A 10,000km roadtrip

Early April - June

Back in Sydney!
But oh we have seen SO much since I was last here from the stunning to the ugly to the downright bizarre.

Melbourne back in March was great fun with the stunning Commonwealth Opening (for those of you who saw it on TV, we were sitting on the Yarra river banks, where those fish sculptures were...) and the St Paddy's knees-up in an Irish pub that did have a few Irish people but was mostly filled with Aussies masquerading as Irish people... It does indeed seem that everyone is Irish on 17 March.
Got work out in the Yarra Valley about an hour from Melbourne dispatching plant bulbs. Not the most exhilarating of jobs and I still know nothing about gardening... But I've discovered something. Gardening is a rather sexy hobby... Oh yes it is... I mean, where else are you gonna find something called a Vulgar Dragon plant (dragonis vulgaris) otherwise known as the Viagra plant for obvious reasons.
Adelaide was our next stop after working for a few weeks. Stayed with Melinda, a great friend from London and her sister Sheena in their new place near the city. They showed us Adelaide's highlights from hugging Dot the Koala in Cleveland National Park to getting drunk on a tour of the wineries in the south of Adelaide. We had such a good time we ended up staying a week and a half. Then with Alex from Germany in tow (to split up the cost of petrol) we headed off into the outback.

The Outback
Flinders Ranges
First stop in the outback was the stunning rugged Flinders Ranges north of Adelaide... We took one of the more conservative routes and still encountered some nervewreaking moments as we wondered if dear old Amaroo (our car) would be able for the roads - lots of potholes, rocks and emus to content with. But the views were just amazing - really stark rugged mountains. Camping there that night was FREEEEEEZING - for those of you that think that Australia basks in 30+ weather all year around, think again. It gets REALLY cold here at night as Autumn approaches. A real treat the next morning as kangaroos came over to greet us as we ate breakfast!

Coober Pedy
I didn't think places like Coober Pedy, about halfway between Adelaide and Uluru, existed. A miner's town of about 4,000, what makes Coober Pedy stand out is the fact that most of its residents live underground or in cave dugouts. Opal was found here over 100 years ago and since it has attracted miners from all over the world meaning that this tiny town has people from all kinds of nationalities - churches of all kinds of denominations followed. You really don't
expect to visit an underground Serbian Orthodox Church in the Australian outback but Coober
Pedy isn't a place you can predict. The male:female ratio is like 4:1 or something (so a good place to pull, girls!) and then there's the underground living.... Temperatures can reach 50degrees in the summer and plunge down below freezing at night in the winter so to avoid these extremities people build houses in the rock where temperatures are more consistent. The most memorable house has to be Crocodile Harry's house which is covered in graffiti by visitors from world-over and in... underwear and pictures of naked women. Yes, for all his distinguished mannerisms and gentile appearance, Crocodile Harry is a bit of a pervert! Only in Coober Pedy....

Uluru and Kata Tjuta
Better known to most as Ayers Rock and the nearby Olgas Rock.
What can I say about Uluru? It really is as stunning as it looks in pictures except when you see it it has a mystical aura about it... It's really huge and what you see is only one third of it - most of it is underground. Everytime you look at it, it's different... And the effect of the sun on its colouring is remarkable - while most people will be familiar with the glowing red it goes at sunrise and sunset, it can be downright brown at times... While Uluru is definitely the most remarkable rock, the nearby Kata Tjuta is a better walk as you can climb over rocks and across little streams etc etc.
We stayed in Yulara, the resort for Uluru for three days - well worth giving yourself that kind of time to see the rocks. Before going onto Alice Springs, we went to King's Canyon which is (relatively) nearby - did a really hard but well worth walk there that included swimming in a freezing cold waterhole surrounded by red rock - fantastic!

Alice Springs
I've heard Alice Springs being described as an oasis in the middle of the dessert... In the middle of the dessert, it certainly is... I just always imagined oasises as being prettier than this place... It's a strange place in that it really is the the middle of the outback and yet is a proper town... One of the most noticeble things in Alice is the number of Aboriginals around. You could quite easily do a tour of Australia's east coast all the way from Cairns to Adelaide and not see any Aboriginals but once in the outback you see them. And it's quite sad as it's really obvious how several of them have turned to alcohol. It could very well be that out on Aboriginal land, you find strong communities that haven't been blighted by alcohol. However, it's very difficult to obtain permission to visit these places so the average traveller will only see Aboriginals in 'white' towns and those Aboriginals are often alcoholics. You really can understand the scale of the problem here... I always thought it was due to an ignorance on white people's part about Aboriginal culture and their refusal to accept the Aboriginal right to land. However, after seeing Aboriginals in the outback, you start to realise that the Aboriginals most white people come into contact with are people who have real alcohol problems, people who seem not to be able to accept Australia as it is now and adapt accordingly, which in turn encourages white people's racism. Real social problems there and it's hard to see how they can be resolved, especially when you see how it is for the most part ignored in the cities and by the government. Anyway, I don't know enough about the issue so moving on quickly before I offend anyone...!!
Alice doesn't have that much but it was good to relax for a while and stock up on necessities - supermarkets are a rarity in the outback and everything's really expensive whereas Alice has everything... It also has this baby kangaroo sanctuary where a man brings up baby joeys rescued from mother kangaroos killed on the road... The kangaroos were like half a metre high and so unbelievably cute!!!

