G'day
We are half way in to our tour of Australia and after much correspondance from disgruntled fans (my dad) of the blog we have decided to do a half-country post. Australia is the largest country we will stay in on our tour, so I suppose it is only right that we deliver a couple of episodes.
Epsiode 1 - WA
WA - Not the noise a baby makes when it first wakes up, but the acronym for Western Australia. WA is where we first landed in Oz and we got straight on the 'Inger' bus. Inger is our good friend, fiance of Ben Russon (school-friend from North Yorks) and most importantly native Australian. She was brought up in and around Perth in her formative years, but does have a British passport and moved back to the UK after school ( hence a solid grasp of English English and good knowledge of British culture). The key point really is that she was very well qualified to drive our WA bus. The bus analogy actually goes even further, because as well as organising various accommodation, she did actually pick Nicola and I up in a big 4 wheel drive vehicle the morning after we landed.
From Perth airport we drove straight down to Margaret River - 3.5 hours south of Perth and in to WA's biggest wine producing district. You might be thinking that after Mendoza (ARG), The Colchagua Valley (CHI) and Marlborough (NZ) we would have had enough of tasting wine - but not at all. Every wine region is different, indeed every vineyard is different, so our knowledge and thirst remained unquenched. In Margaret River - Inger's sister had found a house to rent on a vineyard - it was the old vineyard homestead (including huge wine cellar) that was no longer used as the family had moved on. The views out of the windows were of vines, a few kangeroos and the tennis court! We had a lovely few days in and around Margaret River with Ben and Inger and Inger's mother and a couple of aunties. We made the most of the vineyards every day - using the tasting rooms prior to stocking up on that nights wine for dinner, did a spot of shopping, again for dinner that night and then an activity - one day golf, one day on the beach and one day popping in to Byrons (one of Inger's friends) place - a macadamia farm! I think it is the first time I had them and, straight from the shell they were delicious, maybe not garlic bread, but defintely, to quote the great Peter Kay 'a taste sensation'.
Next stop was back to the big city - Perth and what a lovely city it is - the weather bounced around 25-30 degrees every day, the Swan river inlet snaking in towards the modern city skyline and thousands of huge, luxury homes, all with magnificent water views. Our own 'home' for the week was on the top floor of a block of apartments in Mossman Park, just one block away from the Indian Ocean and the soft white sand at Cottesloe beach. We again just enjoyed hanging out with Ben and Inger (and her sister and friends), making the most of seeing our friends rather than investigating the city itself.
After Ben and Inger left, we moved in to the town centre and back in to the travelling groove - in to a youth hostel for 3 days and did the hard work around Perth - going to the park for lunch, doing the shopping areas, across to Freemantle (on the other side of the Swan river) and getting to know some more of the suburbs. Its always interesting to see what its actually like to live in other cities - see how real people live, rather than just seeing the tourist or shopping areas. On our final full day - we got the ferry from Perth quayside out to Rottnet Island - 7km off the coast from Freemantle. The island is uninhabited, allows no cars, has a large rat looking (chicken sized) mammal called a quokka, lots of white sand beaches and clear blue ocean. Inger's mum was kind enough to give us Inger's snorkelling kit, which means, as well as snorkelling in and around Perth, we can take the kits all the way up the East coast and all through the next leg of the trip - South East Asia.
Episode 2 - South Australia
The HeywoodNotts get back in to the camping groove. From Perth we flew to Adelaide and hired another Wicked campervan. We spent one night in Adelaide itself - slighlty unsure as what to do - we had so much fun with Ben and Inger in Perth that we had not really done much research in to our next destination. The one thing that struck us both about Adelaide was how culturally mixed it was, still lots of caucasian, but also a very strong presence from SE Asia, Japan and China. It was the surprise more than anything, but even more so because Adelaide itself felt very English, lots of victorian buildings, huge love of cricket, pleasant climate, lots of green etc etc. As a corollary it also has a brilliant Asian food market - where we had a great cheap Vietnamese meal.
After much debate we decided that we were relaxed about the cities in South Australia and the main reason for being there was the Great Ocean Road - a 200km stretch of bitumen that hugs the south coast of Australia facing the Antarctic, whose ocean pounds the coast so hard it creates huge sculptures out of the coast's soft sand stone cliffs. Check out the piccies.
One extra detour we had to do was stop in a little town called 'Heywood'! It was not the luxury metropolis I had hoped for and some one had forgotten (Nicola!!!) to call ahead and announce our imminent arrival. Heywood was closed for sunday, with only the small local super market open and not even a postcard available for sale! The best I could do was have my picture taken by the town welcome sign.
We stayed most nights on camp-sites just off the beach, saw some lovely sun-sets, but this far south in Australia, whilst still pleasantly warm during the day - a couple of the nights dropped below 10 degrees, so the emergency blankets had to come out. Just remember we are living in the back of a people carrier!
The end of the Great Ocean Road is Melbourne. Melbourne is the one city that everyone we have spoken to about Australia insisted we came to. It is reknown to be the most European of all the Australian cities, it has lots of cultural activities. The two we managed to partake in were - the Grand Prix and the International Comedy Festival. The Grand Prix is a bit of a lie really, but as the course goes around the city and they open up the roads the day after the Grand Prix, we managed to drive around half the course, with the grand-stands still up, all the hoardings, advertising and finish line still in place. I think there is a short video to prove it. The second event was the comedy festival - we booked ourselves in to see Bart Freebairn, but in the back room of the bar we were in having a drink before Bart there was another act about to start. With just 6 minutes before the start of the show, the star was on the door and offered us 2 tickets for AUS20 (GBP10), rather than the face value of AUS18 each - as Nicola likes a bargain - we jumped at them. I can't remember his chirstian name, but his surname was 'Freak' and his show called 'The Freak Show'. We were not rolling in the aisles, but he was entertaining for the whole hour. The second, higher billed comedian, Bart Freebairn, who was in the the proper theatre actually had fewer people in the audience. Fortunately the room was suitably small, so the atmosphere was still pretty good. Bart is about our age and his material was about travelling the world looking for inspiration - which we thought was very apt - unforetunately his trip returned to Australia without any solid conclusion!
After Melbourne we headed north again, for Sydney, 900km away. We have settled in to a habit of driving for 300km per day and just finding something to do as close to that distance as possible. In between Melbourne and Sydney there seemed little that really grabbed our attention. Some of this lack of imagination was due to being very excited about getting to Sydney. On the way we stopped for a walk up to the top of Australia's tallest mountain - Mt Kosciuszko - at a mere 2228m it barely registers on the global scale. Unforetunately, this is another mountain to go on Nicola's list of failed ascents - no real reason for the failure, just we got 3/4 of the way up (1/2 on ski lift) and thought the view was not going to get any better and we quite liked the idea of getting down in to the valley for a spot of lunch.
Next stop was Canberra - the capital of Australia, a planned city, full of civil servants, that everyone has encouraged us to avoid. We ignored them, but only as it was the only suitable location around our 300km daily target and 309km from Syndey. Admittedly we put little effort in to squeezing out something of interest from Canberra, but our overall impression was that it was like Canary Wharf 10 years ago, but rather than having thrusting dynamic bankers there, you have 'relaxed' civil servants!!!! We took a picture of the main government building and left.
Next stop, sunny, sexy, sandy, sail (y) Sydney.
