I've seen and done quite some things in Perth, visiting Pinguin Island, Seal Island, Rottnest Island, and another few National Parks in the area. But after 2 weeks, I really wanted to go further. It took a while to find some travelpartners, since almost every backpacker wanted to go North. I needed to go back to Melbourne, at least within 2 weeks time, because I was about to resume my work here again.

Anyways, during the 2 weeks in Perth I met 3 guys (Luke, Australian, Man and Yan from Singapore) who were about to move to Melbourne. They wanted to come along with me, if I was able to drive with a trailer behind my car. Since I couldn't other backpackers so easy, I accepted the deal. Basically there was not that much to see on the way to Adelaide (before Melbourne), and I've seen everything between Adelaide and Melbourne already, so I was fine with that. But with the trailer, there came a lot of space available in the car. So I thought it was a good idea to take another person in the car! Just 2 days before we were about to leave I found Pauline (French girl) who wanted to go to Adelaide. The more people, the more fun!

So, Sunday morning, first picking up Pauline, picking up Luke, and than driving to the brothers Man and Yan to pick them up including the trailer. It took quite some time to pack-up all the stuff, do some shopping, test the lights, but at least we left the city that day. Ahh that felt a lot better, being far outside the city agian. First we were on the way to Wave Rock, a big 4 hour drive. It was actually the first time I've been driving with a trailer behind my car, I've never done that before in my life. It drives a lot more difficult! Cruise control was not really an option to use, the car kept going back in lower gears so much on the highway (means more fuel usage) and with the wind... the whole car shakes around... And as I expected, we didn't reach Wave Rock before sunset. So the first night was, like my 'normal night', in the bush next to the highway. At least, finally a warm campfire again :)

The next morning we left the place quickly to go further to Wave Rock, about 45 mins driving. Once we got there, we were walking around the park, to see this weird place. It's a rock with this 'wave' view over it, that has been there for over thousands of years. It looks really special, but it was actually really small. But we found a nice big table over there, to have some extended breakfast and enjoy the warm morning. Around noon, we left the place and drove further, to Kalgoorlie. We arrived there at the end of the day. First thing we drove to, was the Super Pit lookout. Kalgoorlie is one of best-known goldmine towns in Australia. From this lookout, we were able to see how deep this mine actually goes, impressive! Once it got dark, we were looking around in the town for a camping. Well, nothing found, all campings were full... Ok, time to hit the bush again! We found a nice spot, about 10 mins out of town. Funny thing was, that everyone had full reception on his phone. In the dark it really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, but with full reception! The campfire and full moon made the night really good! (Well, at least my night was okay ;-))

The next day we drove back to Kalgoorlie, because I wanted to visit the Mining Hall of Fame, a place where they give you a tour through one of the mines. But when we got there, the place was closed and abandoned. Pretty weird! I talked to a gardener over there, and he told me the place has been closed for half a year. Damn, I wasn't able to hold a piece of gold in my hand that day :( Ahwell, we made some pictures, did some shopping, and we left the place, in direction of Esperance, a long drive through the windy, red sanded forrest. We reached Esperance a few hours before sunset, so it was a good time to camp in a normal camping (with shower and kitchen) and chilling out for an hour at the white sanded beach over there. Although it was 33 degrees that day, the water was really freezing cold, so no swimming...

The next day, before we went in direction of the Nullarbor, we were driving to Cape Legrand National Park. Back in Perth I heard there were some white beaches over there... Well, whow... The sand was really white! Just amazing and beautiful! I've never seen such place before. I think I made about 100 pictures in that area, just no words to explain how nice area it was. I only didn't realise, that we were very low on fuel. My car indicated that we were only able to drive 49km with the remaining fuel, the first fuel station would be back in Esperance (70km). Oops... While driving back to Espereance, 70km/h... Slow driving uphill, quickly downhill... Hoping to find the fuel station in time... And whew, with 2km remaining we were able to fill the b**** up :) Ok, it was time to hit the real desert: Eyre highway, through the Nullarbor Plain (means 'No trees plain'), in direction of Port Augusta. This is a 1668km drive, with almost nothing to see on the way. This day we only did about 200km, because it already got dark after that. We camped next to the highway in the bush and decided to wake up early the next morning, to drive as much as possible the next day.

