First days in Australia

The journey

Tuesday morning. The clock rang at 6 AM. It’s hard to get out of our bed after a very short night spent drinking home made german schnaps and beers to celebrate our departure. We moved at 7.30 AM to Charles de Gaule airport’s terminal 2 to take off to Abu Dhabi.
The 11 hours of plane from Abu Dhabi to Perth were very long, and we had a another hard night due to the lack of space, the turbulances, and our neighbourg, who was an old australian farmer drinking whisky all night long.

When we landed in Perth, we found out that the french backpacker’s reputation is castastrophic : as soon as they had our french passports in their hands, we are sidelined and are greeted by the customs services with their dogs and all the anti drugs control stuff. It’s nice…
That last test passed, we realised that we are finally arrived. Our lungs filled with that australian air and this particular smell : mix of eucalyptus, marine iodine and wild grass.
Our friends met us, and we set off for our first destination of our australian trip : Bunbury. Just out of the airport, they open the esky and offer us a beer. Haaaa Australia !

The first days

The next days were dedicated to shopping (we were still in need of a few pieces of stuff), and to saturday night’s big party : Liz’s 60 birthday. For the occasion, Jay & Erin came from Melbourne, and Luke & Michaella from the Philipinnes (Erin and Luke are Kev’s and Liz’s son and daugther). During one of the evenings we enjoyed a beautiful weather while having our first bath in the sea. And what a bath ! A wonderful sunset with an incredible orange light reflecting on a calm sea that comes crashing on the sand into small rolls of foam. The scene is idyllic. We swam a little bit and had the surprise to be greeted by dolphins ! We drank a fresh beer while watching at the last sun rays of the day… It’s so good !

Wine Tour in Margaret River

After a very good party night (in which Kevin nearly put the house on fire forgetting the BBQ on inside the garage, and instead of tunrning it off began to panic shouting « Ho fuck ! Fuck me ! Fucking me ! ») our friends told us that we’ll move for the next days to Margaret River. Luke’s boss have a house down there in a forest and agreed to lend it to us for 2 nights.
Margaret River is famous for two things : surf and wine. All the area has some of the most beautiful waves in the world and hosts every years some international surf contests. But we won’t move there to surf. Our goal is a « Wine Tour ». Our friends hired a mini bus, and we’ll drive from a vineyard to another to taste all the best wines of the area, some of which are among the best in Australia.

So we moved the morning after the party. We made a stop in Kevin’s dad house (an lovely 93 years old man living in Donnybrook in the bush) for father’s day, and took the opportunity to play like idiots with his goffer.
What follow was a wine marathon. We discovered all those crazy vineyards, all more luxurious than the others. Some has giant statutes in the middle of a lake, others has gastronomic restaurants, or even private music festival in summer ! Soon we lost count of the visited vineyards, and our bus look more like a summer camp for drunken adults.

At the end of the afternoon, a storm came and a huge eucalyptus fell over the road… just behind us ! When coming back home by night, Kevin (our skipper, the only one who didn’t drink) missed the good track to enter in the woods. Nobody noticed, we were too busy singing some silly tunes, until Erin shout « STOOOOOP !!! ». Kevin was driving the car into a muddy slope leading to a creek ! The situation is funny : Kevin is panicing a little bit again, and we’re all pushing the bus back trying to get out of there in a pitch black night, with our feet in the mud. We went to bed early, because tomorrow… We have more wineries to visit !

When we came back to Bunbury, we learned that we’ve probably have find a way to cross the desert to reach our next destination : Adelaïde.

Kisses !

Tintin & Riette