Apologies, apologies and more apologies for the lack of an email for over a month but we've ... erm ... been busy?! In fact our photos are ahead of our emails for the first time ever (see www.geocities.com/julesandtessa for the latest WA batch). It does however mean that this edition of the Travel log is a real bumper edition so go and get a coffee from the machine and ensure you are sitting comfortably before reading on!
Exmouth to Broome ... "the Easyrider way"
Wow, has it really been that long since we last wrote - well I'd better keep it short and sweet.
Exmouth to Broome was just as good as Perth to Exmouth and about the same distance again (another 2,000km-ish). We had a new driver, "Super" Al, who was again absolutely excellent. Highlights were:
- a BIG truck in Tom Price (mining town) - would definitely be cool to drive down the King's Road in one of those mommas!
- fantastic gorge walks, idyllic waterfalls and swimming holes and some proper good cliff jumping in Karijini National Park (Devil's Bridge Crew, try 16m for size!)
- more long straight roads - you've gotta love 'em!
- 80 mile beach (it does exactly what it says on the can!)
- and finally Broome with Cable Beach and a cool crocodile farm where they really didn't mince their words when it came to pointing out that 99% of the crocs in the farm were being bred purely to become handbags. This didn't go down well with the more sensitive members of the audience - the best moment was when our guide brought out a baby croc (6 months old and about 50cm long) and you could see the dollar signs flashing in his eyes and the dribble escaping from the corner of his mouth (Homer Simpson style) as he asked us to "feel this little fella's belly .... oooh, he'll make a lovely wallet some day!"
Broome to Darwin ... "mostly the Easyrider way"
For the Broome to Darwin leg we had our third Easyrider driver, Mick, who's philosophy on life and the job was ... shall we say ... slightly different to his predecessors. To cut a long story short, Mick was relieved of his duties halfway to Darwin but this was in fact good cos it meant he came with us on our 3-day canoe safari on the Ord River near Kununurra which was the highlight of this leg of our trip.
There were 9 of us in 5 canoes and once we'd sorted out how to steer, which came quicker to some than others (nnedless to say Tessa and I were exemplary), we had a really good time. We carried everything we needed in the canoes and in 3 days we travelled 55km staying overnight on the banks of the river, cooking on open fires (including a memorable roast chicken) and sleeping under the stars. We even saw a croc, although to be fair, he was only about 50cm long - but again, would have made a great wallet!
Back in Kununurra we found out that following Mick's departure from the company, another Easyrider driver had resigned in protest leaving only one driver left on the Broome to Darwin run. To cut a long story short, Easyriders ended up paying for us to get the Greyhound for the last leg of the journey to Darwin as we couldn't afford to wait around for the next Easyrider bus as we had a flight to catch in Darwin.
We only spent a day and a half in Darwin but managed to fit in a day trip to Litchfield National Park complete with a "Jumping Crocs" tour (where big saltwater crocs are enticed to leap out of the water to grab food dangling from ropes - very touristy but really cool!), a close encounter with a python (check out the next batch of photos when we get them developed) and of course some more waterfalls. All in all a very fun day!
We also had a memorable night at "The Vic" as we were saying goodbye to a, lot of people who we'd been travelling with for a while. I remember walking into The Vic and thinking something along the lines of "Oh my God, this place is so tacky, I'm way too old for this". Well it just goes to show that how old you act is inversely proportional to the amount of alcohol you consume. Probably the crowning point of the evening was me and Tessa adopting the "69" position on stage (fully clothed I hasten to add) ... just for a free jug of beer! Although Tessa and Claire's hoover/didgeridoo playing must have come a close second! Wish we'd had the camera!
So the following day, feeling very hungover, we flew to ...
Alice Springs and the red centre
Although Tess had already seen Ayer's Rock before, I managed to persuade her to go again so we booked ourselves on a 3-day Uluru Safari with Munga's Adventures (www.anniesplace.com.au) and our guide, Shaun who, to my delight considering that we were going to be finishing the tour watching the Eng v SA rugby match back in Alice, was himself a Springbok!!
Anyway, the tour was excellent!
- Uluru (Ayer's Rock) looked just like the postcards although was much bigger than I had thought - unfortunately it was too windy at the top for anyone to be allowed to climb it
- Kata Tjuta (The Olga's) were very impressive and could easily have been prehistoric termite mounds although the termite would have to be the size of a small car!
