Steve & Helen's Great Escape

Angry Steve ..

sjamieson005 — Tue, 9 Aug 2011 19:22:00 GMT

After my moaning about Grey nomads, camping in general and Australia we are now going to rent our van for the rest of our lives and have ripped up my ticket to come home. What shocking events - can not believe it and really am gutted. My mum says they are kicking off in Medway - I mean really.

Hope everyone is okay (although only our parents, Alex and Su read this) - honestly believe that they should ust use the live ammunition to rid the world of these people (if you can call them that).

Steve & Helen

Photos: Charlesville to Fraser Island

sjamieson005 — Mon, 8 Aug 2011 06:50:00 GMT

Twenty to nine

sjamieson005 — Sun, 7 Aug 2011 19:43:00 GMT

A lesson in life has been dealt to me, never think you can get anyting cheaper, especially off ebay. I purchased a cheapish watch to go travelling in, something that if I did lose or damage I would not be that bothered about, however what would bother me is if the blooming thing stopped working, probably the battery going. So 8.40 a few days ago the life of my watch ended, bit of a pain as I have now not got a clue what time it is which goes along with not knowing what day it is, month or year.

Anyway to what we have been up to. After my last entry we headed inland again, staying in Barcaldine, where I got called a "cheeky possum" by the campsite owner (I think she fancied me) and as you can imagine Helen has been calling me that all the time. We also saw the tree of knowledge, sadly someone decided to poison it in 2006 so we did not see it in it full glory. The other interesting fact about Balcardine is that this was where the Australian Labour Party was started (or the idea maybe) after the sheep shearers decided to strike.

After spending the night we headed up to Longreach, which Helen kind of admitted she was not really bothered about, and was even less bothered about when she spilled half her coffe over her on the way up. I was obviously blamed for the road quality being poor and that I deliberately aimed for those bumps when she was taking a sip. Anyway after having a look around Longreach we headed over to the Qantas founder museum, something which we did not have high expectations for given the fact that half the towns we have been through in the outback have some sort of claim to Qantas being started. However we need not have been concerned as we spent half a day on what we both agreed to be one of the best tours of the trip. We got taken around a Boeing 747 and an old 707, which was the first jet plane flown by Qantas and apparently ended up in Southend airport. The tour was excellent, guide was actually funny, the grey nomads seemed to be under control (although in the Townsville ladies campsite there was a sign up that someone was doing number 2's in the show so I reckon there was not much control being exercised there!) and there were tons of facts about the aircraft which we were both pretty astonished by, such as the engine being held on by 4 nuts and bolts etc.

Sadly with the time we spent in the Qantas museum we missed out on the Stockmans hall of fame, which to be honest looked pretty pants. We headed from Longreach to Charlesville for the evening, where we saw the Black Stump, a marker to which indicates whether you are in the outback, a statue of Jackie Howe, who apparently bare handed shaered 331 sheep which was unheared of in the sheep shearing world and passed through Tampo which has the a bear shop - sadly no further bears have been purchased.

We spent the next couple of nights in Charlesville. The first night we went star gazing and honestly saw about 10 shooting stars, it was awesome as there was no light pollution and again the grey nomads were tucked up in bed as we had booked into the late 9pm session. The next day was spent just chilling, however we man aged to pop by the Bilby sanctury which funnily enough we had seen a documentary about before we left. Spent about an hour talking to the lady in the shop passing on tips on how to make sales (like we knew anything!) but apparently the feeding the bilby idea that we came up with (and stole from taronga zoo) got her excited. We stopped by the Royal Flying Doctors museum which again was pretty interesting, saw the vortex gun, which apparently was used to blast gas in the air to make it rain (never worked) and finally we took part in a spot of Yabby racing, although the Yabby that we had came in around 6th so no prize money for us.

We spent the next couple of nights trucking down to Hervey bay, not because we wanted to e part of the whale festival, which by coincidence was in town when we arrived, although we have seen no evidence of this, but because we wanted to go to Fraser Island, which is the last tour and real thing of interest we are going to see on our trip.

The journey down was not wasted, taking in the big easel (with a Van Gough painting) in Emerald, passing through Rockhampton where there are tons of cows and the Tropic of Capricorn line (now the 4th time we have seen this for the record, Alice Springs, Western Aus, somewhere along the capricorn highway and Rocky) and stpping off for the Bundeberg tour (Rum for those who have never seen it).

Finally today has been spent on fraser Island. Long old day, but a good one, seeing a baby whale washed up on the beach (sadly dead) couple of dingo's and numerous crystal clear lakes.

