greetings!

Well hello!

its been so long!

So we’ve been in oz for a couple of months now. Flew into Darwin and spent a week or so wondering what to do and how to get around! Was so pricy to travel by bus that we ended up getting a cheap car! Its quite fantastic. Absolutely huge, a Ford Fairmont- the classier version of a Falcon don’t you know: electric windows, flashing dashboard and everything, with a 4.1 l engine.... looks just like this:


Also in Darwin we celebrated Marc’s birthday in style with a round of golf (I won! heheheehe). The first hole was quite funny as you had to hit it over a pond, and we lost so many balls that had to go back and get more before we’d even started. Oops! We then revisited my old work at the Beachfront Hotel and had some oysters. Its so much better from that side of the bar!

So off we set on the long road. Stopped at Kakadu national park and Litchfield. It was quite scary those first few days looking at the map and seeing how far we’d only travelled. It’s a BIG country. Forgot to mention that the car came with all the camping gear, pots and pans, chairs, etc to make life comfy on the road. So we were camping every night, stopping at random places with populations of 20 people- they ‘re big dots on the maps as well! Quite a lot of nothing in the Northern Territory, but its great to see the changes travelling down. The road to the east coast is quite funny. You basically travel straight down for 900k, turn left and go straight for another 1500k till you hit the coast! It took us a while and we met lots of the ‘grey army’ on the way. These are new retirees who basically sell up, buy a huge caravan or trailer tent and just go round Australia for a few years. They’re mostly lovely and quite amazing, but they do get up and leave at around 5am every morning, so we get out of the tent just a little bit later than that ; ) and everyone has gone! Every day it was like that!

So we arrived in Townsville and rested up a bit there. Weather had turned a bit rubbish and rainy which was a shame, but we met a couple of really nice people from Tasmania, and Rolf Harris! Well, he denied it but we all agreed he was the spitting image and talked and acted in the way Rolf would. He was great, and had some interesting stories about hunting for gold in the Philippines, and getting held hostage in the Middle East! We waited for a few days because we wanted to over to Magnetic Island, but we ended up going in the rain anyway. We walked around all day and it was beautiful, we even saw koalas, but we were soaked through and pretty over it by the time we left. Ah well, can’t be sunny every day!

Passed through Bowen to look for some fruit picking work, but no joy. Theplace was packed though and we ended up staying at probably the worst camping ground in the world. Kind of a makeshift one, but they’d had really strong winds so everyones tent was ripped, the poles were broken, and half were just lying on their sides. It just looked like a big gypsy site! Oh yes, and there’s a very pointless giant mango in Bowen- not much else mind you, but nice beaches!

After that, we had a short trip down the road to Airlie Beach. This was a booming little tourist town- took us by surprise really! Lots going on for backpackers (including pole dancing competitions and jelly wrestling- scary). The main draw there are the trips out to the Whitsunday islands. There was so much choice- we picked up about a phone book’s worth of leaflets, and still hadn’t got a clue. We ended up getting a last minute deal with quite a large chuck of money knocked off. it was amazing- will tell you all about it next time as the internet place is closing up. but here's a pic of our lovely boat anyway!