A Sense of Wander

When does a moderate 16C feel bitter cold? I’ll tell you when. You’ve spent the last week in the 36C humidity of Darwin, then hiked in the searing sunshine dry 40C of Katharine and Alice, and you’ve just this moment descended the wonderful Ghan for a windy platform in Adelaide displaying that shivering mid-teen temperature.  Oh dear, didn’t expect this.

We enjoyed an OK evening in Adelaide, sporting an extra layer and grumbling at the ‘cold’. A curry and red wine to warm us up! However our minds weren’t really focussed on exploring the South Australian capital. We were both excited and impatient for the next episode of our Australian adventure. New territory for us both in more ways than one. Tomorrow we would collect our home for the next week, our camper van which would give us the freedom of the national parks and coastline of South Australia and Victoria. Up close access to unique wildlife and iconic geography.

We were camper van virgins. A smart hi tec van (ensuite of course) would provide for carefree days of laid back immersion in the Aussie road trip experience along the Limestone Coast and Great Ocean Road. Pausing as opportunities arise to wonder at the landscape, walk on the beaches, watch the wildlife and perhaps, purchase some of the latter for the van’s built-in barbie. Then turn off the engine in a cosy clearing in the bush, and to the reddening twilight of the setting sun, light the evening’s fire. Lubricated by a fridge-chilled Coopers Pale, grill the day’s surf or turf to eat al fresco, whilst watched all the while by inquisitive and optimistic eyes, flickering in the undergrowth. Our outdoor culinary feast would be raised to dizzy heights with a bottle of meticulously paired wine, purchased direct from the roadside ‘cellar doors’ of the Barossa or Coonawarra. Then shuffle a little closer to the fire, sit back and gaze upward to seek out unfamiliar southern constellations, whilst giving way to that slow soporific wash of nature’s ambient soundtrack. And when all done, retire inside and curl up together in the cosy double bed, illuminated by soft moonlight and the distant Southern Cross. Fresh air, nourishment and that wonderful ‘physical tired’ inducing a deep, joyful slumber. An incongruously exhilarating state of relaxation.

So that’s the plan, but then again – fate is inexorable.

The word wanderlust, meaning the desire to travel, has German origins. However Deutsch has an expression for which I don’t believe there is an equivalent in the English language. The term fernweh moves this desire to travel to a painful need. A ‘far-sickness’ and apposite to hiemweh or home-sickness. Over recent years, the more I’ve been fortunate to travel, I’ve felt my moderate wanderlust edge closer to a sensation of fernweh. I love my home and all connected with it, and need to know it’s always there, my constant – my North Star. However no sooner have I returned from a trip afar, I need to be planning my next. And I’m unable to rest until all its pieces are secure. Planning our bespoke four week Australia escapade was a jigsaw of many pieces. Of course pick out the corners first – Darwin, Adelaide, Sydney, Brisbane, then find the sides. The Ghan neatly and reliably completed our western side. It was the southern side of our puzzle whose pieces needed precise placement on the board if, almost counter-intuitively, the journey was to deliver the sense of freedom we were seeking. That illusion of freedom to wander. Our smart Maui camper van was the means to that end. However the notion that you can simply pick up a van, fill the tank and hey presto, the freedom of a far off continent is yours, is a complete, and dangerous, myth.

The more high-spec your new mobile home, the more aspects you need to be aware of, monitor and manage. So for example – the simple matter of H2O. How many types of water could there possibly be? OK – drinking water (potable) and washing (non-potable). Then there’s the waste water, and of course if your free spirit travel companion (aka Jacky) isn’t sufficiently free to camp at one with nature without en suite facilities, there’s the notorious ‘sewage cartridge’. An unpleasant but necessary device which sits snugly under the equally snug loo. A compact and smartly presented little box for which those same ‘free spirits‘ appear to possess a convenient spiritual aversion. Then there’s the power supply. Simple isn’t it, just turn on the engine and charge up the DC battery? Not quite I’m afraid. Two DC batteries, one which is charged first when driving and feeds the electrical systems as with a typical car, then when satiated, a second DC battery charges which for a limited time can provide power to your basic camper van utilities, such as water pump, internal lights, and fridge. However this DC energy will only allow you, at the very most a couple of nights loose in the isolation of Australia’s wonderful and wild national parks. After that you need to hook up to an AC supply, normally on an organised powered camp site, to charge up your DC – and perhaps take the opportunity to use some of the AC van features you paid for but haven’t yet used, such as that microwave, TV and music system. Oh and then there’s your gas supply to watch, especially when feeding your hungry external grill and barbie. And whilst watching all that lot, don’t forget to keep a full tank of fuel, a fridge of essential foods and that stash of ales and wines without which you may as well catch the next plane back to Blighty.

Probably the most diminishing aspect of your grand road trip idyll is the discovery that you cannot simply park up for the night wherever or whenever your fancy takes you. Unless on a registered site you can well expect a stern, yet stylishly uniformed, ranger at your van door at some random point in the evening, or worse, early morning with a ‘ticket’.

With so many basic and essential resources to manage, I’m afraid your carefree escape needs forensic research and construction, piece by precious jigsaw piece. However don’t be discouraged. If you can live with the contradiction, with meticulous planning and pre-booking securely put to bed, you can create for yourself, once you turn that key on your camper, a convincing illusion of that freedom you were seeking. Your very own, most blissful, ‘sense of wander‘.

My earliest childhood memories involve summer moments exploring a vast wonderland which appeared to have no limits and which I could wander as I chose. The fact that my wonderland was set in a tiny garden secured with unseen fences was, for a short and precious time, invisible to me. My parents had unwittingly introduced me to that intoxicating, exhilarating sense of wander. So now, sixty years on, with new boundaries in place, I turned the key and we set out to explore, seemingly ‘at will’, that vast wonderland framed by the beautiful coastline of southern Australia.

Our ‘carefree’ road trip from Adelaide to Melbourne would cover around 1200km over six days. Heading first southward into the windswept wilds of the Fleurie Peninsula, then east along the Limestone Coast and in due course join the Great Ocean Road. We’d planned our daily destination points, and secured camp spots from over 10 000 miles away. The Australians are well-organised in this regard. The National Park sites are available to book online, with detailed descriptions and photographs of individual pitches. Hence from the other side of the world you can secure your own perfect pitch and when the time comes, when you roll up as the light is beginning to fade, having squeezed every whisker of wander out of your fantastic day, your chosen pitch is ready and waiting for you. That imposing pink gum tree is just where you knew it would be, and those fat green Xanthorrhoeas, with their tall spikes whose seeds are going to attract flocks of colourful lorrakeets, will indeed provide the windbreak you’d anticipated.

Can’t wait to be let loose.

First stop a ‘cellar door’ on the gorgeous west coast of the Fleurie Peninsula. We’ve a couple of nights of bush camping ahead of us!  Wyrd bid ful araed.