Iain Plank

The last time that I wrote to you I was just about to leave Australia after 5 months of touring around the mainland. It had been good but I was looking forward to a change in culture and for a rest ! On the agenda were a little over 5 weeks on some of the islands in the South Pacific.

The South Pacific
The South Pacific Islands are split into three main groups:

• Micronesia: (Small Islands): Mariana, Caroline, Marshall and Kirabati Groups
• Melanesia: (Dark Skinned Islands): Papua New Guinea, Solomans, Vanuatu, New Caledonia and Fiji
• Polynesia: (Many Islands): French Polynesia, Tonga and the Cook Islands

I was due to visit two of these: Melanesia and Polynesia.

Fiji
I arrived in Nadi at 5 o’clock in the morning and the first thing that I noticed was the hair. It’s unbelievable !! Walking through the Arrivals gate was like walking into an audition for the musical ‘Hair’. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in ‘Starsky and Hutch’ – unreal.
After the initial shock, my first stop was the rather non-descript town of Nadi to work out what I’d do with my time. With 3 weeks in Fiji I decided to split my time between the Nausori Highlands and the Islands as I’d heard that they were very different. First stop then was the Highlands.

Bukuya
Bukuya is a small hill villiage of about 700 people about 1-1/2 hrs truck ride from Nadi along some of the most bone-shaking tracks that you would ever hope to experience !! I stayed at a place called Peni’s which was basically a family home that had some Bure’s (huts) where visitors could stay. We basically lived and ate with the family and, just for a moment, became part of the village.
Bukuya is set in beautiful surroundings in the highlands and is pretty much a self-supporting villiage with it’s own water supply and hydro-electric power. Like all traditional Fijian villages it is led by a chief (in this case, an ex-international boxer !!) and everyone supports everyone else and assumes collective responsibility for everything to do with the village.
So what did we do while we were there ? Not much really !!

Fiji Time
The first thing that we learnt in Fiji was “Fiji Time”. It’s the idea that as long as it happens eventually then that’s good enough. I tell you, what Fijians don’t know about relaxing isn’t worth knowing. They’ve got it down to a fine art !! Surprisingly it’s actually very hard to do – no, really !! You have to get the pose first – it normally involves lying on your back, legs apart and with one arm flung casually above your head and with the other over your chest. Ok, now that you have the pose here comes the tricky bit………do nothing !!! No, stop thinking about work and all those things that you have to do…and do absolutely nothing. It’s really not as easy as it sounds but with practice it soon starts to come naturally.
Apart from that we went horseriding, swimming in the local river and sat around chatting alot. Probably the most energetic thing we did was Pig hunting. Which involved trapesing through the undergrowth along exceptionally muddy paths for about 7 hours. Did we see a pig ? Did we hell !!

Kava
One of the most culturally important events in Fiji is drinking Kava. Kava is made by drying and pounding the root of a kind of pepper plant called Piper Methysticum (I guess that you’re not likely to find it down your local supermarket). The Powder is placed into a bag and water then filtered through it. The result is a large bowl (a Tanoa) full of extremely muddy looking and tasting liquid. The Kava is blessed and then given to individuals in a half coconut shell called a bilo. Protocol says that when offered the Kava you should clap, say “Bula” (Cheers) and then down the liquid in one go – which believe me is the best way to do it !!! After finishing the bilo you should clap 3 times in appreciation. (?!)
Kava is actually mildly narcotic and your lips and tongue soon begin to start feeling numb. You don’t get drunk as such, more stoned really. One of the meeting huts in Bukuya was part of Peni´s and so the locals were there every night drinking Kava – It was like their Local pub, just without the alcohol. Because of this we were able to drink Kava with them the way that they actually drink it, which is very different from the ‘formal’ Kava ceremonies that they perform for tourists. The men in the village would be drinking Kava throughout the day as well as all night and we soon got into the habit of sitting with them, drinking copious amounts of Kava and chatting. Some of the faces pulled when they had to drink ‘another’ bowl of Kava were hilarious and the hocking and spitting out of the window definitely wasn’t in the tourist show. They were extremely sweet and friendly people and on a couple of occassions they sang for us – no accompaniment, just voices. It was so beautiful- you could close your eyes and imagine sitting on a beach with the waves lapping at your feet.

As in all villages in all countries the children are always good fun and the children of Bukuya were no exception. They managed to surprise us though with their questions. Along with the usual: “What’s your name ?”, “Where do you come from ?” etc came “Is your’s a Nuclear or Extended family ?” Huh ?! Apparently, the older children had just covered the subject at school and managed to catch us completely off guard !!

