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LAST UPDATED: 30 SEPT 2010
Welcome to our Adventure! We are glad you could join us on his amazing trip!
We guess we should start right at the beginning when at 7am on Saturday morning of the 12th of June 2010 we embarked on our voyage, on a trip which we so fondly refer to as our “Boomerang Trip”. Our intention is to head up North (as fast as we possibly can – to defrost). Once we see some sunshine, slow it down and ‘crawl up’ all the way to Cape York. Once conquered, head West to Broome, seeing all God’s creations along the way and then after thoroughly indulging in the due North land from Broome make it down home via Alice Springs. It is a big country, they tell us, but we have allowed 4 months to do it. Let’s see what this adventure will bring!
Saturday, 12 June 2010
After saying teary goodbyes to our family, friends, neighbours and our beautiful pets: the alpacas, the sheep, the chooks, the bunny and to our most treasured pony Cassie, we headed off as soon as the sun rose. Wait, no, that’s right – there was no sun this morning, only rain, rain and some more rain. We waited until the rain died down a bit before we run to our car (truck as we call it), covered ourselves in warm blankets with beanies on our heads and gloves on our hands. We came equipped with lots of DVDs to keep us occupied on those long drives along long stretches of road and plenty of colouring books.
MARSDEN, NSW
We travelled 590 km our first day and ended up in Marsden, NSW were upon arrival we set up our caravan for the first time. Because we only just got it a couple of weeks before our trip, we didn’t get a chance to ‘test –drive’ it, so fingers crossed, it’ll be all good. Otherwise, we’ll be in trouble.
We pulled up at a way side stop, collected some firewood and wrapped ourselves up in ski jackets and gloves and enjoyed our first marshmallow cook-up! ‘Ahh, how’s the serenity?’ said dad with a big smile on his face, relaxed for the first time in weeks.
The next morning was freezing cold, and we mean COLD. At 7am we registered -3 degrees. Ouch! This is when we appreciated for the first time having chosen a caravan with a toilet. Otherwise we would’ve frozen our little bottoms! :-).
GOONDAWINDI, NSW
Ok, it is getting warmer. It was 3 on the positive when we woke up and we were greeted by a very shy ray of sunshine this morning. But then it run away frightened by the wicked cloud. A family of wallabies watched us as our convoy (3 families with three matching caravans) took off this morning in pursuit of warmth and adventure.
Speaking of the convoy, we haven’t introduced our friends yet who will share this journey with us.
In truck (4WD) number 1 is: Daryn, Cath and their kids Jessica (11) and Daniel (7). Jess and Dan are like cousins to us and we usually travel together everywhere. Mummy works with Daryn so we have known each other for years. In fact, since the day we were born.
In truck number 2 is: Matt, Liz, and their kids Clementine (12), Xander (9) and Xavier (6). We go to school with Xavier (prep) and we are really looking forward to spending some more time together. Mrs Pedersen has given us boxes of work to do while we are away so maybe we can do some study together.
We are in truck 3: the ‘Tail end Charlie’ as we cal it.
Between us we have six adults and seven kids – the lucky 13!(?)
MOOLOOLABA, QLD – 14th of June
Hey, we finally made it to QLD! And guess what? It still rained! Oh boy!
Luckily we stayed here for a couple of nights so we actually saw some sun. Still not warm enough to put short sleeves on.
After we set up camp for the night (in a caravan park) we went for a stroll to town and ended up having dinner at our parent’s favourite fish and chips shop on the pier.
The next day, for the first time really, felt like holiday – we woke up in the morning and the two of us joined mummy for a run on the beach. Then we spent the rest of the day leisurely strolling through the shops. With our own money (which we were working for before we left), we bought ourselves toy crocodiles. Crikey, Now, we felt like real adventurers.
MACKAY
Today we caught up with mummy’s friend and her baby Matilda. Mummy hasn’t seen her for over 15 years. We had a great time meeting her, having lunch together and munching on some yummy ice creams.
STONE ISLAND
We were also lucky enough to celebrate Jordi's Birthday on the island as well. Jordi's wish was to go exploring on the rocks and the beach with her family in the morning, go quad biking at lunch, have a party with balloons and cake mid afternoon and go trekking (with water backpacks) in the evening. And then she wanted to speak to her grandparents before dinner (Safta’s chicken soup of course). She certainly got had wishes come true. She even told us that it was the best day of her life! Pretty special for a 6 year old :-)
After getting off Gary’s boat to continue on our journey, it was pretty hard to get used to being back in a caravan. We spent another day in Bowen to have a look at this magnificent town Mummy has been telling us abut. We swam in Horse Shoe Bay, our last place to swim in the ocean – anything North of here will be infested with Crocks - so we are told. During our travels north of Bowen we learned how sugar is made. Matt, Xavier's dad, cut some sugar cane for us and let us chew on them...Yummmm, Yummmm!!
TOWNSVILLE
Townsville was fun. Quite a nice town with beautiful Esplanade. They have the most amazing climbing playground right on the beach. We had so much fun climbing it. We set up camp out of town in a way side stop where we played schools with Jessica and Clem. They are such good teachers!
CAIRNS
We spent two nights in Cairns, one of which we spent catching up with our friends in a Teppanyaki Restaurant. We’re learned how to catch an egg in a bowl – a skill one never knows when it might come in handy!
The next day we went on a sky rail through the rainforest and after visiting really nice village called Kuranda, we came back down on a vintage train through forests, tunnels and beautiful vistas. We had same braids platted in our hair at the village too – we look so cool now!
When we went to the town of Cairns we were lucky enough to meet a very nice man called 'uncle Friday'. He is an Aboriginal and he makes the most wonderful things out of palm trees. He taught us how to make a mini wind mill, a real Bush Origami, we tell you . Mummy bought a beautiful fruit bowl, we got really cool hats and after Bella melted his heart with a cuddle goodbye, we walked away with lots of cool animals on bendy sticks. Amazing what a cuddle can achieve. Doesn't matter what culture you come from.
On Sunday we went to an Aboriginal Cultural Centre where we have learned a bit about the Indigenous culture (we watched movie about the first time white man got to Australia -weren't those English people nasty?). We learned to throw a boomerang (is daddy half Aboriginal? He threw the boomerang sooooo well!). We learned about some Bush Tucker and bush medicine and then spent some time with uncle Ernest. Uncle Ernest is the manager there and his grandkids are our age. He told us some fascinating stories about how different animals were created (he turned daddy into a Ninja Turtle :-)), he taught us how to make indigenous markings on stones (did you know they make paint from earth and not buy it from Kmart?) and we also learned how to play the Didgeridoo. He let us muck around on $400 tubes with cool paintings. We can make some special sounds now. Jordi's goal is now to play the didgeridoo at assembly at school. It'll probably take her forever to save $400. But she said she doesn't need to do it till she is in grade 6, so I guess she has the time to save.
Port Douglas was also beautiful. Mummy went horse ridding through the rainforest and on the beach with the bigger girls and then we spent the day visiting galleries and strolling through the shops.
On a way out of Port Douglas we went to see the Daintree Rainforest. It was beautiful! We saw spectacular waterfalls, did a few water crossings in our car and played on the beach (far, far enough from the water to be safe from crocs :-)). We found some man -made swings hanging off the trees and so we played like monkeys!
COOKTOWN- 7.07.10
Our next stop – Cooktown, then – head up north to the top!
After spending 3 days in Cooktown where we learned all about Capitan Cook and his Ship Endeavour, we stocked up on food supplies and continued on our journey. We have left our caravans in Cooktown, packed our tents and took off towards Cape York. Now the real adventure has begun!
The trip is sensational! We set camp every day - close enough to rivers to appreciate their beauty but far enough not to be eaten by Crocks :-).
We usually have fire at night and we have refined our marshmallow cooking to fine perfection. We get up at 6:30 every morning help mummy and daddy pack up (well... more like keep away while they are packing) and are on the road by 8:00 am. By 2 pm we find a new camp site. Very often we stay in places where they have toilets and showers and some diesel for cars. So it is still semi civilized here.
Today we travelled up Telegraph Track (where Telstra once had their telegraph poles). It was a very bumpy, single lane, dirt road where unfortunately our DVDs stopped working and we were 'forced' to appreciate the beauty out the windows.
We did lots of river crossings today. Lucky we did that as daddy's car was getting very dusty! We also had to come down some steep decants were we were both overcome by giggles. We love that sort of stuff :-). Mummy is taking lots of pictures (some attached) so you can see exactly what we are up to. We saw quite a few people on dirt bikes which was good because often they would do a river crossing in front of us so we knew where the water was shallow. It was funny watching some of them fall over in water holes, lucky it was them not us :-)
In the afternoon we have found a new camp site where we will stay for a couple of days. There are waterfalls nearby with beautiful rock pools. We already had a swim today and will spend there a whole day tomorrow. Don't worry about the Crocodiles though, these places are well known as Crock free zones. Apparently Crocks don't like waterfalls. Lucky they don't as swimming is sooooo refreshing, especially now that we are hitting 30 degrees everyday. Who would think this is winter?
We can't wait to get to the top of Oz. It will probably be another few days before we reach it but we can say 'been there, done that'. Not a lot of 4 and 6 year olds could say that! We are so lucky!
CAPE YORK 11.07.10
We made it to the top!!!! Woo Hoo!!! It was so exciting! We had to climb some rocky mountains to get there and when all other children complained, we were like little mountain goats....soldering on!
The surroundings were so beautiful: the rocks, the beach, the ocean and ....us, of course. We can't believe we made it so far. We clicked over 5,400km since we left Melbourne. Wow! Mummy says we need to thank God for DVDs to have made it that far in a car :-)
Since we left Cooktown, we've been camping all the way. It only takes mummy and daddy 1 1/2 hrs to pack up each morning but only if we keep right away. This is usually when we do our journals and draw things that we observed the day before. You should see our journals...they are spectacular!
