We landed in Oz and had to face the fact that most of our time would be spent in rain.. as is the winter on the coast.. we had plans to drive all the way up to brisbane and back, but camping really didnt look to exiting in cold, wet weather.. as our hosts commented.. it didnt look like we would be ending this trip with a highlight.. feeling pretty down, we franticly try to find a way to maybe get up to great barrier reef or ayers rock, seeing as that was the original plan.. but as we noticed a few weeks ago, trips to these places are horribly expensive.. $500 for a 3 day trip, plus &700 for flights there and back.. is it worth over &1000 for only 3 days? no, we decided, its not.. feeling even more down than before, we head out to at least explore sydney while we are here.. its cold, and we notice that no big city looks to inviting in winter.. we got a few nice views of the opera and the bridge, walked around the botanical garden a little and wondered through the old town. on the way back in the train, fate opened up the solution we where desperately looking for thanks to an advert in the train for a national park in the outback of new south wales. we google mapped the place, only to find out that it was a 13hour drive from sydney. again, we google mapped the area around the park, figuring out how far we have to drive to get into the "outback", are there national parks or anything interesting there and if one can camp. we ended up with finding a national historic site with aboriginal rock paintings and a 5km walk around the (very outbacky looking) park. only 9hours drive. we headed out for this on thursday morning, stopping of at featherdale wildlife park and the blue mountains on the way there.
Featherdale was really nice, not at all the "zoo" kind of feeling you get at other places. the kangaroos, wallabies, wollaroos and whateverroos all run around the park free, you can pet, feed and take photos of them as you like. they also have a few not very impressed looking koala bears hanging around in the branches which you can pet and have your photo taken with. all in all a very nice experience.
After that we headed out to the Blue Mountains. We took a 2 hour hike around in the valley of this very rain foresty area, admiring the smell of eucalyptus, the clouds of mist coming up from the valley and the hundreds of wild cockatoos flying around above us. we ended up spending a fortune on souvenirs and presents and finally set out heading west. Our first night camping was quite an experience.. the wind was so strong it blew our tent flat to the ground.. so after an hour of parking the car so it acts as a windshield and fastening every bit of the tent into the ground so that it can withstand the wind, the wind suddenly comes to a stop and heavy rain sets in. we flee into the tent and try and get some rest.. not a chance.. 3am in the morning it is still raining buckets and a huge thunderstorm passes by.. we remember that we are camped right under 3 tall trees and after an hour of counting seconds between lightning and thunder, we decide to move into the car for saftey reasons.. as soon as we've got jackets and shoes on, the thunder stoms blows by never to be heard of again.. sigh.. we settle down again.. somewhere at 5.30 in the morning the campsite is flooded, and we move the car of the lawn and onto the road before its to late.. we settle down again..
The next day we drive up to the rock paintings, only to find out that the road has been made incapable because of the heavy rain.. we camp in a nearby town for the night, and try our luck the next morning.. we make it half way, but the mud is so deep we start getting worried about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.. especially after the sign at the beginning of the road said "road closed".. oh well.. we enjoy the red earth and the wild kangaroos, and the thousands of wild goats along the way and head back to sydney..
all in all the little expedition was worth it, if anything to confirm my thoughts of coming back someday for the "real" outback tour, and also to experience a little of the magic this land has to offer.. when we mentioned our wish to get into the outback, our hosts asked "why, theres nothing out there..?". wich is true, but somehow the nothingness has a beauty to it that triggers something deep inside, which no other place, other than africa, have ever triggered. The red earth and the ever changing landscape have a beauty that is hard to describe. and it is not just the landscape. the birds here are as exotic as the fish in the reef of rarotonga. Cackatoos and Budgerigars cluster the trees like our common sparrows at home. Little rainbow coloured birds and bright pink pigeons (Rainbow Lorikeet and Pink Galah) are as common as our starlings or street pigeon. and of course, anyone who has had the pleasure of experiencing me in the company of any kind of critter or rodent can imagine my reaction to our first wild kangaroos..
We are glad we got to get "outback" a little and are now safe and sound in sydney again. we will take a little day trip up the coast to a friend of my dads, and might still pop by to manly beach and bondi beach before getting onto the plane to singapore tuesday morning..
