Eastern Australia

20/9/09 – 23/9/09

Stayed at Banz's for a few days, doing laundry, watching Angel, watching United beat City in the derby match finishing at 12:30 am, Jenni went to the doctor and got some valium for flying. We saw Harry Potter at the cinema and bought a few new clothes at the shopping centre. Ate mexican out, cooked Indian in and ate at the shops, cheap chinese. Someone should tell them that Mekong is Vietnamese, not Chinese!

23/9/09

Flew up to Proserpine to access the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef. Typically we went on a day when a giant dust storm crippled Sydney and made it's way up to Brisbane, so we took off in a thick dust cloud! Thankfully we had lounge access and the flight was about ½ hour late leaving. Apparently taking off was fine, but landing was tricky in the dust! It was getting very Orange! Anyway, it was fine and at Prozzy we got the shuttle bus to Airlie Beach and our apartment for the few days. We ventured into “town” - a strip of shops and bars – had early dinner and got supplies and headed back. Our apartment overlooked the water, but weren't great...

24/9/09

A chill out day, lazy morning and an afternoon in town, checking out the beach and shops, booked our day at the reef for tomorrow, had Curry for lunch and took the leftovers back for dinner! We stopped in the Opal shop and ended up buying a didgereedoo, some artwork, a boomerang and some opal earrings. It was good as they offered free shipping (just as well as it was pretty heavy). Our shopping culminated in a free lesson in how to play the didgereedoo but neither of us was much cop at doing so.

25/9/09

Picked up at 7:25 to go on a Fantasea trip out to the reef. We got to the boat and left at 8 for a journey to Hamilton Island then on to Reefworld – a purpose built floating pontoon complex out on the Great Barrier Reef. It took a couple of hours to get out there, we went underwater in a semi sub and were able to look at the reef and fish close up. Following that, we had a buffet lunch (great food all day) and headed out snorkelling. Took a bit of time to get Jenni in, but we had a great time looking at the fish once we got in. The main attraction was a pink fish that liked to swim right up in our faces before turning and swimming away. Repeat the process several times and that's what we saw. Plus loads of other reef fish of course...

The coral (Hardy Reef it was) was grey and had some life to it, but wasn't as Jenni imagined it! We saw quite a few clams!! We saw “sand” fish, that were well camouflaged! It was quite shallow where we were, it was all marked out where we could swim. We just wish we could have spent more time to really look at the underwater world.

At about 2:30 pm we set sail for shore again and we slept on the way back. Grabbed some unclearly priced pizza from Domino's. SORT YOUR CLEAR PRICING POLICY OUT, AUSTRALIA. Morons.

26/9/09

Just spent the morning by the pool relaxing before we got the bus back to the airport and flew back to Brisbane. The airport at Proserpine had 2 gates and most of the seating was outdoors! We tried to check in with our boomerang in hand and the check in guy wouldn't let us take it on-board what with it being a lethal weapon and all. So we had to check it in – in an oversized box – so we had tp wait for it at the other end. Banz picked us up at the airport again which was awesome and took us to the campervan depot. We had a bit of arguments when picking up the van – Apollo and Hippie Campers are awful! Customer service wise and the van itself were not great. After we got the van, we headed back to Banz's for curry and I stayed up until 2am watching United ease past Stoke City :)

27/9/09

Took Banz out to play minigolf at Putt putt in Brisbane. Jenni was second and Banz third. Not sure who won in that case.... The most fun was had watching a cocky Aussie guy having a mini golf meltdown. Clubs thrown, stamping of feet – hilarious! Jenni wrong-holed Banz, Banz right-holed me for a hole in one. It all worked out nicely!! Very challenging course and we had a lot of fun. It has inspired us to play more crazy golf in Oz...

We dropped Banz off, picked up our stuff and headed north – via the supermarket. We made it up almost to Mooloolaba where we stayed at a free rest stop (full of mozzies). We were both shattered and ended up sleeping real early – just meant when we needed a wee at midnight that we went outside the van, not caring about the other people that might see us!

28/9/09

Got up and headed into Mooloolaba to try and find Spencer, my long lost pal from South Harrow days. He now owns a sweet shop in Australia! We parked up and wandered through the place – one of the nicest areas we'd seen in Oz, to be honest. It was a bona-fide seaside holiday resort full of buff boys and girls wandering about in their undies – well swimsuits... We knew his shop was on the esplanade so we just wandered along and eventually stumbled across it. The shop was nice, lots of sweets, so why wouldn't it be, looks like a nice business to have!

Spencer took us to Ric's place for breakfast so we caught up there and had a wander around the place. It really is a lovely place and probably the first place in Oz I'd have considered living. After our parking time ran out we headed back down Steve Irwin Highway past the Australia zoo and stopped in the Glass Mountains area, we drove to the scenic lookout where there was much more useful information about the surrounding mountains than there was at Ayers Rock. It's still disappointing!

The mountains were nice to look at, and we saw our first by the side of the road bouncing kangaroos - only 182 kilometres to wait this time around!! That was right after we'd stopped for a bag of Macadamia nuts at a little house on the way back from the mountain. We chatted with a nice lady for a while about this and that and I imagine we could have bought more than nuts as the chutneys and jams looked really good. In all the excitement of seeing the Kangaroo I got out and did my “Kangaroo dance”. Ask Jenni. After that nice little interlude we jumped back on the motorway (something we intend to avoid as much as possible for the rest of our time) and went back to the van shop in Brisbane.

We took the van back because the water pump didn't work, the bed was uncomfortable, the brakes and clutch were knackered, a curtain was missing a tie up, the fuel gauge was read incorrectly and we were on a bit of a downer about it – but a free table & chairs for our trouble helped soothe the pains – that's the $50 that we won't get back from our credit card deposit made up for. I wonder how they can charge you a credit card fee for a security bond that you have to pay by credit card for (you have no option) and refuse to pay it back when you get the bond back. It is astounding. The Britz, Maui, Backpackers lot returned the credit card fee.. It started our rental off the wrong way as the woman was more interested in the hard sell than the good customer service. Ah well, we feel better now.

