Chungking Mansions

This is what Lonely Planet has to say about Chungking Mansions: “You may be put off by the undercurrent of sleaze and peculiar odours - cooking fat, incense and shit – but don’t seek sanctuary in the lifts; they’re like steel coffins on cables…. Be grateful for the stray cats as they keep the rats in check”. We had bought the Lonely Planet. We had read this review. We had (presumably) thought it sounded horrible. To this day I have no explanation as to why we ended up staying there.

As the crowded shuttle bus from the airport made its way into Tsim Sha Tsui it stopped to let off happy tourists and locals along the way. By the time it finally reached Chungking Mansions, Mia and I were the only souls left on board. As the bus pulled up outside our stop the driver turned to us and muttered something unintelligible to us in what appeared to be a friendly but concerned manner, then he smiled, waved goodbye and opened the doors. We could see the iron security gates covering the tall archway to Chungking Mansions, but it was not obvious whether the gates were there to keep undesirables out or to keep the inhabitants in. The entranceway was obstructed by a very large gang of seedy looking people, some Chinese, some North African immigrants. As we got off the bus our backpacks and fresh airport luggage tags drew them towards us like a huge bucket of fish guts thrown into shark infested waters. Indeed, judging from the smell emanating from the entrance hall I suspect that Chungking Mansions was no stranger to hurled buckets of fish guts. The people clamouring around us were trying to drag us into their hostels within the tower block but we firmly but politely told them that we already had a reservation so didn’t require their services. We made it inside and headed towards the “steel coffin on a cable” for Block A which would take us up to “Li’s Place”.

After a 5 minute wait for the elevator the doors creaked open and about 30 people levered themselves out from a space the size of a small lavatory. We squeezed ourselves in making sure that our backpacks were against the wall and away from any pickpocket’s light fingers, and the lift started an uneasy ascent to the seventh floor. Mr Li told us that they were full (despite my reservation) but instead he had got us a room in his cousin’s hostel and a man would show us to the new place. This meant taking the elevator back down to the ground floor, a short walk through fish guts avenue and then another thrilling elevator ride in the H Block lift. I swear to god, while the guy was waiting for the lift to come he held his hands together in prayer! I found it very difficult to warm to this guy because he was far too friendly. All the time he was telling us how lucky we were and that we had a great room - “super-deluxe” in fact. I didn’t mention it, but I suspected that my definition of a super deluxe room would be vastly different to his. He had that over-the-top kind of friendliness that people only give you when they’re either about to rip you off or when they’ve just slept with your girlfriend. As Mia had only just met the guy I had to assume this was going to be a very expensive elevator ride.

This is the view out of our window. I'll leave you to judge whether the room met our super deluxe expectations or not.

The next day we checked into the YMCA - 3 times the price, but worth 10 times more at least!

Flight to Hong Kong

8:30am - Sydney airport:
Our flight to Hong Kong was looking good to leave on time at 10:20am, and Mia and myself were ready to check in. But there was one small but significant problem

8:30am - A dark filing cabinet in Flightcentre Sydney City.
Mia’s plane ticket looked at its watch anxiously.

The woman behind the check in desk was adamant that as Mia had a paper ticket we couldn’t leave without it. The problem was that the branch of FlightCentre didn’t open till 10am which would only give us 20 minutes to get back to the airport, pass security and board the plane. The 24 hour emergency helpline was pretty useless and the guy on the other end of the phone seemed reluctant to concede that we would miss the flight and rebook us on the next one. With about 10 minutes to go we finally managed to contact the office and they rebooked us on the afternoon flight. Then they sent the tickets round in a taxi, and by 2pm we were on our way to Hong Kong.

Sydney Again

I flew back to Sydney to meet up with Mia who was about to fly home to Finland. It amazes me that Mia lived in Sydney for 9 months and hadn’t done any tourist things apart from looking at the bridge and the opera house. But before we did any sightseeing this time Mia had 9 months worth of packing and goodbyes to do before she left. How much crap can you accumulate in 9 months?? One big rucksack, one medium sized rucksack, 5 green bags, 2 handbags, 1 plastic bag and a cowboy hat. We trawled round the city collecting her belongings from various friend’s houses, nurses quarters, pawn shops and homeless shelters, then brought it all back to our small hostel room on the bus. The next 3 days were spent reducing her baggage to a size and weight that wouldn’t cause the aeroplane to crash.

After that we went to Taronga Zoo and did the Bondi to Coogee walk, and also sorted out our next adventure in Hong Kong…

Matt's Stag - Naked in Brisbane

After Darwin I flew to Brisbane for Matt’s stag night. As everyone knows the main aim of any stag night is to try and give the groom-to-be as much shit as possible so that they realise that married life is infinitely better than spending the rest of their life hanging out with their male friends. So it was inevitable that someone would end up naked and humiliated, but I wasn’t quite prepared for it being me.

Unfortunately the only flights that leave Darwin for Brisbane go at about 1am, and as I was flying out on the day of his stag do it meant that I faced the prospect of going out drinking that evening having only had 2 hours sleep. To compensate I booked a single room in Bunk in Fortitude Valley and decided to go to bed for some serious power napping as soon as I got there. When I tried to check in at 6am I was told that the room wouldn’t be ready till midday and I had to amuse myself having an exceedingly long breakfast and writing emails until I could check in. I slept from about 1 till 5 then woke up to find several drunken answerphone messages from Matt’s friends telling me to get out of bed and join them in a pool bar in Queens Street. We had a few games of pool and then headed off to Matt’s place to have a barbecue and to throw some things off the balcony at passers by.

For the stag the evening passed relatively uneventfully. He neither vomited, nor was humiliated, and nor was made to get up on stage during a live sex show and violate a Spanish stripper with a vibrator in his mouth (so Ed, it was nothing like yours mate)... We ended the evening watching the first round England-Paraguay world cup match in the Storey bridge hotel then made our (very) drunken way back to our respective residences.

As I had to fly to Sydney the next day I made sure that I drank plenty of water before bed as I didn’t want to be too hungover the next day. At about 4am I woke up and was dying to take a piss – in fact I was so pant-wettingly dying to take a piss that I didn’t have time to find the light switch, my clothes or even a key, so I propped the door open with my shoes and wrapped a towel round me and ran to the bathroom.

