Melbourne - Darwin

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It was quite sad to leave Melbourne after spending so much time there, even if the time spent there wasn't the most constructive!! Mikey arrived back from Scotland on the friday before we left and was jet lagged for most of the weekend. The Sunday myself, Mikey, Ritchie and his girlfriend and her mate arranged to meet up to watch St Kilda v Carlton (Aussie Rules) at the MCG. On a bitterly cold day we managed to lose Ritchie and Co so me and Mikey sat freezing our proverbials off in the stands watching the action. It was a good game although a bit one sided, but we looked forward to getting back in the relative warmth.
After struggling to get any sense out of our landlord regarding our bond money, the lovely Lisa sorted it out for us - it had us sweating for a while. Hamish was quite pleased that he was going to be staying alone for sometime and have the place to himself, but i think he was quite sad to see us leave. Monday morning arrived and we both set out to pick up the campervan for the first leg of our trip. After picking up our Mercedes Wanderer Campervan we drove it back to 294 Carlisle Street to pick up our stuff and say our final goodbyes.

Melbourne - Adelaide:
It took us a bit longer than we had hoped to finally hit the road and get out of Melbourne. As was typical with Melbourne at this time of year the weather was pretty bad and cold - at least their would be less people doing the Great Ocean Road. The problem with relocations is that you need all the time you can muster in order to see as much as possible so we had a lot of ground to cover in a small space of time. We drove to Victoria's second largest city, Geelong and had a spot of lunch before starting the Great Ocean Road. A short journey later and our 1st stop was Bells Beach. This is famous for its surfing competition and laid back hip lifestyle and attitude - so Mikey and myself were in the wrong place!! The Great Ocean Road is full of rock formations along the coastline. Such places include The Blowhole, Gibson Steps, The Arch, London Bridge (which has fallen down), Loch Ard Gorge and a few other which i cant remember as it has been far to long! As we had decided to see as much of the GOR on the first day as possible we were driving in the darkness and saw the Twelve Apostles in dusk. The first night we found a nice little campsite overlooking a sea inlet. It was to dark to appreciate it until the morning but waking up to the local wildlife and a great view as it was, was quite refreshing. Taking in the scenery was short lived as we headed out again, this time with the only aim of getting as close to Adelaide as possible. The drive was good and unremarkable except for my first sight of wild kangaroos. We were driving along with trees on either side and all of a sudden 3 kangaroos jumped out about 20m in front of us across the road and to the other side just as the sun was setting - a great Kodak moment!! Things started to improve from there as we pulled up into our campsite for the night. The location was a small place called Meningie where Lake Albert was situated. Our spot was right by the unspoilt lake and overlooked one of the best pictures I have got on my travels so far. As the sun was setting 3 pelicans were leisurely gliding across the water in front of us. The peaceful and tranquil nature of it all was nice after a relatively long drive.
Day 3 took us into Adelaide itself. A relatively short drive and we were driving in some nice scenery with the grassy rolling hills. This region is known as the Barossa Valley - a famous wine growing region of Australia (although i reckon every state in Australia has its famous wine growing region). The drive into Adelaide CBD completed a thoroughly enjoyable road trip and I can recommend the GOR highly.

Adelaide

We had four days in Adelaide - surely enough time to do all the tourist stuff, as it happens it didn't really turn out like that!! Leaving Melbourne I had had few good nights out due to financial restrictions. Although I was on credit i felt like i deserved it. After having a meal and a couple of the local Coopers Pale Ale (highly recomended) Mikey and myself headed out to checkout the Adelaide nightlife. P.J. O'Briens had been suggested to us so that where we headed first. We watched the Australia v Greece game on TV in the pub and leisurely sipped at our beers. The biggest mistake was starting on the Premium beers at some ridiculous percentage and then the night degenerated from there. The time spent in Adelaide seem to involve a fair amount of grog and alot of sleeping off the night before. It didn't help that we met a Londoner that we got on with quite well (even though he was a gooner) who always coaxed us out for a drink. We were going to do the wine tour - but in the end that failed to appeal to us and we decided on the pub and beer option instead. We did stroll around the city and it does have nice parkland and scenery - very laid back and ideal for someone seeking retirement in a quiet city but not my kinda thing - well not for another 50yrs anyway! The most touristy thing we did was goto Glenelg - a seaside resort in which you get the only tram in the city. As I had just spent 3mths in Melbourne, a city full of trams and spent that time living in St Kilda (a seaside resort), this was a bit of a let down.

