Our bush camp at Robin Falls

Another tip from travellers brought us to Robin Falls. There were had our own little camping spot in the wild bush. A tiny river was running next to it, we could use the water for washing our dishes. The afternoon we arrived and the next morning we walked/climbed to the nearby waterfall and took some pictures there.

Kombi’s anniversary of 66.666 kilometres

At the end of the dirt road from Douglas Hot Springs our kombi had a “Schnapszahl” anniversary: 66.666 kms. We took a photo to prove that we have made about 8.398 kms in the two months of travelling from Sydney up the East coast and through the outback. On our way to Darwin we counted: 181 other kombis, 137 dead kangaroos, 27 dead cows, 2 dead wombats and 1 dead snake. Most of the dead animals are victims of the huge road trains. They don’t even realise running over four cows at once because of their construction and their huge bull bar. We were told that they have to speed up if there is an animal in front of them because then the animal just gets hit and flies to the side and doesn’t get underneath the road train.

Bitter Springs and termite mound in Mataranka

From some other travellers and some locals we got the tip not to bother with the main hot springs in Mataranka. Instead they advised us to visit the Bitter Springs there. As you can see on the photo the water was sooooooooo clear and beautiful coloured. Unfortunately the water temperature (34 celsius) was a little bit too high!
On our way through the outback we saw heaps of termite mounds, in small areas the ground was covered with them. Mostly they were pretty small but near Mataranka and Katherine they grew bigger and bigger. They nearly were three times bigger than Dirk.

Outback impressions

Our trip over 3000 km through the Outback was a journey with a lot of different landscapes and a big empty country. Sometimes we drove an hour without seeing another car or human being even we always used sealed main roads!
We started doing stupid games during the drive because we really got a little bored. We guessed what kind of car (caravan, road train, jeep etc.), street sign (grid, crest, curve etc.) was coming next. Or we tried to guess how bad the next grid (grids are on the street to stop animals like cows to cross to another area, because the don’t use many fences) should be, …we gave notes from 1 to 10 and really had some bad ones on our way.
Except from driving nearly the whole day, getting expensive petrol, cooking and sleeping wasn’t a lot to do, really strange. But seeing all the different styles of landscape, the beautiful sky full of stars (they were all the way to the bottom and so many falling stars) and some wildlife (cows, kangaroos, but mostly birds that we are not that interested in;-)!) was a great experience.

Passing the border to the Northern Territory

The border to the Northern Territory was unspectacular, Dirk even drove by without realising the first time. Silke had to tell Dirk about the boarder and we drove back to the welcome sign. The time zone changed 30 minutes (how funny is that they are doing 30 and even 15 minutes of time changes here!) and the landscapes looked even more basic (less trees and other green plants). We found a rest area just about 60 kms after the boarder, there were heaps of really annoying flies around. They loved to fly to your mouth, nose, ears and eyes – how annoying! At our first night we met some travellers from Mount Isa again, and we spend the evening with them, …drinking wine together, chatting etc. Sebastian was one German guy and Yanni an English one…. Silke even knows the same people from Kempten like Sebastian. Again a small world ;-)!

Mount Isa “big smoky city” in the outback

Mount Isa is one (maybe the only one) of the “big” cities in the Outback. The population of 20.000 people is compared to the thousands of kilometres around huge.
There we got for the first time after our start from Cairns mobile phone reception, …a great moment ;-)! As well we got some pizza, found a laundry and an internet cafe. We visited a little exhibition about the flying doctors, an organization founded in 1928. They fly through the outback and the little islands all over Australia and do medical care in cities with sometimes only two habitants. Very interesting! We tried to go out and find some interesting places in the city but there were only member clubs and they had a really strange crowd in our eyes that we left after only five minutes to better go to bed early.
The next day we did a mine tour, we even had to wear some mine cloth including a safety head and boots. As you can imagine it looked quite funny. Mount Isa is famous for its mining because their mine is the biggest mine of Australia and maybe the world. They get four different material from the mine: silver, zinc, copper and something else. Unbelievable and fascinating to hear all the stories from a local guy who used to work over 30 years in this mine. And he also showed us some of the mine cars, hey, they were really loud down there.

Our outback impressions: sunset at Karumba, one-lane streets and old kombi van

Our outback impressions: sunset at Karumba, one-lane streets and old kombi van
The streets and the landscape got more and more wild. The trees, ground, stones, animals etc. are very different all the way. Unfortunately we have already seen many dead kangaroos and other animals beside or even on the roads. In Cairns we got some kangaroo whistles to put on our kombi. With the wind going through they make a noise that only the kangaroos hear and that should warn them that a car is coming. Some people already told us that they really have an effect:-).
After some kms through the outback we reached the beach at Karumba – just to realise that it is impossible to swim in the ocean and also in the surrounding lakes because of crocodiles everywhere. Anyway we had a nice evening in the Sunset Tavern to watch the sunset there and have some nice seafood.

