With the rest of the house’s 8 current inhabitants (puppy
dog Kaya included) either off at work, off in search of it or off spending
what’s been earned doing it, I sit down in the elusive sunshine on the deck
outside overlooking the mountains in an attempt to summarize the last couple of
months. Needless to say, much has happened since I last typed an update on a Thursday
morning in March.
I’ll try to simply begin where I left off. Having settled
into the outrageous 17th floor apartment in Melbourne, we turned our
attention from working to enjoying the city. Our month in civilization presented
us with visits from friends both new and old, a peek into the local music
scene, live AFL games at massive stadiums, culinary experiments (including homemade
leverpostej, pariserboef, and karrysild), moonlight cinema, bike rides around
the city, comedy festival, the casino, laneway culture and enough time poking
around town to begin feeling like a local.
However, as April 5 approached, our lease was up and it was
once again time to move on. An arduous few days of trial and error behind us, with
the absolutely invaluable assistance of Shane making everything come together,
we finally selected our means of transportation for the pending trip up the
coast: an incredibly comfortable 9-year-old KIA Pregio tradesvan now
affectionately known as Wombat!
We managed to barely sync up finalizing the purchase of the
van with no longer having anywhere to stay. This resulted in a couple of
relatively hectic days scrambling to gather materials with which to turn the
previously barebones Pregio into a veritable home on wheels. Fuelled by a
modest investment of blood, sweat and scavenging trips to the junkyard, the
project turned out surprisingly successful despite an obvious lack of
experience and extremely limited funds.
After saying our last goodbyes to Melbourne and inhabitants,
our first destination had us driving south to Phillip and Churchill Islands for
an overdue reprieve from city life and a visit to one of the largest colonies
of little penguins on the planet. Touristy gift shops and the hefty pricetag
for admission aside, witnessing the arrival of the penguins on the shore and
following their waddle into the marshes on land was a truly unique glance into
the life of these little creatures that we felt privileged to experience.
From Phillip Island we drove southeast to Wilson’s
Promontory National Park and the southernmost tip of mainland Australia. The
tangibly fresher air, amazing scenery and extraordinarily abundant wildlife
instantly gave us assurance that this roadtrip would allow us to scratch the
surface of a very different face of Australia. Having climbed the summit of
Mount Oberon, skinny dipped in the Bass Strait, crossed Squeaky Beach and
ticked wild kangaroo, wallaby and wombat (a personal favorite!) sightings off
our Aussie bucket list, we headed north to escape the rain.
A seven hour drive skirting the mountains of the Great
Dividing Range – a journey the heavily laden Kia was all but fond of – took us to
the Australian Capital Territory and Canberra. We stuck around just long enough
to catch Pacquiao vs. Bradley II at a local sports bar and see the parliament
building before driving on to Wollongong. Here we received an incredibly warm
welcome and immediately felt at home in the company of Sandy, Chris, Rosie,
Sully, Chad and everyone else. We stayed in the Gong for several days, properly
soaking in the enthrallingly laid back lifestyle, before backtracking down the
coast in order to catch a few of the stops we missed along the Grand Pacific
Drive (most notable of these perhaps the famous blowholes of Kiama).
After Wollongong, we made an obligatory stop in Sydney for
the Harbour Bridge walk, the beaches, the Opera House, kangaroo feeding, questionable
Groupon teppanyaki, the Darling Harbour fireworks and for Sarah to experience
the country’s tourist capital. A few days and a couple of close calls involving
a tow truck and an Aboriginal burglar later, we were again on our way, almost
happy to be seeing Sydney in the rear view mirrors.
Next on the agenda was our first attempt at proper camping
life as we delved deep into the Hunter Valley wine country, complete with
makeshift dripwater showers, firewood chopping, campfire cooking and plenty of
time to throw around the frisbee. Strategically camped in tiny Broke within
walking distance of a good handful of charming local wineries, we made
absolutely sure to properly sample the local products (amazing reds, whites,
vodkas, brandys and olives) on more than a few occasions.
