Wooh, almost up to date on the ol’ blogging! This, the last of the three catchups (if you’ve not checked this site for a few days, I recommend reading the Melbourne and Grampians catchups first), is about the Great Ocean Road trip Pat and I went on.

Prologue
Before heading off on the Great Ocean Road trip, Pat spent the evening in Melbourne doing some photo uploading and trying desperately to get his 20KG+ rucksack down to under 15KG. He managed both, eventually, and presently has a nice bag hiding in a Secret Place In Melbourne with some of the stuff he didn’t really need for this stage of the trip, but couldn’t face throwing away.

Big thanks to Jen, who met up with Pat for a couple of bevvies and filled him in regarding where to go / what to do (and what not to) in the Cairns to Sydney stretch of the Big Adventure!

The morning before he went on the tour, Pat spent a while faffing around, making sure everything was ready and also buying some desperately needed new clothes… before finally getting on the Wayward Bus, complete with nice-n-light bag, at 1:30pm.

The Great Ocean Road Trip
The first thought through Pat’s mind was “Oh dear”, as he walked towards the bus and noticed the only other people waiting to get on it were a 60-something couple plus a mother and daughter. Perhaps this wasn’t quite going to be the crazy few days he had anticipated…

Luckily for Pat there were some folks of a more “traditional” backpacker nature (i.e. 20 somethings) – Tash and Caroline (from the UK) and Rebecca (from Switzerland) – so he at least had some people around his age group to talk to.

On the whole the group themselves (all 8 of us, in a 24 seater coach) were pretty quiet whilst on the coach, which was a bit of a shame, but that didn’t stop our bus driver Billy from trying to get a rise out of everyone, playing comedy music (“Come to Australia… You Might Accidentally Get Killed” by the Scared Wierd Little Guys being one of Pat’s favourites) constantly cracking lame jokes – which it seems Pat found hilarious, but I’m guessing that’s because of his own somewhat appauling sense of humour (Hey, it’s ironic! – Pat) Do you even know what you mean by that, Scullion? (I… no. – Pat) Thought not.

Classic Billy Quotes

• “A bloke was being careless whilst filling up at a service station… and got fuel on his sleeve. Later on he lit up in the car and his arm was set alight! As he fought to put it out, a police car pulled him over… and the officer, rather than helping, arrested him! Yeah, he was charged for having an unlicensed fire arm.”
• (Whilst we’re standing looking out across the ocean from a vantage point above some steep hills, Billy points…) “Hey! Anyone want to see some dolphins?” … “Yeah, me too.”
• “These Koalas actually change colour at night… yeah, when the sun goes down – they turn black!”
• “Last time I came here I saw a man eating shark!… with salad and chips.”
• “I was trying to get into a posh night club, but was told I couldn’t come in without a tie. So I sarcastically went to my car, grabbed some jump leads and tied them around my neck. Surprisingly, the bouncer let me in… but told me not to start anything.”
  “I was talking to a guy in town about the water shortages… he was saying it’s so bad that the public swimming pool have closed two lanes!”

I could go on, but my mind’s starting to melt and I’ve already numbed myself to these, so gawd knows how you’re feeling now. Just one thing – when Pat gets back, ask him to show you the “Puujah” Aboriginal dance.

Because half of the group had paid to stay in swanky motels, there were only ever four of us (surprisingly enough, the 20-somethings) alloted to the Wayward Bus-reserved rooms in the chosen hostel each night. What’s more, because there are separate rooms for blokes and ladies, Pat managed to blag himself an entire dorm to himself each night. On the third night this was particularly impressive as the 8 bed dorm was ENORMOUS (the hostel itself being an old mansion).

Most evenings were spent accompanied by a couple of boxes of goon between 5 (Becky, Tash, Caroline, Billy and Pat), and some chatting about various things… including something rather amazing that Billy’s involved in that could hopefully change the world for the good. And this time it wasn’t a joke. That’s all Pat’s allowing me to say right now, but it could be awesome. Either way the reasonably late evenings and early mornings meant that the occasional dipping in bloody freezing cold ocean water were a welcome wake up call for Pat… and the locations for these dips weren’t too bad either:

Of course, along the way plenty of awesome sights were seen… too many really to blog about, so here are just a few highlights:

• Hilly Coastlines
  There were some lovely coastal ranges… which looked good in sun, cloud and mist. I wish I could say the same about the Thames coastline…
  
  
  

• Rainforest
  The Melba Gully rainforest is oddly significantly cooler than anywhere around it, but if that was what was needed in order for it to look like it it, Pat wasn’t bothered:
  

• 12 Apostles
  These looked lovely in the early morning sun, depsite there only being about 8 of them (Trade Descriptions back at home would have a great time with that one), and Pat took it upon himself to take faaar too many photos of them. Here are a few:
  
  
  

  Oh also he was very, very excited to do his first ever helicopter ride. His choice of location can’t really be knocked:
  
  
  Twas only 6 minutes, but for about 20GBP you can’t really argue with sights like that!

• Other “Rocks In The Sea”
  All along the coast of the Port Cambell National Park were lots… and lots… and lots of rocks sitting in the sea. Again, Pat took faar too many photos, so here are just a few highlights. Click on them to find out what they’re called… and, as always, post comments on them:
  
  
  
  

• Alien Landscape!
  Or the “Mildly Concerned Forest” (apparently it’s not a Petrified Forest) at Cape Bridgewater:
  
  

• The Entrance To South Australia!
  As always, the (becoming) customary “Hanging off the sign” pic had to be taken. Watches back 30 minutes, everyone! We’re entering the Silly Time Zone:
  

• Umpherston Sinkhole
  Caused by limestone rock getting eaten away by acids from a swamp and then… somethingorother. It’s a big hole in the ground. This one had been turned into a nice garden (with some caverns hidden). Yes!
  

