R.T Day 8-Tennant Creek/ Threeways to Kakadu National Park/Jibiru

In a town named Katherine, the tourist info people told us the highway from Kakadu to Darwin was closed so that would mean about an extra 400k,m’s of backtracking we would have to do after the park, oh well, we had nothing but time!!! Kakadu was kind of like Uluru, you really needed a 4WD to see most of it. But a lot of the tracks were closed due to the flooding they have every year, but even if we had gone in the dry season you still need a 4WD. We were really hoping to see a salty(Saltwater Crocodile) while we were there! We were supposed to camp in a caravan park, but we just found a lighted parking lot and crashed out for the night.

R.T Day 7-Alice Springs to Tennant Creek/ Threeways

Pretty much a full day of driving and found a nice place to eat and sleep in between towns Tennant Creek and Threeways.

R.T Day 6-Alice Springs

A little bit hungover we had a quite morning and in the afternoon we went to the historical “telegraph station” which was very interesting. Had a relaxing evening just chilling out.

R.T Day 5- Alice Springs

Another really early start!!! We found a nice place in the caravan park book we had, Wintersun Park with a “POOL”, so we made a plan to be in the pool by 3pm!!! We made it to town about noon, went to the town hill lookout ”Anzac Hill” to take some pics, went for a drive around town and then to the store!!! Made it to the pool by three and spent the afternoon at the awesome pool and wow was it nice to get clean! We had the pool most the afternoon to our own which was great and then two french girls came and joined us in the evening which was alright!!! 

R.T Day 4-Uluru to Kings Canyon

We were up about a half hour before the sun and had to race into the park to the other side of the rock to the sunrise lookout spot! We made it there about 5 minutes before the sun came up and got some great pictures. Sunset and sunrise at Uluru, check and check! About 60 km’s away was another bunch of rocks called “The Olgas” we drove about 40km’s to the lookout and weren’t going to go any farther, but thankfully we asked a tour guide if we should and she said we had to go for sure! So we took the advice and were glad we did because the trail that went in between giant rocks with a little stream running down the middle was just amazing! When we got back to the van we cooked up some lamb we bought in Port Augusta and had a little feast with all the other travelers looking at us very jealously! Without a 4WD we seen everything there was to see so we headed up to Kings Canyon and made it there about two hours before the sunset. There was a “canyon rim walk” about 6km’s long we wanted to do, but it was 6:30 and the sign said don’t start the walk after 4:00. Even though we could have done it in time we decided to just walk to the top of the canyon to get some pics and we did get some beauty’s from up there! We made it down to the BBQ sunset spot and had supper watching the sunset on the canyon. We figured the sunrise wouldn’t be so spectacular and were getting a little stinky, haha and decided to start our drive to Alice Springs and just sleep on the side of the highway somewhere.

R.T Day 3-Coober Pedy to Uluru

We were up before the sun, watched the sunrise and then headed back into Coober to see the town a bit but all the shops were closed but we did get to see the underground church which was pretty cool. Back on the road driving through the outback everything was green instead of red because of all the rain they’ve had this year so we though we were pretty lucky to see it like that. We hoped to make it to Uluru for the sunset, and after a full day of driving we made it about 3 hours before the sunset so we figured we had better walk around this enormous stone. The track around the rock is just under 10km’s so we figured if we walked fast we could easily do it in about a hour and a half! Well 2 hours later and about 2 liters of sweat because we underestimated our walking speed and the rate of the sun going down we got back to the van and raced to the sunset lookout spot. We got some great pics of Uluru at dusk! It cost 25 dollars per person to get into the park and no one is allowed to camp within the park and if you want to “free camp” they told us to go 25km’s away from the park!!! Yeah right, I just paid you 25 dollars! We are all about the free camping so after the sun was down we just drove out of the front entrance to the park, found a little side road and went to sleep. Well about midnight we get a knock on our window from a ranger telling us we have to move, so we drive down the road about 10 km’s and park beside the other cheap campers in their van.

R.T Day 2-Port Augusta to Coober Pedy

We got off to an early start and headed towards Coober Pedy, one off the hottest places in Australia! and also the biggest opal mine in the world. Sure enough about half way there a giant road train passes us as he was going over some gravel laid down right on the highway( still not sure why it was put there, very dangerous!) and he throw’s a bunch of gravel right at our van!!! So after we cleaned out our underwear(HAHA) we inspected the windsheild and there was chips all over it and one big crack on the passenger side! I took some pics of the gravel put on the road and of the wind shield because we were not sure if we would have to pay for it or not. We chose the max insurance cover but usually the front window is not covered and there was nothing in the paperwork we could see. We made it to Coober Pedy without any other issues and camped with a couple other vans in a rest stop by the highway. And that night we found out our screen windows had holes in them when we were attacked by the “mozzies” Australia Mosquitos!! And lets not forget about the very warm van that we would have to get used too!!!

