Last week Australia
Mmmmwee.. Today, the 3rd of March is already my last day in Australia. After nearly 6 weeks traveling through Oz I’m leaving the country tomorrow and fly to Malaysia where my journey continuos… This post is getting a bit long, so I added some subtopics:
– Cairns
– Tully River rafting
– Darwin, last stop of Australia
– Company visits
– Kakadu National Park
– Next stop, Asia!
Cairns
After the Whitsundays sailing trip I’ve taken the over-night Greyhound bus from Airlie Beach to Cairns. Cairns is a popular spot in Queensland, northern Australia for backpackers to start or end their traveling. Cairns is also famous due to the Great Barrier Reef. I remember Cairns as a rainy place !
Once I arrived early in the morning on Sunday the 23rd of February I headed towards the Esplanade to drink a cup of coffee (or maybe 2 :)) and do some research for a proper hostel… What a mess, I first checked in at the Bellview, got into my room and I was shocked! Djeez, I though I was now going to stay over in a bunker or something.. So after 5 minutes I checked out and luckily the receptionist gave me a full refund (while expressing an unhappy face).. Next stop was Nomads on the Esplanade, just a few doors down.
I checked in around 2:00pm and also booked a rafting day trip on the Tully River for the next day!
Rafting!
Rafting on the Tully river was awesome! It was my first time rafting ever and probably I choose for a good time of the year to do it! We were just with a small group (6 boats, 6people per boat), almost no Asians (they can’t swim…) which resulted to raft immediately on a though part of the river with Rapid level 4’s (Imagine: on a scale from 1-6, level 1 is still water, level 6 is the Niagara Fall, so level 4 is quite rough… Cool!)!
After 4kms of rafting we stopped for a BBQ lunch, and after lunch we headed for the last 8kms of rafting! It was really nice to spent nearly 4 hours in a raft on the Tully river, but it was also exhausting and… Beer o’clock !
Once I got back in my hostel, around 6:00pm I thought oke, let’s go for a little nap ! The little nap ended up in a sleep from 7:00pm to 02:00am….! Whoops.
The day after, I’ve been chilling in Cairns, went to the lagoon, play pool, eat pizza, and ended up in the hostel to play FIFA with my roommates. Pity we played on a Xbox, I was so bad! Didn’t won any match, still fun though..!
Darwin!
On Wednesday the 26th I flew from Cairns to Darwin, the largest city of the Northern Territories in Northern Australia. Darwin is my final stop Australia before I’m heading towards Asia. I checked in at Melaleuca on Mitchell street and chilled in the pool for the afternoon. Cool hostel with a great rooftop deck! During the check-in I booked a 2 day 1 night tour to the famous, world heritage listed Kakadu National park for the weekend.
Company visits
During my stay in Darwin I’ve taken the opportunity to visit two Dutch companies, Royal Boskalis Westminster and BAM Clough, both executing constructing activities for the Ichtys LNG project.
The Ichtys LNG project is valued on US$32bln. That’s massive, impressive, big and really exciting to visit! Link to project site
BAM Clough invited me to drop by last Friday for an office and site visit. The focus of the contractor within the Ichtys LNG project is to build a Jetty and a mof with an estimated project value of US$500mln. Specialized equipment is used to build the 2km jetty and big excavators are now filling up the mof with dirt and rock before it can be used as a temporarily docking station.
Early in the morning I took a taxi to drive towards the project site. The driver dropped me off at the site office of BAM Clough where I was welcomed by the deputy manager. After a cup of coffee, a little chat and being dressed up with proper PPE we went to the project site…. Impressive, that’s all I can say… Cranes, trucks, excavators, vessels, Heavy equipment everywhere! Enormous!
First we visited the jetty where specialized equipment is constructing a 2km concrete structure whereon in the future a pipeline system will be mounted which will be used to fill up the vessels with LNG and LPG.
Next we visited the mof, a temporarily dock what will be used for the execution phase of constructing the onshore factory. Lots of factory parts will be build in Asia and once ready shipped towards Darwin, Australia. The mof will be used to unload the cargo off the vessels.
After site visit I’ve spent some time in the office, said a lot of BAM’ers hello and afterwards one of the colleagues brought me back to Darwin again! Well spent Friday !
During the weekend I visited the Kakadu NP…. I’ll cover this in a bit, first Boskalis visited!
Today, my last day in Australia (Monday the 3rd of March) I’ve been visiting Boskalis Westminster, a Dutch company executing dredging activities concerning the offshore gas export pipe line trench for the Ichtys Project. The estimated project value for Boskalis entails US$200mln. Link to project site
In the afternoon the superintendent of the Queen of the Netherlands took me to the so called: the world largest vacuum cleaner where I got a warm welcome from the captain and his crew. The Queen is at the moment not dredging, but only transporting soil from Darwin into the ocean. The Van Oord Athena, one of the largest cutter-vessels dredges the soil and pump the suspension via a floating pipeline into the Queen of the Netherlands. Once the Queen is filled, the vessel sails to the dumping area where it will unload the cargo.
Before we jumped on the taxi boat I was quite ‘exciting’ about how we would enter the vessel. I thought on first hand we had to climb on a 10meter ladder to get on the deck of the boat while the Queen is sailing full speed…. Luckily it was easy to get on board!
After safety instruction I went to the bridge for the 3 o’clock coffee break and introduced myself to the crew. During this moment I’ve been enjoying the view over the vessel, the Athena (Van Oord dredging vessel) and the on-shore activities. Wow, nice because we were just located next to the jetty where I’ve been standing on last Friday during the BAM Clough site visit ! Good view!
Just after the coffee, one of the crew members gave me a little tour over to the deck through the vessel where I’ve seen the living area, the pumps and the engine room, what a noise! But Nice again! After 1,5hours being offshore, round 4:00pm, the taxi boat picked us up again and headed back, via picking up someone from the Vox Maxima, to the Harbour again. What a well spent day!
Thanks for having the opportunity to drop by at the Ichtys project, Royal Boskalis Westminster and BAM Clough ! Highly appreciated !
World heritage listed Kakadu National Park
Kakadu National park entails the size of Swiss…. and that’s what I’ve experienced aswell (I’m now referring to the long ride)! Last weekend, Saturday morning at 6:30am Ozzie tour-guide Brad picked me and the rest of the group up on Mitchell street and headed towards the Adelaide river for the Jumping Croc cruise. Jumping they did! Haha. SELFIE!
During the afternoon we visited aboriginal rock art and later we drove to a permanent camping site for the night stay-over! Lovely, just some keywords: camping, BBQ, stars, wildlife, Mosquitos, primitive.
Next day, early in the morning we went for a 8km hike to get to an amazing view point ! The Nourlangie Rock !
Asia!
Tomorrow morning at 06:00am I fly with Malaysian Airlines to Kuala Lumpur, the beginning of the Asia adventure.
For now: Gooooodbye Oz! I really enjoyed traveling through the country. See you soon again !
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