the days keep passing by.
the weeks keep passing by.

i open the document on my desktop labeled blog and glance over my notes. shit. this stuff happened almost three weeks ago. i want to relive every moment with you, but they all seem to be fading into the past. fading is maybe the wrong word. the memories are there, engrained on me forever, but the present seems to be where my mind is. living instead of reliving.

yet i want everyone at home to be with me. to share in this journey with me. this crazy thing i call my life.

so i’ll do it. go back in time. to friday, december 6, 2013.

we arrived in townsville in the evening. pulled up behind a mangled sports car on the street and were welcomed by two dogs and two friends. tammy and tyson. a beautiful family that ryan has known for years. the old climbing gang. the old climbing gang who now has three kids.

the boys gave up their bedroom for us and after an hour or so of catching up about ryan’s past year of adventures and reminiscing about the good old days, we curled up to sleep. each in our respective twin size bed complete with spiderman covers.

our time in townsville was about community.

a quick morning tour was enough to give me a taste of life in this comfortable, quaint town. it has that old sense of charm with a modern edge. probably one of the best representations of the word “town” i have ever seen. every corner has an old queenslander style pub waiting to serve you an ice cold beer.

you can taste the ocean salt as you look out at the multiple islands scattered throughout the water.

and when you drive up to the top of castle hill (a massive hill in the middle of a very flat town), you can see it all. every nook and cranny of townsville.

we even got a bit of entertainment of some aussie truckers awaiting their next load. the stereotyped american trucker seems to translate pretty accurately to the aussie trucker. these men were fully intoxicated at 11am and missing most of their teeth. i could not help but love them.

then off to the “working bee” christmas party with tammy and tyson and their community.

the concept: many hands make light work.
the outcome: ryan helping scrub a deck while i played with a zillion kids.

and of course, there was a white elephant gift exchange complete with the steal rule. we had a gift bag mystery incident at the store (ie i bought two gift bags that immediately went missing two minutes after handing the cashier $3) so we had to improvise on our wrapping… (i’m sure you can guess which two presents we brought.)

after a delicious taco dinner and several amazing desserts (tammy owns her own baking company, babycakes & co), we got straight to business.

it’s all about strategy.

we ended up with honey roasted peanuts and a variety pack of chocolates. perfect road trip food. and a perfect end to a fun evening with a piece of the townsville community.

the next day it was time to pack up and head out, but tyson made sure we didn’t leave without getting some climbing in. so we all grabbed our gear and made our way to hervey’s marbles, a boulder field on the cross over the great dividing range. it is not what i would call the best bouldering, but it was fun. and defeating. after a month of consistent climbing followed by a month of no climbing, bouldering felt like the hardest thing in the world.

and then it was good-bye.

and then it was hello…

…to the perfect spot to roll out the swag.

a creekside piece of paradise complete with a tree swing and sunset.

now you might be asking yourself, what is this “swag” thing she rolled out. it’s basically the perfect road tripping contraption. a waterproof canvas tent-like outer shell. a zippable mosquito net liner. a thin mattress covered with your sleeping bag and pillow. roll it up and pop it in the truck for travel. unroll it and and tie to the truck for sleeping.

however, i will give you one piece of advice: trying to sleep two people in a one person swag with the mosquito net zipped by necessity and temperatures around 90 degrees is not very fun. even when you like the person next to you…

but alas, we feel asleep in the heat. we were just outside charters towers and that is just where we were going to stay. at least for the night. in the morning it was time to start heading west to the northern territory…

back to reality. or rather society. airlie beach or bust. a slightly touristy beach town with big marinas and lots of islands. the whitsunday islands to be exact. it is one of the hubs for travel out to the great barrier reef.

no, we didn’t go out to the great barrier reef.

this driving adventure around australia is not about me being a tourist, for better or worse. it is about getting ryan and his stuff back up to port hedland and enjoying what we can along the way.

the big things on the to-do list in airlie beach were to check in on his boat and pack up the truck with his tools. and of course, visit with a few close friends.

most of the berrys (see kathy and bill from last blog post) live in airlie beach. their oldest son chris lives with holly and their two baby girls on a plot of land that sent me straight back to my childhood. an older home down a quiet road tucked back into the wilderness and across from a sprawling sugarcane field. set to the side of the property was a big shed surrounded by a yard full of stuff. if you have a dad who comes home with grease covering his hands every night, you know exactly the kind of yard i am talking about.

