I don’t really believe in fate or
the idea that you’re life is on a set course, but sometimes things present
themselves in a way that you just have to accept as the way it’s meant to
be. As I’m sitting on the internet,
pouring over maps on Google, trying to decide which route I should take to
Sydney, my phone rings,
“Hello…”
“Ja, Hallo, is that Stoooart?”
“Guilty as charged…”
“Vot?”
“Sorry, yeah it is.”
“Ah good. Man, I saw your advert
for the rideshare from Brisbane to Sydney.”
“Ah…Sorry chief, I’ve already
left Brisbane.”
“Ja, OK. But I’m not in Brisbane.”
“Righto, so where are you then?”
“I’m in Byron Bay
now.”
“You’re in Byron?”
“Jaaa…”
“So am I.”
“Shit man ja? Where in Byron are
you?”
“I’m sitting in Global Gossip
just now.”
“Cool man, I’m outside I’ll be
there in a minute…”
And so it is.
The trip from Byron to Sydney was set to be my
first spell in the ambassador shack on my own.
As such I had begun to devise my own route from Sydney, safe in the knowledge that I didn’t
have to justify to anyone my bizarre destination choices. For example, I was starting to get excited
about visiting the villages around Glen Innes, simply for the place names. Dundee sits just north of Glen Innes and is
the name of my hometown in Scotland. I share my surname with the village of Matheson
to the west of town and on the eastern side is the excellently named Bald
Knob. The photo opportunities were set
to be endless.
However, with Adrian the Germans phone call, it all
changed. He had to get to Sydney as soon
as possible and I had to decide which option to go for, splitting the cost of
fuel and going direct to Sydney in a day or following a newly found dream of
having a dozen photos of me smiling outside different retail outlets such as “Bald
Knob Butchers” etc. My nationality and
our chance meeting forced me into deciding the former.
The day after our initial meeting
I find myself pulling the van into the potholed car park at the Arts Factory in
Byron to pick up Adrian. As I park up I can’t see any sign of him. I jump out and head into the backpacker ghetto. I pass reception and head into the backyard
area where backpackers in various stages of consciousness lay in hammocks. I see Adrian
walking towards me, dripping wet and smiling inanely.
“Hey chief, good to go?”
“Ja. Man, let me just get my shit
together and I’m ready. I’ll be two
minutes man…”
We leave 45 minutes later. Adrian
is still buzzing after a big night on the goon and only one hour sleep. He has the same kind of budgie-like chatter
and enthusiasm of the crowd from the Normanby Hotel in Brisbane and I find it difficult to make an
impact on the conversation aside from smiling and nodding. After half an hour we reach Ballina, Adrian
spies an Aldi and we stop for a wurst fix (it sounds very stereotypical but
it’s true!). Once back on the highway he
swiftly passes out and it stays this way for the majority of the 750k’s south
to Sydney. There’s a brief half-hour spell where we have
a conversation which involves Adrian’s
theory that English will be dead as a world language in 10 years time and that
mandarin will become the new international tongue. I mull it over for a while but can’t picture
Belgians & Brazilians chatting to each other on a Southeast Asian beach in
mandarin…
As we approach Sydney it’s almost dusk and the sky is
stunning. The entire scene looks as
though it’s been painted and it gives the drive a surreal feel. We reach the city edges and I deposit the
snoozing German in the northern suburbs.
I head toward the city, all alone in the van for the first time since I
picked it up in Cairns. It’s a strange feeling and I compensate for
the silence by cranking up the stereo and singing like a drunken Japanese
karaoke king. I reach the north shore
area and turn on the radio, subconsciously wanting to hear someone’s voice. I find triple M at the exact point they start
playing Sunsets by Powderfinger. For the past two weeks this song has been my
soundtrack for travelling down the Queensland
coast and as it plays it feels like a chapter in my travel story has come to an
end. I start to feel emotional. I give myself a slap and quickly realise that
I don’t have time to reminisce as I’ve taken the wrong lane and I’m headed into
Sydney city
centre. I’m supposed to be bound for
Bondi but instead I’m steering the colourful little ambassador shack through
the skyscraper lined streets of the CBD.
I like to think that I have a decent sense of direction when it comes to
making my way around Sydney
but, like many other things in life, one-way systems confuse me a great
deal. As such I find myself doing long,
expansive laps of Hyde Park and surrounds
before realising that I’m going round in circles. After covering most of the cities major
roads, I manage to get the van on a street heading in the direction of
Bondi. After ten minutes I’m out on
Bondi road, parking the van and, like in Brisbane,
exchanging g’days with a familiar face.
I look at the odometer, 819k’s. I
think I’ll be lazy at the beach tomorrow…
