Our Excellent Australian Adventure – Final

When the planning process was occurring for Our Excellent Australian Adventure and the subject of spending a few days in the Outback came up I have to confess that I really didn’t know what we were getting into. My first thoughts about “camping” were along the lines of what we did a few years ago in Tanzania while we went on a safari. In that case, the tents that we were staying in had a queen size bed, furniture and a private toilet. I was fairly confident that Barb would be using that model as a target for choosing an organization with whom we would be camping in the Outback. Obviously I should have asked more questions before we left Vancouver.

We spent five and a half days travelling in the Outback with a group of about 17 other people with most of them in their 20’s, backpacking through Australia. In fact we found that the vast majority of them were in Australia for at least three months (some almost a year) and it made our three week trip seem very brief in comparison. The backpack part was the big tip off as everyone seemed to be very budget conscious and as a result the type of camping was consistent with that. What this meant was that the sleeping arrangements meant sleeping bags and swags (a canvas shell that went over the sleeping bags) sleeping under the stars. It also meant shared toilets and showers – hot water sometimes optional. I didn’t bother asking about queen size beds.

One of the things that you have to quickly get used to when sleeping outside in the Australian Outback is that fact that all of the snakes, spiders and small rodents that Australia is famous for may or may not be crawling into your sleeping bag every night. We found that wearing earplugs was almost a necessity – better to ignore those scurrying noises coming from the corner that you wake up in the middle of the night. Not getting a good night’s sleep was pretty typical for me but most of that was the discomfort of sleeping in a thick sleeping bag (I just don’t like sleeping with so many layers). I ended up removing most of the sleeping bag and sleeping completely open and willing to accept my fate with whatever critter was going to crawl over me.

Ironically, with only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep each night, we were more active than we were on just about any other trip. For at least 4 of the days in the Outback we went on long hikes often over 3 hours long climbing up and down mountains.

Saying Goodbye

Despite all of the mechanical problems with the bus and the challenges of sleeping outdoors, by the time that we got closer to the end of the Outback trip I think that we all felt a little sad to be saying goodbye to all of the people with whom we had spent the past 5 days. There’s something about spending day and night travelling together with people and sharing a common experience that creates a real bond despite the years of age difference between many of us.

Although Barb and I rarely do a predefined tour like what we did in the Outback, I have to wonder if that is something that we need to rethink as I think that there are many positive aspects to this type of travel.

Time to Relax

When we were planning our Australian Adventure several months ago, we deliberately planned to make the very last part of the trip a relaxing few days on an island resort. So right after we left our Outback tour group we hopped on a flight and flew out to the Great Barrier Reef area where we stayed on Hamilton Island.

Our four days on Hamilton Island came at the right time and was just the perfect remedy to wind down after spending the past few weeks exploring different parts of Australia. The weather here was really perfect – in the mid 20’s and just humid enough so that the evenings were always warm but never unbearable.

For the most part our agenda here on the island was to just stay by the pool and really do a lot of nothing but we did manage to get out yesterday and took an all day cruise through the Whitsunday Islands (to which Hamilton Island belongs), doing some snorkelling in the reefs and walking along the spectacular Whitehaven beach . Barb and I reminisced that the last time that we had snorkelled was off the coast of Africa on Zanzibar island three years ago.

And Finally …

The end of Our Excellent Australian Adventure approaches quickly. As I am writing this we are planning on packing up our suitcases today to leave Hamilton Island to catch our flight to Sydney. By tomorrow we will be back at at home in Vancouver.

There were several aspects of this trip that were unique and will be things that we will remember for a long time. Spending time with my family in Melbourne and our week in the Outback (with all of it’s trials and tribulations) were really two of the highlights.

I’ve only said this once before, referring to South Africa, but there really is no other country in the world like Australia. Its unique geography and culture simply don’t exist anywhere else. Everywhere we have travelled in Australia, we have been made to feel welcome and the people here couldn’t have been more friendly. About the only real down side is the 17 hours of travel that it takes us to get here. Well, that and the flies of course.

Over the next week, I will be adding pictures of our Australian Adventure to my photo web site located here.

As far as where our next Excellent Adventure will be, for once I don’t have an answer. Barb and I normally have at least 1-2 trips lined up in advance but as of right now we don’t have anything in the works. Of course this won’t remain so uncertain for very long so it won’t be long before we are reporting in from somewhere new.

Until then.

Baden