It was a short night but we were on our way to the rentalcar company by 10:30. We were given a 3.6 V6 cylinder Holden with 9000 Km on the clock. Not bad 
After stopping at a nearby shoppingcenter to get some food and drink and a prepaid phonecard we set off to the center of Perth. We first went to the Bell Tower at the waterfront, thee spot where wee found our first Ozzie geocache. We strolled along one of the main streets to the Perth Mint where gold coins are made (no free samples though).
We continued to the Belgian Beer Cafe and then back to the car. All is set to drive north and “really” begin our tour of this part of Western Australia.
There will be no internet access tomorrow as we’ll be in the middle of nowhere, at least 20 Km from the nearest “town”.
We left home at 17:00 on Sunday to take our first flight from Brussels to Frankfurt. The flight left right on time and 40 minutes later we touched down. We changed terminals and boarded QF6, the Qantas flight to Singapore, for a 12 hour flight east. Still spot on time we again changed planes once again for the final leg of our trip, a 5 hour flight south to Perth. 100% to schedule we touched down on Ozzie soil at 30 minutes past midnight. A quick stroll through immigration and customs and a 15 minute drive in the hotel courtesy bus and we could get to sleep around 2 in the morning.
Friday I released my first real travelbug into the wild. At the same time I put a mobile TB label on the back window of our car. I wonder how long it will take for someone to discover it. When we leave on holiday I’ll take the label with me and put it on the rental car.
Another TB is ready to be released , I’ll put it in a cache during our vacation and hope it will be able to make it’s way back home visiting all continents.
After two years it’s time to change the look and feel of my blog. I created a new theme and integrated the photographs of my gallery in this blog. Items about amateur radio that are now on my website will be transferred here too in due time. This is a work in progress.
Soon I’ll start posting about our upcoming trip too so come again and follow our progress once we’re on our way.
Early to rise and have breakfast we left the hotel at 7 and took the subway to Namba station we boarded the Rapi:t train to Kansai airport (KIX). It only took 10 minutes to check-in (we tried online but the system refused to change our seats). We strolled this modern airport untill it was time to board the Finnair A-330-300 for Helsinki. We arrived on time, went through security (again) and crossed the border into the EU. An Airbus 319 took us straight to Brussels where we arrived as scheduled. 22 hours after leaving our Osaka hotel we opened the door of our home that we closed 28 days ago.
A short high speed train ride brought us to Kobe. From Shin-Kobe station we took a loopbus to Meriken park where we first went up the Port Tower which, for a reason unknown to us, was free that day. On the other side of the park is the memorial for the 1995 earthquake that devastated the city. A part of the destroyed quay is kept as reminder of the strength of the quake. We walked through the center of town and visited the Earthquake museum where a lot can be learned about the big Kobe earthquake and what is being done to prevent major damage in case a tremor strikes again. We also learned that Japan is prepared for earthquakes and that all is being done to start restoring critical infrastructure as fast possible. A 2 Km walk brought us back to the station where we returned to Osaka on another Hikari train.
After breakfast we took the subway and high speed train to Himeji Castle, a 30 minute and 100 Km ride. Himeji Castle is on the Unesco World Heritage list and one of Japan’s top tourist attractions. Like Osaka Castle it has 5 stories but on the inside there’s 6 stories. From the top visitors can see the castle ground and the area around Himeji. Next to the castle is a Japanese garden with typical plants, trees and ponds with bridges. About 500 meter away is a park on a hill from where there’s a fantastic view of Himeji Castle. If it weren’t for the geocache hidden on the top we might have missed this spot. We were at the trainstation just in time to board the Kodama high speed train back to Osaka. We also bought an English language newspaper with all the information about yesterday’s earthquake. These pages are going back to Belgium with us.
We saw on the TV news that there was damage from this mornings earthquake, part of a major highway was swept away and roof tiles fell from many houses. Also the high speed Shinkansen and Nozomi trains were affected. All this about 300 Km from Osaka where it’s mostly the tourists who were a bit “shaken” by this mornings quake.
We took the train to Nara were we made a walking tour of Nara Park. The whole park had free roaming deer, believed to be messengers from the gods, trying to get food from the many visitors. Kofujuki is the first temple with 50 meter high 5 storied pagoda we visited. A 10 minute walk brought us to Kasuga Taisha Shrine along a path with 2000 lanterns. Inside another 1000 hanging lanterns can be seen. This temple is on the World Heritage list as is the Todaiji temple, the largest wooden structure in the world, where a 15m high Buddha greets visitors. A walk through Nara Machi, the oldest neighborhood of Nara got us back to the station where we took the “rapid” train to Namba station in Osaka.
5:07 in the morning….. Earthquake again. It seems it was a strong one, 6.4 near the epicenter but moments later we could see that in Osaka it was measured 2-3. It lasted very long as we were woken up by it and it continued after we were awake. In contrast to the one on sunday evening this time we heard things move a little in our room. Now it’s time to get some breakfast and get on the road again….
The day started with rain as we took the subway to Osaka castle. We were glad that we could visit the exhibition inside so at least we stayed dry for a while. From the top of the castle there’s a nice view of the city. After our visit we went back to the subway and went to Umeda station near our next “target” the Floating Gardens. By this time it stopped raining so we went up the 2 buildings that are connected with an donut shaped observation platform at 170m above the ground. There’s a small exhibition and restaurant and open air viewing from the very top. When we came back on solid ground we took another subway to Dotombori, a shopping street with typical small stores and neon advertising. We had dinner here before walking back to the hotel through another long covered shopping street.
Brussels, BELGIUM