Question: What do you get if you cross Dominus, Lamby and a sandy roadside ditch?

Answer: Dominus and Lamby in the sandy ditch needing urgent attention with Arancha looking on in distress!

We can get back to that later.

Ok, I am massively behind with the blog so I am going to try and smash the rest of Australia in this one sitting. By the way, this one sitting comes to you from a very plush train seat as I travel from Beijing to Tai’an in northern China. I am afraid you will have to wait a while for the China post as Facebook is banned here so I cant post anything but all I will say for now is that so far China has been a revelation and a very cool country to visit.

We awoke under the willow tree in a town called Bunbury, nothing more to say about Bunbury than that.
After stocking up at the supermarket we headed off to Pemberton and the Margaret River region in the south-west corner of the continent. Margaret River is revered as one of the food and drink capitals of the country and from our experience we would have to agree.
Australia amazes me. We were still in the same state but we had now passed through the tropics down into barren dry wasteland and were now basking in fertile rich farmland and beautiful countryside.

The Pemberton information centre were very helpful but they had 2 warnings for us:
1) There are harmless jellyfish in the sea but they can still give you a bee type sting so be careful
2) Do not free camp, the rangers here are very strict and you will be fined. If you are going to do it ensure that you are well hidden

It was yet another scorcher so we drove straight to the beach and heeding the warnings swam in the netted area to supposedly protect us from jellyfish. Within 10 minutes I felt something on the back of my knee and then a sharp stinging pain! I couldn’t believe that I had been stung so quickly and for the rest of the evening I had a hot, swollen and stingy lump.
Funnily enough I didn’t fancy swimming any longer after that so we dried ourselves off and took a walk along Pemberton’s famous jetty that stretches for 1.8 kms into the ocean.
An additional reason for walking along the jetty was because the coastguards were out on force due to a tiger shark having been spotted in the area. Unfortunately we saw nothing and there was to be no fat kid in his rubber ring dying on this day.
Apart from the dramatic storm clouds that were forming over the horizon providing us with ample photo opportunities there wasn’t a lot more for us to do in the town so we settled down by the beach and cooked some beautiful fish over the BBQ.
Part heeding warning number 2 we hid our selves away behind the bushes of the IGA supermarket car park and went to sleep.

Why is it that on the night that we probably had our best night’s sleep in Dominus that I was awoken at 6am by a knock on the van door?

Maybe we should’ve taken warning number 2 more seriously! The ranger was having none of my excuses and was very quick to brandish me with a $100 free camping fine. In fact he was so quick and our night’s sleep had been so good that Arancha just about crapped herself when she rolled over and saw me standing outside with the ranger looking in to the van.
I can’t say that I was overly fussed about receiving my $100 fine from the Shire of Pemberton that should be paid within 28 days. Well I can’t be that fussed can I if I haven’t paid it, I am in China and Dominus is now owned by some foolish Yank!!! I wonder what will happen with regards to those road tolls I also owe?

As we had been rudely awoken at a ridiculous hour by the Mighty Pemberton Power Ranger we had a full day ahead of us to fill.
First stop was Yallingup – one of those towns that is full of rich and beautiful people and amazing surfers. Arancha fitted in well enough (brownie points) but I wasn’t feeling it and it was too busy and too hot and sticky to hang around.

Stop 2 was the Ngilgi Caves and these caves were some of the best that I have seen with huge stalactites and stalagmites everywhere that you looked. If we had planned it better we could’ve joined a half-day adventure tour that ventured deep into the caves and involved some climbing and scrambling but it was not to be on this occasion. The part of the caves that we did enter did have a kid’s tunnel that you could squeeze through so at least we got to do that!

By the time we entered the Margaret River region proper it was still only midday!
As previously stated, this part of Australia very easy on the eye. We found ourselves driving on smooth roads surrounded by lush green trees, colourful plants and flowers and lots of live cattle.
It didn’t take long for us to find our first vineyard and it resembled some sort of country manor. I have no idea what the patrons must’ve thought as the high revving Dominus chugged around the lake which sported a fabulous water spouting statue in the middle and ambled passed the perfectly manicured lawns and general sitting area.
I couldn’t make my mind up if the van backfiring at that precise moment would be funny or just too embarrassing.

There was no doubt that this day would blow our daily budget so we forget all about it and ordered a 6 glass wine taster tray and a cheese platter. There we sat, probably 2 of the most spoilt ‘backpackers’ in Australia sampling the wine and cheese and discussing them as if we knew what we were talking about.

Margaret River isn’t just about the vineyards it is also home to a variety of independent producers of gourmet food products. We are both partial to a bit of cheese so we visited one of these establishments to stock up on a small selection for our late afternoon high tea (I told you we are very spoilt backpackers) and also enjoyed the free chocolate on offer at the Margaret River Chocolate Factory.
We visited another couple of vineyards during the afternoon and ended our day with a couple of bottles of red and a bottle of port to join the cheese selection in the back of the van.
That night we camped in a little campsite by the coast, which cost us $6 each to stay in. I am sure that I do not need to tell you that the cheese and port went down a treat, so much so that the port was gone by 10pm.
The campsite itself was nice enough but even I was surprised when one of Arancha’s former students came up to say hello at the camp BBQ. Come on - we were in a little campsite on a cliff edge in the south-west corner of Australia! Arancha and her student are almost from the opposite side of the continent!!

The next morning was a blustery and angry type of wind day. Driving to Cape Leeuwin was a drive of dodging already fallen and falling tree branches, which you do not want to be doing in a less than nimble van.
Cape Leeuwin is located at the south-western tip of Australia, is home to the tallest lighthouse in Oz and is the point where the warm and calm Indian Ocean meets with the cold and fierce Southern Ocean.
By this time I was fed up with the Aussie’s trying to cash in on every tourist site so there was no way that I was going to pay to walk to the SW tip of the continent. Seriously, it is a piece of earth so as a member of planet Earth I should be free to walk on any place that I choose!
The tourist centre at Cape Leeuwin had a fatal flaw in that they only manned one entrance to the area, so because we had eaten at the on-site café and had been served less than satisfactory soup we decided that this was entrance fee enough.

With the winds that were strong enough to blow you off course and stormy skies the point at which the 2 oceans met gave a sort of end of the world feeling. The waves and currents were so brutal as each ocean smashed into the other.

We hung around long enough to take a few photos at the Indian Ocean meets Southern Ocean sign and the lighthouse and then we were back on the never-ending road. We left the area at just the right moment as well because another bush fire had begun and the air reeked with the smell of smoke and devastation.
Cape Leeuwin also marked the end of our west coast adventures and now saw us heading east along the south coast meaning that we were officially heading home to Melbourne, although we still had a few thousand kilometres to cover so it wasn’t all bad.

Heading east we had now entered tall timber country, a very fertile part of Australia that is home to giant Tingle trees, so large in fact that up until 1990 there was a tree that you could drive your car through. Unfortunately levels of conservation during that time were not what they are today so nobody realised that these Tingle trees have roots that exist very close to the surface meaning that the constant motorcar activity over the years resulted in the tree dying and toppling over and ruining it for future generations.
We arrived in a sleepy little town called Pemberton and stayed on a very nice caravan site along with an English couple who we would see every day for the next 5!
We were in Pemberton to attempt the climb both the Gloucester and Dave Evans Bicentennial trees. These trees are famous for being fire lookout trees, the first being 60 metres tall and the latter 70 metres and the only way to get to the top of them is to climb a series of metals poles that are hammered into the trunk and slowly circle the tree as they make their way up to the summit platform.
Written in front of you it all sounds ok but when you are standing at the bottom looking up and we are talking about climbing a tree by a series of thin metal poles with no safety precautions whatsoever it is a seriously daunting prospect.
Needless to say that I made it up to about 8 metres off the ground before I looked down and bottled it and Arancha made it to about 10 metres.
I spoke to one guy who climbed to the top of the Bicentennial tree and he said that although the view was unbelievable the way the tree swayed in the wind was very unnerving. For once I wasn’t too upset to fail at the task in front of me.

Moving on from Pemberton we took the road to Walpole, the home of the Valley of the Giants treetop walkway.
On the way we read about a hidden beach so decided to stop off to explore the area. Mandalay Beach remains to this day probably the best beach that I have been to. We left the car park and walked up a path and over a hill to be confronted with an uninhabited pristine squeaky white beach and a dramatic cobalt blue ocean backed up with emerald green cliff slopes. The next hour was spent running amuck, just running and jumping around until we were breathless in this very special place that was just ours and will forever be a place that I will daydream off when I am in a suffocating office environment once back in London.

After finally tearing ourselves away from Mandalay we got to Walpole just in time to get a tip from the visitor centre of an excellent place to free camp. Just shy of the free camping site I pulled over to take a picture of a sign that declared that we were in tall timber country and this place should have acted as a warning about this area of Western Australia. The roadsides here are not hard like hard shoulders elsewhere, they are sandy! Trying to pull off was not pretty and we found ourselves wheel spinning trying to get Dominus back on to the road. After wetting the sand and wedging a few stones under the wheels we were back in business, so why did I not learn the lesson?

It is now Tuesday 31st January but this day will be forever etched in my mind as ‘Ditch Day’.
The Valley of the Giants was still closed when we arrived at the gates so we pulled over and waited for the place to open. For one reason or another we decided and then immediately decided against checking out a local sight down the road meaning that I tried unsuccessfully to reverse in to our previously parked position. By the time that I had thought about the sandy roadsides and the fact that this roadside dropped away into a ditch I had reversed too far and was now stuck on an angle in a van that had as much grip and bite as a Teflon saucepan.
As if sent for by Lassie herself a ranger arrived on the scene at that precise moment to open the gates to the Valley.
I walked over and explained that I was a useless Pomme and had gotten us stuck and he very kindly agreed to give us a tow back on to the road. To us it seemed natural to tow us from the front but Tony (the ranger) decided that pulling us from the back would be best. He was the ranger with the 4x4 and the tow gear so I thought he knew what he was doing. The result of Tony’s handy work saw Dominus with my self and Arancha inside even further down the ditch on and even steeper angle resting against a tree! We were now well and truly f*cked!
“Don’t worry” says Tony, I will ring Alf and he will be able to get you out no problem.

45 minutes later and avoiding the many gawping tourists slowly driving past us stranded at the roadside Alf and his missus arrive with their tow truck.
Their first action was to assess the situation whilst both smoking a roll-up and making ‘hmmm” and “aaahhhhhh” sounds.
Eventually Alf decides on the best course of action and tells us that we may lose a wing mirror, which we were more than willing to accept.
His missus stood by me and assured me that he was the best and we would be out in no time. Famous last words!
Once attached to the winch, slowly but surely Dominus made his sorry way out of the ditch whilst I watched on with fingers crossed and Arancha filmed the whole debacle. I still haven’t watched the footage as it is still a touchy subject but I know that at the point the creaking begins Arancha turns the camera from the action and walks away.
The creaking was Dominus scraping against a fairly sturdy tree and this awful sound ended quite abruptly when the wing-mirror quickly followed by the entire front grill of the van was ripped off and fell down into the ditch.
I think we could’ve accepted that as collateral damage but once out of the ditch and on closer inspection the damage was much worse. During Dominus’ close encounter with the Mike Tyson of the tree world the passenger door had also been dented in to a point where for the rest of the trip it wouldn’t open and whoever wasn’t driving had a choice of either getting in and out via the driver side or clambering over from the back!

Once out Alf and his missus once again stood back to assess the situation whilst smoking another roll-up and once again made “hmmm” sounds and now accompanied them with “ooohhh”.
On the plus side Alf was proud to tell us that the indicator on the totally f*cked up side of the van was still in working order so that was good wasn’t it?
We were then at the business end of this fiasco and Alf was gracious enough to declare that he was entitled to do at least one good turn every year so he wouldn’t charge us!
What one good turn was that then Alf? Depreciating the van of value by more than we could ever hope to over our entire 10,000km journey?
Yes it was my fault that I got us stuck in the ditch but Tony compounded it with Alf then showing the level of professionalism of a toddler constructing a ship in a bottle model of the Mary Rose.
Funnily enough our stroll around the tree top walkways of the Valley of the Giants was a very quiet affair after the early morning’s events.

Fortunately our day got a damn site better as we left the tainted Tall Timber country behind and arrived in the beautiful town of Denmark.
Denmark is in the enviable position of having the ocean on one side and the countryside on the other, the home of the Scottsdale Tourist Drive, a 20km loop of wineries and food centres.
On the loop we bought some more cheese and also visited a honey winery where we could observe the bees in transparent hives whilst eating honey ice cream because this was not the day to be worrying about diets!

The afternoon got even better once we visited Greens Pool and the Elephant Rocks. Greens Pool was one of those immaculate places of super crystal clear ocean waters that once passed how cold the Southern Ocean is was a great place to cool off and swim around the strange formations of the Elephant Rocks.

That night we camped a lovely little camp ground next to the beach that was run by a couple of spritely 80+ year olds that still scoot around the site on quad bikes whilst looking like they did not have the strength to turn the wheels.

We remained in Denmark the following day so that we could complete a 9.6km return climb to the summit of Mount Lindsay. It was not a challenging climb and the views were not really worth the effort but at least it burnt off some of the honey ice cream consumed the day before!
Before leaving the area we tried to body surf in the poor waves of Ocean Drive beach and utilised the nearby showers to freshen up.

The town of Albany was next and over a couple of pints we planned out the remaining 3 weeks of our Aussie road trip. That night we free camped and I only mention it because a huge rat ran into Arancha’s foot as we cooked our dinner.

I have mentioned dinner on various occasions but never really gone into detail about our meal times. Well Gordon Ramsey eat your Scottish heart out:
Breakfast – generally an omelette or fried egg on toast followed by yoghurt – yum yum
Lunch – freshly made sandwich by my or Arancha’s fair hand – scrumptious
Dinner – either fresh fish/seafood or lean mean kangaroo meat accompanied with a variety of fresh veg and salad such as fried sweet potato chips, roasted aubergine, courgette, carrot, onions and corn on the cob and all of this was always with a large dash of peri-peri or lemongrass and chilli seasoning – f*ck yeah!
Check that out! We were real health freaks on this trip, it was all about the saturated fat content for us!!

Anyway, it was raining the next morning, the first real rainfall that we had experienced in 4 weeks on the road and this was the result of a cyclone that had broken up over the Indian Ocean and would send crappy weather our way for the next few days.
That morning we ventured to the Torndirrup National Park to visit The Gap, a 24 foot vertical drop in to the ocean, and Natural Bridge, a large rock bridge that spans the open ocean and can be deadly if a king wave happens to strike you when you dare to cross it. Even though the weather was poo the ocean was calm-ish so we both took turns to walk across to the other side and back again.
This national park was also the site of sections of dark continental rock that used to connect Australia to Antarctica in the very distant past.
We breakfasted in the national park by the ocean before travelling on to the fabulous Little Beach that has perfect tube waves rolling in to the coast.

The next day was a seriously long driving day. The plan has been to climb Bluff Knoll, at 1,095 metres the highest peak in the Stirling Ranges but when we arrived the weather was so bad that we couldn’t even see the mountain from 1km away.
There was no option but continue driving on to Hyden to visit Wave Rock, a natural rock formation that is shaped like a 110 metre long and 15 foot high wave.
There is no doubt that it is worth seeing and made more fascinating by the fact that a new ‘wave’ is in the process of being created right under your feet but Hyden is in the middle of nowhere, the flies are unrelenting and by the time we stopped for the night on our drive back down towards the coast we had driven 1,000 kilometres in one day.
We had a good ‘free camp’ though – it was raining so we made some room so that we could cook our kangaroo snags (sausages) in the back of the van whilst getting drunk on port.

Driving in to Esperance we had now reached our final destination in the state of Western Australia. Esperance, being the home of 16 immaculate beaches should’ve been a more than fitting way to end this leg of journey but with the still temperamental weather affecting us Twilight Beach et al just didn’t have that same allure.
It didn’t matter, it was Saturday so we got very drunk in one of only 2 pubs in the town – reason enough to not rate this town as a place to visit!

On the Sunday we drove on to the neighbouring Cape Le Grand National Park, surely the real reason to visit Esperance. Cape Le Grand is home to a number of climbable peaks and great beaches including the recently voted whitest beach in Australia, which you share with a number of very lazy kangaroos.
On the road between Esperance and Cape Le Grand you can also visit the recently completed Stonehenge replica!! I can’t believe that the owners actually wanted to charge us $10 each to visit it, it was sh*t, so I climbed up a bank outside of the grounds to take a picture much to the owner’s disgust.
In the park we took the tourist route around the beaches and also scaled the summit of Frenchman’s Peak – an excellent rock scramble directly up the very steep east face.
We camped by the whitest of white Lucky Beach and although Arancha dropped some of our evening meal it was ok because a kangaroo hoovered it up and left us some poo as thanks!

The next 2 days was all about the Nullarbor Plain – a 1,400 kilometre drive across a stretch of desert with absolutely nothing around you. If you break down here you are in trouble!
To be honest the drive wasn’t that bad as the landscape did change in places from scrub, the flat desert resembling the African Savannah to small trees and eventually a drive along a deserted rugged coastline.
There is also the Nullarbor Links Golf Course to keep travellers amused – the longest golf course in the world with a hole at each roadhouse to complete along the way!

Just before we got to the Nullarbor proper we passed through a town called Salmon Gums! I can just imagine the conversation:
Stranger: “Hi, where are you from?”
Me: “Salmon Gums”
Stranger: “I’m sorry? I asked where are you from?”
Me: “Salmon Gums”
Stranger: “Freak” and walks off

Our first day on the Nullarbor passed without any mishaps and I really enjoyed the drive. We drove along 90 mile road, a 90 mile stretch of dead straight road and is the longest straight road in Oz. If Dominus was in a fit state and could be trusted to drive in a straight line I could’ve driven for 1 hour with no hands, we just went on and on without ever encountering a bend.
Along the way we also saw the biggest eagle perched atop the dead body of a kangaroo feasting upon its entrails – a very cool sight.

We had driven 800 kilometres that day but we were still 100 kilometres shy of the South Australian border, so we spent the night camped in a 24 hour stopping bay the size of a small campsite and we loved it. It was pitch black except for the moon and stars and we shared our camp area with the cutest little field mice, which were about 1.5 inches in length.
As we lay down to sleep Arancha swore that something had just brushed by her arm but I told her it was her imagination and to just go to sleep.
The next morning I opened up the boot to prepare breakfast and it seems that Arancha had not imagined a thing because there was mouse poo everywhere!

For some pathetic reason you are not allowed to carry uncooked fruit and veg over the border between Western and Southern Oz so later that day we stopped short of the border to cook our evening meal in advance so that we didn’t have to throw out our very expensive food!
I have no idea what the punishment would be for transporting stowaway field mice over the border!!!
The first part of our morning was a task in completely emptying the van to search for Stuart Little but it was to no avail, we couldn’t find it anywhere although there was poo dotted all over the interior of the van.
I am not kidding but later that day I did hear a high pitch squeal coming from the engine so maybe Stuart was sleeping there but Arancha still refuses to acknowledge that she heard it – ha ha.

A little over an hour after getting back on to the Nullarbor we reached the border with South Australia. I was very sad to be leaving the state of Western Australia, which has been my favourite of all the states that I have visited but IIWII – it is what it is!
The border is a weird in-between worlds sort of place with its own time zone from both Western and Southern Oz – I suppose it is to be expected when you are in the middle of nothing with no civilisation within 700 kilometres of you in either direction. Apart from another golf hole the border also had a signpost declaring that London was 15,700 kilometres away!

Just beyond the border we hit the top of the Great Australian Bight, that part of Oz at the bottom that arches up like a planet-sized giant has taken a big chomp out of the country.
Here we were able to park up and take in the majestic views of wild country and coast stretching out forever in either direction.

By late afternoon we had finally achieved an Australian must and successfully crossed the Nullarbor Plain – woo-hoo!
The reward for this achievement was a very nervous glance between ourselves as a cop car switched on his lights and pulled us over. Road laws in WA are very slack and we feared that the battered and bruised Dominus would be punished now that we were we in the stricter SA.
We needn’t have feared because it was just a random breath test and an attractive Aussie Arancha was driving making it all a lot easier. She passed the test and after checking our papers he sent us on our way giving the van a once over look and telling us to burn it and claim on the insurance!!!
We nervously laughed and neglected to tell him that it wasn’t insured – we are skint backpackers!
Our first night in SA was nice enough by the calm waters of Streaky Bay and a neighbour at the caravan park gave us some freshly caught crabs to cook up which were divine.

The Streaky Bay visitor info centre was very helpful in giving us a list of the local attractions but I found it very amusing when I walked in alone and the receptionist looked me up and down with my long hair, vest and shorts and asked me if I had an appointment for the attaching dole centre!
In my best English accent I explained that I was just here for directions.

We had a very busy sightseeing day:
1) Point Labatt – a drive along a dirt road to visit a sea lion colony. A really good place to visit and look down on the numerous sea lions either lazing on the rocks or frolicking in the rock pools knowing that out in the dark ocean beyond we were back in great white shark territory.
2) Murphy’s Haystacks – a collection of odd rock formations – nice enough
3) Talia Caves - different cave formations, one called The Tub which you climbed down into via a log with foot holds carved into it and Woolshed Cave, which I wish I hadn’t ventured in to barefoot as I found myself standing in piles of bat poo!
4) Finally, we drove along the ocean coastal loop of great scenery and numerous sculptures decorating the cliff edges

That evening we camped in Port Lincoln next to the shark cage diving boat – yep, we were going to try our luck again!
I am not sure how but we boarded the boat at 6:30am the next morning with everybody else on board waiting for us – we had slept next to the boat!

I assume everybody reading this has been following my travelling progress so hopefully you will have read about my previous shark cage diving experience back at the beginning of November because I can’t be bothered to explain how it works all over again.
All you need to know is that this time it was bloody worth it! Within 2 minutes of arriving the first shark appeared and we had 3 very active sharks around the boat for the entire day – the largest being 15 feet in length!

We jumped into the cage as part of the first group and it is hard to put into words what the next 45 minutes was like. You are stood in the cage and before you know it there is a shark coming up from behind, it circles the cage and looks you straight in the eye and you are under no illusion that it is waiting for you to give it an opening. It then may try and grab the tuna bait giving you a view of those razor sharp teeth or it may glide back in to the darkness of the ocean as though it was never there.
It was such a magical experience and a real privilege to share the same space with the perfectly designed predator and watching it swim so graciously through the water did not seem real, it was like we were watching the tv.
The best part by far was the moment when the middle sized shark (about 12 feet long) decided to turn on a sixpence and smash a hole into the metal cage!!! The power and force that it hit with was indescribable but from such a small turn I can’t even fathom what it would feel like if a great white smashed into you at full speed – I think instant death would be the result without a bite being made.
All 6 of us backed up against the cage and I am not lying when my self and Arancha looked at each other and we were so excited by what was happening. Amongst the bubbles rising from our respirators we could both clearly make out the other saying “whhoooaaa!” and laughing at what was happening.

Before we knew it our time was up but it didn’t matter, we had had 45 minutes of full on shark action and for the rest of the day we stood on the boat and watched the sharks continue to batter the cage and its inhabitants.

It was a flipping great day and well worth the detour down and on our way north that evening heading towards Adelaide Dominus had a good day too by celebrating reaching the 400,000 kilometre milestone on his mileometre (or is it a kilometre here??) – well done Dominus you trooper!

It was now Friday 10th Feb and we arrived in the capital of South Australian capital city of Adelaide. I can’t tell you much about Australia’s 3rd largest city because we drove through it and up into the hills beyond to stay at the farm of Looker and Shahn (one of the girls that I met in Nepal with Arancha).
I am not sure how long we had planned to stay here but we stayed for 5 days and it was brilliant. Looker and Shahn have a 10 acre property that comes with sheep (one which died whilst we were there), an alpaca which protects the sheep from foxes and a family of Magpies which come into the huge house, that has 9 different entrances, to feed.
Because it is set in its own land you feel away from civilisation and you can do as you please. Looker likes a beer, cider or 10 so I spent the next 5 days in a very drunk state.
Looker also has a man-shed where the blokes can go and work on man things like cars and sh*t whilst drinking because there are 2 fridges full of booze on site.
Apart from lunch in the superb German village of Handoff and a trip around the south of South Australia’s coastline we stayed on the farm and partied.

Saturday was probably the best day for me. My first beer was at 11am with Looker and his mate Dave Dingo in the man shed. Yeah his name was Dingo and he had the number plate on his Ute to prove it. I really enjoyed hanging with these true Aussie blokes and you learn more about a country and its culture in an hour drinking with these people than you ever will in 5 months in Melbourne.
I like the fact that I could go for a wee right outside the man shed in the bushes and I didn’t even mind when Dingo announced that he was off inside to “pinch a crap out!”
Whilst Arancha and Shahn went shopping, my self and Looker drank and set about fixing up Dominus. The result of Looker’s bush mechanics was a new front right-hand side indictor that used to be the indicator on a caravan – it looked hilarious but it worked and that was good enough for me.

Once the girls were back we set about having one of the best house parties I have ever been to and there was only 4 of us. The night consisted of beer, wine, cider, port, making something a world away from music as we ‘played’ the piano along with a didgeridoo and bird whistle whilst wearing hats eg. A top hat, a yellow wig and a Nazi helmet. Looker then gave us a solo dance on his dance floor with 2 sparklers as accessories and then finally the cowboy whips came out.
When done properly the crack of the whip echoed like a gunshot around the farm hills in the black of night, but I will remember it for feeling like Demi Moore in Ghost as Looker got behind me like Swayze and showed me how to use the whip in the correct manner!!

