The Ashes have gone pear shaped

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Jason

Well as you can imagine we spent the night celebrating in a -5 deg bar (a really big freezer with an ice bar and vodka only drinks). After we recovered it was off to Milford sound and had a cruise along the fjiords, really cool except getting soaked at the front of the boat when we turned round in the tasman sea. We then headed along the south coast, going throygh the Homer tunnel on the way, 1,2 km of underground unmade road with no lights!!! Stopped off at Warawea Bay for an hour and were able to watch hector dolphins swimming 10 mtrs from the shore-totally amazing. We went to Roaring bay for a couple of nights and spent them watching wild Yellow Eyed Penguins come ashore on to the beach and toddle off to their nest.The second night they kindly put on a show for us and went in and out of the sea a couple of times. Worth the frostbite and the money we had spent on buying a set of binoculars. We also saw some wild sea lions on the beach and were able to walk close to get some great pics. Also called at Oamaru to see the Blue penguins come ashore and waddle about. David Bellamy had better look out!
We carried on to Mount Cook which, as it had snowed the day before, was absolutely stunning. We even got to see a couple of avalanches- no one was climbing. The lakes around Mt Cook are an amazing blue turquoise colour, something to do with glacier sedament. Had a great game of golf in Timaru, i wasn't bad for three years not swinging a club! Vicki lasted about nine holes before her hip gave out- i was well ahead anyway. Had a couple of days chilling in Akaroa a nice little french village with a beautiful bay area.
We spent our last few days in Christchurch (planning) before we headed off to Oz. We covered just over 7200 kms and have to say New Zealand is an absolutely stunning country. Oh and i think we saw most of the Lord of the Rings sets!

Vicki

We decided that we loved the campervan so much that we would have another one, a smaller one!! (if thats possible). We started in Sydney and the plan being to drive around 12,000 Kms in 37 days. On the first day we stopped for lunch in Quarantine Bay and watched the pelicans as they waited for the fishing boats to leave behind the fish bits. They were huge birds and pretty tame.
Next stop Melbourne, we happened to arrive the night of a U2 concert and were lucky to get in and the next day in town was the G20 summit, there was only a handful of protesters as the riots had been the day before luckily! We went to Melbourne Jail and learned all about Ned Kelly (bit creepy really, we decided not to spend the night). Then an absolute must, we went to Pin Oak Court - AKA Ramsey Street (you know you would if you got the chance so don't mock me!) It was really cool as neither of us have seen Neighbours for years but we recognised quite a few of the houses and as a bonus the official tour bus turned up when we were there so we got pics of the Ramsey Street sign without paying $30 each!!
We continued on the Great Ocean Road, stopping at a number of places but to name a few, Bells Beach where they have the Rip Curl championships and watched some real surfers. The 12 Apostles (although there aren't 12). Cape Otway where we saw wild koalas by the side of the road including a mother with her baby in her pouch at eye level and within touching distance which was so amazing especially when the baby started moving around and the mum was cleaning it, more great pics for the ever increasing photo album. Loch Ard Gorge, the site of many shipwrecks. It was around this point that the flies started to really annoy us, no one ever tells you but there are loads of flies at the moment and they try to get in your mouth, up your nose and in your ears so you have been warned! Next on to The Grampains National Park, there had been a huge bush fire there in January and you could still see the black trees contrasted with green shoots of new grass and shoots, it was quite beautiful, it was here that we encountered our first Kangaroo one of many to surprise us out of nowhere as we were driving along. We even saw wild emus, a mother and her babies and we have a great photo of them crossing the road with a kangaroo in the foreground also crossing, we watched them for ages too (it's a good job there is so much free wildlife to watch it certainly helps with the budget!). We also saw some aboriginal rock art at a couple of aboriginal shelters.
On to Adelaide for 2 nights where we met a German couple who were biking around Australia, that's push bikes not motorbikes! We celebrated 5 years of marriage with a couple of beers in the pub and watched the cricket
Jason-- Yes it started going down hill from the off-thats the cricket!
Vicki - Then the fun really started as we drove into The Outback. The temperature seemed to raise by 10 deg in one day. Luckily we had bought several 10 litre cases of water as the water from the water tank in the campervan was coming out hot, great for washing up. Our first night was in Woomera, a strange town with an outdoor museum of missiles and rockets as its the largest land based missile & rocket range in the western world apparently!? This was our first unusual insect encounter, there seemed to be a small gap in the fly screen on the window and at 2am I woke up convinced I could hear insects, about 10 mins later I found what looked like a cockroach practically next to my face and it wasn't the only one that had managed to get in. We finally got rid of them and I taped up the hole with my handy duct tape. We tried to go back to sleep and were just about to doze off when something hit Jason's leg, it turned out I had left the other window open when we were disposing of them and they were now flying back in!! Got no sleep that night at all needless to say.
We continued on to Coober Pedy, the opal mining capital of Australia, quite a sight as you approach the town and there are hundreds of pyramids of earth everywhere, like being back in Egypt. Had a tour of an underground mine, house and pub (purely for educational purposes). The average temperature was about 50 deg which is why half the population very sensibly live underground and a campervan is not as we discovered the best place to be in that kind of heat! We spent a lot of time in the indoor pool. We also tried our luck at noodling, Jason did find some opal but we don't think it will be enough to cover the Cole debt!