100 Day Feast
The wife of the owner where we were staying had unfortunately died some months before and in Fiji they have major feasts after 5, 10 and 100 days. We were ‘fortuneate’ enough, if thats the right word unbder the circumstances, to be staying during the 100 Day Feast. The family of the deceased and lots of friends were invited and the day was spent preparing food cooked in a traditional Lovo. What they do dig a bit hole and place wood in the base and then stones and rocks. They light the wood to heat up the stones and, when hot, place the food, wrapped in banana leaves or in pots on top. The whole lot is then buried and left for several hours to cook after which they dig the whole lot up and serve. The result is absolutely delicious and needless to say that following the feast a large amount of Kava was drunk !

Nacula
After 5 days I headed back to Nadi to meet up with some Scandinavian friends that I had met the night before going to the Highlands. We had arranged to go to the island of Nacula in the Yasawa group of islands for a few days.
Nacula was great and very much what you think of when you think of exotic islands: Palm trees; White sandy beaches; Crystal clear azul sea. The best think about Nacula was that it wasn´t in the Lonely Planet and so very few people knew about it !! We stayed in a Lodge made up of several Bures close to the beach. There were 4 villages on the large island and 14 backpackers – it was supurb. True to what I’d heard the Fijians were a lovely people and extremely friendly and generous. Everynight the locals from the nearby village of Sisilli would come and play Vollyball by the Lodge. It was great and they always did their best to make sure that you joined in. They always laughed and the worse you were the more they laughed !!

I spent a lot of time relaxing and diving. I got an amazing deal with a dive shop on one of the other islands. When they found out that I was a Divemaster they said that I only had to pay for my first couple of dives as long as I helped out when needed !! In the end I got 10 dives for $75 US and they never asked me to help !! The diving was also excellent. Not so many large fish but some of the most amazing coral that I have ever seen and in the main, completely undamaged. Think of a colour and you could almost guarantee that you’d see coral of the same colour. It was fantastic.

As with most places it’s the people that make the difference between an Ok time and an amazing time and again I was extremely fortunate to have met up with some fantastic people – both other travellers and locals. Thank you !!
I ended up staying on Nacula for 12 days it was just perfect. All too soon, though, it was time to leave Fiji and to move on again.

New Zealand
I hadn’t actually planned to go to New Zealand but due to airline changes I had to fly to Polynesia via Auckland.
At Passport Control they went through my passport and granted me Permanent Residency which was interesting, if a bit of an overkill for a 6 hour stopover. As least it confirmed what I’d been told in Australia that my Australian Residency was also valid for New Zealand.
Auckland, the City of Sails, was nice enough – New Zealand had a few weeks before hosted and retained the Americas Cup here and there were still some nice yachts in the harbour – but all too soon it was time to get back on the plane. New Zealand will have to wait from another day.

As far as I could go…
Fiji is actually 180 degrees from London and is, as such, about as far away from ‘home’ as you can get. I’d spent the last 11 months progressively getting further and further away from Europe. With my flight to Polynesia, I started on the long way home.

Talk to you soon,

Iain

“Shall I be a purist or not ?” That was the question that I put to myself when working out how to get from Cairns to Alice Springs. I’ve travelled around the rest of mainland Australia by land so should I be a purist and travel the last part overland or fly ? Flying was only $8 more expensive and took 2 hours instead of 2 days…. I flew.

The Green Centre ?
I don’t know if you’ve heard but recently it’s been raining in Alice Springs – we are talking lots of rain !! When flying in I expected to see a vast barren expanse that was the famous Red Centre of Australia. Instead, everything was lush and green and even the “dry” Todd river was happily flowing.
The road to Cairns had been cut off (apparently 1/3 of Queensland was officially underwater) and Uluru (Ayres Rock) had had waterfalls pouring down its sides. Definitely an interesting time to be in a town like Alice.

Alice Springs
Alice Springs was initially called Stuart and was founded in 1870 as a staging post for a Telegraph line linking Australia to the rest of the world. It changed it’s name to Alice Springs in 1933 and is named after a small body of water that remains even in the dry. Technically this is called a Billabong but I guess that “Alice Billabong” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.
Alice is a nice enough town but is pretty small and a long way from anywhere. I think that you have to be a special type of person to live there. After a couple of days we headed out from Alice on a 3 day tour of the famous sites: Watarrka (Kings Canyon), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and Uluru (Ayres Rock).

