It’s been a while since I made a new entry in my blog, but I’ve not been sitting on my hands

The time this route is going to take has gradually gotten longer and longer as time has gone on, but I seriously have stopped worrying about the cost and the time because I’d rather make the most of the opportunity! So that’s a yay for me! I’ve been getting kitted out too; I bought my 70 litre Karrimor rucksack and some high-end Berghuas walking boots. Oh, and can you believe it?! I dropped my new camera already and broke the lens! Doh! It’s been sent in for repair

Did I mention Google Maps is awesome by the way? No? Well it is. I’ve been able to use Google Maps to join-the-dots so the speak. Not only have I been able to work out how long it takes to get from A to B, I’ve also been able to use it so I can do the Maths and decide how best to organise a Greyhound Coach pass.

The Map (Right click, Open in new window)

You can get the original map up on Google Maps by clicking here.
CAUTION: If you don’t have a relatively new CPU I’d probably avoid clicking the link. It takes a while to process all the JavaScript it uses. My Intel Core 2 Duo/512MB DDR2 opens the page in about 20 seconds.

The Route

Ok, the way things are looking this is going to carry me from the end of September through to early December. I still haven’t finalized dates for the individual stops because I’m not completely crazy and don’t want to tie myself down so far in advance! I’m doing the entire thing by Greyhound Australia. Apparently it’s faster to get arond by coach than it is to get around by rail in Australia. Don’t question it — I didn’t

1. Melbourne

Melbourne is where my journey begins on 29th September (read, 30th September by th time I arrive). I’m staying in Essendon with a friend of mine from the Monday until the Friday. I have 3 friends currently living in Melbourne so I’m basically going to let them show me the sights and take the opportunity to do some catching up. I haven’t officially considered this to be part of my backpacking experience since I’ll be living and working here for the remainder of my stay (post-December).

2. Thredbo/Kosciuszko & The Lakes

Thredbo is well known as a skiing resort in the winter. I’ll be arriving in the spring however so it’s very unlikely there will be any snow around. Although it’s quieter at this time of year it’s supposed to be a pretty place to pay a visit. I’m coming here purely to do a three day walk in the National Park. There’s loads of tiny little (subtle) flowers at this time of year. I imagine I’ll be using a tent for accommodation here!

This part of Kosciuszko is actually not very far from Canberra. I removed Canberra from my itinerary whilst cutting out some fluff because I was led to believe that although it’s worth a visit there are better things I could spend my money on.

3. Sydney

Well if you haven’t heard of Sydney you’ll probably never find porn on the internet! I expect I’ll spend at least 6 days here, 3 of which will be walking in the Blue Mountains. The walk I’m doing is called the Six Foot Track, starting at the Explorer’s Tree, ending at Jenolan Caves and is disputed to be one of the best walks in Australia, although it seems Tassie (Tasmania) has a better walk. Over the course of the three days walking the six foot track the landscape/scenery changes dramatically so I’m probably looking forward to this walk more than any of the other walks I’ll be doing.

In the city itself I’ll probably do all the cliche things like going to Opera House, going to the Botanic gardens and checking out Bondi.

I’m still not sure if I’ll accept the kind offer, but the friend I’m staying with in Melbourne has an auntie near Sydney who has offered to let me stay with her. It would save me some money but apparently it’s a fair distance north of Sydney.

4. Newcastle/Hunter Valley

I really wanted to include a couple of wine making regions in my itinerary. Not because I’m an alcoholic, but because Oz is known for having some great wine regions. Hunter Valley is the first one I’ll be visiting. It’s very close to Newcastle and most day tours to the wineries actually leave from Newcastle.

The friend I’m staying with in Melbourne also has relatives here. Her cousin and his wife live in Newcastle; I’ve met them before when they visited the UK. I’m not aware if they’ve been asked yet but I may able to save some money and crash with them whilst I’m here

5. Byron Bay

Really looking forward to this place to get some rest and relaxation. Byron Bay is really a nice beach area with a cool hippy vibe. Don’t expect to see me doing anything but lazing on the beach whilst I’m here!

