Viv's Travel Diary: May 2006

Adelaide and beyond.

Following my immense train journey here, I was keen to see what Adelaide had to offer and the answer turns out to be...... not much! Only kidding, it's not bad, just quite different to Perth - more industrial and not quite got the same vibe, but here are some photos showing a snippet of what I've found to do in my few days here.

From top to bottom: the Himeji gardens (created to celebrate the link with Adelaide's twin city in southern Japan), the rose garden in the foreground and Bicentennial Conservatory (housing at-risk tropical rainforest plants) of the Botanic Gardens, and a selection of photos of Glenelg, a lovely seaside town to which trams run from central Adelaide.

The Longest Train Journey In The World. Ever.

I'm in Adelaide now having completed (with the aid of some wine and plenty of games of cards!) a 44 hour train journey from Perth to get here! The scenery along the way was pretty impressive but it did remain constant for around a day at a time which took some of the interest out of it! It did give you an idea of the vast size of Australia though, and also gave me my first sighting of a kangaroo!! :-)

During the course of our journey we stopped off at a few places, one of which was Cook, with a mammoth population of 4 (though there were several thousand flies to help make up the numbers!). They used to have enough people to warrant a school, hospital (see the photo below for a plea to save it closing down), and even a jail but numbers have dwindled to the extent that all that remains is a small shop selling postcards and local produce to the gullible tourists on the trains that pass through. :-)

Home Sweet Home

I discovered a shop today that specialises in British foodstuffs (though they did also have TCP, Germolene and Fairy washing liquid) for those feeling a bit homesick! They had good old Thornton's toffee, Irn Bru (sooo tempted to buy some but then I calculated that it was around 1 pound 70p for a 500ml bottle and decided I didn't miss it that much!), Walkers crisps, Hellman's mayonnaise, Marmite, and the list goes on! Get the feeling I might be popping back there sometime over the next few days... :-)

Fremantle

Yesterday I spent the day in Fremantle, 20km south of Perth and Western Australia's biggest port. It's a very pretty city, has such a relaxing atmosphere about it, and also has a reputation for serving Australia's best fish and chips and, having tried them, I have to admit they're pretty darn tasty! A single street entertainer was keeping the crowds entertained in the centre of town outside the Fremantle Markets - not quite the same as the Royal Mile at Festival time but it was still nice to see!

Fremantle port.

Fremantle Town Hall.

King's Park, Perth, WA

I spent pretty much all of my first day in Perth recovering from the 10 hour flight here but on the second day I figured I'd better do something given that it was such a lovely day (around 27 degrees, just to make you guys back home jealous...!) so headed to King's Park and Botanic Gardens, in the southwest of the city. It was so pretty, and even though i'm here at the wrong time of the year for flowers to be in bloom, the park was just so relaxing to wander round, esp with the water gardens and fountain (top). The structure in the lower picture is the DNA Tower (named so for obvious reasons!) which is 15m tall and has 101 steps to the top.

The view of Perth city centre from the park.

Sunrise over the Indian Ocean

Well, my time in Africa is over and this is a photo from the plane as I head to my next destination, Australia!

South Africa's Garden Route

After finishing the tour in Cape Town, a few of us rented a car and drove up the Garden Route. Unfortunately I only made it as far as George due to bad flight scheduling on my part but the scenery on the way was amazing - the photo just doesn't do it justice!

And here are the aforementioned 'few of us' - from left to right: Grant (Kiwi), Kylie and Beth (Northern English lasses), Jake (Kiwi), Hannah (Grenadian - v sorry if that's not how it's spelt, banana!) and last but not least, Parksy (Kiwi).

Table Mountain from Robben Island.

Me on top of Table Mountain. It's so hard to get a proper idea of the size of Cape Town until you're up there, but to give you an idea, when I got the bus back to Cape Town from George, at 6:10pm it was announced that we were coming into Cape Town then at around 7:50pm the bus arrived at the centre!

Even More Photos

This is Viv's brother posting again. Girls and technology just don't mix. ;-) ;-) ;-) Oi! It's not my fault the computers are wonky... :-)

A bill from Wimpy in Zimbabwe, where $1 US was worth $200,000 Zim.

Me holding $20 US worth of Zim $.

In Antelope Park, Gweru, where elephants really did just stroll past your tent in the morning - SUCH a cool sight to wake up to!

Hannah and I soaking wet after having gone for a swim with an elephant which spent as much time ducking underwater as we spent trying to stay above it!

Again at Antelope Park (where, strangely enough, there wasn't an antelope to be found...) with a 14 month old lion cub, who was soon going to progress to take part in the lion walk (see below).

My group with one of the 16 month old cubs we had the privilege of walking with. At Antelope Park the lions are helped to gradually build up skills (including hunting some of the many animals in the park) so that they can be released back into the wild.

Since our first dressing up night went so well we decided to have another one when the Vic Falls booze cruise came along, and this time the theme was bin-bag black tie (as you can obviously guess from the photo!). A good night was had by all (well, as much as we can remember of it, anyway... ;-)

We took a trip out to the beautiful Okavango Delta in Namibia and this was our means of transport - a Makoro, made out of sausage tree (I know, I didn't believe them either at first but apparently that is correct!), which was poled through the water rather expertly by many men and women.

Sunset in the Delta.

Giraffes in Etosha National Park, Namibia.

Namibia is famous for it's sand dunes and the sport of sandboarding has been developed on the back of that. Ordinary snowboards are used but the base is covered in formica surface to reduce friction with the sand. This is the guys walking up the 100m dune for the first time (and also the last time for some of them!).