Relieved, I was just about to flush the toilet when I heard a banging noise in the corridor.
Wouldn’t it be bad if that was my door closing? I thought.
Then I felt the full force of the ‘Oh-Shit Second’ when you suddenly realise that something truly bad has happened. Sure enough, on returning to my room I discovered that my shoes had been pushed aside by the weight of the door and the door was now firmly closed and locked. It was 4 am and I was drunk and naked in a hostel corridor, with only a very small travel towel to protect my modesty.

My first instinct was to find somewhere to curl up and go to sleep but the corridor was pretty spartan and was just a maze of locked doors. My second instinct – admittedly a far superior one – was to check whether there was anyone around who could let me back into my room. I walked down the stairs to reception and I could make out some noises coming from behind the closed doors. Lots of noises. Not quiet noises of receptionists tapping on keyboards or stapling bits of paper, but loud ‘duff-duff’ noises of drunken football fans having fun in the hostel bar. For Bunk is a party hostel and is home to more Irish people than Ireland itself. On the plus side its size meant reception was 24 hours, but first I would have to get there without someone forcibly removing my towel and whipping me with it. I gingerly pushed open the door to reception and surveyed the scene. I think that’s when I got my first wolf whistle. There were about 10 people sitting on the sofas staring at me. I looked towards the reception desk but there was no-one behind it, but then I spied a girl I thought had been working there earlier who was now chatting to a couple of other people just across the room. I walked up to her and cleared my throat. She turned round and looked at my towel.
“Excuse me, I appear to have locked myself out of my room, have you got a spare key?”.
That’s what I tried to say. What actually came out was more like
“nufff-ee ‘ve nocked sef me ruum. Syu got hay sperek-hee?”
She looked at me closely whilst reaching for the can of mace in her handbag.
Shit, she doesn’t work here, I thought. Look and see if she’s wearing a name tag… fuck, now she thinks I’m looking at her tits! And now I’ve gone red in the face! And I’m naked and I stink of booze!

I tried once more with the sentence about the spare key, this time doing the international hand signal for key and mentioning my room number. This seemingly had more meaning and she moved to the reception desk and started tapping on the computer. I smiled sweetly and tried to make a joke about some shit or other. I can’t remember exactly what - hopefully I didn’t break into some Peter Kay routine or anything. Within a few minutes she had coded me a new key-card and I bolted up the stairs to hide my shame under the duvet. It was then, and only then, when I was safely tucked up in bed on my own and in the dark, that I could begin to see the funny side.

Great British Sand Art

Whilst the Aboriginals express themselves through the wonderful medium of rock art, me and Katharine (yes, that is how you spell it) decided that we'd display our artistic talents by sculpting things in sand on Mindil Beach in Darwin. And what more sublime subject is there than the “sand arse”?


So on the left you have “Crack Lady” (© Me 2006)
And on the right you have “Surfer Dood” sic (© Katharine, 2006)

Not content with that we decided to follow up with a collaboration in the form of a piece of installation art:


"Crocydylus Silicus" (© Me + Katharine, 2006)

Note the contrast between the medium and the subject:
Sand: soft, smooth, comfortable to sit on;
Crocodile: hard, rough, extremely dangerous to sit on.

I think we were both a bit surprised at how good it turned out, and as crocodiles on the beach in Darwin are not uncommon we were half hoping that the police might turn up and try to shoot it.

Aboriginal Rock Art

Aboriginals used to communicate the Dreamtime Stories (myths about how the landscape was created) by painting the scenes from the legends on sheltered rock formations. These tales invariably involve giant snakes having their eggs stolen by enormous emus, followed by the maddened snakes pursuing the thieves across the land angrily crashing into mountains to create rivers and valleys. It is worth noticing that the quality of the art improves greatly as you go North – the paintings on the sides of Uluru in the centre are jumbled daubs, but as you get into the Northern Territory the art becomes more representational and more worthy of postcards and photographs. Why should this be? Most likely because in the desert the Aboriginals had to spend the majority of their time scratching for food in the dry earth, whereas in the moist tropical north they could find all the food they needed in the morning, then spend the afternoon at leisure painting men with large penises on their neighbours living room walls.

Deeply buried in Kakadu national Park we unearthed previously undiscovered school reports from what appears to be an aboriginal art teacher sometime in the dim and distant past….

Name: Didjbarrka
Subject: Rock Art (Aboriginal)
Form: 3a
Didjbarrka has worked hard this term and has showed steady improvement. He is keen to contribute and often willing to help clean up the cave after class. Well done Didjbarrka!




Name: Wadjularbinna
Subject: Rock Art (Aboriginal)
Form: 3a
What Wadjularbinna lacks in ability he makes up in enthusiasm, particularly when finger painting. Although I sometimes struggle to work out what he has drawn, his attitude has been exemplary and he sets a fine example to other class members.

Name: Bangana
Subject: Rock Art (Aboriginal)
Form: 5c
Bangana has been disruptive in class this year and has been disciplined several times for painting over the work of his other classmates. There are plenty of other rocks he could be using, but he seeks to gain attention by defacing the work of others. Does Bananga have concentration problems at home? I think it might be a good idea if we all met up and had a chat.

Name: Morri Morri
Subject: Rock Art (Aboriginal, Remedial)
Form: 5c
Could do better.

Port Hedland

Nothing exciting happened at Port Hedland - nothing exciting ever does. The only thing that came close was some Swedish people making us lunch and mistaking a courgette for a cucumber and eating it in their sandwiches. We didn't tell them until afterwards because they were loving it so much.

Funny nation the Swedes.

Karijini National Park

We left the coast behind and headed inland to Karijini National Park - a series of red rock mountains covered in bright green spinifex bushes. We collected some firewood in the evening for a camp fire and I sat on the roof of the truck to make sure it didn't fall off as we drove back. I think ropes might have been a better idea as there was nothing to make sure I didn't fall of as we bumped along the dirt track. At the end I got off battered and bruised and covered in little bits of wood.

The next day we went to Hancock Gorge for a bit of a trek. We'd been to many West Coast gorges before on this trip but I haven't been putting them in the blog because they all look the same after a while. The blog entries could be compressed to "Walked for 40-60 minutes, saw gorge, went down into gorge, admired waterfall, swam in gorge, climbed back out of gorge". But Hancock Gorge is a little bit different in that you have to make a real effort to get there, so it's well worth a mention.

