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October 25 (Day ___)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:22:43 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Well today was our last day! I havnt blogged for ages. today wae spent a long time in the car. We were trying to get home today, we drove from 8 till 6, had KFC at Yass and then drove the rest of the way home. I dont really have much to say since the whole day was spent driving, exept that im glad to be home!
September 21 (Day 97)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:23:47 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
After leaving Broome we went to 80 mile beach, where each of us got a turn of driving the car on the beach. Next we arrived at Port Hedland, and spent the night at Roubourne. We had some interesting tours at Roubourne and Karratha. After the Dampier Peninsula, Coral Bay was our destination. Here I did the best snorkeling I’ve done. Next we headed up to the Exmouth peninsula. Here we snorkelled at the famous Turquise bay. Next we went to Shark Bay. Today we did a day trip to Monkey Mia.
September 5 (Day 81)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:30:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today was our 2nd last day ibn Broome. We spent the morning at the caravan park, but later in the day we went on a tour of the pearl luggers museum. It was rather interesting finding out about how the pearl shells werefound and how there was only a one in 5000 chance of finding a nateral pearl inside. At 3:30 we wentto Cable Beach to go on a camel ride along the beach. I can understand how you could fall asleep on a camel. Their motion is just up, down, up, down. We went home after the camel ride and swam until we were too cold.
September 2 (Day 78)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:30:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to visit Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek. Windjana Gorge was a wide and long gorge that s abundant in Freshwater Crocodiles, some of which we could get right up to. Tunnel creek is a watercourse that runs through a tunnel. There were bats hanging from the roof, which were about twice as big as the ones we have at home. Afterward we went back to Derby where we left (which has the highest tides in Australia).
August 30 (Day 75)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:30:23 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to visit the Bungle Bungles. If you don’t know what they are, they’re beehive shaped rock domes. Last night we drove in without our caravan because all the tracks in there are 4WD. We took a tent for four of us, and Lauren and I slept in the back of the car. We got going early today (the sun got up at 5:30) because we had a rather big day. We did all of the walks we wanted to do before it got to 38 degrees. They’re really hard to describe, except that they are definitely worth seeing. They look best from the air, though. That’s why we got a scenic helicopter ride, and that was amazing. We learnt so much that it would take too long to write. We came back to our caravan that we left hooked up at a caravan park.
August 27 (Day 72)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:36:39 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
.After Lake Argyle, we to a million acre wilderness park in the East Kimberley, called El Questo. Here we went on long walks to beautiful gorges and swam for at least an hour each day. Today was the last day at El Questo. We went for a long walk to Emma Gorge, which was amazing. It was very cold swimming, but there were thermal hot waters dripping out the side. We dropped by Wyndham, a small town on the top of WA before heading back to Kunnunurra.
August 14 (Day 64)
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August 16 (Day 58)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:36:39 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
When we had been in Alice Springs for a couple of days, we went west to Uluru. We stayed at Yulara, where you could see the rock from. We spent two nights there. Uluru looked pretty spectacular at sunset. We also visited the Olgars. We did a walk there to the valley of the winds. I could see why it was called the valley of the winds! You could not believe how windy it was there. The next place we visited was kings canyon. The walls there were HUGE!!! I also wanted to tell you that I have jumped over kings canyon. On the walk we did, we passed the part of the canyon that had originally been a creek and we were able to jump over that. We went back to Alice Springs then headed north towards Tennant Creek. Finally after two long days of driving we reached Katherine. I also wanted to tell everybody that is my dog Sandy’s birthday today.
August 5 (Day 47)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:36:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
After Mount Isa, we kept going west toward the Northern Territory. We didn’t quite make it to Tennant Creek in one day, so we did some free camping at a rest area on the highway. Other than the fact it was a bit cold, it was great fun. We made a campfire and roasted marshmallows. The next day we drove straight to Alice Springs, and that’s where I’ve been the last few days. We’ve been having a bit of a look around, but today we did something better than that. Dad checked in with the Aeroclub at Alice Springs, and Dad took us up in a little four seater aeroplane. We got to have a little look around the Red Centre. He even gave me the wheel. It’s a lot harder to fly an aeorplane that’s bumping around on thermals than it is to ride a motorbike that’s bumping around on rocks. There wasn’t much else we did today.
July 29 (Day 41)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:36:15 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Sorry I haven’t blogged for a while.
So I’ll give you some background info on what happened since I last blogged.
