Cost of living in Sydney vs Cardiff

An idea as to why our finances are running out so quickly...

Bondi Bound

To help cheer us up from our employment woes we decided to get back to basics and why we came to Australia in the first place; to travel and enjoy the sunshine. We had already been to Manly, so we thought we would head to Sydney’s (and possibly Australia’s) most iconic beach – Bondi Beach. For any of you Bondi Rescue fans out there, we were going to keep an eye out at the Lifeguard Station for Hoppo, Kerrbox and the rest of the lifeguard gang.

Classic tourist behaviour...

    

We had bought a $51 a week multi ticket pass that allowed us to travel by bus, train and ferry through Sydney. So we headed down to Burwood Station and caught a train to Bondi Junction (via a transfer at Redfern) where we then caught a bus to Bondi Beach; a journey that only took 45 minutes or so; not bad.

We soon spotted one of our favourite shops – Ben & Jerry’s – but were aghast to find that for one scoop of ice cream it would cost $5.40 so we sensibly controlled our ice cream cravings and headed onto the beach. We soon saw the Lifeguard Station and had a look for any of the lifeguards we recognised from the Bondi Rescue programme but unfortunately we couldn’t spot any. Still, a lifeguard quad drove past that could have been driven by Hoppo or Kerrbox…

The beach itself was nice, it was quite busy and the sea was really cold but there were still plenty of swimmers and surfers. We saw one surfer who was particularly impressive spinning his board around 360 degrees and putting everyone else to shame. That was cool, but in the main the surfers were tourists having surfing lessons.

We spent a bit of time soaking up the sun on the beach before walking along the coastal path that links Bondi to two beaches to the south; Tamarama and Bronte. We first came to Tamarama beach after walking along a path with outstanding views of Bondi and the coast. As a point of interest, Tamarama and Bondi have two of the oldest surf lifesaving clubs in Australia. Tamarama beach was not so nice as Bondi, it was smaller and there were large rock formations near the coast which made the waves break nicely for surfing, but it made the sea hard to swim in – we saw one lad run to dive into the sea and as he dived into the wave he was knocked backwards a yard or two; hilarious but an indicator of how strong the waves were.

As seen on Australian Dulux advert

We followed the coastal path to Bronte where the beach was a little bigger than Tamarama but still not as big as Bondi. It was lovely, quieter and a nice place to head if you didn’t want the crowds that Bondi attracts. The sea didn’t seem as strong as Tamarama so I think if we were to head somewhere to relax in the future, it would be Bronte over Bondi. We were getting a little tired by this point in the day as we had done quite a lot of walking and traveling so we caught the bus back to Bondi Junction and started our journey back to our house in Concord.

All I want for Christmas is…a job

Nicola and I began emailing our CVs and cover letters via SEEK (an online recruitment company) in the middle of November. We initially applied for jobs in our fields, and after looking through numerous job adverts we applied for around ten jobs initially each; the vast majority of which we were easily qualified to do. We didn’t just apply for jobs in our fields either, although the first week we did just do that. On week two of our job hunt we applied for jobs in retail, fast food, supermarkets, travel, admin, and recruitment (ironic?). We signed up to job agencies, recruitment sites and responded to adverts.

It is now three weeks since we applied and we have had next to no response. I have a small lead, but it’s only a possibility at the moment. We’ve had rejections from a few places but the majority have not replied; which is annoying. It's still early days, but we don't know how long we can afford to live here whilst looking for work.

We have spoken to recruitment agents who were useless and told us we didn’t meet the criteria despite not asking anything about us. We’ve been served by brain dead simpletons, rude teenagers and people who cannot string a sentence together in English yet we have been told that there are more suitable candidates or we don’t have customer service experience for the roles. McDonalds rejected me eight times (humiliating in itself) and then I go into a McDonalds (as I still can’t resist the food despite the stinging rejection) and I am served by rude imbeciles. It’s absurd to the point of being funny; which it isn’t because our money is running low.

