Where the f*&k is Alice Springs

To make driving around Australia more economic I need to load the car out with people and then I need to sell it for as near as I have spent on it as possible, the cost of a bus ticket to do the route I have planned would be over $3000 so hopefully I will win! This brings me to the second leg of my journey from Cairns to Alice Springs then North to Darwin, I needed to get as many people in the car as possible well not like a world record attempt 18 people in a car but 3 other people so to split the cost of the fuel etc, I added a advert on line and after a few tweaks on the advert people were lining up to join my on my epic adventure and this posed a new experience…having to say yes to people and no to others it was pretty easy really the better looking you are the more likely you will get a place in the car, I did hope for another guy to balance it out but only one fit the bill and he couldn’t leave until later in April so it was sorted three women, Belgium, Canada and German this was going to be shit or bust as women are notorious for not getting along with each other but so far so good.

The first point on the map to get to was Normanton which was 8 hours away and still not out of the state of Queensland, we arrived there on a public holiday and again 95% of everything was closed EVEN THE PUBS im starting to think the Australians don’t want to work on these holidays, imagine England with people not working on public holidays the country would grind to a halt like when 2 inches of snow falls! Upon finding somewhere to stay it seems the closer you get to the centre the more brainless you get as simple questions like asking a caravan park if they have kitchen facilities so we can cook gained me a look like I had just spoken Cantonese with my pants round my ankles…..”There is a restaurant which is closed” was the answers so I gave up pretty quickly hoping she would have some knowledge of the surrounding area so it was pretty much go to bed!

The next day of driving was only 6 hours and when I say 6 hours I mean 6 hours of the most boring driving ever, the road is straight and there is nothing for miles but things do get interesting like when we see 2 cars in a row or when we have to over take a road train. A road train for those not in the know are 50-60 meter trucks that drive the length of the country transporting goods and they take over 1 km to stop! 6 hours to Mount Isa and this was a bigger town than Normanton mainly due to the immense mine there. Factoid for you the Mayor got in trouble for inviting ‘beauty disadvantaged’ women to come and live here to take advantage of the majority male population. We hit a problem here as did every other backpacker who was driving as the dorms were full with people trying to get there car fixed…..yes the car had a problem when driving it was wobbling my worst fears set in when I tried to jack the car up for the body to go up but the wheel didn’t PLEASE DON’T LET THE SUSPENSION BE BROKE was my prayer to Zeus’s beard but I jacked it on the leaf spring and found that the wheel was not round so time for my first tyre change now im waiting for Darwin so I can get a cheaper spare but all fine now!

Next day I had another good drive another 7 hours of nothing but least we crossed into a new state Northern Territories and this time Tennant Creek was the stop and we had been warned about this place that it was not safe to be walking around at night and maybe even in the day, I had also been warned to hide my jerry can of fuel and even put Diesel stickers on my fuel cap as the residents will try and steal my fuel. This brings me to another observation, the closer you get to the centre the less white people there are the more aboriginals there are and I would like to say that some of them shout and abuse you walking down the street and I have even been warned that if they walk in the middle of the road to head straight for them as if you stop they will rob you. I would like to say that some of them especially the larger women variety do look like Gorillas so much so if there was a mist I would have likened myself to Sigourney Weaver in ‘Gorillas in the Mist’. The white population in the centre also start to get different they get weirder like scary weird I can see why they don’t live on the coast as they probably would be in prison as most of them remind me of characters such as Fred West, Ian Huntley and Harold Shipman as they all have that look of a serial killer. Apologies to anyone offended if you live in the centre but these are only my observations of who I had met.

Next day 6 hours of driving but woo hoo there was something to see on the way, the Devils Marbles cue joke about the Devil being brain-dead anyway this was a section of outback with large boulders scattered in random formations as if they had been thrown down by the Gods themselves, I have actually seen something like this before in a place called Hampi in India, we spent a good hour taking pictures but had to leave when I saw a spider with an abdomen the size of an egg and fangs the size of tooth picks so I retreated to the relative safety of the car. We made it to Alice Springs the nearest town to Uluru (Ayres Rock) where we will set about on a 3 day tour sleeping under the stars in the outback and having a sing song around the campfire. As a side note I am undertaking a personal challenge of not having my haircut for 6 months so far been 3 months nearly got to tramp city but not yet but will do the beard whilst in South America so that I look poor!

