The summary

The summary

309	Total days away
37	Days in Europe Note: all other figures in this table relate to the Australian leg only
272	Days in Australia
45	TEDs (Toilet emptying days) - (estimated number, because I can't find my list)
114	Different caravan parks, overnight stops, friends front gardens plus 1 proper hotel (Thanks Marita) Note: that's for the Australian leg
27852	Kilometres
3421	Litres of diesel
3	Litres of engine oil
2	Services (1 before leaving, 1 in Perth)
6871	Photo's in total 6011 in Australia 860 in Europe
20 km's	Shortest day
968 km's	Longest day
2	Number of showers (each) in MM
	Best buys: The camera The electric frypan Kathmandu clothes bag (actually they were a gift. Thanks Julie.) MM itself of course
	Favourite spots: Coral Bay (WA) Nelson Bay (NSW) Cape le Grand (WA)
	Least used items: The travel iron

Highlights package
Wine regions of South Australia
Cape Legrand WA– white white white sands and blue blue blue sea
Coral Bay WA: swimming (not sleeping) with the fishes
Exmouth Turquoise Bay WA (apart from swimming with the Reef Shark)
Kimberly countryside WA
Lake Argyle WA
Kununurra WA
Edith Falls NT
Darwin NT – great spot for a winter getaway
Seeing sprinklers for the first time in 5 years - everywhere but Victoria
Twin Falls / Jim Jim Falls - Kakadu NT
The amazing free camps - everywhere
Cape Tribulation and the stunning rain forests QLD
Port Douglas – relaxing tropical holiday QLD
Port Douglas / Mission Beach QLD
Catching up with family and friends around the country and overseas

Thanks to all our travel advisors for the advice that made the whole trip easier.
Thanks to family and friends for accommodation and hospitality.
Thanks to new friends that we met along the way for sharing the experience, with a  special mention to the cast and crew of The Other Way is Liverpool and Olivia the only blogee who was actually born during the production of this blog.

Finally, thanks to you faithful blogees for following our adventures and for the wonderful and encouraging feedback along the way.

Please feel free to contribute to the "Kendalls need to go away again fund" (registered charity) if you would like to see more of the amazing work of art / fiction that is Kendallsgapyear.blogspot.com

Step 114 Tweed Heads – Jan Juc (the final run home) 1804 km's

Sunday 4^th September Step 114A

Well all good things must come to an end ( I don't know why, but that's what I keep getting told) so after a Fathers Day breakfast we wave goodbye to Mum & Dad, Tweed Heads and our year on the road and head off down the highway. Destination Jan Juc, 1800 kilometres away, where it all started 10 months ago.

Georgie attempting to follow us home

Interestingly, with the van packed to minimise moving things around on this two stop run for home we actually have completely minimised the rattles. So after all this time it's actually the quietest it has been for the whole trip!

Sticking to the plan, at least for now, we stopped after an hour and a half for a quick break and to change drivers. Hopefully that will minimise driver fatigue on the way.

It is still an amazement to me that the main road from Brisbane to Sydney (Pacific Highway) is a single lane road for a lot of the way. Not to mention the fact that it runs throught the middle of little (and large) country towns. It's like the Hume Highway 30 years ago. All things considered it was a reasonably pleasant days travel though and we stuck to the plan. Bit of a hold up at Grafton and more traffic lights than necessary in Kempsey and Coffs Harbour.

Unfortunately Macca's let us down and did not appear in the right spot for tea tonight so we ended up stopping after 620 km's about 40 kilometers north of Raymond Terrace in the Browns Creek overnight stop. A bit further than we had thought we would get today so that's good news.

The overnight stop is right by the highway but is nicely setup, all paved, marked parking areas and proper flush toilets. Loooxury

Monday 5^th September – Step 114B

Despite essentially sleeping in the emergency stopping lane of the highway we both slept surprisingly well

Proof readers note: Exaggeration alert, the roadside stop was close to the highway, but not that close.

Up early though for our second shower for the year, in the marvelously equipped MM.

