Adelaide-back! April 23, 2008

South Australia

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Well, we are well and truly out of the desert now, we know that because none of the other campervan drivers wave to us anymore, they did in the outback (think it was the mutual fear of getting murdered!) Adelaide has been a breath of fresh air and we spent 3 good days there, holed up in a campsite by a beach, on the edge of the Gulf of St Vincent. We’ve been told that South Australia is the only state that wasn’t originally populated with convicts and is a true settler community with lots of different races and tongues. As an example, in the city centre there is a small China town, apparently the Chinese used to try and avoid the Victoria State immigration tax by landing in S Australia and walking to Melbourne. I guess some of them just couldn’t be bothered so set up shop here (v sensible). Because of this non-convict past, we felt comfortable leaving our van unlocked at night! It’s also beautifully dry here at this time of year, clear skies and perfect POM weather (not too hot, but hot enough). It hasn’t rained for years in some local areas apparently and we wonder how they manage to produce 65% of Oz wines in the vineyards to the North of the city. We were taught in NZ that vines have to struggle to make the best grapes, but this is a struggle comparable with the emancipation of women! Two of our favourite wines are grown to the North, Jacob’s Creek and Wolf Blass, but we talked to one of our neighbours in the campsite and she said she stood in Jacob’s Creek the other day and it was as dry as a bone, so we didn’t bother going to see it (we were also scared of what we might buy and drink!) Our visit to the city was a pleasure, built by a military governor in a nice simple (what else?) grid The older 1800’s buildings line the banks of the Torrens River like Sgt Majors looking at the more modern buildings in a platoon in front of them with a disapproving, disappointed glower. We visited the museum, which was showing a free exhibit of Sir Don Bradman memorabilia and we went into the welcome cool to learn a bit about this incredible cricketer (test average 99.64, that must have boosted the confidence of his team-mates). After this it was a bit of culture in the Adelaide Art Gallery, which had a fairly impressive display of multi cultural exhibits – including a duplicate statue of Eros to the one in London, fascinating I hear you groan! We then waltzed down to the river, looking over the Adelaide bridge at St Peters Church, before walking along the banks, being pestered by black swans eager for a bit of bread. The central grid of Adelaide is surrounded by green parks and sports grounds, 9 cricket pitches by my reckoning, now that’s pretty impressive! We travelled back to the camp on a tram that runs out of the city to the sea at Glenelg, a nice little spot for an evening sunset stroll. We watched a beautiful sunset, looking out beyond the war memorial, then went for possibly the biggest, tastiest pizza we have ever eaten! Watching the world promenade by us, lots of families and backpackers and young lovers, then later increasingly motley and unstable groups of people and women who wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Octagon in Union Street.

The next day was one for relaxation, we rose late and then shuffled down to the beach to sunbathe and (for me) go for a swim, Soph sensibly declined – the water was absolutely freezing, i wondered why no-one else was in the water! We then played a fairly poor game of tennis (yes, she did beat me!) and went for a run before getting our pop-up chairs on to West Beach to watch a stunning sunset, whilst eating a packet of cashew nuts and downing a chilled bottle of Chardonnay – now that’s the good life!

Before leaving Adelaide we decided to visit the Port Adelaide area, which at one time (before the rise of the centre) was the place to be. The well kept restaurants and bars show that it must have been a great, sleazy place to be for the numerous sailors who frequented these parts. One place in particular, The Dockside Tavern, reminded us so much of the place where we met, The Dolphin – when we poked our heads in for a look, 1030 in the morning, the boozing clientelle did nothing to dispell the image! Walked around the metal lighthouse with Soph navigating and then walked off in completely the different direction from the van (and Soph was holding a map!) Nice area, but we couldn’t stay as we had a planned long drive to Mt Gambier. Longer than we thought as it turned out as we’d underestimated the distance on the map. As you drive out of Adelaide to the East you drive up into the hills, the van struggled a bit, it’s not used to any form of gradient what-so-ever! Passed over Mount Lofty, presumably named by a matelot, and then on to cross the mighty Murray River, the biggest in Oz (I think?) The land flattened out as we passed through Callington and beyond to Meningie on the coast. Stopped for lunch in the back of the van, the big advantage of the van is you stop up in front of a view and then pile in the back to make fresh sandwiches from the contents of the fridge. We were on the edge of the Coorong National Park where we hoped to see some Pelicans (no luck), but did get a fantastic, hazy view across to the Younghusband Peninsula, which runs parallel to the coast and forms this huge lagoon. We drove on along the coast before cutting inland towards Mt Gambier, the scenery changing again to pine forestry, the edges of which were lit to bold, gold scars by the setting sun in our rear view mirror. Arrived at our campsite at dusk getting a brief, dim view of the lakes before camping down. A cold, cold night here amongst the pine trees, dew on the ground by 2000ish and in the morning we awoke with cold noses, curled into each other like a ying and yang tattoo! We warmed ourselves through with a spot of breakfast (toasted cinnamon muffins) and coffee in bed before venturing out to look at the lakes here. There are 3 in a row - the Blue Lake, the Leg of Mutton Lake and Valley Lake. Each is a collpased volcano, with limestone surrounds filled with water which seeps through the rock, making the water almost completely pure. Blue Lake has a fantastic water quality that, because of crystals in the water being churned up by run off, turns a really bright blue between Nov and Mar (with impecable timing we arrived in April, but there was still the remnants of that startling colour visible on the edges). The depth of this water is about 70 m, but has decreased by 2 metres over the last 10 years. Because of this lowering of the water table, the Leg of Mutton lake has got no water in it at all and is now just a sunken forest. The Valley Lake is just beautiful, so we walked around it. I was hissed at by Soph as I tried for a dramatic ‘by the edge of the precipice’ phot, but hopefully the cover shot is worth it!
After some strenuous exercise walking through this ’swiss alps in summer style’ scenery, we drove through town to visit the Umpherston Sinkhole. This was a cave that had long snce collapsed, to form a big hole in which a benefactor (Mr Umpherston) built an English style garden. In 1911 it still had a small lake in the bottom, but now it’s pretty much dry. Free entry and really well maintained, it’s another example of Oz tourism that beats the greedy Brits hands down. Much of the limestones wall of this almost perfect circular bowl are sheathed in a green fall of ivy and parts of it reminded us of Wimbledon. There are also two huge palm trees that have had to grow long and thin to grab some of the light from the other big trees in the surrounding park land. We sat for a while in the sun at the bottom and just soaked it up. Next stop a cup of Mocha and a biscuit before the blog – now you may know I’m a bit of a chocaholic, but the teaspoon that came with my Mocha had dark and white chocolate melted onto the spoon in a pattern, I was inordinately impressed by this, just couldn’t believe my luck, stir the Mocha with the spoon and it just melted off into the coffee, just leaving a bit of hot chocolate to lick off the spoon – as I say I was impressed….why have I never seen this before and have to come to a smallish town in South Australia before I see this amazing revelation (ok I might be overdoing it, but it was very, very nice). We leave Mt Gambier today for further driving down to the coast again for the final push along to Melbourne, where we stay with my brother Phil, some of you may know him (he’s the ugly brother, poor thing). Enjoying this life, but it is getting colder…poor us (whingeing POMs)!

