03 - 07 August '04

The emptiest intercontinental flight ever, brought us from Kupang to Darwin. Only twelve passengers aboard ensured us that the Australian customs control squad, bored as they were, emptied every bag in their search for biological goodies such as the sculptured cow-horn artefacts we bought in Timor. Of course we did not declare these and the tension rose as we had to open our bags, when suddenly the gods favoured us and the officers put a hold to all bag-searching, because they had had enough of it (or the smell of our luggage perhaps)! After all, we were the last ones in the queue...

The first couple of days in Darwin were really hard: we really had the impression that we were martians on a new planet. After almost ten months of Asia, it was really hard to get used to the western civilization again. They have sidewalks here!?! They have red lights and you have to respect them? Normal cars! All is so clean, and most of all, there are so many westerners!!! "What are we doing here", was a regular question we were asking ourselves all the time. What made it certainly worse was the fact that it was the touristic peak season, all hostels were fully booked, and most of all, it was all so outrageously expensive!!! So, we had to get out of there. Where to? Well, since all the tourists are here in the North, we chose to head South, where it was cold and rainy (yes, winter!).

One night in a bar, Rendy and Plukje met a new friend, called Roo. He told us of his plans to go southerwards, and Plukje offered him a place in his back-pack-side-pocket. And this is how we came to travel with a native Australian in our company. During the trip our new friend explained us a lot about the Australian ways and about survival in the most barren of regions.

The best way to visit Australia is of course with an authentic Ford Falcon, fully equipped with camping and cooking gear. So we spent a couple of days trying to find a decent one to buy from other travellers. After having tested about ten of them, we gave up: there was always something wrong: a leak here or there, no registration, no brakes or suspension, anyway, we had enough of it, so we decided to go for the more expensive solution: hire a campervan. We made a good deal: pick up the van in Adelaide, and bring it back to Melbourne.

And of course, it was about time to think about the way back home: we had to find tickets back to Europe end of August, begining of September. And that was a real problem. All flights towards Europe were fully booked: it was the holiday season of course! We lost hours in travel agencies and on the internet trying to find something, and after three unsuccessfull days, we finally found the last two seats on the quite unpopular Aeroflot, via Tokyo and Moscow! Not our favourite route, but they were the last seats to Europe, so we went for it: we paid them, and they would be ready for pick-up in Melbourne in a couple of days.

So after almost a week in Darwin spending our time arranging things, we finally left the Northern Territory for the more quiet Adelaide and Southern Australia, on a very cheap last minute Qantas flight. The campervan was waiting for us there!

Australian lesson: in Australia, don't step in a hotel to ask if they have a room; a "hotel" here, is a pub!

Australian favourite expression: "No worries mate!"

08 - 09 August '04

Once arrived in Adelaide, we headed for the car rental office to pick up the campervan. The reservation via the internet did work, and the van was ready for us! We even got an upgrade, because the small minivan we had booked was not available anymore, so we ended up with a big luxurious, brand new campervan with all facilities: kitchen, fridge, warm sleeping bags, and lots of space!

The weather had completely changed. It was winter here and we could feel it. Cold rainy days, and temperatures at night almost dropping down to 0 degree. All the t-shirts we had were not enough to keep us warm, so we headed for the shops to buy some warm clothes.

We spent the next two days visiting Adelaide and its musea (it was a perfect museum weather!), with the South Australian Museum as one of the best museum we had ever visited. A very interesting gallery on the aboriginals and very peculiar artefact; and an excellent department on the Australian flora and fauna.

10 - 13 August '04

And off we went to see a bit of the fame of Australia: eating dust and counting kangaroos in "the Outback". It starts about two hundred kilometres North of Adelaide, after the town of Port Agusta. There, one can choose between two roads: either further North or Westwards. North leads into the great desert towards Coober Pedy, Alice Springs and finally Darwin (about four days ride). West leads through the Eyre peninsula, to a lot of loneliness along the South coast and eventually to Perth. We wanted to do a bit of both, and started off in the direction of the desert.

