In a country completely geared up for outdoor activities the rain can become somewhat of a hindrance so we decided to head down to Sydney in order that at least we could find something to do. We waved goodbye to Becky, who was travelling back to Bris-vegas (which, unbeknown to her, was to be where the weather was at it’s most horrendous!) and drove the 800-or-so kilometres South, stopping overnight on the roadside.

Unwilling to relinquish our campervan adventure, we decided on one final foray inland, to the Blue Mountains. We stayed in an odd little town called Katoomba which must have more second-hand book, antique and bric-a-brac stores per capita than anywhere else in Australia. The Blue Mountains are described as New South Wales’ most attractive national park. Unfortunately we can’t really comment on that because when we arrived at Echo Point – the best vantage point to see unique rock formations of the Blue Mountains – the fog was so bad that visibility was down to about 10 yards. Our interest was piqued though, and we came back the next day…to more fog. This time we were granted a brief glimpse and what we saw was indeed magnificent, and on a clear day must be astounding.

The next day we had to give the campervan back which, as is often the case, was when we realised how much we’d become attached to the old rustwagon! It was quite a sad moment. But we soon got over it and checked into a hostel in the district of Kings Cross, which is – if such a thing can be imagined! – like a seedier version of its London counterpart, but is within walking distance of all the city’s major attractions.

On our first night we met up with one of Amy’s friends, Lauren, who had emigrated from London about 5 years ago. We had a great night out with her and she invited us to come out on her yacht on the following Sunday. We didn’t realise at the time, but we has just unwittingly joined a yacht racing team! Okay we were only used as human ballast, and every time the skipper yelled ‘tack’ or ‘jibe’ (sailing terms, you wouldn’t understand) we had to rush frantically to the other side of the boat to balance it out. The race was a real spectacle though; the tilted masts and billowed colourful main-sails of hundreds of yachts cutting gracefully and noiselessly through the water, with sea planes circling above, the odd ferry or small cruise ship, and all against the striking Sydney skyline, the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, which itself looks like a number of sails caught full in the wind. We ended up coming third out of our division of twelve, and went for a few drinks in the sailing club afterwards.

The rest of our time in Sydney we spent wandering round the city taking in the sights. We walked across the giant meccano structure of the Harbour Bridge, saw the Opera House, strolled between the aboriginal buskers and smart cafes of the Circular Quays, through the pristine Royal Botanic Gardens beneath hordes of hanging bats in the trees; we came third in a pub quiz, visited the aquarium, took a bus ride to Bondi Beach, a beach within the city that 35,000 people flock to on a hot summer’s day, even went to a photography exhibition in the library (initially because it was free and out of the rain, but it turned out to be excellent!). Sydney is a marvellous city and has been a perfect ending to the Australian leg of our trip.

Our time in Australia has been absolutely terrific, it was great to meet up with old friends, and the campervan adventure was just that: an adventure. An adventure through some of the most magical landscape on the planet. It truly does have something mystical and ancient about it; you almost fancy you can see dinosaurs rearing their heads on the distant hills. This is a place that we will definitely be coming back to – we’ve barely even scratched the surface – and would recommend in a flash to anybody.

South America is next on the agenda – we have a 17-hour flight to Santiago, Chile tomorrow morning. Better brush up on our Spanish!

St. Lawrence Wetlands – we only decided to stay here because it was free, but were gobsmacked when we turned up to find an almost 360 degree panorama of the flat wetlands with silhouetted mountains in the far distance. We sat and watched the sun go down whilst kangaroos hopped around not 100 yards away and birds of prey wheeled and swooped over the plain.

Fraser Island – this is another must-see on the travelling circuit, and was possibly the highlight of our trip. We did a 2 night 4-wheel-drive self-drive trip to the island, the largest sand island in the world, just off of the coast of Hervey Bay. In our group were an Ozzie couple – who we ended up getting on with famously – and 4 Japanese, only one of whom could speak a word of English; so we communicated through the age-old media of smiles and charades. Fraser Island is basically one big 4WD track which interlinks beautiful freshwater lakes, rangy beaches, unique rock formations, shifting sand dunes, a rusting skeletal shipwreck, and the only pure-bred Dingoes (wild dogs) left in Australia.
The 74k beach doubled up as a road, with ordinary road rules applying. The only difference was that small planes simultaneously used it as a landing strip! Elsewhere on the island the roads were completely unmade which meant the journeys were bone-rattling rides, but the destinations were delightful. The best of which was Lake Mackenzie, a marvellous freshwater lake with unimaginably clear water that was a deep turquoise for the first 20 yards, then fell away into a rich navy blue. It was good enough to drink; like a swimming pool without the chlorine or the sea without the salt.

We also met a British couple – Jamie & Heather – who were not in our group but were staying at the same hostel on Fraser. Jamie was a lawyer, writer, and borderline alcoholic! We all met up back on the mainland and the next two days were lost in a beery haze.

