Day 225 – 14 March 2010: London to Sydney overland (well just about). Done. Now what?

The end....of the beginning.

I am not feeling too healthy after my Tabasco beer experience.

Arriving in Sydney, we must look like a band of gypsies taking out our tents and laying them on the grass in the middle of the city to dry them out.

We say goodbye to Scouse Pete, his wife Pam, Big John and Tracy, and Mario and Jana, the Germans off to adventure on their own from here. The rest of us move into Sydney Harbour YHA, a busy modern hostel with all mod cons which is built on top of some ruins which date all the way back to, oh I don’t know, the last decade, and which are on display on the ground of the open central courtyard. On the top floor, there is open rooftop seating with a view over Sydney Harbour and the Opera House.

In my room, which I am sharing with Joost, Shay and Dan, the former two shave off the beards which they have been cultivating in South East Asia. They do it in stages to test the various looks they could adopt, before wisely deciding to finish the job.

We have a rooftop drinks party, with Lucinda, who rejoined the group in Melbourne, fulfilling her now unpaid role of organiser in chief. My night ends though when I come out of the toilet to find that everybody has left, presumably onto a pub.

Day 224 - 13 March 2010: Tabasco Beer

There are quite a few murky heads this morning including my own.

On the road again, we stop at a petrol station for a toilet break. Jen decides she really needs to get off the bus and wants a flat surface to rest her head on, so she lies down on the station forecourt.

We camp about 150km from Sydney in a town called, oh I don’t know, let’s call it Frank. Our campsite doubles as a part-time horse paddock and, though there are horses there now with us, the evidence of their presence rests in the wall-less stable.

It’s our last night together as a group, so we descend on the pub, where my pints are regularly spiked with Tabasco. For some reason I don’t mind this even after I am told.

Day 223 – 12 March 2010: After 223 days I no longer know nor care where I am

Another long driving day through ‘roo territory: one kangaroo hops speedily along the side of the bus for a while before mysteriously deciding to headbutt it. I think it survived but, with that sort of behaviour, probably not for long.

Scots Widow Helen is the first person we say goodbye to in Australia. We drop her in Sale, where she is seeing some friends. In a few days, we’ll all be saying goodbye, at least I think we will as I have no idea still where I am going after Sydney.

We stop for lunch somewhere I never did learn the name of, but it has a coastal national park, which is separated from the mainland by an intercoastal river. Near the bridge across the river to the beach park is an elaborate sand carving featuring an intertwined collage of sealife shapes. I walked along the vast near deserted beach towards a pump throwing up sand and seawater back into the ocean. Walking back through rich vegetation in sand dunes off the beach, I came across a number of items of human detritus such as used tampons and condoms.

It’s Joost’s birthday today and tonight’s bush camp turns into a party, and this means another round of underwear ripping. I can think of some circumstances where having my pants ripped off would be quite desirable, but none of those circumstances involve a burly Dutchman.

I try to go to bed, but Joost is not tolerating it, or at least I’m not tired enough to sleep through his boisterousness. I get back up, finally bedding down last at about 2a.m., after chatting to Jen for a couple of hours.

Day 222 – 11 March 2010: Critter filled campsite

It’s quite cold and my tent is damp when I get up for a 6a.m. breakfast, but I warm up by the fire.

We drive to Wilson’s Promontory, the southern most point of Australia. Before a days walking, we set up camp in a campsite brimming with Crimson Rosellas (or at least that’s what I think they are from searching on the internet), cartoonishly red and blue birds which are tame enough to rest on Big John’s arm as he feeds them crisps.

We go for a climbing walk up a gravel path passing a telegraph station to the peak of Mount Oberon, where we have a commanding but tranquil view over Oberon Bay, where the retreating sea has left lakes and marsh lands.

In the evening after dinner, Steve suggests we go for a walk to find some echidnas or wombats, as this is the time they come out. I stay behind. Some people come back saying they have seen a ‘wisdom’ of wombats, but they needn’t have bothered as soon wombats are crawling around our bus, one even wandering obliviously through the middle of our circle of seats.

photo courtesy of the Bennell

Day 221 – 10 March 2010: Australia, the home of ‘elf’n’safety

After spending most of the morning exploiting the opportunity to catch up with emails for a few hours, Ceri, Alice (another Brit who has been staying with Ceri but is coming to the end of her time in Oz) and I go for my first Aussie pizza at The Grand. It’s disappointing really, the base being a bit bready and the cheese not being cooked enough. 5/10 .

The local papers are full of stories about the local trams being unsafe, which may well explain the go-slow of the tram I take back to the campsite. It takes an hour and I nearly miss our bus.

We bush camp a few hours outside of Melbourne at an off road campsite in farming country. Jen and I for a run in the dark, which my croc shoes are not really made for. Out here in the countryside, the Milky Way fills the skies at night.

I went to sleep to the sound of some mellow blues guitar picking from a neighbouring camper van.

