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So Part 1 of Our 5500 Mile Trip across Australia in a Camper Van Left off with us taking a visit to Ramsey Street which was fun. After this we headed for Frankston where we stayed in a Big 4 Park for 2 nights. We spent a day on the beach (where I burnt quite badly watching some skim boarders) and then made off to cover some ground.

After a quick trip down the Mornington Peninsula, our next point of call was Phillip Island, a small island a few hours outside of Melbourne which is accessible by bridge. We drove the length of the Island right up to Cowes where we had a quick look around. By now, the sun burn was taking it’s toll and due to a mini heat wave in Victoria we decided that a night in the van would be a bit too much.

So we headed back down the length of the island and found a Big 4 Park in Newheaven where we checked in to a Cabin for the night. If you are ever traveling in Australia and are looking for some high quality budget accommodation I would really recommend the Big 4 Cabins. Costs at the time (bearing in mind this was 5 years ago) were approx $70 per night (about £30 at the time). This might sound a lot to people used to living on backpackers prices but when you consider what is included it is excellent. This particular cabin had two bedrooms, one double and one which had 4 bunk beds in. Also, it had a bed settee in the living room so for $70, 8 people could have stayed there. It had a open plan kitchen / Dinning Room / Living Room with TV and DVD player, shower room and balcony terrace. It was all very modern and really well maintained.

Because of the sun burn we stayed in and ended up missing the Penguins coming in from the sea (which is what we went to Phillip Island for) but had a great comfortable night in the cabin watching DVD’s, a far cry from the Camper Van.

The next day we got up and drove a couple of hours down to Wilsons Promontory which was a really cool drive. We had wanted to visit the southernmost point in Australia but not having reserched this properly we had not realised that you can only drive so far down to the point. To reach the Southernmost point you had to hike for a further 10 hours. So after thinking about it for about 1 minute, we turned around and found an awesome little beach called Whisky Bay. We spent the day on the beach and in the sea which was much better than a 10 hour hike.

We left Wilsons Promontory and drove up to a small town called Toora. On the way, we stopped at the best Petrol Station I have ever been to. The pump was on the pavement in a residential street and you literally pulled up as through you were parking at the side of the road. Then, a nice chap came out of his house and re-filled your car for you, charged you and then you were on your way. It was like stopping at someones house!

Toora is right on the South Gippsland Highway and there is a really nice little campsite there. It was the cheapest campsite we stayed whilst in Australia and I think we used the most facilities of any park. Fist of we went for a swim in the pool, then cooked in the camp kitchen and then spent the evening (with a bottle of whisky) in the TV Room.

The next day we took a quick visit to Agnes Falls and then drove right up through Sale (where we stopped to get some supplies) and then up through Bairnsdale to Lakes Entrance when we pitched up for the night. The weather was terrible so we stayed in and had a quiet night in the van. The next morning we got up and had a wonder over the lakes to 90 mile beach which was very impressive.

We had a text from a friend of ours that lives in Canberra who we met in the UK. He said he was free the following night and wanted to take us out in Canberra, so we hopped back in the van and tried to get some miles under our belt.

After a quick stop in Eden we headed to Pambula Beach where we stayed in an awesome Big 4 Park which was right on the beach. A little guy showed us to our pitch (which was about 10 meters from the beach) and when I got out to connect the mains hook up I was confronted by a fully grown male Kangaroo. Apparently, there are many wild ‘roos who visit the park all the time. We spent the next 2 hours taking photos and video from our van of the ‘roos as they worked they way around the park.

We still had to cover a lot of ground so left early the next day and headed up the Princess Highway to Batemans Bay where we took a left along the Kings Highway over the Great Dividing Range. Driving over the mountains was extremely good fun (although having a fear of heights Lu did not agree). It was like the movies where you see cars going round corners with shear drops next to them. Great fun!

We headed on in to Canberra passing all the flags and statues and found a campsite which was at the back of a Budget Chain Motel a few miles north of the city. Now this was five years ago and the place might have changed by now, but this has to be the worst camp site I have stayed in (including all the UK sites and Australia sites). The pitches were OK (bit uneven and the grass was a bit torn up) but the toilets were horrible. The whole place was very old fashioned and felt like a 50’s camp site and I don’t think the toilet block had been updated since then. There was water all over the floors (which I don’t think was just water if you know what I mean) and there was broken tiles on the floor where they had fallen off the walls. The cubicle doors did not lock (not that you wanted to venture in to them, especially with Flip Flops on!). I can’t really describe how bad it was… but it was bad. Like I say, it may well have been updated since then but I would recommend having a look around before you pitch up if you are thinking of staying there.

