Travels With Bean Blog

Sorry ’bout the no-show on the photos guys. Don’t know WHAT is going on with this upload. I’m trying AGAIN…

The past few days have been spend driving the Great Ocean Road. Wow. Amazing!! Unfortunately, we drove a lot of it in very RAINY weather! Grant celebrated his 40th birthday on the 24th in Lorne and driving to Apollo Bay…in miserable, wet weather! We did manage to find a nice place to eat dinner, so the day wasn’t a total loss. Of course, it was also the day that we discovered the leaky windows in the campervan…..

Lorne was nice – we spent a couple of nights in a fantastic caravan park just outside town in a National Park:

http://www.cumberlandriver.com.au/

The scenery was amazing and we did a couple of short hikes to see local waterfalls and such. We spent an afternoon walking round the town where Jessica dicovered a trampoline park. Good fun!

From there it was on to Apollo Bay where we only spent one night due to the rain, and lack of dry activities to do around town. Grant’s b-day dinner was the highlight of our stay there! Then on to Port Campbell – stopping off to see the 12 Apostles first, of course. WOW again. We went back out there to watch the sun set – which was truly magical.

We haven’t done much over the past few days but gawk at the scenery. It is a truly amazing drive – with or without rain. Yesterday, we drove the shipwreck coast and has a lovely clear day to do it. So we spent the day stopping at every viewpoint and just watching the ocean.  We also saw some whales in the whale nursery just outside Warrnambool. There were several moms and babies near enough to shore to be seen from the viewing platform.

We’ll spend a few more days here and then on towards Adelaide. I’m off to see about those photos now….

Whew. Life has been pretty eventful the past few days. Hard to get to a computer, but I finally found a relatively cheap internet cafe – so I’m attempting to upload some photos. I don’t think all of them will upload as I’ve been at it 20 minutes and only two have finished. So, if they seem all out of sequence when you look, I apologize. I think maybe it’s time to stop uploading them at full quality!

After Lakes Entrance, we made our way to Melbourne on Friday where we stopped in at Britz to get the campervan heater looked at – along with the brakes and a list of a bunch of little things. They couldn’t fix the heater, and supposedly looked at the brakes and said they were fine, just a bit squeaky. They offered to trade our vehicle for another one on the tuesday, and gave us a little portable heater in the meantime. We decided not to trade the vechicle for another of similar age and disrepair (the devil you know, and all that) and left Melbourne on Monday afternoon….only to discover the damn heater they GAVE us is busted. Grrr. So, once again we’re on the prowl for a heater, and a bit worried that when we really need it – the air-con won’t work! Ah well, we can always change it out in Adelaide if we really need to.

Otherwise, life in the campervan is working out fairly well as everyone learns to live atop one another. It is making for some interesting conversations in the morning when everyone is getting dressed. Grant was standing in his underwear putting on a shirt yesterday when Jessica reaches over and says: “LOOK DADDY!! You have a POCKET in your knickers!!” After extracting her hand, he had some red-faced explaining to do about what exactly he keeps in that very interesting pocket. Mommy was in hysterics on the floor.

Apparently Jessica’s word of the week is “Otherwise.” It’s totally cracking me up. Anytime you ask/tell her to do something, she makes up a reason – some more bizarre than others – about why she should do what you’ve asked. Example: Mommy: “Please sit very still while the penguins are going by Jessica”. Jessica: “Otherwise that man in the red jacket will hit me?” (man in the red jacket being the warden)

Potty training is still not working out. The only time she wants to go potty is at midnight in the pouring rain, when the potty in question is a three minute dash across a poorly lit campground! But, we’re planning to pick up a portable one. It’s high time we got this sorted out. The eating is going a bit better. We’ve found one or two snack foods that she will eat, and we even managed to find something to stand in for “circle sausage” once. Although, it’s doubtful we’ll ever find the stuff again!

