17th-26th September Singapore to Tanah Rata

Our last day in Sydney was eventful. Jonty became ill with man flu and Lou got trapped in a lift for 40 minutes. Other than that, we had a successful flight to Singapore and caught the high speed train to our hostel without any hitches. Thank goodness for air conditioning. On arrival at 10pm it was still 27.C with a stupid amount of humidity. We hope to acclimatise soon.

We stayed in Singapore for 4 days, enough for Jonty to recover and us to explore the highlights. The food was ‘interesting.’ We steered clear of the chicken feet curry and fish ball soup. We did however have a Singapore Sling in Raffles Hotel and a traditional style Indian meal in Little India. The people of China Town were celebrating the festival of light and so it was extremely colourful at night time.

We caught the coach to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and had 2 nights there. The border crossing was as relaxed as in South America, with the customs and excise not bothering to check any items that were declared!

Kuala Lumpur has a fantastic China town with market stalls galore. We had great fun wandering around responding to the sellers trying to flog us a bargain as it were. Good heckling all round.

On our first morning we jumped on a local bus to Batu Caves, a set of cave networks housing Hindu temples. You access the main temple by climbing 272 steps into the gigantic cave, we had monkeys clambering all around us. A good experience. That afternoon we ascended the Petronus Towers for a rainy view of KL. We were drenched on the journey there and the staff there thought it was hilarious to ask if it was raining!  The whole city came to a stand-still during the downpour, with everyone sheltering wherever they could.
For Louise’s birthday, we headed 2 hours north to Kuala Selangor. Our journey took us on a rickety bus that broke down after 10 minutes. The next bus had air conditioning, (windows!) By the time we had arrived we were windswept and slightly seasick from the driver thinking he was on a racetrack and taking the bends at a hair raising pace. The purpose of our journey was to experience fireflies. We took a boat, a romantic private one as luck would have it, up and down a river. One bank of the river was lit up by thousands of fireflies flashing sequentially. It was like a thousand Christmas trees twinkling. The magical experience lasted 30 minutes. We stayed the night, then got the rickety bus back to KL.

We transferred straight away to another bus going to the Cameron Highlands. We thought we had a bargain price, but actually had ants on our bus! So next time we will pay the extra 50 pence! 5 hours later and we arrive in England. Rolling green hills a cooler climate and later, rain! We came to see the tea plantations and do some hiking. After a cool night’s sleep, we started our greatest adventure of south-east Asia yet!

We had a treacherous hike descending through the jungle. This was great fun. We then started a walk uphill to the Boh tea plantation. We had been walking for over an hour and a half when luckily a truck stopped and indicated that we should jump on to it’s open back. We obliged, naturally! The driver and passengers were workers from the tea plantation and drove us up the remaining 2 kilometre hill. It was a good ride.

At the plantation we enjoyed a minature tour around the factory and had a tea-tasting session.  The cake was extra. On the way back we saw some tea pickers working in the fields. They all stopped and waved as we walked by. We had only walked a little way down, before being picked up by another truck. This time we squeezed into the cabin as it had started to rain. A great adventure. The Malaysians have been very friendly, helpful and smiley people.

Next stop, Perhentian Islands on the west coast of Malaysia.

Adelaide to Sydney 28th August-17th September

Adelaide is ‘real’ Australia. The local pubs welcomed us with open arms, a beer and a long chat that you struggled to get out of. It also has a museum dedicated to Sir Don Bradman who played with a bat made in Chelmsford, Essex. Fact. We had 3 enjoyable days in Adelaide not doing much. But we did pick up a 6 gear 1.8 Toyota Corrolla that had lots of gadgets and cup holders! In our super car, we headed off to the Barrossa Valley to pursue more of Lou’s favourite activity-wine tasting!

The Barrossa valley is home to famous wine makers such as Penfolds, Jacob’s Creek and Wolf Blass. We booked into a hostel here that turned out to be a little cottage surrounded by vinyards and as no-one else had checked in, we had it all to ourselves!! The wine tasting was especially good at Jacob’s Creek and yes, the creek next to it is called Jacob! We also had a tour of the wine making facilities that surprised us both and was interesting. A good stop.