Even though we geared ourselves up for an absolute 'no man land' with food supplies, water tanks, spare fuel tanks, etc. our parents (all 6 of them) were quite surprised to see that the telegraph track is such a popular track, with camp sites (i.e. toilets and hot showers) all along the track so we get to de-dust every day in warm shower. Occasionally we get a chance to shower in wonderful waterfalls. Again, fortunately crocs don't like waterfalls so we are able to swim in them
In Cape York we also raced daddy's truck on the beach. The car won eventually but it was so much fun and we got our dose of exercise for a day. Later on we discovered 100s of soldier crabs on the beach. We played with them for a while and then we watched them disappear into the sand. Round and round they went..
Loyalty Beach is where we anchored ourselves. Although it has a beautiful beach (where we exercise daily) it is known to attract crocodiles, so we are keeping right out of it.
The Savannah Way - 21.07.10
We have now returned from our 'hike' to the top and now we have entered what's known as the Savannah Way which is a very long stretch of road between Cairns and Broome. The road is much more challenging than the east coast with lots of corrugations (oopdee doos as we cal them) and beautiful river crossings. Very often the road changes to a dirt road and goes through Aboriginal Land where drovers are driving their cattle and crocs silently wait for their meal. Very often we wonder how tough life would be living here on this Savannah Way.
Today we met a lady who told us her land stretches two hours North all the way to the ocean (653 square miles). That is a big piece of land but I guess she needs it because she has 5000 cows on it :-). We are attaching a picture of a cow. These are really cute, with long flapping ears and almost a 'camel humps' on their backs.
We are meeting a lot of nice people, especially those who run roadhouses. That is usually where we stay as there is fresh water and electricity. The other day we stayed in Hann River roadhouse where a lady had all sorts of wonderful pets. We occasionally had cows wander through our camp, we fed peacocks and their hens in the morning as their joined us for breakfast, emu, kookaburra and we played with her lorikeet called Benji. He was a real character.
Speaking of characters, we met an interesting bird in Weipa. When we were setting up camp (still with tents) down came a cocky and decided to help daddy put the pegs in. Well, he was actually taking them out as daddy was putting them in. It was so funny. And he also talked; we had so much fun with him....
We then went fishing on a pier and Bella of course started up a conversation with the fisherman from a commercial vessel. Before daddy could even catch a fish both Bella and I got two massive fish from the boys to have for dinner (just in case daddy didn't catch any - they noticed that Daryn's monster fish escaped earlier). The photo below shows Bella kissing the fish (some serious teeth on that one - lucky it was already frozen). We were so blessed that day, not only did we have the two huge fish but daddy also caught another 2 which supplied a delicious meal for all the happy campers (except for daddy of course, as he still doesn't eat fish:-).
A few days back we also went fossicking at Mount Surprise. That is looking for semi-precious rocks. We got fossicking licences and hired all equipment required and off we went to dig some holes and search to find treasure. We ended up finding 4 small Topaz rocks but we also found stacks of other interesting volcanic rocks which of course we persuaded daddy to keep for us. We already have 15 sticks on the roof and now he have a collection of rocks. Mummy and Daddy keep telling us that we cannot collect everything we find but we only have to start crying for long enough and explain to them the importance of every single rock and a stick that they soon learn that they cannot break our little hearts and so the truck gets loaded up with more and more stuff :-))))
The day before fossicking we went to another town where apparently they had lava go through. The nice chap who showed us around told us that about 190,000 years ago there was a massive volcanic explosion and the biggest lava tubes on earth were created. One of them went for 160km. He took us to a few of them, big dark caves, some with beautiful tress growing through them. He explained to us that the tube was created the same way one would drink hot chocolate through a Tim tam, i.e. suck the inside out (the lava) and what is left over is the crust around it (the tube). It certainly sounded very yummy :-)
Our caravan is proving to be fantastic. Our friends had a bit of a problem with water leakage (look at photos for river crossings) but 'touch wood' ours has survived. Apparently we are yet to cross lots more so fingers crossed...
Oh, Yeah, we almost forgot to tell you. The other day we stopped in town called Burketown where a lady shot the biggest crocodile ever registered in Australia. The croc was 8.63 meters long. There is a statue in town which is apparently replicating its real size although when you see the photo of us kids sitting on top of it you'll think it's unbelievable. Bella virtually fit inside its mouth.
26.07.10
We are on the way now to the Kakadu National Park after stocking up on groceries in Katherine, quite a large town. We have booked our car in for service on the 4th of next month in Darwin (whatever the next month is – we are starting to lose track of time now). Our caravan neighbours were telling us this morning that Darwin registered 27 degrees last night, the hottest night ever. I guess that is something ‘to write home about’:-)''.
We have spent the last two days in Mataranka, NT. What a sensational place. It is known for its thermal pools which were so nice and warm. It was like being in a massive spa in the middle of a palm forest. The water was a constant 34 degrees. Ah, so warm! You would’ve loved it. There were a lot of older people here, some even from Melbourne. They were staying here for five weeks (defrosting, we guess?).
At night the pub had some entertainment, so both Bella and I did some serious dancing together. I even dressed up as a cowboy as the singer was a country gal.
The night before Mataranka we stayed in a famous Daly Waters. Although the place had absolutely nothing except for an 80 year old pub, people from all over the world flock there to witness the most amazing Outback Aussie Humour. The pub and its laving beer garden is superbly decorated with typical Aussie artefacts: signed bras, undies, t’shirts, hats, identification cards, coins and currencies from all over the world, funny pictures, stickers, beer can art, antiques, thongs, g-strings and many other funny things. One could spend a week marvelling over the fascinating collection.
At night the entertainment was nothing short of fabulous. Frank, the country/modern folk singer was just hilarious. He had a chicken coop hat being balanced by a 5kg rooster. The rooster would get up and sit as Frank sang. It was sooo funny!
It just happened that it was Daniel’s birthday that night so Frank got Daniel up on stage and we all sang him happy birthday. He even got a massive muffin from the kitchen with a candle on it. As we happened to be their biggest fans, Frank asked us to come up on stage as well (with our prep buddy, Xavier) and we all sang “I’ve been fishing in the creek with my dad” followed by lots of ‘la, la, las’. We must’ve been a real hit because all the oldies kept on clapping and encouraging us to sing some more. At the end of it Frank shouted us some free ice cream. It was such a great night!
During Frank’s break, the owner’s 20 y.o. son, Patrick sang us a few great songs finishing it nicely with Waltzing Matilda. We learned the next morning that
Patrick will be going to Afghanistan with the Australian Army. We hope that he takes his guitar with him, probably more powerful tool to bring peace with.
28.07.10
Our adventure of the ‘Never, Never’ continues. We have entered the famous Kakadu now. We really cannot understand why some people refer to it as ‘Kaka-don’t’ suggesting not to visit it. We think it is spectacular! It could perhaps be that that they have not veered from the main road “the black top” as we call it. We are getting off road quite often and that’s when we get to see things which are totally breathtaking.
Our first stop in Kakadu was a place called Gunlom. We got to camp very close to a approx 35 meter waterfalls which were quite spectacular. We swam in it (have been told by the rangers that all crocs migrate out of it in winter. It was ah, so refreshing. Especially now that we have started to get 35 degree days, there is nothing like a dip in slightly chilly waterhole with cascading waterfalls.
The next morning we rock climbed the waterfalls (a bit steep but reasonably safe) and we got to see where the water was coming from. We were rewarded by the most spectacular pools with crystal clear water and some more smaller waterfalls. We swam there whole afternoon and then slowly made our way down to the base camp.
Every nigh there are some activities organized here for the tourists. We watched two slideshows at night, one on the bush tucker, i.e. how to cook turtles, fish, and whatever else the nature provides for the ‘traditional owners’. Those Aboriginals are so clever!
The following night we watched a slideshow learning about how much work goes into the upkeep of this National Park and how Aboriginals were fighting with BHP not to turn this into a mining area in 1985 but rather get the World Heritage Listing and open it for tourist to see. Apparently if we were to travel to all the places which are open to tourism in Kakadu, it would take us 6 weeks. And we still would only see 1% of it! Incredible!
4.08.10
We have arrived in Darwin. The weather is still hot but at least we have a bit of breeze.
Kakadu was just sensational! Falls, falls and more spectacular falls. Our little legs got a work out and a half climbing all those steep hills, rocks and hiking paths. Some falls were over 1km away on very hard terrain so it wasn’t unusual for us to be trekking for 3-4 hrs a day. Mummy says it was good exercise for us but we are not sure about that – hard work is what we called it!
One of our most memorable days in Kakadu was an organized trip with Aboriginal People out into the bush to find some good Bush Tucker. It was so much fun! We got picked up by a little bus with no side windows (bush air conditioner) and went off to the outback. We watched the Aboriginal ladies collect some water lilies from crock infested billabongs and munched on their stems. They tasted quite refreshing the grownups said. We just thought they tasted like another veggie (cross between lettuce and celery). Betsy (our main Aboriginal guide) made us a flower necklace and a drinking straw from the remaining parts of the water lily. How clever!
Later on we had a go at digging up some fresh water mussels, water chestnuts and finding bush carrots and potatoes. We even indulged in eating some yummy green(butt) ants which tasted like crunchy lemon tarts:-).
The food was just delicious: two geese, some buffalo, barramundi and lots of little tucker veggies we found in the bush. All of this was topped off by the nicest damper we’ve ever made! (well, we helped kneed). We ate the dinner while we watched the sun set over the water lands occupied by some (soon to be) 300,000 wild geese. Simply spectacular!
On a way back, travelling in the dark, we had to stop a few times to let snakes cross the road. We even hopped out once and got close and personal with a lovely python (non venomous apparently). He was just lovely!
There were a lot of beautiful things in Kakadu, almost too many to mention. Thousands of years old Aboriginal art painted all over the rocks and caves, the magnificent waterfalls, breathtaking views of water lands and lots and lots of walking tracks.
As our cars needed to be serviced we had to finish our stay in Kakadu, what a pity!
DARWIN – 1.08.10
Now we are in Darwin. Back in civilization! One thing that sort of struck us as we entered this quite large town was that it was totally empty. Monday morning and no human to be seen. Quite strange, we though, until we discovered that Darwin is indulging in Horseracing, the Darwin Cup and as in all true Aussie traditions – this deserves a public holiday.
