Is Australia worth a visit?

In 7 weeks, you can see a lot of Australia, but you will see even more "not".

It is a big and amazing country with many facets, from rainforests to deserts, barren bushlands, eucalyptus forests, dreamy coastal areas and beaches, to bustling metropolises.

The venomous animals have, thankfully, stayed away, but the kangaroos, wombats, crocodiles, kingfishers, among others, as well as the fish of the Great Barrier Reef, are among the highlights.

We met many different and nice people, whom we (Carsten taking the lead) still keep in touch with, Mareen and Alex and Nico with his sister Karin, Lindy and David from Kangaroo Valley, or Veronica with her friend from the Northern Territory. We hardly had any contact with Aboriginal people, which is a story in itself, not an easy one.

For me, I have once again realized that you must visit a country at least 2 times. The first time to get oriented, as there were some hotspots where we would have liked to spend more time. And a second time with exact spots where not only should you spend more time, according to the travel guides, but you also want to. We also realized that we would replace the two-day drive through the middle of nowhere to Alice Springs with a 2-hour flight next time to have more time in other places.

In retrospect, we were lucky with the weather, I believe there were only 3 days of rain in total. It's just a shame that it happened to be in the places where the sun is important for beautiful photos, but we made the best of it. We experienced temperature fluctuations from 42 degrees during the day to 7 degrees at night. in the north, there were creepy campsites with time-limited showers and frogs in the toilet. In the south, there were beautiful campsites and rooms with sufficient water for shower enthusiasts.

In restaurants and pubs, you usually order at the counter, and you have to pick up the food and cutlery yourself after the buzzer buzzes. And we never ate at McDonald's! I think there were only 3 restaurants where we ordered at the table.

And what else? The Aussie takes it rather slow, the lazy guy. And I have never seen so many people with ugly tattoos and so many Amaroks on the roads as here.

Our conclusion, all in all: Australia is definitely worth two trips.