Oz Road Trip Video - Part One

We've put together another video compilation, this time of our Australian road trip. Have a look.

YouTube Link

Short break in Brisbane

After our time on the road it was good to stay in one place for a little while and sleep in a proper bed!

When we arrived in Brisbane on Thursday, it was really drizzly, but we were optimistic it would pick up...it never did. It rained constantly until Sunday morning when we left! It was still warm and the hostel was really nice, so we just used the down time to chill out.

We did, however, have one key task during out time in the city – to buy a new camera. Unfortunately, during the excitement of arriving at the hostel, Emily dropped our camera into a gushing puddle. We left it to dry out for a few days, but alas it was goner (this explains the gap in our album during our time in Brisbane).

The area we stayed in, Caxton,  seemed to have quite a history to it. It housed some of Brisbane's oldest hotels and now seemed to be the place to be for independent pubs and restaurants and apparently the main hang out during rugby league games. The Caxton area really felt like San Francisco with the long hilly roads and colonial buildings. We felt quite at home in the neighbourhood straight away.

On our first night in the city, we went to one of the local bars to watch a couple bands. We didn’t realise until we got there that the gigs were actually in aid of SLAM (Supporters of Live Australia’s Music). Back in 2010, on 23 February, a band took to the road on the back of an open lorry and toured round Melbourne in protest of the strict licensing laws in Victoria, which are apparently due to the thought that live music in pubs is linked to violence. It was a great gig and a really funky little Mexican pub.

The hostel itself was actually an old colonial house. We stayed at the back of the main house in the pool house, with 6 others. It’s probably one of the nicest hostels we’ve stayed in to date and by far, the most homely.

Brisbane seems like a nice little city, i’m not sure we’ve seen it at its best due to the rain, but on first impressions, it didn’t really feel like that there was much for tourists to do. It felt kind of similar to Aberdeen in that respect – nice little city to visit for shopping, pubs / restaurants and the botanic gardens, but not much else to see. Still, we really enjoyed the rest and the ability to shower daily!

Main highlights from Brisbane would be...
•    Seeing the Iron Lady in a small boutique cinema close to our hostel – great film.
•    Visiting the man made beach.
•    Buying a new camera - which should hopefully take better night time shots.
•    The Calypso Bar – just sitting with a couple of schooners and watching the live music.

The Aussie Road Trip – Part 1

Although this time, we were driving on the proper side of the road and had a normal gearstick camper, there were a few funny things about driving in Oz – the signs on the main roads and motorways were warning you too look out for koalas and kangaroos (apparently you’re more likely to hit one of them at dusk or dawn). Roundabouts are a fairly new feature to Oz so some drivers are still nervous about using them, which makes for fun! It’s so warm, you have to keep your window closed and the air conditioning on full blast - never before, have I had to close a window to keep the warm air out!

Despite these differences, we successfully travelled around the East Coast in our usual garish campervan style (trying hard to blend in with the locals in car parks). We had a fantastic time and stayed at some great campsites, had some lovely food, visited lots of pristine postcard beaches and saw a large variety of beasties...

•    Gosford
First night in the camper, we camped by the beach in a small town called Gosford (50km North of Sydney). Really lovely little costal town, similar to Inverness back home and the first place we’ve come across that actually sells disposable BBQs, so we stocked up! (We were starting to worry that disposable BBQs didn’t exist in Oz).

•    Forster

The drive to Forster was beautiful. The closer we got, the more lovely stop offs points/vistas there were which lead to beautiful lakes and small beaches. Forster is the home to the Wallis lakes. This was the first place we came across that had shark & jelly fish nets on the beach. We liked the little beach town so much, we stayed for two nights in a local campground. Campsites in Oz are amazingly equipped; most have a couple of outdoor pools, electric BBQs and huge outdoor camp kitchens.  We had our first couple of Aussie BBQs in the campground. We spent most of our time at the main beach and neighbouring outdoor swimming pool – great place!

This was also the first place on our camping trip that we felt the full force of the pesky mosquitoes. We had to do a thorough mozzie check in the camper, before settling down for the night!

•    South West Rocks
On our way to South West Rocks we stopped in a small town called Port Macquarie. Another seaside town with an amazing beach! We reached South West Rocks by late afternoon and stocked up on some supplies in the local shop. We were a bit worried that the town looked a bit too residential with not much going (or a discrete place to camp), but on the way to our planned camp spot (along a street not too dissimilar to Ramsay Street) we saw....a kangaroo standing in someone’s garden.

