That morning I went to the Killer Whale museum in Eden, a small town about 20kms south from Pambula Beach. Apparently, Eden used to be a whale fishing town in the early 1900s. The most remarkable thing being that they where actually helped by a pack of Killer Whales, led by ‘Old Tom’. The pack headed out to sea and forced a found whale to the shore, where ‘Old Tom’ would leap out of the water and splash about until the whalers launched a boat. Then he would lead the whalers the way to where the whale had been rounded up.

In his impatience, Tom sometimes seized a boat’s harpoon line to slow the whale down and even towed boats holding the towrope in his teeth. When the killing was over the carcas would be anchored and buoyed, then temporarily left to the killer whales who ate only the huge tongue (often weighing over 4 tons) and lips. This suited the whalers who only wanted the baleen and oil bearing blubber.

After Tom died in 1930, not a single orca showed up the season following Tom’s death, and without their help, shore-based whaling -already on the decline through scarcity of baleen whales- came to an end.

After the museum at Eden I drove, with some stops in the country side, to the Big4 campsite in Narooma. I walked to the Woolies to get some groceries, and then I had a ceasar salad at the O’Briens pub before going to the cinema to see the new Indiana Jones. An entertaining film, but a bit over the top with the -SPOILER WARNING; DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT TO SEE IT -

nuclear explosion, the aliens and the flying saucer

On Thursday I left Canberra and headed for Jindabyne, one of the best known skiing cities in Australia’s Snowy Mountains. While the scenery was nice I didn’t see any snow in the Snowies. While I initially thought to stay here for the night I decided not to and head for the South Coast and stay for the night at Pambula Beach.

From Jindabyne I drove through the Southern Tablelands towards the coast. From Canberra to Jindabyne it was all green, vineyards, touristy towns, ski resorts. The Southern Tablelands where quite contrasty all bare with few trees. And the last stretch to the coast was very green, lots of vegation and forest when driving down over very curvy roads.

In the tablelands I had to drive over 28km of dirtroad, passing this lonely abandoned station in the middle of nowhere:

And some scrapyard:

The campsite -with lots of kangaroos around the camping sites- had a heated swimming pool, so I spent 1.5 hours swimming in the heated pool and spa and I got some takeway Thai from the town’s centre

The next morning I drove to the Telstra (the ‘KPN’ of Australia) tower, which stands on a hill overlooking the city. As I drove up the hill I saw clouds hanging in the valley over the city, actually a quite spectacular sight. The view from the tower was even better.

After a couple of photographs I went to the café to get a long black and wait a bit for the clouds to disappear. Fortunately that happened quite quickly so I went to the lookout again to have another cloudless look at Canberra

After the Telstra tower, I drove into the country (seeing several Emu’s walking near the road) and went to the Canberra Space Communication Centre. An array of satellite dishes, used for listening to ET, and used by NASA for communication with several of their missions. The main dish was massive, about 70m wide.

At the end of the day I ended up in the Belgian bar in Kingston for a Leffe, and I met another Dutch guy from Sydney. He had been working and living there for about 15 years now. It was good to have a chat with him about life in Australia.

That night I had stayed in Sydney, however, quite far away from the city center and public transport into the city was not really nearby. So I left the campsite and headed -past some pitoresque but touristy villages- into the tablelands. I decided to head for Canberra, Australia’s capital.

From what I had read, Canberra is totally designed on an architect’s drawing board. It has been completely mapped out. When I arrived in Canberra I went to an -expensive! $ 15,- internet cafe to check my mail and send my resume to a couple of job openings.

From the Hunter valley I drove the scenic route to Katoomba. Again a very curvy road through two national parks. I think these roads would be great on a motorcycle, though they warn a lot that motors may slip because of the wetness and -possibly- frost on the road.

On the way I passed some abandoned busses, and this old mailbox pretty much in the middle of nowhere. I guess it was Sam’s?

The last part on my way to Katoomba was really busy with traffic. When I finally arrived in Katoomba it was really wet, cloudy and rainy. So After I had a look from the lookout, and saw the three sisters (below) I decided to leave Katoomba and head for a campsite in Sydney. Possibly staying there for the remainder of my days to see the city.

I woke up early; it was getting quite cold so I turned the engine and the heater on to get some warm air into the van before getting out of bed. I did not hear so many cars pass that night; only 4 or 5 maybe.

