David & Jenny around Australia - and now Asia too!

Welcome back/goodbye again party

2010-05-01T21:20:00.002+10:00

To all the people that have followed our travels:

Thanks for showing interest in our travels. We have now settled in Perth, but need to go back to Melbourne for a couple of weeks to sort a few things out.

So... if you are available on the 29th of May from 3pm onwards, we'd love to see you at our house for a BBQ. We will be renovating, so it will be a bit messy, but please come and see us as we'd love to share our stories and to see everyone again!

If you don't know the address, just e-mail us.

Hope to see you at some stage on Saturday teh 29th of May!

Here to stay!

2010-03-30T22:43:00.004+11:00

After five weeks of intensive job searching, enduring interviews and working a few 'in-between' jobs, we have both found proper employment, which means we are going to stay in Perth for at least the next year or so!

David got his first job after three weeks of searching and was casually employed at a factory, mainly working with generators. He gladly left that job a week later when he was offered a full-time role at a very organised and professional electrical company and he is now in his third week.

Jenny got her first job after two weeks of searching. It was a part-time role at a car rental company, which she couldn't stand! At least she got to drive new vehicles around Perth all the time and that way got to know Perth's surrounding suburbs quite well. She left this job two weeks later for a phone-based customer service role at a bank. While this wasn't something she really wanted to do, it did seem to be a great way of getting your foot in the door with such a big organisation. When she almost gave up on finding a marketing position, she got offered a job as a marketing manager at an IT company! So she left the bank and joined the IT company this week.

To celebrate the fact that we don't have to go through anymore interviews, we went to Margaret River last weekend! It's about 300 km south of Perth and a major centre for wineries. Of the 84 wineries in the region, we only managed to visit about six, which was probably more than enough! We tasted and tasted and nibbled and ate - it was such a relaxing weekend! The area is lovely and green and hilly and very close to the ocean where we saw lots of dolphins swimming in the water. We also had a chance to feed the pelicans with fish heads and fish guts, that was a lot of fun!

So our 'around Australia' trip has come to an end. We've absolutely LOVED traveling - we had the time of our lives! Australia is so beautiful and we had such a good time in Darwin thanks to our housemates and it was great being able to travel so carefree through southeast Asia. We've got so many photos and memories and met so many amazing/strange/beautiful/funny/cool people! We still intend to see heaps of this part of Australia, which is also very unique. Being full-time employed doesn't help but we intend to plan lots of weekend trips to all the great places around the south west coast. Plus we still need to get to the Kimberley region in the Dry.

We are planning to come to Melbourne for about a week by the end of May or the start of June - depending on when our tenants move out. We'll post it here, so keep an eye out, because we're planning to have a 'welcome home/goodbye' party and we'd like to invite everyone that has been following our blog to come around.

Thanks to everyone who's had an interest in our travels. It was very nice to read all the comments that were posted! Thanks very much and keep in touch!

Here to stay?

2010-03-16T09:58:00.003+11:00

The past couple of weeks have flown past! We have both found work; not quite what we're after just yet, but it is a start and we have a very active social life at the moment! We met some great people in Perth to hang out with. Everyone here is so laid-back and friendly. People even greet you on the streets (in the right suburbs only, apparently) when you go for a walk in the morning. Perth seems to be like a very big country town, but with decent shopping and eating possibilities (unlike Darwin...). The beaches are beautiful and because we live so close to the beach (5 mins by car), we find ourselves splashing in the water at least three times a week.

(riding on the beach in Lancelin is hard work)

David has bought himself a kite and is having a bit of trouble getting into the water with it. It seems to be impossible for him at the moment to put his board on his feet and let the kite drag him over the water. He even lost his board on one occasion. Fortunately, another kite surfer retrieved it for him. But we keep on practising! And we have made a kite surfing friend who promised to help out one of these days, which will help. Jenny was supposed to have lessons last week, but the kite surfing school never called her. So she just has to make new arrangements with another school.

(David can control his 12m2 kite, but has trouble putting the board on his feet)

The temperature has been amazing for the last month. It is always around a breezy thirty degrees and it hasn't rained since we got here. Apparently it rains a lot in winter. We'll see.

(The back of our car is very comfy these days without all our camping gear in it)

Because we like Perth so much we are thinking of staying for at least a year, provided that within the next three months we will find jobs that we actually like. If this is not the case, we may as well travel a bit more, see the Kimberley area and enjoy our house in Melbourne for a bit more. It all depends on our work situation, but for now we're here to stay. So if anyone feels like a trip to Perth; contact us! We might be able to accommodate you!

Perth

2010-03-01T12:16:00.004+11:00

As stated in the last post, we were hoping to swim with dolphins in Monkey Mia (Mia being ‘home’ in Aboriginal language). We didn’t get to swim with them, but we were surrounded by about ten of them, only a few centimeters away from us in the water. It was an amazing experience! The water was so clear and we could see so many of them hanging around, jumping in the distance and swimming closer to give us a nice glance at their babies. It was beautiful. There weren’t as many tourists, because it was the off-season, which made the experience even better. Five dolphins were fed four fish each and five girls choose a different volunteer each time to feed a fish to a dolphin. The girls liked David so much they choose him twice, which a couple of German tourists disliked very much! He only went to feed a dolphin once though, to give others a chance as well. The bay we saw the dolphins in is called Shark Bay. You can imagine how the bay got its name. We didn’t stick around long enough to spot the sharks, but apparently Shark Bay is the place to see hammerheads and great whites. The waters are unbelievably clear but also quite cool. Seeing the dolphins was definitely worth the 300km detour.

From Monkey Mia we drove south to Geraldton, the town we originally thought to settle down in for a few months. Unfortunately we weren’t too charmed by the place and since it is only 400 km south from Perth, we decided to push on. We stopped not too far from Geraldton right on the beach. We got there through a narrow four wheel drive track and had the whole place to ourselves. At such moments we really appreciate having a four wheel drive! We had some wine, cheese and biscuits (hooray being back in Australia) and watched the sun go down. The next morning, via a suddenly very busy highway (unlike anything we we’d seen in the past week) and the lovely vineyards of the Swan Valley we arrived in Perth. We settled in a caravan park close by the beach and got invited around to a friend’s place that night.

On the four day boat trip from Lombok to Flores in Indonesia, we met a lot of nice people, including one guy from Namibia. We kept in touch over the next few months and that night, two weeks ago, we met him at his friend’s house in Perth. It was great to catch up and suddenly we found ourselves at a party with him, his friend and his two cousins (all from Namibia). We met a lot of nice people and had great night with lots of drinks, which made us like Perth instantly. This, together with the beautiful temperature (30 degrees, but dry heat, a lot different from the Top End), made us think about staying in Perth for a bit longer than the initial three months. The next morning we met up with the Namibians again to go to this beautiful, very windy beach in Lancelin, a kite surfer’s paradise.

(Getting stuck in de dunes)

(Some people travel around in interesting vehicles. Jenny is adding her personal touch to the van here)

The next week consisted of getting to know the city, job searching and finding a place to stay. Through someone we met at the party we got to know someone who was looking for housemates. A week later, we moved into this place on a hill, about eight km from the city centre, with beautiful views of the city at night. It’s also only a five minute drive from the beach and right next to a huge shopping centre, very convenient.

(view from our balcony)

Jenny found work for now and she is starting tomorrow, while David is still looking for a job. We would like to stay in Perth for a year or longer, but it all depends on our work situation and our tenants in Melbourne. At this stage we’re still a bit uncertain but we definitely like Perth. The city is not too busy, has beautiful beaches with the clearest waters and great pizza!

The shopping centers are actually closed on Sunday and the supermarket doesn’t open until eight o’clock on weekends. It is very windy in Perth, ideal conditions for kite surfing, which is hugely popular here. David has bought himself kite surfing equipment and Jenny will get a lesson next week.

We’ll keep you updated on how things are going with work, kite surfing and general beach bumming. Hopefully we can bring some positive news on our work situation soon!

Back in Australia

2010-02-15T09:25:00.002+11:00

At the moment of writing we have been back in Australia for a week. Unlike south east Asia, Australia does not have wireless internet on offer everywhere. At this point in time we’re camping at a deserted beach under a clear sky of bright, sparkling stars, after watching another beautiful deep red sunset in Western Australia. Within the last week, we’ve driven over 4000 km. We’re headed for Perth, another 1000 km away. We’ve crossed climate zones, the tropic of Capricorn (once again) and even a time zone. We’ve come across wet, green areas with tropical growth and big trees and are back in dry, arid, dusty land where the kangaroos, dingoes and emus live. We’re very happy to continue our trip and we love being back in Australia!

The last few days in south east Asia were a bit of a waste. As soon as we sold our scooter we would have liked to leave, but we just had to wait five more days. Back in Bangkok we made the mistake to stay in Bangkok’s most horrible tourist corner; the Kao San Road. It’s very lively there with loads of tourists, which isn’t so bad, but it’s all a bit too much and you can really notice the Thai people getting fed up with the foreigners. The Kao San Road does not represent the rest of Bangkok, let alone Thailand, at all. The Thais are grumpy, the streets dirty, the food bland. But as soon as we took a stroll away from the area, the real Bangkok with its nice people and beautiful food reappeared. Our day of departure arrived and we flew back to Darwin via Singapore.

We arrived at some funny hour in the morning in Darwin and we had to get to our car that we stored at a friend’s house in Batchelor. Thanks to sticking out our thumbs we got from the airport to Batchelor within four hours by three different cars. The car had been sitting in the same spot in the tropics (in the Wet), so you can imagine how much the grass had grown underneath; it was starting to grow through the car! We also found an abundance of spider webs inside (and some spiders to go with them), but other than that the car was fine. We got it up and running in no time and off we went on another adventure!

It seemed a bit surreal to be back in the Top End. We’d just come back from an amazing trip in south east Asia and our car was waiting for us to return, ready to go, including a tank full of fuel! What a luxury to be back in our car with all our stuff. Jenny couldn’t get over the amount of clothes she’s got (now she’s over it, and remembers the wardrobe she left behind in Melbourne as well). We went from a little scooter and a bag back to our own bedsheets, a fridge, a bag full of books, etc. We had to get used to being in the car again. We couldn’t get over how comfortable it was to be driving around, compared to the scooter. And we had to get used to the distances. We thought we couldn’t possibly drive more than 400 km a day! We quickly got over that one, 400 km a day brings you close to nowhere in Western Australia.

