Sometimes when I think about it, I’m amazed that I’m not still sitting in a grocery store carpark in Katherine, Northern Territory. Katherine is an outback town, 3 hours south of Darwin, filled with tradesman, a Woothworth’s, a large Aboriginal population, and not much else. In a serious way, Katherine is the last real town you’ll hit if embarking on an Outback road trip, like we were. Melissa, Michael and I agreed, all of the T’s had to be crossed and I’s dotted before we left Katherine. If everything went to plan, we’d be cruising out of Katherine fully stocked, gassed and prepped for the Outback road trip we’d all been waiting for. But of course, things never happen the way you think they will.

It was a Friday, late afternoon when we rolled into the Woolie’s carpark, the whole town was ready to shut down for the weekend. Despite the crowds, we found a parking spot right smack dab in the middle of the lot. We went in to the store eager, and with a game plan. We bought everything: water, canned goods, eggs, rice, pasta, toiletries, wine, beer, spirits, and plenty of ice. Our shopping cart was so full, we struggled to fit everything into the Tetris game that was our Holden Commodore station wagon, Connie.

There’s no better way to describe the heat in the North Territory other than, oppressive. After stuffing Connie to the brim with our loot, the three of us hopped in and rolled the windows down, immediately. This quick reaction to a boiling hot car, is really what made our night. Mike, as usual, was in the driver’s seat. He turned the key and while the electricity turned on, Connie’s engine did not. She’d stuttered before, so he tried again. Nothing. And again. The three of us sat for a minute in our car that wouldn’t start, windows down, filled with everything we owned.

Mike was the amateur mechanic, he figured it had to be the battery, but the battery was new. We popped the hood and the battery light was green. We tried to turn the key again, and this time, it just wouldn’t rotate at all. We were stuck and absolutely clueless about what to do.

Two tradies about our age rocked up to see if they could help. The boys discussed possible solutions, tried taking the battery out and putting it back. After becoming sufficiently stumped, they offered us a beer and their words of advice: You don’t want to leave your car here overnight, there won’t be anything left when you get back.

Somewhere in that time a heavily tattoo’d man returned to his car directly in front of ours and called out a possible solution before driving off. Next, an awkward but talkative gas station attendant came to try his hand at getting Connie going. He’d apparently owned several Commodore’s and offered some potential solutions as well as jumper cables. After being unsuccessful, he drove off as well, mentioning as he left what we already knew at this point, we couldn’t have picked a worse time or place to breakdown.

While Australia is modern in many ways, it cannot claim the treatment of it’s indigenous people as such. The Aboriginal quagmire, I’ll call it, is self-inflicted, obvious and a prevalent issue in Australia, particularly in the Northern Territory. The parking lot we’d broken down in was crowded with homeless Aboriginal people, socializing, fighting, trying to find someone to buy them alcohol (which is restricted for them to buy). A broken down car, windows down, filled with food, booze, bedding, and camping gear just wouldn’t survive the night untouched.

At this point, it was getting dark. Melissa and I decided to try the police man stationed at the liquor store. As it turns out, he used to be a mechanic. Even still, everyone was stumped and again, the only advice we were given was not the leave the car unattended. Approaching probably 8pm, the mission turned to towing the car from the parking lot. I should mention that the barren drive approaching Katherine is littered with “Katherine Towing” advertisements. In their words, they will tow “Anything, Anywhere, Anytime.” Well, Melissa, Michael and I know this to be a flat out lie.

Melissa and I first took a walk to find a hotel where we could tow the car to. The woman on reception was kind and worried about us. She said we could park it out back in the employee lot. Great, we thought.. that’s something. So, we called that Katherine Towing. We were told that they would not tow us, they cannot fit into even an empty parking lot and that we were on our own. The man on the line didn’t exactly tell us to go fuck ourselves, but he might as well have.

At this point it’s getting late, and nothing about the situation had changed. Each of us feeling helpless, angry and absolutely incredulous.  Personally, I was distraught. If we weren’t going to get towed we needed to at least make it look like the windows weren’t blatantly open. Which is when I decided to go back into Woolie’s just before closing to buy trash bags to tape the windows up with. In my state of mind, I figured that we needed all of the trash bags to extra protect our windows. This is when I purchased twenty five dollars worth of trash bags, more than any human being should need at once. I realized how over-the-top I’d been about the plan when Melissa returned with just one roll of duct tape to secure my 6 or so rolls of industrial-strength trash bags. Needless to say, for the rest of the trip we never needed more bin bags.

