Ronald en Hester in Australië en Azië

The Red Centre

You’d better grab a cup of coffee and a comfy seat, cause it’s been two weeks since our last post and we haven’t been doing nothing….

Coober Pedy
Coober Pedy is the strangest town I’ve ever seen…It’s ugly and dusty. Once it was a place where people were hoping to find lots of opal (and money), but today there are only 400 miners left (comparing to 4000 somewhat years ago) and about 400000 holes in the ground where they’ve been searching for opals. It really looks like the moon. Not that I’ve ever been on the moon, but I have seen some pictures…
We spent one whole day in CP and that was enough! We went to two underground churches, which was quite impressive. We also went into the Old Timers Opal Mine, an old mine, digged out by hand in the early opal-mining-days. Outfitted with helmets on our heads we crowled through the mine and had some great fun, nice to see!! After that we took a tour into a real ‘working’ opal mine. A guy who’s been a miner for 28 years and went broke four times was our tourguide, and that made the tour very informative and interesting. He said: ‘Miners have the best brains you can imagine….they’re brand new, never been used!!!! Well, I agree on that one. It’s a strange way to live your life, it’s a bit like gambling, you never know if you’re gonna find that big opal that’s gonna make you a rich man.
We tried it for ourselves, but strangely we didn’t find any opal.

Uluru/Ayers Rock
After driving 730 km from Coober Pedy (with nothing else to see than dead kangaroo’s, rotten dead cow’s and the bones of what once was a camel on the side of the road), we got to Ayers Rock. We could see the big monolite from far far away. We arrived there by the end of the day so we went straight to the ‘sunset carpark’. Uluru is very touristic (unfortunately), you even have to pay 25 dollars just to get into the NP. At the carpark we made our meal, cooking right in front of Uluru (yeah, we must be living the real backpackers-life by now) and waited for the sun to set and send it’s magic glow over the big rock. But we were not very lucky, as it was bloody clouded. So we sat there, basicly watching it getting dark, nothing more than that.
The next morning we tried the sunset, getting up at six (very unusual for us) we were filled with excitement to see the best sunset ever. BUT….. There where the clouds again. Truly disappointed we started the base walk, 9.4 km around the base of Uluru. This was very impressive, cause at every ‘corner’ the rock has a different appearence. And the thing really is red, pretty amazing. In the afternoon we bought a real aboriginal art painting ( ) !! I really like the aborginal art, it’s very beautiful. Late in the afternoon Ronald decided he wanted to go for a run…around Uluru! Now he’s really proud he ran around Uluru, very cute
The next day we also went to the Olga’s (Uluru’s little sisters, far less famous than Uluru), but it was raining… so we just did a short walk there and then drove to Kings Canyon.

Kings Canyon
Kings Canyon was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next day we got there, we went for the ‘rim walk’, a 5.5 km walk that is supposed to take 3-4 hours with a very steep 100 mtr climb up the rock at the start. On top of Kings Canyon the view was great and the walk was good, cause it was not as commercial as Uluru, you actually had to climb and sort of find your own way. When we were about halfway, it started to rain. We thought ah oh, shit, we (ofcourse) didn’t bring any jumpers or raincoats. But than in no time, waterfalls started to exist everywhere. This was absolutely amazing. We didn’t care we were getting soaked, we were walking through te base of multiple falls!!!! It was one of the best experiences so far, I can’t really explain it in words, it was just so beautiful.

That afternoon we headed to Alice Springs. It was raining and raining and raining. It just didn’t stop. Now, you think the desert is dry….it’s not!!!!!!!!!!! We came to quite a lot of floodings…..a lot of water on the road….pretty exciting, but we made it well, even with our car.

Alice Springs
In Alice we went to G’day Mate Tourist Park (just funny to mention). Alice was very different than what we expected, it was so green!! We just expected it to be dusty and ugly, but it was so green! In Alice we visited the base of The Royal Flying Doctor Service. This was very interesting to see. Coming from such a small country as the Netherlands, I’ve never really realised that in a country like Australia a lot of people in remote areas wouldn’t really be able to survive without the RFDS in case of an accident or sudden illness. Great to see and great that this exists.
We also saw the Old Ghan Train Museum, that one was a bit dusty and old but it was nice anyway to read about the history of the famous Australian train.
Besides that we’ve just strolled around in Alice, we went inside a few art gallery’s (they’ve got a lot of art gallery’s here, mostly aboriginal art).
And the things we heard about aborginals in Alice Springs is true, they are everywhere on the streets. Not taking care of themselves, no shoes, dirty clothes. It’s sad but very true.

