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Posts tagged Australia
Oz Road Trip 09 – Day 4 – 30.08.09 – ALICE SPRINGS & ULURU
Oct 31st
30km to go to Alice, so we were pretty excited. We almost reached the biggest goal on this trip: the Uluru (also known as Ayers rock). Well at least we thought we were pretty close. After passing Alice (nothing exciting there, really) we still had a couple of hundred kilometers to go. Eventually we arrived at the Uluru ressort, where we planned to stay for one night. We were early enough to have a look around before heading off to the sunset viewing area at the Uluru. The park was only about10km from the Uluru away, so there was no need to rush. So here are the pictures of the Uluru:
Laura is excited about Uluru and wants to take it home...
...so I tried to squeeze it...
...but that didn't work. So I had to carry it home.
Luckily, I was to lazy to carry it. So it was still there for sunrise.
Well to be honest I have to say, that the Uluru is not as impressive as I expected. This is mainly because of the following reasons:
1) Everyone in Australia tells you about it. How big it is. How nice it is. How different it looks depending on daytime. How amazing the feeling is to actually see it. How different it looks from every angle. All nice and good, but people just overstate a lot. After all it’s just a massive rock.
2) You’ve seen it so many times. On magazines, postcards, pictures of friends, on the internet, on book covers, in books, in the newspaper, on shirts. It’s just everywhere. So when you actually stand there and see it, it looks just like you already knew. No different at all.
But anyhow, we saw it, and we could drive on 
Oz Road Trip 09 – Day 3 – 30.08.09 – DALY WATERS & DEVILS MARBLES
Oct 21st
Off to day 3! Actually we thought about leaving the camping site we stayed over night without paying. But as we were just about to leave, the park ranger came along and asked for the money…damn! 
Anyhow, our aim for today was to get to Alice Springs! But first we wanted to stop at the famous Daly Waters pub. So off we were to explore the very special Australian outback pub culture. Yes, it’s kinda strange. They have nothing in the outback. Just endless spaces full of gum trees and … nothing. But then out of nowhere there is a pub. And even funnier there are people in the pub drinking (this fact does not correlate to the time of the day). Daly Waters is specially famous as a good example of such an outback pub, full of stuff. And I really mean stuff. They have everything there, starting from id’s over money to thongs (german: flip-flops) and bra’s of people who visited once and left something behind. Just have a look yourself:
IDs at Daly Waters pub
Money hanging off the walls at Daly Waters pub
They even had an original DDR numberplate there.
Original DDR numberplate at Daly Water pub
After we had seen enough of Australian outback pub culture, we drove on to Alice. On our way we passed a sign telling us that we were close to the so called “Devils Marbles”. We never heard of them, but decided to stop, as we were a little bit tired anyway. And what a good decision this was! These are big round rocks looking like marbles, standing just there as if the devil himself put them there to play with. I wonder though why they are named “Devils Marbles” . Some of them were stacked up high and I climbed on some of them. From up there the view was even better, as you could see how many of those marbles there actually were. For those who are interested how they were created, have a look here.
One of the Devils Marbles
Laura also enjoyed the view, standing on top of one of the marbles:
Laura looking over the marbles
And after this nice stopover we drove on to Alice and almost reached it. We stopped at a parking spot 30km before Alice and set up our van for the night.
Oz Road Trip 09 – Day 1 – 28.08.09 – DARWIN & KATHERINE
Oct 13th
Today was the big day. We finally were able to convert our planning the last few days (or even weeks?) before into action. We took a Taxi to get to the camper van rental company and were so keen on getting our little baby. Of course to get this, we had to fill out heaps of paperwork. After watching a 10 minute DVD that explained us, how to open the door of the camper van, how to use the steering wheel and how to cook we were given the keys! One final inspection and off we were. Of course we had to fill the esky, so we first went shopping before we drove off to my workplace to say goodbye to everyone for the next 4 weeks. After all we were ready:
Ready to go
So we headed off to our first goal: Katherine. After driving more than 300km we found out, that it was a bigger goal than we thought – we were already running out on fuel! On the first day. Luckily we managed to reach the first fuel station in Katherine. With nothing to offer for Tourists we decided to keep on driving to the Nitmiluk National Park where we planned to stay over night. The reception was already closed so we just drove onto the campground and looked for a nice spot to stay. We did not only see some Cane Toads, but also our first wild wallaby:
First wild wallaby
After taking those pictures we went to bed, tired, but happy to be on our way! We had big plans for the next day…
Oz Road Trip 2009
Sep 30th
As some of you already noticed: I am back from my road trip. Before I start blogging about the single days, I just want to give you an overview of the actual trip. We drove 8951 km in 21 days, plus additional 1600 km in 1 day with a greyhound bus. We started in Darwin and crossed the outback to get to Adelaide. From here on we drove the east coast back up north (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane) until we reached Townsville (we wanted to get to Cairns, but ran out of time). Then we drove back to Darwin. In between we had a sailing/diving/snorkeling trip to the Whitsunday Islands and to the Great Barrier Reef and also a day trip to Magnetic Island. It was a very impressive and awesome trip. Though we only had 4 weeks, we saw so many different things and made so many experiences, that in the 2nd week we couldn’t remember what we did in the first week . During the next couple of days I am going to get more detailled, and include some pictures of the trip as well.
Oz Road Trip 2009
QANTAS
Jul 4th
Did you guys know that QANTAS is an acronym for “Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Services“? I didn’t until recently a work mate told me about this.
Makes me even more proud to live in the NT
NT driver licence
May 26th
After a couple of times I’ve been to the MVR (motor vehicle registration) to register my car to my name and to get a NT driver licence, I was finally successful today. With this licence I am even able to drive motor bikes (Btw: The registration of the car for 12 months did cost 700$, plus 600$ to repair the car in advance…)
My new NT driver license
New A/C
May 26th
Today the A/C in my room finally got exchanged. It was broken for a couple of weeks. With the start of the dry season I thought that I don’t need an A/C anymore, but the sun shines directly into my room. So when I come home from work it is like 40 degC in my room. The very old model (build in 1978) has now been replaced with a brand new split system. This means that it the A/C consists out of 2 units, with one being in the room and one being outside. So the newer model is very quiet.
The old aircon
The new one
Bass in the Grass
May 24th
Yesterday I was at BASS IN THE GRASS, a local music festival and the biggest up here in Darwin.
To be honest I was really disappointed with the festival. The bands that played were really boring. I am open to all kinds of music (though I do prefer some good house music), but what they played just didn’t rock the crowd. I think if I were a local, I would have known some bands and enjoyed it more. The acts I liked were: Gabriella Cilmi (she sings “sweet about me“), Jessica Mauboy (I liked her last single “Been Waiting“) and Sneaky Sound System. There were lots of people and way more than at pure sounds in the park, but I still prefer pure sounds. Maybe it’s because they only play one kind of music – not only because that’s the kind of music I like, but also because the atmosphere was constant on a high level. Whereas at bass in the grass the jumping crowd was interrupted by some slow country(?) music.
I took some pictures with my broken camera, and was suprised that most of them looked alright, although you couldn’t see what you where taking pictures of (broken display, remember?). You can find those pictures here.
Sailing trip
May 4th
Today I went sailing. Dave (a coworker) invited me to join him for a short sailing trip. We started at the sailing boat club in Fannie Bay and went down the whole way to the wharf (and back of course).
Our sailing trip
It really was fun to have the control over the boat and to be on the water without hearing the noise of an engine. Here a beautiful picture of our boat:
Our boat
You can find all the other pictures here.
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