Plans where to jump on the Kiwi-Experience this morning but unfortunately no bus so I was forced to stay another day in Christchurch and booked my bus for tomorrow morning, 7:45am. Not that that was really a pity, "Saints and Sinners" is a quite nice bar, belonging to and downstairs Base Backpackers so I booked in for yet another night making it a total of 3 nights @ Base.
I had some quite nice conversations monday, yesterday didn't really talk to anyone but still had a good time drinking a couple of pints of TUI's (which is even better than the ozzie TOOHEYS) and hanging around. Christchurch is extremely relaxed, wandered around the city and parks yesterday en today and feel totally relaxed right now. It's even better than Cairns. Cold, really cold, try to smoke a cigarette in your longsleeve at 11pm and Schotchmen start yelling that they'll quit as this is killing. But surprisingly the cool weather adds something to the Christchurch feeling, it just feels right to sit in your Driza-Bone on a bench in a park and doing nothing at all then just listening to the sounds around you.
So that's it for now. 'Will go for some food (McDonalds or something) and then make my backpacks Kiwi-Experience ready and take a shower before I head to the bar for some company and maybe 2 or 3 pints. Bit sad if I have to wake up my whole room at 7:00am because I'm too stupid to make sure that the only thing tomorrow I have to do is put my clothes on, grab my bags and go.
Tomorrow I'll head up north with the Kiwi Expericene to Kaikoora (?) and from now on I'll probably start updating once a week, once every couple of days again as my days will be less empty than the last 3 :-)
BTW it's just 33 days before I'm finally home. That's really just a month. And what do I miss most here? Still my friends and family at number one but food-wise I miss my "patat speciaal" and my Grolsch. (Nah, the last one not REALLY as Cascade, Tooheys and TUI are really damn good beers and you can even get Guiness on tap here!)
TTYL!
Murf
Well Murf left it up to me to finish the Australia story. (As it should be, because I started it as well) Murf is save in New Zealand and I am flying tomorrow to Indonesia, Bali. Don't know how much internet I am going to have. But don't try to reach me over my mobile phone. Because that isn't mine any more. I'll contact you as often as possible. And otherwise you just have to wait till I am back in Holland. Because that is only 31 one days to go. And after that long period I been gone it is only a short while.
What did I (&murf) do since we updated you last? Well our highlight was getting rid of the car. Me playing the nice and understanding one. And Murf playing the pain in the ass guy. Lets say that brought us quite far. Our car is worth I think $500 dollar of scrap. But after some hidden (good) cards we were able to fetch $1850,-
That brought us a very nice surprise. We devided that and exchanged it to the currencies we needed. Which made murf quite a bit richer. But it even made me a millionair!!! (long live a very low Rupiah) Off course there are photos from this (probably) once in a lifetime uppertunity. But they are burning them on disk now somewhere up the road. So hopefully next time if my connection and everything allows it. Otherwise Holland is my next stop.
For me it means today a hell lot of packing, sending, and other left overs. My bag will be nicely packed in bubbel plastic because of the fact that a 27 old Australian woman is sentenced 20 years. Because baggage handlers put 4kg of drugs in her bag. (or so she says, her bags were unlocked so quite stupid everybody could have entered.) So my bag will be locked. Plus it is very easy for me to find out if people went through my bag or not. Feels a bit scary to fly. But I will get through.
Last word about australie. I wanted to do this trip already for 6 years. This is a wish coming through. I love to finally have met all my family. And it is all been worth it. Thanx for the experience I will never forget.
So long and thanx for all the fish!
Love Nicky
As you can see in the subject, I just arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand. This morning woke up TOO bloody early (6:30) to catch my plane to this kinda cool (liturally!) country. It must be below 10 degrees as I really do need my Driza-Bone here. Check in was fine, flight was without any trouble except from a little turbulence somewhere halfway. But unfortunately they didn't really like my face or my passport or my dive-knife because I got queried at least 3 times on where I was going and what I my plans where for New-Zealand. At the end it turned out that they really wanted to check my bags and hear some more from me. Honesty works best, I do have a dive-knife with a blade of around 12cm in my backpack and though it was not really a problem afterwards they where still a bit concerned about that and wanted to check it out. They also checked out my diary for traces of drugs but that might be partly because I was so stupid to leave it in the airplane, next to my Lonely Planet. I realized that seconds after they pulled me away to check my luggage and some officer was so kind to retrieve it from the airplane. Djeez, stupid action of me, a Lonely Planet might be just inconvenient to loose but is replacable, my diary definetely NOT. Anyway, I was glad that no one was waiting for me at the airport so I had plenty of time. But I did have to go again through the X-ray with my backpacks, now with the official next to it who could confirm that the big metal object in it was indeed a dive-knife and fully legal. But you have to answer an awfull lot of questions. To speak with Doroty (the fish from Finding Nemo): "Just keep swimm^wsmiling, just keep smiling."