Adelaide - Alice Springs

On the first day of leaving Adelaide we had decided to drive to Port Augusta and stay there overnight, but we arrived at Port Augusta quite early and decided to get a few more Ks under our belt. We decided on a small town called Woomera. This was our first experience of the outback and only a 100 or so Ks outside Port Augusta the vast emptyness is there to behold. On arrival at Woomera we couldn't help but think that this place is weird. Our campsite was out of electricty for 3hrs but it appeared the town might not as well have electricty as nobody was around. To be fair its a relatively large place in comparision to other outback places. It has a wide range of buildings but nobody on the street or out and about. It could be for the reason that this area has been used for testing weapons for a number of years - including nuclear warheads - nice!! The town was quite interesting. Mikey and myself wandered around the streets looking at all the rockets and weapons that have played an integral part of the testing in the area. We then wandered around the shopping complex (a small supermarket and some random shops) which was closed at only 5:30pm but still had the music blaring out of the tannoy (the only sound in the town). After this exausting work a beer was called for, we wondered for a sec where we might find somewhere selling alcoholic beverages and then realised that we are in Australia and that they are sold even in the remotest places as we were later to find out. We came across a hotel which actually looked quite new, so we wandered in and found the other 5 people in the town that night sat around the bar. It was actually quite a swanky looking bar for the area so we both grabbed a beer before heading back to the campsite to sort ourselves out for the night.
Our next stop was the dusty Coober Pedy. Coober Pedy is a mining town famed for opals. As we drove in we saw the piles of dirt where they sift out the earth looking for the tiniest fragment of opal. Scenes from Mad Max and other films have been made out here because it is dusty outback territory. Coober Pedy reaches such high temperatures during the summer that they have built most of the buildings underground - this includes the Church and hotel. This was also the first place I encountered large populations of the aboriginals. Its a sad sight to behold when all you see is them sitting around staring into a void intoxicated up to the eyeballs. Walking passed them was quite daunting and I was actually slightly concerned for my well being at one point. Most of the white people tend to opt to drive to places in the town - not walk around it like myself and Mikey did. We had a look around the underground hotel and learnt about the building of the Stuart Highway and Opal mining, and then went to the vastly overpriced bar. I never expected a Chinese Man let alone a Restaurant in a place like this but we stumbled into one and decided to treat ourselves. We were the only ones in the Restaurant but it was a surprisingly good meal. Only problem was that when we emerged out after our meal it was pitch black and not the best time to be walking as tourists across the other side of town and to our campsite (as suggested in the Lonely Planet). After crossing the road about 30 times to avoid congregations of them we made it back in one piece.
Come the morning we drove on towards Alice Springs covering 700km. On the way we stopped at a roadhouse in Marla which was bustling with people to our surprise. The local law enforcement agency were also present in huge numbers - it seemed like they spent a fair bit of their time here with the look of some of the blokes. After a short stop we headed onwards leaving South Australia and into the Northern Territory and some of the most desolate scenery of the lot.

