Australia (Part 2f) The Final Stretch - Victoria and Canberra

June 2001

Crossing into Victoria, we lost another 30 mins off our watches. These were the last days of autumn and it was dark by 5.30pm and freezing in the evenings.

The Grampians National Park is one of the most attractive National Parks in Australia. The steep orange sandstone ranges took shape 600 million years ago when sandy sediments were tilted, uplifted and then eroded over time to form the parallel north-south ranges you see today. The ranges are covered in lush forests of stringybark and red gum woodland. It is full of walking trails and wildlife and a real gem.

As we drove into the park, we stopped at Zumstein where there was a ‘kangaroo observation area’. When I had passed by here in 1985, two dozen roos hopped over and devoured every crisp in the car. They would stand right next to you, almost head height and demand food. Today, the feeding of roos is strictly a no-no. At dust, we were surprised to find only one female roo, which bounced over looking hopeful. Must have been their day off.

The next morning at our lovely wooded caravan park outside Halls Gap, the main centre, we were inundated by squawking colourful red rosellas and green parrots who would sit on our shoulders and heads to retrieve the bread that we had in our hands. A daring fluffy kookaburra also actually flew into the van to get fed. Other kookaburras lined out on a branch above us, but when I threw bread to them, they just sat there idly and couldn’t even be bothered to get up and reach for the flying bread, which was grabbed by the parrots on the way down.

We spent the hot and sunny day walking and taking in the park. At the ‘Wonderland Range’, we ascended 280m to the Pinnacle Lookout. The 5km return trail was a beautiful climb across eroded pavements of orange and yellow sandstone past the ‘Grand Canyon’, a weathered crevasse, up a few ladders, through a few more narrow crevasses, finishing with some rockhopping to the lookout. From here, we had a spectacular vista out across the ranges and Lake Bellfield below. One of the best lookouts I’d seen in Australia. As we descended, three coachloads of sweating schoolchildren came past us, cursing their teachers for making them do the climb.

We drove up along the narrow, twisting, sealed roads, through the forests, to other lookouts for different views, before strolling to Mackenzie Falls which were average, but housed in a lovely setting. Silverband Falls was a strange narrow vertical stream of white water that slithered down the rock face and disappeared into the ground at the bottom, never to be seen again. The National Park is geared to both walkers and drivers, so you can be very lazy while still seeing most things. But you could also spend days walking the trails and never get bored. Thoroughly recommended.

It was time to hit the Victorian ‘Goldfields’ area. Goldfever first hit Australia in 1851, when gold was discovered at Bathurst, New South Wales. Every worker left Sydney in pursuit, and Melbourne, a budding capital of the empty Victorian State was worried that it would be deserted too. So the city fathers offered a reward to anyone who could find gold within 300km of Melbourne. Their idea was to encourage people to flood into the state, as well as keep the current population there.

Gold was discovered that same year in Victoria and the ‘Goldfields’ were established in the Ballarat and Bendigo areas. By 1852, people were arriving from around the world by boat into Melbourne at a rate of 1800 a week. In the first twelve years of the goldrush, Australia’s population increased from 400,000 to over a million. Victoria itself grew from 77,000 to 540,000 people. Road and railways were developed to cope with the mobile populations. The goldtowns reached their zenith in the 1880s. Gold also made Melbourne Australia’s largest city and financial centre for the next 50 years.

Maryborough (‘Victoria’s Golden Centre’) was one of the first places to find gold, but it ran out long ago. It is now an industrial centre (since the surrounding farmland is some of the most infertile in the state), but still retains some fine architecture including the 1878 Post office and the 1904 Bull & Mouth Hotel. But Maryborough’s real treasure is its enormous red and white-bricked edifice, which was constructed in 1890 as its new railway station. When Mark Twain (author of ‘Huckleberry Finn’) passed through on his travels, he was so impressed that he called Maryborough “a station with a town attached”.

The tourist board have loved him ever since and their tourist office is in the station. You enter beneath the imposing clock tower to find that the original waiting room is a vast antique emporium full of goodies. On the other side was one of the longest covered platforms in the country. Today, a vast freight train carrying wheat was parked up. I chatted to the friendly tourist officer who told me that the station was funded through political corruption in Melbourne. The bigger it was, the more bribes that could be creamed off in financing it.

