Road Trip – Australia – Here I come!!
Road trip: Uluru -> Coober Pedy ->Adelaide -> Great Ocean Road (All of the towns between) -> Melbourne -> Sydney (to meet friends)
Ah, there is nothing like a road trip and there is nothing like dry vs humid heat! Australia has been on my bucket list for a long time and most of the Aussies (Australians) I met on my travel did not list Uluru as one of there 3 top places to visit. I did manage to drive the Great Ocean Road and see the 12 Apostles, but I missed the other top places to visit: Fraser Island, Barossa Valley, and Great Barrier Reef. I read Bill Bryson’s book In a Sunburned Country (renamed “Down Under Travels in a Sunburned County”) while traveling across country and he is funny! (I missed the 12 ft earthworm and a bunch of other items that he stated in the book, but maybe next time!). Basically, Australia is as large as USA and China in land mass and at the end of the day I had to pick where I wanted to spend my time and I had to meet friends in Sydney on a specific day. Don’t ask me why I decided to spend most of it driving ~3500 km in the middle of the desert. I did have an epiphany when I met a lady in Hobart, who went to the USA on a cruise to Alaska. The funny thing about her trip is that Hobart, Tasmania is like Alaska (there is a clean fresh, ruggedness about Tasmania and New Zealand). I grew up in the southwest and I really like the desert and mountains! So I guess it is not hard to see why driving in the desert would be appealing to me. It takes a while to learn to drive on the ‘other’ side of the road! (There are a lot of countries that drive on the left side of the road). I am still trying to get the hang of it!
I found a great blog by Gary and Amanda, it tells you all of the tourist and gasoline stops. It also says that you can drive in the outback in your grandmothers car! This couple did a great job with their blog and I knew what to expect driving in the outback!
Uluru – Did you notice that Uluru rhymes with Kangaroo? I don’t know why this is so amusing to me. Uluru is upper desert, there is a lot of desert vegetation and it was very green. There are signs that close off parts of trails when the temperature is too hot (or too windy or flooded) which is basically after 11 AM in the summer and it is strongly discouraged to hike to the top. Hiking around the base of Uluru is fun ! Sleeping in the shade in the middle of the afternoon is great, but going back to take a nap at the resort is better!
Kata Tjuta – Guess who decided to come on a road trip!! Raymond! There are a lot of flys and gnats, we decided to buy fly nets. The views were great!
Cobby Pedy – Opal mining town. Because of the extreme heat, people built their homes and hotels in the ground.
Adelaide – We missed the Tour Down Under Bike Race by a couple of days! We did see bike riders come early to practice!
Portland/Cape Nelson – We gave up hiking and decided to eat! Hummingbird Cake and something chocolaty – Yum! I use to have a pet rabbit that looked that the picture below, a black and white dutch rabbit! He was in a food magazine, so I don’t think his fate in very good hands.
Port Fairy/Moyneyana Festival – I had cherries! I miss cherries and I will never complain about the price again! (Ok, maybe not never). I love the cherry cart – it was very detailed, the pull out draw for money looked like a cash register drawer. The used book store was interesting and fun!
Tower Hill Reserve – These are only wild koala bear I saw, they were ~50-100 ft in the trees. The reptile below looks like a skink.
Port Campbell: Beach town! The sunsets are beautiful and it gets dark around 8-9 pm. I love summers!
Great Ocean Road/12 Apostles – We got to the park before sunset and did not stay long enough to see the penguins. According to wikipedia there were never 12 rock formations. The views are beautiful and very windy!
Melbourne – The iconic train station, St. Paul’s church, downtown has a mixed of modern with 19th century architecture styles, and graffiti alley. I thought the bike hub at the university was neat, because the vending machine is for bike parts (inner tubes, chains, etc.).
Miscellaneous Items: Here is the map we purchased at Uluru and the drive to Sydney. We had to skip Canberra (capital of Australia) so that we can meet friends in Sydney! We stayed in a town with a very large Merino Sheep statue, so we can get to Sydney on time! Post box theme – it doesn’t look like the British post box. We saw a huge cassette player (in front of one of the museums we did not visit) – I don’t think anyone born after 1990’s has ever seen a cassette tape or player. I thought the driver beware sign was unusual. The Aussie road signs are very blunt, they get to the point “Drowsy Divers Die”.
Featherdale Wildlife Park: After driving several thousand kilometers, I am terrible at spotting wildlife (Next time I have to pick up a picture book of Australian wildlife, so I know what to look for – I thought it would be more obvious). We saw wild emus, 2 Koala bears very high in a tree, a skink, and a lot of roadkill (wallabies, well I did see a couple of live ones as well), but we missed a lot of the iconic Australian wildlife. I decided to pay to see them. How can you not see a kookaburra and sing the kooberra song? We should have seen the little penguins at the 12 apostles (smallest penguins in the world). Echidna (lays eggs and gives milk to their young). Kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, and cassowary. I have to see a Tasmanian devil (made famous by the cartoon – Taz) – we didn’t see any at the park.
Sydney: We made it!! Guess who is here – Carol and Mike! I have known Carol since I was 10 years old! On to more adventures! We say bye to Raymond and hello to Carol and Mike!