Driving from Batchelor to Katherine we noticed how green everything was. The landscape transforms enormously in the Wet and is so different from the Dry. The rivers were overflowing, it was really nice to see. In Katherine we stayed at this caravan park where we had stayed before in July. Back then the park could also be accessed via a low bridge over the river. This bridge was completely under water now and the river was flowing very rapidly. We were the only ones staying at that park this time. Last time, we had to ask if there was space for our tent as outside the park they had a ‘park full’ sign up. We were wondering why no one goes there in the Wet, it’s gorgeous and lush and above all; quiet!

We found out soon enough why there are no tourists in the Top End at the moment; all national parks there are closed! And besides that, the place is full of sticky flies that never leave you alone, it’s very hot with temperatures rising easily to 38 degrees and it is so humid! We were keen to go to Western Australia, the only state left on our journey, so we quickly made our way to Kununurra. There was nothing to do there, and certainly not a place for us to find some work, so we continued on south. The Gibb River Road is currently closed as well, so we couldn’t see any of the Kimberley region either. However, the scenery from Kununurra to Derby (via Halls Creek) was amazing. There were so many rocks and hills and mountain ridges. It was like the MacDonnell ranges and the Devil’s Marbles in the NT all together, but then bigger and all around us. The landscape kept the long drive very interesting and we can’t wait to get back into that area once the roads open again.

Our next stop was Broome, probably the most overrated destination in Australia. What a disappointing little town. Cable beach is nice, but the town is dull and there’s nothing interesting to see or do, other than visiting the Kimberley region. We were planning on finding work in Broome, but the town not feeling very inviting and the fact that it is low season made us change our minds. We decided to head a lot further south where there is no wet season and where it is currently summer and bustling with activity. We’ve changed our minds quite a few times, but decided Perth is probably the best place for us.

We drove a long way from Broome, straight into the Pilbara’s gorgeous Karijini National Park. It took a while, 13,5 hours, but we made it there around 10 pm! The clouds had started to disappear, along with the green scenery. The drive from Broome to Port Hedland was extremely boring, but driving into the Pilbara region was wonderful. And we got to see a magnificent show of lightning. We spent the next day in the park exploring gorges and canyons. This place was so spectacular with all it rock walls and pools, it is hard to explain. The only unfortunate thing in the park was the sticky flies. It must be a Western Australian thing, nowhere have we ever seen so many stupid, annoying flies. Just a ten second walk from the tent to the toilet collected over 50 flies all around our heads and backs. They fly in your ears, your nostrils and your eye balls. As soon as we noticed them in the morning we packed up the tent and left. The good thing about our way of traveling is, is that you always have your house with you. We would find another spot to spend the night. We found one on the side of a dirt road on our way to Exmouth, our next stop. Not yet away from the flies, but at least the mozzies left us alone.

You can see on the map that Western Australia is a big place, but it’s not until you’re actually driving from A to B that you realize how huge the distances are. And there’s absolutely nothing in between. There are these huge insects on the road that we haven’t seen elsewhere, we’re not sure what they are, but we have dead ones all over our car now. We find bodies, decapitated heads and legs everywhere around the front of the car! The termite mounts are also very different here. Unlike the ones in the NT, the ones in WA are not five meters tall and fairly skinny, they’re fat like a huge dinosaur’s poo. You can almost tell from the shape of the termite mount which state you are in.
We made it to the Cape Range National Park near Exmouth in excellent time, so we actually had some time to relax in the afternoon.

The Ningaloo Reef Marine Park is part of this national park and the waters are just stunning, beautifully turquoise, very inviting! It was very windy so the flies kept at bay. The next morning we went swimming at Coral Bay.These waters are some of the most beautiful we’ve ever seen. However the water was a little chilly, so we didn’t actually go out onto the reef, which is said to be far more diverse and beautiful than the Great Barrier Reef (which we find easy to believe, we weren’t blown away by it a few years back). After a lot more boring scenery and some more kilometers, we found ourselves a nice spot at the beach where we’ll stay overnight. From here, it’s 100 km to Monkey Mia, a place where wild dolphins are hand fed daily to keep the tourists entertained. We certainly want to be part of that encounter! So hopefully we’ll swim with dolphins tomorrow and then we should get serious and start looking for work in Perth, before continuing exploring the rest of Western Australia.

Goodbye Eleanor, goodbye Thailand

2010-01-30T14:31:00.006+11:00

Thailand oh Thailand, we are so happy to be back! Laos was great, but quite cold and we had enough of the roads, the sandwiches (however great they were) and the sights, which weren’t many considering we aren’t trekking lovers. Otherwise we would have had a great time, especially since there’s a national park there with wild tigers running around!

The crossing to Thailand wasn’t all that hard, just costly. Man, those Laotians know how to charge! A ferry ride lasting not even five minutes cost us 500 Baht (17,5 dollars). From Thailand into Laos it didn’t cost us anything! No hassles on the other side and we got a stamp for a sixty day entry, so no more worries about running out of time, visa-wise. First stop was Chiang Rai, described as insignificant and ‘make your way outta there fast’. It was OK for a night. We stayed at a dingy place (but it did have a TV with the tennis on, so that was not too bad) and had a devil curry. The spice still tasted on our lips half an hour after we had finished the meal (because you can’t throw away food – what a waste). We were excited about Chiang Mai, 200 km further south, Thailand’s second largest city, so we got out of Chiang Rai quite quickly. But not before having one of the best breakfasts ever; rice and roasted duck, cooked to perfection, yum!

(David, ready for another swim, needs to watch his head a lot!)

We got to Chiang Mai via a beautiful back road that led us into stunning mountain scenery. On the way we had lunch where we took a photo of that menu that was posted on the blog earlier. We had a good laugh about that one and choose the safest option, fried rice, which was excellent. In Chiang Mai we found a very decent place to stay for a few days with cable TV, so we watched quite a bit of the Australian Open, wonderful! When not watching a game we saw the sights around Chiang Mai, which consist of a lot of glitzy temples and Wats. Chiang Mai is a beautiful city, very well set up for tourists, but not in an annoying way. Remains of an old city wall and a moat enclose the old part of the city, which is where we stayed, excellent food was served both inside and outside the city wall.

Since we missed spotting wild tigers in Laos, we decided to cuddle little tigers at the Chiang Mai ‘Tiger Kingdom’. For 35 dollars we were allowed in the enclosure with four six month old tigers, one of them called Jenny. They slept the whole time and we weren’t allowed to approach them from the front, but we did have the chance to pet their super soft bellies and back paws. It was quite cute! In Chiang Mai we also got a bit greedy again, just like in Krabi, by seeing so many clothes and silverware at the street markets and many, many shops. We got another few shirts tailor-made for a song and once they were ready we were ready to go as well. Keen to ride our Eleanor a bit more. We got a feel for the price she might fetch in Chiang Mai, and got some good offers. So we left the city in good faith of future offers to come.

Phrae was our next stop. Just a stopover, really, because we wanted to see the ancient ruins of Sukothai, but that was a bit too far from Chiang Mai. Phrae is listed in both the Lonely Planet and Rough Guide, but we haven’t seen any tourists there. However, the local foodstall did have an English menu! One that was also decipherable. Food, shakes and ice coffee were incredibly good in Phrae, and cheap too, so we liked this little city. Accommodation however was relatively expensive and not too clean, so we left after one day, despite the amazing food.

There wasn’t much to do in Sukothai, other than seeing the ancient ruins dating back to the 13th century. It was quite impressive to see such old buildings still standing, hence this ancient city is a world heritage protected UNESCO site. Yes, we got another one ticked (and getting over them too). Having already seen the ancient city at sunset, we could move on the next day to go further south. We saw some more ruins and old city walls and eventually stopped at Nakhon Sawan, a city both guidebooks hadn’t bothered writing about. Finding our way around was therefore a bit more challenging, since we had no maps. Finding a hotel was also a challenge, considering every sign was in Thai writing – no English. We memorised the word for hotel (both written down and verbally) and we got ourselves a place to stay. A bit of a dive, but at least it had a huge screen on which we could watch more of the Australian Open. We stayed for another three nights when we found a really nice place. We mostly stayed in the room to watch the tennis with a beer or two. Very relaxing. Go Serena!

We found Nakhon Sawan quite nice. It scored high on our city rating list, thanks to the food, of course. We haven’t done much hiking, sight-seeing, city tours, river cruises or anything like that, but we have seen thousands of kilometers of Thai countryside (6000 km to be exact), thanks to our scooter and we have munched our way around the country. When we like a city, it is most likely because it has some excellent markets and loads of food stalls. According to our standard, a good market should have plenty of food to choose from; thanks to all the ‘meals on wheels’ carts that show up at any market (a scooter with a trailer attached, that consists of at least a gas bottle, stove and plenty of woks to cook in). A good market should have some deep friend stuff (chicken, flour balls, crab, squid on a stick, etc.), freshly cooked food (Chinese, Thai, seafood, chicken, pork, beef, veggies, rice, noodles, egg), fruit shakes and ice coffee stands, some fresh vegetable and meat produce (all body parts of the chicken, including head and feet, pork feet, livers, brains, hearts, fresh toads, insects, cockroaches, turtles) and of course the non-edible items; speakers screaming with nineties music, illegal copies of movies that are just showing in cinemas, loads of clothing, shoes, Tupperware, jewelry, make-up and toys. The markets really scores when they have a few elephants walking around as well, which happened in Nakhon Sawan a couple of times. For 70 cents, David got to feed and pet them!

In Nakhon Sawan, at any given time, three markets of which we were aware were running consecutively. The morning market would disappear at midday, making way for a smaller clothing market, that would transfer in the evening to an amazing food market. How is it possible to run so many markets in an average-sized city every single day and still get all the stalls running at a profit, or at least break-even (we figured; if they lose money, they wouldn’t have their stall at the market, so they must make some money)? No wonder there aren’t (m)any supermarkets in Thailand. Tesco seems to charge you a fortune and all the mini-markets and seven-elevens seem to have all the luxury items you’d want anyway (chips, chocolate). But why would you even touch these expensive western luxuries when, if you’re craving for sweets, there are drinks and snacks available so sweet it makes you think your teeth are going to fall straight out of your mouth. Or, if you’re in the savory mood, when there’s deep fried chicken or minced buns available on almost every street corner? And all this for five or 10 Baht per item! The seven-eleven probably exists here because despite of all these delicious items in Thailand, Jenny still can’t keep away from chips, nor can David stay away from Nutella!

