28/12 - Weather

Ho... the weather is getting worse and worse.
It is unbelievable, the end of December is the middle of the summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, but the weather has some different plans.
A great cyclone storm cancelled our plans to go to Fraser Island - One of our "musts" in Queensland, we have to go on and travel in the rain, it is raining here all day every day since we arrived to Gladstone. That wasn't in our plan, but we could not do anything about it.

At the nice town - Bandenberg we found shelter from the drops in a cooper's place (the one who makes the barrels for wines or rum), had a nice dinner at KFC (for the first time here in Aussie) and spend hours on an Internet service, all the ways just not to be under the rain.

In Childers we met a nice lady at the visitor information center who showed a lot of care and respect to Israel, later on we tasted one of the best Ice creams in the world (Ginger Ice-Cream) !

We arrived to Mariborogh while the sky were so dark you could think it was night time by mistake, we visited a really nice museum, it functioned as a grocery store for 100 years, all the products are still in the shelves, everything so antique. very interesting, very recommended, we probably asked the Lady who worked there a million questions about the time back than.

Eventually we arrived to the Sunshine Coast while there was no sun shining of course, but that is for another post.

We added some photos, check it out...

have fun,

Efrat & Yoni.

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20/12 - WhitSunday

Hi All,

people say that WhiteHaven beach in Whitsunday island is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! it is part of the Great Barrier Reef (for those who never heard of it, look it up in Google or something), well, it's true! it is an amazing beach, but the only frustrating thing about it is that you can not go there by yourself, there are no self transportation to the island, the only way you can reach there is with an organized tour, which makes it:
A-very very touristic,
B-very very expansive.





At Airlie Beach, which is the place you book for a tour and from there the ferries go to the islands, we had a lot of second thoughts whether to take this tour or not, eventually we decided to go for it.
Beside the beach we did some snorkeling, here we found out that Great Beerier Reef is a wonderful place to snorkel, everything here was so colorful, so rich with fishes and corals, Yoni got really lucky during that time, he spotted a big sea turtle and followed him. the experience was hard to describe in words, swim beside a sea turtle, that is something you don't get to do everyday, does it ?



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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19/12 - Hideaway Beach

We arrived to Hideaway beach after a warm recommendation by Denny, at this un-touristic place we found out that we are the only people in the beach, it is only 50 km south of one of the most touristic places in the east Australian coast and the differences were unbelievable.

The beach was beautiful, we enjoyed it very much, and we take this opportunity to say thanks to Denny.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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18/12 - Magnetic Island

Hi All,
The first island we visit in Australia, in this continent the prices for ferries are unreasonable, a one way and return would cost the normal guy 23 (Australian) dollars, while the same journey with a car on the ferry, would cost 150 dollars !!! that's a rip off. Anyway, now you know why we traveled in this island for the first time since we bought it, without our portable home.

We got a little bit disappointed from the tracks and from the snorkeling, the 2 main reasons why we came to this island.
We have picked the longest track in the island, it was called - "West Point" and it is 16 km return, during that time we couldn't see the ocean, the route was not exactly a typical bush route, the walk was mainly on the vehicle gravel road, and to do it return ? what's the point at that if you don't see interesting things on the way ? BUT, the beaches at the end of this track where one of the best we have seen in Queensland.





At Florance bay we went to snorkel, "this is the most beautiful place to snorkel" we have been told, so after we rented the snorkeling equipment we found out this is a nice place but nothing more, the reefs and corals at Thailand are much better than here, in Yoni's opinion.



The atmosphere in the island itself reminded us a bit of Thailand islands, everything was lay back and everybody seemed to have all the time in the world.

that's it for now,
Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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26/12 - Agnes Water & 1770

Hi All,

The main reasons we arrived to these twin beach towns were:
1. Learn how to surf
2. Go for a sailing cruise to one of the Great Barrier reef islands called - lady Musgrave.

Due to the stormy weather, we couldn't do any one of them.
There are some short tracks here, nothing special, we did some of them, but these are beach towns, and people come here to lay in the beaches and not to hike.



we spent probably 24 hours here and got out while the weather was getting worse.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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25/12 - Gladstone

Hi All,

We thought the best way to celebrate Christmas is to do it with a local family.
Chiburim organization is a group of good Christiane people who love Israel and willing to host the Israelis around the world. We found Kerry,Esmond and their daughter - Sarrah through this organization's web-site, they agreed to host us and it has been a pleasure for us and a wonderful experience.
The timing was excellent since we arrived to Gladstone after a long wet night in the car, we found some leaks from our sun-roof and we got covered with water all night long, at the morning our bed was soaking wet. Over Kerry and Essmond's place we could dry our stuff and re-organize for the next rain to come (including fixing the roof).
We had many long conversations about Christmas, Christianity, Judaism and the similarity between them.
We definitely spent good time in Gladstone, we got to see the town and it's Christmas lights in the Christmas eve. and the day later we visited their church.