We slowed down to take photos. A passing local mentioned that most of the kangaroos graze in the early evening in a spot of land next to the local pub. We headed down and found a perfect camp spot next to the water, just down from the marina and local pub (and just across the road from around 15 roo’s). It was fantastic seeing the kangaroos close up (and a baby joey in its mum’s pouch!). Very funny creatures – completely undaunted by the noise of the passing traffic and pub, but watch you very closely if you walk past (like meercats, but when standing straight, they were closer to Arran’s height!).

We also realised that we were now completely out of the hazardous area of the dastardly funnel web spider (it has a 90 miles radius around Sydney) – phew!

•    Coffs Harbour

On our way to Coffs Harbour we realised how much the Aussies invest in re-development on the roads. Some roads we travelled on were so new our GPS didn’t recognise them (which made for some fun re-routing!). Another, lovely seaside town. We spent our time chilling out on the beach. At 3pm on a Friday afternoon, we nearly had the whole of the main beach to ourselves! We ended the evening in the main local pub. We originally intended to stay only for a couple of schooners, but a meat raffle was taking place (meat platter raffles are really popular in Oz, we’d seen lots of posters but never been to one) so we thought we’d stay. We didn’t win, but decided to stay and take in a local band.

•    Yamba

On the way to Yamba we passed through a small town called Maclean. We stopped off and noticed that the small town had a lot of Scottish influences – The Argyll hotel pub, Scottish Corner Butchers and nearly every telegraph pole was painted a different tartan! Apparently, after the clearances a lot of Scots relocated to this area. It’s also meant to be twined with Portree in Skye. 

Yamaba was a lovely town – according to it’s sign it won Australia’s best small town last year. This made it a little bit difficult for wild camping. Nearly every spot had a sign up preventing overnight parking/camping (not really surprising given the fancy beach side apartments and houses), so we checked into a campsite for the night. The town centre was small but funky and just as immaculate as the beach, with rows of surfer shops, vintage shops, diners and cafe bars. After a camp stove dinner we walked along to a nearby beach along the pier, where we spotted a couple of iguanas hanging out! (We also spotted a small gecko running along the wall in the campsite kitchen).

•    Byron Bay 
We woke up to the smell of a full English breakfast cooking. It turned out that nearly all the Aussies in the campsite were cooking this on their fancy portable BBQs (the gear they take camping is incredible, must take some of them ages to get settled). We settled for some tasty pancakes on our campstove.

On our way to Byron Bay we drove past quite a few signs warning of the flooding from the weeks before. Some of the small rivers we drove past still appeared a bit overflown but we didn’t ever have to engage our dingy. Arrived in Byron Bay and realised (like the campervan folk warned, "there’s nowhere to wild camp in Byron Bay!"). It’s a very touristy town and attracts a lot of surfers. So we checked into a campsite. We spent the morning on the first of three beaches in the Bay – Tallow Beach. Fantastically pristine beach, with some of the hottest sand we’ve walked on (and the warmest water we’ve swam in). The public toilets in Oz are always quite interesting, especially if they are close to the water. I found a massive, thick legged spider in the sink of mine (luckily it was dead!) and Arran found a live frog living in the toilet bowl of his! We spent the evening in town. Really lovely town, with such a cool atmosphere. We went to the main beach at dusk and the beach front was filled with people just chilling out and taking in the view. We ended the night in the Beach Hotel – a massive outdoor bar with good tunes and food.

•    Gold Coast

We stayed in two great campsites while in the Gold Coast as apparently wild camping / sleeping in your camper in public places is completely banned throughout the city – which we found out half way through the night. We had three fun days in the city, chilling out on more beaches (Surfers Paradise) and visiting a couple of the big theme parks – Marine World and Movie World.

As well as going on some terrifying rollarcoasters in marine world (the jet ski ride was the worst!), we saw some massive sharks, cheeky dolphins and hi-fived some baby stingrays.

Movie World was great fun too, with even more terrifying rollarcoasters – the superman one in particular – it had an extreme vertical drop! In fact, the ride was so fast, at 4.2 positive gforce and 1 negative gforce, that my contact lense popped out even though I pretty much had my eyes closed the whole way! The stunt car show was good fun too. We ended the afternoon with the Callaghan Combo and a few schooners in the Dirty Harry Bar.

