Travelling in Luxury!

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As normal my first few days in Darwin were hectic ones. Amongst the usual tasks of getting my bearings in the city so that I don’t get lost every time I brave it out the front doors of the hostel, finding a half decent internet café to update and print my CV ready for the world of work again, and of course finding a half decent pub to get a swift half in to get over all the stress of the first two chores, its quite manic.

As it turns out, Darwin is pretty small, so the amount of time I spent asking other people - who looked just as lost as I am - where I could find my hostel, was kept to a minimum, there was an internet café just down the street and a pub next door, so I had no excuses not to go and see what I could find in the way of work.

Luckily, the Supermarket across the street was hiring so I wandered in, armed with my CV and got a job on the spot. I was told that my duties would vary throughout the shop, and that I would have to be a ‘jack of all’, but ended up just switching between dairy and the checkouts.

Supermarket work turned out to be quite fun. I was thrust into the deep end straight away, and with five minutes of till training was let loose on the public. The tills were easy to learn, but early on, my in-experience with vegetables was evident, as I didn’t know what anything was and anything I did recognise had a different name in Australia for the same thing in England. I got there in the end though and fortunately, if I did make a fluky guess as to what something was, there was a picture to help me make sure.

Life in the dairy department was a different kettle of fish. I spent most of my days stocking cheese, milk and yoghurts, or climbing in and out of freezers with bags of mixed veg and apple pies. Along with a job ‘on the floor’ you had to have a half decent knowledge of where everything is in the shop, for when someone taps you on the shoulder asking in which isle they would find croutons (isle 1) or more often than not - lentils (still haven’t got a clue, what is a lentil anyway?) However, even I know, that when looking for something in a supermarket, you never ask a twenty-something male where you can find anything, you always go to the fifty year-old woman who looks like she’s worked there for decades, and you definitely never ask for advice on how to cook anything, unless its microwaveable.

After working in the supermarket for a couple of weeks, one of the other backpackers that we worked with told us that her landlord had an apartment available for a month and that he was looking for someone to fill it. We contacted the landlord, and managed to view the place, which we really liked, so the next day we moved in. As the place was two bedrooms, and Alaina and myself were only using one room, we had to try and find two more people to share the second room. After the first two people we asked had a change of heart about ten minutes before they were due to move in, I marched into town and found a couple more. The four of us stayed in the apartment for about three weeks before the landlord told us we had to leave. As it was high season, and race weekend the high demand for accommodation, meant big bucks and our landlord chased the mighty dollar so that was the end of our apartment life, and back to the hostel.

Darwin is a really nice city and from the moment I set foot in the N.T. I really liked it. The weather was amazing, the people friendly and there was plenty to see. One of my favourite spots, along with about a million others, was Mindil Beach Market. Here you could buy any type of greasy food you could ever dream about and much more. My favourite haunt was the ‘Roadkill Café’ where I was able to try crocodile, kangaroo, emu, possum, camel, buffalo and wallaby - camel being my favourite. Arts and crafts stalls were also plentiful at the markets so these kept Alaina busy while I was devouring various meats on sticks.

Amongst the other touristy things that Darwin had to offer were the botanical gardens, in which my new camera, which I bought in my first week in the city was getting tested to the limits on various plant and animal life, I even spent about half hour trying to take a picture of an ant on a leaf to test close-up mode. I did the city-walking trail and visited the WWII oil storage tunnels, parliament houses, and a personal favourite - Aquascene.

At Aquascene, whenever there is a high tide, hundreds of fish flood into a small harbour area and people gather round to feed them trays of bread. Some of the fish are massive and you can feed them from a few feet away or you can get your feet wet and have a go at hand feeding them. After throwing bread from a distance I decided on the latter option and got myself down into the water. With bread in hand and my new camera in my pocket I bent down and started feeding. A Japanese girl spotted me hand feeding them and decided she wanted a go too. As we both leant in to offer our bread, she leant a little too far and started to lose her balance and reach for me for something to hang on to. With the thought of another brand new camera getting wrecked, this time by water, I didn’t fancy taking a swim, so as she slowly leant forward towards the point of no return, I gave her a subtle nudge to encourage her the final few millimetres over the edge. As she splashed into the water with the fishes I was the first to offer her a hand back out, which she accepted but was a bit flustered and she disappeared off into the arms of her worried mother.

Other than pushing small foreigners into the sea, other activities keeping me busy were the Crocodylus Park, home to many a large crocodile and all sorts of monkeys, big cats, roo’s and sea life, Cullen Bay, a beautiful marina west of the city is an amazing spot and Fannie Bay, a great place to watch the sunset and see a bit of wildlife.

On a rare occasion when Alaina and myself had a couple of days off together, we decided to rent a car and drive the 150km to Litchfield National Park. We were given a trusty Hyundai Getz (Harriet) in which to make the trip. Being tourist high season, unfortunately it was quite hard to see any of the park as it was littered with tourists of all shapes and sizes. We stopped off at a few spots, had a dip in a couple of the pools and waterfalls, and did every walking trail that was on offer. That evening, in need of somewhere to sleep - preferably free of charge, we got in the car, headed back to the closest village from the park and snuck into a hotel car park where I had an extremely uncomfortable nights sleep in the drivers seat of our little car. In the morning, once I had realigned my neck and spine to normal and got some feeling back in my arse, we headed back to Darwin, via smaller surrounding towns and had a look around at what they had to offer and stopped off at the yacht club for some dinner (how la de daa of me!) before returning the car to the rental company.

By now I felt I had spent long enough in Darwin and needed to move on. So I packed in the job at the supermarket and planned my travels elsewhere and was lucky enough to get hold of campervan relocation down to Alice Springs. Relocations are normally quite hard to come across and are really cheap ($5 a day), and only occur when a company needs a van in another town or city to rent it out to another holidaymaker paying the big bucks. We were even more lucky to be given a six berth, Mercedes Turbo Diesel, fitted with a flat screen TV, PS2, air conditioning, an oven/grill, microwave and DVD player! We were travelling in luxury - definitely a few steps up the ladder from our van for the west coast! The only downside with the van was that it had a huge petrol tank which cost a fortune to fill, and even though it was a diesel, give it some beans and rev the engine over 3000 rpm and it was thirstier than George Best at happy hour.

The rules of the relocation were that we had five days to get the van to Alice Springs and we were able to notch up 2060km before the company charged us 55c for each kilometre over, and were given $150 of fuel money. Alice is 1560km from Darwin and we had plans to travel all the way to Uluru (Ayers Rock) an extra 1000km roundtrip on top. We agreed to pay the extra as it was still cheaper than flying to Alice and we would get to see a lot more along the way.

We set off, and as normal we got messed around when we picked up the van having to wait an extra five hours longer than our arranged pick up time. We weren’t able to get far on the first day, settling an hour down the road in the small town of Adelaide River, but decided to make up for it on the second, and we did.

The next day we arose early ready for a long day of driving and drove 875km, which is a fair old way, and a very long time to be sat in a car staring at nothing but a few trees, lots of dead cows, plenty of red dirt and road that doesn’t have so much as a hint of a bend the whole way. We settled for a spot in Tennant Creek, and as we had 5 star luxuries, didn’t want to pay for campsites so set up camp in a cul-de-sac in a residential area. After being told to move on by the police after residents reported gypsies in their street, we moved to a quieter spot in a rest area by the highway and settled for the night to the tune of howling dingoes and barking lizards.

The third day of our journey we needed to make it at least as far as Alice Springs, some 550km away, even further if possible. On the way we came across a few strange rocks in the middle of nowhere called Devils Marbles so decided to have a peek. The rocks were massive and just seemed to be balanced on top of each other and were pretty impressive, deffo worth a stop. We made it to Alice after about five and a half hours driving, stopped for a coffee and some essentials in Woolies, and got on the road again, managing to get another 100km under my belt before dark.

Day four was to be an exciting one as it would be the day we would get to see one Australian landmark that everyone knows about - Ayers Rock (or as the aboriginals call it - Uluru). Just before Uluru was Kings Canyon, a huge and beautiful gorge, situated a couple of hours along the same road as Uluru. The canyon was amazing, and as we were limited on time, decided to do a one-hour hike through the canyon, rather than a trek around the whole thing but the views were incredible.

We got back on our way after having my pants pulled down for a tank of diesel at the local roadhouse, and continued on to Uluru arriving about an hour before sunset. The tourist guides recommend seeing Uluru at either sunrise or sunset as you can witness the rock changing from a dusty grey to a glowing red as the light changes, and they weren’t lying, its amazing. We spent the night in the Uluru resort, unwillingly forking out $25 for a parking spot for the night, as there was nowhere else to go. We woke at five the next morning to catch the sun rise at the rock, but this proved to be a bit less impressive than sunset. Once the sun had risen, we drove further into the park to have a wander round the rock, an amazing 9.6km around! The majority of the rock has a cultural significance to the aboriginal people, therefore shouldn’t be climbed or photographed as it shows disrespect to the people. And would you believe, you can be fined for removing rocks or sand for the site as it belongs to the aboriginals.

