Report No 1

The last few days in Switzerland were rather busy but not too stressful. The kids could go down to Ascona to their grandparents for two days leaving us some time to finish off in Ottenbach.

Heinz, Maria and Roberto took us and allllll our luggage to the airport in Milan. (A big thank you to you!!!)

The flight – oh well – was loooong. The kids did really well.

The first few days in Australia have been busy, we don’t really feel like we’re actually on holiday… which we aren’t… we’re travelling!!

We were very lucky to arrive in Melbourne and be taken to our vehicles- a Toyota Hilux and the Jayco Eagle camper trailer.

Oli, Natasha’s brother had organised everything in advance! Another huge thank you to him!!! - it saved us lots of time (and nerves). So we were welcomed by Oli and family at the airport. It was really great to see them all after such a long time! We spent 4 lovely days in Melbourne (lovely because of the company, not the weather ;-) with lots of running and driving around, getting the camper (which was empty) equipped for the trip and getting lots of little things done before heading on. After a few tears we said goodbye to the Zimmis in Melbourne and left them early Wednesday morning (30/10/2013 at 4 am) to head up north in direction of Canberra.

Our first encounter with a kangaroo was a very exciting one, and one no one will forget too soon: We were driving on the highway and all looking out. Then this kangaroo runs right in front of our car - Alex brakes and hoots and white smoke appears from the tires, the kangaroo obviously panics and turns around to run straight back towards our car - it then slips 1 m in front of our tyres and then gets back onto it’s feet and hops off over to the other side of the highway where it just misses a motorcyclist!!! Amazingly it survived the crossing of the highway and the kids saw their first kangaroo!

We stopped in a national park near Albury after many hours in the car. We set up our camper trailer for the first time with awning and found spaces for all the bags and things lying around. We were all alone in this lovely park (Mt Lawson NP) and we enjoyed the first night in the bush, although it was freezing!! In the middle of the night Alex went to get all his clothes out of the car and the towels to use as blankets. The temperature dropped to 6° Celsius inside the camper. Later Nati had to raid the washing bag for some more layers! We have never been so cold in our lives … thank goodness the kids have good sleeping bags, so they were OK.

We spent 2 nights there, did our first school session and went for a 4WD drive which was good fun. After another cold night (5°C) we packed up our camper and left the camp. We headed up north very slowly, the roads were very steep (uphill with 30 km/h, downhill using the brakes) and curvy as we were crossing the Australian Alps. (Earlier we told our kids that in Australia it's gonna be hot, flat and brown - well the first week was COLD, very hilly and mountainous and the grass was usually really green!!!)

After a strenuous day in the car we arrived in Canberra by our friends, Popeye, Permenthri and their boys. We got a hearty welcome there too and a lovely dinner. We spent 2 nights with them. Popeye and Oscar showed us around Canberra and took us to a science museum (Questacon) which we all enjoyed!

After visiting the capital of the country we moved on to Sydney (04/11/2013), where we spent 2 nights in a Big 4 campground, which was already a bit of a ‘shock’ to our system after camping all alone in the national park.

From Manly Wharf (Sydney) we took the ferry and visited the Opera House, which was really impressive. Slowly even Luca believes we’re in Australia! Unfortunately Laila was not too well, somehow she must have picked up a tummy bug and was a bit under the weather, sleeping every now and again and running to the toilet. From Sydney we drove up to the Myall Lakes NP and found another beautiful spot to camp. Seems like Luca has taken over from Laila, he was in a bad way and spent the whole day in bed with a bucket next to him L He even missed out on our second school session! Alisha was doing very well and is still happy to work for school.

At that campsite we had friendly visitors coming by every now and again - monitors (up to a metre long).

Luca still being interested in fishing, went to a fisherman to chat a bit. He came back with our dinner-to-be, a big blackfish J.

Unfortunately the tummy bug didn’t just disappear. Alex was next spending the whole day in bed sleeping. Natasha kept the kids busy with school, rainforest walk and beach. Luca again “hooked up” to some fishermen and spent 2 hrs watching and learning from them.

After 3 nights at Myall Lakes NP we packed up and carried on our journey up north. We stopped in Port Macquarie for a picnic lunch on the beach and a visit to the Koala Hospital for all the koalas found injured by the roads or elsewhere. An interesting visit and a good possibility to see the koalas really close. We headed on to the Arikoon NP and found a spot at Trial Bay Campground. There we had a lovely safe beach for the kids in the bay and hot showers and a laundry (which is also needed every now and again with 5 people).

Next we visited the Australian Zoo from Steve Irwin. A very nicely kept Zoo on a high level. We all enjoyed it very much and spent a full day there (and plenty of money :-)
Camping close by was a bit adventurous. Even so it was dark already when we 'arrived', we didn't want to go to a nasty caravan park just to get rid of some money. So we just went to the Glasshouse Mountain NP and set up our trailer. Next morning a film crew arrived and we had something like 50 people around us. (Äääähhhhhmmm the film crew didn't come because of us :-)
However, after the Australian Zoo we had to find an other place to be, as camping was actually prohibited! But we found a lovely spot at a view point in the Glasshouse Mountain area - free of charge :-)

November 12th, 2013: We arrived at Hervey Bay and got ready for up to 14 days on Fraser Island. This means getting permits, food, water, petrol and the last little things for the car and for the camper trailer.
After a new air-filter was fitted, the transmission-shafts were greased (Alex is very happy with his grease-pump), tyres and engine checked, we were ready to take the ferry to Fraser Island.

Hervey Bay, November 14th, 2013

P.S.: It is rather difficult to get a decent internet connection! Meaning that we are hardly accessible via Skype, Whatsapp, ...

Bandicoot in Melbourne.