Down to the Sunshine Coast

Ok so I can't get this blog to sit the way I want it so we have a mismatch of centre aligned text, left aligned text and pictures out of place. ENJOY.

We met a gent, at the place we'd stopped where the tent fell off the roof, who told us about a place you can pitch your tent for free... but as my Nan tells me, nothing in life is free. You had to buy a meal and a drink and then you could pitch your tent/caravan and use the facilities. Seemed fair enough to us. We arrived at dark and got ourselves introduced to the owner, turns out he was pretty racist, despite his Vietnamese  wife. The food was pretty darn decent and the drinks were alcoholic, so, happy. Apart from the partying Europeans it was a pretty good set up for us. 

In the morning when we packed the tent up to leave there was a really weird looking spider, blue and white. We flicked it on the floor and hoped for the best. After we packed up and ate breakfast it was time to be back on the move. After a drive we stopped near a beach to have lunch with some beautiful views, didn't have a dip due to my still existing paranoia about crocodiles. Had the usual sandwiches. 

Even though we were trying to reach Brisbane under a time restraint we found a lovely place to go for a walk and see some waterfalls. It was actually very well maintained and even had rubber mats on the floor. All up hill, we walked to the top, took some pictures then headed back down and found a rock pool which I had a dip in. However, Phil made it his mission to get across to the rocks. I actually filmed it much to my amusement. Although it wasn't to Phil's amusement as he dropped his sunglasses in twice, that made me cackle, before getting his shorts wet on the way back.

We spent the night at what seemed to be a local park, after arriving just after dark and struggling to find a decent spot we squeezed in next to a Caravan. The Caravan's occupier who came to see what the racket was when we were cooking tea. It wasn't that much of a racket but in the dead silence we may as well have been throwing a disco for the locals. Once we got up and noticed 90% of the other stayers had left in the early hours we casually had breakfast and packed everything away. What was amusing was the couple who had a bus with a 4x4 trailed onto the back arguing about having no gas left in the bottles for a shower. Shower? What a treat! You certainly didn't want to sniff us that day. 

From Home Hill we headed down to Airlie Beach, it seemed to be the hot spot that all the travellers talked about, the access to the Whitsunday's, one of the most beautiful spots in Australia, so I'm told. Upon arrival we noticed a lot of 'euro-trash', cashed up morons who need an education and application of sun lotion. It was so unbelievably touristy and I was quite disappointed. Couldn't get to the Whitsunday's because it was booked out, even if it hadn't been I doubt I would have liked the expense, so we went for a drive, there had to be SOMEWHERE we could go that didn't charge an arm and a leg... We drove around for a while until we got to the top of a hill and sadly decided to admit defeat, time to turn around and go back. There looked like a safe place to turn. WAIT! What's that? A path so we can go on a walk. We parked, for free, and went for a walk down the path, saw some beautiful spots through the trees, until we came to a beach. The sea was beautiful but as always the pebbles are a little harsh on the feet. I was cautious due to my fear of crocs, but paddled anyway. Then we walked some more to a look out point with gorgeous views. We read that this was an artificial beach, of sorts, debris washed up by a cyclone one year causing the beach to exist. Content with our little find we went back and headed for a camp. On the way back from the look out point we watched a snake wriggle by, my second snake in the wild, this one wasn't black but more of a sandy colour, causing us no bother, we carried on our way.

Using wikicamps we decided on a camp to go to that seemed decent enough and headed to it. On the way to the camp we got stopped at the train lights. With all the signs we had been sniggering about regarding "Give way to the Cane Train", we hadn't actually understood them to the full extent. Turns out after we waited for at least about 5 minutes or more for the longest train in the world, I could understand why they would have to tell people to give way as you wait soooooo long for it to pass. It actually had another train attached to it. God damn snore train. Once the Snore Train had FINALLY passed by we made the camp. Being cautious and uncertain as we were driving through gates to get to what seemed to be someone's farm... uhm... lets look up another camp just incase... oh, no, wait. Loads of caravans, time to find a reasonably flat spot. Ok, we found a moderately flat spot with a slight incline, manageable. Time to cook tea, have a snooze and hit the road again tomorrow. Just ignore the strange noises coming from the trees and hope it's not a serial killer, there is plenty of other people they can kill first, just as long as they do it quietly. 