Alice Springs - Tennents Creek - Mount Isa - Townsville
A journey of nearly 2000km with not much to see along the way except for flatness, flatness and more flatness. The roads in the outback are bizarre. They're not exactly pancake flat, more of a naan bread kind of flat... You know that shimmery glare you get on hot days - it obscures your long sight vision... Signs warn you of kangaroos, camels and cows... Cows?? In the outback?? Every now and then you see big black vultures (well, I think they're vultures) eating dead animals... Occasionally you have to overtake road-trains, or 54-metre long lorries with 4 or 5 carriages. Along the side of the road are several burned out cars... We were like, who drives out to the middle of nowhere and burns their car?? We were told that it's Aboriginals who crash their cars after being chased by the police... Don't know if that's true though. On the way to Tennents Creek, driving along the road, I saw a sign (one of those yellow ones that warn you of something crossing) with a plane. In other words, planes sometimes land on the road...!!
So we're just driving along (with a German guy, Ramy and a Dutch girl, Sonja) trying to get to Townsville as quickly as possible when we encounter a flood in Queensland on our second day... A tow truck was taking cars across for $30 but we reckoned the flood was low enough to cross. The tow truck driver told us to drive in his slip-stream so the water'd be lower. Bad idea. He stopped half-way across the flood and reversed onto our bonnet, scraping poor Amaroo...! The next day, I was stopped by the police for speeding. Treacy'd already been stopped back in South Australia and given a speeding fine. So it was just like, ohhh what next?! But arrive in Townsville we finally did...

Coastal Queensland
Whitsunday Coast
Houses on stilts, palm trees, sugar cane fields, beaches, beaches and more beaches, exquisite islands, rainforests, waterholes.... Queensland really is beautiful and despite it being autumn, the weather was still warm.
We headed down to Arlie Beach and booked a trip to the exquisite Whitsunday Islands - a 3-day tour sailing around islands covered in dark green forests and lined with white beaches surrounded by crystal clear water. Embarked on Whitsunday Island and lazed about on Whitehaven Beach (voted best beach on Oz or something) with its powder soft white sand. The weather was awful the next day when we were on the Great Barrier Reef which was a bummer but we went scuba-diving nevertheless. It was just OK - having scuba-dived in the Similan Islands and Bali, I think I just have very high expectations. But still good to have ticked off 'scuba diving at Great Barrier Reef'...
Eungalla National Park, just south of Arlie Beach, had gorgeous waterholes where you could swim under waterfalls if you were willing enough to brave the cold - which Treacy and I were. Saw platypus swimming the next morning at Broken River... It's little trips like this that make you really appreciate having a car - going on the bus, you miss out on so much.
Placenames are one of the great things about travelling in Australia and 1770 is as strange a placename as any... Yes, 1770! Arrived at Bundaberg only to find that I'd left my bag (with passport, camera and wallet, duh!) at a cafe 130km back so had to go back, making a round journey of 260km. Funny thing is after driving distances of 2000km in a few days, 260km felt like a minor inconvenience rather than a major journey. Now I understand why Australians laugh when we talk about how 300km is a good long way away! Visited a memorial to some 15 backpackers, including one Irish girl, who were killed in a fire back in 2001 in Childers then arrived in Hervey Bay.

Fraser Island
Definitely one of my favourite places in Australia!! We went over in a jeep with eleven people and all our bags and food. Took it in turns to drive and getting behind a 4 wheel drive and meandering through forests on bumpy sand tracks or negotiating soft sand on the beach is definitely one of the best things about Fraser Island! But that's not all it has - Lake MacKenzie, a freshwater lake ringed with powderwhite sand, is one of the best places I've ever swum in... Getting to Lake Wabby involves walking across a huge sand dune.. The Champagne Pools are so called because the water goes fizzy when waves crash in. You see eels whilst floating down Eli Creek. Fraser is one of the best places to see dingoes - they're everywhere especially at night when cooking. Just brilliant!!

