World Tour 2000 - 2002
The next day we had a major breakfast before returning down the river and the four hour car journey back to Kuching. One further night in Kuching and we caught our flight out on the 3rd November to Kuala Lumpar.
One of the great things about arriving in a major city is a washing machine, after one month in the jungle and hand washing all of the time all our clothes needed a good wash. We spent our first evening exploring the local markets and seeing a few sights. In Merdeka square we were jumped on by a vagrant who prowled the square helping tourists, for a small donation we got a very useful map and some tips on how to get cheap clothes out of the markets. Next day we took the vagrants map and went off exploring the city to the east, visiting some gardens (major orchids) a butterfly park and a bird park. In the bird park we bumped into a guy who gave us some bread to feed some hornbills, these birds are about 4 foot long and it was very entertaining feeding them. It was also here that Sharon did a rather spectacular wipe out, performing a triple back somersault in the pike position before landing on her arse. During the evening of the 4th we went to this huge night market in which we bought some lovely satay which is the Malaysia speciality.
So here we are at the 5th November one month after the start of our journey, time to share some useful travelling tips we have picked up on the way;
7) Don't take anything white with you travelling, you will never get it clean.
8) Steal toilet roll at every opportunity.
9) Shampoo makes great shaving foam.
10) Roll your clothes in your backpack don't fold them, it stops them getting creased
11) Learn to play the card game called Shithead before you leave, it's a game everybody else seems to know.
On the 5th we continued out exploration of KL, a major walking tour of the city to see the Petronis Towers and then onto the KL Tower, where we went up to the observation deck. From here you get a major view of the city and the surrounding area, can almost see our house .... More walking checking out the other sites, and the next day we took a bus to the Batu Caves. If you are ever in KL and want to do some sight seeing, don't go here they are not very good. We spent the last evening in KL having a very nice supper in chinatown and on the 7th we caught a bus to Melaka in the south. Melaka is the town where Malysia first started and the various colonial powers first had a town, if was very quiet and you can see all the sights in about 3 hours. Our guest house was nice with a heap of ripped off DVD's so we entertained ourselves for a day.
On the 9th arrived in Singapore. Now this place is NICE. It has nice clean streets, nice clean buses, nice clean cars. You feel like you're on the set of the Trueman Show and any minute the director will shout "cut" and everyting will change. We spent the first day on a walking tour which took in the cleanest and quietest chinatown we have yet come across. On the second day we went up to the excellent zoo, and on the final day we completely blew our budget and had high tea followed by a Singapore Sling at Raffles. As a traveller Singapore did not have a lot to offer as it is an expensive city to visit, if we were visiting on holiday this place is the place to come if you want to shop.
On the 13th we left South East Asia and headed down to Western Australia, arriving in Perth. Our first impression was created by the fact the sun was shining and it was a pleasant 32 degress C outside, and the driver of the taxi was wearing socks up to his knees! However unlike Asia it was not humid just HOT, especially I would assume if you are wearing socks. We checked into a hostel for a week and relaxed into the place, spending our first three days on a hunt for a camper van. Once a suitable van had been located, paid for and we'd learnt to change gear on the the column shift we were sorted. Our new van has been named Dingo, he's green, and come complete with a surf board, two mountian bikes and one of those digereedoo things (shall have to bring that back home for Glastonbury). We spent the 17th exploring Freemantle and the rest of the time either stocking up on supplies ready for our adventure to begin or baking in the sun.
Leaving Perth on the 19th November, we headed south hugging the coast until we reached the village of Dunsborough. Not really much going on in the town, except it is the home of HMAS Swan, a sunken Aussie destroyer (best place for them). We spent the next two days completing our PADI Advanced Open Water dive course, which included having to complete our first night dive. This turned out not to be as scary as we first thought mainly because we purchased two very powerful underwater torches. The second day was spent diving on the wreck of the Swan which was superb, especially as we actually got to penetrate the wreck and swim inside it.
After Dunsborough we drove down the tourist route to Margaret River, a surfing mecca and a wine growing area, and very nice they are too (hic). We spent three days here, chilling out, sunning ourselves on the beach and having evening barbies (or braais in Sharon speak). Here we had our first cultural ozzie experience as we shared a barbie with three Aussie blokes and we all got pissed and talked shit all evening.
On the 25th we continued our journey south towards Augusta before cutting inland to follow the Blackwood River through it's stunning valley and camped overnight in the Blackwood River Forest.
The following day we embarked on our first mammoth drive leaving the Blackwood River Valley back through Perth to Cervantes in the Numbung National Park.
27th November and Gary is 31 years old (and looking mighty fine for it too), and to show he is still a young chicken at heart we decided to embark on a cycle ride into the Numbung National Park to see the Pinnacles at sunset. This involved a 42km round trip mostly though boring bush, to see some lumps of limestone sticking out of the sand. Never before has he had to work so hard for his birthday beer in his life. The Pinnacle were actually really stunning and very beautiful at sunset, the fact we were the only nutters mad enough to cycle to them made our appreciation of them all the more special.
Leaving Cervantes on the 28th, once the hang over passed, we drove to Geraldton and Sharon finally found a shop selling crayfish, which hopefully will shut her up for a short while at least. Not really much to see in Geraldton except for an excellent museum with lots of artifacts from sunken Dutch ships from yonks ago.
After overnighting in Geraldton, we then headed to Kalbarri, which is a fabulous place and we ended up stopping here for a while. The town is on the edge of the Kalbarri National Park, at the mouth of a gorgeous river with beaches you can walk along for 5km without seeing a sole. We lazed around working on our tans, took long strolls on the deserted beaches, swam in the river mouth, and on one day did a really excellent tour into the National Park to see the river gorges. This trip involved walking through one gorge and canoeing through another - awesome. On the last evening we went for a most excellent feast at Finlay's Fish BBQ with Kirsty, Dave, Nat and Jo who we met on the tour.