Update Map
Big Trucks and Big Rocks
G’Day from Uluru (or Ayers Rock for you colonialists).
As you’ll see from the Update Map above, we’ve made a proper leap inland and really got some distance under our belts over the last couple of weeks, about 2500KMs. It’s been great being back on the road watching the generally flat scenery change day by day and made us reminisce of the long days driving through Central Asia. They were a nightmare at the time, but we can now look back on them fondly!
For those who like to look at a map, the route we’ve taken from Townsville was the Flinders Highway to Cloncurry, then the Barkly Hwy into Northern Territory to Three Ways where it meets the Stuart Hwy, which runs from Adelaide in the South to Darwin in the North. We went South through Alice Springs and then West on the Lasseter Hwy to Uluru. Or as satnav would say “In 4 days, turn left, then after 3 days, turn right”.
It took us a week to get to Alice, along the way just stopping for fuel and spending the nights in free rest areas. The stop on the first night was the most amusing, being the hotel carpark in the town of Prairie. The bar here is full of sporting memorabilia, cattle station tools, old hats stapled to the roof, a rusting 1960’s Vespa and there’s chandeliers and metal kids trikes hanging in the front veranda. But weirdest of all, there’s three old shop mannequins dressed as cowgirls - one stood at the bar, one in a riding saddle and one in an antique dentist’s chair! All this while the rather truculent landlord played obscure 1950’s LPs on a turntable and shouted “Who sang this then?” at his bemused clientele, and seemed annoyed that none of us had a clue!
Here we met Jack Sammon, a Cowboy Poet as he called himself. He spent most of his life “droving”, working for the immense cattle stations moving thousands heads of stock over thousands of miles. Now he writes songs and poetry about it and gives talks here and in the States about Australiana, he says he loves giving talks in Texas as everything the drovers did was bigger than their cowboy counterparts and the Aussies were doing it for longer too. He was very interesting to chat to, but was quite humble about his own achievements and a grand old gent with it.
So, back to the road. The earth has slowly, but most definitely now turned red – everywhere is a terracotta hued sand. We’d been expecting the red earth because for days we were seeing termite mounds which have been getting increasingly red, but the topsoil has been light brown until quite near Alice. We were also expecting a lot less vegetation than we’ve seen, expecting Uluru particularly to be in an arid, sandy desert. In reality there is quite a lot of green and there are even trees and shrubs growing on Uluru itself.
There’s been countless eagles / harriers / falcons / kites keeping us company along the way, suggesting there must be many critters living in the bush, but we didn’t see any. There’s been plenty of ‘roo and cow roadkill though, some of it obviously very old and stripped clean by ants – just piles of bones under a leather blanket. One day we did see a dingo strolling along the roadside and then a feral cat too, but hardly exotic fauna. The termite mounds have been interesting as some have had clothes put on them, old T-shirts, hi-viz tabards, hats, sunglasses, one even dressed as a waiter with a tree branch for an arm holding a serving-plate-like-hubcap. Bloody tourists with too much time on their hands!
We’ve seen some of the famous road-trains – the multi-trailered trucks over 50 metres long and some of them have got 70 wheels! Imagine the manager of your local Kwik-Fit seeing one of them pull up - bet they would still say they needed new brake pads too! We got a photo of Mario parked next to one, just for comparison – they’re huge! We’ve had no problems with them though, we‘ve just let them overtake and get on with it. We wouldn’t want to come across one on the unsealed roads though, where they throw up so much dust you face the choice of carrying on blind and hitting something, or stopping and getting hit!
The main annoyance has been the flies. They’re everywhere and a bloody useless pain in the arse. Every stop you’re accosted by them, attracted to your mouth, eyes and ears – horrible things. Then they ride along on your back, hoping you don’t know they’re there so they can get in your vehicle with you. Running round in a large circle before getting back in the truck has become our latest form of exercise. Talking of parasites, the fuel prices between the main cities is a bit steep. Whereas we were paying about $1.35 a litre on the coast and even in Alice, between the main centres it can be over $2! We appreciate they have to get the fuel to these remote places, but come on!
So enough waffle, where have we actually been? Well, the first place we stopped of any significance was Tennant Creek, which according to local folklore was founded when a wagon carrying beer broke down there, so the drivers stayed and drank the cargo. In reality it was formed as a supply town to the neighbouring cattle stations which cover an area the size of the UK! We were hoping for rather a quaint little town with perhaps a bit of history. We got rather an unwelcoming place with lots of security shutters, many police for a small town and the grubbiest supermarket we’ve been to this side of China. The trolley looked like it had come from the bottom of Birmingham canal.
