traveldiary.stracke.us

If the title sounds like Lothar finally hit an accommodation, that he was happy with, he did. Even though we stayed at the backpacker lodge of the resort, it was nicer than some hotel rooms we have had. The good part was that they don’t believe budget travelers should pay too much, so we we were able to stay at a very reasonable price. We were supposed to share our bathroom with the room next door, but no one ever moved in, so we had our own ensuite, making hubby very happy.
Monkey Mia is located on a peninsula in the Shark Bay World Heritage area. It takes about 1.5 hrs, off the main road(which in Aussie country, isn’t too main) to get there. It is supposedly the only resort accommodation in Australia, located right on the beach. Aussies try to keep the beaches for everyone–not a bad idea. Miles of sandy wide beaches stretch on either side of the resort. There isn’t a beach chair or umbrella in sight. Must have something to do with keeping everything naturally, or we actually believe the Aussies like to rough it!
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We drove our Nissan Pulsar ( Altima in the US ) from Coral Bay south to Denham, the most western town in Australia. The few houses, 2 petrol stations and convenience stores in Denham probably would be called a hamlet in other parts of the world. We passed the town of Carnarvon, population 6900, where Nasa had built a radiotelescope, which was used for the Gemini and Apollo space missions. Now the “Big Dish” is obsolete and the town is only known for its banana, pineapple and tomato plantations.
This is Emu ( flightless ostrich) and Kangaroo country and we saw heapes of ( Australian for ” many ” ) roadkill. I estimate about 100 dead kangaroos per hour, cruising at 75 MPH, along Highway 1. The vultures are busy cleaning up the mess of marsupial carcasses ranging from fresh kill to skeletons. Our rental car does not have a roo-bar to protect the front end , so we only drive during daylight hours. The kangaroos are attracted to the car’s headlights at night.
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We are at the end of the world ( again ) and there are no Easter decorations or colored eggs to be found here. Western Australia does not appear to celebrate Easter in this outpost of civilization !
We called Sonja in Germany ( local time 2 PM ) and Carsten in Grenada ( local time 8 AM ! ) to wish them “Happy Easter”. It is about 1oo degrees F here, just north of the Tropic of Capricorn ( so we are in the tropics, the sun is in the north at noontime, and it gets warmer the further north you travel ). We had fried eggs and ham for breakfast and spent a lazy day at the beach. I read a report about poverty in a newsmagazine. There are an estimated 250 Million people living in India in extreme poverty ( on less than one USD per day)! It makes me appreciate even more, how fortunate we are to be able to experience our sabbatical year and how well people live in the US and Europe.
Gabi cooked us a nice Easter dinner which we ate outdoors at the beach at sunset. The evening entertainment in our ” prison”-hostel consisted of a game of pool. We are alternating winning the game, so neither of us has to feel bad. So far we did not get into a fight on this journey and are enjoying ourselves very much !!!

For years we had read about this wonderful spot on earth, where whale sharks, manta rays, humpback whales, dolphins, and the occasional human come to play in the sea. It is located on the northwestern part of Western Australia.
It is a beautiful part of the country with deserted sand beaches, a reef fringing not far from the shore and sand dunes finishing the picture perfect postcard.
Then came the sticker shock of partaking in these animal encounters. $240 for a whale shark snorkel, with no guarantee of seeing one.:eek:,( we met people that went twice without ever seeing one) $130 for a manta ray snorkel, that was cut short the last two days, due to a nasty tiger shark, who seemed to frequent the area. Then there was a dolphin encounter, riding on a boat and following the dolphins.:roll: Frugal as we are, we evaluated the various options and decided on your normal two-tank dive.
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It took us three days of air travel to get here. On Wednesday, March 23rd we flew from Perth to Carnarvon and drove north on Highway 1 to Coral Bay. Western Australia is huge and the stations ( cattle ranches ) may have one million acres. The highway is in very good condition and the 105 degree F temperature did not warp the bitumen.
This town consists of 2 caravan parks, 2 basic motels and our ” Ningoloo Club Backpackers” prison ! We have a bare cinderblock cell with 2 army cots, no chair, table or hook to hang clothes. We share the showers and toilets.
The last 2 days we spent with snorkeling off the beach ( in the Indian Ocean again) and relaxing in the shade ( too hot in the sun!) Our prison does not allow us to bring in alcohol from the outside (they want to sell their own, at exhorbitant prices), but we have our ways around this. Our little esky ( cooler) and a bag of ice from the supermarket help us to cool the beer and wine that we had bought, together with groceries in the last bigger town, before getting here. The other backpackers are very nice, young and seem a little jealous, when they see us have our well balanced meals which Gabi creates in the communal kitchen.
We had some good conversations with travelers from Australia, England and Germany. They all seem to travel for a minimum of 2 months up to a year, often after having finished their education and before starting their first job.
Some never seem to make it back, we have met a few that have been traveling for more than the elotted 1yr. working visa time.
Today Gabi dropped a scuba weight on her right forefoot, which developed a hematoma almost immediately. They have a clinic, staffed by a nurse in
” town “, but according to the note on the front door, the doctor only comes on Fridays. Today is Saturday ! So far Gabi is doing better with ice and ace bandage from my supplies. Fortunately we have no hiking scheduled in the near future.

