Travelling through 3 States

Believe it or not, but we travelled another 5000km since our last entry!

We went from Albany to Esperance, Norseman, all the way through the Nullarbor Plain, Horsham, Adelaide and now we arrived in Melbourne four days ago! We also crossed two borders in meantime: from West Australia to South Australia, and since we're in Melbourne now, from SA to Victoria.

We've experienced and seen a lot of things, and we're going to spoil you with the highlights!

Let's start with Esperance. It was a short stay for us in the city, so the only thing we did there was the Great Ocean Drive, which was full of the nicest beaches you can possibly imagine! We spend a lot of time just swimming in the huge waves along the coast. We also spent some time to just stroll through the city and look at the stores. (Picture: Berrie in the waves)

After two days we travelled further to Norseman. We actually didn't want to spend much time there, but we read in a brochure that - only 12km out of town - you can dig for gemstones! We took the opportunity to collect numerous of beautiful stones in green, white, and red!

(Picture: Paul and a roadsign)

We then took on the most challenging drive for us so far: The Nullarbor Plain! 2000 km of desert land, sometimes plastered with the occasional bush, tree and - hundreds of dead kangaroos! We actually thought we would see dozens of kangaroos hopping along with car as we drove, but instead we got what the truckdrivers left from doing 100km per hours constantly and not caring about what is in their way. The only living animal that we saw was an Emu crossing the street right in front of us, and groups of eagles sitting alongside of the road. Berrie also spotted a living kangaroo at one point.

(Picture: a cliff along the Nullarbor drive. For a scale idea: search for our car)

We were a bit afraid of driving through the Nullarbor, as people told us it is exhausting and boring, but we really liked it! We slept in two roadhouses during the three days.

(Picture: our sight for 3 days)

At that point we crossed the border to South Australia. The first thing that we experienced there was a fruitfly control! The Nullarbor Plain is the natural border to keep diseases either out of South or Western Australia. It is not allowed to carry any fruit or vegetables with you when you enter these states. The control itself happend in pure Aussie-manner: a quick look in the trunk was enough to ensure that we are not taking flies into state. Our first stop was Ceduna, but only to get a pin that we made it through the Nullarbor and for some foodshopping.

We drove further towards our big goal Adelaide, and on the way we visited Pildappa Rock (see picture).

That wasn't going to be the main attraction, though. After we arrived at the rock, we closed all windows and locked all doors from the car to make sure no one would steal or take anything out of it.

During the two months we had the car now, it happend quite often that we forgot to take the key out of the lock. All those times we were lucky that one door wasn't locked.

This time it happened again, with one little difference: we couldn't get into the car anymore at all. And it was Berries fault... As soon as he closed the door with a confident slap, he realised he did something wrong. And we had lost our spare key earlier already... Berrie ran up the hill, asking some random tourists for help. The two ladies analyzed the situation and then took Berrie to the nearest farm, where he searched for a bit of wire on their iron pile. Back at the rock, where Paul was pushing twigs through the door, we did our best with the wire. And with the help of another tourist (Australian people are extremely helpful!) we opened the car after a stressy hour!

We didn't drive much further after this incident, and after a night at a very windy caravan park we drove to Iron Knob. This town that is built around an Iron Mine went from a population of 4000 to 150 after the closure of the mine. Now you can go up the mine with a guide to see the massive craters, and it was well worth a look. On the same day we passed Port Augusta (where we didn't do anything apart from having lunch), to arrive in Adelaide some hours later. We were confident to find a Caravan Park to spend the night, but that proved not to be that easy... After finding 4 parks completely booked out, we decided to give up our budgetaccomodation for 1 night and stayed in a Backpackers Hostel. It was good to have an actual bed underneath us after so many weeks though!