Our thirst for alcoholic beverages momentarily quenched by
the staggering amount of wineries and distilleries in the region, we continued
our trek north, overnighting in a dozen peaceful little towns along the coast
from Port Stephens, Anna Bay, Nelson Bay and Lemon Tree up to Kew, Port
Macquerie, Coff’s Harbour and eventually Byron Bay. This stretch of our journey
was characterized predominantly by a general sense of appreciation of being far
from metropolitan Australia, and activities mostly revolved around discovering
great fishing spots, sailing kayaks, bush trekking, campsite socializing,
wildlife watching, local sightseeing and similar shenanigans that on occasion
made me appreciate wholeheartedly my years as a boy scout.
After a couple of days of taking in the hippie dippy, vegan,
gluten free, organic, lactose intolerant, crystal healing, pot smoking
surferdude culture of Byron Bay, the easternmost point of Australia, we
sojourned inland to traveler friendly Lismore. From there, after meeting up
with Chris and Ira, we experienced alternative lifestyles taken to new extremes
partaking in the Nimbin ‘Mardi GrasS’ – a quirky harvest festival fighting for
the legalization and celebrating the merits of marijuana.
The tug of drug war, bong throwing and joint rolling
competitions over with, we drove through the night crossing the New South
Wales-Queensland border to reach posh party town Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold
Coast. Here we met up with Quintin for some Queensland anecdotes over a local
Four X Gold and reveled in the luxury of access to a warm shower. With some
R&R, bushwalking and trippy funhouse visits in the books, we drove onwards
to Brisbane to once again sync up with Chris and Ira. With nothing much to see
in the Queensland capital, a few relaxing days of wine on the porch and a
nearly disastrous boat trip took up all of our allotted time in Brissy.
On the Sunshine Coast and in Noosa north of Brisbane, we
took advantage of our last shot at proper surfing before the reef. An amazing
spot with plenty of waves and relatively shallow water had us both finally
comprehending why so many fall so thoroughly in love with the activity. By the
end we were by no means pro surfers, but were at least both able to comfortably
stand up on the boards.
Some amazing fishing in Hervey Bay – the gateway to Fraser
Island – was our next stop, but weather conditions (and an exorbitant tour
price) prevented us from traversing the waters to visit the main attraction.
The peculiarly iconic Australian polar (!) bear beckoned us to onwards to
Bundaberg, as we honed in on the famous rum distillery for a sampling of the
quintessentially Aussie beverage brand. After a security briefing to rival a
visit to the White House and a tour of the facilities, we stole a hot shower at
a nearby caravan park and settled into an awesome campsite on the Calliope
River near Gladstone, south of Rockhampton. After another couple of days of
throwing around the (American) football and lounging at various freecamps, we
had a BBQ in Rockhampton (famous for its prime beef) before stocking up on long
life groceries and podcasts in preparation for our journey into the outback
proper.
Seemingly endless roads devoid of traffic merging with the
horizon off in the distance, yellow savannah grass, bare mountainous rock and
red desert sand as far as the eye can see, hours upon hours of scorching,
uncompromising sun, vultures overhead and wild kangaroos, emus, snakes and
lizards all around – THIS is the Australia that I travelled here to see! The
enchanting serenity of the lonely freeway and the pure, harsh nothingness of
regional Queensland, where sometimes towns (and petrol stations!) are 400
kilometers or more apart, has an uncanny appeal that I truly love and which has
left a lasting impression on me. Our outback adventure began at Emerald and
took us on a journey highly reminiscent of the Wild West along the Capricorn
and Landsborough Highways through the towns of Alpha, Jericho, Barcaldine,
Jundah and eventually Longreach.
On one particular stretch of road – the last bit from
Barcaldine to Longreach – we learned first hand just exactly why Queenslanders
generally don’t drive after dark in the barren far southwest. An unusually late
start to the day had us caught in between potential campsites as darkness fell,
with the GPS estimating arrival to around midnight. As time went on, minutes
between wildlife sightings exponentially decreased – until minutes became
seconds and eventually counting seconds became moot. The entire last hour of
the drive had kangaroos (apparently chronically depressed and frantically
suicidal creatures) permanently poised on both sides of the road, ready to end
their lives by vaulting themselves at the headlights of our unsuspecting
campervan. We saw literally hundreds of kangaroos on this stretch of road in as
unquestionably an Australian outback experience as we could possibly have
imagined.
