Even though this article was posted by Jaz, it was written by both of us. The first two paragraphs were written by Jill, and the rest is Jaz’s.

The campground we stayed at in Ceduna was a lovely end to our couple long driving days. The sites were encircled with trees, so it didn’t feel as much like each van was on top of one another. They boasted about being on the beach with sand dunes, but anyone who has been to the west coast of Michigan wouldn’t consider them much of a dune. Regardless, the beach was pretty to watch the sunset. If you’ve read the previous post, you know how the rest of the evening and the morning went, with Jaz and I emptying out the entire van to try and remove the mouse. Because of our mouse troubles, we got a bit of a later start to Port Lincoln than planned, but we still had time to stop in Streaky Bay and Elliston for a relaxing bayside picnic. We also made a stop at Murphy’s Haystacks, which are really large boulder formations that look like haystacks from a distance. They were quite neat to see, especially because up close they are quite a bit bigger than expected.

With all our stops, we made it to Port Lincoln at around 5 pm, in time to make dinner and walk along the water for a bit before it got dark. The next day was our first planned adventure activity, swimming with sea lions. The weather was a bit rainy and chilly when we left, so both of us were wondering quite how warm the swimming was going to be. After a one and a half hour boat ride (in which I did get seasick, just in case anyone who knows me was wondering), we made it to the colony of Australian sea lions. The Australian sea lions are slowly being pushed out by the New Zealand fur seals, and there are only about 12,000 of them left in the wild. We stopped at Memory Cove where there were maybe 15 sea lions relaxing on the beach, and 6 or 7 that came out to play once our guide clapped her hands several times. We put on wetsuits and got into the very chilly water (less than 70 degrees Fahrenheit, or 18 degrees Celsius), where we had about an hour to swim with the sea lions. It was a lot of fun because they were very playful, they’d swim alongside you, dive and flip if you did it, so the more we interacted with them, the more excited they got. The cool part too was that they were close enough that if they weren’t so fast, you could have reached out and touched them. Our time was up much quicker than expected, although all of us were eager to get out of the cold water and have a nice snack on the boat ride back to Port Lincoln.

Since we were done with the sea lions fairly early, we got back to Port Lincoln for around 12:30. Jill and I decided to have a little wander around town. With the roads and pavements being so wide here and the American influence being so unexpectedly strong for shops and town layouts, almost all of the towns I’ve been to here have felt strangely familiar despite my never having set foot on the continent before. A significant difference jumped out at me straight away though; all of these towns are staggeringly beautiful. It really is obscene how much natural beauty Australia has been blessed with, Jill and I haven’t even seen the Gold Coast or the Great Barrier Reef yet, all the amazing things people normally associate with Australia  are still to come but we’re already blown away by what’s on offer here. It finally makes sense why all those people from home have moved half way across the world to come live here. So in Port Lincoln, we walked around the streets, sat for lunch in a beautiful park and had a stroll out on to the pier. It was a lovely afternoon and there was an added bonus on the pier where my karma got an unexpected nice guy boost. As we were walking out to the end of the pier, Jill and I saw a few people with fishing poles heading back in the other direction, we didn’t think too much of it as loads of people here fish but we were a little startled when we suddenly laid eyes on a puffer fish stuck to the pier. I guess the people leaving didn’t want it but neither did they  feel the need to throw it back. We thought it was dead but all of a sudden it took a deep breath. It was alive! Jill told me to throw it into the water. As I picked it up, its’ spikes were slowly peeling off the wooden pier, it was a very strange feeling and even though I was doing right by this wayward little fish it felt like I was hurting it. After I’d tossed it in to the water the fish just floated for a while, it looked like it had taken its last breath but about a minute later, it sparked back into life and its body slowly powered up again. Before long it had swam off and we couldn’t see it anymore. I felt really good about myself on the way back to the caravan park.

