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.

The Great Ocean Road

The Great Ocean Road is a stretch of stunning sandstone coastline that runs between Melbourne and Adelaide, and doing a 3 day tour between the two cities is a good way to move between them and see things along the way.

Our first stop was another of those Airwalk things where you get to walk on a metal gantry overlooking the rainforest canopy. If you've read my post on the one at Tahune in Tasmania you'll know I found it a truly miserable experience and a bit of a waste of time, but this one is really rather good. I can't put my finger on why - maybe the rain was slightly less drenching or the wind a little less breezy, but the views over the treetops were nothing short of spectacular.

I was entertained to find out that it's run by the same company that owns the one in Tahune, and the same lack of business acumen exists in Victoria as we found in Tasmania. In Tassie you can walk around without tickets because there is no-one anywhere to collect them. In Victoria you walk past an attendant who doesn't ínspect tickets but just clicks off the numbers on his little clicker machine (so the bosses can see how many people have sneaked in without paying and how much money they've lost at the end of each day). Genius.
And there is also the brave commercial decision to turn off the hot drinks machines for cleaning at 4pm, just before 25 very cold and wet people (the only people at the attraction) come in wanting to spend lots of money on tea and coffee. It's nice that ruthless capitalism and profit maximisation hasn't touched Australian tourism yet.

After stopping off to see some Koalas in the wild (you get sick of em you know!) we travelled to the coast to see sandstone caves, stacks and arches like the ones you remember from diagrams in geography textbooks at school. They all have great names like The Twelve Apostles, The Bay of Martyrs, London Bridge, and The Bay of Islands, and they're all standing majestically in the middle of wild foaming white waves that threaten to wash them away into the ocean at any moment. About a year ago one of the largest of the Twelve Apostles copped it and collapsed and disintegrated into a small pile of sand, much to the annoyance of postcard makers and photographers who had to begin revising their products.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4647857.stm)
My favourite collapsing story happened at London Bridge which originally had two arches joining it to the mainland and tourists were allowed to walk across the rocks to the end of the formation. One day in 1990 the first arch fell into the sea leaving a male and female tourist stranded and unable to walk back to safety. A helicopter rescue was mounted attracting national publicity. When the press sent out their helicopters to get photos of the unfolding drama it became apparent that the male tourist kept hiding his face from view and wasn't keen on getting his picture in the paper. Eventually the newshounds got a snap of the man's face it Australia discovered why he didn't want to be seen. He was a local politician and the woman he was on the rocks with was his mistress!

After 2 days on the Great Ocean Road we went North to the Grampian mountains.

And yet more comedy...

For my last night in Melbourne after a $5 pizza dinner on Brunswick Street ($5 pizza!!!) I went with Sarah and Milan to see British standup Daniel Kitson. It was true intellectual comedy - when the audience laughs at jokes about "tautology"you know that either you're in a very highbrow audience or a very drunken one. Naturally, being one if the intelligentsia myself I found it hilarious, and the beers I'd had with the pizza sure helped me along too.

Got Milk?

The most random things can happen to you when you go out to buy a pint of milk. A couple of years ago I popped to my local corner shop for a bottle and ended up coming home 3 hours later and $1000 poorer with a new guitar. Today I walked from Sarah's house in St Kilda down to her local shop and was stopped by a man and a woman in the street asking if I had a mobile phone. They asked me to call the police because they'd just seen a guy trying to throw a woman out of a first floor window, which is an unusual Easter Sunday tradition even for Australia. We looked up at the open window and could see no signs of life and there were no sounds coming from it either. Nor was there a dead woman on the pavement, so she must have still been inside.

I got my phone out and dialled 111.

Then I dialled 000 which is the correct number for the police in Australia.

After some really bad descriptions of the problem and our current location, the operator gave up on me and asked to be handed over to the person who had witnessed the event. I gave the phone to the girl who had approached me and she gave her first hand version of the attempted defenestration. The police said they were on their way so we hung up.

