Australia Fair, Advance? – So what did we think?

Well as we bid goodbye to it what can I say about Australia. I suppose that in the three months we have been here we have at least managed to give the country our very best shot. We have travelled about 17,000km in the ‘Wicked’ Wicked Van that we hired back at the beginning of our travels here at Perth. On our travels we have visited the best part of the West and East coasts of Australia, as well as reaching Darwin ‘up North’ and back into the country’s centre to Uluru. To think that originally we were just going to ‘the Rock’ and to traverse the East coast, from there we had certainly broadened our horizons somewhat. Although it has to be said that before we came out travelling we had put in our plans to visit Tasmania too, one objective which ended up being out of our reach in the end.

I could have posted 100 beach photos just like this but this is one of my favs!

The country, compared to the UK in age is just a wee tot and I must be honest that when we were both on the other side of the World planning our big trip, it was not a place that we thought we would actually take to. The few people we had spoken to about Oz had also been travelling to New Zealand as well and whilst they had lots to say about it’s wee next door neighbour, about Australia they did not seem to be as enthusiastic. The wonderful people, the weird and wacky animals, the pristine beaches, the excellent diving, the wide open spaces and places to stay along the way had all endeared the country very much to our hearts.

With just one ‘hiyah’ Liz chopped the rock and the rest is history!

There have been lots of major moments along the way but whilst here we had learnt the ‘art’ of SUP – Stand Up Paddleboarding – we had seen some major rock formations, including the Pinnacles and the Devil’s Marbles, visited ‘Freo’ the very beautiful and somewhat historic, Fremantle, we have seen many a dolphin and dived with many a shark and ray too and a few of the dives were dramatic and even not a little bit dangerous too.

Home please!

Here we have also ridden camels, relocated turtle eggs and cuddled a koala, we have seen the mighty Uluru too, which in some ways to us was almost a religious experience it was simply that magical and whilst there had a cheap flight over both sets of rocks.

No other way to put it but that Uluru looks quite majestical at dusk!

We have too spent many a night as Lord (and Lady) of the Flies and one or two under a planetarium of stars but the most amazing night-time was just after Mount Isa, where we not only watched a blanket of stars and even spotted the odd ‘shooter’ whilst far away in the distance we could just see the odd flash or two of a thunderstorm going on in the distance. However, midway through the night we found ourselves in the midst of the once ‘far away’ storm and lightning was striking all around us huddled in our van, which kept lighting up a petrol tanker parked next door to us. As you can imagine sleep was a bit difficult to come by once we had been woken by the storm and saw the tanker. On the two coasts though we have been treated to some of the very most beautiful beaches possibly in the world, simply giving some outstanding picture postcard moments. Finally, and somewhat unexpectedly too, I managed to pay homage to some heroes from my time growing up and listening to ‘heavy metal’ back home in Grimsby – the inimitable Bon Scott and ‘the Hottest Band in the World’ KISS! I even now do a bit of ‘complicated’ name dropping as I now know Sue (our good friend from Freo), who, cut the hair of Bon Scott’s mum!

Old Rockers never die they just get bigger screens!

We have also made some great friends on our travels possibly because here there are no language barriers to overcome and I think that ‘we’ (from the UK) have a similar sense of humour as our Australian ‘cousins’ too. People who I gladly love to see any time or place, even back in our neck of the world and break bread with them or maybe share a glass or two of beer – bonza. Along the way, the people we have met have taught me a great deal but possibly their most important lesson is simply to ‘seize life’ and make the best of what you have around you. It is possibly far easier to do that here than back home because of the beautiful outdoors but I must admit the Australians do manage to wring every last bit out of it.

So what did we think of the diving in Australia!

Any regrets then, well possibly to have spent all of this time here and not got under the skin of the relationship here between the Indigenous ‘Aborigines’ and the Australian ‘White’ peoples. The only times we had even really come across the Indigenous were in organised circumstances, as guides, storytellers and a whole experience explaining the Djabugay Rainforest tribe experience and the many iconic items we associate with them such as Boomerangs and Didgeridoo. We had often seen the Indigenous in less salubrious circumstances too, park congregations handing round the booze under the shade of a tree or two but had never had the chance to sit with any of them and just chat about what they thought about their situation and, next time we visit Oz and we will too, this is something we shall endeavour to do. 

A favourite encounter with one of my very favourite creatures!

Goodbyes and then North up the coast – Day 260 – 5 October

Today we awoke once again early and in the mood to hit the road but first the very sad parting of the ways and some heartfelt goodbyes to our surrogate Aussie family before we set forth into the wild blue (sandy red) yonder. The ladies shed a few tears, they had gotten along really well and I know Liz would miss Sue but she would definitely not forget her.

Once again here, you just do not drive off into the distance unprepared and our first stop was to check our tyres and grab some ice for our fridge (aka our icebox or ‘the eskie’ as they say down here. The tyres needed a bit of pumping up so we should be far more economical on the gas today! As we have previously mentioned the distances over here are ridiculously big so we set ourselves quite a task to go from Fremantle all the way to Kalbarri (nearly 600km) but stopping off along the way to have a look around the Pinnacles rock formations.

Liz just loves a good Pinnacle!!

The scenery as we headed northwards up the coast was again breathtaking it was a stark contrast between the turquoise blue of the Indian Ocean and the red sand of the desert. When we had reached the Pinnacles we knew we had only travelled a third of our total distance for the day but we were ready to stop and have ourselves a bit of a break.

One Pinnacle looking like a knob and a knob looking like a right Pinnacle!!!!

The Pinnacles are a load of spikey looking thin rocks sticking up from the yellowy sand. The colour of the sand here seems quite strange in relation to the sand of the huge hill-sized dunes that we had seen along the way which was white in colour. The Discovery centre in front of the Pinnacles park lays claim to there being quite a few different animals that could be seen in the park area but we did not see a one not on the walk we took round the rocks nor the subsequent drive round them either. It had been a great stop off on the drive so after we celebrated with a cup of tea by the van, sat on our camp chairs.

Widescreen does not really give you a flavour of the amount of space out here – and all the sand seemed to be trying to get into every single bit of it!

After this visit we drove on and stopped off at a little place by the ocean to have a quick bite to eat. This was far easier to say and has been to write than it was to do because there was a bit of a wind but this ‘bit of a wind’ seemed to be blowing up a sandstorm. The view was lovely but the sand was swirling around us and let alone getting into our food, it was getting into every other nook and cranny too! So somewhat grittily we moved further on through the countryside.

Not sure what this is but close up it is beautiful!

This countryside we were travelling through was beautiful and a mix of colours, dry wheat as the pale yellows, the greens of the bushes and small trees, the grey and silvers from the tree trunks and branches and the deep ochre colour of the sand and dust along the roadside – it was all a real profusion of colour.

It was pointless me writing anything here but I did anyhow …. Beautiful!

After all of the kilometres we had put in we finally reached our campsite another one of the free ones we are hoping to use to save on the money and it was quite an eye-opener. The place was quite huge really, so there was quite a few campers in the camp and everyone seemed to have a very different type of accommodation on wheels – ours being towards the lower end of the scale with respect to luxury. It was another exciting night for us out under the stars and once again because it is a cheap form of entertainment we were in bed early. However, we did wake up before midnight in order to see the stars, the entrance fee to that being well worth it at Aus$0.00 alone. No light pollution out here want that there were stars all over the place, it was a beautiful, beautiful night almost as good as when we went to Scotland to see the Northern Lights – which we did not actually see but lots of stars we did.