DAY 52

On 43 days of cycling the boys have done over 3000 km. They have had 9 resting days where they have stayed up late exploring cities and small towns, or just stayed in beds. Mentally they are now halfway on their expedition “Adelaide to Darwin – half of Australia around”. In terms of kilometers they are probably a little less than halfway, but in terms of how they planned this trip being in Surfers Paradise for Christmas feels like
Perfect timing. A perfectly executed plan!

In November they started at the airport in Adelaide and they haven’t looked back since. They are done with South Australia, done with Victoria and today they were done with New South Wales. They crossed the border to Queensland today, their “home state” in Australia. The state they know the best, the state that used to be their playground.

The distance from Kingscliff to Surfers Paradise was short and easy. They even did an illegal kilometer at the highway to get to the turnoff they wanted. Earlier that morning a man came to chat with them as usual, but he was not a pensioner as most other curious people at caravan parks. He opened by saying “how is it going? (hvordan Går det?)” in Norwegian. Anders and Lasse looked at him and he repeated. It turned out the man has a Norwegian mother from Våler in Solør and that spent a summer holiday in Norway. A holiday that were supposed to last 3 weeks but lasted 2 months, the best summer of his life. Anders and Lasse had to laugh when he tried to mention the name of the local newspaper “Glaamdaalen”. A newspaper the boys knows well. So there they stood at 09:00 in the morning on the day before the Norwegians celebrate Christmas and chatted about the local newspaper in Australia. The world is small.

In 2011 they celebrated New Year’s Eve in Surfers Paradise and now they will try to celebrate Christmas the same place. The streets are the same and Anders remembers more about the street than he would have thought after 5 years. A girl, around 16, sings and plays guitar but have problems with her speaker and have to cancel a song four times. Anders donates 10 dollars before she packs her stuff. After all, it is Christmas. She was very happy with the donation.

Awesomestralia – a normal life is boring