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Our transport
Looks crap but didn't break down once! My job ended so i left Melbourne on a 3 week road trip to Darwin.
I looked at tours and decided they were to expensive so then i looked around the Hostels for people with a car who were loooking for travel mates heading the same way, i found 3 people called Suzi (germany), Rick (netherlands) and Heiner (germany) and they wanted to do the exact route i had in mind, so a week after losing the job i finally left Melbourne and first up was the Great Ocean Road. Suzi and Rick slept in the camper van and Heinen and i were assigned a crap tent.
As far as roads next to oceans go i gotta admit this one was pretty great, our first stop was at the world famous Bells Beach which to be fair was average compared to other beaches along the road, the reast of this part of the journey was spent driving along at a relaxed pace and stopping at almost every look out along the way, we took 3 days to do the Great Ocean Road and a further day exploring between there and Adelaide. The highlights of this part of the
Lobster !
They have a giant everything here... trip for me were the 12 Apostles which look really cool and farther along the road we found a small lagoon with a secluded beach - untill a bus load of asian tourists turned up. Actually come to think of it another highlight was finding a shower after 2 days, we had bought of campsites and were determined to use as many of the free ones listed as possible even if it meant missing a few showers. The journey through South Australia (the driest state in the driest country in the world accoring to the poster in the hostel toilet) to Adelaide was a bit more in land and the roads a lot straighter than we'd experienced before, the scenery gradually changed and vine yards appeared everywhere,and you noticed the temperature had risen a bit, there wasn't so much to see except a pool that was 7 times saltier than the sea but it was cold and i was to much of a pussy to get wet so i didn't go in. Oh yeahhhhhhhh there was something else... a huge mutha F'ing Lobster!
Adelaide was alot smaller than i'd thought, and also alot more boring than id ever have
Nanson !
Really good fun thought, its seriously up there with Canberra for the shittest city award, there were a couple of nice streets and the main shopping area was ok but it was bloomin hard to find a bottle shop - think there is only 2 n the whole city! The hostel we stayed at for a night was really good though and met good people, also enjoyed one or two alcoholic beverages that night... well thirteen to be precise.
We left Adelaide on a really sunny beautifull Sunday evenining and headed about 150km up the road to our next free campsite which actually turned out to be a layby beside the road so spent most of that night listening to road trains and other vehicles rumbling past, It was about here the tent went from bad to worse as all the zips broke and we somehow managed to get a huge holein the roof - luckily we had duck tape the answer to all lifes problems and the tent could dtill be kind of closed up using the velcro on the flaps and by using a spare sleeping bag to block unwanted visitors enteringthrugh the bottom. The next day we started to
head into proper outback, the tree's and what greenery there had been began to fade out untill we were left with red sand for miles around. The next major atraction was Coober Peedy which is the world capital for Opal Mining, from about 40 ish kms out of town you begin to see the huge mounds of earth next to mines all the way to the town. Coober Peedy itself isn't much too look at and its only worth a day there unless you have a major opal fetish. We had a look around some jewellrey shops, had a tour of a mine and an underground house both were very cool and interesting, almost everything is underground here due to the heat including our campground that night which was an experience, some people put tents up down there but as the temperature is always around 20 - 24 degrees all year round down there we just slept in the sleeping bags alone.... not many people camp underground. After Coober Peedy we started to have to pay for campsites with showers more often due to the evil heat.
After Coober Peedy we headed up to Uluru, the Olgas and Kings
Canyon. Uluru is pretty impressive even though you see it so often on TV. We did a walk all the way around the base which was about 9km and watched the sunset over it which didnt go to well as it was cloudy, still i got some good pics. The next morning i was forced up at half 5 by the other 3 who wanted to go watch the sun rise over the Olgas which is another sacred Aboriginol rock formation close by Uluru, then we did a walk through the Olgas which had some pretty impresive views along the way, in the afternoon we drove to Kings Canyon which really dose not deserve the title canyon, set up camp and slept. Next morning we were up and of to do a walk around the Canyon, it was pretty nice but i was gettin a bit sick of red rocks by now, the highlight of this was an area called the Garden of Eden which was a beautifull pool in the middle of this dry dusty canyon with lush green trees and plants around, and even some ducks lived there. I also bumped into Torsti the guy i did the
Yellow Pages with whilst there, small world. Myt overall lasting memory of this area though will no doubt be the goddam flies, how can so many exixst in the middle of nowhere!? Thank god i bought a fly net or i'd have gone nuts with irritation.
From Kings Canyon we needed to head back onto the Stuart highway wich i wanted to do via tarmac despite it being 200 km longer id thought it would be quicker and safer than the option they chose - a torturous dirt road that was highly recomended for 4 wheel drives, as you can see ours certainly was not 4wd. Anyhoo this stupid sand/dirt/dust road took us 4 hours to complete despite it only being 100km long, through the middle of absoloutely nowhere, we only saw one othe vehicle in those four hours about 2 mins after we turned onto the road, i couldn't stop thinking of Wolf Creek. Still we made it safe and sound to a cool free campsite that had tame little Kaangaroo's to feed and stroke. The next day we found there was a camel farm next door and decided to splash out a massive $5 for about 10
minutes on a camel and it was well worth it. Also there were talking parrots and a tame dingo there so it was a good hours fun.
Next stop was Alice Springs which was a nice looking place but nothing there so we just used it to stock up on food and use the internet. After there we had a look a the Devils MArbles which are just a load of funny looking round boulders in the middle of the desert, then onto Mataranga which had really cool natural springs with nice warm water to swim in. The next morning at breakfast i noticed a Kingfisher in the tree near us which is something i'd never seen in real life before.
The last 4 or 5 days were spent in National parks Kakadu and Litchfield, most of the attraction in Kakadu were closed and of the 3 open you needed 4wd to get to 2 of them so we were left with seeing aboriginal art work and a cruise around the Yellow Water wet lands which sounded great but was actually really dull with the exception of seeing a few wild crocs, that night in the tent i
lost 3 pints of blood to Mozzies and had little sleep. Litchfield was quiet nice with waterfalls and plunge pools you could swim in free from crocs, but to be honest neither had anything on the Lake District, or Yosemitee!
Thats a brief write up of the last three weeks, there is probably more ive forgot, and alot of the time was spent driving along very very long, very very straight outback roads, still i think a good time was had by all and i have some good memorys. I have 5 days here in Darwin untill i fly to Perth where i want to find more work for a bit, i'll put some pics of here and there up in a couple of weeks.
Cya.
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Matty
non-member comment
Nice to here from you CUZ!!!
Look at you ya git, what a buzz, :-)