The Wobbly Tour 2007

[lettie]

We had a meal that night in Katoomba, it was really strange because everything closes so early. I kid you not.......it must have been only 8.30pm when the restaurant started closing up. We were the last people in there and they were literally sweeping up around our table. We didn't mind though, the food was brilliant.

The next day we went to Scenic World. This is a combination of the steepest train in the world and cable cars which take you to the valley floor. The Scenic Skyway cable car has a glass bottom and you can see the valley floor below. I have an irrational fear of heights but I did manage to stand on the glass and look through it to the dense bush below us.

We took the train to the valley floor. It was a hell of a ride and pretty fast. It was like being on a roller coaster where the only direction is down. I was sandwiched between Sparks and another man and I hoped that I wouldn't end up on the other fella's knee. The train was originally built to provide access, for the miners, to the mines in the valley. This was once a rich mining area and there are still entrances to the mines down there which have been restored.

A large boarded walkway takes you through the forest where you can view mining memorabilia and all of the different ferns, shrubs and large trees that make up the bushland of this area. It was a nice walk, lovely and cool down there as the sun was out and it was hot above us. We returned to civilisation via another cable car. There are loads of viewing points from which to gaze at the Blue Mountains. We were walking along a little path when Sparks spotted a snake, fast asleep in the bush just beside us...

"Bloody hell.... trust me to be wearing sandals." I said.

Many of the snakes here are venomous, I did take a quick photo but didn't hang around for too long. There were 3 cases of snakebites which hit the news whilst we were in Oz, one unfortunate lad died, he was just 16.

We went back up to Echo Point to use the loos and managed to get in on a wine tasting in a shop there. We found some lovely local red wine and bought a couple of bottles. It didn't matter now if the restaurants close early, we had a bottle of good stuff to keep us going..

Here are some pics... The Scenic Skyway, can you spot the sleeping snake? Katoomba Coalmine and a lovely little waterfall we happened across.

[Len]

Great photos lettie, and also sounds fabulous. I as a child visited the Blue Mountains with our family back in the early 70’s.
The cable car looks massive. I’m almost sure it was a lot shorter than that, perhaps about a quarter of the size shown here and very rickety. I remember you could look through the floor as you could because the base of the car was made of steel mesh and I found that quite scary.



Keep em coming.

[lettie]

The next day we set off to start our long driving tour. We were heading for Albury on the NSW/Victoria border. We got up early and set off at about 7.30am. The wonderfully colourful Lorikeets were in fine voice and flying from tree to tree in a marvellous early morning show.

We drove all day through rural towns like Bathurst, Cowra and Young and the larger town of Wagga Wagga. We periodically stopped for refreshments and by tea time we had reached Albury. The roads were long and straight and we drove for miles without seeing another car. The landscape changed drastically from the lushly forested Blue Mountains to flat farmland. As we got closer to the Victoria border the land became drier and drier. What was once grassland had turned to dry, yellow, patchy scrub with red sandy looking soil visible in patches.

We got out of the car at Albury/Wodonga visitor centre and it was so hot that we could barely breathe. We stayed overnight in Albury before crossing the border into Victoria. We were on our way to Ballarat, a once prosperous gold mining town where we would stay for a couple of days. There were places to stop en route though and we had a nice breakfast and coffee in Rutherglen. Rutherglen is slap in the middle of a very lovely wine making region and wouldn't you know........We managed to find a brilliant bottle of wine there. It's a small town but immensley proud of its' wines.

We drove on through the dry Victorian countryside. Victoria is in the grip of a drought at the moment. It has lasted for roughly 2 years and some crops have started to fail. Bushfires are ravaging Eastern Vic and have decimated massive areas of land. The rain has failed and to make matters worse, the snow failed in Eastern Vic last winter..... This place is bone dry but despite this, any visitor can see that Victoria is a beautiful place.

We passed through another gold mining town Bendigo. You could tell that there was a lot of money here in the 1800s. Fine buildings and lovely parks with statues of Queen Victoria. It's these familiar things which make Brits feel right at home in Australia and I did feel at home. We stretched our legs round Bendigo before completing our long drive to Ballarat.

Here are a couple of pics. Rutherglen's boast, and Bendigo.