We drove to the Grampian Moutains in Victoria. We had to move our clock forward 30 minutes as we crossed the border from South Australia into Victoria-it’s odd how they have split the time zone in half. We had heard that there were many kangaroos in this area of Australia and we were not disappointed. We had slowed to look at the scenery and up on the road ahead we saw a make-shift roo crossing. The kangaroos were bending underneath the wire fencing and one would have the role of lookout as the other hopped across the road to the field opposite. It was quite a sight! We watched this for a while and then found a cabin for hire on some property. We decided to take it. On the owner’s field were emus and kangaroos. It was quality to eat dinner and breakfast with kangaroos hopping past. At one point Lou heard what she thought was Jonty jumping around trying to trick her, but then a 5 foot kangaroo came hopping round the corner! Kangaroos are massive when they stand up to each other. We saw a few having a box and using their tail to lift their feet off the ground to kick with. In the Grampians we had a nice walk up a mountain before moving on to the Great Ocean Road. On our way, we saw a group of 4 stags in the bush. They started to gallop alongside us, before overtaking us and crossing the road ahead. What a sight.

 Now, this was a drive that we had been looking forward to. The road hugs the coast. We stopped at various points to walk and admire the rough sea. We ate lunch whilst looking at the twelve apostles-of which there are only 7 left. These are impressive stacks that have been bashed about by the sea. A great day’s driving was finished off with some wine from the Barrossa Valley in a hostel that had a vinyl LP player-we spent the evening listening to some classic hits. The next day we followed the hostel owners instructions and found some koalas. We spotted about 22 in the space of a kilometre. 2 were the most active we’ve seen, they were climbing up and down munching away on the eucalyptus leaves. On our way back down the track we stumbled across a tour group feeding the colourful parrots that are in many of the trees out here. They gave us some of their feed and we were then ambushed by them. Jonty was bitten by a less friendly fellow and so we left!

Onto Melbourne. We decided to rid ourselves of the car we will never afford in real life, but before we did that we went to visit Ramsey Street. It is actually called Pin Oak Street and is in a suburb of Melbourne. It is tiny in real life. We wandered around and Lou gave Jonty the run down of who lived where and when, before taking lots of photos and bowling down the street (Jared Rebeki/Toady style). We timed our visit to coincide with the Aussie rules finals, so we paid a visit to the MCG on Saturday night and watched a match with 65,000 others. The noise of the crowd at the MCG is a roar. Great entertainment.

Melbourne is a nice city to meander. We enjoyed visiting the markets, parks, beaches and riverside. But really and truly we(Lou) had only stopped for one thing…NEIGHBOURS night! We had the choice of 2. The official and the alternative one (run by Toady, since he was banned from the official one!). After extensive research, we found out that Ian Smith aka Harold Bishop aka Jelly Belly would be at the alternative night, but that we could also make our way over to the official one to see Karl Kennedy’s band play. We could kill one bird with 2 stones as Jonty said!

The whole day leading up to the momentus occasion was filled with apprehension. But on arrival, and after recieving our free beer and wedges, Harold arrived. He stole the show. He is a comic. And a genuinely nice guy. He wrote in our journal, had an arm wrestle with Jonty and gave Lou a hug worthy of the mighty Lou Bear himself! We also got to meet Ringo and Elle Robinson from the show and they were equally friendly and down-to-earth. We had a great time. But it was soon time to race over to the official gig. And what a race it was too. We arrived at the tram station (oh yeah, forgot to mention that Melbourne has trams everywhere-a nightmare for drivers-glad we lost the car), but our tram had just left seconds before and the next one wasn’t for another 20 minutes. Karl was due on then. There was only one thing for it. The flip flops came off and we ran after it. We saw it stop at the next station, but it pulled off as we approached. Someone claimed to know a short cut so we all followed (oh yeah, there were 8 of us chasing down the middle of the road!). We caught it at the next stop and managed to reach Doctor Karl with seconds to spare. It was well worth the chase. Pure entertainment, great songs and some classic ‘Dad’ shapes were thrown on the floor by Karl. Jonty even remarked that it was one of the best nights he’s ever had- praise indeed. We left Melbourne happy a couple of days later.