Jason - We carried on along the empty highway towards Kings Canyon. Empty except for the Huge road trains (70 wheel lorries) and the wild camels, which we saw two herds of just walking by the side of the highway.
We then carried on to The Olgas which are really huge and impressive-the walk in the 48 deg heat though not so clever.
Next it was Uluru (Ayers Rock) which we found much better than we anticipated. It is awe inspiring. We drove around it but it is better from a distance. We watched the sun set before heading to our camp, for a very deserved ice cold beer, ( I know why they drink a lot of beer out here)
We carried on then, stopping at Wycliffe Wells the UFO capital of Australia and possibly the worlds wackiest campsite, The hulk was everywhere in all his inflatable glory! along with Elvis and a UFO landing pad. We brushed through Alice Springs onto Mount Isa and then onto Cairns as we wanted to spend Vicki's birthday there instead of a roadhouse, Strange places. We also got caught in the worst storm either of us have ever seen, we were driving along and suddenly the sky was black and it started to chuck it down, we just missed two grey kangaroos that were in the middle of the road and when the lightening started we pulled over and watched huge great cracks in the sky right in front of us for about 40 mins - very scary!
We spent the night in all the four pubs in Cairns that the taxi driver told us there were, we did find more later, and had a great night in a blues bar with a live mike all night.It had Strongbow on draught so Vicki was very happy. The night ended with one of those bizarre stories you hear about with police , taxi drivers and kidnapping charges. Yes we were accused of kidnapping a taxi driver!!!! All turned out well in the end though!
We went out to the Great Barrier Reef which is astoundingly beautiful. I went for a snorkel and ended up having a swim with a turtle through all the amazing coral, unbelievable. Vicki was only slightly knarked as she didn't snorkel.
Vicki - I didn't fancy wearing the all over body bright blue lycra superhero suit to stop the killer jellyfish actually!
Jason- It was about now that the second ashes test went pear shaped!
We also went up to Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas and saw loads more great beaches and rainforest, before heading down the east coast to Bundaberg where we spent the night waiting for marine turtles to come ashore and lay their eggs. It was really good as we got to see a Loggerhead turtle do just that and we were lucky as sometimes they don't come ashore until 1am, we saw one at 7.30pm. Airlie beach next where unfortunatly our sail to the Whitsundays was cancelled due to bad weather, 30 knot winds and 3m high waves!

Vicki- The weather was going to be bad for a few days and we needed to keep going down the coast to stay on schedule, so to get over the dissapointment and to use the money we had set aside for the trip we decided that the only course of action was to go and see Robbie Williams in concert in Brisbane. It seemed like fate that we would be there at the same time!! So we booked the tickets (they had recently released some more) and headed down the coast to Mission Beach, a sleepy place with more beautiful coastline.
After that we went to Hervey Bay and did a tour of Fraser Island, for the worlds largest sand island it has a surprising amount of vegetation. More stunning beaches but we couldn't go in the sea because of the deadly jellyfish and oh the sharks that hover 20m from the shore although it didn't stop some people. We had a great day in a 4 wheel drive mini bus driving along the beach and through the rainforest on extremely bumpy roads. This was helped by the free beer and wine which we were told to take onto the bus with us after lunch - as much as we could carry!!
Finally on to Brisbane, a cosmopolitan city and of course Robbie Williams, now I know some of you may be thinking that you were sure we saw him in September, well we did however we were standing in the thick of it and as is the way in the mosch pit we didn't actually see a great deal. This time we were seated and we had great seats with a good view, it really is a good show, worth every $.
We also gave in and bought a Christmas tree as they were all in the sale, it is only small but has lights and baubles etc and at least has put us in the Christmas spirit.
Jason- As of writing this we are looking at losing the third test and the ashes!!!

Jason and Vicki-- We would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.