Coober Pedy lies not only in the Australian Outback; it also has a vivid mining industry that, of course, drew Cornelia's attention. Since the end of the 19th century opal is mined in the area, resulting in a most peculiar moon-landscape around the town. Deep pits are being dug to find the opal and the earth dug up is thrown next the hole, like a collection of giant mole-holes. Special road-signs are designed to inform people of these shafts. It warns you to watch your steps, to refrain from running and walking backwards. The unhappy result of such action demonstrated by an illustration of a string of people who fall into a deep shaft whilst running or walking backwards.

The inhabitants of Coober Pedy are so taken by the underground business that even their dwellings are often in old mines, under the ground. Where elsewhere in the world most people often have retreated from their caves quite a long time ago, here the underground-movement is seen as a blessing. Not only are people sheltered from the extreme temperatures that are common in the area (a very warm day can rapidly turn into a very cold night here); in case of instant need for cash many people can save themselves by selling a part of the wall in their living rooms!!

The atmosphere in the town was unmistakably different from that in Adelaide or Darwin. Not only the size of the community is much smaller but also the isolated location and the "rough" mining business account for that. The asphalt road that connects Coober with Port Agusta and Adelaide in the south and with Alice Springs in the North, is only five years old. Before, the eight hundred-kilometre trip "to the city" (Adelaide) started with five hundred kilometres of dirt road.

Although tourism has slowly started to come to town, we saw only local miners and a few aboriginals. We thought the aboriginals in Darwin were in a bad condition, but here it was a lot worse. That is the flip-side of "Down-Under": the Australian pride of the aboriginal art and ways of survival doesn't seem to benefit the aboriginals in the least. Those that are not locked away in the reserves often suffer from severe alcoholic influence, poverty and roofless-ness...

13 - 15 August '04

Back to Port Augusta, we now chose for the Western road, basically to go to the West coast of the Eyre Peninsula. The peninsula is a large agricultural area where Roo has got many mates, and where aliens like to leave writings in the corn. Near the village of Streaky Bay, an enormous sea-lion colony is present, where over two thousand animals have their homes. We imagined it would be the noisiest event to visit in the whole of Australia and looked quite forward to it, especially a boat trip in between the village and the small island that hosts the colony.

On our way to Streaky Bay, a firm wind was trying to pull our campervan off the road! By the time we arrived, the wind had turned into a gale. We asked for information, but it was clear that no boatman would be as crazy as to risk his life and belongings for a trip to the sea lions. But now, during the storm, there was something better: the "blowing holes". With a hand-drawn map at hand, we left to experience this natural phenomenon that seemed highly appreciated by the locals. It took us a while to find the place, and to visit it we had to aim in between the rain showers that would regularly poor down, but after all the tropics the equivalent of a good South-Western storm was a delight that blew the dust out of our heads. And there, high upon the limestone cliffs of Streaky Bay, we found the blowing holes, that would wine like an organ and sprout water from the sea (twenty meters lower!) like a whale.

After the blowing holes, we still insisted to visit the sea-lion colony from land; a smaller colony lives underneath a cliff nearby. On our way there we marvelled to see quite a few pelicans in a wind protected bay. The sea lions probably had taken shelter in a less windy place, because we saw only a few of them; their colony seemed to be in the windiest place of the peninsula. And with the storm, there was no way of hearing the six lost souls from the cliff we were standing on, which was some thirty meters higher. This night we went to a real camping, basically because of a need for a shower. We decided a shower a week would justify the costs for a camping. The next morning we had breakfast next to the pelicans that we had admired so much the previous day.

On our way back to Adelaide (up to now we had not moved any closer to Melbourne, on the contrary), we crossed straight through the heart of the Peninsula, mainly because Cornelia had not been attentive and we got lost a little, which we only found out one hundred kilometres too late. But, no worries, mate! Every shop sells fishing gear and bate, so Fabrice spend entire mornings chilling up catching fish in fishing paradise: in all the ports, there were fishing jetties and cleaning spots. Only one restriction prevented us from having do-it-yourself fish for dinner: a minimum size of fish was required to keep the catch, and somehow, fish seem to get a lot smarter in avoiding the hook if they grow up!!! In Port Germain we stumbled upon a favourite Sunday pass-time: lawn-ball. Immaculately dressed in white, a large part of the village community spend their time playing this twisted version of "Jeu-de-Boules" in which the balls are not round and their path consequently not straight. Slowly we made our way back to Adelaide, to continue our journey in the direction of Melbourne.

