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Published: July 28th 2006
22nd April 2006. Today is our 11th anniversary.
We arrived at Perth around lunchtime and were met by my cousin Spencer and his daughter Izzy. We had discovered at the airport in Christchurch that we didn't have visa's for Australia. We were'nt sure why but ten minutes on the internet and 40 aussie dollars later the problem was solved.
We spent eight days at Spenny and Gails house, a little house on the prairie affair, weatherboard clad with a full frontal verandah set in five acres of countryside but still only thirty minutes south of Perth. Izzy had been kind enough to vacate her room for us and Connor, Spenny and Gails eldest had been kind enough to share with his sister. We hadn't wanted to outstay our welcome there but we became so comfortable and had such a nice time it was a real wrench to actually leave, so much so that we would recommend the Cracknell Hotel to all other travellers heading to Perth.
During our stay with Spenny and Gail we took a couple of trips, one north of Perth and another one south. Thanks to Spencer, who had been working at a hostel in the city we
No Rest For The Wicked
Caroline thought she was here for a holidaymanaged to get some pretty hefty discounts on the trips as well as cheap rates in the hostel.
The trip north was for four days. Our driver was Jim, an exsheepshearer of thirty years who had travelled around Oz seven times. He wore an akubra without the corks, drunk rum and cokes and smoked as much as me. He was a great laugh.
We stopped at the Pinnacles Desert, had lunch at Hangover Bay, we visited The Kalbarri National Park to look through Natures Window and stayed overnight at Monkey Mia a place where dolphins come to the beach to get fed. On the way back to Perth we stopped at the Hutt River Province, a principality within Australia, where we met Prince Leonard and his wife Princess Shirley. The province was succeded in 1970 after Prince Leonard, a sheep farmer at the time, declared war on Australia ( I kid you not ) over farming restrictions. The war lasted three days without a single shot fired before Lenny called a truce, and exploiting a loophole in the law claimed his 75 sq km farm a principality, much to the Aussie governments embarrasment.
Our trip south took us down through
the Porongorup and Stirling mountain ranges to Albany. At the coast we visited the Gap, Natural Bridge and the Blowholes before heading to the Valley of the Giants to do the Treetop Walk. Our guide Laurie was an ex scout master and spent most of the time treating us all like kids, but we had a good group and spent most of the evenings getting drunk and generally being a pain in Laurie's arse. The night we got back in Perth we went out with Susie, Steph, Kirsty and Dave. We would meet Dave again in Melbourne and Sydney.
We spent the next couple of days back at Spenny and Gails from where we visited my aunty Mary up in Dianella and also spent a night with my uncle Shane and aunty Fliss. Shane and Fliss took us to Freemantle the next day which was really nice before dropping us to the airport for our flight to Alice Springs. It was good to see Mary, Shane and Fliss again but we wish we'd allowed more time.
From Alice we took another tour, this time with an outfit called Groovy Grape. Our first night we camped at Kings Canyon Station. It
What's That Smell
the python was terrified was our first experience of sleeping in a swag, a sleeping bag with a layer of sponge in the bottom. Steph our driver told us to be careful where we walked because there might be an occassional scorpion around. I wondered what was stopping them getting in our swags with us, so I stayed up all night, just to be on the safe side you understand. As it was, a Dingo turned up in the middle of the night and wandered off with Jonny's ( one of the guy's on the trip) trainers. After a hike around Kings Canyon we went to Yulara to watch the sunset over Uluru (ayers rock). After a hike around the Olgas we went back to Uluru and climbed the rock before driving to Coober Pedy. We stayed in the Flinders Range on our last night so I took it upon myself to instigate a punch night. Everybody got so pissed including a German lad who wasn't used to drinking at all and who, consequently came out of the closet.
We arrived in Adelaide already booked to leave the next day on another Groovy Grape trip to Melbourne, which was good bacause Adelaide is really
Ceridwen and Martin
contemplating how the hell are we going to get down dull. We were joined by Jonny and Steph from the previous trip and we headed through the Grampions stopping to climb Hollow Mountain before driving down the Great Ocean Road with all its sights.
On arrival in Melbourne we were met at our hostel by Martin, Carolines brother who lives in Tasmania with his wife Ceridwen. Caroline had been really looking forward to seeing her brother and it was nice to see her so happy. Martin showed us the house he had built with Ceridwen before going to Mornington to visit his friends Dave and Amanda where we spent a really enjoyable night. Back in Melborne Caroline spent the evening out with Martin while I went to the MCG with Jonny, Steph, Sam, Andrew and Laura from the Groovy bus and Dave who we had met in Perth. We watched an AFL game which is a crap sport but the stadium was really cool.
The next day we went to the Leverson Hotel where we met up with Aruna, Scott, Travis, Julie and Melissa some of the guy's we had done the Inca Trail with some six months ago. We had a really nice evening and it was great to
catch up with them again.
We flew to Tasmania with Martin and later that day met up with Ceridwen again. The next couple of days Ceridwen had to work so we did stuff with Martin including a 12km walk up Ben Lomond and a walk around Cataract Gorge which is beautiful and right on their doorstep. The weekend we had booked a visit to Freycinet National Park courtesy of Carolines mum who had given us some cash for when we got to Tasmania. We took a walk to Wineglass Bay followed by a climb to the top of Mt Amos the following day. On the monday Caroline, Martin and me went to Cradle mountain for the day. We were lucky to have great weather, something of a rarity here.
The next day we had to say goodbye to Ceridwen and Martin. We had really enjoyed our stay with them and I knew Caroline was going to be fairly sad for a while but we had a flight to Sydney to catch.
We spent seven days in Sydney doing the usual things, The Opera House, Harbour Bridge, the Darling Harbour, the Aquarium, a couple of days in Manly. It rained for
Caroline in her element
She's holding a six month old rescued joey most of the time and not being the biggest fans of cities we looked forward to leaving although we did take the opportunity of looking up Berne and Bernie the couple we had done our heli-hike with in New Zealand. They lived in Kiama and they had insisted we look them up when we got to Sydney. I'm not sure if they had expected us to turn up but we did just the same and spent a couple of nights with them.
After scrutinizing our funds we decided our time in New Zealand and Australia had crippled our budget so instead of travelling up the east coast we decided to go staight to Cairns. We stayed at a hostel called the Global Palace. Here we would spend ten nights, most of which were spent on the balcony that overlooked the town. Cairns turned into one big party. We met loads of people, far to many to mention and we got hammered most nights. I instigated a further two punch nights and we managed to watch the first two England games not that I can remember much. We managed only one day trip. A trip to Cape Tribulation and the Daintree
where we got our first look at Saltwater Crocodiles. The Great Barrier Reef didn't hold too much interest for me so Caroline booked a trip for herself. A two hour catamaran ride out to the reef proved to be quite rough. Loads of people were throwing up but Caroline does'nt tend to get bothered by seasickness. She thought it was a good idea to sit outside at the front of the boat but she did'nt reckon on the huge wave that come over soaking her from head to foot. After some instruction she snorkelled above the reef managing to see a green turtle among other things. After lunch and some more snorkelling they headed back home and after another soaking Caroline spent the rest of the trip fending off the advances of a slimy italian bloke ( her words, not mine ) who thought she looked like Kim Basinger. Tonight was our last night so we got totally smashed again. The next morning the management of the hostel asked us to stay and even offered me a job but we had to leave for Indonesia, more for our livers sake than anything else.
Australia was really cool. The people we
Luke, Capes, Me and Jim
the only sound I produced was a fart met were good fun and we had a really great time.
We'll definately be back.
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Hels
non-member comment
I am really enjoying reading your blogs - keep em coming - the top of Uluru (or Ayers rock!!!) fantastic - you both look really well. I hear you might be back earlier than expected - it will be good to see you whenever you come back Take care Hels