Noosa – a chic little town at the mouth of the Noosa river where the well-to-do launch their yachts from riverside dwellings and power-walking, for some reason, is inexplicably popular. Despite being a patent rip-off of a French Riviera town, it’s not without its charms; boutique designer stores and flash restaurants are en vogue, and there’s a national park with a stunning coastal walk where we saw a koala, a goanna (big lizard) and several – dozen – power-walkers!

Surfer’s Paradise – although not exactly a paradise in the traditional sense – an array of monolithic high-rise blocks and hotels leave it looking more Manhattan than Malibu – the Gold Coast City is still impressive. It boasts the highest residential tower block in the world, with each one being built incrementally taller than the last so as to obtain the lucrative ‘sea-view’. The beach is slightly more paradisical and obviously the waves are ‘gnarly’ enough to attract the eponymous surfers.

We also stopped in Brisbane to meet our friend Becky who had just flown over from England. As anyone who lives in Brisbane will tell you, there’s not much to do. But we went out for a night on the tiles and woke up in a flat inhabited by three Irishmen, about 2 hours away from our campervan! Less said about that the better. Anyway, Becky has been travelling in our ‘van with us for the past few days…

Nimbin – we had absolutely no idea what to expect from Nimbin, a small mountain town 60k inland from the coast, other than it was the site of the launch of hippy culture in Australia. It was perhaps the strangest town any of us had ever been to, inhabited entirely by aged hippies who probably hadn’t been home since the ’60s (or indeed washed!). They would sit outside their rainbow-painted shop fronts, staring into space, grinning, or wandering round in a state of stoned perplexity. Any conversation with them was at best slurred and at worst nonsenical. But – that said – they were really friendly people, and we ended up having a drink with two, River and Frank, who could have been a comedy double-act they were so unintentionally funny. Frank, for instance, was trying to get his guitar out of his car to play us a song. He’d tried every door in the car, including the boot, and was staring befuddled at his key, turning it round in his hands, before someone pointed out that it wasn’t his car! We were in stitches.

Sitting now in an internet cafe in Byron Bay but have only just arrived…to be continued!

We were visited by another stroke of good fortune when we went to the depot. The receptionist ran through our booking: bog standard campervan, with no air-con or power steering. Now, we don’t know if it was because the depot was particularly busy that morning and perhaps the receptionist was getting flustered or something, but we were inadvertently given someone else’s van - with air-con and power steering! Laughing, as we power-steered our way up the twisting Captain Cook Highway, through tropical Queensland, air-con blasting, in the middle of our 6-month tour around the world, with the turquoise expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretched out on our right, we felt like the luckiest people in the world.

Our campervan is definitely more van than camper. It’s just a beaten old VW workman’s van, completely gutted and re-fitted with a table which folds into a bed at night, and a kitchen area at the back. We love it! Which is just as well, as it’s our home for the next four weeks. Embarrasingly though – and bear in mind that we didn’t get to choose the van – it has pictures of magic mushrooms sprayed up the side and the slogan ‘We take drugs to make the world seem normal’ on the back! It draws some funny glances.

Camping in Oz is a great experience. There is so much you can do for free. Such is the uniqeness and diversity of its landscape, there are thousands of national parks; with well signposted walks, view points, picnic areas, toilets and showers, campfires, even gas barbecues – all for free! They even give out free coffee along the highway, as a ‘driver reviver’!

It would take to long to type out all that we’ve done so far, so here are some of the highlights:

Cape Tribulation – this was our first port of call after Cairns, about 3 hours North of the city, in the Daintree Rainforest national park. Our campsite was set in a large clearing in the rainforest, about 20 metres away from which the dense forest abrubtly stopped and the white sand of Myall beach began. The beach was almost deserted and completely undeveloped, there was hardly a soul walking along its 3k length and not so much as a boat in sight. At night you could hear the whisper of the foamy swell as it broke upon it. Cape Tribulation beach itself is a small cove of white sand and crystal clear waters set in the rainforest….This was Amy’s favourite beach to date!

Danbulla State Forest (Lake Tinaroo) – this was pretty special too. Camped on the bank of the great lake, a wall of pine forest on the far bank and with pointed hills as the backdrop. The birdlife around us was an unexpected boon; species of such variety fluttering and splashing about, their chirps and song playing an overture to the ambient serenity. At night we sat under a canopy of stars and gazed at the mountains reflected in the moonlit surface of the lake.

Mission Beach – camped 10 yds from the beach, so that when we opened the back door of the van we could see the the white crested surf rolling in. We met a British couple on our last night and got so drunk on Goon (very cheap wine, about 7 pounds for a 4 litre box!) that we fell asleep on the beach at 3am. One of those fleeting travelling relationships – we’ll probably never see them again!

The Whitsunday Islands – these are one of the main attractions of Oz, and a must-do on the travellers itinerary. We stayed in nearby Airlie Beach and took a day cruise around them. Naturally, as soon as we set out to sea we were blighted by bilious clouds, slashing rain, high waves and heavy winds, which made for a vomit-inducing ride to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, the largest of the 74 that make up the Whitsundays. Thankfully the rain had let off by the time we got there, and not even the weather could denigrate the scene – turquoise sea against snowblinding sand, daubed by the wavy white lines of the water breaking in the mouth of the bay. Truly spectacular.
Afterwards we went snorkelling in the inner Barrier Reef where we saw a kaleidoscope of sealife, chief of which was a [/i]huge[i] blue Maori Wrasse that came right up close, regarding us with one-eyed curiousity. But best of all was that Amy conquered her life long phobia of the sea, and got in snorkelling! With easily the biggest fishes that I’ve ever seen swimming around her!

