There and Back Again - A Bogans Tale pt 1

This was meant to be my last Australian blog (un)fortunately the summary seemed to generate my creative juices and has proved quite long so like Lord of The Rings / Kill Bill and the latest Harry Potter film I am putting it into multiple parts, if its good enough for Quentin Tarentino then its good enough for me. This blog will deal with what happened after I left Perth through to South Australia and back to where it all started in Victoria.

Until the 11th hour I was going to make the final leg of the journey on my own and in hindsight I think I would have preferred that but someone wanted to come along and due to such a late hour there was no time to vet the person so it was one of those gambles that had to be taken. So I headed to pick her up after helping Jess move to Fremantle and after the initial pleasantries and usual small talk I realised I lost this gamble, to start she was French with very little English and when it came to camping/cooking/cleaning she was lacking so it was not the best 3500km (6 days), we also had to stop every hour for her to have a cigarette but all this considered it was her attitude to travelling that really annoyed me. When someone’s English is bad I will try to help them but after speaking to Maida I found out that her main reason of coming to Australia was to improve her English and after 9 months it seemed it didn’t help maybe it’s the fact she has just travelled with French people and I was the first foreign person she had travelled with what I cant believe you come to an amazing country where so many nationalities visit and instead she chooses to travel with the people she lives with. Maida was not the only travel buddy that annoyed me some others did too and seeing as this is my last Oz blog I will name and shame so here goes…..Tim was too stressed and had a dingo attack him, John always being aggravated by Oli and nearly crashed my car when he choked on a crisp, Oli was always winding john up and traumatised me with some stories, Jess had panic attacks over things like a loaf of bread or lack of it and was always crying, Lotte always wanted it planned to a tee and was always crying, Nina was ginger and German and also cried a lot, Bob was too cool and too good with the women, Sal was excessively good at everything, I write all this with a big smile on my face as I had an amazing time with all of them and with saying all that I know the worst person to travel with would be myself so I thank them for giving me entertainment and putting up with me.

After leaving Perth I headed South to the West Coast wine region where the scenery was very green rolling hills with forest and if it was Summer I would have been more inclined to get out and explore the region but the bitter cold put me off so I only got out to take some photos when the scenery seemed interesting. If you were Oz Clarke then this region would be heaven as there is a winery after winery literally every 300-500 meters unfortunately it was not the season and the vine yards were empty. This region is the closest any backpacker gets to some decent wine as the core diet of alcohol with most backpackers is Goon wine. For those who have never heard of Goon it is a cheap wine usually sold in 2 litre boxes and is made from egg, milk and fish extract and after tasting it I can say without doubt it is one of the worst tasting beverages I have had the misfortune of tasting I am just glad I had enough money not to have to drink this but stick to beer. With out an exact plan but with me increasingly wanting to get rid of Frenchy we headed further round and the first stop I wanted to see was the Diamond Tree Lookout. When approaching this point I believed it to be a run of the mill lookout from a high hill/point/lookout that overlooks the adjacent scenery but to my surprise it was much more fun, it was a tree (60 meters tall) with metal rods spiralling up the trunk towards a metallic tree house lookout raising above the canopy so without question I climbed the tree leaving the French girl who surrendered half way up……typical

The rest of the region was pretty much the same heading towards Esperance it did however remind me of Sevenoaks again with the cold and the company I was lethargic to get out the car and do anything even choosing to stay in the car after long periods of driving as the weather was cold and my wardrobe was to say the least not fitting, I am still to this day writing this with it -3 outside wearing flip flops and tee shirts, the Aussies must think I am a Scot! I could tell that Frenchy thought that we were going to fast she was asking to visit places or roads that the Lonely Planet recommend and when I ask what was there she would not know so this was a nice reminder of Jess who also skimmed the Lonely Planet picking seemingly at random places to visit but not knowing what was there. I actually found the ballshit list Jess wanted to visit being used as a book mark whilst cleaning my car and it did bring a smile to my face. The next place where I actually vacated the warm bosom of the car was ‘The Valley Of The Giants’ which was quite like the tree house but this time it was built properly with metal structured walkways over the canopy of the forest in the region. This walkway system allowed us to walk up to 40 meters high through the canopy of the trees looking for……well im not sure what as you couldn’t really see much but seeing as many other couples were snapping away with their cameras I in turn imitated their actions. There is another walk available here and I found this much more interesting it was called ‘Ancient something’ but you walk along the forest floor and in turn walk through trunks of 200 hundred year old trees.

Camping in the region was free so we camped in rest areas or National Parks the only problem being the weather, it was so cold so cold that it was hard to sleep as I couldn’t feel my toes or fingers and this was after I had bought a decent sleeping bag. Once we left the wine region it was time for the worst part of the trip the drive across the nulunbor plain which is around 1400km of nothing but straight road (longest straight road in the world) and add someone who does not speak then it really is a boring trip, I could even go as far as saying it is the most boring road in the world. Even thought this part of the journey was boring there is one thing that happens every day that I will never get bored of and even on a road it still looks beautiful….sunsets. The sunsets will be something that I will miss dearly I have never seen anything like it, the sky is full of clouds that have taken on all manor of pinks and reds, its as if Dulux made a colour brochure for a pimps boudoir and this is just on the east side when you look at the west side as the sun is going down its as if some super geeks from Hollywood have made a CGI special effect as the sky looks like a scene from Independence day with the blue clouds and a great orange yellow light behind it as if that UFO is looming down on us, the pictures I have added on do not do it nearly the justice it deserves.

It took 2 days to cross the plains and at the other side we came across some little towns, towns where you put $2 in a parking meter and you get 3 weeks. One of these little towns has a quarantine checkpoint where they check your car for fruits and vegetables for the dreaded fruit fly, we had some veggies that were due to be stir fried that night in the camp site 25 meters from the checkpoint but after begging the guy to let me take it across the boarder he let me have one carrot im not sure if he was taking the piss. These small towns normally consist of 100-3000 people normally with only two surnames and they go around high sixing everyone.

I was meant to take Frenchy to Melbourne but I honestly couldn’t as every day was so boring and painfully awkward so instead I told her I would only take her to Adelaide and she seemed happy with that also if I had taken her it would have taken 3-4 days extra of me seeing stuff I have already covered. 10 hour drive with no sleep the night before and I was in Adelaide, when you drive into a city you can tell what a city is like and Adelaide looked boring just full of churches and parks thus I didn’t get out of the car and just drove on to the next rest area outside of the city and this was a problem. I didn’t want to spend $23 to sleep in my own car on a patch of grass in a campsite so a rest area is a much better free option the only problem was that I was quite scared as these rest areas are set back around 10-20 meters from the freeway and surrounded by bush and once you get there it is pitch black and all I can think of is some nutter Australian with a knife “call that a knife”? But I wanted to save money so I braved it. I am now in the comfort of a friend’s family having all the trimmings and desert to top it off, after this I head down to Melbourne to try and sell the car party a bit with Geoff, see some friends then head to Sydney to catch my flight to New Zealand on August 16th.

So what can you expect from my rundown of Australia, well just a few of my thoughts on sports, beer, and language with my top places to visit, my Aussie friends would compare this to the Triple J top 100 that every Australian listens to with 8 of his mates on Australia day whilst sipping down a cold one. The rundown is due in high summer (English Summer) like some Hollywood blockbuster this is due August! It has been written and proof read and I can tell you it is a corker!