Title:
The Big Adventure!
Genre:
Creative Non-Fiction Short Story
Author:
Elizabeth Rothwell
Email:
[email protected]
Word Count:
2203
THE BIG ADVENTURE!
Since childhood, I have done my fair share of traveling…Now, do not mistake me, I do not mean holidays to the Gold Coast or overseas trips; I am talking about the hours I spent crammed between my two older sisters in the backseat of our parents old red Ford sedan, aptly named, ‘Redy’ (I was the one who named the car and in my defence I was around eight years old). These car trips we took were often when we were going to Scout camps in other towns, occasionally we would also visit family. My Dad was in Scouts when he was just a boy but did not do it for very long, however, when his oldest daughter joined up, he quickly followed by becoming a leader of the youngest section: Joey Scouts. After that, another daughter joined and so did my Mum, but she was on the committee, not a leader. By the time I was five and a half I desperately wanted to join up too, and was already going to activities before I was old enough. Fifteen years later and only one of us is no longer in the Scouting Movement. I remember a few certain moments on in all these trips we took, but after going on as many as I have and for as long as I have they all seem to blend together when looking back. Racing to put up the windows when we saw a cattle truck coming to protect ourselves from the smell, yelling in disgust when the smell of road kill caught us by surprise. I remember playing ‘I-Spy’ for the hundredth time, or ‘Windmill’ or ‘Corners,’ arguing over who was taking up more room than anyone, the screaming matches between my two sisters and myself ending with Mum or Dad yelling or growling at us to shut up, threatening to make us walk, promising the belt or turning the car around and going home. Fighting for room in the tiny backseat was always the most constant thing, as we were all our Dad’s daughters and were sprouting up like tall weeds, our long legs struggling to fit. Of course, being the youngest I was ALWAYS in the middle, now when traveling with friends and I am just a little bit too slow to call shotgun I bluntly refuse to sit in the middle. Being the bratty little sister, I was, I invented a game amongst all that arguing—though I would hardly call it a game now, it involved me screaming “chicken-wing” at the top of my lungs and flapping my arms like a chicken, smacking the both of them at the same time, they would scream no and return the motion resulting in a few bruised arms after we tired ourselves out in half a minute. Our exhaustion lulling us into a peaceful quite I am sure our parents relished. Getting out of small Narrabri, New South Wales was travelling for me; looking back, I miss those hot, cramped car rides, the time when my family was stuck together for hours, I did not love it then, but I do now, as the memories of it are surrounded in nostalgia.
You see, with all the traveling my family did for Scouts we grew accustomed to those long car rides and the close quarters, so in 2008 when I was in year five and my sisters were in high school, our parents announced we were going to Tasmania for two weeks, we were over the moon and a few solar systems away with excitement. It was a business trip and only really needed to be three days long, but Mum finally got Dad to take us on an actual holiday and it was extended to two weeks. Originally Dad considered taking the trip across the water by ferry, however, Mum has a bad case of travel sickness and that would not have been a pleasant trip. In the end, a plan was made and we were too excited to really realise what we were getting into.
Early morning Dad and Mum piled three sleepwalking daughters into the back of ‘Redy’, packed the boot to breaking point and off we were. We had all travelled abroad before, but never all together and never this cramped. The entire day we spent in that car to get to the Victorian border. Too many times I remember my parents looking ready to stop that car and throttle us; my sisters and I fought, screamed, laughed and screamed some more, the games grew boring and eventually ran out. Soft drinks that our parents indulged us with at a pit-stop turned into another pit-stop and the cycle continued, servo pies were heavenly treats and naps past the time quicker— nowadays I can fall asleep about anywhere thanks to those trips. When the day finally came to an end and we reached the border town we would spend the night in, Mum and Dad were exhausted and dealing with three girls who were equally tired, but so wired from sitting in a car all day, we just wanted to explore and enjoy this new place. The caravan park our parents had booked us into was on par in size with the Caravan Park our Grandmother owned back in Narrabri, the place we had grown up right next to and was an adventure on its own; we explored until it was too dark to see.
