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Wednesday, December 15, 11:00 am Hi folks! This will be my last journal-update from Australia. Sad, but then: nice to be home for christmas! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!
Monday, December 13, 11:00 pm (GMT +10) After spending some hours on the airport in Brisbane, waiting for our plane to get back to Sydney, we finally managed to get back ‘home’. Some severe thunderstorms and turbulances around Sydney delayed most of the air-traffic this day. And delayed it that far, that despite the captain’s warnings about turbulances and another reminder of the safety and escape procedures right before the landing (!!), we didn’t face a single bump... but it was scary enough anyway...!
Sunday, December 12, 11:30 pm Today was our last day in Airlie Beach, as we’re driving down to Mackay (200 km south of the Whitsundays) to catch our flight back to Sydney. Corina and Sylvi visited a nearby wildlife park (very similar to the Featherdale Park near Sydney) to meet some of the native nimals -and cuddle Koalas, of course. I decided to jump abord a ship again. This time, the ‘Seasation’, a large cat, to try scuba diving. And it was really good. We headed up to Hook Island for the diving on the coral reefs. Fortunately, there were only few people who wanted to try scuba diving (5 in total), so we had two very small groups for this first dive. And for the secound dive, I went with the certified divers as they wouldn’t have to split our small group of introductory divers, giving us more time to spend under water...! What to say about that experience? It’s hard to describe the feeling of drifting along the corals, fishes just floating around you and all of that several meters below the surface. Though it’s not as easy as it looks like to keep your depth... I guess, my next holiday will include my diving-certificate!
Saturday, December 11, 10:00 pm Short version: wow!
Tuesday, December 7, 9:30 pm Ok, this weather slows you down. Yesterday we stayed in bed for a rather long time, compared to the get-up times of the last weeks! And after a nice breakfast, we moved our bodies to the lagoon - sunbathing and swimming - all day! That’s a life!!
Tomorrow, we’ll start our 3 days, 3 nights sailing trip aboard the ‘Ise Pearl’, a fifty years old japanese luggers. And we’re more than excited about that!
Sunday, December 5, 6:00 pm (GMT+9) Tropical Queensland! We’ve finally arrived at the last destination of our short journey around Australia:
Saturday, December 4, 6:30 pm Arrrgh! I guess the update yesterday didn’t meet my expectations. Instead of getting rid of all those dead links, it wrecked my homepage completely. :-( I just hope this update will do better...
Friday, December 3, 7:00 pm Hey guys, finally another update online - and a major one! I guess, you gotta spend some time reading this stuff, or just skip it. The text on Kangaroo Island is quite long, but it’s hard to write in a shorter form... The last two days were awesome! And quite strenous, too. We left Alice at 5:00 am (!!) and went straight (well, some stops included) to the Kings Canyon, some 400 kilometers southwest of Alice. And did the usual stuff: lunch, walking the Canyon - high temperatures included! And then, more driving... just can’t compare it to our last trip on KI, the distances are unreal!
We arrived at the Uluru Resort way before sunset and headed for a dip in the pool. Ok, it’s more the size of a tub, but great nontheless! Swimming in the dessert! For sunset, we cimbed a sand-dune next to our camp and saw the terrific color changes of the rock: from a bright red, past some purple shaded on towards a dark blue and finally just dark color. Amazing! Just send me some suggestions about the silhouette of Kata-Tjuta: looks pretty familiar, eh? (think of Duff-Beer!)
This just a short update, cause I’m longing for the showers (and the internet-cafe is about to close anyway).
Wednesday, December 1, 6:00 pm Hoooray!!! I finally made it. I’ve got my PhD in Rainmaking: We arrived in Alice Springs close to noon and it started raining...and temperatures dropping from 40 degrees yesterday to 25 today! F**k! I just hope the weather will improve overnight, or the other two will kill me. Anyway, we’ve been to the Royal Flying Doctor Service today - well, not really worth spending 8 bucks for a lame 10 minute video-show and a small museum with poor exhibits! Afterwards we visited the School Of The Air, another unique Australian Institution. that was much better than the other one, quite informative and very funny to listen to some recorded lessons.
Tomorrow, we’ll start our 2 day tour to the Uluru, departing at 5 am... gotta go to bed early! Tuesday, November 30, 11:00 pm Yesterday we picked up Sylvi, Corina’s sister, from the airport. with some difficulties, though. She took a flight to Sydney and then on to Adelaide. What to do? Wait for her at the Domestic Terminal. But her plane went on to Singapore and thus arrived at the Interational Terminal... But we found her eventually.
With our group now completed, we did some exploring around Adelaide’s CBD. Well, CBD is exaggerated, as it’s both small and lacks the neccessary tall buildings. It’s said to look very European, but I definitely wouldn’t go with that - maybe Melbourne does. We walked along the shopping precinct, visited some malls and did some shopping. And went to bed early, as Sylvi is really jettlaged. Today we wanted to do a sailing-trip on a catamaran, watching dolphins and swimming with them included. And all for 100 bucks! Wow. So, no complaints about getting up at 6 am, no complaints about the weather (rain) and straight off to Glenelg, one of Adelaide’s beachside suburbs. Unfortunatley, the trip was cancelled due to some gearbox-problems on the cat, and the failed to notice us as the person taking my cell-phone number has a similar handwriting to myself... Well, we headed for a cafe instead and did some more shopping and walking around the city. Tomorrow, we’ll head of towards Alice Springs, our flight departing at 9:45 am. Our 2-day-tour to the Ayers Rock will start on Dec 2, so we’ll have some time to enjoy Alice! High temperatures guaranteed. 40 degrees! But then, Sydney had 42 degrees today...
