The Mystery Machine vs. Oz

Are you looking for heart-pounding thrills?  Want to stretch your brain and build new synapses?  Desperate to put your relationship to the test?  If you answered "yes" to these questions, let us recommend driving in Sydney!  You will love the challenge of driving on the left side of the road, while sitting on the right side of the vehicle, and shifting with your left hand.  Throw in speed limits in kilometers, some parallel parking, and plentiful roundabouts and you have a recipe for excitement. Take our word for it - the first dozen times you attempt to use your turn signal, your windshield wipers will be flailing, fellow drivers will be honking, and your significant other will be slouching pronouncedly to avoid eye contact with bystanders.

Thrilled by the prospect of the open road after many months of public transport, we rented a campervan for our month-long sojourn in The Land Down Under.  To ensure that we were not mistaken for locals (as if our driving prowess didn't make it obvious enough), we hired an ultra conspicuous and blatantly feminine van bedazzled with pink and purple flowers and emblazoned with the words "Hippie Camper".  In our spartan wheeled house, we settled into a comfortable daily routine of driving, roasting on the beach, grilling out, and sweating through our sheets until sunrise.  The perspiration stemmed not only from the oppressive summer heat, but also from the questionable legality of sleeping in a vehicle in public parks.  Despite the assurances of numerous Aussies that this was an acceptable practice, the policeman who woke us with a sharp rap on the window early one morning seemed to disagree.  Thereafter, sound sleep was hard to come by and the nightly debate regarding the merits of various van hiding spots soaked up many hours.

Since planning our trip a year ago, the Australian dollar gained 50% in value against the U.S. dollar.  Sadly, our currency hedging team did not see this coming and our budget was decapitated by the towering prices.  We had never encountered $15 six packs of beer, $27 CD's, $5 gallons of petrol, or $25 bottles of saline solution and facing them forced us into hardscrabble survival tactics.  We showered in the public restrooms provided on most beaches and ate heaps of cereal out of the back of the van.  We evidently looked the part as well - we were in Australia less than 24 hours before someone asked Ben if he was homeless, as he washed his feet in a public restroom.  Living the dream.  The hardest part for Carolyn was listening to Ben's endless shouts of "My name is Ben Opps...I am a motivational speaker...and I live in a van down by the ocean!" (accompanied by jerking arms and spectacle adjustments).

The clear highlight since crossing the equator was the unparalleled fireworks show over Sydney Harbor to welcome the new year.  A massive dose of good luck (with a pinch of smooth talking) yielded two free wristbands to witness the spectacle from the elevated Cahill Expressway, which was closed to traffic for the night.  This perch put us in the center of the action, with explosions of light and color erupting 360 degrees around us.  Our perch provided us balcony views right above the Harbor, with fireworks launching from the Opera House on the right, the Harbor Bridge on the left, and numerous sky-scrapers behind us.  The show only lasted 12 minutes, but they made every one count.  This is one of those rare events that surpasses the prodigious hype surrounding it.  On the walk back to our beach house (on wheels), we negotiated a sausage sandwich down to half price, further strengthening our faith that 2010 will be a very good year.

After months in non-English speaking countries, Australia provided a measure of linguistic repose.  This is not to say the semantic nuances between our English and their did not provide some entertainment.  For instance, when asked "How are you going?" the proper response is not "By van."  They are, in fact, asking how you are doing.  While swimming at a public pool, Ben was crouched on the edge contemplating how to enter with the greatest effect.  The lifeguard read his mind and sauntered up to point out the rules of the pool, which forbid dives and "bombs".  Relieved, Ben carried on with the impressive cannonball he had planned, displacing a large spout of chlorinated water on the deck at her feet.  Luckily, she was in a good humor, for she quickly explained with a look of disdain and many disapproving nods that Ben had just executed a strictly forbidden bomb.  Ben convinced her of the honesty of the mistake by guiding her through the various ordinance used in American swimming pools (spanning the gamut from watermelons to jack knives) and a shaky truce was declared.  As another example, our searches for key college football bowl games bore no fruit until we started asking for "gridiron".  With some effort, we watched the Longhorns make the BCS title game interesting (contrary to all expectations) and enjoyed a Badger victory.  We even sang "Varsity" to close out the game with all the other Wisconsin fans (okay, fan).

In general, we found Aussies to be some of the friendliest folk we have encountered in our travels, quick to buy us a pint or point us in the direction of a little-known beach.  Ben's second cousins were no exception.  Alyssa, Jim, Joyce, and Michael hosted us with a warmth that belied the fact that we had never met before this visit.  The notable exceptions to this welcoming demeanor were the aforementioned scoundrels who, returning to Australia's roots as a prison continent, took a crowbar to our van in broad daylight and helped themselves to most of our possessions.  Luckily they did not find our passports or the emergency credit card and we were able to forge on.

This event ushered in a two week period known as the "Dark Days", during which we slogged through the five stages of loss (with hefty focus on anger and bargaining and an acceptance stage that is still in progress).  The first week was spent near the scene of the crime, our desperate bid to recover our belongings leading us on a tour of the local police stations and pawn shops.  We logged so many kilometers slowly trolling surrounding suburbs, parks, and ditches in search of discarded items that the neighborhood watch lost interest in our creeping van.  We ran classified ads, contacted the press, went to the dump and took every other reasonable action we could think of, in the vain hope of recovering the photos (originals and backups) and journal that are priceless to us and worthless to a slimy crook.  Eventually, we attempted to force the acceptance stage by pointing the Mystery Machine north and fixed our slights on leaving Australia and starting anew. 

Our final week of driving was shaped by Cyclone Olga, which pummeled us with a relentless torrent and inhumane humidity.  During a short respite from the monsoon, we enjoyed a crocodile-viewing cruise through the mangrove swamp and met Andrea and Dave, two affable Yankees whose gift of tap beer helped us forget our woes for an evening.  Sadly, the storm squelched our plan to dive the Great Barrier Reef, but at the time we had our sights set on relinquishing our campervan contract and bidding farewell to our flowered nemesis.  Returning the van in Cairns provided the arsenic icing on the toxic cake, as Apollo Rentals not only helped themselves to our insurance deductible, but also tacked on a $75 processing fee for their hardship due to our break-in. 

As always, thank you to our readers for the outpouring of support and offers of assistance during our Dark Days.  Your responses reminded us why we embarked on the trip in the first place and the Haitian tragedy put our minor loss into glaring perspective.  We are happy to say that leaving Oz jolted our odyssey back to life.  We are excited to share the upturn with you in our next post!

P.S.  We are sad to report that Ben's most faithful drinking buddy since 2002, his indefatigable NASA coozie, was lost in the van heist.  R.I.P. and thanks for the memories...