The Buddy System

July 2nd 2008: Miss Kate Elliott and Mr Reuben Whitehouse departed Melbourne, Australia, for Byron Bay, Australia. Not as far as the last time I wrote here on this blog but that being said a far more epic journey involving 2000+ kilometres in 4 days in our new ultra-fat station wagon.

After spending the most awesome 9 months ever in Melbourne where we've made more good friends and family than we ever could have hoped, we realised we might want to stay in Australia for a while longer and the best way to do that was to take up the Aussie government's generous offer of another year's Visa in return for a few weeks work in the most gorgeous rainforests in the north of the country where it's warm and hilly and luscious like a Lord of the Rings film!

Robot:

So after being paid for some recent huge piles of work, I put the cash to use and after much searching and other efforts we purchased a car in which to travel north (and around the north once we were to get there). So we are now the proud owners of a 1997 Ford Falcon Station Wagon. It's big: it's long enough that a stringy fella like me can fully stretch out in it with just the back seats folded down; it has enough space for our big old surfboard to fit inside it; it has a friggin 4 LITRE engine! We named him 'Robot': he has cruise control (you press a button and Robot presses the gas pedal on your behalf); he has central locking with a remote control that goes beep when you use it; he has a stereo that works; he has air conditioning; he has the word 'computer' written on the side bumper strip in relation to the engine torque control (woah!). Also, he has a visor, shiny wheels and tinted windows. Maybe we should call him Mr Pimped Robot.

Tathra:

In the last 5 days we've travelled a long way in Robot. We took the coast road north-east through Victoria and into New South Wales, just about stopping only to sleep. We spent one afternoon and night in the much bigged-up 'Tathra' where the Watsons take their annual family holiday. Here we encountered for the first time real-life Kangaroos, Wallabies and other such crazy creatures. We cooked up some baked potatoes on the camp fire in honour of Mr David Bowen. We rolled-up a wee Nimbin smoke in toast to Mr Peter Spinner. Then after all that, and feeling ever so slightly numbed in the brain, we turned around to see a couple of Kanga's silently watching us from just a few feet behind. They looked bigger under the glare of our little torch and also under the paranoic influence of the previously consumed goodies. So we slinked into the back of Robot, slammed the boot and waited for them to start trying the locks with those screwdrivers that they probably keep in their pouches.

In the morning we woke to find no such screwdrivered locks or slashed tires and instead found them all watching the sunset right there on the beach. I staggered down and got about 10 feet from a big 'Roo who took the slightest bit of notice of me before once again turning his attention to the sunrise. Respect. We took about 500 photos and then another smaller one turned up and we just about saw a baby Roo in her pouch as she hopped past. Awesome!

Get Behind Me, Kilometres:

After the Tathra experience we had to make up on time so we jammed it all the way up through NSW, getting stuck in yucky Sydney commuter traffic (somehow I managed to negotiate - and survive - the complex route which the Princes' Highway takes through Sydney in one go) and free-camped in a caravan park in Narooma (I think) and then onward until we reached Byron Bay by Saturday afternoon. We went straight to the campsite on the beach which Pete, Ollie and I had stayed at just weeks before (miss those boys aaahhh!) and felt on top of the world. I took the old surfboard straight out and splashed around for a bit before dragging Kate around Byron and walking her through all the highlights of the trip which I'd had there previously: "This is where we drank Rum for breakfast"; "This is where we staggered from one pub to another"; "This is where we first saw Jack's multi-colored jumper!"; etc.

Palm Vale:

So now we are just about settled in to a small farm just outside Byron Bay, right up in the hills. We're staying with two very nice people - Neil and Kitty - and their two Kelpy dogs and we're helping to re-establish the native rainforests which were cleared for agricultural use way back in the day. Currently this involves pulling out big but not too heavily rooted weeds, breaking them up into piles, and then counting how many leeches jumped off them and onto our ankles / wrists. It's not that bad on the Leech front really. It's gorgeous up here - so green and lush everywhere. We're helping to clear out a small gully at the foot of the property which has a small waterfall and a winding creek. We take the dogs with us each day and by the end of it they're totally tired from running around and swimming all day. We went into the local town and got some matching overalls for the job so we like to think that we look like Ghostbusters, but I think its more likely that we look like some inbred circus freaks, but then that would be an awesome achievement too, no?

Photos! Photos! Photos!

