Closer and closer to Antarctica

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This last month in New Zealand can be read as a grocery list. A 28-day whirlwind trip to catch the most spectacular attractions of South Island. Visit two glaciers on the same day? CHECK. Kayak in a fjord with rock faces that rise 1,200 m? CHECK. Visit the highest mountain in Australasia? CHECK. But our trip doesn’t boil down to attractions proposed by tourist information centres. We’d rather travel off the beaten paths as much as possible and discover a country through people we meet and their stupid suggestions.

So we met Dave, a Westport coal miner. His contribution to our joy? To borrow 3 bikes in disarray from his neighbour, carry us in his pickup to the peak of the mountain where they dig their tunnels and let us bike down the 9 km almost vertical road on these rusted old bikes. In our defence, we were wearing motorbike helmets and cheap leatherette gloves.

After that, Kate, a primary school teacher in Ahsburton invited us to give a creative movement workshop to her 5th and 6th graders during an afternoon. The dance exercise was followed by a question period to the great travellers that we are. Since we didn’t know exactly how many people live in Canada, we jumped on the opportunity to give them a research assignment, hence avoiding showing our ignorance.

During our visit to Vincent and Christelle, recent New Zealanders by adoption and (very) old friends, we took our spare time to solve a local mystery and find Oska, a lost Siamese cat appearing on overexposed photos put on multiple telephone poles in the municipality of Sumner. One phone call later and local authorities were on the track of the fugitive feline and a family will be reunited with their companion, asking loud and clear like only Siamese cats can do for a little love and a can of Wiskas.

This is a strange way to summarize our trip, the end of an almost one year long expedition. One year on the road, one year homeless, one year unemployed. One year meeting people, discovering a totally different fauna, incredible landscapes, new friends, and revisiting the old ones as often as possible. One year, it goes so fast. Hard to believe we are taking a plane in less than de 24h to go back home. We come back excited, a little bit sad, our batteries recharged, heads full of projects and luggage really too full of souvenirs (Almost 70 kg of souvenirs). For those we leave behind, don’t hesitate to come and see us! For those waiting for us at home, we’ll see you soon! If they let us take the plane will all this luggage.

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Couch surfing

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You do meet a lot of interesting people when you travel like we do. In the last 45 days, we’ve only paid 5 times to sleep anywhere. All the other times, we were either WWOOFing to help out and learn new skills or staying with people we’ve met through the Couchsurfing network.

Couch surfing is not exactly what it sounds like. It involves no particular aquatic balancing skills and up until now, never once a couch either. This worldwide network links a whole lot of people willing to welcome travellers into their homes, not expecting anything in return and no strings attached. They could be a bunch of university students with a spare bed in the living room or an elderly couple with an extra room now that their kid is off to college. Whoever they are, they are a varied bunch and they all have our wellbeing at heart. Some encounters we’ve made this past month are more memorable than others though…

There’s Jason and Emma for example. An English couple that took us into their Motel and gave us a small apartment for a week in exchange for some help around the garden. Not having a Quebec flag around, they chose to fly the colours of Canada and France combined on the front lawn as a send off present on the last day we were there. They also have two Labradoodles, a mix of Labrador and Poodles.

During our stay at a Buddhist centre, we met Mark, an animal behaviour expert who trained hundred of animals for movies and television, ranging from butterflies to elephants. His worldwide claim to fame is training Tom Cruise’s dog in the movie “The Last Samurai” filmed at Mount Taranaki, New Zealand’s answer to Mount Fuji in Japan. The same dog was also used in both “The new adventures of Hercules” and “Xena, Warrior princess”

Then there’s Shane and Bev. When we read their Couchsurfing profile, they mentioned and interest in conspiracy theories. As it turns out, interest is a gross understatement. We’re talking full blown obsession here. They believe in every single crackpot theory in the book. From evolution being a hoax, the moon being a hallow alien made object, the Pope’s hat betraying his ties with Dagon, the Babylonian Fish-God to Tesla and Einstein’s collaboration in the 40’s to make a ship disappear and travel in the future, everything is not mere speculation but proven fact. They also firmly believe in the 2012 Mayan prediction of a paradigm shift in the universe and a global apocalypse followed by a new age of enlightenment. Pretty far out stuff. They even showed us the bunker they have built in the back yard, 500 feet above sea level, stocked up with over a year of food rations and survival gear. When we left, two days later, they seemed genuinely interested in my suggestion that they should incorporate a CCTV network in their backyard in order for them to be able to see the world outside, crumbling in ruin from the comfort of their supped out shipping container.

Whoever they are, we are always very grateful to anyone willing to open up their homes to us for a couple of days. Sometimes it’s a young guy wanting to join the army who watches war DVD’s all night long, sometimes it’s an old couple sending us on our way with a homemade picnic and some chocolate. Every encounter is different, but one thing is certain, it’s never boring.

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Chain of events

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Flash back to the summer of 2006. We are standing on the curb of the road on one of the coldest and windiest Scottish islands, a huge pack sack at the shoulder, and thumb in the air. We’re waiting. Steph is all smiles, because she is sending the request to the Universe for my first hitchhiking experience to be an unforgettable one. Well, she hits the bull’s-eye: a few minutes later, a 1972 convertible Triumph suddenly appears on the horizon. Leon, a wealthy New Zealander tourist stops and picks us up. Finding us friendly, he cancels his golf game and spends the day visiting the dramatic coast of the Isle of Skye with us.

Flash forward to our last week in Australia. As always, so it seems, we are sharing an excellent dinner at Julie and Martin’s. We talk about travels, and random meetings. We’re leaving for New Zealand in three days and suddenly, a flash goes through our minds. LEON! We should contact him and ask him to come have a beer with us during our stay there. Arriving late at Andy and Laurren’s, another random meeting that provided us with excellent friends, I turn on my computer and send a message into the night, not even knowing if I have a valid email address.

The next morning, two days from our departure, I receive an expeditious email from Leon. “I would have loved to see you again, but I am presently in Hong Kong. However, I have a cabin in the North of the island. You can use it as long as you want... A 4x4 vehicle is also waiting for you there. Oh, and don’t hesitate to use my boat if you feel like it. But, since it’s far from Auckland, I arranged for you to use my small car to drive around town. Have fun!”

