kris downunder

As we leave Nimmitabel we keep on riding on +/- 1100 m above sea level for about 60 km...brrrrrrrrrrrr...but once we start to go down the sun quickly warms us up...a brilliant day today, blue sky without a cloud...

I noticed that the east side of National Park Kosciuszko is much greener than the west side...plenty of water here and a lot more of stock

From Bega we drive to the southeast coast , first stop at Tathra with it's historic Wharf...we spot a lot of fishes from the jetty .

We follow the touristical coast road to Bermagui and Narooma driving through different National Parks and lovely roads and scenery's

We stop for lunch at Tuross Head with a refreshing swim in the Tasman Sea.

All freshed up we ride on to Malua Bay, Batemans Bay and have another stop at Pebbles Beach in the Murramarang National Park, known for the kangaroo's you can spot on the beach...and yes we did ...I even got so close I could touch them aswell I had a couple of Lori's on me...just wonderful

We decide to camp at Culburra beach where our mastercook Martin prepared us a nice Kangaroo filet( I know...) with mashed potatoes and cauliflowers....and off course we'll end the day with a game of cards....may the best one win...

We ride to Wangaratta to take the Great Alpine Road to Myrtleford where we have our fuel and coffee stop...After a nice cup of coffee the real work starts as we turn left to Happy Valley...what's in a name, they sure didn't missed it as you only get happy driving through this most beautiful valley with its Mt Beauty( no this is not a joke)

From Happy Valley it goes to Lake Hume, and on Murray Valley HWY to Tallangatta, a new modern town which appeared when the original town was drowned in 1956.

Th e road takes us to Corryong, home of the Man from Snowy River, Jack Riley a famous horseman that lived in isolation in a hut high up in the hill's .

He loved the Snowy Mountain country and enjoyed a social drink or two...It was after that Banjo Paterson spend some time together with Jack Riley in the Kosciusko Ranges he wrote the poem "The Man from Snowy River".

We 've now come very close to our goal, but first lunch in the Kosciuszko National Park to get strong for the last end....up to Cabramurra , Australia's highest village, the roof of Australia at 1488m....we've made it.

As there are no overnight permitted we drive on to Cooma and keep driving between 1500 m and 1100 m , with temperature that drop's to 12°

In a little village 40km after Cooma, Nimmitabel we find a local campground for the night...it is quite chilly, never thought to be cold that cold in Australiua....brrrrr

What to tell about the roads we drove today...hmmmm...heaven for every biker comes the closest ...

A lot to do today...fill up "Coco" , do some shopping for a few days , change a light bulb....but finally we're on our way through the Yarra Valley, also a vineyard region up to Healesville, to get on road B 360 to Taggerty, a road filled with high trees with some lovely views...From Taggerty it goes to Lake Eildon, the entance of the Victorian Alps with Mt Buller as alpine ski resort...we found a nice spot at the lake to have lunch and enjoy the lookout.

From there it goes to Alexandra,Merton, Mansfield and all the way to the top of Mt Emu to drop down again in King Valley, another wine region to find a wild camping spot at King River for the night...I'm the cook today and I served a Macaroni cheese sauce...

Tomorrow our intention is to reach Australia's highest village Cabramurra in the Kosciuszko National Park.

Around 10h00 we arrived at a big 4 holiday park in Coburg, 9 km from the city center, where we parked the Coco, Edda and Katrien .

With public transport , the tram...it took more than a hour to get to the city center...seems public transport is as worse as in Belgium.

Once in the city we delivered ourselves to the city to discover all its beauty and life....immediately I had a good feeling about this marvelous city

This is a city where I would come back, that's for sure...

As dinner time came closer and closer we walked along the Yarra Riverside to Restaurant The Wharf where Edda's son Florian works...

We knew Florian wasn't working , he spends holidays with his girlfriend in Cambodja, but after a little chat with the bartender we were taken care off .

A nice aperitif at the river, followed by a delicious meal with a lovely ambiance...

A evening walk along the river took us back to Elizabethstreet where we took the tram back to Coburg...time to get some sleep after a long day...