Our day swimming with the playful and loveable sea lions was done but we were full of excitement for what we’d be doing the next day; diving with very un-playful and unlovable great white sharks! After Jill’s episode on the sea lion boat ride she thought she’d exercise a little more prudence for the ride out the next day…

Those of you that know me already are aware I’m not a pickupand-go person, I’m very methodical with my planning and need to know what I’m doing well before I actually do it. Compared to Jill though, I’m the personification of a free spirit. That’s why it was so surprising to me that she threw caution to the wind for the sea lion boat ride and skipped her motion sickness medication. That ride didn’t go so well for her but what’s (sort of) funny for me is that even though she did take her medication for the boat ride to the sharks, she still got sick. In fact the whole boat (very nearly including the skipper too) got sick. The two and a half hour ride over was pretty grim. Jill was a wreck but I threw up at least 4 times as well. My iron stomach is a thing of legends; since the age of 3, I’ve never been ill or suffered any consequences from ingesting food or water abroad (even more noteworthy since I travel so much and place very low expectations on people for the standards of food hygiene they’ll provide), I can keep almost any amount of alcohol down and have eaten all sorts of unspeakably disgusting things (though I failed spectacularly when attempting to eat a cockroach in Thailand). My stomach has been able to deal with any amount of abuse I throw its way. With all of that, I made that the reasonable assumption that it wasn’t possible for me to get seasick. I’ve been in small boats on rough water many times and just recently had a  couple of hairy encounters when heading out to do some scuba diving but got though it all fine. This ride was something else. I felt like death. The waves were so big and unpredictable and we were just on them for such a long time that by the time we got to our destination, Neptune Island, everyone had thrown up either in the toilet, in a bag, over the side of the boat or some combination of the three. Even the sea hardened captain, a veteran of the fishing industry for many years admitted he was only ten minutes from losing it himself.

After the boat was anchored and we’d had a chance to settle down a bit, we suited up and got ready to go into the cage. These were shark infested waters we were on so we weren’t going in unprotected, the dive company had brought a massive cage out on the boat with us that we’d use when in the water. The water was freezing just like it had been the last day but this time I had a blanket of excitement with me to keep me warm. The cage was big enough for four people at a time, this worked out nicely since there were only five on the boat (Jill didn’t go in as she was feeling too delicate from the ride over). The three other people and I were in there for a long time and saw all sorts while we were down in that water. The water was deep, very deep and unlike my experiences whilst diving, I’d often see fish come into view and then disappear again back into the dark abyss. It was a little disconcerting how suddenly things could come into view down there, if a shark had appeared without warning at an inopportune moment, we would have been left without any recourse other than to get eaten. We saw countless shoals of trivali fish while we were under, they were swimming around in huge numbers, loads of other fish too but unfortunately, one thing that we didn’t see was sharks. We were told it’s really hit and miss whether you’ll see them and it just wasn’t our day. We all still had a great time out there though (apart from Jill that is!) Every now and then I’d come out of the water to do other stuff. I used the captain, Shaun’s, binoculars to look out at the nearby islands and when he started doing a little fishing, offered me the chance to join him. I even caught a fish on my first attempt! It was a fairly large (by English standards for fish) trivali, it must have weighed maybe 5kg.

The ride back was much more forgiving on all of us. Jill even managed to get some sleep and felt like gold when we made landfall. After all the excitement we had during the day it was a quiet night for us. A good thing too as we had to get up early the next day for our drive to Adelaide.

A couple of hours in to the drive, we stopped at Mt. Remarkable National Park for a 2km hike through an ancient gorge. It was stunning and raised my sky high opinion of Australia higher still.

Now that we’re in Adelaide, we’re seeing a different side to Australia. Away from the national parks, beaches, picturesque coastal towns and country side, Australian cities are a cut above too. I haven’t ever felt safer walking around a city at night and everyone has been so nice and friendly. The only drawback is the unexpectedly high prices but that’s a really shallow complaint in the face of everything else we’ve seen here.

After arriving at our camper site in Ceduna, which was a lovely location with tree separated sites just over a dune from the ocean, we had dinner while it was actually still light out (due to the time change) and got in some wi-fi time. Right after getting into bed though, Jaz heard a noise, glanced over and saw a mouse run across the top of his bag towards the front of the campervan. Needless to say, this caused a small amount of panic on my part, and started a search for the mouse all in the front of the van. Jaz attempted to convince me that the mouse ran out some “hole” in the floor, but I didn’t quite believe him. We put a board across the gap that runs under the bed in the hope of keeping the mouse contained in the front of the van and out of our luggage. I tried to go to sleep and ignore the fact that I never actually saw the mouse leave the van, until every little noise had me thinking the mouse was running around. Ten minutes later, I heard a definite mouse noise and made Jaz get up to check again. He saw the mouse run back under the front seats of the van, but couldn’t find it again. After pulling out all the bags it could hide in, the mouse was nowhere to be found. Again. And by now it was after midnight, so we gave up, and Jaz once again tried to convince me it must have left down through the engine. Which might have worked until I woke up in the morning to seeing the mouse dash from the front of the van under the bed. Past the board we put up, which meant it somehow squeezed through a crack less than a quarter inch big. That is the fastest I’ve gotten out of bed in quite awhile, and there might have been a squeal involved. We pulled up the whole bed, moved all the luggage outside, and basically emptied the back of the van to no avail. Where this mouse keeps hiding I have no idea, but I’m hoping I won’t go to bed tonight and hear little scratching sounds.

