So, it has been a while since our last update (again). The main reason for this is that we have been
busy traveling right across the Australian continent. For the most part, we have been doing that in
a Spaceship. What? And, apparently, wireless internet has yet to reach outer
space. What? A word of caution, this one
is a little longer and will probably take a few minutes to read. There is a lot of road to cover…
Darwin and Kakadu National Park:
Waterfalls and Crocs!
After leaving Bali and the Gili islands, we landed in Darwin in the Northern
Territory at the end of March. What first struck us was the heat. It was very humid and felt a bit like a
Swedish sauna. Not quite as pleasant as
Gili Air. To conquer the climate we went
on a tour of the best waterfalls in Kakadu national park. The tour, which was of the organized variety,
was not quite marketed as such, but the majority of the time was basically
spent in different sweet water holes, checking out waterfalls and worrying about
sweet water crocodiles. Our guide kept
on saying that they don’t attack humans - but who knows. Check out the Salt water ones below… Having
seen these, we would rather not risk too much interaction with any crocodiles.
Alice
Springs and Uluru:
Camping under the stars!
After Darwin,
we boarded the Ghan (Australian interstate train), made our way to the red
center where we rented a car and some camping gear and headed out to see Uluru
(a.k.a. Ayer’s rock). It is quite
majestic, but we saw a rock we liked better on the way down and which we,
thinking it was Ayer’s rock, spent almost half an hour photographing. In terms of accommodation, we got some swags
(sturdy Australian camping mattresses) with the car which we used to camp under
the stars. We liked this although there
are quite a few creepy crawlies that make the experience a bit less
tempting. Good thing then that the car
could fit campers in the boot as well…
Cairns: Diving the Great
Barrier Reef and Flying Saucers. What?
Having explored the red center, we flew up to Cairns to get away from
the flies and to cool off a bit. In Cairns, we went on a
day-tour scuba diving the outer Barrier reef. This was a fantastic experience. It was the first time Louise ever tried
diving, and I had not done it in 15 years either. I could not imagine a better place for an
introductory scuba dive, and what a place to get going again! All the corals and marine wildlife was simply
sublime.
This is also where we stumbled upon our flying saucer. What?
A Spaceship™ is basically a Toyota van that has been taken through the
equivalent of MTV’s pimp my ride for campers.
All of the back seats have been ripped out and replaced with a bed,
fridge, some camping equipment and a DVD.
Basically, all you need to be able to roam around the countryside at
ease. This little puppy became our
humble living quarters for the next month.
Cheap? At AU$ 40 a day and
another $50 a day for fuel (basically a full tank a day – we did a lot of
driving around) we would have to say yes, very. Comfortable?
Well, not really, but very convenient and a fun way to travel Australia.
Sunshine and Gold
Coast
Our first destination was the coast. Louise, initially in charge of the map and
guidebook, kept on telling me that there was nothing much to see between Cairns and Brisbane and
that only on the other side (i.e. on the Gold Coast), would we find a decent
place to dip our toes in the sea.
Luckily enough for us, we listened to some locals and endeavored onto
the seaside of the Sunshine coast (which is the East coast north of Brisbane)
and were rewarded with long stretches of beach with hardly any people at all
and without the tourist hype. Having
realized we had struck gold on the sunshine coast, we kept on taking local advice
for the Gold Coast as well, bypassing such places as Surfers Paradise, instead
opting to go to smaller towns such as Burleigh Heads and Sawtell that do not
seem to get a lot of travelers, but still have fantastic beaches and cheery
locals.
In the washing
machine…
In Sawtell, Louise convinced me that we could not leave Australia
without having tried our hands at surfing.
I had been quite reluctant as my shoulder has been a little f-cked up
from swimming in the waves in Vietnam
– worth it, but it seems to heal slowly, probably due to inadequate rest and
lugging around a 15kg backpack all the time – got to get rid of some of those
books…
Anyway, we had a go and lived to tell the tale although we were
both humbled by the experience.
Basically, we were a little too confident at the start out and paid the
price a few times. Falling in the midst
of a big one feels a bit like one would imagine it feeling being stuck in a
washing machine. The locals told us that
this was normal though. All part of the
fun apparently. Or as one of them put
it, during the post surfing chat at the lookout point: “If you haven’t had a
proper drilling, you haven’t been surfing”.
All in all, a fun day out though.
Sydney and Hunter Valley
After our adventures on the seaside, we needed a bit of
relaxation. After some time on the Gold
Coast, we pressed the pedal to the metal and headed up to Hunter
Valley, just outside of Sydney. This is one of Australia’s
most well known wine regions, home to such names as Lindemann’s and Mount Pleasant. We had a day and a half of wine tasting
(mainly Shiraz
and Merlot, but also some Verdelho) and enjoyed a memorable dinner at a local
restaurant (Muse), which turned out to be simply magnificent. Excellent food, wine and service. A real winner.
Adelaide and the Barossa Wine region
Realizing that wine tasting is quite a pleasant pastime, we
opted to just go in quickly to Sydney to then cut
straight across the country and head for the Barossa valley, just outside of Adelaide. This is arguably where you will find some of Australia’s best Shiraz
and it is home to names such as Penfold’s and Jacob’s Creek, that make it right
across the globe to retailers in the UK
and Sweden. On our tour, we opted to stay away from the
big producers though (where the service tends to be a little less enthusiastic
and the prices of the wines at the cellar door still do not match what you get
in the retail stores). We had a good
time and again enjoyed a nice meal to top things off.
Oh, we have to let you in on the best joke we have seen from
the local Police. In wine country you go
past signs everywhere saying “Cellar door open”. This basically means, welcome to come in to
try our wines. In Barossa, the police
had put out a sign of their own stating “Cell door open”, which we guess was to
remind punters of the consequences of drink driving. Good sense of humor we thought and it
certainly hit the mark with us!
Great Ocean Road, Melbourne and a homely end to our Australia trip
After a quick in and out in Adelaide,
we went on the Ocean Road
to Melbourne where the Mother ship was located
and we needed to dock our Spaceship before heading off to the next Galaxy (New Zealand). The Great
Ocean Road goes just along the Southern coast of Australia and
is a scenic drive with a number of nice lookouts over the sandstone formations
along the shoreline. It was very
enjoyable and we found some nice spots to camp along the way, in particular
“the Sawpit”, a camping area in the middle of the gum tree forest, complete
with fire places. We stayed a whole day
enjoying the surroundings and spotting Kangaroos.
Reaching Melbourne, we were exhausted from some 30
days of sleeping in the car and decided that enough was enough. Luckily for us, we found a mom-and-pop style
motel outside of Melbourne
where we stayed for two nights, enjoying the company of the owner operators
which we guess were in their late sixties or seventies. They made us home cooked meals by the
fireplace and chatted with us all night long about our travels and Swedish
customs etc. When we left, we each got a
warm hug from the nice lady who ran the place.
A worthy ending to an exciting month and a half in Australia!
Qapla’ (Goodbye in Klingon)
Lars