Sunday, November 28, 11:30 pm Kangaroo Island 2 day 4WD tour with Campwild Adventures? THE way to see the island! And have a great time watching animals and marvelling at the landscape on a very relaxed tour - simply enjoying life. The two days were gorgeous. Although the group was fairly large (13 people plus guide) and we had some mid-fourties Danish ladies (?) aboard, who chattered quite noisy in Danish all the time and some other strange persons, we met some great guys - 2 English girls, Jo and Heather, and our tour-guide Tim, the 100% typical Aussie (hat included). The five of us really had a great time! (did I mention that before?) The first day, after the shortly past midnight pick-up, we drove south to Cape Jervis to catch the ferry. And we started a game, we would play a number of times. It’s called ‘We’ll unload the trailer, so get everything out and bring it over there’... No problem, if everybody gives a hand. Well, IF... (guess who). Arriving on the island, we first went for Prospect Hill and a picknick-spot for lunch (a big Goana as visitor included) where we met another Campwild-group doing a similar tour - we met them on a regular base. And then onwards to seal bay on the south-coast, watching sea lions resting on the beach. Amazing! And quite smelly. After a long time watching them sleep, play and quarrel, we moved on to Little Sahara.
As the name suggests some large sand dunes on the island, far away from any beach and trapped by bushlands all around. Well what’s the best to do in such an surrounding? The obvious - Sandboarding! Grab some modified snowboards, lubricate them with furniture polish and head straight (!) down the dunes. Great fun! And if you’re feeling over-ambitious, you can try that really snowboard-like. Only that you can’t steer and look quite silly when you fall all over somewhere on the way down. But it’ll earn you some ‘ohhhh’s and ‘ahhhh’s and ‘uhhhh’s and a cheering crowd if you finally get up uninjured! The only bad thing about sandboarding is the lack of a lift to get up. Not an easy task with a 50 degree incline on the steepest dune...
After many awesome rides, we headed back to the bus to go for another beach for a swim. Amazing green and blue colours but f**king cold! Everything we longed for with these temperatures and sand all over us! Completely refreshed, we headed for our lodge on a large estate (former farm). Arriving early evening, we saw quite a number of kangaroos on the grass. But Tim told us that’s nothing compared to what we’d see in the night. Well, we were thrilled! But first, we set up our stuff at the lodge and prepared dinner. Ok, Tim did - we went to take some pics of the roos (kanga...). Basically pretty easy: move when they eat, and freeze when they look at you. That’s the theory. The practical part can be quite complicated when you’re accompanied by the landowner’s little dog which does nothing else but stalking kangaroos all day - and having great fun in doing so. After some almost successful attempts to take close-ups of the roos (remember the dog?) we decided to split up: Corina and Jo went one direction, Heather and I the other. One dog can’t be in two places at the same time. At least one group would succeed in taking the pics. Unfortunately, the dog followed my team - and did what it did all day... I didn’t get closer to the animals than 30 meters, then they were stalked by this little nuisance. Heather suffered the same way. But hey, we still had the others! An desperate hour later, we met them again. And obviously this little demon could be in different places at the same time: everytime they approched a roo, it appeared out of nothing and went straight for his aim... Well, that’s for the close-ups. We should have temporarily ‘parked’ him under on of the large boulders laying around...
Sunday began, as Saturday ended: fog, fog and nothing but fog. But the rising sun finally won and the fog disappeared. Following the breakfast cleaning up and packing the trailer (nice, if everyone helps) and watching the wolve-spider on a chair next to our sleeping place, we continued our tour with sighting a (dead) tigersnake on the road (fourth most venomous snake in the world) and the cutest part: koala-watching. In total, we discovered 13 koalas in the gum trees, including a mother with a small one. Again: how cute!
Then, we drove to the Flinders Chase National Park, featuring the Remarkable Rocks. And feature they did. Approaching the coastline, we were granted with a spectacle similar to yesterday evening: sea-mist. Driving along the cliff, we looked down upon white cloud-like plains, on places crawling up the cliff and creeping over the road and the bushland - eerie! The Rocks were indeed remarkable: instead of seeing them from far away, they were hidden in the fog and suddenly appeared out of nowhere, clouds swirling around them. We took some awesome pics on this spot. Afterwards, we continued to the Admiral’s Arch, the southwesternmost point of the island, watching New Zealand fur seals playing in the huge waves and resting on the rocks. An impressive sight!
For Lunch, we drove to the NP’s visitor center and enjoyed again a very good meal. Better no words about sharing the labour... Afterwards we headed back towards the ferry point, a small detour to the beach in mind. But being quite late, we had to skip the swimming but were rewarded with an other adventure: hoping the gas will last until we get to the next gas-station: turning off the aircon, and cursing on the truck that’s sneaking up that damn hill - we almost saw us all pushing the bus up the hill, given the funny coughing sounds the engine once or twice made. But we made it to the gas-station and Tim filled the 60 liters-tank with exact 60.0 liters... Talk about efficiancy!
Back on solid ground, we changed out of the soaked clothes and drove back to Adelaide and said goodbye to our travel-mates. And another amazing thing: my back-pack wasn’t completely shut and some batteries dropped out. Tim brought them back to our hostel. And he didnt come back once. No! He came back a second time later that evening (when we were long asleep) as he found another of my rechargable batteries. Great guy! And: Cheers, mate!
Friday, November 26, 8:30 pm Hicks. We just returned from our tour into the Barossa Valley. Hicks. Over 40 different wines in four (plus two) wineries. Hicks. And that with temperatures above 40 degrees and the sun burning down mercilessly. Great. And we started our first wine tasting at 10:45 am. Any questions? Hicks. ;-) Ok, I guess I’m quite sober again. The tour was much fun, as we had a nice (communicative at least) guide named Matt, a great, small group of nine persons and a luxury bus: always on the edge of breaking completely down, engine shutting off as soon as Matt got off the gas pedal and the aircondition working not exactly perfect (bloody hot in this bus). And always the expectation to push the bus up the next hill as it frequently slowed down below walking speed whenever we approched the slightest hill as the automatic brakes always shut uphill instead of downhill.... but we had lots of fun!
We’ll sleep really well this night. And gotta get up early as pick-up time is 6:20 am for Kangaroo Island - ouch!
Thursday, November 25, 10:30 pm Eventually, we’ve arrived in Adelaide and we’re really exhausted. We drove a lot around the peninsula and visited some of the small and quite nice towns along the shore, but we just didn’t feel like doing much sightsseing. And I didn’t feel like anything at all... what a day! Headache, backpain, in general pain everywhere and some nausea - great! But after a short rest, I’m already feeling better.