• Amazing Blue Lake!
  We were expecting a let down on seeing this, given how much hype Billy had created for its colour… but blimey. It really is very blue indeed:
  
  
  This is actually the result spell cast by the evil Witch Queen Ey’fells Yxt’eefy-ve in the Bad Ages (before the time of the Egyptians) – where in a display of her ultimate power against the benevolent Queen Blu’dah B’ahdei, she transformed her into a big blue lake, there to rest in torment for all eternity. Or it could be due to this.

• Southend
  Yes. You heard right. Pat went to Southend:
  
  There are some minor differences between this one and the one that everyone loves. There’s a list of comparisons in Pat’s handy “Southend Spot-The-Difference” range of photos…

There are plenty (oh boy are there plenty) of other photos that Pat uploaded, but I can’t be assed copy and pasting URLs of scenery photos anymore. (What about the ones of “locals” met??? – Pat) Ah, crap, ok then:

Some locals were met:

• Koala
  We nearly walked straight past this Koala in the Tower Hill nature reserve (you probably know it, it’s left then just 100m down the road out of the tube station) – it sat staring at us for a fair while (as you can see from the staring competition it was having with Tash) and then scampered up a tree out of the way:
  

• Emus
  Also in Tower Hill, we spent a while searching through the tall reeds looking for an Emu that was supposedly wandering around. After having no luck, we wandered back to the coach and nearly bumped into these!
  

• Larry the Lobster
  A giant lobster, made to scale to place on the designer’s house. Alas, the workers had built this using yards and inches, whereas the designer had designed it in metres and centimeters. Oops:
  

With all that, plus an interesting tour around an Aboriginal reserve to find all sorts of Bush Tukka (including stuff that can be used to cure arthritus, act as dye and cure hangovers), twas a really good few days. To be honest, I’m surprised Flickr’s servers haven’t been brought down by Pat’s continuous photo uploading…

Epilogue
Anyway after getting into Adelaide on Sunday, Pat, Caroline, Rebecca and Tash checked into the (pretty damned nice) YHA and had something of an early night.

The next day they hired a car from a small rental firm run by – no less – a couple from Romford (which Pat was very excited about) and Billy (yep, their tour guide, who’d decided to spend an extra day with them!) took them around some wineries:

To a dam with acoustic properties allowing one person to hear what another is whispering at the other side of the dam (it was, ahem, dam impressive):

And then on a nice walk in Adelaide Hills:

Following that some socialising in the evening was had – and for the rest of the week Pat’s done such exciting things as walking to the beach (14kms away from here), swimming, shopping, reading, watching Norbit *, enjoying the Fringe Festival live entertainment… and of course blogging, photo uploading and preparing for the 10 day safari, which starts tomorrow!

So that pretty much brings you up to date. Hooray! :-)

Oh and if you weren’t sure quite how serious the drought here is, check this out:

Right, I’m off to sit and watch Pat grab himself some lunch. Until the next time… have a good one!

Toodles,

Squage

* May be a lie

What’s that?

Pat and Squage went to Scotland?

No, of course not – this is Australia, remember – and every street or mountain range here needs to be named after something or someone in or around the UK in the late 1800s :-)

After waking up slightly hungover in Melbourne at 7:00am, Pat begrudgedly threw his 20-odd KG rucksack on his back, his 5KG day pack in his left hand and 3KG Coles bag in his right, and trundled out of the doors of Urban Central ready for his 15 minute trudge to Southern Cross station, in order to grab the 8:08am to the small town of Halls Gap in the Grampians National Park.

He was greeted by the first rain he’d seen in about 3 weeks. Despite the fact that there had been (and still is) the worst Australian drought in recorded history and that the whole country was begging, pleading for rain, Pat still managed the awesomely selfish task of being pissed off that it was pouring down.

You can take the Pomme from the Whinging country, but you can’t take the Whinging country from the pomme… or the whinging from the country… or the… oh, whatever. Either way, Pat had a quite grumble and decided he’d sod the walk and go for a tram ride instead. It was only after paying $3.20 for the 2 minute tram journey that he realised his train ticket to Halls Gap covered him for Melbourne trams too.

It was going well, then.

Fortunately from this point on things started to get better… for a start the train he got onto had really comfy seats, allowing him to prepare for a nice doze (Pat can’t sleep on trains – barring the one time coming back to Essex at the end of a Uni term, whereupon he’d gone to bed at 5:30am, slept approximately 2 hours and woken up still drunk (and he wonders why he’s not 10 stone…)), was almost empty – making it likely that screaming kids wouldn’t be an issue – and was nicely air conditioned.

Also, as the train got further from Melbourne, the weather started to brighten up – and by the time Pat had got to Halls Gap it was a glorious, sunny day.

This oddly didn’t make Pat feel that great, as a bit earlier in the journey he’d swapped from the train onto a little minibus to get to Halls Gap (too small a town for a train station… in fact, too small for most things) and the driver spent a while explaining, as the bus went through the forrests towards the Grampians, how they had all been destroyed by bush fires a year ago in “similar weather to this”.

None the less, he made it through to the town without being incinerated and was really grateful to the bus driver for taking him and the only other passenger on the bus around the town to get bearings and point out the best walking tracks in the area.

Impressed with just how bloody friendly people were around this area, Pat wandered into the Halls Gap YHA and wondered what he was going to do with the 3 hours he had left before the 3pm checking. Yet again, friendly people were to the rescue and one of the hostel owners gave Pat keys to his room and just asked that he paid before 10pm.

That’s pretty much the story of the next few days: friendly people. Whereever Pat went, be it just to the hostel kitchen or one of the restaurants in the town centre, he ended up speaking with open, chatty folk who just seemed really chilled and friendly. ‘Twas great, and quite eye-opening, to speak to some people about the planet, governments, cultures and such like… the sort of stuff Pat never really took time to talk about when back at home.

Oh and by “such like”, what I mean is “the very real threat of UFOs”.

Yep, despite Pat having the 4 bed dorm he was in entirely to himself for half of his stay, for the other half he shared it with a 91 year old American guy called Paul… who’d spent the past 50 years researching UFO (oh, sorry, UAP (Unidentified Ariel Phenomena)) occurances and petitioning Governments to be more open about them.

