Australia 2009/10

We set off as a group of 5, 4 men and 1 woman. We didn't use any tour operator but organised the trip from home with just the PC. We only booked the return flight from Venice to Melbourne.. (1100 euros with Emirates), 2 nights in a hotel in Melbourne for the first 2 days (Hotel Grand Chancellor, 40 euros each per day) and an 8-seat minivan for 12 days (800 euros)..... After 2 days of sightseeing and rest in Melbourne we headed straight for the South Australia coast towards the Twelve Apostles on the Great Ocean Road, passing through the capitals of Australian surfing, Torquay and Lorne... carrying on we stopped at Warrnambool, finding accommodation at the "Surfside Holiday Park" in a bungalow (120$ a night)...... off again heading north, passing through Coorong National Park and stopping at Murray Bridge, a town on the Murray River, the longest river in Australia.....

still north towards Adelaide, where we stopped just long enough for a beer, and stayed the night at Port Wakefield... another very nice and clean bungalow (120$ a night)... for dinner at the Rising Sun Hotel, cheap and with excellent meat (30$ each)..... off again towards Port Augusta, shopping at the market and away on the Stuart Highway heading north; we enter the desert, destination Coober Pedy, the opal town. Along the way we see endless herds of cattle and an incredible number of kangaroos killed by cars and trucks during the night (I'd advise anyone against driving on this road at night). We find accommodation at the Desert View Hotel (160$ for an apartment in the rock); in this town, given the impossible temperatures..45 degrees.. the inhabitants almost all live in houses dug out of the rock.... worth trying....

off again ever north and we enter the Northern Territory with stops at Marla and Erlunda, fascinating villages lost in the desert; on the road we also see the famous train "THE GHAN" that crosses the whole of Australia......... Erlunda is also at the junction with the Lasseter Highway.... petrol here costs about 35/40 cents more per litre. The Lasseter Highway runs as far as Ayers Rock, one of the destinations of our trip... knowing that the only hotels at Ayers Rock are very expensive, we decide to take a bungalow at the Outback Hospitality (230$ a night), the only place between Erlunda and Ayers Rock, about 150 km away..... very characterful, if you pass by stop at least for a beer..... having visited Uluru (25$ per person for park entry) and seen the sunset over the famous monolith, we head back north towards Darwin and Kakadu Park, another of our destinations.......

unfortunately in those days Cyclone Lawrence reached Darwin and the whole north coast, flooding 80% of the roads inside Kakadu, which, not having a 4WD, we couldn't do; we could only cross it along the Kakadu Highway as far as Jabiru and head for Darwin along the Arnhem Highway, meeting on the way a great many kangaroos, wallabies, parrots etc........ stop in Darwin where we celebrate Christmas (terrible weather, 35 degrees and 90% humidity), impossible to swim in the sea, where besides jellyfish and sharks there are also crocodiles... (in those days they found a 4-metre one on the beach)...... from there by plane with Jetstar to Cairns (130$ each)..... we hire another 8-seat minivan (700 euros) and head down the coast to Bowen, where we stay in a splendid bay at the Whitsunday Sands Resort (194$ per day)....

off again hoping to land on the Whitsunday Islands but we find everything full and very expensive, so we head back north, a stop in Townsville and a 4-day ferry to Magnetic Island... we stay at Bright Point, a complex of seafront apartments where everything runs on solar power, in a splendid apartment of about 150 metres (300$ each including the ferry)..... off again, back to Cairns where we stay at the McLeod Resort (2 days 190$)... we take the boat for a trip out on the Great Barrier Reef (165$ each including an excellent lunch)....... unforgettable, not to be missed... then another flight with Virgin Blue to Sydney (268 euros each); we wanted to stay at Bondi Beach but everything was full so we stay in the city at the Metro Hotel (1600$ for 6 days).... another flight to Melbourne where we stay another 2 days waiting for the return home