Not that I had any trouble with that, after all it IS their job to prevent anything or anyone illegal or dangerous entering the country and I can perfectly imagine that they picked me out. Ah well, they where very friendly and cooperative at customs so no need to complain. They where just doing their job and actually them doing it so thouroughly makes me feel quite safe.
But here I am, in an internet cafe almost next-door to Base Backpackers where I checked in for 2 days straight. Their bar opens within half an hour at 5pm. Straight out of the airplane I jumped into a red bus taking me to Cathedral Square for $5, walked slowly to Base (while smiling that I really arrived in New Zealand), checked in, dumped my backpacks in a room where 2 blokes where asleep and ran off. First to a tobacco store (yeah I'll quit again, but not now), then to the Cathedral Square to smoke a cigarette and take some cheesy pictures of the cathedral and the silverish statue and now in the internet cafe. Unluckily there is again a time-difference which is even bigger than in Australia so while I'm writing this here at 4:35pm it's just 6:35am back home. I'll survive. Tonight I'll celebrate my first night in NZ and my first night in a hostel ever. Plans are taking the Kiwi Experience on tuesday morning. So first a day of checking out the town a bit.
And I'm getting hungry now, see if there is any mail and then probably looking for some place where I can find some cheap junkfood. I should cook but not now. I'm happy being here...
BTW traffic DOES stop here at pedestrian crossings and I already heard some dutchies in Base but decided to kinda ignore that fact and say nicely "Thnx M'te" while they stepped aside when I plummeted up the stairs to my room.
TTYL!
Murf
1 June 2005
AO7829 Sydney (10.15) - Den pasar (14.30) 6.15 min flight
1 Juli 2005
CX784 Den Pasar (16.00) - Hong Kong (20.45) 4.45 min flight
2 Juli 2005
CX271 Hong Kong (00.05) - Amsterdam (06.40) 12.35 min flight
Everybody happy?
As you can see my (Murf's) flightplan has been changed due to the simple fact that there are suddenly 2 friends travelling around Australia, not a couple. To REMAIN friends I've decided to cancel my ticket to Bali and go to New Zealand a month earlier. (Which implies that I'll be back home the 3rd of July instead of the 2nd of August.)
29/05 SYDNEY (AU) - CHRISTCHURCH (NZ) NZ182 09:50 - 14:50 ( 3:00 uur)
01/06 CHRISTCHURCH (NZ) - SYDNEY (AU) NZ183 16:00 - 17:30 ( 3:30 uur)
02/07 SYDNEY (AU) - LONDON (UK) QF301 15:15 - 05:20 (23:05 uur)
03/07 LONDON (UK) - AMSTERDAM (NL) BD105 10:40 - 13:00 ( 1:20 uur)
Some things just aren't meant to last.
As my memory has quite a lot of holes in it. I won't be able to give you a day to day report. (which would be kinda boring anyway) So I just give a couple of things that happened lately which made a diffrence in our lives. At first I want to tell a little story which Murf forgot in his last update. When we 'broke' in at Anita's her neighbourwatch. (really lovely if everybody knows everybody and everything from everybody) So after a couple of confusing rounds and a distressed call from Pat and Guy. I finally found out that everybody thought that there were some people robbing the house. Luckely I could call Anita to give her the message that it was us. And afterwards we all had a good laugh about it. Long live older people who watch each other.
Another thing which people have been asking me is; where is your flightscedual? Well I will update that after this one straight away.
What happened more. We have mainly been cleaning out the car. Sending a lot of packages home. Next to that get everything sorted out etc. Been away shopping a day in Sydney. Bought some discount books and cd's. Yesterday we went to the embassy again. And they fixed finally our visas!!! Long live white paint. So we will see if I get there. But it is all approved by the Indonesian Counsel. And we
Yesterday we had a bit of a talk together. And decided that we put a lot of effort in our relationship. But it ended up that there was still something missing. So we decided to split up as good friends. This is the reason that Murf will not join me to Bali and will go a month earlier to New Zealand. So we will arrive both in the same weekend.
