Easter in Sydney

We took the opportunity to make the long Easter weekend a bit longer and make the 5 hour flight to see Sydney in New South Wales. This is a longer distance than the flight from Cairo to Amsterdam we used to make regularly!

During the flight we overtook slowly another plane!

We stayed near Darling Harbour, close to the maritime museum and metro and monorail stations. The Maritime museum had an exhibition on Darwin's exploration journeys (it is after all the Darwin year) and the permanent collection had a vintage submarine, a replica of James Cook's Endeavour and a restored schooner.

James Cook's Endeavour with the Sydney skyline backdrop

We liked the area of the Rocks and Circular Quay a lot. It has nice harbour views, including the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

There is usually lots of traffic on the water, and often an enormous cruise ship is parked at the Overseas Passenger Terminal. There are many restaurants here with good views and atmosphere. Also the Museum of Contemporary Art is here, where we saw an interesting exhibition of Yayoi Kusama.

Sydney Harbour Bridge from the Rocks

We took the opportunity to see the Sydney Dance Theatre on our second night.

Sydney Opera House from a distance

After seeing the Opera House from a distance from the Rocks we had to visit it too. It is an impressive building with nice views on the city skyline, harbour and Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Sydney Harbour Bridge reflecting in the Sydney Opera House

We learned that the architect Jorn Utzon was not able to finish the building the way he liked. The interior is therefore not everywhere as impressive as the exterior. Only one room was in Utzon style. Currently his son is helping to restore the building in his father's style.

Corine admiring Utzon's design

Sydney is surrounded by water, and many places can be visited by ferry. We took a ferry tour from Darling Harbour sailing under the Sydney Harbour Bridge, stopping at Circular Quay, The Opera House, Fort Denison, the Zoo and some of the outer suburbs.

Fort Denison with the Sydney skyline backdrop

Sydney is an impressive city with many iconic landmarks and a more cosmopolitan feel than Perth.

Looking back from the ferry

Australia Day

January 26th was Australia day in Perth. We had just returned from a Margareth River long weekend to see the spectacular fireworks on the Swan River and from the rooftops of the CBD skyscrapers. We cycled to Kings Park with our camera to have a nice overview of the fireworks. The rest of Perth was there too, so it was a bit tricky to take pictures without people in it.

Spectacular fireworks from the CBD rooftops

Spectacular fireworks above Swan River

Perth by night

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