AUSTRALIA, THE END [posté par Marie le 21 juillet 2011]

We're back in France from a couple of days and here are the latest news of our trip.
We really enjoyed Australia and we can say that we fell in love with this country. It's an amazing country, with very impressive natural marvels everywhere, especially in the rainforest where you can see fantastic centenarian trees with terrific shapes.

People are very nice or maybe we've been lucky and met the nicest ones ! But generally people are nice, friendly, helpful. They come to speak with you in the streets, the campsites parks... We really liked this way to be and to share moments with people so easily.

We stayed 5 weeks at people's places and then we rent a campervan to travel a bit around Cairns.

We stayed 10 days at Kerry's, then 10 days at Cathy's place as woofers and did some good clearing job in her garden, and then 2 weeks again at Cathy's as guardian of her big house because she has to go to Mexico to meet her husband. When Cathy was abroad, we had some good time with the neighbors. All of them were particularly precious with us : Trishia and Bretto, Lainly, Mickael... Cathy went back home with her husband and we could meet Peter at last.

As we wrote before, all these people live in autonomy concerning the electricity and they really pay attention to their impact and tracks on the environment. They all have their own veggies garden and know how to cook (fresh, tasty and healthy food) and they brew their own beer ! Peter built his own fridge that impressed Gildas a lot.

But above all, we met people who teached us a lot concerning sharing, hospitality, honesty and generosity !

After these excellent 5 weeks in Japoonvale, we rent a campervan and toured around : the Atherton Tablelands, a green, mountainous and farming region, full of beautiful water falls ; Chillagoe, that gives you a taste of the outback, with wallabies jumping around, red soil, big rocks, poetic sunrises, sunsets and full moon in the sky ; Laura that gave us a chance to touch a bit of aboriginal culture thanks to its dance festival that occurs every two years in an exceptional site and atmosphere ; Mosman and its gorges ; Cape Tribulation where the rainforest meets the sea on beautiful beaches where you can't swim because of the crocodiles ; Cairns and its amazing lagoon with giant pools and BBQ, where everybody cook at night, sharing food and smiles, and where we met another French couple traveling with their child : Manu, Elodie et Louis...

We had a very good trip in Australia and we keep in memory all the people we met and the wild places we discovered.

Australia versus New Zealand ? We don't know which one to choose.