Chapped feet,peeling lips and the Big Red Rock! April 19, 2008

Northern Territory

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

hello everyone,
I hope you are all warming up a bit at home and that spring is on its’ way. We are safe and sound back in the bosom of civilization in Adeleide. We have had quite a trip the last few days.
After leaving Alice Springs we did the long drive down the middle to arrive at Ayres Rock (Uluru) in time for sunset. We stopped for one last petrol top up and I discussed with the petrol assistant the beauty of the out back and the distant huge rock. Saying things like “It’s a pretty impressive back drop, probably one of the most famous and photographed landscapes in the world.”
The assistant kind of blanked me and then while I was waiting to pay I saw a photograph of the distant rock with ‘Conners Mount’ written underneath it. Unfortunately my enthusiasm had been a little misplaced and it was not Ayres Rock.I hurried back to tell Chris of our mistake, but it turned out he had know all along. He did however say he felt a bit sorry for me when I was talking to the assistant ,but didn’t feel it was his place to intervene.
In my defence the rock was exactly like Ayres rock and I spent the next 20 ks moaning that I didn’t see why one rock was so much more famous than another rock that looked exactly like it. Chris just smirked to himself.
When we finally arrived at the real Ayres Rock we settled down to watch the sun set. It seemed a little strange as we actually had the sun setting behind us, but where looking at the rock. As you can imagine the sunset was really very normal and all the rock did was get darker. I don’t think National Geographical will be asking to print our photos .
It did feel very good to be there and although we didn’t get too close to it there was a certain beauty about it. There were lots of people out watching the sun set, but when we were there the next morning at 6 we were pretty much on our own.
The sunrise was pretty much like the sunset, but in reverse. Not spectacular, but worth doing for the tranquility. It was only when we got close to the rock that I started to see what all the fuss was about. It was huge and had an energy too it. It changed texture and colour with the sunrise and its’ vastness and presence were just inspiring.
I am now a big fan of Ayres Rock (and the other one) and Chris and I had a peaceful stroll around part of the base,taking photos,but mostly soaking up the moment. Our peace was short lived as before we knew it there were bus loads of tour groups following the leader around.The book suggested that we did not climb the rock or take photos of sacred ceremonial aboriginal areas.We were happy to do this as it felt like this was what made the rock so personal. However these groups of people were a little less caring and clambered all over it,really a shame. We have a picture, if you click on the photos of a group of people by a sign saying “Danger of falling rocks” to prove it. We also saw a woman with a mask to protect her face from the air which seemed ridiculous as we were nowhere near anything,very strange. The nearest factory was in Mount Isa which was hundreds of ks away.
Anyway we took a quick drive to the other side of the rock and had a stroll around as the sun came up. I had an image of the rock being oval and smooth, but when you get close to it the shape is much more rounded.
Part of the rock were really smooth like mousse and then there were fallen boulders and overhangs that glowed in the morning light. I think it would have been great to see it in the rain as there were pools around the base that filled when it collected rainfall.
I felt reluctant to leave, but there were so many people around that we were a little overwhelmed. I am really glad that we saw it at sunrise and we had a few treasured minutes together alone under the big fella. It really is beautiful !
As the day was still young we decided to sight see further and drove the 50 or so km to Kata Tjuta(many heads),The Algars .
This was a group of rocks that were seperated by gorges and shared the red of Ayres Rock. We decided to go for it and do the “Valley of the wind walk”a 7.4km circuit.I wasn’t too keen when I saw it was described as “challenging and difficult walking” but with Chris leading we started at a cracking pace. Anyone who has walked anwhere with Chris will know he kind of marches fast. The gorges were a pleasure to walk through and we were soon overtaking people in our fast walk around. I thought about people at home and wished they could have been with us, as it was really spectacular scenery with a blue sky and red rock,t rees scattered around and some steep smooth hills stretching into the sky .
We completed the trip in an hour and a half despite it being recommended as a 3 hour trip,Chris was chuffed to bits,we even high fived ourselves.
Back to the van for more driving, but as we drove through the outback i did feel fantastic. A natural high I suppose from seeing the sunrise and treking in gorges all in one day. I will try to see more sunsets in the future,I forgot how lovely they are!I also haven’t seen one since The Ganges and that seems too long ago.
As we drove away we saw the amusing sight of a coach pulled over with the passengers all staring out of the window.The driver was surrupticiously pulling a large dead kangaroo out of the road by its’ foot. Maybe not the Outback experience the passengers had paid for!
We were both knackered by the time we arrived at our campsite. Basically it was like Central Park Car Park with a toilet block. We didn’t care though and fell asleep instantly.
