The ferry over the Cook Strait (Wellington – Picton) takes 3-5 hours. The views arriving to Picton, a little picturesque town in the north of Southern Island, are magnificent. It’s the area of Marlborough Sounds, and the ferry arrives on one of the four main waterways: Queen Charlotte Sound.

Later, we came back to Picton after our driving through the Southern Island, and waited for the ferry to cross on the night.

Due to the ferry schedules on the most hectic holiday season, we were left only with only 12 nights in Southern Island. Christmas time hit directly between our travels as well, so the scheduling was pretty demanding.

Our driving route on Southern Island:

And here is roughly the route and places we slept over:

Picton – Nelson (1 nights) – Westport (1 night) – Franz Josef (1 night) – Wanaka – Cromwell (2 nights)– Te Anau (3 nights) – Milford Sound – Queenstown – Wanaka (1 night) – Lake Tekapo – Timaru (1 night) – Akaroa – Christchurch (1 night) – Arthur’s Pass – Greymouth (1 night) – Reefton – Picton

That’s a long way, and thinking back, we should have tried to cut it shorter, there was too much driving per day. So much to see, that you get greedy!

Tip! Roads in NZ are different, reserve time! The travel times given by navigators are not really matching, even it’s possible to drive 80 km/h, the reality can be 60 km/h.

Our first stop was Nelson, where we stayed one night. As we anyway arrived late, we spent the following day there.

Nelson Market is held on Saturdays Montgomery Square, and it’s definitely worth for a visit! There we met also a local carpenter, who eagerly showed the great works of his hands.

Nelson is having the geographical Center Point of New Zealand on Botanical Hill, it’s a short (20 min) walk up there and the views are really nice.

We drove out to beautiful Rabbit Island (Moturoa), a great swimming beach where we enjoyed a picnic. Didn’t swim, too cold water!

From Nelson, we took the direction to the West Coast!

Our flight from Melbourne to Auckland was over the night. It took only four hours, but due to time difference, it was suddenly morning when we arrived to Auckland! Hamish, the coolest guy in New Zealand, came to pick us up. Long time (11 years) no see!

Auckland is New Zealand’s prime gateway and largest city – but not the capital! The first thing Hamish showed us was the volcanic cone Mt. Eden (196 m above the city). From there we saw into the quiet crater and all directions of the city. Running after him up to the hill was quite a task first thing in the morning, but it was a great way to start the day!

We had only one day to spend in Auckland before getting our rental car and heading to South Island. This day we spent wandering around in the city like zombies, as the night in the plane wasn’t really long sleep (if any). Nevertheless, we saw for example the Ponsonby suburb (cool new shopping area), Auckland Art Gallery (new Maori art exhibition) and bit of Queen Street. More of Auckland stories will be published once we are again back!

Next, we had the ferry across the Cook Strait to Southern Island, so no time for the northern island this time. The ferry sails from Wellington to Picton.

TIP! Book your ferry tickets (two options: Bluebridge or Interislander) early enough! In the holiday season (starting few days before Christmas), it’s really hectic!

We needed to drive from Auckland to Wellington in one day (almost through the whole northern island)! What more, we had to catch our hotel before they close the reception. It took about 9 hours, and we didn’t even stop too much on the way. Not to be recommended, rather take your time!

In Wellington, we stayed in a nice hotel (reasonable price) with cooking and laundry possibilities, our recommendation: Gilmer Apartment Hotel (http://www.10gilmer.co.nz/).

In the morning, just before our ferry departure, we had time to do little run in the harbor area. The coolest thing was that we saw stingrays resting on the pier, really big ones and many of them! Great!

We had in the southern island 12 nights, and after that we returned again in Wellington by ferry. That time we had more time (one whole day) to check the city itself. There is a shopping street called Cuba Street (said to be the coolest street of NZ), the government buildings and pretty botanic garden. The garden can be reached by cable car, but we took a little morning run there.

