In Search of Koala Signs and Entertainment

AKA the land of McNothin'...

Another day on the road, and here I sit with the laptop on my legs, relaxed quite comfortably against the dash of the car.  A recurring theme on our journey so far has been ‘thank God it’s not a Yaris’.  We were supposed to have a Yaris, but at both airports were upgraded to a Corolla Seca.  Since we are completely smushed as is – even in the upgrade – the notion of a smaller car is horrifying. 

We’ve had a busy few days, complete with a lot of traveling (we’ve done just over 1600kms so far, which ain’t bad considering it’s only been three days!) so the view outside our window has been pretty consistently the same.  The first day, the novelty of being in transit was clearly great as we snapped a million pictures, joked around and were all generally amicable.  By day three, we’re exhausted, semi-homeless (we were having difficulties planning hotels) and antsy.  Not a pretty digression. 

The food situation was, at first, precarious as always.  It’s becoming such a routine rant I fear I’m boring all four of you who actually read this.  Alas, we have discovered something amazing. 

As loathe as we are to admit this, the McDonald’s McCafe actually has some yummy stuff, and isn’t as toxic as you’d think.  When we first arrived in Australia, when asking about places to eat, everyone would recommend this to us, and we would cringe in horror.  I thought that maybe they thought I was American, and as such decided I’d be in want of fastfood, but now I’ve come to realize that it really is an Australian staple, and any time we’ve swung in for coffee (really, very good coffee!) or pastries, the place has been packed! 

The good news is, we’ve sorted all but one night’s accommodations – which just so happens to be the night after next, so … We really will have to do that tomorrow but then, after that, we know where we’ll be each night (and as of Sunday, we have 6 straight nights of posh-er hotels a la the Marriott, etc)

I’m a few days behind now – due to some stress and anxiety, not to mention a little bit of an eww factor.  But, I am now recovered, and feeling less mental, so I feel the need to share. 

After a lovely relaxing day Friday, we set out first thing Saturday to destinations unknown.  This is the way we tend to travel which means that booking hotels in advance is a crapshoot.  By booking it, we might not make it to the right destination at the right time, and by might, what I mean is that there’s slim to no chance that we end up in the right place. 

This trip, knowing that we do travel at a break-neck pace, we’ve ended up having to choose hotels as we go and on a whim.  Because we’ve discovered that the Australian accommodations market is a very expensive, very harsh game, we’ve opted to stick to motels as much as possible. 

Thursday, we stayed in near-opulence (by our current standards) at a Holiday Inn on the beach in Cairns.  It really wasn’t anything spectacular, aside from the mini-rainforest it held in the lobby, and the amazing views of both coast and mountains – it was impressive, but not because the rooms were particularly well appointed, but because of location. 

Friday, we stayed in a no-name motel in Bowen – with an ant infestation. 

Apparently, for no particular reason, there was a run on hotel/motel rooms in the teeny, tiny town, and even the skeeziest hotels were booked to capacity – including ours! 

The Pearly Beach is a little dated, as its name suggests.  Think Golden Girls with plastic deck furniture in the eat-in kitchen.  It’s actually quite reasonable in terms of rooms.  They seem clean enough, and have all the necessary features, in addition to being quite large.  The location is good: in walking distance to the Red Rooster (a fast-food place we won’t eat at… long story) and a convenience store that doesn’t really have much of anything.  There’s also a local fish and chip shop, though it’s nowhere near anything. 

Then there are the ants – the teeny-tiny beasts from hell that make me itchy just thinking about it. 

We spent much of last week in the tropics, so I can appreciate that creepy crawlies are going to be residents.  Let’s face it: they were here first.  I do not, however, love the idea of sharing my space with them.  They might have been here first, but I’m paying for the room… 

The other thing that was somewhat frustrating about this room is my bed.  There was a double bed, as well as two singles.  Ben assigned us places to sleep, and they are quite reasonable as a whole, however the single in which I slept leaned on a precarious 45 degree angle.  I feared that falling asleep meant not only rolling out of bed unceremoniously however possibly also be carried away by the creepy crawlies when I hit the floor…

Anyway, enough with the rant about the motel in Bowen.  Last night we moved on to a lovely little cottage in the city of Rockhampton – the beef capital of Australia.  What appealed to us most was that there was a kitchen we could cook in, and so that meant a night of normal priced food, as well as a chance to eat something that wouldn’t disable us all.  Hallelujah! 

The cottage was large and airy, as well as fully equipped.  After the night at the Bates Motel, this was heaven x 10.  I did laundry and we made our dinner watching bad Australian TV and oddly it felt like home.  It was all very splendid. 

Tonight’s accommodation is even nicer; we made it to Noosa, and have a lovely one bedroom apartment to enjoy.  Again, we’re able to cook our own meals and we trekked up to Woolworth’s to buy our evening’s groceries.  The view is lovely – a sidelong shot of the beach – and the path we walked along coming home from the grocery was on the waterfront.  I do hope to get some pictures tomorrow, however today was really more about stretching our legs and decompressing from the millions of miles we feel like we’ve put behind us. 

What we do have, however, is a picture of the big-ass pelican on the beach, which goes quite well with the other big-ass things we’ve found so far. 

Australians love their giant creepy statues and so without further ado, I will share them with you.

A giant mango.  Seriously...

Tomorrow we’re heading to the Beerwah Zoo (also known as Steve Irwin’s zoo) and we have one more night in Noosa, followed by Wednesday morning here.  Wednesday we leave for Brisbane (homeless… Sigh) and then Thursday on to Surfer’s Paradise. 

It’s almost hard to believe the trip is 1/3 over (quickly working it’s way to half way) because there’s just so much still left to see and do.  Even after some stressful car moments, there are things that I would never change – like seeing this amazing country with my best friend and my fave four year old.