16 - 17 August '04

In Australia, the Great Ocean Road is considered one of the most beautiful coastal roads in the world. Finally it was time to do what we had rented the Campervan for initially: see the famous rugged limestone cliffs and bathing villages. However, we were not there yet! First we had to pass through the Fleurieu Peninsula and along the limestone coast for another five hundred kilometres.

We did not give much attention to the Peninsula though; it comprises mainly green lustrous wine valleys and the romantic landscape was neither exciting nor boring. We did visit Victor Harbour, a small port where bathing suits now set the tone in summer. But also in winter the village has its charms. Besides the old architecture that is abundantly present in most of the villages in these areas, there is something special: a colony of Fairy Penguins (or blue penguins, or small penguins). These creatures only live in Australia (and New Zealand?) and are animals of strict habits. In the morning they go to work, that is, fishing in the sea, some 10-20 kilometres swim. After sunset, they come back home to their holes in between the granite boulders on the small island 100 meters offshore. We took a guided tour and enjoyed the family scenes of the fairy penguin: hungry children waiting for their parents to come home, tired parents reacting edgy to their offspring's enthusiasm about dinner, all ending in a healthy quarrel in the end.

The limestone coast was even less adventurous than the previous Fleurieu Peninsula, although we got pretty excited about a free ferry that saved us a two hundred-kilometre detour to the next bridge. The coastline is flattish and full of nature reserves that protect lagoons and marshland, as well as crossing kangaroos and wombats. If we tell you the attractions of this part of South Australia include the famous Glencoe Woolshed (where 2000 sheep could be sheared a week), and the term "lustrous dairy landscape" is often used to describe this region, you will have a quite fitting impression. Finally we left the state South Australia in Mount Gambier, which is famous for a blue volcanic lake that regularly changes colour (where did we see that before?!) but Cornelia got all exited about a small park constructed in a huge sinkhole (a collapsed limestone cave).

18 - 19 August '04

In the state Victoria, the Great Ocean Road finally started. Lovely villages in small bays in between cliffs started to pop up regularly. The road became more windy and more touristy. In Warnambool, we visited a "whale nursery". This is a bay, just in front of the beach, where whales give birth to their youngsters and nurse them. From the viewpoints in the dunes, we "saw" a mother and child, that is, their backs and their sprouts, at about 20 meters from the beach. It was quite funny, but not so spectacular because we were still some 50 meters away and whales have some fishy characteristics such as staying under water a lot.

Slowly but surely the cliffs became higher and the coast turned into the infamous "shipwreck-coast", where many lives and boats were lost. Guidebooks point out every spot where it is known that a ship ran aground, often with stories accompanying the wreckage. For instance, boat so-and-so spotted land and it were these cliffs. The captain, busy to "entertain the ladies" at that very moment, lost not only his ship but also his career.

By now we just discovered something: the road diverted from the coast, cutting off one of the southernmost capes of the Australian continent (not Tasmania off course). This was not the way we planned it: apart from depriving us from our most extreme Southern point of our journey, we would also miss a spectacular forest in a wildlife sanctuary. Therefore, we launched ourselves into the smaller roads and it took us basically the rest of the day to get to the glorious lighthouse of cape Otway and back. Although the sanctuary we passed through seemed not as thrilling as the descriptions told us (primary forest with giant trees), the lighthouse and the museum made up for it.

After the lighthouse visit, we had to find ourselves a camping spot further land inward in the dark. Here we managed to get lost in another part of the Otway woods, where indeed the trees towered over us and small creatures hopped in the grey area of our eye sight. After some time we decided the designated camping spot was both not to be found and well as in a creepy place, (definitely an enchanted forest) and we headed back to places less obscure. We spend the night next to a lake under an "no camping"-sign.

