BA Beastacus!
Buenos Aires


September 2006

This week's podcast is courtesy of Greg, the new food channel host as he explains how to make Mate the popular Argentinean drink – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cjV37v6Uss.

We said sad goodbyes to our family after 9 weeks enjoying the 35 degree heat of the British summer, the world cup and family weddings. We travelled via Washington DC and stepped off the aeroplane into a freezing (1 degree) Buenos Aires on Monday 4th September. We headed to a recommended overlanders motorbike garage, Dakar Motos, in the northeast of Buenos Aires. We arrived bleary eyed to a big kiss from the owners Sandra and Javier and a coffee and a mate (mart-ay) were thrust into our hands. We sat in the workshop kitchen and talked Argentinean politics, roads and travel until they left the garage for the evening. Dakar Motos has become extremely well known in the South American overlanding fraternity as a garage that can help overland motorcyclists to reconstruct their vehicles and provides beds within the workshop for weary travellers.

Sandra was to become our new ally on combating the world of bureaucracy to release the Beast from the port. We expected our boat to be late arriving in to the country, but unfortunately for us the boat had arrived a week early. Argentinian port regulations give you 5 days to collect your crate or container before they start to charge extra per day for your precious cargo sitting on the port side. This meant that we had to get the car cleared and out of customs rapidly. Sandra made some preliminary phone calls and found that the agent we had been given as a contact in Australia knew absolutely nothing about our container and didn't even know if it had arrived. So time was of the essence as we were already 2 days down. We enrolled Sandra as our chief negotiator and she worked wonders.

Initially we had to obtain the bill of lading from the shippers. This is a document that states that your cargo has arrived. Once we had paid US$300 for 3 pieces of paper, we headed to the customs office (Emba) to start all the release paperwork. After waiting for 3 hours outside the office we were given a number and told to come back after their two hour lunch. We decided that we would try and sort out the port authority paperwork that we required, so we walked (you all know how Greg hates to walk!) to the Bactssa office. We spoke to the port authority officer who informed us that the cost would be $1400 (around #240 or US$450). This cost included the removal of the cargo from the boat and storing it on the dock.

So not having that many pesos with us and being unable to pay by credit card, we set off in a taxi to get some money. We soon found out how the country is still in recovery from the financial crash of 2001. We visited six banks and every bank we went to had no money, we could not obtain money from the ATMs or over the counter. After spending nearly an hour looking for a bank that would give us money, we converted the remaining dollars and travellers cheques that we had on us. We later found out that it was pay day and that since people have no respect for the government and their fiscal policies they take their entire salary out, emptying the banks.

Brandishing our newly converted pesos, we headed back to Bactssa to pay our port duties. We were offered a $12 reduction (#2) in the total bill as we had had to get a taxi to get money. A bargain! So we returned to the customs office to see a large queue that had formed. Sandra poked her head around the door to see if our number allowing us to queue jump was still valid. In the process she incurred the wrath of the waiting people who screamed at us. To abate the situation, we retreated to the corner and we waited for a further 3 hours, not gaining our required paperwork but another number from the weary looking customs officers for our return the following day.

We were second in the queue the following morning, obtaining our paperwork. We were given a time for the customs officer to come and carry out an inspection of the car and container. We went to the warehouse and port area to try and retrieve our container, but where only slightly hindered by the port not actually being able to locate our container – not an easy task when there are several million containers passing through the port every year.

As soon as they found the container a mere hour later, a big smile spread across Greg and my face and we realised that we could actually carry on with our adventure! We checked the unique metal seal (a metal bolt with a number) that Alexis had inserted in the lock in Melbourne to make sure that the container had not been opened without our permission and then the seal was cut off with bolt cutters and the doors flung open. And there she was…. Our Beast! We were hoping we would see her again but we weren't 100% sure as there is a high tendency for containers to fall overboard in rough seas or for them to be left in the port and not make the right boat.

The wheels and Maggiolina were still in the location they had been in before so we took them out and then tried to start the car to move it out of the container. The Beast wouldn't start so we contemplated having to push it out – not easy with a 3.5 tonne vehicle on rims! A squirt of magic spray in the air intake remedied the situation and allowed us to rev her up and then drive her out over the ramp and out into the sunny Argentinean port.

A small crowd of port workers collected around the car and all clamoured to help us to put the wheels and roof rack back on. A fork lift truck was brought over and used to lift the Beast as we removed the rims and put the front wheels back on, creating an image of a Beast awakening and crawling out of the port. The fork lift truck was positioned at the back and the car lifted with the aid of a piece of wood to stop the suspension being damaged. One wheel was put on safely but then suddenly there was a creak and a crack as the wood which had not quite been positioned correctly broke under the weight and the Beast lurched precariously to one side. The other wheel had not been put on but luckily the rim was still on and the forklift had caught the Beast before it crushed the port worker at the side. A deep breath was taken, damaged assessed and we quickly put the other wheel back on.

The customs verifier arrived. There was no quarantine or inspection inside the Beast as the customs verifier made a cursory glance at the car and left us to reconstruct the vehicle whilst he filled in the information with Sandra. We carried on putting the roof rack and Maggiolina back on the roof. All of it was due to Sandra and a very big thank you to Sandra for all her smiles and encouragement through the stressful process. We then drove out of the port into cold winter air and manic traffic of Buenos Aires…


The Beast is Back!


Notes from Argentina:

The capital of Argentina is Buenos Aires.

The currency of Argentina is pesos ($) and centavos which at the time of writing there was $6 to the # and $3.10 to the US$.

The Argentinian Peso is the official currency. The Peso was linked to the US dollar in the 1990s. By the end of the 1990s, the peso had become overvalued and Argentinian products became unviable in the global market. People saw that their government was inept and so started to take money out of the banks and transfer it abroad. In 2001, the government imposed a cash-withdrawal weekly limit of US$250 which lead to rioting. The financial crash has left people wary of the banks and when they are paid the banks are emptied of cash. Many keep their money in their houses now.

A good bottle of wine will cost you around $3 (around 50p).

The average salary in Buenos Aires is $600 – 800 (around #100 to #130) a month. Many poorer families have to survive on $200 a month (about #30).

Argentina covers an area of 2,776,890 sq km or 1,072,157 sq miles.

The population of Argentina is nearly 40 million.
Mate (pronounced as mart-ay) is a tea like tree which is ground up into small bits and put in a wooden lined pot. A metal straw with a filter at the end is put in the cup and hot water is poured over the top. The mate is drunk and then topped up with water and passed on to the next person to drink. Mate is a part of Argentinian culture that is very social and you are honoured to be asked to participate. If you linger too long over drinking your Mate you will be told that "it is not a mircophone!"

In Argentina there are four languages commonly spoken – Spanish (the official language), Quechua, Guarani and Araucanian.

The religions of Argentina are - 93% Roman Catholic, 2.5% Protestant, 2% Jewish, 1.5% Ukranian Catholic and 1% Armenian Orthodox.

The major indigenous groups are the Quechua of the northwest, the Mapuche of Patagonia and smaller groups of Guaranai, Matacos, Tobas and Wichi.

Into the Pampas...
Hola Beast Crew

Buenos Aires – La Carlota – Valle de Dique – Cordoba – Quines – San Rafael

16th September 2006 – 25th September 2006

After a week of relaxing in the Argentinian sun, we were joined at Dakar Motos by a Swede, Roni, who is to start his travels around South America on his motorbike. He enlisted Sandra to help him to get his bike from the port and customs. Unfortunately Roni had sent his motorbike via TNT, the transport company, who hindered the release of his motorbike and hugely overcharged him for their services. Sandra of Dakar Motos worked her wonders again and managed to get his bike released to enable him to head north up to the Amazon on his three month whirlwind tour.

We had to wait for an insurance bloke to come out to evaluate the cost of the vehicle (apparently they have to inspect every car before they will issue the insurance) and then we had to wait for insurance to come through before we could head off into the unknown hills of Argentina. So a few more days in Buenos Aires, we were treated to one of Argentina’s famous asados (barbeque) by Sandra and Javier. The asado is an art in itself. The meat is only placed on the grill when the coals are grey and ashy. The meat is slow roasted for over 2 hours until it melts in the mouth (apparently – a vegetarian writing this!). The meat is carved up on a wooden board and distributed in small pieces along with the morcilla (blood sausage) and intestines which are supposed to be a delicacy!

