After a quiet day on New Year's Day, we said goodbye to Norbert and Ruth the following morning.  It had been great to spend some time together and hopefully our paths will cross again before we leave Australia.  We drove north up the coast to Port Stephens, an area that Norbert and Ruth had recommended to us as there are beautiful beaches and dune areas that can be explored D.  Roel had discovered on the internet that it was possible to camp for free on one of the beaches, Samurai beach, and from the information leaflet we got from Norbert and Ruth we found that we could also drive the Landy on this beach for free - perfect!  We spent almost a week camping there and met some lovely friendly people who spend their Christmas and New Year holidays there every year.  Despite the fact that they all knew each other well, they made us feel very welcome and we had a fantastic time.  One of the couples there also had a roof-tent and this was how we found out that a 4WD / roof-tent combo is generally referred to as a 'snail' in Australia.  When another Landy with a roof-tent turned up (with its owners, a lovely Aussie/British couple, Andy and Vanessa) there was much hilarity among the other campers about this being the offspring of the first two 'snails'...

On a tip from one of the people we'd met at Samurai, we headed further up the coast to Crowdy Bay National Park, where we spent a lovely couple of days camping just 5 minutes' walk from another gorgeous (and practically deserted) beach.  Heading inland from there, we spent three nights at a small private campsite near Ellenborough, which is known for its beautiful waterfalls.  We then made a brief return to civilisation, spending a night in the coastal city of Coffs Harbour, as Lizzy had a translation to do.  All that bustle was just too much and we took another three day break at a small private campsite just inland from Coffs before heading to the city of Tamworth to experience the annual Australian Country Music Festival.

Tamworth is the home of country music in Australia and in the last week of January each year the country vibe steps up a notch further as it is invaded by hordes of country music fans.  It also happens to be the nearest city to the farm and jackaroo school ('jackaroo' is Australian for cowboy, in case you were wondering - the female equivalent is a jillaroo!) where Lizzy spent a combined 3 months working the last time she was in Australia (in 2000).  So all in all a bit of a must-see on our itinerary.  Luckily for us, Frank, one of the lovely people we had met on Samurai beach, happens to live right in the centre of Tamworth and we were able to park the Landy in his garden and camp there.

We arrived on the first day of the festival and that evening, eager to sample its delights, we went to the opening concert with Frank and his girlfriend Hanna.  Wending our way there through Tamworth's main streets, the festival atmosphere was already much in evidence.  The main street was closed to traffic and filled with festival-goers and stalls.  The opening concert itself was a pretty informal affair, held in a park and open to everyone for free.  The format involved a wide variety of artists (and country music is definitely varied) each performing a couple of numbers, an ideal taster of the festival to come.  After the show, we wandered round those bars that would let us in - foolishly, Roel had worn his thongs (not to disappoint the Brits among you who were having visions of Aussie bouncers getting to do underwear inspections and considering emigrating and a career change, but perhaps we should mention that 'thongs' is Australian for 'flip-flops').  Annoyingly this seems to be the Aussie equivalent of a posh dress code in many bars: 'Filthy work boots and torn clothing welcome, but NO THONGS'.  Still, the bars we could get into had a wide variety of music and clientele and together they kept us thoroughly entertained until it was time to go home.

Next morning we had an early start for the 'Bush Poets' Breakfast' at the Longyard Hotel.  Essentially this involves eating breakfast while listening to poetry.  Except that this isn't the kind of poetry you'll hear in Europe.  Aussie bush poets are, or affect to be, down-to-earth country blokes (OK, we did see one 'sheila' but her material seemed to belong to a slightly different genre) and their subject matter and sense of humour have a similarly 'down-to-earth' tendency...  One or two jokes missed the mark (or perhaps we just didn't get the 'cultural' references), but for the most part it was side-splittingly funny.

That evening Frank and Hanna decided to have a quiet night in so we went out to explore alone.  The atmosphere on the streets was even livelier than the night before (well, it was Saturday night), with crowds of people wandering up and down among the buskers, street performers and stalls.  There was a guy doing a brilliant show with live poisonous snakes, giving lots of useful info about what to do if you see a snake or are bitten by one (not that remote a possibility in Australia, unfortunately).  We were really impressed by one of the buskers who was managing to play about 7 different instruments at the same time, though we lost interest and drifted away when his mate claiming to be the 'world's best air guitarist' joined him (after all, we all know that the world's best air guitarist is Roel, don't we?).  After this, our attention was caught by a band just starting a gig in front of one of the bars on the main street, catchily named 'Jeremy Edwards and the Dust Radio Band'.  Despite the name, we really liked their music and stopped to enjoy it (and have a beer) for the next couple of hours.

We had a quiet last evening in Tamworth.  Frank and Hanna had tickets for the final of 'Starmaker', Tamworth's most prestigious talent contest.  Being an extremely popular concert this had sold out well before the start of the festival, but we were happy to have a quiet evening in for a change.

Next day, we had planned to go on a camping trip for a few days with Frank and Hanna, to a farm near Glen Innes.  We arranged to meet them there and on the way we visited the farm and jackaroo school where Lizzy had worked in 2000.  There was nobody around at the farm, so after a quick look round we headed up to the jackaroo school, high in the hills above Tamworth.  Here we got a warm welcome from Tim, the owner, who remembered Lizzy from 7 years ago, and from the current staff and students.  It was fantastic for Lizzy to be back and to be able to show Roel the place where she'd had so much fun just a month or two before they met each other.  After a good look round and chat, we reluctantly headed north to Glen Innes.

The farm turned out to be a fantastic place.  We camped just beside a creek, which was perfect for swimming.  The owner, Steve, had several horses and he showed us both all around the 500 hectare property on horseback.  We spent each day pottering around the farm and doing our own thing and in the evenings we met up with Frank and Hanna and Steve for drinks while we watched the sun set.  We said a fond farewell to Frank and Hanna on Friday, as they had tickets for another concert in Tamworth on the Saturday, but we had decided to stay on for a couple of days as we were heading in the opposite direction anyway.

After a couple more blissful days, we were back on the road, heading north towards Brisbane.  We stopped for a couple of nights at a nice small campsite just west of Casino, a last bit of peace and quiet before we hit the crowds on the coast.  Byron Bay was everything we'd expected it to be - pleasant, with a slightly 'alternative' feel, but just too touristy for us.  We spent the afternoon there but kept on driving north towards Brisbane before settling on a small campsite on the beach at Kingscliff for our overnight stop.