So we went back through Cape Tribulation, trough Mossman and down to a place called Atherton. Here we stayed two nights before continuing south-west to a small town called Mount Surprise. Here we went to the Undara Volcanic National Park, where there are Lava tubes. These are tube made when lava flows down and creates tubes. As you walked through, you check in every crack for any bats. You could find up to six at a time. After Mount Surprise, we went south to Charters Towers. We stayed at a van park that had a jumping pillow. We also hired an audio tour from the visitor information centre. The next day we went along the Overlander’s Way to Richmond, where we looked for fossils. We found quite a few fossilized shells and I found a fossilized plant. Yesterday we did another big drive to Mount Isa. We got here pretty late so we didn’t really do anything yesterday, but today we went to church, looked out over Mount Isa and had a swim.
July 19 (Day 31)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to Cooktown. We ended up getting away later than we had hoped, but it was ok. We didn’t take our caravan because we wanted to take the 4WD only route. After 2 1/2 hours of driving we arrived. The first thing we did was get hot chips and milkshakes and drove to the top of the highest hill to have lunch. We did some touring around the town, but there wasn’t really all that much to see. Finally we turned around and drove back to Cape Tribulation.
June 15 (Day 27)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to a Rodeo. I’ve never been to a rodeo before, but it went pretty much how I expected it to go. I spent most of the day up in the stands watching. They ended up calling an Ambulance three times. It looked rather painful. Afterwards we went home and had pizza with friends that we know in Cairns.
July 12 (Day 24)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to Green Island, not far from Cairns. I gotta say it was probably rated within the top ten best days of my life. It didn’t start like that though. We were on a serious time crunch. We had to be in the car driving to the terminal at 8:00. We made it – just. Anyway, when we got there, it was amazing. The first thing we did was went on a glass bottom boat tour. Because we were in the outer reef, there were some amazing corals and colours. But that was not the highlight. After the boat tour, we went to the beach. It was almost in the 30’s,and the water was really warm, but I didn’t want to get wet just yet. We had lunch at a small restaurant. Next Mum and I showed up at the dive shop. I don’t know if any of you know, but scuba diving has always been something I’ve dreamt of. So it was really exiting doing it for the first time. First there was a safety briefing, then we got geared up (which is like 30kg to carry on your back) any finally we did some drills in the pool. After all that we finally got in the boat and headed out to the diving spot. Mum and I had got an instructor all to ourselves. We dived down slowly until there was an amazing garden of coral. We saw and felt some epic things. We came within arms reach of a sea turtle and watched him gracefully swim away. We felt the inside of a giant clam that tried to bite your hand off if you put your hand too far down. We dispersed schools of fish. We picked up a sea cucumber. We saw the type of coral that look’s like it’s breathing. We came up nice and close to a stingray. We saw clownfish in anemones. When we finally got out of the water, I was really satisfied with what I saw. After the dive we went back to the beach. The others had been snorkeling. That had apparently seen some very good reef and rather big fish to. So I went snorkeling with Lauren in the warm, tropical water. But since the tide had come in, the water was less clear and we didn’t find much coral. But we did see some pretty colourful fish. Finally we got packed up. I had one last dip in the pool and we got going back to Carins. We had to move our caravan, but it was ok. After all, it had just been an epic day.
July 9 (Day 21)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we went to the largest living coral reef aquarium in the world. It is called ReffHQ and is found on the main street of Townsville. We had a look around at frist but then we went to a show about preditors in the Great Barrier Reef. there was a diver who dived down into the aquarium with the sharks. She had a microphone so she could talk to us. She also ended up picking up a big fat three meter long shark to show us. We spent the rest of the day driving around Townsville and lookintg at other things around the place.
July 8 (Day 20)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:34:53 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
We spent today at Magnetic Island. We caught the 8:45 ferry to Nelly bay. The first thing we did was rent some cars to ride around in. We wanted to get classic mokes but they didn’t have any left so we had to get things that look like Barbie cars. Luckily Dad and I got a green one and the girls got pink. Lauren and I went on an epic tube ride where they tow you with a boat while you sit in a tube. We headed back on the 4:25 ferry to spent the rest of the day swinging on vines at a big tree at the caravan park.
July 5 (Day 17)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:33:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Sorry I haven’t posted for a while.
We started off today by packing up our caravan (we were in a Big4 caravan park) and began a short drive. We arrived at Bowen and spent a long time looking for a caravan park. We ended up going for another Big4. It turns out we are in the oldest town in QLD.
