Saying goodbye to Daisy :(

Hello! Long time no update, we know... it turns out Western Australia really IS quite remote (as in, good luck finding internet, at least after 5pm!). We're now in Fremantle, a seaside suburb of Perth/really cool historic port town, where we've been hanging out the last couple of days, preparing for the most heartbreaking moment of our trip...saying goodbye to Daisy.

OK, I'm getting weepy just writing this (possibly I'm a little sleep-deprived from our first night in a very small tent!) but we knew it had to happen sometime. We just didn't expect it to happen so fast! After our big driving adventure down the coast from Broome since we last wrote (details to come-- hiking Karijini National Park, camping at a cattle station, snorkelling with reef sharks on the Ningaloo Reef, evicting a mouse from our van, and many more stories... ) we arrived in Perth on Australia Day-- Jan 26-- and caught some fantastic fireworks over the pretty Swan River, which cuts through the downtown. The next day (Tuesday) was business time and we started posting flyers in hostels/internet cafes/online advertising our very awesome van. We had two dates to meet potential buyers on Wednesday morning before the day was even done-- not bad. [We weren't sure how the car market would be here, as we've been reading news articles on how backpackers aren't finding work in Perth right now, with a late fruit season and the economic crap affecting city jobs. But since it would have been another 4000 or so really long and desolate-- not to mention rushed-- kilometres back to Melbourne, we thought we'd give selling a go in Perth....]

Wednesday morning we gave Daisy the first car wash she'd had in more than a year (unless you count the one in Broome which barely took the first layer of splattered bugs off!) and she was shiny and beautiful. We wondered why we hadn't done it sooner, but with dusty unsealed roads around every corner it seemed a bit futile! We met a few nice people-- an Austrian couple, a group of two French and a Belgian, and later an Aussie guy. It felt really weird to be showing her off like that-- she's not just our vehicle, but our home and kind of a family member too! It was very important to us not only to sell her (and for a good price, as she's a great car and plus we've really fixed her up over the past year and a half), but also to sell her to nice people who would take her to some great spots around the country-- and not just to the idiot non-stop-party-backpacker types that we encounter quite often along the way. After posting a bunch more posters, we decided to take a few hours off and explore Fremantle, which we've heard much about (it's very hippie and relaxed) and its Cappuccino Strip-- street of cafes with great patios-- where we could sip coffee and people-watch. And then we got another two calls from people who wanted to meet Daisy...

We made plans to meet one of the new callers, Thomas, a German, after we finished in Fremantle (or Freo). We ended up pulling up to his hostel a bit later than planned, and were parking to give him a ring when we noticed a few people waving to us from outside the hostel... then some excited yells, "It's Daisy!!"... then a few girls and a guy running towards our van, kind of like a Beatlemania scene or something. Very weird.

It turns out they must have liked our posters-- Daisy seemed to be a bit of a celebrity at the hostel. Thomas and the three German girls (Julia, Katarina and Mai) he was travelling with were all very excited to meet her. We gave them the tour, Adrian took them for a bit of a cruise (he was nervous and almost started driving on the righthand side of the road!) and then Thomas said, "I'll buy Daisy!" and shook our hands and that was it. (Oh, and the girls were screaming with joy) We were happy, sad, and a bit panicked because it really meant the end of the big trip. Luckily, the Germans had just paid for a week at the hostel so we had til Tuesday to get ourselves organized and say our goodbyes...
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Yesterday was the big day-- after days of packing, cleaning, and shipping things overseas, it was time (two hours late, after we needed some quick thinking after learning our first overseas box was too big to send at 24kg, and Adrian's didgeridoo box was too long to send at more than 1.05m long!)-- we pulled Daisy up in front of the hostel and met the happy new owners of our van. We unloaded the last of our gear sadly and traded keys for a giant wad of cash... and called a taxi to take our still-massive pile of stuff to the rental car agency in the CBD. It was pretty weird watching other people jump in and out of Daisy, mill about her, push buttons and open cupboards. There was even this stupid guy from the hostel who kept whacking his empty water bottle on Daisy... Adrian and I were cringing! But the Germans are very much in love with Daisy (even with the Hello Kitty toaster, which is exactly what we wanted!) and we're pretty sure they'll take good care or her. Fingers crossed!