We met up with our friend Victor that night and spent the night in various bars and clubs and had way too much to drink (although this helped us when we got back to the camp site which did not seem too bad after a lot of Tooheys Extra Dry and Bundaberg Rum!).

The next morning we tried to get our sore heads together and immediately checked out of the camp site. We found a nice little camp site in Queanbeyan where we booked in for a few nights. Queanbeyan is a little way out of the city but the site was so much better so it was worth the extra travel in to the center.

Our second day in Canberra was spent doing the normal tourist spots. We looked out over Canberra from Mount Ainslie, visited the New Parliament Building where we got to go into the House of Senate (the equivalent to the House fo Commons) and went up the Telstra Tower on Black Mountain.

Christmas was approaching fast so after a few days in Canberra we left and drove back down over the Dividing Range to Bateman’s Bay. We then continued our journey up the Princess highway and camped in Bawley Point for the night.

A few night before we had booked a cabin for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing day in a Big 4 Park in Nowra. As fun as the camper van was, we did not want to spend the whole of Christmas in it so after picking up ingredients for our Christmas Lunch, we booked in to our cabin (which again was outstanding value for money especially over the Christmas period).

On Christmas Eve we had our traditional Christmas Dinner (apart from having a chicken instead of a turkey) and then spent Christmas Day on the Beach in Jarvis Bay. For dinner we had a BBQ on our patio and then called the family back home to wish them season greetings. They were particularly excited as on new years eve they were flying out to meet us in Sydney!

Christmas Day had gone well and at about 11.30ish Lu said she was going to bed. I wanted finish watching the Monty Python film that was on so said I would be in after that. I then heard a loud squeal from the bedroom and Lu ran in to the living area saying ‘you do not want to go in there!’.

I should explain that I have a rather nasty and irrational fear of spiders and after 2 months in Australia the largest Spider I had seen was about 1.5cm across. As it turned out, Lu was putting her clothes away on a shelf in the cupboard in the bedroom when she saw this huge black spider slowly walking across the wall to the left of her clothes.

I can honestly say that this was the first and only time during our 5 month trip around the world that I did not want to be there and would have rather been at home. So in an attempt to calm down and to try and figure out what to do we opened a bottle of Whisky and about an hour later (after half of the bottle had gone) we were thinking much more clearly. I dug out my travel guide as I knew I had read about dangerous snakes and spiders in it before we left the UK. To my horror it told me that there was two spiders that can administer fatal bites in Australia. The first is the Red Back which is related to the American Black Widow. This is a couple of millimeters in size and has a red spot on their back. These can be found all over Australia normally in toilets or other dry places.

As I had a lot of alcohol in my system I was brave enough to go and have a look at the spider and take it from me it was certainly not only a few mm in size. More like 3 - 4 inches in size!. So back to the book. The other dangerous spider in Australia is called the Sydney Funnel Web which the book described as a ’stocky black creature about 3 - 4 inches in size’! Perfect! Apparently these only live in the Sydney area (hence the name) but the book said they had been found as far North as Newcastle and as far South as Nowra… and we were in Nowra!

So we had a few options:

Option 1.

To go and wake up the site owners and ask them to remove the spider. It was Christmas day though and was now nearing about 2am so we did not really think that was an option.

Option 2.

Try and kill the spider. this seemed an option for a while (especially as we felt quite brave now after all the whisky) so we tried to think of a way to do this:

a) The first was to get our bug spray from the van and spray as much as we could on him. However, we through due to the size of him this would just piss him off and make him come after us!

b) The next option was to try and capture it. By now he had managed to position him self in the corner of the cubbyhole and we could not get a clear space to do the old box and paper trick.

c) Try and burn him with boiling water but again we thought we might end up burning ourselves!

d) We fashioned a rather crude killing device made up from a broom, a shoe and a tea towel. The shoe was attached to the end of the broom with the tea towel and we thought we could just give the spider a good squash! However, by this time the whisky was wearing off and nerves got the better of us. so we went back to the other options…

Option 3.

