It was after the Olympics finished in Sydney in September 2000 that we started shopping around for a vehicle that would take us not quite the length and breadth of Australia, but at least some of the way around this vast country. Our mission was to drive the west coast, from Darwin to Perth, in time to spend Christmas with friends.
Shopping around for second hand vehicles in those days meant hot-footing it around all the hostel notice boards searching the “for sale” ads, and then finding phone boxes to call the sellers and arrange viewings. No mobile phones for trawling the internet back then!
In early October we found “Spot”, a 17 year old (1983) Nissan Urvan pop-top camper van. Spot had already done a few miles around the clock, and he came complete with pretty much everything we needed for an Aussie road trip. There was a lounge area which doubled up as a bed, a fully equipped kitchen with gas stove, a 3-way fridge, and a microwave. He even had a tiny TV, and a CB radio! He had a 40 litre water tank, and the shower was a portable solar shower bag. The toilet was a shovel for digging a hole! There was a great big lockable box secured on the back of the van to store the awning, the camping table and chairs, and other miscellaneous stuff.
Spot the pop top camper van
We paid a whopping AU$7,000 in hard cash (the equivalent of about £3,000 back then) to a couple of backpackers who’d already had their time in the van touring around Australia.
We christened the van Spot because we picked him up in a place called The Spot in Randwick, an eastern suburb of Sydney, and plus what 17 year old doesn’t know about spots!
We hit the road on the 10th October, and by the 13th the van was in the garage for major repairs having lost the gearbox! Not a great start to our tour down under, but considering that was our only major mechanical issue in an adventure that took us almost 18,000kms (11,250 miles) wasn’t too bad in our opinion. We did get one puncture, and after an incident with a kamikaze kangaroo we suffered a bit of damage to our water tank, but those are stories in their own right!
Replacing the gearbox early doors!
After five months of adventure on some of the most remarkable roads we said goodbye to Spot in Perth in February 2001 when we sold him for around AU$5,000 to a couple from Dublin starting their Aussie road trip.
Spot next to a mining truck in Western Australia
Van Life Lessons
We learned a lot about van life and van travel in those five months in Australia:
A fixed bed is an essential for us. Despite taking only 5 minutes twice a day to put the bed up and take it down, it becomes the most detested chore! Not only do you have to find space for the bedding, but if one of you wants to go to bed and the other doesn’t then you have a stand-off!
Even with a pop-up top it is difficult for anyone 6ft or more to stand up straight.
Having the ability to survive off-grid and be self-sufficient opens up so many more places to you. It takes a bit of planning though especially when there are no services for miles and miles.
Water is the most precious natural resource. Always carry more than you think you’ll need.
Digging your daily toilet hole wears thin! Much easier to have a waterless or chemical free loo on-board that doesn’t need emptying daily.
Air conditioning is pointless as once you switch it off it is a lot harder to acclimatise. Keep the windows down and feel the wind in your hair!
A 3-way fridge will not work in very hot climates no matter what the power source!
There is no such thing as mosquito nets that work – there will always be at least one that finds its way through.
Well here we are in Melbourne with only a matter of days left in Australia. This is a long weekend in Victoria (Labour Day) and we will spend it with friends at a house by a lake, a couple of hours north of Melbourne.
Our flight from Perth to Melbourne was fairly uneventful and we arrived safely on a Friday night. Our friends Vito and Natalie took us straight to the buzzing Chapel Street where we enjoyed a fantastic Japanese meal. Melbourne is just full of cafes and restaurants, and the city seemed so big, busy, chic and sophisticated after the more laid back culture of Perth. We were able to spend the weekend catching up with another friend Jan and her family before setting sail for Tasmania on Monday night.
Ferry from Melbourne to Tasmania
Tasmania (the land under down under) is just a fantastic state to visit and we are so glad that we made it there, even if it was only for 10 days. The whirlwind tour was helped by the fact that we had glorious weather for 8½ days which made camping in our little tent a real delight (but of course we did miss Spot and all his luxuries.)
