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Road trip

Northland, New Zealand

Tuesday the 15th of August was the birthdate of our collection of the 'Wicked' camper and the beginning of an interesting 'road trip'.

permalink written by  Vegtibbles on August 15, 2006 from Northland, New Zealand
from the travel blog: The New (Zealand) adventures of the Tibbler
tagged RoadTrip
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¡Pantalones Pantalones!

Onate, Spain


Poking the Henge!
These last few weeks have gone by fast. Flew to England, bought a new car, packed Helen's entire world into said car, booked a ferry ticket and drove to Portsmouth, visiting everybody we knew in England along the way.

Here's the plan in a nutshell: I needed some time off work, and Helen needed to get out of America. Frankly, I needed to get out of America too, since I seem to work so much better from a little terrace overlooking a square. I like my walls made of stone.

We've been looking at places to live in Europe, but haven't settled on anything for certain. So now we're just going to roadtrip around for a while until we find a place worth stopping. I guess the requirements are a cool town with a good vibe, plenty of climbing nearby, and of course, a fast internet connection so that I can work. Once we find all that, we're gonna stop for a while.


Breakfast at Apellaniz
Now we're in the little town of Onate, having done the whirlwind tour of Basque crags around Vitoria-Gastiez. This is a really cool town, and the climbing up the hill in Araotz looks pretty good. If the rest of the climbing around here is as good as what we've seen, we might not make it out of Spain!

permalink written by  Jason Kester on May 20, 2007 from Onate, Spain
from the travel blog: Living in Spain
tagged Climbing and RoadTrip
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An attempt at a roadtrip

Seattle, United States

I flew to Seattle to drive my 1985 Volts wagon Golf to Atlanta. Somehow, I thought I would be able to drive this archaic (yet wonderful) car from Seattle to Atlanta...in the dead of winter. My ambitions were high, outlandish some might say. I had my travel compainion, Kelsey, with me and we were willing to make the trip.

From the beginning of planning, I had this deep down, mostly ignored, feeling that my car would break down beyond repair on this trip. I threw caution to the wind and did it any way. I figured if it broke down in New Mexico or Texas, I would at least get a good adventure and bus ride out of it.

I could not believe it. We left Seattle late on a Saturday and headed South. First stop was to be somewhere to sleep along northern California and then on to Melodies in LA. My car was reluctant, to say the least, at attempting the passes of Oregon, however, I knew these would be the only big passes we would be going over, as we were taking the southern route the rest of the way.

At 11pm, my car seized to shift gears and made horrible noises, after a brief stop in a dangerous point on the freeway we made it to a gas station in which AAA came to the rescue. We were in Phoenix, Oregon. They took us back to Medford, Oregon. Rowdy times at Gypsy Blues bar, A 'to Hell with Hitler' button was acquired as well as a few lawn flamingos kidnapped. Kelsey and I fell in love with Medford

On Monday morning my car was pronounced dead. Both the Clutch and Transmission had gone out. The decision was made and my car was buried in Medford. Malia, Keith and Adam came to the rescue and drove down Monday to pick us up. We had one last night in Medford and then headed back north. Stopped in Portland for some dinner and a bewildering venture to Powell Books.

Got back to Seattle, had a day and a half and then Kelsey flew to Georgia with me. Adventure had, sadly at the expense of one awesome car.

permalink written by  crAsh13 on January 15, 2008 from Seattle, United States
from the travel blog: adventures in the US
tagged RoadTrip, Oregon, Portland and Flamingos
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Mad Dash To Melbourne

Melbourne, Australia

Only when you try and get from one place to another over here can you truely comprehend how pointlessy massive it is.


Random. I Know.
As well as the places everyone has heard of, Oz is dotted with heaps of tiny towns and villages with names you can't pronounce, each with its four figure population proudly displayed at the side of the only road in and brown signs pointing to things they desperately try to pass off as a tourist attraction ("Hey, come and see some rocks...").
It's no wonder so many people go missing over here, there's nothing else to do in these small towns but stalk tourists and pick off backpackers with a sniper rifle.

Emma has mates in Melbourne so we decided we were going to go there to find work; It took three days of daylight driving (you can't drive come dusk in case you hit a roo, it could write your car off) from Coffs Harbour to get there.

Somewhere in a town called Frederickton along the road between Coffs Harbour and Port Macqurie there's a little shop called Fredo's Pies which has 50 different varieties of pie.