We have tried farming and I know people say there are jobs in farming but we didn’t come to Australia to work 100km from the nearest town to pick fruit in the blazing sun with no break for 12 hours. It’s tantamount to slave labour and the wages are poor after considering the expense of traveling there, accommodation and living costs. We have no bar experience and were told there is no point in getting a RSA (one of the many pointless certificates they have out here to convince themselves that they are qualified when they just serve beer) as it costs $100 and there are hundreds of people after those same jobs. Construction, well, it’s a man’s job and anyone who knows me knows I’m not a labouring sort of chap – as I was also told by a recruiter when I thought I would enquire.

We made a breakthrough of sorts when we went to a recruiter in Sydney…many firms don’t employ people on a working holiday visa and won’t consider them even if they are qualified. So basically, unless you are lucky (which we were also told you have to be and we don’t seem to be so far) you won’t find a professional job out here in our circumstances. We have come to the realisation (which has been reinforced by numerous third parties) that you should apply and secure work out here in a professional capacity before you arrive as when you are here on a working holiday visa it is a lot harder to find; not impossible, but harder.

There is so much bullsh*t out here about experience and the requirements of the role. For instance, we saw a job advert for a receptionist that required the candidate to have two or more years’ management experience and an interest in stocks and shares…words fail me. We have been informed that most Australians are lazy and try to have as little responsibility as possible for as much money as possible, so there is a strange situation where there are plenty of professional jobs in management and senior levels but hardly any at the bottom end of the scale. We’ve seen more adverts for store managers in retail than we have for retail assistants. There is a level of bullsh*t out here that far exceeds anything in the UK. In fact, for some positions it is quite staggering and if the Australians had a satirical or ironic sense of humour it would be funny, but they don’t…and it isn’t funny. Who’d have thought you would have to be interviewed and shortlisted for a job as a cleaner?! No offence to cleaners by that statement by the way but that is the reality out here and it highlights the difficulty we are having in finding a job. Even casual Christmas retail positions in tiny shops out here aren’t offering us work, and Nicola has five years’ retail experience four of which were over the Christmas period.

We live in hope, but at the same time we are being pragmatic and realistic. There is only so long you can live in a country where it costs £2 for a bottle of water without a job. We are saving money by moving into a house for a few weeks but it may come to the point where, unless a job comes along after New Year we’ll have to move on and continue our travels and maybe come home a lot sooner than we had imagined. We have not been blown away by the standard of living out here as we would have thought, most towns are small, remote and lifeless and the job market is more prohibitive than we would have imagined. We have enjoyed traveling Australia, and some of the sights are beautiful and the weather is great, but that’s not enough if you can’t find work. So unless we find work in the next few weeks, we may pack up our bags and head to New Zealand, Fiji or wherever to continue our travels. We are reaching a point where, if we stay too long out here looking for work and our money runs out, we’ll have to come home without having travelled beyond Australia. There is the chance that if we leave too soon and continue with our travels a job may come up after we have left and we may miss out. It’s a tough decision because we do want to experience living and working out here but at the moment all we are doing is experiencing spending money and being rejected for positions we would not have even considered applying for in the UK. It feels like being qualified is not enough unless you are also Australian or not qualified but you are Australian.

Me, bitter? Surely not…

Progress update: We have a house in Sydney!

On Monday night we (primarily Nicola) visited a few websites looking for flat shares etc. in the Sydney area. We mainly used Gumtree and Easyroommate and we found a few promising looking house share opportunities. We sent off five emails in total, we had trimmed down a lot of maybes and so on due to move in date and cost per week, and we created an advert outlining who we were and what we were after.

As a basic member of Easyroommate we could email premium members and they could read our message, however, if we emailed or were emailed by another basic member then we could not and they could not read our message. So that knocked two house shares of the list. We had a response from two ladies about their rooms, one fell through as she did not get back to us but we did manage to go and view a room. It was advertised as an alternative to “overpriced and over rated hostels” and the price stated $225 a week. It was located in Sydney’s CBD not far from Central Station. We thought it could be promising.

