It was the time to say good bye to the magical place. To be honest, my previous plan was working until my visa ends but everything changed when I walked to Uluru with Sand (read the story here). Road trip in Australia is addictive. I did some in NT and WA and I wanted more lol. The day after Uluru trip, we watched sunset at Tinka lookout and the road trip convo happened.
The route would be Alice Springs – Cairns – Brisbane – Sydney – Melbourne – Tasmania (Tassie came to mind later on tho). Nevertheless Sand weren’t sure if he could make it because he wanted to leave the job in November. Suddenly Joshua came into our lives afterwards, about a month later; I don’t exactly remember how we asked him but he agreed to join us! Then it was decided: the road trip would start in the first week of January 2020!
Waiting ain’t easy, aye? We were hyped whenever we talked about road trip. That topic drew us closer: countless meetings after work. We expressed “Can’t waiiit!” so frequently. Joshua even counted down week by week lol. He jokingly said “Let’s go sooner!” like once in a week that I had to make him waiiiiittttt. Sand was cool, he was good in waiting. A few months prior, we also got another person to join the trip, Bow, yet since she wasn’t working with us anymore, mostly the plans and preparations were done by the three of us.
Based on my Darwin-Perth trip (you can read here), it was so easy to find campervan relocation deal and this time I was so positive that we’d find the deal easily. We would do the relocation from one check point to another one; we planned how we’d do it, the possible time range; we planned to spend little money. It sounded like a perfect plan but, well, I underestimated the law of nature:
LIFE IS UNCERTAIN.
Starting from mid-December onward, the storm came. First problem arose and our friendship was tested. As our workplace was getting busier due to Christmas holiday, we learned there was no possible deal occurred. We tried to wait a bit but we knew we needed any backup plan.
We contacted Australian backpackers website for cheap campervan deals but it was still so expensive for us! The cheapest rent fee we got was around $1800, only from Alice Springs to Brisbane. Damnn! My budget was limited dude! Then we found out that our friend in Yulara was selling her car, we quickly looked up to that option.
The price was actually quite high considering the age and the mileage, although we knew she bought it even in higher price and only used it for 3 months. I knew she took care of the car well but Joshua was so skeptical. I understood the worries in him because we were talking about thousands kilometers of usage and if the car wasn’t healthy, it would backfire us in the end.
Sand, who is good in dealing with people, helped me to bargain. Both of us actually felt confident with the car and Joshua, even though he looked pessimistic, he actually gave us reasons why we had to take a good look of the car. We began to ask more, study more about the car, and eventually with fewer things to worry, we bought IT!!
During those moments, we were so damn tired already. I was tired looking up into options, thought hard about it. I secretly blamed Joshua for being so skeptical about everything. When Joshua and I also tried to change route, thought of more options; I resented Sand for (I thought) didn’t understand us by keep sticking to the plan. Bow also told us how annoyed she was toward us by changing our minds from A to B, back to A and C, and so on. Plus it was so busy at work and I almost gave up, honestly.
But I realized I judged everyone so quickly. Joshua, saw my stressful face, tried to calm me down and asked me to breathe in and out together HAHA. And Sand, I didn’t realized that he also thought a lot, he thought in a bigger scale than me although his points didn’t seem satisfying at first. Plus, he was the one who helped me in every practical move.
Buying the car was the best option for us, nothing else. I tried to have faith in that decision while reciting my favorite life mottos: go with the flow; all is well. On the 5th of January, we finally said good bye to Yulara. We visited Uluru for the last time. It was drizzling, cloudy and a very cold morning. Even the world made everything looked melancholic.
In Alice Springs, we legally adopted our car <3. We stayed there for two nights, bought everything we need for the road trip.
We just had to wait for Bow to come then everything was ready to go!