The next day we woke with chapped lips and sore cracked heels. Our trek had given our dry heels a pounding and they were really cracked and sore,and covered in red soil. Luckily we were only driving today. Olive oil was applied liberally.
We drove first thing,heading furthur south again to Coober Pedy,the Opal Capital of the world. Australia is a crazy place,we look at a place name on the map and aim for it,when we arrive there it is often just one building. We passed a place called Marla and it was just one buiding that was a cafe,garage,campsite,shop and internet . Very spooky with lots of cowboys smoking in the cafe and out of date expensive food. We realise then that we are in the middle of nowhere.
Anyway Chris was pretty excited about Coober Pedy as it has underground houses and motels. It was pretty small, but had a nice clean campsite. We were still knackered from our long continuous drive, but dragged ourselves to the underground museum. Delighted it was free we appeared out of the other side 4 minutes later looking a little bemused. It was underground which was cool and we could see where the machines had carved in to the rock. But it ended in a very expensive opal shop. I did learn two thing from our 4 minute trip. Firstly opal can contain every colour of the visable spectrum in one rock. Secondly the ‘rabbit proof fence’ built initially to seperate dingo’s from the sheep territory is 5600 kms long,twice as long as the wall of China and the longest fence in the world.
I think we maybe didn’t give Coober Pedy much of a chance as we were really tired from driving,we have now covered 5000miles in our camper! It was a very small town which resembled the moon so much that it had been used in Sifi films. There was a spaceship that had been left from filming which Walshy and Richie Ryan would have loved.
Feeling a little more revived we headed off early again the next day,to get to Port Augusta,another small town and no internet to blogg!Again we were too tired to do much,such wimps,we had an early night after a particularly tasty fish finger and mash meal. Chris ate 7 of them, but also let it slip that when he lived withTaylor in Bristol they used to eat 10 each,sometimes in a sandwhich. It seems so cruel to have separated them!
We woke up at 9.30 after a lie in. Normally we are on the road early with the birdsong (which does sound like they are chirping in an Aussie accent.)
We had a brief stop over at Port Germein and walked the very pretty mile up to the end of their pier. The second longest pier in the world ,no less. We thought it was the longest until some good for nothing interfering pensioner told us other wise! (there’s a longer one in Ayr just up the road)
We were planning on stopping at Port Pirie for the day, but arrived to an empty streets at 12.00. We did what any self respecting world traveller would do after so long in the isolation of the outback. We went to Macdonalds and bought a meal deal burger. That is also where we found everyone who lived there. And those that were not in Macdonald were next door in Pizza Hut.
We are now in Adelaide after driving onwards to get some action. Loads to do here and plan on spending a few days sightseeing,beaching and taking in the local vino.
We loved the outback ,but think we are now ready to get back into civalization. We also now believe there are no wild, living kangaroos in Australia. We saw over a hundred dead ones by the road. We think that the goverment don’t want to admit that the kangaroos are no longer here as they will lose tourism.So every morning they drive along the main roads witha vanload of dead kangaroos from local farms and throw them onto the road. Thus creating the illusion that kangaroos are living in the outback. Seriously,we haven’t seen any,you come and have a look if you don’t believe us!
Before we go a big Happy Birthday to Sal,hope you have a great day!

Into the guts with the Tawny Frog-Mouthed Owls! April 15, 2008

Northern Territory

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

 

We left civilisation a few days ago, waving goodbye to Katherine and heading South to retrace our steps towards 3-ways and further into ‘The Guts’, as the locals call the trek through to Adelaide. Saw a taste of the future in the internet cafe where Soph last did a blog, a single white middle-aged male with beard and khaki clothing, sat on his own playing war-games on the computer for hours in the middle of the working day, scary looking dude – we hoped to not meet too many of them on the way down. The owner of the shop, Glen, had given us an interesting spiel on the Aboriginal Culture and his thoughts on life the previous day and when we returned to the cafe, he was given the exact same talk to a bunch of german fellas (and we thought we were special, Glen!)

Set off for Daly Waters, where we had seen a camp site on the way up, bland drive really, trees thinning out to be replaced by less foliage and more sand, but still hot and sticky. Camped up in the camp site which was next to the Daly Waters Pub (oh dear!), really nice place lots of memorabilia on the walls, beer mats, international money, bras and knickers – nice! This place is tiny, but in its’ day used to be an important link on the Quantas airlines route to Singapore. Sydney to this little place and then on. In addition, several thousand US soldiers were based here during the 2nd WW, although god knows what they did here, they certainly didn’t build any bowling-alleys or burger-bars, like they normally do (must have been too hot).

