Sun, June 01, 2003
Sydney - WE'VE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!! (56,000km)



















On June 1st we rolled across Sydney Harbour Bridge, so ending our record-setting drive from the UK to Australia. The journey has been a great adventure and a cultural education rolled into eleven exhilarating months of driving; hard work and stressful at times and with no shortage of anxious moments, but without doubt this has been the most exciting and informative period in our lives. In short, we’ve had the adventure of a lifetime!

We have also had the great privilege of seeing CARE’s invaluable work in seven different countries. The competence and dedication of their staff is exceptional, and the importance of CARE’s projects in many of the poorest communities in the world is now overwhelmingly apparent to us. We now have 15,000 people logging on to our website each month and we hope you have all enjoyed following our journey across the world. A great many of you have recognised our hard work by supporting our fund-raising efforts, but for those who just haven’t got round to sponsoring us, its not too late! Every pound we raise really does make a difference to the lives of men, women and children who so desperately need help. Simply go to the “sponsor us” page of this website for details or send a cheque made out to CARE International to:

London to Sydney Overland Expedition
PO Box 729
Camberley
Surrey
GU16 6WJ

A word of thanks must also go to all the corporate sponsors who have supported us in one way or another and without whom expeditions such as ours could rarely take place.

Thank you all once again for your support and interest in our expedition. Now we have to turn reluctantly to the question that has haunted us since leaving the UK – what on earth will we do next…!

Our very best wishes to you all, Peter and Fiona.
Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 08:08 

Sat, May 31, 2003
Canberra - reception at the British High Commission (55,500km)
We spent three wonderful days relaxing up in the rolling hills that surround Adelaide (and saw our first koala), staying with Scott and Judy, a couple we met many weeks earlier in the north of Australia (big, big thank you for a great weekend!), before setting off on a two day drive to Canberra, the capital of Australia. We really are nearing the end of our trip and we’re both suffering slightly mixed emotions – great excitement at the prospect of finally reaching what seemed such an improbable goal eleven months ago, and a slight sense of sadness that our great adventure is nearing its end. But there was no time for anything but excitement in Canberra thanks to a welcome lunch reception hosted by the British High Commission. All seven of the BHC’s Land Rovers were ceremoniously lined up in the front courtyard along with various TV crews and journalists for a formal welcome by the Acting High Commissioner, Mr Robert Court, and the UK Transport Minister, the Rht Hon Mr John Spellar, who happened to be in town and couldn’t resist lending his support to a couple of British motorists! We really can’t thank the team at the British High Commission and all the staff at CARE Australia enough for putting on such a warm welcome for us – THANK YOU!!!!!









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Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 12:23 

Mon, May 26, 2003
Adelaide - back into Autumn (54,000km)

After leaving the bitumen road at Laverton we spent two long days driving through some of the most remote scrubland in Australia on a sandy, corrugated road that threatened to shake our truck to pieces if we didn’t keep our speed up. The sense of isolation was almost eerie at times, though we could always rely on the ubiquitous bush flies to keep us company, and we saw very little other than a couple of passing vehicles (including one particularly fast car that whipped up a spray of stones and smashed our windscreen!), the odd camel and a lone dingo patrolling the outback tracks in search of roadkill.

We eventually arrived at Uluru in the dark giving us no option but to wait until sunrise before we could set eyes on the world’s most famous monolith. We woke before dawn the next morning and waited patiently at the Rock with the mass of like-minded tourists as the first cracks of light appeared on the horizon. The enormous scale of Uluru could at last be appreciated but the sun seemed unable to penetrate the cloudy sky and bring the rock to life. Then for ten extraordinary seconds a shaft of sunlight broke through the clouds and lit up the rock in a surreal, orange glow – it’s no wonder the Aborigines attributed to Uluru so many magical powers.



Two day’s drive south of Ayres Rock and we arrived at Coober Pedy, a town lying in the middle of the outback that has developed entirely off the back of opal mining and still survives from the industry today. Opal was first discovered at Coober Pedy in 1915 and the thousands of giant ‘mole-hills’ surrounding the town today are testament to the huge number of prospectors that have tried their luck over the years. Unlike gold mining, however, the economics of opal mining are such that no large operators are interested, only hard working individuals who are prepared to take a gamble. Every now and then a lucky prospector will make his fortune but most will dig for decades and find only enough to pay for the next lease of land.