The best part is the spiderwalk, where you have to wedge your legs on either side of the canyon and shuffle along for about 30 metres- hoping that you don't slip and drown your digital camera in the water below. Nina wore a very short skirt. I haven't published the photo that I have of her in the interests of taste and decency, but if anyone wants to see it then let me know...

Although no-one got wet on the spiderwalk we all had to wade through water up to our waists in other sections anyway. At first I kept my boots dry by taking them off and carrying them, but eventually I just wore them and took the opportunity to give them a long needed wash. At the end of the gorge was "Kermit's Pool", a deep plunge pool that contained some of the coldest water known to man, where we swam (for 30 seconds)

That evening I created the eighth wonder of the modern world - a boot drying device engineered from eucalyptus branches and pure ingenuity. A beautiful cantilever arrangement of natural materials as sublime in form as it was in function. It took at least an hour to perfect and in the end could dry three pairs of shoes over the camp fire concurrently! Then Andreas came along and put his shoes out to dry on the back of a deck chair.

A deck chair I tell you! Typical German efficiency! Where's the explorer spirit in that? Your deck chair has no soul!!!

(By the way, Brigitte, I'm really sorry I burned your shoes).

Exmouth and Turquoise Bay

More snorkelling for us in Exmouth, slightly further up the coast from Coral Bay, but still on Ningaloo Reef. The great thing about Ningaloo is that it's so close to the shore that you can actually swim off the beach and reach the coral, so no need for expensive boat trips to get you to the action. We travelled to Turquoise Bay for a whole day's relaxation on the beach. It struck me that I haven't done that in so long because I've been moving around so much so it was a really good day.

After lunch we made up an olympic style relay race involving speed-walking, swimming, running through water and finally running backwards wearing flippers. I chose to do the running through water (waist deep).
I'm a fucking idiot.
I couldn't feel my legs at the end and they refused to support me as I tried to run out of the water. I fell ignominiously on my face in the sand. Twice.

Coral Bay

We arrived at Coral Bay in the evening having plenty of time to sink a great many beers before the bar closed. Mia hit me in the eye with a pool ball when we were playing pool. I think she did it on purpose as payback for all those Monkey Mia jokes the day before.

The next morning we had to get up to do a full day's snorkelling on Ningaloo Reef - Western Australia's equivalent to the Great Barrier Reef. Being WA it doesn't get even a quarter of the traffic that the Barrier Reef does, so you don't have to use spear guns to fight off Japanese tourists. After a really heavy night before the last thing I was feeling like was 8 hours bobbing up and down on a boat, but I dragged myself on board anyway. At least we'd get to see the fish feeding if I heaved over the side.
The main focus of the day was to swim with manta rays. The boat had a spotter plane flying overhead to locate the shadows of the huge beasts in the water and then direct the skipper to where they were. Once we'd located them one of the crew swam out to where they were and we followed behind, then tracked the manta ray as it swam and barrel-rolled around the ocean. We'd been told not to get infront of them as if they get spooked their natural reaction is to charge, using their 2 tonne weight and 5 metre wingspan to thump you out of the way. Easier said than done as the mantas kept on turning around every 30 seconds so that they were looking right at you. Pretty amazing stuff, and very good exercise as they can really shift.
After the mantas we went and snorkelled over the reef. The visibility wasn't great, but there were quite a few fish around -not least because the crew of the boat kept on throwing bread in the water. There was a cameraman on board who kept on snapping photos of people as they dived. Rory bought the photos on a cd and we all gave him some money to post us copies when he got home the next week. I could be wrong but I don't think any ever got sent to my home address in England. He was making jokes like "that's the easiest $100 I've ever made" and "never trust an Irishman" when we were handing over the money, which just makes things worse! The scoundrel!

Monkey Mia

I'd been looking forward to getting to Monkey Mia for ages, but I wasn't too fussed about what we'd see there. Monkey Mia is a resort that sells itself as the place to see wild dolphins being fed from the beach - it's actually illegal to feed them most other places as it disrupts their natural feeding patterns. But I wasn't there for the dolphins. I was there because we were travelling with a Finnish girl called Mia - and going to a place called Monkey Mia opened up a whole world of cheesey comedy potential...

In the end everybody was far more impressed with the dolphins than my poor jokes. I'll concede that watching a dolphin eating a fish is marginally more exciting than watching an Englishman pointing at a sign and laughing by himself.

Stromatolites

Hamelin Pool in Shark Bay National Park is home to some of the oldest and most unique creatures on the planet - cyanobacteria - which form large rock mounds underneath the sea just for tourists to go and look at. As the pools are so sheltered and salty most animals can't get there to disturb the delicate balance that keeps the cyanobacteria alive. So there are only a couple of places in the world today where you can see stromatolites and Western Australia has the best examples.

Scientists believe that the stromatolites might be the most ancient living things on the planet. Just as we were leaving, a tour bus from Casey Australia Tours pulled up and disproved this by unloading its cargo of doddery geriatric pensioners (who outdate the stromatolites by 20 years). What do you know? We got to see two types of living fossil in one day!

Lost in Perth

One of the advantages of booking on a tour on the West Coast is that you get an experienced tour guide who knows the territory like the back of his hand and can safely navigate you through obstacles and hazards on the way.

An hour out of Perth and the tour guide was lost. For this was Nathan's first time doing a tour in Western Australia, and the only other time he'd been on this road was in the dark and travelling in the opposite direction. Although he hadn't said anything to us we could tell he was lost because we'd been round the same roundabout twice and were going down little minor roads instead of being on the big major highway that goes North up the coast. After a short while he confessed to us that he didnt know where he was and we pulled up sharply at the side of the road so he could call the office for some pointers. He got out of the truck and went and made a phone call at the front. Five minutes later he returned.
"Righty-ho guys, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I know where we are. The bad news is that we're bogged..."
We'd stopped in the layby on some very soft sand and the wheels had dug in so that the truck was firmly stuck.
"Can everybody get out and give us a push?" Asked Nathan.
At first we all thought he was joking - the truck was absolutely huge and must have weighed 5 tonnes at least. But he wasn't so we all got out and took a good look at the wheels dug in up to their axles and began to dig with the spade.

A couple of locals stopped in their utes to help out with some towing power. Very kind of them - they didn't take the piss once and just got on with it - I would have ripped the shit out of Nathan for at least 10 minutes before I lifted a finger. On the second attempt we got free, and in 15 minutes had found our way back to the main highway and were on our way up to the Pinnacles.