Then it was on to Alice Springs where we did some museums, mostly as one cheap ticket covered the lot. One was of local art (not just indigenous) where there was a real mix of exhibits - paintings, ceramics, furniture, clothing, digital media – and it wasn’t too big so you could actually take time to look at stuff and read the little cards next to them. Caroline liked a brightly painted vase as the detail work on it was incredible, and some clothes that had plastic in them to make them sparkly. Bry liked the abstract sculpture of the women with 3 boobs.
Next was the Central Australian Aviation Museum, which focuses on the brave chaps and chapesses who not just risked life and limb flying those new-fangled aeroplanes, they did it over the unchartered territory of the Outback with little hope of rescue if or when something went wrong. Flying open cockpit planes made of string, wood and cloth which were hopelessly overweight due to the extra fuel they had to carry and no room for food or water, in 40 odd degrees across a feature-less desert - cue lots of stories of derring-do and some sad tales too.
Then we went to the Natural History Museum. Usual stuff here, from meteorites found in the desert to dinosaur bones and remains of giant 3 metre high emu ancestors. Even a wombat the size of a hippo – even we’d have been able to spot that one! The best though was the stuffed and preserved animal section. There were the usual suspects – eagles looking majestic, little marsupials looking cute, dingoes looking fierce. Many were doing some sort of natural activity – owls disembowelling mice, fox disembowelling owls – that sort of thing, bit grisly in places, but informative. But the highlight, oh the highlight was the Cat (Felus Catus). Whoever was in charge of the exhibit was clearly a dog-person, as initially poor little Tiddles was included in the “non-native, introduced pest” section. If that wasn’t enough, the “natural activity” the moggy was doing was not eating some poor defenceless native bird, or even digging a hole in flower-bed, no – he was licking his arse! And not just gently, really getting in there! You can imagine the ‘phone call – “Hey Bruce, this here cat you want stuffing, what do you want it to be doing, mate?”. “Ahh, I don’t know mate, just have it licking it’s arse or something, will ya?”. Aussies, gotta love ‘em. Either that or that’s how the poor cat died, mid clean, from pure embarrassment at being caught.
Next was the Royal Flying Doctor Service Museum, which as you would expect gives the history of this incredible service. There were some touching tales here of people who have had their lives saved by the service, not just in emergencies, but things like organ transplants too. But what we found most thought provoking was the views of people who had never needed the service, they just appreciated it was there, just in case. One young mother living on a remote cattle station said in one video “I would never dream of bringing up a family in the Outback, if it wasn’t for the Flying Doctors Service”. Kind of brings home the reality of living in such remote areas and made us appreciate what we so often take for granted on our little island back home.
There were some amusing stories too. The RFDS issue a “medical chest” to isolated areas, like a super first aid kit, with lifesaving equipment and drugs, all of which are clearly named and numbered. The idea is a doctor will prescribe treatment or drugs over the radio to prevent the need for a visit or buy time before a medic gets there. One story was a farmer receiving instructions from the doctor to give his sick wife “One number 9 tablet”. The next day they spoke again and when asked how the patient was doing, the farmer replied “Well Doctor, we didn’t have any number 9’s left, so I gave her a 4 and a 5 and now she’s full of beans!”
We stayed in Alice for 2 nights at a proper campground, that had live music both evenings. They were a travelling band of 3 that just happened to be there the same nights as us, playing folksy/bluesy stuff and covers of rock classics. They invited anyone to join in, so a young lad played some Green Day acoustic covers and a local resident did some didgeridooing. More of a campfire sing-along than local gig, but a very nice way to spend the evenings.
So then it was on to Uluru, apparently the World’s largest monolith. We stayed for 3 nights in Yularu - the town that serves the National Park and the 400,000 annual visitors - at the Ayers Rock Resort, the only place to stay in town. We don’t mean that in any sort of elitist way, it really is the only place you can stay. Luckily it has a campsite.
We first went to The Olgas rock formation, traditionally named Kata Tjuta (meaning Many Heads) and did a couple of the walks. They apparently used to be one rock like Uluru, but time and erosion have now made it a series of separate hills with deep canyons and gorges between them – quite alien, moulded shapes sticking-up from the flat land. We thought one section looked like a huge red submarine surfacing. We stayed here and watched the sunset. It was quite cloudy, but for about a minute the sun broke through and the rocks glowed a beautiful bright orange.
The next day we were up early and saw the sunrise on Uluru from the campsite - which was nice - and then drove the 20km to spend the day at the rock itself. We started with a ranger guided tour for a couple of hours, which was interesting and explained some of the indigenous beliefs in the rock and how the various shapes represent their ancestors. We then set off and did some of the other walks ourselves, looking at what would be watering holes in the wet season and reading some of the information boards explaining more of the locals’ beliefs and legends. We found some of these quite hard-going as they were so fantastical, such as the mountains made by caterpillars and huge holes in the rock made be a little wallaby sticking his head up through it. But we guess it’s not easy trying to condense millennia of beliefs onto a few tourist-friendly story boards. It would be like the Church of England trying to condense the Bible into a few paragraphs on a sign outside St Pauls and then someone with no knowledge about Christian beliefs reading it and thinking, “Oh yeah, that makes sense, I can totally believe that happened”!