It was quite late as we drove on down to the gold coast – we stopped close to the local attractions of Helensvale (Movie world, some theme parks) but it was quite a nice site. It was quite dark at the time though so just wanted to get off the road.

29/9/09

Got up, as we had power we made use of it and had beans on toast, crumpets, yum... Drove down the pacific highway along the coast in a southwards direction to surfers paradise – we had our eyes on mini golf (3 courses for a low fee). It was great fun, egyptian themed, Dinosaur themed and a tough outdoor course too meant for a diverse mini golf experience. Probably wasn't as much fun as the Brizzy course, but still took up a bit of our time. Jenni stropped a little bit when she got frustrated with herself but it was still good. We jumped back in the van and headed down the coast further – looking for somewhere to stop. We tried a few places along the way but they were all full – our timing is bad because of the school holidays. There were a few places that looked real nice, but again there were buff boys and hot girls wandering about – a typical holiday place again – but stretching for miles down the coast. We thought it would be a nice place to put down roots, but was a bit busy and expensive for our purposes.

Therefore we drove to kingscliffe and stayed at a very nice camp site. Nicely set out, so we had our dinner in mid afternoon – it's easier that way – and settled down to a few episodes of Bones on the laptop (Thanks to Vic for that one!)

30/9/09

Think we'll stay a few days at this site – today's plan is to relax! Went to the pool, saw a massive gecko / lizardy thing by the pool. Jenni jumped a mile! The pool was pretty cold, so I only managed a few minutes before hypothermia kicked in! We ate nachos and chilli before going for a play on the big campground field – throwing the boomerang and running to fetch it as it never came back.

01/10/09

Headed southwards and stopped at McDonalds for brunch and to use the internet seeing a couple of Kangaroos on the way, drove on to Byron bay which was particularly overrated. It was pretty close to the beach but didn't see it driving through. Pretty chavvy and the worst traffic in Australia – it's official. Encountered some road rage, apparently driving at 40 in a 50 zone entitles you to be beeped. All that does is entice me to drive slower, stop for longer at roundabouts and endure more beeping. It's as much fun as you can have in a campervan! Almost... So we drove on through and down the coast. We just stopped at a shopping centre for some ice and water and a few other bits and pieces before going a few miles south of Grafton and to our rest area for the night. Pretty close to the main highway, but that doesn't bother us. Cooked outside and ran in!

02/10/09

Everyone has always gone by the time we get up. We are just relaxing our way round Oz! At our leisure we got up, had cheerios and trucked on down the coastal highway – not much choice really – to Coffs Harbour. Didn't see much there that warranted a longer stay than the drive through that we did.

Somehow we stumbled across the road we wanted to take inland – a tourist route that headed for the mountains. We wound our way up narrow winding roads taking in great views up the mountain and over the forests surrounding. We even had to go about 15 kilometres on a dirt track (shhh no-one tell Apollo). Arrived at our intended destination of Dangar Waterfalls near Dorrigo and checked out the falls, including a little walk down to the bottom of the falls. They were very nice and had more water than I expected since they've had no rain for 3 months yadda yadda. We took our lunch break (made inside as the most annoying thing about Australia is the FLIES. Stupid flies get everywhere.) at the falls as it was a pretty sight, then headed off for Ebor falls about 45 kms away.

Ebor Falls seemed more of a national park – upper and lower falls and valley viewing areas. The falls didn't have as much water flowing as the previous ones but we did see a couple of nice birds there. Some red ones and what I thought was a Kookaburra (drawing on my knowledge of cricket bats)

After a nap for Jenni we headed off just driving until we found a suitable stopping point, Woollomombi was not such a place, but a rest area 27 kms later was. Cooked tea, played cards and listened to the rain hitting the van as of course, wherever you need rain, just call us and we can assist... It rained a lot, and stormy stormed.

03/10/09

Up fairly early and drove through Armidale, a very quaint little town full of English heritage, old school houses and looked a very pleasant place. As did Uralla. We stopped in Apsley Falls and saw the impressive gorge and waterfalls, and climbed the 108 steps to the viewing platforms. Filled up in Walcha and drove through the mountains to Port Macquarie or Port Daiquiri as we liked to call it. It wasn't our kind of place so we drove through and a little further south to our destination for the day – North Haven. Did some laundry, it rained again, we truly are magicians of weather, single handedly saving Australia. Jenni was grouchy all day. Grouchy Jenni.... We went out for dinner – worst curry in the world, ever. Maharajar restaurant in Laurieton. Awful, bland, tasteless. Felt like we were in the Kumar's sketch of “going out for an English” - “make it nice and bland, please”. No more eating out as it's been decidedly average. And overpriced (when you can see the prices). Not loving the oz...

04/10/09

We decided to stay another night and just chilled out. We headed up to Port Macquarie and found a little carnival was on. It wasn't great but we had a wander round. After that we headed to McDonalds for some nuggets and free wireless internet! We stayed for a while and it rained some more! More chill out after that back at camp.

05/10/09

We drove down to the great lakes and found a camp site by a lake that had potential. It was a great setting, but it was $27 to stay there – no amenities, nothing – so we headed on to Port Stephens – a peninsular sticking out to the ocean. It didn't look far on the map, but as we had to go all the way round it took longer than expected. So a quick dash down the highway after earlier scenic routes and we made it to the tourist park. This one had heated pool and mini golf and so on so it looked good, plus it was right by the beach. We arrived pretty late so cooked up some dinner and turned in. There was a great lightning storm over us which was pretty bright and scary – that's when the strong winds blew in...

06/10/09

Went for a walk along the beach, did some shopping for BBQ stuff to eat and took a drive into Nelson's Bay and Salamanda Bay. Not much to see really. Played on the sand dunes. We were lucky enough to spot a Koala up a tree by the site's entrance, so got some snaps. Later on that night I saw a possum or some other animal with a baby on it's back up a tree.