We arrived at the agreed time (12:30) and went up to the reception. We were shown around by an Italian girl and the two rooms we were shown looked okay, not great but they may have been okay to take us through the festive season when hostel and hotel prices go through the roof. After our tour of the place, which was a little grimy and rough-and-ready, we sat in the communal lounge (two sofas for a place supposedly catering for 38 people) and waited for the owner to arrive. She did, finally, at 12:55 which I wasn’t impressed with. She was late and didn’t have the decency to let us know, if the Italian girl had not shown us around we would have been twiddling our thumbs for almost half an hour. Anyway, she was useless. She knew next to nothing about the availability of the room, which room we were going to be renting or when we could move in. She also said the room was $225 per week per person. That was not advertised. I couldn’t understand how one person could rent the room for $225 per week, but if two people wanted to rent the same room they would have to pay $225 each. As soon as she said the price the house went from a maybe to a definite no. The advertised “alternative” to “overpriced and overrated” hostels was actually a hostel in all but name that had fewer facilities and was more expensive. We were a little disappointed as we had been having rotten luck on the job hunt front that day (more on that later) and headed back to our hostel.

However, not long after arriving at our hostel we had a response to our advert. We checked out the photographs of the house that the lady had sent us and decided that we would go and visit. It was located in Concord, in Inner West Sydney, a ten minute train ride from the CBD. We arrived at 18:30 and were shown around the room. It was spacious and light and the roommates seemed very friendly. The area seemed very pleasant too, a lot of shops and restaurants and a mall nearby. We were impressed. We had a tour of the area by one of the men living in the house on the way back to the train station and on the train journey back to the CBD we emailed the owner and said we’d take the room. The room, bills included, will cost us $295 a week. That seems like a lot in the UK, and it seems like a lot to us, but after searching house sites and so on we’ve actually got a bargain. So, for at least the next five weeks we’d say, we have our own address and a place to call home.

We moved in the next day and properly met the house mates who all seemed very nice and friendly. We paid the first two weeks rent and bond in advance and moved our bags into our room. We actually unpacked for the first time in ten weeks and put our rucksacks to one side, hoping not to see them for the next few months! Nicola put up some pictures to make the pace feel homely and we settled in for our first night in our first house together…

Back to Sydney; on the house and job hunt

We left Surfers Paradise on the 09:22 bus to the airport which took us along the part of the coast we did not see on our way in. The views were lovely and the bus ride more comfortable than the one on the way in. We arrived at the airport and checked our bags in and obtained our boarding passes; we also treated ourselves to a Krispy Kreme doughnut – I went for a raspberry coconut doughnut and Nicola a strawberries and cream filled doughnut.

We took off at just gone 12:00 due to a few delays and the flight was smooth. The only thing worth mentioning was that the parents behind us had named their baby Jagger; interesting choice of name. We landed at 14:40 Sydney time (an hour ahead of QLD time) and caught the skytrain into Central Station. We had not booked a hostel but we had looked online and there was one called Nomads near Central Station that said online that it had private rooms available. Within a five minute walk from Central Station we found the hostel and checked in - $150 for two nights.

The cost of accommodation across Australia is extraordinarily high, especially considering the standard of hotel/hostel/motel you get for your money. The main outgoing of ours over the last 7 weeks has been accommodation. If you consider that we pay on average around $75 - $80 a night you can see how quickly our money gets spent. That is why we decided to look for an apartment/house share for a month or two. We worked out that if we lived in a hostel and paid $75 a night, and worked say 30 hours a week at $20 an hour, after tax and superannuation (a whopping 39% tax of your income) we would be making around $400 profit a month (we also factored in food at $100 a week). Not ideal really considering if we spent 6 months working we would make a combined profit of just under $5000 – or around two months travel money. So the plan this week is to find a flat to rent for a month and move in ideally before December, that way we’ll have a place for Christmas and an address we can have stuff sent to. We are thinking of maybe renting a place for two to three months depending on how the job hunt/work life treats us. If we don’t find anything it’ll obviously be less but if we find something we enjoy/make decent money from then we’ll stay for the 6 months our visas allow.

