Week 12 (Sydney, Canberra and The Great Ocean Road)

Sydney (24/12/07 - 26/12/07)

Arriving in Sydney was a big shock to our system as we were so used to the easy driving of the open highway, not the tolls and one way systems of a huge city. However you can't really complain about paying a bridge toll when it is Sydney Harbour Bridge and you have the Opera House to look at on the way over!




We both really enjoyed Sydney although it did remind us of London with it's designer shopping and street names like Liverpool St. We managed to squeeze in some Christmas shopping which involved a $10 limit and the famous Paddy's Market.

On Christmas Eve we were praying for hot weather for the big day, otherwise we wouldn't have anything to tease everybody back home about. Unfortunately we brought the English weather with us for Christmas day and ended up wearing our hoodies on the beach.





We really missed our family during the day but were cheered up when we went to Mass in the morning only to be serenaded by the priest singing "Can you feel the love today" by Elton John! One of the presents that Jennie bought me was a beard trimmer - I didn't get the ever so subtle hint though.




We did warm ourselves up when we ate a traditional Aussie steak pie with chips and gravy for Christmas dinner while we dreamed about turkey.






We also had fun at the "Orphan's" Christmas party on Bondi Beach where there were many other lonely travellers.

On Boxing day we were feeling a little hungover so decided to go for a swim on Coogee Beach. Rob promptly ran into the sea without realising our only set of campervan keys were in his pocket. He reached down to pull them out, only for them to catch on his finger and fly into the white crashing waves. After five minutes of scrambling and a very sick feeling in our throats Jennie eventually felt them catch on her toe! A very near miss...


After our mishap we went onto the Blue Mountains (so called because of the haze that eucalyptus leaves produce that surrounds the mountains) where we saw some stunning views.

This is Fitzroy Falls. Another site that we could see thanks to the flexibility of the campervan.













Canberra (27/12/07)

This is a strange capital city. It was designed by a guy who won the right to do so in a competition by the Australian Government - Answers on the back of a post card please! Having said this it is a beautiful place and what it lacks in history it makes up for in architecture and good city planning (supposedly they never have traffic jams).



Jennie and I visited the National Museum, the National Art Gallery, Parliament House and the National War Museum. We learnt alot about Aboroginal culture and its history like how the European settlement destroyed much of it. We also enjoyed paintings by Monet, Dali and a 9 foot life replica sculpture of a naked pregnant woman!

Marble arches in the foyer of Parliament House
















Poppys in the wall of names at the National War Memorial.










Aboroginal art at the National Museum.










Melbourne (28/12/07)

After a 500km drive from the capital we finally arrived in Melbourne where we said a sad goodbye to our campervan but a very welcome hello to a hot shower at our friend Nerida's house. We met Nerida in Vietnam and she was very kind to take in a couple of weary travelers.







That night we went out for dinner at a typical Melburnian pub where I ordered Kangaroo. It was a very lean and tender meat and was delicious. Even Jennie liked it when she tried a bit although she had berated me earlier about eating such a cute animal!








The Great Ocean Road (29/12/07 to 30/12/07)

After a half day of rest we were on the road again, this time in Nerida's beautiful but un-air conditioned car. We left the city in traffic and 40 degree heat! However, along the Great Ocean Road there were ample opportunities to revive ourselves in the sea. We had a really good time traveling with Nerida again whilst also getting to see some of the most amazing natural sites possible. I think only photos can do it justice:

Port Campbell where we stayed for a couple of nights.









Rob, Jennie and Nerrida at Loch Ard George








London Arch. Formally known as London Bridge before half of it collapsed in 1990 leaving people stranded on the other side!







This rock formation is called Elephant Rock.










These are the famous Twelve Apostles.








On our drive we also saw wild Koalas which was quite exciting, even for Nerida, as when you live in the city you rarely get to see Australia's famous creatures.

Week 11 (Brisbane - Sydney)

Brisbane to Syndey!!
(by Jen)

17/12/07 - 24/12/07

We have found the roads over in Australia very confusing, lots of highways, freeways and so mnay different routes that are not always clearly signposted. So when I directed Rob onto Route 3 from Brisbane I was very proud of myself, it was only after 30 kilometres that I realised we were in fact going north when we needed to go south! Not a good start, especially as this was rush hour!! However, we did eventually get on the correct road and in the correct direction and off we went!

Our first stop was Surfer's Paradise which was incredibly industrialised, the complete opposite to what we thought it would be. It really reminded us of Miami or Florida, with its Sea World resort and hundreds of shops and hotels. We spent the night just outside of the city and in the morning watched the early surfers before deciding that we were ready to leave.





On the road we have been taking full advantage of being able to pull over wherever we can, we have been able to visit so many national parks that we wouldn't have been able to do when we were travelling by the Greyhound.







Some of our highlights from the road have been visiting Mount Warning where we took a good walk up to a huge lookout point right in the rainforest. We also visited a crazy tiny town called Nimbin where everyone seemed to be a hippy even of they were 70. We chatted for about an hour to two local Aboriginal men about their life, how they feel about Australia etc. Which was very interesting to hear their side of the story.




We decided that we should treat ourselves to some CD's for our long road trip, however, as we visited a rather small town to buy these CD's we were stuck with either Hanson, Elton John or Ray Charles - so we opted for Elton and Ray! We have nearly learnt the whole albums by now!!

Byron Bay was a beautiful little town, we were pleasantly surprised as we thought it would be very similar to Surfers Paradise. It really reminded us of Newquay, which made us think of home. We also bumped into some of the friends we made at the Fraser Island trip so it was really nice to catch up with them, even though it had only been a few days since we had seen them.

We drove most of the way on the pacific highway so we have had many opportunities to visit some gorgeous beaches along the way, including Diamond beach, Saphire beach, Emerald beach (bit of a theme going on here) but so far one of our favourite beaches was at Coffs Harbour. We daggled our legs of the side of the harbour wall and shared a portion of chips, at that moment in time we could have been at Padstow - the chips let it down though, not traditional, still I'm not complaining!!

We went off road a few times to visit some inland National Parks, one of our favourite National Parks was the Dorrigo National Park.

We drove on a route called the "Waterfall Way" and it was stunning. We drove deep into the Rainforest, followed trails on the Rainforest floor, walked on skywalks in the canopies of the trees and also saw some stunning waterfalls. It was a great experience.

Forster was probably one of our favourite holiday towns. It had a lovely beach as well as gorgeous lakes. We chatted to some local young kids who were on their summer holidays and were spending their days in the sun fishing. They used "soldier crabs" for bait, which were a really bright blue colour - although Rob and I weren't sure that they needed all the hundreds of crabs they had collected! We also did some canoeing on Lake Wallis.

We visited a lovely old lighthouse at "Sugar Loaf Point" but it was so windy up at the top of the cliff that we really had to hold onto the rails!

All in all our trip from Brisbane to Sydney was a beautiful trip, we saw what we feel is the "real" Australia. We couldn't believe how green the country is, we were expecting it to be almost baron. We were so pleased that we opted for the less lazy option of driving ourselves down the coast instead of sitting on a greyhound, we have found it so much more rewarding!!!!

Week 10 (Hervey Bay, Fraser Island and Brisbane)

Week 10


Hervey Bay

11/12/07 - 12/11/07

We stayed at Hervey bay for one night before setting off on a self drive 4x4 tour of Fraser Island. As soon as walked into our hostel called "The Kookaburra" we felt like an ATM as we had to pay for bonds, insurance, under carriage insurance, food, gas, storage of bags, sleeping bags and even had to hire cutlery if we wanted to eat at the hostel! We had a very boring meeting about the self drive and we were split up into smaller groups. We had a good mix of a Swiss girl, 3 Austrian boys, a Canadian girl and 3 other English guys.

Fraser Island

12/12/07 - 14/12/07

We set off early on our adventure and caught the ferry over to
Fraser Island. We were given an itinerary by the hostel that we had to stick to as a lot of the driving was on the beaches and in the past people have got trapped by the tides.

This is a picture of our lovely group by our not so lovely and very old truck.



Our first stop was at a place called lake McKenzie. We couldn't believe it was a lake, it was so clear and the water was so clean that people drunk from it while swimming. We spent the whole afternoon there swimming and getting to know our group.






This is a photo of the pinnacles which were contained many different shades of sand. They were so tall and we couldn't believe that they were made soley of sand!







Driving on sand was really difficult and many people got stuck. Some people even had to be towed out which cost them $500! We were lucky and never actually got stuck (due to Rob's amazing driving). This is a photo of two groups copmpletely stuck in the sand.





We visited a rock pool formation called the Champagne pools. The waves were so fierce that they crashed against the rocks and soaked us. We were meant to be able to swim in the pools but as it was high tide we opted not to. One couple that did go in were pushed against the rocks and ended up cutting themsleves to shreds!





We all slept in tents at night and with a group of boys Jen soon became QM doing most of the cooking.