UPDATE: The mouse has decided to take up residence in our campervan. After driving five hours to Port Lincoln, and stopping at several lovely field locations, the mouse is still here. We put out some Rice Krispies yesterday in the hopes of luring him out of the van, but the only thing that accomplished was to get a bird in the van. After much convincing upon going to bed that the scratching sounds I was hearing weren’t the mouse, I did manage to fall asleep, only to be told in the morning that while I was sleeping, Jaz saw the brazen mouse run across the gear stick, and all along the front seats. Too bad the mouse didn’t take his chance to leave yesterday, because now we are going to buy mouse traps. And you can be sure that I won’t be the one checking the traps later.

Here she is – the campervan we picked up in Perth to take us over 4000 km to Sydney over the next 19 days. When we arrived at the campervan, I was thrilled to see that the guy gave us the hi-top camper instead of the low top we had reserved (which should have been probably $10 more per day). The main perk of the hi-top is that you (well at least me) can stand up in the inside of the van, but it’s also nice because it has a microwave in the little kitchen. I have a feeling that I’m going to be saddened with our van now in New Zealand.

The first day leaving Perth, we didn’t drive a very long distance, just 4 hours south to the Margaret River wine region. Our first stop in the town was the grocery store to stock up our little fridge, and then on to the information center where we found a fabulous road atlas of Australia, sure to be useful for the rest of the journey. It was disappointing to realize when we headed out to do some wine tasting that many places close at 4, so we instead headed straight to Leeuwin-Naturaliste National Park, where we spent the night at Cantos Campground. No one should be surprised that the first meal I made in Polly was pasta, but in my defense, we’ve both been quite surprised with the cost of everything here, including groceries. One kg of chicken costs $16! (And since the Australian dollar is almost equal to the American dollar, that’s more than 6 times what I’d pay at home.) In the morning, we had breakfast at Cantos Beach, and I waded in the Indian Ocean for the first time. It didn’t really seem like it’d be a good beach for swimming even if the weather was a little bit warmer, the waves and the big rocks did not seem like a good combination.

Above: Cooking dinner; Below: Cantos Beach

Leaving the Margaret River region, we drove through gorgeous wooded forests to Albany. Along the way we stopped in Walpole and Denmark, which is known as the Valley of the Giants, home of the giant tingle trees. Up until the 60s or 70s you could park your car inside the tree and take a picture, but that’s not allowed anymore because they found it was bad for the roots. You can still walk through them though, and it was cool to see how the trees will partially burn in a forest fire and still continue to grow. One of the trees we walked through was covered in soot and charred bark on the bottom half of the tree. To promote their claim to fame, the Western Australia Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) built the Tree Top Walk, where you can walk 40 m above the ground on a metal walkway in the trees. Other than the couple people jumping on the walkway, it was fairly sturdy, although a little dizzying to walk and look down at the same time. It was fun to be able to look over the top of the trees, although a little less rain would have been preferable, and for the price, I would have liked to gone around again, but they were closed by then. We stopped in Denmark for another grocery run before heading off towards Albany to our campground for the evening.

Above: Giant Tingle Tree; Below: Tree Top Walk

Our campground for the night was at Torbay Inlet, a little spot in the woods where you could park and sleep (and it was free!). Not counting the mosquitos, walking out to the beach where the inlet met the ocean was beautiful. (Jaz was not happy about the number of times he got “bit”.)

