Chile and Argentina in 20 days

*There is a gap in the blog as I haven't yet written about the 3,5 weeks that we spent in New Zealand. That story will be written, some time.*

Santiago and surrounds with Cissi and Nacho.



We got on the flight from Auckland at 4 pm and arrived the same day in Santiago de Chile at 2 pm. The time difference is 16 hrs and we were pretty wrecked when we arrived at Cissi's and Nacho's place in the city. Cissi was in the middle of the concluding bits of her final essay for Uni and still she made us a nice lunch when we came. We decided not to sleep during the day so that the jetlag would be conquered. That evening we got a second wind and sat up until 2 am drinking wine with Cissi and Nacho. They told us the wonderful news that they had gotten engaged!

The day after was friday 21 of May and it was public holiday. Nacho and Cissi had organized an apartment for the weekend in Viña del Mar, with ocean view from the balcony. Viña is a town on the beach just 2 hrs from Santiago, in the summer time it is full of tourists. When we visited there were many people because of the weekend but it was still very relaxed.

We drove there in Nacho's new car. This weekend in Viña Nacho and Cissi showed us their favorite restaurants and we ate lots of delicious seafood soups and fish and drank nice wine and Piscola, pisco con cola.

We visited Val Paraiso. It is a town that is connected to Viña del Mar but is a older part. It is built on many different mounts going down toward the ocean. It has many old, charming and shabby, colorful houses. It is also one of the biggest ports in Chile. I went to see the house of the famous chilean poet Pablo Neruda. It was really cool. He died some years ago and now he has a few houses in Chile that have become museums. He collected many beautiful things and decorated his house wildly, it also had the best view over the town.

According to Nacho all Chileans want to be poets. I think I know what he means, there is a love for the bohemic and cultural in Chile.

We spent some days after the weekend just in Santiago. We relaxed in Cissis apartment and tried to help her with some small things for her essay.

Santiago was pretty nice. We walked up to the cerro san christobal and had a look at the view over the city, with the andes in the background. It is not all days in Santiago you can get a good view. Since it is in a valley the smog gets trapped and leaves the sky gray. Since many people left the city in the weekend there was less smog the days after. The city was full of universities and schools, just an observation we made. Cissi told us that most people go to Uni since when you have an education you earn much more money, something important in Chile where the salaries are low and prices are not so low.

We hade timed it well with our visit, just two days after we left Santiago Cissi would fly to Sweden. We also had the chance to catch up with Mikey, Aaran's australian friend who came back to Santiago from australia just two days before we left.



Puerto Varas and Chiloé



After a week in Santiago we took the night bus to Puerto Varas in the south of Chile, 12 hrs. They call it the gateway to Patagonia. It is in the lake district of Chile, a really beautiful area with lakes mountains and volcanoes. We wanted to visit some placfe in the south and Cissi and Nacho hade been there and recomended it. The day we arrived was clear and sunny. We stayed in a little hospedaje in town. An old lady owned the place. We were almost the only guests, there was no central heating, but we had our sleeping bags and blankets and slept well anyway. We have no alarm clock so we asked the old lady to wake us up every morning when we needed to go some place.

Puerto Varas is a small town on the lake Llanquihe, on the oposit side of the lake there are two volcanoes. One is a perfect cone shape with snow on the top, the volcan Osorno. The day we arrived in Puerto Varas there was an incredible sunset over the lake with the sky orange and pink around the volcanoes the full moon rose behind them.



We left our bags with the lady and took some day packs with us to the island of Chiloé. It is a pretty big island outside the coast of Puerto Mont, not so far from Puerto Varas. The island is famous for its wildlife, some tiomes of the year big colonies of penguins stay there. We didn't see them, wrong time. It is also famous for its strange wooden houses and colorful wooden churches. There are some of the only remaining wooden houses on stilts in Chile. The island wasn't spectacular, the wether was pretty bad, very gray. But we found a nice little hospedaje with an open fire where we relaxed. We also got a guided tour of one of many forts of Chiloé by a selfrenowned guide, who we suspect is a local alcoholic trying to earn a couple of pesos. He told us about the time when Chiloé was a part of spain, 13 years after Chile got independence. Both England and Chile tried to take the island, but finally Chile got it.
After one night on the island we went back to Puerto Varas.

We had booked a trip on the lake Todos los santos. It was a full day tour, first a bus trip to the lake then 4 hours on the boat, back and forth on the lake. The views from the lake were spectacular. There are 4 volcanoes and lots of mountains surrounding the lake. It was pretty cold so we only stepped out on the deck to take some nice pics.

Argentina

From Puerto Varas to Bariloche in Argentina was only 6 hrs on a bus. It was nice when we drove over the andes to Argentina. As we arrived to Bariloche we saw the city on the lake with the great Cathedral mountains in the background, it was beautiful. At the bus terminal we took on the offer of a guy promoting a small hostel. It turned out to be a house owned by a very nice Argentine family who rented out rooms mainly to guest workers from northern argentina. The family lived in the same house and was very helpful. The sister in law mended my jeans without any cost and they gave us a lift to and from the bus terminal. One nights we sat up drinking wine with the father in the family. He was a veteran of war, the Maldivo war (the falklan islands). It was a disastrous war for Argentina as they were beaten by the English in a month time. He told us the story of the war and showed us pictures of him in a uniform.

Bariloche is not as small as you would think when you arrive there. There are about 80.000 people in the city. It is mainly based on tourism. In the winter time people come for the ski, in the summer for the lake and hiking the mountains. We came in the autumn and there wasn't that many tourists. It was a bit rainy, on the werge of snowing.

We took the local bus around and went to Cerro Campanario. From the top of the mountain you can see the view of many small lakes and mountains. We started to walk a bit along the road toward the next village, but we got followed by some wild dogs and decided to jump on the next bus instead.

We also visited the Cathedral mountain. We did a day hike up to a refuge on the top and down again. In the valley the weather was ok, sunny and just drizzling a bit, but at the top there was a snow storm! We didn't see the peaks up the top for all snow.

We stayed for 3 days in Bariloche, a bit short, but we knew that we wanted some time in Buenos Aires before we flew to Peru.
From Bariloche to Buenos Aires it is about 2 hrs flight or 23 hrs on a bus. The prices for the flights were double for us as for the Argentinians. Tourist discrimination. We took the bus. The entire trip was over the great pampas. It was flat and dry without any trees. The bus ride was ok though. The overnight buses here are almost as an airplane. They have a steward handing out snacks and food, givning you a blanket and a pillow. They show really bad films dubbed in spanish but the seats recline alot and I haven't got much trouble sleeping.

Buenos Aires

Back to the place where Aaran and I met for about 4 years ago. We stayed with Aaran's friend Santi who's from the city. He had a nice apartment with a spare bedroom in Palermo, one of the most central parts of the city. The night we arrived Santi, who is a lawyer during the day, was performing in a play. We went to see it and we liked it. I understood a bit more than Aaran did, but none of us understood all of it. Afterwards we went to have some dinner with him and his actor friends. Getting back to the B.A. habit of having dinner no earlier than 11pm.

