"Where the rainforest meets the Reef!"

This time we're writing from the far north of Queensland, from a town called Port Douglas to be precise. That means we moved quite a few kilometers since our stay in Brisbane. And that means that we saw and did a lot of things!

After our stay in Brisbane we got back on the train and bus to good old Gayndah, where we were excited to pick up our car. We were unpleasantly surprised when we found out that the car still leaked oil, and that basically meant that the car would stay at the mechanic for another week. It made the delay in our travelling schedule even bigger, but we had the best place to stay for those days: even though we didn't travel, we had a very nice week at Tim and Jenni's place: playing ping pong, enjoying their amazing cooking, packing mandarins for their markets and changing our travelling schedule for the coming weeks.

As you may know, we planned to drive all the way back to Perth, which would've been perfectly possible if we would have left 3,5 weeks earlier. Now it would become very tight, so we had to arrrange a different way to be back in Perth on time. So, that means, we have to be in Darwin around the 10th of July, where we will have a week to sell our car. Then, on the 17th, we'll fly to Alice Springs, where we will do a 3 day outback tour from the day after. On the 22nd we take another plane, this time all the way to Perth. There we'll see Henk-Jan and Paula again, but also meet Berries family, as they are flying to Australia tomorrow!

That's about what's still ahead of us, now we'll tell you about what we've done. On the day we finally left Gayndah we didn't drive far, but it was just good to be on the road again. We stayed in Biloela, which was only an overnight stay so the next morning we went on again. This time we drove to Emerald, but on the way we visited the stunning Blackdown Tablelands National Park. There was no one else visiting, so we had it all for ourselves. Our favourite part was the Two Mile Falls. It is the dry season so there wasn't a lot of water, but the surroundings were stunning and it was possible to stand on the edge of the waterfall (see picture below).

Our next stop was Emerald, where we stayed for the night. The next day we drove further to the Sapphire Gem Fields. We wanted to have a look at the Gemstone Information Centre, but it had shut its doors so we just went on to Sapphire, a tiny fossickers town. The friendly man at the Blue Hollow Mine advised us to just walk out to the fields and search for sapphires, which we tried. All we saw were piles of dirt, and even though we're sure it must've been full of expensive stones, it all looked the same to us so we went back to the mine to buy a bag of mine dirt. That means you get a bag of leftover sand/stones, which the miners already fossicked through (see picture above). The next 2 hours we spent searching and washing the dirt, which was good fun! In the end we both had a little bag with some sapphires and zirkons. We both have a gemstone that is suitable for cutting and would make nice jewellery.

The same evening we had trouble finding a place to sleep, all the campsites and motels in country-Queensland were fully booked due to all the dozens of mining sites and their workers. It forced us to drive on way longer than we expected, and we ended up in Mackay. Even here it was very busy (no campsites or youth hostels available), but we were advised to check the McGuire hotel. And so we did! We had the worst night in Australia so far... Our room was located directly above the stage in the pub below, which meant we were enjoying the live band's music all the way until 2am in the morning. We were shaking in our beds (not because of coldness...). It was a huge relief to step in our car the next morning and an even bigger relief to sleep in our own tent in Airlie Beach that evening, because that's where we went next!

Airlie Beach was full of tourists, but we had no problem finding a nice campingground just outside of the city. It was beautifully located in a tropical surrounding, next to the airport... But most of the time we spent in and around Airlie Beach. On the second day we booked a 1-day-tour to the Whitsunday Islands/Great Barrier Reef. (Picture: sunset impression at Airlie Beach feat. Berrie)

Now you also would expect Airlie Beach to actually have a beach, and it does indeed, but no one was swimming in the water due to dangerous marine stingers (even though it is lowseason for them). The only place where you can enjoy a save swim is the Airlie Beach Lagoon - an artificial swimming pool next to the towncentre. It was highly popular with the locals and tourists, so it was packed with people when we decided to give the cold water a go.

On the third day we were excited to go on the tour we booked the day before. At 7.25am a courtesybus took us to Abel Point, a port next to Airlie Beach. One hour later, the tourjet left Abel Point with 60 passengers aboard, to head for the Whitsunday Islands. Our first stop was the Hill Inlet Lookout point, overlooking Whitsunday Island and Whitehaven Beach (see picture left). In the bay where the jet stopped, we also saw some turtles stretching their long necks above the water! Sadly they were a bit too quick for our camera.

After the lookout point we went straight to Whitehaven Beach (see picture above). Even though the wind made the bright sunlight a bit less intense, we enjoyed a nice swim in the crystal clear water and a little bit of sunbathing. When we got back on the boat an hour later, a light lunch buffet was waiting for us to be eaten. While we had our sandwiches, we headed to our snorkeling spot, Border Island Reef.

The Reefjet crew gave us some instructions on how to use the snorkel and goggles ("Don't spit in them!"); we put on our wetsuits, grapped a pair of fins, a swimming noodle (Yes, even the snorkelinstructors advised them a lot) and dropped ourselves from the back of the jet into the water. It took some time to get used to breathing through your mouth only, but eventually we got on with it and could finally enjoy the beauty of the underwater world. (Picture: Paul with snorkeling gear)

It was absolutely amazing and one of our favourite memories of being in Australia!