He actually travels from Melbourne to the Grampians on a semi-regular basis, as apparently it’s a real hotspot for UFOUAP activity.

In talking to Pat for only 5 minutes, Paul had given Pat no less than 8 documents to read about UAP sightings and experiences and a whole wodge of papers to give to flight attendants in order to pass onto pilots “As a matter of aircraft safety”, which explained about the (get this) National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP).

Yeessssss… despite Pat reading some of the stuff and admitting that, well, if these were true it would be bloody scary, he couldn’t quite bring himself to believe that he’d actually give a flight attendant something like that.

Perhaps it’s the sceptic in him, or perhaps that accepting this as truth is something that’d be dangerous for one’s state of mind… or perhaps it’s the fear of being laughed off the plane (possibly in cuffs) on attempting to pass that sort of thing to a pilot.

Anyway, aside from meeting lovely (and occasionally “odd”) people, Pat also managed to get some well-needed exercise in, doing several lengths in the public swimming pool and challenging himself to walk up various big hills/small mountains (he could never quite decide which category they fell into… perhaps “Smauntains”?) in order to burn off the calories.

He really enjoyed this on the whole (apart from the occasional feeling that he might be about to die of knackeredness) as despite the often hard slog up the last part of each climb (which usually involved scrambling up rocks rather than along paths), the views were always stunning.

Below are a few of the rewards Pat was given for his slogging:

Chaquata Peak:

Boronia Peak:

Oh and some of the meetings with the locals:

One of the walks Pat did went through a field with lots of kangaroos in it. Having heard the warnings about their somewhat powerful kicking, Pat crept through attempting to be unnoticed. Amazingly, the sight of a rotund Essex bloke did *quite* go unnoticed.

Trundling along the same walk at quite a pace, Pat noticed this fella at the very last second. There could’ve been one squashed lizard-type thing otherwise…

This one was found at the top of Boronia Peak, and came to say hello as Pat was sitting down catching his breath from the rather b*stard-hard climb up.

Whilst sitting chilling in the woods Pat heard a crunch of leaves and we noticed a rather cool looking thing wandering past – an actual Echidna! Aside from the fact that it wasn’t pink, didn’t have dreadlocks and didn’t have a bad attitude, it was pretty exciting for me to see!

The YHA Hostel has free range hens wandering around, who aren’t afraid to come right up to you to grab some scraps…

Also, in yet another example of Halls Gap being a Great Place To Visit™, there was a $10AUD, 3 HOUR trip around some of the non-walking-distance sights around the Grampians that was run by a hostel called Tim’s Place. Through getting on that Pat got to see some even more impressive sights:

Mackenzie Falls:

The Balconies:

Reed Lookout:

Boroka Lookout:

Pretty nice, huh? Well, that just about summarises the Grampians visit. Of course, after that Pat went back to Melbourne for an evening and then headed out to the Great Ocean Road… but more about that tomorrow!

For now, Pat’s dragging me off to get some food.

Toodles!

Squage

Well, Pat’s been his usual procrastinatious (is that a real word? Hang on a sec I’ll go for a look… (fnar fnar)) self and has managed to do just about everything other than sit down and catch up with his blogging.

So it’s up to me, yet again, to take the wheel and deliver you some blogging action. Grap yourself a cup of tea (or perhaps a can of Pepsi Max from the third floor vending machines… not that I’m assuming anyone would be reading blogs whilst at work, heaven forbid! (psst have you checked the GIRS queue recently lads?)) and start a-reading!

Let’s start where we left off: Melbourne.

A quick summary of stuff that happened:

• Pat got into Melbourne from Tassie
• Pat bought some food a few times from Coles, to try and eat healthily and cheaply
• Pat bought a few Pizza Hut lunches, to try and stop himself becoming so thin you’d not see him when he turned around (ahem)
• Pat socialised a fair bit with his friends, either in hostels, pubs, bars or at Jen, Kate and Emma’s appartment (check them out with their appartment, eh?)
• Pat ate lots of pancakes on Shrove Tuesday
• Pat went for a few brisk walks along the Yarrah river, to try and counter the Pizza Hut meals, socialising and pancakes
• Pat went to St Kilda and did some swimming and sunbathing
• Pat read lots of books
• Pat did LOTS of planning (including – shock horror – going to a travel agent for advice!) and got everything booked up until April 16th.

Particular highlights:

• Chinese New Year in China Town with Jen and Amy, watching some cool Chinese “dragon” parade around:
  
  

• Seeing Ghost Rider then walking past this arched bridge on the Yarrah featured in a big stunt scene:
  
  Pat wanted me to clarify the exact part of the film I mean. You know that bit where he’s on the arched bridge? That’s the bit. (Oh, *thanks* – Pat)

• Spending hours watching Invader Zim and Futurama on AJ’s laptop in the hostel:
  
  They’re fully normal. :-)

• Pancakes at Kate, Jen and Emma’s appartment:
  
  Health on a plate.

• Going to the Queen Victoria Night Market and checking out the many amusing, odd and downright scary signage:
  
  
  
  This was about 2 metres tall…

• Watching the sun set from the top of the Rialto Tower:
  
  
  

So there you go. Pat enjoyed the two weeks, despite being back in the same ol’ place yet again as aside from all the planning he met lots of great people:

• Emma – co-UK traveller and roommate / flat mate of Jen and Kates’, who’s a good laugh and is working in Melbourne for at least the next 3 (or maybe even 6) months. Good work!
• Amy – Perth-born-and-bred, she was only on holiday for two weeks in Melbourne and was Jen, Kate and Emma’s roommate for one of those weeks. She’s great, not only because she’s fun but also because she works as a journo / has a show on a Perth-based community radio station. Pat has stated clearly that this did not at all interest him as he’s got no real interest in radio anymore. That said, Pat’s hoping to catch up in Perth when he gets there in a couple of weeks and might have his radio CV up to date by then ;-) (N.B. Alas I don’t have time to get involved in that sorta stuff inbetween tours… er… not that I would be interested anyway, no. Definitely not. No. – Pat)
• AJ and Kirsten – These two legends were Pat’s room mates (along with a guy affectionately known as “Banana Republic” (he smelt of bananas) or “Mr Gambly” (he spent most nights playing online poker on the hostel’s PCs)) in Urban Central for the week he stayed there. Pat’s first thoughts when AJ and Kirsten bounced into the 4 bed dorm he was resting in was “Oh, God…”. AJ was a rather hyper, outspoken camp fella, and both he and Kirsten spent a fair amount of time stating/calling eachother “c***” and saying “yeah, well your face.”, “no, your face’s face” and “well, your face’s face’s face” etc, before they bounced back out of the room. Pat wondered at this point whether it was finally time to give in and get a single room… but is so glad that he didn’t. Both of the Brisbanites(?) are funny, chatty, kind and have the most interesting life stories to tell – besides neither of them being in their 20s yet. Many a night was spent chatting about life, religion, people’s prejudices and Insanty Prawn Boy. “Who’s he?” I hear you ask. That’s right! :-) Pat can’t wait to meet up with them when he gets back to Melbourne (they’re staying their to work/study).
• Teki – A mate of AJ and Kirsten’s, who’s really friendly, cheery and also happens to be a hard core DJ who might just be getting big any time soon. How cool is that??

So yeah, Pat’s been meeting some cool folk. He was sad to say byee to them when he went off to the Grampians… which, of course, is another story altogether.

…

What? Oh, right, yes, that’s the end of this blog entry. You can go now. Bye!

Squage

I had a call from Heading Bush this afternoon. Looks like there aren’t enough people wanting to go on the outback tour this Thursday (as the Adelaide Fringe and WOMAD Festivals start then), and as such the tour’s been pushed back to Sunday instead.

This is bad because:

1. I have to rearrange accomodation, including extending my stay in Adelaide just as the festivals kick off and accomodation isn’t exactly abundant
2. I’ve got to rearrange my flight and incur at $38 fee

This is good because:

1. I’ve just done the accomodation rearranging – and am even keeping my bed here at the YHA til Sunday!
2. The flight’s rearranged – and $38 isn’t much
3. I get to enjoy the first few days of the Fringe and WOMAD Festivals!

So all’s turned out well. It also means I get time to do some cycling around the city, do some more beach-based bumming and get a few lie-ins before I leave at silly-O’Clock on Sunday :-)

Wooh,

Pat
—
P.S. All pics uploaded – blogging will occur tomorrow!
P.P.S. The updated overall plan is on the Trip Details page.

Where did THAT come from?

Seems hard to believe I’ve already been on the Big Adventure for that long… but when I sit down and think about it, it actually feels like I’ve been traveling for longer than that. I’ve done so many things done in that four months; met so many people; visited so many places; uploaded so many bloody photos… :-)

Despite feeling a little hungover (it was “Billy Bob’s BBQ Night” at the Grace Emily Hotel last night, complete with live “Open Mic” music and lots of cheap Cooper’s Sparkling) I’m in good spirits still.

I’ve been having time to think about things – you know, the sort of stuff that you really don’t get time to contemplate when you’re busy being stressed over computers, radio and all the other things I filled my life with before coming out here – and I must say I’m feeling more positive about life than I have done in a long time. This is, officially, a Good Thing™.

It’s not to say that I’ve not had times when I’ve been feeling down – because I have – but I think through interacting with so many different people, challenging myself a fair bit and having more time to reflect on things I feel like I’m understanding myself better, which is really helping me towards the positive thinking thing.

Let’s just hope it continues when I get back to the good ol’ UK, eh? :-)

Since the last big post, I’ve been enjoying the company of some of my mates from the New Zealand trip (Jen and Kate, howdy!), their cool roommate (Amy, g’day!) and also the Brisbane legends that were my roommates (AJ, Kirsten – your faces’ faces (don’t ask)). More on them in a blog in the next day or so, I’d wager.

I’ve been traipsing around the Grampians (standing on rocky ledges that I would’ve never even considered about a year ago) and enjoying the sights along the Great Ocean Road (and the rather “interesting” “sense of humour” of our ace tour guide Billy – some classic Billy Quotes on the way soon… they’re worse than my punning. Seriously).

So far in Adelaide I’ve been to some wineries, beaches and for a nice walk amongst some hills (on a day trip some of us from the G.O.R. tour decided to do – complete with a great clapped out old hire van), and a bit of social entertainment (see above).

Now I’m doing a big ol’ catchup. Photos from the Great Ocean Road leg are being uploaded as I type (provided Flickr Uploadr hasn’t broken half way through uploading – again) and I’m going to be spending some of this afternoon and tomorrow blogging (yes, yes, watching Squage blog :-) ) in earnest.

Oooh yeah – other bits I’m now definitely doing:

20th March
Flying from Alice Springs to Perth, and checking into the rather ace looking Bam’bu Backpackers.

22nd March
Getting on board a few-days-long tour around Albany, Margaret River and the South West courtesy of Adventure “We Own Everything” Tours.

24th March
Checking back into Bam’bu.

27th March
Slinging my bags into yet another minibus, this time to head up to the lovely Broome via the pretty awesome-looking 9 day Perth to Broome Safari (you’ll never guess which company runs that). There’ll be crazy rock climbing, hiking, animal interaction, plus forgetting the date and falling for one or more April Fool’s pranks along the way!

4th April
Arriving at Broome in a hostel by Cable Beach, spending 4 days sunbathing, swimming and doing little else.

8th April
Jetting off to Darwin via the cheap-as-chips(-god-I-hope-the-plane-doesn’t-fall-apart) Skywest Airlines and spending a few days browsing the city – and perhaps going on a one day tour to the nearby sights.

13th April
For the final time, I’ll be throwing my stuff in the back of a tour-bus/truck and heading off to see some ace sights and do some camping under the stars. This time it’s NOT Adventure Tours owned (unlike Wayward and Oz Experience), but a Darwin-to-Cairns tour courtesy of Desert Venturer. Not sure if that makes it better or not, but I need something to convince me that getting picked up at 5:45am is going to be worthwhile.

