TravelStream™ news feed for member keenos on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/keenos en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:32:00 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202632140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202632140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202632140/tpod.html Sun, 17 Feb 2008 03:32:00 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Dover, United Kingdom

To cut a long story short (and it has been a long long story) and as most of you readers will already know, we are back where we belong in dover, writing this at 3am because we are suffering from jet lag! Back to our story, yes, that by chance meeting resulted in us selling maz- to an Israeli guy and his german girlfriend who were heading back to perth - they got a bargain and we got the opportunity to fly home a bit sooner than planned. A happy ending we hope! Its been almost 17 weeks on this trip of a lifetime- lots of highs and a few little lows on the way - we have seen and learnt so much in that time. Oz is full of amazing places and people and we are so lucky to have been able to experience the warmth (we wont forget the 50 degrees in coober pedy) of the welcome we received here- oz loves tourists! so , if you are thinking of visiting give us a call- theres quite a few places we can recommend! We hope to be back in a couple of years time- to do the top end and the gold coast - provided its stopped raining by then! Our last couple of days in oz went like a flash - on the day we sold maz we went straight to a hire car company and took out our fifth vehicle in 17 weeks- a Toyota prius - the new green car of the future - jim loved it! We hotfooted it out of the city and managed to find finnie (a friend of a friend) at home in patterson lakes (who needs sat nav and our address book was back at base so we were just as surprised to find her as she was when we turned up on her doorstep!). a quick visit there and we pop down the road to say cheerio to tony and wendy- (see you in 18 months guys!) . next day- more shopping and a trip on the yarra river and we see the steve Irwin sea shepherd greenpeace ship docked in the harbour - its trying to prevent the Japanese whalers so keep up the good work and save the whales! (sadly we didn't see any this trip), Tuesday we went to say tata to the roos and koalas at Melbourne zoo (didn't see many of those in the wild either)and then - on another big day for Australia -sorry day for the stolen generation of aborigines- being televised live everywhere from the new government in Canberra (we stood on those lawns now on tv!) - we cram everything into our bags for the last time and head for the airport. Sadly we didn't get the chance for a leaving ceremony to burn the tent because maz's new owners wanted it -  sorry if we've deprived you of a grand finale! .Time to go now. Hope you enjoyed the ride with us on this blog. Catch you later!The keenos - jim bev and Natalie. The end.p.s. keep blogging - we've got 9000 photos - lots will be added to this blog when we get internet access at home. That should keep us going until the next trip....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202549160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202549160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202549160/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:49:52 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Melbourne, Australia

on the way to meet her prospective new owner noel (we are on first name terms so its looking good) maz gets a treat at the car wash. we want her to look her best of course! we arrive early at the agreed meeting place, ironically outside the mazda dealership behind the queen victoria markets and luckily for saturday morning theres a parking space! great place to shop too. noel turns up on time. but after a rigorous inspection and a long test drive we cant make out if he is wasting our time on purpose. he,ll call us back on monday after finding out how much it will cost to reregister maz in victoria. we wont hold our breath. or maz if someone else turns up with the dosh first. so, for some retail therapy now to lift our spirits. the vic market is a huge original covered market selling all the usual stuff and more. not too busy in the general market area but heaving in the food section. meat madness! fish frenzy! veggie heaven! by the time weve walked all round (probably more than once) its late afternoon, so , tired and rather dejectedly we head back to the suburb of coburg- where the campsite is- about 10km from the cbd (central business district). on the main road out of town we get a tug from the traffic cops - jim not wearing a seat belt costs us a $149 fine that we will have to pay within 7 days. what with that and the $15 for the carwash we are seriously out of pocket today! shit happens. but, in a very weird twist of fate, whilst being read the riot act by the cops and trying to explain that we wernt carrying any id because we,d heard that the vic market was full of pickpockets (it isnt of course but we were told it was) a young couple walks past. picture this - there are no other people walking on this stretch of road- still in the city but only busy with traffic, not pedestrians.the couple see our for sale sign in the back of maz. they declare they are interested in buying!- is this a wind up or what? could this be the best cop stop ever? if they had not stopped us we would not be talking to these guys who , wait for it, are travelling to perth next week. can we persuade them to take maz home? watch this space - they are going to call us back in the morning.... cross everything for us guys.... this could be it!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202461860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202461860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202461860/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 04:25:48 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Melbourne, Australia

we have to get operation flog maz back on track today (think this is plan c now) so we head back to melbourne. just as we are leaving the bendigo park we come across a real beaut of a p.o.t.d - SPRUCE - whats so great about that you may ask- well, the owners were so proud of their vanity plate because, the lady explained, that was their name- struth, weve met the real bruce and sheila spruce at long last! the camera wasnt ready so you will just have to take our word for it. its cold today- only 23 degrees and the rain looms over melbourne again. after checking into our latest cabin at melbourne central big 4 (nice pool - hope the weather warms up a bit) we brave the drive into the city to find some backpacker hostels to leave for sale signs in. its now our best hope for finding a buyer, apart from a newspaper ad, so we give it a go. we find out that there isnt a car market like there was in sydney (thank god) but we do find an empty backpacker van garage- they have relocated to another part of town so we go in search of this location. the owner isnt interested in buying maz from us (we didnt want to leave her there either- the knackers yard was next door) but he did give us some useful info. cheers mate. this is going to be harder than we thought! later, back at base we get a promising phone call and we arrange a rendezvous for tomorrow in the city....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202366340/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202366340/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202366340/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:51:55 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Bendigo, Australia

