Day one:
After a fantastic dinner with the housemates (thanks for paying, Joe!) and several drinks, I wake early, already packed and ready to go. Steve picks me up in a tour bus; he wasn’t kidding!! I was thinking ‘tour bus’ as in the kind of bus that bands tour in. nope. This was a bus that people take tours on….specifically, through Katherine, etc. Lots of seats in the back, so I drop my stuff and hop in the front seat. FOURTH time being navigator! We pick up Dorothee and Sarah (German backpackers) in Perth and we are OFF! The bus is fully equipped with a small kitchenette area (food prep and dish storage), two fridges, tents, camp beds, mattresses (the same kind that you had in gym class), tables, chairs, and even a toilet (but it’s at the back of the bus….only accessible when we are stopped). All of these amenities are hidden from view, in a series of well-placed storage areas (cabinets? Drawers?) on the outside of the bus. Steve Turnball is a 37 year-old tour owner and operator, photographer, and he used to own a crocodile farm. He is affectionately known by his friends as ‘Croc Bait’. He is from Cairns, where he is driving the bus, the German girls staying with him until the final destination. I’m going as far as Port Augusta, and then I have to find a way to Melbourne.
The first leg of the journey is pretty uneventful….we start crossing the Outback and go through towns of Northam, Merredin, Coolgardie, and Kalgoorie. I originally wanted to visit Kalgoorie during my stay in WA, but was told that there was not much to see there, and to do the south coast instead. I’ll be touring the south coast (Margaret River, Bunburry, Esperance, Albany) next year when I return to the beautiful state I loved so much. Kalgoorie was THE gold rush town. Prostitution is still legal (in brothels), and there really isn’t a whole lot to see in town. On our way there, however, I noticed a huge pipeline traveling beside us on the highway. Steve explained that it brings water from Perth to Kalgoorie, since it is difficult to get water in the Outback. This pipeline was built by a Dutch guy and no-one thought it would work. When they turned it on, no water came out in Kalgoorie. Thinking he was a failure, the Dutch guy committed suicide. 5 days later, water came out of the pipeline in Kalgoorie. The pipeline worked, just as the guy thought it would, it just took time for the water to travel from Perth to Kalgoorie. Basically, the guy killed himself for no reason (and if you were an engineer, wouldn’t you factor in travel time in your pipeline calculations?). Our final stop was Kambalda, where we stopped at a tiny caravan park that was empty except for one guy that had been there for ten months. However, when Steve went in to ask if we could stay there for the night, the owner said that they were at capacity. Clearly he thought Steve was sketchy or something, so we parked the van on the side of the highway a little further down the road and stopped for the night. The plan was to sleep under the stars in our sleeping bags, on mattresses on top of camp beds, and that worked for a little while, until it started raining. We waited it out in the van while watching Pirates of the Caribbean (oh yeah the van has a DVD player!) until I started to fall asleep, so we turned it off halfway. Around 2am, the rain woke me. Steve and the girls opted to sleep under the bus (yeah, there’s room LOL) but I decided to sleep on the bus, in the backseat.
Day two:
In the morning we stopped at a truck stop in Norseman and as we were walking in to use the loo, there was a young guy standing outside. I made a mental note to ask him where he was from, as soon as I had used the facilities ;) Turns out Sarah beat me to it; his name was Luca, he was 21 and from Italy, hitchhiking his way to Melbourne so he could fly home on February 13th. We found him on February 3rd. We said that he could probably come with us, since I was going to Melbourne we could travel there together from Port Augusta. Luca said that we was going to ask us, since he had been asking every single truck driver since 4am but kept getting turned down, but he thought that we were on a tour. We asked Steve, it was all good, so now we had a new travel partner! We finished watching Pirates of the Caribbean, and started the second film, as we made our way across WA through Cocklebiddy, Madura, and ended up in Eucla, where we slept on a beach (well, the car park of a beach). Luca in his swag, Steve under the bus, the girls and I in 2 separate tents. Let me tell you, it was the windiest night EVER, and there ended up being more sand in my tent than there was outside. I woke up several times that night, had a horrible sleep, my tent half-collapsed, and the next morning it looked as though I had been sand-blasted.
Day three:
I needed a shower something FIERCE. We found showers at a truck stop for $2 (for 15 minutes) and afterwards I felt like a new woman
As we drove along the Nullabor (it’s a BORE!), Steve pointed out that it is the longest golf course in the world, with a hole in every town, spanning 3000km. We watched the second and third Pirates movies, but the fourth wouldn’t work on the DVD player. I’ll need to watch it in order to have now seen all the Pirates movies. We ended up in Ceduna, in a caravan park, and after a swim in the sketchy lake, a dinner of kangaroo kabobs, sausages, onions, mashed potatoes, and several beers (and a brand-new drinking game!), I slept on the floor of the bus on a mattress and had the best sleep of the previous nights. Thank GOD cuz I probably would have killed someone if I didn’t sleep well again. It was really windy that night, and raining, and apparently some guy’s small boat (like a canoe but a little wider) blew off the roof of his truck so Steve had to help him secure it in the middle of the night. Good thing it just landed on the ground, and not on someone’s tent or car….
Day four:
Left the caravan park early cuz the wind was of typhoon proportions. Watched ‘Finding Nemo’ and passed Poochera, Wudinna and Kimba. I used Luca’s iphone to search for a lift from Port Augusta to Adelaide (since Luca didn’t wanna pay $50 for the bus) and I found someone on gumtree advertising a lift from Port Augusta to MELBOURNE in his fully-equiped van. CALL HIM ASAP!!! We finally got in touch with Valentin (Val), and we were to meet up with him in Port Augusta later that afternoon (he was driving there, dropping someone else off). Things were looking up for Luca and Geneviève!! We arrived in Port Augusta (2700km from Perth), had lunch, and watched our tour-mates drive off. Luca and I repacked our things, waited in the park near the river, and finally met up with Val, an 18 year-old German who had bought his van a few weeks earlier and was planning to drive as much of Australia as possible. He had a little fridge (which didn’t really work), a mattress, bowls and cutlery, which meant a ‘fully-equiped’ van. He was meeting up with parents of Kingsley, a guy he had met in Port Lincon, when Kingsley’s uncle had fixed Val’s van. The parents were setting Val up with roof racks, so that Val could eventually buy a surfboard to put up there. Val has never surfed before, btw ;) WELL the parents (David and Janet) ended up driving to the park to see if Val was still there, and after some small-talk, we decided to accompany Val to their house and while the guys were setting up the roof racks, Janet made me some tea. They invited us to stay for dinner (homemade butter chicken, followed by ice cream with chocolate sauce) and then they augmented their generosity by inviting us to stay the night!! David and Janet: class acts all the way
Day five:
Up early, warm shower, hairdryer (!!!!), and breakfast and we’re on our way to Adelaide. I had debated whether or not to stay with the guys after Adelaide, since I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the road trip, and wanted to get to Melbourne sooner rather than later. Decided to stay with them since we didn’t spend a lot of time in Adelaide (I’ll get back there someday…..there isn’t a whole lot to see; the CBD can be done in a day) and we had the possibility of getting to Melbourne Thursday night or Friday morning. Turns out I wasn’t going to spend more than $150 so I decided to go along for the ride ;)
We found a nice little lookout spot in between Adelaide and Victor Harbour and stopped there for the night. As we were making dinner (at 8pm), it started raining! For those keeping track, it had rained every single night of my journey (even just for a little bit). We drank the beer that I had bought in Eucla, played ‘never have I ever’, and got to bed around 1:30am. It was a good night!
Day six:
Headache! Val was a little worse for wear, I think, so Luca and I let him sleep in. OH YAH I forgot to mention that we slept three people in the back of the van….it was a little cramped and I pushed Luca off the side a couple of times, I think :P
After breakfast with a view, it was just a short drive to Victor Harbour and free internet at the visitor centre! Skyped mom and dad (just lounging poolside in Hawaii….no big deal lol), then strapped on the runners for a nice walk along some cliffs, with promises of seals. No. Frikken. Seals. To. Be. Found. The weather was horrible (really windy, slightly drizzly, and cold) so why would the seals be out? I love seals. I wanna see them in the wild sometime before I leave this country!!!!! The boys took a cold shower near the beach while I made lunch, and then there was a lot of driving involved to get as close to Mount Gambier as possible. A nice ferry ride across the Murray River saved us 50kms, and by the time we got to Naracoorte Caves National Park it was closed (7:30pm), so we decided to spend the night there, as to be ready when they opened at 9am. As we drove into the day-use area (two areas with picnic tables and little cooking huts) there were a dozen or so kangaroos just chilling, eating grass. They promptly left us, but a few came back and I managed to get as close as I felt was safe and took a series of photos. It was an early night, with Val and I in the van and Luca in his swag outside, until the middle of the night when it was too cold for him and he came in the van. Geneviève sandwich part deux!
Day six:
Started the day with a guided tour of Alexandra cave to see some Stromotites (come down from the cave ceiling) and Stromolites (caused by calcium deposits from dripping water and the nice lady threw in the Wet Cave (self-guided) for free, saving us each $8. sweeeeeeeet. An hour later we were at Mount Gambier (used to be a volcano before it imploded) to see Blue Lake (such an awesome colour! Caused by a chemical reaction, Blue Lake was formed when the volcano blew a hole in the limestone. Oh yeah south-east South Australia is known as the Limestone Coast because it used to be the ocean 40 000 years ago. We also stopped at the Umpherstone Sinkhole and had lunch before crossing into Victoria!!!! At this point I am thinking that we can easily be in Melbourne Thursday evening, but Val had never seen the Great Ocean Road so he wanted to take some time to do it. We camped that night at theD beginning of the Great Ocean road, in a parking lot at bay of islands, and watched 'idiocracy'
Day seven:
The last day!/great ocean road!
Since Luca and I had already seen the GOR, we were taking our time for Val's benefit. We woke at 7am, since we wanted to be out of our parking spot before the tourists arrived, and went to Peterborough for breakfast and to shower. It was a cooooooold shower, even though I only ran the hot water, and let it run for a good 5 minutes before reluctantly standing beside the water flow and washing up LOL. On the road at 8:45am so hopefully at Tony's by nightfall!!! :)
The grotto
The arch
Thunder cave
Erskine Falls (places and things I had never seen)
And then YES we were at Tony's just as the sun was setting (8pm). Had a few beers with the boys, they slept in the van, and I had a warm bed to sleep in.
To answer your question: YES I am too old for this sh*t, but will most likely be doing it again in a few weeks en route to farmwork (fingers crossed that I get something cuz I really need it!!!!!)
First week back in Melbourne update to come later this evening. Promise.