In the afternoon we visited the Cultural Centre, but by that time we had Cultural Fatigue so just enjoyed some cheesecake instead. We don’t want to sound like we have no interest in the culture, it’s just we would much rather see people actually partaking in it, rather than reading loads of information boards. All across the globe we’ve been fascinated and humbled by people’s acts of faith – we have no real want to understand the faith itself, they’re all as baffling as each other - but to see people demonstrating their belief is amazing. Unfortunately this is not possible here, apparently the males and females often don’t practise their faith in front of each other, let alone in front of outsiders.
We then waited for sunset and saw the rock changing colours as the Sun dropped, but again it clouded over just before the Sun went down, so we were denied that famous last glow, before the rock changes to charcoal. The weather had been changeable all day, starting out windy and cold (about 9 C), hot and clear by lunch, then cloudy later on. This meant we got to see the Rock in many shades of colour throughout the day and from different viewpoints too, as we drove round it twice.
Overall, we weren’t wowed by our visit to Uluru, probably The Olgas were more interesting from a scenic point of view. At the end of the day, it is just a big rock in a desert the size of Europe, so by comparison to its surrounding, yes it’s interesting. Move the red rock to the middle of Europe though, and it could form the perfect viewing platform for some real mountains! And it was cold. It even rained one day we were there!
So from here we head back to the Stuart Highway and will then pop down to South Australia, just so we have visited all the States. We’ll then backtrack through Alice and up to Darwin, hoping for warmer climes.
HooRoo!
A Swing To The Left, From Blue To Red
Hello from tropical Townsville in Northern Queensland!
So we left Brisbane with the usual mixed emotions of being back on the road, but this time we felt particularly sad as Jude and Jeff had been such great company. Also, with no further visits planned, the next time we will see friends or family will be back in the UK, in however many months time.
The weather forecast was stormy for the next few days, so our plan was just to drive North until we found the sun again. We drove through some torrential rain just North of Brisbane, but it wasn’t until a few days later that we realised how bad the storm was. 330mm of rain fell in five hours, over 130 roads were closed and sadly at least 5 people died in flash flooding. Having missed the storms around Sydney by a matter of days, this time it appears we missed the worst by a matter of hours – it’s a good job Caroline’s got such a heavy right foot!
On our way North we passed by Fraser Island, the only place in the world where a rainforest grows on sand. It’s one of the ‘must see’ locations in Australia, but is only accessible by boat and you need a 4-wheel drive to explore the island. We had toyed with the idea of leaving Mario on the mainland and joining a tour for a day or two, but we were concerned as to how much pain the lack of roads would cause to Bry’s shoulder. We had read some negative comments about the island, with it basically now just being a sand-pit, full of speeding 4-wheel drives, but we would have liked to find out for ourselves. However, the weather was awful and apparently the island took the brunt of the storm, so the decision was made for us and we just continued North.
For 2 days we drove in the rain until we reached Rockhampton, crossed the Tropic of Capricorn and then the sun came out. With the grey gloom gone and everywhere immediately looking lush and green, we diverted off the highway to the little village of St Lawrence, where the Council provide a superb free camping site. We took a wander to the local pub, a proper old style wooden building with a huge veranda, where we chatted to the aged owners about travelling and motorbikes. Back at camp, we watched the sunset over the nearby wetlands and the next morning woke to see kangaroos skipping by. It was a great campsite and certainly an improvement on the 2 previous nights spent next to the highway.
Having missed out on Fraser Island, we decided we would instead visit the Whitsunday Islands and head to Airlie Beach, about another day’s drive North. On the way we stopped at Sarina where they were holding their annual Mud Trials – truck racing in a quagmire. There seemed to be two classes, 4WDs and 2WDs, with the latter allowed to have chains on their drive wheels. The noise of up to 20 unsilenced V8 engines roaring around the “track” was incredible – many of them making no progress at all, other than showering their competitors in mud. There were 4 4WD tractors constantly pulling the stuck trucks out and even these were finding it tough going. For us there were 2 highlights. Firstly, one truck rolled-over and caught ablaze and secondly the sight of a rather large female steward getting so stuck in the mud she could not move. She had to call a tractor over to pull her out!
The next day we arrived at Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsundays that is described as “a drinking town with a sailing problem”. We found a decent campsite not too far out of town and set about planning our next few days. When we first got to Oz, we decided we would do one big thing in each state – there’s so much to spend your money on, we can’t afford to do everything. In Victoria we got the very expensive ferry to Tasmania, in Tasmania we go the very expensive ferry back and in NSW we did the Sydney Bridgeclimb. Our “thing” for Queensland was always to see the Great Barrier Reef, initially thinking we would do this in Cairns. After some research we realised it was a better option to do this from Airlie and then also see the Whitsundays as well.