Alice Springs

We checked into Toddy's backpackers in Alice after dropping the van off. This has to be up there in the worst hostels i have ever stayed at - Mikey's suggestion btw, the Lonely Planet quoted the place as having "great meals". It was a shabby nasty smelly place with not alot going for it. The first afternoon we were there we caught up with Katie at the Bojangles pub. Bojangles is a charming place with outback style decor, a barrel of monkey nuts in which you help yourself and then throw the shells on the floor and a backwards toilet where the door opens the wrong way and the taps dont correspond to the correct sink. We spent a fair bit of time talking to Katie and catching up before we headed back to the hostel. The following day seemed to follow the same kind of pattern - get up, have breakfast, go on the net and goto the pub. This time we met one of Katie's colleagues Emma at Bojangles. Emma is from Ireland and is a lively and bubbly girl and always up for a laugh. Later we were joined by more of the nurses and the night turned into a hazy memory. I do recall leaving Bojangles and heading to a backpacker pub/club next door. I left early leaving Mikey to dance on the tables and continue in acts of random debauchery.
After a couple of days it was decided to leave the 'lovely' Toddy's backpackers and head to Annie's place. Lauren, another friend from Melbourne worked here so it was good to catch up with her. Annies place was far nicer and cheaper and we met some good people here.

Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock and the Olgas

Mikey and myself booked ourselves onto the Mulgas Tour - a trip ran by our hostel. This turned out to be a highlight of my stay in Australia so far. We were up at some ridiculous hour in the morning in the freezing cold. We got our seat at the back of the bus next to a thoroughly likeable Dutchman called Michiel. The other travelling mates were Julia and Alex - a nice couple from Canada/England and France respectively, Joelle - a Belgian/Italian girl who was full of life if not slightly annoying with it, Pascal - a friendly and chatty French Canadian, Kelvin and Wing a Korean couple, Jeff - a very sociable Londoner, Chris and Ilka a German couple I only really chatted to when the tour was over, Sonia a giggly and upbeat Spaniard, Sian who was widely travelled from England, the yanks at the front who seem to keep themselves to themselves other than Aimee who was the only one who didn't seem to put herself above everyone else, Francesca a quiet German girl who slowly grew in confidence as she got to know people and last but not least our guide and driver Shaun the South African.

On the way to Kings Canyon everyone was asleep apart from the 3 of us at the back who were chatting away. As people started to wakeup it was Joelle who came more into our conversation - her extroverted nature shining through. Joelle clearly took a liking to us 3 blokes at the back and she seemed to like the attention even if my banter was a bit close to the mark. After a few hours of the most uncomfortable bus journey I have encountered we came across Kings Canyon. The first part involved a climb up a relatively steep slope to Mikeys apparent displeasure. After the climb the walk was relatively easy, trekking through cracks in the rock with superb views over the flat but foilage rich landscape on one side and the immensity of the Canyon on the other. We stopped for lunch at a nice little rock pool - we were told we could swim in it but there was a nasty looking residue floating on top of the water. We spent lunch laughing and joking and getting to know more and more people. The last bit of the walk to us over some precarious drops as we saw some idiots taking photos with only a small bit of rock holding them. Time flew by rapidly and it wasnt long before we boarded our bus for the evenings sleeping quarters - the middle of a working cattle station in the middle of nowhere. On the way our driver asked whether we wanted some booze for the night around the camp fire. Everybody's name was put on a piece of paper and everyone had to write down how many beers they wanted next to there name. Mikey had decided on having a whole carton to himself for the 2 nights we would be swagging it and i opted for the conservative figure of 20 beers. As the list made its way to the back of the bus we wondered how many everyone else would put down. It came back to us and we were surprised to see most people had put down between 2 and 8 beers on the list. Mikey then pencilled his 30 beers in and i followed with my 20. As the list was passed down the bus people were laughing and looking back pointing at myself and mikey in the corner - obviously quite surprised we had put so many down. We picked up the beers at a vastly overpriced roadhouse and made our way down a red dusty track. On arrival we took off the swags from the vehicle (swags are outside beds - you get in the sleeping bag and then get into a swag) and then went off in search of firewood. Once the fire got going everyone cracked open the beers and sat around the camp fire chatting away - it was great - "this is what its all about" i kept on commenting to Mikey. Our driver prepared the Chilli-con-Camel for dinner which was surprisingly nice (it probably helped that i was as hungry as a Somalian refugee). The stars started showing up and it was an amazing sight to see. In Europe light pollution means that stars aren't so visible but over in the middle of nowhere (closest town about 700km away) the only light which is a factor is moonlight. We were lucky the moon dissapeared and the sky was filled with stars - so many in fact the Milky Way was apparent as a cloud (a cloud of stars). We were also treated to shooting stars every 30secs or so - i walked away from the camp fire for a bit just to lose myself in the sky for a while. The drinking festivities continued late into the night and myself, Mikey, Sian and Sonia were the last ones standing as everyone settled off to sleep. My first night in a swag was interesting to say the least - it was cold - the temperature got down to zero and i needed the toilet (a bush behind the bus) about 3 times that evening. It was nice just to stare up at the nights sky though and listen to everyone else snore and grunt as the fire died out. Sonia cracked me up - she got drunk on a box of goon and then fell asleep with her long black haired head lying in the red dirt.

