Taupo - Wellington - day 56

After leaving Taupo, we drove around the lake and into the Tongariro National Park. The view was absolutely amazing! The mountains and hills and plains are just incredibly beautiful, especially cause there was still snow on the mountain tops. It is also the place where the big battle scene of the second Lord of the Rings (The Two Towers) was filmed! The volcano in that park is the one called Mount Doom in the movie. We drove over Desert Road and passed through a town called Bulls, where the shops all have signs with funny names like Bank-a-BULL, Unforget-a-BULL, etc. We then drove to Wellington and went all the way up to the top of Mount Victoria to get a good lookout over the bay. On that hill is the path where they filmed one of the scenes of the first Lord of the Rings, so Pierre got all excited!! The view was great! In the afternoon, we went to the Te Papa museum in Wellington. It was pretty good, but we were very tired... For dinner we tried the Indian curry offer at the hostel; the food was great, but unfortunately a crazy weird old japanese guy sat down at our table and started hitting on Jerome (the French guy from the couple), telling him that he likes young guys a lot!! We preferred not to get involved in that part of the conversation... instead we hurried to finish up our dinner and went into the TV lounge to watch The Lord of the Rings 2.

Weather: nice and sunny

Rotorua - Taupo - day 55

This morning we visited the lake in Rotorua with the Magicbus and then drove on to see the Lady Knox Geyser, a geyser that erupts every day at 10h15 (even though it is provoked by throwing in some soap into the crater). It was impressive to see; it went up to about 20 meters! From there we went to Wai-O-Tapu geothermal park, a big park where we saw all kinds of different colors due to natural processes. Lots of yellow sulphur, very bright orange rocks in the Champagne Pools and even a fluorescent green lake called the Devil's Bath! The park was nice, but once again, the smell was horrible! From there we drove to the Huka Falls, quite small ones, but very very impressive by the force and speed of the water falling down! From there we went to Taupo, where we saw the lake (bigger than Singapore!) and walked around town. We met a very nice French couple with whom we had some drinks and dinner.

Weather: cloudy and unstable (so we didn't do the Tongariro Crossing...yet)

More Australia pictures...

Auckland - Rotorua - day 54

This morning we were picked up by the Magicbus and taken to Mount Eden, a volcano that has some great views over the city. From up there we could see both the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea and it made us realize how narrow New Zealand is! In the area around Auckland there are around 14 visible volcanoes (one of them is called One Tree Hill!). The population of Auckland is around 1,5 million people, which is more than the entire population of the South Island (even though it is nearly twice as big!); the entire population of New Zealand is only 4 million! From Auckland we drove to Waitomo Caves, stopping at a few places on the way. At Waitomo Caves we went "black water rafting". It was awesome! We basically got some very thick wetsuits and boots and a floating tire and a helmet with a little light on it. We walked through a field up a hill and then went down into a cave. Apart from our little lights, it was COMPLETELY dark in there! Pretty scary at first... but lots of fun! We went deeper into the caves and all turned off our lights to see the glow worms on the ceiling of the cave. They are amazing to see, it looked like a very very starry sky and there was no other light at all, so we could see them really well! Then we walked through the caves and got into the water, which was really really cold! Only 8 degrees! We floated around on the "tires" and enjoyed the glow worms above us. We jumped off a little waterfall and went down a slide, both were fun. After having spent more than an hour under ground, we came back out and headed to the hot showers! We took the Magicbus to Rotorua, a town that is known for its hot pools and mud pools and horrible smell! The area is volcanically active and the vapors coming up from the earth are unbearable! It really smells like rotten egg! We walked around town for a bit, but not for too long cause we both got dizzy and started shaking like crazy (maybe due to the smell and the vapors)... In the evening we watched The Lord Of The Rings - The Fellowship of the Ring.

Weather: cold and gray

Sydney & Auckland - day 53

We didn't do much today, apart from going to the post office and on internet to book some things for New Zealand. At 14h we took a taxi to the airport. Our plane was slightly delayed due to a missing passenger, but eventually we left for Auckland. The flight took about 3 hours. The time difference is now even worse. At the airport we had to declare all food and camping gear... our hiking boots had to go through quarantine!! They are really freaked out about getting any undesired dirt onto their island! We wonder whether they will check us again like that when we cross over to the South Island... Anyway, we got to Auckland late at night (22h) and took a shuttle to our hostel, the YHA International. We didn't see much of Auckland, but one thing that surprised us is how steep the roads are! The city streets seem to go up or down vertically!

