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Australia

A 86-day adventure by LouisaJames Read more
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    More Snorkelling: Cape Range NP

    June 1, 2017 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    We awoke yesterday morning to find out that kangaroos are quite inquisitive, as they had clearly examined the table we left out and looked at the front of the van (paw marks left behind)! They came back last night while we were still up and were quite happy eating while we stood next to them. The mother had a large joey half hanging out of her pouch and was eating the shrubs from there. We spent yesterday snorkelling at Oyster Stacks, Turquoise Bay and Kurrajong (where we camped) and saw many more fish, blue ringed rays, wedge shaped rays, green turtles and two octopus, one which was massive. It was a relief to go into the water as there was no wind, just sunshine at heat (30 degrees although it feels hotter with the sun reflecting off the white sand), not bad considering this is the start of the winter. We were up early again, to at least eat breakfast before 8am when it's much hotter, then spent the morning snorkelling. The Ningaloo Reef has certainly lived up to its reputation as a world class snorkelling destination where you can get to from the beach and pretty much have it to yourself.
    This afternoon we have started to make our way inland and are spending the night at a roadside rest area with other travellers. We drove over 200km and only saw about 12 other vehicles so it's no wonder that everyone you do pass waves to you. Looking forward to a shower after three days of salt water in the hair!    Read more

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    Karijini National Park Joffre Gorge

    June 3, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    Yesterday we continued driving East and was pleased to see the terrain start to change from the flat desert that we have been seeing alot recently. The main highlight was seeing hundreds of parakeets gathering by a 'river' if it can be called that. We stopped for the night at a campsite in Paraburdoo, the whole town is in existence because of the Rio Tinto mine there. It was interesting to see how the whole town had a military base feel about it without fences. It even had an outdoor cinema!
    We are in the Hamersley Range in the heart of the Pilbara, that is known as Karijini to the local Aboriginal people. Today we visited Joffre Falls where we walked around the edge of the gorge and descended down into it. The waterfalls cascaded over banded iron formations giving it a stepped look into a narrow, steep gorge. It was good for climbing over as well as sitting in the bottom with walls towering above you. We are camping here for a couple of nights amongst the dingos (wild dogs).    Read more

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    Karijini National Park Dales Gorge

    June 4, 2017 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    Waking after a chilly night as we are in the desert and a higher altitude than the coast, we walked the short distance from the camp to Dales Gorge. The landscape in this area is completely flat and it would be hard to know the gorges are there. Three gorges meet here with pools at the end of each with waterfalls that must be spectacular in the wet season. After dropping down into the first gorge we went to the circular pool at it's terminus - the way into it is like a movie set from Indiana Jones, completely natural but looking like an ancient fort. After visiting the Circular pool we back tracked and took another gorge, walking along the bottom with towering walls either side. The river crosses several flat rock areas creating more pools and falls. Fortescue Falls has terracing leading down to the blue water and was busy due to the Western Australia national holiday (about 20 people there). We continued deeper into the gorge to the Fern pool past Fruit Bats in the trees and looking out for the snakes we'd been warned about on this stage. As it's not super hot they aren't too aggressive- so that's all right then! The Fern Pool was very quiet and serene with a waterfall at one end. The water was luke warm and the waterfall water was actually quite warm. The blue water is quite deep and has many fish that like to nibble your feet.Read more

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    Karijini NP

    June 5, 2017 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 19 °C

    We headed back down to the Fortescue Falls and found we had it to ourselves so could resist a swim. We then walked in the opposite direction from yesterday in the bottom of the gorge seeing it all from a different angle. We then drove north for about 400km, stopping east of Port Hedland, where all the mining lorries head to. We saw road trains upto 60m long pulling four trailers. The remoteness shows when we saw that the landing strip for flying doctors is actually a stretch of the road complete with piano key markings for take off and landing! Another road side camp in the bush tonight, complete with a red back spider in the toilet.Read more

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    Broome

    June 7, 2017 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

    The navigation was not too difficult when heading towards Broome, as the photo shows, 493km with no option for turning off! Freshly brewed coffee and biscuits helped the journey pass (as you can see in the 3rd picture!). We just caught sunset at Cable Beach, as we now kmow the sun sets even earlier now we are further north. At least it gets light much earlier though. Had a look around Broome, which has a feel of Asia about it because of the heat, tropical plants and some of the buildings. The Japanese bombed the town and harbour, with a total of 65 attacks just on Broome alone. In one attack 100 people were killed while sitting in flying boats at the harbour, the remains of which can be seen today at low tide. We drove east out of the town today and have started to see the unusual Boab trees, one huge one was where we stayed at a roadside camp.Read more

