Encounter

Hah, I went to the RipCurl store to check out some clothes and had a little chitchat with the store assistant. After a while talking in English it turned out that she came from Turku in Finland and had been here for three months now. She didn't really understand it first when I changed my speech from English to Finnish which proofed we were both quite surprised. I haven't met really many Finnish around here, and to be honest, this wasn't the place I was expecting to see one. Well anyways she invited me to her birthday at her Bondi apartment on 13th of January but unfortunately I'll be gone by then.

When I started thinking about the finnish I've met, it turned out that I actually went out yesterday(excellent short time memory) with a finnish guy to check out some of the local pubs. Janne is a friend of my friend Topi, who I was travelling with in Bangkok.

I'm still staying in the Sydney central square YHA. There's probably a potential buyer coming to check out the surfboard which is on sale in the Ebay. It's nice and sunny at the moment and it doesn't seem that we're gonna get snow for the christmas.

Relaxing times

Well we didn't hit the town on weekend but I headed around 50kms from Sydney instead. I took a train to Epping where Mel picked me up with her parents car. It was great to see the tall Sebastian and Mel again. The last time I saw them was in Broome in NW Australia. We rode to Ash's parents house where I was happy to see Ash and her really stylish house. I also met Ash's really playful dog, Aussie Bulldog, Gracy. Gracy seemed to enjoy the same things as my sis's dog Nelli and I had to throw her ball for a while. We spent a really nice house evening by watching travel photographs and laughing about the all the crazy stuff we've been through.

On the morning Ash's mum came home and made us a bbq-brekkie(or brunch). With stuffed stomachs we then laid on the couches with Sebastian and just watched SkyTV's Simpsons marathon. After travelling a while, simple things make you feel like a king. The next night we spent in the Mel's parents house. This house is also really nice with two stories, a pool and a jacuzzi. I was also honoured to meet the house's gorgeous dog, Jackson. He's 13months old golden retriever and so full of energy. Mel's parents were having their wedding anniversary so they headed out for the night and we 'kids' just stayed in the house watching a movie and eating pizza. Mel invited me to his house for Christmas so I'm really happy that I don't have to stay in the hostel. Actually I might be heading there in couple of days already and stay there until I leave Sydney which is 3rd of January. Now I'm considering myself extra fortunate since finding accomodation in the Sydney for the New Year is nearly impossible or atleast ultra-expensive. I'm really looking forward for the million+ people party and the massive fireworks from the Harbour Bridge.

Farewells

After the last night out with Harri I had to say him and Nanna goodbye this morning. They left so early that I still had few hours to sleep in the hotel room before I got a call from a French guy who was interested in buying the van. Well he bought it and now I'm staying in the hostel with heaps of money again. I just should get some kind of order to all my stuff. Now I'm carrying a big rucksack, 8,6"(2,6m) surfboard and big bag with wetsuit and misc stuff. I'm backpacker again.

Mel and Ash are coming to Sydney this weekend and I'm probably heading out with them and couple of their mates. It's good to change some travel stories again!

Blue mountains and Northern beaches

I'm a little bit ashamed to write an entry with this topic and to be only spent a one night in the blue mountains area. The town called Katoomba is the gateway to the most visited places in the Blue mountains. We went to visit the Three Sisters lookout and, yes, the views were really superb. The horizon was coloured in blue and we were wondering is it really the vaporizing oil from the eucalyptus trees which causes this. After nice views I turned my van Lulu towards the Sydney and was about to complete my journey around Australia. We drove to the Mona Vale which is located in the Northern Sydney. There was a nice big4 caravan park just next to Narrabeen surf beach but I wasn't keen enough to go surfing to the crowds. We spent one day cleaning up the Lulu and now it's ready for possible buyers.


We are now staying in the Central YHA in the Sydney and I'm really astonished to think that I've now driven around Australia in 117 days which summed up to 22000kms in total with day average of around 190kms. Just in comparison I uploaded a picture with Australia and Europe in the same picture and the shortest air-distance from Helsinki to Sydney is 15000km.

My car, my home, my 1987 Toyota hiace is now for sale for only 2900aud. We're heading out tonight with Harri and I was thinking to order some champagne, sparkling wine or atleast imported beer to celebrate my expedition. Good job Lulu.

Wilson's Promotory, Lake's Entrance and Merimbula

We started driving towards Sydney from Phillip island and decided to follow the coast. We had our first night stop in the beautiful Wilson's Promotory which is pretty much the most Southern point in the Australian mainland. Even though there was quite strong onshore wind I had some luck with surf by waking up at 5:30am and getting few waves in the early morning. Harri had done some more surfing-prac on the previous evening and ended up cutting his angle with the fin of my minimal. Didn't need any stitches though so no worries. There was some bushwalking options and really nice beaches with squeaky sand in the WP national park but as we were in little bit of a hurry we didn't spend too much time to explore all of these.


The next day we travelled to the place called Lake's entrance and I was a little bit interested in the place called Red Bluff which should be good surfing spot on the area. Luckily there was a camping area just walking distance from the surfing beach and we spent there one night. In the evening we went to play some minigolf with Harri and he won the two tight games with his famous and incredible luck. After the exotic wakeup by the sound of Wonga pigeon, I had some nice surf in the morning again for a short time before the ocean got quite flat. There was some submerged rocks but the place wasn't as scary as the Flat Rocks in the Western Australia which I wrote about earlier. I could write here some philosophical thoughts about a man, ocean, surf and life in total but you'd only understand them by waking up early, and experiencing the rising sun and calm swell by yourself.

From Lake's Entrance we finally made our way to my home state, the New South Wales. We went through nicely sounding places like Eden and Pambula and decided to camp in the Merimbula on the Southern East coast. Surf was going to be flat for few days so I could concentrate on something else a while and we headed out with Harri. The only bar/nightclub in Merimbula was really booming and we pretty much left quite early back to the camping site. Next day the ocean was flat and we had to drive through all the famous surf places like Ulladulla, Jervis bay and Bateman's bay, sob.

Our first plan was to stop in the Wollogong and spend a big Saturday night out there but some mistakes in the map reading lead us all the way to the Blue Mountains and town called Katoomba. We arrived there 7:20pm just to find out that the check-in for the caravan park was already closed but we headed for the bushcamping instead. There's a bush camping area close to Ingar and it's accessible via 10km dirtroad. We arrived there during the dark and immediately spotted couple of not-the-smallest spiders which seemed to cause a little bit of nervousness. After a safety meeting we decided not to spend any more nights in the bush camping which suited me fine.

Penguin Parade!

I had to write the own entry for this one. The Penguin Parade, which literally means hundreds of small penguins coming out of the ocean and stumbling their way across the beach to their sand-dune burrows. It's really delightful sight but maybe even more spectacular is the actual tourist business around it. Besides the massive parking lots there's a huge penguin terminal for tourist where you can take photoshopped images of you and your family with the penguins. There's not any photographing in the actual beach so all the photo-mad Asians have to pick this option and pay. Well even though there were strict regulations about photographing we still saw some flashes and heaps of cameras around the beach and the boardwalks so that's about it. Oh yeah, and don't imagine that you can get onto the beach. There's a big stadium around the area where the penguins are landing so you can view them from the distance with hundreds of other tourists buzzing around. You can't probably miss some black suited businessmen having a quick glance at the penguins and so fitting perfectly in this environment.

