On the road again
So…the great adventure is in motion.
Welcome to the first of my Australia travel blogs. They are going to be a bit rough and ready and probably a lot shorter than my normal ones but hopefully they will be much more frequent to make up for it. To that end you’ll have to forgive typos, spelling errors and missed words as my two fingers try hard to keep up with this slightly strange mind of mine. the first few are also not going to be particularly interesting as I simply try to get to Tasmania rather than taking the time to look around. That’s for another day and another trip.
I started out this morning, a little later than at first intended, due to not wanting to get out of bed, and hit the road for the long drive to Tasmania. It was just a matter of throwing a couple of things into the car, turning Bambi on (Bambi is the tiny woman trapped in my gps) and heading off on the highway. Not much fanfare and certainly not the same feeling as waiting for a plane to leave. The familiarity of the road gave me plenty of time to ponder if I’m doing the right thing and think about what I’m leaving behind. Which makes it sound like I’m going for more than just a couple of months but you’d be surprised what I’m leaving behind.
From the Gold Coast I headed inland for Beaudesert and Warwick before making a left hand turn at Goondiwindi and finally starting to head south. The road was good, the traffic sparse and I managed to find a comfortable seating position that made it seem as if Warwick came up far sooner than it had a couple of weeks before. I did learn one thing from that trip though and I stopped at a McDonald’s for a coffee and an opportunity to stretch my legs and unlock my knees.
Those of you following me on twitter (http://www.twitter.com/ptrekker for those who are still not doing it) will know how the McDonald’s thing went. I can only hope it improves.
For those of you from a different country, yes I did see lots of kangaroos on the road, but when I say “on the road” I mean it literally. No respect for the national symbol from the trucks that travel this highway.
After leaving the Coast at about 8.30 I finally made it to Moree at 16.00. That may have only been about 500km in 7.5 hours but lets put those 500km in perspective.
It’s twice as wide as the English channel, the same distance as from London to Paris and from Los Angeles to San Francisco. If I’d headed straight up I would be over 100km higher than the International Space Station and about 100km short of the Hubble telescope.
The scary part is looking at the map and seeing how much further it is to go just to get to Melbourne. I really don’t think I’ve ever tackled a drive like this on my own and it’s starting to bring home just how big this country is.
I’m not going to try and describe the motel I’m in at the moment but I can only hope to get a good nights sleep and try to put on some more distance tomorrow.