Let’s have a whinge about travel, I feel like everyone loves sharing the good bits but hardly share the annoying bits. Let’s celebrate all elements of travel.
I’ll tell you 3 things that have been pissing me off the most on my most recent motorbike road trip (I rode my motorbike from Sydney to Cairns and back):
1) having an itchy ear underneath a helmet and not being able to scratch it without stopping, sometimes it feels like a bug is crawling around in my helmet.
2) this heat. I’m just not use to this warm weather. Last night the air conditioning in the hostel automatically switched off at 10pm and switched back on at 7am, probably to save power but it meant I slept fitfully waking up constantly in my own sweat. Heat + fitful sleep make me a not so happy camper.
3) bugs; them hitting my helmet at 110km/hour sometimes shocking me like a bullet would and leaving smears of gunk on my helmet visor. I find myself flinching at butterflies because they are really loud when you hit them, they never seem to get out the way quick enough and you see them before you hit them. Most bugs you don’t see until you hear them smash against your helmet. And bugs hitting exposed skin, I don’t have much exposed skin but I’ve been hit on my neck just under my helmet and when I’ve had my visor up for airflow I’ve been hit on the checks and forehead. It stings like a {insert appropriate swear word} and makes me flinch something fierce, I can even feel the stings under my jacket and thick riding jeans
So it’s not all sunshine and lolly pops like my previous posts would lead you to believe.
Here are my other annoyances on this trip (in no particular order of annoyance) :
4) highways that aren’t the most fun to ride that seem to stretch forever
5) a noisy helmet that feels like I’m causing damage to me ears (fixed with a scarf or earplugs but the earplugs contribute to the itchy ear and have contributed to a mild ear infection)
6) a glaring sun that gives me a headache by the end of the day (I left my prescription sunglasses at home, I got a cheap pair of sunnys from a pharmacist that I’m wearing over my normal glasses)
7) feeling like I have to constantly go to the toilet because of keeping my fluids up
8) Feeling a little socially isolated but that comes with traveling alone and it’s by choice, I did want some me time
9) Getting sunburnt on the small of my back between my motorbike jacket and my jeans because of my sitting position on my bike
10) Shoulders aching from the days of riding (got a massage in cairns to help release some of the tension)
11) What felt like RSI developing in my right wrist from holding the accelerator on the bike (the 2 days rest in cairns helped)
12) Traffic because damn it, I’m on this trip to be on the open road
13) Road works because damn it, I want to feel the wind and not crawl to a stop in the sweltering heat with all of my motorbike gear
14) Not having enough time to do all of the exploring that I want to do
15) Losing my motorbike key in the Gold Coast – grrr this was annoying and an expensive thing to fix
16) trucks; either getting stuck behind them or the shock of their tail winds as they rush past in the opposite direction
17) Camping and getting eaten alive by mosquitos
18) Not being as well rested as I thought I would be and having high expectations of travel
Despite all of these annoyances though this trip has still been totally worth it, I should write a post of what I’ve been grateful for after this
//end rant
On a side note, I can argue that all of things are both positive and negative because they are all related to the experience of traveling
When traveling, what has pissed you off the most?