Weather: sunny in Sydney, cold and dark in Auckland

Sydney-Auckland

This is not really a post... but just to let you all know that we made it safely to Auckland (we are still in the airport though!). The security here is really high, they have a weird paranoia for fruits and vegetables!

The time difference with France (or Holland) is 12 hours... That's a lot!
The weather is a lot colder, around 16 degrees.

Good News: We managed to get our Taxes back from the camera, and that's 140 AUD...!!!

Sydney - day 52

This morning we went to Paddy's Market, a big market where they sell all kinds of things like souvenirs, t-shirts, pets, food, wigs, etc. It was fun to walk around in. It's located in Chinatown, so nearly all the vendors are asian and the area around it has plenty of asian signs and restaurants. From there we walked to Darling Harbour, a part of town we hadn't been to yet. It's a very lively harbour, with lots of restaurants, an imax cinema, the Sydney Aquarium and the Wildlife Centre, as well as a Chinese Garden and more. We walked over the bridge and back to our side of town. We had lunch at one of the best sushi belt restaurants in Sydney and then walked through Pitt Street again, going into random shops. In the evening we met up with Melli and Anke, two German girls who were on our trip from Alice Springs to Darwin. We took the ferry to the northern part of Sydney and had a BBQ in the garden of one of their friends' appartment. The view was incredible! The garden ends in the water and looks over the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the CBD skyscrapers! A great way to end our stay in Australia! After dinner, we walked all the way back, over the Harbour Bridge (that has incredible security, eventhough it was late at night and noone else was walking over it, there were security guards, cameras and barbed wire...), which gave us some more nice views over the city! We walked through the Rocks and over Circular Quay until we reached Pitt Street and finally our hostel.

Weather: cloudy, but warm

Sydney - day 51

We got up pretty late this morning. We took the bus to Coogee beach with the people from our hostel (not necessarily people you'd want to hang out with...) and stayed there for a while, waiting for the free BBQ we were supposed to get. The beach was insanely crowded and wasn't as nice as we'd expected. It got too hot in the sun, but the water was too cold to get in, so we ended up sitting down in the shade under a tree... but then it got too cold, so we sat in the sun again... it seems like we spent the day being cold then warm then cold again! The BBQ was a disappointment cause there were too many people and the cooking wasn't going fast enough. Around 16h we decided to take the bus back to Hyde Park. After getting changed, we walked all the way to King's Cross (an area that is known for its sex shops, drunk homeless people and clubs) to find the sign that points to Paris, London, New York, Rome, Tokyo, Amsterdam, etc. We had a delicious milkshake on a terrace by that sign and then walked back to the CBD, the nicer part of town, where our hostel is. We were both kind of tired, so we decided to go to the cinema. We saw The Mummy 3, which confirmed what we already suspected: it's pretty bad!!

Weather: sunny and warm

Sydney - day 50

We spent the night on the bus, but unfortunately it wasn't as comfortable as the other trips. In the morning we drove over the Harbour Bridge and then arrived at Sydney Central Station at 11h. We walked to the hostel, got changed and walked to Circular Quay where we met up with Guenael (who works for BOLS) for lunch. We were tempted to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, but it was too expensive, so we walked around the Rocks area and back to our beloved Pitt Street which we know by heart by now! Nat decided to get her hair cut, so we found an asian hairdresser (that's all they seem to have here!) and she regretted it immediately... Nat now has an asian haircut and looks like a japanese manga character! Anyway, for dinner we went to a sushi belt restaurant again and then walked all the way to Broadway to meet up with the americans from Fraser Island. We hung out at their place for a bit (and Pierre stole all their music for his iphone) and then we took the bus to a pub somewhere (we're not sure where it was...). The pub closed at midnight (does that remind anyone of England??), so we tried to get a taxi back. There were 5 of us and taxis only take 4 people... so Nick thought it was fun to stop every single taxi to ask whether they would take 5 people... after about 15 taxis that said no, we found a taxi-van that took 6!! yay!! It was very funny though! Thanks for the amusement Nick!