So here we are, driving an Alfa Romeo, travelling up and down the sinuous roads of New Zealand countryside, picking up the trail of Leon. That car allowed us to reach isolated places, to get to a faraway vineyard and give them a hand, to learn how to pick mandarin oranges, to prune grape vines, where we met a local horticulturist who graciously brought us on a 6 h deep sea fishing trip, where I managed to catch an 8 lb Snapper. That same night, we ate the Snapper the horticulturist’s friendly mate cooked for us at their place. Transported by that small car, we visited affluent falls and found an abandoned gold mine, where glow worms and giant Weta reside. All that, in only 10 days. A chain of events starting more than 4 years ago allowed us to really enjoy a country where people are extremely friendly and the hills remind us every day of the hills of Scotland, where it all began.

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…On a jet plane

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So this is it, our last post in Australia. As I write this, we are leaving the country in exactly 24 hours. It’s pretty exciting. We’ve spent all afternoon yesterday trying to figure out what we should bring with us in New Zealand. As we will only be there for three months, combined with the fact that the nights’ temperature drops down to close to zero in winter, we figured out that it’s just not worth it to buy a car over there. Without Shocker’s kiwi equivalent, backpack weight management becomes a priority.

We haven’t gotten to the point where we start drilling holes in our toothbrush handles to shave a couple of grams off, but we did do something I was not expecting initially. A couple of months ago, we found this old paperback copy of The Lord of the Rings, all six books put into one plus annexes edition that we thought would be appropriate on our journey through the real life Middle Earth. It’s all very cool and all, but it’s also very big and heavy. NOTE TO LIBRARIANS READING THIS: you might want to skip to the next paragraph. In a last ditch attempt to resolve the weight issue and save our backs from utter destruction, we have taken the resolve to cut off the first book from its binding, having both read it already. I know, I know, it’s horrible, but we’re at the other end of the world and there’s nothing you can do about it.

One other thing that weighs a ton is our trusty laptop. During this leg of the trip, I had taken the resolution that my backpack would not in any way exceed 25lb. We always end up carrying way too many things and this time, I was adamant on not repeating that mistake. So it was only after much debate, even at some point considering not bringing extra batteries for my camera that I decided that it was just best to leave my workstation behind. What will that mean? Less frequent, more sporadic blog updates and videos that are more crude and rough or not present at all. To some it will be a dark and sad time, to others a sigh of relief to have us peppered throughout the next months instead of constantly badgering you with our news every week. But at least, you’ll all know that my back will be saved from early age scoliosis.

So with this I bid you farewell and we will send you news of a new and strange land, full of birds that are also people that are also fruit. A land of ice and cold awaits us, but I am sure we will find many safe havens in which opportunities to communicate with you will present themselves. Until then, be safe and ponder on where the bloody hell OLD Zealand might be…

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Winds of change

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So, a few days ago, we arrived in Sydney in order to sell Shocker. Our trip ends here. It’s with mixed emotions that we stroll down the streets of the metropolis for the last time. When we left Sydney, more than 7 months ago, it was at the wheel of a brand new car (for us), driving anxiously on the wrong side of the road (for us). So we come back to town, carried away by our mobile home (which doesn’t have any more secrets for us), with a driving ease we would never have thought possible back in November. Right side parallel parking doesn’t scare us anymore and downtown rush hour either (but we still hate toll bridges).

After seven months on the road and a 20,000 km journey, Sydney appears stuck in time. As if we had left only last week and the feeling is totally daunting. It’s like as if this familiarity had just erased our tour on Australian soil, as if we never lived all these adventures. Only when, with a bottle of wine, we talk about our expedition and show photos and videos, our souvenirs emerge from the fog. What a strange feeling.

But, here we are, having to admit we only have two weeks left on the continent. Initially, we thought we would have to spend all of that time trying to find a prospective buyer for our car, but since the sale was settled in less than two days, we finally have lots of time on our hands. This is an excellent thing. It allowed us to do all sorts of groovy things we missed the first time we were here. Among other things, replacing our diving bag, which was damaged on the inbound flight, courtesy of a billionaire adventurer, eating many excellent meals at ridiculous prices in Chinatown and visiting an operational replica of the HMS Endeavour, loyal ship of Captain Cook, my favourite historic character.

Since we were able to sell Shocker for a good $ 1,000 more than what we had paid for initially, we find ourselves with sufficient funds to continue our journey in New Zealand without too many worries. It’s really when we let go of the idea of settling that things started to fall into place. A voyage implies motion and going back to our nomadic lifestyle gave this adventure the air of freshness it needed. But, at the same time, all this freshness reminds us we must get better gear if we want to survive the maritime winter of our next destination. So it is with great excitement that, for the last few days, we have browsed outdoor equipment stores in order to find the best deals on Merino wool! If this is what sheep wear over there, it should be adequate for us too.

Oh, and if you didn't believe us last week, here is visual proof of our moment of glory.

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My Fair Melbourne

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Seriously, you guys MUST be getting very annoyed at us always talking about Melbourne. But it’s oh so cool! But I promise it’ll be the last time. We’re only spending one more week here and then it’s off to Sydney again to try to sell our car! I must admit that I’ll be a little sad to see Shocker go. I’ve never spent so much time with a car. Every time we see her parked on the side of the street, we get a sigh of relief and feel like we’re home. It’s only a car mate! Yeah, but it’s MY car.

But we must sell her now, and Sydney seems like the best place to do so, being the main port of entry of Australia. We officially have until the 24th of June to get rid of her. Because of Quebec’s national holiday you might presume? No! Because we have already booked tickets to go to New Zealand on that date! Enough of this Island/Country/Continent! It’s time to see new horizons. Actually, with all the mountains over there, we hope to not see ANY horizons at all. Winter is definitely not the best time of year to go there, but what are you gonna do? Such is our plight this year, to boldly go where all the cool things are, at all the wrong times to do so.

But before skipping town, we’re trying to get the most out of the city we’ve grown to love. Why, it’s not even been 3 days since we’ve got back and already Melbourne has provided us with the opportunity to fulfil a lifelong dream. We can say with pride that we can check “Beat a Guinness World Record” off of our to-do list. Last Saturday, we joined 1243 other superhero-clad citizens in Federation Square to be the biggest crowd in the world EVER, united in one spot disguised as their favourite alter-ego do-gooders. Ok, most of those present were aged between 5 and 8, but that doesn’t make this achievement less impressive. Take that London! We beat your feeble attempt to make history and outdid you by more than 150 mask-wearing souls. That being said, wearing tights in the last weeks of autumn in the city is NOT the best of ideas… While you wait for the short film documenting it all, read what the papers have to say about that faithful day. And once you’re done with that, you can also have a look at our BRAND NEW VIDEO about our Outback journey. We’ve heard you guys enjoy those.

