Great Ocean Road, Melbourne and Surroundings

the "Great Ocean Road" is ...great :-) ! The coast is really spectacular. Even though the day was a bit cloudy and cold..it was "awesome" - as the Australian would express it :-)
We reached Melbourne and liked the city immediately. 4 Million inhabitants, many nice builidings, caffes (for Renate :-) ), etc.

In the last days we visited some old towns outside of melbourne, dating from the 'goldrush' in 1850 - 1900, with old mines and old buildings, ( We didn't find gold though :-)) walked in the Grampians (a few 'mountains' (=hills) north-east from Melbourne and didn't have any stress in particular. :-)

The most interesting and adventourous things which occured in the past days:
- our sausage disappeared misteriously (the second time... bugger)!
- we had to buy a new battery for the car from a guy whose whole body was tatooed
- our car-engine smoked ??? dope?
- I caught my dirty sock in the act of fleeing from me
- about 16 kangaroos closed in on our tent at the campground and
- we learned that one of the most important battles in australians history lasted less than 15 minutes, left 30 guys dead and a dog with an posthum award and a statue!! (Eureka stockade, 1854 , Pikeman’s Dog (for those interested in more ;-) ))
..... Wow! What do you say? :-) :-)
I guess our grey hairs are caused by that permanent thrill and stress :-) :-) .

Now we are back in Melbourne and will spend our time here till the 4.11., when we will depart to Tasmania, where we will stay for about 3 weeks. We don't know when we will be able to write again, from Tasmania. So don't worry if you do not hear from us a while. we haven't forgotten you! ;-)

The weather is becoming better now (20 - 30 degrees) and we were able to put on our short trousers again! JIPIIHH! ..ups...guess it's cold in Europe though, isn't it. ;-)

Here are the pictures!!! :-)

Kisses and hugs, hugs, hugs!!! Missing you!!!!
Renate

Kangaroo Island

Hallo!

I hope all of you are still interested in our 'adventures' ??

Here is the next blog entry for you: ;-) Kangaroo Island

Although the weather didn't seem too good, we set over to Kangaroo Island, which is a small island near Adelaide. Yes..you are right..it has been know for the many kangaroos.. at least in former times... now a big part of it is still a nature reserve and there are kangaroos, wallabies, pinguins, KOALAS!! (Juchuuuu!!!), snakes, birds etc...

Additionally it has a gorgous coastal scenery.

The weather was rather fine, sunny but still cold. But it can only get better from now on, we keep tellnig ourselves... in comparison to Europe ;-)

We have provided a few pictures again.

We are now on our way to Melbourne and will follow the southern coast for a few days.

We are proud we were able to book our ferry to Tasmania for the 4th of November and are looking sooooo forward to it. :-)

But first: the "Great Ocean Road" to Melbourne :-)

We hope you are all fine and are glad for every comment and email from you!!!!

Kisses and hugs!

Renate & Mirko

Flinders Ranges and Barossa Valley

Coming south from the middle of Australia we suddenly couldn't belive our eyes: everything was green again: green grass, green trees, flowers in all kinds and colours...
We entered the 'Flinders Ranges'! After so much time without any 'Green' we believed us in paradise...we considered the possibility of having been transported to a different planet and time: the Alps... if only there weren't those camels and kangaroos ??? which did not at all fit into our alpine picture ??? ...

... and later, as we came down south even further, we again magically were transferred to the 'Toskana': the Barossa Valley.

So for the record: since our journey began, we have been in: Singapore, Australia, the bush, the outback, the moon, the Alps & the Toskana.
We experienced: incredible heat, incredible cold, rain, blazing sun, cold winds, hot winds, sandstorms and now we have weather like 'autumn' in Europe: we finally arrived in Adelaide.

For us it was good to see some green landscapes again, and more then one house an hour.
We got a real culture shock meeting so many people at once, having the take care not to bump in each other, looking at so many buildings and having so many crossroads, traffic lights and more than one traffic lane to choose from...
But we got used to it rather quickly though. :-)
What will take us longer is the adaption to the cold and wet weather down here.
We discarded the tent until the temperature here raises again above 25 degrees (now 14 - 18) and hope that it will stop raining eventually....

Look at the pictures for yourself!!!
Tomorrow we will continue even further south to Kangaroo Island and then in the direction of Melbourne.
But as civiliation has us again, we will be able to write more often now :-)

We are looking forward to hearing from you.
Kisses, Renate & Mirko

Back from the Outback

one would believe that in the far Outback of Australia the emptyness prevails and there is nothing and nobody to be seen. But as we drove through we encountered otherwise. There are really a lot of things to see and actually humans to meet. I guess the best thing is for you to browse through the photos to get the feeling of the outback.

The more harsh and unfriendly it is the more interesting was it for us. But never ever would we dream of living there :-).

We passed as amused onlookers a lot of curiosities in the ouback:
- "underground living" in Coober Pady
- skeletons at the side of the road
- km2 of nothingness in all different colours
-"villages" housing about 10 people accessed only via dirt road from the middle of nowhere with again about 500km of emptyness to go through to reach them (no house, no service station, no water ... nothing)
- waterholes with fresh water coming out of nowhere
- ruins / old settlements
- lizards, spiders, flies, mosquitos, birds,
- rough tracks (and now we actually know what 'rough' means, when locals tell you the condition of the road is 'rough' ;-))
- the surface of the moon
- salt
- guys, who call themselve 'Talc Alf' after having lived in the Outback for 35 (!) years

I had my first and hopefully only encounter with a redback-spider...and it was rather informal and not a friendly one.... One of us had to die ...luckily as you correctly assume now, it was not me. :-) Juchuuu!

Take a look at the pictures!!!!

Wish you all the best!!!!
Renate & Mirko