Fifty!


Fredo's Pies
Five Zero! I wasn't even aware there were 50 types of edible things in the world.
You'd miss it if wasn't for the two statues of Marilyn Monroe outside, one in the classic "Oh look, my dress just blew up and everyone can see my knickers" pose and the other is sat atop a pole. No, we're not too sure why either, she looks happy enough though!

We didn't get as far as we wanted to on the first day because the car started making noises cars aren't supposed to make around a town called Toronto. This apparently happens when you don't put oil in it.
Stop rolling your eyes, we were checking it daily, we just happened to be checking the wrong dipstick.

*waits while everyone gets obligatory "Did you feel like a dipstick?" jokes out of the way*

Don't worry, we'll soon be stocked up various foul smelling liquids in assorted colours, we don't fancy running out of brake fluid or tranmission stuff somewhere in the middle of nowhere when the only person around to help is wielding a chainsaw and muttering something about dinner being sorted for the next week.

Aaanyway, Emma took the car in the next morning and $40 and a small amount of mocking from the mechanic and his wife later we were back on the road.

Next stop ended up being Gundagai, still in New South Wales and the home of the Dog On A Tuckerbox which is a statue of a dog on a tuckerbox (lunch box). Oh those Aussies, getting all literal again.
Gundagai also has brown tourists signs showing the way to the Historic Bridge which is... well... it's a bridge. I think what makes it "historic" is that fact that it's made of rotting wood and is about to fall down.
How glad are we that we stopped here? Can you imagine how gutted we'd have been if we missed that?!

We managed to drive over 1000km without getting lost once so in order to avoid breaking with tradition we turned off onto the wrong road once we got onto the outskirts of Melbourne and spent the ensuing 2 hours dragging a caravan around and staring blankly at the newly aquired map, drooling occasionally.

But we made it. Us, who got lost on a long, straight road when we rented scooters, we made it alive and in one piece.

There's hope for us yet.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on June 25, 2006 from Melbourne, Australia
from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
tagged RoadTrip
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North West Victoria Magical Mystery Tour

Mildura, Australia

Currently, the most exciting thing to happen in Echuca was my recent foray into the world of flip flops which they call "thongs" over here even though thongs are underwear you spend most of the day removing from your crack. I'm in pain but damnit I WILL get used to them because they leave better tan lines than sandals and I'm sure no one will notice the pussing wounds between my big and second toes.


On A Mission


Road Trip!
Anyway, I digress. The point I was trying to make was the only was to make Echuca interesting is to leave it so last Saturday me, Becky and Maaike (also staying at the hostel) decided there was only one thing for it; ROAD TRIP!

It is the law of road trips that you eat your body weight in junk food and listen to music that would ordinarily make your ears bleed so armed with $25 worth of crisps and chocolate and an MP3 player full of cheese we set off for Mildura to visit a couple of mates.


Tie Me Kangaroo Down Sport
It's a mere four hour drive if you don't take long, winding detours through amusingly named places, climb all over an oversized cod or stop and photograph things like llamas in a field, lizards in the road which get bigger and scarier the closer you get to them (so we backed off before I got pooed on again or something) and kangeroos.

Yes I know its not a particularly lively 'roo but I come from a place where the most exotic thing you see on the side of the road is half a badger. The 'roo is cool, OK?


Fnar Fnar
Some of you might know that instead of growing up and getting a proper job it's my lifes ambition to travel to all the places in the world with rude names and last weekend I crossed Tittybong (heh heh) and Bumbang (tee hee) off my list.


Bumbang Island
The thing with Tittybong is, it doesn't seem to exist outside of the map book. We drove through it so I've officially been there but there's no signposts to it and nothing to tell you you've arrived, before you know it you've passed it and didn't even get to point and laugh at the sign. Gutted.
Bumbang isn't actually a place either, it's an amusingly named island in the Murray River just North East of a town called Robinvale which isn't half as funny. They have something that passes as a sign though so that appeased me, I got to snigger childishly and take photos.


Not Quite A 24 Hour Party Town
Anyway, a good time was had in Mildura, I had a good night anyway, I hadn't drunk in ages so it was fun to pump my body full of Vodka Cruisers (a bit like Bacardi Breezers, overpriced and full of E-Numbers) and jump around on the dance floor to mix it all up with the chocolate and crisps we munched on the way although I did spend part of Sunday morning wondering what number bus hit me and why I wasn't actually dead yet.
Mildura is quite a bit bigger than Echuca, I wasn't there long enough to get a proper feel for it but there are quite a few backpackers and it seems like a laugh. They also pipe music into the streets at night for reasons I have yet to ascertain and there's sort of a park down by the river which is wicked to go and chill by in the 31C heat (yeah baby!) with a few beers and a frisbee.


Nick, Pete, Becky And Maaike

The journey home was a bit quicker, we only stopped to see Bumbang Island, eat more junk food and to see if Becky really could keep up with the car doing 20kph whilst she was on foot.

And yes, I still have "Tie My Kangeroo Down, Sport" stuck firmly in my head. Meh.

permalink written by  Koala Bear on September 19, 2006 from Mildura, Australia
from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
tagged RoadTrip and LovinIt
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The B100

Apollo Bay, Australia

Left Melbourne: 22/10/06
Arrived Adelaide:26/10/06

Despite the fact I've been unemployed since the end of September I still haven't had time to write up the Great Ocean Road thing that I did with a bloke called Kliff from Burnley that I met in a hostel in Melbourne. There are words for people as lazy as me but some of them aren't printable in a blog that your Grandparents might possibly read.

Aaaaanyway, despite the date at the top of this post I'm writing this at the end of November so my memory may be a little hazy on account of all the goon (cheap cask wine) I've drank since then. I have decided to overcome this with the aid of Bullet Points because Bullet Points make things look tidy and important even though it's usually a load of mindless dross. This is also the reason I use Bullet Points in my CV.


Day One

  • Stocked up on obligatory munchies then promptly got lost a mere 10 minutes out of St Kilda.


  • Finally worked out which wiggly lines on the map lead where and made it to the highway.


  • Stopped in Torquay to watch the surfers. The water on that coast is always freezing cold, seriously, my nipples hurt just watching them.



    • No Shit, Sherlock
    * Wondered about the signs all up the Great Ocean Road that say "Drive On The Left In Australia." If you've gotten this far without noticing the other drivers veering out of your way as you cruise on up the right hand side then maybe you shouldn't be driving on any side in Australia. Or anywhere else for that matter. Do you even have a license? Fools.


    Split Point Lighthouse
    * Stopped at Split Point Lighthouse in Aireys Inlet. Its better known as the Round The Twist lighthouse (and you know you'll be humming that theme tune for the rest of the day) although I think I was slightly more excited by it than Kliff. We didn't bother going in though, its $12.50 for the tour and I didn't like the show that much (it is at this point that I hope no one remembers that I spent $40 doing a tour for a TV show I rarely even watch) and how can you tour a lighthouse anyway? Surely its just a staircase, right?

  • Pulled over next to the famous Great Ocean Road sign and acted like a couple of tourists.


  • Decided to stay at the Great Ocean Road Backpackers in Lorne that night. There are tame parrots everywhere that come right up to you to be fed which is really cute until about 6am when they sit outside your dorm window and squawk.


  • Wondered if parrot goes well with chips.



    • Great Ocean Road


    Day Two


    Not Someone You'd Expect To Meet
    * If someone asked you what you would least expect to see whilst visiting Erskine Falls in Lorne I reckon that a man dressed like a pirate would be quite far up the list. Well, we met a man dressed like a pirate. No, we don't know why either but he seemed nice enough assuming you don't have to be sane to be nice.

  • Whilst stopping for lunch and another "Look, We're On The Great Ocean Road" tourist photo we found an Echidna. Usually these things curl up in a ball and don't move if you get too close to them but this bugger kept crawling towards us with them huge spikes on its back while we were trying to take photos. We backed away before it went ninja on our arses.



    • Ninja Echidna
    * Rocked up to Apollo Bay Backpackers. I would so totally recommend this place to anyone, its more like a home than a hostel and the laundry and internet are run on an honesty box system which just makes you want to be honest.

  • Attempted to drink Tooheys on the beach but settled for Next To The Beach on account of the gale force winds.


  • Saw some lesbians. I'm not sure how relevant this is, I just get excited when I'm not the only gay in the village.

    • Day Three


    Otways Skywalk
    * Here's an idea, lets forget that heights make us nervous and do the Otways Skywalk, after all it's only 47 metres off the ground on a see-through metal platform. Notice the smile in the photos? Thats actually more of a grimace and the whiteness of the knuckles is almost blinding. If you do check out the photos notice how our hands never leave the railing in any of the pictures.


    Takin' Off Over The Great Ocean Road
    * One of my Must Do things in Oz was a helicopter ride over the 12 Apostles. I coaxed Kliff into it and tell ya what, it was so worth it! We did the $120 medium flight which took us over a whole load of Rocks With Names (Yes, I have photos. No, I can't remember what they're all called). Awesome.

  • After spending half the day Really High Up we checked out the 12 Apostles at viewing platform then went down Gibson's Steps to see the first two at beach level because you can't fall off the floor. I know I mock the Aussie obsession with rocks as tourist attractions but even I have to admit they were pretty cool.



    • Twelve Apostles

  • Stayed at the Ocean House Backpackers in Port Campbell and invited a random lass called Mary out for a beer to show the locals how its done. Apparently its done by drinking lots of beer and feeding loads of money into the video jukebox and dancing to really bad tunes. I believe pool might have been involved at some point but we left that to Kliff, y'know, with it being a man's game an all.



    • At The Foot Of Gibson Steps

    Days Four And Five


    Shipwreck Coast
    * Finished the Great Ocean Road and celebrated with fish and chips in a proper town with shops and traffic and people and all kinds of other scary things then carried on to Adelaide. Instead of taking the sensible, direct route we headed North through the Grampians because I wanted to see the Giant Koala in Dadswell Bridge.

  • Camped in Stawell on day 4 because camping is cheap although we did have to spend an extra $8 on 4 litres of goon to keep us warm and we got woken up by ducks the next day. Next time that happens its Duck Sandwich time.



    • Setting Up Camp
    * Saw the Giant Koala that looks like it has a spot of mange then carried on straight to Adelaide and booked into My Place Backpackers who said they had parking. By Parking they meant a few spaces that were likely to be full and if they were you had to park on the road then move the car first thing in the morning to avoid getting a ticket. Hmm. Yeah. Parking. Bastards.

  • Met a lass from Zimbabwe called Toni who gave us a tour of Adelaide's gay pubs on the Saturday. Point to note: Kliff isn't a puff.


    • Kliff is a top bloke though, we got on really well and had similar ideas of what we wanted out of the B100 and the pace we wanted to take it at. All in all, bloody awesome road trip.


    Well that was seven minutes of your life you can't get back wasn't it, if you made it this far you must really like words. I suggest you go away and examine your life and prehaps consider Getting Out More.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on October 27, 2006 from Apollo Bay, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip and LovinIt
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    Heading Bush: Day 1 - "We'll Be Pissing In What Now?"

    Port Augusta, Australia

    Left Adelaide: 30/10/06
    Arrived Alice Springs: 08/11/06

    I've been trying to get my arse into gear to write about this 10 day outback tour I did with Heading Bush but you know those Words Don't Do It Justice situations? Well this is one of them. No tour will ever compare to this, seriously, it was possibly the most amazing ten days of my life.


    HEADING BUSH!

    Top Row: Sile, Hans, Suzanne, Allison, Sam
    Bottom Row: Keith, Emma, Me, Mav, Alex

    Again, I've cheated with dates, the one at the top of the post relates to the day the events took place. I've separated day by day to try and cut down on the sheer amount of words that could potentially occur.


    Task one was getting out of bed after only three hours sleep and too much beer because the previous evening was spent saying bye to Kliff and Toni.

    Task two was attempting to converse in a coherant manner with the people I'd be sharing a cramped jeep with for the next ten days, this was accomplished with minimum drooling which was a bonus.

    Task three was Learning To Sleep In The Jeep. This was abandoned on account of it being rude to drool on people you barely know so we Had Conversations and ascertained that we would be spending the majority of the following ten days relieving ourselves in various holes around the desert.


    Oh Come On, You Think It's As Pants As I Do
    It was early afternoon when we learnt how much Mike liked making us walk. We trekked up a small hill to look at some Aboriginal rock art and I use the term "art" loosly. At the risk of offending the deities, its a bit crap isn't it, it looks like a four year old got hold of some chalk and went a bit mental. Come on admit it, you think the same, you just don't want to say it out loud at the risk of sounding like an uncultured swine.


    World's Classiest Bush Dunny Complete With Seat And Bog Roll Holder
    Most of Day One was spent getting to know each other whilst getting to Arkaba Station (bush camp just south of Wilpena), I don't think I've ever been with a group of people that clicked so quickly and so well, it was a mass of different personalities with the ages ranging from Emma at 18 to Hans at 51 and they all rock. Anyway, soppy moment over because I want to tell you about the toilet that Sam built which is probably the classiest bush dunny in the history of holes in the ground for pooing in. It had a tree branch across it for a seat (which rustled when you sat on it which is actually quite unnerving in the middle of nowhere when its pitch black) and a place to put the bog roll. We contemplated the practicality of a magazine rack with some newspapers or maybe a light hung in the tree then decided that we should probably attempt to rough it a little bit. After all, that's why we parted with our $1400 in the first place.

    And oh my god how comfy are swags?! Swags are like a large, canvas coffin for want of a better and less sinister explanation, you get to fall asleep watching shooting stars, so much better than a tent and they're obscenely comfortable.


    Emma Chillin' Next To The Fire

    Anyway, congratulations on getting to the end of Day One without slitting your wrists. Day two will be added at some point in the future when I have too much time on my hands again and fancy torturing cyberspace with my crap.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on October 30, 2006 from Port Augusta, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush
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    Heading Bush: Day 2 - "Ohhh, My Walla..."

    Port Augusta, Australia


    Wilpena Pound
    Today we learnt that Mike is a sadist; He likes to get us up early and make us walk up big hills with the promise that "the view gets better the further up you get."

    Mmmm. Ok then.

    I can't remember how long the actual walk up Mt Ohllsen Bagge (Wilpena Pound) was but I know I'd usually drive that kind of distance, it was all uphill and there was a distinct lack of a pub at the top. I nearly didn't make it but Mike bribed me with cake. I'm so easily bought with a high sugar content.

    And yeah, it was worth it, the view was a bit of alright and the sense of acheivment was fantastic. The cake was pretty good too.

    We spent the rest of the day driving, stopping off at various places of interest and admiring the tans we'd got whilst trekking up a mountain in the scorching heat.


    Fuckin' Made It!
    We headed onto an unsealed road that had a huge sign informing us that all stretches of road were open so that was comforting then. Apparently after a bit of rain it becomes 4WD only and after alot of rain they close it completely and you get hefty fines if you drive on it but as Mike reliably informed us, it never rains in the desert!

    That night we camped at Iga Warta Aboriginal Settlement which has a pool and proper showers. How gutted were we when our tans washed off? Anyway, we had a quick dip where Alex bravely rescued a bat out of the pool using his swimming shorts. I'm not sure who was more traumatised, us or the bat. At least he saw fit to keep his underpants on when he went for a swim.


    Open... For Now
    That night we sat round the fire and Terance told us about his culture's history, showed us how to cook damper bread (bloody lovely) in hot sand, taught us a couple of songs (including one which became a lunch time anthem) and had us hopping round the fire like retarded kangeroos.

    Thank god for beer.


    Terance And Our Dinner

    Ohhhh my walla,
    It's rumbling, it's tumbling.
    Ohhhh my walla,
    It's rumbling like a big base drum.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on October 31, 2006 from Port Augusta, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush
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    Heading Bush: Day 3 - "It Never Rains In The Desert"

    Coober Pedy, Australia


    Me And Allison; Yah We Look Hot
    Little bit nippy this morning, I saw fit to wear a jumper and everything while we headed down to the ochre pits to get painted up like Aboriginals.
    This was loads of fun and really interesting an all. Each colour means something different, like, yellow represents the sun and means rebirth and new beginnings (and who couldn't use one of those every now and then), pink is the colour of lungs and therefore breath, purple means cleansing and so on. We patiently stood there like good tourists while Terance and Sharpie painted us all up in pretty colours.

    Then we headed back to reality, still covered in increasingly itchy ochre and wondering if we'd get beaten up by the locals for taking the piss or something. At was all good though, they took one look at us, smiled and said, "You've been to Iga Warta, then?"

    That obvious?


    Talc Alf. Crazy Desert Man.
    Later that day we rocked up to Talc Alf's place. Talc Alf is what happens when you give a talented, creative man too much time to think. He makes these awesome sculptures they're proper good, but the guy has odd ideas about the alphabet and why certain things are called what they're called. Its hard to try and explain when you're not a complete nutter, maybe I'll drop some acid later and see if I can explain what he was on about.

