I have travelled thousands of miles, I have lived through my first wet season and I have adapted my vernacular to match the local tongue (pro tip ignore the vowels).
I have become proficient in weather reading (maps not so much), coolant tank processes, deep sea fishing, cable installation, tent erection, cabinet making, frog shit identification, lithium battery and solar connections, peeing in a bucket, Bush Turkey whispering, van insulation and creating the perfect campsite café latte.
I’ve seen fireflies and cassowaries, bathed in mystical indigenous waterholes, dived the Great Barrier Reef, watched sunsets from tall ships, swum in the crystal clear waters of Whitehaven, hand fed a dolphin, caved, camped overnight in truck stops, tangoed with a red-bellied black snake, bathed with a water dragon, and evacuated from flooding before Lola had her first (and last) swimming lesson. I have also been waylaid by repairs, stopped in my tracks for weeks at a time.
But the gypsy life continues.
At the end of each day’s driving on the Bruce – passing upturned cars festooned with police tape, white-knuckled from overtaking massive wide-load road trains, smelted by the radiant heat from the dashboard, accompanied by random playlists, 70s, alt-rock, opera, crooners and (always) House – I scrape roadkill from my windscreen, a horrifying exercise during butterfly migration season, remove wads of road dust from my nostrils and untangle the new dreadlocks formed by the whipping wind through the open window at 100kms an hour, to set up my home on wheels in time for a G&T in the sunset.
I have travelled as high as my 2WD baby bus Lola can traverse on the eastern coast of Australia. Events have since conspired to keep me in FNQ (that’s Far North Queensland for you foreigners).
There is a simmering ever-present humidity to each day and the nights are warm where the rainforest meets the reef.
The steamy vanlife though wreaks havoc on the uninitiated … my gin is the temperature of warm tea, my moisturiser is soup and the LED candles have melted into misshapen plastic blobs.
I travel in a land where it is possible to sweat from your eyeballs, while standing still; where deodorant is wishful thinking and the toxic deet required to keep the (little bitey welty fucker) midgies at bay eats away at my cherry red nail polish (and probably a few layers of skin), evaporates my perfume, makes makeup pointless.
A land where every beautiful beach comes with a crocodile caution (usually in German) and a bottle of vinegar for stinger bites; where roundabouts are an obsession and every roadstop offers crumbed sausages and crumbed steak (why, oh why?). Waterfalls are abundant, visible from the road as white streaks in the densely green forests high on the mountains; Queenslander-style houses are prolific and unfenced; cane trains go for miles.
I have made new friends, human and animal, with Ugly Betty the Bush Turkey brazen in her daily approaches for food and a chummy green tree frog taking up residence in Lola’s barn door hinge, jumping inside to rest on top of my phone and returning anew after each removal, angling for a free ride to Cape Tribulation. A white-lipped tree frog shared a pre-dawn moment with me, sitting calmly on the rim of my coffee cup. I have avoided a brown snake crossing my path in the shadows of palm tree fronds, ducked beneath the webs of giant Golden Orb spiders, seen kangaroos, wallabies, hares the size of small dogs, pheasants, wild horses, bats, wild peacocks, monitor lizards, geckos, Blue Monarch butterflies and the critically endangered Richmond Birdwing.
Beautiful humans, new friends and old, have at times shared my road or welcomed me as temporary neighbour.
In Airlie Beach a gift was left for me after sharing my bounty fresh from the sea.
A chirpy fellow Vic expat and her lickmonster dog, Squirt, adventured with me on road trips to the Dugong Sanctuary at Clareview, Capricorn Caves and the wide bay of Yeppoon, teaching me knots and the correct way to fold a tent.
Groovedaddy, my sporadic ever gracious host, added to my knowledge of local birds, fishes a brown snake from the pool pre plunge, reintroduces me to fat, cream-plugged milk bottles straight from the farm, provides workshop access for me to get on the tools for the ongoing Lola transformation and installs a wicked stereo to provide tunes for the adventure. His bronzed gardener leads me to fresh lychees straight from the tree, introduces me to a couple with their own light aircraft runway for the necessary rust repairs for Lola’s roof (that had me sleeping with a bucket beside my head for days), offers insulation for the baby bus and Cock-sucking Cowboys at breakfast (um, no).
I’ve shared Daintree Rainforest camping adventures with my Mackay mate, the windy road horrors of Kuranda in the Atherton Tablelands, and the damp, narrow roads after the ferry that run all the way up the eastern coast. I’ve shared a meal with the Malvern Nomads and another in Port Douglas with the Glamazon (and mate) until the power failed and we walked back to Lola for a G&T.
Stuck for repairs in Cairns I swiped right and met the gentleman adventurer (with an arsenal of dark chocolate digestives in his fridge) who opened his home to me and graciously played tour guide as we explored Innisfail, Babinda Boulders and the far reaches of Cape Tribulation in his 4WD. He introduces me to a mechanic, craft beer, cribbage and route planning for my further, wilder travels.
Whilst my state of directionless can be momentarily paralysing, loneliness is rare and the shadow of the monster continues to retreat from my mind.
The moon and I keep playing tag at months end with clouds obscuring the view and the chance to have a serious word with her. I’m still searching for my home.
Daily blessings keep coming with the opportunity to experience new environments and learn new things and, from what I have gleaned so far:
- They grow everything BIG here, particularly the spiders. And people.
- Don’t stash the vinegar bottle in the gin cupboard (um yeah I did, and it was awful).
- Cheap paper towel should not be used for sweat mopping unless the desired effect is Norman Gunston, with ADHD, after a bender.
- It is unwise to create shoe storage at the pillow end of the bed.
- Bat poo disintegrates duco in less time than it takes to say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
- It is possible to sweat your entire body weight before 9.00 am every day.
- My average killing time for a maidenhair fern is 8.5 days.
- Sugar sachets become crystallised bullets in the humidity.
- There’s always a Honey Birdette opportunity.
- Thongs go with everything.
The adventure continues ….
Charlie x
Bay City Lola 