News Update
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[Dateline 13 November 2006]
So sorry all, we have been very slack with getting the latest, and last, photos on to the web, we know!!! But here they are. We are now back in Melbourne / Venus Bay, having driven around 25000kms around this vast land. Spring is in the air and it is Christmas soon..... I am one confused Norwegian these days, where is the snow!!
Anyway, hope you have all enjoyed following us on our journey, we have certainly had a wonderful time, and can recommend it to anyone who wants to try! A year goes by so quickly though, and after the silly season we are both back at work, Chris here in Melbourne, me in Oslo for a couple of months before I then come back here, that is if my visa application gets approved of course.....! To those in Norway and Sweden, hopefully we will se you soon, and please make sure there are some snow for Christmas, ok?
/Hege
[Dateline 13 October 2006]
Where do I begin.... Hege and I have just driven across the Nullarbor Plain - Perth to Adelaide approx 2,800km in 4 days. Prior to that we enjoyed 3 great weeks with "the Norwegians", them being Kjersti, Steinar and Persa as we travelled down the west coast from Broome to Perth - about 2,000kms. Crossing the Nullarbor was an interesting experience... lots and lots of nothing, except for the Shingle Back lizards (see photos), a brown snake, and thankfully a strong following wind all the way. Bruce was able to maintain 100-110km/h whilst still getting about 7km per litre of fuel. The Nullarbor Plain is the single largest piece of limestone in the world, about 200,000km square!
It was great to see Kjersti, Steinar and Persa and we had a fantastic time with them. We spent a few days in Broome on their arrival getting accustomed to the heat, then we hired a 4WD and drove 200km up to Cape Leveque - words fail me, but hopefully the photos do it justice. From there we returned to Bruce in Broome and drove to Barn Hill for a night, then 80 Mile Beach and then to Exmouth, Monkey Mia with the dolphins and on to Perth. We all had loads of fun and experienced what are arguably Australia's best beaches... with what is probably the most boring driving in-between them!!! Thankfully, our northern friends got to experience blue skies and sun every day, and a veritable zoo of Australian wild-life including snakes, lizards, crocodiles, kangaroos, emus, eagles, dolphins, dugongs and a drunken Australian! Steinar's Australian improved considerably - he now knows all the good phrases... like "bugger off" and many others! They tell me my Norwegian also improved, but I wont go into that! (Jeg kan prata, men forstår shit!!!)
Now we plan to enjoy a couple of days in a hotel, and maybe sample some wine from the Clare and Barossa Valleys.
/Chris
[Dateline 17 September 2006]
Have now had two wonderful and relaxing weeks in Broome, with its stunning 22km long Cable Beach and its amazingly good weather. (We saw a cloud the other day and wondered what it was.....) It is around 33 degrees here every day, with a water temp of about 27 degrees. We are staying at a caravan park close to Cable Beach, and have gone for long walks there every day, explored Broome and generally relaxed. We have also tried out Bruce's 'off road' skills, (he did well on 25km of sand/dirt road) and we have visited Barn Hill station, which has what we are tempted to claim is the most beautiful beach we have seen yet.... As always, will let some photos cover more details.
My cousin & co arrives tomorrow, wohoo!!! We will spend a few days here in Broome with them before going up to Cape Leveque, and after that we head down the coast to Perth. Have to be there by 9th October, when cousin & co fly to Sydney, and we hope to have time to visit some wineries around the Margaret River region before then as well, so 'stay tuned' for the next report!
/Hege
[Dateline 29 August 2006]
G'day from the west coast! Three days driving from Kakadu National Park in the Northern Territory to Derby on the coast of Western Australia, about 1,900km in total... last night we enjoyed dinner watching the sunset over the Indian Ocean - and today drove the 220km to Broome where we will spent a couple of weeks waiting for Hege's cousin to arrive.
Kakadu National Park did not disappoint - a plethora of wildlife and spectacular scenery - only spent 1 day/night there and will return at some point in the future. But we found it's getting rather hot and decided to push on for the west Australian coastline and some cooling ocean breezes; even at this time of year, still being Winter, the days reach mid/high 30c and the nights are about 23-26c.
So we crossed into Western Australia, failing to recall the fruit and vegetable quarantine at the border, and for the last 100kms as we approached the boarder we pretty much ate non-stop.... tomatoes, apples, kiwi, bananas etc... (it may have been Hege's first time eating fruit that was not in a daquiri!!) and managed to give a few bags of food to some-one passing the other direction before passing through the quarantine station!! After that it was a whole lot of nothing... one day of driving through mountain ranges and one day of mostly flat country. Now this was real outback... between Kununurra (near border of NT and WA) and Derby (about 1100km) there are no towns of any significance... only road houses, some with a general store - people who live out here are really in the outback - we possibly had a total of 50kms where we had mobile phone coverage!
