Again I left a tropical paradise and travelled overnight to Brisbane. I slept through the Sunshine Coast and arrived in Brisbane at six am. What a lovely city. An interesting mix of old and new architecture all jumbled together. Several nice bridges over the river, botanical gardens along the river bank. I was still in the city centre after dusk and the city buildings lit up but so did the Christmas decorations. That just felt odd, being in such a warm place.

The hostel in Brisbane was purpose built and the best of all that I stayed in, in Australia. Again there was a varied mix of people and nationalities, America, Canadian, Kiwi’s, all sorts of European’s, an Israeli guy and several other Poms.

The art gallery was a new building, opened in 1982, so lovely huge galleries, great lighting and hanging arrangements. I enjoyed an afternoon browsing there.

I spent time at “Lone Pine” Koala Sanctuary. There were lots of animals as well as koalas but I did get to hold a koala and have my photo taken. They make a very odd sound. There was a huge kangaroo enclosure where you walked amongst the animals. Mums with joey’s in their pouches. One of the wardens had an Alsatian dog with him, with the dog carrying a koala around on his back. Cute.

I went to the cinema a couple of times in Brisbane. I saw an Australian movie “Burke and Wills” about the explorers. I also watched “St Elmo’s Fire” so that movie has always been linked in my memory to my travels in Australia.

I made my one and only collect phone call back to the UK to confirm my flights details. It was snowing there, which seemed very odd as I watched six people wander past dressed up as Santa but in the Queensland summer heat.

I stayed with more friends of friends in Toowoomba for a couple of days and was able to “earn my keep” by babysitting their three year old twins. I had an afternoon and evening back in the world of “Sesame Street”, afternoon kiddies tea, bath time and bedtime stories.

Toowoomba is inland but sits on the edge of The Great Dividing Range of mountains and national park. The house was lovely with stunning views. It was nice to stay in house again after six weeks of hostels. I had a room to myself and no queues for a shower.

I arrived on the Gold Coast on the day that Queensland’s first legal casino opened. Along with the end of the school year and kids going to Surfer’s Paradise for their “schoolies” holiday week. The town was crazy busy. There were only casinos in Tasmania and in Alice Springs at that time.

The Gold Coast is a different side of Australia. Adventure parks, hydro-slides, wave pools, roller coasters, high rise buildings. Surfer’s Paradise is a city right on the beach. There is swimming on the beach between flags, but the beach was busy all day. Lifesavers are on duty between the flags, with a speed boat and a helicopter patrolling the length of coast. The currents are very strong along these beaches. Strong surf that was hard to stand up in as the waves crashed to shore, then strong drag and undertow as the waves pulled out.

The hostel was only a couple of blocks from the beach and had it’s own swimming pool. Another good crowd who were happy to socialise in the evenings and visit local pubs with live music. We walked back via the beach where the surf looked silver in the moon light.

I walked along the beach for hours, down to Burleigh Heads. I spent time on the beach, swimming and re-read the novel “A Town Like Alice”. It was good to read again now that I had experienced some of the places first hand.

I spent one night in Ballina but I was too late to get the bus out to Byron Bay, the most easterly point in Australia. Instead I paid for a motel room, double bed, TV and strolled around Ballina, along the causeway to the beach, past pelicans and fishermen. After the bustle of Surfer’s this was a quiet peaceful and relaxing place so I stayed put, swam and sunbathed and walked over the headland to Shelly Beach.

On this day back in 1985 I was enjoying a tropical paradise.

The main road south from Cairns has mountains inland and coast on the other side. At times we climbed the hills and had views of the islands, such as Hinchinbrook. I wandered around Townsville before I got the ferry to Magnetic Island, forty minutes offshore.

The permanent population of the island is just two hundred people. Some commute to Townsville for work and the older kids commute for school.

Everyone at the island hostel was very friendly. I had a great day sharing a hired mini moke beach buggy. We drove up to Radical Bay, a small curved beach, warm sea, lovely sand, a few boats anchored offshore. We had a barbecue at the beach side pub, overlooking the water. There were lots of parrots and lorikeets in the trees. All very tropical.

