Australia (Part 2/5) - Western Australia

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2012

Perth: Searching for a car

For the first time since I'm here in Australia, I've eaten so much that my stomach was completely filled! I was in a Chinese restaurant and had a plate of a big half of baked duck
with a big pot of rice… it was soooo delicious :D mmmmhhhhh!!!

I had another tough day with a lot of walking and searching for a car in the hot heat today. There weren’t many cars in the category I was looking for. But I have now a newspaper where lots of advertisements for cars are published – and I contacted already two of them and made appointments for tomorrow and Sunday. Hopefully one of them is somehow useable…….^^



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2012

Perth: The car is bought now

I finally bought the car! Its the Mitsubishi Pajiero 4wd, 1994, petrol, inclusive ski roof carrier :D! It was such a stressful day and I started it in the early morning. Originally I wanted to go to Rottnest Island to relax and enjoy the sun, but on the way, I called the car dealer for a discount on the car and so, therefore, I got the discount and so I definitely said I will buy it. But it was so stressful, cause I had to run from one corner to the other. From the bank to the hostel, getting the passport, back to the bank. Rushing from the bus station to bus station until I found the right station. To the garage, then back to the hostel and back to the garage. After midday, I recognized that I didn’t have anything eaten the whole day. It was 2pm when I finally had the car in my hands and then I straight drove to the next best food court… :D!

Afterward I went to IKEA in Perth :D! As the car does not have any bed or any kitchen stuff inside, I had to obtain these things. The difficult part in this is, that I somehow have to construct a living room in the car – and this is not easy, especially cause I'm not a mechanic nor a good in hand working kinds of stuff :D! Well, in IKEA I bought a foldable mattress, pillow, a blanket, a little wooden table, and other little things. But honestly, if this is somehow going to be a bed finally, then I'm a stupid lucky guy with a huge amount of luck!

Tomorrow I have to get some camping gear, kitchen stuff, and some electric parts. It's going to be another exhausting but definitely a funny great day :D! Hopefully, also tomorrow, I can start building and constructing my driving living room!



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2012

Perth: Preparation of the Pajiero

So much happened again here and I'm glad that I can go to sleep soon! I've spent nearly the whole day in shopping malls to get all the camping gear and other stuff, which I need for the road trip. It was like I had to buy stuff for a new and empty apartment :D! There were so many little things that I didn’t think about on my “things-i-need” checklist, but I recognized what I really need when I walked around the aisles in the mall. And finally I'm pretty sure, that I forgot a lot of things which I may need when it's probably too late …! After I was finished shopping I parked the car somewhere and started to remove the backseats in the car. It took me 2 stupid hours until I got rid of them and in the end, I had to work with a torch and by now I have some bloody wounded fingers..! The back seats are still in my car and somehow I have to think about how I get rid of them completely…J!

Another problem I had to face with the official registration of the car and so on. Because of that, the car dealer called me cause he urgently needs some documents from me to complete the registration. After I emailed these to him, he called me again that it is not finished yet and that the registration dept wants the original documents. So tomorrow early I have to go there.

Also tomorrow early morning I have to check out from the hostel and from then on, I'm just with my “driving living room” which isn’t really prepared yet for check in…. :D! Soo tomorrow there waits another huge amount of work for me. Also I'm not sure yet, if I already will leave Perth tomorrow or if I first should plan all the detailed routes and next destinations carefully! Also, I don’t have bought any food yet for the trip, nor do I know where and how I should store them in the car. Argh!



SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2012

Geraldton: Driving on sand dunes

Right now sitting in McDonald's (yes, again McDonald's, but at least they have WiFi connection) in Geraldton. The last "bigger" city before no-mans land. The McDonalds will be the last one for the next 1000 or more kilometers.

The scenery is awesome. I just drove about 500 kilometers to the north from Perth, but its already such a stunning view along the coast. As far the eye can see is just beach and white sand hills close to the water. This morning I decided to drive along the beach and it was funny to drive up and down the sand hills in 4wd mode:)

Yesterday I ended up driving into the night, which made me a little bit afraid. Everybody told me not to do this because it's so dangerous that kangaroos are crossing the streets when its dark. Thankfully nothing happened. Later the evening I stopped somewhere to test my camp shower...! Its a shower - or a big bag - which you have to fill with water, hang it up somewhere and turn on the tab. hahaha.. as I didn't have a tree, I had to hang it on the roof of my car and therefore I nearly had to sit on the ground to use the shower... argh.. and it was pretty cold at night combined with the cold freezy coastal wind it wasn't such a pleasure. But at least I was clean afterward! This was the second night I slept in my car. It's actually very comfortable. Also, the waking up beside the beach in the early morning sun is awesome!
Now I have to go to the supermarket and buy some meat to put in my ice filled coolbox. Then I will leave to the Kalbari Nationalpark. It's about 200 km from here....



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Exmouth: The desert and the dingo

It's so nice and special just sitting here somewhere outside on my chair beside the car in „I don't know“ outside of any civilization and just had my dinner from my grill.. hmmm. For the first time, I had kangaroo meat :D! But it was not bad! As expected! Actually, it was pretty good! It was like a mixture of deer and beef. My main goal today was driving so close to the next “bigger” city so that I have again GPS connection.. :D. Thankfully I have also very low internet connection. After waking up at 5.30am and having something for breakfast, I detected a few kangaroos about 60metres from me. And two of them were fighting .. maybe they made some jokes about the stupid tourist in the Pajiero and couldn’t decide which joke was better, so they got mad..haha!

