Hi, we're back!

Sorry for if we have confused anyone by posting pictures recently but with no blog. The reason for this is that I spent 4 hours the only internet cafe in Alice Springs before we left there last Thursday, trying to update blog, upload photo's to blog and download to C.D, and so very annoyingly, the blog or photo's did not save. This completely scuppered our plans to leave Alice on Thursday afternoon and meant that we had to return to the forsaken place Friday morning to try and upload the photo's. This in itself takes about an hour and a half, so we decided to just upload the photo's and re-do the blog once we had moved on to Cairns.

We have been in Cairns now since Monday and have only just got round to finding an internet cafe to update this blog - so apologies that it is all a bit a*se about face! I'll just update you's all on our travels since leaving Darwin and Alice Springs, and will save our Cairns leg of the journey until a bit later.

We left Darwin over 3 weeks ago now after finally sealing the deal with the Battle Bus at the travel company. We decided to drive the long distance from Darwin to Alice Springs in small stages so we could take in some of the many places we had been recommended to stop at on the way. Our journey down was not without drama's too, but I'll get onto that later.

One of the places we were recommended to stop at was a very small place called the Daly Waters Inn which is just off of the Stuart Highway down from Darwin. We were lead to believe that it was a traditional Aussie pub that would have loads of weird and wacky paraphenalia. We arrived mid afternoon as planned, on a particularly scorching day, so hopped straight out of the van to the bar. To say this pub has character is an understatement. The area right above the bar has been completely covered in signed bra's and knickers. To the right of the bar is a wall completely filled with people's photo's and currency from all around the world, and further along is a wall completely covered in odd flip flops. The best bit to us at this stage was the area to the left of the bar - the beer garden - which had a SWIMMING POOL! How cool - I can't tell you how smug we felt sipping on vodka's, sat in the corner of a swimming pool, in a pub garden, on a lovely sunny day! We decided to splash out a bit that night and opted to have dinner in the restaurant area of the pub so that we could eat and enjoy the evening's entertainment. This was by far the best bit about this crazy little place. We sat down to an evening of 'Frank, the Chookman' - an eccentric old guy who sings country and western style, risque songs and jokes. Ok so you may think what's so crazy about that - well he did some of his numbers with a specially made hat that had 2 baby chickens sat on it whilst he crooned some of his Jonny Cash stylee songs. Very weird, but very entertaining nonetheless.

It was the morning after this stopover that we had the first of our Battle bus trouble. It had made a few unimpressed noises when we turned it over the day before, but after the revs were up, the noise had ceased and we thought the problem had rectified itself. Well this particular morning, the van was displaying its full anger at us by making an ear piericing scream at us, and everyone in the campsite as we limped along to the highway. We were told that there was a mechanic just at the bit of the highway we were going to join, so we made our way the few miles along the road to the garage. When we arrived at the garge, Mr Personality mechanic told us we would have to wait at least an hour or so before he would even grace with a quick glance at it. When he did finally grace us with his professional 'glance' - he told us that our water pump bearing had packed up. To those that don't know what this bit does (myself included until this point), it means very bad, expensive news. He told us that he didn't have the part and that it could take about 5 days to get it. This was not exactly good news to us at all as this was an Outback 'town' that consisted of a petrol garage and roadhouse, his pokey little garage and a picnic table. We asked about the possibility of taking a risk and driving it to the next big town, Tennant Creek, as they would have more chance of having the part in. He said he thought we should be able to make the journey as it was only a couple of hundred KMS, but that he would be able to come and tow us back if we should break down between leaving him and getting to Tennant Creek. He then very kindly pointed out that he had to tow a guy 120 KMS 3 days previously and that he charged a million dollars a KM, which would also include the charge of his journey to you, plus tax, plus this and that. This was not a good predicament at all, but we decided to take a risk and drive to Tennant Creek where we would at least be able to get a second opinion and, worst case scenario, stay in town that at least had a general store and pub if the news was really bad. So, off along the Stuart Highway we set off, but by now it was mid afternoon, and this meant further set backs as the sun would be setting in just over 2 hours. In Australia, unless you're driving a road train or a train train, you don't drive in the dark. The reason for this is because of the very high risk of hitting an animal, as most of the wildlife comes in search of food after dusk. It is a sad fact, but Lee and I have seen more dead kangaroo's and wallabies on the roadside than we have live ones. I have been totally gobsmacked by what we have seen so far, as it is just so totally different to your average road kill in the UK. Sorry this is pretty morbid (Col, Kelly and Sam - I know you'd appreciate my fascination in this!) I thought I'd seen it all when we saw eagles feeding off a dead horse on the side of the road (this doesn't include the cows, snakes and 3 and a half pigs we have also seen), but when I was explaining my sheer horror and amazement to a taxi driver last week, he said 'hey that's nothing, round here we've had loads of drivers killed or injured when they've run into wild camels!!!' Anyway, I have strayed from my point, which as I'm sure you can see now, is that we couldn't afford to be driving in the dark, so we decided to stop a campsite, that was once a working cattle station, and again had been recommended to us as a great place to stop along the highway on our journey down. The campsite called Banka Banka is itself, quite small compered to the others we had stayed at, but we instantly knew it had unique charm. It had one of those iconic Australian windmills at the top of the hill above the small ranch style house, and a menagerie of wildlife wondering around the grass area, such as calfs, a sheepdog, turkeys etc. We settled ourselves in and decided to go and watch the half hour slide show, which was commentated by the young woman who now ran the place with her English partner. We weren't sure what to expect, but it turned out to be really interesting, and gave a really good insight into the workings of an Australian cattle station.