have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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23/12 - Eungella

Hi all,

People mainly come to Eungella National Park to see the very interesting animal - The Platypus.
It seems this is one of the most unique animals in the world, it is a mammal which lay eggs, it has feet of a croc, body of a mole, it swims in the water as a duck, it has hair of a horse and god only knows what's his purpose in life ...
well, we couldn't see this animal, it is very hard to spot it, you need to be very quite for a long time during night time and than maybe you get lucky and see it for a few seconds ... we didn't get this luck (ran out probably in Whitsunday island)



BUT - the walking tracks were impressive, most of them go in a humid tropic forest. We enjoyed this place although got bitten by leeches (needed to carry salt or matches in this place), the walks reminded us the trek in the Indian Himalayans 2.5 month ago.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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16/12 - Townsville

Hi All,

This city declared the ending of the outback (the dry desert) and welcomed us to the very touristic west Australian coast, which represented by a tropic climate.
Nevertheless, we liked this place, we liked it a lot. we think this is the second most enjoyable city we have visited so far in Aussie (after Perth of course).
The city is very beautiful, it's strand ("Tayelet") is very clean, peaceful and impressive, we have seen many families spending a wonderful Sunday afternoon (it's the beginning of Christmas here) walking, eating on the Barbecue free facilities, playing at the water park and much more.



After a long day of exhosting procedures (trying to hook up with some "lifters"- partners), we visited "Castle hill" which showed us some breathtaking panoramic views of the city: Ross river which cross it as a snake form, the sea and of course Magnetic Island at the background (our next destination).



At ReefHQ - a big Aquarium which contains artificial coral reef, we have seen so many sea animals like sharks, colorful corals, snakes, poison blow-fishes, and many other kind of fishes which we can't exactly remember their names. we focused on the "deep water" section where we discovered for the first time glowing fishes (the glow is created by a special bacteria which they are born with) and a very rare crab (lives at the bottom of the ocean).



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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15/12 - Charters Towers

The rush gold founded this wonderful town, during the 19th century an Aboriginal kid found little pieces of gold in the river while he was drinking, obviously the European somehow got the glory for it, and since then, many people came to try their luck in finding some gold, some of them got really really reach.

The city itself as for today looks like a country town, like at the old times while the wild west was in the news. We didn't do much there beside soaking in the relaxing atmosphere.
This is the last city prior Townsville where we headed, and we arrived there after such a long mileage.

Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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12/12 - Devil's Marvels

Hi All,

Devil's Marvels is just a nice location beside the highway on the outback, from Alice Springs to Tennent Creek, we visited this place while doing this endless road towards Townsville, and were deeply impressed from the monument, so what is this devil is all about ?
It is Geological rocks which were formed some millions of years ago, the shapes are round as balls, it reminded us - giants eggs, the Aboriginals think these are snake eggs and of course are holly, since snakes were one of the creatures which created the world in their
"dream time".

here are some photos:







Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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10/12 - Alice Springs

Hi All,

This was the place were we serviced our car (in Israel we call it - "Tipul 10,000"), it has been about 5 weeks since we bought the car and already traveled with it 7500 km !

Alice Springs is the main big city in the desert, that means you can find here every service you need for, expected from a big city, after a long period of time in the outback desert, we were glad to see suddenly big supermarkets (for those who have been to Ausie - "Woolworth" and "Coles"), restaurants and people !

The RFDS (Royal Flying Doctor Service) visit was very informative, this service was established at the beginning of the last century, it basically provide help and care for those who live at remote and isolated places. the base in Alice Springs covers a radios of 600 km, which supply an airborne to a big city in urgent cases.

the base at RFDS:


Reptile center - over there you can see the toughest animals in the continent. king brown is meant to be the deadliest snake in the world, it's poison can kill a human being for a matter of minutes. behind the thick glass, it didn't seemed to be scary at all.



But, the crocodile was scary enough, although it didn't move much.



Although, the most interesting-unique animal over there, in our opinion, was of course the "Thorny Devil" - a spiky little lizard which eats ants and can drink via every part of it's body, it can even absorbs moist from its tail up to its mouth.

Thorny Devil


In Alice Springs we got separated from Denny in a nice quick dinner at Subway.

Denny on his Jeep


Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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9/12 - Macdenell Range

After a long day of different arrangements in Alice Springs, we drove to Macdenell Range National Park, it's even divided to East and West.