Had a great night in the pub, spotted a young guy who we had passed cycling on these long roads earlier, we had slowed and asked him if he was ok, in case he was tired and needed a lift. In the pub, I asked him where he had been travelling from (thinking maybe he was doing a cross Aus event) and he said LONDON! He’d been cycling for 14 months on his own….and we asked him if he had a cramp, he must have laughed at that! The only down side is that we were at the start of the tourist season for this pub and the Saturday night entertainment hadn’t arrived, he was a 65 yr old from Adelaide who came up every year for the season doing singing and comedy, his act involved tame chickens perched on his shoulder etc – we wished we could have seen that, we were drunk enough to have really enjoyed it! This place had real live Aussie corrugated iron dunnies as well, so involved a careful check under the toilet seat for red-backs before you sat down!
Next day we were off early (with banging heads) for further miles south to get as far as we could. Again a road travelled before until 3ways, when we entered pastures new (well not pastures as it was partial desert!). The dead kangaroo count has rocketed (now 90-odd dead, 11 live) and we even saw ‘2 dead dingos’ (which would be a great name for a punk band). Road continued through until we reached the Devil’s Marbles, a collection of red sandstone rocks in the middle of the desert. They were amazing, not sure what we were expecting when we got there, but there are hundreds of them spread over a wide distance. Out of the van and immediately (and I mean within nano-seconds) the sticky flies were all over us. What do they do all day when there are no human nostrils to crawl up? They are incredibly invasive, in your ears, eyes and nose and just hanging around like being on small bits of string just in front of your face, so ANNOYING! We were both covered in them and I resorted to putting the old tea-towel round my head again, a cool trick that I expect will be copied around these parts. We played with the Devil’s Marbles for a while and Soph stopped one rolling down the hill (see photo stream) but the flies were too much and we were forced back in the van. As we drove out of the reserve I spotted 2 rocks together that in the tourist books a bloke had balanced between – right, I thought, that’ll do for me (forgetting that I’m 41 and have no upper body strength). soph set herself up for the photo so I couldn’t back out, even though it became screamingly obvious that this was harder than it looked. The cover photo was taken when I looked at my coolest, but if you zoom in you’ll almost see the shaking arms and gritted teeth!

Onwards to Wycliffe Well for the night. This is hammed up as the UFO capital of the World and there were lots of references to aliens and UFOs all over the place, pictures and models of space ships and loads of newspaper articles. We thought they were all going to be weirdos, but they were the nicest people we’d met for a while! That said, one of them said that she’d seen a UFO the following morning and the guy who did maintenance on-site vowed that he’d been abducted by aliens 10 years ago (apparently they look like giant ants that walk on 2 feet!) Another guy kindly gave us some fresh water crayfish, so they were a mixed bag.
It was cooler here overnight and the sky was incredible, clear as a bell. Slightly spooky as a local psychic had said that Peter Falconi (murdered Brit back-packer from a few years back) had visited him in a vision and told him that this was where he was buried! (I didn’t tell Soph this until the morning!)

Next morning we woke with a lovely chill breeze blowing into the van and the camp staff showed us a really bizarre sight, which at first we thought was a joke. It was two young Tawny Frog-Mouthed Owls in the fork of an Iron-Bark Tree. almost completely camouflaged with the strangest, flattest, barkiest looking heads I’ve ever seen on a bird. The mother had left them there 3 days ago and they would sit there until 1) they realised she wasn’t coming back and 2) they were that hungry they’d go out and fend for themselves – it’s a harsh world in the Tawny Frog-Mouthed Owl kingdom!
Onwards to Alice Springs – the land around here is where this guy Falconi was killed so it’s infamous, we really didn’t want to break down here!

 There is some relief as you enter Alice, with low mountains to the West, but the land is getting flatter, less vegetation and the sand has turned red. All the creeks we pass over are dry and are for the majority of the year. As we came into Alice I got Soph to put on the Jam song ‘A Town Called Malice’, which would have been fine if I hadn’t thought (and had thought for a few years) that they were singing ‘A Town Called Alice’ – anyway we laughed at my stupidity and kept the music on full blast, you can only hear Paul singing Malice and not alice if you listen really hard! In the middle of the desert Alice Springs comes as a bit of a suprise, it’s big and modern, with smart buildings and cafe/restaurants lining the banks of the River Todd. The ‘River’ is drawn as blue on all maps, but again it’s dry for most of the year and certainly dry now! Apparently the locals have a Henley-Todd Regatta, where bottomless boats are built for teams to race down the river, carrying them like the cars in ‘The Flintstones’ – that must be mad! after a brief bimble round the town in the heat, we camped up and went for a swim in freezing cold water in the pool, which came as a bit of a surprise! After that we spent a really nice night, home cooked surf and turf, new potatoes and salad. Porterhouse steaks are really good and cheap and I peeled the fresh-water crayfish that the bloke had given me. As I was doing that I had the thought that they looked a bit like big cockroaches, but with lovely pink meat inside (thank god). I only say the menu because we do well to cook much on our little gas stove (see picture) there’s not a lot of space, so I find it best to stand outside and lean into the van, that way I’m on the right level to cook and grill (a bit like driving a mini from the back seat). We’ve returned to Alice this morning for this blog, but are really excited because we are on our way to Ayres Rock/Uluru and the Olgas. After years of seeing them in books and on film, we’re actually going there- cool!
A big happy birthday to Gill Thomas by the way, 60 again!

