Jumping rocks!

Cairns, got to love it. So far in four days I've slept for about 8 hours, done a parabungy jump from 150m, a regular bungy jump, a 120km/h forest swing and leapt out of a perfectly good plane solo at 12,000 ft !!!

Though I made it here safe and well while heading for Cairns I discovered a third thing I hate - the roads in Queensland. Picture the scene, it's pitch black at about 8pm, the road suddenly becomes a single track (and this is the main east-west highway), there are roos everywhere and massive road trains come flying along them at 110km/h, not good! That said, either my DIY work on Brucetta has had the desired effect or the police are a little more forgiving so the only points of note on the 2.5 day, 2400km drive is a running total of 440 dead roos, 47 cows, 5 pigs, 3 snakes, a horse, countless furry bloody messes and four ugly chips in Brucetta's wind screen - wretched roads!

Oh yes, I was saying - I love Cairns!!! The first bungy was the parabungy which entailed being pulled behind a boat under a parasail to the height of 150m above the water then jumping out. Not entirely sure why but as I was the first to go I asked if it would be possible for them to make me hit the water, and sure enough I splashed down into the brine up to my shoulders!

The second jump was off land so more of a ground rush and even though everyone following me on the parabungy didn't think it was a good idea to hit the water, I tried it again from the jump platform, dropping at break neck speed into a pool of water before being catapulted 80% of the way back up into the air before crashing back down to earth - sensational!

Now the forest swing was good, and jumping from 150m with nothing but a big elastic band for safety is great, but jumping out of a plane at 12,000 ft being tied to nothing at all is better! With just an hours sleep on Monday night the the 5 hours in a class room and 3 hours practical yesterday was a bit of a struggle but as death was mentioned at least every 5 minutes I managed to keep my eyes open so that at 9am this morning when I flew like a bird (admittedly a rather odd looking bird) I loved it!!! ....... words fail me but you all really must try it. The boys in point break have nothing on me! I just need to do the bank robbery thing and I'll be able to do the whole thing again!

And that's my new news, Irish girls I traveled over with were great value entertainment but have now met up with lad I did the West coast with again so think I'll stay here for a few more days then head south. Main planned stops look like being a sailing trip on a 83ft yacht around the Whitsunday Island, 4WD round Fraser Island and then on for a bit of surfing around Byron Bay - can't wait.

Hope you're all safe and well and out looking for things to jump off!

Laters

Jonathan.

The Asylum Backpackers
Cairns
Queensland
Oz

Uluru - one very big stone!

Now I like to think of myself as a fairly open minded type, without prejudice and ill will to my fellow man, in fact I'd say that xenophobia is one of only two things I really dislike in the world. The second of those two things is the Germans! Sorry, but not only were they on the wrong side in two world wars but they send me the car mate from hell to drive the couple of thousand km from Darwin to Uluru (Ayers Rock).

OK perhaps that isn't entirely fair, on first meeting Marten he seemed like a nice (though in hindsight a tad eccentric) 26 year old german lad, working as a marine ecologist in Darwin, he had a perfectly normal australian girlfriend and was heading home as his visa was due to expire. However, a couple of hundred miles into the trip south he started admitting things!!!

Now most of his oddities weren't that bad but together,,, for gods sake, a man can only take so much. The lad believed in voodoo, constantly stood in yoga poses and wouldn't eat any processed food (bar the occasional Mrs Mac's pie - that made him ill) I mean, really!

Anyway, on with the show. Tomorrow I'm heading east towards Cairns with a couple of Irish girls (Trish and Aghna) who'll hopefully prove an improvement on Marten so watch this space.

The trip down from Darwin was actually really good. I stopped of for a swim in some thermal pools where we saw literally thousands of rainbow fish and several turtles then on to Daly Waters for a v. amusing drunken night in a crowded pub miles form anywhere - dread to think of the carnage on the roads after closing - and finally the Devils Marbles at sun set (more odd shaped rocks - they have a lot of them out here!) just north of Alice.

From Alice it was on to Uluru (Ayers Rock). You can see why the Aboriginals hold Uluru as a sacred place, it really is an amazing piece of rock - with this knowledge, if I was to respect the Aboriginal owners I wouldn't have climbed it. However as I'd helped out a family of Aboriginals that had broken down the day before I figured my karma - as Australians seem to go on about a lot - would even things out so up I climbed and what a view from the top!

We also visited the Olgas (more very impressive big rocks) and Kings Canyon (beautiful gap in rock) and some meteorite craters (holes made by falling rocks) on the trip back to Alice and that's where you now find me.

Only other big news is that the Northern Territory police clearly either don't like me or they don't like Brucetta. Having managed to drive for the last 10 years in England without so much as a second glance from the old bill I've been in the NT for under two weeks and I've already been stopped three times. Yes, three times!

Apparently both my front and rear bumpers wobble dangerously, the rear light has a crack in it (some swine bumped me while I was away jumping off some rocks), I produce far too much smoke and I didn't come to a complete stop at a stop sign in Kakadu. Seeing as I was stopped anyway I also passed a breath test and was advised to not take Brucetta along dirt roads - too late, she's already a past master of corrugated surfaces!

