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| Typical coach tour. Not my photos in this post. |
So, I am taking about my first ever overseas trip. At this stage I have arrived in Melbourne and I am ready start to my 30 day coach tour. The tour was arranged through Australian Pacific Tours and the tour which I had selected was a 30 day camping tour which started in Melbourne and ended in Sydney.
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| Coach of Australian Pacific |
The route was from Melbourne through Canberra to Sydney, then all the was up the coast of New South Wales and into Queensland, past Brisbane and all the way north to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef. From Cairns, we cut across the north, to Mt Isa and then across to Darwin. From Darwin, it was down through the red centre, Ayers rock (or more correctly names Uluru), Alice Springs, Cooper Pedy and down to Adelaide. From there the tour split up and there was a bus which headed to Melbourne and another which went to Sydney. I then had another few days in Sydney before getting my flight home. A major tour of Australia.
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| Stop over in Sydney |
The coach tour had two staff members. The driver and the guide/cook. Really great people. The cook's name was Annette. Most of the people on the tour were my age (at that stage around 22 to 25). The first two days the coach was still quite empty until we got to Sydney. We picked up quite a few more people in Sydney and the coach was full. There were quite a few people from Australia in the group. Then there were girls from Canada, USA, Switzerland and guys from England. Of course I was the only South Africa. There was also a much older German guy. Very fit for his age. He kept pretty much to himself and it turned out he was a veteran from World War 2. Once we had picked up the rest of the people we could get sorted out for the camping. I ended up in a tent with a great Aussie guy called Bill. Most of the young people ended up together in a group.
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| Typical camp site |
The routine when we pulled into a camping site was to get the tents up as quickly as possible. These were nice tents and very easy to put up. They were square and once each side had a peg in, a spring loaded pole was placed in the middle of the tent and there you had it. A tent. There were two foam mattresses for each tent. By about the forth day, we were a well oiled machine and it only took about 30 mins to get the Camp set up. Each person had a job. Two people laid out the tent. Four people knocking in test pegs and one to do the pole. The two who laid out the tents then put the mattresses into the tents. Worked like clockwork. The girls would help Annette getting the kitchen set up and they would do the cleaning up. The next morning we had to break up camp and this was also done quite quickly as well. Bill and I would help the cook, Annette, to get all of her stuff packed and strapped into the trailer. The routine set in and setting up and breaking down the camp went smoothly.
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| Main road in the Red Centre |
Bill and I were also in charge of the pub. Once the camp was set up, we needed to make sure the beer was on ice. It was an honesty system and if you took a beer, you put the money into the box. Bill and I would then fill up the supply at the next town. As we changes States, the beer changed. In Victoria, it was VB (Victoria bitter). NSW was Tooheys and in Queensland it was XXXX. Figured out why it was called xxxx! The Aussies could not spell beer!
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| Uluru at sunset |
There were a lot of highlights on the tour. The people were a really great bunch and we had a lot of fun. The coast of NSW and Queensland are really very beautiful. We stopped at the Big Pineapple, the Big Banana and a few other tourist sites along the way. One of the main reasons for choosing Australia (apart from the fact that it was the most expensive fly on SAA's books, and as I was only going to 10% of the fair, the most expensive it was) was to see the Great Barrier reef. There were many highlights on the trip, but these will have to wait for the next post.
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| The Olgars close to Uluru. Much more impressive. |
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