The Pinnacles are thousands of yellow limestone peaks sticking out of the sand in Nambung National Park. They range in height from a few centimetres up to a couple of metres, and cover an area the size of several football fields. They look a bit like small standing stones that you might find in Britain, only these were formed naturally by erosion and the leeching of lime from crushed seashells into the ground.

To get there you have to drive down a sandy road. I shouted to Nathan not to get stuck a couple of times. He pretended not to hear me...

Perth and Fremantle

When I arrived in Perth, Gemma, who I'd met on the Alice Springs trip was just about to leave and start work in the middle of nowhere in a bar. I toyed with the idea of getting a job somewhere too, though obviously not as a barmaid - I don't have the legs or the cleavage for it.

She had texted me to tell me the name of the hostel she was staying at in the gorgeous seaside suburb of Fremantle. She'd said that her hostel wasn't very nice but I hadn't read it properly and I thought she was suggesting somewhere good to stay so I checked in there. There were 2 things wrong with where we were staying: firstly it was the smelliest dorm room I've ever been in, and secondly there was a really unfriendly atmosphere (Gemma hadn't talked to anyone for 4 days, which was a personal record even for her). The smell was caused by a filthy travel towel hung up to dry on one of the dorm beds. The bad atmosphere was because the hostel was full of Australians.

Don't get me wrong, it's nothing to do with them being Australian - Australians on the whole are really friendly (much more so than than Europeans) and those who are travelling are a great laugh to hang around. But these people were not staying there on holiday but had ended up living there, either because they'd been kicked out by their wives, or their house had been repossessed to pay off their debts at the local tattooists, or because they were on the run after committing some horrific backpacker murders in the Wolf Creek area. When the hostel prices are $15 a night you can see why they flock there - accommodation for 6 quid? That's not a hostel, it's a night shelter.

And when Gemma went off to work leaving me there on my own I got scared and went to the YHA in the City instead.

The Indian Pacific

Indian Pacific Train Stats -

Route: Sydney - Adelaide - Perth
Duration: 3 nights in either direction
Distance: 4352 kilometres

I was only going from Adelaide to Perth, so it was just a mere 2 nights, or 39 hours, but I really really wished I'd brought a sleeping bag and a pillow with me because they dont give you one. I also wished I'd brought a change of clothes but I'd checked in my big rucksack into the baggage car and couldn't get at it. 30 minutes into the journey I was wishing that I'd taken the plane.

The worst thing that can happen to you on any long, cramped and confined journey is having to sit next to a nutter for 39 hours. Fortunately I was sitting next to a lovely old woman - yes, she talked too much, wouldn't let me get a word in edgeways and her feet smelled when she took her shoes off, but she was all there mentally so I considered myself lucky. The people 6 or 7 rows in front of me weren't so fortunate as they had a class 1 certified lunatic circling around them. He was on definitely on something - I don't know what it was, day release from a mental hospital would be one possibility - and he kept walking up and down the corridor talking really loudly to everyone people: "Free showers! They've got free showers up the front. Hey mate, go have a shower - it's free...". He also decided that his seat was a different one to that on his ticket and every time the train manager showed him back to his seat and explained patiently what "28A" meant, he'd get up and walk back to the seat he thought he should be in. This was really annoying, particularly for the guy who was trying to sit in it.

After a while the rightful occupant of his adopted seat gave up, conceded his place and went and sat in the lounge car. This left the mad guy sitting next to a Japanese girl who braved 5 minutes conversation before collapsing in floods of tears. Then the passengers revolted and it all got personal. He seemed to think that the the train company, staff and all the passengers were racist because he was the only aboriginal in the carriage and we were all picking on him. No-one pointed out that we were only picking on him because he was the only arsehole in the carriage, but i doubt that piece of logic would have altered his opinion. Twenty minutes later the train made an unscheduled stop in the middle of nowhere to offload one passenger into the back of a waiting police car, and everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

One of the reasons I'd wanted to take the train was to see the Nullabor Plain, which is a 200,000 square km pancake flat, treeless area that runs 1200km between South and Western Australia (literally, null arbour = "no trees" in latin). It's an area so vast and so empty that you just cannot imagine. So why the hell did I want to see it? I guess it's because not many people do, especially not the whole 1200km of it anyway. When you look out the window at the start of the plain, it looks exactly the same as it does a day later when you look out again. It's like in cartoons where Fred Flintstone is driving along and he keeps passing the same looping scenery. I could have just bought a postcard I guess... probably would have been easier.

We made two stops - the "town" of Cook, population 5 and Kalgoorlie, population lots. Also, when instructed by the train driver, we all looked out the window and waved at Ziggy the Hermit's house - a guy who lives on his own in the middle of the plain because he can't stand crowds. It struck me that 500 people on a train staring through his living room window probably wasn't the most sensitive thing we could be doing to a guy who hates human contact, but if you will build your house next to the railway line and call yourself "Ziggy the Hermit" you're asking for it really aren't you?

Kalgoorlie was interesting - it's a rough mining town that produces most of Australia's gold and also most of Australia's dirty old miners. We stopped there for 4 hours and spent most of it in the pub, briefly having a look at some old hotels from the goldrush and a few still functioning brothels in Kalgoorlie's famous red light district. It's got a pretty busy nightlife and a surprising number of trendily dressed young people going out in the pubs and clubs. I was just expecting to see a couple of old farts round a camp fire with a banjo, but there's actually quite a few really stunning women. Either they're attracted by the vast quantities of gold, or they have a thing about rough men with long dusty beards and dubious personal hygiene. Hmmm... I wonder which one it is...

The beers we had in Kalgoorlie send me to sleep for the night and I woke up the next day with just a few hours to go before we got to Perth. They were pretty long hours though, as I was being lectured by an English couple on what I could expect to find in Western Australia. (Really??? They have kangaroos there? In Australia? Surely not!!!)

After 39 hours I arrived, smelly and tired in Perth.

Back in Adelaide

When I got back to Adelaide Julia and Christine (German girls from the Great Ocean Road) had just got back from 2 weeks fruit picking. Fruit picking can be a cruel business as you get paid exploitatively and worked exhaustively. It also doesn't help if it rains all the time and you can't work, so Julia and Christine had come back from their 2 weeks having earned (after expenses) roughly $40. I told you jobs are for losers.