And today brought us back to the flightcentre. Murf just changed his tickets and the dates are already updated I saw. And I just booked for a whopping AUS$142,- a hotel for a whole week. Including breakfast. And a choice between a jungle tour or white water rafting... That is a not to bad price.
Well think thats it.
Love
See you soon
Nicky
Fin, because Nicky is busy turning on poor little bastards at TMF-Chat I do my duty and update SWS once again. Tough job... Anyway, we indeed decided to stay another day and after a day of useless shopping around and seeing surfers at the beach we decided to meet up with Brady again as he must've been approaching Byron at that time. Indeed he was, just arrived in town and while we where still watching surfers at the beach he'd come to us with a new girlfriend. (Well, AFAWK not his girlfriend-girlfriend but just a girl griend, but who knows...) We had a quick "hey, how are you"-chat and after a while they'd go for coffee and a place to sleep. To bad our campsite (and our plan to have a bite at HogsBreath) didn't seem to appealing to HER so they decided to go for a ho(s)tel and unfortunately it ended up with having no big beer-booz at the campsite or anything anywhere near having to do something with alcohol. As we where quite tired and didn't hear from them before 8:30pm (while we were already asleep, as the sun goes up at 6:30am and down at 5:30pm you really adopt to this strange biorithm) we'd split as we didn't want to spend yet another day at that way too expensive caravan park. Next morning we picked up our photo's at the photoshop and went to the lookout. As everything in Byron that was also a payd location. Bastards. But hey, they're not too bad, instead of parking our car there for 10 minutes (which would've set us back another $6,-) we decided to take a U-turn at the top which was luckily for free. View was kinda ok, and down we went, along the coast, via MacLean (a Schottish village with all telegraph poles in Scottish kilts) to Coffs Harbour. The original plan was to go to Hoggs Breath, the movies and then asleep but I was kinda tired, Kingdom Of Heaven seemed a bit too long (2:25h) and too heavy (lots of hack 'n slash) for the evening so it ended up at Hoggsbreath only after we found a nice campspot along the river. Hoggsbreath was great, the first time we tried together (in Cairns) ended up in misery as I was nauseous like hell and couldn't eat more than a single bite. Shame because Hoggsbreath is really what "De Beren" is in Holland and "TGI Fridays" in de USA. Awesome food, lovely and honest waiters and waitresses and a really fair price in a very groovy environment with all elvis and other stuff around you. After enriching them with a couple of bucks on a T-shirt, 2 fridge magnets and a lighter (I officially don't smoke anymore but occasionally I do and an Australian Hoggsbreath lighter is definetely a cool thing to give a sweet looking girl if the asks for a light, not?) we went "home".
Next day we'd go to Holland Downunder. We'd expect something like Madurodam but than a lot smaller and less professional. It turned out a LOT smaller and erhm, amateuristic. Really just a backyard with a couple of self-created Dutch buildings. But nevertheless the idea was cute (only the trains should be DUTCH trains, not just standard ancient cokes locomotives) and they had a clog (klomp) making at the end. As we travelled the furthest to get there we got the clog. So we're now the proud owners of a real clog, made in Australia. What will customs in Hollands think about that!?
Next to the Clog Barn (as it was also called) was a dutch restaurant where you could get all dutchie stuff like croquettes and licorice. DROP! We where craving for it after 4 months without so we bought a couple of bags and are still enjoying the taste of home. (Later in Sydney we discovered just a simple shop who had Venco for a fair price so while typing this I'm eating Venco Mintnopjes...) After still missing the cinema we went to a comic gallery. Bit small but it was really fun to see. Definetely a must-do if you ever find yourself in Coffs Harbour.
And after all that stuff? We finally picked up the car to go to some family of Nicky living in Sawtell. (Hi Pat and Guy!) Had a very nice night there with a lot of chatting (luckily Annelies printed all our stories and sent them to them by mail as they don't have internet), some picture viewing of their trip to Tassie and New-Zealand, a really good glass of single malt whisky (18yo, I only forgot the name but it was great, thanx Guy) and a lovely comfy bed and shower. I was impresses by the fact that Pat AND had read THHGTTG AND had the original tapes of the radio-version. Not only that, she had the LP of "The War Of The Worlds" and could tell me that there was a book about it as well, which off course she had read... Impressive.
Next day our movie started at 1:00pm in Coffs so we departed a little before that. In Coffs we enjoyed "Kingdom of Heaven" which is a MUST SEE, 2,5 hour historic epos, from the makers of Gladiator. Not too fast, not too slow and with enough hack 'n slash to keep the fans of that happy as well. But mind you, it's a historic movie. The only thing which really lacked IMO is that the soundtrack was SHIT! (Unlike Gladiator.)