(There wasn't actually any serial killers, it was a loud rustling cow.) 

Unexpected Cairns Arrival

Given recent disagreements with a certain, unhelpful, lying, deceitful company who go back on their word, I will keep things brief regarding the tent incident. Basically, we went to Cairns, had to get a motel at our expense, had to eat out as we couldn't well pull out a gas cooker in the middle of their car park at practically 9pm. The next day we visited the Cairns branch of the 'unnamed' store, the staff were very helpful at this particular store, replaced our tent and got us the correct feet. We were called by the store in which we bought the equipment, we were promised reimbursement but suffice to say they went back on their word, as implied earlier in this paragraph. (Even recalling all this to type it down makes me exceedingly cross, I, nor is my partner, one to cheat the system, lie to benefit in an way or anything of the sort...). 

We took Phil to the hospital, he got his shoulder seen to, it wasn't great news and Phil didn't want to hear it, he may have to quit sport. Only thing with that is that Phil is not a quitter and he's played sport his whole life, he refused to hear that. He's had physio on the shoulder and carried on playing the sport regardless of the bother of the injury. 

Anyway, after that was all done it was late in the day so we stayed in Cairns another night at a caravan park. We went for a walk along the beach front but stayed away from the water due to Crocodile warnings, that's Northern Australia for you. I went and completed another challenge set by the O'Beirne's prior to leaving them, this one was purchase a middy above the 26th parallel. Success. 

Using Phil as a sun shield whilst
we waited for Marco. 

Trying to use the new tent was scary for the both of us, it wasn't the best sleep and Phil was apprehensive about using something that failed us, but I had to keep reassuring him, more for my own sake than his, that it was the feet that failed us, not the tent. 

The next day turned out to be a good one, I managed to catch up with not one, but two! of my friends from Dunsborough. First was a catch up and milkshake with the beautiful lovely Pei, how I had missed her and loved hearing of her adventure across Australia from Dunsborough to Cairns. Then I managed to get hold of Marco, my favourite Marco. No offense Marco Argiolas. Marco's English has improved immensely and we sent a little video to Olja who was missing us all. Unfortunately I hadn't managed to see Luca which was a shame, but I'm sure we will meet again in the future. 

After this it was time to find the post office to send off a postcard to my nieces. Once I'd posted the card it was once again off on another stage of the adventure... hopefully without incident. 

Too Much Drama

We continued to play our 'waving' game. This consisted of waving at other vehicles and keeping a tally of who waves back. Phil's turn to drive, so lets see if he can get a better response from female drivers than me. 

We didn't drive at night, lesson thoroughly learnt. Although, looking for a spot to camp meant it was getting to 'roo'o'clock. We drove through Tambo, and past Alpha, Wikicamps led us to Drummond look out point; there was already a caravan in the spot, and not wanting to drive on further we hit the 4wd track. Putting our cars skills to use we went down the track, passed those parked on the track further down the path, we had no choice but to go right and ended up at a perfect little spot in the mountains. We set up the tent and cooked dinner. With Phil being a meat lover we had breaded steak he got from the butchers in a town earlier that day, not to mention bacon for breakfast; oh the magical benefits of travelling with someone who loves meat.

