It seemed that nothing L or I did was going to get her pleased about the route and itinerary we had planned for the road. She wasn't happy with the hours spent wandering Raymond Island looking for koalas, until she'd seen enough to make both L and I over-tired and grumpy. She made the almost fatal error of disagreeing with L's pronouncement that the light was gone for photography. If there's one thing (other than Excel spreadsheets) that L can be counted an authority on, it's photography. Guest, with her small point-and-shoot camera that she needed to pull the lens out of by hand to take a photo, ought to have known better than to question the knowledge of the person who was clearly better equipped. When we declared that we were tired and hungry, we were declared to be 'boring'. I notice that we weren't so boring when we gave in to her demand that, since it was her birthday, she was claiming the big bed in a room on it's own while we were in bunks next door. To be honest, I think at least part of the reason for giving in was to escape from her for a few hours.
So there we were, the next day, apparently managing to get her back up again by selfishly refusing to veer across oncoming traffic on a blind corner so she could take a photograph of coastline that looked remarkably similar to what we looked at all day. Things improved a little once we got the part where we - rather, I, as the one who had travelled the coastline as a little tacker on family holidays - had decided stops could safely be made. But even there, having been told that we couldn't see her gesturing out her window, given that we were in a car travelling in front of her and all, she took the credit for "suggesting" various stops. But we gritted our teeth and soldiered on to Bateman's Bay. It was unfortunate that our hotel had also been chosen by several schoolies age kids, who were partying it up in a few rooms. It was equally unfortunate that I was angry enough from earlier events that the kids bore the brunt of it; Guest certainly wasn't prepared to do anything other than moan about the noise, and L wasn't ever going to act on any annoyance she felt. Fuelled by days of pent up frustration, I thumped on the door and put the fear of God - or worse, his mother - into a teenage boy, and frightened an older man hanging out with a few teenage girls into actually acting on his promise to call a taxi. I was figuring we'd need the sleep to maintain the calm the next day.
The last stretch of driving, between Bateman's Bay and Sydney, seemed to me to offer only a few good stopping points - the major one being a minor diversion to Jervis Bay. Before we set off from our hotel, I dutifully informed Guest of the plan, only to have her tell me that she was planning on stopping at any beauty spots on the way through, whether we did or not. Stuck in traffic almost the entire way, I couldn't help but enjoy the thought that the roads stayed stubbornly distant from the coast until the Jervis Bay turn off.
We managed to lose her going through the barriers into the national park, and, in spite of catching her at various points ('Why are you eating lunch in the car park? You should go for a walk and carry your lunch in with you.' 'We saw your car parked there and were waiting for you, we thought you might not have eaten.' 'Oh, shame. You must take a walk through there. I'm off to Cave Beach, see you there.') didn't see her again until New Year's Eve, when frantic texts all morning were more insistent that we be at the park I'd found out about by 9am.
To be honest, I was kind of dreading spending a day with her by that point. But L and I agreed that we would go - although it was 9:30 before we even got up, having "forgotten" to set our alarms - and wait it out. L established herself in a bunker and proceeded to roast in the 36 degree heat. I attempted to steal a little of the shade that Guest had herself borrowed from the neighbouring Irishmen, but kept being told to move myself further down as the shadows shifted throughout the day. Heaven forbid that she should have to shift herself to the other side of me and inconvenience herself in any way.
But still, Sydney does nothing well if not new years. The fireworks spectacular shook a by now very drunk guest lose from her boring friends, and we parted shortly after midnight. She hasn't been heard from directly since. There have been no thank yous for having put her up in my flat for a week, for having clothed her when she moaned about the cold, for feeding her (not just while she was in the flat either, but also supplying her with breakfast and lunch for the whole road trip). There was no acknowledgement of the planning that went into the trip, for finding our New Years spot, for L and I standing guard over our patch of ground while she and the others wandered down to the railing for the best possible view of the 9 o'clock fireworks. The only reason I know she made it home safely is because she posted on Facebook that she'd had a great night. I haven't posted a new status since; for all she knows, L and I ended up in the Harbour when passengers surged to get on the one and only ferry that arrived around 1:30am. Clearly, I am no longer of any use to her.
L and I made our way back to Melbourne over 2 days. They were largely peaceful days, once L managed to navigate us back to where we'd parked the car (it was at her brother's place; given the trouble she had getting us there in the first place, I should have known I'd need more specific directions from the concierge at the hotel to get us there). The early days of the new year were enough to wipe out the unpleasantness of the last days of the old year. Until I got home and found the wodge of ginger hair still stuck on the drain of my shower, the dusting of talcum over the floor, the screwed up mess of bedding in the spare room. And as it all came crashing back into my memory, I was able to take a deep breath and let it all go. Because no way in hell is she going to be crossing the threshold of any place I'm staying ever again. As if thank you was so hard to say.
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