September 2004

Week 75: Monday 30th August to Sunday 5th September

After checking out, we went to the lookout and…. er…. looked out. After that we did a spot of shopping and refueling before heading off to the border of Northern Territory and South Australia. After lunching at the border we carried on driving to Coober Pedy and refueled again. We did an awful lot of driving and by around 7pm we reached Glendambo, where we had planned to stop the night. Unfortunately we the place had no cabins and we didn’t fancy braving the cold windy night in the tent, so we carried on driving another 220kms to Woomera. Woomera, as many people may remember is the place where the British government tested rockets and was home to many military personnel. Now it is a sad looking town with horrible barrack style housing. We found the local caravan park and knocked on the office door. It was well past closing time and so there we were knackered, hungry and generally not in good moods. On top of that was the fact that there was nowhere to stay, the prospect of sleeping in Felix wasn’t too endearing. So, in situations like this you look for solutions, what we did was single out an empty cabin, sneaked up, knocked on the door and when nobody answered we checked the door. Luckily for us, it was open and inside we found a very comfortable cabin with a double bed, 4 bunks, kitchenette and a TV. It would be silly not to take it, so that is what we did, all very quietly of course, and ate, relaxed and slept.

Another early start for us and as there was still nobody around to take payment - well we didn’t look too hard! – we drove out of the back exit and took a quick look around town. It was pretty grim, with the only notable attraction being the odd collection of missiles at the side of the main street. We were soon on our way to Adelaide, our next main stop; we made it there after a lunch stop in Port Augusta. The end of another long day driving saw us arrive in Adelaide and checking into Sunny’s hostel before doing the normal look around and checking out the nightlife. This time it meant popping into the small but cool Grace Emily pub. Tuesday was apparently movie night and we were treated to lycra clad David Bowie in Labyrinth.

Apart from checking out the old train to the beach at Adelaide and eating fish & chips by the beach, we did very little on Wednesday. That was then topped off by visiting the Grace Emily again for a few rounds of pool.

Thursday was a day for doing some serious and responsible stuff. Ever since we had bought Felix we had not transferred the name from the previous owners. Yes, illegal and every time we saw a police car we were very wary. So, we went to the car registration office and transferred the car into Liam’s name and renewed the registration. We had waited till Adelaide as Felix was originally from South Australia and so it was less hassle to do the business there. It was just a shame we had to wait until almost the last few miles till we did it. Next job was to fix the mess the kangaroo did to the bonnet and headlight. We drove to a car spares place and had a new light fitted and the kindly bashed out a bit of the dent to make the car look a little prettier. The guys there said that really we should get the car looked at, but we chose to politely ignore them, we don’t think they wanted to rip us off, but it would have cost a fair bit. That night was spent going to the cinema and then PJ’s for a few bevies.

We checked out of Sunny’s and started our drive down the coast towards the border with New South Wales. We were looking forward to the next few days of driving as it would be along the Great Ocean Road, famous for its spectacular views along the rough and sheer coastline. We arrived in Nelson quite late and found ourselves a cabin and after a pub lunch relaxed in our rather cold accommodation.

We were up early and ready to start the scenic drive to Melbourne. Soon we hit the Great Ocean Road and were met by stunning vistas, a bit dangerous for the driver as it was so distracting! We made several stops along the way, at viewpoints and little walks; each time we hopped out we were nearly blown away by the force of the wind. On the South coast the winds are pretty fierce and the sea reflects that, as does the form of the coastline. The first major point of interest was London Bridge. An arch from the main land that is now a stump. Apparently one day a couple was walking along the outcrop of land, following the path and while they were in the middle of it, the archway collapsed, leaving them stranded on the remaining part. Pretty lucky to not have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. We saw a few blowholes too with thundering noises from the tide and the 12 apostles, which is more like 8. Impressive all the same, great stumps of land separated from the coast and standing alone in a line, the viewpoint was full of tourists though. That night we stopped at a hostel called surfside and enjoyed the quirky hominess of the place in the evening.

On Sunday we carried on along the coast, taking in yet more amazing views and this time spotting a few Koalas too. After checking out Erskine falls we headed to Bells Beach, ask any surfer and they will tell you it is one of the most famous surfing beaches in the world. When we arrived it was packed with cars and campervans with surfer dudes and their equipment. Fair play to them, they go out in all weather, it wasn’t raining but it wasn’t very nice either. We stopped at the beach and watched the surfers do their stuff in the freezing cold sea before going on to check out another Torquay. As it was Sunday it was pretty quiet and not as hip as we thought it would be for being so close to Bells Beach. We carried on driving to Melbourne and admired the city skyline as we approached. Instead of staying in the city centre of Melbourne we opted for St Kilda, a more laid back part of the city and checked into a great old house after searching for quite a while. We went out to find some food and found a burger bar close by and as we were strolling along we saw a deli that had a special on with its beer, so we decided to sample the beer and sat out on the pavement and drank numerous beers from the mini bar in the deli.