All in all it was a top quality weekend and on the last day Looker shared a couple of stories with me that he gave me permission to share with you all.
1) When fitting solar roof panels on a very hot day he ended up in hospital because he wasn’t wearing underwear and the panels burnt his balls so badly that he was spewing up blood!
2) After badly breaking his arms as a youth because he fell out of his own car hooning (joy riding) he sat at home lighting bangers and throwing them. He lit a particularly large one and tried to throw it with the broken arm, which resulted in it dropping down the side of the chair he was sitting in. Looker was back in hospital that night with a chunk blown out of his leg!
Great bloke and I hope he comes to visit us in the UK as you lot will love him. He comes from the type of world where you are self-sufficient and whatever job you do for a mate you do it for beer because that’s all you need when relaxing at your amazing farm! Nice life.

We finally made ourselves leave the farm but had the advantage of making a detour to Looker’s other property based on the banks of the Murray River in a place called Walker Flats.
The place was up on a hill overlooking the river and you needed to catch a ferry to get over to the ‘shack’.
The next day we took the kayaks out of the shed and spent the day on the river thoroughly tiring our selves out.

The aim was to now head back into the state of Victoria and explore the Grampians National Park but as we left Walker Flats Dominus began to sound very poorly indeed.
We had no choice but to join the roadside assistance on the spot and get somebody out to take a look over the van.
2 hours later the less than impressive help arrived and he spent a total of 15 minutes with us, took the wheel off and declared that our front wheel bearings were ruined.
His advice, although not official, was to drive to the nearest town and get it to the mechanics.
The 30km drive was very painful and we had to stop every 10kms to let the bearings cool down so that it didn’t sound like the whole thing was about to fall to pieces.
We limped in to the town of Mannum at 2pm on the Friday afternoon and we were too late to be seen and would need to wait until Monday morning!
We were stuck in this crap little town until Monday morning with nothing to do. At least we were still on the banks of the Murray River and the Saturday was so busy with local South Australians using the river for various water sports.

I can’t say that we did an awful lot with our weekend and we were so happy when come 4pm on Monday afternoon we were back on the road, even if we were a few hundred dollars out of pocket and we now had tape holding the hazard light button in place so that the indicators would work because this had shorted as we were driving to the mechanics in distress on the Friday!

We free camped for the last time just over the border and were now in the ‘home’ state of Victoria – boo-hoo.
We had 2 days of the road-trip left and we were not going to waste them. We got to the Grampians National Park very early and set about fitting as much in as possible. The original plan had been to spend 3 or 4 days here and I am gutted that we couldn’t do this as it was such an impressive national park – maybe the best I have visited in Australia.
We did the standard touristy things on day 1 – climb to the top of the Pinnacles look out, check out The Balconies rock formations and walk to the bottom of the McKenzie waterfalls.
Our last night ‘on the road’ was at a small campsite in the park – it was us, a bottle of port and a seriously cheeky kangaroo. The roo had obviously been fed by numerous other campers so it showed no fear and would stand right next to us scrounging for food.
We rose early he next day as we had our last mountain to climb. As soon as I put breakfast on the roo was back and this time he was taking real liberties ie. jumping on to the table, licking the frying pan and in the process knocking some eggs off the table. Shouting did us no favours and I was too wary of getting a good kick to push it away.
Finally it moved off and we were able to get ready for the climb.

With so many peaks to climb in the park I am happy that we chose to mount Briggs Bluff. It was a thousand metre plus peak and one side of it was a vertical drop down to the bottom – quite unnerving when you are stood on the edge.
The climb was really good fun and involved a lot of rock scrambling up the side of a waterfall. All in all the climb took us about 3 hours and we really savoured the views from the summit as we sat down to have our final lunch before returning back to Melbourne.
As we returned to the van we ran in to a couple that we had saw on Ditch Day – made more random by the fact that nobody else was around and since that day they had flown to Melbourne from Perth, bought their own van and had now driven here. It’s a small, small world.
Just before we left the park and drove south through the most unbelievable landscape we stopped at a campground and treated ourselves to a bucket shower ie. You put your own water in to the bucket and it pours out over you with the sun shining on your back. That is what my life is about!

That evening we were back in Melbourne and we hated it. We thought that going to the Queen Victoria Food and Drink Markets would be a nice cultural way to get back in to city life but it was so busy, everyone was rude and we were used to having our own space for as far as we could to see all to ourselves!!!

So that was that, the road trip was over! After driving to Sydney, off to Tasmania, back to Sydney for NYE, over to the red centre of Aus and then over to Broome we were back in Melbourne.
In Dominus we covered a total of 10,009 kilometres, travelled through 3 States and saw a number of sights that you cannot see anywhere else in the world and I was lucky enough to do it with an amazing person and one of my best mates!

Even though we were back we were fortunate enough that we would only need to spend 10 days in Melbourne before the next part of the world travels began.

Over that 10 day period I was seriously busy sorting out our visas for China and Nepal, putting up ‘For Sale’ posters all over the city’s hostels for Dominus, as well as sorting through final paperwork in order to leave Australia.
During this time I also had to go and say my goodbyes to some very good mates and on top of that celebrate Arancha and Nadia’s very special birthday party.
I think I celebrated a little too hard because I went on a 20 hour drinking bender and made a right tool of myself at the post-birthday meal on the Sunday afternoon. Good job I am leaving the country!!!
I made up for my bad behaviour by making Arancha a gourmet breakfast on her actual b’day and got her tickets to the V Festival as a present! Yeah baby, Stone Roses and The Killers amongst others for us this summer!

During my last week I managed to get down to the south coast for a night alone but had to be back early the next morning because after a couple of unsuccessful viewings the day before I had another potential buyer for Dominus.
Greg was the new Yank in town and you could smell the desperation on him – he wanted a van and he wanted it now!
Like a lot of Yanks he was arrogant without even realising it and assumed I could pick him up so that he could view the van the cheeky git. I told him that wouldn’t be possible and he would have to meet me where we had arranged – only about 15 minutes from his bleeding hostel!
Anyway, he didn’t seem to mind climbing in over the driver seat or via the back of the van so I was pleased about that and after a short drive he was very keen indeed. I nearly had a heart attack when he drove it and declared that he had never driven on this side of the road before as he nearly shaved the cars on the passenger side and I was very relieved when he handed the controls back over to me. I was even more pleased that the indicators were still working as they had been seriously playing up in recent days!!!

In conclusion we wanted $1,600 for a piece of sh*t van and we somehow got $1,350 out of Greg the Yank. To be fair it is a mechanically sound vehicle but I won’t lie to you – it looks awful and bits are falling off!

To continue in his arrogant manner Greg declared that I should drop the van off to him the next day (I thought the buyer should pick up the vehicle?) but I didn’t mind because if I did that then he would never know where I lived and once I was gone I was gone!

So that is that people, after 7 days short of 1 whole year in Australia my time here is at an end. I can’t believe that it has passed so quickly and that 16.5 months of travel has now passed me by in the blink of an eye.
My year here has been phenomenal – I have travelled around the perimeter of this mighty continent from Cairns in the north-east, right around to Broome in the north-west; only the north of Australia over the top from Cairns to Broome remains to be explored and one day it will be.
I have travelled to the most easterly and westerly points as well as the highest point of the country and every day has been such fun.
I have met some great people, played with a great football team, rented a flat and held down a 6 month corporate contract in Melbourne, completed the Melbourne Marathon, been skiing twice, tried my hand at surfing, undertook two east-coast road trips, one where I had a fantastic time being the only English person amongst many Europeans and one with 2 of my best mates from home as well as a west & south coast road trip with my best mate here.
I have explored geological environments seen nowhere else on this planet and I have sat with nesting green turtles on a beach, seen wild kangaroos, huge eagles and koalas aplenty and been face to mouth with Great White Sharks.

A special thanks goes out to Nadia, Slim, Josie, Cossie, Shahn, Burt, Sam and Greenall for providing me a bed when I needed it most.
Cheers guys, it was much appreciated.

In conclusion is has been a monumental year in my life on the back of the 5 months of extraordinary travel that preceded it and now I leave to explore China before going back to Nepal to conquer the Everest region with an Australian girlfriend that I met in those very mountains in Dec 2010. I can tell you that that was not on the cards!

Ain’t life grand!!!!!

Have I offended the gods?

I find myself stranded in a little South Australian town called Mannum because Dominus is on his last legs and in a place like this the mechanics close on Friday lunch time and do not open again until Monday morning.
Therefore, as I told the receptionist at the caravan park, we are f*cked, so what else to do but get stuck into the blog.

I decided upon this title for the post because over the next few days our road-trip it seemed as though the 7 plagues of Egypt were descending upon us – well not quite but you will get the idea as we go on.

It is Thursday 12th Jan 2012 and we leave Ningaloo Marine Park looking forward to what other wildlife treats may be in store for us after our turtle adventures.
The answer to this question literally came in its thousands as we hit the highway and headed south to Coral Bay. We entered the locust plague just outside of Exmouth and we didn’t get through it for approximately 1 hour. At first we were a little daunted by what we were seeing but after 10 minutes it was quite fun watching thousands of locusts leaping over the highway and striking the van at every angle. All we heard for 1 hour was ‘ding’, ‘ting’, ‘ping’ as they either bounced off the front grill, hit windscreen, clung onto the windscreen wipers and gave us the evil eye or they hit the side of the van forcing us to do our windows up in the 90+ degree heat and we had no air-con!!

Once through the storm we pulled into the nearest roadhouse to get some petrol and to clean the windscreen. It was a new experience for me to walk around the van with a stick fishing all of the dead, maimed and still living locusts from the van.
The rest of our journey was pretty eventful too. We swerved past numerous lizards basking in the sun of the road as well as stopping the van in the middle of nowhere so that I could get some snaps of a huge monitor lizard.
One of my favourite moments of the trip also occurred on this leg of the journey when a huge wedge-tail eagle took flight and flew right beside the van as we cruised down the highway – you just don’t see that sort of thing everyday.

We arrived in the seaside town of Coral Bay by midday and before we realised it we had driven though it. Coral Bay is a very small town that stretches for only 200 metres along the coastline but for such a small place is it very popular.
The place was packed with Aussie holidaymakers enjoying the last couple of weeks of the school summer holidays (remember it is back to front here and the kids have Xmas in their summer holidays).
There isn’t anything going on in the town except for lazy days beside the turquoise ocean lying on a pure white beach – I am sure you can see a theme here with the state of the beaches?
With nothing else to do we parked up the van in a nice little caravan park – this town was too small to get away with free camping – and hit the beach. It was a pretty chilled day and the only action was me nearly stepping on a stingray in the shallows Steven Irwin stylee, but not quite.
By 3pm we were fed up of the blazing sun so we decided that we to do what we do best – get drunk. We sat in the shade of Dominus and drank a lot of wine, some via drinking games and some just because our cup was full and it needed emptying.
By early evening we were well on our way so off we marched to the one and only pub in Coral Bay and continued to drink. I don’t remember an awful lot of the night except that there was a video jukebox and I was pumping the dollars into it so that could watch and listen to some decent English music such as Pulp, Kasabian, Muse and New Order.
Later that night plague number 2 hit, floods, and at this point I am going to take the unprecedented blog action of handing you over to Miss Arancha Joulian to explain what happened as I have a very hazy recollection:

Hi peoples, let me tell you like it is. So I awoke at around 2.30am with Adam pacing up and down outside the van looking somewhat perplexed. I asked him straight out, “what the hell ‘s going on?” He responded, still drunk and repeating the words “I don’t know what I’ve done, I don’t know what I’ve done.”
So looking very dubious, I put my hands on the bed only to have my hand drenched in some type of liquid. So giving him the benefit of the doubt (not sure why) I asked him if he had somehow spilt the entire content of a 2 litre bottle of water onto the mattress. He responded, “I don’t know what I’ve done….I’m not sure, I don’t think it was me!!“ hmmm ok?!
So I removed myself from the van and made Adam sit on the chair whilst I removed the sheets to only then find that the wee had soaked all the way from the back of his knees to his pillow leaving the mark of his head and the back of his hair drenched in piss!! I then had to take the mattress out from the van whilst he was still slurring the same words and feeling a little sorry for himself. I took the soaked pillowcase off, turned the pillow over so he could use the other side, took both of our inflatable camping mats to sleep on and used the sleeping bags as our sheets. To top that off, Adam’s cause was not helped by a tree that had leaked its sap all over one side of the mattress sealing the urine within for the rest of the road trip.
Nice work Lamby, you have outdone yourself!!
(Latner, don’t even try to pick fault with this, I have seen your messaging on fb!)

Hey, it’s me again.
I awoke at 9:30am in a seriously inebriated state which was not welcome when it’s really hot outside, you are in a hot van and aching because the mattress isn’t there and you are not sure how your bird is going to treat you as you wet yourself during the night like a child/old man.
Fortunately for me Arancha has a very good sense of humour and she was cool with the situation and only a little disgusted. We left Coral Bay with me rolling from side to side in the passenger seat trying to get some more sleep and continued south.
During this stretch of road we crossed the Tropic of Cancer but I was asleep so missed it. Apparently it was a decent sign!

About 200kms south of Coral Bay we came upon god’s wrath part 3 as we hit a roadblock. A bushfire was raging through the outback so along with dozens of other travelers we could do nothing else but sit it out and wait at the roadhouse. We sat it out for 5 hours!!!!
The first hour was painful but after I had thrown up it wasn’t all that bad. We sat around, watched test cricket on the tv (that’s how bored we were) and read through the guidebook to make sure that we missed nothing on our future travels.

