Australia

21 and 22 April

Very quickly, it becomes apparent that campervanning (is that a word?) your way around Australia is simultaneously liberating and restricting. You are free to go anywhere, to your own timescale and your accommodation is always ready and waiting when you've had enough of driving. However, finding a safe, legal campsite can sometimes tie you down to places away from cities or areas of interest.

We'd already bitten the bullet and decided to take 'the road less travelled' in Australia, creating our own route from Cairns to Sydney to take in some good walking-country and more 'naturey' (did I just make up another word?)pursuits. The downside of this is that to get to the places we really wanted to see, some days would have to be sacrificed to relatively intensive driving. By Sharon. Wuss that I am, I can't drive.

Thus, on Friday 21, we left Proserpine and just kept going until we found a place we liked the look of to camp at. That place was Marlborough, and as luck would have it the campsite was behind the local hotel (pub) in this tiny town.

By Saturday 22 we appeared to have left the bad weather behind, and another few hours driving brought us to our chosen campsite beside the scenic Lake Monduran.

Apparently the lake supplies the water for the Bundaberg region and hence its rum distillery, but for the moment we were still content to sample Australia's wine.

I'll leave you with the sunset over the lake:

Tuesday 18 to Thursday 20 April

Today marked a departure from the norm in our travels; no more hostels for a while - time to hit the Aussie roads in our campervan!

Naturally we thought it best to hire something subtle and discrete, so as not to draw attention to a couple of Pommie tourists.

Note the first appearance of my rather fetching 'Squashie' hat which Sharon bought me at Uluru.

Anyway, all fuelled up and raring to go we set off north from Cairns to the Atherton Tablelands. We had planned a number of walks and activities for this beautiful region. First up was a scenic cable-car ride at Karunda. No chance. An earlier tourist train failure had caused a huge backlog of visitors awaiting the cable-car ride and we were told that we would not be able to get on that day. Bit of Singapore cable-car deja-vu here...

We continued onward to the Barron Gorge, with the promise of a spectacular waterfall and here, thankfully, we were not disappointed:

We managed to grab some great snaps before the heavens suddenly opened; the downpour was torrential and relentless. Taking our chances during brief lull we sped back to the van and made our way to our very first overnight camp spot at Granite Gorge.

On Wednesday morning it became clear that the severe weather conditions were going to dash our plans of doing some walking around the Gorge (we were getting a foretaste of Cyclone Monica, which was to make landfall to the north of us two days later).

We left the campsite early with the notion of outrunning the atrocious weather by heading south. A brief respite from the rain allowed us to enjoy the scenic route through the mountains from Atherton to Gordonvale, but we didn't stop that day before reaching Townsville. A notable stop for me as the Townsville Brewing Company helped slake my thirst for a decent pint of non-lagerish beer.

We camped that night at a BP truckstop; cost free and with all facilities on hand!

We just couldn't resist the opportunity to get up close and personal with some Australian wildlife on Thursday morning, and so spent an enjoyable few hours at the Billabong Nature Sanctuary just south of Townsville.

Of course, we saw the usual suspects

and even got to feed a few

But we weren't prepared for the breathtaking cuteness of one-year-old Nugget (he's the Wombat, not the keeper):

Less cute were the snakes; whilst I was happy to stroke them Sharon exhibited a previously repressed, but total, phobia of snakes. Could be a bit of a problem if you plan to go bushwalking in Oz...

Camping just south of the small town of Proserpine was vastly improved via the partial consumption of a three-litre wine box of a decent (and exceptionally reasonably priced) Merlot. Well, it'd be rude not to...

14 - 16 April

Here we have another entry devoted to one of our dream detinations - Uluru. Australia is big; really big, and Uluru is not the sort of place that you can just jump in a car to get to. So we hopped aboard a tiny twin-engined Fokker for the three hour flight from Cairns.

We'd watched so many programmes on the 'Travel Channel' before leaving for the world tour; we'd seen images of Uluru so many times and yet nothing can prepare you for the moving experience of seeing it in reality for the first time.

Uluru has it's own tourist resort which consists of five sets of accommodation covering every budget from a camp-ground to a five star hotel. Naturally, we resided at the lower-end of the scale in a perfectly accepable four-bed dorm at the Outback Pioneers Lodge.

Entertainingly, evening meals here are by way of a do-it-yourself barbecue - you choose the meat (including Ostrich, Kangaroo and Crocodile if so desired) and frazzle it to your liking. I stuck to T-bones.