Down to Brisbane and Byron Bay
Over the next few days we made our way down to Brisbane via Rainbow Beach with its different coloured sand, Noosa Heads where we were stranded inside most of the time due to rain but did get to go horse riding, along the Sunshine Coast and through the very unusually shaped Glasshouse Mountains. I didn't expect Brisbane to amount to much but we really loved it. Cycled around the city for a day and the weather was fabulous, people so friendly and a great vibe about the place as people are out and about. Brisbane even has its own 'city beach'... Nice!! Wet and Wild, a waterpark followed (just OK, like any waterpark you find in Spain or the Canaries) We only lasted in the absolutely awful Gold Coast for a night, took in the spectacular waterfall at Natural Bridge on our way to surreal Nimbin, a mini-Amsterdam in the middle of the Australian countryside! It took a few days in cool Byron Bay to recover from Nimbin but that was OK cos Byron Bay is definitely the place to chill out in. Spent a few days at a friend, Josh's place down in Evans Head where we finally got to try some surfing. I might have learned to surf but that was over three years ago and I had a learner's board at the time. This time, I had one of those nifty ones that require a very acute sense of balance and that professionals use to zip about on waves. Hence, failed miserably at my surfing attempts so gave up and just boogie boarded instead.
After Evans Head, it was down to Sydney for a few days work and selling our dear old Amaroo (still haven't managed to sell her....) Off to New Zealand tomorrow for a few weeks then back to Oz. Still no idea when I'll be back in Ireland - will decide when I get back from NZ!

Will update this sometime in the near or far future. In the meantime, happy holidays (for those in the northern hemisphere) and cheer up, it gets colder in the northern hemisphere (for those in the southern...)

Adios
Cat xxxx

Syd-Melb via the Princes Highway

A beautiful waterfall somewhere! Ned Kelly, all-Australian outlaw





Kangaroos by the beach, B Park, NSW







Exquisite Jervis Beach, NSW

Lookout Point just before Bega, NSW

Photos of coastal journey between Sydney and Melbourne last March... One of my favourite roadtrips in Australia...

After requests, pleas and downright threats to update my blog, here I finally am!

Migrating to the country
With it being so hard to find work in Melbourne, we headed to Shepparton, a country town in Victoria - about 2 or 3 hours from Melbourne - to do some fruitpicking a few weeks ago. Driving through the aussie countryside, I'm full of awe how the early settlers managed to cope here. After months on end being ferried down here on a ship, they then had to trek across miles and miles of dry sweltering hot landscape and set up home in the most random of places - OK, if there was gold in the vicinity that wouldn't make it so random. The countryside is beautiful and with the australian sun, its colours are amazing. But there's still miles and miles of nothing!

Anyway so, we arrived in Shepparton and were told we could get work pearpicking in an even more little town, Kyabram, about half an hour away. That's when the country-phobia so many of us city people are afflicted with started to kick in... Everything seemed so far apart, no road signs, no people about to ask for directions, no cool shops, no sign of things to do.... Argh!!!! We managed to find a campside after much difficulty, 17 U-turns and a barrage of cursing. It was a nice one in which we got our own bathroom. As other campers all had caravans with kitchens, we were able to adopt the camp kitchen as our own and duly filled the fridge and cupboards with our stuff. So far, so good...
The next morning, we then started our pearpicking... What happens is you're assigned to an orchard. A farmhand drives these huge wooden boxes to the orchard and you just pick and fill these boxes. First, the picking seemed easy and we were all 'oh this isn't so bad!', picking away enthusiastically. But the reality of fruitpicking set in when we realised just how long it took to fill one box - about an hour - and you got paid less than $30 after tax for the box.... We persevered and got seven boxes done before going home to die from the heat.
After a hard day's work, one wants something to look forward to in the evenings. Unfortunately, nice as it was, our campside didn't have other fruitpickers. Everything shuts down in Kyabram after 6pm. After two days of fruitpicking and sitting around at the campsite, I hotfooted it back to Melbourne for the weekend. Yep, I'm a wimp - blame my parents for not exposing me to the realities of the country when I was a kid...

Pearpicking goes pearshaped
After some city oxygen I was able to go back to Kyabram the following week. But there was no more work at the orchard we were on so we went to another orchard near Shepparton. That's when we realised we had it easy in the first orchard... The new farmer had a particular thing about... pear stalks... It was really hard to pick his pears without pulling off the stalks so our first box had more than a few stalkless pears. But pear stalks, according to him, are what decides consumers when they go to buy pears. Holding up two pears, one with and one without a stalk, he asked us in the most patronising manner which we'd buy... Grrrr! So we filled two more boxes taking care to ensure that most of them had stalks. When the farmer came back he poked around and, of course, had to find the few without stalks and threatened to fire us the next day if we didn't improve. Fired from a pear farm - now that's something to add to the CV.

