National Lampoons: Road trip to Broome

A great band once sang ‘go west life is peaceful there’ so I have and below is what has happened so far.

My next stint across the great land that is known as Australia is my road trip from Darwin down to Broome this again is quite a large distance which will take over 20 hours but is only an inch on the map, and for this I have recruited a new face for the journey: Bob from Holland who looks a bit like Dirk Kuyte….fortunately for me I still had two of the old new gang still with me although I do think it is because of the cheapness of the travelling and not my company or wit that has kept them with me however I was excited about Western Australia which covers 1/3 of Oz and is 10x bigger than England as I have been told it is much more relaxed and the majority of the backpackers are older so fingers crossed. I am now about half way around the ‘big loop’ here and am on time however I do need to take some more time to get to Perth as it is starting to get cold and I know I have been moaning about the humidity and temp in Darwin and the North but I just had rain today all day (16/5) and it was a stark reminder of how depressing rain and clouds are.

The theme for this trip was camping so to enable me to spend less money with that I took the girls down to B W (sort of like a super Woolworths) to get the camping gear they would need also giving them the advice I had been given earlier on my travels however this fell on death ears when it came to paying a little bit more but more on that latter. There are many places to camp throughout Australia whether it be in a free rest stop, in a national park or in a camp site so I left Darwin without a plan of where to stay compared to the Alice trip where everything was planned to the last detail this either makes people more excited or scared but being a professional non planner this was like second nature to me so I reassured the team that “all would be well and what’s the worst that can happen” to which the girls thought that those words must have been someone’s last words.



The first place we stopped was Litchfield national park which is around 2 hours away and is on par with Kakadu but is more assessable with 2WD again this is a problem as many of the best places to visit or roads to drive are not sealed or have rivers cutting through them so a 4WD would be amazing to have as I would be able to go anywhere but this would bring its own hazards as we are quite safe on the highway but on unsealed roads with no reception and a broken vehicle is the difference between life and death. It does seem like all the national parks have the same thing but I decided that this road trip I would take longer and see more instead of constant driving so we visited the water falls, rock pools and swam in the billabongs which were croc free for the day, many of the falls have swimming and many people decide to climb to the top and ‘tombstone’ into the water below however this is not my thing as people don’t often know of the hidden rocks and they end up paralysing themselves so I opt out of that same reason I didn’t get a Thai Massage in Bangkok I like my back working if its not broke don’t try and fix it. Litchfield is a very dry place sparse of green and is full of termite mounds, thousands cover the site and they range in sizes from traffic cone size to 10 meters tall. Litchfield is a relatively small national park when compared to its sister Kakaduu it’s only the size of Ireland.







After a refreshing swim the girls and Bob had their first taste of ‘camping’ and the advice I gave them to buy a 4 person tent for the three of them now seemed a good idea well worth the extra 10 bucks, the only way to describe the three of them in their three birth tent was like fat guy with thong on (cramped). The camping was cheap only $6.60 each which we didn’t even need to pay as the ranger did not come round, the only thing I can say about camping though is that it is boring as you generally have to set up camp before nightfall then eat by then its 19:00 and there is not much too do unless you have booze or the Swedish National Bikini Team in the next site so camping is a bit boring. After we left Litchfield we busted through the boarder from Northern Territories into Western Australia…well less busted more searched and checked: drugs, illegal immigrants, booze, pornography, dead hookers in the boot, Rolf Harris DVD’s I hear you ask………NO!! There is much worse contraband around like fruit, honey, vegetables’ and seeds stuck to our flip flops, I honestly thought that I was going to be cavity searched it was that serious, however the Dutch guy was not too bothered but he is Dutch after all……is jam ok is marmalade safe shit is my nutella safe swirled in my mind oh my god it reminded me of Bali airport where the death penalty is mandatory for being a mule, I am surprised they didn’t have sniffer dogs specially trained to find the deadly egg plant or highly toxic sunflower seed! Well Mr Jobs Worth he didn’t check every bag and we had two bananas, we are surely on Australia’s most wanted right now and I can expect them to make the next series of Underbelly* about this incident…….Underbelly: The man from Del Monte – International fruit smuggler




