The Canadianvasion

6/12/2010 to 13/12/2010

Of course it was raining when I left Yamba – another travel day, another wet ride.  This one ended up being ok though, as things warmed up and dried out as I got to the Byron Bay coast, and I was just about totally steamed off by the time I made it into town.

Byron Bay is a hippie / organic / alternative culture tourist haven.  Like Yamba, it is blessed with beautiful landscape in the hinterland and great beaches, though the surfing is almost an afterthought (at least at the main beaches).  Unlike Yamba, it is packed with chotchkie shops, hostels, and vacation apartments, meaning it is a major backpacker and schoolie (think spring break) Mecca.  It’s also crammed with tourist agencies, who (for a fee) will book your day trip to a place called Nimbin, where you basically step off the bus and get accosted by hippies wanting to sell you weed and space cakes.  For what it’s worth (not many of the visitors care to know this, they’re so spaced out after their trip to Nimbin – or should that be “trip in Nimbin”?) it is the easternmost point in Australia and has a beautiful lighthouse at the cape where one can be the first in Australia to see the sunrise.  In my time in Australia I’ve never seen such an oversaturated, commercialized, tourist destination as this one (which is probably why I’m skipping Surfer’s Paradise altogether).  Don’t get me wrong – as I said it is blessed with a natural beauty not many places can compete with.  But unlike Yamba, Byron Bay knows it and flaunts it.  Both places are “exclusive” property locations, but Yamba is what happens after locals and what I would call “community conservationists” see Byron today.  In any event, everyone should go see it – it’s a beautiful spot, with wonderful shopping opportunities, and probably the only place where you can quasi-legally get stoned in Australia if that floats your boat (but even that is so transactional that it loses its illicit appeal).  Just suffice it to say it’s not the place I am looking for on my adventure around Australia, and I’d go so far as to say I think it has lot quite a lot of its soul.

The hostel?  Party central.  Flyers up every morning with the day’s and evening’s happy hour offerings, empty beer bottles, wine bottles, and goon bags around every corner.  Not that it was dirty – it was actually a nice-ish hostel – just that everyone’s daily routine involved waking up late, hung over, going to the beach, probably starting to hit the booze at beer o’clock, back to the hostel for quick hotdogs or hamburgers or pasta dinner, and then out on the town.  Rinse and repeat.  Maybe throw in Nimbin for one day (in which case the routine is: wake up, get on bus, buy space cakes, come back to Byron and hit up Subway, buy three foot-long subs with chips and cookies, realize you ate one too many space cakes, have most god-awful trip of your life, and spend the next 18 hours in bed), and that’s what goes in amongst the backpacker crowd here.  The ones who have money go shopping for the same stuff you can get anywhere else (Billabong, bikinis, sunglasses, dresses, etc).

The hostel also had $10 per day parking, and there’s no place in the “central business district”, as they call it, with free parking.  I was here for eight days.

Anyhow, a few days in I’m tired and 3/4 asleep in my bed at 10pm.  Not anymore.  The door to the dorm room crashes open an in stampede four bulls into the proverbialchina shop.  Yep.  Canadian girls.  In their defense, they’d probably never stayed in a hostel before, but they were the LOUDEST people I have ever experienced.  At 10pm, they take half an hour to find their beds and settle in, all the while whispering at a talking / yelling volume.  Tired?  No…they head straight out on the town and come back at 4am not even bothering to whisper.  The next morning (I really should have seen it coming), they wake up bright and early at 8am and block up the bathroom for two hours straight getting ready to go SURFING!  Not to the prom or a wedding…TO PUT ON THEIR SWIMSUITS!!!  Later that night, admitting defeat, I joined them out on the town.  They were actually pleasant girls, which I guess was to be expected.  We had a nice tapas dinner, and then did the typical evening exercise in Byron Bay – walking from one bar/club to the next, to the next, and back to the first in search of something that didn’t suck, for lack of a better word.  They left the next morning, and the world was a better place for it.

Apart from the partying that went on all around me, the lighthouse was really a pretty cool spot.  About a 30-45 minute walk from town, the path takes you through littoral rainforest, up and down hills, back up again, down a little bit, and back up a really steep bit for a mile.  It’s nice to be out of the direct sunshine, even if the humidity is a bit higher in the forest, but avoiding spiders the size of your fist is not a favorite pastime of mine.  I did this around 4pm, got some nice pictures, and headed back to the town and hostel.  I did some research and found out that if I wanted to see the sunrise in the morning, I’d have to get up at 4am to get there in time…hmm…Well a few days later I decide to do it anyhow, with two other girls from my room whom I’d really met after going to the townie bar the night before for some live music.  We got up at 4am, I led the way up the hill, and we saw the sunrise.  The lighthouse is a nice place, and the sunrise is a nice thing to see, but one doesn’t really serve as a great backdrop for the other…or at least you can take about two nice pictures of both together and that’s it.  My unintended sunrise at Seven Mile Beach a few weeks back was a lot better.

