Adelaide to Sydney in a campervan

  Adelaide, Australia
Sunday, March 18, 2007

We flew Virgin Blue, the country's most popular budget domestic airline on a very early morning trip to Adelaide (earlier = cheaper). They boast at being the most on-time airline in the country and we believe it. They loaded the plane in about 10 minutes and we were off. Adelaide Airport also totally impressed Julius because they managed to have our luggage spinning around on the carousel in the 5 minutes it took us to walk from the plane to the baggage claim.

Adelaide was quite dry and sunny, a major fruit growing area in the country. It reminded us a lot of Eastern Washington. Instead of staying in the city we picked up a campervan and were on the road. Our first stop was Port Elliot, a coastal town not far from Adelaide. Our campervan park was right on the water, a lovely spot with trees, grass and lots of friendly families. The main site in the area is a penguin nesting area in the next town. Visiting penguins is an activity that has to be done at night and no photos are allowed. Penguins fish all day then head back to their nests at night. They are quite shy so people coming to see them have to keep their distance. We had a guide who looked exactly like a doctor I work with (Tiffany, for all my co-workers) and we got some good education on fairy penguins (the smallest penguin in the world) who nest here. Since it was near the end of molting we didn't see a lot of birds, but the ones we saw were very cute. They are quite good hikers, scaling cliff walls with their little feet that I could have trouble climbing.
For our entire trip we slept and cooked in our campervan. Between petrol and rental costs we were already stretched over our budget. We found that we absolutely love campervanning. The van is perfect size, we had the independence to drive wherever we wanted and the "Big 4" campervan parks in Australia are really top notch. They had laundry, kitchens, barbeque's, pools and clean, clean bathrooms and showers. The people were all very friendly. We would totally recommend traveling around Australia this way.
Most of this trip was enjoying the natural beauty of the country. In Port Fairy we watched the Mutton birds fly in from their long day of feeding. 

Blue Lake

After spending the night in Port Fairy we visited a giant lobster, a very blue lake, then headed to the Great Ocean Road, one of the most popular coastal drives in the word. After making a quick stop at Cheese World, we headed down on the coast.
It is obvious why this road is so popular. The Great Ocean Road has stops every few kilometers with fabulous views of cliffs and rock formations. The cliffs are made of limestone and the antarctic winds blow so strong that the waves can wear away at them fairly quickly. Of course swimming on these beaches is completely out of the question. The coast is known as "Shipwreck Coast" because of the number ships that met their doom here during the 1800's. We didn't see a ship in the water the whole time we were there.
Our favorite formation was the 12 Apostles. They don't really look like Apostles and there are no longer 12 (a few have toppled into the water) but it does make a memorable name. 

The Twelve Apostles

They say that you can't take a bad photo of the Apostles and it is true. We even managed to find a good photographer to snap a photo of us.
  
Along with ocean viewing we did some lovely walks through rainforests and even saw a koala by the side of the road. He didn't look very impressed by us but didn't run off.

After a few days on the Great Ocean Road we made it as far as Geelong, a city not too far from Melbourne. We stayed at a near-empty campervan park outside the city. It is oceanside but no beach. It does live up to its name - Pelican Shores -because there were heaps of Pelicans, seagulls and black swans there. Geelong is one of the worst hit areas in the drought that has stretched on for over 10 years. 

What are you looking at?

Signs posted everywhere warn of Level 4 water restrictions - No topping up swimming pools (our park's used ocean water), no washing cars, no watering yards or gardens (only if it is household "grey water"), no, no, no. People are installing those water tanks on their homes and preparing for the worst. Farmers are losing everything.

We went to Melbourne next, the main city on our road trip. Melbourne is second to Sydney in population and there is a bit of a rivalry between the cities. Tourists seem to love Melbourne so we looked forward to spending a day there. We didn't have a lot of time so we just planned a few activities. Our first was a visit to the Immigration Museum. We always enjoy special interest museums and immigration is certainly a topic we are interested in. The museum was great. Australia is truly a country of immigrants (over 25% are now foreign born) and it did a good job explaining who came when and why. Like America, Australia has historically not had the fairest practices in place when it comes to who they let in (this was all explained in the museum). They still have limits but are more much more open. They have just instituted an exam for citizens like the we do in the US plus a requirement for some English proficiency. We will see how that turns out.

We also visited the Botanical Gardens, said to be some of the best in the world. It was enormous and quite nice, but they have been very hard hit with the drought. The gardens have managed to reduce their water use by 60%, using barometric meters, soil dampness monitors and special low level sprinklers. It still looks very dry. Though the plants are alive, all the grass is dead. Also, the pond in the middle of the gardens is pretty much dried up. Ironically, it did start to rain when we were there. It continued to drizzle though the rest of out walk through the city. When we got back to the campervan park the rain really started in and it poured all night with gusts of wind blowing the van from side to side. We learned how rare this was when we met a Melbourne resident in New Zealand and he knew the exact date we were talking about.

After Melbourne we had to quicken the pace a bit. Anyone who has driven in Australia knows what a huge amount of land there is to cover. We made it to Eden on the east coast, a campervan park with lovely beachfront. From there we went on to Narooma, another popular place on the east coast. This town had some nice walks along the beaches and the campervan park had wild parrots begging for food like ducks or seagulls. One of the receptionists there told us about a Harley trip her and her husband did in the states. Their biggest challenge was driving on the "wrong" side of the road. Luckily they were driving in the midwest states without much traffic. Ironically, a large group of Harley riders were staying at the park. Apparently it is a popular activity here as it is the States.

Our final stop was going to be the Blue Mountains, a range west of Sydney that is supposed to have spectacular views. Unfortunately when we arrived we found the area fogged in! We could hardly see across the street, much less across the valleys. We contemplated sticking around a day to see if it would clear up, but decided in the end to head to Sydney.