During our day out at the roadhouse in the outback we ordered some sandwiches and as I sat down I said to Arancha that I hate it when you can see your food being prepared in the kitchens, which we could.
As she asked me why this was I watched the fat biatch in the kitchen pour too much sweet chilli sauce on my sandwich, spread it around with her finger, lick that finger and then pick up some salad and continue to make the sandwich with her bare hands.
My answer to Arancha was that is the reason why!
As the food was handed to us I asked the bloke if he thought it was acceptable that his staff did that and he just shrugged and asked if I wanted a new one. I really couldn’t be arsed with it all so I just took it and told him to make sure he had a word with her.
By late afternoon the road was finally open and we were on our way to Carnarvon.
The Rough Guide travel book describes Carnarvon as a rough and ready place where there can be fighting in the streets on a Friday night. Well we didn’t see any fighting but there was definitely an unsettling atmosphere to the place. For example, in the supermarket car park we saw 3 youths and a drunken aboriginal guy abusing some travellers in their campervan. Needless to say, we parked on the opposite side of the car park.
As we had arrived late in the day all we did that evening was cook our dinner down by the ocean, in view of a homeless guy who kept staring at us, and then drove around until we found a place to free camp.

Whilst camped on the roadside we settled down to watch a film when all of a sudden there was a huge bang on the side of the van quickly followed by another. After shitting ourselves I jumped out of the van in my boxers to find a group of about 20 youths throwing mangos at Dominus, the little gits. Fortunately, they were already bored and I only had to duck out of the way of one more mango whilst I stood there looking really hard in just my undies.
Still, we were over Carnarvon and I we had only been there for a few hours. To ensure we did not receive any late night visits from the little mofo’s I climbed into the front of the van whilst her ladyship lay in the back and drove us to an industrial estate and parked us in a nowhere sort of place so we could at least sleep in peace!
The next morning we found ourselves back in the town centre at the Visitor Info Centre. I had heard an advert on the radio for a Space Technology Museum so even though the town was a bit scummy I didn’t anticipate encountering them in a museum.
At the info centre I discovered that I definitely would not be hanging out with any dodgy types at the museum because it wasn’t even built yet. The advert was part of the fundraising for the construction of it!
So that was that for Carnarvon, we were out of there.
One detour that we did take before we left the area was to a blowhole. We drove 50kms out into an area by the coastline that resembled the surface of the moon and as usual we had everything to ourselves.
The blowhole was really good. The sheer power of the ocean forcing itself up between the cracks in the rocks and then shooting 30 feet up into the air and creating it’s own rainbows was excellent. Because I am a classy individual I made Arancha take photos of me imitating a moment of self-pleasure at the moment of the blowhole eruption (I am sorry mother but other people read the blog too and the photos are actually quite amusing).
To complete the superb setting a dolphin joined the party by jumping out of the ocean in the distance. Sweet.

Back in Dominus the next stop was Shark Bay and to the site of one of the main reasons that I came to Australia and Western Aus in particular. A few years ago I was sat in my front room in London looking out of the window (at another building crammed up against us) watching a David Attenborough documentary. On the documentary Dave was lying next to some stone pillars called Stromatolites, which were the first life forms to photosynthesise ie. take in carbon dioxide and release oxygen as a bi-product of the process.
The Stromatolites first appeared 3.5billion years ago and at this time the level of oxygen in the atmosphere was only 2%. Over the next 2.5 billion years these little bad-boys photosynthesised enough to raise the atmospheric oxygen levels to 21%, the level that they are today and therefore enabling complex life forms to evolve and exist like us. There are only 2 places in the world where Stromatotlites still exist and one of them is Shark Bay.
From the moment I saw this documentary I told myself that one day I would take the pilgrimage and pay homage to these life forms that are the sole reason that life was able to evolve on earth – and today was to be that day!

We pulled up to World Heritage listed Shark Bay National Park at midday and the sun was blazing down. It was another 40+ degree day and all I wanted to do was hide inside a cool and damp room.
In order to get to the Stromatolite pools we had the added bonus of walking there via a coral bay quarry. Shark Bay is also one of only a few places in the world where beaches containing billions upon billions of coral shells have compacted under the weight of each to form a 10 metre layer so hard that the local area can quarry the beach and build using bricks formed from these shells.
I would have found this quite fascinating if not for the fact that I had lost my sunglasses and the whiteness of the shells reflecting the sunlight was blinding me as I walked.
Then we were there! I tentatively took my first steps on to the boardwalk that stretched out into the bay and looked down to see these simple rocks that are why we are all here. Ok, it wasn’t as emotional as that but it was still very cool to be there and to be in a place where I had told myself I would get to one day.

The other reason for heading to this outcrop of land that forms the most westerly point of the Australian mainland was to visit Monkey Mia, a place where you can hang with the pod of wild dolphins that visit the shores on a daily basis to feed. Those of you who read my blog will recall that I wrote a blog post from here 2 posts ago, illustrating how far behind I am with updating you all on my activities.

That night we planned to stay over in Denham, situated 21kms Monkey Mia, as it was the weekend meaning that the resort would be too busy for us. We had grown very used to having everything to ourselves and we liked it that way.
On the way to Denham we stopped at Eagle Bluff, a blustery cliff side lookout over the ocean where it’s possible to see Dugongs (sea cows).
We didn’t see any Dugong’s but we did get to see the little island just offshore that was stripped bare. Apparently back in the day (late 1800’s) the Brits would sail all the way over here just to dig up the copious amounts of Guano (bird poo) because at the time it was more valuable than gold – true dat!
Denham itself was a nice enough place, a little seaside town set within the national park and we found ourselves in a caravan park where our back garden was the beach.
Because it was Saturday night and the Rough Guide had recommended one particular restaurant as something special we decided to treat ourselves and dine out for once. We got dressed up, in Australia that’s a t-shirt and shorts, not a vest, and walked 200 metres to the town centre.
We looked at the menu outside and got quite excited as it looked very tasty indeed. Just as we approached the entrance the waitress came over and this is how the conversation went:
Waitress: “Sorry, we wont be able to serve you tonight”
Me: (looking into the restaurant and seeing only 3 tables full and it is 7:30pm) “Surely you aren’t booked out are you, it doesn’t look like it?”
Waitress: “No it isn’t that, we just can’t be bothered tonight and we fancy closing up early”
Me: “Are you serious? I don’t think that is any way to run a business”
Waitress: “Sorry”, turns and walks off.

Can you believe that? I guess it’s fair enough if you can afford to do that but it was only 7:30pm and how long does it take to prepare a medium-rare steak?
Anyway, we ate at the local pub and it was ok but not the high quality food we had looked forward to. I tell you, the level of customer service in WA is shocking.

We had a leisurely morning on the Sunday and drove over to Monkey Mia via the Little Lagoon – an inshore lagoon home to a number of different fish species, particularly the Stonefish, which isn’t great when you are bare footed.

The rest of that day was spent relaxing at the Monkey Mia resort looking out to sea, observing the numerous emus and completing the aforementioned blog post.

7am the next morning and we were back on the beachfront alongside100 other people and it didn’t take long for 8 dolphins including 3 calves to show up.
The whole experience was somewhat disappointing though, it was all far too Disneyland and controlled. You could only stand ankle deep in the water and everyone was in a single line vying for a decent spot. The first feeding session lasted about 45mins and it was good from the point of view that the dolphins swam within 2 metres of us but it just wasn’t the same as getting close to them when you swim with them, which I did in Mexico.
The second feeding session was slightly better but only because the majority of the crowds had disappeared for breakfast.
By 9am we had seen enough and departed the area for the next place along the coast.
Kalbarri was a really nice seaside town and probably one of the favourite places we had visited to date. It was a picturesque place and the first town along the coast that had anything resembling green, healthy fauna and grass, which you do not really notice is missing until you are walking bare foot over it and all you want to do it find a footy to have a little kick about.
Kalbarri is home to a couple of national parks, one is inland based around a huge river gorge, which was spectacular, and the other along the coastline itself.
That afternoon we ventured to the river gorge and visited Nature’s Window, a naturally formed hole in the rocks that sits at the very top of the sandstone cliffs that overlooks the gorge. The setting was one of those that will always stick with you and be one of the things that you daydream about.

The evening was just another case of cooking by the ocean and free camping in the middle of nowhere under the endless stars – yawn, yawn, how boring!

Part of the reason for visiting Kalbarri was to do a day’s trek and because we had visited the river gorge the previous day we decided to do the coastal track. In hindsight this was a mistake, the coastline was nowhere near as dramatic as the river gorge that resembled a mini Grand Canyon but we were there so we completed a 16km flat walk and that was that, enough said.

To cool down post-trek we drove down to a renowned snorkelling beach but upon arrival the sea was looking a little dicey. Arancha was sensible and decided against venturing in but I on the other hand suffered some decent coral cuts and saw only 4 fish as I got battered against the rocks. I think my snorkel session lasted approximately 10 mins.

One of the great things about Arancha is that she doesn’t like to dwell in one place for too long. Fine by me, I just want to experience the main attractions and get onto the next adventure asap. Like most of the places we passed through, 24 hours was enough and Kalbarri was done. Back into Dominus and off we go, next stop Geraldton.
One thing to mention about the journey to ‘Gero’ was passing a pink lake! It was one of the many salt lakes that we saw on our travels but this was the only bright pink lake that I will probably ever see.

Geraldton; not much to say about it really. We arrived late afternoon and the first item of note was that we saw our first McDonald’s in 2 weeks, which made us think of how refreshing it was to be in a world where you do not see that shithole of a place on every street corner.
The next morning we were up and out of the van for a run along the seafront before collecting our gear and showering by the beach as we watched the early morning swimmers. I think that shower was one of those moments where you look about and laugh at the life that you have. It might be basic living like a gypo out of a van and cooking BBQ’s every night in a park or by the sea but the sense of freedom is something that I can’t really put into words.
Actually, maybe I can and these would be the words; “maybe tomorrow I want to settle down but until tomorrow I’ll just keep moving on…”

This part of the WA coastline was another of those notorious shipwreck hotspots and the WA Museum in Geraldton had a whole section dedicated to the subject. There were some really interesting stories about post shipwreck mutinies, kidnapping and stolen treasure that occurred all along these shores during the times of the first explorers, as well as memorials to more recent disasters such as the HMS Sydney that was sunk by a German u-boat during WWII killing everyone on board and was one of the worst war events to occur within Australian territory.

Next stop was Greenough, a pioneer village famous for its pubs, convict built bridge and leaning trees. The trees are about as large as a small acorn tree but due to the strong westerly winds and poor soil they begin to lean after growing to about 4 feet tall and then continue to grow along the ground – a very strange sight.
We did venture to one of these pubs for a couple of pints and sat next to a local who actually said, “I am going to tell you a yarn”. A yarn? Who says that these days?
I can’t really remember the full details but the punch line was at my English expense.

The late afternoon and evening saw us camping at Ellendale Pool, one of the best natural watering holes that we visited because of the big rocky ledges to jump off and the two rope swings. The only negative was that if the water temperature reached 28 degrees it produced a fatal form of meningitis!!
Sorry lads, the water wasn’t that warm whilst I was there.

It was now Thursday 19th Jan and we were nearing Perth, the capital city of Western Australia. To get there we had to drive down the day-dreamily named Indian Ocean Highway. It actually wasn’t that special although some of the views were lovely but the reason for taking this route was to visit the infamous Pinnacles.

Before I continue with the Pinnacles I must just tell you about a woman who has just walked passed. She is a little Asian woman and she is scaring me a lot. She is walking along and must be schizophrenic as she having a two-way conversation with herself. That would be fine if it wasn’t for the fact that one of the voices is all distorted like her alternate ego is a poltergeist/possessed demonic child. Aaaggghhhhh!

As I was saying, the Pinnacles are thousands of rocky pillars that resemble a Freudian phallic fantasy. The scientists are still not sure how these pillars were formed but one theory is that they are the remains of a putrefied forest that was gradually turned to stone over thousands of years. However they were formed they are an impressive sight standing against the deep yellow sand and blue sky and are made even more impressive by the fact that as the sands shift they bury and uncover different sections. Apparently there are still acres of land that contain thousands more and are yet to be discovered.
We spent about 2 hours exploring the area and we even got to take Dominus on a little drive through the area so he could see them as well.
I think he enjoyed it and we both look happy in the pictures but he doesn’t say much.

The next 24 hours were spent in a sleepy little town called Lancelin, famed for its surf beaches and sand boarding dunes. It was still roasting hot so it was an easy decision as to whether we surfed or boarded in the dunes, which can be 10 degrees hotter than the beach during the daytime. It was 40 degrees, so there was no way that we wanted to keep falling off a board and climbing back up the dunes in 50 degree heat.
The surfing was fun and we spent a good couple of hours in the ocean, 1hr 58 in the ocean and 2 minutes on the board.

We had been in Lancelin for around 22hrs and we were growing restless, so you can guess what came next.
During our drive, which we fully expected would take us to Perth, we passed a little road sign for the Gingin Observatory. I am a space geek and I had read that WA was great for star gazing so we turned off of the highway and took a few country roads up to the observatory, which also had a Gravity educational centre onsite (of course it did).