Next stop Nambucca with a wall of gravity in the sea. If we had our own spraycan we could spray our own piece there. Too bad we didn't have that. Not that it would've been really usefull, the rain was pouring down at us and it was getting dark already so Nicky hopped out of the car, took some pics and hopped in while I wisely decided to stay in the car... The idea was to stop that night at a rest-area somewhat an hour driving from Nambucca but for some odd reason our car thought completely different about that. Quite soon after Nambucca we suddenly heard some awfull noise coming from the engine with a sudden loss of around 50% of the power. Pushing the pedal to the flood did basically nothing and even flicking it to 3rd gear, hit it and flick it back to 4 didn't do what it normally did, restoring our power and letting the engine run properly again. So we decided not to trust it and as it was cold, dark and we where tired we dumped the car on the first available campsite or rest-area. It turned out to be a campsite, Nicky running out of the car to get the official stuff done as soon as possible while I kept the car running, afraid that after shutting it off it wouldn't start anymore.
We had a bit of a strange night, worried with what happened to our car and if she finally gave up just a couple of hundred Km's away from our final destination. But luckily our regular morning checks (oil and water) revealed the problem, simply one of the spark-leads had come off the distributor and so let the poor engine run on 3 instead of 4 cylinders. That explains. After reattaching the cable (and filling her with some extra oil) we started the car as if nothing happened. PHEW!
We continued our way to Newcastle via a lot of tourist drives and stopped at a convict-build goal. We where lucky, the rain stopped for half an hour so we had the chance to see the goal in it's full glory (and lock ourselves up for a minute in one of the cells). Had a nice chat with the lady who yelled something about lights which reminded me of the fact that I left my headlights on... Luckily that didn't drain the battery so after visiting the goal we could continue without trouble. As it was getting late (already, it really goes fast if your day only has 11 hours of daylight and you don't leave before 10:30) we decided to start looking for a rest-area. Before we reached that I realized that we'd meet our 20.000Km mark within an hour and went to a bottle shop to get some booz to celebrate it. At the 20.000Km mark I swooshed the car aside on an exit lane, getting some nice hornsounds from a car who wasn't too pleased with me standing there taking a picture of our odometer and went on. I celebrated our mark at a rest area with a whopping one whole beer... (But it was Toohey's so it was kinda allright.)
Next stop: Newcastle. One of the bigger towns along the eastcoast. Not really a cool town, even the Lonely warns for car-theft there (where did we hear that before?) and it's a bit grey-ish but the cathedral is impressive (impressive by it's size, not really beautifull and with big parts of 1998 it's a fairly new church) and the art-gallery, I would say something nice but no, it was kinda boring though some of the contemporary art was kinda ok. It was just way too small and not really interesting pieces. Totally unlike the one in Brisbane which was really stunning.
As we suddenly realized it was our really last day on the road we didn't travel straight down to Sydney but decided to find a nice campsite a litte south of the town. And we did. Getting there was a bit of a hassle, I wanted to turn right, seeing too late that that was completely impossible and having a nice honking concert from my fellow roadizens (you know when you're getting close to a big city, they become more and more unforgiving for human error) and a pissed off Murf we finally found our place. Next to a big lake, surrounded by water, on top of a hill and one of the cleanest amenities we've ever seen it 'd set us back a whopping $17,- Not bad. And we DID celebrate our last night there. With a little bit of beer. (And a little bit of some really nasty pain suddenly coming up under my lungs, which luckily dissapeared after 10 minutes of rest.)
And next day in the afternoon we DID arrive back in Sydney after driving more than 20.000Km. That was yesterday. Anita was not at home but we had the keys and could get in easily. Installed ourselves nicely on Anita's chairs and watched tv (StarWars II was on!) all night. (After first putting our laundry in the machine, really neccecairy as you can not get every stain out of it by hand.)
Today we went to Maroubra, the Indonesian Embassy to finally fix our visas. Too bad the dude was not in untill thursday but the guy helping us DID admit that it was their fault and that they'd fix the problem as soon as possible. So we'll come back thursday or friday and see if they can fix it up before we leave to Bali next week. We also went to Flight Center to recheck my flights (and all MY flightnumbers are now publishes one article below, Nicky has the same to Bali only after Bali she goes home and I go to New Zealand) and ended up in this internet cafe.