You may have noticed that there are some dead-links on my homepage. Well, I had to remove some of the old stuff when I uploaded my update this morning realizing that I used all available webspace. As I didn’t want to spend hours in the internet-cafe sorting out what to delete and what better not, I just deleted files according to their date. Seems as I still need some of them. But I’ll fix that as soon as I have some spare time and feel better. And I’ll post fewer pics and put them right into the journal - less webspace required and less work for me, too - quite hard to find the time to write the updates anyway... :-(
Thursday, November 25, 11:20 am Finally, an internet-cafe and the possibility to update my homepage. Sorry folks, but I had no chance to do so the last days. And I still have to put some of the pics on the webpage - so far, only the pics up to the Grampians are online - but I’m working on that. A bit hard with a laptop-battery that lasts only half an hour and no power-plugs in the hostels, though...
Wednesday, November 24, 10:30 pm (GMT + 9,5 !!) As you can judge from the timeshift, we’ve arrived in South Australia - they’ve got 0,5 hours timeshift towards the eastcoast. Weird! We left Mildura for a ride to the south Australian section of the Murray river (flows from the Snowy Mountains - northwest of Melbourne - through the country to the mouthing into the Indian Ocean south of Adelaide. The landscape didn’t differ much from yesterday - vineyards, endless wheatfields and occasionally some scrub where the land is not irrigated. Maybe a little drier, definitely a lot warmer! Therefore, we decided to head south, along the river and towards the cooler costal areas. The drive along the river is nice, as it carved its bed into the limestone offering good views on the cliffs above the water.
Reaching the Fleurieu peninsula, we moved along beautiful seaside-towns towards Victor Harbour, a small, pittoresque city on the southcoast. What a change: no more rugged places, but lovely old stone-buildings in the center, all neatly renovated, a wonderful coastline and the best: a good accomodation - chance to recover a bit from the last nights with few sleep! And a superb dinner in a real Restaurant. Feels really good!
Tomorrow, we’ll do some more exploration all over the peninsula and eventually drive to Adelaide to return the car. Friday, we’ll be on tour into the Barossa Valley (wineries) and the weekend, we’ll do the 4WD-tour on Kangaroo-Island. Busy days!
Tuesday, November 23, 11:00 pm Forget everything I wrote about the size of this country. This day brought 600 km of driving. Always thorugh wheat fields. Nothing but wheatfields. Endless wheatfields. Wheatfields that should be measured in square-kilometers rather than in acres. Interrupted only by lines of gum-trees and occasionally a town. Well, town is an exaggeration: most of the times a mill or wheat-storage, a couple of houses (rather huts), a phone-booth and a gas-station (only in the larger ones). Oh, I forgot: a church!
Monday, November 22, 9:30 pm Today, we decided for more walking and viewing instead of driving (almost 1000 km the past two days) and visited some viewing points around The Grampians. The weather was really good (again!) - bright sunshine - but the wind was really icy.
Tomorrow, we’ll redirect our tour and go towards the inland: up to Mildura, a small town on the Murray River, surrounded by desert areas and a few salt lakes. The middle of nowhere...
Sunday, November 21, 11:30 pm We started our trip today with a short return to the Shipwreck coast. Unfortunately, the sky was cloudy and the coastline wasn’t as colorful as yesterday. But still, the views are just breathtaking. We stopped at some of the numerous tourist-spots (e.g. Loch Ard Gorge) along the road, all with good explanations on the geology, plants and wildlife and some of the marine desasters that gave this coast its name... And we saw an echidna at the side of the road (alive!) and a koala strolling (!) over a field towards a cow - and the cow fled (!!), but then thought better of the situation (looked ridiculous anyway) and went for the over-ambitious koala... Late afternoon saw us arriving in Mt Gambier, featuring the famous blue lake. It’s situated in one of the nowadays water-filled craters and has really a wonderful deepblue color -even when it’s cloudy. The easy driving changed when we got close to the Grampians and began our ascent towards Halls Gap. Sunset was over and it was dark - the best time for kangaroos to be active and cross the roads. We’ve seen lots of dead kangaroos along the highways the whole day, but even more on this road - not exactly a pleasant view. And quite strenous to drive, too, as you’re looking for dark-grey figures on the roadside in the night - can’t they paint them bright orange?! Fortunately, we didn’t hit one and arrived at Halls Gap after 500 km at 9:30 pm. The hostel was again a lovely place: very clean and a cozy common room with a fireplace (very good - freezing cold outside!).
Saturday, November 20, 11:00 pm What a night! Little sleep due to the bar downstairs and about 40 mossy bites in one night - I stopped counting at 25 just on my legs, feet, arms and face, still leaving plenty uncounted on the rest of my body. Corina only suffered 4 bites. What an unjust world! I almost needed a blood transfusion for breakfast! The drive along the Great Ocean Road offers stunning views along the rugged cliffs and on small towns along the road. The driving itself is great fun, too: lots of bends, uphill...downhill...left turn...right turn... accelerating...braking...accelerating... my co-driver has some opposed views on that topic, though :-) The sunset at the 12 Apostles was awesome. The red and yellow colored limestone cliffs glowing in the sunset light - amazing! And in the twilight following the sunset, groups of little pengiuns emerge in the incoming tide, making their way over the beach to their sleeping spots below the cliffs.
Friday, November 19, 11:30 pm What a wonderful way of beginning the day (after a more or less restless night - extremely noisy!): breakfast in a small cafe in St. Kilda, sunshine included. Still a bit cold when facing the wind, though. We continued our sightseeing tour around the CBD and along the Yarra River and climbed the Rialto Tower, the tallest commerical building in the southern hemisphere, with an observation deck on the top floor - stunnig views included! The highlights were the Victoria Markets, offering all kinds of food and deli. Really great, though the fish markets lacked the charme of their mediterranean equivalents.
