Greetings from an absolutely gorgeous free camp spot about an hour northwest of the bustling metropolis of Winton. I’ve been making steady, unhurried progress towards Darwin since picking up my van on Thursday.

For those of you who haven’t already received personal confirmation, I did in fact go to a medical center the day after my last post. After a quick chat and some local anesthetic the doctor made a small slit and shoved in what I can only describe as a miniature ice cream scoop, which he proceeded to vigorously scoop all around. When he had mentioned local anesthetic I made a joke about skipping it, and then when he was scooping away all I could think was “wow thank god for local anesthetic”. One painful night later I went back to have the dressing removed, and things have been gradually feeling better ever since. I also had to take a course of antibiotics, which I had been hoping to avoid. Don’t worry though, I’ve been eating a good mix of vegetables and trash, and my iron stomach seems not to have skipped a beat.

The 3 nights I spent in the hostel were pretty much entirely uneventful, toe gelato experience aside. Everyone there was a lot younger than me, and most people seemed to be staying at least semi-long term, so they all mostly knew each other and didn’t have much time or interest for getting to know a weird, limping old man. That was fine frankly—when I first got there I met a woman who was staying in the same room, and she informed me that she absolutely needed a break because she’d counted and was on 18 straight nights of drinking. When I checked in a couple of days later, it was 20. I’d say those days are behind me, but frankly I never had anything close to that level of stamina in the first place.

Luckily things lined up pretty well for my van and everything got done by Thursday (much earlier than the potential worst case of having to wait until the following week). I can tell you I was a bit emo, as Mark DeBoever would say, when I picked it up. It really does feel like both home and freedom for me, and I was stoked to finally, really hit the road.

I had originally planned on following the coast up to Townsville, where I would link up with the highway that crosses to the west. That turns out not to be the most direct route though, and I decided I’d had enough of skipping from one little identical coastal town to the next and was ready to hightail it to Darwin, now skipping from one identical farm/frontier town to the next. Leaving the coast you cross some hills and forest, and then fairly quickly it starts to get flatter, hotter, and drier. There’s a lot of agriculture out here but somehow the drive isn’t quite as mind-numbing as through the central US, I think because much of the land here is for cattle grazing so it still has trees and bushes, rather than being absolutely uniform. You also get the striking red dirt out here, which is very cool.

So yeah. So far there’s been a bit more infrastructure than I expected—the little towns I’m passing through are actual towns, with cafes and parks and internet and whatnot, and you come across one every hour or three. By the day after tomorrow I should be in the Northern Territory though, and as I understand it that’s when I’ll really understand the meaning of “the middle of nowhere”. So I’m thinking of taking some time to stroll around this beautiful area tomorrow, and then stopping in a town long enough to post this blog and do a bit of research on parks and activities on the way up to Darwin. I’ve tested my satellite communicator, I bought an extra 10L jug of water, and the van damn well better be just about bulletproof at this point, so after that there’ll be nothing left to do but a last shop and fill up on water, and then I expect to be more or less fully out of touch for… some number of days that I’ll have a better idea of once I do some research. See you on the other side.

Just throwing some text in here to break up the photos, if I’m honest. Fair warning, it’s going to be a lot of sunsets and desert landscapes for the next while I think.

You can find a couple videos for this post here. I’m going to start experimenting a little with mini-vlogs, largely at the recommendation of Cheyne, who I had the pleasure of couchsurfing with in Sunshine Coast. If you don’t like them blame him.

Apologies, dear reader, for the long delay since my last post. I’m in the midst of one of my typical “hanging around not doing much so don’t feel there’s anything to write about” spells. As it turns out, I’m still on, in, or around the Sunshine Coast. My oil change turned up a bit of work that needed to be done on the van, and I decided it was best to play it safe given that my next move is going to be driving across the absolute middle of nowhere to the other side of Australia. But of course that work couldn’t get started for another week and a half, so I just dropped my van off this morning, and I won’t be able to hit the road until the end of the week at the very earliest.

In the meantime I didn’t get up to too much. One nice thing was getting back on couchsurfing and meeting a really nice guy named Cheyne, who let me park in his driveway for a few days, provided some very pleasant company (much needed), and let me take hot showers and use fast internet. It was true luxury, especially since I’d been feeling a bit lonely and hadn’t found many ways of connecting with people. Besides that I also got back to surfing a bit, which was really fun, and spent a fair amount of time hanging around libraries working on the online biology course I recently started, which I’m enjoying. I’ve also been reading a little bit more recently. I read both of Ed Yong’s books, I Contain Multitudes and An Immense World, which deal with the beautiful world of bacteria and the incredible variety of animal senses, respectively. They’re great and I highly recommend them. And then just this morning I finished The Man in the High Castle, which was something of a thought experiment/philosophical musing, and a fun and quick read.

Now, the bad news. My barnacle-sliced toe remains an annoyance – it’s been very mildly infected on and off (don’t worry, it’s fine, I’m taking care of it), and while keeping it clean and using antiseptic cream helps, it seems to want to get worse again every few days. I’m pretty sure there’s something still in the cut, and have been very slowly coming to terms with the idea of going to a medical center and just having them cut it open and clean it out. Should I have done that fully two weeks ago and saved myself the nagging annoyance this whole time? Probably! Will I, having said that, continue to keep an eye on it and put off going to the medical center? Almost certainly!

The toe is ultimately small potatoes compared to my most recent injury, unfortunately. My last surf session was the best yet in Australia, right up until the moment when a wave caught and tumbled me, somehow yanking my leg to the side and very, very thoroughly pulling something in my groin. I’m no doctor, but I am a sporting enthusiast with an exquisitely fragile body, and my long history of sports injuries tells me this is going to be a recovery on the order of months rather than weeks. The good news is that it seems to be involved in fairly specific movements, so I can walk fine and generally go about my day unencumbered. And who knows, maybe I’m way off base. Either way, I’ll be keeping an eye on it and slinking into a physical therapist’s office when the time is right, and in the meantime I’ll have to lay low for a bit.

If reaction to my post about having a bit of the blues in Sydney is any indication, many of you will now be beside yourselves in consternation, given that this post mentions not just loneliness but also grievous injury of the groin. I just want to reassure you, dear reader, that I’m doing ok. This is certainly a bit of a valley (now you finally understand the title!) but I’m taking it as an opportunity to try to keep perspective and approach things somewhat philosophically.

There are always peaks and valleys, and the feeling of “when it rains it pours” has as much to do with your own mindset as it does the actual events. I’m reminding myself of that, and also taking the chance to practice trying to stay present and not stress about the future. I had planned on being in the Northern Territory or all the way over in Western Australia by now, unhurt and doing lots of physical activity. While it’s a bummer to think about that not being the case, I can also consider how lucky I am to be in a situation where unexpected car trouble, grievous injury of the groin, or tenacious infection of the pinky toe are just minor setbacks that I can adjust my plans around, and nothing more. I’ve got nice weather (mostly), good books to read, interesting biology to learn, and even the possibility of making a friend or two at this hostel. As the Aussies like to say, “she’ll be right”. And now, some random pictures.