Tribulations of a swiss guy

Struggling with water

steph — Thu, 21 Aug 2014 05:59:00 GMT

It has been a long time since the last published post on this blog, but I felt like writing. Not that as a technical writer, I don’t write. As a matter of fact, I do it every day. But technical writing is, uh well, very technical!

A lot has happened since December 2007. Back then, I was beginning a seven-month stint through South America with a girl I had met only six months earlier on a slow boat on the Mekong, and that has since become my wife. Nowadays, traveling comes pretty much down to vacations, especially with two young - and beautiful, need I mention it! - kids in tow. Don’t get me wrong! Except for the duration of the trip, I don’t mean this in a negative way. On the contrary, traveling this way is still very much of an adventure, believe me!

Anyways, our plans for this summer were to take us east. After traveling quite extensively around the world, we realized that we lived in a country surrounded by many lovely places well worth a visit. So we aimed for the southern part of the Czech Republic, stopping a few days in Munich on the way there and then just the same on the way back in Salzburg. We crammed our tent and camping gear in our not-so-big car and hit the road. By the way, it’s just incredible how much stuff four people can take: it felt almost like we were moving to the Czech Republic!

It’s a mere five hours and a half drive to get there, and the afternoon had barely begun that we already had pitched camp in Munich…. in the middle of a forest! At least that’s how it felt! It was actually hard to imagine we were in Germany’s third-largest city! With only a small road on one side and a large canal on the other, the Thalkirchen Campingplatz is literally drowned in greenery, surrounded by parks full of Bier Garten and a wonderful zoo to the north. So wonderful that we wandered its paths for the best part of the second day, going from giraffes to bats buzzing our ears for the delight of our younger ones.

The first showers hit us that night. Fortunately, we are well equipped, and I felt we made it easily through, even though I still thought there was very much humidity in the tent in the morning. But after all, four people breathing in a tent the whole night through is bound to create a bit of condensation, no? I didn’t give it much thought, especially since the sun was finally shining brightly in the Bavarian capital. We were at last to discover the city itself. A short metro ride took us into the heart of it, Marienplatz, and we began strolling the (mostly) pedestrian streets around it for some sightseeing and some shopping.
When on the road as a family, it is essential to keep everyone happy. Our way to do this is to split the day, meaning that everybody should be able to do something he/she enjoys at one time during that day. With our two young kids, four and two, it basically means trying to find a playground. And luckily for us, there’s no lack of these in Munich. And our clever German friends have also had the very good idea of attaching some of them to a Bier Garten! Did someone say win-win situation?

Visiting a city like Munich at such a pace could take years. We only had two days and made the most of it. We strolled through the beautiful Residenz - the royal palace - gardens and inner courtyards. At the foot of the Chinese tower in the famous Englischer Garten, we had a feast with typical Bavarian white sausages, the delicious Bayerischen Weisswursten. Our kids took a free shower through the sprinklers of Karlspaltz’s sprinkling fountain. They even had time to take a nap on the benches of the atmospheric Stadtcafe facing the modern cube of the new synagogue. In a word, we loved it in Munich!

Our last night in Munich was a very rainy one, and what a bad surprise I had when I got out of the chamber in the morning and stepped in 1 cm of water! The combination of a sloppy tent setup, microscopic holes in our tent’s bottom, and a tiny depression in the ground had made a pool of our living area. Needless to say that the humidity inside was terrible, and we packed our gear wet. But we made sure to stop at a Do-it-Yourself store on our way to the Czech Republic to buy some duct tape.

A beautiful sun welcomed us on the shores of Lipno Lake, allowing us to carefully choose our spot after thoroughly patching the bottom of our tent up. But the clouds were never really gone since rain was back that very evening. All this care was thus not in vain since our tent remained dry. However, the short week we spent in southern Bohemia was a bit too watered for our taste. To the point that we really asked ourselves if we shouldn’t directly go back home instead of heading to Salzburg.

