A Trip Of A Lifetime

Hello all!

Well, for once I have lots to tell! I finally made it to Perth, after a couple of weeks travelling from Sydney...

The last week or so in Sydney was pretty busy just getting organised for my trip, and trying to make the most of the last of my time there. I finished up at yet another deathly dull job on 25th January and officially switched to holiday mode :-) Thursday 26th January was Australia Day, and I spent most of the day in the city flitting to and from Circular Quay and The Rocks to Darling Harbour as there was lots going on - live bands, food stalls etc. and of course the Ferrython (a ferry race across the Harbour!). I stayed on til the evening for the fireworks at Darling Harbour, they got there eventually after a long drawn out 'parade' of boats and floats around the harbour, including the Australian of the Year playing his part in the Queens Baton Relay for the Commonwealth Games. There was a good atmosphere but it was all a bit "aren't we wonderful" for my liking...

My last day in Sydney (Sunday 29th January) was great - Emma and I drove up to the Blue Mountains in her car, Sheila :-) It was a really good day, great to finally get out of the city and the mountains were well worth the visit. We stopped at Echo Point to see The 3 Sisters first:

Then on to Katoomba Scenic Railway, the steepest railway in the world (it was vertical part of the time!) to the bottom of the mountains, where we had a walk round to see parts of an old miners village and then got a cable car back up to the top... those of you who know how scared of heights I am will have an idea of how glad I was to be back on solid ground again!! A wander round the town of Katoomba then before taking the scenic route back to the city - with a small detour to the Minniehaha Falls... well someone was having a good old ha ha at sending all the tourists here anyway!!

Monday 30th January I finally waved goodbye to Sydney and flew to Melbourne, the hotel I was staying in was right in the CBD (Central Business District) so was a great base for a few days sightseeing. I didn't have very long there, only 2 1/2 days, but I packed quite a lot in - the free city circle tram came in very handy for getting my bearings and getting to a fair few of the main attractions. The Queen Victoria Markets were great, a huge market with deli, fruit & veg, fish & meat and general clothing/jewellery/souvenir sections, I spent quite a while wandering round there! The Acquarium was interesting, but quite overpriced I think. Federation Square in the city has some very bizarre buildings including a large video screen with live feed showing the goings on in the Square - probably the only time I'll ever see myself on the big screen! :-)

The Docklands is a new area of the city, recently renovated and now houses lots of restaurants and bars - and while I was there, a circus, which was a great show. Lots of sculptures around that area particularly, including this one...

What else... oh the Immigration Museum was really interesting, definitely well worth a visit. I also spent an afternoon in St Kilda, Melbourne's seaside suburb, which would have been better had it not been raining all day!

Thursday February 2nd I picked up my rental car, an orange Toyota Yaris I named Kath :-) Finally I was getting out on the road! I drove about half of the Great Ocean Road the first day, through Geelong which had lots of bizarre pieces like these dotted around the town...

... on to Torquay where I had a walk along Bell's Beach, which I had almost all to myself; then on through Anglesea and Airey's Inlet where I stopped at Split Point Lighthouse...

... on then to Lorne where I headed inland a little to Erskine Falls, which was a lovely spot...

... and finally on to Apollo Bay where I stayed the first night. The second day I drove on to the end of the Great Ocean Road, taking in a rainforest walk at Maits Rest and a trip out to the lighthouse and telegraph station at Cape Otway Lighthouse. Then I went to the Otway Fly Tree Top Walk, which is a steel bridge constructed 47 metres high so that you can walk among the treetops in the rainforest...

The cantilever was the most unsettling bit and though it was all very impressive I was very, very glad to be back in the car again!! I got caught up in a group of pensioners at one point (is there a name for a group of pensioners?!!) and overheard the funniest conversation I'd heard for a while - 2 ladies talking about one of the gents in the group... Lady #1: "He only retired a couple of months ago, didn't he?" Lady #2: "Yes. That's why he doesn't know the price of souvenirs yet!" Well it made me giggle :-)

On then to take in The 12 Apostles (though you can only see 7 of them from the boardwalk, to see all of them you need to take a helicopter flight) - it was very surreal standing there looking at something so familiar!

I stopped at a couple of other sights after that, like the Bay of Islands, and finished the day in Warrnambool. The third day, I drove through Port Fairy and on to Portland, and headed inland to The Grampians National Park. Unfortunately, I got as far as Hamilton where I stopped for a break and popped into the tourist office, where I was told that due to fire damage nearly all the park was closed to the public. Still, I decided to keep on in that direction and by-passed the park, but thoroughly enjoyed the drive to Horsham. There was a lot of not very much to see, but it was great to be out in the country, plenty of peace and quiet and no traffic!!

I drove straight on from Horsham to Adelaide the following day, the last 450km of the trip. Oh and I did see another 2 of Australia's 'big things' the last couple of days... the Big Wool Bales at Hamilton and The Giant Koala on the Western Highway - both utterly batty, as are the others!

I didn't do very much in Adelaide, I would have liked to get out to the Barossa Valley and the Whispering Wall but it was too late to book a tour for the only full day I had there. Mostly I just bummed around the city and took it easy, though I did go to Glenelg (Adelaide's seaside suburb) one day and also did a free tour of Haigh's chocolate factory which was really interesting. Even more interesting was the big handful of tasters they handed out at the end of the tour :-)

I went out to Kangaroo Island for 2 days, which was really great but really tiring, it's not even nearly enough time to spend on the island and I covered almost 650kms in 2 days. My first day there I'd been up at 5.30am to check in on time to get the coach to Cape Jervis, about 2 hours. Then a ferry over to the island, where I was picked up to go collect my hire car for the 2 days - a white Nissan Pulsar I called Kim ;-) Apparently I'd been upgraded but frankly I'd have preferred the Hyundai Getz I was supposed to have - the Pulsar was such a dull drive, didn't help that it was an automatic I suppose!! And have you ever tried driving on unsealed roads in one? Not fun!! Anyway, I digress... the first day I drove to Pardana in the centre of the island, then to the north where I visited Paul's Place, a wildlife park of sorts, basically it was Paul's farm... it was good but not really my cup of tea, I did get to hand feed Kangaroo Island kangaroos (they're a sub-species of the mainland kangaroos), hold a snake, see a koala, hear a kookaburra sing and stroke an echidna (as much as you can stroke a spiky creature like that :-) )... which was all good but having said that, I'd get much more of a kick out of seeing these animals in the wild, seeing them tame doesn't really interest me that much! That night I drove back out to Penneshaw on the north east tip of the island (where the ferry came in) to join the Penguin Walk tour. At other times of the year you can see up to 40-50 fairy penguins (little penguins up to only 30cm tall!) come in from the sea at night, but at this time of year they stay out at sea for several weeks to feed up, then come back to shore for about 3 weeks with no more food or water to grow a new set of feathers... so we only saw a few penguins venture out of their nests, but it was great to be able to see any at all!

The last day was great, I headed for Seal Bay first, which was fantastic. They bring guided tours down to the beach where we got to within about 10 metres of the seals, a wild colony of several hundred seals. I have to say that was the highlight of the whole trip, it was fascinating to be so close to them and the guide was great.

Unfortunately it rained for the rest of the day, but I drove to the south western tip of the island, to Flinders Chase National Park where I drove out to see the Remarkable Rocks, granite rocks which have been eroded over the years creating really spectacular shapes...

On then to Admiral's Arch, where I spent ages watching all the New Zealand fur seals on the rocks, again, a definite highlight of the trip!

On my way back to the hostel in Kingscote that night, I stopped briefly at Koala Walk, a path lined with eucalypts where you can usually spot a few koalas - I saw 4 in all, so was thrilled with that :-)

Soooo finally getting to the end of my trip! I arrived in Perth the evening of Friday 10th February and so far so good... first impressions are definitely better than Sydney, it seems a really nice place. I'm starting the job hunt today and I'm just going to play it by ear...

So that's it for now - keep your fingers crossed for me on the job/home front and I'll keep you up to date with my progress!

Miss you all

Gail xx