The guy at the top is Namondjok who broke the incest law by looking his sister in the eyes. As a result she was swallowed bythe rainbow serpent and he was given eternal damnation in a Crocodile spirit where he is forced to watch what every crocodile in the world sees every day.

A Cathedral Termite mound in Litchfield

Darwin

We arrived in Darwin after spending another 24 hrs on the Ghan. This included an enforced 4 hour stopover where they make you get off the train (at 8am into 38 oC heat) at Katherine Station. The only problem being that the station isn't airconditioned and is 6km from the town centre, now, the only way you can get to the town centtre is to pay $9 for a ticket on a bus that the Ghan lays on to take you to town - swines. After a bit of breakfast we ended up holing up in the public library where we sat for a couple of hours reading the papers.

We arrived in Darwin, eventually, to stifling heat and extremely humid condtions. Rachael has already had a good whine about the weather up here and not entirely without reason. Due to everyone being constantly hot and sweaty it is a place of short tempers and arguments, obviously myself and Rachael didn't succumb to these tendencies... much!

We decided to hire a car in order to drive out to Litchfield National Park and Kakadu National Park. Litchfield is basically a smaller version of Kakadu that you can swim at, Kakadu itself is infested with fresh and saltwater crocs so you can't really swim there.

After hiring the car a few other people at the hostel expressed an interest so we ended up starting out to Litchfield in a little Hyundai Getz with five people crammed in, myself, Rachael, a French guy and two Swedes (the race not the vegetable). Litchfield was brilliant, we went swimming in a couple of plunge pools (see pictures), saw some massive 20ft termite mounds and drove through some fantastic rainforests. Upon our return to Darwin we went to Mindle Night Market whcih was fantastic. There were foods from every corner of the globe, fire jugglers, native bands playing as well as all the usual tat for sale that you get when a bunch of hippies gather together.

The following day we set out to Kakadu having replaced our Swedes with a German. As many of the roads in the Northern Territorys have no speed limit it didn't take long to get to there (of course I drove responsibly though!). We stayed the night in Kakadu and went to Ubirr and Noalungie to view some Aboriginal art that was 5000 years old in some places. We even managed to tack on the end of a tour group being shown around by an Aboriginal which was very informative. Among the paintings were several thousand year old warnings regarding radiation (Kakadu is home to a massive Uranium reserve) as well as warnings against breaking the 'incest law' which is very strict by all accounts (no looking at or being within 30 metres of a sibling). Our last stop before returning home was to go to Gunlom where there is a lovely waterfall and plunge pool that you can have a swim in at your own risk as it sometimes does have crocodiles in residency. The plunge pool was about 100 metres across and after convincing Rachael to swim over to the waterfall with me she was certain she was about to get eaten at any moment. We returned home, cleaned the car as best we could to disguise we'd been driving it on unsealed roads, before taking a well earned rest - it's hard work having fun sometimes.

A last note on the heat, it's amazing how quickly you adapt, Rachael has stopped moaning and despite it never dropping below 23 oC I actaully felt cold brielfy the other day.

We're leaving Darwin on Wednesday morning and that pretty much signals the end of our travels. It will take two and a half days to get back to Adelaide at which point we'll be picking up the car to head back upto Brisbane. A week after boarding the Ghan for the last time we expect to be back in Brisbane looking for jobs and somewhere to live.

It had to end sometime....

This is taken at Gunlom in Kakadu National Park, being a mature individual I've just run and jumped of the end of the tree!

This is taken at Buley Rockpools in Litchfield National Park.

Wangi (promounced one-guy) Falls at Litchfield. What can I say, we swam out and sat under the waterfall and it was like being in paradise (except we both got burnt shoulders!).

Hot, damn hot

We arrived in Darwin after spending another 24 hrs on the Ghan. This included an enforced 4 hour stopover where they make you get off the train (at 8am into 38 oC heat) at Katherine Station. The only problem being that the station isn't airconditioned and is 6km from the town centre, now, the only way you can get to the town centtre is to pay $9 for a ticket on a bus that the Ghan lays on to take you to town - swines. After a bit of breakfast we ended up holing up in the public library where we sat for a couple of hours reading the papers.

