NW Australia

And here we go, time for some real holidays :-)

A roadtrip is nice, but spending time on the beach is a lot better. So we travelled north from Perth along the Batavia Coast towards the beautiful Gascoyne Coast. Where the desert meets the sea, we spent 2 1/2 weeks on a campsite next to a great surfspot with migrating humpback whales visiting us everyday. Accomodation was very basic with only toilets provided. So we had to take our daily bath in the indian ocean and save our water as there was no water supply at all. Our new solar panel worked really great, so our food supply did last quite long in our 12V-fridge.

This one is still on the road close to Geraldton...

...were we met the greatest fisherman of all time. He really knew what he was doing when he threw his net into the water. Except for the first throw which failed, his following 3 attempts ended up having 4-6 fish in it. Not bad for hardly 10 minutes of "work".

Even the birds are getting jealous...

A new critter on our list.

Jan is enjoying...

...the view from our campsite, with a nice little surfspot on the headland.

Lots of wildlife around. This kangaroo checks out our neighbour's stuff while he's gone :-D

Humpback whales are migrating along the coast, sometimes coming as close as 50m from the beach. This one jumped 15 times in a row, all the way from right in front of our campervan...

... to the surfspot

 Well, not all days had good surf, so Jan went snorkelling and Bine shot this beautiful panorama.

 But on most days:

Waikerie to Perth

Hello everybody, time for holidays!!!
 
After picking and pruning all kind of fruit, we finally saved up enough money to go for a loooooong holiday for the rest of the year. As it is winter in australia, we should have been heading up north straight away for warm and nice weather, but we didn't want to miss the south and the south-west... So we went on a little Roadtrip, driving almost 4000 km within the first week. Well, unfortunately the weather really wasn't that nice, otherwise we would have spent a little more time in between (only 20°C). Still, here are some impressions from our and MOGY's first week back on tour.

Cleaning good old Mogy to start off fresh to another road trip.

Not only we prepared to move on, also Marcello our work mate from Waikerie did. Walking from Waikerie to Adelaide (180km!!) with a supermarket trolley. Unfortunately, he was stopped by the police and they took away his trolley. Poor Marcello, but he arrived in Adelaide anyway :-)

Here we go! Distances are long, and there is not really much to see...

..accept for roadkills and the beautiful eagles we saw feeding on them.

 

 And again some whales, this time at Head of Bights.

  

 Didn't take long until Mogy was dusty again :-)

 

The dust covers Mogy's newest bump, caused by a little accident in Perth. Fortunately it wasn't our fault and no one got hurt.

Waikerie

It has been a little long while since we posted our last pictures in our blog. We're sorry about that and we hope there are no hurt feelings :-) So here we go and show you what happened in the last few months

Since May we were in Waikerie South Australia, in the lovely Riverland at the Murray River. Here we've been picking fruit on different farms to fill up our wallets for further travelling.

Good morning! This was our good-morning-view for a couple of weeks when we were camping at the riverfroont. Quite often foggy, cold mornings, but during the day the sun almost always showed itself and temperature rose to about 20°C.

A cormorant stretching its wings in the morning breeze...

Our house-spider (or better van-spider) enjoying a fly...

No more animal watching and off we go to the farm to pick olives all day long, freezing in the morning, sweating in the afternoon.

After 16 days of work in a row finally a day of rest :-)

And after Jan went kayaking all by himself another day... or so he thought... we found this one sitting right next to him during his ride:
Red-Back-Spider

Besides kayaking, George's Olive-farm also had a table-tennis to offer...

After the olive season ended we found work next door at Greg's farm, where we pruned trees and picked oranges and lemons. Also we were allowed to stay on the farm almost for free, which meaned we moved from the "city"-riverside to the country-riverside.

Finally we were able to set up a living-room alltogether with a TV and a Playstation 3

What do you do if you pick oranges, and there are some of them lying on the ground you have no use for?

Mogy also enjoyed  a little servicing during our stay.

On a free weekend, we convinced our friends Siim, Kadri and Marcello to join us on a trip to Victor Harbour, around 80km south of Adelaide. It was promised to us as one of the best places to watch whales from the shore. They were absolutely right :-)

Southern Right Whales are giving birth to their calves in this area and they are staying very close to shore to protect them. 

Melbourne to Adelaide

After beeing absent for a while we finally found some time to upload some of the many pictures we made. The journey took us from Melbourne along the Great Ocean Road and the Limestone Coast towards Adelaide in South Austalia. The Road meanders between the cliffs and the sea, offering spectacular views and access to many world class surfspots. Jan took advantage and went for a surf, each time one of the many uncrowded spots looked promising. In between, some towns offered more sheltered beaches and smaller waves for Bine. After crossing the boarder into South Australia, abundant wildlife crossed our roads, and we've finally seen an echidna, for which we had been looking for months...

 

Bine is taking some pictures with our new camera

Jan is having fun in the water

White Cockatoos were everywhere

 Some animals show a very human behaviour, when confronted with a camera

Time for some surf in between, 3 people in the water, waves up to 200m long

Koalas hanging out, sleeping all day long, no hurry in taking a picture of them, as they don't move anyway.

The 12 Apostels, a must on the scenic Great Ocean Road

 Some seriously big waves

Some serious fun on another great surf spot

The biggest eagles we have ever seen (wedge tailed eagle)

Finally an echidna, the only egglaying mammal besides the platypus...

and they move their legs as if someone is running in knee to hip high water 

Only a picture of a picture, but we think we found the ugliest chicks in the world (any other competitors for this title known by anyone?)

Melbourne

 Back in Melbourne, Cely and Bob showed us a little bit of the city.

 Melbourne Aquarium.