The crazy schizo just walked back and I just got cold shivers all down my spine when she looked me in the eye. Why is she freaking me out so much?

It was 4pm and the Gravity centre was due to close at 5pm but luckily for us the receptionist just happened to have emigrated from Coventry 5 years ago and after a little chat about home etc she offered us a reduced entrance fee and told us to let ourselves out. Whilst looking around and trying to ignore the fact that Arancha was seriously bored Cov’ lady came over to us and said that she had enquired about the observatory session for that evening and they had spaces available. Awesome.
With some time to kill until nightfall we did what any other backpacker would do – we went to the pub.

The Gingin Observatory experience was one of my favourite in my whole year in Australia. There would have been about 40 guests in total and we were treated to an educational talk about space, some really bad space jokes by the geeky Astronomers and then were taken outside to view the night sky.
The first part of the viewing was with the naked eye and via a super strength laser pen being shone into the sky to show us the constellations, the current planets on view and a few satellites passing overhead. I also didn’t realise that in such a dark environment as that in WA when you are looking up at the Milky Way there are 2 very faint circles of stars to the right hand side. These are in fact two galaxies other than our own that you can see with the naked eye.
It was so very very cool.
Next we got to look through 4 different telescopes at a range of different things. One was trained on Jupiter and you could actually see the stripes running across its surface as well as 4 of its moons. Another telescope focused on the Orion Nebula, which is one of the stars that forms the sword of Orion. This nebula is famous because it is a dust cloud in the shape of a horse head, hence it is known as the horse head nebula (funny that). What really blows your mind is when you are viewing it clearly through the telescope and you are informed that the dust cloud is in fact 300 million kilometres in length.

Whilst waiting to look through each telescope they had sets of binoculars that you could use and I never knew that if you look through some binoculars at one particular star that you can see with the naked eye, you will see dozens of others lurking next to it when focused in. I just never really considered it before even though it seems completely logical when you think about it.
It is not unusual to now see find us looking through our own binoculars when we are free camping in one of the many unpopulated areas that we seem to inhabit.

This night may not sound that great to you all but for me it was brilliant and we spent hours talking about what we had seen afterwards.

We awoke in a lay-by (as you do) and finally headed into Perth after our detour of the last couple of days.
Considering it has a business district of skyscrapers and is a state capital, it is a really small city. Still, it is a very beautiful city that is based by the water and I liked it a lot.
We decided to treat ourselves to a hotel for the night because as much as we love Dominus you do miss a real bed.
We had booked a room online but when we got to the hotel it looked like one of those apartment buildings that is full of latino esse’s in an 18 rated American film. We cancelled our booking and checked in to a much more upmarket place.
The rest of that day passed in a blur of bars and pubs as we got well and truly bladdered.
Whilst drinking on the main high street in Perth I got to see a real Aussie icon as Shane Warne walked passed. He looked awful. Liz has really messed him up and he looks like a manicured doll.

We spent the Sunday looking around the city, visited Perth Zoo (pretty decent) and then stayed over in the Perth seaside town of Scarborough. Like its English namesake you didn’t want to spend too much time there.

The next town down the coast was Cottesloe and this was much more to our taste. To try and rid ourselves of the weekend’s excesses we hired bikes and did a 42km ride by the coast. Going out was really nice and we got to sit and watch a sea eagle hovering and diving into the sea trying to catch some fish, which it failed at. However, the ride back was a killer due to a combination of a very strong headwind and a brutal bike seat that ruined me.

The city of Fremantle was next and this was where my previous blog post was written. As stated in the beginning of that post we had the good fortune to be able to stay with a university friend of Arancha’s who was on an artist residential stay at one of the oldest buildings in the city.
The building was constructed in the 1800’s and was originally a sheep sheering station back in the day. The architecture of the place was beautiful and it was a huge old stone building; quite a change from Dominus!
Fremantle itself is a great city and is very European in its architecture and general atmosphere. All in all we ended staying with Janet for 4 nights this was where we also spent Australia Day.

We didn’t do an awful lot in Fremantle because it was just too hot. For these 4 days the temperatures exceeded 45 degrees and everybody was struggling.

We happened to be walking down the high street on our second day in Fremantle when someone called out Arancha’s name. I suppose when people say that the world is quite a small place it is not too surprising that a friend of hers from Sydney had just arrived in Fremantle the day before. She had just graduated from uni as a geologist and had found a great graduate job working for a mining company in WA and along with her husband had decided to road-trip it to here from Sydney, passing through a lot of the sights that we were yet to encounter.
You won’t be surprised to hear that the day was lost with Jenny and Tim in the pub.

A couple of days later it was Australia Day and unlike St George’s Day in England the Aussie people are actually proud to celebrate their national day. They typically celebrate this day with BBQ’s, beer and fireworks and so did we. It was the pub for us and then to meet up with a good friend from Melbourne, Marnie, and her family to watch the fireworks by the harbour side.
We had moved out of the artist residency by this time so we had to sleep in the van on a residential road and it was probably our worst nights sleep due to the intolerable heat and the mosquitoes. By 2am we had had enough so we relocated to the beach to try and catch some form of breeze but it was non-existent.
By 5:30am the first alcoholics were in the car park drinking and the mosquitoes were still having a field day so we gave up and started to drive.
100kms later and in a new town we found a quiet little park with a willow tree to park under and we got the shuteye that was badly required whilst a gentle breeze blew through every open door of the van.

At this point I am going to sign off and say adios. I really need to take a break and I am sure you do too.

Tune in next week for final instalment of Lamby’s Aussie adventures!!!

Close encounters of the turtle kind

I am melting, it is 40+ degrees and it will be like this for the next few days at least. Therefore, I am taking shelter inside one of Freemantle’s oldest buildings, which also happens to be my current place of residence – I seemed to have fallen on my feet once again.
Whilst I hide from that vicious sun I thought I would take the opportunity to update the blog. Now that I am back on the road proper there is much more to tell so let’s jump right into it and get you as far up to date as I can be bothered to get to.

Continuing from the previous post, it is New Years Day and we are at Sydney airport for an early morning flight to Uluru or Ayres Rock for the old timers.

Flying in to Uluru I got my first view of the ‘red centre’ of Australia and it is just how you imagine, barren and desolate.
Partying it up in Tasmania and Sydney over the past couple of weeks had seen us neglect a couple of vital things for this part of the trip, so once we disembarked from the plane it was time to try and sort out a place to stay and some transport to get us around!
Fortunately I did not have to wait long for the perfect opportunity to fall into my lap. As we literally walked into the terminal the lady behind the Hertz rental car desk put up a sign regarding the relocation of a Ute from Uluru to Alice Springs to be delivered by Jan 5th.
We needed to get from Uluru to Alice for our flight on Jan 5th – lovely jubbly.
So within 20 mins of arriving we left the airport with our transport sorted and it wasn’t just any old transport, it was a bloody Ute mate, you can’t more Aussie than that. I felt all Joe Mangle, bloody oath I did, fair dinkum.

The airport itself is located in the middle of the desert. There is nothing around apart from a small township built purely for tourists to visit Uluru (Ayres Rock) and The Olgas (another rock formation 50kms from Uluru and probably more impressive).
We drove into the township and checked into one of the hideously overpriced hotels. Unfortunately out here you have no choice, you either pay it or kip in the back of the Ute.
The first thing we did was head out to explore The Olgas and to experience what real heat feels like. Once you pass early morning out here a number of the walking trails around the rocks close because if you do not respect the sun you will DIE!
It is true, I saw the signs in huge capital letters – DIE!
Death is advertised every where in central Aus, so beware.

At the Olgas we didn’t get to attempt the fantasy novel sounding Valley of the Winds because it was 2pm and we did not want to DIE. Instead we ventured into a gorge in one part of the Olgas which was shaded and had a small stream, meaning that it would be more difficult for us to DIE.
The rocks themselves are fascinating and the colours are unlike any other rock formations I had ever seen. The red and orange running through them is so vibrant especially with the deep green plants growing around them.

Whilst waiting for sunset we went to seek refuge in a café back at the township as the heat was incredible.
The whole reason tourists visit Uluru is to experience the amazing colour display on the rock at both sunset and sunrise.
You can appreciate my disappointment then at sunset when an overcast sky appeared and sunset was nowhere to be seen. This place is infamous for being super hot with blue skies and no relief from the sun. What the f…
I consoled myself with the fact that sunrise would make up for it.

The alarm went off at 5am and we were up and out heading up to the sunrise vantage point at the rock. Guess what? Yep, the clouds had decided to hang around all night and sunrise was a non-event as well.
By this time I was getting a wee bit agitated but I consoled myself with the fact that I may have missed sunset and I may have missed sunrise, but climbing the rock itself and looking out over the desert would make up for it.

Because you can DIE the rock climb closes at 8am so we jumped into the Ute with Bouncer and drove over to the start.
Guess what? Yep, the climb was closed because of the clouds and possible rain. Apparently the possible rain may cause you to slip and DIE!
By this time I was in a proper bad mood. No sunset, no sunrise and no climb – so what was the point. To add to this I really needed a poo and there were no toilets.
As we were up early and we had time to kill we did another Uluru experience and walked 10.6km around the base of the rock.
After 10mins I had no choice but to go to the toilet aboriginal stylee ie. Behind a bush.
This sort of thing does not bother me but when you are just settling into it and you realise that you have placed yourself in view of the only road for hundreds of kilometres and a car is passing at that very moment, it puts you off a little bit.

The walk itself was good and it was really interesting to see the various male and female sacred sights at differing points around the rock, which were chosen based on the aboriginal interpretations of the rock formations present.

Come midday it was time to say goodbye to Uluru as we headed off to Kings Canyon, a couple of hundred kilometres to the west.
Here we checked into a resort and decided to stay in a room share as we had been spending our money like we had a lot of it and we didn’t!
We shared our room with a Japanese lad who was really nice but also a little crazy given that he was on his way to Alice Springs from Sydney on a dirt bike. When I asked him what he did for work he told me that has was in the Japanese Navy and as he did so he sat to attention on his bed and saluted me. I am not sure why but this really made me laugh.

At the reception of our residence we asked what walks we could do around the actual Kings Canyon (this is why the village is called Kings Canyon – no shit).
She told us about a number of different ones but the best one should be done early in the morning because if you do it in the afternoon you could DIE.
Knowing that we were to leave early the next morning and having already missed out on the Uluru experiences earlier that day I was in no mood to be denied something else.
We drove over to the canyon and sought out the 8km canyon rim walk. Just before we started there was a sign that said not to start the walk after 4pm as you may get stuck up there in the dark, and yes, you have guessed it, you could DIE.
It was 3:50pm – there would be no dying on this day.
The walk itself was brilliant. It started with a very steep climb to the top of the canyon ridge and then the next 6km there was a walk around the rim of the canyon, through a vast rock formation known as the lost city because it really does resemble a lost world from an Indiana Jones movie and walking over fossilised water ripples from ancient rivers that once covered this part of Australia.
Halfway through the walk you descend between 2 ridges and it is at this point that you can enter the ‘Garden of Eden’. A natural waterhole surrounded by 50 metre rock walls on all sides except for the palm tree laden access route over the rocks and boulders. It was about 5pm but the heat was still immense so we stripped off and enjoyed the cool waters.
Once dried off we completed the canyon walk before hanging out on the back of the Ute to watch the sunset light up the canyon a bright orange.

We awoke early the next morning to find our Japanese sailor gone but in his place he left an origami bird, a symbol which I took to mean safe travels and which I still have with me today.
Its mystical eastern powers are real and have helped me. I was carless and without hope in western oz, but one kiss of the bird and a little whisper in its ear saw me as the part owner of a vehicle within 2 hours.
More on that episode of the road trip later.

On this day we got to experience the real outback as Kings Canyon lies at the start of the Mereenie loop. A 200km red dirt road through the outback of Australia that requires a 4x4 vehicle in order to access it.
This day turned out to be one of my favourites so far.
For 2/3 hours we were alone on this road (a recurring theme on our trip and I like it) so if we had broken down we were screwed – but it was great.
Red earth, rocky outcrops and nothing else apart from the raw environment that we found ourselves driving through.
During the drive we came across my first brumbies, wild horse herds that roam around the bush. It was amazing to watch the 2 stallions stand guard across the road to make sure that we stopped so that the rest of the herd could safely cross before then trotting off and letting us carry on our way.

The first stop of the day was Gosses Bluff – a 140million year old 2km wide meteorite crater. We drove into its centre and then clambered halfway up the side of the crater walls to get a better view – no other words to describe it except for awesome and there was not another sole in sight.

Next stop was Red Bank Gorge – a 2km scramble through a dried riverbed to an emerald green waterhole located between a red rocky gorge. We had this to ourselves as well.
Then onto the Glen Helen waterhole followed by the much more commercial Elery Big Hole waterhole. Each waterhole was completely different in appearance from the next but they all had one thing in common – freezing cold water that was much needed in the central Aus heat.