Cape Woolamai in the Phillip Island

Phillip island is located around 130kms South of Melbourne and there's a bridge access to the island. In the Finland Phillip Island is probably best known of it's racing circuit where the Motogp is held. Finnish 125cc-driver Mika Kallio finished second there on September. There's some nice views around the island as you can see on the pic.
Well we didn't go there for the motogp but to see the surf and the masses of penguins. I had made some research about the surf locations beforehand and the place called Cape Woolamai, just south after the bridge, should offer the best surf in the island. We were lucky to have good offshore winds and nice swell when we arrived on the main beach at the Cape Woolamai. There was heaps of other surfers enjoying the nicely shaped waves but there was so many breaks that the big pack was divided nicely along the beach. I got some nice waves here with my minimal again and didn't find the locals too competitious either. I started to think that this would the perfect moment to change my board to about 7foot minimal which should be faster and easier to turn. I still find my 6.3" shortboard too hard to paddle to have fun enough in the water.

We also did quick surf check at the Smith's beach which is more like a family type. The swell was much smaller there and would be really good for beginners(Harri). Well as we already had stopped in Cape Woolamai I took Harri to practise standups in the whitewash there instead. I was standing in the water with my wetsuit on and giving Harri tips while he did some nice standups in the whitewash without any wetsuit. "It's like in Finland", he said when I asked about the water temp and he was the only one not to wear a wetsuit.

Buddy old pal

It was great to see my friend Harri again who I met in the Melbourne international airport. He's doing a world around trip through Singapore, Australia and Los Angeles/Las Vegas with his ex-girlfriend.. We have been here in Melbourne four nights now and spent one night at the Great Ocean Road. We spotted some roos doing big hops over the field fences on the way. There's spectacular ocean views with sheer cliffs along the road and also some surfing spots as well. We stopped on the Bells Beach in Torquay just to see that there wasn't the "The ultimate Wave", as seen in the Point Break(1991) movie. Today we went to the Melbourne zoo and spotted all the unique aussie animals; roos, emus, koalas, platypuses, freshies and wombats + many other animals.

Temperature and especially the nights have been quite cool lately and it feels more like the Finnish summer now. Well it's still spring here and it seems that it should be getting a little bit warmer on the beginning of the next week though. Harri has to get some information about his passport because he's not sure if he can enter US with his current passport which may not fulfill the 6-month expiry requirement. That's why we are still staying this night here in Melbourne but no worries since this is really groovy city. If everything goes ok we're leaving to Phillip island to check out the penguins and the surf tomorrow. Surf forecast predicts 1.5+ swell with offshore winds on the beginning of the week. Looks good and maybe I can get harri to stand on the surfboard as well! After that we're slowly making our way to Sydney through the Southern NSW.

Waiting for Harri

After great surf at long beach in Robe and scenic drive through the Great ocean road I'm here in Melbourne. Nice looking city but the traffic is quite challenging with hook turns and trams. One of my childhood friends Harri is coming here tomorrow. I'll meet him at the airport. It's gonna be interesting to speak Finnish again.

From Esperance to Adelaide

When you're going from Esperance to Adelaide, you need to cross the Nullarbor plains. These are plains with pretty much nothing. At some parts there's no trees anywhere, just vast plain everywhere you look. Quite interesting experience was the longest straight in Australia. 90 Miles of road without a single bend. Made me quite numb while I was listening again and again the only four casettes and 256mb mp3s which I have in my car.

I had to stay overnight on the road because you can't do these distances in one day. The warning bells started ringing again when I woke up the first morning in the Nullarbor plains and the car didn't immediately start up. It took me a good time trying to get the car started and it seemed that it doesn't get spark. Finally it started and I wondered if I just flooded it. I headed to Cactus beach which is again one of the World class surfing beaches in Australia. Cactus beach is surrounded by nothing, only sand dunes. There's a small camp site and there was couple of people camping there, mostly surfers. The other habitants in this area are the flies. Pretty annoying little creatures when they keep flying in your eyes and mouth.

The day wasn't really good for surfing. Really small swell and onshore wind made it again worthless to go into water. After the nice surf in Esperance I didn't really feel getting myself wet. The views at the Cactus beach were worth checking out though! I continued towards Eyre Peninsula following the tips I got from John but as the day was bad at the Cactus beach, it wasn't better in the Eyre Peninsula. There was good potential spots around Streaky bay though and I'm sure there's nice surf and sharks around. There's a big sea lion colony at the Western Eyre peninsula and there's a good lookout where you can observe them. I spent a night at spot X, had same ignition problems in the morning and finally drove around the whole peninsula. The ride was really beautiful which proofs that the journey is part of the experience.

I stopped around 70kms before Adelaide and this time in the morning it took almost an hour to start the car. I decided to service my car in the Adelaide again. They changed the spark plugs and did some cleaning around the distributor. It seemed to work since the car starts without problems again. Yay! I proceeded onwards through Adelaide but had a double whopper with cheese on the way.

The germans have updated their pictures. Check out this link and especially the cool river crossing outback pictures

Stuck in Esperance

Well the overheating problem didn't correct with the change of the fan clutch. I had to stay for over the weekend in the Esperance to get my car serviced on Monday. No worries though! John is a guy who I met in Esperance and I finally found out the true meaning of Australian hospitality. First of all, on Thursday John invited me to see some cool surfing photos around the area and the World while having couple of beers in his house. He also offered me to have a shower, make the laundry and sleep in the house but I was glad enough to have a hot shower and sleep in my van in his carpark. On Friday we got up 5am to get some waves and John rode me around the Esperance and to one cool beach with his 4wd Jeep. He could again tell everything about the local surf breaks. This was the day I was planning to leave towards the East and the Nullarbor plains but since the car didn't got fixed I gave John a call and he invited me again to sit the evening in his place. There was also a local couple Lara and Shain(or Shane) and we had a great pasta dinner with wine. While having a dinner I found out that Lara and Shain are running a local coffee business. Surprisingly I got a free coffee next day from their stall. The weekend went pretty much waking up early 5am-6am in the morning and surfing 2x2hr sessions during the day. Surfing takes your juices out and I've been going to bed usually around 6-8pm.

John gave me some great surfing tips for my future journeys and also some insect repellant to take me into the cactus beach which is quite notorious of the flies. When I said that my car eats some oil he also gave me some spare oil he had in his garage. Quite unbelievable.

On Monday I took my car to the service again and we changed the thermostat but no avail. Then we took the whole radiator out for long process of cleaning but temperature gauge was still showing overheat. We started to suspect the actual gauge and made manual temperature measurements. It turned out that the bloody gauge was showing total bullshit and I ended up buying a manual gauge. It's a cool pimp up for my van though. Quite expensive service but atleast the cooling system is now in good condition. I said goodbyes to John and gave him many thanks before heading towards the treeless Nullarbor plains and the surf in Cactus beach.