We hired a car for the day and went up into the Adelaide Hills. It rained.

Our first stop was the "World's Biggest Rocking Horse". It's pretty big, though if i were you I wouldn't buy my ticket out to Australia just to see it, even if you really, really love big rocking horses. There's probably better things to see in Australia. Like the big tree just down the road that some crazy family used to live in, or the big dam where you can whisper at one end and other people can hear it perfectly 200m away at the other. The Adelaide Hills are as mad as a chocolate frog.

The reason for all the madness might have something to do with the fact that one of Australia's biggest wine regions in based here - the Barrossa Valley, We stopped at Jacob's Creek for a bit of a tasting and some jokes about spitting or swallowing. Obviously being English I've already sunk many a bottle of $4.99 semillon chardonnay so I was just there to get a photo of the creek itself, but the Germans were expecting a fine wine experience so I could tell they were a bit disappointed when the barmaid served up some cheap plonk. Maybe we should have gone somewhere a bit more upmarket.

I drove them to Hahndorf to make up for it, which is a German town in the hills that I thought would make them feel more at home. This was a mistake. Apparently the town didn't look German, the Sauerkraut was horrible, and don't even get them started on the bread. In fact, don't ever get any German started on the subject of bread. When Basil Fawlty said "don't mention the war" he really should have extended the warning to also include baked goods. To Germans, bread should be a hard black rye brick and if it isn't then this causes them great physical pain. Any mention of the B-word and their eyes roll back into their sockets and they will go off on one about how good the bread is in Germany and how evil it is elsewhere.

Try it next time you meet a German - if you've got a spare couple of hours...

The Stuart Highway

It had taken us 10 days to get from Adelaide to Alice on the dirt roads, but if you're in a hurry you can take the Stuart Highway and do it in just 2. I was getting a train from Adelaide to Perth so decided to do the 2 day road trip back along the bitumen, stopping off for the night in an underground bunkhouse in Coober Pedy.

There's only about 3 corners on the Stuart Highway and loads of people just end up falling asleep and driving off the road because it's so tedious. Either that or they deliberately drive off the road so the flying doc gives them a plane ride back to Adelaide hospital. We drove past such a car wreck where a woman was being cut out of her car that had rolled when she dozed into the gravel, woke up, vastly oversteered back onto the road and turned the thing over. When we rubbernecked our way past there was an ambulance and a police car in attendance and yes, of course Aaron was driving the police car!

We ran into him again that evening as well, when we were in Coober having a few beers in the underground hotel. The police presence was welcome too, as a French girl we were with (who looked like a slightly plump Liv Tyler) had just beaten a one-eyed miner at pool. I didn't want to stare too closely, but I think his glass eye was actually made of opal. When his mates all got on the table and started singing "you've lost that loving feeling" we decided it was time to leave.

Ice Cold In Alice

After so long in the desert we arrived in Alice Springs and the Red Centre's take on civilisation. This consisted of hostels, soft beds with pillows, showers and places where you could buy ice cold beers. It was time to roll up the swags for the last time and get a good nights sleep and a long overdue bath.

After banishing our stinky walking boots to the balconies and scrubbing some of the red dust from our bodies we met up in Bojangles for dinner. Everyone goes to Bo's - to be honest there aren't that many other places to go in Alice Springs, so it's always lively and full of both freshly decked out backpackers and local country and western fans.

We'd seen some beautiful wild camels roaming majestically through the desert earlier in the day, so for dinner I ordered the camel pie. It was less dusty tasting than I was expecting and had an unusual texture and flavour not dissimilar to kidney. But I wasn't concentrating on the food because I spent the whole time trying to fit the gag "I've really got the hump..." into conversation (sadly unsuccessfully). After dinner we moved through to the bar area and got on the dancefloor to some country classics, including Cotton Eye Joe... I'll say no more.

And while we were dancing away, who did we bump into? Aaron, the policeman from Coober Pedy, who apparently gets everywhere as Alice is 800km away. Either Sonal is really good in bed or there aren't many women in the outback. Oh yes... there aren't many women in the outback... He was having a weekend away from work and had brought the other policeman from his patch with him, evidently tempting him into the journey with stories of a Toyota Landcruiser filled with backpacker girls who love The Village People.

And up steps Mary...

After Bo's closed Aaron suggested we go to the casino, so we climbed in a cab and went there. Gemma, being a country girl from Thame, was clearly a bit awestruck by the light bulb and carpet outside and in a drunken outburst found it necessary to tell the doorman her pockets only contained $2 and a button. When he wouldn't let her in because she was wearing flip-flops, she protested that she might have been about to wager a fortune at the blackjack tables. He reminded her that $2 and a button wasn't going to have a big impact on the company's revenue figures for that financial quarter, so we got back into the taxi and went home

4wd Adventures in the Outback

Day 1. Adelaide - Flinders Ranges - Warren Gorge

At 7am I got picked up from my hostel in Adelaide by the Toyota Landcruiser that would be our transport for the next days. Some of the 9 other people I'd be travelling with were already in the back of the jeep and I did my usual thing of being introduced to everyone whilst not actually listening to any of their names. We carried on around Adelaide picking up other people from various backpackers and hostels in town, then we pulled up at a very posh looking hotel for our final pickup. I already knew who this was going to be, as I'd already met Sonal 2 weeks before and I knew she wouldn't be staying in a $20 a night hostel.

We'd met on a tram in Melbourne when she'd come up to me and asked where she could buy a ticket. She also asked how much it would cost, what she should do with the ticket once she'd bought it, and finally when we would get to Federation Square (the answer to this last question was "never" because we were on a tram to East Brunswick). We then chatted for a while and discovered that we were destined to meet again in the desert. It's a small world after all.

Sonal had also met Irish girl Mary on a tour of Kangaroo Island so she knew someone else in the bus besides me. In fact, talking to people we realised there were quite a few connections for such a small tour group - Gemma lives in Thame - just down the road from me; Terry is a London boy - "Only Fools and Horses" is one of my favourite TV shows; Anna, Ulrike and Barbara are German - a very good friend of mine is German too; Nicole is Swiss German - why, that practically is German! Michael is from Holland - my best friend when I was 5 was called Greg Holland! I could tell that with all these things in common we were all going on really well!

But then we had a small car accident...