Thursday, November 18, 11:30 pm Melbourne - first impression: well, rather ugly... But with the flight being delayed, the weather cold & cloudy w. rains, getting into the city through the industrial gird and the backpackers beeing taken over by a large company (all nations backpacker) and furthermore placed on one of the main intersections of the CBD with the railways next to it, that’s not the best way to introduce a large city. Actually, the rooms and facilities are what you’d normally expect when you book a backpackers: not exactly tidy not very comfy, noisy atmosphere - we’re more or less spoiled with our accomodation in Byron Bay and the Blue Mountains... Anyway, we strolled around the CBD and explored the nearby area. Melbourne’s architecture features an interesting mixture of Victorian and modern bulidings. Combined with the tram-lines, it looks very much like an European metropole. And I found a new travel mate at Starbucks: Kuriner, a girl from Germany! :-) In the evening, we strolled along St. Kilda, a coastal suburb of Melborne with good restaurants and cozy bars. I guess, that’s what is meant by Melbourne being a love on the second or third look: no stunning buildings like the Opera House and no amazing landscape, but nice spots all over the town and an atmosphere to simply enjoy life!
Wednesday, November 17, 11:00 pm I haven’t posted more pictures from our last trip as we’re running short of time: visiting all the left-over spots in Sydney, taking lots of pictures around the CBD, getting our certificates and the neccessary seals and stamps on them (including a visit to the University Campus - really nice place), saying good-bye to friends (we had a farewell-BBQ with some of the German students yesterday), sorting out what to take on the trip and what not,...
Btw, it looks as if I can’t post the canyoning pics while I’m in Australia, as it takes more than a week to get the prints, and we’ll be on our way by then (almost in Adelaide). So we’ll collect them when we return to Sydney mid December... Gotta finish writing - still lots of packing to do, and our flight departs at 1:15 pm...
Monday, November 15, 3:30 pm Hi folks! Well, again a couple of days without an update - I’m lazy. Guess I’m getting used to the Australian way of living... ;-) Anyway, no time for being lazy on the weekends! We’ve been to the Blue Mountains from Friday to Saturday, doing some hiking and ABSEILING and CANYONING! That was really amazing!!! The hiking on Sunday was as good as usual, seeing lots of birds and enjoying the scenery, but the trip on Saturday was absolutely awesome. We started with our abseiling-course (yes, it is indeed called Abseiling!) in the morning at a small rock - maybe 3 meters high. When we learned the basic stuff, you need to know about how to get down the wall in a fairly safe way, we moved on to real abseiling: a 15 meters vertical wall - have a look at some pics:
As the wind was rather strong, we moved on to another spot on the Mountains and trained for the canyoning in the afternoon - with a 20 meters abseil. Before starting our tour, we got a small lunch and squeezed ourselves into the wetsuits. The trip started spectacular: a 35 meters abseil into the canyon - wow! Kind of funny feelings in your stomach when your hanging in the middle of the wall and wondering if getting safe to the ground as your fist is clenched around the rope and your still going down kinda fast... but no worries: we all got down safe! To cool down the sudden rush of adrenaline, we continued our tour in the canyon. to be more specific: in the riverbed. And within seconds, it became clear why we were supposed to wear wetsuits: the water was icy! The walk/climb/swimming through the canyon was amazing. Much better than the walking we did in the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately, I can’t post any pics of that at the moment as we had to use a oneway waterproof camera (I tried to buy a waterproof case for my digital cam, but they’re about twice the price of the camera itself...). So we have to wait till we get the pics. I hope I’ll be able to post the this week, but we’ll leave for our trip around Australia on Thursday. By the way, a short description of our travel route: We’ll fly to Melbourne on Thursday, picking up our car on Saturday and head down to the Shipwreck Coast and drive up to Adelaide. We’ll do a trip to the Barossa Valley (famous wine region) and a two day 4WD-trip to Kangaroo Island and pick up Corina’s sister in Adelaide on November 28. Then we’ll fly to Alice Springs, visit the Uluru (Ayers Rock) on a 2 day trip and afterwards head off to the Whitsunday Islands at the Great Barrier Reef, where we spend another five or six days. Enventually we’ll return to Sydney on Dec. 13, to enjoy a couple of days ‘back home’ before departing on Dec. 17 and arriving in Germany on Dec. 18. Well that’s more or less the plan.
Monday, November 8, 1:30 pm Good news: I uploaded the first part of my pics from Australia. But it’ll take me a while to upload all of them, as I already took more than 1700 pics... Here’s the link to the Aussie-pics: http://service.gmx.net/mc/77RlQ3AKKTE2rXhdoz6W94St70fxDo valid until 08/12/04
Monday, November 8, 1:00 pm Sorry for not updating my journal for such a long time, but the internet cafe in Burwood was closed during the week and I just wasn’t in the mood to drive downtown to upload this stuff. It just takes too much time to do that -like 1,5 hours one way- at the moment as the public transport system (especially the railways) faces major problems due to technical failures and the lack of drivers (!!!). And on times, you gotta be lucky to get somewhere at all. Don’t you ever complain about the Bundesbahn not to be on time... And to all the guys in Greifswald who will pass their last exams during the next weeks: Keep a stiff upper lip! Good luck! And we’ll keep our fingers crossed! (that’ll be some hard weeks for us, running around with crossed fingers all the time...)