Went to a different campsite that evening (the first being too far away) and were berated by the campowner, a short plump countrywoman, for... 'exposing' ourselves... It transpired that walking back to one's car from the showers in one's towels was to expose oneself. So we left...
Having nowhere to stay that night, we sneaked into a park, planning to set up camp next to a campsite... But minutes after we arrived at our dark secluded spot, we discovered we hadn't been so discreet when a park ranger appeared and told us we could incur a $250 fine if we put up our tent... But, were we to do the same 20 minutes walk away, it'd be fine... Could anything else go wrong?!
The next morning, tired and grumpy, we got up and went back to 'Stalked Pears Inc' to see how we went... Now, let me rewind a bit. The previous day, I drove a tractor!!!! Unlike the first farm, on this one, we had to drive the boxes to orchards ourselves. Much to Treacy's astonishment, I had no idea how to drive a tractor but it was easy enough once the farmer showed me although the others would tell you I drove it too fast. It's actually good fun!! Anyway, back to our second day, the tractor broke down just before we got to our orchard (in my defence, I wasn't driving it) and we were stranded for more than an hour waiting for someone to come and fix it - using the time as an opportunity to take photos of ourselves pearpicking, driving tractors etc! We then spent a few hours picking but realised that while we were able to pick pears along with their stalks, it was so so so slow and the boxes were filling up so slowly it was almost as though they were being emptied. After 2 boxes, we quit. From being all narky with us the first day, the farmer seemed disappointed to see us go, asking me whether I had a boyfriend back home..! A bachelor all the way out in the middle of a pear farm was bound to be disappointed to see three girls who 'expose' themselves (Shepparton's a small town - he was bound to have heard) leave. But, I can tell you, we were very glad to see the back of him!
But that wasn't the end of our run of bad luck... At the petrol station, Michelle decided to slam the door on my finger... OK, OK, OK, it was my fault for resting my hand in not a very sensible place... Worse than the pain was the shock of having my finger completely stuck in a door and being unable to do anything - it was horrible. But Michelle noticed quickly and freed me and we quickly went to the hospital where I was told it wasn't broken but would be very bruised. Left with a huge bandage, relieved that I wasn't surrounded by Auslan (Australian sign language) users as it requires two hands - not very practical when one of your fingers has a huge bandage.

Canberra - 'Meeting Place'
Back when Australia got its independence from the UK, Melbourne and Sydney were roughly the same size and its inhabitants both laid claim to the title of capital of Australia... Rather than battle it out, they decided that this tiny tiny village in the middle of the mountains would become Australia's capital. It was named Canberra, which is Aboriginal for meeting place.
Because Melburnians complained that this village was in New South Wales (where Sydney is), a line was drawn around this village and the land within called 'Australia Capital Territory'. So even though ACT is in NSW, the NSW state has no authority over it. Compromises you'd expect to come out of the schoolyard...! But if it works, it works...
So, 100 years on, Canberra remains Australia's capital but that's it. It's not the economic, artistic, cultural, sporting or otherwise centre of Australia... It's simply where the federal government meets and where national politics is conducted. As it was just a village when bequeathed with the title of national capital, Canberra had to be built almost from scratch and so is completely planned, making for pretty amazing town planning - but it's still a really boring place. For all its shortfalls however, Canberra has fantastic museums. We went to see the Canberra Museum and Gallery plus both the National Art Gallery and Museum. Also ventured into the Parliament buildings and stopped at the Aboriginal Tent (what they consider to be their 'embassy') so it's worth a visit. Don't plan a week there though!!

Oh, have I mentioned that our means of travelling is by car, a big red station wagon we bought in Melbourne? It was in Canberra that we decided to christian it 'Amaroo', the Aboriginal for 'beautiful place' - because the car brings us to beautiful places (Shepparton excepted).

Sydney
As I write this, we've been in Sydney nearly 2 weeks. Yesterday was spent out at the stunning Blue Mountains, we've crossed Harbour Bridge, from which you can see the Opera House, several times, sunbathed at Bondi Beach, partied at the Mardi Gras parade, had coffee in very cool Newtown, browsed around Paddington Market, checked out some of the museums and the Rocks area (old Sydney). We're planning to leave in a few days to check out the NSW and Victorian coasts before arriving in Melbourne for the Commonwealth Games and Paddy's Day celebrations.

Just in case I don't update this before then - a very Happy Paddy's Day!!!!!
Love Cat xxxxxx

The Festive Season down under

Bringing kids to see Santa in shorts and sunglasses, shopping for xmas presents covered in factor 30, gasping for water after putting up the xmas decorations in 35 degree weather, snow-themed xmas decoration displays in shops full of summer clothes, people sweltering in santa hats at work parties.... Just some of the ingredients for your typical Aussie xmas...
We celebrated Christmas Day in true aussie style - enjoying a barbeque and some cricket at a friend's place. Very different to any Christmas I've ever had but no less enjoyable - except we didn't get to taste any of the trifle we'd made for the event... The next day, Stephens Day, we had a traditional turkey dinner chez nous but after strawberries and champagne down on the beach - so not that traditional.
It was nearly 45 degrees in Melbourne on New Years Eve - so none of that covering up that sparkly NYE outfit in a heavy coat and scarf... Michelle and I escaped the heat and headed to Torquay, a surfer's town south of Melbourne, for some beach time, a barbie (another one) before seeing in the new year in the local pub five minutes away and getting rather drunk at it... Good fun and not freezing your butt off whilst seeking out a taxi or Nitelink at 5am made it all the better. January here is like August back home - lots of businesses closed, it's the silly season politics and media-wise and locals have made their way to holiday spots while tourists have taken their place back home. The festive season hasn't really finished - Australia Day has yet to be celebrated on 26 January so more fireworks and partying then!
It being 2 weeks into January, this comes rather late.. but a very happy new year to everyone!!! All the best in 2006!!!

Great Ocean Road (plus photos at long last!)

