Hanging out with old and new friends in Adelaide

Tuesday 4^th November

It seemed like our car almost blew away during the night, due to the severe wind on the eastern part of Eyre Peninsula. It was refreshing to get out in the sea breeze in the morning, and see the waves rolling in over the rocks just 30 meters away. We quickly transformed our bedroom into living/steering room and left the free camp area. 
Our plan was to reach Adelaide around 5.30pm, where my/our friend Haley was off work and could host us for as long as we wanted. Within the last days it has been easy to tell that we’re approaching one of the more populated parts of Australia. There is more traffic on the roads, the distance between gas stations isn’t far anymore, which means we don’t need to plan beforehand where to fuel up. The landscape has also changes into big flat stretches of corn fields and green fields with cows, small hills with windmills and we suddenly have got clouds over us again. It actually feels like home, apart from the ‘missing’ rain. We have been driving on the most empty roads for such a long time, so concerning the traffic, we had to be much more concentrated now than what we had been used to. Before this we could drive up to 50km without meeting any other vehicles, now they are everywhere. 
Most of this day we spend on the roads, only with a small stop at a roadhouse, where we were meant to spoil ourselves with a nice meal, and by putting our expectations to high (cause we were so hungry) we were also in the risk of getting disappointed. It was undoubtedly the most boring overpriced food we have tried in a long time, but the staff was nice and friendly, which made the experience better. Just north of Adelaide we drove by a pink lake (salt lake), it looked so unreal that we had to pull over several times to stare at it and take pictures, of course. 
We reached Adelaide as planned, around 5.30pm. When we pulled up in the driveway on De Laine Avenue we weren’t exactly sure if we were in front of the right house or not, but then when I heard a little happy scream and someone coming running through the door, we knew we were right. Haley ran out the door, hugged me and had the biggest smile on her face, the reunion joy was big. 
I met Haley in Banff 6 years ago. Last time WE saw her was 2 years ago when she visited us in Denmark. Currently she is living with her dad and sister Renee, but soon she’s living and working in Ireland. So we got here just in time to catch up with her, before she’s gone travelling again. Little travel bug! 
Anyway, her dad was away (working in the mines), so it was just the four of us. 
She quickly offered us her bed and she would then move into her dad’s bedroom. The Aussie hospitality is just continuous and we appreciate it a lot. Our mattress in the car has become a bit of a pain in the ash - it’s not as comfortable as it was in the beginning, so off course we said yes to her offer. Otherwise the plan was to take the car mattress out and sleep on it, in another room they provided for us. But now we both got Haley’s bed to sleep in and the other room to put all our stuff in. How lucky are we? All that extra space quickly got very messy but that’s another story.

This day was one of the most special Aussie days (apart from Australia day) since the Melbourne Cup, Australia’s major horserace was over, it was a big party day even though it was a Tuesday. 
We felt a bit underdressed when we (Haley, Renee and us) approached Warradale Pub, all the ladies were dressed nicely in fancy dresses, high heels, modern hats, and fourteen layers of make-up. 
We came in jeans, worn out jackets and natural faces - usually Erik wears make-up when we’re going out, but not this night!! It was a bit of a fancy pub, but oh my god the food was fantastic. To every meal there was also a buffet included, and that was actually the best part of it. It had warm creamy potatoes, roasted beetroot, six different mixed very special salads all consisting of at least one thing that we rarely have had in salads before. They were so amazing. 
Sometimes I find it hard to catch up, when you haven’t seen people for ages, like what are you gonna tell into details and what should you refrain from telling. This was NOT one of those moments. With Haley it just seemed so relaxed and natural… And it felt like we saw each other yesterday. She’s still the same lovely girl that I met 6 years ago, and we both very quickly felt completely comfortable in her and her sisters company. 
We rolled out of the pub, all so full and tired and we all wanted to escape from the drunk and uncontrolled people. Haley had to work the next morning so it was a quiet one for us… Exactly what we needed.

A spectacular and colourful minesite

The pink lake

Our new home for a little while

Wednesday 5^th November

After sleeping like the king and queen, we dragged ourselves out of bed. Renee drove us up to the mall, where we did some groceries. We really miss eating bread and cold meat for breakfast. It’s just one of those things that we really appreciate – and now we had access to a fridge, which allowed us to buy this type of food. It also made us really full and exhausted afterwards – since we’re not use to it, it felt like the yeast kept raising inside us. 

We then took off to Harbour Town – a big outside mall near the coast in Adelaide. Our intentions here were to shop around for a light “summer” jacket for Erik, and for a bit warmer jacket for me. Since it’s the start of the summer here, we found that all jackets were on sale, even those ones we call “summer jackets”, because here that’s a spring/autumn jacket – it’s simply not necessary with a jacket in the summer time here! We both ended up finding a jacket that we liked – and just as important, they were cheap. I bought a leather jacket (not real leather but looks like it) for 40 dollars in kids size 14, and Erik got a light “summer” jacket in size xxs  for 30 dollars. This brings me to the next subject, the Australian sizes! It reminds a lot of American sizes, because normally in Europe, we would both need a medium size in jackets. So there’re really some BIG people Down Under!