That’s just about all that went on at Byron to be honest…it’s an interesting place, but I’m feeling more and more like I’m just biding my time until Christmas.  Spending eight nights in one place doesn’t really give oneself the feeling of “adventure” – more like vacation.  I’m not a backpacker, and I didn’t come here to party every night.  But I have to do it (bide my time, that is) since I’m driving back down south for Christmas, and I’d prefer a 10 hour drive over a 24 hour one! 

I’m really looking forward to heading away from the party coast and into the outback just after the New Year.  I think it will mean a lot more hardship for me, but that’s part of the adventure.  The coast is by all means a beautiful place, but it’s an easy place as well.  I can’t wait for a change in the landscape, even if it means trading the more temperate (and wet) coast for the dry and hot interior of the country.  For me, the Australia is the sparsely populated, less visited places in the outback, not the coast or rainforest.  Can’t wait to see what it has in store for me, my bike, and my sanity!


Oh, and the $10/day parking rip-off?  The exit gate was broken the morning I left, so I saved myself $80.  Karma...

At the carwash, a Winter in Yamba, “On the Goon”, Shane’s $10 Tour

1/12/2010 to 5/12/2010

Finally it was time to leave Coffs Harbour, really not soon enough.  Most of the week there was spent watching movies in the hostel, though the last two days were pretty fun; between walking in the rainforest and taking the hostel’s free canoes down the creek and into the surf (flipping the boat in the process), it still couldn’t make up for the lack of activities the town had to offer. 

I woke up around 8am and packed my things, not worrying about waking anyone since the Swedish blueberry pickers had already done that at 6.  I could hear it raining outside, but made no mind since I just wanted to get out of town…until I made it to the parking lot.  It was coming down in SHEETS.  I quickly put my left-hand pannier back on the bike (it’s getting harder and harder to take off / put on, will need to look into why) and ran back to dry ground.  It took another half our or so for the rain to subside enough for me to pack my roll bag and make the soggy journey northwards.  First though, I stopped by the local McDonalds for breakfast and free WiFi of course – and ended up staying for a few hours since the rain was getting lighter and lighter, and there was no point in riding in a downpour.

I finally moved on around noon, and decided to take the scenic route once more.  Bad idea…since it seemed that all the rain that had passed over Coffs Harbour just went inland, along the route I wanted to take.  About halfway to Grafton (next big town), I just decided to bag the scenic route and took the first sign back to the Pacific Highway.  Another bad idea…it should have been indication enough that I had to zoom all the way into my GPS to even see the road that it wasn’t paved at all.  At the time I didn’t really care, but about 30mins and less than 15km down the road, I realized that riding in loose gravel / slippery mud really isn’t that fun on a heavily-laden bike.  I finally made it back to the highway (rain still very much in tow), and on my way to Grafton.  I stopped there for an hour or two, to upload Coffs pictures and blog entry, and also to dry off.  It seems that my wax jacket isn’t as waterproof as I had thought it to be.  Somewhere down the road I’ll see what I can do to waterproof it again.

Well, it really didn’t stop raining the entire way from Coffs to Yamba, but I finally got to the hostel around 3pm.  And what a difference!  The hostel here was purpose built, about two years ago, and you can tell it’s almost brand new.  If there weren’t bunk beds, dormitory rooms, and shared bathrooms down the hall, you’d think it’s a pretty respectable hotel…in that things actually work, there are nice fixtures everywhere, paint is not fading / cracking.  It even has a rooftop terrace and a hot tub on the third floor balcony, and there was a café / restaurant / ice cream joint in the first floor (which had a good mix of locals and backpackers at all times).

