Men collecting firewood...

Honey and Apricot Chicken, cooking in the fire - yum!

Masterchef Australia!

Short stop to collect some wood for the bushcamp

4 x 4 dirt track on the way to King´s Canyon



flooded roads

The Tropic of Capricorn


Devil´s Marbles

What a spot for a good Meditation



Green Tree Frog
Daly Waters Pub, and the Entertainer with his Eagle in disguise as a chicken who made us, the ozbus crew, come up the stage and sing Waltzing Mathilda...


Katherine Gorge

Katherine Camp


Family fun at the Rodeo



Taming wild horses at the Rodeo


Beautiful Waterfalls in Kakadu National Park

What a view! Chilling out on top of the mountain at Gunlom Falls...

Tiger Snake! Spotted and caught!


The boss sitting in the pole position


Birds at the Yellow River

The Oz Bus Australia next to a gigantomanic Termite Mound, and: Beware of the Crocodile!


Sunset at Ubirr Rock

Learning how to play the Didgeridoo and Weaving



The Welcome to the country ceremony





And now, welcome back to Australia!

It was grat waking up in sleepy Darwin, back in the good old backpacker hostels, with some more sun to shine on our noses before we would head down into the cold Australian winter. Another couple of days of doing not much, going for a walk to the beach, stocking up on tinned tuna and boxed wine for the big camping trip through Crocodile country and the Desert, and meeting my friend Hayley from the Snowies.

Kakadu National Park was great, and I have to admit being on a chartered tour with a guide who knows everything about the smallest bush, bird or Kangaroo pooh is a lot of fun!
First we watched the Crocodiles jumping on the mirky … river. Then we got welcomed by an aboriginal community and got shown some of their hunting techniques, cooking, weaving, painting and dancing and the good old didgeridoo. He told us that after his blessing we would face no harm during our time there, but mine was followed straight by a moskito bite. Maybe this one did not pay any attention to my blessing... We spent the afternoon at Ubirr Rock, the great Crocodile Dundee lookout and had our first night in camp. It was really ready set-up tents with beds in it and electricity and a kitchen tent with barbecue grill and all that comfort, but it was really good to get away from the usual hotels anyways. And the stars were amazing!

The next day was probably one of the best ones on the trip, we drove along dirtroads, picked up snakes on the way and had swims in beautiful waterholes on top of big waterfalls. Nobody had really expected that so we were all in the best moods. To finish off a day like that, what better could there be than a Rodeo-show in Katherine. Finally we could see some real men, riding all sorts of wild horses and Bulls, fierce fighting to win their points and get through to the finals. Dinner had to be kangaroo burger, of course! A brillant show, followed by one, or maybe ten cups of wine by the campfire underneath the stars...

The wheels on the bus keep rolling and we get closer to the centre. Next stop, Daly Waters, but not without visiting the impressive Katherine Gorge National Park. Boat cruising, canoeing, hiking, and everything finished off by another dip into the cool and refreshing water. Again I have to say how much I love Australia and this is certainly the best way to end our big journey!

Our lunchstop was at the Devils Marbles, the giant balls in the middle of nowhere, yet another great Kodak moment. It was funny going back to all these places that Beckie and I have been to before, but I have to say that I probably still enjoyed myself just as much as I did the first time! I was even happier that we were staying overnight at the Daly Waters Pub, that quirky place with Tshirts, Bras, Drivers licenses, and anything you can imagine stuck to the walls. We had a substantial meal – Burger with Fries again – and got asked to move up to the stage where this crazy guy with his chicken (sorry, it was really an eagle in disguise!) was performing his nightly show. Apparently he had been doing this for ybout 70 days in a row, just like us we thought. Very professionally we were singing along to the tunes of Waltzing Mathilda and had this way another kind of Welcome to the country ceremony. To be a real part of it, we were all sleeping underneath the stars, in swags. To those who don´t know what this is, it is like a sleeping bag, but bigger. You can put your sleeping bag inside, it´s got a mattress inside and can be zipped up all the way to the top, so that the snakes leave you alone. So that´s what we all did, after months of hotels, some better, some worse, some 0stars, some 4, and much to the delight of some and the horror of others, this was our only choice at Daly Waters. But everybody survived, and I thought it was absolutely great!