Our first night in Darwin we went to the famous Mindil Beach Market. Really cool! We learned how to crack the whip, mummy had a painting painted for her by a famous Aboriginal Artist and we listen to the coolest rock band, Em Didge. There were two musicians, one on the drums and the other on 4 didgeridoos – wow, that was extraordinary! We couldn’t hear much after that as we sat in the front row but boy, was it worth it! Apparently they are quite famous but because we didn’t know them, we decided to get to know them by chatting afterwards. We took some photos with Mark (the didgeroo-dude) and Xander (our friend) played on their drums. It was so much fun!
The next day we went to the Crocasaurus Park which funnily enough is built right in the middle of Darwin’s CBD in a 3 story building turned into half cave / half alfresco with massive tanks filled with blood-chilling crocodiles.
We even got to hold one! Yep, we held a crocodile! He was only an 18 months old salty but his teeth looked pretty sharp. Lucky this nice lady put a rubber band on his snout. He was so cute. His daddy was a 5.7 m. crock called Harry. Now, he is BIG! Just check out the picture above.
We also got to fish for some teenage crocks. They were very hungry and were jumping out of the water. The park staff let us into a special enclosure and let us have a couple of rods. We put meat on them and the feeding began. You should see them jumping! WOW!!! Everyone in the audience was clapping.
In the evening we went to visit some family friends, Sandra and Danny. They migrated up here a few years ago. They were so nice. They cooked us a lovely BBQ dinner and Sandra smuggled some chocolates for us (when mummy wasn’t watching). Yum, yum!
On our last day in Darwin we went to a water park with lots of slides and tubes. It was terrific. Mummy and daddy couldn’t believe that a facility like this was built and can be used without a charge. There would’ve been at least 5 staff members employed as life guards. We had a ball in there and it didn’t cost us a penny!
It turned out that one of the fellows was originally from Chirnside Park/Lilydale (old neighbour) who migrated up here 20 yeas ago. The other driver was from Tassie, just on a working holiday. We had fun talking to them.
In the evening we finally got to Skype Daddy’s brother ‘Dodo’. It was his birthday today and mummy and daddy wanted to buy a cake with a candle for him, which they did. So here we were, face painted, with birthday hats on, all our teddies and soft toys lined up (also with birthday hats on), a cocktail umbrella in a cake and of course a candle. We have no idea how he managed to blow the candle out through the computer screen, (magic perhaps) but we think Dodo was very happy we rang. We even turned around our laptop and attempted to take a photo of the whole happy family. Gotta love technology!
Ah, yeah, just before we left, we had a nice surprise in our gym bag inside a swimming towel. Guess what it was? Yep, you guessed it - a green tree froggy. He was soooo cute!
Today we are heading off back ‘into no man land’, this time to Litchfield Park. We wonder what’s in store there for us there???
14.08.10
Litchield was another one of those ‘must do’ places. We stayed there for two nights and spent every day either visiting interesting places like the Lost City or swimming in numerous rock pools and waterfalls. Bella even showed some big boys how to jump off the cliff into a rock pool – the bomb style. She got an ovation from all onlookers who couldn’t believe their eyes when Bella negotiated her way between boys hesitant to jump and just plummeted into the water – no fear attached :-)
We went to see a lot of waterfalls and beautiful gorges. We also went to see the lost city as well as visit an abandoned home which was ………One boy (one of 10 children) who lived there had pet crocodile! Wow, now, that’s a pet!
The town of Katherine was quite interesting as we got to spend half a day with an Aboriginal artist who taught us how to do cross-hatch art. We all had a go at it and are now considering selling our art for living………. (just kidding). Daddy was shown how to make a fire out of the sticks, and we all got to throw boomerangs and spears. It was so great! The whole trip was topped by our purchase of Didgeridoo and some musical sticks. Now we can sell art and sing in a band as well. We are turning into real hippies, you know!
12.08.10
We got to Timber Creek around lunch time and we headed straight to our favorite Boab Tree to give it a hug. We came here three years ago when both of us were still in nappies but certainly remember it from the photo mummy took with Jessica, Daniel and us two attempting to hug it, not even covering half of its trunk. After late lunch we went on Max’s tour. We were looking forward to this boat cruise as last time we went on it, Daniel counted 78 salty crocodiles.
The cruise was great although this time we only saw 17 crocks. There were a lot of birds too; we even watched sea eagles and kites compete for some tucker our guide threw in for them. We also learned that the Victoria River, which runs for 800 km is 40km wide at its mouth. That is a one, large mouth! As we got onto the boat, we were told that to one side of the river is a creek called ‘small horse’, and another ‘big horse’. Apparently this refers to the size of Barramundi one catches. The one over a meter being a ‘big horse’. We had a bit of a giggle about the fact that our daddy and his buddies have only
caught a few ponies thus far.
On our river cruise we met three fellows (from the Yarra Valley) who flew up to Darwin and are cycling all the way to Broome. Funny, we saw them on the way and mummy said on the UHF Radio (walkie talkie) “now, that’s how I would NOT like to travel Australia’. We all had a giggle about it but then we met them their story was quite interesting. They are cycling 1800km! And one of them, Russell from Wood End (owns a bike shop there) has previously done Melbourne-Cairns-Darwin, merely 6,000km. Is that insane or what?
At the Border, we had to dispose of all our fruits, veggies and surprisingly honey, we then wound our watches back an hour and a half and headed straight to Kunnanara where we stayed for two nights.
It was weird having the sun rise at 5 in the morning. By the time we left for our daily site seeing excursion at 9am, it felt like mid-day.
We have been doing a lot of schoolwork early in the morning. Mummy usually prepares a program for us the night before, a little bit of writing, a little bit of maths, some colouring, drawing in our journals and a reward- based geography quiz. We are getting really good at remembering towns, states and rivers.
None of the points carry forward to the next day so if we don’t reach our goal, we start again the next day. Needles to say, we think our manners have vastly improved :-)
Kunanarra is quite a nice town considering it is kind of in the middle of nowhere. It is also a gateway to the Kimberleys. During the two days of our stay there we went to see the Ord River as well as the Lake Argyle which is not only Australia’s biggest body of fresh water but it is absolutely spectacular! Apparently at normal level is 20 times the size of Sydney Harbour and at flood levels its capacity would fill S.H. almost 70 times! It sure looked big!
We also drove to Ivanhoe Crossing where we enjoyed a ‘Happy Hour’. Our parents drank some champagne (beer for daddies) and we watched people drive through the croc infested river to the other sides. The motorbikes ‘took the prize’ of insanity.
We also had a look at the Five Rivers Lookout. There was a big party preparations going on as the next day Wyndham (closest town) was hosting races. Again, as per true Aussie tradition, that deserves a huge celebration. They were expecting 1200 people up there with night entertainment. We were told that you can wear anything to the ball as long as you have thongs on. Sure sounds like a good party to us!
We didn’t stay for the party though as we were utterly eager to ‘dive’ into the Kimberleys.
15.08.10.
We have been in Kimberley’s for only three days and we are absolutely, completely in love with it!
We spent the first two nights in the famous El Questro Station a ‘tiny’ 1,000,000 acre property that is just simply jaw-dropping!
Some of the Lookouts were just spectacular. So was one of the gorges, called Explosion Gorge, apparently named after type of fishing practiced in this area (ka-boom!). To get there we had to almost crawl (in the car) over round, massive pebbles (football sized). The biggest woop-de-doos we’ve done since we left. The gorge was lovely but we couldn’t stay too long as mummy discovered crock footprints near the river so we got back into our cars pretty fast I’d say.
The next day we went to Zebedee springs, a place in the middle of palm forest where the waterfalls and rockpools’ water was at 30 degree temperature. Wow, that was nice! We even got our back massaged by warm waterfall. Who needs showers when you’ve got this?
During the day we also did a lot of walking. Emma Gorge was probably the most challenging as we climbed over rocks for over an hour and a half each way in a 35 degree day. A bit demanding on our little legs, but boy, was it worth it! The gorge was jaw dropping; it was so surreal that our parents just stood there in a ‘moment of silence’ when we arrived. 100 meter face cliffs over grown by moss and ferns, waterfall in the middle and water trickling all the way around (as if falling from the sky). Mummy said it was probably the closest one can get to fairyland.
We just took our boots off and hoped into the rock pool (which was freezing).
Around the corner though we found a little waterfall which was almost hot that trickled down to a little rock pool. We sat in it like one would sit in a bath. It was truly marvellous! We really didn’t want to leave.
At night the caravan park ran a big BBQ dinner and we ha some entertainment by the camp fire. The singer/guitar player just blew our minds out! His name is Chris Matthews and mummy says if he is not famous (no idea) he certainly should be! He had 6 different types of guitars with him and a drum called a ‘Stomp Box’. Oh boy, was he good! All grown ups were absolutely transfixed by him watching him play, especially his last 15 minute piece at a speed of a lightning (Metallica style) where he managed to break three out of 12 of his strings. It was incredible to watch – you almost felt like you had to hold your breath, it was so intense…and marvellous!
That night I (Jordi) did 2 hours of straight dancing – I was the only one doing it around the campfire right in front of the stage - which absolutely did not bother me – I am getting so good at this (mummy tells me). I’ve got the rhythm and groove going quite alright. . I just simply LOVE the music!
We didn’t get to see everything at the El Questro. Mummy and Daddy are already putting it down on their ‘must return to’ list. So many more gorges, so many lookouts. Unfortunately four months really isn’t enough when you see how much ground we still have to cover.
17.08.10
From El Questro we drove up all the way to Kalumburu stopping overnight along the Gibb River (bush camping). The corrugations were so bad (worst we came across) that we broke our water pipe and lost some water. Fortunately Matt was driving behind us and alerted us to the leaking water. All three boys (daddies) got under the van and fixed it up in no time. Xavier’s van has suffered quite a bit with cardboard doors falling off the hinges and tossing all clothes around the van. They also had a few soft drink and cordial explosions which didn’t go down too well with Matt. Also our fridges had their door shelves broken. Cath and Daryn’s van seem to chug along pretty well. 