Next morning, we'd planned to spend a few hours exploring Surfer's Paradise and Southport (no, not the one in northwest England, thank goodness) before arriving with our friends John and Mandy (whom we met in Istanbul - see the 'Turkey' page for that story) in the middle of the afternoon.  But we had not counted on two important factors: the time difference and the sheer ugliness of the high rise buildings in Surfers and Southport.  We woke up around 7.30am (New South Wales time), which is fairly early by our standards, but even earlier by Queensland standards as Queenslanders vigorously oppose the introduction of summer time (or 'daylight saving' as it's known in Australia - i.e. putting the clocks forward an hour in summer to take account of the longer days).  This is a huge issue in Australia, a fact which just bemuses us.  Western Australia has just (reluctantly) introduced daylight saving for a trial period of three years, Queensland staunchly refuses to do so and, if some of our informants are to believed, New South Welshmen (as they call themselves), who do have daylight saving, have been trying to get a referendum to get rid of it for years!  We've been party to several heated debates on the subject and we have to say that, to us, the arguments against seem totally ridiculous, ranging as they do from 'the curtains will fade more' (why???) to 'the cows will get confused' (how the hell do the cows know what time it is anyway?), via just about any ludicrous argument you can think of in between.

 Anyway, let's just say that we crossed the 'border' into Queensland around 7.30am (Queensland time).  This gave us about 6 hours to enjoy the delights of Queensland's famous Gold Coast and get to Brisbane mid-afternoon as planned.  This turned out to be about six times as much as we really needed.  Everything about Surfers and Southport reminded us of anonymous Spanish holiday resorts we have known and hated.  We just couldn't bring ourselves to do more than stop for a few photos, so we drew up at John and Mandy's door around 11am, a good three hours earlier than planned...  Despite this, we got a warm welcome from John and Mandy and their two lovely kids, Jaimie and Callum.  It was great to see them all again and catch up on what they had been up to since they got back from their trip round Europe.  They were just in the thick of selling their gorgeous house in a posh Brisbane suburb as they have bought a plot of land at a new eco-development down the coast, so we pitched in and lent a hand with the cleaning up to say thanks for having us.  We had some great evenings sitting out on their balcony chatting and eating delicious food.  On the Saturday evening, we took the CityCat catamaran service along the river through the centre of Brisbane and had a picnic in a park on the South Bank.  Sunday was a quiet day and then on Monday we headed off to spend a few days (before returning to Brisbane for a dentist's appointment for Lizzy on Friday) on beautiful peaceful Moreton Island (just off the coast opposite Brisbane but you'd never guess).  This is the third largest sand island in the world and perfect territory for our Landy.  We are writing this from our lovely secluded camping spot just off an amazing beach with clear turquoise water - bliss!

20^th March 2007 update - Heat, dust and insects: finally, the real Australia!

Our last update was written from our beachside camping spot on Moreton Island, one of the most beautiful places we've been in Australia.  It was amazing, but in our eagerness to emphasize just how idyllic it was (no point doing a world trip if you can't make people at home jealous, is there?) we may have slightly neglected to mention the large numbers of March flies with whom we had to share this paradise.  March flies are outsize flies which, despite their size, have a cunning ability to land very softly on any exposed patch of flesh without attracting its owner's attention.  They then proceed to make their presence felt by delivering a nasty bite, which stays painful long after they've been chased away by the enraged victim (and friend(s) - it's at least a two-man job to get one of these monsters to leave you alone).  Not very pleasant.  And this is the thing we've been learning about Australia since we wrote the last update - wherever there is natural beauty, there will be insects.  Lots of them.

Our next couple of weeks were fairly insect-free, though.  From Moreton Island we returned to Brisbane for Lizzy to have the dentist's visit mentioned in the last update.  This was for repairs to a broken tooth (not painful, I didn't even feel it happening) and resulted in a crown (no pain there either - except in the financial sense - as the tooth had already been root-filled in London).  It was great to see John and Mandy again and we had a fun Friday night out with them in 'the Valley', Brisbane's Chinatown, which is also one of its liveliest areas for nightlife.  Due to the huge numbers of Asian immigrants in Australia, you can get a great variety of amazing Asian food in Australian cities and we had a delicious Vietnamese meal.  As is often the case in Australia, the restaurant allowed customers to bring their own alcohol - it's a shame this system isn't more common in Europe as even with the small corkage charge eating out is so much more affordable.  And you get to drink what you really want rather than whatever the restaurant decides to offer!

On Saturday, we got the chance to meet some of Mandy's family as her parents and her sister's family came round for dinner.  It was great to chat to them, especially Mandy's mum and dad who have also travelled a good deal in Europe and Australia.  We said another temporary farewell (another dentist's appointment to have the crown fitted in 2 weeks' time) on Sunday and set off to explore a bit further up the Queensland coast.  We spent a pleasant afternoon on the beach in the National Park near Noosa, then headed towards Cooloola beach in the Great Sandy National Park.  We stopped for the night at a campsite on the way and spent the evening chatting to some travellers from the UK, one of whom turned out to have been at university in Aberdeen with Lizzy's cousin, Charlie!  Just another one of life's weird coincidences!

Cooloola beach is a long, exposed sandy beach, which is open to 4WDs and popular for camping and fishing.  The surf was pretty rough and there was quite a lot of traffic on the beach, so all in all it didn't feel that conducive for swimming or wandering along the beach.  We found a sheltered camping spot and spent a night there, but we were happy to pack up in the morning and move on.  As we headed inland along a dirt track, heavy rain set in and soon we were splashing through deep puddles, covering the Landy in muddy water.  The rain cleared as we approached the pleasant little town of Rainbow Beach and we took the opportunity to give the Landy a good wash to get rid of the sand and mud.

With the Landy sparkling again, we set off towards Hervey Bay, stopping for lunch in a restaurant overlooking the river in the 'heritage' area of Maryborough, which is basically a street of charming historic buildings painted in traditional yellows and browns.  This is quite a contrast to the rest of town, which has the usual range of modern practical low-rise buildings in dull grey or white that you find in every small Australian town.  Hervey Bay is not the most charming town either - an amalgamation of two or three different centres, it has some pleasant beachfront and a strip of shops and cafes to go with it, but the rest of town sprawls across a large area and doesn't really have a centre, with most activity seeming to focus around the car dealerships and outlet-style shops on the main highway.  Despite this we ended up spending almost a week in Hervey Bay - we met some nice people on the campsite and Lizzy spent several days doing translations.  The weather was pretty variable, but there was a nice recreation room on the campsite, so Roel got to catch up on some internet (free) and we both had a chance to hone our technique playing pool in the evenings!

From Hervey Bay, we went on up the coast to Bundaberg and spent a few days staying on a farm just north of there, whose owners, Rick and Aileen, are a retired couple who take campers because they just like to have people around.  They used to grow oranges and mangoes on the property and there were still lots of orange and mango trees close to where we were camping.  Sadly we were too late for the mangoes, but there were still some oranges on the trees and Rick invited us to help ourselves.  Some of them were clearly past their best, but we managed to find a few nice-looking ones.  Lizzy settled down to enjoy one, but after she had eaten the first couple of pieces (which tasted delicious) she noticed a maggot crawling out of the rest of the orange!  On closer inspection there were tens of tiny maggots in all the remaining pieces - yuck!   Rick investigated the other two oranges and showed where fruitflies had pierced the skin to lay their eggs.  Hastily, Lizzy threw these and the remainder of the orange she'd peeled away, trying not to think about how many maggots she'd already eaten without knowing...  Another strike for the Australian insects!

