Where do I start with my thoughts on Australia.  It is big, we only touched a small part of it.  We travelled through five states, cycling through four – South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland.  We flew in to the Northern Territory. I was surprised to find out the population of Australia was so small, given the size of the country.  In that regard it is similar to Canada.  The majority of the population lives around the coastline and the Centre is pretty empty. Again similar to Canada with the majority of the Canadians living close to the border of  the US and the north being sparsely populated.

Each state and capital city has its own character and often competes with other states to do things bigger or better.   Specifically, Adelaide competes with Melbourne, Melbourne competes with Sydney (I think Sydney thinks it is the best place in Australia – like Toronto) – its not.

Out of all of the states we cycled through I think I prefer South Australia the best.  It is more laid back, the cycling was great and the camp sites were cheapest.  The further west and north we got it seemed a little more frantic.

There was some stunning scenery and some quite boring scenery.  Lots of the same thing – straight roads with bush land either side interspersed with stunning coastal scenery.  The hills were very manageable.  The weather for the most part was good and not too hot, although we did encounter quite a bit of rain – it was Autumn/Fall after all.

The people, I found a little reserved.  I expected big and brash, but they were not like that at all.  Often they would look at our loaded touring bikes, and only after we had spoken to them would they talk to us.  In camp sites they would talk to us about our trip and were very encouraging.

The Aussies are generous and kind people, helping us out when we needed it.  The bike shops were few and far between, but if we needed air it was given freely and any assistance they could give us they did and often without charge or at a very reasonable price.

For the most part we did not have any problems with motorists in Australia, although we had been warned that they could be aggressive.  Ralf and I have discussed this on many occasions and have come to the conclusion that some cyclists bring problems on themselves – cycling two abreast (it is legal to ride two abreast, why antagonize motorist when you don’t need to), not sharing the road when cycling in big groups, and not following the rules of the road.  Similar to most cyclists/car issues throughout the world.

Australian minimum wage is approximately $21 per hour and although the cost of living is quite high, there does not appear to be such a big divide between the rich and poor, there is a high level of government assistance for families and low wage earners. Apart from the aboriginals who are dirt poor and get no assistance from the government other than a food card.

Australians will either shorten the words or add an o or a y to the end of it.  Below is an example, translation provided on request!!

Gday we are visiting the relos. After brekkie of avos, eggs and toast, we went for a ride on our pushies.  We have to wear our sunnies as the sun is bright.  When we got back from our ride Maty took us for a drive, he was wearing his thongs, we stopped at the servo and later at the League Club for a schooner.  We had to pull over for an ambo and the firies.

We saw a group of Council workers having a smoko.

For dinner we had a barbie, which consisted of snags, chooks, and roo burgers. It was fair dinkum – no worries.

The route we took is under the Actual Route tab.

Wednesday May 28, 2014 and Thursday May 29, 2014

We got up early to say goodbye to Mat and Kelly, both of them are working today.  We got a taxi to the airport.  The flight was at 2:00 p.m., at the airport for 11:00a.m., taxi was ordered for 10:30 a.m.  First problem, we had ordered a station wagon, when it arrived the bike boxes would not fit.  Although the seats dropped down there was a non-removeable metal cage separating the luggage area from the back seat.  We had to order a people mover (a 9 passenger bus).   We were eventually on our way by 11:15 a.m.

We made good time to the airport and were dropped of right at the Singapore Airlines check-in area, we only had to walk 100 metres and we were at the check-in.  The bike boxes were weighed, along with the two bags for checked luggage, then we had to weigh our carry-on.  The customer service rep for Singapore Airlines smiled at us, told us to remove the computer and book from the bags when we put them in the over-head locker and showed us where to take the bikes for x-ray and over-size bags.  No excess baggage charges and we didn’t have to leave anything behind.  She also put a dozen fragile stickers on the bike boxes – sticking them everywhere on the boxes.

I was still worried that we might get stopped and told to check-in the panniers, but when you see what other people carry-on, our bags were small in comparison.