Macdonnell Ranges
The Macdonnell Ranges are very close to Alice and according to a lot of people, very beautiful. So, we went to the Mac’s. We only did the West part and it really was good. We went camping on a bushcamp at Ellery Creek Big Hole, a permanent water hole. Perfect to go for a swim in the morning…(but we didn’t really like the amazing amount of bugs at night, yuk!). Beautiful Gorges and views in the West Mac’s and not too touristic. I can go on and on about the good views, but I won’t .

On our way to Katherine
When we left Alice Springs, we just had to stop at the (normally dry) river. There were so many people standing on the side of the road, police, we got curious. What we saw was pretty amazing. Water, a lot of water came running down the river very fast. Within minutes the road crossing the river was flooded. A policemen said they expected 2 metres of water that day. Hm, we thought: we are going in the direction where al that water is coming from…
But it turned out to be allright. At Tennant Creek there was a flooding, not to deep but there was water on the road for a good 10-15 metres. We nearly ended up next to the road as we where driving through the water, but we made it across safely.
We drove further and the landscape really started to change, everything became much more green and tropical. And the most significant thing here in the Northern Territory is the termite mounds, they’re just everywhere! Sometimes they can get up to 2 metres high!
On our way to Katherine we wanted to go to the Mataranka Thermal Springs, but guess what…the road to get there was absolutely flooded. It turns out that, like everywhere in the world, the seasons are changing. We thought that by now the wet season up here would have ended, but it has not. So everything is wet, humid and sticky. You can take a shower here and then you might as well jump right back in. If you know what I mean

Katherine
In Katherine they’ve had a lot of rain as well. Yesterday we wanted to go to the Katherine Gorge, but, well, I think you can guess: the road is flooded. So instead we went to the Jurassic Cycad Gardens, where they apparenly have very rare plants. They owner was very enthusiastic and told us everything about the plants and how they have real sperm (uuuh, yeah, it’s true) but unfortunately (for him or for me) my brain doesn’t really register information about plants. But the garden was beautiful

After another hot and sticky night (the weather… ) we were planning to go to Kakadu National Park today, to wrestle with some crocodiles. But we found out that the road to Katherine Gorge isn’t flooded anymore. It’s a strange world….So we’re gonna go there first and then probably later this afternoon we’ll head up to Kakadu.

We’re still happy campers and enjoying ourselves bigtime

We hope you’re all doing good, is spring coming through nicely in Holland?

Love to you all!!!

Ronald & Hester

New pictures online

Just to let you know we’ve put the pictures of the Flinders Ranges and Coffin Bay online.

Right now we’re in Coober Pedy. Yesterday we drove 540 km from Port Augusta to here. Coober Pedy is the opal-mining capital of the world, everywhere you look people have digged holes in search of opals. Looks very strange…Today we’re gonna find out everything about it.

A lot to tell about one week

Here we are again…

At the moment we’re in the library in Port Lincoln, I’ll write about our week since we left Adelaide.

From Adelaide we drove to Port Augusta (very very boring drive) where we spent one night, not much going on there. From there we went into Flinders Ranges National Park. The scenery here was very different from what we’ve seen so far. So much wide open space, unbelievable. We did a walking track on Arkaroo Rock and to the Youramballa Caves, were we saw (for the first time!) some real aboriginal art on the rocks. The walk was nice (not too much climbing…) and the view was great. The campsite where we were staying was crowded with kangaroo’s and colourfull parrots (and unfortunately mosquito’s) and of course there were enough barbie’s

The second day in the Flinders Ranges we decided to do a self guided driving tour through the Bunyeroo- and Brachina Gorge. This was fantastic, a real spectacular drive. It was a narrow winding dirt road with great views that went on for 36 km. With our 2 wheel drive it was pretty ok (a bit bumpy every now and then, but fine). We were having fun until the road started to get really rocky. All of the sudden I heard ‘pats’ and then ‘ppsssssssssssssss’, ah oh, flat tire….In the middle of nowhere in the burning hot sun…But fortunately Ronald had checked our spare tire before we left Adelaide and fifteen minutes later we were ready to move on. That was about enough excitement for that day

The next day we had a long drive ahead of us, 500 km to Port Lincoln and Coffin Bay. We were invited bij Erica and Greg (Erica is Mrs. T’s daughter, where we spent christmas) to come and stay in their beachshack for a few days. We didn’t expect anything, but OH MY GOD we arrived in paradise. Their house is in Coffin Bay, right on the beach. The house is amazing, big and luxurious. The view over the bay from the living room and the terrace were stunning, absolutely beautiful. Greg met us there and he left the next day, so we’ve had the place for 4 days to ourselves (imagine this, normally they charge $ 300,- a night for this paradise). And it was great.