We were up at 5:00am to go and see the sun rise over Uluru (Ayers Rock). I was woken by Shaun stoking up the morning fire and decided to go and stand by the fire as it was slightly warmer than my Swag. We all rolled up our swags and were soon hitting the road. We arrived at a nice viewing spot for Ayers rock on a sand dune - we all had cups of tea and coffee and something for breakfast as the sun gradually made its way up. Everyone was freezing their arse off and even my hoodie couldn't prevent the thoughts of being flown out the area by the flying doctors for hypothermia. The sunrise was very nice - although i did miss the start by going to grab myself the umpteenth cup of coffee.
From here we headed onto the Kate-Tjuta/Uluru national park itself. Our first stop was The Olgas (or Kata-Tjuta) which are a strange shaped (rounded) collection of large red rock moulded together. I have to admit I was more intrigued by the Olgas than Ayers Rock as it looked so different. The walk itself was quite nice with the large red rock engulfing the walker on either side. We were shown the sand holes of some beetle who builds funnel shaped holes so that when an unsuspecting ant walks by it falls down the funnel and into the grasp of the waiting hiding beetle at the foot of the funnel. Eventaully we stopped at a site for a group photo. It was a nice photo but one person wasn't happy - Joelle!! Dutchy had put his 2 fingers (bunny ears) behind Joelle on here photo and she said he had ruined it. She spent the next day moaning and griping about him and how he had ruined her trip - i thought it was pathetic behaviour and told her that much - she didn't speak to me for a fair bit after that either!! The walk continued on and eventually we ascended onwards in between 2 rocks which opened up for a gorgeous view over the bush and the surrounding landscape. There was much talk about who would climb up Ayers rock. Alot of people had said due to sacred and spiritual reasons (the aborigines dont like people walking up the sacred monolith) they would not do it but there were other who didn't seem to care. I was undecided until i was explained by our guide that the Olgas were sacred and were supposed to be a 'Mans site' i.e. women were not allowed to visit (like some boozers i've come across as well). As our group was made up of a fair few women it seemed liek we had already done something wrong.
After the walk at the Olgas we all sat down for lunch at the car park and chatted away before heading onto Ayers Rock. On arrival we had a quick look around and saw people climbing it - we didn't have enough time as we had to get to the viewing site to watch the sunsetting. The viewing site was far from an intimate hideout to watch the sunsetting over a symbol of Australia - it was packed with tour buses - most with Champagne dinners and others with other fancy bits and pieces - i wondered if i could skank my way into getting a good feed, then i looked at myself and decided it wasn't such a good idea. We had a few pictures taken and a few beers were drunk as we headed our way up to the main viewing area. The problem with drinking beer is that it fills the bladder and the only problem with this was that there was nowhere discreet to relieve the throbbing sensation of the bladder than over a fence with warnings to keep out (no toilets). It had to be done so we looked over our shoulders jumped into the forbidden area and relieved ourselves against some bushes. Myself and Jeff got away with it but Sian and Sonia were given a reprimand by one of the official park wardens to my amusement. Just as the sun was heading towards the horizon a bloody great cloud came over it - somewhat spoiling the whole situation. People say Uluru is supposed to change colour - it does go through different shades but i didn't find this that amazing as everyone made out. After the dinner in the car park we headed onto our second site for the night. This time we drove down another dirt track into a wooded area. We parked up and were surrounded by trees other than the track we had just driven down. It was a nice sheltered spot and helped keep a bit of the cold off. Again a camp fire was built and the beers were cracked open. Everyone seemed to be exhausted and were soon nodding off to sleep after some camp fire stories had been told. Again I was up drinking away with Sian and Sonia until some ridiculous time. Apparently we got quite loud and Mikey had to tell us to shut up a few times - i dont think we woke anyone else up anyway. Sian annoyed Dutchy by stepping on him and nearly falling over. It didn't help that beer had been mixed with that lovely fluid called Goon!! Eventually we turned in and got a couple of hours sleep before i heard the camp fire being stoked up again for the morning. I think most people were surprised to see that i had emerged first and got my swag packed away before any of the others had come round. I wasn't feeling to bad but Sian and Sonia had seen better days. After sorting ourselves out we headed back to Ayers Rock to do the base or climb walk. I was quite dissapointed to see that the climb was closed due to winds and so we all had to do the base walk. Closeup Ayers rock looks completely different to what you expect. It uneven with giant great cracks in it. One of the rock formations with in it - wave rock looks pretty good - its like a tidal wave frozen in time. Much of the rock is fenced off to protect sacred spots - there is a fair bit of aboriginal artwork on the rock as well. Some of the bits of the rock look like log flumes - where water has created these dirty looking areas on the descents. The walk itself around the base was easy and I have to confess i was just chatting most the way round to Pascal, Sian and Sonia while mikey was burdened with the leach who was Joelle. As we finished the circuit around the rock I saw that the rock climb had reopened and was quite gutted. i found out that Jeff had gone up there and was due back any minute so that we could leave. Jeff didn't arrive back and so Shaun was infuriated - Dutchy went up to see if he could see him - quite pointless but he made us laugh anyway. The walk to the top takes a good hour to do and we couldn't see him on the slope at all so we knew we would have to wait a while. At one point our driver was ready to leave without him. After a good delay we were off and away from Ayers Rock headin back to Alice on the long drive. On the way back we stopped at Ayers rock Airport (yes it had its own airport) to drop off Joelle, Julia and Alex. To everybody's relief Joelle was gone - after giving most of the blokes on the bus sloppy kisses. Mikey looked like the most relieved man on the bus - although he had given his mobile number and email address to the hag and said he 'would keep in touch'. Before arriving back in Alice we stopped at this little animal park so that people could have camel rides. I opted out of this instead amusing myself with winding up the local emu, petting the dingo and feeding the kangaroos.

