Sadly our big aussie road trip is over and we are back in dreary old Sydney. Seriously, it is just like being in London with the amount of drear going on. I think London has sunnier days though.

We have been back for a week trying to sell Dory, but nobody wants to buy her. Brother Paul has decided to take her at a rock bottom price. At least it’s good to know she will be staying in the family. And I think she will enjoy the warmer climate up in Brisbane.

We are very fond of Dory and will be sad to see her go. She has not only been our transport, but also our home and protector for the last four months.

Heres a poem we wrote at the start of the trip:

This is a story
About a car named Dory
Who grew up in Japan
And had a big Plan
So to Aus she did go
To meet Mike and Jo
And embark on a trip
Around the coast to the tip
So away they went
Lots of money to be spent
We’ve no aim in mind
Just hoping to find
A little bit of Sun
And have loads of fun.

This is a sign we saw in a lot of pubs in the outback. I love the dress standards here.

We spent 4 days in Cairns. For those who have been keeping up, Me, mike, jenny and barry attended a 90min timeshare seminar in Surfers to get free tickets to a theme park. We also purchased 4 nights in Cairns and this included a seafood buffet dinner cruise worth $150. It was really nice. Only thing was we had to attend another 90 min timeshare seminar. We told them up front we werent interested and they let us go. So only 30 mins of our time wasted. It was nice staying in luxury accommodation and having a TV.

We did a snorkel trip out to green island but it was one of those freak tides that was so far out the coral was sitting out of the water. So the snorkelling, putting it politely, was crap!

Other than that, a cruisey few days and lots of nice eating out.

The last few days have been spent chilling out in Port Douglas, with a day trip to the Daintree Rainforest. We decided not to camp in the Daintree due to the bird eating spiders there.

Marina at Port Macquarie

Daintree NP, where the rainforest meets the sea

We spent two days in Townsville. The weather was nice so we did a cycle ride along the esplanade and had some brekky and visited the markets.

Almost finished!

Again,you need to join the blue lines where the GPS has failed.

Click on picture to enlarge.

There are bush fires everywhere. They were a little scary at first, but they are everywhere and apparently normal for this time of year.

It was just a short drive to Mataranka Springs and we arrived about lunchtime and set up camp. We did some well overdue washing and set off for a swim in the thermal pools. The water was crystal clear and 34 degrees. It still felt a bit cold compared to the outside temperature.

They used to have a smelly bat problem here (isn’t that a Phoebe song) but they have got rid of them by planting water sprinklers up in the trees.

It was a pleasant place to camp, very chilled out, as we were the only campers. All the caravans were away from us on the powered sites. I think we have been really lucky with our slightly off-season travel and there has been hardly any people around.

We finally dragged our shrivelled bodies out of the hot pools, drank some beer, cooked lamb chops with tzaziki for dinner, and then went to the bar to watch the live entertainment. It was a girl singing slightly off key but it was better than going to bed at 7pm.

We departed Darwin and headed for the famed Kakadu National Park, or as I now refer to it as Kakapoo or Crapadu. I don’t know what I was really expecting, but it was boring wetlands, with little or no bird life. A lot of the roads were still closed from the wet season, so we didn’t get to see Jim Jim falls. We did an 80km detour on a dirty rutted road to the Gunlom Falls. They were very nice, but the ones in Litchfield NP were just as nice if not better.

June/July would be the better time to be in Kakadu.

We departed Kakadu as quickly as we entered and made our way to Katherine for the night.

We dusted the cobwebs off our bicycles and set off to explore Darwin. Our first stop was the wharf district where Mike did a tour of the WWII oil storage tunnels. These tunnels were competed just as the war ended so they were never used. They are now getting their moneys worth from the tourists.

We rode along the esplanade and out to Cullen’s Bay. A brochure had mentioned harbour side eating places there so we went to check it out. There was a marina, expensive houses on waterways with boats parked out front, and the harbour side restaurants as mentioned. The place seemed nice enough but it had no soul. To me, it was a cross between Canary Wharf in London and the Pauanui waterways. We decided we didn’t want to eat here and continued on.

We rode along a cycle path that followed the coast. We cycled past Mindil Beach, where they have sunset markets. We were a bit early so we continued our pleasant ride along the coast, past Bullocky Point, Vestys Beach and Fannie Bay for about 10 kms and ended up at a military museum at East Point. We bought a couple of Gatorades to re-hydrate – portapotti blue for me, and urine yellow for Mike. Then we turned around and rode back.

We had showers and hit the town again for drinks then dinner.

That was day two.