On the 21st of September at 12 o'clock Elena and I went to Britz (hehe, sounds funny to say it like that! Sounds like I came home! *g*) to pick up our home for the next 11days. After a lot of smiling and flirting we finally hit the road with one extra camping table, one free map (which actually was 20 bucks) and a neat description of the way out of Sydney in direction to Canberra. What can be done by a little smile!
After arriving at Bulga where Sarah and Rebecca already longed for us, we headed off to Glebe to have our last lunch before the trip. A little later we packed the campervan and were finally on our way to Canberra.
Since she had an exam the next morning Elena had decided to stay home and not join us for the first stop of the trip. She took a bus to Canberra the next evening where we picked her up.
Canberra 21st & 22nd
The arrival in Canberra was actually pretty uneventful. We parked in the city centre directly next to the bars and nightclubs, which at that point seemed to be a good idea since we wanted to go out that night. By the time we went to bed, after visiting two bars, it turned out that it was one of the worst ideas ever! The bars in Canberra obviously don't close as early as we are used to from Sydney. In the contrary! Our sleep was accompanied Bad house music and drunk people on their way home the whole night!
The next morning we decided to explore the city whilst waiting for Elena.
Now I do understand what Bill Bryson talked about in his book! Canberra seemed to be dead! There was hardly anyone on the streets except for us and therefore and because of these huge and important looking buildings the whole city had an eerie impression on me.
...and that was a main road!!!
After walking to all the sights of the city which included the parliament houses, the national library and more, we still had a lot of time to kill before Elena arrived so we did what we like best: wasting time with a coffee in Starbucks!!! *G*
In the evening, after picking up Elena from the bus stop, we hit the road to Wagga Wagga and chose a nice and most of all quite rest area as our place to stay over night.
Wagga Wagga 23rd
After a relaxing breakfast on our two(!!!) camping tables, which we placed on the grass next to the empty freeway, we set off to Wagga Wagga to explore the wineries and cheese factories.
Isn't that a cute spot to have a breakfast??? I loved it!
Well, Wagga Wagga itself consisted of one main street with a couple of closed shops and a KFC in which we used the bathroom to clean our teeth and wash our faces, and the visitor centre in one of the ten smaller streets... well at least that is my impression of Wagga Wagga!
We decided to skip the walk in the "city" and go directly to the wine and cheese tasting in the University of Wagga Wagga, which was a great idea since the tasting was for free!!!
After eating heaps of cheese and buying a bottle of white wine (we bought it since we couldn't drink more than one glass without being arrested for driving drunk) we started our way to the Outback. On our way there we saw a lot of kangaroos and wallabies...all a little flatter than in my imagination and next or on the road! A really nice sight!
We finally arrived the outback after passing the border of the fruit fly free zone which forced us to either throw away the fruits we had or to eat them. That's where I, for the first time in my life, had to throw away my beloved raisins! I would have eaten them if my stomach hadn't refused to take anything more after two apples and 500g of raisins. My heard is still bleeding when I think about it! :(
By the time we drove on an unsealed road (for what we technically weren't ensured for) we got the real adventure feeling. It was unbelievable and the landscape was fantastic!
Unfortunately it took us longer than expected on that road so we were forced to drive in the darkness. And when I say darkness, I really mean darkness! Everything was black! Completely! Nothing to be seen except for the maybe 10m our headlights reached! It was amazing but somehow pretty scary since we didn't know if we were on the right road to the National Park in which we intended to stay over night.
After two hours of excitement and worrying about our safe arrival, and heaps of suicidal rabbits we finally reached the national park and relaxed by a nice dinner with Wagga Wagga's white wine in front of our little campervan.
Willandra National Park 24th
The next morning started very quite. I set of for a short walk in the park. It was short because after five minutes I was so fed up with all those annoying and persistent flies that I couldn't wait to be back in the campervan! I forced myself to complete at least 20min of walking and then returned to have a cup of coffee before we left for Broken Hill.
directly after leaving the park we saw everything the outback has to offer! Cows (I still don't trust them! One fine day everybody will understand why!), emus, kangaroos and a whole lot of nothing but red sand and a little grass!
By that time Elena and Sarah started to be more and more concerned about the fuel. I guess I should have been a little more concerned but I wasn't and so we started to piss each other off by saying either "We will be stuck in the middle of the Outback with no fuel! We are helplessly lost!" or "Oh, come on! The tank is still to a quarter full and there are some houses! See! The next city is only 40km away! So stop worrying!". Well, what can I say, we didn't get stuck in the outback without fuel but arrived at the next gas station and reached Broken Hill after another 3 hours of unsealed road and heaps of flat kangaroos and wallabies!
