AUS18- Road Trippin'

What I am about to publish can easily go down in history as the most scatter brained post I have ever created. I apologize. It was very hard to blog during the trip as we never knew the next time we'd have wifi or even a power socket. I have separated by ---------'s the posts I typed up during the trip. Some are dated. Some are not. At some point I realized that the traditional written blog wasn't going to be so easy of a task and switched to videoing some special moments. I am not almost done with forming these into a film format which portrays the trip pretty nicely. I'm still learning the software and due to my rather awful relationship with technology, the learning curve I am experiencing is rather steep. I am having so much fun putting it together though! I really hope it turns out well. For now, however, enjoy these random rambles :)

Day before flight from Sydney to Brisbane:

Meet Bunda! Hims so cuddly. He was $15 at Paddy's market but priceless in our hearts. Shoutout to Ri for finding him among the various other less-cool creatures. This is his first ever car ride...that we know of. He rides on the dash (without a seatbelt)---- bc he is a bada$$. Oh my gosh. His nickname can be Bunda Bada$$ after the rapper, Boosie. Yes, of course. Ahh genius.

The day I adopted Bunda

Thought process for determining a proper name: Maybe after some famous traveler? Christopher Columbus is cool. We could call him Chris for short. Nope, that is my dad's name. Next. Natascha suggested "Charlie". I can't say the name Charlie without the youtube video quote. **british: OW Chahhhhh-leeeee. George was also suggested. Nahhh. It should be something super aussie though. Maybe Captain Cook? Oh captain, my captain? Maybe a combo? Captain Chris. CC for short.. CC's? Ahhhh CC's. Turtle mochasippi. Yeah no. We can always go with something Aboriginal. Those names are always so fun to say. (looks up "cool aboriginal names"). Words for landscape formations, various plants, and wildlife pop up. OMG how cool would it be if we named him Wombat, but in aboriginal language. Oh, wombat is already the aboriginal name? Well dang. Is kangaroo just kangaroo too? Nope, aboriginal word for kangaroo is "bunda". HAHAHHAHA. lets call our pet wombat "kangaroo" all the time. This is great.

First step on our 12 day holiday was a flight to Brisbane! This is where we were to pick up our Juicy car (our camper van and lush accommodation for 10 days) and meet up with friends for an aussie BBQ. Emphasis on the BBQ- none on the aussie. It was a group of a thousand Europeans and I had to carry America all on my own, sigh. They had TWO GIANT BOWLS OF SALAD. I was basically in heaven. That salad was so good. Ahhhh take me back. nom nom nom

I'm sleeping up top bc it is tiny and dark, just like I like it.

Viennesse coffee <3 <3

Crown...with cola...in a 4pack? for $23?

Anyone up to pay $50 for 1L of malibu?

Over my dead and dried up body.

This cafe had a "vienesse coffee" on the menu. Holy crap! Vic is from Austria! I must have the coffee of her people. This was also delish-ballz. So many noms in one day that it should be illegal. It even came with a view of a lit up bridge, a river, and this gorgeous building (also lit up). Brisbane-ians apparently love light up things. Moths to a flame...

Almost forgot about the flight drama! Anyone who knows me probably could've predicted this happening. We checked into our flight. As we get to the "next" position in line for baggage drop off, the entire airline computer system crashes. They workers began to panic as I calmly explained to the girls of my previous occurrences with technology and its impending malfunction. After a while of IT not figuring out a solution, they request iPads to be brought up so that they can work from them. Surprise! The iPads are ALL broken. I saw that coming from a mile away... :/

FIVE YEARS LATAH...

Some miracle occurred and the system came back up. My bag got searched and ran through the X-ray tunnel a MINIMUM of 5 times. Vic received a lovely hand pat down. They finally sent us off with "have a great flight. Your plane leaves in....one minute." --> RUUUNNNN.

If I were to count the number of times we have all run all frantic-like with our backpacks in a super populated area of on-lookers, I'd be able to count to 4. If I were to count the number of times we have al run all frantic-like with our backpacks, coffee, and opal cards in hand in a super populated area of on-lookers, I'd be able to count to 2. Let's come back to these stats to 2-4 weeks. Just for giggles.

We were jog-walking down to our gate (so happened to be at the end of the airport) when we heard our names being called over the intercom. Yes, we were the last people to board. *apologies to my fellow flyers

ferry to East Brisbane

We had an amazing night out with a lovely group of people, live music, and city sights. I'm going to shout out Birdman Randy for some greatttt tunes. I want a CD. stat.

some of da crew

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At the moment we are sitting at our first campsite.

first meals are as follows:

Me: apples and pb

Ri: noodles and ketchup

Natascha: noodles with tuna

Vic: strawberries & whatever Natascha had left over

no judgements.