But we’re happy to go back to Australia, too. We’ve missed the red wine, the strongbows, the cheeses (brie, camembert, blue vein) olives, anchovies, yoghurt, pasta, savoys, nutella to name a few (you can probably guess which items are on Jenny’s list). We had some very ambitious plans to go to India and even Kenya, but unfortunately we haven’t even made it to Cambodia or Vietnam. We have had a wonderful trip, though, and are ready to go back. We’re flying back to Darwin on the 3rd of February, and will be heading south-west towards Geraldton in Western Australia. We want to go back, but we also need to go back, because Jenny cannot stay out of the country for more than 90 days if she wishes to lodge her citizenship application this year. So we booked flights and all of a sudden our Eleanor was sold, too! We sold her in Nakhon Sawan to a very helpful private dealer and his sister (who could speak English and was our translator). They helped us prepare all the paperwork and even gave us a lift to the train station. So now we’re real backpackers again (we miss Eleanor already). We’re in Ayutthaya, where we have yet to visit another ancient city. Then a few days in Bangkok and then… back to Taj (our four-wheel-drive)!

Thanks for following our travels. Hopefully you will stay tuned for the ‘Around Australia’ trip, part two: Western Australia!

(Pimp my ride)

What would you like to eat?

2010-01-22T00:04:00.003+11:00

In Thailand we don't always eat at places where they speak English. Considering we don't speak or read Thai, it is sometimes tricky to order a meal, and we usually get by just by pointing at some vegies and noodles.But sometimes we're lucky enough to have an English menu presented to us. Check out this menu (click on it to enlarge); this does not simplify our order! What would you like?

In Laos

2010-01-18T20:00:00.007+11:00

We couldn’t get Eleanor into Cambodia, but we managed to get her into Laos, which is where we are now! We rode some crazy kilometers zigzagging through north eastern Thailand to get here though. We zigzagged to two of the Thai borders with Cambodia only to find out we couldn’t get in with the scooter. Then we had to ride a long way to get closer to the border of Laos, after which we found out on the very useful gt-rider.com website that the particular border we wanted to cross at would not allow bikes to cross the friendship bridge. We were allowed to bring it in to Laos, but only by ferry crossing at different border crossings (apparently to stop the locals to go back and forward into Laos and Thailand). This meant another long day riding to this other border. We spent three very long days on the scooter (also thanks to a flat tyre on the way) and were quite desperate for a break or at least an easy day. We got it on day four, the day we crossed the border. We went to the sleepy village of Beung Kan, where the border is only open on weekdays. There was no line, no other white people trying to cross and a bunch of friendly people happy to help us out. It seemed, however, that they hadn’t had a lot of experience with processing the paperwork for the bike. We were looked at a bit suspiciously at first, and they wanted to double-check that the bike was really ours. Then they tried to tell us we were only allowed to ride around Paksan, the village just across the border. Eventually the paperwork got sorted and we were told we were allowed to ride anywhere around Laos. So we had our visa, paperwork for the scooter and got stamped out of Thailand, but there was still the Mekong River to be crossed. We were told the ferry would leave at 12pm. Of course there was no ferry until 3pm! We got on with another seven trucks whose drivers were all really interested in us.

The crossing went fine and we got to Laos in no time. On that side we had to arrange some more paperwork and finally we were allowed to go into Laos! We nearly got into a crash with a tuktuk because no one had told us they drive on the right hand side in Laos.

Laos was colonised by the French and they have left behind some heritage. Right-hand side driving, typical European road signs, French architecture, jeux des boulles and baguettes! Cheese and wine are also widely available, so we munched on a few French sticks with yummy Edam cheese for a bit, before returning to our daily portion of rice, noodles and chillies. The landscape in Laos is very beautiful. Huge limestone cliffs make up the scenery, overgrown with lush green vegetation in between fast flowing rivers. It is very mountainous and a lot cooler than we’re used to. The mountains, together with the bad roads with livestock on them, slow us down a lot. We probably only average about 50 km p/h at the moment. The pillows we bought for the scooter are a blessing! It seems that even the smallest town in Laos has at least one guesthouse, which is very good for us. The first day in Laos it rained a lot, so we didn’t make it to the capital city. Luckily, we could pull over into a reasonably clean guesthouse soon after we decided to stop riding for the day.
Laos seems to be the land of babies. We’ve never seen so many babies, puppies, piglets, chicks, calves, etc. in our life! They all hang around the road as well, so we have to make sure to avoid hitting them. The little kiddies that are just able to walk never seem to have any pants on. Perhaps that is because they wet their pants anyway. The kids here are so genuinely happy to say hello and wave to us, it’s very sweet.

Vientiane, the capital of Laos, is not very special. It has some lovely restaurants and cafes but it’s missing ambiance. Our only reason for hanging around there was to get a free 60 day visa for Thailand from the Thai embassy. As soon as we had this, we headed for the mountains. Vang Vieng is where every backpacker goes to go tubing down the river. Bars are set up along the river where tubers get smashed and go crazy. We thought it was a bit cold for any water activities but there were still loads of people tubing or kayaking down that river. We discovered a road that led to one of the river bars, so we decided not to go tubing but just to observe the crazy crowds from the bar. The next day we even joined them, splashed around in the river a bit and got ourselves a bucket of mojitos. It was a bit of fun, but we wouldn’t go back for it. Apart from tubing, Vang Vieng is magic mushroom paradise. A few restaurants show repeats of Friends episodes 24 hours a day, and serve ‘happy’ food. So people pass out on their chairs watching Friends after a ‘happy’ meal. We’d seen enough after a couple of days. We continued on to Luang Prabang, a six hour ride through the mountains. Very beautiful, but a fresh ride through the clouds and so twisty and windy. It was Flores, Indonesia all over again, but a little less steep. We were very happy to arrive in Luang Prabang, former capital of Laos.

Luang Prabang is a lovely town, very tranquil but vibrant at the same time. The Mekong runs along the city and they’ve utilised the river views really well. It is probably the prettiest town in South East Asia, with lovely French architecture and beautiful clean streets. It is a bit out of the way, though. It takes either a day on the river or a few hours driving through the mountains to get to this place. We were planning to take a boat from Luang Prabang to the border of Laos and Thailand. This trip would take two days, with an overnight stop in a middle of nowhere town. We were planning to put the scooter on board, but that didn’t work out. We’ve made a few plans that in theory seem great, but can’t always be realised (e.g. getting the bike into Cambodia, getting into Laos via the friendship bridge, getting the scooter on a boat). So after a couple of days in Luang Prabang we took off to eventually get to the border by road.

The first 150 km were so pleasant! The sun was out, the road was fantastic and we had a really great lunch, so we were ready to ride. On the way we saw an elephant walking on the road (with its owner, not the first time it happened, but always a nice surprise!) and we stopped to pet him for a bit. Then we continued on and arrived at a beautiful town on a river (Nong Khiaw) just in time for sunset. The next day, however, was very different! We wanted to get to Luang Nam Tha, a 200 km ride. We knew it would take a while, but we hadn’t prepared for the amount of potholes in the road. It took us eight hours including a couple of breaks) to get there. They were constructing the road for about 50 km and the other 110 km was definitely due for an upgrade. We were very close to China and the construction workers looked more Chinese than Lao. Traffic signs were also suddenly displayed in Chinese characters. We could have crossed the border into China, but then we’d need another visa for Laos, so we decided not to. It’s not as if we haven’t been in China before anyway!

We were so relieved when the road finally became smooth again for the last 40 km. What a day! And unlike in the southern part of Laos, these northern hill villages did not seem to have guesthouses anywhere! At one point we would have liked to stop, but we just had to push on. We arrived in Luang Nam Tha, only to leave again after less than 24 hours. We’re in the border town of Houay Xai now, hoping to cross the border tomorrow. We’re looking forward to being back in Thailand for a while. We can just smell the Pad Thai just over the Mekong ;)

Still on the bike and alive and kicking

2010-01-05T00:44:00.003+11:00

We have moved quite a few kilometers since our last post from Ko Phayam. In southern Thailand we only had a few days left on our visa, so we decided to hop across the border into Myanmar for the day. Unfortunately our visa money went straight into Myanmar’s military government’s pocket, but what can you do? It was only a short boat ride across the sea, but the other side was a lot different to Thailand. Roads were old and dusty and buildings seemed a bit older and dodgier. We didn’t get to see much of Myanmar, but it gave us a bit of an impression anyway. We were planning to travel around in the country, but it seems impossible to arrange the paperwork to bring our scooter with us, so we went back into Thailand that same day and got a stamp for an additional 15 days. Plenty of time to get into Cambodia.

There’s only one highway connection southern Thailand with the north, so after a beautiful scenic mountain pass we had to stick to the highway for most of the way to Bangkok. We did find a quieter country road for about 100 km at some stage, which was a very nice change from the busy highway everyone uses. The highway has a couple of lanes and an emergency lane that is used by all slow vehicles, including us. This lane is also used by all slow traffic going in the opposite direction to avoid U-turns. The highway is dotted with petrol stations, which seems logical considering the number of little motorbikes on the road. Our scooter has a capacity of three liters and we can ride about 120/130 km until we need to fill up. Petrol here is not as cheap as in other Asian countries; about $1.20 per liter. Lucky we’re very fuel efficient! We can ride about 350 km per day before our bums get really sore and we both get grumpy. The first 100 km is over with in no time, but the last 80 are so hard; it can sometimes take up to three hours! When we do 350 km we really ride the whole day. But we get to see lots and we take lots of country roads that we wouldn’t have been able to see otherwise. The bike isn’t as fast or as comfortable as the bus, but it is cheaper and certainly gives us a lot more freedom and flexibility. It’s also very handy when looking for accommodation. We look at a few places before we decide where to stay, we don’t have to walk the distances between hotels and than back again anyway. It’s given us some great bargains!

We reached Bangkok after a long ride from Pretchuap Kiri Khan (where they have a disgusting monkey temple on a hill where the monkeys are very cheeky and show their teeth lots) and via a detour to the Damnoen Saduak floating market. We wanted to go to the market, but the place seemed dead and there wasn’t anywhere suitable to sleep, so we decided to push on to Bangkok, only an hour away, or so we thought…

The frantic, horrific, chaotic traffic of Bangkok met us about 60 km away from the city and only got worse, the closer we got to it. Without an accurate map of the outskirts of Bangkok, it was hard to navigate. We were also tired, having ridden all day long. Thanks to the compass we found our way east and within the map’s borders. Bangkok is a very difficult city to navigate in. The map might say that a road will bring you straight to it, however, it suddenly changes into a one-way street and you find yourself suddenly in a maze of unfamiliar streets, considering the streets hardly ever show street signs (or we kept missing them). After we rode around the city about three times, we finally found the bridge we were looking for and were in the middle of the city. We wanted to stay south of Rama IV (a main road in Bangkok) and saw signs for this road everywhere, but none of them actually led to this road. Eventually we found it and all we needed to do was a U-turn. This was possible in the past, but these days Rama IV has permanent barricades to make a legal U-turn impossible. We did an illegal one anyway and ended up with a fine (later on), only to find out that the hostel we wanted to stay at closed four minutes earlier. But not to worry, the suburb of Sathon had many more guesthouses on offer and they weren’t even expensive. Just a few minutes later we settled into a dodgy hotel, ready to explore Bangkok. And then it is really nice to have your own transport. We braved the traffic once again with David as excellent rider and Jenny as brilliant navigator. The first night brought us to Patpong market, where Jenny had been once before. The memories of this market were somewhat different, though. We stayed in Bangkok for a couple more nights, saw the sights, met some people and left on the 31st of December for Khao Yai national park.

