The next morning we packed up our stuff. The ground was wet from rain, so that made it
extra difficult for us to attempt creating a packing system for the car. Jojje (Johannes’s nickname from childhood
that he came up with for us to call him) had a strange plethora of unnecessary
items in the car with us, but he insisted we needed them, such as a fan, a
kettle bell, and a footy ball (rugby).
Somehow we were supposed to fit the five of us, all our big bags, plus
the unnecessary items and things we needed for the car.
We were able to get everything in, but it was
obvious we would need a better system as time went on. We were only going to town for supplies at
first anyway.
We stopped for showers, which turned out to be a
major hassle because at least a few of us had not thought ahead far enough to
keep our towels out of our bags for easy access, myself included. Luckily I knew where my towel was in my bag,
so I didn’t have to drag everything out to look. Poor Marco bore the brunt of the shame, since
his bag was the most packed away and his towel on the very bottom of his
bag. It would not be the last time that
he was a bit of an inconvenience, but honestly everyone would make us wait at
one point or another, so who can throw stones?
The swimming pool is an easy place to get a
shower (let that be a tip when you’re feeling homeless or dirty). It was extra money to pay for swimming as
well, but I thought most of us were just showering, so I paid for just a
shower. As it turned out, everyone swam
or sat in the hot tub except for me, so I was out WELL before anyone else. I had been the first one to go in the
building, so I hadn’t seen that the others were going to swim first. I felt a little left out, but oh well.
We eventually all got back in the car and headed
to the grocery store for food. We went
to ALDI, which is a well-known grocery store that sells off-brand or bulk items
for pretty low prices. Sadly, we had all
decided that on our limited cookware, trying to do group dinners and cook for
five of us was going to be a pain, so we wouldn’t do group dinners. Kind of a bummer.
There was never a talk ahead of time about
limiting the amount of groceries you buy, so we hadn’t really agreed on
that. Joe and I knew that space was a
major factor, so we limited our stuff.
Once we all got back to the car we realized that we had way too much
stuff. We were able to fit everything
in, but only by smashing things in, carrying things on our laps, and intending
to re-group the packing idea later.
Marco had bought WAY MORE items than Joe and I combined. The boys had also bought new mattresses to
sleep on in their tents, but had jumped for what was cheap rather than what
would pack down small. We were full to
bursting.
While we were repacking in the parking lot of the
ALDI, I took my hiking boots out, set them on the curb, took the insoles out of
them to put in my other shoes, and then I don’t remember ever seeing the boots
again. I don’t know if they were under
the car or in the bushes, maybe on the roof of the car… it was okay because I
was going to leave them before the end of Australia anyway because they were
starting to fall apart, but at the same time I was sad that I had left them
behind unintentionally without saying a proper goodbye. Misplacing them would bother my brain for a
long time because I wish I had known their fate. The one thing I was thankful for was that I
had taken the insoles out so I could make my other shoes better for my
feet. That’s the way it goes.
I found a WikiCamps site within a couple of hours
from Horsham, which was as far as we would get since it took nearly all day to
pack, shower, buy groceries, and get a few other things done. We drove to the location the site was pinned
at, but found nothing but a mostly-dark neighborhood. I went walking up and down the street, but
found nothing. We saw a park nearby with
a shed and some trees behind it, which looked hidden enough. It was too dark to keep looking for something
else. We parked the car and started the
annoying process of figuring out what we needed out of the back of the car for
the night.
Jojje had been hoping to sleep in the back of the
car during the trip, but it quickly became apparent that there was going to be
way too much stuff to haul in and out every night. He instead tried out the pop-up tent that had
come with the car when he bought it.
Joe and I realized right away that we had the
superior tent, not to be snotty. I
realize we are two people sleeping in one tent, where each of them had their
own tent, so it would take theoretically twice as long to set up. But ours was up in like a tenth of the
time. This would be a recurring theme
and I thanked my lucky stars that my dad had been so ingenious to give me as a
Christmas gift a tent so simple and yet so useful.
To pay us back for the shared tin foil dinner we
had had on the first night, Jojje and Marco made us some delicious
spaghetti. After the work of finding a
place and setting up camp, none of us felt like cleaning up dinner dishes, so
we left them.