We had stopped for breakfast at a roadhouse about 100km North of Adelaide and were picking up some fruit and veg for our meals for the next few days. The jeep was parked up by the store and people were loading the trailer up with the food. Then some ageing pensioner went to back out of his parking space but hit the accelerator instead of the brake and reversed straight into the side of the trailer, narrowly missing Michael and knocking Mary over on the other side as the trailer bounced into her. The trailer tyre went flat and there was a dent under the wheel arch. Michael sustained a grazed arm and Mary escaped just a bit shaken. The back of the pensioners car was pretty crunched but he was ok. And I was pissed off because I'd missed it as I'd been sent to buy ice from the store down the road.
With hindsight, my not being there probably saved Michael's life. If I'd not gone to get the ice, I could have been standing slightly to the right of him, possibly forcing him to stand slightly to the left, certainly placing him directly in the path of the oncoming vehicle. Then he would have been crushed to death between the trailer and the car.
So if you look at it this way, I'm a bit of a hero and should probably get a medal or something...

We all know accidents happen in 3's, and while Dusty, our tour guide, was busy changing the wheel Terry managed to break a complete stranger's spectacles in a bizarre incident involving a lamp post, a dog lead and a small puppy. We got back on the road and waited for accident number 3...

Accident number 3 never happened and we made it up to the Flinders Ranges where we made our first bushcamp. Dusty said we needed to pick up some firewood, so I reckoned we'd be stopping at a petrol station to buy some of those packs of logs you can get. I realise now that it was a very stupid thought. The reason it's called "the bush" is because the landscape has some very bushy attributes, and logs literally do grow on trees. We collected some old tinder dry eucalyptus branches and made a fire to keep us warm and to cook the evening's dinner on. Despite the days being warm it gets really cold at night in the desert, so we huddled round the fire and inhaled lots of healthy black smoke. While dinner was being prepared by Dusty we unrolled the "swags" that we would be sleeping in. Swags are canvas bedding rolls a bit like huge baggy sleeping bags with foam mattresses inside. They're windproof and waterproof and are a lot less hassle than tents. Inside you put your arctic sleeping bag, stick a woolly hat on, climb in and zip the swag up. They're pretty cosy and you soon get used to them, plus it makes for an authentic bush experience that you wouldn't get if you were cocooned in $300 worth of hitech tent. It was so quiet and peaceful that I slept really well. My only complaint was that my swag was a bit smelly, but that just added to the experience.

Day 2 - Flinders Ranges, Wilpena Pound, bush camp at Leigh Creek

We got up early at around 6:30 to pack up the camp. I had woken up in the night when there was a loud dragging noise next to my swag. I listened intently for a while and the noise came again, so I turned round and in the starlight I could make out that some of my stuff was not where I'd left it. I saw a dark object that seemed to be moving slightly about 6 feet away and I thought it might be a dingo or a possum come to get my shoes. After a while it still hadn't moved and there were no more sounds and I went back to sleep. In the morning I discovered that the object I'd been staring at was one of my boots, and the animal who had dragged my stuff was Barbara getting up to go to the toilet in the darkness. I wasn't scared really, honest!

That day we saw some aboriginal cave paintings at Yourambulla Caves and climbed up Mount Ohlssen-Bagge, before watching the sun go down in Warren Gorge. The campsite at Wilpena Pound was our first true wilderness campsite - the night before we had had other people a couple of hundred yards away from us and there were pit toilets we could use to answer nature's call. This camping ground was miles away from anywhere and anyone and was just an area of flat land in the bush. Michael and I went to dig the toilet hole for the evening, choosing a very picturesque spot where you could marvel at the glory of the milky way while you have a dump. I christened it, and it was great, though our improvised toilet roll holder wasn't particularly well designed.

Around the camp fire that evening I raised the cheery topic of cannibalism. It had been on my mind for a while since we left civilisation, because the only supplies we had available were the things we'd brought with us. In the event of a survival situation we were miles from help, so I thought it prudent that we have a vague idea of who we should eat first if it came down to it. I put this to the group and we sat around in an uncomfortable silence for half an hour ago then we all went to bed.

Day 3 - Oodnadata track - Leigh Creek Coalfield, Lyndhurst Ochre Pits, Marree, William Creek

Another early start at 6am- they're all going to be early starts so I'm not going to mention it again! Our first stop was at Talc Alf's - a crazy old bearded loon who lives in a desert shack and makes a living by carving talc sculptures to sell to tourists. He does go on a bit too. I think he's a bit lonely! I saw that my friend Aimee had signed the visitor's book when she passed through the week before. I signed it too, making sure my comment was much better than hers...

We stopped off at Lyndhurst Ochre Quarry, a mining operation at Leigh Creek Coalfields and finally Lake Eyre. Lake Eyre is a huge salt lake that fills up with water only every 10 years or so. You can walk on the thick salt crust, but in some places there's thick black saltwater under the surface which often catches out 4wd's.

In the evening we stayed at William Creek, population 3. Terry and Sonal taught the bar staff in the pub how to dance to the Birdie Song which they had found hidden on the jukebox. That's what travelling's all about - it's an exchange of cultures...

Day 4 - Coober Pedy and the Painted Desert, bush camp at Arkaringa Hills

Unfortunately due to an accidental deletion I've sent my photos home and deleted the ones that I have here, so no more photos of the outback!

We travelled up to Coober Pedy, an Opal mining town between Adelaide and Alice. The most noteable thing about the place is that the residents build their own houses in caves under the ground so that they can escape the scorching days and freezing nights and have a constant temperature all year round. With the ground being rich in Opals very often the cost of the houses is paid for by the gemstones they find during the building process. The inhabitants are not explicitly allowed to mine within the town boundary itself, but they can keep any opals they find when performing home improvements. Hence planning permission requests for underground squash courts and cinemas are not uncommon...

We went "noodling" for opals in an area of waste ground where the rubble from the mining machines is dumped after it has been sorted. I'm still not a millionaire, but did find a piece of "potch" (low quality Opal) with a market value of... well nothing actually, but it's a great souvenir! Noodling (or "fossicking" is filthy work, and afterwards we were glad of the showers that we could use outside the Opal museum. I think this was the first shower we'd seen since day 1, so I guess we must have smelled pretty bad!