[lettie]

We duly arrived in Ballarat and found our motel about 4km from the town centre. What a prosperous place this was, the houses were huge and ornate with wide avenues and grand old buildings in the town centre. Due to the drought, the once lush gardens were dry with yellowed grass and patches of soil showing through. The motel manager said that they had 40mm of rain a few days before but because the place was so hot and dry nobody could tell where the water had gone. The dry earth had just sucked it in.. We assured him that he would have rain for the next couple of days because we had brought some with us and it had followed us around the country..

We gamely walked the 4km into town that evening and found a brilliant Italian restaurant which was BYO (bring your own).... We had brought our own, a cracking bottle of wine which the waitress opened for us. We were mid way through our meal when the heavens opened.. It absolutely persisted down, we were in t-shirts and sandals (customary dress in Oz). The restaurant called us a taxi to take us to the motel where we gave a nod to the manager before hitting the sack, it was still raining..

The next morning we awoke to a dry but cloudy day and decided to visit Sovereign Hill on the outskirts of Ballarat. Ballarat was once a sleepy pastoral town with not much going on when, in 1851, there was an almighty cry of 'Gold!!!!!'

Within a few months tent cities had sprung up all over this district and prospectors had come from all over the world to find their fortunes. Coverage of the event in British newspapers meant that a large percentage of the newly arrived immigrants were English. People sold everything they had to travel to Australia in order to make their fortune. Many of these miners were professional people who had never mined before and the conditions were incredibly tough with hard physical labour, a harsh unforgiving climate and no guarantee of a find..

There were some spectacular nuggets found here and the lucky finders of these nuggets prospered. Some of the gold was found in creek beds by panning but when that ran out, deep mines were built which followed the quartz seams to the gold. It was an exciting time and Ballarat prospered. Within 20 years it had become a small city with rich ornate buildings. The gold rush petered out in the late 1870s but Victoria had truly prospered as gold had been found in many of the other districts too.

Sovereign Hill is a living reminder of those days and offers visitors the chance to explore this fantastic period in Australia's history. It is an 1800s village with blacksmiths, coachmakers, bakeries, a post office, newspaper, shops, miner's huts, mines and a Chinese village. The Chinese also got in on the gold rush and many of these early miner's families still live in Victoria. The people who work here are all in period dress and mingle with the visitors. They have a small creek where you can go gold panning and a fantastic mine tour which shows what the conditions were like for these miners in the shafts and tunnels. It was a superb day out and the cost of the ticket also covered entry to the Gold Museum across the road, which focuses on the use of gold throughout history. We spent the full day at Sovereign Hill and the Gold Museum and thoroughly enjoyed it.

That evening, we couldn't be bothered trying to find a restaurant for food so we spent A$10 on a fish and chip supper and ended up with 2 massive pieces of fish and enough chips to feed a family of 6 people, all for the equivalent of £4.30.... I love this place..

Here are some photos of Sovereign Hill.

[lettie]

We left Ballarat the following morning and drove south to the Great Ocean Road. We were staying at Apollo Bay which is a small beach town/tourist resort. After finding our motel we went for a walk around town before setting off in the afternoon to explore the Great Ocean Rd.

The Great Ocean Rd is stunningly scenic. There are lots of lookout points from which to admire the amazing rock formations structured by years of erosion. Due to the nature of erosion, the Great Ocean Rd is still work in progress (if you would). We visited the 12 Apostles which are free standing rock formations jutting out of the ocean. I think that there were only actually 9 rocks, so I wouldn't like to speculate on the name 12 Apostles. There are only 8 now as one of them collapsed in 2005 and is just a pile of rubble now. This is not the first time that the rocks here have eroded to the point of collapse. More famously the London Bridge or London Arch, as it is known, collapsed in January 1990 stranding 2 tourists on its' outer arch. So as you can see, this is an ever changing coastline. On our way to the Apostles we had spotted an Echidna crossing the road. These are like large hedgehogs but with a difference.

