Melbourne!

Now, we've promised you that you will hear from us very soon, and here we are with a whole post dedicated to Melbourne! We spent over a week in the metropole and we've experienced so many things that we thought it's worth its own entry.

Last saturday, after we drove along the coast, we saw the skyline of Melbourne (see picture above) appearing slowly in front of us. The traffic was just pure madness! We were, of course, not aware of the 'special' traffic rules here, so the first thing we did was going to Starbucks to discuss our route through the city in order to reach the information center (or just be close to it!) In the city itself the traffic was even worse: the cars were driving bumper to bumper and it was somehow impossible to reach any parking garage! We did manage to get into one after some hours - but we went out after 2 minutes, because for 30 minutes we would have to pay $6,50 and for one hour $15,00! We found a garage for $8,50 a day so we parked our car there.

Well, then we gathered some information leaflets from the information centre about what's going on in Melbourne. Our next challenge was to find a decent place to stay for the coming week! We phoned with several owners of caravan parks and they all had tent sites for us! The first caravan park was called Honey Hush; beautifully located between factories, dumpyards and highways. We thought this was a bit too high profile for us, so after 5 minutes on the campsite we drove further to the next one. ' Hobsons Bay Caravan Park' looked even lovelier than the previous one! Unfortunately, no one was in the office. There was just a lovely lady, we call her Rosie, who collected the money for the tentsite. At that point we were still not sure whether to stay or to go on, but when she hissed through her black teeth that we would get the 7th night for free, we could hardly hold back our joy. Well, we ended up staying at 'Hobsons Bay Caravan Park'. Throughout the week we had some nice neighbours from Germany and from Ireland, so afterall it wasn't bad there at all!

On monday we went for a walk through the city and through the dozens of shopping malls (some of them have over 300 shops!). Our first impression of Melbourne was very good, we loved the atmosphere & city panorama a lot. But after we saw all the shops and skyscrapers from down below, we decided to take a good look at them from 250metres above! We went into the Rialto Towers and to be exact on the 360degrees observation deck high in the sky. The view was breathtaking (see picture on the left)! We could see every glimpse of Melbourne, as it was a sunny clear day. We spent about half an hour up there. The good thing about the observation deck was, though, that you could come back in the evening again to look at the city with all the lights on. Of course we took the opportunity to do so. It was even more stunning than during the day and a completely different experience (see picture below).

The next day we went to the Federation Square (Picture on the left), the heart of central Melbourne. We visited the ACMI, the Australian Center for Moving Images. There was an exhibition from Christian Marclay which was fairly interesting for us. The rest did not quite impress us either. We enjoyed watching some short movies made by students from different schools throughout the region, though. In the afternoon we took a ride on the City Circle Tram, which gave us a small impression of different sides of Melbourne. On tuesday we went to see the Fitzroy Gardens. In this big park we saw Cooks Cottage (see picture on the right: it's the home of James Cooks parents, shipped to Australia to be rebuilt in this park), a flower conservatory and a dry fountain. The use of water in this area is very restricted: the government bans all water consumptions that are not necessary.

The next attraction was the Melbourne Aquarium! It is hosting a big amount of animals living in the sea, from seadragons to clownfishes to sharks and seasnakes. We loved all the different aquariums and even some terrariums, but our favourite was the massive fish tank. Inhabited by huge stingrays, sharks, turtles and other fishes, this was truly a wonderful display. It became even more interesting when 2 divers appeared with a bucket of fish in their hands - it was lunchtime for the seacreatures (see picture above). All the different species begged for food in their own way, with a turtle coming back all the time to be pushed away because he never has enough... A spectacular sight!

In the late afternoon we paid a visit to the gigantic State Library of Victoria to research the different dollar coins from Australia: a collection is building for both of us.

Thursday was our internetday! You got your previous blogentry back then, and this took us quite some hours and nerves, thanks to blogger.com (we still love it though). We didn't do anything else this day because it rained very much.

Friday morning started with a visit to the massive Queen Victoria Central Market. Nearly everything is available there, but after a while it seems like every stall is selling the same as the previous one and that's where our attention slipped away. We also took a stroll through the delicatess department of the market. The air was filled with dozens of scents from fish to meat to herbs and cheese. In other words: it stank. Still it was a nice experience to see the lively market.