Kalumburu is the most Northern point of Kimberleys. We stopped for three nights in a place called Honey Moon Bay, which is beautiful. We had to get permission (pay money) from the Aboriginals to stay here. Cath and Daryn came here on their honey moon 15 years ago and met a fellow by the name of Les who took them fishing. Les describes himself as an Aboriginal but he really is an Indian and used to run fishing charters. Daryn and Cath couldn’t wait to see him again.
It turned out that Les lost his fishing charter license (probably due to his colourful language) but since Daryn was his ‘long lost brother’ he took all the boys fishing anyway. Wow, you should’ve seen the fish they caught! Apparently they let 8 sharks go, including a hammer head shark, one being 7 foot big! They got trevalley, mulloway, red emperors and fingermark bream… and had an absolute ball! Xander caught the biggest fish – a massive mulloway.
During the day we also played on the beach and befriended a new pet – Sticky the stick insect. We let him go before we left though.
We left early in the morning and headed south-west (getting good with our compass). Daddy fuelled up in ‘town’ and paid $2.75 per litre of diesel – oh boy! Lucky we only needed 60 litres. We probably would’ve been OK if the corrugations didn’t split our spare roof tank and licked diesel all over the car (oops). Mitchell Falls, here we come!
We travelled just over 100km SW of Kununurra. Daryn, Cath, Jess and Dan split with us today (Cath injured her toe and couldn’t walk to the falls) – we might catch up with them in Broome in a few days.
Road to the falls we were told is extremely difficult and is 78km from the turn off. There was a camp 7km in where we set up camp for two nights. We had to leave our caravans here as they would not survive the trip. The campsite was a surprise in itself. Just a short walk from where we stayed were beautiful rock pools with running water at 25 degrees. We spent most of the day just splashing around.
This morning we headed off to the falls. The road which we were so warned about was not too bad, just corrugated. We set out thinking we will need all our recovery gear and we were almost disappointed.
When we got to the Mitchell River National Park mummy and daddy had an awesome surprise for us – they took us on a helicopter flight! Woo Hoo!!!! It was soooooo much fun! Our Grandma would’ve had a heart attack if she saw us flying so high without any doors! Yep, you read it right – no doors! Daddy was sitting in the front – he had doors, which is just as well as he had all mummy’s camera lenses on his lap and kept on swapping them for mummy. Mummy was at the back with us. She had no doors and was hanging out of the chopper taking photos. Bella was on the other side, also with no doors. It was so much fun!
The helicopter dropped us off at the top of the falls and we had to find our own way back which took us 3.5 hours. We did stop for a few splashes here and there though which was good as it was probably 35 degrees today. We even swam with a goanna.
At the end our little legs were so tired, even our parents were exhausted as we had to jump over the rocks and cross creeks while caring backpacks with water.
23.08.2010
We are a day away from Broome now. After Mitchell Falls we travelled with Xavier’s family to Mt Barnett where we spent the day de-dusting in the river. There were no crocks in there (we were told) and the nice cool water was very welcomed by our tired little bodies which were putting up with a 38 degree heat.
We had breakfast at Drysdale Station Roadhouse and finally found a phone. We have been without reception for about 10 days now and we have been missing family and friends terribly. As we only had few dollars left on our prepaid card (the only way the phone would work) we were allowed only one phone call (:-). Since Safta’s phone number is the only one we knew by heart (our mobiles were also flat so we couldn’t retrieve other numbers) we rang her but unfortunately we got the answering machine. We asked her to forward message to others that we are Ok and will ring in a few days from Broome.
The phone booth was so hilarious. It was situated inside an old fridge and even though it said it takes coins it kept swallowing all of them. Luckily mummy asked an Aboriginal fellow if she could have his expired card and renegotiated with Telstra to allow us a phone call. It only took her half an hour. Check out the booth on this photo :-)
From Drysdale Station we decided to travel separately as Liz and Matt wanted to see a few more Gorges (they didn’t do the 3.5 hr walk the other day – they flew helicopter both ways instead). Also, Liz’s parents are on a Kimberley organized tour and they wanted to catch up with them.
A few km before we pulled up at our next stop, daddy did a skid on a road when we saw an ice cream sign in the middle of absolute nowhere. Then we reversed a little and pulled up to the tackiest/rustic/interesting caravan/tin shed something or rather decorated with stuff and containing…you guessed it – some yummiest ice-creams! So many days away from civilization – ah they tasted so yummy!
We left later this morning as we caught up on some more schoolwork. Mrs Pedersen has given us so much work and we don’t want to disappoint her. We have been doing our journals almost everyday (we are onto our second book now) and we have been practicing our writing too.
This evening we pulled up at a roadhouse, called the Willare Roadhouse. It is situated exactly 166km shy of Broome, 56km past Derby, 230km from Fitzroy Crossing, some 1709km from Darwin and 2240km North of Perth (see picture below :-)). We have no idea how far we are from home but we guess it is VERY FAR! And to think that we have only been travelling just over two months! The greatest thing about such long holiday is that we have already seen so much yet there is still so much more to see!
When we had dinner at the roadhouse (it had a playground, hooray!) we bumped into our mates – the bike riders from Melbourne. They have so far travelled 1700km on bicycles and tomorrow is their last day. They are so looking forward to throwing the bikes into a corner and finally putting their feet up in Broome. Apparently they did over 220km in one day! Wow, now that’s insanity!
We also met a lady (Deborah De Williams) today who is RUNNING around Australia! Yep, you read this right – running! She is a female version of Forrest Gump daddy says. Apparently when she gets to Darwin she will have done 17,000 km and be the first women to ever get so far. She’s planning to run back home from there, just around the corner from Darwin, a little place called Hobart in Tasmania. Ouch! We bet she’ll be quite sore by then. Her incentive to run is raising funds for breast cancer (raised $169K so far) and her incentive to run back home is Guinness Book of World Records. Her hubby is driving a support vehicle while she runs – ‘That’d be right’ – said mummy when she found out about that:-).
http://www.runningpink.com.au/
27.08.10.
Oh, Broome, Broome, Broome. If this is not the closest town to heaven, we don’t know what is. We have just spent 4 glorious days in this town which is certainly not known for their brooms but rather for the most spectacular sunsets on the beach – the famous Cable Beach. We spent everyday playing in the white send, surfing the blue waves, and watching the jaw dropping sunsets. It was incredible!
We also happened to celebrate daddy’s 40th birthday there. It was his dream to crack his 40 year old bottle of Grange and have it with pizza with his friends while watching the sunset. Well, he certainly got his dream come true! We all hoped on a camel, went for a walk on the beach and on the way back they dropped us off at our 4WD convoy where all our friends (and other camel ridders) sang daddy a happy birthday song. It was so great! Then we got stuck into daddy’s birthday cake while the grown ups indulged in drinking the Grange. ‘It was a fine drop’ daddy said.
On the way back from daddies’ party we met a fellow who leaves in Broome but travels around on his Harley – like bike. His nick-name is Shroom and he is a musician. He had dreadlocks, tattoos and the most incredible dog called Tez. Tez and Shroom both ride a bike and they both wear fashionable goggles to protect them from the sun. What a site! Shroom showed us a trick how Tez can find his keys anywhere. That’s pretty handy when you are a hippy muso in Broome! What a clever dog!
Last night we watched the ‘Stairway to the Moon’ spectacular. Hundreds of people gathered on the coast to watch the moon appear from the horizon and glitter its glory over the mud flats when the tide went out. Wow, that was magnificent!
30.08.10
When one thinks this tip cannot get any better, one discovers Cape Leveque! We drove up north of Broome to a place where people who live in Broome go on holidays. If we thought that the Cable Beach was jaw dropping, we knew nothing :-)We’ve just spent the last two days (and will spend another few) in the most spectacular place yet.
We’ve been swimming in the Middle Lagoon, visiting white sand beaches, snorkelling, fishing on a boat with daddy, collecting shells with mummy and playing with a few aboriginal boys. Daniel even hooked up a seagull on his fishing rod; lucky daddy was there to save it.
31.08.10
Today we had a very interesting day. First we went to a fish hatchery in One Arm Point where we got to feed some very hungry Barramundis. We also learned lots about sea life in general by touching and playing with all sorts of gooey creatures, like sea cucumbers and sea squirts, corals, sea urchins and anemones. We also got to pet some groovy sea turtles.
We then went to a real Pearl Farm where we learned how to appreciate real pearls as there is so much work that goes into finding the little gems. We even got to hold some very special little balls (pearls) some worth as much as $4,000. I (Bella) got even to try on a very extraordinary necklace, worth only $52,000! Something totally up your alley, Nonna :-). Jordi, of course was more interested in the diving equipment then jewellery. This farm is a home to the biggest ever cultured pearl in the world, 22mm in diameter. They cannot even get a valuation on it for insurance purposes as there is nothing in the world that compares to it. Their second biggest one is 19mm in diameter and has been valued at $74,000. Expensive little balls!
The next couple of days we spent playing on the beach while our parents caught up on some sun tanning and reading books. It was such a relaxing couple of days. Yesterday we also put our dingy boat into the water and went fishing for the whole morning. It was such a great family day. Bella and I caught some Blue Bones and Spanish Flag while mummy caught a huge Bat fish, which we released as it wasn’t too good to eat. Daddy didn’t catch any fish this time (because we were using all his rods) but he helped us bring ours on board.
We even got to steer the boat which was so much fun. We are such adrenaline chicks – we love the speed!
Back to Broome
We’ve just spent another 7 glorious days in Broome. Ah, we just love Broome! How can you possibly not love waking up to a blue sky with sunshine every morning?
On our first day back we played mostly by the pool while mummy went on a photography trip with a group of photographers. She had an absolute ball learning all new photographic tricks in a landscape most photographers dream about.
Today, being Monday, mummy, Bella and I zoomed off in the morning to a ‘Zumba’ class. Zumba (if you haven’t heard of it) is a Latin American choreographed dance turned into an aerobic class. It is taking the world by storm right now and mummy just loves it! We shook our boodies out for an hour – it was so invigorating! And good exercise too.
We then spent most of the day on the beach – the Cable one of course. It is just so spectacular! Our parents hire out an umbrella and some comfy reclining chairs and they also get us a ‘bag of fun’ – lots of castle building ‘particles’, like shovels, buckets, etc.
