and we’re off… in a cloud of dust… just down the road

now, don’t get me wrong…

i am NOT a good packer. I am victim of the tardis effect… where all bags are in fact bigger on the inside and therefore are capable of carrying any manner of junk… in fact, the bigger the bag you give me, the more junk i will suddenly find that i absolutely, positively just have to take (i will need it all, of course) so a road trip with a rather sizeable boot was tempting fate to begin with…. then you add the trailer and we are bound to have some hilarity! and thus… as plans were hatched to undertake the grand trek across Australia’s deserts into the great outback the sense of packing forboding began to tingle and what few remaining senses i have left…

add to this, husband the buyer of random junk… and as the umbrella hats and bulk baby foods started to appear in the mail i knew we were in for some packing dramas… but contention reached fever pitch on the spare tyres… 8 of them to be precise… EIGHT! and my how they were discussed (read divorce worthy argued about) and discussed and discussed…

but amidst the trauma of moving, these 8 “little” circles of rubber found their way wedged into the back of the trailer… with a mountain of other crap… and driven up the coast to my parents for a quick christmas stopover…

what we didnt know however, was that this was the start of the great unravelling…

as it turns out however, when you add the extra weight of 8 spare tyres plus bundles of useless crap (that in hindsight, maybe didnt need packing…) onto an untested wee trailer… mechanical faults can and will happen…

so, in the usual flurry of frustration as our junk was unceremoniously tossed into the already overloaded, car and tralier, amidst the inevitable tears goodbye and well wishes, we waved bravely, turned the key and rolled down the driveway… pulled out onto the street and made it at least 100 metres before the phone rang…

“wind down your windows”

“why?”

“can you hear that grinding noise?”

“what grinding noise?”

“oh crap… THAT grinding noise”…

sure enough, like the gutteral growl of some prehistoric beast sent to earth from the very bowels of hell there it was, a grinding, grumbling growl that could not be ignored…

so, a quick lap round the block and then the investigations begin… all the men of the family at first, looking at it, listening to it, kicking it for good measure… then come the neighbours, even the randoms driving by…

yup… general consensus. your trailer is stuffed.

now, i am not a mechanically minded person… but stuffed is stuffed…

and in short (due to the weight of said tyres or not remains open to debate) the trailer body had shifted so perilously low under the strain of the tow that the wheels were in fact rubbing on the mud flaps… not like an innocent little rub behind a puppy’s ears… oh no… that grating, gouge holes the size of the grand canyon, perilous tyre exploding kind of rub.

so two hours in the sun… child unloaded and put back indoors, worldly goods tipped out on the street for surveying and the decision was made… lose the tyres…

so pregnant or not, as if instructed by “the commando” himself, i rolled those tyres (near to bare foot and frumpy as i possibly could muster) up the street and across the road to their new home… my parents garage…

and thus, only 4ish hours later than intended… the caravan of crazy set sail once more up the golden highway due west…

if only it was as simple as that…

with head out the window, lie a dog in a ute, listening to the inevitable growls of chewed tyres we pressed on…

through smells unmentionable as it quickly emerged our darling micro man has a chronic case of tummy trouble, we pressed on… (thank god for the over the top packing and the numerous wardobe changes available to the microman as he averaged 2 changes an hour! not to mention the ingenious inclusion of a sealable vaccuum (biohazard) bag to store his clothes once extracted from his person…)

through searing heat and past several closed service stations (oh crap, is that the fuel light!?) we pressed on…

through the quick rest break that uncovered the ever growing tyre divet that required a complete road side trailer / car re-pack we pushed on further still

despite the “twenty minute” dinner stop from hell, where it took the local club over an hour and half to serve up some pre-cooked lasagne and a cold hamburger we pressed on..

and into the sunset we drove… allowing the every growing rumble of chewed out rubber serve as a detterent for the many wayward kangaroos whom were determined to hurl themselves forthright in front of our moving vehicle…

hour after hour we watched the sun go and relied on our uber bright lights and keen night vision to slow for each kamakaze over grown rodent that tempted fate in our path until at last, nearing 11pm we pulled into the welcome sight of our first night’s accommodation…

dust covered, nose hairs burned due to chemical violations and hands shaking from the alternating fears of hitting a kangaroo or blowing up the now severely chewed up tyre we tumbled out of the car into the stillness and quietness of the midnight sky,

prised open the back door to remove the microman to discover he had been travelling for an undisclosed period of time with an eight legged monster!! EEEEK! (hang on, it is late at night in a quiet town hotel carpark… silent eeeeeeeeeeeeeek!

some incredible flicking with a shoe later and the child was safely extracted and (i choose to believe – despite it being too dark to get substantial evidence) that the unwanted passenger was very much removed from the vehicle NEVER to return again…

bags unloaded, trailer unhitched for daylight inspection and most gratefully we turned in for the eve… the quality of that nyngan hotel or the comfort i could not even tell you now… for us, it was heaven… we had made it… no roo sized dents, no divorce and the trailer, albeit very much in an undesireable condition, still attached and unexploded…

yup, day one of our adventure west (and north) was everything a road trip should be… god knows what daylight would bring!!!!