As I've told some of you over the past few months, my life in Perth, though lovely, was not quite exciting enough to warrant a blog. From the very first night of our road trip though, when we decided to drive onto a beach to camp and got stuck within a minute, it was clear that that had changed. I've been lazy and without battery for some time (sorry!) but I'm finally ready to write again. Soooooo here begins Nico, Chuck, Maya, and Leila do Western Australia; I hope you enjoy. To make up for lost time, I'll start us off with a big one.
We'll go back about a month, when I finally had my rugged old Nissan Patrol 4wd - "King Dave" - ready to roll, camping and snorkeling gear and emergency car supplies filling up the trunk and straps installed on top for my surfboard and boogieboard to give us some serious Aussie street cred. Now came the most important part - finding travelmates. These were the illustrious backpackers with whom I was going to spend the next month (at least) 24/7, sharing petrol, beds, fun, food, blood, sweat, and a lot of cheap wine, so I could not take this task lightly.
First I put a post up on the local couchsurfing group, which had served me so well in the past - alas, got no bites (which prepared me for our mostly luckless fishing attempts since). I then resorted to Gumtree, Australia's Craigslist equivalent, putting an ad up and responding to a few others; it was a bit riskier than couchsurfing, but had a much wider audience. I communicated with a few that didn't fit for various reasons, mostly time-related, before finally finding a real possibility. Contestant #1 was a German girl, friendly and a chef(!) but pretty quiet and reserved/hungover. She was on her way to see Hangover 2, so she earned points for that. Overall, not a bad option but I decided to hold off a commitment for the time being.
Contestant #2 was also a German girl, who was holding a bag full of meat ("It was on sale") when we met. Good start. We got a six-pack and decided that it would be nice to drink it outside on a bench in front of a fountain despite suspecting that this wasn't strictly legal behavior. Sure enough, a couple of youngish cops came by after an hour or so and knew exactly what was going on. I prepared for the worst. "Where are you from?" "Germany and the US." "We know that you can drink in public in Germany; is it legal in the US?" "Depends where you are (and if you have a brown paper bag)." [As far as I know it's only ok in New Orleans' French Quarter, but to be fair I have made good use of that exception.] "You know, if any other officers had found you, you would have a $200 fine immediately." "That's a lot." "But you seem like nice people and it's a quiet Thursday night, so we'll give you a pass; you just have to pour out the remainder of the open bottles." "Fair enough." "So, we know we shouldn't be encouraging this, but which Aussie beers do you like?" We all laughed and chatted for a few minutes, then with a smile and a wave they went on their way. "Gotta love Australia." And I knew I had found my first travelmate - Maya. Maya's foreign charm has helped us since as well, like when we were stopped by police a few days ago for a burnt-out taillight. Also didn't hurt that she (who was driving at the time) hadn't bothered to put her shorts back on after the beach we'd just been at, leaving her bikini bottom in full view. Needless to say, we didn't get a ticket (and they even saved us from overpaying for petrol at the servo we were at, directing us instead to a little petrol station up the road with cheaper prices).
Since I wanted a full variety of nationalities, this meant that Contestant #1 was out. I also wanted a balance of guys and girls, so Contestant #3 was a Canadian dude. Blind dates between two guys are always tough, so it's nice to find some safe common ground to start with, like agreeing in our first call that it was a good idea to get a caravan going with a group of girls we'd both responded to on Gumtree who were probably getting their own car. "Can't hurt the odds." "My thoughts exactly." [We ended up leaving earlier than the girls, who then passed us when we took a spontaneous detour up a peninsula to Gnaraloo on the recommendations of the old Aussie couple that had rescued us from the sand on day 1 and a Margaret River surfer chick who helped me find a sleeping Maya hidden in the bushes.] When Chuck was game enough to join my volleyball friends and I on a night out and oozed classic Canadian friendliness, I figured he was a pretty safe bet, even though he didn't join in the dancing at Carnegy's ("I need to drink way more before I'm ready to dance"). Turns out that Chuck only needs half a glass of wine to start impersonating a kangaroo and hopping towards ones that are chilling near us on a cliff. Though he displayed none of that (very welcome) goofiness that first night, I could tell that he'd be a good bro and welcomed him on board.
And then there was one.
Contestant #4 was French, a self-described "creasy girl" who got points for being a fellow couchsurfer and for adding a new language to the mix. I think that you can usually tell in the first minute and almost certainly in the first hour after meeting somebody whether you'd gel on the road, and with her I didn't quite feel it. Still, I wanted to leave three days later and needed a fourth rider and she fit the bill, so I gave her a tentative yes but told her I had agreed to meet one more person before making a decision. When my travelmates asked me later the reason for my hesitation, I could only respond, "She was wearing Crocs." "Ahhhh" they all nodded with understanding [Mordechai and Estee - if you read this, no offense intended. I'd be happy to travel with both of you next time we're not continents apart.]
Luckily, by the time I returned home from that, Contestant #5 had responded to my e-mail; we met the next night. Fresh from a road trip along the South Coast, this Swiss Girl seemed prepped for living out of a car. I'd also had a great time traveling with half-Swiss Jenn and Jeremy in South America, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt. When we had a fun night wandering around Freo in search of a live jazz performance she and her friend claimed to have seen advertised (even though bouncers we asked about it thought we were crazy because we most certainly were not in New Orleans), I knew that it had been the right decision to wait out Contestant #4. With Maya, Chuck, and now Leila on board, my team was fully assembled.
Let the fun begin.
Since my internet/electricity access is limited out here, I can't post on a schedule, but I should be able to get something up (likely without pictures) every few days.
Check back soon for Camping on the beach - Nico and gang do Kalbarri.
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