Oh boy, we build some ‘mean’ sand-cities out of them.
We even got to steer the boat which was so much fun. We are such adrenaline chicks – we love the speed!
On the way back to Broome we stopped to help a carload of Aboriginal people who had car trouble. They stopped in the middle of the dirt road, steam coming out of the engine. We stoped to see what happened and found out that their radiator ran out of water. Daddy filled up bottles of water and helped them fix it. It was a 40 degree day, in the desert like surroundings, 4 adults and 7 children piled in a landcruiser….with no water. What’s worst, we saw at least three cars speed up past them without even a second look. Some things have not necessary changed in this country…..
6.09.10
Back to Broome
We’ve just spent another 7 glorious days in Broome. Ah, we just love Broome! How can you possibly not love waking up to a blue sky with sunshine every morning?
On our first day back we played mostly by the pool while mummy went on a photography trip with a group of photographers. She had an absolute ball learning all new photographic tricks in a landscape most photographers dream about. 
Today, being Monday, mummy, Bella and I zoomed off in the morning to a ‘Zumba’ class. Zumba (if you haven’t heard of it) is a Latin American choreographed dance turned into an aerobic class. It is taking the world by storm right now and mummy just loves it! We shook our boodies out for an hour – it was so invigorating! And good exercise too.
We then spent most of the day on the beach – the Cable one of course. It is just so spectacular! Our parents hire out an umbrella and some comfy reclining chairs and they also get us a ‘bag of fun’ – lots of castle building ‘particles’, like shovels, buckets, etc.
Oh boy, we build some ‘mean’ sand-cities out of them.
In the evening we went on an astronomy (star gazing) tour. Wow, nothing like learning about stars to humble one down. The class didn’t start till 8pm so we didn’t last till the end (10 pm) even though our parents made an exception and fed us some yummy chocolate to stay awake. We did however stayed up long enough to have a look through the most incredible telescopes we have ever seen. Greg (the bikie with passion for stars) has shown us some telescopes that ‘talk’ to the satellites in the sky and automatically rotate it to different galaxies. How cool is that???
We have learned that my favourite planet, Jupiter, could only be as far as 42 minutes away from us. That’s if we were travelling at the speed of light, of course, some 300,000km per second! We’ve also learned that the sun doesn’t really go down – it just simply disappears from the part of the sky we can see, which kind of makes sense considering we live on a ball called globe. Although the ‘sun going down’ probably sounds more romantic than the alternative…
We’ve learned a lot of things before we dozed off (so much can a little brain handle, even with an influx of chocolate) but the two other memorable things were that 1. our moon is about the size of Australia and if placed on top of Ayers Rock, it would cover the whole continent.
And 2. We have learned that there are many, many galaxies (groups of stars), one of which, the Magellan Galaxy, has 200 thousand millions stars within it. We cannot count that much but it certainly sounds like a lot! Mummy was wondering who in their right mind would sit there and count the little sparkles and when she asked that aloud Greg laughed and said ‘some bloke who has not discovered surfing’. Most of the other stuff went over our little heads but we certainly kept on wondering where Greg got those cool green lasers that he was ‘touching’ the stars with. We sure would love some of those!
9.09.2010
Today is our last day in Broome. We let Jessica’s and Xavier’s family leave without us (a couple of days ago) as we really love it here so much and weren’t really ready to leave yet. We might catch up with them later on, somewhere, somehow...
The last couple of days have been nothing short of sensational. We went on a whale watching trip where we followed one whale and its one month old calf. The baby (why do they call it a calf?) was very curious and kept on coming up to the surface, splashing and ‘puffing’. Its big mum was keeping her big eye on her little bub. Apparently a little whale drinks about 150 litres of milk a day which is of a chewing gum consistency. No wonder they grow sooooo big! We also saw a few other whales swimming around.
On the way back it was so choppy that the boat was jumping around like a wild horse and although a few fragile oldies were complaining we had an absolute ball squealing and laughing trying to encourage the speed of our ‘wild horse’. From the boat to the land we were ferried across in ‘Sealegs’, a boat which has 4WD wheels on it. It was so cool!
9.09.2010
Today is our last day in Broome. We let Jessica’s and Xavier’s family leave without us (a couple of days ago) as we really love it here so much and weren’t really ready to leave yet. We might catch up with them later on, somewhere, somehow...
The last couple of days have been nothing short of sensational. We went on a whale watching trip where we followed one whale and its one month old calf. The baby (why do they call it a calf?) was very curious and kept on coming up to the surface, splashing and ‘puffing’. Its big mum was keeping her big eye on her little bub. Apparently a little whale drinks about 150 litres of milk a day which is of a chewing gum consistency. No wonder they grow sooooo big! We also saw a few other whales swimming around.
On the way back it was so choppy that the boat was jumping around like a wild horse and although a few fragile oldies were complaining we had an absolute ball squealing and laughing trying to encourage the speed of our ‘wild horse’. From the boat to the land we were ferried across in ‘Sealegs’, a boat which has 4WD wheels on it. It was so cool!
After cooling ourselves in a local sprinkler (kind o sport for us by now) we spent the afternoon on the beach (where else?) as mummy was taking her sunset photos (again). We played a bit with the camels which were preparing for the evening ride and then we built another brilliant sand castle. The sunset was incredible! But of course, we knew it will!
A funny thing about Cable Beach is that you need to kind of stay away from the Northen part of it during the day as it is a Nudie Beach
Thursday, 9th of September, 2010
Today we went to the coolest crocodile park ever. It is owned by Malcolm Douglas. This park houses some 3000 crocodiles, 200 of which are on display. We met a cool fellow by the name of Pete who took us on a tour to show us how they feed. He even let us hold a small crocodile. We are so lucky – this is a second time on this trip that we get to do that! They are so beautiful to hold, just like big lizards but with bigger teeth.
In the park they also had lots of different Australian birds. One of them fell in love with Bella and kept on following her around the cage and dropping its head for a scratch. The barking owls were mummies favourite and daddy loved the Cassowary. Jordi of course found her own little pet hiding under the bushes, a blue tongue lizard. All in all however our biggest thumbs up were definitely for the crocks!
One interesting thing we have learned is that poking a crock in the eye while you are being mauled is nothing but a myth. The crocodile’s eyes once shut withdraw underneath its skull hence cannot be touched. Unless you are extremely quick perhaps…. A 300kg croc can also survive on 1kg of meat per week so they are pretty hardy. Also, you don’t run from crocs in a zig-zag (as some myth might suggest). If you are attacked - you run straight and fast, fast, FAST!
During lunch we visited a mango farm where everything (food-wise) is made out of mangos. And they had the coolest 4WD buggy we have ever seen. A pizza delivery in the bush? Yes, please! We even tasted a mango pizza with mango BBQ sauce. It was very, very yummy. In the evening, for our ‘last supper’ in this beautiful town we went to a really classy restaurant on Cable beach, where we had yummy lasagne, daddy had lip-smacking steak and mummy sipped “postcards from Broome’ cocktails all night. This is our last day of ‘out on the town’ experience before we get home. Hiking boots on and back to the bush tomorrow!
11.09.2010.
Fitzroy Crossing
It is 7 o’clock in the morning and we have just left Fitzroy Crossing where we have stopped to see Geikie Gorge. Mummy was so looking forward to coming here as three years ego when we flew up to Darwin and travelled in motor homes to Broome she took the most stunning photos right here. She even got a wider photo lance to improve on her best shot. Well, the gorge was still nice, but guess what? There is nothing worst than a cloud to annoy a photographer who is trying to capture water reflection which we had completely…none
We stayed in Fitzroy Crossing River Lodge Caravan Park
When we got back after our Geikie Gorge boat ride we went to visit two fellows who are riding on trike-Harleys around Australia
After that we made friends with the ‘bus people’. They have four children, two girls (6&8) and two boys (10 and 12). They are from a little town near Perth Melbourne
While we were in Fitzroy Crossing and were looking at the map we realised that we are going to be travelling back to Kununurra which is about 100 km from El Questro, a place where we went a few weeks ago which we felt we really didn’t explore enough and had it on top of our list as a place to come back to one day. Mummy and Daddy talked about it for a while and decided that it would be better to detour 100 km now rather than 5,000 km later (i.e. making a special trip from Melbourne). So we have decided to go back. The only other obstacle we had to overcome is that we were still far away (some 760 km) from both Kununurra and El Questro and tomorrow they were supposed to have Chris Matthew playing his awesome guitar. We really wanted to see him again! So what did we decided to do? Get packing and drive, drive, drive!
9 hrs later we arrived back in our beloved El Questro.
El Questro – 13.09.2010
Our detour was soooooo worth our while! We’ve just spent two days in the El Questro and it was certainly a highlight of our holiday! As we arrived through the gates we were greeted by two extremely friendly donkeys. They stuck their snouts through our open windows and gave us some kisses
Once we unhooked our caravan we drove back to Bronco’s lookout where we went last time but mummy forgot her wide-angle lance and she wanted to take a sunset shot. So we went back. And it was spectacular! As we had to wait for the sunset afterglow, we found ourselves driving back to camp in pitch black. Steep 4WD-ing and river crossings at night have certain wickedness about them – spooky but fun.
The entertainment at night was even better than we remembered it. Chris Matthews was absolutely Ace. We found out that he actually work as a ranger during the week and plays his guitar on Saturday nights. This time we only saw him break one of his string on our favourite song but he managed to retune his guitar while playing at lightning speed – the guy is a genius!
We both did not get off the dance floor all night. It really didn’t disturb us that we were the only ones dancing, although we got a few older girls and two boys join us for a country boogie. One fellow even got to his knees to dance with us. Yeeha!
Chris thanked us for beautiful dancing when he finished and got everyone to give us a round of applause. He also told us that we could be his back-up dancers anytime!
During the show, the resident Aboriginal ranger – famous Buddy Tyson – made a speech and told us some very funny jokes. He also introduced El Questro’s new manager who he called a ‘Malaga
Buddy loved our dancing so much that he bought us an ice cream. He said that he never got married and never had kids but if he did he would’ve liked them to be as happy as us two. Mummy wasn’t too ‘crush hot’ on us having an ice cream at 11 o’clock at night. She told Buddy she’ll send us to his room for the night so we can bounce off his walls all night. He just laughed!
15.09.2010
South Melbourne in the 60s but because back then they didn’t pay them much he become an artist.
We ‘paid’ dearly for our stay-up-late the next morning when mummy walk us up at 6:30 am and put our hiking boots on. ‘El Questro Gorge, here we come’ she said as we marched on still rubbing our eyes. But wow, that was so worth waking up to - what a beautiful walk that was! We walked by the red cliffs through a forest of palm trees, hopped over crystal clear creeks where we would scoop up some water to drink when we got thirsty. ‘Ah, how’s the serenity?’ said daddy as we hopped into the swimming hole for a dip.
Lucky we did this walk in the morning as by the time we got back (around 11am) it was already 42 degrees! Mummy hoped on a helicopter (one of the reasons why we came back) and did a 20 minute flight over the property. She got a few nice pictures worth ‘writing home about’. The greenery you see in one of them is the actual homestead where people can come and stay for $1,800 a night. Mummy said we can come back and stay there as soon as we pick up our Lear Jet (lol).
After lunch we picked up our free ice creams (which the manager put aside for us as well for great dancing last night) and then we hired a boat and went cruising down the Chamberlain Gorge. It was so spectacular that mummy’s camera shutter did not get a rest.
Dinner at their restaurant was also very yummy although mummy didn’t let us have desert which is lucky because somehow we didn’t make it that far – we fell asleep in our parents’ arms half way through the main course.
We were so glad we returned to El Questro. Missing out on all the things we have done in the last two days would have been a shame. As we drove off the friendly donkeys stuck their heads into our car through the window and gave us kisses goodbye. We gave it a nice pet and said ‘that’ll do donkey, that’ll do’.
15.09.2010
When we left El Questro we headed for Kununurra as mummy needed to get reception to check her emails and messages for work. On the way there we stoped in the coolest gallery called the Zebra Rock. Approx 35km south of Kununurra there is a famous mountain range where the rock looks like zebra – it has the most amazing stripes on it. Apparently this is the only place in the world where you can find this kind of rock. This gallery specialised in producing all sorts of wonderful things out of that rock.
We went at the back to the actual workshop where we met big Chris who showed us how they make balls out of a rock. It was quite amazing. It takes a machine two days of grinding in sandpaper and water o make them nice and smooth.
We also met an artist there who is originally from Bacchus Marsh who comes up there every year to buy rock and paint the most beautiful birds on them. We even bought mummy one of them but we cannot show you the picture till her birthday (23rd) as it is shhh – a surprise. We will post a photo of it after she gets it. The artist, M. Johnson aka ‘Johno’ used to play for
At the Zebra Gallery they also let us feed their fish in the river. A nice lady gave us some old scones and we went to the Jetty. Boy, did we have fun there! There were hundreds of catfish which were extremely hungry and big. They were jumping out of water to get their piece of scone. It was so cool!
We have decided that we couldn’t possibly go home without seeing the Bungle Bungles. One way of seeing them would be from air as most people opt for however we have heard from a few people along the way that walking through the Bungles is an absolute must. Apparently they do not recommend taking caravans into the Bungles hence we dropped our van at one of the roadhouses, packed up the tent and decided to rough it for a couple of nights.
We were told that the Bungles are usually hotter during the day and cooler during the night and so our parents were a bit concerned when the night before we entered the Bungles the thermometer located in the shaded area of the roadhouse was still showing 38 degrees at 5:30 pm (which is half an hour AFTER the sunset here!). Oh boy, we gonna be hot!
It is incredible that the more places we go to we always say that one coul
d not possibly top what we have already seen… but then there is the next wow factor! Bungles have certainly provided the next jaw dropping experience for us. The maze of striped majestic beehive like domes which soar up to 250 meters (80 story buidings) are just the beginning. Those who fly over the Bungles but not walk through them have so missed out.
Upon our arrival at the Camp (2hrs of dirt road off the main road), we all chipped in to set up our camp. As we didn’t have our air –conditioner with us we have decided to not worry about our fly cover so that we can sleep with some night breeze. We did however put our beach shade over the tent to keep it a bit shady. The camping area although very rustic was very well equipped. We had a bench next to our tent, a toilet, bore water as well as a BBQ and well stocked fire pit. Not exactly roughing it, is it?
Once all was set up we took off for a day of adventure. First thing on our agenda was the Cathedral Gorge. It was a 3 km return moderate (for grown-ups) walk, with some short, steep slopes and narrow ledges. The walk itself was beautiful and as usual we took turns in being the ‘tour leaders’. Not sure if we mentioned this before but our parents worked out that the minute they appoint one of us the tour leader we suddenly get a second wind and march on like there is no tomorrow. Hence every walk we take we lead our family group learning leadership and scout like navigation. We also announce when it is time for a photo break (we stop and pose) or water break (we drink from our handy water backpacks).
because we were conscious of the sunset we needed to get back to the car before it got dark. Once we started getting close to our car we saw a huge cloud in a distance which looked pretty mean. We still had at least half an hour drive before we got back to camp. We saw rain in the distance and were hoping it would get around our camp site and our oh –so- exposed tent. The lightning had started and the whole sky was getting meaner by the minute. Daddy drove at the speed of lightning chasing the storm which by then definitely decided to invade our campsite. The droplets were already splashing against the windscreen when mummy and daddy jumped out, grabbed the fly screen (top layer of the tent), covered the tent and then….….got bucketed on. They were absolutely drenched within seconds. We thought it was hilarious that we have not seen a droplet for over 3 months now and the day we decided to camp – we got sopping wet.
It continued to rain all night. The lightning was spectacular and the sounds a bit scary. Mummy explained to us that when clouds bump into each other we see the lightning and soon after we hear one cloud saying ‘pardon me’ to the other one for bumping it. Every time we saw a flash we would listen out to see if the clouds had manners. Once we heard the noise we would just giggle and say ‘good manners, mate!’
We walk up at 6 the next morning, looked up at the sky and it was perfectly blue as if to say ‘what ya talking about, wasn’t me! You must’ve dreamed up those storms!’
We put our hiking boots on again, grabbed some nutria-grain for breakfast in a zip lock bag, bottle of water in the other hand and we drove to our next adventure: the mini palms walk. This walk was a bit more challenging as I was a 5km return walk. It started as a beautiful pebble walk but then it got harder and harder as steep slopes and large blocks of fallen rock had to be negotiated by our little legs.
Mummy was just in love with the beautiful pebbles we were walking on. Even big rocks around us were all covered in the most beautiful collage of colourful pebbles. The pebbly dry creek beds lead to high cliffs, reaching s vortex of palm gardens. The palms have chosen to live on the cliffs as it protects them form floods and fires. Smart little cookies, those palms!
The last 500 meters we were both totally exhausted and kept asking ’are we there yet?’. When we got back to the car we discovered that our parents had planned another two smaller walks for us today. And so we went on strike. Daddy ended up going on the second walk by himself and mummy stayed with us for early lunch and some well deserved rest. This is a picture daddy took from the Echidna Gorge where two massive walls are separated by three meter gap. At midday each day the sun shines directly into the gap – it is breathtaking. Have a look how little people look in this picture.
When daddy got back we were given a choice: either go for another walk and stay in tent for another night or go back to pick up our van and move on. We really liked here and were hoping to do a concert for our parents tonight by the fire (mummy even bought face paints for the corroboree we planned) hence the unanimous decision was to go for another walk. Oh boy, we got totally talked into another 3 km walk to a look out and another 500m one to another one. By the time we finished we were dragging our feet like they weigh a ton each. 8.5 km pebble walk is probably a bit too much for our little legs, we’ve decided.
At camp though after a little snooze in the car we got our second wind and started to get ready for our corroboree Aboriginal concert). Unfortunately on the way to the camp we saw a sign put up by the ranger that they have decided it will be a fire ban tonight as the wind started picking up again – that didn’t go down that well as the fire was part of our plan – we were so looking forward to it. But never – mind, we took our paints out and started with painting mummy’s arms and face and then got her to paint some Aboriginal marks and animal on us. They looked pretty cool! Needless to say the concert was a hit!
As soon as we finished and mummy scrubbed us down it started pouring again and didn’t stop all night. Daddy set up mummy’s lap top in the tent and we watched 'Shrek the Third' which was very funny. We left the next morning at 7:30m.
1.09.10
Due to the unexpected rains we decided to change our plans as to which road to take back home. Our initial idea was to take a short cut through
Duncan Roadwhich is a dirt road that would have saved us a day of travelling. However if we were caught up there in rain it could’ve been a bit dangerous travelling solo with a 2 ton caravan behind us. Hence mummy and daddy decided that we will go back through Kununurra and Katherine again. Black top (main road) all the way although it also meant a few of 500-600km days on the road for us now.
Duncan Roadwhich is a dirt road that would have saved us a day of travelling. However if we were caught up there in rain it could’ve been a bit dangerous travelling solo with a 2 ton caravan behind us. Hence mummy and daddy decided that we will go back through Kununurra and Katherine again. Black top (main road) all the way although it also meant a few of 500-600km days on the road for us now.
This detour allowed us to go back to Mataranka where we indulged in hot spring pools again. Mummy said to enjoy it as it will get colder from now on due to the fact that we were to travel over 1000km in the following two days. And from what we were hearing, it was 13 degrees in Alice
Before we got back to our van from the Mataranka pools we checked out the real house which was built specifically to film “We of the Never, Never” It was quite beautiful. They even had all he clothes the actors wore in the movie.
After finishing some homework in the afternoon, we all took turns in playing the didgeridoo. It was so much fun! I think (Jordi) I am getting quite good at it, really.
19.09.10
Tennant Creek
We don’t care what people say about this town (rough and all that) - we had the best time here. First we visited an old telegraph station and learned how in the olden days people used to communicate though a Morse code by ‘taping machines’ up the long telegraph poles. Qute amazing, really. After listening to our parents explain this, we looked at them in disbelieve and asked “you mean they didn’t have skype?”
