Melbourne, Victoria

First of all let me wish you a Happy New Year! I hope that your holidays were as relaxing as ours have been.

We spent no less than 11 days in Melbourne because we were able to spend the holidays with Eyal and Marieke. Jochem and Eyal studied Hospitality Management together in The Hague and have remained good friends despite the fact Eyal moved down under. I also consider Eyal a friend and we were thrilled to stay with him for a couple of days. It was great to be with them during the holidays because we really missed our family and friends during this time. Moreover, Eyal and Marieke share a beautiful apartment that was a real feast after weeks of dorm rooms. Although it was cooler in Melbourne than in any other part of Australia we've been, it was still warm and sunny and didn't really feel like Christmas at all. So we just used our time to relax - no Lonely Planet, no maps, no sightseeing. Instead we slept in, drank wine and caught up with one another's lives.

On our first night in Melbourne Eyal had to work and he invited us for dinner at the restaurant where he runs the kitchen as head chef. Here he prepared a 10-course vegetarian tasting menu. I think Eyal was a little bit disappointed that he couldn't persuade us to try any of his meat or fish dishes, but we loved the vegetarian food. Quite inexplicably and surprisingly, Jochem has also become a vegetarian. You certainly won't hear me complain!


awaiting our dinner at Bomba Stuzzichini e Aperitivi

Most of all, though, we spent our time walking Eddie. Eddie is Eyal and Marieke's 10-month-old Jack Russel Terrier. We love dogs so we used every opportunity to walk him. As you may remember from some of my earlier blogs, we really enjoy the many parks and gardens in Australian cities and Eyal and Marieke took us to a couple of them to walk Eddie, which was always a lot of fun.


catching up at St Kilda Botanic Gardens

We walked Eddie so much, in fact, that during one particular, unexpectedly long and brutal walk my beloved new shoes lost their soles! But I've since been able to fix them in case I care to get into a nice restaurant, bar or club.


barefoot at Albert Park

Meeting Eddie and getting to know him better was definitely one of the highlights of our stay in Melbourne.


i ♥ eddie!

We did have one big outing during our time in Melbourne and that was our 2-day road trip on the Great Ocean Road. Miraculously, Eyal and Marieke agreed to let us borrow their car, Suzi Blue, and we were thrilled to finally explore Australia by car. We've come to find that for independent travellers such as ourselves who are a little bit older than the average backpacker, riding the bus and sleeping in hostels is more of a necessity than anything else. Were we ever to come back to Australia for another trip, we would save up more money so that we could rent a 4WD and go camping. So you can imagine our excitement at the prospect of being free to go wherever we wanted for two whole days.


between Lorne and Erskine Falls

And the Great Ocean Road is not at all exaggerated in its beauty.


between Lorne and Aireys Inlet

The Great Ocean Road starts at Torquay, which is about 67 kilometers from Melbourne, and goes on for 250 kilometers until it ends at Warnambool. We started driving on Boxing Day and made it as far as Princetown where we slept in a hostel called the 13th Apostel. The next day we drove a little bit farther to Port Campbell before heading back to Melbourne. We were so happy to be together on the road again that we even made some videos of ourselves singing along my iPod. It was cool but sunny with not a cloud in sight. It was great fun!

There were two spots on the Great Ocean Road that I loved the most. The first is the area between Anglesea and Kennett River. This is not the most spectacular part of the journey but the towns along which you drive are incredibly idyllic and pretty.

We made our first stop on the very windy (and thus: cold) beach of Anglesea.


Anglesea

We had lunch at the beautiful area surrounding the Split Point Lighthouse in Aireys Inlet.


Split Point Lighthouse at Aireys Inlet

We drove inland at Lorne to see the Erskine Falls where we witnessed these beautiful trees.


near Erskine Falls

And our last stop of the day was in Kennett River where we were lucky enough to see 8 wild koalas hanging out in the trees.


on Grey River Road in Kennett River

The next day we made our way to Port Campbell National Park and this is the second spot that we really loved. It is probably the area that most people associate with the Great Ocean Road and the many sights here are definitely of the GRAND category. The area between Princetown and Port Fairy is called the Shipwreck Coast and the limestone cliffs here are constantly at battle with the elements, which created beautiful structures along the shore. We saw a lot of them, including the Gibson Steps, the Lord Ard Gorge, the Arch, the London Bridge, the Grotto and the iconic Twelve Apostles.