Stopping in Albany in the morning, we drove up to the ANZAC memorial which overlooked the city and the bays. Albany is an old harbor town, which served as a port between England and Sydney back when Australia was first settled. The town reminded me of a lot of other little U.S. towns, so it didn’t really feel like we were in another country. We didn’t spend a lot of time sightseeing in Albany and we quickly headed off to Esperance, another 5 hour drive. We almost had a big problem, because we drove the whole way on the South Coast Hwy, and in the highway driving I’m used to, there are exits and such labeling where to buy gas. However, a highway in Australia is just a two lane road with little cross streets. So about 100 km away from Esperance, we realized we were going to need gas, but then there were no choices. Apparently there is only one spot to get gas between Albany and Esperance. Coming into Esperance, we were both crossing our fingers as the gas needle dipped below empty. We breathed a sigh of relief when we pulled into the first gas station, only for it to have no attendant, and none of our cards worked on the scan machine. So we got back in the van and slowly drove off in search of another gas station. Luckily we only had to go a couple more km before finding one and filling the tank again. Our good luck didn’t last though because we got to the caravan park for the night with all our electronics needing to be charged, the power didn’t work connecting to Polly. The caravan park was really nice though, and set the standard I think for all the future parks we are going to be staying at. (Of course when I called the campervan people in the morning, and tested the power cord again, it worked just fine, so I’m pretty sure the guy thought I was a moron. As long as it works at the next site though, that’s all that matters.) After reserving our spot at the campground, we headed off to check out the renowned beaches of Esperance before it got dark. Driving along the coastline, we stopped at West Beach, Fourth Beach, and lastly at Twilight Beach, where I played in the water for a bit while the sun set. We didn’t get back to the campground till after dark, but the camp kitchen made it nice to do dishes and cook dinner.

Above: Oh no!; Below: Twilight Beach

Leaving Esperance for Madura, we prepared for a long day of driving, the start of the two long days to cross the Nullarbor and vast expanse of nothing. After a gas stop in Norseman, we quickly realized gas was going to be quite a bit more expensive for this leg, because with only one gas station every 200 km, they can charge whatever they want, and most were charging 50 cents higher than the Perth prices. We made it to the car rest stop just east of Madura as the last bits of sun were fading, just in time to pick a spot to park, go to the bathroom (in a creepy little metal box that had a bird nesting in it) and get dinner started. Because we were going to be crossing the border into South Australia, we had to eat up or toss any of our fresh fruit or vegetables, so we ate all the leftover vegetables for dinner. Being out in the middle of nowhere meant the stars were out en mass, so we sat outside to look at them for awhile after dinner.

Today’s drive was another 7 hours but we’ve finished crossing the Nullarbor, and should be back in more populated areas from now on. Along the way, we stopped at the Nullarbor cliffs (not very spectacular) and the Head of Bight. The Head of Bight is known for its’ Southern Right whale population, but sadly they leave to migrate by the end of October, so we just saw the beautiful cliffs and extremely blue waters. Our final stop for the evening was Ceduna, we made it out of Western Australia into South Australia, so one state down, four to go!  Sorry for the long delay in a first post, hopefully wi-fi will be more prevalent as we go further east!

The forest lodge where I spent my time in Laos. It looks really nice but I had to fish a cockroach out of my bag within 15 minutes of arriving. It got better after that.

A nearby floating restaurant. I didn’t visit this one.

The floating restaurant built by the owners of my ecolodge. It was so easy spending hours here doing nothing but looking out at the river.

Kitty!

A dirt road I walked down when exploring a nearby village.

I think this cow was judging me. It stared at me for a suspiciously long time as I walked past.

Puppy!

Across the river from the ecolodge.

The swimming pool that made up part of the floating restaurant.

Kayaking on that river was really fun. You can’t really tell in the photo but the current was pretty strong; it nearly took me with it a few times.

Sunset as seen from the floating restaurant.

I probably took way too many pictures of this sunset.

Behind Vietnamese, Laotian food is probably the best type of cuisine I’ve sampled on this trip. Beats Thai food hands down.

Arty shot.

One of the things I did while I was here was tag along with the ecolodge owner for the presentation ceremony of a book donation scheme at a local school.

Books being handed out to the local kids.

The ceremony was unexpectedly elaborate, involving a fair bit of picture taking (not just by me) and congratulatory back slapping.

The cute kids at small local village I visited.

This bull looked badass and I had to take a picture of it. Apparently, one of the pastimes here is making bulls fight each other. Marginally better than Spanish bull fighting but not by much.

It’s difficult to tell in this shot but just after sunset, the moon was a deep shade of red for about 10 minutes.

We climbed to the top of this stupa. There was a pretty sweet view from up there.

This was the (unspeakably brilliant) entrance to the stupa shown in the last shot.

This Buddha was huge but there were loads of other cool statues here too.

Like this one. I’m pretty sure this dude is chowing down on a human head and has two massive snakes coming out of his arse.

That Luang. The national symbol of Laos and its most important religious monument.

That Luang again.

The sound this bug generated with its wings was ridiculously cool. I feel like it could be a decent base to a dance track if someone sampled it.