Last stop Adelaide - Happy new year to all of you

Since the last update we have experienced a lot, but we have been very busy seeing as much as the wonderful country as possible, and the internet access hasn’t been very easy, - here shortly a few highlights

·         Fremantle – a southern suburb in Perth, lovely beach, live music, dancing, wheatbeer at Norfolk Hotel and relaxing

·         Perth, Gosnells -  visiting Jytte and John a Danish couple very welcoming and nice (good to see you), whom Peter stayed at when he was studying 20 years ago

·         Donnybrook – a beautiful countryside with a lot of green hills and apple orchids, putting the “car a sleep” on a dark side road late in the evening, when driving was enough for the day

·         Pemberton – tall tall trees with wide branches and walking in the forrest

·         Lake Jasper -  15 k’s driving on sandy track, really taking the Landcruiser to it’s limit – forced a good technical planning and (afterwards especially lot’s of fun)

·         Margareth River – wineries, Christmas eve (redwine, cheese, venison and biscuits at the beach, watching the sunset) nice and very alternative to “wear bare feet” in December

·         Perth – Gave the car back (a little sat L) on the 27^th, walking in Botanical garden in Kings Park, hanging around, trying to get comfort with being travellers without car again, staying at Exclusive backpackers, which we liked

·         Melbourne – visiting Zeynep & Toni and lovely Mavi in their new house “Pardy Street Hotel (5 stars J)”, New Yeas Eve in Melbourne  - Docklands at the waterfront – firework, rain dance and lightning

·         San Remo – Fish & Chips, a must

·         Phillip Island – Toni and Zeynep taking us on a nice trip in their car for sightseeing. Finally Adelaide, where Bob and Faye once again have opened their doors for us, lovely, relaxing and very good to be together with them again. We've been running, walking in the hills, seing Claire Valley and driven through the beautiful Barossa Valley landscape, been on a dolphinboat at Glenelg watching the graceful animals play in the water. 

FINADenmark is calling within 18 hours, we're getting prepared for a snowy winter/Denmark and are looking forward to meeting you all again after 7 amazing Aussie/weeks.

Cheers - vi ses lige om lidt.

Peter and Charlotte

 Two days snorkeling, relaxing and watching the beautiful coastline around Exmouth – it’s time to move south to Coral Bay, another Paradis on Earth:

• Turquoise water
• Miss Britzie now in an upperclass caravan camp,  parked for the drivers to have a fantastic seaview, first thing to enjoy when we rise at the same time as the sun in the morning
• In early morning or late evening it’s possible to put on our Asics, jogging along the beach – nice to be in contact with the inner sports entusiasme again
• Diving the world class Ningaloo Reef (Peter) and snorkeling (Charlotte) in warm, crystal clear water, fish, coral and amazing array of marine creatures – an unforgetable experience.
  (Peter had his dive certification back in the late century, and to dive here requires a registration in the PADI-system – could the diving company find his name after that many years??? Waiting for the answer 12 hours: YES he was there = 50 minutes diving)
• Swimming for ½ hour with a graceful manta ray, spotted by plane – wauw… the big (3 m)  dancer takes our ”under water breathing away” and makes us forget everyting around us – enthralling us with his antics. It’s so amazing to follow this creature, just letting him guiding us.

 Bateman Sanctuary:

• 4WD off-road track, climbing mountains of sand to find a lttle lagune, spotting turtles, snorkeling, Ch. acting ”8 years old”, finding coloured shells on the beach, spending ¾ h forming a heart, P reading his Di Morisson book: Hey, are we Eve and Adam in the Garden of Eden.

Shark Bay:

• ·     Sttromatolites – very speciel: Microorganismes forms this large club shaped objects, found when life on earth began
• ·      Shell Beach – this unique beach is made up of countless tiny sea shells, naturally compacted in a depth of 10 m. It’s a hugh, gigantic and very white superb playground for us adults, walking and enjoying the wind blowing the shells away, when we throw them into the air and they disappear as if they were small clouds in the sky
• ·     Monkey Mia: - waiting 2 hours on a sandy beach to watch the elegant dolphins coming in to the shore to be fish-feeded – ups – no luck there. It seems as they are not hungry this morning or the tide is to low, nevertheless we feed our own mouths (not with fish), having a guest joining us – a curious emu, big as an elephant.

Dongara – Perth is calling:

• The 17th of this holy christmas month we haven’t taken part of baking christmas cakes or eating ”ris a’la mande en masse”, nor drinking X-mas – it’s not on the shedule when 570 k’s is our distance for the day, including stops for lookouts, kissing and swimming and another similar bunch of Diesel has to be burned the next day.
• We should be in Perth Saturday the 19th – and maybe then it’s time for a night out, having fun, music and a single Red Back beer.
 

