Hello all, hope everyone is good and well. I left you in my last blog the night before leaving for my road trip from Sydney to Melbourne, so we will pick up there. Wednesday 6th October, I had an early start rising at 5:15am, packing up my bag, saying my farewell's to Ed and Lorna and catching the 6am bus from Randwick down into Sydney central to meet up with the OZ Experience bus for 7am. I arrived in plenty of time and had time to grab a croissant and a cuppa. The bus arrived and within 10min's we were off heading towards our first stop of the day, Australia's capital Canberra. Canberra is not really on many people's itinerary when travelling round OZ and I was to find out why, not your normal lively, vibrant capital city and I am sure most people who have been to Canberra will definitely agree. You would think that Sydney or Melbourne should have been the capital but for those that know the Australian history you will know that there was a huge feud between Sydney and Melbourne for who should take the title of 'Capital City' as neither city would back down an agreement was come to that a 'new' city would be built half way between the 2 cities, this city was Canberra, here 'Parliament House' was built and crowned the capital of Australia. Anyway, boring facts out of the way, we had a 2-3 hour journey to Canberra, it was still early the bus was quiet, I say quiet 'Uncle buck' was far from quiet. Uncle Buck, or as we later found James, was our tour leader for the next 3 days. Buck was a true Aussie from Sydney and had been driving tour buses around the world for over 7 years, he was knowledgeable on Australian history and had plenty to say but was also a true Aussie male, loud, crude and funny. We had 12 in the group and had a range of nationalities, German, Austrian, Swiss-German, Scottish, Italian, Israeli, Dutch and of course myself, English.
As I said it was a quiet start to the day, the 2 Scot's, Martin and Ewan found the back seats and even before we left were out for the count, I was later to find out that they had been on it for 4 days solid, good work boys, true scot's, they were both in their late 20's and both funny guys. Along with Manuela, again in her late 20's and a nurse from Austria and Kev, just a young whipper snapper at 21, a mechanic from Switzerland I was to get on and spend most my time with these guys out of the group, mainly because most of the other guys couldn't speak English. We hit Canberra at around midday, our first stop was the Australian 'War Museum'. I have to say that this and the Parliament House, which was to follow the War Museum was far from the highlight of the 3 day trip, however Buck did his very best to sell both the War Museum and the Parliament House and big them up as if they were one of the wonders of the world, this unfortunately had the opposite effect, we did see a couple of short war video's which were pretty cool and the actual Parliament building itself was pretty impressive to look at, but the tour and inside was pretty boring and I would have rather watched paint dry. What it did though was allow everyone to get to know each other a little better which was surprising given that most of us were I am sure at points drifting off into slumberland. So mid afternoon we were leaving Canberra, now knowing why NO backpackers/travellers add Canberra to their list of 'must see' cities, interestingly however was that Prostitution, Porn and Cannabis have all been legalised, funny that, as its home to the Australia prime minister as well as a bucket load of politicians visiting on a regular basis?!?!?!?. Again on the road, we now headed for the alpine village of 'Thredbo' were we would stay the night in a local hostel called 'River Inn'. Thredbo a Ski resort around 3 hours South West of Canberra in NSW, is the highest town in Australia from which you catch a ski chair lift up the mountains were we would be going the following morning. It was now 'off season;' for winter sports and the town would be pretty much deserted but people could still hike up the mountains, even though the season had ended they had still had 33cm of snow fall over the last week. Driving up through the mountains into Thredbo, the scenery and landscape, of course changed dramatically, it was pretty surreal, when you think of Australia the last thing you would associate with the country would be 'snow' very strange but on the other hand pretty cool, the next day I as going to be climbing the mountains to the highest point in Australia, there are not many countries where I could easily hike up to the highest point without professional equipment. We arrived at River Inn at around 6.30pm, checked into our rooms, of which I was sharing a dorm with the 2 scot's and Kev, dumped our bags and found the bar/restaurant. Dinner was included in the tour price, there wasn't any choice of meals, so we all had chicken pasta in a creamy sauce, to be honest it was pretty good and given our hike up the mountain tomorrow was very welcome. Then came the drinks, for the first time this trip in OZ I was able to order pints and at a good price too, the first couple went down too smoothly, shots were soon introduced and randomly doing shot's from a 'ski' Mmm yes interesting and hard to explain but was good fun. As the night progressed people started to hit the sack, I of course was on it and stayed up, there was another OZ experience group staying at the Hostel and by midnight all my group had gone to bed so I stayed up for a while with one of the girls from the group along with the girls which worked behind the bar, which was lucky as it closed at 11 but she had keys so carried on supplying the booze, it definitely had an 'apres ski' feel about place with near freezing temps and the snowy mountains on view from the window.