it is the kind of yard i grew up in. well, substitute cornfields for sugarcane fields. but the kind of yard filled with hours of entertainment from abandoned box trucks and an old boat with a hole rusted into the side. random scraps of metal and car parts scattered to the side of the garage. and men covered in grease and sweat.

while the men covered themselves with grease, ryan made me my very own office in the shed to do some work. it was complete with a reclining car seat and a fantastic view.

and when the sunset, the view got even better. and the bats came out. hundreds of them taking over the night sky. everywhere we go in australia has mass amounts of huge bats that come out when the sun sets.

then we caught up with the youngest daughter sarah, which immediately took me back to my childhood yet again.

sarah runs a daycare out of her home. the living room windows are covered with artwork. the back deck is filled with toy trucks and a sandbox. there are two live baby ducks as classroom pets. and as most adults do when they get together for dinner, we spent the evening helping sarah make “play-do” out of hair conditioner and cornstarch.

it was all too familiar. growing up with a mom who was a preschool teacher entails many days of making fake play-do and playing with duckies.

but this trip was not all play remember. it was about work, and fixing up ryan’s boat.

ryan’s boat (i would call it by name here if it actually had a name…honestly, who doesn’t name their boat!?) has been sitting for sale for the past twelve months. was it still seaworthy? we were there to find out.

after a couple days of one thing after another going wrong (including but not limited to a gas tank full of water), we finally got it out onto the open ocean waves. the very choppy ocean waves. the two meter tall ocean waves.

i definitely got whiplash (and sunburnt), but i had a smile on my face the whole time. and a great captain by my side.

the swell was too high, the sun was too low, and the boat was too uninsured to make it out to whitehaven island, but the view was still stunning everywhere i looked.

we cruised out to daydream island. the closest island with a weird kitschy resort on it for tourists. it was not exactly what i would daydream about, but ryan informed me it was sort of the poor man’s version of hamilton island (a beautiful resort destination). he insisted i hop off the boat and head ashore to check out the “aquarium.”

now apparently this is not the kind of island you just pull up to, drop the anchor, and head onto shore. this was a tourist island. big ferries emptied mass amounts of people with pocketbooks open onto the dock.

i was not one of the people who was going to pay $50 to see a rundown resort on one of the whitsunday islands. ryan pulled the boat up to another dock about fifty feet from the main one and told me to just go see what they would do if i tried to walk onto the island. hmmm…

i stepped onto the dock and immediately there was a short and stout man quickly striding in my direction. he met me at the top of the ramp and began his interrogation:

him: g’day, can i help you?
me: i’m just here looking for a friend. (i begin to slip into storytelling mode speaking in a mixture of accents, trying to sound local but failing miserably.)
him: what’s her name? (seriously? who asks what their name is?)
me: um, rachel.
him: does she work on the island?
me: no, she came on a boat. (vague answers are key to keeping the lie going.)
him: oh on that boat? (he motioned to a big yacht tied up to the dock i came in on.)
me: yeah, that one. (this could end me. too specific.)
him: i saw them go ashore earlier, but their tender (aka dingy) is gone, so they might be out on the water.
me: oh i see, do you mind if i just have a look around for them? (boom. i nailed it.)
him: sure go ahead.

phew. i was in. now onto finding these sharks ryan was so keen on me seeing.

i followed old carnival looking signs into a massive hotel that looked like it was straight out of bad scary movie. after walking aimlessly through a few sliding glass doors and big empty lounge rooms, i finally found myself amongst a few palm trees and outdoor ponds filled with clownfish and sharks and stingrays and schools of unidentified beautiful blue fish.

snap snap snap.

i took photos quickly and enjoyed being back on land for a few minutes after our epic journey through the extremely high waves in the channel. at any minute, the short and stout man could find me and ask more details about “my friend rachel.”

i started heading back to the boat. i was almost in the clear. then i saw a wallaby snacking on some grass in an opening with the ocean behind him. i went to capture this cute little fella on film, and then, there he was. out of nowhere!

i stuffed my nikon quickly into my sack and continued down the sidewalk back to the dock with a bit of hurry in my step. i didn’t dare look behind me to see if he had a bit of the same quickness in his stride.

back down the ramp (which i now noticed was for “authorized persons only”) and onto the dock. with a wave of my hand, ryan rolled up just in time to make a clean escape.

what a daydream!

i would definitely not recommend paying $50 to go check it out next time you are in australia, but if you want to go “find rachel,” it might be worth your time.