Weather: sunny and warm, but cold at night

Byron Bay - day 49

This morning Alan dropped us off in Byron Bay and after leaving our luggage in a huge locker (biggest one we've seen so far!), we walked through town to the beach. We walked all along the beach and up the hills along the rainforest until we got to the lighthouse. It was a pretty long walk, but the views were amazing. We even saw a bunch of dolphins jumping in the waves! We stood on "The Most Easterly Point of the Australian Mainland" and then walked back to town. We found a spot where we could get free internet on the iphone and spent quite some time there. We ended up having lunch there too; we ate Byron's Biggest Burger! It was delicious! After lunch we went to the beach and relaxed in the sun. In the afternoon we walked around town again (it's pretty small really...) and for dinner we went to what they call the best sushi restaurant in New South Wales. It was pretty good. At 21h15 we got the night bus to Sydney...

Weather: cold and warm and sunny and cloudy...

Brisbane & Lennox Head - day 48

At 3am this morning, the fire alarm went off... at first we thought it would stop, but it didn't, so we got dressed and then it stopped... so we thought we'd go back to sleep... but then another alarm went off that said "evacuate the building, evacuate the building..." and the firemen started coming in (2 trucks and 4 police cars), so we figured it might be serious! In the end, we spent 30 minutes outside in the street before being let in again... we still have no idea what happenned! After going back to sleep, we got up and checked out at 10am. We walked around the shopping area of Brisbane and until the river and then turned back and took the shuttle to the bus center. From there we took the bus to Byron Bay. In Brisbane the weather was amazing, very sunny and warm, but as soon as we were in the bus, it started raining and hailing and thundering... In Byron Bay we were picked up by Allan, a very nice Australian who we met on our tour from Alice Springs to Darwin. He took us to his house in Lennox Head where we had a very nice home-cooked dinner with Deirdre and Rowan. We swapped some of our pictures and stayed over at their place. It was great to sleep in a nice house for once (instead of all the backpacker hostels we've been to so far)! Thank you so much for having us over!!

Weather: sunny and delightful in Brisbane, very very cold in Lennox Head

More pictures

Australia Zoo & Brisbane - day 47

This morning we took the shuttle bus to the zoo and left all our luggage in a locker there. Australia Zoo is what they call "Home of the Crocodile Hunter". Everywhere you look, there are pictures and posters and statues that remind you of Steve Irwin. The zoo is actually really good cause it's pretty big and seems more like an amusement park than a zoo. All the animal enclosures are very clean and very big, so the animals don't look unhappy and actually have the space to move around. Also, all the animals are walked around the zoo (except for the snakes and crocodiles of course!) so that they see different environments than just the inside of their cage. These animals include the elephants, tigers, baby alligators, eagles and wombats!! We saw a show with snakes, birds and crocodiles. It was the show that Steve Irwin used to do, with the crocodile feeding and stuff. One of the highlights of the day was definitely the kangaroo feeding! There is a big park that's full of kangaroos and wallabies and you can just get up real close to them and feed them! They are so soft and cute! A few of them had baby kangaroos in their pouches, even cuter! Another great thing was the tiger show! Anyway, after spending a good day at the zoo, we took the bus to Brisbane. We went out for dinner and then went to bed very early...

Weather: delightful during the day, but unpleasantly thunderstormy in the evening ;-)

Noosa Heads - day 46

This morning we took the shuttle bus from the hostel in Hervey Bay to the Greyhound bus station. On the bus we ran into a dutch girl who was on our sailing boat in the Whitsundays! The backpacker world is tiny!! We arrived in Noosa in the afternoon and checked into the YHA, a very nice hostel! We walked around town and found out that it is a pretty posh place, judging from the shops they have here. Pierre bought some Havaiana flipflops (actually, they call them "thongs" here!!) and we also got some delicious ice cream! We walked along the beach over a boardwalk into the rainforest. We saw a koala and some whales as well! It was a very nice walk, passing by all the surfer beaches and watching the sunset. We walked back to the hostel and finally updated this blog!! Tomorrow we are going to Australia Zoo, also known as Steve Irwin's zoo...

Weather: very sunny and warm!

