During middle school, Australian rock band, Men at Work, was popular. Final year in the Marine Corps (1996), served in Okinawa Japan; deployed to Darwin, Perth, and Fremantle, flight on C-130 Hercules. Looked out the window, towards red desert below, and considered that no one would survive a crash in the remote outback. Join me down under, two months in Australia.
Some elements of the trip appear in “The Daily” including a mishmash of topics. Photo gallery has trip images, captions available when viewed in slide show mode.
SAT 03 February: final days of January in Christchurch; stop moving, no momentum, and fatigue catches up with me.
Bus 8 from city center to LyLo pod hotel at Christchurch Airport; 10-minute walk to airport; better than a migraine sleeping at the terminal. Enjoyed five weeks in New Zealand, but, ready to move on; Air New Zealand, four-hour flight to Sydney. Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to enter Australia; light rail from airport to city center; check into Chinatown hostel. Move to new destination, believe that it’s going to be better, but it’s not – it’s different – but not better; it’s never better.
Walking tour of Sydney: Town Hall, Hyde Park, St Mary’s Cathedral; Macquarie Street to iconic Opera House and views of Sydney Harbour Bridge; Observatory Hill Park, Rocks Street Market, and Museum of Contemporary Art. King Street Wharf, shops at Queen Victoria Building, Powerhouse Museum, and Paddy’s Market. 26-million people in Australia, 5-million in Sydney (entire population of NZ). City feels dirty; with a sense of irony, homeless people sleep outside the Prada store.
Botanical Gardens offer wonderful view of Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge; visit Art Gallery of NSW, local artists; select works by Picasso, Modigliani, and Matisse.
Next day, walk across Harbour Bridge, visit Sydney Museum and Australian Museum; walk through Paddington, flaming LGBTQ neighborhood, to sunken reservoir garden; Town Hall features graffiti of UK artist, Bansky.
WED 07 February: traveled on many trains around the world, some, completely underwhelming: United States, Canada, Mexico, England, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, India, Japan, China, Mongolia, and Russia. Splurge ($750) for one night on Indian Pacific from Sydney to Adelaide. Train is 800-meters long, half mile; passengers board on three platforms before train re-connects outside Sydney, depart 2pm.
Hot shower before dinner, and made risky decision to shave with double-edged razor. Sometimes wish that I had “do not disturb” sign around my neck. Passenger in the lounge wouldn’t stop droning on; another passenger droned on at dinner; my face hurt from smiling and feigning politeness.
Fare included all meals: full English breakfast with espresso, two course lunch, and three course dinner with cocktails; passenger compartment was small, but slept comfortably; train arrived following afternoon in Adelaide; train engineer dropped me off at nearby hostel. Inside hostel, body rocking, as if, I’m still on the train.
FRI 09 February: should have put buffer day between getting off train and picking up camper van; late night, early morning, and fatigued. Local bus, pick-up 2017 Toyota HiAce camper van; staff is indifferent. Purchase 20-liters (5.25-gallons) of drinking water and electrolyte powder, anticipate 100-degree temperatures in the outback.
Drive 185-miles north to Port Augusta, stay overnight at holiday park; rest stop at Lake Bumbunga, enormous salt lake, with Loch-eel monster in its center. Van has cruise control, pleasant surprise; cruise at 55-mph, to achieve 28-mpg fuel economy; invoke “quarter tank” rule (150-miles) given remote nature of the drive. Sometimes, foreign credit cards don’t work at petrol stations; other times, petrol stations are out of petrol.
Drive 300-miles north to Coober Pedy; more dead kangaroo on side of road than I can count on my fingers; with intense heat and sun, desiccated remains along side of the road. Road trains are frequent sight, semi-truck towing three or four trailers. Stuart Highway operates between Port Augusta and Darwin, fully paved in 1987; it’s remote, with little traffic, no cell service; not a good place to break down. Temperature reaches 38-degrees (C), 100-degrees (F), with frequent mirages and heat distortions on road surface. Parts of the highway are reinforced, and designated as an emergency aircraft landing strip. Netflix movie, Limbo (2023), filmed in Coober Pedy; ubiquitous crows are noisy and ominous.
Drive 300-miles to Ghan; segments of the asphalt are brick red, and blend into the sand of this desert region. Wind picks up at sunset, only two camper vans in the entire holiday park; most guests stay inside air-con motel rooms.
Wake 4am without alarm; pre-dawn, drive 150-miles to Uluru, arrive 8am, temperature 90-degrees, in time to complete 6-mile base walk before trail is closed at mid-day; all-terrain Segway tour, if you don’t want to walk. Ubiquitous black flies swarm the face, unless wearing a net; don’t bite, but irritating. Quiet afternoon at the holiday park, uncomfortably hot; it’s so hot, iPhone won’t charge until after sunset. Would like cold shower to cool off, but water is stored above ground, in corrugated metal tanks. Nagging headache for remainder of the day, despite drinking fluids and electrolytes.
Wake 4am without alarm; first car in the park at 5am, nerds are easy to spot. Park ranger, from Memphis Tennessee, tells me to drive carefully, wild camels in the park; Uluru sunrise pics, before driving 275-miles to Alice Springs. Town is 1,000-miles north of Adelaide, and 1,000-miles south of Darwin; long, hot drive in either direction.
Visit Kangaroo Sanctuary, exceeded expectations; rare occurrence in my life; visit at sunset, as kangaroos are nocturnal. Sanctuary owner, Chris Barns (aka. Brolga), rescues baby kangaroos (joeys) when mother is hit and killed by motorists. Australia law forbids kangaroos as pets; joeys remain on the sanctuary for 18-months, and then released to the wild; if injured, kangaroo remains on the 50-acre sanctuary.
