Down Under....no worries mate

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Hey you all,

Finally some news from down under. First impression of Perth, nice and very clean!

I stayed in the city 4 days, enjoyed a Hoegaarden in the Belgian Beer Café, walked around the city, chilled in the nice park and then I started a trip up to Exmouth, north off Perth. This was an organized trip. The cost would be almost similar and for some areas you just need good 4*4 transportation.
We took off with a group off +/- 20 people. The first 5 days visited the Pinnacles (see picture), sand boarding on dunes, nice walks to the bottom of the Canyon (and up of coarse..) in Kalbary National park. Great views, nice walks and hot: 38C! All good, but then in there are the flies in W Australia. I started to feel like a cow! They come in your mouth, ears, nose…. every opening is OK for them…. Anyway after a while you get used to it. So beside the hike, I did some abseiling (see picture) walking down a rock +/- 30m. I’m not really keen on heights so was pretty nervous. Beside all these exciting things, a lot of nice beaches during the first 5 days, dolphins, snorkeling with 2 big sea-turtles and while following one turtle a 1.5m long Black Tip Reef Shark passed by. Really nice, but they are so fast. I could follow it for max 30sec. These sharks are not aggressive:totally safe. Then we did a quick stop in Monkey Mia. Famous for the dolphins. However to me the Pelicans were cooler. Was not really impressed by the dolphins as they just come because people give food every day, so commercial stuff…. Nicer if you can C them in open sea I guess. After a couple off relaxing days in Coral Bay. I started another trip from Exmouth (+/- 150km north off Coral bay) back to Perth via Karijini National park (http://www.hdenis.com/WA3.html ) were we stayed 3 days in tents or just on a mattress under the sky. One snake passed our dinning table @ night and the day after we saw a death adder, you better don’t mess with that one! The aboriginal woman @ the information desk said she never say one in 15 years she was there. So in terms of wildlife it was already a success. Something else which is really impressive is the Australian Wedge-tailed eagle …..2.5m if he spreads his wings…one of the biggest eagles on earth. And then you have also the kangaroo he. Seen loads, alive and death. A lot get killed by trucks @ night. As they can’t see very well they tend to jump away from there own shadow, so if a truck is coming they just jump towards the truck instead of jumping away. Not the smartest animals on earth.

The last 5 days were to me far better then the first 5, the group was great, good hikes magnificent views and great waterfalls. On one of the hikes we had to go above a stream via a spider walk (2 cliffs are so close to each other and a stream is at the bottom so the only way to get trough it is by using arms and legs to get to the other side to reach a refreshing pool.) Nature can be very impressive down under!

Since yesterday evening I’m back in Perth. Yesterday was party-day, today ….the same. Big difference between Asia and Australia: cost if 10* more…. Anyway, I enjoy it here, 3 months are already over, time flies, so I will move on, I’ll enjoy a good mango-shake in the sun , in the mean time take care, no worries (like they say it here) and you will find out were I am next time. I will decide tomorrow.

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