Someone left the gate open

This may be the last blog for a little while. While on the cruise of 16 days, we don’t know what our internet access will be, other than expensive on the ship. So we leave Sydney on Fri 12th, cruise for 16 days around the top end of Australia and end up in Perth on the western side. From there we have a motorhome rented for a month, to drive the west coast north of Perth and the southern peninsula. Where all we go will depend on the weather, as we are heading into the “wet” season. And the temperatures may become too much for us the farther north we go. Guess we will just see.

So continuing after Lightning Ridge, we drove and drove on the edge of the outback, through Dubbo and down to Katoomba. There are several mountain towns in the Blue mountains, west of Sydney. But it’s not like being in US mountains, these “forest” are mainly gum or eucalyptus trees. But the cliff views are sensational. We met up with some friends we made in the Cook Islands (5 years ago we crashed their wedding at the Rarotonga bungalows). They now live in Katoomba and have a new family. It was great just catching up with them. We also took a couple of hikes in the area, the best being the National Pass. This trail was built in 1908, chiseled out of the cliffs, steps made of natural stones, down, over, through numerous waterfalls and cut across the cliffs, halfway up from the floor. It was magnificent, sometimes scary with the edges and heights. And a workout climbing all the stairs back up.

After 5 days in Katoomba, we decided to make a road trip to Adelaide, South Australia. Pretty much drive drive drive, pass a road train, drive drive drive. Lots of agriculture, mostly bright, yellow canola growing, sheep, rolling hills. Then all of the sudden nothing. We hit the outback. As we were driving, I noticed there seemed to be a fence running all along the edge and I started thinking silly thoughts. Like maybe this is the gate to the outback. Sure enough, we came across a gate labeled Hells gate, could be the same thing. Then an actual sign to the outback! We couldn’t resist.  

Driving the back roads provides some amusing pictures and signs. In a small town along the Murray river we saw the Chookman and his indescribable house boat. And the road signs are interesting, even if we don’t know what they are talking about. Town names and street names are funny too. At one point, Bill got bored so he decided to see how fast the car could really go. He hit 154k, =96mph. Luckily, no kangaroos jumped out. Zoom, Zoom, little Hyundai.

Adelaide was the farthest west we drove and it seemed to be a large, pretty mellow town. Did some shopping in the city, drove along the coastal towns and beaches. At one beach, we stopped for a minute and happened to watch some boaters load their boats on the trailers. The tide was out and they had driven the car and trailer to the water, now they’re loading back up but no boat ramp. One guy lost his trailer on the beach, walked it down, winched the boat  up onto the trailer and guess what? The trailer front end goes up and it’s getting tougher to load the boat. It was pretty hilarious watching him. He did succeed, threw a rope around the hitch and drove off. I thought he was going to tow the trailer like that but he finally did hitch it up properly. Too funny.