So on Tuesday we were aboard a fast catamaran heading to Reefworld, a pontoon moored off Hardy Reef. From here you can snorkel and SCUBA dive, but it also has an underwater observatory and a submersible viewing vessel, which we thought would be ideal for Bry (still with bad shoulder). Caroline obviously was going the whole hog and would SCUBA dive the Great Barrier Reef! It took about three hours to get there, having first sailed around some of the islands. On the trip out the staff came round with consent forms for the various activities and when we explained Bry would not be getting wet, they were having none of it (“Dude, ya gotta get in the water”) and said they’d sort something out. We were expecting them to be total health and safety jobsworths, but they couldn’t have been more encouraging.
Caroline was booked on the first dive session, so as soon as we arrived at the pontoon she was suited and booted ready for her first dive in 15 years! It’s always a little nerve wracking going diving and she’d forgotten just how heavy the equipment was when out of the water. However, once she was in it’s just like riding a bike (or a fish to water?), you never forget what to do and Bry watched from the underwater observatory as she followed a rope and her instructor to the reef’s edge.
Hardy Reef has been very well looked after and the coral is alive and hosts an abundance of beautiful fish and anemones. That serene feeling of total quiet, except for your own breathing, is quite something and to gently swim over and alongside the Great Barrier Reef is an experience she will never forget.
Caroline was gone for about an hour, during which time Bry was a little concerned as to how he would manage to snorkel. His main concerns were something happening to make him automatically move his right arm, or an over-zealous helper trying to get him in or out of the water by grabbing his arm. All snorkelers were advised to wear stinger suits because of the chance of jelly fish, so we decided the best thing to do would be just to tuck his arm inside the suit as if it were still in the sling, to keep it out of harm’s way. The staff gave Bry a noodle float to help steady himself and tied orange tape round the top of his snorkel to show that he was ‘special’, which resulted in us being followed very carefully by the rescue boat.
Getting in and out was quite straight forward, but due to the current, Bry found it difficult to stay stationary with only one arm, so we just spent our time swimming up and down the reef, occasionally holding onto one of the floating rest stops. It was at one of these stops when the official photographer decided to snap Bry – when Caroline saw the resulting photo she was reduced to tears of hilarity, suggesting he looked like a petrified shark attack victim!
Caroline would like to add that she thought Bry was extremely brave getting in the water with his injury! He was very glad to have done it as the underwater views were amazing and we are both grateful to the staff for allowing him to get in.
As part of our trip to the Reef, we got a free return journey to Hamilton Island the next day. On the ferry over a couple sat next to us, almost buried under what were obviously a wedding dress and groomsmen suits – they were off to Day Dream Island to get married a couple of days later and they were very sweet and obviously very excited. They both drove trucks for a mine near Rockhampton, the groom was very proud of his “rig” showing us photos of his three hitch trailers, proper big “Road Train” stuff. However his bride-to-be then upped the ante and showed us her work vehicle – she only drives the huge dumper trucks! One photo we could hardly make her out, the machine behind her was so big, carrying something like 450 tonnes in one load.
Hamilton Island is mainly a holiday resort with a few exclusive private homes and a luxury marina. Other than the free shuttle buses and a few works vehicles, no cars are allowed on the island, so everyone drives around in golf buggies. There’s literally hundreds of them! It was really bizarre walking around this tropical paradise with identical buggies buzzing back and forth – it felt like we’d been shrunk and were walking around a model village with all these little cars quietly moving round a track. All the road signs have golf buggies on them where there would normally be a car and even the estate agents’ details have a symbol for ‘buggy parking’.
We stopped for lunch in a picnic shelter and put on the table a cold bottle of water which had condensation running down it. Immediately a Rainbow Lorikeet landed next to the bottle and started licking the condensation off. We were then joined by a flock of white cockatoos trying to nick our sandwiches!
There are some huge hotels on the island with all the usual facilities, but the great thing is that anyone can use them, even day trippers like us. However, after walking up the very steep One Tree Hill, all we could be bothered to do was laze on the sun-loungers on Cats Eye Beach and then go for a couple of drinks overlooking the marina. We had a taste of how the other half live and it cost us next to nothing. Ideal day!
Another day’s drive North and now we’re in Townsville, which has a beautiful, long foreshore, but the town itself is rather grotty and rundown. Today we went to Reef HQ, the world’s largest (only?) reef aquarium. It’s basically an indoor version of the Great Barrier Reef, showcasing the most spectacular fish, anemones and corals found on it. It’s very eco-orientated with loads of information boards, but the highlight is the huge aquarium with a walk-through tunnel, allowing you to get up close and personal to the cutest and deadliest reef creatures. We’re not sure if it was worth the $23 entrance fee each, but it was a nice way to spend a few hours.