Watarrka (Kings Canyon)
If you’d said to me a few weeks ago that we would be driving through flooded creeks and torrential rain on our way to Kings Canyon I wouldn’t have believed you…it’s the famous centre of Australia. We’ll that’s exactly what we did. In the previous weeks some tours had to be canceled because the roads were
impassable – luckily we managed to get through. Kings Canyon or Watarrka as it’s known in the local Aboriginal dialect is a beautiful place: A hot and dry canyon with sheer walls rising to up to 100m above the surrounding area. As we walked around the top of the canyon we became caught in a thunder storm and torrential rain. It was amazing and quite disconcerting to see how fast things could change: After 30 seconds we were all completely soaked. Within 5 minutes there were rivers forming and beautiful waterfalls pouring over the edges of the canyon in all directions. After 15 minutes these had become torrential and we
had no choice but to turn back. Streams that we’d used stepping stones to cross earlier were now fast-flowing rivers up to our thighs !! We had to leave quickly before the already bloated creeks that we had crossed earlier became impassable.
Not quite what you’d expect but we actually felt privileged to have seen it that way.

Kata Tjuta (The Olgas)
The following day after sleeping in swags under the stars (it fortunately hadn’t rained during the night) we went to the Olgas. The sky was cloudless and blue and it was spectacular, truly amazing. Afterwards we went to the Aboriginal Cultural Centre and then to watch the sunset and ever changing colours at Uluru.
A beautiful place.

Uluru (Ayres Rock)
When you think of Australia you think of Ayres Rock, that huge red monolith standing in the middle of nowhere. Some facts: its 3.6km long, 11km around, 348m high and is the biggest single piece of rock in the world. It is truly amazing.
An issue that occurs with almost every visitor is “Do I climb or not ?” and our group was no exception. When discussing the issue it is amazing how little information there is on the subject and how conflicting that information is. The official stance of the aboriginal group that owns the land, the Anangu, is that they ask you not to climb. Some claim the reason for this is that it is sacred and others that it is simply because they do not want people to be hurt – it is a very steep and difficult climb and many have died trying. After much thought and debate with others in our group and with our guides, who know infinitely more than I do about the aboriginal people and the subject, I decided to climb. There is not time to go into a detailed discussion here.
The climb was hard but extremely rewarding: the view was spectacular ! One strange thing was the existence of rock pools at the top – maybe not so strange after all the rain but within them lived small animals about 4cm long that looked remarkably like Horseshoe crabs. Apparently their eggs can survive in the dust and dirt for up to 6 years. Then, when the rains come, they hatch and lay eggs that will be the next generation before dying when the pools evapourate. Amazing. It is an very peaceful and awesome place.

Coober Pedy
After our tour and another day in Alice, it was time to start heading south towards Melbourne to get my flight out of Australia.
On the way we stopped for a night in the Opal mining town of Coober Pedy. It’s an extremely barren place and the landscape around it was used for the film Mad Max. It gets so hot here that a lot of the buildings” are actually dug out of the solid rock. Our hostel was more like the “Bat Cave” than the usual YHA.

Adelaide
I stayed in Adelaide for a day to get a few things done before heading down to Melbourne and was lucky to be able to catch part of the Fringe Arts Festival that was taking place.

Melbourne
Back in Melbourne for a few days to tie up some loose ends before flying out into the wild blue yonder. I was able to meet up with quite a few old friends here including Manoj. For those of you that don’t know, Manoj and I worked together in Germany and actually set out on this trip together all those months ago. We parted company in Borneo back in June ’99 and it was great being able to catch up with what’s been happening with each other.

Australians reputedly have a big problem with gambling and in the south east of Australia “Pokies” are big business. When I first saw a sign on this seedy looking building I thought that it was maybe some kind of legalised brothel. It turns out that Pokies are a form of One Armed Bandit or Fruit Machine except – and here’s the clever bit – there is absolutely no skill involved !! You put in your money, press a button and the computer reels go around, if you’re lucky you win if your not you lose. That’s basically it. Maybe I expect too much from life !!

Summary
So here we are – It’s time to move on again. I’ve been traveling almost 11 months now and have been in Australia a little over 5 of those. I’ve travelled pretty much around the whole of the mainland and have had a really good time, have seen some amazing things and have met some amazing people.
People have asked me what has been the best part and to be honest I don’t know. I’ve loved all of it for different reasons. The west coast is completely different to the east and the south from the north. The country is huge – unless you’ve been here I don’t think that you can fully appreciate just how huge it
is. The people here are extremely friendly and there is a good feel to the country. I’m sure I’ll be back.

Take care and I’ll talk to you soon,

Iain

Just after the new year, when it became clear that the world was still reasonably intact and that the expected demise of everything that we take for granted didn’t quite happen, I figured that it was safe to board a Greyhound bus and head up to Sydney to begin a great loop that would take me all the way up the east coast to Cairns and then back down to Melbourne, via Alice Springs.

