Australia!

Okay, firstly, sorry for the lack of posting.. Here's a very long one about Australia with some key details probably missed out, but after this we're up to date and I PROMISE I'll post more regularly! 

Although our arrival into Australia wasn’t easy, things improved very rapidly.  We both normally hate cities but Melbourne is definitely the exception. Almost every road seemed to have a cycle lane and the city is so clean and not congested. We looked round the city and also went on a bit of a Kath and Kim pilgrimage, to visit their house and the famous Fountain Lakes shopping centre.

 The sun shone almost constantly and life was good. We were staying with warmshowers hosts Warren and Clare who provided to our every possible need and were great company. We finished up in Melbourne with a parkrun round the lake. I thought I'd be fighting fit at this point and would almost certainly get a PB. Sadly it seems cycling very slowly for 8 hours a day for 6 months is not the key to parkrun success. I managed to get round though, with a little break in the middle to throw up some toothpaste. Mum took it more steadily and luckily didn’t quite catch up with me. After parkrun we headed to the train station to catch the train to the start of the famous Great Ocean Road. We arrived at the station 10 minutes before the train was supposed to leave, thought we had heaps of time and considered buying some snacks. It's lucky we didn't because when we arrived at the train the guard was incredibly angry that we weren't there earlier - "Use a bit of common sense, come on now I can't get your bikes on with only 10 minutes to go" "You wouldn't do this in the UK". Mum started telling him that trains didn't even arrive 10 minutes early in the UK but then thought better of it - he was angry. Lucky I'm really good at crying on command and eventually he agreed to take our bikes. We arrived in Warrnambool just in time for a late evening swim in stingray bay. Apparently they hadn't seen any stingrays for a few months so that was a relief.

We woke up in the morning to pouring rain!! Rain? In Australia? We both felt very cheated after being overly warned about the baking heat of Australia. We put our coats on and set off down the road. The GOR is stunning. It's cut into the cliff in a ridiculous manner, with rocks falling off all the time and waves crashing almost on to the road. 

The cliff is also collapsing leading to awesome geological features all along the road. We had to keep stopping all the time to enjoy these (and get out of the rain). Eventually we came up to the site of the famous 12 apostles. At this point the rain was really bad and we could barely see the sea, so we decided to stop for the night in the hope we'd actually be able to see the apostles in the morning. We were sitting outside the supermarket dreading spending the night with rain pouring on our tent when we were rescued by the lovely Stephanie. She took pity on us and took us back to her house where we had a comfortable bed and a warm shower. We had a great evening talking and she was so Australian and it was so great! The weather was still pretty rubbish the next day but we did manage to see the apostles, and they were very impressive. 

 After this the road left the coast and went into the hills for a while. We had a couple of mini dramas including a snapped cable but managed to fix them and arrived back to the coast. Mum claims she got so cold during mechanics she actually caught a chill #australiandream. We made our way back towards Melbourne along the coast stopping for regular swims. We spent a night camped at Barwon heads which is where tdf winner Cadel Evans lives. We pathetically cycled in circles round the town centre hoping he'd appear but no luck.  After this we got two ferries, avoiding as much of Melbourne as we could until we were on Philip Island, a small island in the entrance to Melbourne harbour. Just before Philip Island we climbed Arthur’s seat, which was 8% for 4km but had a gorgeous view. Mum beat me up here by miles but then fainted at the top… We also went through a small town called Somers! This was obviously a momentous day. 

We were hoping to see the famous penguin colony but got there too late to make it to penguin beach before sunset. In the morning we were cycling off the island when we were intercepted by Peter, a road cyclist heading in the same direction. He gave us directions and then invited us back to his house for delicious coffee. He lived in Rhyl, which was very different to the Welsh Rhyl... A couple of people had been to visit Welsh Rhyl and admitted they’d been pretty disappointed.  After leaving the Island we set off up the coast. We had a clear destination in mind, Inverloch, because there's a parkrun there! We got there at lunchtime via a gorgeous rail trail and spent the afternoon doing some washing, sorting stuff out in the library and eating pizza. There was a campsite on the coast which was really expensive for not very much, but the area wasn't ideal wildcamping territory. We were sitting on the beach discussing this when another lovely couple took pity on us and took us back to their house. We had lovely showers and got an education on AFL - a big thing in Aus. We were watching women's teams playing, on primetime Friday night TV - impressive. In the morning we did a gorgeous parkrun along the coast before setting off again. 