On Saturday we went into Coffin Bay National Park, very beautiful (of course ). We found a large beach there with white sand and blue blue water. And the good thing is, besides 2 people 1 kilometre away from us, we had the beach to ourselves. The water was pretty cold, but that was part of the fun

On Sunday we did the Oyster Walk along the beachside of Coffin Bay, the rest of the day we’ve just been lazy-asses….some reading, watching a movie, relaxing…and ofcourse a barbie at night.

On Monday we went to Mikkira, a large secluded part of Lincoln National Park, where you can spot lots of wildlife. After only a little while, we saw koala’s in the trees. If we would have wanted to, we could have touched them, they were low in the trees and we could easily approach them. Koala’s are so cute!! There were also sheep (yeah I know, nothing special), kangaroo’s, emu’s, parrot’s…in the evening we went to Deb and David, friends of Erica and Greg, who invited us to come over for dinner. That was a great night, this people are about as Australian as you can imagine. Deb’s parents were there as well and while we were talking about that we just have a 2 WD they were imidiately arranging things to take us out on a 4 WD-tour into Lincoln NP.

So, on Monday we knocked on Brian and Raelena’s (Deb’s parents) door at ten o’clock. After Brain showed us his amazing Coca Cola collection (a whole room full of everything you can think of, made by Coca Cola) we were off to Lincoln NP. Ooooh and what a great day this was!!!!! We started out on the sandhills, drove over rocks, had stunning views, took narrow paths over the sandhills, and of course got stuck in the sand. At one point, we got really stuck. Ron, me and Realena got out of the car and removed the sand in front of the tires. But then all of the sudden, the car started to slide downhill, in a really weird angle. For a moment, we all thought the car was gonna tumble over. But fortunately it didn’t and Brian managed to get us moving again.
After a while it was time for me and Ronald to go sandboarding. Wwooehoooeoe that really is great fun!!!!!! Climbing up the sandhill is though work, but once you’re sliding down on a high speed, wow!! Great.
For lunch Brian picked a nice seaview-spot, popped 4 chairs and a table out of the car and there we were, having lunch in the middle of paradise.
In the afternoon we tried a few beaches to spot dolphins, but it wasn’t our lucky dolphin-day. We did see kangaroo’s, emu’s and even a iguana (which was apparently very unusual to see there). It was a lovely day…and very special. If you think about it, all of this started the day before Christmas in the library where we met Mrs. T. (Jenny), then we met Erica and Greg, we met their friends Deb and David, we met Deb’s parents Brian and Raelena and thanks to all these people, we’ve had some great days here in Port Lincoln/Coffin Bay. And they don’t even know us!! We love the Ozzies

Right now we are waiting for a mechanic who is putting a new tire on our wheel…in an hour or so we’ll be heading back to Port Augusta (300 km), from where we’re gonna go into the outback tomorrow. So, the real Oz-Experience starts tomorrow.

You’ll read about it soon!

Ronald and Hester

On the road again….

Starting from today we’ll be writing some things in English on our weblog, so our friends in Adelaide (and all the other people we’ve met here in Australia) can see what we’re up to as well.

Time has come…we’re leaving today!

We’ve been looking forward to this moment for quite a few weeks now, cause we were sick of working, but now we’re actually leaving it feels a bit strange as well. Looking back, we’ve had a really good time here, we’ve met nice people and enjoyed living in Arthur Street with Sam. Hester’s had a great time at Buskers (and learned lots of new things ) and Ronald felt so much at home at Toudtou and Crystal’s place. We’re all leaving that behind now…we don’t now where we’ll be sleeping tonight or where we’ll be next week, but that’s all part of our time here in Australia (and we’re loving it ).

Lots of good and new things will be waiting for us along the road…we’ve been able to save up money to travel for a good couple of months, so here we go…

We’ve had a great farewell-party last Saturday (lots of tequila, people puking inside the pub) and celebrated Ronald’s 28th birthday on Sunday. On Monday Hester worked on the Rockford Winery in the Barossa Valley with Brett, Sam and Kimberley to serve a three-course lunch to 200 (!!!!) people. It was a great day but now her arms are falling off cause of all the really heavy plates she’s been carrying

At the moment we’re putting all the last stuff in the car (yes, it fits again) and we’ve put some of the pictures we took the last few weeks online.

From now on you won’t be seeing us online all the time anymore…but there will be more exciting stories than the last few months!

We’re gonna miss the people and our lives in Adelaide!

Bug hugs for everyone!!

Ronald & Hester