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We had the best coffee at a gas station that we stopped at right after the morning at Cape Hillsborough in which we saw the kangaroos at sunrise. The lovely clerk, Nora, was lovely enough to inform us on what these mysterious splotches that had appeared on our bodies were from. Sand flies. She suggested a bath of vinegar in order to relive the itch. Awesome, thanks.

We made it to Airlee and were in hot search for a camp site. Everything we came across wanted a payment of our first born children. We just need a place with a legal parking slot. A river of flowing gold and all inclusive water parks are not on our criteria. Airlee is also where I got the best smoothie of my entire life. It consisted of raspberry, strawberry, lemon lime sorbet, and mango juice.

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23rd (Whitsundays sailing sesh)

So we had a bit of trouble finding the little sailing shop for our check-in. By a "bit of trouble" I mean "a very large quantity" of trouble. We were about 40 minutes late to the last call for check in. I basically wanted to jump in a pool of xanax by this moment. But just wait. It gets better. The lady at the office is super frantic and tells us that we need to go meet these people at the dock, and STAT. We finally get to the group of slightly upset people. We fill out some paper work and then are asked for our booking voucher. Umm, a voucher you say? That is interesting. We don't have a voucher. Can we use our confirmation email? No. Okay cool. The next few sprinting trips to the van consisted of finding the voucher, bringing the parking receipt to the car (bc parking meter was broken), realizing left the voucher when brought the receipt, find the voucher, and finally being 'approved' to set sail. The process was a test of sanity and aerobic condition.

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24th

This morning we woke up on a sailboat. It was magical. We were also greeted by a couple of dolphins who looked as if they were doing high jump practice right alongside the boat. It was amazing to see so close up. We also saw a huge turtle swimming around. And yes, he looked exactly like 'Crush' from Finding Nemo. Taz, the captain, made friends with a sea eagle by throwing some bits of raw chicken in the air. It was rather cool to see the eagle swoop down and clamp onto the chicken with its talens ***i always think of napoleon dynamite when i hear that word--Do chickens have large talens?**

I saw sooooo many fish while snorkeling. It was breathtaking. I swam along side the big ole rainbow fish, 'bubbles' and 'scar' from finding nemo, reef coral, a maori wrass, the big giant fish from the bass pro shop tanks, and a puffer fish! My favorite thing to do was to grab a big breathe and swim down and through coral 'caves' where some rather neat creatures all hid within. Shoutout to the many years of swim team for the extensive breath holding talent. The crew basically had to pull me out of the water and back to the boat. Ahhh take me back.

First diving experience: My diving group consisted of myself and two guys who were (1) scared of going under water and (2) were severely hungover from the night before. I am not kidding when I say that one guy puked INTO HIS AERATOR. It was so awful. #mytypicallife. Thankfully I was switched into a different group for my second dive. This one was with a Dad and his two kids. I absolutely loved it. The dad and I just swam behind and the instructor showed the kids all the little polyps and anemones around. I just loved watching the kids get so excited about all of the different colors and fish swimming around the. A few special things we got to experience were an entire Nemo family, holding a sea cucumber, and a sea fern-type-thing. Sea cucumbers are consequently my new favorite aquatic animal.

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26/9/15

I’m sitting here trying to decide if mosquitos or sand flies are closer in relation to the devil. The bites are awful. It is made even worse when you don’t have a warm bath or a cozy place to wallow in self pity over the uncomfort. Negatives about sandflies: so small you can’t see them doing the deed, bc you can’t see them- you can’t kill them and hurt the population, there are no “sandfly trucks” spraying around. You cant hear them coming either. Lag on the seeing and then actually feeling the pain (2 days) –so think you get out scotch free but noooo. Negatives on mosquitos: you DO see them doing the deed, you can kill them but so gross, make an awful noise when flying around. Bites get bigger and bigger. Itching starts immediately. Anyways, thanks Satan. Props, bro.

I’m literally so done with camping. I am enjoying the experience, don’t get me wrong, but I’ll likely never do this again. I love basic amenities too much. Ten days as only woods or port-o-potties for toilet options is not ideal. A hot shower that doesn’t smell like 3 day old crap was your showering buddy is what I dream about. A clean towel? Ha. It is a sad point in Brooke’s life when you LOOK FORWARD to gas station coffee.

All of us are starting to slowly shift from a “yayyy ROAD TRIP LETS DO THIS” to more of a “what day is it” or “wouldn't it be cool if a helicopter picked us up and dropped us off at a 5 five star hotel” phrases. It is our fun activities that we get to do or see during the day, however, that makes these nights worth it. Today, for example, we visited Milla Milla falls. This is the waterfall used in all of the Treseme shampoo ads. So I’ve been told…I’ve never actually seen this. It may have been cold and rainy when we got there but Ri and Vic totally went for it. They put on their bikinis and jumped in that water. Props to them. Natascha and I were designated photographers as she is coming down with a cold and I just didn’t want to get wet. Hey now. It was cold, I still had a good drive left to do in the day, and I’m on my girl time. I had showered in the ocean twice now on the trip so it’s not like I’m never an exciting person, right?

take 3,492 was worth it

That is me on the left!