Broken Hill 25th
To our joy we found a perfect parking place in Broken Hill (after looking for one for over two hours and a few minor arguments). Directly next to the public toilets! And if that hadn't been great enough, no! There was a public shower!!! Finally! A shower to get rid of all the dirt we had collected from Canberra to Broken Hill! We were ridiculously happy and each of us showered for about 30min! Oh what a joy! *g*
After feeling fresh and clean we had breakfast in one of the cutest coffee shops I've ever seen and then set of for another adventurous drive in the outback. Before we hit the road to Adelaide we stopped to do the sculpture walk which was amazing. That was the outback how I imagined it. Fortunately it was pretty windy so the heat wasn't unbearable and walking was a nice change to sitting for hours in our beloved campervan.
After that we started our way to Adelaide where we arrived in the evening just in time for dinner. We parked the car in North Adelaide near the main street with a lot of cute cafés and restaurants and used the time we had to go out for a beer and a game of pool in a bar which was frequented by mostly men. Our arrival torpedoed the number of female customers to seven which was rewarded with a discount on the beer! And that just cost a smile yet again! hehe
Adelaide 26th&27th
We started the day with a nice breakfast in one of the cafés we had seen the night before and then set of to go to the visitors centre to get some information about Kangaroo island and other sights of the city.
In the city itself it was impossible to find a parking place and so Rebecca and Sarah jumped out of the campervan while I drove in circles accompanied by Elena. Rebecca and Sarah returned with bad news about Kangaroo Island: It was f**cking expensive to get there! 250$ in total!!! Rebecca and me weren't willing to pay that much money and decided to stay on a camping ground in Adelaide even though that meant, that I wouldn't see any penguins. But I still had Phillip Island so I decided that this was fine with me. (I shouldn't have thought so, but that's another topic for later!)
Finally Elena and Sarah didn't want to go either and so the four of us explored the city after leaving the campervan on the camping ground. We walked for five hours through the city had coffee at Gloria's and saw a discussion in the Parliament (An eye-opening experience! They were talking about solar panels and no one was really listening. Most of them were either talking or playing with their computers! I want to become a politician when I grow up!).
In the evening we drove to North Adelaide again to have dinner. After that we showered and went to bed after a quick coffee/tea in the campervan.
We left the camping ground early the next morning and headed towards Port Adelaide where Rebecca and me spend the morning walking around and having coffee while Elena and Sarah went on a dolphin watch trip.
After their return we went back to Adelaide to join a tour through the local chocolate fabric. Amazing! And not only because of the free chocolate and the free coffee! *g*
After that we left Adelaide and hit the road towards Melbourne. We drove most of the night and the wind became stronger and stronger which made driving more and more tiring!
We made a quick dinner brake in a weird restaurant next to the freeway which opened only for us. I have to admit that I was a little scared that they wouldn't let us go again...
After the desperately needed dinner we hit the road and again and I stopped driving after I started to be pissed off with the wind (as I usually am. I hate wind!!!)
Sarah and me then slept in the back of the car (well, I tried to sleep but failed horribly as usual when I try to sleep in a moving vehicle!) while Elena and Rebecca were driving.
Great Ocean Road & Melbourne 28th
We slept in a small town and got up early in the morning to continue our way on the Great Ocean Road after a brief breakfast in a cute little bakery.
After driving for about 30min we couldn't believe what we saw. Snow! We obviously had mounted so high on a mountain that it was actually snowing! It was amazing! And a little scary after we saw how a couple of people pulled the car of some Asian tourists out of the ditch.
Further 30min later we finally saw the ocean again and had a break for lunch. The view was just amazing! Although the weather could have been a little better, but at least it had stopped to rain!
*G* Autofahrn, Autofahren!!!
We arrived in Melbourne at around 6pm, parked the car close to Sarah's friend's house and headed towards city to have a first brief glimpse at it. It was surprisingly cold and all of us were happy that we decided to take our winter coats with us.
We strolled through the city and met some of our friends from Sydney who arrived the same night after renting a car. Directly after meeting them we left them again since we wanted to have dinner and the others didn't want to have fast food again. Later that night we met them in the bar in which Sarah's friend is working. After a few hours in that pub all of us were extremely tired and just wanted to go home and sleep!
Melbourne 29th&30th
The next morning we decided that everyone could get up whenever she wants to and so it came that the others left the house while I was still in the shower. I wasn't in the mood to get up at 8 again so I slept until 8:30 and had to wait until the bathroom was free again. I enjoyed having my own time once in a while and so I told the others that I would meet them in the city and went off to see the Victoria Market on my own. Unfortunately the communication between Sarah and me wasn't very good that morning and so it came that she called me to ask where the heck I was and when I would finally join them for breakfast. So I had to go back just to decide to leave them again since I wasn't interested in seeing an art market.
Instead Rebecca and me went to the city where we had a short look at an exhibition of portraits of famous people and then split up when I decided that I wanted a coffee from Starbucks. I spent the rest of the day with strolling through the city and taking the free tram until we met for lunch in a shopping centre where we were joined by the others from Sydney.
The plan for the afternoon was to meet Sarah's friend and shopping, so we left the others and headed in the direction of the city centre. But not even five minutes after splitting up I got a call from Mick that they would go to Phillip Island to see the penguins that afternoon and that they had two more seats in the car. I couldn't resist and so I told them that I would join. None of the other girls wanted to so I ran back alone to meet the others and hit the road to finally see penguins in their natural habitat. Well, I should have known that this wasn't going to happen and that I'm obviously doomed to not see penguins ever except for in the zoo! This time it was the way to get there which was the problem! We drove in the opposite direction for 90min! And since it was already late in the afternoon there was no chance to be in Phillip Island on time to see the penguins.
After admitting that we would never find Phillip Island and deciding for the pub crawl: Mick and Javier in a great mood (I'm not surprised concidering the prospect of getting beer!)
So we decided to go back to the hostel of the others and do a pub crawl after having a few beer in their room and never to talk about penguins ever again! (And I really start to doubt that there are any Penguins in Australia, not to mention NZ!)
The pub-crawl was amazing! It was so much fun and the pubs were definitely the best I've seen in Australia! I wish we had some of them in Sydney!
all the girls: Asun, Elena, Sarah, Aarti, me and Bea (from left to right- gosh, I hope I didn't mix it up again...)
In total we visited 8bars. Sarah, Rebecca and Elena left after the first one because they wanted to change. Bea and Asun went back to the hostel after the 3rd or 4th bar because Asun still felt a little sick because of her dinner the night before (well, we told them to have fast food! But they didn't want to listen and went to a Japanese restaurant instead...). Aarti left after the 5th bar to join the other girls and Sarah's friend somewhere else and so I was left with Mick, Jon and Javier. Since we started at 6pm I was home pretty early which gave me the possibility to have sleep long enough to prepare me for our return to Sydney the next day.
In the morning we went to have breakfast in a nice little restaurant close to the house of Sarah's friend. After the breakfast we split up again since everyone wanted to see sth different. I took the free shuttle bus and went to the Botanical Garden. On the way to get there the bus passed all the sights of Melbourne which gave me the possibility to see a lot of stuff in a short time. And since the weather was pretty bad (drizzle and cold- could it be any worse?) I was happy to take the bus!
I strolled through the Botanical Garden, started to rush every time I passed a child's birthday party (and there was a ridiculously high amount of them!) and then walked back to the city centre where I stopped in Starbucks to have a coffee and write some postcards. Afterwards I bought I bought a sweater that was on sale. I figured that I deserved that one since it has penguins printed on it and, as already mentioned, was on sale for 12AUD! With penguins!!!
Anyway, at 4pm we met for our last lunch. A great place! I had a huge salad for 6dollar! And they sold real bread!!!
After lunch we said good-bye to Sarah's friend and finally made our way back to Sydney.
We spend the night next to a closed gas station in a hick town because we ran out of fuel and the gas stations in the middle of nowhere close at 4pm on Sundays...
The way back to Sydney 1st
We got up at six in the morning in the vain hope that the gas station would be open by then. Well, tuff luck! It wasn't! It opened one and a half hours later which gave us enough time to have coffee before we could finally finish our way back home.
We arrived at Bulga at around 11am unloaded the campervan and started our way to return our beloved campervan. Elena and me couldn't wait to see the cute guy who gave us the van the first day of our trip but we still decided to go for a short milkshake (which in my case turned out to be a Frappucino - I needed the caffeine!) at McD before ending our trip too soon.
After that we unfortunately ran out of excuses to not return the campervan and so we had to leave our little fellow at the Britz station and left with only a short glimpse at the cute guy since he was busy with another campervan... ;(
Well, that was our trip! It was amazing but also very exhausting! But I would do it again!