Strewth,the Warns have been on the spectacular jumping wild croc, Aussie awesome boat tour! April 12, 2008

Northern Territory

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

 

Hello you lovely people,
We have been hurling ourselves into the outback life and getting everything we can out of our Aussie Trip.
After the last blogg we took a short trip to Edith Falls (Lelign) and as usual arrived in the heat of the mid day sun! Like true Englishmen we started to climb a 2.6k route to look at the local area. Half way through the first 100 metre I decided it was just way too hot and retreated to the shade leaving Chris to continue the route. I then spent the next half half an hour convincing myself that he would be bitten by a snake on our 4 year anniversary and I would be on Richard and Judy telling the tragic tale. I was however overjoyed to see a red faced Chris returning and we both laughed over the fact that he nearly got lost as he wasn’t wearing his glasses and couldn’t read the signs. I think the amusement was emphasised as Chris had done the entire trip with a tea towel on his head. He also said he had walked past an aboriginal family fishing and that they looked a little bemused to see a sweaty englishman walking past in the blazing heat with a tea towel on his head saying “hello “in quite a posh voice.
We cooled down from all the emotion with a dip in the local pool. There were croc warning so I was in and out very quickly. Chris swam all the way to the water fall ,but said he had a moment in transit where he felt he really shouldn’t be doing it. For the second time that day he survived in the face of danger!
After our trip we popped into a local Aboriginal art co-operative and looked at some local artists’ work. Great stuff and we bought a little canvas painting. We did like a larger one as well but decided we didn’t have the extra 2000 pounds to buy it.  That evening wed dined at the camp bistro and in fine style, steak and red wine (and really greasy chips) to celebrate our 4th ‘meeting’ anniversary.
We had an early night with the knowledge we would be up before sunrise to go on a boat trip around Katherine Gorge about 50 ks away.
We were up before the bird song the next day and felt like beeping our horn loudly to get the birds up as we have to wake up at 7.15 every morning listening to them squawking away.
We drifted in to the Gorgeous Gorge just after sunrise and enjoyed a full fried breakfast on the boat. Very nice indeed. As you can see from ther photos it was a stunning trip and we saw the colours of the rocks and the reflections in the water changing colours as the sun rose. The string of gorges has red, brown and yellow sandstone 1650 million years in the making and when we arrived at The Rainbow Serpent Lagoon there was an eerie calm and everyone sat quietly awestruck at the atmosphere in this aboriginal sacred site.
We saw a couple of snoozy crocs and noisy squabbling fruit bats and took loads of photos and both agreed our mums would have loved the trip.
Unfortunately the serenity was short lived as we returned to our campervan to a loud vibrating fridge. We had decided the night before things were not as they should be with the fridge. This was because we had started to shout over the top of its’ noise and had to sit with one foot pushing on the door and the other foot pushing on the rattling oven above it, to smother the sound. The nearest campervan station was 300ks up in Darwin and we decided we would get the fridge sorted and get some big croc sighting in at the same time. It was a little unplanned and meant we had to correct our trip brief that Chris had written, serious stuff.
The trip to Darwin was quite pretty though as it was a lot greener than the rest of the north and there were mango trees and ponds filled with lilies.
Darwin has been rebuilt twice, once after being bombed in the second world war and the second time in 1974 because of a Cyclone named Tracey. We found out that British Captain John
Lort Stokes had named Darwin after his friend Charles Darwin in 1839, 20 years before Charles Darwin published his Theory of Evolotion. Clearly two fellas who would make you feel a little intimidated at a dinner party.
Darwin was crazy hot and our camper van was in need of repair so we switched to a new van. Yet again The Warns were out running around like idiots in the mid day sun and moving all our stuff was a joyless business. We are both suffering with dry skin and chapped lips in our struggle to keep up our water levels in the heat.
We retreated to our camp for a swim in the pool only to dive into water the temperature of a bath, no relief. Then onto a shower that was also hot water even in the cold tap. We were pretty hot and bothered by the evening, but sitting under a velvet black sky covered in a thousand stars made us pretty refreshed.
We left early the next morning to take another river trip. Not just any trip though, it was the wild croc, all singing, all dancing, jumping and feeding boat trip.
Brilliant fun watching the crocs aproach the boat and leap out to grab the meat a fella was hanging from a long stick. We saw a few different sizes, but did not get so see the massive 7 foot croc the captain was telling us lived around the muddy banks.
Chris and I also found it difficult to keep it together and kept giggling as the commentator repeated himself all the time and made very bad jokes. It was a little bit like ‘bid-up’ tv as the chap filled an hour and 20 minutes with 20 minutes of material, very funny and made the trip even better.
We were glad to get back on the road and head south again though, as Darwin is just too hot and steamy for us and we are eager to get back to the outback. As we drove South we saw huge Termite mounds in the bush, these point to Magnetic North because the termites know that this way there will be less sunlight on them, clever little fellas! 

