Claire has been to Australia before, I hadn’t. It’s true to say that we were both really excited at the prospect of coming [back] here, after all it’s probably the most common backpacking destination for us Brits and probably rightly so. It’s culturally familiar and very easy to get around. I say “probably rightly so” because our efforts to discover, or rediscover, this land have been hampered by one seemingly impassable block: the sun.

Everywhere we go, we are being constantly met with “record breaking heat waves” — and remember that we’re to be found mostly outdoors or in a non air-conditioned tent. We arrived in Perth and fought our way through the forty-plus degree city heat. As we drove further up the western coast, there were reports that our location was over fifty. In the outback, we either stayed in our car (which has brilliant air-con) or sought-out anywhere with air-conditioning, sometimes just rejoicing upon finding a shady tree in an otherwise barren plain. In Adelaide, we again suffered the stifling situation in our tent and hid in a cinema in Melbourne whilst the train-tracks buckled under the heat. In this heat over here, people are dying.

I know that this is going to be hard for our majority-UK readership–who are receiving the heaviest snowfall in eighteen years–to accept as they celebrate another day off work as the snow continues to fall, but right now I’d take minus-four over this. Simplistic as it sounds, in the cold one can add another layer. In the heat, there’s only so many layers a person in public can remove before attracting the attention of the law.

The heat of the day here is much more constant here when compared with, say, the Mediterranean. By about half-past eight in the morning it’s too hot to do very much and it continues, relentlessly, until sundown at about half-past eight in the evening. Counter intuitively, the hottest temperatures are often recorded late afternoon or early evening, but to my skin they could be measured at any time. Sometimes it’s significantly cooler at night, sometimes not.

Relatively speaking, the long, air-conditioned drives are entirely bearable, enjoyable even in comparison with the alternative of being outside. A quick refuel and–phew–we climb back into our icy-cool cabin to discuss just how unbearably hot it must be for the poor blighters not sat inside with us. But on static, non-driving days, sightseeing is impossible and our day becomes solely about survival of the sun. Stoic as we mostly are, I must now admit that right here, right now, it’s proving immensely difficult to enjoy Australia in all, or any, of its glory and… stuff this, we’re off to New Zealand!

We’ll go to New Zealand for a month or two to enjoy their summer, which only approaches thirty on a good day, and come back to continue our roadtrip once Australia has cooled-off a little. Also, New Zealand will cool-off too much in a couple of month’s time. Being this far around the world, we were obviously planning to spend some time in New Zealand and it’s much better this way around, else after the heat of Australia we’d be arriving in New Zealand just as it was getting too cold to travel and you, dear reader, would have to put up with more of our whinging!

Apart from the Australian heat, how did we make up our minds to leave so quickly? The discovery that an extension to our visa would cost us AUD$240 each, whereas a flight to New Zealand with the right airline at the right time would only cost us a couple of quid more. Upon our return to Australia, our free visa would reset itself to allow us a further three months at no additional cost. Of course, we’ll have to find somewhere to store our fabulous car for a month or two, but apart from that–and the fact that we’re not mentally prepared to carry our own backpacks again–there aren’t too many other headaches with our proposed change of plans.

Fear not Australia, we’ll be back to finish you off in the near future — please support our decision: we want to write nice things about you, but for the time being you’re way too hot, mate.