Well it's day two of the great Australia drive 2007 and we managed to hit another 600km, driving on and off from 9:30 until 6:30. I woke up too early, with red eyes from tiredness and the eternal flap flap of insects getting too much to bear for my changeable mood.
It was just strange, really strange, to wake up and have to wait ten seconds until you remember just where you are. The driving was getting to me a little more than I wanted to let on. A Mc. Donald’s breakfast set us up for the road again, to take on Sydney and on up the coast.
Sleep last night was stunted. Our little queen bed sunk towards the middle, and I guess with the place we were in, we were both jumping, moaning and groaning every time a moth darted at our window or flitted around UFO in our room. So sleep last night didn't top 5 hours, which was fine for me, but Sarah needs more, most people do.
We drove without stopping past Sydney to Gosford, where we stopped for Australian Reptile Park. What a zoo! Alligators and crocodiles and other evil looking reptiles. We watched them safe behind a fence as they hunted us and snarled at each other.
Kangaroos mingled with the crowds. We got to pet them! Can you believe, petting a kangaroo? Their hair is as soft as cotton wool; they are more docile than sleeping kittens. A park ranger "milked" a snake, the 4th deadliest snake in the world, a Black tiger snake or some such. He gingerly let him out of his cloth prison, aggling him out with a 5-foot hook, then grabbed him by the tail and slowly worked up till he had a death grip on his throat. The snake was introduced to a plastic cup, which he bit, and they held up the microphone so we could hear the pop as his fangs broke through the plastic, to inject a huge amount of venom into a sterile cup. The place is apparently the world's largest producer of anti-venom and other such noble causes. We hung around for a few hours, loving the animals and loving that we got to see some or real Australia with it, and bush walks, and talks about how to survive a snake bite (by bandaging up the spot as if it was a broken arm, say, and also to never wash the bitten area as the only way that they can know what kind of snake bit you is by swabbing the skin to test the venom) Australia is home to the ten deadliest snakes in the world.
They had a smattering of evil, truly evil looking and huge spiders that made my skin crawl, birds I had never seen, Tasmanian devils, and my favourite part too. The house that they keep and observe the platypus is called the platypussery. Beautiful!
But too soon the road crawled back up on our backs and again I was gunning the car's uncomplaining engine for another 4 hours of straight driving, until we landed on the coast, just about 6:30pm as the sun was setting, to Port Macquairie, a lovely seaside tourist town, with surfing and other high excitement sports I have limited interest in but am excited to spectate on.
We asked for info in a petrol station, the font of all important hotel hostel motel and directions based information.
As soon as I got out of the car I got worried. The petrol station lights, that light the pumps so you can see how much of your money is being given to an oil company to pollute the earth, even in the dark, was almost entirely obscured. There was yet another swarm of angry insects, buzzing hopping and biting over each other to get closer to the light, like Christians in the Armageddon. This was not what I was looking for, the kind of situation we are used to, or the kind of relaxation you expect from a seaside resort, so yeah, when it came to finding a dingy motel or some sort of god awful hostel, insectwise, it didn't seem a good bet.
I think it was right then that we decided, enough is enough, we are putting ourselves through a lot, so it's beautiful hotel time! Why not? We booked into the Observatory, Port Macquarie, parked our car in the lush private lot, took the carpeted elevator upstairs and tucked in to two bottles of cheap fizzy. We booked into a suite, that's some top-end hotel accommodation, which exceeded all possible expectations. It has everything! Washers, dryers, walk in showers, clean new ovens, TV, DVD, the hugest bed in history, a suede, yes suede sofa.
For me though, the real sign of lush comfort, as well as wine glasses it had champagne flutes! And coasters. I insist on the coasters for some reason. It just seems like more comfort, and for the price (under 70 euro each) it seems just plush and delightful and worthwhile after our last few weeks or whatever it is here, time seems to zip by and it also seems ages since I left everything behind. And so we must sit here tonight, and decide how to continue. Is it back to Melbourne for jobs and the old apartment hunt, or on to Asia, or maybe to Eastern Europe for some cheap fun, on to Amsterdam for a few weeks of chill out, and then back to our lives in the dull as dishwater. I just don't know.
I will be sickened to check out tomorrow. And that says a lot.
But what a night we had. Of externalised internal contemplation, chalkboard ideas being rubbed out and re-writ continually as our opinions got eroded and refreshed. Drunken discussion, argument and consultation, on just what and where we are.
And its all just seeming too much, and then all too little, and its time to go home, but its time to stay and man up.
So I sat out on the balcony for a final smoke before the sleep of the weary traveller, jerking off the stars like any stupid poet in silent awe, as midges swarmed around me looking for nick-tid-bits and finding a face full of fag-fumes.
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