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Uluru, Ayers Rock, the huge red rock over there

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After driving for more than 1500 km in the Outback, we finally arrived at the Rock. Three days of driving where the immensity can’t be described and even less be photographed. There are some places you simply have to go to in order to understand their vastness and immensity. Apart from the Great Canadian North and Siberia, I don’t believe there are many other places on the planet so deprived of human beings and their buildings, which they cherish so much. I can understand how this kind of place can seem far from inviting for many (one of the rare places where cellular connection can’t reach! Oh no!), but for us, it’s exactly what we were looking for in Oceania.

Driving for 1500 km in the desert, gives you lots of time to think. To ponder about where you are in the World, where you are in your life, where you fit on this wheel in perpetual motion. So we arrived at Uluru, our hearts filled with the Aboriginal Romance. The one where only native occupants of the Sacred Land can understand the delicate fibre binding every rock together, every bush with the repeated rhythm of Ancestral songs. We knew all about this culture and the importance of forbidding anyone to climb the sacred monument.

When we arrived at the National park, we saw a notice: Park Open; Climbing Open. Hum, are they talking about another mountain? Surely, they must forbid climbing the knoll to all park visitors? We continue towards the native interpretation centre. Over there, we meet two elders, well defrocked. One of them reminds us, slouched on his plastic chair, with a monotone voice and in a slurred speech, how important it is for his People that no one climbs Uluru. The giant snake, which created this place in the beginning of times, has forbidden it. When came time for his companion to enlighten us with her Aboriginal wisdom, she was nowhere to be found. “She’s gone walkabout!” says the park warden, a nervous smile on his face.

So we spent the day on a 10 km hike around the base of Ayers Rock. We can observe it from all angles, but at some places, we see notices forbidding photographs for cultural sensibility reasons. For example, two huge rocks where the magical snake of yesteryears left its eggs a million trillion years ago. I can understand the physical impact of 10,000 visitors walking on a sacred land, but here, it’s censorship, pure and simple.

Hiking for 10 km in the desert, gives you lots of time to think. To ponder about your principles, your own vision of the World. This first real contact with Aborigines was one of censorship and restrictions. But why? Good question, because they too don’t seem to know better than “It’s always been that way, so why change it?”

So I came back from hiking with the firm intention of climbing the Rock on the next day. I believe that mountains are there to be climbed. And if it’s done with respect, it just enhances the spiritual value of the site. Anyway, I seriously doubt that we’ll face the ancient Aboriginal spirits wrath.

We arrive the next morning, eager and ready to climb the Beast. The notice greats us at the front desk: Park Open; Climbing Closed due to high winds at the summit. Damned stubborn Aboriginal spirits…

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Communist!

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We live in a society that values material possession and individualism, forcing anyone wishing to build or repair anything to go out and purchase his very own hammer, screwdriver, reciprocating saw... I have often talked with friends about the need for a workshop Co-op. A place where there would be all the tools that anyone would ever need for any kind of projects, there to be used by anyone. Seriously, if you are not a fulltime handyman, how many times a month do you REALLY need to use that wood planer? Was it worth that 300$ price tag if you only use it once or twice a year?

I had to travel halfway around the world, but I have finally found what I have been searching for a LONG time. CERES, a landfill turned organic playground has one of those coop tool sheds for bicycles! If you’re only aiming on fixing brakes and gears, you can manage to get along with only a screw driver and a couple of Allen keys, but go anywhere deeper, and bikes are notorious for needing highly specialized tools that are used for only one specific part and nowhere else.

At CERES, they have recognized the need for such a workplace. You pay a ridiculously low yearly membership of 10$ and you get unlimited access to all the tools, as long as they remain onsite. Not only that, but you also gain access to a wealth of knowledge in the form of volunteers who are present at the workshop every weekend and are particularly keen on sharing their passion. To a point where the main rule over there is that volunteers will never fix anything. They will teach anyone willing how to do it themselves though. It is an incredible place to learn.

They also have a HUGE yard full of spare parts coming from bikes donated in various states of disarray. Need a new shifter? Just dive into that pile over there. Your wheel rim is bent beyond repair? Look up! The room is a giant dome made out of bike wheels! Just reach up and grab one! If you want, you can event start up from scratch and construct your very own bicycle for the ridiculous price of about 50$. You just need the patience to build it up yourself, but with such incredible help around, you’d be crazy to pass up the chance to learn how.

We are in dire need for more places like this, in all the fields of repairs. Every city should have a coop mechanic shop for car repair needs; every neighbourhood needs a local tool shed with 2 or 3 lawnmowers, hedge trimmers and ladders. If we centralized the equipment, we wouldn’t need to double, triple all those tools and we wouldn’t need to rely on overpaid specialists who charge you 100$ for an oil change, just because they have access to tools and you don’t. You would get more involved in the community, share knowledge and get more proactive when it comes to maintaining and repairing the few things you do own as a group.

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Legoland , Australia

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Melbourne, Melbourne, Melbourne… Such a harsh mistress. We maintain with this town the type of toxic relationship a pop starlet has with her obsessive fans. We want to see her, touch her, and spend most of our time with her but every letter sent, signed with a touch of perfume, stays unanswered. It’s one thing to be publically rejected, but it’s quite different to be totally ignored. There comes a time when even the most ardent fan must realize this relationship is going nowhere fast, no matter how many letters written with newspaper clippings he sends.

What I don’t understand, is that we are far from being incompetent, I would even go so far as saying we are downright resourceful … Just this week, I repaired three different doors, a necklace, an electric hedge cutter and a washing machine. Having more than one string to one's bow, one would think it easy to find a job. But we have been here for six weeks now, and no paying job has found its way to us. We even went to the length of retaining the services of a head hunter. A person whose first duty is to call potential employers, praising our achievements in exchange of 12 % of our future wages, if there is a positive outcome. The results? Zip, Nada. It seems the market is saturated with travellers looking for a job.

