Perspective on the Road

I’m sitting in our van in country Ireland. The scenery we saw today was stunning; green rolling hills and sheer table-topped cliffs, with dark split rock ridges running down them, like crows-feet around the eyes of a weathered potato farmer.

The natural beauty of this land takes my breath away.

Sometimes I forget Tara has cancer.

If you just sat up a bit stiffer in your chair reading this, you just experienced a fraction of the jolt Tara or I feel when we remember. It’s not like she has a broken arm with a cast on it you can see. Her scars from surgery are no longer visible, buried under her rapidly growing hair.  It’s actually quite easy to momentarily forget she has an insidious tumour in her brain. But it’s there, for now at least.

But life rolls on, for both of us. And as strange as it sounds, it has enhanced our lives in many ways. We are eating healthier, we feel great, we are travelling through a continent that we’ve always wanted to see. We are literally on the trip of a lifetime. But it’s the little things too. You appreciate a good cup of tea, you relish snuggling under a doona with your partner while it rains outside. Every experience counts.

The point is, that hardship, of any kind, can be seen as something that improves your overall ‘being.’ How do you know you truly need someone until you face losing them? How do you truly understand how good it feels to walk down the street unless you’ve had to hobble on crutches for a month? How do you know that an amazing slice of pizza is actually amazing unless you’ve had a shitty slice at some point?

We need bad things to happen. We need hardships to serve as reference points to really know when the good stuff is on our doorstep. How much better does it feel to win a game of Scrabble against your brother when you’ve lost 5 times before that? Johnny?

The key thing about tough-times, is you learn a hell of a lot more when things are difficult. Easy street doesn’t teach you much. I was talking to a man back in Australia at a meditation session for trauma victims. He was in a wheelchair. He said his partner of 12 years left him a few months after the accident, because she couldn’t cope. I guess he really got to know the kind of person she was when the chips were down. I also have a good friend, whose husband was paralysed from the waist down after an accident. She has stayed with him through tough times, and I’ve never met a couple who appreciate each other more and I really respect that commitment. We learn more about ourselves and others though adversity. Even businesses, who survive a recession, come out leaner, meaner and readier to make the best of the boom years.

So next time you stub your toe, have a fight with your lover, make a mistake at work, hit your head on the door of your van, burn your toast or crash your car; remember it’s okay to be upset. It’s okay to have a shit day. Ups and downs are essential. If we only had up-times we’d get bored. If we only had up-times they wouldn’t even be up-times, they’d just be times. 

                                               Isn't that right Mr. Cow?

Follow The White Badger

A new friend has entered our lives. She is white with rusty freckles, weighs 2.5 tonnes, is a bit rough around the edges but has a heart of diesel. Her name is Snowflake and will be our constant companion over the next 6 months or more.

Of course Snowflake isn’t technically a person, she is a van. A 1994 Ford Transit Camper to be exact. She’s as moody as a human though, especially in the morning, when it’s cold she doesn’t want to wake up. Due to her slow-as-a-wet-fart take off speed, Snowflake has also earned a second nickname of The White Badger.

Like any good friend she is reliable and grows on you more everyday. Despite her being a true Bogan, we can’t wait to get to know our new mate even more in the coming months. You’ll probably see her pop into the blog from time to time with a cameo here or there. As soon as we fix a little leak in her engine next week, we’re off to Scotland. 

Nordic Wanderings

Before heading to Ireland to pick up our campervan, we made a quick detour to visit Tara’s brother, Simon and his cheese and kisses, Ida in Norway.

Currently living in Oslo, they have an apartment, which has a crazy 360 degree view of the city, with surrounding mountains to one side and a dazzling fjord to the other. To enhance this spectacular view we arrived at 11pm, which is dusk at this time of year. The navy light of the night sky filters down to a powder orange at the horizon, with a gradient of blues in between. It’s nothing like you’ve ever seen at home, and I’m sure it’s unique to regions nearing the arctic circle.

Oslo itself is a clean, safe and incredibly expensive city, which is relative to the wages earned in Norway, but not to our meagre travelling budget. Luckily the blow up air-mattress in Simon and Ida’s apartment came rent free along with fruit and veg in the fridge.

