Please click here to be take to the latest batch of images (Files 86-98 are all new)

http://www.lazyblueskies.com/wp/wpg2-2?g2_itemId=9542&g2_page=9

PART ONE

For those of you who think this camping malarkey is akin to a Swiss Carry On Camping movie with lots of young, nubile blondes running around the place in tiny bikinis that resemble a piece of cheese wire with huge heaving buxom inflated chests, and a general persona of a film that should have a working title of Farmyard Back-Door Adventures I have news for you. It is not like that one bit. The closest that you get to anything Swiss is driving past IKEA on the freeway. But, a few days ago there were a few Swiss chicks on the campground and as you can imagine old Romeo here caught their eye. One small problem, in less than 4 seconds it was all over, I didn’t see them walking towards me one morning as I was brushing my teeth outside the tent. Foaming at the mouth like a drunken rabid dog, I shoved the toothbrush too far down my throat and sort of half balked a sound remarkably like Gollum himself choking on a large Halibut and then half coughed foaming toothpaste through both nostrils whilst releasing a truly quite impressive and hugely thunderous burp right into the path of the two hot Swiss chicks who squealed and ran off in the opposite direction. Nice one.

Some of the funny things you get here are the road side gas stations that sell stuff. Yes, you can just walk in and buy what ever magazine you want, and I do mean whatever you want.  For sure you get your FHM, Maxim, GQ, Esquire and a various assortment of chicks mags but then they have the Zoo and Nuts stuff too, which is cool. But then they have mags like Picture and let me tell you, you get quite a a shock when you open them up. The only thing missing is a pop up 3D working model of the female bits. Essentially, they just don’t wear clothes, nothing, nada, you see, well you, er, how do I put this, you see it, well you sort of glimpse it, but not much. So, I was furious, cheated, robbed and I was in serious do-do with The General for purchasing a Grot Mag or Art Pamphlet as I defended, or at least attempted to. Despite my insistence that it was a simple error, I was treated like a pariah and banished from the tent. To make matters worse, quite simply much worse, I was tried and treated like a criminal and I had not even purchased a hard mag! However, I did briefly notice as I merely glanced upon on the front covers some quite interesting articles on the subject of Hot New Facials and a potentially very enlightening nature article on Great Snarling Badgers.

So we have now driven over 13,000 kms in a little over 9 weeks and have managed to get from one side of Australia to the other. This map will give you an idea of the route that we have taken and just how big the place is.  Once again, this is going to be a long story, sorry. I am still having problems with my Canon gear and photo edit suite so excuse the lower quality 

Spiders in Oz, let me tell you about Spiders. Well they are here alright. Any house, park, garden, where ever you look in Oz is full of the 8 legged little killers. Seriously, Funnel Webs, Red Backs and Huntsmen abound where ever you look. Take a stick and go into the back garden and there, hidden inside a white web (that looks like a small funnel) is a little black spider with a red strip down its back. Poke it with a stick and out it comes, poke it again and it leaps at you, poke it three times and it takes the stick off you, whacks you over the head and then chases you down the path with it. Oh and the other small piece of advice is never, I repeat never, use a bush loo (long drop) on a high wind day. Without drawing you a complex diagram let us just say you feel like Horatio Hole-Blower.

Skipping back a few weeks we crossed what is called The Nulabor Plain. This is essentially a vast expanse of land, and when I say land, that is all there is, just land and runs between Adelaide on the bottom South South East side of Oz and Perth on the West Coast some 2500kms in a wobbly line away. 99% of visitors to Oz don’t bother with this crossing as it is just too far to drive. Perth to Adelaide is like driving from Buckingham Palace in London to MOSCOW!!! Several people tried to talk us out if it, but we wanted to do it, so we did. Three whole days of 900km, 800km and 800km and we stood at the desk of the Tourist Info Finish Line and were handed a bumper sticker and a certificate each (certifiably bonkers said one Ozzy bloke who wondered past our car seeing the sticker). Well we did it and the stuff we saw was quite incredible. From nothing in any direction, to huge Eagles sitting on the road, to massive Kangaroos sitting outside our tent and the straightest road in the southern hemisphere all 149 kms of it, like a runway.