Driving these long distances people do not understand how tiring it can be as I do not have the luxury of closing my eyes for 5 seconds let alone the ¾ of the journey the rest of them close their eyes while the rest of the time they read their books so when I drive a stint of 10 hours when I get to the campsite set up the tent cook dinner I am exhausted and generally want to go straight to bed but when I do I get called antisocial or grumpy. In the last blog I commented how the people I travelled with have to go to the car umpteen times in the night to get stuff they have forgot so with me going to bed at 18:30 I decided to let them have the car keys a move I later regretted and the only way to describe it is like in the story Pinocchio where he becomes a real boy and goes to the carnival and runs amok the boot which was 3 feet away from my tent must have been opened at least 25 times with the last being at 02:00 WHAT THE HELL DO THEY WANT AT 0200??? I didn’t even ask as it would have been something ridiculous. In this second camp ground we got to camp 50 feet from freshwater crocodiles which we got to see being fed but don’t worry the Australian says they are only freshwater they wont attack……..Its a bloody crocodile I don’t care if it prefers salt or freshwater if its got more teeth than the Jackson family then I don’t want to camp near it without rangers with 12 gauges guarding me! Lucky for me one of the girls is always happy-go-lucky and accommodating to my moods and it’s never long before I get brought around with her 24/7 happiness. When driving long distances with out any stimulating conversation (e.g. “Start a conversation” Jess: “I ate 7 kiwis once and was sick….but I don’t blame the kiwi”) you start to think a lot and I think I might have worked out why I am not having the best* time during the last few trips, its because I have not met a ‘mate’ and I don’t mean making noises or flapping my coloured feathers I mean a mate like Jay and Eddy in Thailand or Geoff and Gav in India or Hally/Jess/Tony/Nea in Cammy B or John/Oli/Tim in East coast I need that person you can have a crack with who is much like you……….I need to meet some English! *With that said the girls are quite good to travel with and Jess will probably carry on travelling with me until Perth so I can’t be all bad and I am having a good time experiencing a different kind of travelling.




The next day Colombo Sherlock and the doctor from Diagnosis Murder decided we should only drive 3 hours to Kunnuroo and camp there so we can go to a Rodeo cue whip crash sound and ‘yea haa’ We explored everything Kunnuroo had to offer with its markets and town centre so with 25 minutes wasted we went back to the camp site and the girls and Bob went to swim where I tried to have a well earned cat nap. Another problem with camping is that you cant get into the tent in the day and sleep its like walking into a pre heated oven (fan assisted) so I laid the sleeping foam mat on the grass and tried to get a couple of hours before the big event that night well after 20 minutes of broken sleep I awoke thinking I was on a slip and slid mat I actually had to shake the mat of my sweat so with that feeling dizzy from losing half of my body water I went with the others to the pool to cool down which is where I met the first English person who was half decent the first since the Whitsundays. The Rodeo was everything you would expect line dancing bad clothes and the smell of cow pat and that was just us! The speaker on the tannoy was incoherent much like the tannoy on the tube stations so we had to get the jist of it ourselves how long can the man stay on the bull and to be fair they were not that good see I have stayed on the mechanical bull for a good full 120 seconds on the ‘shit scared’ setting so I was not that impressed when a lot of them fell off 3 secs after the gates opened 1 second before I got the camera recording! The event was full of the people you would expect but it was a good night and well worth $15.






That night was a washout no not the Rodeo but it rained all night and I forgot to put the water cover on the tent so I was in the car and the other three stayed in their leaky tent….alas our love affair with camping ended with that night and had to beg and seduce the manager of the next stops motel to drop his $50 buck a night each to $35 which she did so we could have a bed. With a room to ourselves we charge up the million electrical items every backpacker/flash packer has, lucky for us the motel has a multitude of plug sockets unlike the bloody hostels which have a measly 2 sockets for 8 people. One thing I have noticed about the West Coast is that there is so many French people this maybe because we are camping but I am getting quite concerned about how many there are as they tend to be the rudest…..however there are no English people seeing one is a unusual as it seems to be French and German.