Leaving Bangkok was a delight in terms of traffic. There was none! The 31st is a public holiday and no one seemed to be on the road. What a blessing! We quickly found our way out of the city and by chance found a really nice country road that led us to where we wanted to be. After studying the map a bit we decided we wanted to ride through the Khao Yai national park and stay in Pok Chang, not too far beyond the park. Just before we got the entrance of the national park there was a huge traffic jam (so that’s where all those people from Bangkok ended up), all weekend-trippers wanting to enter the park. The entry wasn’t free either, it would have cost us 830 Baht, about 30 dollars, to just ride through it. Lucky for us the traffic jam was so long that the guards decided to let traffic through without paying for a few minutes, to keep traffic flowing. That saved us a bit of money! The park was nice with thick monsoon forest and signs saying ‘watch for crossing cobras’ and ‘watch for elephants crossing’. Of course we didn’t see any of these animals, because they probably choked on the exhaust fumes of all the cars and motorbikes coming past.

New Year’s Eve was uneventful and the next morning we were on the road again. We ended up in Surin, in north eastern Thailand. A lovely, pleasant, sleepy town where we found a great bargain for accommodation and from where we could visit elephant villages and silk towns. It was really relaxed there and we made the best purchase ever; two pillows for our scooter! People seem to find our pillows very funny, but then again, we always get giggled at. It’s quite cute and everyone is usually all smiles. It’s so nice finding yourself amongst smiling, happy, friendly people all day!

We wanted to go into Cambodia, but our scooter wasn’t accepted in. Apparently along the Thai borders we should be able to fill out certain documentation, but not at this particular border. They told us Cambodia wouldn’t accept Thai registered bikes in their country. We decided to try another border, about three hours way. The same thing happened here and David even went into Cambodia to speak to the officials on the other side, but no luck. Oh well, we won’t see the temples of Angkor then. Instead, we ended up in a great little city with, again, brilliant food. We’ll stay here for a couple of days and then try to get into Laos. Let’s hope we get there!

Scooting around Thailand

2009-12-25T16:48:00.003+11:00

We love Thailand! It was great to move on from Malaysia and to trade in the roti for the spicy Thai curries. And they are delicious!

We had a great start coming into Thailand. As soon as we got off the boat, a bus left for Krabi, our first stop in Thailand. We got chucked on a motorbike and brought straight to the departing bus. A few hours later we got to Krabi, a very crowded touristy town. Despite the crowds, Krabi was great. Initially we only wanted to stay two nights, but we stayed for six! We just couldn’t get enough of the food and beaches. Krabi also made us a bit greedy. There are so many market stalls there with so much stuff you don’t need, but it’s all so cheap… We splurged out on tailor-made suits and they turned out really nice. We sent them straight home, so hopefully the ship will make it to Melbourne in three months.

Ko Phi Phi Don and Phi Phi Leh (where ‘the Beach’ was shot) are only a short boat ride away from Krabi, so we decided to go there for the day. The ‘the beach’ beach didn’t quite look like the beach in the movie and was packed with people! The water was beautiful though and the rock formations were quite spectacular so no wonder they shot the movie there. We got the opportunity to snorkel a bit around the islands, but this wasn’t too exciting. It was just gorgeous to see all the huge rocks sticking out from the sea. The water was so clear and so blue, it was really nice. Though we won’t go on an organised day tour again…

Again we rented a scooter for a couple of days and we happened to ride past a Honda shop. We were curious about the price of a new scooter and the cheapest was only about $1200, new. That got us thinking and we ended up shopping around for a scooter the whole day. Just as we were about to buy one, we found out that, as travelers, we’re not actually allowed to just buy a vehicle. We needed some papers from the Thai immigration. We had to wait for them to open again on Monday, so we had a bit of time to ponder over the possible scooter purchase.

We got to the immigration office early on Monday morning. We wanted at least try to obtain this permit to be able to buy a bike. The immigration office told us we needed our hotel to sign some papers (to proof we stayed there) and to come back once the papers were signed. The immigration office was located half an hour’s ride away from our hotel, so we got on our scooter and left the office to get the papers signed. They were a bit hesitant and the hotel to sign the papers for us and wanted us to check in for another night (we had just checked out, thinking we might be on our way that day with our new scooter, how naïve!). Eventually we got the papers signed without having to pay for another night, so off we went to the immigration office again. Once we got there, they told us the papers we just got the hotel to sign weren’t enough; we needed to obtain some photocopies of the owner’s ID as well as some other receipt… We got the immigration officer to write it down for us in Thai, and off we went again for that half an hour ride back to our hotel. Once there, the staff were again a bit hesitant to give us the paperwork and told us to go back to the immigration office to meet the owner of the hotel there. We found this a bit strange, but OK, off we went again for a half hour ride to the immigration office. Of course the hotel owner wasn’t there. After we asked the immigration officer some more questions and told him we really only wanted to purchase a motorbike, he got onto it for us and found the documents needed. Apparently they were already in the office when we were asked to get them from the hotel! Anyway, the paperwork was prepared, the money paid and after only 5,5 hours we had the permit to buy a scooter!

Because we had already looked around on Saturday we knew what we wanted and where to get it. Eventually we bought a second hand Honda Click scooter (110 cc), dubbed ‘Eleanor’. Buying Eleanor wasn’t as straight forward as we had hoped, but with lots of giggles, hands, feet and a calculator we agreed on a price, a new front tyre and a different seat. If we’re going to travel around this country by bike it may as well be comfortable.

Eventually we stayed at our hotel for another night. While we had bought the scooter, it wasn’t registered in our name yet. On Tuesday we headed for the land and transport department, where no one seemed to speak English. We got there at 8.30am with all our stuff and Jenny had to sit and wait with the bags while David was going to arrange the paperwork. The shop we bought the scooter from was happy to arrange this for us, but it was going to take a couple of weeks. We eventually arranged all our paperwork and at 11am we were on our way! By the way, our motorbike is registered until the year 2553 - Thailand is a few hundred years ahead of our western time.

The first day on the bike was an experience. We got so sore after only 30 km! We pushed through though and ended up about 140 km further north, at Kao Sok national park. Stunning rock formations and rivers were part of the scenery and we were very happy that Eleanor brought us all the way there. We stayed at a lovely and cheap guesthouse (we paid a lot in Krabi, compared!) and got a bit drunk from the Chang beer, probably to soothe our stiff muscles.

The next morning we took off for Ranong, another 260km away. This time, the ride was much smoother and more comfortable, we were already getting used to it! Saw some elephants on the way, eat nice food from a local market and just putted along the highway. Eleanor can do about 100 kph with the two of us plus luggage. Not a bad little bike. We got to Ranong, stayed the night and moved on to Ko Phayam (after storing Eleanor away safely for a couple of days), a little island just off the coast where Thailand and Myanmar meet. It’s very laid back here with a nice beach and a few little places to eat. After Ko Phayam, we push on to the north, after a visa run to Myanmar first.

So far Thailand has impressed us a lot. The people are nice, the food is delicious, the beaches are beautiful, the roads are good, the temperature is pleasant, and so on. We love Thailand!

Family fun in Malaysia

2009-12-17T20:38:00.003+11:00

The past couple of weeks in Malaysia have been great. Jenny was very happy to see her family again and with her parents we travelled through Malaysia for ten days. Not too much, because they’re not quite used to (or want to be involved in) ‘chicken bus’ transportation, or sitting in a bus for hours on end. So our first stop from Kuala Lumpur was the Cameron Highlands, supposedly ‘only’ 3,5 hours away from KL.

Unfortunately David had, unknowingly, purchased a ticket for the old, normal bus (as supposed to a VIP bus). This bus was an old piece of crap and not very comfortable, but at least it moved, albeit very slowly. All the other buses passed us along the freeway. Since the Cameron Highlands were quite high up (hence the name), about 1800 meters above sea level, the bus started climbing up with a lot of effort. Eventually, after five hours and only twenty kilometers more to go (which could have taken another hour), the bus gave up and started smoking badly. Black smoke entered the bus very quickly and we were sitting right at the back, and all these Malay people got off the bus very slowly. We got off and the bus was declared dead. Luckily, another one passed not too long after, and squeezed all of us in, it had way too many people on board! After a long trip that should have been comfortable and taken only about half as long, we arrived at our guest house. Now this is how we normally travel, mum and dad, sorry to drag you into it! We really tried to arrange some comfortable transport! At least the rooms were nice.

We stayed a couple of nights in the Cameron Highlands, where we visited tea plantations, the main attraction of the Cameron Highlands. We had our own taxi driver for a few hours. We felt so rich! It was a great way to get around. Up in the mountains the weather was wonderfully cool, a nice change for us, since we’ve spent the last five months in hot weather. The nights were spent playing ‘Kolonisten’ (Settlers of Catan – board game) and eating lots of stroopwafels, pepernoten and rookworst!

Penang was our next stop. We spent a few days in our own apartment with swimming pool where we entertained ourselves with more Kolonisten games! The beach was a three minute walk away and local busses brought us to Georgetown and Penang National Park, where we saw big monitor lizards and something that looks like a salty (small one) in the water, but it could have been a lizard. Penang has great food and we introduced the parents to the spicy Indian food. We love the roti and curries they sell at the Indian shops and we’ve had it basically for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the past three weeks. All the kilos we lost in Indonesia have come back in Malaysia. The food there was wonderful in comparison!

Langkawi island was our last stop and we spent most of our time there. We stayed not far from the beach, although the water wasn’t as nice as what our travel guidebook had promised. We rented a scooter and explored the island for three days, which was a lot of fun. Langkawi was a very relaxing holiday with a bit of swimming and lots and lots of Kolonisten! It was a good opportunity for David to learn Dutch, and he’s done very well these last couple of weeks.