Rushing through Stirling Ranges, Esperance and Cape le Grand national park

From Albany I headed North towards the Stirling ranges, which are pretty nice mountains in middle of surrounding plains. I did some hiking there and climbed up to the summit of Toolbrunup peak(1052m). I first wanted to climb the highest peak Bluff Knoll(~1080m) but the summit was in clouds so I had to plan something else. Luckily I found out the Toolbrunup peak and I found interesting the fact that the actual summit was pretty much couple of rocks. On the other hand in the Bluff Knoll the summit is pretty much big flat area. I also heard that the Toolbrunup should be more challenging with really rocky climb where you need to scramble the last meters up to the mountain. Really rocky it sure was but luckily my great trekking boots, which have helped me in my journeys around the globe, didn't fail me this time either. When I arrived to the summit it was, to my luck, bloody windy and totally cloudy. After swearing for a while for my great luck with the weather there was suddenly a gap in the clouds revealing the magnificent 360 degree view to the surrounding landscape with many mountains. I looked around astonished and tried to shoot some quality video with my videocam before the next clouds would come in. I spent quite a long time on the top just enjoying the moment and the fact that there was no grannies or other tourists on the summit. That's how travelling should be.

With sore buttocks and thighs I then drove towards the beach city of Esperance. This time I was lucky and I found immediately some surfable waves close to the town centre. I decided to boost up my surfing skills and went out with my shortboard just to realize that my arms are not really strong enough for paddling in strong currents and bumpy water. Well I got half a wave but it was good to get wet again. On the afternoon I headed to Le Grand national park which is advertised to have the best beaches in Australia. I climbed the fisherman's peak(~350m) to see the nice views of the park and indeed saw some nice beaches around. Closer look revealed that these beaches had really white sand, like in Whitehaven beach, and no crowds. Really beautiful beaches indeed but atleast that day missing one main key point, the surf. I have seen quite a many beaches lately so seeing just sand and water can't make me frollock too much. I camped one night there and repaired my van door by lubricating it with vegetable cooking oil. Opens nice and smoothly now.

I had pretty much same kind of surf next morning in the Esperance with my shortboard than before. This time it was hard to get waves because it was quite "crowded" with maybe 10 people in the water. Still nothing comparing to Margaret River, Gold coast or other packed places. After the surf I started to drive towards the Adelaide and made it 20kms before the temperature gauge started heading towards the red. I drove the car back to Esperance to check it out before starting the 2100km journey to Adelaide and found out that my fan hub isn't working properly. I'm not sure if I understand how it works whatsoever but it should lock when the hot air blows through the radiator and therefore make the fan speed faster. Well anyways they had to order a new hub and it should cost around 200aud with the labor. I had to wait one more day in the Esperance. Back to the beach and surf with my good old minimal. Got really good lefthanders this time and no crowds in the water. While surfing I talked with a local guy called John who had lived six years here in Esperance and 20 years in Margaret river. He invited me to have a beer and check out some photos this evening. Friendly locals around here!

Towards the Albany

I left the Margaret River cause the bloody surf isn't getting any better in few days and headed towards the Albany in the far South. My route went through beautiful Karri-tree forests and I climbed the 74meters Dave Evans Bicentennial tree. The climb was quite thrilling since you had to make your way up through the ladders which were circling the tree. There was a net at the side of the poles which prevented you falling from the sides. The poles worked as the 'ladder' but there was nothing under them so if you would have slipped you would have fallen to your certain death. Well I haven't usually been afraid of heights but this time I have to admit that I may have used a little bit of excessive force to enhance my grip from the poles. No grannies at the top.

I also visited the treetop walk at the valley of the giants. It's like a catwalk going up to 40m on the treetops and offers nice views to the surrounding tingle tree forest. Lots of grannies here.

I've finally in Albany and the surf is small/unsurfable again. Well didn't surprise me at all anymore. I might go to camp next to Muttonbird island for this night since they should have a surfbreak and free camping there and head to do some hiking at Stirling ranges tomorrow. However, first I'm going to Domino's Pizza or Eagle Boys to get some long needed unhealthy food. Normally in the bush I'm living with a strictly vegetarinary pasta/noodles/porridge diet excluding occasional cheese/tuna/salami treats.

Surftrippin' Margaret River

Headed towards the SW coast and the Margaret River area with plans to do lot of surfing on this world class surf and wine area. Well wasn't very lucky in the beginning since a strong westerly winds and a big swell made surfing on the western coast impossible or atleast too challenging for me. Luckily I did a little bit research in the Cape Naturaliste area and found a nice break at the Picques Point. This point was facing east and then covered by the NW winds. Some of the locals were surfing at the same place and told me that I was lucky to found this place. They were also quite impressed to see a Finnish 'surfer' in the water but also told that they would probably cause same kind of effect if they would snowboard the slopes in Finland.

As the NW winds eased up a little bit I made some journeys from my base in Cape Naturaliste to Yangidup and the surfbreaks around NW Margaret river area. I found a really nice spot at Injidup carpark and had one of the biggest surfs at the Injidup point. I met a Norwegian guy who had surfed for 5 years and is now studying in Perth. He was taking these huge waves like nothing with his minimal. I wasn't that successful but just being in the water and watching 2m surf crashing just next to you was impressive enough and gave me my adrenaline shot. On the next day the surf got again small and we were fighting of the waves like a flock of seagulls with two local senior guys with their minimals. They took most of them.

Totally I stayed 3 nights in the spot X at the Cape Naturaliste and managed to spot some blue whales from close distance as well. Priceless. Margaret River is one of the top winery regions in Australia and I decided to celebrate it by drinking couple of mugs of my (12aud/4liters) fine wine and watching stars and the bright lighthouse beam in the Cape Naturaliste.

The most breaks in the Margaret River area are really world class which means that they're not really place for the beginners. Breaks include names like 'Guillotines' and 'Gallows' and I didn't really want to find out what's behind these names. I saw some really good surfers in the water and most of the cars which I saw had surfboard mounted on the roof. Reminded me of the skiing resorts in Northern Finland.

Bloody great day

In the morning I spent 400aud for car, new shockies to the back + basic service. In the afternoon I got a 25aud parking ticket. First ticket in my 6-year driving history.

I think I'll head towards SW Australia and Margaret River tomorrow since the surf should be getting up. Perth is a nice green city with surf and I would probably enjoy this place if I would like cities whatsoever. Nils and Sebastian are gonna stay here and look for job so I'm gonna move on by myself. Reminds me of the beginning of the roadtrip when I was surfing in Northern NSW.

Coastal drive to Perth

It was too rocky at the Kalbarri even though there was a great looking point break at Jack's point. However we headed to Geraldton to look for some beach breaks and found some swell at the Back beach. The waves were pretty much closing out and all you could get was whitewash but it was still cool after dusty travelling in Northern territories. The conditions were pretty good for Nils and Sebastian to practise paddling and standups with my 8.6" minimal. I tried to get past the waves with 6.3" shortboard but the long break in surfing had done it's job and I didn't have enough strength to get through the crashing waves.