6. Glass House Mountains

If the name doesn’t ring a bell, maybe “Australia Zoo” will? This is where the late Steve Irwin’s zoo is. I’m coming here briefly just to see the zoo.

7. Hervey Bay/Fraser Island

Complete bliss. There are two records held here. Hervey Bay (on mainland continenental australia) got a Guiness world record for being the beach with the world’s whitest sand. Fraser Island, just off the coast is the world’s largest sand island. How could I not pay this place a visit?

Fraser Island has a big lake on it which is said to be so clear you can see turtles on the bottom! Many people take 4WD tours on Fraser Island but I’ll try to avoid this since it damages the ground. I’m potentially (well, as it stands I’m doing it) going to be doing a whopping 5 day walk on the island.

8. The Whitsunday Coast

This will be an active one for me. On the mainland I head to Airlie Beach which is probably the busiest beach in this area. From there I head off the coast and over to the Whitsunday Islands for some island hopping/sailing. There are over 90 little islands off the Whitsunday Coast although I’m only visiting 3 of them — I’m just not sure which three yet!

The plan is to sail between a few islands which more than likely will include the biggest one — Whitsunday Island, and the next biggest — Hook Island. Brilliantly for someone on a budget like myself, you can get a camping pass for about $4 AUD at Airlie Beach and you can use this on all the popular islands.

Oh, I almost forgot to menion the best bit — This is the Great Barrier Reef!!

9. Cairns

Cairns is the best base point from which to explore the Great Barrier Reef. There’s loads of other things to blow my money on here too. I’ve been told by my barber (he’s travelled the East coast himself) that you can throw money into activities such as watersports, skydiving and bungy jumping. We’ll have to see how far my budget stretches. The main thing I’m doing here is the same as every other backpacker (this place gets crowded with us!), I’m taking a trip out to see the reef. These day trips vary in price between about $60 and $120. The cheaper ones are worth doing but when you pay for the more expensive ones you spend longer out there, get more informative guides, cover better areas of the reef and get a better diving experience. I expect I’ll go for an expensive one because this quite truly is a once in a lifetime experience for me! There’s also a tropical zoo here which is apparently a great place to go if you want to cuddle a koala. Sounds like my kind of thing

10. Mt Isa

I’m in the outback. This hot! It will be November by this time too so it really will be beginning to bake in these regions.

Mt Isa is on my itinerary mostly because it was going to take over a day to get from Cairns to Katherine. I had to throw in two stops between Cairns and Katherine to break things up a bit — this being the first. The locals usually just refer to the area as “Isa”. It’s a very beatutiful red rock area which probably looks just like you’d expect outback Australia to look.

11. Daly Waters

Initially I was going to stop at Tennant Creek (south, right where the highways join). However, I was told that Tennant Creek can actually be a dangerous place to go due to crime. All I’ve been told about Daly Waters is that there’s an awesome pub there. Low and behold, my travel guide talks about the pub more than anything else here. I guess I’ll be drinking here then!

12. Katherine

Just south of Darwin, katherine is a picturesque town where I’ll spend 4 days walking. The walk I’m doing essentially gives me a great opportunity to see Katherine Gorge. Go and stick that search term in Google Images and you’ll see why I’m visiting this place. It’s got some great rock art sites in addition to being a huge natural beauty. I’m not 100% but I think we’re in Crocodile Territory here

13. Darwin

Darwin is really really far north in the Northern Territory. It’ll be baking hot and I’m informed that the flies will drive me bonkers. Darwin is definitely an area with Crocs. It’ll be the wet season up here and at this time of year Darwin holds the world record for experiencing the most electrical storms over anywhere else in the world. I’m almost guaranteed to catch a storm if I stay here for more than 2 days — which I am.

14. Daly Waters

Back again for a rest.

15. Alice Springs

In the words of the Lonely Planet travel guide, Alice Springs is a one-street kind of town. People commonly use this area as a stopover whilst they do the cliche tourist activity of visiting Uluru (Ayers Rock). I need to make the most of the fact that there’s actually some cheap shops here because apparently I’ll not stock up on necessities anywhere cheaper within a 100 mile radius.

I’m doing a short walk here which should take just under 5 hours, but yes, to all intent and purposes I have fallen into the trap of using Alice Springs as a stopover on my way to Uluru.

16. Yulara

Yulara is the town you go to when you’re visitng Uluru (Ayers Rock). I can’t tell you anything you probably don’t already know but Uluru is a massive (over 3.5 kilometres long!) red rock on the landscape. It’s a really sacred site with the aborigines and they don’t like people to walk on it because of that fact. However, the majority of people ignore the requests of the aborigines which I think is sad really. If you’re going to visit a place that doesn’t belong to you then you should respect the requests of those to whom the place belongs and has a very geniune sentimental value. Ok rant over. I’m just going to look at it

Lesser known in this region is another rock site called The Olgas. These are a cluster of (three) smaller red rocks and many people say they are more worth seeing than Uluru. Rather than have someone else tell me what’s more worth seeing I’ll just see both.

17. Flinders Ranges

Most likely I’ll go to Wilpena Pound. Fliders Ranges National Park is supposedly the kind of beautiful red rock landscape, sprinkled with small amounts of vegetation which you dream up when you imagine dry areas of Australia. There is a circular route I can do here which would take 2 days to complete.

It looks as if I’ll have to head to Adelaide and then backtrack in order to get into the National Park.

18. Adelaide/Barossa Valley

Well I mentioned I wanted to visit some wine making regions and I’ll have visited the Hunter Valley early on my travels. This is the end of my route and the other wine making region I’ll be visiting while I travel. Day trips to the wineries usually leave from Adelaide.

Lucky for me, my friend’s mum who I’m staying with in Essendon (Melbourne) has a friend here who may be able to offer me a bed. In addition to visiting the Barossa Valley wine region I’ll see Adelaide and Glenelg.

19. Melbourne

And I’m done! It’s just a shame I’ll have to start working again because I’ll have no money. It will be just a few weeks from Christmas by the time I get back here too

Distance covered?

Well according to Google Maps my route takes me over 11,081 Kilometres. If you were to drive non-stop it would take nearly 6 days. Phew!

If the distance Google has calculated is accurate I can save myself nearly $200 by booking a Greyhound Kilometre pass rather than booking there default itinerary route which fits my plans. They charge $1520 for the “Aussie Highlights” pass which is there-abouts the route I’m doing. However, for 11,000 kilometres anywhere you want to go with Greyhound it costs only $1327 (or less if I can get a concessionary price).

Feedback on my route is more than welcome

(Please no comments about Western Australia, NZ or Tassie… I’m planning to travel again after working for half a year or so in Melbourne ;))

Apologies for the mundane nature of this blog entry… this is me using my blog in it’s true, personal sense

I booked my flight out to Melbourne last week! Throw away the December date, I go on 29th September now! I’m trying to organise some work arrangements for when I finish my initial bit of travelling, but if anyone has any leads (programming work around Melbourne) gimme a heads-up

The first route I posted last time around is changing a bit. There’s too many stops on it, and I may also be leaving out Uluru until I “do” Western Australia. Doing a bit of financial research into the cost of getting from A to B then I’ll post a more accurate route, with some more descriptive notes about what I’ll be getting up to!

Speaking of finance… I started a Virtual Pot to collect donations from my Swift Mailer project and use as spending money in Oz.

I also bought a new digital camera (cheap and cheerful but deliberately bought since my brother got an older model a couple of years ago and it’s really a nice camera).

