I have decided to write a blog as it's been a while since the last, and we have surprisingly done quite a bit. Mainly because I only have 1 job now as I had to leave the Bakery as my 6 month limit was up. So after a solid 6 months, I hung up my apron and called it a day. There's only so long you can serve up croissants and scones before you start to go a little bit insane. So now I only have my fish job, which Sar loves. Instead of coming up smelling of fish and dough I now come up stinking of pure fish...yummy!
Only working 4-5 days 5 hours a day is a bit better than 6 days a week 12hours a day, so we actually see a bit more of Sydney and we finally have time to sit down, put the kettle on and write about our trip to the red centre/Melbourne. Sar still has her bar job, and has finaly started bringing Newcastle browns home! although she has just had a call from a bakery giving her a trial so it could change!
Firstly the weather has been sooo cold. After 15 months of being in summer and wearing shorts and t-shirt it has suddenly become freezing! we have had to invest in some hoodies, jeans, scarves, double duvets (by invest, i mean found them on the roadside!) and hot water bottles, drinking endless amounts of tea to keep us warm! The worst weather we've had since travelling was India, but a different extreme, dreading going outside into the 52'C heat, not sleeping at night, in a pool of sweat and the electricity cuts off so we have no fan! Now we're dreading going outside as its pouring it down, so we're just as soaked as we were in India but this time it's windy and we're in hoody and trousers!
People thought we were crazy to do 5000Km in a week, we didn't even think about how far it was, once we had booked our flights to Adelaide with the intention of going south to end up at Melbourne. We got talking to Katie and Kieran who also were up for it and after talking for a bit we decided, stuff it, lets go to Ayer's Rock, 'on our way!' to Melbourne! where we would meet Harold Bishop, or Toady and finish the trip there.
Once our Aussie friends heard our plan they thought we had lost the plot! So just before we left, Katie had told a few people in Sydney that if they hadn't heard from us in a week, get the search party!
After arriving in Adelaide, we picked up the warrior. Pretty sweet campervan, asked a local how to get our of Adelaide heading towards Port Augusta into the Outback. We had been warned so many times by people not to drive at night, we even had a sticker on our windscreen saying that they wouldn't 'advise' driving at night and would also 'advise' us to stay at a camp site with power for the first night. "it's only advised, it's not saying we have to" so when we reached Port Augusta and it was getting dark, we decided we would carry on to the next port of call, Pimba, 3 hours from Port Augusta and 3 hours from Coober Pedy. We arrived at 9pm, 3 hours of driving in the dark and didn't hit a thing, we didn't pass a car or a roadtrain either which was a bit worrying but we had got there without a scratch on her.
We pulled in at Spud's Roadhouse....lovely place. Me and Kieran walked into the bar to be greeted by a load of hillbillys who turned and looked at us, we walked up to the bar, cool as a cucumber and asked if we could pull our warrior up for the night. After asking how much, the bar woman/bloke said they have a gold coin box where you just put in whatever you want providing it was gold coins ($1 or $2 coins) luckily I left my wallet in the van and kieran only had $5, so $5 it was for 4 of us to stay the night. No electricity so we ran off the battery, which wasn't advised, but since when did that matter hey!
After a nights sleep, we got up to the amazing red sunrise! and set off at 7am to head to Coober Pedy. Now we really were in the outback, you could see for miles, just red sand and shubland....no kangaroos still though! we arrived at Coober Pedy at around 11am after stopping off on the way. We parked and went to explore the town, visiting the underground churches, an opal mine and some underground houses. it really was desertland and pretty impressive! if not for the underground buildings but for the amount of abo's walking around with cans of beer/petrol in their hand. 1 man was even passed out on the floor with a petrol can next to him!! typical...he fit the stereotype well but I couldn't get a picture as there was a load of them next to him and I didn't wanna get their attention, a bit like feeding a lamb to the slaughter!