June 30 (Day 11)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:33:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I’m writing from the cabin of a small yacht anchored in a bay near South Mole Island in the Whitsundays. It’s been a great day! We began by packing up our caravan (as usual) and we headed back to Arlie Beach. We went to the markets to get ice cream before we set off to Shute Harbour. We arrived at midday and began unloading all the stuff from our caravan onto our boat – Out Of The Blue. It is a little bigger than our caravan and it is very comfortable and cosy, with lots of facilities. We’re having fried rice for dinner and pudding for dessert, so I’m starving. We spent the afternoons sailing to our first stop and leaping off the boat into warm, tropical waters. We also took the dingy that we’ve been towing out to the jetty to the resort on the island and went on the beach there. This has been one of the best days so far.
June 29 (Day 10)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:33:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
This may be the last blog post for a while. Tomorrow we begin our sail in the Whitsundays. So today began with me going to our hut to check if it had survived a night. And sure enough, it had! So my architectural masterpiece did survive one night. We packed up in a rush because we wanted to do a tour of a sugar mill. We were a bit late so we missed the video at the beginning, but we watched it at the beginning of the next tour. The whole place did not smell of sugar at all, it stunk of molasses. We went through and saw all of the stages that is takes to turn sugar cane into sugar. At the end we got a HUGE amount of fairy floss each and we bought the best ginger beer on the planet! The rest of the day was pretty much taken up by driving to Arlie Beach.
June 28 (Day 9)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:33:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
We spent all day at the beach. We built a hut out of palm fronds. We also collected logs and tied some mat-type stuff we found on coconut trees. We also got a coconut open and drank the milk right out of it. The tide went right out about 200m! There were thousands of small purple crabs in groups of about 200 scurrying around at low tide. Lauren was screaming whenever she saw any.
I took a video, so I’ll try to put it up ASAP.
June 27 [Day 8]
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:33:49 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today our plan was to get to MacKay, mainly because it had rained all last night (again) and we would not be able to get into Canarvon Gorge. So we packed up and were on the road at 9:30. When we got to Emerald, we stopped to get some shopping and look at a big painting (25m). The rest of the day was taken up by heading toward MacKay. But because we couldn’t fing anywhere to stay in MacKay, we ended up staying just south at a place called Armstrong Beach. Our caravan is 50m from the beach (which is really good because I have been deprived of the beach since March). It was 6:30 when we arrived, but it was 20 degrees outside, when it was probably -2 in Canberra.
June 26 (Day 7)
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Well, today was an adventure. It started off slowly, as we didn’t do anything until ten. We left with our caravan to go to Rolleston. There was water over the road at only one point on the highway, but it was so shallow it was not a problem. When we got to Rolleston, we booked a caravan park for the night and left our caravan there. We had lunch on the road to Canarvon Gorge. Soon the road became dirt. We headed along this road until we came to a line of cars that had stopped because there was water over the road. There was a Land Cruiser, a Mazda 4WD and a Subaru Outback. After seeing some other cars go through from the other side, we went through. Each on of them made it though, and our car did it very easily. We kept going for a little longer until we came to another creek we had to cross. This one took about half an hour, since there was a Honda Jazz that had stalled in the middle. Luckily, the guy with the other Land Cruiser pulled him out. We had to take some of the people who had stalled up to their campsite. We finally got to the start of the walks, but it was already 2:30. We found out that the main track had fast flowing water over it, so we had to do the smaller tracks. We got two and a half of them done. When I say half,I mean we stopped halfway through the longest one where there was a bunch of stones and the creek had widened. Here I attempted to teach Hannah how to skip a stone, and a almost broke my old record of 10. We walked back to our car and began driving back to Rolleston. The first one was lower than it was in the morning. The second one was faster, but we made it through. The guy on the other side who had a Prado, crossed over after us. We got home at 6:30.
June 25 (Day 6)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we packed up the caravan and headed to the stockman’s hall of fame. Here we stayed ’till eleven o’clock, then headed toward Emarald. As we started coming towards Emarald at about 3:00, we didn’t have anywhere good to stay, so we went south for another hour and we are staying the night at Springsure. This also means that we don’t have as far the drive to and from Carnarvan Gorge tomorrow.
June 24 (Day 5)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Today we didn’t leave Longreach! We spent today at museums and NOT driving. In the morning we went to the QANTAS Founder’s Museum. We got a tour of a 747 and a 707, as well as going through a bunch of gallery’s and stuff. We came back to the caravan for lunch before heading out to the Stockman’s Hall of Fame. There we got to go around and look at the things that the stockmen used and lived in. Tomorrow we start heading East, towards Canarvon Gorge, then we head up to Mackay and North up the coast from there, to the Whitsundays!
