The moment had to come. We were tired of sightseeing and all we wanted was to chill. Before getting into new adventures we headed to Phuket to load our batteries. While Phuket is very touristy (and normally not what we enjoy), it now offered exactly what we needed. We didn´t have to “worry” about making our breakfast but headed to an amazing buffet at our 5 star resort. On the first day the kids made a Krathong for the festival of Lights (Loy Krathong) and we placed them on the water to bring us luck. Besides that Melia and Levin enjoyed several hours at the Kids club every day, giving Felix and Lena time to do nothing. Daily decisions were limited to beach or swimming pool 😊. We did throw in some exercize at the gym and a few Thai massages for Lena. Life was hard. While we saw absolutely nothing of Phuket (not a single excursion) besides the beach and our hotel, we completed our planning until the end of the year.
After 11 nights in Phuket and with full batteries we are headed for Bangkok for the coming week. On 28 November we´ll fly to Ho Chi Minh where we have a two week organized tour and fly out on 12 December from Hanoi. Last stop in Asia will be the Philippines where we stay until 9 January.
After returning our motorhome in Cairns, we flew back to Darwin. We really enjoyed our first stay in the city and decided Darwin had enough to offer for a second week. This time we enjoyed swimming in the Harbour Wave Pool twice and visited the Layaner and Palmerston waterparks. Moreover, we visisted the Musuem and Art Gallery of The Nothern Territory where we learned about the settlement of the Northern Territory a few hundred ago as well as how Darwin survived Cyclone Tracy on Christmas Eve 1974. The cyclone left more than 50% of the inhabitants homeless. At the Indo Pacicifc Marine Exhibition we got to see a real part of the coral reaf and sea life in the Timor Sea. Unlike an aquarium the exhibitions here were in total balance, required no replacement of water, added food or oxygen. We got to touch a sea star and Levin fed a small Shark. Levin and Felix fed fishes at Doctor´s gully where ocean fishes come close to shore to get feed. Amazing!
One night we went to the open air cinema. While watching a movie and snacking popcorn, we had bats flying over our heads, possums showing up to get fed (of course, we didn´t) and lizards chilling on the screen. What an outdoor feeling!
In the end it was time to say goodbye to Australia. We could have spent many more weeks here, but after five weeks in Australia we decided to head back to SE Asia. Next stop Phuket, Thailand.
Where to start? This is going to be a loooong post, we have seen so much over the past 4 weeks. We flew over from Darwin to Cairns on 14 October. After 5 days in an appartement in Cairns City, we headed off for a 16 day roundtrip in our motorhome.
Our route around Cairns
Cairns was alright but we prefer Darwin. Cairns is just really touristy, the whole city consists mainly of hotels, restaurants and tour booking shops. We did enjoy the lovely waterfront with Muddys playground. Swimming in the ocean is not an option in Cairns given the stingers and crocodiles, instead we went to the swimming pool at the Cairns Esplanade overlooking the ocean. Felix and Levin also got to sit in a helicopter after it landed right next to them (transporting people to the hospital).
In the Helicopter
Muddy’s Playground
From Cairns we headed north stopping in Kuranda and Port Douglas, two totally different locations. Kuranda is a cozy town in the tropics with several local markets that get flooded with tourists every day. We headed to Koala Gardens early in the morning before the crowds arrived to see some Koalas and feed wallabies/kangaroos.
In Port Douglas we stayed next to Four Mile Beach and really enjoyed swimming in the waves! This beach was as safe as it gets in Australia with a stinger net and lifeguard. The kids also took a horse riding class, which they loved.
Our next stop was the Daintree Forest, the oldest rainforest in the world. The road there crosses a river so we drove our motorhome onto a ferry to take us straight into the rainforst in Daintree National Park. Goodbye phone reception and WiFi….back to nature. We wandered through the rainforest and met our first cassowary (they look like a colorful ostrich). The big birds, which apparently can’t fly, cross the streets every once in a while so we stopped our motorhome to let them pass. Besides the rainforst we also visited a fruit plantation and tried to identify the different and unknown fruits growing in the tropics. Coincidentally ;), the fruit plantation offered a tasting of various fruity and yummi ice creams.
From Daintree we headed into the Tablelands, a lush area with many plantations (coffee, wine, fruit, dairy farms). On day 1 we wandered through Mareeba and enjoyed their free historical museum that gave us a good impression of life 100 years ago.
On day 2 Trucker Felix (Lena is not allowed to drive the 4.5t Motorhome) took us on a daytrip via partially unsealed roads to Chillagoe. Although the city is located just 140km from Mareeba it took us almost 3h to get there and it felt like stepping into a completely different world. The temperature went up to 40degrees, the phone reception was patchy, the road regularly turned into a gravel road, we saw no more than 5 other cars and the ground was red and brown instead of green. In Chillagoe we visited a limestone cave and the old mine ruins. Pure Outback experience!
From Chillagoe we headed to our campsite at Granite Gorge, a lovely nature park where we got to do some rock climbing (Melias absolute favorite) and were able to feed the wallabies with carrots and sweet potatoe.
Leaving Mareeba behind us we head up to lake Tinaroo. A lovely holiday park campsite with a jumping pillow and large pool plus a big lake to practice our canoeing skills.
By now we had seen it all: wild life, waterfalls, outback, farms….. We started to get tired and skipped a few waterfalls, viewing platforms, canopy walks. Luckily we did stop at the Nerada Tea Plantation where we got to see how tee grows, is picked and turned into tee. The highlight was spotting a tree kangaroo (look closely,it is on the picture below)!!!
Now it is time to head over to the coast. The beaches are absolutely amazing, however, also some of the most dangerous beaches of the world with crocodiles and stingers…..we did go swimming in areas with stinger nets but we never felt fully at ease.
Josefine Falls
One last highlight of our tour were the Josefine Falls. These waterfalls end in a plunge pool and natural slide. The water is really clear and cool, a very refreshing experience. Levin is our little adventurer so he was the first to hop in, swim to the other side and head down the slide. Even Melia decided that she would go in. Until this week she has been convinced that swimming in anything but a swimming pool is crazy but by now she plunges into waterfalls and loves jumping waves in the ocean. We even heard her say that the Josefine Falls natural pool is the best swimming pool she has been at…..
Up next: On 4 November we fly back to Darwin and on 10 November we are headed for Thailand.
World Xperience 