We had an eight hour flight to Singapore, two hour lay over, then a thirteen hour flight to London.  Singapore Airlines is an awesome airline, the stewards worked really hard even before we were in the air. We were given hot cloths before we were airborne, drinks as soon as we were in the air, lunch – the food choices were excellent and limitless drinks for free.  I only had a couple of glasses of wine on both flights.  The in-flight movies were really good.  We had no complaints at all.

We arrived in the UK a little early and cleared customs and passport control about half an hour early.  We had booked a taxi for 7:00 a.m. to take us into London so that we could catch a train to Long Eaton.  I had booked the taxi and train from Brisbane.  The taxi driver was a little early and we arrived in London at 8:00.  We had about an hour and a half to wait at the train station in London before we could catch the train I had booked.

It started to rain as we arrived in Long Eaton.  We struggled to find a taxi to take us to my Dad’s place, but eventually got one.  We arrived at my Dad’s at 12:00 noon.  It was really good to see him and he is looking well.  Lindsey (my niece) picked us up from Dad’s at 4:00 pm and we were in bed fast asleep by 8:30 p.m.

Monday May 26, 2014 and Tuesday May 27, 2014

A couple of days to relax and prepare for our flight back to the UK.  Our bikes were already packed and ready to go.  We are flying Singapore Airlines.  I struggled to find an airline where we could pay for an extra piece of luggage (the bikes) at a reasonable rate.  Singapore airlines had the best baggage allowance.

When we flew from Canada we paid $150.00 for each bike.  On this flight we are limited to a total of 30 kgs checked baggage (this includes the bikes) and 7 kgs carry-on.  If we are over we will have to pay for excess baggage at some ridiculous amount of $70.00 per kilo over!

We spent most of Tuesday trying to reduce the stuff we have to be under this weight allowance. We stuffed all our clothes into our carry-on panniers. We took out suncream and bug-off, we removed the plastic containers that we use in our food pannier. We are about 3 kgs over on the carry-on and about 5 kgs each over on the checked bags.  As I hate flying, I was getting a bit stressed over the excess weight.  Then Ralf suggested that all the extra stuff we put in plastic bags in our checked luggage and if the airline tell us we are over, we can take it out.  The carry-on we would pay the extra for if needed.

Mat made us a lovely dinner, he is a really good cook and we have really enjoyed not having to cook as Mat enjoys spending time in the kitchen creating.  Ralf and I eat to survive not because either of us enjoy cooking.  We did help around the house, so we hope we were good guests and if we come back to Australia to cycle from Brisbane to Cairns to Darwin and down to Adelaide (just an idea) they will let us stay with them again? We have really enjoyed spending time with them.  Mat is a really good tour guide, I definitely recommend this \”B&B\”. Love you Mat, thanks for having us.

Sunday May 25, 2014

We had a lovely wander through the Sunday market in Alice.  The stalls varied from traditional aboriginal art work, jewellery, glass work, and lots of food.

The flight back to Brisbane was good and Mat picked us up from the airport. Kelly (Mat\’s wife) had been away visiting her brother in Bolivia, she had returned home today as well.  We had a lovely dinner together and then all of us had an early night.

Of all the places we visited in the Centre I think my favourite was Kings Canyon.  The scenery was absolutely stunning and the walk was awesome.

Saturday May 24, 2014

A day where we don’t have to get up before dawn.  We had a nice lie-in and then chatted to Joyce about her life, job, living arrangements and her parents expectations of her.  It was really interesting and she was shocked to hear that we had a house of 1,300 square feet for the two of us.  She shared a flat with her mom and dad and recently her brother the flat was 450 square feet.  Her brother recently got married so they had more room.

We said our goodbyes to Vince, Charlene and friends who were leaving early today.

We went to the YHA to rent some bikes, unfortunately they had all been rented, but the woman told us we could walk to most of the places that we wanted to see.

