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Some of our friends have running bets on how long we’ll make it on the road. There’s the chance that we will drive each other crazy in three months, someone will get sick or injured in six, or the most likely in their minds, that we will run out of funds in seven. Oh, they of little faith.

After a financial rollercoaster ride courtesy of the inflating and bursting of the Nasdaq bubble in 1999-2001, I felt so nauseated by the thought of investments and returns and money in general, that I told Tom, no begged, Tom, to take complete control of our financial future and leave me to childrearing and bookwriting. I pay all the bills, keep track of earnings and spending, but want no part of the vicissitudes of markets and interest rates and retirement. Let’s just say I’m financially fragile. Tom has set a budget for the trip, which, as long as we don’t crash too many vehicles, will be generous and completely viable. We’ll return to the States a lot lighter in the checkbook, but hopefully a lot richer in family relationships and meaningful experiences.

Even though I know this, agreed to it, even pushed for it, I still get frazzled if I feel things are expensive. Most of the trip should be easy for me in this regard; there are only a few countries we will visit that will be comparable or potentially more expensive than the US. Australia is one of them. Our strategy was to rent a car, tour for a week, and then find a three to four week rental on the Sunshine Coast before heading off to China. First we rented the car (and bought the excess reduction)…way more expensive than home, but not horrible given the freedom and flexibility it will give us. Second we saw Sydney. We did the few things we wanted to do in a day and headed out for the countryside. We were slightly worried when the car rental agents told us motels might be hard to find. At home when we take roadtrips, it is not uncommon to roll up to a Holiday Inn at midnight, shell out $79 or $89 for a room with a minimum of two queen-sized beds, and move on by noon the next day. So when we pulled in to the aging Alpine Best Western in Katoomba at 9:30 pm and were greeted with a rate of $140 for one queen, a twin, and a nappy old couch, we were shocked. We cruised the town for alternatives, but after ruling out the places that were closed (about 90%) and the ones that were also saloons (the remaining 9.75%), we headed back to the Best Western. The caretaker had already retired for the evening (it was 9:55), but emerged to provide keys. Now, I know we’re going to be saying in some less than desirable places over the next 10 months, but I didn’t expect them in Australia. The room was clean, the bathroom was new, but the linens and fixtures could have been from 1965. This is what we could expect for $140?

The next night we found ourselves in the town of Dubbo and figured since it was more remote and lacking in mountains that the rates would be better. Hah. We plied the streets and got rates of $149 from fading and garish motels with names like The Scotsman, The Cattleman, and Palm Court Motor Inn. Then we spotted it–a bastion of taste and modernity in strip motel hell–the deRussie. It was the same shape as the others, but the resemblances stopped there. It looked more like a W than a Motel 6, sleek, clean, and tasteful. Tom went in fully expecting to hear $175, but with a little luck and a young lady who found his American accent endearing, he emerged with $125 and free Wifi. The room was gorgeous. There was no bad smell and they brought us breakfast the next morning. Ahhhh….

Just as our hopes rose and we thought things would get cheaper in towns without neighboring World Heritage sites or zoos, we stopped in the small college town of Armidale. There we paid a steep $140 for a room that was clean but was decorated in the early 1980s and wreaked of a deep fat fryer. The sofa bed was broken, so the kindly French proprietors gave us the room next door as well, but we were sure we would drain a significant percentage of our Australia budget on stinky, expensive motels.

We’re back in our optimistic frame of mind today, since we are spending two nights in the beach town of Coff’s Harbor, where we found a beautiful new 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom beachview apartment with a full kitchen, in-suite laundry, three gigantic balconies, underground parking, and pool, beach and BBQ access, all for the low, low price of…you guessed it…$140. Too bad it didn’t have a phone. This country confuses me.

Technorati Tags: Armidale, Australia, Dubbo, Family travel, Motels, Coffs Harbor, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW

We woke at 3:20 am, an hour that gave us just enough time to rub our tired eyes, gather our fully loaded backpacks, and close up the campervan before our taxi arrived to take us to the Auckland Airport. Our flight was at 6:10 and we needed every second of the two hours we had at the airport to get ourselves on board. Our flight was with Aerolineas Argentinas, an exotic burst of Latin flavor on our thus far Maori/European spiced travels. I booked the flights online from Utah, paid for them by phone, and was assured that all we had to do was show up at the airport in typical e-ticket fashion. What ensued shouldn’t have surprised me.

“Thank you for your passports. Now I need your tickets.”

“Oh, we have e-tickets.”

“There are no e-tickets for this flight.”

“Um…ok. Did I mention we have e-tickets?”

An hour later a somewhat fussy, definitely fancy airline employee emerged with paper tickets and no apologies. I might have wondered if I had made some mistake if it hadn’t been for the poor woman behind us. She had purchased tickets for the flight, also online, for some 20 odd family members, but the airline had somehow neglected to actually book them. They promised her a refund, but that did little to pacify her. How, after all, was she to get all these people, at least 2/3 of whom were inexplicably checking at least one, if not eight, oversized comforters, home? The rather unsympathetic airline man apologized but told her there was little he could do. They could fit 2 of her party on the plane, but the rest would have to wait until the following week. What? What universe are we operating in? I think we were lucky to emerge unscathed.

Four hours later we were in the land of Oz, Sydney to be precise. Six hours later we were barreling toward the Opera House in a rental car, a sleek, silver Toyota Tarago, which we call a minivan but Australians call a “people mover.” We had planned on staying at one of the Starwood Hotels in Sydney for 5 days of sitting still, working on schoolwork, and writing about New Zealand, but circumstance/destiny, our chosen companion on this trip, intervened. Hotels were sold out, rooms were pricey, and there really wasn’t that much that we wanted to do in the city with the little ones. We took the ferry to Manly and played on the beach until, in typical Australian fashion, a dangerous creature spoiled our fun. As the kids dabbled in the surf, the voice of a jovial lifeguard voice came over the loudspeaker and announced that unless swimmers had an exceptionally high tolerance for pain, they should leave the water in deference to the bluebottle jellyfish that were drifting into the bay.

