Happiness is a journey, not a destination

Blinking in the light of a bed side lamp, I opened my eyes and struggled to focus on the ceiling.

The bed felt wrong. Too... soft.

I rolled over to see light streaming in through a window. But it wasn't my window. The sun doesn't shine that brightly in Southend.

Then i noticed the body in the bed next to me, and it all came flooding back.

This wasn't a dream. I was actually here. I'd actually just woken up in a b&b in MacKay, Austrailia.

The person in bed next to me was my Sophie- my girlfriend who I hadn't seen for 6 months.

Blimey.

Breakfasting was fresh fruit and home made yoghurt, and to my shame, I struggled to name all the fruit on the plate in front of me. But it didn't matter - it all tasted amazing. Genuinely fresh tropical fruit!

After getting my barings, we took a grayhound bus to Airlie Beach to pick up a campervan for 3 weeks of roadtripping around North Queensland. The bus was a depressing place! Full of people who were making the journey from Brisbane 600 miles to the south to Airlie 90 miles north. Rather them than me!!

In Airlie, we wondered from tourist info to tourist info trying to find 'Wicked Campers'. After the 3rd try we were pointed towards a little office behind some roadworks, which is where we found Snoopy!

Behind all the grafiti and fancy art, Snoopy is essentially a crap nackered van with 6 pieces of MDF to make a bed and a small sink in the boot to make a kitchen.

But c'mon, look at him! How fun is that!!

The rest of the day was spent driving Snoop from hardware store to camping shop to supermarket to kit him out for 3 weeks of tropical summer! Mission accomplished, we cracked open a couple of tinnys, took this photo and headed back into Airlie Beach to the lagoon - an artificial outdoor swimming pool, but 'stinger' (jellyfish to you and me - more on that later) free.

That night wasn't great though, as after a day of running around from shop to shop, a stuffy coach and lounging around in the heat of the day - Sophie got heat exhaustion and spent a large portion of the night cuddling the new washing up bowl!

Oh - I nearly forgot. The title of today's blip is a slogan painted on to the back of the van!