Pinnacles in Nambung Nat'l Park

We've already spent three nights in the tents. The first night was a nightmare; we didn't properly set-up the roof tent and the loose sunroof of the tent made a horrible noice because of the strong winds. Karin didn't sleep at all. The wind also broke one of the fiberglass poles of the little dome tent, so Pieter, who was in that tent, didn't get much sleep either. Fortunately, both Emma and Janne slept fine. Things improved considerably from there. We figured out the correct way to set up the roof tent and bought a new dome tent. Next two nights, we slept like babies (all of us). Oh, yes, one more thing: while I'm posting this blog in the local general store, Pieter is buying some nuts and bolts, to repair the ladder of the roof tent, which broke last night ...

Apart from this little setbacks, the Nissan is a great way to camp. It comes with all the necessary camping equipment; gasstove, pots and pans, plates, cups, bowls, cups and even a fridge! Once you got figured out where everything goes, it works very nicely.
The day before yesterday, we spent a day shopping for extra camping items and repacking all our things to ensure we'd have to most used items handy and all other things (e.g. warm clothes), tucked far away. Yesterday, we drove from Perth to Cervantes, to Nambung Nat'l park and the famous pinnacles desert. The pinnacles were very interesting and also kind of special, because it was allowed to drive through (a part of) the park, walk in between the pinnacles and even touch them. To our experience, this is usually not allowed in national parks.

Photo's will be added as soon as we have opportunity to resize them first. Uploading them full size takes too long.

Nissan Patrol finally on the move

Our 4-wheel drive was supposed to be ready for us yesterday. It wasn't. It arrived late yesterday afternoon and wasn't ready for us until 11 am today. Britz gave us a pretty old 4 berth campervan, which worked ok for one night. But, we had a fun filed afternoon yesterday, at the beach and a very nice aquarium in Perth (Aqwa). To top that off, the campground we found (at 8.30 pm) had a nice bath and even a playground next to our camper.

This morning, it took us two and a half hours to get ourselves and the Nissan Patrol ready to move again. Pfff. We brought way to much luggage (and we thought we were travelling light) and had to find space to put it all in. Surprisingly enough, it all fits now, including four camping chairs, excluding the picknick table. I wonder how long it will take us every day to unpack in the evening and to re-pack in the morning ... We will let you know, once we have internet access again :-)

Adelaide to Perth

As planned, we spent the morning walking around the north of Adelaide center, where many old and beautiful buildings are located. We took an easy stroll and many pictures and even had time to stop at Starbucks. Around noon, we had to stop by at KEA campers, to retrieve some items we had forgotten in the campervan. After that, it was off to the airport for our flight to Perth.
We flew with Sir Richard Bransons' budget airline, Virgin Blue, and it was a real pleasure. We were lucky, because the inflight intertainment on our flight was for free, where it is usually AUS$ 4.90. This was really nice, because the system was showing Nick Junior, a childrens channel. Furthermore, Emma and Janne got a flight certificate and one of the flight attendants painted their faces. The 2 hour 50 minute flight was over before we knew it.

Now we're in Perth and the plan is to stay in the area for a couple of days, before heading north. Temperatures are in the mid 30s and even higher up north.

Barossa Valley to Adelaide

Yesterday, we thoroughly enjoyed a day in Barossa Valley. It's a wonderful place to spend many more days than just one. The first thing we did was go to the Saltram Winery, as Pieter considers Saltram to be one of the best wines outside of France. After that, we made a 30 min helicopter flight over the valley, which we all thought was GREAT fun! Emma and Janne were not afraid at all, not even when the rotor blades started making a lot of noise.

We ate our lunch at Zinfanel Tea Room in Tanunda, which we can really recommend to anyone visiting the Barossa Valley. The food is great (mostly German) and the hostess is very nice. After that we visited the biggest winery in the region, Jacob's Creek. We mainly chose this winery (out of the fifty plus in the valley), because Jacob's Creek was the first affordable and good wine we could find in Taiwan. Now there's many more good wines for reasonable prices available. Unfortunately, we were too late to go to the Storybook Cottage, but we'll make it up to Emma and Janne by an extra beach visit on the west coast :-)

Today, Friday, the weather finally cleared up and it was a nice, warm day. We had to hand in the campervan before 1 pm, so we drove straight to Adelaide. The advantage was that we had a whole afternoon to do some sight-seeing in Adelaide. We found our first Starbucks of this trip and had a great fish-and-chips dinner. Adelaide has many beautiful old buildings, which we plan to see more of tomorrow morning. Tomorrow at 3 pm, we're boarding a flight to Perth, where we'll start our second leg of this trip. In a 4-wheel drive Toyota Landcruiser ....

And, as you can see, Karin finally managed to get some pics included in the posts! (Also in some earlier posts.)

Padtheway to Barrossa Valley, South Australia

Today, we made it to Nuriootpa, Barrossa Valley. It was a long drive, especially since we first had to visit a doctor in Keith this morning with Emma, who had a allergic reaction (skin rash) to something or other. We think it was a weed she fell in at a playground yesterday. We got some medicin, she seems to be ok.

The weather has been changing during the last two days, from hot and sunny, to rainy and windy and back to sunny (but still cool). The scenery is very Australian; big open grass lands, interlaced with flat, small towns. Locations of campgrounds are usually indicated as '1km SE (South East) of PO (Post Office)' or similar direction. Fortunately, they're usually not far from the main road. Tomorrow, we plan to explore the the wineries of Barrossa Valley, including (if all goes well) a 30 minute helicopter flight over the area! Hopefully the weather will be ok, so we can actually enjoy the flight and the views.

Maybe our next post will have a picture attached (assuming such thing is possible with these 'internet kiosks' and assuming that Karin can figure out how to work with her new photo storage gadget)...

We're in Australia

After a sleepless 8 hr flight (for Karin at least), we arrived in Melbourne and picked up our KEA 6 berth camper home. Pieter drove 75 km to Geelong and there we all collapsed at 10 pm. We slept until 10 am the next morning and that's when our vacation really started. The second day, we drove a total of 115 km, all the way to Apollo Beach. From now on, we'll have to do some more serious driving, to reach Adelaide on time ... Yesterday and this morning, the weather was wonderfull. We spent some time at the beach, at a playground and we drove along the Great Ocean Road. Very impressive indeed. Now it turned cool and it's raining :-( We're cozy in our camper home, playing games, cooking and reading. Hopefully tomorrow will be dry.

We're on the move!

Thursday, we said goodbye to our house on the Kao Feng Road. The movers pacekd everything with amazing speed in three days and on Thursday, we were there for the very last time. A bit strange, but not too. Yesterday, we said goodbye to Maggie and I said goodbye to my colleagues at ASML. To be honest, it was not as hard as I thought it would be. The real test probably comes in March ... Now it's Saturday evening, 9 pm, and we're at Singapore airport waiting for our flight to Melbourne to depart. We spent the whole day in Singapore, which was nice, be it a bit wet. Last night, we arrived at our hotel at 11.45 pm. Fortunately, Emma and Janne let us sleep until almost 9 this morning ... Our flight today will leave at 11.15 pm and we'll be in Melbourne 9.40 am tomorrow morning. It's (I think) about 8 hours. Should be ok. Next post from Australia!