Maldon was a small town nearby. Gold was found here in 1853 and 20,000 diggers turned up. A year later, only 200 were left. It calls itself ‘Australia’s Most Notable Town’ and it is another place where time stopped. In 1966, so many of the original buildings were still intact that the National Trust declared the entire town a protected historical settlement. Today it is a sleepy, rather scruffy collection of old buildings, which looked rather like an old American Wild West town. Small shops and not a supermarket in sight. Just outside town lay ‘Porcupine Township’ where a reconstruction of the original settlement, even contained a ‘tent site’ (the diggers lived in tents), that represented the ‘first 18 years of Victoria’s history’.

Maldon’s decline was due to the rival town of Bendigo, which had Victoria’s richest quartz mining fields. Maldon died while Bendigo blossomed because between 1851 and 1954, 22 million ounces of gold were recovered. Bendigo with 86,000 citizens, is still one of Victoria’s major cities and I had arrived here on my first day in Australia in January by train from Melbourne and from where I hitched to Mildura. I had been here before in 1985 and also to the other major gold centre of Ballarat further south. Both have plenty of Goldfields history geared to the tourists, but we skipped them this time around to see something new.

Glenrowan was Ned Kelly Country. Ned Kelly remains one of Australia’s most notorious characters with almost hero status. Born in Victoria in 1854, he was the eldest son of an ex-Irish convict, and grew up in predominantly Irish communities learning to hate the British. The local symbols of British authority were the police troopers.

At 15, he spent 3 years in prison for horse stealing, then spent 3 years ‘going straight’ while he worked as a timber worker and shearer. But by 21, he was stealing horses again. Two years later, he alledgely wounded a policeman who was trying to arrest his brother Dan. They took to the hills, protected by sympathetic Irish settlers. In attempting to flush them out, the authorities in Beechworth sentenced his mother with a newly born baby, to three years hard labour.

That same year in 1878, four police troopers, out of uniform, set out in pursuit of the Kelly brothers who had teamed up with their mates Joe Bryne and Steve Hart. The gang attacked the troopers and killed 3 of them while the other escaped. The Kelly Gang was outlawed and £2000 was offered for their capture. The gang went on to rob a few banks and the reward was upped to £8000.

They then disappeared for nearly 18 months. There was a massive police hunt, but Kelly sympathisers protected them. In June 1880, the gang struck, killing a police informer and tore up railroad track to wreck a trainload of pursuing policemen. They were holed up at the Glenrowan Inn. The police got word, surrounded the Inn and opened fire. Joe Bryne was killed during a 12-hour siege of slow but continual gunfire.

Ned had recently forged some rather heavy home-made armour out of plough shears (here’s one I made beforehand). Donning his black steel helmet and chest plates, he lumbered out, probably pissed as a fart, with his guns blazing, to single handedly take on about 34 policemen. After the bullets had no impact on the armour, they got wise and fired at his legs where, mangled by 28 shots, he finally fell (probably thinking ‘I knew I forgot something’). Legend has it that Dan Kelly and Steve Hart committed suicide, before the police, very bored by now, torched the Inn and burnt it to the ground.

After being nursed back to health (nice touch that), he was tried at Beechworth, but an impartial jury could not be found, so he was retried in Melbourne and condemned to death. Just before he was hung, aged 28, his famous last words should have been “What a pisser”, but were in fact, “Such is life”. Such was the embarrassment of the authorities over the entire saga, that every policemen involved was demoted and reassigned elsewhere.

At the Melbourne Gaol I had previously seen his death mask, armour and gallows from which he was hung. Today, legend not withstanding, many Australians acknowledge his ‘qualities’ of his bravery, loyalty to family, incredible toughness and concern for the underdog. Apparently, stupidity does not rate as a quality.

Ironically, when a film was made of young Ned in 1969, Mick Jagger was cast as Ned Kelly (the ultimate insult to Australia) and who uttered the worst attempt at an Irish accent ever heard on screen. He was only challenged many years later, by Tom Cruise in that most forgettable film “Far And Away.”

Glenrowan has a ready-made hero to sell and a 20-metre high plaster statue of Ned in his armour dominates it with his rifle cocked. 90% of this sleepy hamlet consists of crappy souvenir shops playing ye olde Irish folk music and selling every conceivable idea possible, except, I was disappointed to discover, no ‘Ned Kelly On A Rope’ soaps, which could be goer in my humble opinion.

We got chatting to a friendly woman shop owner who told us of the lurid tales of Mr Jagger’s stay during filming. He rented a local’s house, where apparently, he and Marianne Faithful held “wild drug orgies”. When they left, the place was in such a foul state (“noone even used the toilet!”), that when the owner returned, he just “hosed it down inside and put it straight on the market, never to step foot in it again”. I didn’t like to ruin her story by telling her, that as far as I know, Miss Faithful was drying out in a London hospital after overdosing on drugs during the period while Jagger was filming.