The day of departure from Buenos Aires arrived and we said a sad goodbye with our insurance in hand and headed north out into the campo (countryside). We drove through flat agricultural land with occasional gauchos herding their horses across the dusty horizon. We passed little shrines marked with red flags or paint, some ornately decorated with painted stones and red flags, others decorated with waste plastic bottles with the Virgin Mary or Jesus surveying the road and the large trucks lumbering by. That evening we stopped in a petrol station for the night and hid behind all the large trucks, listening to all the rumbles and grumbles of the passing trucks. We headed north up to the small mountain ranges of the Sierra de Cordoba, driving through small villages all offering for sale homemade cheese, salami and bread, dangling temptingly from the one storey roadside shops. The mountain area is an Argentinian holiday destination and is crammed with little art shops and restaurants situated around the holding reservoirs. We stopped in one of the small villages lining the lakes and experienced one of the local liquors, Fernet and coke. Fernet tastes like a cross between Hierbas from Spain and Jagermeister with a slight anaesthetic feeling to the mouth but the following morning your mouth resembles a chewy dried up dog poo with the equivalent breath!

We headed north with our furry mouths and seeking some respite we drove through the mountain villages until we found what seems to be a common feature of South America, a German village. Belgrano is decked out with pretty brown and white alpine houses, sells Sauerkraut, Kasespaztle and even has an Oktoberfest like Munich! We passed through the town of Alta Gracia which has a UNESCO world heritage designated Jesuit church. The Jesuits were thrown out of Argentina when the Pope designated them all as heretics.

We arrived in Cordoba, the province capital, which was set up 1573. We drove in through miles of ferreterias and car repair places into the historical centre. The beautiful buildings crammed into the square are all part of a world heritage designated zone with another Jesuit church as their crowning piece. Cordoba is one of the more Catholic cities with more than 21 churches in the central area alone. We spent several nights enjoying the spring festival with lots of bands and people watching. Greg even had his first Spanish lesson from a policemen, when he had to explain, in rather drunken spanglish, why he was relieving himself in a public place!

From Cordoba we headed due southwest back up into the arid mountains of the Sierra de Cordoba where we sat and watched condors rising on the hot thermals, before heading down across the flat pampas areas towards the Andes and the wine region of San Rafael. Sandra and Javier recommended that we meet up with two of their friends who have moved to the region to grow grapes…. Bring on the wine!!

Notes from Argentina:

• Argentinians in Buenos Aires are obsessional about their dogs. There are dogwalkers who are employed to take people’s dogs for a walk for over 2 hours a day. They can be seen walking down the street with more than 10 dogs all straining at the lead. There are also penned off areas in the parks for the dog walkers to exercise their charges.
• Buenos Aires have a siesta from 1pm to 3pm but most argentinian towns outside of BA have a siesta until 5pm.
• All Argentinean maps have the Falklands/Islas Malvinas marked down as part of Argentina, although you cannot fly there directly from Argentina (you have to fly from Chile). The Falklands have been in British ownership since 1853.
• Over 30,000 people disappeared under the military regime between 1976 and 1983, which became known as the Dirty War. Many were attempting to oppose the regime but some were just protesting against the price of bus tickets. Some of the people were put in jails others simply disappeared. Other people were tied up and thrown out of low flying aeroplanes into the rivers. Their bodies have never been found.
• Argentinean telephones and the networks have the ability to turn into a ‘handy’ or a CB. You can use a number similar to a telephone to ring anyone else with a CB identification in the country. There is also a button at the side of the telephone that will allow you to use your phone as a CB.
• If you want to get car insurance for your vehicle, you must have an inspector come out and look it over before you are offered insurance. It is possible to buy insurance for Argentina and all of the other surrounding countries.

On the Beastly Road Again
Dear Beast Crew

April – July 2006

The start of the new adventure has begun.

Greg spent many months negotiating prices for the shipment of the Beast to South America from an alarming US$6,000 for a RORO (Roll On Roll Off) to a more reasonable $2,000. In reducing the price we had to reduce the height of the Beast to squeeze her into a 20' container and reduce the height of the car from 2.70m down to 2.28m. Our headache was further enhanced by comment that had been made by a mechanic when the Maggiolina and tyre rack were put on, who said that neither would come off as they were firmly glued on. After a month of stressing about the excessive price of a larger container, we worked out that the roof appendages had been attached with sealant and could be easily removed and we lost a total of 20cm from the height of the vehicle.

We still needed to lose about 20 cm in height to get the vehicle into the container. The options available to us included lowering the tyres, putting the hubs on some wheeled trays and rolling her in or making some custom made wheels. Talking to various mechanics and Alexis's Dad, lowering the tyres was ruled out due to the bulging and distortion of the tyres. A conversation with a fellow 101 driver, lead us to Anthony of the British 4WD garage in the outskirts of Melbourne. The effervescent Anthony managed to source some wheeled trays which unfortunately wouldn't support a 3.5 tonne lump of steel and aluminium. Anthony volunteered to make up some small metal wheel rims and to help stuff the Beast into the container.

The stress of the past few months has all culminated in one day at the Melbourne Docklands. At the beginning of July, Alexis, accompanied by Anthony and Bill, put the metal rims and we drove the Beast into a 20 foot container. She was strapped down in the container to stop rolling and prevent being smashed against the side during the sea voyage. We braced the rims with wood to stop movement backwards and forwards and we closed the door. The Beast now has to endure a 45 – 50 day trip encased in a big metal shipping container to Buenos Aries in Argentina, South America. The massive container ship, the Golden Wattle, will travel up the coast of Australia via Singapore and onto Buenos Aries where we will have to battle with customs to get her released to conquer the Mayan, Aztec and Salsa nations!

Adriano is still slaving away to write down the aboriginal languages of Western Australia . He managed to find 50% of the one of the groups who refused to help him write down the language but then found the other 50% of the population. They unfortunately refused to help, so the only 2 people that speak one of the aboriginal languages are going to let it die out. He is still putting together children's books and enjoying weeks out in the bush.

Alexis and Greg have now headed home to the UK for family weddings. They will fly out to Argentina to meet and reassemble the Beast in September for the next leg of the trip across to Chile, down to southern Argentina before heading north to Brazil and across to Ecuador, Central America and then the USA and Canada. Hopefully Adriano will join them later in the year. We will update you all when we head south to the southern hemisphere again, and tell you of the scenes from the cracking ice floes in Ushuaia to the snow capped mountains of the Andes and on to the forests of the Amazon.

Thank you to all our Australian mates for accepting the travelling Poms into their lives, showing us your wonderful country and we hope you will all keep in contact with us.

Notes from Australia:

? There are only an estimated 60 Land Rover Forward Control 101s in Australia.
? Football and footy refers to Australian Football League whereas Soccer refers to football (confused?).
? Australian English - A 'nature strip' is a grass verge. The word 'heaps' is used to classify many or a lot of things. Sweets are called 'lollies'. The word 'pokies' is used for slot machines. A chicken is called a 'chook'. If you 'pash' you are kissing. 'Superannuation' is the word used for pension funds. A 'robe' is a wardrobe. 'Dim Sim' is used for dim sum. A 'bottle shop' is an off license. To 'dink' is to hitch a lift on a bicycle. To feel 'crook' is to feel ill.
? If you want a house that faces the sun, the rooms facing the north are the sunniest rooms.
? Many place names across Australia come from Aborigine words - Canberra – an aboriginal word which means 'meeting place', Kooyong – means camp or resting place, Kurri Kurri - means 'to hurry along' or 'to go very quickly', Wagga Wagga - means 'place of many crows', Moree - means 'long waterhole' or 'rising sun', Wollongong – means 'hard ground near water'. The area would have been named because it was so close to the water and Toowoomba - means 'place of melons'.
? Popular female Australian names include Bronwyn, Vesna and Liesel.
? Australian summer school holidays occur during Christmas and winter holidays occur during July.
? The famous Australian leather hat worn by station owners is called an Akumbra.
? Australia 's first police force was made up of a dozen of the best behaved convicts.
? The world's oldest flower was found in a fossil near Melbourne. The Koonwarra plant has two leaves and one flower and is believed to be 120 million years old.
? The Australian breed of dog is the Blue Heeler which is used for biting the legs of cattle for herding purposes.
? Over 1,000 Australians die from skin cancer every year.
? The beloved dish of Australia is the Chicken Parmigiana with entire webpages like www.superparma.com dedicated to where to find the best.
? There are four types of Boomerang - the "hook", the "hunter", the "club", the "V". All were used for hunting and warfare but only the Hunter will return when thrown.
? A 'B and S' party is a Bachelors and Spinsters party thrown in the country. You dress in your best outfit, make a one off payment is paid and as much alcohol can be drunk as is possible.
? There are 441 airports across Australia.
? 95% of the world's opals are mined in Australia.
? There are 6,000 species of flies and 1,500 species of spiders in Australia.