We were up bright and early in the morning to make our way to Tennant Creek to get our now screaming van to the mechanic. We made it about 20 KMS down the road when there was a sudden 'bang', followed by a smell of burning - not good. Luckily I was able to pull it over to small lay-by that was just coming up as we limped along. A quick look under the bonnet revealed that a belt (fan belt we assumed at this stage) had snapped. We were relieved in some ways that we now knew what the previous problem had been, and that it was unlikely to be the expensive water pump bearing that had been making the noises. We didn't panic, even when we realised that there was no spare fan belt in the van, or any pairs of tights on board, but knew we would have to call some sort of breakdown people to come and assist us. This is where we hit our second problem - we were out somewhere along the highway (no markers as to where you are), with a mobile phone that had absolutely no coverage, and not that we even knew exactly who to call anyway. We knew we would have to stay together no matter what, so decided that the best thing to do would be to see if someone would pull over to the side of the road who would be able to advise us what to do in this situation, so there we stood at the side of the road waving our arms at the next vehicle that passed us. Although we were driving in the outback, we were on a highway and you pretty much pass vehicles every 3-5 minutes or so, so we knew we wouldn't be stranded for too long. The first car coming our way drove straight past us which didn't exactly fill us with confidence, but then fortunately the second truck put his indicator on and made his way over to us. A 50 or so year old man got out to see what the problem was. He had a quick look and said that he couldn't help with the vehicle, but that he could drop us back to the campsite we had just left where there was a payphone so we could call for roadside assitance. As we climed into his small truck, I tried to push all thoughts of Joanne Lee's and Peter Falconio (murdered British backer from back in 2000 or so) out of my paranoid mind. Luckily, he turned out to be a nice enough guy, and certainly helped us out by giving us a lift back to Banka Banka. Joy of joys when we arrived back at the campsite we found out that the payphone only accepted phone cards, and yes you guessed it, we didn't have a phonecard and the small reception at the site didn't sell them either. As luck would have it, the young English guy that also ran the site offered us the use of his radio satellite phone and very kindly offered to drop us back to our van once we had arranged recovery. After many phone calls back and forward we eventually arranged for a pick up truck to meet us back at the van. We were starting to feel like someone had it in for us this day, but then just like that, a little ray of absolute sunshine came and hopped into our lives - baby Stephen. Stephen is a little orphaned kanagaroo, a little over a year old, that was rescued from his mother's pouch by a family who were travelling along the highway last year and came across his recently killed mother. The young boy of the family, Stephen, donated him to the couple at the site, where he had since been hand-fed and raised at in their private garden area. He is totally tame, and the most inquisitive, cute as little thing we have ever seen in our lives. The guy picked him up and held him in his arms like you would a baby and our hearts totally melted as he looked up at us with his big brown eyes, arms outstretched. The guy said it was fine for us to hold him for a while if we wanted - we didn't need to be asked twice and I practically snatched baby Stephen from his arms. Oh my goodness, this was such an amazing thing - I really can't begin to describe how gorgeous this little kangaroo was. He actually looked like he was pulling little faces and smiling at you, and loved being stoked and rocked like a baby - I just wanted to kiss him all over - yes, Stephen totally bowled us both over.

This was the perfect antidote to car troubles and gave us an incredible lift when we could have been feeling so frustrated at our bad luck. We made our way back to the van sitting on the roadside, hoping that it hadn't been broken into whilst we had left it, and found it still sitting there, broken. The pick up truck guy arrived shortly after and after literally looking at it for 1 second, said it was our power steering belt that had snapped, not our fan belt, and certainly not our water pump bearing. He said that we could still drive it to Tennant Creek, but that it would just be without power steering, and in any case, he would be behind us and could stop if there were to be any more problems. We eventually arrived at Tennant Creek and were told that they could not get the part until the next day. At this stage we really were not bothered by having to wait 1 day for the part as we now knew it wouldn't be expensive or too much of a problem to fix. Turns out that it was all covered by the warantee we had on the van when we brought it so we needn't have worried about the cost.

Next day we were on our way, finally once again, towards our intended destination, Alice Springs. We had 1 final night's stop over at a campsite at a road house called Wycliffe Well, which again had been recommended as one of those little gems of a place you must stop at along the way. It proclaims to be the UFO capital of Australia, and the whole site and petrol station and road house is all decked out with UFO and other weird characters. This provided a comical stop over and lots of cheesy photo opportunities before our final leg to Alice.

Finally on the Thursday (2 weeks ago) we arrived in Alice Springs, some 1500 KMS down from Darwin. The next morning we went into town to check out what Alice Springs had to offer, and to look at booking a trip to Ularu, Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta (The Olga's). We spent the next couple of days exploring the Macdonnell Ranges, both east and west at our own pace, traversing gorges and dried up river beds, along mountain tops and desert areas. We booked our trip through a company called 'The Rock Tour' which we came accross in Alice. We were told that they offer a real Aussie experience of touring the rock, which would include sleeping in swags under the stars by Ularu, and out in the middle of the dessert. This both thrilled and terrified us, but we knew of other people who had said they had done it before and that it was an experience not to be missed (Colette, you were our inspiration for this!) For those of you who don't know what a swag is (this was us too before the trip), it's basically like a small matress that rolls up and has a zip cover over the top, so you are enclosed from head to toe in a little padded sack. We were assured that snakes would not be able to climb in and share our little swags, so thought what the hell, lets go for it. We also paid a bit extra to rent one of the tour company's special winter weight sleeping bags, as it is winter in Australia, and the night time temperature in Alice has been falling below freezing most nights!. The trip itself was a 3 day/2 night tour which included lots of long, guided walks by our legend tour guide Dom, to Kings Canyon, Ularu, and Kata Tjuta. There were 21 of us on the trip and Dom had us all sharing jokes and information about ourselves with each other within the first 10 minutes of sitting on the tour bus, so everyone became friendly instantly, and by the end of the trip, we all got on like a house on fire and had a totally excellent time. On the first night back to base camp (middle of dessert) we had to stop along roadside to collect firewood for traditional Aussie camp fire, which we dullly lighted once we arrived at our site. Once the fire was lit, we all helped prepare dinner for that night, which was cooked over the fire, and all sat down to either crack open a tinny (Tooheys) or as in Lee and I's case, poor a plastic cup of warm Goon (cheap cheap cheap and nasty wine), and all sat about chatting before singing to whoever volunteered to play the guitar. This was where I had my first 'I'm having one of those moment's', where just for a few seconds, something inside clicks and you have this realisation that you are doing something so fantastic and that you are so incredibaly happy that you just have the biggest smile on your face, and your heart starts to race.

The trip was really good and we were pleased to get so much rock and canyon climbing in, altough we decided not to climb Ularu itself, and opted for the 9 KM base walk. At the end of the trip on the way back to Alice, we stopped at a camel farm where Lee and one of the other guys from the trip decided to have a quick camel ride (as I didn't really fancy it) - see the pics, very amusing. Later that night we all had a quick shower and change before all meeting up for dinnner and drinks in Alice Springs. A fantastic, very druken night was had by all, and numbers were swapped for those of us headed in the same direction of our travels.

Lee and I arranged to meet up with a hilarious English guy called James once we arrived in Carins, and also a lovely German girl called Jana who was also headed to Cairns next.

It was our plan to leave Alice the next day, but as previously explained, our plans were scuppered by the incredible amound of time wasted in the internet cafe trying to write this very blog, so we ended up leaving Alice last Friday lunch time, for the very long drive up and East towards Cairns.

We shared the driving and took the drive in 3 stages, with stopovers once again at Tennant Creek, Mount Isa which is in the top centre of Australia, and then a final push to Townsville for a night. We arrived in Cairns on Monday afternoon, and promptly arranged to meet up with James and Jana that night for drinks in town.

As I'm sure most of you know, it was my (30th) birthday yesterday, and Lee and I wanted to do something special to celebrate it as I would'nt be at home seeing friends and family for usual drinks and meal, so we had a very lovely day out yesterday day time, and then met up with James and a few other people for a huge night in town last night.

Just so you are aware, it can be quite hard trying to find an internet cafe at times, especially where we have been travelling and on trips etc, so please don't think we are not interested in letting you all know what is going on, it's just that this really is the first chance we have had to get to a cafe since leaving Alice.

We are as grateful as ever for your lovely messages left on our blog site, and for emails you have been sending. We will try to reply and send emails whenever possible, but if it does go a bit quiet for a while then you know why.

We hope you are all well and are sorry to hear that you are having c*ap British weather again at the moment.

Love to you all, be in touch soon.

All the best, Jo and Lee, xx