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The Aussie Experience

G'day from Australi

There is absolutely no way to describe the experience we have had here so far…it definitely is an entirely different world. Our first night in Oz was spent in a hostel; basically, all we did was drop off our gear and go searching for a car park we read about to purchase cheap wheels. The result was nothing like we imagined. What we found was an underground parking lot (like any you would see in a city) where the entire second floor was designated as a “backpacker car lot” One only needs a couple thousand and a desire for travel and you can buy any of your choice of vehicles ranging from$ 500- 8000 from fellow travelers who are already at the end of their journey. If the insurance has already been paid until a certain date (our car for example has been “rego” until June”) you don't need to buy additional insurance unless you wish for extra coverage, until that runs out…. wonderful concept, all that needs to be done is the ownership signed over and the car is yours, the carlot offers all the services needed to buy additional insurance if necessary and mechanical inspections. Weird…

We bought a 1990 Toyota Camry station wagon the first day we got here with 350,000 kms. The biggest challenge is driving on the wrong side of the road. It's hard to switch the brain to think opposite after so many years. The steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car; the turn signal indicator is on the right side as well as the shifter is on the left side. Trying to signal with the windshield wipers is always fun!

From Sydney we proceeded inland (As Steve artfully mastered the “left handed world”) to Blue Mountain National Park. During our first big hike (or bushwalk as is the Aussie term) we descended into a valley from a mountain peak (was a challenge coming back up) there was a strange humming noise in the background, almost like something out of a nature or “solitudes” CD. It turns out it was insects that live in the ground for 5 years and proceed to travel up the trees shed their outer shell and fly away. Their song is beautiful; however, at the bottom of the valley it was almost deafening. We could not even talk to each other. After that hike we drove on, to find some free campground about an hour into the middle of nowhere down a rocky, beaten dirt road. Roughing it…definitely…awesome….

The climate ranges we've seen in just a few short days are unbelievable. We've traveled from city to tropical rain forest, to mountain ranges, to Mediterranean style coastal with desert intervals all within 4 days. Currently we are sitting in our tent on a small campground adjacent to a beach that today had 2 other people that we could see, sand and surf for miles…and of course a sign stating that clothing was optional…. (Steve is very excited about that)…people are so friendly…it's HOT during the day, but comfortably cool at night. The entire province that we have seen so far is amazingly clean…have you ever seen a city with no garbage...you'd feel guilty to spit out your gum, even in the so called “slums” where we stayed the first night, they'd die if they saw Spadina Ave. or the east side of Vancouver…

The next campsite we were to visit, we felt so fortunate to see kangaroos, we immediately pulled out the camera and began to take pictures, after the first few hours we came to realize that this was not an uncommon sight, by the end of the first night we just came to regard them as a basic part of the scenery, although still incredibly beautiful…the locals seem to view them as pests (as we do raccoons). Behind our tent was yet another amazing sight, We spotted a lizard (Goauna) about five ft long, yet another... mad dash to the camera, thinking again, that we saw something rare…only to find out later that these, too, are a common sight…also known to raid the campground garbage.

We sit now in the rain, after a day of driving through switchbacks in the mountains off the northern coast of NSW anxiously awaiting a hike up the infamous Mt Warning….approx 1150 metres high, the sounds of the wildlife are incredible; it is Australia Day weekend here so the campground filled up fast after we arrived.

Well…the hike up Mt Warning proved to be yet another glorious adventure; it was a relatively easy upward climb until a couple of hundred metres from the top. At that point the hiker discovers there is a chain kindly fixed to the rock to assist you in pulling your already aching body up the nearly vertical slope, although some former park staff had also been nice enough to blast out some spots in the rock wall to make steps….At the summit we were rewarded with the most spectacular views of the surrounding Australian landscape, which in this particular area consisted of mainly tropical rainforest…Beautiful….