From Townsville we can either continue North to Cairns or go West into the Outback. As you may have guessed from the loose and rather inaccurate General Election based title, we have decided to leave the big blue sea and head into the Red Centre. Basically, we don’t think Cairns has anything to offer that we haven’t already seen (apart from a 700km roundtrip) and we are ready for a change of scenery – and we don’t think you can get more different from busy seaside resorts to dusty, outback two-house-towns.
The drive up here from Brisbane has mainly been long roads through endless fields of sugar cane, constantly crossing little narrow gauge railway tracks used to transport the harvested crops. Some of the roads are so monotonous that the Councils have put up road signs with trivia questions on them, followed by the answer a kilometre later. Unfortunately the questions started repeating themselves, suggesting either a lack of imagination or they really want you to know what the State flower of Queensland is. It’s the Cooktown Orchid – if you were wondering! There were also signs saying ‘Dad, are we there yet?’ and ‘Mum, are we there yet?’ which we don’t think would really help anybody!
We can certainly tell that we are now in the tropics, having seen many signs warning us of the presence of crocodiles, sharks and stinging jelly fish. After NSW and Gold Coast it’s strange not to see anybody in the sea, but restricted to safe swimming areas inside stinger nets or mostly in manmade seawater lagoons. Luckily, as it is now approaching Winter, there isn’t much humidity and although the days are around 30 degrees, it drops down to around 16 degrees at night, perfect for sitting out in the evening, specially as there are hardly any mozzies! When we get to Alice Springs we might have a bit of a shock as this week they had an overnight temperature of 4 degrees and even had a frost!
Bry’s shoulder is improving well and he’s doing his exercises religiously. Only one more week in the sling and then he’s onto some strengthening exercises – he’ll be back behind the wheel before Caroline knows it! Having the sling on has been a good icebreaker, with numerous random people just stopping us for a chat and with our map on the back of Mario, we’ve met some interesting people who’ve been amazed/bemused/envious of/by our trip. It helps remind us how fortunate we are to be able to do what we’re doing and makes those times when we’re homesick easier to bear.
We’ve only managed to upload a handful of photos, so we’ll try to get the rest up when we’ve got a better internet connection. We don’t know what sort of internet availability we will have in the Outback, so are unsure when our next update will be, but we hope it will be in the next couple of weeks or so. Until then ...
Hoo Roo!
Punks, Parades & Physio
Hello from Brisbane!
Firstly we’d like to say a big thank you to Jude and Jeff for putting us up and putting up with us while Bry gets some movement back in his shoulder. They’ve made us feel totally welcome and have really looked after us, taking us out and showing us the sights. It’s also been ideal having a base from which to sort doctor’s appointments and physio treatment. Their little boy, Callum, is great to be around, he’s a lovely lad with a great sense of humour.
We arrived here Saturday 18th, just intending to stay long enough for a doctor to check Bry’s shoulder, but Jude and Jeff have been so generous that they have convinced us to stay longer. On our first night they took us along to one of Jeff’s cousin’s 30th birthday party, which was 1980s fancy dress! Unfortunately all we could find were 2 punk wigs, which was more 1970s but we’ve always been a bit behind the times. It was a great night out with Jeff showing off his mullet, Jude looking just like she did as a teenager when she used to go clubbing with Bry’s sister in Gloucester and we even got to meet Billy Idol, Slash and some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles!
On Tuesday we got an appointment with a GP who referred Bry to a local physiotherapist for assessment. The physio was called Sam, he was pleased with Bry’s range of motion, did some massage and ultrasound therapy to reduce the swelling and gave him some stretching exercises to do. He advised Bry to keep the sling on when out and about for the next 3 weeks and to come back on Friday for further assessment. When we returned, Sam did more massage and gave us some strengthening exercises to do once Bry is out of the sling, which will use the exercise bands we just happen to have in the back of Mario! Sam was a really nice bloke who is actually off to work in London in a couple of weeks, so we wish him all the best.
On Thursday Jeff kindly took a day off work so while Callum was at school the four of us took a trip down to the Gold Coast and specifically Surfers Paradise. We had heard how commercialised this area was and that it was the sort of place you either loved or hated. Luckily when we were there, it was really quiet, so the huge, long beaches were empty and as you look out to sea, you could be on a desert island. Turn around and you see the skyscrapers of hotels, posh apartments and the neon lights of shopping malls – it really is a city on the beach. We liked it as somewhere to go for a short holiday, everything on your doorstep, but we could easily imagine it would be a bit too much when it was heaving.
We then went to Manly (the Brisbane one, not Sydney), which is just up the road from Jude and Jeff’s home. This was much more genteel than Surfers Paradise, with a nice marina, promenade and swanky high street.