1st night in Alice Springs we had someone try and break into the room whilst we were there so heres hoping the car will still be there once I come back.....

End of The East

Quite a bit to get through on this one as I have left it so long so long in fact that I have even left the East coast and embarked on the next leg of my Australian odyssey.

We completed the Fraiser Island trip alive and with a quite a few acquaintances that we would carry on meeting all the way to the final destination some of these were nice people some drained the life out of me but it was good to keep seeing them, we headed for Bundaberg which is famous for its rum and upon looking at the town I figured they must have all been drinking it whilst in pregnancy as every other person looked like they should be on that special blue bus to school. We did a tour of the rum factory it showed us how they made and stored the rum they also gave us free samples. We decided not to stay the night here as we wanted to get as close to Arlie beach as possible so we carried on driving and ended up in a place I think was Rockhampton but I cant quite remember the good thing about this place was the owners were friendly and the dorms were clean and comfy just what you need after a prolonged period of driving, this place was only a stop over so in the morning we grabbed our shit and headed for Arlie….Arlie beach is the launching point to get to the Whitsundays which are a group of islands in front of the great barrier reef which have been voted best beaches in the world and you may even remember Hamilton Island as this was the job Australia opened to the world to become the caretaker and earn a stupid amount of money to live and work on a beautiful island. We arried in Arlie Beach on Good Friday GREAT we thought we can have a good night and see one of our friends off, NO we cant Queensland rule is on Good Friday you can only be permitted into a pub/bar if you buy a meal and then you are only allowed in there for 2 hours, now can you imagine this rule anywhere in the UK? You thought the Poll Tax riots were bad this would be like the end of days Threshers and Oddbins would be trashed but like I say some parts of Oz are 15 years behind the UK like only buying alcohol in specific licensed places where in England you probably could pick up a six pack in a garden centre now.

The Whitsundays turned into the Wetsundays was the weather was awful for us and the group was not quite as good as the Fraiser group but there were some gems among the people, I had to brave the rain as for the first time in my life I was sea sick on this sailing boat so my choices were sit down in the cabin where I would all likely of thrown up or don the rain jacket and sit on deck……I chose the deck where instantly I was not a fan of sailing. Why spend so much money on a boat to work to get it where you want it to go? I’m more the type who would rather be on a yacht with a few Victoria’s secret models on board sipping Mai Tais. We saw the Whitsundays and Whithaven beach which was nice looking but as the weather was so awful I didn’t really care for it. Some of the crew were great on this boat but one of the skippers in training was a bit full on for some people and you have to remember this was a sail boat with all mixes of age and to be roll called in the morning to “GET UP YOU MOTHER FUCKERS” was not everyone’s idea of Earl Gray! It was quite funny reading some of the peoples feedback comments but we all knew they would sift through them and remove them but one of the people actually went down and complained to the office. We had an after party which I thought would not be as good as it turned out but the obnoxious crew member turned out and started asking why we had complained and actually tried to start a fight on the person who complained to his boss……..long story short he got arrested that night and then lost his job.

