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March 31, 2008, Brisbane, Australia - New photos available on photo page (East Coast Australia)
March 30, 2008, Brisbane, Australia - So I had a stroke of bad luck the other day. Or maybe car-ma. Theives stole my surfboards - while I was in my car! I was shocked - and surfboardless. So my days of surfing have ended quite sadly. Well, it's off to Vietnam for me. Hopefully my next update will be a little more positive. I bet it will be.
March 20, 2008, Byron Bay, Australia - Happy Iraq day!! Please join me in celebrating 5 successful years bogged-down in Iraq with a special addition of tysontrips, available under the writing tab. Also, all my videos from Australia have been uploaded. Find them near the bottom of the photos page under videos, and click on Australia.
March 19, 2008, Byron Bay, Australia - Videos from New Zealand have been posted. Click on photos in left column and scroll down to Video title, then click on New Zealand link. Gracias.
March 17, 2008, Byron Bay, Australia - I wish I would have known this before I drove around the country:
March 13, 2008, Sydney, Australia - After almost getting mugged last night at 1:15am in the King's cross neighborhood, by a cracked-out prostitute and her small gang of pimps, i resolved to leave the internet cafe a little bit earlier this evening. no such luck. in order to bring you my latest installment of tysontrips, i have worked tirelessly into the night. so please check out my newest writing when you have a chunk of time. based on the fact that i still have to make it through the neighborhood once more tonight to get back to my trusty vehicle, it could be my final installment. not really. the only thing that was hurt last night was my ego, when the whore yelled at me from behind, after i escaped her attempt at a death grip, "I will get them to f*ing beat you with a stick, you son of a b*tch. What's two dollars to you, you rich little swedish boy!?" How did she know I was swedish?
Courageous Foreigner Honoured for Heroic Journey
Tyson Volkmann holds up a certificate he received for driving across the continent of Australia. Sydney, Australia - An American traveler to Australia returned to a hero's welcome in Sydney Harbour last night after a historic 20,000 kilometer journey in which he circumnavigated the country in an automobile. Tyson Volkmann, who arrived in Sydney just after 5pm on the 12th of March, stepped out of his vehicle amidst an onslaught of waiting cameramen, uproariously applauding fans, and a strong contingent of bikini-clad women. The journey took just over five weeks and obviously took a physical toll on Mr. Volkmann, as he sheilded his weary eyes from the camera flashes. Insiders revealed that Mr. Volkmann ran into several bouts of trouble along the way, including a flat tire in the middle of the outback, a lost wallet in the Southwestern portion of the country, a broken odometer and speedometer, and the lack of registration for his vehicle. In an exclusive interview with Mr. Volkmann, he commented on his epic journey, which is a rarely attempted feat in this country due to its sheer difficulty.
"Yeah, when I was driving across the Nullabor Plain
in 110 degree weather and the surfboard tiedowns on the top of my car shredded, allowing my boards to go flying off my car at 80 miles an hour, then having to find them in the sticker bushes a half a kilometer behind me while covered in bush flies, that kinda sucked. But the rest was pretty cool. Oh yeah, except for having to drive without a license and registration and without knowing my speed for 10,000 kilometers. That was a little stressful." When asked what the first thing he would do now that he was back in civilization, Mr. Volkmann said, "There are a lot of things I haven't done for the last month, like looked in a mirror, or taken a shower, or used any source of electricity. Oh, or gone inside any building other than a couple of grocery stores and gas stations. Or drank anything besides water. Or eaten or sipped on anything refrigerated or frozen. That would be nice. Or worn a shirt. Or had a proper converstaion with anybody other than the three voices in my head." Volkmann left the interview at this point, speaking loudly to an apparently imaginary person he called Trevor, although nobody else was around.
March 11, 2008 - Three new albums of pictures taken over the last month now available to view on the photos page. Check 'em out.
March 10, 2008, Melbourne, Australia - I am alive. And so is my car. Somehow. I have made it 85% of the way around Australia. With just a bit to go, carcass slumped over the wheel, I rejoice in the idea of being stationary for just a few days. I Have seen massive waves - heat waves and waves of H2O. And a lot of other things too. And the sooner I arrive in Sydney the sooner I can make the stories and images available on this website. Godspeed.
