The last k's, facing the Nullarbor, arriving safe in Perth

G'day Mates,

Lets go, still have many k's to go and we have to pass the Nullarbor! Our third time so we are professionals haha.

Here we are in Southern Australia and because its spring the flowers are blooming everywhere which means beautiful coloured paddocks!!

Towards Port Augusta we had to face one more, not for us but for our car, difficult spot; The Horrocks Pass, but of course we made it!

Leaving the mountains behind us we hurried ourselves to go to Ceduna as quick as possible because there we had to get some supplies before we head to The Nullarbor....

Things you pass on the road......

The strange thing is that every time we have to face the Nullarbor we always get a bit nervous which actually is silly because there is not much danger about it anymore. There are stops now regularly and it is soo busy nowadays, packed with Grey Nomads, that IF you break down there is always help.

Doesn't look so packed hey?? 

Just look at this free spot, who wouldn't want to stay there for a night?? 

At night it cools down a lot so .......

dinner outside was out of the question!

In the morning we found out we weren't alone, there were already a few in the evening (otherwise we wouldn't have stayed) but obviously there had arrived a few after dark.

A section on a Nullarbor is, as you can see below, Australia's longest straight road and you have to be careful not to fall asleep. Doesn't matter for me but for Fred it would make a lot of difference, well he is the driver you know!!

Coming from the Nullarbor we went straight towards the Goldfields and stopped at the gate;

Coolgardie, what a lovely little town;

looked like time had stood still....

If you ever want to make a Western Movie, think of Coolgardie as set.

Anyhow we had a free spot in town which was good, no shade so bloody hot but that's good our solar panel....

Because the trip had gone successfully and quick, we had some time left so you can imagine, being at the Gold Fields and with a new detector under the bed, where we went!!

Still no luck but I'm positive! My time will come and I promise you I will make you part of it! 

Arrived safely at our first House sitting address in Perth, not only our first now, but this was literally our first House sitting address and the owners become more than friends, we feel as adopted family of each other haha!! 

Look what we found in Perth! A Dutch Kroket, jammie!!

Mates! I'm having a Christmas break, see you maybe before, otherwise in the new year!!

Because this drive of 3400 k's from Beaconsfield, via Bendigo to Perth has a lot more to see and deserves a lot more to tell about then my 2 last stories, I will give you some links of previous stories on my blog as, as I said, we have done this before;

Dolphins in Whyalla;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/whyalla.html

Beautiful Port Lincoln;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/port-lincoln.html

Hilarious stop 

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/hilarious-and-beautifull-stop-coodlie.html 

Last but not least; The Nularbor;

http://torn-between-two-lovers.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/the-nullarbor.html

Have a GREAT TIME!

Cheers!

Back in Aussieland!

G'day Mates!

Although we are back already for a few months, I'm not that far with my blog yet. Now we're back the new Aussie adventures starts again;

Coming back from Kuala Lumpur (Sept. 4th), we arrived at 1 o'clock AM at Melbourne airport and despite that our good friend Ian had said he would pick us up we didn't want him to drive so early in the morning so we'd booked a hotel near the Airport and that was relaxing. After a good sleep Ian en Ellen picked us up at the hotel at about 11 to drop us at Ian's sister's house for our first 3 weeks house sitting.

Unfortunately we got the flu and had troubles for the whole 3 weeks, ups and downs, feeling better, feeling worse, Crikey what a disaster. Anyhow Fred still managed to make a nice pot with "Snert" (pea soup) which we enjoyed together with family.

We had to leave this first house sitting a few days before the owner got back as we had the second one in Bendigo, you remember the one with the RDA horses? We had left our caravan there during our Holland holiday so it was good to go and see our little house on wheel again.

 On our way to Bendigo we did a bit of a detour to visit a friend of the FB group " Dutchies in Melbourne”. During following that group I saw a picture of a familiar face passing and I remembered that I had worked with that man somewhere in the seventies/eighties at my first job in Zutphen. He seemed to be her father and so after some correspondence we decided to meet each other. It was very nice and she surely is the daughter of the man I had worked with. Isn't that a coincidence!

After that visit we also stopped in Bendigo to pick up my new detector I had ordered while we were in The Netherlands. The day after I had a training day so that was very exciting! Didn't found anything though but because we are going to the West again, I wanted a proper detector as digging for 6 weeks like last time without result isn't what we want do we?? 

Our health was luckily better and we had again a great time with that house sitting, we like the place much as it is so relaxing. The first time we were there in Autumn and it was very dry then and look at it now! What a difference!

Plenty grass for the horses so we didn't had much to do......

We also had a lot rain, so much that I couldn't pick up the poo from the horses....

It was only for one week and again we had to leave before the owners were back but with horses that's not a problem, they will survive one day with nobody around to watch them.

But first we needed to fit new tyres on the caravan...... 

 On the 6 th of October we left and had only 10 days to drive the 3400 k's as we have to be in Perth on the 17 th for our third house sitting! 

Passing a paddock full with satellite dishes... 

Our first goal was Mildura, you can imagine we had to drive approx. 340 k's a day and already the first day was a bit of a struggle as because of all the rain these last days we faced some major flooding....

Luckily the detour wasn't too long....

We arrived well in Mildura and after leaving the nice spot at the caravan park the next day to face the next 340 k's, we hit the border of South Australia and of course the first quarantine station.

Although we have travelled soooo much already, we always manage to forget about these stations with the result that we have to stop a few k's before and eat all the fruit we have. 

Crikey!! Stomach ache after a few hours! 

To be continued...

Cheers!

Kuala Lumpur

G'day mates!

This story will be a short one but one with a few shocks!

We always have a stopover on our way back from The Netherlands to Australia just to have the opportunity to pull ourselves together after all these busy months and of course the say goodbye's.

Needed a drink after leaving our family behind and the goodbye's. Unfortunately we couldn't find our favorite bar anymore which was "Old Amsterdam" (or something like that) and after asking someone we learned it was gone and on that spot was an extra security area! Crikey what a shame!! At the whole Airport was no Belgium beer anymore, what a disaster! 😈😠

He seems to be happy but isn't really!
(a poor alternative)

After the first shock about the vanished bar we got the second one;

You can take booze into Australia, even a bit more then 2 liter but you have to buy it at the last port before entering Australia so we couldn't buy anything at Schiphol!

We love Strohrum and know you cannot buy it at Kuala Lumpur so that was the second shock!

Bye bye Strohrum

Normally the Emirates Airline is fantastic but this time and we don't know why because there wasn't bad weather or something else, but we had to wait about 2 and a half hours before we got something to drink! And I don't mean booze but water or juice or whatever, that wasn't very comfortable.

Further the flight was OK, lots of entertaining;

Because we have been in Kuala Lumpur before and we then did all the sight seeings, I now only have a small movie about us eating on the street as that is why we wanted to go back to Kuala Lumpur for;

First some pictures;

OMG that food is to die for!!

If you want some sight seeing, go to my previous story about Kuala Lumpur, the only thing is, lucky for the Dutchies, sad for the rest of my readers, it's in Dutch as that was written in my previous Weblog; tamfredinkangarooland, anyhow, the pictures are worth visiting 

http://tamfredinkangarooland.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/kuala-lumpur.html

The third and last shock;

I've never seen a human being like this, you wonder if he has been born that way or maybe has a disease;

In my movie you can see how he is making a living but also us watching the world go by;

Movie time!!

See ya soon, back in Australia!

Cheers.