4th January - 9th January 2009
WOW, what an alarm call, two Kookaburra’s are at full blast just outside the windows, we are awake and it’s early, so Julie decides if she’s awake the rest of the camp can be as well and opens the door to the camper and sets the alarm off……. Everyone is awake now, I’ll wait a few minutes she say’s before heading off for a shower, perhaps they won‘t notice…... Off we go to Jervis Bay, miles of white sand and dolphins swimming in the calm crystal clear pacific ocean, problem is we didn’t see them, but according to the locals and about a dozen dolphin watching companies, they are there….. Well if I can’t see the dolphins I’ll buy some shoes…… so off we go in search of footwear. Now imagine this, we are in a one horse forsaken town, with a shoe shop, so guess what, we failed in the shoe finding department….. However the surly waitress that served Steve his iced coffee, with squirty cream instead of ice cream made up for it, not only did Steve pass comment, but the table next to us did as well, he he they thought but then she served them….. Let’s get out of here, the Animal park beckons. Kate the other female travelling with us, inside her man TomTom, gets us there via the local cemetery, fortunately no burials were taking place at the time a camper van travels the one way funeral cortège route, funny sort these poms, I sure was said by the locals watching……. Suddenly we are at Birdworld, this is Amateur hour at its best, grubby people ramping up their facilities way above its true status, especially as a lot of the exhibits were nocturnal animals…… Anyway Julie gets to play with a kangaroo’s ears but pulls back when she see’s it’s also got big teeth…..
We don’t stop for the train ride or snake demonstration and decide to go food shopping. Steve loves this bit because the female cashiers are all so very very friendly, they all ask after him, they all wish him a nice day, they all talk gibberish and they all appear to descend from the inhabitants of Bletchley…….. Right, next is the first long drive towards Melbourne, let’s keep on driving until we are tired. On and On the road goes and then suddenly, there’s a wild kangaroo jumping along the side of the roadway, wow, that’s a first….. Five hours later as it’s getting dark we pull into a campsite that appears closed, we drive around it, instead of driving away and out pops, Mel the I can talk the hind legs off a wallaby ……… Steve makes the mistake of pretending to be stupid about this camping game and Mel tells us everything from how/where to dump your black water to what time and where the birds will be in the morning…….. Anyways, he lets us in and Julie finds the only toilet without a working light, Mel never told us what to do in this situation so we spend another night of tossing and turning in 30 degree overnight heat……
We awake early enough to catch the sunrise and think, what a beautiful day, little did we know how traumatic and expensive it was going to turn out to be. We set off, knowing it’s a 6 hour drive to the Southern Ocean and the Great Ocean drive along the bottom of Australia where the forest meets the sea except for the small width of white golden sand. Perfect, we think, before we see the sign about the fruit fly, how is this small insignificant fly, whose eggs can lay dormant inside fruit and is then brought into an area where fruit is grown costing the Australian economy millions if it hatches and spreading to the new fruit, going to ruin our day, you may think, Well……
Having seen the signs and knowing that you can be fined for not throwing away your fruit in the dumps provided, we throw our newly purchased Peppers, Tomatoes and Plums away. Eating the bananas we then drive forward not to get stopped, questioned or anything about the contents of our food locker. Bloody fly, we think it cost us about £5 in wasted food…..Little did we know….. We arrive in Melbourne and are in need of refuelling, we check with Kate and she recommends a Shell Service Station 2kms away, No say’s Steve take us to the one 2.3kms away as it has a Supermarket and we can replace the perishable items we have had to throw away. In we drive and up to pump no 9, it has two yellow handled pumps labelled unleaded and a black handled pump labelled Vortex, in goes 80 Aus dollars worth of Vortex and off we go shopping. Half hour later we return and drive off onto the M1 motorway which circumnavigates Melbourne. Being in the middle lane about 5 miles away, we notice a shudder, then a phut phut before Steve is revving but nothing is happening, we roll over to the shoulder, with an engine that has now completely given up and a smell of burning coming from the engine. We call the van hire help line and ask, what is Vortex, they reply to Steve’s horror ‘Premium Unleaded’ Steve’s next few words cannot be repeated, but to say the least he did apologise several times to the lady on the other end of the phone………
Dead Van plus killer man
As we sat eventually in the Melbourne Van hire office with them explaining that not all Garages in Australia sell Diesel, that we will have to pay for the van to be towed off the motorway, the engine to be taken out and cleaned and the loss of days hire, Steve could only ask if there was any good news. This is likely to cost more than the flights over here and all because of the bloody fruit fly…….