Our first impression of Adelaide was good, very good. It looked more glamourous than Perth and we had high expectations. During our 5day stay at the nicely and centrally located Levi Park we found out that it isn't TOO nice. There's not too much happening really, and apart from shopping, visiting the small but beautiful zoo, strolling through the good but not spectacular Botanic Gardens, going to Port Adelaide (with the misleading promotion slogan "Port Adelaide. Its Happening") and spending an afternoon in IKEA (a piece of European culture on the other side of the world!) we haven't seen much. (Picture: Central Market in Adelaide)

After our stay in Adelaide we wanted to drive into Victoria, but before we actually went there, we stopped at a hill with a nice view over the city, to find out that smoke was coming out of our car. We were convinced that this was the end, we already made plans for working again and being stuck in Adelaide... Two men who came by and had a look made us feel a lot better about it though. We thought the fan was broken, but it wasnt, and the smoke was just coming from a bit of oil that was outside of the engine. The engine became very hot because of the steep hill and there it was: a dramatic vision. Afterwards we didn't have any problems again, so we suppose the men were right!

(Picture: Us on the Jaws of Death. That is the actual name of this rock)

The next town was Horsham, our base for exploring the absolutely gorgeous Grampians Mountain Range. This nature reserve rises abrubtly from the rather plain and boring Victorian rural grounds, and we enjoyed it so much that we would call it one of our favourite parts of Australian nature seen so far. To mention two of the nicest spots in the Grampians: the MacKenzie Falls and Mt. William (the highest point in the region). The pictures speak for themselves!

We went on to discover yet another fantastic piece of Australian landscape. The Great Ocean Drive, stretching about 200km's west of Melbourne stunned us with their rough beauty. Travel brochures call it one of the most beautiful coastal drives in the world, and we can do nothing but admit this. Another visual impression of Australian nature:

(Picture: the 12 Apostels, along the Great Ocean Road)

And now we are in Melbourne! We hope to let you know everyhting about our Melbourne stay very soon, and we'll spoil you with just one fact for now: we love it just as much as we thought we would. It's everything Adelaide wasn't. We're currently sleeping in a brandnew tent. Our "old" one became very unsturdy and it had cuts here and there. The staff of Kmart were extremely happy to offer us a new one, and we were lucky to find that it was on discount so we actually got some money with it!

You'll hear from us again very soon!

(Pictures: Australian sunsets)

Distance travelled as of 31/01/08: 10458km

From Gunny to Albany

Once again we can just say sorry for the lack of updates over the past few weeks, but here we are again, informing you on what has happend since the time around christmas!

In mean time we're not at the vinyard anymore, but before we'll tell you about all the exciting things we saw and did over the last days, we'll let you know about what happened at Gunyulgup Estate.

Before christmas we spent a weekend driving around the Margaret River region. We visited towns like Augusta, Nannup and Bridgetown. Even though (believe it or not!) it was a fairly rainy weekend, we enjoyed our trip and spent some hours in the lovely second hand shops.

We could also be found at the beach quite some times in the evenings, where we hoped to see a dramatic sunset. Even though these evenings supplied us with some nice pictures, the best sunset we saw was at the vinyard itself.

We spent christmas day all over the region, but especially on the beaches. We had, in fact, the hottest christmas in the world with +40degrees! Even though it was nice to wear nothing but swimming shorts over the christmas days, we didn't really feel the exciting december atmosphere that is all over Europe these days. On christmas eve we baked wraps, and filled them with vegetables, tofu, herbs and sauces. On top of that, we had warm cupcakes covered with vanilla custard. The time between christmas and new years eve was packed with work. On new years eve though we had a great time opening bottles of wine and champagne and eating chips & snacks and playing our recently bought game "Eternity II".

We didn't have any sort of firework in this region. The danger of starting a bushfire is just too high. So we welcomed 2008 with some sparkling sticks, sitting outside watching what seemed a thousand stars in the dark night.

During the last days at Gunyulgup, we saw two snakes crossing the street right in front of our car! They are way too fast to identify their kind or colour, though. The very last working day was on January, 4. Angie and Sjaak invited us to the Yallingup Caves House to have a nice goodbye drink under the setting sun. Our working mate Jim was there aswell, just like Sjaak and Angies daughter Saskia. (see picture below)

As a goodbye and thankyou gift they gave us a carton (!) of wine. This is the chance for us to thank our hosts for the past five weeks aswell: We had a great time and thankyou for all the advice and the hospitality!

