Driving North along the west coast

In November 2008 (yes we have been slow posting to our blog..) we did our first long trip in Australia. To get a feel of distances we drove to Exmouth and back in a week (3400 km driving). This is a trip that deserves more time really, so we will have to come back. But it gave us a good feel what is there to see and how easy it is to do long distance trips here. It also shows that in a week with a lot of driving, you still only cover a very small part of Australia!

Our GPS track on the Australia Satellite image

First stop: Kalbarri
The first stretch of our trip was the drive to Kalbarri, a small village facing the Indian Ocean, 589 km north of Perth.

Indian Ocean view from Kalbarri

Kalbarri itself was not our main goal, but the Kalbarri National Park offers great views on the Murchinson river canyon, even through Nature's Window (if you do not sit in it to block the view). The wildflowers were still in season and added some nice colour to the scenery.

Nature's Window with Corine and Jurriaan blocking the view on Murchinson River Canyon

Wildflowers in the Kalbarri National Park

Second stop: Shark Bay World Heritage Site
On the highway from Kalbarri to Exmouth we turned off to visit the Shark Bay world heritage site, a great wilderness area with several spectacular sites to visit. One of the attarctions was Monkey Mia, where bottlenose dolphins come to shore to catch fish they get fed. This tradition started many years ago when fishermen threw fish waste over board. Dolphins stuck around, and people kept feeding them to the point that they forgot how to catch fish themselves. Now it is strickly regulated and only a small percenatge of the daily food intake is fed. This allowed us to stand in the water a metre away from dolphins. A bit touristy, but spectacular nonetheless.

A bottlenose dolphin catches his fish

North of Denham and Monkey Mia is the François Péron National Park, a sandy peninsula with beautifull coastlines. This was a good opportunity for a first test on the off road capabilities of our car. No recovery techniques were required, so he passed the test (for now). The reddish sand provided beautifull contrast with the turquois blue ocean, dark green bushes and aquamarine sky.

The colour spectrum of the François Péron National Park

Remote
After a day in the Francois Peron National Park in West Australia we arrive in the sleepy town of Denham, low on fuel, tyre pressure, food, water and sunscreen. No shortage of red dust though.

In the local petrol station we buy fuel, water, juice and ice cream. "Are you having a party?", asks the guy behind the counter. "Maybe a very small one", I reply. "Not for our standards, it isn't", he replies, and after a short pause he continues: "Not much is happening here".

Since we were looking for more food than just our ice cream, we were looking for a supermarket. Corine points to the local map and asks the guys what Murphy's market sells. "You don't want to know", the guys replies. After a short pause he confesses: "It is a junk yard".

...Luckily Denham was not as bad as it sounds: we found our supermarket where we stocked up for the 800km journey the next day to Exmouth....

Driving on
On our way out of the area we had to stop at Hamelin Pool, where Stromatolites are still thriving in a unique habitat of hyper saline water. Stromatolites a colonies of cyano bacteria, one of the oldest lifeforms on earth. Stromatolites feed on carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. Billions of years ago this process may have provided in the oxygen we breathe now on earth. However, the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool are only 3000 years old. It is the largest population of stromatolites on the southern hemisphere.

Stromatolites at Hamelin Pool

Third stop: Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range national Park

Our journey continued to Exmouth, the gateway to Ningaloo Reef and Cape Range National Park. After a long drive, we camped just outside the entrance of Cape Range National Park. At night we wanted to spot turtles laying eggs on the beach. We drove to a beach entrance at no more than 20 km/h, because the road at night was littered with hundreds of Kangaroos. On the beach we found a quiet spot to wait for a turtle to come. Just when we were about to give up and started walking back we nearly stumbled on a turtle digging a hole. We hid ourselves behind a dune to avoid distracting her. The turtle was quite serious about her hole. After digging for a while she decided this was not "The Hole" and moved to a better spot to dig again. Very special to see, just us and this enormous animal. After an hour we gave up waiting for the right hole to see the eggs (this may take 6 hours).