We have now returned to the start as it were. We’re back in Sydney, having completed our circuit of Oz. This time around it is warmer weather. We will get to see a little of the World Cup here before we head off to Singapore on the 17th.

The Outback 22nd-27th August

We had a brilliant flight into Alice Springs. The view rapidly changed from a cloudy Cairns to a sunny red desert. It made us realise just how massive and empty Australia is. We picked up a campervan on arrival and set off into the desert, which has a lot more vegetation that we had expected. Still, the outback is relentless. We drove on a deserted highway constantly on the lookout for road trains. These beasts are up to 50 metres long and roam all over the highway, if one approaches you have to pull well off the road to avoid being hit.  We drove towards  Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). As we aproached we saw a huge red rock and Lou was fooled into thinking it was Uluru (Ayers Rock). Unfortunately it was a fake and we still had 4 hours of driving!! Kata Tjuta are a number of huge dome-like boulders that are higher than Uluru. Some would argue that they are more spectacular than Uluru. We had a nice walk through ‘the valley of the winds’ which enabled you to actually walk on the rock and around the huge perimeter. We then drove at a sensible speed to Uluru for sunset.

Sunset was magical, it’s not often that you can stare at a rock for an hour. The colours changed dramatically from a dull red to a vibrant orange. We had a brilliant view too, with the campervan backed into a space, we opened the boot and sat inside with a beer. We had strapped the camera to the table to get the best photos and Jonty shifted some Germans that were spoiling our view!! We then drove into the desert and parked up under the stars for a great night’s sleep.

It was an early start the next morning for sunrise. It was just as spectacular. Uluru dominates the landscape and draws your attention. It starts to glow and no photo can really do it justice. Lou had a great view sitting on top of the campervan. We stayed after the masses had left for a cup of tea in our still-made bed and just marvelled at the sight. A great start to the day. We joined in with a Park Ranger walk around the base of Uluru. She educated us on the Aborigine lifestyle and influences in the area. We enjoyed our time there. The whole national park was an unforgettable experience.

We drove onto Kings Canyon. Jonty loved this place. The drive there was on the straightest road we’ve been on. We must have gone for 50km without having to turn the steering wheel! Let alone meeting another car. The walk around Kings Canyon has been one of the best we have had on this trip. It started with a steep climb to the top of the canyon and we then walked along and around the ridge. It had spectacular views and cliffs for Jonty to climb up and dangle his legs over. (Scaring the bejeebers out of Lou and some Italian tourists who were saying “Crazeee Eengleesh!”) Great fun.

We were lucky enough to coincide our trip with the Henley-on-Todd Regatta, Alice Springs’ premier event. It takes place on the Todd river, which only flows about 3 times a year. The brilliant thing about this regatta is that it is the world’s only dry regatta. Boats are bottomless, powered by legs and in some cases they are on rails and you have to paddle your way along the sand with a spade! Is this Australian ingenuity at it’s finest? The Aussies are completely crazy! But it was the best fun. We spent the morning along with 5,000 other spectators bathing in the sun, laughing at other’s attempts, before finally deciding to take on the challenge ourselves. The boat categories were numerous. They had 4, 6 and 8 man boats. Some with sails and some long boats. Having been canoeing with Jonty before, we went for the 1 man Kayak category. (He can’t paddle for toffee, and Lou felt it safer with his 2 big left Yank feet to go it alone!) Jonty had Ato Boldon in his heat and failed to qualify. Lou sailed through to the finals where she took on Australia’s finest to become Henley-on-Todd Kayak Champion 2007. (World Champion) The event finished with huge battle ships launching water, flour and fireworks at each other from cannons and slingshots. It was so much fun! A stupid, brilliant day.

The following day we caught The Legendary Ghan train to Adelaide. (Is it legendary for hitting kangaroos or being late we wondered! It did both on our experience.) It is a 19 hour (25 in our case) journey through the desert. We were entertained with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, endless desert and some tumbleweed. That’s all really.

We arrived into Adelaide and were met by the sunshine and a car to take us to the hostel.