Solo Travel Adventure Number 1!: January 2015

Rainbow Beach and Sandblow
OOps ... running out of time on this library PC, so will have to continue on another day!

Tin Can Bay
More progress was made today and I even had to stop for fuel for the first time: at just 56p a litre it was almost a pleasure! I drove via Noosa Heads, where I tried to spot one of the local millionaires, to no avail, and then on to this quiet shore side town where once again it had started to rain. Along the way I found some interesting places and signs and a public toilet in the middle of the town which seems to think there is going to be some sort of epidemic soon!

NINE ROLLS!!

Natural swimming hole in the middle of the rainforest

Spotted this AFTER I had enjoyed my picnic just 20 yards further along the beach!

Would love to see one of these - but what a name!

My 24 hours at Tin Can Bay gave me time to get an early night so that I could rise in time to feed the pod of wild dolphins who obligingly visit the harbour each morning. A great experience if a little manufactured!

Brisbane and Bribie Island
Having picked up my campervan (Sassy) I drove through monsoon-like rain to Brisbane for about 110km: it was 'interesting' to say the least and not an experience I want to repeat anytime soon! The camp site was very close to the Central Business District and the people were very welcoming so I felt really positive about this next phase of my trip.

Over the next few days I explored Brisbane, mainly by catamaran, attended a charismatic church service and also went to the theatre on the spur of the moment - Thriller Live - excellent fun, all of it! One interesting point: the church congregation danced, clapped, cheered, raised their arms in the air and sang joyfully whereas the theatre audience sat or stood, as directed from the stage, in almost complete still ness ... quite an anomaly for some one who was brought up praying in stillness and leaping about like a demon at a concert! Maybe it is just the heat!

Can you make out the letters?

As I have some 1,700km to drive over the next twenty something days, I decided that I really should press north. Well I only managed about 45 km when I found this delightful area - Bribie island - and decided to stop for the night. I won't get far like this will I? Never mind! It is a delightful place, with some seriously beautiful waterside homes ... think I could retire here!

A talking monument - but it seemed to have lost its voice when I visited!

The Glasshouse Mountains - not like any glasshouse I have ever seen I have to admit!

Yes I could live here!

The wet seasons approaches: temperatures are rising, rain is falling quite frequently and hair is now a lot shorter!

Coff's Harbour and Byron Bay
These two seaside towns are both popular as they have the by now éxpected' surfing beach. Hostels offer kayaking, surf lessons and every manner of other water based attractions. As the weather has become unpredictable, I decided to visit a Butterfly House in CH .. quite an adventure with 2 buses and a walk, but the bus drivers were all very kind and dropped my off at the closest point, despite there being no actual bus-stop there. Thankfully they communicated with each other and I was picked up form the same roadside spot a couple of house later.

I know it is blurred but the colour was amazing!

My breakfast - full of iron and vit D apparently.

Thankfully the stall holder prepared it for me - very juicy indeed and such a vibrant colour too!

The most easterly point in Australia ... next stop ...er ... Chilli?

Newcastle and Port Macquarie,
Both of these are middle sized friendly towns with great beaches and surf culture. Unfortunately in Newcastle there was a shark hazard and so the surfers' fun was curtailed a little. Apparently there was a Tiger Shark in the bay and it finally killed a dolphin so left the area after haunting the beaches for nearly a week. Port Macquarie is a beautiful town and I have decided to stay an extra day or two: weather fabulous and a really gentle pace of life here! My excitement today was getting my malaria tablets sorted out for Cambodia in March and going for a jaunt on an authentic Chinese Junket .. great fun ... photos to follow as no upload facility on this computer. As you can see life by the beach is all action, but with temperatures in early 30's and a high degree of humidity, it is all I can do to put on more sun cream in the afternoons!

spot the surfer dudes!