Anyhow, now we have a couple of weeks to enjoy the beaches and generally relax... maybe read a book...
/Chris
[Dateline 21 August 2006]
Hello there! Greetings from the Top End! We are now in Darwin, having stopped at Daly Waters, Mataranka, Katherine Gorge, Edith Falls and Litchfield National Park on our way up from Alice Springs. Driving up the Stuart Highway it was pretty amazing to see the change in the landscape, from our familiar red dust and desert dryness it turned into green trees and bushes, some rolling hills and even some turns in the road! The weather has changed, or rather the temperature I guess, as it is still glorious big blue skies and we are surprised when we see a cloud, but it is not cold at night anymore! Rather warm actually, mid 30c during the day, dropping to around 20c during the night if we're lucky.... We are definitely back in the tropics.
After a fun night at a mad pub in Daly Waters we had a couple of days floating around in the thermal pools in Mataranka, where we were amazed by the wildlife, even after the emu and turkey at Banka Banka Station (see photos) it was fascinating with peafowls and beautiful wallabies around the campsite. One of our favourite camp spots so far will have to be Edith Falls, with a huge plunge pool formed by a waterfall right by the camp, and a short walk / climb up to another waterfall with another swimming hole... check the photos! A relaxing and stunning place we could have stayed at for many more days had time allowed.
We have now spent a few days in Darwin, done a little admin and also some 'maintenance' - i.e. I got my first haircut since we started travelling, wohoo!! Darwin is fun, relaxed and cool; we're both enjoying this small city (about 100k people) which has much to offer, not to mention being gateway to the wonderful natural attractions of the northern half of Northern Territory... we will come back here one day and can recommend it as a tourist destination. We are spending another day here before we set off to Kakadu, after which we head west from Katherine. (There aren't that many roads up here!) We will drive down the coast from Broome to meet up with my cousin & co who are flying in to Perth on Sept. 18th. But will update before then, take care all, and news from both hemispheres is always welcome!
/Hege
[Dateline 9 August 2006]
Hi All! As you can see from the map we've covered a few kilometres - about 1500kms since Tennant Creek - we drove pretty much direct from Tennant Creek to Ayers Rock (Uluru) and enjoyed 4 fantastic days at Ayers Rock, the Olgas and Kings Canyon. The Red Centre certainly lives up to its name - lots and lots of red dust, and in it's own arid way absolutely stunning. We enjoyed three wonderful walks; around Ayers Rock; through the Valley of Winds at the Olgas; and the rim walk at Kings Canyon. Following this leg of journey of about 2 weeks mainly "bush camping" we felt the need for the respite of a caravan park for a few days to clean up Bruce and catch up on some paperwork that has been outstanding. So we backtracked from Ayers Rock to Alice Springs (443 kms) and have spent the last four days relaxing in the park and giving Bruce a much needed Spring clean.... and we also mark the halfway point of our journey... at least time wise. From here we will drive back up the Stuart Highway - covering the tracks of Charles Todd who laid the Telegraph line from Adelaide to Darwin in 1872, thereby opening up Australia with the rest of the world - and into the northern section of the Territory. But I'll leave the details to be covered with the pictures....
We both hope that you are all well - looks like Scandinavia has been having a great summer.... we've been experiencing blue skies here in the desert with temperatures ranging from -4c to about +23c. It's also been good radio conditions (3.5Mhz good into southern Australia and New Zealand of an evening) - and to my radio friends I will update the radio section of this site in the coming days.
Looking forward to hearing from you soon!
/Chris
[Dateline 29 July 2006]
Very quick update.... we are now in Northern Territory - the state that has no speed limits... Have reached Tennant Creek after the longest stretch of straight road yet (Mt Isa to Three ways on Flinders highway) and are now heading south. We still have 2-3 days driving to reach Uluru (Ayres Rock). Will update again within the coming week. For the radio guys.... haven't had much chance to get antenna up to 80mtrs, but been on 40mtrs CW of an evening... talk soon...
/Chris
[Dateline 27 July 2006]
Hello again! The last weeks have been quite busy! I have travelled to Sydney and met with Morten, a good friend of mine who flew in from Oslo to join us for a couple of weeks. (Thanks for coming all this way Morten, it has been absolutely great to have you here!!)
After a couple of big city days Morten and I travelled up to Cairns to rejoin Chris and Bruce, and the four of us then headed up towards Cooktown. After Cooktown we tried to escape the rain.... via Port Douglas, then down the coast to Mission Beach, on to our favourite waterhole, and then out to Magnetic Island, which is just 8km outside Townsville and an absolutely beautiful spot! The weather was 'broken' for a while, had a fair bit of rain, but we have had lots of adventures, amongst them close encounters with a 3mtr long snake, a goanna named Frederick, and a very sociable lot of brush turkeys!