We all were so tired this morning. Victoria ingested 3 espresso shots and a caffeine pill for our drive from Townsville to Cairns. The strangest thing was that she functioned with normalcy. I don’t know whether to be impressed to scared for her. Maybe not totally normal… She did tell this little girl to “get your dog or I will take him with me” while on one of our many coffee stops. I still can’t believe that happened. The mom was so weirded out. Understandable. I’m not convinced that the remark was a side-affect of over-caffeination though. I think that is just her sparkling personality. You do you girl. You do you. But please stop scaring the children.

We met a few extra-nice people today. Extra nice person number 1) We were filling up at a gas station and some random man came up and said, “Are you girls heading north?” We stopped and then answered, “yes”. He then goes, “about 15 minutes north the gas is much cheaper. Just fill up enough to get there and you’ll save some money.” Nat and I just stared at each other. Why is he so nice!? He was just a truck driver that decided to come give us a little local tip. I love Aussies.

Extra nice person number 2) was an old guy at the camp site. This just happened about ½ an hour ago actually. The girls were making tacos out of the van **I’ll expand on this later** and some old man came by with a bichon fries. Of course, me being me, decided to walk up and ask about the darling puppy. Somehow I ended up having a super long conversation about him and his wife’s life story and about Sam (the dog) who is adjusting to camping site “rather impressively”. This caused me to be late for taco time but I had a lovely convo. I just love friendly people. This is the quality that probably makes me such a great candidate for kidnap. You have candy in your van? You want to share? Oh my gosh. It is my lucky day. That is so kind of you.

Bunda is having a blast. Snuggles with my every night and provides pillow services for whomever is napping in the backseat during the long drives. What a trooper. #mascotoftheyear

We visited Magnetic Island today for a bushwalk that we had read about. Supposedly there are 800 resident koalas on the island and you are likely to come across some along this path. I have yet to see a koala and I’ve been here for two months already. I’d say it was time to change that.

We saw soooo many. Some loner koalas and some with babies. We even saw this man who was collecting koala poop. Either he is a researcher or he has a REALLY strange fetish. I climbed a super big tree and had a genuine Pocahontas moment. The end of the trail had an amazing lookout onto the mainland, a few inlets, and all of the beautiful Eucalyptus trees. Another fun part about this bush walk was that it included a free history lesson. This island was an old military station with barracks and gun stations. A few of the structures were still up but it was mostly a concrete slab of what used to exist with an information sign planted nearby.

Mom, I know you’ve told me before how my sleeping style freaks you out. Well, it freaks these girls out to. I’m too still? I don’t get how this is so strange though. In my mind, it just makes sense. Sleeping time is to recharge. Why would my body roll all over and around about? If you ask me, y’all are the weird ones. The part about me liking to sleep in small spaces is weird though. I get that. I’m like the opposite of someone with claustrophobia. Could I be referred to as a claustro-philiac? That’s weird. There is a tent type thing on the roof of our van that houses a twin “matress pad” in which two of us have to sleep in. The other girls switch out nights up top but I just sleep there every night. I’m sleeping in the corner of something that resembles a coffin and am weirdly comfortable with it. Our car company has called the top part the “pent house”. I sure hope they did that out of good hope and not in accuracy. While it is small and cozy, there is no airflow and it is rather miserable to share the same limited O2 with another human for so many hours.

Some girl just walked by our campervan and informed us to “be careful” around the toilets because there are “heaps of snakes” over there. Ahh, can’t wait.

**fun fact: my love of carrots have been renewed. They are so portable and delicious.

**new European songs I’ve fallen in love with

let it go- james bay

finding out more- haevn

I've learned some new german sayings! 'ich haab en heeb' means I love you. I already knew how to ay I love you but apparentlyyyyy there are two different types of I love you in which you say to two different types of people. -the more you know. 'Strauwoosen focal' = ostrich. 'Bittah' = your welcome. 'Danka' = thank you. (Important to note that these are my personal phonetic spellings in which no accuracy to german is present)

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Let’s talk about taco Friday. This is the wonderful tradition that Ingrid has inspired with her Norwegian ways. We thought we’d make them in her honor. We did, however, make a few adjustments. Firstly, we ate them on a Saturday. Nobody had the energy on Friday. Secondly, we made it with mince chicken instead of beef. Yeah, it does sound gross but it was 2 for 1 at wooly’s on the discount section and we are camping. We ain’t ‘posed to be fancy right nah. It tasted different, but not bad.