I wanted to go to the Royal Flying Doctors Service Museum, which we did.  It was really interesting to see how they got started and some of the things that they do now, including primary medical care and nurse practitioners.

We climbed Billy Goat Hill for a good view of the town site during the day and then Anzac Hill for a sunset view.

After we watched the sunset, we popped in for a pint and watched some more Aussie Rules football.  One of the strangest things is that when we ask the supporters of this game, how many people were on a side, most of them couldn’t tell us.  About 16 to 18!  We eventually got a definitive answer, there are 18 people on a team on the pitch at any one time.

We had dinner and then spoke to a Scott who was on his own and about to do one of the tours.  Ralf had a good chat with Paul (the Scot), while I spoke to another Goh, from Malaysia.  He was a Phd student studying in London, England, but doing some research at Melbourne University for 3 months.  A really nice guy and told me about places to visit in Malaysia.  I really enjoy staying in hostels and camp sites, you meet really interesting people.

Tomorrow there is a market in the downtown area and then we get picked up by the airport shuttle and fly back to Brisbane at 1:00 pm arriving at 4.00 pm.

Friday May 23, 2014

Another early morning  (5:00 am) After breakfast we packed our gear and swag and headed out to Kings Canyon. This morning the group was fairly quiet, the ones that had slept outside had a very late night.  They had seen several shooting stars and stayed awake well past 2:00 a.m. Five o\’clock came early for them !

James told us about our route and that we had to stick together and stay away from the cliff edges.  If we didn’t listen to him, he would turn the group around and take us back to the bus.  He was very serious about the safety aspect of this walk and also the amount of water we all should take with us.  We were going to walk 6 kms.  The first kilometer was up a steep hill, nicknamed heart attack hill.

It was a good walk, primarily with steps created from rocks so not too difficult.  The young Asians struggled.  The second kilometer was over and around the rim of the canyon.  It was incredibly beautiful.

As we progressed towards the “Garden of Eden” we had to cross a wooden tressel bridge, down some stairs and over the gorge on a wooden bridge and then back up the other side, again on wooden stairs.

There was one young girl who was absolutely petrified.  She was shaking and sweating profusely.  I spoke to the and persuaded her to take my hand and we negotiated the stairs and bridge together.  We waited until the bridge was clear of people and then quickly crossed it.  I told her my sister was scared of bridges too.

James at this point has lost interest in the group, he had stopped giving any commentary about the flora and fauna or route.  After we had crossed the bridges he told us to carry on towards the “Garden of Eden”, but didn’t follow us.  The group stopped short of going down another flight of wooden stairs to the waterhole, waiting for James.

Joyce one of the women from Hong Kong told me that the water hole was in a film that all the Asians knew and that is why they loved this area.

I went back to find him but he wasn’t at the point we last saw him and the second group from the other Emu bus was catching up with us.  I told the group to carry on.  I was really annoyed with James that he hadn’t followed us or gave us any information about the water hole or the flora and fauna or history or stories associated with the area.  When he eventually rejoined the group with some cookies and crackers, I told him that it was his responsibility to keep the group together and moving not mine.

Ralf had joined the other group for a short time so that he could go to another lookout.

After we left the waterhole, James stopped us a couple of times to show us a fossil and tell us about the large palms tht were growing there – a remnant of the rainforest due to the high water table.

After that it was a route march to the bus, we were so stretched out it was ridiculous.  Although we did manage to get together for a group photo.

Although James was not a good guide on this particular walk, it was an amazing walk – the canyon was awesome.

Ralf and I would watch the group pose for their photos.  They are so funny.

We got back to the cattle station for lunch of burgers  and salad then it was the long drive back to Alice Springs.  However Ralf had spotted a Golden Orb spider.  He was taking some photos of it and showing the group the colours of the web.  I, of course, being absolutely petrified of spiders stayed well away from it.  The spider is poisonous but not deadly.  It will make you feel quite sick for a few days.  I would not normally put a spider photo on this blog, but Ralf has asked me to do it.

WARNING PICTURE OF SPIDER TO FOLLOW !!!