Bundaberg itself seemed a bit like Hervey Bay - a maze of car dealerships and outlet-style shops - though the broad, palm tree-lined main street has more traditional buildings which give it a bit of character.  Bundaberg is not on the coast, but we drove out to the seaside resort of Bargara, a few kilometres away, which has a pleasant atmosphere and a narrow strip of beach.  We had decided not to go any further north up the Queensland coast on this trip, as it was still the wet season and we'd travelled down the coast from Cairns to Brisbane last time we visited Australia.  So we turned south again, stopping for a couple of nights near Childers, which has most recently been known nationally and internationally for the fire at the Palace backpackers' hostel in June 2000.  The former hostel building has now been converted into an art gallery, with a moving memorial to each of the 15 backpackers who died.  It was strange to see pictures of these young people, many of whom were British or Dutch, and think that this happened only a month after we left Australia the last time ourselves.  We didn't stop in Childers on our last visit, but we stayed in many hostels in Queensland and across Australia and may well have met some of those who died in the months before the fire.  Visiting the memorial brought home to us how incredibly lucky we have been so far in our lives and how little any of us knows what's going to happen in the future.  The experience left us even more determined to observe the motto on the side of our Landy: 'One life. Live it.'

We stayed at a campsite in the middle of the bush, not far from Childers.  This was a lovely peaceful spot and one of the highlights of our stay was seeing some wild possums up close one evening as they came to eat food put out for them by the campsite owner.  One of the female possums had been cared for by the owner after losing her mother when she was too young to fend for herself and then returned to the wild, so she showed no fear and even let us get close enough to stroke her and her baby, which was riding on her back.  It was great to get this close and see how beautiful possums are, particularly as possums get quite a negative press in Australia with most Australians regarding them as vermin.

Back in Brisbane, Lizzy had her crown fitted and we spent a last couple of nights enjoying Mandy and John's company and having fun with their kids, Jaimie and Callum.  After Brisbane our route lay inland, towards the red centre of Australia, and much as we'd enjoyed our 'holiday' along the coast of New South Wales and Queensland we were impatient to get on and face the challenges of rough roads and high temperatures that awaited us.  So we set off west towards Ipswich, on the edge of the Great Dividing Range.  We had meant to spend a night or so at a small campsite just south of there that we'd heard about, but Lizzy unexpectedly received several translations to do so we ended up staying longer than planned (again).  Luckily we had some very good company there so Roel didn't have a chance to get bored!

Finally, after almost a week, we set off again, crossing the Great Dividing Range at Cunningham's Gap and pressing on across the rolling plains known as the Darling Downs.  Our first stop was a tiny place called Nindigully, which we'd seen on a travel programme on the Australia Network satellite channel while staying in Chennai.  Like many outback towns, Nindigully basically consists of a pub.  This pub is famous for a number of outback events held there every year and as the location used in one of Hugh Jackman's early films - Paperback Hero, the heart-warming story of a long-distance truck driver who just happens to write romantic fiction in his spare time.  As you can imagine, this isn't one of Jackman's best-known movies, though it just happens to be well-known to us as the video was given to us some years ago (as a joke on the 'truck driver' theme) by our film-buff friends Matt & Susan!  We spent a pleasant few hours in the bar that evening, chatting to the Irish backpacker working behind the bar and later on to some of the locals and losing some money in the weekly 'Goose Club' (outback Australian for 'raffle', apparently).  It's a nice bar, though perhaps not as authentic as some we've visited since.  One definite plus is the fact that they let you camp for free!

After Nindigully, we drove via St. George and Cunnamulla to a little place called Eulo, where we again camped out the back of the pub (not free this time, sadly).  This was a more typical Australian country pub, a bit less photogenic but with lots of interesting memorabilia and friendly owners behind the bar (him) and cooking great simple food (her).  We had an early night (too many beers at Nindigully!) and headed on north-west in the morning.  This felt like the start of the outback proper - a short stretch of the road was unsealed and we hardly saw anyone until we reached the small town of Quilpie (a mere 230km 'up the road'), where we stopped for a break and a cold drink at the pub.  You'll probably have noticed by now that all our stops since Nindigully have involved pubs - there's a reason for this and it's not (well, not entirely) that we are alcoholics.  As we've headed further inland, the number of flies has increased exponentially with every stop.  Luckily they don't bother you when driving - once you've ejected the ones that flew in at the last stop, that is - but the minute you stop, there they are again.  And, unlike flies in Europe, they're not much interested in sitting on your arm or your leg or the table - oh no, all they want to do is sit on your face, preferably on your lips or eyelashes, or in your ear!  It is, quite literally, infuriating.  And the only way to escape them is to get inside a building and close the doors behind you.  Hence our obsession with pubs (well, there aren't a lot of teashops or juice bars in outback Australia, are there?).

Our next pub was in Windorah, another 250km north west.  Arriving in the late afternoon, long before the flies' bedtime (around dusk), there was only one place to go.  We spent a pleasant couple of hours chatting to a bloke who had been working on several stations (i.e. massive farms) near Windorah and his dad who was visiting from Victoria.  Another guy we were talking to started telling us that he made a living by going 'roo-shooting' all night, four nights a week.  We must have looked pretty incredulous, because he dragged us outside to see his Land Cruiser which was specially kitted out with bars and hooks for up to 64 kangaroos (an average night's haul) and then over the road to check on his walk-in chiller where about 400 roo carcases were hanging by their feet waiting to be collected by truck the next day!  He explained that although he has to have a licence to be allowed to shoot kangaroos, the meat is still only used for pet food as it hasn't been slaughtered under the conditions required for human consumption.  This would explain why you rarely see kangaroo meat for sale in supermarkets.  Most wild roos live in remote areas, where it's not practical for them to be slaughtered under such stringent conditions, so not much roo meat ever makes it to the Aussie dinner table.

From Marree, we took the Oodnadatta Track to William Creek, reputed to be Australia's smallest town.  Only 7 people live there at the moment and, as we heard from the chatty former owner of the William Creek pub, 2 of them aren't very popular with the others (for setting up a new campsite and café to rival the pub)...  Despite the smallness of its human population, we are able to report that William Creek's fly population is exceptionally high, even for this area.  After a cold drink and a chat in the pub, we made tracks for the opal-mining town of Coober Pedy.  A few kilometres south of there, we were back on the asphalt for the first time in 1200 km.  By normal standards, Coober Pedy is pretty isolated, but compared to Birdsville, Marree and William Creek it felt like a return to civilisation for us.

It was also a return of a different kind, as it is the place where we first met, in April 2000.  It was a strange feeling to be back at the little terrace outside Radeka's Downunder Backpackers, where we had seen each other for the first time seven years ago.  We had a beer from the hostel bar in memory of old times - with special dispensation from the hostel owner as officially they can only serve residents - and indulged in a little reminiscing.  From Coober Pedy to Darwin, our trip will continue to follow the route that we took together in 2000, so no doubt there'll be a few more places along the way that bring back memories.