** note: I saw no snakes at the bathrooms but I did see a few horned beetles.

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27/9/15

My bites are finally starting to go away. I’ve been practically bathing in tropical strength bug repellant for the past few days so bout time I’d be reapping the benefits. I am on a tight schedule of alternating aloe vera, bug spray, and coconut oil on my body. I then pair it with a flip flopping of antihistamine and coffee.

Holy shnikers. Y’all. These people are really so nice. I just stopped at a café to blog while the girls are getting ready for the day. The worker guy just came up to me and offered me a free drink of choice to go with my breakfast. Umm what. Why? I now have a fresh juice heading my way. Orange, apple, lime, and pineapple ON DA HOUSE. What is going onnnnnnn. Does their government put drugs in the water? Is there laughing gas in the atmosphere? Did everyone just so happen to win the lottery today? Was there a free puppy petting session somewhere?

Today we are heading to the Daintree Rainforest for a hike. I’m so pumped. It’ll be nice to move my legs a bit.

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29/9/15

spoke too early about the bug bites. We may have learned to fight the sand flies but then came the amazon sized mosquitos. I guess “tropical strength” must be a tick down from daintree rainforest level. I’m taking antihistamines as if they were mentos. Natascha just informed me that she has a bite between her toes. Ughh that is so awful. I have some lovelies around my ankles and one the size of texas on my hip. The other girls don’t seem to be having such troubles. I guess that just means that Nat and I are the sweetest ones, eh? omg let me tell you about last night. I went to the restroom, saw a roach on my pajama pants, was just like “hmm okay”, and then flicked it away. I’m coming back a changed woman, I tell ya. It worries me a bit that I’ve become accustomed to being so nasty that a roach didn’t bother me in the slightest. **checks pulse

We walked through the Mossman gorge yesterday. It was beautifulllllll! So many gorgeous trees, vines, and mosses. I climbed so many of the trees. We also swam in a little creek. It was so lovely after a long hike. I was coated in sweat, dirt, and bug spray so the nice creek water was rather welcoming. There was even an area wherein the water was being shot through these two rock formations. You could climb the rocks, drop down, and plop straight into the stream and it would push you down a path between rocks. It was like a lazy river, but natural, and in the daintree forest. Ahhhhh. The water was so clear and even tasted yumm. Not sure if I was supposed to drink it but I guess we will see if I ingested a brain eating amoeba in due time.

Last night was rather hilarious. I wanted to treat the girls to s’more for our last night with the campervan. Ri and Vic had already tried them at the Blue Mountains trip but Nat has yet to have one. Poor thing has had to listen to everyone rave about how great they are for some weeks now. We stopped at a grocery store so I could get the goodies. They had the aussie version of graham crackers- check. They had the stupid aussie tiny “marshmellows”- half check. **you can’t buy a regular bag of marshmellows here. They only have super tiny ones and it’s a mix between regular and strawberry**. They didn’t have hersheys chocolate bar either so I got a milk chocolate bar of the “dairy milk” brand. **most grocery stores here carry the cookies and crème Hershey bar but no others. Isn’t that strange? Weirdos**

So we set up our little camper fire and gathered marshmellow sticks, roasted the mellows, set up the imitation s’more, and then waited for nat to enjoy. It was suchhh a let down. Turns out the “diary milk” brand of chocolate bar is awful for smores because it is so thick and doesn’t melt at all. The white marshmellows turned out to also be strawberry flavored. I have a video of her reaction. I felt so bad. She had looked forward to this s’more and it was the worst version I could’ve given her. I’ll do them again for you Nat, I promise! Next time will be more authentic.

** fun fact: for our night in port douglas, every camping site was full. There were two spots in a hostel left so Ri and I splurged for a night in a hostel and Nat and Vic had to illegally sleep in the car. For some reason, they thought the best place to do this would be in front of a 5 star hotel. To their defense, it was dark outside by this time. Even better though, was that Vic stripped naked right in front of it in order to get ready for our diving trip and got chastised by an angry old lady in the street. Our sense of privacy is so lost.

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nice person number 34908194à I went to check in to our campsite last night, had a lovely conversation with the old lady working the desk, and was rewarded with a pretty substantial discount for our location. She even told us to stay past check out time so to enjoy our last day in Cairns! I’m going to credit my southern charm for that one. Thanks Louisiana. As a result, I am having a lovely LARGE long black (two shots of espresso plus hot water) and blogging amidst the daintree rainforest. Can you say heaven?

The girls have slowly awoken and come to join me at the café. We’ve gradually ordered almost one of everything on the menu here. The barista is so sweet and it is our last day here. She said to me, “Well aren’t you just a cute little sausage?!” I took that as a compliment, although I’m still not so sure…

Soon, we will pack up the campervan and drive off towards juicy, return our van, and then check in for our flight.

10/9/15

#AustraliaTrip