While she was buying that one roll of Duct Tape, Melissa managed to speak to someone who knew someone who had a grandfather who may know someone who could help.  Great, we’d love that phone number. We called and waited, someone was supposed to come by. No one really had battery left on our phone so we used the pay phones near buy. It was almost midnight at this point, anyone who wanted to break into our car had been watching us struggle with the situation all day. We gave up the trash bag window idea and thought about calling a cab, and unloading everything from Connie into it so we could sleep for the night. We hadn’t eaten or drunk anything all day, we were physically and emotionally drained. The receptionist from the hotel we’d talked to drove by in a little four door car, she was still concerned. She offered to pull us along with her car, while it was the most helpful thing anyone had offered so far, we knew Connie was just too heavy to manage that.

It was midnight when the very same heavily tattoo’d man we’d seen at the very beginning of the ordeal drove into the now-empty carpark. I’m not going to lie at first, at first we were a little sketched out. It wasn’t long before we realized that the same man who’d we’d parked in front of to start off the day in Katherine was that friend of someone’s grandfather and our knight in extensive face tatts. He also happened to be a mechanic. Instead of towing us, he promptly ripped the ignition barrel out of it’s place ( essentially, the way you rob a car.) and VROOM.It was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Just like that Connie started up again. Our nameless hero figured the real issue was the fuel pump, which would probably set us back a few hundred.

Unbelievably, we drove ourselves out of the Woolworth’s parking lot that night. Out of all the outcomes, we didn’t think this would be it.  It took ten hours in a Woolworth’s car park, countless conversations with strangers, a new ignition gage, new fuel pump, and twenty five dollars worth of trash bags, but we somehow got Connie back up and running. When we got in to drive off, we put the windows up and for the rest of our two month road trip, never rolled them down before starting the car again.

Our favorite receptionist continued to be a complete gem when we finally made it to the hotel, giving us a private room for the same price as we were paying for a shared hostel dorm. As we laid there in that private room, exhausted, finally able to breathe, we went over the details of the day we’d managed to get through. The last thing we had expected.

It’s been almost three months since my last entry and I have travelled over 7,000 km since then via one 2004 Holden Commodore station wagon. We named her Connie. Despite the various ups and downs willingly living out a car brings, Melissa, Micheal and I made it to Melbourne, just like we had planned. It wasn’t always easy.  The Northern Territory was oppressively hot, and the east coast brought us almost entirely rain. Living out of a car was a learning curve.  But now, I’ve blinked and it’s back to needing a job, paying for over-priced hostels and showering daily.

We started off on a Friday, mid afternoon from Darwin. It was onwards to Kakadu National Park, the largest national park in Australia. Kakadu is waterfalls, crocodiles and Aboriginal cave paintings. To get around, a 4×4 is recommended. Connie was not a 4×4 but we made do. Most of the time she did okay, despite almost overheating on a “2WD accessible road”. We had Kakadu almost entirely to ourselves it seemed. We were driving out of the NT pretty close to wet season which meant the crowds were nothing compared to the dry season highs. It spoiled us.

After Kakadu it was on to Edith Falls, where small fish nipped at you if you stood still for too long.  It didn’t ruin anything though. Waterholes are what the NT was good for. Finding croc-free swimming was a God send and any break from the heat was appreciated. Leaving Edith Falls would bring us to Katherine. Where we needed to settle any issues, stock up on everything for the journey down the to center of the country. At this point, we didn’t know what Connie had in store for us.

The story deserves it’s own post. But let’s just say; Katherine brought us one hell of a breakdown, a whole day in a Woolworth’s parking lot and a new fuel pump. Because of what happened, we decided Connie couldn’t make it down to the bottom of the NT then back up to Cairns and also down the East coast, like we had planned. So, we cut out Uluru and some other things on our list and headed towards Port Douglas. A beach town just north of Cairns and the top of the East Coast of Australia.