Twelve Apostels at Port Campbell National Park

It was little bit sad to go back to hostel life after all that. It seems that the closer we get to Sydney, the hostels get bigger, the backpackers get louder and the booze is consumed in larger quantities. It's not exactly my kind of scene. Don't get me wrong - the hostels have excellent facilities and are generally much cleaner than our accommodation in South East Asia (though if I never find another shower clogged with somebody else's body hair it'll be too soon). I wish we could afford to sleep in hotels and go out to restaurants. But we can't. So we deal the hand we've been given.


Habitat HQ in St Kilda

Now our time in Melbourne is almost up. Tonight we board our last overnight bus from Melbourne to Sydney. Sydney seems extremely big and overwhelming, but we booked a hostel that's supposedly nice and quiet, so I hope it'll be okay. The nice thing about big cities like Melbourne and Sydney is that they're much more 'gezellig' than other cities we've been to. But still, they can't hold a candle to South East Asian cities, let alone European ones!

I guess there's only one thing left to do and that is to thank Eyal and Marieke for showing us 'their' Melbourne. It has been our pleasure!


Urban Hotel in St Kilda

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Adelaide, South Australia

21 hours and 1549 kilometers after we left Alice Springs we arrived in Adelaide. We only had 3 days in Adelaide and I had high hopes - Adelaide is supposed to be a food lovers' town. I was a little bit disappointed, though. Australia is a big country and I'm convinced that Australians could enjoy themselves in their own country without ever feeling the need to travel elsewhere, but the cities that we've visited in Australia thus far have been incredibly dull. The cities are made up of wide lanes more than anything else and sights are often not very close together. Public transport is a hassle and the streets are incredibly pedestrian-unfriendly. There appears to be a huge contrast between Australian cities and the great Australian outdoors and Adelaide was no exception.

But there were some highlights. At the State Library of South Australia we were allowed one hour of free internet per day. We received a free guided tour through the national history exhibition at the South Australian Museum. We had lunch at the Botanic Gardens. Most importantly, three times a week the Central Market houses 250+ food stalls where you can purchase everything your appetite might fancy from poppy seed bagels to homeade hummus and from South Australian cherries to Italian pasta. These sights were lovely.

But even before I actually came to Adelaide I had decided that there was one thing that simply had to be done there: WINE. South Australia is home to some of the country's most famous wine regions and so, one Wednesday afternoon, we went on a tour through the Barossa Valley. Here we drove through the Torrens Gorge, saw a Big Rocking Horse at the toy factory in Gumeracha, bought chocolate fudge at Angus Park Fruits, enjoyed the view at Menglers Hill Lookout and talked while standing more than 100 meters apart at the Whispering Wall. It was quite a decadent affair with a 3-course lunch. The weather was perfect with not a cloud in sight. And, of course, there was wine. I quickly realized that one only really needs one or two wine tastings, but after a long period of near-sobriety, it was great fun. The biggest surprise of the day was the Choc-a-Bloc at Lambert Estate - a delicious port made with real dark chocolate.











Yesterday night we took our fourth overnight bus and this morning we arrived in Melbourne. Here we're staying with Eyal and Marieke in St Kilda's and I can't begin to stress how nice it is to be staying at an actual home with friends. Eyal and Marieke share a lovely apartment with their Jack Russel Terrier puppy called Eddie and although none of us feel like Christmas due to the lack of cold and snow, at least we're together.

Tonight Jochem and I will take a train to the restaurant where Eyal works as a chef and I'm very excited to have dinner at an actual restaurant (I bought fancy shoes especially for the occasion). Tomorrow we plan to do some shopping for our Christmas meals and at some point we also hope to be able to drive down the Great Ocean Road together and spend a couple of days there. As always, we'll keep you posted. Please know that we think of you and miss you very much.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Most of last week Jochem and I were based in Alice Springs. I use the word 'based' because we didn't see a whole lot of Alice Springs itself, short of their beautiful Olive Pink Botanic Gardens. This is because we were out on a 3-day/2-night camping trip to the Outback with our tour guide Adam and 19 fellow travellers.