So to step back and describe Yamba…it’s a town of about 5,000, though population can triple during holiday season.  Weather in winter is usually 25°C and sunny, in summer it’s 30°C and sunny.  Just five minutes down the road it the world’s 10th best surfing wave, the founder of Billabong grew up here and has a $25m “vacation” home here, and so do a lot of pro surfers.  It has nice boutique shops and restaurants catering to local and tourist tastes.  Most importantly, it has an unrushed, laid back, and friendly vibe to it; all the locals know each other by name, and they know the vacationers who call Yamba their second home alike.  But at the same time it’s not built up at all, the local council has pretty much blocked any further development of land, and it’s unpretentious / not commercialized.  So you can understand why it was named the best town in Australia a few years back…which didn’t hurt property prices (I’m told certain places selling for $300k a few years back now go for $2.5m with little additional development – also meaning developers have stopped looking to Yamba to build).  Clearly weekly rent can be pretty expensive as far as vacation places go, but it’s very nice nonetheless.  As a side, I’d like to be the guy who determines which town in Australia is “the best” so I can invest ahead of time.

Unfortunately, I happened to arrive in Yamba during winter weather…25°C, but even worse, cloudy and rainy.  The entire east coast of Australia has been getting hammered by rain over the past few weeks – it’s not necessarily a bad thing though, as the country is in a persistent state of drought, so filling the dams is always a good thing.  Otherwise it’s back to not being able to water your lawn, no washing your cars, and two minute showers!  The rain, or at least the cloud cover, lasted the entire week, which is why there aren’t any pictures in this post – light was too flat to take anything interesting.

Anyhow, the week was pretty laid back…I picked up the replacement Spot GPS tracker along with more dry bags and some bandanas (thanks mom) from the post office on day 2.  It took about 5 minutes to set up the tracker and confirm the first ping, so it’s working.  I spent a few hours working on the blog, setting up the “Where am I?” page, and updating the photo gallery as well.  It’s nice that I’m finally putting the blog together three weeks into my trip…I’ll keep tweaking things along the way until I’m happy with the layout and content, so keep visiting!

Whereas most of the backpackers up until now had been German, in Yamba we had Scandinavians.  Load of ‘em.  Sure, there were a couple of Germans (literally two), and some French / French Canadians, but the majority of people staying there were from Sweden, Norway, or Denmark.  And it’s not like they were staying there for a couple of days and moving on…I think on average the Scandis had been there for two weeks, with some having been there for months!  Scandinavians are always pretty interesting folks, they get their drink on pretty well, and are generally fun to be around.  One of them was the young Swedish version of Ellen Degeneres.  Absolutely everything (everything!) reminded me of her…from facial features, to haircut, to mannerisms, to goofy booty-wiggle dancing.

Later on in the week, together with Judd (Welsh guy whom I’d met in Coffs Harbour) and the rest of the backpackers, we “went on the goon”.  For the uninitiated, goon (or plonk) is the cheapest of the cheap boxed wine.  Cheap as get out, way too sweet, and gets you drunk.  It is the favorite amongst the backpackers due to its inherently high alcohol volume to price ratio.  That’s about all it has going for it.  It’s also known for giving some of the worst hangovers known to man (next to HEB/Wal-Mart jug sangria), and being the catalyst for many a poor life decision.

Also a highlight – actually the highlight – of Yamba, was Shane’s $10 Tour.  Shane was one of the owners of the hostel, along with his parents.  It was his idea to build the place after a couple of property deals fell through around the time Yamba was named the best town in Australia.  So, next best thing for him was to attract all the on-the-cheap surfing enthusiasts to his hometown.  And he’s done a fantastic job.  Beyond the great hostel, he is the most engaged hostel owner I’ve ever met (actually, the only hostel owner I’ve ever met), and an absolute asset to the Yamba YHA.  Beyond giving tours, he mans the reception desk, the café’s bar, serves as waitstaff when needed, organizes surf tours three days out of the week, and during the rest has lawn bowling and yacht racing events.  He’s really helped to created a close-knit family environment at the hostel.  Anyway, back to the tour…Come noon, about 10 of us pile into Shane’s van, and he takes us around town.  He shows us the regular sights: the several local beaches within walking distance, the multi-million dollar non-waterfront vacation homes, and the multi-multi-multi-million dollar waterfront ones as well.  We then head to the lighthouse for pictures, and then to the harbor for pelican feeding.  These pelicans were as big as the ones you see in south Florida.  And we were feeding them by hand.  Pretty fun stuff, but chaotic.  Next stop, a place called Angourie Point.  Angourie is where the owner of Billabong has his $25m house, and it’s also where the world’s 10th best wave is to be found.  After showing us the point, and driving us past Mr. Billabong’s house (who is also known to walk around town, meet up with the tour and anonymously chat with the backpackers, he’s that laid back), we went cliff jumping about 50ft from the coast in a former quarry.  Apparently quarry workers dug deep enough to hit the water table and flooded all their work…oh well, but made for great swimming and jumping from 30-40 feet up!  On the way back, jokester that Shane is (late 30s going on 15), he fooled us all into thinking there was a venomous snake in a small rock crevice, and he dived in to trap it and show it to us.  Of course, it was just a big rubber snake, but he scared the crap out of most of the group when he threw it out at us!

