Adelaide - The Cold, the Flu and Someone has been Humping my Pillow!

More spanners in the works.
Gareth’s visa is up again and he has had to jump out of the country again to renew it. This time he has skipped out to New Zealand for a few days. In the mean time Phil and I have been put up in a great apartment, Quest Mansions, for a few days over the weekend, right in the city. It is pure luxury to be able to do simple things like sit on a sofa and make a cup of tea whenever we like. Charlene, the manager has even taken our washing down into the restaurant below, washed our clothes and fed us. This is a treat.



Lilly flowers in Adelaide Botanic Garden



When we arrive in a city we always have to make use of the free public facilities such as library internet access and newspaper reading rooms. Days are spent in the library trying to catch up with emails and writing up everything that has happened during the long periods on the road when we have no internet access and catching up with the news.



We find a place to relax in Adelaide Botanic Gardens

When we have time we visit tourist information to get free maps and find out what treasures we can see for free in the city, and we are always surprised at how much you can do without money. In Adelaide, the South Australian Museum has a huge array of exhibiions under one roof, free of charge. As we wondered around we noticed the Veolia Nature Photographer of the year 2008 Winners were being exhibited. Below is my entry to this competition.



An interesting plant stem found in the Botanic Gardens

Just a month previously I had entered this picture in the 2009 competition, thanks to my sister Tara paying the £20 entry fee, and I was eager to take a browse around at the kind of standards I was up against. Luckily, we were given complimentary entry into this separately charged exhibition but as I walked through the gallery of astonishing shots, as I walked from frame to frame, I could see my chances of getting anywhere with my entry diminishing with every step. Take a look here at the amazing online gallery.



The hilariously named 'Mother in Law's Chair'

Another fantastic free attraction is the Adelaide Botanic Gardens featuring historic, scientific and educational exhibits of native and exotic plants. Filled with all sorts of people enjoying lunch under trees, taking pictures of specimens and taking a break from the office, this is a green haven of relaxation and peace, slap bang in the middle of the usual hubbub of city frenzy.



A Street Entertainer on Rundle Street Mall

Adelaide itself is a lovely city. If I had money to spend it would have been a great place to try out all the amazing looking cafes, and eateries. But even without cash it was still nice to wander around and happen upon some wonderful pieces of street art.



So far we have managed to go without doing these extremes

A few days later the temperature dropped.
We had been kitted out in clothes fit for intense humid summer only and now we have just landed in what feels like winter. Luckily I was given a pair of jeans from Sheree in Esperance but if it weren’t for that one pair I would be without full length covering my legs. I am still yet to be given any shoes and my toes are usually a pale blue colour. Sleeping in the van which is tightly parked in the small car park of a The Travellers Inn Hostel, (to whom we are very grateful for allowing us the use of their facilities including phone and internet). It’s so cold that I am wearing nearly every clothing item I have been given, I can't stop shivering even though I'm lying under a pile of sleeping bag, blankets and coats and I can’t bring myself to open the window to help remove the germs from my cramped environment for fear of letting more cold in. I have the dreaded flu.



Teenage lovers carve their declarations of love on the bamboo canes in the Botanic Gardens making some interesting graffitti art

I don’t know if it was the scrubbing of seagull poo out in the open, wearing next to no clothes, in Esperance; the sudden drop in temperature; or both, that got the better of me, but I am pretty miserable at the moment.



The camoflage pattern of this London Plain tree must be the inspiration for army wear

Headache, muscle ache and sinuses completely blocked, I have to breathe from my mouth, and I can’t stop the insane cycle of 3 sets 8 eight sneezes in a row per tissue.



