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Published: December 4th 2009
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Our huge 6 week and 9000 km road trip began in Cairns, North East Australia! We hopped onto our 20 man boat and headed out to the Great Barrier Reef to see what all the fuss is about. Two hours away from the coastline we dropped into the warm water in the Outer Reef. We were at the start of 'stinger season' where the box jellies and irukanji are rife but according to our tour guide they hadn't yet arrived. Despite this, upon spotting around 10 standard jellies in the immediate viscinity of the boat, Nat decided she couldn't quite relax without the comfort of a full body stinger suit, despite the fact nobody else had one. So, fully prepared, we set off snorkling around the coral, checking out the stunning and most diverse coral we had ever seen. No sharks in sight, nevertheless some very brightly coloured fish.
Cairns didn't have much else to offer, apart from a really nice Lagoon as there is no beach just mud. Apart from the stingers, northern Queensland also has salt water crocs so most of the beaches are too dangerous to paddle.
After a few days among mainly German 18 year
olds we picked up our hire car and headed off to the hinterland, inland a little from Cairns. There was lots of farming and green rolling hills and some waterfalls, so pretty and strangely similar to home, not what we expected of Oz at all! Back to the coast we visited a variety of towns throughout our south bound journey. Townsville was where we slept in our car 1 night (yes- matt actually managed to curl up his long legs and catch some Zzzzz in the tiny Hyundai Getz) as the hostels were all fully booked. The refreshing 5am swim in the sea front lagoon made up for the inconvenience though and it was a treat to see the sunrise and be around the large number of active Aussies excercising before work. Further South, Mission Beach was a stunning, rugged beach fringed with huge palms. We stayed in a rustic treehouse hostel in the jungle, and whilst cooking the hugest spider we've ever seen in our lives (bigger than matts hand) kept us company from a safe distance in the eaves of the ceiling.
Rainbow Beach was a beautiful dune-sandstone cliffy coast with rainbow colour effect in the cliffs, hence
the name. Byron Bay is also worth a mention. It was one of our favorite Aussie towns, having such a nice, relaxed-hippy feel with a real mix of people. The beach was great and we gave body boarding a go, braving the shark infested sea (only for the fact the water was crystal clear so Nat was content that she would be able to see a shark coming a mile off!)
Having the luxury of the hire car we decided to deviate from the standard backpacker route and head inland to the New South Wales Outback to an old mining town called Broken Hill. The country folk were so friendly and warm, but the flies were a pain in the a**e!! It really was dry, red dust country! We saw a huge amount of road kill in the form of Kangaroos so we made sure to never drive at dusk or at night time when they are most active. We also went to a tiny ghost town in the middle of the outback called Silverton, which is where they filmed Mad Max II, not much going on, some ruined buildings and cars, but no sign of Mel.
Entering
Bananas!!
Banana Plantation, Tropical North Queensland into South Australia we were now halfway accross the country, and embarked on a visit to the red coloured mountains of Flinders Ranges. It was another case of dodge the flies, every time you stepped out of your car or hotel (or in our case a caravan from the 1950's!). On one occaison Nat stayed safe in the Air Conditioned (fly free) car, whilst Matt jogged up a hill to see the aborignal cave paintings, in the process being stung in the ear by a bee/hornet and breaking his 50p sunglasses and nearly his ankle.
The next stop really was one to savour, literally! We stayed two nights in the famous Barrossa Valley wine region, home of Wolf Blass, Jacobs Creek and Penfolds and loads more vineyards, most of German heritage. We didnt really know what to expect of the wine tasting, as we cant really tell our Cab Sav's from our Merlots, and we thought it might be all 'wonderful bouquet's', and 'ooooh Rupert.... im getting roses and plum's and a hint of elderflower'. In reality it wasnt snobby at all, we just worked our way through the wines (for free!), there's no pressure to buy a bottle,
but we bought a couple anyway (one because we liked it, and one because it was the only way to stop the owner of the vineyard talking about his life story!). Our favourite vineyard was called Turkey Flat, and the guy running the tasting, Andrew, was a fellow Brit and really interesting to chat to.
We hit the coast, passing through sleepy (but 40C hot!) Adelaide on our way, and the idyllic town of Carrickalinga lay await for us. As we sat eating our lunch under the only sheltered bench on the beach we could see groups of dolphins coming so close to the beach following the schools of Australian Salmon! It was such a sight! A local came to chat to us and informed us that the odd dark patch off the shore was a shark breaching every so often when going for the Aussie Salmon. He also described how only a fornight before a young snorkler was attacked by a White Pointer Shark towards the other end of the bay. This place was like a wildlife paradise with turqouise crystal clear waters to polish it off, hence we couldn't resist a quick dip in the sea before
our road trip continued.
The biggest attraction to the South Coast of Australia was our next port of call....The Great Ocean Road, which hugs the coast from Portland to Torquay before you head North East to Melbourne. There are some pretty impressive rock formations along the coast from the 12 Apostles to the Loch Ard Gorge, and we braved the throngs of photographers at sunset to grab a few shots for ourselves. The Great Ocean Road was a welcome experience as not only was it a lot cooler, but the drive actually had some corners!! After days of straight roads with not a car in sight, it was good to really get the Hyundai handling like a dream on the bends and hairpins of the GOR.
Further along the Great Ocean Road is the surf town of Torquay, home to the famous Bells Beach, and also the home of famous surf brands Quiksilver and Rip Curl. Ironically there wasn't a wave in sight the morning we passed through Bells Beach.
Melbourne was a cool town, typical City really, but a fairly manageable size, and it had a really convenient free tram service to save your legs. We
Smouldering Bush Fire
Eungella National Park also went to the Cinema to see New Moon, which possibly wins the award for worst film ending of 2009.
Our visit to Oz was like a visit to a giant zoo. There was amazing wildlife everywhere!! Our journey from Melbourne to Sydney was no exception, we saw tropical parrots pretty much everywhere, very friendly kangaroos in Jervis Bay who ate grass out of matt's hand, sting rays in the bay of Narooma and a deadly Hunstman Spider in the Blue Mountains. We based ourselves in the town of Katoomba, 100km west of Sydney, and embarked on a few hikes around the Blue Mountain area. The Blue Mountains are one of the more stunning natural features in Australia, and a welcome view away from the coast, they are more of a gorge, similar to the Grand Canyon but not as vast and more green. The added bonus of the area was the lack of flies, which meant that we could fully relax and enjoy the great outdoors, unlike most places in Australia where flies seem intent on attacking every orifice of your face.
So here we are in our home for the next 10 days in the Strathfield
suburb of Sydney. We are looking forward to exploring the city over the next week and preparing for our Summer Chistmas this year! We will be spending Christmas in New Zealand, attempting to cook a full Christmas Dinner on the two hobs in our rental van! (Wish us luck)....Merry Christmas to you all & really looking forward to seeing you in 2010.
M&N xxx
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