Millions of years of isolation have given Australian wildlife the freedoms to adapt to their harsh surroundings. There are animals here that you would not find anywhere else in the world. The Echidna is what is termed a monotreme, meaning 'one hole'. They have one hole, called a cloaca, which serves for both excretory and reproductive purposes, an anomaly of the animal world. When monotremes were first discovered, nobody knew how to classify them. They lay eggs (a reptilian trait), but they also suckle their young (a mammalian trait). So they were classified as monotremes because nobody could decide whether they were reptiles or mammals. The more famous of the monotremes is the Platypus, also a native to Oz. I was really happy to see an Echidna, just going about its' daily buisness, but I worried about it all day because there was other traffic on the road and I did so hope that it had crossed the road safely.

The Great Ocean Rd is a very beautiful coastline and well worth a look if you are in the area, however, there was just one thing that hampered our day.....

FLIES!!!!! It was a biblical plague.. According to the locals, the flies are multitudinous this year due to the drought. The good news was that there were no mossies, because there is no water there is nowhere for the mossies to breed, but the flies are relishing the current conditions. They were everywhere and although they are harmless they are annoying. We developed what is known as the Aussie wave where you are constantly flapping your hands in front of your face to keep them away. It was total misery, they were crawling all over everyone and I swear that one of them crawled under my sunglasses and tried to suck the juice off my eyeball.

We tried to keep a stiff upper lip (we had to otherwise the flies would have crawled into our mouths), but we had to brush the little blighters off each other before getting into the car. It was hell.

We had an evening meal in Port Campbell before driving back to Apollo Bay. It was dusk by this time which can be quite a dicey time to drive in Oz. The animals can be quite active at this time of day and they often end up on the roads. Some of these kangaroos are massive and fast moving. They do a hell of a lot of damage to your car if you hit one. We were a few miles away from Apollo when I spotted a face at the side of the road......

"WOBBLY!!!!!" I shouted (rather loudly), almost causing Sparks to jump out of his skin....

There was a Wallaby by the side of the road, eating supper and minding its' own buisness.

I could not have been more thrilled to see a Wallaby in the wild, and we saw 2 more before we reached our destination. All the way home I had been checking the road for a squashed or injured Echidna. I never saw it, so I assume that the little fella made it.. Happy days..

Here are a few pics of the Apostles...

[Sparkologist]

Originally Posted by lettie

"WOBBLY!!!!!" I shouted (rather loudly), almost causing Sparks to jump out of his skin...

No Dearest... Almost causing Sparks to swerve the hire car across the road into an innocently bystanding eucalyptus tree!

[junetta]

Really interesting, Lettie.

[lettie]

The next day, after a hearty breakfast......and I'm not kidding, the breakfasts in Australian cafes fill you up for the day, we decided to visit the Otway Lightstation. This is about 14kms from the Great Ocean Rd down a heavily wooded road just teeming with wildlife. There were koalas fast asleep up the trees and it was lovely to see.

This lightstation is the oldest working lighthouse in Australia, it became operational in 1848 and is on a cliff edge where the Bass Straight meets the Southern Ocean. This coast is renowned for its' shipwrecks and has far more than any other stretch of coastline in Australia, the sea bed must be littered with bits of boat and the bodies of the prospective goldminers, convicts and other immigrants. After the lightstation was built, it was often the first sight of land that the migrants, who had been sailing for months, saw.

Apart from the flies, which were still in abundance and intent on following us everywhere, despite repellent, Otway Lightstation was a joy to visit. There is an old Telegraph Station here, a Radar Bunker, a small museum with a little collection of the local Aboriginal artifacts and plenty of information depicting the lives of the families and their children who lived here and ran the lightstation. You see, in the 1800s, this place was remote. It is now easily reachable by car but back then it was isolated. There was nobody to teach the children until the appointment of a schoolmistress sent by the government. The kids only had each other to play with and access to medical treatment and supplies must have been ever so difficult. Having said that, old pictures of the families who have lived here, showed happy smiling faces.

On our way out of the Lightstation grounds, we passed through the obligatory gift shop and got chatting to the lady who was behind the counter. We were heartily sick of the flies and Sparks had taken to flicking them away with his beer towel. Our arms were aching from constantly waving the buggers away. We asked how the locals coped with all the flies and were casually told that they just ignore them!!!!!! HOW??????