Water fountain at the Botanic Gardens

Of course, we all know a cold is untreatable, but there are things which you can do to relieve the symptoms and to remove the germs from your environment.
Unfortunately for me, I can’t do any of these things. I can’t wash my pillow, put on warm clothes and lie in a comfy bed in a heated room with a bowl of chicken soup. In fact, I can’t eat any food items which would do me any real good right now. We are eating out of tins and it may well be the lack of fresh food in our diets that has left me susceptible to catching this cold. I don’t want to wash my hair because I haven’t used a hair dryer in over half a year and I know my long hair won’t dry properly for days in this wet cold weather.
Yes, the trite little mundane issues we most often find difficult to deal on this trip, have for me been turned into huge maudlin complaints now that I have flu and feel sorry for myself. The hackneyed sentences ‘Oh, if only I had a……..’ and ‘I would be better by now if I just had a……..’ splutter about my vicinity whenever the boys are near, but due to our circumstances, the only thing Phil can do to comfort me is make cup of tea after cup of tea (with no milk though I want it white).
Well, I won’t die but I don’t half feel the need for a few comforting things right now. I’ve just used my last tissue. Phrump.

So, looks like I won’t be doing much work in Adelaide.

We spend most nights in the van but do have some nights in a couple of hostels around town and are reminded about how disgusting other travellers can be. We found this cheese sandwich on the window sill, one bite taken out of it and the rest just left there for days. It was there when we checked in and was still there when we checked out, ants crawling all over it, a few days later.



Anyone who has ever stayed in a cheap large dormitory room knows how great and easy it is to meet fellow travellers and find a sociable group of people. However, along side this togetherness and friendly socialising, comes a few annoyances too. For example the ‘dorm rustle’. It starts with one or two of the dorm occupants going to sleep at a reasonable hour in preparation for that early morning tour they have booked, which has a pick up time of six am sharp. The fun starts as the rest of the bunk bed residents slowly decide to hit the sack in drips and drabs at stupid o'clock throughout the night in varying states of inebriation.



A water fountain on the streets of Adelaide displaying Aboriginal statues

Of course, with a room full of other people trying to sleep, putting the light on would be a big no-no, so, with up most respect for others the ‘rustlers’ creep into their corner of the room, and the fumble in the dark begins. Every item they need in order to prepare for sleep is in their back pack, somewhere, but will most likely at the bottom, the plastic bags within rustle, bin bag protecting clothes are searched through, afterward shopping bag are riffled and finally bags containing toothbrush rustle free of their bristle sticks.


Finally the rustler is ready to bed down and they hop into bed banging their head on the top bunk on entry, the under sheet of plastic on the mattress rustles as they find a foetal position facing the wall. And then a few minutes later, the next party goer returns from a few beers on the town, trips over a few plastic bags and starts his own rustling. All the while I’m trying not to listen to the rustling around me, trying so hard to get some sleep, but I am lying awake in my bottom bunk, staring at the disturbing bit of graffiti someone has written on the underside of the top bunk, which simply states:

‘I’VE BEEN HUMPING YOUR PILLOW.’



Doing a very small amount of fund raising around a few pubs, doing newspaper and radio interviews and we tried to make up for the fact we were all feeling a little caught out by the weather and cold temperature but all in all we really didn't feel too constructive in Adelade due to our failing health.



We interviewed in the ABC Adelaide studios
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Adelaide - You Mad Cows Can't Donate Blood

Does Mad Cow disease explain our crazy travel plans?

When we have a bad day, when things don't seem to pan out well, when we have to eat that stale bread without butter and sleep on the bottom bunk of a six dorm room that has decided to have a party around us, we look to other things to make us feel better. Without money it is impossible to reach for a bar of chocolate or a beer to comfort us, we have to think of other ways to take our mind off the things we covet.

Bad days for us are pretty tough. No food, no bed and no phone credit not to mention the SA temperature is dropping and we are only kitted out for tropical heat. This kind of bad luck usually only holds for a short while, we know from past experiences that we will eventually have good fortune.



In Perth, our new found friend, Mike Gilbert, turned one of our worst days yet into a joyous occasion when he decided to help us out when he was himself having a bad day, so we decided to take a leaf out of his book. Walking the streets of Adelaide we came across a blood donation centre and decided to give blood. Being the recipient of donated blood myself I know how important this kind of service is so we walked with a needle nervous stride to do a good thing. If we could help someone today then maybe due to karma we would have a better day tomorrow.

However, what we found out about our potentially tainted blood shocked us.

We can’t give blood because we lived in the UK for six months during the period 1980-1996 for fear of vCJD (the human form of ‘mad cow disease’). We three mad cows are not eligible to be donors.