We then went to play at the Mary Ann Lake
We have learned later that these activities were run by missionaries from the ‘Latter Day Saints’ and the two grown up boys who were so much fun were doing this for two years changing their post every 6 weeks. One was from Brisbane (from Tonga near NZ - originally) and the other one from Texas
We had lots of fun with them and the kids as well. They even invited us to stay for tea but we didn’t want to impose. We left with teary eyes, waving back to 20 black smiley faces, all cheerfully waving to us and wishing us save travels. Oh, we wished we could’ve stayed longer with them. Unfortunately mummy didn’t take any picture of us playing with our new friends because she said it would’ve been disrespectful.
Below however is my visual impression of our wonderful day.
We left Tennant Creek this morning at 4:30 am! Ouch! This would’ve been 3am in WA a few days ago. Mummy really wanted to take some shots (photos) of Devil Marbles at sunrise and unfortunately ‘the devil’ through them 113 km south of Tennant Creek. Mummy spoke to us about it last night and we both decided that we will do this for her; we will get up in the ‘middle of the night’ and continue our sleep in the car.
The Devil’s Marbles were fantastic! Those impressive boulders laid scattered, precariously balanced on top of the other. And at sunrise, they were simply spectacular! We tried pushing them off but they were pretty much stuck. Perhaps we weren’t that strong this morning as this is the first morning in the last three and a half months when it was just…freezing! Waking up to high 20s every morning got us spoilt a bit and so the 10 degrees this morning didn’t go down well at all! In fact Bella requested that we go back to live in Broome. Hmmm, now there is a thought!
After the Marbles we continue our journey to Alice Springs , a 560 km drive. On the way there we stoped in a few places to stretch our little legs. One interesting place that caught our attention was Wycliffe, a place where apparently they have had visitors from outer space. There were numerous newspaper clippings in the pub talking about residents witnessing strange lights of UFO for 28 days straight! Every night they would appear and hang or zig-zag through the sky.
We looked around but didn’t see any UFOs but we did however marvelled at their pride and worship of those strange looking aliens all around their little town. They were obviously very proud of being ‘the chosen ones’
We later stopped in a little place called Aileron where someone built massive statues of Aboriginal family. Look at the picture below and their size compared to us. Massive, huh?
Because it was Sunday morning and everything was still shut we never found out who built them.
We later stopped in a little place called Aileron where someone built massive statues of Aboriginal family. Look at the picture below and their size compared to us. Massive, huh?
Because it was Sunday morning and everything was still shut we never found out who built them.
22. 09. 2010.
We’ve just spent 3 wonderful days in Alice Springs where we did lots of fun things.
We first went to check out the School of The Air
In the older times when they only had radios the teachers would communicate through a radio. Nowadays, they receive all their work via email, they have scanners and they have an hour of interaction with their teacher on the computer every day (Mon-Fri). All equipment is supplied and maintained by the government at a cost of $15,000 per child.
The teachers come to visit the student once a year (teacher travels up to 22,000 km) and all students gather in Alice Springs for a week 3 times a year.
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Just to see the comparison we checked out the Alice Springs Telegraph Station which was much, much larger than the one we saw in Tennant Creek. This one at one stage was housing 400 people. It was a town in itself. We’ve met a lovely Aboriginal fellow/ guide there by the name of Alec who had been taken away from his parents at the age of 4 and lived on that station as a child (the stolen generation). It was incredible listening to his story although we didn’t stay with him too long because we realised that we had accidentally joined a private American tour. We tried blending in but we kind of stood out from the 65+ Yankies especially when Bella was putting her hand up and asking questions J
As mortified as we were at the thought that someone would take a child away from the parents someone told us that Alec thinks it was the best thing that happened to him as he had asthma as a child and he would’ve died had he stayed. He got educated and now he works there as a guide. Still the idea of being taken away made us hold on to our parents hands all day.
The next day, we hit the road again. We left our caravan at the designated park and we wondered off to the West Macdonnell Ranges
First we went to Simpson’s Gap which was a small 20 minute return walk. It had a lovely path built on the side of a river filled with beautiful gumtrees (which we climbed of course). The actual gap was a break between two rocky mountains giving way to the river which in wet season would no doubt get wide and rapid. I was a beautiful walk and quite a refreshing contrast to our last 8.5 km walks trough the Bungles.
We then went to the Standley Chasm where we waited till midday for the sun to light up both sides of the narrow cleft making it blazing red.
We then drove to the spectacular Ochre Pits. For generations, the desert Aboriginal people have used this place for mine for ochre to use for their paints in art and ceremonial body decoration as well as medicine. It was so colourful. No wonder their art is so beautiful!
In the afternoon we went to the Ormiston Gorge where after climbing a small mountain and what felt like hundreds of steps we got to the top to appreciate the most spectacular view in the Macdonnell Ranges (or so the guide book claims). It was fantastic!
Some places were closed off to tourists as they had quite a bit of rain a few days earlier (when our travelling buddies were here). It was so rainy that we even met a bikie at the UFO town who decided to turn around and go to Perth via Broome instead of Alice Springs . We got back as it was getting dark, splashing through the small rivers of water which had stopped small vehicles. With our high clearance, for us it was nothing but fun!
We decided to stay extra night in Alice
We were also thrilled to discover that Kirra’s (from Jordi’s class) brother – Cobi - was up here on holidays. He is Daniel’s best friend and he was disappointed that Daniel had left earlier. But we had lots of fun with him anyway.
After lunch we went to town and found a didgeridoo workshop where Andrew Langford who was to perform that night spend half an hour teaching us how o play the Didge. Oh, we are so getting hooked on the sound! During the workshop which about 30 people attended everybody was turning heads when Jordi started to play. Such a little girl, such a beautiful sound!
Mummy and Daddy made an executive decision to purchase one of Andrew’s Didgeridoos. Oh, we so can’t wait to get our hands on that tube!
After the workshop we had some tea and came back to the actual performance which was just fantastic! Andrew even got daddy to get up on stage and ‘jam’ with him. Daddy was so good among all those musicians (there were two drummers there too) – we were very proud of him!
I (Jordi) got called up next, and once I re-tuned the didge (i.e. made a few funny blows) I blew my parents minds with the sound. Everybody clapped and I was very proud of myself (if I may say so). Andrew even played with me for a while.
In the second part of the performance everybody got given instruments, shakers, stick, drum and we all got to jam together, with a main star on the stage…our daddy!
It was Ace!
Poor little Bella didn’t make it to the drumming section. As everybody made incredible noise she soundly…slept through it.
23.09.2010.
ULURU, HERE WE COME!
Yesterday we left Alice Springs and drove to Uluru, some 450km away. When we finally saw it in a distance, we quoted Donkey from Shrek ‘That’s a nice boulder, oh I like that boulder! It is huge! The great natural wonder, the sandstone monolith which sits 348 meters above ground has certainly not disappointed us. It is enormous!
Since we decided to spend two nights here and it was already past lunch time when we arrived, we decided to go visit Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) first and leave Uluru (Ayers Rock) for the dessert. And guess who we saw on the way there? Yep, our travelling buddies, Jess, Daniel, Clem, Xavier and Xander! This was their last day here but it was great to catch up and compare notes.
The Olgas were just spectacular! They are actually taller than Uluru by some 200 meters and there are 36 of those rock domes, which are estimated to be 500 million years old! We went for a 2km walk up the Olgas and then found a cosy spot in between 100s of Japs. to take sunset shots. We were patiently waiting for the sun to drop when suddenly there was a ‘wow’ voices … We looked up and saw a full moon peaking from behind the rocks. It looked quite beautiful! Mummy captured it on camera of course. Out of hundreds of people, we were the last ones to leave the viewing platform. Mummy always shakes her head when people leave after the sunset instead of waiting for the afterglow which usually happens after most people leave. Here are a couple of shots to prove the point.
The next morning was Mummy’s birthday. We made her some lovely cards and gave her our presents, a beautiful eagle painted on a ‘zebra rock’ which Gary Johnson did for us (we can show you a picture now. We also gave mummy lovely ‘dream catchers which we did for her when she did her photography course in Broome. We met those boys by the pool who were making them and they taught us how to make our own. Mummy was just wrapped. Now she can catch all of her lovely dreams!
After we said goodbye to our travelling buddies again, we went to the Cultural Centre of Uluru. There we have learned that Aboriginal people really don’t want anyone climbing Ayers Rock as it is their secret land. It did make our decision easier not to climb, mind you the climb has been shut for the last 10 days due to winds. When we got up to the rock we realised how steep the climb actually is. The initial ‘chicken rock’ is on about 70 degree angle with chains to help you up. No wonder this rock has already claimed 35 lives.
Our mummy did this climb on her 18th birthday and she liked Uluru so much she wanted to spend her birthday here again. Her 21st we think J
We had a great day. We went for a couple of walks and did a ‘dot painting’ class, although I (Jordi) opted for modern abstract instead of dots. After ‘spilling’ half a can of paint on my canvas I claimed it to be an air shot of Ayers Rock. Everyone tough it was quite clever.
Needless to say Mummy’s camera did not get much rest today.
In the evening we went to the sunset viewing area where mummy caught ‘many moods of Uluru’.
26 09 2010 – Kings Canyon
It seems that there are so many places in Australia Kings Canyon
The property of 800,000 acres is a camel working farm and is located some 30 km short of the Canyon. The station has a huge population of wild camels which they catch and export back to countries which they originally came from, Afghanistan , Pakistan and Egypt
As we arrived we were greeted by three gorgeous baby camels which we played with for a long time as they were so cute and affectionate. We gave them hay and they followed us around like puppies.
After setting up our camp we threw our water back packs on and opened the gate to exploring the balance of this massive property. It was brilliant! Some 10 days ago this area has experienced something quite unusual, in fact something that has not been seen for almost 15 years – the rain! We were lucky enough to see it transformed from dusty red to green with patches of wildflowers. As we stood by the dam we watched finches (beautiful birds) bath in the water and then chase each other on the carpets of wild flowers. What a site!
