Aus + NZ: #stogansabbatical bottom 5 (Miranda’s list)
You can’t spend 9 weeks traveling (or living) without a few missteps. Here are 5 incidents we could have lived without (though they’ve made for some good stories!).
1.Sleeping in a car in Hobart. When we booked our flights into Hobart we had no idea we would find ourselves in the midst of the Southern Hemispheres largest wooden boat festival (what luck!). Surprisingly, this event has a huge impact on the city, and there wasn’t a hotel room to be found. Jay booked us the last room 40 minutes outside of Hobart, but when our flight was delayed 3 hours, the front desk refused to stay open to let us in. At 2am we picked up our rental car and recommendations on the best local beach to sleep at. #thingsweretoooldfor
2.Driving with strangers to a town we hadn’t planned to visit. After our WetSundays cruise, we struggled to escape the flooding coast – daily flights were continually cancelled and the weather was getting worse. We were wasting days and worried about getting truly stuck, so we needed to radically change our plans. We managed to be among the first to realize our flight was cancelled and start looking up new options. Our best bet was to catch a flight to Brisbane from a larger airport 90 minutes south. We could rent a car and make it… if we left immediately. But, the town of Proserpine had exactly 3 affordable cars available for one-way rental and Jay was 3rd in line. So, we made friends and asked the first couple in line at the rental counter if we could jump in with them, and then we did. We think their names were Jake and Caylyn, and they recommended some good bars for our upcoming stay in Melbourne, but mostly they drove fast and we got the hell out of dodge. While we still missed the flight that night, we had a rain free evening at the Mackay airport and successfully made it to Melbourne the next morning. Along with a great story to tell. (Fun fact: this is not the first time I’ve rented a car with strangers after a cancelled flight).
3.Getting a flat tire in a town with a single mechanic. On the night before a long drive back to Auckland, we drive over one too many dirt roads and got a flat. Luckily the towns single tyre shop was highly efficient and affordable and this didn’t turn into the major issue we feared it might.
4.this snake. While we loved all the animal spotting, this snake about 15 feet away on a hike scared the #%=* out of me.
5. This spider.
And that’s a wrap on a whole bunch of some pretty great adventures, as well as these.