Fraser Island - day 43,44,45

After spending the afternoon at the lagoon in Airlie Beach and then taking the night bus to Hervey Bay, we arrived at the Palace Hostel at 7h in the morning, just in time for the meeting for the self-drive tour on Fraser Island. We were divided into 3 groups (=3 cars; 9 people per car) and then sent off with the Toyota Land Cruisers to get all the camping gear and do some food shopping for the 3 days we were gonna spend on the biggest sand island in the world (123km long and 25km wide). We took the ferry from River Heads to Kingfisher Bay Resort and then drove over the sandy forest path to Lake Wabby. The view was stunning! The lake is surrounded by a huge sand dune on one side and by forest on all the other sides. We stayed there for a bit, cooling off in the water and playing some water volleyball. From there we drove onto the Eastern Beach... that was just crazy! The beach is recognised as a national highway!! But you have to share it with airplanes as well!! Anyway, Pierre drove the car during the 3 days and had the best time driving on that beach! We stopped near Eli Creek and set up camp there for the night. We made some hamburgers for dinner, they were delicious! The stars and the moonrise were amazing that night! We hung out with one of the other groups who was camping right next to us. The next morning we got up at 8h30 and walked to Eli Creek, which has some of the clearest water we've ever seen! It was pretty cold, so we walked through it instead of swimming in it. After walking back to the car and having lunch, we drove over the beach to the Maheno ship wreck. After a quick stop at the Coloured Sands, we drove on to Indian Head. We saw a dingo and some turtles on our way. After climbing up to the lookout, we saw some whales and more turtles. The view from up there was incredible! When we got back down, we drove on to the Champagne Pools, having some trouble with very soft sand at one point and nearly getting stuck... The Champagne Pools are the only place on the island where you're allowed to swim in the ocean cause they're behind some rocks, so the sharks and jellyfish can't get there. It was very cold, but still a nice place to have a swim! We drove all the way back over the beach and set up camp further south, with the other two groups. We had spaghetti for dinner and then some "smores" for dessert, it was delicious!! We went to the beach to look at the stars and then sat around to listen to Saara play the guitar and sing some amazing songs! Saara is one of the girls who was in our group and she and Nick are part of a band called You Can Be A Wesley and they're really good!! It was a great night! The next morning we were woken up by a ranger who wasn't very happy about the fact that the other group had left all their stuff outside (coolboxes, table, beers...) cause the dingoes are everywhere and steel lots of stuff! After getting up and packing everything again, we drove to Lake Mackenzie, another incredible place!! We swam abround for a bit and then just chilled in the sun. Just before leaving, a dingo came out of the forest and stole somebody's make-up bag! hahaha, so funny!! After lunch we drove back to Kingfisher Bay Resort and took the ferry back to the mainland. We all returned to the same hostel and had dinner with our group. It was great!! Mainly thanks to the people in our group! Thank you all for making it so much fun!!

Weather: cloudy and sunny, no rain!!

Whitsunday Islands - day 39,40,41,42

After spending the morning in Airlie Beach, we took the bus to Shute Harbour where we embarked on Spank Me, a 23,5 meter long sailboat. There were 26 passengers and 4 crew members. We left the harbour and sailed to the Whitsunday Islands. The first night we stayed in Whitehaven Beach (the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world), but unfortunately the weather was horrible. It was raining a lot and it was pretty cold. The next morning it was very sunny and we saw a bunch of turtles swimming around the boat, so that was nice! We went to the beach and sunbathed for a bit and then walked around. It was really beautiful! We got back on the boat and sailed to another beach from where we climbed to a lookout point. It was raining again by this point, but even so, the view was amazing! From there we went to a bay north of Hook Island and went snorkeling. Pierre actually went scuba diving for the very first time! He loved it and wants to pass his PADI now! Nat just snorkelled around in the mean time. We slept in that same bay. The next morning we had to get up at 6h to sail to the Outer Reef (Bait Reef to be more precise). After about 3 hours we got there, it looked like the middle of nowhere... there is no land sticking out at that place! Nat went for a dive with the other certified divers and had to swim through some tunnels and coral cliffs. She even saw a shark!! It was great!! After lunch Nat went out for another dive and went through even smaller tunnels and saw another shark and a barracuda! It was one of the best dives ever! The coral is beautiful and so are the fish. In the meantime Pierre was snorkelling and saw a bunch of Nemos and other nice fish. We sailed back to Hook Island and spent the night in a little bay overthere. The next morning we went snorkelling in that bay and saw a beautiful blue-spotted stingray and a whole group of baby barracudas!! After getting back on the boat, we sailed back to Airlie Beach and got back on land. On the boat we met some very nice people, from Holland and Denmark mainly.

Weather: 2 days of showers and 2 sunny days

Good news: 1 euro = 2 australian dollars!!!

(pictures will come soon!!)