Unfortunately my time in Yamba came to an end too quickly, and with the worst of weather (though it wasn’t that bad).  I think if I weren’t on my tour around Australia I could have easily become one of those Scandinavians who has been there for months on end, continually extending their stays.  I’m sure I’ll be back though!

Bad Dog!, More Germans, and The iPod is Dead? Long Live the iPod!

Date: 26/11/2010 to 30/11/2010

Finally leaving Port Macquarie on the 25th, I decided to take one of those “scenic” drives…I really don’t know why I so often choose to drive completely out of the way, spend even more money on gas and run the risk of dropping the bike on dirt roads.  It probably had something to do with me doing nothing in Port Macquarie for five days, aside from accruing bed bug bites.  If the point is to drive around Australia, why go from A to B to C, when you can do A to C in half the time?  Especially when B isn’t even worth seeing…  I guess it’s one thing to go on a scenic drive if you live in, say, Switzerland (why else drive mountain passes when there are perfectly good tunnels that get you from A to C?), but along the Australian east coast the landscapes are so similar that the scenic route just ends up being the long way.  Oh well, time is the one thing that I’ve got enough of…

So from Port Macquarie, I drove on to a town called Kempsey.  Running low on gas, I hit up the local gas station, and this delivery van driver filling up his truck asks me, “are you coming to Kempsey or leaving?”  I thought this was a bit bizarre, but told him I was just riding through.  His response: “Good, if you get off in town, I’d take your valuables with you…especially this town.”  Nice to know there are shady places in Australia too.

To the “scenic” part of the drive…from Kempsey, I turn off the highway on to the road that serves as a shortcut (first warning) to a town called Armidale, the so-called country music capital of Australia.  It was a nice, winding road not dissimilar to the drive I had in the Hunter Valley – smooth curves, high speed limit and little traffic, though the views weren’t half as good.  Around 20km into the ride, I begin to pass signs that say “2km east of XYZ road suitable only for light traffic.  Not suitable for caravans” (second warning).  So, 2km east of wherever the sign said it would be, the road turns into gravel.  Not too bad though, as I’m getting used to riding on dirt / gravel roads.

The ride was more or less uneventful until the last part, when I was 1,400m up in a really windy section of the road.  I exit a blind left-hand turn and continue uphill on the road.  Coming down the mountains were two crusty yokels with their six or so horses in tow.  I keep on up the road, wave to the townies, and – BAM – their young border collie (whom I hadn’t seen before) bolts from behind one of the horses straight for my front tire.  I try to maneuver around it, but the road was too narrow and I didn’t have enough time to react, so I hit the dirt and my bike ends up propped up against the hillside, with my leg in the smallest of recesses between the left pannier, the ground, and the frame of the bike.  If I landed any differently, it’d probably be broken.  Crusty yokel #1 takes his sweet time getting off his horse to help me (I had to turn around to make sure they were still there), but finally comes around and lifts the bike off my leg, so I could get up and finish picking up the bike.  There really wasn’t any point in yelling at the guy.  He seemed nice enough, and his body language was definitely apologetic.  He cracked a joke or two, lit up what was most definitely not just a cigarette, and went on his chubby, hairy, merry way back down the mountain.  As a side, dogs seem to love my motorcycle…I just wish they’d admire it from a distance like everyone else.

There was a point to this whole ride…at the end, were the Wollomombi Falls.  Once believed to be the tallest waterfall in Australia, they are actually second or third.  They are still pretty impressive, with a total vertical drop of 220m.  The light wasn’t that great for pictures, and the flies seemed to love being right in front of my lens, so I got back on the bike and rode on.  Then ensued the much-longer-than-I-had-imagined ride to Coffs Harbour.  In total, I rode in excess of 350km today, and all I got for it was more scratches on my bike, a bruised leg, and an ass that is starting to KILL me.  Really, you’d think Yamaha would make a halfway comfortable seat when designing a bike meant to chew up miles on paved or unpaved road.  Nope, they definitely went for the “wooden park bench” motif.  So I’m getting used to sitting a bit further up the seat, where the pillion passenger would be, to get some pressure off my aching rear end.

