Dear island lovers (again),
In my third week in Malaysia I decided to get to the next island, further North. I got on the 2pm ferry from Penang island to Langkawi island. The clouds were pretty dark and it rained as well during the three-hour-trip but luckily it wasn't too rocky and I didn't get seasick.
Dear island lovers,
After exploring Melaka, Kuala Lumpur and the Cameron Highlands I decided to head towards the West Coast of the Malaysian peninsular as it was supposed to be drier there. And they have beaches :-) Lots of beaches. My first stop was Pangkor island where I arrived after taking two buses, a ferry and then a motorbike ride to my guesthouse. OH YES! Three Malay-Chinese guys who spoke to me on the second bus helped me to get me and my 20 kg suitcase to my guesthouse in Teluk Nipah on two motorbikes. How nice! After checking in and refreshing I went for a first walk along the beach.
Dear Singapore lovers,
Guys, Singapore is like SO freaking different to Australia but than in some ways it isn't. I spent a week there after I finished my six months as an Au Pair. Luckily I was able to stay with my friend Eva whom I met in Adelaide in February.
Let's just get a few facts right about Australia and Singapore to give you an idea of how different they are:
Dear Bali lovers,
I flew to Bali in Indonesia!!! Who would have thought I would do that when I arrived in Sydney exactly 10 months ago? To be totally honest, I felt a bit like I'm betraying Australia when I headed to the Perth International Airport. But than, it is a typical Aussie get-away right? I planned this to be a totally relaxing, slow-paced cultural holiday to regain some energy for my further travel. Well, that didn't quite go to plan.
After a smooth flight and a long immigration queue I got picked up by the owners of the homestay which I chose in Ubud. I arrived there at 8pm and settled into my room before I went out for dinner. I was a bit overwhelmed by the hot and humid weather and all the noises, smells and looks. Visiting any part of Asia is so different to any Western country or Australia. I know a bit from our family holidays but I haven't been to Asia in over 10 years. (Shocking, I know!)
The next morning I enjoyed a Banana pancake on the terrace of my room. That's how a holiday should be like!!!
Dear market lovers,
On Sunday the 20th of July 2014 Charlotte and I got up early to clean out our Johnny Cash car and to give away some of our stuff to other campers as we would give back the car the next day to Wickedcamper. After some good work (you wouldn't believe how much dirt can be in such a tiny car even though we cleaned it out in between as well...) we drove into the city again where we headed for the Nightcliff Village Sunday market.
Dear city lovers,
On Day 28 of our tour, so exactly four weeks after we left Perth Charlotte and I made our way into Darwin. We first stopped at the Charles Darwin National Park at 10am.
This park is a mangrove park and I really didn't expect to see bombs and bunkers along the way and lots of boards about the wars and especially the bombing of Darwin.
Dear easy life lovers,
I can tell you: it wasn't an easy life for us driving our "new" Batman van. What? Where is Tankgirl? Well, read the sad story about her here in my last post...
The batmobil had a manual gearbox and not an automtic one. That's not the problem as such, the problem was to get into the gears, especially the third one was difficult. The steering wheel wasn't straight, the brakes didn't seem to be how they should be, it had over 430,000km on its clock and pieces were falling off everywhere.
Dear beach lovers,
On Sunday Charlotte drove us about 150km to Exmouth where we had to fill up our Tankgirl near the Visitor Information Center where we got lots of information about the area. After a short visit to a small market we set off to the Cape Range National Park. We first stopped at Hunters Beach, apparently good for surfing but this day the waves were not too high.
Heyho reef lovers,
Everyone knows about the Great Barrier Reef on the East Coast of Australia. But nobody ever told me about a big reef system on the West Coast called Ningaloo. I was very surprised during my research before this tour to find out about it. Surely it is not as big as you could see it from space but everybody here was raving over it.
Anyway, as we drove the last 100km to Coral Bay from our free camping overnight stay we bought some snorkel equipment there. After lunch we headed onto the really nice beach and took some pictures with Charlotte's underwatercamera.
Dear animal lovers,
On Thursday the 26th of June we got up really early to be at Monkey Mia at 8am just in time for the first interaction with the dolphins. People were lining the beach.
And the dolphins got REALLY close! It was so exciting to spot more and more coming in and circling around in front of us.
Greetings to all history and photoshooting lovers,
On Wednesday the 25th of June we got up at 7:15am and left the caravan park at 8:40am to be just in time for the pelican feeding. Only problem: no pelican turned up...
Quite disappointed to have gotten up so early to not see any pelicans we settled into the van and Bastian drove three hours straight to the Billabong Roadhouse where we girls got a picture taken.
Alrighty folks,
On the morning of our second day after a seriously freezing
night with just two hours of sleep we at least had a very nice breakfast and
then I drove us into the city of Geraldton where we visited the HMAS Sydney
memorial.
FIRST DAY!
Of the self-organised 30-day West Coast Tour. On
Sunday morning Charlotte, Laura and I were very relieved when the van started,
so at 8:45am we took off towards the city to pick up Bastian at the YHA. Then
we headed directly for Cervantes to see the famous pinnacles through some heavy
rain. Laura and Bastian haven’t seen them. After a quick sandwich lunch in the
car park we decided to drive through the pinnacles instead of walking.
Alrighty mates,
On Sunday morning Christine and I got onto a bus and a train into the city center of Perth together with Maria and Erin (I know them from the Southwest tour and we have been surfing and to a Australian Rules Football game together). We picked up a rental car and after all the paperwork took off towards the North at about 9:45am.
Our first stop after an 1.5-hour drive was Lancelin where we hired two sandboards and then got into the sand dunes.
Dear Fans of Australia,
One thing that some people do first before visiting anything else in Australia is to check out the beaches and go for some surfing. Mostly some long-haired, skinny, slightly tanned guys. I never thought of me as a water person and surfing wasn't high in my bucket list. But nevertheless I booked a two-hour-surf lesson with the Surf School at Scarborough Beach in Perth for Maria, Erin, Kyuwon and me. HURRAY! Let the adventure begin. Of course, quite early in the morning... REALLY?
Servus all together,
It had been forecasted to get over 30 degrees Celsius again and so I thought that is the perfect day to hit the Sunset Coast and do some beach-hopping again. Maria and Kyuwon were immediately hooked on the idea, so at 10am we drove first to Cottesloe Beach. This beach is famous for being close to the richer suburbs of Perth. It is certainly a very clean beach and although it was quite windy there weren't many waves but luckily also not too many people.
G'Day mates,
We were allowed to sleep in until 7am (still way too
early for me) before we packed the tents and swags one last time, had a shower
and breakfast and took off together with the other group to the NgILGI caves.
Josh who is half Aborigine and half Australian explained us how the Aborigine
see the area, the animal, the trees, plants and the caves.
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.
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.
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.