    Now let me tell you about my new spiritual home. Mutonia Sculpture Park is where they have massive winter solstice raves every year, it has random sculptures all over it and I swear down I could feel the energy coming out of the ground, seriously, there was something about this place that got me excited.


    Mutonia Sculpture Park

    Just me, then.

    Its awesome, just a vast expanse of dirt with sporadic artwork, you can imagine this place going off at the Solstice. Apparently there's going to be a huge rave here when the aliens return to Earth. See you there...?

    It wasn't long after we left here when the clouds got thicker and there was a few spots of rain on the windscreen so we all hopped out to do a rain dance. After all, it never rains in the desert, this could be all the water we see for a while, right, Mike?

    Right?


    The Oodnadatta Track; Enjoy It

    We saw some bolts of lightening in the distance and the heavens opened, it was awesome, 11 psyched up people in a jeep, shouting along to Bohemian Rhapsody as the jeep slid through puddles on the unsealed road and lightening raged in the distance.

    One of those Had To Be There Moments I guess...

    We stopped to collect soggy bits of the Old Ghan Railway track to burn for firewood (don't worry, they built a new one already) then pulled over at Curdimurka Railway Siding where we would be staying that night on account of the fact it was restored and had a roof. We were meant to be heading to William Creek which has a floating population of 8 and a pub.

    Yeah yeah, very quaint, we can go to the pub anytime and we had an Esky full of beer and a man with a gas stove and large boxes of food. This was much better.


    After The Rain


    Rain Dance
    Its hard to put into words how amazing this evening was. After the downpour it stopped raining where we were but we had a fantastic view of the storms going on all around us. There was literally nothing, no trees or buildings apart from our railway siding as far as the eye could see so we had an uninterupted, 360 degree view of the lightening going off all around us. Hurrah for Bum-Fuck Nothingness. It was almost constant, we didn't know where to look. Keith got some bloody amzing photos by just pointing and clicking and hoping for the best. I've shamelessly stolen them and put them online but don't worry, Keith. I credited ya ;)


    Keith's Storm Photo
    Me, Allison and Emma decided we were gonna exactly how water resistant the swags were and settled down outside the building to watch the storm as we fell asleep but as the rain got worse it became somewhat apparent that it was a bad idea. I've never been so glad to see a man in blue jocks before, Mike dragged us inside in our swags thus saving us the hassle of actually having to Get Out Of Bed And Move.

    Now if only we could have persuaded him to bring us breakfast in bed the next day.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 1, 2006 from Coober Pedy, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush
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    Heading Bush: Day 4 - "F**k You, Groovy Grape"

    Coober Pedy, Australia


    Salt Lake Hart
    On account of the pissing rain all those lovely open unsealed roads were now closed which meant we had to head back down south to the highway.

    We spent the day in the back of the jeep trying to make up lost time and the only place of any vague interest was Salt Lake Hart which is a blindingly white expanse of salt that has bombs and mines hidden all over it. They let you walk on it though and there's only a sign that advises you not to go any further, no fences or anything like that.

    Now maybe I'm just cynical but give a foreigner a camera and tell them they can't go somewhere and before you know it there's limbs scattered all over the place and some poor bugger has to clean that up. I consider myself to be quite sensible (what? Stop laughing, you bastards) and even I followed the 17th deadliest snake in the world for a photo op.


    Welcome To Coober Pedy

    Day 4 was pretty uneventful but we made up for it that night at Coober Pedy with a party outside the hostel we were staying at which attracted the attention of the locals and of the Groovy Grape tour that were staying next door to us. Weird bunch. The locals and Groovy Grape.


    Desert Cave P-A-R-T-Y
    As we rocked up to the bizarre opal mining own Mike warned us that the girls shouldn't walk alone at night and to watch our step as "They don't get to meet many women round here..." It wasn't clear whether he meant the locals or Big Kev, GG's slightly perverted tour guide we nicknamed Otto.

    After pizza, music and a boogy on the tables we headed over to the Desert Cave which is Coober Pedy's attempt at an underground night club and as Allison pointed out, "underground" doesn't mean its cool, it really is actually underground. Groovy Grape stopped us on the way and said it was closing soon and we should just party with them.

    They lied. We had quite a bit of time there trying to stop locals putting country and western on the juke box, taking over the dance floor, playing air guitar and avoiding Big Kev.

    When we got back the Groovy Grape tour group were tucked up in bed.

    Hardcore party people indeed.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 2, 2006 from Coober Pedy, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and HeadingBush
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