Where to start with this one?
We had booked to go on safari in Kenya and then on to Zanzibar but somehow ended up in Australia, so rather than lions and giraffes we got kangaroos and koalas.
I am not going to go into all the gory and depressing details, but essentially, the airline ticketing process went horribly wrong. We booked through MyTrip who so far as I can see are a legitimate company and get reasonable reviews but who somehow managed to book us on a couple non-existent flights and not at all on our first flight from Wellington to Sydney.
We eventually made it to Sydney but couldn’t make our flight to Nairobi, not least as the carrier no longer flys there! We could have flown with another carrier (at huge cost) and just about made the safari but with a big question mark over our flights to Zanzibar and even back to Wellington.
We spent many hours at airline help desks in Sydney and Wellington and I personally made dozens of phone calls and have rarely been so stressed. The staff at both help desks said that a large part of their work is dealing with problems relating to third-party vendors - their advice (and indeed now mine) was to book direct with airlines or through local travel agents. On average this will cost a bit more but you are far less likely to have any issues, and if you do, they should be easier to resolve and certainly preferable to dealing with elusive third-party vendors.
In the end, we very reluctantly decided to forego flying to Nairobi. The choice then was to either accept defeat and crawl back to NZ or stay in Australia. We elected to make the most of a bad situation and stay in Australia.
We spent three days in Sydney with our friend Kathy and then hired a car and spent the next week working our way down to Melbourne via the Blue Mountains and the Great Ocean Road.
It actually turned into a really enjoyable trip with both of us surprisingly sanguine about the whole thing.
My pride and confidence though has taken quite a knock as organising our trips is my responsibility and I feel that that I should have double and triple checked everything as is my want, but I suspect a bit of complacency has crept in over the years.
We called our friend Kathy who lives in Sydney and she offered to pick us up the next day and said we could stay with her.
By now it was very late and we were both tired and stressed so ended up paying an extortionate $500 to stay at a shit hotel near the airport. To add insult to injury our already barely alive air conditioning unit finally gave up the ghost and dripped water all over me. Oh what a fun night we had.
06 Oct 24
Our angel of mercy Kathy picked us up in the morning and drove us to her house in Faulconbridge on the edge of the Blue Mountains NP.
Kathy took us to the nearby Wentworth Falls which were beautiful, as were the mountains in general.
We chilled out for the rest of the day with Kathy and her delightful cat, Miss Kitty.
Miss kitty has a lovely temperament and wonderfully expressive eyes and is also the world’s best lap cat - Neena and I were both smitten and wanted to take her back home. Our cat Libby is definitely going to have to raise her game!
Lovely warm sunny weather.
07 Oct 24
The Blue Mountains again, this time at the nearby town of Katoomba where we were availed of yet more stunning scenery - Australia is way more scenic than I expected and certainly gives NZ a run for its money.
Lovely weather again.
08 Oct 24
We tackled the Birdwood Gully walk located close to Kathy’s place. In stark contrast to the last two days the weather was cold and wet. The track itself was steep in places but was pretty and tranquil and a real hidden gem. As a bonus, we didn’t see a single soul.
09 Oct 24
We bade a very fond farewell to Kathy and Miss Kitty and then jumped into our hire car and headed south.
The traffic was pretty busy going out of Sydney with the suburbs seeming to go on forever. Eventually we left town and the traffic thinned out (a bit).
We stopped for lunch at Nonners Olive Tree Cafe at Albion Park and had Beef, Bacon and Cheese Pies, bread and butter pudding and tea, all of which were very good.
We stayed at the Golf View Motel at Sanctuary Point about 200km south of Sydney.
Right by the hotel, funnily enough, is a golf course. We wandered over to the course and spotted loads of Kangaroos.
The weather was cloudy and cool, though warmer than the previous day.
10 Oct 24
We drove to Jervis Bay Marine Park had a mooch around and then it was coffee and custard square time at a nearby cafe. The beach was nice and sandy and the scenery equally nice. The sea looked inviting so off came the socks and in went a pair of pasty British feet. This must have come as quite a shock to the local sea-life but was even more shocking for me as the water wasn’t as tropical as it looked and felt like it come straight from Antarctica.