Continuing on the next morning (thankfully not as early as the day before) to Melbourne where we would take a plane to Hobart. In this border town there was a bridge that was the crossing between New South Wales and Victoria and for some reason one of my sisters and I thought it was a really cool and brilliant idea to walk across it. We did not make it very far and our parents were soon rushing us back into the car to go. By this time the excitement was wearing off, but soon was sky high again when we finally reached the City after dealing with twenty too many “ARE WE THERE YET?” We spent the night at our Dad’s little brother’s home and became immediately jealous of our spoiled little cousin’s toy collection, which rivalled our own in quantity do not mistake me, but she had all the really awesome attachments, I was still a toy kid so I was in complete envy, all I had was my sisters’ old toys and mine. Our Aunty made us gnocchi for the first time and we were forced to go to sleep for another early morning while the adults stayed up a bit later to dip into the wine and catch up. The following morning we were relieved to learn we would also be taking our Uncle’s car to the airport (MORE ROOM), so we could leave our car with them while away on our trip. We took to navigating the challenging Melbourne traffic with the help of Uncle and Aunty to get to the airport and catch our nice short, hour and twenty-minute flight to Hobart. A sweet goodbye to the family and through airport security we went, the moment we were in with the air we were bouncing in our seats with excitement, but the bed of clouds that we seemingly floated on lost their appeal when it became apparent our parents would not indulge us anymore and buy us any airplane food. The sunlight streaming through my window not sitting very well with me, so I lowered my food tray shortly after take-off, lowered my head on my tiny travel pillow and drifted quickly off into a peaceful sleep, I still do not know what happened on that flight while I was sleeping. I felt as though I had just closed my eyes when I was being nudged not-so-kindly awake by my family and a nice flight attendant was smiling at me because we were landing soon and my tray needed to be up.
Arriving in Hobart my eyes were glued to every window that let me take in the City for the first time, we caught a maxi-taxi to where we were staying for the next four days and three nights we stayed on the twentieth floor at the Grand Hotel Hobart while my Dad and Mum attended a Caravan Park conference being held there. We slept in comfy beds, snuck onto treadmills in the gym, swam in the pool despite the cool weather, ate breakfast in the overly expensive restaurant downstairs and realised my fear of falling when we lent against the windows and realised just how high twenty stories is to a twelve-year-old from a small town. Mum and Dad took us on a ghost tour around Hobart and drooled all over the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. It was a happy memory that I cherish and look back on feeling bittersweet, it was one of the few actual holidays my family took together, and one of the last good memories together.
After all the pleasantness of the Grand Hotel and Hobart, we piled into the campervan our Parents had rented and hit the road. So use to travelling in a car the campervan was a shock to my sisters and I despite having seen many people come and go from our Grandmother’s Caravan Park we had never actually travelled in one, we were excited to experience anything new. The actual traveling was unfortunately not as wonderful as I had hoped it to be, I had inherited my Mother’s travel sickness...sitting at the back of a wavering campervan traveling up the winding and turning Tasmanian Mountains proved rather…queasy…My Dad was the only person “qualified” to drive the campervan (I think, he just did not want my mother driving), so travel sick Mum got front seat to ease her suffering, I was not so lucky, too many times my dad pulled off the road as quickly as possible for me to bring up everything I had eaten since my last vomit onto the side of the road in the middle of wherever we were, one time I was not so lucky and ended up only just making it to the little kitchenette in the centre of the campervan and emptying my stomach into the sink. I took every stop as a wonderful moment and could not wait to race off the creaking swaying tin box and relish the steady ground beneath my feet. We travel all up the east coast and back down the centre of Tasmania, we saw Port Arthur and experienced where the convicts lived, when we got lost at one stage we ended up seeing Solomon’s Caves, at one point we stopped at a Tasmanian Devil Sanctuary and loaded up on souvenirs, I learned about the cancer that plagues the unique little creatures and fell in love when I met a few baby ones. We had no real destination, we just travelled in the right general path and bade sure we would be at the Airport at the right time. I remember the beaches we stopped at and the unusual morning in which the police were knocking on our campervan door asking Mum and Dad about what they could remember about a suspicious someone staying where we were that night. I remember teasing my sister about texting her boyfriend and fighting over who had to share the smaller top bunk, even though the oldest always got the big bed all to herself because she was a little too tall for the other bunk we had to squeeze in and share the tiny bunk.
As our trip came to an end and we were back on the mainland, we parents indulged us once more and my sister and I got to walk across the Victorian border bridge, unfortunately they did not give us much warning and rushed us; so there we were crossing the border barefooted on gravel in a proper Australian Summer day, but we did it and that tiny achievement was massive to my little twelve-year-old self. Luckily we were able to treat the humongous blisters and scratches on our feet in the motel’s pool we spent our last night before completing the final stretch back home to little ole Narrabri. Which did not differ much from our first trip, lots of screaming and arguing and sleeping, dreaming of little Tasmanian Devils, chocolate, and zombies (I watched a movie before I was old enough and was paying for it).
Looking back on that trip it stands out for the fact that it was one of the few vacations I ever took, but also for the memories I still remain fond of. I still reminisce with Mum over how that trip was one of the better family memories I look back on, however, I still look back just as fondly on those car rides to Scout camps, arguing with my sister and all the dead legs from the ‘Spot-O’ and inventing my own games like a new version of ‘I-Spy’ that of course only I could win. Where we were going did not have mattered, it was how we got there that was the real adventure for my youthful self.
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