1) Towards the very end of the Perth to Adelaide Indian Pacific trip, at 4am, I was sitting in my seat awake and wondering where we were. I decided to pull up a GPS app on my iPhone that I hadn’t used for a while. Unfortunately, the last time I had used it to guide me out of a confusing neighborhood in Perth I switched it off instead of actually canceling the navigation – so when it started up and found my location, it immediately started blurting out turn-by-turn directions to everyone in my train car still trying to sleep. Fortunately, many people laughed, but it still took me a while to finally shut it off.
2) When I was forced to sleep at the roadside rest stop in Victoria on my way to Wilsons Promontory there were already about a dozen camper-vans and caravans settling in for the night. I had to get the stuff in my car reorganized to make room for myself to lie down. In order to make room, I had to stuff a bunch of things on the drivers seat of my car. As soon as I shut the door some things fell over and pressed against my car horn which blared until I could remove them – waking anyone up who had fallen asleep.
On my last real day of sightseeing before heading out onto the Nullarbor for the three day nonstop drive back to Perth, I decided to check out a few parts of southern South Australia on my way to Adelaide from The Grampians. The regions I have been traveling through in Victoria and South Australia seem very similar to Perth, so things look quite familiar to me: lots of wheat fields that are a bit dried out and hot this time of year. There are some refreshing differences, however, in the architecture. Both Victoria and South Australia have done a very good job of preserving their heritage buildings and keeping their small country towns bustling. Western Australia seems quick to destroy old buildings in favor of building new ones which is unfortunate. Many country towns in Western Australia also seem about half closed for some reason.
The Grampians
The first place I headed to, at the recommendation of some friends who had the change to explore the area when they lived in Adelaide, was a coastal town called Robe. Robe had beautiful turquoise waters and a well preserved historic main street. After spending about 4 hours in the car to get there, I had to test the waters and have a swim for a little while.
Mount Arapiles Tooan State Park
Of all the places I’ve swum over the past week, including Wilsons Promontory, Robe, and Apollo Bay, the water has been refreshingly cool but definitely tolerable – except for Apollo Bay on The Great Ocean Road, which was so cold I thought I was going to start losing some limbs!
After Robe I took the coastal road straight up along Coorong National Park to McClaren Vale in South Australia’s famous wine growing region where I took a quick spin around some vineyards and stopped in long enough for a cup of coffee (as one does while they’re driving). Afterwards I also made a quick visit to a German themed town named Hahndorf before finishing my drive up into Adelaide.
The Great Ocean Road drive along the coast was very beautiful and had some beautiful rock formations to see along the way including Victoria’s 12 Apostles (less, actually. One or two just collapsed a few years ago) and the London Bridge natural bridge. It is a road that hugs the southern coast, sort of like California’s Big Sur drive but with a lot more development including several nice little beachside communities full of cafes and shops. Had a very cold swim at Apollo Bay along the way.
Beach near The 12 ApostlesLondon BridgeThe Grampians
Afterwards I headed up into The Grampians mountain range where I camped for the night. It’s always pretty amazing to drive up to a mountain range from the flats. A beautiful area that reminded me of Western Australia’s Stirling Ranges when I drove up to it through the surrounding flat wheatbelt countryside. Oddly, while returning to my 4wd campsite about 20 minutes before sunset, I came across my first wild deer running around when I’m usually used to just seeing kangaroos! Must have escaped from a local deer farm.
One of the last major places to visit on my list was at the very southern tip of the state of Victoria: Wilsons Promontory National Park. It has been highly recommended by many people I know. When I tried to make reservations for camping there on the phone they wanted to know whether I was a resident of the state or not. It seems all Victorian residents need to reserve spots in advance and all others must arrive in person to see whether any sites are available. It is a little nerve wracking to have to drive for a long distance just to see if there is space or not. Fortunately for me there was, but I can’t say I was too impressed with the campground.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
The camping fee was $30, which is a bit steep for a national park. They do have hot showers and clean facilities, but I’m happier to pay less and get less. Perhaps they are catering to the wrong crowd – one that seems more interested in recreation than conservation. They seemed to have two separate campsites available, one for Victorians and the other for interstate and international tourists. They had some 375 odd campsites available for multiple people in each spot, resulting in probably over 1000 people there, and they all seemed to be full by the end of the day. The place was a real zoo with children whizzing around on bikes everywhere and most families focusing on spending the day on the local beach. I can’t say I was too impressed. The place looked like a tent slum and the mostly European people staying there didn’t seem to respect each others limited personal space – instead they wouldn’t think twice about just cutting through your site between your car and tent to get to their friends a few blocks over. Interestingly, the campsite originated as an army training ground in WWII and the street names have stayed the same ever since (1st Ave on up).