Socializing with locals in Hotel Mount Garnet

After getting some fuel at a service station in Mount Garnet we followed on with our journey through the outback. 55 kms later we made a stop because our oil lamp was flashing. We checked the contact at the engine and realised that we had left our fuel lid at the service station in Mount Garnet – so we had to drive back to get it :-(!
When we got the fuel lid it was already after dawn so we decided to stay the night in Mount Garnet (a nice little town). We found a parking spot and went to drink a beer in the local pub. There we met heaps of Aussies who started buying us more and more drinks. Dirk started dancing, Silke found an Aussie who wanted to marry her etc.;-) We had cowboys, shit on grass, black and clear sambuca and some other drinks. Dirk could not stop and had a bad hangover the next day…
The following morning we had to realise that we had left our car key with the immobiliser. Without this thing it was impossible to start the engine with the spare key. So we tried to find some locals with electrical or mechanical knowledge. But we were unlucky. We just got the information that we had to wait until Monday (the next day), drive back to Ravenshoe to see an auto electrician. In the evening Silke met an Aussie cowboy John, an English girl Anna and their English friend Tom. John and Anna are riding from Broome (Western Australia) to Cairns. They started their ride in March 2006 and they arrived in Mount Garnet last Sunday. They had three weeks to get to their goal in Cairns and they have six brumbies (wild horses) to change in between. Tom is doing a documentary about their ride. As Silke is really keen on their project you can check out www.angelride.info. Anna is the first woman who will be riding from coast to coast in Australia. There are already articles about their ride in the English Times.
On Sunday evening Silke also had the chance to sit in her first road train. A nice Aussie truck driver showed and explained everything to her.

Meeting the first road train on our trip through the outback

After passing and visiting the Atherton Tablelands we arrived on the first dirt road in the outback. It was quite scary and also interesting to see the first road train. We were hiding on the side of the road as far away as we could.

The oldest fig tree and tree kangaroos in the Atherton Tablelands

After departing from Cairns we went through the Atherton Tablelands because we got some travel advice from Dean and Hanneke. We also visited Ravenshoe where they want to move shortly.
In the rainforest we found the oldest fig tree that was huuuuuuuuuuuuuge. The roots were everywhere.
On the way we found some funny road signs “tree kangaroos” – unfortunately we could not spot them:-(.

The effects of cyclone Larry in March 2006 in and around Innisfail

On our way from Mission Beach to Cairns we had one night in Innisfail. We wandered through town and had to see the vast and bad effects of the cyclone that hit the area between Mission Beach and a little bit North of Innisfail.

Our three-day stay in the “big” city Cairns

In Cairns we mostly did what you have to do in a “big” city (around 100.000 inhabitants) after travelling the last six weeks: partying, shopping, going out eating, using the internet, finding an alteration shop, trying to find a new travel mate for Silke, visiting the city, going to a concert, etc.
We also gave Hazel Quince to an inspection and service at Werner’s VW garage. She hopefully got all she needed for travelling the next 3.200 kms through the outback to Darwin. Of course it wasn’t as cheap as in Burley Heads, but the owner had Swiss-German roots - maybe that’s the reason for the higher prizes ;-)

White water rafting at Tully River

In the evening we got to Mission Beach, a lovely little town (1090 habitants and supposing the same amount on tourists) near the Tully River. The town was really nice, long beachfront with a lot palm-trees all the way long. But really damaged by the cyclon Larry on the 20th of March. Houses without roofs, a lot of damaged rainforest etc. The only thing what you really can do on this relaxed spot on earth is skydiving and rafting! This time our adventure was going white water rafting at the Tully River near Mission Beach. There is a rating for the difficulty of rivers to raft: lowest is 1, highest 6. The Tully River is rated 4-5. This time (other than for the skydive) Silke was the scared person. But we both have to admit that we were expecting something more adventurous and exciting. Most of the time we were just paddling or streaming down the river. There were some exciting rips but we passed them so quickly…;-)! We don’t even fall out of the boat like all the other (a team of 8 went on the river at the same time) because we had the most experienced driver. Silke’s luck but for Dirk too harmless! Anyway it was a fun day as you can see.

