New Zealand, one of the countries on the very top of my list, awaited us with new adventures: the very first and most demanding consisted in driving on the “wrong” side. We decided to rent a small car for our time in NZ, a little extra to our backpacker’s existence which would allow us to visit more secluded places and give us a whole new feeling: freedom to go wherever we wanted to, whenever it pleased us, without depending on others.
Our last stop in Australia, awkwardly further away from New Zealand than Melbourne, was another visit at relatives’: my aunt and her family moved to Brisbane a few years ago, and I already had the opportunity to come by during my last round-the-world trip.
I was definitely luckier this time. Brisbane was not flooded.
“… The car ferry is cheaper, isn’t it?”
“Well, yeah, but you’d have to cross the bridge and then walk a fair distance to get ‘ere.”
I thanked the driver and clumsily got off the bus — with my backpack and the groceries in my hands, I was unable to turn around. The doors closed and the bus went on its way, to the Sealink ferry. The one we would not take.
Let us be honest: India, though a marvellous and eye-opening destination, has more than a fair share of hassles in pack for travelers. I have talked with people disgusted after leaving the country, seen travelers pack up for home almost as soon as they had arrived, and read so many warnings that I could tell stories about that fact without even mentioning my own experience. The short conclusion is: most people love and hate India. At the same time.
And even though I tend to think I loved it more than I hated it, Phillip Island (Victoria), where Aunt Coeri and Uncle Rod took us for some holidays, still was a huge shock for me. An agreeable shock, mind. As opposed to the mountains of garbage and plastic we had previously encountered, Phillip Island boasts a pristine or, if altered by man, well-conserved environment. The contrast with our months spent in India was tremendous; and this contrast, I think, made our enjoyment of the Australian flora and fauna all the better.
Wawrinka versus Nadal.
This might be your current association with Melbourne; the whole sportive world looks towards the capital of Victoria tonight. Ourselves, however, enjoyed and discovered this vibrant city about a month ago, when tennis was still far away and Christmas just around the corner.
We had hardly put our feet on the Australian continent when we set out to discover one of the most impressive coastlines in the world: the Great Ocean Road. Built in the 1920s, this world-famous road runs along the wild ocean in the south-west of Victoria. During our roadtrip together with my aunt and uncle, though the weather was definitely not postcardlike, I felt that the clouds, the wind and the rain actually showed the force of nature: its domination was immensely present. After all, those elements — together with the constant coming and going of the waves — shaped the cliffs and rocks over thousands of years to the stunning form they have today.
Standing near the edge of a precipice, surrounded by this powerful nature, I was overwhelmed by the vehemence and beauty of our planet.
I find it particularly adequate that up to the last hour before parting, we were still furiously playing coinche, our favorite card game, as if wherever we were, and whatever happened, was only a background to our most important activity. Like everytime we had been together. Since August.
The time finally arrived when we really had to move to the restaurant for a last meal together; and the world abruptly came back to us. Marine and Guillaume shouldered their backpacks from their last hotel room after a year spent traveling across Asia, and we set out on the sand under the palm trees. The sea was, as ever, singing its unending song; that day it was one of farewell.
Since the last time I was in Goa, three years ago (already!), I only wanted to come back; and deep in the cold of the Himalayan mountains, a few days before entering India again, I thought of Goa to cheer me up. Not of the Taj Mahal, not of the Indian food, not of the bright, colorful, ever-joyous and crazily chaotic Indian culture. I thought of Goa.
