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Published: September 30th 2010
Chris's Section Australia was a shock. The temperature rather than the change in cultures. Bloody freezing! After nearly 5 months in 35C+ heat, 15c was like going to the North Pole - or should that be South Pole?. Melbourne itself is a pretty cool place. We found a great hotel in South Yarra (Claremont Hotel). Yarra is a pretty upmarket suburb. Lots of trendies/hipsters live here. As a consequence most restaurants/bars were way out of our budget, but it's a nice area and well placed for transport. The next couple of days were spent looking for a campervan to rent. Not that exciting a story, but we went all over Melbourne. It really pays to shop around as there's a massive difference in quality and price. We went to all the main suppliers and Hippie Campers came out on top - it's the budget arm of Apollo and the vans are new and have great facilities (fridge, kettle, toaster, etc). They were easily the cheapest too. We've seen so many travellers on the road who've paid top-dollar for rust buckets from the 'popular' rental places. The only downside is the silly paint job. It's a little embarrassing, but many
Great Ocean Road
In case you didn't noticebackpacker vans have them.
As I said, Melbourne was pretty cool. We liked Yarra and St Kilda a lot. The town centre is nice but I reckon it's better to visit when the weather's better. As so many people have said already, Oz is expensive. But it's not as bad as we'd been led to believe. Prices range from the same as the UK, up to double the UK price. So I think you just need to be sensible about things here.
We set off from Melbourne and headed for the Great Ocean Road. Think about the best driving roads in the UK, combined with the best scenery, and multiply by a factor of 10. Victoria is simply beautiful. It's been a joy to drive through the rolling hills, along clifftop roads and through beautiful farmland. I imagine this is what England used to look like before we stuck electricity pylons, mobile masts and concrete factories all over our countryside.
We've found sleeping in the van pretty cosy. It's freezing outside but we have a heater and we even wear all of our clothes on some nights! We went to see the 12 Apostles, which are a
12 Apostles
Actually, I think there's only 8 still standing. series of rock pillars which have been stranded in the sea by erosion. Pretty impressive stuff. In fact the whole coastline is beautiful. We've also found the people to be some of the friendliest we've ever met.
We've gradually moved north via the Grampians (mountain range), then Ballarat and are currently in the town of Glenrowan - famous for being the location of Ned Kelly's last stand. Not that we planned it this way, it was pure chance. The weather here is getting pretty nice - about 20c now. We also had a lovely roast dinner cooked by the lovelier Marg - thanks so much!
In the next couple of days we'll cross the border into New South Wales. We're going to take our time here as there's loads more places to see. Most backpackers tend to hug the coast, but they're missing out on so much.
Nearly forgot to mention - on the airplane over from Singapore, a guy was sat near us who was a little strange. He changed into his pj's, put a facemask on and popped in his earplugs. The he proceeded to wrap sellotape around his head, covering his mouth. Not a
bit, like a quarter of the roll - all around his head. We were trying hard not to laugh out loud. When the air steward noticed, a look came over her face of pure shock. She told a colleague, who told another, etc etc. They all came for a look and some hid behind the curtain to hide their giggles. Then the head steward tapped him on the shoulder. Basically, he said he snores loudly and this was his unique way of stopping himself. He was told to remove the tape for health and safety. He slept the whole way and didn't snore once.
p.s. We've been away 5 months today! Bought a £1.50 bottle of wine from Aldi to celebrate.
Louise's Section So for anyone not on Facebook, I am alive, I haven't succumbed to any alcohol induced toilet injuries in Oz - yet.
We landed at Melbourne and what Chris should have mentioned was that it was 15 degrees during the day, when we landed at 5am and it was 4 degrees. I had a smug 'I told you so face' on me as Chris dashed straight into his backpack for his cardigan that
The van
Groovy...maybe...not.. I made him pack 5 months ago which he has moaned about all over Asia that he doesn't need.
Melbourne was lovely, but I agree with Chris, it needed some sunshine for it to be at its best. The few days we were there they had the Aussie Rules semi-finals on. We haven't watched much coz we don't really know what's going on but the final that they had 2 days ago was a draw and they have to replay it this Saturday. The football fever is mad here but it's only down this area of Oz. We have learned that Rugby is played only in some areas and the same with the cricket. I guess it's because of the size of the country it would have taken ages for teams to travel around years ago to play each other. Perhaps this Saturday we may go and watch the game in the pub if our 'fun fund' allows (Chris's spreadsheet tells us if we have underspent and this saving goes towards funding booze, meals, attractions entrance fees etc).
Animal-wise we have seen a Koala walk straight in front of the van (when we had stopped, just in case
you thought we ran it over). Then we saw loads in the trees and one with a baby. We have seen loads of wild kangaroos and joeys and sadly a lot of roadkill roos on the highway. We saw a spikey ant eater thing and lots of cockatoos, rosellas and kookaburras. Their wildlife is much better than ours. On the plus side as well no spiders or snakes spotted yet but give it time. I have a toilet routine of leap into the cubicle, check for big ones behind the door, then small ones under the loo seat. This works in nice camp sites with lovely loos, not on the ones in the middle of nowhere which are compost loos and have mahusive cobwebs. Hanging around at these sites I am afraid I wee behind the van in the dark!!
The van has been great. It's a bit of a ball-ache putting up the curtain blind things to get ready for bed. We have decided to leave the bed down as we seriously cannot be arsed to keep building that each day. I have driven some on the highway (hardly any traffic at all) and the Great Ocean Road
but got scared when doing a reverse on a hill, freaked, nearly cried and swapped seats with Chris. Chris now drives pretty much all the time and loves it and I have been very good and hardly nagged him apart from warning him about speeding. If we get caught we get a ticket and charged $75 by the rental company. I can say now he is a very good driver and I am so glad he learnt how to drive last year.
We have met some lovely people and somehow Chris only had to mention a roast dinner to a lady next to us (after 2 mins of meeting her) here in Glenrowan and she is now cooking roast lamb for us tonight and has a pudding ready with custard and some wine. Her husband has gone back to Melbourne and she couldn't be arsed as she loves it here so she stayed on for a bit.
Onto New South Wales and Albury then onto Canberra. We're trying to slow down a bit and stay a few days in places as we have done 1300km (880+ miles) in 6 days!!! But the driving is worth it as the scenery is spectacular.
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Longtime
non-member comment
Oy,oy,oy
Thanx for sharing yr moments. I like the 'Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus' approach to yr blog. Will B visiting Australias east coast in Dec for a couple of months n needed advice on camper vans. We're currently touring around New Zealand. Keep up blogging! From Longtime aka Alice Lau x