If you find yourself down under with 8 weeks to spare and a Four wheel
drive to hand, I cannot recommend the following trip highly enough.
Some of the favourite pictures here have to be 'swimming with 12 metre
whalesharks', 'fat man with fish' and 'idiot between the marbles'...
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This is the route we took, starting out from
Melbourne, across to Adelaide, by rail to Perth then driving up the coast
to Exmouth then Darwin, down to Alice Springs and the Red Centre, by rail
back to Adelaide and finally driving home to Melbourne. |
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The fantastic scenery of the Great Ocean Road on
the south coast of Victoria, running along the very edge of the Great
Southern Ocean. |
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The Pinnacles - Numbung National Park made
famous by the Billy Connolly naked run ! |
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A typical road in Western Australia, stretching
into the distance without a car, bend or anything of interest in sight.... |
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Humpback whales diving around our boat off
Ningaloo Reef near Exmouth and Coral Bay. |
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Swimming with the Whale Sharks again off
Ningaloo Reef. Fortunately these awesome 15 metre giants only eat
plankton. |
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A beautiful waterfall typical of those we found
in Karajini National Park. A wonderful place to wash off the red dust that
accumulates everywhere whilst driving here, if you look carefully there is
someone swimming here.... |
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Here's the red dust on an unmade road and
there's no shortage of unmade roads around here. |
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Alternatively, how about a drive along 90 mile
beach, wonderful white sand stretching for, well, about 90 miles and not a
car or human in sight, not quite as crowded as the Med. beaches.... |
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The 'Fat Man with Fish' photo. Even a novice can
catch monster fish off Broome. I may have landed this myself but for
eating it I needed some serious help.... |
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Up a rough road (4WD only) the Bungle Bungles
(Purnalulu) are an incredible sight. The sandstone beehive rock formations
are unique, especially when viewed from a helicopter. |
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In Kakadu National Park is the famous Jim Jim
Falls a very high waterfall. Normally you can swim in the pool at the
foot, but we were warned off as there had been a crocodile seen in there
the day before.... It wasn't a tough decision not to take the plunge... |
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Yes, these reptiles are well worth avoiding,
catching them on a rod is a real challenge, it's not fly fishing. |
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The sunsets at the 'Top End' are spectacular and
do not very often get obscured by cloud... |
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The 'Devils Marbles', a fine opportunity for
some silliness, but the pain of cramp is almost visible on my face.... |
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A more leisurely way to spend the morning,
although it has to be good to make it worth the 4am rise and shine. |
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Now this 'Ayers Rock' place is pretty famous.
The colour changes of Uluru during sunrise and sunset are amazing so
another early morning is well worthwhile. It's a steep climb, but the best
views are from the bottom anyway.... |
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Just 30km up the road are the less well known
Olgas. The 'Walk of the Winds' takes you around the base of these
spectacular rocks and is well worth the effort. In my opinion they are
more beautiful than that Ayers Rock thing up the road... |
