Nov. 13 - PTSD Costa Rica at Pacha Mama

We packed up the tiny cabin that was perfect for our needs had a huge breakfast and headed off to the Townsville baths. another hot day with no rain in sight. So they climbed to the top of the lookout and we dropped him off and continued on our way. We spent a good portion of the day looking for waterfalls and the app Campermate, that has done very well, was misinformed. We worked in the hot sun up up up the mountain walk. The 10 minute walk was a full hour we didn't make it. when we got to the rock pools near the top it was a death-defying walk over the rocks to get to the pools. Everybody did it and could be nice but it was quite scary and at one point in between some rocks that I wanted to get over a  huge snake came out and i decided at that point maybe I did want to swim. I'm not afraid of snakes but I'm supposed to be in Australia. We were pretty cranky then we went back down to the beach to swim some more and drove to the second 5 star rainforest retreat. We had to get picked up in a 4 by 4 and taken down hugely steep roads to get to camp. It seems to be that all of the owners of these rainforest camps bitter men. we found our tiny casita with just a bed and a fan and a lite. Around the corner was an alfresco shower and toilet and wash basin. When I was alone I looked up and saw in the seventh layer of Hell a monstrous spider or two eating a bird they got caught in the net webs from above my head to many feet above. I knew I was done with that idea of a shower and so was my daughter. We swam met some lovely people read a lot which I haven't done for the whole trip and I stayed up late reading till 10:30 if you can believe it. As crazy as it sounds, I think I have a little bit of PTSD residual from the Costa Rican rainforest that I went to. Everywhere I looked on this site were creepy insects and things that I remember all too well from a few years back. I'm covered in insects bites from head to my feet so I finally broke down and bought deet but I'm sticky all over.  I Remember All Too Well sleeping alone in my casita covered in bugs -used their sticky bug spray and hot in the sweltering non air-conditioned cabin praying for death. last night was no different. I think I'm done with the rainforest.

Nov. 12 - Hitchhikers Dude at the Caracas Park Mini Cabin

So we picked up our first hitchhiker. He was actually only the second hitchhiker we've seen on our travels. The first one we didn't pick up because every time I go to turn left to pick up somebody I put on the windshield washer so I gave up. This time  I was fast enough to figure out which way to go. He's a young one, in his twenties, traveling the world with a smile as big as a billboard which I'm pretty sure he's been living off of for free for a very long time. Moved into a roadside Caravan cabin for 3 so I invited him to join us and I ended up having to pay the extra person supplement- bloody hell. Too late to tell this poverty stricken boy. Now we're all swimming in the pool getting ready to use the free Wi-Fi laptop walk the beach do some shopping swim in the city rock BATHS. Cooked up a gourmet dinner as I'm sure this lad has not had in awhile - i saw his groceries all bread and pasta. I'm surprised if his system doesn't shut down with the salad. In bed by nine and still didn't get to watch the free DVD rentals.  It was a good night.

Nov 11 - No Waterfalls, no Sunset Cruise - the Rainforest Retreat #1 & EATEN ALIVE

Still in shock that Trump is now the president. I don't think that horrifying feeling ever go away. Valerie only charges $50 a night for a room and then she serves as $50 worth of breakfast fresh fruit cereal. She's amazing. And this is the best part of my trip - I'm 100% caught up on my blog on my phone. If only she had a computer or Wi-Fi here. I've never been to a place that had no Wi-Fi. I will have the entire blog done and only be able to post it when I arrived back in Canada.

We stop every day to make sure the car is full of gas, sometimes $1.14, sometimes $1.35. Either way it's over $50 to fill for a half to a full tank and it's killing me because my Prius would do so much better. We always break up the trip even if we don't stop by getting ice cream or sharing a chocolate bar. I'll be seven hundred pounds before I return.

We drove many hours today , as usual, to see a waterfalls but when we arrived the water had dried up and it was just a nice little pond so we visited with everybody there and continued trying to find somewhere to stay I almost had convinced one of the swimmers to let us stay at his house with his yacht but he waffled too long.

Well 12 days in and 7 more days in Australia and 7 more days in New Zealand then it's home to Canada snow sweet home. I have no idea what city we're in or where we've been but we move every night. It's exhausting and really nice. We've  met so many wonderful people especially with Airbnb. We came into this town which just finished a music festival and everything is booked solid. Christelle was on two cell phones and about 10 different websites trying to find anything hostels Airbnb, Bed & Breakfasts, caravan parks, cabins and Couchsurfing for three solid hours. Very stressful. We ended up at a rainforest retreat at three times the price we normally pay.. so $95 whole dollars. I'm looking out over mountains, beaches that goes on forever which is the start of the Great Barrier Reef and hundred and eighty degrees of trees. I'm overlooking almost the top of the trees. I don't expect to see any Wildlife but there's a lot of birds.  Early in the daytime it's quite hot like 35 to 40 degrees and as we get closer to Cairns, I'm told that the humidity will be unbearable. I have to make sure we always have an air-conditioned place with Wi-Fi. Sadly this place does not have Wi-Fi.

