

We arrived into Byron late into the evening but checked into the most amazing hostel ever, 100% the best so far and i'd put money on it being unbeatable. It was a guest house with a distinctly Caribbean feel to it, white washed wooden verandas overlooking tropical plants and palm trees swaying in the breeze. There were surfboards and paintings of tropical paradise's hanging from the tall ceilings and a general air of casual luxury about the place.
Staying at 'The Atlantic' made the 4 days we spent there pass fast in a blur of beach, beer and live music. The rooms were only 3 beds which was great, however it turned out we were sharing with a fairly elderly lady who fast became nicknamed witch number 2.

She wasn't as awful witch 1 from New Zealand but we had a few rounds of 'Fan Wars' during our time together. Tina has developed a bit of an obsession with the ceiling fans and if you don't want the fan on the same speed as her during the night then god help you.

Every night this lady would go to bed with the fan off...then we would creep in after hours and whack that bad boy up to 3 which was promptly followed by an awakening from The Witch, a stomping motion over to the button and an adjustment to speed 1.
It's at this point we had to tread really carefully as were feigning sleep but slowly and surely we'd reach over and twizzle (twizzle - surely a word that's not used enough?) the knob up to speed 2.

Sometimes we'd win and other times there would be vocal confrontation but there you have the essence of Fan Wars.

Other events cropping up include my frustrating and disastrous trip to the Chiropractor. To cut a very long story
short my body hates me at the moment and i'm in pain, a lot of it at the moment. Seeking immediate relief I booked in and paid $100 for 2 sessions with what I was told was a Chiropractor. It said Chiropractor on the door and I was happy with that. HOWEVER. After lying down on the table and being led through a series of breathing exercises it dawned on me that this was no normal click-you-into-place chiro but some f**king positive spine and wave force of life energy healer. THIS DID NOT MAKE ME HAPPY. So the outcome of that was that I may have well as burnt that $100 and i'm still in pain.

So now we're up in Noosa, when we were in Byron Bay we met a guy called Luke, a Californian surfer pilot who we starting hanging out with him for a while. A lot of people are in the 20-22 age bracket so it was cool to hang out with someone a bit older at 33. He even ended up driving us to Noosa from Byron so we could keep him company as he was travelling alone lol!

I hear there's a tropical cyclone on it's way too which is annoying, a grade 4 at the moment which'll bring more rain and storms. The problem with the East Coast is that your daily choices are go to the beach, or go to the beach and rain does not fit well into that equation :/...........