So, to the East coast and surfing in the Pacific Ocean. Fingers crossed that the Queensland police are a little less keen and Brucetta makes it through without further incident.

Until the next time,

Jonathan.

Elkes Backpackers
Alice Springs
NT
Oz.

News from up North in bl**dy big country

Greetings,
I know you'll all be pleased to hear Brucetta made it to Darwin! We actually drove just over 7400km to get here thought the map says it's only about 4500! (longest day was just under 1200km, car didn't enjoy it one bit unfortunately). Just to make sure we got the most out of the car then did an extra 600km to go to Kakado for a few days, however didn't stay too long as the entire national park (the size of switzerland) is entirely dry of off licences!

Reason for the extra few thousand km over the 4500 is that we went in search of the biggest cliffs we could find and threw ourselves off them! Best we found were some water falls in gorges in Karijini National Park and a cliff over Katherine River (jumping a little over 12m and diving about 9m - looks v. high from up there and didn't half hurt the old head when hitting the water when diving). Also found a few big rocks to jump off in Litchfield NP but the biggest and most dramatic were closed for swimming as they hadn't been able to remove a few big crocs that were seen there so had to practice forward and back flips into the smaller gorges.

No amazing animal eating to report on, had a few BBQs with giant steaks and cooked up a few roos but no emu just yet. The total count for dead kangaroos on the road form Perth to Darwin was 206 (one every 36km), didn't look like being anywhere near that high until a 50km straight bit of road just south of Broome provided 80 in a little over 30 minutes! Other than the roos we had 7 cows and loads of birds and small animals. I didn't manage to hit anything the entire way but Dave got 3 birds and gave a roo a glancing blow (doubled back to check the damage but it had hopped off into the bush without leaving so much as a drop of blood to mark the encounter).

Other live spotting include loads of crocs, dingos, lizards, snakes, emu, more ostrich and hundreds of storks of all shapes and sizes. I've also now eventually seen a live leopard though only in captivity and even then I had to climb a fence and sneak round the enclosure to see it as the cages were closed for repairs! The leopard was at a croc farm were they had thousands of crocodiles of all shapes and sizes as well as lions, tigers, monkeys - all in cages that were far to small unfortunately (not quite Africa I'm afraid!)

Other highlights form the drive north was surfing at Broome, surfing and snorkeling nr Exmouth, a magnetically aligned termite field, 20,000 year old Aboriginal rock art and loads of amazing waterfalls, rock pools and gorges. Dave heads for Alice by plane tomorrow and I'm hoping to find a couple of new car mates to drive south and east with (will be meeting and American and an Italian so we'll see) or selling up and flying in a similar direction so I'll let you know what happens next next time I reach civilization (apparently could be quite a long way away!).

Hope all is well back in the mother land (and everywhere else)

TTFN

Jonathan

Internet cafe
Backpacker
Darwin
Northern Territory
Australia

Tales from under the bows of a billabong tree ...

Everyone should come to Australia!

I forgot to mention vital bit of news in last e-mail - now eaten Kangaroo, closest comparison I can give if horse but maybe a little tastier! Now think I've just got Emu to try if its possible!

So what's been happening - I'm now in a place called Coral Bay which is around 1800 km north of Perth I think, the sky is blue and the sea's fairly warm. So far the road trip is going brilliantly and the car (now answering to the name Brucetta) is running well, though we've had to get used to a couple of eccentricities like the fuel gauge not registering the last 1/4 of the tank (meaning we ran out of fuel on trip down to Margaret River - best place in Oz to break down), one of the tired being a bit shit and needing replacing and and the hand break not holding her when when we park on an angle.

On the trip so far we've visited the Pinnacles - which where very cool, Jakes Point - amazing surfing spot where watched bloke be pulled into massive waves by a jet ski (didn't go in, waiting for something a little more controlled to get me going here in Oz) and walked around the Kalbarri National Park which is v. cool. Late today I'm going snorkeling around the reef then tomorrow morning I'm heading up the coast in search of the perfect wave. On the road so far we've spotted quite a few live kangaroos, a couple of Emus and 62 dead Roos, got to love road kill spotting! Predictions for Perth to Darwin total from start of trip range from 110 to 330 dead roos but think 150 will be somewhere close!

Before leaving Perth as planned we when south to Margaret River which again had some amazing waves that I didn't surf on, we also climbed a couple of trees that used to be used as fire lookout points, one was 62m and the other 68m tall and all you had to climb on was a couple of sets of metal bars hammered into the tree and a piece of netting round the outside which was nice! THere were great views of mile after mile of forest from the top, in fact the taller of the two was so good we camped (slept in back of car) under it and climbed it again once slightly drunk at midnight - possible not the brightest move of my life but well worth living through.

People I'm traveling with are a good pair, changed from original plan so lost one bloke (not Dave the Tim Henman look-a-like thankfully!) and gained a girl (Sara from Scotland). No fights yet so fingers crossed we'll get to Darwin without major incidents at which point I'm loosing them and will be looking for new passengers (so if any of you are in the area and fancy a 8,000km drive to Sidney via north, middle and east Australia let me know).

And that's the story so far, hope you are all having fun.

Laters

Jonathan

Internet Cafe
Coral Bay
Western Australia