Sydney
I arrived in Sydney early in the morning and had to wait a few hours before I could get any accommodation. So to fill the time I dumped my stuff at a hostel and decided to walk towards Circular Quay. It’s one of moments that leave you breathless. All my life I’d seen pictures of Sydney: of the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the bay etc and then suddenly I was there, in the midst of it all. It was a beautiful hot summers morning with blue cloudless skies and I was just speechless – it was utterly stunning.
So what can I say about Sydney ? I absolutely adored it. Maybe Melbourne is more cultural and takes time to grow on you but Sydney just hits you as soon as you arrive – the immense harbour giving a real focus to the city.
I was able to meet up with lots of friends in Sydney including Carmen and Natelie who I’d met independently in Darwin, Adam with whom I travelled down the West coast, Heike who I’d met in Sumatra, and Jen and Gavin, an aussie couple, who live in Belgium and who I used to go mountain Biking with when I lived in Germany. It’s a small world.
So what did I get up to in Sydney ? Heaps ! Lots of walking around, a couple of really good barbies, getting the ferry over to Manley and exploring the northern beaches, galleries, gardens, harbours – loads. Two of the highlights were probably the Blue Mountains which get their name from the mist exuded by the Eucalyptus trees that grow there – they are really beautiful – and climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge which gives quite a unique view of the city and surrounding area.
Whilst in Sydney I backtracked a little to see a city that I’d missed when coming from Melbourne.

Canberra
When trying to decide on the nations capital there was fierce competition between Melbourne and Sydney as to which one should hold the title. To settle the dispute the government decided to build a new city in a new territory (the Australian Capital Territory or ACT) which was pretty much equidistant from them both. That city is Canberra.
Now to say that Canberra is a tad boring and sterile is a little harsh – but only a little !! Any town that is created by politicians is bound to reflect their ability for putting the dampers on anything which could be construed as “fun”.
Canberra is all artificial lakes, wide boulevards and road systems that look great from above but are completely incomprehensible when on the ground. If you want to get lost…go to Canberra !!
To be honest it’s not as bad as it sounds, it just lacks character – that indefinable quality that makes something rise from the depths of ordinariness and makes it interesting.

There are some good things in Canberra though which make up for some of its shortcomings:

• • The Parliament building is on top of a hill overlooking the town and was built into the hill so as not to look too out of place. This means that there is actually grass growing on the roof. Someone pointed out that this was so that people could walk on top of Parliament so that the politicians should never forget that they are under the people. Nice idea except that the House of Representatives and the Senate are on either side of this hillock – showing how the politicians managed to side-step even that !!
  • The Anzac memorial (Australian and New Zealand Arm Corp) houses a free museum which goes through every conflict in which Australian forces have played a role. It’s extremely well down and is definitely worth a few hours.

Other things to see are the National Gallery in the Old Parliament Building and the Science Museum which has lots of interactive displays. Inevitably, though Canberra couldn’t hold my attention for too long and it was back to Sydney for a few days before moving north.

Byron Bay and Nimbin
About 12 hours by bus north of Sydney is Byron Bay. It’s an extremely laid back place with lots of restaurants, beaches, bars, and those following more alternative lifestyles. You couldn’t help but relax in Byron. A typical day would be getting up – eventually, having lunch, going to the beach, sitting in a cafe, cooking dinner, going to a bar for a few drinks and then going to the beach for a good chat and a relaxing smoke before retiring to bed. I met some great people there (you know who you are) and we had a ball. I even tried my hand at surfing and managed to stand up a couple of times !!

Nimbin is a small community west of Byron which is renowned for growing Hemp from which they make an alternative form of tobacco and rather interesting cakes. It was a good day out. On the bus there everyone was chatting and listening to music. On the way back everyone just sat there quietly – completely off their heads !! To be honest I found Nimbin a little sad. It’s one thing to enjoy a good smoke once in a while but stoned mothers walking down the street with a small child in a pushchair trying to sell you “cakes” was more than a little sad. It might be an “alternative lifestyle” but you can’t help thinking that they’ve missed the plot somewhere down the line.

It was difficult to actually leave Byron in the end but an old friend awaited me in Brisbane.

Brisbane
Ben and I went to college together in Wales in the early nineties. He was in his 2nd year as I was doing my Finals. A few years ago he married Rae and they came out to live in Brisbane.
It was really good to catch up them both and to remember old times, discuss the latest “college crowd” gossip and to wonder where we would all be in the years to come. It was a really nice time.
Brisbane itself is the capital city of the state of Queensland. Although a sprawling city with its many suburbs it’s centre is actually quite compact and very clean with all of the amenities that you would expect. It’s also in easy reach of the sea with the Gold Coast to the south and the Sunshine Coast to the north, where I was heading next.