We left the lightstation and drove inland to visit the Otway Fly. This is a treetop walk through lush forest where you can view the canopy of trees and their occupants. Now I don't want to sound mard, but I have absolutely no head for heights. We did a little walk on the forest floor (and that's where I took my photos), then we came to the gently sloping metal walkway which took us up to the treetops. It wasn't so bad when we set off but it gradually got higher and higher. The higher we got, the more it swayed.... Sparks was in his element, leaning over taking photos and examining the trees, looking for wild birds etc. As for me, I was just focussing on looking straight ahead, wouldn't go near the sides and certainly wouldn't look down. I was just wondering how I was going to keep my breakfast down when we came to the end of it and the walkway started to slope downwards once more.

Now although I find these type of places hellish, I can appreciate the idea. It gives visitors the chance to look at the forest canopy up close without damaging the trees or the flora on the forest floor. Before we knew it, the day was over and it was time to go home. We brushed the flies off and got into the car and headed back to Apollo Bay to pack. We were moving on again...

Here are some pics of the Otway coast and lighthouse and some scenes from the Great Ocean Rd.

[lettie]

The following day was hot and sunny and after breakfast we headed East, along the Great Ocean Rd to the beautiful Bellarine Penninsula where we would be staying the night. We had two reasons for visiting this area, firstly, it was on the way to Melbourne and would be a convenient place to stop over. Secondly, a colleague from work moved out here 12 months ago. She moved, as a single parent, just herself and her young daughter. Of all my colleagues who have emigrated over the years, we have been the most worried about this one. She has no family in Australia and we all thought that she was incredibly brave to go it alone in order to give her daughter a better lifestyle. We had planned to meet up for a meal and a chat.

The East of the Great Ocean Rd is incredibly bendy......Fantastic scenery, but tight bends with towering cliffs on one side and lashing waves on the other. I think that this road was built by ex forces personnel who found themselves in need of a project after the war, but it is one hell of a road.

We drove through pretty, but busy seaside towns, Anglesea, Lorne, Torquay. The beaches were crowded with holidaymakers as January is the main school holiday for Australian children. Everybody looked relaxed and happy, enjoying the surf and sand. We arrived at our motel midway between Queenscliffe and Point Lonsdale on the Bellarine Penninsula. This lies at the western entrance of Port Phillip which is one of the most dangerous entrances to any bay, in the world. At Point Lonsdale it is only 3km across the bay to Point Nepean on the Mornington Penninsula, on the Eastern side of the bay, but it is 3 kms of swirling water known as the Rip..

This looks like an inviting stretch of water and the Rip is invisible to the naked eye but in 1967, Australian Prime minister Harold Holt went for a swim in this bay, a swim from which he never returned.... he was caught in the Rip and his body was never found. He had been PM for just less than 2 years.

However, the Bellarine and Mornington Penninsulas are pretty areas and very popular with holiday makers. We had a lovely evening meal in Barwon Heads, my friend's new home. I am pleased to say that she loves her new life and has settled in well, the best move she's ever made.

Here are some pics of :- The busy beach at Torquay, point Lonsdale and the innocent looking Rip, the town of Sorrento on the Mornington Penninsula.

[janet]

Looks like you both had a fantastic time Lettie. Great photos.

[lettie]

When we left the Bellarine Peninsula we took the ferry from Queenscliffe to the Mornington Peninsula. We figured that as we were staying in East Melbourne, it may be better to approach this busy city from the east. The ferry journey with the car and all of our luggage in tow was surprisingly cheap. We had a lovely drive up the Mornington Peninsula and had a lunchtime stop in the town of Mornington (there's a fantastic chippy here).

As we approached Melbourne the road became predictably busier. We managed to find our hotel but had to drive around one block 3 times in order to spot the Avis place so that we could drop off the car. Fortunately the 3 times round the block was not wasted time...... we dropped the car off and headed straight for a real ale pub which Sparks had spotted whilst we had been going round and round.