West Range:
We think that the jewel in the crown of this National park is a walking trek which called: "Omritson Gorge - Pound walk", 7.5 km track, the thing we liked the most in it was the different verity of views which made it very unique and worth seeing. The first 1.5 km we climbed on a mountain, we decent into the pound, it was all green, the flowers were flourishing and the sky were light blue as they can only be in Australia, at the entrance to the deep gorge we walked on several types of land, purple, black and yellow rocks, sometimes sea sand appeared during the walk.
This route was not an easy walking one, but have no mistake, we had a wonderful time doing it.





East Range:
Well, the east range is much less tourist attractive, most of the sites there are "easy going" (short tracks of 20 min. walk), the Aboriginal's painting were nice but not more than that.



Only one of them was different - "Traphina gorge" it was called. We did several hikes wherever we could on our 2WD van (there are much more options for 4WD groupies).



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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5/12 - Kings Canyon

In this National park which has one of the most spectacular scenery in Central Australia, you can find several walking track. we and Denny picked the longest one, and several shorts walks as well.



"Kings Canyon rim" is a 6.4 km walk, which climbs over the top and surround the cliffs of the Canyon. Over there we found the time to diverse away from the main route and went to what is called "Garden of Eden" - a rocky pool located in one of the canyon's creeks, surrounded by trees, bushes, flora and fauna.



At Kathleen Springs we took a break for several of hours to sit and relax in this pastoral place, we picked to do it near the waterhole.

Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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3/12 - the Olgas

This nice collection of monoliths (rounded shapes of rock) is located about 50 km west of Ayers Rock, the very expensive entrance fee includes these monument which some say is more impressive than the rock itself.



Obviously, the Aboriginals declare it as a religious site as well, but we could enter it and walk around, the trek we did called "Valley of the wind" and it's length was 7.4 km, we and Denny did it in 5 hours, while walking through the gorges of the monoliths, having a peaceful walk and enjoying every minute of it.



Have fun and happy Hanukkah,
Efrat & Yoni.

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2/12 - Ayers Rock

Hi All,
You can easily understand why Ayers Rock is documented as one of the most popular sights in Australia (along with the Kangaroo and Opera house in Sidney), and why it has such a meaningful importance to the Aboriginal (native) people.
The rock itself is very impressive, if you circle it, you will have to cross no less than 3.6 KM, it's high is 348 meters (people say that 2/3 of it located underground).



with the nice German guy - Denny, we toured ourselves around the rock, seeing the very interesting formations of the "exhibit". in some places we were not allowed to take any photos since those were religious to the Aboriginals.



The beauty of the rock is that in every time, from every place it seems to be different, different with colors (this happens when the sun moves around and shed a different light on the formations), different with the texture - changing from smooth to rough edges.
You don't need to have a great deal of imagination to see some formed shapes in the rock which looks like people's faces and different types of animals (Efrat did it with great joy ...).



When you see it in a great distance (the complete rock) you can admire this attraction, but you learn to appreciate it much more when you get closer to it and notice the small details.

It was a hot day when we arrived, that, plus the reason it is significant for the Aboriginal, we decided not to climb over the top.

more photos of Ayers Rock you can see at: our web album

Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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29/11 - Coober Pedi

Hi All,

well, it is freaking HOT here in Coober Pedi, that is probably why half of the town's population live underground.
temperatures here during summer (which is now) can easily get to 40-45 degrees under the shade, and as funny as it gets, there is no shade here... it is very rare to see here trees. now you can imagine why we are spending our time in the air-con library (where there is Internet access for free) and not outside.

Coober Pedi is well famous with it's Opal (in Hebrew somebody somehow translate it to: "Leshem"), which is a kind of gemstone was lying underground for the past 50 million years... some people think it should worth to spend a few thousands of dollars to get one tiny opal stone ... go figure.
yesterday we slept, for the first time, underground. that was kind of experience, we expected for more, but at the bottom line, how many times we will have the chance to sleep in a mine ?



the main street is full with opal shops, we did a guided tour in one of the mines and learned a lot about this precious mineral, which can be found here and only here.

other than that, because of it's unique scenery, this town was a set for some of "end of the world" science fiction movies such as "Mad Max", "Pitch Black" and more, you can still see some of the set artifacts the production left in here.

underground church


tomorrow we are going further away into the outback, hopefully we get to see the famous Red Rock soon.

We are still waiting for a reasonable PC with Picasa and a CD/DVD Burner to upload all the photos and movie clips (already have 2.5 GB which just waits to be uploaded), it will happen soon, so be patient.

Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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27/11 - Port Augusta

Hi All,

When the 3 of us arrived to Port Augusta, we knew our ways are about to separate, Adi took a bus to Adelide while we stayed in the city looking for other lifters which would join us to the desert - Ayres Rock (The Red Rock).

Eventually we didn't find any lifter nor good sight seeing in the city, so we drove 150 km away to "Flinders Range" National Park, which described as the most touristic park in South Australia. now we can understand why ... we hiked for 4 hours, climbing on one of the ranges, the views from the top to the area were truly breathtaking.



In the "Sacred Canyon" (inside the park as well), we saw the Aboriginal old engraving on the canyon's walls and kangaroos in a touching distance.
on the way there we met a nice German guy which probably will join us with his 4WD jeep to Ayres Rock.



So, today we came back to port Augusta and we will head north to the desert, our next stop will be Coober Pedi - the underground town, but that will have to wait to our next post.

Have fun and keep in touch,
Efrat & Yoni.

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25/11 - Nullabor Plain

Hi all,

After 3 very long days of endless driving, we arrived to Port Augusta.
we passed almost 2000 km from Esperance to here, while in the middle we crossed the border to South Australia and had to shift our time 1.5 hour ahead (so now, it's 8.5 hours different from Israel).
The ride looked endless, we started the car early in the morning and shut it off at sunset time. the desert view outside the car windows looked lonely, it is just a great plain of nothing, once every 45 minutes you get to see another vehicle passing by the opposite way, usually it is a road train (huge trucks, which can carry up to 5 coaches), once in a while we got to see kangaroos, most of them were already dead beside the road.
Efrat took the chance and drove the first time in her life on the left side of the road with manual gear, well, it was not that easy for her but eventually she did it (like she had other choice ?).

Once every 200 km we stopped for a break in the patrol stations along the way, the fuel can get 150% more expansive out here.



As mentioned, we happily arrived to Port Augusta.

Efrat & Yoni

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22/11 - Great Southern

Hi All,

The trip in the south west is accelerating, before we left Margaret River we found ourselves a new lifter (TREMPIST who share the fuel and fun with us) named Adi and she is very sweet Israeli girl from Kfar Saba, although it is rarely to meet other lifters here, specially Israelis...

Augusta - the lighthouse was the only tourist attraction we visited. this is the point where you can't go anymore to the south-west of the continent. At this point the Pacific ocean meets the Indian Ocean.



In Nunnap we hiked for several hours in the bush, this small town is a very sleepy one, when we arrived from Augusta, we couldn't find a single soul at the commercial center (that was round 17:00) and all other streets. we visited a nice backpacker which is designed so unique that we felt like living in a Museum.



Northcliffe - we just wanted to fill our Jerrycan with water and we found ourselves in the nice old Museum which tells the story of this small town when it was founded 200 years ago or so, we had a nice conversation with old ladies who grew up there as children while looking at the Museum's antiques.



Pemberton - another small town (population - around 450 people), the big attraction over there is the giant Tingle tree (kind of Eucalyptus) which proudly grew up to 75 meters high ! we climbed on it to the top to see the scenery of the rest of the Forrest from above. Efrat felt like she was falling down every step (or peg in our case) because her short size.



Warlpole - Denmark (the Australian city not the country): well, the main attraction there is "The Valley of the Giants" which is a nice short walk, 40 meters above the ground between the giant trees, it is well famous site but we felt it was very short (only 600 meters long), it was nice but we liked the climbing on the tingle tree in Pemberton better.
we also paid the pacific ocean a visit along it's great beaches, the sad part in this trip comes here - Yoni realized he lost his journal somewhere on the way, probably near Nannup. He put so much efforts to write his journal since the beginning of his trip (when he started in India, 3 month ago).





Albany - the first big city we visited after we left Perth. we hiked for several hours along the mountain near the city (even got lost for a while), there are plenty of lookouts over there. The wind farm 20 km away from the city were described in the travel guide we are carrying as the biggest in Western Australia, and truth is they are pretty big, we arrived there at late afternoon and the wind during that time of the day was super strong.



Esperance - we got to know Adi's friend from England and we walked along the shore on a nice route. Over there - was the first time we have seen an Aboriginal children which came from the desert to camp in a something like a class trip, their language was very interesting.
From here we are about to start our long journey towards south Australia while crossing the great Nullabor plain (about 2000 km of desert).



you are welcome to view our Photos and Video clips.

wish us luck and tack care,
Efrat & Yoni.

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11/11 - Margaret River Area

Hi All,

Well, we arrived to Margaret River area with our new home, passing through great scenic roads, the place here is a heaven for surfers, winery, and all other people who like to enjoy life with good style.
We already got used to cook our own meals on the way, to camp in parks, obviously, this is not that treat we got used to in Thailand, but this is kind of an advanture we will never forget.



The beaches here which coloured Blue-Turquoise are breath taking, we like to take slow rides around the many vineyards, you can easily imagine how life here is good.





One day we took ourselves to a self tasting tour, we drove around and between home-made chocolate, cheese, nuts & cereals factories (mmmm... that was tasty).

Tomorrow we are going to visit in caves on our way to the western south point of Australia,

Dont forget to visit our photo albums and video clips.

Always Happy to get your mails,
Efrat & Yoni.

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