Noosa & Fraser Island
En route to meeting up with some friends in Hervey Bay I stopped briefly in Noosa Heads which is a nice holiday town which seems to attract a quite “well to do” crowd of holiday makers and is actually quite nice.
At 120km in length, Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island, is covered with an amazing variety of vegetation and has the purist form of Dingo in Australia. As there are no real roads on Fraser, only sandy tracks, 4WD vehicles are the only viable means of transport. The tour that we took was a typical 3 day self-drive, self-guide 4WD tour. There were 8 of us in our 4WD and it was a real laugh. It was fantastic being able to drive a 4WD through the forest tracks and along the beach – every kids dream. Fraser Island is extremely beautiful and there was loads to see but one of the highlights was probably Lake Wabby which is a fresh water lake with an immense sand dune running down into the water on one side and with dense tropical forest on the other.

Rockhampton
As we headed further north we stopped briefly at the town of Rockhampton. There’s not much to say about it except that it straddles the Tropic of Capricorn and has got some nice Botanical Gardens.

Airley Beach & the Whitsundays
All around Oz I’ve heard about Airley Beach. Well finally I made it and it’s actually pretty nice. It’s not a big place but as they say: “its not the size, it’s what you do with it thats important”. Airley actually does a lot with it ! It’s a beautiful place with lots of restaurants, bars, clubs and a really good atmosphere. It’s the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands so named because Cook got there on…..yes you’ve guess it – the day AFTER Whitsunday !! (Apparently he forgot that he went over the date line when calculating his dates ! Good to know that even people like Captain Cook made mistakes. That said, it wasn’t as bad as his decision to accept a dinner invitation with the Hawaiians but…!!).
Anyway, where was I ? Oh yes, the Whitsundays. We went on a 3 day yacht cruise around some of the beautiful Whitsunday Islands which was great but unfortunately this is where the weather started to close in on us. Australia might be perceived as having summer at this time of year but as you head into the tropics, Summer and Winter give way to Wet and Dry and at this time of year it’s the wet season. The nice thing about the wet is that when it rains, it really rains. None of this halfhearted drizzle stuff, just full on torrential rain !! What’s more, it’s warm, so even though you get wet, it’s not so bad.
We had a few good party nights in Airley but eventually, with one eye on the calendar, it was time to start heading north again.

Townsville
Townsville, Townsville, Townsville – enough said !! If you’ve ever been to Townsville you’d understand.
By this stage the weather had really broken. Roads were beginning to flood and travel was becoming more uncertain. I decided to abort going to Magnetic Island and Mission Beach as there was no point in going somewhere just to stay inside while it flooded outside. Instead I headed further north to Cairns to meet up with friends that had gone on ahead as I savoured the delights of Townsville, Townsville, Townsville – enough said !!

Cairns and Cape Tribulation
Cairns isn’t so much famous for itself (apart from the Woolshed) but more for what you can do from Cairns, such as: The Atherton Tablelands, Cape Tribulation, bungee jumping, diving and of course the Great Barrier Reef.
It rained for most of my first week there, to the point where all of the roads out were impassable and there was nothing much to do except for reorganise flights, sleep and party – Nomads in Cairns is the only hostel I’ve stayed at that positively encourages you to jump into the pool, fully clothed, at 2 o’clock in the morning! Luckily, the second week the weather cleared up and I was finally able to do some more strenuous activities.

I decided to do a 4 day live aboard diving trip that went out to Holmes Reef, 240km offshore in the Coral Sea. The diving was fantastic with 60m visibility – yes sixty !! Absolutely amazing !! If some of you remember from my first ever update from Singapore, one of my dreams has been to dive with sharks. Don’t ask me why it’s just one of those things. One of the reasons that I chose this dive trip was because it included a shark feed ! I don’t want to get into the ethics of feeding wild animals but it was absolutely amazing. During the dive before the feed they were trying to entice the sharks by running water through dead fish up on deck. This led to an interesting safety stop – hanging in the water at 5m with at least 20 sharks swimming around you !! For the feed itself we knelt in a line on the bottom at 9m (no cages) and they lowered an ‘A’-Frame into the water with dead fish attached. We were simply in awe as 5m away the sharks went into a feeding frenzy. There were 3 types of shark present:
White tips, Grey Whalers and Silvertips and they were in front of you, behind you and swimming between you. You could reach out and touch them as they swam past. Beautiful animals and an amazing experience.

