The locust massacre

Our stallion on four wheels had made it out of Exmouth safely. No wailing sirens chasing us down the deserted streets. Still, going into hiding for the night seemed like a good idea, you know, just in case. Cape Range National Park provided us with a legal camping-spot on the beach, looking out over a  gap in between two cliffs with the sea at our feet. We set up a camp-fire under the stars and truly felt like the luckiest bastards alive.

The next day we spent driving all day to Karijini National Park. A long but beautiful drive, until it happened, in the outback: the female monthly drama started. Dying of cramps, overwhelmed by the heat and flies in the back of the van, I tried as hard as I could to not think about it. To me, the worst thing that could happen, I mean, try and explain your mood swings to three guys. Suddenly the 20 flies that got trapped in the back of the van with me, were all I could see. Annoyed , angry and armed with a thong (Ozzie translation) they were the perfect outlet for venting my frustrations.

It got late and we found a quiet roadhouse to crash for the night. During the drive it was obvious we had hit some insects on the way. The headlights acted as an insect magnet and we had to stop sometimes to clear the victims off our front window. About half an hour before we got to the roadhouse, the splattering noise increased by the second. When we got out of the van it became clear why. Millions, I shit you not, millions of locusts! In the air, on the ground… stuck in my bikini top.  Screaming like a little girl… It was quite an impressive sight.

Witness the bastards.

Setting up camp was madness. We had to do it all in the dark because turning on the headlights meant a full-on locust attack from all angles. After the tent was set up, I walked over to the bathrooms to freshen up a little and wash away my moody attitude. Walking through the complete darkness, I suddenly realised the crunching under my feet definitely weren’t branches. It wasn’t until I switched on my phone to use as a torch and aimed it on the ground, that I realised I was walking on a thick layer of dead/half dead/alive locusts. The entire ground was covered in them! Ok, they were a bit annoying but I had no intention of killing them.. unlike flies, but that’s a different story. I was already halfway and stood there for a bit, grossed out and contemplating what to do. I really needed that bathroom! So I carefully walked on my tip-toes, hoping to avoid another massacre under my feet.

Guess what locusts attract? Yes! Frogs! Millions of them too! Fast food flying around, if I were a frog, I wouldn’t miss out. Frogs landing on my feet, sliding down my leg after an attempted hop, locusts covering everything, I finally made it to the bathroom. Opening that door felt like my personal Everest. Until I switched on the light and had a look inside. At least 30 frogs decorated the toilet bowl from inside out, dead and alive locusts, ants and spiders covered the entire little space, it was like insect heaven. The other frogs happily hopped around with their tongues sticking out, having something land on them every second. They must have felt like the luckiest bastards alive.

Remember the scene from ” Raiders of the Lost Ark”, with the snakes, and the one with the spiders? Well, this made Indiana’s adventures look like a walk in the park!

Great… now what? Nothing could cheer me up now. This whole ‘Living the Dream’ thing started to show some dark sides. I growled but started laughing out loud straight after. It’s just one of those days, might as well look on the bright side of it.

Insect mayhem like this also meant snakes. Someone once told me to stomp my feet around before squatting, to scare off any nearby snakes. Whether this is true or not, I didn’t care. Rather have myself look like a complete idiot than having a snake hanging from my bum. So thankfully in the complete darkness, I stomped around a little, took the risk and squatted down in the grass. Clutching a toilet roll in between my chest and chin, balancing on one hand and using my free hand to swat away any creepy crawlies from flying against my bum, or drowning. See, even I have a heart.

I tried to run back to the tent this time. It seemed I was the only one who had witnessed this crazy insect night, everyone had passed out.

“Welcome to Australia”.. I still hear Dick’s voice echoing in the back of my mind. Yeah..cheers mate.

Drive through? Crash through!

Again I would have started this post about how we just arrived in Exmouth and the beach was so pretty..which it was by the way..but I’m sure everyone gets that by now. So I’ll leave that out but just to give you a mental image of Exmouth beaches:

Clear Blue

Turquoise Bay

I know right?:) Even though it was absolutely heaven to see, Ben was a little annoyed there were no waves. Oh well, even in heaven you can’t have it all.