We arrived in Darwin, eventually, to stifling heat and extremely humid condtions. Rachael has already had a good whine about the weather up here and not entirely without reason. Due to everyone being constantly hot and sweaty it is a place of short tempers and arguments, obviously myself and Rachael didn't succumb to these tendencies... much!

We decided to hire a car in ordewr to drive out to Litchfield National Park and Kakadu National Park. Litchfield is basically a smaller version of Kakadu that you can swim at, Kakadu itself is infested with fresh and saltwater crocs so you can't really swim there.

After hiring the car a few other people at the hostel expressed an interest so we ended up starting out to Litchfield in a little Hyundai Getz with five people crammed in, myself, Rachael, a French guy and two Swedes (the race not the vegetable).

Litchfield was brilliant, we went swimming in a couple of plunge pools, saw some massive 20ft termite mounds and drove for hours through fantastic rainforests.

Hot Hot Heat

After just 4 days in the Northern Territory I'm ready to get back to England and the rain. The heat and humidity here is just unbearable. Sadler's getting sick of me whining at him so I thought that I'd let everyone back home know that you're better off over there! Having just stepped of the lovely airconditioned Ghan in Alice Springs into 34C heat and about 60% humidity we had to endure a bus ride with 20 others to the hostel and, upon arrival, everyone got out dripping wet through and unfortunately I haven't been dry since! I've found that the trick is to move between airconditioned buildings as fast as you can. We've been seeking refuge in malls, tourist info shops, libraries and bars. So next time you're sitting at home, in a couple of layers with the heating on, reading our blog and thinking enviously of all the fun we're having in Oz, make yourselves feel a bit better by thinking of us suffering in Darwin.....its no fun you know!

Obligatory sunshet shot.

This was near the start of the climb and altered bewteen a steady 30 degree incline to 45 degrees where you had to use the chain to haul yourself up.

The road goes ever on. This white dotted line was what I had to follow across the top of Ayers Rock. In the distance is the Olgas.

Rach at the Ghan.

A Town Like Alice....

Except we went to the real place, Alice Springs.

'Interesting Fact : For those of you who have read Neville Shute's book titled as above, the movie adaptation of it was filmed in Silverton!'

We set off on Friday at 5:15pm from Adelaide Station on the legendary Ghan, set to arrive in Alice at 11:55am the following day. We were obviously seated in the cheapy section but it wasn't too bad, they were far more roomy than on a plane and while no replacement for a bed, do allow you to stretch out and get a bit of sleep. We spent the evening in the lounge car having a few tinnies ($5 for a 375ml tin, dissapointingly expensive!) and chatting to some of our fellow travellers. We met a couple of banana benders (Queenslanders), a croweater (South Australian), a sand groper (Western Australian) and some top enders returning home. It was nice to meet a few natives instead of chatting to people from England again.

We arrived in Alice on time and stepped of the air conditioned Ghan, which was cold enough to warrant a jumper at times, into 34 oC heat - this came as a bit of a shock to the system. We were only in Alice for three days so we organised a day tour out to Uluru (Ayers Rock) for the following day which set off at 6am. After fitful sleep on the train the night before this seemed to precipitate an early night. Having learnt our lesson from Melbourne we merely wet our whistles before retiring at around 10pm ready fo a 5am rise for a spot of breakfast.

Ayers Rock is actually about 500km from Alice Springs (my thought is, why don't they move Alice closer, surely it would save money in the long run...!?) so we only made it out there for lunch time. On our coach of 20 people I was the only one who wanted to climb up the rock (wimps!) so at 1:30pm, while everyone else was still sitting around in the air conditioned Cultural Centre, the coach driver dropped me off at the foot of the climb in 34 oC heat. When it gets to 36 oC they actually shut the climb as it's too dangerous, as a result it is shut for around 200 days a year.

I've got to say the climb was pretty tough, you actually have to haul youself up by a chain in parts due to the steepness and there isn't, not surprisngly, any shade. One litre of water, 35 minutes and a few curses later I finally made it to the end of the climb. After reaching what you think is the top, but is actually only about a third of the way, it keeps climbing for a bit before meandering along the top of the rock for about 1km. At one point I thought they were taking the mick and it continued in a continuous loop or something! The climb down was fairly uneventful apart from a couple of slips and being able to geefully inform people climbing up that they till had a long way to go.