Interestingly, if we had genital herpes or had smoked marijuana we would have still been eligible.

We walked out feeling a little perplexed, we didn’t feel ‘mad’ but then it would explain a lot, maybe it even explains the reasons behind us doing this trip.
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Wa Border and What do you Eat when you have No Money?

Anything and everything!


Sorry but this is going to be a little bit of a four month without money fuelled whinge. One thing we have prepared ourselves for is to go hungry. We knew right from the start that with no ability to purchase food that we would sometimes have to go without. However, we are yet to starve, and although we are eating strange things, we are well enough.


Flies plague our food

We had been on the road all day, stopping only for a camping stove tea and stale biscuit break and we were all famished. Phil is cooking. I was hovering around the stove with little patience, willing the food to be ready with the fortitude of a girl in a toilet queue on New Years Eve; time drags, the minutes canter the wrong way up the down escalators.
Without seasoning, oil or proper cooking implements Phil tries to make something of the meagre ingredients, mostly being pulled from aluminium tins, squelching as the cylindrical food matter, falls out of its self made vacuum and slides into the pan with a big plop. We are so hungry it really doesn’t matter what we eat, anything will do, but we are looking forward to the meal to come due to the lavish way Phil is sprinkling things to the pan and for the amount of time he is spending on food preparations. Unfortunately, to call Phil’s culinary repertoire limited would be boastful, and the only thing we could do to get the fodder he prepared down our necks was to cover it in the fish flavoured sauce we had. It is, I think, the first time I have eaten anything which you could honestly describe as being gruel.



As a test of our will power people eat ice-cream in our wake in the midday sun, eat T-bone steaks on cloth covered tables to the left and drink cold beer that we can’t get our hands on to the right. It is hard sometimes, it has definitely been brought home to me just how much I rely on my ability to go out and buy myself anything I want to eat or snack on, anytime I like [in my normal life], to cope with different situations: something cold and icy when I’m hot; something stodgy and comforting when I’m cold; something full of grease and carbohydrates when I want to veg out; fresh fruit and vegetables when I need a detox; something chocolate covered when I’m feeling a little down.


Tempting......


Now that we can’t do that we have to be inventive about keeping our mind, and our eyes for that matter, off those food and drink items we covet. With little in the form of provisions in the Cheeky Camper we often have to work for a feed. We have opened packets to find food crawling with weevils, opened long life milk to find it curdled after a few hours in the immense heat and taken mouthfuls of water to find it putrid and eggy, yes, sometimes it is tough.



Flies suck the moisture from you

I can’t remember the last time I had a piece of chocolate, a big deal for a girl, a piece of gateaux or an ice-cream, gees what I wouldn’t give sometimes for an ice-lolly in the heat of the day in the desert when I’m surrounded on all sides by hoards of tourists in service stations deciding if they should go for the orange or lemonade flavoured ices. We can’t have cereal and milk because we have no milk, or cereal for that matter. Meals have little distinction except for what time of day we eat them, breakfast containing pretty much the same substance as what lunch and dinner will contain the only difference being lunch is eaten cold out of a can, smothered in its own tomato sauce and dinner will be heated over the camping stove if there is any gas, which at the moment we also do not have. So, on the road without the money to purchase a beer after a hard days graft, nor the money for a soda or basics like bread, us three Brits don’t even have the means to make a cup of tea, a very big deal, which anyone from the UK can sympathise with.



Gareth checking out what food supplies we have left in the van

While we would love to have a larder filled with goodies and a refrigerator full to the brim of fresh produce, we don’t. We make do with what is donated to us along our travels and look forward to home made food at the homes of those who invite us for a feed, or to those restaurants and cafes which take pity on us. Sometimes we eat like kings and other times we open the tin of Christmas chick peas and the last can of spaghetti hoops.


