Arriving and first weeks

Finally I have some time to write about how we have been so far (there has been either no power or no time). I decided to switch to English because then I am not discriminating any people who do not speak Estonian (and hopefully all Estonians understand English).

So to start off we had quite a short flight to Istanbul followed by a 20-hour wait in Istanbul airport. For anyone who will use Turkish airlines in the future to fly through Istanbul, there is a great opportunity (if you have enough time in Istanbul and both your flights to and from Istanbul are with Turkish airlines): You can either get a free night at a hotel (transportation to and from hotel included) or you can get a tour of Istanbul with meals included. Since Istanbul airport had pretty good opportunities for sleeping (read: no armrests between seats in waiting areas) then we decided to take the second option. We almost didn’t make it due to the long wait in passport control. And I basically had a panic attack when there was an old unattended suitcase waiting just where there was the largest concentration of people – anyone who has ever been in an airport knows the waiting lines where you just zigzag in one place in order to get somewhere. Istanbul suicide bombers had just attacked the airport three days before we were there so that probably triggered my panic attack even more.

Well, luckily the staff that organized the tour still took us although we were 15 minutes too late. A little bit about the tour itself: There were armored trucks everywhere around the city, the concentration of them being especially high around the airport and soldiers and police with machine guns were also everywhere around the cars. The tour itself included the Blue mosque (an amazing place, the interior is entirely made of small tiles. Women had to have their head, arms, feet etc covered and were not allowed to wear any tight pants. The men were also forbidden to wear shorts), Hagia Sophia (a temple that has been both a mosque and a church so it is a wonderful mix of both symbolics and even some inscriptions from Vikings, although noone knows how it got there) and the hippodrome. The meals were all wonderful, the lunch including four (!!) courses which I was unable to finish.

The shortest guide in Istanbul (his words, not mine)

The local Muslim couple 

The restrictions for getting into the Blue Mosque

The tiled ceiling of the mosque

An example of the security measures in Istanbul

We then had a six-hour flight in Kuala Lumpur, an eight-hour wait there (by that time the local food, the free beverages and on the hindsight the water of emajõgi had caused me to feel like food wanted to come out of me more than it wanted to go in. That feeling continued for three-four days). In the evening we had another six-hour flight to Perth (arrived at 1am on Tuesdays and we finally made it to our new home for a couple of days – the house of a friend of a friend in Freo. We even got our own personal house (a caravan) and very friendly hosts.

The next day we went to see two cars. The first one was from a car yard and it was horrible. When we asked the oversized salesman with an oversized ego if he had any other four wheel drives for 3000 or less he just laughed at us. We could still hear him laughing as we walked away. That discouraged us a bit. But just until the second car. We had an hour-long test drive (it was the rush hour so we spent most of our time waiting at the traffic lights. The Swedish guy who was selling us the car even called us to check if we were planning on stealing his car) and bought it. So less than 24 hours after arriving in Oz we already had a car and half of the equipment that we needed, as it came with the car. In addition to having a full foldable sleeping area built in (with mattress and everything) we also had dishes, tools for repairing the car, chairs, fins, fishing equipment etc) and we even got 600 dollars discount for buying the car so fast (so we spent 2000 in the end plus a new spare tire and a couple of small repair works). During the same day we also got our phone numbers (mine is +61498474079), bank accounts etc.

From Thursday to Monday we had a little trip south to visit our friend Ahti and have the first longer test-run to the car. It all worked out until, after a few hours of driving and after Erik had wondered if our car is rainproof (our last Australian car Buf was not, as we discovered after 6 months of having him. He refused to be driven in the rain. Something in the wiring and battery probably), it started to rain of course. Aaand... the engine worked fine. But at first it started tripping water into Erik’s lap. As soon as I had stopped laughing at him, of course the same happened to my side as well. And as we discovered at night, when we were sleeping in our „brand new“ (25 years old) car illegally somewhere near the coast, the back window was leaking as well. As it was raining quite heavily (there was a temporary river flowing under our car) then we decided to ignore the wet feet. Also, on the third day of our trip we also saw kangaroos already.

You have to climb into the engine to fix it

At first everything is new and exciting

Went to florida... passed Miami, Rome and Paris. You can also find places like Denmark and so on here.

When we first discovered the problem with rain

Our bed

A regular camp toilet with rainwater reservoir. And a Blackboy - these trees grow only 1mm every year.