A bit strange to be back "home" after travelling half the continent, bit strange to have tv and light at night, really strange that our road trip is now really over. But hey, a new adventure awaits...
Since I arrived in Sydney I got my flightnumbers to Bali, New-Zealand and back home but as it's just 2 weeks before we're actually going to Bali I decided to publish all relevant information right here, right now. Have fun. (BTW all times metiones are LOCAL times, off course the flight-times are just in hh:mm notation.)
01/06 SYDNEY - DENPASAR AO 7829 10:15 - 14:30 (6:15 hours)
30/06 DENPASAR - SYDNEY AO 7830 22:45 - 06:25 (5:40 hours)
01/07 SYDNEY - CHRISTCHURCH NZ 182 09:50 - 14:50 (3:00 hours)
01/08 CHRISTCHURCH - SYDNEY NZ 181 07:00 - 08:30 (3:30 hours)
01/08 SYDNEY - SINGAPORE QF 31 22:15 - 04:05 (arr: 02/08) (7:50 hours)
02/08 SINGAPORE - LONDEN QF 31 05:40 - 12:15 (13:35 hours)
02/08 LONDEN - AMSTERDAM BD 109 14:10 - 16:20 (1:10 hours)
Murf
Nicky busy with a shitload of email and /me just finished with it. Happily sitting in an internet cafe in Byron Bay where they're playing pretty good music to keep you typing I assume it's my job to update you about the last week of travveling. And, it will be one of the last entries while really on the road. It's the ninth of May right now, we're planning to be back in Sydney around the 19th. So just a mere 10 days (and ~800Km) to go. After that it's 10 days Sydney and off to Bali. Off course we will keep you updated the whole time as we won't just sit on our asses in Sydney and Bali. (Though just doing that WILL be a big part of our activities, both to save some money and simply to relax and get some breath after 4 months of non-stop traveling and before 1 month of exciting New Zealand for Murf.)
While some dutchies next to us are speaking Dutch (REALLY annoying, there is a reason why we NEVER speak Dutch, even not when we're absolutely alone) I realize that you can never walk anywhere and NOT run into a couple of Dutchies. In Brisbane even the dude from the parking lot spoke dutch, or more, belgian. But still. He regognized our accent (the first one in MONTHS) and let us out for $5,- instead of $7,- Not because we where Dutch but because we came and left early...
So what did we do after Hervey Bay? Well, we went to Brisbane and ended up a couple of Km's before Brisbane in The Australian Zoo (home of Steve "The Crocodile Hunter" Irwin). Off all people. The zoo was pretty cool though, nice bird and crocshow in a massive, 5000ppl theatre. We missed the snake bit while cuddling kangaroo's. Not too much of a problem, snakes are small, the theatre was huge and I don't think we missed THAT much on it. Had lunch afterwards, cuddled some more kangaroo's, tried to miss the zillions of crocodiles which is almost impossible as he REALLY has a croc-fetish and left. But not after first getting one of the day's best surprised. A bloke sitting behind a couple of drums, drumcomputer, guitar and didgeridoo's giving a faboulous show. Bit trancy, relaxed music. We found out the dude was called Matt James. Off course I bought the signed CD (Transporta), played it in the car and enjoyed the vibes. Off course he has some samples on his website. I don't have the chance to listen to them here but give it a go.
Because there was a nice rest-area with a LEGAL 20hr overnight stay just 10Km north of the zoo we decided to go back there for the night as it was the safest, most reliable and closest place where we could stay.
Next stop: Brisbane. Parked the car, had breakfast (Subway is really making a fortune out of us, there was one straight when we got out of the parking lot and we where HUNGRY) and went walking through the city. As not really interested in massive shopping (the problem with shopping is it costs money AND we where simply not in the mood) we walked straight through the CBD to the info center and decided to go to the museum and art gallery. The museum was a bit dull though the section about transport was kinda allright. (planes and automobiles always are cool to see) Well, the entrance was free... Next door was the art gallery. Also free and THAT was absolutely worth every dollar we payd for it. ;-P No kidding, some old work witch we both like but not really seem to adore and a huge section of modern contemporary art. Photographs, sculptures, the lot. Really impressive, there was an exhibition of highscool students around the state which was really impressive and more really interesting modern art. Anyway, left the shop with a sign "FCK" (you all know the Kentucky Fried Chicken sign? Well, that one, exactly, but just a little mixed up.) and some postcards and left town, straight running into the english blokes we met on Fraser...