One thing that left me a bit stunned about Australia is that as a Brit you tend to carry yourself just a bit over the rest. You hold your head a bit higher and say United Kingdom with a certain sense of pride when you are asked where you come from. You place your passport on the counter rather than slapping it down. But, not here. Not in Australia. Personally, I really don’t think we have the right to. This came as a real surprise to me so I am going to write as I find and it is just my opinion. What I discovered, unearthed, or realised is just what Great Britain did to Australia that in my opinion makes us not quite so great. Here goes and do read this bit because it will surprise you.

First skip back a few years to 1601. Some Dutch stoners had just discovered Western Oz by crashing into it after a few years of sailing around in circles off the coast of Indonesia in a haze of narcotic smoke and eating strange little cakes that helped them see Goblins. They arrived and promptly set up on the beach with a nice chilled BBQ and a couple of tinnies and, well, that’s about it. Great Britain on the other hand acted entirely differently 5500kms away on the East Coast. So badly did they act infact, I actually feel ashamed to be British for the first time in my life. Football hooliganism makes you look away in disgust, losing at any British sport in the semi-finals is a national institution. But what we did here makes you feel true shame.

Okay so this is a bit long but well worth the read, so it is the 17th April 1770 and Zachary Hicks up in the rigging on board ‘The Endeavour’ yells “LAND HOOO” down to Captain James Cook just down the coast from Sydney Harbour. Into a small rowing boat they drop and put to shore where they are met by two dark skinned, curly haired blokes carrying spears and wearing little but an animal skin across their choppers. Cook’s people pull a musket on the guys in seconds and fire warning shots above their head. They run off but return later. The same thing happens again over the next few days until the strange looking men return with friends. The British explorers then incredibly unfurls a Union Jack and sticks it in the sand yelling, ‘I claim this land in the name of King George III (before the Dutch stoners or the Froggies get their hands on it)’. The name of this place they claimed, Botany Bay because of the wonderful wildlife and plant life. They then set up home quicker than an asylum seeker in England and send for their families.

Skip forward a few years to 1788 and 11 ships arrive from England (10,505 miles away) carrying 751 criminals and 250 soldiers. They don’t like Botany Bay so cruise up to a place called Eora and rename it Sydney Harbour. An Aboriginal man called Bennelong meets them and befriends the funny looking sailors. He lives on a little bit of land called Bennelong Point (the site of the Sydney Opera House). The Brits give the Aboriginals the following trade for their lands, alcoholism, smallpox, and despair. The Aboriginals, not being used to alcohol, western culture and violence soon are in disarray and before long are a broken people. Their spears are no match for muskets so they fight but are out numbered. This bit upsets me. The order was then issued by The British Government to search for land and off they went, killing and raping as they went. Any dissent showed by Aboriginals was to be met with deadly force.

Britain, Great Britain then instructed the criminals to clear the land for them and essentially for every 10 bits of land they cleared, they could keep one. The Aboriginal’s named these strange people Squatters because they squatted on the land! And so it went on, field after field, mile after mile, state after state, slowly the Aboriginal Territories were destroyed and land stolen from the people, the Aboriginals were turned into workers on their own land in return for a pittance and the right to remain on there.  One entire area was traded for a box of blankets. Skip forward a few years, add the Gold Rush, skip forward a bit more to 1914 and War. Britain calls Australian men and women to arms and Australia goes to war and fight hard they do, they fight like dogs for their country.

