Thank you Australia

After 6 weeks of 2000 miles by air and 3000 by road it's time to say Good Bye Australia and thank you - it's been an absolute blast!! 

driving from Copenhagen to Tehran!

happy in the snow!

not so happy in the sea!

From iconic Sydney to "alpine' snow in Perisher followed by down to earth Melbourne and idyllic Adelaide up to the raw "top end" to spend some perfect family time in Darwin and Kakadu then 2000 miles of sun, sea and sand of the east coast concluding in the wine soaked Hunter Valley before the final short jolt back to Sydney, Singapore and home.

always happy with the wine!!!!

the inevitable jumping photo

As a family we all have had our personal lows and highs from some long boring drives and slightly claustrophobic living in our camper to the big highs that all holidays offer. It will of course be the smaller episodes that whether negative or positive in the moment - vomiting on the Great Barrier Reef, perfecting Souvlaki and steaks on a camp BBQ, drowning Mum in a mountain Billabong, visiting an incredible sugar cane mill, arguing about who sits next to dad in the van in the only other comfortable seat in the van but having to speak to him to keep him awake, loving the chance encounters of wallabies, dolphins, lizards, green turtles, camels and dingo's but missing home comforts and close friends - that will be retold and exaggerated over time to add to the reservoir of our family folklore which, whatever comes our way, will be drawn upon in future moments of family banter.

chef at work

perfect!!

top bunk winos in training!

Wallaby testicles beautifully caught in the sunrise!!

OK so this is written after the best part of a bottle of Shiraz but if you forgive me for a moment - thanks to Tina for being the unsung but perfect instigator, researcher, organiser, tour guide, navigator, accountant, photo editor and co-alcoholic, Kiran for being the ultimate camp chef and best front of van conversationalist, running partner and giving up his valuable summer to travel with us, Kim for always making us laugh with the sunshine of her ever random comments, "intriguing questions", silly photo faces and Australian impersonations and Carla for putting up with the slagging she gets from her family, displaying a genetic mutation that means at least one Boyle can float on water, doing more drying up than anyone else, being sweet enough to find something nice to say at all the appropriate times and being brave enough to try to get the last word with mum!! Good try! No Chance!

sunset selfie

Thanks to Karen, Andrew and Cal for your hospitality and generosity, Alan for taking valuable time out to catch up after all these years, Scott for giving us a taste of Adelaide, Eric, Kat, Iain & Zoe and all those dogs for making our trip to Darwin and Kakadu the absolute highlight of our holiday!!! To all those other Aussies who have lived up to their loud and brash but friendly and welcoming stereotype thank you!!

Big T the accountant tells me that that this will be the last of our big family holiday's-  I'm not so sure!!!!! 

Kims Reluctant Contribution!

This is our last proper day in Australia and we're in the midst of our 3 hour journey heading down from Hunter Valley to Sydney in our painfully slow camper-van. To set the scene Carla, Kiran and I are sitting in the back on "seats" which have incredibly straight backs so that they resemble a 90 degrees angle. Their covers are brown to match the tasteful interior of brown bed sheets, brown blinds and brown towels that are wet and currently dangling just above our heads.

This holiday has been definitely memorable including many highs (meeting and staying with family and friends, walking amongst hundreds of kangaroos, lodging in fantastic 5 star hotels, eating and discovering new foods, taking the piss out of both mum and dad to really push their buttons) and lows (having to sit for endless hours in this highly uncomfortable van, sleeping in the roof which at one point of our holiday was ant-infested, vomiting several times overboard into the Great Barrier Reef due to sea-sickness, being bitten by all sorts of insects, putting up with the lack of wi-fi, and there so, minimum contact with friends back at home.).

Overall, I have actually enjoyed this holiday and it will be certainly talked about for years to come.

Kim

Carla and the Great Barrier Reef

Even though everyone else was disappointed, I thought the Great Barrier Reef was amazing. It started with an hour or so of choppy water, which nobody would enjoy. The visibility of the first destination was pretty bad, and the sea water didn’t exactly taste good but it is impossible to avoid getting any in your mouth the first time you go snorkelling. I had been let down so the second destination left me speechless.

Yeah, the colours weren’t as vivid as any of us had expected but I no longer had to look at photos and imagine it in motion. Every so often there would be a burst of colour as different species of fish appeared and disappeared in a second. I turned around hoping I could share my excitement with someone but three members of my family were glued to the life ring, excited to get back on the boat.

Luckily, the remaining member of my family wanted to carry on snorkelling with me. So Kiran and I swam around trying to find the most colourful and active part of the reef. Unfortunately I couldn’t capture a picture of the brightly coloured fish. However, I was still amazed at this underwater paradise.

