Tasmania, heaven down under.

Weaponed with a jacket for the cold climate and a fishing rod, that I already kept with me since shark bay but never used, we stepped in a brand new rental Hyundai I20 to drive from Hobart to Launceston along the west. Then we would hire a bike and drive it back to Hobart along the east coast!  It was so nice to drive a normal car with automatic gear, after 3 months hitting my van from 1984. We headed to the Hobart West-side National park for a 3h walk to the top of a mountain. There was a lot of fog but that made the landscape only more magical.

La Goon

Back on the mainland Gilligans was booked out, so I checked in at Nomads on the esplanade. I thought I was adapted to the land right away until I took a shower and the walls started making me landsick. In the night we had a dive-reunion party at the Courthouse and the Woolshed. Some people from the boat showed themselves a lot more active on land than in the sea, maybe it was because now we were not drinking tea.  

Finding Nemo: whitsundays & great barrier reef

We had a day and a half to do 800k till Airlie beach. From there we left the next day for a 3 day sailing tour along the Whitsunday islands, my first big meeting with the world heritage great barrier reef. We entered Apollo: a retired competition sailboat who has many victories on his name. I helped raising sails to head off far far away from the mainland. We first started snorkeling and it was amazing how many fishes we could see in the clear water. The reef was stunning and the little beach where we could have a quick rest to clean our masks from fog was made out of old coral that had turned into stone. It was a masterpiece by its own!  I was surprised the most by Elvis, a 150y old rastafish moving slowly his big body through the reef. He didn’t seem to care to go on the photo with me and looked me in the eyes with his I don't care attitude. 

Into the wild: up to the east coast.

 

After saying goodbye to my travelgroup in Brisbane I had to leave the dildoracing to be on time for the bushcamp 2 days later. I slept in Caloundra on Kings Beach with a lot of free barbie's and a new esplenade along the beach. I got back on track to get on Noosa where I would meet Tovi again. Noosa has a lot of surfable beaches, but we stayed out of the water. A walk in the National Park let us see a big leguan, some kind of big wasp eating a spider, another hundsman and a lot of acrobatic stunts from the surfers in the water.

5 cheezy monkeys on the road: from Sydney to Brisbane.

Sam, Louis and me went on Sunday from Sydney straight to Palm Beach. There we spent 24h playing “home and away” on the beach waiting for Johnny and Maxime who followed a day later. Unfortunately Louis had been to greedy with his sunscreen and made it difficult for us to see the difference between him and a red lobster. The next week he found it hard getting sleep and found out how it was to be a snake changing skin.  On palm beach we tried my aldi-6$ kite and did some bodysurfing. 
The next day we continued the road singing every classic Samson en Gert song (my soundsystem is from the 80's) until we arrived in a small National Park in Port Macquirie or Coffs Harbour: I don't remember. Before the dark we had a walk in the park with too many mosquitos and giant insects making an incredible loud lovesong. We swom in a warm lagoon just in front of the ocean to end the day in van playing shithole.

P-Diddy's B-Day party in Sydney

On Wednesday we started out trip to Sydney, because I wanted to be there for my birthday. We stopped at Wilson promontory national park, lakes entrance, batemans bay and Jervis bay.

 

The great ocean drops

Mary, a 23 year old german girl would be my travelpartner for the roadtrip from Adelaide to Sydney. I was really excited to travel in my Van! Mary seemed to be a really nice girl and we agreed quite well on the travel plan. After seeing the exceptional white kangaroo at bordertown we climbed a small mountain near Mt Gambier and discovered a salt lake in the short distance. Off course once we started walking it was more far away then we guessed, and flies were all over me,but it was nice to experience walking on the salt and on the way back we saw the biggest Lizzard till now I saw in Australia sunbathing on a dead tree. 

When nothing goes right

The first days we just recovered behind our laptops and chilled around in the CBD. Slowly we started

to look for jobs.  After leaving our 2 great
relocations, we had to look for new transport for the east coast. The only way to experience it in total freedom and don’t spend all your money on hostels is to buy a Van. So after a lot of searching I bought my first campervan! A 1984 Toyota Hiace, with high top roof and 315000k on it. I bought it in Glenelg, a small suburb at the south west side of Adelaide with a really nice atmosphere and beach. Nigel, the man who sold the van to me was really friendly and helped me a lot. He even invited Flo and me to stay in his house for a couple days. Nigel, if you read this: THANKS A LOT! I did a great deal buying it, but it was empty on the inside. So I had a lot of work to do.  I started to think about a bed, building some kind of kitchen to cook and find a way to put all stuff away.  While Flo was working I worked on my Van every day, drawing plans, going to Bunnings and Ikea 7 times, sawing wood, screwing boards…

Man versus wild: episode one

I had organised a second relocation car from Alice Springs to Adelaide: bigger than the first one. This time we also had a toilet, shower, microwave, kitchen, hot water, automatic gears & cruise control. We had to wait 3h for it because some kids had smashed the windows, but at lunch it was fixed and we were ready to go!  The next 1500km on the road were really boring with an empty landscape and straight road for hours and hours and hours…

To the heart of Australia.

From Darwin to Alice Springs I found a relocation car for Flo and me. For the people who don’t know: a relocation car is a rental car who has to be brought back to a specific city in a limited amount of time. If you‘re smart you end up with an almost new 4wd campervan with airco, fridge, kitchen and you pay no fee, except the fuel. Travelling in style!