Well, after three hours in an uncomfortable plane we left Australia after 125 days. Somehow a very weird feeling as this short “jump” to New Zealand doesn’t feel very different to the other journeys we made through Australia. Anyway, it might be a good point to write a short summery for Australia, who knows who has similar plans like we J

1. Aussies, friendships and “no worries”
   The first impression of Australians we got at the airport in Perth and staying with Brodie or Mike and Michelle was proved to be true in most cases. Aussies are definitely more relaxed as we were used to in Europe and Germany and “no worries” is more an approach than just an empty phrase. The only people we would exclude from this are some bus and cab drivers and some owners of camping grounds. Nevertheless, we gained a lot of new friendships mostly through couchsurfing, but this was the idea anyway. Whoever plans a journey through Australia with a bit of time will most likely experience the same.
2. Distances
   If you have a look on a map of Australia, the Island doesn’t seem to be so huge. But indeed, we highly underestimated the distances, why we wouldn’t recommend someone to visit Australia for only a few weeks (or only a certain part of it). Indeed, in 4.5 months we made 25,000km by car, train and hitchhiking.
3. Tourists
   The east coast is packed with tourists, mainly during the Australian summer. The typical travel route leads from Sydney to Cairns. Who wants to prevent this, should choose another travel time (btw, Queensland is much nicer and cooler during Australian winter, there are no jellyfish and only crocodiles in the water).
   If you are a bit adventurous and don’t mind long distances, we would definitely recommend Western Australia. You can find everything for which Australia is known for, with definitely less tourists, untouched areas, breathtaking beaches on which you won’t find any people. In addition with the Karijini NP the best national park of Australia, which is not only our opinion.
4. Moving
   We thought about it, what we could have done better or worse. In 7 weeks we spent around 1200$ for rented cars, what is probably quite ok. One thing we wouldn’t do again is renting a campervan, what we did from Perth to Melbourne. Generally a camper is quite handy but on the other side quite useless. One thing is that renting a campervan is more expensive as renting a car and it needs twice as much fuel as a car. The apparent advantage that you spend no money for accommodation is wrong. Especially on the east coast staying overnight at parking spots along the road is very often prohibited (often accepted though) and after 2-3 nights in a camper a shower would be nice as well (but if you like to have a cold beach shower during sometimes cold weather…). And so you basically can’t avoid camp sites as the cheapest option. In addition, the campsites always have well equipped camp kitchens, so that the kitchen in the camper is useless. And it’s unhandy on these many unsealed roads and thin streets (mainly if an oversized roadtrain passes you). So who can live without the luxury of a bed in the camper and who likes to spend nights in a tent (or even motel?), we would definitely recommend renting a smaller or bigger car, whatever you prefer. Or to buy such a car, but we don’t want to make that decision, because this is connected with risks like a breakdown in the desert, putting money into repairs, reselling at the end of the travel and so on.
5. Potential to come back
   We definitely couldn’t see everything we wanted to see, but that offers more potential to come back again. We would have liked to go to Tasmania, an island south of Melbourne, which is beautiful and green, apparently comparable to New Zealand. In addition we want to see the Daintree rainforest of Cairns and Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon in Australia’s centre. And not to forget, we wanted to come back anyway to sail with our (rented) sailing boat across the Whitsundays!

See ya Australia!