Rogerson's on the Road

The Great Australian Bugger All

Once agan I am writting this page retrospectively, so sorry! So what are the Rogerson's doing, where are they and where have they been.....

After leaving Christchurch we flew into Melbourne and set up camp at Alan and Kelley's house (Alan is an old friend of Neil's). The welcome in Melbourne was as warm as the weather and it was great to be in a big city after so long in small towns in NZ. Melbourne is fantastic with loads of small districts all with their own personality. Alan and Kelley live in the fabulously posh Hampton(Didsbury has nothing on this place - right on the beach and a view right to the city centre).

Melbourne is fantstic, it is a giant foodcourt of a city, so we were in our element. A trip to the fantastic Victoria Market could have seen us gobble our way through a hundred different types of cuisine, all homecooked food, wonderful. A trip to the famous St Kilda's beach area was a little disappointing, there was not a huge amount there apart from over priced coffee and sandwiches, I think that it is a tourist must, not a place for backpackers!

The next district along is Prahan, now this was more our style (I say our, what I really mean to say is MY!). Miles and miles of the most gorgeous boutique shops selling, shoes, handbags, clothes, shoes, handbags, clothes, drinks, shoes, drinks, handbags, clothes......you get the picture? I could really see me and my girlfriends here on a Saturday, having a good old shop and a few bottles of wine. It's funny, it's not the quite, romote times that make you home sick, it can be places like this - the ones that you want to share with your pals that can be the hardest.

After 4 brilliant days in Melbourne with the weather very similar to those really hot days that we get in Manchester we head from Sydney via Canberra. We decided to take the train.

Melbourne to Canberra is a nine hour journey. Canberra, the Capital City of Austraia is not linked to Melbourne (the 2nd largest city in Australia) by a direct train line, so the journey consists of a 6 hours train trip to Cotamudra (I know that I have not spelt that correctly) followed by a 3 hour bus trip.......strange? Not as strange as Canberra itself.

I really do not want to waste too much time taking about Canberra. I will just describe it to you in the best way I can. Canberra is a purpose built Capital, built because Melbourne and Sydney we fighting over which city should be the capital. So Canberra was built (mainly in concrete, grey, grey concrete). I would descibe Canberra as nothing more than the administrative capital of Australia, it is the place where all the binding is sent, if it was a colour it would be beige - enough said.

From Canberra we complete our train journey to Sydney. Here we impose ourselves on yet another unsuspecting couple - this time it is Gary and Nicola who are our wonderful hosts. (Gary is also another friend of Neil's).

Sydney - on my my!!! What a spectacular place, it is one of those places that you instantly feel at home in, you recognise it and feel a part of it. The Harbour Bridge and the Opera House are better in really life and we were blessed with blue blue skys (see the photos). We spend the 5 days exploring the city from the seedy Kings Cross (very similar the London's Kings Cross), the Rocks Market, the Olympic Village and Manly beach. Sydney is fantastic, it is all of the great things about Australia compressed into one 24 hour party people city. We loved it.

From Sydney we start our east coast adventure, we have 3 weeks to cover the 3000 Kms to Cairns - easy we thought........

After covering nearly 5000 Kms in NZ we thought we were capable to covering the distance up the east coast, with all the things to do and see along the way, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, The Sunshine Coast, The Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise, The Whitsundays etc etc, the backpackers pilgrimage.

Well gee whizz, I think that we might have missed the point, or are we just too old? I think I am just going to have to say that, "I don't get it". I just don't get what all the fuss is about. Maybe the weather did not help us, it rained for 5 days solidly all the way up the rather ironically named Sunshine coast. Now I am not talking about Manchester rain, I am talking about monsoonal, typhonal, cyclonic rain - we have video footage to prove it! Not helping our mood on this particular leg of the journey, was the fact that we were camping.

Now, I really do not care how well equiped the camp sites are, how great the shower blocks are and how long the pools are in the camp sites - camping is awful. What we failed to realise, is that whilst camping your whole day becomes dictated by the sun. You get up at sunrise because it gets so hot you can no longer stay in the tent (especailly in our North Face tent which was designed for artic conditions) and you go to bed when it gets dark as there is nothing to do and you are so knackered because you have been up since 4am anyway.

I am so sorry but I just can't seem to muster the enthusiam to write reems and reems about our travels up the east coast so here is a synopsis with some brief highlights.

Sydney to Port Macquarie - Rain
Port Macquarie to Coffs Harbour - Rain
Coffs Harbour to Ballina - Rain
Ballina to Bryon Bay - Sunshine!!!!

We spent a couple of days in Byron Bay sun bathing, hitting thoses brilliant beaches and sinking some tinnies. But some bugger stole our beers from the fridge and we got a parking ticket. And we got a parking ticket for parking the car facing the wrong direction. In Byron Bay you have to park you car with the 'rear to the kerb' for safety reasons, apparently it is very dangerous to manuover your car out of a parking space but seemly not to manuover into a parking space?!? In our usual style we have not payed the parking fine but sent of a rather cute email to the council congratulating them on their rather clever tourist tax - as of today we have not had a reply from them nor a demand for payment. I think that we are going to start a website when we get home -www.complainaboutyourparkingfine.com

That is 3 out of 3 parking fines not paid by us!

Byron Bay to Surfers Paradise - Sunny!

So from Byron Bay we head to Surfers Paradise - party central apparently - ummm - see more night life in a a small village in Derbyshire, not exactly Ibiza - the Aussies have a lot to learn about "Party towns". Surfers Paradise is also home to the east coast theme parks. We opted for a day trip to Wet n Wild now renamed by us as Wet n Mild. No water park should be worthy of having the word "Wild" in it's title when Neil is queuing to race a 3 foot kindergardener with a bright blue plaster cast on his arm,down the rapid water slide.

Surfers Paradise to Harvey Bay

On the drive we collect a chipped windscreen, body blow number one. We are not covered on the insurance for this and the charge will be 1000 pounds (yes you read that correctly - 1000 pounds). I understand that when travelling around the world we will come upon difficulties, but I thought that they might be related to language barriers, culture shock or food poisoning, I did not think for one minute that it would be parking fines and chipped windscreens.

We arrive into an overcast Harvey Bay - this town is the gate way to Fraser Island, the largest sand dune in the world and a must on all backpacker intineries. We opt for a day trip rather than the 2 or 3 day 4x4 self drive adventure that most backpackers choose, we realise that we are too old to be marooned on a sand dune for 2 days with people who were not born when Neil left school.

We rise the next morning for a day trip out to the island. The weather was, yes you have guessed awful. Australia has been in the grips of a drought for the past 5 years, until now. We somehow seem to have broken the spell. We spent the whole day on a bus unale to see out of the window due to the monsoonal style rain! We did however, manage a dip in the fresh rainwater pool. We were soaking wet anyway!

Harvey Bay to Bunderburg - Hot Hot Hot

Bunderburg, the home of the famous Bunderburg Rum, a by product of the massive sugar industry here, and what a fine by product it is. Bunderburg is also home to Mons Repos Beach, the major nesting place for the endangered Loggerhead Turtles. A huge conservation programme is underway to save as many of these turtles as possible and it is centred around the education centre at this beach. You can, for a fee of just $9, during the nesting season have a Ranger guided evening on the beach watching the turtles making their pilrimage up the beach onto the dunes to lay their eggs. These creature are incredible, at least 30 years old before they reach breading maturity and return to the beach where they were born to may their eggs - as many as 150 a time. We were lucky enough on hour 6 hour trip to the beach to see 2 turtle digging their nests and laying their eggs - and that, people, is some serious turtle action, these creatures are endangered. It does take some getting used to though, it is more than slightly voyeristic especially when the ranger positions a maglight at the rear end of the turtle and we all oooh and arrg as these creature lays it's eggs.

Bunderburg to Mackay - VV hot

So back to the windscreen, we managed to get the windscreen repaired and for a damn sight less than 1000 pounds. So we hit the road again. A massive drive up the east coast to Mackay for an overnight stop, and bad luck hit us here again. Half and hour after we got our windscreen repaired another stone flew up off the truck on the other side of the road and cracked the windscreen again. Anyone laughing out there???

I am going to have to apolgise again and I have just read this page back and it sound dreadful! We are, after all, on a round the world trip and we are not having to get up very day and battle rush hour traffic, freezing weather conditions nor do we have to cope with work in general, so I do want to say that we do realise that we are extremely lucky and fortunate to be doing this trip and we really are having a great time. I will stop whining and just finish off as I said I would start, with brief notes.

Mackay to Airlie Beach

Not really a beach but the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef - snorkelling trip - brilliant - Yeah some good news at last!!!! Check out the photographs of Neil and I in full stingersuits (box jelly fish kill!!)

Arile Beach to Cairns

This is a long way. Cairns, dumped camping gear, got a AC cabin with a bed! Luxury!!! Dream of easier times in Singapore!