Week 76: Monday 6th to Sunday 12th September

We got up early and went to town. After sorting a few things out we went over to Federation square and the neighbouring art gallery. Federation square is the new central focus off Melbourne City Centre which is just across the road from the iconic Flinders Street station, and which plays host to many civil events and cheap publicity stunts, whilst we were there, there was a band living in a glass house, Big Brother esque, where they played to live for a few weeks whilst writing a new album. It formed part of a TV show called Band in a Bubble. Being from the sophisticated, discerncerning, high brow genre of travellers we headed straight for the Art Gallery. The Gallery was pretty interesting and kept us occupied for a good couple of hours. There were many good examples of Aboriginal art, and specialist exhibitions including one dedicated to the great Victorian tradition of Aussie Rules Football. Later we got the tram to the Victorian Parliament House. We were shown around by knowledgeable tour guides and had the history of the building and the State explained to us. Before Canberra was built Melbourne and Sydney were getting awfully uptight about which one of them should hold the status as National Capital. The compromise was Canberra but from 1901 until Canberra was built, Melbourne and her Parliament house functioned as the seat of Government. Melbourne went through a period of huge economic growth during this time due manly to the large amount of gold discovered; which by some complete fluke was found just a week after Victoria won independence from New South Wales. We continued along the tram before walking along the river. We caught our tram back to St Kilda and that evening went to Prince of Wales pub, which is a rather strange mix between being quite a spit and sawdust and student type pub on one side and an overtly, camp as Christmas gay pub on the other side. None of which got in the way of us dominating the pool table all evening showing the locals yet again how its done.

We checked out and early and begun the drive to Canberra. It was twisty roads most of the way as the drive takes you through the heart of the Snowy Mountains. It is a rather strange site when you drive through town after town offering Ski Hire and Ski Passes, which when you’ve spent the last 8 months on tropical beaches and dusty arid deserts, and you haven’t left the country is odd. After dodging a high number of random creatures that enjoying taking evening constitutionals on the highway we stopped at the ACT border – the last mainland state or terrortory we had left to visit. We arrived in the capital to wet weather and a complex road system which took almost as much time to negotiate as the Trans-Siberian Railway took to get to Vladivostock. When we did find the hostel it was full, and rather expensive looking so we found ourselves a suitably dingy looking place which had space. We ate at McDonalds that evening before planning our next days site seeing and going to bed.

In the morning we drove to Telstra tower which is in itself quite a small tower, but they’ve cheated a put it on top of a big big hill. It does look a little dated but the good thing was it is one of the few towers where we could go outside to enjoy the few. Thankfully there were ten foot high fences around the top as it was quite possible the gale force winds could have blew us all the wack back to Adelaide. We then drove to the war memorial which exceded all our expectations and turned out to be a very informative and large museum concerning all aspects of all the conflicts the Australian forces had been unlucky enough to get involved in. We began our walking tour, which we had devised with the help of the lonely planet. We walked through the embassy district, which is interesting as the Australian government had and still asks that nations build there embassies in the traditional style of their country, some such as the Chinese and Bangladeshi buildings are quite impressive… okay we know we’re sad, we can’t help it, we just enjoy looking at embassies. We finished of at the grass covered Parliament for an interesting tour, in which we sat in the debating chambers, saw one of only four copies of the Magna Carta and climbed to the roof which gave great views of what is a beautiful city. Some may say its quite boring and artifical looking but essentially Canberra is a pretty place, even if the whole place has the feel of being one big Museum. We finished our walk back at the War Memorial and then drove back to the room. As well as being home to thousands of Civil Servants and Politicians Canberra also has quite a thriving student population. This was reflected in the Phoenix, our pub for the evening, where it seemed none had the clientele had seen a bar of soap for over 7 years. Canberra we later found out has more lesbians per capita than any other Australian city; on hindsight there were more than likely a few there that evening, and if we had been informed of this fact before we left the city, we might still be there now.

Our last day on the road. We went to National Museum which as we had come to expect from Canberra’s museums was great and then began the drive to Sydney. We passed into NSW in the afternoon, and before we could say Sydney Harbour Bridge we were back to city which had given us so many great memories 6 months earlier. We had done it; completed our circuit of Australia and remarkably so had Felix, now all we had to do was con some poor unsuspecting fool to buy the bloody thing. Liam and Rich went and visited their old friends at Synergy whilst Matt and Phil check us into a great hostel in Kings Cross. That evening we went out for a curry and chilled: happy and content having completed yet another memorable trip.

Rich and Liam wasted no time and went to work, which they thoughly enjoyed, whilst Matt and Phil sorted out a car advert and cleaned Felix. Later we met Tyronne, our mate from Korea at Central Station. He decided to come down for a couple of days whilst we were still in town and that evening we got drunk on the hostel roof talking about ‘old times’ before polishing off the evening at the World bar and Empire night club.

Rich and Liam spent the morning working at some very rich bloke’s house, clearing out his cellar. They were very well paid for it and even got fed which was very welcome. That evening we decided we should go out for Korean meal with Ty, later we went to one of our old haunts the Shark Bar and watched football, here we also bumped into the bar girls we met in Cloncurry months ago. They were now pulling pints at the shark bar, which was a very strange coincidence.

We said goodbye to Tyronne whom we had had a great couple of days with before later catching up with Sarah who we had met in Kununurra when working. We decided to spend the evening in another of our favourite pubs the ridiculously cheap Pavillion. We back in Sydney and it was a strange feeling, being back in the city where we had met so many people, all of whom had moved on. It was strange to think that we wouldn’t be travelling around as four on tour any more, but at least we never had to stay in that tent again.


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