Sick of job hunting and having itchy feet in general, Tracey, Michelle and I hired a car and headed west to the Great Ocean Road, an absolutely stunning coastal road that meanders around red cliffs and along white and golden beaches for some 4 or so hours. We set off on a nice sunny morning but in true Melbourne style, it was raining by the time we arrived at GOR's first town, Torquay where world famous beaches, Surf Beach and Bells Beach are... OK, they're famous if you're into surfing... As it was a Tuesday, it was raining and the waves weren't at their best, we didn't see any surfers. But the beaches themselves are really beautiful, very isolated too.
Torquay itself is full of surf shops and not much else - good if you're into surfing... If not, better to keep going. After reading that it was frequented by kangaroos we decided to visit the Anglesea Golf Course off the GOR. It was raining as we arrived so our furry friends weren't out at large but we did find them sheltering under trees. Our first kangaroos and the first indigenous aussie animals we saw since arriving.

The World's Most Persistant Fly
Actually, no, the kangaroos weren't the first indigenous creatures we encountered. The Victoria Fly was... unfortunately.
After a couple of stops at lighthouses and such-like, we arrived at sunny Lorne where none of the $10+ meals appealed so we bought delicious peppercorn pate in a deli (after filling ourselves up with pate, olive tapenade, honey etc etc samples) and bought the makings of a picnic in the supermarket... However, one major problem with picnics in this area is.... the FLIES... In case I haven't mentioned the flies yet, Melbourne and Victoria is host to The World's Most Persistant Fly. What happens when one of these flies takes a fancy to you is it pursues you, more specifically, your face and all its orifices in stalker-like manner despite all your efforts to turn it off (screwing up face), deter it (giving it a mighty whack) or escape it (run/cycle/drive away). As these flies currently outpopulate humans by 100 to 1, you can be guaranteed of several admirers everywhere you go in Victoria. Hence, our picnic had to be relocated to the interior of our car.

Walking shoes, food and water supplies etc. for 240 steps
After Lorne and lunch, we drove inland a bit, drove up and down steep roads (and, thus, discovering what '2' on the automatic gear is for) and found the Erskine Waterfall, a really pretty waterfall. Kindly aussie local councils and governments tend to veer on the overprotective side and everywhere you go, you find long detailed signs full of interesting information on how to keep oneself safe. At Erskine Waterfalls carpark, we read that we ought to kit ourselves out in walking shoes and protective gear and ensure that we had plenty of water and food before setting off. We'd brought none of the above apart from a half full bottle of water but decided to take the risk and set off... 240 steps down , we found ourselves at the waterfall. 240 steps up later, we were back at the car... These signs, I really don't know....! Anyway the waterfall was beautiful and its environs more like S.E. Asia's tropical jungles than Australia's dry landscapes.

Spent the rest of the day driving, stopping, taking photos and short walks, driving some more. GOR is a great road to drive, lots of bends in the road around which yet another beautiful view is revealed. When the sun came out, the sky was just so big and blue... the water clear and turquoise... big isolated beaches... Every now and then, the road'd go through eucalptus tree forests and we'd crane our necks trying to find koala bears. We didn't that day but we did have to screech to a stop to allow an echnidna to pass.


That evening we arrived at the Twelve Apostles, probably GOR's most famous landmark. It was cloudy and pretty cold so we reckoned we weren't gonna get a good sunset and left but just as we were pulling out of the carpark, the sky turned a furious pink colour... A quick reverse and job later, we were back at the viewing point in time to capture a sunset full of pinks and burned oranges. We also saw two families of penguins come out of the water after dusk.
We then went to Port Campbell for food and sleep and found that one restaurant was open - the town's most expensive one... So we ordered one portion of fish and chips and had it between the three of us... That's travelling on a budget for you!


Next day, it was more sandstone cliffs, golden beaches and big waves for a few hours at the Loch Ord Gorge, Bay of Martyrs and a few other stops along what's known as Shipwreck Coast, so called due to the 100+ ships that have been shipwrecked. When you see the waves and feel the rip as you wade in 3 inch high water, you are not surprised...

Visited the Big Cheese Factory where all the cheese samples we tried sufficed as lunch and then it was onto Warnambool - a not very exciting town where Tracey and I had to borrow a torch to go to the loo during a powercut! - and from there, Port Fairy via Tower Hill Park... Tower Hill is on a volanic plateau and is full of different indigenous animals... including kangaroos, emus and koalas, including 'Cathy the Koala' (a koala who responded after Tracey called me leading her to believe that it was called Cathy). Port Fairy was our last port of call. We'd been led to believe it was a bustling port town full of restaurants so were looking forward to some fish and chips surrounded by lots of atmosphere watching the sunset over the port. Er, that's not quite how it panned out. Port Fairy is this very and I mean very quiet town reminiscent of 1950s America. It has a 'port' but an inland one with a few privately owned boats, nothing like Howth or Dun Laoire. What it does have is plenty of restaurants. We figured that since there's nothing else to do, people just go and eat in restaurants and that's how they are kept in business. Port Fairy appears to have a folk festival every March and it was already being advertised. There's even a 'folk festival office', one of the biggest buildings in town dedicated to it and outside the office, a post box for 'folkie mail'. How 1950s American can you get?! After getting ourselves some fish and chips we went to the 'Dublin House' for beers, and tea for the designated driver, but found that for all its pub-like exterior (and its name for god's sake!!) it isn't a pub but a restaurant (yes, another one), a restaurant that, despite a number of vacant tables, was 'full' after its maitre 'd registered our scruffy appearances. So we had to scuttle away and comfort ourselves with tea and cake elsewhere. The sunset was not great that evening but we were on a beach with the softest white sand ever, flanked by dark volanic rock so we didn't mind... You get an idea of how meandering the GOR road is when it only takes you two hours to drive back to Melbourne on the freeway, having taken you 2 days to get to Port Fairy! GOR - highly recommended!

