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The decision to go to Australia was made in March 2007. At first I wanted to go alone and meet a travel-mate Down Under. But after a friend of mine introduced me to Hannes, who wanted to have a time off from his work in Germany, we decided to travel to OZ together.After thinking about buying a car and selling it after our journey for a very short time we looked after a cheap alternative, which was found in the internet – Keen-As-Campers.

We both arrived on the 8th in Sydney and stayed two nights in Bondi Beach. After that we moved in a nice Hostel in Kings Cross, where we stayed another 5 nights. Sightseeing and partying in Sydney was good fun, but we were glad as we picked up our nice van from Dirk.

The road trip began on the 15th of October in Sydney, heading north along the east coast. Nelson Bay, Newcastle, Bellingen, Byron Bay, Nimbin, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane, Noosa Heads, Bundaberg, Townsville, Cairns and Cape Tribulation are only a couple of the most important places we visited with our reliable Toyota Hiace equipped with everything necessary to survive on car parks, in national parks, near lonely beaches, on camping areas etc. Even the underground car park of a luxurious Hotel across from the Hilton and the Casino in Cairns was good enough for us and our van.

It’s a pity, that a cyclone near the northern part of the east coast brought loads of rain to us up from Brisbane. But the van wasn’t washed away from the road. But after Hannes made his diving licence on the Great Barrier Reef and I met some old friends from Bellingen in the Crocodylus Lodge in Cow Bay (Cape Tribulation) we started our trip along the Savannah Way to Normanton (started end of November in Cairns) – about 40 degrees Celsius every day, dead Boomers and cows along the road and red dirt everywhere were a good alternation to all the rain the weeks before.

And our van was developed to a female magnet at the Burke’s and Will’s Roadhouse on our trip from Normanton to Cloncurry – we found good company in the form of two girls from Israel and one from Germany. So we continued our trip to Alice Springs in a two-car-parade.
In Alice Springs the girls from Israel left us and we gave Sophie a lift for the rest of our way through the outback over Kings Canyon, Ayers Rock, The Olga’s, south to Adelaide where Sophie met some relatives and we went on just the two of us (Hannes and me).

After a few days of regeneration in Adelaide we decided to go to Kangaroo Island – bad idea, because big bush fires were on the island and we were stuck in Kingscote for another two days…but the locals knew how to party and we were invited to a year 12 graduation party, which was good fun.

Following we went along the Great Ocean Road to Melbourne where we arrived about two weeks before Christmas and stayed at some relatives of mine. Up from now, the good old Hiace was not a camper van to sleep inside any more; it was just used for transportation of our own. After discovering Melbourne for about two weeks we went to Wangaratta, where some more relatives of mine live. We spent Christmas-Eve and Boxing days together with them and went camping close to the Ovens River for two days.

New Year’s Eve came closer and we drove to Sydney with a short overnight stop in Canberra. Back in Sydney we stayed at a friends’ house to celebrate the New Year on a private party, which was quite good, because we could see the fireworks from Canadian Bay.

We still had nearly one month to go, so we decided to go back to Melbourne along the coast (Nowra, Merimbula, Orbost, Lakes Entrance and Korumburra were the places where we stopped for sightseeing or to stay for a night). This time we stayed in Frankston at some far away relatives from Hannes, who showed us the Mornington Peninsula and took care of us.

A trip to Phillip Island and the Penguin Parade which can be seen there filled another weekend. The remaining two weeks (25th of January was the drop off date for the van) were filled with visits to already known places (my relatives in Melbourne and Wangaratta). After that we headed back to Sydney again, because my flight back to Germany came closer and we wanted to have a big party Friday in Kings Cross and Downtown Sydney.

In the end we did 15.000 km with the van without any problems, it was just good to have a car to sleep in and save money by not going to a hostel every night.

Thanks Dirk for your telephone support while our trip, it was a great time and nice to meet you (and some of your vans on the road)!

Cheers
Ulf and Hannes

PS: to George from Canberra: Thanks for the beer and the TV-Program near the Minion Falls!