Hmmmzj, I shouldn't write about KFC while I'm hungry and missed my lunch. Now I'm REALLY getting hungry and afaik there is no KFC in town. (But probably something else like a bakery, which will do.)
We wanted to go to the Goldcoast and wildcamp there for the night, checking out the goldcoast the next day. We didn't, checking out the goldcoast nor wildcamping. The goldcoast sucked, hotels, hotels, hotels, hotels and as a desert some hotels and wildcamping didn't feel the right thing to do as even the Lonely Planet talks about numerous car thefts. So we got ourselves a nice spot at a way too expensive ($24,-) caravan park. Next day looked for the info center, got almost lost, and decided to go straight to Byron Bay. (And not stopping at the Dracula Restaurant Nicky wanted to try out.) And here we are now. At an even more expensive campsite ($25,-) but STRAIGHT into the center of Byron. Hogsbreath is next door and instead of taking the car, parking it and then walking into town we can simply leave the car where it is an walk, that's faster than even starting our car.
We might stay another day, though expensive it's good to rest and relax a little (reading, reading, reading, shopping, eating, snacking, reading, reading, reading) before we head off to Coffs Harbour (family) and Sydney. With a bit of luck we'll meet Brady tonight or tomorrow to have a drink, or 2, or 3, or... If we get universally pissed now (I LOVE that word, universally, anyone seen the movie "Hackers"?), no worries, we can basically crawl back to our van. Handy!
And That's It For Now! We're going for lunch I think. TTYL!
Murf & Nicky
Nicky has just finished uploading a shitload of new pictures... For all of you interested, they're at their regular location: http://gallery.somewheresouth.net/. Or in this case, more precise, in the april album.
CYA!
Murf & Nicky
This is going to be a rather mixed up story. Storylines are for wussies, I didn't update my diary for ages and just started 20050429, we're bloody surrounded by Dutchies (more about that later), my screen blinks at a lousy 60Hz, my keyboard SUX and the internet connection is SLOOOOOOOW! But hey, it IS my time to write some stuff now. For some odd reason still 500 people a month are somewhat interested in our writing stuff (off course a big HI to all just bumping in through Google or trying to comment-spam the lot which is still kinda effectively made impossible), for those interested have a look at our STATISTICS page (so that I can look at the statistics of the statiscics to see how many people are interested in the statistics) Off course those stats are more usefull for us than for you, not only as a measurement of interest but also and very important to measure the amount of data used by our websites so that I'm not suddenly surprised by a huge bill from our Internet Provider, IAF. (Not that I'm too afraid for that, it's a small joint and I used to work there before I left to australia and had someone else do the dirty stuff...)
Anyway, my diary starts around 80Km south of Rockhampton where Nicky updated the weblog the last time. And for some very odd reason there are only short, more or less funny, remarks on that:
And from here it's storytime again. After leaving Rockhampton we went south to Bundaberg to have a look at the place they create the world-famous Bundy Rum. We arrived somewhere in the afternoon, sped to the coast for a campsite, ran into a caravan park who was just about to close (at 4:30pm, bit early if you ask me) but managed to stay, pay and get a key for the toilets. That's how they keep their site clean of unpaying customers, just lock the toilets and showers and hand over a key to every paying customer. Very smart. The only reason why we go to those sites is because we want a shower, a relaxed night and a decent toilet. So it really makes us pay and probably we're not the only ones...
Next day we went to the Bundaberg distillery. Cool tour. Free coke and stupid talking so-called hyper-modern lockers where you had to leave everything with a battery in it because it might spark. Safety. They'd already burned down the factory years ago. We stared with tasting the melasses. That's the sugary stuff where everything starts and it tastes pretty much like: Dutch Licorice! Oh holy. No-one liked it and we where yelling that it was soo good and where we could buy a tube of the stuff. They must've thought we where joking and that the joke was not really funny but we where completely honest and serious at that point. As true Dutchies it REALLY tasted awfully good and better than all that horrible aussie licorice. But hey, that's something in a duthcman's genes I presume. They have "drop" flowing through their veines. The rest of the tour was good though a bit set-up (the guides fully trained in their pre-made jokes, making them ALMOST sound original, almost) and because half the factory was shut down because it was a saturday there wasn't much activity. What I found a bit remarkable is that I suddenly realized that it doesn't really matter which spirit or even beer you make. The main process is basically the same. You mix some stuff with yeast, filter it a couple of times, let it rest, filter it more, destillate it a couple of times and put it on a big vat for a certain amount of time. Funny that they used american oak there, the same as one of my favourite whisky's was matured on. But the taste of this rum is absolutely nowhere near a single-malt whisky which they said it should compete with. Nor was it as sweet as Jamaican Rum. So sorry, if I want rum I'll go for the sweet Jamaican stuff, if I want something for in my coke it'll be the cheapest 40%+ booz available and if I want something like whisky I'll grab a bottle of 12yo+ coming straight out of the distilleries of Schotland. Nonetheless, the tour was OK.
