Northern Territory - Big crocs and big rocks

Ready for a detour? It only took us 1531 km to get to Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. A pretty reasonable distance for Australia ;-) But before we reached the "Rock" we had a couple few more things to see on our way...

...the giant "fairy tale trees" on the road...

...very beautiful rock pools with anstonishing views...

...huge termite mounts, taller than our little Mogy here...

...breathtaking views over the wetlands...

...and of course crocs :-)

Not only the crocodiles were hungry, also the Black Kites were reaching for the little pieces of meat.

Looks like a cemetery, but it is not. These "tombstones" are termite mounts.

This flying fox is chilling out and waiting for the sun to set.

Again a lot of water, perfect to cool down and relax.

Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park

 Kings Canyon

Devils Marbles

BREAKING NEWS

RIP SPIDERMAN

Today we have a truly sad loss to announce:

Our beloved van mate, Spider the spider, has tragically past away.

Was it the temperature up to 45°C in the car, was it the smoke of the mosquito repellent or was it just the lack of its enthusiasm and skill to catch flies? We might never know.

 

Thank you little spider to catch away some annoying flies!

NW Australia 3 - Karijini National Park

Having left the coast with its surf, coral reefs and marine wildlife behind, the road took us away from the ocean towards Karijini National Park. The beautiful gorges and rock pools with crystal clear water were very welcome due to the high temperatures. As you can see in the following pictures, we had a great time exploring Karijini.

NW Australia 2

Welcome to part 2 of our North-Western Australia tour. It has already been 2 weeks since we have left WA but the long distances and the poor coverage in between didn't allow us to update our blog at once. Anyways, we have some beautiful impressions which we can share with you now.

Sharks!! Little cute ones which we have seen in Coral Bay, no 3m away from shore. But these little fellas were not the only wildlife we have seen.

Another highlight was watching a turtle at night laying her eggs.

Yes, it is in the middle of the night, but thanks to our camera, we got this nice shot :-)

After having digged for ages (or so it seemed) the turtle layed approximately 100 eggs into the little hole. Later she burried them carefully so they are save from heat and preditors.

You can also spot them during the day time. This was the most "turtlish" beach we have ever seen. Turtles swimming near the shore, mating, playing, swimming or even chilling out in the sun.

That's not a turtle, that's Bine at the secret turtle beach.

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.