March 1, 2008, Perth, Australia - I am moving fast, in search of surf. I may have found some, south of Perth. I just drove the entire length of the west coast. It took two days, I think. But time has become a foreign concept. The sun comes up. The sun goes down. That happened twice before I got here. But I have no sense of my speed, distance, or even time as first my spedometer, then odometer, then dashboard clock, respectively, each went out during this hellish drive. One of my tires also "went out," causing an interesting scene at 75 miles an hour. I had a spare.
me and camry, after all we've been through, we are still friends.
February 27, 2008 - They said it couldn’t be done. They were wrong. They said driving across the Northern Outback in mid-summer heat, during the rainy season, without air-conditioning, in a two-wheel-drive station wagon couldn’t be done. Wait, maybe they said it shouldn’t be done. If that’s the case, then they were right. It shouldn’t. But I am here, in Broome, Australia, hands calloused from driving, halfway around the continent, 15,000 kilometers from where I started, and a month into my journey. But I am not out of the woods yet, as it were, in the isolated deserty town of Broome.
Any real city east of this mammoth village of 14,000 people is a couple thousand kilometers east, from whence I came. The next major development south, Perth, is about 3000 kilometers down the coast. To the southeast lies desert, unabated, to the southeast coast of Australia. In every other direction the azure Indian Ocean engulfs the land. I really need the Camry to come through for me on the next stretch to Perth.
The Outback is where I’ve come from. The Outback, where road trains dominate.
road train. its a semi that runs that main roads of australia and looks like a train.
this is a special part of highway 1, the road which runs the circumference of australia. the equivalent of interstate 5 in the US. looks similar, huh? its not all like this but enough to scare me when a road train is barreling toward me at 100km.
The Outback, where even Kangaroos are so bored they line the road (dead or alive), to watch cars pass. In fact, the entire food chain operates on the roads, as if a manmade wildlife park. Treacherous insects of varieties unknown to me, but that made themselves very familiar when I opened my windows, glide above the scorching pavement. The lizards come looking for a meal and to bask on the road. They are squished by road trains. Snakes slither across the road and reach the same fate. Eagles, buzzards, hawks and other unfamiliar birds of prey stand erect on the roads edge, as if attending a kangaroo funeral or a reptile buffet, and feast on the remains of thousands of roadkill ‘roos, which were plowed over at night, unassumingly and ironically, while inspecting their dead relatives. The insects are attracted back to the rotting carnage and the cycle continues.
When I finally reached the north central section of the continent (see map here ), I took a left and headed west. This was the tropical outback. Humid, flat, nearly barren of humanity other than small cattle stations and roadhouses.If there is a Deliverance Country, Australia, I believe I found it. Tiny, one-street towns full of bored Aborigines stared stoically, as if in slow motion, as I drove past the only shelter in towns, the gas stations, where they sought cover from the monsoonal deluges. Their long glances, as I understood them, weren’t out of jealousy for my belongings and personal wealth, or out of anger against the white man, but out of pure, unadulterated boredom with the complete lack of anything going on. Me driving by the desolate town was the most action anybody had seen for at least 30 minutes, based on how many cars were passing me going the other direction.
Floods were a problem again. I won’t go into it but there were some situations that caused me much stress. Bottom line: I made it and should be clear of the major storms until I reach the East Coast again. You heard, I am crossing back. I am taking my newly acquired sweetheart back with me too. She hasn’t failed me yet and I need Camry’s help now more than ever, to get away from the isolation she has brought me into.