Anyway going to sign off now. Less than a week to go until we are out of the campervan. Going to miss it in a way but it will be nice to get on dry land (you know what I mean).

Steve & Helen (not her opinions)

PS - up the Gills! Shame Rotherham won also

Photos: Balcardine - Longreach - Charlesvile

sjamieson005 — Wed, 3 Aug 2011 15:38:00 GMT

Photos: Mission beach to Barcaldine

sjamieson005 — Mon, 1 Aug 2011 20:03:00 GMT

Photos: Fish

sjamieson005 — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:04:00 GMT

Photos: Cooktown to Cairns

sjamieson005 — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:46:00 GMT

Bingo .......

sjamieson005 — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 18:52:00 GMT

I will tell you why Bingo at the end, but it has been a good end to the day.

Had a good evening and day in Cooktown - was actually really interesting as it was geared up to tell us all about the adventures of Cpt Cook and the local museum had the actual anchor and some of the canons that they threw overboard when they got stuck on the reef. Apparently at one point Cooktown used to be one of the biggest cities within Queensland, driven by the goldrush, which saw the influx of thousands of Chinese looking to make a few bob.

On the way back from Cooktown we had a beer in the Lion Den's hotel, another interesting outback hotel, which apparently you used to be able to run a tab by writing down what you owed on the wall. I can imagine that the more that was drunk the less the list would get!

Spent a couple of nights in Cairns and we were both surprised with the town itself as we was not expecting a great deal. The town was actually quite lively, with a few nice touches like the lagoon, although as you can imagine there were tons of English backpackers. Maybe if we had went there straight from Syndey or London we may have found it a little quiet, but given for the last two weeks we have been in towns with populations from 2 to 1,000 it was the biggest city in the world for us in those couple of days. We ended up doing a couple of tours. Firstly the trip to Kuranda on the scenic railway, where we saw some more gorges (that's about 2000 now), markets, which to be honest we both got a bit bored of, and a trip back down on the skyrail through the rain forrest. As ever on the first tour we got stuck with some interesting old people, telling us what we had to see and what we were missing out on by not spending 5 weeks in a tiny town - I am sure they love us two, but honestly we don't really care about their medical problems which were freely shared with us and the fact that their sons / daughters are the best at whatever they do - surely that can't be right as the previous couple we spoke to had a son / daughter that was the best at the - I am confused! Anyway enough of the rant, I am sure when we have kids we will be the same.

Our second trip was to Green Island to do a bit of more snorkling. This time we hired a digital camera, so as you can imagine I was terrorising fish around a reef trying to make the most out of the hire time. Unfortunately for the man who had to process the pictures I managed to take over 600 pics - I guess I kept him busy for the afternoon as he had to upload the pictures on a disk for us.

We ended up the evening in mission beach, still looking for a cassowary, unfortunately we failed. The beach was pretty nice but you could still see a lot of devestation from the cyclon that passed through earlier in the year. In fact there was actually a US navay ship that had docked in Cairns and some of its crew was at Mission beach to help do some gardening.

After Mission beach we headed down to Townsville, stopping off at Australia's largest waterfall (by water drop distance), which was by the side of another gorge (now 2001 gorges seen). It was a great view though so I can't complain and another chance to see more rain forrest.

The night in Townsville was spent going to the Cowboys game, very funny dancing cow for entertainment, which was better than the rugby to be honest - the Cowboys won't be winning the grand final. Managed to be put in amongst the Penrith (away fans), all 20 of them, thankfully this is not like a football match where we would have been getting tons of stick all game despite being a neutral. Other than the cow the most interesting thing was the local women shouting Kill them boys every time there was a tackle - kind of got a bit boring after a while. Spent the morning in Townsville having a look around some more markets and the views from the hill in the center of town, which we felt guilty driving up as most people in townsville were walking up - I think the town is full of fitness freaks as this hill was about a 10% gradient for around 3km.

Spent the rest of the day trucking down to Mackay, where finally we had success on the animal front, with seeing not one but two platypus (bingo). Awesome it was and they put on a faily good show, I'll upload some pictures.

So we are now in Mackay, with less than 2 weeks left. Back inland tommorrow, heading towards Longreach, a town that we were only around 100km from a week or so ago.

Steve & Helen

PS - there is tons of Sugar Cane around these part - incase you did not know already

Also - sorry for being a bit moany - the majority of people we have met in Queensland thus far just have not been our cup of tea

Long time no blog

sjamieson005 — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:36:00 GMT

struggled a bit to get on the net for a while, been a fair bit of driving and turning up at campsites where they have no sites due to the grey nomad invasion (these are the old people who head for the sun each year).

