2011-11-09 -- 13: Australia - Shark Bay and Coral Bay

Our route in Western Australia is from Perth in the south to Port Hedland in the north, were we are suppose to catch a flight towards New Zealand. In the meantime we plan to visit Shark Bay, a huge World Heritage area and stay in Coral Bay for a couple of days.

The road between Kalbarri and Shark Bay is not too exciting - not a lot of scenery, and not a turn in miles. It is easy to let the right foot be a bit heavy, and we got aware of it when we saw the blue light from the police car. Speed limits in Australia are strictly enforced, and there was no way to talk us out of this one. Speed ticket, and money gone that could be used for fun stuff instead.

Strictly following the speed limit we finally reached Shark Bay after a long and rather boring drive. We decided to stay in the main town Denham.

Shark Bay is really a beautiful area with amazing coastline and wild life.  One "must do" in Shark Bay is to visit Monkey Mia. It is a beautiful place with dolphins coming close to the beach, turtles and dugongs.

Shark Bay official page: Shark Bay

We decided to go sailing for a couple of hours, and joined a catamaran tour to see dugongs and maybe some other wildlife. It was a wonderful trip, and we enjoyed to get close to these strange animals that are close relatives to elephants.

We also enjoyed the stop at a pearl farm, where we  got to know a little bit more about pearls. 

We were lucky to see this turtle when we walked the jetty.

Another amazing place is Shell Beach - a beach that is totally made up by seashells.

From Shark Bay we had another full day of driving, to reach our next target - Coral Bay. We had heard that the beach and snorkling was amazing - and we were not disappointed! It was wonderful to just follow the current and observe what was  happening below.

During a drive along the coast we experienced the first live kangaroos - the kangaroos we met showed little sign of being afraid and just looked at us when we stopped the car a couple of meters from them.

We also saw some beautiful bush birds.

It was an easy decision to stay as long as we could, and take the final  leg of driving to Port Hedland in one go. The drive to Port Hedland was as expected very boring, and hot. We had at some time 47 C outside the car.

It is hard to understand that this dry desert like country can be flooded, but warnings are very clear and 2 meter high scales are alongside the road in many places.
















Some more pictures: Australia And NZ Part 2

2011-11-02 -- 08: Australia - Perth to Kalbarri National Park

After 26 hours travelling we arrived in the early evening to Perth. We had booked a hotel room for two nights in the central part of the city to get a chance to see Perth and the sailing centre Freemantle before we continued north. Both Perth and Freemantle were very positive experiences and we could easily spent more time there.

With our rented brand new Nissan X-trail 4WD we followed the coast north, and travelled through very exclusive areas with beautiful houses that looked like castles. After a couple of hours driving, there was a dramatic changes of scenery - no houses, and bush landscape as long as you could see. We spent a couple of hours walking and driving in Pinnacle Desert, which is part of Nambung National Park.

Beautiful place! Link to information regarding Pinnacles Desert: Pinnacles Desert

We continued our journey north, and headed for Kalbarri. Kalbarri have a lot to offer - wonderful beaches, a fantastic parrot park, and a beautiful National Park. We enjoyed it all!

The parrots in Rainbow Jungle Park are amazing - and it is equally amazing to be informed that these fantastic birds in some areas are considered pest, as they steal the crop from fruit farms.

Kalbarri Parks flowers are just stunning. Most of them grow on bushes.

There are plenty of more pictures if you click this link:  Australia And NZ Part1

Our next adventure - Australia and New Zealand

Tomorrow we leave Sweden and fly to the west coast of Australia. We will spend almost 2 weeks driving from Perth in the south, to Port Hedlan in the north.
From Port Hedland we fly to New Zealand and will spend almost 3 weeks exploring both the south and the north island. In New Zealand we have rented a nice RV, and Anne´s oldest daughter Pernilla will join us for the first half of the NZ trip.
After New Zealand we will fly to Sydney and spend almost 2 weeks on the east coast of Australia.

2011-08-21 -- 2011-09-07: Finland and back home

We crossed the border to Finland - "The country of thousand lakes" - and headed for Inari. There were several places selling Sami craft-work, and at one of them we met a nice Sami man that gave us some advice were to camp for the night. It was a lovely place at the shore of Rahajärvi (Moneylake) with a lot of reindeer and very peaceful.

At a hill close to our camp we found the blueberries and the first ripe  lingon-berries for the season.

After a couple of nights we continued towards Ivalo to get some supplies, gasoline and fill water, before we head south through the amazing landscape with rivers and lakes everywhere. Finland is really beautiful!!!

At Rovaniemi we once again pass the Arctic Circle - this time from the north.

As everyone knows, Rovaniemi is the home of Santa Claus, and there is a huge village with shops built on the Christmas theme.