The journey back was worse than the way there, twice as bumpy. The boat dipped right and left and back and forth. Focusing on the horizon was useless as it kept disappearing from sight as the boat dipped. Relentlessly, I got up and struggled down the stairs, sat down, received a paper bag, and threw up (ejected the contents of my stomach through my mouth), great end to the experience. I’ll definitely make sure that there is near to no wind when I visit the Great Barrier Reef in the future.

Carla

Kakadu Campers

on  the trail

A massive thanks to the Darwin contingent of our family for making our camping trip to Kakadu National Park such a fantastic success.

picnic at hanging rock

This was the perfect traditional family team effort-

• Dad -Eric- logistics, driving, firewood and beer!
• Mum -Kat- kitchen manager, navigation and champagne!
• Uncle, Auntie - Ian, Zoe - Reserve Mum n Dad and vodka chocolate milkshakes!
• Bloody useless Kids - Gordon, Tina, Kiran, Kim, Carla - eating, drinking,  sleeping, moaning and worrying about toilet facilities and crocodiles!!!!!!! 

So I always thought it was a bit of a wind up when people talked about man - eating salt water crocodiles in this part of the world - ITS NOT A WIND UP!!!!! there are and they do!! They don't only opportunistically attack humans they hunt for us!!! "You have got to be F*****G joking!" -  Its no wonder Australians are such bloody good swimmers - its evolution in progress! 

man-eating marshmallow

cooks and looks!!!

boyles brave some water in stone country

bush tucker

Great memories of our trip - a perfect roast dinner beef, lamb, roast potatoes and brocolinni for dinner - I never would have believed that was possible on a camping trip. Toasted marshmallows cooked to perfection and some ringstinger beef jerky for the journey. This swimming pool was up on the high stone land above the bush savannah beautifully cool after a short but steep climb with Meg the Ranger in the heat. Tina shading her eyes as she decided to lose her sunglasses under water - never a good idea to try and stand in 10' deep water  when you are only 5'2"!!!!!

"happy wife happy life!' Iain Boyle

homeward bound

Kiran's Oz

The second night in the camper van. I enjoy a wonderful 8:30pm-2:30am sleep. After a snooze that could only have lasted an hour or two I felt invigorated, joyous and energetic when my dad switches on the lights and wakes me up at 7:30am.

I have my breakfast etc. and enjoy the beautiful and tranquil scenery of Canberra'a finest camper van park which hosts only A-list celebrities and the uppermost echelons of society.

I go to the shower block - to partake in my daily wash. These showers have a range of experiences to offer. One nanometer of the dial to the right offers you your very own chance to experience hypothermia. Whilst the same distance to the left offers you the sublime sensation of 3rd degree burns. 

Before I have the chance to experience this again, I am met with a little old man who greets me good morning and proceeds to tell me about a bowel problem. A delightful conversation topic to have with a stranger.

I was about 3 minutes into my shower when I realise that the old man's bowel problem was going to be a significant event in my morning.

The sound coming from that small cubicle was something I've never heard before. It was a multi-genre blockbuster - best described as the Battle of Britain followed by a small tsunami, concluded with a loud moan of pleasure and pain - like an orgasm paired with a hard kick in the testicles.

Before the fumes mixed with the shower steam to create a weapon of mass destruction - I escaped to seek refuge inside our overly spacious camper van. 

As we take off to our next destination, I daydream - looking outside the window - I can only imagine the wonders we will encounter on our tour of Australia's finest camp sites. 

Just popping in for a dip!

maybe that wasn't such a good idea!

and if anyone thought for a split second that might be me WRONG!! 

1. I'm scared of water
2. I'm very scared of waves
3. I'm shit scared of wearing speedo's!

The Boyles have landed!

mystified in Manly!

This photo makes me laugh so much! Ok so we are in Australia we must go to the beach! So here we are "Manly Beach" - what do we do now! 4 of us already have suntans, 2 of us do not like to be anything other than fully clad in public, and the public would prefer that 2 of us remained fully clad, 2 of us don't like sand in our socks, 4 of us think that trying to stand on a board and being knocked off by big dangerous waves (ok they look big and dangerous to us!) looks completely pointless and none of us can really swim! 

WE DO NOT BELONG HERE!!!!!!!

The cure? - Wine, beer, ice-cream and chips! Instant transformation from awkward family silence to the Boyles in balance again!

SPOT THE DIFFERENCE

Its like one of those spot the difference competitions!

Except this one should be pretty easy!!!  