It was such a great opportunity to meet each other in Malaysia and it was a lot of fun! After ten days we had to say goodbye at Langkawi airport. Jenny’s parents left for Kuala Lumpur and we were going to Thailand the next day.

We are in Thailand now and it has a good vibe! We thought we might find it a little too touristy here (which it is, actually), but it’s nice! We’re staying on one of Krabi’s beaches and it’s just so full of people, food stalls, restaurants, cafés, shops, touts, lady boys, etc. It’s very vibrant and we like it! The beaches are nice and the water is very clear. Tomorrow we’re going to be the ultimate tourists by day tripping to Ko Phi Phi, where the movie The Beach was filmed. Last night we choose three suits and five shirts to be tailor-made for us, so we have to go through a few fittings today and tomorrow. We’ll have to work again soon (we’ve already been away for over six months!), so we may as well look good for the interviews!

Shop till you drop

2009-12-04T21:38:00.005+11:00

Welcome to Malaysia, the world of mega malls! At least in Kuala Lumpur. It's lovely to be back in Malaysia. A couple of years ago we went to Borneo, which we thoroughly enjoyed! The last week has been a bit of a waiting game; waiting for Jenny's sister and her boyfriend (Anke & Tim) and her parents to arrive, but it has been very nice and relaxed!

(Jenny in mega mall, complete with rollercoaster!)

David was looking for a new Deuter bag, new shoes, new sunglasses. And Jenny needed new flip flops, new prescription glasses, a new camera and a new phone. And we found it all (except the Deuter bag, still looking!)! Kuala Lumpur is a shopping mecca. It is quite cheap here and Jenny has been very impressed by David's shopping abilities! We shopped till we dropped to find his beloved Trans Alpine Deuter bag. Unfortunately, we haven't found the specific bag yet (only the fake thing), but it allowed us to shop and shop and shop and to hop from one mega mall to the other without Jenny even having to promise David an ice cream once we finished shopping!

Poor David couldn't find any shoes in his size, so he had to get is old shoes fixed on the corner of some street. It worked out well. In one shopping plaza, the ceilings were so low our heads actually touched the ceiling! We're not being giggled at so much anymore, but people still stare in amazement at our height (and we're not that tall!).

Apart from shopping we have admired some old Dutch architecture in Melacca, a city ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and English before Malaysia was finally independent 50 years ago. Melacca was a nice relaxing place and we stayed in the best hostel ever. While we are happy not to be in Indonesia any more (although of course it wasn't all bad), we admit to miss bungalows with private bathroom and banana pancakes for breakfast! However this hostel in Melacca was great. Cheap and very clean. And very important, free WiFi, but that seems to be everywhere in KL as well. But new to us...

The weight we lost in Indonesia due to sickness was easily gained in this last week in Malaysia, due to the delicious Malay/Indian food we've been consuming. We've forgotten what hungry feels like and stuffed our faces with roti, roti, roti and devil curries to die for!

Yesterday we had a wonderful family reunion! Anke and Tim, Jen's sister and her boyfriend, had a stop-over on their way to New Zealand and we got to spend 12 hours with them! We had a great time catching up. It's been nearly two years since we last saw Anke and Tim and David hadn't seen each other for over three years! we had a great time, although it was a bit short!
(sisters reunited)

Jenny's mum and dad are arriving in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow morning and we will spend ten days with them. Our plan is to go to the Cameron Highlands and then to Langkawi. Perhaps they might set their big toe in Thailand, since we're so close to the border once we're in Langkawi, but we'll see.

Back to the northern hemisphere

2009-11-28T02:47:00.003+11:00

We spent the last week exploring Flores and we are ready to leave Indonesia. We’ve seen some great scenery and did a couple fantastic dives, but Indonesia hasn’t really impressed us. Traveling in this part of the country is very slow and expensive. Towns are not that nice, accommodation is very much below standard and quite expensive. To be fair, it is really nice to be in a part of the world that is a bit less traveled and not set up for tourists, but on the other hand, we have been disappointed with the costs and quality of things. Shitty accommodation is still costly and it takes forever to get from A to B. Probably due to the fact the island of Flores is dotted with volcanoes and mountains, which makes the scenery absolutely stunning. So a negative does turn into a positive. We also know there are so many other countries waiting to be explored, and traveling on south east Asia’s mainland is a lot easier and cheaper. In addition, we have both been sick pretty much the entire time we’ve been here, which hasn’t helped. Hygiene is very poor and food seems to make us sick all the time. We have had a couple of really nice meals, including one fantastic home-cooked meal in Sulawesi, but other than that it’s been rather disappointing.

We left Flores by public ferry. It was very cheap to get across to Sulawesi by ferry, but it was going to take 48 hours, someone had told us. While we mentally prepared for the trip, we also stocked up on supplies with overly sweet jam, crackers and instant noodles. When we boarded the ship, there was no room for us anymore. All seats had been taken, mattresses were already reserved… we looked a bit lost. So a few friendly locals made some room for us on the floor so we could sit/sleep there, which was very nice. They were very interested in us and we tried to have a bit of a conversation with a little word list of Bahasa Indonesia helping us. It was great fun chatting to them, listening to them playing music and just watching people. We spoke to lots of different people and they told us the trip was only going to be 24 hours, not 48! We didn’t believe them at first, but when we heard it from different people we were so relieved! It turned out our supplies weren’t going to last us two days either. After we found out the trip was going to be halved, we also heard that we weren’t going to Makassar, but Bira, about four hours south of Makassar. Luckily we booked a flight to Kuala Lumpur from Makassar on Friday, that would leave us two days to get there from Bira. 24 hours was definitely enough on the boat.

The people on the ferry took good care of their personal hygiene and everyone there had at least two showers while we were stinking away in our sweaty tshirts. However they do not care about rubbish around them. After a day the boat was absolutely filthy with food leftovers, cigarette butts, plastic bottles, dirt, fruit peel, rice and anything else you can think of thrown away on the floor. Loads of plastic just got thrown overboard as well. Bins were provided but were only half full and we saw one parents balancing his little boy on the bin to pee in it! Yet the passengers were very anal about us taking our shoes off when we went to the toilet. We had to sleep on a floor that was covered with a bit of carpet, but was also quite filthy with bits of peanut, chips and biscuits stuck to it. Halfway through the night another load of passengers came on board from a tiny island, waking us all and wanting to grab any space they could find (but there wasn’t any so we just got shoved out of the way). It was an interesting experience, but never again, at least not economy class. It was literally cattle class, with about twenty buffaloes on board, as well as goats and a horse! The poor buffaloes slipped on their own poo and pee all the time and they were tied up with a ring through their nose on a very short leash, so when they slipped the ring painfully pulled on their nostrils (at least we think it would be painful).

Bira was a nice place to stumble upon. The waters of this southern little fishing village of Sulawesi are picture perfect! We stayed in the best and cheapest guesthouse and they cooked us an awesome meal. We wanted to stay another day, but we fly from Makassar on Friday, which is a muslim holy day, which means transport might be hard to get. So we left on Thursday for Makassar, which took us six hours in a cramped little bus. Makassar is apparently famous for its food, but again it has disappointed us. David got sick and had to vomit it all out again. But Makassar seems a nice city, very alive! Tomorrow (Friday) we fly out of here, happy to leave Indonesia. But we did have a great last few days here in Sulawesi.

White beaches, beautiful sunsets

2009-11-16T21:16:00.007+11:00

Forget what we’ve written before, Indonesia is great! We might not have liked Kuta Bali and Gili Trawangan, but Lombok is beautiful. We spent 2,5 days exploring the north and south of the island by scooter. Kuta Lombok (not to be confused with Kuta Bali) is a great little place that isn’t overdeveloped yet. The beaches there are spectacular and the sand is rather fine rock, so it doesn’t stick to everything, which is really nice too. The food there was great and people very friendly. The north of the island has some spectacular waterfalls. It was about a 100 km scooter ride to a very cool waterfall. On the way there we had something to eat… And then it happened. Jenny didn’t feel too well after lunch. Food poisoning. The journey home took us hours because we had to stop so often because of Jenny’s vomiting and diarrhea. On the side of the road we had lots of spectators looking at this white chick getting sick. A little wave goodbye after the show gave us lots of smiling faces! After a horrible 2,5 hours on the scooter we finally made it back. Luckily it cleared up overnight so we could enjoy our four day boat trip to Komodo and Flores.

It certainly was not a luxurious boat we stayed on. The engine was horribly loud and the boat was very uncomfortable. The toilet was the usual squatting style, complete with cockroaches and there was no fresh water on board (besides the bottles drinking water – only five bottles per person for the four days, not enough for a shower). But the company was great! We met some really nice people on the boat and heard all about their interesting itineraries. Everyone got along really well. On our trip we saw lots of dolphins playing in the water and stopped at a few places to go swimming and snorkeling. One night the boat had to sail for about twenty hours straight and during the night we felt we might tip over. That was really scary, but we made it through the night and the next morning we woke up to a magnificent landscape of islands dotted everywhere. Amazing! The beaches around these little islands are so beautiful, the colours of the water so turquoise – just like a little paradise.

One of the islands we went to was Komodo, to see the Komodo dragons. It was great to see these huge lizards in real life. They’re only found in Komodo, Rinca, some other island we can’t remember the name of and northern Flores. So it was quite special to see them in the flesh.

Eventually we made it to the island of Flores, the end destination of our boat trip. Labuan Bajo, the village we are staying in at the moment, is very nice and quaint and nobody bothers us. All of the people on board ended up in the same restaurant at night which was good fun.

Today we did two dives around Komodo Island. When we were diving in Sipadan Island in Borneo two years ago, someone told us the only dive sites that can top Sipadan are around Flores. She was definitely right! The diving was absolutely amazing, the best ever! The temperature differences in the water, together with very strong currents bring loads of exotic sea creatures to these waters. We saw the brightest corals teeming with fish – huge fish! Everything here seems on steroids! We saw turtles, sharks, huge manta rays, the biggest murray eels, everything! Very, very much worth our money for sure!

This evening we’re meeting some people at a restaurant for the sunset, but before that we might pop into a café with free wifi to publish this.

Our plan for the next two weeks is a bit hazy. We are definitely not going to make it all the way to Sumatra, so the flight that we booked from Medan to Kuala Lumpur we just have to cancel. So our options are to either go back to Bali or Lombok and catch a flight to KL from there, or to sail to Sulawesi and go to KL from there. We prefer to go to Sulawesi (another two day boat trip), but we’re not sure if this is the most economical way to get to Malaysia. We’ll see. We’ll get there somehow before the 3rd of December.