We hadn’t had any fresh food supplies for a while, but Tony Milhinos, the guy in Darwin who had done so much for us, paid for our supermarket sweep and we carefully selected fresh fruit and vegetable we thought would last though out our long trip to the West Australian coast. We ate a few grapes and apples, rationing the rest of the fruit to last the journey. Unfortunately, we were completely unprepared for what was to happen to us next. We arrived at the Northern Territory/Western Australia (WA) border and we were told to hand over everything! Most of the food items we had been rationing were on their quarantine list, we had to give up our fruit, our onions, our vegetables, garlic, honey, coconuts and nuts, in fact, everything that wasn’t dried or in a tin. We sat at the border control, for a while, eating as much fruit as we could cram in.
We really regretted our previous rationing.





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The Wet and The Smell - Katherine to WA Border

Phil checks the water level as we drive through a flooded road

After a soggy, damp night, we moved on from Katherine. The dash down the day before had delayed dinner, and we hardly ate, and we woke hungry and sullen next morning. That aside, we were looking forward to getting a move on and see what all the fuss was about. The Victoria River had been a thorn in our side, an obstacle immovable and for many, the talk of the town. It was the Vic River this, Vic River that. ‘You’ll never make it across… you’ll be at least 6 weeks marooned… might as well go another way (there is no other way)… I remember a time when it was up to the nostril of every man-jack this side of the Nullarbor…’ and we listened and nodded much the way we did when they (a different ‘they’) forewarned us about these floods that have a tendency to occur up here.



Phil takes a picture of the bushland turned raging river

Blithely we vie for having our heads in the clouds or stuck firmly in the sand. It isn’t easy living like that, but necessary, and productive. Had we listened to the ‘they’ we would not have been able to see what all the fuss was about when the Wet hits, nor being so daring to at the drop of a hat dash down daredevil fashion and attempt a bold crossing of this behemoth river during flood season.



Phil triumphantly raises his fists at being able to cross the Victoria river

Recent reports were that the Victoria River was now a metre under the bridge, which was passable, having been two metres over until two days ago, and passable only by boat, if you had the courage to fight not only the swift current but the hungry crocs too. Not knowing what to expect (“it [the river] goes down as fast as it goes up, but it can go up quicker!” they would say enigmatically to frighten us) and it was with some trepidation mingled with excitement that we approached, nervous that it had risen overnight (‘watch yer nostrils buddy!’) but eager all the same to see this huge surge of water in full flood.



We all walk over the Vic Bridge to imagine what the water line was like at its peak height of over 4 meters above the road

It was all clear to cross. The strewn debris and washed-up detritus along both sides of the bridge substantiated where the river had been, but it ran a metre or so beneath it. Submerging some of the ghost gum trees on the banks below, though, and maybe four hundred metres wide, the rich red ochre flood water raced down, and it was hard to imagine how much extra water could make it rise a further six metres to the level it was at its highest point over the bridge. Maybe ‘they’ had a point about the Wet season.



The Adelaide River Inn donates fuel to our cause



The actual bull that Crocodile Dundee hypnotises in the film!



It has to be done, we all did it.

One hundred percent humidity and the stifling heat keeps you wet at all times, the sweat pours down your back and pools around your arse soaking the seat. Legs sticking to the material on the chair and hair greased to your scalp, I mostly feel incredibly sticky, smelling about as attractive as I look and looking about as attractive as I feel under my layer of dirt.

A boab tree with climbing pegs hammered into it

Reflexions in the flooded bush make beautiful links between the skies and the land



A Wicked Camper signature painted door

Living in such a small space for such extended periods of time with two boys means that aromas fester, mutating into unbreathable, putrid, gaseous clouds if left unchecked. Our sleeping quarters, cooking area, washing area, larder and storage space, one unto itself, means that stray whiffs are unavoidable.

It hits you as soon as you open the van door, the smell of deodorant battling with the pungent smell of foist, sweat, feet and fart. Be it shoe, sock, a long forgotten rotten spud down the back of a seat, a soup spillage left to go mouldy, a damp dirty towel gone unwashed for an age or a lentil fuelled fart unable to escape the van due to rain forced closed windows, we have experienced it all. Add to that, the pong of the discernable flavour of carrion coming in from outside and the stifling heat to intensify all the stenches, you have a devils reek of a symphony for the nostrils. Read a cheeky bit more!

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.

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