Morten is now back in Sydney before he heads north to sunny Oslo, and Chris and I have started the journey across this big land towards the west coast. We have survived our first flat tyre, (rather scary) and find ourselves around 100km west of Mt. Isa after three days of driving through a whole lot of extremely flat (FLAT!) land. Our plan now is to visit Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayres Rock), and then go back north to Darwin ............And then head west on what we find of roads suitable for Bruce! More news soon, in the meantime, what's happening on the other side of the world we wonder.... we'll update this news at least once a week from here on - assuming we have broadband coverage!)
(PS. to my radio friends... after a few weeks of no activity we are now back on-air.... 3.680Khz most evenings at 21.00 Eastern time.... conditions have been quite good thus far /Chris)
/Hege
[Dateline 5 July 2006]
Again, its been a couple of weeks since the last web update! But we have received news and feedback from some of you - which is always good - keep it coming! We've had a busy time traveling back to the coast from Quilpie. Basically we retread our steps to Roma and then headed North via Carnarvon Gorge to Emerald and then to Mackay on the coast. Some time was spent in Mackay having a look around and replenishing supplies (and a few small maintenance issues that needed to be attended to - the battery charger blew up and needed to be replaced). From there a casual trip up the coast - with all due respect for crocodiles! And the tropics are just great - so vivid and lush... the road from Townsville to Cairns is called "The Great Green Way" and lives up to its name. We spent two days by a gorgeous waterhole called "Paradise Waterhole" on Big Crystal Creek - where we celebrated my birthday!!! The weather continues to improve with +26-27c during the days with nights down to about +18-19c - not bad for mid-winter (this noted for our Scandinavian friends).
Of special note, one of us (not sure who) thought it would be a good idea to detox our bodies for a couple of days..... strictly speaking, we lasted about 18 hours, but also went for 4 days without a coffee or any wine, beer etc.... surprisingly the wine was no problem, but we both suffered a bit with lack of coffee... hmmm... this morning we enjoyed our first coffee again - and oh... what a joy (either that or rather tragic.... headaches gone!).
We are now in Cairns and have setup camp for a few days whilst Hege travels to Sydney to collect Morten... and Chris makes a quick trip back to Melbourne (almost 4 hour flight) for personal reasons.... more news very soon - now we are back in the land of wireless internet connection. We'll update again next week and keep the photos and stories coming!
/Chris
[Dateline 18 June 2006]
Just enjoyed a great week in outback South West Queensland..... using the Opal mining town of Quilpie as our base we flew to Birdsville (round trip of 1400km) to check out the famous outback pub and had a few too many glasses of beer and red wine (well... I did anyway). Take a look at the link from the home page to read about this leg of the trip and see a few pics. Now we're back in Mitchell to refresh our tired bones in the healing waters of the Artesian pools before turning North and heading to Carnarvon Gorge. We'll now enjoy a few casual weeks working our way back to the coast and up to Cairns (approx 1400km) - we need to be there by 8th July for Hege to fly to Sydney to meet up with Morten.... other than that everything is going fine and Bruce is in excellent form! Unfortunately, it looks like one of my radios has died... will have to look into that.
/Chris
[Dateline 9 June 2006]
Sorry, a couple of weeks since last update! As you see from the map on the homepage we have now moved north and inland, after visiting the fantastic Fraser Island! After Fraser we drove to Bundaberg to test rum, and also, I finally got to ask why on earth they have a Polar bear in their logo! The answer was somewhat lame: In the 60's the marketing people wanted a logo that represented something that chased the cold away, like rum does... They wanted a big fierce animal, and since the only Australian animal living in really cold climates is the Fairy penguin the polar bear was duly chosen. So now we know!
Anyway..... We have spent the last 2 days driving south & west from Bundaberg, planning to reach Quilpie, an opal mining town, in another couple of days. Yesterday we drove through Eidsvold (pop.912), which is named after Eidsvoll in Norway by 2 Scots who set up a cattle station there in 1848. (They had previously spent some years in Norway and liked it of course...). Today we have driven 4 hours, straight ahead - no turns to speak of - at around 100km/hr into the 'outback'. Very dry and barren, a few cattle and sheep, and plenty of roadkill kangaroos along the road, that's about it, am realising how big this state, and country really is! Since leaving Melbourne on 20 April we've covered about 4786km.... More news very soon...
/Hege
[Dateline 21 May 2006]
Good evening...... by now we are well settled into our travels. We have decided to spend another few days here at Noosa - it is very relaxing and the weather has been very pleasant indeed from 15° overnight to about 24° during the day. We have also made some significant changes to our planned itinerary. Instead of heading into the Red Centre to see Uluru (Ayers Rock) this month, we'll continue north and spend June and July traversing through Queensland. In early August we will then turn left and head inland - spending August in and around the Northern Territory and then September and October working our way down the Western Australian coast.
/Chris
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