Pack up our stuff and sleep in the now rather appealing camper van that was parked outside the cabin then leave very quickly in the morning. However, we had spent a lot of our budget on the cabin and felt we shouldn’t waste the money.

Option 4.

Seal up the bedroom as well as we could and then sleep on the couch and hope that the spider could not get out of the bedroom. Then ask for help in the morning and get him removed.

So we went with option three. We sealed up the door using a towel. I was convinced the spider could not get under the door anyhow due to his size but it was best to be safe.

We drank a bit more and then crashed out on the couch (where I had dreams of spiders all night long!).

After a very bad and short sleep we woke and Lu went and found a cleaner that was in the cabin next to ours. She explained to her what had happened and that we were not used to spiders so big back home. The cleaning lady kindly agreed to come and get the spider for us.

She unsealed the door and went to the cupboard but the spider had gone. She had a quick look around and could not find hime but said ‘he probably just came looking for something to eat but don’t worry if you see him again as he will leave when he is ready’!

No chance! I was not sticking around if we did not know where he had gone. On her way out she lookd in a small utility cupboard that was in the bedroom which was home to brooms, mops and buckets.

‘There it is’ she said quite calmly as she reached up and grabbed him with her cloth, ‘It is a funnel web but not a dangerous one so don’t worry’. I was up against the wall! I also realised at this point that it had managed to get upder the door to the utility cupboard and therefore could have got under the door we had sealed so it was lucky we had thought to do this.

We spent the rest of Boxing day recovering from the lack of sleep the night before, watching TV and generally going nothing.

On the 27th of December we checked out of our cabin and got back in the van and travelled up to Kiama where we stayed overnight. We visited the Blow Hole the next day and then made our way up the cost to Bondi Beach.

Bondi Beach was fun to visit but was not nearly as nice as I had expected. It kind of felt a bit run down and very ‘concretey’. I guess this could have been due to up spending the last few weeks in lesser populated areas but it felt more like Newquay, nice but not amazing.

Before we left the UK we had booked hotel accomodation in Sydney for over New Year as we new we wanted to see the fireworks on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We checked in to the Ibis Hotel on Darling Harbour for six nights.

Darling Harbour is fantastic. there is a real mix of Hotels, restaurants and bars and we spent most evenings  sat out people watching.

The first day we were in Sydney we walked from Darling Harbour along George Street to Circular Quay to see the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. It was very surreal to be stood next to this landmark which everyone has seen in movies and on TV. There is a bar just by the Opera House and we sat and had a beer watching the ferry’s come and go under the Harbour Bridge. The Botanical Gardens are also very cool with bats in the trees and the Opera House in the Distance. We walked round to Mrs Macquaries Chair and explored the shops in the CBD.

New Years Eve came and we had to get to the Opera House by about 2pm in order to reserve our spot for the fireworks which went off at 9pm and of course at midnight. It was amazing how many Brits were there (some of which were way too drunk way too early which was annoying - having to spend 10 hours sat next to a pile of vomit was not that great!). We ate hot dogs and had a few cans of VB and enjoyed the evening. The fireworks were amazing and so was the atmosphere.

After another day of soaking up the Sydney atmosphere and looking around ‘The Rocks’ (which is the original Sydney settlement) we had an early night as we had to meet my parents and brother from the Airport at 6am on the 2nd of January. It was very strange seeing them coming out of departures not having seen them for 3 months!

The first thing we did with them was go to the Opera House and had a beer!

The next day we got on the ferry and went to Manly which I think is much nicer that Bondi. We also visited Watson Bay and drove up the northern beaches up to Palm Beach (which some of you might know better as Summer Bay from Home and away!).

After our six days in Sydney we were keen to get back on the road and do some more exploring. We said goodbye to Mum, Dad and Matt (who were leaving to fly to Perth to see my other Brother) and got in the Van and headed north up the coast.

Don’t miss out on Part 3 of our 5500 Mile Trip accross Australia in a Camper Van

In the next part of this article, we see Lu and I travel from Sydney to Surfers Paradise and Brisbane, Fraser Island, The Whitsunday Islands and and then on to Cairns to see the Great Barrier Reaf.

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Posted by Steve

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Posted on Friday, January 9th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
Posted In Amazing VW Journeys | Tags: Amazing Trips, Australia, Toyota Hi Ace, VW Camper Van Holidays

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