With hindsight, we must have hung up prematurely and cut them off in mid-sentence. When the operator said "we're on our way" what we were really hearing was a fragment of the statement "we're on our way... to the donut shop, and we'll be with you in half an hour". In that time the domestic moved from the first floor window down to the pavement - fortunately via the front door and not the 10 foot drop. The woman came running screaming out of the building with blood on her face and legs. The guy was following closely with blood on his fists and shirt. We stepped between the pair and the girl took refuge in the safety of the oncoming traffic on the main road. There was a tense standoff, but the guy calmed down when he saw my immense bulk and "crouching tiger hidden panda" karate readiness stance. Just as we diffused the situation and the guy was sauntering away, the police arrived. They'd probably been waiting round the corner watching from the comfort of the squad car and now it looked like it was safe to move in they stepped up to get all the glory.

I'd like to be able to tell you how the story ended, but i dont have that information. I was asked for a statement but didn't get the chance to give it because there were no officers in the Police Station who knew how to type on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and I was off to Adelaide on Thursday. Domestic violence often has an unhappy ending, but it didnt look like the girl had any intention of going back to him and she seemed keen to press charges. I can make up a happy ending if you like. He went to prison for a very long time, she fell in love with a rich prince, the police got three different types of donut, and I got my pint of milk and had a lovely cup of tea.

International Comedy Festival

Acts from all around the world come to Melbourne every year to perform for three weeks in the International Comedy Festival. Today was Marie's birthday, so we went out for dinner in the Italian District and then, on the opening night of the festival we went to see a show. The act she chose was a guy called Andy Muirhead. This is how he advertises himself:

"If you had one word to describe yourself, what would it be? More to the point, if your friends had one word to describe you, would it be the same? Thought not. Join Andy (Raw Comedy National Finalist 2003, Comedy Zone 2005 and host of ABCTV's "Collectors") for a hilarious look at the way we see ourselves and the way the world sees us."

The show was in the Wee Room in the Town Hall, and "wee" was a very apt description for the venue. No, not because it was covered in wee from people pissing themselves laughing, but rather because it measured 20x5 metres and host to a grand total of about 30 seats. Everyone knows the worst thing you can do when going to stand up comedy is to get there late, so we turned up 10 minutes after the show had started and made our way down the cramped aisle to the front rows to the only seats remaining. At this point Andy Muirhead had plucked an American girl from the front row and had her on stage reading out his big intro. If we'd been 5 minutes earlier it probably would have been us, and for this I am grateful. Naturally while she was on stage we stole her seat and started to watch the show.

As stated in his advertising material, Muirhead is presenter on ABC's "Collectors", and his proudest moment was when his show attracted a higher audience than "Backyard Blitz" in the ratings. Nope, it didn't ring any bells with me either. Being a TV presenter, I think this was his first foray into standup and at times it showed. We all laughed, but in an audience of 30 we were laughing more than we would normally have to pad out the emptiness of the venue. Plus he seemed like a really nice bloke and we wanted to help him out. After 45 minutes or so he wound up his set and the audience started to leave. As we were at the front we were the last to file out and he came down and chatted to Marie and Rebecca, and myself. He asked me how I enjoyed the show and I lied that it was really great. Then I launched into one of my own tales from the epic adventure that has been my life. It was a damn good story if I do say so myself - I can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember being extremely funny and probably quite incisive with it. And what did he do while I was regailing him with my best material? He was looking around the room and not paying the slightest bit of attention! That cheeky bastard. I felt like shaking him and telling him to start making some notes for future performances. I'd listened to him drivel on for 45 minutes (laughing politely in all the right places) and now that I was giving him my best comedy gold it was falling on deaf ears!

Well he missed his chance. Don't come to me for tips when you're short of material Muirhead!

Wilson's Promontory

I went on a day trip to Wilson's Promontory National Park to the South East of Melbourne. It's a really quiet place and not many tourists get to go there. The only clue to its existence is one brochure kept in a locked box in a safe in the vault under the Melbourne Tourist Information building. According to our tour guide it's Melbourne's best kept secret, but that's only true if your definition of "secret" extends to encompassing things that Oz Experience know about.