With no money, we can’t stay in a town where the average rent for a single room is around $ 200 per week. So we decided to leave Melbourne for new places, new horizons. But until we leave, we take in fully the generosity of a small friendly family to live properly in Melbourne.

Allow me to describe this family in a few words: Rob likes board games. Especially the ones in which he can crush you. He adores building all sorts of things and is especially fond of LEGO blocks, which can be found in every nook and cranny of the house. He also shapes his own Warhammer figurines with such craftsmanship, putting to shame the pathetic plaster figurines I made during my fifth year in high-school.

Colleen is a wonderful mom: she prepares fantastic organic meals, rides with her offspring on a quirky bike imported straight from Denmark and likes to support local merchants. She beams with attention for others, so much so, she gets up in the middle of the night to make sure pure strangers are Ok when they suddenly cough abnormally.

The kids are, well, kids. Calm for a minute, tornados the next. Rarely boring when they’re present. Lizzie would be a born mime, if only she could stop talking for a few seconds. Charlie is an adventurer confronting zombies one day and building blanket fortresses the next.

With 3.8 million inhabitants in Melbourne, the odds of finding a couple with which we would get along so well are astronomical. We feel so much at home with them. It’s really hard to believe: two weeks ago, we didn’t even know they existed.

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STELLA!!!

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I think we would fit right in New Orleans. Mind you, there’s no streetcar actually named Desire around here, but trams are the main way we get around Melbourne. And just like Blanche Dubois who has always depended on the kindness of strangers, so have we. I can tell you right now, we feel very blessed by those chance encounters we have made recently.

Since sleeping on park benches wasn’t up to our standards of living, we have finally accepted the generous invitation made by Katie, Cecilia’s sister, to come and live with her and her small family on the seventh floor of an urban tower overlooking the Melbourne zoo. Two days ago we barely knew her, and now we are sharing living space with her 10-month-old kids, teaching them how to say trendy Portuguese words and showing them that goldfish and Tibetan prayer bowls can be an excellent source of fun.

This week, we also got our urban groove on and FINALLY went out to see Ron Mueck’s expo at the NGV. A couple of years ago, while in Edinburgh, we had missed it and had opted for a free event instead. Ever since, we have had this tinge of regret of having passed up on a wonderful opportunity for the sake of a couple of bucks. This time, seeing as it was presented in Mueck’s home town and being a special event with musicians and all, we couldn’t miss it. It was really worth it to see the work of a genius sculptor and the voice of Ludo in Labyrinth.

As I mentioned earlier, trams are the main source of transportation in Melbourne. They are abundant, fast and fairly cheap. In fact, they are so cheap that you don’t even have to pay to ride them. I don’t know who came up with the payment system, but I can assure you that it was designed for failure. You hop on, make your way to a little machine and put your money in exchange for a ticket. That ticket serves no purpose. You just hold on to it as proof of payment. But proof to whom you might ask? The tram driver doesn’t care, the other passengers don’t care. In fact, 90% of the time, NOBODY cares if you pay the fare or not. Only once in a while, about once a month, commando style officers storm the streetcar in a surprise inspection and hand out fines to whoever has not paid for that particular trip; fines that can easily be avoided by talking to them in a broken down, Québécois riddled English, feigning ignorance of common law. Not that we have ever done it… officially…

And as further proof that you can always count on the kindness of strangers, we have just been invited into the home of yet another small family willing to take us in out of pure generosity. A chance encounter at a local event turns into yet another adventure. Magic.

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Oh Yeah! By the way, we’re moving out!

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So this is our last week at Cecilia’s. She is moving to Japan in two days and so we’re forced to choose a card box under a viaduct as a means of permanent residence. At least, this is what seems to be the most likely to happen to us in a near future. You see, since a simple suggestion to start packing two weeks in advance was pushed aside by a pink lace ornate hand in favour of photo shoots and interior design, we are now helping her to move out, night and day, leaving us very little to no time to look for our own place to live in when our stay is over. Oh well, we’ve seen worse… But not that often.

Cecilia’s house is filled with two very distinctive things: boxes and Japanese girls. For the latter, Easter celebration is chiefly strange. They can’t seem to be able to grasp the subtle link between Jesus, our Saviour and a giant bunny hiding chocolate eggs to the children’s delight. So it was an immense pleasure for us to enlighten them, paraphrasing various Gospels in the process. With a little bit of luck, the good Lord might suddenly have won two new Nihon warriors in His crusade against humanity. An interesting fact: Since all Australian hen eggs are brown, this greatly limits Easter eggs decoration process (or as we would call them during our briefing session: Christian Grenades).

Being so close to the Orient made me realize something interesting, at least, it seemed interesting to me. It seems that the more, let’s say, yellowish skin tone of Asian people confuses the “Auto-White Balance” function of my camera. When some of them are in a picture composition, all colours seem to be altered and require a lot more adjustments in postproduction. As if the Chromatic Recognition software was different in North America compared to the land of the Rising Sun. Strange. Meaningful to a certain extent… But mostly strange.

I was really hoping this week to announce that we were able to plan a dinner with the famous Pauly Shore, who is in town for a few days on a stand-up comedy tour. It is with great regret that I announce he has not answered my numerous e-mails and preferred the security of a dark and humid hotel room to our warm company. So we had to go with Plan B to share our dinner with Elliot Goblet, nationally recognized stand-up comedian. We’re talking about a man having totally absurd humour, and a really nice guy. Look at these ancient-looking recordings and make up your own mind about him, as long as it’s the same as ours. Otherwise, go make it elsewhere. From this meeting, Stephanie got new stockings portraying the stand-up comedian. Who can top that?

Oh, by the way, HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRANÇOIS! We are 50 only once! (Or so Krishna would have us believe... –Er– No, or is it the other way around?).

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Melbourne in the fast lane

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Well that was some transition. After months and months of living the slow life, it seems that our routine day to day living has just kicked into high gear. It’s amazing how the human being can adapt so quickly. Seven days later and we feel like our lives have always been that busy.
So in a week (just one week!), here is what we’ve experienced:

We found this really great house in which to live for a while. We help out a wonderful permaculture teacher sort out her life before her big move to Japan in three weeks. In exchange, we get a nice bed in the attic, some seriously delicious food, some free Japanese lessons and a really good friend. Oh and the house seems to be the hub for all the cat traffic in Northern Melbourne. There’s always a new one to be pet!

