Day One: Destination Sydney
I arrived in Sydney, feeling less like a lady and more like a Neanderthal from my 24-hour flight from Heathrow to Sydney via Bangkok. With legs that had swollen to the size of tree trunks, all I could think about was how to transform myself into Lady Sarah Ashley from the film Australia over the next five days. After a short taxi ride through the vast and impressive city centre I arrived at the Intercontinental hotel, my home for the next two nights. Having been shown up to my elegant room, I marvelled at the gorgeous view of the famous Harbour Bridge. Just like Lady Sarah Ashley, my first few hours in Australia were lonely ones, which I enjoyed by strolling along the bridge before getting a coffee in one of the harbour side cafes. After a while watching the world go by, I headed back to my hotel room to get ready for the evening’s activities – a trip to Strickland House, the setting for The Governor’s Ball in the film Australia, where Hugh Jackman rushes in to save Nicole Kidman’s character from the Carne Cattle Company. The grand house is privately owned, but we were given access to the ground floor and the garden to sip champagne as we contemplated why Baz Luhrmann chose this as the setting for a scene in his film – it didn’t take much contemplation, it was breathtaking. My first day spent in Australia had been in the ultimate luxury of my hotel room and at Strickland house and I was enjoying my Lady Sarah Ashley experience . After filling ourselves with Champagne and canapés we were ushered inside to watch Australia, Baz’s epic adventure about love and life in Oz. While watching the film, and the shots of the Australian outback I pondered about what was going to be expected from me over the next few days – and I was scared.
Watch the trailer for Australia
Day Two: Meet Baz
Waking early, as my body was still on English time, I got myself dressed and prepared myself for my meeting with the most-famed Australian director, Baz Luhrmann, and we weren’t just meeting him – we were invited to visit his house in Sydney as well. There had been whispers throughout our group the evening before, “They have a red room with loads of memorabilia from his films,” one lady said, “You can hold Catherine Martin’s (Baz’s wife) academy award – it’s just out on the mantlepiece,” exclaimed another. I could hardly contain my excitement. Tucked away in a tiny Australian suburb, we were made extremely welcome in Baz’s dining room as I waited to have my chat with the acclaimed director of Moulin Rouge, Strictly Ballroom and Romeo + Juliet. I wandered into the Red Room to have a sneak peek at the Oscar statuettes on display, and had to stop myself from practising my Oscar acceptance speech with the award in my hand, and I gawped in amazement at the blue, flowery shirt that Leonardo DiCaprio wore in Romeo + Juliet on display against the wall. I couldn’t get close enough! Baz himself was charming, confident and full of a passion for life and art and I think everyone had a crush on him by the day’s end. You can watch my interview with him here. On our departure I asked him for some tips on surviving in the outback, and admitted that I’d been lifting toilet seats up when I went to the bathroom having been told that spiders live under the toilet seats in Australia when I was little – and I wasn’t even in the outback yet. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he smiled, “you’re going to be careful where you sit in the outback – that’s just common sense.” After my interview I headed to Sydney’s city centre to do some shopping, worried that my canvas pumps weren’t going to cut it in the bush (what were they thinking sending someone from a website called handbag.com to one of the roughest terrains on earth?) After some shopping I was looking forward to sitting down with a nice glass of wine at dinner, which turned into a few glasses of wine at Sydney’s Ivy, where we relaxed and mingled at the rooftop, poolside bar.
Watch handbag.com's interview with director extraordinaire, Baz Luhrmann
Watch our interview with Catherine Martin, Costume Designer for Australia
Watch the trailer for Australia
Day Three: Becoming Lady Sarah
I checked out of the hotel for my flight to Darwin feeling a little worse for wear. As we stepped up to the plane to Darwin I couldn’t believe how small it was – it had to be the smallest plane I had ever been on. “How’s this going to get off the ground?” I asked the guy standing next to me. I was nervous as we took off, and only stopped thinking about my nerves as I looked at the vast landscape Australia has to offer, and realised how outback the outback might be. When we landed I was pleased to be back on solid ground again. Not for long. We caught a bus to the airfield to catch a charter flight to Home Valley Station a working cattle ranch run by the Indigenious people of East Kimberley that was featured in the film Australia, where we would be staying in the outback. Looking at the six-seat plane that would be taking us to our destination, my heart sank. I was in for a bumpy ride. After the initial take-off the flight was exhilarating, the best way to see the Australian landscape surrounding Home Valley, which includes the Cockburn range, a stunning orange mountain range which changes colour with the position of the sun. The landing wasn’t so great and as we caught up with our group back at the ranch, a few people had had to reach for their sick bags. Getting to my room at Home Valley I was surprised to find that there were frogs and bugs outside my room, as well as a few within. I was getting the ultimate Lady Sarah Ashley experience, but my Hugh Jackman was nowhere to be seen. It felt like I had got the rough end of the deal. I headed to the Dusty Bar And Grill for dinner, where I sampled crocodile, kangaroo and emu – which to my surprise were all extremely tasty. We sat listening to a didgeridoo being played in the background, while being told about Cedric – an 18ft crocodile that lives in the river 400 yards from Home Valley. I headed back to my hotel room, thinking about how much I had acted like a princess when I got to camp. I may as well have shouted, “But nobody told me there’d be snakes and bugs in the outback.” I was determined that I could be as brave as Lady Sarah Ashley in Australia, tomorrow was just another day.