Today I drove about 600 kilometers through the Australian desert and it was damn hot even with a/c in the car. Well, yesterday about…

Uiii right now was a dingo (wild dog) walking beside my car! I just heard something and in the dark, I figured out it was something like a dog! I think he was as shocked as I was … I stood up with my notebook and walked with the light of the notebook towards him then he got scared and walked away. Two minutes later he came back from another side. So I did the same and made some noise then he walked away again… ! Somehow uncomfortable - especially cause there was in the news some time ago, that a German tourist got injured by dingos!

Ok back to writing:D! Nooo, there he is again….

Soo now 10 minutes later, after cleaning my teeth I moved in my sleeping room of the car… :D! Even these dingos are just dogs, I don’t trust them… cause when they hunt in a pack, they go after kangaroos or cows. So I definitely do better in my car :D



FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, 2012

Broome: Driving 100km without Oil..

Now its about 9pm and I'm already lying in my comfortable bed in the paji, after I had my super duper 350 gram beef steak from the bbq grill:D.

Well, as said already I had a tough day. I got up at 5:30 too and continued the driving to the next destination, the “80-mile beach”. Yesterday when I was in the mall to get some food, I noticed the discounted fishing gear. And as I didn’t have any fishing gear, I decided to get that stuff to learn how to fish J! Finally, I bought a 3.2 meters fishing rod ..haha. They told me it is good for shore fishing. Yeah.. well it was a very cheap one – for 35 dollars. Soo I wonder if I will catch any fish. Therefore my next destination was the 80-mile beach, which is famous for fishing from the shore.

Actually, on the way to there, I got the first troubles with the car. It seemed that somehow it run out of oil, and I noticed about 100 kilometers later, that there is some clicking sound from the front of the car. I didn’t hear it because I had the earplugs in and was listening to music. After figured out that It was definitely the oil which was empty, I had to get some oil immediately. But that wasn’t that easy as at home or in a city. The next gas station was 80 kilometers away.. !!!! So I stopped a car on the street and asked them for some oil! But they didn’t have any and instead they gave me a lift to the next gas station. After buying it, I stopped a car again in the other direction, to get me back to the paji. Thank god! It seems that I saved its life in the last moment. By now, 100 km’s further, the car seems again to work pretty well …. Cool, isn’t it :D??



MONDAY, OCTOBER 1, 2012

Cape Leveque: A very nice cape

I'm in Cape Leveque and its somewhere at the coast north of Broome. I will get up early tomorrow morning and drive back to Broome, to get the highway to Derby – the next bigger city. Up here it is so awesome and especially the white sandy beach is incredible to drive along! The cliffs along the cape are deep red and look like as it is tinted red manually by the aboriginals. Also, the 150 km drive up here was special. It was just sand road and doable with a 4wd. So it was good practice to experiment with the different gears functions and the tire pressures. So the paji did a good job until yet :D





TUESDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2012

Derby: The poor little Owl

Yesterday evening, it was just about 8pm, when I drove back to Broome, I knew that I hit an owl with my car on the way. I hoped that it was dead because I hit her really bad. And an injured owl is like a dead owl in the wilderness. Well, she was dead! When I got up this morning and cleaned my teeth, I walked around my car and in the front between the bullbar, there was hanging this poor little owl.. haha! But it was not that funny to get the owl out from there! Also when I woke up this morning I was little bit shocked when I looked out of my window. There were some horses walking around the car – just about 10 meters away..:)!

My plan for the next few days is getting from here (Derby) to Kununurra, which is a distance of 700km on the famous Gibb River Road and just recommended for 4wd, cause there are river crossings and soft sand roads with rocks and mud. My biggest hope is that the car will do it and that the fuel, that I have with me, is enough. Also, I have absolutely no idea how many days it will take to get there. I know that there is no wifi nor mobile access. I hope to be at the end of the road in 3-4 days!




FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2012

Gibb River Road: Fishing between Saltwater Crocodiles

Yeah, I finished the Gibb River Road today. It was pretty tough (for me and the Pajiero)and honestly, I didn’t believe that the paji will make it all the way along that well. But he did :D ! I'm now in Kununurra and have to give the paji a little service with an oil change. Hopefully, that’s all he needs.

Now I'm sitting in a coffee shop and just sipped on my coffee late. Besides, there is a little piece of chocolate and I munched it immediately. It tastes soo good – I didn’t have chocolate for about one week :D!

Yesterday I stayed at a campground beside the Gibb River Road, and they had a huge area which included a remote area, right to a saltwater river. And it had crocs in there – saltwater crocs :)! The funny thing is, they actually let you camp right beside that river :D! I arrived yesterday there and several times I heard some loud splashes from the river and when I went watching, once I saw a croc hunting a bird! This morning I went fishing at that river. I stood up at 5:30am, so that nobody was awake and could see me fishing, as I knew how a newbie like I would handle the rod… haha! Unfortunately, after 2 minutes there was a fish on the hook. I was shocked a little bit, cause honestly, I hoped that there won't bite any. I was shocked cause I didn’t know what to do now!!! Last year I was fishing several times in holiday – but just from a boat, and with other people who know what to do. Sooooo there was this fish on the hook today. What's next ?:)! Of course, kill it! This part I also did while fishing before, but the next parts were absolute “what the hell now?”! All I could figure out was, that it was a catfish! So I washed it and my next intention was to disembowel it. Then put it on the ice and eat it for dinner! Sounds easy :D! Actually, I had to give up at the part “disembowel” it. I did not know how to disembowel a catfish, nor which part of it I can eat. Nor wasn’t I prepared well, as I didn’t have ice anymore in the icebox! The poor end was, that I dumped the dead fish back to the croc-river. That’s a sad story – I know. But now I know that I have to learn much more about fishing than I thought….!

Fishing in a Saltwater Crocodile River.
Fishing in a Saltwater Crocodile River




My route around Australia:


Indicates the route around Australia with things to see in each place.
Route around Australia


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