The day after was saturday, Santi's brother was playing Rugby just outside the city. Aaran, I and an other friends went with him to see the game. It was sunny and nice to be outside, but I didn't care to much about watching the game. After the game we went to Santi's girlfriends house. She is a professional actor. She lives with her father near to where the Rugby was. In the garden they had a big bbq, parilla. We had bought some meat and wine and Santi showed us how to make a parilla.
Another friend of Santi came for the bbq. The three argentinians, Aaran and I had a great dinner. At midnight it was Aaran's birthday and we all sang for him and Lucia gave him a dessert with a candle. Santi, Lucia and Here are all very talented in music. For a couple of hours after the dinner they were singing and playing for us. Later Santi took us to a house party a few blocks away where we danced a bit and drank some more.
The day after was sunday and early afternoon we made our way to the market in San Telmo.
In both Bariloche and BA we had problems withdrawing money from the ATM. It just wouldn't work, the machine told us that the card was not valid. After a few frustrating days of trying all the atms in all the different banks around town we put 1 and 1 together and discovered that the problem was only in the weekend. Hapiness was when monday morning the machine actually handed us money!
During the days in BA we did some sightseeing, went back to some places where we had been last time and saw some new ones. Every night there was an event with Santi. We had dinner at his parents house in the middle of the city one night and at an arty restaurant where his friend was playing the guitarr another night.
When we left Buenos Aires we were exhausted! We had a really great time.

Northern Queensland, in the tropics

Driving up to Cairns

Up the coast we got into the tropics and the area where the great barrier reef is. From here on all that we wanted to do was to snorkel and dive. We took about 4 weeks to drive from Noosa to Cairns, from mid march to mid april.

More of the Sunshine coast
Noosa is a small surf town and it is the end point of sunshine coast. We stayed there for a couple of nights, it was a really nice place. Lots of surfers in the water, nice beach and relaxed atmosphere. There is a little national park with walking tracks out by the water. We walked there one evening just before sunset, the sun made the water look golden and the last surfers came up from the water in the sunset. It was a beautiful place.

To do Fraser Island

Noosa was quite touristy, as it tends to be on the coast in Queensland. There were heaps of tourist agencies and we decided to book a tour of Fraiser Island. That would be where we headed next up the coast and the only way for us to access the island was on a tour. We bought a package deal with a self drive tour on Fraiser with 4x4 car for 3 days and a sailing trip for 3 days on the whitsundays.
Although our car was a 4w drive it was pretty old and not high enough, we weren't sure we would make it through the sanddunes.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It is a huge sand bar. Over time trees have started to grow there and there are a few lakes sourced from natural springs. The dingo lives there and it is one of a few places where they are pure, they haven't mixed with other dogs. The dingo is Australias wild dog, like the wolf in Sweden.

The trip was leaving from Hervey bay on the mainland so we stayed there for 2 nights before heading out.

The selfdrive tour was the cheapest option. What it meant was that we would be a group of people going in two different big pink 4w drive cars. We would drive the cars ourselves, therefore we were divided into groups making sure atleast two people out of 7 in the car could drive. We got a map of the island and an itinerary that we were supposed to follow. The times on the itinerary were important since they made sure we would drive at low tide only. There are no roads on Fraiser island, you drive on the beach and on sand dunes. We had to avoid driving in salt water since it would damage the engine and we had a bond on the car that we in the tour group would have to pay for any damage. The night before we headed out we met the other people in our travel group and the tour operators had a briefing with us.

Fraiser tours are really popular in Australia, when talking to backpackers in Queensland it is alway "have you done Fraser yet?" or "we did Fraser before", both Fraser island and the withsundays are something that you "do" if you're a backpacker there. Unfortunately the thing with fraser tours is that they are famous for being party trips. What you hear is that the tours are full of immature backpackers who just get drunk the entire day. The briefing we had with the tour operator was full of double standards. He would show us pictures of crashed vehicles and tell us stories about killed or injured tourists on Fraser island, in the same sentence he would tell us about how we should remember to stock up with loads of alcohol before taking off since we wouldn't be able to buy it everywhere on the island.

We were lucky to get a really nice group to travel with. We had to plan what food to bring for the 3 days and who that was going to drive. Aaran ended driving our car the whole trip. He liked to drive, it can be fun to drive a 4w drive on sand I suppose, but I felt comfortable not driving. There was one more in our group that had a drivers license but he would rather drink bundaberg and coke.

We had a great time on Fraser. It was one of the best things we did in Australia, according to me. The island is beautiful. It is so simple: sand, sand and more sand, water in the ocean and water in the lakes and blue sky, but it is the perfect combination for natural beauty.

We slept in tents and cooked all food outdoors. We were told by the rangers to pack away all the food in the car so that the dingoes wouldn't come to our camp. We packed it all away but the smell and the water from washing the dishes still attracted some of them to our camp late at night. I had my flip flops lying outside the tent and in the morning one of them was missing, we found it in the bushes where the dingo had dumped it since it wasn't eatable. Two swiss girls in our group slept with the tent door open to get air but the dingoes got very close and they ended up chasing away dingoes from our camp in the middle of the night.

Bundaberg

Aaran's friends Chad and Jackie that we stayed with outside of Brisbane gave us the number to Chad's cousin Ben in Bundaberg. After Fraser we rang him up and stayed with him for a couple of nights. He had some friends from high school visiting so there was full house. As always we were greeted with incredible hospitality and lots of beer. We got a punctured tire on the way there and Aaran had put the spare tyre on in the middle of nowhere and 30 c weather. Ben helped ud to buy a new tyre. Aaran worked for him a day, helping out with his concreting business. Bundaberg was not much to visit, it is a small country town. The countryside around the town is full with cane sugar that they make their famous Bundaberg rum from. We went to see the destillery but didn't go on a tour, rum is not our preferred drink. When going to the supermarket in Bundaberg I was amazed of the unattractiveness of this town's people. ( Quite sure that no one reading this will be offended.)

Next stop was Agnes water and The town of 1770. The town is named after the year that captain Cook first sighted Australia. It is a small and beautiful little beach town. Since it is out on a peninsula we could see the sunset over the mainland from there. The place is also famous for being the last surf beach up the east coast.

Great Keppel Island and driving to Mackay

We were interested in going to Lady Musgrave island out the coast there, since it is surronded by the great barrier reef. But it was a bit expensive. We decided to go to Great Keppel Island instead. It is closer to the mainland, costs less to get there, but still has some of its own reef around. To get there we drove to Rockhampton and then to Yeppoon where we stocked up with supplies and took the ferry.

Great Keppel island really was great. It was so less developed than we thought it would be, and much smaller also, it was delightful. There were no cars and only a handfull of hotels on one of the islands beaches. We camped at a hostel right next to the beach for 2 nights. We hiked to the top of island where we had great 360 views. It must had been breeding season for the butterflies because there were thousands of them. They were bright blue quite big and beautiful, flying like crazy on the hill top. We snorkelled there on a secluded beach where we needed to hike over big rocks to get access. We snorkelled twice a day when the tide was low and we were closer to the coralls where all the animals feed. We saw a turtle, a black and white moray eel and many different fishes and stingrays.

I never thought of the islands outside the east coast in Australia, but they are very much worth a visit on a trip up the coast. The water is so nice out there and many times there are some corall reefs and nice beaches.

Back on the mainland we drove from Rockhampton to Mackay. It was a memorable drive. We drove in the afternoon and it was really beautiful, as it is along the coast there. There's just loads of cane sugar fields and the random mountains dressed in green sticking up from the flats like incredible walls. The sunset was incredible as we saw it from the car. But then it got dark and we noticed that there is really nothing along this stretch of road. Just total darkness, no lamps, no houses, nothing, no curves in the road. This must be one of the easiest roads to fall asleep by the wheel. Along the road where heaps of signs warning you that if you would fall asleep you would die. And really bizarr signs saying "are we there yet mom?" and "still far to go kids". We arrived safe in Mackay. The day after was easter. Checking in at the campsite the manager gave us a packet of chocolate eggs, that was what we had for celebration. But we didn't mind.