The next but equally important item on our agenda is to find jobs – and the sooner the better. We have sent off a few CVs or resumes out here) to job adverts in our fields but so far no joy. Embarrassingly, I even applied for jobs in McDonalds and my self-esteem took several blows after not one, not two but seven rejections! Being told that there were more suitable applicants for a crew member position (i.e. flipping big macs) was pretty mortifying, especially considering the majority of the staff we have come across so far are either spotty 16 year olds or have a very basic grasp of English. We have been told, and have read through recruitment agencies, that Australian firms favour locals, fair enough to some extent I guess. So if the job comes down to you and an Australian, the Australian will get it. They are pretty protectionist with their work force out here. Some jobs will advertise Permanent Residents or Citizens Only so all graduate scheme jobs were out of the window,  some even entry level roles in supermarkets and generic office jobs say the same thing. So far, we have found that Australia is awash with jobs if you want to pick fruit, or do manual labour, but if you don’t then the jobs are not so easy to come by especially if you want something rather more specific i.e. paralegal or medical laboratory scientist. Nevertheless, our hostel had a work agency style contact which we signed up to and she gave us the number of a temping agency and she assured us that we should be able to find temp work within a couple of days. If there is a grain of truth in that, which I seriously hope there is, we would be able to move into our own flat and remain in the black whilst looking for jobs more suited to us (i.e. paralegal and medical laboratory scientist). Fingers crossed by the end of the week we’ll have a flat/house share lined up as well as a job to tie us over until something more suitable comes along.

Surfers Paradise a.k.a a Schoolies Nightmare

After dropping off our bags in our hostel, Nicola and I fancied exploring Surfers Paradise. The Scouser who picked us up mentioned something about the town being overrun by Schoolies and Nicola had mentioned that this time of year was a popular one for Schoolies too. I’ll admit, I had no idea what a schoolie was, I had just nodded along taking in information and not really processing what it meant. I was about to find out.

The skyline of Gold Coast is impressive, huge high rises situated mere metres from golden sandy beaches. We had thought before we arrived that it looked like a thriving city centre with business. We soon discovered that all the high rises were hotels and the thriving city centre was akin to a Benidorm style city, just substituting old, pink Brits for young, obnoxious Aussies. From what we could work out, a schoolie is essentially a term for children between the ages of say 14 and 18 who are unleashed upon Surfers Paradise to drink and sh*g their way through the school holidays. As you can imagine, it was not what Nicola and I had planned for our trip to the Gold Coast. The two days we spent at the Gold Coast were spent trying to avoid large groups of schoolies who were basically spoilt, rich, obnoxious little sh*ts who their parents were no doubt glad to be rid of for a few weeks. Huge groups of half-clad children carrying crates of beer and shouting and hollering at each other across the road and across restaurants roamed Surfers Paradise. They were even shouting at each other from opposing hotel balconies. To sum it up, it was like Magaluf/Ibiza/Falaraki for 16 year olds; it was awful.

We did make two trips to the beach however, which were amazing. The views were incredible and the sea was refreshing. The sand was white, warm and fine and the sea was yet again a lovely azure blue. The waves were pretty sizeable so we did a bit of body surfing as well as sun bathing so the trip was not a waste. It was a beautiful city but we came at the wrong time of year.

We spent time thinking about what we would do next, we planned out trips down the coast to Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour and priced up greyhound tickets but it all added up to quite a substantial amount. We looked into relocs for another campervan but there were none available. We had a grand plan to campervan it from Cairns all the way down to Sydney but alas, logistically it was not feasible so we booked two plane tickets to Sydney for half the price of greyhound tickets (to all the above destinations plus Sydney) which would also take one hour instead of 16 hours. Our money is starting to run short and we need to find a job lest we be home by January! Sydney seems the most likely destination to get work after we decided against farming due to the heat and the nature of the work. So, Sydney Part II awaits…let the job hunt begin anew.

Family box.... or meal for two??

Campervan Diaries Day 4 - Bundaberg to Brisbane (361km) and on to Surfers Paradise

After our nightmare day driving yesterday we were looking forward to a fresh start. Thankfully, due to the distance we had driven over the first two days, yesterday’s delays did not set us back too much. We were only 361km from Brisbane which we calculated would take us around four hours to drive.

