In this installment I show a last couple of European pictures, before we leave for Sydney, where we visit Ann´s sister and her husband Bruce, before we fly to Perth to take delivery of our new car/camper: again a Toyota troop carrier with high roof, a V8 turbo charged diesel and all we need for a long stay in the bush. Well, not much later, near the south cost of South/west australia, we found we are short of recovery tools. Only thanks to hard work with our little shovel and live branches of nearby trees we were able to get us freed out of a patch of soft whet sand we got ourselves stuck in. Later we made sure that could not happen again!
This part of the continent is very sparsely populated. The beaches are fabulous with blinding white sand and where accessible your 4x4 is permitted to drive between the surf and the dunes for km´s and km´s. Very soft tyres and low gear will keep you out of trouble.
December/January is the holiday season in Australia and here, along the coast, the many campings are chock-a-block with huge caravans, humungous trailers and boats/yachts, family tents and other camping equipment. The facilities are magnificent: 5-start ablution blocks, power connections everywhere, water and shade to shield you from the sun. In one night the temperature dropped from 45C to 20 the next days and everybody was suffering.
Driving in this part of Australia is not as adventurous as in most part of Europe: the roads are very good, even the gravel roads, but there is little change in landscape and the trees, for instance, are mainly the same gum trees we know from South Africa. But there are many different animals and birds we have never seen before; and that means not only kangaroo´s!
What we are missing a lot is access to the internet. The internet culture we know from almost every other part of the world we have visited, has not yet arrived here. McDonalds, although present, has no good connection. So where possible we are depending on facilities in public libraries, for instance. They are scarce and because of that, communication is limited. But . . . send your comments. We´ll pick them up when we can.