07/10/09

Played mini golf, sat by the pool and went in the Spa (which was lovely and warm) but didn't get up to much else. The sun came and went and the wind stayed blowing hard most of the day. The surf looked good!

08/10/09

After another blustery and rainy night we took the (not so) scenic way to Newcastle and then down past The Entrance and Gosport to the highway and Sydney's outskirts. Stayed in a amp site just outside of town, but that's OK as it'll be cheaper than stumping up for parking charges... It was right by the river and full of wildlife, and a TV! So we watched some amazing race and some beauty and the geek before going to bed.

09/10/09

Woke up, had breakfast and were looking forward to the day ahead. Jenni said “I think this is going to be a good day”. So we walked to North Ryde train station, about 10 minutes away and got our day tripper tickets - $17 each and caught the train to the city (changed at Chatswood). It was a double decker train and we went across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, seeing the Opera House along the way. We jumped off at Wynyard station and walked north to an information booth on the way to the opera house.

We just wanted to know where the Capitol theatre was so we could head there later for Wicked tickets. After getting the required information, we walked round part of the harbour and took a look at the Opera House from across the harbour then walked under the bridge to the Sydney Observatory. We got there just in time for a planetarium briefing, where we lay on beanbags and saw all the stars in the (Southern Hemisphere) night sky and were shown how to identify some constellations.

Next on the list was a 3D show describing how big stuff is in the universe, stars, planets etc, and another film about a journey to Mars and what it would be like! The largest star in the universe is Betelguese or Canis Major – Jenni and I disagree on that. We were then taken to their big telescope where we looked at a flag on the harbour bridge – it was upside down! But looked very close... We couldn't have the roof of the tower open as it had started raining :(

After the telescope we wandered around and looked at the displays and so on, we'd asked about the moon being in the sky the whole time and of course it isn't as it goes around the earth as the earth goes around it's axis and they all go round the sun...

So, it was chucking it down as we left the observatory and we made a dash for cover (the observatory was atop a hill – The rocks) and found our way into the Btit pub! Pretty much our first British establishment since leaving home! I had Beef and Bock pie and Jenni had Bangers and Mash for lunch, they were both delicious and it saved us from getting wet for a while. However by the time we'd finished the rain had descended again and Jenni's body freaked out and stopped warming her up so I had to warm her up a bit stood out the back of the Shangri-la hotel (oo-er)

That led us to go into a shopping centre and spent some time looking at Cook Islands accommodation in Flight Centre. Their range of brochures was far superior than that I'd seen before!

There was a tractor beam of some sort pulling us into the chocolate shop where Jenni ordered a fondue for 2 which had strawberries, bananas, banana bread and marshmallows to dip in dark and milk chocolate heated pots! Yum! Following the chocolate infusion we went in a lot of shoe shops and that made Jenni all fuzzy.

Next shop that we stopped in was a book shop, Jenni enjoyed smelling the old antique books and we had somewhere to be so off we popped to the theatre and asked the guy in the box office if there was a ballot and what time and how much were the tickets. We had ¾ hour to kill so we went to an Irish pub for a drink (from a grumpy Irish woman).

Back to the theatre for 5:30 on the dot for the ballot – Jenni and I both put our names in the tombola style draw and waited (not so) patiently for the draw at 6pm. There was a boy who put his name into the hat twice – once in disguise – and Jenni was going loopy about this. There's no place in this Wicked lottery for cheats! I think she actually wanted to kill him! Anyway, lots more people put their names into the hat and we weren't overly hopeful, but they started pulling the names out, not first, second, third or fourth out of the hat – one girl had her dad's ticket, but as he wasn't there to collect, he missed out. A girl – whose boyfriend had already been drawn was then pulled out so she declined the tickets and next came “Alistair Dootson”. YES! We were so excited, Jenni was jumping about and I went and got our badges and paid $30 each for our tickets – usual price $96 (at least). We were front row and centre. We were mad with excitement, we put our “I won the Wicked Lottery” badges on and went shopping at the nearby outlet centre. We went into Jay-Jays and Jenni folded a load of t-shirts on the jumbled sale rack – just for fun. The shop girl was so thankful that I got an extra 10% off my Ghostbusters belt (because I was cheeky and asked for it!!)

On the way back to the theatre I hacked someone's wireless internet connection, well if you leave your password as password you deserve it! Sent some facebook messages and went in to the theatre. We got 2 Ozmopolitans that were green slushy daiquiris and came with lit up glasses that we could keep! Down to our front row seats and sat back to watch an amazing performance of Wicked! Depicting how the wicked witch came to be (she wasn't really wicked) and we both loved it. On the way out of the theatre we found an extra glass that someone left on the floor so we swiped it! Ha ha.

We bounced our way back to the bus stop and made our way home after what was indeed a splendid day.

10/10/09

Got up a bit late after yesterdays exertions! Headed in again on the train to Sydney and went to the Opera House. It is very impressive to get up close to and we just sat on the steps for a while and watched as a group of people decided to scream and dance, then all stood really still, then they had a balloon fight in the middle of the square. At the end of their ½ hour of fun we asked them what they were up to and they were doing an MP3 experiment where everyone listened to instructions on the same MP3! They wore bright clothes and we took some video, so it might make it on the web!

We checked out some Uggs in the shops, the ones that Jenni bought in Yallingup were cheaper and better than the ones here, so getting them direct from the source was a much better idea. Just wish she had got more from there!

Anyway, we stopped in McDonalds for some free internet then walked to Flight Centre to book our accommodation in Cook islands. However, at 4:20 on a Saturday afternoon – the shop was closed, in fact most of the shops were closed. Why are the shops closed at 4 o'clock on a Saturday? Coming from a reasonably modern society, I find that amazing!! I'm fairly sure that if I worked in Sydney and had children to entertain at the weekend, I would have no time for shopping, the shops close at very early times indeed – and this place is miles better than Western Australia!