One new van later and we are on our way again and suddenly the views are spectacular where the bottom of Australia meets the Southern Ocean. Fortunately we had booked into a terrific sounding campsite by phone after reading a description of it with koala’s, parrots and numerous other native wildlife, in its grounds. We arrive to find a notice about snakes on the grounds and what Not to do should you come across them and what to do should you be bitten…….. The lady booking us in gave the game away a little when she said, “You’ll have to understand that this is our peak summer season” But could today get any worse, No, we thought, but the real answer is, “ YES” The place is a tip, with hundreds of Neanderthals and the like, that Steve really feels uncomfortable around, the toilets don’t even have a wash basin and are the dirtiest Julie has experienced whilst on holiday and so to round off a perfect day, Steve manages to smash his head on a ledge in the van and once again has another scabby spam piece forming……. He pours a glass of red wine to clam down and think nice thoughts but it tastes like poo, he’s going to bed, it’s daylight and a thousand children are running , cycling and screaming around the van whilst Mum, Dad, Aunty Flo, Grandma and all their new friends from the tent next door are drinking and talking around the BBQ……. Steve goes to sleep thinking I hope the snakes visit them tonight……. Surely, It can only get better…..
We awake and the blue sky has been replaced with grey cloud, it has rained during the night and all our fellow campers who have left their clothes, washing, shoes, chairs and all sorts of other things hee hee are all soaking wet. Off goes our still deeply depressed male to the showers, he is the first one in and has the place to himself, great I’ll have a long relaxing shower, he thinks. On goes the water and Steve starts to shower but notices there are more and more midges, flies and things flying around in the steam with him than he cares to think about. Four minutes later, having towel dried several of the little blighters, Steve comes out of the shower block to be dive bombed by a parrot, he gets into the Van, see’s the guy in the tent next door, dipping his toast with vegemite or chocolate spread on into a glass of milk, he makes a decision and states “We are not staying here another night”.
We set off, get as far as the front gate to book out and see a koala in the trees, sod the entrance we are taking pictures….. We book out only to find out the lady who booked us in, booked us in not by name but as ‘ Poms on the Road’. Bless her….. In a slightly happier mood we set off to see if we can find some more koala’s, we walk around the block and see three of them perched up amongst the branches.
Koala 1 Koala 2
Now the thing with koalas is that they sleep for 19 hours a day, so we think we are really lucky to see them eating and moving about. We have to position ourselves almost directly under them to get any good chance of a decent photo. It is at this point that we realise they also crap a lot whilst awake.
Bombs Away
One clean T shirt later and we are off to see the Twelve apostles, it’s raining and the sky is grey but the forecast is for sun this afternoon, so to kill time we go to the most Southern point this being the Otaway Lighthouse. Well worth the visit say’s a British Tourist only to find out, he must have been a lighthouse anorak or was having a laugh, needless to say, as you can imagine there is not a lot of entertainment contained within a disused lighthouse, and we leave feeling for some there is no life after being a lighthouse keeper…..
We get to the Apostles and the sun is shining, the Sea has destroyed Six of them but that as it is, the views are magnificent and well worth the hassle of coming this far South to see them. We continue on around the coast and again words cannot describe how imposing the scenery is.
We decide to head
for Port Fairy a coastal town of little importance, so we thought, oh how
things can change. We book in to a campsite and decide to go out for a meal, we
find about the only restaurant open, ‘Wisharts’ upmarket fish and chip
restaurant, we manage to get a table as there were 15 vacant and order a drink
and a meal with waitress no 1, the drink arrives and is finished prior to the
meal arriving. Waitress no 2 then goes to the table next to us and takes their
order before going back to the kitchen and bringing us our meal, Steve asks for
another drink and she replies ‘But I’m in the middle of serving them’…… We
eventually get another beer as waitress no 1, clears our table sticking the
empty glasses under her arm pit so her hands are free to carry the plates,
Silver Service Australian style…. We then leave to drive the half mile back to
camp, when we are stopped by the local constabulary for a random breath test,
Julie is NOT driving, Steve blows into the bag and is asked for his licence.
Yesterday flashes before Steve’s eyes, he is suddenly thinking of it as being a
Good day and today, turning into the low point of the holiday. Fortunately, the
officer is a likeable, friendly, good looking conscientious officer of the law
who upon seeing Steve’s old warrant card badge, exclaims ‘You’re not Police are
you’ Steve does his impersonation of the nodding dog and is told to GO AWAY in
two words that mean the same but has a total of 3 F’s. Steve goes to sleep
praying for an uneventful day tomorrow, please…..