Through Cecilia, we got the chance to have dinner with Edward de Bono, PhD in creativity, millionaire collector of remote islands and the originator of the expression “lateral thinking”. Quite impressive to many, but to us with only our brief encounter, he will remain an old dude who enjoys the company of young ladies and who likes word games in which he is surprisingly uncreative. Nice chap though.

We learned that in Melbourne, it is common practice for people to hire out furniture for $ 400 a week. Add that up as you like, but that comes up to $ 10,000 in 6 months. We are seriously thinking about just buying some random couches to rent out and live like kings without working ever again.

We live with this wonderful Japanese girl who teaches us new words and expressions every night. She also teaches us traditional customs like calligraphy and which meals not to order in Chinatown. She does nothing to alleviate stereotypes we might have of her people though, going as far as taking a photograph of a photograph instead of asking us to send her the .jpeg by email. But that’s why we love her.

Having finally a decent and constant Internet connection, we got lost in Google street view, seeing where Tamami lives and works in Tokyo and showing her all the beautiful murals of Sherbrooke. To our big surprise, when we showed her where I worked downtown, we saw Francis, Raphael and Dominic, three of my coworkers taking a break outside while the Google van took those pictures. Get back to work you slackers! We’re not paying you to sit around in the sun!

We also met this hippy chick who suggested we do like her and find a nice house in the suburbs in which to live. And by nice house, she meant one owned by rich businessmen who do not actually live there and where you just have to cross a couple of wires to get free power, free gas and free telephone. She’s been staying at the same place that way for the past two years. Her advice: live comfortably, but always be ready to run like the devil if the cops do finally turn up.

So all of that in one single week. No wonder we’re a bit tired these days. But it’s a welcome change of pace, and Melbourne really is a wonderful town. I think we’re going to fit in just fine.

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On the way to Melbourne

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To reassure everybody who was worried, here’s an update to the “Stick in the Face” file. The pain has gone, I’m no longer dizzy and unfortunately, all the beautiful colours adorning my face have withdrawn. Everything is much better. Furthermore, it appears that this strategically placed hit in the face has succeeded where years of visits to chiropractors, massage therapists, acupuncturists and the like had failed: for a week now, and I’ve no longer had a pain in the neck! A 7-year-old chronic pain apparently flew away, with the help of only one magical stick blow. At least, I would have gained that.

We have really left the Australian Bush for a week now. It took us 17 days to travel across the 3000 km separating Townsville from Melbourne. An average of 250 km per day for almost two weeks, and we took the liberty to stretch the last 100 km over a 5-day period to visit the Mornington touristic peninsula before we came to town.

To celebrate this expedition (and because people won’t stop harassing us to see our faces more often), we have decided to film our journey during these 3 weeks. A few days ago, in order to hype our production, you were enticed to watch the trailer (which, in fact, was material we had produced, but didn’t seem to find its way into the final cut) of our last short feature. Today, we are pleased to present you the final product, which is sensibly erratic. The goal wasn’t to tell a tale, but to give an idea of the constantly moving landscape and of the way of life for people travelling 250 km per day, every day. I hope you’ll like it, even if though it has a way different style from the trailer.

So we finally arrived at our final place of destination. At least, ONE destination. We have found a superb hostess to harbour us for our first month in the area. A little work in exchange for 3 extremely delicious meals and a marvellous housing in the most expensive town in all of Victoria. Many wonderful exchanges of knowledge, things learned every day and a very Japanese house where to spend our first days in Melbourne. You’ll hear more about it when we have stayed here a little longer.

Our first impression of Melbourne? A very trendy, super cultural, very musical and vibrating town. Hyper specialisation is what ensures survival for merchants. OK, you’ll say we’ve come a long way... We are still in the state of mind where a Video Club may and MUST sell microwaves and crock-pots in order to survive. In here, you can find shops entirely devoted to Russian dolls collectors, others sell more than a hundred different types of shoe shine and nothing else. So I’m pleased to tell you we no longer need to go to the post office to buy condensed milk.

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My semi-permanent Egyptian makeup

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After having driven over 2,500 km in Australia’s barren bush land for the past 10 days, we finally made it out alive and found some trace of civilization, about 300 km away from Melbourne. There, we expected to see many familiar things. Shopping centres with trendy boutiques, restaurants that serve other things than sausage sizzle, traffic lights… One thing I was NOT expecting though, was to get hit in the face with a stick, swung by a crazy teen in a fit of rage.

It seemed like an ordinary Sunday afternoon at the park: families were having a picnic, some youth we’re practicing new moves in the skatepark, the sun was shining and everyone was having a splendid time; the kind of moment that would have made the perfect picture postcard if you only added the words “Shepparton, Milk Capital of Victoria” on the bottom. At least, it would have, until this group of punk-ass teens came rolling in on their little scooters.

For what we’ve heard from the other kids afterwards, these guys are always there, terrorizing anyone and everyone at any given time. On that day, it seemed it was just a “wrong place, wrong time” kind of deal. Insult were thrown, then rocks, and the split second I looked away to see if Steph was OK, a 2 foot long, 3 inch wide stick was swung and broken on my face.
It was a sunny day though, and Shepparton is a really nice looking city. There are dozens of painted cows everywhere, made by talented local artists. Many friendly people stroll about or ride their bikes. Two of them (who happened to both be named Matt – which helps to be remembered while your head is throbbing and your vision is still blurry) stopped by to give us a hand.

(One of the) Matt had a cell phone and kindly called the police while the other gave me some water from his bottle, which was nice of him, seeing how he was in the middle of some bicycle training exercise and would surely need it.

Victoria Police officers were quick to arrive and seemed excited as they drove their cars on the lawns of the park giving chase to the thugs on their mini scooters. Arrests were made and testimonies were taken and Stephanie jokingly took pictures of my swollen face while I ate a complimentary donut.

These things happen I guess… We meet hundreds of people every day on this cross-country journey, almost all of them are really nice, and most of them won’t even think about smashing sticks on your face. Take Peter and Diane, for example, who we met in Kumbia. They are contented on riding their motor home across Australia, in search of freshwater fish and taking blurry pictures of them through the water. There’s also Bruce, Paul and Eric, an old group of friends who every year, travel 1,500 km in an old campervan that Bruce made, pulled by a 1949 Chevy pickup truck just to go see an old car show and get away from their wives for a week in South Queensland.

