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Australia My family decided to go to
Australia in October 2001. There was lots of organising. We got the visas and
passports. Our Uncle drove us to the airport in Dublin. We flew with Aer-Lingus
to Frankfurt in Germany. Then we changed to a bigger plane for the longest part
of the journey. The airline was called Malaysian airlines. We flew from
Frankfurt to Kuala Lumpar in Malaysia. We stayed in the Airport Transit Hotel.
We slept for nine hours in the hotel. We couldn’t go outside the airport
because we hadn’t got vaccinations. Then we flew from Kuala Lumpar to Perth in
Australia. It
took a total of 24 hours on the planes. We were too tired to be excited. We
caught the last taxi to the YMCA hostel. I couldn’t sleep but you can’t
imagine how tired I was. We spent two weeks in Perth. Perth is the largest City
in Western Australia. Lots of different nationalities live there we met Germans,
Dutch, British as well as Aborigines. There are lots of tourist attractions in
Perth.
We
went to Kings Park it is a memorial to the soldiers of World War ll. Every tree
is dedicated to a different soldier. There were lots of Irish names on the
trees.
There
was a big flame in the middle of the water, which the queen of England had lit.
We also went to Perth zoo it is the biggest zoo in western Australia. There was
a reptile house, A butterfly house, a penguin pond and lots more strange
animals.
From leaving Perth we travelled to a small country town called Waroona.
We stayed in a cabin in Lake Navarino Caravan Park. The lake was man made. It
was made so farmers will have water in the dry season.
The lake which was very beautiful was surrounded by a thick forest.
Our plan was to keep travelling south across the southern coast of
Australia and up to Sydney. To do this we had to buy a car a car trailer, a tent
and cooking equipment. This is the way most people travelled in Australia
because it is so cheap and the weather is so good. The next step in our journey
was down to Donnybrook and Kirup. These are two fruit picking regions. We stayed
in Kirup for three weeks. It is a beautiful township. It has a school, a shop, a
pub, a caravan park and a petrol station. My father worked on a fruit picking
farm for the three weeks we were in Kirup. The fruit picking is not done by
Australians but by backpackers who are paid very little money. Some of the fruit
they picked are pears, avacodos, plums, oranges and peaches.
One of the backpackers we met was from New Zealand and he showed us to
the most beautiful waterfalls. These waterfalls were in the middle of the bush
and not many people knew about them.
I went
to school in Kirup for most of the three weeks. It was very interesting to see
all the different subjects. Like we in Ireland learn Irish, in Australia they
learn Indonesian.
After leaving Kirup we made our may to the coast again. The backpacker
from New Zealand travelled with us. We went to a place called Margarets River.
Margarets River is a big town. There are lots of tourists there. It is famous
for its surfing beaches and its wine. Jason, the New Zealander, showed us one of
these beaches. He taught us the basics of surfing. Hundreds of backpackers go
there for casual work, fruit picking. We stayed in Margarets River for three
weeks before moving on to Warpole and Denmark. The main industries in these
areas are wheat and dairy farming. There are massive trees in Warpole called
tingel trees.
This
is a picture of my mother my brother and myself inside one of the tingle trees
that hade been burned out by Aboriginals. The tingle trees are about 50 feet in
height very wide and are native to Australia. There is a suspended bridge over
the trees called the tree top walk that we went on.
Esperance was the last coastal city we stayed in before hitting the
Nullobor. We hade to get from western Australia to south Australia. The plain is
1400 KM long. There are no towns on it. Instead there are road houses every
couple of kilometres. You have to make sure you have enough food and water to
last you the journey. It took us 3 days to cross the Nullobor. We saw emus,
kangaroos and camels on the way and stopped at an Aboriginal roadhouse. We drove
on the largest straight road in the world that is 90 miles long.
The first town you meet after leaving the Nullobor is called Ceduna. This
is a small coastal town. We stayed at Shelly Beach Caravan Park. It is a
beautiful beach that is covered in all types of different shells. You could walk
out into the sea for half a kilometre and the depth stayed the same. The water
there is very very warm. We rested here for three days and then moved on to
Adelaide.
This is a beautiful city called the city of cathedrals. The center is
made of beautiful gardens and churches. This is where we did our Christmas
shopping and sent our Christmas cards to Ireland. We met some lovely people here
especially an old Australian man called Ray who brought us for lovely walks.
After one week we left Adelaide and travelled to a small country town called
Terang. This is a dairy farming area where an average sized farm is one thousand
acres of land! We stayed in a caravan park in the town as we where spending
Christmas in our tent we decorated our tent with tinsel and lights. We met a
family who are also called O’Brien and my father got a job working for them on
their farm. Farming is a lot easier there as cattle can be wintered outside due
to the good weather. Hay doesn’t have to be brought in like in this country.
Farmers just leave it in the fields. Milking is the biggest job of the day as
they can have up to 600 cows in a herd. The biggest nuisance for my father was
the flies they are every where so you have to keep covered in bug repellent or
they will drive you mad.
We stayed at a caravan park near the airport. We were a walk away from Botany Bay and went swimming there. This is where all the Irish people landed hundreds of years ago. We went to the city centre and saw Sydney Opera House. There are lots of markets in the city. I bought my fire chains. You dip them in kerosene and swing them in different directions to make lots of designs. It takes a lot of practise
We sold our car, tent and trailer
to a man and woman from Cappoquin who had just come to Australia. They drove us
to the airport on our last day. We were sad to leave but looking forward to
seeing every one at home. We stopped in Kualla Lumpar again on the way home and
then flew to Amsterdam in Holland. When we landed it was –110c. we
were frozen because we had been used to about 300c in Australia! We
stayed in a hotel. It was lovely to sleep in a bed after four months of sleeping
in a tent. Amsterdam is a huge city and the level of pollution is very low
because most of the people who live there use bicycles instead of cars.
Our last flight was from Amsterdam to Dublin. Our Uncle collected us. It was brilliant to see all our family after four months and we had loads to tell them. I learned a lot on my trip to Australia and am sure I will go again. |