The evening started surprisingly enough by watching the guys doing the push-up sessions to even out the testosterone levels. Yawn.. We hadn’t found a place to sleep yet and had seen one camp-site but it would be a bit of a mission to get in there unnoticed. We parked on a big parking-lot nearby to have a meal, when I noticed a restaurant. An Italian restaurant, with luscious pizza’s and mozzarella salad starters. Dribbling at the thought of sinking my teeth into the worlds’ best food, I grabbed Ben and dragged him into the restaurant. Mark and Dick gave it a miss. Who does that? It was worth the money alright. Ben and I had a great chat and he even paid a little towards it. (His budget for the next three days, bless him.) After that the four of us hung out on the parking-lot discussing burps, farts and god knows what, when it became time to figure out what to do for a sleeping spot.

Driving around the camp-site we found a fence. A removable fence. If you get what I’m saying.. Mark and Dick got a sneaky smile on their faces as Ben and I hid in the back under blankets hoping this was going to go alright. We drove right onto a perfect little spot to park the car and we set up tent as if we had been there all day. Obviously people had seen us. After a while a blond, long dread-locked-haired guy came up. (Picture the typical, surfer dude, who speaks slow as if he has been smoking weed all day) ” Man,.. you can’t just drive through the fence, man. That’s not cool man.” We promised him we were going to see reception in the morning. Laughing our asses off after he walked off. Hippy surfer dude. Muahaha.

Well, you can guess what happened in the morning. It sort of went like this. After showering and up-dating my diary, Dick came up and told us we had to get out now. We had taken too much time getting our stuff together, reception was open and hippy surfer dude was on to us. We packed up like crazy and got into the van. I’ve never been  more happy for it to actually start in one go. Suddenly Mark told us to hold on tight and started revving up. “What are you doing?!” I yelled at him. ” We don’t have time to move the fence, just hold on!” he yelled back. We flew forward and before I knew it we burst through the fence, loudly skidding before speeding off as if we had just robbed a bank.

We all laughed and screamed for ages. Still can’t believe we did that. We quickly got some food for the night and drove off out of public places where we could be recognised. The next thing we’ll be hitting, is a pillow!

 

Road Surfing

It’s funny, I rung up Dick the other day on some details from one of our nights on the trip. “Do you know we have not had one single, normal day on our trip?” I asked him. We laughed. “But that’s what made it so memorable!” he replied. Ahh..if only we could do it all again.

Our second morning in Kalbarri, Dick woke up with horrible back pain. He could not sit up or move one bit. Without breakfast, we packed up and drove to the nearest chiropractor, hoping this guy had a few minutes for an emergency treatment. Ben and Mark carried him in, it turned out the chiropractor did have time and Dick was helped straight away. A bit later he came out walking by himself looking much better. His back had been cracked and patched up with this special band-aid thing on his back. No movement for Dick today, which meant only one thing…Beach day!!

Red bluff was meant to be a beautiful beach and oh my was it! Again, not a soul in sight, my favourite thing about Australia,- paradise to yourself. The surf was incredible. (By now I’d actually become good at recognising what good surf is and what’s not) While Dick and I spent the afternoon on our backs in the sand, Mark and Ben were out in the waves all day. Every now and then we’d cheer them on from the beach and took some really good photos. On the way back they couldn’t stop talking about the surf, as if they were two little 5 year olds coming back from a party. Later on, Ben confessed that he hadn’t surfed for years. He had surfed since he was a little boy, until a few years ago, he had an accident and had almost drowned. He said he is lucky to be alive and unfortunately that accident had stopped him from getting back on his board. It was only a month ago he had tried it again. This day had been a milestone for him.

Ben surfing

X marks the spot

We had a great spaghetti dinner in the park. Convincing the guys that adding capers and cheese to the kind of bland sauce would really make a change, I think this must have been my best meal so far. That, noodles for lunch or a sick sandwich (Ben’s name for my mashed avocado on bread lunch special) were the only contents on my travel menu. Capers were a well enjoyed luxury.

No one noticed us, or came up to ask us if we had paid, so until that happened we stayed on the same camp-site again. At one point a guy from the van parked up next to us, came over and asked if he could use our power-point to change his phone. “Haha, sure mate, it’s free for us too.” He introduced himself as Jacob, a guy from Denmark, travelling together with his friends Martin and Ingelise (a.k.a. Lisa) up the west coast too. They seemed really cool so we joined them with our goon and our Moby filled Ipod. While we were all busy talking, this huge greenish shooting star shot over the sky. (Cheesy but amazing) It was an awesome sight! Never again have I seen such a big or bright shooting star. It’s hard for me to describe the atmosphere of this day, as I think it was just how we all felt together that made it such a memorable day. That good, that now, 3 years later, we still rave about it.