Travels are adventures. Most are good, some are bad and a few are... Meh.. I think Shepparton gets filed in the “Meh” pile.

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Bush Mechanic

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When you travel through the Australian Bush, you must be prepared to improvise. Access to services or basic materials is rather constrained. Sure, there are villages every 100 km (maximum distance a horse-drawn buggy used to cover in a day), but most of the time, it’s only one street with 2 or 3 dilapidated houses. If you’re lucky, you’ll also find a trash can. But just one.

Having travelled through almost the entire East coast of Australia, it was about time to give Shocker an oil change. When asking small local garages, it turned out to be around $ 120 for such a job. $ 120 for a 40 minutes lube job. And we’re substantially talking about unscrewing a bolt and a filter and WAITING 40 minutes… So I took this affront as a challenge. It’s not because we’re in the Bush that we can’t be resourceful.

A few years ago, on local television, there was a show called « Bush Mechanics ». It followed Aboriginal mechanics’ ups and downs in the most isolated parts of the continent. More often than not, when they needed to work on the underside of the car, they would call 10 of their neighbours and basically flip the car sideways. Once done with the repair, they flipped the car back to its original position and hoped it would start again. A little extreme, but it gives you ideas…

So we decided to find the necessary tools to do the oil change ourselves. Even if each of these tools were 100 km apart, the spanner, the gizmo to unscrew the filter and the oil pan were all justifiable buys in a pattern of travelling, since they don’t take too much space in the car. However, the ramps to lift the car front were not. And since the spanner I finally was able to put my hands on was almost 2 feet long, I really needed a way to jack the car so I could work under.
Everybody gave us suggestions. Park the car on top of a creek, one wheel on each side. Maybe, but I didn’t feel like working lying down in water. Dig a big hole and park the car over it. Good too, but a shovel takes as much space as a set of ramps. It’s also quite astonishing to realize how difficult it is in such a flat country to find natural holes. The winning course of action was a lucky one.

When we arrived in Dululu, we parked the car for the night in a rest area hidden from the road and intrusive eyes (In Queensland, it’s illegal to change car oil in nature). We found the perfect natural ramp. Two huge flat pyramid shaped rocks. Just what we needed to jack the car and give me necessary leeway to operate my tools. 40 minutes later, it was all done. We even found an old Polish guy in Dululu, who was more than happy to salvage our waste oil. Another Bush story ending well. And for once, we didn’t have to flip the car over.

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Koalas sleep a LOT

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Magnetic Island is so-called because way back then, when Captain Cook passed the 10 km wide little speck of land, his compass started to play funny games. He thought at once that the isle itself possessed some strange and magical magnetic fields and so named it. As it happens, his compass must have been a cheap one, because nowhere on the island can you find strange vortexes of magnetism… Oh well…

So we spent an entire week on this small rock. They have very few things there, only one market with overpriced food, only one gas station with overpriced petrol, only one pub with overpriced beer (that tastes pretty bad). One thing they do have though is a LOT of wildlife, enough that they built an animal sanctuary where I worked at for 7 days.

They call it a sanctuary, but it’s more like a small petting zoo for the Australian fauna. You get to take a picture of you holding a koala, a picture of you holding a salt water crocodile, a picture of you holding a wombat… You get the idea. When we talked to the ranger before coming to the island, he had hyped it up to being a really huge park where we could help save injured animals and really make a difference with the local wildlife. As it turns out, I was just cleaning up Koala poop and trying not to get slapped in the face by a young crocodile’s tail while it was trashing around, really not happy with being picked up and passed around for the 3rd time that day, knowing that some dumb kid will, without fail, poke it in the eye.

There was one thing that stood out from that week though. The aboriginals have this belief that everybody has a Dreaming, a spiritual animal with which they have an unusual connection. It that is true, then surely, my dreaming is the cockatoo. There were two different ones at the sanctuary. Shadow, a red-tailed black cockatoo and Captain, a sulfur-crested white cockatoo. Shadow systematically bites everyone who tries to touch him. Captain, will get pet by women, but will not let any males, young or old get close to him. The head ranger even tried to wear a wig one day and see if he could fool him. No such luck.

As it happens, to everyone’s surprise, I could, without hesitation, pet both these birds. None of the rangers had seen anything like it before. I just came up to them and got to stroke their feathers and even massage them a bit. Weird.

So here are quick facts I’ve learn during my week there:

-Cockatoos can live up to 80 years.

-Male salt water crocodiles can get as big as 6 meters and eat people. They can go in fresh water as well. They can also be found 2 000 km out into the ocean.

-Blue-tongued lizards can drop off their tails when in danger. It takes a full year to grow a new one and they can’t drop that new one until it’s fully grown.

-Koalas are not born with the bacteria that enables them to eat the toxin in eucalyptus leaves, their only source of food. They have to eat koala poop for the first 2 months of their lives to gain it.

-Baby wombats are REALLY cute

-Snakes don’t have any ears. Screaming like a little girl won’t make them go away. So stop it.

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Bowenwood

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A few weeks before we left, wanting to surround ourselves with the austral culture, we went to the public library to get panoply of Australian works. Books about Aboriginal culture, instrumental album of the sounds of didgeridoo, children’s tales featuring an awkward possum and of course, the classic Crocodile Dundee, just to name a few. All of them relevant. However, the movie, “Australia”, starring Wolverine and the ever lovely Nicole Kidman (rrrrwoinw!) stuck out on top for its stunning images and mesmerizing story (and for its complete absence of reference to Vegemite).

Imagine our astonishment when, on our way up North, we encountered the village of Bowen, main shooting location of the feature film “Australia”, eighteen months ago. According to the many leaflets from the Bowen Tourist Information Center (home of the Giant Mango), what was before a quaint small village became over night, an Australian movie metropolis for six weeks during winter of 2008, after the arrival of mega American movie stars. So much so that the municipal council decided to print “BOWENWOOD” in giant letters on the village water reservoir, to ensure Bowen with the title of Movie Mecca and to convince other mega productions to come and shoot in the glorious city where everything is possible.