We got back to the van around 4 and cooked our first meal on our cooker, again sinking the electricity off the battery...and cooked sausage sandwiches! yummy! and we drove until about 9pm to Mt Ebenezer Roadhouse, off the Stuart highway on Ayer's Rock road about 3 hours from the rock itself. Again we had driven for hours in the dark and didn't hit a thing but called it a night at this roadhouse. Nobody answered the door so we opened the gate and parked up, closing the gate behind us. We thought we had better let someone know and it was a good job we did!! we finally knocked on some door saying 'hello???' then a woman opened the door, after we asked if we could stay the night, she just let us know that they had a shotgun in the room!! but still we had to stay there! a hillbilly guy came out to show us the bathrooms, again told us he had been drinking and had a shotgun in the room. We asked how much it was, he could have charged us anything but he said $5 each. $20 for the night again with no electricity but we did get amazing showers in the morning!! The battery must be getting low on the van!
The next morning was the final drive to Ayer's Rock. We were already on Ayer's rock road so all we had to do was drive straight. Passing Mount Connor on the way kept us entertained, thinking that was Ayer's Rock until we got closer and decided Ayer's rock looked different to what it looked like a while back!Sar would like me to point out she knew all along Mount Connor wasn't Ayer's Rock. an hour later we got to the national park and decided to go straight to the Rock and have a walk around! We pulled up pretty happy we were there, until we looked at the petrol..we had none left and to get to the Olga's we needed atleast another 100Km's worth of petrol to get there and back. We did a few walks around the rock before deciding we had better get petrol now so we could enjoy the rest of the day round the Olga's and ensure we get to see the sunset at Ayer's Rock. Thinking we had passed a petrol station about 15mins back on Ayer's Rock Road we decided we would have a quick check there was no petrol station at Ayer's Rock resort. No sign of it so we set off....the petrol light came on about 5 minutes later on the way. katie decided sleeping would be the best option, Sar remaining hopful while me and Kieran just kept looking at the mirror to each other both with the look, 'we're not going to make it'. Visions of us stuck in the middle of nowhere out of petrol! and hour later we were still driving, no roadsign of anything nearby...then a sign pops up saying petrol station in 2km's! thank god!!! 100km we had driven on an empty tank! back at mount connor!. We filled up and flew back to the rock, and went straight to the Olga's! they were amazing! stopping at every viewpoint possible and walking to 1 of the gorges before heading back and parking up with a view of the Rock, tables and chairs out, cup of tea made while we watched the sun go down over the rock, and took a few hundred pictures!! the day had worked out well! We stayed over at the resort and this time had power! every light was on now!
We saw the sunrise back at Ayer's Rock before heading back, now the next leg was to get as far down towards Adelaide as we could!and we did more than that! we got to a place called Glendambo around 8pm after leaving Ayer's Rock at 8am! On this journey we saw some wild camels on the roadside as well as a load of Emu's! the first wildlife we had seen! Next to the campsite at Glendambo there was a pub so we thought it was only right to have a beer. Also it turned out Australia's largest windmill was in Glendambo too!
We got up that morning and headed as far towards the Victoria border as we could, stopping in Port Augusta before heading towards Mt Gambier, which was more or less on the border of South Australia and Victoria. We arrived there at about 10pm, after passing kangaroos at last!! 5 days of driving and we finally saw some kangaroos on the roadside just outside of Adelaide! When arriving in Mt Gambier we had taken a wrong turning or the fact that there was no signpost for the road we needed and were thrashing it down a crappy B road. Kangaroos signs everywhere but by this time we had got a bit cocky and that meant nothing! We just wanted to get there, we finally found the right road and got to Mt Gambier around 10pm. Everywhere was closed, Kieran and Katie were well asleep so me and Sar parked up in a caravan site, rung the guys doorbell and he told us to pull over and we could have a spot. Whether he meant for free or not, we didn't really give him the choice. By 7am the next morning we had gone! a free nights stay! and we headed towards the coast starting the Great Ocean Road at Port Fairy where we had sausage sandwiches again!
Anyways I've written a bit of a novel here, my fingers hurt and I can't really be bothered to carry on now! so will do the 2nd leg of the trip as soon as I can!
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