In Rovaniemi we had one of few nights in a commercial camping, just next to Kemi River and walking distance to city. Finland is very well known for two things - Sauna and Tango. During the time in Rovaniemi we experienced both. The camping had a wonderful sauna that we rented by the hour, and just a couple of hundred meters from the camping there was a restaurant with live tango music. We were amazed to see the mix of people on the dance floor. The most active couple was 80+, and the youngest around 25. All of them were there to dance!

When we travel we like to visit local markets. In Finland indoor markets are very common.

This one is in Oulo and offered fantastic seafood among other things.

Next stop was Kannus, where Anne´s roots on her mother side are from. In the area of Kannus we found amazing amounts of mushroom - Boletus edulis (Karl Johan svamp in Swedish, Steinpilz in German, Penny bun i English). We spent hours cleaning and cooking what we harvested.

We continue our trips towards Tampere to meet some of Anne´s relatives. It was nice to meet uncle Erkki and his wife Kajsa, as well as cousin Elina and her boyfriend Teppo. With some hints from the family we managed to find the place were Anne spent every summer when she was young. It was a place in the middle of the forest, so we had to do some walking as we didn´t dare to drive our big vehicle on the narrow and bumpy road.

Helsinki is our last stop in Finland. We had made reservation for the ferry to Stockholm in advance, but had 2 days for sightseeing in the beautiful capitol of Finland. One of the days we visited the old fortress Sveaborg, situated on an island just outside Helsinki. It was very interesting to visit this beautiful well preserved historic site.

Just next to where we parked for the nights in Helsinki, car fanatics gathered in the evening. Really cool to see all those amazing cars!

We spent a couple of days driving from Stockholm to our home in south of Sweden. We tried to avoid the larger roads and enjoyed the trip. 

We are very pleased with our 7 week long trip through Sweden, Norway and Finland. Scandinavia is fantastic!

For us it was the perfect choice to use a RV for the trip. It has given us so much freedom, and so many wonderful moments around a camp-fire just next to a lake or a river.


















Some more pictures: Nordic Trip Part 5

2011-08-18 -- 21: Senja Island, Alta River and Nordkapp.

We left Lofoten in the morning by ferry to Senja Island. The weather was beautiful and the ride was really enjoyable, sitting on deck in the sun.

We drove right across the Senja Island, but made a stop at the Senja Troll. It was a fun stop, even if the target group for this place probably is for a bit younger people.

We continued our trip towards Alta, and one of the most famous salmon rivers in the world. It is a beautiful drive with snow dressed mountains and blue fjords. The trees are starting to change colours - autumn is starting in the north.

We regularly meet reindeer on the roads, so we drive carefully and enjoy the scenery.

After walking around the city of Alta, we looked for a place to stay for the night near the river. We were really lucky and parked just a couple of meters from the river, with a fantastic view with fishermen and jumping salmon only meters away.

More than once it was tempting to get the fishing gear out of the car and try our luck, but we had no license and are law obedient Swedish people.  We are so far north now, so we only have an hour or two of darkness in the night.

We had decided to go as far north as possible, so Nordkapp was our next target. To get there we had to pass through a long and  rather expensive tunnel.

Nordkapp was different and very beautiful, but we continued our trip towards Finland after a brief stop at the most northern point.












Some more pictures from this part of the trip: NordicTripPart4

2011-08-14 -- 18: Lofoten in our hearts

We arrived to Lofoten by ferry from Bodö. The weather reports had predicted that it could be a bit rough on the sea, but we had a wonderful crossing with calm water and sun. We arrived at the most westerly part of Lofoten, in the small town of Moskenes.

As dried fish is a very important part of Lofoten culture and business, we decided to visit a museum that specialised in that area.

It was an interesting visit, and also the way to serve cookies was a bit different.

The car has been working very well for us so far, but here we had some problems with the drainage. Mats made a temporary repair.

It was very easy to find good places to spend the night. Every night we spent close to the water with amazing views.

You find sheep everywhere on Lofoten islands, so you drive very carefully.

The last day at Lofoten we went for a whale safari. A well organised trip with very good information.

We were soooo lucky and had the warmest day so far this summer, sun and no wind.

On top of that, there were a lot of whales. We saw 8! All of them sperm whales.
Wikipedia info about sperm whale: Wikipedia_Sperm_whale.
It was a fantastic experience to see these huge (up to 20 meters) animals catching air and dive back to hunt for giant squid and fish.

The day after the whale safari we left Lofoten as we arrived - by ferry. The ferry from Andenes to the island of Senja was enjoyable, as we once more had wonderful weather. We really loved Lofoten with its friendly people and fantastic nature - a place to come back to, and spend more time!










Some more pictures from Lofoten: NordicTripPart3