To top of a thoroughly great day a dingo cub decided to run out into the road in front of us and then hung around at the side to allow us to get a few touristy photos.

By late afternoon we approached Alice Springs, the geographical centre of Australia. I am not sure why but the image I had in my head of Alice was of a little town lined with white wooden colonial type buildings with picket fences, just a pleasant old fashioned places.
The reality is that it is quite a large town and it is a shithole and the signs declaring that alcohol in the streets and pornography is prohibited really drills this home.
Alice Springs is also the one town that I have visited in Australia where the past mistreatment of the aboriginals is most prevalent. You cannot step anywhere in Alice without falling over a drunk or homeless aboriginal hanging out on the streets. It is blatant to see that as a collective they have never recovered from the damage done since the British invasion of the 1800’s and our so called ‘education of the savages’.
Saying that, they could still get off their backsides and do something instead of sitting around collecting their benefits.

The Wednesday was all about quad bike adventures. Frosty came to pick us up at 8am in a van with a rego plate saying QUAD, just in case we forgot what we off to do for the morning.
Along with 3 other people we were transported 25mins north of Alice to a cattle ranch, the quad biking location.
The quad biking itself was quite tame but it was still lots of fun speeding around over rocks and dried riverbeds.
This was not just a quad bike experience it was also an educational morning about how the cattle ranch works which was very interesting.
The ranch we were on was over ½ million acres and they use the quad bikes and helicopters to get around and herd the cattle.
The ranch is small though, the largest ranch in the Northern Territory has over 7million acres of land!
Frosty also told us about the feral animals that roam around the ranch such as wild roos, donkeys, horses and camels which will all be shot on sight! As he said this he held an imaginary gun and said “Boom boom!”
Boom boom Frosty, boom boom!

Some fascinating information that Frosty shared with us was about the kids and how they are schooled on these farms. Some farms are located a 1000kms from the nearest big town so in the past the kids were schooled over the radio and today they use the internet for their lessons.
Because they are all so far apart once a year all of these kids are flown to Alice Springs for a week of fun activities and to actually meet their classmates in person. I cannot imagine being as isolated as that.

In the afternoon we visited the Telegraph Station and saw how messages in the 1800’s were sent over the cables all the way from London to the centre of Aus and back (again very interesting and not boring at all) and our final touristic act in central Aus was to visit Anzac Hill for a view over Alice and the surrounding central mountain ranges.

Thursday 5th January saw us back at the airport for our final flight for at least a couple of months as we headed off to Broome and my first foray into Western Australia.

We arrived in Broome at 5:30pm and were greeted by a balmy and humid evening, a totally different kind of heat to the dry scorching sun we experienced in central Aus. We were now in the tropics!
Fortunately we had the foresight to book a hostel whilst waiting to board the plane in Alice so we were able to jump straight into the hostel’s van that we had arranged to pick us up.
Broome isn’t huge so within 10mins of leaving the airport we were checking into the hostel.
The hostel was located 10mins walk from the infamous Cable Beach so the first thing we did was head down to the beach to watch the sunset over the Indian Ocean.
One of the ‘must do’ touristy things in Aus is to ride a camel along Cable Beach at sunset and it wasn’t long before we saw a number of camels being led down the road. We didn’t actually bother doing the ride ourselves as we have both done that sort of thing before in India and we were in Broome to buy a vehicle so spending $50 each on a camel ride was not in the budget!
As we approached the beach we also spotted an owl in a palm tree, which is not something you see everyday.
Little did I realise at that point how much wildlife spotting I would be treated to in Western Australia. Alongside the geology Western Aus is a mecca for getting up close and personal with natural environment.

The sunset itself was pretty spectacular as has every other sunset that we have sat down to watch over our trip down the west-side (a’ight) of Australia. Each sunset has been an individual experience with each one producing is own array of colours and effects on the sky and clouds around it.
To celebrate arriving in WA we went to the bar overlooking Cable Beach for a couple of drinks and were treated to some free food by the chef as he thought he had been shouting to loud at his kitchen staff, the kitchen being near to our table. Cheers!

The next day was all about searching for a vehicle. The plan was to buy something cheapish that would allow us to drive the 8,000ish kms back to Melbourne and also serve as a home.
We walked all over town, visited every hostel and supermarket notice board and even saw a couple of options parked up in front of us.
We also went to the visitor centre – a traveller’s best friend, they know everything – and asked them for any recommendations such as the second hand car dealer just out of town.
We also got the tourist tips on things to keep ourselves busy with when we were not searching for vehicles.
One of these tips was a bar that brews its own alcohol, so we decided to take a break for lunch and treat ourselves to some home brewed ginger beer and chilli beer – and yes it was spicy enough that we had to suck cold air in through our teeth to try and cool our mouths down.

By the end of the day we were very hot and tired but we did have a number of possibilities on the car front.
It is just as well that we had a swimming pool at the hostel the cool ourselves down in – oh that’s right, it was 30+ degrees, about 80% humidity and the hostel swimming pool was empty for repairs, great!
We sat down and made some phone calls about the cars and they were either already sold or we couldn’t get through.
We arranged to go and view one campervan but in all honesty it was out of our price range.
Our only other option was the second hand car dealer who I had spoken to and he said that he would be around until midday the next day. Failing that we would have to leave town and search at the next place down the coast (only 700kms away).

During our search we came across a hostel that was far superior to our own ie. It had a swimming pool and also had bikes for hire – just what was required for us to get to this car dealership.
So early on Saturday morning we got up, I kissed the origami stork for good travel luck, which I was still carrying, and we caught the local bus to the new hostel.
The kiss worked because after getting up at 8am, getting to the new hostel by 9am, hiring bikes and sweating our arses off riding to the dealership by 10am, we were the proud owners of a Nissan campervan by 11am! Yee-haw.

We were under no illusions that we had not bought the newest of vehicles but considering our options and the fact that we wanted to get on the road asap we were delighted with our purchase.
As you would expect the dealer, George, was a character and a proper wheeler-dealer. He was a Scots man who had been in Aus for 60yrs and he wasn’t short of a few quid; by probably selling shitheaps to backpackers like us.
A good example of his spiel was when we were taking the van for a test drive he said don’t go too far, as you can see by the fuel gage there isn’t much petrol in the tank. It was only once we had gotten on the road that we realised that this was code for, the fuel gage doesn’t work so it will always read as empty.

Anyway, when all was said and done we had our ‘home’ and our ticket back to Melbourne via Western and Southern Aus for a mere $1,990. We were buzzing.
As the paperwork was done in my name this also happened to be the first vehicle that I have ever owned (part owned). I have been driving for 14yrs but have always used other people’s cars so it was quite a moment for me. I had always dreamed that my first car would be an Aston Martin but beggars can’t be choosers, so a run down Nissan van with a bed frame constructed in the back of it and near to 392,000kms on the clock will have to do.
It was a nice feeling that we left the hostel on bikes and came back with the bikes in the back of our van!
We spent the rest of the afternoon kitting our new home out – buying cooking equipment and bedding etc and then celebrated with a couple of beers and a skype call home to show mum and dad our new wheels which we had named George in honour of the dealer.

One amusing thing happened whilst we were in the shops buying our bedding. We couldn’t find the location of a few things so we asked a young worker for some assistance. She told we could find such and such in this section or that but when I asked where we could find the bedding she lent back, raised her arms and like a gangster talking to her homies said “check the home section”.
I think she may have been a little embarrassed as we walked off laughing doing gangster impressions saying “home section” to each other.

This day also marked the day that my hair was long enough to have a proper pony tail. I look like a slightly thinner Steven Segal (oh yeah ladies) and my dad said I looked like a faggot, but I like it.

That evening we went to the cinema but it was no ordinary picture house. This was the world’s oldest outdoor cinema, so we sat down to watch Mission Impossible 4 (very average) with ice cream and popcorn on deckchairs with bats flying overhead and across the screen.
That night we went to sleep dreaming of the roadtrip that was to come and the fact that it would be a while before we slept in a real bed again.

Broome was a really nice place and I definitely would like to go back one day. It has a sort of Thailand appearance and atmosphere to it, lots of palm trees, very warm and also very laid back.
I also have 2 other reasons to return so that I have completed the Broome experience.
1) Real dinosaur footprints – these are located in the rocks below the lighthouse but you can only view them at extreme low tides which wasn’t going to occur for a few more days and we had to be on the move
2) The staircase to the moon – a natural phenomenon that happens during the autumn when the moon is low in the sky and when it passes over the mud flats the reflection gives off an optical illusion of a staircase leading you up to the moon

The next morning we up early because it was ROAD TRIP day.
We climbed into George, looked at each other very excitedly and we set off. We decided to make our first stop at Port Hedland – a mining town situated 700km south of Broome. As you know Aus is a big place and we had to cover 1,300km before we would reach anything worth visiting.
Driving on the roads up here is a lesson in keeping yourselves entertained. There is nothing to look at and I mean nothing. The land stretches out to the horizon and it is just flat and covered only in scrub.
You are lucky to see another vehicle on the road as well so when you do finally cross paths it is the culture that you should acknowledge each other with a little wave, a finger or a tip of the hat.
Then there are the road trains – supply trucks that pull 3 or 4 trailers behind them, travel at 120kms p/h and make the van feel as though it will be sucked off the road as they overtake you.
The road trains are also the reason that you smell death on the roads at frequent intervals. In the north west of WA it is roaming cattle rotting at the roadside and further down it is the huge kangaroos.
With the extreme heat the stench of death is disgusting and it gets right into the van and up into your nostrils. Yuk.

We knew we were in north-west WA during cyclone season but it was a calculated risk as it was only the beginning of the season. However, it didn’t take long for us to experience a decent storm during the first 200kms of the road trip.
We watched the storm rage for about 30mins over the plains in the distance until we reached it ourselves.
It was immense and when we drove through the middle of it I am not exaggerating when I say that the lighting hit the earth seriously close to us and the sound of the thunder overhead sounded like a bomb going off. It shook the van and we were scared and exhilarated at the same time.

This storm also highlighted a feature of the van that George has failed to point out during his sales talk – the en-suite shower!!
The seal between the roof and the back door was non-existent so during a heavy rain the water leaked in at a fairly constant rate – we were not impressed.

After a long drive of 700kms we arrived in Port Hedland and it was horrible. The town is there purely because of the mines so you can sense the testosterone in the air as you approach.
The landscape was industrial and the roads full of road-trains with every single driver checking Arancha out because there was a serious lack of decent looking women around.
All we did that night was find a place to sleep near to a park and cooked our food by the harbour watching the sunset over a huge oil tanker.

The next morning it was raining heavily and we were very aware of this because the van was leaking again!
We didn’t realise at the time but 2 days after we left Port Hedland a cyclone hit the region so we were quite lucky really.

Before setting off we noticed that one of the front tyres had gone down overnight. On closer inspection it became apparent that we had just driven 700kms through a storm on the van’s spare tyre ie. It was a crap tyre and was one of those small ones that you should only really do 50kms on to the nearest tyre shop.
So the first task of the day was to find a mechanic who could change the tyre and repair the original which we were carrying in the boot.
Fortunately, we found a surfy type dude working at the mechanics who was a traveller himself so he did us a deal.

Whilst waiting for the repairs to be done a joint decision was made that the van was no longer worthy of the name George – the dude had sold us a death trap!
Over the xmas period we watched a lot of Spartacus on the laptop so we renamed the van Dominus which means Master in Roman.
The way we saw it we now had to pay the utmost respect to our van to make sure that he got us back to Melbourne, so you can’t get much more respectful than calling the van Master.

Once repaired and now ‘road worthy’ we used Port Hedland for one final thing. We still did not have a mattress for the back of the van so we located a small furniture shop and found a mattress that fit the van as though it had been made just for us. A great result even though the salesman was a complete condescending dick who told me to hurry up with the measurements as he was a very busy man – one look around the store said to me that he wasn’t that busy as it was empty.

After a quick shop we were on the road heading south east inland to the Karijini National Park.
The entire drive to the park was made under the dark and threatening cyclone storm clouds. The en-suite shower was doing over time and I cursed George all of the way.
The reason for heading to Karijini was to explore the gorges set amongst billion year old rocks and to also climb to the top of the park’s highest peak.
We arrived late afternoon and we couldn’t see a thing. The rain continued to pour at a phenomenal rate, so much so that the arid land was now awash with new streams and rivers.
No sooner had we parked up at one gorge (the plan was to wait it out and try again in the morning) a ranger pulled up beside us to tell us that the park was to be closed. The cyclone was heading this and if we stayed the rains would see us potentially land locked amongst the floods for at least a week!
It was a very simple decision to start the van and get the hell out of there.

We were amongst 3 campervans that headed out of the park to the nearest petrol station to fill up and get away from the area asap.
At the petrol station I decided to stretch my legs and had one of those chance meetings that changes the course of your travel and you can’t imagine how the trip would’ve gone without it.
A stoner clambered out of one of the other campervans and approached me.
Stoner: “Hey maaaaaan, what is it with all of this rain?”
Me: “I know, it’s shit isn’t it. Where are you guys heading?”
Stoner: “We are going to head back south now, are you going to Exmouth?”
Me: “I’m not sure, the travel book doesn’t really recommend it”
Stoner: “You gotta go maaaaan, it’s awesome. The beaches are great maaaaaan”

So that was that, based upon a stoned guys words we decided to go against the travel book and head that way as we now had saved 2 days due to the rains. And the title of this post is testament to the amazing experience we had because of this guy.