Ended up having a great night in Daly Waters. Was thinking that it could have been a potential shocker as I thought from the pictures that I had seen it would have been a typical backpacking place, however I was pleasantly surprised. The entertainment was good, the beer better and by the end of if we was getting our photo's taken with the residnet stand up, Chilli, who cracked a fair few funy jokes. I am at this moment i time not too sure whether they were funny, however they are a tad better than some of the things we have been listening one the radio, although country hour is rapidly becoming my fav, especially the daily meat price update.

After waking up a bit dusty we headed down to tennant creek, aother lovely place (not), headed down to the devils marbles, gigantic boulders in the middle of nowhere and went to Wycliffe to investigate Australia's most UFO active area. We were about 10km from Barrow Creek - I will tell you more about that when I get home (10 years ago it was apparently).

Tennant Creek actually ended up being okay, pretty relaxed campsite and we went on a good mining tour the next morning (good because we were the only people on it and the tour guide was an ex-miner). He actually switched on all the machines for us, operated them a bit, teased us a bit more and then promtely told us that we can't touch them as the machines were dangerous, informing us the death toll of each machine. I must admit we both could not believe the conditions or what the minors had to do in those days. I said the guide that I feel a bit of a wimp in my office job! I will never moan about work again (yeah right!).

After giving the car a wash, seeing it go from an orange colour back to white again (it has not lasted long), we headed down to Mount Isa for a little bit more mining, just incase I even thought about moaning about work again. For some reason, even though Mount Isa has what seems 100 campsites, the grey nomads had taken up all spots on their annual migration to the warmer climates. So I regret to say we had no choice but to end up in a motel room. We were for about 10 secs a bit disappointed, but then we thought oh well, a nice bed, TV etc what a shame. Anyway we ended up staying up all night watching Le Tour, which was an awesome last mountain stage. Well done Cadel, shame an Aussie had to win it really!

We did not really do much in Mount Isa, other than have a look at some fossils and the mining museum. We had a bit more fun when we headed down to Winton. Firstly we stopped by the Walkabout Creek hotel aka the Croc. Dundee pub. This was pretty funny, lots of film footage but not too many funny locals like in the movie. We then shot down to a place called Winton. Now this was Saturday night in Winton so we knew it was going to be a ripper, however what a day we had as it was the annual Winton Camel races. This was not only funny, watching the camels go at it, but even funnier looking at everyone, who in turn were looking at us because we were the only ones looking like we had just come from a city and not off the cattle station. It was all good though, however we finally decided to head back when the motorbike racing (well seeing who can do a figure of eight in the dirt the quickest) got a bit too boring. The quote that got me was the MC shouting "it does not get better than this" - I immediately thought of a lot of things, however we got in the spirit.

We ended up in the local pub, after having a beer in the North Gregory hotel, where the first public display of Waltzing Matilda was performed. When we finally settled down in a bar it was pretty packed, and we ended up chatting to a couple of guys from the local (well 300km's away) cattle station. They were pretty sterotypical, strong men, big hats etc, but they were a right laugh. They were just interested to hear about our trip, talk about life on the station and help us out - I could write a book about it but some interesting facts are:

- 60km's from mobile reception

- have to use helicopters to round up the cattle

- station area is 1million hectares

- have not been to town for 8 weeks

- 7 people on the station

Anyway a few photo's have been added - sadly only one with his hat on!

Finally the last couple of days have been spent trucking a bit, looking at a fair few gorges (getting a bit boring now), lava tubes (pretty awesome - Su there are plenty of more geologist porn material for you now), an extinct volcano, some waterfalls, the awesome curtain fig tree, where the clue is in the name (have a look at the pics) and Cape Tribulation, with some amazing beaches and sadly no Cassorwaries (yet!)

Right, I am going to shoot off now, currently in cooktown after spending the night in Port Douglas (never again as we got lectured by the Big 4 campsite owner for driving 30mins in the dark - kind of did not mention to here that we were in the town centre for that).