Typical shed life (at Ahti's)

In the south there are a lot of plantations for different fruits

Everything has happened vary fast so far as on the fourth day of the trip we already spent our first night in a shed (classical, thin metal sheet walls, concrete floor etc)  when we reached Ahti’s place near Donnybrook. After a short or long seeing-again party and a difficult morning we headed south.  I have to mention that in Australia the time moves differently, as it is winter and it gets dark at six o’clock an it is 10 degrees or less outside, people go to sleep early as well... with that said Estonians still exist and stay up late in minus ten or less. But it is a different climate and we also seem to adapt to the local ways.

The most memorable moment of the day was, for sure, climbing the Bicentennical tree. It was a 65 feet tall Karri tree that had long pegs going up spirally around the tree. The step between two pegs was almost half a metre and there was a safety net on the side.... but nothing under or above you. It had been raining for the last few days so the pegs were also a bit slippery. So with a sick feeling and beating heart, we started to climb up. And when you know that there is a long way to fall you tend to cramp up as well. But after the seemingly never-ending climb we finally reached the top. And it was so worth it! It was one of the tallest trees around, so you had a good view all around you. Almost so good, that you forgot for a moment that this dreadful trip had to be done again... this time backwards. And this time I HAD to look down to find the next peg (climbing up, I wasn’t brave enough to do that). The next two days we were all walking like retards (pardon my french) and moaning and sighing all the time (super sore muscles everywhere)

We actually visited some more places, including a huge rock (Mount something), salmon beach and so on, which were all amazing... but very difficult to put into words. So after another illegal camping we started heading back north again. We tried our first 4WD track (didn’t even have to switch on the 4WD as the wheels are quite big) and took Ahti to his first large cave (Piusa was the biggest he had seen so far) the Mammoth cave.  Travelling with Ahti was fun because he was just as bad (or worse) as I am at giving directions but in the end we got everywhere we wanted to go.

There was a village with very friendly (wild) kangaroos living among people

That's them chilling in front of someone's house

The view from the Karri tree (you really can't see the height from here but we have just climbed 65 metres)

The view down while climbing (I was quite low while taking the picture - I was too afraid to let one hand go when I was higher)

Climbing up (a staged photo after getting down. I was not that cheerful while first climbing up)

On a big rock

Salmon beach (again staged photo)

The Estonian ghettos at Salmon beach

Illegal camping - but it was raining a windy so we still decided to camp illegally

The Estonian mob

Bustleton Jetty

By the way, can you imagine driving on a road in a dark that goes straight for 25km (and I mean straight – it does not go up or down or left or right at all)? We didn’t think it would be anything special. But then a light started coming at us and we could not understand what it was. At times it was like a motorbike 300m away, sometimes it was like a bike with a huge lantern 50m away. Sometimes it was like a car... but it only had one light. We almost stopped on the road because there was something weird coming at us and very close to us. Or was it? In the end, it turned out that it was a car. It was just so far that it seemed to have one light. But it was really a weird thing to see.

I have to talk about out car as well, because we are so happy about it. The name is El Bruto, which means „The beast“  in Spanish (as we are both learning Spanish because of our plan to go to South America in a year). He is a 25-year old Mitsubishi Pajero with a V6 engine. And here ends my knowledge about any more numbers to describe the car. You can find that out from Erik. The cool thing is that we got it for a really cheap price, of course, and it belonged to backpackers before us. That means that we have a built-it collapsible bed with a full mattress (so the car looks like a normal overpacked car during the day and a place to sleep at night). We also got fishing equipment, tools, plates, cups and so on and in the end saved even more money because of that. There are some weird coincidences though. The only three cars that we have had, have been green (including this one). On the last car, every time a CD didn’t play the radio would show th message ERROR 2 but on the new one the message is ERROR 3. So an upgrade.

Anyways with another pit stop in Perth (thanks again to the same hosts for having us again) we headed north. But before leaving Perth we stopped by a place called the Job Shop, which is a company that helps backpackers and employers find each other. We described our perfect job as in someplace in the outback with a warm climate, with nothing around and nowhere to spend the money and then stay there for a couple of moths (and find out if we will go insane or not. but we didn’t tell that to the lady in the Job Shop). She had just the job for us – in a small motel in Leonora (a really small place) but it was not really north.  In fact it was about 16 degrees in the daytime and 0 degrees at night. We still decided to apply, since we had no other jobs that we had applied to. We then waited in and around Geraldton for two days for the answer but when nothing came, we decided to head more north (it was still cold in Geraldton).

Even before Geraldton but even more after it the part of Australia that I actually missed started. It is a funny part to miss (ant it certainly was not the only one) because at first glance, it does not seem to be something worth missing. I just loved the straight roads that go between the bush. Don’t get it confused with the one near Donnybrook, that was just plain weird. But the straight roads that go up and down and sometimes do not bend even one degree in any direction for half an hour or more. And 90% of the cars on the roads are made up from roadtrains (trucks that can be 50 metres long, carrying 3-4-5 trailers behind it), 4 WD trucks, caravan people (I’ll get to them soon) and some backpackers with their minivans. On the sides of the road you have bush – sometimes as low as your knee, sometimes up to your waist, sometimes as tall as you. The only places that have a bit more trees are the billabongs – the dried up river-beds that only have water during the rainy seasons.