Finally, in 1941 despite what ‘Great Britain’ had done to Australia over the last 200 years and the harm to its people, both Aboriginal and war fighter, when it comes down to it and Japan is about to attack the North of Australia, Britain, Great Britain, stated it ‘cannot spare any troops’ and Oz is on its own. Incredibly it was none other than the Good Old US of A that stepped in and saved the day. It really is quite an eye opener to what Britain used to do, and still does, but then what do I know!

PART TWO

Salami. The Salami that you get at some of the roadside food stalls is quite incredible. Stopping at one a few days ago the guy warned us that his Old Mamas recipe could be quite volatile. What he neglected to mention was the small fact that his old mum used thermo-nuclear atom splitting in her culinary processes. Three bites into the fiery death stick and my left eyebrow spontaneously combusted as I exhaled in  manner that could only be reproduced if I were to rent some Oxyacetylene welding equipment and blow torch my eyebrow off. The stench as Karen called it did not leave my body for 3 whole days.

One funny thing we did see was, and you will have to cast your mind back to 1979 for this one and none other than SKYLAB? The NASA Skylab was in trouble as was circling the earth for a few weeks hysterically out of control and about to crash with potentially devastating consequences where ever it landed. Each time it whizzed over London everyone held their breath until it shot over head at 18,000 mph, and then continued the ‘SKYLAB Disco Party’ (now called a BBQ), then it headed off to New York, where everyone held their breath before saying, ‘thank fluff for that’, and so on it went whizzing around the planet like an Apocalyptic Wheel Of Fortune until it finally crashed to earth, ready for this, yes you’ve guessed it, at a place called Baladonia on none other than, The Nulabor Crossing, killing no-one. Australia incredibly then fined the USA $400 for littering.

The travel, the journey, our incredible adventure is still going strong after some three years off and on of being on the road but this brings me neatly to a subject that I keep meaning to touch on and now seems like a perfect time to do so. I am not a clever man. I am a just a guy, just a bloke, a bit special in some ways and a bit special needs in others. I am not lucky. I am not unlucky. I am just a guy who found himself in a difficult situation and had to make a choice. and it now seems that a lot of people are heading towards a similar situation. I speak of course of the ‘Big R’ aka ‘the shove’ aka ‘R.E.D.U.N.D.A.N.C.Y’ (my suggestion is that if you sing it like Dolly Parton sung DIVORCE) it doesn’t seem quite so bad. What I want to say/share is this.

When I got made redundant 3 and a half years ago I sat there at the bottom of many a bottle of Jack Daniels wondering just where the hell my life was going and what I was going to do, and all seemed lost, truly and utterly lost. But it was a gift. It was a fresh start. Yeah for sure I miss my old colleagues but I enjoyed the tax free money more than I missed the work. Many people we speak to at the moment are staring down the double barrel of the noisy end of the BIG R gun at the moment and it must be terribly upsetting. In my experience it is not the end of the world, it is a beginning, but it is what you do with that beginning that makes you/remakes you.

Like I said, I am not clever, in actual fact I am quite stupid when I am in some circles. Here is an example, a few days ago we were with a super intelligent person who had spent days writing some stuff for a published article on the Global Recession. The title of the works was something like ‘The Global Credit Crisis Leading Sub Social Economic Ramifications Across Structured Business Groups Within The Wider Political Arena’, after much thought, head scratching and staring out of the window at a seagull I suggested a better title and promptly almost wet myself laughing. My suggestion? ‘The Credit Crunch - More Than  Just A Breakfast Cereal’…….The person in question just looked at me. I rest my case.

So, what I am trying to say is this. I did not get here by luck, nor having anyone do it for me, I did it by taking The Big R on the chin, crying like a child for days, being drunk for about a month, then realising that I was at a corner, a big corner with a big opportunity and I dived in with my eyes shut, my breath held and managed to float, Christ knows how but I did. Above all, if you can, remember these words. No-one, as in no person has ever said these words on their death bed, ‘Damn I wish I had spent more time at work!’…..unless of course you are Jennifer Aniston’s Bra fitter!