After lunch and a swim, we drove around to Horseshoe Bay and Rocky Bay, more swimming and relaxing on the beach and on the rocks. We then travelled back via as many dead end dirt roads as we could find. We broke a few rules with the dirt roads, with an extra passenger, we drove on the beach and had the top down. But oh what a fun day with fellow travelers.

I was surprised by the number of Aussie’s who openly talked about and smoked dope. It’s easy to get hold of. Apparently it was $100 per ounce on the island, but nearer $300 down in Sydney. This was not something I came across in my UK life and it would be another few decades before I tried it for myself.

There was a life savers carnival on at one of the beaches. They were swimming in the sea as each beach had nets to keep out the jelly fish and sharks.

I spent another day on the island, a peaceful day to myself, exploring by bus and walking along the beach at Arcadia, then back at Picnic Bay, sitting on the end of the jetty just watching the world go by and writing a few post cards.

I left my tropical retreat and headed down the coast to Mackay. We drove through more sugar cane country, some cattle, past a couple of big cane factories and on via Airlie Beach and Shute Harbour with views across to the Whitsunday Islands.

Mackay is another nice town, wide streets with palm trees along them. The town is on a river estuary but with beaches near by. My next stop was Rockhampton as we passed through gum tree forests and a landscape drier than up north. There were no views of the coast on this journey as the “coast road” is actually 50 kms inland.

The reason for stopping in Rockhampton was to get across to Great Keppel Island the following morning. A huge catamaran took us over to the island. It could take up to four hundred passengers. As well as being the island ferry, it did cruises around the island, stopping at an underwater observatory where we saw corals and tropical fish in the seas. We anchored and went swimming in one of the secluded beaches, we did boom net riding off the side of the catamaran. Sitting in the net, partially in the sea as the boat sailed along, brilliant fun.

The island was quiet and peaceful, with a small resort, hostel, camp ground, restaurant and two bars. As with previous hostels, there was a good crowd of travellers, easy to get along with. A couple of girls were playing scrabble in Dutch.

The down side of the island was the mosquitos that bombarded everyone at night. Other creatures that I didn’t mind were the tiny lizards, ghekkos, that were rather cute.  The fresh fruit here in Queensland was delicious, pawpaw, various melons, mango and pineapple.

On this day back in 1985 I was in northern Queensland.

I stayed in Cairns for a week, it was nice to be in one place for a while rather than moving on every few days. I caught up with laundry and met some traveller’s that I knew from weeks earlier at Yulura. I travelled back up the mountains to Kuranda, through sugar cane fields, to experience the rain forest, the Barron River gorge, waterfalls. The countryside changes dramatically from dry season to the wet season, when the river and waterfalls come alive.

In Cairns I wandered the town, visited the aquarium, which included crocodiles and sharks as well as tropical fish that inhabit the reef. Crocodile feeding time was crazy.

When it rained here, it rained. Total downpour for fourteen hours. On the next dry day I caught a local bus and explored beaches north of Cairns, Trinity Beach, Clifton Beach, Palm Cove and Ellis Beach. They were all nice sandy beaches backed by palms and coconut groves. But all had warnings about deadly stinger jelly fish and swimming at your own risk.

I had a wonderful day on Green Island, a coral cay twenty seven km’s off the coast. A small green tropical island surrounded by white sand beaches and blue ocean. I took the ferry across and did a trip on a glass bottomed boat which revealed all sorts of brightly coloured fish and coral. We threw bread into the water and the fish snapped it up, so we could see the fish over the side as well as through the bottom of the boat. I relaxed on the beach and I could see the coral as I swam in the warm sea.

I did another day trip, sharing a car with other back pacers. We drove further north to Port Douglas and Four Mile beach, then back via Mossman Gorge in the rainforest. We took a picnic and climbed the rocks along the river.

I watched the first Australian F1 grand prix on TV. It was held in Adelaide and Keke Rosberg won after lots of action and drama.

The next leg of my journey was to Mount Isa. I saw more sunrises, miles and miles of burnt grassland, few trees, cattle and fences every now and then. There were plenty of dead cattle on the side of the road presumably hit by the three section road trains that travel across the centre of this vast country.

Travelling such long distances, but public bus, kills your sleep patterns and eating habits. I was hungry at 3am when we had a rest stop at another one street town. We crossed from Northern Territory into Queensland and put our watches forward half an hour.

Surrounded by hills, Mount Isa is a big city, the biggest inland city in Australia in 1985. It’s a mining city, extracting copper, lead, silver and zinc. The mine is on one side of the railway and the city on the other side. The city surprised me, it had character and was a clean, organised town. The mine employed over forty thousand people.

I toured the mine working above ground and the underground mine museum, both of which were interesting. Another museum was “Tent House”, a miner’s house from the 1930’s, canvas walls on a wooden frame, with a totally separate tin roof. Very practical for the climate.

The next bus had half the seats removed as there was more freight than passengers. We stopped at Cloncurry, a small country town in the region of cattle stations, dried out grass and bush land. As we headed north the land flattened out again and the earth faded from the red colour of the centre.

We unloaded freight at the “Burke and Wills” Roadhouse and experienced a tropical storm. The road afterwards was covered with puddles and the sides of the road flooded. Following the rain, we saw so much wildlife, kangaroos, emus, bush turkeys, cranes, eagles. It was lovely to see. Kangaroos hopped about in all directions, in pairs or alone, no concern for the road or traffic.

Burke and Wills lead a fated expedition in 1860 to explore Australia south to north, Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. Although they succeeded in reaching the northern coast, they both died on the return journey.

We delivered more freight at Normanton and turned off the main road to deliver directly to a few cattle stations. We left the goods at their mail boxes but one station had a sign stating that the homestead was a further fifteen miles down the track from the front gate and mail box. Unbelievable to this twenty something city girl from London.

We then drove seventy kms across salt flats before arriving at Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria. Karumba was a small fishing town on a river estuary. I enjoyed a delicious meal of locally caught barramundi.

The next day I journeyed across country again to the east coast. I experienced my first Aussie “dunny” at one of the rest stops. The toilet was through the shop, through the living room, (the bedroom was curtained off) out the back to a wooden hut in the yard. There was a hose on the outside of the house with three sheets of corrugated iron around it, for a shower. Very sophisticated.

The scenery changed again as we approached the Atherton Tablelands, passing forests and green farmland. The towns had beautiful jacaranda trees in flower. The road wound down from Kuranda to Cairns, with amazing views of the coastline and beaches. It was worth taking this back route from Mount Isa to Cairns.

Whilst on this leg of my journey it was appropriate to read two classic Australian books, both written about life at the turn of the century. “We of the Never Never” and “My Brilliant Career”.

On this day back in 1985 I was experiencing the beauty and nature of the Northern Territory Outback, a year before “Crocodile Dundee” brought this version of Australian life to the big screen.

Darwin was a further four hours drive north, with a stop at Pine Creek which is a gold mine. There was not much to see though.

Darwin is a flat sprawling city. I stayed in a motel in the centre so I could join a day tour of Kakadu National Park. I splashed out $38 for an air conditioned room with my own bathroom and TV. Darwin seemed rather quiet as I explored the esplanade and harbour, the bay and beaches. I saw memorials to the first telegraph messages from Adelaide and from Australia to Britain.

Darwin was virtually destroyed by cyclone Tracy on Christmas Day 1974, so the few buildings that surveyed had pride of place. Sixty six people died in the cyclone.

The humidity was difficult to cope with and at night there were thunder storms and brilliant lightening and heavy rain for several hours.

Kakadu National Park is a very pretty part of the world, a vast area of tropical woodland, large rivers, wide plains that get flooded in the wet season, rocky hills with aborigine heritage. We saw numerous birds, flowers, cattle, buffalo, water buffalo, wild pigs, horses, salt water crocodiles, lizards. The crocodiles were small at only six feet long, they can grow to more than twenty five feet. There are two hundred and fifty species of birds in Kakadu and we saw about two per cent of these.

I was glad that I’d spent the day in Kakadu but it was just too hot and humid to work up any enthusiasm to stay in Darwin for long.

On this day in 1985 I was hiking and boating through Katherine Gorge, in Australia’s Northern Territory.

The town of Katherine was a lovely place to stop over. The hostel was a couple of kilometres out of town, but was on the river, with a spring and waterfalls that were delightful to swim in. The temperature was almost forty degrees and humidity was ninety percent, so a few swims each day was perfect.