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    Fitzroy Crossing & Geikie Gorge

    June 8, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    James's Birthday started with bacon sandwiches under the amazing Boab tree where we camped last night. Continuing on the long drive to Darwin we stopped in at Fitzroy Crossing for fuel and provisions, the last petrol and habitation for 300km. We went on a 40km loop to the Geikie Gorge, a limestone river valley that contains some amazing wildlife including Bull sharks, river rays, the tooth nosed Sawfish and many other creatures we never saw! There were however plenty of fresh water crocodiles, the smaller and less aggressive relative of the saltwater crocs (up to 7m long!) that can be in these waters. There were rugged and fascinating limestone towers and pinnacles that get scoured to a white colour when the waters rise up to 10m above normal in the wet season.
    We finished the day at an amazing roadside camping area on a bluff above a gorge, with stunning views accross the plains at sunset assisted by a glass of wine. Met some really friendly 'grey nomads' from the South West of Australia escaping North from the temperatures which are dropping. Apparently it was 2 degrees C in Perth the previous night!    Read more

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    Heading to the Northern Territory

    June 12, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    We have been doing alot of driving recently to get towards the northern part of Australia. Campervans have certainly been outnumbered by 4wd's as so many roads are unpaved. We are not permitted to drive on them so try and make the most of the places we are allowed to go. Friday we drove to Doon Doon rest house passing Halls Creek, where alcohol above 2.7% is banned in the entire village. We also saw our first live, wild snake in Aus, as it moved across the road. We reckon it was about 2 meters long and quite thick, called a black-headed python. Saturday we went to have a look at Emma Gorge, from a distance, as the last 2 km was on a gravel road so we couldn't go any closer. This is at the start/end of the Gibb River Road, a 650km 4wd only road that seems very popular. We then spent a couple of nights at Kununarra, by Lily Creek Lagoon, where we enjoyed a night at the Speedway watching cars drift around a dirt track by floodlight. Everyone backs their vehicle up the fence and sits with their picnics and drinking beer (or hot chocolate). Yesterday we went to the nearby Mirima National Park, like a mini Bungle Bungles, where we scrambled across rocks hoping to avoid snakes and enjoying the shapes and coloured banding of the rocks. We then crossed the boarder and a time zone, into the Northern Territory on another long driving afternoon before stopping in a busy little roadside rest area. The terrain has become more interesting over the last couple of days as the flat land has given way to more rocky outcrops and trees. We are glad we timed our visit here for now, the dry season, as most of the highway is also a floodway and would be under water.Read more

  • LouisaJamesAustraliaLouisaJames

    Nitmiluk National Park (Katherine Gorge)

    June 14, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We have spent a couple of days at the southern part of the park, staying in the campsite here which thankfully had a swimming pool to cool off in as the river is a no go swim/kayak area at the moment due to crocs. We had a friendly kangaroo that enjoyed being hand fed carrots (very naughty to feed wild animals, but couldn't resist those beautiful eyelashes). There was also a cookaburra who wasn't too camera shy. Last night we were amazed when the fruit bats flew over head to go and feed, there must have been thousands of them and was a sight to see. During the day, while resting they are so noisy (like a baby crying but silent when flying). Today we walked for over 10km to get to a couple of viewpoints over looking the gorge and a rockhole, hard work in the heat, 30 degrees or so. Yesterday on our way throughthe town of Katherine we went into the School of the Air and had an interesting chat about the logistics of how it all works. Would take some getting use to, teaching to a class of 17 children who are all on-line! While visiting the bottle shop (the only place you can buy alcohol from in Aus) we were asked by the resident policeman, not the resident security guard, for id. We were overjoyed that we looked that young, till we realised everyoe was asked along with where we were staying. We also went to the natural spring fed crystal clear river of the Katherine Hot Springs. Not only was it lovely and warm, it was beautifully clear. The flow of water and the palm trees overhead made it a lovely place to swim.Read more

