Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)

Ok, we are just going to ignore that is has been 11 days since our last blogentry... We have been very busy though!

Let's start with "Spring in the Valley". As we've told you in our last entry, we went to see more wineries in Swan Valley. We were such an attraction on our bikes! People couldn't believe their eyes. The owners of the wineries were hugely disappointed, mainly because we couldn't carry any mass load of wine on our mountain bikes. We liked most of the wines, but our true favourite is 8 year old portwine! It comes with a sweet taste, a tempting smell and a deep brickred colour. We talked to a lot of people, the old lady from Entopia Wines thought it was 'neat to have us at their winery'. We spent the sunday evening at the neighbours' house, enjoying a great variety of XXL pizza's and the fantastic hospitality of Ruth and Tony (Josh' parents). (Pictures: impressions of Spring in the Valley)

(Picture: Berrie at Bells Rapid)

The day after "Spring in the Valley" Paula took us to Bells Rapid, a beautiful piece of country just 15 minutes from here! A flowing river, blooming flowers, bloody annoying flies surrounding our mouths and noses and a bright sun warming our topless bodies made our afternoon very enjoyable. We crossed the river in our undies and climbed the rocks with the danger of drowning any minute in the wild water of Upper Swan River. We spent 1,5 hours there, until Paula picked us up again. She showed us the area of Swan Valley, and took us to its most luxurious resort full of huge villas AND we saw our first kangaroos there!

(Picture: Us and the selftimer at Bells Rapid)

During last week we wanted to go to Guildford, but on the first day we tried to get there we didn't manage to find it! On the second day, after miles and miles of cycling next to the highway we did find it! We went to the tourist information and the woman there gave us a map with 3 cycling routes through Guildford, which we all finished within 10 minutes. We ended up in Midland Gate shopping center once again. Yes, Guildford was very exciting. In the evening we cooked for our guest family. They enjoyed the vegetarian meal very much, at least they said they did...

We also managed to set up a bank account last week at Commonwealth bank! Their staff was very friendly; full of jokes and nice comments about Dutchmen (especially about their performance in bed: "Dutch men are good lovers!"). One of our trips to Midland ended up in Henry's Kitchen, a Chinese restaurant which Henk advised us to go to for dinner. And indeed, the food was very nice and not too expensive (we could write the Lonely Planet part for this area in mean time!). But we didn't realize that the dark night sets in so quick in Australia. We had dinner when it was bright outside, and just half an hour later it was dark, and that means very dark, pitch black dark. Remember, we went to Midland on our bikes, with only one having just a front light. So, as you can imagine, we were not too keen on getting back on the highway without any lights. We ended up cycling through the darkness, taking a new route to get home. Every time we heard a car approaching we got off the road, praying it would see us and we would still stand there after it passed us.

Last friday we went to Fremantle, a nice city on the coast of WA. We went to see the Shipwreck Museum with the wreck of the Batavia in it, and took a walk through the old town centre and had a nice lunch at Mill Bakery. Before we went home, we had an icecream and took a walk on the beach to get on the train again afterwards. New disaster! Berries bike had a flat tire! Which meant he couldn't cycle the 8 kilometers back from Midland Station! Drama! But since the Aussies are so nice, they didn't hesitate to take Berrie AND the bike on a bus to Herne Hill. Poor Paul had to cycle all the way back on his own, while Berrie enjoyed the comfort of being driven home for free ("That's alright mate, free this time!"). Well, we both found our way back home and the next day we learnt how to fix a tire four times (we kept on finding leaks!).

OK, we had a major change of our stay in Australia. We intended to be in Yallingup by this time, to work on a winery for Sjaak de Jong, which Jeffry and Bianca (friends in Holland) arranged for us. But, it didn't seem to work out. Since we had no car at this point it was impossible for us to live there as the distances to everything we need are too far to do on our bikes. We talked about the situation with Henk Jan and Paula and they offered us to stay here and look for work, which we did last saturday. Within an hour we found work in a very decent place. We now work in the restaurant of Black Swan Winery, being paid $18,- an hour each! Since that saturday we almost worked nonstop, trying to make as much money as we can (our new bankaccount loves us now already!). (Picture: Berrie ironing his shirt for work)

CAR CAR CAR! You won't believe it! Our very own car is very close to us now! This afternoon we're going to pick up our Holden Apollo (which is just a Toyota Camry with a Holden badge on it) with Henk Jan! Last monday Henk took us to Auto Europe to check it out, and we are in love! It's huge, it's white, it's automatic, it's from '93 and it'll be OUR car! Next time you'll be able to take a look at our car, if we survive driving on the left side of the road...