From Geraldton we got some tips about surf in the Flat rocks which is around 40kms South. We arrived there to see the beautiful sunset and noticed that there was no "no camping" signs even thought the beach carpark was just next to the ocean and there was a toilet as well. The scenery fit perfectly to my previous thoughts about deserted Western Australia with good surf and no crowds. We ate pasta with beans for dinner next to the crashing surf and watched the sunset. You don't need much to be rich.

In the morning I wanted to try the surf. The conditions looked quite calm but I was a little bit worried to go out since it looked quite rocky. It was also the lowtide. I spent a long time trying to catch the waves but couldn't paddle fast enough for most of them and I was too wussy to stay next to the break point. When I finally got one wave I also discovered the truth behind the name of the site. As the wave was growing behind me it sucked all the water out in front of me revealing all the rocks. I wasn't fast enough with my minimal and as the wave was closing out I had to jump into it to avoid totally smashing into the shallow water and the rocks. Even though I still scratched my foot into rocks a little bit and were lucky not to get any bigger cuts. Scary experience and I probably stick with the beachbreaks until I get some of my confidence back :)

We tried to find more surf on our way to Perth but it seems to be totally flat next few days. We camped one night at Lancelin, drove straight here to Perth and are staying now in the Fremantle. I should get my car serviced and then leave towards the world class surf and wines in Margaret River. I heard that Jonas' car, the Misty Yellow, is broken down in Port Hedland and waiting for the new carburator. Poor old Misty.

Diving in Ningaloo Reef and Coral Bay

Hey again. I made two dives to Ningaloo reef from Exmouth and Manta ray tour from Coral Bay. Total 3 dives to great spots and saw again some new stuff. In Exmouth I went to diving trip with Village dive. Saw some huge seasnakes which swam just next to me and I wasn't quite sure whether to panic or not. One bite and you'd be done. I also saw really cool yellow mooray eel which was angrily defending it's hole against us and the fish.


We also went to Cape Range national park for 2 nights. Really nice snorkelling and beautiful beaches. Two gorges to do some walking as well...


In the Coral Bay I went to Manta ray tour. The tour included one snorkelling spot for spotting manta rays and one reef dive. We had a spotter plane looking for mantas so chances to find this huge ray were supposed to be pretty good. And succesful I was and were lucky to snorkel with 4m ray around 15 minutes. Manta ray is like a battleship, slowly flying in the ocean with lots of fish escorting. Massive, amazing. The dive was one of the best ones I've had as well. Visibility was good and the corals were amazing. I saw three big gray reef sharks at the same time, turtle, lionfish and heaps other.

Now I'm in Kalbarri. There's again some surf here put looks quite rocky. Maybe I'll wait for the high tide and see if it gets any better. I'm missing my surfing mates who are probably around Exmouth at the moment. Greetings to them and everyone else :)

Thousand clicks day

Made my way here to Exmouth next to Ningaloo reef. I drove 1030km's yesterday which is the most I've made with a car during a day. Took only 13 hours with my trustworthy Hiace. I only needed to add oil once during this marathon. I've now made 11000kms since I left Newcastle on 16th of August.

I'm heading to Cape Range national park now and probably going to dive Ningaloo Reef in Lighthouse Bay on Thursday. I don't have mobile reception here so no texting.

Andy's birthday, Wolfe Creek

We spent one day camping before we drove to the Western Australia. The reason was simple: No vegetables, fruits, honey were allowed to Western Australia. We had just went shopping in Katherine and tried to be really healthy by buying lots of apples, carrots, salad and all the other stuff which is good for you. We ended up eating 3kg of apples, bag of carrots and all else in two days on our way to the border. The girls had a worse situation since they don't eat meat. Well they emptied their fridge and made everyone a huge ass vegetarian meal. Tasted good by the way and we got rid of all the illegal stuff. We drove happily over the border and I really enjoyed the 39 degrees and the sunshine in my van without the aircon.

In Western Australia we saw Martin and Yvonne from the bloody Germany and they joined us. Now we had six cars cruising on the highway. Andy had a birthday on Wednesday and he wanted to have it on a special location. We camped in the ghost town of old Hall's Creek on Tuesday and decided to head to Wolfe Creek meteorite crater on Wednesday. The road was 150km dirt road and the information told us that it's in rough condition. It was time to make the van suffer again.



There's an Australian horror movie about Wolfe Creek and atleast every backpacker should watch it. It's based on true events and we went to see if the murderer still lurks around the area. The first 50km of the dirt road was pretty rocky and corrugated so quite bad for the shock absorbers and the tires. My car run well though and eventually I arrived to the Wolfe Creek meteorite reserve without problems. All-covering dust isn't considered as a problem anymore. All the other cars showed up as well except the Misty Yellow where the birthday hero Andy and Jonas were travelling. Well we started and decorated the whole camping site with balloons and wear funky clown hats which James had kindly bought. We had also white "United nations of Vans" - T-shirts which Mel and Ash had made with great precision. In the front of the shirts was a map of Australia and in the back was name of the owner and for example "Team Finland".
When the birthday man Andy finally arrived we were already really in party mood and party was full going. It turned out that Misty Yellow had had few problems on the way. Flat tire, broken bullbar and loose fanbelt cover. Well some drinks for Andy and Jonas and all the serious faces were quickly away. The party continued until late evening and everybody seemed to have really good time. We got some refreshing rain as well! Andy is probably never gonna forget this birthday.


Next day I was feeling really for some exercising and we climbed up and in to the crater. This is the second largest meteorite crater in the World, the bigger one is in Arizona. The meteor struck Wolfe Creek around 300 000 years ago but the crater was still around 20meters deep. Big bang. We took our photos, looked for the murderer and decided to go back.

The way back to Hall's Creek didn't go without problems either. Misty yellow is really the car with bad luck and they got another flat tire on the way back. Poor Misty had to wait one more day in Hall's Creek before starting towards Broome. I had some stuff to do so I left beforehand and we decided to met in Broome. On the way we got really cool lightning all around us and when the dark eventually came, we hit a big cloud of huge bugs. I soon ran out of windshield wiper fluid when the bugs just kept on flying towards my headlights. This phenomenon lasted maybe 10-15minutes.

I'm now here in Broome. They have a nice beach here but not surf at the moment and the stinger season is just about to begin. The others should arrive here today or early tomorrow and I've a really hard task of saying goodbyes to everyone. I need to be in Melbourne 28th of November so I can't spend so much time enjoying the huge amount of national parks. So, I've decided to go back to my main objective of learning the art of surfing and driving around Australia. I'll probably head to Exmouth, Coral bay and the Ningaloo reef next. It's only around 1400kms again.

Edit: Well I went surfing anyway. Three hours in 30 degrees water. Felt good to get wet again.

Kakadu NP

Note: You can find Nils and Sebastian's pictures from here
Nils and Sebastian are travelling in my van since Cairns....
More pictures can be found in Ash and Mel's blog


I was planning to skip the whole Kakadu national park in the first place since I'm running really out of my time here in Australia. Luckily the people I'm travelling with convinced me to go and I learnt and saw much during the 5 nights we stayed in the national park.