Indonesia

2009-11-09T20:28:00.002+11:00

Indonesia. So far it has had trouble making an impression on us, but it is slowly starting to get better. We were not impressed by Kuta, the very touristy, chaotic city in Bali everyone seems to end up in for the first day (or some people, poor buggers, spend two weeks there!). After one mandatory night in Kuta we found an escape to a more pleasant town on the east coast, Padangbai. From here we took a ferry across to Lombok.

Padangbai was nice and quaint and we had some lovely food from a street stall, which we haven’t been able to find since. It took us a whole day to get from Padangbai to a little island just off the coast of Lombok, Gili Trawangan. This island also failed to impress us. But we did have some fantastic views of Lombok. Lombok is just a gorgious lush and mountainous island. We’re back in Lombok now and starting to enjoy ourselves a bit more. We’ve just had a lovely swim at one of the great beaches and rode around on a little scooter. We also booked a trip to Flores by sailing boat, which will also bring us to Komodo to see the Komodo dragons. We’re very excited about that!

Accommodation here has been fantastic. We haven’t had to go to a dodgy hotel just yet and it’s all quite cheap. We haven’t found great food yet and that really is disappointing. If we want burgers and pasta, we’ll go to a Western country. We’re hanging out for a good Indonesian meal. Surely it will happen sooner or later.

The people here are very friendly and we only get hassled a little bit around town (except Kuta). Traffic around Kuta in Bali is absolutely mad. There are so many scooters and little 125cc motorbikes there and they’re all in each others way! But somehow it seems to work and we’ve not seen anyone come off. The slow pace must have something to do with this. These scooters carry up to four people at once!

We have seen a lot of little baskets on the streets with offerings for the gods. These baskets include bits of fruit and flowers, which the rats gladly take. We’ve seen some fat ones running around! And of course there is an abundance of geckos, cockroaches and other little creatures you’d rather not see in your bathroom. The streets are full of stray cats and dogs, kittens and puppies and cats are going for it in the streets! We also see chickens running around everywhere. But apart from the little creatures, stray pets and rats, Bali and Lombok are relatively clean. Especially the bungalows we stay in. As soon as we step onto the porch, the tiles are nice and clean and the place is generally quite nice and tidy (a few exceptions of course).

We really hope Indonesia will have impressed us after the sailing trip to Komodo and Flores. If not, there’s still Sumatra to check out before we move on to Malaysia.

We can't include photos yet, because we have only taken photos with Jenny's camera and she forgot to bring the USB cord! Photos coming soon.

Unemployed - and loving it!

2009-10-30T19:23:00.004+11:00

We both had our last day at work today! David's day was uneventful and Jenny watched DVDs all day and even had a nap! Tourist season is ending up here so the last couple of weeks have been very quiet, hence the sleeping whilst on the job...

Jenny had a night out with work colleagues and they were very hungover today! Here's a before and after photo.

Dave's flying in a Harvard T6 on Sunday. Other than that we're just chilling out until it's time to fly to Indonesia next week!

Attention readers

2009-10-02T20:39:00.004+10:00

(David took this photo in our backyard)

We're almost on our way again! Keep an eye out on our blog, because from the 5th of November we're traveling again. Hopefully all the natural disasters in south-east Asia will have settled down by then...

We've just been working in Darwin so we've slipped into a slightly 'boring' lifestyle. But every day after work still feels like a holiday.

We got broken into last night and Dave's wallet and Jen's bag got stolen. Apparently five other houses were broken into as well. We lost about 100 dollars and all our cards. Jenny has been busy organising new cards all day. Luckily, her bag was found a few hours later, and the car key was still inside! So just a lot of hassle but not a great loss.

We will promise to write more exciting updates starting from November :)

Change of itinerary

2009-09-04T13:52:00.004+10:00

We have slightly changed our initial itinerary by including south east Asia and India in our trip! Darwin is only an hour or so away from Indonesia, so we thought 'while we're here, we may as well'! We have a rough idea of what we want to do, but our plans tend to change a lot... The initial plan is to arrive in Bali early November, island-hop to Lombok, Sumbawa, Komodo and Flores. Catch a plane to Java, make a trip to Sumatra and then land in Malaysia, where we have a small family reunion with Jenny's parents, sister and brother-in-law early December! After that, we would like to go to Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. Once we've seen all these countries, we want to go to India. We thought 'while we're so close, we may as well'!

Life is good in Darwin. We're both working and adding to the bank account in order to finance our trip to Asia (and hopefully have some left over to continue our trip down the west coast). Jenny has had a few more interviews, but no luck in securing another job. But since we've only got seven more weeks to go, she may as well stay where she is. David is still happy in his job and managed to get a company car as well.

The weather is getting hotter and more humid every day. It's amazing how much this humidity affects us! People in general need three showers a day here and it will only get worse according to the locals. It is too hot to sit in the sun so we're slowly losing our tans :( But we won't complain too much!

Last weekend we did some touristy things and went back to Litchfield to swim around the waterfalls and did a jumping crocodile cruise on the Adelaide river. There were so many crocs in the river, it was unbelievable. The people on the boat fed a few crocs and made them jump for their food. It was quite nice to see these large beasts coming out of the water. Loads of birds of prey (eagles, etc.) were circling around the boat, hoping to get a feed.

We're happy to be working for now, but happier with the tickets to Indonesia! Not too long until we can continue exploring!

Photo slide show

2009-08-27T22:44:00.002+10:00

Visuals on our trip! http://www.slide.com/r/oa7FgJyT5D_n8IwI2vYTvIQd89IDvPx5?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

(copy and paste in a new browser)

Darwin update

2009-08-14T20:07:00.004+10:00

We've been in Darwin for a few weeks now and we have gone 'back to reality' as some have phrased it... yes, we're working again! It wasn't too hard to find work here. We started searching for work on a Tuesday and by Thursday we both had a job. While David could not seem to find any work in Melbourne, here in Darwin he got two job offers on the same day! He obviously choose the one with the more convenient hours and better pay and is now employed as an electrician. He's in charge of a project and, to an extend, gets to boss people around. Perfect job for Dave! Jenny, on the other hand, is being bossed around a lot. She's working long hours and weekends in the tourism industry, renting out camper vans. You'd think most people would generally be happy and cheery, considering they're on a holiday. However, their holiday spirit is properly challenged by the poor state some of these vehicles are in. Quality control is not their strongest point yet. Jenny also gets told off for spending too much time with customers! But considering the moods of these people after the company's poor quality standards they should be happy she's cheering the customers up a bit :) (that's her opinion, anyway).

Jenny's got another couple of interviews lined up for some more serious jobs. So hopefully in the next couple of weeks we can give you another update on our working life.

We are sharing a nice house at the moment with a lovely couple from Melbourne. We have impressed each other lately with our cooking abilities. And we've been served some killer cocktails over the last weeks! The Bacardi doesn't last too long and the beers just seem to taste extra nice. Perhaps it's got something to do with the NT's tropical temperature...

Darwin is quite nice. It's very small (though for some people we've spoken to in outback NT, it's way too busy) and everything in Darwin is about ten minutes away! Jenny's drives to work in five minutes (the scooter takes a whole 15 minutes!!!) and David's work is about seven minutes away. We live close to the CBD, about 1,5km away. The city has got some busy cafes, restaurants and bars situated along one main street and a mall in another street. Then there's the waterfront and that's pretty much it. A bit out of the centre there's a few parks and beaches. Not that you can swim there, the crocs live there. Darwin's got a great night market along the beach twice a week during dry season - Mindil Beach Sunset Market. A great place for food and souvenirs and very busy.

We're quite lucky to have found such a nice place to live. Our house is located on a corner, which means our townhouse has a garden. And the sprinkler can be turned on at any time. When we're a bit too hot, we hop out of the hammock and jump around the sprinkler for a bit. It's great fun! We haven't seen one drop of rain for two months, but it is getting more overcast these days. But still no rain. It must be bucketing down in December for everyone to waste water like this! And everything's so green, too. we're surrounded by palm trees and other tropical growth.

Darwin is fun and we're happy! Now we've got to go back to the cocktails - they're getting hot! Cheers!

Traveling around the NT

2009-07-27T18:31:00.006+10:00

Over the last six weeks, we've driven about 12,000 km and pumped over 1600 liters of Diesel. Northern Territory has been quite fascinating and we have seen so much! Hot springs, ancient rock art, huge rocks, waterfalls, rockpools, wildlife, beaches - it's been great! We have covered pretty much everything we wanted to see here and now we're in Darwin to live for a while to earn some cash to continue on traveling.

The first time we were in Darwin, about three weeks ago, we needed to sort out our car problem and our permit to get permission to go into Arnhem Land. Obtaining the permit was an effort...

The permit story
To go into Aboriginal Land within the top end of the Territory (such as Arnhem Land), one needs to obtain a permit from the Northern Land Council (NLC). The permit is free but it does take up to ten working days to process the request. One Monday morning we went into the NLC office in Darwin to apply for this permit. We weren't quite sure of specific dates and places we wanted to visit in Arnhem Land, so we asked the receptionist for some help. She told us to apply for access to all the NLC regions for a whole year. We weren't quite sure if this was the right way to fill in the form, but according to the receptionist someone would contact us shortly to verify our details and we could then explain where and when we exactly wanted to go. We asked to pick up our permit one week later, which was not a problem, according to this receptionist. Friday comes and we haven't heard from an NLC officer yet. After a phone call we found out the office didn't open until 12pm that day. Since we were headed for Litchfield National Park early that day, we decided to give the office another call on Monday, which is when we were expecting to pick up our permit. Monday comes and we call the office. "No, the officer you need to speak to is not in yet, she's in at 11am," says the receptionist. When we called back after 11am, she wasn't in until lunchtime. When we called back after lunch she wasn't going to be in the whole day. This is what NT stands for – Not Today, Not Tomorrow. We hadn't been to Kakadu National Park yet, so we decided to go there for a few days while waiting for this permit. On Wednesday we called again and no, the officer we needed to speak to still wasn't in and no one else could inform us of the status of our permit. Not quite sure what we were going to do, we decided to drive to the eastern border of Kakadu, where you can access an Aboriginal community (Oenpelli). To enter this community, you need a permit from the NLC. So we were sent to Jabiru, a little community in the heart of Kakadu. It turns out the NLC has an office there as well. We explained our situation to a lady there and she happened to have tried to call us several times to verify our details for our permit and to tell us that our permit was declined. We had no reception at Litchfield or Kakadu, so she couldn't get hold of us. We cleared everything up with her and would get our permit on Friday. She could even fax it to the NLC office in Katherine, which is on the way to Arnhem Land. So that Friday afternoon we arrived in Katherine, but the NLC office there was closed. It turns out that Friday was a public holiday and, oops, the lady in the Jabiru NLC office forgot about that! We then asked if she could fax the permit to the visitor information centre. Unfortunately, their fax was broken! The NLC office in Jabiru closes at 4.36pm and it was already after 4pm, so we quickly needed to find another place where we could receive the fax. We finally found it and the following day we could start our journey to Arnhem Land!