Once back on the Princes HWY it takes us to Port Fairie a historical port with some shipwrecks laying in the Bay.

Some further we cross quite a big city Warrnnambool...from there it goes on to the Great Ocean Road, a road that winds itself along the spectaculary Southern Coastline with all it's stunning views....We 've seen Childers Cove, Bay of Islands, The Grotto, London Bridge, The Arch, Loch Ard Gorge, and as top of the bill ...the 12 Apostles...way to much for one day...

I forgot to tell about the road itself...I was so lucky today to drive "Katrien" on the nicest road so far in Australia, one curve after another and hard not to stop for a view after each curve....just a perfect motorcycle road...

Normally the plan was to get to Melbourne...but we didn't make it and the road stops at Torquay a little town 90km away from Melbourne.

Tomorrow Melbourne day...

As we took our first turn out of Wellington Camping, a first surprise...the road ended and we had to cross the river with a ferry .

Off the ferry we arrived at the Coorong National Parc and Murray Lakes region, a vast unspoilked ecosystem withfreshwater lakes, wetlands, ocean...A place that really calms the mind, soothes the soul and appeases the senses 200 km off beach from Encounter Bay to Lacepede Bay, uninterrupted except when the mouth of the great murray River opens to the sea.

It is a place of tranquility,solitude and wonderment and as so far the best I've seen of Australia.

This all end's in Kingston SE...we continue to Robe that sit's in Guichen Bay, a perfect spot for Lunch.

After Lunch we hit for Mount Gambier and along the way we notice that it becomes more hilly and pinewoods are ruling the landscape, even more around Portland.

At Yambuk a little village just before Port Fairy the day ends at Yambuk Lake a lovely campground at the border's of the Lake...

Tomorrow ,Melbourne here I come....

Along small country roads we hit the Barosso Valley well known for its vineyards and winery's, it took us to a small village Marrabel where we had coffee and admired a rodeo statue...we're just a few day's late for the rodeo...what a shame.

Driving through Barosso Valley is fabulous and the pick of grapes just started, so a lot of activity in the vineyards and on the roads.

Actually , yesterday evening at our campspot we met a group of 5 young Italian boys that are working in the vineyards...they needed some cooking stuff for their pasta, so I proposed them they could use our cooking material if we get to taste their pasta...done deal and a half an hour later a plate of pasta was served "al dente" by Raphael from Rome and Alberto from Firenze...We had a good laugh with those chaps, they were wonderfull...

Once out of the valley we can feel the city of Adelaide, almost touch it so Coco brings us right to the center of the city where we try to contact Luc and Martin to meet up.

We had a nice walk in the city , to be honest I had expected a bit more from Adelaide but never mind...seen it,done it.

Time to move on to Wellington SA at Lake Alexandrina the nearest campingzone where we park Coco under a Peppertree.

Tomorrow the idea is to follow the Coastal Road to Mount Gambier and direction Melbourne, next city on our bucket list...

On the last picture you'll find a map of Australia with our progress, day by day,marked in different colours...enjoy

Some hours later we get ready to drive to Port Augusta with a first stop at Port Neilly and Lunch between Whyalla( steel industry ) and Port Augusta

After a walk in Port Augusta we continue to Port Pirie on the other side of Spencer gulf where we meet up again with the Motor home.

The Gps guides us further trough some winding country roads passing old villages , Crystal Brook,Gulnare, Yacka in the middle off farmer fields to end in Clare(Clare Valley, a wine area)

As the clock points 17h30 we stop at the local camping for the night.

I forgot to mention a important detail : In Trigg when we cdollected the Motor Home and the bikes we baptised them and gave them a name...

The Motor Home goes through life from now on as "Coco", the red bike "Edda Dust", the white bike "Katrien Vroom" , so today I drove Katrien, Luc Edda and Martin and Dorine Coco...

Tomorrow our first big city Adelaide, about 130 km ....Tonight on the menu Ratatouille

Railway Station Port Pirie

Drinkstop

Countryside Crystal Brook

As I'm feeling much better I'll start with Martin on the motorbike.

First town on the road is Ceduna and than it goes all the way down South of the Eyre Peninsula with a first view stop at Smokey bay and a shopping stop at Streaky Bay.

On the road between Streaky Bay and Venus Bay we take a right at Murphy's Haystacks , a geological wonder of granite rocks, well worth a visit...

A few km's further we pass 2 police cars on the road and they turn and come after us...result our first speeding fine 429 AUD .

Me and Martin look upon this fine like this....it's better to pay that fine than to hit a kangoroo , but at least we know what to do now...

We follow the Flinders Highway through Elliston with it's nice historical jetty all the way down to Port Lincoln...it goes up again to Tumby Bay where we find a nice Camping at the waterfront where we enjoy sunset in Spencer Gulf with some pelicans...

Smokey Bay

Murphy's Haystacks

Elliston jetty

Lunch at Elliston

Martin feeling free as a bird

Landscape

Lake Hamilton

Port Lincoln

Lake Hamilton Eat House

Today a long route from Madura to Penong, 650 km so as soon we finished breakfast we get on the road.

Once past Eucla we are driving between Nullarrbor Desert and the Great Australian Bight, where Desert meets Ocean with some stunning views and cliff's... with a last stop at Head of Bight...no whale spotting at this time of year...

We continue through Yalata Aboriginal Reserve to arrive around 17h30 at Penong , where we'll stay for the night

As we passed a time zone we're now at +8.5h difference with Belgium.

Tonight we have to eat all our vegetables, fruits, potatoes ....after Ceduna 80 km we have to pass a Quarantine checkpoint for fruit fly's.

We will have to be creative with the menu this evening but I think we'll be just fine...

At Nundroo service station we met a Belgium boy Reinaat Booy from Bruges who is here for two years, travelling and working , he travelled with a french mate who bought a 4x4 and a Dutch girl and a Italian girl....they share the cost of petrol and they were on their way to melbourne to take the ferry to Tasmania.Reinaat was pleased to talk some flemisch and how small can the world be...he knew Nele, the daughter of Geert,a good friend of me ...

As I recovered well an update...

We left Norseman early in the morning to ride the longest sraight stretch of Australia 146.6 km with a first coffee and fuel stop in Balladonia before hitting that stretch.

It is a quite boaring road but we saw dozens of dead Kangoroo's(the story tell's that Capt in Cook asked to the Aboriginals what the name was of that animal and they answered Kangooroo, what means in their language"I don't know") ...so a lot of "I don't know jumping around in this country...lol...

We even saw 3 dead camels , there seem to be a lot of camels living in the bush, in earliuer days they were imported in Australia to work in the mining industry , but since machines took over their job they released them in the wild and they multiplied like rabbits so Australia has 2 problems now, rabbits and camels.

Along the road we saw a car that hitted a Kangoroo, what a damage...it happened at 04h00 in the morning, a dangerous moment to drive ..

As we stopped dued I was not feeling well and I couldn't continue driving the Motorhome we stopped in Madura for the night, where as soon as possible I went to sleep...

after breaking up camp we leave for Esperance, a straight road with a lot of dead kangoroo's on the sides and some bushes destroyed by fire.

At Ravensthorpe we have a fuel stop and we called the Honda Motorshop "powerplant motorcycles" in Esperance if they can service the 2 bikes for their 1000 km.

At first it wasn't possible because their workshop was fully booked this week, but after I told them about our adventure they served us right away when we arrived in Esperance. Good on you guys....

Time to take some pictures of the jetty and the bay of isles, get my stuff at the pharmacy and off we go to Norseman, our end destination for the day.

Along the road we have to fuel up Martin's bike as he ran dry...another stop at Dundas Rocks before we arrive at Norseman and our Camping...

as it it's Luc's birthday today he got choose the whole day what he wanted to do so Luc and Martin drove the bikes and me and Dorine the Motorhome.

After the burning ceremony of his 57 t-shirt he offered us dinner at the local restaurant...hip hip hip hoera 58...Happy Birthday Luc

Life starts again after Bushfire

Dundas Lake dried out

Dried salt lakes

Camping Norseman

Start your engines...me and Luc take the motorbikes and Martin and Dorine the Motorhome...I doesn't take long before we loose each other in traffic in Perth, but no trouble we communicate with each other once we're out of town and make the appointment in Kondinin.

In Kelmscott we see the last traffic lights for over 2000 km...great!!!!!!

The road goes on by Road 40 through Brookton, and a first stop at Corrigin for a lovely coffee in the local cafe...Some later we meet up in Kondinin where we have lunch, during lunch we have a chat with a chap who gives us plenty of information what to do in the region.

Another 60 km left to Hyden and its famous Wave Rock,a granite cliff, 15 m high and 110 m long.

Its rounded like shape has been caused by weathering ant water erosion which has undercut the base and left a rounded overhang.

The crystals seems to be 2700 millions years old, amongst the oldest in Australia

After this lovely visit and a little surf on the Wave...lol...we decide to continue another 120 km to Lake King where we will set up camp for the night.

It was bloody warm today with temperatures over 35° and as I'm suffering with a headcold it felt even worser, so a nice cold shower cool's me down.

Meanwhile our Chef Martin prepared a lovely lambstew...first game of cards (manillen) which me and my partner Luc won off course...lol...

and of to bed to write my blog...the laptop doesn't seem to cooperate, twice I loose my complete text so next morning some catch up to do.

Water stop

Corrigin Coffee stop

Wave Rock

Surf at Wave Rock

Sunset at Camping Lake King

Masterchef Martin at work

My cousin Edda comes to pick us up at 09h00 to drive us to Joondalup at Westcoast Honda where we collect our 2 brand new motorbikes

Honda CB500X, a red and a white one. Shawn and his team helped us out well all the way from the purchase to the delivery, thanks....well done

After registration and insurance Martin and Luc drive the first kilometers , and we all meet up at the Maui branch in Perth to pick up our motorhome.

Once this is settled time to buy our telephone simcards and have a nice lunch at Scarborrough Beach with Edda who was so nice to drive us all day.

Later on we had a beautiful bbq prepared and cooked by Martin , together with Katrien & Lawrence, Edda & Andrew, Ben...what a lovely evening and glad to have spend some time with my two aussie nieces.

After the drop off ashuttlebus brings us to the Airport where we have to catch our flight at 17h00 to Melbourne with a connecting flight to Perth where we arrive at 22h00 local time, we lost 4hours, but we're still +8 hours ahead .

At the airport Katrien and Lawrence are waiting for us to take us to Katrien's house in Trigg, where we catch up a little bit and after a cool beer we hit the sack.

Me and Luc look to each other and without one word the decision is made, we book a flight for 10h20 as we have to be at the camper at 11h00

8 minutes flight and 10 minutes walk should do it...but as the helicopter runs late we know we won't make it at time, but what the heck ...we don't want to miss this , so 10h50 finally we take off for a awesome flight with our pilot Steve, who has been in belgium and knows Manneke Pis of Brussels...

He shows us the vulcanoes, the geysers and white island, an island +/- 100km from Rotorua in the Pacific Ocean that is a vulcanoe that is active all the time and even Captain Cook when he sailed along it thought it was a big cloud.

After this amazing experience we run to the camping to our friends who had been waiting for us for more than an hour...

Time to hit the road to Coromandel, from Rotorua to Taurango , a town at the east side sitting in the Pacific Ocean, with a picnic at Pahoia Beach.

We follow the winding road 25 along the coast passing Waihi,Whangamata, known as a good place to be for wealthy retired people.

Next stop New Zealand's attraction Cathedral Cove, it take's a 40 minutes walk trough a bushtrail to get there, but it is the walk more than worthed...

stunning breathtaking views...no words

As we are running out of time we decide to take a shortcut , road 309 , a gravel road that goes all the way trough the Coromandel Forest Park for 22 km, what an amazing nature and probably the best road driven in new Zealand, absolutely fabulous!!!!!!!!!!