Our guide informed me, afterwards of course, that about one person a month dies as a result of climbing Ayers Rock due to heart attacks and others things and about one a year dies from falling off.
It was worth it though and due to being the only person on our coach who climbed it I was awarded minor celebrity or complete idiot status accordingly by everyone else.

We left Alice Spirngs the following day at 4:20pm on the Ghan again, due to arrive in Darwin at 4:30pm the following day.

Stay tuned....

Me in Silverton outside of their famous Hotel standing next to Max's Interceptor from Mad Max II.

Broken Hill

We left Adelaide for a couple of days on Tuesday to head upto Broken Hill which is an old mining town just over the border from South Australia into New South Wales.

I don't think I mentioned this before but South Australia is actually on a different time zone to New South Wales and Victoria being half an hour behind. Despite being 50km into NSW's Broken Hill keeps SA time therefore being out of sync with the rest of the state. What with daylight saving coming soon, but only in some states, there is actually six different time zones in Australia. They don't have daylight saving in Queensland because apparently it would fade their curtains or something!?

Anyway we got to Broken Hill where we were staying above a pub, of course, and decided to spend our first evening there doing a bar crawl around the some of the watering holes. We ended going into a place called Marios Hotel which features in the film Priscillia Queen of the Desert. For those of you who can't recall, it has murals of bush scenes covering every available wall space including a Venus style birth scene on the ceiling - a fairly surreal setting in an outback town.
After about six stops our crawl came to a finish as Rachael was starting to stagger and slur her words. I was a little upset by this as, having gotten into the Aussie habit of drinking pots (a half), we'd only had 3 pints each and I was planning on at least another dozen stops around town. Oh well an early night never hurt anyone.
That night it rained constantly for about 12 hours in a place which is basically in the middle of a desert, talk about taking the weather with you. As a result all the Mines were flooded and we couldn't do a tour - boo.

We headed out to Silverton instead which is famous as a location for several films and adverts. Most famously, in my mind anyway, as the setting for Mad Max II. For those of you who have seen the film and remember it.. well, you know the opening shot where Max is at the bottom of a hill collecting a bit of gasoline with a biker at the crest.... we drove down it - wuhoo, who would of though a bit of tarmac could be so thrilling! I actually chose this moment to display the lack of resemblance between Max and myself by driving with the handbrake on for a couple of kilometres - idiot.
Silverton is also home to a Coin Carver, in their we chatted to a guy who is the only person in Australia with permission to cut into the currency. He spends weeks cutting out all the background in old Aussie 1p pieces, leaving just the writing, rim and picture before covering them in silver which he then sells on at $150 dollars each on a necklace.

He also let us into an interesting fact, an Australian 20c piece (worth about 8p) is the exact same size and width as a two pound coin. In fact you can use a 20c piece in vending machines in the U.K. and it will take it as two pounds giving change accordingly.

We returned to Adelaide the following day in preparation for leaving on The Ghan (train) upto Alice Springs on the Friday.

That's all for now folks - take care.

P.S. Anyone who wants some 20c pieces I'll be charging a pound a pop plus freight, discount for bulk orders - everyones a winner!

Captain Rachael

Adelaide

After slumming it in Melbourne in hostel accomodation we have returned to luxury in Adelaide where we are being put up by my Aunty Jenny and Uncle Warren in their new house.
We spent the first day trawling round the old neighbourhood where I used to live while I reminisced about the 'Good 'ole days' and pointed out things I remembered to an uninterested Rachael! After that we went to visit my Aunty Faye and Sylvia in Eden Hills who took us out for a lovely lunch before driving us down to the beachfront at Glenelg for a wander around.

We went to a restuarant called Genki on Saturday night where we had our first try of Japanese cuisine. As resident gastronome I feel entirely qualified to say it was all lovely, Rachael was a little unsure of the sushi but apart from that enjoyed it. I also caught up with cousin Kelly which was great. She is currently in the throws of starting her own clothing empire and is selling stuff on ebay at the moment which you can view here:

Vitae Clothes

We went off Sunday morning to Clayton where Aunty Jenny and Uncle Warren keep their yacht 'Passing Cloud' and spent a lovely day drifting down with the wind to Goolwa. We moored up there, had a wander around a lovely little Sunday market, a cuppa in a local cafe before making our way back to Clayton. Me and Rachael both helped out with our inneffectual seamanship which consisted mainly of pulling things when we were told to and steering the boat a bit wonky! We then spent the night in Clayton in Aunty Jenny and Uncle Warren's lovely little unit where we promptly fell asleep after a days dillydallying on the waves.

Despite doing little more on Monday apart from travelling back to Adelaide and popping into town briefly we were both pooped and took another early night in preparation for our trip to Broken Hill the following day - life's hard sometimes!

Never drinking again, again...!

For our last night in Melbourne we had decided to hit the hay early ready to set off at 'crack of sparrow' to the Great Ocean road the following morning. There was a free wine and cheese (bad cheese, even worse wine) thingy going on in the Hostel at 7:30pm so we thought, a couple of drinks and chat to some people before retiring for the evening at around 10pm....... 9 hours later, at 4:30am, we piled into our Dorm room a little the worse for wear having spent the evening drinking about a dozen 'last' drinks. We both passed out for a couple hours of sleep before setting out later that morning.

Needless to say we were both a little the worse for wear and I drove out through the Melbourne traffic on auto pilot.

However, the Great Ocean Road was amazing and despite our respective hangovers we took several hours to drive it's 300km length as we kept stopping off to enjoy the sites. In fact as it took us so long, coupled with setting off a little late, we ended up sleeping in the car just outside Port Fairy. It wasn't the best nights sleep I've ever had but wasn't too bad either. Rachael had some type of nightmare in the middle of the night about people breaking into the car and awoke mumbling and flailing but apart from that it worked ok - not sure we'll be repeating it though!

This is what your number plate looks like after driving the Great Ocean Road - lovely stuff. If you click on this to enlarge it youcan probably make out the individual species of dead bug!

A lovely shot of some stacks along the Great Ocean Road as the sun sets.

Need I say anymore - she made me do it! Apparently that's Harold's house in thebackground.

Everybody needs good neighbours

Unfortunately for Sadler, I finally got round doing the thing I went to Melbourne for....visiting Ramsey Street. Along with a busload of other Brits we went on the Neighbours tour round Erinsborough to see all the sights which have featured over the years. We got to pose for photos outside Harold and Susan's houses with the Ramsey Street sign, outside the school and we got to hear all the upcoming storylines. So stop reading here if you don't want to know which characters come to an end in a plane crash..............David, Liliana and Serena Bishop.


We're off to Broken Hill tomorrow for a few days so we finally get to see some Aussie desert and really experience the Outback but I'll post some photos of Ramsey Street soon.

Ahhh.... don't we look happy!

This is taken in the Telstra Dome watching the cricket.

Melbourne

Melbourne - the World's most livable city....

I can definitely see why it got this title although it's been pretty cold (around 18 oC) and raining most days. Having come down from up North I've now got pretty high standards as to what I regard as good weather. Currently Melbourne isn't hitting these standards!

I know, I know, what right have I got to moan about the weather after just coming from Bolton. The thing is I can't help it, I've been socialling trained through long years in Britain that when talking about a new place the first thing to be discussed is the weather.

Anyway, apart from that Melbournes a pretty cool place. We got here last Sunday and then went down to Federation Square on the Monday where the World XI and Australian one day teams (uh.. cricket for any who don't know!) were being introduced to the public. Having pushed right to the front I ended up on page two of the Herald Sun Newspapers stood in the background in between Ricky Ponting and Shawn Pollock as they held aloft the trophy - brilliant.

The tram system here is great, for $5.70 you can travel to anywhere inthe city all day. It's one up on the London Underground as you're outside whizzing past all the cars feeling superior.

We've been to a couple of Galleries and Museums... all that kind of stuff. Went into the National Library where they have an area set aside just for playing Chess. We played a quick game, checkmate to Sadler in 15 moves - I rule!

Went to the cricket on Friday where it was lucky they had the roof of the Telstra Dome shut as it rained all day (enough of weather, sorry), and we're off to watch the final match today.

Oh and I met a guy I used to go to School with, 15 years ago in Bairnsdale, last night, Ben McCombe. Back then we were both super geeks who used to count how many A's we got at the end of the year and read books all the time. He's now got long hair, big sideburns a pirates moustache and is big into the music scene - unbelievable. Amazingly we both ended up with the same favourite band - the mighty Led Zep!

