Monthly Trip Summary (4)

Feb. 9 2011 – Mar. 8 2011

Summary of the fourth month of our trip

Number of countries visited: 1 (we were still in Australia!)

Number of flights taken: 0

Number of posts added to our blog: 12

Number of marital conflicts: 1. Marc and I expressed a little too fervently our different opinions on the best way of spending time on our last Australian trip. We pretty much differed on the optimal amount of time we should spend noodling and fossicking... I will let you guess who wanted the option of turning the whole trip into a fossicking expedition :-)

Best overnight stay: Definitely the apartment of our friend's parents. It was beautifully situated overlooking Sydney Harbour but, more importantly, we had a great time seeing our friend Marty again and we got along with his parents very well. After talking to them about traveling we realized that we can hardly think of a place they haven't visited. It will take a few more round the world trips before we catch up with them!

Worst overnight stay: It will have to be the night before we got to Darwin. We spent the whole night checking if our van was getting flooded or not. Check Marc's post on cyclone Carlos for details.

Best Call we made: choosing to drive from Cairns to Sydney through the inland route instead of along the coast. We were hesitating but decided that we wanted to see some more outback before leaving Australia altogether. Right after we made this decision we heard on the radio that there were flood warnings all along the coast…

Worst Call we made: Deciding to spend our first night in Alice Spring at the entrance to the city instead of going to a proper campervan park. Alice Springs is not exactly famous for being a safe city… When we were ready for bed, a car pulled up next to us and its passengers started consuming lots of alcohol very quickly. We decided not to wait to see whether it was a peaceful party and instead made our escape into MacDonnel Ranges.