Well, I have left beautiful South East Asia, and very sad to see it go, it has  been a very inspiring, grounding and even dare I say it, spiritual part of my adventure !!  I have come away with so many wonderful memories of all the different places that I have had the good fortune to have been to over the last few months, people I have had the pleasure of meeting, and things I was lucky enough to experience. I can truly say that I am one hell of a lucky person to have actually made the decision to come travelling, up to now, its been one of the best things that has happened to me in my life (apart from having my girls), and something I know will stay with me for the rest of it.

      So I arrived in Perth, western Australia on Saturday 3rd of December at around 5.30 am after a very comfortable flight with Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur, the landing was a bit on the windy side (actually had to abort the 1st landing 30m from the ground as the winds were pitching the plane around so much that the pilot couldn’t get it straight), but after circling the airport again, we landed smoothly on the tarmac. We made our way to the arrivals area to sort out our on going travel plans and to buy yet another sim card.  Within an hour my old friend John Casey (from my checkpoint days) and his lovely family had arrived to pick me up and take me back to their house, this was the time I had to say goodbye to my dear friend Nuria, the lovely Spanish girl who I have been travelling with over the last two months, We both cried, as we had no idea when we would see each other again, a very sad moment, although we have vowed to meet up again somewhere in the world as and when we can. My good friends John, Margaret, Rebekah and Naomi made me feel so welcome in their house, over the next few days we spent time talking, eating, drinking and generally catching up with each other, they took me places and continually spoilt me, it was great !!!

       While I was here I had to plan how I was going to get across to Melbourne then on to Tasmania, so the good old internet was put into action and after a while I found the ideal thing, its relocating vehicles for hire companies ! they issue a new list every day, you get in contact with them, pay a small holding fee, then turn up at their offices when you are supposed to, and get your vehicle, simple !  I was lucky, I got myself a two berth camper van for $5 per day instead of the normal price of $120.00, bargain plus they gave me $250 towards fuel costs !!!!  So my transport problems were sorted, threw my rucksack into the back and headed off on my 3600km solo drive across southern Australia.

      My first stop was the supermarket to stock up on food, water and the most important, wine ! so with the fridge stocked, cupboards filled with pasta and tins, 5 gallons of water, I hit the road, and what a road it was, seemingly its one of the great journeys of Australia, crossing what is called “the nullabor”, a vast piece of virtually uninhabited land between the west and the east.

My home for the next week or so.

 

The trip was another amazing experience, after the first day of getting used to driving again ( I have not been behind the wheel of a car for 5 months), passing through the odd small township, I eventually reached the start of the nullabor, over the next four days I drove for sometimes 12 hours, stopping only for scrubland toilet breaks and to fill up with fuel at extremely remote garages. The road at times was just  one long, long straight, one of them being 90 miles long !!

Some of the warning signs were a tad different to the ones I was used to back in England !

The scenery along the way was constantly changing, going from the typical “outback” type red sand and scrub, to virtual desert, to forest, and then to coastal scenes, quite a wonderful display of nature.

Wave rock.

2nd largest granite outcrop in Australia after Ayers rock !

Me on the top !!

All along the journey there were plenty of places to stop and admire,  One day I ended up in the Flinders mountain range, followed a small track for miles, and ended up at a very desolate spot with no one around, so decided to spend the night, and watch the sunset followed by the eclipse.

 

Next morning I headed to Adelaide then made my way south to the “great ocean road” and spent 2 days exploring this magnificent coastline;

What a beautiful coast ! every five minutes you felt you had to stop and take photo’s (which I did) and wonder at the scale of this place, I ended up staying over night in a sea front town called Apollo Bay, it was dark when I got there, so a quick bite to eat and to bed. The next day seen me travel along more coast roads all the way to Melbourne.

On arrival in Melbourne, I got rid of the hire vehicle and walked across the road to the airport where I booked on the next flight to Hobart in Tasmania, rang my sister and told her I would be there in the next couple of hours, so had a sit in the departure lounge for an hour, and then boarded the plane for the 70 minute flight. It was lovely to see my sister again, its been 6 years since I last seen her and her family, so I’ve spent the last three weeks catching up with their lives, meeting old friends and of course living the Tasmanian way of life (eating and drinking lots). Will probably be here till the end of February, so maybe wont be so much to blog about, but I will endeavour to fill it with some sort of crap !!