Jules & Lot AroundTheWorld

Our adventures in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, New Zealand and Australia

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Darwin: fri 21 march - tue 25 april I spent the next two days chilling with Roos & Lisanne in Darwin. We went to the lagoon where we met the rest of the group, had some delicious icecream from trampoline, cooked a nice dinner and did a movie night in my hostel. It felt like such a luxury since we were alone in the movie room, so we got to chose the movie (I finally saw the hunger games 2, jeaj!) ánd had some privacy! :o The day after we went to a local market because we wanted to eat crocodile but it wasn’t really worth it since we didn’t find any and there weren’t that many shops. So they convinced me to come to the crocodile park. I wasn’t really interested in it but since it was our last day together I gave in :) after some chilling at the swimming pool, we went to a place to eat crocodile! It was really nice but actually not that special, it tasted very much like chicken. But he, that’s another one for the check list ;) In the evening, we had some drinks at the hostel of the guys from our group. It was sad to say goodbye to Roos & Lisanne but I ended up having a good party night with some people I just met in my hostel. The next days I planned to be completely antisocial and take care of some things for Vietnam and my roadtrip with Mar. Well… that didn’t happen. I first had lunch and went to the library with my roomie and in the evening some other people convinced me to go to ‘Sunday sesh’ at shannanigans, an Irish bar down the street, which ended up as a crazy party followed by a trip to the lagoon. After a Monday of catching up on some sleep, I could finally leave for Vietnam! Don’t get me wrong, I really did have fun here, but it also felt like I was just filling the days and spending money before I could finally go to Vietnam and see my family. Especially when I found out that I was flying a day later than expected..

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Day 3: Thu 20 march After another walk (we woke up at 4 :o), we visited two nice waterfalls before driving back to Darwin. Here, we had another dinner at Monsoons before it was time to say goodbye to some of our group for real. But I'm sure we will meet again in Europe! :)

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Day 2: Wed 19 march This morning we went to ubirr where we did a walk at Ubirr and saw aboriginal art and learned about the culture. I was surprised to hear that most aboriginals still live in their tribes and get a mix of their own cultural education and the 'western' one. When you're travelling australia you kind of get a bad image of aboriginals because they're hanging around in cities while drinking and begging for money (or even hurrassing people). Our guide told us the story behind this. Apparently, all aboriginals get money from the state to survive. There is also a new law which states that aboriginals aren't allowed to drink in their communities anymore since they had so many problems with alcohol abuse. This is why most aboriginals go into towns to buy food and alcohol and the ones we come across on the street are the ones who chose to leave their tribe or got kicked out. So it's mostly their own choice of lifestyle. They also have a lot of problems with sexual abuse and criminality since they have no police of their own and most of the tribes are too far away from cities for 'western' policemen to control. It's really like they are stuck between their old cultural habits and the modern way of life, which was sad to hear. The rest of the day was filled with chilling at the swimming pool and a 'crocodile cruise' on the Mary river wetlands. This is the place which has the biggest concentration of saltwatercrocs but I didn't really believe we would see one with my luck.. (Since I don't tend to see animals on the spots where everyone claims it's full of them) But this time we were lucky! It was only at the very end of he tour and we kind of have given up already but we saw 1 and 3 went down when we reached them (crocs can hold their breath for hours). So I was really happy but the tour was too touristic for me. It would be so much more 'real' to do it by yourself, so I'm really looking forward to travelling with mar who's coming to visit me! The evening was really nice with a fancy bbq dinner (we even had olives and feta :O), and drinks with the group again.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Kakadu tour Day 1: Tue 18 march Here I had a hard morning. I had no day of rest again so had to get up after 3h of sleep. When I reached the new van it turned out we mostly had the same group again! Since it was low season and not a lot of people were doing the tour, the others got an upgrade to so the tour by 4WD (which did make me the only one who had paid extra for the 4WD so that sucked). However, it was a weird morning because we had to change cars twice, and the guide made a very bad impression when she started yelling at some of the guys when they were climbing up the rocks at Florence falls. We did have a nice relaxing day at different waterfalls and learned that some ants taste like lemon candy when you lick their but and that termite mounds are made of dirt and shit of ants (see pic ;) ) The 4WD wasn't really an added value since the roads weren't real that adventurous. It was only worth it when we got to see a wild buffalo on a 4WD-track. At the campsite, we got an upgrade to luxury tents which was divine because we were all so tired and went to bed early after a quick night swim. Unfortunately I had to share my tent so no privacy again ;)

