For a week now Jo and i have been feverishly searching for a suitable car to take us on our cross country voyage. We've looked in newspaper after newspaper, searched websites, and taken dozens of numbers off of all the backpacker notice boards weve encountered. Today, however, our search bore fruit! We found a sweet little Ford Falcon station wagon, going for far more than we'd planned to spend, in a car dealership not far from our hostel. Yesterday we went up to see her and decided that we'd just spend more than we thought and get her directly, no more messing about. The enthusiastic used car salesman held it until we'd gotten all insured and then today, this morning, we drove off in the mighty white beast and parked up right beside our hostel, ready to hit the road. Weve bought a jerry can and filled it up, filled up the cars tank that was bone dry when we collected the car, bought an enormous bottle (its more like a tank) of water, some musli bars, a 'new car smell' magic tree air freshener and tomorrow we buy the most important road tripping accessory - a guitar. With Jo as my navigator and personal troubador were gonna make our way down the coast to wine country, a little town called Margaret River. Or at least were gonna try - with Jo map reading i feel its more like a lucky dip where we end up but itll be an adventure either way. Fortunately the car is big enough to sleep in the back of, many people having told us that the back of a Falcon will accomodate a queen sized air bed, so if the worst comes to the worst, and weve succesfully navigated our way to precisely the middle of nowhere, we'll just bed down there.
We were supposed to be charity collecting all weekend. Huh... Charity. I hear it begins at home. Best that i stay there then, so as not to miss it.
Perth to Margret River, MR to Albany, Albany to Nullarbour, Nullarbour to Adelaide, then on to where were gonna spend the lions share of our Australian leg, Melbourne. Should take a week to ten days, will take a fortnight plus delays caused by bad driving and worse sense of direction.
Dont forget to see the snaps of the car, its a beauty. I think were going to spend tomorrow coming up with names for it. I like "Mighty White". Jo doesnt.
More soon.