The following day's adventure took us to a national park aptly named Bald Rock…it was recommended by the people we met the previous day at the summit of the mountain. During the hike to the summit of the “Baldy” we encountered the oddest rock formations that either of us has ever seen, immense boulders rested on their ends sitting sometimes on top of one another to the point where they appeared to be stacked marbles. The “Bald Rock” itself was (So we are told anyway) the largest exposed igneous rock in the southern hemisphere (I know big whoop) Still it was cool and fun to run down like a couple of dolts at the end.

We sit now in a pretty state park, in the horse capital of Australia (YEA!!!) not, that we can ride them (for insurance reasons we are told…) they are still magnificent, our tent almost blew away from the first site we picked, I suppose the land was too barren at that point and the wind whipped across, almost stealing away the “real” pillows we allowed ourselves to spend money on yesterday….ahhhh…fluffy…anyway they were rescued and all is well to settle in for another night…

And the story continues….

Steve reminded me earlier that I forgot to mention an almost tragic event that occurred while on the Mt warning hike… the summit of the mountain had platforms designed for viewing, however the railings were the only protection from falling over the edge... for people anyway. They forgot to mention that they do not protect the digital cameras, can you figure out what happened next? Poor Cammie went over the edge and brave Steve decided that he must go to the rescue…scared me to pieces…but he climbed down the cliff on his stomach and rescued Cammie…(enter bells and heavenly music) a little battered but still working our camera continues to provide the endless moments on film. The following journey brought us inland a few hundred km from the coast, our destination was Tamworth the country music capitol of Australia, and home of the “Golden Guitar.” It ended up being a huge yawn; however, a realization hit us both in the stifling inland heat… the coast is where we are both the most at home, the ocean was calling again and it was time to head back towards the beach and the music of the water. Tamworth, the only destination that we were sure to visit before we left Canada entered our timeline for less than an hour.

We hit the beach, heading south and bypassing Sydney completely for a much needed day of relaxation by the ocean, we actually read books instead of travel magazines and spent 2 nights at the same campground…our plan was originally to stay on the coast and continue to head south to explore the next State on our journey, however after once again getting into our endless brochures and free travel ads picked up from your friendly neighborhood information station (we have become faithful connoisseurs of these places) we decided to head inland again to climb the tallest mountain in the country, after a side trip through the Australian capitol City of Canberra… which is so modern and space age in structure it reminds the visitor of an Ikea design, combined with alien crop circles which the Australians refer to as “roundabouts” supposedly to control traffic, but these monstrous examples are definitely enough to make anyone question the sanity of the road designers, unless they just think it is entirely hilarious to watch people attempt to navigate these contraptions….

Well we can say we have been there and done that…as we continued towards the Snowy mountains to our current destination, the sky darkened to the colour of ink offered us a lovely hailstorm, only to be followed by a continuous on and off thunderstorm that is predicted to last the next 3 days (according to our most recent trip to an information station) We caved and checked into a motel for the night, paying a whopping $49 for a room, no phone, but a TV and even our own shower and toilet (by the way if you ask someone where a washroom, restroom or bathroom is in this country they will look at you as if you are from another planet…it is a toilet, plain and simple, considered polite enough for everyone). We picked up a cask of wine which we have discovered, as dedicated alcoholics do, is the cheapest way to get intoxicated….lol, the bargain price of only $14 for 5 liters! So much for the excuse that we can't afford to drink…

We hope for better weather tomorrow (against the forecasts) but if the climb up Mt Kosciuszko does not happen tomorrow it will be time again to head back to the coast ...our laptop is charged up now, we finally were able to use an adaptor and tap into the weirdo diagonal outlets in this particular motel, however we weren't as lucky as we were with the laptop when it came to charging the battery for our flashlight, the voltage was too high, or some technical thingy along those lines, as the entire unit started to go up in smoke, lucky for us our neighbor at the campground gave us a beautiful lantern as a “welcome to Australia” gift…(pronounced “weacom to austraaaya” and usually followed with or proceeded by “how ya goin'?” to which the common reply is guud translating to our “good”)What a great country, no one ever seems to be in a rush to do anything, even speak in complete sentences (unless you count a couple of stir crazy Canadians like ourselves into the equation, luckily neither one of us has an attention span that outlasts 15 min or we might pose a problem to each other on this side of the globe) with that exciting statement we say goodnight…until the next time the cheap wine writing bug hits again.

