Australia Day Creeps Upon us Signifying Failure

Australians have such a sense of national pride that it is impossible to miss the immense number of flags flying over anything from a grand building to a push chair, the hoards of guys and girls donning the southern cross tattooed across various body parts and the proudly displayed Australia made products stacked across supermarket shelves throughout. So it comes to no surprise that January 26th, Australia Day, is the biggest holiday here, outside of the festive season.

The Australian emblem over Parliament House doors

"It's a chance to reflect on our sense of self-reliance, our support for others in times of need, our quirky humour, our glorious landscape, our perspective and our national personality." say official Australia webpages. And that pretty much sums up exactly what we find of Australia and Australians on our cheeky trip. On the receiving end of the support, the humour and the awe inspiring landscapes, we know for sure how derserving Australians are of this day of celebration. Experiencing first hand the national vibe and personality we three agreed that Australian's have many a reason to take a day off work in unison and celebrate this great nation.

Most humorously, in the lead up to Australia Day, TV commercials were shown at regular intervals throughout the day and night showing what I can only describe as an advert which had an underling message of ‘get pissed with your mates on Australia Day or else!’ but what were we going to do? We had no plans. As we listened to the twenty one gun salute by 8/12 Medium Regt and watched the FA18 flyover, Gareth receives a phone call from Lou, our friend in Palmerston, who in true Australian style asked us to come join her and friends at Tracy's house. A traditional Australia Day backyard gathering round the pool and sausage sizzle made for a lovely break from trying to find food and shelter.

Anne is introduced to children’s python on Australia Day

Caption competition. Enter caption here...............................

What a day; good food, great people and plenty of toasts. Gareth talked to Pearl, a Manx lady living in Darwin, about the Welsh characters on Little Britain whilst showing off the back of her tabard, which had the Manx flag on it, signifying her Isle of Man roots.

Our little friend Taylor showing us an Aussie Day traditional get up

For us, Australia Day had other great significance too, it was the projected target day of our return to Brisbane. Our initial goal and time frame for circumnavigating Australia, whilst raising $20,000. The date crept upon us while we were trapped in Darwin by the floods. By this stage we had imagined a tough but doable race to the finish line in Brisbane, but we had failed. Yet we didn’t feel like failures.

Feeling slightly foolish at our underestimation of the size of this country and of the grand scales between fuel stations in the outback, we laughed at our previous ignorance, but we didn’t feel ashamed at defeat. In fact, it didn’t even feel like the end of a journey, that is, because without us even discussing the thought, we each had known and decided a long time ago that no matter what happened we would complete the journey.

So, we carry on regardless, safe in the knowledge that we couldn’t fail any further and that children around the world would benefit from our failure nonetheless. So $7,000 short of our target of $20,000 and far from Brisbane we press on. Like those who carry on running toward the finishing line of a marathon hours after the adjudicators have retired, the Cheeky Trip would continue. Wicked Campers agreed to let us have the Cheeky Van a little longer and we took this as a sign of good things to come.

As we all thought we would be back to Brisbane by now this opened up another spanner in the works, Gareth’s visa was up. He had been in Australia for a year now on a working holiday visa and now that he had turned 31 he was ineligible to apply for a second year visa. Determined to carry on and contribute to the goal of £10,000 he jumped on a flight to Bali and returned a few days later on a tourist visa. Visa issues are something tedious all those wishing to stay for more than a short holiday in any country have to deal with. Gareth will have to hop skip and jump through the hoops to stay on the trip.