It was pretty chilly outside, it kinda helped us waking up early: 5am in the morning, almost at sunrise time. Alright, "Let's hit the f***ing desert!". One long drive, with a few stops for pictures, such as 'Australia's longest straight road', big (but feels weird) roadhouses on the way, passing the South Australia state border, doing crazy in the car... It was a boring day, but we made the best out of it. Around 2pm we were driving through the real Nullarbor Plain National Park, an area with no trees around. Except for the highway, you really don't see anything around you, no life, nothing... so crazy! After 2 hours we were seeing trees again, at least a safe signal that we were able to camp in the bush for tonight!

But than it happened... Around 4pm, after driving 900km that day, we got into serious car issues. The electronics of the dashboard were going crazy. Suddenly all dashboard lights started to blink, sometimes everything went off, and on, and off again, and on, and off again... And then everything went off, eventough the engine was still running and we were driving about 95km/h. At that moment, we were about 200km from the last roadhouse and 265km from the next roadhouse... I decided to keep driving (with everything shut down, including the gear-change), but after 15 minutes the car really stopped. We got stuck in the middle of nowhere. It's an expression that Dutch people use a lot when they're sitting in the train, and it suddenly stops for a green signal in the country, they twitter 'great traintrip, just got stuck in the middle of nowhere'. Well, THIS IS REALLY IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! In fact, we were in the middle of an aborginal reserve. Ok, we got some help from people who passed us, a weird Australian couple helped us with jump-start cables, we were at least able to drive 3 minutes further. Then the car died again, at the last moment I drove straight to the left, in the bush... We actually found a few houses around us, including a caravan park, but we found no life. It was almost dark, so we decided to camp there and deal with the problem the next morning. I didn't worry too much, we had enough food and help will come eventually. I just worried about the costs of getting help, because it's really expensive to get a mechanic to help you in the Nullarbor.

The next morning we tried to look for help around the houses again, and we found someone: a remote police officer. Luke told me he was there the day before as well, but he didn't want to help us. This time he helped us by calling a mechanic from Ceduna (265km away from us). He also reminded us that it would cost at least 600 dollars, just to get us out of here. We, the 5 of us together, only had 600, so lets hope for the best... After 2,5 hours waiting, the mechanic came up. It was basically only 15 minutes work, he found out that a component in the alternator was broken. We only had to pay 550 dollars, that was actually lucky in this matter. He fixed it, and we were able to drive by ourselves further to Port Augusta. Alright! We drove about 700km that day and we reached Port Augusta around 9pm. We were staying on a regular camping, since we wanted to have a shower so badly that day... And it felt a lot better to be in the 'living area' again.

The next morning I brought Pauline to the busstation. I was planning to drive to Flinders Ranges (about 300km North of Port Augusta), while Pauline needed to go to Adelaide (300km Sourth) that day. Well, there were no seats available to go to Adelaide. And since she really needed to be there that day, I decided to drive to Adelaide for her. Besides, I found out that I got low on cash, since the Nullarbor-trip was a lot more expensive than I thought, fuel-wise. So I decided to skip Flinders Ranges for some other time, next roadtrip mabye... After having a bbq in the park, in Adelaide CBD, we dropped Pauline off at her hostel, said goodbye and we drove further, in direction of Melbourne. We camped about an hour from Adelaide on a camping (including shower, playfield, swimming pool), but we were completely alone in there.

The next day we drove further, we got back in the state Victoria around 12pm. To make the trip at least a little bit more exciting, we were going through the Grampians. I was there 3 months ago as well, but this time I was driving a different route for some more nice spots. We stopped around a few area's for lookouts and waterfalls. Around 5pm, we were camping in the National Park. Actually at the same camping spot where I was 3 months ago with Bettina and Ulli, with many kangaroo's jumping around.

