Road Trip - Part 1

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The Road Trip

Sydney to Melbourne

Briana and I have decided it’s time to venture out to different parts of this beautiful country. We are moving to Perth. Although it’s the largest city on the West Coast, when we tell people from the Sydney area that we are moving there, most say “Why?” or “Haha you’ll be back”. Although 95%!o(MISSING)f them have never been to Perth they recon we will not enjoy it saying it has a much slower pace of life. To that I say “Sounds great”! I’m ready to see new places and meet new people (hopefully more Aussies and not just other travelers).

So how are we going to get to the other side of this huge country? We hoped to see a few other places along the way so decided against flying. Renting a car seemed a bit too expensive as since we’re on a budget and would have to pay not only a $70/day (for 15 days) rental fee but also at least $800 in gas. Although my last ride-share experience left me with two men who wanted to get me drunk and have their way with me (didn’t happen!), we decided to give ride-share another go. I posted two ads on Gumtree and for the most part got really lucky.

The first ad we posted requesting a ride from Sydney 12 hours south to Melbourne. At first we thought we were getting really lucky finding a German guy leaving from Manly the same dates we wanted to leave. I met him a few days prior to discuss details however I failed to ask two very very key questions that I would soon come to regret. 1, does your car have air conditioning? And 2, do you smoke? What do you know the day we leave we drive 6 hours in 100+ degrees with NO AC!!! The wind blowing in the windows was so hot at one point we actually rolled up the windows preferring a sweat box compared to our faces being plastered with a giant blow dryer. Since we left too late in the day we camped out about half way to Melbourne. We decided to wake up at 5:30am and leave by 6 because it was supposed to be another 100+ day and we wanted to beat the heat. We woke up on time and were in the car at 6:02am. It seemed as if would be a smooth sailing day. That is until 6:05am when our kind driver lit his first cigarette of the day. He had smoked a 2 or 3 cigarettes the day before, it hadn’t fazed me much, but at 6am when we’ve been in the car for less than 5 minutes the only thing I could think was that we would be flying from Melbourne to Perth if our next ride-share didn’t have AC and smoked!

We decided to spend two nights in Melbourne since Briana had never been there. To make it easy we chose to stay in the same hostel the other person in our ride-share was staying in. Once again we should have asked some questions first. They too DID NOT have AC!!! Seriously people, it is 107 degrees outside! Day two in Melbourne was my birthday. It started out like any other day, however a couple of hours into it, it seemed like it was going to be the worst birthday ever.

Briana, a girl staying in our hostel and I decide to try and see the city’s sites. First stop, Starbucks! Haha you can’t find too many of them here and it was another hot day so Briana treated herself to a frappuccino. Then off we went to browse in the shops as we slowly made our way to the museum. There was a shop I wanted to see that they weren’t interested in. When I got there and went to call them to have them meet me I realized I didn’t have my phone. I ran back to where they were, only they were no longer there. So I ran back to the store I had been at hoping they had gone looking for me. All I could think was that I was going to have to walk back to the hostel and spend the rest of my birthday by myself because even if I could get to a phone, I don’t know Briana’s phone number by heart. Now hot and sweaty I was in need of an ice cold frappuccino myself. Starbucks was my only hope in finding my phone and in turn finding my friends. Never have I felt so relieved then when they pulled my beautiful little Nokia out from behind the counter. I could call my friends and my birthday would be saved! Well kind of, until we thought Mexican food in Australia would be a good idea. YUCK!

Melbourne pictures lost... see next entry

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Comments

[Gail]

Traveling in luxory, aye?
Did you have Vegemite tacos?! I hope the trip from Melbourne to Perth was better!

[nessa2010]

Vegemite tacos
No! I stay far far away from the Vegemite. I will add a new entry filling you in on the next leg of my trip soon. It had its own pros and cons...