Sometimes the best parts of the trips are gambles our mission was Cairns but we had to stop off on the way as nothing is near each other in Australia why couldn’t they have built it all in one corner? We stopped off in Townsville which was a massive dump and the place we stayed in was basically for down and outs. The next morning was the choice to head further North to Cairns or go to Magnetic Island putting us off was the cost of 80 bucks each way to get the car over but we decided what the heck and headed off via ferry 8kms later we were on Magnetic Island and probably one of my favourite places on the East Coast it had a mix of Thailand and Middle India as the Island was quite tropical with lots of boulders scattered along its shores. Becoming one of the best places on the East Coast needs every element to work in its favour, we had the beautiful Weather we stayed in a great hostel and we had the great nights. Overall we won 150 bucks worth of free beer and I think in the end they were glad we left as we were so dominant kind of like Liverpool in the 80s and Manchester United in the 90s we took every competition seriously. First night was Ladyboys night where all the men who dressed up got free ‘Champagne’, I put Champagne in inverted comers as it was more like Goon wine with orange juice. We headed to the Op Shop (Charity shop) and bought our outfits with the intention to win and headed back and got some Norwegian girls to do our makeup……..well we were by far the prettiest of them all and Oli who was dressed like Big Bird from Sesame Street won first prize which gave us our first taste of victory. The next competition was Bar Wars where teams have to compete in a series of bar games to win the prize, we sent out secret weapon OLI into the battlefield. Let me tell you why he was our secret weapon he has duel nationality and is getting job seekers allowance from the Australian government despite never paying taxes over here so when something was free he was all over it like priests on school boys. Oli ran amok in the musical chairs even enjoying it this won us 50 bucks, the egg catching event we put a girl in and needless to say girls cant catch the next was clothes line which we did ok but the sex positions in one minute we sent Oli back into the battlefield and he won that giving us 1st and another 50 bucks.

Next stop Carins and to be fair there is not really that much going on up here its just drinking and diving. I did do a 11 dive live aboard on the great barrier reef which was so tiring but I got to dive with Bull Rays, White tip reef sharks, Giant sea turtles, Nurse Sharks to name but a few, the highlight was the night dive however as it was my first night dive I had to dive with the learning group who kept crashing into me and kicking me as they did not know what they were doing but other than that it was one of the best dives of my life as we were surrounded by sharks point the light away and they would come closer point it at them and they would go away if only Chief Brody had taken a torch when trying to get Jaws it would have been a lot easier. We had a good time in Cairns and this is the place I had to say goodbye to my friends as this is their last stop but its one of my first.

To conclude on the East Coast my favourite places were Sydney, Coffs and Magnetic Island but what I was disappointed with on the East Coast were the travellers if I can actually call them that many of the people are 18-20 and have chosen the East to travel as it is pretty piss easy as its all English so to me they are not real grubby open travellers, a lot of the people especially the girls have brought their arrogant ignorant views and social skills with them where as in Asia people were much more open to being approached and making friends. I have been told by people that the West coast is lot better in regards to travellers as they are the people who actually want to see stuff and not get drunk every day they are also a bit older in the 24-26 bracket.

Well that’s all for now I’m leaving Eastside and heading Westside via central and north and as a sneak peek for the next one I am travelling with 3 girls in the car now probably not much difference to the Eastside crew but it will either be really good or really bad. Made it half way to Alice Springs lets hope the next half is just as uneventful!

Till the next time.

Camp it up

Noosa Heads was the place I left you all at and at the time it was not a good place due to the hassle with trying to find somewhere to stay we did however have one big night out in the hostel and that redeemed Noosa in my opinion as it was an amazing night but we did have to say auf viedesan to Noosa and continue on our way.

We travelled backwards not normally the way to do it but it was to see Australia Zoo which was the zoo run and owned by the legendary Steve Irwin, you may remember him from such titles as Crocodile Hunter 1-8 and Top Deadliest Animals, the zoo was 55 bucks for entry and was worth every penny as we got to interact with the animals like feeding and petting the kangaroos who have the easiest life of any other kangaroo, they just lie there get petted and get fed, another interaction was touching a koala it was a bit like a velvet fur and he didn’t seem to mind being touched.

Next stop was a trip to Rainbow bay where we hung out on the beach for a few hours, the problem with Australia is that everything is so god damn far 3 hours is close 8 hours is the normal drive to the next decent place so unless we are going to bed down in a place we generally have to keep moving so from Rainbow bay we continued to Hervey Bay which was where we were going to bed down and book a tour of Fraiser Island………….