Last Saturday was ANZAC Day so we all went into Brisbane to watch the parade through the city streets. This was quite emotional watching the veterans, current service men and women and bereaved families of soldiers proudly marching by. They were accompanied by various bands, scouts and girl guides and military vehicles from all different eras, including a couple of RAAF fly-pasts.
Jeff and Jude then took us on a guided walking tour of the city; well we walked while Callum rode on Jeff’s shoulders! We walked through the Botanical Gardens, the historical university grounds and over the Goodwill Bridge to the Southbank area. This is the old site of the World Expo ’88 and is now a huge leisure, entertainment and culture area with galleries, museums, restaurants, bars and a manmade beach and water park – all with the backdrop of the river and the city on the opposite shore. It’s was a great place to stop for lunch.
We then had a quick walk around the huge casino which has over 1300 slot machines (“pokies”) and is set over 3 floors of the old Treasury building. We kind of like the irony of a treasury now being a casino. Next it was back into the car for a quick whizz around to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs which overlook the city and then onto the Story Bridge (Australia’s longest cantilever bridge) for some quick photos. We really liked Brisbane, it’s got a great mix of old and new, all set among the meandering river and tropical lush green parks.
Sunday was a day of rugby. We were up early to go to watch Callum (who’s only 5) play rugby league (“footy”) at the local club, Wynnum Manly Seagulls. He had a good game, making some great try saving tackles by tracking back and was one of the only players happy to run into contact with the ball, rather than run sideways away from the defence. Bry reckons he’s got the makings of a good union fullback.
Then in the afternoon Jeff took us to the Suncorp Stadium for the Super Rugby game between Queensland Reds and the Hurricanes, to see the likes of Conrad Smith, Ma’a Nonu, James Slipper and James O’Connor go head to head. It looked the Reds were heading for an unlikely win as they took an early lead thanks mainly to their young winger Samu Kerevi, who tore through the All Blacks of Smith, Nonu and Savea to score 2 tries. But The ‘Canes soon fought back and showed why they’re at the top of the league, finishing the 35-19 victors. After the game we hung around the player’s tunnel hoping to have a word with Gloucester Rugby bound Hurricane Jeremy Thrush, but he was not to be found.
Monday we went off to Australia Zoo, of Steve Irwin fame. It’s probably the best zoo we’ve ever been to - huge immaculately kept enclosures, none of the animals appeared unhappy and all the staff were really friendly. There were some great demonstrations, including the lunchtime show in the 5000 seat “Crocoseum” with birds of prey, snakes and huge crocodiles. Our favourite was probably the tiger show, where the keeper got the big cat to act out natural attacking moves using just a normal pint of milk.
Other than that, we’ve been relaxing, watching TV and been entertained by Jude, Jeff and Callum. They’ve been great company and have made us so welcome, we’ll be sad to leave. Today we’re getting back on the road, the weather up north should now be drier and cooler, so we may well just keep trucking now until we’re ready to come home. The current plan is to go North to Cairns, across and down to Uluru, back up to Darwin, then West and down to Perth. With a few diversions on the way, probably about 12000KMS to go. We better get moving!
HooRoo!
Getting High on Ketamine in Byron Bay!
Hey dudes, we’re in Byron Bay!
We spent Easter in Port Macquarie dodging torrential rain, eating chocolate and laughing at the family of 7 camped nearby who spent all weekend shouting at each other. It seems Easter weekends are the same wherever you are! Saturday it just rained nonstop and a lot of the campsite was flooded. This gave us the opportunity to get out our rubber ducks, who have travelled in the shower room all the way from England – we think they were glad to stretch their legs! This was also quite fitting as on Easter Sunday we watched the annual Charity Rubber Duck Race on the nearby estuary. The race itself was quite amusing but the best bit was watching the local (really quite elderly) Rotary Club members trying to scoop up the 100s of rubber duckies before they floated out to sea. They only had two small boats, a few little fishing nets and even less communication. If it wasn’t for a passing kayak tour, we reckon they would have spent all the proceeds on replacement ducks for next year.
After almost 2 weeks in the same town, it was good to be back on the road, which took us to Dorrigo Rainforest Centre and their Skywalk, a walkway which juts out from a cliff and takes you to 20m above the rainforest canopy. Due to Bry helping the Forest Ranger jump start another visitor’s car, she turned a blind eye to us spending the night in their carpark. So not only did we get to experience the roof of the rainforest at dusk and dawn, but we could also wonder at the beautiful starry night sky without any light pollution. The sights and sounds were amazing and it was incredible to think we were only 40km from the touristy coast – it almost felt like we were back in the Laos jungle. While here we did a two and a half hour circular walk, which took us to some beautiful waterfalls, one of which we were able to walk behind. We saw loads of different birds, butterflies and even some witchety grubs – but we managed to stop ourselves from eating them!