We spent a few days in Coober Pedy, wandering round this strange, dusty little town and soaking up the atmosphere.  Its winding, hilly streets are lined with mines and underground homes, many of which are now tourist attractions, not to mention the dozens of opal shops on the main street.  Despite the rarity of a big find, people from all over the world are still lured here by the promise of getting rich quick and the town is full of different nationalities, united by the crazy gleam in their eye that denotes an optimism beyond all reason.  Even when they do make a reasonable find, we heard from a former manager of the town's fanciest hotel, the Desert Cave, that they simply bring the money straight down there and have it changed into dollar coins to try their luck all over again on the 'pokies' (the fruit machines that are a feature of almost every Australian pub)!

On our way north from Coober Pedy we made a detour to visit the Painted Desert, which many Australians we'd met had raved about.  It is a striking collection of hills, which look as though they've been painted in stripes by the red and yellow layers in the rock, but it's inhabited by huge numbers of flies, all of whom turned out to greet our arrival.  Luckily, we'd finally succumbed and purchased the ultimate tourist accessories - fly-nets to cover our heads - in Coober Pedy, but it still wasn't much fun.  Ultimately, as we spent a couple of hot, sticky hours cleaning the inside of the Landy at our campsite in Marla that afternoon (the fine 'bulldust' in the outback gets absolutely everywhere), we weren't convinced it was worth the 200km round trip on dirt roads...

From Marla, our next stop was Alice Springs, right in the centre of Australia.  Most tourists turn off the Stuart Highway north of Marla to head west to Uluru (Ayers Rock), but as our friend Michiel was coming out in less than a week to join us for a few weeks our plan was to meet him in Alice Springs first and then visit Uluru together.  We installed ourselves on the lovely green MacDonnell Ranges campsite in Alice Springs (where, amazingly, there are hardly any flies) and settled down for a few days' relaxation, interspersed by the odd translation, a service for the Landy and writing this update.  We did venture out for an overnight trip to the East MacDonnell Range, which has some beautiful gorges (Trephina Gorge was stunning), but Ross River Resort, where we spent the night, seemed to be suffering from a plague of tiny biting ants (as well as the usual flies and mosquitoes of course), so we were only too pleased to return to Alice Springs and the fly-free haven of the campsite!

12^th April 2007 update - a very sociable few weeks!

Our friend Michiel arrived on Tuesday 20^th March to join us for three weeks.  It was great to see him again and we spent the next few days on the campsite in Alice Springs just hanging out and catching up on what he'd been up to in the last year.  We'd also been joined by fellow overlanders Norbert and Ruth (whom we've now met up with in the Netherlands, Istanbul, Cappadocia, Islamabad, the Blue Mountains, Sydney and now Alice Springs!), so we suddenly had loads of great company on the campsite!

After a couple of fun days relaxing, we packed up and headed towards Uluru (formerly known as Ayers Rock).  En route, we stopped at the National Road Transport Hall of Fame, which has a collection of well-preserved vintage trucks and cars and lots of information about the challenges of road transport across Australia.  Needless to say, Roel found it totally riveting, but even if you weren't that into trucks it was still pretty interesting.  We arrived at Uluru an hour or so before sunset and went straight to the sunset viewing point, which gives a really good view of 'the rock'.  We all found it a really impressive sight, even though Roel and Lizzy had been there before in 2000.  Unfortunately it was quite overcast, which didn't bode well for the sunset.  Luckily for us, just an hour before sunset there was a break in the clouds and the sun's rays suddenly lit the rock with a beautiful orange colour.  This lasted a few minutes and then it clouded over again - no chance of a beautiful sunset that night.  We headed for the campground and spent a pleasant evening there chatting to a Danish couple.

About 5.30 the next morning, we awoke to the sound of other campers packing up to go and watch the sunrise.  We had already been warned that there's no point not getting up for sunrise at this campsite because you'll be awake anyway whether you like it or not.  We still managed to be the last people to get up and as we sped along the 20km or so to the sunrise viewing point it was already getting light.  The scene when we got there was unbelievable - hundreds of people, all armed with cameras, standing in the road waiting for the sun to come over the horizon and light up the rock.  The sunrise itself was a pretty impressive sight too - it was quite cloudy but this just meant that we got to take photographs of the beautiful pink sky to the east as well as the enormous red rock to the west!

As we were up already, we thought we might as well go for a walk before it got hot.  We had decided not to climb the rock - we never really understand the obsession people have with conquering mountains anyway and the local Aboriginal people specifically ask that you don't climb the rock as it's sacred to them and under their laws only specific members of their community are allowed to climb it for ceremonial purposes.  The walk we had decided to go on left from the same car park as the climb and we were amazed to see how busy it was on the climb route up the side of the rock.  There are lots of signs asking you not to climb but it's left up to the individual to decide whether to climb, as under Aboriginal law it's very important that each individual makes their own choice to follow the law.  Even so, we were really surprised that so many people decided to ignore the wishes of the Aboriginal people.

The walk we went on followed the base of the rock round for a short distance and gave a good opportunity to see the varied colours of the rock up close.  There were also some interesting stories along the way about what the local Aboriginal people believe about the creation of the various features of the rock by ancestral hare-wallaby beings.  To Europeans, these tend to seem pretty unbelievable, involving hollows being made by the passage of ancient ancestral creation animal beings, but it's interesting to find out what the Aboriginal people believe and, on reflection, coming from a Christian background we have to admit that there are also a lot of stories in the Bible (especially in relation to creation of the earth and its inhabitants) that are hard to take literally.

Later that morning we went over to have a look at Kata Tjuta (which used to be called the Olgas), another unusual rock formation in the same national park as Uluru.  We went for another short walk there, although by this stage it was getting extremely hot and the flies were out in huge numbers.  We retreated to the cool of the national park's visitor centre, which had some interesting information about the local wildlife and ecosystems as well as the Aboriginal culture.  That afternoon, the weather made a dramatic about-turn and there was a heavy rainstorm.  It was beautiful to see how the texture of the rock looked completely different when wet and we even saw some small waterfalls pouring down its sides.

Next morning, we got a bit of a surprise when we woke up - the temperature was below 18 degrees!  It was a long time since we had experienced weather like that and it felt very strange to be putting on warm clothes!  We drove to King's Canyon as planned and took advantage of the unusually cool weather to do the fairly strenuous walk around the rim of the canyon.  This gives you some great views over the canyon and a chance to see some of its unusual rock formations up close.  We also got to see a kangaroo really close!

From King's Canyon, we took the Mereenie Loop Road to the western end of the West MacDonnell Ranges.  This is well known for being a really badly corrugated dirt road and we'd have to agree as it's the worst we've ever driven.  The scenery was quite good though and we saw some wild horses and wild camels.  Entering the West MacDonnells, we stopped at Redbank Gorge - only Michiel and Lizzy made it to the gorge itself as most of the path seemed to have been washed away and Roel's flip-flops weren't quite up to the job.  Next stop was Glen Helen Gorge, where, again, the water levels made it impossible to get close to the gorge.  We camped for the night at Ormiston Gorge, which is a lot more accessible and has a great swimming hole.  We met a nice Swiss couple travelling in a converted Toyota Landcruiser and spent a pleasant evening chatting to them.