As we were driving back we had a couple of stops.  A lookout at Mount Connor, which looks remarkably like Uluru.

We also stopped on the Stewart Highway and viewed Lake Amadeus, climbing over these sand dunes.

The Stewart Highway runs from Adelaide to Darwin and is incredibly straight.  May be we will come back and cycle it.

When we arrived at the hostel we discovered we were sharing a room with another person.  He was a nice young fella from England who had just got a job in Alice.  Ralf and I went for a pizza, and got back to the hostel early, as we have had too many early mornings.

When we got back to the hostel, Vince was waiting for us to tell about other places to visit in China.  We had a really interesting chat with him about Hong Kong citizens and China citizens and farmer citizens (Chinese class system).  Too many women are going to Hong Kong to have their babies and the babies become Hong Kong citizens.  The mothers are often returned to China and the babies have to be looked after by the Hong Kong government as they are de facto Hong Kong citizens.  Vince explained that Hong Kong citizens have a better lifestyle than many people in China.

Thursday May 22, 2014

We had breakfast, packed our swags and gear away and headed out to watch the sunrise over Uluru.  It was a little overcast but there was some nice cloud movement over Uluru.

Because the forecast was for possible showers, James decided on two shorter walk rather than one longer walk of 7.5 kms.  It was also a lot easier on the group, as they are not used to long walks and if it rained.  The two walks were in the Kata Tjuta, a very beautiful area and easy walking.

James gave us information on how Uluru and Kata Tjuta were formed – geology lessons as well on this trip. I really enjoyed this area, each day is better than the previous day.

As we walked back to the bus, I chatted to the group from Hong Kong.  Vince was telling me about places to visit when we are in China.

We went back to the campsite for lunch of Tortillas, where Vince was able to google the places he had told me about. The Stone Forest in Kumming, Yunnan Province and Jiuzhagou in Szechaun. The Stone Forest looks stunning, we have added this as a place to visit while we are in China. The food in Szechuan is very spicy, there is a pepper called fatou (sp?) which sends your lips and tongue numb. Vince said I should try it.  I don\’t eat really spicy food, but we will have to see when we get there.

On the way to our camp site  James, Ralf and a couple of the guys from Taiwan gathered firewood for the fire tonight.

Kings Creek cattle station where we are staying tonight is small by Australian standards 813,000 acres with about 2,000 head of cattle.  It also has camp sites and caters to tourism.  We are sleeping in our swags again tonight but inside canvas tents.  This is quite a large 3 person tent, very comfortable for 3 people and their gear.  Not like ours which although it is supposed to be a 3 man tent, is really good for 2 people with gear. We are not sharing tonight, just the two of us in our body bags (swags).

Ralf went up to the lookout to take photos of the sunset.

On Ralf\’s return from the lookout he spotted paw prints and confirmed with James that they were actually Dingo prints.  He hadn\’t noticed them on the way out.

After a nice hot shower I asked James if he needed help preparing dinner.   Some of the girls had already helped James cut up the potatoes and onions.  The potatoes were cooked in the fire along with the damper bread which I made.  Damper is similar to bannock, flour and water and baked in the fire, except we added garlic and cheese, everyone really liked it.  The BBQ consisted of snags (sausages), chicken kebabs and roo steak, potatoes and damper.  Damper was the traditional drovers bread.

We sat around the bonfire for quite a while looking at the sky and chatting.  One of the guys from Taiwan gave Ralf and I some sparklers.  I really loved sparklers when I was younger.

The night sky was awesome.  Theresa from Austria was able to identify the southern cross for us.  We were also able to identify Mars from the “Night Sky” ap.

The Asians in our group were amazed by the night sky, as Ralf and I have been throughout our trip in the southern hemisphere.  They said that in Hong Kong and in Taiwan, they are lucky if they can see more than 3 stars in the sky because of the light pollution.

Another early start tomorrow to walk Kings Canyon.