Very happy with our purchases, we ended the shopping with ice creams from Mc D. Back at the house again Erik started to make dinner, Danish meatballs (frikadeller) with cold homemade potato salad. The dinner was a success, Haley and Renee both liked it, though Renee only had the potato salad, because she’s vegetarian. We rounded off the day on the couches, with a good movie. 

Thursday 6^th November

After another fabulous sleep-in, Haley dropped us off in Adelaide city center, where we explored the free Australian Wine Center, which for our disappointment were having a big conference, so the exhibition area was reduced down to only one big room instead of the normal three. 

We still learned some things about the making of wine, and some of the many different grapes used. They had a test, on a touch screen, where you could try to make you own wine, depending on how you would like it (red/white, dry/sweet etc. etc.), and how much attention you’ve been paying in the exhibition room. The finally result wasn’t very good at all, I made an average wine, but Erik’s was very bad, almost toxic!  

The Wine Centre is located just in the outskirts of the botanical garden, so we had a walk through that, and found our way up to the shopping streets. On one of the big restaurant and café streets, Rundle Street, we found a sushi restaurant that had an offer we wouldn’t miss out on. All plates on the sushi train, 3 dollars each! We emptied 10 plates, and then continued our browsing through Adelaide CBD (Central Business District). 

We wanted to have a look at the nearby Central Market, and with free tram rides in the CBD, this would by easy done. We found the tram, but weren’t quite sure which direction to go, so when the first tram showed up, I went inside it to ask a guy for directions – Erik followed me because he thought this was the right train. As soon as we got in, and the guy told me that this was going in the opposite direction, the doors closed, and the tram started moving. Erik wasn’t so happy about that, especially when we could just have asked some of the 10-15 people outside the tram. Well it was free, and only an 15 minutes detour. 

We got to the market, had a walk around it, but left quickly again, as it didn’t have anything special, just a lot of cheap Asian shops, trying to sell you, everything that you certainly don’t need in your life. We brought home some bottles of wine and beer, and for dinner we had left-overs (meatballs and potato salad). 

This evening was one of the funniest ones we’ve had in a long time. We had a good amount of alcohol and played Pictionary (Tegn & Gæt). Haley and Renee were against me and Erik. That combination is never the best, because we are both very bad drawers, and playing the game in English, didn’t help at all. Haley and Renee won in the end – but most important was that our laughing muscles got put on a big test. 

 The botanical garden

Friday 7^th November

Haley took the day of work, so she could spend some time with us. 

After our late night we felt a bit lazy and wasn't keen for doing much. Haley and Renee on the other hand were planning a day on the beach for us. The temperate should reach 37 degrees, so there was a good point in a beach visit and a place to cool off when we got too hot. 

We picked up some supplies (actually Danish Somersby ciders and Carlsbergs) from a drive-in bottle shop, before our driver Renee took us to Moana beach. The beach was wide and flat enough to bring the car down to the waterfront, it was windy and the temperature felt 10 degrees lower than it was. It’s a dangerous fact that skin cancer is one of the most common diseases in Australia, especially the southern parts, where there is a big hole in the ozone layer, which means it very easy to get sunburned (=skin cancer). Obviously we were aware of this and made sure to put sun lotion on, basically all the time. When we didn’t play with the footie (an Australian football), the freeze bee or the hula hoop, we listened to music in our beach chairs with a cold drink in our hand. The time was flying, as usually in good company. 

Renee drove us up to Brighton beach where we all ordered burger and enjoyed them on the beach. It had been an amazing day, and the fact that Renee drove us around made it so relaxed for us, and we enjoyed the tour much more, than we would have done by ourselves. We weren’t worth much in the night, daytime drinking in the sun had made us drowsy. We kept ourselves awake for a movie and when Renee was off work Haley (and I) gave her a lift into the city – at this time we figured that Haley digested all the alcohol she consumed earlier.. Maybe not 100%, but Renee really wanted a lift and after driving us around all day it would have been mean to say no to her. 

The second heart-attack burger this day was bought at Hungry Jacks (the exact same Restaurant as Burger King – just another name). Oh my god, how unhealthy can we possibly be in just 14 hours. We felt disgusting afterwards. It was around 1am before we hit our bed. 

After such a long day you should think that it was easy to fall asleep, well at least it was for Haley and Erik. For some reason I couldn’t fell asleep, which was very annoying cause we had another “busy” day tomorrow.

Drive-in bottleshop

 Renee, Erik & Haley

 Haley

Not the worst view to enjoy in the baking sun

Saturday 8^th November

When I could hear the others starting chatting in the morning it felt like I just fell asleep and was away for a few minutes. Well I had to get up because, apart from meeting Haley, today was our highlight of visiting Adelaide… The Barossa Valley! One of the world’s greatest wine regions, with hot, dry summers and cool moderate winters they produce 21% of Australia’s wine, mostly big luscious reds. Best known is their Shiraz. 

