Looking back...

Looking back on the last 3 weeks and all we have seen and done. It has been exciting and adventurous. It’s kind of weird to have this travelling lifestyle as our everyday life now, big contrast to our life in Norway. This life and our experiences make me think how different so many things in the world are, in all aspects of life and existence, and how narrow we sometimes see the world and others. It also fascinates me how differently life can be when you change your surroundings. Everything from when you start the day, food habits, what you spend your day doing, how you perceive the world and yourself, thoughts, attitude, dreams, attention, desires and limitations. The environment is like a catalyst for all the changes, but still all the changes happens on the inside. That have shown me the great potential we all have to change everything we want to change right from where we stand. It’s never about the current life situation, but it’s about how you interpret the current situation. In every situation no matter what there is a positive aspect, and whenever there is a problem there is at least one solution.

We are now enjoying lazy days in Agnes Waters. Staying just beside the beach we can start the day with a morning swim. The sun is up about 04.30 and is at its full strength around 07.00, so when living in a car an early start happens automatically. Nature never stops to amaze me, and thinking back on our time here we have got some incredible gifts. The time on Fraser Island was an eye-opener for me, I suddenly understood the love for camping and spending time outdoor in “the wild”, I understood for the first time peoples fascination for cars and motors and I got a feeling of freedom I don`t know if I have had before in this life. It was so adventurous to drive in the sand not knowing what could happen. And it excited me that if something happened help from other people couldn’t be taken for granted. I felt like a child again, exploring the world alone for the first time. Our trip has been full of opportunities to enjoy nature’s gifts, from great views while we drive, sunsets, to encounters with animals. Lotte have been in contact with a lot. In Nimbin she got the biggest tick we have ever seen on her thigh. When we were about to walk up Mount Warning she got a leech on her foot. On Fraser Island she had a breakfast meeting with a 1,5 meter long varan (there’s a picture of it in the picture compilation from Fraser Island). But the best so far was when Lotte got to feed a dolphin at Tin Can Bay. And I also have to say that the sound from the Kookaburra never stop to amuse me.

JT

Agnes Water

Ok, time for a little update...
After our two night stay in Town of 1770 we went to Agnes Water. It's small, but it has a little town center with cafes and shops. A very nice place. We're staying at a camping ground near the beach (it would be on the beach but they are doing some construction work there), just 5 min walk from the city center. We came here last wednesday and we're staying until this wednesday (if nothing changes...). We've been enjoying the beach and just relaxing this last week. Life is really great when you let yourself enjoy it and really experience life and all the beauty of the world.
We don't have much plans, but we think we'll be heading up to Gladstone on wednesday, and maybe we'll find a fruit picking job there (if it's ment to be). We're trying to just go with the flow, which I find a bit hard because I usually plan things, but I'm trying to at least just plan for a few days and not for months ahead. It's clear that that's a lesson for me to learn in this life - to let go and just go with the flow. The road will show itself when I stop covering it up with plans.
For now we'll just enjoy these last few days here in Agnes Water. I just LOVE this place!

 I painted our camping table the other day (with rust inhibitor paint for the car, so the table maches the car). Who needs a table cloth when you have some paint :) We've got ourselves a hippie-table!

 

 

Lotte (going with the flow)

Pictures from Fraser Island

Some pictures from our trip to Fraser Island :)

Tuesday, November 20, 2012 - Town of 1770

One month has passed since we first came to Australia… It feels like an eternity since we were in Norway freezing our asses off. We have enjoyed this lifestyle so far, and I don’t think that will change any day soon, especially now that we’re in Town of 1770. Isn’t that just the coolest name of a place ever?! It got its name because this was the place Captain James Cook first went on land in Queensland on May 24, 1770. Town of 1770 is a small place (you have to go to another small place called Agnes Water to get to a grocery store) just where The Great Barrier Reef start in the south. The camping ground we’re living on is situated in a secluded bay right on the beach. Some of the sites are practically ON the beach, but those were of course all taken so we’re happy with being in the second row. When I woke up this morning it was raining, but as I wrote that sentence I saw the sun look out through the clouds. We got here yesterday, and we have one more night at this camping ground. There’s another camping ground here in 1770 and another one at the beach in Agnes Water, so we might try the other two as well, and maybe we like it so much here that we stay here for a while J We heard that there was a lot of fruit picking jobs around Bundaberg, and we thought 1770 was closer than it really is so we thought we would get a job here, but it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of fruit picking going on around here so we’ll just have to wait and see. Maybe we’ll head up to Gladstone after a while, a city that’s a lot bigger that this small place and maybe we’ll find some kind of fruit to pick J

