Friday, April 21, 2006

Kakadu National Park

Hi everybody,
This time I am on time to put some pictures and tell you about my travel here. Before telling you about the Kakadu National park I think is quite good that I show you the best hostel of the world. Id the Kimberly Club in Broome, 20 australian dollars a night more or less 12 euros a night… but look at this pictures!!!
Unbelievable!!
To the right is me on the camel... last time I forgot to put this picture... Other thing that I forgot was the picture of the Staircase to the moon... the effect of the moon reflection on the low tide in Broome as well...
Ok, let's tell you about me now. I am still in Darwin but ready to leave.
The last days I was visiting the kakadu. Really nice also if very very hard with all the walks to do…
We spent all day long walking, hiking and swimming in waterfalls so clean that we could fill our bottle up with that water… I was actually drinking the water from the river and was really good!! I can’t believe how much I was sweating. Walking under 35 degrees and 80 % humidity that arrived to 100 near the waterfalls… can you imagine that, all day long, for three days? I was drinking more than 5 litres of waterfalls water a day and I was still thirsty!!!
When we arrived to any of the waterfalls we were swimming with all the clothes on… anyway there was no difference… in the picture to the right we are we an aboriginal guy, friend of our guide. To the left we have been stopped because the water in the road was almost 2 mitres hight...
Anyway… I leave you with my pictures… it explain much better the landscape than I can do with my words…
Keep writing…
do you really want to go for a refreshing swim without a guide that tell you where you can swim without crocodiles?











This snake was not dangerous.. I am not crazy...











a nice bridge to cross...








but sometime we had no bridge to cross a river...









yes... it's me...





Eating with the light of candle in the middle of the jungle








And looking at rock painting...

Saturday, April 15, 2006

From Adelaide to Darwin Passing for Perth and all the west coast

The time for writing again has arrived. I have been going on travelling all this time without caring of putting pictures or telling you anything. And I am sorry but I cannot help it. I am into it and travelling has become a sort of way of living… a good and unreal but a way to live…
I am in Broome actually… North Western Australia. Tonight are 32 degrees and 80% humidity. I walked out of the shower and I could not feel the difference between being wet for the shower or for sweating… but ok, the hostel where I am now is the best I have ever been since now. I will take some picture… it s worth…
Anyway coming back to my travel diary. I was in Adelaide again the last time I was writing. Than, very quickly resumed, I took the Indian Pacific to go to Kalgoorly. There was full of flies again and I decided was enough. So the next day I arrived to Esperance. In Esperance there are the most beautiful beaches I have never seen in my life… long white sandy beaches with a blue see so transparent that is almost unbelievable. There I met two guys, we went together fishing and during the night we eat the fish we caught during the day!!! Was cruel I know, but was really good at the same time…
From Esperance to Albany, than to Denmark and to Walpole… little cities where the important things is the forest on the side: the valley of the giant. The trees there are more than 40 metres high and there is a scaring bridge that pretends to arrive to the top of the trees but still a good part of them are above you head…
Then I took the train from Walpole to Perth passing for Bunbury… in Bunbury a gay came on the train and set besides me. He was dark long air and he was carrying a guitar!!! I had to laugh but he didn’t know anything about Enrique Bunbury… what a shame!!!
Anyway I arrive to Perth where Moran was waiting for me at the station. This was the sky that was waiting for me at my arrival. I promise I did nothing with my computer to change the picture!!!! Was really so red and orange...
We went in two different hostels but very close to each other.
That was a great night!!! Going to the disco till 5 in the morning… meeting a lot of people… great!!
Ok, than the other days in Perth where occupied by serious things: going to the market, find new shoes… yes yes, Perth has been really relaxing…
Now... do you believe from this picture that I am in Australia and not in Austria????
Than I took a 5 days tour to go the Exmouth. Stop in Pinnacles desert (the picture on the left), in the street to take pictures with animales of the road...(picture on the right), in some beautiful beaches to do sandboard... Coral bay etc etc. the most beautiful thing has been snorkelling with the big Turtles in the barrier reef and the dolphins in Monkey Mia.
And yes… the adventure has been a very important part of all this travel. When we arrived to Coral bay was predicted a Cyclone, 2 level, so, a little one… I was so excited to see it but than it was destroying in the land before arriving to the town we have been staying the night. What a disappointment!!
Anyway, after two days spent in the middle of nowhere waiting for a bus, here I am, in this city where the temperatures are unbelievable…
Tonight I was enjoying a Camel ride in the beautiful beach here and I loved it!!!
Time to go again, Darwin my next destination and yes, I am sorry for my propose not to fly but this is the way I am going there, just because the tour here are not available till the beginning of may, in other words the beginning of the dry season.
So flying tomorrow to Darwin, where probably will be hotter then here… I cannot imagine it.
Anyway, these are the news, I am sorry I am so quick and not consequential but travelling is taking me into it, and I cannot do anything else that letting me carrying away… I'll leave you some pictures... just have a look...
This on the right is the Desert Devil...



The road was closed for the Cyclone... Hubert... never arrived.





This is the barrier reef. I took the picture from the boat... it was made of glass in the centre...

This is China Town in Broome... in this street there was latino american music... hot enough to feel like in Costa Rica...





do I need to tell you were I was in this picture?









5 minutes of silence in the desert...








Some other minutes on the beach











Bye bye...

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Unbelievable adventures

Long time has passed. In these weeks, I have done so many experiences that I would have to write an entire book about it to give you an idea.
Let’s see what I can do. Also because some of my experiences are so unbelievable that you will think I am a liar.
To begin in the right way I will give you the right direction to put me in the geography.
I arrived right now from Alice’s Springs with the Ghan, the train that connect Darwin to Adelaide. And it is quite comfortable, the chairs are big and I could even sleep well there.
Not flying is a good challenge but it is worth… I really understand how big the distances can be in this continent.
Anyway, I was in Port Campbell last time I was writing, or almost. Arriving there Moran and I decided to stop, also if there is only one bus a week to go there and out. We set my tent in the camping near the beach and we relaxed. this is the place of the 12 apostols (12 rocks), also if the apostols are not more 12 but only 9 or 10...
Spending time with Moran was really nice... she is crazy... this is a picture where she was taking picture of herself... (she was used to do it...)
The first day was wonderful, sun, swimming, reading and having nothing to think about. The second day perhaps a little bit boring, the village is really little and only a few people stop there. The third day the clouds arrived and we decided to leave. No way.
Was than, when you really think you have to wait next week to escape, when we went to the information office telling them about our problem. Now, the husband of a woman working at the office was going in that moment to Warrnambool. Unbelievable but he gives us a lift, stopping in a lot of places, giving us the possibility to take some pictures, explaining us about the territory and some histories. Is that luck?
Warrnabool was better than we’ve expected. Ok, first of all, because we didn’t expect anything. We stopped at the YHA where they give us bicycles for free to explore the “city”. It was wonderful. That place is famous in the winter for the wale watching but in the summer is beautiful as well.
Anyway I spent all day long on the bicycle, mountain bike, forgetting about the day after and the pain provoked by the saddle… this are the thinks that you learn after…
But it was worth, really.
From there we get the bus to go to Mount Gambier. We planned to spend two nights there but after we decided to stay only one.
The fact is that the only chap accommodation was “the Jail”. Now, if you think that a funny person decided to scare poor backpackers giving to a normal place a strange name, you are wrong. The Jail is really the old Jail, closed only 20 years ago and where very strange people leave. Our room was a cell, the living room is the old chapel and before to arrive to the kitchen you have to cross the air place… everything is still there.
We arrived in this strange place and there was nobody. Only a sign with write “go to the main entrance” on it. But where is the main entrance? Wondering around the place we found a man, in a cell, looking at the television. I went there and asked him: “I am sorry, but, do you know where the main entrance is? We do not find it!”
He stood up and shoot the door screaming “Can’t you read?”
As soon as the door was closed I realized that there was a sign also there: “do not disturb”.
Moran and I, we looked at each other and I really laugh, thinking that they give a good atmosphere. Anyway, I called the owner with the number on the lonely planet and he arrived. He gave us the key of the cell and went out.
We spent the day walking around the city. Is really beautiful there, the lakes are of a strange blue also if my photographs are not so good this time …
In the night in this place was “funny”.
There was a man with a long beard in the kitchen. We were looking at “reality show” where a man was shoot 3 times with a gun and was still alive. I was commentating the fact as the luckiest I have never heard when he answer me that his wife was shooting him twice and she tried to kill him hitting with her car. This was the last time she tried to do it because now she is in Jail.
We stopped eating and he even showed us the sign of the bullets. Then he told us about the history of the Jail. As he knew a lot about it I was asking him about the man we met the same day. He told us that nobody likes him ‘cause of his character. He was a prisoner in that Jail that was released but had not family or nothing to do, so he decided to remain in his old cell, paying the cheap rent.
It was in that moment when we finally decided to leave the next morning…
Therefore we took the bus to Adelaide.
6 hours later we arrived there and spent few time to find a hostel.
The city was in festival, so everything was full or really expensive.
During the day wondering around the city and during the night going to the several festivals, what a life!!
On Friday there was the “Kino Cabaret”.
In this there are some young directors doing shorts film in 48 hours and showing their production every 2 days in a cinema upstairs a bar.
I went there and see the films and I begin to speak with somebody just because he had my same camera.
He asked me what am I doing and how long I am going to stay in Adelaide.
We spoke a little bit and then he asked me… “So, do you want to participate with you own film?”
I thought I was wrong and I asked him to repeat the question.
I was not wrong.
And this is the part that probably some of you would not believe but… I was doing a short film in Adelaide and my Film was shown in the festival.
Was so strange. When I get home this night I was happy and scared at the same time… what have I done. A film, in 48 hours… what am I going to speak about?
Travelling.
Travelling had to be my subject. They were asking me to do a film after talking about my travel… this is what they are interested in. A film about travelling…
And that was.
I am not giving you all the details of my film, it would be just like destroying it… http://media.putfile.com/film-Adelaide34 … so, if you want, have a look of it... I know it is not the best film of the year but is my first try... is just 4 minutes but for me have been 4 minutes of pure emotion.
I was so critic with what I did, the music was to laud, the camera was not still enough and a lot of other thinks, but the people that sow my film understood it. They where coming to me after and almost everybody was telling me about his travel somewhere and his experience and so on.
It has been fantastic.
The film was shown on Sunday and on Monday my bus for Alice’s Springs was leaving, at 6 in the morning. I was sleeping only few hours after celebrating with the team and next morning when my alarm was ringing I wanted to die.
I get to the bus and the first stop was in Barossa Valley… wine tasting… are you completely crazy? Wine tasting during the morning and after a night of not sleeping?
No. I was skipping the wine tasting. I was sleeping in the bus and any time I was waking up any time the landscape was more desert.
We stopped in Alligator Gorge.
“Don’t worry” there was no alligator in Alligator Gorge. It was just spectacular. Big high wall very close to each other and the trip is just in the centre. We were walking and walking and I was taking pictures and taking pictures to realize at the end that I was alone. Everybody was already gone and I was still taking picture. When I realized that I begin to run and after a moment… that was longer I was thinking… I get the others. Living me in the desert… no, it was not so funny.
Lesson learned…
Anyway back to the bus and back to my dreams again.
The first day of the tour we slept in a Ghost village, where the hostel was opening only for us... but I had the possibility to sleep and a lot…
Next day desert ‘till Coober Pedy, the opal city. It is a city underground. There is so hot that even the houses and the bars and everything are underground, as our hostel.
Next day the real desert, infinite landscape without anything but red sand, wind and flies… o my God... I almost forgot the flies… all this days we have been walking with flies nets on our faces, just not to go crazy trying to catch them… there are too many, you cannot fight them, you have just to live with them…
The third night we arrived to Alice’s Springs.
There I looked for the cheapest tour, find one for 250 Australian dollars, booked and enjoyed.
This was a real adventure. No tent, no hostel. The stars were our roof and the Swegs our beds. A Sweg is just a mattress with a blanket included where you can put you sleeping bag inside. Slipping under the stars of the south. Wonderful.
Our guide was crazy. So, the adventure was even better.
I was feeling in the army. He was giving us the time: 5 minutes for the toilets. After 5 minutes he was starting the motor and going with the door open and the people had to jump inside to get in it… he teach us how to eat a real frog taken from the rock and how to drink water in the desert. I give him the blog direction, so he probably will read it… hi Jack… has been the funniest adventure of my travel until here!!!
And to do a little bit of publicity, the tour was organized by Annie’s Place in Alice’s Springs and is the cheapest and the best…
Getting back to the story.
We spent 3 days around Ayes Rock and Olgias.
Only the picture can give you a bit of imagination of how good was spending time there.
Here I am at the end. I know I wrote too much but I had a lot of things to tell you... really a lot…
Tomorrow will be my train to go to Perth and continue with my travel. I hope I will have the possibility to write more often and to let you know about my position… I am not lost in the desert somewhere, I am alive and I am enjoying the trip.