Melbourne was fun. We stayed with friends we’d met years ago in New Zealand – Kerry and Leigh. A BIG thanks to them for letting the bean have the run of their house for three days, and for putting up with all the cartoons. It was nice to be able to spread out a bit and be able to sleep in a real bed…not to mention get all the laundry finished! We didn’t get up to much in Melbourne, just wandered around downtown, went to Williamstown (sp?) for lunch, and saw the painted beach houses. All in all a great weekend, apart from very bizarre service in a small cafe in Williamstown. One waitress running off in tears and another older woman slamming things (including chairs) about! Very odd!

After leaving Melbourne we drove to nearby Phillip Island, and are staying in a small town called Cowes. The caravan park that we’re staying in is right on the beach and we can eat breakfast looking out over the ocean towards Melbourne. It’s beautiful! We sayed here for three nights, so we didn’t feel we had to rush around to see everything.

The two highlights so far have been the wildlife park and the  penguin parade. We did the wildlife park on the afternoon of our first day here (after fruitless searching for a heater…) and it was AMAZING! We were each given a bag of food and told to go and feed the animals. After the brief warning about sticking our hands into the Dingo, Tazmanian Devil, and Cockatiel (sp?) enclosures, we were off!

There were wide open fields full of kangaroos, emus and wallabies that we were allowed to walk through. Of course, they all knew we were packing food, so as soon as they saw the telltale paper bags, the critters came running. Especially the Emus. I’m not generally afraid of any animals, but – let me tell you – an Emu intent on robbing you of your paper bag is somewhat frightening! I certainly didn’t want to feed it by hand, because I didn’t know how gentle they would be with those big beaks….not to mention the fact that she had babies with her and I had no idea if she was going to be protective. So, I scattered a handful of food over my shoulder as I ran away….with Grant laughing his ass off at me. Then one chased him and I got my own back. Eventually we worked out a toss-some-food-and-run-away routine that kept them at a distance whilst we fed [that one’s for you new guy] the kangaroos and wallabies.

Feeding a kangaroo!! How COOL is that?? They are very cute and very soft and kind of grab onto your hand with their claws to eat the food. They absolutely mobbed us and we loved every minute of it. We had to go back and buy a lot more food because we were having so much fun. It was hilarious to watch the toddler-sized joeys rummaging around in Mom’s pouch. They didn’t quite fit anymore and you’d see odd bits of them sticking out here and there. Adorable.

We also lucked out in that the Dingoes had puppies, and we managed to get a good look at the Tazmanian Devil. The pictures I took came out with red-eye, which I thought quite appropriate so I left it in! The Koalas were their usual fuzzy adorable selves, but we didn’t get to touch those. Bummer.  Hopefully we’ll find a place we can do that sometime along the way.

Yesterday we visited the Nobbies – a pretty part of the seashore where seagulls nest. There were thousands of them, and they all had baby seagulls. A bit depressing seeing some of the babies attacked, but it was pretty cool to see such a massive nesting grounds. Then we visited a local winery that had actually erected a MASSIVE tent to keep the grapes covered against the wind and the birds. Bought some wine for Daddy, too.

Last night we saw THE most amazing thing. Every night, hundreds of fairy penguins (world’s smallest penguin) waddle up the beaches at dusk to their burrows for the night. They are just slightly taller than a seagull and very very cute. Of course, being mating season, we were treated to some additional “activities” which had the parents in the audience doing some explaining. Luckily for us, the bean was bored of penguins after about six minutes so was happily building a sandcastle by that time. One of the little guys waddled across the sand about two feet in front of us! As we walked up the boardwalk towards the parking lot, we could see them all through the brush and under the boardwalk, and the air was filled with the calls and sounds of miniature mating penguins and laughing people! It was a wonderful, magical experience to see all the little guys marching across the beach together. Jessica was walking like a penguin all last night, so she must have managed to see at least one penguin amidst her sandcastle building!

Link to Phillip Island Penguin Parade: http://www.penguins.org.au/ 

Today’s plan is to get caught up on email, and hopefully upload some photos. Then we’re off to the start of the Great Ocean Road. The place we’re staying tonight is called Queenscliffe.  

For Grant’s birthday, we’re planning a helicopter ride: http://www.gorhelis.com/home.php

It’ll be a couple days after the big 40, but it looks like THE place to do a helicopter ride…now all we have to do is convince Jessica that we’re not in Mexico once we get off the thing!