So, a bit about what we have done in Australia. So after landing in Sydney and flying to Perth, collecting our trusty station wagon, driving up the West coast to Ningaloo Reef, then all the way back down the West to to the bottom, taking a left turn and basically driving from one corner of Australia to the other, stopping or staying at 34 different places we eventually landed in Melbourne. Yes, home of Neighbours. No, we didn’t. We stayed with the ever lovely Anna and Brent (plus pooch Dennis the Sha Pay). We also met up and kited with a very old friend from France back in the good old days of Blondeair, none other that Matt ‘Super Donkey’ Von Der Muln. The weather was shocking so we got into the car one morning and drove with one focus in mind - finding the sun once again. The first signpost sadly displayed the figures 895km to Sydney at a max of 100kmh. Fuel, wee, coffee, wee, fuel, coffee, wee, wee and so on for the next 1058km until we were North of Sydney. Out of the car, pitch the tent, pump the mattress, sleep, back in the car and drive again until the figures on the dashboard said ‘You have driven just over 2000kms (1200 miles) in 3 days. Was it worth it? Was Byron Bay worth the drive? Was Surfer’s Paradise worth the hours it the car? Was it worth it to sit by the pool in the sun again? Answers = Yes to the last and 100% No to the first and second.

I don’t mean to be a snob but it just sucks. It is like Spain will be in 2020. It’s super posh, it’s hot, it’s by the beach, you can cuddle a seal, ride a dolphin, horseback ride a Doodong (seacow), stroke a drugged tiger, play hopskotch with a humpback whale, you can bungy jump from a hot air balloon, fly upside down in a helicopter, you can get a BJ in a limo at 3 o’clock in the afternoon whilst going through MacDoogals drive through, you can do almost anything that you want apart from sit by yourself on the beach and wonder at nature. Well saying that, you do actually wonder at nature here quite a lot, you wonder where the fluff it went. A real shame but then I guess it is all about diversity and for some, it floats their boat.

By the way we have finally managed to find a word for what we do, as in all this penmanship and photography. It isn’t really travel writing nor is it a blog so we have come up with ‘TRAVEL COMENATARY’.

Oh here is a quick suggestion. Bigger is not necessarily better. Namely, in Oz they have a real penchants as they do in the United States for making everything available in bigger sizes. ‘YOU WANNA DRINK?’ they yell at you, ‘Er yes please’ you reply meekly. And do you ever get one. I asked for OJ. Good old Orange juice and what I got was not 500mls, nope, not even a litre, nor 2. I got 3 litres of freshly squeezed OJ with bits, that contained ‘A GARENTEED 30 ORANGES’ yelled the big bird from behind the counter. Well it was a hot day and I was thirsty so I began to drink, and drink, and drink. About 1700mls into my experiment my tummy rumbled and gurgled. Unbeknownst (that is such a good word) unbeknownst to be high dosage vitamin C can have quite a catastrophic effect on the human body. NEVER again shall I drink OJ in such quantities. 

The Great Ocean Road. It is so impressive that it needs the royalty of having just it’s own name in a sentence. It is more a statement than a name. It runs from Adelaide to Melbourne, or Melbourne to Adelaide dependant on which side of the car you want the view on. Feeling like a white van man you drive about 700 meters and then leap out of your car to view another breath taking vista before jumping back in to repeat it over and over again. The days that we drove it, there was one heck of a storm blowing so we were lucky enough to catch King Wave aka Rogue Waves aka huge white lumpy things that were 2 or 3 times the size of most sets. Sadly, due to the fact that my trusty Canon 40D is absolutely and completely shagged, more shagged in fact than Brad Pitt at an Anne Summer’s ‘Try Before You Buy’ Lambrini Party for 30 something divorcees. So, I’m back to missing shots and a jamming camera. BUY NIKON (and it hurts me to say that), unless you live in New Zealand, then BUY CANON.

