Orphan in a Strange Land

The last time I bought a car, or built out the back of it, my dad was there to help me. And his table saw, and his tape measure, and his chop saw, and his power drill. 

Aside from the fact that my parents support me day in and day out, no matter where in the world I am, I never consciously recognized how privileged I was in regards to the resources I had at my disposal.

This time around I’m 11,000 miles away from my dad, and his workshop, and he happens to have skipped town to spend the better part of December rafting the Grand Canyon (read: out of service). I’m on my own.

Lucy herself is a solid, well-respected car with a reputation for loyalty, sold to me by solid people. Unfortunately, Loosey Lucy’s journey from humble Eildon work wagon to the second adventuremobile of my life turned into a bit of a saga right about when we thought all was pretty much said and done (aside from, ya know, putting signatures on the same piece of paper from different countries).

And so, hence forth I present to you two weeks in the Chronicles of Gavrila’s Somewhat Nonsencically Complicated Automobile Life:

•    Return from program to a flat tire. Because folks in Melbourne suburbs apparently don’t know how to put on a new tire without a leaky pin.

Grab the spare.

•    Monday, 28/11: Drop Lucy at the mechanic to complete her Roadworthy Certificate. And fix her tire. Said mechanic gives back a rattly, lurchy car, tells me a sensor broke sometime during the day, and it will cost $100 to replace. Also there isn’t one available in the area. (Also: Seriously, man? You break it, you buy it.)

•    Tuesday, 29/11: Return Lucy to the mechanic. Collect her three days later after program, with complete Roadworthy, and drive happily back to town.

•    Friday, 2/12: Attempt to ditch Lucy’s back seats at a coworker’s house for the summer. “Free couch! Just please don’t christen it…” 

Car doesn’t start. Realize I left the lights on. …oops.

•    Saturday, 3/12: Borrow jumper cables. Jump the car. Take her for a spin to juice the battery. Start smelling something weird. Noticed the engine thermometer skyrocketing. EMERGENCY LANDING NOW.

Radiator fluid is empty. (Uh…. isn’t this something a mechanic would, ya know, notice in three days of work, and maybe make a point of telling me???) Fill radiator with water. Pray a little bit. Sit and twiddle my thumbs a bit longer. 

Get Lucy’s seats to Connor’s house. Drive my ass home. Really, really slow. Hardware store and gas station are both closed. Awesome.

•    4/12: Buy coolant ASAP. 

•    5/12: Lucy is dead again. Re-jump. Thank god for car-minded roommates with cables.

Buy cables. Like nowza. Also buy plywood. And recruit good-hearted carpenter with a table saw to build a bed. Because, you know, adventuremobile 2.0.

•    10/12: Make curtains. Lay down a rug. Insert mattress.

•    11/12: Sign the stuff. ALL the stuff. Give Australian government more money.

• 12/12: Drive Lucy onto a huge-ass Boat. Wave Goodbye to Melbourne. Life is Good.

To say that I would have been in a lurch preparing for the summer without help would be an understatement to the point of insult: if the last two weeks have exemplified nothing else, it’s the power of good people.

I know I’m a bit of an introvert, and that I tend to spend a day or two hiding from the world after getting off five days of kids and teachers 24/7. Ergo, I don’t always see tons of folks on my weekends, no matter how awesome everyone around me happens to be. And I as much as massive thank you lists are a bit overused, there’s something to be said for what can be accomplished when a little effort and a whole lot of goodwill come together. So here’s a shout out to everyone, whether you’ll see this or not, who chipped a hand, or simply a hug, to help out in the last two weeks, in semi-chronological order:

• Jared, who helped me change my spare.

• Ben, who gave me a ride back from dropping my car off. Again. And then jumped my car. The first time.

• Sergio, who gave me a lift to pick up my car when we were all dead tired after program.

• Jamie, who helped brainstorm Adventuremobile 2.0’s storage setup. And contributed a tape measure.

• Jeremy, for the jumper cable lend.

• The random Eildon stranger who almost scalded himself on my overheated car, then poured the last of his water into my radiator.

• Ben (the other one), for jumping my car for the second time it putzed out. 

• Chris, who gave me two hours of his time away from a sick kid to get my bed built. 

• Whip, who knowingly and unknowingly contributed tools to take out my back seats and finish off my bed.

• Dave, who totally gave into my puppy dog eyes when I was sick and tired of cutting things. And contributed a rubber mallet. And storage containers.

• Keith, who helped get Lucy’s back seats out. And contributed heaps of food storage containers.

• Sasha. Your rug is dope. And now it’s my bed.

• Watson and Jo, who sold me a solid car and worked with me for months while we were all out of town and on program at different times to make things all—finally—come together.