Day 220 – 09 March 2010: Melbourne and an odd feeling of homeliness

Arriving at the Melbourne campsite in late morning, I ‘upgrade’ for the first time on my journey, taking a tram to the centre of Melbourne and then to Richmond where Ceri, my oldest friend from home, now lives with Dani, her Aussie partner. I half feel that I have already finished my trip, because this is the first time I have stayed in a home since the first night of August last year. Dani is a bit of a cleanliness freak and, having been camping for half of the last thirty weeks, and all of the last three, I feel like I am dirtying the home just by being here.

I don’t know exactly what I will be doing when I arrive with the UK to Oz group arrive in Sydney, but I know I will be coming back to Melbourne at some point, so I don’t feel like exploring Melbourne in the brief time I am here at the moment. Instead, I spend the afternoon drinking cider with Ceri catching up on the last couple of years.

Day 219 – 08 March 2010: The Great Ocean Road, and we’ve reached Devon

When we camp at these random places, we tend to have breakfast at 6 and leave at 7. Today there are some displeased people being told to get up a half hour earlier than expected, as they hadn’t realised that the clocks moved forward by that much as we crossed into Victoria yesterday.

Today we drive along the Great Ocean Road, stopping at several places to observe the spectacular scenes from the disintegrating limestone cliffs and rock stacks of coastal Victoria. The Bay of Islands is like an archipelago of isolated platforms rising from the sea. There is a menacing elegance to these scenes, the ocean waves crashing and swelling up the rocks. Then there is what is now called ‘London Arch’, having been billed as ‘London Bridge’ until 1990 when the double archway became a single one as the narrow arch connecting them to the mainland collapsed into the sea.

Later there is a stop in Torquay and the weather is very Torquay like too. After seven months travelling through Hampshire, we have made it through Dorset to Devon in double quick time. In that time, everyone in Devon has converted to driving mopeds and the dialect has taken a funny turn.

The most mystical sight of our journey today is ‘The Twelve Apostles’, who have, alas, lost some of their brethren, the necks of some of the large Merlin’s head rock towers having given way to the power of the ocean. There must have been some hefty crashes along the way. Unfortunately, some of the remaining Apostles, of which there are eight, may not be long for this world either, although while they continue to defy gravity they are the sight to see on the Great Ocean Road journey.

There is a reason why this part of the coast is referred to as the Shipwreck Coast, and Loch Ard Gorge, another limestone stack feature, is named after a clipper ship that wrecked here in 1878, killing all but two of the fifty one people on board. There is also a cemetery on the walkway through the scrub where remains of some of those recovered from the wreck are buried.

However, the atmosphere of the brutal coast line is somewhat dissipated by the warning signs and fences that line the walk through the scrub land. Health and Safety has scarred the landscape. In the defence of such maintenance, it does allow rich vegetation to grow, supporting lots of wildlife like birds, voles and, not so welcome to these other animals nor to humans, tiger snakes. Having said that, the presence of these snakes provides a natural disincentive to trampling through the plant growth.

On the road again, we see an Echidna crossing the road, otherwise known as a spiny anteater, a hedgehog like creature with an elongated snout. Our guide Steve mentions that this is only the third one that he has ever seen that wasn’t already road pizza.

We bush camp near a petrol station just far enough from Melbourne to avoid being at a real campsite. A couple who did the UK to Oz trip before and who are now living in Melbourne come out to meet us, and they are induced into doing the cooking for us.

                                                                 Link: More Pics

Day 218 – 07 March 2010: A Lake of Sapphire

It will take two days to get to Melbourne. At lunch time we stop at Mt Gambier, the ‘Mount’ actually being a range of volcanic craters, one of which is now a saline lake, which changes colour with the seasons. Today it is the richest blue.

Tonight’s bush camp is by a scout station and, quelle surprise, it’s raining. There is a vast lake nearby, but this one is far from blue. In fact the ground around it is bouncy & wobbly, like we’ve landed on strange sponge like planet. The mud looks like it could swallow a person whole.

Day 217 – 06 March 2010: Seven Months in Wiltshire

I had been considering getting up early this morning to go swimming with dolphins, which is offered in the marina for A$90. However, a night drinking wine with John and Tracy put paid to that.

Last night was our only one in Adelaide, so today feels like an ‘airport day’. Although we are not leaving until five o’clock this afternoon, we have to be out of the campsite by ten, and we are only really leaving because UK to Oz are looking to save money by getting us to bush camp as much as possible.

I walk back to Glenelg to pass the day. I am not too interested in the centre of Adelaide as this just reminds me of business centres you would find in British cities, with its expensive wine bars. In Glenelg, at the end of the tram line, there is one train claiming uniquely to be ‘a piece of history’. I suspect it is no older than the average train on the London Underground. After a while lolling around near the beach, where there are camel rides on offer and a brass band in a pavilion playing Beatles covers, the weather begins to turn and I make my way back to the bus. Walking along the beach with the rain starting to come down and the sea turning rough, it dawns on me that I have just spent seven months travelling through Hampshire, the Taj Mahal having been moved to Basingstoke.

By the time everybody is back on the bus, the rain is lashing down. Another fine night’s bush camping beckons....