5000km's - 5 Days

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Ok, so the title of the post is a little misleading, it's actually day 8 now. But in doing this i am trying my best to keep those of you who want to know.. in the know.

So, we picked up our little campavan (nick named Julie) on the 8th September. 2 Days after leaving Mt Baw Baw - the unsnowiest of all snowy ski resorts. From there we spent a few days with Vic + Hernan whom we met in Sydney and have finally settled down in a suburb of Melbroune not 20mins walk from the centre. It's a nice little flat, and we wish them the best of luck there for the foreseeable future (or until vics second year visa runs out / she gets booted out the country, whichever comes first).

So, the first few days were, well, actually every day pretty much up until today we have drove a minimum of 8 hours. Yesterday being the rare exception as we were ahead of ourselves and managed to do a short stint up to Port Douglas - our current location.
From Melbourne we went straight down onto the Great Ocean Road where you find sights such as the twelve apostles, loch and gorge (recently collapsed) and london bridge. All of these are supposed to be amazing. Note i said supposed... unfortunatly they are at the FAR end of the "road" and by the time we reached them it was pitch black and i was busy concentrating on not hitting any wandering Kangaroo's which may have appeared on the road at night (our insurance doesn't cover us if we hit one..)
But we did however manage to pull over on the side of the road and take a few photo's of Koalas not far up a dirt track...awww. One of which had a little cub too. Unfortunatly it was just too far out to get a decent shot.
From here we started the longest section of our journey. 2000km's straight up to Uluru (Ayer's rock) and Kata Tjuta. Although incredibly long winded it was amazing to drive from Victoria up into South Australia throught the flatlands and up into Northern Territory to the Red Desert. This provided something i have never seen before, a full spectrum sunset.. if you would call it that. Basically the land is so flat, and so vast that on one side of you you have the typical reds, yellows and oranges of a sunset. The other side is all deep blues, purples and violets. The contrast is amazing and i don't think there on many places on earth that you would be able to see such a sight.

From here on we drove 9 - 10 hours each day up to the centre of Australia to see Uluru. Now, to be honest i can understand before i saw it why some people didn't want to see it, because essentially it just a big rock in the middle of nowhere. But when you do see it, it is quite a humbling sight. More so to the regard that unlike most monoliths (such as kata tjuta) it simply appears straight out of the ground.. there are no slow rises that give way to the monolith. It is pure flat land that suddenly juts up, and the way it is so rounded in comparison to the other monoliths we passed on the way up it's no wonder the local Aboriginal people view it as Sacred. Kata Tjuta also known as the Olgas is also another sacred place.. but you aren't allowed to be told the story of it (which makes me think it's more sacred than Uluru?). It is much more immense but is a collection of large rounded boulders that little an expanse of maybe 20km's.

After spending the morning here (we arrived at 6am) we moved up on out to Alice Springs to stop off refresh and stayed on the roadside that night in one of the abundant reststops they offer you in Northern Territory. From here it was a straight on run through (approx another 1700km) to Cloncurry, a small town over the border in Queensland for the night with a stop off at the Devils Marbles (another volcanic rock formation quite unusual - will try post photos soon). Then straight on through to Port Douglas via the Atherton Tablelands.

Whilst here i have managed to go and dive the Great Barrier Reef (life long ambition which i can finally say i have done.) and kate has managed to work on her tan down on the beach.
From here on we go to find another beach somewhere around the whitsundays before we go whalewatching on friday and Australia Zoo on Saturday and then, finally, onto Asia on Sunday for 8 weeks.

It's been one hell of a drive getting here and we've still got 2000km's to go, but i'm glad to say we did it.. we have seen such a drastic change in the landscapes of Australia that i don't think we would have seen had we decided to do it all by place or bus and its given us the free will to stop off where we like. I think we're both quite looking forward to Asia.. despite the oncoming culture shock that i'm sure will happen the first few days after we arrive there and get back up to speed with the ways of the Thailand.

Will try and post photo's and updates soon.

Pete + Kate

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