And my dad, who's always been there for me, rooting me on from the other side of the world, whose support and guidance through the process last time let me fumble my way through on my own this time. 

Oh, the places you'll go. 

Summer Snow

Last week, I experienced snow for the third time since leaving home.

Last week, one of my girls experienced snow for the first time in her life.

The alpine is fickle here: fed by a tempermental, unpredictable clash of systems, weather can change on a dime no matter what time of year. Those days of looking at a Mt. Hood forecast for five days’ sun and leaving behind the tent fly? Yeah, that’s not gonna fly here. (No pun intended.)

I first visit the alpine in September, skipping town with my Kiwi housemate for a few days during school break. In our back yard as the crow flies, Alpine National Park takes several hours to reach from Eildon by car.

Our road chosen path twists six hours over ghostlike ridges, blanketed in gums’ burnt skeletons rising over a decade’s new dense green growth. Shade-dappled roads change color almost by the minute depending on mineral content: from red, to white, to purple, to brown, to gray. The trip proves a basic lesson in four wheel driving, with Grace in the instructor’s seat: really, aside from the wheels and the dirt underfoot, it all somehow comes down to the basics of ski racing.

The track into Crosscut rises gently through sodden bogs into remnants of winter snow fields, through snow gum forests filled with twisted limbs and trunks, bark spattered and sprayed in strips of color. We emerge from the trees to high, grassy heathland, surrounded by sheer, sweeping ridges and spurs, the highest capped and dusted with snow in the distance. Everything fades to blue: layer upon layer upon layer of blue. Crosscut shoots out in front of us as a jagged spur rising in pride from the surrounding world as we arrive at to the top of Mt. Howitt, just in time for the sun to hit the horizon.

The sun sets and fog rolls in. When I turn around from brushing my teeth, our tent has all but disappeared. After winds batter our cozy tent hard enough through the night they actually manage to roll me over in my sleep, we wake to a whiteout and half an inch of snow on the ground.

Because, ya know, the second week of September in Australia doesn’t exactly constitute late summer.

We proceed to hike Crosscut through snow and rain and fog to Mt. Buggery, before turning back in lieu of continuing through Horrible Gab, and as we head back out to the car fog clears to reveal a pure white winter wonderland.

__________

My second alpine experience takes me to a place called Lake Mountain with a group of teenagers accompanied by all the usual antics: one group of boys gets a classic lesson in natural consequences after they arrive at camp and realize they managed to pack their tent back into the trailer instead of into their packs. Whelp, I guess y’all are tarping it tonight. Good luck finding a dry spot away from trees in the foggy, murky bog.

Because the alpine here is a bit different than at home, where rainfall and snowmelt simply run off the hill into streams and rivers, as you would expect a proper mountain to behave. Here in the Aussie Alpine, rolling hills and heathland simply catch rainfall and melting snow, creating boggy, ankle-deep mazes as the water table rises and oversaturates the land for miles in every direction.

We hike through towering ghost forests of Mountain Ash to sweeping vistas of the alpine, still overwrought with desolation from that firestorm ten years or so ago commonly known as Black Saturday. We bust our butts off ridges as the wind picks up, trees clattering and clashing above our heads.

__________

My last program of the season takes me back to the alpine one last time, to a region Falls Creek stepped in history and scattered with huts formerly used by cattlemen to weather storms. We camp our first night by a glassy lake, cooking amongst gneiss boulders split by winter ice, worn to smooth orbs and stacked atop each other my wind and rain.

My self-catering girls arrive with deli sack filled with meat patties, which they proceed to carry in and fry on trangia pans for their first evening’s dinner. Through the next three days, sacks of potatos, whole cauliflour, iceberg lettuce, corn on the cob, salami, cucumbers and tomatoes all emerge from their packs by the armful.

”So, why do you think your packs were so heavy?”
"...The stuff we put in it.”

‘Nough said.

Wildflowers light the slopes in blazes of purple and yellow as we pick our way around the lake to our second night’s rest, as the girls learn to pick their way through bogs (Two Towers, anyone?) and discover the most direct route isn’t always the fastest.

Driving rain and winds arrive the next day, and we fight from being blown off our path as we work toward the refuge of stout little Langford hut. After addressing a door blown off its top hinges with bit of creativity and brute strength, we fit into the hut like tetras pieces for the night as wind howls down the heavy ancient woodstove, blowing rain horizontally across the room from where it’s caught on the unsealed doorframe.

We wake to snow showers as the storm clears, and I bask in the crisp bite of a clear November day. Except it’s high summer here, in theory, and I’ve also woken to a message form home announcing Portland’s yearly frigid, city-derailing ice storm.

Half way around the world, it all still somehow manages to feel like home.