Cheers

Charlotte and Peter

PS: As we leave Dongara driving on Indian Ocean Drive we take sidetrack from the main road for a beach view – and there they were – the dolphins who didn’t show up yesterday at Monkey Mia – what a lovely sight!

Ningaloo and the vest coast - beach, snorkeling and sun tanning has started.

- A few pictures from Lakeside

Mt. Meherry & Karijini, Pilbara

Having left Port Hedland, driving 3 hours, we find Auski Roadhouse on the right hand side – the only place to fuel the car, get some news, have a trucker’s dinner and a local meat up (max. 30 habitants here). Auski R. is housing mine workers (iron), coming from all over Australia and guys like us, occasionaly driving by, in need for a place to park the car and ourselves for the night. Wonderful to ”dress up” (meaning a bit of water under the arms, a comb through the hair, changing the sweaty top) and go to the ”restaurant” to have a real western roast.

Turning right 40 k’ south, a sign ”road closed - no unauthorized entrance permitted” (no worries: we HAD called the Visitor Center and wasn’t told not to force that gate) mets us, who puts the focus on an exhilerating challenge for the next day, climbing Mount Meharry by 4WD on a rugged and steep path to the top, makes your blood flow a little faster and your heart beat for sure. What an experience, we nearly got stocked half the way up. Miss Brizie hang on some stones, and we have to use the jack and a shovel, lifting the car, digging red gravel and throwing stones under, getting her clear of the rocks. One hours work in the midday sun (43 degrees) – water, patience, water, hope and finally YES: Water and a kiss – we succeeded. Mount Meherry is the highest point in WA (1249 metres), and from the top the view is absolute breathtaking.

Entering Karijini National Park at the end of the day, staying at Dales Camp together with 1 billion flies, cooking  and enjoying the sunset we go asleep under the stars, looking forward to Floresque Falls the next morning at Dales Gorge.  The falls are reached by following a path from the car park, negotiating steps and a narrow trail down – stunning view of cliffs and splashing drops. Nice. Another short walk into a cute little rainforest, descending the steps down a steep slope to the bottom at the gorge,  we have a morning swim in a fern pool. Very refreshing and beautiful.

Walking back to the car, we pass a joyfull group of travellers exited of what to come. But just about to leave Dales, a girl from the group comes running, looking very scared and confused as if she’s searching for help. Sorrowly she whisperes: ”Please help, we’ve got someone drowned and we can’t dive that deep to get him up. The tour guide is totally shocked, and we can’t get through to the authorities”.

Thank God, we have the satellite telephone, working properly, and we manage to keep focused on the practical issues, getting the rangers and the police involved, offering the group of mainly young people  a drink, some shadow and shoulders to cry on.

2 hours later we’ve reported the facts to the managing ranger and our assistance is no longer needed, so we silently head on to the west coast. The police hasn’t yet arrived from Tom Price, 100 kilometres away.  We meet the rescue team coming towards us ten minutes later without,  emergency lights on and no high speed, leaving us in a sad sad mood the rest of the day.

We still enjoy our travelling – Life is beautiful, but we feel very sorry for the man who died, his relatives and his travelmates.  

As we went safely through the deserted areas we have delievered our satellite phone.

If you need to contact us, then try our mobiles or our australian number:

+61 0429982831.

Cheers from Peter and Charlotte, now travelling down the Ningaloo Reef

Hey! We have been here before… kind of feeling

Finally. A new satellite telephone, which is a more modern one compared to the offer from Landwide. Battery is full: Yeah, now we dare doing business with the Kimberleys.

·         Driving back the same 50 k’s, allready done twice on the last Monday in November much hotter than a Danish ”indian summer” day

·          Never consuming a dozen half litre bottles of water so fast

·          With the aircondition in the Landcruiser on ”very high”

·         AND  turning left, keeping the wheels on the unsealed and gravel road, NOW for more than the two minutes we did this morning

 - we felt SO lucky – eventually heading west on seeing the red dust rising from the corrigated road filling the air. Gibb River Road (637 km),

Impressions:
Floodway with no water, only a few places, a cow or ten once in a while on the road, dead or alive , a single kangaroo jumping across the road in a rush, the left overs of bush fireres, ”crowded traffic”  on the ”highway” (meaning "disturbance" from 2 other cars in a distance of 230 km)… swimming in Miners Pools  at Drysdale River Station,  having 4.000 square metres all on our own (well, sharing it with the farmer and her husband, off course + all the cattle (10.000 pcs.).