We came to the end of our East Coast road trip on Thursday when we arrived into a very drizzly Brisbane. 

We’re already looking forward to the road trip part two, when we head up to Cairns, in a couple of weeks time.

Last week in Sydney...so long and thanks for having us!

We packed up our rucksacks today and said goodbye to Laura and Katie - next time we'll see those guys will be back home in sunny Scotland! We then headed downtown to pick up our campervan.
After figuring out how to pay for the toll roads (everything is done electronically here, so you have to register a credit card and your vehicle. Your card then gets charged automatically each time you pass over a toll road, which is handy) and stocking up on some camping food, we hit the road. We arrived in the small town of Gosford (50 miles North of Sydney) just in time for lunch.
Sydney has been a blast - it’s such a beautiful city with lots of great sights, but the highlight has definitely been hanging out with some friendly, familiar faces!
 
During our final week our best bits have been:

o    Visiting the Chinese Garden of Friendship – a garden right in the hub of the city near Darling Harbour. Really peaceful spot with the most the impressive bonsai trees.

o    Spending the afternoon in Watsons Bay – we took a short ferry ride over to the bay. Beautiful part of Sydney, with lots of great walks. The main attraction is a cliff face called The Gap – a dramatic looking cliff that was meant to have inspired Alfred Hitchcock when he visited in the 1960s. Great chip shop on the Wharf too!

o    Swimming in the outdoor pool at Luna Park – a really lovely outdoor pool; it’s an amazing experience, to be swimming along while watching a train pass over Sydney Harbour Bridge! Fantastic views of the city to swim by.

o    Watching the new Sherlock Holmes movie at the Moonlight Cinema – based in Centennial Park, the outdoor cinema is set up over the summer months. It was a great atmosphere and BYO food and drink was encouraged, so it felt similar to T in the Park (the toilets were a far sight better though!). Pretty magical experience - watching a movie with the sound of the crickets in the background and flying foxes overhead.

o    Celebrating Laura’s birthday – so pleased we were in Sydney for Laura’s birthday weekend, lots of good food and wine (thanks Katie!).

o    And finally, Katie’s Leek and Chicken Pie – Katie it was one of the best pie’s we’ve ever tasted, we seriously think you should consider a career at Pie Face!

Thanks again to Laura and Katie for letting us stay with them for four weeks, it’s been an amazing help to our travel budget and a great laugh!

Now in Gosford, we plan to spend the day exploring the town before finding a good site to set up camp for the evening.

Week Three in Sydney...the great outdoors

We had a great week, last week, as well as exploring a bit more of the city, we managed to firm up the arrangements for the next part of trip - not long before we pick up our new set of wheels and hit the road again!

We spent Monday booking our campervan for our east coast trip. It’s similar in size to our last camper, but newer and more reliable (so we are pretty confident this camper will not breakdown). We pick up our camper next Monday. Really looking forward to camping again, seeing the beautiful east coast...and having a few BBQs on the beach!
Last week, we spent most of our time outside enjoying the lovely weather. Monday was Sydney’s hottest day so far this summer at a sweltering 36 degrees!

o    Centennial Park
In the funky Surrey Hills part of town, there’s a huge park called Centennial Park. The park houses the Moonlight Cinema, an outdoor cinema screen set up in the park over the summer months. We picked up tickets to see Sherlock Holmes 2 on Friday night. We spent most of Tuesday just chilling out in the park, before grabbing some dinner and a couple of schooners in a pub nearby.

o    Shopping in outdoor mile in Sydney
Thankfully all the outdoor stores are located on the same street. We discovered this street on Wednesday and spent the afternoon stocking up on essentials for our campervan. I also bought a really good pair of walking boots; essential for the last part of trip when we go walking in South East Asia. We spent the morning in the historic Paddy’s Market, a huge indoor market with lots of stalls and the best value fresh fruit and veg we’ve found so far. Sydney is pretty expensive for most things, but out of season fruit and veg is particularly pricey (a bunch of bananas might cost you $12!), so Paddy’s Market is really handy for cheap supplies!