Well, I’ve finally broken down and paid the small fortune for internet access again. I admit it…I’m a junkie! I’ve also developed an unfortunate addiction to Mrs Mac’s meat pies. I’m going to come home 20 lbs heavier if I keep eating them for lunch every single day!

Jindabyne was a bit of a let-down. It rained for two days solid and we holed up in the campervan. Two days in a campervan with a small child…recipe for divorce, let me tell you. That, or child abuse! But, we survived and went on our merry way. We had planned to head through the snowy mountains, but the park requires all vehicles to carry snow chains which we would have had to rent, and the weather forecast called for rain and snow for the following couple of days. The place we were headed had no showers or electricity….so we decided to head back to the coast!

We stayed the night in a little place just south of Tathra on the coast. I think it was called Hobart (??) beach and it was in a truly lovely national park. We were one of three vehicles in the whole place and had an entire beach to ourselves on one of our hikes. We saw our first kangaroo!! (well, live one, anyway – loads of roadkill here) It turned out to be a wallaby, but we were really excited anyway!

The following day was my first day to drive. The rain had stopped and Grant chose another national park along the coast to stay in for the night. The previous night had been so lovely, we thought we’d do another night in a park. Well, we’re allowed to take the campervan on unpaved roads only if they are “access roads” to campgrounds. The previous day we had survived a 3 km dirt access road into the campground. No worries, we thought, we’ll survive another one. Well, my trusty co-pilot didn’t exactly READ the map, and 25 km of “access road” later, we came upon the actual access road to the campground  – suitable for 4wd only…and had to turn around! 

So, my very first day of driving a vehicle this big, this top-heavy, and on the wrong side of the road was down a rutted, muddy, narrow, slippery-as-hell dirt track through a forest upon which we saw only two other vehicles in almost an hour. The microwave almost fell off its shelf with all the bouncing! What a nightmare drive! I would be afraid to drive my 4wd Explorer down that road and here we are in a damn gutless motorhome and we probably wouldn’t have been covered had we broken down because we had no business being on the road in the first place! Ah well, we made it out of there and stayed in a rest stop down the road with some Aussies who had almost exactly the same experience with their trailer earlier that day. So, I didn’t feel quite so stupid. I can drive that thing really well now, too!

We’ve been in Lakes Entrance now for two nights and are leaving this afternoon. Got some laundry done and shopped in a thrift shop for some cheap t-shirts so I don’t have to do laundry twice a week. Jessica goes through clothes like crazy! We went for a lake cruise to see the dolphins yesterday. A bit of a waste of money as Jessica was more interested in the captain’s stuffed Nemo character collection than in the dolphins! $90 so she can play with Nemo. We pointed out the dolphins to her and she just looks bored and says: “those are sharks Mommy,” like I’m a complete idiot! Later that evening she went ga-ga over a bronzed statue along the waterfront and the night time lighting along the path. Go figure. At least she doesn’t require costly entertainment!

We also met a really cool young Irish couple (hi guys!) and went for dinner on our first night here. It was nice to have some company who didn’t mind hanging out with our evil child for an evening!

Jessica and Daddy are off feeding the ducks at the moment and checking out 90 mile beach…giving Mommy some much-needed kid-free time. We’re headed off towards Melbourne this evening and will probably just stay in a rest-stop along the way so we don’t have to drive the whole three/four hours in one day. We have to be there Friday so Britz can check the heater for us, and hopefully fix some of the few other small things wrong.

Grant wants to upgrade our camper so that we can all sit in the front seat. He had two days of riding in the back and it’s brutally uncomfortable back there. But, I’d rather put up with a bit of discomfort than pay way more for a bigger unit, and then have to pay twice as much for gas. Gas is really really expensive here. I think it’s about 1.65 a litre near here, and our vehicle just drinks the stuff!

We’ve also decided not to go to Tazmania and spend more time on the Great Ocean Road instead. The ferry to Tazzy takes 10 hours and it’s something like $230 a person each way…plus $$ for the vehicle! Yikes! Too expensive for an eight day trip. Oh well, that gives us more time to hang out with the penguins and koalas on Philip island.

