CAMPSITE # 117 - World 360

There are a handful of our close friends / family members out there who are absolutely devoted to our blog, who wake up each morning and switch on their computers just to check if there’s a new post. One of those people is Tom’s Grandma all of the way from the little old town of Market Drayton, England.

When all of the sudden our blog posting numbers dramatically dropped and Gran had waited over a week for a new update, she began to wonder where on earth her precious Grandson could possibly be. When Tom’s mum called to confirm that Gran would be attending her dinner party at her place on Saturday night, Gran even expressed to Chrissie her concern for our whereabouts, just to ensure everything was ok.

As she prepared her famous meringue dessert for the dinner party at her daughters’ house, she wondered why on earth Chrissie was holding a ‘do’ just one week out from the huge black tie 40^th Birthday Bash of her other daughter Katie..

As she approached the front door of Chrissie’s house in Market Drayton, England, at a fashionable Gran traditionally early time of 7:25pm, Gran never stopped to consider who could possibly be on the other side of the door, eagerly waiting to answer her knock.  The four bags of goods she was holding were instantly dropped to the floor and an enormous shriek must have been heard from miles around. Tears automatically poured down Grans face as she hugged Tom and I and took a moment to pinch us both, just to ensure she wasn’t losing her mind.  

We were in England!

Even Tom's brothers Will & James were kept in the dark. The three boys didn't stop smiling the whole drive home....

Why did we fly so many thousands of kilometres just to spend ten days in Tom’s home country when we were supposed to be travelling around Australia in our Troopcarrier? Well, surely that’s an easy one... because we can! And, because we hated the thought of missing a big party. Katie’s 40^th would be one of those parties that the whole family would be raving about for decades to come, we couldn’t possibly miss the opportunity to attend.

On our first night in England, the night of Chrissie’s “Just Because” party, the entire house would have been shaking as we had all erupted in laughter. We caught them all by surprise, the only two people who had known were Chrissie and her partner Ashley. As you can imagine, Chrissie copped a whole lot of friendly banter from the family for deviously hiding such a big secret but all in all, they all seemed pleasantly surprised.  

As always, our time in “The Motherland” flew by far too quickly. We wined & dined, went for long walks amongst the English countryside, drank hearty ales in English pubs, played boules on the grass under the English sun and then ran inside as soon as the English sun decided to turn into English hail,

... we redecorated and sailed in the little mirror called ‘Thistledown’ ...

... Partied until the sun came up at Katie’s 40th...

The birthday girl & hubby...

...and then again the next day with our friends at a BBQ at Chrissie’s house...

Tommy tickling the ivory...

Chocolate chip scones the next morning courtesy of Jen...

We've somehow managed to convince Toms 13 year old brother, James, to come to Australia during his school holidays! That’s right, for a whole month this little duo is upgrading itself to a trio during the entire month of August when James flies into Darwin and out of Cairns.

 

Goodbyes are always tough. Particularly when the car is full of loving family members willing to take the 6 hour round trip to drive us both to Heathrow airport. You can never get used to saying goodbye. You try to make the farewells quick because you know the longer you drag it out, the harder it becomes. You wave your final farewell at the airport from the gates of security, all of the way until both parties are completely out of sight and then you walk around the corner. A waft of sadness overcomes you as you realise that it’s all over, your exciting little holidaying adventure has come to an end and now you’re stuck in the stupid line at security ready to begin the whole process of the journey home.

As time wears off, the sadness that you feel migrates into a humble feeling where you recollect how much fun you just had and how glad you were that you went. For us though, it wasn’t that bad because, unlike last time, this time we know when we’ll see them all again. After our big trip around Australia, Tom and I have officially decided to move to England. We’ve both agreed that after you have such a huge adventure like ours, with so many learning curves, we couldn’t possibly return to our old lives back in Brisbane. We now have another adventure to look forward to after all of this, as one door closes... another one opens.

Every year, Tom and his two brothers take a "Brothers photo"... except it takes a little more than just one photo to get the perfect shot...

CAMPSITE # 116 - Home ground advantage

After you spend a solid 8 months of your life living out the back of a truck, occasionally you just need to take some time off and have a little break. Sometimes, going back to 'reality' and revisiting your old life is necessary in order to find the energy to keep you going strong for the four months proceeding.

This time, we weren't returning to Brisbane to put our hard hats on and help the community in times of need. Nope, this time we were returning to Brisbane to spend some much needed R&R time with my family.

I, being the female that I am, was getting tired.
I was tired of getting out the map each morning, calculating our route and figuring out where we were going to sleep that night.
I was tired of cooking dinner in a makeshift kitchen with insufficient lighting.
I was tired of feeling dirty and grubby 99% of the time.
I could feel myself getting exhausted from the trip, in a way that I don't think anyone else would understand until they spend 8 months of their lives in the shoes of another nomad. I needed to feel normal, just for a little while. I needed to go home and remind myself that there is still a 'normal life' waiting for us at the other end of the trip.