The next morning we decided to have a lazy one. Phil cooked us a beautiful breakfast and I casually got dressed. Slowly savouring breakfast in the middle of the mountains with nobody around but the views, and the sound of wildlife, and a truck... a truck?! What the... "Phil, I can hear a truck", "don't be daft" he says. Starting to hear it louder and louder I am beginning to panic, if a truck is coming towards us it would mow the car down and us along with it. Oh no, oh no, we're not even close to getting it slightly packed up. Phil carries on casually eating breakfast... I look around... A TRUCK! Coming straight towards us. Aaaaarrrrhhhhhhh. Still casually eating his breakfast, Phil doesn't even look around. By now I'm on my feet with a plate in my hand wondering what to pack first, and why the heck Phil is still sat eating. Then, as the truck got close he turned off to the right... uhm, what?! The truck with a tractor on the back has gone where exactly? 


Panic over. Turns out the truck was using the track, not the dried up river bed we were on, for getting to the rail way tracks that were in need of repair. The heavily bearded driver went past 4 different times, each time, after the first, we exchanged waves and Phil hoped he didn't drive past mid-change. Once we were all packed up it was once again time to get back on the road. My turn to wave at the people and keep a track of who is waving, I'll try and get a graph sorted once we've had a check of the tally chart. 

Now I knew we weren't going to get mowed down by a truck it was time to pack up and drive on. Finding somewhere to camp tonight was a little tricky, the only place we could find was near croc infested waters... well, we didn't see any, but the sign said! Crocs! So, instead of camping near the water and all the caravans we've moved in to the trees so there was a suitable place to pee. I started cooking and Phil set up the tent, he disappeared for a call of nature when this deep, concerned voice pipes up, "Beeeccccccccaaaaaa... cows!", so I look up to see a herd of about 50 cows wandering around and past the car. A bull circling around. A cow 1 metre away from us wondering if there is enough tea for everyone? Well. Shit. We quickly packed up and I shoved the almost cooked dinner in the one pot and we drove somewhere in between the crocs and the cows. We ate dinner and went to bed. 

Woke up the next day desperate for the usual morning piddle so we packed up as quickly as we could and headed to a little area with caravans and a toilet/shower block. I passed on the shower as the cubicle door wouldn't have covered much. We decided since we were making good progress we'd have an easy day. Casually had breakfast, chatted to an old guy, got the tent out to air off the condensation. Thinking about packing everything up Phil got in the tent to stick the duvet back in, I moved from underneath to open the boot, when within seconds the whole 60kg tent fell off the roof of the car, with Phil in it. I have never been stunned in to silence before but I couldn't see him and he just fell 6ft and had 60kg fold up on him, I was horrified. Managing to get a response from Phil I pulled the tent away from the car and he tried to get out. Phil standing, with a sore foot that was squashed under the ladder, a sore shin that hit the edge of the tent when it impacted with the floor and an injured shoulder as a result of the fault. I won't go in to too much detail as this is an ongoing problem and has not been resolved with the company responsible. The long and short of it is the fact that, despite questioning it, we were given the wrong feet for the roof bars which held on the tent. It wasn't for lack of checking and tightening that happened, the pure and simple of it was the wrong part. There was damage to the car, a broken, unusable tent, damage to the Phil and a distressed Becca. 

Once people realised there was a problem they came over to help. With Phil unable to do anything, there was myself, two old men and maybe another man... could have been a woman, I'm not actually sure... trying to put the tent back on. Once we tightened the feet of the roof bars we then realised if the tent was lifted the whole thing moved. How the hell are we going to get to Cairns, 750km away, without this falling off? Luckily we had straps and ties but we couldn't get the bars of the tent to move back in so it hung over the edge of the car. With it strapped on as best as we could manage it was a non-stop drive to Cairns. 

I dread to think of what could have happened, I think, given the circumstances, we are quite luckily. What if we were sleeping in it in the middle of the night? What if it came off at 110km/h and hit a car travelling behind us? (and Australian's do love to tailgate). What if Phil landed differently? That thought made me almost puke. On the way to Cairn's we realised we didn't have anywhere to sleep tonight and had to get a motel - money we hadn't anticipated. We also couldn't well cook in the motel car park and we hadn't eaten since breakfast, so had to find somewhere to eat, luckily, the place we found to eat let us order, even if it was 20:59 and service ends at 21:00. Exhausted and emotionally drained after the days events and driving over 750km in one hit, we went to bed, we would have to deal with this all tomorrow. 