o    Blue Mountains
On Saturday, we hired a car and headed out of town to an area called the Blue Mountains with Laura and Katie. The Mountains are part of a large National Park. We were very lucky with the weather as it had been raining constantly the day before. When we arrived the mist had lifted and the sun was out, it was perfect. We bought a pass to explore the mountain range on the various transport modes – the world’s steepest railway took us down the rainforest track (the train was more like a rollercoaster but without any safety belts. It was a bit of a shock as we plummeted 200 metres into darkness, before reaching the bottom of the cliff! The Indian Jones tune should have been a sign that this was no ordinary train! We took the cable car back up for views of Solitary Mountain, the Orphan Rock and the Three Sisters (three single rock formations) before catching the Skywalk over to the Katoomba waterfall and the Three Sisters walkway. We finished the afternoon off in the local village, with a drink in the local pub, listening to ukuleles! (the ukulele festival was on - how could I forget!).

o    Dragon Boat Race
Sunday was probably just as hot as as Monday, so we were pleased we got our hike around the Blue Mountains out of the way on Saturday! We headed to the harbour in the afternoon to watch the Dragon Boat Races. It’s part of the Chinese New Year Festival and is an annual tradition. We spent the afternoon watching the rest of the races with some cold drinks under the much needed shade of a parasol!

This week is our last week in Sydney and it will be pretty busy as we try to fit in the last few attractions and activities we have planned.

Week two in Sydney – Don’t Rain on our Parades!

Experienced some more temperamental Australian weather last week. Apparently it’s been the worst summer in Sydney for over 50 years. It’s not like Scotland though. Although it rains now and again (mostly intermittent showers, occasionally it can be the ‘take cover’ torrential rain), it doesn’t last long and it’s been so hot recently, you actually welcome it. It did mean, however, that we postponed our out of town trip to the Blue Mountains to next weekend instead. Fingers crossed next Saturday will be lovely and sunny, with beautiful blue clear skies!

Despite the unpredictable weather, we still managed to get up to a lot of fun things last week....

•    Australia Day
Thursday marked Australia Day, a national public holiday. The city was packed with people (a lot were kitted with full outfits donning the Aussie flag) and the pubs were even busier. We spent most of the afternoon in The Rocks (a small historic part of Sydney near the harbour. The cobbled streets give it a real Edinburgh feel), with three stages of live music and lots of stalls. After deciding the Harbour Stage had the best mix of music, we settled there for a while and watched a couple of bands. We ended the day in Darling Harbour, where we joined the masses to watch the boat parade and fireworks.

 
•    Surrey Hills
A really funky part of Sydney; all the streets are named after English streets, such as Oxford St and Crown St and they are packed with interesting restaurants, bars and independent clothes shops. We only really went to the area to use the internet at the public library, but we plan on going back next week to try out some of the bars.

•    Gallery of New South Wales
There’s lots of interesting museums in Sydney, unfortunately the majority are quite expensive, but there are a couple of gems that are free. We spent Sunday afternoon in the Gallery of New South Wales. Amazing building, great contemporary art exhibits and...free Wi-Fi.

•    Chinese Twilight Parade
The Chinese New Year Festival is currently in full swing in Sydney, with lots of events on over the next couple of weeks. Really glad we are in Sydney to experience this. Last night we attended the twilight parade – a parade spanning a couple of miles along the main street, from the town hall to Chinatown. We managed to get a good spot to watch the parade (although, there did seem to an unusually high number of trams going past to block our view every now and then!). It was great seeing the masses of dragons (2012 is the year of the dragon), floats and dancers. Although, I think the best part would have to be the mini panda parade (a mass of children dressed up in panda costumes!).

Today seems to be one of the hottest days in Sydney so far (and there’s no sign of rain), so it seems a pity to waste it in the library. Off to find a beer garden for a couple of schooners (small pints) in the sunshine. 

First week in Sydney...

And I never thought I’d have to put suntan lotion on my toes!

Really enjoying Sydney (and the fantastic sunny weather) but there is a couple of downsides to the beautiful city. Firstly, free Wi-Fi is nearly non-existent (hence the huge gap since our last blog posting) and secondly, it’s a very expensive place (especially in comparison to the States) e.g. pints are around $5/6 and everyday essentials like bottled water are around $3.

We had originally intended to stay in Sydney for around 2.5 months to make use of our working visas, but after looking into apartment rental and hostel prices we decided to cut our stay short, to just one month. Luckily, our friends Laura and Katie (who arrived in Sydney last year and are set up with jobs and  a nice apartment) offered to let us stay at their apartment while we are here, which is an amazing help to our travel budget – thanks guys!

