Sapphire Coast

After a couple of nights in a motel in Queanbeyan, neither of which is worth writing about, I had my car serviced and ready to take on my trip around Australia. Last Thursday I set off down to the coast via Bega to Tathra, I little town on the NSW south coast. The weather was awful, cold and rainy, so I decided to take my time and stop off at the Bega cheese museum. This tells the history of cheese making and agriculture in the region, but it is all a bit crammed and not really worth the visit. I think its main purpose it to attract people to the cheese and gift shops.

Once I got to Tathra the weather cleared up somewhat and I took a walk from Tathra beach to the historic Tathra Wharf. The wharf has been done up since I was there last time (about 22 years ago) and now houses a very nice coffee shop. There were lots of people fishing off the wharf, but in the hour I spent there I didn't see anyone catch anything. I did however see some big rays swimming very close to the wharf.

The renovated Tathra Wharf

The next day I drove up to Narooma, where I was going to visit Frank and Iris, friends from Canberra who now run a holiday place called Clark Bay Waterfront Cottages. Because Narooma is only about 80 km's from Tathra I took the time to do some fishing at Nelson's beach, which is in the Mimosa Rocks national park. I was lucky and caught a sizeable flathead. I know that you won't believe me without seeing a picture, but like you I was equally surprised by the catch and got so stressed taking it off the hook and giving it back its freedom that I completely forgot to take a photo...

Frank and Iris treated me to some excellent hospitality for a couple of nights in Narooma. Narooma is much bigger than Tathra, but has its own charm. It has a great variety of coast, with beaches, inland lakes and rivers all within easy reach. Clark Cottages is right on the water and Frank and Iris' house has the same exquisite outlook onto the bay like the guest accommodation. The cottages are specifically designed to be wheelchair accessible and even the swimming pool has a special hoist to accommodate disabled visitors. Aside from the holiday guest Frank and Iris look after 6 steers, a cat, a dog, some chucks and a duck.

The infinity pool at Clark Cottages boasts the same waterfront view as the cottages

Frank suggested that we did a walk up to Mt. Dromedary on the Saturday morning. There are a couple of tracks up the mountain and we took the one that goes up from Tilba Tilba. Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba are heritage villages controlled by the national trust. The houses stem from the time when gold was found on Mt. Dromedary. We parked the car near Pam's Store, from where the track starts. It is a steady walk, not surprisingly uphill, for about 2 hours until you reach the summit. We were both a bit disappointed with the views, which are not as spectacular as you'd expect because they are obscured by the trees.

Pam's store in Tilba Tilba, where the track starts

Proof that we made the summit

Luckily we met a group of members from the Narooma bushwalking club on our descent and they told us that the two reasons to walk up Mt. Dromedary are the cardiovascular workout and the thors. We already felt the workout in our legs, but we didn't know about the thors, so they told us to follow the little track that leads into the bushes behind the toilets shed on Mt. Dromedary saddle. Needless to say, they were right. The thors are spectacular rock formations that have been formed by many thousands of years of erosion. They are also a spiritual site in the aboriginal culture, and it felt very special to be there. It was definitely worth the little bit of extra walking to have a look around.

Frank posing between two thors

Thors come in many different shapes but they are all BIG

After the walk I went for a look around Narooma. I had a walk on the boardwalk along the river, where I saw some rays, and then I drove to nearby Lake Brou and Brou beach to see whether I would find a good fishing spot to make up for the missed picture of a flathead. As soon as I found a good spot on the lake I got joined by a few pelicans who made short shrift of the available fish, so I decided to call it a day. 

The next morning I then headed off towards the North and clocked up some miles to get first to Newcastle to have some beers with an old friend from my hospitality days and then to go and check out Port Macquarie, where I am now. Some more details to follow soon...

Mallacoota

Today I spent in Mallacoota. It is a small town in the Gippsland region of Victoria and caters for tourist with a variety of caravan parks, camp grounds and motels. As far as I can tell there are no upmarket hotels and the townspeople all seem to be down to earth and very friendly. I am not sure whether this is just because the tourist season hasn't really started yet or whether it is like this all year round; in any case, I feel very welcome here.

