Previous Trip to Australia

In what turned out to be quite an emotional trip down memory lane, I spent a bit of time over the last few days digitizing photos from the trip to Australia I made with my wife Christine in 2000, just after I had retired from the Royal Air Force and I'd like to share a few of those pictures with you.

We departed the UK on 25th Jan 2000, once we were sure that the long forecast millennium disasters were not actually going to come about. We were flying to Perth but had arranged a 24 hour stop-over in Kuala Lumpur where we made sure to get a picture of the Petronas Towers which was the tallest building in the world, at that time. The following day we arrived in Perth in the early hours of the 28th Jan and were well looked after by long lost relatives with whom we spent a considerable number of hours reminiscing over our dim and distant childhoods back in the UK.

The cities of Perth and Freemantle were a pleasure to visit and the picture here was taken from King's Park, overlooking Perth with the temperature hovering around 37 ^oC.

After a couple of days being wined and dined by the 'relies' we flew on the Adelaide. During the flight we were presented with a bottle of Champagne to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.

Following an overnight stop in Adelaide, we boarded 'The Ghan'. The celebrated central Australian rail link to Alice Springs. This line has now been extended all the way to Darwin, at the 'Top End' but in 2000, it terminated in Alice. The journey took some 19 hours but was mostly during the hours of darkness. However, we were travelling first class so thoroughly enjoyed the trip anyway, sampling kangaroo steak for the first time and finally arriving in Alice Springs at 09.00 on the 1st Feb.

Welcome to Alice Springs

A view of the golf course

Alice Springs Water Hole

I will post a few more pictures next time but I must report that for the 2010 trip, I have now firmed up the intention to visit New Zealand and have managed to confirm bookings for all flights. Starting from Manchester to Hong Kong on Friday 27th and arriving in New Zealand on Tuesday 31st August. I will provide further details later but I can confirm that I have been granted the necessary Australian visa to cover my stay in that country.

See you next week.

Expanding Horizons

In an idle moment I had mentioned to Samantha (my darling daughter) that, whilst visiting Australia, it might be opportune to take in New Zealand at the same time, since I have never visited the islands despite hearing how beautiful they are. Almost overnight I was presented with a copy of the 'Insight Guides' to New Zealand and the exhortation that, "it would much too good an opportunity to miss." So, it looks as though my trip will be extended a little so it is likely that I will be setting off some time in August now, instead of September. Good job I hadn't booked my flights yet.

Talking of flights; as you can imagine, I have been doing a considerable amount of Internet searching trying to find the best deal, without having to commit myself to specific dates. This has proven to be rather frustrating, so I am now contemplating discussing the entire trip with a professional travel agent to see what sort of a package they can put together. I will keep you posted as to how I get on.

I promised you some photographs of previous visits to Australia and I am in the process of digitizing those from 2000, which was my first visit with my dear departed wife Christine, and I will have some of those for you next time. In the meantime, here is one of myself with daughter and grandson (Matthew) shortly after arriving at Willunga, SA where we stayed with my sister Valerie and her husband Nick. Willunga is approximately 40 Kms south of Adelaide and this photo was taken at Aldinga Beach.

As indicated in my profile, I recently retired on reaching my 65th birthday and I am already wondering how I ever had the time to go to work. However, for my birthday, Samantha has purchased for me a Tandem Sky Diving experience (I told you she had designs on the house). The 'experience' is booked for 6th April and I am really looking forward to it but I am wondering if I should defer booking my antipodean flight until I have safely completed the descent. I will keep you posted on the event and may even have a video to show. Because of my advancing years, I have had to get the doctor to certify me medically fit to undertake the jump so, at least he thinks I should survive.

Talk to you again soon.

Background

I suppose that I should give you some idea of the area of Australia I am planning to visit. It is, after all, a rather large chunk of real estate. See HERE I intend to start by flying into Adelaide, South Australia, and catch up with my sister, Valerie and her husband Nick. Assuming that they are not still swanning about in Papau New Guinea (PNG) where Nick is advising the PNG Government on Electoral Reform, if you please. I then aim to travel north through Coober Pedy (where the Opal mines are) and Alice Springs, taking in Uluru on the way and eventually getting to Darwin, at the top end. The vast majority of this would be done following the Stuart Highway. Following that I would like to explore the Kimberlys area which is basically the North West corner of Australia to the West of Darwin, bounded by the Timor Sea and the Indian Ocean. It is likely that I will need to hire a 4x4 to negotiate this area which reportedly has some of the most spectacular scenery. I expect to terminate this leg in the town of Broome with its white sandy beaches and turquoise waters. Leaving Broome I will follow the coast along Route 1 until eventually arriving in Perth where I have relatives who may be persuaded to take me in for a day or two. The plan then is to head across the Nullarbor although the route I take to reach the Nullarbor will depend on the time I have left in which to complete the journey back to Adelaide. However, my preference would be to continue along Route 1 along the coast. All in all, this round trip is a distance of approximately 10,000 Kms but I intend to spend about 80 days travelling it. A simple calulation shows that I will need to average only 125 Kms per day which will hopefully give me plenty of time for sight seeing along the way. As you will no doubt have noticed the trip covers only the western half of Australia and that is largely because, on previous trips in 2000, 2006 and 2009, I travelled through much of the eastern half of the Northern Territory and the eastern coastline from Cooktown to Sydney. All of it beautiful and exciting in its own way but, I am always keen to see what is over the next hill. However, I have many photographs from these previous trips. If you would care to see a few, just let me know.

Planning

I should know better I suppose. My dear mother would have said, "you want your bumps feeling". ( A quaint expression indicating that I was a bit eccentric) and my dear departed wife, Christine, would simply have said, "your mad." My daughter, Samantha however, seems to be all for the idea, although I believe that she has designs on the house.

Having now reached retirement age and having no particularly strong ties I am now planning a 3 month (approximately) trip down under to do a spot of vehicular assisted walkabout, and I hope to document the planning and execution of my peregrinations (traveling or wandering around).

Perhaps you would care to accompany me on my journey, although I don't intend to physically travel until September 2010. However, planning the trip promises to be a journey all of its own.

Let me have your thoughts and comments and I will try to keep the journey as interesting as possible.