We were now riding in Gippesland, a tiny part of Australia’s second smallest state, that's bigger than England. The roads were quiet as we left Melbourne and we did a few more rail trails. By this point we were growing to love Australian info centres, full of useful info/maps and lovely volunteers. In fact, I was loving Aus! I can't really remember much of what happened during this part of the trip *slaps self* and mum's no help at all, but we stayed in a few free campsites by rivers, and one night broke into a scout camp and camped there.

I was absolutely terrified about doing this because we were surrounded by long grass which I was convinced was infested with snakes. We also saw some massive spiders, and there are 15,000 varieties of deadly spider in Australia!! Luckily we managed to survive the night and were rewarded with wild kangaroos jumping round the tent in the morning.

The area became more and more remote, with towns further apart and looking more and more like the wild west. It was gorgeous riding, although outrageously hilly. I'm pretty sure the person who said Australia was the flattest country in the world hasn't actually been there. Although the days were pretty fine, the nights and evenings were really cold. We stayed in lots of free campsites and came into contact with a lot of grey nomads. Theses are retired Australians travelling round the country for the rest of their lives. There are 90,000 of them at the moment apparently and they are all lovin' life. I'm not sure how they sustain their drinking on a daily basis but maybe it's in our honour. Here’s a picture of two of our faves, Jan and Steve. 

We soon reached the seaside town of Merimbula, on a thursday which meant that we could have a day off and do parkrun! We stayed in a fancy campsite which felt incredibly plush after a week of roughing it. We were very lucky to be camped in front of Tom and Sandra, a Scottish couple who sounded like they'd left Scotland yesterday but were actually fully fledged Australians. They looked after us very well, providing us with regular tea and biscuits and putting all our stuff under shelter when it poured with rain. We did another lovely parkrun ending with a jump into the sea. We were now only a week away from Sydney. Tragically I can't really remember anything about the ride up from here. We had lots of beautiful pancakes, wild camped on river banks and beaches. In fact, the most beautiful beaches I've ever seen. Unbelievably blue water and white sand.

The main drama was somebody stopping us at the side of the road and telling me she'd seen a message on facebook instructing people to stop two cyclists and tell them to phone Narooma information centre. It turns out I'd left my passport there... Bad Phoebe. Anyway I was reunited with it in Sydney so all is good. As we approached Sydney we went on a coast road that was really cut into the cliff and was seriously gorgeous. 

We arrived into Sydney through the national park and caught a ferry into Sydney city, before following cycle paths all the way to Jane (Mum's cousin), Tom and Tara's house. Arriving into a house after a while is always bliss, and it was so nice to see our exotic family. Jane wasn't shy about telling us how much we smelt, so we washed everything ASAP. The next day we felt pretty lazy and decided to stay in Sydney another day. We went for a beach walk ending at the famous Bondi beach which was about 6k and absolutely crippled us. Every time I got to a flight of stairs up a vertical cliff face I felt my calves collapse. The views and beaches made up for it though. It's specially exciting seeing all the surfers do their thing. One day I'm going to be that cool. That evening the heavens opened and rain poured down on city. The rain was still drilling holes into the ground in the morning which slightly altered our plans. We went into town and had a look at the sights, taking shelter from the rain whenever we could. Sydney harbour is crazy, with over 120 miles of coastline which seems to appear everywhere. It’s a shame the weather wasn’t better so we could have done some proper exploring. Mum and I were both itching to go sailing – that would be the best way to see Sydney.  We were both very sad to leave in morning, but at least we were clean and recharged.

When we were leaving in the morning we cycled into the city and caught a ferry across the harbour to Manly, avoiding miles and miles of busy highway. I was super excited for the ferry because we were going to go past the river Hawkesbury, which I read about years ago in Kate Grenville’s “The Secret River”. Sadly, I should have paid more attention to the title because the entrance to the Hawkesbury was really secret. (I would highly recommend the Secret River if anybody’s interested). We made it to the iconic Manly beach and there was some sort of surfing championship going on. This was absolutely 10/10, it’s only a shame we couldn’t stay and watch for longer. We continued up the coast but the roads were really really busy which didn’t make for a fun journey, until we got past Newcastle and things began to settle down. We camped in some really beautiful places along this coast. 

Wildlfe in Aus is all so extreme, the birds are loud and grating, the plants spikey and the ants massive. The vegetation is so different from anywhere else I’ve been. In fact, 80% of species in Australia don’t appear anywhere else. Captain Cook’s botanist collected so many samples on his original trip that they’re still sorting through them to this day. (Facts stolen from Bill Bryson’s “Notes from a Sunburned Country” which I’d also highly recommend). As we got further north this became even more so, with goannas around and dead snakes everywhere. Lots of Aussies clearly feel it’s their civic duty to warn tourists about the danger of sharks and they definitely did this. Apparently I’ve got so many insect bites that they’d smell my blood from miles away. We swam in one beach that had a detection buoy 200 metres out to sea that detected tagged sharks. It got 350 hits in the first day so they had to disable it. I heard some cool stories, including one man who saw a small boy’s arm get ripped off by a shark, and then the boy’s uncle went out to sea, wrestled with the shark, got the arm back out of its mouth, and then they sewed it back on! Incredible. Last year only 2 people died due to shark attacks in Australia. We also came across march flies which are so big they look as if they really shouldn’t be able to fly but they manage it. Luckily they’re really slow and stupid so easy to kill. Unfortunately, after we’d been on a bit of a spree somebody told us that when they die they release a smell that attracts other flies to avenge their deaths.

 We soon arrived in Port Macquarie where there was another parkrun! This meant that we got to stop early and have a day off! We decided to be cheap and illegally camp in a picnic area, and for the first time so far we were discovered and kicked out at 6:30 in the morning. We had a lovely day in The Port (that’s what the locals call), including pancakes, a swim and a visit to the koala hospital! This was my first ward round for a while and was much more exciting than they usually are. Koalas are unbelievably cute, and I’m really not a cute animal person. Loads of them had missing limbs and impaired vision and had to spend the rest of their lives in hospital, but they seemed happy. Koalas sleep for 20 hours a day, because they only eat leaves and the leaves are 70% water. They have a 35 day pregnancy and then their joey lives in their pouch for 7 months and then on their backs for another 6 #phoebesfunkoalafacts. 

After this we dived inland for the second time in Australia. We were back in the wild west and it was great. Australians all seem to be incredibly friendly, generous, funny and outgoing. I’m not sure if this is always the case or if we were just lucky but it makes them fab to be around. Everyone seemed really keen to make friends all the time, however brief our encounter was, and really genuinely wanted to help us. At one point we cycled past a free camping area we didn’t know existed and would have stopped but we didn’t have any water. We were standing there discussing this when about 4 caravans proffered water containers at us. This later developed to wine which Mum was especially pleased with. She thinks I curb her alcohol intake intentionally.

We hit the coast again at the famous Byron Bay. I’m not sure that it deserves the hype really, it seemed pretty average compared to all the towns around it. It was full of wannabe hippie gap year students. Am I one of these? Who knows? After Byron Bay we went on a deserted coast road all the way up to Kingscliff, where we were finishing our Aus journey. We finished in style thanks to the generosity of Maz and Susan who invited us to stay in their beautiful house! We went for a swim, packed up the bikes, had a couple of pizzas and some port before getting a good night’s sleep and leaving first thing in the morning.

Although we’ve barely scratched the surface of Australia, I hope my deep deep love for the country has come across in this post. It has a completely different vibe to anywhere else I’ve been, and is as far away from the UK as possible (both metaphorically and geographically). In Australia it’s really odd if you don’t ask strangers how they’re going. It’s normal to talk to the person next to you in the queue/café/beach. It’s normal to see cyclists on the side of the road and invite them into your house (although this has happened in every other country, not with anything like the same frequency). If Aus wasn’t so far away I’d be moving here like a shot. In fact I still might…

Ps congrats if you made it this far.