I left Sydney on the 2nd of January 2003 at 6.00 am - that's why Christine and Anne look a bit tired. They brought me to the bus station where we said our farewells. It had been hard to say goodbye to my newly aquainted family.


That night the OZ-Bus arrived at the DAG-station ( Dag is the brown, hard, smelly thing, that dangles on the rear end of a sheep [ americans would probably say dingleberry :v) ] ).
We then had to catch a sheep - neither the sheep nor we were very happy about that - Christine and I caught a ram as you see. Later Wally ( the cow/sheep boy on the pictures ) rewarded us with a bottle of wine.

The girls had the time of their life riding a full grown bull. ( From left to right: Christine, Amy, ? ? )


After that we visited the sheep station. Can't remember his name gave us a guided tour and showed us how they shear sheep.

After my appearance in Patrick catches the ram I had to do the work of getting the sheep out of their pen and getting them ready for a close shave.

Then still can't remember his name showed us how the real shaving is performed.


On our way to Brisbane we had a short stop at a water reservoir. As you can see the water level was quite low due to the long drought.

We did a group picture there. ( Fltr. Me,Annabel,Natasja,Rikka,Rachel,Casey,Carris )

As the four of us got along well, we departed the bus in Brisbane together, leaving our favourite Bus driver Kiwi Craig behind.

Later that afternoon ( who had the idea of starting rockclimbing in the afternoon anyway ???? ) we did some rockclimbing in Brisbane. The sun had baked the stones all day long. We started our session at 4.00 pm and got our fingertips so burnt that they began peeling two weeks later.

Rikka:

Natasja:

Annabel ( barefoot - how good is that ! ):

Patrick:

Rockclimbing movie

The next day Rikka and Natasja left ( headed for Harvey Bay ). Annabel and I stayed a day longer in Brisbane to have a tourist walk around.

When Annabel and I arrived in Harvey Bay, the others had already gone to Frasier Island. We took off the next morning to do a self drive tour on the largest sand island in the world.


Be aware of how many slabs of Tooheys New we took with us. There were eight people, 7 slabs of beer, 3 4l cags of wine and two bottles of vodka :v) All that just for a three day trip.

That's the first impression of Frasier Island taken from the ferry.


That's us - or six out of eight (fltr. Nynka,Dan,Rob,Gary,Ed and Cha ).


The first night we camped at Indian head. The two pictures are just 5 minutes apart. A wonderful view of the sunset.


The second night we stayed at the beach. Our campsite:

And after building up all the tents we had our fun with games like I went to the supermarket and bought....

Our last day we went to the famous Lake Makenzie and had our swim in the crystal clear fresh water.


On the way north I stayed two nights in Bagara and had the luck of seeing a loggerhead turtle laying her eggs.

The next stop of the OZ-Bus was Dingo. A cattle station in the middle of nowhere. They showed us how to line dance and how fast six people in a row can drink a six pack of well shaken beer ( weird folk live in the outback ). On the left picture right beside me you see Cathelijn, the Bus-Bingo-Queen-of-Australia( that day ).

The next day we left, headed to Airlie beach. ( Fltr.: Dan,Cathelijn,somebody who just jumped into the picture, Minja and me )


As always, Minja,Cathelijn,Rana and I had lots of fun on the bus.

After my arrival in Airlie beach I decided to do a Scuba-Diving course. What a surprise when I met Cathelijn again on the same course. The first day we did our lessons inside the pool (fltr: Paul our instructor,Kate,Cathelijn and me ).

The second day we went with the On The Edge catameran out to Blue Pearl Bay to see some corals.


I did a Whitsunday sail tour before my last dive, but I didn't take any pictures of that trip cause it was overshadowed by a stinger incident. One of our passengers on the Reality got stung on his cheek by a jellyfish ( even though he was wearing a stingersuit ). His condition didn't look good when he was flown to a hospital by helicopter, but happily he was able to join us on the last day for the farewell party.

The last diving and sailing day On The Edge didn't look too good firsthand, but later that day it was just perfect blue sky with nice corals shining in the water below.


The next day I left Airlie Beach as a certified Open Water Diver - Yippeeeee !


On the way to Townsville, Maike and I did a stop at a lookout point:


We did another stop at a national park just before Townsville.

From Townsville I took the ferry to Magnetic Island. I stayed the night there at Maggies Beach House and left the next day. On the road to Mission Beach the government is really concerned about the cars ( take a look at the roadsign and what has been broken ).

The OZ-Bus then stopped at Paronella Park. The land and the structures on it were created by a weird spanish immigrant in the late 1920's.

In the so called Tunnel Of Love microbats have found their new home. In the Jungle around the park large bamboo trees grow.

The airconditioning system on the bus didn't work well that day, so we had a refreshing shower under a waterfall.


Finally I arrived in Carins. At Captain Cook's hostel Cathelijn and Katinka awaited my arrival, and that night we watched the local firedancers perform.

Firedance movie

Katinka and Cathelijn had already arranged a diving trip for the next day ( At, Cathelijns friend from Holland, arrived later that night as well ).


Katinka was to leave the next day, so we had a pyjama party that night.


Buying underwater photographs gets fairly expensive, so I decided to buy a waterproof camera case. I tested it in the pool at night: ( camera below the water , me above it )