Do I dare open my eyes! Well what can go wrong today, all we are doing is driving from friendly Port Fairy to Murray Bridge on the Murray River.
Off we set and lo and behold we make it to the campsite on the banks of the river, without incident. We are tired and just want to book in and get the kettle on, a process which should take 5 minutes. Little did we know that, Pam the owner, had obviously watched our approaching vehicle and timed her casual walk across the front of the camp just to coincide with our arrival. She obviously is proud of her site but does not get out much. She promptly makes us wish, Wallaby Hind leg talking Mel was here, she talks and talks and talks, telling us everything there is to know about everything, everywhere in a 100 kilometre radius, we walk out 30 minutes later exhausted, weighed down with 9 tour guides, 4 maps, campsite rules, the key to the showers and some panadol for the earache…..
The Site is quiet and we hide from Pam for the rest of the stay, leaving prior to her getting up, her wake up time being just one of the snippets of info she passed onto us whilst booking in. We continue to Port Augusta, passing through numerous one horse towns en route, the temperature is getting hotter the further North we go, it‘s now 27 degrees and we have been warned that a heat wave is hitting Australia next week, where it will be 37 - 42 degrees, Julie is at last warmish…… A lot of the country here in South Australia could be compared to parts of Britain but without the colour Green as it is in the middle of a drought (Another Pam snippet) and everywhere there are Fire Warnings. We see a field of Olive trees growing and immediately think of home, that is until a flock of grey and pink galahs fly across the road in front of us. We stop en route as Julie states she wants a book on birds, Steve agrees, but Julie refuses to allow Steve to buy the Pirelli calendar and we settle for ‘A photographic guide to Birds of Australia’ We settle into our latest site on the banks of the Spencer Gulf with the Flinders Ranges as a backdrop, where Steve is using up all the provisions to attract the local avian wildlife so as Julie can identify them with the aid of her new book…… Steve starts yearning for Pam……
It’s early evening and so we decide to go for a walk after reading the lonely planets review of Port Augusta ‘ The new wharf side development with grassed foreshore (esplanade) and boardwalk area overlooking the water has revitalised the area’ So off we go to reception and ask the receptionist, a young 18-20yr Australian female, “Can you tell us where the boardwalk esplanade is please” Now I’m not sure if this is an insight into the Australian Psyche or what but she replies “ I don’t know a pub called the esplanade”……
Off we set to see
Uluru, two days of driving across Scrub, Bush and Desert, we see various native
wildlife, one emu being just a bit too
close as it ran out across the road in front of us.. We fill up in a place
called Coober Pedy, this can only be described as what the world will look like
when it comes to its end, was that Mad Max who served us…… We have no option
but to stay in a roadhouse for the night, this is the equivalent of a 1940’s
Motorway service station , our neighbour is sleeping on the grass outside our
camper, we only find out, en route to the toilet block as we nearly trip over
him…….. But then hey, who cares, this is Australia…..
WOW, what an alarm call, two Kookaburra’s are at full blast just outside the windows, we are awake and it’s early, so Julie decides if she’s awake the rest of the camp can be as well and opens the door to the camper and sets the alarm off……. Everyone is awake now, I’ll wait a few minutes she say’s before heading off for a shower, perhaps they won‘t notice…... Off we go to Jervis Bay, miles of white sand and dolphins swimming in the calm crystal clear pacific ocean, problem is we didn’t see them, but according to the locals and about a dozen dolphin watching companies, they are there….. Well if I can’t see the dolphins I’ll buy some shoes…… so off we go in search of footwear. Now imagine this, we are in a one horse forsaken town, with a shoe shop, so guess what, we failed in the shoe finding department….. However the surly waitress that served Steve his iced coffee, with squirty cream instead of ice cream made up for it, not only did Steve pass comment, but the table next to us did as well, he he they thought but then she served them….. Let’s get out of here, the Animal park beckons. Kate the other female travelling with us, inside her man TomTom, gets us there via the local cemetery, fortunately no burials were taking place at the time a camper van travels the one way funeral cortège route, funny sort these poms, I sure was said by the locals watching……. Suddenly we are at Birdworld, this is Amateur hour at its best, grubby people ramping up their facilities way above its true status, especially as a lot of the exhibits were nocturnal animals…… Anyway Julie gets to play with a kangaroo’s ears but pulls back when she see’s it’s also got big teeth…..