Take care all - I'm off now to prepare some sandwiches and a flask of tea for the cricket.

Sovereign Hill.... there is a new gunslinger in town!

Rachael panning for gold... unsuccessfully. I supervised of course but she just wasn't willing to put the hours in.

Copycat from Ballarat

Adam's pretty well brought you up to date about what we got up to in Tassie and we had a relaxing few days with lots of home cooked food at Adam's Aunty's. But unfortunately its back to dorms beds and pasta in Melbourne. We spent yesterday in the sun in Federation Square with the cricketers from the Aussie and World XI teams. Most of the huge crowd were British so Sadler was in the minority cherring for the Aussies. So that was definitely the highlight of his day. Today we've been to Ballarat, to the 1870's goldmining village, Sovereign Hill. Sadler went there when he was in primary school so remembers it well. Ballarat, apparently, is most famous for the popular children's expression, 'copycat from Ballarat', which was one of Sadler's favourite childhood sayings! They're an intelligent lot these Aussies!

A photo to make all of you stuck in Britian jealous. We're enjoying a late breakfast of eggs (laid the day before) bacon and tomato out on the veranda in the sunshine.

This is Aunty Shirely and Uncle Terry's lovely house in Nicholson situated in 5 acres of land where we enjoyed peaceful solitude and lovely fresh eggs from their chickens. If anything it's actually a lot nicer than this picture shows.

Only in Victoria do they have these signs along with ones pointing out designated 'Powernap' areas. Never fails to bring a smile to my face!

Cateract Gorge in Launceston.

Try to fly up on Mt Wellington.

Some Tassie Devils tucking into half a Wallaby - lovely stuff.

Still Alive

Sorry we've not updated for a while but we've been travelling the wilds of Tasmania, where all internet connections took a dislike to me and refused to work, and then spending a week of relaxation at the exclusive Balaka Wingi Country Retreat (Uncle Terry and Aunty Shirley's small holding in Nicholson).

I'll give you a quick run down of what we did while in Tassie. While staying at Hobart we went to Port Arthur penal colony which was interesting, among other things it was the site of the first prison site in the British Empire exclusively for children. On the way back from there we visited a Tasmanian Devil Reserve which was excellent. They seem to spend all their time running around bickering with each other. At feeding time half a Wallaby got thrown which was finished, bones and all, in under ten minutes in a continuous game of tug a war.
We also visited the Cascade Brewery which was quite interesting although the guide didn't have a clue what he was talking about. As usual it involved a couple of free beers at the end, by dint of drinking quickly and being served by different staff we managed to get 4 each, I do love beating the sytem... especially when it involves beer!
We went up Wellington Mountain (formally Table Mountain) where the snow was about six foot deep in places. I spent most of the time practicing my aim by throwing snowballs at Rachael and scored a couple of good shots to her fleeing posterior!
After that we moved up to Launceston, which is the second biggest city in Tasmania, and in many ways nicer than Hobart. We went on the Boag Brewery Tour, which depending on who you talk to is Tasmania's (and Australia's!) Premier brewer. It was the best Brewery trip I've been on to date (we've done four in Australia so far) and converted me to the charms of Boags Draft - lovely stuff.
A couple of days in Launceston and then it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland. From Melbourne we made our way to Moe where we spent a night with my Cousin Craig and Jodi where we were treated to a lovely Lamb Roast. After months of pasta, baked beans etc it was the highlight of my week!
We left there on Tuesday lunchtime and travelled down to Bairnsdale again to stay with my Aunty and Uncle on their small holding in Nicholson. We didn't really get upto much while we were there, just pottered around and relaxed. We travelled around the Lakes a bit (the second biggest lake system in the world), walked on the Ninety Mile beach, went to Paynesville and across to Raymond Island on the ferry. We spent alot of time sitting out on the veranda, reading books and dozing periodically, the most relaxing place I've been to since falling asleep in the Library at work!

Anyway, that brings us upto date pretty much. We're now in Melbourne where we'll be staying for 10 days or so and I'll try and get back to updating regularly. I'll also stick a load more photos on when I get the chance.... I'm off for some breakfast :-)