Sunday 31 August 2008
Thursday 21 August 2008
quick
Hello People!
I am travelling from Perth to Darwin with Mark- the Canadian friend I met in Margret River- in a rented campervan. Well, we have 3 weeks to do the whole trip (about 6000km's with all the detours we take) and most of the country is empty! So no internet, no people and no phone-network. It is beautifull though.. i'll let you know when we get to Darwin- the pictures will be amazing! It's a promise (I've seen them already, haha).
From Darwin I will fly to Cairns on 1 september to travel to Townsville to meet my uncle and aunt and my cousin (who studies there) and his girlfriend. And I will also probably meet Leanne! How cool is that!?
So, check in soon again. I leave you with just a couple of atmosphere-pictures!
Bas.
Sunday 3 August 2008
Perth Margret-River Pemberton
Hello everybody,
I am in Pemberton now, south of Perth and I have found some time to leave the fireplace and write a new story for you all.
Well, before leaving Melbourne, I spent another couple of days hanging out with Dennis and his friends. Dennis, Emily and me were invited to have dinner at Dennis'parents one evening and there I met his sister and her boyfriend aswell. It was really great, such a nice family. Great to finally have met them.
The footie (australian football) game was sold out for the first time in it's history during the regular season... so, we were too late to get tickets- but we saw an awsome game in a pub... we had quite a few beers, but no headache the next morning- luckily because I had to go catch a plane to Perth.
I arrived in Perth while it was a great warm and sunny saturday evening. I thought: this s great. I booked into a hostell and went for some great asian food. But the next morning the weather turned bad... and has stayed bad (cold and pretty rainy for the whole of last week). The next day I had a chat with one of my roommates, an English guy named Matt. He was a graduated geologist looking for a job in Australia. I walked around in rainy Perth for most of the morning, but during the afternoon I took the train to (sunnier) Freemantle, a port-town near Perth to team up with Matt again. We walked around, had some beers and fish&chips, walked a bit more and went to an amazing Little-Creatures Dining-hall in the harbour (remember: my first night in Melbourne, where I ate kangaroo- that was also a Little Creatures Dining Hall... Little Creatures is a brewery of good beers, and the Dining Halls are usually old halls... one big warehouse-space for good food and great beers). We had a lot of fun chatting and drinking.
The next day I left Perth (not a really exciting town... very empty... feels like a quiet village) by bus southward to Margret River, a famous wine-area in Australia, some 5hours from Perth. It is beautiful around there: huge forrest mixed with huge cattle-fields and solitairy trees and wineries. It is also nof far from the coast.
I was staying at a lodge there, a hostell in barraks-form. Most people there were backpackers working in the wine-industry, so it was quite a busy place at night, but during the day there was virtually nobody. The staff was great: a Dutch woman for some days and an Australian woman some others- but they were very energetic and positive... and helpfull.
My first day I was told I needed a car to travel and see the surroundings because everything is so bloody far apart. I decided to take it easy the first day and see if there was another option. I decided to go on a tourist wine-tasting tour the next day and think about renting a car a day later. Late at night, a new arrival (Canadian guy named Mark) came up to me and asked whether I would like to team up for the car-rental and split the costs. Michelle the Australian hostell-woman from the hostel linked him to me. That's all good, but let's first meet up for the winetour.
The winetour sucked a bit. Not a lot of info on the wines, just basically tasting them (whithout proper explanation about how to do that) and not a lot of wineries. But a great Australian adventurer as guide and some nice people on the tour made it into a nice day anyway. At lunch we had some bush-tucker: typical Australian forrest food like bush-limes, flowers and a 'grub', a sort of big fat wood-worm that feeds of dead wood underground... I ofcourse voluntered to eat it.. and it was pretty good hey! Quite sweet.. bit like shrimp... no worries, it was dead before I ate it.
When Mark (Canadian) and I walked back to the lodge, we crossed paths with a blonde girl and just said hi. I looked over to Mark: "she must be Dutch". Two hundred meters later, at the lodge, Michelle came running up to me: "a dutch girl signed into the hostell just now and had hired a car is would like to take you guys along"! Haha.. jep, we just saw here (we thought, and were right). So, when she got back to the hostell we got talking quickly and diced to go visit some caves on a drive south to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin the next day.
Her name was Emke, a doctor working in a hospital in Adelaide since about a year. It was her last week of holidays before going back to the Netherlands. She studied in Utrecht but was originally from Eindhoven and her parents live now in Geert-town (Helmond), so my soft-G didnt really bother her... haha. She turned out to be a very nice person.
The south-western tip of Australia has a limestone-bedrock some 30 kms wide on which the wineries thrive. Underground, the erosion-process has formed beautifull caves which we went to visit. Once I upload the pictures you will see how beautifull the stalagtites and stalagtites were down there... some of it was so amazing that they really couldnt be named stalagmites animore... they had so many amazing shapes, just mindboggling. We laughed a lot.. it was really a GREAT DAY with the 3 of us (not for that little bird Emke hit with the car though...).
