Leg 1: Perth - Albany

As is so often the case with trips where planning is essential, ours was horribly lacking. The sheer logistics of packing food and equipment for four people to live off for twenty days in a single night was something that I hadn’t planned on. At four o’clock in the morning as I was busy trying to work out which of Nick’s seven mosquito nets not to bring, it dawned on me that perhaps I should have started planning this a little earlier. Oh well, looks like noodles and baked beans it is.

Hurdle number two came early the next morning as Martin and I surveyed what we needed to put into the car. There was no fucking way half of the shit we had planned to bring was going to fit in the car. Even with judicious packing we would have had to employ a chain of trailers in order to get everything fitting nicely. Time for an impromptu – “do we really need this?” which soon became “do we really, really need this” which then led into “well, Nick isn’t here, so he probably doesn’t need a sleeping bag, or these extra clothes.” Rule number #34 of camping: never, ever let anyone but yourself pack your stuff.

Once we finally did get everything in, a feat even I’m not quite sure we achieved, it was on the road. It didn’t take long before we had reached the outer suburbs of Perth, and with windows down and Metallica blaring – any self respecting person would have turned the other way. Class? Who needs it when you’re wearing a beanie and driving a beat up old falcon.

Posted in Travel on Thursday July 4, 2002.