We stayed in the town with Linda, yet another friend of a friend of a friend...! Just like fifty percent of the population she lived in one of the many dugout homes carved into Coober Pedy’s hillside. With chimneys for ventilation and a constant temperature that only ever changes by five degrees throughout the year, these underground homes provide excellent protection from the area’s intensely hot summers, cold winter nights and dusty winds. The highlight of our visit was being winched 40m down a working mine by one of the local miners. Sadly, we didn’t find any opals but it was fascinating to see the machinery tunnelling through the underground rock face, and to hear all the stories of the fortunes that had been made and lost.

A little further south we were invited to stop for the night at a sheep station (big thankyou to Wayne, Sharon and co!) and to see how the small family team manages a mere 16,000 sheep! But there even more to see than just sheep, their enormous station was littered with remains of British and Australian rockets fired from the highly secretive Woomera rocket testing site during the 1950s and 60s. Next stop, Adelaide where hopefully we can find a new windscreen…
Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 02:23 

Tue, May 13, 2003
Kalgoorlie - heading inland again (50,000km)











A few deep breaths to help overcome the shock of being back in a large western style city full of well-dressed office workers rushing around, and we settled down to a couple of days relaxing in the trendy neighbouring port town of Fremantle. After three weeks of camping and a fairly repetitive menu (steak or tuna pasta!) it was a joy to arrive at the home of Louise and Brett where a huge roast chicken complete with trimmings awaited us (big thank you to Louise and Brett for having us to stay!). The streets of Fremantle were considerably busier than normal with thousands of US sailors enjoying a bit of post-war R&R. The enormous US carrier, Constellation, complete with a fleet of battleships, supply ships and a few submarines lurking offshore, had arrived the same day as us on its way home from the Gulf.

For last ten days or so we’ve been indulging in as many of the South West’s tourist attractions as we can. Its now autumn here, the days are getting shorter and the nights much cooler, but so far we’ve still been enjoying mostly warm, cloudless days. The landscape has changed markedly from areas further north and is now strangely reminiscent of Europe. Much of the region’s land has been cleared for farming and wine growing – bush and scrubland giving way to vineyards and rolling, green fields grazed on by cattle and sheep. In other parts, ancient forests with giant karri, jarrah and tingle trees, growing up to 100m high, have been turned into national parks. One famous karri tree, the Gloucester tree, was once used for spotting bush fires and still has metalled spikes spiralling all the way to a lookout at the top, 200ft above the ground – fantastic views but a fairly nerve-wracking climb!












At Cape Leeuwin in the far southwest corner is one of the most intimidating and treacherous stretches of ocean in the world. From the lighthouse there’s nothing but the Southern and Indian oceans for 4,500km to the south to Antarctica, 8,500km to the west to South Africa and 13,500km to the southwest to South America. But the coastline is exceptionally beautiful and teeming with wildlife such as dolphins, fur seals, sea lions, sharks and a whole host of birdlife including the enormous fish eagle.

From Esperance we turned inland and headed north to Kalgoorlie, the largest gold-mining town in Australia. Tomorrow we will set off on our last little outback adventure, 1100km of sandy track across the Great Victoria Desert to Ayer’s Rock (or Uluru, the aboriginal name its now known by). We’ve fully serviced the vehicle for the last time on this trip, loaded up with fuel, food and water and armed ourselves with the various permits required for passing through some remote Aboriginal lands. Next stop, Uluru…
Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 03:17 

Thu, May 01, 2003
Perth - out of the Tropics at last (47,400km)



At Port Headland we turned inland to make a detour to Karijini National Park, a mountainous region where the scorched ground is cut through by a network of wide gorges and narrow gullies to expose layer after layer of iron-rich rock. But the real attraction for us were the collection of cool and refreshing rockpools and waterfalls which we reached by walking, swimming and sometimes squeezing our way through narrow gaps along the floor of the ravines.




We set off again late in the afternoon to drive the 300km or so back to the main coast road where we had planned to camp overnight at a roadhouse. Far too many photo and filming stops later we found ourselves in the dark on an isolated dirt road and learnt the hard way why only giant roadtrains, the foolhardy and the occasional ignorant tourist like ourselves drive on outback roads at night - kangaroos, millions of them bouncing at random across the road! After hitting and, sadly, killing one kangaroo (causing considerable damage to one of our wings) and countless other near misses in the space of a few minutes, we were forced to pull off into the bush to camp for the night. It was simply too dangerous to drive another metre!