We had to drive up what looked like a straight incline and I was petrified. I was freaking out because I didn't think I'd ever be able even go down the hill again. we park the car facing down on what felt like a straight up and down incline and every time I would back up, it would go forward closer to the cliff. I could hardly breathe. I'm dreading going down the hill but the place turned out to be wonderful. There's the main area where you can swim in the lobby hang in the hammocks check out The Overlook. So many things to do.

We even booked a sunset Cruise on a sailboat but after we paid for it they canceled it because of the wind. That's okay I don't think I could get back in the car voluntarily to do the incline that we have to do tomorrow. While swimming at the reception I noticed I am absolutely covered in bug bites I'm looking forward to getting home in the snow and no more bug bites.

So the Resort we're  staying at is a big cabin with for private rooms with their own bathroom and we all share the kitchen. Right now we have two German couples one of them on their honeymoon another couple just checked out and my daughter and I. They're having a very lively visit but I'm in my room scratching my bug bites- do I know how to party or what.

Each one of the rooms was filled up with foreigners and people coming and going and it was so nice to just sit around and share stories and of course advertise Spoiled Rotten. The main area’s sweltering and opens to the deck and the rain forest with the individual rooms having air conditioning so they're always overly a/c’d and I'm freezing my butt off. I know. First world problems. Close quarters,  always sharing a queen bed, and pregnancy hormones could be the death of us. I found that while driving, if tension is high, I stop to get gas every day and I buy an Oreo chocolate bar to share. We are stopping A LOT for the chocolate. LOL

Nov 10 - Medieval Villa but No A/C

Another 1000 hours...Ok 3, to Sarina. Heavily medicated we drove and stopped at a halfway point with no air-conditioning to eat some well-renowned homemade ice cream and pies from Australia they were good. I was afraid to sit beside the pond because there might have been alligators. We finally made it to the off the beaten path Sarina to meet the next Airbnb host Valerie. We love her. She 75 and a real Spitfire with a great sense of humor. She used to run a bed-and-breakfast business  until her daughter said to go Air B&B and now it's blooming. Her house is huge, homemade, medieval and fantastic. There is no air conditioning OMG! She does have a pool but because the city found out she's going Air B&B and they’re now charging her as a regular B&B and she has to upgrade her pool and get a special license $3,000 and build a special fence and test the water twice a day and get her kitchen up to par for regular inspections. She's too old and tired so it's now just a continental breakfast food for family use only someone kill me if I'm running a bed-and-breakfast it's 75 but she does it well when I can understand her accent. We enjoyed a wonderful swim on our arrival but when I wanted to use the pool and late at night she did say that it is rainforest so there could be spiders and lizards and snakes in the pool in the dark and yes they could be deadly. Her husband scoops them out every morning. I decided not to swim and have a shower instead.

Nov 9 - Driving Trivia, the Zoo, more Superhosts & Trump

It's my favourite time of the day...5:30 am by the beach. It's quite desolate but at the top of the hill, our packed campground full of travelers of all ages but mostly 20 yr olds.

So driving is getting quite relaxed but GPS Tom had us turn wrong and when I backed up onto the temporarily not busy highway, my nag partner calmly said, wrong side of the road. Damn! This is hard work changing 40 years of training. Another time I peered over the center line dangerously close to a lineup of about 40 motor bikers. They would not have been too happy with me knocking them all over like dominoes.

There are so many funny signs along the road. They have one that says pull over drink free coffee to revive and stay alive. When open. (It's never open). There are other signs that say simply Are We There Yet dad? Rest or RIP. Playing trivia saves lives -what is the national flower of the region? What is the longest river in the country? And then they give you the answer. It does keep us awake but we're pathetic. There's even one sign that says “No kids, it's still a long way to go yet”. There are no police on the road ever. In nine days we've only seen one police car parked at a police station in the driveway. I think the deterrence is all the signs that say hidden cameras everywhere. It works for me. Also the GPS things every time I go over the speed limit or the speed limit changes on the highway. Very interesting. What will be most interesting is when we return the car and find out through the agency whether we got a hundred speeding tickets or not. I'm afraid. We have only seen one hitchhikes right there on the whole trip which totally surprises me. I didn't stop because I couldn't figure out how to use the signals fast enough and our van is completely trashed so that they would have to lay on the roof. My driving has come a long way baby other than those two previous  incidents. I no longer hear the thump-thump thump-thump wondering what that is and it's me running over the sidelines. When I saw the 1590 to Cairn's I just about died but yesterday I said 900 and I now know I can do it. We have to remember to tell somebody that they should always start their trip from Sydney to Cairns rather than Cairns to Sydney because the road heading north is completely empty. We've only seen three kangaroos dead on one tiny strip of Highway.