On the same day we had a major foodshopping trip! We spent nearly $100,- on canned food and coke. We are now completely living on our own in the cottage, making our own dinner and having breakfast together.

And finally, to close this entry, we would like to gossip about the new, amazing, stunning, timeless, beautiful, classic Spice Girls single "Headlines (Friendship Never Ends)". If you're not interested, this is where the entry ends for you. Scroll down and comment now. Thank you.

ISN'T IT AMAZING?! We heard it for the first time this morning, and are absolutely amazed by it. Our favourite Spice Girls have leading parts in the song and, well, what can we say, it's so Spice Girls! It's more than we expected it to be. We are currently on our 779234th listen and we love it more and more! Maybe you wondered why the Spice Girls are in the banner of this blog (or maybe not), but we still want to go to see the Spice Girls on tour in Sydney. But they keep on adding dates in the UK and USA, so we still don't know when the Sydney date will be. Oh well, enough about the Spice Girls (we love them and their new single).

It's getting a bit too warm in here now, we'll wait outside until Henk comes back from work to take us to our car which has airconditioning by the way. We promise you won't have to wait that long for the next entry. Greetings to everyone at home in Europe who is reading this! We think of you a lot.

(PS. Ik wil heel graag iedereen die iets in het boek heeft geschreven op mijn afscheidsfeest heel erg bedanken! Het was heel fijn om de berichtjes te lezen, en hartverwarmend om te vernemen dat sommige mensen me echt gaan missen! Bedankt! Berrie)

Where to start...

(Picture: Henk Jan and Paula's house)

Even though it's only been a few days since our last update, those days are starting to feel like a right blur already! We've been up to quite some things and will try to stay a bit structural during the following lines!

We've been to Perth!
Josh picked us up the day right after he told us he would, and he took us to the University of Western Australia first. We walked the campus and were stunned by the way it looked. We felt like we were in a zoo, surrounded by exotic gardens, colourful birds and little ponds. Then we went back to Josh' car where his girlfriend, Renee, was waiting for us already. They were both very nice and first took us to China Town, where we had dinner in the Vietnamesian (?) restaurant Saigon. The waitresses sucked, they didn't bother where they dropped our plates as long as they were on the correct table. After this we went to King's Park, with a panoramic view over Perth. (Picture: Josh and Renee)

Us and Perth Skyline

The same afternoon we lived a historical moment: we did our first Aussie shopping trip on our own at Woolworth's (even though we only got chips and coke).

The day after we had a look at Henk Jans work. He is making antennas. It looked well confusing but he explained it very nicely and gave us a good impression of how Aussie people work. The following night made us realize exactly where we are: in a country full of big ass motherf*cking spiders! At the top of our bed, in the corner, t here was a Huntsman spider watching us with his horrible eight eyes and clicking his megajaw. Ok, one guess who caught it! Wrong! It was Berrie! Paul stood there with shaky knees but Berrie got a beer jug and placed it right over the spider, moving it to the table, closed safely with the heavy Lonely Planet on top of it.

In mean time we've been to Midland Shopping Gate twice. It's a huge mall with over 120 stores where we already have our favourite lunchroom (Muffin Break). Other i nteresting purchases: an Aeroguard anti-insect roll-on thing, a huuuuge bottle of sunlotion (it IS hot here! Here it is) anddddd Jennifer Lopez latest effort on singing - Brave (Paul wants to point out very clearly that it was Berrie who bought this)! (Picture: Berrie at Muffin Break)



This weekend we're experiencing a traditional and local fest: Spring in the Valley. It's a two day celebration of the wineries, and you can hop on and off busses from winery to winery to taste different wines. We've been filling our glasses quite a lot, and finished the first day of it with a nice barbecue at Josh' parents place. Today we'll enjoy some more exclusive wines (a bottle costs $20.-). (Picture: Spring in the Valley at Windy Creek winery)



Now we're off to lay in the garden, enjoying the sun. We hope the weather's nice in Europe aswell. See ya mates!

The garden. Jealous? Oh and the yellow cottage is the place where we live.

Tennisballs, Dogtoys, the locals and Premium Pilsener

We made it!