Back on the coast we arrived at the Pilbarra to explore the coral reef of the Ningaloo Marine Park - a stunning section of coastline with some great, isolated camping spots that can only be reached with a four-wheel-drive (and, yes, we did manage to get well and truly stuck on a sand dune!). This is also one of the few places in the world where one can join an organised boat tour, complete with its own spotter plane, that guarantees a swim with the worlds largest fish, the gigantic (but fortunately not man-eating) whale shark. Believe us, snorkelling right alongside an enormous 7m fish is a truly unforgettable experience!




From the Pilbarra we continued south along the coast, stopping along the way to take in yet more of Australias natural wonders such as the mighty blowholes near Carnarvon, the fascinating stromatolites (formed by the simple bacteria which first breathed oxygen on Planet Earth 2500 million years ago, so paving the way for life as we know it!) of Shark Bay and the expanse of eerie tombstone-like monoliths of the Pinnacles Desert. Every day we made a little more progress south, the temperature dropped and the sun lay lower in the sky. Finally, after crossing the line of the Tropic of Capricorn, we made our way down to the most isolated city in the world, lying more than 4000km from any other major conurbation, Perth.


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Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 03:47 

Sat, April 19, 2003
Cape Keraudren... Going West (44,500km)

Back on the road again we headed towards the state boundary of Western Australia on a corrugated dirt track. Dissecting the vast open bush-land the road took a perfect straight line towards the horizon, the route ahead visible for miles on end. The journey gave us a true sense of the area’s isolation. For 400km we saw nothing but scrubland, a few herds of cattle and three wild donkeys – but not a single other vehicle or person.

Our stop that night was on the outskirts of the old gold mining town of Halls Creek. It was one of the first places the precious metal was discovered in Western Australia resulting in a short-lived gold rush in the late nineteenth century. We camped at the ruins of the “old town”, an area where the landscape is littered with discarded mining equipment. Plenty of gold apparently remains undiscovered in the surrounding area and we met numerous people who still make a living from prospecting, all hoping to make a lucky big find, and all full of stories of fortunes made and lost.



A ghost known as Mary who wanders down from the cemetery to the ruins of the old hospital every night allegedly haunts the old ruins. We waited patiently for her two nights in a row but, sadly, she must have been on holiday and failed to show up. Instead, the evening’s excitement was generated by our torches picking out the occasional python slithering across our path!



From Halls Creek we rejoined the Bituman highway until we reached Broome, a popular tourist destination on the west coast. It was a bit of a shock to be on a proper campsite again – our first since leaving Europe – where campers are packed in together and where we struggled to keep up with the mass of campsite rules! But the beautiful, white Cable Beach did not disappoint, and the outdoor cinema, complete with deckchairs, alone justified our visit.


Another 400 or so kilometres down the coast and we returned to a more wild setting at Cape Keraudren national park. Our camping spot marked the southern point of “Eighty Mile Beach” a desolate, white sand paradise that stretches uninterrupted for at least as far as its name suggests and an equally beautiful scene at night when the full moon reflects in the row of tidal pools. A great spot for kite flying but occasional sightings of the fearsome saltwater crocodile deterred us from taking a dip!








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Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 04:21 

Sun, April 13, 2003
Wave Hill - a farm, but not as we know it! (43,500km)























One hundred and fifty kilometres west of Katherine on the lonely Victoria Highway, we turned south onto a narrow bitumen road. For the next four hours we travelled across empty scrubland passing only a remote roadhouse (service station) and the occasional plague of locusts (it took a long time to clean the front of our Land Rover the next day!) until we reached a very welcome sign, “Wave Hill Station 10km”. Turning on to the dusty track we eventually arrived at the homestead of Wave Hill, one of the largest cattle stations in Australia. For small islanders like us Britons, the sheer scale of the estate is hard to comprehend: 13,500 square kilometres, nearly 60,000 heads of cattle, and a drive around the outer fence line takes three to four days! The isolation is likewise staggering, from here it’s a six-hour drive to the nearest town, Katherine.

David Heath, a visiting cattle broker who very kindly arranged our visit, and Gavin and Trish the station managers quickly made us feel welcome and settled us in to a room in the visitors’ quarters. The homestead consists of a private airstrip, various modern whitewashed buildings including workers’ quarters for the twenty or so permanent workers and family members, a kitchen/dining room and recreation room, all set in pristine gardens (thanks to the gardener, Marie!). Cattle stations are a serious business and a dangerous, dusty and harsh working environment. The cowboys, jackaroos and other workers are all subject to strict rules (such as a maximum of three beers each night!) to ensure the smooth running of the station. But this is still the exciting cowboy world we imagined it to be – the dress code is denim, stetsons and cowboy boots, the working vehicle of choice is the trusty horse, and hearty chunks of beef are served up for breakfast, lunch and dinner!