Back to the two-man tent in Tasmania!
Our first stop was the quaint little town of Stanley on the north coast; then two nights in Cradle Mountain where the walking was wonderful and the views just breathtaking. Apparently they only have one clear blue sky day in every ten, so we were thankful for the luck of the Irish to have two consecutive days there with blue cloudless skies – it was just beautiful. From there we drove (we had a hired car) to Strahan in the west, and joined a riverboat cruise on the Gordon River before heading to Lake St. Clair.
Hobart, Tasmania’s capital, was our next stop and what a surprise it was – a lovely clean city that seemed to be a perfect size for living in! The convict settlement of Port Arthur was not what we expected, but in all it’s historical misery was still well worth a visit.
HobartPort Arthur
We spent our last couple of nights in Coles Bay on the east coast and explored a little of Freycinet National Park – again great walking tracks and stunning scenery, and we had the added pleasure of watching five dolphins playing in the bay!
Wineglass Bay, Freycinet National Park, Tasmania
Tasmania is a definite must if ever any of you visit this land of Oz – we have travelled on a lot of roads (none of them yellow brick) and we haven’t managed to find the wizard yet, but we thank our lucky stars that we have been able to visit some of it’s most magical places over the past six months!
We fly to Auckland, New Zealand next Wednesday so that’s it from Australia for now.
This post is just a quickie to let you know that we have found Spot a good home.
After travelling just under 18,000kms (11,250 miles), we sold him yesterday to a couple from Dublin who are planning to drive around Oz for 3 months. We didn’t get quite as much as we initially had hoped for, but with the time on our visa running out we felt it better to take the cash and move on. We had mixed emotions selling him – Shaz was sad, Dave was more glad.
Meanwhile we have had a lovely couple of weeks in Perth lounging around and catching up with friends. We ate out on St. Valentine’s Day for the first time ever and had one of the very best Chinese meals compliments of Alison and James. We were lucky enough to be able to meet up with John and Carole Bernard (friends of Sue & Ilan) who treated us to a fabulous meal during their stopover in Perth. In fact we have done quite a bit of eating out and now desperately need to do a lot of working out! Mind you we did hire a tandem to ride around Rottnest Island at the weekend so maybe that counts as something.
Anyway we will be on our way out of Perth this Friday, and for the first time in almost six months we will board an aeroplane. We fly to Melbourne where we will catch up with more friends, and take a 10-day trip to Tasmania – a first for both of us.
Here we are back in Perth again having completed our tour of the southwest, and bringing to an end our road trip through Western Australia (staying with the Cottons is becoming our second home these days!).
It is also, sadly, going to be the end of our time with Spot – the next leg of our journey is a flight to Melbourne so he is up for sale, but we will stay in Perth until we make sure he goes to a good home!
Many of you will be glad to know that you are not the only ones experiencing inclement weather. We have had some heavy rain, very strong winds and somewhat cooler days than we have been used to lately – we even had to get our raincoats and long trousers out in Albany! But of course more often than not we have the glorious sunny days of an Australian summer.
The cooler weather was really perfect for exploring the southern forest national parks and the tall tree region – magnificent forests of towering karri trees. We both got our adrenalin going by climbing to the top of two fire lookout trees – one was 51m, and the other 68m, and the birds eye views were fantastic. Climbing the trails in the Stirling Ranges was not as much fun as we both ached for days afterwards.
Apart from the weird weather leaving us ‘Spot bound’ on occasions, the last few weeks have been a little frustrating for another reason. It has been very difficult to find maps and up to date information on the national parks – in one instance we were told the roads were in great condition, but were not told that one of the main access roads was closed, and had been for the last year! It meant we had gone way out of our way just to end up really disappointed, but c’est la vie, you win some, you lose some.
Anyway the disappointment was soon forgotten as a couple of hours later we found a beautiful, secluded camping spot right on the beach in Waychinicup National Park.