After a couple of drinks, we had a walk down to Federation Square. Fed Square is Melbourne's newest public space. Opened in 2002 it commemorates the centenery of the federation of the Australian states. It is a modern space with plentiful cafes, a glass enclosed indoor area with arty shops, the Australian centre for the moving image and much more. There is a big outdoor screen here which televises concerts and sporting events, there is also an outdoor stage for small concerts and shows. There is always something going on in Fed Square whether it be day or night. I believe that it was slightly controversial when built as many locals believed that its' modern look wouldn't fit in with the grand old Victorian buildings which sit alongside. However, Fed Square has blended in well and in a strange way it looks right.

After poking around Fed Square, we walked over to the South Bank of the Yarra River. The South Bank houses lots of restaurants and bar type places. There is something for everyone in the culinary city of Melbourne and me and Sparks couldn't wait to get eating so we strolled back to our hotel to get scrubbed and changed for our evening meal.

We spent the following day shopping. Melbourne is a paradise for serious spenders, and what's more........The sales were on!!!

I was in retail heaven... Everywhere I looked there were cool clothing and shoe shops. They sell really stylish flat shoes here, something that I find difficult to buy in the UK. To make the day even better, I bought a pair of trousers in the sale for half price and found out that in Australia............. I am only a size 10!!!!!!! and even they are a bit loose. Considering that I haven't been a size 10 since I was 10, I was well pleased and decided that I really love this place.

The afternoon was spent at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) watching a day/night match between England and Aus. Predictably, we lost. But what the hell, I'm a size 10 here!!!!!!! so I didn't care..

Here are some pics.. The view down the Yarra river to the MCG in the background, inside the MCG (this place is massive), A couple of views of Fed Square, and Flinders St Station which sits just across the road from Fed.

[lettie]

I fell in love with Melbourne straight away... I wish to take nothing away from Sydney, which is also a fine city but, Melbourne just has that special something. As Australia's 2nd largest city, Melbourne is a cultural melting pot. There are fine old Victorian buildings here which intersperse with modern glass skyscrapers. All the worlds' flavours are reflected in the food and the sporting venues, clubs, theatres and exhibition centres make Melbourne a hub of entertainment.

There has always been a rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney. Both cities used to take turns at being the country's capital but Sydney has always had more attention. Realising that they couldn't keep swapping their capital between the 2 cities, the powers that be decided to build a totally separate capital, hence Canberra was built and Australian parliament moved there in 1927

Melbourne is still thriving though and is a fantastic place to visit. It is situated on either side of the 240km long Yarra River and much of the central section of the river was rejuvenated in the 1980s. Lots of restaurants, bars and entertainment centres have sprung up and a cosmopolitan atmosphere prevails.

We took a cruise down the Yarra, it is a fabulous way to see the city and its' fantastic bridges and gardens. River cruises are inexpensive and relaxing here and there are several of them to go at, each visiting different parts of the city. We had a good 3 hours of messing about by the river and afterwards we decided to try and get a good view of the city from slightly higher ground.

Well, they don't get much higher than Rialto Towers. This is the tallest office building in the Southern Hemisphere with 58 floors above sea level and 8 below, it is about 830ft high. We took the lift up to the 55th floor observation deck and WOW!!!!! What a fantastic view... There are a couple of large balconies to go out on but I have to say, it was bloody windy up there.. Worth it for the view though..

Here are some views of Melbourne from the top of Rialto Towers and a couple of river views of the city.

[lettie]

Our last morning in Melbourne was spent doing what me and Sparks do best.......eating and drinking. We had packed all of our stuff and left it at the hotel to collect it later. We walked through the beautiful Fitzroy Gardens past the small cafe in the centre. This cafe was lovely, surrounded by colourful gardens in a very tranquil setting. They did this fabulous fruit toast there. Each slice was massive and packed with sultanas, raisins and dates, I struggled to get 2 slices down and Sparks had to help me out. We didn't breakfast there that morning but opted instead for Fed square, the reason being that I did not want to be farting all the way to the Gold Coast off the fruit toast...

Fed Square was pretty lively for a Sunday morning, we had our brekkie then managed to squeeze in a wine and cheese tasting. It was all Victoria produce and it was all mouth-wateringly good, I could certainly get used to being here but I have a feeling that I would be obese in no time.

We collected our bags and got the Skybus to the airport for our flight to Coolangatta on the Gold Coast. The motel which we were going to closes their reception at 8pm and we would get there a little late. I gave them a quick call with an estimated time of arrival and they gave me the code to get into the safe box where our room key would be.