It was 1½ hour drive north east of Adelaide, Haley had offered to drive us around and visit a few of the 80 plus wineries, 60 of the with open cellar doors (which means free tastings). After a beautiful drive through the Adelaide hills and seeing, and almost hitting the biggest kangaroo ever, we arrived at the first cellar door, Shild Winery. We didn’t hesitate when the guy asked if we wanted to try all their wines. Obviously we said yes. He introduced us to a very special SPARKLING Shiraz. A strange taste to begin with, but a very satisfying aftertaste. Apparently that little brewery delivers wine to a wine shop in Brøndby (a suburb of Copenhagen). 

Haley joined us in the tasting but unfortunately she had to use the provided buckets to spit the wine out again.. I felt sorry for her, but had to laugh of her spitting out the expensive wines, it was definitely not her preferred way to do a wine tour. 

We visited two other wineries; one of them was Jacob’s Creek. It’s considered as some of the cheapest wine here, but since we drink it from time to time at home we wanted to check it out. It was a big place compared to a lot of the other wineries, we didn’t bother the free tastings, since there was a lot of better options around. We enjoyed our lunch on a small café in the town of Tanunda. 

Now time was running faster than us. We had to be back in Adelaide at 6.30pm, to participate in a family party with Haley’s family. 

We rushed up to Maggie Beer’s Farm Shop, it’s one of the most successful places with a range of condiments, preserves, pâtés and gourmet tastings. We rushed though the delicious tastings and bought a few things as a present for Haley’s aunt and uncle. Before we left the valley we had to visit Whistler Winery (recommended by Haley’s mom), but by the time we arrived there we were a bit tired of wine – never thought this sentence would come over my lips, but I had enough. We were all wined-out at this time. We made a quick stop at the Shild Winery on the way back, and bought some of that special sparkling Shiraz (also as a present). 

Back in Adelaide a bit later than planned we quickly dropped off our stuff, changes clothes and picked up Renee and Haley’s mom. The family party was to everyone’s surprise a lot bigger than assumed. It was said to be a going-away party for Haley’s aunt Petra’s german sister, but we figured it was just an excuse to throw a party. The house was full of people, and a lot of them were unknown to each other. Even Haley didn’t know half of the people – so we fitted in just perfect. The food was absolutely fantastic, five big tables spread out in the living room and kitchen with the best finger food we’ve ever had. We ate so much. 

Jeff (uncle) and Petra was totally overwhelmed by our present to them. They thought it was way too much, they hadn’t expected anything, he kept saying. So before we took off Jeff opened the sparkling wine so we could have some of it (the “tired of wine” time was passed already again), and then secretly Jeff and Haley arranged that she should bring the other bottle home, so we could enjoy it now that we bought such a nice wine. They DID appreciate it, but they knew we were travelers and that the wine hadn’t been cheap ($25 per bottle = 130 kr). It was such a delightful party though. 

We got in touch with a family member that runs a surf school in Goolwa down south, he invited us down for a free surf lesson (by the way we loooove free stuff, almost no matter what it is). He ensured us that we would like surfing after trying it on this specific beach. We told him already that we were done with surfing, but he made us reconsider trying it again and give it the last change. After a silly dance with a few kids and a lot of laughter we left the party around 10pm. Exhausted and absolutely ready for our beauty sleep. 

 Shild Winery

 Haley and her favorite bucket 

Sunday 9^th November

Stayed in bed and catched up on Facebook, when we all of a sudden heard a man's voice in the hallway. Erik and I looked at each other and thought that their dad had come home earlier than expected. We felt a bit awkward, cause we had our stuff laying everywhere in the house, so we got up quickly and planned to clean up straight away. 

Haley and her sister were in the garden, probably with their dad so we walked out there to greet him. The next sight wasn’t anything like we expected. Renee was cuddling with her python snake, and it wasn’t their dad but their older brother Josh popping by. Luckily for us – then we could still feel at home and leave stuff everywhere. Renee had tried to convince herself to take the snake out a few days before, but she hadn’t got the balls to do it. She absolutely loves her snake, but can’t convince herself to put her hands into the cage and grab it, but Josh apparently didn’t mind. 

The snake was hanging out with us most of the ‘morning’, he seemed mellow, but I didn’t feel like holding more snakes, been there done that. Erik wasn’t in the mood either, but he didn’t want to appear as a chicken, so at one point he gave the snake a cuddle anyway. Then Erik disappeared for quite a while, no one was sure what he was doing, but later we found him in the driveway, where he had taken the front wheels of the car, fixed the brakes and serviced the car. There was a good reason for this though. He had put the car for sale in Melbourne, and there were already a lot of people interested in it, so he wanted to make it ready for the next travelers. 

