Shu Shu Shu Sugar Town
^ unknown.
Yesterday my mum's boyfriend Jeff and I drove to the land of Queens, and today we drove back, and in between I got to meet Sophie!
My mum told me earlier in the week that Jeff was driving to Brisbane for a day to pick up some speakers, and as a bit of a joke I asked if I could come with him and stop off in the Gold Coast for an hour so I could see a friend. I had to go to Dungog on Wednesday anyway, and when I got there he was like "So, what time should we leave tomorrow?" and I was like "Seriously?" and off we went at 8am.
The trip was pretty exhausting. I was the passenger, so really I shouldn't be complaining, buuuuut... We drove about 12 hours yesterday and 12 hours today, so in the space of 48 hours, half of that was spent driving! There were some amazing coastal views and as we were driving through sugar cane country we passed a sugar refinery and there was a dilapidated closed down shop across the road that said "Sugar Town Shop", so for the rest of the drive to the Gold Coast Jeff and I had Nancy Sinatra's 'Sugar Town' stuck in our heads. The first thing we did when we crossed the border into Queensland was do a u-turn at traffic lights (a NSW no-no). We were planning to stay the night with my aunt, but I ended up at Sophie's instead.
This is Sophie:
As I recall, the lovely Miss Sophie and I met on Myspace about four years ago, and now we talk just about every day, so needless to say I was feeling pretty nervous (and very excited) about meeting her. Sophie said that as they were waiting, Adam, her boyfriend, pointed out old men and joked that "maybe that's Bianca", which I thought was pretty funny. Meeting people off the internet is a concept I still find very fascinating and strange, though two of my closest friends are people that I met through the www. It reminded me of an episode of Kath and Kim wherein Sharon thinks she is engaged after she replies to a spam email, lol.
Anyhow, Sophie and I found each other in a huge mall complex and wandered around talking and browsing things we couldn't afford, drank THE MOST DELICIOUS DRINKS IN THE WHOLE WORLD at Max Brenner's chocolate shop (the slogan is "chocolate by the bald man" and the logo is a bald man's head) and later went back to her place where Adam made us dinner and I met her gorgeous pet rat Lucy (she has tiny little human hands!), then we lounged on the couch watched Black Books and Sophie fell asleep and I tickled her feet. Then at 6am this morning I had to go! Sophie said she felt bad that we didn't 'do much' but I had such a lovely time - it was short but sweet and definitely worth the trip :) I was so nervous preceding meeting her, but as soon as we said hello I felt like I'd known her for years (which I have technically). I wish very much that there wasn't such a huge distance between us! She said they might visit us here in February, so fingers crossed :) It still puzzles me that I woke up at her house this morning and now I'm back in Newcastle.
It would have been lovely to stay in QLD longer, and had I organised it better I could have caught a train home after the weekend for about $50, but it was all lovely nonetheless. Though I didn't get to find any awesome Queensland postcards unfortunately or take any photos!
Jeff and I stopped this afternoon at a banana stall just out of Coffs Harbour and Jeff bought a huge hand of bananas (a massive heavy branch cut off a tree) that had about 30 bright green bananas in it for $10. If I didn't have to catch the train home (I'm writing this on the train at the moment) I would have brought C home a nice big hand of them home with me.
Here are some interesting place names I saw along the way (I wrote them all down on the back of an envelope, in between two-minute naps):
♡ Belimbopinni
♡ Clybucca
♡ Barraganayatti
♡ Yarrahapinni
♡ Hungry Head
♡ Nana Glen
♡ Man Arm Creek
♡ Whia Whia
♡ Mooball
♡ The Pocket
♡ Broom's Head
♡ Bom Bom
♡ Dirty Creek
♡ Wooli
♡ Bogangar
♡ Bundjalung
♡ Dead Man's Gully
♡ Dead Man's Creek
♡ Cow Creek
♡ Coolongolook
♡ Wooton
♡ Yuraygir
We left at 6am this morning (QLD time) and got back at 5pm (NSW time). Then I went back to my parents house, hung out with my little sister and her friend, then they walked me to the station.
I've been the only person on the train for an hour and just a moment ago about 20 people got on, yelling profanities and carrying 6-packs of Bundaberg Rum, ready for their Friday nights at The Brewery and Fanny's (trashy Newcastle clubs). I keep clutching onto my Macbook extra tight (I have dreams every night that it gets stolen, or I break or lose it, and I'm extremely overprotective of it).
Tomorrow C and I are going to watch the W-league Jet's soccer game and then catch a train to Sydney for our friend Tara's birthday, and then we're in Sydney until C's exam on Monday then coming back! I'm exhausteddddd.
Ps. I arrived home to some lovely postcards (one was interestingly banana themed) and an always delightful letter from the illustrious letter writing Missive Maven, with a beautifully decorated envelope and amazing stamps. And after I opened it up and read the enclosed letter, I found all of these tiny little paper bats everywhere!;
Also, the Letter Writer's Alliance blogged these recently; they are the bags of my dreaaaaaaams! (link)
There's a beautiful cool breeze blowing through the window at the moment. I begrudge this warm conventionally 'good' weather, but sometimes it is pretty hard not to love it. I am going to have a massive restful sleep! Have a lovely weekend!