Before Broome we went to Geikie National park to see its gorge which was a 2 hour trek then along the river bed where we got to see more crocs……see photos below but really it is pretty much the same thing in Australia and the drives are becoming less rewarding as I have seen all this before in every other state the only one I think that might be quite different would be Tasmania but we will see.









We finally got to Broome and the caravan park that I was recommended as it was very social we were told by others that it was disgusting soooo we ended up on another campsite which was cheaper so it all worked out in the end. The trouble with me getting to Broome was the one thing I wanted to do was the ‘staircase to the moon’ which I could have missed by a day and would then have to wait a month for the next one but luckily I only have 10 days to wait so figuring I will never be here again I will chill out for 10 days here reading and relaxing so I can see this wonderful event.

Broome is famous for its 80 mile beach called Cable beach, this beach is one of the nicest I have seen it has white sands and azure sea its famous for its sunset and for the low tides at full moon where the moon reflects on the mud flats and creates the illusion that there is a stairway to the moon. Stinger season is just about ending so unlike Darwin we are actually allowed to enter the sea. Broome is a very small town but has some cool little cafes and bars but it is very expensive here, I am expecting that the entire places bar Perth on the West Coast will be expensive as it is much less built up compared to the East.





Some of the activities coming up in the coming months will be: Fruit picking, swimming with Whale Sharks, cage diving with Great Whites and skydiving but with 10,000 km clocked up and 13,000 more to go there is still much more to tell.

*To my English chums Underbelly is the only good show to come from this place as it portrays famous Oz criminals in a glamorous light.

Enjoy work everyone

My theory of evolution

Darwin what is there to say about the capital of the Northern Territories the sea is a no go area thanks to a year long supply of box jellyfish and if they don’t get you then the saltwater crocodiles will eat you the beach is lovely and the sunset is even more gorgeous overlooking the Timor sea but beyond that there is not really a great deal to this hot and humid place, it reminds me of a holiday resort with people rarely moving past Mitchell Street (Bar Street) or leaving the confines of the swimming pool during the day. A scouser in my room (reminds me I should check my stuff is safe) has literally only been 4 doors down in either direction from the hostel and asks me every morning if I am going to the pub with him. Darwin has a multitude of nights that take all shapes and sizes from ‘Tits out Tuesday’ to ‘Ladies night Thursday’ and I think this is one of the reasons I have decided to hold off looking for a job here that and the fact its quite hard from what I have seen, people are literally on the breadline with their last few hundred dollars looking for work as their flight home is in 6 months time and if they are not getting work no one is. I have got the car full again and am embarking on a more camping style trip through Litchfield national park and the Kimberley’s towards Broome however I am wondering how this will go down with two of the girls from the last road trip I give it one night before I hear the nagging/moaning/complaining/fault-finding about camping.







With not a lot happening in Darwin I have instead put a funny observation that every backpacker can relate too.

Say what you will about people who play guitar on a backpacking trip, but there is no denying: IT IS A PLOY*.But wait, there are people that just really love music. Some of them can play guitar and they want to share their talent with the world. I don’t believe it for a second. Not while backpacking. Carrying a guitar around while traveling is a huge hassle. Who actually travels with a guitar? It immediately puts you into excess baggage everywhere. They are fragile, and temperature/humidity sensitive. They do it to get laid.

It works. I’ve seen it. So has every backpacker. Some dude whips out a guitar at a beach/campground fire or in a hostel common area and proceeds to strum some of the lamest shit detectable by the human ear. Nevertheless, because most girls love musicians and manage to overlook the ugliness (or fatness/dreadlocks/dirtiness/awful hipster style) of supposedly talented (or, in other cases, wealthy) men, these guitarists indeed kill women softly… with their song. It’s a classic case of guys batting out of their league (i.e. score girls who would otherwise ignore them completely). It’s unlikely, but it happens. It’s similar to how Tottenham beat Arsenal recently.