Haley’s friend Hayley (pronounced the same way) came around and hung out with us, so after washing the car we drove up to Hahndorf - Australia’s oldest surviving German settlement, a pretty little town with European trees and German shops, with sausages, sauerkraut, chocolate etc. It was a sunny day and the main street was booming of tourism. We sat down on the busiest café on the main street, and enjoyed a big mug of beer for $13,5 (70kr) each. In a butcher store we found one of our favorite sausages – liver sausage, perfect for the last bit of bread we had at home. The Aussies found it weird to eat cold meat on bread in the morning, so we had it all to ourselves.. Even more perfect! 

The 2 x Haley talked about going for a sunday session, apparently that’s a hip thing here in Australia. It was the same we did in Perth. So it’s basically just getting together with friends and going out on a sunday. Sundays are always cheaper as well, so it makes sense. I bet the employers aren’t big fans of it though – from the stories we heard there’s a lot of monday sickness. Anyway, for once I offered to be the driver – time to make a big X in the calendar. The suburb Glenelg has a beautiful square with bars, restaurants and easy access to the beach. The Jetty Bar served $5 (25kr) drinks, so the girls and Erik were in for a treat. We did some serious people watching this afternoon. 

Later back home I made red curry for us all, the best I have made so far. While Erik planned to go to bed early - in order to get up and watch Formula 1 at 2am, the girls and I planned to finish those Somersby and the sparkling Shiraz (that Haley had brought home from the party). We skyped with Steffi in Berlin for an hour and arranged to meet up in Europe, when we get back home and Haley is in Ireland. Hurray for future travel plans!

 Renee was trying to do the dishes, but had to give up halfway, the snake needed her attention..

 Meanwhile Erik was giving Migaloo a service

Afternoon beers in Hahndorf

Old cars in the streets

2 X Haley and me (taken with Iphone, which explains the bad quality)

Ice cream, I am not even sure we have in Denmark..!?

Monday 10^th November

Even more people started replying on the car add online, so we started to prepare ourselves for selling the car in Melbourne. It means if we sell the car, we have to buy some bags for all our stuff, since our backpacks are back in Sydney. So we will have to take a bus or hitchhike as gypsies back up to Sydney. 

We planned to leave Adelaide tuesday morning, so this day was dedicated to get the car ready and packed again. Already back in Sydney we have heard horror stories about a movie called Wolf Creek, it’s based on a true story about tree backpackers that got killed in the outback by a local freak, that original should “fix” their car. Apparently so scary that we were warned by several people not to watch it, before we were done with our travels around Australia. 
We are in the end of it now and it’s not even close to being as remote here as the northern parts, so we felt like it was about time to watch this horror movie. It was freaky enough, and we’re glad that we didn’t watch it before, because the murder reminds us of some of the personalities we've met north – they are a bit strange and have that strong Aussie accent, but the movie wasn’t as horrifying as we thought. 
As all four of us love sushi, there was no disagreement when Renee suggested sushi for dinner. It’s so cheap here anyway, one roll is between $ 2,50 – 4,5 (13 – 23,5 kr). Usually 3-4 rolls are enough, but this night Erik and I shared four rolls and got full. I reckon it had been a long week for all of us, Renee and Haley seemed just as tired and exhausted as we felt.

Tomorrow was time to leave and do the last part of our road trip around this massive country.

Beautiful avenues in Adelaide


South Australia Video

Margaret River Region And The South Coast of W.A.

Monday 27^th October

Since our sunday session didn’t get that wet, we both woke up without hangovers. We had a quick shower and said goodbye to Timmy, before we left Perth. 

Next goal was the southern part of Western Australia – which in many Australians opinion, is the most beautiful area, OF ALL, in Australia! So we both were very excited to see, if we would be able to share that opinion afterwards. We drove south for an hour or so, missed out on a town, that we originally planned to stop in, but that’s how it goes, when you’re getting old and have been drinking most days the last week – we therefore also agreed to not drink any alcohol before reaching Adelaide. 

We had our first stop in Mandurah, a quiet and very beautiful town, which is mostly known for its retirement-haven image. After a quick lunch on the esplanade, consisting of wraps with canned tuna, pre-made mixed salad, canned pineapples and a nice dressing (our favorite lunch on the road), our next planned stop was at a free rest area, some 150 km’s south, but we had to break this journey in two, cause we both were too tired to drive that distance (because of the “terror”, our bodies has been exposed to, during the last week).  

Well after a power nap, and a bit more driving, we made it to the area where the rest area should be…. Here we were in for a big surprise, just as we drove around to find the free rest area, we decided to have a stroll on the beach first, since we still had 2-3 hours of sunlight left. There on the parking lot, just as we came up from the beach, a man and his daughter in their 4wd had showed up, and straight away he asked if we wanted to camp there, cause if, we were better of going a bit further down the road, since it was illegal we we were . We told him that we were going to the free camp area, so we should be alright. After some talking back and forwards, he ended up telling us, that we could just camp on his land if we wanted to. Of course we would, as we like new adventures, and all the sweet and helpful Australians. We followed him for a km. down a private dirt road, and ended up in front of his house. He told us to have a look around, while he made some tea. Ian - the nice man, had around 30.000 acres of land there, including a big vegetable/fruit garden and a nice lake just outside the house. I was in love! This is the kind of property I’ve always been dreaming of. 

