The End

Well I'm happy to say that I am once again home. A safe journey back over many many hours to end up at home with my own bed close by, and the cat abeing just as needy as ever. Thank you all for reading along, and commenting with me on this trip, it made me feel like I wasn't doing everything solo. I hope you had some good laughs along with me. And you can count on more good stories straight from me now, but that also means you'll get the long version, so maybe you want to stick with what you already know. I'm sure I'll see everyone fairly soon, even the Winstar crew. And thanks to Tom for getting me flights across the globe, and to Paul for not letting the house burn down and keeping the cat alive. Finally, thank you to everyone encouraging me to go out and actually do this. I would have been much more reluctant without a little nudge.

Guy

Back to the beginning

Well I'm back to where my trip began. After Brisbane I made the short trip to Surfers Paradise. Very cool place. The beach was beautiful, lots of cafes, shops, everything. I wish I could have stayed a bit longer, and I probably could have, but I played it safe and gave myself the extra day to get to Sydney, which I didn't need. Surfers would have been better if I had someone to go out and enjoy the night life with, but by the time the sun went down, I'd already seen everything twice, and I wasn't feeling to good. That's okay though, I was on the beach, and my room over looked the main strip.
That was tuesday. So weds. I made for Newcastle, which is about 130km north of Sydney. Everything was going great until 9:30 in the am when my camera decided it was done for the remainder of the trip. No, not battery or memory issues. I appears to be something with the lens. Which I can live with, except that no one gets to see the lighthouse I stopped at, or the most easterly point of australia (not so suprisingly 1.5km from the lighthouse), but it was a great view of more rugged coast, and a little town with its great sandy beach. So I'm sorry but these pictures are the last ones. But you've seen everything from Sydney, so not biggie.
I guess I was a little in the zone driving wise because I bypassed Newcastle and was in Sydney 11 hours later. I've learned that you can climb one of the bridges over the harbour. A little spendy, but I could be worth it. I'll at least check it out. Otherwise I'm just planning on enjoying my few remaining hours here before heading home. I'll do a finaly post then so people know I"m back. Until then...then.

And this would be the last museum I visited. I found the Ripley's Believe It or Not in Surfers Paradise. Very amuseing place, and far better than the fun house I went to later on. Maybe even better than the round of mini golf I played later that day.  

I think if I ever have the chance to do something like this again, I'm gonna get me one of these. What could go wrong... 

When I think of the movie Mad Max, this is what I think of. Big grille protector, windshield screen, dual intake ports, and flood lights. 

Here's another huse spider I found. Keep in mind this is from about 15 feet away. It was big enough for me to catch a glimpse of it from across the street. The web spanned between 2 lightposts. Not sure what its caught there, but I'm sure it was big too. 

Here's the really cool, and big, hostel I stayed at while in Brisbane.  

Here's another questionable road I happened upon. It led up this hill to a wonderful view of the countless sugar cane fields in the area.  

Ah yes, the long awaited picture of a kangaroo, or roos as there are 2 of them. These little guys were at lucky bay outside of Esprense. I would have gotten closer, but they didn't seem to like me so much, and I wasn't in the mood to have to run for it with everyone on the beach watching. As a side story. I meet a guy for the UK, Neil, would was actually chased by a couple of sheep in New Zealand. I guess he was chased quite a ways until he got back to his car. I guess I didn't want a similar story to be able to share. 

Here is a pict. of the latest and greatest ride. Not to shabby even if it is a ford. Like the holden, it does well on the petrol, and has enough geddy up to make passing fun. It was nice and dirty but it rained last night, so it's a bit less impressive. 

So here is a picture of the 200+ foot tree previously mentioned some time ago. This would be looking down through the trap door about 180 ft. up. It was a lot easier, effort wise, to get up and down than I thought it would be. I was just really really sure about every hand and foot placement! 

Well it's been an adventurous past few days. Driving by more sugar cane, banana, and mango plantations than I care to admitt. Killing wildlife too small to dent the car. And back to wandering the streets of Australia's fine city centers. Today I went to the Brisbane autoshow. Very interesting. Sat in a couple different models of the smart car. Saw companies I've never even heard of. And had the pleasure of trying to figure out which cars were what back in the states.
Another cool thing is the public pool system. It's divided into 3 parts, all with sandy boarders as one would find at the beach. All free, very well planned, and in the middle of a park that was the location for the 1988 worlds fair I believe. Also wandered into couple more museums. It's just so easy here, especially because of the heat combined with the humidity. I know...poor guy has to deal with all that warmth, that must suck. Well I'm sorry, it's hot. Even the locals think so.
Tomorrow off to surfers paradise, and maybe just sitting on the beach. Haven't done that too much yet. But who knows what will really happen!

Brisbane

I've made it to Brisbane and have already takena quick foot tour. Like Sydney and Perth, this is a nice place. A good mix of modern and older buildings. I found a hostel downtown, and I must say it pretty cool. An 8 level hostel with everything you need near by. Even a car park right a cross the street to house the new ride.

East coast

Well I made it to the opposite side of the country with no problems. Got into a really nice hotel in Cairns. What's a couple bucks when you live in style? LEt me tell you about Cairns, think jungle. Very humid, and pretty dang hot, perhaps even Florida in the summer. And the rest of the coast hasn't been much better, weather wise anyway. After not much interest in Cairns, I wandered down to Townsville by way of the mountains. A great drive with switch-backs, blind turns and what not. My reward for the detour was a nice place to eat overlooking a crater lake. Unfortunately townsville wasn't any better, but who cares. Friday it was my task to get farther down the coast to Mackay. That was a bit better. Maybe because I found a Irish pub to sit at for a bit, then went on to some Mexican food. Both were fine choices. Today, saturday, I've pushed a bit farther down the road to Marysbrough. A quiet little town, not much happening and I"m very suprised to find an internet cafe, let alone an open one. Tomorrow I'll head to Brisbane or Surfers Paridise. Haven't decided yet.
Oh yeah, almost forgot. So I'm a nature killer here too. For some reason either I have some unconsious thing about birds, or they get suicidal around me. A week ago, I hit a parrot because it thought it would be a good idea to fly right infront of the car. He didn't make it. Today it was something a bit bigger. It was going after some road kill when it ran into my lane, jumped high enough to clear the grill, but not high enought to clear the hood. I got it, feathers everywhere. I saw it land about 5 seconds later in a heap off the road. I'm sure the driver going the other way had a good show.
All right, enough for now.

Guy

Next step

Well, western australia has been great, but it is time to move on. After a few relaxing days in Perth, today I fly to Cairns, which is on the north east coast. Then I can spend some more quality time in a car driving back to Sydney. I can only hope that this new ride will equal the Holden now placed in road trip lore. See you on the other side.