While the perpetrators might not be wearing ski sweaters, they offend with covers of the usual suspects: Ben Harper, Newton Faulkner, Jack Johnson, Bob Marley, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, RHCP, Nirvana, Radiohead, Oasis (esp. “Wonderwall”), James Blunt, etc. (I left out John Mayer and Santana because usually the dickheads can’t figure out the tuning.)




The best part? The guys’ game faces as they belt out the lyrics, often with their eyes closed. Priceless.

Some of these guys, however, don’t even play well. For example, there’s that scene in Role Models where the one guy brings a guitar on the camping trip and starts playing a song, only to screw it up, stop and start over again repeatedly. (In between each song is a healthy beenou about how “my band back home puts on one hell of a show.” Well sir, I have news for you. It doesn’t. Your band back home sucks. That’s why no one’s heard of you, you’re playing power chords poorly, and you resort to just tapping the guitar and bobbing your head to cover the parts you don’t know.)

*Ploy (noun): A display of fake talent, intelligence or compassion performed in order to impress members of the opposite sex, and ultimately, to get laid. Men, particularly those on major sex droughts, are more likely to resort to ploys. Common backpacker ploys include: volunteering for NGOs; speaking a foreign language; being good with children and animals; caring about art, religion, world politics, the environment, feminism, gay rights, local inhabitants, and people with disabilities; disapproving of wild partying, drug use and promiscuity; and playing guitar.

The West coast is more chilled relaxed and apparently less backpackers….only time will tell

Out There and Back

When travelling you have much time to ponder and time is the theme of this first part as I have realised that no matter how bad or boring the places seem I know that once that moment is gone it is gone forever and looking back at that time I always wish I could be back there I guess you only remember the good parts of a trip and not the bad, it has been over 7 months since I have started travelling and the time for me has completely flown by but how is it for you have you all missed me or have I become just a distant memory of long ago much like swine flu?. In the 7 months I have travelled thousands of miles across earth have driven over 7500 km for a total of 68 hours added 145 more friends spent over £10,000 (car was £2000) been to 8 countries created one road kill and drank countless beers of all types and I never want this to end so I am seriously considering creating a registered charity to fund my trip!

I am putting a picture of me circa 2009 b.t (before travelling) and a recent picture of me to show that travelling has aged me and I think for the better, I am slowly making the transformation into traveller the long hair is coming along with it even getting in my eyes now although it does look like someone has frisbee’d road kill on my head only will I cut it when someone asks what kind of marsupial is on my head, the beard is getting bushier my wrist is full of beads and bracelets and im even contemplating getting rid of my trainers for walking boots, when I come back I may even just sell the big issue as I suspect I will look the part.

Now that is over I will tell you what I have been up to…..the good thing about having a car is that it gives me more freedom and a bigger space for stuff but it can also cause some problems as it poses the question when you get to somewhere ‘To tour or not to tour’ I could probably have done Uluru national park in my car and that would of made it cheaper and I would have had more control over my itiniery but then you don’t get to meet different people and have the knowledge of the tour guide explaining everything of how it was formed and what the art means so paid our $300 and joined the tour which was 2 nights camping and 3 days we were joined by mostly people from Switzerland and Germany with some South Korea and Slovenia thrown in for good measure overall the group was ok the Germans can be quite hit or miss and the Koreans normally keep to themselves and another problem when you have a group of people who can all speak the same language they will speak that even though you are the only person sitting at the table not understanding a single word. I am not sure whether I am blessed or unlucky as I forgot to tell you that the ‘Red Centre’ is not so red at the moment we may be one in ten thousand people who will get to see the centre as it is at the moment as we have arrived after the most amount of rain in 50 years so much so that they have enough water for the next 5 years so the area is lush with vegetation making it more the ‘Green Centre’ so I cant work out if I feel cheated out of seeing the redness of the outback or blessed for seeing something not a lot of other people have not seen.