The car story
Our car had been making this awful noise (intermittently) since Alice Springs. After consulting a bush mechanic in Kings Canyon and later another one in Alice Springs, we decided to ignore the problem until we got to Darwin (or until it got worse – whatever came first). The noise didn't go away and got worse, especially on dirt roads. In Darwin, we wanted to get the car checked. No mechanic seemed to be able to diagnose what was wrong with the car and we had our own suspicion that it might be the front diff. We drove around one morning for second opinions, spare parts and tools so that David could pull the car apart to have a look at the diff. It took nearly a day to pull the diff out, only to find out there was nothing wrong with it! After another few hours, the following day, of putting the car back together (and meanwhile regreasing all bearings and replacing oils), the noise was gone and hasn't come back since. The bearings might have just needed some regreasing. Lucky, because rebuilding the diff (by a mechanic) was quoted at $1,500.

Litchfield and Kakadu
Litchfield National Park is the best park in the top end (according to our humble opinion). It's filled with croc-free waterholes, rockpools and waterfalls. Our favourite is Florence Falls, with crystal clear blue water. It's just the best to be able to plunge into a pool during a very hot day without fearing for a saltie to come and get you. The park is also quite compact, so there's not too much driving involved, which is nice. We just spent our days lazing in the sun, sitting on the rocks and sliding into the water when it got too hot.

Kakadu National Park is one big swamp. It has got beautiful beaches with gorgeous turquoise water, but most of the water cannot be accessed, because of all the saltwater crocodiles. The park consists of lots of rivers (with lots of crocs), waterfalls and swamps. The mosquitoes are a huge pest and have left David with at least a hundred bites. We camped at a beach for the first couple of nights, which was beautiful to look at. It was just a bit disappointing we couldn't swim. At night we shined a torch along the shore and we found two red lights shining back – a croc's eyes. In the morning we found a couple of croc tracks on the beach. This particular camp site was quite remote (West Alligator Head), situated next to a swamp (hence the mosquitoes) and full with wildlife. We saw little wallabies, dingoes, wild pigs and loads of little diamond eyes shining at night (spiders). We couldn't bear another night at this campsite, because we were eaten alive by the insects. We moved on to Ubirr, where there are lots of natural galleries with ancient rock paintings. Australia might not have old architecture, but it does have the oldest art in the world. The rock paintings were quite well-preserved and some dated back to at least 20,000 years ago.

Next was a visit to the Aboriginal community in Oenpelli (Arnhem Land). The art centre there was the only attraction so afterwards we drove around town to have a chat to some locals.David spoke with this Aboriginal man and got to find out a lot about how they live and what they do there. The day after was when we sorted out our permit and saw some more rock art, as well as the famous Jim Jim Falls. Well, we didn't see the falls because they had dried up. But there still was a huge, deep, ice cold waterhole left. Apparently no salties were left behind after the Jim Jim Falls dried up, but we didn't swim anyway. The best place in Kakadu are the Gunlom (Barramundi) Falls. The rockpool there is crystal clear and there are no crocs. We climbed up a steep path for about ten minutes and appeared on top of the falls, where we found more pools. This was definitely the best place, since we could cool off again!

Arnhem Land
Our permit allowed us to travel on the Central Arnhem Road into Arnhem Land. The entry to this road is via the Mainoru Road, which starts 50 km south of Katherine. This dirt road goes for about 250 km before it becomes the Central Arnhem Road. The permit states that, once you're on the Central Arnhem Road, you are not allowed to camp anywhere. Many Aboriginal communities are dotted along this road. which are closed to all non-local traffic. We didn't feel like driving the 700 km to Nhulunbuy (the main settlement in the north east corner of the Territory) in one go, so we checked our map to see where we could stay. It turns out we had an old map, because when we finally got to our destination (about an hour away from the main road), we were told there was no camping there. We had stumbled upon an ex-cattle station, that was now managed by a family on behalf of a not-for-profit organisation whose aim it is to conserve the area and to let (threatened) wildlife thrive again. It was about 4pm when we arrived and the lady that answered the door was very nice and said we should probably stay because it was too late to turn back. We just had to wait for her husband to come back from the land. He initially wasn't too happy to see us on his doorstep, but after some conversation he realised we had made an honest mistake in believing the map would point us to a campsite for the night. The couple offered for us to have dinner with them and even gave us a room! We had fresh fish and lovely conversation and got to find out about their lives on that station. The cattle, buffalo and donkeys that are currently found on the property destroy the flora and fauna. This family's job is to get rid of these animals. They shoot the donkeys and they catch and transport the cattle and buffalo. All animals are wild. We were invited to to come along on the truck that collects the cattle and buffalo that were caught the previous day. It was a fun experience and it was great to find out about their lives in such an isolated place. The kids are home-schooled and supplies come from town, an eight hour round trip. They stock up for three months during the wet season because the roads become impassible. Generators provide electricity and they have a supply of 20,000 liters of Diesel. Their drinking water comes straight from the river. It was great to meet them and they were very hospitable.

The next day we had to drive another 600 km to get to Nhulunbuy. We got there on a Sunday and when entering the town David got breathalysed by the police. This policeman told us there was no camping in town and a permit was required for any other camping. Our only option was a $200 a night motel room. We didn't take that one and camped illegally for a night. The next morning we obtained the right permits and we were allowed to stay on Aboriginal Land for a week. Nhulunbuy is a mining town where they mine for bauxite. It's quite nicely set up for such a remote town. The fuel was expensive ($1,62 per liter), but not as expensive as Unleaded ($1,90!). The water surrounding this north eastern tip of the Territory (Gove Peninsula) are crystal clear and the beaches were white and stretched for miles. However, no swimming in these waters because of the salties. We found a gorgeous camp spot looking straight out over these turquoise waters, but the sandflies got to us. While we were still recovering from the bites we got in Kakadu, these little insects gave us another two hundred bites all over our ankles, neck, legs, hands and arms. We eventually moved on to another spot where it was quite windy. There were no mosquitos or sandflies there and it was just a great spot to relax. The Gove Peninsula was great for four wheel driving. There are loads of little paths that just lead into the bush. We did some sand driving on the beach as well and got ourselves properly bogged. We were quite close to the water and all Jenny could think of was crocodiles coming out to get us! That didn't happen and after letting the pressure down in our tyres we got out just fine. We also went four wheel driving at Cape Arnhem. This is a very, very beautiful area with pristine beaches and gorgeous water. Again, no swimming, we saw loads of croc tracks in the sand. We did some sand dune driving and managed to not get ourselves stuck this time. Apart from beautiful beaches and water you can't swim in, there's not much else in this area. If only we liked to fish… It was really nice to see a few remote Aboriginal communities and we got to see loads of artwork in a very well maintained art centre. And there weren't many tourists in the Gove Peninsula, which was nice. It was quite remote.

Arnhem Land is mainly a dry area (no alcohol allowed), with a few wet areas along the Gove Peninsula. To be able to purchase alcohol you have to obtain a free liquor permit from the Department of Justice. And then you are only allowed to consume your alcohol within the designated wet areas. It is a huge offense to posses alcohol without a permit within a dry area. Obviously alcohol is still a big problem within indigenous communities, which is very sad to see.

To be continued
After a lot of traveling, we now have to go 'back to reality and earn a wage again. We have found a great house to live in (we're sharing a house with a Melbourne couple), which is very close to everything in Darwin. Updates will arrive soon on our lives in the tropics :).

Tropical north

2009-07-05T17:03:00.003+10:00

We have traveled over 6500 km and have arrived in the Top End of the Northern Territory. Gradually, the temperatures rose and nights got less cold. Central Australia was a very interesting and beautiful place. Much more beautiful than we expected. Apart from Uluru, there is so much more to see. Kings Canyon for instance was a spectacular place with walking tracks leading up to cliffs that dropped 100 meters. The canyon was quite large and really nice to walk around. The east and west MacDonnell ranges were also very beautiful with their gorges, waterholes, rocks, cliffs and rivers. We especially enjoyed staying in the East MacDonnell ranges. Our 4WD allowed us to stay at a campsite that was only accessible by 4WD and gave us a bit more seclusion. We went for great walks and walked through this gorge that, in summertime, is completely flooded. It was great descending further into the gorge and seeing little rock pools. We also stayed a couple of days at the Finke Gorge National Park (Palm Valley), where you can find palm trees in the middle of the desert. It was very lush and green around the otherwise bare landscape. We spent about 10 days within central Australia before heading to the Top End.

We have seen a lot of beautiful places and have experienced some interesting events. For instance, when we went to pay for our camp spot for the night at Kings Canyon, David left his car key in the ignition and locked the car. It is quite hard to break into a Landcruiser and within a few minutes four people were trying to break into our car! After about half an hour, someone managed to get in and we could get the spare key from a bag in the car.

At Palm Valley, we heard heaps of dingoes howling at night. Jenny was scared to get out of the tent at night and unfortunately had to get up twice during one of these howling dingo nights! She's never run back into the tent so quickly!

When arriving in the northern part of the NT, we stayed at Elsey National Park, next to the Roper River. It's about 35 degrees there so a dip in the river would be great, we thought. Around the river are signs stating that freshwater crocodiles inhabit the river and that they are harmless to people. It also stated that, while none had been spotted/trapped yet, one or two saltwater crocodiles might also be present within the park (though this was highly unlikely). There were swimming pontoons in the river and we decided to jump in the river. But while we were standing on this pontoon, we got a bit scared. We were walking around, looking in the water, then to the shore, then looked back into the water. We stood there for about ten minutes before both of us, very quickly, jumped in the water and then back out again. Later at night, we spoke to the ranger about swimming and he told us it was definitely safe to go swimming. We felt a bit stupid having been so afraid of the water. They don't place pontoons in the water if they don't think it's safe!

When we arrived at Uluru a couple of weeks ago, we ducked into the bush and set up our tent there, about 20 km from the entrance of the park. The following day, we wanted to do this again. We decided to have a better look on the map first, and found out we accidentally slept on Aboriginal land! We quickly booked into the Ayers Rock Resort that night!