The next day it was a shitty and rainy day. I took it easy and did my laundry, read my book, listened to some music and wrote in my diary. In the evening the 3 of us went for a dinner in one of the pubs in Margret-River (which only exists of a couple of streets and has probably 2 or 3 pubs, not more). It was great- good food and nice people to share it with.
On friday Emke was leaving to Perth and Mark and me had decided to take a bus to Pemberton, a little tiny village in the middle of the woods, some 150km's east of Margret-River. The first 2 hours of journey we were on the same bus (there was no direct connection so Mark and I had to go north to Bunburry first and then south... taking us some 5,5hours....).
In the bus I had a nice talk with Emke, who's a really great, energetic smart and funny girl (like me born in januari 1980). Meeting people like this makes travelling really worth-while!! It was super and I'll never forget it.
Mark and I arrived in Pemberton in the afternoon. We had booked a hostell and when we arrived, they gave us a key and told us we'd have to stay in a cottage, a couple of streets up the road. When Mark and I arrived there, we coulnt believe our eyes: it was a great wooden cottage, with a porch on the front and a nice fireplace inside. It immediately felt as home!
We lit a fire, bought some food and made ourselves nice and comfortable. In the evening two Singaporan girls arrived and an hour later an Australian family arrived. Dad was a bodybuilder and mom pretty talkative, and they brought 3 daughters (18, 16, 14). One of them had a soccer-game nearby the next morning, and them being from Bunburry 3 hours up the road had decided to make it a nice family weekend out. We chatted all the way till midnight around the fireplace.. it was really good. To bad I don't have time to go and visit them although they invited us, I should really start to head up north soon.
Today, sunday 3 august i think, Mark and I walked into the woods to a tree we could climb. The Glaucester-tree is the world tallest tree-top lookout. You can climb to the top at 61 m's by climbing steel bars that have been struck into the side of the treetrunk... You'll see the pictures soon, but I can tell you that 61m's is pretty high up a tree! And half-way you really shouldn't look down (as I did... it toook me a while to get going again).
After that we went on a tram/train tour trough the woods. Pemberton has always been a logging and wood-sawig town, so we got a nice explaination about the forrest and the industry, the history of the town and the animals and plants within the woods. It was really great!
Tonight we are enjoying the fireplace in the cottage for the last time, tomorrow we'll be going back to Perth. I am planing on looking for a cheap car to buy to travel with to the north and north-east... probably the easiest and cheapest if I can also sleep in it. But it has to be a good one- don't want any repair-surprises along the way because that would chew up a huge chunk of my budget... but first, I should really really get back to the fireplace and my glass of wine.
All the best to all of you! I am loving it down here though sometimes I miss many of you! Big hugg. Bas.
PICTURES
I am in Pemberton now, south of Perth and I have found some time to leave the fireplace and write a new story for you all.
Well, before leaving Melbourne, I spent another couple of days hanging out with Dennis and his friends. Dennis, Emily and me were invited to have dinner at Dennis'parents one evening and there I met his sister and her boyfriend aswell. It was really great, such a nice family. Great to finally have met them.
The footie (australian football) game was sold out for the first time in it's history during the regular season... so, we were too late to get tickets- but we saw an awsome game in a pub... we had quite a few beers, but no headache the next morning- luckily because I had to go catch a plane to Perth.
I arrived in Perth while it was a great warm and sunny saturday evening. I thought: this s great. I booked into a hostell and went for some great asian food. But the next morning the weather turned bad... and has stayed bad (cold and pretty rainy for the whole of last week). The next day I had a chat with one of my roommates, an English guy named Matt. He was a graduated geologist looking for a job in Australia. I walked around in rainy Perth for most of the morning, but during the afternoon I took the train to (sunnier) Freemantle, a port-town near Perth to team up with Matt again. We walked around, had some beers and fish&chips, walked a bit more and went to an amazing Little-Creatures Dining-hall in the harbour (remember: my first night in Melbourne, where I ate kangaroo- that was also a Little Creatures Dining Hall... Little Creatures is a brewery of good beers, and the Dining Halls are usually old halls... one big warehouse-space for good food and great beers). We had a lot of fun chatting and drinking.
The next day I left Perth (not a really exciting town... very empty... feels like a quiet village) by bus southward to Margret River, a famous wine-area in Australia, some 5hours from Perth. It is beautiful around there: huge forrest mixed with huge cattle-fields and solitairy trees and wineries. It is also nof far from the coast.
I was staying at a lodge there, a hostell in barraks-form. Most people there were backpackers working in the wine-industry, so it was quite a busy place at night, but during the day there was virtually nobody. The staff was great: a Dutch woman for some days and an Australian woman some others- but they were very energetic and positive... and helpfull.
My first day I was told I needed a car to travel and see the surroundings because everything is so bloody far apart. I decided to take it easy the first day and see if there was another option. I decided to go on a tourist wine-tasting tour the next day and think about renting a car a day later. Late at night, a new arrival (Canadian guy named Mark) came up to me and asked whether I would like to team up for the car-rental and split the costs. Michelle the Australian hostell-woman from the hostel linked him to me. That's all good, but let's first meet up for the winetour.