Saturday, November 6, 11:30 pm The more I walk around the Blue Mountains, the more I understand why people are into hiking. This trip was completely different from our last one, though the walking track was not more than 20 kilometers away from the Three Sisters. We decided for walking the Grand Canyon and the valley behind. An easy six hour non-stop walking-time... Unfortunately it was not until after descending into the Canyon that we first saw the signs announcing a landslide that would prevent us from climbing out of the valley at the desired place. We changed our plans and made out for Junction Rock, a rock down in the valley where the valley’s two main creeks meet and flow off towards Grose Valley. Then we would trace back our path up to a narrow track that should lead us up to Evans Lookout. No worries so far. The walk itself was much more demanding than the one last time. No broad walking tracks and well-built steps but walking on rough ground and climbing over rocks along the riverbed. But it was really fun. And -as I mentioned before- a completely different scenery. The Canyon used to be grown with Gum-trees, but several bushfires a couple of years ago destroyed most of the old forests. Today, nature is recovering and a new vegetation covers the valley. Small farns and bushes grow next to the scorched trunks of the Gum-trees. But some of the old trees survived and grow new leaves out of the black trunks. The broad sunlight paints the landscape in shades of grey and black but then you discover plants with large, bright red blossoms. An unreal scenery! Moving further down the Canyon (and crossing the creek several times), the vegetation changes towards the used rainforest plants. The canyon itself is narrow at times, leaving only little space to see the sky above, and at the same time giving no hint to where the present water level could be below us. You just stare into the dark and hear the gurgling sounds of the water. Eventually we reached Beauchamps Falls, the most beautiful of many falls of the Creek that caved the Canyon out of the sandstone. Here, the Canyon opens up and we got the first sight of the broad valley below us. We hadn’t decended more than maybe 200 meters as the cliff was close above us and the bottom of the valley still way below. Well, that meant more climbing downwards. But with the beautiful scenery and all the birds and lots of lizards and ‘Mountain dragons’ -just large iguanas- this is an easy task, though the pathfinding was difficult at times. When we reached the bottom of the valley, the way along the Gum-trees towards Junction Rock was really easy: watching lots of birds, e.g. the large Yellow-tailed Black-Cockatoo (maybe you know the white ones - these guys here are more than twice the size!), and lots of bright colored parrots along the path. We arrived at Junction Rock around noon and followed the other creek some minutes upstream to a lovely place where the water cascades down some rocks and formed little pools. The ideal spot for a quick dip! Unfortunately, the water was really cold, so it wasn’t that much fun to be in there for a longer time. But Corina was really brave! We spent there about an hour and prepared for the way back. An easy walk along the known path, but reaching the turn-off for the track to the lookout, we felt slightly uncomfortable. We knew it was said to be a narrow and little-used path, but this one looked more like a wombat-track in some parts. Leading constantly upwards and being very steep, combined with a rocky and slippery surface and high temperatures, this was no fun at all! Anyway, when we finally reached the top of the cliff, we were rewarded with breathtaking views over the valley - and completely exhausted! The evening was really fun, though we were really tired. We met two guys from Canada and England (Robert & Chris) at the backpacker, who were equally exhausted as they were out hiking, too. Nonetheless we had much fun talking and drinking and eventually starting a puzzle (well...) to stay awake, while outside the weather went havok, with heavy rains and thunderstorms.
No surprise, that also cancelled our abseiling-course on Friday and we drove back to Sydney. :-(
Tuesday, November 2, 9:00 pm This afternoon, we went to the Powerhouse Museum and as far as many people say, Sydney’s best museum. It features mostly technical exhibits from the steam-engine-era to space-vehicles, but there’s a also a wide range of contemporary and past exhibits of daily living and clothes. Well, it’s a bit of everything with a strong focus on Australia, so I found many things not that interesting (like advertisements for Aussie products from the last decades...), and most of the experimenting stuff was rather set up for kids, but maybe my expectations were a bit too high after hearing all the folks talking about this museum and recalling my own memories of the ‘Deutsches Museum’ in Munich. I guess, an Aussie would feel the same way, seeing mostly German inventions and products... Anyway, this week is almost finished as far as working in hospital is concerned, as were going back to the Blue Mountains tomorrow afternoon...
Monday, November 1, 8:00 pm What do you do on a work-free day? Learning? Good option, but we decided for Bondi Beach. That wasn’t the best idea, as - what a surprise- the weather decided against us. Therefore no surfing lessons but freezing on the beach...
Monday, November 1, 2:00 am Sunday - leisure time. Not that we work that much, though... ;-) We’ve been to Watson Bay, one of Sydney’s eastern suburbs situated on the southern peninsula framing the harbour entrance (just opposite to Manly). It’s a really upmarket area with lots of waterfront-view luxury homes and stunning views towards both Sydney and the Ocean. Refreshed by the usual weekend-lunch (fish&chips...) at the lovely harbour bay, we walked around the streets and up to the Watson Bay lighthouse. Well, spending lots of time outside inevitably makes you hungry. And combined with the rapid weather-change (look at the pictures, the dark clouds covered the whole sky within an hour) lead us back to the city to enjoy a tasty dinner with B.Y.O wine at a small cafe at Newtown. Imagine two people, not much used to alcohol, walking around the whole day and then drinking a bottle of wine - we were in a good mood afterwards (I know most of you won’t believe me, but this bottle really had its effects on us...). Thus, we headed on to Kings Cross, but our attempt to party somewhat failed: we were too tired to spend lots of money to get into a club and then resign after 1 hour or so, and the other cafes and bars looked more or less like the Odenwald on a weekday after 10 pm... So we ended up with a coffee and started our journey back home.
Friday, October 29, 10:30 pm Once again, more animal watching. This time, we decided for the larger and more furry ones. Driving up to Blacktown with Saskia and Christoph (two of the German students who began their elective with us), we visited Featherdale Wildlife Park. This park features a large variety of Australian animals, but the most important thing: you get really close to the animals. Really close. Wallabies are moving around all over the paths, being fed and caressed by visitors. And of course, there’s the famous Koala-cuddling! Threre’s nothing better than standing next to one of these little cuddly furry things and caressing them while they’re eating leaf after leaf of eucalyptus. Well, maybe a cold would minimize the eucalyptus stench... ;-) It was really tempting to just grab one of them and put it into our bags... Aren’t they used to marsupial lifestyle anyway? And what’s all this rumbling in my bag...? But then, where should we get all the food they need, and there were so many other animals to look at: Hundreds of birds including the famous Kookaburras, all kinds of parrots (from colorful & little to unicolored and big), emus, phaesants, birds of prey (hawks, buzzards, falcons, owls,...), penguins and many more. Reptiles, like turtles, lizards, geckos, freshwater and saltwater crocodiles, snakes (incl. the world’s 10 most venomous species),... And of course Australia’s funny looking larger animals: kangaroos, wombats (they’re funny, too), flying foxes, dingos,... The only thing we missed were the Tasmanian Devils - all asleep and feeding time was over when we arrived. But anyway, another great day!
