Perth, and onward

We are wrapping up three fairly relaxed days in Perth, and headed to Malaysia this evening. Perth is a nice city, along the Swan River and close to the Indian Ocean. It has the usual big-city draws of nice parks, good (if expensive) food, and a very nice art museum.  But what made our stay special was the amazing hospitality of Penny, a woman we had never met before who picked us up, dropped us off, fed us, and welcomed us into her home for three nights. A friend of Erin's aunt, Penny is retired and also loves to travel - we enjoyed her stories and tips on places from Italy to Mongolia to Japan. It's trite but true: people are what make travel special.

Now we're off to Kuala Lumpur, where we'll spend some time with another friend (and explore Malaysia a bit) before heading to Cambodia on July 13. And perhaps appropriately, as we sit by our gate waiting to board our first flight to the Asian continent, Gangnam Style is playing on the TV. This next leg should be interesting. 

Best of Oz and En-Zed

It's raining and windy for our last road trip day in southwest Australia, which means we're sampling the local brews and reminiscing on the past four months of travel. Below are a few of our highlights from Aussie and Kiwi country.

Best campsite (backcountry): Walls of Jeruselum, with it's view over an alpine meadow full of wallabies.

Best car camping: Camping at Peter's farm along the Murray River in South Australia, even with the "Danger: Snakes" sign.

Best multi-day hike: Tongariro Northern Circuit, with bluebird days, views of Mordor and Mt. Doom, and an excuse to use crampons, how could it not be? Runner up: Kepler Track in Milford Sound, which got us above the trees and the clouds.

Best day hike: Erin's pick is Gertrude's Saddle in Milford Sound - awe inspiring is the only way I can describe it. Brook's pick is Cradle Mountain, a little bit of Patagonia stuck on Tasmania.

Best swim: apart from the whale sharks (which basically trumps all else) plunging into the Antactcic Ocean in Frecynet N.P., Tasmania.

Best beer: Emperically, Sprig and Fern scotch ale and bitter in Nelson, NZ. Most memorable: a cold pint of Steinlager after compling the Milford track.

Best wine: Soul Growers Shiraz in the Barossa valley.

Best spirits: Brook: Spingbank 7-year scotch after climbing Gertrude's Saddle. Erin: dark and stormys with Barbados rum and Bundabergs Ginger Beer at Bullara station.

Best wildlife encounter: Swimming with a 40 foot whale shark.

Best people encounter: Stephan and Michael, two german dudes we hiked the Milford with then ran into (accidentally) about five times in random places across NZ.

Favorite Road: Indian Ocean Highway, Western Australia.

Worst road: the 23 km approach to Walls

of Jeruselem. Imagine off-road rally driving on sharp, basket-ball-sized rocks in a VW Jetta. We rescued an Ozzie couple who's rental car fared worse than ours.

Best moment: Brook: Dive #10 on the GBR. Erin: cycling to wineries in the Barossa valley.

Worst moment: Second day of a 2-day, 35-mile mud slog of a hike on the Queen Charlotte track, underfed and in a hurry.

Best food: Venison stew in Nelson, compliments of Yvonne (the cook) and Julian (the hunter).

Worst food: sausage, anywhere the Brits have been. Seriously - what's with the filler and complete lack of taste?

What we'll miss the most: the independence and pure freedom of a road trip. Runner up: g'day, mate... too easy!

Place we would move to: Erin: Tasmania. Brook: Nelson, NZ. Luckily, they're only a 5-6 hour flight apart...

Thoughts On a Roadtrip

Since late February, we've been on an extended road trip through Australia and New Zealand. After about four months, we've come to both love and loathe different aspects of life on the road. For example: camping is awesome, but having indoor plumbing is nice too. And while we've learned to love holiday parks, some of which are truly fantastic (see earlier post), we also dread paying $40 for a night in one only to find the internet (which we often have paid extra for) doesn't actually work or that we've managed to pitch our tent under the only street lamp for miles around.  But mostly, it's been a wonderful experience, filled with unplanned adventures, interesting people met along the way, and the occasional mishap.  