James and the tall Sebastian had some unfinished business in Darwin so we promised to met them in Katherine. We then headed to Kakadu with three cars and seven people: Andy and Jonas, Ash and Mel and my car with Nils and Sebastian. On the way the Mel and Ash showed us some local knowledge by pulling over next to a mango farm and pretty innocently borrowing couple of the fallen mangoes inside the fence. I have to admit that these mangoes tasted superb and I could reckon them as my favourite fruit.


Andy has a fishing rod but he had never fished before so we headed to a local fishing shop before leaving Darwin. We got some really good tips and bought some lures since fishing with baits was forbidden in Kakadu. On the first night we drove rugged dirt road to a "two mile hole" -camping site and we were the only persons there. There was a river with crocodiles just next to campsite and it felt really weird not to be able to go close to the murky water. We ended up fishing anyway from safe distance but had to have a little break after losing few lures to the underwater branches. We decided to try again though and this time Jonas got something on his throw. We first though that we lost another lure to the branches, but after a little struggling Jonas pulled out a nice catfish. Luckily we stopped at that baitshop before heading to Kakadu and they told us that we shouldn't never handle catfish with bare hands since they have a fairly poisonous spikes somewhere in their body. We let the catfish go loose with the help of pliers. After that our line got really tangled and it was already so dark that we decided to go make some healthy pasta instead.

Next morning I woke up when Andy was calling me outside the van. He had got up early and was now proudly shaking his first fish, barramundi, in front of my sleepy eyes. I used to clean some of the fish back home when I was a kid so I tried to remember and give Andy some tips how to prepare the fish. Eventually we roasted barra filets on the open fire. Tasted allright but heaps of bones. Andy told that now he's become a man.

We then headed to Ubirr which supposed to had some nice aboriginal art and, of course, a good river for fishing and crocodile spotting as well. The art was indeed impressive but more impressive was the idea that most of the art was thousands of years old and there were interesting stories behind the paintings. Some paintings were superimposed so you could see different stories painted over each other. (I had to use the word "superimposed" in this entry). On the evening we climbed to a lookout to see the pretty sunset over vast Kakadu national park. It was a good time to think about it.


We spent two days camping next to Ubirr and on the second day we went to a cruise on nearby river. We were really keen to see some crocodiles and didn't got disappointed since we spotted both saltwater crocodiles(salties) and a freshwater one(freshie). The guide was an aboriginal girl and she also told us interesting stuff about the original ways of living. One of the interesting details was the local punishment system. If an aboriginal commits a crime he's punished by the aboriginese laws, which usually involves beating with a stick or a spear and then he's punished by the white law as well. Hard life. After enjoying the sunset again on the lookout, we went to see what's happening at Cahill's river crossing. As soon as we arrived there we heard heaps of splashes and when we turned our flashlight towards water we realized that it was full of fishes. After a while searching we could see pairs of gleaming eyes. The crocodiles were watching...We spent quite a long time just scanning the waters. I enjoyed my time here.

Next day we went to Maguk through a 4wd track. We made some enquiries about the road beforehand and were told that there's only one sandy part but we could floor our 2wd's through it. After the Gulf track I was not worried about little sand. The track went without problems until the sandy part came and Jonas and Andy's car, the Misty Yellow, was the first to get bogged to the soft sand. We pushed it out though and I showed next how to make my van, the Lulu, fly over the soft sand. Girls followed also without problems with their Sexy Rexxy.


Maguk or barramundi gorge was another paradise with a waterfall. Absolutely amazing place all again and the rockpools on the top of the waterfall were really impressive. There were good options for rock jumping again and Nils made a pretty impressive 10m+ jump to one of the deep rock pools. The day was quite challenging and we hung around in the water for hours just cooling down from the unbearable heat. We tentatively planned to get into our next destination and to check out the sunset there but didn't quite make it. On our way to the next waterfall the Misty Yellow run out of petrol so we got a bit delay. Andy tried to suck some petrol out of the girl's van but not succesfully enough but luckily Nils and Sebastian wanted to do some late evening exercise and they pushed the Misty to a nice lookout point. We then could see the sunset there while girls were getting some petrol for the poor Misty.

Next day we went to Gunlom falls. So many waterfalls that you get this same kind of phenomenom than in NZ. You just get spoiled by the scenery. Well we went swimming anyway and in my head I was looking forward to getting back on my surfboard. When I was back on my van I met two swedish girls who had sailed all the way from Sweden to Australia. Down south the Europe, across the Atlantic and Panama channel. They were travelling in a group of four and had bought 27ft 40 year old sailing boat for 6000 euros each. They were heading next to Indonesia and planned to spend their christmas in Thailand. Way of life!

We drove to Katherine after a nice swim and met James and Sebastian there. Sebastian had bought himself a van so now we had five cars in our convoy. Impressive sight and we're making many local friends who are trying to get past us on the highway.

Darwin

I'm here in Darwin and probably leaving to Kakadu national park today. We spent the weekend here in Darwin and it's pretty allright city. They have a really nice free museum here with excellent aircon and some cool stuff to look as well. Andy spent the whole 2 hours in museum sleeping on a bench next to 6m crocodile fossil. We also visited some markets where Ash and Mel seemed to get into real shopping frenzy. Jonas had also his ownkind of frenzy when he was touring through the different food stalls.

The night market in Darwin is held atleast every Sunday and I liked it really much. Heaps of people gather there and just have a picnic, enjoy the sunset and watch the performing artists. I heard some really nice didgeridoo music here and tasted meats of crocodile, emu, buffalo and camel from the Roadkill cafe. "You kill it, we grill it".

We used to camp next to war museum and there was also "no camping" signs nearby which we kinda seemed to ignore. We managed to sleep 2 nights without problems but this morning we got a nice wakeup from a local council and were politely asked not to camp in Darwin anymore or we would face a 50aud fine. Well we were going to Kakadu national park anyway...

Litchfield national park

I'm getting really frustrated since I'm writing these postings afterwards and I can't remember half of the great stuff I've experienced during all the days. However even if I would remember all of the smallest details I've enjoyed I would only spend my days writing this blog.

Litchfield national park is located just next to Darwin and is smaller than the famous Kakadu national park. You can access almost everywhere in the NP just by 2wd drive so you can see the most of the park in 2 days or even in a day if you're in hurry. Major attractions include huge(5m?) magnetic termite mounds, waterfalls, creeks with waterholes and really nice sunsets. I can only write that I really enjoyed my time there and it's really beautiful. All the details about different attractions can be found at the park home site.

Our days in the park involved a lot of swimming, swearing the flies, swimming again, chilling out and enjoying the quite pushy wildlife. On the first evening when I was doing dishes when everyone else was already crashed out, I heard something coming towards the campsite from the bushes. I turned on the flashlight and I suddenly saw two huge feral pigs with three of their babies coming running towards me. Well I immediately remembered my military training and took defensive positions around the campfire. As soon as I had defeated the first attack the same group starting oinking their way in from the other side. I had quite a funny time trying to make dishes and kicking sand towards the hungry pigs. Eventually when I got my dishes done and went to bed and peeped through the curtains I saw all the pigs keenly licking the scraps from the bbq.

