Ronald en Hester in Australië en Azië

Paradise

At the moment we’re in Airlie Beach and we’ve just done an awesome sailingtrip around the Whitsunday Islands. But the last thing we wrote here was that we booked a trip to go out on the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns. I’ll start from there, I know, the story’s get longer everytime, but hold one, this one is worth the effort!!

Great Barrier Reef from Cairns
Early in the morning we stepped on board of the Ocean Spirit, to drive to Oyster Reef. There we had some time to snorkel, but the ocean was playing rough with me and I didn’t enjoy that! Diving however, was much better! It was only an introductory dive for 20 minutes (enough for me, I was pretty scared…) but it was amazing. It really is a beautiful world out there on the reef. We saw blue, green, purple corals moving in the current, fishes in all bright colours you can imagine…wonderful!!!! And we found Nemo!!! Unfortunately not everyone respects the reef, which is World Heritage listed and we saw a stupid tourist stamping on the reef with his big fat flippers. What an idiot!!!! Back on the surface I told him, but guess what: he didn’t understand a word of it. Due to people like this, big parts of the reef are damaged, what a shame…
Later on in the afternoon we had another change for snorkelling and this time it was lots better. Easy, shallow water, wow…amazing…we were so close to everything we could have a real good look at it. I just couldn’t get enough of it. All the different fish, and so many! We said to ourselves: we want to do this at least once more (and so we did, keep on reading ).

Magnetic Island
From Cairns we headed to Mission Beach and then on to the Paluma Range NP where we slept on a bushcamp next to Paradise Waterhole, lovely to go for a swim. You wouldn’t believe how often we’ve been in the water the last few months, the ocean, swimmingpools, lagoons, rockpools, waterholes, we love it
In Townsville we decided to go the the nearby Magnetic Island for a day. The idea was to hire some bikes for the day and to cycle around the island. Allright, we got off the ferry and took a bus to the next town where we could get ourselves some bikes. While in that bus, we looked at each other and we changed our plan. Hills!!!! High hills! Not good for Dutchies who haven’t been on a bike in 7 months. So instead, we hired a Moke for the day. A Moke is a small car from back in the sixties with a very small engine (max speed 60 klm/h), no doors. It has 4 wheels, an engine and a steeringwheel. That’s it, basically. But it was fun!!!!!!!!!!! The island is not that big so we drove up and down a few times. It’s a beautiful island with secluded beaches and high hills. At Horseshoe Bay we hired a jetski for half an hour, whaaaaaaa those things can go fast!!! You just sort of jump over the surface of the water with it. I screamed my lungs out

Whitsunday Islands
Somewhere this week we arrived in Airlie Beach. Like in Cairns, there’s a tourbooking office on every corner of the street here. Very annoying, everyone wants a bit if the tourist’s money. So we collected like 10 different leaflets about sailcruises. Usually those things don’t give you a lot of information and they certainly don’t tell you exactly what you have to pay for it. It always makes me feel a bit hopeless, all these difficult decisions to make, do we want to go on a big boat, a small boat, one day, two days, three days, do we want to go diving? You understand, the life of a traveller is very difficult and hard. Finally we decided to go on the ‘Prima’, a small boat (max 12 people) which would take us sailing around the Whitsunday Islands for 2 days and 2 nights.
Last wednesday we got on board, together with 6 other people and 3 crewmembers. The first day we just drove to a spot where we would spent the night. It was very relaxed, the view was good, the people where nice, but it wasn’t very spectacular. But thursday made all up for that. We had an amazing day, which I will never forget…
Early in the morning we jumped in the water to go snorkelling.