Our top recommendation is the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongareva (https://www.tepapa.govt.nz/). It’s the national museum and art gallery with free entrance. They have a really spectacular exhibition over the World War I fight in Gallipoli. Besides, there is a skeleton of Phar Lap, the most famous New Zealander 😉

Writing this, we are in one of the most amazing places we’ve been while our journey. It’s Freycinet national park, a village called Coles Bay. In Tasmania, in a chalet with a view to the mountain and to the Great Oyster Bay. Wine on the other hand and chocolate on the other, friends to spend time and play one more round of UNO card game. Sun is soon setting, it’s 25 degrees, birds sing. We are spoiled. Is this what it is? Well, for us, it really has been like this.

We thought to share some ideas of how we feel Australia has treated us and what the ones travelling down under could think would be useful. Some of the ideas are small, many are irrelevant… not sorted with importance, just some intuition. So here we go:

• The people. Yes, it’s all true. They are extremely helpful and nice, smiling and relaxed. Asking “how are you” really means something, and they also honestly tell how their day has been, even it has been bad. So, it’s a real question, not only compulsory “hello”. They happily advice where to go and what to see. Jukka even got the wooden stick taken out from his feet in a private medical clinic for free (without any paper work at all)!

• The animals. We wouldn’t skip a trip to Australia because of fear of spiders. We haven’t seen any dangerous animals at all. The only animals we’ve seen are the most unique ones: cassowary, and the platypus. Besides we have seen one echidna in Tasmania. And the birds! Those are simply amazing, all the colors and what more, the sounds! It’s like in a Star Wars movie!

• Driving the car is essential in Australia. Moving from place to place really requires a car. Don’t be afraid, you get used to the left side traffic. The traffic is easy going and smooth, the drivers give you space, and are flexible (other than we have ever experienced!). And camper van, it’s a must! Our recommendations:
  • Download WikiCamp application to search the accommodation and good sights on the road
  • Take with you: a torch, some tape (handy for many things), space blanket to keep the dash board cool, clothes pegs (in Finnish pyykkipoika), marker pen (to mark your food in common fridges), laundry powder (small amount), small plastic bags to store food, power bank (solar powered would be extra handy), salt/pepper and small travel towel (easy at camp sites to wash face and hands)
  • The cost of camp sites are 25-40 AUD per night per van
  • The tourist tours and routes are marked with brown signs, just go for it!
  • Control the chaos in your camper, take many small bags to sort things (swimming stuff, running gear…)
  • The traffic rules are similar to ours, and the signs nice and easy, often written

• Note that nobody might stop for you if you hitchhike, we tried in Coffs Harbour after the rally event just to get a ride to our camping (4 km), but no luck, people only laughed at us.
• Our recommendation for camp sites in New South Wales is “North Coast Holiday Parks” (http://www.northcoastholidayparks.com.au). You can count the prices are ok and amenities clean and tidy. Also, every 7^th night is for free. They have the best ever camping site we’ve seen: Bonny Hills camp site.

• Go and buy your meat for the BBQ from the local butcher. The meat is cheap, and very good! And bbq you can do anywhere in public picnic spots.

• Dan Murphy’s. The alcohol is sold only on liquor stores. Other than in Finland, those are nevertheless not under monopoly, but prices vary a lot. Dan Murphy’s liquor store is the cheapest, with good service and free wifi. The casks of wine are the most cost efficient way! There are even consumers’ recommendations on the shelves.

• The internet. Thinking back, we should have taken Australian pre-buy mobile. On the other hand, there are plenty of free wifis around, libraries, tourist infos, Woolworth, McDonald’s…
• Finnish products! Yes, we have seen Fazer’s chocolates, and besides some Finnish bread! Didn’t buy tho, we survive without. Oh, and in 7 Eleven coffee comes with “Huhtamaki” plastic lid! Finland was mentioned in the news because of Northern Lights!

• National parks. Mainly free entrance, very well kept areas, good maps, plenty to see.
• Public toilets. Always clean and nice, just use! Just the same with public BBQ areas.