After a great night meeting new friends, we said our goodbye’s in the morning while we left for Pink lake in Port Gregory. (The pink colour is due to algae) Oh it was pink alright. Bright, raspberry pink. quite a crazy sight, something you’d only see in cartoons. Unfortunately it didn’t taste as good as it looked. Yes, sadly we tried. On our way again, we made stops at most of the cliff views around Kalbarri, which were as amazing as we had heard.

Island rock, Kalbarri

Pink Lake

 

Dick in Pink

People on the way had told us Monkey Mia was the bees knees. “A small place, but great for spotting dolphins and amazing beaches’. Alright that sounded awesome, let’s go there! 380 km’s later it was starting to get dark and we decided to stop in Denham for a free night. We got up at the crack of dawn to drive on to Monkey Mia, but got a bit delayed after Dick realised after 40 km’s he had left his phone charging at the camp-site in Denham. Shit! We did a u-turn and speeded back. Reception had opened by now but no one asked questions when Dick walked past and finding his phone still in the same spot. Alright,..back on the road again.

Monkey Mia Resort had an entrance fee of $6 a person and I think because of that we expected quite a bit. Sadly is was extremely touristic and seemed more like a zoo. The dolphins were indeed free but because of standard feeding times, it might as well have been a zoo. Within two hours we left again. Carnarvon (what the hell) was our next stop. Haha well pit-stop really. This place seemed so dull we left again immediately after a quick lunch, making it all the way to Coral bay. Now there’s paradise on earth!

Coral bay is the definition of what those postcards look like when somebody goes on a exotic holiday and wants to rub it in that you aren’t there. All of us were just stunned by the amazing little place. Whale-sharks, snorkelling and mantra rays, this was going to be an amazing few days. It was to early to sneak onto a camp-site, so we had a BBQ. Or well,.. there was already a party going on, we sort of just joined in to use the BBQ and enjoy their music, they didn’t seem to mind:) We had a great night hanging out with a two French guys we met they were flat broke and explained how to steal food in exchange for us telling them how to get free accommodation. Backpackers have each others back They taught me how to say “Qui va à la chasse perd sa place, qui va à la pêche, la repêche.” It means something like ‘He who leaves his seat, loses it’. Random, I know. The thing is, when you travel, everybody teaches you the most rude or strange words in various languages. I never remember a thing but this, I strangely remember. Oh and some German swear words I won’t repeat here. The six of us headed to our new free accommodation. More exploring tomorrow…

BBQ Coral Bay

P-Town

Meet Dick: No, it is not short for Richard, a complete chick magnet, personal trainer, definition of ‘no worries’ attitude towards every aspect in life, loves a good bag of goon to start the night. Can be found: Sleeping at any given time, lying on the beach or any other activity performed horizontal.

(Goon: A silver sack filled with cheap wine which is found within a cardboard box. Drunk by youths in Australia due to its low cost however it promotes vomiting due to its awful taste. But gets you absolutely plastered, which is the main idea.) 

Meet Mark: Tall, big and broad, surfer-dude, the life of any party, makes a mean spag boll, will put his life at risk for a good adrenaline rush, finished off with a big Maori shoulder tattoo. Note: Does a great impression of the Maori war chant: The Haka.

Meet Ben:Welsh born surfer, comes out of his shell after a few Strongbow beers, funniest guy you’ll ever meet, lives in his hardly washed army shorts. His only belongings: Surfboard, Superbad DVD, a phone and super-glue. Will also refer to Mark and Dick as “gay”, as they shave more than the average girl.

Perth: Hot, chilled out and therefore my favourite city in Australia. It has the atmosphere of any Caribbean bar on the beach, and everything feels even more laid back than in other Australian cities.

The van Dick had bought the previous week had been smashed in at night, so he got some Germans he met at the hostel to pick us up from the airport. Before I could even say hi, we got chucked into the back of this massive, completely decked out 4wd. This car was amazing, it had absolutely everything on it. He was looking to sell it, but the price was about my entire 3 month savings for the trip. Oh well, keep on dreaming. On the way to the hostel we had made a small stop at the bottle-o. Drive through liquor stores, what a way to integrate. Captivated and excited we drove on to what would be my first, hostel experience. It looked fine from the outside. Small, yellow building in the centre of Northbridge. Dick warned me about the state of the hostel and even though I was a little girl, I’d better not be afraid of insects. Spiders would be the least of my worries. Great..

