Your Opinion Is Wrong™

I'm back.

I'm alive.

I hope you realise what this means for my blog, what I'm going to post about, and you. One of the poor people who READ my blog.

It all started on Sunday, when we left. (Are you still with me?) We decide to drive because we like to enjoy the scenery to be gawked at along the Sturt Highway. (especially along the Hay region) This included shrubs, bushes which looked like large shrubs, grass which looked shrub-like, wire fences, and the horizon. But there's so much more than that, I'm told. I especially like it when it's all whizzing past at over 140km/h.

OK, well, we didn't go along that route on the way there. Instead, we went a little further south, through Victoria. As they say, 'You'll Love Every Piece Of Victoria! (especially the drivers!)

We did it in two days, which meant stopping over at a place called Cobram.

It was such a dismal little town. Pretty much every house was made of corrugated iron. Or pieces of old fridges. They had a dilapidated tennis court with a healthy assortment of weeds and mutant fungi taking advantage of the number of cracks on its surface. And I think I saw a 'WHITES ONLY' sign in front of it as we drove past. And I don't think it was shoe soles they were concerned with. Besides, the locals didn't seem to care much for footwear in general. The court had a high fence with barbed wire all around it. (presumably to keep certain folk out)

We found a motel which looked quite classy. Nice red brick everywhere. Fancy curtains adorning the windows. Possibly to taunt the locals. It looked like the whole place was built in Homebush or Double Bay, then air-lifted over to Cobram. Mum walked into the office to find out how much it was a night. When she walked out, we discovered why every room was apparently vacant.

140 bucks a night is all fine and dandy, but maybe we'll just keep moving, yes? I mean, those curtains were very lovely, but...y'know...

So we settled for another place, which had the 'rustic' charm of the rest of the town. The guy running the place said he'd let us stay there for free, as long as we didn't steal the carpet.

After a very enjoyable stay there (all I caught were fleas, thankfully), we headed into South Australia. Some distance away from a town called Swan Hill, I helped Stephanie steal a post from the side of the road, with the letters 'SH - 86'. The sign was actually supposed to tell drivers that Swan Hill is 86 kliks away, but SH happen to be her initials, and 86 was when she was born.

She justified it by saying that there was a sign for 85kms and 87, so it wasn't like anyone would be inconvenienced by our little stunt. But I can easily see a guy parked on the side of the road in that very spot yelling to his family 'I am NOT going any further until I know how far Swan Hill is!!!

The fruit inspection was fun. For those of you who never drive to SA (you lucky bastards), they have a quarantine thingy. So in case they decided to snoop around for any fruit, we decided to hide the sign. You see, I told the other two that I could see the inspector looking over our car quickly, going over the speech for the thousandth time that week, then coming across our stolen artefact:

'OK, I'm gonna need to see if you guys have any fruit. That INCLUDES oranges and - AND!!! - Mandarins, watermelons, paw-paw, kiwi-fruit. Bananas. Nectarins. Mangoes. And tomatoes, I think - oh, crap, I forgot, are tomatoes a fruit? OK, yeah, anyway, looks all clear...WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?'

So we covered it up with something.

Unfortunately, the inspections are actually quite a joke. We rolled to a stop outside the building, which seemed to have been recently bombarded with tomatoes from a passing motorist.

'Do you have any fruits or vegetables in the car at all?'

'No'

'OK'

Gotta love the honour system.

Can't remember anything exciting about staying at Murray Bridge. On the way home, we went back via Hay, all in one day. Huzzah. But unlike the dull assortment of browns and greys we see in the plant life across the plains there, we actually saw something interesting. It was actually green. Not your Lush-Rolling-Hills-In-New-Zealand green, but still greener than, say, brown.

That's all I can think of right now. If I ever decide to write more about the stay at Murray Bridge, or the drive back, trust me: You'll be the first to know.