Western Australia - part 2

Last Sunday we started to head south of Perth to checkout the area and as most of the tourists appear to head south in their vans we were expecting good things.

There were a couple of things that immediately struck us.  Firstly the scenery was quite different.  After the barren looking flatness of the north, the south gave us hills, countless trees and loads of farmland.  To be honest it is all a bit reminiscent of the English countryside - maybe that's why so many Brits live here?!?!

The weather also changed, it became much cooler (no complaints there).  After the first couple of days it changed to low to mid 20's but with it came overnight storms and rain. 

To be honest we initially weren't that thrilled with this part of Oz.  There were more people to contend with, things didn't have the relaxing laid back feel of the sparse north and everything just seemed that little bit more complicated!

Anyway, what we got up to in a nutshell was:

• drove around the coast which was very much the same as up north.  Got a bit choppy and rough on the south coast though - quite different from the tranquil Indian Ocean bays of the north.

• saw lots of big trees - Karri and Tingle trees.

• went for a tree top walk - on a suspended platform which was level with the top of the trees, a bit wobbly in places but we really enjoyed it.

Monkey Adams!

• paid a visit to the Gloucester tree, which is a 60m Karri tree that was used back in the day as a fire lookout across the national park.  You can climb to the top of the tree using the series of metal poles which have been shoved into the tree.  The poles spiral to the top and there is no harness - just a net over the poles to help you bounce to the ground in a slightly more orderly fashion!  We thoroughly enjoyed climbing to the top and were commended by the locals for our speed and obvious natural ability ;-)

Rob on his climb!

• ate some shark and chips from the local fish and chip shop.  Bit sceptical about it before we bought it, but the very friendly chippy owner fried a bit so we could try it.  Turned out Jaws is very tasty after all.

To be honest apart from driving, seeing camping sites and small towns that was pretty much it for the south of Perth.  Surprisingly for us it was all a tad underwhelming and no where near as enjoyable as the north.  

Onwards .... We fly to Cairns on Saturday to drive the east coast to ultimately end up in Sydney for New Year's Eve - looking forward to seeing the new year in at the harbour bridge!  For this stretch sadly no camper van - we've decided that sleeping in a tin can in all the tropical humidity may be a bit much.  So for at least the next 2 weeks we'll have a car and accommodation.

Western Australia - part 1

So here we are in sunny and very hot Western Australia. After a couple of decent flights and a bit of loitering waiting for connections, we arrived on Friday 30th November.  Having yet more time to kill and not knowing exactly when we'd next get the opportunity, we decided to use the rather handy showers at the airport, before getting the shuttle bus to Perth.

The bus trip took what seemed like a lifetime.  This was mainly due to the fact that we were welcomed with the dulcet tones of Rolf Harris and it soon became clear that Bill (our driver) must have a Rolf fetish.  90 minutes later Rolf was still going, so you can imagine our excitement to finally leave the bus and collect our lovely little Toyota Hiace camper van!

The whole camper experience was new to us so we received our camper induction from the Travellers Autobarn and we were on way, heading north of Perth to check out the outback.

This was quite an experience. You can drive hundreds of miles until you see anything that resembles civilisation and the scenery does get a bit dull after the first few hours - just lots of bush and red dirt.  Emus and kangaroos often distracted us and provided a fair few minutes entertainment.

The van gave us freedom. It's great just to pull over on the side of the road and cook lunch, grab an ice cold drink from the fridge or have a nap.  Just a small tip on that one - if going for the nap option, then set an alarm.  One 30 minute siesta turned into 3 hours - Oops!

So, the things we did in the outback:-

• Yanchep - this was our first overnight stay in the camper van, Rob put the gas stove to the test cooking some kanga bangers. This was all after we had called roadside assistance as the camper decided to illuminate the engine warning light after driving a massive 30 km's.  Not the best start, but the RAC  man sorted it quickly.  The next morning  it was great to wake up to the sun rising over the Indian Ocean.

Yanchep lagoon

• visited the Pinnacles (limestone formations).

• got to see some sheep shearing in a place called Hamelin.  The farm we stayed at kindly showed us the shearing sheds and we got to see the real stuff in action.  Looks like hard work especially in the heat and it's very competitive apparently.  The top shearer doesn't want lose his ranking especially as they get paid $2.70 per sheep and can do around 200 per day - new career maybe?

• visited a resort called Monkey Mia, where dolphins arrive everyday for a small feed.  This was very different to what I (Lisa) expected.  I found it a bit hypocritical to be honest.  Apparently they only feed a small amount of fish to specific dolphins each day as they don't want them to become dependent, but given that one of the dolphins has been arriving everyday for 36 years it seems pretty dependent to me.  Frankly it was all a bit too gimmicky for our liking and making money was the real reason for feeding the dolphins.  Without suckers like us paying to view the dolphins this place would be a ghost town soon enough.

