Weds 30 Sept 2009 Phillip Island, SE of Melbourne.
Well followers, so much for my weekly update, after 3 weeks! I'll update as much as I can in the time I have. John is having a lie down, almost finished him of I have, but we will be 3 days in melbourne with my old pal Maureen from Manhattan days, only 37 years ago. Then we fly to NZ to see Kathy and Co at last. The Samoan earthquake/ tsunami alert for NZ was cancelled this morning, thank goodness for they have recently moved beachside.
Last thing, we were in Queensland. We left Jim rather tearfully, and met Peter and Di in Mooloolaba for one night as we were going in opposite directions. Good gossip and nosh, walks on the beach, a swim or 2 and we were off again. The next campsite was at Somerset Dam where we were treated to a show of platypus, always a very rewarding thing in the wild.
Then a slight misreading of the map, plus not enough local information (something we have learned to respect greatly) found us toiling up the one and only steep approach to Toowoomba, on a dual carriageway, so no turning around and going down. We are ASHAMED to admit that Rita once again boiled...............but thanks to RACQ, we were able to get a lift on a tilt tray up the last 2kms of hill, where she cooled off, recovered and loyally soldiered on. What a girl!!! We nurse this baby along, our eyes repeatedly flicking to the temp guage, very much like our old boat "Mayflower" eh Rod?
Toowoomba is the garden city of OZ (they all claim to be something or other) but we were too early, cold weather, so we pressed on, feeling very chastened.
After much messing around looking at this and that we managed to sqeeze over the border into NSW, where we were immediately stunned by the Border Ranges Nat Park. World heritage Rainforest, bower birds, lyre birds, whip birds, fireflies, not to mention the stunning flora, trees etc. Stayed 2 days, too good to leave. We then wandered around some more, round 3 sides of the impressive extinct volcano Mt warning, via the delightful friendly town of Kyogle, hippie world in Nimbin (try googling it) , so like Myddfai and Randhirmwyn in mid Wales, to Byron Bay, the Easternmost point of our mainland. Well we just happened to hit it on the first day of school hols, it was huge disappointment, so we did a flit to Broken Heads, very nice and much quieter. By the way John managed to get an offer of pot in Nimbin, and we had only been there 10 mins! We had been warned. The countryside around Nimbin was described to us as similar to the Bermuda Triangle, you can just disappear! Anyway we did enjoy it their, such a groovy hippie atmosphere, flowing skirts and flower power.
Then we determined to strike hard into the hinterland and cover some k's southwards. We found the New England Highway, crossed the Continental Divide and found ourselves back in England! This merged into the Celtic Way where place names were Gwydir Highway, Glen innes and Llangothlen, (they can never pronounce it can they) Craigieburn, Hungerford (we found ourselves looking for Wantage!) to name but a few. Even found some Stonehenge style standing stones. We topped out at Ben Lomond 1410 metres.
Spent the night at Guyra which boasts the highest caravan park in Oz. (in case you are worrying about Rita, these climbs were gradual!)
Guyra gave us a treat - a free camp area right next to the Country Club, so we introduced ourselves and asked if we could watch the rugby union international between Aust and NZ - no worries. Well, the club filled up with masses of people and the game came on and we were right in the front row....and it turned out no-one else was watching!!! Spoils the atmosphere somewhat. Q'land and NSW are SERIOUSLY rugby league and have barely even heard of Aussie Rules football, let alone rugby union. And if that wasn't enough, when we went into the dining room, we became aware there were some strange people, and they all looked the same...it's only a small place...not a lot of outside interaction...say no more! But we did enjoy it in spite of an embarrassing loss. Our campsite was called "Mother of Ducks Lagoon", and an important food place for ye ancient aboriginals. We were camped by 2 Winnebagos, one called Alpine which was massive with slide out rooms, and the other was Nullarbor, which was more modest but still dwarfed us. Ah well, we are still having the same kind of fun, better really because we can get into more nooky places.