On the way back to Alice Springs the next day, we stopped at Ellery Creek Big Hole, where Lizzy and Michiel had a swim, and Simpson's Gap.  We checked back into the same campsite, which was getting pretty familiar by now (we even had the same space!).  Next day Frank and Martine (fellow overlanders, whom we travelled with in India, Pakistan and Nepal) arrived.  The five of us spent the next two weeks travelling together.  We started out in a festive mood, as our first full day together was Lizzy's birthday.  Even though it was pretty cold and rained on and off all day, we had a fun day, with bunting, birthday cheesecake (with candles!) and dinner (and drinks!) at Bojangles outback saloon!

The following day, we set out late as Lizzy had a translation to do (using Frank and Martine's car as an office - thanks guys!).  We made it as far as Wycliffe Well that night and camped at the roadhouse there, which is famous as the site of many UFO sightings.  The roadhouse puts a lot of emphasis on the alien/UFO theme, with lifelike models of aliens scattered all over the place!  We didn't spot any UFOs - perhaps they were put off by the cold, wet, windy weather.

Next morning the weather had improved a lot and we drove further north to Daly Waters, stopping en route to have a look at the Devil's Marbles, an impressive pile of enormous round red stones.  We camped at the pub in Daly Waters, a great, atmospheric place.  Next day, we stopped for a swim at Mataranka thermal pool, which is a beautiful spot surrounded by palm trees.  There were hundreds of bats roosting in the palm trees and it was fantastic to see them all whirling around above us while we were in the pool.  That evening, we camped in Katherine, just next to the river.  You could see that there had been a lot of rainfall lately - the river was much higher than usual and the riverside path was completely submerged in places.  We had been hoping to spend a few days canoeing in Katherine Gorge, but unfortunately the river was flowing too fast for this to be possible.  Instead, we went for a walk near the gorge, ending up at a beautiful swimming hole.  Michiel took a boat trip up the gorge, but the others decided not to do this as Roel and Lizzy had done it already, seven years ago, and Frank and Martine were hoping that canoeing would be possible when they returned to Katherine in a few weeks.  At the gorge campsite, we saw lots of wallabies, some with young still in their pouches, and met another overlanding couple, Pippa and Florent (http://www.unamis.net/home2home/HomeEng.htm) .  They are heading to Africa in their Toyota Landcruiser, so maybe we'll see them there...

Next day, we headed to Kakadu National Park.  Here again, the effect of the wet season could be seen everywhere.  All the 4WD tracks were closed, meaning that many of the park's most impressive attractions could only be seen from scenic flights.  However, the waters had retreated enough for the boat trips on the South Alligator river to be running from Cooinda.  We went on one of these at dawn and had a fantastic time - the sunrise was beautiful and we saw lots of crocodiles and beautiful birds.

Next morning, we drove through the rest of the park and on to Darwin.  We had heard that the famous Mindil Beach Thursday evening food market started again in April for the dry season, so we drove down there to check it out.  Unfortunately, there was nothing happening there so we opted to have dinner out in the city centre instead.  Although Darwin is pretty small for a city, it felt very cosmopolitan compared to the places we'd been over the last few weeks - we hadn't been anywhere vaguely resembling a city since we left Brisbane!  We spent a couple of days staying at a campsite just outside Darwin and checking out some of the city's attractions.  We also met up with Judith and Ronny, the German couple we'd met about a month before in Marla.  They were struggling to sell their car, a 20 year old Toyota Landcruiser, before flying to India on Easter Sunday.  As the wet season was only just ending, not many backpackers were arriving in Darwin to buy cars.  Luckily we later heard from them that they found a buyer at the last minute, on Easter Saturday evening!

On Good Friday, we drove south again to Litchfield National Park.  On the way, we stopped to get some information about the park at a campsite and spotted a rather familiar-looking Land Rover on the campsite - this belonged to a German couple whom we'd heard about many times from other overlanders because they were lucky enough to be able to get the permits to take their vehicle from India into Myanmar.  Roel had already read all about this on their website (www.ziguin.de), which is in German, but it was great to hear their experiences firsthand.

Although less well known than Kakadu, Litchfield is more accessible, especially during the wet season, and has several beautiful waterfalls where you can swim without worrying about crocodiles (a major issue in Kakadu, even in the dry).  We had a fantastic time swimming under the two waterfalls at Florence Falls and splashing around in the 'natural spa' at Buley Rockhole.  As it was Easter, we did have to share these beauty spots with a lot of holidaying Australians, but it was still a great experience.  The campsites near these attractions were all full to capacity, but we managed to find a great peaceful campsite near another beautiful waterfall, Wangi Falls, which was less popular as you can't swim there during the wet when the crocodiles are around.

On Easter Monday, we returned to Darwin to have a last night out there together, as Frank and Martine were heading west next day and aiming to be in Perth a month before us.  We spent the sunset and early part of the evening drinking beer and eating delicious Thai food from the stalls down at the wharf and then returned to the town centre for a further drinking session at the rather seedy Shenanigans Irish bar.  Frank and Martine left at a respectable time but the rest of us ended up having a late and fairly drunken night.  Not surprisingly, we didn't do much the following day!  The day after was Michiel's last with us, so after a pleasant day around town (including cheap haircuts all round) we celebrated his last evening with another trip to the Thai food stall at the wharf and a couple of beers at one of the pavement cafes in the centre of the city.  Not too many beers this time as he had to be at the airport at 6am this morning!  It's strange today to be back to travelling on our own again after three weeks with so much great company - thanks, Michiel, Frank and Martine for a fantastic time!

19th May 2007 update - a few challenges!

Looking back on all the fun we'd had travelling with Michiel, Frank and Martine, we realised that one thing we'd really enjoyed about having them around was that they spurred us on to be more active than we would usually be on our own.  While we'll never be quite as (hyper)active as Frank (!), we've discovered that when we make a bit of effort to overcome our natural laziness we feel much healthier and get a lot more out of travelling.  Chatting to Frank and Martine, who're keen divers and enjoy lots of challenging sports like parapenting and canyoning, also made us resolve to challenge ourselves physically more often in future.  With this in mind, the last few weeks have turned out to be quite active...