We then headed back to the coast to Pippis Beach in Yamba, which was the typical beautiful expanse of white sand which we are getting accustomed to – however this was the first we have seen with a ‘Warning – Sharks’ sign! We still went for a paddle though, but decided to leave the bodyboards in Mario. The next day we went to Shelly Beach in Ballina, but when we got there it was closed due to dangerous surf conditions, so we headed up the coast to Lennox Head. Here we watched the ‘big boys’ surfing the point break by jumping into the swell from rocks and catching huge waves to the beach. Some of them were riding a single wave for more than 2 minutes – pretty impressive. A few days later we were browsing some local news stories and discovered that just a couple of months ago a surfer was killed by a Great White at Shelly Beach and the day before that, another was attacked by a Bull shark at Lennox Head!
So then it was on to Byron Bay, renowned as a new age, hippy, organic utopia, where anything goes and judging by the traffic, everyone goes. It’s the sort of place where ageing hippies live and mix happily with young yuppies up from Sydney and the coach loads of foreign backpackers. There’s a strong eco-vibe, although bizarrely there are no recycling bins and everyone seems to drive everywhere. We knew we wanted to visit but we didn’t know for how long, unsure if it was just going to be too busy for us. However, after negotiating the awful traffic, we found a decent campsite which is right in town but also really quiet, mainly as they don’t take kids!
Byron does have a very nice feel and although the place is busy, it still feels very laid back. It’s got long beaches, so there’s plenty of room for everyone and it’s also surrounded by beautiful countryside. One day we walked along the coast to Cape Byron (mainland Australia’s most Eastern point) to visit the lighthouse there. When we were just approaching the lighthouse we could see a storm rolling in from the ocean, so ran the last 200 metres and made it into the tiny museum just before the heavens opened. Not surprisingly we were soon joined by dozens of other wet, sweaty tourists and it got so hot inside there we decided we’d rather go back outside and get wet! The sun soon shone again and we were treated to a lovely, double rainbow – very hippy, very Byron!
Saturday night we decided to go out on the town. We had a couple of drinks in The Balcony which overlooks one of the busiest streets in town, where we just amused ourselves people watching – watching amusing people! Then we went down to the beach front for a couple more before deciding to head home for an early night, mainly because a disco was starting at 9 o’clock. However, on our way back we found The Rails bar which had live music and much cheaper drinks, so decided to stay out a while longer. It was like a cross between a Student Union, a biker’s bar and a working men’s club with the clientele to match – much more our sort of place than the hippy-chic bars in town.
Soon we were talking to Douglas, Australia’s blonde Tommy Cooper. He had the same build, mannerisms and floppy hair, and also the same speech, but that may have just been the beer. He was with his friend, Tigger, yes that’s his real name, he showed us his driving licence! They were both a good laugh, there was much piss-taking and friendly banter, specifically about Aussie/Pommie/Welsh sporting rivalries. Bangladesh was mentioned on more than one occasion. We went on with them to a club where they introduced us to DJ Bango, a charming 60-something year old dude who you could tell has been there, done that but was too cool to wear the t-shirt! It turns out he’s got his own Wiki page if you’re interested https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Dumakude_Bango
By the end of the night the ‘beer-swilling Aussies’ were drinking margaritas (which obviously prompted more piss-taking) and Douglas was insisting we camp on his front lawn for as long as we wanted! It was no doubt a genuine offer and one which we may have taken him up on if he only could have remembered his phone number!
This hasn’t been the only instance of hospitable locals. On Tuesday we met a long haired dude on the beach, who drove us to a place in town where Bry scored some free ketamine and midazolam!!
Perhaps we should explain! We’d spent the day bodyboarding and watching sea kayak tours having fun in the surf. About mid afternoon the waves were getting quite rough, so we ditched the boards but decided to go in for one last dip before heading back. Some of the waves were very powerful and would knock us over, but we always came up smiling, it was good harmless fun. However, one huge wave came in just as the shallow water ebbed away. It picked Bry up and dumped him onto the hard sand with enough force to dislocate his shoulder!
The ‘long haired dude’ was Rob Lynch who is a tour guide for Cape Byron Kayaks, who had just come in with one of his groups and who Caroline had asked for help. He was straight on the radio to the lifeguards but suggested they would only call an ambulance anyway, which when the lifeguard turned up on his fast response tractor, turned out to be the case. So ‘Lynchy’ said he’d take us to the hospital himself and promptly booted his customers out of his Land Cruiser. While this was going on a kind gentleman helped Caroline pack all our kit up and carry it to the Land Cruiser. Lynchy then drove us to A&E, dropped us off and then took all our kit back to the campsite for us. What a legend!