The hostel was an old worker’s quarters, with solid internal dividing walls but open louver walls with fly screens on opposite sides to let the breeze through. It all felt very tropical.

Katherine Gorge was an amazing place. I joined a day safari which involved five boat trips with walking in between, down five of the thirteen gorges along the Katherine River. Stunning scenery. We swam in six different parts of the river and had a barbecue lunch.

We saw all sorts of birds and fish, snakes and bats. There were fresh water crocodiles in the river but we didn’t actually see any of them fortunately.

The river level was low at the end of the dry season, and after three years of poor rains. In the wet season the river level rises by at least twenty five feet. When the river floods, the rocky paths that we walked along become rapids.

On this day back in 1985 I was travelling through the Northern Territory.

Australia is huge. The journey from Ayers Rock Lodge to Alice Springs took five hours. We had a new air conditioned bus from the Lodge to the Stuart Highway junction, but then got onto another old bus that had travelled up from Adelaide. It was a really hot day. A sticky soggy mass of people got off the bus in Alice.

Alice was nothing like I expected. There are hills around and it is a large town. Apparently, back in 1985, it was the fastest growing town in Australia. There were no buses or public transport in the town so it was difficult to get around. The only option was an explorer bus for the tourists. There were no road markings in the centre of town, no indications as to who should give way, which caused great confusion. Aborigines sat around town, sat in the dry river bed. I didn’t want to walk around town after dark.

I visited the Royal Flying Doctor Base and learned about the service, it’s history and saw exhibits of equipment used and general communications for the Outback.

The old Telegraph Station was an old stone buildings in the middle of bush. The station was located by the original “Alice Spring” which is a permanent waterhole in the usually dry Todd River. Here you got a feel of the remoteness of the early settlers. Further along the river I visited a camel farm and a date farm.

The next day I took a half day tour out to the McDonald Ranges. There was some beautiful scenery out in these hills. We stopped at Simpson’s Gap and Standley Chasm two narrow gaps in the hills, where dry river beds run through. Rock wallabies live amongst the fallen rocks. Standley Chasm is just five meters wide with tall red cliffs on either side. It was a pleasant ten minute bush walk up to the chasm from the road.

I got back on an overnight bus heading north, air-conditioned this time. Our first stop was at Ti Tree roadhouse at ten pm. The driver warned us about kangaroos, dingoes and eagles as we walked through the garden to the toilets. I thought he was joking, but no! A kangaroo came up to say hello and there were three dingo pups in a fenced area. An eagle sat on a table across the garden. We had another refreshment stop at three am.

I saw another lovely sunrise. When we stopped for breakfast we noticed the heat and humidity outside the bus. There were more trees up here and noise of budgies and parrots flying around in large flocks. There were also hundreds of huge termite mounds.

On this day back in 1985 I was at Ayer’s Rock – Uluru.

I stayed at the Ayers Rock Lodge and fully appreciated a bed and shower after a few days on the bus. Towards the back of the site, there were paths up the sand dunes which gave my first view of Ayers Rock, or Uluru as it is now called.

It looked unreal. One single gigantic red rock on a flat landscape. The Olga’s were visible in the distance, a group of individual round rocks. We’d passed Mount Connor on the drive in, a table top mountain, the third unique giant rock formation in the area.

I took a day tour to Uluru, which drove the 9 km around the base, stopped at cave paintings, at a wave cave, at Maggie Springs, a permanent waterhole. Our guide told us about the Aborigine legends. The Federal Government gave Uluru back to the Aborigines on this exact day in 1985, with a hand over ceremony in the shadow of the rock. The old Ayers Rock motel and campgrounds where Azaria Chamberlain was killed had been removed and a new tourist centre at Yulara, twenty kilometres from the rock was the new tourist resort.

The rock changes colour depending on the weather. The red colour is due to oxidisation, the rock is rusting. We saw the original grey colour on the inside of some of the caves. It’s surface is quite flaky and pieces do fall off. In places the rock sounds hollow, where it is lifting underneath.