Dealing down under!
February – April 2006

Adriano’s life has been changed dramatically with a move of over 4000 km from one side of Australia to the other. He left Sydney on the east coast, for Geraldton on the west coast at the beginning of March, a mere 450 km north of Perth. He is working there under his amazing linguistics guise and writing down the Aboriginal languages of the region before they are lost into the sands of time. He has to publish several books on the language in the next few months.

Alexis and Greg furthered their Beastly quest within the media by having a photo shoot with Australia’s Overlander magazine who are covering our trip in May’s issue. Our story “Beast in the Far East” will feature in the May issue of Land Rover Monthly. Alexis and Greg also presented to over 200 people at the Pajero club of Melbourne about their round the world trip.

Alexis was sent to the wonderful Hunter Valley to do some contamination work and ended up spending two weeks enjoying the scenery of the surrounding area with kangaroos bouncing across the arid grasslands. She spent a day travelling around the area and visited the interesting Burning Mountain National Park. The Burning Mountain is a mere smouldering pile of ash spewing sulphur. The amazing thing is that it has been burning for over 5,500 years, possibly started by a strike of lightning.

Alexis organised the Australian Drink Club’s outing to the Yarra Valley Grape Grazing. We courageously journeyed to the Yarra Valley wine region, 50km northeast of Melbourne, for a day of drinking Victoria’s finest booze. We endured the hard task of trying the produces of several different vineyards before heading back to Melbourne to stare blankly into the distance and vomit!

During one of our many journeys around Victoria, we stopped off at a museum that pays tribute to one of Australia’s most endangered species, the Gippsland Giant Worm. The worm is on the world endangered list as it only occupies an area of 50 hectares in the southeast part of Victoria. Very little is known about it as it is so rare. The worm is enormous, reaching up to 4m in length and is the diameter of a wine bottle cork. Apparently it gurgles as it moves through its burrow which can cover an area of over 25m.

Alexis and Greg went on Deal or No Deal, the new world wide quiz show, with the intent of winning $200,000 but after getting on the stage they were pipped at the post by another contestant. The rules are slightly different to the one in the UK, answering questions and you only having one chance to win. They managed to walk away with another tv show under their belt, but unfortunately no money in the pocket!

The Commonwealth Games has gripped Australia and especially Melbourne where the city has been hosting the games. There have been a variety of events going on in addition to the sports events. There were live cook offs, free open air music events, arts events, even a true Aussie beach was constructed in the centre of town. The sporting events hadn’t quite finish as the Grand Prix screamed into Albert Park, a 5 minute walk from Alexis and Greg’s flat. The earsplitting Grand Prix had some dramatic crashes and engine explosions with the usual Ferrari supporters and barely clad women – a great day out!


Greg has been busy writing his memoirs of our world trip, spending every waking hour outside of street cafes and bars typing away. He is now searching for a publisher…. Anyone got any great publishing contacts? As Greg hasn’t been sponsored whilst here in Australia, he has been forced to leave the country and flee to the tropical island of Fiji to renew his visa! God, he leads a hard life!


Notes on Australia

• A Pommie in Australian slang is an English man/woman. A pommie wash is a quick wash using a face cloth, often while still partly clothed – apparently a comical reference to the belief that English people wash less frequently than others due to the cold climate!
• A light bulb is known as a ‘light globe’ in Australia. To lend your support to a team, you ‘barrack’ the team. A capsicum is another word for the vegetable, the pepper.
• If you want to make food ‘Aussie’ then all you have to do is make it with beetroot or pineapple. The Hungry Jacks (Burger King in the UK) fast food restaurant has the Aussie Burger made with beetroot.
• The daylight saving time (putting the clocks back by 1 hour for winter) was prosponed because of the Commonwealth Games in the southern Australian States.
• The words to the Australian National Anthem: Australians all let us rejoice,
For we are young and free; We’ve golden soil and wealth for toil; Our home is girt by sea; Our land abounds in nature’s gifts, Of beauty rich and rare; In history’s page, let every stage Advance Australia Fair. In joyful strains then let us sing, Advance Australia Fair.
• There are regular national ‘spelling bees’ on television and in theatres. A spelling bee is a spelling competition for both children and adults where you spell out the word to win or embarrass yourself.
• If you order fish and chips in Australia you are likely to order shark and chips (shark is known as flake).
• Many species of Eucalyptus tree shed their bark in spring time.
• There are only a few chocolate bunnies at Easter as they are being replaced by the chocolate Bilby. The Bilby is a rabbit looking marsupial that has been pushed to the verge of extinction by the more successful and introduced rabbits.
• Cyclones created in the southern hemisphere, rotate in a different direction to tornadoes and hurricanes found in the northern hemisphere due to the Coriolis Effect.
• During public events daring pilots scrawl sky writing across the sky in aviation fuel to make political statements, ask someone to get married or just to wish one of the teams good luck.
• Ginger haired people are called Bluey in Australia.
• Brothels are legal in Melbourne.
• 1 in 4 Australians were born outside of Australia.
• In Australian English, if you are to say a date you would say 23 August not 23rd of August.
• It is believed that there were between 200 and 300 Australian Aboriginal languages at the time of first European contact. Only about 70 of these languages have survived, and all but 20 of these are now on the verge of becoming extict.
• The Hunter wine valley was set up by Vicar Tyrell in the 1850s. He had been sent up from Sydney to set up a parish and found that he kept running out of holy communion wine. To resolve his problem, he set up his own vineyard making his own wine and now his descendants are in control of one of the best known wine producers in the world.
• Many places in Australia you need to place a bid in a public auction if you want to buy a house. You get a survey completed before you place a bid. There is a reserve price but the price usually exceeds that price.
• Australia has 146 big things located around the country. These include a big worm, big pineapple, big mosquito, big banana, big watermelon, big scotsman, big rolling pin and big sundial amongst others.
• There are between 70,000 and 80,000 people on extended overland travel at any one time in Australia according to the RACV.

The Devil in Tassie
Alexis and Greg spent Christmas and New Year in Tasmania, the 300km long island dangling off the bottom of Australia. We started up the Beast and caught the Spirit of Tasmania ferry for the 12 hour journey over the Bass Strait to the seventh state of Australia. Over the two weeks they journeyed from the east to the west, north to south. We visited the beautiful wild Cradle Mountain, stunning golden beaches of the Wineglass Bay with its golden sands, Stanley with the headquarters of the Van Dieman company and travelled up the Jacob’s Ladder to Tasmania’s only ski resort Ben Lomond. We pulled the Beast up and camped on the golden sands of the Bay of Fires where red algae colour the granite rocks along the beach.

We pulled up on the beach to spend Christmas at Freycinet National Park and we were woken up at 8.30am on Christmas morning by a fire engine roaring into the campsite with sirens blaring and a hoard of elves cheering and Father Christmas screaming “Merry Christmas!”. We set up a table on the beach, had Christmas lunch and dinner with a few bottles of wine, champagne and port and then saw Father Christmas walking along the beach handing out presents to kids. A very relaxing Christmas!

We headed down the east coast to the wooded peninsula to the east of Hobart, which was used until the 1870s as a penal settlement. Due to its location, disconnected from the mainland, it became prime real estate as a penal colony. Port Arthur became the gaol for second time offenders with a strict and cruel programme of punishment where the worst of the convicts were sent and sentenced to work in chain gangs. Flogging became a way of life, 100 lashes being the normal punishment with silent solitary treatment being used for the worst offenders. An asylum was set up for those that had endured the solitary confinement. Between 1830 and 1877 about 12,500 transported convicts were imprisoned at Port Arthur and one in seven died at the settlement. Port Arthur hit the news on 28th April 1996 when a madman produced an AR15 semi-automatic rifle and massacred 35 people in a killing spree.

Al Draffan and Sarah Wilson flew in from Melbourne to join us for a few days and to travel around Tasmania. We travelled through the forested and rocky centre to the west coast. We visited the desolate mining town of Queenstown where the hills have been sliced in half by copper mining. The mining pollution has been so devastating on the surrounding countryside that King River running away from the town is classified as dead with the ancient Huon Pines (upto 10,000 years old) barely clinging to the shoreline. We left the devastated hills and travelled through the poppy fields to Tasmania’s capital Hobart for New Year, pulling up at the docks and set up the Beast for New Years Eve. The docks were heaving with the winners of the Rolex Sydney to Hobart race that set off from Sydney on Boxing day. We went down to the waterfront pubs and rubbed shoulders with the yachties before seeing the New Year in under a drizzly sky watching the fireworks. We had to tear ourselves away from Hobart and left Al and Sarah happily eating their way through the amazing Taste of Tasmania, a food and wine festival to head back to Melbourne

The island of Tasmania became disconnected from the mainland during the melting of the last ice age, about 30,000 years ago enabling unique species and peoples to be established on the island. Tasmania was named after Abel Tasman who named it initially Van Dieman’s land (later to become Tasmania) in 1644. It became the second colony in Australia in 1803.

Like mainland Australia, the invading Europeans decided to make agreements with local populations. When the couldn’t make agreements, they kidnapped and created slaves of groups of Aborigines. In 1830, a military operation known as the 'Black Line' was launched against the Aboriginal people remaining in the settled districts. Every able-bodied male colonist, convict or freeman, was to form a human chain across the settled districts, moving for three weeks south and east in a pincer movement, until the people were cornered on the Tasman Peninsula. As part of the misguided attitudes that have plagued Australia during its 200 year history, the aborigines were resettled in the Bass Strait on Flinders Island. Many of them died of disease and poor diet bringing about the complete ethnic cleansing of the mainland aboriginal population in Tasmania.

The Tasmanian Devil is the icon of the island, but is seriously under threat from the Devil Facial Tumour Disease. It is the only cancer that has been identified that could potentially be transmitted through saliva and blood. Once the devils have contracted the cancer they die within 5 months and the disease is threatening to make the Tasmanian Devil extinct as it is estimated that over 90% of the population have already died.


Back to the normal life and earning money, we are enjoying the Australian obsession with sports. The impending Commonwealth Games and the Grand Prix are just arund the corner. The Australian Open Tennis started in Melbourne in January. Adriano cam down to visit for the weekend so Greg took Adriano to see Tim Henman play. Having not seen each other for a few months, several bottles of vodka were consumed to celebrate. The match therefore took on a slightly drunken edge with the two brits sitting on the front row with their british flag dangling over the side. Patriotic shouts of ‘Come on, Tim’ turn to ‘You’re crap, Tim’ as Tim’s skills waned, leading to Greg being one of the few people to have been thrown out of a tennis match for being drunk and disorderly. Bring on the Commonwealth Games!


• Tasmania has over 18 national parks with the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area covering 1.38 million hectares. There are over 2000km of walking tracks across Tasmania.
• The hole in the ozone layer is presently centred over Tasmania. Sun burn time is about 15-30 minutes with very deep burns occurring.
• Tasmania is made up out of 300 islands.
• The average summer temperature in Tasmania is a comfortable 21?C (70?F) with the average winter temperature of 12?C (52? F).
• Tasmania is also known as the Velcro Triangle and the Apple Isle.
• The next land mass to the south of Tasmania is the Antarctic, 2000km away.
• Tasmania grows most of Australia’s heroin poppies. These are for use in legal drugs. Tasmania also has the largest lavender farm in the world and it is the only commercial lavender producer in the southern hemisphere.
• The Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger was hunted to extinction in the 1930s with the last one shot in captivity in 1936. It was a dog-like marsupial with stripes on its back. It had a backward facing pouch.
• Australia has had the worst year on record for flies. Part of this is due to the experimental use of dung beetles in a kangaroo poo eradication programme. The programme ceased to have funding last year and this year has seen a massive increase in the fly population. Australian flies are obsessive in landing on your face, nose, mouth and ears and once swatted will return to the same spot.
• The Southern Cross is a series of five stars that can only be seen in the southern hemisphere. They feature on the Australian and New Zealand flag. The Southern Cross' stars were of great importance to the aboriginal people. In central Australia, it was the belief that the pattern created by the stars in the cross was the footprint of a wedge-tailed eagle. The pointers were his throwing stick and the dark patch, his nest. Other indigenous peoples believed that the Southern Cross and its pointers are a Stingray (the cross) being pursued throughout the southern sky by a Shark (the pointers).
• The ancient Greeks could see the Southern Cross but as the Earth has wobbled on its axes it can now only be seen in the southern hemisphere.
• The Australian word for sheets, duvet covers and general bedding material is Manchester. The word for a duvet is Doona. The word for a cool box (a very useful word to know in Summer) is Esky. The word for beating is to bash.

The Red Centre
Dear Beast Crew

September – December 2005

G’day from down under! We have been on the road for just over a year now and it is shrimps on the barbie time down here with temperatures soaring to a warm 30 degrees in Melbourne and a warm 35 degrees in Sydney.

As Christmas is fast approaching we would appreciate it if Father Christmas could squeeze a Beast product into his Christmas Stocking. Just go to our webpage and click on charities. You can either make a donation or chose one of our fabulous products just by clicking and buying the product or go to this link BEASTLY SHOP all profit will go to our charities.

Anyway, the adventure continues….

Melbourne – Snowy Mountains – Phillip Island – Melbourne – Darwin – Kakadu – Alice Springs – Uluru (Ayre’s Rock) – Coober Pedy – Port Germein – Adelaide – Kangaroo Island – Port Fairy – Great Ocean Road – Melbourne

Greg’s friend Jean Christophe travelled from France to spend a few weeks with Alexis and Greg so it was decided that we would see a bit more of Australia and travel to the red centre.

We started our adventure with a trip into the not so Snowy Mountains in northern Victoria/Southern New South Wales, first stopping off for the Wangaratta Jazz Festival. We spent a few days in Kosciuszko National parks watching wet kangaroos and wombats wonder around in the mountain drizzle. The snow season in the Snowy Mountains is from July through to September and the depth of snow can get as thick as 3.5m but is usually a few centimetres. Unfortunately we were there in the snow melt and drizzly rain. The highest mountain in Australia is Mount Kosciuszko at a mere 2228m.

On the way back from the Snowy Mountains we popped into Phillip Island. Phillip Island is located at the bottom of Port Phillip Bay (Melbourne is at the top) and the island is famous for its daily penguin parade. They are the smallest penguins in the world at a mere 33cm. The beautiful little or fairy penguins troop out of the sea and run/waddle up the beach to their burrows in the sand after a busy day hunting fish offshore. It is slightly staged with a massive stadium set up on the shore with big lights shining onto the beach, but as with conservation across the world it seems to be the only to make people understand the animals they are watching in order to preserve them.

The following day the three of us flew up to Darwin to drive down and see the red centre. We gave the Beast a rest as she would have been too hot in the 40 degree heat and we only had 10 days holiday! So we picked up a Mini Beast or in honour of our French travelling partner, the Petit Beast – a camper Toyota Hiace. We got back on the road and headed down the Stuart Highway.

The Stuart Highway slices Australia in half like a black ribbon, from Darwin in the north, it roams 2,690 kilometres (1,671 miles) to Adelaide in the south. It is also known as the Explorer Highway and is named after an adventurous Scot, John McDouall Stuart. He led expeditions through Southern Australia and the Northern Territory on a quest to establish a permanent route north from Adelaide to Darwin. He finally achieved his ambition in 1863. The road was only sealed (tarmaced) in 1987, allowing 2 wheel drive cars to transect the continent.

We took a diversion to the world heritage site of Kakadu – one of the only places on the planet to have accreditation for cultural and natural factors. The roads are lined by the living termite motels, some that can reach over 6m high and 50 years in age. The park is home to thousands of birds, animals, mosquitoes and annoying bush flies. Kakadu is named after the Gugudju people who live in the park. There are over 60 types of marsupial, 280 species of bird, 117 species of reptile, 1,700 species of plants and over 10,000 species of insects. An amazing place that we watched fantastic lightning from our campsite swimming pool and then got up at 6am to see the early morning crocodiles and birds patrolling the waterways, then on to the unbelievable Nourlangie where the rock paintings date back to 20,000 years ago. Some of the paintings even show skeletons of the kangaroos.

We headed back to the Stuart Highway and down through Katherine, Daly Waters and Tennant’s Creek. The temperatures were unbearable outside of the air conditioned Petit Beast due to the “build-up” just before the wet season that pushes humidity up and temperatures creep towards 40 degrees. The common complaint from people from Tennant’s Creek to Uluru was that over the past 7 years they have experienced more humidity and more rain; a sign of the changing environment through global warming.

We stopped off at the Devil’s Marbles that lurk just off the highway, a pile of massive boulders precariously balanced on top of each other, up to 6m in diameter, slowly being weathered away located in the middle of a desert. They form part of the local dream time of the aborigines and are thought to be the eggs of the rainbow serpent. We stopped to fill up with petrol in Wycliffe Well to be confronted with two fenced in aliens next to the forecourt. Apparently Wycliffe Well has been the centre of UFO activity since the 1940s. We crossed over the Tropic of Capricorn and headed south to Alice Springs.

Alice Springs is well known as the stopping point before Uluru and for its large aboriginal population who sit around. Aborigines are still misunderstood and persecuted by the white population of Central Australia. Slowly the land is being handed back the aborigines who understand and maintain the land in accordance with their 60,000 years of knowledge. Within the aboriginal population there are issues with alcohol abuse and the new boredom relief is to sniff petrol leading to the introduction of petrol in the Northern Territory and Western Australia of an odourless petrol.

We stopped off at the Henbury Meteorite site where a massive meteorite split into 12 and pummelled the earth creating massive craters and then headed off the Stuart Highway past the impressive Mount Connor to a red Uluru surrounded by greenery.

Uluru, formerly named Ayers Rock, is a massive monolithic sandstone rock with a high iron content. We arrived at the rock just in time to line up with the other cars and watch the amazing sunset as it changed colour and merged into the purple sky. We met the London to Sydney rally, 15 classic British cars racing to Sydney in 3 months. It covers an area of 3.3 square kilometres and is 9.4 kilometres around its base. It rises 345 metres above the plains and is believed to extend several kilometres below the surface. We went to the campsite for the evening and sat and had a barbeque surrounded by solar system. Wild dingoes started to circle and one stopped to growl at us for the sausage sandwich in hand. He was only discouraged from his mission by a viscous growl in return from Greg. The following day we got up at 5am to watch the rock change colours again as the sun rose. Jean Christophe decide to climb the Rock (it takes a mere 1.5 hours) whilst Alexis opted to do the rangers walk around the base and not risk joining the other 37 people who have died falling off the rock in the past 20 years. The rangers walk provided an interesting insight into the cultural heritage of the rock that is sacred to more than 5 different groups and used as a place of worship.

We drove south across the hot, barren desert that shimmered along the horizon. Road trains materialised out of the water-like road surfaces. We stopped at the interesting desert town of Coober Pedy. The name Coober Pedy actually means “White man’s burrow” and refers to the locals habit of excavating the baked earth and heading underground to the cool multi coloured rocks. The temperatures in the town can rocket up to boiling 52 degrees. We stayed in the Desert Cave Hotel where the rooms are carved into mounds of soil that show the wonderful pink striations in the cream rock. Now you maybe asking why people would want to live in such an inhospitable environment. The reason is because opals were discovered in Coober Pedy causing a rush for these beautiful azure gems. Australia supplies 90% of the world’s opals so it is a valuable commodity. We visited the opal caves, the underground shopping centres and the underground churches, before travelling out to the dingo fence located just 15km outside of Coober Pedy. The fence was created between 1880 and 1885 when the dingoes were attacking and eating the sheep of the southern states. It stretches for a total of 8,500km from the Queensland coast down to Western Australia. It is the longest man made structure in the world.

We headed south past the Flinders Range, stopping in the beautiful Port Germain (home of the southern hemisphere’s longest wooden jetty and one of the best pubs in Australia), having a quick look around Adelaide and then to Kangaroo Island. Kangaroo Island has been voted the world’s best natural paradise. Kangaroos, echidnas, wombats and giant goannas all wander around this beautiful paradise. The island boasts a huge Fur seal population as well as wonderful beaches and the remarkable rocks.

Our visit to Kangaroo Island was a short one as we headed back to Melbourne. Our journey was temporarily interrupted as we were pulled over by a policeman as Jean Christophe hit 125km/h (25km/h over the speed limit instantly means you loose your license in Victoria). The policeman dropped the charge to 123km/h and insisted on showing his 5.7 litre engine to prove how he managed to get up to 230km/h to catch us! Our journey ended with a drive along the Great Ocean Road, one of the world’s top 10 best drives with stunning coves and rock formations including the Twelve Apostles (only 8 that remain!) and back to Melbourne.

From Adriano, Alexis and Greg at the Beastly Adventure, we hope you have a fantastic Christmas and thank you for your continued interest and support! Watch out for our articles in the Offroader and in Land Rover Monthly and if you are in Australia hopefully you will see Alexis and Greg winning $200,000 on television!

Notes about Australia
- Some good Aussie words to throw into your next Christmas party conversation – Hoon – a hooligan, Bogan – a country person, kev, Dingle - a dent, Long grass people – drunks who shout but can’t be seen, Chunder – throw up, Arvo – afternoon, Smoko – smoke or coffee break, Servo - service station, Grey Nomad – pensioners that spend their lives roaming the road, Pom, Pommy or Pommy Bastard – an Englishman, Wog – used for someone of Mediterranean decent (not offensive), Fair Dinkum – true, genuine and Greg’s personal favourite, Shithouse – something unenjoyable, bad, poor quality.
- Burger King is known as Hungry Jacks in Australia.
- The ozone hole is presently sitting over southern Australia so the burn time is about 15 minutes and skin cancer rates have rocketed.
- You can be fined $55,000 for feeding a dingo.
- You can be fined just $5,000 for walking on a sacred Aboriginal site.
- Uluru is sacred to more than 5 different aboriginal groups and is used for ceremonies. Ceremonies are started by 2 of the elders climbing the Rock to put a wooden stick into the rock. The track that the elders climb in sacred but it is also the route that tourists now climb. The aboriginals plead with people to not climb the rock as they take it as a personal loss if someone is injured or dies.
- A total of 37 people have died falling off the Rock since the 1985. Many more have been hospitalised from heat stroke.
- Ownership of Ayre’s rock and surrounding land was only handed back to the traditional owners in the 1980s.
- The geology of the rock is Arco sandstone which actually has iron ore basalt and granite as its constituents.
- There are aboriginal fables relating to the Rock that state that two of the Seven Sisters (in the stars) were resting after being chased by Orion and told their two sons to go and play. Their sons went and played in the mud and created Mount Connor and Uluru.
- The desert spade foot (a frog) uses the ponds created at the base of Uluru after rain to spawn their tadpoles. They created a mucus bubble full of water and can lay dormant underground for up to 20 years.
- Australia has 8,222 islands around its coast.
- Australia is the lowest continent in the world with an average elevation of 330 metres.
- Between about 55 and 10 million years ago Australia drifted across the surface of the earth as a plate, moving north from a position once adjacent to Antarctica.
- Apart from Antarctica, Australia is the driest continent in the world. About 35% of the continent receives so little rain, that it is classified as desert.
- In June 2001, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population of Australia was estimated to be 458,520, or 2.4% of the total population.
- According to the Australian Statistics organisation, hospitalisations attributed to ‘assault’ are at a rate 8 times higher for aboriginal males and 28 times higher for aboriginal females, compared with non-aboriginal males and females respectively.

Ozzie Rules
June – September 2005

Alexis and Greg have found a flat in the cool and trendy area of St Kilda in Melbourne. Alexis has got a job with an environmental consultancy and Greg has managed to get a job with Land Rover (well it couldn’t be any other dealer!). Adriano is currently studying in Sydney after spending a while teaching English and guiding lucky students around the city.

In Melbourne - The past few months have involved finding jobs, finding restaurants and finding the more importantly, bars. With jobs located, the restaurants and bars on the agenda. We have also been invited to conduct a talk at the Land Rover club for Victoria about our trip. A visit to Glenrowan in Victoria allowed us to get an insight into the best known Australian outlaw, Ned Kelly, a bank robber who ransacked banks and murdered police across southern Australia. He was hanged in 1880 after a shoot out against the police, dressed in some homemade armour. Plans are afoot to go skiing in the Snowy Mountains and to take a trip through the red centre to Uluru (Ayres Rock).

In Sydney – Adriano has finished teaching for the moment to rekindle his life as a student, completing his Masters in Linguistics. Not managing to fit in with the trendy crowd any longer (his words!), he has joined a radical debating group and an astronomy club to keep out of trouble and off the streets. The first big meeting on Wednesday when they'll talk about something they have no clue about. He is looking forward to making lots of inappropriate and ignorant comments about matters of current affairs.

We hope you are all well, please update us with the events of your life as we love to hear as to what you are upto.

G’day from down under!

Notes about Australia

- Canberra was founded in 1913, but did not become capital until 1927
- Brisbane is Australia's fastest growing capital city. The population of Brisbane grew 2% per year between 1998 and 2003, with over 4,000 people moving to the city every week in comparison to Sydney which has 2,000 people per week.
- AFL – Aussie rules football is a game played between two teams of 18 players on cricket ovals during the winter months, or similar-sized areas. It was invented in Melbourne in 1858. Aussie Rules is played in every state in Australia and is the national sport. Aborigines played a similar sport called Marn Grook, which used a ball made out of possum hide. There is no offside rule at all and a player may run as far as he likes with the ball, provided he either bounces or touches the ball to the ground every 15 metres. There are no set positions in the rules of the game, but traditionally the field was divided into three major sections: the forward line, back line, and midfield. Every player has a set position on the ground and if a player plays out of position, he will be severely reprimanded by the coach or 'pulled off'. There are four goal posts which form three goals; the outer two goals allow you to score one point and the central goal allows six points. It is one of the few games in the world where you can't be sent off during the game (even if you flatten the umpire ). However, due to AIDS, the 'blood rule' was introduced and, if you are bleeding, you must leave the ground until the bleeding has stopped. Generally, if you have violated during the game, you will be reported and must attend a tribunal hearing the following week at which, if guilty, you will be suspended for a period of future matches.
- The Grand Prix is held in Melbourne and the race track runs on a public highway.
- Every Thursday, Neighbours fans can go to the Elephant and Wheelbarrow to meet the entire Neighbours cast.
- Australia has just launched a football (soccer) league known as the A League. Prior to the launch there was another league that wasn’t very successful due to the violence associated with it. Many Serbian and Croatians used the football matches to have fights.
- Of the 7milllion sq km that Australia occupies only 1% is water.
- There are hosepipe bans presently in place (2005) across cities in Australia; these consist of only being able to use your hosepipe twice a week to water your garden and wash your car!!

Memories of Melbourne
G’day Mate! We are in Australia again, heading south. Greg and Alexis returned to Oz from a wonderful month back in the UK caught up in meeting up with family, friends and wishing our friends and family into a happy marital bliss. Adriano flew to China on his way back from the UK and spent a week catching up with our Chinese friends, before returning to Sydney.

Sydney – Kioloa – Lakes Entrance - Melbourne!

23rd June 2005 - 24th July 2005

Alexis and Greg arrived in Sydney a week earlier than Adriano and spent a fantastic week being shown around Sydney by Jenny and Jim Greneger, Alexis’s second cousin who had lovingly looked after the Beast for the month. Sydney is very much a waterbased city. There is a myriad of waterways weaving between the suburbs, creating a shimmering city. You can even catch a ferry to work. The centre of Sydney is a series of glittering, towering buildings crammed full of financial and foreign institutions. There are classy surf and turf restaurants lining the available waterways competing with the expensive houses and jetties, all sporting the compulsory boat. There was the obligatory visit to the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge as well as Darling Harbour. Jenny and Jim showed Alexis and Greg the eastern and northern beaches. The eastern beaches wash up to the smaller than imagined Bondi beach, which stretches down in the direction of Botany Bay where Captain Cook and the First Fleet landed. The northern beaches are full of expensive mansions that start at prices of #500,000 for 1 bedroom beach fronted houses. We stopped off at Palm Beach, the orange sand beach with waves crashing onto the shore, to see where Home and Away is filmed.

We needed to ensure that the Beast was legal to drive the 1200km south so we visited the motor vehicle registry test centre believing that the Beast would pass with flying colours and enable us to drive down through the state of New South Wales to Victoria unhindered. Irritatingly the Beast failed because in New South Wales it is illegal to have a hook at the front of your vehicle – it is the only state in Australia that this is illegal but it meant that we failed, AGAIN! So a visit to the MVR office to confirm that we could obtain a temporary pass, as in all the other states, was met with annoyance and irritation as we were refused a pass. So we were told to our amazement that we would have to just drive illegally to Victoria.

Adriano has stayed in Sydney to work as a tour guide for Japanese visitors and also to complete his Masters in Linguistics whilst Alexis and Greg bid a sad goodbye to Jenny, Jim, Georgia and Rosie and continued south, with slight trepidation to Melbourne. Adriano is presently residing near to the university in a hotel apartment, busily writing up his dissertation!!

On the recommendation of Jenny and Jim, we stopped off in Kioloa at the caravan site Merry Beach. We pulled up to our site, overlooking the beach, the crashing sea and some crumbling orange cliffs and were instantly surrounded by large grey kangaroos begging for bread. Our evening dinner, cooked under the stars, was shared with three ring tailed possums that came up and pestered us for food. Alexis’s over exuberance to feed the kangaroos the following morning on the beach almost ended up in her being boxed by a rather large ‘roo who was convinced that there was more bread to be eaten. A quick escape up the hill to some nearby campers was welcomed by a story of two intelligent kangaroos that were chased by some vicious dogs. The dogs chased them into a lake, the kangaroos bounced out of the lake and turned on the dogs that had followed them in and were swimming back to the shore, in order to hold the dogs heads under water and drown them. The moral of the story – always give the ‘roos their food, you don’t want to piss them off!

We progressed on down the Princess Highway passing through towns with names like Ulladulla, Meribula and Lakes Entrance, driving through cheese areas, wine regions and olive growing zones. We had one more puncture and a slight run in with the police before we crossed over the border into Victoria state. We were driving along the road when a traffic police car spotted us and pulled a U-turn. We panicked and pulled off the road, the police car followed us. Luckily when they found us we were not in the vehicle, so we sat and waited until they left. They pulled off around the corner and sat waiting for us to return to the Beast, we spotted them and waited a bit longer. There may have been a slight paranoia on our part, but we didn’t want to take the chance. We just needed to cross the border into our safe state!

We arrived into the treelined grid system of Melbourne to be kindly put up by Al Draffan and Sarah Wilson, Alexis and Greg’ ex flatmates in the UK. A preliminary tour around Melbourne presented the beautiful beachfront, the wonderful street cafes and the Grand Prix circuit which you can drive around, albeit at a stately 40kph as well as the stunning architecture. They have now found a flat in the heart of St Kilda, the red light district, haute cuisine and the Jewish community (the Bagel Belt as it is known locally), where they will be residing for the next 6 months or so. If anyone is passing that way they are more than welcome pop in and visit the delights of Melbourne. We will also have the Beast legal and on the road!

Notes about Australia:

- The capital of Australia is Canberra.
- The Australians national animals are the Kangaroo and the Emu, which are two animals that cannot go backwards, the motto of Australian society – go forwards not backwards.
- Sydney has a population of 4.2 million in comparison to Melbourne which has a population of 3.5 million. Canberra, the capital, has a population of 300,000.
- Both Sydney and Melbourne have had a historical battle to become the capital of Australia. Canberra was created back in the early 1900s to stop the arguments!
- Sydney is mainly constructed from clapper board wood covered houses whereas Melbourne has pretty brick victorian buildings with ironwork adorning the roofline.
- Home and Away is filmed in Sydney. Neighbours is filmed in Melbourne. On a Thursday, if you are truly desperate, you can meet the cast of Neighbours at an English pub in St Kilda.
- Captain Cook’s house was translocated to a Melbourne park in 1934, brick by brick from his Yorkshire village.
- In Victoria state it is a legal requirement that you register your pet every year.
- Australian pedestrian crossings beep at you when you have to cross the road.
- Melbourne has the oldest Chinatown in the world outside of china.
- Australia had in place from 1919 until 1973 the White Australia Policy which prevented any persons other than white applicants from becoming Australian citizens. This was brought in when there was a rebellion against the Chinese who seemed to be finding too much gold in the goldfields in the goldrush of 1850s. The government responded by restricting Chinese immigration.
- In the centre of Melbourne if you want to turn right on a road that trams run, you must pull into the left lane and stop in the middle of the road, otherwise known as the hook junction. You must then wait for the traffic lights to change to green in the direction of your turn and you are the first to go.
- The Great Ocean Road that runs along the coast from Melbourne to Adelaide is considered one of the things you have to see before you die, ranked up there with the Pyramids and the Taj Mahal.
- There are more holocaust survivors in Melbourne than anywhere else in the world.
- Australians are addicts of coffee. If you ask for a coffee in a cafe you will be presented with an array of over 10 different kinds of this caffeine based beverage, many with 2 or 3 shots of expresso.
- Australian petrol prices vary daily. Depending on where you live in Australia, for example, the petrol prices may start at $1.13 at the beginning of the week and drop to $1.03 or the other way around.
- It is compulsory to vote in Australia. If you don’t vote you can be fined or imprisoned. Valid excuses for not voting include you are homeless, you cannot attend a polling place on polling day or you are working in Antarctica.