So now we've decided to take a mini road-trip to the southwest corner of the state, to what we've heard is a beautiful area with tall, ancient forests, gorgeous beaches, and hippie wine towns for the next week, and we're adjusting to a very different camping lifestyle-- tent and teeny car! On the bright side, the Corolla hatchback is quite roomy and air conditioned, and automatic! Adrian keeps reaching for the gearshifter and the clutch and I keep giggling at him. We have a working radio, but actually radio kind of sucks in Perth, so we've have to burn some CDs to listen to (we gave away the cord to plug in the iPod). We had to buy a few supplies that we couldn't "borrow" from Daisy (ie. we had an extra tent!) but we're realizing how truly nice and comfortable our van was-- luxurious even-- having a huge comfy bed/full kitchen/changeroom/lounge and everything we needed in one compact van! There are definite plans in the works already to create a Daisy II someday when we're back in Canada...

So, crazily enough, our two years in Oz are almost finished-- we fly out to Vietnam on February 19, which we're pretty excited about! After our week hooning it up "down south", we'll fly back to Melbourne on Feb. 10 for one last week in the great city we left only two months ago. Hopefully we'll get a few more surfs in, and have a just few more Little Creatures beers (some really fantastic beer brewed right here in Freo, but not yet shipped overseas unfortunately)...

Off we go! (Well, sort of...)

The long-awaited day has arrived-- it's time to hit the road!

After 11 months in Melbourne (we arrived on December 23, 2007), it's finally time to ship out and see the rest of Australia. Time to venture to the Outback, visit Uluru, take a cruise around Sydney harbour, and explore the little-discovered west coast. We're super excited and have been preparing for ages...

But as we keep learning, there's never enough hours in a day! Yesterday was spent feverishly cleaning (the apartment and Daisy), packing, and tying up loose ends, in anticipation of an early-morning departure today. We thought we could get our mile-long to-do lists done--no worries!--but it was around 9pm or so last night, when we were eating one last pizza delivered from our favourite pizza joint, Crust, and watching CSI Miami (hey, no more TV for ages!) in a VERY messy and chaotic living room, thinking about the late night ahead... when we thought, hey, would it really hurt our schedule THAT much if we just left on Tuesday?

The thought of enjoying our solid walls and our fiery gas heater (yes, it's gotten cold here again!), a TV, internet, our own bathroom an kitchen, and perhaps one more beer on the balcony while watching the sunset over the city was pretty enticing. Not to mention the chance to sleep in! It wasn't a very tough decision at all...

It's true, we originally planned a Sunday departure (the 22nd), but as Adrian just finished work on Friday, we thought it would be too chaotic. Monday seemed like a good idea. But now, Tuesday seems like an even better one!

So here's the plan: Tuesday morning we'll head off early, drive about 6 1/2 hours northeast to Canberra. We'll check out the leafy city of civil servants (which apparently has the biggest concentration of porn and drugs in the country, is what we keep hearing... too funny!) and see the sights before heading off to Sydney on Thursday morning (about 4 hours east). We've booked a budget (ghetto?) hotel room cuz we're sick of hostels... and we'll stay there, enjoying that good city life til Sunday morning, when we head off to the nearby Blue Mountains. We'll post our whole (rough) itinerary on the blog here so everyone can follow along, but as we know, plans change, and if we've learned nothing else on our travels, it's to be flexible!

So stay tuned, and we promise to bring you lots of stories, photos, videos, and more of our trek around the great wild world Down Under. But for now, we'll just be enjoying one more chai latte from that trendy teak-couched & silk-cushioned cafe down the street! We'll miss this city...

Spring flowers... in September

It's a really weird thing, coming from Canada, to feel spring fever in September. Last year at this time we were on the road in Queensland where it's forever hot, like Australia is supposed to be-- according to tourist brochures anyway. But after surviving winter in cold-weather-denial-city Melbourne, with all of its uninsulated housing and people wandering the streets in t-shirts when it's 4 degrees, the arrival of warm spring sunshine really does have us excited!

Yesterday we took Daisy on a mini road trip out to the Dandenongs, a smallish mountain range on the eastern fringes of Melbourne, about 45 minutes from our suburb. We'd spent this week getting her all fixed up for our road trip-- she was a little overdue for an oil change and service. We called up the really good mechanic who fixed Daisy up that time she wouldn't start back in June, and she's now running better than ever. Richard the mechanic said she's in fabulous shape for her age and should have no problems doing the 18,000 km we hope to cover. She's even got a working horn again, so we can amuse ourselves by honking at sheep in the Outback. Plus, Adrian surprised us both with his secret soldering talents and now we have full stereo in the car as well!

Daisy did well yesterday in the mountains too-- we'd been reading about the Dandenongs for a while and thought it was about time to visit. We were surprised to find such a different scene not far from the city-- roads winding through rainforests of giant ferns, enormously thick trees, and cute little villages. We were hoping to do a little bird-watching-- the area's known for having Lyrebirds, which can imitate nearly anything-- but no luck this time. (Check out a video of one here!) We took a mosey through William Ricketts Sanctuary, the interesting former property of a nature-loving sculptor who, inspired by his years spent with Aboriginal people in central Oz, created a forest wonderland of pathways dotted with ceramic sculptures of people, possums, and other creatures which blend perfectly into the forest. His poetry was a little nutty, the faces sometimes a bit creepy, but the concept was pretty cool.

And while poor Adrian ended up at work on this sunny Sunday morning, I got to spend a couple of hours getting our balcony garden started. There was quite a bit of weeding to do, and a couple of pretty dead plants to pull which didn't survive the winter, but we were lucky to be left with a very hearty mystery succulent plant in one corner. Aside from that, it was a blank canvas. We'd picked up a few flowering plants from a little market yesterday in the Dandenongs-- not nearly enough, I've realized-- but we now have one of our three flower boxes planted and ready for the nice weather. We'll take pictures of our new flower friends as they grow (fingers crossed they thrive!)
-D.
Our newbies, left to right: Linaria "Fairy Bouquet"; Blue Marguerite; Parade Roses.

* There are a lot of conflicting opinions online about when the 1st day of spring is here in Oz (we've read everything from the 1st of August to September 23), we're pretty sure it's September 1. The other way to tell is that there are now many people wandering around in flip-flops (or thongs, as they call 'em here). We've even seen some guys in board shorts, and a few bogans in a grocery store wearing tube tops and shorts yesterday... that's the real way to tell the season in these parts.

Victorian times...

Today there were a few tears, a little bit of shock.... it was only today, while unscrewing license plates in the parking lot of the VicRoads office where we finally had to say to our trusty travelling companion-- "Daisy, I've got a feeling we're not in Queensland anymore."

I suppose it's hard to deny that we're no longer Queenslanders... we once again wear socks AND shoes when we go to the supermarket, possums outnumber cane toads here immeasurably, and while we can be happy there will never be any cyclone threats in our present home, we continue to freeze our butts off in the Melbourne winter. Daisy's been living in our covered garage for a while now, her "Sunshine State" plates just a tad ironic (though there was a fabulous late-afternoon rainbow visible in Richmond today). So it was only a matter of time before we had to switch our van's Queensland registration (that's "Rego" in Aussie) to the state of Victoria. Daisy's taking it well-- true, "The Place to Be" is a bit of a lame slogan to bear, but we weren't shelling out the extra cash for the "European"-style plates. We don't know too much of her history, we do know she came from Melbourne before her move to Port Douglas, and her window-stickers like "I played Apollo Bay Music Festival 2000" (a big annual concert held on the nearby Great Ocean Road) give us some clues to her past. So maybe she's happy to be home! Not to mention this whole rego thing saves us a car wash if we can just trade in our bug-encrusted and bird-poop-splattered old plates for sparkly new ones.

We haven't told her too much about our future plans, but we're planning a great deal of quality time together in the coming months. Time on our visas is running out but there's a lot of road to cover and sights to see before we take off in February. We've found a fantastic website, Roadmap Australia, which has eliminated our need for a ruler & map to guesstimate the mileage we hope to cover (about 15,000 km!). Since we rushed down a good chunk of the east coast to Melbourne and missed a lot of the classic sights in New South Wales-- the Blue Mountains, outside of Sydney; Nimbin, the hippie mountain village; legendary surf spot Byron Bay; and Bondi Beach, to name a few spots-- we've got some backtracking to do. Then there's the highway up the centre of the country which will take us to that giant red rock, Uluru, underground opal-mining town of Coober Pedy, and Kakadu National Park in the Top End. And last but not least is the gorgeous west coast- endless beaches meeting outback, Ningaloo Reef (from what we've heard, better than the Great Barrier Reef and way closer to shore); swimming with dolphins, and camels and wildflowers everywhere... well maybe not everywhere, but close to it. We figure we'll start the big trek in December, since we have the apartment til then. We'll just have to tough out a bit of the wet season up north-- maybe learn finally what "Going Tropo" really means-- and might have to share the beach with a few screaming brats (school holidays, ugh), but the thoughts of being on the road again are exciting!