So, thwarted, we walked to Darling Harbour – saw a bride in her wedding dress wandering the streets. We saw many people dolled up waiting to board cruise ships (small ones) for evening dinner and entertainment. We balked at the high prices of the Aquarium and Wildlife centres and headed for the train and back to the camp site for dinner.

At dinner, we used the camp kitchen to make the food. We sat down to eat our delicious Chicken Madras curry, ably prepared by masterchef, lady Dootson of Kincavel, when over flew a Kookaburra, right in my face. It scared me a little with it's huge, flapping wingspan and proceeded to nibble away at my curry. I shooed it but it didn't go so I had to whack it with a teatowel until it flew off. Cheeky bugger, I hoped it burned eating my curry.

11/10/09

We asked the way to the Blue Mountains so we could avoid the toll roads then headed up the route 44 until we reached Katoomba. We stopped on the way to buy a new one ring burner and admired some of the beautiful council estates of western Sydney! The mountains provided a very nice scenic backdrop and we stopped for lunch at Wentworth Falls, close to Katoomba. It was raining of course but we took a walk to admire the view of the falls (no Vic Falls that's for sure!).

In Katoomba, it was a ramshackle little village, that had run down shops. It was almost quaint. We stumbled across the skyway and so on, and I went on a little explore whilst Jenni stayed in the van. She wasn't feeling brave. I took a vertical railway down to the bottom of he valley, walked arounf the valley and took a cableway back up again. Got to see the 3 sisters mountains and orphan rock and some coal mining information from when they mined in the blue mountains.

We had in mind to drive the grand pacific highway which ran from Sydney to Wollongong so we headed back along the motorway and jumped off right before the toll kicked in. From there we headed south and ended up in the Royal National Park looking for a particular camp site. Trouble was, it was 6pm on a Sunday evening and there was no-one around to pay to stay there (the office number to call was open 10:30 – 1:30pm, really useful hours). It was a real pity as the place was Bundaree on an island south of Sydney, gorgeous views and just a charming spot. So, we had to trek off again.

We ended up sleeping atop a cliff – Bald Hill – which had wonderful panoramic views of the ocean and Wollongong (a semi big city) and there were no 'no camping' signs to deter us which was a bonus as it was nearing dark and we didn't quite fancy driving any further and missing the first scenic drive that was actually scenic! We had dinner and after some chavs and some kids came and went, we were on our own. Free camping, love it!

12/10/09

We got up with the scenic views and headed south. Through to Wollongong was indeed a scenic drive. Amazing how many coastal roads and scenic drives really weren't that nice in Oz. But this one was great. Many beautiful houses overlooking the water and with good access to Sydney. We stopped for lunch at a little village – Shelly Bay and took the scenic route down to Batemans Bay where we stopped for the night. Another Top Tourist park. We found our way to a bottle shop. Vodka is so expensive in Australia, must be some sort of government conspiracy as it's all a similar price whichever state you are in. £13 – 15 for the cheapest bottle of tat vodka. Pricey. Also picked up a 5 litre box of wine, much better value at $16.

13/10/09

We decided to stay another night at this place, so we spent the day chilling by the van, exercising and went for a little trip to town to buy supplies – we were pretty much out of everything. So we got burgers for tea and headed back. I swam in the somewhat heated pool and Jenni cooked. That's about it. Gotta head south some more!

14/10/09

Drove quite far to get close to Lakes Entrance as possible. Stayed at a picnic spot near the road – Victoria is quite up on powernapping so it's OK to stop in most places by the side of the road. On another note, I've taken to eating a lot of jam butties. We bought 18 finger buns (hot dog rolls) in Batemans bay so I'm munching my way through them!

15/10/09

We'd only left ourselves an hour to go to get to Lakes Entrance (Original name #165). Took a drive through the village, more like the coastal towns we're used to with Mini Golf and the likes. Trouble was, it was still raining. Once it stopped for a minute, we headed shopping, Jenni needed to buy a swimsuit, and stopped in Sport Co. A very helpful man was there to assist us.

After the purchase we headed to the Lakes Aquadome – the local gym and pools that the caravan park we're staying at have complimentary access to. We worked out, had a swim and a spa and that would have cost us $25 each – the caravan park was only $26.10 per night, so it was great value!

We cooked under our canopy, and headed to bed.

16/10/09

We decided to play minigolf, but the first place we came to was closed – it only opened weekends and school holidays. The other 2 places were on the front road. They were much more the kind of minigolf we were looking for, castles and moving parts, skulls and bridges etc... We played a game at each and drew both games, despite Jenni being put off by slow hecklers!!

We stopped for a milkshake in a café on the way back along the front and relaxed for a bit before hitting the gym again. Important to get back in the swing before we hit Auckland!

We had Kookaburra free curry for dinner and chatted with some other travellers. These guys were from Holland and Belgium so we discussed our routes and so on. Was fairly interesting. Rained again and was cold.

17/10/09

The weather was a little better so we made our 3^rd game of mini golf. Jenni won and I blame the bent putter I had. How are you supposed to hit it straight with faulty equipment!! We also did a little shopping, some McDonalds internet and hit the gym for a nice swim and spa.

18/10/09

Started out at the gym again. Good tally. Then we drove from Lakes Entrance to west of Melbourne – took about 6 hours, but didn't drag on. We stayed at a rest stop by the main highway and prepared ourselves for the great ocean road...

Got to thinking about things that have irritated us in Australia, here goes.

Thick people.

High kerbs so you ground the car every time you go into a petrol forecourt or off the road.

Put prices on things!

Unimaginative road and place names. I mean Stratford, on the Avon river. Get a new one. Nine Mile Road, one mile beach, ninety mile beach, Lakes Entrance, The Entrance, Everything is very obvious. Where does dungarry road go to? Dungarry. Oh what a surprise!

The weather. Raining and cold was not what we signed up for.

The flies.

The mosquitoes

Poor Apollo customer service

Thick people.