Airlie Beach - day 38

We spent the whole night in the bus, which was actually pretty confortable for once (lots of leg room and good inclining seats). We were stuck in Townsville for 3 hours cause the new driver didn't show up and only arrived in Airlie Beach at 12h45. We walked to our hostel (the Airlie Waterfront Backpackers) and dropped our luggage. We got a double room, that kind of looked like a prison cell... We went to Oz Sailing to check in for our sailing trip due to start tomorrow and found out that our boat (the Mandrake) had mechanical problems and was cancelled!! After some negotiations, we were upgraded onto Spank Me (haha!), a bigger boat (23,5 meters), for 3 days and 3 nights instead of 2 days and 2 nights. On top of that we get a free dive and free luggage storage! In total we saved up more than 450 dollars thanks to this free upgrade!! For lunch we headed to an italian restaurant which wasn't too bad. Then we walked around town, only to find out that it is really tiny and there isn't that much to do... There is a nice beach though, with beautiful turquoise water and it looks like you are allowed to swim there!

Weather: warm, but cloudy

Cairns - day 37

This morning we slept in until 8h30, packed our stuff, checked out and waited for the rain to stop... We walked through the shopping mall and another part of town, where we came across some banyan trees with tons of flying foxes in them. On our way to find a place to have lunch, we bumped into Mark, a dutch guy who was on our tour from Alice Springs to Darwin, Australia is tiny after all! We've seen so many people from previous tours everywhere!! After lunch we sat down on the grass near the Lagoon to take a nap. We went to an internet place where we finally updated the blog and then headed to the cinema to see Body of Lies (Pierre thought it was very good, Nat thought it wasn't too bad...). For dinner we went to an Indian restaurant which was really good and changed from the food we've been eating so far! We went back to the hostel, played some card games and took a nap. At 23h30 we got up and walked through the rain to the busstop to catch our Greyhound bus to Airlie Beach at 00h25.

Weather: warm, but rainy

Cairns - day 36

This morning we had to get up early again, at 6h30. We left the hostel at 7h30 and were on our boat, the Ocean Freedom, by 7h45. We left the harbour and headed to the reef, which took about an hour and fifteen minutes. When we got there, we went on a glass bottom boat tour to get some explanations about the reef and then went in to snorkel around. It was very nice, lots of fish around and some nice coral. It was really shallow where we were, so snorkeling was a good (and cheap) option. We saw a stingray, some batfish (they're huge!), lots of parrotfish and nemos! We had a nice lunch on the boat and then went to another part of the reef. There they took us to a tiny sand island (it took us 1 minute and 30 seconds to walk all around it, haha!) with beautiful white sand and turquoise water, from where we snorkeled back to the boat. We saw some more coral and fish, very nice! Then the boat took us back to Cairns and we headed back to the hostel. On the boat we met a very nice dutch/english couple that was staying in the same hostel, so we decided to have dinner with them. After dinner we went for drinks at the Woolshed, a bar that is actually typically English (they even played "summer of 69"!!). We had a great night!

Weather: sunny and warm, even though it started raining when we left the reef...

Cairns - day 35

After taking the shuttle bus, we slept at the airport until check-in at 3h; our plane left Darwin at 5h20. We managed to sleep pretty well in the plane and weren't too tired when we landed in Cairns at 8h20. We took a shuttle bus to our hostel, the Dreamtime Travellers Hostel (really nice! very cosy and relaxed and very friendly staff). We booked several tours for our way down the East Coast, including the Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsunday Islands and Fraser Island. We walked around through town and had lunch. Cairns is really small and lives mainly from the reef tourism. Every other building is a travel agency, a bar or a hostel! Cairns has a beach, but you're not allowed to swim there due to crocodiles, so they have a fake beach with a pool that they call the Lagoon instead. In the afternoon we headed back to the hostel, relaxed by the pool for a bit and then had dinner at Cafe Melt, just next door. It was really good! We went to bed early cause we booked a reef tour departing early in the morning.

Weather: warm and sunny, with some clouds, no flies here!!

Pictures

Darwin - day 34

After 10 days of getting up very very early, we finally had the opportunity to sleep in... but woke up at 8h and couldn't sleep anymore! We packed our stuff and then had breakfast at the Coffee Club on Mitchell Street. From there we walked all the way to the Darwin Museum & Art Gallery, which took us an hour and which was a very hot walk! On our way we went to Mindil Beach, which supposedly is the popular beach in Darwin, which looks amazing, white sand and beautiful turquoise water (it's the Timor Sea), but that was completely empty due to the fact that it is prohibited to swim there because of the box jellyfish... (apparently they can kill you in 2 or 3 minutes...). The museum was really nice and interesting (and free!), they even had a 5-metre long crocodile called Sweetheart! From there we took a taxi back to the centre and had lunch and walked around, then went to the cinema to see Eagle Eye (really good movie!). For dinner we went to the Victorian Hotel again cause it was free and then at 21h we took the shuttle to the airport.