A road train

But the caravan people – what many Aussies do, is when they retire (or sometimes earlier), they sell their house and all their things, buy a caravan and start moving somewhere. Some have gone around Australia many times but some of them take 5 years to cover 1000 kn because they find a caravan park that they like and they live there for a while. Now when I first mentioned Caravan, you probably thought of something that you can find on the roads in Estonia. Some of them are like that as well. But some of them are as big as houses, some are essentially a huge bus (like the one that would go from Tallinn to Moscow), some fold open into a house. If they have the bus version then they most likely have a small 4WD that they tow after them. Many of them have boats (even small „ships“), normal town cars, bikes,  scooters and so on attached to them. I will try to get a good picture of a really good one and then show it.

Anyways right now we are in Carnarvon (that is the first town that I stayed in the previous visit to Aus) and we are living in a caravan park in our tent. The last time that I was here, you could only wear a sweater at night and it was fine. But last night the temperature dropped to 4 degrees, so it is not as warm as we hoped. But since it is not normal that it’s that cold, then there’s a chance that it will pass. On the first mornings we got awaken by some very cheerful guys from Vanuatu. They were our neighbors, living in a cabin that had its windows (open) towards us. So the Vanuatus woke up before 5am in the morning and started speaking to each other very cheerfully and singing little cheerful songs. And they did that until 7am, when they left for work.

I am working right now in housekeeping in a nearby motel. The work is not really that I had hoped for (I would rather pick some fruits or something like that), but at least I have a job (Erik has not found one yet) and the salary is good so I guess that I’ll be here for a while. More about the life in caravan park and Carnarvon in the future. 

Reisi algus

Paljud on uurinud, et kas on võimalik meie reisil kuidagi silma peal hoida. Kuna ma oma vanasse blogisse (mannapudrukauss) enam sisse ei saa, siis ma olin sunnitud uue looma, kuna igaühele ükshaaval ma kirjutada niikuinii ei viitsi. Kes on käinud varem Aussis,need teavad et seal ei ole intaernetiga kõige paremlug.Aga ma proovin siiski.

Praeguse plaani järgi astume homme õhtul lennule Istanbuli (ma just mõned päevad tagasi avaldsin arvamust, et Istanbuli lennijaama on natuke jube minna, kuna see võiks olla üks oluline sihtmärk kõigile neile, kellemeelt ta mustaks ajab). Veedame seal 20 tundi, kõigi eelduste kohatselt veedameöö lennujaamas ja siis päeval saame tasuta istanbuli Ekskursiooni Turkish Airlines'i poolt. Pühapäeva õhtupoolikul liigume Malaisia poole, kuhu saabume hommikul et siis sama päeva õhtul Perth'i poole liikuda.

Sellest kuidas see plaan juba läheb, kuuleb hiljem. Aga praegu tahaks tänada kõiki kes meie hüvastijätupeole jõudsid. Ned inimesi oli kokku ligi 40, kellest viimased pidasid vastu kuni järgmisel lõunal kuni kella 12'ni. Tervitan kõiki ks ujusid, kes jõid jõe vett, kes käisid võsas, kes viitsisid liha grillida, kes tegid hundirattaid üle(läbi) lõkke ja sealjuures ennast korralikult ära põletasid, kes jõudsid  kohale hommikul (ja said selle eest pudeliga vastu pead), kes viitsisid laulda kõvasti ja valesti, kes magasid pool pidu maha, (aga sellegipoolest pidasid kaua vastu), kes käisid hommikul poetiirul ja kõiki teisi, kes veel ennast puudutatuna ei tundnud. Mulle veel praegu ei ole jõundud kohale, et ma teid kõiki nüüd enam tükk aega ei näe, aga see jõuab vst kunagi hiljem kohale,kui ma kunagi mõnes pisikeses lääne-austraalia linnas olen, kus üldse kultuuri ei ole. Põjus on tõenäolises seles, et mavalin oma sõbrad üldiselt ikka selle järgi, kui kiiksugainimesed on. Seega hindan ma teis kõigis seda, et te olete imelikud. Kõige paremas mõttes :)

Soovin hüvasti neile, kellel olid ees kohustused või kes mingil muul põhjusel ei leidnud teed meie viimasele peole. 

Ma ausõna üritan blogi pidada aga kindlalt ei luba ma midagi.