So, we updated the web-site with the promise of more the following week and….as always when I make that promise things change rapidly.  This is normally to our benefit.  The week after Mum flew home and we were staying with Lara and Adrian we were dedicated to finding our way around Australia.  We tracked down a number of places to buy second (or nineteenth) hand cars.  The first was a true “experience” based in the 5th floor (underground) of a car-park of the legendary King’s Cross area of Sydney.  We got down there to find a strange, almost macabre, scene with groups of jaded travellers trying to part from their “excellent runner” rides that really needed to be driven to the nearest scrap heap.  The only vehicle worth buying was the right price and accordingly outside of what I was willing to pay.  Driving across Australia should not be taken lightly and doing it in some of these vehicles just proves that you don’t need an IQ greater than your shoe size to leave your own country, but it might help if you want to survive.  Every person we spoke to down there had another unbelievable story and eventually we did the logical thing and left in a hurry.  The next place was the other side of town and was a lot better being that it was a garage that was servicing these vehicles and providing warranties, buy back guarantees and the rest.  There were at least 2 vehicles that could be trusted to fair you well, but again they were accordingly priced.  Slightly down beaten we headed back to Lara’s apartment and got back on-line.  Searching through some of the auction sites started to show more promise, then it happened.  I headed back to an avenue that I had started down, but abandoned due to lack of relevance.  This time the Gods of Travelling smiled down on us and all was more than good.  We had located a vehicle relocation for a reputable hire company for an astonishing vehicle to go from Sydney to Perth, leaving in 2 days time, within 30 minutes it was booked.  2 mornings later we were at Apollo Motorhomes paying the AUS$1 per day, with them paying us AUS$500 of fuel to drive a Toyota Hi-Lux 4x4 3.0 V6 Camper conversion with aircon in both cab and conversion, an excellent fridge, gas stove, 40 litre water tank, 2*20 litre jerry cans, seating for 3, tonnes of storage and a 2m x 2m bed that was SUPER comfortable.  We had 5 nights and 6 days to cross to Perth and within 20 minutes of assuring them that I understood that we were not to take the vehicle off-road, drive at night or, basically, have fun we were underway.  Our first night was spent at a super remote site, about 700km from Sydney, which required us to drive off-road, through a forest at night with plenty of necessity to engage the 4WD.  Er….selective hearing?  The next day we drove 800km through farmland, into desert, through an oasis and into the outback where we located a town that had a drive in cinema that had a double bill on that night.  We found a site in the middle of a national park about 20 minutes drive from the cinema.  Our first drive in cinema experience was excellent fun, with a good double bill, Epic Movie and Night at the Museum.  We cooked dinner on the stove and sat in the cab with freezing cold drinks, hot food and a lot of comfort.  Again we found ourselves driving at night, off-road to get to our campsite.

The next day we started the big driving, we finished the day after driving 1,100km across a lot more desert to the start of the Great Australian Bight.  To be honest the driving was fairly boring with much of it just being straight, but I got it into my head that it was necessary for me to accomplish the drive without any assistance from my beautiful assistant.  We caned it and pulled into a campsite at 7pm having started our drive at 8am.  I doubt that a lesser vehicle would have been as easy or got the job down so efficiently.  I am really in awe at the Hi-Lux.

The next day was another big one with us looking to beat the previous day, in the end we had done 1,200km (Zoë did drive 50km for me, but I really couldn’t bear it and male pride mixed with obliging woman had me back in the driving seat).  As some form of repentance I feel I need to mention that Zoë should be proud as in England she doesn’t like driving anything bigger than her VW Polo and here she was driving a big engine’d 4x4 with a large, unwieldy, campervan conversion passing 120m road trains and dealing with side winds.  Anyway I couldn’t give in and back in the seat I was.  We crossed 2 more time zones that day and learnt a fact that most Western Australians I know (and I know a fair few as you will find out) don’t know.  WA has 2 time-zones, GMT+8.45 and GMT+8, but only around 12 people live in the Eastern half of WA there is nobody to inform the other 48 people that seem to live in the Western half that this is the case.  We pulled in 100kms after driving Australia’s longest straight stretch of road (90 miles) at a stunning campsite on a cattle station.

For our penultimate day we had a treat in store.  Rather than take the easy route we decided to short cut across 300kms of bush road running from Norseman to Hynen.  That afternoon was spent with the largest rooster tail of red sand spilling out from the back wheels as we sped across open land, getting ourselves into off-road situations whenever we could and generally having a lot of fun.  At the other end the vehicle was red with dirt and covered in dead insects.  We slept well that night like we had on all the other nights we had the van.  We both knew that we would be sad to see the back of this vehicle.  There are better 4WDs than this one, something even the Jingoistic Aussies will admit that us Brits do better, like the unbeatable Land Rover 110/Defender that will be used to pull every other type of 4WD out of just about every situation known to man.  There are better campervans than this one, but for this combination I don’t think that Apollo could have done any better.  The company that does the conversion is Tavlou, an Aussie company.  The blend was perfect, after climbing a 40 degree slope and crossing many tree roots you could park up, lower the stabiliser leg and cook up a top dinner to have with your cold drink in a VERY civilised environment.  Many other 4WDers and campervanners commented on the vehicle and you get quite a glow from driving it.

After 16 hours on a fairly decent plane from Buenos Aires we landed in Auckland to be met with our most stringent customs checks so far.  We were aware of these before we left Buenos Aires and we had cleaned our camping stuff with this in mind, but none-the-less having to tick a box saying that you are bringing prohibited stuff into the country was proving to be a little daunting.  It was a good thing that all my training on the buses had led to me enjoying one of my best nights sleep on a plane ever (people who knew me before this would know that I never slept much on planes) and I was refreshed for this early morning ordeal.  You tick the little box saying that you are bringing a tent into the country and you are told to head down to the “biohazard control point”!!!  This turns out to be a, very friendly giant, Maori with rubber gloves.  With a good sense of humour he asked us a few questions and then explained that he would have to take our tent to the “biohazard” laboratory.  He assured us that this would not take long.  Credit where credit is due we had our tent back 15 minutes later, having been inspected for nasties and our cleaning had done the trick.  We spent the next 5 hours in that “airport style coma” until our flight to Christchurch.

On first impressions New Zealand was not up to much.  There are no historical buildings of note and Christchurch was like a shitty back-water English town rather than a major capital (being the administrative capital of the Southern Island).  We knew this was not our reason for being in New Zealand, but we had 24 hours to kill until we picked up our hire car so we made the best of it.  The best of it turned out to be an Asian food court where for very little money (by Kiwi standards) we could eat tons of really good Asian food.  We tucked into the best Thai since London and the best Chinese since China.  Sated we passed out with our jetlag kicking in.

The next morning we awoke early to head straight out to get our hire car which, (prepare for a shock) I was pleased to see, was an Automatic Nissan Sunny.  I normally would not want to drive an automatic, but as we are here to see the country I really wanted the simplest motoring that we could get our hands on.  Pleased with our hire (BTW it is high season here and we still managed to get this car for about £12.50 per day) we headed off to kit it out as we are living out of the car for 3 weeks (camping each night, so really living out of the car).  We bought a cooler bag for a fridge and we were complete.  We left Christchurch heading North with it in our minds to go right up to Nelson and then back down the West coast.  After 12 months of linear travelling (i.e. you decide on your next destination, buy a ticket and go where it takes you) we felt that we had to stretch our legs with this new method of travelling, so about 1 hour up the coast we turned left and started a 2 day cut through to the West coast.