•  we snorkelled at Coral Bay.  The Ningaloo reef is very close to the shore so we got to see a few pretty fish and a dolphin swimming very close to shore.  Also got properly sunburnt here - next time we'll be swimming in burkas ;-)

• visited Kalbarri National Park on the hottest day so far. It got to around 38 degrees, and I (Lisa) felt a bit heat stricken so needed to escape the sun for a bit - not always easy when there are no trees!

• Lisa has become addicted to Subway Surfers and is playing it every night in the van hoping to beat Rob's score (trying for you Gem!) and she's also disappointed at the lack of ginger nut or rich tea biscuits available in Western Australia ;-)

So in short, the road trip north has been pretty interesting.  As well as the stuff above we've had fun getting used to our new 4-wheeled home, seen some amazing sunsets, a few lizards basking in the heat on the middle of the road, lots of road kill (sadly mostly kangaroos) and fortunately we haven't encountered anything venomous at the moment which is pretty good going!

And we're off (again!)...

Flights have been booked and our trip will re-commence on Wednesday 28th November. We decided to head to Australia and will arrive in Perth on Friday to pick up the camper van.  The lovely tent will be staying in the UK!

Our last blog for a while...

 Hello all.  Since we last blogged a lot of things have happened, some good, some bad.

In short, we have headed down the east coast just in time to avoid "Frankenstorm" Sandy and had a few pleasant days driving through Virginia and into North Carolina along the Blue Ridge Parkway.  It was all very nice and relaxing, but the 400+ miles did seem to drag on a bit.  We then headed into the Great Smoky Mountains - bit of a mistake.

A nice mill scene

A nerdy road shot!

We had been told that quite by accident we had got there on the busiest weekend of the year due to the fall colours and it was heaving with people.  This made our time there a little less enjoyable to be honest - it was nice enough, but frankly had seen better elsewhere.  Moving on from there we didn't do much really - we thought about going to Graceland (or Dollywood -joke!) as it was on the way through, but neither of us were that bothered as it happened, so we just drove through and had a chill out until we got to Texas.

We only skirted across the top of Texas and went to Fort Worth to see a rodeo and try our hand at horse riding.  The Red Steagal rodeo was in town and it was actually really good.  We'd never seen anything like that (apart from in the movies) and we both really enjoyed it.  There were bucking broncos, wild cow milking (yes, its as weird as it sounds) and other cowboy things.  The highlight had to be 'mutton bustin' - basically seeing small children hanging on to a mad angry sheep running at full speed - hilarious!

Ouch!

Mutton Bustin'

The following day we went for our first horse ride - what better place to do it than in cowboy country?!?  Lisa was pretty worried about it, but after our cowboy guide Raul let her make friends with her new horsey chum (Pancho) she got into and we both really enjoyed our hour ride - not sure our bums would agree though!

That was the good stuff.  Right after the horse ride, Lisa received the very sad and unfortunate news that her nan had passed away (29th October 2012).  She had been taken into hospital for a few days prior and the outlook wasn't too optimistic, but naturally any news like this still comes as a shock.

In light of this news, we will be temporarily heading home for a short period in order to attend the funeral and allow Lisa to pay her respects and say goodbye - it just wouldn't feel right not to.

So after travelling over 14,000 miles through 30 states (plus 4 Canadian provinces), we have now begun an 1800 mile drive back to where it all began in Seattle 3 months ago in order to return the hire car and get a flight back to the UK. 

We have discussed things at length and despite the sad news, we've decided that it would not be right to end the trip abruptly under these circumstances.  This experience is something we have both talked about doing for quite a few years and it feels far too soon to call it a day - and it's certainly not something that Lisa's nan would have wanted.

So, we shall be continuing our trip after all of the personal matters have been sorted out and once we've worked out where we'll head next - lots of decisions over the next couple of weeks.

For the time being however, this will be the last blog post about our adventures.  Thanks for reading and all of your comments so far and be sure to check in once we get back on the road...

RIP Nan - we will really miss you x x

Hello Mr Lincoln

We were quite looking forward to Washington and had a long list of things we wanted to see and do in three days.

We started off with the State Capitol building which was massive and pretty impressive - the only annoying thing was having to go through airport type security just to get a map.  That's one thing we did notice about Washington a really high police presence and loads of security checks.  A real contrast to Philly that made it did feel really quite safe.

State Capitol building

One of the let downs for us was that pretty much all of the buildings were of exactly the same design.  It looked like the architects had been to Italy, decided they quite liked what they'd seen and thought we'll have a bit of that.  It was all a bit clinical - looked like the buildings needed to be dirtied up a bit so they looked older.
That said we did a whole load of touristy things ...