Important fact: 20050430 Murf finished THHGTTG! (And is now reading The Salmon Of Doubt and The Street simultaneously. The first from Adams, the second about a Melbourne copper, perfect toilet-reading stuff.)
Next stop after Bundy was Hervey Bay. As we really wanted to cut our expenses we stopped just outside Hervey. (They reall pronounce it here as HArvey insted of HErvey, strange ozzies.) Next to a petrol station on an empty lot ajacent to 2 main hiways with nothing more than a truck-trailer standing 30 meters away from us. Bit fuzzy there but away from the street and hidden behind the bushes still a quite nice backpacker place. Next door, straight next to the petrol-station we found another car, next morning... Parked absolutely more rudely than we. We spend the day on the marina, next to the boat-ramp, observing zillions of people rigging their boats. We wanted to go to THE island, X-mas, erhm, shit, what was it again? Nicky: Fraser Island. Thnx. So we went to a booking office with internet. Send some email there (why not, we had nothing to do anyway) and book the trip. We ended the day at a caravan park next-door as the bloke in the shop was surprised that we didn't get caught on our free spot. Later we discovered a covered van straight next-door to the shop on a really clearly marked NO CAMPING site. Sleeping??? No, just f*cking probably. Sure.
Lunch was another story. Really wanting to cut on our budget we went to Woolies (a giant supermarket) instead of Subways (a sandwich store) and came out with 2 giant French breads, some fetta cheese, a capsicum (I still don't understand why it's called capsicum instead of paprika like we do at home, it's the same bloody thing.), an Hungarian salami, some olives, lettuce and all, worth a shivvering $17,- total. Seemd a lot but really, after having our with the most-stuffed sandwich I've ever had we where so stuffed that we didn't went for dinner at all and saved the rest for the next morning. Good work Nicky, you really DO know how to make massive sandwiches. And next morning we had it as breakfast, me eating just half of it on the boat to Fraser because I and it was soooo stuffed.
By now I wanted to ask Nicky to put down the Fraser story so that I could work on my email but nah, I'm here anyway and she'll live a couple of hours in the park next-door with a book. Have to develop 3 rolls of film anyway, it goes FAST on Fraser. Not that there is really much to say about Fraser, it's really a very big sand island. Bit like Terschelling but just a bit bigger and absolutely NO sealed roads. Not even gravel. Just sand tracks. We took a bustour as we both didn't want to drive ourselves over the island for a couple of reasons. We liked to have some company, a tour guide and the 100% chance of getting bogged a couple of times are all reasons to do it this way. And so we went off. A bit 4x4 truck picked us up at the bus stop next door to the booking office, our car nicely parked behind it. An hour ferry to the other side, and we where on the island. We started with a big ride and a small 20 minute walk through the rainforest ending by an introduction round where luckily the only thing you had to tell was your name and country. Me absolutely hating those kinda rounds hid behind a tree straight away in an attempt not to draw attention to myself, too late realizing that just that action put ALL the attention to me. OOPS! Anyway, we shared the bus with a group of oldie germans (one guy annoyingly really with his videocam glued to his eye), a couple of ozzies (Adelaide), a large group of backpacking UK chicks and a guy, a couple of UK blokes, and a couple of young germans. Kinda allright group. Next stop was then Lake Wabby. Funny because not only the bus was called Wabby but Wabby is also the name of Nicky's cuddle rabbit which she carries all around her trip. (And now she tells me that I should say that the cuddle Wabby was almost dead so she did some surgery on it, saving his leg from amputation. Well, here you go, I said it. ;-P) Lake Wabby was good. Jumping out of the bus the German girl approached Nicky as she saw that she was wearing a New-Zealand necklace and broke the ice for the rest of the trip that way. Smart move!