Crass, uninventive advertising.

Adverts in TV, are we in America?

The prices of everything.

The price of Vodka and other booze. So expensive.

Why put dog food next to human food in the fridge section of your supermarkets?

Drivers (impatient and sometimes a bit stupid)

Pedestrians (won't dare cross the street, but on a crossing, they don't even look)

Naming of kids. Diesel, Dior, Loughlin, Bluebell, Logan etc are not acceptable names for children.

Dumbing down the language, it's not English that is spoken here.

Ayers Rock & other general Aboriginal stories

Put some f**king shoes on.

19/10/09

We travelled through Geelong (winners of the AFL premiership this year) and it was pretty industrial. That was after getting woken by the noisy cows and the farmer. We headed down to the great ocean road and it was initially disappointing due to there being no ocean present. I think also due to the lack of breakfast. After eating, things became better. The scenery was spectacular and the road wound it's way up and down and round the coastline. We saw lots of crashing waves!

Stopped for lunch in Apollo Bay. Had fish & chips – the Flake was really good. We then went on to the 12 Apostles and the Arch and London Bridge. The 12 Apostles was really touristy – possibly the most touristy place we have been in Australia. We generally just carried on along the great scenic road, great countryside on one side and the south coast on the other.

Our journey took us to Warrnambool where we thought we might spend a couple of nights – the camp site was really nice: indoor pool, great kitchen and we got an en-suite site! Had a swim in the pool, although it was not 30 degrees as promised! For our last real night in the campervan we went out to town for dinner and had noodles, steak and lamb shank with some fizzy pink wine to wash it down before a walk back and some more wine! People seem very friendly in this part...

We discussed that whilst there were some downs in Australia, it's not fair to list them and not the positive highlights we've also had.

Pinnacles

Scenic Cliffs and Wildflowers in WA

Monkey Mia and Jenni feeding the dolphin

Gladstone Scenic Lookout

Margaret River

Landing at Ayers Rock, open bushland and seeing the rock

Ayers Rock itself and at sunset

Snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef

Glass Mountains, the kangaroo and Ali's Kangaroo dance

Mini Golf (Especially at Lakes Entrance)

Staying a few days at a time on the East coast to relax

Sydney, the opera house, seeing Wicked, winning the Wicked lottery, the chocolate fondue

Waterfalls

Seeing a Koala

The scenery

Seeing friends

20/10/09

An easy day packing up our stuff and sorting out the van. We posted a parcel home and did some final food shopping. Mmm cake and custard for tea! (Note that it has to be thick or double thick custard else you get vanilla sauce here)

Ate, napped and just relaxed!

Double thick custard – that's right, until you heat it up and it goes runny. What a swizz...

21/10/09

We left at our usual time of 10 am and hit the road back to Melbourne, stopping to look for whales (didn't see any) and at the cheese factory, where we bought some cheese and wine for Andrea. After that we headed to Hopkins Falls, not very exciting but only a few minutes off the highway, and then we continued along our merry way down the highway to the Apollo depot near the airport. We dropped off the van with minimal fuss, the guy was very helpful, but he still couldn't give us our fifty bucks back. No matter, we got our free table and chairs to make up for it.

After discussing the best way to get back to the city, we took a taxi as the combination of rush hour, taxi and bus or tram seemed stupid and inefficient. We got to Southern Cross station in a matter of minutes and went for a chocolate fondue! Loads of fresh fruit with our chocolate pot, a great way to kill some time before meeting Andrea. We still had to find our way on the train to middle Brighton during busy time with our huge bags on, but we managed it no problem.

Andrea met us at the station, it was great to see her after so many years! Still the same as at camp... We were able to go back to her place and veg, grab a thai takeaway that was awesome food, and meet Nathan, her other half.

It was so nice to get into a full size, comfy bed after the campervan!

22/10/09 – 26/10/09

Whilst staying with Andrea we vegged out on the sofa, did some laundry and did a bit of shopping to make tea for Nathan. We did a mexican mix of nachos and fajitas. We also took a couple of trips into the city by train and did some shopping so that Jenni had something to wear to go out in. I also found some nice jeans, not worn jeans in months!

So, we headed out on Friday night to meet Andreas friends at the Flying Duck pub. Spoke to some lovely people, and generally got very tipsy on fizzy wine! Lots of heated debate ensued on the way home! I think it was the last couple of tequila shots that tipped Jenni over the edge as she was a bit poorly when we got back!

A monster hangover enveloped Jenni on the 24^th – her birthday, but we did make it out again to the city, at the Crown casino, to meet up with Peter and Celina for a birthday meal for Jenni. It was great to catch up with them after so many months since the Africa trip. We had a drink and dinner in the casino, we had a cracking plate of meat (OK, meat platter for two) between us, then headed off. For some reason, we weren't up for a big night out!

Andrea took us to the sunday markets at St. Kilda and we also took a stroll along Acland street and saw the delicious looking cakes that they had there! We also stopped by Chapel Street to exchange some shoes for her. Nathan had gotten a great big TV for their place at a good price, so we watched Bones on Sunday on the big screen! This was after I went out for a couple of drinks again in the afternoon, to Windsor Castle – a green pub with pink elephants – before coming back to veg again. Nathan made a cracking salmon and creamy sauce dish. It was delicious.

Celina picked us up on Monday afternoon and we took the fairly short trip to Toorak where they lived. Another nice village setting to stay in. Jenni went to look at little babies with Celina and I played guitar heroes. We cooked curry for them when they all got back in later on...

We took Pete & Celina's car to Phillip Island on the Tuesday, stopped for free chocolate at the chocolate factory, went to the Nobbies to look for seals (didn't see any). The scenery was beautiful around there and we had a great dinner at a restaurant in Cowes, had a little bit of arguing over the bill (When the menu says “any pizza, any pasta $12 no exceptions, no catches” you don't expect to see pasta for $17.50 on the bill. It was because it was main sized, not entrée sized, but it mattered not, the argument was flawless. We drove back, avoided kangaroos no problem.