Camping area in Waychinicup National Park
We arrived in Esperance on 1 February in the rain, but luckily it was gone the next day and we headed out to Cape Le Grand national park – stunning white sandy beaches with the clearest blue water we have ever seen. When we weren’t snorkelling or walking, Dave spent time polishing Spot in preparation for selling, while Shaz just read and watched the wildlife.
The one time Shaz wished we had a video camera was when a kangaroo decided to fight Dave over a box of food which our neighbour campers had foolishly left outside. The scene was hysterical and like something from a comedy as the roo and Dave tried to stare each other out while each was trying to hold onto the box! Eventually the ranger came and managed to chase the roo away by throwing a bucket at him!
Dave and Skippy having a stand off!
The gold mining town of Kalgoorlie was our next stop, where incidentally it was an Irish man by the name of Paddy Hannan who discovered the gold there. It was a lovely town and it was fascinating to go down the pit to see how all the gold used to be mined, as well as seeing how it is done today. Needless to say our travelling budget did not extend to buying any of the local produce!
Kalgoorlie Mine
Our last official night ‘on the road’ was spent at a campsite at Southern Cross, about halfway between Kalgoorlie and Perth and it felt really fitting to finish our road trip on a relatively long drive.
We will now stay in Perth until Spot is sold, but hopefully it won’t take too long as we would like to spend some time in Melbourne and Tasmania – we have about 5 weeks left on our visa. Where have the last 5 months gone??
Here is the first instalment of this year and no doubt there will be more. Happy New Year to you all!
We had a really lovely Christmas with Al and James (and Debbie a friend of theirs from Stamford) – typical Aussie style with a visit to the beach followed by a BBQ. Dave did not let the Schindler family tradition go amiss and did his bit by making the champagne cocktails.
We then spent a few days around the Perth area catching up with friends. We brought in the New Year at the Trots (pony and trap racing) with Shaz having the most successful bet of the night (her only one) – great celebrations with a fantastic firework display to finish the evening.
We had one very stressful day trying to work out the motor vehicle regulations in WA – Spot’s registration was due, but as we bought him in New South Wales the regulations were different. Anyway we eventually persuaded NSW to allow us to re-register by post as at one stage we thought we might have to drive back to Sydney!
We even had one evening apart (the first in 3 ½ months) in Perth, which was something of a novelty if not rather strange. Shaz went on a girls night out with Al and Debbie, and Dave went to watch Tottenham v Ipswich at a friend’s house.
We started heading south from Perth on 3rd January and quickly got back into our ‘on the road’ routine. Al and James joined us for a great camping weekend at a lovely place called Peppermint Beach – we even managed to find an Indian restaurant to finish the weekend off in. The Chapman family who we also know from Perth just happened to be in the campsite next to us!
Our next stop was the Margaret River wine region where we took daily turns at driving so that we could both sample the local wines. We stayed in and around the region for five days and enjoyed watching the massive waves (apparently some of the best surf in the world, but we didn’t give it a go) and we also went ‘down under’ into a couple of limestone caves.
It has been rather strange the last couple of weeks for three reasons.
Firstly the climate has changed dramatically from the heat of the north – we are now enjoying much cooler weather (average 25 degrees) and even have to sleep under the duvet at night.
Secondly the distances we have to travel between places is so short – we have been used to planning food, petrol, etc for 400-600km trips and now we pass a town every 50kms.
And finally it is school holiday time here and most everywhere is very busy – something we are not at all used to, having often had campsites to ourselves. But saying that we are still meeting some lovely people. Only last Saturday night in beautiful Hamelin Bay the Aussie family next to us invited Dave out fishing (and he did catch one this time!), and had us both over to dinner – abalone, cray fish, steak, sausage and kebabs all washed down with some local wine! The Aussie people are on the whole very friendly and hospitable, not unlike the Irish!