Our next (not planned) stop was the Shrine of Rememberance, which pays tribute to the Australian soldiers serving in wars throughout the past and present years. (Picture on the right: View from the top of the Shrine)

In the afternoon we went to the Botanic Gardens. We liked it much more than the one in Adelaide, and we are becoming true experts in examining all different kinds of treesand bushes.

On saturday we went to Phillip Island! This was going to be our wildlife-experience-day. Two days before we bought a 3 Parks Pass which allows us to visit a Heritage Farm, the Koala Conservation Centre and the Penguin Parade.

The Heritage farm was located on Churchill Island. We liked it very much as it had a farm and a beachside residence from a wealthy man, dating from nearly 200 years ago. The house was furnished in original style including a woman in a maitressgown (sitting just in between the furniture), who was happy to answer all of our questions. We patted some goats and horses, and that was basically all that we could do there.

(Picture: Apparently for some people these signs are necessary...)

Our next stop was the Koala Conservation Centre. A boardwalk took us on the same level as the koalas, which offered great photo opportunities. Some of them were literally just 1 meter in front of us! It was pretty hard though to spot them in the eucalypt trees.

Every single one of them looked cute, so we couldn't select the best picture. Here are the best.

Unfortunately we don't have any picture from our last - and probably the most interesting - experience of the day. In the evening we went to see the penguins! Hundreds of people were stationed in front of the beach anticipating the return of the penguins from sea. It was rather cold and it took quite long, but as soon as the first Little Penguin (as they're called) rolled on the beach in between the waves we knew it was worth the waiting. As it got late, more and more penguins appeared and it was impressive to see the clumsy creatures walking into the beach vegetation to their nests. The reason we don't have any pictures is that it was not allowed to take any. Apparently it would scare the penguins, so we were more than happy to respect this. If you're really interested, you can have a look at http://www.penguins.org.au/

Then it was time for our drive back home, 130kms away from Phillip Island. We did much bigger distances of course, but this drive was full of traffic lights, confusing lanechanges and loaded streets, even at night! We did manage to reach Melbourne, but that's also where it went wrong. If you miss one exit you're screwed! Trust us, you do not want to be lost in the chaos of Melbournes traffic at night. We were. It took quite some time to even realize where we were, and it took much longer to find a route back to Williamstown, which was worse because of the pressure of the fuelmeter (it sank below "E", which doesn't mean Extra full...). Anyway, we made it, and today we are spending our last hours in Melbourne! We have to get some things organized, do the laundry, the dishes from some days (but we can manage ourselves perfectly here), and of course pack everything again.

Tomorrow we'll continue our journey, heading for Canberra, Sydney and all interesting spots in between. We loved every minute in Melbourne and we hope the East Coast has more exciting cities in store for us to see.

See you soon!


PS. In some time you may notice a grand change in the layout of our blog. We plan to change the header as soon as we can, since we just read about the Spice Girls quitting their tour after the American leg of their tour. Which means we will not get the chance to see them live.
For us it is a big letdown, as it really would have marked the highlight of our journey. For now we lost our support and it won't come back until they decide to change their plans.

Distance travelled as of 03/02/08: 10880km

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

Merry Christmas!

We wish everyone at home a Merry Christmas !

Enjoy the festive days with the family, a good & rich dinner and many presents underneath the christmas tree!

Currently it is close to 40 degrees in Australia, so it is most likely that we are going to spend christmas at the beach this year! One thing is for sure - we won't have a white christmas.

We think of our families and friends at home.

We also want to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Start those rockets and crackers, because we won't be able to do so! It is absolutely forbidden to have any kind of firework due to the risk of a bushfire. So the festive season will be completely different for us this year!

We'll leave you with two new pictures of us, we thought they have a little bit of a christmas atmosphere to it...

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

Bye Bye, Swan Valley!

We know that you expect a long update from us now, but even though it's been so many days, we haven't been up to much. Actually, 80% of the time we spent working in the Black Swan. But before you start feeling sorry for us: we had our last day at work last wednesday.

