Advertisement
Blue Mountains
Not sure what took my breath away more, the view or climbing to see it I feel so ashamed. So terribly, terribly ashamed. Ive let you all down. Im not sure I can ever hold my head up in British Barbecuing circles again. Why, you might ask? My tale of shame begins when we bought a kettle barbie for two, as in the van with only a microwave and gas hob the cooking choices are a bit limited. As the night drew in at our woodland campsite i took my shiny new barbie and smokeless bricketts out of the van and began the process of lighting them. Two juicy steaks sat waiting for the flames. They waited as I ignited the firelighters. They waited as i ignited the second lot. They waited as I fanned, blew, swore and blew again. They even sat idly by as a lady from the next caravan up came along and said "My family and I cant help but notice you havent been able to cook yet, while we've cooked, eaten and washed up. We thought you might like to borrow these?" She held out a gas camping stove and frying pan, with a look sincere helpfulness on her face. Im not sure what hurt more, the failure thus far to
Parliament
At the seat of power in Australia.... though either the politicians were at lunch or maybe very, very small make a fire, the strong Ozzie accent she had that brought back so many jokes about brits and the barbies, the fact that she'd said her entire family had been watching me, or maybe the simple fact that I thanked her very much but said Id manage, then when she went took the, by now very patient, steaks and cooked them on our own gas hob and pan
(Note - since then I have managed to get the hang of the new BBQ, though Ive noticed Jo always seems to have the pan handy...)
With 5,500 Kilometres under our belts, we have now finally done a full circle in the first half of our tour of Oz. As you might remember we flew into Melbourne for the wedding, then up to Sydney and Cairns before picking up the van to take a more leisurely road trip back to here before heading a bit more up the coast then into the outback and Uluru (Ayers Rock). Well, we finally reached Melbourne last night. Had a bit of a slip up this morning, though. We have an almost daily routine with the van when packing it up to travel. Hardest
Snow Trekking
Dave was dissapointed to discover when Jo said we'll go Trekking it had nothing to do with the Starship Enteprise bit is the emptying of the chemical toilet (Jo's turn today, hooray - my turn always takes longer as i have a technique of carrying it by my fingertips at arms length with my head turned away - slow but does the job). After that the next hardest bit is finding somewhere to empty the waste water tank. Its just water and soap from the sink, but can be a bugger if you cant find a place to do it as the site management tend to take offence to just dumping it anywhere. This morning thought I had it sussed as our patch sloped down towards a drain so turned on the tap and let it flow. Unfortunately misjudged the slope completely and it all poured into the road. Had to hastily depart through a street of foam.
We left you last in Brisbane. Wasnt a bad place, though to be honest didnt have a lot to do that we could find, not compared with the likes of Sydney and Melbourne. Anyways, left there and went south into the Gold Coast. Its a long stretch of really developed beach land includes Surfers Paradise. Personally, thought the name a bit
Atop Mt Oberon
It took Jo nearly an hour to convince Dave to let go of the rail and to enjoy the view misleading as though Im sure the waves might be great for surfers, Im not sure the constant high rise apartments right up to the beach edge are very paradise like. It does have some great amusement parks, though, and Jo and I had a ball at the 'Wet n Wild' water park for a few hours. Loads of slides, wave machines, that sort of thing.
We then drove on to Byron Bay. This is definately one of our favourite Ozzie places so far. Its a beautiful horseshoe shaped cove and pretty 'village' attached. We had a site a 20 second walk to the beach, and spent a few days there chilling on the sand, a bit of walking in the hills and the like. It had a kind of arty feel there, with craft shops, galleries and the like.
On from there, we drove down to the Hunter Valley, one of Australias more famous wine making regions. We're planning a longer stop later for Ozzie wine, so only did a morning there, but real differences in the vineyards than our previous experiences in France. They vineyards themselves we saw were really modern and often quite extravagant buildings to lure you in I guess. Some had a very modern feel, others were obviously trying to recreate European styles. I think the one that looked the most Australian to us was probably the one shaped in part like a giant Wine Barrel.
We skipped inland from there into the Blue Mountains. They are basically a bit inland from Sydney, and are pretty breathtaking. We spent two days there walking through gorges and along clifftracks. It was pretty misty when we started out, but then the sun came out and the views were absolutely amazing. Got to see a fair bit of wildlife as well, including at one point as we walked down along a stream a lobster like creature walked across the path in front of us. Thats one of the things i love about this place, you see stuff i cant imagine we'd often see anywhere else in the world.
We left the Blue Mountains and drove south to Canberra. Its a really strange place, the capital 'city' of Australia but basically was built purely for the purpose as nearly a hundred years ago the ozzies couldnt agree which of there cities should be the capital so they built a new one. I guess when you have this much space its the kind of thing you can do. The problem with that is the city feels a bit like a giant town hall and council offices. Its really well laid out and has some pretty grand buildings and all, but you still feel like you are in a place just built to politically run the rest of the country. The highlight was meeting up with Alan, a friend we made on our tour of China who gave us a great tour of the city and then made our day by cooking us a traditional Sunday roast dinner, one of the things we've missed the most since leaving home. Even better, he is an avid wine collector so plenty of red wine was drunk and port finished the night.
We said our goodbyes the next morning to Alan and headed on to the Kozciusko national park, again based around mountains and in fact Kozciusko is the highest peak in Oz. The great thing here was the snow, and we learnt the difficulties of trekking through this at 6000 feet. Again great views and another set of new experiences for us.
We then went on to the south coast, to another national park, Wilsons Promonotory. After all the cities and ancient monuments of asia, parks and bushwalking were the thing we were most focused on coming here and we have definately learnt a lot about trekking. At the 'prom' we climbed a mountain, Mt Oberon. Actually, to be fair we drove halfway up and walked the rest, but was still pretty hard going. Jo said as we climbed how much easier it was when you got into a rythym. I kind of looked at her through sweat covered eyebrows, swore brielfy and realised that my natural lack of rythm now punished me on both bushwalks and dance floors
Anyways, thats pretty much it. We left Wilsons Prom and drove last night into Melbourne. We're leaving here tonight, having seen much of the city last time around and getting ourselves out West a bit ready for tomorrows drive along the Great Ocean Road. That takes us along to a few more Natioanl Parks, the Barossa Valley vineyards, and into Adelaide before we head north into the outback.
Missing you all loads!
xx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.079s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0438s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mum
non-member comment
The way to do it
It sounds as though you are seeing all the sites we did not get a chance to see although we did make the Blue Mountains before you! I think the camper van is the way to see Oz, beats this packing up your suitcase ready for the next flight and praying that this time it won't weight more than the allowed limit!! I think next time we visit, and I am sure there will be one, we will draw on your wealth of experience. We miss you lots too and will be thinking of Joanne on the 23rd, or perhaps it should be the 22nd since she will age a day quicker this year! Lots of love Mum and Dad XXX