16th April
Arrive into Cairns!

Wooh.

Right, enough rambling, I’m off to label my newly uploaded photos.

Bye!

Pat

Howdy,

Well I’ve got about 2 hours before I head off on my Great Ocean Road tour and I’m looking forward to it. Why’m I in an internet cafe *again*? Well, it’s to upload all my “last two weeks of Melbourne” and “four days in the Grampians” photos.

There’s a fair few of them. Check them out in The Usual Place!

I’ll (ahem, Squage’ll) be doing a proper blog explaining what I’ve been doing in the past couple of weeks, including some of the un-Pat-like walking around rocky outcrops above large drops, socialising with various cool folks and talking to a 91 year old UFO enthusiast about the “very real danger” of an alien attack.

All that on the way – and the latest tune from the man who’s mum is urging fans to send him letters to show him how much he’s loved – next.

…

…

Help me.

Pat

P.S. Excitingly I’m now booked all the way to Cairns / April 16th. Wooh!

Yep, the planning’s going well. I’ve got stuff fully booked until the 17th of March and plenty more almost-booked following that (taking me through to mid/late May). It’s been quite fun doing it actually – I even went wild and went to a backpackers travel agent place to get assistance in planning the trip. The one downside is that my (already packed) day-bag is chock-full of brochures for sights, tours and activities. :-)

So, what’s next then? Well:

24th February
I’m checking out of Melbourne and coaching it to the Grampians National Park, whereupon I’m going to spend a few days enjoying the sights, doing LOTS of hiking and perhaps indulging in some abseiling (maybe even some climbing, if I’m feeling brave enough).

28th February
Heading back to the Magnetic City (at least it appears to be for me, as I can’t seem to leave it for any length of time) – Melbourne.

1st March
Getting on board the Wayward Bus’ Classic Coast 3 day tour of the Great Ocean Road!

4th March
Arriving at Adelaide and spending time chilling out and, perhaps, indulging in a winery visit or four.

8th March
Throwing my bags into a trailer and climbing into the passenger seat of a 4WD vehicle, on the apparently (and I can believe it) awesome The Real Outback 10 day tour through the, er, “not-fake” outback, seeing all the usual sights (Uluru, Kings Canyon) and some other special stuff too. Check out the website – it’s a good source of excitement for me at the mo :-)

17th March
Arriving at Alice Springs.

That’s it so far, booked-stuff-wise. Aside from that I’m planning on:

• Grabbing a plane to Perth
• Doing a tour around Perth and some of the sights around it
• Doing a tour from Perth to Broome
• Grabbing a plane to Darwin
• Doing a tour from Darwin to Cairns
• Doing the Oz Experience tour from Cairns to Sydney, partaking in diving, surfing, minjin-ing (bungee swinging), sailing… lots and lots of cool stuff.

Should take me up to about the end of May, whereupon I’ll be settling somewhere (probably Melbourne, but who knows how I’ll find the other Aussie cities on my trek around) and getting back the money I’ve spent on all those bloody tours.

Way I see it, I can either be cautious, save some dosh and do some things around Oz or I can splash some cash and do shed loads of fun stuff around Oz.

I can still stay within budget(ish), which is pretty awesome, and in my experience so far I’ve seen and done MUCH more on the tours than not. There’s just more going on and, well, you get to do loads of activities you just might not think of otherwise. Plus you meet loads of cool people. In short – it’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think I like the tour method of getting about.

If you don’t agree, then don’t go on a tour. And you’re wrong. And you’re stupid. And you smell.

Too far? Ok, sorry :-)

Right, I’m off to get ready and head out to enjoy the Chinese New Year celebrations over in Melbourne’s China Town (yep, it seems that as all cities must have an Oirish Bar, they must also have a China Town)!

Toodles,

Pat

There are odd things in Melbourne today – heart shapes have appeared in lots of shop windows and there appear to be lots of men rushing around with flowers in their hands.

Maybe it’s some special Australian thing. Either way I’m not needing to do any of that, which is… er… good? Sort of? Maybe? No? Shoot.

Anyway, Happy Valentines Day to you (but only in a platonic way, naturally *). Hope you’re having a nice one. :-)

I’m not having a bad one to be honest, despite feeling a little tired through a few bevvies last night with Jen, Kate and Welshy (none of whom I’d seen since New Zealand) – as I’m looking forward to more of a catch up this evening, which’ll be ace.

Melbourne’s as it usually is, although with less flies – which is a big plus. I’m just here for a week or so to plan and book the next month or so of my Big Adventure (got my eye on a 10 day 4×4 tour of the outback from Adelaide to Alice Springs, for a start), then I’m off out on the Great Ocean Road (more hire car action here we come!) over to the Grampians and Adelaide.

I’m feeling pretty damned chilled out – apart from for about 30 minutes two days ago where I thought I’d lost my wallet in the library (turns out I’d left it in the locker in my hostel room), which was quite scary!

I’m staying in the Greenhouse Backpackers (which I’d previously recommended on this ‘ere blog, I seem to recall). It’s bloody good. Nice rooms, huge TV lounge, good kitchen, a “free food” shelf, free breakfast, weekly free BBQ (including veggie burgers!!!), free pancakes on Sunday… and slap bang in the middle of town. Winner!

Twas sad to say bye to Jersey on Saturday (as he went to Sydney from Tassie – he’s on a tour of Alice Springs etc as I type), as we’d been travelling together for 3 weeks and twas very odd thinking that I won’t see him again on my travels. We’re of course planning on a cross-English Channel meetup later in the year, mind!

I don’t feel as though I’m on my own here in Melbourne, as Chris, Welshy, Kate and Jen are all here (albeit in different hostels/appartments). Should be interesting on my solo trip to Adelaide… in many ways I’m looking forward to the freedom of “travelling fully independantly” (almost always been with other folk so far). Let’s just hope it’s not too lonely.