As I said we came here yesterday. When we got off Fraser Island we went to Bargara, a small place 15 minutes east of Bundaberg. Bundaberg was a lot bigger than we thought it would be so we just drove through it and to the beach in Bargara. There we lived at a camping ground close to the beach. Wonderful! We went in to Bundaberg and bought ourselves a RV-tent (a tent you attach to the side of the car) and new camping chairs (we broke one of the ones we had). When we were on Fraser Island we got the idea of getting a tent. When it was raining or the wind was a bit too much we had to go into the car, and we thought it would be nice to be able to sit outside regardless of the weather. So we got our tent on Friday, and on Sunday evening it came in handy. It started to rain like crazy and there was a big thunderstorm, but this time we were not forced to go into the car, we could sit outside! I must admit we didn’t know if the tent would survive, cuz we didn’t have a hammer to get the pegs in right, but fortunately the tent was still standing the next morning. We now have a hammer and extra pegs to secure the tent so now nothing can stop us J

Well, now I’ll go make myself a cup of coffee, and maybe JT will be up soon (hopefully with the sun shining) J

Lotte

Fraser Island 8.11-15.11

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Enjoying a cup of tea outside our nice 4wd home with Nico D (a Norwegian reggae artist) lound in the background (if loud music can be in the background…?). We arrived Fraser Island on Thursday. We stayed the first two nights at a campground in the center of the island, in the middle of the rainforest, called Central Station. That’s a campground with facilities such as toilets and showers, but still very simple. Yesterday we went to Lake McKenzie, a lake with fine white sand and clear water. It was cloudy most of the day, but I guess that was a good think cuz it was warm enough as it was. We stayed at the lake the whole day, enjoying the environment and the life we live. We also saw our first dingo. It came down to the beach, and walked along the beach (there were people everywhere, put it didn’t seem to bother at all).

Today we drove out of the rainforest and out on the beach again, and on our way we met a few dingoes as well. Along the beach there are a few places where you can buy fuel and some food, so we stopped on the first one we got to, just as we drove out of the rainforest, and bought ourselves a ice-cream. There was some kind of retreat or something there so we were surprised to find paved roads. On the rest of the island there are just sand-roads, so a 20km drive will take up to two hours! It’s fun to drive on the roads in the rainforest, but we got very tiered, so it was a great relief to get back out on the beach where we can drive a lot fasterJ

We found a camping site on the beach at 10 o’clock so we’ve got the whole day here to relax and enjoy life. It’s quite windy and cloudy today as well, but I guess that’s better than getting completely fried in the sun (but I do hope it gets a bit better till we’re going to cook, cuz cooking on a gas-stove in the wind is not easy, and not very economical).

But now we’re just going to enjoy our freedom! JT is playing with his frisbees J

Tomorrow we’ll be driving a bit further north to a campground near the beach, called Dundubara (it’s good to be able to go to the bathroom once in a while), and after one night there we’ll continue up to Waddy Point before enjoying the last night here on the beach again.

It was my sister’s birthday yesterday, so because we didn’t have any way of congratulating her then, I do it now (this won’t be posted in a few days, but I heard that “it’s better late than never” so…): Happy birthday, Linn! We love youJ Hope you had a wonderful day.

Lotte

 

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

On Sunday JT woke up in the middle of the night because his side of the bed was soaking wet! It was raining like crazy and the windows were open. In the morning it was still cloudy and grey so we packed up our camp as fast as we could (everything was wet) and went off to our next camp, Dundubara Campground. Because of the weather there was not much to do, so we managed to change some coins so we were able to take our first shower since we got to Fraser Island. That was amazing! The rest of the day we spent relaxing “at home” (which is our car), playing cards and doing nothing; a real Sunday.