Driving the Outback is barren. We passed absolutely nothing for hundreds of kilometers. When we finally would hit a town, someone would say something along the lines of, “ people actually live here? What do they do…”. Seriously, there’s nothing. We slept in gravel pits and showered out of a bucket. We did make it to Daly Waters, an infamous little pub in the middle of nowhere, with the oldest liquor license in the Territory. It was here I found out what a hangover in the NT sun was like ( not great…) . For the sake of my dignity, I won’t post the details on the internet. Crossing into Queensland passed a stretch of unbelievable bushfires that probably lasted 10 miles. We also saw the largest (we would later find out was a Wedge-tailed) Eagle devouring roadkill and a mutilated cow carcass we still have questions about.

Then, we made it to Port Douglas for our first East Coast experience. It felt like the real civilization we’d been missing for months. Our days in Port Douglas were filled with the Daintree rainforest, and Cape Tribulation. ( Did you know Australia is the only place in the world with tropical rainforests that doesn’t have monkeys?)

From Port Douglas, we’d head to Cairns, where we booked the rest of trip we had planned. This included; two nights on Magnetic Island, Two nights on a sail boat in the Whitsundays, and three days on Fraser Island. After price haggling with a tour company, we booked almost everything our selves for cheaper.

Magnetic Island brought us koala bears. Wild, koala bears. Which I thought would be too elusive of an animal to see on my Australian adventure. I was wrong. Melissa, Mike and I saw at least 5 koala bears hanging out on Magnetic Island, even a baby one. We also fed rock wallabies from our hands. We rented a bang up, topless, blue 4×4 and smashed through the unpaved roads in Magnetic Island. Mike did donuts in the sand. While staying at Base X hostel, the only hostel on the island, we played bingo and did not win a damn thing. I did however convince the manager to give me cheese after the kitchen had closed. Which felt like a win to me.

We left our blue little convertible hoopdie to get Connie back and drove to Arlie Beach, the kickoff point for our Whitsunday’s sailing trip. We were to board Condor, a ship that has one every important race in the world- twice. Condor would be the vessel for an incredible group of people over the following two days, and a fucking crazy sailing trip. The weather was what made this trip. It was grey skies and storm clouds almost all the way. Once we got on board we were told to grab the yellow raincoats from down below and hold on. The Captain reminded us, this weather is what this ship was made for. We all thought, “ oh cool sailing!” We did not expect Condor to eventually become vertical with two sails up. The meaning of ‘hold on’ took a whole new meaning. When we reached our destination for the night, we saw a baby dolphin and his mother. We opened up the liquor on board and sat around talking about how crazy the sailing had just been. Later we learned, none of the other sailboats around us braved the storm and put up their sails. At one point, we broke the bow line. Condor was still the fastest boat in the water.

The weather on the Whitsunday’s would be about the same for the duration of our trip. It didn’t stop us from enjoying the incredible white sand that Whitehaven Beach provided and it certainly didn’t stop us from enjoying the company of the people on board. Condor may have given Mike, Melissa and I a hell of a head cold but it was one of my personal favorite parts of the road trip. I also spotted a shark snorkeling, so all in all, Whitsunday’s was fantastic.

From Whitsunday’s we headed to Fraser Island. Which can be summed up basically with:  sand roads, wild dingos and SURPRISE- more car trouble. This time it was trouble from our rental 4×4 and not from our baby, Connie. It’s another car trouble story for the history books. Another one that needs it’s own post and still makes me wonder how we even got ourselves out of it. Aside from the car trouble and being surrounded by wild dingo’s, Fraser Island was peaceful and almost untouched. Despite the car trouble, we were happy we chose not to join a tour group, opting to drive our own car. Mike once again enjoyed the off roading aspect of the 4×4 only vehicle island. Melissa and I both even got behind the wheel, once.