We left Darwin the same day as Michiel and followed Frank and Martine south towards Katherine.  We had a rather traumatic experience just before we reached the campsite where we'd planned to overnight.  Roel noticed a car upside down by the side of the road and thought he saw some movement inside.  By the time we turned around and pulled up, a girl had managed to get out of the car and flag down two other cars that were behind us.  Through her cuts and distress, we recognised her as the Scottish waitress who had served us two nights before in an Italian restaurant in Darwin.  Her boyfriend was also staggering around looking confused.  Two Australian guys were still in the car, one trapped upside down in the back seat as his leg was wedged in where the car had been crumpled by a tree.   The whole car smelled strongly of booze.  The other guys who had been on the scene before us called the police and tried to make the guy in the back seat, who was groaning a lot, as comfortable as possible.  It emerged that although the car belonged to one of the Aussies the Scottish guy had been driving.  He seemed very worried about not having an Australian driving licence, which was a bit strange as you can drive in Australia on a UK licence.  When we explained this, it didn't seem to reassure him, so we got the impression that he didn't have a UK one either...  He also told us that he'd had 'a couple of beers' but had thought it was a good idea to drive as the others had had more.  Although the guy in the back didn't seem to be in a serious condition, the whole situation just seemed like a nightmare.  The police and fire brigade arrived soon afterwards and after giving a short statement and our contact details we drove on as there was nothing else useful we could do and we felt a bit nosey just standing around gawking.  We were both a bit shaken by the experience, as we haven't seen many accidents that close up.  Drink driving is so common in Australia, especially in country areas where there's no public transport to speak of, to the extent that you almost come to accept it as normal - seeing this accident was a sharp reminder of the enormous risks and consequences.

We had a quiet day around the campsite doing laundry and chatting to some nice people, though even there we took advantage of the mini-tennis court and free racquets and balls to put our resolution about keeping active into practice.  We continued south to Katherine, where we headed west for a few hours and camped for the night in a grubby, basic and mozzie-ridden campsite in Gregory National Park.  Further west, we were more impressed with Keep River National Park, where we had an interesting walk among some unusual rocky outcrops and long reedy grasses.  We crossed the border into Western Australia (where quarantine the contents of our fridge to check for illicit fruit smuggling) and arrived in Kununurra in the late afternoon.

At the visitors' centre next morning, we were told that the Gibb River Road (the dirt road going west to Broome through the heart of the Kimberley, the rugged, empty northern region of WA) was still closed and likely to remain so for some time.  In countries like Pakistan, where roads are never officially closed although they're sometimes impassable, we'd got used to using our own judgment about what was safe for us and the Landy so it's quite strange being in a country where the authorities just declare a particular road closed indefinitely (they are careful never to give any indication of when it might reopen) and fine you ($1000 per wheel, including spares - so about £2500 or EUR 3800 for our six wheels!) if you drive on it.  We later had a look at one of the 'impassable' river crossings at the start of the Gibb River Road and saw three 4WDs drive through!  We decided not to risk it though - the vehicles that went through were only going to the station on the other side and police patrol the road by helicopter so they'll easily spot the trail of dust from your vehicle and catch and fine you.

We decided not to wait in Kununurra for the road to reopen - there were a couple of things we wanted to do in the area, so if it opened before we left, well and good, if not we would just take the highway southwest to Broome instead.  We visited Wyndham, a port town north of Kununurra, which boasts a busy port for cattle export to the Middle East, a nice lookout over the meeting point of five rivers and not much else.  We sampled the Wyndham pub's famous 'barra burger and chips' which was nice, but not THAT nice - as soon as you mention fishing in general and barramundi in particular most Australians (even women) seem to go into some kind of gushing ecstasy which we just don't understand.  Before we came to Australia, we always quite fancied having a go at deep sea fishing, but the idea of being stuck on a boat with a horde of rabidly enthusiastic Australians has quite put us off.  It's probably fun, but it just can't be THAT much fun!  We spent that night just south of Wyndham at Parry's Creek Farm, which is run by a nice bloke who used to drive overland trucks in Africa and his girlfriend and, though set in a very pretty wetland, was mainly memorable for its staggeringly large mosquito population.  On the way back to Kununurra, we stopped off at an allegedly 'fantastic' swimming hole which turned out to be a small puddle of murky greeny-brown water.  Hmm, looks like another case of the great Australian art of hyping an average local attraction into a 'must-see'.  Increasingly we're learning that here, as in countries like Iran where the average person has a large dose of local and national pride combined with little or no international travel experience, only other international travellers can tell you what's worth seeing and what's not, as they tend to have a better idea of what's really unusual and what you'll already have seen a hundred times in other countries (or even other parts of the same country).

We also drove the short stretch of the Gibb River Road that was open at this end, through some pretty spectacular country in the Cockburn Ranges.  We decided not to stop at the gorges and hot springs in the El Questro Resort and its sister enterprise, Emma Gorge, as the $15 entry fee seemed a bit steep to us and we've already seen lots of gorges and hot springs.  Several Australians (but no international travellers) have since told us what a big mistake this was...

Back in Kununurra, as part of our new plan of challenging ourselves physically we had arranged to go on a three day 55km canoeing trip on the upper Ord River.  This was a self-guided trip, i.e. just the two of us in a small canoe for three days!  A short minibus ride to the Argyle Dam at the top of the river, some basic instructions from the friendly guy who rents out the canoes about how not to capsize and we were on our own!  Although paddling was quite hard work at times (and we got less and less help from the current as the river became wider and slower) this was a fantastic experience.  On the river we were so close to all the beautiful birds and plants (and the odd freshwater crocodile, but they are pretty timid - it's the saltwater crocs you need to worry about) and passed through some gorgeous scenery including steep red sandstone gorges.  It was wonderful to travel in near silence and be able to enjoy all the beautiful sounds of the river, which you miss in a motorised vehicle.  Camping was also a great experience, sitting together round a roaring campfire looking up at millions of stars and knowing that we were miles from any other human being.  We arrived back at the boat ramp in Kununurra exhausted but feeling very pleased with ourselves!

Having decided that we probably weren't going to manage to see the northern Kimberley close up by driving the Gibb River Road, we treated ourselves to a scenic flight over that area.  In a tiny 7-seater plane, we flew north over the lower Ord River and over the 5 rivers' meeting point at Wyndham, then along the north coast, over beautiful coastline and clear waters, where you could see the oyster beds of the pearl farms, and inland over King George Falls to land at the Kalumburu Christian mission for a morning tea / lunch break.  After lunch, we headed further west over the spectacular Mitchell Falls then south to the Gibb River Road and back east to Kununurra.  It was a very enjoyable day, though Lizzy felt a bit airsick towards the end - being the lightest in the plane she had the dubious honour of sitting in the tail of the plane (which stays off the ground due to the weight of the passengers further forward) and seemed to get swung around a bit more than the rest.

The last few days on the campsite, we had spent quite a lot of time with a Swiss couple whom we'd met before in Coober Pedy, Regula and Jochen.  They had a rented campervan but were considering renting a 4WD to go to the Bungle Bungle ranges, south of Kununurra, which are inaccessible in a 2WD vehicle.  We suddenly realised that even though we only have 3 seats in the Landy we could all fit in if we left the boxes we store in the back (which was originally designed as a seating area) in their campervan.  So the four of us drove south to Turkey Creek, the nearest roadhouse to the Bungle Bungles, left their campervan there with most of our stuff in it and headed on together in the Landy.  The road into the national park was pretty rough, but Regula coped really well with her uncomfortable seat in the back and after two hours we were in the park, where the roads were slightly better.  We met up with Corinna, a German girl we'd met in Kununurra, and the five of us camped together at the southern end of the park.  In the morning we walked into Cathedral Gorge, which is in the middle of the red sandstone domes for which the park is famous.  This was pretty cool, as was Echidna Chasm, at the northern end of the park.