Anyways, back to planning stuff – and perhaps grabbing some food and a nice smoothy (yep, I’ve become addicted to them – which is better than being addicted to pizza I guess! Mmm. Pizza… ah, crap. :-) )

Take care and Happy 14th of February!

Toodles,

Pat

* Unless you’re Elisha Cuthbert in which case please consider the phrase “Happy Valentines Day” as my way to say I want to [CENSORED BY THE UNIVERSE] night long. Thanks.

Hello STOP
Tasmanian blog complete STOP
Lots of photos STOP
Hope not too rambling STOP
Here it starts STOP
No, starts STOP
START STOP
START STOP
STOP START -HA! Got you!

(I think the heat back here in Melbourne is getting to him… – Pat)

Hello! Here be a summary of the week Pat, Jersey and myself spent in lovely Tasmania.

It’s been a week that’s been good and bad. Starting with the bad (hey, it means we end on a high note!):

TASMANIA TRIP: THE BAD BITS
The big thing for Pat that sucked in Tasmania was that he didn’t get to see LOADS of things he’d’ve liked to. This was due to a number of reasons:

• Illness – Probably out of weather-changing-shock, or possibly due to the hectic road trip week catching up on him, Pat came down with a mild (i.e. not fatal) case of Man Flu early in the week, meaning that certain plans had to get pushed back / cancelled (such as a big ol’ walk to the top of Mount Wellington).
• Budget – Not so much on Pat’s side, but Jersey’s pretty tight on cash due to living it To The Max™ in New Zealand, which meant that hiring a car for the week was a no-no. This meant relying on coach tours etc to get around and see the sights. Alas, as Pat and Jersey found a little too late, these don’t run daily… meaning that a number of things either a) clashed, b) ran from towns at the other side of the country or c) weren’t running for the rest of the week. Pat would love to blame illness, budget and coach companies alone. However, I think the next point really outweighs the previous ones:
• Poor Planning – Unfortunately due to a lack of forward planning (i.e. having anything properly researched and even a vague plan made) before arriving at Tasmania, lots of the things that Pat and Jersey could’ve done just weren’t possible or feasible by the time they’d finally got round to working out what to do. It’s something Pat was worried about prior to coming out to Tasmania but, well, didn’t really do anything about until it was too late. If you know Pat well, you’ll know this is VERY unusual behaviour for him. *COUGH*

That said, the week was far from crap – or eventless:

TASMANIA TRIP: THE GOOD STUFF
Firstly, Pat still managed to see lots of cool stuff:

• Hobart Town: The southern city of Tasmania’s really nice – quite big, with lots of places to eat / drink and see, but with a really laid back country town feel to it. Pat and Jersey enjoyed many hours just wandering around the streets of the town, checking out some of the fine restaurants (and, er, a kebab house) and particularly enjoying some of the quality signage in the town:

  
  

• Salamanca Market: Every Saturday in Hobart, this is a HUGE market full of all sorts of interesting things to buy:

  

  Ever heard of Fruit Leather? No, Pat hadn’t either – he bought some though:

  

  There were all sorts of other things to get – from panpipes to wooden ducks, crazy metal sculptures to fresh raspberries, colourfull tops to massive lumps of fudge. All sorts, really. And for damned good prices. Pat wished he’d brought a second suitcase.

• Hobart Heritage Museum: A quainte olde house-e transformed into a Heritage Museum in the 50s to prevent it getting knocked down for a petrol station, this has lots of nice olde things:
  
  

  …and FREAKY DOLLS:
  

• Cadbury Factory: Near Hobart, it’s a rather bittersweet place: sweet because of all the chocolates whizzing past you as you go on the tour and bitter because you’re not allowed to nick any. You’re not allowed cameras inside (or any jewelry, open shoes, mobiles, money… and due to “government regulations” you aren’t allowed choccy samples on your way around anymore…) so we had to make do with some (silly) outdoor shots:
  
  Oh and one of the shelves in the Evil Palace Of Temptation (click on the picture to view the prices…):
  

• Port Arthur Historic Site: Now a big tourist spot, this was a convict-built penal settlement that came into being in the early 19th century, with ship building, shoemaking, smithing, timber and brick making facilities. It’s worth a look around to hear about convict life and to see some of the olde prisone buildingse:
  
  
  

  On the way we got to see The Devil’s Kitchen (which went from a humble cave to a great gulch) and surrounding sights:
  
  

  And surrounding houses (in a street named “Boo Street”):
  

  And… er… surrounding signs:
  
  Nothing funny about that. No.

• Mount Nelson: Our Mount Wellington bus tour guide took us up to the shorter-by-far Mount Nelson (overlooking Hobart), as it was deemed that the cloud cover on Mount Wellington would make the journey up there pointless:
  

• Mount Wellington: The people on the bus tour disagreed. We went up Mount Wellington too. The tour guide might’ve been right:
  

  But on the way down, things started to clear…
  

  …and Pat managed to grab a shot of the view as it was supposed to be:
  

• Cataract Gorge: Once up in the north-eastern city of Launceston, Pat went for a walk around the awesome Cataract Gorge, realising yet again what an unfit sod he is (Hey, you’re the one that just sat in a bag throughout! – Pat). Hmm, true. Moving on – as Pat trekked around he managed to get some nice photos:
  
  
  

• Launceston Festivale: An open air festival of food, drink and entertainment in one of Launceston’s big parks, Pat and Jersey just happened to be there for the first night and so sampled some of the food:
  

  Drink:
  

  And entertainment:
  
  To the left, a nutcase street performer (yes, he’s dislocated his shoulder). To the right, a (not very good) Fleetwood Mac cover band. The best thing about them is their name: Fleetwood To The Max. Awesome.

Inbetween checking out the sights, Pat managed to get a good deal of chilling out in, which was well recieved following the hectic road trip the week before. A lot of this was helped by having a good book (well, books – he’s ploughing through Asimov’s Foundation series) but mainly because he realised there really wasn’t much to be stressed out about. At long bloody last. Maybe he’ll stop being a stress cadet now! I doubt it, mind :-)

Evenings were mainly quiet affairs, with Pat and Jersey occasionally sinking a few glasses of cheap ($10 for 4.4L!), crap (…crap) wine, chomping on the odd bit of cheap chocolate whilst reading books / planning activities / watching whatever rubbish was on telly.

