Becoming Australia’s dumbest backpacker
After a few years of exploring and traveling around there was one highly recommended place that I hadn’t made it to yet. Obviously there are plenty of places that I haven’t been to but this one’s significant in that it’s a continent: Australia. A few months ago I squinted at a calendar and figured that any upcoming plans should include an Australian leg – with NYE in Sydney.
Fast forward and after some enjoyable weeks in Taiwan and a slightly less enjoyable week on Java (food poisoning, ope) I finally landed in Brisbane. The minimally researched itinerary was to rollerblade from Brisbane to Sydney. And, more importantly, to arrive in time for NYE. Brisbane–Sydney is a manageable ~1000km route along the populated east coast. There’s a cycling website with some basic recommendations and route information that sold this journey quite well. After skating from Bangkok to Singapore earlier this year, this felt manageable even if it would be slightly rushed due to NYE.
The Good
Brisbane is lively and it was great to be near the ocean again. My stay in Brisbane was only two nights and the full day was spent replacing my entire toiletry bag, which was still somewhere in a bathroom inside Bali’s international terminal.
The first skating day took me straight down to and then along the Gold Coast. The beach promenade running the ~30km between Southport and Coolangatta is absolutely elite. It’s peak summer here and you can sense the energy in the air. Australia knows how to create and enjoy public outdoor spaces. Tons of playgrounds, gazebos, barbecues, sports games, etc. The grocery stores I found had a nice selection of fresh fruit and I enjoyed a ton of local mangoes and blueberries. Most people that I talked to off the road were super friendly and excited about somebody covering this distance on rollerblades. Some legend named Eddie pulled over on the Pacific highway to give me an ice cold sports drink and tell me that I’m living his dream. Hell yeah.
The Bad
There are a few supremely obvious reasons why most tourists choose to travel around Australia on 4 wheels instead of 6. Having a camper van takes care of transportation and accommodation at the same time. Ok, I was skating, so my transportation was paid off in sweat and calories. Accommodation, however, is tricky and expensive, assuming that you can even find a hotel in the first place. Australia is large, very large you could say, and even the populated eastern coastline has a lot of blank spots on it. I had to extend or shorten my days multiple times because there‘d be nothing in a 10km radius of my destination. Even so, in some small towns the aforementioned pub/hotel combos are the only option. They’re quite basic, given those buildings were built in the veeeery early 1900’s, and will still run you $80-$100 USD a night. Then comes the food. Oh boy. I lost 10 pounds in the first week because I didn’t eat nearly enough to cover the 3500-4000 calories I’d burn by skating every day. A restaurant meal is ~$20-$30 USD – another reason why so many people load up on groceries and then go cook from their camper. Even the sensational 1500 calorie box of white chocolate macadamia cookies from Woolworth’s wasn’t enough to reverse the weight loss.
The Ugly
The roads. Or rather, the sections of patchwork ground often referred to as roads. I didn’t expect perfectly smooth pavement by any means. The country is simply too large and there’s too much going on. But what I found was atrocious. A shocking amount of highway-to-town link roads are unsealed pavement that vibrates every single part of your body while also cutting your speed in half. Then those roads rarely have shoulders and if they do, the shoulders are littered with debris or extra gravel.
Equally bizarre were the bike paths that would randomly appear and disappear on either side of the road without signage (although they tend to vanish entirely beyond town limits). That forces any cyclist or rollerblader onto the road, which brings me to the worst part and ultimately what made me abandon this endeavor: the fucking dickhead drivers. HOLY SHIT. I’m not exaggerating. Nowhere in the world have I ever been aggressively swerved into, yelled at, or generally honked at before this trip. Here it was a daily occurrence. People act like any non-motorized vehicle on the road is a personal affront to their liberty and well-being. Cars passing me in the middle of nowhere, with the other lane wide open and no traffic in sight, would hold down the horn from the time they saw me to the time they passed me – without going into the other lane of course. All of the “Share the road” or “Koala Zone – SLOW” signs must be invisible to locals.
Add it all up and I was already not having the best time. Still, I was committed to going the distance until the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It was about 30 degrees C (~90 F) and many roads have a bunch of tar splatter (?) near the shoulder. I say splatter because all this tar doesn‘t seem to fix any particular issue on the bad road itself. My problem arises when said tar starts melting and turning into sticky goo at these temperatures. In a split second of complacency my right skate got caught in such a tar pit and I ate it immediately. My water bottle shot out of my backpack pocket into the middle of the road and I scraped up my knee pretty good.
Thankfully the cars behind me had stopped and let me retrieve the bottle. Ha. As I go to sit down on the side and fully check my wounds, the car behind me pulls over a bit ahead of me. I’m thinking ”That’s nice, maybe they’ve got some first aid. Whew.” Try again. The guy in the passenger seat rolls down the window, sticks his head out in a full 180 turn, looks at me with disgust, and shouts “GET THE FUCK OFF THE ROAD YOU IDIOT”.
Window goes back up and the car speeds off full throttle. Just like that. No other car even attempted to stop, at which point it became quite clear to me that I’d be quite S.O.L. if I had seriously injured myself on this spill. There’s absolutely zero empathy. So yeah, as much as it pains me to actually get the fuck off the road, I also want to stick to my #1 skating goal. That’s always to (be able to) skate again tomorrow. With 500km of similar roads until Sydney it doesn’t feel right to roll the dice like that. Heat? Fine. Bad roads? Fine. Expensive food and stay? Fine. But drivers actively putting you in harm’s way is a no-go. My sincere condolences go out to any skaters or cyclists that have to deal with this brainrot on a daily basis.
