It’s the 6th of August in Dunsborough when we start to one of the longest hiking tracks we have ever done. The Cape to Cape Track takes us 135km along the coast - from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin, near Augusta. We look at seven days hiking. Let’s start! Soon we find ourselves walking through a blanket of flowers and flowering bushes. The turquoise ocean makes a wonderful contrast to the yellow and purple wild orchids and clematis. At the end of our first section we spot a Southern Right Whale, some meters off-shore. Dolphins playing in the waves... What a paradise!

But the way isn’t going all the time that easy. After the breath-taking views of the first days follows a nine-hours heavy rain afternoon. That means 17 hours laying in the tent. After that long rest we’re prepared for the last, hardest parts of the way. Through karri forest and along the coastline we heading further south.

On 14 August we are finished - literally. We start the 27km section already at 7 in the morning. After two hours comes the beach - white and soft sand to follow for eight km’s. A brook has to be crossed and the sand let us sink in right up to the knees. The fast flowing water is hard to get trough and when we reach the end of the sand we are really exhausted. The Cape Leeuwin Lighthouse comes in seight - done! After nine hours walking today.

We hitch back to Dunsborough. Our first lift is a wealthy photograph who takes us down to Margaret River. Two backpacker girls from Spain and Finland take us further and at the end we sit in the car of a surfer daddy who brings us back right to the house door where we left. The same day we start to drive further south - glad to have the luxury of our motorbikes again. We pass vineyards and green fileds, settled between high karri forests and creating a very romantic landscape.

We are in Albany now. Our journey around Australia is coming slowly to an end. Beginning of October we are going to fly to Tasmania where we’re staying for about 6 weeks time. But there’s still a hugh distance to drive back to our start - to Melbourne. After Esperance we’ll cross the Nullabor Plain and drive to Adelaide.

Monique

We came across Ann two weeks ago. She owns a 700 acres big sheepfarm near Perth and has 100 sheep on it. She wanted us to work on her property. Here was the chance we have been waiting for our whole trip: working on a farm! A great time followed: 

We live in a dongar (bungalow, often used in mining as accommodation) which is surprisingly comfortable. The view from our terrace is as wonderful as the wildlife around here: we overlook lush green hills, dotted with sheep and a glittering lake. Breakfast with kangaroos is getting real in front of our kitchen door. In grey and red it runs and jumps around in the mornings. Curious big black eyes looking always for food and they seem to have a dog-view-training, too. 

Temperatures in this time of the year are perfect for working: with 17 degrees and often pure sunshine the chain-sawing, fence building and constructing is easily done. When we want to transport the cut wood in the habitant of the two house-emus they don’t really like that idea. We ending up searching another place for our wood - we already had a struggle with a two metre emu down in Alice Springs....  

We aren’t used to have a roof, heating and a bed anymore. Now it’s every-day life and our spoiled bodies use the time to force us to have a break: first week I catch cold, second week Monique. It prolongs our stay on this beautiful farm to a fortnight. The longest time on one place since we left Germany - 9 months ago.  

Ann is strongly involved in wildcare programmes and takes care of injured animals, too. In the time of our visit she has a little kangaroo and a lamb to care of. They need four times a day a bottle of milk. A very rewarding task to care for this cute animals... 

I’m on a visit at Leigh’s and Khym’s home. It’s more a zoo than a home because they breed and take care of WA snakes. After five minutes I hold the first little snake in my hand. A bit later I find myself with a 3m and 7kg heavy python around my neck. It’s always a thrilling and fascinating feeling to feel such a strong muscle. I had reptiles and snakes at home - that’s why I’m very interested in having a closer look on the poisonous ones, too. Leigh has never been bitten by a snake within the past eight years. He seems to know what he’s doing when he grabs a 2m long King Brown, that’s famous for it’s high amounts of venom, on the tail...  The animal’s crawling soon trough the living room floor. Outside it’s feeding-time for a bunch of kangaroos. They grow up here and are more or less living in the wild now. Scattered around the house I see terrariums full of native birds, turtles and more reptiles. On the question “How many animals do you have?” Leigh doesn’t know an answer. An unforgettable visit... 

On the farm is a hand-constructed, wonderful wooden house where Ann’s son Andrew and his wife Roslyn live. We work for them too and do a lot of small jobs around garden and house. Andrew loves to invent new things: he produces his own petrol out of old kitchen-oil and fat. He runs his car and the house-heating with it since years. Roslyn’s the best chef ever and spoils us with heaps of biscuits and food! Thanks for this wonderful time with you! Let’s hope that we’re still able to ride the bikes after such a long break!

Our way will lead us down to Perth and to Dansborough. From here we’d like to hike the 133km of the Coast-to-Coast-Track in the Matgaret River region.  

Rene  

  It is the 8th of July as I make the following note in our diary: „My tacho shows 22765km of our journey as we see the first green field. I never thought that this view would create so much happiness! The road starts to be a bit twisty again, we see fields, big trees and green everywhere. In the air is the smell of summer rain - unforgettable and too long ago. Nearly 4 months of sun, heat and dust. An  12.000km drive through the harsh emptiness of Outback Australia with sunshine that seems to burn our brains off. Several times we had to carry up to 40 litres of water on the bikes. On a parking area along the Hwy we do a dance of happiness - we made it through the outback! There’s clouds again - they hang heavy and dark on the sky and bring us the winter in South-Western Australia.  

On the same day we experience the winter at it’s roughest: four metre high waves hit the coastline of Kalbarri and the storm gets up to 100km/h. It takes roofs away and the Honda falls down. Fortunately Phil gives us a roof and the first bed since 119 days in that night! What a good timing! We enjoy our days with him and plan our further, exciting journey. We tell you more about that in an other report. Later...

Did you know that there’s an independent „country“ existing in Australia (like Monaco)? No? Us neither. That’s why we are a bit surprised when we cross the border to the Principality of Hutt River, 100km north of Geraldton. It’s not more than a wheat farm on the edge of the outback and has 30 permanent citizens and 130.000 worldwide. Princess Shirley (an elderly women in a woollen jacket) welcomes us in the post- and governmental office. Here we have a look at the money, passports and stamps of the 1970 founded Principality. After we have a visa-stamp in our passports we see Prince Leonard. He shows us the collection of presents form countries all over the world (also a piece of the Berlin Wall is among them). The governmental Rolls Royce is a present of the Australian Government. Impressed we leave the place in the middle of nowhere. Rene has the feeling that this is the kindest country we ever came through! 

After so much history we have to hurry along the coast. In the Margret River region is pruning work waiting for us. Margret River is still 800km away and the work starts within the next days. A bit stressed we drive and wander through the amazing stacks of the Pinnacle Desert and make our way down to Perth. Debra and Peter organise a family-party for us with wooden baked pizza. During this wonderful evening we meet Peter’s mom who has a sheep farm near Bindoon, one hour north of Perth. She invites us to work for her and so we quit the pruning job down south. A fascinating time follows. We will stay here a while. More about our time here in our next report...

Monique

It is 5am. Pitchblack night is surrounding us when we drive through the cold wind along the Ningaloo coast. In the dark gloom a light and the ranger-office comes in sight. In front of us are already seven cars queuing up. They’re waiting for the same as us: to get a place at the full campgrounds of the Cape Range NP.

Three hours of waiting follow until we are lucky and drive to Osprey Bay to occupy our “home-campground”. We share the little place of dirt with Andreja, a sympathetic German girl. She accompanies our travels for the next 4 days and we have lots to talk...

What follows is endless and wonderful days, filled with catalogue-blue waters of the ocean and pristine white beaches. Under water we encounter heaps of fish, colour-changing octopus, a reef-shark and a fire fish. Wonderful shaped corals are dominating the scene - a magical world! Sea turtles and dolphins are visiting the beach in front of our tent and we can see right from the shore big humpback whales making there way up north!

Time flies and after one week the wind gets too cold and our panniers for food are empty. We drive back to Exmouth to do one day of motorcycle-care before we hit the road again. We have been on that beautiful place almost a fortnight... Magic.

Coral Bay is a sleepy tourist village. One day after our arrival we end up on a boat, snorkling through Ningaloo-Reef. About 10 reef sharks are swimming beneath our group of astonished snorklers and let little fishes clean their mouths (I wouldn’t trust THAT kind of job...). We see dolphins, turtles and dugongs. Two humpback whales show their big fins and we accompany their journey for a while before we go swimming with manta rays.

The word “Manta” is spanish and means “cloak” or “blanket”. This huge black-white rays seem to fly over the sandy ground of the ocean. They measure up to 8 metres wide and they can get as heavy as 1380kg. The next place to visit is Carnarvon. We are looking for a fruit picking job but there is not much to do: the harvest wasn’t good this year. We continue or journey to the Unesco-World Heritage of Shark Bay. Here we find ancient forms of life: stromatolites (bactaries) survived on that place over millions of years. They were the first organisms on earth who produced oxygen and made life, as it is today, possible.

Our journey is now heading into winter: Kalbarri, Geraldton and Perth are the next destinations. From here you will get the next news out of the bikepackers-world!

Monique