So it was back on the road to do long hauls to get through NSW, which is a large place and has a huge number of fab Nat Parks. So it was back to highway cricket, purple gloves and discussing other drivers' sex lives. Well, you have to pass the time and keep each other awake!
By this stage we were starting to wonder "when does it start to go down hill?"
Suddenly John's national guide to ABC Classic FM radio came into it's own - music-whoopee, Margaret Throsby, Julia Lester and all his other heroines.
We also wondered if we were actually going the wrong way round Oz because all the Visitor Information Centres are on the way out of towns and on the other side of the road? Too late now, we're not going back.
Then Gunnedah, which claims it is the Koala Capital of the world; there's always a claim.
You've seen the film The Dish? The Radio Telescope that just happened to be operational when the Apollo 11 thing happened. It suddenly became world famous. Well we were there man, so coooool. Parkes NSW, such a mass of information and a 3D film that virtually took you into space. Wow. Wow. Check your atlases.
Recounting this has exhausted me, we had no idea we would be exposed to so much, and 3 months is hardly enough time to take it all in. I'll stop now, even though we are near Melbourne, and will update when we get to Kathy's on Oct 14, if not before.
Love from Po and John
Did I mention I have decided to go Senior Blonde?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
10 Sept 09, home comforts in Noosa
It's amazing how quickly you can revert to type, once you are back in a conventional home. We are eating more because it is easy to do, drinking less because it is less stressful, feet up in front of the telly, plus showering and wearing clean clothes every day. We won't want to hit the road again, and Jim is saying "stay as long as you like"!
Noosa is a very trendy expensive place, but a lovely place to live and visit. Pounding surf beaches, natioanal park on the doorstep, shops galore. We have had a great beach walk every day plus some swims in the fab town pool, where I might add that we happened to spot the gorgeous Pat Rafter of tennis fame. What a hunk! We took Jim on a river cruise on Monday, and then did a sunset cruise last night, just $10 each, amazing value, a great fun with a lively crowd on board, and a skipper from New York.
Meanwhile, the lovely Rita has been stripped bare and is currently having a major service. The news is good, she is apparently in excellent shape, probably better than us! She has had to have a new thermostat and one new tyre, funny how just one wore through to illegality yet the others are fine. The one that wore out was the rear passenger side, the same position as the 2 flat tyres that Barbara had in Smiffy. So tomorrow we will pack Rita up again and prepare to set off again. There is a small element of reluctance in us both, I must admit, but once we get going we'll be fine. We have 3 weeks to get to Melbourne for our flight to Christchurch, where we will spend a week in a motorhome(devils for punishment!) then catch the Interislander ferry to Wellington.
On our sunset cruise we were shown a small island owned by Richard Branson, which he is developing in a very subtle way as holiday accommodation for his employees. We heard some funny stories about how he has got round rules and regs and excessive charges. He is a character. Eg, he was denied permission to build 14 chalets, but got round is by building them with connecting walkways which rates them as 1 building.
Going back a bit, after we emerged from the Great Central Rd we met various people who had done the same trip and found that they had done it in a few days; what took them 7 hrs had taken us 2 days! But he had decided earlier on that we were not there just to race through, we were going to stop at every opportunity to savour what the journey had to offer.
When we crossed the NT/Qland border into a tiny town called Camooweal, we found it was Race Day, always a big country town event, but the actual racing had been cancelled due to poor condition of the race track. people come with their horses for 100's of miles for these events, so you can imagine the disappointment. So we were in the pub having the regulation lunchtime shandy and being urged to head down to the race track because they were determined to have races, even foot races, egg and spoon etc, so that people could still have fun and enjoy the champagne lunch. Everyone was dressed to the nines with hats and frocks and suits and ties, you would have thought it was Ascot. It was an experience just to sit and watch. In the event we discovered that it was umpteen miles down another dirt track and so we gave it a miss; aren't we terrible? But when you are 3 days unwashed and caked with sweat and dust, you don't feel quite up to par! I had started the trip with a cream hat, but had to buy a brown one in Alice.
