We’ve been back home now for a couple of days following our trip to Australia. Overall we have driven about 8000km in 8 weeks, and I have sketched out our approximate route below.

Whilst we were away the temperature was rarely below 30 degrees C and although during our time in Australia there were bush fires, cyclones and floods we managed to pick our way around these and not get directly involved, although we did need to change our plans on occasion to accommodate!

We now have a couple of weeks before heading across to Wales for Easter and some mountain biking. Having not  been on a bike for 2 months and partaken of a few too many aussie beers and wines some training rides are called for.

After Easter we plan to head off in our van again. Originally we had planned to go up through Scandinavia, however after seeing temperatures in Oslo of -15 I think this requires a rethink!

I did have the idea of trying to persuade Sharon to take our skiing and snowboarding gear and maybe head down to the Alps to catch the end of the season but I think a camping ski trip will be a hard sale!

We will have a think over the next couple of weeks and come up with a plan – we’ll let you know……

After some good walking over a few days at Cape Otway we continued along the Great Ocean Rd before heading inland to the Grampians National Park.

The Twelve Apostles – Gt Ocean Rd

Our plan is to stay here, in Halls Gap, for the next six nights and we will be joined by my brother and his family at the weekend for another camping adventure.

At the top of the Pinnacle

The Grampians are called the Australian Pyrenees so the walking here is pretty up and down as you would expect, plus a fair bit of rock scrambling in places. So far we have managed to complete The Pinnacle, Clematis Falls and Chatauqua Peak walks.

The climb up Chatauqua Peak

The route guide said some scrambling – nothing about hanging off the side of a mountain!

Looking forward to the weekend when the kids arrive so we can have a rest!

After flying back from Cairns we spent a couple of days in Melbourne, visiting the city and getting chance to catch up over a BBQ (English-style inside as it rained) with some friends who we last saw 4 years ago.

We have decided to spend our final couple of weeks here in Victoria so have headed down to the Great Ocean Road. This is a stretch of road covering almost 300km which was not built as a means of getting from A to B, but was hand-built by returned First World War soldiers as a memorial to their fallen comrades. Opened in 1932 it must be one of the most scenic drives in the world, hence why we are here again despite having driven here on our last trip to Australia.

Gt Ocean Rd – Plaque

Gt Ocean Rd

The campervan is no more, so we now have a little hire car and are finding accommodation as we go. Last night was particularly successful, as having arrived in Lorne, one of the small towns, we went to the Tourist Information Office to see what was available. They told us of a hotel about1km along the coast where they had rooms starting at $Aus68 (about 46 pounds) per night, on special offer (it’s fairly low season here now as the school holidays are long finished). The very jovial man on reception said he had a basic room for $68, an ocean view for $90 or a king ocean view room with spa bath for $120. Having seen the rooms we said we liked the $90 one but it was a bit over our budget so (after a bit of a charm offensive) he ended up letting us have the very best room for $80 – bargain! Even better was when we looked on the internet later and found the full price for the room should be $255 – super bargain!!

Hotel guest

Back to our more normal levels of accommodation today though – we are staying at a campsite in a little old caravan for $50 a night. ‘Little old caravan’ doesn’t really do it justice though as it’s better inside than out and has been revamped to make a very cosy little space complete with kitchen and double bed. Best of all are the koalas which frequent this area – at the moment there are three in the tree just next to our caravan. We are staying here in Cape Otway for at least three nights and going to do some bush walking – again this is somewhere where we have visited before except last time we stayed in a luxury cottage down the road – that was a) when we both had jobs, and b) hadn’t spent several weeks in Southern Italy, so were slightly more picky!

Caravan shack accommodation

Inside Caravan

Inside Caravan

Campsite Neighbour

Paul’s idea of budget accommodation

Cape Otway

From here we will continue down the Gt Ocean Rd before joining Paul’s brother and his family next weekend camping in the Grampians for the labour day weekend. It’s the last public holiday of the summer, and our last weekend in Australia (for this trip!).

After Cape Tribulation we headed back South to spend the last few days in the camper in Port Douglas before dropping it off in Cairns.

Port Douglas

4 Mile Beach -Port Douglas

Swimming Buddy

We used Port Douglas as a base to get out to the Great Barrier Reef as we had heard that access from here was on smaller boats rather than larger boats carrying 300+ people. We ended up going out to the reef on a sailing boat (Aquarius) and had the best snorkelling experience that we have had anywhere.

Aquarius

Sit back – relax

Snorkelling off The Low Islands – Great Barrier Reef

We are now in Cairns in an apartment in the centre of town opposite the supermarket and bottle shop  and sandwiched between a Vietnamese street food outlet and a “gentleman’s club” not exactly quiet but a good location all the same and benefiting from air conditioning which we ran at maximum for the first day.

We have taken it fairly easy here after all our travelling but did make the effort to get up to Karunda in the mountains behind Cairns originally a bit of a hippy town but now bordering on becoming a tourist trap.

Karunda train

The last week in the van was hot particularly at night, day time temps in the low to mid thirties and not dropping below 25^oC at night and humidity up at 98%, so the last few days in the apartment have been “cool”.

We fly back to Melbourne tomorrow for  a couple of days before heading off to do some exploring in Victoria for a couple of weeks – our current thinking is to spend some time in the Grampians National Park.

After 5028 km we have now reached Cape Tribulation north of Cairns which marks the end of the coast road or rather the end of the sealed road. After here it’s a 4 X 4 track only for the next 800 Km to Cape York, the most northerly point on the East Coast. As we are not in a 4 X 4 and are not insured for unsealed roads this point marks the end of our journey (also we only have a few more days with the van in this area before dropping it of in Cairns).

Swimming in The Whitsundays

Over the past few days we made it to Airlie Beach which is a jumping off point for the Whitsunday Islands, and spent a day in the islands snorkelling and beach hopping including Whitehaven Beach which is reported to be one of the top ten beaches in the world. Whilst there is no doubt it is a great beach we have seen it equalled and bettered by some of the beaches on the West Coast of Scotland albeit snorkelling and swimming may require a greater commitment there!

Whitehaven Beach

However saying that it is currently stinger season here so swimming in the sea requires the use of a stinger suit comprising of a lightweight tight-fitting lycra all-in-one suit (I have spared you the photos).

Didn’t realise jelly fish were such a pain

We then continued North to the Atherton Tablelands using Mission Beach as a convenient overnight stop. Again it was a full day of driving almost continuously through sugar cane fields interspersed with mango orchards which gave way to banana plantations and finally tea and coffee plantations in the Tablelands. 

Testing the water!

The further North we come the hotter and more humid it gets and the number, size and potential fatality of the wildlife increases. We arrived today at the campsite at Cape Tribulation which is squeezed in between the rain forest and the sea. When we arrived the girl looking after the campsite said she could recommend some “croc free” swimming holes, sounded like she had some good local knowledge, when I ask how long she had been up her she said 3 weeks! A local walk was also suggested to be undertaken at low tide “just keep a look out for crocs when you wade across the creek halfway down the beach”.

Beach at Cape Tribulation

Today we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn on our journey to Cairns, so as is traditional we have broken open a bottle, come to think of it I think that tradition applies to the equator when at sea. Oh well can’t let it go to waste!

Over the past week we have continued north we have been in rainforests and open country side the contrast was most stark at Dorrigo where there is a rainforest on the side of the plateau and within a mile or two on the plateau rolling hills reminiscent of Derbyshire or Yorkshire, albeit slightly warmer.

We have spent the last few days at Rainbow Beach a small coastal surfing-come-backpacking resort at the top of the Sunshine Coast, the beach serving as a road in addition to its usual functions.

The road at Rainbow Beach

Rainbow Beach

We used this as an access point to Fraser Island apparently the largest sand island in the world. It took two attempts to get there as the first day the ferry which takes vehicles (4 X 4 only) ran aground. I did joke with the bus driver that it looked swimmable at under 1 km and he told the tale of how they had tried to introduce cattle farming on the island by swimming the cattle across at low tide. Only 20% made it, the sharks got the rest!

The next day we made it across and drove 45 k up the beach and spent some time swimming in lakes whose only source of water was rainfall direct into the lakes.

4 X 4 beach bus

4 X 4 bus on barge to Fraser Island

Driving along Fraser Island beach

Swimming in Lake Mckenzie

Maheno shipwreck Fraser Island

Today has been a driving day we started at 09:00 and didn’t finish until 18:45. We ended up driving at dusk which we have tried to avoid with bouncy things (Kangaroos) launching themselves across the road in front of us.
The campsite we stopped at was more out of necessity rather than choice and is a bit rough and ready. Our pitch is directly opposite the “luxury” cabin which in truth resembles a falling down shed, the site seems mostly populated by back country guys here for fishing and drinking – half expecting to hear the duelling banjos . The large  Queensland guns and knives amnesty sign adds to the feel of the place.

In addition the hotter and more humid conditions mean an abundance of large and varied insects requiring Sharon to purchase a super large can of insecticide – at vast expense from the campsite shop – surely their best selling line!

For the weekend we headed across to the Blue Mountains, to the west of Sydney. We had an image in our head that we’d approach them up a twisting country road, which was probably naive considering that loads of people from Sydney go there every weekend.

The reality was a major highway with lots of traffic, not helped by the torrential rain. After arriving and getting soaked going to the tourist information office we then turned up at the only campsite in Katoomba to be told that they were fully booked.

Govett’s Leap waterfall in the Blue Mountains

Still, it got better after that as the campsite in the next town Blackheath a) had spaces and b) was in a much nicer setting. The next morning the rain had eased and we returned to Katoomba to visit a place called ScenicWorld – effectively a rainforest in a valley accessed by a cable car, and also a ‘skyway’ which went across the top of the valley and had a glass floor through which you could see the huge drop down (slightly misted due to raindrops from previous storm).

Spot the cablecar

As we’d arrived early we had the place pretty much to ourselves apart from numerous coach loads of Japanese tourists who appeared to be on a whistle-stop day trip from Sydney. Having spent a good couple of hours there we went into Katoomba town and had some lunch, followed by a visit to the excellent new cultural centre and art gallery.

On Sunday the drive back to the coast heading northwards was much more as we had expected and we took a very scenic route that involved a state-run free ferry (at Wiseman’s Ferry) which effectively joins two pieces  of the same rural road split by a large river.

The ferry at Wiseman’s Ferry

Swansea Beach (New) South Wales!

Overnight at a campsite at Blacksmiths Beach in Swansea (the New South Wales, not Welsh Wales version, as identified by bright sunshine and golden surfing beach).

Bed rest at the Koala Hospital

Today we have been heading up the coast again and visited the Koala Hospital at Port Macquarie where they have about 30 koalas in recuperation – mostly having been either run over or attacked by domestic dogs. So far this is the only native wildlife apparent to us (apart from something heard but not seen rustling outside our tent at midnight in Bright!).

Batemans Bay

Currently sitting on the waterfront at Batemans Bay (approx. 300 km South of Sydney) enjoying a beer whilst the sun sets behind us.

Home for next 3 weeks

We picked up our camper a couple of days ago. The van is similar to our T5 in size but based on a Toyota Hiace with a hitop rather than pop top, and will be our home for the next 3 weeks.

The locals

It has taken us a couple of days to get here from Melbourne, over-nighting at Lakes Entrance and Mallacoota. Our plan is to get to the Blue Mountains to spend the weekend before pushing further north.

As you will have probably seen on TV the remnants of Cyclone Oswald have badly affected Northern New South Wales and the Southern Queensland coasts so we may need to head inland for a while before heading for our final destination of Cairns – we will make a decision nearer the time.

IT wise we have managed to pick up a low cost broadband dongle $79 for 6 GB valid for 100 days so hopefully we should be able keep everything up to date. The guy in the shop told me their network covers 97% of the population, although as someone pointed out to me that probably accounts for Melbourne and Sydney, anyway so far so good!

The Team!

We have just returned to Melbourne after spending a week camping at Bright in the Australian Alps (North East Victoria), with my brother and his family.

The day time temperature has rarely dropped below 30^oC and has typically been around 35^oC. On one day whilst on Mount Buffalo bush walking (getting some elevation to get some relief from the heat) a large thunderstorm hit the area and whilst it skirted where we were, the lightning started a large bush fire north of Bright and at one point it looked as if we would need to leave the campsite.

Summit of Mt Buffalo

Smoke from fire north of Bright

Water bombing Helicopter

The fire continued to burn throughout the week with women and children from the neighbouring towns of Harrietville and Falls Creek being evacuated to Bright. Thankfully as we left on Saturday a change in wind direction allowed the fire to be brought under some control.

Fire warning

Fire advice

Luckily the fire didn’t affect our enjoyment of the week, although we did change some of our plans.

Now that we are back in Melbourne we are going to remain here for the Australia Day weekend before picking up a campervan on Tuesday for our 3500 km road trip up the east coast to Cairns.