The next morning we had a bit of a lie in and was down for breakfast for 8am, I hadn't slept too well, for the first time in my life I think i had found someone to rival my snoring, Ewan was going all night like a pneumatic drill, if my snoring is as loud and as bad as Ewan's I apologise to anyone who has ever had to sleep within 100meters of me. We set off at around 9am to the chair lifts which would be a 10min ride half way up the mountains, it wasn't freezing cold but was certainly chilly and as i hadnt planned to be in such cold weather didnt have winter clothes and certainly no appropriate footwear. Luckily we were able to hire some snow boats for $8, which I was certainly glad of, I chucked on my fleece, hoodie and Tshirt, I felt more than warm enough. After the chair lift we had a 30min up hill walk which would takes up to Mount Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia, we wouldn't actually be able to climb right to the top due to the recent snow fall, so we would just be hiking up to ' Kosciuszko Lookout' We arrived mid morning after a pretty easy hike, at the look out the views were good bit not amazing, Mt Kosciuszko I am afraid wasn't all that impressive and compared to other mountain peaks around the world it was tame, however it was peaceful and with the weather being perfect made for great photo's. We of course being in snow ended up having snow ball fights, but with the snow being quite compact and icy it came pretty harsh when you got hit. It may not have been Everest or Kilimanjaro but it was well worth it and I can now say that I have been to the highest point in Australia, well almost.
After an hour or so at the lookout we made our way back down the mountain, by midday we were on the road again and heading for 'Wilson's Promontory' which is the most southern point of Australia and contains the largest coastal wilderness in Victoria. Also known as the 'Prom' Wilson's Promontory is a National Park and hosts outback landscape, lots of wildlife and some lovely beaches. The drive would be a long one and we wouldn't actually be visiting the park until the following day, today was just getting to the cusp of it and 'Lakes Entrance' where we would be staying the night. Lakes Entrance is the gateway to the 'Gippsland Lakes' and Australia's longest beach a mere 90miles of it. As I said the afternoon and rest of the day would really be mostly travelling, however the drive would host some amazing views as we drove along the 'Barry Highway'. Barry Highway starts in 'Jindabyne' which is where we had an hour stop for lunch and is just south of Thredbo where we had stayed the night before. The highway carry's on south down through the Australian Alps and onto the NSW/VIC border. The road is un-tarmacked and is a 100 year old cattle trail. The scenery was great, what I saw of it, the late night before and the hike up the mountain had made Ruffy a tired boy so was in and out of sleep for a lot of the journey. We made a number of stops along the way, stopping for toilet, lookout posts across the valleys and wildlife hunting for Kangaroo's, Koala's and such like. We arrived at Lake Entrance just before 7pm, our accommodation for the night would be the Riviera YHA. Before hitting the hostel, we stopped in town grabbed some beers from a bottle shop and some 'goon' (for those of you who don't know what goon is, its cheap shitty boxed wine which cots only around $12 for 5L, very common with backpackers due to how cheap it is, for $12 you would be lucky to get 2 beers, so you can see the appeal) and had a fish and chip dinner, it wasn't the greatest I must admit but cant have great food all the time. By 8pm we were at the hostel, again myself, the scot's and Kev shared a dorm with 3 of the other girls in the dorm next to us. I cracked open the goon and the girls joined our dorm, it wasn't going to be a heavy one at all but just sat around chatting, drinking disgusting cheap wine and sharing pic's. The following morning was an early start, we had to be left by 7.30am, however as we only had one bathroom and toilet between the 7 of us we had to get up even earlier. We were away by 7.30 and heading down to Wilson's Prom, which would be around a 4 hour drive, stopping along the way to grab some lunch to eat on the beach at Wilson's Prom as there were no facilities at the 'Prom'. Again we made a number of 'wildlife' stops, one stop was pretty good and we got up close and personal with Kangaroo's, Emu's and believe or not 'red back' spiders, one of the most venomous and dangerous spiders in Australia. We arrived at Wilson's Prom just after midday, with backpack, camera's and lunch we would have an hour hike which would take us up and over some rough terrain and down to 'squeaky beach'. The hike was less than strenuous and provided some great views of the ocean, surrounding beaches and landscape. We reached the beach and at one end were some giant rocks, the tide was coming in and sea was rough, we settled ourselves on the rocks and had lunch watching the sea crash against the waves and catching a few rays, the sun lately was making more and more of an appearance, thank god. The beach was empty and clean and as I always feel by the sea and sand felt relaxed and chilled, it did occur to me though that yesterday i was on top of a mountain playing in the snow and now sat on a beach in the warm sunshine, in less than 24hr hours, this was what most people associate with Australia. By 3pm we were back on the road, now heading towards Melbourne, with no more scheduled stops.