if you have more time than us and glassy water, you probably want to head to whitehaven island though. i hear it is amazing, and google images agree…

alas, our time in airlie had to come to an end. we headed out of town and onto bowen, a very small rural town whose big claim to fame is being the set for the movie australia with nicole kidman. it is such a proud achievement for them that they even have their own version of the hollywood sign.

ryan’s good mate dean lives in bowen with his wife and four beautiful children. we spent a few hours catching up with them and learning ALL about plants vs. zombies from their three sons (who are all under ten).

and then a quick tour of the views…

…and back to the road. the long and open road.

but only for a couple hours. just enough time to have our first hunger/sleep induced argument over ordering a mcdonald’s cheeseburger with “ketchup only” and catch my first amazing sunset over the australian bush before arriving in townsville.

wake up at 3am and drag myself into the truck in the dark. why oh why do we have to leave this early ryan. by 4:30am the sun is fully up and we are driving trafficless around brisbane. a quick tour of this big city. skyscrapers and a famous bridge.

then quickly back onto the highway and onto airlie beach (which took me until the first sign stating “airlie beach” to realize that ryan was not saying “ailey beach”).

turns out driving endless kilometers on one of australia’s national highways (which is actually just a two lane road that sometimes turns into dirt) is way more fun that in the states.

the government provides trivia and other signs to make you smile. oh and a reminder every couple of kilometers to pull over and sleep if you need to. i get it australia, pull over if i’m tired.

up and up along the east coast of australia we go. up and up through lush green landscapes and the smell of salt water on the breeze. up and up and up and up and up. only making stops for fuel (a very important thing to do when the service stations are very far apart with nothing in between)…

…and deliciously refreshing local beverages…

…and giant mangoes.

there is a lot to see along the east coast of queensland, but ryan was on a mission. straight to airlie beach to see old family friends, pick up his tools, and get his boat in tip top shape for selling.

but then he felt bad. after seven or eight hours of road tripping with his american tourist sidekick, he finally felt the need to show me a bit of something.

head east off the highway for an hour to seventeen seventy. yep, that’s right. there is a town in australia named a number. good old 1770. the year captain cook sailed by and discovered australia. i reckon we should have the town of 1492 in america. it might make memorizing the year christopher columbus sailed the ocean blue a bit easier.

seventeen seventy is a small beach town and one of the last few places along the coast where it is still relatively safe to surf. the more north you go, the more sharks you meet.

another quick car tour of the town, a walk down to see the beach, and then back on the road. back on the open road. the open open road. a town about every 100 km or so and not much in between. tunes blasting and windows rolled down. a tan on my left arm and a tan on ryan’s right arm.

and then a phone call.

kathy.

kathy is ryan’s second mother. ryan’s family grew up in the house next to her family’s house. her four kids are his extended siblings. her husband bill is his second father.

kathy and bill were staying the week out at their “tin shed” in the small fishing community of stanage bay. she insisted we stop in on the way to airlie beach and stay for the night.

a right turn onto a dirt road and off the highway we go.

i have no idea what is in store for me on this detour, but after five minutes of cruising down the rocky road, i see two kangaroos. my first kangaroos. just hopping across the barren field like kangaroos do.

i am all smilies from ear to ear.

to australians, kangaroos are like deer. they are everywhere and get hit by cars frequently. but to americans, man are they cool.

deeper and deeper into no man’s land we go. i sit reveling in my ‘roo sighting. and then, something magical happens. that measly dirt road turns into an australian safari!

hundreds of kangaroos and wallabies. snakes in the creeks. snakes in the grass. birds in the air. birds in the fields. cow after cow. calf after calf. there are animals everywhere. i stare out the window in awe of this beautiful detour. a country road full of nothing but wildlife and the occasional windmill and farm house.

then we arrive.

at sunset.

we drive directly up a big cliff overlooking everything. the town. the ocean. the fields.

wow.

then we arrive at the “tin shed.”

it is literally a tin shed. a massive tin-sided construct with all the home amenities you would need nicely tucked inside. including a riley bunch of locals sinking some piss.

i don’t know the exact number of full time residents in stanage bay, but i would not say there are very many. maybe fifty. it is a fishing community. there are two establishments in town, and you can get internet and cell service at one of them but only from 10am to 10pm.

imagine your cabin on the lake. your family getaway in the middle of nowhere. that is stanage for most of the people who own property there. that is stanage for kathy and bill berry. that is stanage for ryan.