There is something that is contagious about the isolation and anonimity of the outback that has taken us both by surprise. I thought it would be a bit dull, but the driving has been brilliant fun. Chris and I have been talking about several make believe business ideas and getting really into it.
We do still disagree occasionally, mostly on the speed the camper van should be driven at and also whether we should drink the water from the campsite taps. We stopped using tap water in Mount Isa when we found out that it was the most polluted area in the Southern Hemisphere. Chris is back using tap water, but did mention that a frog came out of the tap the other day?!? The man is crazy! We are now heading to the Red Centre, hopefully to get some good snaps of Ayres Rock and keep the brilliant aussie adventure going. Bye for now, we are going in! Don’t worry mum we have lots of water with us! 

‘Death By Misadventure’ – the case of the violent pink Galah! April 9, 2008

Queensland

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Well it’s been an interesting couple of days, leaving the East coast and making our way inland and into the Outback! We spent our last night in Townsville basking in the glory of a beautiful sunset, viewed from Castle Hill which overlooked the hills of the Great Dividing Range and out to sea and Magnetic Island. We drove up the hill passing huge amounts of fitness conscious Australians running, power-walking, cycling and staggering up the steep hill to the summit (a bit like the Gibraltar Rock Run), we felt a little guilty about our laziness until we got to the top a) without a sweat on b) with a couple of perfectly chilled Tooheys in the fridge, which we could drink as we watched the sun go down (that’s what I call an Isotonic Drink!)
It was a good sunset too and we toasted ourselves in more ways than one, with a drink and sitting on the rocks pre-warmed by the day’s heat!
An early night after this because we were heading West the next day. Left the coast feeling like real adventurers, full steam ahead to Charters Towers, an old mining town which used to be so large and important the locals called it ‘The World’. The first gold discovered here back in 1871 by a young Aborigine called Jupiter Mosman and suprisingly enough, he became one of the founding members of the Mining Committee and later on a Statesman of the Town (as opposed to being paid or bumped off!). Nice place though, real cowboy feel from the buildings to the boots and ten gallon hats worn by local dudes! We took a good look around the Stock Exchange and old bank (now a Theatre), nice architecture, but you get the impression that building or doing any work in this place must have been painful!

As we travelled further West we passed Creeks with names such as Skull Creek, Skeleton Creek and Deadman’s Creek, whcih re-inforced the image of an age of tough times, we were actually following the path of the ill-fated Wills and Burke exbedition (but in an AC Campervan). Also passed over Stonehouse Creek, which reminded me of home, the namesake of the creek overlooked by my old school (and now Simon Morris’s house, but he wouldn’t want to live here!) Further west again passing through the Great Dividing Range (at its’ lowest point) this was the end of any landscape features and the land turned flat all the way across to our intended pitch for the night Hughenden (twinned with that 1980’s town Hue’n'cry). When we arrived we paid money to see a very poor reconstruction of a fossil, Muttaburrasauras, in a dingy museum which must give the Aquarium in Picton S. NZ a run for its’ money on the worst tourist attractions of the world list. We also noticed that it was Saturday and the town had shut down, and felt very unwelcoming so we pushed on to the next town of Richmond, very English sounding and we had visions of a lovely river running through it! WRONG, it was a one street dusty stockman town, but at least it had a caravan park next to a man made lake, where we camped.
As we were plugging in the power lead and generally setting up our home for the night, a pink Galah (like a wild cockatoo, but more stupid – hence phrase ‘you flaming Galah’ once used famously by our new friend Dani when she binned a boyfriend in Aus) flew on to the roof of the wagon and seemed very interested in us, the lady at reception had told us that it was previously a pet, but had flown away to make home here a few years ago.

A short story:

‘The case of the violent pink Galah’

This bird seemed nice enough, Soph spoke to it and tempted it down from the roof of the van to sit on her shoulder, at this point phots were taken and everyone was laughing, even the bird it seemed. BUT the birds laugh was more of an evil cackle as it dug it’s claws into Soph’s arm and she became increasingly uncomfortable, so in rode her night in white armour (me) to try and push it off. First time unsuccessful, it tried to peck me so I used a tea-towel to shove it off. There, that’s better….oh no it isn’t, as the bird turned in the air and came for me! It attacked me, I was a bit stunned and didn’t react much to the first 3 bombing-runs and it got a couple of nasty bites in! The next time it came in though I grabbed a wing and pulled a few of it’s lovely pink plummage out – ha, that should do it, thought I….ah, I seemed to have just made it madder, it went for me again and as I ran to the van to get something to hit it with (Marie Claire magazine, very heavy!), it landed on Soph’s back. She did what you would do in this situation and froze, and I ran up and whacked the thing, bang! It squawked and flew off and we thought nothing more about it, going for a power walk round the lake. When I came back after one lap to get my hat, the thing was still there mooching around the door of the van, when I tried to get in it flew at me again, I only managed to land an ineffectual knee to its arse. It landed on the roof again, so this time I was quicker with the Marie Claire and whapped it really hard, so hard it cart-wheeled out of sight across the other-side of the van. Feeling chuffed, I went for lap 2 of the lake and by the time we had returned the offending bird was sat on our neighbours van. As we walked in to town, we popped into reception and they told us that the bird traditionally ‘went’ for blokes, a bit like my brother. I wished they’d told us earlier, we had a few beers in town in pubs reminiscent of the Dolphin (yellow walls and dodgy punters) and then came back searching left and right in the dark for more Flaming Galah attacks!
We were safe though, until I was woken in the morning by the pat-pat-pat of Galah sized feet on the roof of the van and as I drew back the curtain to look out, you wouldn’t believe but there it was looking right in at me – completely freaked me out, like a small, pink fluffy looking bird of prey with a malevolent look in its’ eye! I grabbed the faithful Marie Claire and went out to face it down, but there was no reaction, it just sat there on our stone-guard at the front of the van, just staring at us. Like a Hitchcock movie, we ate a rapid breakfast meaning to get away from this scary little blighter. Started the engine and the bird didn’t move, drove out the gates with fellow travellers laughing and pointing at the amusing antics of the cute birdie, all the time we were just hoping it would fly off!
It stayed with us all the way through town, up to 80kmh, then we stopped at the junction before the big road west and gave it a chance to fly away, nothing it sat there and even worse it just kept looking in the cab! Well that was it we were on the main road so we increased speed, with the thing clinging to the van with its’ talons. 80..stillthere, 90 still there, 100 still there, now clinging on with feet and beak, 110 (fastest we’d yet done in the van) still th…..oh no, gone now – the last I saw through the rear-view mirror was it cart-wheeling through the air, before stoofing into the tarmac in a bloom of pink feathers. Death by misadventure/murder or suicide – I leave that to you reader!