Last Day in Sydney
Decided that I could not come here and miss the chance to see an opera in the Opera House, so I attended a performance of a variety of opera hits on Sunday afternoon: it was fabulous and some of my ex-pupils may well remember studying Puccini ... well I heard Nessun Dorma sung live and my flesh turned to goose bumps! A real highlight of my time here as was hearing the Flower duet from Delibes.
For my final day I had another tour around the sights, grabbed brunch on Darling Harbour and had a massage from a Thai lady who used her knees to get enough pressure to sort out the knots in my shoulders and back ... painful but definitely worth it in the longer term!

The auditorium's roof was the same shape as the outside roof - very high indeed!

Darling Harbour

A real mixture of older properties and modern skyscrapers

A beautiful Victorian building has been turned into a shopping mall - very tastefully done too!

Sydney and the surrounding area
Having arrived mid-afternoon I decided to explore the local area and found a fantastic indoor market where I quite easily spent a couple of hours. Then I decided to book a tour into the Blue Mountains (so called because the eucalypt trees give off a vapour which glows blue when the sun shines through it, in the same way as a rainbow is formed!)and also buy a ticket for the Hop-on-hop-off bus which would take me around the city over the next few days.
The trip to the mountains was spectacular and a very full 12 hour day: a wildlife sanctuary, an Aboriginal show, viewing Three Sisters Rocks, dangling over a gorge in a cable car, riding in another cable car down into the canyon, walking in the rain forest, travelling on the world's steepest railway to get back out of the canyon and finally returning to the city by boat from the Olympic Park.

A dingo

An echidna - we'd seen one in the wild but were not able to photograph it

Very rare - albino Kookaburra

Circular breathing required to play the digeridoo

The Three Sisters - people on a walkway just visible? They are huge!

Looking down from the cable car

Route of the cable car!

Rail ride back to the top

Bondi Beach - the very popular city beach

I've booked to go to a concert here on Sunday! Yippee!

The Harbour Bridge

5th-8th January

My next few weeks will be spent travelling on Greyhound buses between the various cities as I make my way north towards Brisbane. Greyhound buses have toilets, water dispensers, wifi, USB recharging points AND air conditioning! Can't be bad! From Melbourne to Canberra took just over 4 hours, but with my music playing the time passed easily enough. Canberra is the capital of Australia but has to be the quietest city I have ever visited! It was designed and purpose built as the capital in the early 1900s and 40% of the population work for the government. It is set out as a garden city I suppose you could say, with no power cables running down the middle of the streets (they are all behind the houses) so that the trees can grow unhindered. There are lots of parks and a huge man-made lake in the centre. The road system is based on a cartwheel design with mainly crescent shaped routes rather than square blocks. During the day you can count the number of people on the pavement ahead of you ... I know it sounds strange but there are rarely more than 30 people in sight and only ever a dozen cars it seems. The centre of the city is dominated by a very pleasant shopping Mall which is all indoors and air conditioned of course, but the streets around also have a good atmosphere as there are more restaurants per head of population here than in any other Australian city. All in all I rather like it!

View from the top of the Parliament Building - no skyline!

Parliament House

Dept of something - but note lack of people!

Bateman's got here years ago it would seem!

The National Carillon - I attended a concert here - 55 bells and very loud!

Canberra - hard to get a decent picture because there is no dramatic skyline!

6 tonnes of water are up to 150m in the air at any one time!

A model of a capital city made from scratch - Canberra!

2nd - 5th January 2015
The weather has turned very hot with temperatures up to 40 degrees reported. Apparently there are some severe bush-fires near Adelaide which does not surprise me after seeing the lightening activity which happens here. Anyway I spent these 3 nights in Melbourne in a YHA with no air-conditioning, so I was a trifle hot, sticky and fed up at times! There were also road works outside my dormitory window which only stopped for 4 hours during my entire stay. So my opinion of Melbourne was a little biased to start with. However, once I was walking around the city I could understand why it is described as Australia's most live-able city. There is a real mixture of old and new buildings and I was pleased that I took the $5 guided bus tour to help me get my bearings. I also went up the Eureka Tower which has the 3rd highest viewing platform in the Southern Hemisphere .. I did feel very brave as heights are not really in my comfort zone!