Too much rain doesn’t mean that it rained all the time, far from that. There was even enough sun for me to get burned while building sandcastles on the beach with the kids! And more than good enough weather to visit the incredibly picturesque Český Krumlov. The laid-back atmosphere along the sinuous paved streets, dominated by a huge castle, drew us there twice. I think we paced all of the cobbled streets inside the Vltava river elbow at least once, often giving in to the children’s fantasies of looking for the narrowest alleys that would then become their secret passages. However, the rain has postponed our trip to České Budějovice to the last afternoon that we were to spend in the Czech Republic, and that is a pity. The few streets we have been wandering around the charming Ottokar II square only made us want to come again. But this is not the only reason we will return to this corner of Bohemia!

Unsurprisingly, it rained during our last night on the shore of Lipno Lake, and we packed our stuff wet. Again! This story was getting old very fast. Halfway to Salzburg, we stopped somewhere on the highway to seriously consider where to go next: home or Mozart’s birthplace? In the end, we pushed on and followed our original plans. I had booked a camping place in Hallein, a bit south of Salzburg, and when we showed up and said we had a tent, the receptionist gave us a glance and asked if it was a GOOD tent? And for good reasons: the ground was saturated after the (very) recent and abundant rains. Despite that, we managed to install ourselves relatively smoothly, and the sun eventually showed up to dry us up.

We headed at the end of the afternoon to Hallein for some grocery shopping and a bite, only to be surprised by.... you guessed it, rain. Well, not just another shower, but plain raining f.....g cats and dogs!! A wall of water so thick cars were stopping on the side of the road (still cannot figure out why, though!) while ours could probably have used a snorkel! And the state of the campground as we came back: laughable! Since I had not taken my rain boots, I just walked bare feet in a couple of centimeters of water around our tent. But let’s say that we were getting a bit too experienced to let that Deluge 2.0 affect us too much, and I was not that surprised to find the inside of our tent dry!

Over the next couple of days, the water eventually seeped in, and we managed to spend a very lovely last leg of our vacations in the Salzburg region. Actually, we only visited Salzburg and enjoyed it very much. Lots of walking around and the one and only museum of our vacations. Quite a feat for museum buffs like us, but if we ever intend to convert our kids, we must carefully select which one to visit. And boy was our choice good! Haus der Natur is thought for kids, and ours enjoyed it so much that we only managed to drag them out because the museum was closing! Although it seemed a bit fussy at times - going from dinosaurs to an exhibit on Tibet and then an aquarium - it was very interactive. Children can touch, can drag drawers, play with water. In a word, experiment!

Overall it was a good vacation, and we are happy that we stayed the course. Because like everyone knows after the rain comes the sun!

Bife de Lomo & Malbec

steph — Sat, 15 Dec 2007 04:40:00 GMT

Again the planning phase was pretty much useless. Well, that is not entirely true, since it's always a lot of fun for me. Nevertheless, after a short week in Chile, Antoinette and I are already headed to another country, when we were supposed to travel south along the Pacific. But leaving Chile is very easy, almost accidental at times, for the country is so narrow! A few hours by bus up the Andes east of Santiago, and we are already driving down to Argentina's wine country. The contrast from the rugged mountains of the Andes is striking, as the land becomes almost abruptly flat as we approach Mendoza. Hectares and hectares of vineyards surround a charming city, whose streets seem to be all bordered by tall trees and water canals. The first ones for their shadow, the latter simply to permit life in a rather dry area. Without the rivers coming down from the nearby mountains, the area would probably be nothing but a desert.

My first reflex as we arrive in Argentina is to verify a legend. The one that says that argentine meat is the best in the world. Sitting at a nice streetside terrasse, Antoinette and I order ourselves a Bife de Lomo, accompanied by a glass of house wine, a Malbec. Both are simply terrific, and I immediately get addicted to the meat. As for the wine, we will learn after visiting a bodega that Malbec is one of the best grapes around. Our trip through Argentina could hardly have begun better! The legend is true!