Roo Mania!

We set off from Adelaide a little later than I had hoped, ok, two and a half hours later... what can I say? We're not morning people. We didn't even reach the boarder of SA, yes, even after 7 hours of driving. We cooked Dinosaur pasta, which appeases the child in me, and only afterwards remembered we had tuna or spam to put in it, oh well. With faces stuffed and tea drank, we attempted a crossword using our head torches, surprisingly helpful for spotting on the correct place. Then it was bed time. 

Just away from the road enough to pee without watchers, we went to bed and tonight was chilly. Luckily we kept warm and woke with a tent full of condensation. Don't touch the walls! We dried it as best we could with a cloth, packed up and headed on our way, we needed to cover some serious ground today. 

With barely any stopping, apart from toilets or fuel, we headed straight towards Bourke, stopping for lunch and adding our travelling graffiti to the wall of travellers notes! Big hello if you're checking out my blog because of that travel stop. 

Through Bourke we decided to trek on to Cundamalla, eating our food as we went. It was starting to get dark and it was "roo'o'clock", so we slowed the speed down. After about 50ks I decided to start counting the Kangaroos. 1, 2, miss a few, 99, 100... miss a few more, 148, 149, 150! A jumper. Jumped out in to the road and BANG, ran over its tail. I have never known an animal to be so stupid. In NSW it was overrun by goats, goats that ran AWAY from traffic. 

We got to the next town and considered stopping, but we didn't feel safe, by this point we'd seen around 400 Kangaroos, but only about 5 jumping in to the road. Feeling apprehensive and weighing up all the stats, we decided the next wiki camp would be perfect, 95k to go. 600 roos in I laughed and said 'lets make it to 1000 before we hit camp'. Driving even slower now due to the stupidity of the roos, we were making slow progress. Bear in mind, we weren't counting any dead ones, which were a hell of a lot! 700... 800... more and more jumpers... we're driving in the centre of the road now.

Kangaroo blood and fluff under the car

Let me put it in to perspective to those of you who have never driven Australian country roads at night... in a space of perhaps 400k, we saw 1 truck. ONE TRUCK. We were the only other vehicle on the road. Along that 400k we drove slooooow, very slow; it was a hefty amount of time spent surrounded by the stupidest animal I've ever come across. 

Phil turns to me and, in regards to the not stopping, says "I'm going to label this under 'mistakes'". In full agreement I continued driving, carefully, sometimes stopping, sometimes speeding up. 850 roos; are we seriously going to reach 1000? I would have never estimated that in recollection, and these were just the ones at the edge of the road. 800, holy moly, really? 889. BANG. Jumped straight into the side of the car, thud. No stopping. Keep going. QLD this is crazy. By the time we stopped we had reached 1072, it was supposed to be a joke, A JOKE, not a challenge!


Tense, tired and full of adrenalin we pulled out the tent and went to bed. At least it was considerably warmer than the night before. 

After a disturbed sleep from the adrenalin it was time for another long day on the road. At least the sun was up and it was daylight, goodnight to the kangaroos, good morning to the day ahead. Let's go!

7 Weeks Waiting

That title sounds pretty dire and boring hey. All it is is the exciting wait for our first big trip travelling along the East Coast, never been to the East Coast so I'm looking forward to it (no sarcasm, honest!). In the mean time, what to do, what to do? With this being my year to explore and travel before life comes attacking with it's responsibilities again, and the having to be mature and all grown up, I have to make sure the real adults do the adulting whilst I enjoy this time. I think my immaturity shows in trying to play bukaroo with the cat; I was casually and gently placing hair bobbles and Phil's plectrums on the cat until he scratched me, serves me right. It did take a good few snotty looks from the cat before he told me to behave. Getting them off was a little trickier than getting them on as he was annoyed by this stage. 