I’ll show you what to do Duck rejects parrot
We don’t stop for the train ride or snake demonstration and decide to go food shopping. Steve loves this bit because the female cashiers are all so very very friendly, they all ask after him, they all wish him a nice day, they all talk gibberish and they all appear to descend from the inhabitants of Bletchley…….. Right, next is the first long drive towards Melbourne, let’s keep on driving until we are tired. On and On the road goes and then suddenly, there’s a wild kangaroo jumping along the side of the roadway, wow, that’s a first….. Five hours later as it’s getting dark we pull into a campsite that appears closed, we drive around it, instead of driving away and out pops, Mel the I can talk the hind legs off a wallaby ……… Steve makes the mistake of pretending to be stupid about this camping game and Mel tells us everything from how/where to dump your black water to what time and where the birds will be in the morning…….. Anyways, he lets us in and Julie finds the only toilet without a working light, Mel never told us what to do in this situation so we spend another night of tossing and turning in 30 degree overnight heat……
We awake early enough to catch the sunrise and think, what a beautiful day, little did we know how traumatic and expensive it was going to turn out to be. We set off, knowing it’s a 6 hour drive to the Southern Ocean and the Great Ocean drive along the bottom of Australia where the forest meets the sea except for the small width of white golden sand. Perfect, we think, before we see the sign about the fruit fly, how is this small insignificant fly, whose eggs can lay dormant inside fruit and is then brought into an area where fruit is grown costing the Australian economy millions if it hatches and spreading to the new fruit, going to ruin our day, you may think, Well……
Having seen the signs and knowing that you can be fined for not throwing away your fruit in the dumps provided, we throw our newly purchased Peppers, Tomatoes and Plums away. Eating the bananas we then drive forward not to get stopped, questioned or anything about the contents of our food locker. Bloody fly, we think it cost us about £5 in wasted food…..Little did we know….. We arrive in Melbourne and are in need of refuelling, we check with Kate and she recommends a Shell Service Station 2kms away, No say’s Steve take us to the one 2.3kms away as it has a Supermarket and we can replace the perishable items we have had to throw away. In we drive and up to pump no 9, it has two yellow handled pumps labelled unleaded and a black handled pump labelled Vortex, in goes 80 Aus dollars worth of Vortex and off we go shopping. Half hour later we return and drive off onto the M1 motorway which circumnavigates Melbourne. Being in the middle lane about 5 miles away, we notice a shudder, then a phut phut before Steve is revving but nothing is happening, we roll over to the shoulder, with an engine that has now completely given up and a smell of burning coming from the engine. We call the van hire help line and ask, what is Vortex, they reply to Steve’s horror ‘Premium Unleaded’ Steve’s next few words cannot be repeated, but to say the least he did apologise several times to the lady on the other end of the phone………
Dead Van plus killer man
As we sat eventually in the Melbourne Van hire office with them explaining that not all Garages in Australia sell Diesel, that we will have to pay for the van to be towed off the motorway, the engine to be taken out and cleaned and the loss of days hire, Steve could only ask if there was any good news. This is likely to cost more than the flights over here and all because of the bloody fruit fly…….
One new van later and we are on our way again and suddenly the views are spectacular where the bottom of Australia meets the Southern Ocean. Fortunately we had booked into a terrific sounding campsite by phone after reading a description of it with koala’s, parrots and numerous other native wildlife, in its grounds. We arrive to find a notice about snakes on the grounds and what Not to do should you come across them and what to do should you be bitten…….. The lady booking us in gave the game away a little when she said, “You’ll have to understand that this is our peak summer season” But could today get any worse, No, we thought, but the real answer is, “ YES” The place is a tip, with hundreds of Neanderthals and the like, that Steve really feels uncomfortable around, the toilets don’t even have a wash basin and are the dirtiest Julie has experienced whilst on holiday and so to round off a perfect day, Steve manages to smash his head on a ledge in the van and once again has another scabby spam piece forming……. He pours a glass of red wine to clam down and think nice thoughts but it tastes like poo, he’s going to bed, it’s daylight and a thousand children are running , cycling and screaming around the van whilst Mum, Dad, Aunty Flo, Grandma and all their new friends from the tent next door are drinking and talking around the BBQ……. Steve goes to sleep thinking I hope the snakes visit them tonight……. Surely, It can only get better…..