On Monday we were so eager to get to our next camp that we went off a bit early, getting out on the beach when the tide was still pretty high. We decided to stop and wait for a while, but the skies were blue and the sun was shining so we were just happy to be out on the beach in the sunshine. We managed to get to Waddy Point where we’re now staying and will be staying until tomorrow. This is the place we like the most of all the places we’ve been on this island. The beach is nearby, and on the beach there are big ponds of seawater that are deep enough to swim in, but there are no sharks J On the beaches here on Fraser Island they don’t recommend people to swim because, like they told me, “it’s very sharky on Fraser”, so I guess my mother will be pleased to hear that we did not swim in the ocean.

I just got out of bed this beautiful Tuesday morning, and JT is still sleeping. Later today we’ll take a walk on the beach to a place called Orchid Beach where they have a little shop, a bar and fuel (it’s too small to be called a station, but they have two pumps where you can fill up your tank with expensive fuel, but still not as expensive as in Norway). We went there yesterday, before we got here to have a coffee, but they were waiting for supplies, so today we’re hoping that they’ll have coffee for us, and an ice-cream J

Tomorrow we’ll be heading south again for beach camping the last night here, and maybe we’ll stop at a lake somewhere on the way to take a swim.

Lotte

I have made a film with some pictures from the trip to Fraser Island, but our Internett access is not good enough to upload it so it'll have to wait.

 

Ready for Fraser Island

There hasn't been too many places to log on the last few days so we haven't been able to update our blog... Thought I would write a short update before leaving for Fraser Island (I don't think there is Internet available there).
We stayed in Byron Bay for five nights. We liked the place and pretty much everything about it. The beach was nice, lots of big waves to play in (we are like small children in the water... hehe) and lots of wind just like the west coast of Norway, but alot warmer. The town and the atmosphere is "hippieish" (can't find a better word at the momen to describe it) and the people are layback. On Sunday there were a big drum-circle on the beach where everyone could join in. People were dancing and one guy acctually joined the jammin with two spoons (very cool). With so many people drumming you can't help but move your body to the music :)
Monday, November 5th, we drove north, towards Fraser Island with our car full of tin-can-food (we won't starve to death). We stoped in Mooloolaba (love the weird names here), a small town between Brisbane and Noosa, after driving 363,5km (we chose a long route). In Mooloolaba we checked in to a Caravan Park next to the beach, took a refreshing bath (JT ment the beach there were nicer than the beach in Byron Bay), before having dinner and going to bed. The next day (yesterday) we continued our journey north. We got all the way to Noosa in no time (we thought it would be a longer drive), where we bought a roof rack with a basket for our jerry-can, camping-table and chairs and some water. First we got the wrong type of roof rack, but we finally got the right one, and then it was the struggle of getting it on the car at noon, the hottest hours in the day, in the sunshine. When we were finished we were so tiered, but very happy to have a roof rack :) After relaxing for a while we went into Noosa Heads (sayd to be the most expencive tourist place on the Sunshine Coast) where it's suppose to be lots of famous people (we didn't see any). There were no camping sites there so we took a refreshing bath (in huge waves that knocked us over) before heading out to a camping site.
Today we are driving on the beach toward Inskip Point, where the ferry leaves for Fraser Island. Our plan (if you can call it a plan) is to relax on the beach and drive to a place called Tin Can Bay where I read somewhere that you can feed dolphins at 8 o'clock in the morning, so we'll camp there and hopefully we'll get to feed the dolphins tomorrow before taking the ferry over to Fraser Island. I guess we'll stay on Fraser Island for a week or something, so the next update won't come for a while.
This life just keeps getting better and better :)
Lotte

Byron Bay

We are now in Byron Bay. We came here on Wednesday 31.10 and we are going to stay until Monday 5.11.