Start of my longest road trip, Adelaide to Perth, About 10,000km’s!!! we figure!

So we had a rough outline of our trip, Adelaide to Uluru to Kings Canyon to Alice Springs to Kakadu Nat Park to Darwin all the way down the coast to Perth! Google maps says about 8600km’s!!! But we will do more with all our little side trips we will take.

We picked up our van with no issues, kind of!!! And started out on the road, made it to Port Augusta and free camped in the Coles parking lot right next to the ocean, nice!

Adelaide Fringe Festival

I went shopping and back down to the festival for a couple hours and later that day met up with Lenny the German in the hostel and started to get organized for our great adventure that would start tomorrow!

“The Overland” train to Adelaide

The train ride takes about ten and a half hours so I hoped I had a nice person to sit beside and I did a very nice lady from Adelaide, who was very nice to talk too! A couple hours into the journey and the train comes to a stop, the operator tells us that the strong winds blew one of the carriages of a freight train ahead of us right off the rails!!! He said it would only be about a half hour, to everyone’s surprise about forty minutes later we were on our way again. An hour behind schedule in the end, not so bad!

Back to Melbourne - My 1st AFL game!!!

I said my goodbye’s to everyone and Alex took me to the airport. My baggage weighed exactly 20 kilos!!!, so no extra charges for me this time, hahaha! My flight was right on time and I have flown many times, but this may have been the softest of all landings ever, I couldn’t barely feel us hit the runway!! I checked in at the hostel and went for a walk to mail a postcard for Gramp and Gram, and get some sandwich stuff for my train ride to Adelaide in the morning. A fellow Canadian seen my tattoo on the street and asked where I was from, we chatted a few minutes and he told me there was a couple pre-season AFL (Australian Rules Football League) games going on that night so right away I knew what I was doing this evening! When I was standing in line I started to chat with a couple local’s, Jeff and daughter Jessica. There were very nice and asked me join them as they had some friend saving some seats. They were great seats right next to the field!!! He explained some of the rules and facts about the game, like it was all started in Melbourne and they take it very seriously in Victoria. I watched the first game with them and then went to the very top of the stadium for the second game, picked a favorite team and bought a souvenir keychain. The “Essendon Bombers” a north Melbourne team, who were playing in the final game. I went back down and watched the game with Jeff and the others, it was a great last game with the bombers going down about 3 goals in the first half only to come back and win the game in the second!!! Yeah!!! Go Bombers!!! Looks like I picked the right team, hahaha! I had a blast and I will definitely go see another regular season game. 

My last day - Mt Wellington / Hobart boat tour / Indian restaurant

We all decided to wake up extra early so we could go to the Mt Wellington summit before the boat ride at 10:30, the three of them hadn’t been there before and I had no problem going again! It was much warmer this time up there but we still had a little rain, not too much though! We made it back down with a half hour to spare a took a little walk around the harbor before our hour and a half boat ride. It was a very slow boat and just went around the bay and under the bridge with great commentary of the history of Hobart. Got some beautiful pictures of the city from the water. After we got back to the house I cleaned up around the yard and did some laundry and started to pack up my things. When Kylie got home she said she would pay for all of us to go out to dinner at a Indian restaurant!!! Now she said she would normally never do boat rides and dinners, but she was very happy with the hard work that I had done and that’s why she was doing all of this!!! Seriously, that’s what she said!!! I usually don’t like Indian food buy I had some lamb chops and they were great! It was an excellent last day!

More Glenifer brush cutting!

Alex had go to town and find a job, so the three of us continued cleaning the brush from the forest. I made sure to keep a very close eye on Sonia and Yuki so they didn’t do anything stupid and hurt them self’s and a  few times I had to put them on line but I was very nice about it! We ended up finishing the job and relaxed in camp for a couple hours went to Margate, had dinner and a shower. Kylie surprised us with a boat tour around Hobart for my last day so we had to wake up early the next morning and head into town.

Yuki’s 1st day

Today a new helper showed up, Yuki, from Japan. He was a nice guy and spoke a little english. The four of us went back down to the beach to keep digging the rocks out. We dug down about 10 inches and there were still rocks so we just did what we could and then went for a swim to cool down. We all had to go and stay out at the Glenifer camp tonight and both of the Asian’s were handling it pretty good even though I thought it would be a difficult situation, but we had a nice fire and some dinner, went to sleep with the sound of possums running around our tent all night again trying to get to the food! 

Beach Clean Up!

Glen wants to make a nice beach in front of the house, so today we were asked to remover all the rocks from the beach! The only problem was that the beach as of now was just rocks! Sonia and I were working together today as Alex got really sick the night before from the seafood!!! He was the only one to get sick so we think me may have been allergic to something? So Sonia and I moved many, many wheel barrows full of rocks and the tide kept getting higher and higher so the water covered up all the work we had just done so it looked like we did nothing at all! But at least you could see all the rocks we duped on the other side of the rock wall.