Sharon and Andy's World Tour 2006

Friday 12 May

Although a close run thing thanks to rush-hour traffic and a spot of tricksy navigation, we returned the Kiss campervan (our trusty accommodation and transport for the last four weeks)

on the stroke of 10am. A 40-minute taxi ride took us to our budget hotel in the heart of Sydney proper. Here, the lure of a freshly-made queen-sized bed proved too much after some 'difficult' nights in the van, and we both fell straight in and slept soundly until late afternoon.

The promise of a much celebrated 'English-style' pub prompted us to take an unexpectedly long but pleasant walk through town in the evening, but on arrival we were slightly disappointed to be met by a familiar looking range of Australian fizzies... naturally though, we made the best of the situation.

Saturday 13 May

This morning was spent gathering up stuff to send home to the UK, including a couple of decent bottles. We lugged all this to Sydney's main Post Office and were hit with a postage bill for around $120 AUD!

To recover from this financial blow we decided to spend the afternoon taking in Hyde Park, the Botanical Gardens and Sydney Harbour. The day was sunny and warm, perfect for taking snaps of those oh-so-well-known landmarks...

Sharon at the Hyde Park fountain

Some opera house or other

Downtown Sydney, viewed from the harbour

After such a cultural day, we decided to round off with an evening at the cinema; a (very good) thriller called "Inside Man" which played to an audience of around 15 people!

Sunday 14 May

Our last full day in Australia. According to our guide book, a 'must-do' for Sydney is to take the famous ferry to Manly.

The hour's journey across the harbour gave a great opportunity to view the many yachts out on the water

Manly itself is reminiscent of Brighton; a bustling, cosmopilitan seaside resort. Today was Mother's Day in Australia and as such the many restaurants were full at lunchtime, but we found an excellent spot for a terrific fish-and chip lunch. Feeling the need to be virtuous and walk this off, we took the steadily climbing walk through town to scenic North Head which offers panoramic views back towards Sydney.

After a good afternoon's walk, we made our way back to the ferry terminal as the sun began to set, giving another perfect opportunity for some lovely, cliched photos:

In keeping with a recurring theme of this blog, we were determined not to leave Australia without having sampled a decent pint, and salvation was at hand at a pub belonging to the Lord Nelson micro-brewery. Cheers!

9 May

The plan for today was to head for a place called Bairnsdale and spend the afternoon exploring. Once we arrived there, we found that Bairnsdale was much larger than we had anticipated and that our chosen camp spot was miles from the centre of town. We decided to forego the pleasures of Bairnsdale and instead continued to the much smaller but more suitable town of Orbost .

Orbost gave us everything we were looking for except for somewhere decent to eat! Using typical British ingenuity, we bought a mountain of chips from a local cafe, took them back to the campervan and had chip butties for tea! Who says this travelling life isn't healthy?

10 - 11 May

From Orbost, we took the long but largely pleasant drive to the seaside resort of Bateman's Bay. Spending the afternoon exploring amongst the usual array of seafood restaurants and gift shops we spotted two attractions that appealed to us; an animal/bird park (of course!) and a crazy-golf course.

And so, on Thursday 11 we started out at the Birdland Animal Park. We arrived before the 9.30am opening time but a friendly keeper let us in anyway. Whilst we were chatting to her, an expectant looking
Kookaburra landed close by then hopped into the ticket-office waiting to be fed!

As usual, we wasted no time in heading around the park to see wat was on offer. I didn't waste what was to be my last chance to feed some kangaroos:

Among the animal "demonstrations" during the morning was Koala feeding time, featuring Boris (left) and Donny,

the chance to get up-close-and-personal with snakes (Sharon declined, obviously):

and our highlight - the opportunity to hold our new-found most-favourite animal ever; a baby wombat!

We also got a good view of the otherwise elusive Echidna here,

some beautiful - but noisy - Lorikeets,

and the star of the show, a rarely seen Wallaroo joey in his mum's pouch:

After the fantastic morning spent at Birdland, I was brought back to earth with a bump as Sharon roundly trounced me at the crazy-golf course; I put my defeat down to fright at the appearance of a large and lethal red-back spider which appeared at hole three, and which I had to call the manager to come out and kill...

With Sydney just a day's drive away, we decided to bow out of life in the campervan on a high note. We spent our last evening in the van in Killalea State Park, around 20km south of Wollongong, with Sharon rustling up a delicious chicken stir-fry accompanied by another terrific bottle of wine.

Killalea State Park

7 - 8 May

The Great Ocean Road, begun in 1919 to give employment to soldiers returning from World War 1, stretches from Allansford, not far from Warrnambool all the way to Torquay following Victoria's rugged coastline for more than 300km.

Hailed as one of the world's most scenic routes to drive, we were to travel along its length for the next two days. Sadly, on Sunday 7, the weather was a bit variable but we were determined to make the best of this unmissable journey.

The dramatic rock formations caused by coastal erosion provide the scenic aspect to the Great Ocean Road, and there are simply too many to post in a single blog entry, so I'll bring you the highlights, in (roughly) the order we visited them.

First up, the Grotto:

Just before Port Campbell, a landmark with a familiar name - London Bridge:

We stopped at Port Campbell for lunch, and to get a few pointers from the Visitor Centre as to where we should head next. They directed us to the spectacular Loch Ard Gorge:

With sunny spells diminishing and rain becoming more frequent, we pressed on to the famous Twelve Apostles as the afternoon wore on toward evening.

