Dingo Ate My Cookies!

In the first 21 years of my life, I never experienced the joy of camping. One day while hanging out with friends in Australia, the topic of camping came up. I mentioned that I had never been camping. None of my friends from Australia or from America believed me. I got my mom on Skype to ask her why we never had been camping. She exclaimed in her especially thick long island accent “Well… where would we shower?!!”

My camping virginity was taken when 5 friends and I traveled up the coast to Frasier Island in northern Queensland. There were no roads on the island so we had to rent a truck with 4 wheel drive to be able to cruise on the sand. Within the first 10 minutes of our arrival, our Land Rover got stuck on the narrow sand path. We got out to try and push our truck along when we spotted a gigantic tour bus magically making its way towards us from the opposite direction. We all gazed at this huge bus squeezing down the sand path and wondered what would happen next. The door of the bug busted open and a line of men jogged out with buckets of water running toward our truck which was blocking the sand road. They started speaking another language we could not understand and throwing the water on the ground near our car. Then they yelled at us to try to drive (in English) and we jumped in the truck and were on our way. We found out later that Frasier Island had been having a dry spell and if your truck gets stuck in the sand, you have to dampen the sand to drive. The path we were blocking was the one to the ferry and the tour bus was in a hurry to catch the last ferry. A similar scenario occurred 2 days later when we blew a tire out on the same road from all of our reckless driving. (5 of the 6 of us attempted to learn to drive stick shift for the first time on Frasier Island, and our truck took the abuse.) European men from a truck coming from the opposite direction jumped out and changed our tire without much explanation. If only AAA was that quick in New York when you need some roadside assistance!

European Men fixing our flat tire 

Narrow sand road 

 Frasier Island is known for its huge dingo population. There were signs posted all over the island warning people not to feed the dingoes. As Americans we all had famously heard legends how dingoes eat children, “Dingo ate my baby!!”  We were sure to be extra careful to dispose of food when we were finished. As the sun was setting we saw a pack of Dingoes trot past our beach campsite and they were terrifying. Later that night we sat around a fire roasting up some dinner, drinking goon (boxed wine), singing and having a blast. We heard some rustling over by our truck and started kidding that dingoes were coming to get us. A few of us went to go check it out because the noise continued. As we walked over we saw two dingoes in the back of our Land Rover! “AHHHHHH DINGOES ARE AFTER US!!!!” We screamed and thankfully scared the dingoes. They jumped out of our truck knocking the cookies they were eating to the ground. With all of our screaming we drew attention from other campers nearby and they came to see what was going on. We ended up talking and hanging out with our new camper friends and decided to invite them over to our camp fire. As we walked over to the fire, we spotted 2 dingoes by our fire eating our dinner! THEY WERE FOLLOWING US! We obviously were not doing a good job of keeping our food away from the dingoes. We had to drink enough “goon” to forget about the dingoes and fall asleep. We woke up to an amazing sunrise on the beach and were extra careful to lock the car and eat all of our food before going anywhere.

Our Campsite where the Dingoes jumped in our truck

The bumpy terrain on the beach made for a wild ride

My first camping trip was defiantly one to remember. I’ve only been camping two more times since then: once with an ex-boyfriend in Virginia, where it was sweltering by day and thunder storming by night; and in Munich, Germany. It was the only available place to stay during Oktoberfest and was the worst 3 nights of my life. I still want to continue on with my camping experiences. If anyone needs a camping buddy, let me know!!

Fraser Island sunrise 

A plane landed right in front of us while driving on the beach

When Packing, Less is Always More

I thought I was leaving so much behind when I left for Australia with 2 fifty pound suitcases, an oversized duffle bag and a back pack. And I packed for a warm climate. I thought I was packing consciously by only taking 2 of my 30 plus pairs of jeans. During my trip I probably wore a quarter of what I had brought and accumulated much more. My luggage haunted me from the moment I left JFK until I walked back in my front door 5 and a half months later.

As I unpacked my heaping amounts of crap into my new room, my two flat mates stood in my doorway with confused looks asking “Does all this belong to you?” “Yes!” I replied with a smile as I held up my favorite bathing suit that hadn’t fit me in over 5 years. I have this belief that when I go on a trip, I will magically loose 20 pounds and look fabulous. Just in case this does happen I want to be prepared with flattering clothing! Well, this is dumb. Pack your favorite clothing at your current size that you feel most comfortable in, because that’s what you’ll end up wearing. The other clothes that you think you might wear, will end up being extra stress that you will have to lug around. If anything, pack a couple things for if you decide to eat an extra piece of cheesecake for dessert! If you do miraculously transform into Adriana Lima’s body during your travels, you owe it to yourself to buy a sweet new outfit.

The happiest, most free I felt during my whole time on the other side of the world was during a trip I took to Frasier Island for my first camping adventure ever. There were 6 of us cramming into a small sedan to get there, so we were limited to one backpack per person for the whole weekend.  For not being much of a girly girl and spending most of my time dressed in what the Aussies described as “gym attire”, I don’t know why I feel the compulsion to always over pack. I did what I had to do and brought my one backpack with only the bare essentials. It was amazing. I didn’t have to worry who was going to help me carry my giant suitcases or how I was going to dig through all my clothes to find something that fits. All I had to worry about was the fun I was having that moment and well, the Dingos that got into our cookies; but that’s a whole other story. With all the room we saved by packing consciously, we had room for more goon (boxed wine). This led to more laughs around the campfire and a weekend camping on the beach that we will never forget.

While my friends were packing to leave Australia, I was procrastinating as usual. The night before we left Australia for New Zealand I missed the last outing with friends because I had to pack. I got caught up saying goodbye to a good friend of mine and in true Aussie style ended up staying out until 6am. We had to leave for the airport at 7am. When I got into my flat as the sun was coming up, I was still in procrastination mode. I started taking the pictures off my wall one by one and called my responsible friend Christy to help me get it together. She came by and we tornado style packed up my life and raced to the airport. As I half drunkenly attempted to check in my bags, I was informed that they were very overweight. The lady behind the desk began to explain how much I would be charged for every pound I was over, and my eyes began to swell up. My Aussie friend James came to rescue quickly lecturing me how he always accompanies his American friends to the airport for this reason. He commanded me to start putting on the clothes from my suitcase. “What?!” I slurringly sobbed. James started to help layer shirts on top of my already fashionable sundress and sneaker outfit. The woman behind the counter was stunned by this circus act and just told me to go get on the plane. When packing, less things equals less stress. And when packing in a calm, unrushed manor, one will eliminate stress and chaos.

When I finally made it back home I went on a cleaning rampage. I got rid of clothes and junk by the basket full everyday. The more I got rid of, the less I had to worry about. The less I had to worry about, the more time I had to spend on my life and the people in it, not on the things. The longer I was home, the more I started to forget about all the things I learned in Australia and began to revert back to my old ways collecting crap. Two years later I was lying on my back on a Munich train station platform, alone. I had toppled over trying to pick up my over sized backpack and other side bags. As some bystanders rushed over to see if I was OK, I laughed and said “Maybe this time I’ll learn”.

July 2009 Leaving for Australia 

September 2011 Leaving for Europe