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The 12 Apostles
Matthew, Mark, Luke, Sleepy, Happy, Ringo ............Well, we left Melbourne suitably refreshed and ready to hit the road again. Our first destination was the Great Ocean Road. It was built by servicemen returning from the first world war and the aim was for it to rival Northern California's Ocean highway (Route 5 ?) and in my opinion it certainly does. Great craggy, wild coastlines and limestone columns jutting into the turbulent ocean below. The most famous limestone columns are 'The Twelve Apostles' and also 'London Bridge', which has indeed fallen down.
Our hopes that we could enjoy a warm autumn in southern Australia looked good at this point but were soon to prove chuckle-headed. A cold front swept in from the Antarctic and dumped 20cm (8 inches) of snow on Canberra and although we were a bit further south we were left cold and wet in the hottest and driest continent on earth.
At this stage we decided to re-plan our Oz trip. At an Extraordinary General Meeting a vote was taken to leave the south as soon as possible and point the car north towards the sun. The vote was carried 2-0 in favour with the only murmurs of dissention coming from the car.
The Outback
Typical outback roadhouse Part of our reasoning for heading North was to take a holiday. Whilst all of our Blog readers have been enjoying weekends off, Easter and May day holidays etc we've been hard at it for 6 months now and so decided we deserved a rest !!
We settled on Broome in Western Australia as our destination and this meant a 6,000K (3,600miles) road-trip up the Stuart Highway through the "Red Centre' and 2 weeks of outback driving. To prepare for this trip we had to take certain precautions with respect to the car. We stocked up with engine oil, radiator coolant, radiator sealant, spare fuel cannister and spare fuel, spark plugs, tow rope, lucky gonk, spare lucky gonk etc and crossed our fingers and hoped we'd make it through the outback without mishap ( Have you seen Wolf Creek ?)
First stop of note was Coober Peddy, an opal mining town where the summer temperatures of 50c+ have resulted in the locals building thier homes and churches underground. Fortunately it wasn't 50 degrees whilst we were there.
The outback is very difficult to photograph. Unlike NZ, there's no 'obvious' photo to capture the essence. It's a
360 degree vista of red desert, cobalt blue skies and the white trunks and lime coloured leaves of the gum trees. Mile upon mile of the same and trying to keep your eyes on the tarmac ribbon in front of the car as it disappears into shimmering heat haze. There is a certain nihilistic beauty in its seemingly everlasting nothingness.
Our next major destination was Ayers Rock (Uluru) which proved to be a record breaking day for us as it neccesssitated filling the car with LPG 4 times. Needless to say fuel prices in the outback are much more expensive and the scarcity of supply means carefully planning fuel stops in advance.
Uluru was majestic. Saying that it's "just a rock" is abit like saying the Eiffel Tower is just a TV ariel. Again, the size and scale of this leviathan rising from the desert floor is hard to capture on film but we spent a memorable afternoon watching the colours of the rock change with the setting sun.
Travelling north again we soon exhausted our 'I Spy' options ( "Gum-Tree", "Emu", "One dead kangaroo", "2 dead kangaroos") and so whiled away the driving hours by playing
'Identify the road-kill' and inventing new waves for on-coming traffic. There is a certain camaraderie amongst those travelling "the track' as the Stuart Highway is known. Most evenings would involve talk around the bar-b-q about where we'd been and where we were heading with helpful advice and tips, although we were eyed with suspicion as soon as we added vegetables to the barbie .
Alice Springs was a charming oasis of a town (Don't listen to Neville Shute) and we stopped for a couple of days to re-charge batteries (ours, not the cars) before hopefully arriving at the top of the track. And we would have made it too if it wasn't for the pesky car. Just south of Katherine we blew another air filter hose which knocked out the LPG. This meant a 660k (420 mile) detour to Darwin to visit wrecker's yards and get a replacement;
" So mate, is your air filter mounted centre-point or mid-point?"
I suspect that the wreckers were having fun with us Pommie tourists.
On the way back down to Katherine we took the opportunity to visit Litchfield park which is a smaller and more accessible version of the more
Waterfalls
No Swimming here - Crocodiles !! famous Kakadu. Lots of swimming in rock-pools and under waterfalls which was certainly welcome as temperature was now in the 30's. Also Crocodiles and giant Termite hills (See photo).