We continued heading south for a good while before stopping at the Eurobodalla Regional Botanical Gardens. After being suitably revived by a cup of tea and pecan slice we set off exploring the gardens. The grounds are quite extensive and we spent a fair while wandering around with me looking for snakes and Neena communing with the trees. To Neena’s relief and my disappointment we didn’t find any snakes, but we did spot lots of trees.
We eventually set off again and ended up staying the night in Eden at the Eden Nima Motel. The motel wasn’t of the garden of variety, but did the job.
The weather was sunny and hot.
11 Oct 24
A big travel day this, but a very scenic one.
From Eden we drove due west along endless tight and twisty roads to the ski resort of Thredbo situated high in the Snowy Mountains.
From here we planned to take a chairlift up to view Australia’s highest peak, Mt Kosciuszko. It was however not to be as the lift was shut for maintenance and I doubt it would have been open anyway due to high winds battering the peaks. This was really disappointing as I had been looking forward to mucking about in the snow (that was somehow clinging on despite the heat) even if it would inevitably mean being ambushed by Neena with a well aimed snowball.
We did toy with the idea of staying at Thredbo but the accomodation was expensive and to be honest ski resorts out of season aren’t the prettiest of places.
We therefore decided to carry on and dropped down the even twistier western side of the Snowy Mountains. Being a biker and petrolhead in general, I am very partial to winding roads but this was getting ridiculous so it was a relief when the road eventually straightened out and we arrived in the town of Albury where we stayed the night at the pretty decent Meramie Motor Inn.
A sunny and hot day, even up at Thredbo.
12 Oct 24
Very much a travelling day, so no photos.
Neena has always been mad keen to visit IKEA and experience their “legendary” meatballs. On the way to Geelong, where we planned to stay the night, is the town of Richmond which just happened to have an IKEA store. It wasn’t too much of a detour from the highway, so we just had to go there.
Neena finally sampled the fabled meatballs so was happy, even though she couldn’t actually taste them! For my part, I thought they were bland but pleasant enough, so fail to see what all the fuss is about. At least they weren't playing any Abba.
We stayed at an apartment in Geelong run by 16 Scenic Regional Escapes. It was nice change to stay in a reasonably upmarket place but the online check-in system was crazy complex requiring photo ID and mug shots along with loads of stupid questions.
We will be doing the Great Ocean Road tomorrow.
It was cool but sunny and we didn’t see a cloud all day.
13 Oct 24
We woke to a lovely sunny and warm Sunday during the school holidays.
This is normally a recipe for heavy traffic and frustration and this day didn’t disappoint. Not initially, anyway.
We had a sluggish start and didn’t get on the road until late morning by which time the traffic had well and truly got its act together.
We drove down to Torquay and then on to the start of the Great Ocean Road.
The first couple of hours were hard work due to the traffic and we had constant troubles trying to find somewhere to park and even when we did the scenery, although nice enough, was a little underwhelming.
The day turned round when we arrived at the small settlement of Kennet River. By this time most of the traffic had melted away and we found a nice cafe with a friendly owner and, praise the gods, even managed to bag a parking spot and a table.
We had a leisurely lunch and photographed some Crimson Rosella parrots and Cockatoos who were hanging around scrounging for food.
The main reason for visiting Kennet River was to bag some Koala’s as this location is supposed to be one of the best spots to see them on the Great Ocean Road.
We had a very pleasant walk up the river and did indeed find a solitary Koala dozing high up in a tree.
This was a terrific stop and turned a very average day into a very good one.
We spent the night at the excellent Sandpiper Motel in Apollo Bay, although they did drop a point for not having a microwave!
14 Oct 24
We had another tardy start, but eventually hit the road.
We stopped for pies and coffee at Lavers Hill (450m). In stark contrast to yesterday, the place, despite the modest altitude, was absolutely freezing and it has apparently snowed up there in the past. As compensation, we saw lots of Crimson Rosselas.
Next we visited the famed Twelve Apostles which are a series of sea stacks just off the coastline. Not all the Apostles are in one location so we spent a pleasant afternoon driving along the coast photographing them.