We settled for the evening at a campsite in Apollo Bay, a cosy little one-street town with an incredible number of eateries! An appraisal of the various menus on the street lead us to the popular Apollo Bay Hotel, where we had a really good meal despite the fact that the kitchen forgot to deliver our main course! The staff could not have been more helpful and apologetic and offered us free desserts and coffees.

8 May

We travelled quite some distance along the Great Ocean Road yesterday, and so on this sunny Monday morning we were easily able to complete our trip along the route.

With the end of our Australian odyssey drawing near, and Sydney beckoning we felt it best to bypass Melbourne, and so upon leaving the Great Ocean Road at Torquay we headed towards Queenscliff in order to catch the ferry across the Port Phillip Bay to Sorrento.

Although chilly, the sun was still shining and the hour-long ferry trip across the bay was relaxing and pleasant with dolphins following us in the distance.

"I'm sure she was standing next to me a moment ago..."

Back on dry land we started covering some distance again, stopping at a deserted, unlit rest area when we were too tired to continue. Hopefully, this would be our last encounter with the evil 'drop dunnys'.

5 (afternoon) - 6 May

Strange how quickly situations can change. One minute we were rain-soaked and fairly miserable in the Grampian Mountains, and yet later on that same day and many kilometers further along the road, the sky turned blue, the sun came out and we found ourselves in the delightful resort of Warrnambool, the only city on Australia's historic Shipwreck Coast.

Better still, we found a superb campsite/holiday park situated just a ten-minute walk from the town centre, but only a two-minute walk (over a sand dune) to the beach.

After the Grampians, this was a good opportunity to catch up with the housekeeping (in Sharon's case, the laundry; in mine, writing up this blog).

In the evening, we explored the town and found a good bar with a boisterous Friday-night crowd, and a rather more sedate 'Irish' pub.

6 May

Great morning - bright blue sky and sunshine, but a bit on the chilly side. We spent the morning in town buying cheap winter woollies (hats, scarves and gloves) from the numerous army surplus stores here.

Later we put our new warm gear on, grabbed a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses from the campervan and spent a relaxing couple of hours at the beach looking out to sea.

The tea-cosy thieves were still at large in Warrnambool

That evening we threw caution to the wind and ate at Warrnambool's 'Red Rooster'; an Australian chain that specialises in roast chicken - and it was pretty good, too.

Warrnambool sunset. Didn't the Kinks sing about that?

Fully rested and recuperated thanks to the charms of Warrnambool, we were ready to contemplate the beginning of the end to our Australian travels; the start of the Great Ocean Road.

3 (afternoon) - 5 May

We had high hopes for the Grampian Mountains, a huge national park containing both ground-level and mountain walks, great scenery, and numerous convenient campsites at which to base ourselves over the following couple of days.

Leaving Bendigo behind, we arrived at Hall's Gap - the only town in the Northern Grampians at around 4pm and headed straight to the Park Office, ready to arm ourselves with comprehensive walking maps.

This is a tale with a moral. PHONE AHEAD. We learned from the Park Office that the majority of the Grampians region was recovering from a devastating forest fire that had only been brought under control in February, and that access to most areas was denied.

Blackened trunks begin to regenerate after fire

Luckily, Australian trees are pretty resilient and can survive the harshest conditions; some even require the intense heat of a forest fire in order to germinate.

Thus we hastily planned some 'contingency' walks and headed even further North to one of the few still-accessible campsites. The evening was cold and the only other folk around were a large school-party out camping and mountain biking. Despite passing fields literally full of Kangaroos, only one little fella was brave enough to hang around our campsite hoping for a feed:

4 May

The weather did not look promising. The skies were grey and wet, and it was freezing. Of course, the easy option would have been to dive back under the (new) quilt in the campervan and hibernate but we were in the Grampians to get some more walking under our belts and nothing was going to stop us.

We drove approximately 60k to the foot of Mount Abrupt, steeled ourselves, and began the climb. And, to be honest, it was better than we had hoped for. Enjoyable even. We climbed steadily through forest relatively untouched by the fire until we came out upon an exposed rocky plateau leading toward the summit in the distance. Well, we nearly made it. As we headed further and higher along the rocky plateau an increasingly strong (and cold!) crosswind arose, threatening to blow us from our lofty perch. Justifiably pleased with what we had managed in spite of the weather we slowly made our way back down.

That evening, in need of provisions we headed to a little town called Dunkeld just outside the national park. At least the campsite here had proper loos rather than the 'drop dunnys' (deep holes in the ground with a loo seat on top) favoured in the park!

5 May

The previous night had been windy, and neither of us had slept particularly well in the campervan. Looking out on this drab Friday morning, we feared that our time in the Grampians might have been completely wasted. The sky was solid dark grey cloud, and the rain was amusing itself by alternating between drizzle and torrential.

Today was the day we planned to tackle Mount Sturgeon; not an easy walk even in good weather. Wrapped up warm in our waterproofs we had a damn good stab at it, but the weather was unrelenting and the experience was miserable. The tourist literature we had read continually reinforced the spectacular views that we could expect from Mount Sturgeon. And so, dear reader, for your benefit here is the one-and-only photo I took that day in order to capture those views:

Lush green fields stretch away to scenic rolling hills. Behind the fog.

Spirits and clothes thoroughly dampened, we decided to leave the Grampians and head somewhere coastal for a bit of a seaside pick-me-up. And we couldn't have hoped for a better place than Warrnambool.