Back on dry land I headed north to Cape Tribulation to spend a couple of days in the rainforest before moving on. It’s apparently 110 million years old and is designated as a World Heritage site. Remarkably, though, not all of it falls under this category and the part that doesn’t is openly for sale to anyone thats interested. The government say that they are trying to buy it but nothing seems to be happening. Bear in mind that it was the government that sold it in the first place !! Experts apparently give it around 25 years before the rainforest is all but destroyed (incidentally they give the Great Barrier Reef only 34 years unless the government start doing something). Whilst there we swam in the streams, did a night “safari” in the rainforest which was fascinating and went horse riding through the forest and Tea plantations. I even achieved my first ever gallop.

With only 2 weeks left in Oz it was time to leave the east coast and head to the centre. It had been a great 7 weeks and I felt as if I was 30 going on 21. Like most things in life it’s not so much “what you do” as “who you do it with” and I was very fortunate to have met and travelled with some fantastic people over the weeks. You know who you are – Thank you !!

Talk to you all again soon,
Iain

Ok, so we’re on this train…..

The Nullarbor Plain
I woke up at 4:30am to see the dawn (don’t worry – it wasn’t intentional) and the view from the window was spectacular simply because there was absolutely nothing to see – just mile upon mile of flat barren countryside – the
Nullarbor Plain ! When it had got dark some 17hrs later there was no discernable difference to the landscape. It looked exactly the same !! Now it’s hard for a Pom to understand distances like that. We had pretty much gone the distance from Lands End to John O’Groats and had seen nothing ! Tell a lie, we did go through a town (I know it was only a town because there was no McDonalds or Dick Smiths Electrical Store). In fact Hamlet would probably be a better description. There were about 10 houses (most of them seemingly unoccupied), a small shop and an even smaller school. It had an outdoor swimming pool which for some reason was full to the brim with gravel (probably to stop evaporation) and an “Evacuation Point”. I couldn’t understand the Evacuation Point. Evacuate from what exactly ?? Besides, the train (the means of evacuation) only came through twice a week – hardly a speedy getaway.
If you’re interested in a summer holiday at this place – sun and privacy basically guaranteed – it’s called Cook and it’s in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

Adelaide
Thirty-two hours after leaving Kalgoorlie we arrived in Adelaide the capital of South Australia and the “City of old people and churches”. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect (apart from the churches and old people) but I was pleasantly surprised. Buzzing Metropolis it isn’t but a clean, pleasant city with lots of amenities it is. It was a good chance to catch up with some ‘housekeeping’ tasks which needed to be done. I even got my hair cut, not that you’d notice !!
Just outside Adelaide is the famous Barossa valley, world re-renowned for its wines. As some of you know I adore drinking wine and couldn’t resist a tour of some of the Wineries. We visited Penfolds, Jacobs Creek, and a few others that I can’t even remember the names of – probably because I couldn’t quite get the hang of spitting out the wine after tasting it – it seems like such a waste !!
Our intention was to spend a couple of days there and then to hire a car for a one-way trip to Melbourne via the Grampians and the Great Ocean Road. Our plan, however, was going horribly pear-shaped. With Christmas fast approaching, no car-hire company wanted to let their cars out on a one-way trip. We tried to get relocations but even that didn’t work. We booked the Greyhound as a last resort and phoned the hire places everyday to see if anything was available. Finally we got lucky !!
Britz-Australia, a campervan company had a van that they wanted taken back to Melbourne. It usually costs $296 a day to hire – we got it for $26 a day, split between 5 of us, and they even threw in $100 worth of free fuel !! An amazing deal ! It was a beast though – 6.4m long, 2.6m wide and 3.2m high – like driving a bus !!

The Great Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road runs between Warrnambool and Torquay and was built as a memorial to those that died in World War I. It’s over 300km long and has, reputedly, some of the most stunning coastal scenery in the world.
To be honest, that summary isn’t far wrong !! There are the amazing beaches and cliffs that have been
eroded by years of pounding waves to leave huge pillars and arches such as the 12 Apostles and London Bridge but also large forested areas such as the Otway National Park that affords tremendous views of the whole area. All dead impressive.
Have you ever seen ‘Point Break’ the film with Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze where, at the end, Brodi (played by Mr Swayze) goes surfing off to his imminent death ??? Well, that was filmed at Bells Beach just outside of Torquay. Amazing huh ? All this amazingly useless information that you didn’t know you needed to know….and its all free, just part of the service !! The beach, by the way, isn’t that spectacular. Doh !!