Proof readers note: That should read: our second shower for the year in MM. NOT our second shower for the year.

Here we are at the end of the trip and the records continue to fall as we are on the road by 7:40am.

Starting so early means that our first stop is before the time we normally start the day. 9:20am for diesel and an iced coffee (not together. Diesel for MM, iced coffee for Di & I).

Starting so early also means that by 11:20 when we stop again to change drivers we are ready for a second morning tea.

The trip “through” Sydney has been relatively painless with freeways/tollways most of the way. We actually got through in under an hour, not bad for a Monday morning.

Making up for missing Macca's for tea last night we stopped in Goulburn Maccas for lunch. Unfortunately for Di the chips were disappointing.

Discount petrol, a Maccas
AND the Big Merino
Goulburn should get a mention on travel programs more often

The kilometres continue to roll by and by 3:30 we have hit Gundagai and pick up some diesel. There is some debate as to when it was legitimate to start singing “There's a track winding back, to an old fashioned shack, along the road to Gundagai.”

Consensus though, is that it got annoying after less than 10 minutes.

One thing worth noting is that the road has improved considerably over the last year or so. Today we have been on dual carriageway all the way until we get to a 10 km stretch of single lane at Tarcutta. Then another 20 km stretch either side of Holbrook (home of the submarine).

We were expecting to stop in Holbrook but it looks like the roadworks have meant bypassing two of the campsites we had earmarked from the Camps 5 book. Timing was also wrong to stop at the famous Holbrook bakery for their yummy pies and cakes, darn it. 

No problem, we thought, we'll just head on down the other side of Albury, no problem.

Predictably as we cross the border into Victoria it starts to rain to wlecome us home.

6:26 pm and it turns out the Camps 5 book has let us down again, the camp site south of Albury has no overnight camping.

Nor do the next three truck stops.

A quick stop at the service centre at Wangaratta to peruse the map reveals that we are in more strife than the early settlers. Still over 300 km's to Jan Juc and the next 3 stops in the book are only for North bound traffic.

Pinning our hopes on the Euroa stop we finish off our ham and cheese rolls and iced coffee and set off into the darkness.

Proof readers note: Melodrama alert. It's only 6:30pm and we are travelling 100 km's down the Hume Highway Freeway in a Mercedes van not travelling a thousand kilometres across the desert on a camel!

OK, the tension has built enough. Good news, we arrived at the Coach Road roadside stop at 8:25pm and found a spot to pull up in MM for the night.

A combination truck and car stop set well back from the road, it was a welcome relief to find somewhere to stop. Nearly thirteen hours on the road and thirty two kilometres short of a thousand k's sets another record for the trip by a long way.

Our view of the camp site as we stopped

Sleep tight!

Tuesday 6^th September – Step 114C

Well that's it, our last night sleeping in MM. There has been a fair amount of activity in the park overnight with trucks coming and going but we still managed to sleep well.

At 6:30am Di woke me to tell me it's 6:30am. Thanks babe.

At 7:00 am Steve is up and Di is still in bed

You were a lot chattier at 6:30AM Dianne

At 7:01 Steve moves the curtains in the front of MM and discovers this a stop for Greyhound coaches. There are 40 odd people wandering around outside our bedroom. Glad I put my trousers on first. So were they.

Morning all

Turns out it's quite a nice parking area after all

7:45AM on the road again for the very last leg, the trip to Jan Juc

7:53 Stop at Maccas for breakfast, don't want to rush this last bit.

Approaching Kalkallo, the entrance to Melbourne on the Hume, and our welcome to Melbourne is complete: Lights on, wipers on, heater on. Melbourne, we missed you.

10:30 to put a bookend on the trip we stopped at the BP service station on the Geelong road for an iced coffee and Cherry Ripe. The BP service station on the Geelong road was our first stop 43 minutes into the trip on day 1 of the trip 308 days ago.

Hi honey, we're home
Driving back into Torquay

So at 11:15 we arrived into the welcoming arms of Vicki and Herb in Torquay. A lap of Australia complete. All in intact.