We spent our first day roaming the streets of Oslo, taking in the fresh spring air and sunshine, while trying to find a decent meal under $40 each. We couldn’t. To give you an idea, a can of Heineken at the supermarket is around $6-7 AUD, and it doesn’t get cheaper if you want to buy a slab. It’s all by the can. Holy Shit is right my bogan beer-drinking friends. There’s really no way around it. If you come to Norway be prepared to spend some coin. It is well worth the trip however. Every corner you walk around there is the most beautiful human you’ve ever laid eyes on, it’s kind of ridiculous. Guys and girls, all dressed well, hair primped and pout on walk around the streets like it’s a Milan catwalk. Tara and I had whiplashed necks by the end of the day. There must be something in the icy water up there.

On the Friday night, over a meal of salmon and veges with friends from Western Australia; Simon, Ida, Tara and I decided that we’d bus down to Ida’s family summer place off Skjærhalden for the weekend.

Herføl  is a quiet island in the south of Norway, a sleepy little town with a population of 80 people and no cars allowed accept by special permit. It’s like something out of Moby Dick. Black Nordic water, storm tossed by the wind, surrounds the main island, with small grey humps of rock rising out of the water like whale’s backs. There is green lush vegetation all over, engulfing the few shacks, which have been built there. 

I couldn’t think of a more peaceful area and we kept imagining the Vikings, rowing their boats through the same waters over a thousand years before. A reminder of these yesteryears came when Ida showed us a rocky cairn of boulders, which is an old gravesite from the Bronze Age. 

Despite its isolation, even now from the outside world, people have been coming to Herføl  to relax for a very long time. We were told that in winter the island is covered in snow, and more often that not, the sea freezes, so you can walk across the ice to either the mainland or even Sweden if you want.

We spent our time in Herføl  walking over the island, peering into old fishing cabins, and relaxing in Ida’s shack, which is coloured in blue, yellow and white, to give it a real seaside feel. We even curled up on the coach in front the roaring log fire to watch Eurovision on T.V. In case you haven’t heard, Azerbaijan won. It’s OK, we didn’t know it was a country either.

Two days on the island felt like a dreamy week, and on Sunday we emerged back into the real present day world, ready to catch our plane to the Emerald Isle and pick up our van. 

A Unique Paris

There is your standard Paris. The Paris where you go to the visit the giant metal asparagus, take your picture at the Louvre with your digit on top on the pyramid, eat baguettes, drink red wine and go to the Moulin Rouge to watch glitter-tits dance around. Millions of tourists each year experience this Paris. Of course, we saw all of these sights. It wouldn’t be a trip to Paris if we didn’t. Even though countless people have done the same, each experience feels special because no matter how many pictures you’ve seen or travel books you’ve read, nothing can compare with the first hand sensual experience of smelling the four-hundred-year-old oil paintings in the Louvre or touching the cold steel of the Eiffel Tower.

But there’s a personal side to Paris you don’t hear about. A side, which you craft on your own by seeking out something unique. Like seeing a Frenchman smile after being approached with a badly spoken Bonjour, rather than a perfectly pronounced hello.

Waking up in a predawn Paris, to walk the deserted streets and soak in the Notre Dame without the bussling tourists, taking pictures of the church with the feel of a new day. Watching Tara cry with joy at the chime of the cathedral bells. 

Making love, with the sounds of police sirens outside the window, and Portuguese covers of David Bowie on the radio. 

Searching out a wonderful vegetarian restaurant called Au Grain De Folie and talking with the owner about organic beer. 

Finding the largest English Antique Bookstore in France, which was only 20 m2 but held thousands of precious tomes, including a 1^st Edition illustrated copy of Hemmingway’s The Old Man and the Sea (way out of our budget). 

Drinking a hot chocolate from Angelina, which is the closest thing you'll experience to tasting god.

Surprising Tara with a hot air balloon ride for her 30th birthday, the perfect metaphor for our trip, drifting over the country whichever way the wind blows. 

Riding bicycles through the streets and getting lost, only to stumble upon a cemetery with Jim Morison’s pill and joint covered grave and Oscar Wilde’s tomb, showered with red-lipstick kisses. 

Paris seems peaceful to the visiting tourist. But if you look closer you can see the pockmarks of bullet holes in the buildings along the Boulevard St. Germain from World War II. If you close your eyes and listen closely you can hear the explosions of the storming of the Bastille, and smell the blood dripping from the executioners guillotine in the Place De La Concorde. 

History seeps out of the city’s walls, and whispers through the streets, reminding us that we’re lucky to be here in peaceful times. It’s this history, which makes this city so great and so unique. Each corner has its own story waiting to be discovered.

We’ll come back to Paris one day, to uncover other old stories and create some new ones of our own. But for now, with the bags packed and beanies on, we head to Ireland.