Melbourne
There are two words that spring to mind when someone mentions the word ‘Melbourne’ – ‘Cold’ and ‘Wet’ !! Previously, everyone was telling me how lucky I was to be heading south for the Australian summer – if this is summer, God only knows what winter is like !! To be honest, it wasn’t always raining – Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were absolute scorchers, but what is it they say – 2 swallows don’t make a stunner (or was it summer ?!?) anyway…..
Melbourne (and to honest, Australia in general) didn’t feel particularly Christmassy. They have the decorations and trees etc but there’s something about walking around in over 30 degree heat with blue skies and your sunnies on that doesn’t lend itself to feeling Christmassy.
This will impress you: On Christmas Eve I went to Mass (church)! Admittedly the dominant reason was that it was easier to get a lift to the pub afterwards but hey, don’t knock it !!
Pip, a Melbournian, whom I had originally met when counting Cycads in Darwin and then again in Perth, was kind enough to invite me and another friend, Andy, to her families home for Christmas dinner. It was great and not so dissimilar to a British Christmas Lunch – apart from the whirring of the Aircon !!
On Boxing day the plan was to see the India v Australia Boxing Day Test and the Melbourne Cricket Ground. I say ‘plan’ because surprisingly, it rained !! We all ended up drinking slabs of beer and generally having a laugh although the rain did eventually stop for long enough to allow us to catch the last hour or so of the cricket. It was strange, there were eight of us there, and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t known any of them prior to Christmas Eve and suddenly we were spending Boxing Day together ! So is the travelling life.

A few days off…
After Christmas, Pip suggested that we all go away for a few days to see some of the area around Melbourne.
First stop was the William Ricketts sanctuary just outside Olinda in the Dandenongs Ranges. William Ricketts (1899 – 1993) was a white Australian sculptor who was inspired by the indigenous population and their affinity with the land. He created a woodland park in which his work rises out of the natural features of the forest portraying Aboriginal people and also decrying the abuse of the land and its indigenous people by the white man. An fascinating place.
We then headed down to Wilsons Promontory, or ‘the Prom’ as its known, which is the most southerly point of the Australian mainland. There we walked for hours through Eucalyptus forests in the hope of seeing Koala’s – nothing !! We gave up and went to the beach and ironically saw one in a tree by the side of the road as we headed home. Koalas are dead cool and it was great to see a wild one from only a couple of metres away.
On New Years Eve we headed back towards Melbourne, stopping first at some excellent wineries for wine
quaffing on the Mornington Peninsula and then to one of the most spiritual experiences imaginable.
Many memories of mine, specially from college, are linked to a small cul-de-sac in the eastern Melbourne suburbs. During those years I glimpsed into the lives of a small band of people – I heard their laughs, saw their tears and wondered how they could afford the plastic surgery that made certain characters change their physical appearance overnight without anyone else seemingly noticing. I am talking, of course, of Ramsey Street and Neighbours !! It’s actually call Pin Oak Court and is much smaller than you’d ever imagine but it was strange seeing it ‘in the flesh’ so to speak, and thinking of Kylie and Jason, Mrs. Mangle and Joe, Daphne and the guy with big ears (whose name I can’t remember), and the best actor in the whole show… Bouncer the dog !!

New Years Eve
So where was I for the biggest party that the world has ever known ?? A group of us got together, had some drinks etc and then went into the city, sat on the banks of the Yarra river and watched the fireworks over Melbourne. Very relaxed and pleasant.

Where next ?
Time for me in Oz is beginning to run out as I need to fly to Fiji at the beginning of March. So it’s time to start heading up the east coast to Cairns. I’ll let you know how I get on another time.

Till then take care.

Iain

I last left you in sunny Perth where we were contemplating our next step: a tour of the South West. With Christmas and New Year fast approaching time was short, and so we hired a car together and headed south.

South by Southwest
This was the home video that Hitchcock made before his more famous film.
The first stop of our travels was Bunbury, a nice enough place, rated the second biggest city in Western
Australia. Now I’ve no idea who, in Australia, determines what counts as a city and what doesn’t but it seems as if anything with a ‘McDonalds’, a ‘Dick Smiths Electrical Store’ and enough people to have them both occupied concurrently, qualifies.
Next stop was Busselton which is famous for its pier, reputedly the longest wooden pier in Australia, which stretches 1.9km out to sea. It’s an ‘interesting’
structure with large holes in parts of the walkway, big enough for a small car to fall in to, covered by loose bits of board. As it happens 2 weeks after we were there a section of it caught fire and was destroyed. So now they have two piers, both considerably shorter than the original.