Hard to believe it's all over.

As usual with these things, in some ways it seems so long ago since we left and in others it seems as if it is all over so quickly.

Thanks for following us all the way, it's been (mostly) fun putting the blog together. It's been particularly good to get all the positive feedback from our global following :-)

Step 113 Tewantin – Tweed Heads 267 km's

Saturday 27^th August

Driving out of Noosa it becomes apparent that it was modelled on Swindon in the UK. Noosa has more roandabouts per square kilometre than any town in Australia. Google it if you don't believe me :-)

Unfortunately a bit of rain as we head on down to Tweed, but at least the waterfall looks spectacular today.

We are now voting Brisbane the worst sign posted tollway in Australia the world. As far as we could see not one sign to tell you HOW to pay. Plenty of signs telling you that you would be in trouble if you didn't pay, but nothing to actually help in that process. Queensland, beautiful one day perfect the next my @#$@.

Proof readers note: My apologies. Steve is writing this in Jan Juc and it's starting to sink in that the trip is over. I think the calming influence of the trip may have been short lived.

Arrived in Tweed, in the rain, deja vu of Christmas. Straight to the Bowls Club to meet up with mum and dad and to grab a quick lunch and then it was off to see their new flat. Very nice.

The plan this afternoon is to park up MM in the back garden of friends of mum and dad's.

A slight setback in the plan when we discover that their carport roof is 10cms lower than MM's roof. Ah well it's the thought that counts.

An exciting night tonight, camped in a side street of Tweed Heads. Slept with one eye open, waiting for a knock on the window from the local constabulary.

Sunday 28^th August

Started Sunday discovering that my mother doesn't get out of bed as early as she has always told me. It does mean that I finally got my own back and we got her out of bed.

Despite assertions that we could move MM around the back streets of Tweed each night to save on accomodation costs we checked in to the Boyds Bay CP for the week. No sense of adventure, I know.

We then spent a lazy afternoon getting settled at the park, a little bit of shopping centre reacquaintance for Di before heading down the bowls club for an early dinner. Sunday roast special !

Monday 29^th August – Sunday 4^th September

Settled in to a bit of a routine:

• the George Kendall coffee tour every morning, sampling the delights of the many and varied coffee shops of the Tweed and Kingscliff area;
• lunches & dinners at home and out and about in Tweed
• generally catching up with family and friends

Then there were some extra special highlights:

• Lunch at Cassies restaurant on a 13^th floor somewhere in Coolangatta. Great company, beautiful food and an absoulutely stunning view over the Coolangatta beach and the entrance to the Tweed River
• Coffee at Point Danger watching the whales frolicking off shore
• Beating mum at Sequence (for the first time ever)
• Seeing the sun shine in Tweed (ok that may be a bit harsh, but we have seen a bit of rain here this year)
• Witnessing the sledging that goes on in a bowls game
  • Surprising that there was more sledging than in an Australia / England Test cricket match
  • Surprising given it was a “social” game
  • Most suprising that most of the sledging was directed at members of the same team
• Seeing Hermans Hermits at Twin Towns Club
  • Question: how come my grandad is playing lead guitar?
  • How many original members constitutes a legitimate claim to using the band name
    • apparently the answer is one and that's debatable because the one is the drummer
• Mum's home cooked roast & Dad's fry up breakfast on Sunday (Fathers Day)
• and catching up with Mum & Dad, of course.

Most interesting conversations 1:

When we checked in we noticed a bird laying on the ground next to our van. At first we thought it was unwell but eventually it stood up and we realised it was nursing two eggs. Obviously we were intrigued as to what type of bird it was so we asked the friendly neighbourhood “chat brigade”

Steve:              “Hi guys, any idea what type of bird this is”

Neghbour 1:    “Bustard”

Steve:              “That's a bit harsh, I ony wanted to know what type of bird it is”

Neighbour 2:   “Australian bustard”

Steve:              “OK, I don't think racial vilification is helping here”

Neighbour 1:   “It's an Australian Bustard. The bird is an Australian bustard.