more touristy things today . a visit to the city centre chinese gardens and we find out that today is chinese new year day. the year of the rat . hmm... the gardens give bev some ideas but she doesnt think barry back at hawthorn farm will go along with the goldfishpond, bridge and pagoda look next to our relo (mobile homes are called relocatables in oz) its fun for us to feed the fish and supposed to be lucky to do so . we could do with some right now. the next door chinese dragon museum has a wonderful display of chinese artefacts, beautiful furniture and clothing as well as the longest and the oldest chinese dragons in the world- beating whats in china even! bendigo is renowned for its easter parade, featuring the ceremonial dragon dance. shame we have missed it. bev adds to her necklace collection with a jade pendant and its hard to resist all the other pretty things in the souvenir shop but its a bit weird buying chinese gifts in oz even though, like the uk, oz gets loads of imports from china. anyhow we shouldnt be buying - we should be selling - maz that is - and tonight we get a phone call from a bloke who saw the for sale sign in the back window as we were driving through town today. but hes put off by the mileage - 477286km! and we've done 10,000 of them plus another 6500km in the other vehicles we' ve hired- nearly enough to drive back to the uk as the crow flies!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202278920/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202278920/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202278920/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:38:51 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Bendigo, Australia

gps 36 43.571s144 18.789eplan b for selling maz swings into action - try nearer the city. so we drive up to melbourne , an hour away, leaving carrum downs for the time being. but we end up driving straight through the city and we reach bendigo in the early arvo! it has rained on the way but is dry when we reach ascot big 4 park. dare we risk the tent? bugger no - its another cabin for us here. think we must have stayed in every different styled layout by now! this park looks very quiet, a couple of miles out of the city but bendigo itsself looks like a great place . lots of big victorian buildings, this town prospered during the 1850,s goldrush. we will stay tonight and tomorrow night so we have time for a good look around. bev in particular wanted to come here to do a bit of research on the guy that used to live in our old house in dover - he came to bendigo (then sandhurst) in 1841 and missed out on his inheritance - bev wanted to find out what thomas ayers was doing here then - before the town really existed back then - but we cant find out much - will have to do some research on the internet when we get home. we do manage to catch the last tour of the day in the gold mine - unlike the one we saw in ballarat, the bendigo fields are still being investigated and mined today but the workings are very deep and its quite disconcerting to be down underground. more headroom than the opal mines of coober pedy but just as dangerous of course, even now. those miners sure earn their money! we had a lucky find too - an indian restaurant for dinner - excellent minty chicken curry! when we plot our destination on the map tonight we realise we have almost come full circle in the last couple of weeks - echuca is not far away - wonder if theyve got internet there yet!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202191740/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202191740/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202191740/tpod.html Tue, 12 Feb 2008 01:21:03 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Carrum Downs, Australia

we create havoc in the cabin today - just as well it's quite roomy because we take all our belongings out of maz before going back to the garage in case we are walking back to base with money in our pockets! we neednt have bothered - the boss was in today but not in a buying mood - cheeky beggar offered us $850! falls a bit short of what we wanted...ah well, maz is worth something after all and we do get to have a good tidy up! that takes up most of the day. we have accumulated sooo much gear whilst here - most of it camping stuff which we hope maz,s new owner will take off our hands. dont fancy having to get rid of that mattress.. the charity shop gets a bagful of stuff that doesnt fit anymore (diet plan really didnt work) and with clothes being so cheap out here we,ve got more than a suitcase full each at the moment. nattie gets the swimming pool to herself this arvo as the rain has stayed away but before we know it another day in oz is over.... not been anywhere interesting today so apologies for the boring blog! a tasty saussie casserole for dinner makes a nice change but not too many barbies happenin!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202169540/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202169540/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202169540/tpod.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 19:00:21 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Carrum Downs, Australia

Before we head for the city on the train , last night we spotted a cheap as chips car dealer just down the road from our digs , so feeling optimistic, we pop in with maz. Boss is at the dentist. Doh. But might be interested.... We will try again later..... we get back to base just in time to catch the bus into frankston - its so cheap but the bus goes all round the houses (and not very nice ones) and takes ages to reach the train station. Again , we get lucky with our timing, theres a train waiting to go to Melbourne but its all stations and theres  24 stops in between! Far too many stations in oz- you get to go about 2 miles  and theres another one! So , its lunchtime when we get into town and hungry jacks is just handy! So are the shops. We get some ads made up at a fed ex shop - what a great service - and we check on our flight tickets home at Malaysian airways office as it was next door! We were hoping to fly up to Darwin, spend a few days there and then fly back from there instead of Melbourne - we thought it might make our flight home seem shorter- but Malaysian don't fly from Darwin so that's knocked that idea on the head! Theres plenty to see and do around here anyway.... As long as it doesn't rain... again! Heard on the tv that Sydney is having storms and floods so at least we managed to miss that one. Hope bill and gail havn't been caught up in it...it would have been a good day for a cruise on the yarra but when we get back to flinders street we are knackered and we get the train home at the same time as all the soapdodgers leaving school- so much for missing the rush hour and of course we've still got the bus journey from frankston to contend with! When we get home its too late to go back to the car lot- we will go first thing in the morning. We do go in search of the Indian takeaway that wendy told us about last night but we find its shut on Mondays! So we make do with a tasty Chinese instead.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202083020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202083020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1202083020/tpod.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:58:41 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Carrum Downs, Australia