Dunsborough
I’d first heard about Dunsborough whilst perusing some tourist brochure back in Kununurra.
It is the last resting place of HMAS Swan which was a Destroyer Escort scuttled in December 1997 (I guess ‘scuttled’ was a term invented by the navies of the world to show that certain ships are at the bottom of the ocean through deliberate action, as opposed to carelessness). She is big (L:112.8m x W:12.5m x H:23m) and lies upright in 32m of water. It was prepared and ‘sunk’ specifically for diving, and consequently lacks a little of the ‘spookiness’ that you normally find with wrecks but allows lots of easy access to different parts of the ship. The dives there were fantastic and it was great to be able to move through the ship and go into the Bridge area etc. The picture in the gallery gives you some idea of what we saw.
During Lunch we even saw a pod of Humpbacked whales heading South.

Between Dunsborough and Pemberton
So what is between Dunsborough and Pemberton ? Well there’s
Yallingup, excellent for surfing apparently and the Ngilgi Cave – not so good for surfing but excellent for stalagmites, stalactites and vegemites. Then there’s Margaret River with its famous Wineries and one armed glass blower – honestly, an amazing guy – he even let us have a go. After that Augusta – probably named after the winds that they have there – and Cape Leeuwin, the most South Westerly point of the Australian mainland and where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean. Complete with lighthouse but strangely, no Theme Park !!

The South Western Forests
The South West of Australia is famous for its forests of towering Jarrah, Marri and Karri trees. It’s a far cry from the arid
bush land to the north. These trees can reach well over 60m and the forests are spectacular.
Some of the tree’s, used as fire lookouts, can be climbed using large metal pins that spiral up and around their trunks. This is not for the faint-hearted as there is basically nothing of note to stop you from falling the 50m or so to the ground – apart from blind faith and a will to live !! The view from the top, though, is quite spectacular ! We ended up climbing both the Gloucester Tree (60) and the Dave Evans Bicentennial Tree (68m) and yep – they’re scary !!
Nearer the coast the trees change to giant Eucalyptus (red, yellow, Rates and Red flowering) which are unique to the area. The Giant Tingle Tree, just outside Walpole, has a girth of 24m and The Valley of the Giants has a tree top walk which rises 40m into the canopy of these massive trees. Like the trees, it also sways a lot in the wind !! All quite breathtaking.

Albany and the Stirling Ranges
At Albany we found our first McDonalds, KFC and Hungry Jacks (Burger King) of our South West excursion and yes, Albany’s a city !!
Something strange happened in Albany. We did the touristy things: The Blowholes, the Gap, Natural Bridge etc. and at Natural Bridge we were taking photos when Adam decided that they needed livening up and, after disappearing briefly behind a rock, Natural Bridge suddenly became
Naturalist Bridge !!
We were speechless – not to mention the other tourists that had appeared in the mean time. The gauntlet was laid.
That afternoon we were at a tourist free, Castle Rock in the Porongurup National Park when Pauline and Katy decided that it was their turn. Shelley and I looked at each other…..Bugger !
The next day we continued our journey and headed towards Esperence. On the way we stopped off at the Stirling Ranges – a set of hills that rise dramatically from the otherwise flat plains. The highest point in the
Stirling’s is called, maybe appropriately, “Bluff Knowle”. It was time to rename it !!

Esperence
The road to Esperence is long and straight – one section has only a couple of very small kinks during its 160km length, otherwise it’s perfectly straight !! Amazing to see, boring to drive.
Esperence is named after a French ship that harboured in the area during a storm and has some beautiful beaches. While we were there we were able to go horse riding on the beach (Shelley got a closer look at the beach than most) and
Sand boarding; which involves hurtling down large sand dunes on a board, whilst simultaneously filling your mouth with as much sand as possible. Good fun !

Kalgoorlie
After Esperence we headed north to our last stop on this epic journey, the frontier gold mining town of Kalgoorlie (Kal to those in the know). Founded in 1893, it’s a quite
prosperous town and the place from which Adam, Shelley and I would be getting the train out east. Being a frontier town its a bit rougher around the edges than most but that just adds to its appeal.
Being a hard working mining town it obviously needs to be able to entertain the miners when they aren’t working.
Skimpy bars are the norm in Kalgoorlie, where scantily clad barmaids thoughtfully give their customers pints of beer to drool into.
Apparently, there used to be an organised tour of one of the other attractions of Kal – the brothels – but rumour has it that it had to stop as after just a few stops most of the punters had mysteriously disappeared….

“Parting is such sweet sorrow…”
So after almost 6 weeks of traveling together it was time to finally go our separate ways. Pauline and Katy were heading back to Perth and Adam, Shelley and I were going initially to Adelaide and then on to Melbourne. It was pretty sad saying goodbye, we’d had our ups and downs but we’d all survived in tact and had had a good time together.

On the evening of Monday 13th December we boarded the Indian Pacific train bound for Adelaide……but that’s another story.

Talk to you soon

Iain