Went to Allentown in Rockhampton to see the free zoo and Botanical gardens. What a great zoo! We did however see the biggest spider ever and so many spiders in Oz are deadly so we don't look thru fences anymore.

We arrived at an Airbnb superhost who has only been on for 3 months. She made it look so easy and inexpensive. We spent the night doing paperwork, watching old reruns and crying in our noodles about the monster, he who shall not be named (Trump) who was  voluntarily elected by the Americans. It's all over and the don't even suspect.

Nov. 7 - Tired, Déjà Vu & Linga Longa

No idea what day but a week into the three. it's funny how you can not know the day of the week or the time or anything but as soon as you misplace your watch it's the most important  worry  of the day. I was up all night in the hard mattress camper van, dreaming a chaos of travel plans. I'm still too old for a hard surface sleeping.  Up at 4:15 with one song running thru my head and a herd of weird whistling birds. Why oh why is the bathroom a block away and why can't I open my eyes any wider? It's gonna be a long long hot day. Tasted my first Red Bull since they don't sell the minis and it's yummy but only a few sips a day. Renters in the camper Park must really hate us. We wake up way too early and we open and close doors a thousand times an hour to find things.

While eating breakfast a lovely middle aged woman joined us and it didn't take long to find another kindred spirit of traveling. Her home life was iffy and she was suddenly traveling her trip of a lifetime “walkabout” against her will. It was so déjà vous for me. We talked, she vented and cried and grieved and then she wrote my blog for the day because all her experiences were my experiences. We told her she was getting divorced and she had no idea. She wrote me back a month later to say they are getting divorced. Poor lady. She rented a manual mini camper van similar to ours to drive on the wrong side of the road with a left hand clutch. Her driver bailed and she was stuck and as terrified as I was but she had more reason. She was alone without a GPS, either human or mechanical. She found herself going the Canadian way around an ass backward roundabout  with all drivers look of shock and terror...my worst fear. We still keep in touch.  

We drove for a long time mostly looking for a rest stop so we can both go use the facilities but we ended up at a superb superhost 5 star Airbnb slightly Off The Beaten Path called LingaLonga where you go to “linger longer”. She's very spiritual and she has a retreat on the Edge of Town that will blow your mind. Her mom is over 80 + and is a spitfire. I want to die here. The Kangaroos hang around the pond, the Christmas lights sparkle up the colourful hot tub late at night under the stars. She has the best accommodations for any type of Airbnb you can imagine from self contained housing to gorgeous bedrooms. Unbelievable. Makes my place look like hell on earth.

So we drove and drove and drove and drove and drove and ended up in what this particular City claims is the nicest beach in all of Australia. Pretty beautiful  near the caravan park. Met so many groups of 20-something Millennial girls traveling together. It's so refreshing to see..so we stayed up and shared our stories, not too dissimilar from my traveling daughters stories of touring the Orient for years. Gawd it's getting hot at night. I weighed the disadvantages of mosquito bites or dying of heat stroke so I left the door open. We lived anyway.

Nov. 6 - Lighthouses, Drunken GPS & Caravan Parks

Another early wake up at 5:30 to go to Byron Bay and watch the surfing beaches. After a Tofino style death defying drive to the top, we climb to the real top of yet another Lighthouse lookout. People were crowding around to watch the helicopter which was using a megaphone to yell to the divers and swimmers to get out of the water -there were sharks. Maybe I don't need to scuba dive in the Great Barrier. Maybe I just need to look at some postcodes.

We have switched from Samantha to Tom for a GPS. I think Tom drinks heavily or the stupid campervan place has not given us updates so we will forever be overriding it and my human GPS is saving the day. We were supposed to go to Surfers Paradise but it's just too far and it's full of high rises so we ended up at Miami Beach. Really doesn’t matter on a  long trip like this.  Seems a lot of Miami Beaches in the world. We stayed in an overnight RV camper van Resort called Ocean Beach tourist caravan park. More waves, more blistering sun and sand. In the daytime this place is like City morgue but at night everybody knows everybody and comes over to help the dumb Canadian girls who get up and leave every single day to go to a new location. They all laughed at us when we said we had 14 days to get from Sydney to Cairns. piece of cake! What do they know? I nearly choked when I saw a sign saying 1590 km to Cairns. The actual distance from Cairns to Sydney is 2730 kilometers at about 32 hours without stops. That translates to 500 hours for us.  WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING?!!!

We went to the live folk music guitarist and ordering my first drink in a week. Heaven and I’m such a quick buzz.   Poor human GPS cannot drink.

We set up the camper with the awning for the first time and of course none of it works and we don't have the proper tools that they said we had. I'm very frustrated with this company but yes I know we're on vacation so we will shut the hell up. I can read your mind.