Melbourne

2014 March, The Long Trip - Australia, Melbourne ZOO

Unexpectedly, my Long Trip finished in Melbourne as my 97 years old grandfather passed away. He was in a good condition and died in an accident.
As I wanted to say a goodbye to all Australian animals I visited ZOO in Melbourne. The entrance fee is 30 AUD (20.10e). If you are lucky you can be there when they feed animals. They have a lot of native species. I spent there almost 3 hours and it was a good time.
Now it is time to go home.

Meerkat

Koala

Wombat

Emu

Kangaroos

Lemur

Lemur

Lizard

Mail boxes

2014 March, The Long Trip - Australia

On my short trip around Perth I saw a lot of different mail boxes. Unfortunately, I started to take pictures too late so I have only a few good once. Close to all roads you could find a simple ones or very difficult ones to make. Sometimes, it was only a barrel, another time a microwave. 

Emu

Kangaroo

Microwave

  

Visiting the Diamond Tree

2014 February, The Long Trip - Australia

It's time to explore Australia. Perth was the closest destination from Singapore and an obvious choice for someone who wanted to explore this country off the beaten track. It wasn't my first visit to Australia. An inspiration was a pink lake, a natural phenomenon, which I saw on photos ages ago. Perth was the closest international airport to Esperance where you could find unique, pink lakes. Renting a car was the most obvious choice. Unfortunately, I didn't succeed in finding any car relocation from Perth to Adelaide/Melbourne. 

After landing at night and spending the rest of it at the airport's chairs I was so tired I managed to drive south up to Bunbury. Luckily, I found one hostel which was still open at 7 pm. The first lesson was learnt. In Australia everything shuts down at 5 pm: all shops, camping grounds, holidays parks, hostel receptions. Bunbury is famous for their dolphin centre and various trips to observe and/or swim with dolphins in the ocean. Unfortunately, all trips left at 7 am and I didn't want to wait to take part in it on the following day. It would be awesome to visit this area when various species of whales visit it. 

Buselton was my next stop on the west Australian coastline. On the way I left the main road to drive through the Ludlow Tuart Forest. It was a fascinating place to explore as those majestic and rare trees were up to 40 meters tall. Besides, I was the only visitor. Buselton is known for its Jetty - the longest, wooden pier in the southern hemisphere. 

On the way to Esperance, I stopped close to Manjimup where you can find an interesting view points on tree tops. What was the most amazing about those places was that you could climbed them on your own risk. The only protection was a metal net on one side. Those enormous Karri trees were up to 52 meters tall. The platforms on tree tops were built as a fire look out and they're still in use nowadays, ie. when weather conditions don't allow to take off any surveillance plane.  Diamond Tree was the one I visited. 

Finally, I stayed overnight near Albany on one camping ground marked on a mobile app, wiki camps for Australia. 

Kangaroos

Going up

The Diamond Tree

On the top

Emu