G’Day Australia !
We are ” Down Under ” now. We flew from Auckland, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia. We started the flight with drinking champaigne at 8 AM, followed by a pretty good ” Eggs Benedict ” breakfast on board Qantas. I could not see the Tasman Sea, in fact the cloud cover was so high, that we climbed from 35 000 to 40 000 feet and were cruising at more than 12 kilometers above the earth.
The next flight was Sydney to Perth, Western Australia in about 4 1/2 hours. The trip on the Indian – Pacific Train takes 64 hours for the same distance .We continued the celebration of our arrival in Australia with a delicious lamb meal, accompanied by an Australian Chardonnay. The only luxury we can afford, is provided ” free of charge “, courtesy of American Airlines miles.
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Christchurch is actually the name of one of the larger cities on South Island, New Zealand. From our hostel, we headed down to the Avon River and the first monument we encountered was the 2001 Memorial to firefighters all around the globe. A large steel piece of the Twin Towers was erected next to the River, with a sign, asking you to think of the men and women, that give their lives daily, so that others may be safe. It showed such a positive effect of globalization. Then we meandered down a beautiful boulevard of trees, right next to the river. The whole scene seemed very British and some of the 2 story houses could have been straight out of the Stockade in Schenectady. For such a small country, the British had a massive empire all around the world. In many countries , as here, their influence stuck.
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This morning on our flight out of New Zealand, I read in the newspaper, that they were looking for fruit pickers all over NZ. Had we known before, we could have enhanced our budget.:shock: I guess lots of backpackers finance their way through NZ this way. The pay is NZ$100 a day, which is about US$70. We met quite a few people that take on a job here for a few weeks or months, then go there(wherever that might be) for a few more, and continue so on until they tire of the vagabond lifestyle. If we ever get tired of our permanent jobs, we know where to find others.:razz:

New Zealanders do not say good-bye, but say ” see ya ” . The Auckland airport announcements this morning go something like this :
“Mr. Smith, please go to your gate immediately. Your plane is ready for departure, all the other passengers are on board and are waiting for you ! ” We noticed that New Zealanders are very friendly and helpful, but also very direct and to the point. To be ” politically correct ” is a foreign concept here.
One highway sign says : ” Death is for a long time, so what is your hurry ” or ” The fast ones are going to be the dead ones “. There are no Buddhists here and nobody believes in reincarnation. The Maori go back to the magical Hawaiki, the place they came from according to their belief.
We are sitting in an airport business lounge ( Qantas in Auckland ) and are on our way to Perth on the West Coast of Australia. It is 22 degrees C here, 31 degrees in Perth. Back to the summer weather !
We called Sonja in Germany last night. It was 8 PM here and 9 AM the same day in Biberach. We also spoke with Carsten 2 days ago, when it was 12 noon here and 5 PM the previous day in Grenada. It is not that easy to keep track of the time zones. Today we will cross another 4 time zones.

This past week Lothar had a pang of wanting to go back to work:shock:, so he doctored up a little girl’s foot on one of the NZ beaches. She had apparently stepped on a shell and got a pretty good gash in the bottom of her foot. Lothar suggested that they take the girl for some stitches but they didn’t seem in too much of a hurry. A hearty folk! Those 20 extra lbs of medical supplies finally came in handy.