The following weekend, especially on Sunday 6th, we packed our bags and placed all of our belonging into our Holden. At exactly noon we left "Gunny", heading towards Nannup again.

We didn't exactly get the best impression of the town last time we visited it ( it was raining bucketloads of water!), but at this point the sun was shining brightly, setting the sleepy town into a whole different light. We stopped at the Blackwood River Winery for a quick coffee and a piece of cake. We loved the food but especially the location very much. (see picture to the left)

Our next stop on the schedule was Pemberton. The town itself was, again, a bit sleepy. We stopped there to have lunch at the Big Brook Dam. It was getting pretty late and after several hours of driving we decided to call it a day. The following night we camped in the Shannon National Park, surrounded by bushes, trees and birds. We also met a couple from Switzerland on the campsite. They gave us great advice for an activity to do on the next day; they advised us to climb the 400m high Mt. Frankland. From the top of the mountain you have a beautiful 360degrees view over national parks. So the next day we packed up the tent again and headed for Mt. Frankland. We met the Swiss couple again there, and together we took on the mountain. The view on the top was indeed breathtaking...(see picture on the right). But the day had an even more breathtaking activity in store for us! Just after we went to the small town of Walpole, drove a scenic drive along the coast and visited the Giant Tingle Tree, we walked the Tree Top Walk. It might sound boring, but when you're walking 40m above the ground level, in between the massive Red Tingle Trees, which are unique to this park, you are fully aware of the power and strenght of nature (see picture on the left).

(Picture: Paul underneath the Giant Tingle Tree)

The town of Denmark was a tidy place, where Berrie got his hair cut and we visited some nice shops. Close to town are Green's Pool and the Elephant Rocks, some massive rocks in the ocean breaking the waves and offering a safe (but cold!) swimming beach.

After Denmark we went to Albany, the place where we are staying at the moment. What can we say, we absolutely love the city! It is located directly next to the ocean, has great shopping malls, lots of small but cosy shops (which create the towns nice atmosphere) and most importantly: lots of cafes. So far we had coffee at 3 different places, right now we're sitting in the Naked Bean Cafe (we rate it 5.5/10). But of course the city has more to offer than coffee. We went to see a war memorial (see picture on the right), with a magnificent view over the city of Albany and the surrounding area. Right after that we went to see the remainings of a fort from the first and second world war: Fort Princess Royal. We were highely impressed by the huge variety of things to see there: lookouts, bunkers, cannons and guns, galleries of belongings of soldiers from that time and loads more. After that we went back to our current campsite, Cosy Corner Beach. Situated right next to the beach, the waves are the last thing that we hear in the evening and the first thing to hear in the morning.


Yesterday we went to visit Whaleworld, 20km from Albany. This attraction features remainings from a cruel time in the history of Australia. Whales were shot by huge harpoons with grenades on them, and dragged into this whaling station. Flenchers cut off the blubber (fat), then the flesh, and then put everything into a huge cooker to produce the multifunctional whale oil. The oil was basically used for any product made during the 60's and 70's. We went on a whaling ship, saw a 3D movie, movies about whaling and sharks and took part in the very interesting guided tour through the complex. The whale skeletons impressed us (see picture below).

After a good 2 hours we went on to see a few more attractions, just a stonethrow away from Whaleworld. We saw "blowholes", if you're lucky (and the waves are strong) the water crashes into holes in the rocks and create a unique sound and sight. Unfortunately we were not amongst the people to experience that... We just saw a crack in the rock. The most amazing attractions though, were the Gap and the Natural Bridge. They were both sculptures of ocean rocks and even though we were disturbed by a huge, noisy crowd of French tourists, we enjoyed to see the formations. (Picture below: Berrie standing close to the Natural Bridge)

This very afternoon we got our new CD/MP3 player installed in our car! It is AMAZING! Kylie was the first to blast through the stereo.

That was it for now. See ya!


Distance travelled as of 11/01/2008: 5765km