Weather: very hot, very humid cause it rained for a bit...

Kakadu National Park - Darwin - day 33

This morning we got up at 5h30 again and left the camp at 6h30. On our way to the Nourlangie Rock, we saw lots of wild horses. At Nourlangie, we saw some aboriginal rock art that was more than 2000 years old. There were drawings of black wallaroos, evil spirits, barramundi and also some x-ray style drawings (where they drew the bones of the animals). We climbed up to a lookout from where we had a nice view of the Kakadu escarpment. From there we drove over a 4WD path until Barramundi Gorge where we walked over some rocks for half an hour and then went for a nice swim in a waterhole. There was also a nice waterfall and some rocks that we could jump off of. After the walk back, we had lunch by a huge 6-metre tall termite mound. After lunch we drove back to Darwin, which took about 4 hours. We stopped at Corroborree Station where we saw a 4-metre long salt water crocodile called Brutus... he was huge!! and really impressive! Once we got to Darwin, we went to the hostel and then met up with everyone from our group to go and have another free dinner at the Victorian Hotel. It was lots of fun!!

Weather: very very hot and humid and lots of flies everywhere...

Point Stuart - Kakadu National Park - day 32

This morning we got up at 5h30 and left the camp at 6h30. Getting up in the dark just doesn't seem right! We saw lots of wild horses on our way to the Twin Falls within the Kakadu National Park. We drove over a rather bumpy 4WD path for over an hour and then got off and took a small boat to cross a river. From there we walked over some rocks (we saw some HUGE spiders on the way, called Golden Orb Spiders) until we got to a hidden beach with white sand, surrounded by the cliffs of the Arnhem Land escarpment. It was beautiful! It is actually the place where the famous Twin Falls are, but since we're in the dry season, there barely was any water falling down at all (whereas in the wet season there is so much water coming down that you can't even visit them!). We weren't allowed to swim there because several crocodiles had been spotted in that area. It was torture to look at that beautiful clear water when it was 38 degrees and knowing we weren't allowed to go in! After we walked back over the rocks and took the little ferry boat back, we drove to the Jim Jim Falls. From the parking area, we had to walk for only 1 kilometre to get to the falls. However, we had to climb over very big rocks, so the walk took nearly an hour! It was sooo hot!! But it was worth it! At the end we arrived at a beautiful waterhole at the bottom of the falls (which were dry) and we went for a well deserved swim! It was amazing! After we climbed back over the rocks, we had lunch and then drove to our camp within the Kakadu National Park. We had dinner and went to bed very early.

Weather: even hotter than before and even more flies (didn't think that would be possible!)

Darwin - Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge - day 31

Our third and final tour in the Northern Territory was supposed to start at 6h40 this morning. However, Pierre's phone automatically updated the hour due to the daylight savings time change and therefore we got up even earlier. It turns out that eventhough the Northern Territory and South Australia are in the same time zone, Adelaide does change for DLS, but Darwin doesn't!! Crazy country! (btw, the time difference between Sydney and Darwin is half an hour! ever heard of that??) Anyway, once Adam (our new guide) picked us up, we drove to the Banyan Tree Camping (not exactly the same as the 5 star resorts that carry the same name...) and then to the Litchfield National Park, where we went to Florence Falls where we cooled off in the water. We saw a black footed rock wallaby and ate some green ants; they were very sour! From there we drove to Buley Rockhole where we swam again and jumped off some rocks and relaxed in the waterfalls. After lunch we drove to the Mary River, stopping at Corroborree Park for a break, where we went on a 2 hour cruise over the river. We saw lots of crocodiles, both saltwater ones and freshwater ones, and also saw lots of amazing birds, including eagles, ibis, geese, buzzards and spoonbills. There were also lots of wallabies around the river and we saw some nice waterlillies of which we even tasted the seeds. We saw a lot in a short time and really enjoyed this cruise. After that we drove over a 4WD path to the Point Stuart Wilderness Lodge, where we camped and had kangaroo and buffalo for dinner.