• Tap water. Drink, it’s fresh and good! If not, it’s mentioned.
• Credit cards. Everything works out fine, the limit to just “tap” (no need to insert PIN) is 100 AUD.
• The price level of food in the shops varies a lot, and in our opinion quite randomly. Just check the lowest shelves, and trust on campaigns! Eating out is expensive, check some happy hours. Subway is cheaper than back at home. In 7 Eleven it’s cheap to buy coffee, 1 AUD, otherwise quite expensive.
• The sun. It’s hot, and even when cloudy, you might end up sun burned. In our opinion the best protection are the sunscreen from “Cancer Council” (http://www.cancer.org.au/preventing-cancer/sun-protection/sun-protection-products/).

• The clothes. Don’t take too much clothes with you, they are anyway out of the fashion once you end up into new continent. We updated our gear to Billabong and Roxy in Ashmore Factory Outlets (http://www.ashmoreoutlets.com.au/) which indeed had cheap prices for these brands.

• Avoid to take any white clothes with you, the washing gets difficult.
• And finally, our favourite blog of Australia: https://muuttolintu.com/ (in Finnish)

As they say “no worries”, it’s really like that, everything was very easy and smooth for us, and we encourage all the hesitating people just to book the flights to Down Under!

We flew to Tasmania from Cairns, so it was a change from tropical climate to more “normal”. Finally some use for the long sleeve shirts! It’s December, and the summer has started. The weather reminds of ours in Finland in summer time, can be warm (here warmer than in Finland), but can be also rainy.

The whole idea of Tasmania is because of Jarrah, the young orienteer, who stayed in our place to train for Junior World Orienteering Championships to be held next year in Tampere. We got the stay at his family in their big house at Kingston beach, near Hobart.

Hobart is a lovely small city, it has everything you need, and easy to go through by feet. We were lucky to be there on Saturday when the Salamanca market takes place.

In the harbor there was the ship of Sea Shepherds. They organized free tours to their brand new and fast ship, it was interesting to visit them and a bit support their good actions.

Hobart otherwise is just compact and nice with pretty old buildings and lovely parks. We sensed hint of Europe, there were more European products in the shops and somehow the atmosphere and people were just different from the ones we have met in Queensland and in New South Wales. Also, maybe as once found by the Dutch as Van Diemen’s land, there were some Dutch habits, like celebration for Sinterklaas!

Mount Wellington is 1271 m above sea level, and can be reached with a 22 km road from the center of Hobart. The views over the city and surrounding national parks are spectacular. 

Jarrah’s father Jemery was very kind and took us to a trip to Mount Field National park meanwhile Jarrah was learning life saving the whole weekend. We did a very long (compared to our experience) hike (“Tarn Shelf Circuit via Lake Newdegate, Twilight Tarn and Lake webster”) at Mt Field, and the scenery was something we have never seen before. There was a bit of Lapland and Norway in it! The forest changed during the walk, and was just impossible beautiful!

Down at the Mt Field there are the Russell Falls, one of the nicest waterfall we have seen. The whole national park was so lovely with the pretty views and happy people.

We made a two day trip to Freycinet National Park. There we had a walk around The Hazards Mountains to see the famous Wineglass Bay. We were on this trip with Jarrah and his girlfriend Francine, and got to stay in such a nice villa in Coles Bay. So relaxing time in perfect sceneries – without internet! Playing UNO as long as Jukka won (many rounds…).

The whole eastern coast line of Tasmania is said to be one of the most beautiful drives in the world. And it indeed is! We didn’t go too far, but the sceneries we saw were just wonderful! There are lot of beautiful beaches, so many sheep and plenty of wineries. On the way back we took a dirt road “shortcut” to reach Port Arthur. The 4WD was needed! We also saw the animal called echidna (Finnish: nokkasiili) which was grossing the road (again, no photo…).

In Port Arthur Historic site (http://portarthur.org.au/) you can get the idea how the whole Tasmania basically has begun. The place is such a confusing mixture of natural beauty, and some tragic past. Definitely worth to visit (entrance 38 AUD).