Again, it was beautiful and fascinating…it was different to what we had seen in Cairns and we could take all the time we wanted. What a great way to start the day!! While having breakfast in the sun on the deck of the boat, we drove to Whitehaven Beach. Some travelguides say this is the most stunning beach in the whole of Australia. And well, they’re damn right…This was paradise, absolutely paradise. Very very clear blue water, white sand. Amazing. No ugly appartmentblocks, no beachbars, no fastfood restaurants. Just the wonders of nature. There were only a few people around from other boats. Later on, we climbed up to the Hill Inlet Lookout where we had the best view ever. The broad beach, the blue/green water, the green trees. Just amazing. The Whitsunday Islands are defenitely high in my ‘best-things-in-Australia-chart’ (and also in Ronalds, don’t worry).
In the afternoon we had the change to go snorkelling again on two different spots, so we were the first ones to jump into the water. Ofcourse dressed in our supersexy stingersuits, cause we don’t really fancy getting bitten by the lethal jellyfish that surround the northern part of the Coral Sea. That night we slept in the boat again in our very small ‘private double’. We had a lot of fun with the crew, but the others on the boat were all a bit weird.
This morning we got back to Airlie beach and we had that feeling…you know, that feeling you have when you come home from a really good holiday or a fantastic party. You just wish time could have stopped and you could still be having a really good time. But all good things end as well, unfortunately. Not that we have a lot to complain about But we do miss you guys, we’ve been here for almost seven months now and it really starts to feel like a long time…
And we’ve got 4,5 months more to go! Till 16 July in Australia and then two months South East Asia.We keep enjoying ourselves, we hope you all do that as well!For a change, we’ve put the pictures that match with this post online. Have a look in ‘Northern Queensland’ and enjoy (or get jealous, it’s up to you )Big hugs!!! Ronald and Hester

First bit of QLD

Here we are again A lot to tell, so take a cup of coffee and enjoy:

Mt. Isa
After we left for Mt. Isa we had a long drive in front of us… It took us longer then we thought (“We can do that distance in half a day….”) and arrived Saturday in the late afternoon in Mt. Isa. We didn’t bother to take a good look at the town then, but even without that I had a deja vu… it looked like Coober Pedy, a lot of mining only this time the digging happened in black sand. The miners in Mt. Isa are looking for copper instead of opals, but the hills of sand are not smaller.
We found a nice campsite close to the center of the city where the lady at the desk told us that there were three other Dutchies around. During the night they told us about the east-coast (what they did there) and we tried to tell them something about the Top End. Nice to speak Dutch for a change!

After a good night sleep we decided to visit an underground hospital; it was build during World War 2, to shelter the patients in case Mt. Isa would get bombed by the Japanese. It never happened but you can still see how the people planned to work there, even on small surgeries!
At sunset we were standing on a lookout on top of a hill, a very nice sunset and nice to see all the lights go on at the mines.

Undara Lava Tubes
Next day we were on the road again; up to Normanton, and the day after that full speed to Undara. Undara National Park has very impressive lava-tubes, big tubes where the lava after an irruption of the volcano flowed. It’s amazing to look at and the guide who we had to follow (Undara NP is off limits without a guide) told us that there is a big chance that there are much more tubes than we know now. Just think about the fact that all those tubes were created years and years ago and that we still don’t know exactly where they are….

Coffee Works
On Wednesday we really wanted to go to Cairns, back to civilization! We stopped for a short while in Ravenshoe to look at the widest waterfalls in Australia and moved on…. The first thing we saw was the change of view: not wide anymore, but rain-forest everywhere! Unfortunately, together with the rain-forest came the rain…
Because our right tyre kept on loosing air we decided to let this fix; but we ended with 2 new (second hand) ones because it was not legal to drive with ours anymore whoops…..(not enough profile).

When we were 20 km’s from Cairns we saw the Coffee Works, a coffee-factory where we could taste all different kinds of coffee. They had a lot of different coffees, coffee-liquor, tea and CHOCOLATE! A little bit later we arrived in Cairns were we found a nice campsite with free wireless internet

Rafting in Cairns
The next day we went rafting! With a group of 22 other people we had booked the “extreme”-tour, 4 rafts instead of 20 like the normal tours. In the beginning we found it pretty boring so at lunch we told our guide about that. This resulted in a change of location: we went 500 meter up the river where the rapids were much better (grade 4) and the guide was taking the harder parts of the rapids! Because we booked the extreme tour we had time to do some small tricks in the rapids (to make sure we got completely wet….) and jump off a big rock! A good day and we had a lot of fun.
That night we went to a bar in Cairns, together with a dutch couple we met. A great night and one of the best days in weeks!

Cape Tribulation
Saturday we packed our stuff and moved away from Cairns, up to Pt. Douglas and Cape Tribulation. The only way to go to the Cape is by ferry and at 4PM we drove into the Daintree National Park. It’s one of the only places in Australia were the rain forrest really touches the sea and it’s an awesome road to drive, close to the sea and very winding!

