Australia - Birds in the wild

Dear loyal readers of my little blog,
During my time in Australia I had the chance and a fairly good camera to take pictures of lots of different birds in Australia. At one point during my Au Pair time in Perth I had enough time and the energy to look up their names on the internet (it was raining a lot, so no point in going out and exploring the country, right?).

I start with the most beautiful birds in my opinion: the parrots!

Here is a Carnaby`s Cockatoo which I encountered in King's Park in Perth. Only when I saw a picture of it in a Avon Valley brochure I recognised it as an endangered black cockatoo.

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.

Katherine - Gorge lookout, hot springs and lots of birds

Dear bird lovers,
On Sunday the 13th of July I drove the last 110km to Katherine where we headed for the Visitor Information Center. Luckily we were able to use their FREE Wifi for half an hour and so we connected to the world again! We had no internet for the last ten days. After some grocery shopping anf fueling up we drove to the Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge) National Park for lunch at 1pm. There we were surrounded by bats just hanging around in the trees...

West Kimberleys - Crocodiles in Windjana Gorge and Tunnel Creek

Dear Kimberley lovers,
After a rather bad first night sleeping in the small Johnny Cash car we got up at 6:15am to be ready at the Derby Busservice Depot at 8am to be picked up for our day tour to the West Kimberleys.

We were quite shocked to see so many older people on the bus as this tour was advertised as being suitable for a moderate fitness level with rock climbing involved.

Derby - Small car, small town, big overnight sleeping problem

Dear small town lovers,
Everything turned out differently than expected!
Charlotte, Bastian and I got to Wickedcamper at their Broome depot shortly after 9am which was probably too early. Our Tankgirl was still on the trailer and the depot looked more like a graveyard of to-their-limits-and-beyond-used vans.

Exmouth - Visiting Cape Range National Park

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.

Monkey Mia - Dolphin feeding and drive to Carnarvon

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.

Perth - Speed-sightseeing, wild food and cocktails

Cheerio ladies and gentlemen,
On Saturday morning Christine and I took the bus into the CBD of Perth where we first visited the Bell Tower at the Barrack Street Jetty.

As I have already been on it twice and the last time has only been on Monday (WA Day), so just five days ago where I had to wait 90 minutes to get in for FREE, I decided to wait in the foyer for Christine.

Manning - Beer, sweets and birds: How I pass my time

Greetings to the world,
As described in a lengthy blog post before I pass my time in between looking after the children of my host family and doing really cool things in Australia with beer...

... combined with sweets...

Perth - BEWARE: Endangered Black Cockatoo! WUHU!!!

Cheerio folks!
You will not believe it but just as I walked back to the house with the three kids from the playground I saw a flock of black birds at the driveway entrance of the second house to the left of our house. And they were BLACK COCKATOOS! I got the kids in quickly, told my host mother that I have to take some pictures of them, grabbed my camera and ran out again. I took as many pictures as I could before they all flew off after just 5 minutes. These are the best ones. Not spectacular but I am happy.

Perth - Aussie Rules Football: strange but awesome

GO EAGLES GO!!!
On Sunday at 1pm it was time to board (together with lots of other passionate fans) one of the special express buses from the Curtin University Bus Station to the Padersons Stadium: Home of Football to the West Coast Eagles! I had booked tickets for this game against the Sydney Giants for Erin, Maria and me.

Perth - Awesome bird shoots after storm and pies

Hi guys,
I know, I know. After a while it is not really interesting to read about more birds. But yesterday evening there was a big storm and it was raining out of buckets. It was so windy and so loud, I thought the world is going to an end. This morning it didn't rain but the clouds were still there and dangerously grey. I still decided to go for a walk along the river. Although I brought my camera with me I didn't expect to take any great pictures. But there were quite a few birds around that I haven't seen before and I took some awesome pictures (well, for my photography abilities anyway).

Perth - Canning River, birds, sweets and beers

Welcome everybody,
My host family lives in Manning which is in the Southern suburbs of Perth. The Canning River is within 10 walking minutes of the house and when I have a few spare hours and don't want to sit in front of my little laptop anymore I go for a walk along the river, most of the time accompanied by my dear camera. I discovered that lots of birds are around this area and so I started looking more closely for them.

Mundaring - Weir and Golden Point Lookout

Cheerio folks,
On Saturday after ANZAC Day it rained almost the whole day. It is quite weird because here in Perth in summer it sometimes doesn't rain for up to four months (which happended just this year) and then in winter it can rain for days and days at end. On Sunday it looked fairly nice in the morning with a bright blue sky and just a few clouds. So I decided quite spontaneously to head into the Perth Hills after lunch.
The Perth Hills start about 40km East of Perth and the main cities are Mundaring and Kalamunda. I headed for the Mundaring Visitor Information Center and got really helpful information about nice walks and lookouts and how to get there and where to park. So I set off towards the Mundaring Weir. At the carpark I was delighted to catch a picture of this beautiful little fella.

Sunset Coast - Beach-hopping with friends

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.

Northam - "Old" city and Avon Valley

Greetings folks,
On Tuesday morning I picked up Maria who I got to know on the Southwest Tour and together we sat off to the 1.5-hour journey to Northam, about 100 km Northeast of Perth. We arrived at about 11:30am at the Visitor Information Center where in a nearby tree sat lots of cockatoos.

Southwest - Caves, Aborigine experience, chocolate and beaches

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.

 

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 - 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.

Perth - Exploring King's Park

Hello world,
On Saturday afternoon my host family drove in their newly accquired Holden Jackaroo (a 4-wheel-drive 7-seater) to King's Park for a Easter egg hunt for children organised by the French community.