This trip was definitely one of the highlights of Australia for me. We had a great tour guide and an amazing group and we saw some absolutely beautiful things out there. After a short stop in Stuarts Well for a camel ride, we made it to Uluru. Uluru is the biggest monolith in the world and has a surprisingly large range of different angles at every turn. We did the Base Walk all around Uluru and were constantly surprised by yet another different nook or crannie. It's difficult to explain, but it's really very impressive and fascinating.


one of Uluru's many different faces during the Base Walk @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

Unfortunately, there was also a lot of rain. Sadly, this meant no red sunsets or sunrises for us while snapping pictures of Uluru, but on the other hand we had a good time hiking because it wasn't very hot either. I'm grateful for that, because when the sun was shining and the skies were clear, you would soon be overwhelmed in a nasty pool of your own sweat and exhaustion. Besides, we got to see what not a lot of people get to see - huge waterfalls falling from the sides of Uluru.


experiencing a very cold and wet sunrise @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

After a very cold and wet night camping in the campsite's kitchen at Yulara, we made our way to Kata Tjuta where we hiked the Valley of the Winds. This was my favorite part during the trip - Amanda, Jochem and I were hiking up front and I felt in great shape. Moreover, Kata Tjuta is breathtaking. It is a collection of massive head-like structures set in a beautiful green valley - absolutely magnificent.


hiking the Valley of the Winds @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park


the view from the Karinga Lookout @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park


with Katharina and Amanda @ Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

Our second night in the Outback had a much nicer end to it than the first one. We drove to King's Creek Station, made a huge campfire and had (vegetarian) chili con carne for dinner. Afterwards a few of us stayed up (despite having to get up the next morning at 4.30 AM for the third time in a row) drank beers and played drinking games. At night we slept at the campfire under a billion stars.


being driven around in the Outback

We started the third and last day of our camping trip at 7 AM in Watarrka National Park to hike through the King's Canyon. To get there, we first had to hike up Heart Attack Hill, but it was well worth the trouble. We were rewarded with amazing views over the canyon's rim and were constantly surrounded by beehive-shaped domes and waterholes.


out of breath after climbing the very steep 100 meters that comprise Heart Attack Hill @ Watarrka National Park


enjoying the view from King's Canyon @ Watarrka National Park


inclined to jump into the refreshing waters of the Garden of Eden @ Watarrka National Park

After that particular hike I was exhausted and my ankles started to give out. With the temperature also climbing, I was glad to be heading back to Alice Springs. At night our group had dinner and drinks together at the Rock Bar and I've been told the festivities lasted well into the night.


sitting, quite literally, in the middle of nowhere

We had very little time to recover from our camping trip because the next day our next tour commenced at 8 AM. We had arranged for a tour to the MacDonnell Ranges because I couldn't bring myself to leave the Outback without seeing these as well. This tour was very different from our camping trip, but equally enjoyable. There were just the five of us, including our tour guide Regina. The West MacDonnell Ranges are located just west of Alice Springs and are not very far, so we never spent more than an hour on the road at a time. Regina oozed relaxation so we felt very relaxed throughout. The food was great and we never had to clean anything. We saw a variety of different sites - I added some pictures below to give you a general idea of how beautiful the area is.


listening to the trickling water effects of a gum tree @ West MacDonnell National Park


Simpsons Gap @ West MacDonnell National Park


Standley Chasm @ West MacDonnell National Park


Ochre Pits @ West MacDonnell National Park


about to jump into the waters of the Ellery Creek Bighole (also known as 'Alice Springs' Beach') @ West MacDonnel National Park

On Monday morning we left Alice Springs and embarked on our longest bus ride yet: 21 hours to Adelaide in South Australia. Despite feeling relieved for fleeing the heat, I also felt a pang of sadness for leaving such beauty. I will always remember the Outback as a perfectly balanced landscape of red earth, green flora, blue skies and white clouds.



If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Mt Isa, Queensland

We are in the Outback!



Mind you, despite a 19-hour bus ride we are still in the same state (i.e. Queensland), but we have made our way from Far North Queensland to North West Queensland and it sure feels like a world away.



The bus ride itself was surprisingly comfortable, although I did leave a Very Important Bag behind in our first bus (from Cairns to Townsville) stocked with back-up medication, amongst other things. I keep forgetting and misplacing so many things lately that I start to feel like Mag! Hopefully I’ll be able to get the bag back from Greyhound tonight.



As I wrote in my last blog, we decided to make a quick stop in Mt Isa, which is about halfway between Cairns and Alice Springs, because spending 33 hours on a bus wasn’t something we were willing to do. We ended up having a nice time here in ‘the Isa’, which is how the locals lovingly call their hometown. You’ll see posters everywhere saying: ‘Remember: You’re not a real Aussie ‘till you’ve been to the Isa’. It’s very cute.

I like the Outback! Once again I’m reminded of how much more I enjoy the back country of a place rather than its beaches (unless, OF COURSE, we’re talking about Nusa Tenggara. I LOVE Nusa Tenggara!). Mt Isa is a beautiful place with a perfect color palette of red earth, green fauna, blue skies and white clouds. It lives and breathes ‘small town’, but with its 41,000 square kilometres it’s equivalent in size to Switzerland.

Take a moment to let that sink in: the CITY Mt Isa is as big as the COUNTRY Switzerland. We’re in the Outback alright, where only superlatives apply.

We spent a couple of hours exploring a small part of this big town. We went to the Australian Tourism Award-winning Outback at Isa for some background information on the region.



One late afternoon we walked to the City Lookout for a beautiful sunset overlooking the mines in the valley.





Most of the time, though, we spent relaxing at our hostel the Travellers Haven. It’s an old and worn place, but the rooms are cool and there’s a nice swimming pool that we spent quite some time in.



I relish the dry heat in the Outback and can’t wait to explore more once we get to Alice Springs. Our bus leaves tonight at 7.30 PM and we expect to be in Alice Springs at 9.15 in the morning. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to catch up much once there, because we booked a 3-day camping trip to Uluru on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and will be on another tour to the MacDonnell Ranges on Sunday. At 10.30 AM on Monday morning we’ll take another overnight bus to Adelaide. I'm so excited!

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!

Cairns, Queensland

We're not in South East Asia anymore, Toto. We arrived in Cairns on Tuesday morning after a long night of flying and one stopover in Darwin. Cairns is in the state of Queensland, on the coast, in the far north. Its main attraction is the Great Barrier Reef, but more on that later.

It's a little bit weird to be in Australia. There is a lot of space and there aren't a lot of people. The wideness of the roads reminds me of the US. We are thankful for the dry heat here, which everyone seems to be suffering from, but which we welcome with open arms after Ubud's oppressive humidity. The Australians are incredibly friendly, everything is well-organized and it's a relief to be in such a clean environment where the toilet and shower are nicely separated. It is, however, extremely EXPENSIVE here. It's quite a shock! No doubt we were becoming quite spoiled in South East Asia, but this requires a bit of an adjustment. Luckily, we are no strangers to living on the cheap. We have a huge kitchen at our hostel and, although the groceries are also very expensive, it's definitely cheaper than eating out and it's also nice to be cooking again. Our hostel also has AC and a pool. For the last 2 days we stayed in a quiet and clean room with one other couple and a boy who was staying there longterm. But when we first checked in, we ended up in a dorm room with 4 very young boys who spent their days sleeping and their nights drinking, which was less than ideal. Overall, the travellers here seem much younger than in South East Asia and of the kind that come here to work for money and then spend it all on partying. As you might have guessed, this isn't exactly my kind of crowd. It's like being in a college dorm again at the age of 28. Mostly, I feel old. But now that we're in our new room I feel much better. I guess it just takes some time to get used to Australia.

Our first day here was a bit of a bust. I needed to find a nurse to give me the second booster rabies vaccination that I had brought all the way from Indonesia. It took a while to find a clinic and we had to wait a while to see a doctor. I was then referred to a very crabby nurse who told me that the vaccine might be useless. Mind you, she told me this AFTER she had already given me the vaccine, meaning that it was now too late to give me a vaccine that they could guarantee would work. I looked at her while thinking: 'What the HELL do you mean?!' Why anyone would give a patient a vaccine that one is unsure of is actually working is beyond me, especially considering the fact that rabies a lethal disease. The word 'malpractice' comes to mind. The nurse and the supervisor kind of seemed to want to get rid of us, telling us to call some company in France that makes the vaccine. I was sick with worry and Jochem was clearly getting angry. We stood our ground and when the doctor heard about out ordeal, he was mortified and came to our aid immediately. He made some calls with the French company, the doctors on Bali who had treated me before and a couple of travel doctors and he agreed to personally give me a new vaccination on Friday morning, free of charge. What a relief! Perhaps he was trying to avoid a lawsuit, but it's always nice to be recognized when people make potentially fatal mistakes. So, in conclusion, I've now received 3 rebooster rabies shots and will probably not die a mad death.

Welcome to Australia.

But look at Cairns - isn't it pretty?


Cairns Harbour

The very next day we went on a 2-day snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef - surely, the # 1 must-see tourist attraction in Cairns. We were very excited, but ended up a little bit disappointed, if you can believe it. There was nothing wrong with the company or with the boat - to the contrary! Our boat, the Kangaroo Explorer, was super nice. We had our own cabin and our own bathroom and the boat had AC and the food was amazing. If we'd had this boat in Nusa Tenggara, it would've been the trip of a lifetime.


Kangaroo Explorer


Hold onto the shade for dear life!

And that's exactly the problem. Although trained from birth that making comparisons is a bad thing, it was virtually impossible for us NOT to compare the Great Barrier Reef to Nusa Tenggara. And we feel that when compared, the Great Barrier Reef bleaks in comparison. Perhaps the reef is a far better place for divers because it's not exactly near the coast - it takes about an hour and a half to get there by boat which ensures that the water is deep. Not only is this sometimes quite scary, it also makes it much harder to see things. In Nusa Tenggara the coral is close to shore and as a snorkeller you can get extremely close. That wasn't the case at the Great Barrier Reef. Moreover, the visibility was often poor and the water was absolutely infested with thousands of jellyfish. The first time I almost had a heart attack from desperately trying to avoid them, having just read Bill Bryson's account on the box jellyfish in In a Sunburned Country, about a man who had so much pain after being stung that he kept screaming even when unconscious. Yikes. I got used to them during the next few times in the water, and at certain places there weren't that many, but during our last snorkelling trip there were so many that we had to get out because it was simply impossible to enjoy the reef with so many jellyfish in your hair/face/neck, despite wearing a stinger suit at all times.

I saw no jellyfish in Nusa Tenggara. Jochem saw one. You catch my drift?

But, you know. We saw the Great Barrier Reef! There were huge coral formations up to 30 meters high! We saw turtles, and a stingray and even reef tip sharks! And the boat was awesome.


about to hit the jellyfish-infested waters with our much-needed stinger suits


Here I go!


Nemo (also known as a black clownfish)


I survived yet again!


sunset on board

When we came back we decided to explore Cairns. We took a bus to the Cairns Botanic Gardens because (1) we wanted to see some typical Queensland flora and (2) it was free. We walked from Saltwater Creek through the area with the Centenary Lakes to the Flecker Botanic Gardens, where we picked up a brochure and took ourselves on a self-guided walk. This was both a rewarding and frustratring experience as the brochure was a little bit unclear and I kept failing to find the right plants and had to drag Jochem behind from yet another tree in order to listen to me as I read aloud the very interesting decriptions of flora. But we had a laugh, in the end. We ended our visit with a walk on the Rainforest Boardwalk and, for a while, it was like being in South East Asia again. Mosquitos included.


Saltwater Creek


Flecker Botanic Gardens


Rainforest Boardwalk

Today we've been busy getting ready for the next leg of our trip in Australia, but we made a quick stop at the Lagoon on the Cairns Foreshore Promenade. Cairns doesn't have a beach, so the very clever people here built themselves a very popular 4800-square-meter salwater swimming lagoon. It sounds corny, which it is, but it's great fun. There is a small beach and grass surrounds the area and there are places where you can barbecue - it's a nice family place. We've been having great weather in Cairns, nothing but blue skies and sunshine, despite the rainy season, so we took a dip this afternoon.


Lagoon

We've booked a couple of overnight buses to save money on hostels, which sounded like a great idea when we booked, but right now sounds like suicide. Our bus to Mt Isa leaves at 12.25 AM tonight. First, we need to drive down to Townsville, where we'll arrive around 5 AM. Around 7 AM we board a new bus which will arrive in Mt Isa about 12 hours later. Then we're still only halfway to our final destination, which is Alice Springs, but we decided to make a 2-day stop in Mt Isa because travelling in a bus for 33 hours seemed like madness. Mt Isa is a rich mining town in the Outback with just 22,600 inhabitants. Yikes.

If you'd like to see more pictures of our world trip, check out our picture gallery here!