We got to stop in the middle of this road because of wild pigs running on the road.

When we get out of the car to take some pictures, a man comes to us and we have a little chat...he protects the life of wild pigs and has more than 100 pigs running around on his land 700ha, he shows us if we touch the belly of the pig it lays down, they actually like to play like dogs...

But what is most special to this occasion is that Rik , the chocolat manufacturer , told us the day before a story about how he ended up in the middle of nowhere with wild pigs on the road and a funny man...guess...yep, same pigs, same man.

We thanked the man with a box of Belgian truffles made by Rik and he was so happy, he said normally when there is a car that stops to look at the pigs, normally the pigs where fed , but not him...After this hilarious meeting we arrived at Coramandel and drove along the Firth of Thames with corner after corner filled with the nicest views ever...this is really one of the nicest places ever seen...I easily could live here and grow old

As it runs late and campings are closed we must camp free in Te Puru with a lovely view on Firth of Thames...What a day, I really need some sleep...

Rotorua

Lake Rotoua

Vulcanic activity Lake Rotorua

Our pilot Steve who knows MannekPis

Lunch at Pahoia Beach

Climbing out of the ocean

Geyser Rotorua

Bushwalk

Cathedral Cove

Playing with wild pigs

enjoying Rik's Belgian chocolat truffles

Coromandel Bay

Deadman's Point

First stop at Pukena Bay at the West Coast before we take Road 1 also known as the desert road that cut's the Rangipo desert .

But first lunch at Foxton Beach , Foxton is known for its windmill's build by the Dutch .

We have to drive at least 400 km to keep our schedule and we're moving well on Road 1,passing Taihape(known for its yearly contest boot throwing), Waiouru(Army Camp en training area and the army museum).

Once we hit the Rangipo desert with in the back National Tongarino Park with its peaks +2000 m and the famous Tongarino Pass which we would have loved to walk but time is not on our side as we want to reach Bay of Islands and only 4 days left before our flight next sunday to Australia, so choices had to be made...getting out the desert from a straight road to a windy road after a corner Lake Taupo shows up in all of its beaut

It is New Zealands largest lake and filled with trout.

Riding along the borders of the lake we have a coffee stop at Waitetoko where we enjoy the view and a couple of Black Swans with chicks.

Arrived at Taupo we continue our way to Rotorua and its Lake, if there is one town in New Zealand that even a blind person can find it is Rotorua

you just can smell it dued to the geothermal activity of Geyser's.

It is Maori land and a lot of activity's to do around here such as Maori village , Spatherapy, all kinds of sport activity's for young and old...

Rotorua is surrounded by blue and green lakes, they are smaller than Lake Rotorua but just as spectacular.

With its 16 lakes easily accesible it is a popular destination for travellers.

Kaitoke film set Lord of the Rings

Rik's chocolates

Mount Tangarino and Rangipo Desert

Waitetoko,Black Swans

Rangipo Desert and Tangarino Park

Relax time

Next morning we take a bus to the city center to get lost in the city.

Things to do Te Papa Museum, Botanic Garden, Cable Car and a walk at Oriental Bay to Balaena Bay and if possible a hop on bus

At 16h00 we have a appointment with 5 other Belgium people who are travelling at the same time in New Zealand, only difference, they travel from North to South, the opposite of our journey , but today we'll see each other at the entrance of Te Papa Museum...a little chat, a coffee and we all continue our way.

At 18h30 we are invited at Rik and Rita the brother of the brother in law from Martin who lives since 28 years in New Zealand and who makes and sells Belgian chocolat truffles .

We went to a Thai restaurant in Upperhut and after a delicious dinner we joined Rik and Rita at their house in Kaitoke, where we had a very nice evening all together.

Next morning Rik showed us his workshop and explained us how he works and finally we get to taste his truffles...mmmmh ...delicious

Rik took us to a National Park with a swingbridge and also a filmlocation for the movie "Lord of the Rings"

Time to say goodbye and continue our trip.