We started the day by giving the campervan a little wash down. One of the conditions of the contract was that we would be liable to pay a $220 cleaning charge if the camper was returned dirty. Unfortunately for us, due to the dry and dusty conditions in Queensland the campervan was filthy; dark dust was ingrained into the panels of the camper it seemed as we tried to clean it. Nonetheless, after half hour or so of hosing it down it was looking a lot better, although still not quite spotless. We did the final few checks and topped up the water tank and went on our way. Our first stop was actually the camp site reception, as we arrived after hours the lovely gentleman who ran the place said we could pay in the morning. So, instead of driving off and having a free night we returned the man’s courtesy and kindness by paying the sum of $32.

Nicola drove us out of Bundaberg (hopefully the last time we’ll see that place) and headed towards Gympie. We had planned for Nicola to drive to Gympie and then I’d take over and drive into Brisbane. The drive was smooth and trouble free, which was a relief. We were stopped at dozens (literally dozens, that’s not me exaggerating here) of road works and were relieved each time we passed through. We stopped at a layby just north of Gympie for Nicola and I to swap driving duties and I continued our drive along the Bruce Highway. The terrain all day was farmed fields (primarily sugar cane in this area) that were a lush green and crops that stood towering over cars. It was a pleasant drive and it was not until an hour and a half outside of Brisbane that the road changed from the A1 Bruce Highway to the M1 Bruce Highway and two and then three driving lanes formed. I never thought I’d be so glad to see three lanes of tarmac; turned into a proper truckie on this journey! The joy was short lived because after thirty clicks or so (30km) the road became the single lane A1 again.

The traffic started to pick up around 45 minutes to Brisbane and it was along that stretch of road that we could see towns of a fair size, before now most towns were nothing more than hamlets. We passed a few bush fires along the way and even had to quickly change lanes to avoid driving into a fire engine that was sat stationary in the right hand lane; the fire fighters were outside fighting a bush fire. The drive in to Brisbane was easy enough as we turned off onto the Gold Coast highway around 20km from Brisbane. We were running very short of petrol (again, we didn’t learn) and managed to get to a service station with the fuel tank on empty. We used the stop to give the campervan one last hose down before we set off again with Nicola (chief navigator) directing me through the traffic of outer Brisbane towards the industrial area where we had to drop off the campvervan.

Who let the dogs out?....

 

We made it to the Britz campervan depot at 13:00 on the dot, two hours early. We handed the camper back and enquired about any further relocs that were coming up – preferably Brisbane to Sydney but unfortunately there were none. We were told the campervan was fine and that we would receive the $1000 bond back, much to our relief. We also had $250 in fuel back, but owing to our sojourns to Mission Beach, Finch Hatton Gorge and Agnes Water (not to mention the huge loop detour following the crash) we had spent around $400 on fuel. Still, to see those three places was worth the $150 in fuel – the nerve testing detour on fuel fumes alone was not worth it however; the anxiety from that trip may have knocked a year off our lives.

Our total driving distance over the four days amounted to a whopping 1786 km. However, if you include the detours and day trips that figure easily tips over the 2000 km mark. So an average of 500 km per day - a future in long distance lorry driving awaits us!

We ordered a taxi and headed to Bowen Hills Station in Brisbane where we boarded a train to the Gold Coast. Before we left for Australia I though the Gold Coast was a region, it turns out that it is a city with the very famous Surfer’s Paradise area within. As we had headed down the back stairs at Bowen Hills Station we hadn’t actually bought a ticket. The train conductors were in a bit of a bother because we couldn’t actually buy tickets on the train – weird – so they said as we were tourists (well, they didn’t say that in so many words but it was implied…or at least inferred anyway) we could pay as we left Nerang Station (closest station to Gold Coast) as we left the turnstiles. Well, when we arrived at Nerang Station the turnstiles were open and unsupervised so we had two free train tickets to the Gold Coast; sweet – but don’t tell the conductors!