(Picture: Us after the last day of work)

Yes, we had our last day at work. We are planning to leave Swan Valley and the area around Perth this weekend to head off to the south of Australia. Even though our boss tried to make us stay longer by offering a raise of our payment, we feel like it is time to move on and see new places and cities in Australia. But don't expect us to stay in fancy youth hostels, we're going to do it rough and wild: we are going to camp. We already bought a 4-person tent (just to have some comfort at least) and this weekend we are off to our new favourite shopping center in Morley to get the rest of our equipment, like a stove or plates and a lamp.

But surely we did not only work the last weeks, we had some days off to do some outdoor activities.

(Picture: Perth City and the Botanic Garden)

On two days, we decided to go back to Perth to make sure we really saw the major attractions and sights the city has to offer. We went on a CAT, which is a free bus service, taking people around the city, to go to places like the Botanic Garden, Swan Bells, Chinatown in Northbridge and Kings Park. Not to forget the huge shopping area just opposite the train station.

(Picture: Us in front of the temporarily Perth/Hollywood-letters)

Another day we followed a misleading sign which had "Bassendean Town Center" written on it. Naive us thought of a fancy shopping mile, but instead we got around 20 real estate agencies, 3 book shops and a second-hand clothes shop. As you can imagine, our excitement level was rather low.
We also went to the Whiteman Park. It is full of attractions like a Wildlife Park or a Lollyshop, but we got there way too late, so basically everything was closed. We still had a nice time sitting in the huge, empty park with its old gigantic trees and mysterious ponds.

One day we tried to find some things to see close to our home, but all we could find was a playing ground, which Berrie seemed to enjoy very much. (See picture on the left)

Our most dangerous trip took us back to Bells Rapids, a nature park we went to see some weeks ago. This time we decided to swim in there, as the low waterlevel and the slowflowing river allowed us to enjoy the clear water. Adventurous us searched for a seemingly quiet place to swim to the other side. It went fine for Paul, but Berrie did have some difficulties reaching the other side. He felt some repulsing things in between his fingers and gave an Oscarworthy panic attack. Struggling for his life, he finally reached the lifesaving stones on the other side. Both shaking from this dramatic situation, we went back to grab our clothes and go back home. In the end it wasn't all that dramatic, as the repulsing things were just some plants floating in the water.

Another possibly dramatic situation you can experience here: going to the toilet at night and facing this right in front of you. It was the third time we saw a Huntsman in real life! And yes, we took the picture ourselves and no, the picture does not do justice to the actual size of the spider.

That was it for now from us and from Swan Valley. Next time we'll update the blog, you will get some pictures of new areas and cities in the beautiful south of Australia.

Us & The Apollo

OK, time for an update! We've been busy working last week, but we've also managed to drive to some places around this area.

Yes, we drove there with our car. We're having it for a week now, and we haven't been on our bikes ever since. We fall in love again and again, each time we see it. So far, we drove around 500km. We had some critical moments when it came to driving on the left side, but it's all fine now and we love driving here. Last week we played a driving game on the Playstation 2 and immediately caused an accident, because we started driving on the left! We really got into it now we guess... (Pictures left & below: our very own Holden Apollo SLX '93)

One of our first trips with our car took us to Midland Gate Ace Cinema! Yes, even though we should spend our time doing real Australian things like playing the didgeridoo or watching kangaroos, we like to spend our evenings in airconditioned, well seated, thick carpeted and dark cinemas! We went to see Resident Evil III, which we both liked a lot. And yes, it's in European cinemas too!

Walyunga National Park! That's the name of the first National Park we've seen in Australia. Our expectations were high and our raincoats were packed. It was indeed very nice but we hope to see more spectacular landscapes later in other National Parks. We took a walk along Swan River and walked Syd's Trail, a 2,5 km path up and down the river.