One of my favourite pass times is a stroll along the beach to watch the sunset, sounds all romantic but it's generally pretty cold and we spend most of the time challenging the wind by seeing how far we can walk. Sometimes Phil makes me walk up rather big hills, he's so kind. But as in previous posts, have to be careful with the ol' knees what with pulling one of them back on Smith's beach and being unable to walk. Still, we persevere and manage to get a good walk in. 


With trying to get everything organised for our trip there was actually a hell of a lot to do, we had to get a suitable vehicle, since Phil's current vehicle is, well, to put it politely, a little old. We had to get things to cook with and something to sleep in. With the trips we have planned we'll be up the North part of Australia where all the crocodiles like to chill, so a roof top tent seemed like the best option, not only that, it would leave room for ride-sharers if any materialised. 


Not every evening was spent looking at pretty skies, obviously sometimes it was rainy, grey and miserable, ooh, just like being back home. Instead we would stay in and play games. This time it was Chess, I won the first game but then didn't play defensively and got served by Phil. I stopped playing after that since I'm a sore loser, I'm also a bit of a sore winner, but it's much more fun winning.

We did try and make it up to the top of Mt Lofty, but the vertigo was getting the better of me so we did our best to get as far as we could. There were two different waterfalls along the way that we saw and stopped at for a photo opportunity.
Stay classy Becca!


Finally we managed to go bowling as we intended to do on our third date but came across league night. This time, no league night so it was silly shoes and another opportunity to try and beat Phil at something. Unfortunately I lost, both games, I think we've figured that Phil will beat me at most physical games, we'll have to change that... somehow.

Moving on past the physical games we decided some video games would be better but the option for something new on the Xbox had us in hysterics. My horrified response was "Goat Stimulator?", Phil was doubled over laughing as was I when he explained it was a Simulator, not a Stimulator. I thought XBox was getting a bit R rated. Isn't that kind of thing illegal?

We also managed a game of Cards Against Humanity with Phil's Mum (Wendy) and Courtney, it explains a lot. It had to be one of the funniest games of it we've played. After playing video games and physical games and the lack of encouragement for more monolpoly we moved on to going to watch games, to be more specific, my first AFL game. Crows vs Hawthorn.

We got the bus to the ground and Phil decided to make me a proper fan by getting me a Crows shirt, especially after telling him I should technically be a Fremantle fan because my cousins' were the first to teach me about Aussie Rules and that's their team. Phil was having none of it. We were up the gods but that's better than not being there at all. The 25th Anniversary game was fun to watch, even though Crows didn't win. There was lots of screaming from me, which I'm sure Phil and Courtney's ears did not appreciate, luckily Rudi sat the other side of Courtney and managed to mildly protect her ears from my high pitched squealing. 

After the game we got the bus back and walked back up the hill. Unfortunately in the dark I managed to get tangled up with a branch and fall over. If I had been an inch forward I would have been fine however, I went straight down on to my knees right on the concrete kerb. The feeling made me nauseous, Phil wanted to stop and make sure I was ok but I knew if I didn't keep walking I wouldn't be able to. We finally got back to the house and I pulled up my trouser leg to see a gauge out of my knee and a bruise already coming in to appearance. After having sat down to check my knees, as I suspected, I couldn't walk. Both knees injured I had to hop to the bedroom, Phil brought me ice and the ice made me cry from the pain, but I knew it was for the best. The next few days were spent hopping along the house to try and get the places I needed to. After a few days I realised sticking my leg down correctly was actually better. Slowly but surely I managed to get walking again but up and down hills was a problem, and we live on a hill. Helpful. 

The following Saturday was his cousin's 21st birthday, well bugger. I took a can of man-up, also known as ibuprofen and stuck my heels on to go and party... I spent most of the time sat down. The worst was trying to leave as they closed the doors to where we came in and the entrance to leave wasn't obvious so we walked around in a circle with some funny looks from the police as I was holding on to Phil for dear life and hobbling like a drunked; you couldn't see my knees as I had put my leggings on to cover the brightly covered bruises. It was good to get off my knees once it was over. 