To see more photos, click here.

On the road again

steph — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 10:38:00 GMT

There's no such thing as leaving again for a long trip. My European break is over, and Antoinette and I have finally boarded a plane together. Two actually, since most flights to south-America are leaving from Madrid. After a long but quite comfortable night on board, I opened my eyes as the sun was reddening the sky to catch my first glimpse of the continent: the white summits of the Andes on the horizon. Quite a magical moment.

The least I can say is that any European can feel right at home in Santiago. It took us all but 5 minutes to find our marks in this city. Efficient metro, lots of traffic, and busy commercial streets, we could be anywhere in the Iberic peninsula. But maybe that's the kind of slow start we needed after such a pause. A good museum (Arte Pre-Colombino) later, we were aboard our first bus toward a city that would finally take us to South America: Valparaiso. Dropped in the middle of another strike blocking the main avenue, we do not take the time to enjoy the surrounding, which is magical. Like amphitheater's spectators, Valparaiso's colored houses climb the surrounding hills. The grid pattern of the streets is respected as much as possible until some streets transform into stairs. Another way to climb the city's hills are the old wooden ascencores. From the late 18th-early 19th century, those relics are worth the detour by themselves, and a trip in one of them is definitely a must. There's nothing like a good coffee on a terrasse, watching the sunset over the harbor.

To see more photos, click here.

Gallery: Expo de Coss

steph — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 19:06:00 GMT

Expo de Coss

steph — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:04:00 GMT

Not going to Switzerland while I was in Europe would have probably meant that my family would have put a contract on my head. A risk I wasn’t willing to take, especially since I love being there. Furthermore, the Expo de Coss happened to start just a few days after my arrival. It wasn’t a coincidence since this is one of my favorite times back home. Started 43 years ago by a bunch of shop owners from Cossonay, it evolved into a regional fair housing a little over a hundred businesses under two giant plastic tents. When I was a kid, I used to run around the place, selling tombola tickets. Later, I became a simple visitor addicted to the fantastic crepes sold at the entrance. Finally, I ended up being part of it when Seor Service decided to promote their business over there. For several years, I have spent countless hours building the showcase, and the entire team would share time every evening, doing a good bit of selling and a whole lot of public relations.

As I arrived in Cossonay, my brother-in-law Patrick had just started building the frame of this year’s Seor showcase, and I very naturally gave a hand. Holding tools, moving appliances, building things, in other words working, it all was a bit weird but somehow felt right. Like those 18 months of vagabonding were already just a memory. I had a lot of fun being among such energy and dynamism, where hundreds of people were painstakingly building something that would last all of the nine days of this 43^rd edition. Seeing this made me proud of belonging to this kind of place, this kind of people. A place where local businesses are far from moribund, where people still buy from the corner store and not always on the internet. A place where you personally know the local gym owner, and you went to school with the baker. A place where a little friendly chat replaces the grunt you sometimes get from the supermarket cashier. I can already hear some city slickers talking about those country boys. Still, I was born and raised like this, and nothing replaces human contact in my eyes. And believe it or not, this mentality goes a long way when traveling.

They say time flies when you’re having fun, and it did. Before I knew it, the time had come for me to leave again. I barely had time to see some close friends, but as I expected, met at the Expo with so many others that I hadn’t seen for a long time. This is also part of the magic of it, and a good reason for me not to miss it two years in a row.

Gallery: Axalp

steph — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 01:40:00 GMT

Shots fired in the Bernese Oberland

steph — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 01:39:00 GMT

Every year, the Swiss Air Force is in action above the lake of Brienz in the Bernese Alps. The show is opened to the public for 2 days, during which the small village of Axalp is invaded by aerofanatics armed to their teeth with the latest and biggest camera ever seen! With my not-so-small DCR, I really looked like an amateur compared with the real fans and their lenses worth the price of a new car. Still, there were people using their mobile phone to catch a buzzing jet flying directly overhead.