Steve:              “Oh. Thanks.

Neighbour 2:  “stupid Australian bastard”  (quietly)

Most interesting conversations 2:

Di, Steve and George standing on the sand dunes at Kingscliff checking out the erosion on the beach front and the guys working to stop the caravan park from falling into the sea.

Steve: “Don't move for a second dad.”

George stands still

George: “Did you get the photo”

Steve: “It wasn't that you were in my shot. It was that a snake crawled across your foot”

George: “Bloody hell, you were calm. Di is he normally this calm in situations like this?”

George: “Di?” "Di?"

At this point, Di having heard the word snake is now 50 metres away back in the car park”

Consensus has it that it might have been a King brown. But remember children, whatever snake it is, the text book procedure when confronted by a snake is STAND STILL

Step 112 “1770” – Tewantin (Noosa)

Friday 26^th August

The rain unfortunately continued for most of the day. Awkward, intermittent rain too. Not enough to leave the wipers on, sometimes too much for intermittent wipers but not enough to turn them off.

The road is also not the best we have travelled on, in fact it's terrible. Not to mention we are hitting some of the worst caravan traffic for the whole trip.

Editors note: I wonder if it really was so bad or if we are just starting to really get into a mindset of “it's nearly over”.

Editors note note: OK I've thought it over. We are starting to really get into a mindset of of “it's nearly over” but the road was bad and the caravans were worse.

A bit of levity as we pass a local pub and the sign outside reads: Husband day care facility.

After a brief morning tea stop on the road we pass through the town of Bundaberg. Apparently not just the home of Bundy rum but also the home of Bert Hinkler.

Editors note: You know Bert Hinkler.

If you check Wikipedia (not Wikileaks) you will see that: Herbert John Louis Hinkler AFC DSM (8 December 1892 – 7 January 1933), better known as Bert Hinkler, was a pioneer Australian aviator (dubbed "Australian Lone Eagle”) and inventor. He designed and built early aircraft before being the first person to fly solo from England to Australia, and the first person to fly solo across the Southern Atlantic Ocean.

There you go – never mind your Charles Kingsford Smith, let's hear it for Bert.

Still raining when we arrive in Tewantin (which by the way, we still do not know how to pronounce. Despite my Mum telling me on numerous occasions).

Again got one of the last sites but at least time it is a proper site. Right beside a little creek which by morning has become a raging torrent. Starting to hope that MM is amphibious.

On the other hand the rain is nearly a God send. To put out the fire.

Proof readers note: exaggerating again Steve.

Editors note: I'm writing the story, I'll tell it my way. 

Anyway, while cooking the new house speciality, fried rice, we both noticed a non rice like smell. More like, melting plastic. Moving the fry pan to one side we then notice the smoke pouring out of the power board.

Lesson for today: There may be some quality deficiencies in $2 power boards from cheap shops in country towns.

Anyway, once we got the, acrid, smell of burning plastic out of the van the fried rice was very pleasant.

Step 111 Tannum Sands – 1770 114 km's

Monday 22^nd August

Despite signs proclaiming “you are in Paradise” we drove into drizzle all the way today.

While checking in at 1770 Camping Ground we discovered that there is a high wind warning until at least Thursday. One of the main reasons for coming here is that it is one of V & H's favourite spots. They particularly recommend that we do the Lady Musgrove Island Reef tour. With the high wind warnings the cruises are not running until Thursday so rather than the three nights we had planned we booked in for four and tentatively booked the cruise for Thursday.

V & H have not let us down, 1770 itself is a lovely little beach side village. No supermarket or major shops but a couple of nice little coffee shops, a pub and boat hire. To be honest I'm surprised Captain Cook didn't just prop here rather than carrying on up the coast. After he hit the reef a few hundred km's further on I'm betting he was thinking the same thing. His crew certainly were.

Again, the town has a lovely boardwalk and this time it follows the beach, with fantastic views over the water.

Di has now taken a shine to the place as they don't sell cask wine at the pub and so she got to buy bottled wine for the first time in a very long while.