Well after he showed us around the garden and house, we made our bed ready for the night, and started on our dinner, we actually started with an entré for the first time on the roads, since we both were very hungry…  Just after opening the can of pumpkin soup that made out our entré, Ian came out from the house and told us, that he would make some dinner for us, so we shouldn’t worry about that…. Such a nice guy! Ian’s partner Jude was having a power nap, after some hard days of working full time, and studying full time – so meanwhile, we chatted with him, and his youngest daughter – Courtney. We ended up having a great night, with delicious lamb chops, salads and boiled potatoes in oil and fennel, and we even had our best wine on our entire trip to go with that, a locally made Barolo red wine…. I was sold!  Ohh yeah and we also got some fresh watermelon with yoghurt for dessert!  It was luxury. Total of 220 km this day.

We're  guessing this must be a possum

Ian had collected a lot of useable stuff during the years.. He had plenty of sheds looking like this 

Dinner with Courthney, Jude & Ian

Tuesday 28^th October

After a good night sleep, a hot shower in the morning and saying goodbye to the nice people we stayed at, we started our trip in the Margaret River region. The Margaret River region is, if not the favorite Australian wine region, then definitely one of the top ones. There’s vineyards and breweries everywhere you look, and in between those, there’s small factories producing ciders, nougat, honey, ice creams, chocolate, cheese, olive oils…. you named it – they’ve got it! Best of all are that almost all of these places have free tastings. 

First stop was Busselton, here we had our breakfast and a look at the Busselton Jetty, the longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere… Apparently it’s possible to see a lot of marine life if you do the 1,8km walk to the end of it, or take the little train – but sadly they even wanted to charge us, to walk on the jetty, so stubborn as we are, we didn’t put our feet on it – the more touristed the places get, the more it reminds us of Asia, EVERYTHING costs money, and since we’ve already seen similar places here in Australia, where it’s free – we just feel that it’s a tourist rip-off! 

We had a quick stop at the dive shop in town, to hear more about the 3 good dive sites in the area – but I quickly realized that they weren’t worth spending our money on. 

Our next 4 stops, was at different locations on Geographe Bay, a very beautiful coastline on the top of the Margaret River region, the sights we were treated with here, was fine white sand and small to middle sized boulders spread out in the shallow turquoise waters! 

Later we ventured out on a 5 km walk around the lighthouse, on the Northern Cape, called Cape Naturaliste. We then drove to Yallingup, a small town known for some of Australia’s best surf breaks. But since we didn’t find any surfers trying to ride the waves, we continued a bit south, to see if we could reach a chocolate shop/factory before they closed. We got there just in time to get some free samples of their goods. 

We ended up seeing all the stuff we wanted, in the northern part today, which meant that we could drive the 30-35 km more south to a cheap rest area, without having to drive up north again tomorrow. At the campground we had kangaroos jumping around our table, while we were cooking and eating dinner. They are simple some of the sweetest looking animals in the world – and they do not try to steal our food, as a lot of the other animals in this country do! 165 km.

Thounsands of birds living in that tree

 This is the above picture zoomed in

Busselton Jetty

 Castle Rock

 Castle Rock

 Castle Rock

 Eagle Bay

 Eagle Bay

More Eagle Bay

Cape Naturaliste...

 Yallingup Beach

Kangaroo's

Wednesday 29^th October

I woke up around 5am with some serious stomach aces, hoping that it would soon go away, I tried to get some more sleep, but quickly when the sun started to heat up the car, I surrendered to the, luckily for me, nearby toilet. Not a long time after Lisbeth got enough of the heat as well, and we both started to get ready to hit the roads again – saying that I mean, Lisbeth took care of herself and all the things concerning, changing the car over, while I was just running back and forth between her and the toilet… It was clear to both of us, that I wouldn’t be able to participate in any duties or activities, as I was feeling like shit at that time – especially because I was feeling more and more sick from every minute that passed by.  Just as we were to leave the campground the ranger pulled up to collect the 2 x 10 dollars, for our night there, damn it, if we had been 2 minutes faster, we would have avoided him, and saved ourselves 20 bucks! 

Well off we went, and luckily we did most of the things we wanted yesterday, so today we “only” had 5 or 6 things we wanted to see, we started off with Prevally, a small town with some great lookouts over the coast – perfect for sitting in the car and feeling sorry for myself next to a public toilet, while Lisbeth had some cerials for breakfast. My private driver then took me to the town of Magaret River – but when arriving there, we actually didn’t know what to see there, nobody told us any specific reasons to go there, and lonely planet didn’t convince us either, so after a slow cruise through the town, my driver took me further south to the beautiful Hamelin Bay, a popular family beach with excellent snorkeling especially when the bays iconic attraction comes to shore – the stingrays. 

We only had some quick looks around the place, since I was still not feeling any better. 