We drove for a couple more hours that day and spent the night sleeping in a supermarket car park next to another campervan.
Arancha was not pleased with the lack of loo privacy but when you are on the road a tree is nature’s toilet and a bloody good one at that.

Midday the next day we were in Exmouth. The rains hadn’t reached here so it was blue skies and hot sunshine. Upon entering the town I got my first sight of wild emus – there was a flock of them just hanging out by the roadside having a little lunch.
The first task was to get the local intel from the visitor centre. We do this in every town as whom better to tell you where to go, where you can get away with free camping and generally what good stuff you can do.
The lady was helpful-ish (I have had some bad customer experiences in WA, my only gripe about the state) and she highlighted where to go in Exmouth, b it was the information about Ningaloo Marine Park that was to be the highlight and where the stoner has meant to send us.
We had planned to go here anyway but we had misread the map and didn’t realise that Exmouth was the entrance to the park itself. We had planned to head to the coast and hit some of the Ningaloo reef but we would’ve missed all of the good shit.

Like Broome, Ningaloo is also another place that we will be returning to one day. Whale season occurs during the months of Apr to Jun along the coast of western Aus and Ningaloo is the location to swim with whale sharks – it is another thing on the very long list.

We hadn’t showered for a couple of days at this point so we parked up by a caravan park and just sauntered into the place to use the amenities. If you do not look guilty or shifty then you can get away with most things.

Once freshened up we bought some supplies (including some silicone sealer for the en-suite shower) and a snorkel to explore the reef and back of the van with if the sealer didn’t work.

Before actually entering the marine park there was enough to explore for the rest of day. By the way, entering the park means passing a ranger at a little office and paying $11 for the day and once in you are on your own in the wilderness. National parks here all about looking after yourself, not the organised you can step here but don’t go here rubbish you get back home.

First we checked out a shipwreck just off one of the beaches. WA has many pioneer shipwrecks from the 1800’s along its coastline.
Then we explored a few of the beaches, which is when we came upon the turtle centre.
The turtle centre was a small wooden decked area with a few signs explaining that these beaches are used between Jan and Mar by Green Turtles as breeding grounds. We again excitedly looked at each other and said it’s January now, I wonder if we will see any.
A 30metre walk to the beach told all we needed to know – the beach was covered in turtle tracks and big holes where the turtles had laid there eggs and covered them before returning to the sea.
At this point we were buzzing and there was only once place we would be spending the early part of that evening. To confirm the evening ahead would be one of those one-off wildlife experiences we looked out to sea to see a couple of turtles swimming around waiting for the sunset.

For the remaining part of the afternoon we worked out where we would free camp that evening. Free camping in Aus is prohibited in most places and you can be fined if caught – it is just a case of being smart about it. We found a cool little parking spot by one of the turtle beaches that had a toilet and an outdoor rainwater shower but overnight camping was not allowed. No worries, the drive up to the lighthouse opposite had no such signs so we used the car park for cleaning and eating and the magnificent ocean views from the lighthouse as a place to sleep. We did this for 2 nights and I only was caught once naked under the shower because nobody else was around. I like being naked in the wilderness – it is how nature intended it to be.
The only worry I had under the shower was the most beautiful eagle that would perch just above us on a tree each evening and watch my worm wiggling about. True!

That evening we drove to the top of the lighthouse, got out the crackers and dip, filled up our bone china Tasmanian devil mugs with wine and sat back to watch what nature had to offer – another stunning sunset.
We also did a bit of DIY on the van and fixed up the leak – it has only rained twice in the following 5 weeks but the inside of Dominus is as dry as my bank account.

As soon as the sun had set we made the arduous 2 min drive down the hill to the beach for some turtle action.
As soon as we were on the beach we looked left, we looked right, we looked right in front of us and then we looked to each other with faces like kids on Xmas morning – the turtles were everywhere.
We sat there for 2 hours and watched numerous turtles drag themselves out of the ocean and up onto the beach. It would take them about 30mins to get high enough up before they began shifting the sands away with the front flippers to create a hole large enough to lay their eggs. The general rule of thumb was that if the sand flicking off the flippers was hitting you then you were too close.
I have seen this a few times on the tv but I never thought that I would get to be David Attenborough myself and get so close to these huge turtles and watch something so private. We felt very privileged.
Apart from our little torch it was completely dark around us allowing us to gaze up at the 1000’s of stars and the Milky Way.
Whilst viewing the night sky Arancha pointed out my first ever satellite passing overhead. She couldn’t believe that I had never seen one before and that as kids they would always lie on the grass and look up to see who could spot the first one passing over.
That is a bad thing about the UK as there is far too much light pollution to ever get a good look at the stars. To date I have now seen 7 satellites in the night sky and you can tell how high up they are in relation to each other depending on how quickly they pass by. I saw 4 in one night when we spent an evening star gazing at an observatory, I saw the lines of Jupiter and its moons as well – but that is for another post.
The next morning we were up early as the sun was cooking us in the van.
I have to say that it was quite nice to emerge from the van with the views of the oceans from the lighthouse. We cooked up an omelette for breakfast and sat back with an enormous sense of wellbeing that this was to be our lives for the next few weeks – it wasn’t half bad!

We went in to the park itself today and it was a day of the usual sort of stuff – turquoise oceans, white sands, snorkelling in the Oyster Stacks (Latner - I didn’t see Stackers) amongst a huge array of sea-life, cooked up a lamb chop and salad lunch (we do this road-trip shit properly) at T-Bone beach (it made me think of Leeroy) and observed more emus, eagles and gala’s (which made me think of Alf Stewart from Home and Away – “You flaming Gala!”).

We had T-Bone beach to ourselves for the afternoon or so we thought. We were frolicking around in the ocean and talking about how lucky we were with the turtles when all of a sudden a green head popped up for air about 10 metres away. We stayed very still waiting for it to come up again when another one surfaced even closer, it was so cool.
I ran out of the sea as fast as I could and retrieved the snorkels from Dominus to try and get an even better view and to even try to swim with them. I was so eager to get in that I failed to notice a huge rock just under the surface of the sea (the water was crystal clear so I am not sure how I missed it) and I kicked it as I fell into the water. I didn’t think about it at the time because I was so desperate to to swim with the turtles but later that day it hurt a lot and for the next 3 days it leaked a lovely liquid, all green and yellow in colour – nice but these things have to be done, there were turtles about!
After all of that I didn’t even get close to the turtles! They were too quick and as soon as I was approaching they were off to safer waters.

The evening was a carbon copy of the previous. Naked shower, keeping a close eye on the eagle, sunset and wine at the lighthouse and back down to the beach to spend the evening with the turtles.
This night was even better. On this night we were treated to turtles all around us whilst an offshore lightning show raged to the right over the ocean. We didn’t know where to look, the turtles were there but the lightning was some of the best I have seen, forked and sheet, lighting up the dusk sky.

You all know that I want the best of the best when it comes to anything that I do and it annoys me if someone get’s a better experience than me if we are doing the same thing.
Well there was a couple sitting just down the beach from us and they had a great view of a turtle to their left-hand side. Like a sulky kid I moaned to Arancha that I want a turtle that close – I probably sounded like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonker.
Fortunately I didn’t end up down a golden egg chute but I did get the turtle that I wanted. We watched open mouthed as a turtle crawled out of the sea, made its way up the beach and passed within 2 metres of me. I was sat on a beach making eye contact with a turtles half the size of myself.
It stopped just behind me and my reward for this close encounter was a face full of sand as it began to dig. Observing the rule of thumb it was time for us to leave and let it get on with its business.

So that was that, we left the next day and headed down the coast for many more crazy Western Australia experiences. Hopefully I will be able to get these to you in the near future.

Hope you are all well people.

Why I hate peanut butter

A happy new year to you all! I trust it was a good one?

This post comes to you from the turquoise waters of Monkey Mia at the western most point of the Australian mainland. Monkey Mia is located in the world heritage listed Shark Bay is home to a number of dolphins that come up to the shoreline every morning to hang out with the tourists – me being one of them!

As I write this I am staring out over the ocean with an emu strolling around behind me, I kid you not. Oh, and it is 40 degrees in the shade.

I am undecided as to how up to date I will bring you with this blog post. Once again I have left it a while between posts and there is a lot to tell, so I will see how I far I get today. I am currently 2 weeks into my 8,000-ish km road trip through Western and Southern Australia in the shit-heap vehicle, that myself and Arancha bought, we call home. It has been pretty epic so far: a near miss with a cyclone, a delay because of bush fires, close encounters with nesting turtles and numerous other wildlife sightings. However, before I get onto those stories I need to talk about my last couple of weeks in Melbourne and my xmas and new year adventures.

So, after getting back from the east coast road trip with the lads I spent a few days in Melbourne relaxing at my mate Nick’s place just wasting time. Needless to say that after a few days I was hanging to get out and do something a little more exciting, so I did.
On the Sunday afternoon at about 3pm I decided that I would do the Great Ocean Walk, a 90-ish km bush and beach trek along some of the coast line of Victoria. At 7pm that day I was on a train heading down to the coast with my backpack and my tent.
The reason for the hasty departure was that I needed to head down to the ‘finish’ line and walk back to the ‘beginning’ in 4 days because I was to attend Arancha’s work xmas do on the Friday and the booze was free – I say no more.
The reason for doing it back to front is that the ‘finish’ line only had one bus per day and if I missed it I was buggered, the ‘start’ trebled my chances of getting back with 3 buses per day.
I actually found out whilst on the trek that you aren’t allowed to do it backwards and you also need a permit to camp along the way. It is a good job that I cannot stand rules and regulations and give them no regard. Australia has far too many of them, it is a true nanny state and far worse than the UK in that regard.

I arrived in Wanambool on the south coast at 10pm and checked into a hostel. An early start followed to catch the bus for 2.5hrs to the 12 Apostels, my start point. The 12 Apostels is one of the ‘must see’ things whilst in Australia – 7 rock towers (there were once 12) out in the ocean viewed from the edge of huge cliffs. The bus journey there was the best public bus service that I have ever been on – it stopped for 5 mins at every sightseeing spot and I had a helpful elderly couple sat near to me that gave me some tit-bits of info about each one.
They were a really sweet old couple that still held hands as they walked around. But why is it when an elderly person asks you a question, in my case, where are you from, that the standard answer given is always, “How lovely”?
Once at the 12 Apostels I loaded up on chocolate bars and water, took the obligatory tourist photos and set off on my way. My first target was 6kms to Prince Town to get some supplies as there would not be another shop for about 60kms – I was really going off into the wilderness.
The walk for that day was great. One minute I would find myself fighting through thick bush (I am a sure a few of you have been there!!) and the next I would be walking along the edge of high cliffs looking out over the bluest of oceans.
All in all I walked 15kms to a camp area called Devils Kitchen and it was a basic as could be. A food preparation area consisting of a table, 8 cleared spaces for tents, a water tank and a loo.
As always I was fully prepared for 4 days in the middle of nowhere. At Prince Town I brought a loaf of bread, 2 apples, some peanut butter and some crisps to go with my snickers and boost bars. Did I not think to myself that in 30 degree heat the last thing I would want to feast on for breakfast, lunch and dinner was dry and stodgy peanut butter on dry brown bread? What was I thinking?
After one day of trekking I was over my gourmet sandwiches with 3 long days of walking to go.
There were 5 very well organised campers at the campsite with me that night on the last leg of their trek. They looked at me with a mixture of pity and contempt as I munched on my dry sandwich, told them of my plans to do the walk backwards in 4 days and my complete lack of bush/snake safety knowledge – they did in the recommended 8, in the right direction and with a paid for permit!
I did not even have a charged phone to call for help if it was needed.

They were all really nice though and we told various travel stories as we waited for and watched the sunset over the ocean from a top of our cliff-top forest retreat.
I also showed them my photos from the day especially the snake that was sunbathing right in my path that I had to coax out of the way with a stick. They looked at it and told me it was a blue-tongued lizard and sure enough when I looked close enough I could see a leg! Not sure how I missed the leg as I crapped myself trying to move it out of my way.

I was up bright and early the next morning knowing that I had 30kms to get through including 2 beach walks.
The first section of that days walk was along the beach and it is very hard work walking along a beach in your boots with a 15kg bag on your back. Like the majority of my walk I had everything as far as I could see to myself, there was absolutely nobody around. This beach also had 2 anchors embedded into it where there were 2 separate shipwrecks back in the late 1800’s.