 

 We left Southport for Nimbin on 29.10, it was lovely leaving the bigger places for the countryside. The landscape and nature we passed through on our way to Nimbin was a pleasure both for the eyes and soul. Mother nature was grand and the moments were epic. It was calming and a delight to change the city with trees, mountains and plains, especially after we were struggling for so long to get our car registered. We went back and forth between banks, hotels and the department of transportation and main roads to get a legal document confirming that we had an Australian address, that we have got from our friend Jude. But we needed a Queensland address, and after hours trying to figure it out we found out we could use our receipt from the camping place we stayed in Southport, a receipt we had all along... Who knew that we could use an address we just stayed for two nights? Well… hours of testing our patience… and hours of learning. It all worked out, and now we have bought insurance too. We arrived in Nimbin in the evening Monday. A nice and calm place, everything was closed when we came. It’s a very small place so it`s not that weird they`re closing earlier than the bigger cities, but it was extra early for us since we didn`t take into account that New South Wales has daylight savings and Queensland don`t.. Still stuff to learn… Nimbin was a fascinating place with idealistic and conscious people caring for each other and Mother Nature. A lot of the same values we have ourselves like freedom to the individual, justice for all, and sustainability for people and nature. They have no big chains like McDonalds, K-mart etc. in Nimbin, just local stores, many focusing on organic products and foods. A lot of alternative people here too like healers, palm readers and so on…

After two nights in Nimbin we drove to Byron Bay, on the way we stopped to walk to the top of Mount Warning. Beautiful walk through the rainforest, 9 km all together to get to the top and back. Wonderful view from the top, we were able to see Byron Bay and the ocean from there, other than that it was hills and mountains as long as the eye could see.

It’s funny when you have these special experiences with nature or people you really acknowledge and see the big picture, the truth about existence, that we are all working towards the same goal. We are all reaching for relief and well being from where we stand. And it’s our unique individual life experiences diverting from all other life experiences that make us do and act differently from each other, and that makes us expand. The same diversity makes it sometimes difficult understanding other peoples choices and behaviors. But when we acknowledge that we all are motivated by the same thing (feeling good), it’s easier to just observe others and not judge. It all comes clear; the world and all that’s in it is perfect. We see the evidence in nature`s perfect balance for this to be true; nature with its cycles not needed to be controlled by man. The world with everything in it is perfect and balanced. So know this when the world seems other than perfect; the world hasn`t changed, but the observers perspective may have…

Now we are here in Byron Bay enjoying the beaches and the sea. It’s an alternative place like Nimbin, only much bigger.

Just wanted to share a poem I got from a man on the street at the end of this post. He asked us to share, no name and no address…

I Dare to Be My Self!

I am born into Original Innocence

I am a Be-ing og Infinite Love – with a infinite capacity to Receive & Share

I am a Be-ing of Consciousness – with infinite Clarity…Intelligence & Wisdom

I am a Be-ing of Infinite Joy

The Eternal Wild Free Spirit… of Love-Freedom-&-Joy ever-flows & ever-dances within My Heart.

I am a Be-ing of Great Spirit

I Believe in My Self, I Trust in My Self & I Love My Self

I All-ways love My Self… in a Natural, Healthy, Conscius & Joyfull way in All of my Words-Thoughts… Feelings… & Actions…

I believe in the Original Innocence of all Sacred Earth Be-ings

I believe in the Great Spirit of… all Sacred Earth Be-ings

I believe in each… & Every single Sacred Earth be-ing

Finding their own way back Home to their own Original Innocence to Love Themselves & All Beings

In a Natural, Healthy, Conscious & Joyfull way

In All of their Words-Thoughts, Feelings & Actions

We Honor & Respect Our Self & Each Other

We are Gentle on Our Self & Each Other

We Trust in Our Self & Each Other

We True-ly Love Our Self & Each Other

Whatever happens to one of us, happens to everyone of us…

Whatever happens to everyone of us, happens to each one of us…

We Laugh & Dance & Play Today!!

In this moment… with Conscious Gratitude… Deep Lovingness… & Eternal Devotion…

We Celebrate Our Self & Each Other…

We Celebrate the Eternal Wild Free Spririt… of Love-Freedom & Joy

 JT