Travel report - Australia

- Melbourne / at the Zanonīs

- Victoria / on the road again

- South Australia

- South West Australia

- Westaustralia Perth-Broome

- The North Broome-Darwin

- Darwin to the Eastcoast

- Townsville to Lismore

- Lismore to Melbourne

Melbourne / at the Zanonīs 

for sure, after close to four months on the road it is good to take part at the homely live of the Zanonīs. By the chance another family (Darell, Angie, Daniel and Maja) are housed here to make all their preparation for the settling down in "down under". The time to the Landi arrival goes by fast in that real commune life with a lot of fun. The five kids become a dream team and it does not get bored. After the Darellīs finalized their camper and our family is united again our ways are separating after some exploring trips. The Darellīs are heading to the north and we to the West.

Victoria / on the road again

so we start our Aussie tour along the "great Ocean Road" heading torwards west. We did not have this coastal part as beautiful as it is- the weather is great and the freecamps just perfect. Full of optimistic we are driving more to the inland, to The Grampians. But the big drautgh has caught this area already. All we get seen for a few days is brown land, dry water storages and burned forest. So we can pay all our attention to the faszinating wildlife. With the drought in the nack we flee torwards the coast, where our Landy gets some excersises at the lonlely and beautiful beaches, but that is an other story...

South Australia

right on the beginning we got surprised by South Australia with amazing, lonely and mile long beaches which enjoyed our landy as well as we did. The temperatures are scratching at the 50 degree mark- bushfires are on the daily time table. After passing the wineries from Adelaide and the York Peninsula where we find lovely beaches again we are heading to the Nullarbour Plain (lat.: no tree) to the west. Right in the middle of this 200.000 square km plain South Australia said farewell to us with an thunderstorm for adults only (from 1:00 to 7:00am). Just the roadtrains are higher than we are... 

South-Westaustralia

Landy- we love you !! Just because of you, we are able to see and explore the bit touristy south-west of Australia the way we like. On sandy tracks we are floating from one bay to the next which invites us to stay for longer. What else can top a family breaky at such an incomparable scenery. Further inland we get surprised by the color GREEN which we have not seen for a long time. Even the rivers and creeks are carrying something wet. The quickly changing of the temperatures (daily hights between 15 and 45°) keep the outdoor life interesting. 

Westaustralia - Perth to Broome
For sure there are milelong and lonely dreamy beaches around here as well. But further inland- in the outback- the country gets its third dimension. Beside length and widths the height joins. Even if we are talking just about a few hundred meters - the rough rocks are a welcome change to the scenery.  To the red rocks we get light brown and fresh green to see. There is even freshwater to be found in the gorges of Westaustralia which cools us down from the nice temperatures (ten days in a row with more than 40 degree - sometimes over 45 - in the shade of course) The partly rough tracks we use to travel do not just blow up the one or other tire, they even break our shockies. Most of the days get topped with an amazing sunset.

P.S.: Just a matter of fact for better understanding what lengths and widths means here:

The North - WA / NT from Broome to Darwin
Although the general speaking means to be a bit crazy to travel the North this time a year, we are really enjoying the country in the wet season. Green hot and humid. No day below the 40, and if so the high humidity of about min. 99,99% makes us real sweaty- so we prefer the 40 and over. Just a pity that we got banned to the sealed roads more often than liked and we have to keep the exploring from the closed tracks for a later point of time. So we are enjoying the brise during our drive on the lonely highways and take a look to the full rivers with their Crocs at the great wide countryside.

P.S.: You might find a  caravan on the one or other pic-it belongs to  Ian- our shadow.

Darwin to the Eastcoast
3500km outback, thatīs what this part of the journey means to us, but finally "we made it" to the eastcoast. To make this part a bit more exciting to us we decided to make the "Gulf-Savannah" track. To be honest- this time a year might not be the right time of the year to make a comfortable ride, but.... Ankle, knee- and finally hip-deep, that is how we find the rivercrossings and we have to turn by after about 100kīs dirt. FINALLY: A Landi snorkels - a caravan swims.

Townsville to Lismore
To be honest, the first little towns we get in after weeks of isolation make us real busy. A busy shopping mall is challenging for us in the same way as the traffic on the highways (at least two (!!) lanes - seald) for landy. But there are nice freecamps to be explored at great temperatures- we just feel perfect!! We try to enjoy the last few thousand k's to Melbourne as much as possible, but at a not planned  pitstop in Lismore we had to make experiences we did not needed.
 

Lismore to Melbourne
After the pitstop an a few relaxed days in Byron we are real scared how fast we get back to our travel rhythm. So we enjoy the days of the last travel part, and get slowly down to Sydney, in rain this time. Just the last stretch (1200k's) get made in one attempt, and we are back to Melbourne right before the Easter bunny. After 24.691k's in down under we are back at the Zanon's.