Visiting Dean and his family in Ingham and Australia´s biggest single drop waterfall

Visiting Dean and his family in Ingham and Australia´s biggest single drop waterfall
In Ingham, just one hour drive north of Townsville we visited Dean, Hanneke, Mette and Misha. Silke got to know Dean six years ago on Magnetic Island. We could stay in the flat of Dean´s grandmother and we both had our own room there:-) which was quite nice after five weeks in the kombi. And nearly 5 months altogether without our own room ;-) It always was really nice to spend some time with some (half) Australian people (Hanneke is Dutch) and Dean cooked us some nice food. From Ingham we did a day excursion to the Wallaman waterfall and the longest sugarcane transport pier (around 5 km).

The must-do sailing trip of the Whitsunday Islands

For sailing we went on a sailing boat named British Defender. This boat had already sailed around the whole world. There were 28 travellers and 4 crew members onboard. The snorkelling and sailing was good fun but the group and especially the crew were not that nice. Everybody just did their own thing and was not interested in the rest of the group. The crew said what we should not do (e.g. wear shoes on deck or pee standing) but we saw them doing all these things. We did some nice photos on Whitehaven Beach which is supposed to be one of the world’s nicest beaches.

Skydive Airlie Beach

At Shaun’s house in Caloundra we had seen the DVD of his daughter Jay doing a skydive in Airlie Beach. Since we had seen this film we were sure that we wanted to do the skydive in Airlie Beach. We arrived there Sunday evening and walked through town. We went to a travel agent in town and got the information that the weather on the next day should be beautiful. So the next morning we decided to do the skydive, phoned the company and booked. We drove there by ourselves and went to the wrong direction. So again we were running late for our flight;-)! We got a briefing and then we started flying: Dirk and his tandem partner, Silke and her tandem partner, the photographer and the pilot. We were flying for about half an hour before we reached 14.000 feet (that must be about 4,7 km). The view of the 74 Whitsunday Islands was stunning and we even spotted a whale from up there. Then Silke was jumping first, followed by Dirk and the photographer. We had 55 seconds of freefall – it was awesome (also for Silke who was doing her second tandem skydive)!

Eungella National Park – waterfalls (difficult way to get there) and platypus spotting

After getting the advice of many other travellers to visit the Eungella NP we decided to take a look ourselves. We first went to the Finch Hatton George where the waterfall was, after visiting already a couple of waterfalls during out time in Australia we get again disappointed: the huge and famous waterfall was again very little ;-( But at least the way there was an adventure, it was really bumpy and on the way were some waterholes where other people get stuck…smile…. But our kombi and Dirk as the driver did a great job and Silke took some pictures and made her feet wet to prove that;-) We just wondered why the kombi get inside more wet than from the outside! At the Broken River we could spot some platypus, they were amazingly small animals.
On our way we saw a huge VW wrecker in somebody’s backyard. We had to stop there and take some pictures. There were some dogs taking an eye on us, but they were really friendly and let us do our job.

Watching the soccer match: Germany against Argentina in Mackay

We decided to stay for two nights in Mackay because we realised that we actually could go out there after leaving Sydney one month ago. We met some locals and watched the soccer match Germany against Argentina outside a karaoke bar where we were dancing before. After the match and 15 minutes of extra time the bar owners closed the bar, switched of the TV so that we could not watch the second half and the penalty shooting. What a shame!

Town of 1770

Believe it or not – but this town is really named 1770;-) Captain Cook arrived there in the year 1770 and explored Queensland. When we arrived we met Delphine and Gilles, the Swiss couple of our Fraser group. They gave us a good tip where we could sleep in the car. At this spot Dirk spotted a kangaroo the next morning during peeing. He showed it to Silke afterwards and it was still there;-)

Doing a Bundaberg distillery tour

Another bbbbbiiiiiiggg city of the Eastcoast. Known by most travellers because of heaps of jobs of fruit picking. Also Bundaberg is famous for producing rum that mostly all Australian people love to drink. After visiting the beautiful beachfront and some old houses we decided to do a tour through the distillery of Bundaberg rum. There we learnt how rum is produced out of the sugarcane. At the end of the tour we could taste two different mixed rum drinks. One was with toffee and tasted really nice and you could only buy it there in the distillery.

Photo tour through Maryborough

In Maryborough we saw the first old Queensland houses (old compared to Australian standards). So we walked through town and took some pictures. In the park where we stayed there were amazing trees with heaps of roots. It really looked amazing, on the trees beside from the leaves grow really long roots, as soon as they touch the ground they grow to amazing roots beside all the others!