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Published: June 17th 2011
We left you sweating in the 42 degree heat of Delhi. Due to the horror stories we'd heard from people passing through Delhi ("a woman was mugged outside my hotel room", "i saw a man being beaten up by a gang outside my hotel room" etc) and the fact it was going to be so hot, we really had prepared ourselves for the worst, we were expecting all our nightmares of armless, blinded beggars to come true there. However, and although we could only see a small proportion of the city in our 24 hours there, we found a well planned out, wide roaded, (relatively) clean city. For whatever reason Monday is the day all the public buildings including art galleries, museums and the famous Red Fort close. So we were absolved from the need to hare from place to place in the stiffeling heat trying to see everything in our tiny amount of time. We spent most of the day in air conditioned coffee shops and left feeling there was a lot more we would have liked to see.
Our train to Mumbai left on time at about 8.30pm or so and we spend an unexciting 20 hours or so sleeping, reading, playing cards and staring out the window at the baking Indian plains.
We arrived in outer Mumbai in the late afternoon and spent a few hours wandering around the busy streets watching hippies dressed like Indians and Indians dressing as westerners.
The airport is a long way out of town, about 2.5 hours by taxi, and our flight left early in the morning so we decided to sleep in the airport terminal, we were ushered to a waiting room and spend a restless night on the hard floor. First thing in the morning we got into the terminal to be told our flight was running late and would not be leaving until just after 2pm. Won't bore you with the details but on Thursday morning after a lot of bad movies and worse food, we arrived in Adelaide.
It's difficult to describe the cleanliness and order of Australia after over three months in India. But to put it simply, it was a shock.
Adelaide itself is given a bad press compared to its larger siblings, seen as dull and parochial. But we found it to be a well set out and full of beautiful gardens, galleries and museums, which we took full advantage off, including the daily free tours of the botanic gardens and art gallery. The night life may not be up to much compared to Sydney and Melbourne but that was fine by us; if nothing else we couldn't afford to go out a-partyin'. Although Oz is not a great deal more expensive than the UK it came as suprise coming from India - suddenly we've gone from a lifestyle where we ate and drank out 3 meals a day to scourering the bargin shelves of the cheap supermarkets.
We spent a few days in Adelaide recovering from the (fairly modest) jet lag and organising things.
Our plan was to buy a car or 4x4 and drive around the country. Buying a car is tough in a country where you don't understand the laws and Australia adds to the complication by having different requirements in different states. We found a 92 Holden Apollo wagon (estate) which the owner had found a mattress that fits into the back and put cutains around the back to sleep in. Unfortunatly the car was a Victoria reg which meant we either had to go to Victoria (around 300km) or change it to South Australia reg which meant paying alot more money straight away. After alot more faf we got it registered in SA and were free to go.
In the mean time we decieded to start Wwoofing. We arranged to stay with a woman called Wendy Willow in the hills above Adelaide, with a veg garden, sheep, cat and wooded areas. We had a seperate sleeping space in a studio built by Wendy with a little pot belly stove to heat it. Wendy and her partner Chloe were extremely welcoming and allowed us to take over the kitchen entirely which was great after so long without cooking. It was like staying with friends, exchanging ideas, interests and chatting about life the universe and everything. We had planned to stay for 4 days and on the 5th set off to our next wwoof. However, the next woman seemed to just want workers and did not spend much time with us meals were all eaten seperatly. To cap it off there was no heating in the garage like space we were staying in which was just too much. So the next morning we called Wendy and asked to come back.
On our return Chloe had an unusually wwoofing job for us, a close friend had a party for her daughters 21st that day but had hurt her back and was struggling to sort things. So Chloe wanted us to help make sushi for the party and come along to help out. So we ended up at an Ozzy 21st just over a week after arriving in the country. Everyone was really welcoming and interested in how we had ended up there and we had a good evening if very unexpected. We stayed a couple more days while sorting the car and exploring the area and even saw our first koala and several roos.
Our next trick is to leave the cold, very English weather behind in Adelaide and head into the big red. We filled up the car with food and petrol and set off north. The first day was pretty easy driving on a highway with barriers in the central reservation and over taking lanes regularly. We passed our first road trains and got to Port Augusta fine. Unfortunalty with all the car expenses we didn't have any money in the account we have access too, oops. So we spent the first night in our car at a rest stop near the main road, not ideal and we weren't sure if we were going to be woken at dawn and told to move. Neither of us got off to sleep very well but got there in the end and no knocks on the window.
The next days drive was 500km to Coober Pedy. The road this time is one lane in each direction and no barriers with alot less overtaking spots. Everyone on the road is pretty consisderate and the road trains indicate to you when its safe to pass. I found the driving alot less stressful as you only catch up with things every 1/2 hour or so. We've seen alot of roos and cows that have been hit by the road trains and some eagles eating them. We also stopped for a guy walking along the road away from his car and called out a tow truck from the next phone for him.
Now we're in the Opal mining town of Coober Pedy, taking a day off from driving and doing some odd jobs. Tomorrow we head to Ularu (Ayer's rock), very exciting.
Although we will soon be able to upload all the photos we so far have kept hidden from you, it doesn't look like today is the day due to the paranoid security measures inforced at the state library where this is being written.
Will try to not leave it so long before updating again...
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wendy willow
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g'day from cherryville
Hey Chris and Alice, Great to read yr blog, and to know all goes well with you. Its getting colder here, the pot belly is on day and night. The day after you left a koala waddled up the driveway past the studio and scooted up the nearest tree to pose for photos! Where are you now? I hope you are warm enough at night. How was the Rock? I see that the annual beanie festival is on this weekend in Alice Springs - its great fun, if you can get a chance to take part. Cheers wendy (and chloe)