Heading Down South!

We know it's been almost three weeks since our last entry, but one you start reading about our busy schedule, you'll find out that we merely had any time to update our blog!

Let's start with the day we left Swan Valley and Herne Hill. We had quite mixed feelings about it. On one side we left the save shelter we had for one month, on the other side we were excited about going away to see and experience new things. The hardest thing though was saying goodbye to the Geversfamily. They took great care of us and gave us the best start we could possibly have in Australia. We also had to say bye-bye to all of our new friends at the Black Swan. After many hugs and a promise that we'll visit them again next year, they let us go.

(Picture: Berrie and Paul in Rockingham)

Our car fully packed up to the roof, the first stop on our long but not too far journey was Rockingham, on the Scenic Ocean Drive along the coast to be specific. There was nothing major to it. We stopped at one beach to relax and stretch our bodies and enjoy the sun. After some hours of driving and taking several wrong roads and turns, we reached Mandurah. It was a nice city with a beautiful town centre. We didn't spend too much time there though, because most of the shops started to close down. It was getting pretty late so we started looking for a place to stay for the coming nights. We ended up setting up our tent on a camping area called Honeymoon Pool, which was located in the Wellington National Park. (See picture below) (Picture on the right: this reptile [about half a meter long] crossed the street in front of our car...)

We absolutely loved the place. We camped in between bushes, trees, animals and near the Collie River. The first night sleeping in a tent was a bit rough, but we managed to get some sleep at last.

The next day we went to visit Bunbury. It was one of our most favourite places to visit so far. At first we went into the Shopping Centre, followed by a lookout point with a beautiful view over the whole city. The city beach offered some great rock formations, which were originated out of lava. The huge waves and the rough sea gave us a spectacular sight. (Picture: Bunbury lookout)

(Picture: camping!)

We packed our stuff on the third day of camping. We decided it was time to go on to the next cities and areas of Australia. Since our campsite was located at Collie River, we went to see the town Collie itself. It turned out to be a rather sleepy town unfortunately. Except for a little shopping street, Collie didn't offer many things to see. (Picture: a last (night) impression of camping at Honeymoon Pool)

Neither did the cities we went to afterwards on our way to Busselton: Donnybrook and Capel. Even the lady at the tourist information centre in Donnybrook told us that there's pretty much nothing to do in this town. By the time we were on the road for three days now. Facing that, we were more than happy to discover a little lake on the way. We swam for a few minutes in the water, and as you can see on the picture on the right, Berrie enjoyed it very much.

Our next stop was in Busselton. We didn't have too much time left on that day, so instead of looking around in Busselton we went on to Dunsborough and then to Yallingup to find a place to stay. We soon found Sjaak de Jong's vinyard; Gunyulgup Estate. It was the next place we wanted to work. Our car just managed to drive over the gravel road on this huge property, but strangely there was no one to be found. We couldn't even find someone in the cottage belonging to the vinyard. Just as we decided to look for a campsite, we saw a man on a motorbike waiting outside the gate. It was Sjaak himself, wondering who passes the "Authorised Personnell Only"-sign. We explained our situation and he was more than willing to offer us a place for our tent on his vinyard. The same evening he introduced us to his wife Angie and his daughter Saskia. Angie and Sjaak welcomed us with open arms and even invited us to have pizza together on the first night.

But the next day we already started working! Not on the vinyard though: we carried kilos and kilos of soil around Sjaak and Angies house, decobwebbed the verandah and cleaned all of their windows. Did we mention that their house is rather big? It was quite some tough work, but we managed to do some things around their house. The next day we started working on the vinyard, which kept us busy on all of the weekdays since then.

Our working list goes from cleaning vines and trunks to wirelifting, nailclipping and mowing. That's by far not all of it, but it would just get too detailed. Just believe us when we say that it's pretty hard work. We both didn't do any manual labour, so it was quite a change. And oh oh oh... how much do we hate the alarm every morning at 6.30! On the vinyard we use three different vehicles to move around; a Kawasaki motorbike, a very old "ute" (Toyota Landcruiser) and a quad. Sjaak showed us how to handle all of these machines and we love driving them in mean time!

We also had to move our tent from the top of the hill to a more sheltered place close to the shed, as the wind did a pretty good job blowing all of our belongings including the tent itself through each other... Yes, we completely live in our tent now. No TV, no electricity, no computer. But we did want some entertainment for after work, so we bought the Australian version of Monopoly. After work we love to go to one of the breathtaking, lonely beaches (see picture below) in this area, and the ocean is also a nice substitute for a shower. Because even though we do have water here, having a shower is a bit hard with only having a waterboiler and a small bowl.

Angie and Sjaak are incredibly warm people; we've been at their place a couple of times now to enjoy their "barbies" (barbecues). Their sweet dalmatian dog Peeko loves us aswell, thanks to a big bag of Doggy Reward Treats. Angie gives us amazing advices about what to do in this region.

In our weekends, we've been to Ngilgi Cave (see picture below), discovered over a 100 years ago and the first cave in Australia to be open to the public. We walked down the stairs to a level of 32 meters below the surface and loved the spectacular formations of stalagmites, stalactites and shawls.

We visited Busselton quite recently, and were a bit disappointed. Except for a little secondhand market and our new lunchaddiction called Dome Cafe, there was nothing to see. The day we went there brightened up by our visit to Quindalup Fauna Park! We were the only visitors and got to talk to cockatoos, had exotic birds landing on our shoulders and backs, patted adult kangaroos (proof is on the pictures!) and fed the baby kangaroos! To be honest, we didn't expect much of it after seeing the empty parking space in front of the entrance, but it turned out to be something we wouldn't have liked to miss out on.

We also went to visit Margaret River. On the way there we stopped at a Chocolate-, a Cheese-, a Candy- and a Regional Product-Factory at a Winery. Tasting was possible at those places and so we did! We got a ridiculously big piece of chocolate mixed with marshmellows, nuts and fruit next to the most delicious coffee at the Chocolate Factory, which was our favourite tasting of the day. We also got to taste different Olive Oils, jams, spreads, smoked cheeses and all kinds of fudge you can imagine. "Yumm!!!", as the Australians would say. (Picture below: the Regional Product Factory)

Next on our to do-list is a whalewatching tour! We hope we made it clear now that we haven't been lazy for a minute over the last weeks. Time flies in Australia, but we make sure to enjoy every moment of it. Our plan is to keep working for a few more weeks and then we want to travel a huge distance all the way to Melbourne. For that trip we're going to take our time though, because we want to see as much of Australia as possible. As usual you're going to be able to join the fun on AussieUpdate! See ya!

(Picture: Margaret River beach)

NEW FEATURE! KILOMETERCOUNTER! From now on we'll let you know how many kilometers we drove in the Holden Apollo!

Distance travelled as of 15/12/2007: 3089km