We have basically lost touch with what day it is (you know what they say about seniors, they don't know what day it is?) and count the weeks by the intervals between cutting our toe-nails.
We did enjoy Winton. This town became important in 1999, yes that recently, when dinosaur remains were discovered. Not only that but the world's only record of a dinosaur stampede. The town has an excellent museum and display, and by this time we had become accustomed to the heat, had learned to slow down and stop regularly (several nice pubs) for refreshing cold drinks, so we were able to savour the place at ease. We bought John some truly awful shorts in the town Emporium'gentleman's outfitters, where the salesman was so charming, having worked in the shop for 60 years, since he was 14, that we just couldn't leave without buying said shorts.
He dorected us to a free campsite outside time near the river, assuring us we would not be disappointed. What we found was the absolutely roughest site you could imagine, more cobbled and corrugated than any road we had travelled, with gaps between the dried out mud cakes big enough to hide any lethal venomous snake or scorpion. However, we were tired, it was late and we accepted our fate. Within minutes, while walking up the river track, I came across 2 emus and a brolga. magic.
We took the Developmental Road to Townsville via Hughenden and Charters Towers. From this we learned, never ever take a developmental road, ever. Rough was not even in it, and it is marked as a sealed road!!! And it doesn't help that the road trains are 75 metres long out here. Ch Towers was a delightful surprise, elegant buildings in beautiful streets with a fascinating history of gold. A few miles further on we found the Bivouac Bush Camp, a small camp owned and run by a young couple with 3 small boys, with chooks, peacocks, bush turkeys and many other birds. Spent 2 days there. I saw my first green tree frog!!! I was just getting into the rustic shower and it hopped off the shower curtain. A lovely close-up look before it disappeared over the wall.
Scan to Magnetic Island; we had 4 lovely days walking, snorkelling and exploring. We spent the last day at Cockle Creek, no-one else there, place to ourselves, set up the camp for a great brunch and then went walking in the Mangroves looking for mud crabs. Have I mentioned that we are slow learners? After an hour or 2 of fossicking and having a lovely time we started to itch....we were being attacked by sandflies! We packed up and zoomed out of there in record time, realising why we had had the place to ourselves! John had an allergic reaction and came out in spots which looked like some dreaded pox and I just itched and scratchedfor Australia. It took us a week to calm down and we felt like lepers! After that we kept clear of mangroves and will continue to do so.
The other day we had boiled eggs for a treat and I found John using the hot water to shave. When you are bush camping you do get into this habit of saving and re-using everything!
After Mag Is. we stopped at a lovely bush site for the night, but within minutes John was hopping and slapping at his legs - yellow ants everywhere! We discovered that a nest had fallen from the tree above us and he walked walked right thru it! The trees are full of the nest and the ants are little bother until.... I also saw 2 more tree frogs; they are so lovely, but They give you a fright when they hide in the loo. How sad that a green tree frog prefers to live in a human loo.
Since we have been in Noosa we have realised that we haven't looked at the night sky once, not like Out There, where there is no roof or TV. We are looking forward to seeing shooting stars again.
I have had to be a bit more responsible with my suggestions of "I wonder what's up that track?" We nearly gave Rita a heart attack. We went up a v ery steep hill to a lookout and she boiled! It was so scarey, we thought we had finished her off. That was a day when John's sphincters had a severe workout. However she rested and recovered and we survive to tell the tale. Now I keep quiet and let John make the suggesions, then it's not my fault!
We worked our way down the coast avoiding towns like Mackay and Gladstone, but we did enjoy Bowen, apparently the venue of filming for the movie Australia. We spent a night on the headland at 1770, reliving Capt Cook's voyage and grounding on the Gt Barrier Reef of that date. It's just a little tourist beach town 50kms off the Bruce Highway, and it has mangroves, so we took care.