In the meantime, we've got a mini-trip booked to visit Tasmania finally in August. It's possible it'll be really cold and rainy, but then again, the environment's so unpredictable everywhere that who really knows?! Flights cost next to nothing from Melbourne ($49 there and $29 back) and if it's rainy, we'll just spend more time in the museums, on brewery tours, and perhaps wandering the Cadbury chocolate factory. It's supposed to be gorgeous, and full of old buildings and colourful history. We take off on August 15 and return on the 19th... as there's no way Dayle's going to work on her birthday. Fingers crossed we'll see a Tasmanian Devil!

When possums attack

Howdy, y'all! We're now back to livin' it up in the country (if you can call it that).
Brisbane was great and all, and we'll definitely be back, but for now it's time to hunker down and get the rest of our required six weeks of harvest work done for our second year's visa-- and hopefully we'll never have to pretend we're Paris and Nicole on The Simple Life again.

After Brisbane we decided to take Daisy for a camping night on the way to Stanthorpe. We visited an information centre and they pointed us to The Gorge campground, a strange prviately-run campground near Boonah, QLD. It was a little rugged, but recommended because it was by a creek-- and they really love to swim in anything here. One look at the black, murky water with vines overgrowing the sides and we were like "Forget it! Where's our pool?" But we parked next to it and it was a nice setting to eat cheese and crackers in.

Not long after we had started our snack, a friendly man with beer in hand came over to invite us over to the large cabin across the lane for his group's annual men-vs-women Trivial Pursuit faceoff and apple pie. How could we refuse? We were there for hours in a fierce battle with retired schoolteachers, posties, etc... until the men finally took it (though we were aces at sports, us girls just couldn't get the Arts & Literature questions!)

We get back to our van, which we had left open to get some air into (it was stiflingly hot) and immediately think "Eek, what kind of bugs are going to be sleeping with us tonight!?". Adrian gets in to investigate. Everything seems in place. I'm standing outside the van when I hear a rustling and a cat-sized figure just behind the driver's seat-- A POSSUM! Our first possum sighting (finally) though maybe not in the manner we were hoping. The damn thing wouldn't leave, and there was a baby one on the roof trying to sneak inside as well. With some help from our Trivial Pursuit mates and some fierce possum-shooing tactics, we finally got them back up the tree and surveyed the damage: they apparently had fancy tastes and only went for the French baguette we bought to accompany dinner. Yarrr! They tried to pay us back by scritch-scratching trails along the roof of the van for the rest of the night...

On Sunday we drove the rest of the way to Stanthorpe (the farm town in the mountain we ditched for HK a few weeks ago) and found a much better caravan park than our last-- at Top of the Town, we get a pool, nice patches of grass to park on, showers you DON'T have to put coins in to use (sheesh!), and microwaves and real ovens to use in the camp kitchen. AND we have phone reception (at our old "home", Blue Topaz, the phone bars dropped off randomly on the highway about a 1/2km before the park) AND it's walkable to town. We had just started our laundry and jobs came to us within about two hours after arriving-- and now we pick cherries for a farmer named Beaver. :)

We did our first day out it the orchard yesterday-- and without jinxing anything, it's probably our best harvest job yet-- we get a bit dirty and sticky by the end of the day, but there's no ladders, scratchy branches, or even a hovering supervisor to deal with. Not bad! Today we got rained out, so we even get to catch up on our errands and though it's kind of freezing, but life is pretty all right here. (Though we're thinking Brisbane hotel for Xmas!)

Oh yeah-- And if anyone wants to mail us, send away! We'll be staying at Top of the Town for a while-- here's our address:

10 High Street
Stanthorpe, QLD 4380
AUSTRALIA