West Coast Nightmare...

I couldn't contain my excitement after meeting the two Germans, Emi and Thomas, in Perth. It seemed like sharing the drive up the west coast, up to Darwin and back down to Alice Springs would work out perfectly. Let's just say I had no idea what I was in for..... Basically, all the luck that I've been experiencing over the last few months suddenly ran out. The first day I was driving was....strange. We were in the middle of the dessert and it already felt like we were on the moon, so when the sun started setting and everything just glowed these completetly unreal colours, Thomas decides to put on German folk music and it was such a bizarre experience it actually felt like I was hallucinating. I was actually expecting pink kangaroos to come out of the bushes and bounce beside the car in slow motion. That's when I first knew we were going to have problems. Thomas turned out to be an extreme eccentric. He shaved his arm pits, but I don't think he brushed his teeth. He drank a two litre bottle of coke every day (starting at breakfast) and chain smoked like you wouldn't believe (basically he breathed more through his cigarettes than he did regular air), yet would lecture us about healthy eating. He refused to buy groceries with us, but helped himself to ours. He made rules for his car that we'd get yelled at for breaking, but these rules didn't apply to him, of course. When we got up at 4 in the morning to make it to the beautiful, serene Pinnacle Dessert to watch the sun rise over it, he blared Star-Trek music the whole time! He wasn't joking either. He was constantly in a bad mood and just enjoyed annoying us.....for no stinking reason! It got quite a bit too much and was really no fun at all.

Besides the crazy German man the heat became unbearable and the flies were swarming us to the point where you can understand how people go insane permanently. FYI, northern Australia is not the best place to be in the summer time. It is officially the wet season, where temperatures rise to 45 degrees, humidity is around 80%, and it rains for days, bringing on cyclones and flooding. We stopped off at a gas station to use the toilet and the toilet water was steaming. Steaming toilet water is perfect for those who'd be interested in giving their bum a facial, but personally I think it's just plain gross. The heat was so intense that the road kill mummified before it had a chance to fully decompose. We came across a great red kangaroo that was almost fully intact, just chilling out by the side of the road, probably for the last 40 years! I put in a picture of it. Just for the record, we did not put the beer bottle in it's paws. There was no way I was going to take it out though! I wasn't going near it.

So, it's understandable that we became more and more apprehensive the further north we went. Between Thomas and the climate, each day was getting progressively worse. Just when I got to my breaking point, fate kicked in....or kicked us out.....and by "fate", I mean "Thomas". Yup, for 5 days we passed at least one town a day that was somewhat civilized, where people said G'Day and tipped their hats to one another. Okay, that's not true. Basically they were places where our cell phones worked. On the 5th day, however, we landed in Exmouth (which Thomas calls Esmouse because he's German and has a lisp). Oh Exmouth, where the tumbleweeds frequent, population: minus 5 and worst of all our cell phones didn't work. This is the place where Thomas decided he'd rather travel alone. He left two girls stranded in the middle of nowhere, where the only things to bat our eyelashes at to get help, were cows and mummified kangaroos! We couldn't actually believe he'd done it, but we didn't exactly argue either. To tell you the truth, I think both of us would have crawled our way through the desert just so we wouldn't have to spend another day in that car. When he dropped us off at our campsite, I was out of that car faster than you can say "leiderhossen", but not before I told him I thought he was full of Schnitzel and to kiss my Heineken. : ) Can you think of anymore? So, rejected and with a tent full of melting food (Thomas took the cooler) Emi and I decided to drown our sorrows in the ocean and spent the day in Turquoise Bay snorkeling. It turned out to be the best snorkel I've ever done. SOMETHING good had to come out of this experience! By the afternoon we'd decided the best thing to do at that point was to cut our losses and bow out gracefully. In other words, give up and turn the heck around! We were only halfway up the coast and five days into a month long trip, yet within hours of our decision we were on a bus headed back to Perth and 16 hours later, the whole ordeal was just a distant memory. We can actually laugh about it now. If anything it was a character building experience, and not ALL of it was bad. In Monkey Mia we camped by one of the most beautiful beaches, where the dolphins would come right up to the shore and brush by us when we were swimming. That was amazing. ...and..........um.....did I mention the Pinnacles were pretty?....Oh, I did.....um yeah.....I can't really think of anything else. Oh, getting back to Perth was reeeeeeally good, in fact, probably the best thing that had happened all week.

Both Emi and I spent one night in Perth, then went our separate ways the next morning. She flew to Alice Springs and I flew directly to Ayers Rock. The view flying in was amazing. The ground was so unbelievably red it just didn't seem real. I have to say, seeing Ayers Rock for the first time from the plane window was almost shocking. It is just SO HUGE! The flight was also interesting as I had one of the flight attendants sit with me and chat through half the flight. I found out some disturbing information the next day though, when I received an email from him informing me that as soon as we'd walked off the plane, it broke down. Something you never ever want to hear.....ever....especially me who HATES flying. Well I guess it's better broken down on the ground than in the air (*shiver!*). I got to the hotel at 2, was on the bus to the rock by 3, there until 8 to see the sunset, back to the hostel to book my flight for the next morning and back to Melbourne by the next afternoon. I'd hit 3 states in 3 days. A new record! So a few facts about Ayers Rock. The rock is actually grey but is so full of iron, that it rusts and turns the outer rock red. Who knew? Yeah, come to think of it, that's pretty much the only fact that might interest you, so I'll stop there. It really was magnificent though.

So back to Melbourne where I sought refuge after my traumatic ordeal...ha, not really. It was nice to be back with my friends though, and sleeping in a real bed without having to worry about snakes and spiders in it, oh yeah, and without an angry German yelling at me. I arrived the night of Lauren's birthday party, which had all the same people from my going away party only a week earlier. I've never seen so many people do double takes when seeing me there. I basically spent the week sleeping and relaxing. Valentines night, Ian, his sister Tina and I went to the beach and drank champagne at sunset. It was absolutely beautiful. It all had to come to an end though when I realized I had to move on before my money disappeared.

To be continued..........