First thing this morning I walked into town and watched some fishermen on the main wharf. A young bloke caught a fairly sizeable octopus, which happened to me once before when I cut it loose because I didn't know how to kill it. So I went to watch. He said that it is easy, you just push your fishing knife between its eyes, which he proceeded to do. The octopus seemed fairly unimpressed by this and continued to walk along the jetty on its tentacles. Another old bloke came up and said that you had to twist the knife and pull it back into the creatures head, same result. They continued to try a few other techniques, but the thing had a remarkable will to live. I left after about 5 minutes and the fight was still going on. If any of you know a quick way of dispatching an octopus that doesn't require heavy hand guns or explosives, please let me know; I like eating them and would like to keep it if I ever catch one again.

Mallacoota Wharf, the scene of the epic octopus battle

At the tourist shed on the wharf I got myself a leaflet on available walks around Mallacoota and found that there is a nice loop walk of about eight kilometres that takes in all different types of environments. It started by a crossing a forest, then lead across heathland onto a beach, followed the beach around a rocky headland back towards the town and its lake. 

The forest was quite lush and colourful, after all it is Spring and the world is meant to be in bloom. I took some pictures of flowers for you, please forgive me if my naming is not botanically accurate.

Yellow Flower

Blue Flower

Red Flower

The further I headed towards the beach the more the plants changed to a scraggy look that said "I am tough and can live of sand and salt alone...". They also got shorter and shorter. The beach itself was deserted except for a couple of guys on surfboards catching a wave.

I found it interesting how there were inland lakes separated from the sea by sand alone. I would have expected this to open up or wash out by the surf and join up. 

The lake on the right hand side of the picture reached a long way inland, so I was glad that there was this bridge of sand along the beach that meant that I didn't have to walk around it. 

Tomorrow I have to leave Mallacoota and head back to Canberra to get the complimentary 1000 km service done on my car (or in my case the 1700 km service). After that it should be ready to take me via Darwin to Broome before it needs to be serviced again, so I can finally start my circumnavigation of Australia in earnest. 

Cooma to Mallacoota via the Australian Alps

Today I headed off from Cooma early, at 7 am, because I wanted to make sure that I don't feel rushed along the way and get time to enjoy the scenery. I started by driving along the main road to Jindabyne, where I filled up with petrol before taking on the 170 km drive towards the Victorian coast through the mountains along the Barry Way/Snowy River Road. This leads through some very remote areas and there are no supplies along the way.

The road starts as Barry Way in Jindabyne, until the Victorian border, after which it is called Snowy River Road. The first 20 kilometers are sealed, until you pass Ingebirah, after that it is a gravel road for most of the way right to Gelantipy in Victoria, about 100 km away. The road winds itself in and out of deep valleys that have been carved out by the Snowy River and its contributories over thousands of years.

View from Wallace Craigie Lookout, soon after Ingebirah, You can just make out the road on a couple of ridges towards the South.

The descent after Ingebirah Gap really brings home how high the Southern Tablelands of NSW are. The drive from Canberra to Jindabyne appears so flat that it comes as a surprise that it is possible to drive down hill for so long. The road is fairly wide and in good nick on the NSW section, so there is no problem driving it, despite the sheer drops on its downhill side. Once you get to the bottom the road then follows the Snowy River for quite a while, with some minor ridge crossings along the way. Once you cross into Victoria it departs from the Snowy and crosses a relatively high ridge to Suggan Buggan, where you will find a couple of houses and a historic school house. After Suggan Buggan the road climbs again onto the Victorian high plateau. I found this part of the road most challenging. The gravel was quite loose and the road very steep and narrow. I was praying that no car comes the other way, as it would have been very difficult to cross and my side of the road was the downhill side - and if you think the drops in NSW are high, here they are enormous, definitely not a track to take if you tend to acrophobia. Soon after you reach the top you get onto sealed roads again. (by the way, along the 100 km of unsealed roads I had one car and one motorbike coming the other way, I had to overtake one poor chap going my way, who seemed to be very worried by the heights and drove at about 15 km/h).

Attempt at taking a picture of the drop next to the road, sorry I didn't want to drive any closer, there are no barriers or anything...

The Snowy River valley after the descent. I looked for Brumbies (plenty of brumby poo on the road) but didn't spot any.

Three hours after I left Jindabyne I arrived in Buchan in Victoria, where I took a break to look at the caves. There are two main caves, both of which can be visited by guided tour. I chose the Royal Cave. The cave is easy to walk through, you only need to stoop in a few places, but there is no crawling required. The lighting is well designed and shows off the best features very well. There are some very impressive stalactites and stalagmites, as a matter of fact is has one of the highest "totem stalagmites" in the world. The tour took about 45 minutes under ground and cost twenty bucks.

