Another friendly face on the scene is one of my dearest
course mates from university – Zakhiya. She arrived in Australia back in May
and I don’t think she’d blame me for saying that her and Australia didn’t
exactly get off to the best of starts. But that’s her story to tell, so I’ll
just mention it in the relevance to my story… Ziggy (the nickname) left
Australia after a few months to visit family in South Africa for a couple weeks
to re-centre herself, figure what was going on for her and then come back to
Australia for a fresh start. This is where I come into the picture. Me and Zig
had been talking on the phone from time to time and basically making rough plans
for her return down under. We decided that, hey, y’know what… we were going to
enjoy Australia! I didn’t feel ready to settle down and work so soon after
arriving in Australia. I wanted to see a bit of the country first and I wanted
to encourage Zig to do the same – focus on enjoying Australia and not put the
emphasis on working or finding a job so soon.
So here was the plan: Zig would arrive back into Australia,
I would drive from Gold Coast to Sydney to pick her up and then we would start
travelling together up the east coast headed toward Cairns by
late-December/January time– settling only when and where we decided we had found
somewhere we actually wanted to settle and work for a while. Sounds pretty
sweet right? And the idea was if we didn’t end up working, we would just travel
for less time with the money we had but completely prioritise enjoying that
time! There is just no point being stuck somewhere miserably job hunting slowly
whittling away what money you have, when you could enjoy your time with the
budget you have and just leave if you had come to the end. That was the logic
we were working on.
The drive down to Sydney from the Gold Coast directly was a
monster 10+ hour drive. Let’s remember, I was picking Zig up in Sydney, so this
stretch would be a solo journey. Now, back in the UK, I had happily travelled
up to Lancaster/Kendal from Northampton alone in one go… a 3-4 hour drive (the
time mainly dependant on your drive style). So I knew this kind of time was
do-able and sensible and therefore chose to break up the journey into three
parts.
Okay, so maybe I’m not being entirely accurate. The drive
time was somewhat of a concern, but the main motivation was that I just wanted
to get going! I was impatient… I’d been stuck in the same place for almost a
month when I was supposed to be adventuring. But I waited it out, in compromise
for the company and the adventure ahead. For the journey to Sydney, I gave
myself a timescale of 5 days. I chose to break up the journey in Coffs Harbour
and then Port Stephens - booking 2 nights in the first and another 3 in the
second. YHAs were my hostel of choice due to their guaranteed parking and
membership scheme. And then off I went…
However, I did not exactly do thorough research when looking
at these places. Let’s start with Coffs Harbour. Coffs Harbour is a beautiful
small town with a big roadside banana, many blueberry farms and good
opportunities for whale watching. What wasn’t anticipated by myself was that
the YHA was basically a working hostel for travellers working on blueberry
farms in order to obtain their second year visa. This meant, come 6.30am, the
place was basically desolate and then come 5pm, you should dream on if you were
thinking of showering or cooking as everyone had just arrived back from their
sweaty day at the farm. This would surely spell disaster for a solo traveller
with no one around and nothing to do? Cue Lizzie – my company for two days who
had simply decided that the second year wasn’t worth the three months misery
picking blueberries. The farms loss was certainly my gain. I was lucky enough
to arrive the night of a night food market, which gave us entertainment for one
night and then the next day we went on a big banana hunt and a long steep walk
to watch 5 whales! This was also the location I obtained topless back shot
numero dos (see… we really were on a similar level). So, thanks to the company,
Coffs was not a complete loss! The nutella and banana crepe was on point and
the whales were incredible.
The next day, I partook the next step of the journey down to
Port Stephens. The YHA at Port Stephens is not like your normal hostel – it’s
beautiful. Set in the surrounds of rain forest, it is similar to the kinds of
cabins I’ve stayed in previously in Thailand. Except that they’re not cute
double private rooms… They’re dorm rooms. Something about this didn’t work for
me. Even the kitchen was a ‘bush kitchen’ and there wasn’t a major social hub.
The place wasn’t dead, but wasn’t the kind of buzzing I needed to meet people.
The one girl I spoke to in my room had moved here to settle on the promise of
work in the hostel – frankly, I thought to myself, I could think of nowhere
more boring to settle. Had I thought Coffs previously was boring, Port Stephens
was a whole new type of boring. To be fair to the place, there was probably
more to do. But parking was difficult everywhere and nothing that was given to
me as an idea at check in really resounded with me. The place is popular for
dolphin/whale cruises – well I’d seen those for free in the previous location
so why would I pay for an hour or so cruise for the same experience? And as for
the location – there was simply nowhere to walk or get to without driving or
taking a bus which was irritating.
The one thing I regret I didn’t partake in was the sand
dunes – you can go on organised tours and sand boarding etc. If I had gone with
friends or found some there, I probably would have occupied a day doing this.
But as the only people I’d encountered seemed on a different level and
completely content to sit at the hostel all day, I missed this. After staying
one night, I thought to myself, fuck this. Why am I wasting time alone and in
this shitty place when I can get one night refunded and check out two nights
early. So I booked myself into Bondi YHA (a placed I’d dreamt of for years) and
set of the very next day.
A trait that I love and hate about myself equally is that if
I’m not happy somewhere or doing something – money becomes of little relevance
and I’ll change it. It has gotten me in some messes previously – booking a
flight out of a ski resort in France the day after my family left leaving me to
no transfer or accommodation for a night being my most memorable fuck up. But
it is this trait that really accelerated the next stage of this mad journey
that took some unexpected changes in direction to be explored next time… I
guess if I were to learn anything from this it would be:
Lesson number 3: do what feels right to you. If something
feels wrong – change it. Everything happens for a reason in my opinion and you’ll
end up where you’re supposed to be. Your happiness has no monetary value so if
you’re in a financial position to sort yourself out – why waste a single day somewhere
that you aren’t meant to be.
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