The Withsundays

We didn't stay any great length of time in Mackay. We were booked in for a Withsunday trip from Airlie beach so that's where we went. Airlie beach was a nice surprise. It was raining a bit when we came there but it was still warm and as soon as the rain cleared the views were beautiful. It is built on the ocean with green hills sloping down around and there are lots of sailboats on the water. We stayed a couple of nights in airlie. There's a lagoon in town, a man made swim area next to the shore, so that's where we hung out.

We went out on the Withsunday trip, a trip on a catamaran sailboat around a group of islands that is a national park. We were out for 2 nights. The weather was not great, it was raining a bit and the sky was grey the first day as we headed to the islands. We had a bit of a party at night, drank "goon"(cheap white wine in a box) and talked. We slept on the boat, just put out mattresses and sleepingbags on the deck. As we woke up in the morning the two man crew had made breakfast that we ate on our way to White haven beach and Turtle bay. The beach is what you see in postcards, it is just a huge sandbar that changes by the water. We had to wear stinger suits, like a thin wetsuit, in the water since it was still stinger season. ( Stingers are dangerous jelly fish that come in by the shore in northern queensland during the summer months, it is very rarely that someone dies from their stings, but it can happen). We didn't notice any stingers there. It was nice to hang out at the beach, mainly in the water, but since the sun was hiding we didn't get to see the colors of blue ocean and white sand as you see in postcards. But you can never expect anything to look like it does in photos from the tour office. Later we went snorkeling at another island. It was great. Not the best, since the sun would had made the colors appear more and made the visibility higher. We saw lots of fish and we saw a turtle feeding on a jelly fish. That was magic. We went snorlkeling again later in the day. That evening the sun appeared just before setting. The crew drove to a place where they knew some sea eagles hung out. They blew a whistle and two eagles circled around the boat. The captain trew some meat up i the air and the eagle came down near the boat and caught it. It was one of those things that is amazing and repulsive at the same time. I really appreciate being close to wildlife but I hate to see the wild animals being tamed. The crew also threw bread in the water and big batfishes cam to eat it at the surface.

In the night we drank more goon and played games. In the morning we headed towards the mainland and stopped and snorkelled on the way.

The islands are all national parks, there's only one resort on one of them and no people live on them. They are very green and hilly.

It was a great trip. Again the group of people on the boat was a really good mixture. We were all between 20 and 30, someone being a bit older than the average (no names mentioned).

Diving on the Yongala shipwreck

Wecontinued up the coast. The next city was Townsville, but a few kilometers south is the town of Ayr. We had heard of the Yongala shipwreck from some of the divers we met in Thailand. It was supposedly a really good dive, top ten in the world or something. When we saw in some broschures that we were going past there we thought that we should take the opportunity. We went out for two dives with a small group, we were seven people diving. No other dive boats went there that day. The weather was good, about 15 m visibility.

The wreck was from 1911, it had capsized in a storm. The boat was totally covered in coralls and had attracted heaps of fishes and animals that now lived there. The boat was at about 25 metres depth.

When arriving at the wreck I was amazed by all the fish I saw. Tiny fish was upside down on the wreck feeding intensly, while enormous Maori wrass were just hanging out at a bit deeper. It was a big feeling swimming slowly through a school of fish almost the same size as myself. There was lots of sea snakes, eagle rays and turtles. All on this very concentrated area of the wreck. Since the dives were deep and in Australia the safety is a priority we had do ascend after about 40minutes. We did two dives. I would like to go down again next time I'm in the area.

Townsville and Magnetic island

We camped at a beautiful waterhole outside of Townsville. Townsville itself was nothing special. It was a bigger countrytown. The whole north of Queensland is farming area. All around Townsville were beef farms and sugare canes, hardly any towns. Having a little chat with the information lady at the tourist office it turns out that there are people that would like to divide Queensland into the south and the north state and have Townsville as the capital of the north. It makes sense to me since the south and the north are very different. The majority of the population live in the south of Queensland, along the coast. While the larger part of the state is farmland in the north.

Anyhow, we didn't stay in Townsville. We went to Magnetic Island. Only an hour of the coast is the Island. It is rather big. People live there year round and there are cars and buses going around. The ferry was ok price for us without the car, so we parked it in Townsville and took the bus on the island. We camped at a hostel near one of the beaches. Magentic Island is really beautiul. It is made up of small mounts with forest and has heaps of little coves with nice sandy beaches. We hiked up to the old fort on top of one of the mounts and got the most spectaular views of the island and the ocean. It was super hot there and we hurried down to go snorkeling. We found a nice snorkeling beach, there was a little corall reef near to the shore. We saw what we first thought was a small leaopard shark but it turned out to be an Epaulette shark. A beautiful little shark. We were really close to it, just a metre over it. I got a bit scared, since I thought it was a baby leopard shark I was scared that maybe the mother would come, but Aaran ensured me it was fine.

They have lots of animals on the island and in the waters aound. We got the tip from some locals to hang out at the beach just nefore sunset and maybe we could get a gimpse of the Dugong as it comes in to feed. We sat and looked over the waters, saw an amazing sunset but no Dugong. They are the sea cow of Australia. But they are endangered like many of Australias animals. It gets stuck in fish nets and disturbed by boats and jetskis.

The hostel where we camped was an animal sanctuary. They had koalas and wombats and some other animals there. At four in the afternoon they fed the rainbow larikees, small parrots. People could pay to have the birds attacking them, that's what it looked like. They are nice looking birds but I prefer to look at them from a short distance. At feeding time there were hundreds of them making loud noise, going totally crazy.

We were on the island for two nights, it was super relaxed. Back on the road we continued north and camped in a national park, at crystal creek. It is amazing how clear and nice the waterholes and creeks are along the coast. Since you can't swim in the ocean due to crocodiles and stingers the waterholes are perfect. Though not all are croc safe, but they always have warning signs.

We visited the highest waterfall in Asutralia, the Wallaman falls. It was a bit of a detour, but definately worth it.

We had heard some good things about Mission beach from other travellers. It was just a few hours drive north. This is the area where the Cassowary lives. They are enormous birds, like the ostrich, with blue face and a brown helmet like thing on the head. Really cool loking. They are another species to add to the endangered list though. As we drove into Mission Beach there were warning signs everywhere for the Cassowary. Really comic looking warning signs with a giant bird bumping into a car. But then we saw it! Right infront of us on the road a young Cassowary crossed and ran into the bushes. We never imagined it would be so easy to see, but then we thought maybe we would see one again, but that was the only one we saw. Mission beach was really small, a strip of thin sandy beach and dense forrest. We camped right on the beach for one night. There was a short but really nice walk we made up a little mountain to a view point, but there was lots of mosquitos.

We got closer and closer to Cairns and that would be our next camp but on the way there we stopped at a few places. The area around Cairns is full of national forrests with waterfalls, creeks and waterholes. We stopped at a nice waterfall called Josephine falls, and at the Babinda boulders. The boulders were really cool.

Cairns

Our main objective arriving in Cairns was to sell the car. We had given ourselves 10 days there before we flew to New Zealand. We had been told that it could be difficult to sell the car in Cairns, but when we started looking around it seemed almost impossible. We hung out in Cairns for a day and printed lots of posters with a picture of the car, the price and all the details. Then we drove around to about 12 hostels and put them up on the notice boards. The boards were already full with other people's leaflets with cars for sale. We also made an ad on gumtree.com since that seems to be the page backpackers use.

We stayed at the campground in town. When we started talking to the people at the camp it seemed like half of them were backpackers ending their road trip and waiting to sell their cars or camper vans. We felt a little bit stressed about the car, but we couldn't do much more than wait for any interested buyers to ring.

We randomly met a couple English guys from our Withsunday trip in a hostel in town. We suggested to go to Port Arthur and Cape tribulation for a couple of days, and they decided to come along. No problem since we had space in the car.

Port Arthur is a small town mainly based on tourism for the great barrier reef and sailing. It was really pretty. We camped in the garden of a nice hostel with a bar where we bought jugs of beers in the evening and played games. We visited Cape tribulation, that is a bit north of port Douglas. It is a wild nature place, beaches and djungle. We swam in some cool creeks. There are supposedly many crocodiles around there, but we saw none.

Back in cairns a few days later we just took it real easy. It was hot and humid. There is no beach in Cairns, but they have a man made lagoon that is good for refreshing dips. Cairns was nice, not so big. Loads of backpackers everywhere though, and loads of travel agencies.

We went out to dive on the barrier reef one day. We did 3 dives. The reef is so big that it is hard to know which boat that is the best, since they take you to different dive spots. The dives we did were really nice, but not the best ones I've made. I'd like to have more money and come in the winter when the weather is a bit better and dive some more. It's really expensive but in Cairns you can get some deals.

Selling the car!

Finally we sold the car. We really only had it for sale for 5 days before we had some people look at it and buy it. It was great! After that we had 5 days in Cairns without worries. We went out a bit and partied since that's what people do in Cairns. But after 10 days we were relieved to get going again. It felt great to get on the plane for new adventures in the cool and not humid New Zealand!

Northern NSW up to Sunshine coast

New friends, old friends, family and friends of friends, so many people have shown us hospitality. It is great to catch up with, and get to know people. And it is great to have a place to do laundry and get away from the tent sometimes...

After Sydney, northern NSW

We met an older australian couple, Lyn and Kevin, when we were in Cambodia. We spent a day with them on a boat trip to a little island. They invited us to come and spend some time in their hometown Swansea when we came by on our trip. About 4 months later we arrived in Swansea and gave them a call. We stayed with them for 2 nights and had a really nice time! They took us out to the pub for dinner and we played Trivial pursuit and drank wine at their house. The game was from 1983 and it was given to us when we left. Swansea was a nice little town with the ocean on one side and the river on the other, full of black swans and pelicans.
We drove through New Castle and stopped to have a look around, nothing special really.
Just north of New castle we stayed at Seal Rocks. It was a beautiful little town with cliffs surrounding a surf beach. Didn't se any seals there though.
Probably one of the best places we found in New South Wales was Hat Head national park. It lies just north of Port Macquarie along the coast. We camped in two different places of the park. The first was Diamond heads. It is named after a rock formation along the beach. At the camp ground heaps of red kangaroos were feeding on the lawn not minding us campers, little joeys sticking out from the poach. The next campground was just at the outskirts of enormous sand dunes leading down to the ocean, to a beautiful beach. We went down to swim, but the sand in the water sank under our feet like quicksand and we didn't take the risk of getting stuck! We did a hike along the coast there and saw dolphins surfing, that was cool.

Coffs harbour was next place of visit. The campground we stayed at was just near the beach and had all facilities. A great pool and campkitchen and a tv room with widescreen. We stayed there and enjoyed the comforts after spending days in the national park which didn't even have showers. Sometimes you have to live a litle bit comfortable. Coffs Harbour was a nice place, it's marina is impressive and it has a little peninsula that goes out on a hill where the muttonbirds nest. Out there we saw a big shark in the water below us, the nearest yet we had come to these animals.

Up the coast were a few small surftowns that we planned to visit but the weather was not on our side. It was poring down rain when we went through Yamba, we spent a night in Ballina, but ended up sleeping in the car as it rained too heavily for our tent.

We went inland in the hilly landscape to have alook at the little town of Nim Bin before we went to Byron Bay. Nim Bin is famous for being a hippie town, where people go to buy drugs. We thought we'd have a look at the place, fun to see some tye dye shops and see people walkinga round ala flower power with no shoes on. When we arrived it was just one street the whole town was based on. It was very hippie, but in a sad way, not a happy hippie town. People walked arpund in tye dye clothes, dreads and all that, but they were all desperate to sell you dope or dope muffins. We arrived at about 8 in the morning and there was marijuana smoke coming out from windows. It was a dirty little town. The thought of maybe camping there one night was changed pretty quickly and we headed out to look at a waterfall instead.
The waterfall was really nice, lots of water because of a lot of rainfall. We went to do the walk to the base of the waterfall, we came the whole way down and the track continued over the river. You were supposed to skip from rock to rock over the water. Because of the wet season the rocks were now covered in water, and I slipped as I tried to cross... Fell straight in the wild water and called for help! Aaran pulled me up from the water, I was not hurt but very shocked. The camera I had in my pocket was now at the bottom of the river...

Byron Bay was next place to visit. It is the biggest bay in Australia, I think, anyway it is a plce that is famous for back packers. It is a real surf town where loads of tourists go for holidays. It was really nice. We had nice weather and the beach there was great. The town itself was crowded with restaurants and hostels, all with a bit of the "surf bum" feeling to them. We didn't spend weeks there though as some backpackers do, after a couple of days we left.

Southern Queensland
Queensland is a big state and it is divided in two, the densely populated southern part with Brisbane as it's big city and the northern part with the farm town of Townsville as their capital and a population of cows exceeding the human population.

Gold coast
We went through the border town and surf town of Tweedheads. From there you have a view over the Gold coast and all the skyscrapers. Surfers paradise is probably the most famous part of the gold coast, but many small towns link together along the coast creating one long stretch of town. The area is full of high buildings, hotels and restaurants. It is maybe the Florida of Australia. Here you can find all the amusement parks, Sea world, wet n' wild etc. I had heard mixed reviews about this place. Aaran has told me that it is popular with schoolies, kids that graduate, and for trips with the footie teams. Which means it's is a place where people go to party for a week.
Aaran and I had a contact, Chris, who lives just next to surfers on Main beach. Chris used to live in Malmo and play footie there, we got his number from Seth and Karin that we stayed with in Perth. We stayed with him and his estonian girlfriend for 3 nights. It was great to stay with them, had never met them before but their hospitality was great and we got along really well. It was also nice to stay with some people that call the gold coast their home. Main beach was a nice area, a little bit away from the most hotels and bars.
We took long walks along the beach from Main beach to the spit and to surfers which were really good. Gold coast was nicer than I had anticipated but still there are so many places that are nicer to visit in Australia.

Brisbane
From Chris's house we went to visit some of Aaran's old friends from Melbourne that had moved up to Queensland. We went to stay with Chad and Jackie and their son Jack for 4 days, in a place called Springfield west of Brisbane. It was really good for Aaran to catch up with his old friends and for me to get to know them! We had nice bbq evenings, talking and listening to music. When Jackie had a day off we went on aroad trip with her and jack to the town of Towoomba, a little jewel in the countryside.
We went in to Brisbane a couple of days also. It was a nice city, not great, but it had some great things. This was the first place in Australia that we saw a man made beach in the city, a lagoon. Brisbane is on a river that you can't swim in so it was nice to be able to take a dip when sightseeing. The modern art gallery had an exhibition with the work of young artists from asia. It was one of the highlights during our visit there, some really cool stuff. Also a bit outside the city is tambourine mountain with an incredible view over the city and the coast that was nice to see.

Sunshine coast
North of Brisbane is the sunshine coast. It is made up of charming little towns, also touristy but nothing like the Gold coast. We stayed one night with Aarans cousin Adrien and her family in Buderim near the coast and Maroochydore. We had dinner there, Aaran and her hadn't seen eachother for 12 years and she had two little boys running around, so there was a bit of catching up to do. The cost there was beautiful. We discovered the best beach for bodysurfing in Malooloba, where the waves just rolled perfectly and there were no strong currents.
Inland a bit from there are the Glasshouse mountains and Australia zoo, the croc hunter's zoo. We saw the mountains, beautiful!, and camped one night up there. We visited the zoo the next day. I am normally not a zoo visitor, and neither is Aaran. I think that animals are not to be kept like that and it can be sad to see. But I had seen Steve Irwing on tv and heard of his work to keep wildlife in Australia and thought that I could check out his place. It was a bit too much. Too childish really and they played too much on Steve Irwing's fame. But what I did like was that I got to see the Cassowary, a big bird that is family with the Ostrich, is blue in the face and has a big brown lump on the head.


*What we did after is to be continued in the next blog entry, only so much one can write in one go*

The roadtrip from Melbourne to Sydney

About 2 months have passed since I wrote on the blog last time. Much has happened since then, I'll try and tell you as much as I can.

Leaving Melbourne

We had bought the car and we loaded it full with camping gear that Aaran already had laying about in his mom's garage. We knew that we would not have any very long drives, we would take our time and stop in places along the way all the way up. The trip would go along the east coast, finish in Cairns where we would sell the car and then fly to New Zealand. Not much more planned.
First Aaran and I had to say goodbye to his family and friends. It was not easy, but inevitable. His mom decided to come to Sweden next summer which gave us all something to look forward to.

The coast in Victoria and a visit to Canberra

The first stop on the road eastward was at Aaran's aunt's place in Inverlock. Just 2 hrs east of Melb, it was an easy drive. We spent a few days there, it's a little cosy beach town. From there we drove to Wilson's promonotory, a national park on a peninsula. It was beautiful, but it rained quite a bit. It turned out that this rain weather was going to follow us for some time. We visited some beachtowns on the way up towards sydney. When we were in Merimbula, a great place in nice weather according to Aaran, our tent got flushed away and it was impossible for us to sleep in it, we slept in the car but decided to go inald and seek better weather. Aaran's friend Bec and her bf Ed lives in Canberra so we visited them for 3 days. We got our own room in their house and had many evenings just eating good food and drinking wine. Canberra turned out to be a nice city. Maybe because everyone had made sure to tell us that it wasn't beforehand it made a good impression on us. And of course after a week in the rain we finally got sunshine. The art gallery had a special exhibition with french impressionists, the biggest thing in Canberra that year it seemed. We visited almost all galleries and museums. The war memorial was beautiful. The whole city was constructed in almost one go. Reading a map over canberra is like looking at some inexplicable artwork made by aliens. It is all circles within circles.

To be honest, Aaran drove most of the time on the trip. I drove the car in Melbourne and it scared me. It is better on the country roads, but that first time on the left hand side in peak traffic and a lot of lanes and exits coming up on you from nowhere. It just wasn't enjoyable. So instead I became the map reader.

Toward Sydney

We were going to climb Mt Koziusco, but because of the rain it was pretty much closed. We headed to the coast again instead to Batemans bay, which was an alright place, but not that great.
On our way to the Blue mountains, we went through many gorgeous coastal towns. The coast just south of Sydney is really nice. There are lots of wineries along the way and dramatic nature. We were driving on winding roads up on cliffs looking down on clear blue waters and white beaches.

The Blue mountains lay just west of Sydney and we planned to stay there for some days before going to the city. It was beautiful in the mountains. There were many lookouts where we could see over the mountain tops and down into the valley. We stopped at a big waterfall, the wentworth falls, which was incredible. Half way down the waterfall there was a natural pool where we swam. We went for a hike down one of the valleys. We went down the mountain side where water dripped from different waterfalls and trees were clingning on for their lifes. Down the valley was dense gum forest. We followed a creek to our camp and took swimming breaks every now and then to cope with the heat. When swimming we had company by a big Water dragon, a lizard, sitting oin a rock next to us. We camped one night at the bottom of the valley and climbed up the mountain the day after.

Camping in nature is one of the great experiences we've had in Australia. The climate is good for it and it is available in almost all the national parks. The best is when you get a spot near a swimming hole and when you can light a camp fire at night. In some of the places we've camped we've been almost alone and in some places we've been surprised of how many others there'd been. There's almost always some kind of interaction with animals. Brush turkeys or possums coming near you, smelling your food. In some places you can absolutely not have any food in the tent or the dingoes or wombats will rip it open to get to it. When not hiking we always put the food in the car.

Sydney

We had decided to go to Sydney for the weekend the Mardi gras was on since Aaran's friends Jamie and Nicky would be there then. The first two nights in Sydney we satyed at the Olympic village, where all the athletes had lived during the 2000 olympic games. We stayed with Aaran's old classmate Mont on Jordan street. Maybe it was Michael Jordan's house we stayed in? He took us on a guided car tour by night over the harbour bridge and the anzac bridge. It was beautiful. We watched the Opera house from the other side of the river. We took the harbour ferry from Olympic village to Circular quay in the centre. Sydney on the water was really nice, it is probably the best way to look at it. We came in under the harbour bridge which is an impressive structure.
Mont couldn't have us longer since he himself was going back to Melb. We moved to a hostel in the middle of the city.
We stayed near to china town and the Hay market. The hostel was Korean run and most guests seemed to come from there. I really liked China town and the market, it was almost as coming back to south east asia. We bought heaps of lovelly vegetables and fresh noodles and made stir fry everyday we were in Sydney, we had missed it from our time in Asia.

We spent our days in Sydney sightseeing, just walking around alot. The highlights of the city is the Anzac park, China town, Bondai and the harbour. It was a nice city, but I think that none of the Australian cities are anything in comparison with the cities in Europe. My friend Annika has a friend in Sydney, Pernilla, so we organized to meet up with her and her boyfriend in Bondi beach. Jamie and Vicky joined us and we all had a barbie on the beach. That night we went to see the mardi gras. It is like the love parade we have in Sweden. It is all about different groups of gay and lesbians in Sydney to parade in skimpy outfits to disco music while promoting equal rights. There were 10.000s of thousands of people everywhere, caotic, but fun. Pernilla and Chris showed us a nice little pub afterwards.
Oh and the Opera house. From a distance it is a cool building, the shape is distinct, like nothing else in the city, breaking all the lines with its wedge shapes. And I really like that it is white and shiny. Close up it is not as stunning. Unfortunately it is a strange compromise of space, the white shapes coming down, merging into something brown and heavy. It is in a great spot, water on 3 sides of it and you see it when coming from the botanical gardens. I just didn't like it that much. It wasn't that exciting. I've seen some documentraies on the design and making of it and I know that the result is not what the architect intended, as in so many cases economy and politics decided the final outcome. Maybe that is a pity.

After the city we went to Manley. It is it's own place altough it counts as a northern suburb. I wouldn't say that it is Sydney. It is a really nice little surf town with a nice marina and a laid back feeling. the only thing that makes you feel close to the city is the view you have on top of a hill over the city skyline. We stayed there for a couple of nights. There was no camping and the hostel was expensive, otherwhise great place.

Traveling in Ausralia is not cheap. Comparing prices you notice that many of them are equivalent to Sweden. Petrol is cheaper in Australia and bread. Produce, all the veges and fruits are same price as Sweden, and everything is locally produced in Australia. I guess in Sweden we buy it from all the less developed countries for really nothing to make it worth selling in Sweden. Acomodation is about the same as Sweden. Camping in Sweden is probably cheaper, also we have the "allemansratten", free camping anywhere in the bush...
The price to eat in restaurants and go to the cinema is similar to Sweden. To buy drinks in a bar is a bit cheaper here in Australia.
The things you look for as a backpacker is cheap accomodation, free parking, a cheap supermarket, free internet. Anything free really :) . And you are always looking for a good time.
Aaran and I, being a couple of years older than the average backpacker, had agreat time staying at remote campsites, and away from the pub crawls and beer stinking hostels. Rather wake up early by the sounds of different exotic birds, looking over the ocean while making morning coffe.

