Through South Australia

After arriving in South Australia on Wednesday we drove South on to the Eyre Peninsula to Coffin Bay and stayed the night there. Coffin Bay was familiar to us as many oysters sold in Perth come from Coffin Bay. Our first stop in the town was to buy fresh oysters which got shucked in front of our eyes and had them as a starter for an exquisite campervan dinner :-) We actually repeated the same for breakfast, what a delight.

We stayed at a camping ground in the Coffin Bay National Park which is an awesome park that I would certainly recommend as a great spot for camping, fishing and spending a 4WD weekend or longer. 

    View from Point Avoid in the National Park

The next day we drove on to Port Lincoln where we had lunch. The AUD 495.- (about EUR 300) for cage diving with sharks held us off from doing this most famous Port Lincoln tourist experience. We believe that it is more sustainable to see them in their usual habitat when diving rather than in a cage where they are allured by blood and meat.

Our next stop was Tumby Bay and then we drove through Whyalla with a steel making plant which of course made our hearts go sentimental seeing a little brother of our Voest plant. We didn't even stop in Port Augusta and only stopped at Port Germein to stay in a Caravan Park there.

As we were coming closer to the capital of South Australia we had plans visiting some of the great wine regions of South Australia circumnavigating Adelaide. And that's what we did.

Across the Nullabor

We made it! Greetings from Ceduna, the Eastern end of the Nullabor Plain, 1900km from Perth!

Trusting Wookie’s new tyres we made some good kilometres and spent yesterday night at a Rest Station in the middle of the ‘90 mile straight’. This stretch of the road is one of the longest completely straight roads in the world, 150km without any bend.

90 Mile Straight

The road is also used as airstrip

At this rest area we also made our first ‘friend’ – Ian, who’s travelling the whole of Australia in a little wooden cart pulled by two horses in order to raise money for cancer research. The whole journey will take him about 3 years. He asked us to spread the word, so please check out his website and like him on Facebook :)

After a good night sleep (not as cold as the first one), we started at 6:30am for the next stage of our trip across the Nullabor; shortly after midday we crossed the border to South Australia, which also meant we travelled through an entire time zone (a little village just before the border is running 45min ahead of Perth... and 1hr 45min after SA time, we got a bit confused).  The road in SA got a little bit more interesting as it’s running along the coast offering some fantastic views across the Great Australian Bight.

In Ceduna we now checked into a Campsite – the joys of a shower and proper toilets after two nights in the bush, aaaah!

On the road again

We started off our trip in Perth on Monday with the following dashboard 'score':

300 km later, half way to Kalgoorlie we had a flat tyre. You can imagine we were not too excited about that.

It took us an hour to get back on the road again and we didn't make it all the way to Kal. Our first night in the bush on Great Eastern Highway was exciting though. It got really chilly with our van having great natural air con when leaving the doors and vent open. We were freezing in the morning. 

In the morning we made it to Kalgoorlie and bought 2 new tyres to be perfectly fit for the rest of our trip, fingers crossed. 

Next stop, somewhere on the side of the road again before the South Australian border.

And so the journey begins...

As most of you know by now, we’ll be going on a ‘Round the World’ trip starting with a few months travelling Australia. From there on the plan so far is to continue with Fiji & South Pacific, Hawaii, Westcoast USA, Mexico & Middle America, parts of South America and New Zealand.

The blog will also be in English from now on in order to make sure EVERYBODY gets their weekly dose of jealousy.

After 4 fabulous weeks in Austria, we’re now back in the Perth heat; 37 degrees greeted us on Monday evening at the Airport, nice! After unpacking and a good night sleep we started our search for a Campervan that should take us around Australia. And we found one! Let us introduce you to Wookie:

He's a 7 year old Ford Transit and only travelled around 120,000km. We'll add around another 20,000 on our trip from Perth to Perth via the rest of Australia. We're planning to leave this coming Monday, January 27. First stage will be Perth to Kalgoorlie, about 600km - http://goo.gl/maps/2iNHI.

But lets see what happens once we’re on our way.  We want to stay as flexible as possible and to enjoy our time off as much as possible. Once we have the dates for the rest of our travels we’ll definitely post them here, maybe some of you are keen to join us for one of the other stage of the trip :)

Kurzausflug nach Krumau

Nachdem Marlene uebers Wochenende mit den Maedels zum Skiausflug aufgebrochen ist, haben wir einen sehr spontanen Kurzausflug in die Tschechei organisiert. Also organisiert hat alles der Ilgi, recht herzlichen Dank nochmal. Mit Steffi und Thomas sowie Martina und Elmar und Jones waren die Kurzentschlossenen. Obwohl es ein bisschen regnerisch war sind wir am Nachmittag angereist und haben die Burg besucht sowie die Innenstadt. Die Innenstadtbesichtigung war eher eine Herbergssuche, nicht zum Schlafen sondern zur Fluessigkeitsaufnahme. 

Die Unterkunft hat Ilgi noch am Vorabend gebucht und uebers Internet ein 4 Sterne Hotel fuer EUR 50 pro Nacht pro Zimmer (!!) organisiert samt Fruehstueck, ein Wahnsinnn find ich, es war wirklich schoen.  Gutes Essen und Trinken in der Weltkulturerbestadt nur 1 Stunde von Linz, das hat halt Europa zu bieten. Jeder Australier wuerde neidisch sein, Tja, "the grass is always greener on the other side" ;-)

Weihnachtsurlaub 2013-2014

Dieses Jahr haben wir die Chance einen richtig relaxeden Weihnachtsurlaub in Oesterreich zu verbringen. Wir geniessen es sehr. Bei wirklich fruehlingshaften Bedingungen ist es doch auch mit dem Skiausflug was geworden. Es war toll, 3 Tage in Schladming und Umgebung mit Familie, wunderbar. Der Schnee ist vielleicht nur teilweise echt aber das tut dem Wintervergnuegen keinen Abbruch.