I arrived in Melbourne, to join my friend Sian in St Kilda, a beach suburb of the city. We had decided to hire a camper van and drive along the Great Ocean Road to Adelaide and then travel north to Alice Springs, stopping at Ayers Rock on the way. However after some research we discovered how expensive this trip was going to be, thankfully before we booked an organised tour we found two camper vans that needed to be re-located. This is a cheap and popular way to see Australia. Because of the vast distances within Australia, often people want to drive in one direction. Rental companies then require people to "re-locate" the camper van. There is a minimal charge ($1 a day with Wicked and $5 a day for the slightly more plush Britz camper van), you must pay for fuel, but often receive a small refund and the time between locations is limited. Sian and I were given a Wicked van (pretty basic people carrier converted into a camper) to drive from Melbourne to Alice Springs in 6 days. This is a distance of 2500k's (1550 miles) roughly. Yes we were quite ambitious. But we had a second camper van to collect in Alice Springs and return to Adelaide, with a mile allowance that would cover the detour out to Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon. We bought an extra two days (normal costs) for this part of the trip, giving us 6 days for the return, 2000k's (1240 miles).
Our "Wicked" Van
We gave ourselves enough time to take in the Great Ocean Road and camped near the Twelve Apostles (giant rocks off South Australia's coast). It was around 6 when we pulled into the campsite and Sian optimistically asked the manager, "what time is sunrise"? The following morning, having slept in we sheepishly left the campsite at around 10am.
Some of the 12
We were surprised when the Great Ocean Road left the ocean and went in land, it seemed to defy the trade descriptions act. However I did spot a Kangaroo and actually the only one I have seen thus far in the wild.
Technical Hitch - I'm typing this in Melbourne's State Library and there seems to be some problems with Blogger. Tomorrow is my first day of working in a coffee shop, making sandwiches (after 12 months without work, it's going to be tough!), so rather than leave this post on my laptop I thought I would post anyway and then carry on with a new post when I'm back online, sometime soon hopefully.
2 comments:
Man, I was about to write you an all worried e-mail too, just thought to re-check your blog to make sure you were indeed lost! I'm happy you're just too busy enjoying yourself. Don't forget to post a picture of your coffee shop, I'd sure want to see that! (And, just before reading your last comment, I was about to say "it's going to be so tough starting work again"!)
Keep doing great!
Nice pictures. Very interesting article, I really enjoyed reading.
I like camper vans. They are very popular and useful, but not so many people can buy and service it. But they can go and rent it in van hire company.
I also really love traveling! My friends and I also rented camper van last year for two weeks and we had a nice trip across country, visited a lot of interesting places! I think traveling in camper van is like freedom, you can go and stop anywhere you want.
Thanks for blog.
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