Another sign that does NOT encourage swimming

While sitting in the van sipping away at wine o'clock (avoiding the drizzle) we are entertained for half an hour watching a couple trying to reverse their van on to the site. Not for the first time we congratulate ourselves on making the choice not to tow. I'm guessing we wouldn't have made it this far with a caravan, or even the bike trailer. Hats off to those who successfully do it.

A bit better night on the movie front tonight, The Book of Eli with Denzel Washington. Probably wouldn't have enjoyed it so much if we hadn't watched The American last night because it's not that good.

Tuesday 23^rd (TED) – Friday 26^th August

Despite the stiff breeze blowing all week it really is a pleasant few days here in 1770. Steve managed a walk every day, including one walk to the top of the hill at the point. A hill which quite possibly qualifies as a mountain!

View from the top of the hill/mountain

Sun shining most of the time and we had a few pleasant chats to the neighbours. Next door couple is from Sassafras and we managed to get their life stories over the few days. Also discovered that you don't need to drink to be dangerous. The wife (it's always the wife) was a real live wire.

Agnes Water - just down the road

Wednesday was a lovely day for Di with a trip to the hairdresser (coffee included in the price due to the woman's husband running the coffee shop next door). Not such a good day for Steve with a phone interview for a job. What was that teary face symbol again? Unless someone manages to sell the blog to a book publisher or I win a first division Tattslotto prize soon I am facing the real possibility that I will be back in an office in the next month.

Now this is the office I would like to be "working" in

Also found out on Wednesday that the cruise is cancelled again tomorrow due to the weather so that was a bit disappointing. Although just before we discovered it was cancelled Vicki decided to finally tell us that the boat trip out can be a bit rough and that she was a little worried about me after my experience in the light plane in WA. Another Sandra Sully moment. (as in “this is Sandra Sully with the LATE news”)

This is the boat we didn't go on

Given Di was so impressed with the coffee on Wednesday, on Thursday we walked back into town for another one. A very pleasant time sitting drinking coffee and catching up on the trashy magazines. Just to help keep the local economy going we shared a snot block vanilla slice.

Are you looking at me?
The Robert Di Niro of the kangaroo world

To finish off the stay here we also managed to catch up with V & H's friend Chris and Joy who just happened to be staying in 1770 at the same time, but at a different park. Unfortunately the weather had turned a bit cool so we only managed a quick wine o'clock with them in the park.

Friday 26^th August

Time to pack up and move on and

IT'S RAINING.

Again we realise how lucky we have been with the weather on this trip. It would not have been anywhere near as enjoyable if we had copped more rain. On the other hand MM does make it so much easier as there is very little to do to pack up and move on. If we had left the outside mats behind, we wouldn't have had to go outside at all to pack up. Trust me, I did consider leaving the outside mats behind.

Might be a good job we are leaving
Did someone say "global warming"?

Step 110 Kinka Beach – Tannum Sands 192 km's

Sunday 21^st August

On the way out of Tannum Sands we noticed that the Big Whale is dead. Fear not tree hugging members of the land rights for gay whales brigade it was a big whale as in part of the Australian big series (big prawn, big banana, big pineapple etc.). Another part of our culture gone :-(

A quick tour of Emu Park on our way back to the main road. 

Editors note: Not an emu park. The town of Emu Park.

The main attraction in town: The Singing Ship.

It's actually really just a very big wind chime. Shame they didn't call it the Big Windchime really. It would have evened the balance after losing the Big Whale.

After all the road signs proclaiming how far it is/was to Rockhampton it was a bit anti-climatic and we drove on through. If we had more of an interest in cows we probably would have stopped. Rocky seems to have a fascination with cows and on the route we took through town we passed seven cow statues. Including the last one that just said “goodbye from Rockhampton”. Don't think any of the statues were called the Big Cow though,  probably would have caused too many marital problems.

Arriving in Gladstone it was looking a lot like another drive by tour. The approach to the town is very industrial, including a massive Rio Tinto aluminium smelter (aluminum for our US readers).

