HOME  |  BACK |
| other countries... |
| |
KATHMANDU NEPAL |
| |
TREKKING NEPAL |
| |
CAMBODIA |
| |
ANGKOR WAT CAMBODIA |
| |
VIETNAM |
| |
LAOS |
| |
THAILAND |
| |
MALAYSIA & INDONESIA |
| |
AUSTRALIA |
| |
NEW ZEALAND | |
USA WEST |
| |
USA EAST |
 |
|
|
Having backpacked in Australia before, I decided this time to try and concentrate on visiting the less touristed areas.
I have relatives in Perth, western Australia, and so started my journey there. Perth is a very clean, albeit small, city. The beaches are superb,
and the sunsets are often spectacular as the photo above demonstrates! After staying with my aunt and uncle for two weeks, and acclimatising to Western ways of life again,
(re-runs of The Bill! shopping for food! non-CNN news programmes!) I booked on 'Red Earth Tours' travelling up Australia's western coast. WA covers an area of 2.5 million kilometres,
most of which is red dusty outback. The coastline however is stunning without the large number of tourists of the eastern seaboard.
The Pinnacles Desert One of the great things about Australia is the ability to attribute seemingly random and slightly mystical place names to particular geographic or geological areas. For example, there is a stretch of sanddunes in Perth known as 'the Nodes'; an area in North-Western Australia is called 'the Bungle Bungles'; and just north of Perth there is 'the Pinnacles', a desert well-known for it's strange rock formations. |
|
 The Pinnacles - click to enlarge |
 Western Australia - click to enlarge |
|
With the huge distances being covered, much of this trip was spent in the tourbus, only it wasn't really a tourbus, but an old Toyota Hiace that had been converted by Aussie Glen into 'Red Earth Tours'. I spent much of the time gazing out the window at the surreal desert environments. On the trip I met Rae and Dell and a bunch of other English people. This photo shows a typical outback road. There are times when you will pass no other vehicles for hours. Monkey Mia Monkey Mia is a famous spot on WA's coastline, well-known for the wild dolphins that come ashore to be fed. As the photo shows, the dolphins are not at all shy. This was the first time I had been so close to these gentle animals, and it really did seem as if they have some kind of connection with humans. We stayed here for a little while and visited a couple of gorgeous beaches, and watched Reef Sharks swimming along from the safety of a clifftop. The waters round here, known as Coral Bay, are home to abundant wildlife, including the passing of humpback whales at certain times of the year. |
|
Monkey Mia - click to enlarge |
WA's coastline - click to enlarge |
|
One night just outside a town called Carnarvon we stayed on a working sheep station. After a few beers and a hefty barbeque (my first in Australia - strewth!) we set up camp around the fire. It was a moonless night, and I woke up in the middle of the night to watch a sky lit up - literally - with stars. The only noise was the occasional yowl from an animal, or the roar of a passing road train. The final stop was the town of Exmouth. Exmouth was almost completely destroyed by a hurricane about 10 years ago, and is known for it's proximity to Ningaloo Reef and the diving that it offers. Exmouth actually isn't a very nice place, a town of caravan parks where, strangely, kangaroos bounce about freely after dark. This is a fact: Kangaroos are the quietest animals ever. We were walking down the street from the pub, and all of a sudden these rather ungainly bouncing beasts appeared from nowhere. I stayed in Exmouth with Rae for a little while and we did some diving on the reef. There isn't that much else to do here though, and after a few days I found myself waiting with a load of other backpackers for the Greyhound bus north to Broome, in the far north-west, at 1am in the morning. Standing on an empty Australian outback highway in the middle of the night is a strange experience. The sky is so bright with stars and stretches on forever. The arrival of the Greyhound can be gauged up to half an hour in advance, as the lights can be seen from so far away. I was lucky on this bus to meet Emily, a Philipino woman who told me about a job in a restaurant in Broome. Broome Broome is a small pearl-fishing town on WA's northern coastline. It is a picturesque place which was once home to many foreign pearl-fishers looking to make a fortune - there are still a number of very exclusive pearl shops in this slightly rough-and-ready frontier town. Broome was the first northern town where I experienced groups of Aboriginal people sitting around in the local park getting drunk all day and shouting at passers-by. Broome is also very well known for Cable Beach, a 10km long stretch of white sand and tropical warm waters. From November however it's inadvisable to swim here as jellyfish and deadly saltwater crocodiles start appearing. Nice. Anyway, while I was here the water was safe, and perfect to learn the art of 'bodybashing' (body surfing) and boogie-boarding, which is great fun if you don't mind getting dumped by the waves every once in a while. Working every night in the 'Sheba Lane Garden Restaurant' I met some eccentric characters. The place was owned by a fat balding Frenchman and his glamourous Thai wife who would rearrange the dining tables, and diners, every lunchtime to burn incense and pray at the Buddha's shrine in the middle of the restaurant. The head chef was an eccentric Aussie with a broad accent who would often have blazing arguments with the French owner, who in turn would stand around in the kitchen drinking the imported wine stocks dry. After a few weeks of sunbathing, working and partying, Rae and I decided to leave town and drive a rental return truck up to Darwin. |
|
 With Rae, Broome - click to enlarge |
|
|
Broome to Darwin - click here to see a map of the Kimberley region
