ahhhhh so much to tell...
so where was i?
o right - Melbourne. I rented a camper-van with Will and Ceren - very cool and funny dutch people. The van's name was "Blow me" (as you can see on the following photo) and we rode it through the great ocean road and the Grampions NP. These are the main attractions on the southern coast of Australia. The "great ocean road" coast line is full of spectacular beaches and phenomenas. We took our time visiting every site possible along the road and at the nights slept at the van. It has an integral bed which was very very cosy for 3 people... especially because i slept in the middle. The bed can turn into a dining table or flat surface for luggage and at the back we had a practical kitchen. On the outside, the van was full of hilarious sketches! :)

the WICKED van









*many more great photos of the great ocean road - at my flickr photo album!

The Grampions NP is a large forest reserve full of kangaroos, koalas, wallabies and amazing birds. Since Australia is at it's worst drought ever, we only got to see one waterfall....


a kangaroo - if you'll look closely you can see why i believe he's the king of the jungle! *hint - it's hanging right next to his left leg


Mc Kenzie falls


Mt. William view point


Ceren and Will chilling next to "Blow me". you can see the kitchen on the back.

Before heading into Adelaide, we did a 2 days road trip around the city at "Adelaide hills". That's where i ate my first kengaroo stake! my favorite meat! how come no one told me kangaroo's are soo tasty?!? i'm seriously thinking of importing some kangaroos to israel for collinear purposes :)
Adelaide is the most southern city of Australia, located in the middle of the southern coast. Although it doesn't offer a backpacker like myself a lot of budget attractions, i found it very appealing with it's old structures, food market and parks.
I stayed there for 2 nights and then started heading north - to the OUTBACK!


King street


aboriginal street show

I assume most of you don't know, but although australia is a big continent - much larger then the Europe for example, it's a home to only 20 million people. Over 95% of the population is concentrated as far as 500km from the coast because the rest is an endless wild desert.
From Adelaide i took a 7 days 3000 km tour to the heart of the desert - a town called Alice Springs. We were 17 people and 2 too laid back guides.
Between the good meals and long hours of driving we got to see the special terrain of the desert, colorful sand, dry salt lakes, strange springs, ruined towns, wild animals and impossible amounts of flies - my god the flies! i swear I almost lost my mind over there!
The primery sites of the tour were:
Coober Pedy - a town of Opal (a gem stone) miners. all the people in town leave underground to avoid the heat of the desert. even their church is underground!!
the Uluru (Ayers rock) - the famous red rock in the center of Australia. not as impressive as they make you think.
the Olgas - amazing group of 36 great red rocks right next to Uluru
Kings kenyon - the best part of the tour. huge red kenyon build up in layers of rocks. hard to explain but very special!


the desert - housends of miles of roads like that





one of the campsites.
at the nights we usually slept in camping sites in a thing called SWEG. it's a combination of a sleeping bag and a metrace. since it was filthy and stinky, i wasn't so surprised to know i was attacked by BED BUGS!! it's a bug which walks all ever your body while you're asleep and leaves you with hundreds of extremely itchy stings!!!!


a typical Coober Pady house...


Uluru - look how bad the weather was. we had rain on 5 of 7 days of the tour! a desert - yeah right!


Kings canyon


a desert frog in Kings canyon


Kings canyon

We arrived Alice Springs on the 22/3. i didn't expect to see a normal green town in the middle of the desert... It's very relaxed - exactly what I needed after this week of beraly sleeping. I went to see the the flying doctors, Anzak hill and the lizard center - which was awesome!


the lizard center


Anzak hill - town view

3 days later I took a flight to Cairns - my favorite city on this whole trip!
After all the yellow and red i've seen in the desert, Cairns area looked extremely green! It's located on the north side of the eastern coast and surrounded by a rain forest. The nature all around the city actually reminded me of Laos - savage green hills. On the flight i met Alina. A 24 years old german girl whom travels on her own. We were traveling together and having great time since then!
Cairns itself is very touristic. It's full of bars, restaurants, coffee shops, internet cafes, travel agencies etc. My favorite part of the city is the "lagoon". Since the ocean here is full of crocodiles, you can't really go to the beach. The lagoon is meant to replace it. With golden sand, clean water and attractive topless girls - it's everything you're looking for in a beach! :)


arriving cairns


the lagoon


well, a frog in the lagoon

I took this amazing diving course in cairns. It was 5 days: 2 in a class and a pool and 3 on a boat. The guides were very professional and we used top of the line equipment. I must say that past diving experiences caused me to doubt my ability to enjoy diving cause I used to have troubles "equalizing" my ears therefore have sharp ears pain. But this course gave me all the "tools" i needed to cope this problem.
Our boat was very comfortable, clean and roomy. even more importantly, the food was the best I had since I left home!!!! I celebrated every meal (or tea time) and regretted it later when I needed to fit into my wet suit :)
About 100 km east to Australia there's the Great Barrier Reef - by far the largest and most diverst reef in the world. We sailed to a distant reserve on the reef and did our practices. I saw sooo much stuff!! never though i'll ever see a shark and actually swim towards it instead of running away! (or at least swimming really hard to the other direction :) ) besides sharks I saw lots of sweet turtles, "Nemos", huge crabs, gorgeous corals and shells, stingrays and much more! I was soo thrilled when I got my qualification! unfortunately, the underwater disposable camera I bought was crap so I don't really have decent underwater photos...


all geared up and ready next to the pool


the great barrier reef


ocean sunset




my diving class - awesome people!

When i got back from the diving course, Alena and i took a tour up to cape tribulation - the wilderness of rain forest and solitude beaches. Alena don't have much more time so we took just a day tour. In this forest there are lots of swamps, great rivers which are full of alligators, waterfalls and it spreads all the way to the beach!


alligators searching in Daintree river - no luck...


Justina, Alena and me at Cape Tribulation beach (if it's not clear enough - Alena is in the middle... yeah she's very tall :) )


port Douglas resort

From Cairns we started heading south. After a night stop in Townsville (yes! that's where the power puff girls live!!!) and total of 11 hours of buss ride, we got to Airlie beach. The demographic statistics of this town is: 90% of the people are 18-25 years old, 80% tourists, 60% girls, 80% of the girls are simply gorgeous! well, at least that's my statistics :)
We took a 2 days cruise to the Whitsundays - bunch of breath taking islands close by.
It was a sport sail boat for 20 people. We did some snorkeling, sun bathing, island strolling and high speed sailing while the boat is shifted to impossible angles!
On the second day we arrived to a beach called White Heaven - it truly deserves the name...


Airlie beach lagoon - it's such a good concept!


Airlie beach harbor. our boat is the red one.








While Heaven beach


While Heaven beach

Yesterday I split from Alina. Just when I though i'll be alone I ran into Ceren (the Dutch girl I rented the van with) and Victor (a guy from the outback tour) - It's just not possible to be alone over here :)
Today i'm heading further south to Harvey Bay and on monday i'm going on a 3 days 4WD jeep trip in Frasier island - must be great!

I never realized how much I wanted to be in Australia. Being here was like a dream I didn't know about. At the 6th grade the theme of our english lessons were all about Australia and now I get to see all the special things in person - i love it!