June 23 (Day 4)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I got up at about 7:00, had breakfast and got ready to get back on the road. We wanted to get to Longreach by the end of the day. That was about 515km away. Our first stop was Blackall. Here we saw the black stump, so now we are officially beyond the black stump. We next stopped at Tambo and had lunch. We got to Barcaldine, where we saw the Tree of Knowledge. We headed to Longreach, which is just above the Tropic of Capricorn. So now we are in the tropics! We’re not driving anywhere tomorrow so we don’t have to pack up our caravan.
June 22 (Day 3)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I got up at about 7:30, mainly because I wonted to get a decent last sleep in my own state. We didn’t leave all that early (9:30). We drove until 11:45 when we crossed into Queensland. I was pretty happy that we were finally in Queensland. We did a lot more driving yesterday, and made it to Charleville. We went to a place called the cosmos centre and saw some really awesome thongs (like Saturn)through telescopes. We have another whole day of driving before we finish our driving spree. Tomorrow we will be driving to Longreach, RIGHT in the middle of Queensland. We’re gonna stay in Longreach for a bit, then head east.
June 21 (Day 2)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
I woke up at about 6:00 this morning, lay in my bed trying to preserve body heat until 7:00, and turned on our improvised heater (it was -4 degrees outside). We got back on the road at 9:00 and got ready for a big day of driving. We reached Dubbo at 10:00 sharp. We stopped for a heater that doesn’t use gas and that can work in Arctic temperatures. By the looks of things, we should reach Cunnamulla (south Queensland) at about three this afternoon. After that we should be able to relax for a bit instead of driving all the time. Our plan is to get more than 1000km away from Canberra. We should just be able to slowly work our way up central Queensland and then cut across to the coast in about a week’s time, seeing all the towns that we haven’t seen before.
Well, we had a little problem about 22km past Dubbo. The net that was holding the stuff on the roof rack broke. Our travel keyboard came off and just managed to land on the crossbar of the caravan. It was alright, but we had to go back to Dubbo to get a new net. So we wasted about an hour on that. We had also lost our little guitar (for good). So we didn’t get into Queensland today, but we’re about an hour and a half away, so we hope we can start catching up on the time we lost leaving late. I’m writing from a place called Byrock, and it is pretty warm here. It feels really good going from a sub-zero climate to sub-tropical one.
It doesn’t feel at all like we’re gone for a long time, because this place feels just like home. It feels like we are only visiting northern NSW for a week, or even a weekend.
June 20 (Day 1)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:09 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Hey there,
It sounds hard to say goodbye to your home for five months, but it is surprisingly easy. Only I know I’m really gonna miss it about three months in. Anyway I got up at 9:30 this morning mainly because I wanted to get an extra-long last sleep in my own warm bed. I ate my breakfast in peace, by myself mainly because everyone was buzzing around the house like it was just an ordinary day. Except that it was a Wednesday and everyone was home.(Which is not normal.) So we spent most of the morning cleaning up and doing last minute preparations. We got some photos of us in front of the caravan, all loaded up and ready to go. We finally got on the road at about 3:30. First we went to school to give the keys to our house sitters. We dropped some books off at the library and set off for Yass. I felt really excited that we were finally off even if we had delayed it for a few days. We didn’t stop until about 7:00 when we got to Cowra (think size of Cooma) to stop for dinner. We got straight back to driving. I entertained myself by singing the “Song that never ends” for half an hour straight. We stopped at Molong for the night, so this is where I’m writing from. We set up camp pretty quickly, but our heater doesn’t work in such cold temperatures, so we just ran the gas stove and that did the trick. We hope to drive for most of tomorrow and hopefully get to Queensland. I’m pretty sure we started out on the right foot here.
June 19 (The actual Day before day one)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Hey there,
I made a mistake yesterday. It turns out that yesterdays post was actually the day before the day before day one. This is the day before day one.
I’m feeling quite a bit better now. So today I still don’t have much to talk about but we are going to be leaving early tomorrow so I’ll try to put more interesting stuff up tomorrow.
June 18 (Day before day one)
Last modified on 2014-07-13 12:32:10 GMT. 0 comments. Top.
Hello everybody.
This is the day before the day that we leave. I have been pretty excited about leaving, but I have been sick and that had kinda been a let down. I have been reading and lying down. So as you can see I am just dragging this out. So I guess this is the end of the first blog post.