It took us a couple of hours to make it to a ridge above the lake of Brienz, which was mostly covered by a “sea of fog”. The scenery was splendid, and justified in itself the trip up there. But the thousands of people hiking up the mountain were here to get their eardrums blasted. Roaring F-5 Tiger shooting just over your head, hitting every time rather small targets, before pulling up and almost surf the face of the mountain up. Hornets were also in the show, coming from below in the valley, the more rapid rattle of their canon shattering the orange targets. And it was only a rehearsal for the real thing in the afternoon.

The long lunch break saw a true ballet of Super Puma helicopters bringing up the VIPs. All the Swiss Air Force brass was here, but also representative of foreign military, like the commander-in-chief of the French Air Force. Then, with a typically Swiss - and military – punctuality, the show began with 4 pairs of Tigers coming and shooting from all direction. The effect was spectacular, and I was quite happy not to be the target. Then a Cougar helicopter fired all his flares, sending a huge cloud of smoke down the valley. The F-18 Hornets came next, showing their skills in air to air shooting, with rock blasting of their own of course. The display ended on a demonstration of the Patrouille Suisse, and the sight of the red Tigers against the mountains was simply wonderful. No wonder then that the parking in town was dotted with cars coming from all the surrounding countries. This is a unique and famous event in the small world of aerofanatics.

Back on the old continent

steph — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 21:43:00 GMT

As this trip has strayed far from the original plan, of which Australia wasn’t part, and has become much more consequent with a non-planned South American leg, budget considerations have to be taken into account. The stint Down Under has made a major hole in the funds, and I had to make the decision to leave as soon as possible. Which isn’t too sad, since I never pretended visiting the entire country in a single trip, and hoped to have made the most of the opportunity.

In order to save a bit, I decided to cut my time Down Under short, skip New Zealand altogether, and jump directly to South America. This plan was short-lived though, since one-way ticket from Sydney to Santiago started at no less than 2000 US$. Talk about sinking your budget! Another idea was to buy a half-RTW ticket, but the problem was that I had to pay for a leg back to Europe from South-America and I’m not sure if I’d use it, or from where. Finally, I thought I might as well ask for tickets the other way around, and it happened to be the best solution. Incredibly, flying to South-America via Europe was cheaper! At the same time, I’d also have a chance to drop by and say hello to my family. In the end, the decision wasn’t too difficult to take, and I booked my tickets back home. First stop: Utrecht.

The Australian experience has been a rich one, yielding all kinds of different emotions, from loneliness behind the wheel to side-of-the-road-socializing, from sadness at the sight of dead kangaroos to pure bliss when I swam with a shark, from boredom in the endless outback to simple enjoyment when roaming the streets of The Friendly City, from distress at the sight of some aboriginal communities to admiration of the quality of the service in the tourist industry, the information centers being by far the best I have seen so far in the world. Australia is a country that deserves several trips for many different reasons, the first one being that, unless you are a close relative to Bill Gates, it tends to put a big strain on any world traveler’s budget.

Gallery: Perth - Fremantle

steph — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:05:00 GMT

A mixed bunch

steph — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 14:59:00 GMT

If the Ambassador adventure is now over, my trip altogether had not reached its end yet. After six weeks behind the wheel and more than 7‘200 km, I have reached my first Australian metropolitan area. With little more than a million and a half inhabitants, Perth MetroArea is home to 3 out of 4 western Australians. The remaining 500’000 populate the biggest state in Australia. With over 2.5 million km², it is more than seven time the size of Germany! It helps understand a bit more the feeling of emptiness I had throughout WA.