To make our fires we needed firewood. Andy was always really keen gathering some and we came up with this great idea of pulling down a dead piece of tree with our towing rope. So we attached the rope around the tree and started pulling but not soon when we heard a snap when the rope broke. Really good towing rope quality from China!


On our way out of Litchfield Jonas' and Andy's panelvan got into a little trouble when their lower ball joint broke. They had to get their car brought into nearby town and left it there over the weekend which we agreed to spend in Darwin. We then headed to Darwin with only 3 cars and 9 people. Sunset was again beautiful.

Katherine gorge

Katherine gorge is a gorge filled up with water. So we hired a 3 double canoes and a single kayak and went kayaking upstream into the gorge for a day. The beginning was good fun since James and Sebastian (201cm german) had "some" trouble keeping their kayak straight and they were zigzagging their way through the gorge, they picked it up later on though. We stopped on really relaxed places and good fun doing jumping off the cliffs to the gorge. When we were paddling back we got really surprised meeting two real Australian girls since majority of people we had met so far had been from Germany. It turned out that these girls Mel and Ash were travelling in a van around Australia like us and after a while chitchatting the things ended so that we have again 4 cars in our convoy. The girls are keeping up a blog as well and I added it to the links. From Katherine we headed towards Litchfield national park...

Savannah way - Gulf Track

I'm finally here in Darwin after one and half weeks on the road. We drove through the Savannah way around 2800kms towards Darwin and also did part of the Gulf Track which was an 650km unsealed road going through aboriginal communities and has many creek crossings. The starting point to the Gulf track was in the Normanton and after a while thinking only two of our four cars decided to take the shorter and unsealed Gulf track towards Darwin.

So we filled up my van and the Jonas' and Andy's Holden panelvan with water and bought some spare parts in case something would go badly wrong. One of the best buys was a quality towing rope which I hopefully remember to describe in more detail later on. The temperature was somewhere around/above 30 degrees so we were expecting a nice adventure ahead of us.


The track itself wasn't too bad since it was the end of the dry season and the river crossings were still passable with a 2wd car. The only shitty thing was occasional corrugated parts of the road and the driving was sometimes more like being in big blender. We also experienced why the Australia is called the Red Country. The roads were mainly covered with red dust which kept on coming in through the sealings of my tailgate and also through windows. We didn't even consider driving windows closed and I got a really nice tan on my right arm during the 3 days on track. Jonas got also really tanned but when we eventually got into shower it turned out that all his tan was red dust which then got washed out. Haha.

We drove through some of the aboriginal land areas and it was strictly forbidden to go into actual communities since we had some alcohol in our cars. We usually then camped outside the aboriginal lands but still found great places next to creeks and enjoyed the campfire in the outback under the bright stars.

So we had to make couple of river crossings which was a great experience since you had to go into water first to check out the depth and there was also big warning signs about crocodiles who live in these creeks. Fortunately all the creek crossings went fine and I started to believe we could make the track without problems. I didn't quite make it to the end though since as I was speeding my way through the last km's of the dirt road I got stuck in the soft sand. Luckily there was a roadwork just next to my pitstop and I got pulled out by 6 wheel caterpillar. No worries mate!

As we arrived to sealed road we met Canadian James who had took his van a longer sealed road and managed to get ahead of us. One of our four cars left from the group in Mt. Isa so we had 3 cars heading towards Darwin anymore. We stopped and camped in Daly Waters and I realised how shitty I was after driving 3 days through the dusty road. I had also clean up the whole car since everything was covered in dust.

Next bigger stop was going to be the Katherine national park with it's famous gorge.

Pics

More pics

Heading to Darwin

We turn our four car convoy towards Darwin tomorrow. We have been hoarding some supplies and water since we're probably heading through the Savannah highway which should include some interesting unsealed tracks with superb views and lurking crocodiles. I bought new front tires to my Hiace today so it's all ready for the road trip.

I have been "stuck" here in Cairns for 15 days now so I'm more than happy that we finally are moving on away from the city scene. Since we are going away from the civilization, I won't be updating my blog for a while.

I got also some pictures from James:

Diving in the Great Barrier Reef

I forgot the idea about going diving to Cod hole and chose a budget choice instead. Jonas had booked 3-day/2night diving trip through Cairns Dive Centre. The trip included 10 dives and cost a bit less than 500aud in total. Pretty fair price to dive in top spots and live on a boat.

We headed out to the Great Barrier Reef on Tuesday morning with a smaller vessel to meet our bigger boat M.V.Kangaroo. The sea was quite rocky so some people got seasick. When we arrived on the Kangaroo we got a budget cabin with Swedish guy but there was a little leak in cabin so we got a nice upgrade to upper class with big room with a/c and bigger bathroom. Good luck. A/C felt like freezer though because me and Jonas were both used to live in our cars(no aircon).

The wake ups were at 5:30 and the first dive was at 6am. Other dives were usually at 8am, 4pm and nightdive at 7pm. Diving four times a day is really exhausting and even though there was a bar onboard were usually crashed out after a beer or two.

We went diving on three different spots: Moore Reef, Milln Reef and Briggs Reef. The first one was pretty crappy because usually all the day-trips go to Moore reef and tourists had pretty much messed up all the corals. Milln Reef on the other hand was really great with heaps of marine life and good visibility. We saw heaps of turtles, white-tip sharks and other reef sharks, stingrays, lionfish and many other. We were offered a internship place onboard to work out our divemaster degrees. It would take around 75days though and included 41days working. I had to reject in my lack of time but if I would have more time that would be a great option to do.

I'm leaving to Darwin in couple of days. I'm probably gonna pick up two German guys who were looking a lift for Darwin. This should save me a fair amount of petrol costs for almost the 3000km journey.

Cairns

Cairns is one of the major backpacker towns here in Australia. I have spent here few days now with James and there's pretty good parties here regardless of the night. I'm still considering of the scuba diving option to go diving on Cod Hole which is supposed to be one of the best places to dive in Australia and is in top10-ranking in the World. 4 day, 11 dive trip costs 650aud which isn't much for a normal traveller but for a backpacker...Let's see what's gonna happen.

My digital videocam stopped working in Fraser island so I made a little bit research on the internet and was happy to found that Sony should repair it free. I was lucky because I went to video cam repairs as well and they told it's atleast 130aud just to look for the camera. Now I can go there and show that Sony will pay the expenses. All the information about bad ccd problem can be found at:
http://www.imaging-resource.com/badccds.html
http://www.sony.com.au/articles/article.jsp?articleId=3653&categoryId=23816#

I managed to buy my flight tickets to Finland on January. I'm leaving Australia 3.1.2007 and flying to Kuala Lumpur. I have 23 days time to spend in Asia and I'm leaving Kuala Lumpur 26.1.2007 and fly through Vienna to Helsinki. It's exactly a year ago when I was in the Asia last time but now I'm not making too big tentative plans. My only plan is to go to Thailand to see Krabi and surrounding areas and do some diving.

I got some pictures from my previous travels from Abel Tasman national park in New Zealand and the Whitsunday cruise.





The last picture shows Canadian James standing on left, me with a green shirt, Swiss Jonas with gray shirt and German Andy with brown shirt. Captain Andy is standing in the middle.

From Airlie beach to Cairns

It was too windy to do the Yongala wreck dive so we skipped the whole thing. Andy and Jonas wanted to go hiking to one of the islands but they had to wait 3 days and pay 60aud for the ferry to do that. Me and James felt lazy and headed towards Mission beach instead.

Mission beach has a really nice beach but no surf so we were not really interested to spend any time there. We checked out the nightlife on Friday evening and there was around 10 people in the bar. We decided to move on.

From Mission beach we took an inland road towards Atherton tablelands national park and saw really nice waterfalls, rainforests and camped next to a big reservoir lake. I would highly recommend this national park to anyone who is going towards Cairns since you can see so much in one day.

Now we're here in Cairns with James and we're gonna spend some time here because both of us has quite a lot things to take care of. I need to buy my flight tickets back to Finland, service my car and maybe find some persons who would like to travel in my van to Darwin. Andy and Jonas should join us next week and then we're heading together towards Darwin and Western Australia.

Stats: So far I have travelled a month and around 3000kms after I left Newcastle and around 15000kms ahead. I haven't spent any money to hostel nights so the van is paying itself back every day.

Sailing the Whitsunday islands

Went sailing on Whitsunday islands for 3 days/2 nights with Swiss Jonas, German Andy and Canadian James and had a great time sailing, snorkelling and relaxing at the whitehaven beach. There was 24 people onboard and the whole group played together really well.
On the first snorkelling site I managed to spot a quite big maori wrasse called Elvis which I followed for a long time. On the second spot the snorkelling wasn't too special since big tourist groups had pretty much messed up all the corals but it was still fun since I was lucky to be snorkelling with a French girl Bene who was a divemaster(and a swimming instructor) and could spot me some interesting things in water. We also spent some time at the Whitehaven beach which has the most finest sand I've ever seen and it's all really white.


Sailing itself was an awesome experience too, since we had a good 20-30knots wind in the last day. Perfect for the 81ft maxi racing yacht called Condor which really tilted into steep angle when we raised all the sails. "Condor is perhaps the most famous Maxi yacht in history, having won every major ocean race in the world twice. Condor is the only yacht to have achieved this distinction. These races include the Sydney to Hobart, Fastnet, Bermuda races and the World Maxi Championship - just to name a few!"
When balancing on the edge of the tilted ship with seawater splashing on my face, I made a decision to buy a big, fast sailing boat in future when I own a big multinational company and sail across the world.

The whole trip cost me 255aud at the standby rate, worth the money. Now I'm hanging here in the Airlie beach with the guys. James and Andy are planning to do their scuba diving course and we probably leave with Jonas to Ayr in North to dive the Yongala shipwreck. Should be one of the best dives in Australia with incredible amount of marine life.

Carnarvon national park

To make fast, big decisions is the best thing when travelling without too strict timetable. The German Andy and Swiss Jonas asked me to join them to the Carnarvon national park which is located around 450km inland. I thought about the idea for 10 minutes and made my decision to go.

We stayed 2 days hiking in the national park. First day we made around 25km and enjoyed really massive rock formations and gorges made by constantly flowing water. There was some aboriginal(indigenous) art with abo hands and weapons painted on the wall of the caves. There was plenty of small creeks along the track and this is supposed to be a really good place to spot the platypus. We didn't see one. bugger.

On the second day we managed to climb to a nice lookout point which offered awesome views of the whole landscape with cliffs and gorges. You could just think how big the whole Australia is. The weather turned out pretty hot as well, rising up to 30 degrees and some older folks seemed to have problem of staying conscious. Later the ranger put up a sign "Everybody should carry atleast 2 liters of drinking water". It seems that there has to be a sign for every occasion...

The last day I spent pretty much driving from Carnarvon national park here to Airlie beach. I think it was around 800kms, so quite a ride. Toyota eats 10.45l/100km which is pretty decent for a van. Now I should find a good standby offer for one of the sailing trips to whitsundays. We thought about having a little party in the evening and it seems Airlie beach, with tourists and nightclubs, is really good place to have one.

Town of 1770 and Agnes Waters

I'm kinda stuck here in Agnes Waters. I've already been here for 10 days and I still feel like I could spend here another week. 1770 and Agnes waters are two small towns next to each other with around 3000 people in total. There's a pub, two cops - the other drives the only taxi around, and a good surfing beach. What else you need?

I've been hanging around with a Swiss, German and Canadian guy. We have had really good time around here, all living in the cars, and the Swiss and German are actually having same kind of travel plans than me so I'm surely gonna meet them again and again when working my way around Australia. However, probably Airlie beach, 800km to the North, is my next stop. Weather is getting pretty hot already and it's not even the summer...

Surfing in Byron, Cruising in Fraser

Well I skipped the whole Brisbane because I'm not really interested to burn my money in the cities. I had some good surf in the Byron and managed to get my first waves with the 6.3" surfboard.

From Byron I headed North to Noosa heads, but only stayed there for one night since the surf wasn't too special. Got a little bit better with my shortboard though and after a few hours surfing there was a huge tanline on my neck from the wetsuit. Temperature is getting up again and waters warmer so it seems that I can change to boardshorts soon.

I am now at Hervey Bay, which is famous for the whale watching and is a major starting point to Fraser Island safaris. I went through the hostels and managed to get a pretty good stand-by offer for 3-day 4wd safari. It would be a drive yourself, so there wasn't any guide with us. The car was Toyota landcruiser and there was 6 persons in safari. Pretty good setup, since during the safari we saw similar landcruisers with 11 people packed in.



Fraser Island is the most biggest sand island in the world. The eastern beach is called 75mile beach and there's a highway and numerous aircraft landing areas on it. The safari was really good fun. I got to do most of the driving and I really enjoyed accelerating the powerful 4wd through soft landscape. I camped the both nights on the beach under the stars and next to roaming ocean. We stopped to see some really clear sweetwater lakes and also saw many sharks at the ocean. Swimming was strongly discouraged in the ocean and I wasn't stupid enough to try.

Today I'm leaving towards a town called seventeenseventy(1770), which should be the last good surfing point on the East coast before the great barrier reef starts to block the surfable waves. I'm gonna give a ride to two British girls from our safari group and share the petrol costs. After 1770 the next stop is probably the Airlie beach and the Whitsunday islands. Whitehaven beach there, with the bright white sand, is voted for the most beautiful beach in Australia. Can't wait.

On the road again...

Got my payment, said goodbyes to my friends in Newcastle and turned my Toyota towards North. I hit the pacific highway playing Dire Straits and had a strong sensation of freedom since I didn't have any commitments or bigger plans whatsoever. I have time until February, apartment on wheels and two surfboards and I'm in Australia. These facts kept on drumming in my head for a long time until I had departed.