When the clock showed 5PM we decided to stay on a bush-camp, in the car because of the change of Cassowaries (births that can be 2 mtr high) disturbing our sleep. When we woke up we took a short stroll on the beach, a lot of white sand and coconuts everywhere The Canopy Tower was our next visit, a tower that should be one of the must do’s, well, don’t we found it not worth the money.

And next, the Great Barrier Reef
Today we’re back in Cairns, on the same campsite. Luckily the weather is much better now, it’s dry and the forecast is good; 29 degrees and just a little bit of rain. We booked our scuba diving trip for Wednesday on a sailboat and we’re looking forward to see the Great Barrier Reef!

Love Ronald and Hester

We're in Queensland!

We’ve made it till Queensland! But first I’ll write about the last things we did en saw in the Northern Territory.

Jumping Crocodiles
After I put the last post online, we went on the Jumping Crocodile Tour. Together with about 10 other people we jumped on a small boat on the Adelaide River. We just cruised along until we saw a croc (a salty, the one’s that kill people), ooooh a croc you would think. We did, cause it was the first time we saw one in the wild. But the tour wouldn’t be called ‘Jumping’ crocodile tour unless the crocs would jump. Ok, it’s not totally ethically right and everything, we know but it was fun. What they do, is put some meat on a rope on a stick and keep this in the water. When a croc wants to go for it, they quickly pull the stick up and that is what makes the crocodile jump, he goes after the meat. They repeated this with three crocodiles we came across. Awesome to see and pretty scary too, cause the crocs are right next to the little boat. On the boat was also a boy (maybe 2 years old) and he clapped his little hands and called out: ‘Schnappi!!!!’ when he saw a croc…(for the people who don’t know Schnappi, this is a cute cartoon-crocodile, seen on tv). That was pretty funny

Litchfield NP
Some locals call Litchfield ‘mini Kakadu’, and they’re right. Litchfield is a small national park, but it’s beautiful. Maybe we liked Litchfield even better than we did Kakadu. We stayed on a bushcamp next to a huge waterfall. Again, this one was closed for swimming…We took a full day to explore Litchfield, with all it’s waterfalls (four!!). The last fall we paid a visit to was great, cause we could swim there!!! Wow, that was an amazing experience, to feel the strong current in the water, swim right through it and to stand under/behind all the water that was coming down. And the water was of a lovely temperature. We stayed there for 2 hours or something, that’s the great thing of doing this all on ourselves. We saw groups with tourguides coming, have a swim for 20 minutes and leave straight away, because their bus was waiting…

Mataranka Bitter Springs
The Douglas Hot Springs we wanted to go to so badly, were still closed Instead we drove to Mataranka to see if we could get lucky there…we could! The Bitter Springs were accessible (no more floodings) and that was very special. The water in a termal springs like that is so blue and warm, and you just swim right through the bushes, the trees and the weeds (of course there is some sort of ‘canal’ where you can swim).

On our way to Queensland
We’ve spent three wonderful weeks in the Northern Territory before we started heading to Queensland. Because we both don’t like to drive the same road twice, we took an alternative route for about 500 klm on our way east. Now, we thought we had seen the outback, but what we saw here was very different! The Stuart Highway between Adelaide and Darwin is a good wide sealed highway and there’s a fuel station about every 200 klm. There’s nothing along the way (no houses or anything) but there’s traffic pretty frequently. This Carpentaria Highway we took was as narrow as a oneway countryside road (seriously, even more narrow than the Westerlandweg where my parents live) except it wasn’t oneway, we came across two cars in 500 klm, and it’s called a HIGHWAY. Pretty funny if you ask me… Anyway, somewhere along the way we spent the night at a rest area (sleeping in the car) and when I woke up I saw an amazing outback-sunrise…Too bad for Ronald he was still sleeping .
Saturday we past the Queensland border, the sixth state we’re in. We are now in Mount Isa, Queenslands main outback-city. We’re just gonna relax here for the easter-weekend (everything is closed anyway) and than we’re gonna drive up to the east coast.

