Back in Sydney (32468km driven)

It was both nice and sad to arrive back in Sydney after five months on the road. Nice because Sydney is my home in Australia and I love the city and sad because it's raining the whole time and I only have 2 weeks left before I fly home. Actually I am looking forward to come home to see my family and friends again, but I will miss Sydney and the rest of Australia for all it has given me.

Our first task in Sydney was to sell the car. We had exactly two weeks and we hoped that that would be enough time. The first thing we did was put the car on different add sites and print out posters to hang in different hostels and travel agents around Sydney. We had only one response the first days and that turned into nothing, so a couple of days later we decided to try and park the car along the famous car selling strip in Kings Cross. It was there me and Kristin found the car in the first place. We sat there for about five hours without anybody even looking at the car, then suddenly an English guy showed up and wanted to have a look. After he had a mechanic look at it and we discussed the price, he ended up buying it from us. We were really happy because we heard a lot of stories about people that tried to sell their car for 3-4 weeks with no luck. Finally we could take all our stuff out of the car and movie into a hostel, a welcoming change from living in the car for so long! The pictures are of our bed in the car (that we slept in for four months) and the alley we camped in. All together we drove 32.468km in the five months I owned the car!

I never went to the Chinese garden during the time I lived in Sydney so me and Annina decided to go there and check it out. The garden is located in Darling Harbor and it was easy to find. The gardens full name is the Chinese Garden of Friendship and it was built to celebrate the Chinese community in Sydney and the close relationship with Guangzhou, a city in the Guangdong Province, China. From the outside it looks fairly small, but once inside the walls you realize that it has some size. I found the Chinese garden very beautiful with a lot of Chinese art, architecture and plants making the walk through the garden diverse and fascinating. Normally I am not the biggest garden visitor, but I enjoyed it. Be sure to check out the "Sydney 4" album when I post it to see more photos from our visit.

Another thing that we said we would do but never did during my time living in Sydney was the walk between Bondi and Coogee beach. So as soon as we had a day with some blue sky we got on the bus to Coogee. The path follows the coast running in and out of small bays and over cliffs and beaches. The best known beach along the track (not counting Coogee or Bondi) is Bronte beach. The weather was great considering the rain we had the last week but the water and air temperature was still to cold for swimming. It took us about 1.5 hours to complete the walk and we enjoyed it a lot! About half way the path ran next to a huge cemetery. It was a spectacular sight to see the graves in the hillside, from the top of the hill to the cliff edge with the ocean below. Almost at the end the path rounds a sharp corner and Bondi Beach comes into full view down below the cliffs. It was beautiful.

The last thing I will write about in this blog post is the two movies we watched in the cinema. Annina wanted to watch another movie in the IMAX and I am not the person to say no to an IMAX experience, so we bought the cheap cinema vouchers on eBay again and went to watch Toy Story 3. I love 3D movies when they don't misuse the 3D effect and Toy Story 3 was a great example. I will try and get a review up on my movie blog so keep an eye out for that. :) Being a fan of Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) I got very excited when I realized that his newest movie Inception had just been released. And since Tuesdays are 40% off we decided to go watch that as well.

My plan is to write one more post about Australia before I fly home. My flight is on Wednesday the 4th of August at 16:40 and I arrive in Norway the 5th of August at 11:00. I will try and get all my photos and videos online before I fly home and I will also write a couple of stand alone pages with stuff I have seen and done so stay tuned for that.

Last East Coast

This will be my last post about the east coast so bear with me if it gets to long. Anyways, from Fraser Island we drove back towards Brisbane but this time we stopped about half way at a place called The Glasshouse Mountains. The Glasshouse Mountains are a collection of small jagged hills sticking up from the surrounding landscape. They are the volcanic cores of a series of volcanoes that were present about 26 million years ago. There are two good lookouts over the Glasshouse Mountains, the best one is in my opinion the Wild Horse Mountain lookout on top Wild Horse Mountain. The hill has an amazing 360 degrees view and on a clear day you can see all the way to the outskirts of Brisbane. The picture is of Mt. Coonowrin, the most impressive of the Glasshouse Mountains.