The next morning we drove into the park. We stopped at Turquoise Bay to snorkel Ningaloo Reef. Beautifull pristine waters with nice coral heads to explore. We saw our first reef shark here.
Ningaloo offers many snorkel and dive spots, but on our short long-distance journey, we have only time for one. We will be back!

To avoid driving the same road back to Exmouth we liked to try an off road route along the coast to Coral Bay. And it provided another test for our car... The only hurdle was to cross Yardie Creek at low tide. A place were tourists have been known to require expensive towing assistance after a failed attempt.

The access track to the Yardie Creek crossing

We waited for the lowest tide and we walked, or actually, waded the crossing to see if ground was firm and flat. At the low tide point a Landcruiser came from the other side and crossed without a problem. We already heared from the locals how to do it, so we were confident that our car was up for it. And it was... Although it may not have liked the salt water on its chassis, but that is also part of the initiation.

The Yardie Creek crossing

The track to Coral Bay was sandy but firm so easy to continue. It offered beautifull views and many kangoroos stopped along to road to see who was passing by.

Kangaroos watching human wildlife

We also saw our first Emus. A mother with two chicks.

Emus in Cape Range National Park

On the way back: Geraldton
After a night in Coral Bay, we only had to drive back. We drove in one go to Geraldton, a medium size coastal town 424 km North of Perth. Geraldton has an interesting Maritime Museum where stories of Dutch shipwrecks of the 17th century were nicely told. Many did not make it to Indonesia. The story of the Batavia that shipwrecked on the Houtman Abrolhos islands was particulary interesting. It involved mutiny and murder. After months on the islands the remainer of the crew decided to build a small boat from the leftovers of the Batavia. In this boat they managed to sail in four weeks (!) to Batavia, some 3000 km.

The next day we reached Perth, looking back on an intense journey. We know we like to go back to many of the places we visited. We have a good feel of West-Australian distances now: they are large.

Air Race above Swan Lake

Last weekend, the finals of the world cup air racing 2008 were held in Perth. During the week Jurriaan already heart and saw the practise rounds in his office. So we had to go and look.
We don't know anything about air racing but we got excited quickly. We cycled and watched first from King's Park and later from the shores of South Perth with the beautiful backdrop of the Perth skyline.






Some of the pilots cut it quite close, sometimes too close, as one flew through a pilon.


In between the races the RAAF stunt team, "the Roulettes" gave demonstrations of formation flying with only 3 meters between the individual planes. Only the formation leader apparently navigates, the other five are just trying to keep the 3 metre distance!


Other RAAF pilots gave a demonstration of David and Goliath where a large plane and a small double decker showed their acrobatics.


And a blue glider plane made beautifu patterns with orange smoke coming from its wingtips.


The final blast was a demonstration from the F18 Hornet. It didn't go through the sound barrier but for our ear drums it felt the same. Unbelievable what noise these planes make and very impressive the sheer amount of energy that's handled. The plane left vertically from a few hundred to twenty thousand feet in a matter of seconds.

We were very impressed but we didn't sign up as airforce pilots.

Wildflowers and birds at Kings Park

This weekend, we went for a walk in Kings Park, a big park with botanical gardens just 5 minutes walking from our front door. There are lots of trees, wildflowers, birds and great views over Swan Lake and Perth. Pics are on our Mac Gallery.

Spectacular Humpback Whales off Cape Naturaliste

The Queen’s birthday was celebrated in Western Australia last weekend, and we headed down south to Margaret River. This area is famous for its vineyards, the Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, magnificent surf beaches and last but not least, whales.

We drove straight down to the Vasse Felix, the oldest vineyard in the region along the river Vasse. Vasse Felix tried falconry to deter birds that ate their grapes, however, the first trained falcon flew away upon first release. They gave up falconry, but the falcon is still the logo of Vasse Felix wines. We enjoyed their excellent restaurant with a nice fusion of European and Asian tastes.