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Cicada dreaming Day 3: Mon 17 march After another early morning, we drove to Nitmiluk national park (katherine gorge). Here it was obvious again that the guide really makes the difference, since he kept bringing us to a secret 'Spa-hole', made us scare by swimming trough an underwater exit, showed us where the wild-water currents are, and brought us to the part where you could climb the rocks to reach the infinity pool on top of the waterfall... Afterwards we just had enough time left to tan a little before we had to cross the final part up to Darwin. Coincidentally, that evening was St-patty's day, so we were really happy we were in Darwin then and not in the middle of nowhere. We went to have dinner at monsoons, followed by an Irish party where I even got tricked into joining my Irish friend for a river dance competition (which I had no clue how to do). It was such a good night, and we were all really sad that we would have to split up the next day. I was really going to miss my group!

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Cicada dreaming Day 2: Sun 16 march Our first stop today was at the daly waters pub, which is the most famous (and weird) outback pub because of the fact that most visitors leave belongings behind. I didn't have an old ID card or anything so i just put a joker from my card game with my name on the wall so if anyone passes there, check if it's still there :D Next stop were the Mataranka thermal pool. Well, it's called a spa and if you look at the pictures it looks like it, but in reality it resembled more of a pond full of dirt. So what do you do in mud pools: we started having a mud fight with the stinky weed from the pond :p It was also full of spiders at the sides, so I was going crazy when the guide wanted to throw me in them. Australia doesn't have as many spiders as i thought though, or at least not as big as i expected (but i dont want to jinx it now :p) After that we went to our campsite where we had another fun night with a campfire and some challenges where we could score points to win free drinks. We also had a bit of excitement when we found a Snake in the closet! Our guide said it wasn't toxic so they convinced me to hold it. We also did a short night walk to a neighbouring pond where there supposedly were crocodiles living in. We weren't 100% sure we saw them but we did see 3 pairs of orange eyes which were moving.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Cicada dreaming Day 1: Sat 15 march The next day, I already left for my next trip: the cicada dreaming tour. I was really tired because I didn't have a break since i pushed my trip forward! But i soon got over it since we had a really funny guide and a way more active group. We also only had one german in our group, imagine that! Not that I have anything against Germans, but since they reached the 4 million limit, which is the limit of people who can get a working holiday visa, they're flooding Australia and it's almost like German is the only language you hear in hostels. Today was mainly driving since we had to cross the distance between Alice springs and darwin (which is about 1500km), but we made some stops at th Tropic of Capricorn and the devils marbles (which were nice, but I've seen enough stones the last few days ;)) we spent the night at the banka banka Cattle station and since my team wasn't on cooking duty that night, we climbed up a nearby hill and watched another beautiful sunset. We ate really good spaghetti (made by one of the French guys who had worked in a 3-star restaurant), and had a fun night. We all got along so well that we decided to sleep together in the kitchen area instead of in separate tents.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Red centre tour wayoutback Day 3: Fri 14 march On the last day we had to wake up at 4.30 again because we had to beat the heat for our 4h walk at Watarrka, kings canyon. The walk was nice because it was still dark, cool, and the flies hadn't woken up yet ;) also learned this is actually a canyon since it's formed by cracks, as opposed to the famous Grand Canyon, which should be called grand gorge since it's formed by water. In the afternoon we had a 5,5h drive back to alice springs (the distances are crazy here), filled with naps and a trivia game where me and my 'slutty swags'-team won free beers at the goodbye dinner that evening.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Red centre tour wayoutback Day 2: thurs 13 march A few hours later, we woke up with some calm music. Since it was still completely dark we could still see the stars and there were sooo many of them! I remember just sitting there and staring at them for 10minutes, it was so impressive! After a nice 'breaky', we went on our way to small walk to a viewpoint, were I got some amazing pictures of the sunrise over Uluru. After a quick refreshing swim and BBQ at our next campsite, we drove to Kata tjuta (which means many heads in the aboriginal language. When they count they only say 1,2, many). Here we did a beautiful walk to a viewpoint, and me and 3 others chose to do the longer walk back because we wanted to see the backside as well. After that we had a long drive to the next campsite where we stopped at every possible roadhouse and toilet :p (not that many around there). We also stopped to collect firewood for the campfire that evening, almost ran into wild horses along the way! In the evening we had another swim, dinner next to the campfire and got to sleep in swags again.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Red centre tour wayoutback Day 1: Wed 12 march So on Wednesday it was time to start my red centre tour which I booked with the company wayoutback. Two of the people I'd met the night before were in my group, but unfortunately, the others were in a different one since there were 3 buses leaving that day. So make site you book well ahead if you want to do this tour because it wasn't even high season yet. I was really excited about the program, but the first few stops were a bit disappointing: we went to Stuarts well where you could ride a camel (which I didn't do because I want to have some new experiences left for if I ever go to the Middle East), a working cattle station (which was basically just a shop), a view on mt Connor and ebenezer roadhouse (a shop again). But after that, we reached the exciting part: Uluru! So when you picture going to Uluru, you probably imagine hours of driving trough the desert outback on dirt tracks while you cross dangerous crocodiles and spiders until suddenly, you see this giant rock rising from afar until you have this amazing view and authentic moment when you're standing alone there with your group. Well, at least that's what I expected, but let me tell you that's not at all the case! The drive there is indeed in the middle of nowhere, but on a big concrete road: the Stuarts highway, which goes all the way from Adelaide up to darwin. When you reach the area around it, you will be directed to the cultural centre (together with 10 other busses) and you have signs and walking tracks all around the rock. So not really what I expected but it was still one of the most impressive things I ever saw! It's also much bigger than you would expect and it's full of cultural stories. We weren't allowed to take pictures of some parts because it's part of the aboriginal "women's and men's business', which is their respective education (and they do have Facebook so they can't see it before). We did a walk all around uluru and it was sooo hot! It was 37 degrees, which the guide told us was still OK compared to the 45 they usually have. You also can't believe how many files there were! And they were gruesome! They just kept attacking your eyes and ears and mouth! So we all ended up wearing sexy flynets we wouldn't go crazy (make sure you have one when you go there, you will need it!) In the evening we did some stops to take pictures and the sunset we saw at the camp was really breathtaking.. After that we had dinner at the camp and an early night because we had to get up at 4.30! :o We got to sleep in 'swags' under the star sky, which are basically sleeping bags with mattresses in, it was so magical!

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

Quote of the trip: I don't smoke or do drugs, my body is my temple.

Robin aka temple

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

8 - 11 march: Alice springs Time to go to Alice Springs! By now, I wasn't nervous anymore about going to a new place by myself, I noticed that I always seem to meet people weather I like to or not ;) however this time, I got to meet my roomies and of the ones who still had to do the tour, I immediately thought o-ow, these are not my type if people! And one of the girls in my room was a really annoying English girl who kept asking which tour I was going to do and when and suddenly came to tell me that she booked the same tour! I was really thinking no way that I will be stuck with her for three days.. And fortunately that didn't happen. Unfortunately, the reason why it didn't happen is that I got sick the first day I was in Alice springs and ended up feeling so bad that I had to stay in bed for 3 days and had to postpone my trip. Luckily I had some spare days and the day before I left, I was feeling decent enough again. I also had all new people in my room that day who were really run! I also met some other nice people at the swimming pool and I arranged for all of us to go watch the sunset at a viewpoint in the city. We were first going to go to the hostel's BBQ after sunset, but since we all were so hungry, we went first and were doubting if we would still make it. But me and another 6 people decided to try anyway so we started running and were actually doing quite good until we reached a fence that blocked our way! Well only way was to climb over it and after a final sprint to the viewpoint, we made it just in time: score!! (The other picture was just a typical sight of a hostel room: 20 different electronic devices charging from one wall-plug.)

