19-1-2010 (Tuesday)
We gave the rental car back in CBD Melbourne and took a taxi to KEA Camper Depot.
There she was right at the depot: our house for the next month. Troostwijk Family goes camping and we’re excited, slightly nervous.
First some paperwork and the a quick tour in and around the campervan, expect the cleaning of the toilet container, everything looks ok and good to handle for us first time campers.
Sharon brings little experience from her sailing holidays with the family and Ruben did some camping back in the days in Israel, but this is a whole new experience.
The nice lady at KEA set us up with a campsite at Philip Island south east of Melbourne, well known for its penguins.
At around 2 we drove away and all we could think is:”wow what a huge car”. Now we know how a truck driver feels. WE ARE KING OF THE ROAD. Ruben suddenly has a lot of respect for all the bus drivers in the world but he himself did a pretty good job, driving this enormous house on wheels, as if he never had done anything else in his life.
It’s a 2 ½ hour drive to Philip Island. We arrived at 4:30, in a real 2nd tier camping site. Our van is the biggest and nicest of the whole place. But it’s good to start at the bottom. At least the toilets and showers are clean….At least cleaner then our own toilet on our campervan.
Sharon stuffed our clothes away in all the small compartments and she’s really happy ‘bout the fact that she pact very well back home. Ruben and Zeb went shopping. Steak and sausages for our first outside BBQ.
Before dinner, Sharon went to the playground with the kids and Ruben set up the fold in table, chairs and the sunscreen. Putting back the sunscreen later at night was a nightmare, did not pay enough attention at KEA. Actually, the woman helping us out in Melbourne, probably thought we were experienced campers, cause she ran over all the important stuff. Now we needed help from two local campers, who were hardly understandable with their accents and looked like they’re smoking 24/7. Again new friends. Really camping is better then facebook.
We had our first outdoor dinner, and the steaks were great. Own made marinade, thanks to local bought Ketjap Manis from Conimex.
Tonight’s dilemma; shall we wash the dishes in the van, meaning we lose water we have to collect later, or to do it in the central washing place. Sharon did the later, but this is an example of the difficult choices we are facing these days.
The kids are sleeping together on top of the driving area and had a bath in one of the showers of the campsite together. We will sleep in the back, in the living room. Neither one has a clue how to set up the bed, but we’’ll find out.
Today was a GREAT adventure, but it seems to be the start of a wonderful month camping.
Posts tonen met het label Melbourne. Alle posts tonen
Posts tonen met het label Melbourne. Alle posts tonen
woensdag 20 januari 2010
woensdag 13 januari 2010
Melbourne and Great Ocean Road
12-1-2010 (Tuesday)
Woke up pretty late (9), Zeb slept late due to travel yesterday and the fact that Zeb watched the movie with us.
Ruben got two fresh coffees and some yoghurt for the kids. Around 10:15 we hit the streets, walking to Swanson (main street in CBD (central business district)) taking the number 8 tram to Toorak road in the neighborhood of South Yarra. We bought a super pram so now we have two prams (strollers).
Before buying the pram we did an internet search back in the hotel on kids stores, travelling using internet is such an advantage. Not that we rely on internet only; we brought over 5 kilo of travel books with us.
How did people got around without internet and mobile phones??
We walked on to Chapel street, main shopping street covering the neighborhoods of South Yarra, Toorak and Prahan. In Melbourne these kind of neighborhoods are the nicest to visit. The real center is CBD, which is not really nice. We walked the greater part of Chappel street. In Prahan we went to a public pool and the kids loved the kids pool. We only brought bathing suits for the kiddies.
In the pool we encountered our first animal in the wild: a Possom. That’s a small kangaroo like animal, not to be confused with a Pigem.
We also bought a Ripcurl swimming pants for Zeb: really cool!! back in our hotel we refreshed ourselves to go out for a bite in, we went to the southside of the Yarra river. It has a nice development of all kind of restaurants. Due to the kids we choose a big food court so they could have Pizza and we something of our choice, not a good choice.
Walking along the river it started raining, so we had to run for a taxi.
13-1-2010 (Wednesday)
Late wake up again, kids sleep late so wake up late. We went for breakfast near the hotel on Russel street. We met a nice Dutch girl that moved to Australia two years ago and loves it.
Back in the hotel Sharon packed some last things and laid down for half an hour, looks like see got a kind of food poisoning from the breakfast. She did not feel ok the rest of the day.
Sharai and Ruben went to the car rental on Elizabeth street, a ten minute walk from the hotel. To be honest Ruben was little tensed about the left driving.
We got a huge Mitshubitsi, with two booster seats and a Garmin GPS (tom tom like). Ruben and Sharai drove to the hotel to pick up Sharon and Zeb.
All set, we head off for our first stop on the great ocean road; Torquay. This first part of the great ocean road is called ‘Surf Coast’. On Bells Beach and Torquay are some of the best waves of Australia. We had late lunch in a nice creperie in Torquay.
The unfortunate thing today is that the car dvd set we brought does not work in the car, the 12v plug does not connect well. The kids watch a lot of dvd in the hotel rooms, now we set up our laptop to watch dvd in the car. Let’s hope it will work in the campervan. Favorite dvd’s are Nijntje the musical and Monsters inc. Sharon and Ruben can be understudy for the musical Nijntje when back in Holland.
The coast is so beautiful, it’s almost difficult to describe. Closest that comes to mind is the coastal outline on the west coast of the US near Carmel. But over here there are small beaches and bays around every corner. We can imagine this is one of the scenic highlights of Australia.
From Torquay we drove on to Angelsea, situated between Torquay and Lorne. In Angelsea we saw our first Kangaroos in the wild. A whole bunch were eating on the fairway of a golf course.
We drove on to Lorne, which is our destination for the next three days. We checked in the Lorne Hotel.
The room is pretty back to basic compared to what we used to the last 12 days. But the hotel is situated beautiful in the bay. After we organized the room, we went for a walk to check the area and look for a restaurant. Probably Sharai wasn’t feeling well, cause she vomited in her new ‘pram’. After she was done, she danced and sang as if nothing has happened. Dinner wasn’t really great. Kids had a bath, watched “Nijntje; the musical” and fell asleep (too) late.
The first day driving on the left went pretty well, despite one time ending up on the wrong side of the road.
Woke up pretty late (9), Zeb slept late due to travel yesterday and the fact that Zeb watched the movie with us.
Ruben got two fresh coffees and some yoghurt for the kids. Around 10:15 we hit the streets, walking to Swanson (main street in CBD (central business district)) taking the number 8 tram to Toorak road in the neighborhood of South Yarra. We bought a super pram so now we have two prams (strollers).
Before buying the pram we did an internet search back in the hotel on kids stores, travelling using internet is such an advantage. Not that we rely on internet only; we brought over 5 kilo of travel books with us.
How did people got around without internet and mobile phones??
We walked on to Chapel street, main shopping street covering the neighborhoods of South Yarra, Toorak and Prahan. In Melbourne these kind of neighborhoods are the nicest to visit. The real center is CBD, which is not really nice. We walked the greater part of Chappel street. In Prahan we went to a public pool and the kids loved the kids pool. We only brought bathing suits for the kiddies.
In the pool we encountered our first animal in the wild: a Possom. That’s a small kangaroo like animal, not to be confused with a Pigem.
We also bought a Ripcurl swimming pants for Zeb: really cool!! back in our hotel we refreshed ourselves to go out for a bite in, we went to the southside of the Yarra river. It has a nice development of all kind of restaurants. Due to the kids we choose a big food court so they could have Pizza and we something of our choice, not a good choice.
Walking along the river it started raining, so we had to run for a taxi.
13-1-2010 (Wednesday)
Late wake up again, kids sleep late so wake up late. We went for breakfast near the hotel on Russel street. We met a nice Dutch girl that moved to Australia two years ago and loves it.
Back in the hotel Sharon packed some last things and laid down for half an hour, looks like see got a kind of food poisoning from the breakfast. She did not feel ok the rest of the day.
Sharai and Ruben went to the car rental on Elizabeth street, a ten minute walk from the hotel. To be honest Ruben was little tensed about the left driving.