- and King's Canyon at sunrise was awesome, which it bloody well better have been considering Shawn got us out of our swags at 3.45am in order to get to the top to see it!
The best bit though was camping out under the stars, just in our swags, literally in the middle of the bush - wicked! And Shawn's cooking wasn't bad either - with his Camel Con Carne a real hit!
Back in Alice and it was rugby time. I did get my gloating time with Shawn although the performance wasn't quite as dominant as I had hoped for - a temporary blip I thought ... little was I to know what was coming up!
The following morning we flew down to ...
Melbourne
The first thing that hit us was the weather - cold and raining which was extremely disappointing. Anyway, "it can't last" were my thoughts and anyway, my mum was in town so I had other things to think about. We spent our first night in Melbourne in my mum's hotel which cost us an arm and a leg but did give us the chance to have a nice bath - our first since Singapore! Met up with mum in the evening who had just finished her 22 day tour of Australia and had been to many of the same places as us so we had a lot of notes to compare ... very interesting to see how the other half live though - not one mention of cockroaches from her tour experiences!
By the way, on the morning of our second day in Melbourne we realised we were having our first real lie in for 12 days and in fact calculated that we had had nine pre-7am starts in those 12 days of which 4 had been pre-5am! I thought this was supposed to be a holiday!
Anyway, for our first 3 days in Melbourne we did all the touristy stuff with mum before she flew back to the UK. After the first night in the Novotel we moved into Mick & Lou Burnett's house in Carlton North which was literally the lap of luxury. Mick used to be one of Tessa's bosses at PwC London but is now back in the Melbourne office. Not only was his house gorgeous but we also had it to ourselves because he and Lou were back in England for a 10-day holiday. He left us not only his house and his car (!) but also a detailed itinerary of what we should do while we were in Melbourne. Needless to say we made good use of the washing machine while we were there!
We also met up with some other PwC colleagues who have seconded to the Melbourne office - Cheryl, Sue and in particular Tim, thanks for showing us a wicked time! - and also Tory, a friend of Tessa's from uni who took Tessa shopping for a day.
We did a day trip to Phillip Island to see the world's smallest penguins and Tim managed to get us tickets to the Eng v Samoa game so we spent most of Sunday drinking before going to the Telstra Dome to watch the game - from which the win was the only real good point!
And so came the end of our 9 days in Melbourne. The weather was pretty rubbish the whole time we were there but it really hit rock bottom the day we left ...
Melbourne to Adelaide
We set off (in the rain) in our hired Bushcamper (basically a 4WD Toyota Land Cruiser with a couple of tents on the roof) to drive to Adelaide via the Great Ocean Road and the Grampians. Now, I have to say that although the weather wasn't ideal, we still had a good laugh. Some of the scenery along the Great Ocean Road was spectacular, if a little wet, and the Grampians were very impressive, especially Mackenzie Falls. The camping was at times a little cold, and at times a little windy but definitely good fun.
Once we arrived in Adelaide the sun obviously came out and we had a beautiful weather for the 9 hours we were there.
So that brings us to ....
Brisbane
We flew into Brisbane yesterday and thankfully the weather is back to what we've become used to i.e. 33 degrees and sunny. Sarah & Jim, two of my friends from uni. are due to arrive this afternoon and hopefully tonight we'll see both Samoa and Ireland pull one over their respective southern hemisphere opponents. Then tomorrow we'll hopefully see a try-fest at the Eng v Uruguay match before heading to the Whitsundays with S&J for a 5-day cruise around the islands which should be brilliant - Melbourne really wasn't good for our tans!
Then it's down to Sydney for the last two weeks of our trip - all pretty sobering stuff, particularly when all we hear from home is how crap the weather has been recently!
Anyway, love to all and keep the mails coming.
Love Jules & Tessa xxxx
P.S.
Mick & Lou - thanks a million for letting us use the house, hope the move goes well and hopefully we'll catch up in Sydney
Tim & Naomi - cheers for everything and again hopefully see you in Sydney - by the way, give that "Rose Cottage" sign a bit of a clean it was looking a bit grubby!
Salmon - can you believe Tim has named his house "Rose Cottage" - touching isn't it!
Leon - happy birthday - what's the goss?
Will - how's the job hunting going?
Tory - get yourself up to Brisbane and come sailing with us! How was Great Ocean Road - wet I imagine!
Sarah W - sounds like you're slipping into the Bermudan way of life just fine!
Shling & Bryan - welcome back - hopefully see you in Sydney!?