On the way in Tasman National park we saw again great places, unusual geological formations, the Tasman Arch and Devil’s Kitchen, and the formation called Blow Hole. Never seen anything like that!

We didn’t have too much time in Port Arthur (if you go there, reserve at least 3 hours for the site!), as we needed to catch Hobart in time to take part in the local orienteering rehearsal. And yes, in the Queen’s Domain park there was really nice little competition. Marja took the medium track, and spent her time searching for target no 4 (for 8 minutes!!), otherwise she was satisfied. Jarrah naturally won the long distance, Jemery was really fast as well, while Jukka took his time. The results and GPS track are here: https://eventor.orienteering.asn.au/Events/ResultList?eventId=3382&groupBy=EventClass. And after all it wasn’t that scary to run in the local forest (it was more like a park), no snakes, no spiders! By the way, the result board was really cute. You get your name and time printed out as a sticker, and you attach the sticker to piece of wooden block and hang it in according to your position.

Our last evening Jemery offered us few great experiences! First, we made vegetarian pizzas with him. How many different things you can combine! Beans, tabasco, nuts… After the lovely pizzas we still went to a park to search for animals in the night. And we saw quite a few: bettong, wallaby, padymelon, possum and a bird tawny frogmouth. That was so great! We would have never gone there on our own (afraid of darks anyway…), and if had, we wouldn’t have noticed the possum in the tree etc.

Our return from this isolated island was with a ferry, Spirit of Tasmania, from Davenport. We needed to catch a bus to reach it, and it took us basically the whole day. The ferry is Finnish made (Kvaerner Masa-Yard), and it reminded us of the ferry we tend to take between Helsinki and Tallinn. No tax free tho.

So, here we come, Melbourne!

The most reasonable way to reach Cairns in our opinion is by internal flight. It’s really far up in the north. It’s part of the state of Queensland, but totally different from the southern part. The first thing what hits you is the heath! It’s tropical – day and night!

In Cairns itself there is not that much to see. The highlights would be the swimming lagoon at the beach front. Other thing we liked was a market, mainly for fruits, held on Fri-Sat-Sun. In the center, there is also held night markets from 5 pm every day, there can be found some nice cheap food as well. There were the bat season while we stayed, and near bus station there were few trees packed with bats. Luckily we didn’t watch those with open mouth, as one of those bastards dropped shit on Marja’s shirt.

The botanical garden is also big and pretty, we went to run there one morning.

The thing in Cairns are the tours out from the town. They keep on selling these everywhere, and it’s hard to distinguish the companies from each other, also the prices are pretty much the same.

Our solution to see as much as possible was to rent a car for three days, it was very cheap (our recommendation: East Coast Car Rental, http://www.eastcoastcarrentals.com.au/). Our small Hyundai had very low fuel consumption, so it was really affordable.

We drove first to Atherton Tablelands, to see the lovely scenery with lot of farms. It’s nice drive up with serpentine road. On the way, we stopped to check Cathedral Fig Tree in Danbulla state forest. We found also the platypus animal in Yungaburra Platypus Viewing Area, yes, we saw it (tho no photo available)! Curtain Fig Tree was another impressive old tree on our way.

There were lots of lovely waterfalls too. The nicest were the Millaa Millaa falls.

It was a bit tricky to find a place to stay over in the Tablelands, and we needed to drive back to the coast in darkness, and had a night in lovely Palm Cove. There was also a lovely beach with stinger protection net (safe to swim) and a long pier.

TIP! Search your accommodation before darkness (before 6 pm!), the receptions of campsites close around 6 pm, and in the dark it’s anyway hard to see the signs etc.

We spend one day in supposedly the oldest rain forest of the world, in Daintree forest. It’s easy to drive there, you only need to cross the Daintree river with a little ferry (26 AUD return per car). There are all the national park paths available for free to walk around. Swimming wasn’t possible as there were stingers on the beaches and besides the crocodiles could come from the rivers.

The walks in the forests were relatively short (max 1 hour) and easy, so it was really perfect place to see.