Three rest days in Alice Springs, break from intense sun and heat; lots of yoga. Drive 450-miles south to Coober Pedy.
SAT 17 February: drive 500-miles south to Adelaide; pre-dawn to minimize intense sun and heat; 2,200-mile round-trip through Australian outback, return van in Adelaide; local bus to city center; check into hostel; collapse before sunset.
In hindsight, didn’t enjoy camper van; should have rented fuel-efficient hybrid car, stay at hostel or AirBnB with WiFi, air-con, and shower. Try, fail, reiterate. Likely, should have taken Greyhound bus from Adelaide to Alice Springs, rent car to visit Uluru. Afterwards, return bus or fllight from Alice Springs to Adelaide.
Visit Adelaide Farmers Market, bustling Central Market, intimate Himeji Japanese Garden, and Natural History Museum. Art Museum displayed digital art, titled, Ever Blossoming Life II – A Whole Year per Hour,” created by teamLab in Tokyo Japan; features brilliant flowers that grow and blossom, wither and fade away, and never repeats the same pattern. Migration Museum presented emotionally touching exhibit, Haza, by Kate Kurucz, (blue) paint on glass animation.
THU 22 February: early morning, Overland Train, Adelaide to Melbourne, 12-hours, tedious journey; hostel is short walk from Southern Cross train station.
FRI 23 February: should have used buffer day before flight to Tasmania; it’s another early morning, SkyBus to airport, 7am flight to Hobart Tasmania. Rental company owner picks me up at the airport, and rent similar BMW G-310 motorcycle with protective gear. Find small parking lot, 12-spaces, en route to Hobart, and practice slow-speed skills in first gear. Check into hostel, and collapse into bed before sunset.
Wake the following morning, feel rested and human. Depart Hobart before 9am, before city traffic picks up. Find empty school parking lot, and practice slow-speed drills for an hour, before driving north to Bicheno. Tasmania countryside is lovely, quite dry during the summer; scent alternates between fragrant eucalyptus trees, and the stench of rotting carrion by the side of the road. Tasmania is Australia’s least populous state, with 500,000 residents; 40% of the population lives in Hobart, its capital.
Flat light, blustery wind makes for challenging ride; best to maintain speed (object in motion stays in motion), and remain relaxed, but, muscles become tense and sore, fighting the wind (and losing). Arrive in Launceston, pod bed at local hostel. At one point, considered returning to Hobart, and cutting short the motorbike tour.
Ride north on highway 1 to Devonport, brief stop at local library, before riding east along the coast to Penguin. Several gentlemen on motorbikes, from Victoria, stop by to say hello, before boarding evening ferry to Melbourne. Stay at AirBnB, 100-year old family farmhouse with lovely gardens. Recognize that travel isn’t about seeing things and doing things, as much as it is connecting with other people. After dinner, Mary, the host, watches local television news, I join on the couch, interested to see local issues, but also, how US politics are presented (following South Carolina primary).
Ride 125-miles to Strahan, stay overnight at AirBnB; another guest, from Western Australia, is riding 800cc motorbike on holiday. In hindsight, should have stayed overnight in Queenstown, would have reduced next day’s ride by 25-miles.
Ride 190-miles to Hobart, signature ride of Tasmania, through un-disturbed national parks. Early start, pre-dawn; motorbike’s LED lamps are bright and focused. Ride from Queenstown to Derwent Bridge is technical, with sharp uphill switchbacks. Smell wildfire smoke; haze obfuscates the morning sky; grateful that the A-10 road is open, closed last week due to wildfires. Bug hits helmet face shield and explodes, or, was it a yellow paintball. No wind, and gained comfort riding at higher speeds, 60-mph; complete the ride in six hours; temperature is 86-degrees, hottest day of riding this week, t-shirt is soaked under the armored jacket. After riding 2,000-miles in New Zealand and Australia, end the motorbike tour with more confidence.
FRI 01 March: ride motorbike across town in morning; owner drops me off at Hobart airport; afternoon flight to back to Melbourne. Tasmania is hidden gem of Australia; understated in the guidebooks, definitely deserves more than one week.
Cost:
Cumulative travel costs, during past 66-days. Not pleased with economics of camper van or motorcycle rental. Generally embarrassed with high costs to date.
Lodging: $1,764 total | $27 day
Transport: $3,349 total | $51 day (plane | train | bus | ferry | taxi)
- Flight | Christchurch > Sydney: $166 ($45 per flight hour)
- Train | Indian Pacific: $727 (26-hour luxury train, gold class)
- Flight | Melbourne > Hobart > Melbourne: $122 ($40 per flight hour)
Food: $159 total | $2 day
Other: $6,649 total | $101 day (FX | ATM | visa | tourism | RV & moto)
- Campervan AUS: $1,764 ($1,260 rental | $504 fuel)
- Motorcycle AUS: $1,161 ($1,100 rental and gear | $61 fuel)
Total: $11,922 total | $181 day | $65,900 annualized
Conclusion:
Reflect on past year, some of the sites are simply overwhelming: Parthenon (Athens Greece), Çanakkale Bridge (Dardanelles Turkey), whirling dervish (Konya Turkey), Treasury (Petra Jordan), Dome of the Rock (East Jerusalem Israel), Pyramids of Giza (Cairo Egypt), and Uluru (Australia). Reminded of quotation from the movie, American Beauty (1999), “Sometimes, there’s so much beauty in the world, I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart is just going to cave in.”
garthmonroe 