Little remains of the legendary siege, so they have reconstructed the garden shed-sized wooden railway station and placed a few wooden pillars that have been carved into blue uniform policemen to let you know where some of the troopers stood during the siege. They look like cut off telegraph poles with children’s paintings on them with smiley faces. Since the Glenrowan Inn was burnt down, they have just had a reconstruction of the old sign outside (‘in the original place’!). If you can be bothered to walk around the corner, a boulder marks the spot where Ned Kelly finally fell full of holes. (‘Ned Kelly captured here’ is hardly enough to capture the moment is it?). If you take your time, you can stretch Glenrowen’s marvels to, ooh, about half an hour.

Beechworth was a much more impressive town. Like Maldon, the entire place which is ‘Victoria’s Best Preserved Gold Town’, has been declared a National Historical Treasure. But unlike Maldon, it has a lot more on offer. The centre is a full of wonderful golden sandstone edifices and old buildings that have retained their balconies and lacquer-lace iron decorations. When we arrived, the tree lined streets were covered in golden masses of autumnal coloured leaves.

Like Glenrowan, Beechworth now smells money around Ned Kelly and is starting to cash in on the fact that much of his life revolved around the town. The 1858 sandstone Courthouse had an intact restored interior. This was where Ned Kelly was tried three times in his life. This courthouse is also famous because Robert Burke (he of Burke and Wills fame) was the officer in charge of it before he set off on his disastrous trek across Australia in 1860.

Across the road behind the Town Hall was Ned Kelly’s cell. This was getting a major landscaping facelift during our visit and closed. Still, I’m sure Ned would have approved of the new wheelchair ramp, especially with his legs after the siege. The 1870 Post Office is another lovely building.

There was a brilliant second hand bookshop where someone’s house had been turned into an endless series of rooms filled with books. You could spend hours pottering around the vast impressive collection of hidden treasures. I discovered a pile of old ‘Ned Kelly Centenary Festival’ programmes from 1980. For some reason, it never took place, but the literature had already been printed up and was full of articles on their hero.

The other secret here, is the Beechworth Bakery (‘Australia’s Greatest Bakery’). Founded in 1867, it has more than 250 varieties of pies, cakes and pastries. You walk in and your mouth drops at the obscene amounts of choice. I sampled a ‘Ned Kelly Pie’ which was a basic steak pie with an egg inside and topped with bacon and cheese (just what you need before you step out of the Glenrowan Inn to get shot to pieces), while locals ate soup from hollowed out crusty loaves of bread. You could sit upstairs on the outside balcony and watch the street life below. Which was nice. Beechworth was one of the nicest towns we visited in Australia and the Victorian Goldfields deserved more time than we spent there to fully explore the area.

Leaving the Goldfields, we headed east for the Snowy Mountains, which lie, on the Victorian/New South Wales Border. We passed through Wodonga-Albury, the hectic twin towns that sit across from one another with the Murray River flowing between. Lake Hume’s water level was so low that all the previously drowned trees were all now sticking out above the water like black skeletons. Tallangatta, the ‘town that moved in the 1950s’ (because of the new lake), needn’t have bothered. The original old town’s foundations were also high and dry above the lake.

Undulating hills full of sheep and horses and major fox road kill on the road took us across to Corryong on the edge of the Kosciouszcho National Park (pronounced ‘Koss-si-os-ko’). The drab caravan park at Corryong had a sign by the swimming pool that said ‘This is our OOL. Notice that there’s no Pee in it”. Overnight, we froze to death as the temperature dropped to 0’C. Welcome to the Australian winter. Jo decided to use the toaster as a heater. This exploded when a large moth flew into it. Doh!

We were in the ‘Upper Murray ‘ area and the land of ‘The Man From Snowy River’, another Australian legend. His name was Jack Riley and he was a horse breaker. He became famous when Banjo Patterson (he of ‘Waltzing Matilda’ fame), got him drunk one night and heard his stories. The result was a poem called ‘The (pissed) Man From Snowy River’ which is another all-time Australian classic.