Not long now until our trip, time for all the final prep before we leave and hopefully a full knee recovery...

Mt Gambier Getaway

Our first outing for a few days took us to Mt Gambier, we arrived fairly late and it was quite cold, the heater went on and we wrapped ourselves up in bed to try and warm up. Only problem was that it was that sort of dry heat, so mid-way through the night it was dehydration and nightmares. Apart from log fires, Australian's really aren't sure on how to warm themselves up; I guess the same could be said about us Brit's and cooling ourselves down when it gets too hot. 

We first went to the middle of town where there is a massive sink hole, basically the ground disappears into a giant hole and they aren't certain as to the precise cause. 

After seeing a mighty big hole in the middle of town (there are still shops and a pub right next to it), we went for a walk to the blue lake. It is a crater lake in an extinct volcano (so they say!) and aptly named for it's extreme blue colouring. My picture doesn't make it very clear on the hue but it was very blue, apparently it is more discernible in the summer months.

We did a big walk right around the lake and at one point decided to pick up pine cones and see who could get them in, after a mighty hoof Phil's could not be seen or heard, so who knows where it went. Maybe he dropped it at his feet perhaps? Then it was my turn, with all my effort I threw it, only for it to rustle in the trees, I don't think mine hit the water for sure. Just to explain our failed attempts, it's actually a very long way down surrounded by a 'safety' fence that's a way back from the actual edge so it needed a mighty hoof. After a good walk around it did start to rain which was a little annoying as we directly half way in either direction. This meant we decided to just keep on truckin'.

When we got to the other side there was a park with exercise equipment in it that we decided to have a go on. Phil was showing off his skills whilst I was just behaving like a small child in a play ground, weeeeeeee, swinging side to side on one piece of equipment and then mimicking Phil on the 'leg press'. Although my old personal trainer did say using your own body weight is the best form of exercise... I doubt I would be able to save myself if I was hanging off a cliff... but who knows what adrenaline will do.

After we got back to the car we went and headed for lunch at a pub, it was very nice after the big walk, but feeling slightly on the full side we thought another walk around the other big hole in the ground (this one waterless) was a good idea. I say we went for a big walk, we actually came across some stairs which Phil ran up victoriously, whereas I gently sauntered to the top trying not to exert myself and throw up my dinner. Success. Once we were finished walking we went back to the room to read our books before we went for tea... instead we actually managed to fall fast asleep until it was dark. Best. Nap. Ever! After a good sleep we went out to have tea, schnitzel time, Australian's are obsessed with them. 


The next day it was time to leave, after not knowing the check-out time and having the receptionist come and ask us why we hadn't left yet, we packed up and headed on our way home. We went via a place that had caves, although it was all tour guided which was a shame as the times we're awkward compared to when we were there. We missed the first one by twenty minutes and the next one wasn't until about two hours later and we weren't going to just stand around waiting. We went for a wander and saw Batman's hide away. We also found a bronze statue of a giant wombat, Australian's like to pay homage to things by building oversized mementos. Phil took a picture, managed to get the arm of his sunglasses in it, he's no pro at the ol' picture snapping that's for sure. Nevertheless, he captured my fantastic impersonation, look closer. 

After my brilliant imitation I drove us back, on the way we stopped and ate some fried chicken in a road house, because why not. Then the anxiety started creeping in, it would be the first time after a very long time of dating that I was going to meet his parents. Holy mother of... what if they don't like me? What if they can't understand my accent? What if, what if, what if. Phil was very reassuring by laughing at my apprehension. Sure he finds it funny, he's known them his whole life. What if there are rules I am not privy to? He did try and tell me once his Dad got angry if you say any word with the letter 'E' in it, I didn't fall for it and Courtney missed her cue to go along with it too. Well, time to man up... I met his Dad first for a brief hello, then went inside where I was introduce to his Mum... phew, the initial part was over... now comes the really scary bit...