Once in A&E the staff recognised that Bry was in a lot of pain and immediately took him through to ‘Resus’. Dr Irfraan assessed Bry and as he thought he appeared to be a ‘co-operative’ patient decided to reduce the dislocation using a technique not requiring any pain relief or sedative! After about 10-15 minutes of massaging and pressure the doctor decided it wasn’t going to work so went to plan B, which involved gas & air and brute force, but that didn’t do the job either. Bry was now shouting with pain and so it was decided to go to plan C. This meant Bry was sedated using a mix of ketamine and midazolam and required an extra pair of hands - Gary, the hospital porter.
Thankfully Bry doesn’t remember what happened next. A tug of war between Gary and the doctor, using a sheet wrapped around Bry’s chest. All Caroline could do was hold his hand and keep explaining where he was as he kept on asking! 20 minutes later and finally Bry’s shoulder pops back in. The doctor told Caroline it was the hardest one he’d ever done, including a Rugby League player! Caroline has never been so relieved, Bry wasn’t sure what the hell was going on! Four x-rays later, a sling and a can of coke and we find ourselves walking back to camp. Thankfully this is only a 5 minute walk but we’re both still covered in sand and by now freezing as our clothes and swimming costumes are still wet.
It didn’t really sink in until later exactly what had happened. It was all so quick and we suddenly found ourselves a bit emotional – from the shock and the trauma but also from the realisation that it could have been a lot worse. Caroline has never been so grateful to have Bry back in one piece and even though there is now a long road of recovery to manage, none of that really matters as Bry is okay. Well, except for now worrying about Caroline doing all the driving for a while!
We’re both really grateful to Lynchy for all his help as well as everyone at the hospital – which, we might add, didn’t cost us a penny! Here’s to being British and the good old NHS!
This has meant we’ve stayed put here in Byron for an extra 3 days while Bry convalesces. As it’s unlikely now we’ll get much use out of our bikes, we sold them today to the local pawnbroker – for only £20 less than we paid for them! Result!
Tomorrow we are off to Brisbane to catch up with Jude, best friend of Bry’s big sister, who has known Bry all his life. The fact that she is a nurse is purely coincidental! Apparently we’re going to an 80s fancy dress party, we knew we should have brought our dressing up box from home!
On a completely different note and continuing on our ‘Big’ theme – check out the photos of Big Banana and Big (meaning absolutely massive) Prawn!
Hoo Roo (Ouch)!
Bats, Beards, BBQs, Blues, Bodyboards & Bruises
Hello – guess what? We’re still in Port Macquarie! Yes, we like it so much we decided to stay a week at a campsite and now it’s Easter and many of the sites are booked up, so we’re staying put till next week. The site we’re on has the beach at one end and the town centre at the other, so it’s ideal.
Not much to report this week, the title says it all really. Last weekend there was a Blues Festival on in town (overpriced tickets, especially as you could just sit on the town green and hear it fine), which incorporated a Beard & Moustache competition (not many entrants) as well as the 2015 Australian BBQ Wars (40 odd teams cooking various cuts of meat and all being judged). The BBQ teams were all at our campsite, which made for some delicious smells, but also a lot of woodsmoke over the weekend. Some of their set-ups were incredible, looking more like steam trains than cooking equipment.
Within the centre of town there is a nature reserve that plays home to a colony of flying foxes. Every night at dusk they leave their roosts and fly over town on their way to find food. It’s estimated there up to 200,000 of them. Seeing all these spooky creatures silently flying overhead is really amazing, so one day we decided to find their roost. We ended up in one of the most hostile environments we’ve yet encountered. Stinking, mosquito infested mangrove swamps below us, thousands of screeching, pooing, weeing megabats in the trees above us. The noise was deafening, the smell sickening and when the mozzies started biting, we literally ran out of there to the safety of the neighbouring housing estate – which we imagine has the most modest property prices in town. There were some very cute semaphore crabs running about, waving their claws at us. They must have been telling us to “go back before it’s too late”!
Most afternoons we’ve spent at the beach practicing our bodyboarding. We’re slowly getting better, but also battered and bruised. We’ve both got foot injuries from hitting submerged rocks and general aches and pains from the sudden and unexpected increase in exercise. We’ve just bought some swimfins which are meant to make it easier for you to paddle out and then also catch the waves. They’re taking some getting used to, it’s almost like starting again – but we’ll keep at it!
So we’re here until next week. We were going to move on, but when planning ahead for Easter (we didn’t want to end up in some car park for the weekend, so wanted to book in somewhere) we realised most decent sites were full. We were hoping to get to Byron Bay for the weekend, but there’s (another) blues festival going on there over Easter, so all accommodation is booked out. After trying various other places, with mixed reviews, we decided better the devil you know and have extended our stay here. Plenty of time to eat chocolate and then hit the beach to work off the calories!
Hope you all have an eggcellent Easter.
Hoo Roo!