After the long flight we headed up the Pacific Highway in a rented campervan, a tiny mobile home with a pop-up roof. Jetlagged and nervous from not having been in the driver's seat for over five months we kept on repeating the same mantra: "Left! Left!" when approaching intersections and roundabouts. Still, getting off the highway to dry our sweaty hands, Guillaume somehow managed to have three lanes of on-coming traffic facing us on our side of the road. After a quick maneuver right we decided that we needed to sleep.
We spent our first week in Australia in campsites along the coast of New South Wales. Desperate to call something home, we tore the backpacks open and spread ourselves out in the car. The best part about this new way of traveling was the privilege of going grocery shopping (something we usually hate) and cooking, not just picnic sandwiches anymore, but real meals created on our fold-out stove in the back of the van. Having a fridge had never seemed like such a luxury before.
But one morning the fridge just wouldn't work anymore. We scratched our chins and called the rental company's hotline. They explained that it was probably just a blown fuse and told us where to find it. Resolutely, we bought a new one and replaced it. The fridge worked again! Until smoke started coming out behind it and the entire electrical system of the car collapsed. Jonas called back and requested immediate road-side service. They sent a local mechanic who abandoned his Sunday fishing trip to give us an incomprehensible diagnosis of the problem. When he left it dawned on us that, by replacing a 10 amp. fuse by a 25 amp. one, we had not only ruined everybody's Sunday but also created a black-out of the entire Halifax Holiday Park. All illusions about our butch roadtrip in Australia disintegrated when we realized we understand zip about cars and electricity. We fled the scene, leaving the dolphins and sand dunes of Nelson Bay behind us and continued on our way north.
We saw a lot of birds along the way: nonchalant-looking pelicans, colorful parrots and laughing kookaburras. However, we had to go to the Koala Hospital in Port Macquarie to get a glimpse of the shy teddy bears and the only kangaroos we saw were two very still ones lying by the side of the road. We did see a lot of bugs though, huge and bizarre-looking ones, as well as about 10 billion flies. The friendly locals suggested we buy some Aeroguard spray, the national repellant-cum-cologne, to keep them at bay.
It's hard to find a friendlier people than the Aussies. They don't stop at a polite "Hi mate!" when you cross paths in the rain forest; they start to talk and want to know all about your day and your opinion on the weather. They socialize around the barbeque, a religion embraced by everyone and available for free in all the parks.
Back in Sydney after the road trip, we were invited to crash, first at Ed and Jenny's house in Crows Nest and later at Orley's in Bondi Beach. We had met Jenny and Orley on Boracay back in October. Now that we had come to visit them in their hometown, they received us with open arms and a whole list of activities and sightseeing. The highlight of our stay was a cruise in the beautiful Sydney Harbor on a sailing boat packed with new friends. In their company we discovered how cosmopolitan and multicultural the city is. In fact, 20% of the residents of New South Wales were born in another country.
For the first time on the trip we felt as if we had come home, living in real houses with friends who had jobs and cars, BBQ's in the back yard and who love to gossip about Tom, Nicole and Penelope. It was very hard to stuff everything back in the backpacks and continue our journey after having settled for a week in the wonderful care of Ed, Jenny and Orley.