Back on the road, off to alice Springs. We got there just in time to stock up on alcohol, not the easiest thing to get there, due to the very strict laws in the Centre of Austrlia. You have to bring your passport as ID and are not allowed to buy more than one box of wine per person. And it is better to take a taxi to and from the Bottle-O which makes it quite a dear glass of Red. But after all these beers and Gin Tonics in Asia, there was really no way around it. And who wnats to sit around a campfire without a drop of booze in your hands... We had a very good Aussie Dinner at Bojangles Saloon, when my dear family spent the afternoon watching me online and even dedicating some songs, which was really good! I did not go for the 800g-Steak option, even if I would miss out on a Certificate for having eaten it, but had a very good Kangaroo and some Oysters instead.

The drive to Kings Canyon, about 5hrs southwest of Alice, was another real otuback adventure. We left the sealed roads and drove along the Larapinta Road for about 2 hrs, only stopping once to collect firewood for our next camp, and watch the sun going down...The views were great and I was happy sitting on the uncomfy front seat of the big 4 x 4 Truck and be able to see it all! And also, even though the roads were just as bumpy as the ones in Nepal, we were still driving twice as fast as there....

The camp in King´s Canyon was the best and we had some great Tucker. Honey-Apricot Chicken, cooked in the fire, and real Australian Damper. And swagging underneath the stars again...not before Andy and Tony chased for some more firewood, and because they couldnt find any, just stripped down a tree. It was dead though, but so is Andys leg now...

A beautiful walk around the top of the Canyon was waiting for us early in the morning, and we learned more about the aboriginal culture.

The Oz Bus crew at Mt. Bromo

Contemplating the beautiful Nature - overwhelming!


Hanging out with the Indonesian filmcrew: Director´s Chair at the shoot

Egypt in Indonesia ???

The Filmcrew

Action in the volcano crater!




walking around the crater - a very thin rim!


Meeting the locals on top of the volcano!



Bait - containers full of crickets, and a two-tailed Lizard.....


That´s the animal that always looks very scared and I think it can almost pop its eyes out!


Jungle Cat

Geckos in all forms and colours, lot´s of curiosities to see at the Bird´s Market in Yogyakarta!

The Shadow Puppet Show in Yogyakarta

Nightlife in Yogyakarta

Bonfire and BBQ at Pangandaran Beach

The Badminton Crew - the dude from the Badminton court who was pretty much smoking while were were nearly fainting from the hard workout....Anto, Tony, Me and Aki, our Japanese Champion!

Pro-Shot!

Fishermen at Pangandaran and a chinese Dragon with the german


Watching Germany vs. Argentina!

Anto, our tourguide, and his family

This is how we are supposed to do it!!


Passing through Jakarta

The Ferry from Sumatra to Java

Toasting the white skin


The truck should not have overtaken in a corner...

lunchbreak

The bus in Indonesia
Stopping at the Equator on Sumatra


After a long ferry trip where we and all the children on board had to watch movies of people being slaughtered in the middle of the day, we met Anto, our next guide, on the border and squeezed into a tiny bus – consicering that we had to spend the next 10 or so days on it. More than half of the bags had to go onto the inside of the bus and only tall man Andy had his own bench. All the others had to squeeze tactically next to each other.

It felt a bit like being back in Nepal, super bumpy roads, and service stations just like in India. So back on nuts and crisps, and let the belly grow! Tony and I found his game section on the computer, so we filled one or the other boring afternoon with battling Plants against Zombies, or I beat him in Battleship...still, we were driving all day long, the hotels were average or below, it was always dark when we arrived in the towns and there was no other places to eat around than KFC or Pizza Hut. We did not see any Oran Utans, what Sumatra is famous for, but crossed the Equator, probably the only highlight of this leg of the journey...

With the crossing to Java everyone already seemed to be lighting up a bit. A 3-hr ferry ride through sunny weather and a cup of Pop-Mie Noodlesoup in your hand. Downside of the first day on Java was the horrid traffic driving through Jakarta, and people being dissappointed not to stop there. I was quite happy not to, looking at these vast skyscrapers wherever you looked, it did not seemed like much of a system in where to build them, or you could not really make out one city centre anyways. It would probably take days to get an idea of where you are there, and we definately did not have any. One more stop before we would get to the promising beach resort of Pangandaran. Surfing, Snorkelling, Bodyboarding, and one day off the bus, yay!