We landed in Coolangatta and collected our hire car. We were staying in the small town of Tweed Heads for the next 4 days. Tweed Heads is a lovely place but a bit confusing. You see, Tweed is in New South Wales and at the end of the road is a roundabout, across which lies Coolangatta. Coolangatta is in Queensland. NSW put their clocks forward 1 hour in the summer, Queensland do not.. Therefore, everytime we crossed the roundabout we had to go back an hour... It confused the hell out of me, I have to admit that it doesn't take much but I didn't know whether I was coming or going.

Our motel in Tweed was lovely, we found our key in the safe box with a little letter from the manager to say that she had put milk in the fridge and switched the air conditioning on. She then came out to meet us anyway and directed us to a fish shop where we could get a bite to eat. This shop was crammed with every imaginable form of sea food. Lots of big fillets of different fish, Moreton Bay Bugs, crab, lobster, king prawns, oysters etc.....they did good chips too. We strolled around the town of Tweed Heads the following morning. It has a clean little beach and foreshore, an arcade of shops, a hospital, 2 supermarkets, a liquor store, garage and a few restaurants, a bowling alley and a club. Across the roundabout Coolangatta has much the same. What did surprise me was that for such a small population there are 2 sex shops in Tweed and one in Coolangatta.. Tweed doesn't have the holiday resort mentality which blights other parts of the Gold Coast. It is a brilliant location to stay if you want to explore northern NSW and southern Queensland, not at all touristy..

Here are a couple of pics of Melbourne's Fitzroy Gardens and some shots of the coast at Tweed Heads.

[lettie]

We awoke on our first full day in Tweed Heads to a hot but cloudy day. It does rain a fair bit in this neck of the woods and is significantly more humid than Melbourne. After a breakfast of eggs and smoothies at a local cafe, we decided to head south and explore the area.

Tweed Heads is within easy reach of Mount Warning National Park and the stunning beaches of Byron Bay, so this is where we decided to go. We drove about 20mins to Murwillumbah, a small town in Mt Warning National Park with a lovely little visitor centre on the river. After spending some time checking out the area in the visitor centre, and chatting to the lady who worked there (everyone is really friendly here), we crossed the bridge into Murwillumbah. From the bridge we could see a rather unusual 'Welcome to Murwillumbah' sign. It was graffittied onto what looked like somebody's back yard wall and it was massive. We pottered around town for a little while, again, this place reminded me of Hebden Bridge, the kind of place where ageing hippies would settle. The town had a nice relaxed feel to it though and from the riverside we could see Mount Warning looming in the distance. Mt Warning is an extinct volcano which last erupted about 20 million years ago. There are walking tracks in the area which take you to the summit.

From Murwillumbah we drove south to Byron Bay, again, a relaxed town but slightly more expensive looking than Murwillumbah. The town was full of trendy cafes, beachwear shops and had a very seaside resort feel to it. We found a lovely wine shop there and it would have been rude not to go in... Although Byron Bay is a resort, the natural beauty of the area is outstanding. This is Australia's most easterly point on the mainland and I have to say that for a resort full of holidaying Sydneysiders the beaches were wonderfully clean and the landscape unspoiled. Our next door neighbour at the motel was from Sydney, she later told me that Byron is full of dope smokers....... I didn't believe her, this was a woman who hadn't a good word to say about anywhere ( and they say us Poms whinge!!!)

We took a walk up to the lighthouse at Cape Byron and admired the beaches and bushland below us. It is really beautiful here and what's more, a haven for wildlife. There was a school of dolphins swimming past the Cape, easily visible from the lighthouse. I could see a large turtle swimming amongst the rocks below us and you should see the size of the lizards!!!!! A big beautiful lizard walked across the path to the lighthouse, it was right in front of us and couldn't care less. I've never seen a lizard so big outside of a zoo. I have to say........I'm quite taken with Australia, it's a fabulous place.

Here are some pics.....'Welcome to Murwillumbah,' Mount Warning in the clouds. Byron's lovely beach, the most easterly point and look at the size of this ******!!!!!!

[lettie]

I'll try again....