The long way home

"A whole lot fuckin' nothin'," Joel says stretching his arms behind his head, grateful for the opportunity to be outside of the van, doing anything besides sitting. "A whole lot of sweet fuck all" The surfboard clad van, parked alone on the empty roadside, is the only landmark in our entire field of view. Around it, only dry desert shrubs scatter the red earth,  stretching endlessly into the horizon which looks to be an entire world away. The vastness of it all is uniquely Australian and I can see the charm. You get sucked into the enormous open spaces in a vacuum. No land or plants rise above my hips, but still I am shrunk by the expanse of land. The length of my trip is starting to dawn on me more and more. We've been driving for hours. And then we've been driving for days. Nothing has really changed except the wine bottles on the floors emptied. We really would arrive faster if we drove for more than a few hours each day before pulling into th

Australia is weird. Really weird. Being back in Australia is a feeling I never really prepared for because I could never anticipate how it would feel. The familiarity of it is it's own kind of strange. "What's the accent?" Nicole, a friend I'm staying with in Denmark, WA, asks. My Australian accent, which was never strong to begin with has faded, the r sound finally entering my vernacular in an effort to be understood by Americans, and my vowles shortened. But I find myself smiling inside every time I hear the word faahkin ' slapped mid sentence and relish the opportunity to say thongs without anyone guessing at my underwear. And, like I seem to do everywhere I'm quick to make myself at home. The friends I'm staying with, who I'd hardly heard of the day before, quickly becomes family as we sit on the verandah with bourbon and cola. It's comforting to speak a language I really understand, our twisted, bastardised but beautiful Australian

I hate making decisions. Deciding where to go has always been the biggest stress when I travel, and it's exactly the stress I was having tossing up between heading South from Mandura to Margret river, or East to Esperance. Margret river is the land of awe-inspiring coastlines and surf, but it would be a big detour and, being day 1 on the journey back home, starting with a detour wouldn't be a very effective way to reach home within the month. Esperance on the other hand, was exactly on the way - a crucial town I would have to cross through to reach the East coast, with similarly breathtaking coastlines and large swells. I knew nobody at either place, and would be relying on camping - something a little more difficult to do in Margret river area on the weekend of the Margret River Pro surf comp weekend where park rangers would be sure to move me on. But Esperance was a good 8 hours away - A big distance for a single days hitching along desolate roads with absolutely nothing

I dreamt last night that I was giving birth.  "That's all about new beginnings" my friend has informed me, "it's cause you're starting this new trip" Which rings true enough - I've just arrived back in Australia after 10 months of vagabond life across Europe, India and Malaysia. Except I landed on the wrong side.. Or, better put, the side that is the furthest possible distance from my home. 6000km, give or take.. Welcome to Perth! It's not that I don't plan on returning home to far north Queensland, I do. It's just that I'm taking the long way home.. I'm taking the scenic route. I'm surrendering to my homesickness without stagnating my travel bug. And only partly to do with my inability to pay for a flight all the way home..  And so, with no car, very little money and a backpack that is no way prepared for this I begin my journey: hitchhiking from Perth to Cairns, with endless detours on the way, and every