The stay at the Singapore Airport was interesting in many different ways. Starting with posh and exclusive fancy designer stores with no customers at all and three shopkeepers to an old dutch woman who totally fascinated by a high-tech asian invention. It was a projection of loads of tennisballs on the floor, and when you stepped on them, they were moving! WOW! She kept on pushing us to give it a try and she was all happy when we finally did it. To excuse her enthusiasm, she cried out loud: "Everyone loves doing this!" Even tho nobody else seemed to care.... Well we didnt do anything else apart from walking through the airport. We expected some exotic plants and colours, and no - they did not disappoint us at all! (Picture: Berrie discovering the lavish jungle of Singapore Airport)

Well after half an hour of checking the airport and refreshing in the toilets, we sat down on luxurious leather couches surrounded by oase-ish plants. We loved the clean airport, but one woman just took it too far. She was cleaning the carpet (always with a smily face of course), even when there was no dirt! Amazing! Oh well, the boarding went very well up until the point, where we had to fill out a dramatic declaration form that we are not importing something dangerous! But Berrie freaked out because of a few questions as he carried hiking shoes (including soil(with potential diseases)) and animal equipment (dog toys), which were (according to the declaration thing) not allowed to be brought to Australia. The flight itself then went very well. It took another 5 hours. In the end, all the drama about the hiking shoes and toys were for nothing, because the things went through the scan without a problem and we only got asked who was the owner of some very dangerous chocolate balls. We soon then found Henk Jan in the waiting crowd. Well we then carried our luggage onto his Pick-up car and drove on the left side to Gevers mansion.

Even though we felt exhausted we were overwhelmed by new impressions: Australia smells different, Australia looks different, Australia feels different - Australia is different! But in a good way! The place where Henk Jan, Paula, Jonathan, Annelies and their 3 dogs live is amazing, and we even have our own, little separate cottage! Henk Jan guaranteed us we don't have to worry about spiders, yet we still had a hard time closing the curtains in the evening: potential spider places everywhere. We experienced Henk Jans amazing cooking skills when we had dinner, but it was hard to keep our eyes opened much longer so we went to bed pretty early. 17 hours of sleep followed! Yes, seventeen that is. Afterwards we heard Jonathan had been waiting all day and even rang his mum to ask whether he should wake us; he wanted to do something with us. (Picture: Paul in the garden of Henk Jans house)

The day was pretty much over by now, we had our nice little Spice Girl posing time on the trampoline and took a little walk around the place, it was then when we met Josh. He's living in the same street and offered to drive us through Perth and show all the nice places later on, which we'd love to obviously! After we came back from the walk we had dinner, watched some TV and had some german beer. Paul felt like home drinking the best imported Pilsener that you can get in Australia. At least the label said so. But indeed it was very good. We also had a nice chat with the family and then decided to update the blog for everyone at home. Now everyone went to bed (it's nearly 11pm) and we're still sitting at the computer. (Picture: An impression of the scenery, taken during our walk)

We hope you did get a nice impression of our first day, we enjoyed the first hours down-under very much. We are going to bed now, too, Bye Bye!

Singapore!

We are in Singapore!! After ... countless hours of flying with amazing Singapur Airlines, we finally put our feet on asian ground. We are exhausted, but happy of course at the same time.
We had a pleasant flight with nice meals and a great crew. There were no problems during the flight, everything went well. Now we've got two hours before our next plane flies us directly to Perth. Until then - Bye Bye!

*****

Wir sind in Singapur! Nach unzaehligen Stunden Fliegens mit der super Singapur Airline betraten wir vor ein paar Minuten asiatischen Boden. Wir sind erschoepft, aber auch gluecklich das es erstmal vorbei ist. Der Flug an sich verlief ohne Probleme, das Essen und die Crew waren sehr gut. Der naechste Flug nach Perth geht in zwei Stunden. Bis dahin - Tschuess!

*****

We zijn in Singapore! Hoera! Na zo het leek ontelbare uren in het vliegtuig met de royaltywaardige Singapore Airlines staan we nu sinds een paar minuten voor het eerst in onze prille leventjes op Aziatische grond! De landing ging gepaard met jengelige pingelmuziek, wat toch niet kon verhullen dat we totaal uitgeput zijn inmiddels maar ook blij dat het achter de rug is. De vlucht ging helemaal goed, zonder problemen, we hebben lekker spicy Indiaas gegeten aan boord en de crew in kimono's deed het goed. Over twee uurtjes moeten we weer paraat staan bij de volgende gate om dan in 1 keer naar Perth te vliegen! Wij gaan ons even wentelen tussen de orchideen en palmen hier, tot dan - Bye bye!