Sydney is a great city, there’s so much to do and there seems to be a different festival or event on every weekend. So far we have...

• Watched live music in the Domain during the Sydney Festival. Was all going well until the torrential rain hit and the whole crowd had to run to the subway station (the only bad weather we’ve experience in Sydney so far).

• Chilled out in Hyde Park. Named after the park in London; it’s a mini replica.

• Walked over Sydney Bridge in the blistering sunshine. Not quite the same as walking over the Forth Road Bridge or Brooklyn Bridge, as the walkway fence is extremely high and covered in mesh and barbed wire! But you can still get some good photos through the slight gap and the views were still good.

• Visited the Botanic Gardens in the Domain. Amazing place, with flying foxes nesting in most of the trees – We’ve never seen such big bats!

But I think our main highlight so far, was riding the ferries over to Cockatoo Island and Manly beach, last weekend.

Cockatoo Island (a former prison, school and shipyard) is a historical site with regular art shows and events. We spent a good few hours walking around the small island and taking in the exhibits. We had a quick drink in the Island Bar, before catching our next ferry.

Manly beach is a lovely bay in Sydney Harbour; lots of funky restaurants and bars and surfer chic shops. We spent the rest of the afternoon chilling out on the beach with a couple of beers, watching the surf! Ended the day with fish and chips in the pub overlooking the beach.

Looking forward to celebrating Australia day this Thursday (a national public holiday) and heading to the harbour to watch the ferry races and taking in a band or two.

Melbourne and someone’s Birthday

Had a fantastic few days in Melbourne. Stayed in St Kilda, a small seaside town, really lovely place much like Portobello in Edinburgh and our hostel was just round the corner from the beach.
Great bars and restaurants (especially the “cake street”) and little boutique shops. We spent most of our first few days chilling out on the beach and shopping.

Had mostly beautiful hot weather the whole time we’ve been here...apart from the morning of Arran’s birthday when we woke up to torrential rain! Luckily the rain went off before we departed on our animal expedition. First stop was a small Kangaroo ranch just outside of Melbourne where we spent ages feeding kangaroos, wallabies and wombats. Really nice little ranch and it was amazing being able to pat the tame Kangas!

After a quick bbq at the ranch (we had Kangaroo sausages, sorry guys) we headed over to check out some sleepy koala bears in a sanctuary just up the road. Apparently Koala meat is one of the only meats Aussies don’t eat as its poisonous (they also eat crocodile and camel).

We stopped off for dinner in a small coastal town on Phillip Island called Cowes, before our final (and best) stop – the dusk Penguin Parade.
Part of Phillip Island is a protected conservation site for the penguins as every night at dusk, they waddle out of the sea across the beach, up to their dens to feed their babies. The National Park now protects the area and monitors the penguins, but people are allowed to come down and view the dusk parade within a restricted area. You're not allowed to take photos though, as the flashing lights and clicks disorientate the little penguins. We had a VIP pass to the parade which meant we had an exclusive front row seat on the beach, with a headset to listen to our very own park ranger commentary (it was like something out of a David Attenburgh documentary!). It was fantastic to see the penguins pop up out of the sea and wait for patiently for the rest of their pack to walk across the beach with. It was a lovely night too and great being able to watch all this, by moonlight.
Last day in Melbourne today, so we are going to spend it in the city centre before our overnight train to Sydney this evening.

Last few days in the US

Spent our last couple of days in LA like proper tourists - took in an open top bus tour to see the sights (as LA is sparse and difficult to navigate on foot) and spent yesterday at Universal Studios. Worth every penny and luckily it wasn’t too busy, given the time of year, so we had little to no time to wait for most of the rides and tours.
 

 

The best bits of Universal Studios had to be...

• Seeing the sets on the studio tour - Psycho, Whoville, Wisteria Lane and Jaws.

• The 360 degree 3D King Kong ride.

• The WaterWorld show with full pyrotechnics, full sized crashing planes and hammy American acting. 

 

We are now just getting packed up before heading out for the day in Santa Monica. Later tonight we will leave the States and head to our next continent – Australia!
After an arduous plane journey we will arrive in sunny Melbourne on Friday 6 January.

US Road Trip Video

Finally found enough time to put together some of the video we took from our road trip around California, Nevada, Utah and Arizona. So here it is...

Road Trip Video Link