Thanks for reading,

Steve & Helen

Photos: Mount Isa to Cooktown

sjamieson005 — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 21:03:00 GMT

Photos: Rest of Daly Waters, Devils Marbles & UFO's

sjamieson005 — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:48:00 GMT

Photos: Darwin, Kakadu & Daly Waters

sjamieson005 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:32:00 GMT

Kakadu

sjamieson005 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:27:00 GMT

Just a short one this - I can hear the relief as you all read. Spent the last couple of days in Kakadu, famous for its crocodiles and aboriginal art work. The first day we did the Adelaide river jumping crocodiles tour and all I can say that it was brilliant. I would never want to be in the water with a Croc. Firstly you can not work out where there are, it is unbelievable that just disappear, calmly gliding through the water. Secondly the shear size of them. The biggest one that we saw was 6m's and he was called Aggro. Apparently he is bigger than Brutus who has been on the news a fair bit. Anyway I will upload some pictures and you can see for your self how good they were.

We spent the rest of the day at the first of two Art sites, where we saw the sun set across Kakadu which was pretty awesome, except for the fact there was around 100 people there on a tiny rock!

On the second day we checked out the Holiday Inn hotel which is built in the shape of a crocodile - pretty awesome

We then went to the second Art site which is where the famous photo has been taken from which is in all the tourist mags. The rest of the day was spent on the Yellow river on a boat cruise, where you have guessed it we looked at some more crocs and a lot of wetland life such as a vast array of birds, water buffalo (only got a pic of it bottom unfortunately) and a pig. Finally settled down for the night in Katherine, not a great place, especially when you try to buy some alcohol!

Went for a bit of a walk today around Katherine gorge which was nice, although really wanted to do the Kayaking (with a rudder G-Dog) but they had not done their croc count apparently, meaning that they could not ensure we would not get eaten. Finally after stopping off at a few things in the book including some caves we have ended up at the Daly Waters pub. Bit of an eccentric place but looking forward to my Beef & Barra from the BBQ tonight!

Just over 3 weeks to go now, not good although we are both excited that we will be coming home soon.

Steve & Helen

Darwin

sjamieson005 — Sun, 17 Jul 2011 19:00:00 GMT

I actually never thought that Darwin would actually turn out to be alright. Spent the day seeing the sights of Darwin and okay I will admit it is not quite like one of the big cities but it is not bad.

Today we checked out the aquarium, well not quite an aquarium as it was essentially a place where a husband and wife team have created their own coral tanks,starting from the very bottom and finishing with the fish - according to the guy there was too many things living in the tank to count.

What I didn't appreciate before I went to Darwin was that there was a fair amount of bombing at the top end by the Japanese. As you can imagine there was a ton of World War II history which was quite interesting.

We have just ended the day mooching through the Mindi beach markets, buying a few momentos along the way.

Off to Kakadu tomorrow to have a look at the jumping croc's (hopefully Brutus will come out to play) and to have a look at the rock paintings.

Finally I had a dream last night that Samoa beat Australia - actually maybe I was not dreaming - shocking result - all good for the world cup! (hahah)

Steve & Helen

Photos: Halls Creek to Darwin

sjamieson005 — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 17:03:00 GMT

We miss you Barry

sjamieson005 — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 09:00:00 GMT

So Barry was a nice man (can't remember his wife's name) who was next to us in the campsite for a couple of days in Derby and we managed to bump into him since in Halls Creek. He was a nice man, always good for a story and actually helped us kill a couple of days in Derby, which in all honesty 1 hour is probably too much!

After pretty much sitting around Derby trying to kill time we finally boarded the plan for the horizontal waterfalls trip. This again was a good trip. It was nice that we were not driving anywhere but also gave us an impression of how big and remote the area was and the beauty of the coastline. The falls were awesome and did really look like a horizontal waterfall (be a bit fraudulent if it did not). I can imagine why David Attenborough described them soo favourably.

There was not really much more to say until we had driven around another 1,000km to Kununnura (apart from the big crocodile which I was not too impressed with so I will not waste time telling you about it), where we caught a another flight for the Bungle Bungles tour. The moment was not without a little bit of stress as the head pilot was apparently ill and all flights wee cancelled, however he either got better or they managed to find another pilot in town.

The Bungle Bungles were pretty cool, looking like hundreds of stripey beehives in the middle of the desert. The flight was also exciting for me as I got to sit in the front, returning to the school days where I wanted to be a pilot, although after spending two hours in the seat I did not have a clue of what buttons of dials to turn.

After the flight, which we had to get up at 4.30am for (this travelling lark is not easy), we ended up in a town called Batchelor, home of the large magnetic termite mounds and Litchfield national park which has some nice water holes you can swim in. The mounds were pretty impressive, about 3 times taller than us, and apparently the termites have built their structure in a way that means they are less exposed to the sun, very clever. Anyway I will attach some pictures for you to look at.