There was another beach walk that I had to complete in the mid-afternoon sun and it was a killer. It is all worth it though as you cannot drive to these beaches, the only way to get to them is to trek. They are little pristine lost worlds that only the trekkers get to experience.
The days trek itself was gruelling. I managed to go the wrong way on 2 occasions and I reckon that added an extra 5kms onto my day. Once again the scenery was amazing, blue skies, green cliffs, blue ocean and the red hot sun.
I also came across a house that was selling homemade marmalade to the trekkers. This may not sound like much but when you are 25kms into a walk, you are hurting and you want to stop, the thought of not having to have peanut butter on bread for dinner again is enough to push you on to your camp.
Just in case you were wondering, the marmalade was lemon, lime and orange. Yum yum!
Just before getting to my campsite I walked into a kangaroo colony. At that point I hadn’t seen many wild roos so this was quite a buzz.

I finally got to my campsite, located on a cliff edge at 6pm and by 7:30pm I was asleep because the pain was too much and all I wanted was for the day to end. I didn’t even have my dinner of marmalade on bread like Paddington Bear.

The next morning I was still in a good deal of pain but knew that I had no choice but to get walking. There was a lighthouse with a shop 10kms away and that meant some decent food, so that was the target.
Unfortunately the first 5kms of the walk were along a beach and it completely took it out of me, I was done. My muscles ached, my feet had split and one of the harnesses of my backpack was about to tear away from the bag, which would really put me in trouble.
I walked another 3kms and managed to get to the only point of the trek that meets a road.
At that point I chucked my bag down and for the first time hitchhiked!

Randomly enough the people that were kind enough to stop and pick me up were a married couple who work for National Geographic and are currently being paid to circumnavigate Australia in their camper with their new born baby and write/photograph about the trip to be featured in Australian Geographic magazine later this year – what a job!
They were both really sound people and I spent the next 2 hours in their company which was a pleasure hearing about all the great stuff they get to do for their jobs. They were good enough to take me to the lighthouse shop so that I could arrange a lift out but not before they took me on a little detour to show me a koala colony – my first wild koalas.
As they dropped me off they took a few photos of me and took my details, so fingers crossed my mug shot may appear in the travel blog/article in July’s version of Aus Geographic. How very random.

Once at the Cape Otway lighthouse I managed to sort out a lift to Apollo Bay, which in turn would allow me to catch a bus to Geelong to then get a train back to Melbourne.
I am gutted that I did not complete the walk but I got within 30kms of the finish line. I will return and do it again one day but I will do it with more than bread and peanut butter and over more than 4 days!!

Once back in Melbourne I spent the next 3 days living it up in a hotel in the city with Arancha. We attended her xmas bash and got suitably smashed and also caught up with one of her best mates who happens to be dating some super rich guy and lives in London.
Guess who has been asked to stay at his plush gaff in central London whilst we get ourselves sorted once Arancha and I return home to the UK in May? Nice!

The next week was to be my last in Melbourne which I spent living at Nat’s place out in the sticks. It was nice to be out in the countryside relaxing and doing not a lot.
I did venture into the city to watch a football match, Melbourne Victory vs Adelaide with Winslow and the standard was poor. Even Harry Kewell did not improve the quality on show.
I was also in the city to try and sort out our visas for China, my post Oz destination – a challenging task if ever there was one and I will have to try again once I am back from this road trip.

One other thing that I did in Melbourne before I left was the one thing all backpackers must do when in town – visit Ramsay St!
I made the pilgrimage with Winslow and as we walked into the street (a real suburban street with real residents) I couldn’t believe how small it is in real life. As we walked past all of those famous houses – The Ramsay’s, The Robinson’s, The Mangel’s, a guy got out of his security car and I feared he would tell us to do one. It turns out the street has 24hr security to keep the residents safe from mentalists and he was more than happy to actually talk to someone as he was bored shitless. In fact he even told me the best place to stand to get a good photo in front of The Kennedy household!

That was it for my stint in Melbourne. I will be returning for a few days at the end on Feb for Arancha and Nadia’s birthday bash but that’s it.
On Friday 16th Dec Arancha and I picked up a relocation camper van and set out for Sydney where we would be spending xmas day at her mother’s house. We spent 3 days getting to Sydney, 1 night free camping at the road side outside of Canberra, 1 night by the ocean in Jervis Bay and the last just south of the city in Sydney.
Once the van was returned we then hired a car so that we could get around for the next 6 days in Sydney.
The first thing that we did was head up to the Blue Mountains for 3 days.
For the majority of those 3 days it rained which is not ideal when you are camping in a crappy $40 tent but it kept us dry, if not completely warm.
The weather did clear for long enough to allow me to take Arancha on the same walk that I did back in March, the one where I was attacked by leeches. We had a good day out in the rainforest but Arancha wasn’t overly keen on the leeches although was more of a man about it than Egg was in Nimbin!

After the Blue Mountains it was back to Sydney to spend the next few days with Arancha’s mother. Arancha’s mum is very nice and tells it how it is. She is a little Spanish lady with a lot of life in her who told Arancha that I had nice eyes but was short – fair enough! She was also not content unless she was force-feeding me to make sure that I was full. She was a very accommodating woman and this extended to her being pretty chilled when I walked in on her on the loo!!

Xmas eve was spent at Wollongong beach getting sunburnt followed by a few beers at the local working men’s club near to Arancha’s mum’s house. It was odd walking home afterwards seeing midnight mass taking place outdoors for all to see and hear, but that’s the advantage of having xmas in the southern hemisphere where it is summer.
Xmas day was a very relaxed affair. Up at about 10am, start dinner at about 1pm and after many courses and glasses of wine, finish about 4pm.
It passed like any other xmas day, food followed by shit movies on the tv. The difference being that it was very warm outside.
In the evening I skyped the folks and wished them a very happy xmas from far away for the second year in a row – I promise I will be at the dinner table in person next year Mum.

By the way I got another awesome present from Arancha. This time I got tickets to go and see England vs Ukraine at the Euro’s next June – I can’t wait. The bonus is that this will involve some more travel!!
Cheers AJ, you’re the best!

Boxing day was to be another day of travel. This time we were off to spend 4 days in Tasmania.
We arrived in Hobart mid afternoon and were greeted by my ice-cream uncle, Mr John Whippy.
It was good to catch up again as I hadn’t seen him since July and the day was spent eating lunch out, sipping wine within his beautiful domestic surroundings and then eating out again for dinner.

Our timing in Tasmania was perfect, the Taste of Tasmania Food and Drink Festival was to start on the 28th Dec and then the Falls Music Festival would start on the 29th.
John was supplying 3 stalls with his goods at the Taste Festival so I spent some time on the 27th giving him a hand delivering the ice cream in return for being able to take Arancha on a small taster session at the factory afterwards. A sound deal if ever there was one.

On the day on the Taste we first ventured over to the MONA Museum (mentioned in my previous blog post about Tasmania) so I could show Arancha the poo machine and someone pooing on a camera etc. Don’t ever say that I don’t know how to show a girl a good time!

From the museum we took a boat back to the harbour to attend the Taste.
The Taste festival is a chance for Tasmania to promote its local produce meaning that there are dozens of food and drink stalls all set up around the harbour with live music to assist the enjoyable atmosphere.
Whilst at the festival we met up with some of Arancha’s friends who happened to be over from Melbourne and we all set about getting quite intoxicated.
It was a thoroughly good day we were both well gone by the time John arrived from work.
This day of the festival also coincided with the finish of the Sydney to Hobart yacht race – quite a big deal down here. So whilst sipping wine and eating fine food we stood on the pier watching the boats come in.
Not much more to say on that except that the winner didn’t win because they cheated by having a helicopter fly back to the yacht in second place to check what sails they were using so that they could match them to stay ahead.

Still, you have to take in these experiences if they are presented to you and you are there.

The next morning we rose early to take a bus to the Fall Music Festival. It is fair to say that I was still drunk due to the triple whisky and coke that John treated me to as a nightcap back at his place.
By the way, thanks again John for letting us stay and for being so generous, especially the bone china Tasmanian Devil mugs, which you will be pleased to hear that we always use to drink our wine out of at dinner time – no lie!
At least you let us pay for some stuff this time – a minor victory on my part.

On to the Falls Festival.
We got there mid morning on the Thursday and were then left with nothing much to do. Nothing was to really get going until 3pm and the bars did not open until 1pm – what a joke!
We did have fun that day though supping a few lagers and dancing around in the soul tent seeing who could do the spazziest dance. I think I won quite easily.
We also tried to get into the 10 minute rave party held in a shipping container but the crowds were verging on Hillsborough so we ducked out.
I have to say that doing blind piggy back rides to the loos was great fun but the people around us didn’t seem to get it.
By the time we got back to the tent it has taken on the form of a tee-pee. Someone has clearly taken a fall onto our tent and this had snapped the tent frame. We spent 2 nights sleeping with the tent lining threatening to smother us in our sleep.
That evening they also showed some movies by the main stage and Back to the Future was advertised as the first one. I was quite upset that The Breakfast Club was shown as I was well up for Marty, Doc and Einstein.
The next 2 days were all about the music but we would only get to experience 1 of them. I cannot stand missing an ‘experience’ so we would be leaving on NYE in order to get back to Sydney for the Harbour Bridge fireworks.

The first day of the music was the one I wanted to be at anyway as the Arctic Monkeys were headlining. There were some good bands on during the day but it was all about the Arctic’s for me. I have to say that I was a little deflated by their performance, they just didn’t look like they could be arsed and were just going through the motions, although it was funny hearing them shout out “’Ow ya doin’ Tasseh”.
They also missed out some classic songs so I went to bed disappointed. But not to worry, there are plenty more gigs to be seen over the years, like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers in June – it’s all about keeping it real my friends and having some good days lined up!
By the way Lats/Moggy, get yourselves a ticket for Knebworth and come with us!

Our trip to Tasmania was good but on this trip I could see why the rest of Aus refers to it as an incestuous place – a bit like how the English think of Norwich and people from Leicester think of Ibstock.
There were so many people walking around with bad looks and missing limbs – too many to be pure coincidence. It is actually said that there are parts of Tassie that to this day have limited access with the rest of the island and the world.
I think there are a lot of sons whose mother is also their sister and father is also their grandfather etc. Fritzel stylee!!

NYE morning saw me up very early once again and still pissed once again. We packed up and trudged for 2kms along a country road to meet our lift.
Wazza, the brother of one of Arancha’s mates, who we met at the Taste had agreed to come well out of his way to pick us up and drop us at the airport.
This is what can be achieved when you have had a few vinos and will ask anyone anything like, “you used to take the acts to the Falls Festival did you? Cool, do you fancy picking us up for a small fee?”
This is what Dutch courage can achieve – I say drink up people!
Cheers for the lift Waz, you are a dreadlocked legend and I salute you.

We got up in a field at 6am in Tasmania and by 11:30am we were sitting in Shahn’s Sydney garden near to Bondi Beach.
Shahn is one of the girls who I met in Nepal along with Arancha. I stayed with her when I first arrived in Aus last March and had not seen her since then.
That afternoon we went over to a waterside bar in Double Bay with Shahn and her bloke and had a few beverages. Shahn’s bloke is a proper Aussie male and a really nice guy. He reminds me of a young version of my dad, he likes a beer or 8 but you can put him in to any social situation and he will just talk to people and make them laugh. He was good company and I look forward to catching up with them both when we make it around to Adelaide where Shahn has just moved.

We arrive at NYE evening. One of the gifts I brought for Arancha for xmas were tickets to ‘Lawn with a View’ – a limited ticket entry to a raised lawn in the Botanical Gardens opposite the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The location was perfect for viewing the fireworks.
The best part about it was that we could arrive at 7:30pm and not queue to get a view like everybody else had to by arriving at 11am-ish. Sod that, I will pay for the privilege, not queue and get a gourmet picnic thrown in as well.

There was a small display at 9pm and quick blast at 10pm and 11pm, followed by a quick blast every 15 mins between 11pm and midnight.
In between we were treated to an acoustic guitar session whilst sitting having our picnic on our blankets.
At the midnight it all went off. Never before have I seen fireworks like these – the display lasted for about 20 minutes and lit up the night sky. The fireworks erupted from the Bridge, behind the Opera House, from the tops of the city skyscrapers behind us and from 2 other locations over the harbour.
I am not sure why but I got very choked up watching it all and thinking about it is giving me goose pimples now. I think it in part to do with the fact that after such a mammoth travelling stint (well it seemed it when I left) I am now in the year when I will be returning home and have to leave Aus. Of course I want to see family and friends but no way do I want to come home, I am just not ready.

The actual ending of the fireworks was like nothing I have ever seen, multiple simultaneous explosions lit up the night sky so brightly that it really seemed like it was daytime.
It was fantastic and I definitely plan to spend another NYE in Sydney in the future, it was that good.

Keeping to our busy schedule we found ourselves back at the airport the next morning to fly off to Uluru (Ayres Rock) and the red centre of Australia.
The tales of this trip around central Aus and then onto our Western Aus road trip can wait until next time.
I can assure you that it will be a good post and in the past few days I have never seen as much wildlife in front of me – dead or alive, and the dead ones stink so bad!

Before I leave you, do you know why Aussie’s where hats with corks on them?
Arancha informed me that they all wear them as the swinging corks keep the flies off your face. Did you all know this or am I only the only one who thought that Aussie’s wore them just because that what Aussie’s did?

One last thing, please think of me in the 40+ degree heat just about to get up and explore the dolphin infested waters.

Catch you later!