• Washington Monument
• Memorial central (it felt like millions!) - Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt,  World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Martin Luther King - I think that's about it
• Had a chat with Barack at the White House
• The Pentagon - just looked around the outside and was massively dull
• Arlington cemetery - it was massive.  Visited JFK's grave site and the tomb of the unknown American soldiers - sounds quite morbid but was alright.

Washington Monument with some autumn colours

Lincoln memorial

At the White House

Reflecting pool & Washington Monument

JFK's grave site

Tomb of the unknown American soldiers

Overall we enjoyed bits of Washington but some parts were a tad disappointing and a bit 'samey'.  Not a place we'd rush back to, but good to do.

So, after 3 long days of pavement pounding we're hitting (get ready to sing along) "the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia..."

It has to be said that we are starting to feel a bit America'd (and American'd) out.  We have seen and done some amazing things, but as we journey around we are starting to see a lot of the things we have seen before.  Now starting to look forward to some very different experiences in places like Vegas and Florida - and ultimately outside of the USA!

Philadelphia - Lovely?

So after leaving New England we were city bound to Philadelphia.  There was one thing that Rob was really looking forward to doing there - recreating the run up the museum of art steps and just for a moment become Rocky Balboa!

The first day we spent around the Independence Hall end of the city where we got to see the Liberty Bell, some independence buildings, city hall and love park.  It was OK, but nothing special really.  We also took a tour of the US mint and saw the coins being manufactured - it was really quite interesting but sadly they weren't giving away free samples! 

Liberty Bell

Independence Hall

Guess which park!

We noticed that Philadelphia had a different feel to it than the other cities we had visited on our way across.  There weren't too many tourists or police around and with our back packs on we seemed to stick out like a sore thumb.  Just made you feel a bit more on your guard.

Day two was a bit more entertaining.  We wanted to pay a visit to a prison (yep sounds weird, but was quite cool) - Eastern State Penitentiary.  In order to get there we took a very uncomfortable subway journey (and I don't mean the seats) - it felt like the eyes of the other "passengers" were always on you and you daren't look at anyone in fear of some sort of comeback.  All a bit off putting really.

Anyway, the tour of Eastern State was really good - a bit creepy in places but interesting to see how they housed prisoners from the 1800's - very different to how they do it today (sadly)!  Al-Capone got special treatment though with the fancy furniture in his cell.

Penitentiary cell block 

Al Capone's cell

Then it was time for Rob's big moment to do his Rocky impression!  To be honest all the blokes were doing it - running up the steps and bouncing around like a loony at the top!  Personally I don't see the appeal - must be a man thing!  I have got it on video if anyone wishes to see it?  Rob just can't understand why Rocky was so shattered when he got to the top - apparently it was easy ;-)

Next came the posing with the Rocky statue and here are some snaps...

A Philly cheesesteak was also consumed as it must be when in town - very nice it was too.

After just a couple of days we did pretty much all that we came to do.  Next stop the capital, Washington DC... 

New England - tick!

Wow, we have been busy!  We have had a good tour of New England starting north and working our way south, crossing all six states on the way.  For the nerds amongst you, these are Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

The autumn colours up north were pretty amazing - we never knew that trees could make the countryside so colourful.  Not your normal yellows and browns here - reds, purples, oranges and  the odd yellow - trees have never been so interesting!

Out of all the states Vermont was our favourite.  It was very much like rural England with small villages, rolling countryside, quirky unique shops, lots of rain (well we had that all over) and for America it was quite refreshing that there wasn't a McDonald's in sight. 

 

Stowe Church

A lovely display of pumpkins!

Someone getting ready for halloween

Another upside of Vermont is that it is the home of Ben & Jerry's ice cream.  Anyone who knows Lisa knows about her love for ice cream, so how could we leave Vermont without a visit to the factory?  Answer is, we couldn't!  She was hoping to get a job in quality control but sadly they have machines that do that kind of thing, so she had to settle for a sample of one of the new flavours instead - yum!

Ready to go in and see how they make it taste sooo good!

Just being silly!

For pure pure 'Fall' colours, New Hampshire was the winner.  Home of Crawford Notch State Park and the Kancamagus Highway (or "Kanc" as the locals - and now Rob - call it), we had an enjoyable couple of days enjoying some of the dramatic scenery on offer.  Here is small sample of some of the millions of photos taken...

 

Sabbaday falls

Otter Rocks

One of many covered bridges - this one by moonlight!

Silver Cascades

A scary moment for Rob!

Beautiful leaves

Another waterfall - this one called Goldmine Brook falls

As we headed south, the colours were no where near as bright (very yellow and green) - frankly a bit of a disappointment.  After having a read on the internet it looked like the best of these colours wouldn't arrive in these states for a few more weeks.  Couldn't hang around for that so on to pastures new for us.... Philadelphia.