an escape.

nothing to do but go crabbing for the biggest mud crabs around.
nothing to do but drink beer and talk shit into the wee hours of the night.
nothing to do but take the boat out and drop a rod into the ocean.
nothing to do.

those places are always magical. those places that force you into simplicity. those places that make the people and nature around you the only things that matter.

i am glad kathy called. i am glad i got to see this special corner of the east coast.

we eat spicy spaghetti and drink white wine. i try my best to understand every word uttered through the thick aussie accents of my local companions.

and then we head to the beach in the dark in hopes of stumbling upon a mother turtle laying her eggs in the sand.

tracks from the ocean up into the sand dunes and back down line the beach. the wind whips my hair tirelessly into my cheeks and mouth. i hold ryan’s hand and mutter under my breath about the crocodile sitings they have had in stanage recently. he laughs at me and pulls me onward.

just when i want to give up and ask ryan if we can head back to the shed, there she is.

a huge sea turtle just hanging out in the sand.

my mind drifts back to mexico a few years ago when my mom and i helped hundreds of baby turtles out to sea. and now here i am, at the other end of the cycle. watching this beautiful creature looking for a good place to make her nest.

turtles always come back to the same place to lay their eggs. every year they return. wherever they were born, that is home. forever.

i have a feeling that stanage bay feels that way for a lot more than just these turtles.

the life of an entrepreneur on the road entails down days as well as up.

the life of an aussie returning home after a year on the road has its down days as well as up.

we spent my second week in australia deep in reality. ryan fixing up his truck to ensure that it would make it the 5,000 km we were about to drive across the country. and me making sure that black friday, small business saturday, cyber monday, and giving tuesday promotions got out smoothly.

it is good to get a dose of reality. soak in time with ryan’s friends and family. catch up on work and stay balanced.

thanksgiving and christmas have always been big holidays within my immediate family. my siblings and i rarely spend them anywhere else but with each other. and what did i do this year? i flew across the world just in time to miss both.

yet, as luck would have it, ryan and i happened to have dinner plans at his aunt’s house on thanksgiving day. he had no clue that he had planned it that way, but i did. with ryan and his mom, brother, brother’s girlfriend, aunt, and uncle gathered around the dinner table, i announced that it was american thanksgiving and made everyone say what they were grateful for this year.

it was weird to not be around my family for turkey and rice-a-roni and mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie, but a chook with a beer can up its bum on the barbie was a nice substitute.

oh and the ice cream. there was lots of ice cream bars involved for dessert including one which i incorrectly called a “gay tom” all night long. it is apparently a “gay time.” damn aussie accents.

oh and then there was our band. no, neither one of us can actually play an instrument.

this is a bit belated, but i have a lot to be thankful for this year. thousands of miles away from home, and i still feel home. i am blessed to have family and friends that make it easy to take them with me wherever i go. their love and laughter never escapes my mind. and watching my father take a photo on his phone of my face on skype video on my brother’s flatscreen made it almost worth being away for the holidays.

now here i am in australia making new relationships that will come along with me as i journey further.

like gordo’s (ryan’s dad) amazing jokes:

him: you know i saved ryan from drowning one time.
me: oh yeah?
him: yeah, i just took my foot off his head. boom boom.

“boom boom” is what he says instead of our classic bah dum chesh (no clue how to spell out that sound effect). there were several occasions where i had to wait for the boom boom because i had no clue if he was telling a joke or teaching me a new australian fact. talk about a man who can keep you laughing.

or heather’s (ryan’s mom) genuine hugs. i have never been greeted with such a heartwarming embrace. the kind that makes your insides fill with butterflies and endorphins.

or dale and steph (ryan’s brother and his girlfriend) and all their puppy love. who knew two white puppies (and two amazing people) could steal your attention for so many hours of entertainment.

or getting to meet ryan’s granddad and seeing an old man have just as much sass as i’m sure he had in his youth.

or connecting with my fellow hippie spirit, ryan’s aunt vicki.

the memories are already too many to recount, and my time in palm beach unfortunately had to come to an end. but it’s always an epic end with ryan. a night out on the town for a friend’s birthday filled with delicious food and expensive wine and shutting down the dodgy “shark bar” at 2am with good old matty rogers.

time to pack up the ute and hit the dirt road…literally. further and farther into the middle of nowhere australia we go. hours and hours amongst just the termite mounds and meandering cows.