When we left Alice Springs to go further north, we had about 700 km to travel to our next stop (the Devil's Marbles) and after about 100 km we realised we had forgotten to fill up our jerry cans with water. We had about 5 liters left. This is not a smart thing to do! On our way we passed through a few towns, but none of them had drinking water available, so we had to do with bore water. This water tastes awful, but if it's the only water you have, it will have to do. We added a lot of cordial to make it taste better but that didn't help. Three days later we finally got some decent drinking water from the Katherine River.

The Devil's Marbles was an interesting stop. A lot of guidebooks make places such as these look like there is only one rock to see and that's it. But the place was scattered with funny shaped rocks, big and small. It was quite nice to see so many of them scattered throughout the landscape. We found the same with Uluru; there's a beautiful rock about 100 km from Uluru (Mt Conner) that no guidebook ever mentions.

After the Devil's Marbles we had another big drive ahead to Mataranka, about 100 km south from Katherine. We didn't make it in one day, because we stopped at the Daly Waters pub for a beer and it was so lovely there that we decided to stay the night. Mataranka (Elsey National Park) was next, and we set up our camp next to the Roper River. Such a beautiful place! Nice and tropical with lots of palm trees. From there, we went to the thermal pools where the water temperature is always around 34 degrees. The turquoise water was very clear and the pools were surrounded by palm trees and other lush vegetation. A great place to relax!

We also visited Katherine Gorge (Nitmiluk National Park), which was nice, but not spectacular. At least this gorge was full, unlike the ones we have seen in the centre.

We also spent a night at the Douglas Hot Springs Nature Park, where the hot springs are very hot, around 60 degrees! A little further downstream the temperature changes to a very pleasant 40 degrees. It was just beautiful swimming in such warm water, with no fear for crocodiles! The next morning, we had a dip in the warm pool as well. A bath like that beats any shower! Especially when you haven’t had one for a while.

Now we’re in Darwin. A little sooner than expected, but the car seems to be making noises more frequently and we want to get it fixed before going to Arnhem Land, for which we need to arrange permits first anyway. So the plan is to fix the car, get some permits and head off into Kakadu, Arnhem Land and back to Darwin via Litchfield National Park. We are expecting to get back in late July/early August and then we’ll need to get some work in Darwin for the next few months.

The needle points north

2009-06-25T14:23:00.006+10:00

We have come a long way since Broken Hill! At the moment, we're in Alice Springs and we've been to Uluru and Kata Tjuta and to Kings Canyon; all very spectacular places!

Broken Hill is a long way from Uluru and we have done a lot of driving over the past few days. The Silver City Highway took us north from Broken Hill, to a town called Tibooburra (pop. 90). The highway was partly unsealed and not very good. But five hours later we did arrive in Tibooburra. We went to the pub to meet some locals. It did not have many customers as it was around 2pm on a Thursday afternoon, but there was one odd one. After many minutes of listening to him talking, we finished our beers and politely left the pub. By that stage it was getting close to 3pm and this particular pub customer wanted to head back to Broken Hill. We thought it was a little late for that, considering it would take a while and the sun would set about two hours later (and then there's a large change of hitting an emu or a kangaroo). "No worries," according to this person, "I've got a roo bar." So that's why there were so many dead kangaroos on the side of the road!

Tibooburra is the 'gateway to the Sturt National park'. The park showed the same barren landscape we had seen from the highway for a number of hours. However, the large population of red kangaroos did impress us, and we set up a nice camp for the night. The next day we pushed on to get into South Australia. To get into SA from NSW we had to pass through the dingo fence, a 5400 km fence to keep the dingoes out of NSW, parts of QLD and parts of SA. We made sure to close the gate, since failing to close it would cost us a fair bit in fines. At Cameron Corner (at the three state border) we filled up for $2 per liter (our most expensive fill-up so far) and left for the Strzelecki Track in SA. This track was in good condition and quite wide. It was also rather boring. White sand dunes would slowly change into red sand dunes. So when we saw a turn-off after 150kms we decided to take this road. Only to land on another dirt road for 200kms! But in the end it was worth it, because it led to the North Flinders Ranges National Park (also known as something else, but can't reminder this at the moment). This park was quite beautiful with its rocks and mountains. The end of the track led to Lyndhurst, a small town in SA which is the start/finish point for the Strzelecki and Oodnadatta tracks (our next track). At Lyndhurst we had another beer and chatted with another local who was not so local after all. It was a German girl dying to stay in Lyndhurst, but because of the economical crisis not allowed a permanent visa or something. Believe us; not many people would want to stay in such a small town, so that was quite remarkable!

From Lyndhurst we started the Oodnadatta Track. While this track was quite boring like the Strzelecki Track, we did like seeing the slow change in landscape. The sand dunes because flat, and little shrubs started to show, and sometimes even trees. Desert landscapes are quite diverse. And quite full of eagles (especially when there's a dead kangaroo around).

After a top up of diesel in Marree we drove further on the Oodnadatta Track. We drove past Lake Eyre South, but heard that, despite a bit of rain fall, the lake was not worth stopping at. We stopped there anyway, but the people were right. Lake Eyre apparently has only been filled three times in the last 100 years! From there, we went to William Creek, with the idea of spending the night there. But we found the little village (pop. 12) very strange! The pub there is full of people's (old) identity cards, money, bras, hats, undies, business cards, students cards, etc. So we can only assume that lots of people must have had a ball at this pub. But we found it strange, with very strange people in it, so we decided to move on, even though the sun had already set.

Coober Pedy was our next stop, but we weren't that interested. It was interesting to see the dug-outs, but we didn't hang around too much. From Coober Pedy, it's only around 400kms to the Northern Territory, so we were existed to push through! Once on the Stuart Highway, people didn't wave as much as they had done previously, but that didn't matter. We had sealed road again after at least 1500kms of unsealed road!! Our poor man's cruise control (pulling out the choke far enough so it'll stick to about 85kms) wasn't good enough anymore and we 'floored it' to 110km p/h. Roughly 700kms later we arrived at Uluru, just in time for sunset. The views were amazing and the rock itself it breathtaking.

The next morning, we saw Uluru changing colours at sunrise from grey to orange to bright red. It was amazing! Later that day, we went into the park, had a great Aboriginal history lesson in the cultural centre and walked around Uluru. The detail in the rock is amazing and so beautiful, it is hard to describe. It is very understandable why a lot of Australians don’t get to see Uluru; yes, it is a very long way to get there, yes, it is very expensive to get there, but it is worth going there! A quick, distant few, does not do justice to this huge bit of nature. Walking around it made us really appreciate its size and its age. It is just gorgeous to see how this massive rock has eroded over time and it is really hard to explain. We were just really happy to have come here and see it for ourselves.

The Kata Tjuta (the Olga's), that we visited the next day, were not as impressive as this solid rock called Uluru, but still very magnificent. We did quite a difficult valley rock at Kata Tjuta and just felt like ants. Kata Tjuta stands nearly 600 meters above the ground and is very impressive, especially when you walk around it.

We have also been to Kings Canyon, which was the most spectacular site so far! You just have to see it for yourselves! We'll post some more photos of this later.

We're in Alice Springs because we have some car trouble. But since coming here, the weird noise doesn't come up anymore, so the mechanic doesn't know what's wrong with the car! We'll have to stick around for a bit to see if the noise comes up again and get it fixed.

By the way, it's nice and warm now and not so cold at night anymore!

The outback

2009-06-17T20:34:00.008+10:00

We have left the city behind and found our way into the outback. Broken Hill certainly feels isolated and has plenty of red dirt, kangaroos and emus to proof this.

While Broken Hill itself does not really stand out from any other Australian country town we've seen so far, it does differentiate itself through art. We've seen sculptures on top of a desolate hill, art galleries with beautiful Aboriginal art, a Pro Hart exhibition and there's plenty more around for those interested. And of course we couldn't miss the Royal Flying Doctors tour! We visisted the RFDS base in town and got to know a bit of the service's history, as well as a peek in the hangar. It was a worthwhile visit.

We noticed that, on our way to Broken Hill (via the Silver City Highway) as soon as we left Mildura, people coming from the opposite direction started waving at us. That reminded us of the remoteness of this place, and of the friendly country people.

When our GPS told us that we were about 5 kms from Broken Hill, we still couldn't see the town. It is so flat around here and there is absolutely nothing around! It was hard to believe that we were about to enter a big town. We also nearly hit an emu before arriving in Broken Hill. Thanks to David's quick response the emu survived and our bull bar is still spotless.

There are heaps of 'grey nomads' in the outback (from what we've seen so far). They drive expensive four wheel drives and sleep in very comfortable caravans, which make us a bit jealous! Not the towing part - we're happy we don't have to tow any extra weight, the car is thirsty enough as it is – but their warmth. It gets rather cold out here (approx. 2 degrees at night) and the tent is very chilly! Luckily, we managed to stay at great campsites the first three nights where we could gather firewood and make a campfire.

The journey so far has been great. In Rutherglen, which was our first stop from Melbourne, we stocked up on muscat and had a great time drinking and sitting by the fire. We took a while the next day rearranging our car, but then we finally headed for Mildura. That destination was bit ambitious, considering we left Rutherglen fairly late and are only doing the economical speed of 85 kms p/h! So about 40 kms north from Swan Hill (and still another 160 kms to go to Mildura) we decided to go down some dirt track which led to the Murray river. It was a wonderful camp spot with no one else around but some kangaroos, where we stayed for a couple of days. It was nice to relax, stay warm and not having to worry about packing and unpacking the car for a little while. It rained a bit, but our fire was hot enough to sustain and the tarp kept our chairs and table dry. It's a wonderful life!

Tomorrow's destination is the Sturt National Park in northern NSW. We might get there in one day, we might not. We're not in a hurry anyway. We suspect that the next internet café is far away in Alice Springs. If you have any tips on where we should stay along the way, please let us know!

We're off!!!

2009-06-13T08:05:00.002+10:00

After a great last day at work (Jenny) and a nice dinner with friends and family at night, we are finally off to see Australia!

After a quick visit to the NGV to see the Salvador Dali exhibition, we're headed towards Rutherglen. We stayed at the Murray last Christmas and really liked the wineries in that area. So we'll stock up on some muscat in Rutherglen tomorrow. Not too far to drive on our first day.

Next post will probably be from NSW. Stay tuned!

Rough itinerary

2009-05-19T10:52:00.006+10:00

This map shows roughly where we want to travel to. But plans are made to be changed! Any tips/suggestions are welcome!

We are traveling up north to Darwin and will then head west to Western Australia.

Departure date 13th of June

2009-05-16T09:37:00.000+10:00

More details coming soon. Stay tuned!