We hopped aboard a bus that resembled a sardine can of people and trundled slowly towards Surfer’s Paradise. The bus ride cost $10 and lasted around 30 minutes but we had some lovely view upon arrival. We arrived at the Surfer’s Paradise Transit Centre that was closed for refurbishment and called our hostel who offered a free pick up service. We were picked up by an amiable Scouser who told us he had been in Gold Coast for four months and it was his favourite place in Australia. That seemed promising, but before long he dropped in the caveat that he had only been to Byron bay, Sydney and Melbourne in 11 months. Still…his recommendation seemed genuine enough.

We checked into our hostel and were taken to a separate house further down the street where the private rooms were; it felt like living in a house share as there was one other room with two people and we had a large shared lounge and kitchen, as well as a shared bathroom and toilet. There was a bunk bed in the room (double on the bottom single on top) that made it look like a teenager’s bedroom but other than that it was pleasant enough, it even had a balcony.

Campervan Diaries Day 3 – Rockhampton to Bundaberg via Agnes Water (347km plus approx. 347km detour)

We slept much better in the campsite than on the side of the motorway, believe it or not, and we even allowed ourselves the luxury of sleeping in until 06:30 and leaving at 08:00. We had planned to head to Agnes Water for our stop off, which was a two and a half hour drive away and an hour round trip away from the Bruce Highway. The day started well, we made good time from Rockhampton and were nearing Miriam Vale, the turn off town towards Agnes Water, by 10:00. Nicola and I swapped driving duties and Nicola drove from Bororen, a town near Miriam Vale, to Agnes Water. We saw some more road signs, the classic Australian kangaroo sign and also a koala road sign.

We arrived in Agnes Water and parked up, walking across a little bridge to get to the beach. The beach reminded both Nicola and I of Llangennith, a beach in the Gower. I honestly think that if Swansea had the weather, people would flock to the beaches as the Gower coast is so beautiful, Agnes Water really did look just like Llangennith but hotter. The water was warm too, 24 degrees according to the life guards. We dipped our toes in and it felt like a bath; it was amazing. We had a quick walk along the beach and as we were getting back onto the dry sand we started to feel the ground beneath us heat up – the sand got so hot we were running towards the shade; I think my feet would have blistered if we had stayed on the sand any longer.  

  

  

We then drove a few kilometres (or clicks) north, to the town of 1770. The town marks the spot where Captain James Cook (then Lieutenant Cook) first set anchor and came ashore in Queensland (then called something else I’d imagine, or called nothing at all) in 1770. The town was not really a town, just a few houses, a cairn marking the spot (or near enough) where Captain Cook landed and a campsite. We took some photos, had some lunch and headed back on the way.

  

We made it back to Miriam Vale and headed south along the Bruce Highway where after around 50km we came to a stop at road works. There are roadworks all along the Bruce Highway, it seems as if they are completing all the repair work that needs to be completed all at once; it really is a pain. There was quite a wait and a few cars started turning around and driving back north, we waited but we started to fear that there had been an accident. Around 20 minutes after first getting there a road worker spoke to us and explained that there had been an accident. A campervan had ignored his stop sign and carried on driving and as the lane was one lane due to the roadwork the campervan drove straight into oncoming traffic. The bloke said we could either turn around and go back the way we came and loop south near Agnes Water and take the back road down to a place called Lowmead and then head back onto the Bruce Highway from there or wait it out as he didn’t know how long it would take to clear the road after the accident. He said going via Lowmead would take around an hour and we’d be 10 minutes further down the road than we were now. We decided to wait, our fuel was near quarter empty and we didn’t want to go back on ourselves and use up that fuel to just go an extra 10 minutes. However, we soon saw police cars, fire engines, ambulances and air ambulances go past and we started to fear that the accident was pretty serious. Sure enough, after an hour of waiting another road worker came to us and said the road was going to be closed for another six hours, so in the end we had no choice but to go back on ourselves.

We made it to Miriam Vale and turned east towards Agnes Water, our fuel was running low but we came to a cross roads and thought we’d take the road to Bundaberg instead of back to Agnes Water and refuel at a gas station on the road. Up to this point gas stations had been every 35km or so…not on this road. We started getting towards Bundaberg but after around 80km of driving (including up from the Bruce Highway) we hadn’t come across a gas station and our fuel light had come on. We started to worry, we were in the middle of nowhere (by this point we were driving past farms and nothing else) and it was getting to around 16:00 and we had driven around 10 -15km already with the fuel light on. We came to a crossroads and one sign said “Bundaberg 64km” and another said “Lowmead 15km”. We could see Lowmead on the map and figured it must have a petrol station so we headed there. A nervous 15km ensued as we drove through country lanes passing farm after farm until we finally arrived t Lowmead…only to discover that Lowmead consisted of a school, a hotel and a church. No gas station. We estimated we had been driving for about 30km with the fuel light on, maybe more. We didn’t know how much farther we could travel so we stopped and asked a local at the hotel where the nearest gas station was…back towards Agnes Water the way we had come but a shorter way was along a gravel track. He said the gas station at Rosedale (which was 13km along the road to Bundaberg from the crossroads where we headed for Lowmead) was shut and the only gas station nearby was at Fingerboard near Agnes Water.

Seriously starting to worry about being stuck in the middle of nowhere we headed off along a gravel track following the guy’s instructions. Each hill we came to left us more pale and ashen as we prayed the campervan would make it up the hill and not run out of fuel. We came to another crossroads where the guy said to turn right, however, when we got there we thought turning right was heading in the wrong direction so we turned left. We were lucky we stuck to our guns because after around 5km (and about 20-25km from Lowmead) we came across the gas station. We rolled into the gas station on nothing but fumes and will power and were mightily relieved to refuel. The problem out here is that there are hill billy farmers around and we didn’t fancy walking onto their property complaining of a broken down campervan; not meaning to be judgemental but I reckon we’d have seen the last of our camper and our freedom had we headed onto their land! We’d have ended up like Chinese or Romanian people who have been promised a passport only to arrive in the UK and be forced into prostitution and/or drug production factories in Port Talbot – by that I mean we’d have become slaves to hill billy farmers. Also, if we had to walk to the nearest gas station we would have been walking for miles, we were not even sure how far along the road the station was. In the heat, and on the narrow back roads it would be a death trap waiting to happen.

When we arrived at the gas station we learned more details about the accident; one person had died and four were seriously and potentially fatally injured and all aged between 19 and 27. A sobering reminder of the dangers of the road.

We refuelled and I took over driving and headed towards Bundaberg, again. Nicola had been at the wheel for around five hours (I’m a monster I know) and our progress by the map was minimal, we had gone around 50km…extremely demoralising especially as Nicola had driven along the same stretch of road four times! We were feeling tired and drained so we opted to camp at Bundaberg instead of travelling any further. We had planned originally to drive to Gympie, about 2 -3 hours down the road but due to the delays we wanted to rest up. We were glad we had not listened to the man at Lowmead and turned right at the crossroads because there was not a gas station for 70km…we would never have made it.

On the drive to Bundaberg our spirits were lifted as we saw a kangaroo hopping across the road in front of us – don’t worry, I didn’t go all Aussie and run it over. It hopped safely to the other side which made us happy that at least one kangaroo between Cairns and Bundaberg didn’t get smashed into oblivion by a truckie (Aussie slang for trucker). We arrived at Bundaberg exactly three weeks to the day that we last left, even driving in on the same road that we drove into from the dairy farm. We had done so much in the last three weeks that the dairy farm seems a lifetime ago. We made it to a campsite at 18:30 and reception and check in shut at 18:00. We were gutted. However, there was an emergency only afterhours number which we thought screw it let’s call anyway and a lovely old chap turned up and after some joking around let us stay on the site and pay in the morning; an absolute lifesaver, a lovely man at Cane Village Holiday Park on the outskirts of Bundaberg. We parked up and whilst filling our water tank got chatting to an older man in a campervan next to us who told us tales of his and his late partner’s camping travels around Canada and the USA – drives that made our 1700km Cairns to Brisbane feel like Swansea to Cardiff!

