(coastal sandstone, maitland bay, bouddi national park, new south wales, australia)
the "plan" (it seems to change everyday) is to set off on a 5 day solo journey up the coast to where i will meet my friend ariana in brisbane. from there we pick up our oh-so-cool retro campervan and drive our way further north untill we reach cairns. at that point (10 days from when we meet in brisbane), we'll fly back to sydney... and then it's "part 2" for me. i will pretty much meet up immediately with anika in another super cool campervan and we will go south, taking in the rest of new south wales, victoria, tasmania, south australia, and then, finally western australia. and, no - we won't forget the sandy desert of the outback. 5 weeks later we hope to make it to the uber amazing city of broome - a place most don't even bother to see. a place i didn't even know existed until i came here.
and that is all the details i can give at this point as, on both trips, we haven't a clue of what we will actually be doing. it will be an adventure of the unknown. an adventure where we can spread our wings and drive a country so spectacular that a couple months won't even fit everything we hope to do.
but before i get ahead of myself here... it is still the planning process for my newest adventure to be. i find it so incredibly fascinating to be thrusted into planning for a journey when it is not just my thoughts, desires and needs have to be met - but that it is also about what my friends want to do as well. so many decisions to make. so many discussions. so many phone calls, text messages and emails. so much time going back and forth on what we want to do, bring, see that sometimes i forget why we are even doing it to begin with.
it is not like my last adventure that was on my own - solo. i only had myself to think about... sure, sometimes that had it's downfalls in the fact that there was no one to make sure i had everything covered. i simply had to do it all myself. and yet, at the same time - i could do it all my way and make decisions in half the time than what it takes to think of an idea, get in contact with the other person, talk to them about it, see if they want to do it to, give them time to process and then maybe (or maybe not) they will be on board as well. if they're not, it's most likely because they now have an idea of their own that they want to run past me and then i have have to sit down and think about if i would be game for that. the amount of times ariana and i have gone back and forth on whether we want to start in cairns or start in brisbane is endless... and even as i write this i know we are not 100% certain as we still have to officially book flights.
and even more so - the last time i did this much planning, i was heading off to the mountains for an unknown amount of weeks. all i had was the pack on my back. i was more concerned with making sure i had enough bandaids and photocopies of my backcountry maps than i was with ensuring we get the best-suited painting on the side of our campervan. back in june, i was busy selling my possessions and airing out my tent on my living room floor as i contemplated the maximum amount of food i could squeeze into my over-packed bag. now i am trying to determine whether i would rather go white-water rafting down the tully river (queensland) or do a sunset camelback ride in broome. so different and yet so the same.
then there is the budget. how to fit everything in and still leave the assurance that we won't end up singing and dancing for spare change on the streets of some foreign city so we can just make it back "home" again. and what happens when anika and i head off and one of us falls in love with a place and simply does not want to continue on? what happens if we decide we simply don't like each other's company anymore? but more importantly, what will we eat in our '70s style campervan? so many questions, so little time.
and yet - through all this planning, preparing and (hopefully) coming to an agreement on what our adventures should be like... i know it will be awesome. it already is. dreaming about it is half the fun - knowing that the possibilities of what we encounter out there are endless and that we will be there to experience it all to the full. to see it. to smell it. to taste it. to be it. it all awaits - 3 weeks away and i wish it were today....
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