Tammy the tour Guide

Well spotted! Here is Tammy the Tour Guide. If you come to Bangkok you have to look up this company tour with tong. What a great morning we had escaping from Bangkok to see a couple of well trodden tourist spots but with Tammy what a pleasure! 

Floating Market Trader BBQ on a canoe

Roasted Frogs on a Stick

Coconut pancakes

Train Market

Fresh veg galore

Great morning exploring an authentic market full of incredible seafood and veg produce but all built on a railway track. Every time the train comes in the traders have to partially dismantle their stalls to avoid being dragged away by the train. Then onto the Floating market - a well known tourist haunt but brilliant all the same with an incredible array of the usual tack but some amazing food mostly based on seafood soups and coconut with fresh veg chillies and herbs - cooked, served and consumed on small teak canoes on a maze of canals.

All rounded off today with me winning the prize for being the first to be properly and justly shouted at because I was the definitely the most annoying!! Great!!!!!!

Bangkok Drug Bust

"You have got to be F******G joking" catch phrase returns as my concerned looking teenage daughter Kim hands me these sachets telling me that she found them in our Bangkok Hotel bathroom! Phone the police - flush it down the bog, snort a line?!!!! 

"Kiddin on!" she smirks - turns out snorting "Fairy - non bio" would not be such a good idea - seems that our Thai Hotelier shares Kim's wicked sense of humour by packing some washing detergent in very suspicious packaging!

Keeping calm!

Visiting Bangkok requires the patience of a Buddhist, which as you all know I absolutely don't have! As a result I have decided to embrace the chaos to fully appreciate and absorb the wonderful sights, sounds and smells this fabulous place has to offer.

So far this has stood me in good stead, through the relentless bartering at Patpong market, including the constant pester power of touts asking if we would like to see a "Ping Pong show"!!! The girls ask me what this is  : o ............

I even stay calm at the awful traffic and the insistence of the tuk tuk drivers that we take detours to visit various tailors, jewellers and tourist shops so they can get paid in petrol vouchers- we feel sorry for our driver with horrendous rheumatoid arthritis and his synovitic joints. I don't even get irate when a car hits our taxi (against my door!), resulting in us having to wait for nearly an hour for the police to sort it all out.

But the relentless heat and humidity is causing me to get fractious and insanity hovers when i have to wander around the Grand Palace wearing my only (wooly) jumper to cover my shoulders. Oh how i dream of weather back in my beloved Glasgow! Thai people don't know what they are missing!

Tina

"Daddy, daddy I need the toilet!"

After standing in the inevitable Heathrow queues with the usual commotion of families off on their summer travels I had to laugh when Kiran commented on how much of a pain travelling with kids must be. 

It doesn't seem that long ago when standing in a very similar queues with 1000 people in front and  behind I would hear the stress inducing sentence "Daddy, daddy I need the toilet!" or  worse "Daddy, daddy I done a poo!"  or experiencing the reflex cupping of hands trying to catch a volley of vomit from one of my offspring and only managing a finger sieve of partially digested breakfast! The thought "You have got to be F****G joking" coming out of my mouth before it could be suppressed,  raising Schadenfreude smiles amongst my fellow travellers that I now relish as a spectator.

Today we have the distinct pleasure of travelling with a 20 year old who can smile with us and whose honed student drinking habits managed to sniff out a free vodka cocktail promotion in duty free. An apt celebration to travelling with your kids!

The Eve of Oz

So after several of years of planning and saving we are on the eve of our mega Oz trip. 

Dinner conversation tonight was not about where we were going on what will we be doing it was "OK who is going to get shouted at first?". The voting was tight but "The queen of the last word" Carla is the odds on favourite! Followed closely by who is going to be the most annoying and the less said about the winner of that the better!!!!

Having been amazingly pre-organised by Tina -  We have had the luxury of spending the last hour or so reading over our previous blog entries and apart from being impressed by my own literary prowess (NOT!) we have had such a laugh from the kids entries. I am so pleased that Tina and I forced them to write something - a few memories caught in words by their younger selves, their personalities shining through in a way that could never have been captured by any camera or video - priceless. 

I am not really looking forward to fighting with them again to put some thoughts down about this trip but I know the fight will be totally worth it!!!

Please note that in my brain the new blog title picture is how I picture the trip - 4WD and fighting the desert elements. I will be carrying this picture in my mind the whole way to offset the reality of Winnebago's, Campsites and of course the odd 5* hotel.

As always we will be really pleased if anyone can take the time to leave a wee comment or two - they really enrich what will become a precious memory!

First stop Bangkok!