19 August '04

Having only half a day of campervan left , our visit to the very rich gold-mining area around Melbourne was reduced to Ballarat only: the Capital of the gold-villages. And there indeed it was clear that in the end of the 18th century, the city had been very prosperous and very much of this old city still remained. Cornelia was sorry not to be able to visit Sovereign Hill, a theme park where a 18th century gold village is brought to life with actors in the streets and saloons, nor the gold-mining museum. But in the end, at least a decent highway led us to Melbourne, where the van was returned 5 minutes before time.

19-22 August '04

Melbourne was a real heartbreaker! Although the city-centre is old and much of the architecture of the "golden days" remains, modern architecture in it is best form creates contrasts that give the town character. Besides, a huge variety of languages are heard in the streets: everybody is at home here. The city is not so big you drown, not so small you get bored; we enjoyed it very much.

Unfortunately, it was not all happy-go-lucky. At the travel agency, where we came to pick up our flight-tickets, we found out that there was something wrong: no worries, you just pay again and we will get them for you! The agent had gone bankrupt one day after we had paid and was, on day later, bought by another one. All the money had gone down a big pit, but the reservations were still there. With help from the police (!) we verified at travellers unions, administrators and the buyer and this was simply the hard and painful truth: our money was gone and if we didn't quickly pay again, our reservations would be gone as well, leaving no way to get home for another month at least... In the end we paid the whole lot, again in advance, because that is the way it works in Australia. But now at least we had assurances of big bosses and, more important, administrators, that the ticket would be there when we would pick it up, in Sydney this time.

22-25 August '04

Our last large train journey ran between Melbourne and Sydney. The route runs straight through the mountains, or so we thought, but the railway engineers thought the better of it: just North of the mountains are vast plains and that is where the tracks are laid. So far our beautifull mountainous landscapes: the most exiting on the train was a crazy Japanese who made a picture of every station's nameplate.

Nevertheless... finally we made it! Immediately it was clear that Sydney is the Queen of Australia, self-proclaimed or not. She is older, more modern, more international more dynamic and especially much bigger than any of the other cities we saw. The sky high architecture teaches humbleness, dwarfing everything and everybody; the remains of the old grandeur of the town show character of perseverance, challenging towers and mirrors; the people are Australian or Chinese, sandwich-seller or stockbroker, but they all seem to know where they are going, on the busses, metro's, mono-rails and ferries. But maybe, the one thing that Sydney does not have in surplus is charm.

We walked around the streets in the centre, a lot. We took the monorail where everybody does a round extra, because you pay only once for it and you get a nice view of the inner centre. We took ferries to Darling Harbour and to the Manley Island, because one of the best ways is to see Sydney from the water, a magnificent view indeed. Of course, we visited some of the great attractions and now we can promise you that the famous opera house is really there, as well as the bridge. But also smaller attractions were worth it: a Beatles-fan organised a Photo Exhibition featuring not only marketing photo's of the Fab Four, but also very early pictures in Hamburg. They could be bought as well, but the idea of having John Lennon hanging in the living room was a bit frightening. Furthermore we spend a lot of money on... nothing really, Sydney is also the most expensive town in Australia.

And last, but not least, we finally managed to get our plane ticket physically in our hands, after paying again... the most expensive item of the past year, no doubt about that!

25-26 August '04

Our flight was a treasure. It had taken us at least five travel agencies to find this last option to get to Europe in the coming month. Besides, we had paid the flight twice. But, flying via Tokyo meant a lot of extra miles for less money (is that what air miles is all about?) and flying Aeroflot was good for some excitement as well. On the airport, we could not miss the latest news from Moscow: two Russian planes left Moscow and crashed both within half an hour!! We hoped that security (both with respect to villains and technical faults) would be much increased by the time we arrived there!

Nonetheless, after a high quantity relatively not-so-unsupportable Quantas-hours we reached Tokyo Airport; after many hours harder-to-support Aeroflot-hours we reached Moscow; the last three hours were absolutely supportable in huge leather chairs, with a hostess for every five passengers: the brand new airbus was nearly empty.... Finally we did land at Schiphol in Amsterdam, instead of a much-feared crash and we were back home again.

In the past 32 hours we just undid 326 days of effort to reach Sydney!!!