That’s as far as we’ve come to date. The road has changed from a precipitous rainforest track to plummeting country lanes through roller-coaster dales, to a tediously long and flat highway which shimmers in the distant heat – and we’re not even halfway to Sydney yet.

Phil & Jo (and Floyd the friendliest Staff in the world) emigrated to Australia about 2 years ago, and we hadn’t seen them since. We stayed in their lovely house in Port Adelaide, a suburb about 20 mins from the city centre. The house is a typically Aussie single-storey affair, with palm trees in the front garden, big breezy rooms, a large garden with a veggie patch sprouting everything from lettuce to bell peppers (or capsicums they call them out here), and a garage that Phil is converting into a good ol’ British pub!

Adelaide is in the state of South Australia and is situated on a flat plain contained by the sea to the West and the rolling Adelaide hills to the North. If there’s one thing Australia has in abundance it’s space and this is reflected in the layout of Adelaide. There is no imperative need to build upwards so most of the buildings outside of the city proper are wide and flat; the roads that disect the city have up to 3 or 4 lanes each way and even two tram lines in some places; traffic is pretty much unheard of; there is plenty of parkland and even free parking areas dotted around; massive American-style uber-stores line the city’s in-roads, with such delights as a drive in 24-hour off licence (or ‘bottlo’) and an unusual number of Adult ‘emporiums’!

In between supping cocktails in the sunny garden, eating home-cooked food, barbecues, and boozing in the city, we actually managed to pack a lot of other activities in:

We took a tour to the Maclaren Vale, one of the top 5 wine producing areas in the world. A tour guide met us in the city and we headed out towards the valley. As we drove through parched – SA is the driest state in the driest continent of the world – yet still green woodland the guide imparted various facts about Adelaide (it’s the only city in Oz named after a lady, King William IV’s wife, for instance) and the woodland soon gave way to the undulating hills of the Maclaren Vale, contoured with autumnal grape vines, olive trees and rose bushes (apparently rose bushes are used as an early warning system for crop diseases). During the day we went tasting at 6 different wineries, sampled locally grown olives, had a tour of a winery which explained the whole production process, from picking to bottling, and Amy even managed to talk one of the growers into letting her feed his kangaroo (no, that’s not a euphemism!).

On another day we went to Mt. Lofty, the highest peak in the Adelaide hills. The view of the city from the top was breathtaking – the tree-clad hills fell away below us like fields of brocolli towards the vaulted office blocks and stately museums of the city centre, encased, like a green moat, by a thick belt of parkland. The suburbs splayed outwards, defined by their wide boulevards and in the far distance the sea spread across the horizon. Much to Amy’s pleasure, Mt. Lofty is also home to Clelland Wildlife Park, where she got to partake once again in what is becoming her favourite passtime – feeding kangaroos! The kangaroos, some with little joeys peeking out of their pouches, lounged and hopped around along with wallabies, koala bears, emus, bandicoots, Tasmanian devils and possum, all in a perfect hilltop setting where the trees sported a wintry white sheen under their half-peeled bark.

We also went rambling at the nearby Morialti Gorge. Of course, the rain had figured out where we were by now but, unperturbed, we donned our Pak-a-Maks…and got soaked! It was worth it though, we were rewarded by some awesome views of the layered brown and granite sheer sides of the gorge and saw the year’s first spurts of water trickle their way down the thirsty waterfall. We visited an enormous flea-market that was almost the size of Heathrow’s T5 at the port, where for some reason the water was brimming with jellyfish; we perused the stalls of Central Market (the biggest indoor market in the Southern Hemisphere no less!) where you can buy just about every foodstuff known to man; and of course we went to the beach, which was only about 10 minutes from P & J’s house and had sand that was a soft as silk.

On our last night we went to a live Aussie Rules Football match! Unfortunately the team that we were ‘for’, Port Power, got humiliated 32 – 104 by St. Kilda, a Melbourne team. It’s a great game to watch, played by consummate giants with plenty of crunching collisions, sickening tackles and even the odd punch-up! Best of all though, was when ‘the Port’ were going through a particularly bad spell and some of the supporters around us decided to hurl obscenities at the ref/umpire. One called him a ‘flamin’ turkey’, another ‘a bloody great girl’ and a third even likened his IQ to the number on the back of his shirt (1). Frankly we were disgusted – you’d never hear that sort of language at a football match back home. You should have heard us tutting.

As you can see, we had a busy week at P & J’s. It was a respite from travelling – a home from holiday, so nice to have a few home comforts – a nice bed, warm showers, TV, music, home-cooked food – and really good to see P & J. We were sad to leave at the end of the week (we even put our flight back one day.) but we had to fly to Cairns to pick up our Wicked Campervan tomorrow and begin our journey down the East coast.