We wandered down to Chapel street, did some shopping and generally did very little on the next day. Out for dinner at Romeo's, where I ate so much I thought I might burst! The lasagne was great, but the chocolate cake and ice cream was almost to die for!!

We had a great time with Pete and Celina, also with Andrea and Nathan and Vic & Banz. Thanks to you all for your hospitality.

Overall I had high expectations for Australia, but we seemed to get more rain than is normal in Australia – 4 weeks out of 8 had rain! We had a real problem with the aboriginal way, their stories and restrictions were a bit dubious and we really did not get along with that culture. To be honest, Australia in places was a bit like England in the 80s. Early closing times, stuff closing at 4pm in Sydney on a Saturday! Melbourne was our favourite place in Australia, more cosmopolitan than elsewhere, shops were open late and there were plenty of hot chicks... It did amaze us that a horse race can be a reason for a public holiday. All in all, not a place we will be putting down our roots.

Central Australia

The end of the flight involved landing, somewhat obviously, at Ayers Rock airport – we could see the runway on approach and landed with the backdrop of Uluru and pretty much nothing else around. A pretty amazing sight. We asked about car hire at the airport and there was nothing so we took the free shuttle to the resort. It was all owned by the same people and they could charge a high price. We started at the camp site and their fixed accommodation was all taken. When trying to book online I was informed that all the lodge / backpacker dorms were full. But when we trekked there, we got a 4 bed place to ourselves. Result.

Next up we wanted to check out tours to the rock and how to get to Alice Springs, so we checked out the tour office. She helped point us in the direction of Hertz for rental car – nice work as we got a pretty good deal – worked out cheaper than buses and tours and we had flexibility to go to the sunset that night with snacks, drinks and watch the rock change colour as the sun sank.

Western Australia has been an interesting experience. We expected more kangaroos, hotter weather. The people were friendly, the landscape was amazing but became samey after a while. Further south we got, the landscape was better and reminded us of home. Hilly and green, but the red, barren landscape and never ending roads of the north were a bit boring at times. I also expected a little more in terms of free wireless, it makes the poor countries of Asia look generous and technologically advanced. Lots of the places were yokelly and we got to live in our camper and saw some permanent travellers along the way.

The last thing is how expensive it is. I thought England and Japan were pricey, but even basic things like water are very expensive. Hope the east side is different!

18/9/09

Next morning we were intending to head to the rock then off to Alice Springs, but as I got to the car, I found a note. Some dozy german bint had smacked the car when leaving in the morning causing some damage. Thankfully she left a note and despite having that we had to pay $3000 excess. We hope to get that back.

Anyway, we went and took a walk near the rock, climbing up a bit of it but only a few feet! We saw a Dingo, looked like a Rottweiler and met a guy from Manchester! We visited the cultural centre and to be honest it was full of stuff we couldn't see or couldn't know about, and the other legendary stories were a little far fetched, so we didn't learn any good factual information and left disappointed.

We took the drive up to Alice Springs, cruise control on, not touching any pedals for well over an hour at a time! Stopped for lunch overlooking what looked like another monolith – it was random as the lookout turned out to be much better than expected as we'd appeared to go miles past it! There was also a huge thunderstorm that chased us to Alice Springs. But the drive was pretty dull.

Alice Springs was amazingly uninspiring. Aboriginals roaming the streets on the lash, bottles in hand and so on. They had an air of menace about them as well, and we'd been warned that they'd be in your car nicking stuff without a second glance! We did a little shopping in Jay-Jays then a chinese for dinner. Pricey, a little disappointing. We filled up the car and headed to the airport to find somewhere to park up for the night which we did no probs. Pretty much the end of the runway!

19/9/09

The trip to the airport took a matter of minutes, we had to deal with the car accident which took some time – since we were at the airport almost 2 hours before the Hertz people! We actually found a lounge that surprised us as it was OK. Flight was OK into Brizzy! Martin and Vicky were there to meet us and we headed back to theirs. They actually went out and we were able to get to bed early!

Western Australia

We got into Oz no problem, so you won't be seeing us on “All New Nothing to Declare” in the future.. Just about picked up our campervan in time before the place shut so that was lucky – despite Jenni having a bad headache, possibly from the pressure in descent. A new, painful headache for her to put up with, I feel bad for her :(

We headed off to stock up on supplies at the supermarket and head north out of Perth. We circled for a while as the map and road signs did not add up entirely to begin with, but no matter, we made it to the shops in the end. How hard is it to buy ice in Oz? You'd think it would be easy in a country that loves their Eskies! But we could not get any on our first night. We also noted how expensive shopping was compared to being at home, but still cheaper than eating out! We stocked up with about 6 or 7 meals so that should do us a while. We decided that first night we would stay fairly close so opted for Perth Vineyards holiday park. Nice showers, good to start off with, but bloomin' cold!!

Next morning (4/9/09) we headed north and were aiming for the Pinnacles. The Pinnacles are a unique gathering of limestone rock formations in the desert. A pretty awesome sight and one that we could enjoy almost on our own. Would have been quite eerie out there at night with a full moon... On our way out we spoke with some aussies – retired couple touring round that gave us some advice to buy Camps 5 (or 4) which listed all free campsites and rest areas in Australia. Cost about $55 AUD but will pay for itself in cheap and free campsites in no time. On our way out of the Pinnacles (Nambung national park) some idiot was driving in the gravel half on and half off the road on the other side and managed to hit my windscreen with an almight stone. So I have a massive crack, chip, whatever in my window. Typical. Hopefully it won't cost me too much out of my excess...

So, with our new roadside bible in hand we headed off to Sandy Bay stopping for a box of rose wine and some chocolate on the way! We found ourselves pretty much on the beach, the sun setting one side and the moon rising on the other over vast dunes of limestone bleached white sand. An awesome setting for our homemade chicken curry on the campfire (gas burners) washed down with some wine.

It rained. And the wind howled around, blowing and shaking the campervan. A little scary, but not too bad!

5/9/09 we rose up, it was pretty cold still and headed up the highway to Geraldton. We stopped in a few little places along the way, but aimed to get the chip fixed (we didn't – called the rental company and they said just to patch it up until we get back). We also intended to get some internet access and sort out numbers to call for our flights (Qantas rubbish and really unhelpful – Air New Zealand, really helpful) and arrange all future flights and our new year in Vegas! So we managed all that using free wireless at the public library! Still a bit more to sort out though!!

We went to our chosen camp site, but it was riddled with ants and to be honest was not all that great, so we trucked on to the next one and decided to pay the $8 each as there were toilets and showers and power! Nice place too, we cooked pasta and watched the moon rise spectacularly. It was a farm and we were the only guests – several kilometres down a dirt path was where we found the place. They served breakfast and lunch plus snacks etc but we were self sufficient. The woman had a weird accent, a bit of a mix between aussie and american I think. We saw a cool rainbow but the rain generally stayed away. A friendly place and one we'd recommend.

Expectations is a good turn of phrase to use here. What did I expect of Australia? Hotter weather perhaps, more scenery from the surface of Mars? I'm not sure. What I've got so far has been green fields and english countryside plus friendly people and an expensive place. Oh and it seems like the back end of beyond – probably because it is. Asia and Africa make this place look in the dark ages!

6/9/09 left the farm and headed up to Kalbarri, stopping briefly at Port Gregory on the way to marvel at the pink lake. At first glance we though it was just a normal colour, but on closer inspection we found it to be really pink! It was coloured by beta-caratine, the same thing that makes flamingoes pink! It was a huge lake, Hutt Lagoon or something – reminds me of Jabba the Hutt... Port Gregory has a reported population of 46 people which is pretty small. We carried on trucking and stopped off at the cliffs just outside Kalbarri, Red Bluff viewing point. The cliffs were mainly sandstone and provided a spectacular viewpoint.

There really wasn't much to see in Kalbarri, especially on a Sunday – so we stopped, Jenni called her mum and we headed off to the national park. We tried to go on the adventurous 26 kilometre trail to see nature's window and Z bend, but the track was way to bumpy for our little campervan to take so we did a U'ey and headed back. On to a smaller piece of national park. The wildflowers in the area were amazing, so many different colours just exploding all over the place. A great sight. We made it in to the national park at last and had a little walk to Hawks Head and took a look at the gorge. Saw goats. That was about it really!!

The rest of our day involved getting to our camp site, a rest area called Nerren Nerren which had toilet facilities, but that was it. Fine for our purposes...

7/9/09 we headed to Monkey Mia. It didn't look far, but it is so remote, you wouldn't believe. There's pretty much nothing else to aim for. Denham (twinned with Denham near Uxbridge) and Monkey Mia! We arrived in the morning and went straight for the tourist office, got some info about the dolphin feeding and booked ourselves on to 2 cruises that afternoon from Monkey Mia itself. So we drove the 28 kilometres to MM and checked in at the resort there – at least we could shower and relax. If possible!

We parked in our spot, rushed around to cook up some tomato and chicken friend rice for lunch before our trip at 1pm and as we were cooking some women came up to us and asked if they could film us for a documentary on Youtube! So, of course we said yes and they did a little filming there and then and strangely enough they were on our cruise.

The cruise was a catamaran for 3 hours around the bay, a chance to see Dugong in their natural habitat. They feed on sea grass – there are 26 types of sea grass, 12 of which are in the Shark Bay area and 6 of which the Dugong eat, so they track around those areas until they find lots of the Dugong and follow them about a bit so we can watch them. Interesting creatures. We also saw a turtle diving out of the water, a manta ray swimming in the water, a sea snake and some dolphins from afar. We also took the sunset cruise, but other than a spectacular sunset and a chilly, fast ride through the bay, didn't see many animals.

The ladies interviewed us on the boat, lots of easy questions about where we've danced in Australia and what was the best advice we received and so on, so we had a bit of a giggle and did that. Travelyackie on youtube or something like that. We'll see in 2 weeks. Typical of us to get picked!!

We stopped off for some food at the Monkey bar, served by a scouser... But the food was deep fried and I really couldn't face it. Deep fried is off the menu!

8/9/09 we were up early so we could go to the 7:30 am feed of the wild dolphins. They feed the dolphins 3 times a day and only give them a third of what they'd eat in a day, so they are still encouraged to go foraging for themselves in the afternoons. Anyway, it was pretty cold and the tide was out, Jenni lost a flip flop in the sludge and I had to retrieve it of course! That flip flop is trying to tell her something after Vietnam too!

Anyway, the dolphins swam up to the shore, pretty close in and we found out more about them, then the volunteers bring out buckets of fish as they know which dolphins have come in (the miracle of 2 way radios!) to feed. So the volunteers pick people at random out of the crowd and Jenni got picked last to feed Puck. I grabbed some snaps of her feeding the dolphin. So, Jenni was happy for the rest of the day... Prior to the feeding session Jenni had said to me “Screw the kids, I want to feed a dolphin”. I thought that was fair!

We were going to spend another night in the Monkey Mia area, but decided that since we'd cruised and done the dolphins we might do crazy golf (looked rubbish and was closed) and then make tracks further north. We passed a golf course – pitch and putt I hope, else every shot was a bunker / rough shot – and plenty of nothingness. The road in and out was so boring. Just mile after mile of nothing! 135 kilometres of the same thing, road stretching on, heat haze. Ugh. Anyway, on the North West Indian Ocean highway the scenery changed a bit. We found our rest stop for the night – top of a hillock, very exposed with nothing around for about 50 miles in any direction! We stayed a bit and then decided to go further up, closer to Carnarvon, to another free rest stop.