The Bruce Highway would have to be a national embarrassment, a dreadful road on which people overtake on double white lines and blind bends, without a care. We will head inland in due course.
Some sad news, we have heard that our Keppell Mews neighbour Peter Stent is in hospital with a brain tumour. He is due for surgery on Friday, tomorrow, and the nature of the tumour is not yet known. We are keeping in touch with mutual friends re his progress. His daughter Sarah and her husband Ben have just had their first baby, a girl named Tessa. Hard times for them all, and such a very special family.
The weather here is lovely, fine and warm, cool at night, and soon we will get a chance to get the long pants and fleeces out as we head south for Canberra.
Till next time, love from us to you, please remember to register as a follower, it helps to know to whom I am talking. xxx
Noosa is a very trendy expensive place, but a lovely place to live and visit. Pounding surf beaches, natioanal park on the doorstep, shops galore. We have had a great beach walk every day plus some swims in the fab town pool, where I might add that we happened to spot the gorgeous Pat Rafter of tennis fame. What a hunk! We took Jim on a river cruise on Monday, and then did a sunset cruise last night, just $10 each, amazing value, a great fun with a lively crowd on board, and a skipper from New York.
Meanwhile, the lovely Rita has been stripped bare and is currently having a major service. The news is good, she is apparently in excellent shape, probably better than us! She has had to have a new thermostat and one new tyre, funny how just one wore through to illegality yet the others are fine. The one that wore out was the rear passenger side, the same position as the 2 flat tyres that Barbara had in Smiffy. So tomorrow we will pack Rita up again and prepare to set off again. There is a small element of reluctance in us both, I must admit, but once we get going we'll be fine. We have 3 weeks to get to Melbourne for our flight to Christchurch, where we will spend a week in a motorhome(devils for punishment!) then catch the Interislander ferry to Wellington.
On our sunset cruise we were shown a small island owned by Richard Branson, which he is developing in a very subtle way as holiday accommodation for his employees. We heard some funny stories about how he has got round rules and regs and excessive charges. He is a character. Eg, he was denied permission to build 14 chalets, but got round is by building them with connecting walkways which rates them as 1 building.
Going back a bit, after we emerged from the Great Central Rd we met various people who had done the same trip and found that they had done it in a few days; what took them 7 hrs had taken us 2 days! But he had decided earlier on that we were not there just to race through, we were going to stop at every opportunity to savour what the journey had to offer.
When we crossed the NT/Qland border into a tiny town called Camooweal, we found it was Race Day, always a big country town event, but the actual racing had been cancelled due to poor condition of the race track. people come with their horses for 100's of miles for these events, so you can imagine the disappointment. So we were in the pub having the regulation lunchtime shandy and being urged to head down to the race track because they were determined to have races, even foot races, egg and spoon etc, so that people could still have fun and enjoy the champagne lunch. Everyone was dressed to the nines with hats and frocks and suits and ties, you would have thought it was Ascot. It was an experience just to sit and watch. In the event we discovered that it was umpteen miles down another dirt track and so we gave it a miss; aren't we terrible? But when you are 3 days unwashed and caked with sweat and dust, you don't feel quite up to par! I had started the trip with a cream hat, but had to buy a brown one in Alice.
We have basically lost touch with what day it is (you know what they say about seniors, they don't know what day it is?) and count the weeks by the intervals between cutting our toe-nails.
We did enjoy Winton. This town became important in 1999, yes that recently, when dinosaur remains were discovered. Not only that but the world's only record of a dinosaur stampede. The town has an excellent museum and display, and by this time we had become accustomed to the heat, had learned to slow down and stop regularly (several nice pubs) for refreshing cold drinks, so we were able to savour the place at ease. We bought John some truly awful shorts in the town Emporium'gentleman's outfitters, where the salesman was so charming, having worked in the shop for 60 years, since he was 14, that we just couldn't leave without buying said shorts.