Back at Katherine we headed west and over the border into Western Australia. Our route along the Great Northern Highway took us through The Kimberley region which is known as Australia's last great frontier.
The scenery here was red sandstone gorges and canyons with table top mountains reminiscent of Monument Valley or The Grand Canyon. This scenery gave way to Savannah-like grasslands which conjured up images of Africa espescially with the appearance of Boab trees which are closely related to the African Boabab.
Finally we arrived in Broome where the red desert meets the powder white sands and turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. The temperature is 33 every day and the water temperature is 29 so we spend our days mostly lying on the beach interspersed with swimming and body-boarding. We've booked into a 2 bedroom chalet for a couple of weeks (Broome is the very popular with holiday makers escaping the winter down south so property is scarce and expensive) and our intention is to kick back
The Ant - Hill Mob
5 metres tall apparently and enjoy our summer holiday. After that, it's back across the Top end before hitting tropical Queensland for a couple of months but we're not thinking about that yet.
The sun is shining and it's another beautiful day so happy dayz are here again.
Take care all
D&T
P.S. You never quite get used to frogs in the toilet bowl.
P.P.S The stars - oh my god. Night time in the desert and you can get lost just looking at them.
P.P.P.S A Calamity update from Tina - for those friends who know who too well.
Hello everyone, well before I start lets be fair about this. This is only my second calamity update since being in Fiji - so I dont think thats bad going. Daren though was counting them on his fingers the other day and insisted there was enough for an update.
Briefly then.................................
Well we bought our new tent and on the first night of putting it up, I thought it would only be fair if I helped Daren - well we know how wrong my helping can go. So I grab the end of one of the poles that keeps the tent up
and apparently you can seperate them by pulling each strand out, before you bend them to put them in the ground. Well I didnt know this, so with my brute strength I tried to just bend it and quel surpris it broke - not a good start. Daren to be fair only swore for a few minutes.
Of course I did buy some masking tape to tape it up, but for some reason that has not worked so every night we put it up now, then tent gets lower and lower and the other people in the camp ground with the same tent do keep looking at ours and trying to fathom out why it looks so weird. Neither of us are convinced it is going to last and we do keep trying to swap it with someone elses pole but to no avail.
Next on to the car. Now being that the car is old I thought it very important to check the oil every day. Never having driven an automatic before I did not realise that the automatic transmission also had a dip stick to see what the level is. So there I am under the bonnet
Cable Beach
Far away in time umming and aahing over the fact that there are 2 dipsticks. For some reason (and i do look back now and wonder why) I chose the wrong dipstick to keep checking and wondering why the level was always low (you have to check the automatic transmission oil when the car is ticking over otherwise it will always be low) I kept filling up the oil daily until one day as we were driving the car was so overcome with oil that it felt that it had to explode some out, which of course caused lots of smoke. Thankfully someone pointed out what the 2 dipsticks were for and I am very pleased to say that we havent been losing any oil after all!
Well keeping on the oil theme. Before this happened on another day I had chosen to fill the oil up, Daren closed the bonnet of the car and I forgot that I had not put the oil cap back on.
Well after driving some 500kms , Daren pulled up as he was wondering again why there was a rather pungent smell of oil and smoke again coming from the bonnet. He soon yelled at me to
Wher's Tina # 7
A family of Koalas come over to see the rather nice pattern of oil that had been sprayed over the car - how it did not catch fireI have no idea but amazingly enough the oil cap was still in the same place I left it - so that was a bonus!
Next, we decided to check into a nice cabin for a few days R&R on the beach. So I go for a shower and thought I would just move it lower and somehow and dont ask me how the shower head came away in my hand. Well I think it was slightly corroded and it looked a fairly clean break - and the owners were very good about it.
So finally we have a beach umbrella, which in my defence is a bit fragile and can bend a bit in the wind. So there is a bit of a wind yesterday so I thought I would reach my foot up to keep hold but of course at that time a big gust of wind came and blew the whole thing inside out and up the beach. I of course am blaming the wind but Daren is insistent it was me. I dont think it helped that I left him to sort it all as I was laughing too much to do anything.
Well thats it for now - not bad going I think for 6 months
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kevster
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Magnificent
Best blog entry so far - most amusing. "a certain nihilistic beauty in its seemingly everlasting nothingness" - Daren - keep that standard up mate and you could achieve a lifetime ambition when you return and write lyrics for the Manics