Driving Across the World
Driving special

Every country you go through has their own special way of driving from the sedate but fast Europeans to the downright dangerous and stupid Asians. Here are a few driving observations from our journey across the world so far.

Europe – One of the worst roads we travelled on in Europe was in Germany about 15km before the Polish border. The potholes were larger than houses!

Poland – If you want to overtake someone you flash them and they will then indicate and move to the right if the road is clear. Many of the roads are surfaced in cobbles in Poland.

Baltic states – You have to drive with your headlights on all the time. The Baltic Highway (EU funded) is an excellent stretch of road. The capitals of the Baltic countries are very difficult to navigate around as there are very few signs. Riga has no road signs to get out of the capital back onto the main road north.

Russia – In Moscow, there is no lane discipline and there is permanent grid lock. If you are an experienced Muscovite you chose a lane and then change out of it as fast as you can with no consideration for any other surrounding you.

During the winter time when the roads outside of the capital are all iced up there is usually only one lane to stick to. Everyone drives down the middle of the road until overtaking or meeting another car coming the other way and then they drive with one wheel on the black bit and one wheel on the sheet ice. Everyone must drive with their headlights on all the time. We saw a lot of accidents as people were driving too fast and overtaking on dangerous sections of road. Lorries break down regularly in the centre of the road causing tailbacks which cause more lorries to break down. The RAC will cover you to the Urals if you fancy the drive over to there, although be warned it is only for one call out!

Kazakhstan – there are very few vehicles of any sort outside of large towns. Roads are excellent with recent tarmac coating the surface. In the mist, if they overtake, they use their four-way flashers to indicate. Road signs indicate that you have 400km to go to a town as you enter a city and as you leave the city after 2km you have 410km to go. There are policemen that will use radars to speed check you from over 5 miles away.

China – Over 100,000 people are killed each year in road traffic accidents in one province in China and it is no wonder! There are cyclists everywhere along with three wheeled motorbike pickups and taxis, motorbikes, pedestrians, tractors, lorries, horse drawn carts, people drawn carts and cars driving the wrong way down the road. Many vehicles have no head lights, no brake lights, no lights of any sort in the dark. Driving at night is just as treacherous with those that have lights. Cars coming towards you refuse to turn their headlights off or if you manage to persuade them to turn them off they will flash you repeatedly completely destroying your night vision for several minutes. If someone overtakes you they will put their high beams on and honk you just to warn you that they are overtaking and blind you at the same time. A lot of drivers also have a habit of overtaking on blind bends. On the “Super” Highway there are toll booths for which you usually have to pay for the rubbish potholed lumpy road you have to drive on. There is an off road track that runs alongside the main roads for thousands of miles, remnants of the service road.

The northern roads of China are ice covered potholed roads in the winter whereas the southern roads are melting potholed truck rutted roads in the winter. There are treacherous roads that wind into the mountains with no roadside protection to stop you plummeting into the deep ravines on one side or protect you from the landslides on the other.

A horn is an essential element to your car in China and is required on average every 30 seconds when driving in towns to alert the driver in front that you will crash into them if they don’t stop driving into your lane and maybe every 2 or 3 minutes on motorways and roads outside of towns to stop buffalo, pigs, chickens and cyclists from straying in front of you.

The roads in China are being improved all the time as China races towards the 2008 Olympics. In the 1970s, there were only 7000 miles of roads in China. There are a few more now but many wouldn’t even be classified as dirt track by the Ordnance Survey mappers.

Laos – Laos driving is stress free, in comparison to China. Most of the main roads are sealed and have protection at the sides. There are some roads with potholes and road works on. There are road signs that tell you the correct distance. The roads in the north wind up and down mountains and limit your speed to 30km/h.

Thailand – In Thailand, drivers drive on the left and if you come in from Laos you cross over to the other side of the road before you cross the Friendship Bridge over the river Mekong. Thai drivers are laid back but they do insist on undertaking you whilst you are trying to overtake someone. Bangkok driving was supposed to be as bad as Moscow driving but it was more gridlocked than 15 lanes to the 2 lane road. Road surfaces are good and maintained.

Malaysia – Drivers are courteous although they do undertake you. The motorways are excellent but there are tolls every few miles which can be expensive. There are stopping points under bridges along the motorways for motorcyclists in the event of heavy downfalls. You are required to have a Carnet de Passage to enter Malaysia but we were told at the border that the International Circulation Permit was all that was required.

Singapore – There are only about 15% of the population in Singapore that own cars. To have a permit for your car costs #30,000 for 10 years. You are required to have an autopass to drive on the roads which is detected and you are charged for driving on the road. There are 2 sets of traffic lights, if you are turning right you need to look at the second set of traffic lights to know if you can turn right, driving through a set of red traffic lights in the process! As a foreigner having your foreign car in Singapore costs S$20 per day (even if you don’t drive it!). Many Singaporeans do not know how to drive in wet conditions. You are required to have an International Circulation Permit to drive in Singapore as well as your Carnet de Passage.

Australia – Australia is a massive country and to travel between one town and another usually entails a three or four hour drive on average. In the outback you have to be very aware of the large road trains which dominate the roads. You need to allow a minimum of 1km to overtake a road train. You are obligated to wear your seat belt in Australia and if you are caught not wearing it, it is a A$225 fine (#90). You do not need to have insurance for your car but legally you must have insurance in case you injure someone in a crash. Most roads are surfaced with tarmac but when you leave the main roads there are gravel roads that deteriorate into dirt tracks that develop into corrugated rutted roads over time. Most drivers are courteous although Australians do drive too fast for road condition

Down Under!
G?day Mate!

Daly Waters ? Borroloola ? Hell?s Gate ? Burke and Wills ? Georgetown ? Innisfail ? Townsville ? Airlie Beach ? Gympie ? Brisbane ? Moreton Island ? Brisbane ? Byron Bay ? Taree ? Sydney!

30th April - 23rd May 2005

So we set off from Darwin with the sole aim of reaching Daly Waters for Alexis?s 29th birthday. We stocked up with water, food and petrol and started along the stunning Stuart Highway south. The sky was a brilliant blue with a few scattered clouds streaming across it, the pale green and white of the eucalyptus trees and the red soil of the outback were exactly what we were expecting but the colours were not ? they were so brilliant in strength. Due to the heat of the day there were many forest fires along the road. One particularly bad one we stopped to have a look at. It was rampaging along the side of the road, birds were running out, insects scurrying across the road and lizards darting away from the heat our whilst the kites circled above waiting to scavenge out the unfortunate cooked ones. A sad situation but when careless people throw cigarettes out the window it all becomes kindling wood. The fire brigade were out trying to stop other fires from spreading by controlled burning around the fires. Bill Bryson had written about Daly Waters in his book Down Under and so we had to visit it too. We reached Daly Waters after a 8 hour drive in a car that is lucky to stay under 40 oC, sweaty and hungry. We made straight for the bar! The Daly Waters Pub is something to be seen to be believed. Situated right next to the camp site, this backwater pub is the centre of the town and adorned with everything and notes from across the world. The walls are coated in t shirts, pictures, badges, stickers, signs, old agricultural machinery, the compulsory knickers and now a Beastly Adventure card. Dinner consisted of a pasty due to the kitchens being closed followed with an ice cold beer and a bottle of Aussie champagne! No better way to celebrate your birthday!

The stars in the outback are something else ? you can see the milky way and for any of you that have never been to the southern hemisphere, the stars are twisted slightly to the side but you can see the southern cross. The moon is also turn sideways and in Brasil is called George and the Dragon.

