Yes, that is what I’m calling it; was a monstrous 6500Kms (roughly). Aoife, Kate and Myself were the humble adventurers. Our trip started on the Southeast coast in Melbourne, we drove out of there at the fastest possible speed! 60Km/Hr until we hit the highway! 100Km/Hr down the highway! Yes our progress was slow, but they have so many speed cameras in the highly populated areas it is ridonkulous!
Our first detour off the main and fastest way to Perth was the stunning Great Ocean Road (GOR).
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To quote Wikipedia “The Great Ocean Road is a 241 kilometre stretch of road along the south-eastern coast of Australia between the Victorian cities of Torquay and Warrnambool. The road is the world's largest war memorial, dedicated to casualties of World War I. It is one of Australia's great scenic coastline drives.”
It doesn’t disappoint either with stunning views of the twelve apostles. Once again to Wikipedia! “The Twelve Apostles is a collection of limestone stacks off the shore of the Port Campbell National Park” The GOR winds through the hills, the rainforest and along the cliffs that line the ocean making for more than one scenic view along the way. Most if not all the towns along the GOR are small affectionate tourist traps as there is not much else going on in the area; at least during the season when we drove through.
^ This was somewhere along the GOR as I was asleep for most of it = ]
^ Here is the proof of my sleeping
^ We got to the first part of the apostles at just about the perfect time.
^ For a gorgeous sunset photo.
We camped overnight and then headed to check out London Arch, formerly London Bridge.
^ London Arch shown here used to be connected to the mainland, until part of it collapsed.
^ Which also means there were a lot of these signs around.
We continued on our way down the GOR and came to the Bay of Islands. Which was pretty but the apostles were better.
Then there wasn’t much left on the GOR, we did find a nice little park inside the caldera of a 30,000 year old volcano. We stopped at the first little park area to read the info signs. We saw some tallish two legged animal walking towards us. I thought I heard that clicking sound that the velociraptors made in Jurassic Park, I thought of running. I looked up instead to find to Emu’s coming towards us.
The park was nice and offered several different walking paths. We picked the one that claimed that you might get to see koala’s and was only a 45min walk. The path we chose was made up of a raised board walk for some 300m and then a dirt path. There rangers did their best to strike fear into my friend Aoife, pronounced (E-Fa), by placing as many snake warning signs up as possible.
On our walk we were taught about different animals in the area, including an Echidna. They taught us what signs to look for to indicate an Echidna was in the area, It worked too! I found one on the side of the path but it shuffled away into an area where we couldn’t photograph it. In all the parks I have seen, I have also seen this sign:
These signs have all but killed any of my chances for taking a roo or emu as a pet. Not that I really should have a pet while travelling a foreign country though.
Now what town this restaurant is I do not remember, as well as why they named it what they did is beyond me. It’s not like that country is really well known for that product. It was highly photo worthy though:
I also managed to conquer a bit of my fear of driving on the left side of the road and am now fairly comfortable with it, until you put me at the entrance of a busy roundabout. Then I still need somebody to tell me when to go. But highway driving I have always loved and it’s no exception over here:
Almost no matter where we were, we were able to find a spectacular sunset:
During our journey we ate simple food that tasted like the best cuisine, we travelled through some fun weather. None of which lasted too long (thank goodness) except for the one night where the wind insisted on blowing over the girls tent all night. I had decided before hand to sleep in the car that night. I liked my choice.
We finally made it! to Adelaide… Fuck Adelaide. Pardon my French but Adelaide is a boring capital city, it is small, confusing and soul destroyingly tedious. We only spent a few hours there, to use the free internet at their library and plan out the Uluru/Ayers Rock section of our trip.
The only reason there is excitement in this Adelaide photo is because we just got there.
^ Aoife is striking the karate kid pose while Kate relaxes in the background.
Ah yes back to the route planning for our trip, we had to go north to get to Uluru (pronounced ool-loo-roo) but from there we had two options. We could take the “Great Central Road” which is merely a dirt road that has been scraped flat. At times it is passable in a two wheel drive car such as we had. The GCR travels through aboriginal territory in both the Northern Territory and Western Australia, to travel through any aboriginal land one must procure the appropriate permits from each states aboriginal affairs office. They are free, but if you do not have one the fines are quite hefty.
So after much looking into (and hoping on my part) the taking of the GCR we found out that it was flooded at one point up to the side mirrors on a 4x4, think Nissan X-Terra. Our car wouldn’t make it through that, 90-something Toyota Camry, great on the highway though! It was going to be flooded until mid June by their guess as well, so We decided that we would drive up to Uluru and then back down to continue our journey West.
Now as for my comments on the GOR’s towns being affectionate tourist traps, I used that term because the towns we came across later in our travels were very wearisome and seemed to be down right sickened for having to deal with the travellers passing through. Even though the only reason that those towns probably exist today is merely to enable travellers to keep on going and make it to the next town. Some towns were most definitely nicer than others, Coober Pedy comes to mind in such a case and others were much grumpier, I can’t remember the town name but I know it was in WA some time just before Norseman. Well with that said here are the photos that represent our trip up to the north.
