Roaming around Oz.
Today we arrived in Canberra, after leaving Wondonga this morning as even at 9am we could feel the heat starting to build up. As I type now it has dropped in temperature to about 26/27 degrees from 34 but is still very humid. We are staying at the Canberra Motor Village for our two nights here, what can I say, bit of a dump really but not a long stay so I won’t complain (Well I will, Ants, buzzing creatures that sound like small micro-lights landing in the driver’s seat, dust roads and no kitchen or tv room!). Canberra itself is the capital of Australia and is a very strange place. According to the sign’s it has a population of 325,000 but arriving in town earlier at lunch time it was eerily quiet. We grabbed a pub lunch which was excellent, 2 good large pizzas (on par with Fat Freddy’s on Quay Street) and 2 pints of soft drink for $26 (13 euro!). The city “centre” is a weird layout, kind of an oval with two roads going around it. We’re still not sure if we saw the city centre proper but it’s not that big a place that you could miss it and not notice. Anyway, we’re back at the camp site now relaxing for the evening, any major exertion just leads to sweating and I’m running out of clean clothes due to that fact… so yes perhaps time for laundry, shouldn’t take long for stuff to dry!
Tomorrow we plan to kill time (as that’s what we find we’re doing here mostly, not sightseeing but killing time till we leave) by visiting a large shopping centre and the National Zoo & Aquarium which is only a short drive away. Also there is a large war memorial and public area / gardens around so we can pass the afternoon easily enough tomorrow I reckon by visiting them.
We only have 4 days left here and are already looking forward to Thailand. Basically no travelling really (no driving that is) as we’re staying in the city centre so to speak. It will mostly be shopping I imagine although our bags are already bulging at the seams but we can cram some more goods in eh! The weather and climate in Oz is good preparation for Bangkok I’m sure as it’s probably going to be just as hot and even more humid.
As far as the van goes, it’s going alright. The gears are a bit sticky and annoying at times but once in 5th gear and on the free way its fine. Petrol here is $1.16 at the moment so about 60c euro a litre which is great value! Especially as we’re going through it pretty quickly when motoring along at 100+km’s an hour for most of the day.
Not much other news to be honest, the holiday parks here are very depressing, certainly we didn’t know how well we had it in New Zealand with the Top 10 parks. Compared to here even the worst one in NZ beats these hands down. But we did pay $60 for 2 nights so 30 euro isn’t too bad but I at least expect clean toilets…..
Right O, I’m off to mess with my iphone!