We also had an underwater camera to capture the colorful corals and fishes, but unfortunately the pictures don't reflect what it actually looks like. We're still going to post two pictures, which we think are quite nice (see pictures right and below).

30 minutes later we got back on the jet, and cruised back to Abel Point. At 4.30pm we arrived back at the port, feeling a little bit wet due to the occasional wave drowning us on the sundeck. Nevertheless, we had a fantastic day at the Whitsunday Island and especially the Great Barrier Reef.

From Airlie Beach we went on to Townsville for a night. We had our tent replaced there for the second time without any problems (Thanks K-Mart!). The next day we went to Cairns, and we planned to stay there for a night or two, but the campinggrounds were just too expensive. We drove on to Port Douglas/Mossman, close to the Daintree National Park (see pictures below).

That's what we discovered yesterday! Daintree National Park exists of dense tropical rain forests, inhabited by crocodiles and cassowaries and other sorts of animals. Unfortunately we didn't see any of those mentioned animals, even though we saw dozens and dozens of signs warning us not to drive over them.

The rainforest itself was another highlight of our journey. It's just like what you imagine a jungle to be like: lush green palms, bushes, trees and clear creeks. We did two boardwalks which showed us the rainforest and a mangrove forest.

And that's it for this blogentry! See you soon!

Distance travelled as of 26/06/08: 20200+ km

Back in the city!

Yes, we were brave enough to step out of the save environment of Gayndah to continue our journey through Australia! Since our car is still pretty much screwed and only to be fixed by next thursday, we were forced to travel with the bus and the train from Gayndah to Brisbane. It was a last-minute-decision and luckily for us, both bus and train had available seats for us! (Picture: Skyline of Brisbane)


So with the help of Jenni we booked our tickets, packed our backpacks (it is the first time we actually really use them!) and first got on the bus to Maryborough, and later on a train that took us to Brisbane. The cityfeeling was just overwhelming; it seemed like a decade had passed since we last saw a huge shopping mall or a different supermarket than IGA!

With our heavy luggage on our backs we made our way to the caravan park located just 10 minutes outside of the city centre.

We dedicated the first day in Brisbane entirely to shopping, shopping, having a nice coffee in between, then some shopping again, having a snack at subway, and some more shopping. All the lights and the smells of the shops seduced us to buy a little thing here and there. And that basically sums up the first day of our stay in Brisbane. (Picture above: Shopping malls at night)

The second day was a bit more colourful than the one before. Well, apart from a nice coffee in a cafe in the morning, we had a lot more on our schedule to see. First up were the Botanic Gardens, which were, quite frankly, not half as impressive as the Gardens we've seen in Melbourne or Sydney. Either way, we took a nice stroll along the Mangrove Walk (Picture above) up to a bridge that took us to the South Banks, a beautiful strip along the Brisbane River, covered with grassstripes, shops, rainforests and even a little beach! Eventually we wanted to see a movie at night, but after all we decided the choices (such as "Sex and the City" or "What happens in Vegas") did not quite meet with our needs. After seeing the South Banks we went back into the city centre - the City Hall to be precise. We had a look at two expositions, one about the immigration to Australia in modern times and the other about abandoned rooms. Sounds exciting? Well, it wasn't quite something new, but it was very well made and put up. (Picture: Berrie and the South Banks)

We also took a very old lift (about 90 years) up to the middle of the tower of the City Hall. There we had a good view across the centre, even though we were only about 78m above ground! The rest of the day we spent strolling through the streets, watching the world go by and having an occasional ice cream. (Picture: Church in the middle of skyscrapers)

Our third day was going to be a bit different, because it was a public holiday due to the Queens Birthday. So a lot of shops, malls and sights were closed; therefore we stayed at the caravan park all day until the late evening. Our plan was to go online from 10pm until 8am in the morning in one of the plenty internetcafes in Brisbane.

And now here we are writing our new blogentry at 5:35am in the morning! Believe us, we are rather sleepy at the moment, so the following day will be full of soft snoring, little movements and hiding underneath a blanket, trying to get as much sleep as possible.

This week we are also going back to Gayndah to pick up our car, so the next time we update the blog, the kilometercount will have changed, promised!

See ya!

Still In Gayndah...

Hello!

We would love to provide you with some amazing news about our journey through Australia, but even after one and a half months we are still in Gayndah! And yes we are still picking mandarins aswell. (Picture below: Paul at work)

We can't really say that we've been up to a lot since we work 6 days a week from 6:30am to 4:30pm, and then, after we came home, we hardly have enough time to cook our dinner before the darkness sets in and we have to make our way to our sleeping bags... Life's not easy for a picker. (Picture below: our view during the last 2 months...)

That all sounds a bit negative, but we are still having a good time! We had nice (but very noisy) French (-Canadian) colleagues, and the best boss you can imagine! Every now and then he and Jenni invite us over for a "smoko" (coffee break), with loads of selfmade cakes and cookies. Selma (Jenni's mother) takes good care of us aswell! We won't forget our sunscreen or 4l waterbottles for sure! (Picture below: the fancy caravan park, can you find our tent?)

