Our trip lasted 82 days. We drove 18800 kilometers. We went through every state in Australia (sorry Tasmania!). Despite making a long journey, we only saw small part of Australia. This country is very different from Europe and You could experience surprises on every step. Nature’s pranks are everyday event here. While being in Australia there were over flood in Queensland and fire in Victoria. I managed luckily to make this trip without any force majeure or nature’s interference.
I experienced roads that were over flooded. Driving out of Mackay I saw a small tropical cyclone. “Frog” was exhausted by these ventures. To Brisbane I reached couple of weeks later over floods and I did not notice any sign of dramatic event. Brisbane was struck by mean tropical cyclone afterwards, but by then I was already 170 km south.
Forest fires (Buchfire) are not rare in Australia. Favorable climate gives plants ideal growing conditions and therefore everything recovers very fast. Signs of Buchfire you could see everywhere, but in Victoria the fire has been going on only 2 weeks earlier. Soon I found out that in case of disaster special units react very quickly. Within 2 hours the over flooded roads are blocked and traffic directed to the other roads. The traffic is well redirected and regulated.
Tele communication. Familiar people said that it is better to choose Telstra which cover s most of Australia. In reality we found out that there were many “empty” areas. Surprisingly car tracking worked all over Australia. Naturally GPS showed that we drove over the fields in many places were the roads existed. About tracking a vehicle you can read more on page “Tracking”.
About flying. Just before flying to Australia Finnair had a strike, but it was cancelled 2 days before our flight. The flight back was without any hitch. The flights between continents take time, but you probably don´t know that the very first trips on aircraft from London to Sidney took 8 days! If you plan long ahead you can have a ticket almost as cheap as Asian flight companies’ offer. The difference is only that Finnair offer includes dinners, TV, but Asian companies charge it separately afterwards. It took 3 flights to cover Tallinn – Melbourne. We gave away our suitcases in Tallinn and received them in Australia. That was very convenient. Weight is what you should precise with – every kilogram over means money and it is money from your pocket. Australians though were not too rough with us.
Summing-up our trip I could say that all went by the plan. Of course there were unexpected events, but all in all it went well. We expected surprises and handled them well. I tried to express my feelings about the trip on www.aussieround.com It was not professional – I know, but I relax myself with a thought that it was more for my friends and acquaintances. Anyway, our website was visited more than we expected. Statistics told that visits were made from 34 countries. Some of them were random of course, but from 20 countries visits were made several times.
If everything goes well, there will be more interesting events. Homepage of Aussieround stays in the internet for a while. If you are registered newsletter receiver then you will be hearing news from now on too…
Regards,
Erki, Hannes & Mr. Wilson
PS I have a lot of photos and I put the best photos in a few weeks on this website