After we’d emotionally recuperated after our Fraser Island experience, we were off to Noosa where we were meeting Melissa Irish-Australian Family. We left our tents in the car and were treated like royalty once we arrived. “ Absolutely lovely” doesn’t exactly cover how great Melissa’s family is but that’s what we’ll go with. Mike and I really weren’t surprised. They even threw me a big Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings. It made me homesick, but I was happy to spend Thanksgiving with a big family rather than by a camp stove. We were also treated with tickets to the Australia Zoo. Which is the zoo Steve Irwin and his family own. It will probably be the best zoo I ever visit. We pat kangaroos and koalas, got ridiculously close to lemurs, and got to go to the animal hospital to see how they take care of all the animals. It was honestly fantastic and I highly recommend a visit if you’re in the Noosa/ Brisbane Area.

After four days eating and drinking all we could manage with Mel’s family, we had to sell Connie and we were running out of time. Melissa was scheduled to fly home for Christmas and everyone wanted to be in Melbourne. Our registration had one more week left before it expired. Everyone was strapped for cash at this point. The trouble was that we’d bought Connie in the NT, where everything is more expensive. We thought, incorrectly, that we’d be able to sell her for more than we paid, considering the massive amount of money we’d put into the car. We waited anxiously for someone, anyone to answer our advert and take Connie off our hands before we needed to extend the registration. We weeded out a few scams before someone, in the 9th hour, decided to take Connie off our hands. It was a pitiful price we sold her for but it needed to be done. By the end of November we’d traveled over 7,000 km in Connie and finished our East Coast tour exactly how we had planned it. We mastered eating out of an esky, setting up camp in the dark and living out of a car. The road trip wasn’t always planned but it was always interesting. As I’m sitting in a Melbourne cafe right now, it’s crazy to think of the route we completed to get here. Beep beep !

At this point I’m about 1/3 of the way through with my working visa. Time flies. I had no real plans after touching down and while I can’t claim things have gone seamlessly with this strategy, I still like to believe everything happens for a reason. I’ve gotten somewhat stuck in Darwin again, this time for work. But after losing my phone and breaking my computer, I really didn’t think the best decision for me was to head into the unknown with very little money and zero technology. So, I hit up a friend I’d made before that failed sailing trip and begged for a job, hopped a plane from the east coast and made it back to Darwin ( Thanks Lee) . I honestly don’t know how well things would have gone if I didn’t also meet someone in Bali willing to let me stay in his apartment for free while he was on holiday ( Thanks Nigel) . And now, I’m situated in a 5 bedroom house, a stones throw away from work and headed off on an epic road trip with two people I’m excited to adventure with.

I guess what I’m getting at is that, Darwin isn’t so bad. I hated it at first, hated waiting around for a sailing trip, hated the fact that I got on board with a narcissist and had to hire a seaplane to take me back to Darwin. I’ve been spending the last four months back and fourth from a place I wasn’t too keen about to begin with. But, as life will have it, I think I found some things I needed along the way. Now I’m actually glad I’ve spent so much time in the Outback. I’ve made great friends and I’ve been to places that a lot of backpackers don’t get to. I’ve met people who were willing to give me a job, use their house rent free, two who want to split a car and road trip the east coast together and, one who wanted to travel to Bali. More than once in these last four months I’ve felt down trodden and over budget. But I’m not done yet. I figure this was a good time to remind myself, and whoever reads this, what I’ve been up to.  Because while I feel like I’ve “just” been back and fourth to Darwin, I’ve still squeezed in some good exploring.

So, the adventure started in June. What I thought would be an easy flight path turned into yelling at LAX employees and a free night in a California airport hotel. When I finally made it to Sydney, I messed up my hostel booking and needed to immediately find a place to stay.  Once I did, I did the whole making hostel friends thing, visited cafes and saw all the classic Sydney landmarks I’d had in mind. While I was in Sydney was also when I got in touch with Peter, the captain of the catamaran I eventually boarded and Kevin, the farmer of the farm I’d eventually make my way to sans cellphone.

After getting in touch with Peter, I found a cheap flight to Darwin and within a few days my Northern Territory adventure had begun. It was probably a little under three weeks I spent in Darwin before getting on the boat. It felt like much longer though. I met Melissa and a few others, we pissed away too much money trying to find things to do. When I finally got the call the boat was back in Darwin. I met Ellie, and we found out that the boat was broken and we would not be sailing immediately but staying anchored, in Darwin for another week while the captain’s daughters were on board. So Ellie and I pissed away too much money in Darwin, trying to find wifi and things to do. At this point I was living on a boat in front of the sailing club that I’m now employed at.