Happy Easter everyone, goodluck searching for eggs in the backyard

Love,

Ronald & Hester

The sweaty north

Let’s see, where were we…

Katherine
Close to Katherine you can find the Cutta Cutta Caves. Cutta is aboriginal language and means ‘star’. Cutta Cutta means ‘many stars’, due to the shiny crystal in the limestone walls of the caves, which look like there are stars all over the caves. The caves were great; stalagmites, stalagtites, 29 degrees and 93% humidity. Really impressive and a very informative tour (again, I know).
As I wrote last time, the road to Katherine Gorge wasn’t flooded anymore, so we went there. Unfortunateley we were so smart as not to book ahead for a boat tour. We ended up doing a walking track, which gave us a nice view over just a small part of the gorge but it was just too hot to walk. The humidity here in the north is killing us, it is really unpleasant. Not to speak about the mosquito’s, my whole body is covered in bites, there must be like 30 bites now

After the gorge we went to the Edith Falls, but (it seems to be the story of Ronald and Hester in the northern part of Australia), we couldn’t swim there as the water was up too high and there was a change we could be eaten by a crocodile. Too bad, cause it was a gorgeous place.

Kakadu National Park
Kakadu was very uuh WET. Due to the heavy rainfalls they had the last few weeks, a lot of the sites (attractions) were closed as the roads were impassible, a bit disappointing. Nevertheless, we’ve seen some great things in Kakadu. Nourlangie Rock, for example, a huge rock with amazing colours: yellow, brown, orange, grey, black. And smalls streams of water everywhere. But the best part of this rock were the many aboriginal art sites.
On our second day in Kakadu we went on a boatcruise on Yellow Water (this time we booked ahead ). We got te have a good look at how enormous the area is and how much everything is flooded. The funniest thing of this cruise was the part where we actually went on the carpark with the boat. Flooded, ofcourse. But no crocodiles, the water is up too high for them they cannot maintain their body temperature in deep water.

On our way to Adelaide River (a township between Katherine and Darwin) we wanted to go to the Douglas Hot Springs, which should be really good. So we went of the highway, drove 35 kilometres and at the turn off for the springs…a sign…CLOSED. Damn, couldn’t they have put that sign up a little but earlier???!!!!! We’re gonna try it again on our way back.
In Adelaide River we ended up on a very wet and muddy campsite, where I managed to get the car stuck in the mud. Fortunateley the owner of the campsite had a 4WD and pulled us out

Darwin
Darwin is a nice city, but a lot smaller than I expected, there’s only a bit more than 71 000 people living here. In WWII Darwin got bombed very heavily, so there are basicly no old buildings left. And if there would have been, cycloon Tracy came to visit Darwin in 1974 and destroyed everything anyway. So everything in Darwin is relatively new.

Saturday we walked through Darwin, we passed several WWII memorial sites, a Chinese temple (being close to Asia, Darwin is very multicultural) and the parliament house. We got a good view of the city by just walking around. In the afternoon we went to Aquascene where wild fishes come to be fed every day at high tide. That was fun!! There were a lot of fish, very close to us, you could even handfeed them.
Since we spent some weeks travelling in the bush and eating cheap simple meals (like 2 minute noodles) we decided to do out for dinner and after that we went to the cinemas, celebrating being back in civilisation That was a lovely night.

Sunday we went to the WWII oil storage tunnels, built in WWII to prevent the oil storage tanks above ground to be seen from the air by the Japanese, by replacing them for underground storage. Wow, these things are huge!! 171 metres long.
At the wharf we saw an exhibition about the pearling industry in Australia, which is quite big. I learned a lot of new things there The rest of that day we spent in the botanic gardens, relaxing, reading…

Monday was our musea-day. First we saw the Aviation Heritage Centre, with (amongst a lot of others) the B52 bomber, what an amazingly large bombing plane!! We got to have a look inside the thing, even I got excited about that After that we went to the Art Gallery & Museum of the Northern Territory, where we spent a lot of time, there were exhibitions about aboriginal art, WWII, sea- and wildlife, cycloon Tracy, Crocodile Sweetheart and a high school student-art-thing. Great.

So, today we leave Darwin. This afternoon we’re gonna go on a ‘jumping crocodile tour’, where we are finally gonna see some real life crocodiles! And we’re gonna go to Litchfield NP, try the Douglas Hot Springs again and then the Mataranka Thermal Pools. See if the road conditions are better by now. We’ll have to drive all the way back to Tennant Creek, from where we will be able to drive to the east coast.

Ronald tried and tried to put pictures online, but this internet cafe only allows us to put a small amount online. So it’s not much, but there are some new photos to see for you guys (in the album ‘the red centre’).

A big kiss for everyone!!!!

Ronald and Hester