Anyway, we kept thinking about the damn bird for ages, not feeling that bad about it just a bit freaked out. Got to Mt Isa through Julia Creek and stayed over for the night, we were going to stay for a couple of days, but it felt like the tourist attractions were all a bit weak ’see the mine’, ‘visit the underground hospital, temperatures get into the high 60s!’ and ‘experience the pleasures of digging at a coal face for a day – lunch included’. We pushed on past the massive silver/copper mine that stretches the whole length of the town and sits right in it. This is one of the biggest polluting mines in Aus and it’s right there in the middle of town, bizarre. We piled on through the hills that surround the town and then it’s just flat and very Australian (you can almost hear the sound of didgeridoos playing as you look out into the vastness). Took the classic phot of Sophs by the yellow Kangaroo sign, but in fact we still haven’t seen many live ones yet (our stats on kangaroos are 54 dead, 7 alive). We passed through Camoowheal, the last town in Queensland on this road and then we were over the border and into Northern Territory, was it our imagination or did the temperature go up 10 degrees?

There was a long hot drive to the Barkley Homestead Wayside Inn, which is right plum in the middle of no-where as we sang ‘We’re on our way to no-where’. We were going to stop here for the night, but it was pretty awful. A garage doubling as a restaurant/pub, doubling as a caravan park. We decided to push on (buying petrol almost twice as much as costs in the Aus cities) but stopped for lunch. Sophs ordered a cheese-burger for me from the gum-chewing, red-neck, crippled Sheila working the bar. Her customer service laden reply ‘we’re not McDonalds, we don’t do cheeseburgers, we do burgers with cheese!’ Unbelievable, I tell you Soph’s gaze was frosty, real glacial and the girl just wilted under it’s sub-zero blast! The burger was very good though, probably had spit in it!
On we went to 3 ways, where you either turn left to Alice Springs or right to Darwin, right it was for us. We drove right through the day until the sun was low on the horizon, knackered but having covered nearly 700 kmh, we pulled up to Renners Springs, unfortunately a bit like the Barkly Homestead – went to the local bar for a stubbie and it was like the pub in ‘American Werewolf’ all the guys in a combination of vests, boots and shorts, with 4 colours brown, green, beige and khaki! Still, we were so tired we would have slept anywhere and after a short DVD that’s just what we did. Good thing is, we saw some Kangaroos hopping around at dusk, they are out there!

The next day was another long drive North, up through Daly Waters to Katherine, a biggish town close to the famous Katherine gorge. That’s where we are now, having come all this way we are now getting a bit more tropical temperatures – now it’s hot and steamy, with more lush vegetation and greater numbers of bugs. The flies out here are what are termed ’sticky flies’, they just hang around your face, eyes and lips they really could send you mad. Good adventures planned for next couple of days, and fortunately no more huge road distances to cover. We’ll keep you posted. By the way it’s exactly 4 years since I first clapped eyes on Sophs in the Dolphin pub, one of our official anniversaries – so we’re looking for a nice place to eat tonight, I think I saw a Subway here earlier.

We’ve got no beef with the Barrier Reef! April 4, 2008

Queensland Aus

Originally uploaded by chris.warn

Hello chaps,
This will be a quick blogg i think, as the truth is there has been a lot of loafing around in Queensland lately!
We had a bit of a road trip to Bowen where Chris wrote the last blogg, not a lot to say about it really. Kind of a one street town, but the campsite near the beach was very nice. At the campsite reception the lady said “We haven’t got a pool at the moment.” I said “that’s fine we can swim in the sea.’” She replied “No you can’t, it’s full of stinging jelly fish.” I replied “ok” quite weakly and paid her anyway. All the coasts of Northern Queensland suffer from a variety of stinging jellyfish at this time of year, apparently.

We camped right on the beach and had a long sweeping view either way up and down the coast and out into the ‘never to be swum in’ sea. The flies were crazy here and buzzed continuously as soon as any food is nearby, which in our case is quite often. We had a great fast walk up the beach in the last heat of the sun, overtaken by a young child when we were at our most out of breath. It did little for morale, however the spectacular sunset was awe-inspiring. You will have to take our word for it though, as we forgot to take a picture. It was a taste of things to come, we hope, so will get the next beauty!
We left our non swimming beach early and headed up to Townsville the next day. Long haul really ,but quite a pretty big town and the journey through mango orchards was really lovely.