6 days, and no kangaroos. Well, no live ones anyway. Plenty of dead ones by the side of the road. Lots of goats, 2 rabbits, sheep, some cows and some lizards in 1500 km – but no Kangaroos. We don't think they exist in Australia.

9/9/09

We drove into Carnarvon and to be honest it was a bit yokelly! A pretty small, old town, no free internet at the library – couldn't even use their power even if we paid for internet. They had a mile long jetty, but that was about it really. Lots of plantations growing fruit as it was pretty warm the whole time.

We drove further northwards to the coast and “Blowholes”. The coastline was rugged and the sign said “king waves can kill”. Not sure what a king wave is but therre sure were great big waves crashing in. The blowholes were a series of holes in the rocks where waves came underneath and blew the water up into the air making a sound like a whale as it did it. It was pretty spectacular sight nonetheless. We had lunch there and headed southbound. It was our turning point – we'd had enough of the emptiness!

We drove back through Carnarvon and kept going until we reached Gladstone Scenic lookout, our prospected stop from the day before. It was evening time this time and was beautiful. The sun was setting down on one side, the stars came out. It blew a gale for a while whilst we tried to cook and then stopped dead as night fell. The stars were so clear, it was amazing.

10/9/09

We had a long driving day, trucking on down to Geraldton along the main highway and stopping to use the internet again at the library. We then headed a bit further south before going inland to get a different perspective. The scenery was different again. We'd scene the barren north, the English looking countryside at the Oakabella place and not many hills.

We set our sights on Mingenew as our destination. It seemed a quaint little place, but the caravan park was a bit skanky and very yokelly! It looked like plenty people made it their home, but it was inexpensive and did the job.

11/9/09

Mingenew was pretty dingy. We got up, did a little combat before the rain set in, had our showers and headed into town. The bakery did lots of good stuff. We had a couple of pies, bout some rolls and a chocolate hedgehog! After that we headed south. The roads we took were much better than the highway, quieter and still pretty straight. The scenery was also very nice, reminded us of home and made Jenni feel a bit sad. I suppose that wasn't helped by her hitting a bird! It just flew in front of the van and made a crunch, not much Jenni could do to avoid it, but she cried a little anyway!

We stopped for lunch, mainly because Jenni was asleep and I could feel myself going under! So the beauty of the campervan is that we just got in the back at a rest stop and had a nap! Felt much better despite being woken by a man telling us we'd left our lights on!

We travelled through more English countryside, saw green birds, thousands of sheep and got to York, the first inland town apparently. It had a colonial feel about it and was probably the nicest town we'd passed through in a while.

2806 kilometres and we saw our first live kangaroos. Loads of them, in a field. Was probably a kangaroo farm. That was right before our stop for the night – by a dam. Very dark, very secluded and rainy. We whipped up a quick dinner and headed inside. We were the only ones staying there so it was a bit scary!

12/9/09

We didn't get up to much, drove to our next port of call a few hundred kilometres and we were there by lunch. After a lot of driving in the past few days we just stayed put, played cards, made food and slunk off to bed early.

13/9/09

We made our way to the Margaret River Information centre and picked up info on tours and accommodation and a map of the area. We booked ourselves onto a tour around wineries for the next day and sorted out accommodation for the night at Gracetown campsite. After all that arranging and deciding on what to do and what not to (caves were $20 each for 1 cave. We've seen caves and weren't that desperate)

We drove down the to the southernmost tip, past Augusta and Flinders bay to the lighthouse where Indian and Southern oceans meet. We didn't go in as you had to pay, like with everything here. So we looked at an old waterwheel and the waves crashing in, tried to do some whale spotting – didn't see any though!

Next on the list was Hamelin Bay where it's reported you can feed stingray – I think it needs to be warmer, for starters we weren't going in the water!!

The other activities on our list were chocolate factory, cheese factory, strawberry farm, olives and to get some Rose wine. So, we drove up to the chocolate factory and had some free samples there, bought some truffles – disappointing they were I have to say. The free choccy drops were nice though!

Cheese factory, bought some marinated feta and tried lots of other cheeses and yoghurt (Margaret River Dairy) and then on to the other site for more of the same. We monkeyed down to the fudge factory, free samples, but not very nice and then the strawberry farm was closed. Olio Bello was the next stop for olives, they did a great range in olive oil, but no green olives, so we left disappointed. We tried to get some rose wine for the next day or two and popped into Gralyn wines (an expensive boutique). Good thing was they let us taste all their wines, some better than others, and we walked off with a case of 12 Rose! It was $28 for 1 bottle or $100 for a case of 12. Do the maths!!

That was it, back to camp for laundry, dinner and wine!

14/9/09

Today is the day of our tour, very exciting. Didn't get as drunk as we'd first hoped! Guess we didn't drink enough! So we went to 5 wineries, a brewery, the cheese factory and finished at the chocolate factory. A good day out, but pretty similar to our self drive, just with more drinking and kangaroo for lunch.

15/9/09

We drove up to Perth and took in the sights. We ended up in the stick a bit – and after going to a total pikey camp site, we ended up at a relocation village that was nice enough. Got a powered site for the price of an unpowered one. We ventured out for dinner, grabbed a couple of steaks from Coles that were pretty cheap and supplemented them with some chips from Newburn Chippy. Remember the name because the chips were best ever!! Not greasy at all...

16/9/09

Took a drive to the botanical gardens north of Perth and played a couple of games of mini-golf (which Ali won) and Billiard golf (which Jenni won) that meant every shot had to go in the hole via the edge. Tricky.

After that we headed into Joondalup, a pretty new town only ½ hour out of Perth City. Everything looked brand new and didn't seem like a bad place to live. We then made it into Perth and drove around a while before heading back out and to the camp site

17/9/09

Dropped off the campervan, had to pay $192 for a new windscreen which was kind of expected due to where the damage was. However we did make about £45 on the exchange rate on our deposit! Got a taxi to the airport and it was OK to check our wine in without extra charge and gladly there was a Qantas lounge once through security. So we loaded up with breakfast before the flight.