His fame rests on the story of the hunt for a thoroughbred stallion that had joined a mob of wild horses. Jack was among a party of chasing stockmen (like that group of men you saw roar into the Sydney Olympics at the opening ceremony), who were attempting to capture the stallion. He was the only rider game enough to chase the horse down a treacherous steep slope while everyone else just stood and stared. Some of the poem reads: (taking a sip of beer)

“And he raced him down the mountain like a torrent down its bed,
While the others stood and watched in very fear.
He sent the flint stones flying, but the pony kept his feet,
He cleared the fallen timbers in his stride,
And the man from the Snowy River never shifted in his seat,
It was grand to see that mountain horseman ride.” (etc etc)

Epic stuff. On a cold misty morning, we paid our respects to Jack Riley’s grave in town. While driving down the empty main street, the few locals looked at us with strange expressions. I expected to hear “Squeal like a pig, boy” (see ‘Deliverance’ movie). It was only when we stopped at the graveyard that we discovered that we had left the expandable roof up on the campervan. Boy, that must have looked stupid. Not that anyone gave us any indication. I suppose they thought that it was a quaint old English custom. Obviously the cold weather was getting to us.

The hills of the National Park lay under thick mist. Visibility was minimal. There wasn’t much point driving through it to see absolutely nothing, so we decided to cut north around the mountains and head for Canberra first and then come back down to the park on the other side a few days later, when hopefully the cold misty weather would have disappeared.

In 1901, when the separate English colonies of Australia were federated to become states, and the country gained proper independence, a decision to build a national capital was built into the new Constitution. A site inland, midway between the two major cities of Sydney and Melbourne was diplomatically chosen in 1908 to become the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) and an international competition was launched to design the new city called Canberra (Aborigine for ‘meeting place’).

The blueprint by an American architect, Walter Burley Griffen, left all others standing , but development was very slow and it was not until 1927 that the National Parliament moved here from Melbourne into its ‘temporary home’. The depression and World War II delayed further progress. By 1960, the population was only 50,000 people. Ironically, the delays worked to Canberra’s advantage and it has evolved into a splendid city of 300,000 and is now a real showpiece of Australian planning and Walter Burley Griffen has yet to turn in his grave.

Because it was designed from scratch, the city is wonderfully spacious and green. Designed for the car, the wide boulevards along with everything else, is planned and orderly. The central important buildings are set at compass points, around an artificially created Lake Burley Griffen while all the locals live in surrounding suburbs and drive in. Imagine the central Mall district in Washington DC, scale it up to a much larger area, stick a lake in the middle, remove the surrounding ghettos areas and replace them with a backdrop of green hills.

In 1988, the new Parliament Building at Capital Hill, became the most recent of Burley Griffen’s visions to become a reality. In 1985, when I had visited, it was still a hill. It took eight years to build at a cost of $1.1 billion (Aussie) and it is now, simply the most impressive building in Australia. Designed by USA-based Romaldo Giurgola, it has been built into the hill itself, and the roof has been grassed over to preserve the shape of the original hill. On top stands a massive four legged steel flagpole. Inside, the design and decoration is a splendid display of innovation. A different combination of Australian timbers is used in each of the main sections.

We took an excellent free tour of the massive complex and we could even park the van beneath the building free of charge. You enter it through the imposing, curved white marble Great Veranda, in front of which is a 90,000 cut-stone mosaic within a pool, representing the gathering of Aboriginal tribes. Security inside is relaxed and polite. Just a metal detector. The security cameras throughout the building must be hidden, because I never saw one. You can walk anywhere with a door open.

The grey and green marble columns of the foyer symbolise a forest, while marque-tree panels depict Australian fauna above you. Climbing to the first floor, you look down on the Great Hall, with its 20 metre long Arthur Boyd inspired tapestry. Copied from one of his abstract paintings, this impressive multi-coloured representation of an Australian forest, is the second largest tapestry in the world. On display nearby, is one of the four remaining original Magna Cartas and there is a vast collection of Aboriginal paintings along the walls. On the eastern side of the complex lies the House of Representative Chamber. The Senate was on the western half. These main areas, along with other sections, are all linked by a walkway in the centre.

The whole immaculately clean complex, is actually two long curved areas linked together in the centre. It is massive with 4000 rooms, and a small shopping centre. But there are no bedrooms for the politicians and everyone has to leave the building at night. You can take a lift to the roof, beneath the flagpole and look across the lake to the War Memorial. The grass slopes of the hill on either side, are open 24 hours a day, and I saw someone jogging up them. This is further symbolism that the people are always ‘above’ the Parliament. On this occasion, I take my hat off to Australia for constructing such an awesome project. Unmissable.

The War Memorial, which stands opposite Capital Hill across the lake, had changed substantially since my previous visit. In my absence, Anzac Parade, which is the wide boulevard that stretches from the Memorial down to the lake, had had numerous war memorials built. Three stood out. The Australian Army Memorial was a pair of powerful sculptures - two fully kitted out soldiers 4 metres tall walking on patrol, symbolising ‘mateship’. The Korean War memorial was a strange abstract affair, but the Vietnam War Memorial was the best.

