Australia Travel Diary 2000 Part 3

Australia, Road Trips, Travel, Van Life, Van Travel

4,000kms later

9 November 2000, Darwin, Northern Territory Australia

As you can see from the title we have travelled a little further! The reasons why will follow in a moment.

After Forster we spent a couple of days camping at a place called Kylies Beach in Crowdy Bay National Park. It was simply stunning. We practically had the long, golden sandy beach to ourselves – there were two fisherman we had to share with! The bush campsite was small and had more kangaroos than people. We managed to get a photo or two of Skippy with Joey in the pouch! The other highlight was a family of koala bears – the father sleeping, while the little baby clung on to the mother – it was such a lovely sight to see.

Getting a move on

It was here in Kylies that we met some Aussie truck drivers who recommended we get a move on towards the Northern Territory if we wanted to see anything of that area.

The wet season up here is from November to March, with the really heavy rain from December onwards making many roads impassable. When we last wrote we were travelling very slowly and not driving any more than 250 kms in a day. We were taking life very easy, and at that rate we would never make it to the Northern Territory, or Western Australia. The area that we both really want to see is the route from Darwin to Perth. So it was a case of putting the foot to the floor and moving onwards and upwards!

Four long days of driving

For those of you who are tracking our route on the map we drove from New South Wales into Queensland, then eventually into the Northern Territory on the following route between Saturday 28 Oct and Tuesday 31 Oct (the asterisk denotes an overnight stop):

Kylies Beach – Wauchope – Walcha- Tamworth – Gunnedah – Narrabi* – Moree – Goondiwindi – St. George – Mitchell – Augathella – Tambo* – Blackall – Barcaldine – Longreach – Winton – Kynuna – McKinlay – Cloncurry – Mt. Isa* – Camooweal – Barkly Homestead – Three Ways – Elliott

Many of these places may not be marked on the map, as all they were was a petrol station with the population listed as nominal!

It was about 4,000 kms in total and there were stages of the journey we did not meet another vehicle for two hours at a time, although we did see thousands of kangaroos. One unfortunate roo decided to run into the driver’s door as opposed to the roo bar on the front of Spot! We saw hundreds of emus, a few herd of cattle (we spoke to some cowboys moving their herd of 1,600 cattle to new pastures and they reckoned they would be there by Christmas), and a flock of sheep or two! Many of the places we went through lay claim to be the home of the Flying Doctor Service and the School of the Air offering medical and educational services to these very isolated communities. Winton and Longreach are where the airline Qantas began.

Luckily we had managed to buy a few classic cassette tapes at the start of our journey – John Denver, BB King, Hits from the 70’s and everyone’s favourite Country’s Classic Collection – anything to relieve the boredom of driving through areas with nothing to see!

We also amused ourselves with betting games, for example “I bet you the dishes tonight that the next vehicle will be a road train” (a cab with 3 containers hooked on the back and around 150 metres long) or “the next vehicle we see will be in 28 minutes” – we’re sure you get the idea!

Anyway we survived the drive and only shredded one tyre in the heat of the day and which Dave managed to change in record time – perhaps a career in Formula 1 awaits him!

The Northern Territory

We are now back on the taking it easy wavelength and it feels good. We spent a couple of nights camping in Katherine, then Edith Falls and then 4 days in Kakadu National Park (of Crocodile Dundee fame). Kakadu is a World Heritage site for both cultural and environmental reasons and it is just awesome, but needs some urgent visitor/people management before its natural beauty is destroyed. It is roughly the size of God’s own country (Ireland for those of you who didn’t know) and it is full of the most amazing plant, animal and bird life as well as home to many Aboriginal people. We cruised on the Yellow River wetlands to see the crocs and the bird life and took a 4-wheel drive tour to a couple of gorges and waterfalls as well as trying to walk early in the mornings to view the Aboriginal rock art. We would have stayed longer in Kakadu, but to see it at its best you need a 4-wheel drive as already many of the roads are turning to flood ways.

Hot and humid

It is now the build up to the wet season and the weather is very, very hot (we have had several days over 40 degrees) and very humid too, but there is no shortage of cold beer or swimming pools (without crocs) to cool off in. We have witnessed a couple of minor electrical storms, nothing major yet, but living in hope.

The flies and mosquitoes are very annoying (Dave currently has about 15 bites on one ankle and Shaz has had horrible reactions to some other insect bites), but we are putting up with them, just about!

While in Darwin we are staying in a hotel for 2 nights. Spot is having a quick service after his long haul getting us here, and it is just lovely to have baths, air conditioning, clean fluffy towels and crisp linen sheets.

Until the next time…

Australia Travel Diary 2000 Part 2

Australia, Road Trips, Travel, Van Life, Van Travel

Buying a camper van

24 October 2000, Forster, New South Wales

Well since we last wrote we have purchased our travelling companion – a camper van we have christened Spot.