Eighteen months later, Stephanie and I walk through the streets under pouring rain, looking in vain for a youth hostel to accommodate us. One would believe who’s preventing us from finding a dry bed for the night are all these Hollywood stars occupying every single room in town, but unfortunately it’s not the case. Rather, a series of planks barricading windows and “Closed” signs are the culprits for our prolonged stay in the rain.

You see, Bowen didn’t get the return on investment it expected form the “Australia” adventure. Of course, each star took every possible promo picture, made the Front page of local papers when they choose to patron a restaurant instead of another, posing with the owner, holding a steak in hand, but once the cameras stopped rolling, everything left in Bowen was a series of billboards at the marina and lots of red sand Hollywood forgot to pick up afterwards, still littering the place almost two years later.

Having finally found a hostel to accommodate us (which seems to have opened its doors only for us that night), we slept in a room smelling of humidity. On a small 15-inch TV, we are watching Gran Torino (Clint Eastwood in great shape even though he is 79 years-old) and Strictly Ballroom because, after all, we have to promote Australian cinema. During 4 hours, we are transported somewhere else. Movies have the ability to bring the spectator to a completely different reality. It’s easy to see how Bowen’s residents could be fooled to believe their story too could have a happy ending. But it only happens in Bowenwood. I mean, Hollywood…

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There’s a reason they call it a rainforest

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I never thought that mold could ever grow so fast… We spent 5 days in the rainforest. 5 DAYS. That’s only about 120 hours, but apparently, that’s enough for mold to get everywhere. In this short week, I lost, to the little green fuzz, a perfectly good pair of leather sandals and a nice straw hat that was just getting the old worn down look I was going for.

We spent 5 days there, and that was more than enough. Wazza, our host, has been living in the makeshift bush camp for 20 years. During the rainy season, he’s there mostly on his own. Once in a while, a lost camper or misinformed WWOOFer will find his way there during the WET, but otherwise it’s just him and his two beautiful rescued cockatoo and Dog the dog who smells like… Well, smells like wet dog actually. But it never gets lonely in the rainforest. There’s plenty of life to keep you company: birds, lizards, insects of all sorts (my first scorpions!) and of course the fabled duck billed platypus. Considering that most Australians have never seen a real life platypus, we consider ourselves extremely lucky to have been able to observe one frolicking around the crystal clear creek in the early hours of our last morning there. (They’re a lot smaller that you’d expect.)

At night in the rainforest, it gets eerily dark. The canopy is so dense that absolutely no light can get through. Pitch black. Lying in your little tree huts, high above the wet ground, your eyes never adjust, open or closed, there’s absolutely no difference. That makes for a real good night’s sleep. That is, it would if the sound of constant rain falling combined with the flow of the nearby river wouldn’t make you wake up 6 times a night to relieve a sudden urge to go pee.

The main road out of the Platypus Bush Camp is a winding one, crossing many riverbeds. Having left our car a kilometer away from camp, that meant we have to traverse on foot four of these gullies of varying depth and current. It was all good fun on the first couple of days, but on our last trip out, having been constantly soaked to the core for the last 120 hours, I didn’t feel like taking the award-winning picture of our last crossing that I had originally planned. National Geographic will just have to wait another year.

In other news, Mackay, where we are drying off, has decided to finally ADOPT fluoridation of their main drinking water. Knowing that the European Union has banned fluoride, a toxic waste product of aluminum, in all its drinking supplies over 20 years ago didn’t seem to make Mackay rethink its “cavity fighting” strategy. Neither did the fact that the substance has been used for years to tame down circus lions or to alter Russian inmates’ brain chemistries to make them more accepting of their fate. I miss drinking rainwater, but I suddenly just don’t feel like complaining about it anymore…

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Captain Marc

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We are en route towards the North! The GREAT North. The one bringing tropical cyclones, torrential rains, suffocating heat and hosting salt-water crocodiles and the most deadly jellyfishes on Earth in every water hole having the potential to refresh you. Why are we here, would you say? Darn good question…

While working at the hostel front desk, Stephanie sometimes sold boat tours to people also migrating to the Tropics. In exchange for her services, ABC Company, which manages most of the tours, graciously offered her a free stay on one of its ships. That’s why we faced overflowing rivers and giant ox statues to cross the Tropic of Capricorn and reach Airlie Beach, Whitsundays entryway and Australian capital of tourist exploitation.

So we discovered the Great Barrier Reef on board the Atlantic Clipper (which only cruises the Pacific Ocean)! Two days and two nights on board a 34 m sailboat. A really sublime experience. To our great astonishment, the 74 islands forming the Whitsundays don’t even resemble the tropical oasis we dreamed of. Being a continental archipelago rather than a coralline one, the islands produce vegetation similar to the one on the coast. Very few palm trees but a few conifers. Many times, we had to remind ourselves we were in Australia instead of Quebec, on a lake. The presence of wild dolphins and giant fishes helped to bring us back from our brief mind-wandering.

The heart of the Great Barrier Reef, for one, is absolutely magnificent. Much more than its South end point, where we waddled when we were in Agnes. Here, in the protected section of the Reef, colour prevails. Corals take every shape and present a colour palette rarely seen anywhere else in nature. There are also sea cucumbers, sea stars, sea snakes, sea horses... The Ocean is filled with creatures so strange; Man was forced to create a terrestrial parallel in order to not get lost in it. There is also a dramatic quantity of fishes of all sorts and configurations.

Of course, we saw Nemo; everybody is looking for that one down here. He had eyes much smaller than in the movie though, one less line on his back and he was much more protective of his home. One of them even bit me when I wanted to touch his anemone. Good lesson learned: Don’t touch anything in the Ocean. Except, maybe, Elvis. Elvis is a GIGANTIC maori wrasse, who apparently always wanders in the same spot. He got his name because he’s the « KING » of his strand of reef. He’s 20 years-old, measures about 2 metres, loves to be pet and apparently, recognises boats by the colour of their hull. Substantially, Elvis is a huge sea golden retriever.

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In Agnes no more.

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Last time, I mentioned that the Southern Cross had asked me to make their promotional video for the “Tours of 1770” DVD they were putting together. As it turns out, Bruce, the instigator of this project, saw the finished product. The very next day, he was calling me up, asking if I could redo HIS promo video. He also suggested to all the other tour operators to call me and have me redo all of THEIRS too...

