Roadtrip Over

After 20 days of traveling up, down and around eastern Australia, we returned the Wicked camper van today. We drove 5,293 km (3,289 miles) and stayed at 16 different places along the way. We checked in with our Spot GPS over 60 times during our trip and we were able to compile them together into the map below.

Map created by SpotAdventures

The last stop was an overnight trip to Phillip Island, about two hours south of Melbourne. We went to the Penguin Parade, where you can view wild penguins returning to their burrows after feeding in the ocean. There were over 1,000 penguins marching across the beach (not all at once - they go in groups and the whole event takes about 45 minutes). Since the penguins breed in stages we got to see penguins of all ages, including super furry baby ones. We were not allowed to take pictures for fear of disturbing them but Jaimee did snap a picture of a chocolate penguin at a chocolate factory:

From Around Melbourne

Phillip Island is kind of weird that way. There are wild penguins on one part of the island and less than five miles away is all sorts of kitchy touristy stuff, including a "grand prix" race track. Also, the Penguin Parade itself was really built up (think Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon but much worse). Hundreds of people view the penguins each night and they sell all sorts of junk in the gift shop, including pop corn, candy and snacks for during the viewing. But apparently the penguins don't mind, just so long as you don't take their picture!

On the way back from Phillip Island we stopped in the Melbourne beach suburb of St. Kilda and met up with our friend Lisa from San Francisco. We hadn't seen her since we stayed with her in California during the second week of our trip. She's here visiting her sister, who like Jaimee's sister Michelle also studied abroad for the semester at the University of Queensland. It was fun seeing Lisa again and sharing travel stories and impressions of Australia (mostly positive).

From Around Melbourne

We are back with Nan and Pop for the next couple days with not much planned. We may go into Melbourne tomorrow or Saturday before our flight to New Zealand. We're very much enjoying the suburb of Newport/Williamstown. We went on a walk tonight around a lake near their house and saw a few different kinds of birds, including, apparently not that rare black swans.

From Around Melbourne

Driving Around Melbourne

We arrived in Melbourne yesterday with Michelle, and as we mentioned we are staying with Yael's grandparents, Nan and Pop. It turns out that Nan and Pop are two of the nicest people we've ever met. They are pure heart and excessively generous with Michelle and by extension us.

Not only did they not bat an eye when we mentioned we might be staying until Saturday when we leave for New Zealand, but they were sad that we weren't staying longer. Today they took us on a drive around the entire Melbourne bay, starting from their house in Williamstown, going out toward Geelong and Queenscliff, taking a ferry across to Sorrento and driving back up to Melbourne to drop Michelle off at the airport by 4PM. We actually didn't stop very often because Pop was concerned about getting Michelle to the airport on time. But we did take this picture on Arthur's Seat State Park near Dromana:

From Around Melbourne

We're having a blast hearing old stories that Nan and Pop tell. They both grew up right after the Great Depression (which even hit Australia pretty hard) and were definitely shaped by World War II. We had no idea how involved Australia was in World War II before speaking with Pop and since Pop was in the Australian Navy (in the Navy band) he has quite a few stories about the war and the years after it. It's also fun to hear the perspectives of someone who has lived in the same house for over 50 years and how things have changed around them.

We've definitely enjoyed meeting locals on our trip and we put Nan and Pop on the top of our list of favorite people we've met so far. Tomorrow we're headed to Phillip Island for the day and night (our last night in the van!) before coming back to Melbourne for a couple days.

Here's a map of Melbourne - Phillip Island is to the bottom right of where this map is centered, below French Island. We hope to see wild penguins and have a look around at the other stuff on the island.


View World Trip in a larger map

Climbing Kosciuszko

As mentioned in our previous posts we planned on climbing Mt. Kosciuszko, the highest point in Australia on our roadtrip from Brisbane to Melbourne. Well, we're happy to report that we succeeded!

Continuing from our last post, we drove south down the coast toward Sydney and camped at Crowdy Head National Park, a secluded ocean-front park. We had to drive about 10 miles on a dirt road to get to the camp ground and since we didn't see any other vehicles we thought we'd have the campground to ourselves. We were surprised when we turned into the campground and it was pretty full. And they charged $10 per person per night! This is in contrast to US National Parks which almost always charge only per site, and never more than say $20. But, there were free showers which we took advantage of the next morning. We also enjoyed watching the kangaroos interacting with the other campers:

From Kosciusko

The next morning when we drove around Sydney we got stuck in quite a bit of traffic. There are a few toll roads in Australia but very few of them take cash; you need a transponder in your car to ride on them. Since we didn't have one we had to take surface streets around Sydney. Eventually we found our way out of the city and started heading west toward Mt. Kosciuszko.

We camped at a rest stop outside Australia's capital, Canberra, which is also near some of Australia's wine country. We were able to visit a winery on our way the next day but some of the other wineries we tried to visit were closed, as was a brewery! I guess it's sort of "shoulder season" here between Winter and Summer.

We got to the Mt. Kosciuszko area which is a National Park, even though there are several ski resorts inside the park. (As a side note, you have to pay per day to enter the park, which was $16 per day per car. Unlike the USA where paying a National Park entry fee generally allows you to stay for seven days.) We parked the van in a secluded spot where we had kangaroos and pygmy possums visiting us during the night.

We drove up to Charlotte Pass (one of the ski areas) to start our hike. It was a pretty easy hike, walking along a flat trail that used to be a car road. The hike was 18km (about 11 miles) round trip with about 468 meters (about 1500 ft) of elevation gain. It was really beautiful scenery. Here we are at the top:

From Kosciusko

It seems most people who climb Kozi (as they call it here) take a chairlift part of the way up. But not us. Plus, it cost $29 each to take the chairlift!

The drive from Kozi into Victoria and Melbourne took us another day and a night. We camped by a river and after a long day of driving today arrived in Melbourne in the afternoon. We're staying in Williamstown, a cozy suburb of Melbourne at the grand parents of Yael. They're super nice and plan on showing us a few sights around here the next few days.

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures of our Kozi hike.

Kosciusko