Entry lane of Vasse Felix

The vineyard

The whole coast, Cape to Cape, is magnificent. We couldn’t get enough of watching the waves breaking on the coast. Hopefully, one day, we’ll be able to ride these waves.

Jurriaan looking at the waves

From September to November, Humpback -, Blue -, and Southern Right Whales come close to shore at Cape Naturaliste on their annual migration. We decided that we wanted to see these whales and booked a boat tour. We were lucky – very lucky, to see Humpback Whales up close. Even the boat crew got very excited. Apparently, this only happens once or twice each season.

Whale breathing

Two alongside

Playing and watching

Tail of Humpback Whale

Humpback Whale sticking its head out of the water

This is how close we were

They are truly magnificent creatures. It is hard to describe in words how special it is to see such a big animal so close. They seemed entirely happy to play with us and just as interested to see us as we were to see them. It is hard to believe but it felt like there was an atmosphere of mutual respect. Just a perfect day.

The next day we went for a short hike at Cape Naturaliste near the Victorian lighthouse to see the beautiful nature, during the wildflower season. In the back of our mind we hoped for some more whales, which you may see from shore here at the Whale Lookout. We saw their splashes from a distance, but realised once more how special it was to see them from just a few metres away. On our way back a large lizard crossed our path and was happy to be photographed.

The lighthouse at Cape Naturaliste

From the shore we could still see the whales breath

Lizard

Wildflowers

Exploring greater Perth

We are 2 weeks in Perth now. Only 2 weeks. We are getting more settled in by the day - no house yet but we bought a car this weekend! In Scarborough Beach, people were board surfing on pretty impressive waves - probably not a good beach for windsurfing as it will be nearly impossible to get over the surf with board and sail. Certainly there are other beaches more suitable for windsurfing.

Scarborough Beach

We drove to the Swan Valley with many vineyards along the Swan River. After seeing vineyards in Burgondy and Champagne last month, we were surprised for a second to see no leaves or grapes - but hey, it's winter here! And the grapes are spaced more widely than in France, so here they use normal tractors rather than the typical narrow ones we saw in the European vineyards.

Swan river with bare vines

Another beautiful spot near Perth is Fremantle. This is the harbour where our container should arrive. It is very lively with lots of cafe's, restaurants and shops. Many restaurants face the Indian Ocean and are surrounded by yachts.

Corine in Fremantle Harbour

Near the harbour is the Kidogo Art Centre which runs painting and drawing classes in a beautiful old seafront building. We also found the Metropolis concert venue where Supergrass is playing next month.

And just like in Scheveningen, everybody with a restored oldtimer or a sports car is parading along the streets of Fremantle.

Oldtimer in Fremantle

We are in Perth!

Yesterday we landed in Perth after a long flight with a 3 hour delay at Schiphol, due to technical problems. Luckily we still made our connection at Kuala Lumpur. We are in a temporary apartment for one month, right in the centre of Perth. The first morning we were quite jetlagged, but that was where this day was intended for. We just made it in time to pick up our rental car before closure of the office. After that we strolled along the highstreets and sat down outside for lunch and a perfect cappucino enjoying the lovely sunny weather. In daytime, it is 20 degrees and still winter - warmer than Holland this summer, though the evenings are chillier than in Holland. Downtown is very lively on a Sunday afternoon, quite a few street musicians, and a lot of people. It took quite a while at the grocery store queue. The grocery store - Woolworth's - looked a lot like the ones in London so we felt at home.

Yesterday evening we went to the restaurant area at Northbridge. Many diffent restaurants there: a lot of different Asian restaurants, Italian, Turkish, pub food, nice wine bars, and many Dutch 'eetcafe' style restaurants. We settled for kangaroo steaks, Australian cheeses and Western Australian Shiraz at a nice wine bar. We think we can get used to this life...