Fraiser Island was created by 800,000 years of drifting sands and is like no where else on Earth, it is also known as K’Gari or Paradise by the local Abbo’s. The island is rich with crystal clear lakes and rivers and is quite hard to imagine that it is atop of a pile of 120km of sand. The island does pose some hazards as people die and get injured there quite often, the swell around the island is brimming with Tiger Sharks and the rip tides are outright incredible so any entry into the water was at the persons own risk so I opted for ankle depth. The oceans are also full with jelly fish and you didn’t even have to get into the water for them to sting you as the stingers were all over the beach……so if Dr Pepper did trips to Fraiser Island ‘whats the worst that could happen?’ You go swimming a rip (under current) takes you out to sea you get stung by a jelly then you get eaten by a shark. Not all dangers were in the sea the island is populated by Dingos which are wild dogs which are sort of native to Australia but were in fact brought over hundreds and thousands of years ago I think from PNG but check Wiki as I could be wrong. The ultimate danger though is the human in the 4x4, due to the island being made of sand you need to hire a off road vehicle to navigate the island and many deaths occur from foolish driving which result in the jeeps being rolled but as you can tell from this blog I survived and I have a tale to tell.

The worst thing about booking these sort of trips is the group, a bad group can make even the most charming of places seem like hell, imagine paying to stay at the most expensive hotel in the world then realising someone annoying is there like Jordan or Kerry Katona it would ruin it but on the other hand a great group can make a crap place amazing. The groups were of 8 or 9 in one vehicle and in my opinion our group was made up of the best.

1. Me
2. John (Travel Buddy)
3. Tim (Also Travel Buddy)
4. Miriam (Attractive Swed)
5. Jo (As above)
6. David (Guitar man)
7. Victoria (Attractive Dane)
8. Sandra (As above)

From our group there were 3 other groups who also were of quality stock although they didn’t quite have the get up and go as our group. Room in the 4x4 was limited this was probably due to the 5 boxes of goon, bottle of Smirnoff , 15 cans of alchopop and the 90 beers that we needed to fit in. Once all our safety stuff was done we then had to go shopping for food which we let the girls do and this probably attributed in the weight loss I have suffered as a consequence, im sure all the celebs will be on the ‘Fraiser Island Weight Loss Diet (FIWLD)’ very soon basically its one full meal a day with the rest of the day being carrots or apples with lots of walking involved.

The company gave us a guide and the first day we went to Lake Wabby look out then down to the lake where we doned our boxers and took a dip in the refreshing lake, next was to the campsite where we had to all set up, when I say campsite I mean behind the dunes with no facilities so number 2’s were shovel in hand and find a spot to dig **please note the FIWLD is not good for stemming the flow of digestion**.

Night time approached and so did the Dingos but in all honesty after the talk from the company they made them out to be like Hound of the Baskervilles who would literally eat your face off given the chance in reality they are just scrounging dogs. The night also kicked off some drinking games and some sing songs………….

Next morning we headed off to Indian Head which we climbed and tried to see sharks or mantas but all I saw was a turtle. One of the girls decided to have a paddle in one of the pools there but a wave swept her around the perceived safeguard of the rocks and bang she was in a rip, lucky she recovered only slightly shaken. Next was to Champagne pools which are pools but as the waves come over they create a fizzing effect hence the name, I loved this part as the water was so salty it made me very buoyant and floating was effortless. This day we visited a ship wreck on the beach and also a creek but these were pretty boring in my view.

Night two and it was pretty much the same as number one but more drunk but an event did happen during the early hours of the morning while all were slumber, Tim was savagely attacked by a Dingo in the tent so how did he handle it? Like the safety video showed us (stay calm) NO he let out a ‘death cry’ from the pit of his stomach something akin to the end of the NZ hakka and lashed out with his feet at the foul beast (please note the prevailing screams were heard by David who was in the truck and all the other tents surrounding ours who made the split decision to do fuck all), it was a fight for life with the adrenaline soaring ‘fight or flight’ kicked in Tim still roaring from the belly crying out “DINGO” carried on kicking until he heard the Dingo speak “You pair of fucking idiots” it shouted at Tim, turned out it was the wet end of Johns sleeping bag that had touched Tims feet and in sheer terror he believed the Dingo’s wet nose was nuzzling at his toes looking for a tasty treat. Johns response to being kicked repeatedly in the chest was to accuse Tim and I of conducting a prank to scare the shit out of him which to be fair is quite likely, where was Chris I hear you ask when all this commotion broke out in camp, well I was 12 inches away sound asleep completely oblivious to the nights event.

Next stop Arlie Beach for the Whitsundays 3 day boat trip to some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, just hoping for an amazing group as before.