It took me almost three weeks, but I managed to complete six of the videos before we finally left Seventeen Seventy. We got to do all sorts of crazy things. Some of the fun things involved:

-Doing some wicked manoeuvres on the acrobatic plane including some that could not be filmed as they were considered “illegal” by the pilot. On the way back, I even got to fly the small aircraft for a good 10 minutes.

-Doing some funky camera work whilst riding on the back of a speeding motorcycle. We didn’t have anything like a steady cam, but I think it turned out all right.

-Using a waterproof camera to actually get IN the waves with would-be surfers. The footage ended up being very good, with TONS of funny wipe-outs.

-Destroying the underwater camera Bruce had lent me for the Lazy Lizard shoot. Apparently, it wasn’t as waterproof as the manual would have you believe...

-Revamping some existing Surf Kayak video and trying to make it look nice enough that I would put my name on it. Since both tours are run by the same company, I used a similar layout to unify both products, which seemed to please Luke a lot.

As the title suggests, after having done all of that, we finally managed to escape Agnes Water. Considering that all the roads out of town were flooded at the time, this should be sufficient to let you know how much we needed to be on the road again. I don’t remember the last time I have seen THAT much rain fall in such a small amount of time. It was all very tropical. The campsite that has been our dry home (despite really heavy storms) for the past two months suddenly became a raging river, not even two hours after moving everything back in the car. Good timing, I would say. Funny enough, Australian car manual include a detailed section on how to cross overflowing creeks and what to do when you hit a kangaroo. Crazy Aussies...

Last week, we got to celebrate Australia Day. It’s cool to see how one culture celebrates its own independence. It’s just a shame that, while the Ozzies celebrate the date Captain Cook made his first landfall on Australian soil, all the Aboriginals have to celebrate is the day they lost the right to call themselves “People”. Makes it a little bittersweet to wave the Australian Red White and Blue around... The dogs didn’t seem to mind too much though... So why should we? Plus, we got to chase around some cane toads in the middle of the night to have them race reach other. Mine didn’t win despite the fact that I had named it “Speed Frog”.

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Circular breathing

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Circular breathing… The art of breathing in through the nose while simultaneously blowing out through the mouth in order to bring constant air intake to some kind of instrument. If you succeed in doing this fluently and continuously into the hollow end of a eucalyptus trunk, you’re on the way to becoming a real didgeridoo player. I won’t say I’ve already mastered the technique, but since the past couple of weeks, Jean-Paul has been vibrating at a more constant tempo.

Last week, after watching our video inscription to Van-tastic contest, Southern Cross CEO, who has allowed us to camp on site for the last six weeks, asked me to produce a one-minute promotional video for the tour they provide in the nearby National park. One day of film shooting and a later exchange of services, HERE IS THE RESULT. It’s a little bit more conventional than what I’m use to produce, but they are absolutely thrilled with the final product. The video is currently running in a loop amongst other films, in all the area hostels and in tour bus, meandering around the streets of Agnes Water every morning at 10 o’clock. Not bad for a first corporative production featuring real people instead of vectors and polygons. Watch it and give me your input; you might also recognise a very familiar face quite a few times.

In the Bush, on a clear night, the amount of stars visible to the naked eye is just crazy. Even more surprising is to realise what a wide open lens aiming at the southern version of the Milky Way can catch. Not always easy to find the correct balance between aperture and exposure time, but I was able to capture a few good prints of the sky above our little tent in the Australian Bush. The Southern Cross proudly adorning the flag, besides a scaled down version of the Union Jack, and which, in the sky is aiming at the geographical pole is always very clear at night. She also is used as a beacon for sailors, indicating their latitude. Here, she is very low, 25 degrees above the horizon, reminding us we are at the edge of the Tropic of Capricorn, at the boundary line separating the South more favourable climates from the soon to be hit by tropical storms of the North. Up until now, we had planned to continue driving on the road to the Equator, but we are less and less convinced it’s a sound plan. The problem with Australia is the enormous distances between landmarks… Since we came all this way up, it would be a shame to go back on our tracks because of a little rain. The other option would be to go deeper towards the Red Rock and exchange torrential rains for drought and heat only deserts can produce. We’ll have to think a little more about this one …

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From Hawaii to the shores of Peru

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For the past 24h, I’ve had the catchy surf rhythm of Brian Wilson and his gang in my head. Incidentally, did you know that only one of the Beach Boys actually surfed? What a bunch of posers... Not like us though, we are the real deal. We now know how to read the irregular patterns of oncoming waves and feel comfortable with 9 foot long boards under our feet. As of today, Stephanie and I are gnarly surfers!

Every morning, the local surf shop takes out a group of newbies and teaches them the ropes of how to handle the gigantic and awkward foam boards needed to ride the waves that constantly crash onto the 6km long beach of our local bay. I have to admit that at first, I was really not sure of how I would fare on one of these floating contraptions. From the beach, it looks so technical and physically demanding. First, you need to fight the first set of crashing surf and go beyond the zone of white water. Second, once you get to the area where the waves are forming, you need to paddle in at just the right moment; start too soon and you’ll tire out before the water starts to push you. Start too late and you miss the ride entirely. It was with great surprise that I managed to catch the very first wave (with a helping push from the instructor) and even more amazement, got up on the board and rode the surf for a good five seconds. What an incredible feeling! Of course, the next couple of tries were concluded in disastrous wipeouts, but before the morning was over, I was able to get a pretty constant success rate and even started playing a bit with the more intricate maneuvers of the boards (the ones that do not involve just standing on it and waiting for something to make you fall off). Stephanie also got the hang of it pretty quickly. She can read the wave pretty well and knows instinctively when to start paddling. We’re both hooked! Hang ten mate!

Last week, I stumbled upon a pretty interesting contest. It’s really poorly advertised so our chances are significantly better than for that “Best job in the World” thing they had last year. They are looking for a team of two people to travel Australia in a fully equipped camper van for six weeks, making a weekly video to document the adventure. Up for grabs are: Free gas, Free admission to all the local attractions and the Possibility to win 10,000$ at the end. To determine who the 7 teams that will participate in the adventure will be, all they ask for is a 2 minute video presenting ourselves in an original manner. The contest is called Van-Tastic and HERE is our entry. Watch it and tell us what you think before we upload it on the official website.

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