For pictures please go to our new Mac gallery. We will post more pictures on this gallery these coming weeks.

Camping in the dunes

Believe it or not, this weekend in January was the first time this season we went to the desert. Apparently, we were to busy in the autumn with work, travel to Somalia and offshore and windsurfing at Moon Beach.

We wanted to find a new route from the escarpments north of lake Qarun to the Wadi el Hitan area and to traverse the dune belt south of the Wadi Ryan lakes West to East.

The first leg of the route went fast. We followed tire tracks that we spotted before on the satellite images. When we came at the top of the final escarpment we had a beautiful view. It was pretty windy and cold at the top, and this was midday. We expected a cold night.

A view from the escarpment with the sharp transition from desert to the Fayum oasis.

But finding the way down was not easy. We tried several wadis, but most of them were a dead end. In one wadi, a dune had made the route down easier. We also saw tracks of people that tried before. The tricky part was that you had to decent a steep dune, but you could not drive straight on as you would hit the large rocks on the wadi floor. After a controlled descent you would have to made a sharp right and drive out of the wadi along a narrow passage between the large rocks and the dune. But it looked doable.

At the top of the dune we were deciding if the route was doable.

Ramses was the first to try.

Ramses descents the dune slope.

The drive to the dune crest was easy, just a little slippery at the sharp turns in the sand. We turned down slope a bit too early and we headed straight for some rocks on the slope. Steering on the slope was difficult and we drove straight over the rocks. Fortunately they turned out to be pretty small when we came closer. We still had to make the sharp turn to avoid the big rocks. Once we stopped using the brake technique, we could steer again and we made it through the narrow passage without a problem. But we decided the route was probably better to avoid by the other three cars. We waited at the bottom of the valley for the other three cars that found pretty quickly a much easier route.

All the escarpment business had taken a lot of time and we decided to head straight for the Wadi Ryan road to be in the dunes before dark. We found a nice secluded camping spot in the dunes.

Our campsite

We pitched our tents before dark and got a fire going. The wind had gone completely and it was not as cold as we were expecting. We sat around the campfire till 11 sipping Siwan tea and wine.

The next day we had a relaxing morning with a big breakfast of bacon, eggs and pancakes. Today we were going to do our traverse. We had let pressure of the tires and were ready to go.

The West to East dune traverse we drove plotted on Google Earth

We got several cars stuck at dune crests and soft patches and we made good use of the low gears, towropes, sand plates, shovels, and the air jack. Good fun playing in the sand.

The wind blows sand off the dune crests.

At lunchtime we realized we did only 1/4 of the planned route. It was quite windy and we had sand everywhere. Fortunately, after lunch dunes became easier, or our driving better or both and we finished the traverse to be back on the tarmac road at 3pm. Just in time to make it to Cairo before dark.

Back home we noticed that sand kept coming out of our eyes for 2 days after we returned. But we are sand-free now… I think.

More on this in Ivar & Kim's blog (in Dutch).

Akhenaton

Our favorite pharaoh is probably the 18th dynasty Akhenaton, who ruled 1364-1347 BC. Maybe it is because we already knew him before we came to Egypt from Philip Glass’ best opera with the same name. Maybe it is because he was the pharaoh that started a new monotheistic religion worshipping only the sun god Aten. Maybe it is because the Egyptian art from the period he lived became very distinct with humans figures with exaggerated features, often very feminine. Or maybe it is because of the mystery surrounding him, his wife Nefertiti and his son Tutankhamen, the young pharaoh.