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    Eidith Falls

    June 18, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    We came for one but stayed for four days here. We think we have found our inland paradise, here in the North Western part of Katherine Gorge. Lower falls are right by the campground, a km walk up to the upper falls (the best part) and a further 3.5km to Sweetwater Pools (spent most of the hot walk to and from these pools worrying about snakes along the narrow, rocky track!). The swimming was great at all pools although we stuck to the 7am to 7pm swim rule so we weren't in the water while the current 12 resident freshwater crocs feed in the lower pools! Saw a snapping turtle there and a black whip snake right by the path where we were camping. We shared the upper pool with a large water monitor.
    On the way North we stopped in at the Adelaide River War Cemetery where those killed in action in the Northern Territory are buried. As with all commonwealth cemeteries it was peaceful and immaculate. We will learn more about WW2 in Northern Australia in Darwin, but more bombs were dropped on Darwin by the Japanese than at Pearl Harbour. The extent of conflict in Australia during WW2 has been surprising.    Read more

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    Litchfield National Park

    June 22, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    This large sandstone plateau has many rivers and therefore waterfalls running off it all year as the stone holds onto the water and gradually releases it over the year. Therefore the water was quite a nice temperature, as it has time to heat up, and even clearer than Eidith Falls. Each river had a narrow boarder of rainforest making some lovely walking, especially between Florence Falls (where we camped the first night) and Buley Rockholes where there were also loads of swimming holes to explore. We spent a couple of nights at Wangi Falls walking, swimming and going to a talk by the rangers about the wildlife and plants. We saw a bower bird displaying his 'nest' which is actually a tunnel of branches and a collection of random white items that he dances next to and a colourful collar rises up around his neck. We also went to another ranger talk about the 6 metre tall magnetic and cathedral termite mounds, up to 75 years old. At night we managed to catch fleeting views of bandicoots scurrying through the undergrowth.
    Leaving here marked the end of our campervan adventure, we will be sorry to see it go. We have driven nearly 10,000km in the campervan and car during our time in Australia and only really touched on what it has to offer. On the way to Darwin we passed large areas of "cool burn" where foliage is cleared to prevent larger wildfires. It covered the roads with smoke and the noise was incredible - I'd hate to be near a proper outback fire. We also kept passing old WW2 airstrips (red dust strips of about 5km long, although the buildings have since disappeared.    Read more

  • LouisaJamesAustraliaLouisaJames

    Darwin

    June 26, 2017 in Australia ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    We have had four nights here after returning the campervan. We were surprised at the size of the city (120,000 people) complete with a couple of high rised buildings. The whole town was nearly wiped out after a cyclone in the 70's so has been re-built with a very recent renovation of the waterfront which we really enjoyed. It had a real feel of Singapore to us which would have been exemplified if we were here prior to the Cyclone Tracey. Took some time to relax at the waterfront, including a day at the wave swimming park and enjoying a firework display. It's Northern Territory day on July 1st, the only day people are allowed to buy and use fireworks so a company had a demonstration of all thefireworks that will be on sale! We were ready to get some rest before moving on, although it appears that Darwin is a bit of a party town with permanent party packers rather than transient back packers. The situation at our hostel was so bad that the police were called on two nights of the four we were there! Only on the last night did we sleep all the way through the night as they were to hung over to keep going and eventually the hostel put security on at 11pm.Read more

  • LouisaJamesAustraliaLouisaJames

    Fremantle

    June 28, 2017 in Australia ⋅ 🌙 12 °C

    We've been back in prison for two nights, here in Fremantle! We had a smooth journey here from Darwin, the four hour flight was much quicker than the 6 weeks it took to drive up there! After looking forward to quite night sleep we were woken early by the 88 teenagers that we are sharing the hostel with! All was good once they upgraded us to a quite family room at the back. We both got our hair cut, did some shopping and have been out for a couple of meals and enjoyed a few beers. We couldn't leave Aus without being on the bikes, so borrowed some for the day. We cycled along the sea front to south Fremantle where there is alot of new housing going up around a new waterfront area. We thought it was amusing that the locals walk around with woolly hats and coats as it's 'winter' reachng a cool 18 degrees mid-day. Flip flops seemed ine to us though. We are now waiting for our flights to Africa.Read more

    Trip end
    June 28, 2017
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