As hard as it is, I have to face the truth and "confess" that we will not be doing South east asia on this trip. this decision was made quite a while ago and tickets are already rebooked.
we put a lot of thought to it, and came to the conclusion that it is not the right time to do it. As exiting as all the traveling has been, it has been exhausting as well. I sound like a rich dumb blond saying this, but living out of a backpack is not as romantic as we thought it was. if you have a car or a room you can dump things in, it is all well, but as soon as it comes to moving location every second day, living in cramped spaces and having to unpack and repack every time you need something is frustrating and exhausting. plus, we have pretty much reached our limit of 23kilos per backpack, plus 10 kilos of day pack AND hand luggage, and travelling around, running for trains and squeezing into busses is more of a trauma than anything else.. Of course, this does not meen I will never do it again ( I cant speek for J here ), but traveling one country in two weeks, or 4 continents 5 months makes quite a difference in terms of luggage.
next to that, there are many other reasons for delaying the south east asia trip. one of which is the need to come home. we dont feel excessively homesick or anything, but we have noticed that coming home in the evening, and not being "home" is pretty tough after such a long time. we crave our own space, tastes and smells we know, not having to apologise for constantly being in someones way, always making sure we aren't intruding anyones personal space. We have loved being part of different families and cultures, but after such a long time, all we actually want is our family and our culture.
All in all we feel that traveling south east asia now would be a waste of experience. we are to tired to actually enjoy it the way we could some other time. we dont want it to become a bad experience, due to issues that can so easily be fixed. As long as the world does not go down 2012, it wont run away, and we still have a little left-over budget we can invest into the trip later in our lives.
I can go waffling on and on about what a good decision this is, but maybe in the end of the day, we can settle with the fact that I am just to shit scared.
So, to come to the point, we will be home in a few days time. Thursday morning, to be exact. This will hopefully not be the last blog, for there are still 2 days of australia and 28 1/2 hours of singapore ahead of us, which of course will land up in this blog, before we come the the final conclusion of this trip and you are officially no longer forced to read this crap ;-) .
xxb&j
We landed in Oz and had to face the fact that most of our time would be spent in rain.. as is the winter on the coast.. we had plans to drive all the way up to brisbane and back, but camping really didnt look to exiting in cold, wet weather.. as our hosts commented.. it didnt look like we would be ending this trip with a highlight.. feeling pretty down, we franticly try to find a way to maybe get up to great barrier reef or ayers rock, seeing as that was the original plan.. but as we noticed a few weeks ago, trips to these places are horribly expensive.. $500 for a 3 day trip, plus &700 for flights there and back.. is it worth over &1000 for only 3 days? no, we decided, its not.. feeling even more down than before, we head out to at least explore sydney while we are here.. its cold, and we notice that no big city looks to inviting in winter.. we got a few nice views of the opera and the bridge, walked around the botanical garden a little and wondered through the old town. on the way back in the train, fate opened up the solution we where desperately looking for thanks to an advert in the train for a national park in the outback of new south wales. we google mapped the place, only to find out that it was a 13hour drive from sydney. again, we google mapped the area around the park, figuring out how far we have to drive to get into the "outback", are there national parks or anything interesting there and if one can camp. we ended up with finding a national historic site with aboriginal rock paintings and a 5km walk around the (very outbacky looking) park. only 9hours drive. we headed out for this on thursday morning, stopping of at featherdale wildlife park and the blue mountains on the way there.
Featherdale was really nice, not at all the "zoo" kind of feeling you get at other places. the kangaroos, wallabies, wollaroos and whateverroos all run around the park free, you can pet, feed and take photos of them as you like. they also have a few not very impressed looking koala bears hanging around in the branches which you can pet and have your photo taken with. all in all a very nice experience.