Wilsons Promontory National Park
As for the rest of Wilsons Promontory, it was The quite beautiful, but not anything I haven’t seen or experienced in Western Australia in either Esperance or Fitzgerald River National Park. It would probably have been a more valuable experience there if I had the time to actually do some overnight hiking to more remote areas of the park or possibly do some sea kayaking around the place. Some beaches looked much friendlier to land on that others. I did manage to get a few short hikes in. One followed the coast south of the camp to visit a few more beaches without the hoards of people. The other hike was up to the very top of the highest point for a view down below on the entire National Park.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
After my morning peak hike, I had to get on the road to loop around Port Phillip Bay through Melbourne and down to the Great Ocean Road for my coastal journey back through Adelaide and on to Perth. It was interesting to drive through some of the old neighborhoods I used to visit when I lived there back in the early nineties. I got as far as Lorne before I decided to duck off the very busy coastal road and head up into the Otway National Park for some free camping.
Wilsons Promontory National Park
It is one of the very busiest weeks for vacationers at the moment because most kids finish their summer vacations this weekend and are due back in school next week. It is funny to think that in just over a week all these places will largely be empty until Easter.
Well, after three great straight days I knew that at some point I would be back to encountering average days – but I was expecting to hit my worst day of the trip so far. Charged up from my previous day of mountain biking, my plan was to tackle another interesting sounding ride over a few hours in the morning and then get on the road to visit Wilsons Promontory by the end of the day. My park pass was scheduled to expire at noon, so I had an early pancake breakfast (which worked well the previous day) and got out to Perisher Valley to try out one of the mountain bike tracks they had listed in detail in a brochure. The trail wasn’t marked, but the turn-by-turn directions were written out in the brochure with a map.
Well, I headed off to pursue the route expecting to be back within a few hours. To make a long story short, I lost the trail about 2/3rds of the way into it and tried to follow some other hiking trails and other hints of civilization to get back. The terrain was extremely hilly and I wasn’t keen to back-track, which in hindsight would have been the best idea. Instead, I followed a hiking trail that brought me into a valley with a horse and a house. I thought both the horse and the house would have to be connected to a road or driveway that would get me back out to the main road I started on. Unfortunately, the trail dead-ended at the house which was really just an emergency shelter for lost cross country skiers in winter. The horse just seemed to be out there on its own, possibly wild – it was really out in the middle of nowhere. Other roads or trails I spotted couldn’t be found or were simply not really what I thought they were when I got to them.
I took stock of the situation by the time I reached the end of the hiking trail at the emergency shelter and knew that I had full phone coverage if I needed it, access to very clean river water that was probably suitable for drinking, my topographic GPS to guide me, and a stack of muesli bars to keep me fueled up. The route I was taking kept getting harder and harder but I never wanted to go back through the hard part I just came out of. The only ways back to the main road seemed to be by crossing over a sizable mountain or by navigation along a stream that led to the road.
The stream route required about 6kms of prickly bush wacking with many hidden holes lurking underneath to get my feet caught in. Meadows were far easier to travel through but were few and far between. I kept pursuing the route because I kept thinking I was seeing a hiking path or a road 100m away, but they were always false leads. Throughout the ordeal I had to carry my bike because the terrain was too rough to push it. I was also under constant attack by very aggressive March flies (horse flies) and was getting my legs cut open by the prickly bushes.