We ended our journey in the Margaret River region, by going to the town of Augusta, and further out to the lighthouse on cape Leeuwin – the most south-westerly point in Australia, and also the point where the Indian Ocean meets the Southern Ocean! Again we saw some amazing, but rough, landscape, which appear when big rock formations on land, fights the extremely forces of wild oceans and strong westerly winds, over thousands of years!  

My private limo then left the Margaret River region to find a free camp area for the afternoon and night, so I could finally give my useless body the only thing it had been asking for all day – a bed and some rest… This ended up taking double the amount of time, since all the free camp areas was a bit out of the directing we were heading – but also because both of us were craving for a hot shower. 

So we ended up driving all the way to our next planned stop on the route, Pemberton. 

Here we got a campsite in the caravan park, and a very good advice for tomorrows planned activity. After learning the inside of the gent’s toilets very good, I found my big love Lisbeth in the camp kitchen, ready with her late lunch/early dinner, and my only meal for the day. Wraps with tuna, salad, avocado and dressing! We then took one of the longest hot showers on this trip. 

The weather has now within 3-4 weeks, changed from around 38 in the north-west, to kind of like Danish summer with 25-28 around Perth, to only between 20-25 here in the most southern part of western Australia. This is mid day temperatures, so when/if the clouds role in, and the strong western winds doesn’t decide to take a break for the night, it means that the afternoons, evenings and nights, are more and more as the ones, we had back in Sydney when we started our road trip with the Augustini’s… Cold and winter-like. After our long showers we went directly to bed – Lisbeth with a movie on the laptop, and me accompanied by a headache pill and a much stronger pill “Dolol”, that my dear mom gave me a couple of extras of, back when they visited us in Thailand in February… Which was also the last time I was sick – I still remember the big difference of having a night sleep with and without this little mixture, when being sick – The closest thing I can come to compare it, is: From hell to heaven! Total km 278.

 Margaret River Mouth

 Margaret River Mouth

 Cape Leeuwin

Wineyard near Karridale

Thursday 30^th October

After having exact the kind of night that I hoped for (slept like a baby on sleep medication). I was again feeling fine when we woke up. It was early, but that was good, because we wanted to climb the 60 meter high karri tree (The Gloucester tree), which is the icon of this little town, and probably also the most famous tree in WA! 

The good advice we got from the lady in the caravan park yesterday, was that if we wanted to save some money, we should go there early, before the rangers got there, or go in the late afternoon, when they’ve left… Also did I think, that the earlier we got there, the bigger would the chance be, that we got the tree all to ourselves. Not because I didn’t wanna share the experience with others, more because there is only one way to get up and down, and this is the same for everybody. And with Lisbeth, who is not getting younger or more fearless as the days go by – I quickly figured out, after seeing pictures of the small walkway, that if I had any expectations of her going with me all the way up, there definitely shouldn’t be people going the opposite way than us! 

We got there around 7.30, and we were the only ones there… First mission accomplished, but also the easiest one… When I saw the tree, I wasn’t really sure that I wanted to climb it to the top anyway, but I was certain, that Lisbeth wouldn’t get up many steps! I was wrong… So wrong.  

As most times when I feel a little intimidated by things, I quickly forget about it again, when I see the amount of fear in Lisbeth eyes… Well she wanted me to lead the way, but already after climbing 6-8 meters up, Lisbeth was only half the way, and the way the words came out of her mouth, when I asked if she was alright, and the way her eyes turned into one giant black hole of fear, made me understand, that she already made the decision, now it was just a question of steps, before she would chicken out, and crawl down again. But anyway, then she would be able to shoot some good pictures of me in the tree. Because even though she brought the camera up the tree, there was no way that she would let go of one hand, to operate it, if she got further up. 

Anyway I carried out my endless song, this time the song about: Taking one step at a time, keep focus all the time, never look down, make sure to have a good grip with both hands and feet, before taking the next step, think about how good you’ll feel if you do it, plus about the good pictures you can take when we reach the platform on the top, and of course keep answering: NO you won’t die. The reason why I do it: I hope that she’ll try to push her boundaries every time she faces them – As I like to do, because the feeling afterwards is indescribable… No matter what kind of boundaries we’re talking – as soon as you feel your body is about to paralyze itself of fear, it’s the biggest win afterwards, if you do it anyhow! 

Lisbeth is the perfect example of this, and it’s such a frill every time it succeeds to make her follow me, of several reasons… 1. Because she pushed her limits! 2. Because I was a part of helping her doing it. 3. But also because, for me focusing so much on getting her to follow me, I almost completely forget my own anxiety, and therefore pushes my own limits, at the same time… 4. It’s just the best energy in the world when we succeed one of these “séances”! Of some reason, that even Lisbeth can’t describe, after 10-15 minutes we actually found us self on the very top platform, of this 61 meter tall Karri tree, overlooking the surrounding karri forest, and it’s treetops. Lisbeth got a couple of pictures, but was still a bit worried about getting down, for as in many of the other things we’ve been doing, getting down is many times harder than getting up – and that is safe down I mean! After some time, we got down, safe, and just 3 seconds before Lisbeth put her feed on the solid ground again, it started to rain. How good timing is that?! Once again did we do it, not only did we climb the tree, but we also did it before the rangers turned up and collected money from us. 