It was a strange abstract construction of three 12m tall sloping black marble slabs. One side had a famous photograph by an Aussie journalist of soldiers escaping by helicopter from a fire-zone. This had been enlarged to cover the entire surface, etched into the marble in black and white. An adjoining side was a serious of famous quotes, army ‘Nam’ jargon, song lyrics from the war, or about it, that tried to capture some essence of the episode. Above the three sides and hanging like a halo were a ring of hollow stones that contained scrolls with the names of every Australian soldier (and nurses/medical staff) that died there between 1962-1972 when the USA pressured Australia to get involved. Unlike the USA, only 50% were conscripts. It was very different from the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC, but equally impressive.

The War Memorial itself, a fine Art Deco-like sandstone, domed, fortress has a ‘Roll of Honour’ in its courtyard – an alphabetical list of the 102,000 Australian servicemen and women to have been killed in warfare, arranged by the area of the world in which they died. The Memorial was conceived in 1925 but finally opened in 1941 and it also houses a remarkable collection of exhibitions presenting the history of Australians at war. It is one of the best military museums in the world and had gone hi-tech since my last visit.

It has sections dedicated to Gallipoli, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and present peacekeeping operations. There are relics, photos, dioramas and movies, and touchy-feely screens illustrating each period. I took a free tour with an entertaining little old lady historian who knew her stuff.

There is a stuffed horse called ‘Bill the Bastard’ who was involved in the Sudan during WW1. He was unridable and a series of potential riders would get thrown off, yelling “You Bastard!”. A soldier who had misbehaved, got lumbered with old Bill, who kept throwing him off. He could go for 60 hours through the desert without water (with his mostly walking rider). Bill and the soldier were involved in a rescue attempt. A retreat was underway, and the soldier was told to ride to an observation outpost and tell the 4 soldiers there to saddle up and get out. But their horses had all been killed. All 5 of them managed to climb aboard Bill (3 on his back, one on either side using the stirrups as a support), and Bill, unable to throw them off, slowly returned for 2 miles, saving the soldiers. The horse was decorated for its courage and as a reward, became a packhorse so that noone would ever try and ride it again. What a nice story.

In the World War II section, she took us to a darkened room where you became part of a bombing mission over Germany. As the engines started, the floor rumbled below us. There was the chatter of pilots from original recordings and then the bomb door opened beneath us with real footage of a night bombing. It was a great idea to enjoy.

The Museum is vast. I spent three hours there and only got a taster. The Gallipoli section brought back memories when we had visited the area of Turkey at the start of our overland trip. There was a huge collection of aircraft under the ‘Air Power in the Pacific 1941-53’ section. At the Discovery Centre, you could dress up as soldiers in Vietnam or WWI (I did!).The week after we left, a new huge extension would be opened called Anzac Hall. They have so much stuff, it just keeps getting larger. Recommended and unmissable if you visit Canberra.

The National Gallery of Australia had exhibits ranging from Aboriginal pieces through to modern art. The highlight was a return to see Sydney Nolan’s collection of 25 paintings telling the story of Ned Kelly. Almost childlike in creation, Ned is portrayed with a large square black metal box on his head and a skinny neck.

The National Archives is another new Museum, which has rotating exhibits. It is, however, vastly inferior to the National Archives in Washington DC. One of the small exhibitions was the history of the car in Australia. There was a 1932 handbook ‘How Women Make Better Drivers’, written by a woman for women drivers so that they could understand how a car worked and drive correctly. Flicking through it, I spotted comments like “Don’t forget to check your hat and give a wave as you pull out into the traffic”.

Most of Canberra’s attractions are free which makes it an excellent place to visit. There is a stack of stuff to see, but having toured it comprehensively before, we concentrated on the post 1985 attractions.

The latest one is the vast ‘National Museum of Australia’ which had only opened a few weeks before and it is another stunning display of innovation. It is housed in a modern abstract complex, a multi-coloured, multi-shaped affair, designed to “telling great stories about Australia and Australians”. It is brand new, hi tech, a visual-audio attack on the senses and must have cost an absolute fortune. It is also very difficult to describe.

When you entered the foyer, you were invited to sit in on a movie show. But this one moved! Sitting in seats, images of Australia, set to music came across a screen that had 4 smaller screens in front of it that moved up and down. It was very effective, so that for example, a flock of sheep would gradually move across the small four screens against a backdrop. After 10 minutes, the entire seating area, swung around into a second section with a dozen screens all showing different images of the country with voices, sounds of nature and music. Then you moved into a third section for another differently presented multi-media show. It was a bit like being locked into a large high tech cell and having your senses bombarded.

Sections within the multi-level complex seem to appear from nowhere. There were lots of film clips and relics with central themes such as ‘Tangled Destinies’ (20,000 years of environmental change), ‘Nation’ (celebrating icons of Australia such as vegemite and kangaroos), and ‘First Australians Gallery’.

The focus is always on people with their stories illustrated by pictures/photos, movie clips or the actual people talking. There was a section called ‘Eternity’ with individual stories about loneliness, happiness, thrills etc. You could make your own 60-second video with your story, so I did one for the Thrills section about my skydiving adventure (to bore the future punters forever more).

There was a huge 7 metre square digital display of the Australian continent, over which themes would run: exploration routes, population history, transportation history etc, which appeared on the screen with background photos and narrative and looked very impressive. Nearby was a speeded up video of the construction of the new parliament building from a fixed camera. 8 years flashed by in 3 minutes. In another section, you donned headphones and watched a slideshow while accompanying sounds/music with state of the art stereo acoustic quality bombarded your ears. One area, that I never got hang of was had some large digital dancers beamed onto parallel walls. If you jumped up and down and stamped your feet, the digital dancer in front of you would follow your movements. People looked very strange jumping up and down in the middle of a museum.

A final unique section was called ‘Kspace’ which allowed you to participate in creating a city of the future. Before you entered, your photo was taken. Then you sat at a PC and followed a 6-minute ‘Visual Reality’ programme to create either a building or vehicle of the future. I designed a vehicle and the program took you through a series of stages that gave you half a dozen choices of shapes, colours, design, propulsion etc. The vehicle appeared as you built it and you could see all the alternatives before choosing one. Then you entered a small cinema, donned 3-D glasses and watched your creation float around the city. Your photo was the registration plate at the back of the vehicle so you could spot yours amongst all the others that had been designed that day. Your photo would also appear on the future buildings (as in the ‘Bladerunner’ movie). Sod the queue of kids waiting in line, I couldn’t wait to get back on to design another one!

There was so much to see and do. We spent 4 hours there and still skipped lots of stuff. The Museum is free, easily the best in Australia and destined to become one of Australia’s most visited sights. You heard it here first.

In the afternoon, we drove out of town to Tidbinbilla (‘A giant leap for mankind, a short step to Tidbinbilla’) to visit the Canberra ‘Deep Space Communication Complex’. Managed on behalf of NASA and similar to the other two sites in Madrid, Spain and Goldstone, California, which with Canberra form the Deep Space Network (DSN), it communicates with interplanetary spacecraft, travelling millions of miles from earth. To do this, a number of enormous radio antennae point out and track the spacecraft, collecting weak radio signals from deep space. The largest, white, saucer shaped antennae at the complex, measures 70 metres in diameter – about the size of a rugby field. We could have been in America apart from the grazing kangaroos by the massive saucers.

We took in the free and very empty Visitors Centre which had an adjoining ‘Moonrock Cafe’ that sold such delights as Orbiting Quiche, Lunar Lasagne and Shuttle Sandwiches. The centre took you through the history of space exploration and a film show told us about the latest 20 year project to explore Mars with a long term objective to get a man there (I bet they find a Coke can on the surface when they arrive).

There was a 3.8 billion year old piece of the moon with its glass crystals sparkling and a section on space food (‘just add water’ – how?). To give you an example, on 21st June 1996, Dr Andrew Thomas (Australia’s First Astronaut) on the Space Shuttle had this on the menu:
Breakfast: Trail mix, Mexican scrambled eggs, granola with Blueberries, orange-mango drink and coffee
Lunch: Shrimp cocktail, turkey salad spread, rice pilaff, tortilla, lemonade and coffee
Dinner: Spaghetti with meat sauce, cauliflower cheese, apple, peach ambrosia, lemonade and tea.
There was no mention that with all that Mexican food, his continual farting must have inflated his space suit beyond belief. The Space Shuttle must have smelt like a Turkish wrestler’s jockstrap.

There were lots of experiments you could try. When you jumped off a mat, it would record how high you would have jumped on the moon. I took today’s record of 300cm, which computed, to 2000cm on the moon. A more depressing one was a weight machine: I came out at 95 kilos (and the rest!) which told the sorry tale of how good the food/beer was in Australia. Back in Singapore last October, I was just less than 80 kilos. If I had lived on Pluto, I would have weighed 4 kilos but on Neptune 175 kilos.