After a 2Km walk through the forest and over a sandpitch we got to the greenish lake and made ready for a swim. Off course I absolutely HATE natural water but after diving a lot of times I'm getting over it. Hessitated to go deeper than my toe (it was COLD) I suddenly jumped in looking at some english chick who was too afraid to go in. "Hey, I'm way less chicken than that" I thought and with a big SPLASH I was in. Swam to the other side, did some float-exercises (after 27 years of not being able to float I suddenly managed to do it, strange), swam a little more and went back doing some headrolls and other foolish stuff. And then the clouds came in so we had to get out and back to the van. 2Km walking, really trying to do it fast as the clouds got darker and darker. We managed to get to the bus, being not too wet.
We had lunch at the operator's resort and went on to the north part still being chased by the rain. The main hiway is on the east-side on the beach. Fun track, driving 80Km/h over a beach in a quite large 4x4 truck. Went passed some of the more interesting parts like Indian Head, passed the Maheno Shipwreck (that's for the next day) and up north to our sleeping spot for the night. Dinnertime. Got a couple of tents to sleep in and got a nice BBQ as dinner. Had some talks with the germans and ozzies, had a couple of drinks (well, I had a couple of drinks) and went to bed. Night was nasty cold, raining all over the place and a group next-door singing very loud. But we survived the night and I got up TOO early. As Nicky forgot to pack both diaries and something to read I dumped myself in the shed to wake up with a mug of coffee. Breakfast, departure at 8:30am and off to the Indian Head in the north part of the island. Climbed the hill, had a nice view over the island and got down again. Next stop: Maheno Shipwreck. Finally without rain so a nice place to take a couple of shots. Back in the bus, down south to the second lake off the tour after a view of a sandformation which showed all the different colours of sand of the island.
Lunch at their resort again, wraps this time, everyone really looking very sleepy and the english girl behaving stupidly hysterical.
As Nicky told they hid themselves with 3 in a toilet, one to go whatever she had to do on the toilet, one to keep the door closed (it really seems to get kinky here) and the 3rd one... To look for SPIDERS!
For g*d sake, if you go to Australia you WILL run into spiders and other nasty creatures. No one really likes them, Nicky is kinda fobic about them as well and even I don't really want to shake hands with them but this was ridicoulous. Ah well, they where not really used to anything at all aparently, even the best looking girl (looking a bit like a combination of my sister and Kirsten, *YUMMIE!*) changed her clothes a bloody 4 times a day or so. On a camping trip.
The second lake was turtle-lake with sweet little fresh-water turtles. No-one wanted to go for a swim, all tired and the weather wasn't great but it was a nice rest. And then back in the bus to go back to the boat again. A big 1,5 hour drive across the island to the west beach, Moon Point. The boat trip was a bit bumpy (though nothing compared to what we had on the reef) but nice. Specially because suddenly we saw some dolphins swimming accross the boat. The whole boat yelled, off course as it is not something you see daily. Great sight, must 've been a family of around 4-6. Sweeeeeeeet!
On the boat the german couple invited us to go bowling that night, as we had a quite good contact with them during the trip we agreed. So 8pm @ Woolies it was. The bowling center however just closed their doors so up 2 ad-hoc plan B, movie. Triple-X 2. The Hitch is Disney and the german bloke really wanted to see Triple-X being one of the better action movies. And it was. I mean, the story was shitty but that's not what it's about. It's about megalomanic sound, blistering explosions and heavy fireworks. And it was good. I don't like the scary parts they always have to put in but as soon as the action started I was happy. We would've gone to McDonalds afterwards but it was too late. Pointed them at our website (this one, nicely written in the dirt onto the back of our car) and off we went, all our own ways again, probably and hopefully with an email when they have internet and in the mood to write. (Hi guys!)
And that was it. Here we are, in the internet joint annex booking office 1Km from our campsite. Silently waking up and knowing that we won't leave within a couple of hours as I have some serous mail to wade through. Though I forgot to tell about a small story at the campsite. About Dutchies and their rudeness. Really, it's funny but after being around lots of non-dutchies you suddenly realize dutchies have a certain rudeness over them, specially when on holidays.
We came at the campsite and got #69. Drove to the spot and to our surprise it was already half-taken by some rental car. So we opened the window and asked the people kindly to move their car as that was our place. They did, fast. And they came to my window. To tell in a bit too clear dutch accent that the supervisor of the place would leave in 30 minutes anyway so that we could basically stand wherever we liked, as they did and even could steal electricity. 10 minutes later the car was parked next to our van again. Really, no nasty words whatsoever but this is tipically dutch and I am NOT proud of it. Poor bastards probably didn't know that we could've been neighbours. If even Canadians think your Canadian, how could a dutchie notice by your accent that you're dutch...