We drove right past Brisbane this time and headed for the Gold Coast, Australia's top tourist destination. The capitol of the Gold Coast is Surfers Paradise, a strip of tall buildings along Surfers Paradise Beach. The name might suggest that surfing is good here, but the truth is that Byron Bay and even Coolangatta just half an hour away is a better surfing spot. Surfers Paradise is famous for something and that is the crazy nightlife, rich tourists and lazy days on the beach. However it is winter now and the weather was to cold to chill on the beach so we looked around the city instead. We quickly discovered that there is not much to do in Surfers Paradise in the winter. We looked around in the shopping centers and bought discount tickets for Movie World, one of the many theme parks in the Gold Coast. I also remembered that the only Hard Rock Cafe in Australia is in Surfers Paradise, so we found that and Annina bought me a Hard Rock Cafe singlet. :)

When I did my ultimate surfing adventure back in September our last stop was Coolangatta and I have never forgotten the amazing fries they sell at the hostel where we stayed. I wanted Annina to taste them as well and since we were this close to Coolangatta we took the trip there. The hostel looked just like it did 9 months ago and the fries still tasted amazing. I also showed Annina the view of Surfers Paradise from the beach in Coolangatta.

Movie World

The next morning we got up early and drove the short distance from where we camped to Movie World to get there before it opened. All of Australia's theme parks are located in the Gold Coast and after looking through brochures and reading about the different ones we decided on Movie World. We could see roller coasters from outside the entrance so it looked promising! Movie World reminded me a lot from when I went to Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida with my family. Every roller coaster, ride, shop or other attraction has a theme connected with a movie or franchise. We went on a Saturday and I was afraid it would be as packed as Universal Studios, but I think we got extremely lucky. It was a gorgeous day, but because of winter it was the off season. The longest we ever had to wait in line was 30 minutes and on most rides we waited 5-10 minutes.

Movie World has two good roller coasters, Superman Escape and Lethal Weapon. We both decided that Superman Escape was the best ride and took that the most number of times. After a slow circuit inside a building where you get the story of the ride, the roller coaster shoots out of the building reaching 100km/h in 2 seconds and then climbs straight up a vertical climb. Here it almost stops before plummeting down again on the other side. The Lethal Weapon roller coaster was also great. It is a steel inverted roller coaster which means your feet are dangling in the air and the track is above you. The Lethal Weapon ride was the loopy ride of Movie World with many loops and twists. I won't go into detail about every ride, that would make this post both boring and way to long. However I will comment on a show we watched called Hollywood Stunt Driver. It was set up to look like a movie set with a director and crew filming a few car chase scenes from a movie. The show we (the audience) were watching was the stunt drivers driving around doing all sorts of tricks with the cars at high speed. The best trick was when three cars were all driving around on two wheels. Also the finale was really good. It is hard to describe but if you ever get the chance to go to Movie World Australia don't miss Hollywood Stunt Driver.

It was illegal to bring food inside the park (yet another way to milk money from the customers) so we decided to just go the whole day without food and then eat when we left. Although I was really hungry in the end I was also happy that we did it like this. Usually after I eat I start feeling a little bit sick after to many rides, but this time the whole day flew past and I could do as many rides as I wanted while feeling great. At 5:00PM the rides closed and everyone gathered along the main street in the park to watch the closing parade with all the different characters from the rides and shows. My favorite character was Batman. He even drove the real car that was used in the movie "The Dark Knight". We both agreed that Movie World was worth the money and that we both had a great time.



Movie World: 17. July 2010

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Our next stop along the east coast towards Sydney was Nimbin, a small but famous town to Australians. For the last 30-40 years it has been known as the hippie capitol of Australia and attracts a special group of people. In later years tourists flock here to look at the oddly colored houses, meet the free thinking community and buy ecological produce. Some people travel to Nimbin to buy what is legal in Netherlands, but I will not go down that road now. The real reason we went to Nimbin was because it was along the way to Mt. Warning, one of the highest mountains in northern NSW. We only stopped for about an hour in Nimbin to look around and visit the local Museum. However the Museum is something special and unique and captures the atmosphere of Nimbin very well. It was very interesting and cool to walk through it.

Mt. Warning

We reached Mt. Warning in the afternoon and set up camp. Mt. Warning is 1.156 meters over see level and because it is located so close to the easternmost point of the Australian continent it is the first place in mainland Australia to receive sunlight each morning. Our plan was to climb up during the night and reach the top in time for the sunrise. The path to the top is 8.8km return with 500 meters in the end that you have to climb with a chain. We got up at 2:30AM and started the walk by 3:00AM. We brought a bag with food and warm cloths and a flashlight. Without the flashlight it would have been impossible to do it. It was pitch black along the track and all we saw was the meter ahead of us that the torch lit up. After about an hour we reached the halfway mark where we stopped for a quick rest before continuing on. After another hour we reached the chain climbing section. Here we had to take turns climbing, first I climbed a few meters then I had to light the way for Annina who didn't have a flashlight. We finally reached the summit after two and a half hours of walking. The first light was just visible over the horizon but it would be another 45 minutes before sunrise so we sat down and ate cookies and relaxed.

At first we were alone but as time passed and the sunrise came closer more and more people arrived. By the time the sun came into view at least 20 people had gathered on the lookout atop Mt. Warning. And this was a Monday morning! The sunrise was very beautiful and we both decided it was well worth the climb in the dark. The view was also spectacular. We could see the cape of Byron Bay in the horizon and small towns scattered across the landscape. What made it even more beautiful was the mist that lay thick in the valleys. Green forests, white mist and the golden sun! I tried to capture the magic on camera but I think to be there is more impressive. There are more photos in the album below!

When the sun was fully visible we started our hike back down. We could now properly see the track we had walked earlier in the night. The chain climb was the most shocking, that we did that in the dark was unbelievable. The path further down was also narrow several places with steep banks on either side. If we had fallen down there in the dark it would not have ended good. I don't want to scare anyone though, it is possible. I mean all 20 of us made it up that night and I am sure there are at least the same number of people any other night. And I have not heard of any accidents and it's not illegal to climb up during the night. Just be careful and you will be okay. The walk back down only took 1.5 hours and we arrived at the car happy and proud. We had done everything we wanted on the east coast and it was now time to drive back to Sydney and sell the car.

Mt. Warning: 19. July 2010

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Skyrail and Kuranda Scenic Railway

Skyrail

Before leaving Cairns and heading south I had two more things to do. Just 10 minutes north of Cairns is an attraction called Skyrail Rainforest Cableway or just Skyrail for short. It is a cableway running 7.5km over the rainforest in Barron Gorge national park. There are two stops along the way before the cableway reaches the small village of Kuranda. It reminded me of the lifts we have in Norway at the ski resorts. The trip up the mountain and over the rainforest was magnificent. The view was unbeatable and the stops along the way great.

The first station called Red Peak is the highest station along the Cableway. Here I participated in a short guided tour along the boardwalk through the rainforest. The guide was a real Aussie and was always making funny jokes. The tour was interesting and I am glad I waited for it.

The second station is called Barron Falls and is also the more popular. From the Barron Falls station I walked a short distance to three lookouts over the Barron Falls. In addition to the falls there is a cultural centre that you can visit and also information about the power station that is located at the bottom of the falls. As you can see on the picture there is almost no water in the falls because most of it runs through pipes underground and generates electricity. Only in the wet season when the river floods are the falls full of water.

Kuranda

The Skyrail's last stop is Kuranda, a small village in the hills above Cairns. It is a typical tourist village with restaurants, cafes and markets. There are also several animal "parks" where you can look at and in some cases hold your favorite Australian animal. Since I didn't really feel like paying to get into the parks I decided to rather walk the trail through the village and surrounding forest. It was a nice walk that went through rainforest, over a creek, next to the train tracks and in the end next to the Barron river. I had a lot of time to kill so I waited for the train and made some photos while it passed me. I also walked around Kuranda and along the esplanade next to the river.

Kuranda Scenic Railway

The second thing on my list was the Kuranda Scenic Railway. It is an old railway from Cairns to Kuranda that climbs through the hills on it's way. It was built in the 1880's during the gold rush and is regarded as one of the big Australian engineering feats. It has now been restored and takes tourists either up the mountain or down. There are 15 hand dug tunnels and over 50 bridges on the way and it took over 10 years to complete. My trip was down the mountain so I settled into my seat with my eyes peeled and the camera ready.

The train only stops once on it's journey down and that was at the Barron Falls. The station is on the opposite side of the Barron Gorge than the Skyrail station and the views were even better here. We stopped for about 10 minutes so that everyone had a chance to look around and marvel at the view.

The rest of the ride was the best part. The train slowly travels down the track through the tunnels and over the bridges while a narrative tape plays over the speakers explaining about the different aspects of the building process. Out of the window are amazing views of the Barron Gorge and the surrounding landscape. The most amazing part of the track was where the train crossed a horseshoe bridge next to a waterfall. It was so beautiful. There was also a section where the slope next to the track was close to vertical and apparently it was extremely hard to build. I hope some of these pictures can show how it was. There are more in the album at the bottom of this post. Of the Skyrail and the Kuranda Scenic Railway the Railway was by far my favorite thing.

Skyrail and Kuranda Scenic Railway: 28. June 2010

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Top End Pt. 2 (22521km)

Darwin is only a few hours drive from Kakadu and along the way the road runs through the Adelaide river floodplains. We camped at a rest stop in the middle of the wetlands because we wanted to visit an information centre called Window on the Wetlands. The camping spot we chose was possibly the worst choice we ever made. There was literally millions of mosquitoes. We had to burn one of those insect killing sticks inside the car to get rid of them and when we woke up the next morning there was hundreds of dead mosquitoes in the car. On top of the mosquitoes the weather was extremely humid. It was a horrible night. The next morning the information centre turned out to be a positive surprise. It was nice to get our thoughts away from the nightmare that had been.

Darwin
The last few weeks I and especially Annina have been missing a real bed so we decided to sleep in a hostel in Darwin for two nights. We got a nice double room with a awesome bed and a fridge and it felt like a hotel in comparison to the car. We could also buy food that needs a fridge again like cold milk, cheese and butter. Hot showers as often as you want is also a great thing! I really liked the hostel. It had a lot of trees and plants that made it feel like an oasis in the middle of the city.

Apart from relaxing and enjoying our new comforts in the hostel we also went out and explored Darwin. The city is named after the famous Charles Darwin by a friend that wanted to show him respect. The city is quite big for being so far away from everywhere else, around 100.000 people live in the area. One of the attractions we visited was a Taoist/Buddhist temple. There is a lot of Asian people in Darwin (especially Chinese) and they built the original temple in 1887. In 1974 cyclone Tracy destroyed the temple and the building you can see today is a rebuilt version. During WW2 Darwin was bombed by the Japanese and their oil reserves destroyed. The city decided to build underground storage tunnels to protect the oil from the air raids. But by the time the tunnels were completed the war was over. 50 years later the city opened the unused tunnels to the public and they are now the second most visited attraction in Darwin. Since I find stuff like that interesting I visited them as well. It was quite interesting to walk through these massive underground tunnels and to look at photos from WW2 that were on display on the walls.

Because Darwin is so far north the waters are almost always filled with box jellyfish which makes it extremely dangerous to go swimming in the ocean. On top of that there is always a crocodile threat in Northern Territory anywhere where there is water. To make people happy the city has created a project called the waterfront precinct where there is a beach with nets out in the water to stop the jellyfish and a wave lagoon next to it. The wave lagoon was a fun place to relax. Every half hour they make waves for the people to enjoy. You can either just swim around and have fun or grab one of the free bodyboards and go play. When you are bored of the water you can lie down on a beach chair and enjoy the sun. From the waterfront precinct we walked along the coast back to the hostel. The path took us through the Bicentennial park, a long park with lookouts, benches and plagues. My first impression of Darwin were not that great, but it changed as I explored the city.

That evening we went out partying. First we went to a bar where they showed Australia vs. Denmark, a friendship soccer match before the world cup. Australia won. Then we went to three different clubs. The two first were really backpacker places and the last one was more of a mix. We both had a great night and I was pretty drunk in the end :P I can remember eating a monster hamburger on the way back to the hostel and thinking it was the best burger I ever ate :) It was nice to do something different than just sleeping as soon as it gets dark. (There is not much else to do when you are camping at a rest stop along the highway).