Weather: very very hot, sunny and an incredible amount of extremely annoying flies

Alice Springs - Darwin- day 28,29,30

Our next tour was supposed to leave at 5h30 this morning, but we only woke up at 5h48 and thought we'd missed it! Thanks to Pierre's quick reaction and sprint out the door, he managed to stop the bus just as it was driving away!! This tour took us from Alice Springs to Darwin in three days, covering 1500 kilometers on the Stuart Highway. On the way we passed by Ti Tree (1500 inhabitants, but a school for 3000 students!! hahaha!!), Barrow Creek (telegraph station; place where a similar story to the one in the movie Wolf's Creek actually took place), Wycliffe Well (the UFO capital of Australia), Devil's Marbles (bunch of random rocks in the middle of nowhere, most of them are round-shaped due to erosion; it was one of the hottest places we have ever been!!), Tennant Creek, Attack Creek, Mary Ann Dam (waterhole with lots of birds), Banka Banka Station (cattle farm that is bigger than Jamaica!!; we slept in a camp there (got up at 6h the next morning) and saw a baby kangaroo, the cutest thing ever!), Elliott (80% aboriginal population; the only place where they still have a segregated bar, one for white people and one for black people!; the city is only built on one side of the highway and Nat is the first one who ever guessed what was special about this town!!), Dunmarra (service station where we held a Blue Tongue Lizard!), Daly Waters (the Northern Territory's oldest pub, they had 4 bottles of Galliano and a bunch of bras and underwear hanging around!), Mataranka Thermal Pools (natural spring where we swam; in the trees around it there are thousands of Flying Foxes (kind of bat), really impressive to see!!), Katherine (a bit of a bigger town; we camped here and got up at 6h the next morning), Katherine Gorge in the Nitmiluk park (we went canoeing here for 3,5 hours, went swimming and jumped off some rocks; it was very hot!), Edith Falls (went swimming again! great way to cool down! although they had crocodile warning signs everywhere...), Adelaide River (where we saw the buffalo that played in Crocodile Dundee) and finally Darwin! It was an exhausting trip, with lots and lots of hours in the bus and very hot weather and tons of flies everywhere we stopped... Darwin is the biggest city in the Northern Territory, with 114.000 inhabitants (which is more than half of the population of the entire Northern Territory!!) and has one main street with tons of pubs and restaurants... There are lots of foreigners here and the weather is horribly hot!!

Weather: very very hot and sunny and humid in Darwin

King's Canyon - Alice Springs - day 27

This morning we slept in... until 6h! We left the camp at 7h and were ready to climb up King's Canyon by 8h. King's Canyon is a big canyon that's really beautiful and way more impressive than Uluru. We walked around for about 3 hours in the sun, through the Garden of Eden and up and down the cliffs, with some amazing views! We saw a nice lizard and a big waterhole with birds around it. The walk was really worth it, even though it was very very hot and we were exhausted when we got back to the bus at 11h. We drove back to the resort, had lunch and headed back to Alice Springs. On the way, we saw a horse that had very recently been run over, it was one of the most disturbing images ever. We also saw a wild camel that Tanja had seen before and named Humpy. We got out to see it and also got a pretty close look at a dead kangaroo by the side of the road. After about 4 or 5 hours driving, we got to Alice Springs. We all met up and had dinner at a saloon called Bojangles. For dinner we had emu, kangaroo, buffalo, camel and crocodile! We also held a snake around our neck! (it was a 2 meter long jungle python)

