Today was just kind of blah. It's one of those days that should be one of those Great Days--it's a warm, sunny spring day, not a cloud in the sky, the ceanothus bushes are flowering ultraviolet blue (just like they do on my home street). The sheep and cattle are munching on the green green grass on the side of the highway as drive past, and I've got a touch of hayfever; definitely springtime.
We stopped in Hamilton, Victoria. There's a nice 120 year old botanic garden in the middle of the city; we see the big bunya pines and redwoods, and walk through curious old aviaries, remnants of that Victorian menagerie craze. We stopped by a small Ansett museum, which took all of fifteen minutes. Wonder how much longer it'll stay open. Probably a long time, as a tribute to yet another Aussie battler.
Then we drove through the Grampians, an impressive mountain range about 200km west of Melbourne. It's tall... and big... and full of deep valleys and tall cliffs. But I couldn't get all that interested. We did a short hike, 1.4km, to Silverchain Falls, it was green and pleasant.
Afterwards, even though it was only 2:00, I just kind of wanted to pack it in and camp in the motel room we'd booked down the road. Chris kind of said we should do one more short hike, so we did nice 1 kilometer hike through a steep canyon. It was really really scenic, I took a few pictures, and was glad I did it. But I should have been a lot more... curious. I wasn't. Sure, there were flowers and neat rock formations. I couldn't get into it.
More and more, I feel like I'm just waiting to go home. I should be excited about going to Bali next week (a trip that was booked several months ago, before we decided to go home in November rather than January). But I'm more or less saying, "sigh, once Bali is over then we can get on with stuff in Sydney and then get on with life at home." Lately I've been more concerned with what little projects I want to do at home (paint that peeling window, weed the backyard) than planning what to do the next day.
Though I must say we're really looking forward to seeing old friends in Sydney: Seumas beardoc and Russel, Julian jcoldrey and Bill, Scott and Michael bigredwojo, Steve and Andrew.
Yeah, yeah, poor little old me... ten month long vacation. But I'm realizing that being on the road for ten months is a long haul. I think that six months is about the longest I want to spend away from home in the future, and four week vacations are ideal.
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I have absolutely no idea. It depends on when we actually show up, whether or not Julian has guests, whether or not I get over my fear of the telephone and ring Russel to talk about renting his office to store our stuff in for a month or so, and what's available at http://www.wotif.com . So, ANSWER UNCLEAR ASK AGAIN LATER. :)
I think you've answered a couple of questions that have been in the back of my mind since January: can they visit all those new places, scenic vistas, and the like, and not get sick of it after awhile? Not homesickness, though that certainly plays a part, but becoming jaded to all the newness (for lack of better word.) And, I wondered, what would constitute an overdose for each of them?
Myself, I doubt I'd last four weeks out there, much less six months.
Well. I'll try to sum up how it feels for me as briefly as possible: I miss my friends. It's all very well and nice seeing new and interesting places like the Grampians, but I've come to realize that an awful lot of fun I have travelling is going home and boring regaling my friends with tales of my experiences. I'm still OK with going to new exciting places, like Bali, and doing new, interesting things, but in my heart of hearts right now I'd rather drink wine with Julian, go sightseeing with Seumas, catch up with Russel, see a show with you or Kris, and so on. So... after eight months, I'm done with the travel, and aching to get home, be in my own house, see my friends, and get a job. You'd be amazed how much you miss work after a year or so - it really is strange, but I wish I were back at Netscape being irritated to no end by Mozilla. Honest.
It was fun for February, though we bitched at the 'summer' weather which means 30C temps every day with 90% humidity and overcast skies. Where's the sun?
March and April and May were pretty interesting, Tasmania to Melbourne to Brisbane. It's all very populated, with lots of mountains and rainforests. It was at the end of May when things got a bit slow on our 4WD tagalong trip up Cape York (a peninsula the size of Florida with no paved roads and lots of crocs and bugs and humidity... it's supposed to be adventurous). That's when we started getting really tired of the Magic of The Rainforest.
Then it was the Outback. Yep, there's a lot of nothing. And a few things of interest, generally crowded and overpriced. Again, it was, OK, these things wouldn't be mildly disappointing if they wern't so overhyped. That was June-July-August, then we rolled into Perth, where we were amazed at such a big city with freeways and cinemas showing movies that had just opened and K-Marts that are even open on Sunday. It was comfy.
We'd also decided we were filling up our days with mediocre experiences. (you can see http://www.marmot.net/2002au/2002-09/log/default.htm our thoughts when we 'turned the corner'). So we made a list of things to do, and today we found that we only have a few small items that we need to do, and they're all a few hours drive out of Sydney.
We just miss social interaction and interplay that we get from friends and work. I've taken lately to fantasizing about redoing the front yard, and making Lego robots, and figuring out how I can make a solar power charging system for a totally self-powered laptop weather station.
I'm not all that interested in seeing Yet Another Rainforest or Yet Another Zoo or The Superspecial Roadside Alpaca Petting Zoo.
I just want to watch some DVDs on the couch with Chris and meet the bears at the Lone Star for Sunday beer bust and have a nice dinnner in a cool restaurant with friends. We'll get some of that in Sydney, and that'll be great.
Where are you staying when you get to Sydney?