plinth finnish

Here's Ann Celebrating her 21st birthday yesterday on a podium.

Cross Country to Cudlee

Since our last blog, we’ve covered a few thousand kilometres; we were in Sydney. Where we spent a day at The Organic Expo 2006 and lined our pockets with free samples whilst looking for ideas that we could steal and profit from back in the UK.

We then headed inland to the Great Capital of Australia! … which is…? Anybody?... Canberra! Lots of worker bees whiz between cold office blocks and sandwich bars. One day was enough there.
Next we headed out into no-man’s-land, driving along for hours of nothing interspersed by the odd Emu sighting or Kangaroo road kill.
We started to feel closer to civilisation when we hit Wine Country; The Barossa Valley and its famous exports. All the wineries have visitor centres and it would have been rude not to visit some, if not all of them. (And very Educational it was too)


Next stop was Adelaide, the other Australian city. I don’t think there are any TV soap operas based here but its still worth a visit. Some of the buildings here date back over 100 years and are made of stone. A very beautiful, purpose built city surrounded by immaculately kept parks. They are also very positive about cycling with an extensive bike path network; you can get anywhere in the city faster by bike than you can by car. But it’s not just roadies that are catered for either, Cudlee Creek Forest a short ride away is looked after and maintained by several mountain bike clubs. We spent a day riding their well graded (black, blue & green runs like skiing) trails and getting serious cold and muddy in the process. Good stuff.

That’s about it. We’re travelling south and will be very slowly making our way along the coast and The Great Ocean road towards Melbourne, so long as we don’t get distracted or see something that looks more fun.

Fish and bicycles

We finally got round to seeing the Great Barrier Reef – it’s very nice.
We sailed out of Cairns on a 60ft yacht and it rained all day and was freezing cold. Luckily this doesn’t affect fish much so there was plenty to see.

We headed up north as far as Cape Tribulation, “Where the rainforest meets the sea”, true to form it rained there too… so hard in fact that the roof of our van leaked and the roads flooded. The locals had been ‘isolated’ for 5 days prior to our arrival so I’d like to think that we were a pleasant sight.

6 days was enough of the wonderful tropical weather and we decided to start heading south again (as fast as possible).
We did manage to fit in some awesome cycling en route though. Firstly: in Noosa our original off road destination. Where we covered all sorts of terrain; including some vertical cow fields. Our second was a really lucky find; Near Brisbane 100km of purpose built trails. Again lots of variety and for the most part easy enough even for us. Unfortunately for a small part of the day we did find ourselves pushing our bikes for 8km up a mountainside then finding ourselves too scared to ride down.

All this sensible exercise would be nothing without a small amount of childish indulgence and a day at Warner Bros. Movie World was a must.
It was Fantastic! Their new superman ride is quite thrilling. Ann had a busy day of screaming and grinning like a Cheshire. (Cat, not cheese).


We’ve been clocking up the miles and have reached Sydney!

better than nowt.

i know we haven't updated for a while. I promise we'll write a couple of posts tonight, full of facinating details or our latest activities.!



but for now please remain seated and enjoy this picture.

Dreams on water falling

In all this newfound freedom, we haven’t completely forgotten about cycling, and found an excellent bit of muddy rainforest to bomb through and scare any wildlife.
Tam O’Shanter was an explorer. He didn’t reach his destination, his expedition lost ten men and was himself killed by aborigines; to celebrate this achievement he has a Rainforest named after him near Mission Beach. (And you thought it was too easy to become famous now!)
Anyway, Mission Beach was devastated by a cyclone 6 months ago, and their lovely easy forest walks are now muddy potholed tree strewn tracks! Perfect for a bit bunny hopping fun! After a couple of hours of that we headed down through the hills and back to the beach. We were able to cycle on the compacted sand, flanked by the Pacific Ocean and palm trees all the way back to camp!


Paronella Park. This is one place that needs to be seen, to be believed. Forget your panoramic views and stunning sunsets! This is one man’s dream, built on passion, sweat and tears; against the odds and having absolutely no idea of architectural or understanding construction.

Quick version: Spanish bloke fantasises of building a Castle. Comes to Australia, lives the dream and becomes rich. He buys a plot of land and starts building his castle. For a few years people come and play tennis on the lawns and attend grand evenings in the ballroom and everything is very decadent.

Unfortunately the entire structure was made out of porous concrete and the supports were rusty bits of railway track. Also the land is a flood plane and there are almost annual cyclones. Still, the buildings now look Medieval!









Oh, and we’ve arrived in Cairns.

Water falls on Dreams

The next highlight on our trip was ‘magical’ Magnetic Island. It’s actually part of the Great Barrier Reef but it has a few little towns on it. We took our bikes and new snorkelling gear across and had a fantastic day; cycling between secluded beaches and exploring the inner reefs that surround the island.


We’ve been heading inland into the cloudy tropical north. It seems every few kilometres there’s a must see waterfall, swimming hole or creek. Our first stop was the beautiful Crystal Creek, a series of wide, deep pools linked but noisy waterfalls. We couldn’t resist and plunged in for a swim. Our swim quickly turned into a dunk, as the water was so FREEZING!. Not wanting to miss out of anything, we’ve now visited the highest and widest waterfalls in Australia.

Land of Clouds

One of the best aspects of now being motorised is that we can follow through on more of our whims. Heading west by way of a change we stumbled across the amazing Eungella (young- Gulla?)National Park. It means ‘Land of Clouds’ and it is Australia’s oldest subtropical rainforest.
After a 4.5km 12% climb (that’s Very long and steep) we found a little campsite literally in the clouds, perched on a cliff top over looking the vast pioneer valley. The rainforest’s unique location also means it’s home to lots of beasties you won’t find anywhere else: like the Eungella gastric-brooding frog (which incubates it’s eggs in it’s stomach and spits out the tadpoles). We were fortunate enough to see wild platypus here.


We have now meandered our way up to Airlie Beach, a must see for one and all as it’s the gate way to the Whitsunday Islands; 74 tropical islands, clear blue water, the great barrier reef and some of the best sailing in the world. We’re going to kayak to the nearest island then hop into the water for a bit of snorkelling. We’ve bought another underwater camera so pictures of ridiculous outfits and shark bites coming soon.

Crikey! - paradise has cheap accomodation...

I can’t believe how many miles we covered!! It’s unseemly and unnatural!

First stop, after leaving Brisbane was always going to be Australia Zoo Home of the Crocodile Hunter – (it appears he’s not home very often). Anyway Crocs galore and other stuff.

The Glass House mountains: named by Captain Cook (as was everything else in Australia) they look like ... Glasshouses, whatever they are. Believed by the Aborigines to be a family of mountain spirits.

Next stop, The Capricorn Caves and their underground Cathedral. Very dark, lots of bats (in some places the guano is 18m deep – yum!)