On our way back south from Daintree forests, we stayed one night in a very traditional hotel in Mossman. It looked like a house from Western Films, and it was quite special in all ways… Very cheap tho. Our original plan was to check also Mossman Gorge, but once getting there to the information center, we decided we’ve already seen enough of rain forest and the compulsory bus tour (9.10 AUD) wasn’t appealing to us, we would have liked to rather walk ourselves. We thought it was a bit strange to warn how “the Aboriginals don’t like people walking through their land” and how “the shuttle bus cannot secure they pass walkers safely”…

The coastline north from Cairns is absolutely magnificent! The nicest spots to stop by are in our opinion Port Douglas and Palm Cove. Photos from Port Douglas.

The highlight and meanwhile also the biggest reason to drop to Cairns was the Great Barrier Reef. We had a day tour there, quite randomly booked via tourist information among dozens of options. In our trip there were way too many people, and it was with very basic services (http://downundercruiseanddive.com.au/evolution_cruise.php). If they have in the leaflet that there is a lunch, they shouldn’t be announcing in every five minutes that “don’t eat too much so that everybody gets some”. The fruits were only for the fast ones, same with the stinger protection suits (strange!). Nevertheless, it wasn’t the main point, they anyway brought us up to almost to the outer reefs. We got to snorkel twice, and especially for the first timer Marja it was such a unique experience, and no words can describe what it was like. Well, you just put your face to the water, and you see a totally different world! The colorful fish, the valleys and mountains of the reef… When you are on the edge of a reef formation, you feel you fly, as the bottom is so far away, but with the clear water it’s no different if it’s water or air. And when you feel some scary looking fish is too close, you just lift your face from the water and you are again in the “normal” world. Absolutely the best ever! Unfortunately we didn’t have any waterproof camera, so the images are in the nature documents and in our heads.

In our last night, we met the first Finnish since Coffs Harbour WRC, Annica and Juuso! It was great to hear from them how it is to stay in Australia for longer period and what it is to work in here too. Great to catch up with you guys and good luck for the rest of the stay!

Next, we will take another internal flight, and head to Tasmania! Looking forward to the colder climate 🙂

The biggest city of Australia was our destination for three nights. It’s expensive to stay there overnight, but luckily there are some budget options.

We got to see most of the main sights. We started from the place the whole city has started: The Rocks. we took part in free walking tour (they collet tips in the end), http://www.imfree.com.au/sydney/rocksat6/. It was really good way to get the overview of the area, even Jukka lost the group at some stage (don’t ask).

Tip! As soon as in Sydney, buy yourself “Opal”-card, it’s the only way to use public transportation. Just load the card, the maximum you can spend a day is 15 AUD.

There are good happy hour offers both in food and drinks, that’s how we avoided to spend too much. Keep your eyes open! The city is easy to even walk around, it’s small enough, and on the other hand public transportation works out fine.

In Darling Harbour there is Maritime Museum, many ships are seen in the harbour even you wouldn’t pay the entrance to the museum itself.

Chinatown with its markets (Paddy market) is place to see, and there is good (and cheap) food.

One morning we went for a run to Botanical Garden and its surroundings. From there it was great to see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. Another morning we went to swim in Andrew (Boy) Charlton Pool, which was cheap (6 AUD per person), and definitely worth to visit, we really liked the place. Water is filtered sea water and you can both bath and sun bath the same time in a great scenery.

For one evening Tony, the fan of Scandinavia, came to show us places around. It was so nice to spend time with other people than just hanging two of us. He introduced us also Thai Riffic (http://thairifficrandwick.com.au/thairifficrandwick.html) restaurant, where we used “BYO” for the first time, and brought our own bottle of wine to the restaurant. The restaurant was excellent, very tasty food!

On a drive, we saw also the famous Bondi Beach, and another lovely beach called Coogee beach.

Tony also took us to the other side of the bridge, from where the view towards the bridge and opera house was really beautiful! Without him we wouldn’t have found or reached this perfect spot! Tack så mycket Tony, we will meet again in Finland!