And then it was Monday the 8th of October, my last day before Melbourne. We drove a 'quick'-round through the Great Ocean Road. I just wanted to see some spots again, to see if anything really changed compaired to 3 months ago. The weather was a lot better than 3 months ago for sure, so the pictures I made are probably better then previous ;) We got in Geelong (2nd largest town in Victoria), from there on it was 1,5 hour driving on the freeway straight to Melbourne. While driving on the West Gate Bridge (big, long bridge above the Yarra River, next to Melbourne), it felt pretty weird to see the big skyline of the city. After exiting the freeway, when I saw all those cars and people on the street, it suddenly hits me... I can really feel the stress from the people there, so many people, so much traffic, what the f***! I was not used to it anymore, it felt so bad, I wanted to go back to the outback as quickly as possible. It even took about 40 mins again to drive across the city to Luke's friend where Luke/Man/Yan were gonna stay, it was only 11km from the freeway! After chilling out and a dinner, I dropped the trailer over there and I went back to my old house, in Brighton, to see my old bedroom again. It was also great to see Justin again, the only person who was still living in the house.

The next couple of days it was basically sorting some stuff out, like helping Luke, Man and Yan with their new appartment (and moving their stuff), catching up at Online Learning Australia (where I'm working now again), and seeing some old friends. I also found a roommate (for 4 weeks) pretty quickly. Helene, the girl that was travelling with us around Kakadu national park, also just got in Melbourne and she was looking for a place to stay (instead of a hostel). At the same time, Armand and Niels (with who I've travelled with from Adelaide to Darwin) were in Sydney for a week to sell their car. Since I got bored in Melbourne pretty quickly, I booked a ticket to Sydney for a weekend to see them. It's only 1,5 hour flying, so a weekend was perfect!

So, after 10 months I was back in Sydney. This time, I really enjoyed my time those days... Well, except for the last moment... When I walked though airport security in Sydney, before flying back to Melbourne, a few security guards were holding me, because I had an suspicious object in my backpack. It was the bullet attached to my keychain (which I got since Warnambool, the day I was shooting on the farm). I had to give my passport and ticket to them, they needed to fill out some paperwork... I was actually pretty late to catch my flight, so it was a real bad timing. After waiting for 20 minutes, a police officer came to me and explained that it wasn't a threat, it was just a souvenir with no gunpowder inside. But it was still a real bullet (ok now it's real?), I cannot take it in the airplane. Just at the moment he explained it to me, I got a call from a stewardess telling me I will miss my flight if I'm not at the Gate within 1 minute. The gate was 15 minutes away, so "I'm really sorry, we have to go without you. All the best, bye!". Oops... Ok, no worries, I'll take the next flight? Together with 3 police officers I walked back to the check-in, they explained what happened, and the woman at the check-in tried to arrange something for me. After 30 minutes, she told me that her manager didn't want to transfer me to a different flight, so I had to pay full price for the new ticket... 110 dollars, on a flight 5 hours from that moment. Crap! Since the hostel where Armand and Niels were staying was only 45mins from the airport, I went back to have dinner with them, and back to the airport in the evening. No problems this time, I came back at 1:30pm in my bedroom in Brighton, just before my 1st new workday.

Alright, and that was 4 weeks ago now... In those 4 weeks, not much happened honestly. I'm working at Online Learning Australia again, even working on a project that I started in february. The weather is getting better every week, so in the weekends it's mostly chilling out outside as much as possible, I've been to the beach 2 times (and tomorrow again). Right now my house is filled with 2 French guy, 4 French girls, 3 Australian guys, 1 Irish guy and 1 girl from Costa Rica. Helene left the house today, she moved to a place closer to work.

I'll be working at least till half of December, then I will go on a roadtrip to Sydney (with New Year's Eve in Sydney at the end). What happens after January 2nd, the day my visa expires, is officially not set yet. My boss is trying to arrange a sponsorship for me, so I can stay longer in Australia. Financially it would be a lot better for me to stay and work, it's still a challenge to get the development to a higher level in the company. And ofcourse, I'm still in hunger for travelling more in this country (the East-coast!). But I'll keep you posted when I know more about the year 2013 ;)