We arrived back in Alice all slightly smelly and worse for wear (we hadn't changed our clothes in 3 days). It felt amazing to be having a nice hot shower although it took me 3 washes to completely rid myself of the smoke smell from the camp fires. My clothes were all covered in red dirt and i wondered whether they would ever get clean. We had arranged to meet up with our tour group in the bar/restaurant for a few drinks and some food to celebrate what a fantastic trip it had been. As was fairly usual, Mikey and myself were the first ones in the bar and chatted to the very friendly bargirl before the others started trickling in. It was a great way to say goodbye to such great people - even if the yanks only turned up briefly. I chatted away to the Germans Ilka and Chris for much of the night. Ilka cracked me up as i had never spoken to her before that night and all she had was outright abuse of Joelle. As everyone started to get merry thoughts turned to heading out for one last night in Alice Springs. A fair few of us turned up to Melankas - the grottiest backpacker bar going. It was an eventful night with our driver getting ridiculously wasted and everyone getting rather merry. I admit I did end up on an empty dancefloor at one point with mikey looking on and shaking his head in disbelief at how awful a dancer i am but it was all good fun. That night was the night Mikey and Sian got together and the start of a soapesque debacle. I did have an opportunity myself that evening but i found the attention of 'the ginger monster' far from appealing and when everyone was ready to leave at the end of the night i snuck off back to the hostel alone just for safety and to avoid anymore unwanted attention!!