The beach was actually quite grubby, but we had a great pool. It was some holiday in Indonesia and the town was packed with families. There was also the annual Harley Davidson reunion, so all these cool dudes with their pimped bikes were riding up and down the beachfront. There was a cleaner and whiter beach in a natural reserve with lots of monkeys around, and you had to be very careful not to be robbed of anything loose on your body. Watches, Glasses, Camerass, nothing was safe from the cheeky monkeys.

To celebrate our day off (and Germanys success against Argentina), we had an Irish-German drink-off, and we drank quite a lot of Bintang, and know now that it does not feel good in the morning! - and a very nice barbecue by the beach on our last night with fish, chicken, fruit and yet another large Bintang beer, or maybe 2...

Ready for the next round we got on the bus on our day 74 and bumped along to Yogyakarta, the cultural capital of Java, or even Indonesia. Shame on me, but I did not take part in the trip to Boroburur Temple, the worlds second oldest buddhist temple. I had good reasons though, first of all I have seen the oldest one three times already (Angkor), and secondly I was dying for another relaxing day and, another day off the bus. So a bit of relaxing, a good cup of Javanese Coffee, a bicycle-risckshaw trip through the crazy humble-tumble of that busy city to the Bird´s Market, a cetrainly different place to experience. Full of birds, bats, guinea pigs, mice, rabbits, dogs, cat, chicken, fish, and everyhting you can imagine or not, our cameras were yet again filled with loads of new fotos!

We were getting closer to Bali, but not before we would have climbed Mt. Bromo, one of Indonesias highest still active volcanoes and another highlight of our trip. So many days have Andy and Tony been talking about racing up, who is gonna win and who not, that it was almost classic that they did not even go together. Andy chose to get up with the early birds and see another unimpressive sunrise. We had a better sleep-in until 7 and a nice stroll to the volcano and up (maybe not so much of a stroll, after 2 months on a bus and about 2000m above sealevel, but sounds good anyways, haha!) Dramatic views from the rim of mt. Bromos crater, especially as at this time of the day most of the people have to catch up on some sleep after getting up at some crazy time in the morning and the place is a bit more deserted. You can still hear all the motorbikes and people trying to sell you transport because they think you look too unfit to climb up yourself from far away...

The love-triangle reunited in the afternoon to hire some bikes and race around the crater. That was definately great fun, felt a bit like riding ono the moon – not that I would know how that felt – but the ground was so sandy and slippery that you had to show some real biking skills, which I of course had much more than the other two (really?) … and off we went. We cruised around a bit until we reached the other side of Mt. Bromo, where an Indonesian TV team filmed an egyptian historical programme. As soon as they saw us weirdos on a bicycle they left their positions straight away and we were much more interesting than some Pharaohs strolling around Indonesians highlands. All the locals who were the usual spectators came to look at Andy, the tall man. After a bit of an introduction into Indonesian film production, which looked highly ineffective to be honest, and a bit of chatting we had to turn around and head back to the hotel, as we did not want to get lost in the middle of the volcano crater during sunset.

Unfortunately we would have to end a brillant day with a bit of a farewell party, one of our fellow passengers had to travel home unexpectedly, but we would see her again in Darwin, so it was not that bad in the end. A bit of chilling out on the chilly verandah of the beautiful hotel overlooking the volcanoes, before we had to pack for yet another day on the minibus in Indonesia. Early night, as some of the tough ones had to get up in the middle of the night to see Germany bein beaten by Spain.

The trip to Bali was just another day on the bus, small ferry for 45mins and another crappy lunchstop with Pop-Mie-Noodle in a cup hopefully for the last time of the journey.

Luckily saying goodbye to this bus would also mean saying goodbye to a DVD player and no more watching one episode of Heroes after the other. I can tell you, driving on a bumpy road whilst watching TV for hours is not good for your brain!

Bali was great, good nightlife again, great waves on the beach to play in. We did not make it very far away from Kuta Beach, but had some more relaxing days in the sun...

This is gonna be the end of Southeast Asia, what a journey!!! Heat, upset stomachs, long waits for food and people that just would not understand us, but on the other hand beautiful scenery, beautiful people, and lots of good impressions and memories that I would take with me and keep for a long time!