Neeson

Got to Darwin early enough and checked it out. Vibrant young exciting city, but you can’t go swimming in the sea. We reckoned that we could see big Salties (Estuarine Crocodiles) swimming the harbour below the cliff we were standing upon, so we went and had a Vietnamese instead and chilled out. Next day was our trip to the Kakadu National Park. It is a huge national park 2 hours from Darwin. It has spectacular natural scenery and wildlife, including millions of birds and reptiles. It also contains some phenomenal indigenous sites that can be visited, in particular the interesting aboriginal rock art paintings. There are a few that you can visit within the park and are easily accessible. We went to see one called Ubirr, guided by a local indigenous tour guide. He explained the ... read more

Exmouth is a wee tourist town at the top of the Ningaloo Reef and has some quality marine animals. During the cold war the US army built a military base there and it is the site for 13 massive towers that transmit Very Low Frequency radio waves (VLF) to the submarines. I think it can contact any submarine anywhere in the world. Anyway before the Americans showed up this place was pretty desolate and cut off from the rest of the world. Now it is a tourist hub. Ciaran went for a dive on the first day at the Navy Pier. It is a big pier built by the Americans for the army base, and apparently is consistently in one of the top ten diving sites in the world. Well, it was the best diving site ... read more

Next stop Kalgoorlie, a town in the Goldfields in Western Australia. This spot was central to the goldrush in the late 1800’s and was where Ciaran’s Great Great Grandfather came out with his brothers and opened a drapery business before returning to Ireland in the 1900’s. It turns out that they were quite a big name in the town and the local historian had loads of information on them for us. We visited the old house where they lived and found the grave where one of the Brennans is buried. Also got to see the goldmine “SUPERPIT,” which is Australia’s largest open mine. It was really amazing and made Deirdre want to put on a yellow hat and drive a big monster truck. Deirdre's highlight though was the skimpy bar. Google it…... read more

Squeezed in a wee breakfast in Ewan + Aileens’ s favourite hangout “Say Grace.” Quite possibly the best breakfast we have had in Australia. In fact possibly the second best breakfast in the world, after an Ulster fry of course. Next off to Adelaide via Mt Gambier, where we met up with Amy’s sister Bridie Tierney (the last Neeson we met on our travels) and got to see the marvelous blue lake, which in Winter is more of a grey-blue, but was spectacular all the same. It goes from Grey- to green – to Blue and nobody is actually sure why it changes colour. We weren’t far from Coonawarra, a wine region just over the Victoria/ South Australia border. Wine regions will become something of a trend for us over the next few days. Picked up ... read more

Off now to the Great Ocean Road. Started the trip with a flat tyre, so only got a short distance along the road before we had to ditch in Torquay for the night. The Great Ocean Road is a quality drive, and also where they filmed “Round the twist,” a kids TV show about a ghost in a lighthouse we used to watch. Had to go there. Then stopped off at the 12 apostles for the awesome scenery factor – the grotto was a good one. Along the way Deirdre drove off road up a death defying cliff because she wanted some excitement. It was Ciaran’s idea to see some real life wild Koalas. Survived Deirdre’s thrill trip of death and Ciaran got to see his own Koala bear that he found all by himself and ... read more