It had been a great 3 days and I was thankful that i didn't hire a car or just jump on the greyhound to Melbourne, i wouldn't have seen not even half of what I saw. Even boring Canberra, it's by far not the greatest city in the world but I can say I did it, seen it, got a T-shirt, OK, maybe not the latter, however I was chuffed with visiting the highest point in OZ and the most southern point also, I got to see plenty of wildlife and made some friends too.
So, I have now been in Melbourne for 3 nights and 2 days, I am staying with my Friends Matt and Kristie Axe. They emigrated here about 6months ago (well Matt did anyway). Kristie is Aussie born and bread and met Matt when he was travelling here 6 years ago, they have been together ever since and lived in England for a few years before getting married and decided a few years ago that they would live in Australia. Matt is an old school friend and have known him for around 10 years. I arrived on Friday night, so was lucky to get the weekend with them, I will update you on my Melbourne antic's in another blog, as this one as gone on a little long now. Thanks for reading as always, keep well peeps.
As I said it was a quiet start to the day, the 2 Scot's, Martin and Ewan found the back seats and even before we left were out for the count, I was later to find out that they had been on it for 4 days solid, good work boys, true scot's, they were both in their late 20's and both funny guys. Along with Manuela, again in her late 20's and a nurse from Austria and Kev, just a young whipper snapper at 21, a mechanic from Switzerland I was to get on and spend most my time with these guys out of the group, mainly because most of the other guys couldn't speak English. We hit Canberra at around midday, our first stop was the Australian 'War Museum'. I have to say that this and the Parliament House, which was to follow the War Museum was far from the highlight of the 3 day trip, however Buck did his very best to sell both the War Museum and the Parliament House and big them up as if they were one of the wonders of the world, this unfortunately had the opposite effect, we did see a couple of short war video's which were pretty cool and the actual Parliament building itself was pretty impressive to look at, but the tour and inside was pretty boring and I would have rather watched paint dry. What it did though was allow everyone to get to know each other a little better which was surprising given that most of us were I am sure at points drifting off into slumberland. So mid afternoon we were leaving Canberra, now knowing why NO backpackers/travellers add Canberra to their list of 'must see' cities, interestingly however was that Prostitution, Porn and Cannabis have all been legalised, funny that, as its home to the Australia prime minister as well as a bucket load of politicians visiting on a regular basis?!?!?!?. Again on the road, we now headed for the alpine village of 'Thredbo' were we would stay the night in a local hostel called 'River Inn'. Thredbo a Ski resort around 3 hours South West of Canberra in NSW, is the highest town in Australia from which you catch a ski chair lift up the mountains were we would be going the following morning. It was now 'off season;' for winter sports and the town would be pretty much deserted but people could still hike up the mountains, even though the season had ended they had still had 33cm of snow fall over the last week. Driving up through the mountains into Thredbo, the scenery and landscape, of course changed dramatically, it was pretty surreal, when you think of Australia the last thing you would associate with the country would be 'snow' very strange but on the other hand pretty cool, the next day I as going to be climbing the mountains to the highest point in Australia, there are not many countries where I could easily hike up to the highest point without professional equipment. We arrived at River Inn at around 6.30pm, checked into our rooms, of which I was sharing a dorm with the 2 scot's and Kev, dumped our bags and found the bar/restaurant. Dinner was included in the tour price, there wasn't any choice of meals, so we all had chicken pasta in a creamy sauce, to be honest it was pretty good and given our hike up the mountain tomorrow was very welcome. Then came the drinks, for the first time this trip in OZ I was able to order pints and at a good price too, the first couple went down too smoothly, shots were soon introduced and randomly doing shot's from a 'ski' Mmm yes interesting and hard to explain but was good fun. As the night progressed people started to hit the sack, I of course was on it and stayed up, there was another OZ experience group staying at the Hostel and by midnight all my group had gone to bed so I stayed up for a while with one of the girls from the group along with the girls which worked behind the bar, which was lucky as it closed at 11 but she had keys so carried on supplying the booze, it definitely had an 'apres ski' feel about place with near freezing temps and the snowy mountains on view from the window.
The next morning we had a bit of a lie in and was down for breakfast for 8am, I hadn't slept too well, for the first time in my life I think i had found someone to rival my snoring, Ewan was going all night like a pneumatic drill, if my snoring is as loud and as bad as Ewan's I apologise to anyone who has ever had to sleep within 100meters of me. We set off at around 9am to the chair lifts which would be a 10min ride half way up the mountains, it wasn't freezing cold but was certainly chilly and as i hadnt planned to be in such cold weather didnt have winter clothes and certainly no appropriate footwear. Luckily we were able to hire some snow boats for $8, which I was certainly glad of, I chucked on my fleece, hoodie and Tshirt, I felt more than warm enough. After the chair lift we had a 30min up hill walk which would takes up to Mount Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia, we wouldn't actually be able to climb right to the top due to the recent snow fall, so we would just be hiking up to ' Kosciuszko Lookout' We arrived mid morning after a pretty easy hike, at the look out the views were good bit not amazing, Mt Kosciuszko I am afraid wasn't all that impressive and compared to other mountain peaks around the world it was tame, however it was peaceful and with the weather being perfect made for great photo's. We of course being in snow ended up having snow ball fights, but with the snow being quite compact and icy it came pretty harsh when you got hit. It may not have been Everest or Kilimanjaro but it was well worth it and I can now say that I have been to the highest point in Australia, well almost.