The winetour sucked a bit. Not a lot of info on the wines, just basically tasting them (whithout proper explanation about how to do that) and not a lot of wineries. But a great Australian adventurer as guide and some nice people on the tour made it into a nice day anyway. At lunch we had some bush-tucker: typical Australian forrest food like bush-limes, flowers and a 'grub', a sort of big fat wood-worm that feeds of dead wood underground... I ofcourse voluntered to eat it.. and it was pretty good hey! Quite sweet.. bit like shrimp... no worries, it was dead before I ate it.
When Mark (Canadian) and I walked back to the lodge, we crossed paths with a blonde girl and just said hi. I looked over to Mark: "she must be Dutch". Two hundred meters later, at the lodge, Michelle came running up to me: "a dutch girl signed into the hostell just now and had hired a car is would like to take you guys along"! Haha.. jep, we just saw here (we thought, and were right). So, when she got back to the hostell we got talking quickly and diced to go visit some caves on a drive south to Augusta and Cape Leeuwin the next day.
Her name was Emke, a doctor working in a hospital in Adelaide since about a year. It was her last week of holidays before going back to the Netherlands. She studied in Utrecht but was originally from Eindhoven and her parents live now in Geert-town (Helmond), so my soft-G didnt really bother her... haha. She turned out to be a very nice person.
The south-western tip of Australia has a limestone-bedrock some 30 kms wide on which the wineries thrive. Underground, the erosion-process has formed beautifull caves which we went to visit. Once I upload the pictures you will see how beautifull the stalagtites and stalagtites were down there... some of it was so amazing that they really couldnt be named stalagmites animore... they had so many amazing shapes, just mindboggling. We laughed a lot.. it was really a GREAT DAY with the 3 of us (not for that little bird Emke hit with the car though...).
The next day it was a shitty and rainy day. I took it easy and did my laundry, read my book, listened to some music and wrote in my diary. In the evening the 3 of us went for a dinner in one of the pubs in Margret-River (which only exists of a couple of streets and has probably 2 or 3 pubs, not more). It was great- good food and nice people to share it with.
On friday Emke was leaving to Perth and Mark and me had decided to take a bus to Pemberton, a little tiny village in the middle of the woods, some 150km's east of Margret-River. The first 2 hours of journey we were on the same bus (there was no direct connection so Mark and I had to go north to Bunburry first and then south... taking us some 5,5hours....).
In the bus I had a nice talk with Emke, who's a really great, energetic smart and funny girl (like me born in januari 1980). Meeting people like this makes travelling really worth-while!! It was super and I'll never forget it.
Mark and I arrived in Pemberton in the afternoon. We had booked a hostell and when we arrived, they gave us a key and told us we'd have to stay in a cottage, a couple of streets up the road. When Mark and I arrived there, we coulnt believe our eyes: it was a great wooden cottage, with a porch on the front and a nice fireplace inside. It immediately felt as home!
We lit a fire, bought some food and made ourselves nice and comfortable. In the evening two Singaporan girls arrived and an hour later an Australian family arrived. Dad was a bodybuilder and mom pretty talkative, and they brought 3 daughters (18, 16, 14). One of them had a soccer-game nearby the next morning, and them being from Bunburry 3 hours up the road had decided to make it a nice family weekend out. We chatted all the way till midnight around the fireplace.. it was really good. To bad I don't have time to go and visit them although they invited us, I should really start to head up north soon.
Today, sunday 3 august i think, Mark and I walked into the woods to a tree we could climb. The Glaucester-tree is the world tallest tree-top lookout. You can climb to the top at 61 m's by climbing steel bars that have been struck into the side of the treetrunk... You'll see the pictures soon, but I can tell you that 61m's is pretty high up a tree! And half-way you really shouldn't look down (as I did... it toook me a while to get going again).
After that we went on a tram/train tour trough the woods. Pemberton has always been a logging and wood-sawig town, so we got a nice explaination about the forrest and the industry, the history of the town and the animals and plants within the woods. It was really great!
Tonight we are enjoying the fireplace in the cottage for the last time, tomorrow we'll be going back to Perth. I am planing on looking for a cheap car to buy to travel with to the north and north-east... probably the easiest and cheapest if I can also sleep in it. But it has to be a good one- don't want any repair-surprises along the way because that would chew up a huge chunk of my budget... but first, I should really really get back to the fireplace and my glass of wine.
All the best to all of you! I am loving it down here though sometimes I miss many of you! Big hugg. Bas.
PICTURES
comments
Thanks people for your nice comments!! You're still reading my blog?! Nice to see new followers (pap en jans, raymond and sigrid, geertje meneertje, some anonimous in spanish)! Keep it coming!
As a reward I will post a new blogpost in a couple of minutes (which doesnt matter since most of you are probably still asleep).
Bas.
As a reward I will post a new blogpost in a couple of minutes (which doesnt matter since most of you are probably still asleep).
Bas.
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