Well…the weather seemed to somewhat improve by the morning…thus we decided to proceed inland a bit further and attempt to climb the mountain, as we drove the hundred or so km the sky continued to darken until there was not the slightest possibility we would avoid rain, the information center in the area verified our bad news, thunderstorms were due to follow for the next 2-3 days, not much view from the top of a mountain when you're in the thunder clouds…with that, the decision was made that inland was bad and coast was good, (did I mention that it was also cold, 10 degrees.)

Back to the coast of New South Wales and onward to Victoria, heading south, in the pouring rain. We saw a bit of sun for an hour or so in the afternoon, just a tease... it rained for the next 3 days…Let me tell you it gets pretty depressing when you live in a tent to deal with rain that just wont quit…guess we should have expected it heading into rainforest…but it was supposed to be a drought! We attempted camp once that day, but the rain just kept coming and sometimes the comforts of home are just too much to forget, we checked into a motel of incredible luxury (it had a kettle and a toaster!!) in a little town just across the Victorian border I think the population was around 12…l it did have a bar of course…but that was it, bar, motel, store=town. But it was warm, dry and we had our own shower with real hot water (most of the campgrounds, if they have water at all, have cold showers, if it comes out of tap, it comes out of shower too.)

The toast and hot coffee was nice too. Usually we drink “karpaccinos” in the morning, which consist of instant coffee combined with delicious powdered milk (an acquired taste) our diet consists of food that can be eaten straight from the can (cold of course, yes spaghetti, ravioli and chili can be eaten cold) however my staples continue to be tuna, beans and cereal, the odd spaghetti and zoodle-like substance thrown in. Steve lives off of Heinz big eat Chili and peanut butter sandwiches and of course beans and weenies…we smell great on a regular basis… A budget adventure is definitely our means of travel…As for the earlier inquiry as to what the deal is with vegemite… (for those of you who don't know... it is a tar like substance made out of yeast and vegetable extract that Australians are addicted to) I was determined to figure out why anyone would eat the awful stuff…Spread it on bread…that's the secret (Steve does not agree) The more you eat, the more you crave (once you get over the fact that it tastes like nothing you've ever had before in your life) Can't get enough of the stuff now, the spreading just gets thicker and thicker… We're still loving it…the adventure not necessarily the vegemite (now that it's not raining anymore)

The following day the rain continued, we traveled to the nearest information centre to collect our beloved brochures on the national and state parks in Victoria and relented to check into another motel (with the excuse that we need somewhere warm and dry to figure out where were going next. Did I mention that after our last 2 inland experiences we decided that the coast was the place for us? Yep I did…Should have remembered it ourselves, but of course we got all worked up about visiting a park inland with amazing hiking trails, up in the alpine (yes alpine) region of Victoria… after some wonderful examples of getting lost, we finally arrived at the free campground half the way to the Mt Buffalo National Park that was our destination. We met some interesting Aussies here and talked about upcoming travel as these people had to be in their 60s and still out 4 wheel driving (they were a 4WD club) This proved to be the coldest night I can ever remember (that I slept in a tent anyway) although sleep was not the operative word…needless to say the next morning we stopped in a town to hit the OP shop (equivalent to the back home salvation army or amity stores) to purchase additional blankets (which are nice and crusty, not too smelly, itchy.. but exquisitely warm) 3 for the bargain price of $9, they are wonderful!