(Yep, it’s here too. I wonder which country it started in…?)

He and Jersey also met some cool people whilst in Tasmania, from various parts of the world. Pat’s now got a contact in Perth, too, which is pretty handy!

So yeah, not a bad week. In fact, a really good week. Pat’s used it to motivate him to plan further in advance for the rest of his trip. He’s also looking on the lack of “Things He Wanted To Do” done as a good reason to come back out to Tassie in a few months’ time. As the security guard at Launceston Airport said: A week’s just not long enough.

Righty, that’s your lot for now. Keep checking out The Usual Place for photos, as Pat tends to upload them much quicker and more frequently than I get round to typing these out!

Toodles,

Squage

Howdy!

Yep, after pining for (and moaning about not) driving a car for at least two months, Pat finally got the chance to get behind the wheel of a car and do some driving!

This particular ROAD TRIP was 6 days long and over 1000 miles. Starting at Sydney we went to the Blue Mountains, down the New South Wales east coast, into south east Victoria, to Phillip Island and into Melbourne.

Pat was really pleased to have the freedom of having a car, even if it were just for a week and even if it were an automatic Vauxhall (sorry, a “Holden”) Viva (Yeah, it’s ok to drive but it doesn’t really match the style, elegance and above-all fantastic drive of the New Ford Focus – Pat). Suck up. (Hey, you’ve gotta keep your “what to do when returning” options open… – Pat).

It was also cool being able to listen to his iRiver and Jersey’s iPod on the journey, thanks to the AWESOME (read: tinny, quiet and slightly distorted) 20AUD car transmitter thing Pat’d bought in a Sydney market.

On the downside, driving could be a little stressful for Pat and Jersey sometimes – mainly on the first couple of days due to the Cartoscope Global Explorer, which contained road maps with:

1. Incorrect scale
2. No mention of 4 kilometre tunnels travelling under apparent turn offs
3. No mention of certain major roads
4. Mention of certain, seemingly major roads that simply didn’t exist.

That and coping with the NSW / Victoria road signage, which involves you carefully looking at bushes/trees at the side of the road in case there might be a half-obscured sign (usually the only sign), indicating what road it is that’s up on the left and you’re just about to pass.

Pat says he actually missed English roads at points during the trip. I don’t quite think I can believe him.

On the way, there were plenty of cool sights seen… so here’s a day-by-day summary of such things:

Sunday 28th January: Sydney -> Blue Mountains

• Word of the day: Tired
• Summary of the day: After checking out of the hostel, Pat and Jersey grabbed The Beast (i.e. the car) and Pat drove to the town of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains. After checking into our (rather quiet, slightly run-down looking) hostel Jersey drove down to the edge of town, where the cliffs lay. Pat and Jersey did a lot of walking around, checking out the amazing (high) sights and descending down a path along step mountain sides… then got escorted back up to the top by the Scenic Railway – featuring carriages with foot rests at a 45 degree angle to the seats. Why? Because it’s the world’s steepest railway, with up to a 51 degree gradient, that’s why! After some more sight checking out (and Getting-Scared-Standing-On-An-Overhanging-Ledge-200m-Up) Pat wandered back with Jersey to the hostel for a relaxed evening watching such delights as Erin Brockovich on telly. Hmm.
• Highlight: The view of the Three Sisters with the sun low in the sky.
• Lowlight: Pat watching Jersey walk to the unshielded edge of a ma-husive cliff, just waiting for him to slip. Funny, no matter how many bridges he jumps off, Pat’s STILL scared of heights…
• Memorable Moment: Pat getting breathalised at the side of the road. He passed, before you ask :-)
• Sights: Lots of lovely mountains:

  
  
  

  And some cool stuff in Katoomba:
  

Monday 29th January: Blue Mountains -> Wollongong

• Word of the day: Lost
• Summary of the day: Pat and Jersey checked out and set off back towards the east coast of New South Wales, ready to start descending south. Most of the day was spent in the car, getting lost occasionally due to the TERRIBLE maps inside the Cartoscope Coastal Explorer, which Pat tells me missed out such details as 4km tunnels, had roads that didn’t exist listed and vice versa… so they ended up in some surprising places. One; La Perouse, was actually quite a nice little place and so they spent some time taking photos and grabbed some lunch there. Also, some coastal sights on the (intended!) roads were pretty tasty. Aside from that it was mainly a case of missing turn offs, ending up on roads that weren’t listed and, well, being a bit annoyed. On arrival at Wollongong, Pat had a 2 hour doze and despite then planning on a night socialising with Sarah and Laura (two lovely Canadians in their room), no bars, pubs or even offies seemed to be open so a good night’s sleep was decided on. If it wasn’t for the telly blaring out from the lounge through the paper-thin walls, they probably would’ve got one.
• Highlight: Enjoying the views at the (unplanned) destination of La Perouse.
• Lowlight: Ending up on an unmentioned major road for the 5th or 6th time.
• Memorable Moment: Pat’s realisation that, perhaps, he should’ve bought an actual road map – he did this evening.
• Sights: Lots! La Perouse was pretty damned nice to look at, with its fort and towers and lovely view of Botany Bay:

  
  

  Unfortunately, I wandered into the fort (created to defend against a Russian invasion in the mid 20th century… seriously!) and was promptly captured and held prisoner:
  
  Ahem. Also, the views of the Tasman Sea coast from the Grand Pacific Highway were pretty tasty:

  
  