From Daly Waters we worked our way away from the Stuart Highway to Borroloola eliminating about 200km from our travel on the recommendation of teachers who we met in the campsite in Daly Waters. We drove down a beautiful road with more white and black eucalyptus trees lining the road, red soil and a clear blue sky. We had puncture and stopped to change it in the searing 34oC heat, hundreds of kilometres from the nearest town with a population of more than 50. We stopped to get drinks and fill up with petrol at the Heartbreak Hotel only to find that they had just run out of petrol. Luckily we had loaded up with petrol in our jerry cans ? an essential in the outback. Borroloola is in aboriginal territory and our campsite was conveniently located next to a pub. The pub is split into two and when we walked in we walked into the white side of the pub. It was rather like any pub you would imagine to be in any backwater and a little like the pubs from the Fosters adverts. There were men in there with their cowboy hats on leaning on the bar. There were signs up on the wall saying that you would be banned for life alongside the blackboard with the substantial list of people that were banned for life ? pretty good going to be banned for life from the only pub within a 100km radius!

From Borroloola we headed off down the Carpentaria Highway, a red dirt track with corrugated iron underneath to stop it washing away in the wet season. With the hidden dips on the dirt tracks you have to be aware of the ruts. Greg decided at one point to do a Duke?s of Hazard take off when accidentally hitting a double bump too fast, catapulting a three and a half tonne vehicle in the air, with the contents of every cupboard deciding to also empty themselves out. A following rut that jumped up at us left us with fast deflating tyre. We realised that we had no wood to support the jack ? Australian Quarantine had requested that we get rid of it before entering the country - and so gently lifted rocks (just in case any red backs decided to launch themselves at us) to get something to support the diff. The jack decided that it didn?t want stay on the rock and so the Beast lurched dangerously over to the side almost toppling off and crashing on top of us. We were lent a piece of wood by a passing bus driver (only the third vehicle that we passed along the way) and quickly changed the tyres over. We were left with no spare tyres and a distance of 150km on dusty red unsealed roads to go to the next point that we might be able to change our inner tubes. We carried on down the road seeing emus, our first kangaroos, humped back Brahman cows, dingoes, beautiful grey and pink as well as iridescent green parrots, frogs, snakes and all from inside the car. We passed through 2 foot deep creeks that had promises of crocodiles but luckily none that we saw.

We arrived in Hell?s Gate pleased to see habitation and a fridge full of ice cold beer, so much so that we dumped the Beast and ran to the pub! The showers were full of the most fantastic bright green tree frogs clambering to be near water. On flushing the toilet, Alexis jumped back with a scream as a tree frog?s legs dangled out from the rim and then climbed back up. All part of the outback fun. Hell?s Gate was named after a gap in the hills located 2km south where the police used to escort settlers and aborigines into the jurisdiction of the Northern Territory Police, a mere 200km away. If you were escorted to Hell?s Gate it was a death sentence. Hell?s Gate now has a camp site, a station (farm), a restaurant and runway. The runway is used by the station and surrounding stations for refuelling before zooming off to round up cattle over the million plus hectares that some of the farms cover.

From Hell?s Gate we headed down to Burke and Wills roadhouse, passing through Gregory Downs (stopping for the obvious pictures of Greg!). The roads improved from dusty ruts to dusty roads and then into dusty tarmac covered roads. Burke and Wills roadhouse was more of a pub than Hell?s Gate and we propped ourselves up at the bar and made some wonderful friends in the owner Bill and his manager. Ken, a long distance lorry driver, gave us a run down on the wildlife in Australia. The red wine flowed a bit too easily (at only #4 for a 4 litre box, you just have to indulge!) and red wine teeth and dribbles were quite rife! We dragged ourselves back to the Beast and awoke the following with a nice red wine hangover.

We headed towards the coast passing through the gold mining town of Croydon, stopping in Georgetown and then passing up onto the Atherton Tablelands. The Atherton Tablelands are located on the eastern part of Australia in the Great Dividing Range. We drove from the hot (34oC), dusty Barkly Tablelands up into the mountains where the temperature dropped to a chilly 19oC and the scenery changed to deciduous green forests with tree ferns and rolling green jersey cow strewn fields that vanished off onto the horizon. We experienced our first proper rain since Europe (Malaysia was quick rainstorms) as we dropped down onto the western ?Sunshine Coast?. We stopped at Inisfail before working our way down to Townsville where we met Sharon and Ken who fed a 100 strong troupe of Rainbow Lorikeets who would descend every day for their treat of sugar, bread and water.

We passed on down the monotonous Bruce Highway to Airlie Beach where we all went diving and sailing in the Whitsunday Islands. Adrian spent a week sailing around the Whitsunday Islands and doing a 4 wheel drive expedition around Fraser Island. Alexis and Greg headed down the coast passing through old mining towns, wine valleys and cheeseries all situated in the Glasshouse Mountains. The aim was to get to Brisbane in time for a relaxing week on Moreton Island courtesy of Greg?s parents. We found a garage in north Brisbane to resolve the final issues of the oil leak on the front tyre and found that we could have been doing three wheeling stunts down the motorway as the wheel nuts were slowly working their way loose. We bid our mechanics goodbye and headed across Moreton Bay to Moreton Island for a relaxing week away from driving. We took the Beast with us and experienced the most terrifying driving of our trip. We lowered the tyre pressure to help us drive on the sand. We drove off the boat onto the beach onto the third largest sand island in the world and immediately imbedded ourselves into the beach with every spin of the wheel digging us further into the sand. Panic hit thinking that a 3.5 tonne vehicle should not be on the sand, especially along the tide line and we thought we would have to leave her there, slowly sinking in the surf. Greg went and asked one of the many spectators gathering around us if they could tow us out and was met with a simple question of ? ?have you engaged low gear ratio???? Embarrassed we climbed back in, slipped it into low gear and headed off down the beach waiting to sink into the sea at every turn of the wheel. We were staying at the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort were they had persuaded some wild dolphins that they were the marine equivalent of MacDonald?s as they offered them some fast fish evening snacks. They practically beached themselves to be fed the delights of the surf (along with a few human fingers!). They were being monitored by the Marine Research centre who had persuaded a pod of 10 to regularly visit them. There were also other contacts with nature as the local Kookaburras came swooping down for food, Pelicans were fed daily on the golden sands and the fish all swarmed around the jetty to grab morsels thrown to them. A total of 15 ships have been purposefully sunk off the shore to create a reef that you can snorkel around the mangled rusty metalwork and see multi coloured fish darting about being chased by dolphins and turtles. A fantastic and beautiful island.

From Moreton Island we headed back onto the mainland and then hit the motorway. We drove south stopping at a very rainy but stunning Byron Bay and then down to Sydney where Alexis met up with her cousin Jenny and her wonderful family. At Sydney we are all separating for different cities to earn enough money for the next leg of the journey. Alexis and Greg have headed back to the UK for a month for family hen parties and weddings before heading down to Melbourne to work. Adriano is staying in Sydney to continue his Masters in Linguistics. Updates will be fewer than normal from now on ? you can have a rest from reading about our adventures and get back to the reality of life for a while. We will reactive your wandering tendencies when we get back on the road in 6 months or so. If you want to read about others that are venturing around the world, this webpage may give you the kick to go and explore - Africa Overlandhttp://www.africa-overland.net/world.html. In the meantime, please write to us and tell us what you are upto. Thanks for still reading!

Notes about Australia:

- There are two types of sim cards in Australia ? the GSM card which will only work in towns and the other card which works right out in the middle of nowhere.
- There are pubs that are segregated into two parts, with a white and aborigine side to the pub. This is not an apartheid type of segregation it is just that the aborigine drinkers prefer to get very drunk without the white drinkers about.
- There are hundreds of termite mounds along the side of the road in the outback.
- The Northern Territory covers an area of 523,000 miles ? 1/5th of the country
- The Northern Territory has no say over the politics of Australia as they did not sign up to become Australia?s seventh state. All Australians are required to vote in elections but they elect representatives who cannot vote.
- Geologically, Australia is undiscovered. The geological survey has hardly surveyed any of the country due to its harsh environments. Many mineral mines were only discovered in the mid 20th century.
- Australia has around 25,000 species of plants ? that have been identified so far (the UK has 1,600 species).
- In Western Australia, the divorce rate is 1 in 2 (it is 1 in 3 in the UK).
- About 80% of the population live on the east coast.