Cairns, Undara, Northern Territory, KAKADU, Darwin

Well my honey and I had a very busy and fun vacation for the last 16 days. We drove over 5,500 Kilometers in that time as well. We ended up seeing quite a lot of Australia, I've probably seen more of Australia than my own country.

We started out from Townsville and went up North along the coast to Cairns. This is the last bigger town on the east coast. Cairns was a nice town, though very busy with other young backpackers. The "highlights" was walking along the strand by the beach and daydreaming about owning a fancy sailboat in the future by watching the ones in harbor. Oh and having bats shat all over our car that night plus having a drunk backpacker(s) in the hostel be very obnoxiously loud at 3 am. :P I think we've learned our lesson about hostels......we're too old for them!

Then off to Undara which is famous for it's lava tubes. However the tours were very expensive to see them, and we arrived to late anyways and missed it. But we did hike up to a old overgrown volcanic site the next morning. It was a really nice campground we stayed at as well.

On the way to Mt. Isa which is far west Queensland, we ran out of fuel. The fuel prices were incredibly expensive in the outback, as it was up to 0ver 400 kms between service stations. Thus no competition so propriators could really ask outrageous prices. The most we paid at one station was $1.70litre. This trip became quite expensive........

Anyways we had to hitch a ride to the next town which was thankfully only 20 kms aways and buy a 5 litre jerry can then hitch another ride back to our stalled car. Ahhh the adventures :P

Mt.Isa we stayed at a very nice caravan park but it was quite abit cooler at night.

Threeways, the next stop was an awful location it was so windy the tent was caving in and very cold. We didn't even stay at that caravan park on the way home.

Katherine was beautiful. It was warm . This was in the Northern Territory now, the far north west state of Australia. We stayed at this campground for 2 days. We hiked up a 7 km walk the next day along the beautiful gorges. Saw a thin small brown water snake and then turtles and fish in the river. We dropped bits of our lunch and tuna in the water and they loved it!

The campground had a nice pool in it as well, so we cooled off after the hike.

That night we met a German backpacker named Patrick. He was 19 but passionate and intelligent. Anyways Andreas and I talked with him for several hours and religion and Christianity came up too. It was a great opportunity to witness our faith. Patrick is definitely searching and we prayed that our words and example could make a postive impact on him.

Then on to Kakadu National Park. We stayed at the Park for 3 days, 4 nights. It was great. Many hiking/walking trails, beautiful rock escarpments, artistic ancient aboriginal rock art, unique and diverse wetlands. We went on a wetland boat cruise and saw about 4-5 wild crocodiles. The second campground (Merl) that we stayed at in the national park was better. The only down side of Kakadu was the Mossies (Mosquito's). They were awful, those combined with Midgie bugs. Andreas and I got at least 200 bites each. Let me tell you it was a very itchy 5 days after.

Then on to Darwin. Which is the only city on the North coast of Australia. It was a scenic interesting place. A beautiful park, historic museum and lovely beach. The only problem was no swimming as there was algae growth in the waters. We also got our thermostat replaced on Mandy and also a couple rock chips on the windscreen from the big road trains that passed us on the highway. It was mainly 2 lane highway the whole way.

Then it was the long drive back to the east coast, to Rockhampton. We drove over 2,500 Kms in 5 days. The most interesting stop on the way back was in a town called Winton. Nothing very special about the town or the caravan park we stayed in that night. But at the caravan park they had this evening show featuring 2 middle aged bush poet women. It was highly entertaining. They were comediens, they shared some amazing poems they had wrote, waxed yarns about the way of life in Oz and just spoke abit about their lives. It was definitely memorable.

Two days later we were here in Rockhampton........overall this road trip was awesome and I could not have had a better travel companion. I love married life and have such a wonderful husband. Andy was so helpful with all of our camping and set up, making dinner, looking after Mandy really well and even changing the oil himself. He was the best snuggler the nights it was cool outside, I actually for once was not too cold camping :)

I will be uploading a bunch of pictures on my facebook today of our time in Australia, if you're interested in the sights we've been seeing :)

Goodbye Townsville....

So this last week was our final week in Townsville. Andreas and I were pretty laid back and took it easy. We were saving some money by not doing any big expeditions since we will be driving alot now for the next 2 weeks (5000 Kms round trip) camping and staying in other accomodations.

We went up Castle Hill again, last Monday and then again just this past Sunday. Love that hike. We took Tiggy the dog twice and she just loved it. She is such a sweet dog, I am already missing her so much.

The main excitement of the past week was the radiator top tank of Mandy cracked open. Andy was driving and we were at a busy intersection when he noticed steam coming out under the hood. Suddenly the temperature gauge went from middle of the scale to hot! We were like "Ahhhh we need to get off this road!" The street light turned red, then the engine failed but after a couple tries we got Mandy started and turned right into a side street, pulling to the curb. Then we looked but had no water in the car to speak of. We were planning on going to a nearby house and ask for some water for the rad, but a lady was walking by so we asked her if she lived nearby and we could get some water from her. She had a full water bottle on her actually, so let us empty it into our rad. That cooled it down enough for us to get home. (5 mins) The next day we took it to a radiator shop and had it replaced and a rad flush and refill. We are very thankful to God that this happened in Townsville and not out in the boonies on a desolate road to Kakadu.

Sat morning I went to a ladies morning at the church Andreas and I attended here in Townsville. It was a fun morning and I met some more women from the church.

The homeowners came home from their holiday yesterday and we were happy to see they were happy with our housesitting ability. Margaret was very glad the animals loved us and were well taken care of. It was such a blessing for us to be able to live in a home for a month for free. Townsville was such a beautiful city too. At the dinner that night Trevor had a open half full bottle of this delicious red wine. He saw Andy and I enjoyed it, so offered us an unopened bottle from his fridge. How generous, it's made by Bailey & Bailey (Australian) and the label is "Two fat ladies". Well there would be one fat lady if I bought it often :P

Now we are staying in Cairns for the night, then we are off into the interior.....

My answers to the Bethesda Ladies:
Ilse - No we stayed in a resort (4 star) for our honeymoon in Fiji, since then we have camped, in a tent, or stayed at people's houses. No we didn't burn our lips, though we did burn our backs and chests.

Andrea - We loved the horseback ride, it was so fun and I was thrilled that my horse stayed ahead of the other 3 horses in line, it liked to lead! Our honeymoon was fabulous.

Gaal - Yes most backpackers hostels have shared lounges/living rooms, with a TV and comfy chairs. Hostels are like dorm rooms with bunk beds, shared bathrooms and kitchens. Fun was to meet people.

Staff - we saw a Koala at the Billabong Sanctuary and Andreas and I patted it. Then we also saw one live in the wild on Magnetic Island. They are very cute!