After that we headed out to the Blue Mountains. We took a 2 hour hike around in the valley of this very rain foresty area, admiring the smell of eucalyptus, the clouds of mist coming up from the valley and the hundreds of wild cockatoos flying around above us. we ended up spending a fortune on souvenirs and presents and finally set out heading west. Our first night camping was quite an experience.. the wind was so strong it blew our tent flat to the ground.. so after an hour of parking the car so it acts as a windshield and fastening every bit of the tent into the ground so that it can withstand the wind, the wind suddenly comes to a stop and heavy rain sets in. we flee into the tent and try and get some rest.. not a chance.. 3am in the morning it is still raining buckets and a huge thunderstorm passes by.. we remember that we are camped right under 3 tall trees and after an hour of counting seconds between lightning and thunder, we decide to move into the car for saftey reasons.. as soon as we've got jackets and shoes on, the thunder stoms blows by never to be heard of again.. sigh.. we settle down again.. somewhere at 5.30 in the morning the campsite is flooded, and we move the car of the lawn and onto the road before its to late.. we settle down again..
The next day we drive up to the rock paintings, only to find out that the road has been made incapable because of the heavy rain.. we camp in a nearby town for the night, and try our luck the next morning.. we make it half way, but the mud is so deep we start getting worried about getting stuck in the middle of nowhere.. especially after the sign at the beginning of the road said "road closed".. oh well.. we enjoy the red earth and the wild kangaroos, and the thousands of wild goats along the way and head back to sydney..
all in all the little expedition was worth it, if anything to confirm my thoughts of coming back someday for the "real" outback tour, and also to experience a little of the magic this land has to offer.. when we mentioned our wish to get into the outback, our hosts asked "why, theres nothing out there..?". wich is true, but somehow the nothingness has a beauty to it that triggers something deep inside, which no other place, other than africa, have ever triggered. The red earth and the ever changing landscape have a beauty that is hard to describe. and it is not just the landscape. the birds here are as exotic as the fish in the reef of rarotonga. Cackatoos and Budgerigars cluster the trees like our common sparrows at home. Little rainbow coloured birds and bright pink pigeons (Rainbow Lorikeet and Pink Galah) are as common as our starlings or street pigeon. and of course, anyone who has had the pleasure of experiencing me in the company of any kind of critter or rodent can imagine my reaction to our first wild kangaroos..
We are glad we got to get "outback" a little and are now safe and sound in sydney again. we will take a little day trip up the coast to a friend of my dads, and might still pop by to manly beach and bondi beach before getting onto the plane to singapore tuesday morning..
As hard as it is, I have to face the truth and "confess" that we will not be doing South east asia on this trip. this decision was made quite a while ago and tickets are already rebooked.
we put a lot of thought to it, and came to the conclusion that it is not the right time to do it. As exiting as all the traveling has been, it has been exhausting as well. I sound like a rich dumb blond saying this, but living out of a backpack is not as romantic as we thought it was. if you have a car or a room you can dump things in, it is all well, but as soon as it comes to moving location every second day, living in cramped spaces and having to unpack and repack every time you need something is frustrating and exhausting. plus, we have pretty much reached our limit of 23kilos per backpack, plus 10 kilos of day pack AND hand luggage, and travelling around, running for trains and squeezing into busses is more of a trauma than anything else.. Of course, this does not meen I will never do it again ( I cant speek for J here ), but traveling one country in two weeks, or 4 continents 5 months makes quite a difference in terms of luggage.
next to that, there are many other reasons for delaying the south east asia trip. one of which is the need to come home. we dont feel excessively homesick or anything, but we have noticed that coming home in the evening, and not being "home" is pretty tough after such a long time. we crave our own space, tastes and smells we know, not having to apologise for constantly being in someones way, always making sure we aren't intruding anyones personal space. We have loved being part of different families and cultures, but after such a long time, all we actually want is our family and our culture.
All in all we feel that traveling south east asia now would be a waste of experience. we are to tired to actually enjoy it the way we could some other time. we dont want it to become a bad experience, due to issues that can so easily be fixed. As long as the world does not go down 2012, it wont run away, and we still have a little left-over budget we can invest into the trip later in our lives.
I can go waffling on and on about what a good decision this is, but maybe in the end of the day, we can settle with the fact that I am just to shit scared.
So, to come to the point, we will be home in a few days time. Thursday morning, to be exact. This will hopefully not be the last blog, for there are still 2 days of australia and 28 1/2 hours of singapore ahead of us, which of course will land up in this blog, before we come the the final conclusion of this trip and you are officially no longer forced to read this crap ;-) .
xxb&j
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