We are returning our campervan in a few days, and won't be driving much for the rest of the year (except for a jeep trip in Mongolia, but that's a whole other story). And before we return this rumbling contraption we've called home for the past three weeks, we thought a few road trip fun facts and figures were in order. So here it goes... Driving around Oz and NZ, in a nutshell:

- 12,500+ kilometers driven (almost 8,000 miles)

- $1,700 spent on fuel

- 115 days on the road

- 30+ days of hiking

- 27 holiday parks

- 15 nights indoors

- 13 dives

- 12 (or so) national parks

- 7 wine regions

- 4 rental vehicles (two cars, two camper vans)

- 3 hitchhikers given a lift (plus the rescue of one stranded Australian couple in Tasmania, two lost Israelies in New Zealand, and a German woman who was way off trail on Mount Doom)

- 2 countries

- 1 speeding ticket (so far)

From Tasmania to Fjordland to Western Australia, we've been lucky to camp in a few amazing spots (sunset on the Indian Ocean from an empty beach, lonely Ozzie bush with kangaroos for company, bluebird days on Mt. Cook, sunrise on the pacific coast of NZ...). We've also meet some really cool folks.  Like last night, when we met Glenn (and his dog Trixie) - a 50ish bricklayer/surfer from Tassie who was on the epic road trip of a lifetime, with the goal of surfing every great break in Australia. People like that are what make life on the road special. And above all, that's why we keep traveling.

Sharks, Termites and Ghosts...oh my!

It's been a couple of weeks since our last update because the internet hasn't quite reached the northwest coast of Australia. But we're back in the Perth area now and happy to say we survived our 3,000 kilometer road trip as far into the "outback" as our two-wheel drive delivery van/caravan would let us.

The Aussie Route 1 took us past thousands of giant termite mounds, mysterious rock pinnacles in the desert, and some beautiful campsites, including a night camping alone at the most haunted homestead in Western Australia. We detoured to the town of Exmouth to swim with whale sharks (video coming, hopefully) and manta rays, watch the humpback whales migrate, and dive to a reef shark cleaning station. We also started to explore some off-the-beaten track campsites, often relying on the advice of "grey nomads," Ozzie retirees who have sold their homes and live in roving packs of caravans.

It was a beautiful trip through a sometimes desolate coastline, with interesting marine life and a little Australian Outback mixed in. Here's an album with a few pictures: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6027171525075874177

We're now headed south, to the Margaret River area for some good food and wine, before swinging back up to Perth for our flight to Malaysia on June 30.  Hopefully we'll get a chance to upload a whale shark video at some point in the near future, depending on the whims of the internet gods...

Diving The GBR

Since he was a kid, Brook has wanted to dive on the Great Barrier Reef. And so, for his birthday in the midst of this whole adventure, we decided to spend a few days diving.

First, it was two days in the classroom and pool while Erin did her dive training and Brook sat in as a refresher. Then onto the Pro Dive boat for three days. While Erin wrapped up her open water certification, Brook took an advanced course and did his first ever night dive, complete with several sharks - which are largely harmless on the GBR thanks to an abundance of fish. After the training, we had another 5 dives together (11 total for Brook, and 9 for Erin) in great conditions. For the divers out there, we had mild chop and light rain at times on the surface, but minimal current and 20-25 meters of visibility most dives. Great conditions and great dive sites combined for some spectacular wildlife encounters, including the aforementioned sharks (three species, including a rare woebegone), lots of turtles, buffalo parrotfish, and giant wrasse that like to play with divers. Plus lots of pretty coral, nudibranches, lionfish, giant clams and much more. We couldn't capture it all on our hired camera, plus we're still working on our underwater camera skills, but here are a few of the highlights: https://plus.google.com/photos/103829313469224560701/albums/6021015688754455025.

We hope you enjoy them as much as we did...  Now it's off to Australia's west coast for some more diving - including a trip to find whale sharks and manta rays, if we're lucky...