Roadtrippin' Australia

When you "roadtrip" in the UK, it usually means cramming your mates in a car to drive to the next town for a cheeky Nando's and bants. In Australia, it's a little different. Australia is big. Sometimes the next town is over an hour's drive away, and there's no chando's there.

2 days ago, Joe and I set off from Melbourne to head to Toowoomba, near Brisbane. If you're not so clued up on your Oz geography, its here:

We've named the van "Hodor", because it's big, it carries us, and Joe and I are avid Game of Thrones fans. As I mentioned in a previous post, fuel is ridiculously cheap here compared to the UK. So far we've paid a low of 97c and a high of $1.19. This is the equivalent of about 50p in sterling, so hopefully we're saving a few bucks on this journey too.

Before heading off, I was doing a bit of research on the interwebz for tips and advice. The one thing everyone seemed to agree on was to get up early and do your driving before it gets dark to avoid kangeroos jumping in front of your car. On our first day of driving, we didn't heed this advice, and sure enough darkness fell and on our way to the campsite there were kangaroos - everywhere! As an animal lover, it was awesome to see creatures in the wild like this that I'd never seen before, but trying to avoid them on the windey forest road was frightening.

So what to do when night falls? Set up camp. Australia has plenty of free campsites, and they were easy to find with the help of the satnav, and the smartphone app "wikicamps". A satnav in this area of Oz in invaluable. Unfortunately I broke ours just as we were leaving Melbourne, so we had to buy another for 150 bucks. Though I'm not sure how helpful it'll be when we head out into the outback.

Hodor at Forbes campsite

The van loaded with enough food and water to feed 5000 hungry crocs, I took some easy to eat snacks up front and found that M&Ms are the best roadtrip snack. Loaded with protein, sugar an fat for energy, the family-sized pack fit nicely in the cupholder next to bottle of water. I soon found that whilst the water became hot enough to make tea, the outer shell of the m&ms doesn't melt in the the heat, meaning the snacks remain perfectly round and crunchy, with a warm, melted, nutty centre. A welcome treat in the hot, sweaty car. Joe explained to me that m&ms were originally used in military ration packs for that reason. "Is that what you were living on in the army?" I asked him. "Nah, that was the US packs - we had Yorkie bars and they melted everywhere!"

So far we've camped at 3 different sites. A $25 a night caravan park on the outskirts of Melbourne (they don't allow free camping in this area), a free spot in scenic Tallarook state forest; with cobweb infested hole-in-the-ground toilets with the odd dead huntsman hanging about, and a lovely spot by a river in a small town called Forbes - which is where I got engaged! It would have been the perfect free camping spot if it wasn't for the 6 mosquito bites that my legs suffered.

So another few hours down the road, and with 500km left, brings us to where we are now. Joe driving, and me scribbling away on a scrap of paper I found in the passenger seat footwell. The aircon has decided to no longer work so we might die, but by the time you read this, I will have reached by destination and you'll know I'm safe and sound. Until next time...