Thursday, October 28, 7:30 pm Sydney Aquarium - definitely a must-do when you’re in Sydney. We visited it yesterday and spent nearly 5 hours watching all kinds of fishes, reptiles, crocodiles, sharks and, most entertaining: Platypus (‘Schnabeltier’)! Boy, these little things are just most amazing to watch - paddling swiftly through the water, doing loops and twists underwater, shuffling in the ground. And all the time they look as if it’s really good fun! You can spend hours just standing there and watching them - and we literally did... But the Aquarium has much more to offer. The different basins have beautiful set-ups, showing the species in their natural habitat, and offering much information. But as always, big things are most impressing: underwater tunnels showing all kinds (and sizes) of sharks, Manta rays and lots of other large fishes all in one large basin - and just centimeters (of glass) away... that’s a thrill! And then you move on to the reef-inhabitants, sitting in front of large glass screens, marvelling at the diversity of life and its intense colours. What a wonderful way of spending your evening! Some more ordinary things: 4 weeks in hospital are over, 4 more weeks to go. This means today was the last day on the Vascular Surgery Team and I’ll be on the Upper GI Team from next week on. Hope I’ll learn as much there and have the same fun as with the Vascular guys. Wednesday, October 27, 2:30 pm Finally, I’ve manged to upload my pics from South-Korea to my GMX-account. You can have a look at these pics (more, larger and better quality than in the pic’s-section on this page) using the following link: http://service.gmx.net/mc/ACECYt9bDzTjrB2PkJ3DwXUr042DhP valid until 26/11/04 I’ll post frequent link-updates in the link-section of my homepage, as I only can grant you 30 day access to the GMX-account. But if you got a GMX account yourself, send me an email and I can give you unlimited access, as you can include my folders in your own Media-center. And there are still some pics from Seoul to come as the server is really slow and it takes hours to upload all pics and even some videos... Tuesday, October 26, 9:30 pm Yesterday we went to a Indian (vegetarian) all-you-can-eat restaurant in Kings Cross with some of the German students from Concord hospital. Actually, with 15 other Germans - and that’s only part of the German community. In total, there must be way over 30 German students in hospital... We shold introduce German as an official language in theatres... ;-) The evening was really entertaining, talking to students who are good friends with a couple of those who left Greifswald at some time. Afterwards there was a movie (The Bourne Supremacy) shown in a very comfy room of the restaurant: the floor covered with matresses and pillows - Cool! And then off to the pub for a beer...
An early wake-up this morning included... arghhhh ;-)
Sunday, October 24, 6:00 pm Well, we had a pretty lazy weekend. After two weekends of hiking and much travelling, we decided to stay in Sydney. Friday night we explored Newtown, somewhat the student’s quarter with lots of pubs and a very good non mainstream movie-theatre, watching ‘The Wheeping Camel’. Nice story and beautiful pictures of the Mongolian landscape. On Saturday, we once again headed to Manly to improve our tan. But as you know, lying in the sun is a strenous business and we felt too tired for a night in town. Guess we’re getting old... Sunday, we walked around The Rocks, the quarter just below the Harbour Bridge. But as the weather was really bad with more or less showers, eventually turning to heavy rain and thunderstorms, we ended up in Cafe in Darling Harbour watching the rain outside...
Wednesday, October 20, 9:30 pm For all those who thought we hardly work at all: we’ve been busy in hospital for two consectutive days...! And probably will be for the rest of the week, as theatres are back on work and the weather is still bad. Actually, it got worse in large parts of the east coast, smashing trees and causing severe floodings. And the forecasts show nothing but rain for the next days... Guess we’ll get to see some of Sydney’s excellent museums. Tuesday, October 19, 7:00 pm short version: I am a rainmaker... Our short-trip up north was really great, but the weather wasn’t exactly on our side. Byron Bay greeted us with strong winds, cloudy sky and a surf that just wasn’t made for beginners... and it got worse: although many guys around the hospital couldn’t believe it: yes, it actually CAN rain in Byron Bay - quite heavy and enduring, too. Therefore we decided to travel further north, with a short visit to (rainy) Surfers Paradise and then on to the capital of the Sunshine-State Queensland: Brisbane. And guess what? It was raining... Any comments on advertisements? The ‘Sunshine-State’ !? Ok, to be fair, the rain was much needed in this region as they had some huge bushfires out of control close to Byron with all the smoke drifting dozens of kilometers inland. Despite that, the trip was nice. Byron Bay is a lovely small town, a bit on the alternative side with lots of shops offering healthy food, massages, naturopathy and just all the stuff you need to strengthen your soul and body... And a funny mixture of people: everything from the classic surfer-dudes, families with their kids, plain normal folk up to old-hippies and modern wanna-be hippies. As we couldn’t do our planned beach and surf weekend, we had to change our minds and explored the inland behind Byron Bay , the Tweed, also known as the ‘Hinterland’ - sounds like the Odenwald (and looks much like that, too) :-) . The landscape is dominated by the residue of one of the largest shield volcanoes to be found on this planet, covering an area of nearly 50x50km. Today, the caldera (the remnant crater) is fairly withered, leaving a beautiful landscape with the rocky rim around it and an agricultural region on the rich soil with lots of farms and small villages in the valleys inside. Ecological agriculture plays a major role and most villages have nature-orientated shops similar to those in Byron. The village of Nimbin in the middle of the Tweed launched the Australian hippie culture back in the Seventies. Today it features the ‘Annual Hemp Mardi Gras and Drug Law Reform Festival’... Should I mention that Corina was checked on the airport for drugs - twice... :-) In the middle of the caldera, Mount Warning (1150m) is the remnant of the former magma chamber and used to be more than twice as high when the volcano was still active 20 million years ago. It’s surrounded by thick rain forests and a 4 km long path leads up to its top, climbing included on the last 200 meters. It was quite strenous to get up there, and the views were really bad - or better: nonexistant. We were standing right in the clouds. But then again, walking through the rainforest is an amazing experience: all these plants and trees and animals... When the weather finally turned completely against us with low temeratures and lots of rain on Sunday, we headed north. Our first stop was to Surfers Paradise, the center of the Gold Coast. It’s a large tourist area along the coast with beautiful beaches, lots of theme-parks, but also crowded with skyscrapers, construction sites and drunken tourists. It looks somewhat like a mixture of Miami Beach and Llorette de Mar - rather ugly, but it’s supposed to be good fun at nights. But definitely not worth a stay with this weather. The next short brake was to the ‘Daisy Hill Koala Center’ where we got in touch with Koalas and Wallabies - how sweet and cuddly... ;-) As mentioned, Brisbane greeted us with equal weather. The city itself contains a nice mixture of old and new buildings, but constant rain didn’t encourage us to do much sightseeing... Instead we watched ‘The Bourne Supremacy’ on Sunday evening and explored only parts of the inner city on Monday, including the area around the Griffith-University along the Brisbane River and the Botanic Gardens. I almost forgot to write about the biggest fun: driving a car - on the wrong side. I can’t understand how people can do that! Boy, was I exhausted when we reached Byron. Driving on the motorway and overtaking on the right lane is one thing, but doing roundabouts... These Aussies are just crazy! But several hundred kilometers and a couple of nearly heart-failures later, you eventually get used to it. I’m looking forward to the first roundabout back in Germany... And who would believe it: arriving back in Sydney, it was raining...