Well – I should sign off and see if these pictures have actually uploaded. Check the main site, I’m trying to upload pics of Dallas at the moment.

Here we are in the Snowy Mountains….in early spring! It’s COLD here, dammit! We had originally intended to head down the coast from Canberra to Melbourne, but we ran into a guy at a campsite that said this route was amazing, so here we are freezing our asses off! I actually bought mittens and a touque for Jessica today.

Life has been fairly uneventful over the past day or so. We wasted a lot of time in Canberra going from one place to another trying to get the heater fixed in the campervan. It does actually work, but only when it’s on full blast so it’s not adjustable and it doesn’t get very hot even when on full blast all night. Hopefully it hangs in there and we’ll decide in Melbourne if we want to bother fixing it.

We did manage to get to the Australian War Memorial in Canberra. Awesome museum -although the bean was a bit bored by it all. We also managed to get our RTW flights ticketed after a couple of visits to the Qantas office and nearly giving the poor agent heart failure! So, we’re FINALLY booked for the round the world flights….and just managed to get in before the price increased on the fares. It ended up costing way less than it would have in Canada, so worth the headache in the end. Essentially the difference in prices means Jessica flies for free!

Jessica is Slooooowly branching out with the eating habits. She declared that she is: “tired of peanut butter” at lunch today so hopefully this is a good thing. She has decided that yellow cheese slices are OK and they don’t have to be orange like at home. Of course,her two favorite fruits are stupidly expensive here at the moment. It’s $10 per kilo for grapes, and the major storms earlier this year wiped out banana crops…..so we paid $5 for two bananas. She better eat them!

Jessica has also developed a fascination with “bird poop” due to the major number of pidgeons we’ve encountered recently. Much to the great amusement of passers-by, she announces “BIRD POOP – LOOK OUT DADDY DON’T STEP IN THE BIRD POOP!!” every time she sees some on the sidewalk. As you can imagine, this is an almost constant theme as we walk through cities!

The Snowy Mountains are absolutely beautiful. I’m really tempted to go skiing tomorrow, just to say I did it! I think it’s supposed to snow tonight. Poor Grant had hoped to go for two years with no snow – but no such luck! We’re booked into a Big 4 Caravan Park for two nights. I don’t think we’ll do that anymore. It’s so institutional and nowhere near as pretty as the other places we’ve stayed. Plus, it’s twice as expensive!

Well, I think we’re off for a walk round town. Internet is costing me a fortune, so likely I won’t be updating this until I can find some wireless connectivity. I can’t upload photos here, either – sorry everyone!

First a disclaimer – please excuse the spelling…this keyboard is awful and the machine is soooo slow I can’t be bothered to fix mistakes…

The past few days have indeed been an adventure!

Jessica has pretty much been on hunger strike. She is eating bread and peanut butter and cheerios almost exclusively. Every place we went to in Sydney she would ask the waiter: “do you have peanut butter?” Poor munchkin. Now that we have the campervan, though, things are a bit better and we’ve been able to supplement her diet with some fruit and hot dogs!

 Our second day in Sydney was fun, still a bit jet lagged. We caught a ferry to the aquarium and saw the sharks and a platypus. A bit steep at $60 for an hour, but it was a wonderful aquarium. Jessica didn’t have much in the way of patience until we hit the play centre in the cafeteria and she spent an hour in there climbing around. We spent the rest of the day just wandering about in a haze of jet lag – saw a bit of china town and some of Paddy’s market. Ate dinner at harbourside over by the aquarium where an industrous waiter unearthed some peanut butter for the uber picky among us…only to discover that it had “lumps” in it (those would be peanuts) She soldiered on and ate about half her toast, though.

We picked up the campervan on Sept 4 at around 10 am. The place was understaffed due to a virus, so we waited ages, but what nice people there! The spent a couple of hours pulling apart the campervan to try and put a safety hook in the back for Jessica’s seat. No suck luck. So, Jessica has to sit up front with Daddy. She can reach the dash with her feet and spends her entire drive opening and closing the glove box and changing radio stations…much to the annoyance of her father!