The next day a few of us from the hostel drove back to Uluru and climbed it. I really don’t remember this. I wrote that I climbed but I didn’t know how. I hated it. It was very steep in places with a chain to help you up. Each time I stopped I debated whether to continue up or go back down. I did get to the top and saw the view. I’ve obviously blocked out that memory.

On the drive back we noticed that a few cars had stopped and people were taking photos, we stopped to and I got to see a four foot long goanna resting by the side of the road.

I joined an evening tour of the Olga’s which included a barbecue dinner. This guide showed us the flora, the desert oaks, the spinifex, before we hiked for an hour among the rocks. That was a nice climb with rewarding views at the top. We saw a beautiful sunset and enjoyed good food, including the traditional bush meal of damper and billy tea. As we drove back to the hostel and resort, there was spectacular lightening in the distance and rain heading our way.

On this day back in 1985 I was on a bus, travelling through South Australia to the Northern Territory.

(This was the beginning of several weeks travelling around Australia, so my posts looking back to 1985 will be more frequent in the coming weeks.)

I had travelled on an overnight greyhound bus from Canberra to Melbourne, then another bus to Adelaide. The countryside in Victoria was flat, mostly farmland. We stopped a few times on the journey, but mainly in one street towns. The clocks changed by half and hour between Victoria and South Australia.

The country side changed to pine forests in South Australia, Forestry Commission land with various saw mills.

Murray Bridge was an interesting place. The bridge was a hundred years old and much longer than seemed necessary to span the Murray River. But it was built to accommodate the flood waters that occur at certain times of the year.

Trees were mainly Australian natives, eucalyptus trees, evergreen and bottle brush. Back in Canberra the trees were European and in blossom, emphasizing that it was spring time.

We climbed the Adelaide Hills on the approach to the city. I arrived at dusk with the lights of the city laid out below us. Adelaide is a nice city. A main square, Victoria Square, and four other smaller squares are within the square mile city centre district. It was the first city in the world to have a “green belt”.

The River Torrens runs through the city alongside the northern terrace. I explored the art galleries, museums, arts centre, shops and caught the tram to the nearest beach at Glenelg. It was an overcast day but people were fishing on the pier and the esplanade was backed with Norfolk pines.

I spent a day on a tour of the Barossa Valley wineries, rolling hills, old style buildings with a German influence, vineyards and pretty towns. We sampled some good wines and lunch was included. The return drive to the city took us through the Torrens gorge, a narrow windy road alongside the river beneath the steep cliffs.

The bus broke down on the next leg of my journey so it was dawn as we arrived in Coober Pedy. I’m glad I got to see it in daylight. What a place. A real hole in the ground.

It’s the greatest opal producer in the world, a town literally in the middle of nowhere, the surrounding area just pale white earth. A one horse town, with an “out in the sticks” atmosphere, a population of just a few hundred.

The opals are just dug out of the ground, so there are holes and mines shafts surrounded by piles of earth dug out. An incredible sight. Some of the people who mine the opals here have dug their homes out of the ground too, cooler in the hot daytime temperatures. It was such a weird place. I was glad to move on after our breakfast stop.

As we drove north on the Stuart Highway, the tarmac run out. We had eight hours of dirt road. Because of the state of the road, the bus company only used old buses on that route. So we had a clapped out bus, hence the earlier breakdown, no air-conditioning, no cushions. The bus rattled and shook for the whole journey. A real bone shaker.

There had been rain in recent days which had left huge puddles, so the driver negotiated these by driving off the road and going bush. Our view for all those hours was mostly nothing. The occasional cattle, and fences miles and miles apart. This was a region of large cattle stations.

The land was flat but did change from sparse grass and low bushes to an area of trees and bigger bushes. The soil changed colour from the pale of Coober Pedy to the deep red soil and sand as we approached the Northern Territory.

We stopped at a couple of places to drop of freight. Mount Willoughby seemed to be just a small store with a petrol pump, in the middle of nowhere. Then Marla was a bit bigger with a pub and a cafe.

Indulkana was a different experience. A small place with several streets of houses, a school and a community centre. There was very little grass, the streets and gardens were red dust and mud. The majority of people that we saw were Aborigines, barefoot, sitting outside where the bus stopped. There was a diagrammatic sign indicating no photos.