Monthly Challenge

With My Parents Through Australia

Nobody believed this trip would ever happen.

Since I came to Australia in 2006, my parents and I had dreamed about how nice it would be if they visited me here and got to experience this beautiful land. The dream got even stronger when I bought my farm in 2009. But we knew that this was only a dream, an impossible dream. My parents live in Poland. They are both retired and on a pension; they never had much money. The flights from Poland to Australia cost a fortune, so they would never be able to afford it, and I couldn’t sponsor their trip either. Additionally, the flight from Europe to Australia is really long, and my dad was… “getting older”. Doctors said he wouldn’t survive such a trip.

Though everything seemed against us and the trip was never going to happen, we kept dreaming. In the end, dreams are free, they don’t harm anybody, and they might come true.

In March 2019, three months before my dad’s 80th birthday, my parents and their travel companion (much younger than them) landed at the Brisbane airport. It was 11 pm when I picked them up. To my surprise, my dad seemed reasonably fit after the long flight. In fact, my dad was the most relaxed and energized of all of us. As my mum told me later, he slept through the entire flight!

The first night we stayed in Brisbane. Then we went for a few days to the Gold Coast and visited the magnificent beaches and the rain forest in the Gold Coast Hinterland before we arrived at my farm. We had a marvellous time and great adventures from the moment I saw my parents at the airport, but in this article, I would like to share a particular trip we took. It was a ten days road trip from Brisbane to Sydney and back.

Since I can remember, my mum has wished to visit the opera house in Sydney, and both my parents wanted to experience a taste of the Outback, the unique-looking mountains, the rainforest, and of course the famous golden beaches. And therefore, I thought this drive would give them a taste of most of what Australia has to offer.

We should leave Saturday early morning, but… I wanted to finish something for work, so it was already after 1 pm when we packed my 14-year-old Jeep, and five adults (plus my Big Ted) got into the car. I was grateful I was the driver because I really wouldn’t like to travel in the back seat of this crowded vehicle — lol. While we left home, it was pouring rain (yep, perfect timing for rain, especially taking into account that we had had no rain for at least three months; at that time, we had a severe drought). But already a few kilometres down the road, the clouds disappeared, and the sun came out.

Our first stop was Texas, a small town in South East Queensland. Everyone jumped out of the car, went for walks on the soft and muddy ground and took plenty of photos. All good, except you don’t want to know how my car looked inside. My Jeepy might be old, but it was in good condition and clean; well, it was before we left for the trip.

We continued driving on narrow winding roads through some tiny towns — Bonshaw, Ashford, Wallangra until we came back to the highway, and through Gravesend, we finally made it to Moree. After the earlier rain, some roads were still flooded, so we drove through deep water a few times, which occasionally came over the windscreen, and it felt as if we were driving underwater. It was a new fun adventure for my parents, and they loved it.

We planned to get to Narrabri and stay there overnight, but the trip didn’t go to plan, especially because NSW was an hour ahead of QLD (NSW has daylight saving and QLD doesn’t, so we have “different time zones”), and therefore we decided to stay in Moree. We found a caravan park and booked two cabins there. It was a lovely caravan park with thermal pools, which I enjoyed the next day.

The following day, after getting some groceries in the local shops, we went to Mount Kaputar National Park. My parents loved the 4x4 adventure. They said it was an experience they had never had before, and they didn’t even dream they would ever experience something so exciting. “I haven’t even dreamed that I would still experience something like this in my life”, — said dad in a joyful yet slightly thoughtful voice. And then his enthusiasm rose again, and in a very excited voice, as if he was a young man in his thirties, he continued, “Urszulko, next time when we come to Australia, we will come here again, and we will explore it in more details, not in such a rush. What do you think?” There was a silence in the car (…)

My mum loved the place too. She dreamed of being able to come there again, but at the same time, she was quite worried and concerned. She didn’t want to disappoint dad, who seemed to completely forget about his age, about the limitation of his body, unfortunately, struck by some illnesses, about the long journey from Poland to Australia, not to mention the very high costs. She didn’t want to disappoint him; she didn’t want to take his joy of life away from him, but at the same time, she was realistic; she knew that the chances they would ever come here again were almost zero, and therefore she didn’t want to promise dad anything. She saw the sad reality of life.

“Oh, dad, of course, mum wants it as much as you do, and we will come here again. Mum is just distracted by admiring the views and anyway, at the back of the car she can’t hear you well, it’s why she didn’t reply,” — I said to dad, trying to get mum out of the awkward situation and said to mum “Mum, you love the place here, don’t you? You would love to come here again, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, of course, I would”, — replied mum smiling. I think she realised what I tried to do, and she agreed that it was for the best to let dad dream and have a wonderful time, even if it was the first and the last time they were there.

It was encouraging and inspiring to see how much enthusiasm and will to live dad still had. He behaved as if he was a young man with all his life ahead of him, unlike someone in the autumn of his life. This showed me that the enthusiasm and joy of life don’t depend on our age, but it is something inside of us; it is our spirit, thoughts and mindset.

After many more adventures and plenty of laughter that night, we stayed in Gilgandra, and the following day we drove to the Blue Mountains. During the drive, a storm was approaching, making the scenery and majestic mountains look splendid. My dad is also a passionate photographer, so we stopped again and again to take more photos of the glorious surroundings.

We never booked anything in advance, and as a result, we had some trouble finding accommodation, but usually, we were lucky to find a great place to stay, like the house in Katoomba, which was only available because the guests who should arrive there postponed their arrival by two days.

My parents’ travel companion was very different from us. They would prefer to book everything in advance and just stay for longer in one place to… avoid all the stress and movement. They were getting tired and needed a break. My parents and I didn’t see any stress in the constant moving and uncertainty regarding finding a place to sleep; this was a great adventure! Though we were so different, we somehow made the trip work. The stay in the Blue Mountains worked well for both of us. My parents and I went on endless walks while our friends stayed in the accommodation and relaxed.

From the Blue Mountains, we drove to Sydney and stayed in Manly for a couple of nights. Finally, my mum could see the Opera House in person and have a photo in front of it.

While I write this and look at the photos of my parents, I have a smile on my face. Almost half a century has passed since my parents fell in love with each other, and they never fell out of love. They’ve faced a lot of adversities and hardship, yet every difficulty just brought them closer together. After all these years they are deeply in love with each other, they laugh most of the time and every holiday is a honeymoon for them. That’s a life lived well.

We continued driving along the coast through Forsters, Nambucca Heads, and then inland through Guyra and plenty of other tiny towns until we made it back home. This article would be much too long if I tried to describe all our adventures.

Nonetheless, the entire trip was documented through letters to John, who couldn’t come with us and whom I missed dearly. I wrote over a hundred pages, and I will publish them one day. For now, here are a few more photos from our trip.

We never know what life has planned for us, but we can always dream. Even the most impossible dream can come true if we truly believe in them.

And in respect to my dad and his health. He is 83 today, still fit working in the garden together with my mum, and they both love it. The trip to Australia actually improved his health — his blood pressure returned to normal, and he doesn’t need to take any drugs to reduce blood pressure.

Maybe my parents will visit me here again, and maybe we will travel again but definitely not in my old Jeepy. For him, it was his last trip. A day after we arrived home, George wanted to help me prepare my Jeepy for my trip to the city. He opened the bonnet and…, “Have you seen the coolant in your car?” he asked me. “No, what’s wrong?” I asked him, and after having a glimpse, I answered my own question, “Oh, it’s black… I think Jeepy is dead…”. “You are so lucky! The car could have broken down on your trip, but you managed to get home! I just can’t believe how lucky you are!” said George. Well, I know, I’m very lucky — that’s my name, Lucky, Lucky Janin ; )

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