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.