Luckily the day I went was the warmest I'd seen since I'd left Sydney about a month ago, and the sunshine hit me like medicine. The animals were clearly out enjoying it too and I saw my first snake!

It was a tiger snake, and is apparently the fourth most deadly in the world. It was probably only about 2 feet long, but as the old adage says, size doesn't matter (I hear that quite a lot).

Wilson's Promontory is a haven for all wildlife, and we also saw crimson rosellas, lorrikeets, kookaburras, a wombat, the obligatory kangaroos and also a small herd of dinosaurs that I managed to snap with the zoom on my camera (check out the brontosaurus on the right! Jurassic Park!).

I also interrupted a pair of kangaroos in a compromising position, the filthy animals!

The Pissaro Art Exhibition

Everyone in Melbourne was really excited about the Pissaro Exhibition on at the Victoria Gallery of Art. So while they were all gawping at paintings we went to watch some organised violence at an Aussie Rules Football match at the Telstradome instead.

We'd had a rundown on the rules from an Aussie guy in Tasmania, but there was still a lot of grey areas we weren't sure about and we had to work out from watching the game. For example when was it acceptable to punch another player in the face? Where the hell are all the fit cheerleaders? Is it ok to shout obsenities from the crowd?
The answers, respectively are: all the time; there aren't any - the players wouldnt be able to concentrate; Only if you have "Obscenities" marked on your ticket and have brought your young children along to hear.

We watched the Hawthorn Hawks play the Collingwood Magpies. I spent the first quarter trying to take photos of people having fights, but they were all over so quickly and there weren't really that many so I gave up. This is the closest I came, but I believe it could well have been a bit of legitimate play:

At the start of the game we sat down with the famous Aussie "four and twenty" meat pies while we watched. At half time they were selling lattes in the bar area. Lattes indeed! It was all downhill from there. Number 43 decided he was going to hold hands with opposing Number 19 for the rest of the game. Number 19 didn't like this at first and would keep trying to run away. But then they both warmed to each other and walked happily around the field together until the final whistle blew. Seeing their Number 43 so contented holding on to a member of the opposite team, Collingwood lost it and threw their half time lead away to a crushing and humiliating full time defeat.

At least I think that's what happened anyway...

Hobart... again... and for the last time

It was time to say goodbye to Hobart, as the next day we were flying out to Melbourne. Marina, our trusty Nissan had done us proud over the last 10 days and clocked up a grand total of 2,500 km when we dropped her off back at the rental place. That night we went out to drink a toast to the excellent adventures we'd had travelling round Tassie.

I think we might even have stayed out past 11pm too!...

The Tahune Airwalk and Hastings Caves and Thermal Spa

The Tahune Airwalk is a bland visitor attraction where you walk on a metal walkway elevated into the treetops. It takes ages to get there down painful gravel roads, and isn’t that impressive when you get there. What’s more it pissed down with rain the whole time I was up there and I did it on my own because I’d lost Aimee and Marie in the giftshop. I would say that it’s a complete waste of money.
I would say it’s a total waste of money, but seeing as we sneaked in without paying, it actually constitutes pretty good value for money. I still didn't enjoy it though - I was having a "hard to please" day.

The next disappointment was the Thermal Spa at Hastings. It was fucking freezing! So cold in fact that we were the only ones stupid enough to go in. People looked at us like we were lunatics - although I'll concede they might have just been looking at me as I'd forgotten my swimming trunks and was going in wearing my boxer shorts.

Once we had chilled our body core temperatures down to suspended animation level in the (Hypo)Thermal Spa we went into the caves down the road.

Now these impressed me! A lot.

The caves are 40 million years old, which predates hard bodied life on earth, hence they contain no fossils. There are so many chambers and caverns all packed to the ceiling (and floor) with stalactites and stalagmites. I've never seen caves this impressive and so well maintained and preserved before, and it made the whole day worthwhile. The only downer was most of my photos were crap, but I guess you can't have everything!

Freycinet - Mount Amos and Wineglass Bay

Driving up the East Coast we arrived in Freycinet National Park, a mountainous wooded peninsula with some stunning beaches. The first day there we walked up to the Wineglass Bay lookout and then down onto the beach. The second day we tackled another mountain.


Mount Amos isn’t as high as Cradle Mountain, and you can walk it in half the time, but we found it equally challenging because it’s so slippery. Instead of having big boulders to gain purchase on you have a slick rock surface at angles of up to 45 degrees, and the previous evening it had rained so the rocks were still wet in quite a few places. We went up on our hands and knees and came down on our arses (mainly accidentally).
I don’t think Aimee used her legs at all on the way down…

Friendly Beach from Mount Amos


Wineglass Bay from Mount Amos

Port Arthur and the Port Arthur Massacre

Everyone knows Australia is where Britain used to send its convicts, but what did Australia do with its convicts? They sent them to Port Arthur in Tasmania. On a peninsula on the South East of Tasmania, and reachable only by an narrow isthmus some 100 yards across, it made a good place to incarcerate people without risk of them escaping. It has a dark past, with stories of torture, death and mental illness from solitary confinement being abundant. It has an even more dark present - 10 years ago this month a crazed gunman had opened fire and massacred 35 tourists as they were looking round the prison compound.

http://www.crimelibrary.com/serial/bryant/

It's chilling stuff, and oddly, given that so many tourists were murdered here, no-one from the UK I've spoken to remembers it getting any coverage in the media. I didn't know very much about it when we went there (unsurprisingly it isn't in the guide book) otherwise I might have thought twice about going on one of the nightly "ghost tours" that they operate around the grounds. We didn’t see any ghosts, but we did see lots of obnoxious children who weren’t scared at all, the little brats.

Back in Hobart

Back at the Pickled Frog backpackers in Hobart for the night. We did our washing and checked our mobile phone messages. Didn’t do anything else…

Lake Saint Claire

From Tully we drove round to Lake Saint Claire and began to look for accommodation. After flitting back and forth between the two accommodation choices in the town we settled on the hotel which was about a mile from the lake but offered backpacker rooms. We were expecting the rooms to be actually in the hotel, but were told as we checked in that they were in little sheds to one side. Ominously they told us we would to be staying in "B-Block". With their cramped, basic conditions and tin roofs they were more concentration camp than holiday camp, and if I was Jewish I don’t think I could have stayed there.

Four days earlier we’d been sunning ourselves in Hobart in 25 degree heat. Now it was just starting to snow. Worried that we might get stuck there and have to spend the next 6 months in a one pub town we asked the bar staff whether there was any possibility of us getting snowed in. They reassured us by saying that the snowploughs would come and dig us out if the roads got blocked, so that just left the question of who would dig our frozen, hypothermic bodies from our little tin huts if we didn’t make it through the night.

The next day, finding that none of our fingers or toes had dropped off, we cleared the snow from Marina’s windscreen and headed down to the lake. It was still snowing, but as we started to walk round it turned to sleet, then to driving rain. After 45 minutes Marie and I were walking up at the front and we stopped to wait for Aimee, who was dawdling behind and had dropped out of sight. We waited for 5 minutes but she didn’t turn up and we decided to go and look for her. Retracing our steps down the narrow path to the point where we had last seen her, there was no sign and we were slightly baffled. I thought she might be hiding behind a tree playing an April Fool’s joke but after 10 minutes of calling her name we still she hadn’t come out of the bushes laughing. We knew she hadn’t gone back the way we came as there were only three sets of footprints in the snow on the path, and they were ours from when we walked in. But then we found a footprint leading off the path past a tree and we worked out she must have wandered off into the bush. Just the other side of the tree was another path that formed part of the Overland Track – a 5 day walking route that skirted past the lake. Deciding not to meet up with Aimee 5 days later in Belgium or wherever the track finished we ran through the deep muddy puddles to catch up with her. Five minutes later we found her wandering back looking lost, but not as worried as we were looking. We resolved to buy her a set of "baby reins" so that she might never wander off on her own again.