We got a huge Mitshubitsi, with two booster seats and a Garmin GPS (tom tom like). Ruben and Sharai drove to the hotel to pick up Sharon and Zeb.
All set, we head off for our first stop on the great ocean road; Torquay. This first part of the great ocean road is called ‘Surf Coast’. On Bells Beach and Torquay are some of the best waves of Australia. We had late lunch in a nice creperie in Torquay.
The unfortunate thing today is that the car dvd set we brought does not work in the car, the 12v plug does not connect well. The kids watch a lot of dvd in the hotel rooms, now we set up our laptop to watch dvd in the car. Let’s hope it will work in the campervan. Favorite dvd’s are Nijntje the musical and Monsters inc. Sharon and Ruben can be understudy for the musical Nijntje when back in Holland.
The coast is so beautiful, it’s almost difficult to describe. Closest that comes to mind is the coastal outline on the west coast of the US near Carmel. But over here there are small beaches and bays around every corner. We can imagine this is one of the scenic highlights of Australia.
From Torquay we drove on to Angelsea, situated between Torquay and Lorne. In Angelsea we saw our first Kangaroos in the wild. A whole bunch were eating on the fairway of a golf course.
We drove on to Lorne, which is our destination for the next three days. We checked in the Lorne Hotel.
The room is pretty back to basic compared to what we used to the last 12 days. But the hotel is situated beautiful in the bay. After we organized the room, we went for a walk to check the area and look for a restaurant. Probably Sharai wasn’t feeling well, cause she vomited in her new ‘pram’. After she was done, she danced and sang as if nothing has happened. Dinner wasn’t really great. Kids had a bath, watched “Nijntje; the musical” and fell asleep (too) late.
The first day driving on the left went pretty well, despite one time ending up on the wrong side of the road.
maandag 11 januari 2010
Two lazy days and a travel day.
9-1-2010 (Saturday)
Breakfast at Aquabar again, really best French toast ever with baked banana served with it. Went to the Rockpool at the north end of the Bondi beach. We built a pool in the sand again and Zeb loved to go in the sea. Sharai is still very much afraid to go in, but she loves swimming in the rock pool and she loves to walk around with buckets from other kids.
We had lunch in the room and then took the 333 bus into town. In Hyde park was the opening day of ‘the Sydney festival’ that lasts till end of the month.
The festival was a little disappointing, we watched some (sorry, bad Hillybilly) music and some acrobatics. Kids had an ice cream and it was very hot (approximately 30 C). From Hyde park we walked back the first part to Bondi along Oxford street, we walked almost to Bondi junction.
Kids had pizza and pasta at Bondi pizza, we had (finally) sushi in.
10-1-2010 (Sunday)
Relaxed and lazy day today again. Breakfast at Gusto (the best Bircher muesli in the world) and then headed to the beach. Lunch in the room and then we the kids went to sleep in their strollers. We sat down at a beachside café while the kids were sleeping for some reading Frappe and juice.
When the kids were awake we took them to the playground. Back in the hotel the kids took a bath in our jumbo sized tub.
We got dinner from The Hurricane again; really good burger, salad and chicken. We skyped, kids watched ‘Pluk van de Petterflat ‘and we got to sleep late again.
Tomorrow travel day, flying to Melbourne in the afternoon. We started packing again.
By the way: A stroller in Australia is called Pram, we have to. Does that mean we have 2 ‘Prammen’.
That kind of questions keeps us busy, can you imagine how relaxed we are.
11-1-2010 (Monday)
It’s our last day in Sydney and we are invited at Emma and Craig Cohen’s ( friends of Les and Daan de Swaan) place to have a swim and have the kids play together. They have two girls in the same ages as ours; Chloe and Ashley. The kids really enjoyed and Emma took and brought us back to and from the hotel.
We were back at the hotel at 12:30 to do some final packing before heading for the airport to fly to Melbourne.
The flight was quit bumpy at the end especially Sharon did not really like it, to put it mildly. Zeb slept through the whole flight, Sharai did not sleep one minute this afternoon and was jumping around on Sharons’ lap during the flight.