Stepping over a few dead hand-sized cockroaches and wading ourselves through other people’s mess in the dorm room, we found our bunk bed reeking of last nights dinner and alcohol breath. And a big fan standing in the middle of it, that was meant to cool it down a bit, did nothing but just blow the stink around the roasting hot room. Not to worry, I was still excited. This is the moment when Dick decided to inform me that I shouldn’t hang around the reception desk too much in case they asked questions. “What questions?” I asked suspiciously. Apparently the hostel had been booked out for ages and so we had to share a bed and stay incognito or otherwise risking sleeping on the street. All of this was mentioned under a take it or leave it way of speaking and I was too tired to care. What did it matter anyway? I was in Australia

That evening I got introduced to backpacker food. In other words, eat as cheap as you can and share it with as many people as possible to keep the costs low. Most of the time this consisted of spaghetti and tomato sauce, rice with any given sauce or one minute noodles which comes in five packs for $0,80. Not to mention any form of canned food, but that usually only happens when you are really out of cash. Hunger is the best sauce they say… After that, people start to gather around the common area, which was an outside area with two very large picnic tables, a ping-pong table and a vending machine. MGMT was playing from someone’s Ipod and more goon-boxes got whacked on the table with every person’s arrival. In Holland it is not always that easy to walk up to strangers and start talking about random stuff, but here it didn’t matter one bit. Everyone’s your mate, as someone once told me. The best way to start a conversation will notoriously always be the: “Where are you from? How long have you been here? Where have you been?” questions. Which will usually lead to the most fascinating travel stories of fellow travellers. This time, thank god for those opening lines, because I had no idea how to do this. About 20 people were already busy getting a pre-party started when I walked up. Dick got up and said ” This is my friend Ainslie, she just arrived a few hours ago” and left me to it.

The first person to talk to me other than the Germans from that afternoon, was Ben. He was Welsh and had come to Perth to meet up with his hometown friend Owen (who looks remarkably like Spike from the movie Notting Hill). After working for a few months he decided to come travelling too. We chatted for ages and through him I got talking to everyone. I felt like I had made 20 new friends in a few hours. Although, after all that goon everyone had drunk, they’d probably have become friends with anyone who had started talking to them. But still, even Dick mentioned he was surprised I was so easy-going. Everyone went out clubbing around 12, and I stayed behind to try and get into Australia time.

Day one of three months, ticked off.

The Guys: Ben, Mark, John and Dick

All stories start somewhere

So there I was at 16. School was not working out the way I planned and unlike the other 80% of the world population, I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up. Or what I wanted from life at all for that matter.

The one thing I was sure of was that to me, this whole settling down with the perfect job, big house, lots of babies and then maybe a dog to complete the family portrait, seemed very dull. I always had the feeling we were made to think that we needed to accomplish certain things in life in order to be happy…or else. Up until then I had the feeling I was on my own with this opinion and felt a bit out of place. So whatever I was going to do now, had to be something extreme. Something that broke all of society’s expectations and life’s easy comfort zone.

Around this time I met a lovely, blonde Ozzie chick in my year. She was as bubbly as bubbly you can be, we became friends instantly and soon skipped classes for coffee, cigarettes and heavy discussions on the pros and cons of life. One day she started telling me about her plan to do a round-trip through Australia and if I felt anything for coming along too. At this point I had not even considered travelling. But from that day, the idea got stuck in my head. No, not stuck, jammed. This was it. I started telling people this was what I was going to do and intended to leave any day soon.

Unfortunately the dream journey got delayed by the usual drama’s: lack of money, boyfriends and even my own apartment for a while. Until 6 years later, after I had just turned 22 and I lost my apartment, my job and my boyfriend in the same week, I finally got some sense knocked into me.

“Holy shit! I am only 22! What was I thinking!”

I got out a map of Australia and vaguely made a plan of attack for my three month holiday. At the same time I found out an old first crush (his name was Dick, we were 12, it was ridiculously cute and after my first kiss, it sadly only lasted a month) was already mucking about down under. Excited about his stories and experiences I rung him up for some advice. “Ains, are you serious? Come to Perth and meet me!” he said even more thrilled. As you do, we bought a van and the long dreamed-of trip started.

No idea what to expect and with a three month deadline, I arrived in Perth jet-lagged, sweaty and annoyingly smelly, but in absolute bliss.