Living Down Under

Right I know I haven't posted in ages... But better late than never and here I finally am!

Living near the beach!
Now in Melbourne - joined Treacy, Michelle and Conor here in early November and we are now living in an area called St. Kilda near the beach. The previous tenants left behind their rollerblades so in the midst of that 'coldest winter in decades' I've been hearing about you can think about me cruising along the beach on my rollerblades... It might send a warm fuzzy feeling up your spine... OK, maybe not..!

Couldn't sell water in a desert
Jobs are not a-plentiful on these shores which is strange since Australia's meant to have a very low unemployment rate. But I guess with all the houses and cars people have here there's a lower turnover in the jobs market. I managed to get one as.... (hangs head in shame)... a door-to-door salesperson. Yes, yes, OK are you finished laughing yet? Selling child sponsorship for World Vision - all in a good cause... I have managed to sell two sponsorships but am concluding that I'm the crappiest salesperson in the world. Had a woman on the verge of tears yesterday after talking about poor starving kids and, while most salespeople would have turned this into a guilt trip thus securing the sale, I simply didn't have the heart to push her and ended up reassuring her, saying that if she couldn't afford sponsorship, that her prayers were just as valuable. For feck's sake, Cathy!

Before Oz - in a nutshell (for those with lives)
Phnom Penh - Siam Reap - Bangkok - Koh Tao - Phuket/Similan Islands - Singapore

Before Oz - the longer version (if you haven't got a life)
I really really want to go back to Cambodia - it was an absolutely fascinating country but with only eight days and being firmly entrenched on the tourist trail I didn't come away with a feeling of having seen the real Cambodia. Arriving after three weeks in what I thought was a poor country (Vietnam) I was completely taken aback at the poverty that permeates Cambodia. It's clear from the boulevards of Phnom Penh that it was once a very grand city... But now it's hard to get the sense that you are in a proper capital city - the roads feel like those out in villages. I read in a book I am reading here that lots of peasants moved into PP in the 1980s and as education is not universal these people still lead 'peasant' lifestyles which explains perfectly the ambiance around PP. I mean, in one day, I saw a monkey scuttle across a telephone wire, five sheep drinking water out of a barrel on one of PP's main boulevards, an elephant disrupting traffic in rush hour...!
Visited the Deaf Development Project which was set up by the Finnish Deaf Association in the 1990s - Melissa and Justin (from Australia and the UK) told me all about deaf education in Cambodia. Up until 1996 there was no provision, educationally, for deaf people and as deaf people didn't congregate there was no sign language either. The situation has changed dramatically in the last 9 years - while Cambodia has a long way to come, deaf people now have sign language and education, primary and adult, available...
On the same road as the Deaf Development Project is the Tuong Sleng Museum. The museum is housed in what was originally a school, and turned into a prison during the Khmer Rouge reign (for those not in the know, the Khmer Rouge were communists that took over the country in 1975 until the Vietnamese invasion in 1979). The museum isn't the most sophisicated around but with all its photos of people, including children and babies, who were killed because they were middle class, lived in the city, educated or something as simple as having glasses (a 'sign' of being educated according to the Khmer Rouge) it really was the most chilling place I'd ever been to. I had mixed feelings at the 'Killing Fields' (where people were brought from Tuong Sleng to be killed) - situated in the country outside PP it has a beautiful memorial, was very peaceful and should be a place of reflection. But tourists are bombarded by people begging and because you know that these people are desperate it's extremely difficult refusing money. So there you are surrounded by tragedy, past present and future (seeing kids who've been amputated and knowing their futures are likely to be dire).
But later that day, I went to the National Museum which is in an absolutely stunning rust red pagoda-style building and then onto the riverbank where PP-ers meet to socialise, chat, flirt, eat and meet friends at sunset. A man out with his baby son offered me some barbequed fish with chilli and, later, two young lads gave me some of that citrus fruit you see around SE Asia (I never found out what it's called) and some chilli salt... Up in Siam Reap after explaining those strange contraptions on my ears to some curious kids, a girl put one of the bracelets she was selling on me and told me to keep it to remember Angkor, being offended when I offered to pay for it. It was a whole other side to Cambodia - despite the poverty and tragedy people live with, they know how to smile and are extremely generous.

Siam Reap - Thailand Defeated
That's really what Siam Reap means - Thailand defeated... Can you imagine going to visit 'England Defeated' in North France or similar?! Anyway Siam Reap is the gateway city to Angkor Wat. The town itself is a busy place with restaurants, hotels, a market but not much else - it's all happening down at Angkor. I hired a bike, bought a three day pass and set off to explore Angkor. Wow, whatever words I use won't do it justice. Cambodians are extremely proud of Angkor and it's easy to see why - it's evidence of a glorious past. Huge huge wats (temples) made out of grey stone, some with purplish hues, others having a luminous green tinge from moss and a few looking almost red, built in an area across about 12-20 KM... My favourite wat was the one where Tomb Raider was filmed - most wats have been restored but this one was left as it was found and is just the most magical place ever with trees growing on top of buildings etc. What I need to do is post some photos so you can see what I mean. Something else I loved in Angkor were all the butterflies fluttering about - bright yellows against the grey of the buildings. The colours were so vivid - it's really a photographer's dream. While I had a three day pass unfortunately I came down with a fever and slept right through the second day so only had 2 days to see it which was a right bummer but I did get 2 days...

The worst road in the world
Driving from Siam Reap to Bangkok, according to a map, shouldn't take that long. Getting from Bangkok to Poipet on the border takes 4 1/2 hours and is twice as long as the distance from Poipet to Siam Reap... So about 7-8 hours in total you might think. Think again... Getting from Siam Reap to Poipet alone took NINE hours, ALL of it on what was literally a dirt track covered in potholes, no, make that pot-craters. The van we were on suffered a flat-tyre after crashing into one of said craters - the only surprise is we didn't have four flats... Poverty's definitely all relative - Thailand seemed poor-ish when I first arrived in September but after Cambodia it felt like being in a really rich developed country.

Back in Bangkok
After being sick for a few days and that hazarduous bus journey, I was ready for some pampering. And how better to pamper oneself than go on a shopping spree?! Hit this big shopping centre in Bangkok which was bursting with cheap jeans, shoes, bags, jewellery and more... At the end of a hard day's shopping, went to see a Thai romcom with English subtitles in a big comfortable AC-ed cinema... What luxury!
The next day I met up with Naomi from London and we headed down to Koh Tao where Naomi was doing her instructor's course. I enrolled on the Buddha View Open Water course - that's the scuba-diving for beginners course. It was such fun I decided to go on an eight-day diving trip around the Similan Islands in the Andaman sea on the other side of Thailand. I needed some persuading to do it cos it was expensive but am so glad I did go. Eight days of living on a boat (we were all 'landsick' when we touched on land on the last day!) eating amazing food, getting to know fellow-divers (who harked from Holland, Germany, Sweden, France and the USA) and, of course, doing four dives a day and seeing a whole other world... I won't go into what fish I saw much because am sure no-one reading this'll know what they are but I did see lots of leopard sharks and even stroked one, a big mantra ray and had a sea-turtle swim around me looking for food. Forget Paris and Milan, the only fashion show that matters is the one below ocean-level. All kinds of colours, designs and shapes being paraded around stunning coral shelves. Some areas had these HUGE boulder rocks and we could swim in and out of grottos - dead exciting! Other places such as the Garden of Eden were simple dives but had the most vivid array of colour you could ever hope to see. Oh I met Nemo by the way... A nice little lad he is, but rather shy.

Singapore
Singapore was a culture shock after being in SE Asia for a few weeks... I was broke and couldn't shop... And Singapore is first and foremost a shopping city... Met up with a friend from Sydney who was on his way to Dublin which was good - he knew Singapore pretty well and showed me around the shops (I did manage to rake up enough money to buy a bikini) and the following day we went to Sentosa Island which can only be described as surreal. It's basically an island that's been turned into a playground with an aquarium, dolphin park, skyview tower, a giantic lion/mermaid statue-thingy, a cinema-experience (one of those things where you sit on moving chairs) and stuff like that. Totally commercial but it was fun for a day. Also managed to take in Little India and visited a deaf girl who lives with her husband, three kids, mother, father and sister in a one-bedroomed apartment....! Her friends were all visiting the same day so there were like 20 people packed into this tiny space!

Melbourne!
From Singapore it was onto Melbourne and door-to-door selling... I am gonna love you and leave you all now but will try and make updates more regular from now on!

Keep the emails coming in even if I don't reply - I love hearing what's happening back home!

Mwah xxxxxx

Pink in Phnom Penh

Rented a bike today and cycled around PP forgetting to put suncream on so face and shoulders have gone a nice rosy red... That aside, renting a bike was just perfect for seeing the city - it's quite compact and there isn't as much traffic as in Saigon meaning you even get to survive the experience - but barely. Was all proud of myself for doing as the Romans do but, as was trying to cross wide busy boulevards using the zig-zagging and ducking method, it occurred to me that Romans threw people to the lions...


