Jan De Roeck
Hi there!JDR
I started my travels in January 2006 in Hong Kong. The plan was to travel through South East Asia, Australia, New Zealand and South America. Unfortunately I got ill in Australia and was forced to return home.
After 2.5 months at home, I did a little 'try out tour' in the Balkans before leaving again for New Zealand, Fiji and Australia.
Take care,
Jan
"Not all those who wander, are lost" (Tolkien)
Travel Blog Posts
January 27th 2007
Yes I'm back in Belgium 1 year and 20 days after I left the first time. And all though the trip didn't really go just like I planned it, I had the time of my life. I had the privilege to spend a year doing the things I like doing best in life: travelling, sports and reading/learning new stuff. In 10 months I travelled through 18 countries in 3 continents using busses, cars, trains, boats, rafts, elephants, planes, horse/oxen kart, bicycles, motorbikes, tuk tuks, rickshaws, cable karts, skateboard, etc... Basically almost any transport I know (except maybe a rocket all though going down the mountains on a bus in Asia must be a similar experience). I've been doing sports almost every day: hiking (trekking, tramping, bushwalking or whatever you call it), scuba diving, queuing in Asia ... read more
January 27th 2007
Melbourne So we were back in Melbourne and hoped to see some games at the Australian Open that had just started. However the day before most games had been cancelled because of the heat and there had been no refunds. Moreover there was no one 'interesting' playing that day. Interesting being either beautiful (Sharapova for me and Nadal for Marijke) or Belgian (Only the here incredibly popular Clijsters was left after all the guys messed up and the not so very popular Henin (cf. 'faking'?? a stomach infection in the final last year ) stayed home). So we only saw the games on television. We went to pick up our new rental car in the evening and we were planning our trip to the Snowy Mountains where I wanted to climb the highest mount in Oz, ... read more
January 16th 2007
As we were both getting fed up with travelling on the much too heavily trodden Australian backpackers trail and started thinking about going home there was Tasmania... Tasmania is the small island under the Australian main land. It's one of the few the place left in the world with some real wilderness. It also has the cleanest air in the world...and it is still off the radar of most of the 'life's a party backpackers crew' so this place was ideal for us to build up some steam to finish our trip. We had found some relatively cheap flights and decided to rent a car. As dumbo here forgot his driver's licence at home Marijke would have to do all the driving... As soon as we arrived it was clear we were going to like this ... read more
January 10th 2007
A big reunion and the Flinders Ranges In September 2005 we travelled through South Africa. 3 weeks we were together with the great Patterson family ( Jon, Rosalie and daughter Bronte) from Australia. At that time I was planning my world tour and they said that if I was in Oz, I had to visit them and we would 'go bush'. Everything was planned for our visit in July when I ended up in the hospital and had to cancel all our plans. However this time we did make it to Adelaide and it was great to see them again. Marijke and I were surprised that it was a 2.5 hr drive to Port Broughton where Jon and Rose live. They told us they live 'near Adelaide' but in a country like Australia 200 km is ... read more
December 28th 2006
Brisbane After leaving NZ and before going to Fiji, we spent 1 day in Brisbane. We were invited over to the place of Gabriel, a (former) Belgian, who has lived in Oz for over 20 years. In the evening we had a Belgian/Oz BBQ with some other Belgians who came to live here. It was a lot of fun but with some interesting discussions (Belgian politics for expats, Where's the oldest Manneke Pis in Belgium?? It's in Geraardsbergen btw). 10 days later we arrived back from Fiji in Brisbane. This is the place where I ended up in the hospital almost exactly 6 months ago. The place brought back a lot of bad memories for Marijke and me. More over we ended up in hostel (Tinbilly: Don't go there) with really unfriendly (non-Australian) staff, so we ... read more
December 19th 2006
When we were planning this Australia/NZ trip Marijke had one specific wish: spend some time on the beaches in Fiji. So we booked some tickets to fly over there from Australia. However on our first day in NZ I had a look in the newspaper and one of the headlines was 'Fiji coup threats'. Great! We kept checking the news as we travelled through NZ and it seemed that the coup was going to take place in the first week of December when the military's ultimatum ran out. We were to fly over on 6th December...Perfect timing. On 2nd December the ultimatum was not reached and everyone expected the coup to happen. However that day there was the yearly big rugby game between the military and the police so they decided to postpone the coup for ... read more
December 5th 2006
After leaving Queenstown we started heading towards the North Island again. In Christchurch we said goodbye to Stephanie and Michael who we had travelled with and had a great time with the last 3 weeks. Christchurch The 2nd largest city of NZ after Auckland but before the capital Wellington. Not much spectacular here. A cute city with some nice 'old' (we Europeans are so spoilt) buildings, a river running trough the centre of town, an interesting arts centre and beautiful botanical gardens. I finally had time for some reading and to get up to date with my travel notes. Marijke went shopping for Xmas presents. Kaikoura Kaikoura is all about sea mammals. Dolphins, seals and whales are the big stars around there. The whale watching is supposed to be very good... but ridiculously expensive (and we ... read more
November 22nd 2006
We survived the ferry crossing to the South Island and in pouring rain we had to run to our bus. The ferry hadn't been too bad. Just 1/2 hour delay. A couple of days earlier the normally 3 hour journey had taken 9 hours and almost everybody had been throwing up. As by miracle an hour after we arrived the skies started to clear and by the time we reached Abel Tasman National Park the sun was shining. Abel Tasman NP This NP is supposed to be one of the sunniest places in NZ. It was also while we were there. We chose to go for a good long coastal hike. I would take out the first taxi boat in the morning and walk all the way back. Marijke took a later boat to a point ... read more
November 12th 2006
Greetings from New Zealand the land 'under down under'. Flying over here was the longest journey ever for me. 4 flights + transit took us about 42 hours. The time difference (12 hrs) made that we arrived in Auckland on Wednesday evening after having left Brussels on Monday afternoon. I love the Qantas flights though, good food and a great entertainment system (about 60 movies to choose from). The film 'No man's land' on the Bosnian war was a great link with my previous travels, while the great 'An inconvenient truth' from Al Gore was very actual in my next destination Australia where one farmer after the other goes out of business because of the droughts there. X men 3 was pure entertainment with a great Aussie actor... Auckland The economical capital of NZ is not ... read more
October 25th 2006
Trying to get back to the EU (Slovenia) was a bit of a problem. There seemed to be only one bus per day to Ljubljana from that part of Croatia...at 6 am. It was my lucky day as that day the bus broke down. I had to take 3 local buses and instead of 3.5 hours it was now a 7 hour trip. At the border the officer was investigating my passport really carefully again. He kept asking me if I was really Jan. "Yes... yes... yes... YES!!!". "But you look so much like a Russian"... That's new. I had gotten used to people in Europe asking me if I was from Poland (I have been addressed in Polish all over Europe), but now I'm promoted/degraded to be a Russian. Eventually after he had checked all ... read more
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