Ronald en Hester in Australië en Azië

Singapore

We staan op het punt om weg te gaan uit Singapore, dus dit is een mooi moment om te schrijven hoe het was

Toen we aankwamen op het vliegveld hebben we de MRT (soort van metro) genomen richting het centrum van Singapore waar we na wat zoeken (met allebei ongeveer 18 kilo op onze rug, auw…) een hostel vonden. Het hostel zelf bestond uit een aantal grote kamers volgepropt met stapelbedden en voor de rest niet zo heel veel, maar hé dat maakte ons niks uit, we waren hier om Singapore te bekijken en niet om de hele dag in het hostel te zitten!

Het eerste wat we deden was zorgen voor onze trein-tickets naar Maleisie, omdat we uit de Lonely Planet hadden begrepen dat het verstandig was deze op tijd te boeken. Voor een enorm bedrag (S$46, ongeveer 23 euro) hadden we tickets naar Tampin, een afstand ongeveer gelijk aan Utrecht – Parijs.

Daarna zijn we naar Little India geweest, waar we onze voeten onder ons lichaam uitgelopen hebben om twee Boeddistische tempels te bekijken en een beetje sfeer te proeven. We hebben daar in een hele grappige atmosfeer gegeten, iedereen zat met blote voeten op de grond aan tafels te eten, erg grappig en gezellig.

‘s Avonds zijn we naar de Night Safari geweest, waar we Tijgers, Olifanten, Wolven en heel veel andere dieren in het donker vanuit een trammetje (oke, sfeerlicht, anders konden we ze niet zien) konden bekijken.

Vrijdagavond zijn we naar Sentosa Island geweest, lekker gezwommen, op het strand gelegen en weer eens van een rodelbaan afgeweest. We hebben daar ook een gave laser-/licht-/water-/geluid-/vuur-show hebben bekeken, helaas onmogelijk om daar foto’s van te maken maar we hebben wel een filmpje gemaakt (staat onder ‘video’s')!

Vandaag hebben we rondgekeken bij de ontelbare shoppingmalls hier en nu zitten we heel gezellig in de Mc Donalds van het gratis internet te “genieten” voordat we over 3 uurtjes in de trein naar Maleisie stappen!

Er zijn nieuwe foto’s in het laatste Australia album en in het Azie album.

Bangkok

Zo, het is tijd voor weer eens wat Hollandsche Woorden. We hebben nog even overwogen om in het Thais te gaan schrijven, maar dat wordt toch wat lastig.

We zijn in Bangkok!!!!!!!! En we vinden het supergaaf!
Na een toch nog wel lange trip vanuit Sydney (totaal 15 uur) kwamen we ‘s nachts in Bangkok aan. De taxi rit naar het al geboekte hotel was meteen een ervaring op zich…de chauffeur dacht dat de middenstreep was om OP te rijden en moest 3x de weg vragen.

We zijn nu in Banglamphu, waar de befaamde Kho San Road zit, met z’n honderden kraampjes met kleding, eetstalletjes, zwerfhonden, taxi’s en tuktuks. We zijn echt enorm van onze eerste Azie-indrukken aan het genieten, het is zo druk en levendig allemaal. Pick up trucks met mensen achterin op de snelweg, kraampjes waar je nep pasjes kunt laten maken, waar je muziek op je ipod kunt laten zetten (lekker illegaal allemaal), de miljoenen scooters waarop mensen van alles vervoeren (verhuisdozen, computerschermen, ladders, 4 kinderen, kippen). De Thai zijn heel vriendelijk.

Morgen vliegen we naar Singapore en gaan dan vanaf daar met de trein door Maleisie terug naar Bangkok, waar Jorien op 17 juli aankomt! Met z’n allen gaan we dan Bangkok verder bekijken en de trip naar Cambodja starten.

Foto’s volgen later…

Liefs Ron & Hes

Last news from Australia

Oi, it’s been almost 2 weeks since the last post…

We’ve arrived in Sydney last Friday, but before that we’ve seen and done some beautiful things on our way from the Gold Coast to Sydney. If you don’t want to know about dolphins and whales at least read the last part ’cause we’ve got some news!

