Down Under

Things are fast approaching the end here in Thailand and late Sunday night I'll board a plane bound for Melbourne, Australia. I'll land in the morning of Monday and on Tuesday I'm embarking upon a long, lonely, possibly insane trek across parts of Oz. I've researched this trip as well as any I've ever taken, but it's tough to find cheap accommodation in that country; my wallet weeps blood thinking about sweet, sweet Motel 6 in the US, where prices are half of what they'll be in Australia.

Anyway, this is my itinerary:

16.4: Land in Melbourne. Pick up the rental car, check out the neigborhood, probably buy myself an electronic thingamajig (they're horribly expensive to rent!) so that I won't get lost in the outback. In all likelihood freak out over left hand driving again for the first 24 hours or so.

17.4: Start driving the Great Ocean Road up to Adelaide. I've booked the night at Mount Gambier, a resort town roughly halfway up.

18.4: Hit Adelaide sometime in the late afternoon/early evening.

19.4: Stay in Adelaide, enjoy some museums.

20.4: Commence my drive into the great nowhere that is the interior of Australia. Plan on spending the night in Coober Pedy, an old mining community. Most of the buildings, including my hotel is cut into the hillsides to protect from the heat. Yeah, it's that kind of area.

21.4: Continue on my quest towards Ayer's Rock (Uluru for the Politically Correct). Spend the night in Erldunda, a resort where the highway north to Darwin crosses another road west into Ayer's Rock and other places of natural wonder.

22.4: On this day I will do Ayer's Rock. Not sure what to expect. I strongly suspect my thoughts will be along the lines of "It's just a big rock", but you never know.

23.4: Drive north through Alice Springs up to Tennant Creek, where the road to Darwin meets the road east to Townsville on the coast.

24.4: Drive east to Julia Creek, where I'll spend the night. Yes, you need two nights to go from the outback to the coast, the country is that fuckin' huge.

25.4: ANZAC Day. Look it up. Driving from Julia Creek to Townsville, where I'll stay for two nights.

26.4: If the weather gods are with me, I'll take a daytrip out to the Great
Barrier Reef. Again, not sure what to expect. My thoughts may very well be "It's just a big rock. Underwater." Again, you never know.

27.4: Driving south to Rockhampton, along the coast. No particular reason other than that it's about half way to Brisbane and I found cheap lodgings there.

28.4: Driving on to Brisbane.

29.4: Seeing a Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, then driving on towards Sydney. From here the itinerary gets fuzzy for a couple of days. Haven't decided yet if I should see some more of Brisbane and stop on the way to Sydney or if I should just go all the way in one day. Regardless, I plan to stay in the area a couple of days to see some museums and of course the Opera House.

3.5: Drive from somewhere in Sydney through the Blue Mountain region down to Cowra.

4.5: Drive from Cowra to Canberra, the capital. Stay for two nighs just outside the city.

6.5: Start the last leg of my trip; a drive around the south east coast of New South Wales and Victoria. Plan on stopping the first night in the small fishing town of Eden.

7.5: Drive on to the resort town of Lakes Entrance. This part of the coast is reportedly where one might encounter Emus, a kind of smaller, ostrich-like creature.

8.5: Driving in to Melbourne, flying out in the wee morning of the 10th.

10.5: Catch a flight to New Zeland. Spend the first day in the capital, Auckland.

11.5: Drive down to Matamata and make a complete eejit of myself, weeping and wailing over the Hobbiton film set they have down there. LOTR, peeps, LOTR. Spending the night in some fancy-schmancy farmhouse nearby. Oh, a note: Accommodation in New Zealand is significantly cheaper than in Australia.

12.5: Drive on to New Plymouth on the west coast, by way of some caves at Waitomo.

13.5: Onwards to New Zealand's biggest city, Wellington. Spend two nights here doing the sights and pining for the South Island, which is a 2-3 hour ferry ride away, and which I'm too cheap to go down and see. Besides, I couldn't do it justice with the little time I have anyway. It shall have to remain a wet dream until some later time.

15.5: Make the long trek from Wellington up to Auckland again, on an inland route this time.

16.5: Fly from Auckland to Melbourne in the evening. Catch a plane to Hong Kong late in the evening.

17.5: Land in Hong Kong in the morning, catch a plane to Moscow. Land in the afternoon, then fly home to Norway. A long, mad hodgepodge of flights on the two last days. Then on May 28 I'm off again to the United States, which I fear will be the last leg of this gap year. When I come back in late August I need to start thinking about getting a regular job again.

Wail, wail and WAIL.