Wednesday May 21, 2014

Another early start, even earlier than expected as I had forgotten to change the time on my alarm clock – oops.

First problem, we couldn’t get out of the hostel gate.  It is locked at night and we needed a code to get in and out.  The code was on the key fob, which we had already handed in at reception.  Fortunately one of the young Asians remembered his number and used that to let us out. Pick up was on time.  We are on a 21 passenger bus with 17 young Asian people and one girl from Austria.

The sun rose behind us at 6:45 a.m.  I mention this because we have a view of the sun-rising over Uluru tomorrow morning.

First stop on the trip was at a camel farm and station.  We, of course, took the $7.00 each camel ride.

Ralf got friendly with the emu.  The emu wasn\’t so keen on me, he kept walking away from me.

There were also some kangaroos.  The difference between northern roos and southern roos is primarily the colour and the texture of the fur.  Northern roos are red.

James is our driver and very friendly.  He has decided I am to be the trip mother – ha ha if he only knew.  Over the next three days we will be walking 21 kms, and driving 1,600 kms.

Our next break was at the Mount Ebenezer Road House and Cattle Station.  The cattle station across the road was for sale – asking price $4,000,000 Australian dollars for 863,000 acres of land and 3,000 head of cattle.

After lunch we went to the Uluru and Kata Tjuta National Park.  We first were told about Uluru (Ayers Rock) and that it is a sacred site for the aboriginal and were requested not to climb Uluru.  We then went into the Cultural Centre where again we were requested not to climb Uluru.  After we spent about half an hour in the Cultural Centre we were taken on a guided walk by James our tour guide.

All tour guides have to be accredited by the University to be allowed to lead groups in the National park.  James told us two stories told by the aboriginal elders to their children and then left us to walk half way around the base of Uluru.  Ralf really wanted to climb Uluru, he was still undecided whether to or not.  However, it became a non-issue as the climb was closed due to the weather forecast – expecting rain.

There are also certain areas along the base of Uluru that they request you not to photograph, again due to religious significance.  These areas were either significant to the men or the women.  Men were not allowed to see the women’s areas and vice versa.

It started to rain just as we were finishing our first walk.  James picked us up in the bus and drove us to the water hole, commenting along the way that is very rare to see Uluru wet.

Fortunately the rain stopped long enough for us to walk to the water hole and hear the story of the 2 snakes and see some cave drawings.

We then drove the viewing area to see the sun set.  It was still very cloudy and didn’t look as if we would get to see Uluru change colour.

Usually at the sun set area the tour is provided with champagne (sparkling wine) and snacks.  James had asked if we wanted to forgo the snacks and champagne and head back to the camp site so that we could commandeer the laundry room.  The forecast for tonight was for heavy rain and thunder storms, if we were first back to the camp site we could put the swags indoors and not get wet.  Otherwise we would be able to put them under the kitchen area but the swags are not waterproof and the kitchen area would only provide limited protection from the rain.  We decided on having the ‘champagne’ at dinner.

We left the viewing area about five minutes before the sun had completely set.  Of course, as we were driving down the road the sun came from behind the cloud and lit up Uluru.  James quickly found a safe place to pull over and we got some great shots of the Big Red Rock.

We headed back to the campsite with a very happy bus.  We also were first into the laundry room where we set up our swags.  A swag is a glorified body bag!  It has a water-proof rubberized bottom, a mattress and a canvas top that zips all around and then a cover that covers your face – body bag.

About a dozen of us rolled out our swags and were warm and dry all night.  The others decided to roll their swags underneath the kitchen shelter and half of them got wet when the storms rolled through during the night.

After dinner of chicken stir fry we chatted with the group while James went to fuel the vehicle ready for the next day. Ralf and I were trying to guess the ages of the group, there was one young woman who looked about 16 but she was actually the oldest in the group at 30!  We were all having a good laugh at how bad our guesses were.  Even funnier was when we asked them to guess our ages.  They thought Ralf was 60ish and I was younger.  We told them our ages and had a good laugh.