We then ventured off looking for what we came here for – the wild camels. As the temperatures starting to soar to mid 30s again we had to be conscious of not getting lost. We soon came across the tracs of camel hoofs and started to follow them. It took us less then half an hour to find a herd of beautiful looking beasts. Initially we were very weary of those big animals but we soon discovered that they were as curious as us and allowed us to come up pretty close to them before they slowly turned around and walked off in a slow pace. They really came across as gentle giants.
After our walk, as we came in to the shop to ‘collect’ our ice cream for good behaviour we met chef who came out and gave us a honey ant on a plate, still alive and encouraged us to have a taste. Daddy was the first one to try it and when he approved we tasted the yummy honey too. And mummy…well she took the pictures J
person we think we ever met. Leroy works here as a camel handler (runs camel rides) and he told us about the history of this Station which was quite fascinating. In fact we have never heard anyone explain history in such an entertaining way, boy he would make an awesome teacher at school; he had kids amused and adults in stitches while everybody was learning. We learned about camels and how these creatures found their way to our country. Leroy dressed himself up as a ‘Cameleer’, a fanny Pakistani and explained how his uncles and cousins got recruited to come to Australia
During the night we also watched a documentary about the owner, Ian Conway, who is a self made man part white part black who struggled through life and only made his money in the last 10 years. What’s interesting though is that most of his money is going back into a trust which he set up to Aboriginal kids. He is currently schooling children from the most poverty stricken families which he pays $40,000 a year per child to house and school in a private school in Adelaide
When the show finished, we went outside, set by the camp fire Leroy’s wife, Jen prepared, and while munching on sweet damper and billy-cooked tea we listen to Leroy’s stories and poems. Leroy, we found, worked for 16 years as a tour coach driver taking tourists across the North and he certainly has the gift of the gab. What made this campfire even more special was that we had camels wondering through the camp and one could just go up to them and give them a friendly pat.
The next morning, we tackled the Kings Canyon Alice Springs so it was great to catch up on our ‘kids stuff’.
For lunch we went to the Kings Canyon
27.09.2010 Coober Pedy
Now, Coober Pedy was an interesting place. As we arrived in town we were ‘greeted’ by thousands of mountains of soil, sort of like miniature pyramids with a wire fence all around it. There were signs everywhere asking not to go past the fence as there were shafts up to 30 meter deep everywhere. We found out later that people prospecting are not required to fill the holes after they are done with them hence the place looks a bit like a city scape or like one big damp site depending how creatively you look at it.
The town itself although more developed than what mummy and daddy remember it from years ago; it still is a hot, unsightly dust ball. Our caravan park which was pleasantly called “Oasis’ did not have a blade of grass and our allocated space was no bigger than a car spot on concrete ground under a shade cloth. This was a ‘Big Four’ caravan park which usually means he best one in town. Oh boy, not a good start.
The good news was that we caught up with our travelling buddies and enjoyed yummy dinner together (mind you we did wait for it for over an hour by which time we were ready to chew the leg off the table). They left the next morning and we went on an organized tour around town. First we visited a Serbian Church
The bus driver took us to the town’s golf course, which apparently made it to the 7th most interesting golf courses in the world. Check out the picture below and just imagine what the other 6 look like. The black spot is the golfer’s ‘green’ which is achieved by pouring used engine oil on it. How environmentally friendly! (not)
We then went to an underground cinema where we watched award winning documentary on how the Opal was discovered. After all, Coober Pedy is the Opal Capital of the world. After the show they walked us through a typical ‘modern’ home which looked like a normal home but had drawn curtains over non-existent windows.
We walked through a mine and into a gallery/shop where mummy and daddy marvelled over beautiful jewellery. Mummy said that watching the documentary made her appreciate opals more than she did before.
We went for a stroll down the street and went to a place where they have a Joey (baby kangaroo) orphanage. We got to hold little joeys there which was great and would’ve been a beautiful experience had it not been for one of the owners, a grumpy old woman who got on our case for being late for the ‘show’. Cut the long story short, we didn’t stay too long. Meeting nice people in the morning who gave us some toys and free ‘opal treasure stones’ was quite overshadowed by the rudeness of the grumpy old troll. We packed our van and decided to ‘hit the road’ leaving the dust ball behind. On the way out of town we met a few people who had similar experiences in town (people being rude). Mum says that living in the ‘rabbit burrows’ must have taken the toll on peoples attitudes. ‘Luck of vitamin D’, she says.
29th September 2010
Yesterday we celebrated Bella’s 5th Birthday. Mummy and Daddy decided that we need to be somewhere special for it so we diverted to Broken Hill which is located about 800km SE from dusty Coober Pedy, just over the border in NSW. Needless to say we drove for almost a day and a half straight only with a short break for sleep. We were both asleep when we pulled up at a side stop (it was past midnight) but when we woke up in the morning we were greeted by an awesome site – greenery and wild flowers. Oh, how beautiful it was. The hills in the distance suddenly reminded us of our home and even though we were driving through the Flinders Ranges the hills looked like the Yarra Valley
Bella had even a better start to the morning as she woke up to dozens of balloons all over our caravan and lots of little pressies. All for her. She was so happy!
Broken Hill is a very lovely town and because we were only staying here 1 night (afternoon and tomorrow morning), we wanted to see as much as possible. However, being Bella’s birthday, chocolate factory trumped all other sightseeing places. We went to the Silver City Mint where they had the most amazing display of art, silver jewellery (for sale) and some yummy chocolate! They also had a display of the biggest canvas picture in the world. As you enter the gallery you see a massive picture from wall to wall and as you get closer to it in awe of its beauty you see a sign that says ‘this is not the biggest picture, the big one is 33 times bogger!. Wow, we wanted to see it. And we did! The whole massive building was purpose built to house this beauty. It was 12 meters hight and 100 meters long!!! As you enter the room you walk under a pergola and all the way around you (almost 360 degrees) is a stunning painting by Peter Anderson which simply takes your breath away. The landscape of the outback is complemented by sculptures of animals and real plants growing out of sand. Unreal! Unfortunately we weren’t allowed to take pictures (although mummy was very tempted) so you’ll have to duck up there to see it yourself.
Once geared up with bags of chocolate we drove 25 km out of town to the famous Silverton. We met a lovely artist there by the name of John Dynon and his family. As mummy marvelled over his and his friend’s Peter Brown e’s artwork, we got invited next door to the artist’s private backyard and played with his son, Brandon. He had the coolest car in there which once belonged to his pop and his dad covered it with beer lids to look like art. We asked daddy if we could do that to his truck but he said ‘no’.
From the gallery we went to a Mad Max museum which houses bunch of funky cars which were used in filming Mad Max. We’ve never seen this movie but mummy said the actor, Mel Gibson, is one of her favourite movie stars. The cars were cool, the outfits a bit scary.
Our next stop was the Silverton Pub. Because this area has been used by a lot of film directors the pub has become quite well known. We were hoping to get some tea over there but found out that the most elaborate meal we can get from there is a hot dog. So hot dog it was (quite yummy actually). We left just before the sunset and drove up to the lookout where the plain is so large that one can actually see the curve of the globe. Apparently there are only a few places in the world where one can experience this phenomenon. Silverton is one of them. Mummy made a beautiful cake for Bella and we sang her happy birthday (with lots of other strangers) as we watch the sun drop below the horizon. It was quite beautiful and special but we almost froze in the process. What happened to our 38 degree nights???
The next morning we went out for breakfast to a pub which had a large playground. We then went to an old mining museum part of which had a huge collection of old dolls and teddy bears. They were so cute and old and…touchable. Fancy bringing kids like us in here, showing us all those gorgeous toys and saying ‘don’t touch them’. An oxymoron, really J.
Or last stop was to grab some lunch and a milkshake at the famous Bell Milk Bar where everything has been converted back to the 1950s staring from the décor, through to menu (old style spiders) and finally to the hairstyle of the lady who served us. Looks like people form the 50s had a lot of fun too.
At the back of their milk bar cafe they had a display of old things including a massive movie projector, roller skates and an adding machine (i.e. calculator) which would take up half of your desk. It was so heavy we couldn’t even lift it (not that we touched it or anything)…
We left Broken Hill about 2 pm and headed south. We are getting very excited about catching up with family and friends. On the way (today and last couple of days) we saw a lot of wild animals, like lots of kangaroos, brumbies, emus with baby chicks and the biggest eagles we have ever seen. One which was attending to road-kill on the side of the road only took off seconds before we drove past and its wings covered almost our whole windscreen. It was huge! And there were hundreds of birds including colourful parrots.
The birds seem to be a bit cleverer down south as they keep good distance from the cars. The silliest birds we came across were up near Alice Springs . Hundreds of beautiful budgies were feeding on flowers by the side of the roads and would take off just before a car would go pass them….straight into it. We were lucky we didn’t see it happening (mummy just told us) but our parents were totally heart broken to see beautiful birds (which you don’t see until you get close to them) kamikaze straight into our car. Our grandma Safta would be horrified to see it as she breeds those beautiful birds. We did try to drive at crawling speed though so most managed to avoid us. Mummy says the birds never got a chance to learn road etiquette as that part of Australia
By the time we got to sunset we were on the boarder of NSW and VIC. There was a crowded caravan park just before Mildura on the left, beautiful Murray River and forest on the right. In a distance we spotted a caravan parked in the forest. “They’ve got the right idea’ said dad and turned into the forest. We drove up to the other caravan and asked them if they mind if we join them. We had lots of firewood staked on top of the roof and so we offered to make a fire. They said, sure and it turned out they were one of the nicest people we’ve met.
Ma and Pa Woody are from Broken Hill and are travelling for fun. They retired at the age of 47 after running a hotel with restaurant and reception centre. They have been holidaying ever since. They backpacked through most of the countries in the world and now are just touring Australia
After we went to bed, mummy and daddy stayed up till after midnight drinking wine and listening to their fascinating stories of travels around the world. We said goodbye to our new friends this morning and decided we might even be able to get home by tonight. It is only 600 km from here. With over 23,000 kilometres on the clock already, what’s another 600km? It’s like: ‘just around the corner’.
And then we got home, to our beautiful Yarra Valley.
Home, Sweet Home!
THE END