Perth and its surrounding neighborhoods are built along the beautiful Swan River. At its mouth lies probably the most famous of them, Fremantle. It has been the port of entry for many immigrants, starting with the convicts used as cheap labor for the struggling Swan River colony back in the 1850’s. Waves of immigration - mostly from Europe, thanks to the infamous White Australia Policies - have given a very multicultural taste to the area. The most heavily represented, or perhaps the most visible, are the Italians, with heaps of businesses bearing Italian names. In a funny way, it felt almost like home, since Switzerland also had a big wave of Italian immigrants, and I grew up with many of them. Following WWII, Australia implemented the “populate or perish policy”. Boatloads after boatloads of Europeans arrived in the fifties, giving several other layers to the population. And in the seventies, the White Australia policy was finally abandoned, opening the gate to Asian war refugees, and giving the final touch to a very colorful society.

Out of the dozen days I have spent in and around Perth, the days of sunshine can be counted easily on the fingers of a single hand unfortunately. But fortunately, the area boasts many magnificent museums, like the Maritime Museum in Fremantle, or the Western Australian Museum in Perth. Countless hours exploring them helped me understand more about this part of the world, about what I had seen along the road. And also sheltered me from the rain. From the early explorers and their ship(wreck)s, to the aboriginal culture, or the European colonization, all those visits made the whole Australian experience more complete to me.

To see more pictures, click here

Back on foot

steph — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 12:38:00 GMT

Watching Roger Federer win – again – the US Open happened to be the last thing I did as an Ambassador. The match was showing at 6:30 AM, and a straight set victory allowed me just enough time to check-out before 10 o’clock. But the experience wasn’t completely finished. I was in for one last surprise. As I stopped to refill the tank, I had a friendly little chat with a very nice lady, as it happens sometimes. When I showed up at the counter to pay, the attendant gave me first a weird look, then a weird price. I thought she had misunderstood the pump number, but she was only under instructions from the nice lady, who had just paid $30 from my bill. The attendant had to wait until she had driven away, so I didn’t have a chance to say thank you. I guess writing this is my way of showing my gratitude.

This was a beautiful final point to a 6 weeks adventure Down Under. A month and a half to get a taste of Australia, for pretending to see it all in one trip is not only illusive, but stupid. I just tried to make the most of the opportunity, with its share of frustration at missing out on something, its share of unforgettable memories, and surprisingly, its share of solitude. After nearly a year and a half on the road, having backpacked and cycled my way around, driving the Ambassador was the first time I experienced loneliness. Such long stretches of emptiness shouldn’t be undertaken alone. So two things are for sure, I’ll come back to Australia, and I won’t be alone.

Gallery: Wild Flowers

steph — Sun, 9 Sep 2007 18:48:00 GMT

Wild flowers

steph — Sat, 8 Sep 2007 18:52:00 GMT

The southern part of Western Australia has the reputation of becoming ablaze with wildflowers in springtime. Spring being not that far away, I have witnessed the prelude of Nature’s great symphony. The fields went from ochre to green, and progressively yellow the farther south I drove. The countryside was covered in yellow lilies in some places. This being said, I felt I had to make a small detour and backtrack a bit north to see Badgingarra National Park. Wandering along the paths inside the park allowed me to see up close a myriad of wildflowers, most of them less than a centimeter wide. Water being scarce for most of the year, plants try to lose as little as possible to evaporation, thus reducing the size of their flowers and leaves. In order to attract bees and other insects, they compensate for their lack of size by showing off the brightest of colors. Such details can only be appreciated up close, and for once I agree that a picture is worth a thousand words. That’s why the gallery going with this article is much bigger than the others. It all left me speechless, and I’m not sure I’d be able to convey the emotions even in French.

Gallery: Pinnacles

steph — Sat, 8 Sep 2007 14:14:00 GMT

Fields of Pillars

steph — Fri, 7 Sep 2007 14:17:00 GMT

Here’s a classic that I haven’t read yet: Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. From what I know about the story, Don Quixote has something against windmills. So, as I was approaching the town called Cervantes, I couldn’t help but wonder why this name had been chosen. Was I about to find some windmills? Or a statue of the famous Don? After stopping before town at the information bay to have a look at the city plan, I even started to think the town was created by Spanish immigrants, since all the street names are Spanish.