Rising every morning at 6am for breakfast and finishing every afternoon covered in dust, the next four days proved to be some of the most fascinating of our whole trip. Everybody encouraged us to tag along to see each aspect of working life on the station. One day was spent loading 1500 steers onto giant road trains (160 feet long with three trailers and a total of 70 wheels!), another working with Kevin the head stockman to familiarise adolescent calves with the horses and cattle dogs, and part of another travelling with Blue (second in command to Gavin, and so-called because of his red hair!) to pick up weekly supplies dropped off on a nearby road. On the last day we drove out to one of the nearby paddocks known as Camp 22 (a mere 400 square km in size and only a 45 minute drive away!) to watch a group of ten contract musterers round up cattle. These musterers spend up to several months at a time camped out under the stars working their way around the station, rounding up cattle for sale or to brand, castrate, dehorn and tag the youngsters. To cover the huge areas that cattle are free to roam for much of their lives, musterers now use a combination of horses, motorbikes, pick-up trucks and helicopters to round up the stock. We watched in awe as about 2000 Brahman cows, bulls and calves gathered from all parts of the horizon to an open area near to where we sat on the roof of our Land Rover. The giant herd was kept together by cowboys stationed on horses every fifty metres or so and by the daredevil antics of a tiny helicopter that would dart back and forth sometimes only inches off the ground to chase any escaping cattle and force them back to the herd.

Wave Hill was a truly magical experience and we even gave serious consideration to becoming Jackaroo and Jillaroo for a few months! But we eventually had to set out on the road again, waved off by some of the Wave Hill team and loaded up by Trish with delicious beef sandwiches and enough steaks to last us for a very long time! A big, big thankyou to all at Wave Hill Station!




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Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 08:41 

Sun, April 06, 2003
Katherine - home from home! (42,500km)
Courtesy of Geoff and Priscilla Rowland, we settled into life on their farm so happily we ended up staying for a week! Despite its remoteness high up in the Northern Territory and the harshness of the environment (intense heat for much of the year and the risk of severe flooding during the wet season), Katherine is a remarkably welcoming place with an exciting frontier town atmosphere created by the many people who are still attracted here by the beautiful scenery and in the hope of making their fortune. During our short stay we met an interesting cross-section of people: cattle brokers, quarry workers, truck drivers, farm workers, cowboys, doctors, school of the air teachers (who broadcast their lessons to remote homesteads over the radio) and helicopter pilots to mention just a few.

Our hosts’ property was surrounded by grassy fields as far as the eye could see and home to an abundance of wildlife. At this time of year cloudless days begin with sulphur-crested cockatoos lining up outside the kitchen windows and kite-hawks circling in the skies above, and end with wallabies bouncing across large open paddocks silhouetted against the most glorious sunsets – a soon familiar signal that its time to crack open an ice cold beer and set light to the barbeque! We finally managed to uproot ourselves from a rather idyllic lifestyle and, thanks to a kind introduction, our next destination is a large cattle station deep in the outback of northern Australia…

Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 08:36 

Tue, April 01, 2003
Darwin - the most overland route ever! (41,300km)

We’ve made it to Australia!! Its taken eight months, nearly 40,000 kilometres and over a thousand hours of driving to get here – and it feels great! Sydney seems closer than ever (a mere 12,000 kilometres still to go!) and we have set a new record for the most overland route ever driven from the UK to Australia.

Our journey from East Timor was remarkably smooth. Courtesy of Airnorth, we took the ninety-minute flight to Darwin while Perkins Shipping kindly shipped our Land Rover across the Timor sea. After a three-day wait in Darwin our container had arrived and been fumigated. An appointment was made with Customs and Quarantine and we made our way to meet them and our vehicle at the harbour. Once Customs had stamped our papers the officer from Quarantine set to work, shining his torch in every nook and cranny in search of foreign soil. Despite our considerable cleaning efforts in East Timor, we were still a little apprehensive about the inspection, having heard stories of vehicles turned away for being too dirty. After about five minutes of scrutinising the underneath of our car, he sat up and smiled at us in an apologetic yet still slightly menacing way, “when were you hoping to leave Darwin, mate? …You’ve got an ants nest above your front wheel.” Not something we wanted to hear!



Our Land Rover was put back in the container whilst a sample of the ants was taken to a laboratory for identification. Luckily the creepy crawlies under our car turned out to be a species common to both Indonesia and Australia - our surprise infestation could be quickly cured with an aerosol spray. The rest of the inspection showed up no other problems and after registering our Land Rover for insurance purposes and passing a vehicle safety check, we were at last free to drive our car on Australian soil.





