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Road Trip: The Grand Canyon and Glen Canyon
This post is the first part of a two month road trip I took around The States. September 2017 I got the family discount, even though I wasn’t exactly family. Ross and I had known each other since we were ten, having moved to Big Bear the same year, and given each other shit for our entire acquaintance…so in a way we were absolutely family. I hadn’t been to the Grand Canyon since I was three and didn’t have the keenest memory of the experience. In fact, I remembered absolutely nothing other than a story mum told about how I nearly gave her a heart attack by climbing up the…
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Te Araroa: A Hiker Christmas
23.12.2019 Day 64 (19km) After yesterday, I wasn’t sure I could handle another hike. Yet, like I’ve done multiple times over the past couple months, I got up, put on my rotten, damp clothes, and started walking. I was going to be meeting up with my friend Will to hike part of the Around the Mountain track. He had already completed most of it, but had to miss a section due to weather. Initially, I had planned to do the entire circuit, but the forecast had turned on me. There was something quite unappealing about hiking alone, on Christmas Day, in the pouring rain. The track was well maintained out…
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Australia: Looking Back
On my flight back to California, I spent my time alternating between blogging and watching Star Trek: Discovery. When I attempted to write this post, I realized that I couldn’t, as, to quote one of my favorite shows, I was “emotionally compromised.” I had held it together pretty well, shedding a few tears while making a farewell Facebook post, but when the first boarding call came over the speakers I broke down. The crying didn’t stop until we were in the air and I managed to lose myself in SciFi. Travel is difficult in countless ways. There are those of us, however, who find the pros outweigh the cons. Australia…
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Kicking Up Dust
During a road trip there are plenty of long driving days through the middle of nowhere. After a while every song on the radio sounds the same, and eventually it is just white noise complementing the endless drone of the engine. The only thing that breaks it up is something to look at. As we approached the border between the Northern Territory (NT) and Western Australia (WA) I noticed a change in the endless loping red dirt hills and scraggly trees. Rocks rose from the earth, giving it form, structure, and depth. Bulbous, leafless, grey trees stood like solitary sentries watching over the Outback. I had an instant fondness for…
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Darwin
I didn’t want to stay there. It was in the middle of nowhere, our site was awkward and far away from the toilets, and for two dollars more we could have real toilets instead of portaloos and a shower with a door vs a semi-transparent net. We weren’t even sure it was the right place and the whole thing felt wrong. Without bothering to find the owner, we drove back through the winding dirt roads to a caravan park twenty minutes up the highway. Cool showers were a relief after morning hikes and the long, stuffy drive from Kakadu. Looci and I took our time to get a little spruced…
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Kakadu
Water buffalo…did those even exist in Australia? Apparently they did because there was an entire family running across the road in front of us. Of all the things I had expected to see in Kakadu, water buffalo wasn’t one of them. Moisture made itself known in the leaves’ vibrancy and the large emerald clumps dispersed among the tall-weedy grasses. Clouds flitted across the sun, covering the land in cool shadows. After a morning at the Gunlom infinity pool the only plan for the day was driving. There weren’t many free camp options in Kakadu, so we ended up paying fifteen dollars. The flushable toilets, sinks, and showers were a welcome…
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The Red Center
The time for goodbyes had arrived: Canadian Sarah stayed in Townsville to continue her journey along the east coast and American Sarah decided to end her trip in Cloncurry, the quaint Outback town she had called home before joining us. The sugarcane fields and banana plantations gave way to scraggly trees and dry glasses. It wasn’t entirely what I had expected; then again, we were only in the outskirts of the Outback. We stopped for food or petrol, and a herd of cattle crossing the highway, egged on by three cowboys on horseback. Otherwise we drove on an endless highway that melted away in a mirage to merge with the…
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The Whitsundays
I’ve been to countless beautiful places; aside from Patagonia, this one is right up there as one of the most beautiful. The color was pure, crystal turquoise, that make your eyes thirst for one more look. Each day the tides would rise and play with the white sands, swirling them into unique patterns. Then they would depart, leaving behind a masterpiece of color. Whitehaven beach was rated the second most beautiful in the world, and despite the multitude of tour groups and helicopters overhead, it managed to retain an aura of untouched purity. The sand itself was possibly the most expensive in the world; the US having paid billions of…
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Byron Bay
The cocks began crowing around three am, though the sun was far from rising. Whether they belonged to a nearby farm or had simply decided to make the campsite their home, I do not know. There were at least ten of them wandering around while we made coffee. Don’t fret, we waited till the sun was up, despite the cock’s best efforts. Fog hugged the landscape, but it was evident that the sun would claim victory over the day. After a quick bite, we continued on our drive to Byron Bay. It was quite far so we stopped at Lennox Head for lunch and considered having a swim. There was…
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Newcastle
I put my beanie in the bottom of my clothes box and took out my bandanas. I wouldn’t need it again until much later in the trip, if at all. The time had come for sand, sun, and sandals. Truth be told, it wasn’t entirely summer weather; I was still wearing jeans but could get away with a t-shirt. I had even woken in the night to remove a layer because I was sweating. As I sat in the park, the sun tickled my skin like a lover’s touch, and I discovered myself wanting to expose every inch of flesh to its embrace. Looci sat nearby on the swings. We…
Insights and Stories Through the Eyes of a Wanderer