Royal Cave, Buchan. I took lots of pictures; these modern cameras are very good even without flash.

From Buchan I headed further towards the coast to Orbost, where I met the Snowy River again. Here it is quite tranquil, I guess it is tired from carving out big valleys and tumbling down many rapids. It is getting ready to join all its mates in the Pacific Ocean.

The Snowy River at Orbost, Victoria

From Orbost I took the Pacific Highway to Mallacoota. I have driven this before and find it quite tedious. It is relatively bendy for an A road and full of caravans that you can't overtake. But hey! I've got time and arrived here safely. The whole journey took me about 7 hours driving time, so like the Snowy River I am a bit tired and I am getting very tranquil sipping my white wine while I write this post. 

Canberra to Cooma via Namadgi National Park

Over the past three weeks I drove down to Thredbo and Jindabyne three times, so got pretty used to clocking up kilometers on the Monaro Highway. This is why I wanted to take an alternative route today on my way to the Victorian coast. 

I headed south from Canberra to Tharwa and then straight ahead through Namadgi national park along Naas and Boboyan Road. The road is unsealed for a big part of the way, but it is in a very good state and could easily been done in a standard car, no four wheel drive needed.

I took a couple of breaks. First I stopped at Mt. Clear camp ground to pitch my new tent. This was just to practice setting it up and taking it down before I have to do it in earnest. It was a nice sunny day and I took all the time to follow the instructions. It was as easy as they promised in the advertising and it took me a matter of minutes to put it up. It is a Black Wolf Turbo Light tent. I got it at a very good price from Camping World Mitchell, which is an independently owned shop in Canberra. They matched a price that I found on the internet and saved me hundreds of dollars compared to the big camping chain-stores.

The second break I took just a couple of km up the road from the camp ground where I came to an old mountain hut. When I read the signs they described a walk called Settlers Track. It is a circular route of nine km with a shorter option of six km. I took the shorter option, which took me just over an hour. 

The track is well marked, so you don't need a map. Along the way there are various points where signs explain how the white settlement affected the high country and what the life style of the early settlers was like. I found it very interesting and I really enjoyed the walk, which undulates across some wooded hills and then through some grassy valleys and small bogs, where I could hear corroboree frogs. There was not another person in sight all the way.

The remains of a ringbarked tree

Westerman's Hut

After the walk I kept going south on Boboyan Road until I reached Adaminaby. This is a funny little town, with not really much to do or see, but it is one of the towns in Australia that is home to "something big". In the case of Adaminaby it is the Big Trout. 

The Big Trout

Rather than heading from Adaminaby to Cooma on the Snowy Mountains Highway I took the Yaouk road, which took me back up towards the Brindabellas. It takes a big loop back to the Boboyan Road near Shannons Flat, from where you can then take Shannons Flat road all the way to Cooma. I found Yaouk Road much prettier than the road that I took into Adaminaby. Of course, all of these roads are unsealed for most parts, but well maintained.

The Murrumbidgee River at Yaouk

Now I am in Cooma, where I will stay overnight before heading down to the coast via some other back roads tomorrow.

Canberra as a Tourist

After two weeks in Canberra I have accomplished more or less everything that I had planned. I got all the plastic cards that I required (Medicare, Private Health Insurance, Credit Card, Debit Card), I bought a car that I can pick up in a couple of days and I exchanged contracts on a one bedroom apartment in Thredbo. 

Aside from this I enjoyed Canberra as a tourist. I don't think I would put it at the top of my list of places to visit if I only had a short holiday in Australia, but if you have 4 days or so to spare, it is well worth a visit.

Canberra is very much a planned City. It spreads out across the southern tablelands and takes the form of a group of different town centres, each consisting of a bunch of suburbs that surround a shopping precinct or mall. Each of these suburbs usually has its own smaller collection of shops for day to day needs. It feels a bit like shopping is on top of the list of past times for many Canberrans and I certainly have found larger crowds in the shopping malls than in the tourist attractions.

Lake Burley Griffin lies in the heart of Canberra and separates the federal government precinct from Civic, where you can find the obligatory shopping mall as well as various local government services. This picture shows you a view from the top of Mt. Ainslie across the lake to the federal parliament.