Incidentally, in the tropics I have had trouble getting enough sleep to make the daily 15+ hour drives to get places. The normal low in the tropics is usually about 80 degrees with humidity, so that it feels like 90. My car, housing a hot engine and a raging metabolism at night, must be close to 100 degrees heat index. I pour sweat, which cools me a little. The windows must be opened if there is to be any sleep. If there is any wind that will cool the interior a couple degrees. But then the bugs come in. I am usually tired enough, at some point, to let the mosquitoes devour me. But their incessant buzzing in my ear is enough to break out the ear plugs. Problem solved. Except I am then oblivious, windows fully open, to anyone who decides they want to make my possessions theirs or worse. Last night, around midnight, I was awoken by two young blokes, about 10, on bikes, who were curious why the windows on this seemingly abondoned vehicle were open. So, like any inquisitive youths, they had a look in. I awoke to "Hey, I see a head in there!" I jolted up and said "Oi!" They asked me where I was headed and I said, "Nowhere fast." Then they wished me a good night. Aaawww. Anyway, this portion of my rant isn’t a complaint, just a statement of the ironies that occur daily during life on the road. Hey, it beats the rain, is my attitude. Here, let me show you.
Cable Beach, Broome, Australia. Water temperature 86 degrees.
February 21, 2008 - Wow, it's been a while. Sorry about that. For me, socializing doesn't mix well with writing production. Of those, like Hemmingway, who were drunk and able to manufacture decent prose during the process of social interaction, I am truly jealous. But even outside of socializing, there are times when I need to spend days away from technology in order to appreciate a simpler lifestyle; the lifestyle that I am attempting to aim for.
The phrase of the day for me is monsoon trough. Ever heard of it? I hadn't but now that I have driven through one I am quite cognisant of their destructive force. No joke, due to my inexperience on closed and flooded Australian highways, me and my intrepid travel partner, David Cullen, came very close to losing all of our possesions and possibly more than that. This is a harsh country with harsh conditions and we quickly learned not to mess with it. I am now stranded in a delightful tropical city named Cairns. With nowhere to go and nothing to do in the unending tropical downpours I have taken to meeting other travelers and trying to convince somebody to drive the 8000 miles it's going to take to get me to Perth. No takers just yet. If I have to do it alone I will but companionship and petrol sharing are what I need to make it through these next insane drives. I may not have another update for some time, as while I am driving away from La Nina and a monsoon trough, I am driving toward a tropical cyclone. Like I said, it's a harsh country continent. But I am a harsh guy. Check out some of Dave's pictures for evidence of these last two statements.
absolute carnage
survive this drive. is that a challenge?
if it was, we took it, stupidly. the waters rose quickly and flowed even more quickly. I believe cars were lost on this stretch.
but thankfully we made it. thanks to superior driving by Tyson, excellent navigation by David, and brilliant Toyota Camry engineering. this piece of highway was an actual river, with water flowing a good couple of miles per hour, both above and underneath the road. it was about to be washed out. And the side of the road was a ditch deeper than the top of the car, so sliding off would mean certain chaos.
As Jack White once quipped, I just don't know what to do with myself.
February 8, 2008 - Cruising up the coast, I have had some success on the surfboard but lots of tough days too. Such is the life. I have made it almost as far as Brisbane, where I will be picking up my buddy Dave for a little coastal road trip before he has to get back to doing his school work. Life is fairly simple, living out of my new Camry. So far not too many problems with it, other than having to get the brakes fixed. Metal on metal. But that gave me a day to watch the Super Bowl. FYI: Whoever said Australia was a dry, barren country was incorrect. The East Coast is a dense, tropical rainforest. And where there is rainforest there is rain, apparently. It has been dumping and flooding the whole coast. I heard something about La Nina. Who knows, but I quickly found the leaks in the Camry during the downpours. Not much else to report, but you might be interested to see my ride so here it is:
January 31, 2008 - I bought a car and I am hitting the road. After several days of searching the mean streets of Sydney, I found a deal that couldn't be passed up. A Belgian couple was leaving Australia for New Zealand and had to sell. I willingly took the 1990 Toyota Camry station wagon off their hands for the meager sum of 1000$. Included in the vehicle, which has over 200,000 miles on it already, was sufficient camping gear for me and a family of wallabies. In the interest of saving space in their backpacks they had to part with their ice chest, spare tire, tarp, atlas, tent, blankets, sleeping bag, stove, pots, pans, dishes, portable lights, fold-up tables, extra motor oil, you name it, I got it. They even cheerfully bought me an expensive imported Stella Artois upon completion of the transaction. Upon further vehicle insepction however, after having already purchased it, I fell back down to earth when I discovered the other bonus features of the car: a broken lock on the trunk that requires that me to take off the panel every time I want it to work; a drivers side window that falls down rather than rolls down and is nearly impossible to get back up; brakes that sound similar to the engine of a rocket blasting into the atmostphere; and, best of all, a collection of cassette tapes to get me through those long drives in the outback. I've got the Doors, Styx, The Allman Brothers and many others. These Belgians had some decent taste in music. The last thing I need to make my car complete before I head off on the road is a pair of surfboards. I will work on acquiring them tomorrow. Then the surfing is on. Provided my ride can survive the long drives, I should be set for the next few months. There is plenty of space in the back to sleep and there are thousands of beaches to frequent so if anyone needs a ride across Australia in the next few months, contact me and we can split petrol...