One night our camp site was raided by dingos. They snuck into our camp site and stole a plastic tube that had minced beef in. They were really stunning creatures but no one dared to get too close! See why @ this link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraser_Island#Dingoes

We visited one of the major landmarks of Fraser Island: the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno. The S.S. Maheno was originally built in 1905 in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship. However in WW1 the ship served as a hospital ship, before returning to a luxury liner. In 1935, the ship was declared outdated and was being towed from Melbourne to Japan to be disposed of when it was caught in a strong cyclone and was beached on Fraser Island. The ship has since become severely rusted, with almost three and a half storeys buried under the sand! It was high tide when we visited the site so we managed to get some great photos of waves crashing over the wreck.














We visted Eli Creek which is the largest creek on the east coast of the island with a flow of 80 million litres per day. It was so nice, all the trees shaded us as we jumped in and strode/swam up and down this lovely creek.


On the last day we visited Lake Woby. Again this was a fresh water lake like Mckenzie but it was so different. This has lots of fish in it and was surrounded by sand dunes.

This was a great trip and we feel we made some really good friends that we will definitely keep in touch with!





Brisbane
15/12/07 - 17/12/07

We said our sad goodbyes to our group members and caught the greyhound once again, this time our destination was Brisbane. Ryan from our group was also travelling to Brisbane so we all stayed in the same hostel. We spent the night with Ryan chatting and taking advantage of the hostels happy hour drinks!!

The following day we went for a walk into the town and instantly fell in love with the city, it is clean and very modern.

We also visited the Koala Sanctuary where we could cuddle Koalas and feed Kangeroos. We had such a good time. This picture is of Jen holding O'Reily a 3 year old Koala!

That evening we bumped into some of our group from the Fraser Island trip, so we had 8 of out of the 10 members all staying at the same hostel in Brisbane - small world. It was great to see them again, we all spent the night together having fun. Rob and I didn't stay out too late though as we had an early start to pick up a campervan to drive down to Melbourne in. Road Trip!!

Week 9 (Cairns, Airlie Beach and Whit Sundays)

Week 9

Cairns
02/12/07 - 05/12/07

We went on a tour of the rainforest with our own Steve Irwin, he was crazy; jumping into lakes, kissing eels, licking ants and letting all these bizarre creatures walk all over his face. We had a really good time and learnt a lot about the rainforest and its surroundings.





As it was so humid and sticky in the rainforest it was refreshing to be able to stop at a river and jump in! We also did a bit of canyoning which was really fun.








This photo was taken at Lake Placid, where "Stuey" our tour told us that there is quite regularly crocodiles in the water!!

We also visited a beach called "Trinity Beach", the water was so clear, everyone just wanted to jump straight in. However, we were only able to swim in a tiny part of netted off sea as there were crocodiles, sharks and killer stingers in the water!! (Bit different to Newquay)







Sailing the Whit Sundays

08/12/07 - 10/12/07

We caught the greyhound bus down to Airlie Beach as we had booked the "British Defender" for a three day, two night cruise of the Whit Sunday islands. The boat was beautiful and the skipper of the boat looked very much like Father Jack from Father Ted.
We met some lovely people on the boat and soon we were all mucking in with washing up, preparing food and helping with the running of the boat.



We visited a beach called "White Haven" it was one of the most beautiful sites we have ever seen. The sand was so clean, white and fine it was like icing sugar. When you walked on the sand it squeaked beneath your feet, it was amazing! We all had to wear stinger suits in the water even to paddle, we had a bit group game of frisby and then some cricket. The water was so clear that whilst paddling we managed to see a reef shark, a turtle and many sting rays.






We walked to a look out area where we could see the whole of the Whit Sunday Islands, it was so beautiful. It was very busy there but very quiet as everyone was just mesmerised by the beauty of the islands.






This is one of the views from the look out area.

In the evening we would just watch the stars while lying on the deck. We have never ever seen stars like the ones we saw on the boat. The sky was gleaming, we saw 12 shooting stars in the space of an hour. The skipper stayed awake with us showing us the Milky Way with his binoculars.

As it was so hot on the boat down below we all slept on the deck which was a really good experience, we fell asleep under the stars and woke up at sun rise!


On the boat we also had a few opportunities to go snorkeling. We had tried briefly in Thailand, however that was just from the shore. We all got on a powered dingy and were taken out to the coral. Rob was a natural, however, it took me some time to get used to it. We both in the end had such a good time, we saw so many beautiful fish, clams and the carol was amazing. We had such a great time on the boat, it was one of our favourite activities so far!