Only around Uluru for the Easter weekend, we had to make the most of our time, so we promptly booked onto as many tours as we could fit in.

First up was the -obviously essential!- sunset tour:

The following day, Saturday, we opted for a tour of the nearby Kata Tjuta ('Many Heads' in Aboriginal language) - a formation of 36 massive rock domes, smaller but similar in appearance to Uluru.

Here we had the option of walking the Valley of the Winds, or taking the less strenuous but equally scenic walk through the Walpa Gorge. Feeling slightly jaded from the previous evening, we opted for the Walpa Gorge:

Saving the best until last, on Easter Sunday we took the opportunity to walk right around the base of Uluru. Packed lunches were provided and - a nice touch - each one contained a tiny Easter egg! The 9km walk kicked off at sunrise, and as you can see was spectacular.

Between us we took at least 150 photos of Uluru and the surrounding area - for many more take a look at our gallery here

Just my opinion of course, but an excursion to Uluru should be mandatory on any traveller's Australian itinerary; for me it was the most moving and awe-inspiring moment since our journey began.

One final observation - our cameras weren't capable of capturing the night sky, but here we saw the clearest and most vivid views of our galaxy that you can imagine.

11 - 13 April

We touched down in Cairns very early (about 04:40) on Tuesday 11 April. Prior research suggested that Australian Immigration Control would be a tortuous process - very strict rules apply regarding what can and can't be brought into the country; for example, if you happen to be carrying any fruit, honey or cold meats on you they MUST be disposed of before passing through customs or you'll be liable to a hefty fine.

It's true that this was perhaps the longest Immigration process we had yet encountered, but the staff were friendly enough and we encountered no problems.

Despite the early start, we found an open cafe at the airport and passed a couple of hours before phoning our hostel for a pickup.

After Asia, Australia seemed like a homecoming... everything in English, normal looking houses and streets, rain, etc.

Cairns is a nice enough city; big on tourism and backpacking, and the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. It has a restaurant-lined esplanade which lies along a man-made beach and large harbour, and a great many shops and 'hotels'. In the Australian context, a 'hotel' is what the British would call a pub i.e. a drinking establishment.

We grabbed a few hours sleep at the hostel to recover from the flight then headed out into the evening. Cairns backpacker hostels routinely give out meal vouchers which can be used at a somewhat joyless wooden establishment (no offence!) called the Woolshed. We tried the place a couple of times - who can resist a subsidised meal? - but to be honest we found no shortage of better, livelier and more relaxed eateries.

After eating, we found a suitable 'hotel' to have a pint or two in. This had a large video-screen jukebox playing classic rock videos from the 1980s as well as more recent stuff - great!

At the bar, I noticed a number of folk drinking a dark brew which clearly wasn't Guinness. Not fancying a lager (99% of Australian beer closely resembles lager), I ordered a pint of the dark stuff. The barmaid seemed slightly taken aback by this request (and I suddenly noticed that everyone else was drinking halves), but she duly pulled me a pint.

Only on sitting down and taking a good pull of my pint did I realise that it was actually pre-mixed whisky and Coke! This seems fairly normal in Australia...
... I quickly reverted to lager.

Thursday 13 April

Of course, there was no way that we could stay in Cairns without paying a visit to the Great Barrier Reef - one of the most impressive wonders of the natural world.

The day didn't start well; it was pouring with rain as we made our way to the harbour to board our boat.

Then, not too far into the trip, Sharon's usually reliable sea-legs succumbed to the 'motion of the ocean' and she joined the ranks of green-faced, bag-clutching landlubbers on the upper deck.

Sharon had the last laugh though; being the chicken non-swimmer that I am, I didn't last in the ocean for more than ten minutes even despite wearing a rather slinky (Sharon assures me) wetsuit for bouyancy. This is the only -poor- excuse I can offer for the quality of my reef photos which follow

That black looking, spotty, triangular thing in the third photo may be a fish. Sharon took some piccies with a proper waterproof camera which are much better. Honest.

Monday 10 April - Flying to Australia

And so we bade farewell to Singapore and closed the Asian chapter of our travels.

Soaring skywards toward Australia, we reflected on the fact that we'd been pretty much on the move every day for almost four months with very few breaks.

Luckily, this does not appear to have affected us in any way...

Andy

Sharon