Spot is so called because we bought him in a place called “The Spot” in Randwick, Sydney. Spot is a 1983 Nissan Urvan Campervan with a pop-up top and we have everything we need and more – front doors, back door, side door, one double bedroom (it doubles up as a front or rear facing bedroom depending on where we actually face when we sleep in it), fully fitted kitchen with gas stove, fridge and microwave, comfortable lounge with large screen TV (well 10 inches maybe), stereo system (no tapes yet to play on it) and CB radio (we haven’t got a handle yet, so suggestions are welcome), and we have a storage box on the back. The bathroom is of course en suite and designed au naturel! Spot also has a 5 speed gearbox, well had until Shaz started driving it – more of that later!

Road Trip

We said goodbye to Wally in Sydney on Tuesday 10 October and officially started our Australian road trip.

Our first stop was Katoomba in the Blue Mountains where we camped up and got used to what Spot had to offer as well as doing a few very scenic walks through the mountains – really beautiful. We also camped at Blackheath and did some walks from there.

It was now time to head on into the Hunter Valley, we were getting thirsty and the area produces wine by the gallon. It is also an area full of stud farms. We arrived on Friday the 13th in torrential rain in a small little town called Denman in the Upper Hunter.

By the time we woke up the following morning it was drying up so we headed for the vineyards for some wine tasting. We decided not to visit the stud farms as Shaz is more than happy with her own stud! But as sure as Dave is the son of Ilan he had to buy wine from each of the three vineyards we visited, like father, like son.

Back again to the gearbox escapade. Just as we were driving out of our last vineyard, Spot decided to part company with it. We were towed back to the campsite within 15 minutes by the NRMA (the Oz equivalent of the AA), but knew that it was going to be Monday before we had a diagnosis and then a few more days to get the necessary parts and complete the repairs. The campsite owners were brilliant and gave us a cheap deal on a 6-berth caravan for the duration. We managed to enjoy the time in sleepy Denman, and everyone knew us, and our story of bad luck, by the time we left on Thursday in another downpour.

Our next stop was Lake Glenbawn, a fisherman’s paradise. We rented a boat and tried our luck – Shaz got two bites, but couldn’t reel in the huge fish on the end of the line; Dave of course caught the one that got away… At this stage we were starting to question the luck of the Irish – where was it?

We forgot to tell you that Shaz practically lost her shirt at the Randwick Races (this was the day after the Olympics closed and we went to avoid sport withdrawal symptoms setting in), and the only horse Dave made anything on was “The London Banker’; then we had Spot losing the gearbox and now no fish. Anyway we are sure our luck will change so we will keep the faith!

Seriously though we do realise how lucky we are to be doing this trip and are enjoying every minute of it. We watched a couple of the most stunning sunsets over the lake and as much as we enjoyed being there with each other, we also thought of a lot of our friends who we would have loved to have shared it with. It would also have been nice to have some of you around when we were the only people camping in the middle of the forest in Barrington Tops National Park. It was a touch spooky as we were surrounded by mist and couldn’t see more than 6ft ahead. Shaz was petrified to use the en suite facilities as on our way to the park we had to come through a dingo gate. Anyway we lived to tell the tale and it was quite funny taking on the traditional male/female roles – Dave collected wood for the fire and Shaz attempted to cook the dinner.

The cost of living

We haven’t mentioned the price of stuff yet so here goes.

As the days were a little bit harder to fill in Denman Shaz bought a magazine and realised that she had paid 20 cents more for Marie Claire than Dave had spent on two fillet steaks – the grand total of about 2 pounds 70p! Needless to say we are surviving on our budget and cooking three good meals a day.

We are now in Forster in the Great Lakes area of NSW, a town with a population of about 16,000 and tonight is 2 for 1 in the local fish and chippy – we can both eat fish and chips for $5.95 (about 2 pounds 25p).

Tomorrow we celebrate three years of marital bliss and will probably mark the occasion as a treat night and no doubt we will find a restaurant where we can have a seafood platter and maybe even drink wine out of crystal glasses (instead of our blue tumblers from IKEA).

And as we say life goes on…

A word from Dave

As most people have realised our blogs are put together by Shaz. They consist of a daily dairy that I am keeping plus a thoughts and observation diary which she is keeping.

In her first 2 posts Shaz has omitted a daily routine that I have to put up with, it’s called Shaz’s Jump For Joy. Nearly everyday something we do or see makes Shaz do a little skip accompanied by a double clap of the hands and a big smile appears on her face – it’s great.

Last night however this was surpassed, when we were sitting in the van having a drink, quietly celebrating another day. Suddenly Shaz shouts “dolphins” and off we started running down the towpath watching a couple of dolphins swim down the estuary out to sea. Of course this got a double jump and a small squeal of joy.