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Arrived in Sydney on the 17th April with Jim. We got a taxi to Bondi where Graham a mate of ours from Uni lives. He treated us to steak and ribs, which after a few months in Asia went down very nicely.
19th April - Decided to give Graham some space as he was moving house and flew to Melbourne. This was my first day of travelling on my own.
I got a train to the centre and checked into a dorm room in a hostel . Dump doesn't even come close. I was in a room with 2 girls from Belgium and it was cheap, so it would do for now. I stayed there for 2 nights before heading to St.Kilda beach on the other side of town - much nicer, however 10 people in a dorm. Not what i'm used to but good for meeting people. I arrived at the hostel and met a girl (Jo) who was looking for people to hire a car and go down the great ocean rd, perfect ! So myself, Jo, Sharn and James from Leeds ( Nice lad believe it or not !) hired a car and set off the next
morrning. Weather was a bit iffy and the roads took some getting used to. I drove the barge that we'd hired for the first stretch, it was nice to drive again and Ozzy roads are pretty quiet.
We stopped for lunch in a place called Lorne for fish and chips, 12 Apostles & along the way at scenic lookouts and tourist spots, like a sign that says Great Ocean rd, suprisingly.. (see picture). Stayed that night in Appollo bay. That night i had an unbelievable nights sleep, 8 hours straight in a comfy double bed and a great shower - its the simple things in life.
We made it back the next day in time to go to Neighbours night, a pub quiz with Carl Kennedy and other Neighbours stars walking around, then The good Dr and his band play with 300 girls and about 50 guys getting hammered, not a bad night..
24th - Met my cousin Anat at the beach for a birthday drink then went to the Lunar park. Had a go on the oldest roller coaster in the world, built in 1912 & made from rotten wood by the looks of it....
26th - Got the
over night bus to Adelaide. Arrived next morrning in a wet Adelaidaide, had some lunch, went shopping with a nice couple of Irish girls and had an early night ready for my tour up to Uluru (Ayres rock) the next day
28th - Picked up at 6ish along with 22 other people and set off to Coober Peeedy (underground Mining town) Ayres rock and Alice Spring.
Now when i arrived in Oz i wasn't very keen on going on tours, however due to the size of the country and the lack of time there was no other option. The enjoyment of the tours are very much dependant on the guide and the people.
The guide called Arnie was great (lovely name for a girl !!) The group was made up of S.Koreans, Germans, Danish, Irish, French, English, Spanish, American and so on.
The tour involved a hell of a lot oF time on the bus, patience with rude people in the tour and some unbelievable sights, oh and eating Emu, Camel and Kangaroo. The highlights were Coober Peedy, Wilpena Pound, Uluru / Ayres Rock, Kata Tjuta, Kings Kanyon and Alice Spring
A lot of tourist's and Aussies for that matter
miss out cntral Oz and Ayres rock which is a shame, i am very glad i did it. Thankfully there were some good people on the tour so we had a good laugh.
4th may - flew to Sydney ready to celebrate Jim and Grahams birthdays with them the next day.
5th May - Graham had managed to get us a boat for the day / night. What an experience. There is no better way to see Sydney than from the water. We got some food, beer and a bottle of Champagne (to celebrate Leeds going down & into administration) and met at 1pm. Everyone on the boat was great (mostly mates of Graham and his girlfiend Sara) and we had a lovely day, enjoying the view, swimming , eating and drinking.
Unfortunately i had to leave about 9ish as i didn't feel great. I'd picked up a bug on the trip and couldn't shake it.
6th May - early hours - CHAMPIONS ! Got text from the boys back home that Chelsea had drawn urgo, we had our trophy back - get in !!
7th May - flew to Perth - (approx 5 hrs) just to give you an
idea of the size of the country. Spent that night throwing immodium down me and drinking water and had an early night ready to start the Perth - Broome tour the next day..
People had told me how nice perth was, unfortunately i didn't have the time or feel well enough to see it.
8th May - Got picked up - early as usual. The group consisted of myslef, a lad called Dave, man u fan from Preston and 18 girls. From Essex to Milan. Its a tough life..
Like many tours this was going to have highlights, lots of travel on the bus & tollerance. This group seemed to gel a bit better than the last one, mainly due to English being spoken all the time by all but one of the group..
First couple of days we went sandboarding, Kalbari national park, bushwalking, shark bay and shell beach. staying that night in Monkey Mia.
Next morning we got up nice and early (shock) to see the feeding of the Dolphins, they come right up to you, bit touristy, nice none the less.
These tours often give you options that sound great and usually end up costing a fortune.
We did abseiling (including running forward over the cliff SAS style) An eco tour and swimming with whale sharls.
Day 4 of the trip was the eco tour - We paid $130, 55 pound for the day. Involved going on a boat, snorkelling, swimming with Manta rays, seeing turtles and a bit of lunch. It was fantastic seeing a 3m wide manta ray (4th biggest shark, so they tell us). Its quite hypnotic watching them. (see dvd that i bought when i get back). We then drove to Exmouth ready for swimming with whale sharks next day
Day 5 - What a day - we paid $330, 140 pound. There were no guarantees that we would see any and and the day started very badly. We were picked up by a bus to take us to the boat, on the way the bus got flagged down, the truck and little boat to ferry you to the bigger boat had been in an accident and people gone to hospital. We were't sure if we going to go now.
Thankfully we still went and everyone involved in the accident was ok, a few few cuts and a bit of shock. The company
we went with had its own spotter plane that basically flies over the sea looking for a large grey object aka a whale sharke. Once spotted the boat leathers it there in case the whaleshark dives or dissapear out to sea. About 10.30am all the crew got very excited, we had one (turned out to be approx 10m - a big fella! ). The first experience of going into the water and seeing it can only be descibed as blind panic. You have a shark spotter in the water with their arm up guiding you to where the shark is and 10 of us in the water without a clue, you are supposed to split into 2 groups and move well out of the way and watch the whale shark slowely swim though a large gap in the middle. Instead we were 10 people panicking all over the shop and smack in the middle of its path, on girl was practically on top of it. They're not supposed to be any danger to us. Then again your not supposed to sit on a whales shark the size of a minibus.
The day was incredible, we swam with 2 different whale
sharks and got 2 full hours in the water with them - incredible (dvd of the day also back home)
We spent the next 3 nights camping in the Karajini national park, 80 mile beach, gorge walking, swimming in water falls and pools (fern & circluar )
Arrived in Broome on day 9 - went to the touristy things such as the Japanese cemetry, Anastasias Pool & the usual sunset and a night out with the group
Next few days spent chilling out in Broome, watching the FA cup final and getting ready for the next tour, Broome - Darwin..
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