Wednesday, October 13, 6:00 pm As the forecast predicts rather cold and rainy weather for Sydey on the weekend, we’re heading north towards Byron Bay and the Gold Coast - tomorrow. Flights are booked, car is rented, the accomodation, too and the surf-lessons are just waiting - great! Therefore, my next update won’t be until the middle of next week... Hope, you’re all doing fine.
Monday, October 11, 8:00 pm Did I mention already that a long weekend contains four days....? After two days full of physical activities, we headed off for Manly beach. Lazy day ;-) Sunday, October 10, 9:00 pm We went to the Blue Mountains the last two days, a National park very popular amongst Sydneysiders, with a breathtaking scenery: broad valleys covered with rain-forest and steep cliffs on top, the Three Sisters (one of Australia’s most famous site), waterfalls, lots of birds and flowers. And it’s so large that you barely meet any people on the walking tracks, even on a ‘crowded’ beautiful weekend like this... marvellous! Actually, they’re called ‘Blue Mountains’ due to the mist that hovers over the valleys all day long and is caused by rays of light striking droplets of oil dispersed by millions of gum trees (eucalyptus). Yesterday we walked to Echo Point, THE viewing point for the Three Sisters (->legend), being on a cliff just next to these rocks. Afterwards we took a path following the cliff towards Scenic World, an entertainment center featuring some cool ways to get down into the valley. The most exciting way is the Scenic Railway, an old railway used by miners in former days. It’s 450 m long with a vertical drop of 250m and a steepest incline of 52 degrees - talk about fun!!! And today we followed a popular path near the Three sisters, leading us along several waterfalls, beautiful viewing points and right through the rain forest. We started off quite early and it’s really amazing to listen to the sounds of all the birds, almost expecting dinosaurs to turn up further down the way with all these farn-trees around. Friday, October 8, 11:30 pm Friday is weekend - isn’t it? As most theatres are still off, we decided for a long weekend (our supervisors send us home - good excuse, eh?). For starters we went to Bondi beach, maybe the most famous beach in Australia. But as for me, not the most beautiful - I prefer Manly. Anyway it was a cool day at the beach, watching the surfers and swimmers in the very (!) cold Pacific and enjoying fish&chips.
And I managed to get my cellphone working!!! My new mobile number is 04 05 096 777. I guess you have to add the Australian country code (which I still don’t know) and skip the first 0 - that should work. The best time to call me, would be in the late (Australian) afternoon (remember: GMT+8) or somewhen in the evening, as I’m in the hospital during the day and don’t take my cellphone to theatre.
Tuesday, October 5, 2:00 pm Well, holiday is over and working has finally begun. As long as you wanna call it ‘working’. ;-) As you can see, I got out of hospital quite early and don’t have to start unitl 7:45 am. That’s really great. The team is really awesome, as they really want you to learn something and understand what’s going on. As they had a fire in the theatre, all operations were cancelled for today (at least those from my department...), and I got the afternoon off - and this on a hot and sunny day!
Sunday, October 3, 12:00 am Today, we decided for a rather lazy day out in Manly, Sydney’s most beautiful seaside resort. The fun begins right on getting there: The most beautiful way (but not always most convenient way - at least not on rough weather) is by ferry. Starting at Circular Quay, you get wonderful harbourside-views of Sydney and its northern and eastern suburbs. Going to Manly on the Labour-Day weekend (Labourday is on Oct 4), is even more fun, as an international Jazz-Festival provides entertainment all over the place. Combined with a marvellous ocean beach (including waves, surfers and lots of volleyball-fields) and some fish&chips for lunch, this makes out for a great day.
Saturday, October 2, 11:30 pm Sun! It’s incredible. After four days of rather bad weather, the sun has found its way back to Sydney. We’ve been out to La Perouse on the northern shore of Botany Bay, a few kilometers south of downtown Sydney. While mostly covered with industrial facilities, docks and after all the international airport, there’s a small peninsula containing the northern part of the Botany Bay National Park. Being a really windy day (25 kts on average), it was just great (and sometimes literally ‘breathtaking’) to stand high upon the cliff and watch the huge waves clashing down on the rocks. I took dozens of pictures and even filmed some short movies, but they just can’t resemble the impressive natural powers of wind and waves gnawing on these rocks ever since this part of the world was shaped, leaving you feeling very small and negligible, but at the same time just content and free of all troubles (may sound strange, but it’s really hard to describe). After strolling over the peninsula for hours (and many kilometers), we went back to The Rocks to grab some food (finally! - it’s been the first since morning! - greetings to Frank... ;-) and enjoying the live music in the pubs.
Friday, October 1, 7:30 pm I just knew that would happen... No, I wasn’t robbed or anything like that, it’s just... well I imagined something slightly different when I thought of ‘Australian weather’ and ‘Sunny Sydney’! Wanna see?
Thursday, September 30, 11:30 pm Darling Harbour, The Rocks and Circular Quay, the Opera, the Harbour Bridge, all the malls and shops in the inner city, parks, all kinds of international food,... To make it short: I absolutely fell in love with this city. And I guess this won’t change until I get robbed, beaten up and thrown out of Australia on a single day... ;-) And we just had a quick glimpse of the inner city, as we went there late afternoon. We strolled around Darling Harbour, headed over to the AMP-Tower, with a platform 250m above ground (we took some awesome pictures of the illuminated city up there) and finally went to Circular Quay and the Opera.
