This Ain't No Walk in the Park
Trip Start
Feb 13, 2008
1
11
15
Trip End
Jun 17, 2008
Margaret River,
Australia
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Well, since my last post I took a 40-hour train ride from Adelaide to Perth. I bought the cheapest seat available, which meant that I had to sleep in a reclining seat instead of a bunk for two nights. I was able to 'stretch out' over two seats and, although I tried several variations of the classic fetal position, I never got very comfortable. The next day, I was pretty tired and tried reading a book, but eventually befriended two Canadian girls. The following night I had another rough night of sleep, and when I arrived in Perth on Saturday I had two couchsurfing appointments. I sent out a ton of requests, but since it was a holiday weekend I only got two responses. I met the first one, but she ended up being pretty shy. She brought a friend named Jeff, and after lunch she left so Jeff and I decided to visit the hippie beach town of Fremantle for the afternoon. It seems that a typical Saturday afternoon in Australia means that people spend the entire afternoon talking and drinking at the local pubs, so we decided to take the 'when in Rome' approach and had a few brews ourselves. Later, I met the second couchsurfer outside of Perth and hung out at her house for the night. The next day we went to the movies to watch SemiPro and eat meat pies. At this point I was pretty tired not only from the train ride but the feeling of constantly running from place to place since I got to Australia.
I decided to rehabilitate myself in the town of Margaret River. I didn't know much about it, but when I arrived I found that the place was famous for surfing and wineries. The winery tours seemed pretty expensive and not very interesting, so I decided to go surfing instead. I found a hostel right near the beach and did a surfing lesson the next day. My instructor was the top female surfer in Western Australia, and I did pretty well for my second time on a board (first time was in Costa Rica). I never fully realized how tiring surfing is until that day. After about half an hour, I had to lie down on the beach for a fifteen minute rest, and from that point on I could only do fifteen minutes before another fifteen minute rest. The paddling and the constant battering by waves can take it out of you pretty quickly. The next day I decided to rent a board and try surfing with an Irish surfer guy I met at the hostel, but the waves were pretty bad. That's it, it wasn't that I sucked so bad that I couldn't catch anything. The Irish guy even said it himself.
I split my time in Margaret River between surfing, eating, and watching TV and movies because I was too weary to do much else. The exhaustion from constantly moving can hit you physically, mentally, and emotionally, and when the three come together at the same time it requires a lot of rehab time and TLC. My sleeping patterns have changed since I started traveling also, which means I can get tired if I don't slow down every so often. I may need another rehab session pretty soon. Luckily though, the pace of my itinerary is pretty slow for the remainder of my trip. See you on the (upper) west coast, mates.
