Adelaide

Mosquitos are just little assholes, with no sort of decency. It had been a couple days since my last yoga session, and after the long drive across the Nullarbor both my mind and body were in need of a little TLC. I had already sprayed my exposed skin with repellent. Did the mozzies care? No! Of course not! They began biting me through my clothes and even tried to assault my face. I had to abandon my practice after only ten minutes and retreat to the van till morning.

Kimba was a van friendly town, with multiple camping options including showers. Since we were quite close to Adelaide, and miraculously ahead of schedule, we took our time with breakfast. Then Looci spent a few hours at the public library while I had an hour of undisturbed, no mozzie yoga. After a quick shower at one of the camps we had a lunch and drove south past Kimba’s beautiful mural display of a young blonde girl standing in a field of wheat, surrounded by purple skies.

Our only plans for Adelaide were meeting up with our friend Jess and visiting Maslin nudist beach. Looci and I had been to two other nudist beaches and in my opinion both paled in comparison. The one in Melbourne was nice but felt a bit crowded and took some scrambling to access. Bowen, shouldn’t have been considered a nude beach, it was covered in corals and no one wants to lie naked on that stuff. From the car park, we strolled down a winding staircase and emerged on a massive expanse of sand.

Rain had been forecast for our time in Adelaide, but on that day, there wasn’t a cloud to be seen. We spent the better part of the afternoon banishing tan lines and jumping into the bracing waters. It would be the last warm day on our trip; in hindsight I’m glad we took full advantage of it.

Once our clothes had been returned to our bodies we went to meet up with Jess for a coffee at a cute little restaurant in McLaren Vale, called Oscar’s. We sat outside and chatted over the events of the last few months, keen to get up to speed. He was in town visiting family for the weekend but would arrive back in Melbourne a few days before we did. It was a shame he couldn’t have ridden back with us.

Our evening was spent in a car park next to Sellick’s Beach. At the beginning of our trip I had imagined sleeping by the beach, having the back of the van open and watching the waves at sunset. It took almost the entire trip, but I finally got my vanlife beach sunset.

Jess invited us over for a family pancake breakfast before we left Adelaide. We couldn’t have been more delighted to accept, and our stomachs were elated to be filled with fresh fruit, yogurt, ice cream, syrup, pancakes, and coffee. Before we knew it, hours had flown by and the road demanded our presence.

Adelaide reminded me a bit of Cairns, in that there wasn’t a stately skyline, and you could drive through the city center without realizing you were there. It was also surrounded by farmlands and vineyards. The difference was that Adelaide’s fields were hilly, with winding roads, and tree tunnels.

Horses grazed languidly in pastures, flicking at the flies with their tails. Flowers budded along the edge of the road, and the leaves of the trees contained all the vibrancy of new spring growth. For once I didn’t care that my iPhone was on shuffle, playing everything from Frank Sinatra and folk to show tunes, film soundtracks, and nineties hits. All that mattered was the curve of the road, the smell of green, and the scattered rays of sun.

Memory transported me not once, but twice that afternoon. First, I was swept off to Davis, California where I spent my four years of Uni. I was driving the 80 freeway to San Francisco, a journey I undertook countless times. The peaks were dusted in green, their yellow shade of winter supplanted by new life. If I wasn’t on the opposite side of the car, not to mention the road, I wouldn’t have known the difference.

Secondly, I was taken back to the first day of our road trip, when we ventured into Yarra Valley. Our journey had truly come full circle.