Part of my gap year is to improve my fitness; after spending the last 20 years behind a desk I got quite fat and slow. I attempt to do at least a one hour walk every day, which is easy to do in Canberra. It has some great nature reserves, Mt. Majura and Mt. Ainslie are my favourites. I walked up Mt. Majura every day and the combination of Mt Majura and Mt. Ainslie at least twice a week. There are various paths to take, and there is a lot of wildlife to see. Kangaroos and wallabies are very common, but I also spotted an echidna and some black cockatoos, amongst a whole lot of other birds.

If you prefer indoor pursuits, other than shopping, Canberra offers a whole raft of museums, galleries and memorials. I visited the Australian War Memorial, which is good value and you can easily spend half a day going through all the exhibits, movies and sound and light shows. It is extremely well curated and the exhibits really tell the story of the two world wars, rather than just showing pieces of memorabilia. The story of the Lancaster Bomber "G for George", told as a sound and light show around the fully preserved bomber was a highlight of the visit. 

Another half day I spent at the Australian National Museum. It is also very well set up and uses its artefacts to tell the story of Australia from the early aboriginal history to colonisation and the building of the modern federation of states, including cultural aspects, as well as economical and ecological ones. The exhibit showing the 2003 Canberra bush fires impressed me a lot and I am glad that I was far away from them at the time. The Australian National Museum's architecture alone is worth the visit. If you get the chance, get one of the staff to explain it to you, I was very surprised by how much thought went into it and I never understood all the symbolism before (especially the garden of dreams, which always looked like a skateboard park to me).

Both the War Memorial and the Australian National Museum are free (voluntary donations appreciated), as opposed to the Questacon museum of science, which is quite costly at $23 for an adult and $15 for a child. It is however great fun, with all its hands-on exhibits and experiments. It is best visited with some friends or as a family, a lot of the experiments are more fun when shared.

Behold the Keeper of the Mat

I spent my first weekend back in Australia doing some nice walks up Mt. Majura and Mt. Ainslie to get the jet lag out of the system. On Saturday I also concluded my car buying task and ended up ordering a brand new Jeep Wrangler Overland Unlimited. There is a bit of surprise still to come because I haven't actually seen the colour, which is called Anvil. Looking for it on the Internet it comes up with results ranging from powder blue to olive green. The other choice of colour that I had was "baby poo brown", which made me think that Anvil can only be better. Other colours are of course available, but would have meant a long waiting period.

On Monday I set out to deal with Australian bureaucracy. The first thing I did was to go to the Department of Immigration to request a certified movement record so that I could prove to my health insurance that I was out of the country for the past seven years. This was a very pleasant experience with very helpful staff and put me in a positive frame of mind to get on with my other chores, the next of which was to go to the Medicare office a couple of buildings up the road and get a Medicare card (I lost the old one somewhere in the many moves in the UK).

I imagined that I would just walk up to a teller, identify myself using my passport and get a new card issued, but it turned out to be quite an experience:

I entered the combined Medicare/Centerlink office in Londsdale Street only to find that there are no tellers. It is a large open plan office with lots of public servants sitting in their cubicles and a couple of blocks of chairs for the waiting public. I was one of the first people in and I walked over to the waiting area and sat there for a while - and nothing happened. Then I thought maybe it is a system like at the deli counter, where you pick up a number and you get called when your number is up. So I started to walk around looking for the place to get a number, without success. At some point I must have looked so lost that another citizen took pity on me and asked what I was looking for. When I said that I wanted to make my presence known, she pointed me to a lonely doormat in the middle of a large empty floor space. There were coloured footprints stuck on the carpet, leading away from it. I walked across the room and stood on the mat. After a little while I got approached by a person with a tablet computer in their hand and was asked why I was there. This was my first meeting with the Keeper of the Mat.

I said that I came back from a long stay overseas and that I needed a new Medicare card. The Keeper of the Mat simply said "Medicare; New Card" and pointed me to the now quite busy waiting area. I put on a baseball cap, pulled the hood of my sweater over it, slumped my shoulders, set my facial expression to "I would kill you if I only could be fagged" and blended in with the rest of the waiting crowd.

After a little while one of public servants peeled himself away from his desk, crossed the empty floor, stood in front of the crowd and shouted "Yours!". Nothing happened, so he shouted "Yours!" "Medicare!", when I realised that he probably meant me. I joined him and we went to his cubicle, where he explained to me that after more than five years overseas I needed to prove that I was serious about returning to Australia by providing two documents that proved that I left the UK for good and by making a statutory declaration, and of course fill in a form. Because I didn't have any documents with me to prove that I left the UK for good (sale of house, letter from employee accepting my resignation), all I could do was say "thank you" for the help and set off back to the hotel to collect the papers and fill in the form.

Two hours later I stood on the mat again telling the Keeper "Medicare, New Card", and taking a seat in the waiting area. Soon after a lady stood in front of the crowd shouting "Horse!". This time I was alert enough to recognise this as my name and I promptly followed her to her cubicle, where she told me that I now had the right documents, but that I needed to go off and get the stat dec witnessed. I know that a stat dec can be witnessed by a government employee, so I assumed that I could do it there and then, but apparently I was wrong and as a result had to walk across the road to the Post Office, where the lady at the counter witnessed it for me. The whole process only took about eight minutes until I again stood in front of the Keeper of the Mat. It was quick enough for him to remember me and he gave me a quizzical look. When I said "Medicare, New Card" he said in despair: "Somebody must have called you. Where were you?". I said "I was called. This is my next visit", which he clearly didn't understand. He said again: "You must be here when you're called", convinced that I had probably been outside for a quick blow of crack. Eventually, with a fair bit of tut-tutting, he set up another shout-out of my name. The third lady who received me that day not only pronounced my name correctly, but she also got me a new Medicare card and even witnessed a copy of my passport that I needed for the Department of Immigration application.

I think the whole open plan concept and public shouting out of first names was probably conceived with the idea of creating a friendly, jovial environment. Unfortunately it ended up being quite a humiliating experience.

With regards to my name, I understand that people get it wrong and each variation gives me a lot of pleasure, which is why I won't publish its proper pronunciation here.

London to Canberra

I got to Canberra on the morning of Friday the 27th August. Unlike when I first emigrated to Australia 25 years ago, when I sat in the second last row of a Singapore Airlines Jumbo Jet, chain smoking my way through 26 hours of economy seat hell and nervous anticipation of what my new life will bring, this time I reclined in a first class seat of the new Qantas A380 and enjoyed the Neil Perry designed culinary delights, followed by a delightful snooze on the thick lambs wool mattress that the flight attendants rolled out on my behalf, so that I could spend the time to slip into the soft pyjamas and dab some moisturiser on my face to preserve the healthy glow of my skin that was brought about by the voluptuous Cabernet Merlot that was served with dinner.

My frame of mind was not so much one of nervous anticipation, but of systematic planning the early steps of my new life. There are some mundane essentials that one needs to have in order to be a fully functioning Australian citizen, namely have a bank account, a credit card, an address, a phone number, health insurance and a car. The order in which to get these is quite important: You need a bank account and an address to get a phone contract. The phone contract can then be used as the all-important "utility bill" that is required as proof of address to get anything else.

I already set up a bank account while still in the UK. Westpac's London branch are most helpful and I would highly recommend them to anyone who is making the move to Australia. I also already organised an address in form of an apartment that I booked for three weeks in Canberra, hoping that this suffices to get all things in place. So the first thing that I did after my arrival was to pick up my rental car and drive to a phone shop to get myself a phone contract. My bank card and my passport was enough for them to perform my identity check and issue me with a contract and more importantly a bill to my temporary apartment address. So I was well on the way to getting back into an Australian persona.

The rest of the morning I spent visiting car yards in search of the ideal four wheel drive vehicle to take me around Australia. I checked out 5 different vehicles before two o'clock when I could check into my hotel and sleep on my decisions for 16 hours.

How the Gap Year Blog came about

I do like a fundamental change in my life every now and then and it seems to happen every fifteen to twenty years. I left school at the age of fifteen to start a career in the hotel industry. I left the hotel industry after seventeen years to start in software development. Now I quit my job with HP after nineteen years and have no idea yet what I will do for the next fifteen before my retirement.

This last change was brought about by my wife deciding to do her own thing and give me back my freedom. I lived in England because of her, so when the marriage came to an end I decided to finally take the gap year that I never had after school and migrate to Australia for the third time. My plan is to first travel around the country and then settle down in the Snowy Mountains, where I lived twenty years ago when I emigrated from Switzerland to Australia for the first time and which I ever since considered my spiritual home.

Whenever I speak to people about my plans, they ask me to keep them up to date with my travels and how the next phase of my life shapes up. This is why I decided to start this very public blog, so that I don't miss anybody with my updates.