When I got out of bed it was really wet, misty and cold outside. I started the van and headed for Walcha to get some petrol. From Walcha I drove past Tamworth (the Australian ‘Country Capitol’), Muswellbrook and Singleton to Pokolbin and Cessnock in the Hunter Valley; which is famous for it’s wines.

I saw the in Holland famous Lindemans winery and the Tempus Two winery the Tuetels from Discovery Channels’ American Chopper had been to, but the rest of the wineries did not really ring a bell. I stopped at two, but it looked like tasting normally resulted in buying boxes of wine, so I skipped the tastings. It would have been different if there had been many other tasters, but as the weather was cold, grey, cloudy and wet, there were only a few visitors at the several winaries.

After having stopped at the Woolworths at Cessnock to get some stir fry ingredients (for tomorrow) and a tuna steak (for tonight) I checked into the BIG4 caravan park, had some dinner and watched ‘The Bank Job’ (quite an entertaining film).

That morning I left the caravan park to have a look at the Trial Bay Gaol (old English for ‘jail’) where during the First World War all Australians of German ancestry (German immigrants or children of German immigrants) had been emprisoned as they were a threat to national security. Strange though, that even children of German immigrants were sent to prison; they might not know Germany at all. One of them (Kurt Wiese) was a cartoonist, later to make the originals sketches of Walt Disney’s ‘Bambi’. While they mention him at the prison; it makes me wonder if his precuationary prison time have made him decide to move to the USA instead? Seems plaucible.

Apparently I arrived at the Gaol (jail) at World Whale Day as there was some sort of ‘whale awareness’ going on there. From one of the watchtowers you could see the humpback whales squirting in the air a couple of hundres metres of coast. They migrate to warmer Australian waters during autumn / winter.

From Trial Bay I turned off onto the Oxley Highway past Port Macquarie, to go see the Ellenborough Falls. This seemingly little trip of mine turned out to be quite an adventure. From Comboyne the road turned into a dirt road so I drove through the hills (great scenery!) past the sporadic house and meadow, through the forest, over dirt road towards Elands (the town near Ellenborough Falls). When reaching the falls after about 24 km of dirt road, they where indeed tall and magnificent. The water plunged 160 metres into the depth. But as it was getting close to 17:00, and the sun would start to set soon I decided to head off to the Oxley Highway and head for a caravan park at Walcha.

I first got $ 50,- of unleaded before leaving Elands. The lady at the petrol station (/ restaurant / anything you want shop) told me the only way out was over dirt road and it would take you about an hour to get to the OXley Highway. So I set my TomTom for Walcha and it led me onto a dirt road leading out.

However, after about 16 kms, there was a sign that said the council only maintained the road untill that point. I tried the road a bit but it got really overgrown and really bad to drive, so I decided to turn around. Only… there was no way to turn around as it was all overgrown.

The sun had already set and it was getting dark and I got stuck on some lousy dirtroad in the middle of nowhere. I decided to give turning through the plants a go, as I really needed to head back to Eslands. It was quite a tough job and the plants cut a mark on my van; fortunately I’m as much insured as possible so I can’t be liable for anything

After I finally managed to turn around I tried to drive back up the dirt road, but my wheels kept spinning in the clay. After several retries (and the thought I really did not want to get stuck in that shithole dirtroad in the middle of fucking nowhere) managed to get met back up the ‘managed’ dirt road to drive back to Eslands.

After 16 kms I was back where I started, and it was really dark now. I decided to get the hell out of there because if it would start to rain even the ‘drivable’ dirt roads would be tough to drive. So instead of camping at the Falls (as the petrol lady advised me to do), I set off to drive back over the 24 km of dirt road back to Comboyne to get some nice and solid oily rest products underneath my rubber tires.

It took me about 45 minutes to get back to Comboyne and make my way back to the Oxley Highway. Boy was I glad I got the hell out of there But now I still needed to get a campsite arranged, but Walcha was still a long drive (about 160kms) and it was already past 19:00.

Driving along the Oxley Highway -all winding road with 35 kms/h corners- through the Great Dividing Range, I was getting a bit tired. When I passed some kind of little off road (for roadwork) I just thought to myself: ‘fuck it, I’m gonna stay for the night over here’. And so I did