21/07/10

I spent most of the day in Selina's house emailing and Skyping people including my mum, dad, Roger, auntie J, Mel, and Lloyd (who was at Dubai airport). Jody Lee (Johnny's sister) treated me and Johnny to a coffee whilst I was washing all my clothes; once washed I took my bag of clothes down the road and dried them at the laundry.

I had quite a productive day so when Selina came in from work we had a glass of wine, followed by another glass of wine, followed by another glass of wine. By this point a few other of the house mates were drinking but Selina and I were pretty tipsy and for some reason we had a bottle of wine lined up to drink. Lea came in from her day and cut my hair for me. We all congregated in the bathroom and watched as Lea cut into my afro which hasn't been touched for eight months; the hair collected could have probably made around 10 toupees.

Selina had bought a new 'connect 4' game and had already declared herself champion of the 80's game, however I was also an 80's child and was quite fond of the game myself. I won her three games in a row and felt pretty bad, so I let Tim and Lea play her and to her disbelief she lost both games; Lea had even asked for the rules before playing. I told Selina that it's a fact that boys are better at the game than girls, this wound her up even more so much so that when Tim and I won the game we were pelted with connect four components. The night ended up being a late one and pretty messy, connect four pieces everywhere, chocolate sauce on the floor and soil everywhere because one of the girls had knocked a plant over. I took refuge in the van at around 3.00am and had to be up at 6.30am to pick Lloydy up from the airport.

22/07/10

7.00weary head and moley eyed, I filled the van with fuel and made my way to the airport. When I dropped Mel off at the airport I parked in the aeroplaneviewing area which is basically a tiny dirt track next to the motorway, perfect I thought I'll do the exact same again. The dirt path was particularly dirty and because of the rainfall pretty muddy, but I needed to turn the vehicle round. I spotted a piece of grass which looked dry enough to turn on, however my hung-over assessment of the ground had disastrous consequences. One of my rear wheels had become stuck, the number one rule in this kind of scenario is not to panic however I was hung over and probably still under the influence, combine this with being late resulted in me panicking and making things worse. I had to leave the van in the mud and make the death defying sprint across the motorway to meet Lloydy, he would already be suffering from jet lag and now had to help me with the van.

Lloydy's plane was running about an hour late, during this time I broke out into a sweat thinking of all the possibilities for getting the van unstuck, this included bribing a farmer to tow us out with his tractor, contacting Tim and rounding up some strong lads andrenting a 4x4 for the day. I was also thinking about ringing Travel Wheels as the van had to be back later in the afternoon, however I decided to wait for James and have another go at removing it myself.

James walked through the gates looking pretty tired after his long haul flight, we spoke about home and his sister's wedding, I then told him about the van. The van looked like it had been dumped by joy riders as the two of us approached it, having run across the motorway but this time in the presence of a police car. I found a piece of cardboard and shoved it under the wheel, James watched as I tried to reverse over the card; no matter which way I went the cardjust got flung out. I needed a plank or something similar but I couldn't find anything around so took a piece of the bed apart and rammed it under the wheel. I tried again, first in 2nd gear then into reverse rocking the vehicle onto the 15mm mdf board, eventually it drove forwards so I kept accelerating, Lloydy quickly moved as mud was being flicked up everywhere - the van was black.

Back at Selina's house Lloyd and I both had a well deserved sleep before having to clean the van in what had become a very wet Melbourne. We left our bags at the house and dropped the van off at St Kilda's where we were greeted by the very friendly David (from a company called 'Quality') who was an agent for Travel Wheels and helped us strike up a deal with Britz campervans in New Zealand. Both feeling tired and weary we headed back to Selina's on the tram having just dropped off what had been our home for two months. We had clocked up over 10,000km in the Toyoto HiAce and it was quite emotional to leave it behind however we were both looking forward to our next adventure in New Zealand, the only problem was that we had to get there and our flight was at 6.00 in the morning.

Later that evening we went to Bimbos ($4 Pizzas) for our last pizza with Selina, Tim and Lea, I started off in Melbourne not really knowing Selina and her flat mates but after a few days of their hospitability I was sad to be leaving them; I got on with all of them really well. 23.00 Back at Selina's we said our goodbyes before heading to the airport in a black cab taxi (which was yellow).

We set up camp on two stainless steel benches, tied the bags up to my travel lock and had a bit of sleep before checking in at 3.00am