Enough about the ride into Coffs…though to be honest, that was about the most exciting thing about the week (other than no more bed bugs).  The hostel was OK, nothing to write home about though.  Later in the evening, the hostel organized a bus to drive us into town to the local pub, which was a pretty weird place.  The largest age differential had to be in excess of 50 years, distributed pretty evenly across the board.  It was a good time though, had a few too many beers for my budget, and ended up walking the 2km back to the hostel in consistent rain.  That rain would continue at least once a day pretty well through the rest of the week…

The next day, I decided to walk around and see what Coffs Harbour was about.  To be honest, not much from what I saw.  There was a surf lifesaving competition going on at the main beach though, with teams of 8-9 racing rowboats out into the surf and back.  It was pretty cool to watch – some teams didn’t make it past the first wave, as it pushed them back onto the beach, and others flipped over halfway out to the buoy.  I hung out at the beach watching for a while, disappointed that I had forgotten my camera.

Back at the hostel, I plugged in just about every electronic device I had to give ‘em a charge…just for laughs, I decided to plug in my iPod, half expecting to knock out the power to the entire hostel.  To my surprise, it booted right up!  It was a VERY nice surprise to finally have my music back.  It definitely helps while writing blog entries and going through pictures.

Something odd that I noticed while in Coffs was the number of people working while on holiday.  I counted at least 10 people who either worked in the hostel for a few weeks at a time, or even out picking fruit (bananas and blueberries) to make ends meet.  I thought most people save up to go on holidays, not go on holidays and then find a way to pay your way around.

For most of the rest of the week, I hung in or around the hostel like everyone else there – the walk to the beach was about 20min, and the weather was spotty at best.  I ended up meeting two more German girls (surprise), this time from Dortmund (Verena) and Aachen (Britta).  For whoever's keeping track, I've now met Germans from Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen, Bavaria, and now Nordrhein Westfalen.  We went one day to the Dorrigo National Park for a hike in the rainforest, which was actually a nice walk…of course, I went in my flip flops and picked up a leech along the way (flicked him off pretty quickly though).

As you can tell, there really wasn’t much going on in Coffs Harbour…I didn’t even bother seeing the Big Banana since the weather on the last day was atrocious, but I’ve got two more opportunities to catch it – one riding back down for Christmas, and the other racing back up for New Years in the Whitsundays.

That’s about it…most boring blog post ever, pretty much covers how exciting Coffs Harbour was.  In a couple of days I’ll have a new post up for Yamba, the coolest place in Australia you’ve never heard of.  I promise, I’ll make up for this one…

Pacific Sunrise, The Waiting Game, and Don't Let the You-Know-Whats Bite

Date: 20/11/2010 to 25/11/2010

After the failed campsite search, I rode on to the Great Lakes region of NSW.  I had looked for possible beach campsites and marked some down in my GPS.  By the time I got to Elizabeth Beach, it was around 9pm, but there was an almost full moon that night so there was still plenty of light.  I talked to a few locals who suggested a site or two a few miles north on Seven Mile Beach, near Forster.  I drove on, making a bazillion u-turns checking out potential spots (which is why you really should pick out your campsite during the day, but I’m an idiot).  Pretty much all of the campsites that I picked out earlier ended up being duds – they were either parking lots with hilly / sandy approaches to the beach (so I’d have to leave my bike a couple hundred meters back), or weren’t sites at all.  The absolute last one I had marked on my GPS turned out to be golden though.  The road leading towards the northernmost point on Seven Mile Beach was pretty bumpy, but by the time I reached the end I was at a totally secluded beach, with headland to the north and a view all the way down the full seven miles back towards Elizabeth Beach.  The view was absolutely perfect, and even though it was 10pm, I didn’t need my headlamp to set up my tent.  I did need to find a couple of different spots to pitch it though, since the soil was too sandy, and my pegs wouldn’t stay in the ground.  I must’ve looked like an idiot shuffling my half set-up tent up and down the beach looking for some solid ground.

And….notch up another night without sleep.  As if you’d expect anything else.  The upside of no sleep was being up around 5am for first light and the sunrise.  That was amazing – I am normally the type of person who, given the chance, will sleep until noon instead of getting up in the actual morning, but I’m beginning to understand why some people are early risers.  I packed my sleeping bag, foam mat, and attempted to pack up the tent too, but it was too wet to be useful, so I just hung it up on my bike to dry out.  For the next 45 minutes or so, I trekked up and down the beach taking pictures of the sunrise.  Words really can’t describe the beauty of the colors as the sun rose over the Pacific to the east.  Despite my sleep-deprived haze, I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight.

