Quotes
Journal entry:
“A man finally came to mow today. He just mowed over a bunch of dead birds. Now there are just pieces of dead birds all over the camp sites.”
The above quote was written in my journal May 9, 2012. We were staying in a run down campsite a bit north of Sydney. The first day we arrived I informed the lady in the office the camping field had dead birds in it. The second day a man showed up and mowed over all the dead birds thus leaving pieces of dead birds everywhere, as you can see circled below in red.
I know, I know. There’s a lot of stuff in that picture – but imagine those little black dots in the background are in fact pieces of dead birds. We had taken everything out of the van to clean it for preparation for the final sell. The cleaning took so long that our battery went flat and we had to call someone to give us a jump.
Reminiscing the memory of the last campsite we stayed at in Australia, I started flipping through journal pages to see what else I would find. Next thing I know I’m surrounded with open notebooks everywhere, pink highlighter in hand, reading small details and finding funny quotes from the past. Here are a few tidbits to share that I hope you enjoy.
July 18th
Yogurt and carrots didn’t mix well.
Felt like throwing up all morning.
All these broken shell pieces were so beautiful and comfortable to lay on.
July 19th
News from home: my mom called my sister to inform her the fan is working again. I guess this was big news as it was very hot there.
No fan for us in the van. We would spend hours in water ways like this when it was hot.
July 27th
Saw a French man’s butt hair. My gosh – he was wearing such a small swimmie.
The wonderful Lady Elliot Island – where we saw the French man.
Aug 8th
I could just keep staying and staying. Australia almost blinds me from remembering how much of the rest of the world I want to see.
Hiking in the beautiful Glass House Mountains in Queensland.
Aug 13th
Tiff says to Chris: You can’t blame me for every bad smell in the van.
Sometimes the van just got messy.
Aug 14th
Tiff: Oh I am just loving my burps today.
Chris: Yeah, me too.
<pause>
Chris: Today is maybe the only day I would want to kiss you after you burp.
Said after eating the most amazing hickory BBQ macadamia nuts ever from Yandina Nut Factory.
Sorry to say I didn’t get any good photos of the Yandina Nut Factory, I guess I was too busy eating all the samples and then drove away in total bliss eating those Hickory Nuts (we really did drive away like that). A little further down the road I did get a picture of a very happy Chris with all these different sodas from Bundaberg Brewed Drinks which makes the most amazing ginger beer soda ever.
Aug 28th
I was quite touched by a European man who gave us oranges at a roadside stop. I think he must have thought we needed them because we lived out of a van. All he could say was, “Orangie, you want orangie? Here – you take.” Then he drove away.
Road side home for the night.
Aug 30th
(Observation written down while sitting in van waiting for a visitor center to open.)
Man looks like he is peeing in bushes outside of McDonalds.
Is he actually peeing?
Hard to tell.
Hmm – he’s been standing there a long time – a really long time. He’s wearing a white stained tank top, cigarette hanging out the side of his mouth and has tattoos everywhere.
Still standing there with entire front of his body thrust into the bushes and looking up at the sky with his mouth partially open.
Ah – yep – he was peeing. Just finished.
This visitor center removed the temptation of bushes altogether and instead threatened to feed misbehaving visitors to dinosaurs.
Aug 30th
Walking around inside visitor center and hear the radio issue a warning that they are going to use foul language – so if you won’t like the words, turn it down for the next 3 ½ minutes.
You can go to Triple J and listen to the best Australian music. We love it and still keep current with the songs. Those tunes have the best road trip memories.
February 15, 2013
Upon turning page after page of beat up, stained, torn notes I kept repetitively reading a phrase I seemed to unconsciously write day after day after day, “Oh my gosh, another day, I am so lucky and thankful to be here…”
Upon turning page after page of beat up, stained, torn notes I kept repetitively reading a phrase I seemed to unconsciously write day after day after day, “Oh my gosh, another day, I am so lucky and thankful to be here…”
Life is a gift. How we choose to spend our time and who we spend our time with contains the greatest value of wealth available. I hope we all decide to make choices that increase our value of life. A life full of incalculable riches is attainable to us all.
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Mowed dead birds, butt hair, peeing in McDonalds’ shrubs, macadamia burps, smellie van, carrot & yogurt puke, ooohhh the incalculable riches of travel…
The dead bird thing was pretty funny and odd. They were big birds too- and we just watched them get mowed over and body parts where flung all over the field. It was quite bizarre.
Is that a drawing of a snake in your van or what is it?
That is the reflection of the image of a snake off a tea towel. The serpent image is very important in Aboriginal Dreamtime Stories and culture. You can have a look here (sorry I can’t add the link)
and also on wikipedia to get a little bit more of an idea.
I think what everyone is failing to point out is not that there is a little scrap of dead, mowed-over bird in the top picture, but rather what a mess their campsite is!
We did get it all stuffed back into the van by dark.