Sometimes You Gotta Have a Little Moan

The only downside to organising your own trip is how much time you lose to future planning. Carrying around a brick-sized Lonely Planet may give information to hand but it doesn’t ring five different hostels when you’re travelling, without internet access, to a popular place like Townsville tomorrow, arriving too late in Cairns to visit the travel desks but needing to arrange Barrier Reef excursions ASAP.

It’s easy these days to pre-book everything in advance, and with our big trips like Fraser Island and the Whitsundays we did, but many activities, like snorkelling, are weather-dependent and can’t really be booked more than a week before. Plus you could end up wasting days in one location, waiting for the sky to change so you can jump out of a plane. That happened to me in Queenstown and although I made good use of an extra two days there, it meant losing 2/3 of my allocated Dunedin days. Not so good when you have limited time.

The other thing I found is that some places are so amazing (Byron Bay comes to mind) that you just want to spend extra time, and conversely others (Greymouth) so unappealing that you leave far earlier than planned. It’s one of the beauties of independent travel that you can do what you want, where you want, and pre-booking every night’s accommodation at the beginning of the week contradicts that. We naively pre-booked to stay in a few hostels that were, frankly, disgusting, even compared to the backpacking norm. Stained floors and peeling paintwork is to be expected, even a constantly cold shower and the ‘Continental breakfast’ turning out to be stale bread. Standard - you pay peanuts and it does add to the experience when you rough it.

However, a dorm door that doesn’t lock but opens up directly on to a path is perhaps a tad too much. This particular hostel, built in the white, panelled wood style of the ‘old Queenslander’, was one of the most acclaimed in guide books and on websites for the area. A beautiful Victorian building, its rustic country charm was unfortunately belied by the slight lack of safety. It may be located in a particularly upmarket, boutique resort town but there’s no excuse. There were no free rooms to switch to and the rude staff were reluctant to do anything while we were staying beyond testing it themselves and claiming that people won’t come in because “the doors are quite hard to open anyway”. There was also a metal fan in the room which may have useful if it wasn’t completely orange from rust and lashings of dust. The staff said that it was only a “very basic hostel” and we had too many expectations. On reflection, maybe it was audacious to expect an electric socket after paying a steep and above-market rate of $30AU to spend the night in a listed building.

The three of us did’t normally find things to complain about, but those employees provided us with material to seeth about for a few days later, and when we met people headed that way we didn't hesitate to relay our experience. But soon enough we were able to laugh at it, along with every embarrassment, navagational cockup and the sheer amount of stuff we managed to lose.

So, rant off my chest, I still think that DIY is the best way to travel. Plus the things I saw and did indepently were worth every sweaty Greyhound journey and hostel that charged extra for a pillow. Experiences, good and bad, are what make the trip.

Back to Life, Back to Reality...

Yesterday I arrived in Heathrow at 5.30am to a dark, foggy and -2 degree reception. Airplane seats are so uncomfortable that I’d slept an hour max and my body clock was seriously confused after experiencing three significantly different time zones in one week. But despite that, sleeping in my own bed, in a private room, wasn’t quite the thrill I’d imagined it would be after four months of hostel dorms. You quickly get used to sharing with potentially noisy, messy strangers because it’s the reason that backpackers can afford activities and to travel as long as possible. Though on the flip side I’m so glad to never have to eat noodles and crisps that taste like cardboard again. Food is very expensive in Australia and if you’re vegetarian the nomadic lifestyle makes it hard to buy healthy things like salad without eating cheap pasta… or the dreaded noodles everyday. Eating a tasty meal at home last night made the long journey worthwhile. I give it a week before I miss the traveller life.

Home At Last?

Yesterday I arrived in Heathrow at 5.30am to a dark, foggy and -2 degree reception. Airplane seats are so uncomfortable that I’d slept an hour max and my body clock was seriously confused after experiencing three significantly different time zones in one week. But despite that, sleeping in my own bed, in a private room, wasn’t quite the thrill I’d imagined it would be after four months of hostel dorms. You quickly get used to sharing with potentially noisy, messy strangers because it’s the reason that backpackers can afford activities and to travel as long as possible. Though on the flip side I’m so glad to never have to eat noodles and crisps that taste like cardboard again. Food is very expensive in Australia and if you’re vegetarian the nomadic lifestyle makes it hard to buy healthy things like salad without eating cheap pasta… or the dreaded noodles everyday. Eating a tasty meal at home last night made the long journey worthwhile. I give it a week before I miss the traveller life.