We enjoyed a lovely weekend at the Gold Coast with my Dad & Cheryl in their new apartment... definitely two thumbs up for R&R time.. it was VERY tough ;)

Tommy broke into his clothes stash that were in storage in Brissie. It's official, you know you've lost weight when you need to use zip ties to hold your jeans up. (If only I had the same problem!!)

We spent a total of two weeks in Brisbane. Tom worked for my brother as one of his minions / wombats for his structural landscaping & carpentry business. I stayed at home with my little nephews (3 years old & 1 year old) and attempted to help their very patient mother in any way possible.

Tom's filthy tradie snap...

Those soft Geologist hands needed a bit of roughening up...

Angus has mastered the art of planking...

While Chef Mitchell managed to teach me a thing or two about cooking the perfect pancakes...

Two weeks in Brisbane with my family helped me realise that while people may get a little older or taller or move house or change their jobs, they're still the same person you left behind and they'll be there when you get back. And when you do finally see each other again, you just have a lot more to talk about than usual.

I also realised that we're not ready to go back to reality. While it can get tough and exhausting at times, we still have so much more to see and do over the course of the final leg of our trip. We need to enjoy being unemployed and not having to answer to 'the man' everyday. We need to enjoy being carefree and to embrace the idea of not knowing where we'll be in twelve hours time.

We need to enjoy it all while it lasts because very soon it will all be over and this huge adventure will just be a collection of shared memories, interesting photos and past stories written on a blog.


Our one and only night out with friends was spent at the Brookie Show... 
Millie, Daniel & Tommy.. Tom went to uni with Dan and hadn't seen him for three years so that was a much loved catchup.

Dan, Binko Tiger & Tommy...

The challenge was to crush a beer can with your foot to see who could get the most even, flat & circular can.
Steel capped boots proved to be a definite advantage...

I thought these photos were supposed to be of the cans but looking back, I think the boys were a little bit more interested in something else Binko Tiger had on offer that night...

Last but certainly not least - Henry Hunter. Henry was one of those crazy buggers who jumped on the back of an angry bull hanging on for dear life... or at least for three seconds. Yes, Henry is officially the craziest friend we have. I'm just glad he got out of the bull ring in one piece...

In the words of Henry himself, "Don't blink or else you'll miss me"... blinking aside you're the one that at least got on that beast in the first place!! First class effort HH.Yep, good one Virgin Blue. Check out the box of cold noodles (A.K.A box of plastic and carrots) that Tom paid $9 for on the plane! Pathetic... Yuck!This boulder opal was found in land fill while Tom & Stu were fixing a fence... as you do! Tom's been busy slicing it up and making some pendants for necklaces.. I wonder who will benefit from this little venture ;) 

CAMPSITE # 115 - How do our cities compare?

After spending the previous weeks in true outback Australia, returning to another city was quite a rude awakening. As we made a point of spending one day in each city centre, those eight days out of a possible 365 always seem to be amongst the most uneventful ones.

Perth however, stood out as one of our favourites. If I was to put the cities we've seen to date in order of preference, I would have to say...

1) Brisbane
What can I say? Home is where the heart is.
When I used to live on the Gold Coast and I'd drive the one hour up the highway to Brissie to pay the family a visit, I would reach the top of the rise in the road heading towards Brisbane and there's one point that you have a full frontol view of the city, which is simply beautiful by night, just at that moment when I would see the images of my city, I'd know I was home.

2) Sydney
Firstly, I would like to point out that this rating is from a tourists point of view and definitely not from a prospective residents'. I would rather eat live cockroaches than live in Sydney but to visit Sydney for a day or two is seriously cool.
Whether it's driving over the bridge, or catching the ferry to Manly, visiting Darling Harbour or ChinaTown, or of course the good old Opera House. I fly the flag for Sydney, it's a cracker of a place. A year or so before we left for the trip, when Tom's mum and brother where over from the UK for a visit, we all went to watch a ballet at the Opera House. Throughout the entire performance, I felt as though the dancers were performing just for me and I was the only person in the entire audience. The acoustics were so defined that you could hear even the lightest tap of the ballet shoe on the floor, even from the nose bleed section!!

3) Melbourne
Without a doubt Australia's most characteristic city.
This place has funk, retro & edgy written all over it. It's so retro that no doubt it has created a new name for 'retro' and I'm too out of touch to even notice.
Park the car and take the tram! Then spend the day drinking on the lovely grassed area at St Kilda Beach, grab a gelati and take a walk down to the jetty to watch the little penguins wake up from their homes amongst the rocks and set about their daily migration out to sea.

4) Perth
Our most recently introduced city, Perth, rolls in at number four. It's nestled in amongst the lovely Swan River which gives Perth a real outdoors / summer loving feel to it. Kudos to the Perth City Council for the free buses that run throughout the entire CBD everyday of the week. And of course, the buses were packed which in turn generally means less cars and therefore less traffic. The Bell Tower is worth a look but only from the outside, unless you feel like forking out $18 per person to walk up the stairwell to the top.