We awake and the blue sky has been replaced with grey cloud, it has rained during the night and all our fellow campers who have left their clothes, washing, shoes, chairs and all sorts of other things hee hee are all soaking wet. Off goes our still deeply depressed male to the showers, he is the first one in and has the place to himself, great I’ll have a long relaxing shower, he thinks. On goes the water and Steve starts to shower but notices there are more and more midges, flies and things flying around in the steam with him than he cares to think about. Four minutes later, having towel dried several of the little blighters, Steve comes out of the shower block to be dive bombed by a parrot, he gets into the Van, see’s the guy in the tent next door, dipping his toast with vegemite or chocolate spread on into a glass of milk, he makes a decision and states “We are not staying here another night”.
We set off, get as far as the front gate to book out and see a koala in the trees, sod the entrance we are taking pictures….. We book out only to find out the lady who booked us in, booked us in not by name but as ‘ Poms on the Road’. Bless her….. In a slightly happier mood we set off to see if we can find some more koala’s, we walk around the block and see three of them perched up amongst the branches.
Koala 1 Koala 2
Now the thing with koalas is that they sleep for 19 hours a day, so we think we are really lucky to see them eating and moving about. We have to position ourselves almost directly under them to get any good chance of a decent photo. It is at this point that we realise they also crap a lot whilst awake.
Bombs Away
One clean T shirt later and we are off to see the Twelve apostles, it’s raining and the sky is grey but the forecast is for sun this afternoon, so to kill time we go to the most Southern point this being the Otaway Lighthouse. Well worth the visit say’s a British Tourist only to find out, he must have been a lighthouse anorak or was having a laugh, needless to say, as you can imagine there is not a lot of entertainment contained within a disused lighthouse, and we leave feeling for some there is no life after being a lighthouse keeper…..
We get to the Apostles and the sun is shining, the Sea has destroyed Six of them but that as it is, the views are magnificent and well worth the hassle of coming this far South to see them. We continue on around the coast and again words cannot describe how imposing the scenery is.
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| Loch Ard |
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| The Apostles |
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| The Gorge |
Do I dare open my eyes! Well what can go wrong today, all we are doing is driving from friendly Port Fairy to Murray Bridge on the Murray River.
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| Murray River |
Off we set and lo and behold we make it to the campsite on the banks of the river, without incident. We are tired and just want to book in and get the kettle on, a process which should take 5 minutes. Little did we know that, Pam the owner, had obviously watched our approaching vehicle and timed her casual walk across the front of the camp just to coincide with our arrival. She obviously is proud of her site but does not get out much. She promptly makes us wish, Wallaby Hind leg talking Mel was here, she talks and talks and talks, telling us everything there is to know about everything, everywhere in a 100 kilometre radius, we walk out 30 minutes later exhausted, weighed down with 9 tour guides, 4 maps, campsite rules, the key to the showers and some panadol for the earache…..
The Site is quiet and we hide from Pam for the rest of the stay, leaving prior to her getting up, her wake up time being just one of the snippets of info she passed onto us whilst booking in. We continue to Port Augusta, passing through numerous one horse towns en route, the temperature is getting hotter the further North we go, it‘s now 27 degrees and we have been warned that a heat wave is hitting Australia next week, where it will be 37 - 42 degrees, Julie is at last warmish…… A lot of the country here in South Australia could be compared to parts of Britain but without the colour Green as it is in the middle of a drought (Another Pam snippet) and everywhere there are Fire Warnings. We see a field of Olive trees growing and immediately think of home, that is until a flock of grey and pink galahs fly across the road in front of us. We stop en route as Julie states she wants a book on birds, Steve agrees, but Julie refuses to allow Steve to buy the Pirelli calendar and we settle for ‘A photographic guide to Birds of Australia’ We settle into our latest site on the banks of the Spencer Gulf with the Flinders Ranges as a backdrop, where Steve is using up all the provisions to attract the local avian wildlife so as Julie can identify them with the aid of her new book…… Steve starts yearning for Pam……
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| Devon without the Grass |
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| Crested Pidgeon |
It’s early evening and so we decide to go for a walk after reading the lonely planets review of Port Augusta ‘ The new wharf side development with grassed foreshore (esplanade) and boardwalk area overlooking the water has revitalised the area’ So off we go to reception and ask the receptionist, a young 18-20yr Australian female, “Can you tell us where the boardwalk esplanade is please” Now I’m not sure if this is an insight into the Australian Psyche or what but she replies “ I don’t know a pub called the esplanade”……
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| The Long Road North |
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| A Typical Watering Hole |
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