The truth is a bit different, and I’m sure you can guess what prompted that choice. You’re right, a ship who got wrecked off the coast in 1844. And it wasn’t even Spanish, but American. The town in itself offers nothing special but a base to visit neighbouring Nambung National Park, famous for its Pinnacles, sort of limestone pillars surging by the hundreds out of the yellow sand of the desert. The limestone was formed from seashells slowly broken down to sand. When the ancient sea receded, rain water leached the lime from this sand, cementing the grains together. Vegetation grew, creating a layer of acidic soil and humus called calcrete. It eventually formed a sort of protective layer. Through its cracks, roots from the vegetation infiltrated themselves, creating channels. Water followed and continued the leaching process of the limestone, progressively filling those channels with quartz sand. When the vegetation died, the wind cleaned the sand, leaving the most resilient column standing – the Pinnacles. Some actually look like pillars, but others have really tortured forms, where you could almost see where the roots and the water ran.

I’m really closing in on Perth now, catching up with a winter that has not found the exit yet. It’s its own right after all, since I suppose spring in the southern hemisphere starts at the same time fall does up north, which is normally around September 20^th. I have taken just north of Cervantes what was certainly my last dip in the sea for a while. I can put the bathing suit back at the bottom of the backpack, and take out the warm jacket. In the middle of the day, the temperature is still decent, but the omnipresent wind chills everything. If it was only a matter of temperature, it still would be fine, but I also caught up with the clouds and the rain. The clouds can make a beautiful background to the yellow Pinnacles, but the uniform grey of a shower like I had flattens everything. I was still lucky enough to have holes in the cloud cover for the first half of the visit, but I recorded the best images in my memory, and those one I cannot share with you. There was no point in lingering around here any longer. Rainy days are best spent in museums, and there are heaps of them around Perth.

To see more pictures, click here

Gallery: Shipwreck Coast

steph — Thu, 6 Sep 2007 19:06:00 GMT

Gallery: Kalbarri

steph — Wed, 5 Sep 2007 16:45:00 GMT

Shipwreck coast

steph — Tue, 4 Sep 2007 16:43:00 GMT

On the morning of November 16^th 1629, two men rowed ashore just south of modern day Kalbarri onboard the dingy of the Sardam, a jacht belonging to the VOC (Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie), the Dutch East-Indies Company. They were marooned there, left to fend for themselves, and became certainly the first European settlers in Australia. Jan Pelgrom and Wouter Loos were never heard about again, but can be considered to be among the lucky ones to escape alive the repression of History’s bloodiest mutiny.

It had all happened just off the coast, on a very low coral archipelago discovered a few years before by another Dutch, named Frederik de Houtman. So low are the islands that they appear at the last moment, making it very dangerous for they are surrounded by sharp submerged reefs. Thus, he named the archipelago Abrolhos, which is a corruption of the Portuguese abri vossos olhos, and means open your eyes. On 4^th june 1629, before dawn, the brand new VOC flagship Batavia had run into the reef of a then unmapped island now know as Batavia’s Graveyard. What followed had been the subject of several books, and I’m not about to start my own here. But let’s say that of the 341 people onboard when the Batavia sailed from Amsterdam, 268 were left behind by the skipper and the Opperkoopman Francisco Pelsaert while they sailed to Java for help. Before the Opperkoopman aboad the Sardam could reach the survivors three months later, 125 of them had been gruesomely murdered by a group of mutineers led by the heretic Onderkoopman Jeronimus Cornelisz. After visiting the beautiful museum of Geraldton, and seeing many pieces salvaged from the wreck, I had to buy a book to know more about this incredible story. I chose Mike Dash Batavia’s Graveyard, and it is all so unbelievable that I couldn’t drop it and finished it in just 2 days. You just wish sometimes that it was fiction…

