Advertisement
Published: November 23rd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Venus Bay
Along the South Australian coast on the Eyre Peninsula near Streaky Bay. These cliffs were just breathtaking! The winds were so strong I felt like they would blow me over.
- November 5 - 6 - Rainbow Beach with its 72 colors of sand
- November 7 - My last trip on Oz Experience to Noosa and a night in Brisbane - Done with the Backpacker Experience Down Under!
- November 8 - 12 - Reuniting with old friends Sanjeev and Danielle in Adelaide and visiting Tash and Dom
- November 13 - 17 - Camping on the Eyre Peninsula, South Australia
- November 18 - Back in Adelaide
- November 19 - Back to Melbourne
Done with the Backpacker Experience Down Under
I got a Greyhound bus down to Rainbow Beach from Airlie Beach. Even though I wasn't planning on heading to Fraser island anymore, I thought maybe Rainbow Beach might be a beautiful place. Once again, I am impressed by how well Australia markets their tourism - "Rainbow Beach with its 72 colors of sand and beautiful cliff top views." It turned out to be a small town with a couple of cafes. I didn't see 72 colors of sand, but a sad looking beach with black tire tracks. It's probably an unfair assessment as it was cold and rainy.
The next day I
got the bus down to Brisbane. We stopped in the town of Noosa for an hour to look around and pick some more people up. I had actually originally planned on staying in this town for a weekend but was relieved I didn't. It's a great weekend getaway for wealthy families with children, but it really wasn't my scene. Perhaps I was just ready to get off the east coast. When I arrived in Brisbane, it was still cold and rainy. I met a few other travelers and headed out to dinner with a young British entrepreneur who was very entertaining. My room at the backpackers turned out to be the one where the Irish guys decided to have the party, but they were really considerate and offered to move their party to another room. I was thankful this was to be the last night at places like this. I woke up really early and caught a flight down to Adelaide - Done with the backpacker experience down under.
Down to Adelaide
I had got back in touch with my old friend Sanjeev that I hadn't seen since college. As it turned out, he's been living in Adelaide
and working as a professor at the university there. He had a cute (and a little crazy) 4 year old son, Shannon, who he nicknamed 'Micro' and a dog named Simba. Another old friend from college, Danielle, was also living nearby on an olive tree farm with her husband and new baby. She was also involved in an environmentalist group in Adelaide, so we all met up at one of their events on the first weekend I got there. It was so much fun catching up after all this time. It's certainly interesting to see how everyone's lives had changed so much.
Sanjeev and I also took a little road trip in his 4WD. The first day we drove up to Mt. Remarkable national park. I'm not so sure that the mountain was really remarkable, nor whether it was really a mountain - they don't have too many mountains in Australia. There were a lot of flies, though. I thought it was hilarious when we first set up camp, two emus strolled casually into our campsite to check out what we were doing. They kept their respectful distance, but didn't seem to be too afraid of us. I wasn't
Kangaroo Crossing
Especially early in the morning when it's a bit cooler, you have to be careful not to hit crossing kangaroos and wallabys. You see them everywhere! sure if emus are dangerous - but they are pretty big. The animals here make some very crazy noises, and the symphony of birds in the morning makes for an effectively deafening alarm.
The next day we drove down to Coffin Bay national park at the bottom of the Eyre peninsual in South Australia. The scenery was gorgeous - and the most impressive parts were only accessible with a 4WD. We drove over sand dunes and down isolated beaches. The campsite we chose was beautiful, but again, there were a lot of flies. As I've been told, this is very common for Australia. Apparently, in the summer there are a lot more flies down under than in America or Europe or Asia. What I wasn't prepared for, though, were all the bees! I think we must have camped under a bee hive! At first there were just a couple, but then they started taking over in their search for water. WATER BEES! I've never encountered anything like that, but it makes sense in the desert. I guess I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to flies and bees and other creepy crawly things. Despite all that, it
Emus
Walking through our campsite in Mount Remarkable National Park, SA was still a beautiful park. We drove down the 7 Mile beach and over to the other side of the peninsula where there was the most stunning untouched beach you could imagine (Sensation Beach). With the strong breeze and surf coming in on the south side, there were no flies at all, just radiant sunshine, bright blue water, and the whitest sand, soft like talcum powder.
After a couple nights there, we drove up the coast to Streaky Bay, stopping at a few places along the way at some spectacular look outs. From there we drove all the way back to Adelaide. It's so much different taking a road trip in this part of the world. There may be a town on your map, but if you blink, you could miss it because it's just a roadhouse/service station/pub. We stopped in a few tiny tiny towns in South Australia. There are just huge stretches in between where there is absolutely nothing. Of course, if you go north, you could drive for days and not see anybody or any kind of civilization. Just miles and miles of open road. That is Australia - so vast and arid and uninhabited. It's
Desert Flowers
at a rest stop in the middle of nowhere, South Australia so different from back home.
It was a very interesting and fun experience. Definitely something I wouldn't have had the opportunity to do had I not gotten back in touch with Sanjeev. After our trip, I spent a couple more days in Adelaide and hung out with another couple of friends, Tash and Dom. The weather was fabulous and we headed to the beach with a group of their friends on the last day I was there. I then returned to Melbourne for my last couple weeks of summer.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.201s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 18; qc: 78; dbt: 0.1108s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb