meinreiseblog

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

2012-01-17T13:08:00.003+01:00

We started a day earlier as planed to the first part of our trip. To our pleasure there was no rain or snow all the 1400 km to Southern France, but the nights were lousy cold, especially the second one in the Masiffe Central, the hoses of our watersystems were frozen in the morning. To our luck we have a well working heating system, so it was a comfortable night we awaked at 9 o’clock in the morning.
The fog and the clouds caused a special light in the mountains. That made 300 km through the this region really pleasant.
At the Viaduct of Millau we had our lunch.

In the late afternoon we arrived at my brothers home.

Back Home

2011-09-18T15:03:00.002+02:00

In Croatia we heard about about an accident with the ferryboat at the lake Komani. August 29^th a passengerferry sank within four minutes, fortunately nobody lost his life. (One week after we took the car ferry on this route.) But there was nothing in the news, the officials in Albania propably still have a disturbed relationship with bad news and the freedom of the press. The ships are not looking well maintained, very rosty and life-saving-devices are missing or rotten. Looking back we got some different feelings about this cruise, which we really enjoyed…

But anyway Albania is a beautiful country, which we like to visit again.

The Way Home

2011-09-18T13:17:00.006+02:00

We went slowly Northwest along the Croatian coast, which is really beautiful, enjoyed swimming in the clean and warm Adria, found us some nice autocamps, so they say to campgrounds in Croatia. I wanted to stay some days at Cres an island in the Kwarner Bay. Though we went to Zadar for the ferryboat, but since this day they changed the schedule into a two-times-a-week service, because the saison is off now. We missed the boat for a couple of hours only…

Plan B was to go to Krk and from there to Cres, a lot more km and more expenses for the tickets, but what could we do?

Some days later we left Cres for Slowenia.

Slowenia would it be worth to spent more there - but not this time.

We used our way through Italy to buy some good food… and went on to Austria on tollfree roads. Fortunately we have a GPS which knows everything about tollroads though we could mostly avoid this pricy ways. It was also much nicer to drive on sideroads.

After a night at the Achensee we came back to Germany, visited some friends of Gisi and arrived Adlitz in the evening.

Croatia

2011-09-08T19:11:00.003+02:00

Our next goal was Dubrovnik, which was destroied in 1993 in the Bosnian war. I saw it before and was a little frightened to see how it is now and Gisi haven’t seen it yet.

We went around the city in a huge queue with our “Blue Wonder” and couldn’t find a space to park.

Later we went to Metkovich, where I was stationed in the Bosnian war to lead a convoi with humanitarian help into Bosnia, how I expected: everything changed I couldn’t even find the “grillrestaurant” and the “coffee-bar” I used to go in, I found only the park in the centre with the trees where they posted their loses. Of course I found the storage place and the house where we overnighted.

Though I got some mixed feelings in remembering this times.

Montenegro

2011-09-08T19:08:00.002+02:00

Inspite of the informations fromADAC there was no roadtoll in Albania. After the usual game on the border “truck or motorhome” and paying a so called “Ecotax” we went into Montenegro. Other tourists told us about 10km empty sandbeach South of Ulcinj but meanwhile there are almost 10km sunshades…

By chance we got the next ferryboat to cross the bay of Kotor. There is surely more to explore in this small and nice country, but we are heading Northwest…

Albania in the North

2011-09-08T18:46:00.006+02:00

The last excursion lasts 5 days and 4 nights and we didn’t arrived our goal…

We found another road which looked interesting and clearly marked on the map, from Librazhd to Kraste - should be made in two days. The road was a little better and wider than the other one. But a few km before Kraste there was a road-closure due to roadworks, that means we had to go back 15 km follow the “road” westwards 20 km to take a paralelle route. Than there was a delay because the armee blowed up old munition. An hour later, due to the lack of signs we took a wrong northbound road which was really exciting, nice and breathtaking - not only by the view - but lead us “only” into the forest. One more night in the mountains which we spent on the meadow of a sheepcheesemaker, now our fridge is full with his Feta, which he gave us. Of course the kommunikation was very minimized even the rakia helped only very little. Alban is a very dificult language for us, there is no relationship to the languages around, so can’t read or hear any familiar word… But sometimes we met interesting people they speak German or English: so the owner of a Café-Bar she lived for years in New York, the soldier, who stopped us due to the munition blow-up, he learned to speak German in Bosnia from soldiers from the German Bundeswehr and the bodyduard from the Albanian primemimister, he lived a couple of years in Stein near Nuernberg, they all told us a lot about Albania in their own and different sight.

So we heard about a ferry-boat which uses a reservoir in the mountains to bring cars and trucks more comfortable and faster from the far East to the vicinity of Shkoder.

We took the ferry-boat from Fierce to Koman after a calm drive on relatevely comfortable roads through the mountains. The trip on the boat lead us for two hours through breathtaking gorges, which was a nice end of our journey through Albania.

More from Albanija

2011-09-08T18:21:00.004+02:00

Kukuri was pretty closed and bounded westwards on a lokal road. We hoped there is a better road than the “non existing” one.

Next day after half an hour driving, which means about 2km, we came to a washed out creek crossing, which was very, very narrow. We put some boulders and stones in the inside of the curve, to stabilize the track. This was not enough the inner rear wheel slided on a rock downhill and was hanging over the creek. It took us six and a half hours - fortunately there were enough stones around - to built a base to lift our motorhome up and bring the wheel in a position to drive, but it was still almost one meter for the rearwheel to climb up. With 4WD and dif lock it worked at the first try.

We never found Kukuri but a westbound road and in the later afternoon some people to ask for the way, they told us to go back, because the road is broken.

Next day we went back and found the road we missed the other day and drove westwards again, the road was a little better, but still I had to drive in reduction and 4WD, the road narrows more and more, twice I hit the rocks on the one side and had only centimeters on the other side where it goes steep down into the valley. A little frightening was the circumstance that the hillside was allways higher than valleyside… after 15 km we came to a huge mudhole, there were tracks from a struggle which ended with the debogging through a caterpillar. I tried to bypass this hole - without bogging in - but there wasn’t space enough. So I said “no thanks” decided to follow the road eastward, drove a few hundred meters back, lost the glas of a rear flashlight untill I found a place to turn around.

Albania

2011-09-08T17:55:00.004+02:00

We took a new and small border crossing to Albania everything was very easy and fast; no additional papers and fees, a new road, which is not in our maps, and the nice Balkanian mountains made us feeling happy to be here. The nice market in Korce and the friendly people, a bar with wifi and at least a nice campground at the Lake Orith created an almost enthusiatic mood…

We started into the mountains after we heard about an excavation of ancient Greek tombes near Selce E Poshtme from about 600 BC not very spectacular but in a nice ambiente. We overnighted there, the kids from the nearby village visited us, later the landlord gave us the OK to stay and sent his son to bring fruits and cucumbers.

On the freshly bought Albanian roadmap we found a small lokal road leading through mountains to Bulcar. Though the adventure began…

There are no signs on lokalroads at Xings, you have to ask or if there is nobody to guess. But even there is one you can’t be sure, that he knows the city you want to go or the right way or you understand what he means…

Though we lost the right way and found us on incredible tracks through the mountains, which was really beautiful, we where not really fixed to a specific goal. We ended that day at a nice little lake 1700m high. With the help of shephards we got an idea where we are. Though we made new plans for the next day…

Makedonija

2011-08-25T14:18:00.001+02:00

wasn’t one fo our goals, but by accident - a miscalculating of our GPS - we suddenly stood at the border of Macedonia. But it was a nice mistake, which made us the present of swimming in a well temperated natural lake and a night at Lake Prespansko. This is the biggest and eldest lake in the entire Balkan, even there are no tourists…

Greece

2011-08-25T14:06:00.004+02:00

After 24 years I came back to Greece. I didn’t expect too much. I know there are many changes. Meanwhile freecamping in Greece is forbidden, but they see it very relaxed, they don’t take it very serious.

The 2^nd day we arrived at Stavros usually a stopover for a couple of days in the late 80ies when we travelled to the Near East. My favorite bight was very crowded and poluted with garbage from tourists. Two bights further it was still poluted but not so crowded and ok for one night. Also in former times garbage was a problem in Greece, though we were very glad to find a bight at Sithonia which is the middle finger of Chalkidike where it was not too crowded and pretty clean. There we spent some days at the beach, relaxing and swimming, even Gisi found the 28 degrease not too cold to enjoy the sea.

We left for Thessaloniki where we hoped to find a campground with internet and all the other facilities we missed the last days. But there was none or so well hidden that we couldn’t find. Even in Edessa with the highest waterfalls of Greece is no Campground. We slept at the ruins of the ancient Loggon…

Next day we reached Macedonia without finding any internet facilities.

Bulgarija

2011-08-25T13:59:00.003+02:00

At the border we had we had the same problem like at the most borders, they wanted to send us to the trucklane, though there was a discussion about motorhomes and how they have to appear, at least they didn’t want to see our passports and wished us a nice trip.

Everywhere we could see the poverity of the peoble, the cars were elder than in Romania the houses were pour, but compared to their neighbours the villages and and the roadsides are clean and the fruitstands are looking neat. Our friend Erhard means that’s why the people are poor and can not afford threw things away, but I don’t believe that’s the only reason. We rest for two days at a nice lake in the northern mountains, which was really a pleasure after the days in the overcrowded and from tourists pested Constanta.

Near Asenovgrad we went into the southern mountains. The people there are different, you can see a lot of mosques, unfortunately this region isn’t so clean than the north, but there’s still less garbage beside the road than in Romania.

At the end we find, Bulgarjia is a nice and friendly little State.

Danubian Delta

2011-08-12T12:53:00.005+02:00

We visited this huge national-park by boat. Unfortunately our guide didn’t speak too much english, beside the names of the birds and the lakes. It was a three hours tours about 30km long in a small open boat, we started at 6.00 in the morning at sunrise in heavy wind so it was lousy cold.

We saw some fishermen at work, a lot of nets and fish-baskets, big flocks of Pelicans and Cormorants, Kingfisher und some different herons.

We could taste Waterchestnuts, which we gathered just by putting the hand into the water.

Not far in the South we had a look into the museum and the ruins of the eldest town of Romania - Histria - from about 700 BC, permanently settled untill 700 AD.

Carpates the 2nd

2011-08-12T12:39:00.004+02:00

To come to the Danubian Delta we had to go through the highest part of the Carpates. We decided to take the Transfagarasan which is a real nice summit with spectacular sights. Unfortunately we are not the only ones they know that and also unfortunately we went there on weekend, though no wonder very soon we were part of a huge trafic-jam.

On the other side of the pass we found a place to sleep inmidst of a lot of Romanian weekend-campers near a lake. This evening we had the first campfire of the journey like all the other campers.

The road to this place wasn’t really a road, but it was a shortcut on the way south. Next day our companion with his plastic-motorhome went back to the mainroad while we took the nice rocky and muddy road…

The nationalpark Piatra Crajuli with its deep gorges was the next overnightstation. We had fish from the barbeque and later the moon between the walls of the gorge, it was really gorgeous.

In Bran is the former castle of Vlad Tebec the figur, which inspired some authors to write the Dracula-stories. The castle is impressiv but the line to the counter was too long and nobody was in the booth…. So we refused to stand in line for only to go through the castle in the same line like a herd.

The last night in the Carpates we spent on a meadow with a spring where the farmers went to take their water for house and stable. We had some fun, playing around with a boomerang.

Romania-Transylvania

2011-08-05T20:24:00.005+02:00

From Cluj Napoca we started our tour throughout Transylvania. Inspite of what we expected after the tales and mystries about Dracula, we found a beautiful region with soft hills and meadows very green and sweet looking. In the afternoon we found a meadow with a sight over the hills to rest in the night, later a sheperd found the meadow is also a good place to overnight for his herd of sheeps.

Next day we went into Sigisoara the so called birthtown of “Vlad dem Pfaehler” who is wellknown as Dracula. Sigisoara is a nice little medievale town with a castle, a a very expensive parking-area, souvenir-shops and not too expensive restaurants.
At Sibiu we met Erhard again. Here we waited for Mima, his wife, who came in the afternoon to join us for the rest of the journey.

Romania - Carpatii

2011-08-05T10:03:00.007+02:00

We reached the border, excited how will be the procedures, but everything was very easy. At first a policeofficer wanted to send us to the commercial trucks, after a short discussion he went for an elder, who told him everything is ok with this truck as a motorhome. They didn’t want to see the passports, so we only payed 7 EURO’s fee for using the roads in Romania for 30 days.
We headed direction Ucrainian border on small roads were we learned a lot of the limits of Erhards Crafter to handle the bad roads and sideroads in this region. Like always the pourer the road the nicer the landscape, so for example we found such a nice chappel in a wild mountain ambiente. To prevent Erhards motorhome from damages we splited up for the next days. We drove on hard roads built for logtrucks into the mountains, unfortunately there were a lot of fog, so we couldn’t see that much, next day the rain stopped and everything was fine again.

Slovakia and Hungary

2011-08-04T17:51:00.004+02:00

Avoiding the boring mainroads we saw a lot of peoble, nice little things, pretty unknown stuff You would not find in a guidebook, unspectacular but nice sights of landscapes and villages.
There were also some “meetings” with others on the road, fortunately we were not really involved.

Czech Republic

2011-07-27T14:21:00.005+02:00

The second day on the road two short parts of the journey are done, we found a beautiful campground at the lake, on which we enioy the sun - we didn't have too much the last weeks in Germany - and the water and also the nice sight into the national-park.
Even the neighbourhood fits very well: an old VW-Bus in first class original shape.

Southfrance

2011-06-13T09:34:00.004+02:00

The other week I made an excursion to visit my brother in Lezignan riding my “Africa Twin”.
The plan was to bring a Citroen HY to Germany, put the bike in the back of the car.
I had to change this plan because the car was nice but not in the best shape and there were some problems with the papers too. Though I had to borrow a trailer and a towing car to bring the HY to Trier.
The little 3 days trip became a weeks journey with 5000 km driving, 2800 km on the Honda. Anyway it was a nice ride on my new bike without problems except little rain in Southfrance.

NEW EQUIPMENT FOR TRAVELLING

2011-06-10T08:49:00.003+02:00

I allways wanted and looked for a Honda “Africa Twin” to travel shorter distances. Finally I got one to extend our fleet.

The Last Weeks

2011-04-11T08:42:00.008+02:00

After the busy fourth-night at Blazeaid we went to Horsham to have some relaxed days at Hedi. Which was very pleasant again. We cleaned the Toyota and made some minor paintjops, though it looks nicer now than we got it. Nevertheless all tries at the internet to sell it failed. There were two more possibilities to get rid of it, we advertised the Toyota at the most of the backpacker-hotels and youth-hostels in Sydney, but there also were no response, that’s why we have to sell it tomorrow to a dealer for much less as we hoped.

Knowing that this are our last days on the road we enjoyed the journey from Horsham to Sydney overnighting on different roadside places. At Yarra NP we could observe some balloons over the Yarravalley.
On our journey we missed to see Platypuses and Wombats, beside one roadkill seen by Gisi aside of the freeway in Victoria. Instead of the wildlife outside we had to fight in the car against a mouse , which were incautious enough to be behind our food.

In Sydney we drove a lot in the city seeking the cheap accommodations, so we had our round-trip there. At the fish-market we had fish-kebab for lunch…

See what the car-dealer will say tomorrow…

More From Our Work At Blazeaid

2011-03-18T11:15:00.002+01:00

Since a week we are working pretty hard on dairy- and crop-farms around Bridgewater helping to clear washed away fences and built new ones, putting rubbish away and sort of this things.
We learned, how they make their fences there and a lot of how farmers live in Victoria. We also met a lot of Australians in our age and heard their stories. This is really amazing, during our traveling through Australia we saw nice and sometimes spectacular landscapes and nature, but here we have a look at the life in Australia without the touristic stuff. This was always my goal at traveling to see how people live in the countries, I visited, but I never came so close to that.

And Now Something Complete Diferent

2011-03-13T10:44:00.002+01:00

Since Friday we join http://blazeaid.com/index.html to work with a lot of other volunteers helping the local farmers with fencing after the last flood Northern Victoria. This catastrophe is a forgotten one after all the other bad news about cyclons, floods, earthquakes and last not least the Japan disaster.
Since two days we clear fences from debris and help built up new fences.
The most of the other helpers are in our age, but some are much younger like a gui from Texas, who is traveling around in Australia lie us, and there are some Ethiopians, which are in Australia as refuges. But the very most of the volunteers are retired Australians.

Mungo National Park

2011-03-09T09:54:00.005+01:00

After visiting the Pink Lakes lead us our way to Mildura and than to

New South Wales again, we started toward Mungo NP. The night sent us rain, that’s why we have now a red muddied Toyota again. The 90 km dirt-road to the NP in the rain did it onto our freshly washed car.

At the visitor-center in Mildura we asked for information's about the park and got some brochures and maps and information's about campgrounds. But at the park they told us almost everything is closed, due to a flood in February, which washed the road away. This was really disappointing and not the first time, that we got wrong or invalid information's in a visitor-center. They have there a lot information shelters, sometimes I think they hide the information's. Though we could see only the Chinese Walls, which are nice, but 250 km dirt-road ….

From the Dandenongs to the Murray River NPs

2011-03-07T02:57:00.007+01:00

We spent some days at Haye and Willeke in Mt Dandenong a nice area in the vicinity of Melbourne we made some walks together and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine in the Rhododendron Garden. In spite of our wishes the weather turns into rain and cold. That was why we decided to head North into the Murray River Region with the Nationalparks and further to Mungo NP, instead of visiting the cold and rainy Southeast and Tasmania.

After a half day driving we hit the sun again and found at Greenslake a nice gratis camp-spot for a couple of days. Also for free was the campground at the Wyperfeld NP, at which we stayed for some days and wandered there through the bush. There was plenty of wood for our campfire in the evenings.
Once again we were glad to have a 4WD to use the tracks through the NP.

Melbourne

2011-02-26T02:02:00.010+01:00

Still on KI we found a recept how to prepare a Koala...
In spite of what they told us, we saw at least some of the Little Penguins at Kangaroo Island but from far away…

On mainland again we headed East to Victoria. In Horsham we visited a friend and met his mother, who lives since more than 20 years in Victoria. We learned a lot how German emigrants live in Australia, heard stories about of the excitement of stock-breeding, about how to deal with water and having less water. And we enjoyed a lot of her hospitality for a couple of days.
Together we visited the Grampians,where a flood damaged the most of the roads some days ago. The Beehive Fall was surprisingly almost dry after so much rainfalls in the last days. The road- and trail-closures kept us away from many other well known lookouts and waterfalls.

The nice relaxing days ended and we were curious to see the real tall trees at Otways NP and the Platypus we didn’t see yet. But like so often, when they promised us something, there was almost nothing, instead of we had a Koala near us at breakfast and the other day 4 kangaroos at diner. The treetopwalk was also not bad and the coast was really something. At the end the Otways NP was it worth to visit.

East of Melbourne we visited some Dutch friends, I met on the ship from Buenos Aires to Hamburg. It was really a pleasure to see them again. They are now setteling down near Melbourne to live and work there for a couple of years.

Kangaroo Island

2011-02-15T02:46:00.008+01:00

Those were great days at KI, we saw a lot of animals Echidnas, Koalas, Wallabies, Possums, Australian-Sealions, Furseals, Parrots and tons of other birds. We missed the Little Penguins due to breeding and the Platypus, to see them we hope for another occasion.

The most of the animals we saw, came to us at the campground, that was amazing.

And there was another interesting species: tourists trying to slide down the sand-dunes on snowboards, which was expensive for them and funny for us.

Adelaide

2011-02-09T11:44:00.006+01:00

The big Cyclone in Queensland caused heavy rainfall, strong winds and the temperatures dropped down. Though it was lousy cold in the low twenties.
We decided not to go in the Flinders Ranges again and headed South toward Adelaide, where we had lunch in an Asian market.
South of Adelaide we found a real neat Campground in Rapid Bay, where stayed two days between Araucarias unfortunately it was still very windy and we have very few shelter behind our Toyota…
The next goal was the Kangaroo Island, which is well known for a lot of animals like Platypus, Penguins, Echidnas, Koalas and a lot more nice beasts.

Eyre Hwy

2011-02-06T08:39:00.002+01:00

Before we could go into South Australia we had to consume all our fruits and vegies, because they are really into the fruit-fly-panic, meaning tourists bringing fruit-flies and other pests into SA if they have a tomato in the trunk… jee. Though we lost our last onions and garlic.

We drove along the coast; the only points of interest were some lookouts, where you could see the Southern Ocean and the cliffs. Also the headwind were annoying, caused higher fuel-consumtion.
Finally we arrived in Port Augusta.

Norseman

2011-02-06T08:32:00.007+01:00

The need and one solution? in Australia

We went up North to Hyden, where “The Wave” is. There are two interesting rocks the Wave and the Yawning Hippo really nice ones, but the local businessmen made such thing out of it, everything is very expensive and you have to pay extra 7$, that they can develop the facilities to increase tourism, not with us we don’t wanted to feed their greed.
But it was warm again, so we find us an acceptable free campspot a little South.
Heading towards Norseman we had some nice gravelroads found another free camping-place with some real good looking lizards.
The Australian-Day was a day like all the others, we couldn’t notice any celebration just like at New-Years-Eve.
Norseman was for us the place, where we could buy groceries and not too expensive fuel for the car, next bigger town is Port Augusta about 1600 km in the East.
On the Western Australia-side of Eyre-Hwy is the longest straight road Australians, 146,6 km or 90 miles. The landscape isn’t much exciting in the Nullarbor area.
We are travelling very slow, that’s why we made after three days not even the half way.