Driving out of Sydney was interesting (not to mention a test of any marriage!) I had to sit in the back window of the truck cab (picture a truck and camper) which is elevated so I am sitting on slippery linoleum and leaning forward to see the roadsigns. Not exactly legal, but Grant needed someone to navigate and Jessica was busy with the glove box. We got there in the end, after a bit of swearing and a few missed turns, and pulled into the campground just as it was getting dark – 6pm for anyone who is wondering! Luckily we had managed to stop for groceries on the way – an adventure in itself!We stayed in a little place just outside shellharbour an hour and a half or so south of Sydney in a national park on the Tasman Sea.

Morning came early as Jessica woke up at 4:30 am afraid of the dark and her flashlight battery dead from being on all night. Thankfully, the beds in the campervan are big and comfortable, provided there’s not a cold footed three year old wedged between you! Actually the bed up top really is big – it’s probably close to a queen size. We have our own shower and toilet, as well. But we’ll save those for emergency potty breaks – provided her highness ever gets round to toilet training. We’re putting her back into diapers as soon as the pull-ups run out. They’re about half the price here in Oz, so that’s what she’s going to have to deal with until she’s trained. Hopefully that’s an incentive for her

The campground was lovely, although I did count five spiders in my shower with me! The view was amazing as was the birdsong int he morning. We drove through Macquerie (sp??) pass ont he way to Canberra which was a bit hair-raising, but very very pretty!

We stayed just outside the city last night at the exhibition centre. Got some laundry done and chatted with some locals. The heater broke in the campervan so we’ve spent most of today driving around trying to get it fixed…it was COLD this morning!

Well, I’ve got a line of people waiting for this computer so I should sign off here.

Here we are in sunny Sydney! It’s the third day of spring today and already unseasonably warm….much cooler than it was in Dallas, though. It’s also Father’s Day – so Grant gets to celebrate twice this year!

The flight was actually pretty good. We flew from Dallas to LAX and then got a hotel room for the layover. Managed to catch up with my old roomie Giselle for dinner, which was awesome. (aside from the horrible service at Denny’s and  the hyper three year old!) For the record – I STILL HATE LAX. We boarded the flight to Sydney at 11:05 pm and arrived in Sydney two days later at 7:25 am local time. The flight time was something like 14 and a half hours. Jessica – bless her – slept or watched TV most of the flight. I never even opened the bag of toys we brought! For you parents out there…bring the car seat on the plane. It has been so wonderful for her to have something reasonably comfortable to sleep in. The only bad thing is for some reason Jessica doesn’t like to eat on planes. Might be the Gravol, I guess. So she went something like 20 hours on two goldfish crackers. Poor munchkin.

We are staying in the most awesome hotel. The Westin in Sydney. It’s absolutely beautiful. We’re a bit underdressed and it’s wicked expensive, but what the hell. We get a discount on the room and some of the food, but it’s still killing our budget. Worth it though, for the last comfortable beds we’ll be sleeping in for a long while! That’s what took me so long to email anyone. It was $25 for internet access! Sorry kids – you guys aren’t worth it!

Yesterday passed in a haze of jetlag. After our $50 breakfast (and THAT was at half price.) we headed down to the harbour and saw the opera house and the bridge.  Jessica had a blast in the gardens chasing “serious animals” like crocs with a stick she picked up from somewhere. We can’t believe how expensive Sydney is so far. I’m guessing it’s because we haven’t ventured out of the major tourist areas yet, but WOW. We just paid $20 for 15 diapers at a convenience store.This kid had better get potty trained and fast. she’s getting a lot better, but not soon enough for Mommy.

We crashed last night at about 7:30 and Jessica – bless her – was up again at 2:30. Grant played the Father’s Day card and slept in until 5:30. So, Mommy’s pretty tired today. So far Jessica has been a pretty sunny little person. 20-odd hours of travel time and she’s still singing. Amazing!

 Today we’re off to find a more reasonably priced breakfast and then on to the aquarium. Then maybe Chinatown. We pick up the campervan tomorrow and say goodbye to our huge hotel room (which is probably more than twice the size of the campervan!)