It rained all night. Like, every moment of the night. Jojje’s pop-up tent was worthless in the
rain. Marco and his gear were wet. Gwen woke up in a puddle in her tent. Joe and I stayed fairly dry, but even our
amazing tent didn’t withstand ALL of the rain.
We were all pretty miserable. And
it was still raining when we woke up.
The guys had left all of their cooking gear out in the rain, to some
detriment. The carton that held their
eggs was falling apart and the camp stove burner was entirely deluged. Oops.
We packed up wearily, cursing the rain. This was not going to be a very fun ride if
the first night were any indication of what the rest of it would be like.
Since we had woken up so early because of the wet
and cold, we made it into Adelaide pretty early. We all wanted to see a bit of Adelaide, and
Jojje had some friends he wanted to visit in the town. We first headed towards the coast, hoping
that we could get the rather fierce wind to dry our tents and mattresses for us. And of course, the minute we started to get
them out and blowing in the wind, the rain started again. We ran back to the car, feeling defeated.
To combat the feeling of defeat, we decided to
reward ourselves by going to the IKEA we had seen on the way in (and we teased
Jojje about IKEA being a Swedish masterpiece).
They had cheap Saturday morning deals on pancakes and other breakfast
items. It was mostly just a relief to
sit somewhere warm and clean and not as cramped as the car.
Breakfast was amazing. Pancakes were so good. I might have even gotten seconds, though I
can’t really remember now. Had it been
in Southeast Asian prices, I would have had seconds for sure, but since it was
Australia and still expensive even on sale, it could have gone either way. But the coffee was bottomless and soooooo
warming.
Part way through breakfast Jojje looked around
and was suddenly like, “Oy! Those are my
friends!” He went over to the table and
said a surprised hello, which was greeted with more surprise and warmth. The family moved over to our table.
Cam and Min were forty-something and had twin
boys. Jojje had met them trekking in
Vietnam on a group trek. Jojje had taken
turns sharing the load of carrying the twins on their backs, in order to ease
the strain for the parents. I think that
kindness had really won him some respect because they were so congenial. It was really pleasant to talk to them,
especially because they were so open with backpackers. Most adults in Australia thought backpacker
was synonymous with free-loader or bum.
Min was on her break from working at the airport, where she was a
customs agent. They had a ritual of
meeting for breakfast at IKEA for her break since it was right down the road.
We said a very friendly goodbye and the five of
us continued to enjoy the coffee for a little while longer. We looked up things to do in Adelaide and
decided to head to a museum downtown. We
also talked about the possibility of Cam and Min letting us stay in their yard
or something like that. Johannes very
delicately texted a subtle hint.
We wriggled our way out of the car, paid for
parking, and went into the museum. We
agreed to meet at a certain time at the front of the museum, since we would
probably get separated.
When I go in to a museum I sometimes get guilt
that I may not read everything and will consequently miss so much of the
knowledge the museum is trying to give me.
Silly and nerdy, but then I almost always get really involved with all
the information and read far too many of the words. :)
By the time we met back up, I had maybe seen only
half of the museum, at best. Joe was
quite late in meeting up, so I had to ask the information desk to make an
announcement for him. He came down blushing, but raving about the portion of
the museum he had been focused on. He
took us there and we explored that bit together. He had LOVED the elements on display, as well
as the cloud chamber.
Once we were headed back to the car, Jojje told
us that Cam and Min had invited us to stay at their place for the night. Oh my goodness what a relief. We would have a bit of warmth, a shower, and
a chance to dry our stuff.
We had time to kill, however, so we went to a
park and started testing to see how many pull-ups we could each do. We made our goals for what we wanted to be
able to do by the end of the trip, and personally I thought mine was
unattainable. I couldn’t do a single one,
but my goal was three. That is an
infinite improvement, technically.
We also did a sprint from one side of the field
to the other, which was hard for those of us who were so out of shape. It was especially hard on Marco, which was
interesting because he is a muscly dude.
My theory is though, that he has spent many years beefing himself up,
but not really doing much cardio. He had
to lay in the back seat of the car feeling faint for a while.
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