Blogs from Australia, Oceania - page 4001

Ahhh, Tasmania... The punchline of so many jokes, yet a place that so few people (including Aussies) actually visit. After spending 10 days on the Apple Isle, I would definitely place it right near the top of the list of must see destinations in Australia. It is so different from anywhere else I have been here, and a refreshing change. As soon as I stepped off the plane and smelled the fresh air blowing all around me, I knew I was going to love Tassie. I started my journey in Hobart, the most southerly capital in Australia. There is a tendency here to point out how each place is "the most" something, which I found quite annoying. None the less, it is a beautiful little city set in a calm bay (when I saw it, at ... read more

Back to Cairns Jan 30th - Wow! Cairns is hot! Stepping off the plane was a bit of a shock to the system, going from a cool and windy Wellington morning, to an extremely hot and humid Cairns! This was going to take some getting used to. We had called the mechanic from the airport as he had agreed to pick us up in Betsy - so we could get on our way straight away. On our way back to the garage, Daryl broke it too us that Betsy was having a bit of a surging problem still, and that he hadn’t been able to figure out why. Oh-oh! Not what we had been hoping for as it didn’t mesh with our vision of sailing into the outback, free from any mechanical problems for the rest ... read more

Gordonvale...Babinda...Innisfail...Tully...Ingham. The small towns we drove through on our escape from Cairns along the Bruce Highway all seemed to display similar traits, ie unattractive residents, most still displaying their Christmas decorations (10th of Feb!!!) and all having a big corner pub with attached 'drive thru' bottle shop named 'The Victoria'. If you are a resident of one of these towns I apologise (although I doubt you can read) as I am sure they are all great places to live, but alas we passed them by. Fading light forced a stop over 250km south of Cairns on a camp site so dated that it was almost coming back in fashion and home to so many tree frogs that Carla mistook one for a light switch in the ladies shower block and touched it on its head, and ... read more

Now that I finally made the decision to leave Melbourne...well it wasn’t that I really needed to make that decision, just actually book something to make leaving the city concrete and not something to do next week…Tasmania became the next stop on my trip. Tasmania is similar to Newfoundland in Canada, or any other state/province that can lay claim to the fact it is their countries whipping boy. The mainland continuously makes jokes about Tassie and will look for remnants of a second head if you say you’re from there! My flight over from Melbourne didn't leave until 6:40am and since I needed to take the airport shuttle at 4am, that left me with 2 choices; try and pull a quick little nap before catching the shuttle of head to the bar until it closes and ... read more

We left Sydney behind to venture into the Blue Mountains (on valentines day - not sure how Jason is going to beat this next year!). We caught the 9.55am train, (which had an upstairs and downstairs!) and we arrived in Katoomba two hours later. We had booked a room at the YHA. The hostel was very nice with huge communal areas and a big, well equipped kitchen. We had lunch at a nice cafe and decided not to waste any time and get out on a walk straight away. Again, the weather had been kind to us. The heavy rain had cleared prior to our arrival, to leave blue skies and hot sun, meant we should see some good watefalls (i.e. not like the dried out J C Slaughter Falls of Mt. Coo-tha, Brisbane!). We joined ... read more