To leave Sydney and go back to life in nature was a relief.

*Next blog will come shortly, then I'll write about the rest of the road trip!*

Melbourne for x-mas, Tasmania and Alice

This entry is about when Aaran finally got to see his family and friends again after 4,5 years abroad and when I got to meet and get to know them!
I have also written about when we went to Tasmania and our visit to the outback and Alice springs.

Our time in Melbourne

On the 17th of Dec we arrived at the airport in Melbourne. It was quite late at night and it had been raining so it was a bit chilly when we stepped out of the airport. Aaran's dad, Kevin, picked us up, he had brought some beers and vodka drinks for us to have on the way home to his house. He was very happy to see Aaran again and to meet me. We stayed the night at Kevin's house and stayed up long talking. It was nice. The day after Aaran's mom picked us up from his dads place. It was her birthday and Aaran had thought to surprise her, but since he had sent her the itinerary to her some months ago it wasn't a big surprise! She was of course also happy to see her long lost son and we went to her house where we would stay most of the time we spent in Melb. I finally got to see the house where Aaran grew up and the suburb where it is located. That night we went out to a restaurant for dinner, it was BYO, something I had heard about but never experienced before, like so many of the things Aaran's told me about.( For you who don't know, BYO is Bring your own drinks, a nice way to be able to have wine with dinner without paying a fortune.) The dinner was great, all of Aaran's siblings were there with their partners and his mom and aunt.






After the first introduction to the family came hectic times for Aaran to catch up with everyone and for me to meet all of them. We went to the local cricket and footy club, which has been a big part of Aaran's life and where he still have many friends, for a 80's party that was pretty crazy. It was really nice to get to know his brothers more since they all have friends at the club they were there also.




We spent some days before x-mas at Aaran's younger brothers and his girlfriends, Emmet and Brie, house down on the mornington peninsula. It is a holiday house that they rent out sometimes. It was near to the beach and has a big garden somethin g that was nice when the temperature didn't drop below 30. Some other of their friends came around and we had bbqs and bonfires in the garden.


Christmas was at Tara's and Richardo's ( Aaran's sister and her fiance) new house a bit further out in the Melb suburbs. We arrived around 9 in the morning and helped to set up the table and do the finishing details before the other guests arrived around 11. We were a lot of people, family from both his father's side and his mother's came, along with Richardo's family. The food was a mix of salads, prawns and bbq meat. The weather was ok, around 20 degrees, we sat outside a bit.


Everyone asked me how it felt to have such different x-mas in the heat. To me it felt like a really nice family day but it wasn't really x-mas. I guess that in Sweden we have so many preparations and build up some feelings for x-mas that I didn't get while away. Partially i guess it was since we were in asia the months before, where they didn't have a sign of the holidays and since it was so different celebrated in Australia. I still enjoyed it very much and didn't really miss the swedish x-mas except for when I called and spoke with my family. Aaran and I had sent a package of some gifts from Vietnam that my dad had received and hidden until x-mas eve, when he would hand them out.




After x-mas comes boxingday (the 26th) and boxingday test in cricket, yey! We went to a nice bbq at Aaran's friends house, but after a while everyone watched cricket and I went home to rest instead. I haven't been able to develop an interest in that sport, if I could it would be much more fun to come with to the cricket club or someone's place when cricket is shown. The games are very long (all day every day for a week sometimes) and if you don't understand the game it seems totally actionless.





New Years we went to port Melb to one of Aaran's friends from London who has moved there. It was a dinner party with some nice people. There was a thunderstorm coming in that night, it was very hot and humid. At midnight we saw the fireworks and the lightning from the balcony. We spent some days in the city at Aaran's cousins house after new years. He lives in Carlton and from there we could walk to the centre. I really liked Melb as the mixed city it is. We walked down in "little italy" on Lygon street and had some nice pasta and good coffee. We made a visit to the old jail, as with many of the old towns in Australia the jail house is one of the oldest buildings. The famous outlaw Ned kelly was hung there in the late 1800's.




We had decided to buy a car so shortly after new years that's what we did. We got our hands on a 1990's subaru station wagon, which was just what we needed for our road trip up the coast. And living in the suburbs in Melb you need it pretty much to. We had some trouble with our used car dealer and it took long before he had it ready for us, but that wasn't too bad.




We took the car on the great ocean road. It was beautiful with the winding road, cliffs, nature and little towns on the way. We camped for 2 nights and got to really test the car when there was no tent site available for us and we had to sleep in it! We went there while it was still summer holidays, and all victorian families go there for vacation. We visited the famous Bell's beach, the home of surfing in Australia.


Tasmania

We booked a few trips from Melbourne and went to Tasmania for 9 days straight followed by a trip to the outback for a week. We flew to both places as we had found some cheap airtickets and didn't really have time to drive



I loved Tasmania. It was really beautiful and untouched. Much of the island is nature reserves and they have no big cities. We spent a few days in Hobart, couchsurfing at two guys place just outside the centre of town. There was a culture festival going on with some free stuff: we went to a wine tasting, a few concerts and some art galleries. After Hobart we hired a car for a week and decided on some different areas we'd like to discover. We had brought the tent and went for some longer overnight bushwalks. What we saw while hiking is beyond words. The sceneries were stunning. We stood on cliffs going 200 m straight down to the ocean, and lokked down on a group of sea lions hearing their cries. We walked along a perfect white beach and saw a pod of dolphins playing in the sea a few metres out.




We had luck with the weather, a good thing since we were camping and all things we did were outdoors. It got cold at night when we camped on top of a mountain and Aaran's toes got blue from walking with sneakers, but still it was great. We met many other travellers who were there for months doing only bushwalking.
I wouldn't hesitate to go back there some day.


Alice Springs and the beautiful rocks

On a mission to explore Australia, Aaran and I were home at his moms for a day washing our clothes and repacking our bags and headed for Alice Springs the next day.

The weather was to be 40 c everyday and sunshine so we could pack light.



As we arrived in Alice the landscape was surprisingly green and was nicely contrasting to the red mountains surrounding. Alice is in the middle of the McDonnell ranges. We hired a car almost imediately and drove out in the western McDonnell ranges. We visited some really cool gorges and swam in waterholes.


It was a long and hot drive, and since no radio chanels worked out there we had no entertainment. We had been told to stop at a gas station along the road to see a dog playing the piano, but when we came there he was not home.



We bought a three day pass at Uluru and camped just outside the park. The camp site had a pool which turned out to be our salvation when the heat rose above 40 c. The thing to do while out there is to see Uluru at sunrise, and at sunset. Driving to see sunrise meant driving while it was dark, which was strictly prohibited for our hire car because of the risk of hitting a Kangaroo or a Camel, since they are active around dusk and dawn. We did it anyway, there was no other way to do it and we didn't come across any animals so we were lucky i guess.



Seing Uluru was magical. Acording to the aborigines in the area Uluru was the place of their beginning, where all the dreams and spirits come from. It's a very sacred place, and I could feel it. There is the big controversy about the rock. The aborigines don't want people to walk on the rock since it is sacred to them, but it is not prohibited and therefore many tourists climb it anyway. When we were there the choice whether or not to climb was done for us, the climb was closed due to strong winds on the top.






Everything is so far away from everything in the outback. We drove for about 5h from Alice to reach Uluru, with absolutely nothing to see along the way. Just desert and a few petrol stations and more desert. The speedlimit was 130 and the road was straight and flat.


We camped outside Uluru in a resort area. There was a pool, which was our salvation. From 11 in the morning until 4 in the afternoon, that's where we hung out.