When the girls left and the sail was fixed, we finally set sail to the Kimberley’s. We bought heaps of snacks and supplies, thinking that we would be on the boat for the better part of two months. It was a two day sail to the first river of the Kimberleys, Berkley River. The captain had not grown on me and his girlfriend never wore any clothes. I think it was day 5 I finally said out loud to Ellie that I wished I never got on board. Maybe it was day 6 she mirrored the same thoughts back to me. We hoped it would get better. But Ellie and I would go to our bedroom after dinner every night and whisper and gossip about each days antics. Long story short, we started to plot our escape. When it was all said and done, Peter thought it was his idea and we weren’t going to be trapped on a boat for much longer. We sailed to King George’s River and watched as our rescue seaplane landed next to the boat. That plane ride was probably the best part of the sailing trip… leaving. Oh and, we saw two crocodiles. But back to Darwin it was.

After the five hundred dollar unexpected expense in the seaplane, Ellie and I mutually agreed that we wanted to go somewhere where we could stretch our pennies. So, Bali it was. We caught the first plane out of Darwin to Bali. I’ll skip the story about how we had to pay $160 AUD each to check our baggage, this blog can’t just be about me losing money, after all.

Bali was magic. I almost don’t have the words. It was the first time I actually felt good about the travel decisions I had made. We saw everything we could in the three weeks+ we were there. I spent a week learning to SCUBA dive in the exact area of the volcano that is right now, waiting to erupt. I’m thankful that I’m not there during the crisis, but worried about this place that I’ve fallen in love with. So yeah, I may have rode a motor bike off a ledge, and I may have thought I broke a rib while surfing, I MAY HAVE broke my computer and lost my phone but I would go back and repeat everything in Bali again.  I met incredible people. My eyes were open and my heart was full. I’m praying for the safety of the Balinese people during this time.

If you’ve been reading recent posts..you know about the turmoil I caused myself when I left Bali, but not about the farm.  I landed in Newcastle airport and waited for the CountryLink bus to get there. I was told that I could just ask the bus driver to take me to “Kevin’s Farm” and he would know the way.  To my surprise, that’s exactly what happened. Considering the journey I’d had to get there, I was incredibly relieved when I finally met Kevin, my host, and his son Jo. I was eager to experience life on this 2,000 hectare cattle farm. The first morning I hopped on the back of Kevin’s motor bike and we drove around herding cattle.  I think when I look back I’ll cherish the time I spent on this farm. It takes a little bit of time to get used to the pace of the country but it’s such a different way of life than I’ve ever experienced. Kevin and I got along really well. He was part farmer, part geode collector, expert mechanic, expert carpenter, amateur legal expert and a man who raised three kids on his own. His friends who stopped by were characters, to say the least. On the farm, I learned how to cook steak and how to drive a stick shift (while maneuvering around massive piles of cow dung). On my last day, I had the pleasure of herding a bull all by myself. Kevin let me take home a cow skull, which I carried right onto the plane to took back to (you guessed it) Darwin. Right now, I’m preparing to send that baby home to America. I’m going to have this cow skull for the rest of my life and I’ll always be able to look back at my time on Kevin’s Farm and in Australia. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take the wallaby skull we found. I’d need some fancy permits to ship it to America. Bummer…

That brings me to where I am now. Gainfully employed at the Darwin Sailing Club and saving every penny I make for the road trip I’m starting in about a week. Ellie sent me my iPhone from Malaysia. Finger’s crossed that it passes customs and gets back to me, never to be left behind again.  I’ve been spoiled since I got back to Darwin for the third time. I have a job, spent a month with basically my own apartment and now I’m in a house with amazing people. Occasionally we have parties with strobe lights and saxophones. I’ve had the best spaghetti carbonara of my life and eaten kangaroo. So while, I thought Darwin was exactly what I didn’t want out of my time in Australia, it turns out that I was just what I needed. Go figure. Thanks Darwin. I’m still buzzing to get the hell out of here but it’s been real. It’s off to the East Coast for God only knows what kind of debauchery ahead.