He dorected us to a free campsite outside time near the river, assuring us we would not be disappointed. What we found was the absolutely roughest site you could imagine, more cobbled and corrugated than any road we had travelled, with gaps between the dried out mud cakes big enough to hide any lethal venomous snake or scorpion. However, we were tired, it was late and we accepted our fate. Within minutes, while walking up the river track, I came across 2 emus and a brolga. magic.
We took the Developmental Road to Townsville via Hughenden and Charters Towers. From this we learned, never ever take a developmental road, ever. Rough was not even in it, and it is marked as a sealed road!!! And it doesn't help that the road trains are 75 metres long out here. Ch Towers was a delightful surprise, elegant buildings in beautiful streets with a fascinating history of gold. A few miles further on we found the Bivouac Bush Camp, a small camp owned and run by a young couple with 3 small boys, with chooks, peacocks, bush turkeys and many other birds. Spent 2 days there. I saw my first green tree frog!!! I was just getting into the rustic shower and it hopped off the shower curtain. A lovely close-up look before it disappeared over the wall.
Scan to Magnetic Island; we had 4 lovely days walking, snorkelling and exploring. We spent the last day at Cockle Creek, no-one else there, place to ourselves, set up the camp for a great brunch and then went walking in the Mangroves looking for mud crabs. Have I mentioned that we are slow learners? After an hour or 2 of fossicking and having a lovely time we started to itch....we were being attacked by sandflies! We packed up and zoomed out of there in record time, realising why we had had the place to ourselves! John had an allergic reaction and came out in spots which looked like some dreaded pox and I just itched and scratchedfor Australia. It took us a week to calm down and we felt like lepers! After that we kept clear of mangroves and will continue to do so.
The other day we had boiled eggs for a treat and I found John using the hot water to shave. When you are bush camping you do get into this habit of saving and re-using everything!
After Mag Is. we stopped at a lovely bush site for the night, but within minutes John was hopping and slapping at his legs - yellow ants everywhere! We discovered that a nest had fallen from the tree above us and he walked walked right thru it! The trees are full of the nest and the ants are little bother until.... I also saw 2 more tree frogs; they are so lovely, but They give you a fright when they hide in the loo. How sad that a green tree frog prefers to live in a human loo.
Since we have been in Noosa we have realised that we haven't looked at the night sky once, not like Out There, where there is no roof or TV. We are looking forward to seeing shooting stars again.
I have had to be a bit more responsible with my suggestions of "I wonder what's up that track?" We nearly gave Rita a heart attack. We went up a v ery steep hill to a lookout and she boiled! It was so scarey, we thought we had finished her off. That was a day when John's sphincters had a severe workout. However she rested and recovered and we survive to tell the tale. Now I keep quiet and let John make the suggesions, then it's not my fault!
We worked our way down the coast avoiding towns like Mackay and Gladstone, but we did enjoy Bowen, apparently the venue of filming for the movie Australia. We spent a night on the headland at 1770, reliving Capt Cook's voyage and grounding on the Gt Barrier Reef of that date. It's just a little tourist beach town 50kms off the Bruce Highway, and it has mangroves, so we took care.
The Bruce Highway would have to be a national embarrassment, a dreadful road on which people overtake on double white lines and blind bends, without a care. We will head inland in due course.
Some sad news, we have heard that our Keppell Mews neighbour Peter Stent is in hospital with a brain tumour. He is due for surgery on Friday, tomorrow, and the nature of the tumour is not yet known. We are keeping in touch with mutual friends re his progress. His daughter Sarah and her husband Ben have just had their first baby, a girl named Tessa. Hard times for them all, and such a very special family.
The weather here is lovely, fine and warm, cool at night, and soon we will get a chance to get the long pants and fleeces out as we head south for Canberra.
Till next time, love from us to you, please remember to register as a follower, it helps to know to whom I am talking. xxx
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