On April 21st the cyclon hits the coast on Airlie Beach with 200km an hour. We stay 300km away from the storm and 'just' come into the rain depression with 60ml rain in one night. The region we travel trough within the next days is a chaos of flooded streets and trees laying over roads and pathways. Many households have no power. It seems to be a wonder that just a few houses have been destroyed. That's Australia, too. The weather will be the main factor that gives our journey it s direction and speed.

Because of rain and floods it makes no sense for us to stay longer at Airlie Beach and it's surroundings. All National Parks remain closed and so we find ourselfes on the highway, overtaken by pushing trucks. But: what's that? Flashing red-blue lights in my rear-view mirror. The police car's stopping behind me and René's driving further. Hmm - where do I have all these documents? But the young guy in uniform does't want to see any licences - he doesn't even know the german number plate. He just wants to inform me about some loose straps I forgot to fix on my motorbike this morning. After a short talk I can drive on and stop in St Lawrence.

Here we see the first time this huge Big Red Kangaroos grasing in front of that place where we pitch our tent for tonight. The campground is free and well equiped. The roos are boxing in the morning and make this a unique start into a sunny day. We arrive in Bowen - where the movie 'Australia' has been filmed in 2007. The tranquility of this nice little town and it's unspoilt beaches give us the relaxed feeling back, we missed so much within the last days. Wild-campgrounds are harder to find because of wetlands, crocodiles and built-up areas. Despite these facts we are lucky and spot some platypus and turtles in the muddy waters od Eungella NP.

After that enjoyable day in Bowen we find ourselfes back on the highway. We reach Townsville on 27.4. Where we get the 10.000km of our australian journey on the tacho. Time for a proper look on the motorbikes and an oil change. René picks up his brand new shock absorber, sended from Germany. The air is humid and 37 degree hot. We need a place to fix the bikes... In this moment Frank's stopping in his car. After a short talk he gives us his card and the address of the biggest honda shop in Australia. On he back side of the card is written 'help our friends'. That's how it comes that we find ourselfes in the workshop of that huge shop. Mechanical advise isn't far and they find out that the regulator of the Honda is broken. That's not cheap... But the guys do everything to get the regulator until the next day and we are really thankful for this fantastic service! Thanks to the Rising Sun Honda Team!  

We spend the night at a nice campground between the highway and a river. A local comes along and represents his caught baby-python. A 3 meter one lives down at the river bank as he told us... No, we don't want to see THAT one.

Here we meet Florian. He's on his way through Australia on a push bike and is from Germany, too. We spend a nice afternoon with him and we are really surprised and disappointed when he doesn't talk to us the next morning. Furious and without a word he escapes the campground in a hurry and we don' t know what we did wrong...

After our time in Townsville a new cyclon's aproaching the north and brings more rain, wind and floodings. In Ingham we give up and decide to leave the east coast. We say good bye to Cairns, Cooktown and the Great Barrier Reef and turn back to Townsville - even a little sad that we have to skip so much more. But travelers from north told us about the amounts of rain up there... That's no fun anymore.

So we'll head west after Easter and drive along the Flinders Hwy to Mt Isa and further to Alice Springs. We don't know how much internet access we can get along the way - so a longer silence is possible.

We wish you happy Easter and nice holidays! We'll spend our time in Balgal Beach, having a little rest...

Monique & René