^ Not our car, I swear! oh come on I told you we had a 90-something Toyota Camry = P
I mentioned earlier about a nicer little town called Coober Pedy, It is a nice little town. It is based in the middle of no where, next to nothing in particular. It does however find itself in the middle of an Opal field. Opal is a semi precious stone, and also Australia’s National Gemstone. If I remember right (I hope I do) Coober Pedy is also close to the edge of the Woomera Protected Region, which was used for Britain’s Nuclear tests after WWII. This area in the middle of the desert was searched for by a gentleman of who’s name I cannot recall at this point. He drove a grater through the desert making a road for people and supplies to follow, and in the process created the Great Central Road. Which is admittedly much farther North of Coober Pedy than you would expect.
Coober Pedy’s residents rely just as much if not more upon tourism than the opal fields. The man who drives the shuttle bus, is the front desk manager at the hotel, and the cargo person for the plane you flew in on. On the weekends he operates his mine hoping to strike it rich. We decided to take a tour of Faye’s underground home, which as 80% of home in Coober are, was (i hope) obviously underground. In the summer the temperature reach into the 50C’s (so we were told) and being underground kept the houses at a nipple comforting 21-23C day & night, 365 days a year.
Now I say 80% of people live underground, and what with the cost of heating and cooling at 50C it makes good sense. Now what unreasonable people that make up the other 20% would choose not to do so and endure free sweat baths day in and day out? Well our guide at Faye’s was kind enough to tell us, it is mostly Italians and aboriginals. The Italians just don’t like living underground, and the aborigines believe that under the ground is the under world where all those who have passed live and hence refuse to live underground themselves.
^ In this photo you can see the backside of our tour guide as he left us to take photos and wander around as he started another tour. The tours were $5 per person.
^ This is Kate standing behind the wonderful dug out bar made from a beautiful rock called Jasper. The opal miners hate it.
^ This is a jasper fireplace, it makes a wonderful object to gather around and talk about, but I’d wager it has never been used. Being as the temperature of the house never really changes.
Ok, ok maybe your finding Coober and Faye’s a bit boring but just a few more quick facts. They place matches in small cracks in the roof, if a match falls the house has become unstable; the town had like 5 people until the 60’s. Faye’s house was originally a cave dug out for the mail man to sleep in during the day in his stop over in Coober. Faye dug out the first room and had help with the rest by two other women. It was also the first house to have a pool in Coober Pedy. It is a rather nice pool but non of the photos of it really turned out.
An odd thing also presented itself, the movie Pitch Black was filmed in/around Coober Pedy and the cockpit of the space craft is still there:
^ In this photo you may be able to see little hills all over the place, these are made of all the dirt and rock moved while trying to find the opal. Sadly we were unable to get a photo of a sign that warns you not to: run, carry things so as not be able to see where you are going or walk backwards in this area as you might fall down a deep hole.
And with that we were once again on the road towards Uluru.
Alright, so now we’re in the Northern Territory. Still alive thanks to beans, bread, nutella, sausages, ketchup, peanut butter, honey and cereal bars. I honestly can’t say much happened between this sign and getting to Uluru, there were a few towns for petrol and for camping with Uluru in the middle. So here are the photos:
^Yes a giant fake Echidna!
^ I seriously was hoping for more.
^Still wanting more.
^ Ok ok, it looks bad but honestly the speed limit in the Northern Territory is 130Km/Hr.
^Still waiting, it’s a lot of nothing in this state I tell you.
Finally! in the distance we see it! it’s there it’s huge and looming just like the guide book said it would be! pull into that scenic stop we’ll take photos! It turns out that it’s not Uluru but Mt.Connor.
Geez are we there yet? yes yes we are:
^ Uluru looms in the distance.
^ The fabled path of the climb, The aboriginal owners of the land do not want people to climb Uluru. However the climb is kept open as the National Park Service who run the park with the aboriginal owners feel that tourism would suffer too much to just completely get rid of the climb. They do close the climb for what seems to be an unholy amount of things. That being said we didn’t climb (the gals didn’t want to, and well I probably would have but it was closed due to wind).
^ This path goes completely around Uluru and has some very scenic sites, and some very private one that you are asked not to photograph. I also read in one of the books that your not supposed to stare at them for too long either.
^ Rock art, both old (10,000yrs) and new are sporadically around Uluru.
^ There are many “waterfalls” around as any rain that lands and can make it’s way down goes through many pools and down the rock leaving large black streaks due to interaction with minerals in the rock. 
^ Uluru at sunset, Uluru changes colour depending on the time of day. I believe it has 4-6 different colours.
^ The intrepid Travellers: Kate, Aoife, and Kevin .
^ I can’t believe it’s not heavier.
^ Yeah, I totally agree.
In the resort town called Yulamara/Ayers Rock Resort they had an amazing water fountain that drained counter clockwise.