We are now in Manjimup, the starting point for our next leg of the journey – exploring the Southern Forests area and getting back into the National Parks which we both love.
That’s all for now folks, please keep your news updates coming, we love hearing from you.
First of all Seasons Greetings to one and all. Belated Chanukah Greetings to our Jewish contingent and to you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year – we will be thinking of you.
We arrived safely in Perth yesterday and it is just lovely to be staying with friends again; we have not been in a home since we stayed with Wally in Sydney back in October!
As usual we have covered a lot of miles since we last wrote and again been lucky enough to see some fantastic sights – Western Australia is such a huge state with some stunning and varied landscapes, but with vast distances between towns. We have also been managing to stay ahead of the wet season weather and thankfully missed the tropical cyclone ‘Sam’ by 4 days when it hit the north west coast!
Western Australia Highlights
It was very difficult to drag ourselves away from the beautiful Cable Beach, but after a 6 hour drive when we found ourselves camped up at Eighty Mile Beach the hardship was soon forgotten. It was turtle nesting season so at 2am we were on the beach trying to spot the female turtles, but unfortunately saw only hundreds of crabs – it was the next morning when we found out that we were only about 50 yards from where the turtles had laid their eggs. Oh well, maybe there will be a next time!
We had a couple more nights on the coast before it was time to go back inland to visit a highly recommended national park – Karijini (Hamersley Ranges) – we were not to be disappointed and this was yet another highlight of our trip. It was just spectacular – sheer red rocky gorges which we walked, swam and climbed through. We met a couple of rock climbing Aussies who let us tag along with them for a day and we climbed and abseiled through some fantastic gorges.
Karijini National Park, Western Australia
It was this same hot day when we got back to our campsite and met some Aboriginal guys who shared their beer with us and more importantly gave us their ice before they left so we could have cold drinks in the evening – such a luxury! We spent 4 nights in Karijini at which stage Shaz’s hair was at the dreadlock stage – it was good to get showers (and a steak treat – it was Mrs Brunt’s birthday) at the campsite in the mining town of Tom Price.
Spot next to a mining truck in the town of Tom Price
We decided to camp a night at a sheep station (Giralia), but found out when we arrived that we had missed the shearing by a week – again maybe there will be a next time! Still we had a lovely evening with one of the stationhands and again were given cold beer – the luck of the Irish was back in force!!
Our next national park was also fantastic – Cape Range National Park on the Ningaloo Reef – we camped on the beach and spent our days snorkelling and reading (oh Dave did take breaks to watch the Australia v West Indies test match). The coral and marine life that we saw was something else – even in knee deep water we saw reef sharks, rays and millions of little fish. The colours were just stunning. Neither of us have been to the Great Barrier Reef on the east coast of Australia, but the Ningaloo Reef and Coral Bay were super impressive and not at all crowded – it is a must for any of you who ever get out this way.
Coral Bay, Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia
We then visited the World Heritage site of Shark Bay and viewed the stromatolites – apparently the oldest living creatures (3.5 billion years! as visited by Bill Bryson in his ‘Down Under’ book).
Shark Bay
Monkey Mia is also in Shark Bay and famous for it’s dolphins that swim to shore everyday, well that is except for the day that we were there (that Irish luck had run out again). It was really, really windy so when the dolphins didn’t show we didn’t hang around, plus we were really keen now to get to Perth. So it was one more stop at the Pinnacles Desert – thousands of limestone pillars standing in the sand – and now here we are in Perth.
At the Pinnacles Desert, Western Australia
Christmas Day will be spent with Alison and James and some of their friends, time on the beach and then a BBQ on their balcony – life is hard!!
We’ll post again next year. Thank you all for your Christmas Greetings and have a great festive season.
Hi, we're Sharon & Dave an active and adventurous Irish & English couple who've been travelling together for more than 20 years. These posts are our travel stories and personal journeys. Follow our adventures to see where we've been and where we're going next!
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