Now since we can’t get enough of free things, or discounts, we decided to go back to the caravan park to have a nice hot morning shower – we did after all pay for the camp site, and the check out time wasn’t before 10am. On the way back, we stopped in at the local supermarket to get some cold milk for our breakfast – what then happened in the shop  was, that we decided to skip the milk, and planned to make some eggs and bacon instead… Then when we were searching for the bacon in the cooler, we stumbled over some chicken gordon bleu from the delicacy, but the dates ran out the day before, so we thought, if we could get those for half price, that would be cheaper, and we would get more food! When Lisbeth showed the guy in the deli, that they had some stuff in the cooled with expired dates on, he was almost embarrassed, and took it straight of the shelf, and apologized… 

He thought Lisbeth was being a bitch, and was annoyed that they had all stuff in the store. Ha ha. Then she asked if he could maybe sell it to us cheaper, since it was expired. But he wasn’t allowed to sell us old meat – but we could have it for free if we wanted! Thank you… and off we went. 

No actually before we left the store, we bought a chocolate milk, just to pay for something at the counter. 

Back at the caravan park we had our hot showers and special breakfast consisting of chicken gordon bleu with pasta before hitting the roads again. Actually we forgot all about our chocolate milk in the fridge, so we left without even tasting it! Bummer! 

First stop was not a real stop, but a scenic 4wd route through an exceptional red tingle and karri forest. Our first real stop after Pemberton was at Parry Beach, we had a walk around the cliffs separating the beach from the ocean, took some pictures and left quickly again – not anything special in our opinions. 

The next place, on the other hand, was definitely something not to miss out on, when being on these latitudes! The little town of Denmark’s most iconic attraction: Elephant Rocks. It’s large elephant-shaped boulders resting in the shallow waters in a small cove. And just a few minutes’ walk from here, is Denmark’s most beautiful beach, called Greens Pool, it’s a large sheltered rock pool, offering great swimming and excellent snorkeling in the crystal clear waters. We spend some time here, especially because we took a wrong turn on our way back to the car park, so we ended up at Elephant Rocks again, but they were just as majestic the second time around, and our lazy bodies needed some exercise anyway! A really beautiful place, one of the best we’ve seen, since we left Perth! Drove through the little township of Denmark, towards Albany, around halfway we stopped for the night at a free rest area at Cozy Corner Beach. 286 km.

 The ladder to the tree top

 On top of the world

 Ocean Beach

 Elephant Rocks

 Elephant Rocks

 Elephant Rocks

Near the town Denmark.. Sure looks danish to me...

Driving slowly in order not to hit this little fellow...

Gloucester Tree

Friday 31^st October

The nights are still getting colder, that’s easy to feel, this night we luckily had some good shade from the sea breeze. We rose early and after jumpstarting the car from our second battery we were moving towards Albany. During the last two weeks, our “starting” battery has gotten worse and worse every day, but still just managed to have enough power to start the following morning – but not anymore. Not the biggest problem in the world, both because our second battery still works perfect, as a backup battery to start up with, and to charge all our electrical items such as laptops and cameras, but also because we already, several days ago, planned to buy a new battery when we got into Albany. 

The next big trip we have in sight is to cross the Nullarbor Plain, where there is 1181 km between the two nearest towns, so we don’t wanna be stuck with a stupid battery on that stretch! After an hour drive, and about 100 of road works areas, we finally arrived in Albany – next couple of hours went by with driving around to the different auto part stores, to find the best battery for the price that at the same time would fit in the car. I got one for 120 Dollars, fitted it in, and then Migaloo started up as a lightning again! Problem solved – we checked the old battery at the auto part shop, and it was collapsed inside, just as I expected… No wonder with all those bumpy dirt roads we’ve crossed the last 20000 km. 

With Migaloo ready again, we bought some milk, and had a late breakfast in the car just east of Albany. We had the last couple of days been getting on each other’s nerves to easily, so we had a big discussion about that and why, we came to the conclusion, that we both were very tired of seeing 5-10 new things every day, without being able to accumulate the impressions. But also the fact that we sit or lie next to each other 24/7, and has been doing it constantly for the last 13½ months, it can be pretty hard at times. So we decided to just keep on driving towards Esperance, only to supply up, before our big Nullarbor adventure – and at the same time skip out on one or two places around Esperance, that we originally planned to see. But also did we agree to put some music on in the car, and not talk for some hours, just to have a little time alone – even sitting next to each other… 

Yes, it’s not, JUST, a big happy dance on gold and red roses, to travel the world… But almost. 