Our last day in Sydney we took the ferry to Manly village, and to its famous beach. The ferry trip is worth, you can even use the same Opal card for the transportation (about 14 AUD return). The scenery of the harbor is great and the village itself really pretty.

The supposedly very good and nice zoo was left for the next time. The weather in Sydney wasn’t too hot (now in the end of November), not as hot as in the Gold Coast for example, so high time for us to head to the tropics, Cairns, here we come!

We left the coast line of New South Wales to take Jycy camper van up to the mountains for its last two nights with us. It’s the Blue Mountains, probably one of the most famous national parks of Australia.

The journey took a whole lot longer than we expected (started from Hawk’s Nest near Nelson Bay), basically the whole day. To pass Sydney from the northern side was quite time taking. On the way, we bought fresh fruits from village of Bilpin, and once in the national park area we had a look on the Mt. Tomah Botanical Garden (https://www.bluemountainsbotanicgarden.com.au/). That was a nice stop, and you get plenty of information of the area.

The village of Blackheath is less touristy than Katoomba. We stayed the night in Govetts Leap lookout, there were toilets and chance to eat our own food.

Tip! Note that in the forests there are the mosquitoes! Quite annoying only. And you feel like at home.

The sunrise was at 5.44. We parked Jucy just on the edge of the cliff, and woke up for the sunrise, and yes, it was simply amazing! We were there just us, in totally unbelievable scenery and most beautiful sunrise.

The most touristic part of the Blue Mountains is the Scenic World in Katoomba (http://www.scenicworld.com.au/). There are few cable ways and one train to reach the bottom of the valley and the next cliff. You can see the most without this “amusement park” (39 AUD per person the whole day, no chance for cheaper two way tickets), but we took it anyway, the train was good fun as it’s really steep, and it was easier and fast to reach the places, no need to drive the car.

We walked Prince Henry Cliff Walk to the famous Three Sisters, and decided to make a longer walk by going down the Giant Stairway. On the way down we happened to meet Tony (going up all these stairs!), who ended up showing us around in Sydney in following weekend!

We stayed over in Katoomba Caravan park, and ate all our remaining food, sold the boogie board and had a good last sleep in Jucy.

On our drive to Sydney we stopped at Wentworth Falls. Luckily we were there quite early, as it gets touristy during the day (like all the famous spots in Blue Mountains). The walk along the ridge towards the falls was really nice!

All in all, we recommend to visit the Blue Mountains!

It was time to leave the camping life behind and drive to Sydney to return the car. We can really recommend the camping and sleeping in a car to everybody, it was the greatest way to explore the country, you can choose the route, there is some adventure in it, and it’s quite cost efficient. The rental is something between 25-35 AUD per day, and campsites 20-40 AUD per night (sure save is to sleep without camping, we did this twice). The traffic is really easy going and smooth, nobody is behind your back or pushing even you are slow. So, go for it!

Driving down the New South Wales east coast brought us to Coffs Harbour, a town organizing the World Rally Championship competition on 17.- 20.11.2016. We stayed there two nights, and the first Finnish we met through our whole journey by far was the driver Jari-Matti Latvala! The first evening there was the opening ceremony of the event, and there we met so many cool people and beautiful cars. Marja’s favourite was the police car which was there because of the security of the event.

For the rally itself we got a three-day pass from lovely people from Tasmania, who drove Volvo Amazon in classic car series! We are really grateful and wait them to catch us up in Finland!

We checked altogether four stages, one of those was super special stage at the seaside.

Besides we checked the service area. The Skoda team is our favourite! A car from our favourite country (if we don’t count Australia), Finnish driving to victory in WRC2 class, and friendly service team we got to say “Ahoj!”.

There are not so many spectators in the rally event than in Finland and it was really easy to move from point to another, no problems with parking etc. Also, in every spot there were proper toilets (similar to those in airplanes) and small stand of local Lions Club selling rally sausages and drinks. No drunken people, no rush. We got the whole idea of the rally from Tuomas from Finland, and we got to meet him for a short while at one of the stages!