We shuttled back to Sydney oohing and aaahing at the spectacular views from the ferry and sprinted to the Opera House, which Dax, McKane, and I toured. Tom and I spent quality time and money at Bennelong, the Opera House’s resident 4-star restaurant last summer, so he was willing to herd the small ones outside during our peaceful hour of fascinating architectural exploration.

My mind sated with dreamy visions of rich, narrow-planked eucalyptus walls and comfy seats of lush magenta wool, I hopped into the People Mover with the posse to begin the short trek to the Blue Mountains. Next time we’ll catch an opera I thought to myself. Next time.

Technorati Tags: Australia, Family travel, Manly Beach, Round the world, Round-the-world, RTW, Sydney Opera House

“High Speed, Low IQ” was my favorite of the roadside signs urging motorists to slow down in New Zealand. The Grand Prix-like roads winding through the countryside and mountains would have the opposite effect and encourage me to speed faster…if I had a Ferrari. Driving a campervan whose dim headlights left me guessing which way the road was going to turn on curving highways barely wide enough to fit two cars forced me to agree with the signs.

The first few nights were the worst. We drove around the Northland, which is gorgeous by day but thrilling by night. Cars would barrel at you on these little roads at speeds over 100-km/hour. For a moment after they passed my eyes would be forced to readjust to the blackness. I would look down the road for some reflection or a yellow arrow to reassure me a sharp turn was not rapidly approaching. It was when a truck would appear out of nowhere and I would be forced to sway to the far side of the road to make room for both of us that my breathing stopped and my nails pried their way into the steering-wheel. With an impact rate of over 200km/hour, the damage would be instant and the results permanent.

After surviving the Northland, I figured I was an old pro on New Zealand roads. To my relief the main roads were larger 2-lane roads, similar to the Blue Highways in the states. On these larger roads the lack of handling and poor maneuverability of the campervan were less of an obstacle. Then I met an unexpected peculiarity of Kiwi highways–single-lane bridges. I can picture some transportation minister deciding to cut costs by building bridges half the necessary width, but if finances are still a problem perhaps we can get a group of concerned tourists to donate to a two-lane bridges fund. I understand New Zealand is the adventure capital of the world but driving between adventures shouldn’t be the riskiest thing you do. My timing was impeccable with these bridges. We could go 5-10 minutes and not pass a car coming the opposite direction, but every time I approached one of these half bridges, a car would come flying down the road at me. In a game that was a cross between courtesy and chicken, we would have to negotiate with our lights who would be the first to cross the bridge and who would stop.

For 14 days I negotiated these crazy roads, laughed at the funny signs to slow down, and felt good about exiting N.Z. with my family and the campervan in one piece. On the 15th day I pulled into a parking lot outside the Hobbit tourist office in Matamata. My copilot said in her nicest tone, “Are you sure you should turn in here?” One of the passengers in the back, sick from the windy roads, commented after leaving the toilet in the back, “There is throw-up all over back here.” Trying to calm him, I yelled back, “We’ll clean it when we stop” and turned into my parking space. At that moment the camper van made a new sound, a scraping, crunching sound. My copilot looked over at me, “What was that?” in a less than nice tone. I jumped out to notice a nice big scrape and crunch in the left(passenger) side of my campervan and a missing tail light and crunch in the campervan next to me. After a few expletives from me, and a few pieces of taillight being flung with abandon at a nearby tree I gained my composure and wished we had taken the full insurance on the campervan. I waited for the people whose van I had hit to return. They were a nice young couple on their honeymoon, she from the UK, he from South Africa. I gave them my information and we moved on–a kind of awkward, “mom can’t really look at dad and please nobody say anything upsetting to your father” kind of moving on.

The next day I pulled the campervan into a panel beaters shop and explained to them I would be returning it in two days and wanted to see if there were any superficial repairs which would lower the damage estimate (our exposure was $2000NZ). They were some great guys and said they could quickly buff out the scrapes. Within 30-45 minutes they had left me with a single small crack in one of the lower panels. We hung out with them for a little bit and talked about New Zealand and the US. I thanked them and left. The dark cloud that had hung over us the previous day lifted. With newfound confidence and relief, we headed into Auckland to see the penguins at Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Enounter.

As we searched for a street that would connect us with the harbor, I got a little lost on some residential streets. Anne mentioned how pretty they were, and as I turned down a small street wide enough for only one car to pass, she said, “Are you sure you should turn in here?” Perturbed, I ignored her. Twice a car going the opposite direction approached and we had to negotiate which of us would pull over to let the other get through. Near the end of the street a third car came at me. She was rather irritated with the fact that I was driving a campervan down her street. I tried hard to get out of her way and pulled the campervan to the left. As I did, a sound similar to that heard the previous day came from the back corner of the campervan. This time I had gotten hooked on the crashguard of a van. In my defense, I will point out that this crashguard was sticking out farther than the rest of the van. There was no getting out of this one. The crash guard had scraped two of the campervan’s plexiglass panels and was firmly embedded in a third. There was no moving the van or the campervan without creating a bigger hole. Luckily (as if I can use that word recounting this 24 hours), a group of construction workers, one of whom owned the van I had hit, helped me to lift the van and move it sideways, pulling the crashguard out. With fewer expletives and less stress than the day before, we headed to the aquarium. When I returned the campervan the next day, I smiled and tried to act like the damage on the side was really no big deal.

Technorati Tags: Driving, Campervan, Crash