In Ravensthorpe we got some more fuel on, and continued to the little town Munglinup, where we camped for the night. A very cold one that was – and I had some stomach problems again during the evening and night– mostly because I hadn’t been eating much the last couple of days, but even more because I forced a can of liver pate in it, accompanied by 600ml. of coke… That made some serious rumble in the jungle, and Lisbeth was struggling to get through the night and my smelly outlets.  

414 km.

 Our first spotted Torny Devil.. Seconds after the picture was taken a motorbike ran it over.. Poor thing.

Saturday 1^st November

Rose around 6am after a very cold night, we drove into Esperance and agreed on, that we deserved something special after yesterday’s smelly evening, and the very cold night that followed. So instead of our normal milk and cereals for breakfast, we bought fresh baked bread, some slices of cold meat and a chocolate milk. Lisbeth is starting to have a lot of pain in her back, caused by sitting down all the time. So we also found a massage clinic, where she could get some help. We had breakfast in the car, and while Lisbeth went to get her back fixed, I had a power nap on the front seats. 

The rest of the day was already planned. DRIVING! We started our next big task.. Crossing the Nullarbor Plain – which is one of the biggest iconic trips to do in Australia. From our starting point in Esperance, to our destination in Adelaide is 2370km, and of course, we always do some deviations from the route, so we’re probably talking 2500km for this next, but also last, long leg of our Aussie road trip. From Adelaide we only have around 2000km left before we are back in Sydney.

We drove the rest of the day, until we ran out of sunlight. 557km in total.

 A water tab for humans aswell as animals... 

Bye.. Thanks for entertaining us during our lunch break

Sunday 2^nd November

An even colder night again, the last 3 nights have we both been lying awake for several hours in the middle of the night, simply because we were too cold to fall asleep again. Almost even more annoying is it, that as soon as the sun rises over the horizon it doesn’t take more than maximum 2 hours, before it’s so unbearable hot in the car, and we then have to get out of it! That’s just the tough life in the deserts!

Today we didn’t do much else than driving and fueling!  In the end of the day, when we had crossed the border to South Australia, we stopped to fuel-up at Nullarbor roadhouse. Lisbeth had read that there should be some caves behind the roadhouse, so after getting directions to them, we drove the 10km out to the biggest cave, on one of the worst dirt roads we’ve experienced. 

The cave was in the middle of the outback/desert, so no matter which direction we looked there was just totally flat. Not that we haven’t seen that a 1000 times on this road trip, but the facts that we were the only ones there and we had 307 km to the nearest town, and we were about to climb down the cave with our headlamps on, and explore, just as the sun was setting over the flat horizon, made it pretty special anyway. It smelled really bad of bats down there, but we explored some of the cave, amongst spiders, lizards, and a couple of bigger “things” that we couldn’t see, only hear, when they moved around in the high grass just next to us. When we got back up to the car, Lisbeth made some soup for dinner – none of us were very hungry – probably because of too many sweets on the roads… Even though we were in the middle of the desert, there was a quite strong wind and the car was much higher than the vegetation around us, this evening didn’t feel as cold. We had a nice warm night for the first time since we left Perth. We drove 683km.

Isolated and flat =  Nullarbor Roadhouse

Western Australia Video (Southern part)

Monday 3^rd November

Another day on the roads, but more important than the others, because we decided to make the 230km detour down to Port Lincoln, the Tuna Capital of the World! 

It was my plan all the time to go here, because it’s the only place in Australia where you can dive with white pointers or great white shark. But sadly for me, “we” canceled those plans, of several reasons – the price being the biggest!

Apart for being known world-wide for being a place to dive with great white’s, and the place, where the scariest scenes from “Jaws” was shot, this town is also a big fishing town, and well known for its sublime seafood options. This is the reason why we ventured here anyway. Lisbeth has been talking about getting a good seafood dinner, at a restaurant, since we came to the West coast more than a month ago. That didn’t happen, so now we decided the time had come. 

We got some cheap gas on when we arrived in Port Lincoln, autogas is a widely used fuel for cars in the southern states, so not only can we get it everywhere, compared to the north, but also the prices is almost half of what we paid in the Northern Territory. We like that! At the gas station, we got the name of a couple of good seafood restaurants in town, and picked Marina Hotel… NOT a bad choice at all, we splashed out, and got a glass of white wine as well. Lisbeth got a spicy seafood and pasta dish, with scallops, king prawns and whiting wrapped in pancetta. I chose the atlantic salmon served on a bed of hot potato salad, lemon butter sauce and fresh asparagus.  We were in heaven! All together we paid 65 dollars (338kr).

Another thing that made us very happy, was when we realized that because we now are 2500km’s more east than Perth, the sun is also setting later in the evenings – so while enjoying our dinner on the Marina, we had sunlight until 8.30pm. That’s a new record, since we started travelling…. Yeehaa!   We drove around 80 km’s north of town, and then 8 km on a very good dirt road, until reaching a free camp spot with toilets. The next day we would reach Adelaide. This day came to 799km. 

 Camels, wombats and of course the kangaroos

 Unreal coastline