Post Europe Blues

2019-07-04 – Post Europe Blues

We have been home a quite a while now and are having difficulties settling in to our Australian lifestyle again – waking up in the same location everyday seems a little boring compared to our European nomadic ways – more so for the Driver than the Navigator

This has not been helped by hearing from Linda and David from Perth who did a 2 year European motorhome tour, returned home to W.A., bought a new caravan and car and only lasted about 3 months before selling the car and caravan again and heading back over to Europe.

They said they soon got tired of having to travel long distances with no change of scenery, having few places to choose from to stay and then having to pay high prices to stay overnight compared with their experiences in Europe.

They have now bought a Chausson motorhome in France, have returned to Europe and are happily travelling through Europe again.

In February Michael and Pam from Cronulla came and stayed with us for a few days – we travelled through a few places in Europe with them including Bad Waldsee (the home of Hymer) and Middenwald where we went hiking at the top of the cable car.

They have a Hymer 584 which they keep stored in S.E. England and for the past 6 or 7 years have spent their summers in Australia and the European summers touring Europe in their Hymer.

They left for Europe again at the start of June.

Whilst they were staying with us we had Michael and Debbie (ex Randwick NSW but now Bilinga Qld) round for dinner.

Michael and Debbie had a Burstner motorhome which they had done 3 tours of Europe in and sold at the end of 2017 before moving to Bilinga.

They told us that they have just bought a Rimor motorhome in France and returned to Europe in May.

We had lunch with Michael and Debbie at Currumbin in February 2017 before we went to Europe and then met up with them in Berlin, Germany and the Isle of Sheppey off the north east coast of Kent in the UK.

So the 6 of us sat having dinner on our front deck talking about our motorhome travels with the only problem being that Michael and Pam and Michael and Debbie were also talking about their plans for their next tours, but not us.

It was a great night but we woke up the next morning feeling a little sad.

In March Martina and Ralf our friends from Stelzenberg Germany travelled to Australia and rented a motorhome in Melbourne with the plan of travelling the east coast as far as Cairns.

In Germany Martina and Ralf have a Hobby motorhome and we toured Croatia with them in April 2018 before staying in their house which is about 10 km from Kaiserslautern which is home for a huge US military base of around 30,000 personnel.

After they arrived in Melbourne we connected up our Eco Tourer off road van and headed towards Sydney to meet them on their way north.

We wanted to show them some parts of Australia that they may not have seen on their own so we took them to Diamond Head in the Crowdy Bay National Park, Trial Bay Jail and South West Rocks in the Arakoon National Park and Lake Arragan in the Yuraygir National Park on our way home to Tweed Heads.

In these areas they were able to see some our unique Australian animals including kookaburras, guinea fowls, wallabies and kangaroos but no snakes, sharks, sting rays, red back spiders etc which some Europeans seem to believe are lurking at every corner.

They were even able to pat kangaroos in the wild (not just at a zoo).

Whilst they stayed with us in our Unit at Tweed Heads we took them to Currumbin Sanctuary where they cuddled a koala, fed the lorikeets and saw an indigenous dance ceremony.

We spent the next day at Seaworld Nara Resort and then the evening at the Australian Outback Spectacular which they thoroughly enjoyed (and so did we).

Martina and Ralf have since returned to Germany but said they really enjoyed their time in Australia, even though they probably tried to cover too great a distance in too short a time.

We set off again in our off road van in early June and have travelled through Dalby, Chinchilla, Miles, Taroom, Banana, Baralaba, Duaringa and Emerald.

We then spent 4 great nights in Carnarvon Gorge and did a 5 hour 14 klm hike through the Gorge to the Amphitheatre, the Aboriginal Art Gallery and Wards Canyon.

Since then we have travelled through Roma, Mitchell, Mungallala, and Charleville and are now in Wyandra.