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: