Our March in Australia

Here it is! This is the entry we prepared for you some days ago, now in all its glory with all the pictures:

Here we are again, apologizing to you for the late update... but oh well, at least we've found some time in our (now) busy working schedule to write a new entry on the blog.

The last time you heard from us we just "finished" working at the plumorchard. We actually thought that we would have to get a new job straight away, but just before we wanted to leave Young, Berrie got an Email from his aunt Gerla. She got in touch with far relatives from Berrie, Jennifer Ulcoq and her husband Tim from Gayndah, Queensland. They were looking for mandarinpickers and offered us two positions in their pickingteam from late March on. That came much to our surprise, but of course we accepted it with delight!

So after our stay in Young, we spent nearly a month travelling up the eastcoast of Australia. Our first stop via Bathurst was Katoomba, beautifully located in the centre of the Blue Mountains. The biggest attraction was the famous rockformation called The Three Sisters (see picture below). We were among hundreds of people (mostly asian), taking pictures and just generally being amazed by the rocks.

After that thrilling experience we couldn't wait to get to..... Sydney! Yes, we've been in Australias most popular city! We spent a full week discovering the charme and attractions it had to offer. Our caravanpark was located just 30 minutes from the city centre, in the middle of a National Park. Again we had some nightly visitors who loved to sit in our pan and crawl through our trash. Right after we put up our tent we had a close encounter with a 1,5m long Bluetongue Lizzard. We also had a brief meeting with the Funnelwebspider. It made itself a cosy home between Pauls shoes before he bravely kicked out the spider with a bit of a hysterical squeek...

Our first day in Sydney was a bit different than we thought it would be. First of all it was somehow near impossible to find a parking space in one of the suburbs (from where we took the train to the city centre). Available parking spaces in huge garages would have cost us up $40 a day! So we decided to always take the bus and the train, even though it took us one full hour to travel. Anyway, in the first days in Sydney we saw what every tourist just has to see: the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Rocks and Darling Harbour. It was very impressive and of course we took all the obligatory pictures (one of them you can see below...) that you would expect from a visit. We spent two evenings on the ferry to suburb Manly, with magnificent views of the skyline. If you thought Sydney was breathtaking by day, you should have seen it with all the lights of the hotels and business towers. Berries pictures couldn't capture this magical sight (the camera isn't good in capturing nightviews and gets a bit shaky on a not too steady boat), but Pauls videocamera did a very good job! Our visit to the Sydney Tower was a bit similar to the one at Melbournes Rialto Towers, but if we are very honest Melbourne has the better view from the top. But what we absolutely loved was the holographic representation show of Australia, which was included with our entry to the tower. Also included was a ride in a 3-D moving seat, which "took" us through different landscapes of the country. (Picture: an impression of Sydney [with Sydney Tower in the background])

What we really liked was the Barracks Museum. It gave an impression of how live was for a convict on a ship and, after he was brought to Sydney, in the barrack house and working site. The actual house where the convicts lived is still standing and is now a nicely refurbished museum.

The Royal Botanic Gardens were quite impressive aswell, but not exactly because of the variety of plants. As we passed some huge trees we heard some squeeking and after one look up in the air we noticed thousands of flying foxes (= bats) hanging from the branches. You can see one of the flying bats on the left.

Our caravanpark organized a spotlight tour through the park. We participated and had a good time searching for all the animals you hear at night, but never really see. Thanks to our guide we saw some Ringtail- and Brushtailpossums, Bandicoots and sleeping birds. Even though we are in meantime used to having a Brushtailpossum in our tent, it was nice to see them in their natural environment.

(Picture: Paul befriending a possum)

After all we have to say that we really liked our time in Sydney, but we definitely prefer Melbourne, as it has more of a cityfeeling to it. At one point we even struggled to find a supermarket in Sydney! But still it's a pretty (and hectic) city with worldclass architecture and a whole lot of history (for australian standards...).

The next days we spent some time getting an even nicer tan! The temperatures and the nice beach next to our campsite in Newcastle allowed us to just lay in the sun and do nothing. We found some amazing shells, but at one point we couldn't search for them anymore. Stinging (but not poisonous) jellyfish were all over the beach and in the water. Some people advised us not to have contact with them. So we just stuck to flaunting our bodies on the beach (poor us, huh?)

It has also been Berries birthday! Many of you didn't forget that, and Berrie wants to thank everyone for their amazing emails, ecards, and even postcards! We spent Berries birthday around an old convict jail, with an amazing beach. For the first time in Berries life he was able to swim in a warm ocean on the 13th of March... that goes for Paul aswell (even though of course it wasn't his birthday). We got some fancy food for the evening, like vegetarian burgers. As a sidedish we had gourmet candy such as chocolate coated raisins. We loved it!

Along the eastcoast we stayed in several towns like Grafton, Ballina and Toowoomba. Not much happened in the first two towns, but that was about to change in Toowoomba. Berrie was clumsy enough to leave his bag in a park near the visitor information and only realized that he was missing something when we arrived at the caravan park 15 minutes later. Of course we raced back to get it back, but as we arrived and searched for it, we found out it was already too late! It was nowhere to be found and two stressful days followed, worrying about Berries belongings. All our pictures, Berries passport and documents were in the bag so it was a good find for the lucky new owner. We already gave up our hope and started requesting new documents, when suddenly on the third day (about 1 hour before we wanted to leave again), a staff member of the caravan park told us that someone handed in the bag at the police station!We packed our tent in a new record time and went to pick up the bag. In the end we got everything back, except for the purse which is still missing. So thanks to the person who found it and gave it to the police!

Our moods cleared up after that and we were ready to move on to Gayndah. We travelled through the beautiful Bunya Mountains (see one of the tropical rainforest-roads below) and arrived in the Orange Capital of Australia on the same day. The city is famous for its good mandarin soil and so you can just guess where we are working now and what we are picking at the moment! Yes, mandarins!

We had a great welcome to Gayndah at Tim and Jenni Ulcoqs house, where we also met their daughters Anna and Carla. We spent the whole afternoon and evening talking about relatives, work and travelling. They even invited us to have dinner with them - the BBQ was amazing!

Some days ago we started working on the orchard. The weather is pretty bad at the moment as its raining bucket loads, so we have a day off now as we can't pick the fruit when it is wet.

Distance travelled as of 29/03/08: 14800km+