Inspired by Spinner's growing collection of National Geographic Magazines, I thought I'd have a go at a Photo Essay. I'm not sure if what I've done constitutes an essay or maybe just more of a nursery rhyme... Whatever, I posted one up on JPGMag.com (which is awesome, by the way) because one must try new things, no?: 'We Hit The Road'

25th October 2007: Reuben Whitehouse and Kate Elliott now find themselves settled into life in Melbourne, Australia. Australia is a country in the Southern Hemisphere where you can get an ice cold beer for the equivalent of 70p (a fact that contributes to it being one of the best places I've ever been). Melbourne is a city in that country where you should not, ever, never, fuck with Yarra Trams (say no more).

A month ago we stepped out of Ben's car (my bro got us to Heathrow from Wiltshire in under an hour, though I feel I may have lost a day of my overall life-span from the experience!) and had a sudden feeling of what the fuck are we doing? owing to the fact that we'd only booked the tickets a week before then and we'd not actually considered much where we were going and just how bloody long that flight was going to be.

Turns out the flight wasn't all that bad; first flight I've ever taken where you get free alcohol whenever you ask for it! Also the food was pretty awesome and there was on-demand video entertainment so I consumed approx. 10 movies and jumped off the plane all square-eyed and buzzing.

2 hours of immigration bull-crap later and we stepped through 2 big metal doors to the cheering, warm, cosy arms of Mr Peter Spinner! Accompanied by his fully awesome cousin, Nell, we had an ice cold can of Bundy Bear in our hands before you could rustle his new hair! They bundled us back to their digs in Brunswick and the drinking began in earnest: within 3 hours of being on the other side of the world we were rather inebriated and listening to some awesome Old Time music at the classest pub I've been to since Nesbitts and it was everything we've been longing for since July! I went to bed that night at 3am, several rums and beers in, feeling great; that is until I laid down and closed my eyes and suddenly felt the weakest and most generally wasted I ever have in my entire life to the point of wondering if I'll make it through to the morning; achievement?!

We spent the following week in a crappy hostel full of people who came to Melbourne to watch TV all day and sharing a room with an old Indian fella who didn't speak much and was in bed by 8pm every night. So we stayed out til 2am every night and Spins introduced us to some of Melbourne's awesome bars where you can get some of that cheap, super-icy-cold beer I mentioned earlier and some of the also to the million-bazillion awesome eateries of every sort that are around the town centre (or 'CBD' as they call it here; GTD in the CBD!).

The second weekend we were here we made an awesome road trip down the Great Ocean Road and went to Bells Beach, Australia (I looked for Bodie for a while but he must never have made it back in the end...) We rocked-up to Torquay looking for somewhere to camp at 11pm on Friday night and there wasn't anywhere except pricey Motels so we spent the money on a slab of beer instead and slept in the cab of Mick The Awesome Yute, instead.

Sleeping in a cab not being the most comfortable thing you can do, and cos it's generally pretty freezing here at the moment, we woke around 6am, chugged the engine to warm us up for a bit and then Pete decided to gun the beast another 45 mins up the coast to an awesome little break at a town called Lorne. On the way we saw some brave locals taking on massive waves breaking over a rocky point/reef and all we could think of was a nice warm Hazelnut Latté and some poached eggs.

We pulled up to the beach front at Lorne and waited for the Cafe's and surf board rental places to open and watched some local Longboarders riding some right-handers that were as clean as any wave I've ever seen; the waves here look like the ones in posters!

Getting up at 6am is a a totally GTD thing to do:
By 10:10am we'd driven 60k's, eaten breakfast, pitched then tent (badly) and had a beer in our hand! We sat around in the tent for an hour like you do when you first pitch a tent for the first time in ages - til the novelty wears off - and then headed back to the beach, picking up a mini-mal and a longboard on the way.

The next hour and a half saw me and Pete surf very chilly but super clean and aggressively dumpy waves. The waves here appear to be much faster than in the UK and France; you pop-up and then shoot along it at 100mph before jumping off before the lip bashes down on your head. It was an awesome surf and super super awesome to be back in the water. I managed get smacked in the face by a wayward longboard (my own) but I also managed to hang on, on a couple of screaming fast waves - the kind which make you wonder just what the heck you think you're trying to do as soon as you drop in. We managed a couple hours before we were too cold in our 3mm suits and no gloves etc. and headed back to the campsite for some of the worst sausages you could ever imagine and the kind of high winds you only get when you're camping for the first time in ages.

We're now settled in a sweet pad with a friendly British musician chap, across from the Botanical Gardens and Kate has to run home afer late shifts at the café incase a Possum jumps out on her!