Watch the trailer for Australia
Day Four: Horsing around
The outback is surprisingly quiet during the day, considering that all of the animals come alive at night. After a pretty sleepless night I headed for the stables at 7am to start my day learning how to ride a horse, in preparation for a cattle muster later in the day. My experience horse riding is limited to pony-trekking, and I’m not sure you count that as actually riding the horse as they all seem to follow one another. Here I was with Craig Emerton one of, if not the best horse master in Australia, who had got Nicole and Hugh looking as though they were born in the saddle, and I had the feeling that I was going to make a big fool of myself. There’s something sexy about a man riding a horse, and it was making me go weak at the knees, which wasn’t helping me with my nerves. After a hand-up onto Ginger, and a trot around the stables I felt as though I could do it – and didn’t give a second thought to the fact that Craig had been leading me around the enclosure.
In the paddock with the cattle it was a different story. “Great!” I thought, “I’ve got Ginger again.” Craig had told me the most important thing was not to let the horse know that I was nervous, and boy was I nervous. I jumped up onto Ginger – a little more elegantly than the first time, although not much more, and kicked. Nothing. I kicked again, a little harder this time, she didn’t budge. I took a deep breath, determined that Ginger was going to think that I was a natural, and kicked again. The damn horse wouldn’t move. I think she knew that I didn’t really want to kick her too hard. “Give her a stick!” shouted Craig from by the cattle. “What?!” I cried out. If I couldn’t get my horse to move now, there was no way I was going to control her during a cattle muster. All of a sudden it seemed very dangerous, and I really wasn’t sure that I could do it. I whacked Ginger with the stick and ‘halleluiah’ she moves! “You know how you feel when your boyfriend comes home late and he’s been on the grog?” asked Craig. “What that’s how hard you want me to kick the horse?” I laugh, hardly seemed fair on poor Ginger to me. The mustering itself felt great, I don’t think I helped very much but actually managing to control Ginger every so often made my day and I definitely felt as though I was making progress. Don’t get me wrong, though, I was no Nicole Kidman on horseback. After the long cattle muster we headed to the Pentecost River to cool off with a beer at sundown, we were ushered into the RVs as it got dark with talk from an indigenous guide of spirits throwing rocks at the riverside after dark. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. After dinner we relaxed around a campfire with more beers and watched the stars before heading to bed, where, exhausted, I slept soundly.
Watch the trailer for Australia
Day Five: A great catch
Early morning we headed into the outback to chat with Brandon Walters, who plays Nullah in Australia. Now 13 years old, Brandon is incredibly shy and seemed more interested in talking with us about riding dirt bikes than any of the showbiz chat that we journalists kept trying to head towards. It’s like the old adage says; never work with children. He did give us some tips on catching Iguana’s though. Aborigines will stand very still with a knife in one hand, and wait for an iguana to mistake them for a tree, climb up one of their arms and the they will kill it. An ingenious way to catch your next meal, if you ever find yourself lost in the bush.
Following a quick lunch we went to the river to fish for barramundi. It was my first time fishing, and it was something that I’d like to try again – with the sun beaming across the river it was really relaxing, and I managed to catch a few fish – although they were black bream not barramundi - but I still think they counted. One girl caught something so big it snapped her hook off of the line, I think it might have been a crocodile.
After catching some fish we headed to Bindoola falls, a natural, croc-free waterfall, for a dip. On our way to the falls we saw a crocodile down stream, but one of the guys with me failed to notice it. “You let me swim in there while there were crocodiles down stream?” he asked – looking petrified. It was a great, refreshing way to end our day in the heat of the outback, which can reach temperatures of up to 32 degrees during the dry. Having spent the day learning to catch fish, and relax in the outback’s sun I felt as though I were as close to Lady Sarah Ashley as I could be as I relaxed and watched the colours of the landscape on the Cockburn mountain range changing with the sunset. Talk quickly turned to dingos as one of the group wondered whether there were dingos in the region. We started discussing the ‘Dingos ate my baby’ case when from the eerie silence of the outback at dusk came a distinctive howl - a pack of dingos were nearby, it couldn’t have ended the trip on a better note. I headed back to the hotel room, having thoroughly enjoyed my adventure and looking forward to getting back home and telling everyone about the things I had experienced. I thought I would get an early night, as we had an early start on the Alligator Airways charter plane back to Darwin the next day, but I thought too soon. A frog had decided that he wanted to share my cabin with me, and seemed to think that my bed was the best place for him to sit. After a few hours of trying to coax him out of the room, I went and asked one of the others if I could bunk up with them. I’d become more like Lady Sarah Ashley with each day of my trip but, I realised, maybe I’d never be quite as brave as she was in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.
Watch handbag.com's interview with Baz Luhrmann
Australia is released on Blu-ray and DVD on 27 April from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment
