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• Back in London
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Travel Location: Tulcea,Romania

Dad and I could do one of two things. We could either rent a car, drive north into the mountains, and see monasteries and the villages or take public transportation and explore the Danube River Delta and the Black Sea Coast. Visiting the villages is an attractive option, because in many parts of Romania the people still live as it were the Middle Ages. Some have never seen cars! It is how you imagine the American Amish horse-and-buggy lifestyle but with less modernization and outside influences. Because Dad enjoys water, we decided to hit the coast. When I was a child, I spent countless summers on the Tennessee River with my Dad. We did everything on the river: camping, drinking, riding in the boat to other cities, waterskiing, fishing, knee-boarding, barefoot and trick skiing (making human pyramids while skiing), intertubing, parasailing, and banana-riding. We have done it all on the water, so it only makes since that we will take a boat ride down the Danube River to the Black Sea. We spent the whole day on buses and trains getting to the gateway of the Danube Delta, the city of Tulcea. Here Dad splurged on the 3-star Hotel Delta with a view of the mighty Danube. I am in heaven compared to the places I have been sleeping. Thanks, Dad!

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Travel Location: North-Ryde,Australia

We initially planned the trip for July 08, but had to put it on hold. Now, before the Christmas vacation and before our dogs arrive in Sydney, we decided it is the right time.. now or never.. to embark on the journey!

That means planing and preparation have to be fast. The first choice was the vehicle to travel. We decided to go with a 4WD Bushcamper for two. The advantage is we can drive it through the Oodnadatta Track and the Red Center. It also offers the comfort of proper bed and does not require long time to setup once we reach a destination. Especially important as we stay only a night at most places. Additionally we bought a sunshade that has fly nets on the side. This gives us a place to sit outside protected from sun and bugs. This assembles within 5-10 minutes although the first time it took us 20 minutes.

Adventure is just bad planning. – Roald Amundsen

For navigation, we will rely on the GPS and as a backup on good old fashion maps and compas (especially in the outback). That’s at least the plan. We have in the meanwhile mapped our route and places we want to see. The trip will us take in 42 days to 35 different overnight stays and we will drive approximately 11,000 km of which 4,000 km will be through the outback.

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• Day 48 – Toowoomba to North Ryde
  Last day of travel. We seem to be done we camping and sightseeing for the moment. For the last time we checked out of a caravan park and started to drive the roughly 900 km along the New England High...
• Day 1
  Today is the big day! The alarm rang 6 am, but we kept delaying the getting up until 8.30. We picked up our campervan, which took two hours because we were stuck in rush hour traffic jam. So, the day...
• Day 2
  After yesterday’s blog, we sorted the bed out. The bed is on top and the room between head and roof rather tiny. We are not even able to crawl on all four. After trying to sleep for a couple of hours...
• Day 3
  We reached Seaspray on the 90 Miles Beach safely. That seemed today not a certainty at all times, but that is the end of the story, let’s start at the beginning. We woke up on a sunny morning after s...
• Day 4
  The rain didn't stop during the night and the roof window of our campervan was leaking. A good start with the new car! However, the car was driving well and without problems. We may never know what a...

Travel Location: Jindabyne,Australia

Today is the big day! The alarm rang 6 am, but we kept delaying the getting up until 8.30. We picked up our campervan, which took two hours because we were stuck in rush hour traffic jam. So, the day started very slow so far. However, we packed all our stuff within the hour and were ready to leave by noon. We meet Sarah & Wolfie for lunch (yummy Malaysian food). As usual, we forgot some stuff at home, but lucky enough de Malaya is close enough and we returned home again after 1 hour, instead of 43 days. We actually forgot happy inside the house (btw Happy is our plant).

Finally on the way, we drove from North Ryde towards Canberra on the Hume Highway, it was stinking hot (36 degrees), the hottest day in Sydney in 20 month. It was very windy and we were affraid to be blown off in our big high top campervan. But, that was not all the excitment we got. The campervan decided to get jiggy with it. It made funny sounds, like the wheels come off. Just about 20 km before Canberra it got too scarry and we decided to stop and call Britz. The lady was helpfull, but the guys in Canberra were not able to have a look at the car today, earliest was tomorrow or with Toyota on Wednesday. The third option was to risk it and drive to Snowy Mountains (another 150 km)… Guess what we choose.

Hello Snowy Mountains!!! We are in a bushcamper and so we risked it. Worst case we camp by the road side. Guess what, the noise came back again, louder and longer than ever before. So we decided to stop and put on our mechanics hat and decided to switch to four wheel drive. And voila! It worked, no noise, smooth cruising and it didn’t sway. And then, we saw a very beautiful sunset. We drove straight into it, through the valley of Snowy Mountains with the peaks on the horizon, the sun setting and shining through the clouds. (Watch the pictures).

After 474 km at an average speed of 81 km/h and using one of our petrol tanks we reached Jindabyne. We are camping at Snowy Line Caravan Park. We cooked Laksa for dinner and enjoyed a beer under the night sky. We look forward to the walk on the lake tomorrow and yummy pan cakes from Mrs. Heidi in Cooma. So, this completes our first day of travel. Now we need to put the bed up and see how we survive the night. Oh, it is cold here.

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• Day 2
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• Day 3
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• Day 4
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• Day 5
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Travel Location: Fes,Morocco

Hi once again,

I’m once again back in Fes after a little 3 day trip that Megan and I took up to Tangier and the Rif Mountains.

We started out on Tuesday morning with a little trip to the medina for some train snacks. I’m addicted to the bread and the olives here, so good. Anyways, our train journey took a bit longer than anticipated. The ticket guy at the station told us that we had to transfer trains about 2 hours into the trip. At less than 2 hours though into the trip, Megan checked with some of the people that we were sitting with and they told us that Sidi Kacem (our transfer stop) was the previous station. Further proof that it’s always good to ask more than one person. We decided to get over at the next stop and make our way back to the needed stop. The conductor saw us and freaked out (“you were supposed to get out at the last stop!”). Anyways, he phoned someone else to find out what to do about us. It was all in Arabic, but I’m sure the words, “the dumb foreigners who missed their stop,” played a role in that conversation. It was decided that we were allowed to take the train back to Sidi Kacem for free, which saved us some Dirhams.

We eventually made it into Tangier a few hours later. Tangier is located right on the northern tip of Morocco and is a large port city. As in the case of most port cities (Alexandria and Naples come to mind), it definitely has that seedy port vibe. Despite this, Tangier is pretty in its own sort of way. The medina and kasbah are located right near the port, so in some ways it’s like a city of contrasts- an old medina and kasbah against the backdrop of a ferry terminal, camels trekking along the beach with modern buildings in the background.

After seeing some of the sights of Tangier and surviving our freezing cold guesthouse, we grabbed a bus to Chefchaouen in the Rif Mountains. Now, if you’ve ever seen photos of Morocco, I’m sure that they were taken in Chefchaouen. It’s known to have one of the prettiest medinas in Morocco. The entire thing has been painted this really pretty shade of blue thanks to Andalucian influences. The medina is small and touristy, but, at least at this time of year, not ridiculously so. Our room that we rented for the night was gorgeous and definitely made up for our shabby-chic Tangier place. We were up on the 3rd floor and had amazing views of the medina, the kasbah, and the surrounding mountains.

The day we arrived the weather was fabulous, but unfortunately, the weather changed in the morning. After doing some quick souvenir shopping in the medina during the beginning of a rainstorm, we quickly made for the bus. The storm chased us most of the way back to Fes, but we managed to stay away from the downpours for the most part- always a good thing on mountain roads, especially with some of the crazy weather, and therefore crazy road conditions, that’s been hitting Morocco in the past couple of weeks. Speaking of weather and road conditions, our planned trip to the South has been cancelled so everything’s a little up in the air right now. Stay tuned and I’ll let you know where I end up

Katie

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Travel Location: Granada,Nicaragua

Our first night we spent at the Oasis, a hostel in the center of Granada. The rooms are small but the shared area is quite beautiful. The pool and gardens are in an open air courtyard. There are a number of hammocks along the garden for quick napping and resting.

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Travel Location: Beechworth,Australia

After yesterday’s blog, we sorted the bed out. The bed is on top and the room between head and roof rather tiny. We are not even able to crawl on all four. After trying to sleep for a couple of hours, Adelina decided that it was too claustrophobic. She got out of the van to breath and decided to sleep on the downstairs bed. Yeap, we have now a two bedroom camper. Next time, we try to sleep both downstairs and if that does not work, Adelina will sleep down and me on top.

This morning we got a wakeup call from Britz. The lady was able to organize a mechanic. However, after talking to him, he was only able to look at the camper in the afternoon. That of course conflicted with our travel plans. Guess what, we decided to drive on. So far, the camper has not make the same noise, but it seems the gear box does not sound that good either. We most probably let the campervan be checked in Melbourne.

We started our travel with a pancake breakfast at Heidi’s Austrian Teahouse in Cooma. The pancakes were rich with fruit, cream and sugar… absolutely delicious, recommended if you drive through Cooma. It’s at the end of Cooma direction towards Jindabyne. After the healthy breakfast, we headed from Cooma to Beechworth via Kosciusko National Park. We crossed the Park in about two hours. The views were just phenomenal. Parts of the park contained the remainder of the big bush fire. The trees were all white and without leaves. Some bend towards the street and it looks like claws that try to reach the car. We think that the trees will come alive at night and move in search for prey of poor lost drivers.

We saw two dams, one of which was Tooma Dam. The dams are surrounded by the mountains and from the drive through the windy roads over the peaks and down the valley many pretty views can be taken. We crossed the Murray River, which is at least in part the border between Victoria and NSW. The river here is still rather small, and we hope to see a bigger part later in the journey.

We reached Beechworth around 4.30 pm and after shopping for our dinner, we headed to the Lake Sambell Campervan Park. We got an unpowered site for tonight at the border of the lake. The weather is sunny and no wind, ideally for a glass of champagne and a bottle of red later on. Today we put up the tent. That means a sunshade with a fly net on the side. The flies were annoying us as soon as we got out of the car.

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Travel Location: Seaspray,Australia

Travel About: historic

We reached Seaspray on the 90 Miles Beach safely. That seemed today not a certainty at all times, but that is the end of the story, let’s start at the beginning. We woke up on a sunny morning after spending the night in the downstairs bedroom. After a walk along the lake we packed up our gear and drove towards the town centre of Beechworth.

Beechworth is famous because of its place in history with Ned Kelly. Ned Kelly and the Gang were infamous bushrangers best known for their armour. The town was the showplace where Ned Kelly was sentenced to hard labour and later where he had the last stand off with the police and where his preliminary hearing was held. We joined a Ned Kelly tour which was telling the whole story in relation to the various buildings. The tour guide almost looked like Ned Kelly.

After the tour, we drove on Gorge Road which is a scenic drive around Beechworth and then drove on the Great Alpine Road towards Sale. The Great Alpine road climbs up the Mountain and is very windy and had to be driven in low gear. On the top, Mount Hotham, we could see snow and we could see the ski lifts; truly an amazing view and absolutely to be recommended to drive.

On this drive is where our problems with the car started. Having had problems with two wheel driving on the first day, now we had squeaking sounds on the left wheel while driving slow and in four wheel drive (like the axel is loose). After a couple of stops we wanted to change back to two wheel drive, but couldn’t change the mode. After we reached a spot with Mobile phone reception, we called Britz and asked for help. We asked to change the car as soon as possible as we were no longer comfortable with ours. We drove on, now downhill and faster and didn’t have the problem anymore. After another 200 km, we reached Seaspray with 90 miles of beach. We put up our tent and started to remove the language while waiting for the replacement car arriving from Melbourne.

We ended the evening with the arrival of the new campervan and moving the stuff across. With the arrival of the car also came the rain. As they say, it’s Melbourne weather where you can expect four seasons in a day. We cooked the dinner under an umbrella and for the first time had to eat inside our bushcamper.

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Travel Location: Gibraltar,Gibraltar

El vuelo a Londres lo hice sin ningún contratiempo. La salida estaba prevista para las 7,30 de la tarde y como ya había facturado on – line entré directamente a la sala de espera.

El vuelo duró poco más de dos horas y media por lo que a las diez y media (hora británica) ya estaba en Gatwick. A esa hora ya la gran mayoría de tiendas y restaurantes estaban cerrados así que me fui a cenar a un asiático que estaba abierto y después de cenar a esperar que llegara la hora de poder facturar para Salzburgo.

De la noche nada descatable, pasó más rápido de lo que pensaba y no hubo ningún contratiempo.

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Travel Location: Melbourne,Australia

The rain didn’t stop during the night and the roof window of our campervan was leaking. A good start with the new car! However, the car was driving well and without problems. We may never know what all was wrong with the last one.

Victoria weather was cloudy and every now and then it poured. We drove towards Melbourne on the highway and except for a car that has a tree branch stuck below there was not much worth mentioning. Today, we planned to visit Yarra Valley, one of the many wine regions in Victory and, at least for us, one of the better known. We arrived shortly after 1 pm in the valley and our first vineyard. Tallawara had a nice setting overlooking the vineyard with a restaurant and a tasting area. The wines were nice too, but with the limited space in our van we decided against buying it. The next winery was Coldstream Hills which was founded by James Halliday, the producer of the Wine compaion. We coudn’t resist the wine there and bought a nice bottle of viognier 2007.

The last stop was Chandon, famous for its bubblies and which is what we normally order in a restaurant. The setting was a massive building with a view over the vineyard through the floor to ceiling windows. The car park was full and many tour buses were parked. The park in front of the building was crowded with tourists taking pictures. We felt more like at a monument than a vineyard. Unfortunately for us, they only had two bubblies for tasting so we decided to purchase a range tasting ticket. However, as we wanted to taste a particular one, we ended up buying just a glass each. We got a complementary cheese, bred and dip plate which was tasty but small.

After having had enough wines, we drove to Melbourne and found a camping ground near the race course. With $45 a night most probably the most expensive on our tour. The facilities are good and the CBD can be reached with the 220 bus directly. Convenience has a price.

We spent the evening in the Melbourne CBD for a nice dinner in the Hardware St. We had nice italien food with a jazz band playing. We met up with friends and went on to the Kitten Club which is a quite nice little bar in Little Collins street.

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