Weather: very very hot and sunny

Uluru - King's Canyon - day 26

This morning we had to get up even earlier... at 4h30! We left the camp at 5h30 and drove in the dark to Uluru to see the sunrise. It was actually pretty cold and although it was a nice sunrise, we're not sure it was worth getting up that early. After that, we walked all the way around Uluru, which is a 9,6 kilometer walk in the sun... Uluru is impressive by its size (348 meters high) and the fact that there really is nothing around it, but apart from that, it really is just a big rock... The strange thing about Uluru is that it's a very sacred place for the Aboriginals and they don't want people to climb on it (even though you can on some days) and you're not even allowed to take pictures of certain parts of the rock because they're indicated as men's or women's sacred areas... The aboriginals have been around for 30.000 years, but their culture remains a mystery because men are not allowed to know about women's business and viceversa. This also means that as a white person, you cannot know more than what a 6 year old child would in their culture... Anyway, it took us about 2,5 hours to walk around it; we saw a waterhole and some very old rock paintings; we also wondered whether there might actually be something inside the rock... We were dying of heat by the time we finished. We went to the cultural centre, learnt a few more things and then had lunch. We got back on the bus and drove for about 4 hours. On the way we stopped at a viewing point of Mount Conner and then climbed a little hill and found a huge salt lake on the other side. This lake is called Lake Amadeus and dates back to when Australia's centre was covered by water. We also saw a few wild horses (they're called "brambies") crossing the road and some more wedgetailed eagles. We saw the sunset at King's Canyon Resort and then drove to our camp somewhere up on a hill in the middle of nowhere. We made a huge fire with the wood we'd collected on the side of the road, then put some dough on the end of sticks and held it above the fire to make some "stick bread". It was really good! After dinner, we also had some roasted marshmallows and looked at the beautiful starry sky. We slept in a swag again, although we were less reassured to do so because apparently there are lots of dingoes (wild australian dogs) in the area...

Weather: very very hot and sunny

Alice Springs - Yulara - day 25

We had to get up at 5h30 this morning cause we were gonna be picked up at 6h. After thinking we had missed our bus and would be stuck in Alice Springs for another 3 days, they finally picked us up at 6h20. On the bus we met lots of people, mostly from Germany, but also from Australia, France and England. Our guide was called Tanja and she was very nice and fun! We drove for about 5 hours on the Stuart Highway (that goes from Adelaide to Darwin) and another road, stopping every now and then at a camel farm, to collect firewood and to get fuel. The funny thing about Australian service stations is that they almost all have an enclosure with kangaroos, emus, camels, birds, etc. Like a tiny zoo wherever you stop! One of the saddest things about the highway (it's just a one lane road, not an actual highway like in Europe) is the amount of dead kangaroos along the side of them. You actually see a lot more dead kangaroos than you see live ones. They mostly get runover by road trains which are big trucks with 3 or 4 trailers that drive at night and that cannot break due to their weight. So instead, they have big buffalo bars at the front that just knock the kangaroos out of their way. The dead kangaroos attract a lot of birds that come to feed on them. That is how we saw lots of wedgetailed eagles. They are Australia's largest bird of prey, with a wingspan of about 2,1 meters! They live in pairs and if one of them gets killed, the other one will die of 'voluntary' starvation... On our way we passed by Mount Conner, also known as Fuluru cause a lot of people think it's Uluru (aboriginal name for Ayer's Rock). Then we finally saw Uluru and headed to our camp to have lunch. Breakfast at 6h and lunch at 14h30 is tough! After lunch we went to Kata Tjuta (a.k.a. The Olgas) and walked through the Valley of Winds (which they close when it's more than 36 degrees; it was 33 when we were there). Kata Tjuta is a rock formation that's pretty impressive. It was a nice although exhausting walk, but we saw two euros (kind of small kangaroo) and took some nice pics. After that we drove back to Uluru and watched the sunset while drinking champagne and having some snacks! It was amazing to see the colors of the rock change. Then we headed back to our camp and had dinner. We slept in a swag, which looks like a kind of sardine tin, but basically is a matress to sleep outside. So we actually did sleep outside under the stars!! An amazing experience!!

Weather: very very hot and sunny

Alice Springs - day 24

This morning we got up early and took a taxi to the airport to catch our flight to Alice Springs. After about 3 hours of flying over completely empty areas of red sand, we landed in the middle of nowhere. We got out and immediately felt the dry heat of the Red Centre. We took a shuttle to our hostel, the YHA, in the city centre (which only has three streets, really...). As we arrived on a sunday, everything was closed and looked completely deserted. Either way, it was way too hot to stay outside anyway. We went to Todd Mall, which is a covered mall with a few shops and art galleries and then climbed up Anzac Hill to get a view over the "city". It was very very hot up there, so we took some pics and hurried back down. Alice Springs only has about 30.000 inhabitants, of which around 25% are aboriginals. The image we had of the aboriginals doesn't really correspond to reality. Unfortunately, due to the influence of the white culture, most of those who live in the cities spend everything they have on alcohol and then walk around town yelling at each other and begging for cigarettes and more alcohol. They are actually very scary and tourists are advised not to walk alone in the streets at night... Anyway, we had dinner at the hostel and then a drink at the Sporties bar close to our hostel.

Weather: very very hot and dry and sunny