'The Kimberley' is an inhospitable and remote area in Australia's far north-west. Until recently, areas of the Kimberley were not even mapped. It would take us 5 to 6 days to drive across the edge of this region to reach Darwin. Our accomodation was also the truck, which converted into two rather claustrophobic bedspaces. There were also cooking facilities and utensils in the van, and we just had to hook up to electricity if we stayed on proper caravan sites. The two petrol tanks ensured we could travel for hundreds of kilometres without having to refuel. The thing which amazed me the most was how empty the centre is. We hardly ever passed any other vehicles - although once we drove past a touring cyclist carrying his provisions on the back of his bike, in about 40 degree heat. At certain points along the road you have to drive very slowly as cattle from neigbouring farms frequently wander onto the road, and fairly frequently we passed the carcasses of cattle that had been knocked down by huge road trains. Some of the cattle farms in Australia cover areas as large as the UK. |
|
 Roadtrains - watch out! |
|
We stopped off at various points along the route:
|
|
 Bungle Bungles - click to enlarge |
 Bungles - click to enlarge |
|
This is a small town with a high aboriginal population. We stayed in a caravan park just outside of town, next to the huge Kununarra lake. Rae and I decided to go for a swim at midnight. It was only afterwards that one of the other campers told us there were crocodiles in the water, and went as far as to point out with a torch their red eyes sitting on the surface of the water. Fortuntely though they were 'probably' just freshwater crocs, as opposed to 'salties' which will attack and eat you. After crossing from WA into the Northern Territory, we visited Katherine Gorge National Park. There is a river running along the bottom of the gorge, and you can go rafting and swimming. However, we decided to trek around. We found out the hard way how quickly the weather can change. It changed from blistering desert heat to tropical downpour in around 15 minutes. Darwin is the capital of the Northern Territory, it's a very small and relaxed town that spends most of the year in tropical humidity. Off the northern coastline is Indonesia, a language which is taught in many Darwin schools. Rae decided to stay here and visit Kakadu National Park, whilst I decided to push on to the eastern coast. I spent the longest time on a bus here - almost 40 hours, travelling down from Darwin to Tennant's Creek and then catching a connecting bus to Cairns on the east coast. As the bus roars along the central highways, the landscape changed from red desert to open plains and scattered farms.  The East Coast Cairns is backpacker-central. It's a tropical area without a beach (crocodiles sometimes wander onto the mudflats near to the town) well-known for diving (the Great Barrier Reef lies just off the coast) and the rainforest areas to the north. It is also especially well-known for cheap beer. Whilst here, I did some diving, which was spectacular but the set-up was very touristy, and spent a few days in the Daintree Rainforest area further north. This is really dense rainforest and beaches, although it rained a lot whilst I was there and you can't go swimming because the area is infested with deadly saltwater crocodiles. Beautiful nonetheless. After leaving Cairns I headed down to Mission Beach, and would heartily recommend the Treehouse Hostel to anyone. Again, it's a tropical rainforest area with quite a hippy feel, very laid-back. After staying here I headed down to Airlie Beach, a base from which you can explore the beautiful Whitsunday Islands. As it was Christmas and New Year, I managed to get stuck on the Gold Coast (dubbed 'the Goldie' by locals) which really isn't the nicest part of Australia. However, I tried out surfing for the first time, almost getting drowned in the process. Great fun, no really... |
|
 Paradise beach - click to enlarge |
|
|
One of my favourite parts of Australia is Byron Bay. OK, it's a bit of a cliche, backpacker/hippy town with a sometimes pretentious vibe and far too many posers. But it's also a place
that feels very comfortable, relaxed, and it's got some of the best surf beaches and surrounding countryside in the whole of Australia. I had previously stayed at the Arts Factory out of town but this time stayed at a hostel on the road up to the lighthouse,
right near the beach. Most of the days I spent on the beach, the waves here are really good and not so big that you get dumped all the time. One day I teamed up with this guy and we hitched up to the hippy enclave of Nimbin, in the hills. We met some eccentric characters on the way,
such as this aboriginal guy who insisted on skinning up and driving at the same time. Nimbin is actually a lovely little place, you can visit the hash museum, buy 'special' brownies on the street, or just hang out at one of the cafes and watch all kinds of life go by.
One of the other nice things to do back in Byron is visit the open-air cinema; we went and watched Easy Rider underneath the stars, with the sound of the waves crashing. My friend Mark reckoned that a huge pod of dolphins live in the bay; according to locals, they can often be seen surfing the waves right near the shore.
Sydney I found Sydney at once glamourous, exciting and lifestyle-orientated. However, most backpackers end up staying in King's Cross which is probably worse than the King's Cross in London. Fortunately I also had friends staying there, catching up with my school pal Caroline. Doing all the touristy stuff is well worth it, and one of the best places to visit at night is the bars by the Rocks down by Sydney Harbour. After a whopping three months in Australia, it was defintely time to move on. I had previously re-routed my flight to visit New Zealand, trying to catch this country while it was still summer. It was time to head for some outdoor activity! |
|
 |
|
|
Links
www.nimbin.org - 'tasty treats at herb festival' - says it all really... |
|
| Šusethebuddha.productions2002 | |