Settled down for a couple of days in Darwin, which was a bit of a struggle as, and I will quote the campsite lady, "everyone comes to Darwin this time of year". Looking forward to the rocking Darwin then, which might include a bit of fish feeding, some world war II stuff, beach market and a tour around the aquarium.

Also we now know what the definition of posh camping is. The last spot in the Big 4 campsite (I love the Big 4's - just like the top 10 in NZ) was an on-suite powered site, and you guessed it we have our own toilet, shower and sink to use. These simply things in life are, at this moment in time awesome. I have thus far visited our block 5 times, with only one of them to do anything. I am thinking that I might actually sleep there tonight as I can imagine that it will be cooler than sleeping in the melting pot of the campervan.

Anyway final thing is that we are currently tracking a few days ahead of schedule so there is a strong possibility that we will be back in Sydney for the weekend. Would be good to go out for a final beverage or two, we will keep you posted,

Steve & Helen

Big Things List

1. Cigar

2. Wool Bales

3. Lobster

4. Rocking Horse

5. Miner

6. Scotsman (Piper)

7. Goanna

8. Gohla

9. Kangaroo (SA-WA border)

10. Ram

11. Prawn (exmouth)

12. Bannana (Canarvon)

13. Marlin

14. Crocodile (not boxing - that's to come)

Also - final final point - Alex my right arm is a lot browner than the left! Hope the toe is better and that you are keeping out of trouble

Photos: Horizontal Falls

sjamieson005 — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 17:14:00 GMT

Photos: Broome sunset to Derby

sjamieson005 — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 18:54:00 GMT

The Beard has gone ...

sjamieson005 — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 19:28:00 GMT

.. mum you will be happy

We have everything but a spade ..

sjamieson005 — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 18:55:00 GMT

So we are now in a town called Derby, not ventured back to the UK yet and this place is a tad warmer than the UK ever gets. Spent the last couple of days in Broome after some mamouth driving to get us from Exmouth.

In what the Rough Guide describes as the most boring journey in Australia, we decided to kill the trip off a short as possible. After a day of driving, 1,088.2 to be precise, and seeing a few things in the book (Cossack and an old Goal), we stopped off at 80 mile beach, which I did not measure but it was blooming massive. I reckon 1km was the tide, which I did not venture any near to as I have now got a bit paranoid of crocodiles, which I swear come up to the campervan every night checking whether the door has been locked (well not quite the last part). Upon our arrival at the campsite the friendly staff showed us our spot, which according to them was on a bit of sand. As you can imagine this was probably the most understated comment, typical Australian really, bit like when a someone gets their arm bitten off by a shark they say that it is only a small cut - yeah right! Anyway this understatement lead to the van getting stuck, and I mean properly stuck. The wheels were spinning, going deeper in the ground, which was to the amusement of our fellow campers. Thankfully this amusement finally lead to them feeling sorry for us and a couple of spade were produced. This was when once again we both felt like under equipped campers as the range of tools that were brought out to try and get us out of the sand was immense. Eventually we all failed, getting the van actually beached on the sand as the wheels had spun too far down. The friendly campsite people kindly pulled us us with their 4x4 for free, so I think that this is something that happens pretty often - may I suggest they tell people to not camp there.

The last couple of days were spent in Broome, busy town, well compared to most that we have been to over the last week, but an awesome one at that. The main beach, Cable Beach, was a walk away from our campsite, well I say campsite but is was more like a town, I counted 4 coaches that people were touring in and everyone seemed to have a huge 4x4 and a boat - no wonder why they are worried about the carbon tax.

The couple of days was spent chilling, watching some excellent sunsets and trying to get rid of the t-shirt tan.

We left today for Derby, on a quest to get a horizontal falls trip. We are booked in for Wednesday, not ideal as Derby to be fair is not the best of places I have been to, however as a warning to you all there are 3 days a month that the falls are apparently rubbish as ath height differential is low and therefore you do not get a great show - this happens to be Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.

So we are now just camped out in a Derby, reading Ok magazine, planning the rest of the trip (booked an Bungles Bungles flight) and drinking some beer. Rather hard to do when all Oz auditors are probably getting a bit busy now!

Anyway enough from me and to address a few friends comments:

Jimbo - no speeding fines as yet - Helen has me under control! Officier Griever has not gone on secondment to Australia thank god (for those who don't know he is the man that caught me speeding in the US)

Macca - hopefully I am not ranting anymore (Russell mentioned this to me!)

Alex - hope your foot is okay - helen just saw the updates on facebook - shame you are about to lose Luka!

Steve & Helen