Category — Road Trippin’

On Friday Jeff and I went to Canberra, our second road trip in as many weeks.

After forgetting my hair-straightener, deodorant and any form of bra that held my chesticles above my knees, we decamped to a car rental place situated above a garage, heavily populated by idle taxi drivers like flamingos around a watering hole. I’m not sure what I was going for there, mostly just the image of a lot of taxi drivers.

The fake leather couches in the demountable office only solidified the  distinct atmosphere that this was the sort of place where you could probably trade sexual favours for a few more charge-free kilometres per day.

With no sexual favours exchanged, we were on our way.

Jeff has both pros and cons as a travel buddy. Pros include owning TomTom and knowing how to set up blue-tooth to play music from an iPhone over the car’s stereo, actively encouraging snack breaks and being understanding about my inability to park cars very well. Cons include refusing to make out at red lights, mocking my inability to stop at suggested snack break establishments, highlighting my tendency to hang left and insisting that it was unsafe for me to drive with five Cheezels on my left hand.

We stayed at the Mecure, in a two-storied room and I celebrated such a score by purchasing some gin and tonic in can and retiring to the bath, where I caught up on The Wall Street Journal* and The Economist**.

The weather was gloriously cold and I squealed and curled up in my suitcase alongside my thick stockings and jackets and array of very grandma-esque underwear that keeps my kidneys and lady bits warm in the cooler climates. I love winter clothing.

I think this winter’s look is best described as ‘Soviet sex spy’.

Saturday was the Canberra Craft Beer Festival which happened to be held in our very hotel. We met up with some of my favourite buddies from high school – Adam, Marty and Tim – and settled into seven hours of drinking, coupon heists and sausages.  

Photo by Tim.

Photo by Jeff.

Afterwards, Jeff and I went to the Neutrell household and played Fruit Ninja on Kinect. It’s amazing how seven hours of beer can make you unselfconscious about ninja chopping the air and getting overly competetive about who is the greatest food ninja and crying in the corner when it isn’t you. Poor Jeff***.  

The next day we met up with one of my most dearest, darlingest friends, Skye and visited Jeff’s adorbs puppy, Po before beginning our trip back to Syds, during which I was still not allowed to wear Cheezels rings while driving.

I recommend a good roap trip, I think it’s healthy to get a change of scenery. Just remember: forgetting to pack a bra is an expensive, expensive mistake unless you can fashion a weekend replacement with a coathanger and two shower caps.

* By which I mean Who magazine

** And again, still Who.

*** By which I mean me.

We have returned safe and sound from America.

Here are some stats:

4 travellers
1 gold Dodge Durango
10,000km
7 states
16 hotel check-ins
a million pee stops
0 roadkill
107kg of checked luggage

 Stories from the road to follow soon!

Looking through my photos, I realised two things. First, I spend a lot of time pulling faces at myself on my web-cam, and secondly, I never wrote about going to Hill End with my mum in July, which rounded out our Central West road trip.

When we last left you, we had visited both Wattle Flat and Sofala, and I had begun to fear for my life at the hands of a hoon, known as My Mother, Mooma, M-Diddy.

Mum had been to Hill End a few weeks prior to my visit with Dad, and he had taken her there via the Bridle Track. The Bridle Track is a very narrow stretch of road, wide enough for only one vehicle, with a cliff face on one side, and a large drop on the other. The experience scared the living bejesus out of Mum. The Bridle Track is currently closed due to a rock slide. I suspect Mum caused it that so Dad would never take her on it again.

Anyways, possibly to save face, when she took me to Hill End, via another route, she really got in touch with her inner Ken Block and I am not ashamed to admit that after several very fast, white-knuckled blind corners, I asked her to slow down. And she cackled at me and paid no attention to my pleas.

We made it to Hill End alive, and it was time for some photos [more here]

When Mum saw this floor, she immediately started wondering aloud how easy it would be to replicate at the farm. When we got home, she described it to Dad and before she even finished, he was all ‘No. No. No we’re not doing that’. Foiled!

As we were heading back to Orange, Mum caught a glimpse of this sign, hit the brakes and had me run across the road to get a picture. In doing so, I risked my life, but as you can see, it was worth it.

Looking back through all these photos has reawakened my love of road tripping, though the only one I currently have planned isn’t until next year, but it is in the US and it does include Death Valley. So excited.

After Wattle Flat, Mum and I headed to Sofala. Sofala is a strange town. It looks like a set for a movie about the gold rush, and it’s easy to forget that people actually live there. There were a few times I suddenly realised that I was on some-one’s front porch, standing a few inches away from their lounge room or bedroom window, taking a photo of their roof. Sorry about that Sofala-ians.

After I was done annoying the locals, we headed for our final destination, Hill End. It was on this leg of the trip that I discovered that Mum has a scary secret and I began to fear for my life…

When I was visiting home, one road trip I really wanted to take was to Hill End, a historic town about 130 kms from Orange.

One day Mum and I decided to set off, and of the three or so routes, we decided to head in through Sofala.

It was one of those incredible days where facing one direction, there was nothing to see but deep blue sky, and the other, rolling dark clouds.

Before we reached Sofala, we came across the cemetery of a tiny village called Wattle Flat. As we were in no rush, we decided to spend some time wandering around, something both of us really enjoy doing.

I find them particularly peaceful places, Wattle Flat no exception.

When I was visiting the parents, I knew I wanted to do as many road trips as I could.

My modus operandi was mostly that I had a few places I really wanted to go to take photos and that I had some really good road trip mixes I wanted to listen to, but also I had recently been craving driving, which I really haven’t felt much of an urge to do since a car accident I was in a few years ago. I had, pretty much, developed a phobia of driving, whether I was driving or someone else was. I was not a fun passenger.

I woke up on the Tuesday and looked out the window and the day was magnificent. In the country, before a storm, usually a large storm, the sky turns almost black, and for some reason this makes the paddocks turn a strange luminous orange.

I set out in the afternoon, with no particular stops in mind, except that I wanted a few hours of continuous, fast driving. Driving in the country is a different beast to city driving, and, in my humble opinion, much more fun, especially in a manual, which is also my preference and Mum was kind enough to lend me hers.

Coming down the hill from Bathurst, it was suddenly obvious that there was indeed a hell of a storm on the way. Like most country towns, the cemetery is right up against the road on the outskirts of town. I’ve taken photos at Bathurst cemetery before, and it’s never been a particular favourite, but this day, the gravestones were lit up against the purple sky and at the last second I decided I had to stop.

I am so glad that I did and my only regret was not spending more time there.

At this point, I did start to wonder how big the storm was going to be, and where it would hit.

I spent the next few hours visiting friends living out either side of Bathurst [I've never been so happy to have GPS], before heading back to Orange at about 10:30 that night, when ice was starting to form on the road, cars and trees.

There’s a fairly windy piece of road, maybe 40kms out of Orange, called The Rocks and visibility was probably 10 metres when I drove through, a semi right behind me for most of the way, which is never fun, no matter what you do, their lights hit every mirror at night.

It was kinda exhilarating and so much fun.