(Picture: an impression of Walyunga National Park)

Our first long trip took us to a place called Hillarys, a beautiful city on the westcoast of Australia. We first went to a beach and even though the sun was shining brightly, the wind was a bit cold so we decided not to go swimming. There were some nice colourful tiny little shells though, and the little box below our handbrake looks like a miniature beach now! Later that afternoon we went to Sorrento Quay Center, a nice shopping/eating/kitsch/boats/water combination in Hillarys. We had our coffee at Gloria Jeans (which is by the way our new favourite brand, Muffin Break is so yesterday!). Afterwards we went to another, more natural beach near Hillarys. (Picture: Paul enjoying Gloria Jeans and Berrie in front of Sorrento Quay)

(Picture: one of the beaches we went to see)

The day after reality hit us in the face again as we went back to work. We made a huge blooper at work some days ago. We had to start at 9.00am. Right. We set the alarm at 7.30am to be sure that we would be on time. Nothing wrong so far. But! The alarm didn't ring! Luckily, Paul woke up at 8.30, waking Berrie immediately with just the words "It's 8.30!". We hurried our arses off to be on time and indeed, we were at work just before 9! We were finishing our breakfast on the walk from our car to the Black Swan Restaurant, and entered the building totally confident and proud. We were all cool saying "Hi guys! How are you doinggg?" to our collegues. Then there was Kathryn, a loud but very cheery and nice cook, who came to us, accusing us for being late! "It is 10am guys! And I'm not joking! You're late!" Confused us. She then explained to us that due to Daylight Saving Time the clocks were set one hour ahead last night. So, it wasn't 9.00am as we thought, it was 10 already! We really were late! No one was mad at us though and one (native!) cook did the same. After work we made sure all our clocks were set 1 hour ahead. (Picture: Black Swan Restaurant seen from the back)

One day we climbed over a closed fence somewhere in the hills surrounding Perth, and walked up the hills. It was extremely steep but the views were very nice. We saw the skyline of Perth in the distance, but unfortunately the camera didn't capture this. It did capture our faces though. Just imagine you see Perth Skyline somewhere behind us! We saw kangaroos hopping and stomping (they really are loud!) around us, which was nice and so close to where we actually live here!


We had one more big trip, which was yesterday. We drove into the Darling Range (the hills around Perth) and went to Mandurin, Mandurin Weir (the drinking water supplier for a huge area) and Kalamunda (a very neat and relaxed town with an idyllic shopping center). On the way back we did the scenic one way zig zag drive down the hills. We could've taken the most amazing pictures BUT we did not have our camera with us. Sorry mates, we'll spare you more details because we can't show you anyway. Believe us, it was a breathtaking view.

Some days ago we embarrassed ourselves in Sanity, the local CD store. We were out to buy Britney's new CD (which is amazing!) but then Pauls eye fell on (!) the cover of the Spice Girls Greatest Hits! He shouted Berries name and together we hurried to the desk, grabbing the CD case to find out that it was only a promotional item, stating it'll be out November 10. The shopkeepers gave us amused looks, and told us we should pre order a copy as "this one's gonna be huge". We couldn't help smiling.

That's about what we've done during the last days. Tomorrow we'll be working even harder than usually as we're having a wedding during the day and the restaurant will be open for dinner in the evening again. That means starting at 9.00am, having a little break in the afternoon and working again until the last guest leaves the restaurant and maybe even later. We expect to be home at 11.00pm.

Right, one of our sources at home told us that many of our readers would like to leave a comment for us but don't know how to do this. Understand us well, we don't complain about the big response we already get but we do want to give everyone the chance to share in this amazing experience. We'll explain it in English, German and Dutch.

English:
1. Click on "... Comments"
2. Write your comment in the box on the right.
3. You don't need to sign up, just tick the "Anonymous" box as your identity.
4. Click on "Publish your comment"

Deutsch:
1. Klick auf "... Kommentare" ("... Comments")
2. Schreibe deinen Kommentar in die Box auf der rechten Seite.
3. Du brauchst dich nicht anzumelden, klicke auf "Anonym" ("Anonymous") als Identitaet.
4. Klicke auf "Veroeffentliche Kommentar" ("Publish your comment").

Nederlands:
1. Klik op "... Comments" of "... reacties"
2. Schrijf je reactie in het veld dat nu rechts in beeld verschijnt.
3. Je hoeft je nergens voor aan te melden, klik op "Anonymous" of "Anoniem" als identiteit.
4. Klik op "Publish your comment"