Yes, my friends, they conquered the Great Ocean Road, leaving only the rape dust and some very, very bloody knuckles behind.

It a day like no other.

It was for the first time in recorded human history that two hardy blokes and six giggling sheilas challenged the fury of what is known in perilous land of Australia as THE GREAT OCEAN ROAD.

Now shockingly well known in the southern hemisphere (firstly for the introduction of the now highly demanded “granoler”), this rare species of super-humans consisted of those now know as the Comical Caitlin, the Carolinese Cameron and her trusty sidekick, The Nedulizer, the Wandering Walford, the Labradorian Laura Lee, the unrivaled brother-sister duo, The Ruthless Ruths, and myself, the always-way-over-dressed-for-the-weather Woda.

Yes, it is a rare day that beings such as these might convene, even for a second, on the same place on this raging planet. You are probably asking yourself this question right now… “ How the in the flipping blazes did they do it?”  It’s a question asked quite frequently, especially by humans like yourself, so don’t feel bad, you are not alone.

It all started a few thousand years ago when the oceans rose after the last Ice Age and began eroding the soft limestone of the southern Australia coastline. Fast-forward to the Holocene Epoch, and you will find The Wandering Walford’s interest of the current condition of this event being sparked by events that are still unclear.

After careful months of intense planning, it was on one fateful May night at 11:47 PM that 5 return trip tickets were booked on the one and only Wandering Windows, all of which was supervised by the house nun, Miss Clevel (though no amount of supervision, be it governmental or supernatural, can rival the forces of the feared JETSTAR *evil echoing laugh* By some miracle not yet fathomable by the human mind, there were no fatal damages in the process of the nerve-racking process of the booking.) By yet another valiant effort against the corrupted JETSTAR, *evil echoing laugh* the 6^th ticket booked solo by the Labradorean Laura Lee.

And so, the plan was set in motion.

Nothing

            could

                        stop

 them

 now.

It was on the one hundred and forty seventh day of the year two thousand ten (commonly known as May 28^th), the six most gallant American exchange students ever to grace the grounds of Newcastle City left their mighty fortress behind, each with only a small pack of only the most vital resources on their back and a confirmation number scrawled on the hand of the Wandering Walford.

It was 5:15 PM at Civic station when their ship departed. A sturdy two-story vessel that travels up to speeds of 70km/hr, the journey to what is known as the Mecca of all speeding vessels usually takes about 178 minutes.

 They did, however, encounter a problem along the way. There was an attempted attack on the voyager’s lives. Without warning, an odor so pungent that would make a grown man violently ill (good thing they were all women) began to fill the carriage. After about 15 minutes of intensely burning facial sinuses and by using altered forms of respiration, they escaped with their lives… they were going to see another day.

Finally after 4 grueling hours of travel, 2 bags of chips, 9 chocolate chip cookies, 1 nintendo DS, 2 squashed muffins, 1 terrifying ticket check, and 5 hemp bracelets later, they arrived at the TERMINAL. Upon entering they had to pass the test of the automated check-in. With a now nearly illegible combination of letters and numbers on the hand of the Wander Walford, she incredibly entered the passcode correctly, yielding six happy tickets to the six happy travelers.  

After success with the first of many challenges, the hopeful travelers boarded the mothership, and after seating themselves, began writing letters to their loved ones of the excessive amount of barf bags found in the seat pockets. Maybe they should have saved them…stay tuned to find out in the next episode of THE BLOODY KNUCKLE TRAVELLERS, PART II