Eerste reisroute

We've started to make our plans. Nico and I will take unpaid leave for one year- starting 1 september 2009 - a real sabbatical. At first we thought to travel around the world for one year. But after South Africa our plans changed. In South Africa we've met several Australians who convinced us to combine traveling and working. We started thinking about it. And so finally we decided to travel and work for one year. Our trip starts with traveling. We will swap campers with Paul and Irene from Queensland, Australia. In May 2009 they will come to Belgium and use our camper to travel around in Europe. In September 2009 we use their camper to do the same but in Australia.
We will start in Brisbane and move upwards to Cairns. Paul and Irene have a 4-wheel camper. The ideal way to visit Fraser Island. We will probably go snorkeling again and maybe go diving. Nico's been dreaming about it for a very long time. But we can't spend too much time in Queensland. From October on the wet season starts. So we will probably not go up to Darwin, but go straight away to Alice Springs along the Stuart Highway and ofcourse visit Uluru, the Olga's.
From there we will go to Adelaide and visit Victoria, New South Wales all the way up to Brisbane.
We will probably spend 16 weeks in Australia.
Then we will take the plane to New Zealand, where we will meet Ted and Carolyn again. Ted and Carolyn live in Taupo and are willing to exchange their camper with ours. When we arrive in Taupo they will already have visited France, Spain and Portugal with our camper. We will travel around both the islands for about 10 weeks.
And then we will take a time out. We will fly back to Melbourne or Darwin where I will proabably work as an occuptional trainee in the University (if Migration gives its fiat) I will possibly teach and do some research. Nico can do some working himself - but we're not quite sure what the possibilities are. Anyway we will try to work and live for two or three months in Melbourne or Darwin.
May-June we will fly to USA where we will end our sabbatical with at least 8 weeks of traveling. At this point we haven't got a swap yet. So maybe we will travel with a car and camp out with a basic tent. After South Africa we know how lovely camping with a tent can be (even when you're freezing to death). Maybe we can manage to return a one way camper, ...
We do know what we want to visit: Yellowstone!