But the Batavia is by far not the only ship to ever hit the treacherous Houtman Abrolhos reefs. The place is littered with shipwrecks. Fortunately, not all of them were as bloody as the Batavia’s. The Zeewijk, for example, showed what determined men could do. Stranded on their rock, having lost all hope of rescue, the survivors built themselves a boat from the pieces of the wreck and sailed it to Java. Or the story of the Zuytdorp and its shipload of silver coins, who disappeared completely for almost 250 years. It crashed on cliffs now bearing its name between Shark Bay and Kalbarri, where all the coins laid at the bottom, creating what was nicknamed the Carpet of silver. Traces of survivors were found, and they probably also became early white settlers. And maybe the funniest of all, if it can be funny at all, the wreck in the early 20^th century of the Norwegian whaler Gudrun, whose disgruntled carpenter drilled holes in the hull.

This stretch of the coast is now called Batavia’s coast, and every other business has its name in it. There are Dutch names everywhere, starting with a group of island of the Abrolhos called Pelsaert Group. There are Zuytdorp Cafes, Zeewijk streets, but, not so surprisingly, I cannot remember anything called after Jeronimus Cornelisz…

To see more pictures, click here

Is it another country?

steph — Sun, 2 Sep 2007 16:39:00 GMT

I left Shark Bay late one afternoon, and driving at night is not such a good idea. I’ve seen enough dead Kangaroos on the side of the road to add my own. In such cases, one can easily sleep in some special rest area that can be found at regular intervals. And as usual, this one was quite booked too. Nevertheless, I managed to find a place where I could set up camp. The night was cold, my thermometer showing a mere 6 degrees in the Ambassador when I woke up. For the first time, I had to wear my socks and shoes for comfort reasons.

Last night, looking for a place to stop, I didn’t really pay attention to the scenery. So this morning, as I get on the road towards Kalbarri, I have the feeling that I’m in another country. To begin with, I can no longer see far in the distance: it’s no longer flat. The vegetation is higher than the van, and it looks like the forests I know. The smell of pine trees also reminds me of home, even if those grow beautiful reddish kinds of flowers instead of cones. Everything is a lot greener, and after the turn-off to Kalbarri, the fields are even cultivated. No more endless bush, but fences around fields of cereals and other crops, and huge farms with towering water-pumping windmills in the distance. Most of the fields look tender green, having probably been recently sowed. If it wasn’t for the apparent red earth along the road, I could be somewhere in my country. After such a long time, it is a pleasant feeling, I must say.

The Murchison River runs through Kalbarri National Park. It has dug over the centuries a beautiful valley through the sandstone bedrock and gives it sometimes a bit of a miniature Grand Canyon look. Nature seemed to have had a lot of fun carving the rock. There is one place called The Loop where the river makes a 10 km detour, a loop, to come back to the same place. There’s a lovely scenic walk to be done, starting and ending at the same place: a ridge a couple of meters wide from which you could almost jump in the river on either side if there was water, which is not the case at this time of the year. Near that ridge, the wind played its own tricks, creating a natural arch that is now called Nature’s Window. The place is so famous that patience is a must if you want to take a picture. And then again, you’d better be quick!

After spending a couple of days in the small and quiet town of Kalbarri, I headed south again. Just out of town, the road follows the coast, along some mighty cliffs. The surf crashes noisily against them, leaving the sea white with foam. Two to three meters high breakers are normal, and if there were surfers near the town beach, nobody dares come down there. Well, not exactly. Some do and seem to have a lot of fun. As I was admiring the scenery from one of the viewpoints, I saw a pack of dolphins surfing a wave. You could see them through the water in the wave, and then jumping ahead, racing. Just like surfers do, they would jump out of the wave when it starts to crumble, soaring meters up in the air, only to swim back out and catch the next big one. They seemed to enjoy it at least as much as humans do. I was so amazed, for I had only seen this on some wildlife documentary on TV. I remember at that time wondering how lucky had a cameraman to be, to be there at the right time at the right place. But there’s no luck involved. It’s all natural, and I witnessed it several time. Just another sight that I will not forget so soon.

To see more pictures, click here.

Gallery: Shark Bay

steph — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 16:45:00 GMT