Tuesday 30th January: Wollongong -> Batemans Bay

• Word of the day: Buddha
• Summary of the day: After waking up a bit tired and pissed off, Pat and Jersey gave Laura and Sarah a lift over to the rather cool Nan Tien Buddhist Temple. Pat partook in some caligraphy “to calm the mind” and was really impressed and humbled by a lot of the beliefs and practices of the Humanistic Buddhists (I think that’s what he said they were called). I don’t think he’s going to join the faith yet though (despite looking a bit like a Buddha (OI! – Pat)). After that the girls were given a lift back to Wollongong and Jersey and Pat kicked off their journey to Batemans Bay. Along the way they stopped in Kiama to watch a Blowhole… er, blowing… and for lunch in a lovely cafe (SeaChange) – run by a very friendly couple (the wife an ex-Upminster lady, which Pat was very excited about). After that it was straight down Route 1 to Batemans. Jersey and Pat enjoyed some quality Chinese food on the bay (JUST avoiding getting a Domino’s pizza) and then chilled in the lovely hostel (Batemans Bay YHA), watching Die (slightly dated) Hard and chatting with some of the guys in the hostel.
• Highlight: Chilling out at the Nan Tien Buddhist Temple.
• Lowlight: Feeling cheesed off for the first part of the day.
• Memorable Moment: Posing like idiots by some tiny buddha statues (see below)
• Sights: Firstly, of course, the Buddhist Temple:
  
  
  

  Including some “Wholely Appropriate” photos:
  

  Kiama (and its blow hole) was impressive too:
  
  

  And Batemans Bay is pretty:
  

Wednesday 31th January: Batemans Bay -> Buchan

• Word of the day: Driving
• Summary of the day: After a morning of booking Tasmania flights and accomodation and uploading photos, Pat took the wheel and drove to the reconstructed mining town called “Old Mogo Town”. Jersey and Pat spent a couple of hours wandering around finding out what it was like to work and live on a 19th/early 20th century gold mining settlement (it involved lots of panning and a little too much mercury for Pat’s liking) and enjoying our slightly-jittery tour guide’s stories of cheeky miners’ many attempts to “liberate” gold from the mines… mostly without success. Following that, the small matter of driving to Buchan in Victoria was to be achieved. Unfortunately, we kinda misunderstood the time it’d take… and after leaving Old Mogo Town at 4pm, via a quick diversion to see a dam (as you do), we didn’t actually get into Buchan until 11pm! Luckily the owner lives on site so he was awake to greet the two rather tired travellers.
• Lowlight: Driving in the dark, with less than a quarter tank of fuel, avoiding Wallabies on the road, hoping that, unlike the town they’d just gone through, the town 50km away would have an open petrol station…
• Highlight: Getting to an open petrol station and filling up!
• Memorable Moment: Getting to an open petrol station and filling up!
• Sights: Old Mogo Town was quite entertaining:
  
  

  The damn we saw was pretty cool:
  

  Finally getting into Victoria (before we realised quite how much more driving was really needed to get to Buchan) was a relief:
  

  And yes, getting to an open petrol station late in the evening was quite a relief:
  

Thursday 1st February: Buchan -> Phillip Island

• Word of the day: Beach
• Summary of the day: After a late rise (the fully awesome Buchan Lodge hostel didn’t have a check out time – oh and was picturesque, in the middle of the countryside and run by a 60-something Aussie Fella who had plenty of stories to tell), Jersey and Pat headed to the very pretty Buchan Caves for a tour, which was pretty interesting and looked awesome. After that, Jersey took the wheel for today’s driving entertainment whilst Pat monged out in the passenger seat. A couple of hours of driving in the sun along long, straight roads and the odd windy country lane saw them arrive at Phillip Island! After checking into Amaroo Park (the place Pat stayed last time) and grabbing some dinner, Pat and Jersey wandered to the beach with some beers in hand and spent the evening looking out to the moonlight water, chatting about travelling and what they wanted to do in the future. A fully chilled out evening.
• Highlight: Pat says it was “Chilling on the beach”, but I reckon it was more “chatting to the fit waitress in the pizza restaurant at dinner”.
• Lowlight: Having to leave Buchan Lodge. Pat could’ve stayed there for AGES.
• Memorable Moment: Jersey’s suggestion that Squage and Pat could be the next Rosie and Jim.
• Sights: Buchan Lodge was lovely:
  

  The caves were gorgeous:
  
  

  Enjoying the views from the car was good:
  

  And sitting on the beach by moonlight provided some rather nice photo opportunities:

  

Friday 2nd February: Phillip Island -> Melbourne -> Hobart (Tasmania)

• Word of the day: Transport
• Summary of the day: Lots of mileage done today. Firstly from Phillip Island to Melbourne, which Pat drove and enjoyed as it was on decent dual carriageways for a lot of it. Well, I say “enjoyed”, he felt a rather large amount of fury on getting into Melbourne due to the usual crap road signage (and perhaps not getting off the motorway sooner) meaning they suddenly ended up on a toll road into Melbourne. Which, according to other signs, without a pre-paid pass meant they’d just been automatically fined $100. Luckily, despite the fury this caused for a while, it later transpired that you could buy a pass up to 3 days after travelling. Phew! The afternoon was spent wandering around Melbourne, Pat showing Jersey a few bits and pieces, before heading out to Melbourne airport, handing the car in and grabbing the plane to Tasmania! After a rather bumpy flight, the plane got into Hobart at 11:40pm and Pat and Jersey grabbed a bus to their hostel (Allport’s)… and quietly snuck into the (almost full) dorm room at close to 1am.
• Lowlight: Pat finding out that he’d just been fined $100AUD.
• Highlight: Pat finding out that he hadn’t actually been fined $100AUD.
• Memorable Moment: Getting out of the plane in shorts and tshirt at Hobart Airport and realising that Tasmania’s a lot bloody colder than mainland Oz.
• Sights: Not many, really. But Pat was glad that he didn’t have to clean the car:
  

PHEW! So that’s it. That was the road trip. Hopefully that wasn’t too much of an ordeal to get through.

A (briefer) Tassie summary will be posted in the next couple of days – meanwhile I’m off as Pat’s dragging me to Boost to grab a smoothy and then spend some time away from a PC. He’s looking forward to a Melbourne-based catch up with Kate, Jen, Chris and Welshy tonight – should be cool!

Toodles for now,

Squage