You can see from the images that these waves are just stunning to watch and yet still a few people each week are washed to their deaths by ‘paddling in the rock pools’. Mother Earth is quite a thing to marvel at, and marvel we did at this superbly diverse coastline. Like watching a scene from a Benny Hill TV show the Japanese tourists bus in, screech to a halt, run off, run around, buy icecreams, bow lots, bow some more, smile, with 200 camera flashes per second going off just as if Britney Spears and Paris Hilton had both just arrived to do a ‘No Holes Barred’ out of Limo ‘Beavers-At-The-Ready’ photo-shoot. Then, just as fast as they arrive, vroom and they are gone again 700 meters down the road to the next stop.

Wild Koalas and friendly Kangaroos is something that I just didn’t expect to find here. You kind of just expect them to all live in Zoos or in sanctuary’s, but no, oh no. 4am and that noise outside your tent is, yes a hungry and nosey Kangaroo. Drive down a country lane and there is a sign saying ‘Koalas’, hop out of your car and look up, and there, sitting in the tree are a whole, er, flock or Koala Bears just looking at you. Some are asleep, some are eating and some just sit there looking at you as you shout ‘Hello Mr Koala Bear’ up into the branches. Apparently Koala Bears are one of the least intelligent animals on the planet with up to 20% of its brain activity dedicated to eating/digesting poisonous eucalyptus leaves. Which leaves very little in reserve so they sleep which takes up another 10% to not fall out of the tree. To put that into perspective, Albert Einstein was reported to have used 20% of his brain capacity.Jo Public uses (on average) only 12% of their brains true potential. Koala’s use 30% on just surviving, so have nothing left for anything else…….I know what that feels like!!! So, in theory, Koala’s are 30 times more stupid than me/us. But, could you fall asleep in a tree on a windy day and not fall out of it?!! Huh, Koala’s ROCK!!  

So we headed from Melbourne all the way up to Brisbane, as in 3 days of solid driving and 2100kms later we arrived at the legendary Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast. Admittedly it is a tad Las Vegas and manages to scream both Puerto Banus and Skegness all in the same breath. An interesting fact is that allegedly the bikini was invented here so chicks walk up and down the shopping malls wearing things like this, ‘No I wasn’t looking darling I was just, er, um, er, well’…..and so on.

Head to the beach and lots of serious looking surfers are riding the waves. However, this was an actual announcement that was tannoyed out across the entire beach to several hundred people, ‘SQWEEK - WILL THE MAN ON THE IN FLATABLE GREEN CROCODILE PLEASE GET OUT OF THE SURF AREA AND RETURN TO THE BEACH’………with a half inflated bright green crocodile tucked under my arm I endured the walk of shame back along the beach whilst being laughed at by loads of people…..keeping it real, keeping it hard core. A bonus point for noticing the sign in the back round!

Okay well that is it for this time folks. Remember to buy Nikon and not Canon if you want good customer service.(apart from New Zealand Canon who are fabulous but the rest are utter baboons in my opinion). Finally here is a thought to leave you with. We were at Sydney International airport a few days ago at the arrivals gate waiting for Karen’s Aunty Sandra to come and join us for 2 weeks on the road. As we stood there waiting and watching hundreds of people walk around the corner and seeing such wonderful reunions and emotions of people meeting and greeting each other from all over the world, I started thinking. If I had the power, the ability, the skill, to be able to make anyone of my choice walk around the corner who would it be? Obviously I would want my Mum back just for 2 minutes so say Good Bye again and have one more hug, but who would you choose to have walk around the corner, what situation would you like to have over again to resolve, fix, or change all in a maximum of 2 minutes. What would you do different, what would you say and who would you say it to. If you could Play it again Sam what would you do? and I leave you on that nice gentle thought. Thanks for taking the time to read this and look at the images

Big Hugs

Chris and Karen

(Sydney Australia 2009)

Categories: LBS News