Sunset over lake in Phnom Penh
Not cut out for the Viet Cong
Really really enjoyed Saigon... Went to the Mekong Delta down in the SOuth on a day tour (a v canned one involving photos with pythons around one's neck), visited the Cu Chi tunnels where I had a slightly embarrassing episode... We were looking at the entrance into one of the tunnels which was framed by a metal border. It was TINY and a couple of the skinny wans got in, everyone else hovering around... After doing a couple of mental measurements and mathematics I decided I'd just fit in so popped off my flipflops and slid in... Pas de probleme... However, when getting out, I realised I'd been optimistic in my measurements - making the hole bigger and my

hips smaller... But you can't argue with physics so I couldn't get out!!! Erm, I said to a couple of lads standing above me, it would appear I am stuck... Could you give me a helping hand? So three guys pulled me out. Funnily enough, it wasn't embarrassing at all - i think the relief of finally getting out without destroying a historical relic superseded any other emotions i could feel. It's clear that the Viet Cong didn't have any Western hips in it...

A very Irish corner in Saigon
Visited the Christina Noble Children's Foundation where Trich and her housemates work... Set in a beautiful building (built for the charity by an Irish builder), it has a school for socially disadvantaged kids to help them catch up with schooling before going onto mainstream schools. Then there's the centre providing long term care for kids who are malnurished, disabled or have other medical problems - it has nurses, physiotherapists and other medical staff. Trich showed me around and the kids were all just gorgeous - wide-eyed, friendly, warm - there was just a gorgeous vibe about the place despite the background of the kids... Kudos to the Centre and all its staff! The administration centre was bizarre in that it had these photos of very Irish things - Bertie Ahern, the O'Brien's Sandwich shop logo, a photo of a vietnamese girl's bedroom with a poster of Westlife in the background... Also a lot of the volunteers and staff are Irish so there's a lot of 'oh my god you know so and so?' and 'really you lived there? i used to live just around the corner...?'...
Went to an Irish pub called Sheridans - was looking around thinking that the vietnamese had done a great job with it as it was really authentic when I noticed a dark solitary figure on the other side of the bar - a big bearded man reminiscent of Connemara fishermen in dark West of Ireland pubs... I then noticed a photo of a similar-looking man with Bertie Ahern on the wall behind him so asked if it was him... He nodded slowly... 'Are you the owner?'.. Another nod... Ah that would explain the authencity of the pub...
Something else that's quite bizarre in Vietnam: all over the country, when you say you're from ireland (or Aie-lann) people say 'oh you know Roy Keane/Robbie Keane?'....!! In fact, when Fiona Keane (a friend of Trich's who arrived when I was there) was going through passport check at the airport, she was asked if she was Roy Keane's sister! Poor girl was perplexed until Trich explained that Vietnamese men think of Roy when they hear Ireland.

Arriving in Cambodia
I think a result of living in the EU is astonishment at how hard it can be to go from one country to another. I should be used to it by now but I still get a surprise when I find a country requires a visa (and how much said visa might cost!) and that getting into a country isn't as straightforward as it might be getting from france to Germany on an EU passport. Getting to Cambodia from Vietnam is probably the most complicated border crossing I've experienced... Got a coach to the Vietnamese border where we had to show our passports and leave the country going into a sorta no-man's land resembling a construction site (in fact,a big temple was being built in it..) Arriving at the Cambodian border, we were given forms to fill out and told to wait while passports being checked. ONe by one, the others frm my bus received their passports but nothing for me... So I went up to ask... They didn't have it! I was like, bu... but... I gave it to you, in high pitched voice. Turned out that it'd got mixed up with a whole load of passports that were, as we were speaking, on a coach about to go into Cambodia... Quickly, one of the officials went and retrieved it. But can you imagine losing your passport there? In a no-man's land...???!!! Not in vietnam but not in Cambodia either!

Double decker buses
We'd gone to vietnam on a big air-con coach. But in Cambodia, our bus was a lot smaller. We also had new passengers... So getting onto the bus was an exercise in physics - how to fit into a container of certain volume something of larger volume... I am proud to say that I was part of the first ever experiment to prove that this is indeed possible. This was mainly due to a very creative bus driver. When faced with the possibiltity that he was not going to fit the last two lads (Irish country ones from Leitrim and Cavan) in, he went down to the back of the bus, got someone to open the window and took a box that'd been on the back seat out. As the passage down to this seat was choc-a-bloc, he got one of the lads to... climb through the window...! Up to this point, all Westerners on the bus had been sitting in a stunned silence but watching this poor guy try and squeeze through a tiny window (think Cu CHi tunnel-size) we all just cracked up.. The second guy was invited to share the driver's seat with the driver and a few boxes and suitcases up in the front.
But when I saw the average Cambodian bus, I realised we were on a luxury bus... Driving through the countryside, we saw that bus roofs are considered extra seating - several buses going around with roofs packed full of people... I've also been told that sometimes when the roof is full, some people will sit on the bumper!

Right i think this blog is long enough without me going into Phnom Penh... so will save that for another day!

xxxx