gps 38 05.594s     145 10 749e news from home is better this morning -  nan is making progress by the day - well done tilly - we are thinking of you! We spend the day thinking about how we are going to sell maz- options include direct to a dealer (easiest option but the one we will get the least money back), covering maz in for sale signs and hoping some one will notice, going around the backpacker hostels in Melbourne with an advert left on their noticeboards, or a newspaper ad. If anyone can think of a better idea.... We are desperate to avoid the Melbourne equivalent of the Sydney car market we saw last week....! If we sell soon we are looking forward to hiring a new motor for the rest of our trip! We decide to head into Melbourne tomorrow by train to get some signs made up and suss out where the backpacker hostels are. We catch up with tony and wendy at home again - they ever so kindly fed us with a fabulous roast dinner inc. Yorkshire puddings!! We really appreciated that and hope we can return the favour next weekend when they are not too busy with work... got to see everyones big efforts in the garden- it has improved so much since xmas - well done harry, Julia and peter- the job's a good un! Also, great to talk to dad and Julia - sorry about your phone bill!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201996500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201996500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201996500/tpod.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:56:52 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Lakes entrance, Australia

In need of some medical assistance ourselves today- when Jim lifts up the seat in the cab to check maz's oil (yes he's still doing it every trip) something is wrong with his thumb. Its throbbing and red. We are still talking thumb here. We think something has bit him. Now its going numb. For a couple of weeks now we have had a stowaway spider living with maz, a little brown thing that usually can be seen hanging on its web on the windscreen. He's not around this morning. Not bothering anyone, we've just let it be but now we are wondering if he's got out of bed the wrong side today and has bitten jim.... On the advice of the park manager we go to the very well equipped lakes entrance medical centre. Quickly seen by mark the nurse (who in his jeans looks more like the boiler repair man) ,who gleefully reads his aussie deadly creatures bite symptom book, he would only be concerned about a poisonous spider  if we had been to Sydney recently. Ahh, you have been to Sydney says mark. Well, look, if it was a funnel web or red back spider that has bitten you jim then you would probably be in severe pain right now. And you're not so an antiseptic swab will do - a spider antidote might just kill you! So how are you going (local favorite phrase) - good, good, heading towards melbourne, good, more hospitals on the way there so best get a move on and stop later if you get any more symptoms mentioned earlier! Thankfully, jim didn't feel any worse- but thumb still numb and turning black- and we get to the relative safety of frankston tonight without any hiccups (not one of the aforementioned symptoms). Theres a hospital and some rellies just down the road (we are only a few kms from tony and wendy's lovely house once more) if we need them. We check into another cabin at Kingston lodge carrum downs . We plan to stay here for a few days - it's a very convenient location to reach Melbourne where we will be trying to sell maz this week. With a free spider thrown in - we haven't found him yet....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201909800/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201909800/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/keenos/australia_07_08/1201909800/tpod.html Wed, 06 Feb 2008 18:54:27 -0500 Australia west to east adventure with us on our first trip down under

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Lakes entrance, Australia

Lakes entrance isn't too busy. It's a very touristy place but, with the kids school holidays now over, it's a picturesque tranquil retreat. Lots and lots of holiday accommodation in town, but all mainly low key cabin style parks or small apartment blocks-no multi-storey nationals here. It's a pleasant walk from our park, whiters holiday village, to the town amenities and we cross the bridge to take a look at the ninety mile beach- a seemingly endless uninterrupted sandy stretch of coast line. Its quite a sight. Almost deserted the sea looks too dangerous for swimming and the surf is carving out a cliff edge in the sand. Back in town, the ice-cream parlour has some unusual flavours including liquorice-we opt for our usual favourites. We go in search of more food- Jim is going to make his speciality curry for tonight! The cabin is very comfy but devoid of any contact with other visitors-there is someone staying next door but its very quiet and different from camping-in a tent you get to speak to most of your neighbours and its interesting to meet new people and hear about their travels. When you have a front door it really seems like a barrier and theres very little communication between cabins. We feel a long long way from home tonight when we receive some news of nanny till being very poorly in hospital. Now over the worst and on the mend we discover- come on nan when we get home we've got all these photos to bore you with- visiting times in hospital wont be long enough so make sure you're home before we are! We've got 4 weeks to go...
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