Danger Doooooooooom!

This is Part Two of my thematic recap of my trip to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef.

I first hatched the idea of renting a campervan for the trip during my weekend in Forster in early December. Now, if you do the math, you'll (shockingly) find that there isn't much time in between early December and later December. Weeks, one might say. Combine this with the fact that late December is summer break for kids and many companies give employees the two weeks off during Christmas and New Year's (read: it's warm and everyone's on vacation), this is kind of high season to travel. So I initially found some difficulty in finding any company who still had campervans available. At first I was somewhat picky, but I was soon calling any company who had a phone number.

Enter Wicked Campers. I call, they (somehow) have some vans available, I book, and we're all set!

A week or two later, Jez is in town.

"So you got a van, hey?" (I'm of course paraphrasing here, and added the "hey" because it's one of my favorite Aussie expressions. The "hey" in this context can be compared to Fluff. It's completely extraneous and serves absolutely no conversational purpose -- just as Fluff serves no nutritional purpose -- but God dammit, it's fun.)

"Yup, I had some trouble at first but thankfully I found a company who still had some available!"

"It's not Wicked, is it??!?"

(Yes, he said it just like that. In italics. And with that, my heart sank.)

"Uhhhh, yeah, it actually is."

"HA HA HA HA HA HAAAAAAA!!"

(And yes, he said it just like that. In bold. And my heart sank further.)

"What's wrong with Wicked?"

"Oh, nothing, if you don't care about having a hideous paint job on your van and probably breaking down. Dude, it is the ultimate tourist van."

Faaaaaaaaaaaaantastic. Anyway, Jez probably noticed the dread that swept across my face and began to retract some of his statements, saying that it wouldn't bad, that we'd have a great time, but the damage was done. I was annoyed, and my day was ruined. (Wait, strike that. I recall that day being quite drunken and amusing.) And I was fearful for what I had signed John and myself up for.

Jump ahead a few weeks and John and I are in Brisbane, fresh (or not at all) off a 16-hour train ride from Sydney and breakfast with Adrian and Joe. We walk towards Wicked's location, and there it is: a parking lot full of ridiculously painted vans. You cannot miss it. Among the dozen or so parked out front, there's a van with a koala smoking a joint, a van with The Eagles on it and a van basically inferring that its inhabitants were drunk. ("Yes, let's joke about driving while wasted out of our minds! If people can do it in Texas without any ramifications -- or at least until they inevitably plow into a McPlayground -- then why not here!")

(And yes, that last DWI comment was directed towards a certain someone.)

Our van turns out to be named Danger Doom, which, compared to others, was (thankfully) on the tamer side. And I'd love to show you a picture of Danger Doom, but over the seven days that we spent with it, I somehow managed to not take even one frickin' picture of it. And this has me flabbergasted. How did I allow this to happen??!? It's absolutely unforgivable. So you'll just have to trust me when I say that it was basically a van with a picture of a cartoon mouse and a thought bubble with "Danger Doom" in it. What does that mean? I have no idea. But it could have been worse. A lot worse.

And off we went, driving down the left side of the road. But let's leave that discussion for next time.