Despite being slightly limited in our choices of roads (many are still submerged from the wet season rains) we’ve still had a chance to explore a few of the natural wonders that seem to abound in Australia. So far we’ve toured and hiked in the spectacular Litchfield and Kakadu national parks, cruised down the Yellow River and Katherine Gorge, and already seen our fair share of crocodiles (all from a comfortable distance!). We’ve also settled quite easily into the Australian way of life – lots of camping amongst spectacular scenery, swimming in billabongs, fat steaks on our barbeque, and ice-cold bottles of beer! Now we have a few days to rest in Katherine before branching off towards Western Australia.
Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 14:58 

Wed, March 19, 2003
East Timor - the world's newest country (40,600km)

Correct information is very hard to come by in Indonesia. Despite thorough enquiries at every port, it was only when we spoke to a Swiss hotel owner that we heard of a large ship that had recently started sailing every week to West Timor from Ende in the centre of Flores, and would be sailing again in two days time. Unfortunately since we were now at the most Eastern end of the island this meant an eight hour drive back along the mountain road of unceasing hairpin bends – still, a much more attractive option than waiting for at least four days in a town that offered very little to the passing traveller for the next ferry. Just two days later (and a minor scare with our Land Rover late at night in one of the most remote parts of the drive when one of the front wheels suddenly starting squealing – it turned out to just be a piece of metal that had been hit by a rock and bent onto the brake disk, fortunately easily fixed) the car and us were at last sailing through the night on a ship to West Timor.


As the sun rose the next morning the ship glided into Kupang, the main port of West Timor. It was perfect timing, giving us the whole day to drive across West Timor and hopefully enough time to cross the border into East Timor. We were both admittedly rather apprehensive about approaching the border area. Nobody we had spoken to seemed to have any useful information on the current situation, all we knew for certain was that occasional skirmishes were still being fought along the border. The politics of this area are fairly straightforward but a long way removed from the western world so we thought it useful to include a very potted history of this island’s turbulent history: In the 16th century Timor was the target of both Dutch and Portuguese colonial powers who were keen to exploit its valuable sandalwood and other resources. Negotiations led to the island being divided into the Portuguese Eastern parts and the Dutch (and after independence, Indonesian) Western area. When the Portuguese granted independence to East Timor in 1975, the Indonesian government took advantage of the weak regime and invaded, claiming it to be a rightful part of the Indonesian Archipelago. Many years of pro-independence movements erupted in fierce fighting in East Timor in 1998. Gross acts of genocide carried out by the Indonesian army led to a large UN intervention force that took over the administration of East Timor. In May 2002 the UN handed over the running of the country to the new government and independence was declared making East Timor the newest country in the world.

After passing numerous Indonesian army camps and refugee villages we reached the border, but too many food, photo and toilet stops had delayed our day’s progress and we arrived just five minutes after it had closed for the day. Fortunately, a UN military observer camp was based right next to the border and a surprised but very friendly group of officers from Pakistan, New Zealand, Denmark and Malaysia invited us in for a cold drink and assured us it would be no problem to camp outside their building for the night – unexpected but very welcome hospitality!


We passed out of Indonesia the following day to be greeted by the smiling Australian soldiers who operate the East Timor border. A two hour drive along the coast, passing countless white UN vehicles and we reached the capital, Dili. This small city, like many other parts of East Timor, is still being re-built and equipped with schools, hospitals and basic sanitation facilities by the efforts of the UN and many non-governmental aid agencies including CARE.





Our chance to explore would come once we had dealt with the extensive cleaning operation to be carried on our van in order to pass the strict Australian quarantine laws. Every single spot of soil, dirt and dust had to be removed from our car, inside and out – and believe us, after eight months on the road, that is an immense task! After two full days cleaning each individual item we were carrying and pressure-hosing the exterior we drove down to the port where the Australian Defence Force carry out the cleaning of their vehicles. “No chance!” was the advice of a quarantine officer after a cursory glance at our Land Rover – despite it being in what we would call showroom condition! However, the soldiers very kindly produced some powerful cleaning equipment – pressure hoses that required ear defenders and could easily draw blood! – and one of their expert cleaners spent five hours with us to remove every last bit of dirt. Exhausted, we finally drove the Land Rover into a container (deflating and re-inflating the tyres as before) and carefully lashed it down. We’ve certainly never seen a car this clean before, but will it be enough to satisfy Darwin quarantine officials…?
Posted by: Peter & Fiona at 09:54 

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