After a long and exhausting day, we finally made it to bed and fell asleep to the noise of flying foxes and other exotic animal making a racket outside our van.

Campervan Diaries Day 2 – Bowen to Rockhampton (526km)

We woke at the break of dawn in the layby outside Bowen. The only way I would have had a worse night’s sleep was if I had been assaulted during the night. The heat was unbearable, and on top of that there was the intense humidity; it was as if we were being slow roasted in an oven. The early dawn light shone through the windows and curtains of our camper, waking us up at around 05:00. As we stepped out of the campervan we were greeted with a lovely view of the sea, one which we did not realise we would have last night as we arrived in pitch black and did not realise we were next to the sea. There was also a giant mango statue across the road from us; I thought that was worth mentioning.

Nicola set off driving, as she thought the concentration would help wake her up. We set off at around 06:30 and I was on kangaroo watch as dawn and dusk is supposedly the best time to see them. I spotted a kangaroo sleeping at the side of the road, well I think it was sleeping. It didn’t look run over, and it looked like it was in a sleeping position as opposed to a death roll. That was about as positive as it got for the kangaroo spotting, as after that point we passed dozens of dead kangaroos either lying by the roadside or squashed into the road.

We had come across a place on the internet called Eungella National Park, about 60km West off the Bruce highway from Mackay, where there was supposedly a beautiful gorge, called Finch Hatton Gorge. We aimed to make that our stop for the day as after Mackay, there was nothing of note until Rockhampton, some 500km away.

After over two hours of driving we came to a cross roads, we were starting to doubt whether we should go to Eungella because it was 60km to the West and we would have to drive 60km back again to get onto the Bruce Highway to continue our trip. We decided to chance it and drive to Eungella and we were rewarded because the turn off for Finch Hatton Gorge as around 35km from the Bruce Highway as opposed to the 60km we thought. We drove through small town Australia (pretty much most of Queensland) and were tempted to stay a night at a place called Prospect because they had a “Rock and Roll Dance” the following night. Alas, we drove through and didn’t stay for the dance, but we did arrive at Finch Hatton Gorge after bouncing along some back roads and heading off road across a few makeshift bridges.

We parked up and walked towards the footpath that would take us to the gorge itself, and after a 15 minute walk through a humid forest path we came upon the Cascades part of the gorge – the bit we had come to see. There was another path that led towards The Wheel of Fire but we didn’t want to stray there, lest we come across a human bonfire or something else otherworldly/satanic. The Cascades were lovely, we walked down a flight of steps that took us onto huge rocks that sat at the bottom of a large pool of water. There was a small waterfall that fed the pool and the large rocks acted as a kind of dam, letting only trickles of water through, only enough to feed the small stream running between the rocks. We saw plenty of river life in the stream, spotting a few little fish and a crawfish or two. It really was picturesque.

      

The tree with a headpiece...

After a lovely hour or so wandering around Finch Hatton Gorge we got back in our campervan and started the long drive to Rockhampton. We drove across land that was scarred black by bush fires, and dead brown grass covered the remaining landscape looking like kindling waiting to catch light. The earth was red, and barren. Now and again we came across the sea, which was a lovely change because it breathed life and green into those areas. The majority of the land we drove through was cattle stations and farmland, although I could not tell what was being grown on such land. Aside from acres and acres and acres and acres of red earth, there was nothing of note to say about the rest of the drive. The land was flat, the heat was intense and our air con was refreshingly cool. We did see two tanks and a nipple mountain, which were the highlights (well, my highlights). We arrived in Rockhampton at around 17:30 and opted to stay at a powered site at a camp site (as opposed to a layby). For $30 a night we had the convenience of electricity, hot water and a worry free sleep. Also, on a personal note, being back on a camp site made me feel warm and nostalgic, awakening memories from my childhood, where I used to spend every bank holiday with my family in our caravan in Pembrey, or Penmaen and other camp areas around Wales. The friendly atmosphere and the routine of connecting the electricity etc. upon arrival brought back fond memories.

Is it Christmas when its sunny?