Kakadu - Cooinda, Cultural Center and Yellow Waters

Dear National Park lovers,
On Monday morning Charlotte and I got our passes for the Kakadu National Park. While you have to pay a small entrance fee of about 10 AUD per vehicle at nearly every national park in WA, in the Northern Territory there are only two national parks where you have to pay 25 AUD per person: the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park and the Kakadu National Park.

Southwest - Albany, rock formations, Tree Top Walk and find the big tree

Hallihallo friends and strangers,

You cannot possibly imagine how cold and tired and miserable I was when we had to get up at 5am again on Thursday morning. This time we had to pack our swags, tents and stuff away before we could have breakfast. Nearly on time at 8:10am we sat off towards Albany, the first settlement of Western Australia. On the way there Damian suddenly started to break and as I looked to the front of the bus I saw a fairly big kangaroo jumping across the road quite leisurely from right to left.

Southwest - Sunrise, hiking and night activities

Cheerio folks,

The other group had to leave at 7am to get all their visits done and to reach their next destination. As we used some of theircamping equipment we had to get up with them. I couldn’t sleep any longer than 5:45am, so I got up to take some pictures of the sunrise at Lucky Bay. And I finally got a picture of a jumping kangaroo! The sunrise was quite nice, so I didn’t regret getting up so early.

Southwest - Waiting and drinking game

Greeting to you all,

The next morning due to the sun shining into the tent I got up at 7am (I HATE getting up early!!!) and I was one of the last ones (no surprise to me). We got told that Damian had to take the bus to the workshop half an hour walk away where it needs to stay for a few hours before we could drive off. Damian left the trailer with us and we set down, had breakfast, watched TV, talked, used the internet and waited.

Southwest - York, Wave Rock and broken bus

Moin Moin guys,

On Sunday the 13th of April 2014 my host mother Cécile was so friendly as to drive me into the city of Perth at 6:30am in the morning as there was no public transport possibility for me to get there. She dropped me off at the YHA Perth on Wellington Street where I asked another waiting backpacker if he is waiting for the Esperance Tour and he was! Andre, a German backpacker and I spoke a little bit about the usual stuff (where are you from, how long are you here, if and what did you work, what will the tour be like etc.) while another old guy joined us. At 7am a bus with a trailer approached, the tour guide Damian stuffed our bags into the trailer and we hopped onboard together with three other girls.

Port Adelaide - Dragonboats, dolphins and broken camera

G'Day ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
This weekend started very early on Saturday morning as I joined Heidi to her Dragonboat Training! I have seen some dragonboat races in Germany but have never done it myself. It actually started with me mentioning that I wanted to see the Adelaide River Dolphins and Heidi said that they sometimes see them during their training. So at 8:30am I had a paddle in my hand, a safety vest around my waist and was prepared to get wet!!!

Tasmania - Falls, sand dunes and secret lake

Howdy partners,

We all had breakfast at 6am and headed to the west coast of Tasmania at 7am. After some driving and picking up some lunch to take with us we stopped for an easy but muddy three-hour walk through the rainforest to the Montezuma Falls.

Great Ocean Road - Flat tire and sunset at the 12 Apostles

Hallihallo everyone,

At 6am on Thursday morning we got up for our next adventure: a two-day-tour to the Great Ocean Road! This is the only tour that we found that takes more than one day to explore the Great Ocean Road and as it was designed for backpackers we should note take our luggage with us. We got picked up at 7:40am together with 19 other people, so we were 21 travelers and our tour guide Jude. Not everyone looked like a backpacker though.

Daintree Forest - Crocodiles, boardwalks and ice cream

Cheerio folks,
I know, crocodiles, boardwalks and ice cream is a strange combination. But I will explain in a minute.
On Sunday morning we first went shopping for our picnic lunch which we have planned to have in the Daintree Forest National Park. Then we set off to the Daintree River and arrived just in time for the next Crocodile Express River Cruise. This is basically a one-hour boat tour in a zig-zag on the river and the skipper tells you more about the river, the environment and the animals, especially crocodiles. And lucky enough we spotted two, the first one a bit hidden and the second a rather small one:

Townsville - Boxing day with great lookout, breakdown, shopping and BBQ

G’Day mates,

Today is the second day of Christmas, called Boxing Day. And like in Great Britain here are massive sales on everywhere. We agreed with the two Taiwanese people to drive together to a big mall for shopping at 12pm. So in the morning Markus and I had a look at the internet what we could do on Magnetic Island. This is an island just 8 km offshore of Townsville and supposed to be nice. But taking the car on the island is far too expensive (178 AUD return) and we could not find a tour that would show us enough of the island. So after a while we gave up on the idea and headed with the car for Castle Hill, a giant rock formation in Townsville where you can overlook the whole city. The street up there is very winding but you really have a fantastic view:

Airlie Beach - Snorkeling and Whitehaven Beach for my birthday

Merry Christmas everyone!

On Christmas Eve, the 24^th of December 2013 it was my 28^th birthday! HONESTLY? I actually had to remind myself of this because this was so totally different from all my birthdays so far that I did not feel like it. It was too warm and sunny, Markus was with me (he is normally of course with his family) and most importantly, I was not with my family! It felt so strange! :-(

But Markus had a special birthday present for me: a sailing adventure tour to Whitehaven Beach! We got picked up at our hotel (Kipara Rainforest Retreat) and checked in at the harbor of Airlie Beach and boarded the purple sailing boat Camira.

Hervey Bay - Organising, beaching and barbequing

Hey folks,

We arrived in Hervey Bay at 6pm on Wednesday night at the Beach Motel where we booked a budget room which is very comfy and nice for the price we paid (so far our cheapest accommodation per night). We got ourselves some dinner and beer (very expensive!) and awaited the next day where we have only planned to book our Fraser Island tour and spend the rest of the day at the beach.

Well, it took us all morning to plan the next few days because due to the Christmas holiday season we could not book a 2-day-tour as we have planned as everything was booked out :-(