Wednesday, September 29, 10:00 pm (now GMT+9) We made it. After a rough overnight-flight with turbulences all the way down from Japan to Australia, we arrived at Sydney early this morning. And for all those who travelled Spain with me: The Rainmakers are back on tour! But anyway, we were too exhausted to do much travelling around after dropping off the bus at Carol’s and Larry’s home. They’re our hosts as long as we work at the hospital (that’ll be until end of November) and provided us, besides two really nice bedrooms, with all the neccessary equipment to get started in Sydney. After having only e-mail contact over the last months, finally meeting them in person felt good, and we soon made ourselves at home. After a hot shower (really great after 10 hours on the plane!) and a little rest, we explored the nearby neighborhood with lots of small shops and an excellent shopping mall. As the weather (and our lack of energy) kept us off from going downtown, we decided to sleep early and explore the inner city tomorrow.
Tuesday, September 28, 7:30 pm Sitting on the airport and waiting for our departure to Sydney, I can write another update (although I still can’t upload them). Today, we visited one of the largest markets in Seoul, Namdaemun Market, with over 10,000 shops. The pictures actually don’t show that, as we went there rather early (at least for Korean-market-fashions). As the traditional Korean village was closed today (and another one was too far away), we decided to do a guided citybus-tour instead. And I still feel, that Seoul isn’t my favorite city. Yes, there are many beautiful spots, but it’s mostly crowded with grey, ugly office buildings or large, also ugly appartment buildings, or shabby-looking residential areas. All this combined with one large traffic-jam all over the city and the absence of parks isn’t to my likings. I don’t want to be unfair, given that I haven’t been to many large cities so far, but 10 million people in one city are definitely too much for me. (and now I’m even called a “sweet little hill-billy”) Anyway, I’m really excited to get to Sydney tonight. From what I know so far, it’s much more to my likings with all the water, parks, and ‘this big hall at the harbour’ (don’t laugh - I know what this ‘hall’ is called....).
Tuesday, September 28, 1:00 am We tested the Seoul nightlife. Well, we went to the Student’s Quarter to grab some Korean food. It was rather early, being 8:30 pm on arrival, so we didn’t expect the streets bustling with life. And indeed, they weren’t crowded. As most bars and cafés were still empty at 10 pm (and we heard rumors that the subways are closed after 11 pm), we returned to the shopping district we visited yesterday...and found out that the Seoul’ nightlife isn’t to be found in the downtown-streets, as all bars, cafés and shops are closed after 11 pm (and the subway, too). Ok, there seems to be a nightlife in numerous clubs and bars, but they’re mostly not situated downtown. And as we still have some sites to visit tomorrow, we decided not to go there... Instead I wrote these journal-entries for you - ain’t I sweet? ;-)
Monday, September 27, 6:30 pm Today was the day of cultural visits. After sleeping till late morning, we made first contact with the Seoul’ mass-transport-system -and wen’t the wrong way ;-) We started our tour with the visit to Changdeokgung, the second largest palace and UNESCO-World-Heritage- Site. The guided-tour was kinda funny as the tour-guide was really hard to understand. An example? ‘Do you see de difflence on de loof? - the loof?! - .....’ Didn’t expect the jokes about their pronounciation were THAT true... The Palace itself shows a beautiful architecture and entering the Secret Gardens (despite the name, there were no secrets :-(( ), you could almost forget you were in central Seoul. Many trees, small ponds, little pavilions, a great library: Juhamnu (Its name means something like ‘to gather the universe’), fantastic. Have a look at the pictures. Afterwards, we continued our tour with a visit to Changgyeonggung, another palace in this area. It was originally built for the father of King Sejong and later used by queens. It’s surrounded by a thick forest and connected to the Jongmo Royal Shrine. The thrid spot we visited. These shrines contain the Spirit-Tablets of numerous kings. These Tablets should indicate where the soul-spirit of the present king dwelled, and were also used for ancestoral rites. After that amount of cultural information, we wen’t to the Student’s Quarter to try some Korean food - Yes, today we were brave! it was really tasty, being almost a little too spicy. The quarter isn’t much different from other areas around here, same shops, cafés,..., but even more young people in the streets. Therefore, we decided to come back later this evening. A really strange thing (and difficult, too) is, that almost nobody is able of speaking at least some English. Even the younger people don’t understand basic words and phrases. So I wasn’t able to update my journal so far, as I couldn’t figure out if I could plug in my notebook at a local internet-café (or better: PC-room [pee’see-loom], they don’t know the other phrase...).
Sunday, September 26, 12:30 am (now: GMT+8) We’ve just arrived in Seoul, South Korea, after a 10-hours-flight. Although scheduled as overnight-flight, we got little sleep. The weather here is fine, in contrast to the present cold and rainy German weather. Temperatures are mild and the sky is cloudy but that’s just perfect to explore unkown territory. The city itself is...no beauty on the first look. Like most larger Asian cities it’s very busy, loud, extremely colorful (as you can see in the downtown pictures) and kind of dirty. Combined with large appartment housings, industrial sites and highways framing the river, there’s little chance to fall in love with this place on first sight. But moving around the downtown-area and the nearby hill in Namsam Park with the observation platform on the Seoul-TV-Broadcasting-Tower, you soon discover that there are many beautiful spots. And the atmosphere in the little streets downtown, crowded with traders on the streets and people buying all these goods, the uncountable food-vendors with really exotic food (we lacked courage to try them so far, but we will definitely change that!) really adds to the impression that Seoul has much more to offer... That’s enough for tonight, as we gotta catch up some sleep from the jetlag. And we need the energy to visit at least some of the numerous tourist sites, you can find here. Tomorrow we’ll most likely visit some royal palaces and shrines, a traditional Korean village, another market, the student quarter, and, and, and...
Thursday, September 23, 2004, 1:30 am (GMT+1) Well, my homepage is up. Finally. And that’s the first journal-entry, although I really don’t have that much to tell so far. Corina will arrive at Michelstadt on Friday afternoon and we’re both still busy with all the minor things that need to be taken care of... Our flight will depart on Saturday September 25, 7:45 pm, from Frankfurt, leading us first to Seoul/South Korea for a short visit. Then, on to our final goal (at least so far) SYDNEY on Tuesday, September 28.
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