East Coast Journey!

Knock knock
Who’s there?
The Police
Ah hell…
and that’s how we started our day a few days ago. I suppose you’re somewhat of a bonafide wanderer once you’ve been told by the local police you’re getting a warning for parking overnight in a ‘no overnight’ zone. The fine for this is $375. Ouch! Get just one of those bad boys and so much for saving money on a room by sleeping in your van. Tara and I have been movin’ on up in the world, instead of carrying our home we now drive around in it. We eat where we sleep, we sleep where we wash, we wash where we sit and we sit where we cook. We have one room, it is our livingkitchendiningbathbedroom, it sits on 6 tyres and once you add two people it is about the size 2.5fleas x @$# I just hit my head. This makes dorm room living feel like the 100th floor penthouse spread. Welcome to Australia on a shoestring. After working for a week, Evan and I made so many improvements to the van it’s crazy! New tyres, mounts, brackets, rivets, sides, hinges, battery – you name it and it’s been done! Tara and I are lovin’ it and guess what? We just got electricity in our house! Yup, a whole 300 watts @ 240 volts is flowing like soy milk and organic honey from our 2nd deep cycle battery. WOW! That trickle charged juice can run a 15cm fan at night, charge a laptop or even a camera battery. CRIKEY! We’ve retrofitted our water system and we now have a portable shower with a whole 5 gallons of water. That’s like enough water for four whole showers. CLEAN!

So aside from fixing up our home we’ve been enjoying our time in Oz very much. We’ve covered about 2500 miles and still have another 300 to go before we reach our costal destination, the city of Cairns. After that we’ll have covered the entire east coast and will head to the outback. The beaches have been beautiful and we’ve really enjoyed Queensland. As we have moved up the coast though we’ve encountered a harsh reality of summer here…jellyfish. The little bastards are about the size of a chicken bullion cube and their stings can be fatal. The other day we were camping next to the beach and I got in the water. I noticed a strange looking fenced in area down the way. It looked like a dog run and everything else was deserted. I entered the water to my waist and then got out quickly because I got a bad feeling (I always listen to that feeling). I went and asked a local and guess what? You can only swim in the fenced area because there are crocodiles. Did I mention this is the ocean? I love wave crashing and I love diving b/c I feel I like I belong in the ocean and can synchronize with it. But walking in and swimming on some deserted stretch like a lunatic just isn’t my idea of fun. You know what kind of people do that? Food. There’s the tropics for ya– sure the picture looks pretty but everything bites, stings, pushes, punches and scrapes like a barbed-wire tumble weed in a hurricane. We are both excited for the Great Barrier Reef though! We’ve visited the Ginger Beer Factor, Ginger Processing plants, the Crocodile Hunter’s Zoo and much more. It’s the little gems that shine like finding the Alaskan Malamute breeders at a random rest stop or the best meat pies ever! Well that’s all for now – we’ll write again soon enjoy the pictures!!

Jonathan and Tara

Australia Part Deux