5) Adelaide
They say it's the city of churches and not much else but I didn't seem to notice anymore than usual. Adelaide won't overwhelm anyone with anything absolutely outstanding but yet it still manages to have quite a nice feel to it. The CBD always seemed to be very well presented and there are some rather impressive old buildings to appreciate. We only saw a snippet of the Adelaide Hills but from what we did see, it lived up to its name of lucious rolling green fields and its abundance of wildlife.

6) Hobart
Hobart reminded me of a mini Sydney with its harbourside city. The Salamanca markets were a huge let down, don't get me wrong they weren't bad, they just weren't good. Mt Wellington was an absolute winner offering great views of the city but take your jumper cause there was snow up there when we were there... in summer!

7) Canberra
Sorry Uncle Bruce!!
I think my opinion of Canberra is a little unfair because I had already visited it quite a few times before the trip. However, the War Memorial was outstanding!! Plan to spend an entire day there, you may not think you'll need that long but trust me, you will and you'll be thankful for every minute.

So, that just leaves one more city left to be seen - Darwin. I guess I'll have to update this space on its placement in a few weeks time.

 Tom found a new bike...

It wouldn't get him very far though...

Lots of little artistic touches throughout the parks in the city centre...

CAMPSITE # 114 - Thieving little buggers

As much as the locals may disagree with us, we actually liked Mandurah. Ask anyone in Perth however and they'll tell you they think "it's a hole". We were a little puzzled as to why, the well presented town centre ran along the waterfront which was teaming with watersports and sporting events, sunshine was out in full force and we felt as though we could easily find a nice quaint little caravan park near the waterfront and nestle into this little town for a few days.

Tom almost wet his pants when he spotted the Spur Steak restaurant along the Mandurah Esplanade. Spur is apparently really popular in South Africa and Tom used to go there as a child and come home with an Indian headpiece and a free colouring-in book. While the $38 steaks were out of our budget, we found some room in the budget to share a $15 plate of nachos.  No headpiece this time though (thankfully!!)

Our excitement for staying in Mandurah was short lived, once we were forced to head inland in search of a caravan park. The first park we found, and the closest to the lovely Esplanade we had visited just 1km down the road was nothing short of a trailer park. We decided to do a loop around the caravan park, and desperately hoped that it was much better than what our first impressions led us to believe. A wave of sadness overcame us both as we drove in through the entrance and saw the massive amounts of fresh flowers and gifts all gathered together at the front of the driveway. There were notes and messages pinned to the chicken wire fence and the same faces repeatedly appearing in the photos displayed. The penny finally dropped, we had arrived at the Caravan Park where the young family of three had been killed just the week beforehand when a gas bottle exploded at their campsite. We had heard news of it on the radio but never really stopped to listen to where it had happened. We both fell silent and kept on driving. 


Mandurah had left a bad taste in our mouth. We had agreed that we no longer cared about where we were staying that night, we just wanted to be staying somewhere. Somewhere that we could just pull up and do nothing for two days and wait out the terrible stormy weather that was heading our way. It felt as though we were driving aimlessly in some pathetic hope that we would stumble across the caravan park of our dreams - cheap, cosy and with homely facilities. If our past experiences were anything to go by, it certainly wasn't going to be a Big4 but I think our enthusiasm had dwindled and we just bit our tongues and coughed up the $32 for an unpowered site...

Site : Woody Point Big4 Caravan Park
Rating : 7 / 20
Facilities : Big camp kitchen with full kitchen facilities but has a very refrectory / canteen feeling to it. Free electric BBQs. 10minutes walk to the beach & jetty. Overpriced - $32 for an unpowered site, would have cost us $40 if we went for a powered site.


You know there are real problems with thieves in the area when a caravan park has "Thieves don't have holidays too" signs plastered everywhere. We are always very particular about making sure we lock everything away every night anyhow so we weren't too concerned. This was until Tom slept through the night time fishing he was going to do and left his rods out ready and waiting for him. Instead, they were ready and waiting for some sneaky little bastard to come along and nick them while we were sleeping right inside the Troopie. Tom was, and still is, shattered. No doubt if we went straight to the local Cash Converters that morning we could have bought his rods back for 1/3 of the price they were actually worth but, we didn't. Tom couldn't possibly have that kind of negativity hanging on the end of his rod. It was time to get a new rod... and time to tie them up every night before bed!!


It made my skin crawl when I went to reception upon check out and just mentioned that our rods were stolen. I knew they wouldn't be able to do anything about it but I figured surely they would at least keep track of the large amounts of theft in their park that they chose to do absolutely nothing about. Her response really irritated me as she proceeded to insinuate that it was our fault they were stolen because we didn't lock them up. Yes, we should have locked them up but perhaps she could have stopped for a moment to consider that perhaps the fault should have been laid on the Son of a Cowboy that pinched them in the first place! Grrrr stupid thieving little buggers, what goes around comes around my friend!!!