A good night mooning

Has anyone ever been to Newcastle? The Newcastle in New South Wales, north of Sydney? Well, besides on just one occasion many shady moons ago on a night when fiasco's seem to happen, I hadn't been there. This was my first wonderful experience in Newcastle, so pleasant in fact that Glenn and I made excitable plans to move here when it was time leave America. Note that since than we have decided to move elsewhere, at no fault to Newcastle. One of those days when the sun is shining hard and bright and quiet frankly, life is good.

Newcastle is a port town, a place of industry, where you look out to sea and as far as your eye can make out there are massive cargo ships waiting there for hours and days to lug themselves to shore. When you look to towards the west, the horizon is dotted with a world of coal. It's the working man's town, a proud community you could say.

After no food the night before, food has become the hour of power. Going from extremes such as overpriced, flavorless lettuce, to, how the fuck are we ever going to decide, we opted to cross the road to a little ray of light shining on the ever so tasty and local health food store.

Know this: you will rarely visit a cafe in most of Australia and not have the option of Turkish or Lebanese bread. I'm beyond baffled most of the time when I enter a cafe in America and I only see bread that I don't want to eat. It's mighty fine bread most of the time, don't get me wrong, it's just that Turk and Leb are outstanding.

I guess I'm just going to have a crack it myself. I'm not a baker my any means, patience is stuck in the oven on high and is burning into crunchy parts. You will hear about it though, just for shits and giggles.

When you're wandering and climbing the streets in Newcastle there is a constant changing contrast with what you'll see down the next one. Unfortunately, like almost every piece of land on the east coast of Australia, vacant or not, there are various groups of hellish fat cats, developers I think is their name, that seem to be tearing down places of character and erecting eye sores in place their place. My point being, Newcastle is no exception. The alluring houses and buildings that are still standing instantly take me back to a place that I never existed in.

 

Little terrace houses that get you picturing round, sweaty mamma's baking and beating down floury bread and making buttery, family sized meat pies.

It just so happened that a splendid fellow whom is courting my dear aunt Karen, was visiting his parents in the area, and offered to take us on a little mini tour of his childhood town. Thanks Neil. So after climbing to what had to surely be the highest point in the greater Newcastle area, we met him down the road for a little show and tell.

After playing silly buggers with a lost shopping trolley we all found our way to the ocean. Thanks to the thousands of convicts that were dropped ashore more than 200 years ago, the walk out to the light house and beyond is a pretty good one. Thanks fellas.

 

After a little more driving, stop, get out, take a photo, get back in, drive again, Neil dropped us off at our ugly van and we followed him out of town toward Lake Macquarie for the night. One of those massive lakes where there are entire townships dotted all the way around with perfect sunsets that cause embarrassing oohs and aaahhs every 20 seconds when the color changes slightly.

As the sun slowly set in the sky, my blood sugar levels and sanity were fading with it. As tears of hunger started to roll down my face we desperately searched for edible food. Cooking was not happening tonight. After driving 15 minutes down the road and deciding it felt to much like a haven for serial killers, we headed back to the spot Neil originally showed us. We also found Indian food. In the midst of stores housing fashion from past decades and restaurants seating people struggling to keep their eyes open, there she was. One massive tandoori oven eating his master alive.

 The only very wrong thing about camping out in a van on a quiet, but a main road at that, with locals going for evening strolls and late night drivers pulling in near for snuggles by the water, is that you end up looking like a kangaroo in a head light with your pants around your ankles when you need to go to the toilet. I'm usually quiet happy to drop my dacks if I need a toilet when there isn't one, but mooning strolling families is not one of my highlights.