After spending the day in Coober Pedy we headed out into the Painted Desert for a bush camp at Arkaringa. Here I raised the cannibalism issue again, and explained to the group who I wanted to eat first and why. Initially there was not much response, but with the aid of a flip chart and a Powerpoint presentation I think I won them over to my way of thinking. Criteria for selecting human sacrifices were as follows:

1. Vegetarianism - vegetarians by definition do not eat meat, therefore should we run out of food they would not be able to benefit from the additional nutrition provided by a human sacrifice. They also have a healthier diet so would probably be less likely to yield bad meat.
2. Body size and composition - There's no point in eating the smallest member of the group as you'd still be hungry afterwards. Nor do you want to eat the fattest person because lean meat is far healthier.
3. Sex - I reckon girls would taste better than boys - I don't know why.
4. Usefulness - people with outback skills should be eaten last as they will contribute to our collective survival chances. With a 10 metre swimming certificate and experience of digging toilet holes, I would therefore be exempt from consumption.

On the basis of that I nominated Sonal to the the first person to be eaten, followed by Anna. The group was initially silent, but later on Michael came up to me and indicated that I had his full support and would happily help me make the kill should it come to it. I thanked him warmly, but internally noted that he was slightly too enthusiastic about the prospect of taking a spade to the back of Sonal's head, so I put him in in third place.

Day 5 - Hamilton, Pedirka, Dalhousie.

Rain had fallen in the area a few days previously so there were a few patches of mud about the place. On the road a tourist couple had got their shiny 4x4 stuck in a shallow puddle in the middle of the track. Dusty pulled over to the side, and I thought we were going to get out and give them assistance - the desert is such a harsh environment you very often have to step in to save peoples lives. Instead he shouted some abuse at them. "Hey matey, we've got to drive on these roads for the next 12 months after you've finished carving them up!". With that we drove off leaving them to dig their own way out.

We stopped for a morning coffee at Oodnadatta , where I learned an important lesson - don't ask for a "Soy Latte" in an Outback town. You can get white or black coffee, but you get some real funny looks if you're expecting anything exotic. The flies here were getting steadily more and more persistent and appeared in greater numbers the further North we were travelling and were trying to crawl into our mouths, eyes and ears with no regard for their own safety or our efforts to discourage them. We took refuge in an aboriginal museum and looked around a few exibits. My favourite was the display of pictures from the local school, which is so small that all the children are in the same class regardless of age. The kids had all written a bit about themselves and done a drawing of something that was important to them. Everyone put an explanation of their artwork like "This is my mummy and my sista" or "this is my dog, Jack". A chubby 11 year old boy called Robert had rather distinguished himself by stating "my picture is of a foxes head getting choped off". One to watch in the future I feel...

While we walked up and down the town the local policeman kept driving by in his van and waving at the girls. That evening when we arrived at Dalhousie Hot Springs he turned up at Dusty's 40th birthday party along with three cowboys from Hamilton Station. Three cowboys and one policeman? No, not a reunion of The Village People, but when combined with skinny dipping in some hot springs they form a sophisticated pulling machine and in the face of that the girls on our tour didn't stand a chance. Girls are so shallow....

We also bumped into the couple that Dusty had shouted abuse at earlier. They'd evidently been rescued by some more kindly samaritan and had now set up camp about 100m from us. They guy was giving some chat about sorting Dusty out later, but it was never going to happen, plus Aaron had parked his police van next to our truck and the girls kept on playing with his flashing lights. Sonal also got her hands on his truncheon...

Day 6 - Dalhousie - Mount Dare - Finke - bush camp at Kulgara

After the cowboys had woken up and had a few beers for 7am breakfast they headed off leaving some heartbroken girls to wave goodbye and pack up camp. One hour later we ran into them again at the Mount Dare Hotel where they were having a few beers for 10am morning tea, joined by a horse that they were feeding gin and tonic. You got to love those country boys.

We left them to their new friend and drove off to Finke, an aboriginal community where we weren't particularly welcome but that we had to stop at to get water. Finke is home to the finish post of the Finke Desert Race, http://www.finkedesertrace.com.au/ - a mad annual bash through the desert from Alice in rally cars, motorbikes and beach buggies. Dusty had competed a few times on his bike, and he drove us down part of the track in the 4x4. No wonder people die all the time in the Finke Desert Race!

We camped at Kulgera and that night drew the attention of a herd of cows who appeared to like hanging out at our toilet hole. Put me off beef I can tell you.

Day 7 - Stuart Highway, Lassiter Highway, Mount Conner, Yulara

A day on the bitumen up to Kata Tjuta national park, the home of Uluru (Ayer's Rock), and a rest for our spines from the jarring effects of corrugated unsealed roads.

Who did we run into in the petrol station? The couple from the stranded 4x4 of course. You get to realise that although the outback is huge, it's actually a very very small world indeed.

We drove past Uluru and out to the Olgas and did a 4 hour walk round them, before watching the sunset. They're made from the same stuff as uluru, but they're much more rounded and are lots of biggish rocks rather than one huge one. The photos are great. I wish I hadn't deleted them now. Seriously, you're really missing out...

That evening Sonal, Terry, Michael, Mary and Gemma and I went out to get drunk whilst the others got an early night. The evening spawned something that can only be described as the "Dusty Crusty" video, now also sadly deleted, but thinking about it, from Sonal's point of view it's probably for the best.

Day 8 - Uluru

Uluru is a location so revered amongst tourists that all tours spend an inordinate amount of time visiting it. It is a event so momentous in the tourist diary that it requires capitalisation - today was The Day of Uluru.

I wasn't expecting much from Uluru, it's just a big rock and I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about. But it is a very nice big rock, and is quite good in the way that it just sits there in the middle of all the flatness and looks very rock-like. It's also quite knobbly when you get up close, so if you're a big knobbly rock fan then you're really going to love it. (Apologies if that gave you mental images of a nude Keith Richards). It's made from sedimentary sandstone tipped up on its end so that the layers of stone are at a 90 degree angle to the ground. People have estimated that Uluru actually goes down to a depth of 10km under the sand and dates back 500 million years. Other people have come up with the theory that it's a landing pad for aliens from outer space -a warning that while you're looking at Uluru don't be surprised if the guy next to you doesn't wear shoes and has a penchant for tie-dye.

I stood next to Sonal. She is a vegetarian.