After an hour or so at the lookout we made our way back down the mountain, by midday we were on the road again and heading for 'Wilson's Promontory' which is the most southern point of Australia and contains the largest coastal wilderness in Victoria. Also known as the 'Prom' Wilson's Promontory is a National Park and hosts outback landscape, lots of wildlife and some lovely beaches. The drive would be a long one and we wouldn't actually be visiting the park until the following day, today was just getting to the cusp of it and 'Lakes Entrance' where we would be staying the night. Lakes Entrance is the gateway to the 'Gippsland Lakes' and Australia's longest beach a mere 90miles of it. As I said the afternoon and rest of the day would really be mostly travelling, however the drive would host some amazing views as we drove along the 'Barry Highway'. Barry Highway starts in 'Jindabyne' which is where we had an hour stop for lunch and is just south of Thredbo where we had stayed the night before. The highway carry's on south down through the Australian Alps and onto the NSW/VIC border. The road is un-tarmacked and is a 100 year old cattle trail. The scenery was great, what I saw of it, the late night before and the hike up the mountain had made Ruffy a tired boy so was in and out of sleep for a lot of the journey. We made a number of stops along the way, stopping for toilet, lookout posts across the valleys and wildlife hunting for Kangaroo's, Koala's and such like. We arrived at Lake Entrance just before 7pm, our accommodation for the night would be the Riviera YHA. Before hitting the hostel, we stopped in town grabbed some beers from a bottle shop and some 'goon' (for those of you who don't know what goon is, its cheap shitty boxed wine which cots only around $12 for 5L, very common with backpackers due to how cheap it is, for $12 you would be lucky to get 2 beers, so you can see the appeal) and had a fish and chip dinner, it wasn't the greatest I must admit but cant have great food all the time. By 8pm we were at the hostel, again myself, the scot's and Kev shared a dorm with 3 of the other girls in the dorm next to us. I cracked open the goon and the girls joined our dorm, it wasn't going to be a heavy one at all but just sat around chatting, drinking disgusting cheap wine and sharing pic's. The following morning was an early start, we had to be left by 7.30am, however as we only had one bathroom and toilet between the 7 of us we had to get up even earlier. We were away by 7.30 and heading down to Wilson's Prom, which would be around a 4 hour drive, stopping along the way to grab some lunch to eat on the beach at Wilson's Prom as there were no facilities at the 'Prom'. Again we made a number of 'wildlife' stops, one stop was pretty good and we got up close and personal with Kangaroo's, Emu's and believe or not 'red back' spiders, one of the most venomous and dangerous spiders in Australia. We arrived at Wilson's Prom just after midday, with backpack, camera's and lunch we would have an hour hike which would take us up and over some rough terrain and down to 'squeaky beach'. The hike was less than strenuous and provided some great views of the ocean, surrounding beaches and landscape. We reached the beach and at one end were some giant rocks, the tide was coming in and sea was rough, we settled ourselves on the rocks and had lunch watching the sea crash against the waves and catching a few rays, the sun lately was making more and more of an appearance, thank god. The beach was empty and clean and as I always feel by the sea and sand felt relaxed and chilled, it did occur to me though that yesterday i was on top of a mountain playing in the snow and now sat on a beach in the warm sunshine, in less than 24hr hours, this was what most people associate with Australia. By 3pm we were back on the road, now heading towards Melbourne, with no more scheduled stops.
It had been a great 3 days and I was thankful that i didn't hire a car or just jump on the greyhound to Melbourne, i wouldn't have seen not even half of what I saw. Even boring Canberra, it's by far not the greatest city in the world but I can say I did it, seen it, got a T-shirt, OK, maybe not the latter, however I was chuffed with visiting the highest point in OZ and the most southern point also, I got to see plenty of wildlife and made some friends too.
So, I have now been in Melbourne for 3 nights and 2 days, I am staying with my Friends Matt and Kristie Axe. They emigrated here about 6months ago (well Matt did anyway). Kristie is Aussie born and bread and met Matt when he was travelling here 6 years ago, they have been together ever since and lived in England for a few years before getting married and decided a few years ago that they would live in Australia. Matt is an old school friend and have known him for around 10 years. I arrived on Friday night, so was lucky to get the weekend with them, I will update you on my Melbourne antic's in another blog, as this one as gone on a little long now. Thanks for reading as always, keep well peeps.
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