It started with a whisper and grew in size as it gained momentum like a train picking up speed along the tracks, clickety clack, clickety clack. An idea that would take the team on an adventure to parts and places they’ve never been before into the great unknown. Ok well maybe they won’t be going into the great unknown. Everywhere they’ll go will be populated so nothing is unknown at all, but it sounded good so bare with us as we hit you with this diatribe. For 10 days we are putting the team in a beat up Subaru Forester and hitting the wide open road. Starting in northern queensland (Townsville) we’ll drive all the way to Nowra, making plenty of stops along the way as we ponder life and all that surrounds us in this big brown land.
While a lot of people find traveling to be somewhat boring the team here at A Mind of Its Own are somewhat used to living an airport life, hoping on a bus or riding a train if they aren’t sitting in the driver’s seat of the company Prius feeling somewhat emasculated. There is nothing worse than sitting at the lights and performance car pulls up next to you, the throaty sound of the engine as it revs next to you. The engines power vibrating through the roads surface. Meanwhile you put you your foot to the floor and hear the whiz of the electric motor in your overpowered golf cart. Ah to be rich and or famous we could have a fleet of priuses to save the environment with despite the fact we have to mine rare earth minerals to make the batteries. No contradiction there at all folks, hybrid is the way of the future.
SO getting back on track, to start the journey the team decided to head back to where so many laughs and blogs were created throughout last year. Yes the journey is starting in the leafy gold coast suburb of varsity lakes. Namely the train station, fortunately there are no plastic fantastics or cashed up bogans about for the team to get distracted and write yet another blog around the latest plastic surgery or body enhancement craze. Oh in case you were wondering the latest craze is botox. For men and no not in the face or lips but right in the mummy, daddy button, yeah we live in a wonderfully fucked up world sometimes.
Varsity lakes train station, where we loaded up the teams supplies of bottled water, MRE’s and first aid equipment. Come on guys we are going north not to some unexplored area of the amazon. Finally we set out for Brisbane airports domestic terminal. The train ride is somewhat sobering after the blitzed feeling we are left with having just come from a team lunch down at Coolangatta surf club where one too many beers was consumed and a few jokes here and there were made about the impending travel. Nevertheless we made it to the train station and sat down for awhile twiddling our thumbs waiting for the latest version of the Bombardier train system to rock up.
Early as per usual the team waits around for hours in the Virgin lounge for their flight, is it the free beers or just being able to utilise the facilities? Good question but whatever it may be they are certainly making the most of it as they chill with plates of food and free drinks being downed like a bunch of bin chickens around the kfc dumpster after closing time. The old man is once again grumbling about his flight being delayed continuing his run of luck with flights into the New Year. The team are keeping their distance as the vein in his neck starts to bulge and his cheeks flush red with anger. Red Hulk could be making an appearance in the Virgin Lounge if he’s not doused in beer soon.
Having calmed the boss down with more beer and the odd whiskey we’ve been given the task of getting notes down for the trip and working out who’s doing what blog over the 11 days. So that being said we looked at stops planned along the way and groaned when we noticed that Kingscliff/Terranora had been included on the list. From Airlie Beach to Yeppoon to Kingscliff well now that’s a drive but there are places in between that we could stop at and check out if the boss wasn’t being so tight with the petty cash. Once we’ve hit Kingy it’s on to the new Sydney for a quick catch up with the Hemsworth’s and every other Australian Hollywood A lister who now calls Byron Bay home.
Once Byron has been tamed we’ll move on to the home of the Honey Badger and hopefully avoid the Bachelor fan girls lurking along the beaches of Port Macquarie in the hope of seeing him in his natural environment. It’s a hop, skip and a jump to the next destination on the road trip as we throw caution to the wind and visit the set of Mad Max. The stunning sand dunes of Stockton Beach which we will be calling home for a few days as we fall down, slide down, slip down and run down the dunes. Heck depending on the weather we may even throw a line in off the beach and see what we can catch. Who knows, we might land a tuna or two, chances are more likely that we will land a shark and have to cut the line but you never know until you try.
The next destination has yet to be decided but there may be a stop in Sydney and if not it’ll be a nice old drive straight on through to Nowra where we’ll spend a few days exploring the shoal harbour region and south coast before dragging the team back to work and making them earn a living which they will all hate. There are plenty of things to see and do and hey you can actually swim in the ocean down there. They still have sharks but other than that you are good to go. As our names are called over the lounge PA system, our flight has finally landed is available to board. Naps seem to be the entertainment of choice as most of the team can be heard snoring their little heads off in the rows to the left and in front. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Landing in Townsville the first thoughts are it’s a massive city, turns out that everything you need to see is within a couple of kilometre radius along the waterfront. But swimming is a no, no! If the crocodiles don’t get you, the box jellyfish, sharks or stingrays will. What a great place to live by the water that you can’t really swim in! Northern Queensland is more deadly than a redback on the dunny seat. We’ve only been in the airport for 5 minutes and we’ve seen more cowboys jerseys than home match and 1300 Smile stadium could fit. The hit of musty hot, humid death hits you as you leave the frigid comfort of the airport to what is one of the worst designed airport pickups you will ever see. It’s like a formula one race course.
Piling into the 2004 Subaru Forester that will carry us the some 2000 plus kilometers on our journey we notice two immediate things. One Townsville has more RBTs setup on a Friday night than they have police and two the airport is somewhat in the middle of nowhere compared to where the main part of town is, it takes a good twenty plus minutes to make our way to our accommodation for the night. The building looks quite recent, well compared to most of the apartment blocks we’ve seen on the drive in that look like they were built when Captain Cook landed on our our shores and claimed Australia in the name of the British empire.
What looked nice on the outside turned out to be a mattress on the floor and the world’s dirtiest bathroom. The tub was so dirty even the mould was growing mould and the team decided they’d rather hold it all in than risk using the toilet for fear something might crawl up from the sewers and make its way into their nether regions only to grow and reproduce like t something from a Science fiction movie or horror film. In what turned out to be restless sleep where we were all woken rather early by a little old lady making tea and flicking the light switches on and off like it was a laser gun show out at the army barracks. Safe to say there were a few tired heads the next morning.
As we sign off on another blog, we will keep all our faithful followers updated on the adventure via a weekly blog and if you can’t wait that long head on over to our instagram or Facebook page which will be updated regularly with photos and location updates. Once again we bid you farewell for another week and the first blog of the new year! We’re starting it off with a bang and hitting you up with a travel diary of sorts to keep you on the hook well in to the year and hoping you’ll want more and more as we tackle the best topics for 2019 and beyond. As always if you have any suggestions, comments or questions please hit us up, we are happy to take requests and tackle any topic, big or small there is nothing that can’t be given a mind of its own. So Asta man yana amigos!
A Mind of its Own... 