So did we climb the rock? It's a sacred site and the Aboriginals ask you to honour their wishes and not to walk on it. Terry wanted to, but didn't want to do it on his own. Everyone else didn't want to climb out of respect. I thought it looked a bit steep and it was quite a long way, so we all stayed on the ground and just did the base walk. The gift shop was selling postcards with little tick boxes for you send to your loved ones saying either "I did it! I climbed Uluru" or "I respected the Aboriginal wishes and did not climb Uluru!". I thought of a potential third option which would be "I'm a twat and I bought this postcard!" with the little box pre-ticked.

That night we watched the sun go down on The Rock. Pretty damn cool - I'd give it an 8 out of 10. I also loved the fact that there is a "Sunset Car Park" where everyone has to crowd into to make sure that no-one gets a better photo than anyone else. The busy atmosphere also stops gang warfare breaking out amongst the Japanese Yakuza Paparazzi.

Day 9 - A bit more Uluru and Kings Canyon

Sunrise at Uluru doesn't sound so attractive when you have to get up really early in the freezing cold to see it. Just like the fried egg sandwiches we ate while the sun rose weren't as appealing once we realised that someone had to wash the burnt bits off the frying pan afterwards. (I can't believe people still fall for that "I'm allergic to washing up liquid" blag that I've been using all these years). But sunrise at Uluru is a compulsory part of any tour because if you miss it it's an awfully long way to go back when people tell you in years to come that it's one of the most magical experiences ever. It's good, but I'd say David Copperfield is more magical, or Gandalf, or that witch that kept on turning herself into different animals in that Disney cartoon. Magical is a word that should be used sparingly and I believe that the people who use it to describe an Uluru sunrise devalue it somewhat. Particularly if they're standing next to you and going "Oooh, isn't it magical, Rupert!". No dear, it's because you've been drinking champagne since 5am. And by the way, you appear to have lost your shoes.

Next up was King's Canyon - more sedimentary sandstone, but this one hasn't been upended so the layers are still horizontal and eroding away like crazy. This provides for towering cliffs, sheer vertical drops, precariously poised overhangs and great photos of you standing on rocks that it probably isn't safe to do so. You have noticed that these rectangular pics on the blog aren't my photos haven't you? They've come from the Heading Bush website - www.headingbush.com - and if I'm saying that their tour is the best around then surely they won't mind me infringing their copyright a little bit will they?

Day 10 - Palm Valley, Finke Gorge, Western MacDonnell Ranges and Alice Springs

Palm Valley has some of the finest collection of ancient angiosperms you'll see in Australia. I don't know what angiosperms are but it makes me laugh because I really haven't grown up since I was 12. It's only accessible by 4x4 and we dumped the trailer and did some pretty scary off-roading which was clearly the bit of the trip that Dusty enjoyed most: Powersliding the tail of the Landcruiser out on the sand, skimming by trees and edging past steep drops, scraping the tow bar and running boards on some priceless million year old rocks. Good fun indeed! And when you reach palm valley it's beautiful - there's something about palm trees in the desert that is amazing - one might say magical... no... maybe just mystical... There's so little water around then you get these trees that are so verdant and vibrant and they make a little bit of tropical paradise amongst the rocks and dust. And when you're ripping it up in a 4x4 it's even better!

We barbecued a few kangaroos for lunch and then pushed on down Finke Gorge to the Western MacDonnell Ranges and then into "civilisation" in Alice Springs for some cool beers....

Profile of Hostel Girl

"Hey everyone, you're all really quiet today!"
puts music on
"I love this song!!!"
dances round using her sarong as a headscarf
"Yeah!!! Come one everyone!!! lets liven up!!!"
everyone becomes that little bit quieter

She's 24, from the home counties and has been working in the hostel behind reception and doing cleaning for 6 weeks.
She is responsible for putting up the laminated A4 computer printouts that say "We're not your mum, clean your dishes" up over the sinks in the kitchen.
She is also the self-appointed "fun co-ordinator", a secret role adopted as an outlet for the peaks of her bipolarism.
She is excessively friendly - almost aggressively so - and her hostel job means that she needs everyone to be demonstrably having a good time or else she won't feel happy herself. For she has been unhappy in hostels before and knows what it's like to be the quiet girl that nobody notices. But now she is working there and is surrounded by an extended step-family, she can fake the confidence to be the centre of attention and bask in the warmth of the party hostel she is going to create.

I just want to read my fucking book ok?

Welcome to Adelaide, population 1?

For a city that has a total population of 1.2 million, Adeladians sure do keep a low profile. As I walked round the Rundle Street Mall at 9am on a Sunday morning there was an eerie silence and not a soul to be seen. All the shops and cafe's were all closed up behind security shutters and there was a icy wind blowing through the desolate streets. I felt uncomfortably like I was the only person left alive on the planet - and you know what happens to people in movies when they find themselves in that situation don't you? There's a low, guttoral growl behind them and they discover everyone's been turned into flesh eating zombies.

There was a low, guttoral growl behind me...

Fortunately I wasn't in an end-of-the-world scenario, it was just an aboriginal guy who wanted me to give him $2 or else he'd piss on me. Adelaide was so cold that I might have momentarily benefitted from the warming effects of tramps urine, but I still didn't give him the $2. It's a request you get quite often in Australia and I've never given anyone $2 and no-ones pissed on me yet. Tramp's piss is 90% alcohol so it's far too valuable a commodity for them to spray onto any backpacker willy-nilly (if you'll pardon the expression).

At about noon the first Adeladians came out of their houses and began to open up their shops, businesses and wallets. Lycra clad cyclists gathered in packs around cafes to display their shiny racing bikes and their large helmets over full English breakfasts. I went to the pub. There's not a lot else to do in Adelaide!

The Grampians

After leaving the Great Ocean Road the night before we woke up in the Grampian mountains and went to see some kangaroos. Yeah, like I haven't seen them before! I decided to photograph the tourists instead. Here is a big herd of them in the wild.



The female in the foreground is Dutch, which you can tell by the brightly coloured top and green rucksack on both shoulders.
I tracked them to a place called an "Information Centre" which is where tour guides take people so that they can have 30 minutes peace and quiet and it also pads out the tour a little bit. At the Information Centre the tourists congregated outside in big groups before grazing in the gift shop. Then the Alpha male said it was time to go and they all went back to the minibus.

The rest of the day was spent driving through the national park, where a big forest fire had destroyed 60% of the vegetation 3 months earlier. However, eucalyptus is a hardy tree and it needs fire to clear away its competition and promote new growth, so the greenery was already starting to reappear. Then we went off to Adelaide.