From Adelaide to Alice Springs

Adelaide and our wicked Wicked campervan
After five days sleeping on the hard ground, climbing mountains with a hangover, having fun with our new wallabiefriend,… it was time to sleep in a decent bed again. The Lonely Planet guided us towards the Adelaide Backpackers Inn, one of the most friendly hostels I ever staid at. Free breakfast untill 10AM, free movies, free milk, free washing powder, free coffee, free tea, free apple pie at 8PM,… what could you want more?
While we were enjoying the citylife again (nice museums, some nice pubs and a generally nice city) we also planned our next roadtrip. Guido was leaving us to go to Perth (sad face) and Bastian and I wanted to find someone to share the cost to go to Darwin in the next few days… in came Meg (happy face). Together we went to pick up our Wicked Campervan… wicked… like little children in a big toyshop where everthing is for free… So with our cocaïnemobile, some good spirit and $180 less on our account thanks to a foodshopping spree at Woolies we headed for the next roadtrip, through the middle of Australia, the Red Center.

The road ahead
The road is waiting… Together with old buddy Bastian, newcomer Meg and obviously too much food we headed to Darwin. First stop would be Coober Pedy, the opal capital of the world. The road ahead sounded like a good plan, but it’s really boring. There’s kilometers of road with nothing but roadkill and flies to keep you company. Luckily someone (me) had the good idea to burn some music cd’s so we didn’t had to listen to the sound of wind for hours and hours. And that’s how we still had a good time. There’s something funny about driving through the desert with nothing but Cyndi Lauper, the Eurythmics, Men at Work (and if you don’t know what song… kick yourself… hard), UB 40 (Red red wine… ooh yeah), early Madonna, Van Halen, Moby, Massive Attack and a mix of Studio Brussel’s Switch (thanks for the good time). Screaming ‘JUMP’ on the tunes of Van Halen or ‘GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN’ while standing on top of our Wicked campervan, driving through the desert… Good times and thanks for our good sense to buy a few goonbags and a carton of beer for those extra funny nights… There were nights that we just couldn’t get any sleep at all, there were nights that we went to bed at 8PM (how sad is that?). But on all nights… we had fun!!! And that’s what the road ahead is all about… nothing but yourself, your travelling buddies and the road. The road to Coober Pedy was a bit of sobering up after the Great Ocean Road, but we got there, with good humour.

Coober Pedy and the Breakaways
Coober Pedy is the opal capital of the world and the saddest place I’ve ever seen. The Lonely Planet said this was a inhospitable environment and they weren’t lying. It hasn’t rained in this place like, forever and the streets look so dried out that for a second you get worried about the amount of liquids you got in the campervan. Because it gets so hot during the day and so cold during the nights, a lot of the population lives in dugouts, abandonned mineshafts that are decorated as houses. Coober Pedy almost got some tourism going as they start to build dugouts from scratch. People started to live underground, they even had the first underground church.
Next up, about 25 kilometer from Coober Pedy, you can find the Breakaways. A place where you can find absolutely nothing. There’s nothing there, so a lot of Hollywood blockbusters where filmed here, Star Wars, Pitch Black, Mad Max, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert,… the funny thing is trying to take pictures and afterwards try to find some differences, it all looked the same to me, except for the big rock in the middle of it. Oh yeah, and what you don’t see on the picture are a million irritating, getting on my nerves, flies. If you try to breath in some fresh air through your mouth (or your nose for that matter) you’re bound to eat at least 3 flies. They are everywhere and tell you, there is nothing funny about trying to pee and keeping the flies away at the same time…

Next up, the red center, Uluru, the Olgas, Kings Canyon, Alice Springs and then up north to Darwin where (I hope) they have found something against the flies, because it’s only getting worse.

The Great Ocean Road

We just put one feet on mainland Australia and we were planning our next roadtrip to Adelaide. But again the same problem, we didn’t found a campervan for the trip. Our Wicked camper is waiting in Adelaide at the 4th of April, we had to find a way to get there and we would rather see the Great Ocean Road by ourselves and not with an overpriced, get it done quickly tour stuffed with backpackers and tourist who have too much money (and we don’t). Or even worse, with public transportation. Nononooo, we had to live the Great Ocean Road. Stop when we want to, see what we want to… feel the ocean and all that melodramatic stuff only poets write about… little did we know the poets were right…

The Great Ocean Road
The Great Ocean Road is about 100 km’s of breathtaking views. The road starts at a place calles Torquay and ends at Warrnambool. The road brings you to all the famous places. Bell’s Beach where we were just 5 days too early for the annual Ripcurl Surfing Championship… that sucked. Lorne with some of the best seafood ever. And ofcourse all the amazing rockformations, the Twelve Apostles, Lord Ard Gorge, The Wreck, London Bridge (or is it Arch now?),… too many to speak of, be sure to watch all the pictures online pretty soon. The Twelve Apostles National Park is by far one of the most well kept, cleanest and most important, free national park I’ve been to up to date. After two days on the road I was proud to go to one of their toilets.

Our nights at the Great Ocean Road
It sounds incredibly romantic sleeping at the Great Ocean Road. We didn’t have enough money so we drove on the first carpark we encountered when it got dark, put the tent up and hoping that nobody would kick us out, or run us over. And let me tell you that sleeping with three guys in a small tent, without something against a hard and cold floor, just a sleeping bag, nobody took a shower during the roadtrip and personal hygiene wasn’t really something we took great care after… is that enough romance for everyone? The sights were great and breakfasts were amazing, but my back still hurts like hell when I think of the nights…

The first night sleeping on the ground in the tent (our backs still hurt like hell)

The night when I couldn’t open the tent (thanks to the goonbag)

The night with the delicious barbecue cooked rumsteaks with a inspirational red wine sauce

The night when we all where freezing because temperature dropped like by a zillion degrees

The night Guido decided to sleep in the car

Nights never to forget…

The Grampians
We where a bit disappointed that the Great Ocean Road ended and we still had to drive like 400 km’s to Adelaide. We still had the car for 3 days so we decided to go up north to the Grampians National Park. A huge area where the tourist maps are divided in a Northern and a Southern area. We put the tent up, didn’t pay a fee (hey, if it saves some money, we can eat again…), and enjoyed nature all around us. On the Northern map there was a hike of about 12.2 km’s that was described as ‘hard’ and more specifically for ‘energetic walkers’. woohoo… after Tasmania, what’s the worst that could happen right? Euhm… actually having to climb to the top of Mount Stapylton… The last few meters we had to climb our way to the top… dangerous stuff… but amazing view over the Grampians in the South and the plains in the North while we were eating some sandwiches and having fun on what at that time felt like the top of the world.

I wouldn’t want to miss anything of this… We spent the last few days with less and less money and we still feel richer than we used to…

“Ain’t seen nothin’ ’til you’re down and you’re rotten, oh yeah.
You ain’t got nothing until you hit rock bottom. Oh yeah.”
(Dandy Warhols)