Landing in Melbourne with 42 degrees Celsius, bloody hot. We took a cab to the hotel, Marriot on Exhibition street. Nice renovated rooms. We have two huge beds; one for the kids and one for us. After a quick check in, we went to check out the hotel swimming pool before heading for Chinatown for dinner. Going down in the elevator Sharai got her fingers between the doors, but she was fine soon.
Outside it is like a warm blanket covers you; it’s like walking in the biggest sauna on earth . In Chinatown we had dinner in one of the many places. The kids loved it and we did too,: beef with fried noodles and a lemon chicken with rice. Even Zeb was eating a lot. He made the loudest burp ever in the restaurant, unbelievable that a 4 year old already knows Chinese customs.
Walking back to the hotel we did a detour, around the city center. We call it: window shopping. Now we’re back in the hotel, Sharai already fell a sleep during our little sauna tour and Zeb is happy to see Monsters Inc. with us. Sharon has seen the movie in the airplane and thinks Boo is exactally Sharai.
Breakfast at Aquabar again, really best French toast ever with baked banana served with it. Went to the Rockpool at the north end of the Bondi beach. We built a pool in the sand again and Zeb loved to go in the sea. Sharai is still very much afraid to go in, but she loves swimming in the rock pool and she loves to walk around with buckets from other kids.
We had lunch in the room and then took the 333 bus into town. In Hyde park was the opening day of ‘the Sydney festival’ that lasts till end of the month.
The festival was a little disappointing, we watched some (sorry, bad Hillybilly) music and some acrobatics. Kids had an ice cream and it was very hot (approximately 30 C). From Hyde park we walked back the first part to Bondi along Oxford street, we walked almost to Bondi junction.
Kids had pizza and pasta at Bondi pizza, we had (finally) sushi in.
10-1-2010 (Sunday)
Relaxed and lazy day today again. Breakfast at Gusto (the best Bircher muesli in the world) and then headed to the beach. Lunch in the room and then we the kids went to sleep in their strollers. We sat down at a beachside café while the kids were sleeping for some reading Frappe and juice.
When the kids were awake we took them to the playground. Back in the hotel the kids took a bath in our jumbo sized tub.
We got dinner from The Hurricane again; really good burger, salad and chicken. We skyped, kids watched ‘Pluk van de Petterflat ‘and we got to sleep late again.
Tomorrow travel day, flying to Melbourne in the afternoon. We started packing again.
By the way: A stroller in Australia is called Pram, we have to. Does that mean we have 2 ‘Prammen’.
That kind of questions keeps us busy, can you imagine how relaxed we are.
11-1-2010 (Monday)
It’s our last day in Sydney and we are invited at Emma and Craig Cohen’s ( friends of Les and Daan de Swaan) place to have a swim and have the kids play together. They have two girls in the same ages as ours; Chloe and Ashley. The kids really enjoyed and Emma took and brought us back to and from the hotel.
We were back at the hotel at 12:30 to do some final packing before heading for the airport to fly to Melbourne.
The flight was quit bumpy at the end especially Sharon did not really like it, to put it mildly. Zeb slept through the whole flight, Sharai did not sleep one minute this afternoon and was jumping around on Sharons’ lap during the flight.
Landing in Melbourne with 42 degrees Celsius, bloody hot. We took a cab to the hotel, Marriot on Exhibition street. Nice renovated rooms. We have two huge beds; one for the kids and one for us. After a quick check in, we went to check out the hotel swimming pool before heading for Chinatown for dinner. Going down in the elevator Sharai got her fingers between the doors, but she was fine soon.
Outside it is like a warm blanket covers you; it’s like walking in the biggest sauna on earth . In Chinatown we had dinner in one of the many places. The kids loved it and we did too,: beef with fried noodles and a lemon chicken with rice. Even Zeb was eating a lot. He made the loudest burp ever in the restaurant, unbelievable that a 4 year old already knows Chinese customs.
Walking back to the hotel we did a detour, around the city center. We call it: window shopping. Now we’re back in the hotel, Sharai already fell a sleep during our little sauna tour and Zeb is happy to see Monsters Inc. with us. Sharon has seen the movie in the airplane and thinks Boo is exactally Sharai.
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