Inevitably, despite extreme care and a speed of approximately 40
km/hour, a wallaby eventually managed to hurl itself into our path. We pulled
over and grabbed the hatchet, prepared to euthanize the poor thing. Luckily,
however, the creature had escaped with a somewhat glancing blow and was able to
hop off without staining our hands with the blood of the country’s national
animal.
Finally arrived in Longreach, we checked out the local
sights for a few days before heading southwest towards Windorah – gateway to
the Simpson Desert, population 158.
As the hours passed on the developmental road towards
Birdsville, the monotony of the desert landscape only broken by rare roadtrains
carrying heavy loads from distant coal mines, the time spent compiling our
roadtrip playlist proved a good investment. A full day of driving brought us to
Windorah and our most remote outback destination. Here, we spent the night and
went on to sink our feet into the red sand dunes that mark the edge of the
great Simpson Desert before embarking on the return journey towards Longreach.
From here, it was time to continue northward for Winton and the dinosaur capital of Australia. En route, a rather
serious misjudgment of road conditions had us backtracking almost a day’s worth
of driving, as a 400 km abandoned dirt road proved impassable halfway through.
Driving on razorsharp, fist-sized gravel in a heavy, 2-wheel driven vehicle off
the beaten path, with no cell reception and no other human in a 100 mile radius,
a flat tyre suddenly threatened potentially serious ramifications.
Turning in for a much needed beer and a bowl of bolognese at
an outback pub on the way, we arrived in Winton the next day unscathed. A quirky little town halfway between Longreach and Hughenden, Winton is the proud birthplace
of Waltzing Matilda (the unofficial Australian anthem) and a historic Mecca for
past opal mining activities. However, we came here for other reasons, as it
turns out this tiny village is also the most important stop on the Australian
dinosaur trail, boasting the discovery of some of the largest dinosaurs to ever
walk the Earth. With excavations still a work in progress, a walkthrough tour
of the process of preparing the findings proved more impressive than the
fossilized bones already on display. Before leaving the laboratory, we were
allowed to touch the spine of a 100-something million years old Australian
sauropod. Maybe it’s the hereditary affinity for archaeology (dad?) in me talking,
but I found this pretty amazing.
In a blitz we passed though Hughenden and Charters Towers
and before we knew it, we found ourselves back on the coast and back in
civilization. Here we spent a couple of pleasant days in beautiful Townsville hiking
mountains, swimming in the rockpools, visiting Magnetic Island and going horseback
riding (and horseback swimming!!) before continuing ever north.
Overnighting in Mission Beach, Ingham, Innisfail and
trekking to the Wallaman Falls (the longest single drop waterfall on the
southern hemisphere) on the way, we finally arrived in Cairns after 55 days on
the road to the warmest welcome we could have wished for in the
Danish/Australian/Scottish/German household of Alex, Sash, Nigel and Anki.
Looking back, I can say now with confidence that the
combination of living and working in metropolitan Melbourne and rural Penshurst,
seeing Tasmania, roadtripping 10.000 kilometers through ever shifting terrains
from Victoria to outback and coastal Queensland and getting in close contact
with both nature and wildlife has proved to be as amazing an Australian
experience as I could possibly have hoped for. Despite having seen so many different aspects of what the country has to offer, there is still so much left to explore - it is indeed no wonder that so many backpackers make the pilgrimage to this remote continent. For this traveller, however, left here is just one final,
extremely important experience still to come – the Great Barrier Reef!
We are now residing in Cairns for the next 4 weeks as
we attempt to replenish our empty coffers and plan the last leg of our journey.
Next time we find ourselves in an airport, it will be the last time we travel
east (New Zealand!) before, eventually, returning to the cold
Scandinavian north.
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