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

3-6 march: Sydney After a short night, it was time to go to the airport and catch my flight back to Sydney since I was having a job interview at Nielsen there. I was contacted trough the Belgian agency a few weeks earlier and found out that they were looking for a European with my background for a project management job in Sydney. I gave it a lot of thought, and although I wasn't 100% sure if I wanted to stay and work in Australia for another year (which was the minimum period), I decided to do the job interview and see what happens. It was a way more pleasant arrival than the last time I've been here since a really friendly driver picked me up from the airport and brought me with a free shuttle service to my hostel which was really nice and chilled-out(maze backpackers). The days after that where a bit weird thought since I had to go buy decent clothes and prepare for my job interview with Nielsen in this buzzy, business city, while I was on a tight budget, and sharing a room with 9 other people who wanted to go party while I had to prepare. It was like combining two worlds that just didn't fit together. I did end up having a great time while shopping with my Canadian roomie Toni and during a chill night with some other cool people in my hostel. During the shopping, I was also reminded again by the friendliness of Aussies! I had a rally hard time deciding what to wear, and when I was doubting about my heels, one of the salesmen came to give his opinion and told me I absolutely had to take those shoes. He was even so convinced about it that he gave a big discount so I managed to buy decent heels for 10 dollars :p (=7 euro). The day of my job interview was quite weird though. First, I arrived late on my interview since I (of course) got lost while taking the train. Fortunately, I met a cool Aussie girl who helped me to reach the right destination and let me use her phone to warn the company that I would be late (since my phone obviously decided to die at that moment with 40% battery left). Luckily, my interviewer was a very friendly person and she didn't seem to mind a lot. The interview itself went really well, but by the end of it, I had already decided that I wouldn't take it if they would offer the job to me.. I went to the interview thinking that it would be a project management job, but it turned out to be more process management and I would have to start in an operational position for a year before I would be able to do the real project management. The recruiter also pointed out that she was doubting to give me the job because she was afraid that I would get bored after three months when performing that first job. Next thing was that my visa would also form a problem because I'm only allowed to work for one employee for six months with it, and the regulations here make it really difficult for a company to sponsor someone. So after the interview I felt quite numb since I kind of got used to the idea of staying, I wasted time & money by coming here ánd I would have to look for a new plan after I come back from Vietnam (where I'm going to meet Griet & my parents, jeaj! :D) and travelled trough Tasmania with Mar (double jeaj!). So I was just wandering around in town so when I suddenly saw a sign for blood donation I thought why not, I'm going to do something useful with my day! Well it might have been a bit naive of me to think I could just walk in and give blood because apparently you have to fill in loads of paperwork and have to get a membership card which could take about 3 weeks. So I thought phuh, never mind, I'll keep my O- for myself then if they don't want it and went back to the wandering. I ended up in a coffee bar where I just chatted with my friend from Agnes water who made me happy again. I was in there for that long that I didn't even notice the heavy thunderstorm (which was on the news in belgium), which passed at that moment! I thought it was just some heavy rainfall :p So I was kind of surprised when I got mails from people in belgium asking me if I was ok. So in case anyone else was worried, I survived! ;) So cycloon and crazy thunderstorm in Australia: check! I'm wondering what else will be coming while I'm here.. The good thing about knowing I didn't want the job anymore was that I at least wouldn't have to wait around in Sydney anymore and could start making plans for the next weeks. (Which is a really good thing since Sydney stimulates my business side too much and all I've been doing here is shopping drinking and eating, so basically spending money). My options were: going back to Brisbane and finish the rest of the east-coast up to Sydney, travel to Melbourne with a friend I met at the east-coast, go back to cairns to visit my fiends, or look for a tour to travel trough central Australia and the Northern Territory. Again, I didn't know what to chose and had 'one of those days' again, so I decided to let it sink and went for dinner and drinks with a group of friends. After a good party and some decent sleep, I went to the ultimate oz office in Sydney and booked my tour trough Central Australia. The next day I was tired and wanted some alone time so I went to eat sushi (my new addiction). After, I wanted to go to bed early, but Emma, my friend from Fraser Island convinced me to go out since it was her last night in Australia. We went to this really cool club: the ivy, but it was so full that we couldn't get in the two main dance-floors anymore. This resulted in a lot of walking from one place to another and with the new lock-out rule in Sydney (after 1.30am you can't enter a new place anymore), we weren't able to find a good party place anymore, but we still had a good night. The next day I went to eat sushi again with Celine, a French girl from my hostel, and simon, the same guy who was on my jungle trekking in Chiangmai and was now staying in the same hostel as me! :o After, we did another walk around the city, cooked some dinner and actually managed to have a chill night: ladies night at the cinema with the wolf of Wall Street, awesome film :)