Southcoast

2011-01-23T12:59:00.008+01:00

Leaving the Indian Ocean we passed through the land of the tall trees - the Carries - this giant eucalyptus-trees grow up to more than 80m. I love to travel through big forests as well as through the desert. There are so many birds, Cockatoos, Wrens and many others of that nice guys. We spent a night in an arboretum with tress from all over the world, for example German Oaks and Californian Sequoias, all of them pretty tall.
Really impressive was the Treetopwalk, more than half a mile you can stroll in the 6th floor to see the life at the head of trees. But you can only enjoy that, if you don’t get seasick on that swinging structure.
Last night the wind turned to South, so it’s pretty cold now below 20 degrees C. That’s why we will leave the coast tomorrow, see if it’s warmer a little more North.

Guilderton

2011-01-18T11:46:00.004+01:00

Still on our way South we came through Kalbarri a nice little town at the nationalpark, which is named after it. Some nice beaches are there, not very special but nice and they make a Pelican-feeding every day which is funny to see, especially when the Seagulls catch the fish from the Pelicans open mouth.

At Cervantes we played a little in the sand, like sometimes I was too arrogante to lower the airpressure, so I had a little bit to shuffle… afterwards it was driveable but still hard in the soft sand.

Next day we saw the “Pinnacles”, very crowded but impressive, breathtaking; this is something. I cann’t find the superlatives for it.

On the way to see Coalas we found a Gravity-centre, which is one of six laboratories in the world, where scientists try to messure the gravity-waves. They provide a small informative exhibition. So we could get a hint of what they are doing.

And than the Coalas, nice to see that guys hanging around in the trees to the pleasure of Perths inhabitants and the other tourists of course.

Now we passed Perth, which was necessary to refill our tanks with fuel and the stowboxes with food. We don’t like cities too much.

Shark Bay

2011-01-12T09:00:00.005+01:00

We headed down South to Carnarvon, which is famous for vegetables and fruits. We hoped to buy there affordable and fresh fruits, but some storms in December ruined the most of the coming harvest. For us it was annoying but for the farmers it was existential. So we got only fruits from the supermarket like usually.

Than we visited the Shark Bay.
The first highlight was the stroll over the boardwalk at the Stromatolites. The creatures are Cyanobakterias - producing oxygen via photosynthesis - from a species, which lives since 3,5 billion years on the planet and is the eldest living thing. When it appeared the atmosphere had only 1% oxygen and within 1,7 billion years they raised the part of oxygen up to 21%, which made it possible, that other creatures, which needed oxygen, could developed. So it was an exciting trip into the early history of the world.

But we also loved the nice beaches and the marine wildlife there, but we found it mostly not where they are supposed to be. We saw for example a huge turtle only 15 m away from us swimming along the beach. The exception were Monkey Mia with its Dolphins, there Dolphins came and swam with swimming tourists, which was amazing and an extraordinary experience.

You can visit the Francois Peron NP only by 4WD vehicles, the roads are very sandy and sometimes hard to drive, but like always the worst the road the better views, so we came to really nice white beach and we were alone by ourselves, far away from the next settlements, no disturbing lights made an excellent bright and star sprinkling heaven.

Coral Bay

2011-01-08T11:32:00.008+01:00

We were very surprised how OZ’s (Aussies) celebrate New Year, at the caravan park, where we spent the night everybody went to bed like always at ten o’clock.

On our way to Karratha we came through the Millstream-Chichester NP and found there close to the Pythonpool - nice to swim in there - a rural camp-spot, which wasn’t used since weeks. You could see it by the dust-layers at the loo.

Karratha was good for doing the groceries. We even had i-net at the beach but only energy for Gisi’s blog. After a couple of days at the beach watching the tides and the animals between the rocks the weather changed in the night and suddenly there were billions of tiny little flies, which bit us terrible and at least forced us to hurry away from the coast.

A few hundred kilometers SW is the Cape Range NP located, which has in my mind one of the nicest beaches, nice to swim and if can to snorkel.
South of the park is a cattle station Ningaloo with the same nice beach behind the coral-reef there we stayed completely alone enjoying fish bought from a fish-hatchery at the roadside for diner.

On our way to Coral Bay along the coast we saw some Red Giants.
In Coral Bay we made a tour in a glasbottomboat to look at the coral-reef with it’s various forms and all the fishes. It was just amazing.

Port Headland

2010-12-31T13:37:00.006+01:00

Some hundreds km South we went into PH, which is a prospering city, living from the harbor and the iron-mines around. Good to refill our boxes with food and the tanks with affordable gas and petrol.

We found a place to overnight nearby about 65 km from PH at a working cattle-station. That was interesting, because they invited us to join their “happy hour” which is their time to sit around and chat in the evening, talking about weddings, broken generators and a lot of more stuff, which is important to them…

Karijina was the next national park on our route another 200km trip South. On the way I saw the first real desert in Australia it’s a so called reg - a desert with stones only. No wonder we found it here, they say this is the hottest part of Australia. I believe it, yesterday we had 48 degrees…

The main attractions are gorges, waterfalls and pools to swim. The only problem is, you are on top of the gorges and to swim you have to go down, which is not the worst part, after refreshing you have to climb up and the temperature was 48…

Tom Price, a nice little town West of the park is our place for tonight with pone and i-net connection and “celebrate” New Year here.

Broome

2010-12-31T11:59:00.003+01:00

We went up North to spent some days and nights at the beaches.

In spite of of what I thought, we were alone because of the X-mas days. The sea was really warm and nice to play in the surf, no Stings and other Jellyfishes appeared.

Nice driving, no “road closed” signs and all the beaches were open to drive on. That was why we could stay on the beach to overnight joining the sea-breeze, to cope the sun and the high temperatures.

There was another flat tire and we learned, that our fridge definitely passed away. By chance we found a very affordable offer for a new one. It was only 53,10 $ ;-). That was our X-mas gift. Cool beer in the evening. How much luxury is this?

The Kimberleys

2010-12-22T13:38:00.005+01:00

Cause of the early wetseason this year all the national parks were closed when we arrived there. This is really disappointing. But there is something to see outside the parks. Wherever we can, we are leaving the great paved roads.
So we went along the Tunnel Creek NP and the Windjana Gorge NP on a nice dirtroad with a lot of beautiful landscape and sometimes heavy rain. We saw nobody on that road. But the other day I saw a couple of the rare Rock Wallabies jumping around in the rocks.
Sometimes it was a little tricky to keep the Toyota on the road after the strong rain, the surface was slippery like soap.

The Gibb River Road led us into the Leopold Ranges, of course there too all parkroads were closed for season, luckily we could see Queen Victoria, better the rock beside the road, which is named after her.

On the Gibb River Road we saw 15 cars. 14 of them were white Toyotas. So we are fully in the trend ;-).
Now we are traveling with our Toyota since more than 10.000 km. The costs for maintainance and reparations are about 1000 Euros, for new rearsprings, a new mainbreakcylinder, a speedocable, a muffler, oil and grease. Still the engine needs no oil and runs pretty good, so I’m beginning to believe in the “everlasting” Toyota.

We arrived in Broome an old pearlfishertown, which is now the greatest settlement in the North of Western Australia. There are nice beaches for example the Cable Beach.
For us it means affordable fuelprices and not so expensive groceries, internet and phone.

The next days we want to spent on a beach in the North of Broome, before we start the long journey down South between the desert on the left and the sea to the right.

Victoria Hwy

2010-12-21T12:39:00.003+01:00

After doing doing the groceries we left Katherine on the Victoria Hwy hearing some music from the Victoria Dr, maybe Seb should think about some Didgeridoo in his band ;-).

Still we have thunderstorms in the evening, the light-show with the rain, which is cooling down and keeping the Mossis away for better sleeping.

All the national-park are closed for season now, weigh earlier than usual. So we missed the Bungle Bungles NP, this is closed since five days. Even if it’s now dry and no more rain in the evening and the nights are warm….

Anyway the landscape in the Kimberleys is pretty nice outside NP’s too, that helps a little not to be too disappointed about all the closed roads. The “closed road” is the most seen sign in this area, we are really tired about this annoying signs.

Litchfield

2010-12-12T01:25:00.008+01:00

After the visit in the hot and dumpy Darwin we are heading South again toward Katherine.
On the way we went into Litchfield NP, which is much nicer and not so costly than Kakadu NP. We jumped into the pools with cristalclear water at some waterfalls and spent some days at Florence Falls campground. There we had our “private” Kangaroos - mother and joey so they call the young ones here - , they came every morning pretty close to our camp for breakfast.

And there were the impressive termitemounds standing like Menhires in the Normandie.

Almost each and every evening we have more or less spectacular light-shows from faraway thunderstorms, since we left Dubbo. But in the last days the light-shows come with thunderstorms around us and heavy rain. If I say “heavy” its really a lot of water, which is falling down from the heaven, but fortunately it’s mostly only a short time. The good things at this weather-conditions are: less Mosquitoes and a cooldown for the night.

Before we arrived Katherine we went into the Nitmiluk NP with its gorge and the Edith Falls.

We are about to leave to Western Australia and the Kimberleys, hoping we are back soon on the internet. I don’t know when we’ll have the next connection, maybe we are without connectivity the next weeks….

Darwin

2010-12-05T13:00:00.005+01:00

We arrived at Darwin at the Topend of Ausralia.
Nice beaches but nobody can swim in the sea cause of the Boxjellyfish, the most poisseness animal, and the Salties are there too.
At 43 degrees Celsius you would like to have some refreshment in the sea…

We don’t like cities too much, so we used our stay there to buy groceries and refill the tanks in the car, for less dollars than in the Outback, where is everything expensive.

Mary River

2010-12-05T12:22:00.006+01:00

Only a few kilometers after we left the Kakadu NP we went into the Mary River region. The pavement ended without a road-closure and the wildlifefewing began.

We saw Wallabees, different kind of lizards in various sizes. At the campground we found “our” first Salties, saltwater-crocodiles. They were simply there in the river without advertising and commercials. So it was almost perfect, but there were other wildlife too, the Mosquitoes, they were really annoying.

Next day we booked the so called “Crocodilejumpingtour”, there we came very close to the Salties and could see them jumping after the bait. It was spectacular. So we had much more in the last two days than in the days before.

Kakadu Nationalpark

2010-12-04T12:42:00.006+01:00

We see here a lot of nice nature, landscape and Aboriginal Art, but it isn’t still the highlight we expected.

The most of the roads, we wanted to drive, are seasonal closed. That means most of the interesting points are closed, especially the ones you can only rich with 4WD vehicles and the ones where you could see crocodiles.

But in Jabiru we found a nice camping-place, which is compare to the priceniveau within the park affordable and comfortable, with a real nice swimming-pool and spa, showers and all the other facilities you wish at such a place.

So everything seems to be alright, except the prices, which are weigh higher, than in the rest of Australia, where almost everything is more expensive than in Europe. Nevertheless we enjoy our days here and try to save money… a little.

We tried to visit another place with Aboriginal art, Ubirr, but this also was closed, only open in the afternoon, so we turned around, because we didn’t wanted to wait for hours in the heat. Next day we left the park pretty disappointed, everything is very expensive and the few you can see is it not worth.

Stuart Hwy

2010-12-02T09:11:00.007+01:00

This s a boring road with less traffic and more less attractions along the road, besides the Devils Marbles and a lot of termite structures.
But we had guests at the rest-area, two spiders real serious ones and a mule, which was very attracted by our tobacco. After shouting and showing it some stones, it gave the tobacco back, later it layed down to rest for the night a few meters beside our car, until another car came into the area, which was probably more attractive, it was really funny and made our evening.
Next day we had a look into the Australian UFO center at the Whycliffwell Roadhouse.

We made an appointment with Eugen - another longtime traveler like us - in Pinecreek, from where we started into the Kakadu Nationalpark. It’s now wetsaison in the park and most of the interesting roads are closed, nevertheless there are still many things to see and we hiked a little to a cute little waterfall.

And than there was Nourlangie with very fine Aboriginal art, very well elaborated.

We are still waiting for our first Crocodile...

McDonnell Ranges

2010-11-27T01:21:00.004+01:00

After two days in Alice, where I saved a lot of money by doing all the servicework at the Toyota by myself, we started to see the McDonnell Ranges.

On our way to Alice Springs, we visited the Rainbowvalley and found by chance Owen Springs. This two “little highlights” we found really nice and more interesting than the big stuff. This time we explored the Palmvalley, which is the only spot in the world, where the “Red Cabbage Palms” grow. But like always, the nicer the landscape the worst and difficult the road.

The other days we looked into some other canyons with nice billabongs, waterholes, where we jumped in to swim and get some refreshment.

Now we are about to go North, after refill the tanks and do some groceries.

Kings Canyon

2010-11-26T13:01:00.007+01:00

After a night with heavy rain and thunderstorms we went to Kingscanyon. Everything is like always very expensive. But there is a washing-machine and the Thirsty Dingo Bar where they serve a bushman-pizza made from kangaroo, crocodile and camel, we like it very much.

At the gas-station we asked for the permit to drive the Mereenie road which is a dirt track leading into the MacDonnell-Ranges. It’s closed due to floating rivers. They advised us to come next day again. But there was rain in the night. So it was still closed.

We used the day to hike around in the Kingscanyon. This was in one month the second hot day, so we drank a lot of water. We also joined the nice landscape, waterfalls waterholes, cliffs and some plants like a so called palmfern, which grows like a fern but looks like a palm.

The next day we tried a third time to get the permission, but the road was still closed.
We headed East than to the Ernest Giles Road, which brings us via Henbury and meteorit craters to Alice Springs. Even on this road we found a deep river to cross fortunately we decided to camp before the river. The next day we hope for an easier passage…

Yes this morning the depth of the river was significant below the distributor, so we could easily pass the furt.
We headed to the Stuart Hwy and stood overnight at a nice spot at the Finke river, which is longest river in Australia but only temporarily floating.
On our way to Alice Springs we found by chance a dirt road leading North. But it was closed due to flooding, but anyway we decided next morning to try that way.
This 50 km were really nice and we always found a way through the rivers without bogging in the water and also without stucking in the sand. So we arrived in Alice Springs and found a affordable campground.
Now our Toyota needs some attention like oil-change and other services. That’s what we have to do this Monday in AS.

The Uluru

2010-11-13T03:57:00.006+01:00

At first the bad weather got us again after a few days in dry and hot conditions…
We were too fast in the last weeks, because we flied the bad weather, now we try to resist, maybe we have than the uncomfortable weather before us….

But the Uluru is really amazing even while it’s raining.. Beause of the uncommon weather we saw a lot of waterfalls on the Ayers-Rock, which you can see only during heavy rain. So every thing has two sides. In the evening we had sun and could see the monolith in it’s normal shape.

Kata Tjuna, the Olgas, are in the same park. They are more impressive in our mind. The aboriginal name means “many heads”, the butts look like domes. The Olgas are also sacred to the Aborigines like the Uluru, you can feel it, when you are there and look at the scenery. We hiked a little through rain and heavy wind. The raindrops in the face felt like driving motorbike without helmet in a speed of 80 km/h.

While the Uluru was a must, the Kata Tjuna were the nice surprise.

Like other “important things to see” this area is very pricy. The entrance fee into the national-park is 25 AUD per person, which is really a lot for three days. The night at the campground 39 AUD and no place within 30 km to overnight for free.

But no more complaints almost everything is great.

Desert or what the Aussies call a desert

2010-11-11T08:15:00.005+01:00

Leaving the Flinders-Ranges we passed the South Lake Eyre, which belongs more or less to the Simpson-Desert, following the famous Oodnadatta Trail.
Later there was only a unmaintained track, in the middle of nowhere in the desert, it was so green, nice flowering meadows in yellow, red, blue and pink. The most of the creeks were filled with water, we even saw Pelicans. It’s nice but disappointing less desert….

We lost a rim to an hidden stone in a whole before a grid. Those are part of the cattlefences. Lucky, we have enough spares.

Now we are on our way to Ayers Rock, even here in the very middle of Australia: it is green. They even maw the shoulders of the roads.

Another day later we arrived Uluru or the Ayers-Rock. It’s really very “touristificated” and expensive of course, but we are pleased cause of the luxury of electrical power, internetacces and very nice a swimming-pool.

Tomorrow we’ll go to visit the Ayers-Rock.

Flinders Ranges

2010-11-11T07:23:00.008+01:00

Flinders Ranges NP is a pretty well knowned national park in Australia, this mountains are very old about 580 million years. The appearance of the hills is round, even the gorges are wide without the expected wall-like sides.
We decided to spent there some days, driving around at the dirt-tracks, enjoying the landscape, the mostly blue-flowering meadows and the animals. There are places with aboriginal paintings, for example the Sacred Valley, which is very impressive, not so the art. Other places have more elaborated pictographs, we too visited.
Nevertheless we were glad about the last days without rain…
But at the Toyota broked a rearspring, we hope to get it fixed the next days.
two days later:
The springs were about 1000 A$, so we are glad to have good springs for our overloaded Toyota on the coming dirt-tracks…
We decided not to go on the Stuart-Highway but along the Simpson-Desert.
Still we notice the very special and uncommon weather in Australia this year, instead of red dry earth you see everywhere in the desert flowering meadows, even the creeks are often filled with water. Each evening we enjoy the lightnings from the thunderstorms around, hoping it’s not raining in the region where we want to drive next day, which would make driving more exciting.

Since days we – especially Gisi - are suffering from the famous Australian flies in the day and mosquitoes in the night.

The Bush

2010-10-31T08:20:00.006+01:00

We left Dubbo and very soon we came into the Bush. By incident we used a secondary road without pavement. It was a wonderful driving and there was a lot of wildlife, so we saw Emus, a Waran and some Kangaroos. On our way to some Aboriginal paintings we found a real nice spot in Bush to overnight, with enough fuel for the campfire it was pretty warm, we had fine diner, everything was really good like we expected our evenings in Australia.

But here was a spider, I went for the flashlight to see if it’s a Redback, it wasn’t. Beside the spider were to little snakes about 8 inch long, about them read, they are very, very poisonous so it became a little bit exciting evening, once she went fast onto Gisis feet, the horrified reaction of her frightened the beast and it played subterranean stuff, went with the head underneath the surface and vanished almost, only the end could be seen, than the head appeared again and the tail vanished, this happened a few times, than the snake disappeared completely and we went very carefully into bed.

In the night was a thunderstorm and it rained all night and day long, we tried to go on the dirt-road to this heritage-site where the paintings are exposed, but it wasn’t really possible to keep the Toyota on the road, the surface was like soap, so we returned after a few kilometers, to paved road.
We also declined to visit another NP because of the road-conditions and headed West where we hoped for a better weather.

After a whole day raining we arrived Broken Hill, which is a mining-town and the border to South Australia. It stopped raining but there was still a cold Southwester blowing.

Next day we headed towards Port Augusta, at first through a wide flat, which turned at least in lovely landscape with hills pretty similar to region around San Louis Obisbo in California. We liked it much.
At least we settled down for the night at a campground near Port Augusta with washing-machines and other nice facilities we missed the last weeks.

by the way the tree is a Big Red Gum about 500 years old.

From Yengo NP to the Blue Mountains NP

2010-10-31T08:04:00.006+01:00

We went more or less South through the Yengo NP almost all the time through Eucalyptus-forests lot of kilometers on dirt tracks, where we saw the first Kangaroos in their own land standing along the way.
We took the ferry, which is free, to a campground in Wisemansferry.

The other day we got a new inverter in Richmond before we went into the Blue Mountain NP. It was a pretty day it stopped raining, it wasn’t too cold, so we sat a long time in the evening chatting with our neighbour –a young German - at the rest-area in Bilpin.

The Blue Mountain very famous and the most visited NP in Australia looking really nice and impressive. On the way when we had our late breakfast stopped at the railway for the famous train from Sydney to Perth and did a little “trainspotting”. We also visited some of the millions of lookouts and joined the nice fews. At the last one we decided to overnight. It was a nice calm late afternoon, untill the fog came… immediately it became terrible cold and wet.

Originally we wanted to see the Victoriafalls, but there was still a lot of fog in the morning. That was really an argument to leave and going West and North into warmer regions. Finally we arrived in Dubbo at a nice campground with tons of Kakadus and their noise.

First Days out

2010-10-25T09:20:00.005+02:00

We don’t like the towns too much, so we were glad to be on the road heading North to a beach, near Williamtown - a so called secret advice - nevertheless pretty crowded.

On the way we found by chance a real nice parking lot at the beach of the “Lake Macquarie” with restrooms and water, very quiet except the birds. After the days in Sydney spending the nights in the car – we miss our Mercedes Motorhome very much – it was pretty luxurious. We watched the birds, when they took their bath in a whole in the tree next to us.

Unfortunately we arrived on Friday at the beach, so there were a lot of weekenders driving with their SUV’s and ATV’s. But we had nice days there, still settling our stuff in our small home trying to organize our life in a car. Built in the new stereo and fixed the broken seat. But when I tried to charge the computer-battery I learned, the Inverter doesn’t work….

Saturday was the first real nice and warm day. We hoped for more.
Next day it was raining all day long and we missed our motor-home again….
We left the Sea, went into Yengo National Park to Broke, late afternoon it stopped to rain so we could enjoy the Eucalyptus-forest and gathered some firewood for the evening-campfire. Gisi had one strange experience in the loo, there was a huge frog in the bowl. I couldn’t resist to imagine what would have happened, if the beast jumped up to her while she was sitting….
So at least this gray day ended with a lot of laughter at the campfire.

Sydney

2010-10-25T08:44:00.004+02:00

After a real long flight we arrived in Sydney early in the morning, where we got our old Toyota Landcruiser, found everything like said in the description, except the stereo was a joke and the so called “long distance seats” were broken.
So everything seemed to be alright, we stayed for two days in Bondi Junction, made the paperwork for the car registration, bought some equipment and food to be ready for the journey.
So we started North…
Accompanied by Feathers McGrow which is a Penguin pretending to be a Coque.

5 Days to Go

2010-10-12T17:07:00.002+02:00

Next Sunday our airplane will start in Munich heading to Sydney.
Where we hope to find our Toyota in a good shape like the seller told us. But I have good feelings about this.
We planed to stay for half a year “down under” and travel there, wherever the wind will blow us...
or anything else

Saverne

2010-09-10T18:35:00.006+02:00

And there was another meeting end of August. A punch of us met in Zweibruecken, we came with 21 4x4 trucks.
Next day we started in a convoy to Saverne in France, where we wanted to have some fun in a 4x4 – area.
It was a huge impressive trek of this big Riggs, even we got some applause by people standing along the road…
We spent the night at a nice lake, went swimming and had a lot of tales at the campfire. It was nice to see old friends and meet new travelers. Some plans were made, maybe Mongolia in three or four years.
Next day we arrived Saverne.

44 others with the same hobby were there ….

There were some mishappenings too...
and some fearing steeps... You can't go by feet

Rhoen

2010-08-21T14:58:00.005+02:00

Almost a week ago we were at an another meeting of travellers, this time in the Rhoen which is a region of mountains in Northern Bavaria.
There were Russian food, Dancer and music from Afghanistan and some interesting slide shows.
Tales about traveling and the vehicles we use to use at the campfire with wine and beer were another reasons to spent the weekend there...

Last Weekend

2010-07-19T13:10:00.007+02:00

Last weekend we had a nice little meeting.
Some guys with 4WD trucks came to a place near Forchheim to have fun and bbq.
We changed experiences, which we made during traveling and converting trucks into travel-trucks and so on.

The Way Home

2010-06-20T16:55:00.004+02:00

June 18th
The weather forecast was terrible for the Languedoc and the Masif Central, so we decided to go west looking if the weather is better there, like the TV promised….
So we headed to Bergerac not to visit Cyrano but Silvie and Werner. I know them from the 4x4 Truck Forum it was a really warm welcome. They live there in a nice ambiente in an old winery fantastic remodeled and converted for their belongings. Unfortunately there was a little rain and not too much sun. nevertheless we had a nice evening, learned something about vine and talked a lot about trucks and traveling…
Next day we started after lunch using the small roads direction NE back to Germany. The sky was still gray over the beautiful landscape.
After a calm night we used for some km a toll-free Auto-route to make a bow around the Masif Central where all the clouds were hanging. Like always it was nicer to drive on small roads through the villages…

Meanwhile we arrived in Freising, the weather is still gray like in the last days, only colder...
Tomorrow I'll start for the last part of the journey to Adlitz

2010-06-14T17:24:00.006+02:00

June 10th
62 km later we arrived Puilaurens the last Cathar-Castle, we wanted to see, now it’s enough, basta with that stuff. Nevertheless it’s impressive again with one of the nicest places we had to overnight on that journey, make an educated guess what we heard tonight. ( for the first correct answer you will get a Hefeweizen in Adlitz)

June 11th
Villefranche a village from the 12th century almost in the old shape between the walls with a fortress above on the hill. The last renovation was under Napoleon to save the borders against Spain.

June 12th
We made 39 km this day and visited a monastery Prieure De Serrabone, which wasn’t that exciting, but there was a nice walk through a sentier botanique a interpretiv trail through the plants of the region.
We ate ratatouille tonight…

June 13th
The last touristic event we had, we dedicated to our ancestors from 450 000 years ago in a museum in Tautavel where they found sculls and bones from this times.

The last day in Cathar-Country, still a nice landscape on very narrow roads with sometimes very pail-faced drivers in the oncoming cars, hectically driving their vehicles almost in the ditch. Resuming the days in this area we can say it was really a surprise how nice and breathtaking the landscape is, and also important how easy we could find real beautiful places to overnight not using the expensive campgrounds, very often you can find public dumpstations.
The next days we want to go north to the Masif Central heading home.

Direction Andorra

2010-06-14T17:09:00.006+02:00

June 8th
After a long deviation through breathtaking landscapes we reached Andorra for shopping and a visit at a gas-station; the first didn’t accept credit-cards, the second one was cheaper and we got a bottle Pastis 51 gratis…
With nice feelings we left Andorra heading back into Cathar-Country again we heard Nightingales in the night, how romantic is this?

June 9th
We walked through Mirepoix a nice old village before we went south…
Fortunately we found a gas-station with LPG to refill our propane-tank, we looked for since a couple of days for that without success.

About 35 km south is Montsegur located, the last Cathar-Chateau the defenders gave up in 1244, than the crusade against the Cathars was over.

It’s embarrassing, but here are Nightingales too…

Cathar-Country

2010-06-14T17:00:00.006+02:00

June 7th

The next part of the journey - driving through Cathar-Country - began yesterday in Lagrasse a village with a former Cathar-Abbey.
The night we spent in the Gorge de Orbieu hearing a Nightingale-concert.
The Cathars where Christians living in Southfrance during the 12th and 13th century, which refused to accept the primat of the Catholic-Church, they where pretty fundamental and against the might-greedy bishops. When they installed four own bishops the pope declared war on them ten-thousands died and a lot of ruins left over…

We claimed up the mountain to Chateau De Termes, trying to imagine how they lived there through the months, when the crusaders were before the walls, with very few water and food but more vine than water; when they run out of the basics they fleed in small groups…
Really impressive is the Chateau De Queribus from where you can see the Chateau De Peyrepertuse on the other side of the valley.
Heading towards Andorra we came into the Gorge De Saint George where we found a place for the night again with Nightingales.

Provence

2010-06-05T16:21:00.010+02:00

May 31st
The wind was really boring, so we left the coast.
The evening before we got a good advice to overnight with the motorhome in Arles at the Cote Du Rhone. The diner was exceptionel Crevettes with green Asparagus and Merlot.

June 1st
We had a nice few over the riverside and silhouettes of Arles and the passenger-ships laying at the peer. I watched the crew working at the ship especially one who removed the paint from the metal with chisel and hammer … and swoops he lost the metalpart to the Rhoneriver. He looked really funny at the rest of his hammer than into the water back to the remainings and than back to the water … hearing my laughter…

June 2nd
After another walk downtown Arles drinking Cappucino we left for the Alpilles, visiting the Abbey Montmajour, which was closed…
Les Baux with his ancient Roman quarries and the castle is always impressive. There is a parking-place with a nice overlook over the valley, the quarries and the city where we spent the night…

June 3rd
We left for sightseeing in San Remy De Provence with the Roman ruins, the nice marketplace and the old city, where we wanted to trink a Pastis, but we couldn’t find a parking lot, the 2nd time at this journey because the blue wonder is a little bit big for the narrow roads and the parking places or it’s simply forbidden…
So we joined the nature in the Alpilles.

June 4th
Aigues Mortes a very well conservated little medieval city with all the walls against pirates and other enemies was our goal, it’s pretty impressive and nice to sit in coffee-bars, but it’s not very nice to find a place for the night with a motor-home…
So we went for Lac Du Salagou about 80 km northwest in the Languedoc. I visited the lake 26 year ago so I wasn’t sure what we will find there after the long time of prospering tourism industries.
To our pleasure it’s still open, not to crowded, there are not too much regulations and possibilities for dry-camping directly at the shore…

June 5th
We joined the the narrow curves of the villages in Occitany on really beautiful day and made about 130 km to visit my brother…

still in the Camarque

2010-06-05T16:07:00.004+02:00

May 25th
Today we went to Salin De Giraud we found everything like 10 years ago, except the PB gas-station has vanished.
So we headed to the Plage Piemancon, some say Plage d’Arles, and there also were the same rules like in the “old days”.

May 29th
We stayed at the beach for four days with some more or less longer walks, found some Tellines, small shellfish leaving in the sand, but they were still to small to eat because the sea was still to cold.
All the time we had, like usually, to fight with the wind…

May 30st
Slowly we ran out bread and other food…
So we changed the place and went to Beauduc via Salin for groceries. Our way lead us though the Camarque Natural Preserve where saw tons of Flamingos far away from the very bad road. At the Phare de Beauduc where some hundreds of Kite-surfer, who joined the Mistral a very heavy northern wind.
We had a nice evening with our neighbors a German couple in a Magirus, also a 4x4 truck same sice than mine. There were a lot of tales about trucks, stucking in the mud and other sweat-bringing events and a lot of laughter…

Camarque

2010-05-31T17:57:00.005+02:00

May 24th

Avoiding the tollroads following the old and smaler roads we reached Les Saintes Maries De La Mere. I wasn’t there since about 15 years and I dindn’t visit the Gipsymeeting since more than 30 years, so I was very curious about all the changes you could expect…
They built a lot, some for the tourists and some for the rich, but it isn’t that bad…
There was the same parking anarchie like I remembered, so it was pretty hard to pass through the village whith the blue wonder.
The campground is now really huge und filled with a lot of wite boxes with wheels underneath… We refuced to use that place to overnight, instead of we found a space directly at the beach which we shared whit a few other motorhomes.
At the meeting itself we missed the part, in which they put the Maries into the sea, because we stuck in the staw.
At the evening when I expected a lot of Gipsies playing Flamenco we met there a lot of musicians, tourists and neohippies playing Jazz and other nice music, but not what I expected at least we found some gitarplayers making Gipsymusic, with only a small audition, like in the “good old days”.

Next day we went into the village to hear more music and to look what’s going on and to drink tango, which is a little bit of grenadine in a bierre d’ Alsac, in a streetcaffeteria. There were some Gipsygitaremusic Flamenco and other stuff. Fortunately there were less touristmusic than the other day and it wasn’t so crouded by tourists….

Yesterday we left Ste Maries De La Mere for shopping in Arles, had some lunch there, tried to find a parking lot near downtown … without succes.
So we proceeded to the next goal the Plage Piemancon near Salin De Giraud at the mouth of the Rhone, where you can stay and camp for free with less regulations, I found it in the same state like 10 years ago, tons of trailers parked there for summersaison but not really crouded. In the night the wind turned from SE into NW brought some rain but today it’s a sunshiney day again.

heading south

2010-05-31T17:50:00.003+02:00

May 21st

I left Adlitz on a gray early Fridayafternoon heading south to Freising in order to pick up Gisela, my company for the next weeks on our journey through the beautyfull south of Southfrance. Slowly the weather turns into bright sunny and warm condition, if angels are travelling…..
With only half an hour trafficjam, which we used for dinner, we made some 200 km west.

May 22nd

After a surprisingly quiet night at a restarea we started the next part of this journey, which lead us through the Blackforest. Pretty soon the morning mist disappeared and let the sun doing their job.
After some breaks for our convinience we arrived the valley of the Doubs, which I like very much and where we found a spot to spent the night after a bottle of Prosecco.

had fun

2010-04-14T08:00:00.006+02:00

I used the easterdays to have fun with other guys, having same interests and trucks like me. So we were in Langenaltheim, which is an area you can go off-road if the desert is too far away.
there were tons of Swiss-peoble using the terrain.

some of them took their "home" to drive into heavy terrain

some of the friends brought toys with them

some came only to socialize

some datas from the journey

2010-03-29T13:48:00.002+02:00

the vehicle is an converted 4x4 truck from 1982, a Mercedes Benz 911B.
from door to door I drove 12001 km.
the fuel-consumption was not bad, I had about 14mi per gallon.
the costs of the journey were not much more as staying at home.
damages:
the windshield,
a stowbox bended,
a wheelcover bended and
the foot of my table

back home

2010-03-26T12:22:00.002+01:00

March 23rd
After a few days with my brother I started the last etappe to Adlitz. I decided again to drive through the “Massif Central”.
When I went down south I missed the “Viaduc de Millau” because of the weather conditions.
This time I could enjoy this huge bridge over the Tarn. They built in only three years the highest bridge of the world, which is 270m over the Tarn; the highest pylon is 343m, really very impressive.
I really like the Massif Central, but there is now an auto-route, which make driving easier and faster but for sure not nicer….

March 26th
Meanwhile I’m back home in Adlitz….
The journey wasn’t very exciting, a smooth drive partly along the Doubs. The weather conditions were not the bright sunshine, but I don’t want to complain, it was warm and dry.
Now in Adlitz the sun is shining….

in Europe again

2010-03-21T10:41:00.004+01:00

March 17th
The ship back to Europe costs a little less as in the other direction, but that was including a cabin….
The border was very calm too; they sent me through the scanner. Anyway it seems to be a pleasant evening…
But because the guy at the embarcment got almost nothing to do, so read each and every ticket and found out that guy at the counter made a mistake …. So I had to pay a suplement at least it was a little more, than the other way.

March 18th
Surprisingly I had the cabin alone for me. So it was a calm night, I woke up from the noice of the steering thrusters, went into the bathroom, gave the cabinkey back and rushed down to the cardeck, the door was already open,I was very soon ashore and the second in line at the bordercontrol.
I waited for my morning-coffee until I arived the first parking-area, after almost 100km.
I made more the 500km more before I went to bed.

March 19th
Again I choosed the way via Zaragoza and than through the mountain; like almost every time the way is hard, the landscape is it worth. So I reached Andora to refill the tanks, which was more than in Morocco but less than in France or Germany and I also did some groceries…

March 20th
The Frenchbordermen were alerted or just curious about the “Blue Wonder” and checked it very hardly, especially the stow-box, which was hit by a rock and because it’s bend and only to open with heavy tool, was very suspicious to them; but at least they let me go.
After a few ours through Catarerland I arrived at my brothers home in Caumont le Neuf.

last days in morocco

2010-03-17T17:52:00.003+01:00

March 10th
This was again a nice day in the dessert with a lot offroad-driving, piste and driving in the dunes in and along the Erg Chiggane. Good to have such a last day of my journey into the Maroccaine Sahara.

March 11th
In the morning I left my new friends and went on the road north, stopped in Zagora for a short maintenance, greasing and cleaning the airfilter, at mohamed for free and got my first sponsorsticker. I passed Tinerhir in the evening and slept outside in the dessert.

March 12th
Hearing on the phone about the cold weather in Europe I decided to stay a couple of days longer in the warmer south freecing at 24 degrees C.
So I settled down for three days in the “Oasis Source Bleu de Meski”.

March 16th
Still here in Meski because I postponed my departure from day to day. But today I’m leaving,
at first to Bouarfa.
Two days ago there was a party for an English tourgroup; the Maroccain musician invited some travellers from campingplace, where we have a nice international neighbourhood. The neighbourhood is one of th reasons I’m not in that hurry.

March 17th
I'm sitting here in Nador waiting for the boat tonight at 10.00 found a internet enjoy the lasty hours in Africa for this time.

ok no pics this time srry for that

more piste

2010-03-11T12:36:00.006+01:00

March 2nd
I’m on my loneley way back to the North; I’ll try to stay As long as I can in warm regions, maybe I go back to the Eastside.

March 5th
Heading north on the N1 I reached pretty soon Laayoune Plage.
Hoping to find partners for my way East I joined the cheap “Parking Payant”….
Almost before diner a 1017 MB dropped in with Vroni and Hubert. They had the same problem not to go alone off road or on the piste, which shows prudence…
Soon we agreed to make the pistes together. Now we are in the Oued El Hamra direction SE to Esmara joining the nice landscape…

March 8th
King Mohammed 6 wants to have peace in Western Sahara, for this reason they are building a lot of infrastructure and develop the commerce and the whole Western Sahara is a taxfree-zone. In some regions you can see the succes fo this, but not everywhere, there are also a lot of investmentruins, like new houses in empty villages, gasstations without pumps and so on….
Not in Esmara this is an example that the strategy works. Brisker life is everywhere, lots of “magacins” where you can buy almost everything. Clean butcher-shops and fishmarket, lots of fruits and vegetables all in good quality…
So for us it was an ideal starting point to go in the dessert, searching for “gravure ruppestre” (stoneage pics). Pasing defenselines from the Polisariowar avoiding places where could be mines hidden. It was rocky and a little tricky to drive because we had to drive in a rectangle to the military-tracks. Arived at that spot we took our lunch.
As soon we finished our meal a single soldier came by feet and asked for the authorication, which we had not, so we pretend not to know anything about this things…
Very soon there were 8 militars and militarypolice handling this case “three tourists in militayzone”. But the procedure was very correct and friendly, but boring, at least we got our passports back after some protokolls at the garnison and the gendarmerie royal, right when it was time for diner.
So next day we went north of Guelmin where we joined warm springs at the evening.

We wanted to go back in the dessert from Tata to M’hamid, this piste I did with Miriam and Mario few weeks ago in the opposite direction. But we learned at the checkpoint because of the militaryzone we may not use this piste, only in the other direction is this possible, disappointing and hard to understand….

March 10th
A day without bad surprises only a little sandstorm, we lowered the airpressure in the tires again and had a lot or fun on the piste, which was for some km part of the “Paris – Dalar – Raid”.

btw. the pic with the red building is the school in Akka

Dakhla

2010-03-04T10:58:00.007+01:00

February 19th
Yesterday we reached Laayoune in Westsahara lots of police and military. We camped on the big busstation but the police sent us further to the big supermarche the second one I`ve seen in Morocco. But in the morning we noticed it`s closed.
We also learned the dieselfuel costs in Westsahara only 46 Eurocent per liter which is really nice, unfortunately I filled up my tanks 300km ago for 65 ct ….
We are looking for a campground in Laayoune Plage today to stay a little bit and wash our clothes and so on.

February 21st
We are 4 of us now; at the campground we met a German-French family with 4 kids in a MB 911, they sold everything in France and went on the road and live in their rolling home. It’s nice for Josie to have some other kids. So we stayed a second day to relax in the nice temperatures and do our stuff.
We started in the direction to Dakhla where they celebrate the Dakhla-festival in these days.
Halfway we overnighted in the dessert.

February 22nd
We made allmost a half of the way to Dakhla and found a nice bay, joined the beach in the afternoon, tried to catch some fish, at least we bought some for our delicious diner.

February 26th
Meanwhile we are a couple of days in Dakhla. There is now a festival “Desert et Mer” with concerts, championships in wind- and kitesurfing, camelracing and so on and everything is for free. Unfortunately there is no writen programm. But something we know already, for example this afternoon shall be a camelrace, the surfstuff depend on the wind and the concerts are in the evening. The music yesterday wasn’t really mine…
Otherwise I feel very well here, the weather is nice I’m going to swim dailly, yesterday we had Camel to the diner, was good tasting, if only the internetconnection….
After the weekend I have to leave, 6000 km are to drive….

February 27th
Another nice day at the sea…
In the afternoon we went to Dakhla to see the camelrace. Cause of the heat they postponed the race for one hour. So we had time to walk around and look into the bedouine-tents and got some invitations for tea. We sat in such a tent smalltalking and teadrinking…
When the time came I went up on the roof of the Blue Wonder with my camera and had a nice few over the place. But instead of the camelrace there was a “Fantasia”, which is a show-attack on horses with old muskets, which are to be fired at the end, it was a nice and loud spectacle. After that we went to eat camel and listen to the concert down-town….

March 1st
There is an Oysterfisher at the beach who sells Oysters for 3Dh the piece which is about 40 ct, so we get daily nice apeticer.
The main attraction at the festival yesterday was Youssouh‘ndour who makes Senegalasian Reggaemusic, which is a nice music, but there was not that much enthusiasme in the auditorium, but much more than at the other concerts. That was for free like all the other programpoints, so the Sahourians used these for a familyevent.....

Laayoune

2010-02-18T18:26:00.006+01:00

February 17th
The last third of the piste was contrair to the piste yesterday really hard to drive I needed for 15km almost two hours, there were so much stones and rivercrossings in the mud, I had only a hint of what was under the surface of the water…
About noon I made it finally to Tan Tan and met two hours later the others to go together to Tan Tan Plage where we reached the Atlantik Ocean.

February 18th
We slept on a parkinglot at the beach inmidst of white plastic motorhomes with the TV-antennas on the roof.
It was raining all night long, so I lost a lot of dessertmud on southside of the “Blue Wonder”.
Meanwhile we reached Laayoune in Westsahara which is now part of Morocco, not everybody believbe in that, so the military is a bit nervous.

to the coast

2010-02-17T18:16:00.006+01:00

February 11th
Surprisingly the acrylics-glas arrived in time from Casablanca, they needed more than 5 hours to make a temporary windshield; I’m not very happy with the job they did, but anyway after some changes I can drive again even off-road.
So we went south to M’hamid from where we started the next day to follow the Oued Draa for some hundred km.

February 12th
A lot of sand today, but no one stuck in the sand.
It was really nice to drive through the small dunes and in the oued (river or riverbed), especially the fast part on the sebkha (dry lake).

February 13th
Mario has a bad back he would like to drive the next days on the road; but today we have to drive on a particular mad piste…in the middle of nowhere we met some German travelers, who I knew from Germany – the world is a village.
We had three controls by the military.

February 14th
We follow the track from a former “Paris-Dakar Raid” which was a kind of comfortable. Than we tried to make an off-road shortcut, to safe about 80 km. But the military stopped us and sent us back to make the long way, because this is a military area.
Back on the paved road we camped near a picturesque palmerie together with other travelers.

February 15th
This day we made 200 km on paved roads, found no gasstation and no bancomat…

February 16th
And another time we had to change our plans, in Zag where we wanted to go on a piste to the coast, there was another military zone, so they sent us back again, there was a shortcut allowed, but the others were not in the mood to go on this pist; so I went there by myself; we will met in Tan Tan Plage – inch Allah.
The piste is pretty soft, sandy and muddy, it has freshly rained… there were only stones when I had to change the oued.

at the port to the grand dessert

2010-02-10T17:18:00.003+01:00

February 8th

On a real mad piste we reached Menad where we hit the road to Zagora, we overnighted in the Draavalley near Timlassa.

February 9th
Zagora where we want to buy groceries for the next week for the big trip and let do some maintainance in a small workshop.

February 10th
Back in the workshop again; I need a new windshield....tomorrow inch Allah

our first stepps together in the dessert

2010-02-10T17:12:00.005+01:00

February 1st

A day to rest a little and make some maintenance…

February 2nd
We went to Boudenib to buy some groceries before we hit the piste to Erfoud. It’s nice to drive in the dessert again after long time abstinence.
Josie had a huge sandbox.

February 3rd
In Erfoud we got surprisingly cheap dieselfuel 65ct only. We had lunch in a restaurant, not everybody was happy about the food/
We overnighted in the dunes of the Erg Chebbi, had a folcloristic campfire whith some souvenir-dealers.

February 4th
We tried to cross the Erg Chebbi, which was not possible because of Miriams tires………So we through oued which is aside the erg.
We reached Merzouga after tea-invitation and shopping we went to a campground to do the laundry and so on.

February 5th
A day to maintaine the trucks, mounting a radio into Miriams truck and rest..

February 6th
We started towards Zagora after some 20kms we bought some bread and left then the Pavement and toll the southern piste to Zagora. This was not Miriam’s day. She sanded a coupple of times in.
At our overnightplace near Remlja visited us some nice and well educated children.

February 7th
In spite of a lot of sand we had the whole day no probs

nous somme en Maroc

2010-02-10T17:05:00.005+01:00

January 27th

After a nice night we bouht tickets again - they were this time a little over 300 Euros -, had a calm day waiting for the night when the ship should depart. We will see.

January 28th

We started just in time at midnight; we found no couches in the vessel contrair to what I expected. So it wasn’t a wondferfull night to sleep. We arrived in Melilla with an hour delay cause of the still stormy sea.
We joined the gasstation, whyich was a little more expensiv then we expected but still less then in Spain.

We passed the border within one hour, including Swineflue-certificate. So we a have reistered cars now; (fortunately they didn’t controlled my insurance) payed some Euros for competent help.

Heading southeast we made about 100 km today including buying fruits and bread, changing money and so on.

January 29th

After a night in the cold mountains we headed south direction Bouarfa overnighted somewhere in the high plains. The days getting warmer and nights colder, that’s a sign we are in the dessert.

January 30th

Bouarfa was a quite succesful stop, we bought cards for the cellphones, a UMTS stick for the computers, (hoping now to find a connection which is good enough to work with, not only waiting) did the groceries and met some peoble.

We some kms southeast took then the dirtroad to Menghoub.

January 31st

We decided to stay in this oued a day to make some reparations, to the laundry and so on.
We are still pretty high, the days are pretty and the night cold.

Spain

2010-02-02T00:21:00.002+01:00

January 22nd

After refilling water and a small breakfast we started at noon towards Andorra.

We went south on very narrow and winding roads made about 140km and found a nice place to overnight in the mountains.

After a long evening we had a late start in the morning of

January 23rd

We arrived in Andorra went for groceries, bought a stereo for Miriams truck and made the guy from the gas-station happy, we got the fuel cheaper and a bottle of Champange brut for each of us.
After 140 km we stopped for the night few km after we passed Seu d’ Urgel still in the mountains about 1600m high.

January 24th

Less mountains and less to do we only drove so we made about 300 km.
In the evening we saw the first minarett.

January 25th

We woke up earlier joined the no toll autovias and made 500 km through spectacular landscapes.

January 26th

We woke up early again after a whole night raining; so there was very deep dirt and I parked a little too far from the track, at least Mario towed me out of the clay, after the others reached the safe pavement.

We had a real thunderstorm with hail and all the goodies such a storm has.

In the afternoon we arrived in Almeria, we found it very easy to buy tickets for the same day; expectingly they were under 300 Euros.

As soon as the embarkingtime was coming they gave us the money back, told us maybe tomorrow when there are fewer storms the ship will go to Afrika.

because of the slow internet this time only 1 pic

2010-01-21T17:37:00.003+01:00

January 21st

Sun is shinning in Caumont le Neuf, which is very important…

I made a smal excursion with my brother to pickup some tools; on the way back we had to take a bypass because the way under the autoroute isn’t high enough….
This way is a dirt track and not wide enough so we slided into a field and made a little damage; so we had our sport in the noon.

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

2010-01-21T10:00:00.002+01:00

January 18th

I started at high noon, went to Buchau where I bouht some good dark bread for road.

I made some 400 km on the German Autobahn and about 50 km in France where I overnighted in the Vosgues near Colmar.

January 19th

Woke up in the fog of the Alsac, which I joined throuh the valley of the Doubsriver till a few km before Besancon, there was only sun no cloud. Later I had fog again till Clermont Ferrand, which I passed in last sunbeams.

I went into the Massif Central where the autoroute goes over 1100m, which is high enough to promise a cold night…

time to go

2010-01-18T11:41:00.003+01:00

I'm about leaving the winter in Adlitz,Frankonia, Germany. Everything is set up

10 tage noch,

2010-01-09T14:30:00.002+01:00

die vorbereitungen laufen.
auch wenn marokko nicht das exotischste aller laender ist und die reise-formalitaeten sich in grenzen halten, gibt es immer viel zu tun wenn man sich fuer 8 wochen aus dem winter verabschiedet;
besonders wenn man in einem 28 jahre altem lkw verreist. da gibts die normalen servicearbeiten wie oelwechsel und abschmieren, hier wirds schon schwierig, bei diesen temperaturen mag das fett nicht so recht durch die schmiernippel.
die tanks wurden an neujahr mit relativ preiswertem diesel in oesterreich gefuellt, das sollte bis weit ins ebenso relativ preiswerte frankreich langen.
ein neues auspuffrohr liegt schon bereit zum einbau.

new year

2010-01-03T12:15:00.005+01:00

I celebrated the New Year with 51 other owners and crews of Motorhomes, mostly converted 4WD - trucks like mine in the Bavarian mountains, we had a lot of fun talking about diesel and traveling.

Back in Germany

2009-11-25T09:12:00.003+01:00

Now I'm back home in Adlitz, it's a surprisingly mild weather which helps a little.
But on the other hand the feeling to be at home has me in its merciless grip....

there are a lot of things to do, roof-tiles must be replaced, to put the autumn-leaves to the compost, the break from the Saab where blocked, the mail from 3 months must be be answered and on and on...

Good thing is I can plan and prepare the next journey.

the journey came to an end

2009-11-19T06:03:00.003+01:00

November 18th

The journey is over….
The Flair is sold………
An area has ended (for me)…
Fortunately the weather was not that bad …..
I could see the the Mount Hood (pic)….
My flight back to Europe is scheduled for tomorrow…

in Boring again

2009-11-16T06:31:00.005+01:00

November 15th

The night was not so cold in the Oregon-Sand-Dunes where I spent my last night in the Flair. Sentimental feelings? I don’t know, but it was a good car and comfortable home for some journeys.

From the coastal Hwy 101 I went through the Umpquavalley, which is really beautiful especially with the autumn-leaves, to the I-5. There was still no rain and still a little sunshine, which gave a fine light with the colored leaves.

Driving on the I-5 I passed Coburg Oregon, it’s the today's special for the German friends in Coburg Oberfranken ;-).

Very soon I arrived Martins house at Zions Hill.

Here came the journey to an end after almost exactly 13.000 mi, there were no problems with Flair except one radiator-hose was leaking, the expense were 13$ and 15 min work, which I made by myself.

The most impressive evening was in Breaux Bridge Louisiana with fried Aligator and Cajun-Music.
I missed due to the weather Whale-Watching in Bar Harbour.
I lost my Leatherman due to my “Alzheimer” in the Empire-State-building.
I got a ticket because I didn’t saw the toll-booth at a toll-road in Washington-state.

This was it for now, on Thursday I have to fly back to Germany.
the next news from there then.

2009-11-16T04:37:00.004+01:00

November 14th

And again a surprisingly nice day after a cold night….

In a very slow pace I went the 101 north. With a lot of stops, looking for the Redwoods and the famous Oregon-coast I made the 200 and something miles to to the Oregon-sand-dunes, where I overtightened.

Today I have two specials;
The first one is for Rolli the pic of the Californian-coast where I met him in 2005, having some Canadian-mist together.
The other one is for Rainer in memoriam our Camarque creativity.

2009-11-16T04:32:00.004+01:00

Friday the 13th

The weather-forecast was not right, but I can’t complain, there was no rain like they said.
So I started direction North after buying some groceries, refilling the gastank and using the dump-station at Rotten Robby.

Like in the Mohave-desert the redwood-area north of Ukiah I could imagine to live in.
So took my time and drove slowly through the Eelrivervalley and the Avenue of Giants, stopping here and there, strolling around.

The night I’ll spent at Clambeach Countypark, which is located north of Eureka at the Oceanfront.

2009-11-13T01:42:00.005+01:00

November 12th

Now my visit in Santa Rosa is almost at the end; tomorrow I’ll start towards Boring Oregon via the Redwood-forests and along the coast.

The visit at the Shaders was really nice like always, unfortunately there was no chance to hear the “Fishbears” and the “Chipplings” (the bands of the sons) this time instead I heard Tom at Uvas, which is a restaurant in Nappa, where Tom plays very often with different Jazzbands.
There was also a nice neighborhood-meeting where we made Guave-juice and tried to figure out what else we can do with this juice, there was a lot Vodka in this game…..

The other day we did some work in the garden and at the studio some painting stuff…..

So I had some relaxed days with a lot socializing….

2009-11-06T18:22:00.004+01:00

November 5th

Just a beautiful day today, mild temperatures and a very clear light along the hwy 1 which matched perfect the scenery of the coastal hwy. I had the feeling it’s just too beautiful, too perfect. I took my time, went slowly up the coast, stopped often and waded in the Pacific.

The Golden Gate Bridge and the overview over San Francisco were the last highlight without rain, I already saw the raincloud in the north.

hwy # 1

2009-11-06T17:18:00.004+01:00

November 4

Cruising on the famous hwy # 1 I stopped at the Elephant Seal Vista-point, fewing, listening and smelling these nice huge animals.

Than I was lucky to find an nice site at one of the most beautiful campgrounds I ever seen: Kirk Creek; fortunately this is in the Padres National-forest, which means there is not state duty on the campground, so it costs “only” 22$ a night.

2009-11-06T17:12:00.006+01:00

November 3

After relaxed days at Derek in Lancaster CA, where Frank Zappa went to the High-school, I started towards the Pacific in order to close my bathing season. At the Pacific was too much fog so it was pretty cool and so I changed my mind (oh I know Erhard would have jumped in) and was happy to wade along the shore watching birds and so on.

I’m overtightened at Refugio State-park paying 35$ which is the most I ever paid for a almost dry campground. OK CAL is almost bankrupt so they need money….
But I got a nice site on the oceanfront.

2009-11-01T02:38:00.003+01:00

October 31

This morning I strolled around in Saguaro NM, enjoying the cacti and all the nice and interesting plants and animals from this “desert”.

The rest of the daylight I had on the I-10 going to Scottsdale, where I visited Jay and Gayle, whom I met last year at the Lake Powell. We had a nice evening together (thanks for that).

November 1

California I’m back California the State with the high fuel-prices.
In the evening I arrived Derek’s house….

2009-10-30T22:23:00.005+01:00

October 29

Todays highlight was the Pima Airmuseum. In former times when I was in Tucson, I always had women as company. They had only a understanding at the surface for my technical interests, (I don’t blame them for that) so it comes that I didn’t visit the museum till now. As well as I like old trucks I love this transport birds. Unfortunately there is very much to see from war and warbirds……….

The ight I’ll spend at a campground in Saguaro NM where I have already been in-midst of giant Cactus with a nice sunset.

arizona

2009-10-30T22:18:00.005+01:00

October 28

Storm in the morning changed between heavy rain- and sandstorm and the temperature dropped remarkable down.

At noon I reached Fort Bowie. Here is the exhibit not so embarrassing like at the forts I visited before, but also here the natives are the ambushers and no word about Europeans as invaders.

The weather became better, I arrived in Chiricahua National Monument, it was still pretty cold. But now I’m proud of me, I went up to a peak through the snow. The award was a nice few over Arizona and also into New Mexico.

Yesterday I refused to stay at a campground cause of the prohibition to make a campfire, I wanted to BBQ a steak for me. Tonight I could have done it,but now it’s too cold.

arizona I'm coming

2009-10-28T20:43:00.006+01:00

October 27

The pics in white are no pics from snow, this is white sand. Today I was in the White Sand National Monument. This is for me not a desert American say so, but its really nice there. Walking through the dunes I thought a lot about the times with Giovanna and Valerio in the Erg d’Admer. I calculated the best driveways through this dunes, wondering what Valerio would say……
But this was only phantasy, like in the most of such preserves you may do almost nothing, understandable but annoying.

Later I saved a Rattlesnake from becoming mousse au snake.

New Mexico

2009-10-27T04:41:00.004+01:00

October 26

Yesterday I forgot to tell about the Rattlesnake, which was on the trail at Guadalupe Mountain.

Today it was lousy cold, rain in the night unpleasant, but the right day to visit a cavern, where it was less cold than outside. The Carlsbad Cavern is really huge; the Big Room is bigger than 6 Football-fields; the tour in this room is 1 mile long! There are many nice spots to see.

Going over the mountains to White Sands NM I saw the first freshly fallen snow this season at almost 9000 ft.

leaving texas

2009-10-26T16:31:00.011+01:00

October 20 and 21

I left Galveston Island, after using the dumpstation. The next was, I looked for propan and fuel.

So I headed West on the I-10 and pretty soon I was aware, I’m no more in the South I arrived the Southwest, there was suddenly "landscape", no more gras and woods there were sage- and other brushes and also different cactus the smell in the air and the whole feeling told me I’m in the Southwest.

I visited the ruins of Fort Lancaster; there they only speak about how mean the Indians were.
I think, they should write at all this heritage-sites they deal with the native-history, something like: we apologize for our ancestors……….

In Texas is it nice to travel at each rest-area they provide a free Wifi and dump-stations and you can overnight there.

October 22

After a night at Walmart's in Fort Stockton I went to visit one of the last great national-parks in the USA I hadn’t seen yet. Coming into Big Bend it wasn’t that spectacular, but I learned they have a lot of wildlife there (including Mosquito). The binocular I bought last Year was very helpful especially in twilight and in the dark.

So I reached the Rio Grande, resting the rest of the day at the Campground and the vicinity.

October 23

Today I made a short ride on my bicycle to look into the Santa Elena Canyon, unfortunately the battery from the camera ran out of power and since yesterday the zoom doesn’t work anymore. That’s why I couldn’t made all the pics and videos from the animals I have seen today, there were Coyotes, Roadrunners, Javelinas and a huge Owl. The evening I spent with a group of bikers, astonishingly no alcohol but grindy “cowboy-coffee” and it was sometimes hard to copy that Texan that they spoke.

October 24

I left the park heading NW. going to Alpine and Fort Davis, this is a National Historic Site remembering the war against the Natives, even here no word of apologize. But it was interesting to see how they lived here in Texas in the second half of the 19th century.
There is huge Observatory in the vicinity, but this afternoon it was pretty cloudy, so I decided not to visit the Observatory.
I spent the night at one of the nice picnic areas they have in Texas.

October 25

There was a nice 2,5 mi trail at the picnic area, which I joined.
After this morning-sport I drove direction North, soon I reached the I-10 were I hoped to find a Wifi at the rest-area; unfortunately it didn’t work. (this is the reason why this blog is so huge.)
In the early afternoon I arrived at Guadalupe Mountains NP, there was plenty of time, to make a hike to the Devils Hall.

texas

2009-10-20T14:49:00.005+02:00

October 19

Yesterday I forgot to tell, during hearing the nice Cajun-music, I ate my first Alligator, that was some.

Today I was intend to swim, but then they told about the Jellyfishes and what they do to peoble, so I refused to go to swim.

I went with the bicycle into the for wildlife fewing. The most I saw were Moskitos So I hurried through the park, faster than the most of the Mosquito.

At least I made just a walk at the beach, not dangerous and not stressy.

This time I sent a map from the whole journey till today, hope you can read it.

2009-10-19T02:55:00.004+02:00

October 18

The diner at “Mulates” yesterday was really nice. The “Cajun-music” was very authentic; it was an advice from the visitorcenter at the freeway. Sometimes are these institutions helpful, especially, when the advice comes with an coupon for free Hush Puppies. So was this event very affordable.

Texas

Here I went to the beach in Galveston at a state-park-campground, staying for two days.

go west

2009-10-18T01:45:00.007+02:00

October 15

Go West is now for the next weeks goal.
So I had almost a driving day. Saw a lot of Armadoillos as roadkills. Found a beach at Panama City Beach for tomorrow morning.
There was a nice heaven at sunset.
Another thing was, today I passed the timezone. I’m now 7 hours from MEZ.

October 16

In the night was a heavy thunderstorm that caused a temperature-dropdown. It’s not really cold but not comfortable to go to swim, so I canceled this part of the morning amusement.

Alabama

After a short drive I reached Alabama. As fast as I reached it, I passed through it.

Mississippi

At Mississippi I went into Gulf Islands National Seashore park, which was pretty nice. Once again I missed my boat that I sold last year.
I drove the scenic byway US 90, but couldn’t find it very scenic.

Louisiana

In the evening I arrived Slidell at Louisiana about 30 mi before New Orleans.
Louisiana is the number 43 on the list of the US-States I visited; on this journey I won’t come higher on that score.

October 17

New Orleans today – after I found out where a tourist-information is located, the GPS was very helpful, I had to find out where to park my motor-home, the Police was helpful. Because the parking-lot was pretty far from the French Quarter, I took the bicycle. It was very picturesque loud and full with life. But the music was not good, the paintings were indescribable - but it was a lot of fun.
I found a RV-Park, not far from the French Quarter, but they were full even there was one night 99$.
So I decided to go on, on my way west.
Stopped over in Breaux Bridge, there is concert tonight….

florida

2009-10-15T03:42:00.009+02:00

October 10

Georgia

Visited Fort Pulaski right behind the stateline. This National Monument marks on the one hand a very important win of the Union the won the control over the Savanah river and on the other the Union used the first time the new so called “Riffle-Canon” with this they destroied the masonry walls of the fort within 2 days, the masonry walls, castles and so on where no more safe against the canons. In the Civillian War they tried some other new wapon stuff like the drill, connicle bullets and hats for the ignition at the muskets.

While I were thinking about staying a night in Georgia, I allready had passed the stateline to

Florida

Here I reached pretty soon Daytona Beach using a commercial RV-park to overnight.

October 11

Daytona Beach my first goal in Florida, I went swimming and drove at the beach; this was a nice half day.
Cape Canaveral was the other interesting half of the day; I joined some simulation, movies and saw a lot of original stuff. I didn’t know how small the Gemini stuff was; a Fiat 500 (the old one) was really luxureous compare to that.

October 12

Today I arived the most southern place of this journey.
Highest temperatures were in the 90ties; unbelievable they told me, in Denver Colorado they had to cancel a Baseballgame due to heavy snowfall, good to be here.

I’m a little disapointed from the Everglades, saw today no Alligator, no Manatee no Amarican Crocodile, “only” birds that were nice, a Blue Heron, an Osbrey, some Turkey Vultures and Anhingas (pic). Even so I made boatstour at the National Park. I counted on a very rich Fauna……. Maybe tomorrow will be the better chance.

Today is Columbusday, maybe that’s the reason the campground is free.

October 13

Today I decided to make a Airboattour at the commercials. This was much more fun and more excitement. There were many of the Aligators, Crcodiles and Turtles. Also the boatride itself was not bad.

In the afternoon I went into the Big Cypress National Preserve, it’s pretty calm there the attraction there are the cypresstrees growing in the water…. But the campground has electricity, nice I can use the AC, and is located around a Aligatorpond.
“No swiming in the pond.”

October 14

Not bad is this national preserve, no superlatives but nice trees and trails to look at it.
Driving day again, I went up north of Tampa, where I made a short afternoon at the beach befrore I dropped in at Walmart.