Category: Grey Gap Year Travel

Australia – a huge country of many contrasts, with tropical cyclones in the North and drought in the south,  crazy high temperatures in the summer, stunning white sandy beaches and clear blue seas (often colder than you expect), beautiful sunsets,

open wheatlands and red earthed deserts, huge trees, some with amazing annual  bark shedding abilities, some quirky animals that have adapted to the contrasts of the continent,

very pretty birds from the tiny blue wrens to the colourful parakeets, gulahs, cockatoos and noisy crows. It’s a land of down to earth people, who tell you how it is – very refreshing! They love their coffee, although often way too tepid for my taste, sandwiches and chicken schnitzels. Oh, and let’s not forget it has more deadly creatures than you would really wish to meet, both on land and in the waters!!
It’s many towns and cities were often built from convict trade in harsh conditions – some of this history remains in the ruins of old prisons and convict depots. They have also managed to hang on to some of the historic hotels complete with intricate ironwork verandahs – built on street corners  because they had to have 2 entrances – 1 for the bar and 1 for accommodation!

We’ve enjoyed visiting Australia again and having the opportunity to catch up with friends we haven’t seen in many years and to visit different parts of this vast country (we were lucky enough to have visited twice before and to see Tasmania, Melbourne, Great Ocean Road, Adelaide, Uluru, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef).  Now it’s time to move on again (well, an email from Border Control has kindly reminded us that our visas are due to expire next week!). Now we’re off to Kuala Lumpur to see how much it has changed in the 10 years that we visited last.

We spent a couple of weeks in Perth (1 as we arrived and then again after our road trip). On our first day, temperatures of 40 degrees plus knocked us for 6, but then when it cooled down to mid-20s, we took advantage of the free CAT buses that run around the CBD and explored. We visited the Perth Mint for an entertaining tour that saw a gold pour and where we learnt that Andy’s weight in gold is worth $8,266,966 AUD – sadly, I couldn’t trade him in!!

We saw the oldest building in Perth that holds a very interesting law museum now, visited the St Mary Cathedral with it’s unusual modern extension and St George’s Cathedral with some stunning traditional and modern stained glass windows, admired the beautiful His Majesty’s Theatre and had a tour inside (hard to believe this building was going to be destroyed in the 1980s),

popped into the old Fire Station (now a museum), where the old stables are still marked out on the pavement along with the horses names, listened to the Swan bells in the Bell Tower at Elizabeth Quay (which includes the old 12 bells from St Martin-in-the-Fields, the ANZAC Bell and the old Ascot Race Course Tower clock),

enjoyed a walk around King’s Park with the War Memorial, eternal flame and lovely Botanic Gardens,

we mingled with the Perth Wildcats NBL fans one evening before their game and of course watched some cricket at the stunning Optus Stadium.

Perth CBD has managed to hang on to some of the old buildings showing off its Victorian history amongst the modern glass and steel towers.

One day, we took the Rottnest Express ferry from Perth, along the Swan River (where we passed some very expensive properties), down to Fremantle and out across to the small island of Rottnest. It’s a beautiful place where no cars other than service ones are allowed. There’s a Hop On, Hop Off bus which we took or there’s a small Discovery Tour you can do – weirdly for the size of the island there’s also a train, which takes you to some historic tunnels and gun placements. The beaches are stunning and the sea is crystal clear (but cold!). We stopped off to check out the 2 lighthouses

and met the local inhabitants – Quokkas. They are small marsupials that look like tiny Kangeroos. They can be quite inquisitive or just simply sleep – one seemed to fall asleep in the middle of the main shopping area and just ignore all the comings and goings of the day visitors!

The island was getting ready for the annual Rottnest Channel swim – a 19.7 km open water swim from the mainland to the island! (Sadly it got cancelled due to high winds and swells). Our trip back was on the premium cruise, which included a cheese and wine experience – a lovely way to end the day.

From Brisbane, we flew to Perth, stopped a week, and then hired a car for 4 weeks to explore more of Western Australia.
Our first stop was Fremantle (Freo to the locals), which is Western Australia’s biggest port. It has also managed to preserve a lot of its colonial and convict history with some stunning buildings in High Street, the Round House (oldest building still standing in Western Australia apparently) where they fire the cannon and drop the time ball every day at 1pm.

and of course, the Fremantle Prison – we did a very interesting convict tour which covered the earlier parts of the prisons history (1800’s) but it was used up until 1991 (and the cells still had no plumbing at that point).

There’s also a small museum where you can put in your family name and see if there were any convicts in the prison with that surname (yep, both Andy’s and mine appeared).
Monument Hill is a beautiful place to watch the sunset over the city and Rottnest Island in the bay. It also has a lot of naval and submariners memorials on the hill.

We ended with a great evening in the historic Orient Hotel, watching the final of the Big Bash league (like our T20 cricket).

From Freo, we went to Rockingham and went for a walk around Cape Peron (a rather windswept one at that)

then down along the Esplanade, where you can see the causeway to Garden Island (now an Australian Navy base). Then we went to Mandurah, where we spent a very enjoyable Australia Day with Tom (an old work mate of Andys who he hadn’t seen for 20 years) and Shelley and their friends and family. They also kindly put us up for the night (5 star B&B!). Special thanks to Shelley for the entertaining dinasour dance.

Next we went to Bussleton for a night, stopping off on the way to see the thrombolites in Lake Clifton (these are micro organisms resembling the earliest forms of life on earth that have built up and look like rocks in the lake). Oh, and we saw loads of Kangeroos by the river when we took a little detour!!

We managed to walk the 1.8km Busselton jetty but were too late to go down the underwater Observatory at the end of it (it was fully booked being a public holiday weekend). The jetty started in 1865 at a mere 161 metres but was extended over time due to changing sand bars in the bay – it closed for commercial business in 1973 and was damaged by Cyclone Alby in 1978. It’s since been restored and even has a little train on it to take visitors to the end. It’s used by lots of fishermen and is stained with black squid ink where they have been landed!!

We ended the evening at The Fire Station with a lovely meal and excellent entertainment by singer-songwriter Turin Robinson.
In the morning, we stopped off at the Sunday Market before heading down to Margaret River for 3 days.

From Busselton, we drove around the coast via Dunsborough and Yallingup, down the Caves Road to Margaret River, where we stopped for a couple of days to explore.
We took a day to visit the many wineries in the area (Andys turn to taste), along with beer tasting at Black Brewing Company, chocolate tasting at Gabriel Chocolate (mean cookies here), olive oil at Olio Bello, nougat at Bettenays (bought some delicious ginger and almond flavour), had gourmet toasties at Provodore whilst watching the nets come off the vines ready for picking (the nets protect the grapes against the birds and the kangeroos), and wine tasting at Hay Shed Hill, where Andy came away with a bottle of Pinot Noir! We met lots of really helpful, friendly, knowledgeable people along the way.
We visited Canal Rocks

Then, on down to the quiet suburb of Pearsall and a quick trip to historic Guildford and the start of the Swan Valley – the temperature had soared once again, so we didn’t venture very far. Then finally back to Perth to return the car and spend our last few days in Australia – and finding a beer called Mumfords Draught!!!!!

and then the Jewel Cave (there are about 4 different caves in this area to choose from), which was worth the visit – it’s a guided tour of about an hour but be warned, lots of steps involved some rather steep and narrow!
Then, onto Augusta and then the far South Western tip of Australia – Cape Leeuwin and its tall lighthouse. It overlooks the stretch of sea where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet – quite spectacular. The interpretive centre has some interesting stories of the lighthouse keepers and how the families lived in such a remote area.

On the way back, we popped into the beautiful Hamblin Bay to spot manta rays, but sadly none to be seen, so we headed back to Margaret River for dinner and a riverside walk.
We enjoyed our short stop in this area, but Denmark was calling our name, so it was time to move on.

We drove from Margaret River to Denmark just as the mercury rose to 40 degrees C! Thankfully, it went down to high 20s by the time we reached Denmark and then stayed cool (even rained) for our stay. We stopped off at the Valley of the Giants Tree Top walk – yes, Andy did the 40-metre high walkway amongst the beautiful Tingle trees (very reminiscent  of the giant Redwoods we saw in California).

Denmark is a town born from the timber trade and still has a few old buildings from that time but it also has some beautiful scenary, including Greens pools, Elephant Cove (huge boulders that look like a herd of elephants at the beach),

the lovely Scots Dale drive through Karri and Marri trees and lots of artisanal producers (lovely cheesery, wineries, icecreamery and chocolate lounge – excellent deconstructed hot chocolate here), Monkey Rock – a huge boulder that we hiked up to and chambered up for gorgeous views over the coastline and the town also sits on one of the major trails – munda biddi trail so there are lots of hikes in the area.
We loved watching the tiny blue wrens hopping around our B&B ( Windrose – gorgeous breakfasts and lovely host). It’s amazing how blue the male wrens are at this time of year.

From Denmark, we took the short trip to Albany. An interesting town sitting on the wonderful Princess Royal harbour and the King George Sound where 2 convoys of ships left from to go to Gallipoli in the first world war. The National Anzac centre (Andy said this was really interesting) sits in the site of the Princess Royal Fortress, on Mount Clarence which has some lovely trails to explore whilst learning about the ships that left here.
Albany itself has managed to hold on to some lovely old buildings, with Stirling Terrace looking very similar to how it did in the 1800s.
We took a short ride around the Torndirrup National Park to see the Natural Bridge and The Gap – natural huge rock formations on the Southern Ocean and then round to the old whaling station (now a museum). The bay is absolutely stunning with soft white sand and crystal clear (cold!) water.
As time with our rental car was getting short we decided to go up to Lake Grace and Hyden and the Wave Rock instead of across another 5 hours to Esperance (a good decision in the end as a huge bush fire broke out that side of Albany the day we left).

We decided to visit the Tin Horse Highway whilst we were in Lake Grace. It was started in the 1900s to advertise the local Kuilin Bush races and has grown since then with farmers adding new ones annually. They are all made from bits of farm junk. We weren’t sure quite what to expect, having been underwhelmed at some of the “local highlights” on our journey, but even in 40 degree heat we enjoyed these – very quirky, lots of puns and just generally good fun to cheer up your road trip.

From Albany we drove north through the Stirling Ranges into the vast wheatbelt (all harvested at this time of year) and its massive grain silos (we saw the painted ones at Pingrup – there’s a painted silo trail but most of it was too far off our trip),

passed the salt lakes at Lake Grace and headed to Hyden (more quirky junk art here) to see the other famous rock of Australia – the Wave Rock. It’s enormous and definitely looks like a wave in the middle of the country.

Then, it was back on the road to York. On the way, we passed a part of the rabbit proof fence (this bit was one of the trapping  areas). There were 3 fences originally  built in 1901- 1907 and completed in 1950 to stop the rabbits invading the agricultural Western Australia and also the emus and wild dogs. It’s still largely intact.The number 1 fence was the longest in the world at the time of completion.
York is a lovely small town and again has managed to hang on to its charming old buildings. It also houses a great car museum housing, Peter Briggs collection, and the original Crocodile Dundee Ute!!

After the heat of York, we drove 5 hours up to Geraldton on the coast on our way to Kalbarri. We had to stay to get a car issue sorted out, which took longer due to it being a weekend. Geraldton is not a tourist town, it’s the second biggest port for exporting grain and iron ore in the country, and we spent some time watching the tugs manoeuvre huge tankers in and out of the port. As usual we wandered (as much as the heat allowed) and came across a couple of gems in the town – the museum is worth a visit, with excellent displays of local shipwrecks, including that of the Batavia (sank in 1629 and the wreck was found in 1963).  This ship was found to be carrying a complete portico in its hold, taking it to Java, which is now on display in the museum.

Originally, it was thought the stones were simply ballast until they noticed the odd shapes and markings. There is also a poignant 3d film of the shipwrecks of HMAS Sydney ll and the Kormoran. There is a beautiful memorial to the Sydney ll in Geraldton.

We also visited the St Francis Xavier Cathedral, with its stripy interior and beautiful night lighting.
We then came across the old Gaol – it’s still intact but now has new inmates – crafters!!! Great to see it in use whilst maintaining its history.
Finally, we found the “Horizon” (aka the marble). It’s a sculpture by Lucy Humphrey and is an acrylic sphere filled with water and reflects its surroundings upside down! Quite an amusing but beautiful piece. Very instaworthy as they say!

On our way to Kalbarri, we stopped to check out Hutt Lagoon (aka the Pink Lake). Sadly, there was little water in it, but what there was truly was an astonishing pink colour – it must look amazing when in full flood. The colour comes from a carotenoid producing algae, also a source of beta-carotene.

Then, it was on up to the beautiful little town of Kalbarri on the mouth of the Murchison River. The town is still recovering from Cyclone Seroja, which destroyed 70% of the buildings in 2021. It’s a pretty town surrounded by white sands, blue seas, huge cliffs (natural bridge, island rock, shellhouse grandstand, eagle gorge, pot alley and red bluff to name a few) and river gorges inland. It was way too hot to be out walking, so we never got to the river gorges and skywalk. Even the kangeroos were hugging shade on verandahs of peoples’ houses and emus were stealing the water from the builders!

This area would be worth coming back to when it’s cooler and in the spring to see the wildflowers. If you are up here try staying at the Pelicans Nest – lovely rooms and friendly owner. Which reminds me, you can feed wild Pelicans every morning if you’re up early enough!

And so our 4 week, 3455km road trip of South Western Australia come to an end.
We came down from Kalbarri via the Indian Ocean Drive (sadly more drive than Indian Ocean views), stopped overnight at Jurien Bay and watched another beautiful sunset leaving us with stunning skies and saw the skydivers in the morning, had a lovely lobster lunch at The Lobster Shack in Cervantes and then visited the Nambung National Park and the amazing Pinnacle Desert – quite a bizarre place. Yellow sands and these amazing limestone pinnacles in this one area with huge white sand dunes in the distance (inland where the shore used to be). They sort of look like lots of giant teeth have been scattered around that are now eroding. The discovery centre was interesting, providing theories on the development of the pinnacles and the wildlife in the desert around.

Finally it was on down to the quiet suburb of Pearsall and a quick trip to historic Guildford and the start of the Swan Valley – the temperature had soared once again, so we didn’t venture very far. Then back to Perth to return the car and spend our last few days in Australia – and finding a beer called Mumfords Draught!

We spent 3 very hot and humid days in Brisbane. We explored the South Bank which even has its own beach and pool on the river bank, took a trip up the river on the free ferry, admired the many bridges (including the Story Bridge, which you can climb),

and the few old buildings that remain,

enjoyed the Botanic Gardens and Sunday Market

and just generally chilled out. We popped into the visitor information office and were amazed at the decor – it is in the foyer of the old Regent Theatre (sadly, the rest has been demolished)

We’ve got into the Big Bash league (like our T20 cricket) so have been watching the matches most evenings – not sure if we’ll manage to get to a live match in Perth but we’ll see.

The next leg is a 5 and half hour flight to Perth on the western side of Australia – just shows how huge Australia is!

We decided to travel from Townsville to Brisbane on the Greyhound bus rather than drive as it was a good price and we thought it would be a fun way to travel – well after a trip of 14days, 1361 kms, 7 different buses, 6 city stops and 24 hours cumulative sat on the bus, we thought differently!

From Townsville we passed through acres of sugar cane, and then as we got closer to Bowen, the crops changed to fruit – a lot of mangos (which are deliciously sweet) and passed the salt lakes before turning into the small town of Bowen – a town with some lovely murals telling the towns history and incredibly wide streets!!!

We also found the “little mango” but the famous “big mango” is out on the main highway.
There is a historic jetty,

and Bowen was home to the Catalina Flying Boats during the second world war – a memorial to these is on Santa Barbara Parade. Bowen is also where some of the scenes in the film Australia were filmed in 2007/2008 (Bowen became Darwin!).
It was incredibly hot and humid, but we did manage to see some of the town and whilst we hopped from shade to shade we met some great people. Sadly, we didn’t get up to Horseshoe or Rose Bay, which are supposed to be gorgeous, so if you get to this area – get a car to explore further.

We spent a couple of days over New Year in Mackay – the sugar Capitol of Queensland (had intended on staying in Airlie, gateway to the Whitsundays, but too expensive and busy at this time of year – pretty tho). Whilst it’s not a tourist destination we did find some little gems hidden away – crocheted Christmas tree and street decorations, some street murals, a lovely (but very hot) river walk, some nice Art Deco buildings, a great little coffee shop/bar with quirky decor (Coco Cubana) and a round pool table!!

Then it was on to the beef capital of Australia – Rockhampton, where we stayed in an old heritage hotel with a four-poster bed no less!!!! Lovely and cool with tall ceilings and wide verandahs to keep the sun off.

The only downside is that it’s in the wrong end of town, and it was crazy hot.
We managed to go out and admire some of the beautiful old buildings here – Quay Street is Queensland’s longest National Trust heritage-listed street apparently (and with a lovely sign warning you about snakes on the Fitzroy river walkway!), and watch the freight trains come rumbling down the street – there’s even railway signals along the road where you’d expect to see normal traffic lights!

Unfortunately, the Great Western Hotel was closed for the week – it would have been interesting to check this famous place out for bull riding on Wednesdays and Fridays!!
Oh, and of course, we had to try a steak here in the old Criterion Hotel – delicious.

Since we’ve been in Australia we’ve been skirting around various events – severe heat warnings, bushfires, cyclones and flooding and whilst we’d been incredibly lucky, the rain eventually caught up with us (or we caught up with the rain!). One good thing, though, is it got a bit cooler. We spent a day in Bundaberg and managed to get on a distillery tour, which was highly entertaining.

The museum has some hilarious information boards about the history of Bundaberg rum, and the tongue in cheek narrative continued throughout the tour. Seemingly molasses are a byproduct of the sugar cane production process and in the 1800’s it was just wasted, but there was so much of it, it was a nuisance – then some enterprising folk decided to make rum out of it and so Bundaberg rum came into being.
As part of the tour you get two free tastings – we tried winter spiced and ginger beer, salted caramel with cream (both delicious), an original bundy and coke and a select rum with ginger beer (so so). Not bad for a couple who don’t usually drink dark rum! We finished the day with a delicious prawn meal at Grunskes (thanks to a recommendation from our uber driver) watching the rain come down the river! Then, back on the bus to Hervey Bay (marketed as the whale capital of Australia) for a couple of nights.

We’d thought about visiting Fraser Island, but it was so wet we didn’t bother. We just managed to catch a glimpse of it through the rain from Urangan Pier!

Our final stop was Noosa – although quite a small community is very commercial compared to other places we’ve stopped at during this trip – lots of young backpackers and Australian holiday makers stay here for the beaches, river, parks and shopping – it’s only about 2 hours from Brisbane so easy for city dwellers to get away.
We had some fantastic ice cream at The Scoop, a great little shop decorated as an old American diner

and a delicious curry at Leela in Noosa Plaza. Noosa also has a great free bus system in place for the holidays which was a huge bonus (otherwise you have to get a travel card as the buses don’t take cash or debit/credit cards normally). We walked along the Noosa River

and stopped off for fish and chips and sat eating them whilst watching the rainbow parakeets come back to roost for the evening, and the fruit bats fly out to hunt.
Then, on to our last bus of the trip to Brisbane.
So all in all, the Greyhound was a cheap way to travel and has a easy booking system but it has its limitations due to poor public transport at some of the places we stopped at meaning we didn’t get to visit all the places of interest that would have been accessible by car. We also thought that it would be quite a sociable way to travel, but it didn’t turn out that way – most people sleep or have their headphones on!
Would we do it again – probably not, but we did get to visit places we wouldn’t have normally and met some lovely people along the way.

We spent a week in Townsville over Christmas, which was great as we met up with friends we’ve not seen for many years that we used to live near or work with in Brunei. Vicky and David showed us round the sprawl of Townsville, with its huge red rock (Castle Hill)

in the middle, the old Jazzine barracks (now a lovely park area with the Battle of the Coral Sea Memorial in), the lovely Strand walkway along the seafront with its interesting statues

and the stunning Mount Stuart where you can see for miles around at the top – and even find the odd Allied Rock Wallaby as we did!

We had a lovely breakfast and a couple of evenings catching up with Andy’s old work colleagues Buck and Wayne, too, and the 9-year gap since we last saw them just disappeared.
The rainbow parakeets, red-tailed black cockatoos, and curlews have entertained us with their antics, and it’s been lovely watching the huge fruit bats fly out every evening.
Oh, and of course, you can’t forget “Maggie” – Magnetic Island \ Yunbenun, that you can see from the shoreline and the little blue and white ferries crossing over with their passengers. It is a 20 minute ferry ride, which we managed to do one day after the rain stopped.

It was named Magnetic Island after Captain Cook called it magnetical as he thought it had disrupted his compass – lots of people have investigated the island since to try and find out why/if it really does have a magnetical source but nothing found so far.
We got the local bus to Picnic Bay and had a coffee then back on the bus to the other end of the island – Horseshoe Bay for lunch. Visitors stay for a couple of days as there are lots of tracks to explore, different bays to swim, dive or snorkel from (although we weren’t sure how that happens during stinger season which is now) and wildlife to see. We only had a few hours, but just going on the local bus gave us a good view of Maggie, and it was a cheap way to see it.

We’ve had varied weather from thunderstorms to blue skies, but through it all, it still stayed hot (and humid!!).
Thank you, Townsville.

Now we start the next leg of our trip – working our way down the coast to Brisbane on the Greyhound bus!!