We went to the Northern Territory museum and art gallery on our last day in Darwin. Originally we planned to be there for about an hour, but it turned out to be much more interesting than I first thought. It was a nice blend of art galleries and museum exhibitions. Among the highlights was a gallery of indigenous art, a natural history of Northern Territory exhibition, an exhibition about cyclone Tracy and a crocodile exhibition. I think we spent over three hours looking at everything and we still had to hurry through the last few things. I found the natural history section especially good. I took a lot of photos to try and show some of the things that I liked. Here is the album I made from our visit:

Museum and Art Gallery of the NT: 02. June 2010

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Litchfield National Park

We finally had to leave the NT museum and art gallery before it became to late to drive to Litchfield national park. Litchfield is located just south of Darwin and is a popular getaway for locals and tourists alike. There are many waterfalls and plunge pools to swim in and the area is rich in natural beauty. We arrived at a place called Florence falls that afternoon and went for a quick swim in the pool below. You could swim right through one of the two waterfall to a small hollow behind it. Big rocks were visible just under the surface in the middle of the pool and you could sit on them and relax. A few kilometers upstream is a place called Buley rockholes. Here a series of small waterfalls form several rockholes that are ideal for swimming in as well. It was getting to dark to go swimming, but we came back the next day. That night we camped at a campsite next to the rockholes.

Our first destination the next morning was a place called The Lost City. From the main road we had to drive a 4x4 track 10km into the woods. At the end of this road is the "Lost City". The place looks like ruins from a lost civilization. However it is just stone pillars and walls remaining from what was once a permanent layer of rock many many years ago. The place is still very impressive. We walked along the short track between the stone formations and it really did feel like it could have been an ancient civilization living there thousands of years ago.

Our next stop was the Tolmer falls lookout. The falls are not accessible to the public, but there is a walkway to a lookout with great views of them and the surrounding landscape. We then drove to Wangi falls. It is usually a great place to swim, but it was now closed due to increased crocodile risk. The Wangi falls are two waterfalls next to each other both plunging into the same pool below. Since we couldn't go swimming we walked the walking track around the falls instead. It went through moonsoon rainforest at the bottom before climbing up the cliff to the top of the falls. Here we had  a great view of the forest below. It was after the Wangi falls walk that we drove back to the Buley rockholes to swim.

The last thing we did in Litchfield national park was looking at the Magnetic termite mounds. These gigantic termite mounds can get over 2 meters high and are found where there is a clearing in the woods. There are no mammals in Australia that keep the grass growth down like in other parts of the world. Instead millions and millions of termites harvest and eat the grass keeping the natural circle complete. We saw these termite mounds the first time just south of Coral Bay on the west coast and could not understand what they were. From there they are seen everywhere along the whole north part of Australia. The Magnetic termite mounds of Litchfield were the biggest ones we have seen.

On the way back to Darwin we took a small detour so that I could go on a cruise on the Adelaide river. The cruise is famous for showing jumping wild crocodiles. As soon as we entered the boat we saw the first crocodiles swimming in the river. As we slowly cruised upstream the captain talked about the crocodiles living there. The ones that we saw were all saltwater crocodiles which are the biggest of the two species of crocodiles in Australia. They are also the most dangerous and can easily kill a human if they want to. They can get more than 6m long. From the second level of the boat a crew member was dangling pork chops down over the water and crocodiles were jumping into the air to get them. These crocodiles were 100% wild and apparently all crocodilian reptiles have the ability to jump. It was an amazing way to see wild crocodiles close up and to learn more about them. The biggest one I saw was about 4.5m. On the way back down the river at the end of the cruise one of the crew also fed a group of predator birds. She through the food into the air and the birds caught it midair. All in all the jumping crocodile cruise was well worth the money. I left with awesome memories and great pictures.

To save some money on fuel we decided to offer up our two back seats to fellow backpackers that needed a lift to Alice Springs. We posted an add on a website called Gumtree before Darwin and during our stay we decided on two people we wanted to travel with. This was the reason why we had to go back to Darwin after Litchfield national park. Back in Darwin we picked up the first passenger, a German girl called Nicole, and started the long drive south to Alice Springs. The next morning we stopped in Katherine again to pick up our second passenger, a French girl called Florence. It was nice to have some new company especially when you are driving the whole day. It's about 1500km to Alice Springs from Darwin and there is almost nothing to see on the way. As we drove south we also left the Top End and that means the end of this blog post. My next update will be all about the red centre and our journey through it.