(The Outback, Australia, 14th of February 2017)
As promised Josh woke us up at 04.00. None of us had been attacked during the night and we were all ready to leave at 05.00. Johan did not feel well when he woke up in the morning – he had lost all appetite and was generally drowsy. Breakfast was served at a place overlooking the sunrise and Urulu and Kata Tjuta and we photographed the sunrise along with lots of other tourists.
(The Outback, Australia, 13th of February 2017)
We were picked up by our adventure bus at 5.30 in the morning. In the bus sat a Dutch couple and a girl from Wales. The rest of the participants, 12 people, would be picked up at the airport at Uluru five hours later. Our guide Josh was a young man with curly hair and a mustache which matched the image I had of the archetype of a young Australian man. He was energetic and happy and really made us feel that this would be a good trip.
We stopped a few times along the way for toilet visits but also so we could buy beer before the upcoming evenings.
(The Outback, Australia, 12th of February 2017)
It was a good idea to sleep on the bus also if you woke up on a regular basis. At five o’clock, the bus switched drivers and we went away to buy some coffee at a gas station. Next stop was a breakfast stop at eight o’clock. Not much fun food to choose from for someone like me who does not like fried eggs and bacon. I ended up with toast and marmalade and Johan had some toast with egg and bacon. The landscape continued to look roughly the same throughout the whole morning. Very flat, some single trees and still not particularly dry.
(Alice Springs, Australia, 12th of February 2017)
The bus from Adelaide to Alice Springs did depart 18.00 in the evening so we stayed at our hotel as long as we could. Around 12 we took the bus right outside our hotel and twenty minutes later we were right in the city center. We started by visiting the Central Market, a large indoor market full of stands selling fruits, vegetables, nuts and a lot of other things and many cafes and restaurants. In a camera store we met a Swedish couple (the only Swedes we have met in Australia in addition to those we encountered in Byron Bay) who sailed around the world and had done it for eight years. It was a long and pleasant talk about choosing travelling in front of the usual life at home in Sweden. Then we bought strawberries we enjoyed sitting on a bench before moving on to a park nearby to find some coolness in the shade of a tree. It was still 40 degrees and also though we did not carry any heavy luggage, our small backpacks felt quite uncomfortable after a while. It was not much cooler in the park and after a while we left for the art gallery for some air conditioning and beautiful items.
(Adeleide, Australia, 10th of February 2017)
We had booked a transfer to the airport in Brisbane with the same taxi company we had traveled wíth earlier as we knew they would have room for our bikes. Once at the airport we had to repack our bags when checking as the staff of Virgin Australia insisted that we could not add up the weight of our bags. Instead each bag was not allowed to weigh more than 23 kilos. In addition, she weighed our hand baggage to check that they did not weigh more than 7 kilos each, something we almost never happened before anywhere in the world. Then as our hand luggage was on the verge weight we had to open the bike boxes and fill them with some of our heavier stuff. Unnecessarily complicated, we thought. Read More
(Brisbane, Australia, 9th of February 2017)
This morning we took the opportunity to download all our photos from our first days in Australia. It may sound like a short and simple procedure but with three cameras and two phones there are many moments before all pictures are transferred. Then we had to look through the images save some of them to the blog and some of them to Facebook – almost a full-time job ….
After lunch, we took our car and drove off to Redcliffe, a small community on the outskirts of Brisbane where the members of BeeGees grew up. They had built an outdoor museum with pictures and stories around them
(Brisbane, Australia, 8e February 2017)
Today’s excursion went to Tamborine Mountain, where we had planned to visit a place with a skywalk in the rainforest. While we waited for the skywalk to open for the day we went for a short walk on our own in the rain forest. The sound we were met by as soon as we put our foot in the forest was really deafening, and it turned out to be from huge crickets. When we went on the Skywalk we became a little disappointed. We had expected a walk up along the treetops but it turned out that a large part of the 1,5-kilometer loop was situated down on the ground. We felt a little disappointed because we paid 20 dollars for an experience that was less amazing than the walk we did by ourselves in the forest. The only animals we saw where some huge butterflies and a large amount of crickets.
(Brisbane, Australia, 7th of February 2017)
We had not planned exactly where we would drive with our car today, we only knew that because of the hot weather we need to have some other kind of transport, as we will not ride our bikes, in order to see some of the areas around Brisbane. We left Brisbane at 7 and headed to the Gold Coast, 80 km south of Brisbane. Burleigh Heights (just south of the Gold Coast) was our first stop where we had some coffee while we looked at the guys who surfed. Burleigh Heights is said to be one of the best places to surf along the coast. We had both expected super-high waves but they were actually not larger than those we saw in India and Sri Lanka and most surfers were lying still and swayed on their boards. But we still got several glimpses of some talented surfers but they are really hard to capture with a camera.
(Brisbane, Australia, 6th of February 2017)
After the positive experience we had from our free walking tour in Christchurch we booked another one in Brisbane. We were a little smaller group of only 9 people this time, which was lucky as our guide was very secretive. I can tell you that a “free walking tour” is not at all free – the tour guides always begin by telling you that they would like to see you give tips if you’re happy with the tour. The guide of Christchurch even told us how much he thought we would give him – approximately 15 dollar per person.
(Brisbane, Australia, 5th of February 2017)
We had planned that we would ride our bikes this morning and Johan had put up a tour of almost 9 kilometers up and down a mountain. We left home at 7 in the morning but it was already over 30 degrees. Despite the lack of both luggage racks and the usual racing tires (instead of the more grooved tires we used in New Zealand) my bike felt very heavy and I had to stop several times because I was both dizzy and nauseous. I realize in hindsight that it must have been a combination of heat (30 degrees Celsius at most) and the fact that the hills on the way up the mountain were both longer and steeper than expected. After an hour I gave up and Johan rode on while I in a slow tempo cycled back to our apartment. Johan did not ride all the way, but turned back halfway up the mountain. On my 40 kilometers I got 27 height meters and Johan almost got 350 meters of altitude on his 1000 kilometers. Read More
Recent Comments