Alice - Darwin

The night before Mikey, Dutchy and I had decided to look into leaving Alice earlier than planned. The idea was to phone up Standbycars and get a campervan from Alice to Darwin once we had woken from the night before (football was the reasoning behind this decision). So after dragging my sorry arse out of bed i got onto them and found a vehicle was available for pickup - so thats exactly what we did. Mikey and Sian were getting on great guns so had arranged to meet up again in Darwin when the time came it. As a few people off our tour group were also leaving it was nice to say goodbye to them - even if i was less than pleased to be hugging the ginger monster. The campervan was ideal - there was a back bit where i spent the first part of the leg asleep while Mikey and Dutchy were in the front. As we had time to catchup with due to the late start we drove for a fair bit of the day. We stopped at a place called Devils Marbles - these are a collection of boulders all stacked ontop of one another and scattered around the place - Dutchy looked in his element climbing up into the middle of a few of the boulders - I on the other hand got pricked on the spikey grass and decided not to venture in any further. We then headed on to Tennant Creek and our campsite for the night. Tennant Creek is supposed to be a famous historic location - telegraph station, gold mining community etc etc Zzz, but in truth it is the worst place I have visited in Australia. We arrived in Tennant Creek quite late (it was dark) and hitched our Campervan up to the electric and gas. This was our first mistake as we then decided to go and get something to eat. The walk to town was a good 20min effort - 40 of the longest minutes in my entire life. As we walked up the street it became apparent we were the only white people on the streets - and the only sober people which made a change. The atmosphere was hostile and none of us felt comfortable - the pace of our walking sped up to an almost jog. Once we finally got out of the dark and under the lights of the main road we didn't feel any safer - it just meant there were far more drunk aborigines and far more abuse directed our way. We walked passed bottle shops that were serving from a barred up window because of the trouble and eventually we came across a shining beacon of hope - a chip shop run by white people. The signs around the place indicated they had had a fair bit of trouble in here before. I ordered chicken and chips and as soon as we got them it was straight back to the campsite - only problem was we had to walk passed all the people we had ignored on the way through. We got off from the main drag ok but when we started walking down the unlit road the screams of the night started. One bloke started following us down the road and screaming at us "Oi Oi Oi" this seemed to go on for a fair time before our pace had easily opened up a big enough gap. Eventually we did make it back in one piece even though the adrenaline was certainly flowing. By this point I was starving and so dug into my chicken and chips straight away only to be horrified at how disgusting they were. The chicken was wet and manky and the chips tasted awful. Although I was starving i threw them away which is saying alot for me!! After a bit of a sit down and chillout we turned in for the night determined to leave Tennant Creek as early as possible the next morning.

We hadn't decided where we were going to stop tonight but we had hoped to get to Katherine which was 700km away. After stopping off at the supermarket for supplies we were on the road and out of the most awful place I have been to in Australia so far. We managed to cover a fair bit of distance and decided to pop into the famous Daly Waters pub. The pub itself is situated in the middle of nowhere but has to be one of the strangest pubs i have been to. The pub is decorated with absolutely anything imaginable and has all kinds of weird and wacky signs. Inside ladies lingerie and other undergarments are strewn across the ceiling. We all had a pint here and basked in the sudden heat we were experiencing - we had finally arrived in the tropical north! After a few snaps and a chat with other visitors we were back on the road with Katherine in site. By the side of the road between Tennant and Darwin thousands of termite mounds can be seen. it didn't take long before we were absolutely sick and tired of the site of them. On arrival in Katherine we decided to treat ourselves to a beer or two and a barbeque. So after getting supplies in from the supermarket and booking ourselves into the campsite we set about the beers and the barbeque. Dutchy had never drunk beer out of a can before he met myself and Mikey - I dont think he had drunk alcohol in great quantities until he had met us. Dutchy is a great bloke but very disciplined and organised - the amount of stuff he used to take with him - from candles to all sorts of outdoor clothing. He had left his girlfriend at home and was a bit homesick because of it. I dont think his g/f appreciated the company Dutchy was sharing - an English and Scotsman who like the odd tipple. It amused us because he was always on the phone to her (at least once a night!). The campsite we stayed at in Katherine was nice and had hotsprings only walking distance away. So in the morning before we hit the road Dutchy and I went for a swim. The only problem with the hot springs is that it is right next to a big river containing big salt water crocodiles - the ones that like human flesh! Fortunately for us we did not have unwanted company and enjoyed the hot springs. Katherine has been subjected to severe flooding in the past and this was evident on the treetops where you could clearly see the water lines as well as bags of goon hanging from the branches. The problem when the area floods is that the crocodiles have swimming access to the main streets and people have to be evacuated (due to flooding as well as the crocs). Before we headed onto Darwin we decided to goto the popular tourist spot of the Katherine Gorge. It was a hot and humid day and unlike everyone else we decided to climb the gorge instead of getting a comfortable boat ride down it! Dutchy as ever was ready for the adventure, I was looking for the cheap option (which ruled out the boat ride) and Mikey was left with little choice. The climb itself wasn't to bad if we were badly perspiring in the searing temperatures which we hadn't experienced for a good few months. There were some nice spots to take some pictures and while away the time. At the top we thought we had got completely lost - especially when the walk to us through some dangerous chemical plant and there was nobody else about on the walk!! Luckily we found a track and proceeded down it and eventually back to the car park. The drive was only 300km from Katherine to Darwin so we had plenty of time on our hands and we were arriving a day earlier than expected so that we could watch the opening game of the WorldCup.

The arrival in Darwin was the start of a great 2 months spent there which involved lots of partying, lots of work and lots of fun. That will be in my next blogspot when I can finally get round to writing it.

I'm in Perth at the moment working as a cabinet maker. Perth is nice but a bit cold and wet - should be here a while to save some money for the final leg of my journey! It wont be long before I return home - well it wont seem very long at least!

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Photos

Sunset @ Lake Albert
Pelicans Swimming across - Great Pic if you ask me.

Hamish & Mikey
Hamish from Tasmania was our flatmate for a while

Oren & Lisa
Ran the Internet Cafe

AFL @ The MCG
St Kilda v Carlton on a v.cold day

Bells Beach
Famous Surfing Venue

The Choppy Sea
Could 'NOT' have picked a better day for it!

The Arch?
Cant remember exactly what all of these photos were of!!

Our First Campsite
By the Sea and this lovely little inlet

London Bridge
Has Fallen Down!

Sunshine over the GOR
At Last!!

Giant Lobster
Aussies have a fixation with building big...well everything

Lake Albert
Our 2nd Campsite

Road into Adelaide
Some nice rolling hills & good scenery

Glenelg, Adelaide
Overrated Tourist spot

Road Out of Adelaide
Yes, Adelaide was that memorable (hence the lack of pictures)

Dirt Mounds of Opal Mining
These are everywhere around Coober Pedy

Coober Pedy
Dirty - typical mining town but with lots of Aboriginals

Mt Conner
No not Ayers Rock - but looks very similar

Opening - Olgas
Walk along and the landscape opens up like a window between the rocks

Comments

[Victoria]

wow, imagine my suprise when i popped on to your blog to find a new chapter!!! It's taken me all morning, intersperced with work, to get though it. I'm impressed by the details and have enjoyed reliving the experience. I was just as disappointed by the sun rise and sun sets at Uluru, and we got to experience Katherine gorge in full on rain and got evacuated by the police because the water was too deep for our bus. Looking forward to the next leg of your journey!! Where are you planning on going after Perth? xxx