Darwin to Melbourne, Australia

Darwin to Melbourne -

right trough the middle of nothing

After 1200 km in the National Parks we swabbed the car. I organised a relocation-car, just a few dollars a day for an amazing Land cruiser with a tent on the roof. Awesome!
One last night in Darwin, we went out with the two Julie´s from Kununurra , after visiting the very cosy Mindle Beach market and having some drinks, we brought them drunk to the airport. For us, the trip through the rough middle of Australia is just beginning – with a very hot and humid night sleeping in the car ( with two doors open – gosh so hot and sweaty!!! )

Daly Waters, Northern Territory, Australia


The Northern Territory is the most sparsely populated state in Australia, also the transport System is quite fun. One looooooong streets leads from Darwin to Alice Springs and every hour you´ll see one car and Road trains passing bye, gently lifting up the finger to greet. That´s all you are doing in 1000 km.

We stopped bye in Daly Waters, a really small town with the possibility to refuel. It was quite spooky to pay in the bar which is fully dressed with underwear, shoes, x-rays and bank bills from all over the world. Apart from the 5 cowboys (must have been the whole daly Water residents) looking at you like there were no woman for years ( with the thoughts of kidnapping you, to save the daly water population ). Get out of here, before we will end up like this English backpacker. ( well they never found his body .. )

Devils Marbles, Northern Territory “ Karlu Karlu “

Suddenly, surrounded by dessert you’ll find the Devils Marbles.
Thousand of granite blocks are spread in the area. It´s a holy place for aboriginal people, and it really feels magic.

Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Finally we arrived in Alice Springs.
Looks like an oasis in between hills and green plants, with lots of tourists and Aborigines. So lonely that the childrens get teaching lessons over the internet. One class is spreaded in hundreds of kilometres around Alice Springs.

Alice is in the middle of Australia and just a stop over for tons of tourists. They all wanna see the most photographed object, the Uluru.


Uluru, Northern Territory, Australia

It´s not around the corner, no , another 450 km in direction
“ nowhere “ till you finally reach the 3,5 km long Ayers Rock. You can’t miss it, its nearly the only hill who grows out of the dessert.
Spectacular walks show the history and great spiritual significance, with lots of paintings and caves.

The owner of the land are aborigines, and they wish not to climb the Uluru because of the spiritual, but nearly nobody is respecting that request, neither that or the already 36 deaths of climbing will not deter them. That´s a shame, I don’t get it, why is everybody not accepting that? Is it the “I don’t care , I give a shit what they want” or the “ hey I need to take a picture of ME on this thing.. whats the name??”.
Come on tourists, take a flight over it! It´s much better and they really appreciate not climbing the Uluru.

Kata Tjuta

The site is as sacred to the Indigenous people as Uluru and means “many heads”. 36 Domes of varying rock types cover this area. Spectacular.

In the end we shared the sunset in front of the Uluru with about 1500 other people. Yessss.
We drove further south Australia till 5 o clock in the morning, stayed awake while counting huge red roo´s who jumped in front of our car. Nearly 40.


Cooper Pedy - Opal Capital of the world, South Australia

We passed hundreds of white small hills, wondering what all this is about till we finally reached the solution: Cooper Pedy.
They seam to dig 20 km around Cooper Pedy, and in the “City” as well. Everywhere Sandhills and nearly no houses at all. If you wanna find some inhabitants you have to go deep. They are living in the underground. So we visited a backpacker underground, a jeweller shop and a original opal mine with a self guided track. There were still opals in it, worth a few million doller!

There was nothing more to see and we got bored. So we continued our trip further south and came in a huge dust storm, it nearly blowed us away. In the middle of the dessert, we couldn’t see for more then 100m.

Stayed somewhere on a camping space, for free like nearly every night we sneaked in. the next morning we had a flat tire. Was that the payback?
We didn´t know where the tools were kept. Somewhere in the car! Couln´t find them! ( big car :) ) so our neighbour friendly helped us out. That was like the situation on the gas station last time – we didn´t know how to get hundreds of kilometres with one tank till somebody told us we got two tanks in our car.. ups.

We passed by Port Augusta to get our tire fixed, passed Adelaide ( just some shopping – nothing spectacular ) and stayed in Victor Harbour to see finally the ocean. It was to cold to have a dip but still wonderful after such a dry area of central Australia.

Grampian´s National Park, Victoria, Australia

A absolutely stunning area, full of trees and hills, rocks and balcony’s with incredible views.

Great Ocean Road, Vicoria, Australia

This 240 km long road along the coast offers a rough sea and spectacular rock formations, formed by the never sleeping ocean.

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Finally, after thousands of kilometres trough Central Australia, we arrived safely in Melbourne to bring back the car and spend some days in a big city. We needed a while to get used to it, after such a long time in the nowhere.

We discovered the city, done some touristy things and met up with a friend of mine to have a couple of drinks ( Or maybe more.. hey he is the only asian guy I know, who drinks that much! Hong – you are unique! )

We enjoyed Melbourne but it was freeeeezing!
Felt a bit like Europe with the tram in the city. Nice.
But we already planned the next tour and couln´t wait to get there…!!!