We were quite pleased that we were staying for 4 days, which is a long time for us to spend in one place. The campsite also has a brilliant pool with large water-squirting plastic snakes and a curvy snake water-floom. All of which was tried and we were thrilled with it, so much so there is a photo of Chris going down the said snake slide in our album.
Unfortunately our slow rattling camper van had developed a loud whirring noise coming from the fridge, really loud overnight, so the next day we had to take it to the garage as it was driving us nuts. The chap who fixed it, Tracey, (he he,he has a girl’s name) gave us a lift into town while it was repaired, took hours so we had a nose around the shops and bought Chris some new boardies. The poor chap has worn the same pair for 5 months and they are faded and dodgy looking .New ones are superb!
Chris told me it was only a short walk back to the garage, so we stomped off in the hot sun,after about 40 minutes it became clear my husband had lied to me (again) and we continued the last 10 minutes with him smirking and me being in a huff. Chris later told me that as it was April Fools’ day, he thought about playing a trick on me in the morning by saying there had been a big gas leak at the campsite and we had to get out as soon as possible. The man is crazy, I know it would have ended up with me crying while throwing everything into the van inconsolably. Not dissimilar to the time he hid my engagement ring away from me and returned it quickly when I began to cry! It is funny now though!

Anyway it was a bit of a waste of a day really, but had a great BBQ with prawns and fresh fish (a fish fillet cost 40 pence) to make up for it. The fridge is fixed so that’s the main thing, get those stubbies back in!
We booked up our’ big trip ‘ in town the next day and e-mailed friends and checked out our Aussie visa online. I am so happy to be organizing my sister’s hen night, that i think about it too much and keep sending long detailed e-mails to the hens. I have to calm myself down to ensure that I don’t drive them all mad. I have to realise that other people’s days are filled with more important things than water floom rides and BBQs.

The next day was what we had been hanging around for. A beautiful clear blue sky greeted us as we headed out to sea at 7.45 for our Great Barrier Reef trip. We were really excited and chuffed to be going, such a great thing to be able to do. We were sailing on a big Catamaran which was pretty rocky and luckily quite empty. We had been told there was going to be a film crew doing a documentary travelling out too, but alas no! We even wore our best casual clothing.
The trip out was about 2.5 hours and we passed Magnetic Island on our way. It was named Magnetic Island by Cook (again) as he thought the island effected his navigating compass by its magnetism. I am surprised the fellow got to do any sailing with all the land naming he was doing!
We sat back and soaked up the views on the trip out and chatted to other passengers. An Irish lady was looking rough due to sea sickness ,but she had 3 cookies I noted (Chris and i only having one each) and even more on the way back despite still claiming to be unwell.
It was pretty rocky, but the guide told us that it was perfect visibility in the water of up to 25 metres, so we were very happy.
Once at the reef there was a bit of a free for all as everyone got their kit together. “Get back in those stinger suits Mr and Mrs Warn.” We had decided to do snorkeling and not scuba diving as it was just crazy prices and we would have had to lived on rats to break even again.
Once we were in the 26 degree water it really was amazing. There is a whole world going on down there and we finned off together to take it all in. Lots of pointing and thumbs up all the way. The sea was really clear especially when the sun shone, most of the area was living reef. Loads of differents coral species – stag horn, boulder, feather, corn-flake, brain and a whole contrast of colours and texture.
There were thousands of fish that we could have reached out and touched. Some seemed to ignore us and others looked surprised to see us. At some points we were in 20 m of water, then the next minute we had to hold our bodies straight( like Tom Cruise hanging on that wire in Mission Impossible)as the water was really shallow above the sharp and poisonous coral. We had received strict instructions not to touch the coral as we could kill it (or it could harm us) and it was hundreds of years old.
I think it is everything it is hyped up to be here. The fish varied from tiny grey,silver fish on the surface to huge purple velvety clams 2 metres wide sitting on the sea bed. There were fish guides, but they cost 7 dollars, luckily my cunning criminal genius of a husband waited until no one was looking and took photos of the cards to put on our album. So if you want to click on the photo you can see the guide. We saw Butterfly, Angel, Batfish, The Broadstripe Cardinal, Snapper, Damsel, Moon and 6 bar Wrasse, Bluestreak Cleaner Wrasse, Sealfaced Puffer, Parrot fish, The Yellow Tailed Fusilier, Trumpet fish, Scuttle fish, Humbug Damsels, Regal Angels and Blue green Damsels.
It was a really clear beautiful sea and we felt really privileged to have a chance to scuba dive in it. Lucky us!
We got a good couple of hours on the reef and had a tour and trip off the boat in a smaller glass-bottomed boat.
Too soon it was time to go back to shore and Chris and I hovered as long as possible at sea and were reluctant to get back on the boat. Relaxing trip home with more sick bags being grabbed. But Chris and I sat around smiling about our great experience, without vomiting!
We are now on our last day in Townsville and psyching ourselves up for our trip inland. After so many days of beaches and swimming we will miss this relaxing coastal life style. This part of the trip has been a real treat and the views and the warm sea have been very welcome!
We are planning an early departure tomorrow to get our first taste of the real bush. There will be quite a lot of driving for the next two weeks, but it will be interesting to see a completely different scene. So goodbye for now,we have to go and buy cowboy hats now then WE ARE GOING IN! The Red Centre is calling,Yeehaa!