Post

I should set the scene. I'm in the car beneath a bridge watching the last trace of light disappear over the horizon. I'm about 100KM from Dubbo, and seen as I have an 11AM appointment, I have far too much time up my sleeve. Tomorrow I'll be driving to Brewarrena (I have no doubt spelt that wrong). It should be a 3.5 hour drive, so tomorrow could be a big day for driving.

I couldn't help but think eating my dinner alone, that maybe this whole trip is in search of an dream that isn't really achievable. I have been sold on the experience of a 'round the world' trip. My inspiration was a DVD called Long Way Round. Naturally these documentaries are edited to portray a brilliant story, but skim over how potentially pointless a trip like this could be.
I'm just feeling a little worried that all of this effort may have been in vein. What if we hate it? So much hard work has gone into getting us this far, to loose or fail would be devastating.
So many people know about it that it would be too embarrassing to admit failure. Part of me suspects that the negative people out there would be happy to hear we have failed, and quick with an 'I told you so' but hopefully they are few and far between.

I want people to ask me, six months after the trip is done.... was it worth it? In retrospect, every time previous, the answer has been a definate YES. It would stand to reason that the result would be the same, but whilst in the middle of it, it makes me skeptical. If I look back on our Australia trip, it was terrific. Terrific peppered with low lows, fatigue and resentment for the 'outback'. The lows were always breif. Like the first night outside Wagga, the second night outside Mildura. The nights were probably the worst on that trip as the heat was relentless. Sleep eluded us which put a bad perspective on everything else. But the highs were immense. Waking up in some of the places we did were amazing. This probably also points to fatigue been a major component in our experience.

I'm a low low, and a high high kind of guy. I'm very quick to joy and equally quick to disappointment. Just today is an example. We went and purchased a 6mm eye-bolt to secure our folding table. From an excited and productive morning it quickly spiraled into anger and disappointment with a very sub-par result on my part. The eye-bolt I purchased was indeed 6mm, but it seems it needed to be 5mm. After getting the bolt jammed and needing to leave a big gaping hole were the receiving thread was, I was already annoyed. Now that this position was out of the question, I now had a hole in the brand new chopping board were there didn't need to be one. ugh. I can't explain it. I'm not sure if it was the combination of heat, sun, an audience or what, but I was furious!
I have in my head what the result should look like, and if it isn't anywhere near my expectation of what is possible, it is sad.

Up until about 10 minutes ago, I was hearing weird noises outside the car. Of course it's the old sensory deprivation problem whereby the absence of sight heightens your sound perception. I bet if someone knocked on the door right now I would loose it. I will probably upload this post in Dubbo tomorrow.

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