The Kings Canyon was the first place we visited and it was a big canyon and we swam in a billabong yep that’s it it was pretty and a hard walk but that is all there is to say about that one, after that we headed to our camp collecting fire wood along the way and camped beside a raging fire as the nights in the centre are freezing with the days being scorching. When camping in the outback the first thing you notice at night is the sky full of stars like you have never seen before it is a wondrous moment to actually see the milky way not the chocolate bar but the galaxy. Due to the lack of artificial light shooting stars are also very easy to see just look at the same spot for 5 mins or so. Up at 0500 so we can see the sunrise at Uluru as you can imagine it was freezing and we were all really tired but the views were spectacular we could also see a lesser known rock which is actually bigger than Uluru Mount Connor resembles a red Table Mountain but as it is not as pretty as Uluru it does not get any of the adulation. Uluru was as you can imagine it was an awe inspiring symbol that cries out Australia watching it from sun set to sun down seeing all the colours changing every 5 minutes was as close to pure magnificence as you can get. The next day we had the chance to climb the rock if it was open and considering it is only open to climb around 30-50 days per year we were bang out of luck as the winds at the summit were too strong so our other plan was to walk 10km around the base whilst the sun was rising which to be fair was ok at best as at the base you can not distinguish that it is Uluru from the base but one good moment at the base was looking into the rock and it seems like it throbs moving back and forth not sure if this is due to the early start lack of breakfast sugar or all three! Valley of the wind was one of my favourite places it was a 3 hour walk through the valley with many red rocks either side and the end result was the ‘million dollar lookout’ which due to the rain season was amazing.







Our guide told us all the stories of the aboriginal people who settled by the rock and how there are mens areas and women’s areas and how a evil dingo spirit was summoned by the neighbouring tribe because they were put down by the other tribe and how when the dingo spirit entered the men’s areas 4 men dropped down dead, now I for one am more like Scully than Mulder and I need proof so I asked:
“Well we know its not an evil spirit so was it just another man from the other tribe or something that we can believe” No, according to the guide it was an evil dingo spirit still so I guess that is another X Files opened.






On the way home this should have been the most uneventful part but it was full of fun as we all heard one of the Swiss girls scream some incoherent words that no one even her husband could not recognise and after a few seconds she told us we lost a wheel on the trailer so pulling over we saw it was running on the rim and so we all got to work as we didn’t have the tools to fully repair it so we had to find a large log and put it under the wheel and drive the trailer forward to get it raised and then flag down some people who had the right sized equipment and jack to lift the trailer lucky for us in Australia people are ready and willing to help and in the end we had 4 people pulled over helping out or just talking to us, its funny when being in one of these situations I forgot to fill up my water bottle and subconsciously you start thinking who you would eat first if it came to it………….I decided the rude Germans kill two birds and all that. We got back ok just a bit late but still had time for our after party which would have been better had the music not been a local Baltic band which to me sounded like I was at a Jewish wedding. We drover out latter the next day as we went back to the Devil’s Marbles for the sunset which meant we had to stop off in Tenant Creek where again we were told not to walk around at night as we would probably be stabbed so it was a nice reminder of London and it was good advice as someone had to be air lifted out as they were stabbed in the throat.

When you have new people in the car you can re-use your old jokes as if they are new but before that can happen you have to gauge whether they can handle said jokes or revise them because of your audience and straight off the bat I had to cut out short jokes (Lotte), Ginger jokes (Nina), women jokes (all), Canadian jokes (Jess) and German jokes (Nina also) so there goes like half of my best stuff but sometimes there are just times when something is too good to let go……..like explaining to Nina that a Boomerang is just a Frisbee for ginger people BA DUM BOOM! To be fair she didn’t quite understand it and thus had to explain that they don’t have friends and have to play Frisbee on their own which took the sting out of the joke. A big difference travelling with girls is that when we arrive at a place instead of taking everything in one trip everything you will need I literally get hounded every hour as they want something else from the car they are also much more untidy than men even with Oli in the car.

So now up to Darwin am only 3 hours away as of writing this and need to get a job but so is every backpacker so I have a feeling it may be like a white man trying to get a farm job in Zimbabwe. Wish me luck.