Well mostly pleasant. While there we saw two woman jump a (substantial) fence and walk to the edge of the crumbling cliff while some guy filmed them despite all sorts of warning signs pointing out how dangerous this is. I told them they were idiots which I shouldn’t have done, but at least there were some consequences for their actions - if they had fallen I would have given them a round of applause.
The guy filming instantly became aggressive and I am pretty sure he would have attacked me but for the women there, and even then he nearly did - I am really going to have to learn to keep my mouth shut and I suspect me confronting them was in part a result of pent up frustration of missing out on the safari. What I should have done is film them and post it on YouTube (as is the modern way) with a title along the lines of Moron filming prospective Darwin candidates.
The weather started cold and drizzly but eventually the sun battled its way through. It was still cold though.
Despite the above unpleasantness, a pretty good day.
We stayed at the City Heart Motel in Warrnambool which was excellent and the best place we have stayed so far on this trip.
15 Oct 24
A very interesting day.
In the morning we visited the Tower Hill Wildlife Reserve and bagged another couple of Koalas and also spotted two Kangaroos hiding in a bush. The reserve encompasses a dormant volcano and surrounding wetlands and is very picturesque.
We would have stayed longer but we needed to be back in Melbourne early the next morning to drop off our hire car.
On the way back to I saw some serious convection of in the distance, so Neena and I decided to set off on an impromptu storm chase.
As we got closer it became clear this was a big storm and worthy of pursuit, not least as there looked to be some suspicious lowering of the cloud base which really got the adrenalin flowing.
I took a series of videos at around 3.45pm close to the town of Lismore and then very reluctantly abandoned the chase as we had a hotel to check into and a long way to go.
The storm produced loads of thunder, although we didn’t see any lightning.
Lo and behold, a video of a rope tornado was seen at Lismore that day and uploaded to YouTube - the tornado was recorded at 3.30pm at basically the same location we were, so we really didn’t miss it by much at all!
We stayed in the Guided Star Hotel and Motel in Brooklyn a suburb of Melbourne close to the airport. Very average, but relatively cheap and it did the job.
16 Oct 24
Melbourne’s road system is an order of magnitude larger than Wellington's, and consequently, both me and our satnav found it all rather overwhelming. This led to some fun and games dropping the car off at Goldcar, but we made it eventually.
We got an Uber into Melbourne driven by a very nice Indian guy and are staying for three nights at the YEHS Hotel close to the main Southern Cross train/bus terminal. The hotel was reasonably priced and in a fantastic location but certainly had its downsides, as detailed below.
Mini car review:
Our hire car was an MG ZS fitted with an asthmatic 1.5L motor coupled with an even worse 4-speed automatic gearbox. It’s safe to say that the transmission wasn’t the cars strongest point and that the skins of rice puddings have nothing to fear.
In most other respects the car acquitted itself well - it was reasonably quiet, rode well enough, was spacious and comfortable and most importantly reliable. Oh, and it was a very nice shade of blue.
The air conditioning in our hotel room was non existent with an indicated temperature of 25°C making life very uncomfortable.
17 Oct 24
We changed rooms and consequently our air conditioning is marginally less crap with a room temperature of 22°C.
A pleasant low key sort of day. We walked to the Botanical Gardens and chatted with a lady from Kenya of all places. She said how wonderful the country was and that we should visit - thanks a lot for that!
We then walked to the CBD and had a mooch around before returning to our hotel.
18 Oct 24
It lashed down with rain all day but we got out and about anyway. I am not a big fan of cities but found Melbourne very pleasant although the real highlights are the literally thousands of (mostly) Asian restaurants. This means a lot of competition which also means the standards are very high - I can’t say we visited them all, but the ones we did were all excellent and for me, and I suspect Neena, the best reason to come to Melbourne.
19 Oct 24
Bed bugs?
Not content with rubbish air conditioning the YEHS hotel pulled out all the stops on our last night and introduced biting things into the equation.
I woke up in the morning covered in around 30 large red bite marks that itched like crazy and which over a week later were still giving me grief! The marks look a bit to big to be from bed bugs and could possibly be from a spider of some other such beast.
This was also the day we flew back to civilisation, or at least to NZ anyway.
The last few entries are a bit negative, but overall, the trip was very enjoyable and indeed among the better ones Neena and I have done, it's just a shame there weren’t more lions!
