Travels in Australia


Red country, vast and empty. Colorfull birds, scary lizards, swerms of kangaroos and huge wales inhabit the tropics, deserts, and oceans. Laid back people inhabit cities, even more relaxed people live in the boonies. I travelled in Australia for 54 days starting at June 16, 1999. Ten thousand kilometers in the old Valiant brought me from Darwin to Sydney.

Crocodiles in Darwin

A salty in northern territory.

Coming from Kupang, Indonesia, Patricia and I land at Darwin International Airport after an empty, one hour flight. My first hours in Australia are weird. We take a cab from the airport into town. The car is big, clean and quiet. The radio plays classical music. Traffic is organized and smooth. Everything so clean, everything's working. There are tacky movie cinemas, richly filled supermarkets. No more poverty. (Or are there still problems? Many Aboriginal have a hard time getting along in a Western society.) We meet Jeff and Betsy and we spend some good time together. I buy their car: a 1974 Chrysler Valiant: strong and spacious. It comes with tent, cooking gear, tool kit, guidebooks and maps. We just need to get gas, water and food and we're all set to go. First thing to visit is a crocodile farm near Darwin. These living fossils are bred and fattened to be used mainly for leather. But there are also some big ones to be shown to visitors. The biggest is an old salty weighing over a ton. It just wants to lay still and eats only one chicken every two weeks. Our lunch includes a home made croc burger.

Litchfield National Park

Wangi falls in litchfield national park.

Litchfield National Park is beautiful, not too busy and has some nice camping. So for the first time we pitch the tent (and organize the car). It's hot and the pool under the waterfalls looks inviting. The water is refreshing and clear. After our swim we eat our lunch, until an aggressive monitor lizard spoils our piece.


Remco's organizing the car.

Road Train near Port Hedland
During our road trip we encounter many road trains. Nowhere in the world are truck-trailer-combinations allowed to be as long as in Australia: 50 meters (165 ft). They're impressive, fast and hard to overtake because the tail sweeps from left to right up to one meter. At a truck stop near Port Headland a driver is checking the 62 tires of his road train.


Roadtrain.

Nude Beach in Broome
We're going to the nude beach. Patricia says it's customary for male sun bathers to go totally nude, and for women to keep their female parts covered. So I have to watch my pale buttocks in the strong sun here. The weather is lovely, 85 degrees and a cooling breeze from the ocean. A large part of the beach is accessible by car, so everybody drives his car on the beach.


Cable Beach in Broome.

Hump Backs in Coral Bay

A hump back's tail.

We're camping in Coral Bay at the ocean. In the morning we take a wale watch tour on the ocean. After sailing and scanning the water surface for two hours somebody sees a water fountain far away. Full speed in that direction and pretty soon we see several fountains. We're coming even closer and now we get a good view of the whales. They're hump backs. They surface every other minute to get air. First the mouth, than the back and finally the gigantic tail. We follow them for two hours and then it's time to go back. Before we arrive in the marina we encounter a herd of see cows and a couple of see turtles.


This is what a hump back looks like under water.

Pelicans in Kalbarri
Pelicans in Kalbarri.

Kalbarri Canyon and the Murchison River. 		Kalbarri is a quiet little coast town with a small harbor, a promenade, nice rocky beach and lots of pelicans. Some guy feeds them fish every morning. They're big birds with a back sack under their beck. We make a trip to the Murchison River. We're going over dirt roads and enjoy the flora. We see some emus and later on we see the river and beautiful canyons.


This is typical Australie flora.

Winter in Perth
I'm in winter weather again after a long time. Sometimes sunshine and a lot rain. We're camping in Fremantle, a suburb of Perth. One afternoon we're heading for downtown in pouring rain. We're going to the movies at the end of the afternoon and when we come outside again it's storming. After dinner we go back to the camp site. But our tent is gone. The storm has blown it away. Fortunately somebody's found it and put it in the camp site kitchen. I use 10 extra pins to secure it in the ground. A couple of days later Patricia leaves for more traveling in South East Asia. I stay sad and alone in Perth. I decide to drive to Sydney and get a job there. In a couple of hotels I put this note:


Stuart, a Scotsman from Glasgow, calls me that afternoon. We decide to leave the next morning. A couple of hours later I got a phone call from Dave, a bloke from Liverpool. He arrived in Perth the day before after a 52-hours bus ride from Darwin. He planned on staying in Perth for two weeks, but wanted to join us anyways.

From Perth to Sydney in 48 hours

Remco and a camel wombat kangaroo crossing warning road sign at the Western Australia-South Australia border.

Dead kangaroo on the road. 		That Friday morning we get gas and groceries. I start driving and Dave takes over at four pm. Stuart follows a couple of hours after sunset. I'm sleeping when sudden breaking wakes me up. Within half an hour kangaroos have filled up the landscape. Later I'm driving again and pretty soon we get on the longest straight stretch of road in Australia: 100 miles with not the slightest curve. Going faster than 60 miles an hour isn't possible. When kangaroos are present near the road I have to slow down, because they tend to jump in front of the car on the most impossible moments. They're red kangaroos, the biggest kind. Males are as big as my father, females as big as my mother. I hit one with 20 miles an hour. It falls, stands up and runs away. No damage. A little later one runs in front of the car going 20 miles an hour, then it turns around suddenly and lands in a weird way at the door of the car. Dave and Stuart were sleeping and woke up scared to death when this happened. At two o'clock we reach a closed gas station, we pitch the tent and get a couple of hours of sleep till the gas station opens again at six. We fill it up and drive all day. After sunset they appear again. This time they're mainly smaller gray kangaroos, about the size of a shepherds dog. Stuart hits one without doing any harm. Later that evening when I'm sleeping the breaks are being fully applied followed by a big boom. The head of one of those nasty jumpers went thru the front grill and the radiator is spraying coolant. We drive back to a hotel we've just passed: no help and the nearest gas station is 100 miles down the road. Dave has been a car mechanic for years and squeezes the leaking pipes. After that he seals the remaining leaks by putting two eggs in the radiator water. At the next gas station we buy leak stop for radiators. We drive through the night and Dave is the only one to slightly hit one more kangaroo. And after 48 hours on the road we approach Sydney. We have to deal with three hours heavy traffic before we actually enter the city.

Leaving Sydney

Stuart on the Manly-Sydney ferry.

Dave, Stuart and I stay together in Sydney. We spend a couple of days near Cross Road, we stay in Bondi and we find a long-term rental place in Manly. I find a job putting clothes in bags. But I miss Patricia more and more. And after a week working I decide to try to sell the car and follow her. It's low season for selling cars in Sydney and that Saturday I'm the only person who sells his car at the Cross Road Car Market. The same day evening I book a flight to Bangkok to meet up with Patricia. The next day I leave Australia.


Indonesian shoes can't realy handle a lot of walking.