Mount Buffalo was an amazing sight, (the sun was finally out too) not what we expected, although the mountain did resemble the shape of a buffalo, the brochures however, failed to mention that the entire alpine region within the past few years has been completely raped by fire. The trees covered the hills like skeletons in a graveyard, creaking and groaning waiting their turn to topple and begin life anew…the initial shock of seeing the landscape was devastating…however as we looked lower to the ground we discovered the interesting life that was beginning it's time in the aftermath, beautiful birds and amazing plants, vines that crawled up the trunks of the burnt trees creating their own shades of green in the middle of the forest instead of the (as we are accustomed to) tops. The only drawback to this experience…the cold…and even worse…the flies…in everything, your, cuts (we have many) your ears, they were almost enough to drive you insane…However we spent the night, and were rewarded in the morning with eyewitness to the very rare Lyre Bird, directly across from our campsite…the park ranger who lived there and had yet to witness one in her entire life... we did indeed feel blessed. Steve saw another as I took a very chilly shower (the only one I was to get for a couple of days to follow) After a run through the Park access roads we hiked up the Horn (peak of the Buffalo Mountain ) so unbelievalby cold, snapped a couple of pictures and ran down, back into the warmth of trustworthy car and hit the highway for the coast and the city of Melbourne.

We bypassed the city the first day as we hit it at rush hour, spending the night at a very crowded and unpleasant campground on the outskirts of the city. The following day we began to explore the Great Ocean Road, which runs along the west side of the south coast of the country. We marvel at how our earlier travels in life took us in search of beautiful beaches, as in Cuba, Mexico or Hawaii, here, it's endless, astounding beauty, nature (over priced surf shops and tourist attractions too) and peace. We found a campsite of a somewhat decent price and many trails leading off, climbing through 4 hours of hard to follow trails, scenic lookouts and waterfalls, the sun was out, it was a beautiful day…the opportunity to wear shorts again gave the ability to nurture my skin, that was peeling off in sheets, due to the sunburn achieved in the first 2 weeks, I related quite nicely to a lizard as, unlike a snake whose skin often comes off in one nice piece, every part of my stomach, arms and legs, peeled off inch by inch (it was sexy I'm sure…don't forget I hadn't had a real shower in a while by this point either…) We were happy with the campground and decided to stay another night as we had been on the constant move for over a week, only to find out as we were headed into town that it was not available for the following night.

Our excursion into town was an attempt to replace Steve's sandals that some form of wildlife had found incredibly tasty the night before. They kindly ate only the leather parts and deposited the remainder of the sandals within easy discovering distance from the tent (the price one pays for having stinky shoes). Upon further investigation the same tricky buggers had done the same thing to the shoes of campers around us, oddly however, the men's shoes seemed to be preferred as a perfectly intact pair of ladies sandals sat mockingly in the campsite adjacent to ours.

Upon hearing the news that only a crappy overpriced campsite was left for the night and we would have to take apart camp anyway, we decided to head back 2 hrs to Melbourne and experience the Australian city life, it was after all the 5th (Canadian time, the 6th Australian time…knowing the date by when the bread was going to expire) which was the one year anniversary of when we met. We were up for celebration and also intending to visit with a friend of Steve's that he met on vacation before we knew each other.

The City was a toilet (much like Toronto) We eventually found a parking lot and headed to what we read was the cheapest accommodation to be found in the main club district. The only available room was shared with 14 other people for the bargain price of $112 dollars per night. The traffic, the people, the commotion and the price proved to be too overwhelming for either one of us to handle (especially after so much time spend in near isolation) we lasted a whopping 45 min in the city. Long enough to treat ourselves to a very Canadian Subway sandwich, complete with “American Mustard” (a rarity) but with the addition of a newfound favorite, Australian “hot chili” sauce. Back to the Great Ocean Road where our nights campsite only 20km further west than the night before, but with a whole day's adventure in between, was quite peaceful and rewarded us with an answer to many prayers and sore necks of the first few weeks…We saw koalas in the wild! The first one was the cutest little guy, just hanging out cuddled up to himself in the branches (we were always looking in the trunks of the trees) by the morning, he was still there and a trip up a nearby road allowed us to easily spot a few more, hope the pictures turn out, but there will never be any real way to convey the experience.

Hope you're ready for more… (next page)