With our Uluru experience now finished, and being the last day of our campervan relocation we had to travel like a bat out of hell to get it back to Alice Springs before three o’ clock to avoid being fined ‘late charges’. With the exception of a quick toilet break, red bull refuelling, and of course to fill the van with a trillion litres of diesel, we finished the 500 odd kilometres back to Alice, forty minutes late, but thankfully the bird behind the desk didn’t charge me a late fee. She also forgot to charge me the extra $550 for the extra kilometres on the van, so lets hope she’s not reading this, and even more so, has no record of my bank account number! But thank you anyway.

Next on the agenda was a flight to Adelaide, in South Australia. Off course I flew cattle class, and spent the one and a half hours packed into the plane like a battery hen, with the seat in front pressed against my nose and a fella behind me with an overactive dinner tray. Just to make things worse the rather ‘large’ lady in the seat next to me seemed to be having trouble preventing her backside creeping under the armrest, which her bingo wings engulfed, and taking up half of my seat. But I made it alive and that’s all that matters.

Adelaide and South Australia gets a bit of a hard press from Aussies and nobody north, east or west likes to admit its there, but I really liked it. Apart from being bloody cold, which I haven’t experienced for a little while, it’s a beautiful city. It’s the only city, maybe other than Melbourne, that isn’t totally geared on tourism, doesn’t charge you in bullion for things you enjoy and actually has some other sort of function other than tour shops and bars. It had a real charm and I deffo would, and maybe will still have time to go back and see it again before my time is up.

Another wonderful thing about Adelaide is its location slap-bang in the middle of about four wine regions. My wine region of choice was the Barossa valley, an hour north of Adelaide where Alaina and I went to do a wine tasting tour. The tour involved four wineries, a stop at a mini zoo, a three-course lunch and a trip to the whispering wall.

Each winery offered a number of tastings, whites, reds and ports were all available and we were each given a ‘spittoon’ (mine and Alaina’s were both dry as a bone), in which we could spit the wines once we had observed the colour (although now as I’m a pro wine taster I can tell you there are two parts to the overall colour - hue and colour - although I was a little two drunk to remember the difference between the two), swilled, sniffed and then tasted the wines. Alaina and I were really getting into the tasting and asking loads of questions, which in return we were rewarded with bigger glasses of wine - they should use this technique in schools! We also had a bash at a $185 bottle of red wine, which could swing me towards drinking a few reds from now on as it was very tasty (or should I say fragrant with a wonderful bouquet and subtle undertones of ash). I had Grilled Barramundi for lunch, with the salad bar and apple strudel for pudding, which was a welcome change from beef super noodles.

The Whispering wall was an interesting stop-off. The wall itself is 200m long and is a dam to the reservoir, which supplies all the drinking water to Adelaide. The curve in the wall and the material it is built from means it has the perfect acoustics for sound to travel along, and someone whispering or having a conversation at one end can be heard 200m away perfectly clear. It was quite spooky!

So, I spent 5 days in Adelaide, and as I write this right now I am sat on a plane on my way to Cairns in the North-East of Australia in the state of Queensland. The plane isn’t too busy so I have a seat next to me free, and no one directly in front of me to put their seat back, which is nice. However, I haven’t been offered a drink yet by the stewardess’ and it must almost be time to land, plus I have two crazy English ladies behind me that have been discussing family deaths throughout the majority of the flight, but have recently moved onto discussing pet deaths. I hope we land soon!

Hope everyone is ok and enjoying the summer, although I hear it’s a bit damp.

Take Care,
Dunc

P.S. Im actually in Airlie Beach now as i have started my East Coast trip but i'll let you know all about that next time.

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Photos

Uluru
Uluru at Sunrise

The Apartment
Our cosy little living room

Darwin Harbour
The movie 'Australia' starring Nicole Kidman annd Hugh Jackman was being filmed in Darwin when i was there, i didnt see either of the two but came across this sign whilst sipping a beer.

Fannie Bay Sunset
What i saw from the yacht club whilst i was eating my salt and pepper calamari.

Litchfield National Park
If only you could see all the pasty tourists sat on the rocks!

Big Bertha
Me tucking into breakfast behind our luxury wheels through the middle.

Devils Marbles
Rumor has it that the rocks are cemented together.

Its Pretty Dry......
down the middle of Australia!

Ayers Rock (Uluru)
The rock at sunset

Adelaide
Some of the old school architecture in the CBD

Wolf Blass Winery
Alaina and I sipping our $185 bottle wine. We only paid $5 though!

Adelaide
Adelaide down by the river