I have pretty much followed the same route we had at the earlier surf trip to East coast. It was weird to stay overnight at the Delicate nobby camping ground because it was almost empty now. The surf was flat so I didn't have a luck to hit the waves. The next day was completely flat as well and I couldn't find any waves even though I went through two beaches in Coffs Harbour, Lennox head and finally Byron bay.

Camping here in Byron bay seems to be really strict so I had to drive a bit further from the city centre to stay overnight in my van. Luckily found a nice spot next to dog exercise beach. Today I had also a little bit luck with the surf. Waves were quite small but I still managed to catch some easy rides with my 8.6" minimal. I'm probably staying here for 1-2 nights more and then heading to Brisbane.

a bit off topic: I have a stats-application running on this website which allows me to see if someone gets into the site by using google and the keywords they're using. Sometimes there's some really weird searches which end up in these pages but yesterday's search went into top three: "male urinals in the Kuala Lumpur".

Returning Australia

I spent two days in Christchurch and enjoyed cold pouring rain before flying back to Sydney. I felt like returning home when I was in customs and the officers told me "welcome back". Now I have working holiday visa for 12 months so I'm able to work while travelling. I went to get my tax file number from local taxation office in Sydney but that was a waste of time since they just told me how to do an online application. After that I had a nice and cheap 5-star kebab and took a train towards Newcastle planning to do some surfing in the afternoon.

I went back to my apartment where I used to live on campus and it was great to see all my university friends again. I couldn't go surfing though since the battery of my van was totally dead and we couldn't jump start it. Later on I got the car running by using thicker jumper cables. I also noticed that there was some damage done to the front passenger side parking light. I spotted tiny traces of blue paint and made some CSI-detective work to find a car with matching paint marks at the same parking lot. Matt lent me his digital camera and I took the necessary evidence photos. Luckily the girl who owns the car didn't deny anything and I'm sure we can work out the proper payment without too much of an hassle. Tomorrow I should get a new cover for the light and then I'm off towards North following the east coast. I snapped my leash of the 8.6" surfboard today so I think it's time for me to start using my other faster but harder 6.3" shortboard.

After too many comments about my hair I got a haircut today. It had been over 8 months since the last one.

Chillin' in Wanaka

I have been a week here in cosy Wanaka. It's much smaller than Queenstown and has a strong ski-village feeling with stunning lake/mountain views. Every morning people get up early and go to two of the nearest ski resorts Cardrona and Treble Cone. The first I already visited and wrote about in my last posting and yesterday I went to the latter. Treble Cone is the biggest ski resort in NZ but most of the skiable area are black back-country runs. It would a perfect place to go after heavy snowfall since there's so much terrain to find good powder. Unfortunately it hasn't been properly snowing here for couple of weeks so the backcountry tracks were already worn out. This combined with the fact that the terrain park isn't too special, I decided to rent skis for the day. It has been couple of years since I went skiing last time but as a kid I used to be the master of alpine skiing back in Finland in the local 102m-high mountain "Kasurila".



It's pretty expensive to go skiing/snowboarding for a day if you don't have a season pass and your own gear. I decided to make my skiing day as cheap as possible and hitchiked the 20km road up to the Treble Cone which turned out to be really easy. When buying the lift pass I was able to get the student discount for NZ & Australian students only, because I still had my Australian student card. On the mountain I met local guy Paul who worked as a lawyer/skiing instructor and ended up skiing with him the whole afternoon. He understood my situation since he had been a ski bum few years ago and gave me a ride back to Wanaka. Later on we went for "few" beers to a bar where his flatmate worked. Friendly bunch of people these Kiwis are.

I'm staying two more nights here before continuing my travels towards Christchurch and eventually on next week to Sydney. I'm missing the surf...

Spoiled by the scenery in Queenstown

I have been here in Queenstown for a week now. It sure is a lively little town with lots of tourists. There's a skiing season at the moment so the accomodations are pretty full. Heaps of people also come here to do some jumping of the cliffs, so if you want to do the most extreme bungy jumps or any other high priced activities, Queenstown is the place to go. The town is surrounded by snow-capped mountains and a lake so the views are again something too unrealistic. We don't praise the beautiful mountains all the time anymore so we came up with a new saying: Spoiled by the scenery.

Last Saturday I had this cultural evening with the british girls. This time I got to taste some long island ice tea, which of course I had tasted before. The special thing was that we were actually having this "tea" from actual ceramic teapot. Looked pretty funny when we were pouring drinks to each other. A later in the evening one of the girls lost her concentration a little bit and the lid of the teapot broke when it dropped to the floor, oh my. We continued the pub crawl to other bars as well and ended up being pretty 'tipsy' at the end of the evening. Had again really good fun.

In the beginning of this week I did some hiking around the Queenstown area and did a 5h "climb" to one of the mountains next to Queenstown. I couldn't make it to the summit since it's a winter and the track is pretty icy and snowy but I managed to find a really good viewpoint again without any tourists. I only saw a pack of (wild?) goats gazing on the track and I had to take a snowy detour since I don't know if those goats were aggressive or not. They had big horns though! I tried to scare them away by yelling them and waving a huge stick but they didn't seem to mind me at all. Stupid goats..

I hired a snowboard (Elan endless 161), pants and goggles from Wednesday to Friday and did some nice snowboarding around the Queenstown. There's couple of ski resorts near so you don't have to go to the same resort all the time. On Wednesday I went to the Coronet peak, which was pretty all right with many different kind of slopes. I went there with an Australian guy Andrew from Cairns. The terrain park at the coronet peak was quite a joke but they still had couple of nice rails for someone who enjoys riding them more than me.

On Thursday I went to the Remarkables, which has less slopes that Coronet peak. There was a lot of potential powder runs though and on a good day the Remarkables can probably offer really good powder riding. Unfortunately it had been sunny for the whole week so there wasn't too much powder to ride but atleast I got some tan on my whitish face. The park here was pretty nice and it felt good to try some boxes again. The superpipe was still under construction but the shape of it looked really good.

Yesterday on Friday I headed a little bit further to Cardrona which is actually more close to Wanaka than Queenstown. As soon as I got to the ski resort I noticed that this is a bit bigger than the previous resorts here and there was a really good looking park and two halfpipes. Unfortunately again they were still shaping the FIS-standard 150m superpipe but there was still a bit smaller pipe which was actually quite the same size than the pipe in my home ski resort in Finland. I did the most of the slopes once in the morning while they were still in good condition but I pretty much spent the rest of the day riding and hiking the half pipe. I really got into it again since the last time I was riding a pipe was over a year ago. On the evening I headed out with Andrew who had his last night here in Queenstown. What a great nightlife the Queenstown could offer again, great place. I said goodbyes to Andrew this morning and he invited me to visit him in Cairns which I'll do around September-October.



Today is Saturday and my last day in Queenstown. I'm heading out with Scottish Dave and English Matt who are pretty merry guys and actually just got wool handling(?) job near the Queenstown. Sounds hard work. Tomorrow morning I should head to Wanaka for another week which is going to include some more snowboarding. The weather forecast said it's gonna rain tomorrow and monday. Fingers crossed that it will be snowing at the mountains and we'll get some nice powder!