Next day we said farewell to Regula and Jochen and headed west towards Broome.  We spent the night camping next to the pub at Fitzroy Crossing, which had an interesting outback atmosphere - as it was ANZAC Day (a national holiday commemorating Australia and New Zealand's war heroes) it was full of rednecks getting stuck into the beers.  Better yet, as the barman couldn't remember the price of camping, he let us have it for free - bargain!  Next day, almost in Broome, we stopped to take a photo of an enormous boab tree (like a baobab tree in Africa) by the roadside.  As we were moving off, we heard a strange noise and on investigation discovered that our fan belt had just disintegrated...  Luckily we had a spare with us and our first emergency roadside repair of the trip went smoothly!

Broome felt quite touristy, especially compared to the places we'd been lately, and its town centre was a bit disappointing - basically just a couple of streets of souvenir shops and a supermarket.  However Cable Beach (a long white stretch of sand and blue sea) made up for this and we had a fantastic time staying at the caravan park there and watching the camel rides along the beach at sunset.  The first afternoon we took the Landy on the beach and met a lovely German couple, Jupp and Doro, who had travelled overland to India and then in South East Asia with their bright green converted 1977 Mercedes truck called Monster (www.monster-worldtour.de).  We spent much of the next 10 days just hanging out with them on the beach or in the posh swimming pool at the campsite and having beers outside their truck in the evenings.  On Saturday, we were on the way to the market with them when Jupp noticed a large white overland truck in the supermarket car park.  It had Swiss plates and when its owners emerged from the supermarket they turned out to be Sonja and Michi (www.sabana.ch), a couple Jupp and Doro had been in contact with before by email.  With them was a German couple they were travelling with, Mannfred and Susie, who looked suspiciously familiar.  We realised that we had met each other a year earlier, at Porto Katsiki in Greece, when they had been travelling with a German Unimog (see our Europe page).  Just another proof that it's a very small world!  They'd sold the Unimog and were now travelling round Australia with a Toyota Landcruiser camper they'd bought here.  It was funny to see them again and catch up and to realise that while we hadn't been in Europe since soon after we saw them they had been back to Germany for several months, done another trip to Greece and Turkey and were now here!  We all spent several fun evenings chatting outside Jupp and Doro's truck.  This gave Lizzy a chance to brush up her German a bit as this was the first choice language for the majority.  Luckily she could understand pretty much everything that was said, even if she couldn't say much in German!

Our other major occupation in Broome was sorting out a leak in the Landy's diesel tank.  Roel discovered this one day when he noticed that the bottom of the tank was wet.  As he couldn't find the leak and we didn't have the equipment to drain the tank, we took it to a mechanic and had the tank drained, removed and checked.  The only problem the mechanic could spot was a couple of rust flecks on the top of the tank - if the rust had made the tank very thin it was possible that the diesel was leaking through the remaining thin layer of metal, but not very likely.  So we had these fixed with fluid metal and the tank was replaced and refilled.  $300 worse off (labour's expensive here), we returned to the campsite.  Next day, Roel noticed another drop of diesel on the bottom of the tank.  This time, as the tank had been cleaned, he could easily tell where it was coming from - a rusty connector in the fuel line was the culprit.  With a helping hand from Mannfred, Roel had this fixed the same afternoon and we could rest easy again.

A couple of days later was a very special event in Broome and the reason (apart from the great company) that we'd stayed so long: the 'staircase to the moon'.  Two days after a full moon, in certain months of the year, conditions are such that the moon rises over the sea and its reflection in the sea and on the wet sands forms lines looking like a ladder leading to the moon.  This gets a lot of hype and we weren't sure whether it would really be any good but it seemed worth an extra day or so just in case.  We all piled into Mannfred and Susie's Landcruiser and headed down to the Town Beach, a good vantage point where there's a night market to celebrate the event, and enjoyed some Thai food from the stalls there before settling down on the beach to watch.  It actually turned out to be pretty spectacular, as the eerily orange moon rose slowly above the black sea and its reflection stretched out in a series of beautiful golden lines.  Sadly our camera wasn't really up to the job of recording this, so we'll leave it to your imagination (or Google, if you really want a picture)...

After 10 days, it was finally time to leave Broome and we headed south along the coast, stopping for the night at 80 Mile Beach (which is exactly what it sounds like) then turning inland at Port Hedland and heading towards Karijini National Park, which we'd heard a lot of good things about.  We weren't disappointed - the gorges and swimming holes were amazing and we did three fairly challenging walks along different gorges, most of which involved rock-climbing and walking through rivers in tiny narrow gorges.  Loads of fun!

We spent the next night in the tiny outback town of Tom Price, which basically exists to service the massive iron ore mine just outside town.  We took a tour of the mine next morning and were impressed by its huge scale - each tyre on the dumper trucks they use in the mine was higher than the roof of our tour bus!  We saw a 2.4km long train being loaded up with ore (105 tonnes in each wagon!) - six of these trains leave the mine every day!

Next stop was Exmouth, where we had decided to take on a new challenge and do a diving course.  We booked one on arrival and had our medicals, which went well - Roel learnt that he has amazing lung capacity and Lizzy that she is taller than she thought!  As the course didn't start for a few days, we spent a couple of nights in Cape Range National Park, just west of Exmouth, where you can snorkel on the Ningaloo Reef, the main tourist attraction in these parts.  Our first day snorkelling we saw a reef shark and a sandy-coloured ray and Lizzy saw a turtle.  This proved quite hard to beat on subsequent snorkelling trips, though we did see some massive schools of brightly coloured fish.  The campsite was fun, too, as the resident campsite hosts were friendly and organised a 'happy hour' every evening where everyone got together over a drink and had a chat.

Back in Exmouth we got ready for our diving course.  By a strange coincidence it turned out that the English couple camping next to us, Louise and Dan, were doing the same course.  Next morning we met the fifth student, Sarah, and our instructor, Andrew, and got stuck into some diving theory.  The first three days were a combination of theory and pool dives, getting used to wearing all the strange equipment and using it.  Everyone seemed to be learning pretty much at the same rate, which was nice.  The fourth day (yesterday) was supposed to be our first dive in the sea, but unfortunately there was too much swell and it was postponed to today.  We went to the dive shop again at 7.30 this morning but the swell still hadn't gone down enough to dive, so it looks as though we will have to wait another day or so before we finally get to do an open water dive.  Very frustrating!

It has given us a chance to deal with a problem with the Landy, though.  The last day before we got here, Roel noticed that the clutch pedal felt a bit odd.  On investigation, the clutch fluid was pretty low so we bought some and topped it up, which seemed to resolve the problem.  However, yesterday Roel realised that it was still leaking.  The clutch master cylinder often goes on Land Rovers, so we had a spare with us.  Unfortunately, when Roel fitted it, this seemed to make the problem worse rather than better and it looked as though the slave cylinder also needed replacing.  This was depressing news as Land Rover parts are in short supply in country Australia and we've heard horror stories of waiting 10 days for parts from Perth.  However, last night when we were down in the dumps about this Roel made an amazing discovery - we actually had a slave cylinder with us after all!  The extra day off diving today gave him a chance to fit it and now the Landy is running like a dream again...