Drysdale River Station is a working cattlestation on a million acres 60 km far out in the middle of nowhere, it is friendly place where you can get fuel, and daily needs in a little farm shop. In the high season it takes 15 persons to run the business as this western kind of a ressort is very populaire in the dry season. We are here in the beginning of ”The WET”, and are the only tourists around.

Cooking risotto, spinach with garlich and papricorns on the gas stove, sitting outside under the moon in deep darkness in absolute silence, besides the beautiful sounds from the nature.

Another 300 km down the Gibb River Road we spent the evening at Windjana Gorge. The Gorge itself is spectaculare and so was the extreme lightning from the thunderstorm nearby. Actually, this place is closed for the season, but again we are winners as a telephone contact to the Kimbeley West District Office gives us permission to park our car and enjoy the outback life.

Derby, at the end of Gibb River Road, resting one night at Kimberley Cottages, which is owned by Wendy and Phil, two persons Charlotte met on her massage course last year.

Derby’s claim to fame, having the highest tides of any Australian port, 11 metres of tidal difference means there is an enormous amount of water rushing in and out every 6 hours. It’s amazing to watch, one afternoon the water nearly reaches the bridge, the next morning all water is gone, and the mangrove trees, first almost hidden by the water, the next day bent on bare sandground.

Now Broome – another 211 km straight highway is calling, and signs as ”stray animals ahead the next many K’s”, big road trains and more of the red coloured dust is guiding us.

The weather? – Still hot and very sunny. And christmas couldn’t be more far away in our minds, but merry christmas anyway.

Cheers

Peter and Charlotte 

Now, we have had the pleasure of trying the bushcamper in real life, and even in the rush hour in Darwin City, she’s acting like a good daugther, doing as we tell her:
Driving quite safely in the left (challenging and with a danes kind of thoughts wrong) side of the road and  the engine running smoothly with the sweestest sound, as Peter says.

Who´is the driver so far? – Peter of course, and he is doing a very good job. I’ll wait until …. Yeah… let’s see.

Then cruising happily down the Northern Stuart Highway, 15 minutes from Darwin Peter says:

”By the way, my fathers cousin has a piece of land some where out there, pointing at a big bunch of hectares. I visited him 22 years ago, let’s go finding him and say hallo”.

Things have developed since then, but like playing on a winning horse we stopped, looked at the possibilities, and chosed one house among plenty, and in front of a green field – there he was, Henning Olsen, Darwin.

In this moment, relaxing in the hotel room, before a late night  bedtime we can look back on a beautiful evening together with Henning  and Kurt & Dorthe (two old relatives from Denmark) in another wonderful spot of Australia. Thank’s guys – cool night and what a delicious homemade seafood fondue, Henning J.

Tomorrow we are heading forward to Litchfield National Park, 120 kilometres south west of Darwin, starting the real bushcamper life.

The heat is actually our kind of style, not as hot and humid as it could have been, so we are in a good shape and are ready to doing business with the wildlife as backpackers dressed in ranger boots and sunscreen.

Åh:

 … At tage alle disse indtryk ind, tygge på dem, nyde og smage … tygge lidt mere / putte det helt op i ganen med et: ”Uhm, DET DERSENS  ”krydderi” hører til på gastronomiens absolut øverste hylde” -  føle sig som i eventyrland og så bagefter koble sig på en heavy betalt  internetopkobling, oversætte alt det ”mellem linierne”! Det er lidt af en udfordring. Hmmm.  Som de nok ville sige det her i OZ: ”It drives a man from his cattle farm”.
– Tror måske der kommer et par danske beretninger, hvor de danske gloser danser lidt lettere ud af min mund, så bær over, hvis det bliver lidt tungt.

Ellers  er swahili måske et godt alternativ? Er der nogen, der byder ind med gode råd der, mate?

Love og go’nat

Peter and Charlotte

Hi there

After spending a lot of hours in the air and in several airports waiting for the next plane, we arrived ín Darwin yesterday. The first 2 days we will rest and explore the local area from a hotel at the foreshore with a beautiful view over the sea. And onw hour ago we picked up our best friend for the next 33 days - The Toyota Landcruiser. She's now a part of our family and we are allready getting to know her and all her facilities (by the way / saying "her" normally is about a boat, isn't it? - but you know what we mean).

Talk to you later)

Internet time is running out now.

Cheers Charlotte and Peter