Next to the Uluru are the Olgas, or Kata Tjuta as they are called by the aborigines. They are enormous rocks piled up just 20 km from Uluru, but not as famous. It was great walking amongst the rocks and it felt almost more impressive than Uluru since you walked in a valley surrounded by them. The random kangaroo with it's joey jumped around, but otherwhise we were alone with nature.


We continued on to the Kings Canyon. It is another incredible red rock formation in the middle of the desert. It takes about 3 hrs to drive there from uluru. There are sealed roads to almost every place, which is great, but the short cuts are all 4w drive roads, which we couldn't take with our little rental car. We were to see the canyon at sunrise and left our campsite in the dark and drove to the canyon. As we left the camp I had to get out of the car and open a cattle gate, without noticing the camera fell out of the car as I went. We drove about 30 km to the canyon and realized when we got there that the camera was gone. After a while of digging through all our things I realized that it must be on the road outside the camp. We drove back and found it in the exact spot where I had got out before. It was luck in the bad luck as we say in Sweden. We missed the sunrise but came to the canyon early enough to beat the heat.
We walked on the top edge of the canyon where sand and storms have shaped the rocks into domes. Looking over the top of the canyon you would see hundreds of stone domes, looking down in the canyon was a little oasis with a waterhole and some ancient plants and looking out was just miles and miles of flat desert.

After our excursion to the rocks we drove back to Alice springs. Aaran wanted to try the "short cut" and took the little 3 door absolutely not 4 w car on to a dirt road. After 2 hrs shaking around in 30 km an hour in 40 c heat we reached a sand dune and had to drive 2hrs back the same way and take the normal sealed road anyway. It made us realize exactly how rough the outback is.

We stayed 2 days in Alice and had a look around the town. It is very small and there's not so much to see there, but we had a look at the flying doctors and some aboriginal art. There were many aborigines in Alice and there are many commuinities in the outback where they live. We expected to see them around Uluru, but there was not one. In Alice they were mainly hanging out in the parks, sitting in the shade of the trees doing not so much. In Australia the aborigines are a very sensitive subject. There are lots of problems, as with any native people when a country is colonised, the aborigines have problems with alcohol and drugs. The australian government give money to them and houses to help out, but they seem to use the money toward their addictions and the problem gets worse. In some petrol stations we saw signs on the pumps saying "unsniffable", a very sad proof of the situation.
Alice has grown lots in the last 20 years. The people we spoke to in the shops had moved there recently for the job oportunities that comes with tourism.
One week in the outback was not much, as with so many places I'd like to have spent longer time there. Before I knew anything about Australia this is the way I had imagined it to be. I know that Aaran enjoyed it just as much as I did, it is in the same country, but still a different planet from where he grew up.

Next blog entry will be about our road trip from Melb to Cairns

Western Australia before x-mas

*we haven't been blogging very much lately so I realize that the entries are a bit after their time, but we will try and catch up, this entry is about the 2 weeks we spent in WA from Dec 3 to Dec 17*

Arriving in Perth from Bangkok in the middle of the night was quite a shock to us since there was no humidity and the Fremantle doc(the famous wind that comes in every afternoon) welcomed us with a quite cool wind and about 15 c (terribly cold! ;)). It was also shockingly clean everywhere and to get supplies here you have to go inside instead of shopping noodles and Cd's in every street corner.

The weather turned out to be real hot in the day though so swimming was high on our to do list.

We stayed with Sean and Karin, our new found friends from this summer when the couple where in Malmo. They used to live in Malmo and were involved with the Aussie rules club. They live in a house in one of the suburbs in Perth with their little 2 year old Isabella. We went to see some of the gorgeous beaches around the area and checked out the city. We had some nice BBQ nights with Sean, Karin and their friends. Sean's indoor soccer team was about to win the tournament of the year so we went to give our support and drink beers after.


We made a day trip to Rottnest Island which is a small sand dune island just a 1hrs boat trip from Fremantle. The island is famous for its quokkas which are small marsupials ( the kind of animal that has the baby in a poach on its belly) mistaken for rats when the Dutch came and thus the name Rottnest. We hired bicycles and went around. It is beautiful with small bays, white beaches clear water and sand dunes. We went snorkeling for a while there, it was great but the water was a bit cool and you couldn't stay in that long.


Our stay in Perth was only to be 2 weeks since we wanted to be back in Melbourne for Aaran's mums birthday on the 17th of Dec. After nearly a week in Perth we rented a little car and made a one week road trip in the south. We drove in the south west corner of Western Australia, it is just afragment of the state, but still it was


We drove about 5 hrs south east of Perth to Albany. We stopped in one of the many national parks on the way and did a spectacular walk up a little mountain with a panoramic view of the landscape. It was mainly farmland around, small hills with cattle in fenced areas and small Forest areas.

Albany was a bit cold when we came but the second day the weather was great and we explore the area on foot and by car. The city lays straight on the water and the centre is full of old style buildings, it's charming. Outside Albany there are many national parks and two different bays that we visited. The beaches there are spectacular with crystal clear water and unspoilt nature surrounding.


Albany used to be a big whaling point and there is an old whaling station outside that is now a museum. Now many go there to see the whales pass by twice a year as the travel to the warmer waters we didn't have the luck to arrive at that time.


There are blowholes which are really cool to see and hear. It is holes from the ocean up to the top of the cliff, every time the water hits the hole it comes pumping up the cliff and blows through the hole making a loud thunder like sound. There was also a huge gap in the cliff created by the forces of the water and a natural bridge of stone. It was all very impressive.


We drove from Albany along the south coast west ward. We stopped at some beaches outside of Denmark (a small town, there was also a place called Bornholm nearby) and at one we made a close encounter with a big grey seal which was sunning itself amongst the rocks. At one point along the coast you could look straight toward Antarctica with only the great ocean in between, a moment where I felt very small in this world.

The week we spent going around was spectacular. The coast was rugged with rocks, cliffs, desolate beaches and wildlife. Just a bit inland nature was grand with forests of giant gum trees up to 1000 years old.

Before heading back to Perth we stopped in a place called Bunbury. They have a Dolphin discovery centre there on the beach. Almost every morning around 8 o'clock the wild dolphins come in to the bay to have a rest because they feel safe in the shallow waters. With the guidance of the volunteer workers at the centre people can go out in the water and meet the dolphins, but without touching them, as with all wildlife. We were lucky the day we went down, only about 10 minutes after we arrived the dolphins came in. It was a mother and her son. I didn't know this before but the dolphins sleep by shutting down one half of the brain for a few seconds and then shutting down the other half a few seconds later, so still swimming around the dolphin mother came in for a snooze.

We also went to Margaret river, famous for its wineries. We styed there one night and went out to visit the vinyards and taste their wines. There are hundreds of vinyards in various sizes, we visited maybe ten, that was quite enough. The wines are really good and the scenery was beautiful.

Western Australia was very wild and gave me a taste of what Australia is like. It was crazy how nature was wild and free everywhere, along the coast was almost only nature reserves without any buildings. Some of the encounters with animals we had were special and feels like if we had been around for longer there would have been more. We met a seal who was lying sunning itself on a beach in the Frenchmans bay nature reserve, we saw an ospary feeding on rottnest island, kangaroos jumping along the road at dusk... We didn't see any whales, but the mere knowledge of that these waters are their home and highway was impressive enough.

Some other day I would love to come back and visit western Australia.