Gold Coast to Sydney
Our last day in Coomera we spent at Dreamworld and White Water World. That last one was great fun with all the huge waterslides. It was a bit cold though, to be outside in bikini in winter, so we ran around like little children from one to the other slide to stay warm

From Coomera we drove to Byron Bay, where the lighthouse (on the most easterly point of Australia) made a very special impression on us. We were there at dawn and the sky wast coloured magically. Plus there where dolphins playing almost right on the beach. It was the first time I saw them so close by in the water in the wild, what a wonderful creatures. On top of that we could see whales further up the ocean. Wow…

At Flat Rock in Ballina it was time for some surfing…Ronald hired a board and he did pretty well! I tried too but even with a wetsuit on I find the water too cold right now. Again there were the dolphins, swimming beneath Ronald in the water and jumping out of the water right next to him.
By this time we were still staying on campsites, at night wearing our thickest jumper and roasting marshmallows in a fire and we slept in the car (a bit warmer than a tent). Camping in winter can be fun

From Ballina we went to Bundjalung NP, where we saw the water hitting the rocks hard at Iluka Bluff. After that we went to Coffs Harbour and checked in to a nice and warm hostel! In Coffs Harbour we…….went ice skating!!!! I think I hadn’t been on ice on skates in about ten years, but I just had to do it in Australia! It was good fun.
In Coffs Harbour we went to see the Big Banana. Australia has something for ‘ big things’ and over the years they have produced a Big Avocado, a Big Pineapple, a Big Prawn and so on….it’s a bit weird but funny in the same time. All it is is just a very big banana and then ofcourse a cafe with bananacake, bananacoffee etc., a shop with everything ‘banana’, a ‘banana skywalk’…And there is also a Toboggan Ride (rodelbaan in Dutch) which we both liked very much, we went 5 times each haha!

After all that bananafun and another day of surfing for Ronald it was time for a Whale Watch Tour!!!!!!!!! The Humpback whales are migrating now to the Great Barrier Reef to breed and then they travel back south. On the boat it took a while before we spotted some whales, but when we finally got closer it was awesome. There were two whales playing all the time, blowing water out, hitting the water with their massive tailes and we even saw one jumping out of the water completely. It was absoluteley amazing…..While we were driving the boat closer to the whales, two dolphins came in front of the boat and stayed there for minutes, jumping out of the water, so cool.

From Coffs Harbour we drove to South West Rocks to see the Trial Bay Gaol, which was build around 1880 by convicts itself! Nice. We ended up in a pub somewhere where they were just starting a game of Trivia. We joined the game but we were the biggest losers haha, most of the questions were Australian facts, so we didn’t really know….but it was fun.

Through Port Macquarie and Nelson Bay we got to Newcastle. I don’t know if it has been on the news in The Netherlands, but in Newcastle a big tanker has stranded on a beach during a huge storm two weeks ago. It’s filled with oil and people are trying to tow it back into the sea, but that doesn’t go easily. It was very impressive to see. We found Newcastle to be a nice city, in the contrary to most Australian cities it has some history and old buildings.

The end
And then it was time for our last kilometers of our trip, back to Sydney to sell our car. That felt really weird. We’ve driven 26500 klm with our beloved car and after 9 months, it’s all over…It’s been so good, we’ve had a great trip and we are gonna miss it so much. The freedom, being able to do just whatever you want, go wherever you want, whenever, stay a long as you like….that was awesome.

In Sydney we got the car cleaned, mechanically checked (all good) and put it in the Car Market in Kings Cross, where we bought it in October. The Car Market is an awful place to be, it’s underground in a parking garage, it’s cold and it has no atmosphere at all. But besides that it is great fun with all the other people who are trying to sell their car. We took 3 weeks to sell the car, because it’s winter and there are less people around who wanna buy a car. But after two days we had a Brittish couple who wanted to do a testdrive and they bought our car!!!!!!!!!

That was yesterday. I was happy and sad in the same time. Happy that we don’t have to worry about not getting the car sold and sad about all of it being over. And the thought of having 3 more weeks in Australia in the cold (In Sydney it’s about 15 degrees and rainy right now), after we have finished our ’round’ through the country, didn’t really appeal to us. We have seen and done everything we wanted and it’s time to move on.

So we went to the Kilroy traveldesk in Sydney and inquired about the possibility to change our flight again, see if we could go to Bangkok any earlier than July 16. We could!!!!!! We thought about it, looked at our options and then changed the flight!!!!!!!!!!

So, our flight from Sydney now goes on Monday July 2. That’s in 5 days!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m so excited. We are probably gonna go to Singapore as well, because we have two more weeks in Asia now.

Check out the new pictures…we’ve divided the albums into Australia and Asia.

With love………Ronald & Hester

Done working, 5 more weeks to go before the new adventure starts

We’re almost done working here at the Gold Coast Tomorrow is the last day we have to work and then it’s time for the last bit of travelling here in the land of Oz.

Two weeks ago Ronald and both worked very hard at the Boatshow. This was an exhibition in Sanctuary Cove of the biggest en most luxurious boats you can imagine, for 4 days. The restaurant where we work was flat out all the time with visitors of the Boatshow, we worked 12-13 hours a day with only one hour break late in the afternoon. It was exhausting but also fun, especially with the other staff. Every time we ran into the kitchen to drop some plaids off, there was at least one person crying; ‘Why can’t all these people just f*ck off now, I’ve had enough’. Good teamspirit, as you can see
Ronald did a very good job working at the Boatshow, so this week he is also working at Calabash for about 20 hours. I’ve learned him how to kick butt on the expresso machine!

Besides working we’ve done some fun things as well (ofcourse), we went to Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin, the Crocodile Hunter’s Zoo) to once again cuddle some kangaroos, we partied with people from Calabash in Surfers Paradise, we went outletshopping in Harbour Town, we went to Brisbane for a day to explore the city. So we have certainly enjoyed ourselves here for the last couple of weeks.

We’ve got 5 more weeks to go until we leave this beautiful country. But we both feel a bit homesick at the moment…Last week it was really cold, about 16 degrees. Being very sensitive to the weather, as we both are, we feel a bit sad and we sort of wish we could go to Asia now, instead of in 5 weeks. So the weather is letting us down a bit, but hey, what did we expect, it’s winter!!!

On Monday we’ll leave Luke’s place to travel south to Sydney, where we are hoping to be within 10 days or so. We’ll have to sell the car there, prepare the last stuff for the Asia trip and we’re off!

In the meantime, we’ll keep you posted! Have a look in the ‘Gold Coast’ album, I’ve added more pictures.

Hugs, Ronald & Hester

New pictures online

It’s a little bit quiet from our side of the world, mainly because we were working our ass off at the boatshow last week, but now we uploaded some pictures for you guys to check out. We’ll  put a nice story online this week, so keep on looking

'Work' Part II

We don’t have a lot of exciting things to tell you this time, but I’d just wanted to say I’ve found a job as well! Yeay.

Last Sunday I had a trial shift at restaurant Calabash at Sanctuary Cove, which is a 15 minute drive from Upper Coomera. After a few hours of work I was hired The manager said she thought I was very professional, pretty funny cause I’ve only had 3 months experience in hospitality. Anyway, she’s put me on the schedule for about 35 hours a week, so that’s good news. Yesterday I worked an 11 hour shift…very exhausting but good money.

Sanctuary Cove is some sort of village with lots of palmtrees for rich people with million dollar-boats. The general way of transportation is on a Club Car (golfkarretje) and that’s pretty funny but also very ridiculous to see. Rich lady’s wearing lots of make up, wearing all Gucci and Prada, carrying a Shihuahua or whatever (those stupid little dogs) on a Club Car of which the seats are covered with a tigerprint-fabric. Fortunately it’s not only this kind of people that visit the restaurant where I work!
Next week there is a big Boat Show in Sanctuary Cove, from what I’ve herad that’s gonna be incredible busy. I’m gonna do a 60 hour week or something…The restaurant manager needed more people to help during the Boat Show, so Ronald is gonna join us! With no hospitality experience at all he is gonna carry out plaids Ronald is almost done now with his webdesigning-job. At the moment he is in Brisbane, hopefully he’ll get another assignment.

That’s all for now…
Enjoy the long Hemelvaart weekend in NL!

Kiss!
Ron & Hes

Work!

It’s time now to earn some money instead of spending it all! It’s been almost 10 weeks since we left Adelaide and we’ve sort of planned our trip so that we would have to find a job by the time we got to the Gold Coast where Luke lives. Last Sunday we drove to Luke. Luke is a friend of Ronald’s dad and stepmom, he is Dutch but he lives in Australia, in Upper Coomera (near Brisbane) to be precise. We are welcome to stay at his place as long as we like, which is great! Luke has a nice big house, we even have our own bathroom here, wow!

After we had a look around in the area, we started to look for a job. Ronald found himself a job straight away !! He is designing a website and he works at home. Earning big bucks!! For me it’s a little bit more difficult this time…it’s low season and a lot of cafe’s/restaurants don’t want to hire people for just a few months. I’ve handed in my resume at quite a few places now, but haven’t heard anything of them so far. I also applied for a job at one of the many themeparks around here, but I guess I have to be patient (which I am not!). Tomorrow I do have an appointment with someone, that is to sell cosmetics in Brisbane…I’ll see!

We´re planning to stay here for about a month (maybe a little bit longer), so if you feel like sending us some mail, this is our address:

61 Vivacity Drive
Upper Coomera QLD 4209
Australia (ofcourse…)

Last but not least: there are 7 new short movies online under ‘video’s', have a look!!

Kiss! Ronald & Hester

I believe I can fly

A ‘short’ update…I’ll only write about the highlights!

We’ve done something really cool, we flew an airplain!!!
We heard from someone that in the Town of 1770 (called after the year James Cook set foot on land here) we could do a very good joyflight for a relatively small amount of money. So, we went there, found a phonenumber to call and the next day we could fly!!

We met Bruce the pilot on a grassy airstrip somewhere. The plain was a Cessna, suitable for 4 passengers. Together with Ivy (another Dutch girl) we took off…wow, what a feeling in such a small plain. The view was great from above, the coastline, the lighthouse, the small bays, the inlets, the islands, really amazing. Bruce asked us if we liked rollercoaster rides, and after we all agreed on that through our headsets (very professional)…oh my god…he let the plain lower in altitude very quickly….my stomach was turning around! We landed on a beach somewhere and from there it was my turn to control the plain!!! That felt so strange, being able to move in three directions. Cool experience! After another landing on a beach, on an island this time, it was Ronalds turn to fly. Bruce let him take off!!! I haven’t seen Ronald scared very often, but now I did!! We didn’t crash Bruce did some aerobatic trics again and after one and a half hour is was time to get back to the airstrip. What a great flight!!!

Bruce asked us where we were gonna spent the night and when we answered that we wanted to go sleep in the car on a parkinglot somewhere, he said ‘why would you wanna do that?’ and offered us to come over to his place. So we did! His house was on top of a hill and overlooked Agnes Waters (a town). We slept on his veranda and woke up when the sun rose over the ocean…

From Agnes Waters/Town of 1770 we headed to Bundaberg. We paid a visit to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery there, what a smell! But after the tour we could taste two drinks each. Yummie! But it was at midday and we hadn’t had lunch yet, hmmmm….

Now we are in Tin Can Bay, where we fed a wild dolphin this morning!!! The dolphins come out to the marina every day ’cause they know they’ll get some fish there. We could just walk into the water and let the dolphin eat the fish out of our hands! That was fantastic.

Ok, my time here in the library is up! There are some new pictures!!

Love, Ronald and Hester

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