Now I’m not sure what causes this, but after a few small scale experiments and researching Wikipedia, it is not the fact of solely being in the southern hemisphere. What everyone thinks cause it, actually is such a weak force it’s only able to affect really large systems such as hurricanes and tropical storm rotations.
And so our journey south began again, the prospect of more campsites and possibly another slab of concrete to pitch the tents on was starting to slightly lose it’s appeal. But our butts carried on!
Somehow we managed to stop at most of the places we by-passed on our way up and by places I mean the next gas station and what ever it offered. So here are a few photos from our way south, back to Port Campbell: gateway to the west.
^ Ahem, previously mentioned campgrounds.
^ I wish they came in this size, although in their heat talk about drinking a lot of warm beer.
^ I will not let this happen to me. 
^ Kate and I share a passion. 
^ Good reading on a boring road.
From this point on it was us highway and lonely roadhouses in nowhere worth mentioning. All you could do was watch Kate drop her little lead filled foot down on the accelerator, and then watch in amazement as she got out of a speeding ticket. Then follow the speed limit roughly when it was your turn to drive. About all you saw on the road was an endless supply of caravans, road trains, some cars and cyclists of questionable sanity.
The highway is called the Nullabor, it is latin meaning no trees and that is pretty much what the scenery was made up of. The nullabor stretches from before Southern Australia’s border well into Western Australia. It’s highlights include more tiny little useless towns and Australia’s longest stretch of straight road!
^ This one’s for you Mom. 
^ Only Halfway? Damn-it! 
^ They have interstate food restrictions here. The bastards took my honey.
So, not only are you unable to bring all sorts of awesome things made of food, plants or animal into Australia; you are also not able to bring some awesome things like fresh fruit and veggies, honey and more over interstate borders! WTF!? seriously the loss of my honey made me quite mad. enough about that.
The following pictures are from Eucla, one of the biggest towns on the nullabor. Still useless though. They had some fun things to take photos of and a weird 1900’s telegraph station being slowly consumed by sand dunes! enjoy.
^Where were we going again? 
^ Kate has a new pet, although it’s food bill is killer. 
^This is the only wheel that we would let Aoife get behind on the trip. 
^ The old telegraph building.
^ Yes that is a camel on the right hand side of the sign.
So as you can see above there literally is no trees down the nullabor highway, there was also very little sign of any of the life forms depicted on the highway sign. In VIC and SA we actually came close to hitting some kangaroos with our car. The hide at the side of the roads and then jump out in front of you at the last moment, much like deer back home.
^ Such a boring stretch of road, I was tempted to turn quite a few times.
The longest stretch of straight road is highly deceptive, you can see traffic coming from forever away and it’s hard to judge on when to turn off your high beams. I thought driving through Saskatchewan was bad, but this was worse. How that is possible I don’t know, but much like Saskatchewan you are merely tempted by the idea of putting the pedal to the medal and leave it behind you forever.
After our drive down the creativity killing nullabor we ended up going north instead of south to get to our next destination, Wave Rock. So we headed North to Kalgoorlie-Boulder, which is a mining town. It has skimpy bars = ] These are bars where the all female bar staff, wearing little clothes to begin with and tease you during service. Later they remove their outfits to wear only bikini’s or underwear, I thought that was great until I went next door. There they had topless bartenders, I think I had found a brief glimpse of heaven. So we spent two nights in Kalgoorlie and then continued on our way. Next stop Hayden/Wave rock, we decided to take a little detour and go down a secondary unsealed highway. My deep seeded want to drive down a red dirt highway had come true, even though I wasn’t driving but a mere passenger.
^ The highway that made my dreams come true.
We then ended up in Hyden, Home of Hyden’s Rock, which has such amazing… ok so too much info. The rock has one part that looks like a cresting wave and one that looks like a hippopotamus’s mouth.
^I’m too cool for surfing. 
^ Aoife is hanging a full ten and a half. 
^ It really is a beautiful wave.
^ I ran up a side of the rock, look at my athleticism and hide in fear! 
^ This is Hippo Rock, I think it does look like a hippo.
^ On closer inspection, Ahhhhh it’s a Hungry Hungry Hippo!
As our troop was hightailing it’s way out of Hyden towards Perth one last oddity in the town caught our eyes. We had to investigate; had to.
^ Dude help get me out of here, I’ll make it worth your while. 
^Robots must maintain a certain oil to alcohol ratio to function properly. Haven’t you ever watched Futurama? Geez! 
^ Did you see the new family moving in? We’re going to have to pedal faster. 
^ The doctors told Kate she was adopted, but she chose not to believe them.
^ Even echidna’s seem to be copying Russel Brands’s hairstyle.
^ This horse's face totally creeps me out.
^ I think it’s a lizard.
That was the last stop on our Perth-ward journey, we are currently holed up in a hostel in the suburb of Northbridge in Perth.
time to go lose myself again, until next time.
Kevin the 007