Our original plan was to stop working after today, but our car has been a troublemachine lately! It's a complicated story but right now its at the auto electrician and we're hoping to have it fixed sometime next week! After that we go to Brisbane for a few days, and then we'll start the huge journey back to Western Australia!

On our rare days off we've been to Childers a few times. Childers is a town which is hardly any bigger than Gayndah, but at least our bank has a branch there and the internet is a lot cheaper... It is a big drive though, so most days off we just spend at the caravan park, washing our clothes and cleaning the tent! We've been to Bundaberg two times. Bundaberg is a lot bigger than Gayndah, but we didn't see much of it (yet?), because we were busy booking our returnflights back to Europe there! We've got them now, and on the 26th of july we fly from Perth to Singapore, then we spend 4 days shopping/relaxing and on the 30th we fly back to Amsterdam! (Picture below: Berrie at work with "our" Massey Ferguson tractor)

But, before the end of july we hope to see a lot more of this big country. We're hoping to do an Outback tour, to visit Uluru and the King's Canyon. We're not sure yet if our timeschedule will allow us to do so, because we still have 1000s of kilometers to drive in the coming 2 months!

One last thing; we killed 5 mice in our tent over the last weeks! It's cruel, but they're very cruel too (eating our cheese and bread, and shitting all over the place (including our clean dishes))! Here is the proof:

All right, that was it for the moment, hopefully we'll be in Brisbane soon! They have 24h internet cafes there, so there will be no excuse for us not to update the blog with much more exciting news than this time!

See ya!

Distance travelled as of 29/05/2008: 16.500km+

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+

A bit of a different entry this time...

It's been a very long time since we last let you know about our situation, and we realized that. So we just wrote a long story about what we did over the last weeks, but the computer doesn't accept the camera and therefore we can't upload pictures!

We'll try and get it done as soon as possible, but we are working day after day now so we can't exactly tell you yet when...

We are in good health and still enjoying our journey very much though, we can imagine you're in doubt about that after such a long time!

Hopefully we'll be back soon,

Paul and Berrie

From a library in New South Wales, Australia

(Picture: a row of plumtrees, after all the plums had been picked...)

It's been a while since we've let you know something about us, but here we are again! It won't be much though, as we haven't been up to much since we left Melbourne. Well, that's not true, the better way to say it is that we haven't been up to things that make interesting blog entries!

We currently stay in Young, New South Wales, where we have been picking plums for the last 1,5 week. Plumpicking is hard work, but when we stayed in Canberra and had a look at the balance on our bank account, we realized that we would need to work very soon, hard or not!

So we picked a lot of plums! But yesterday the plumpicking came to a sudden end, only 1,5 hour after we started (very early...) someone told us to stop picking and come to the end of our rows, where we were told that the plums are not good enough this year (nobody wants to buy them) and that the plumpicking would stop immediately!

We are now looking for a new job (probably picking apples, pears or oranges) somewhere not too far from Young and Sydney, because as soon as we have enough money, our first stop is going to be Australia's best-known city: Sydney.

On the way to Young we've travelled the Australian Alpine High Country, which was a special experience! It had a strange Irish/Norwegian feeling to it, which you obviously wouldn't expect in Australia! At some point we even had to stop because the road was full of brown/white cows! We stayed at several campsites through Australia's high country and absolutely loved the quietness and peace, after our stay at the not-too-amazing Melbourne campsite...

(Picture: Australian Alpine High Country)

Next on our journey was Canberra, Australia's capital! Canberra is probably different from all other capitals in the world, as the city has been designed by an American architect, so everything is planned. No unexpected little streets or cozy small town squares, but big (boring) buildings, wide streets and, above all, loads of trees which gives you the feeling you're not really in a city. The HUGE shopping center was so huge that we didn't like it (which says more than it might seem). The National Museum of Australia was, in contrast to the rest of Canberra, very interesting and very nice!

(Picture: Paul in front of the National Museum of Australia)

Looking back, we didn't really give Canberra a good chance. Even before we went there, we already knew that Canberra would be boring, as everybody said so (even the Lonely Planet hints at this), so we were not to eager to discover the city.

Anyway, another very interesting visit (after Canberra) was our visit to Cowra's Japanese Garden. Especially Paul loved it to bits, it created some kind of Asian obsession for him! Planned by a worldfamous Japanese garden architect and perfectly well maintained, the rolling gardens were very pleasing for our eyes.

(Picture: the Japanese Garden)

A similar visit was the one to Young's Chinese Tribute Garden. It's much smaller, but it looks very nice aswell.

(Picture: the Chinese Tribute Garden)

That was about it for now, we know it isn't much but it's all there is! No, it isn't. We found another piece of Europe in Australia that managed to awake emotional memories for us, we found ALDI! We've been to 3 ALDI stores now, and even bought an ALDI shopping bag to show off in all Woolworth's and Coles' we visit! This is Berrie posing with the ALDI bag:

See ya next time!


Sorry, no kilometercounter this time, we forgot to check...

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