23rd July 2007 update - farewell to Australia

When we finally did get to go diving in the sea (after 3 days waiting for the swell to go down), it was fantastic!  We spent two days diving on the reef close to the coast, which finished off our course - hurray, we were certified open water divers!  Although the visibility there wasn't amazing, we saw lots of reef sharks and wobbegong sharks (big brown and beige mottled sharks which have strange hairy-looking 'beards' on their lower jaws and seem to be always sleeping under rocks!) and some interesting fish.  The next day we were out in the water again, as we'd decided to treat ourselves to an extra day's diving at the Muiron Islands, where the reef was supposed to be particularly beautiful.  It was good fun on the dive boat as Dan and Louise were on the trip as well and we knew all the crew by now.  Also, when we arrived at the dive shop Roel recognised one of the other divers as Bart Driessen from his home town of Sevenum!  We had a brilliant time underwater as well - great visibility, beautiful coral and lots of fascinating aquatic life.  We've decided that we love diving!

South of Exmouth, our next stop was Coral Bay, where Lizzy went snorkelling for the first time seven years ago.  The coral gardens just off the beach were just as amazing as she'd remembered, though the water was a bit colder this time as it was getting towards winter!  We spent a relaxing week snorkelling, hanging out on the campsite and making new friends.  As we headed into winter there wouldn't be many more chances to sunbathe, so we lingered as long as we could!

Sure enough, our next overnight stop, near the spectacular Blowholes (a natural feature where water surging underneath the rocks at the coast spurts up to ten metres into the air), was bitterly cold and we spent the evening sitting in the Landy reading as it was too cold to sit outside!  Compared to this, the next evening, camping in the seaside town of Denham, was surprisingly warm and pleasant, especially as we were lucky enough to get a prime spot on the water's edge at the caravan park there.  Winter is high season in Denham as retired people from the south of Western Australia come here to avoid the southern winter and the rest of the waterfront places were filling up with grey-haired 'regulars' - every day new arrivals were greeted like long-lost family members and, while our neighbours were friendly enough, they couldn't quite conceal their natural impatience for us to make way for the friends who usually occupied our space.

Just north of Denham is Francois Peron National Park, which we'd heard was spectacularly beautiful, so our plan was to spend the next night at one of the campsites there.  We paid our fees and headed into the park, which is a paradise for 4WDs as all the roads are made of soft red sand.  Unfortunately we seemed to have arrived at the same time as a plague of flies and the further we got into the park the worse they got.  You literally only had to open your door to be welcomed by at least 20-30 flies, which increased to several hundred if you stayed more than 2 minutes outside the car.  We'd never seen so many flies!  Even with fly-nets (for the uninitiated, this is essentially a mesh bag you put over your head - deeply unattractive, but essential for sanity in some parts of Australia), it was hard to enjoy the, admittedly beautiful, scenery.  We tried to set up camp, but when we made the mistake of trying to eat some lunch (try doing that with a bag over your head) it all just got too much.  We decided to cut our losses (we'd already paid the camping fee) and escaped to the resort of Monkey Mia, just round the coast (and miraculously almost fly-free!).  Monkey Mia is a strange kind of place (strange name for a start, no idea how it got that) - essentially it is a resort that has become famous because (in a massive deviation from normal regulations for dealing with wildlife) wild dolphins are fed three times a day from the beach there.  As it's a resort, you have to pay even to go there and once you're there everything's pretty expensive.  We had come prepared and cooked our own food, though we did have to put money in the resort's coffers for entry and camping (and a few beers).  We watched the dolphins being fed each morning we were there (and we were both picked out from the crowd to hand-feed a fish to a dolphin).  It was great to be so close to wild dolphins, but it all felt a bit fake, especially with so many people there.  We had had several experiences of being close to wild dolphins earlier on our trip (in Greece, India and Australia) and, while we'd never been anything like this close before, those earlier experiences seemed much more special, perhaps because they were usually unexpected and we were generally alone with the dolphins.  We left Monkey Mia wondering whether you can still say that dolphins are wild if they receive much (though not all - the staff at the resort are at pains to point out that this is carefully monitored) of their food from human hands every day...

Back on the main road south - Denham and Monkey Mia are both on a peninsula that forms part of the Shark Bay marine reserve - we spent a couple of nights in Kalbarri, a pleasant seaside town at the mouth of the Murchison River.  Just south of there is the Hutt River Province, which is basically a farm owned by the Casley family but because of a loophole in the law was able to secede from Australia and become an independent principality when the family's livelihood was threatened by wheat quotas.  It's now a bit of a tourist attraction, with a post office and mint (principalities are required to have their own postal service and currency), and we had a guided tour from Prince Wayne (sadly his octogenarian parents Prince Lennard and Princess Shirley - formerly known as Len and Shirley Casley - were both ill and unable to receive guests).  It was interesting to learn about how they seceded and then declared war on Australia (and hastily called it off before the Australian government knew what was happening) to improve their legal status (apparently international law demands that an undefeated enemy be recognised as a valid entity).  Despite its legal status, the farm is still just a farm, facing the same hardships (mainly due to drought) as all others in this area, but it was worth a visit just for the fact that it was so surreal!

En route to Perth we stopped at the (not hugely prepossessing) city of Geraldton - notable only because it was the first place anything like big enough to be called a city that we'd seen since Darwin (if not Brisbane - Darwin is more like a big town) - and the Pinnacles, a rather spooky collection of rocks that rise up out of the desert sands in the middle of nowhere (see photo - with Roel as a handy measuring scale!).  Geraldton was quickly surpassed by Perth itself, which is definitely big enough to be called a city.  We spent a pleasant 10 days in Perth, staying with our friends Clare and Mark, who have emigrated to Perth from London since the last time we were in Perth.  They live in the beautiful seaside suburb of Cottesloe, in a lovely little house just a couple of hundred metres from the beach.  It was fantastic to see them again and have a chance to catch up properly and enjoy their (truly amazing) culinary skills!  Lizzy was very envious of the vegetable garden they've managed to create in such a short space of time - something to look forward to when we get back!  We also had a chance to catch up with Fliss, Geoff and Estella at Geoff's birthday party and visit the lovely house they've bought since we were last in Perth.  We spent the remainder of our time in Perth organising the shipping of the Landy from Fremantle and socialising with three German motorbike overlanders (Werner and Claudia, whom we hadn't met before, and Nils, whom we'd met in Bangkok), two English overland hopefuls (Phil and Nicola) and, of course, Mark and Clare.  On the morning of 17^th June, we bid farewell to Australia and hopped on a plane for our three week 'holiday' in Europe.  We'll take up this journal again in Africa...