January 30, 2008 - Photos from Sydney: here or click on the photos link on the left
January 28, 2008 - Sydney, Australia, man. This city is everything they say and more. What do they say? I'm actually not really sure. But my impression so far is this: if you took the best aspects of nyc - the public transportation, the social culture, the restaurants, the sights and ability to get almost anything in the world you want or need, and then you took all the mean people out of the city and filled it with laid-back, genial, sun-bleached, happy-go-lucky people, then moved the entire city to San Diego for the world class beaches and surf culture, then you would have Sydney. Easier than doing all of those things would just be to visit Sydney. The day after I arrived happened to be Australia Day. It blew me away. In this age of skepticism, I doubt America Day would fly very well in the US. But here everybody was draped in flags, singing, watching free live concerts all over town, drinking unbelievable quantities of alcohol, and heading to the beach. I took a ferry to a local surf beach and hung out for the day. On the way back, as evening fell, hoardes of hammered but amiable Aussies quickly rumbled off the ferry we had been on and got in some sort of line, which I thought must be the line to catch one of the oft-running trains to another part of town. As I stepped into line I noticed that nobody had been in a hurry to get on to a train. This 100 meter line snaked directly into the liquor store. I had to laugh. The boisterous celebrations continued into the night and next day. The attitude here reminds me a lot of Brazil - the endless pursuit of unassuming fun. A few days more here and I hope to have some transporation and some surfboards, ready to start a surfing safari.
revelers
bondi beach and its weekend crowds
January 23, 2008 - New writing posted along with new pictures from New Zealand's North Island are up. Click here or on the writing link to check out the writing and here or on the photos link to check them out.
January 18, 2008 - I have finally posted new writing from my trip thus far. Click here or on the writing link on the left to check it out. I should have new writing up every week or two so please check back.
January 15, 2008 - Photos from the South Island of New Zealand are posted. Click here or on the photos link on the left to check them out.
January 11, 2008 - Wow, New Zealand! I admit I was skepulous (skeptical and incredulous) about the merits of New Zealand and its revered geography up until my arrival. But not anymore. N-Zed has proven itself to me already as a natural paradise - a veritable heaven on earth. Fortunately I was rescued from my airport debaucle by my good buddy Wesley and his kind family, who was vacationing the islands by rental car during their holiday. They so graciously carted me around for 6 days, showing me some of the highlights of the southern tip of the southern island. We tramped (that's Kiwi-speak for hiked) through the Fjordland National Park for three days, putting in 13 horizontal miles and nearly two vertical miles the very first day. In total we chugged about a marathon worth of distance in the alpine and sub-alpine glory that is the glacier-carved wilderness of the south island. Beauty abounds here. And so I will attach a few photos below to prove it, in case you are as skepulous as I was.
up in the hills!
Wes, Anna and family left me a couple days ago and so I have been all on my lonesome. But I have seen some amazing sights on my own already. I have rented a car and am cruising the island solo, sleeping behind the wheel (at night) to save on accomodation. Driving on the left side of the road has nearly caused me some problems but I think I am nearly accustomed to it by now.
January 3, 2008 - I arrived in Auckland, New Zealand today after 1..2..3..? full days of brain-numbing and wristwatch- confusing travel. I will be here in New Zealand for the next several weeks. Check back soon for updates both here and in the writing section.
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