Wedding....and more

Maartje and Jan Andries are now Mrs. and Mr. Kruijsifix.

After the wedding ceremony in the Maastricht city hall, together with family and close friends, we all left town and headed for Spa in Belgium. Villa "Le Boqueteau" was ready for a party week. It was a great opportunity to be close together for all that time. Party, dinner, breakfast, lunch, a drink, play with the kids, beautiful !!!
We came home last saturday, and that's the reason there was no update of the blog till now. I will update the photobooks as soon as possible; there are 850 pictures to chose from.

Kuala Lumpur

On our way to Amsterdam (underway??). Please be carefull if anybody plans a similar trip. A budget airline does NOT have a baggage transfer to your next destination. So what happened?
There are three terminals in Changi (Singapore Airport): we arrived in T1, had to leave 9 hours later from T2, so we decided to book a restroom in the transithotel at T3 which is in between T1 and T2. ..... To make a long story short: we walked some miles from 1-3-2-1-2-3-etc. The lesson of all this is to treat your budgetflight as a totally seperate trip. Fly from Darwin to Singapore with Jetstar, collect your baggage, go through customs, and check in again for your connecting flight at the right terminal.
Anyway ....we are in Kuala Lumpur, 10 AM right now, got our duty free smokes and drinks, our last flight to Amsterdam leaves in two hours from gate C25. We will be home Saturday evening !!!!

Humpty Doo (2)

Nicely tucked away in the bush, we are very comfortable here.
Using the time when Chris and Annie are to work to do some home and garden jobs for them, going shopping if we need or want, visit a club, or just be lazy.
We did our preparations for travelling back to Europe : all tickets confirmed, seat reservations done, transit-hotelroom at Singapore airport booked for 6 hours (because we have to wait there 9 hours). We will fly Malaysian Airlines this time from Singapore to Amsterdam, curious how we
will like that.
In the meantime: the kids (Annie and Christopher) are busy making everything look very nice bacause Annie's parents will arrive next thursday (they live in England). Will be a busy time for them all.
Last weekend the firies (fire brigade) burned down the bush and grass right next to our block in order to prevent an uncontrolled bushfire (see the photobooks for a few pictures). That was quite spectacular. Fire hazard is very high at the moment, so care has to be taken.
Not really more to be told at the moment...see ya soon folks

Humpty Doo

At last, back online on the Net after almost two weeks. We had a defect in our mobile internet-thingy and had quite some troubles in getting it replaced. We first got the wrong one send out to us, but after many phonecalls, at last this morning we got the right replacement. We are back online.
We moved to Christopher and Annies place in Humpty Doo, about 30 km out of Darwin. Great time, great place to stay, great people !
At the moment I am in a club in Palmerston (between HD and Darwin) waiting for Pam to get back from the hairdresser. I am using the time to type this and promise to update the blog a little more serious this weekend ! see you soon folks ( In three weeks from now we will travel )

Buzz' Cafe

A very nice lunch day at the Wharf in Darwin. Many stalls serving superb asian food in a great atmosphere on the pier, overlooking the sunny bay.
It's Kim and Terry's last day in Darwin; tomorrow they will take off and travel west towards Western Australia, home again in October, finishing their 2 year trip around Australia. The four of us really enjoyed a send-off lunch.
From the Wharf we went to Buzz' Cafe for a drink. The cafe has a very nice feature: the urinal in the men's toilet is a glass wall that has a one-way view. You can look out, not in. Its a funny idea to stand and p.. while you look whats going on outside.

Darwin

We finished the major part of the trip to Darwin.
We set up camp in Howard Springs, just outside of town.
Time to update our map again.

Six month of travelling, 12.200 km, roughly 2440 L diesel (1:5), no flat tyres, one oilchange, one check and adjustment of the caravan wheel bearings (dutch:lagers), a new caravan awning (dutch: luifel) and roof repair due to storm damage, I don't dare to mention the estimated amount of beer cans (more than 500 I am sure I have enjoyed; actually having number 501 while I am typing this).

The map shows our track till now.

On August 8 we will fly out via Singapore to Amsterdam.
In the meantime we will keep you updated with our adventures in and around Darwin.

Litchfield National Park

Last Wednesday we left Daly River and headed further north. Litchfield National Park starts about 60 km west from the Stuart Highway, and the gateway into the park is a little town called Batchelor. We set up camp there in a very beautiful caravanpark.
On friday we had a day drive into the National Park itself. I updated the photobook with some pictures. It was a very rewarding day ! Too bad we could not have a swim in one of the rockpools below the waterfalls because of the presence of some crocs.
Sunday we drove to Berry Springs, 80 km from Batchelor, to have a look at our next caravanpark. Its near the Northern Territory Wildlife Park that we would like to visit, so why not set up camp there. It looked very nice. But on Wednesday, as we prepared to drive on, we changed plans and drove directly to the neighbourhood of Darwin. We heard that it is very very busy in all the caravanparks in and around Darwin and making a phonecall confirmed that. So we grabbed the empty spot that Howard Springs Caravan Resort had to offer.

In the meantime we have been in contact with Christopher and Annie, Pam's
cousin's son and his wife. They live in another suburb of Darwin (don't laugh, it is called Humpty Doo) and have enhoughspace on their property for our caravan to be left there while we visit
Europe in August. We will visit Cris and Annie in the weekend and have a nice family update.