The solitude of my beach campsite was demolished pretty quickly though, and around 6:30am droves of surfers showed up at the end of the gnarled dirt road in their utes, with boards in tow.  Between 6:30am and when I left around 10:00am, I counted at least 20 locals taking a crack at the waves at what was my bedroom just the night before.  It was a pretty cool couple of hours, just sitting, waiting for my things to dry, and watching surfer after surfer ride the waves into the shore.  I honestly don’t know what people on this part of the coast do for a living; but I know what they all do before they go and do whatever it is that pays the bills.

Around 11am, I headed towards a town called Seal Rocks on a suggestion from the same locals from the night before.  Another day, another potholed dirt road…this time, to “Treachery Beach”.  Terrible name for a tourist spot, but it’s a pretty incredible beach.  A very popular surfing spot as well, it has huge sand dunes separating the beach from the hills inland.  But the campsite there was pretty seedy, and the beach smelled like dead fish.  So I move on once again.

In typical form, I decided to take another hours-long ride down the highway to the next big town instead of camping, aware that insomnia was just a campsite away.  I’m sure I’ll figure the whole camping thing out, either as a result of built-up insomnia forcing me to get sleep, or finally getting used to the cramped arrangement.  So anyhow, I drove on to Port Macquarie, which is an important waypoint, since I was having my replacement Spot GPS sent here.  Unfortunately it wasn’t supposed to come for another few days at least, so I guess I’d just spend the next 4 or 5 days here, relax, and catch up on sleep lost in my tent.

Covered in Treacherous Beach dust, I arrived in Port Macquarie around 6:30pm, and surprise, I run into the same German girls from Newcastle (two of the brainless in “Peter and four other brainless people” pub quiz team fame).  Australia is a pretty big country, but the hostels dotting the land on the other hand, make it seem like one cozy neighborhood – just the houses change every few days.  Half of the people you meet are going in the opposite direction, and you end up getting to know them for a day or two at most.  The other half are moving in staggered fashion (think rabbit & hare) with you, in the same direction, and invariably staying at the same budget accommodation as you.  On one hand it’s kinda too bad, since you limit yourself to meeting an increasingly limited group of people, but it is nice having familiar faces every once in a while to hang out with.  I’m probably exaggerating it a bit, but it does make sense that you run into familiar faces since the east coast of Australia is pretty limited geographically, and most people do the logical thing and go north-to-south or south-to-north.

In any event, I cleaned myself off and had home-cooked Thai dinner with a hyperactive Thai-Canadian guy, the German girls, and a French guy with whom I also shared a dorm room in Newcastle.  That night was the first time I had been in a top bunk bed in about 10-12 years, and I swear I clung to the wall in fear I’d fall off an break my arm or leg.

Over the next few days I hung out with a Swiss guy, Reto.  We walked around town, saw the lighthouse and had a pretty nice BBQ with steamed potatoes, carrots, zucchini, and about a kilo of marinated chicken.  I spent a lot of time culling pictures and working on my blog from McDonalds, so there really wasn’t much noteworthy that went on during the middle of the week.  Oh yeah there was…I was just about eaten alive by everyone’s lovely bedfellow (if you’re in NYC), the bedbug.  First I thought they were chiggers, another great thing to discover one has, but they definitely turned out to be bedbugs.  The itching kept me up at night, and I almost exhausted my entire supply of cortisone cream in a few days.  The welts, you can imagine, look lovely.

Enough of bugs (though I’m sure there’ll be plenty of that as the trip goes on)…On Friday, after four days I think, my package finally kind of arrived.  I say “kind of” since you really can’t tell these days by the tracking status descriptions.  “Arrived at international delivery location” sounds like “go pick it up, it’s at the local post office”, but actually means it’s about 300 miles away and might not get delivered at all.  By that time I couldn’t stand another night getting killed by bedbugs, so I drove on to Coffs Harbour.  I’ll deal with the package on Monday and have it redirected wherever I’m next, if it’s even re-directable…otherwise I’ll just have Santa send it for Christmas.  For now, it’ll be cortisone cream to get rid of these welts and a super-hot load of laundry to kill whatever bugs decided to tag along to Coffs to see the Big Banana.