Luckily, given it was lunchtime, we found a nice little spot by the Marina and stopped for sandwiches.

Despite arriving in Tannum Sands around 2'ish we managed to get the last powered site in the park, and that was tucked up against the storage shed!

Mind you the view to the other side was a bit more pleasant.

Taking advantage of the location we set off for a walk along the boardwalk/esplanade. We couldn't work out why the esplanade walk didn't run right along the beach to take in the views. Until we came to a bit where it did and we were nearly blown off our feet.

At least the kite surfers were enjoying the wind

As we walked past the picnic areas, crowded with people taking advantage of a Sunday afternoon we realised that that will be us soon. Back at work and only getting out on weekends. If I knew what the emoticon for crying hysterically was I would insert it here. Will have to settle for sad face :-(

Settling in back at the van we discovered – NO internet reception. Bugga. So after tea we settled in to watch George Clooney in The American. George, George, George, what a disappointment. Quite possibly the most boring movie I have ever watched. Don't know how they managed to make it so bad, it had: George Clooney; magnificent Italian scenery; George Clooney (Di made me put George in twice); chase scenes; fight scenes; nudity. Still boring. Very "arty" though.

Tannum Sands Beach - river entrance

Step 109 Clairview – Kinka Beach (Yepoon) 258 km's

Friday August 19^th

Lesson for today (well last night): look both sides of the van when parking for the night.

View to the left – magnificent

To the right – train line. Trains run at night on this line. Trains are noisy.

Back on the road and the witty roadside sign writer is still messing with the minds of parents travelling with kids.

                Still a long way to go kids.

                Still 2 hours to Rocky kids

In the meantime we are back in good old fashioned Aussie bush. It's a long, straight not that interesting bit of road to be honest. Although our interest was sparked at one point when a couple by the side of the road appeared to be carving slices off a bit of road kill. Luckily at 100 km/h you don't get to see too much detail otherwise I probaby wouldn't be sleeping tonight.

Quick quizz: What is the highest mountain Queensland.

Morning tea stop this morning at Marlborough, along with 20 other vans. It's not a big town, the van population tripled the population of the town.

Our plan tonight was to stop at Yepoon, on Vicki's recommendation. Unfortunately Vicki may have recommended it too a few other people – Yepoon is full. Well the park we wanted to stay at is anyway. As an aside it's a much bigger town than expected. Very pretty though, Caravan Park right on the beach.

Proof readers note: Wasn't Yepoon the name of a Spike Milligan book?

Editors note: No, I think you are thinking of Puckoon. You could have been thinking of That's Amazing but that would be amazing because it doesn't sound anything like Yepoon, or Puckoon.

Drove on down the scenic way through Roslyn Bay (sorry Ros, that's the way they spell it).

Ended up staying at the Island View caravan park at Kinka Beach.

Editors note: That's Kinka Beach, not Kinky Beach.

Unfortunately

The good news though is that you can view the island. Great Keppel that is.

More good news, on the health front, straight after checking in we headed off for a walk along the beach. Not so good news, on the health front, we did the walk while munching on caramel Magnums. Never mind, good health is all about balance.

That's NOT Great Keppel Island

Editors note: The next pair of magnums should get us a free one because the wrapper says one in six contain a prize. Here's hoping.

It was bit cool on the beach with a stiff sea breeze, but we soldiered on. Back in the park it continued to cool down quite rapidly so it was wine o'clock and dinner inside tonight.

Not sure what Di did tonight but I watched the movie the Fighter. A real life Rocky. Christian Bale won the academy award for Best Supporting Actor. Well deserved, well if that wasn't acting he was doing he should seek immediate medical help.

Saturday 20^th August

Booked in for two nights here so had a bit of a lay in this morning, until Mum called.

A lazy day, just for a change. Steve finished reading a book, did some studying for a phone interview later in the week.

Bit of exercise in the afternoon for Steve with a long walk along the beach.

A lovely sunny day albeit a bit cool in the shade.

Quiz answer: Mt Bartle Frere

Anybody remember the question?