I always knew that I could have called for an emergency pickup, but I wasn’t prepared to give up until I really couldn’t hack it anymore. Such a call could have costed me a bundle and they may not have wanted to rescue my bike. It was extremely agonizing and ended up taking me a full 5 hours to finally get back to my car. I had hoped the road would be all downhill when I finally got there because it was closer to the biggest mountains, but instead it was mostly uphill. To add insult to injury, when I got back to my car I found a ticket on my windshield for being in the park after my pass had expired. I tried to argue it with the office, but they acted like I would have to fight it in court if I wasn’t happy about it.
Aftermath of trekking through 6kms of scratchy bush and hungry march flies
The best part of the ordeal, if there was one, was taking refuge underwater in a few great swimming holes along the was. Because the march flies would attack the most when I stopped, I had to constantly keep moving – which became very exhausting. The only place I could get away from them and get a relaxing break was by swimming in these crystal clear beautiful swimming holes.
Fed up with the experience afterwards, I had a replenishment burger in town and decided to see how far I could make it to Wilsons Promontory before nightfall. The road I took south was very beautiful as it dropped down into the lower valley part of the park and then up into Alpine National Park when I crossed the state line into Victoria – but was far more remote than I was expecting. There were few service stations along the way, and those that I came across were closed, so I very nearly ran out of fuel towards the end. There were also no campgrounds available without prior reservations once I left the parks.
Suddenly, after driving 100’s of kms, I finally came into a town with just a liter or two of fuel left and lots of open service stations and restaurants to save me. In the end I was forced to sleep in my car at a restop, however, because all the caravan parks had closed for the night. Sleeping inside my car actually turned out pretty well and much like I had thought it would before my trip when I was planning for it back in Perth. There were lots of others doing the same because it was listed in a campsite book everyone recommends. In order to pull it off I just had to reorganize things a bit in the back by stacking my tubs of gear on one side of the car so I had room to lie down next to them. I did manage to get a good night’s sleep in, which wasn’t too hard considering all the dramas I encountered earlier in the day.
Another interesting thing to note about the driving around these parts is all the different agricultural regions and their strict quarantine requirements. It can be very tricky to stock up on fruit and veggies because every few hundred kilometers you find you have to throw out what you’ve bought. Now that I’m thoroughly ensconced in New South Wales I should be safe for the next few days before I get to Queensland – where I’m sure I will have to go through the same process again.
Murray River Meandering through agricultural regions in South Australia.
Much of the agriculture relies on the Murray River for irrigation. This area is where Australia seems to get most of their produce, although Western Australia seems to try growing most of its own. Prices for produce do seem a lot lower around here, anyway.
Farmland in need of water next to the Murray River.
Interesting to compare my drive this time with the drive I did last time in 2004. Now I’m driving an SUV which uses a bit more fuel than my little Corolla did. I seem to be carrying MUCH more stuff than I did last time, which is a bit of a pain. Among the items is my mountain bike which has stayed in the back the entire time up until now due to various reasons (including security, fuel economy, and nasty road surfaces).
I have the aid of numerous GPS devices, but as far as navigation is concerned, they are really only best for micro views of where you are going and are a but cumbersome to step back and get the big picture of where you are going for the day. Map books still lead the way on getting big picture views of what is around. On the other hand, the GPS has been very good for sussing out all the service station options in small towns (where I have saved quite a bit tracking down the stations the locals use on back streets). They are also good for finding accommodation, shops, libraries, and other things.
It’s also been nice to have 4wd capabilities for some of the roads I’ve been on and very nice to have cruise control. MP3 player as well? I actually had one of those installed in my little Corolla the last time I did a long road trip. Lots of hi-tech stuff including my laptop – which makes it much easier to get photos on these blog posts! Most libraries I’ve found have free WiFi available these days.
Lots of fun with time changes on this trip. Along the train ride over east there was a special time zone called “train time” which was 1 hour earlier than Perth. Then you arrived in Adelaide and the time was 1/2 hour earlier still. Then I drive a relatively short distance to Victoria and the time moves another 1/2 hour forward to equal Melbourne and Sydney time. It stays that way up until I camp in Kinchega National Park in New South Wales, but when I double back briefly to visit Broken Hill the timezone changes again back to Adelaide time (or so say the road signs). When I eventually get up into Queensland the time will go back an hour from Sydney and Melbourne time. That means Brisbane is 1 hour later in time than Sydney and Melbourne, even though it is well east of them:
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