I can thoroughly recommend Canberra as an essential place to visit in Australia. It is now one of the nicest capital cities in the world. There is enough to keep you occupied here for days and it is all FREE!

We were only 150km south of Sydney and had virtually returned to where we started out in March, but the Snowy Mountains beckoned again. As we headed south, on a gloriously sunny day, the radio told us that it was -3’C in the hills. Thanks, I really needed to hear that. Passing through the main tourist town of Coomba just on the edge of the Kosciouszcho National Park, we had to shell out $15 to enter for the day, drove past the artificial Lake Jindabynr and headed into the centre of the snow capped mountains.

The Snowies are only just over 2000m tall and Mt Kosciouszcho is the tallest mountain in Australia at 2228m. The ‘official ski season’ was due to open in a few days and the narrow twisting road was empty of traffic. The ski resorts of Smiggin Holes and Perisher also seemed to be rather empty of snow. I hope they can ski on grass. Beautiful dry golden valleys and gum trees turning colour surrounded us. 3 metre poles lined the roadsides to measure the non-existent snow. When I had driven through during the 1985 Aussie winter, the entire area was awash with snow and chains were needed on the car tyres. So it was nice to actually see what the land looked like.

At the end of the road we reached Charlotte Pass for a fine view of Mt Kosciouszcho, whose summit was barely higher than the surrounding smooth hummocks. It was tempting to make the 24km return trek to the summit but without boots or warm winter gear to cope with the increasing snow on top, it was out of the question. I had climbed it before, though cheated by taking a ski lift most of the way from the other side of the mountains at Threadbo.

Back on the Alpine Highway, we drove past Threadbo, the major ski resort, which was deserted and only had a smattering of snow on the lower slopes. From there, it was a slow torturous journey of long up and downs, twists and turns, through the forests that burnt up our brake pads.

Then we started to pass some of the famous Snowy River Power Scheme. Prior to the scheme, most water off the mountains drained eastwards which was a fat lot of good to the farmers in the west who needed the water. Conceived in 1949, the scheme took 25 years to build, including 16 major dams, seven power stations (2 underground), and one pumping station. There are also 145km of underground tunnels, and 80km of aqueducts, which collect and divert the water. It is recognised as one of the 25 most impressive international civil engineering landmarks in the world. The slopes are covered in massive white circular pipes.

The vast scheme works very simply. Aqueducts and dams collect the melted snow and rain which is stored in reservoirs before it travels through underground tunnels dropping 800 metres and passing through a series of power stations. After the water is used to generate electricity, it is released via more dams to the dry western farmland for irrigation. But once you’ve seen one power station, you’ve seen them all.

Fortunately for you, the last few days in Australia can be summed up briefly. We drove away from the Snowies back to Wodonga and made our way to Swan Hill via Kerang, criss-crossing the Murray River on rickety old bridges between New South Wales and Victoria en route.

I had driven across New South Wales extensively in 1985 and didn’t feel the need to repeat the experience, so I have missed giving you a summary of it’s attractions. Suffice to say, the Barrier Highway is an epic ride right across it (I counted only 12 vehicles in 4 hours on one day) where you end up at Broken Hill, another bandit town of miners. Up the road from there at Silverton, you can see where the movie ‘Mad Max 2’ was filmed. If you know the movie, you’ll know what the landscape looks like –desert.

Swan Hill was an old riverside town on the Murray where paddleboats still ply the river for tourist entertainment and where an ugly brute sits outside the train station. It is a huge green/yellow spotted ‘Giant Murray Cod’ fibreglass statue measuring about 15m long by 3m tall and a gaping mouth that you can climb up into.

On the day that we decided to spring clean the van, ready for return, it poured with rain all day. This exercise was not fun, but we attempted to leave the campervan in a decent condition for my parent’s next visit. It had been an excellent way to see Australia. Cheap and reliable. So thank you Mum and Dad and sorry about the windscreen and er, failing interior lights.

Back in Carwarp, near Mildura, we returned to my auntie’s farm where the van would be stored. We clocked in at 22,600km and if you add the first stage around Tasmania and the Outback of 11,200, we totalled 33,800km. Not bad for a whirlwind trip of four and a half months. It was the second time I had been right around Australia and this time, I feel that I did it justice. Everyone should visit this country at least once in their lives.