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

28 - 2 march: Brisbane Then it was time to go to Brisbane! After my usual me-time on the bus, I had to hurry to get ready in my hostel because I was meeting kallen, an Canadian girl I met in Airlie, and Marlieke, a Belgian friend of mine, for dinner. We decided to go to an indian restaurant on southbank and it was really nice (but also weird in a way!) to catch up! It's like two worlds were mixing together! After, i spent some time at the lagoon with Marlieke and we ended up going to the party-neighbourhood 'the valley', where i got a chance to see Brisbane at night and speak some dutch again with her and her other Belgian colleagues! In Australia, it's also not allowed to have a 'bottellon', which makes it so expensive to go out here.. A Guy in a bottle shop did give us a good hint for that! In McDo, you get water for free and he recommanded us to go grab some and then just pour our drinks in the McDo cups! Obviously we thought this was a brilliant idea so we ended up drinking a nice glass of wine (no goon for a change) in a carton McDo cup :p The next day, it was finally time to go to future music feat where I so had been looking forward to! Kallen came to meet me and two guys from my room were also going so we had some drinks in our room and then left together to the festival. We also met up with Nathan, a guy we met in airlie as well and the guys from my whitsundays trip. Well at least one of them, the other one got kicked out of the festival because he tried to smuggle drinks in by pooring them into a can of sunscreen (which I actually thought was quite a good idea!). Unfortunately, the security caught him and took away his ticket - worth 185 dollar :o!! Anyway, the day was so awesome: Macklemore was one of the best concerts I've ever seen, hard well was awesome as usual, I was standing in the front row when the Belgian DJ Netsky was playing and I think i've never danced as much in my life as during the chase&status set! What a day.. The next day I was so tired so I just went to chill in the botanical gardens and wanted to sleep early until my friends came to drag me out of my bed because there was a free bingo night in the bar beneath our hostel. So of course this resulted in partying again..

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

25 - 28: Noosa Next stop: Noosa! I was supposed to of the Gagaju bush camp here which is a 3-day kayak trip while sleeping in the real bush. However, after waiting for 45 mins for the bus to pick me up, I found out that they weren't coming since (apparently!) I had to reconfirm and they simply gave my spot to someone else without warning me. The owner was also really unfriendly and unhelpful because when I asked if I could just get the accommodation he just said there were no shuttle busses anymore and that it was my own problem if I didn't have accommodation then. So then I ended up being homeless somewhere in Noosa with a battery that (of course) had 0% battery and no remaining credit. Luckily, a girl lended me her phone so I could look up a hostel. The hostelworld website told me that ALL hostels were completely full that night so that was a bit of a downer, but it all worked out I. The end when one of the shuttle bus drivers told me their hostel always has some rooms left for emergencies (fiew). In hindsight I didn't really mind not doing the camp, since I was staying in a really chill hostel which had free surfboard and kayak rental so I ended up having three fun days filled with surfing, running, kayaking (/stand-up-kayak/paddle competition/karaoke), and exploring the city with some cool people from my room. The evenings were also really chill and I had some good laughs learning Spanish with two Argentinian locals and playing sherades with our group the next.

[juleslotaroundtheworld]

21-25: Hervey Bay & Fraser II The first evening, we started playing some games with the whole group, and after a game of 'I have never', we all got to know eachother better and this was the start of tons of insiders. I will not be able to hear the words 'respect for that', 'that's the bullocks' and 'lukaku' without thinking back to this weekend. (Btw lukaku was the nickname they started using for me since I said I was offended that they used the name of one of our best Belgian soccer players to indicate they were going to go do a n*2.) the second night we also decided to go check out the night sky in the beach, which was really scary since it was so dark and we saw a lot of dingoes that day. Especially if you know that a dingo actually came to our campsite later that night! But it was still worth the views and the funny memories. When we got back, we all cleaned ourselves up (after not showering for two days) and met again to order pizza and have some drinks. The people of my little 'gang' wanted to go out and convinced me to come (SWYD, right Emma ;)). Unfortunately, Hervey Bay is not the right place to party since there is really NoWHERe that you can party! So we just had some drinks till the bar kicked us out (at like 11pm :p). So no party but still a nice ending to an amazing, extremely funny and unforgettable weekend!

[juleslotaroundtheworld]