Colosal head of Akhenaten in a double crown (Luxor Museum)

Akhenaton started as Amenhotep IV and changed his name to Akhenaton when he started the religion of the Aten. He also transferred the capital of Egypt from Thebes to Amarna. This is how he tried to stop the influence of the powerful priests of Thebes. He only ruled for 16 years followed but only 2 years (?) of his wife Nefertiti and his son Tutankhamen, by a minor wife, ruled for 9 years as the 11th king of the 18th dynasty. Under Tutankhamen the religious transition was reversed, the old temples were reopened and Egypt’s fortunes were restored after the disaster of his father's reign.


Much of Akhenaton’s legacy was destroyed and erased. Many ancient pharaoh lists and historic accounts omit Akhenaton and the Amarna period completely. His name is often erased from buildings or overwritten with the name of a later pharaoh. This is why Akhenaton is surrounded with mystery and much of the art from this period is lost.

The interesting aspect of the art in the Amarna period is that it is radically different from the “classic” Egyptian style of art of the periods before and after the Amarna period. Statues and murals exaggerate human features and feminine forms. Typical are the big skulls, fat lips, wide hips and often a belly. The exaggerated feminine forms, displayed on both male and female figures, and equally on figures of Akhenaton himself inspired some controversial speculation that Akhenaton could be gay.

Amarna style statues with feminine forms

Before we visited Tell al Amarna we had already seen some of this Amarna style art at the tombs of the Nobles on the west bank of Luxor a few days before on December 29th. The tomb of Ramose, who was a governor under Amenhotep III and Akhenaton, showed some of the typical Amarna style sun god murals. Where the sun (god) is displayed with sunrays with little hands at the end of the ray. Ramose's tomb at Thebes was never finished as he decided to follow Akhenaton to Tell al Amarna.








Entrance to Tomb of Ramose

The Luxor museum also boasts impressive Amarna art. There is an enormous wall made of sandstone blocks, named talatat or threes (probably because their height and length was abound 3 hand lengths), with scenes from the Amarna period. About 40,000 of these blocks where only found in the sixties as a filler inside the 9th Pylon of Karnak. It shows how everything was done in the periods after Akhenaton to erase his legacy. The partially reassembled wall shows Akhenaton and his wife Nefertiti and scenes of temple life in the typical Amarna style.

Part of a wall from the Temple of Akhenaten at Karnak
Removed from the interior of the Ninth Pylon where the blocks or 'talatat' had been used as rubble core
(Luxor Museum)

Tell al Amarna site on Google Earth

Tell al Amarna is the area where Akhenaton started the new city of Akhetaten (Horizon of the Aten), which served as Egypt's capital for 14 years. It is situated in a wadi plain on the east bank of the Nile. The once glorious city of palaces, temples and residences was completely surrounded by a high cliff in the east and the Nile in the west. The buildings are now largely destroyed, but the necropolis of 25 tombs hewn in the Cliffside is still there.

The wadi plain where the now largely destroyed city of Akhetaten was situated

We reached Tell Al Amarna, following our police escort, via small agricultural roads and a ferry crossing. A small ferry sailed us and our car Ramses, together with donkey carts and other cars, across the Nile.

The Nile ferry crossing

Not all tombs are open to the public. We visited 8 tombs, and we where not allowed to take pictures inside. We started with the royal tomb of Akhenaton himself 13 km into the Wadi Darb al Malek (Arabic for valley of the king’s road) that cuts into the cliff. This was the most remote tomb.

The road to the Royal tomb, in the most remote part of the wadi

Many of the murals show the sun (Aten) with sunrays with little hands on the end that hold the Ankh, sign of life, or the sign of power.

We went to see the 6 northern tombs; the tombs of Huya, Meryre II, Ahmose, Meryre I, Panahesy and Mahu. Near the northern tombs we also saw one of the 14 large stone stelae that marked the boundary of the royal city.

One of the 14 stelae that mark the boundary of the royal city

In the southern necropolis we saw the tomb of Ay. Ay’s title was fan-bearer on the king’s right hand and he was never buried here. He became a pharaoh after Tutankhamen and was buried in the west valley beside the Valley of the Kings at Thebes.