It was strange to adjust to proper beds again after sleeping in the van and the hospitality and homecooking was very welcome after months of eking out the cheapest supermarket food and cooking it in a microwave or on a BBQ. Seeing a TV again did little to suggest that I had missed it. We had listened to the radio in the van.

We bade my relatives a fond farewell (after I had volunteered to chop some tough Mallee trees for firewood and destroyed the axe in the process – oops). Carwarp had been a blazing hot 47’C when I arrived in January. Now it was a cold 15’C and the winter rain had started which the farmers had been praying for while they ploughed and seeded the fields for the next harvest.

It was the Queen’s Birthday Long Weekend. Yes, they may be debating if they still want to keep the Queen as the Head of State, but they still celebrate her birthday with a public holiday. Even we don’t do this in England. As long as they get their free day, she can stay.

We caught a bus to Bendigo via Swan Hill and caught the train to Melbourne. I had visited the city many times and didn’t feel the need to do the ‘sights’ again. So we walked around the wide grid like boulevards and I was pleasantly surprised to find that Melbourne still retains some fabulous architecture from it’s heady days, that even the towering office blocks have not swallowed up. The original ‘Golden Mile’ still boasts a wealth of imposing Victorian sandstone buildings. Captain Cook’s cottage is in Fitzroy Gardens, near the ‘Fairy Tree’ (don’t ask). The most European of Australian cities, it still has a public transport system based on electric trams.

Last thoughts on Australia: It has certainly ‘Americanised’ since my last visit. Every town has a shopping mall and it has all become very suburbanised. People are leaving the Outback in droves and heading for the coast, and even the ‘ocker’ slang is disappearing too. The road network is much better with sealed roads everywhere.

I loved the Outback, the ‘real’ Australia for me – no traffic, speed cameras, or policecars. It is a vast, desolate but ultimately spectacular place to explore. The ‘Backpacker’ tourist has taken over the tourist industry, but can be avoided with your own transport.

The cities are full of Chinese and Asians. The Outback is still white. The Aborigines seem to have retreated to their protected lands to work out a future for themselves. A separation policy seems to be developing

Australians continue to be some of the most open and genuinely friendly people you will ever meet. They are more worldly-wise with their increasing excursions abroad.

Things I will never forget:
•the, er, endless flat landscapes and miles of empty roads
•the huge 50m road trains that came barrelling past
•the wonderful noisy colourful birds and unique Aussie wildlife
•the different colours of the land
•the roadhouses in the middle of nowhere
•the diverse collection of National Parks
•the wonderful aborigine art (unaffordable to cheapskates like me)
•the disappointment at seeing a Macdonald’s in nearly every town
•the hospitality of all the people we met and stayed with (Not you Matt!)

Jo left for Bali the day before me. On June 14th, Day 591 of the trip, armed with yet another new camera to replace the second one that had died after 9 months, I read my horoscope in the newspaper at the airport. “Your unusual talents give you a versatility that derives from an infinite wisdom. You are able to move on any issues that arise. Adapting to different environments is quite a strength”. The issue for me was that my current 3-month visa had expired and I had to leave. How did the horoscope know I was going back to Indonesia?

And now, the moment you have been waiting for: Road kill Totals For The Trip So Far (including Australia):

201 Kangaroos, 60 Unrecognised Birds, 38 Possums, 31 Foxes, 28 Wallabies, 24 Cows, 18 Dogs, 18 Rabbits, 17 Snakes, 14 Birds of Prey, 14 Rats, 10 Tasmanian Devils, 10 Cats, 9 Emus, 7 Donkeys, 7 Sheep, 6 Lizards, 4 Wombats, 4 Quokkas, 4 Galahs, 3 Wild boar, 3 Frogs, 3 Goats, 2 Dingoes, 2 Kittens, 2 Camels, 2 Echidnas, 2 Feral Cats, 1 Calf, 1 Porcupine, 1 Monkey, 1 Lamb, 1 Pedemelon, 1 Cockatoo, 1 Rook, 1 Magpie, 1 Kookaburra, 1 Parrot. (includes 3 lizards and 2 birds which we unfortunately flattened) Not included: Hundreds of UFO’s (‘unidentified flattened objects’) and 1 Turtle on road kill probation.

Costs in Australia for 93 days in British Pounds Sterling)

Travel - £899.50 (inc £500.45 on petrol, numerous services, windscreen and new tyres)
Accommodation - £273
Food - £308
Other - £1024 (inc costs of skydiving, scuba diving/course, horseriding, rafting, Great Barrier Reef trip, Kakadu Park flight)
Total - £2504.5
Grand Total - £11477.07