I’ll post again in a week or two with a better route

Almost a month has gone by now. I’ve bought three Lonely Planet travel guides:

Australia & New Zealand on a Shoestring
Australia (of course!)
Walking in Australia

I’ve mostly been reading the shoestring guide and have flicked back and forth in the walking guide and have already begun to overwhelm myself with Australian geography, environmental considerations and other useful/interesting facts. I feel compelled to help out with some environmental (conservation) volunteer work on my travels so this is something I’m going to look into quite seriously - I’ll provide some useful links with some overviews of the various groups involved with looking after the struggling environment, soil and endagered wildlife over the coming months.

As of now however, I do have a rough idea of my initial route. The keyword being “rough”. I definitely want to do some walking so I’ve tried to include places that pass near to some of the numerous national parks dotted around Australia.

The initial route is intended to provide me with two months worth of travelling from my initial landing in Melbourne (this is my definite landing spot since I have friends there), right up the east coast, past the Great Barrier Reef, up to the Northern Territory and back down through the Red Center past Uluru (Ayer’s Rock) going via Adelaide before finally hitting Melbourne again to replenish my spending by doing some work!

Here it is:

If I’m honest, half the reason I’m even blogging this is because I’d like to hear from anyone else who knows the places I’m planning on seeing and get some feedback on how I could improve my route. Whatever route I end up with is not set in stone, if I impulsively go off on a tangent then so be it!

1. Land in Melbourne after a painfully long flight, spend a few days getting my head straight with some friends.
2. Leave anything I don’t need to travel with at my friends and say goodbye as I start my 2 month exploration of the east coast! First I cross the Victorian border and into New South Wales while I head over the Kosciuszko National Park - Australia’s largest NP - which has more than its fair share of walking routes and the highest peaks!
3. In a truly scary contrast to some snowy peaks I’ll be heading towards the beach(es) at Wollongong for a chance to try the surf and chill out for a while.
4. Heading just a tad further north up the coast, I hit Sydney where there’s a whole load of things to see and do so I’ll spend a week or so here I guess.
5. Moving into Sydney’s Blue Mountain backdrop I’m off to another National Park for some walking in a Eucalyptus Haze! Bliss!
6. Time to plonk-out on wine. Hunter Vallley is a well-known wine making region. Now I’m no alcholic but I’m looking forward to this!
7. Taking quite a stride and leaving NSW behing I enter Queensland, the first stop being the infamous Byron Bay for more beach-loving relaxation and some hard partying! (You know me ;))
8. Just a stone’s throw away I hit Brisbane.
9. Another big trek along the coastline of the Great Barrier Reef and up to the Whitsunday Islands. Here I hope to do some island hopping and a bit of scuba diving. My dad will be so jealous!
10. Slightly further north to Cairns. I’ll be honest, I can’t remember what’s at Cairns but I’ve been told to go
11. Out of Queensland and into the Northern Territory to see Katherine.
12. Up to the tip of the Northern Territory to see Darwin — I’ve been told that this is a must!
13. Here’s where I’m undecided whether to throw some money into my travels. There’s a train called the Ghan which runs from Adelaide to Darwin and vice-versa. It costs A$690 in total but is said to be quite an experience. Either way, somehow I’m heading into the Red Centre toward Uluru (Ayer’s Rock). But first, I stop at Alice Springs.
14. Everyone knows about Uluru - the big rock - I have to see it!
15. Across the border into South Australia for… ermm… you guessed it, more wine drinking! Barossa/Clare is a big wine making region in South Australia.
16. Adelaide. Crazy thing is, I may have already been here if I do pay to have the experience of the Ghan since it stops at Adelaide but I’ll just have backtracked to the wine making region.
17. Portland - Just passing through mainly. It’s Victoria’s oldest town but I haven’t got much information on it. I figured it was worth a look anyway.
18. Start working. I need to save to get some money to travel on the West Coast.