After James came back we chatted with him by the fire and were in bed by 10ish.  Another long day and another early start planned for tomorrow.

Tuesday May 20, 2014

A really early start this morning.   We set the alarm for 3:00 a.m. for the taxi pick-up at 4:15 a.m. The flights leave from Brisbane at 6:00 a.m. to Sydney and then a connecting flight to Alice Springs arriving in Alice at 12:30 p.m.  The taxi driver arrived early, the flight from Brisbane to Sydney was good, we saw the Harbour Bridge and the opera house from the air.  The landing was a bit bumpy in Sydney and not too bad in Alice Springs.  We took the free shuttle from the airport to the Backpackers lodge.

As part of our 3 day 2 night trip to Uluru we received one free night at the Alice Lodge and 2 nights at a discounted price.  The Backpackers is not ever so clean, but we always wash the plates and cutlery before we use them anyway, so we won’t die.  We went for a walk into the Town centre which is only 5-10 minutes walk away.

We popped into the Information Centre to check on any bike hire places and cycle route.  There are a couple of places where we can rent bikes, which we will do on Saturday.  We are both missing being on our bikes.

Alice Town site has about 3 malls.  It gets very hot here in the summer, it is warm today about 27 degrees.  The main shopping area is pedestrianized.  We found a great outdoor store which reminded me of Sojourn our favourite outdoor store in Barrie.  Same name brands that we know and love.  Surprisingly the prices were good.  Ralf bought a hat, it will be good for him for the trip to Uluru and for the summer in Europe.

We have seen more aboriginals in Alice today than we have seen in the rest of the time we have been cycling through Australia.

As we wandered around, Ralf noticed a very strong police presence.  Primarily outside of the liquor stores.  After we came out of the grocery store, Ralf spoke to the policeman that was standing outside the BWS (beer, wine, spirits).

R:         I have noticed a large police and security presence here in Alice, specifically around the liquor stores.

Policeman:       Does that make you feel safe?

R:         No, it tells me there is a problem.

The policeman went on to explain about the liquor laws in the Northern Territory and specifically Alice.  In Alice there is no drinking outdoors at all and no drunkenness.  It is strictly controlled hence the police presence.

We went back to the backpackers, ate our dinner and were in bed for 8:30 pm, under our mosquito net.  There seems to be an abundance of sand flies and no-see-ums, we used the net just as a precaution.

Another early start tomorrow – pick-up is at 6:00 a.m.

Monday May 19, 2014

Ralf and Mat picked up our bikes from the bike shop, we had them packed by the bike shop, instead of messing about packing them ourselves.

Today we went up to the Coot-tha Lookout and walked up to the J.C. Slaughter Fall.

We followed the Aboriginal Art Trail to the Falls, but discovered there were no actual falls as it is the dry season.

No disrespect meant to Aboriginal Art, but sometimes it looks like finger painting.

It was a nice walk.  One of the things we like about Australia is that in most of the parks they provide BBQs in the picnic areas.  If the BBQ is not gas they also provide the wood for the BBQ.

After the walk we drove back into the City for lunch and visited the Botanical Gardens.

Mat had been to the Botanical Gardens before with his parents and had a guided tour with a botanist.  He became our expert-in-residence for the gardens and pointing out various plants and also spotted two curlews.  In the middle of the City two curlews, lovely.  Most people were walking by them and didn’t even notice them, which isn\’t surprising as they are very well camouflaged.

After the botanical gardens we played on the swings.  The playground area was designed to be completely accessible.  Mat was pushing me really high!

Brisbane is another City in Australia that have bikes to hire.  The bikes are designed for short trips around the City.  You register to get a card and then the first half hour is free, then it becomes progressively more expensive.  If you took one for a day, it would be cheaper to buy a second hand bike.

We had a lovely dinner and then packed for our trip to Alice Springs.  It is supposed to get quite chilly at night, we are taking some warmer clothes and jackets.   We have a very early flight tomorrow morning – 6:00 a.m.