Southern Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand

Finding computers that work and time to spend sitting inside writing is not so easy when you have awesome things to see and people to catch up with, so sorry that this blog entry is a bit delayed.
Now where were we...... Oh yes the bus ride from Laos till Vietnam. Eventually we got to Hoi An, after 30 hrs sitting on a bus with only 10 front seats left with the rest filled up by sacks of potato and rice doing the 2 hrs mandatory lunch stop 30 minutes from the destination and getting 6 or more shots of homemade whisky from the driver!!( extremely rude to say no thank's).



Hoi An was a nice and relaxed place, very beautiful with it's old architecture, islands and river setting. This was the town to get tailor made clothes! we hadn't planned on getting anything, but as we were there, and as the hotel manager insisted more than 3 times on driving us to her boutique, we went with and got some stuff.
Around the town of Hoi An is lots to see, so we hired a motorbike and went to the marble mountains. They are cast peaks in the landscape, they only remain because they're of marble and everything else eroded away by the ancient sea that used to cover this area. Now it is used for religious purposes, it's caves and every available surface full of Buddhist temples.
China Beach is only a stones throw away so we took some time to hang out there, famous from an American TV show (though never shown in Sweden?or maybe just before Frida's time) now it's just a very quiet place with fishermen in strange basket boats.
We also visited My Son, the first temples built by the Angkor people. Not so spectacular now, but the history goes back nearly 2000 years which is impressive in itself.

To break up the trip toward Saigon and find a little more party we headed for Nha Trang, a beach town 10 hrs south. Here we found little. Mainly some old British men hanging around in the European pubs. Though the beach was nice, there was no vibe nor tourists as we had hoped for. After a visit to the giant Buddha and the beach we left.


Arriving in Saigon at 4 in the morning turned out to be an adventure. We took the local bus to town and found a cat, a witch and a ghoul in a pub (oh yeah Halloween). Waiting for any hotel to open, we decided to join them for a beer, turned out they were Irish and English - what a surprise.
There are many differing opinions amongst travellers, most seem to like Saigon over Hanoi, but to us it was the opposite. Saigon just seemed plain.
Outside of town however, are the Cu chi tunnels, 250km of underground "villages" built by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam war. These amazing feats of human persistence were carved out of almost solid rock with three levels, escape routes, kitchens and traps set for American "sewer rats" (soldiers small enough to fit down the tunnels back in the 60's). It was a great experience and proudly shown off by the local people.

In town we visited a few museums including the war remnants museum which had many captured US hardware and vehicles displayed but most chillingly, all the facts on the use of chemical agents during the war - especially agent orange to which the effects are still seen today in the people. A table spoon of this could kill millions of people and the US dropped tonnes and tonnes of it... It was used to clear the jungle to find the guerrillas, it poisoned the drinking water, generations after would suffer from it. Making people sterile, disfigured or dead.


After Saigon we headed for Cambodia and Phnom Phen. It was an awesome city, maybe since we had no expectations it became a nice surprise. Just like normal we hired some bicycles and went around the city which turned out to be an adventure with 10, 000 thousand mopeds, wagons, cars and the random elephant to compete with. We stayed at the lake, which is about to disappear because of landfills and buildings, it was a nice place with stilt houses made into hostels and dodgy restaurants with joints for 1 dollar on the menu. Everything was dealt with in $US.
The population is very young and when you visit the S 21 prison museum and the killing fields you notice why. About a third of the population died during the reign of the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot 1975-79, from starvation and murder. The Khmer rouge army and S-21 prison guards was mainly young boys who were brainwashed by to torture and kill every non-communist and their families. S-21 was an old High school in Pnohm Phen, that was turned into a prison where people got tortured until they confessed to a crime against the regime and then sent to the killing fields to get their skulls crushed and thrown in mass graves.

We visited the coast in Cambodia for a couple of days, at Sihanoukville. But it was a bit of a disappointment. The beach had gotten washed away and the restaurants at the beach were made from crumbling concrete and the only people there were Englishmen, many hanging out with suspiciously much younger local girls. We did have a good time at the pub with a group of finns but it was nice to leave.
We went to Kampot, famous for its green pepper. It's a small town on the river surrounded by jungle clad hills. It was full of old colonial buildings charmingly ruff. We did a hike up the mountain at Bokor, to see nature and the old casino complex up there. It was a luxury resort on the op of the mountain in the 20s, but stopped by the french war and after used by the Khmer rouge as guerrilla headquarters. It was a ghost town now.

The highlight of our visit to Cambodia was probably the Angkor temples. We stayed in the town Siem Reap just 3 km from the temples. The area where the Angkor people built their temples is enormous and spans over several hundred years of constructions. We bought a 3 day pass and spent the days looking around as much as we could. We biked 2 days and hired a tuk-tuk driver one day when it was to far away. The best day was probably when we biked in complete darkness at 5 am to arrive at Angkor wat for sunrise to see the profile of the towers and reflections in the moat. It was spectacular to say the least.

The feeling we had in Cambodia was very positive, the Cambodians try hard to make a living from tourism and seem to be doing well for themselves. The people we met are very family oriented and friendly. You'll find that the head of family is a 23 year old guy already with 3 children and a wife and all the sisters and brothers all helping out in the family business. There were many children running around selling things and there are many orphanages around, but the kids are all very smart and know good English, all what they have learnt from tourists. I think the future is bright for Cambodia.

We took the cheapest possible bus to Bangkok from Siem Reap, and I suppose we got what we paid for (6 $US). In non-air con bus in style of an old school bus from the USA with the bags lying in the aisle the trip went ok until we got to the border of Thailand were we had to wait for about 5 hrs for the bus to take us the rest of the way.
In Bangkok we stayed at Khao San rd, an ok area made up for backpackers and other budget tourists. The Pad Thai there was the best, a big serve of fried noodles and seafood for about 2 $US.

We headed down to the southern islands almost immediately. At Koh Tao the weather wasn't the best for lying on the beach, but we were there for the dive. Aaran took his open diver certificate and I followed on some fun dives. Since we signed up with a dive school we got accommodation and some food for free, it was a sweet deal. The dive was good the first days, but the weather got ruffer and after Aaran finished his course it was time to move on and check out the other coast, the Andaman sea. We just had to make a visa run to Burma to get our stay in Thailand prolonged, since going overland in to the country only allows a 14 days stay. The visa run was simple, but the boat ride from Koh Tao to the mainland made me sick and I just didn't recover on a speeding minivan.

Koh Phi Phi was super touristy but still nice. It was small and nice without any mopeds or cars. The main part of the tourists seemed to be Europeans on a 3 week holiday. In Phi Phi it was all about diving again. The water was beautiful and warm (30 c!). Getting on the dive boat out amongst the cast limestone peaks was great. Aaran did his advanced divers and nitrox course, I did fun dives. We saw some stingrays, octopus, leopard shark and tonnes of fishes. At night we tried out the nightlife with the typical fire shows and buckets.

We took a ferry to Koh Lanta and stayed there for a few nights, just to do nothing. We got a bamboo hut on a calm beach with not much around. We just swam and watched the sunsets. That lasted for a couple of days, but then the ants in our pants started bugging us and we had to do something. We hired a moped and drove around the island.

Taking our time we did a slow tour of the island, checking out the oldest seafaring town, watching the local macaques (monkeys) scurry off the road as we cruised along. We went to the viewpoints and looked out over the islands of the Andeman sea, went past the mangrove forests of the east coast and finished up at the lighthouse in the national park on the western most tip as the sun was setting to finish off a fine day.

That night we splashed out and bought dinner in a fancy seafood restaurant over looking the beach. Barbecued squid and snapper broke the budget for $US15......

Next morning we went for a quick dip before starting the 14hr bus ride that would take us back to Bangkok where we had one night before heading off to Western Australia. The day was 34deg and 85% humidity so we took it easy and had a few last great Thai dishes. The fabled land of Oz awaited us!! See you all next post