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last days in Sydney

Sydney is still rainy and I'm a bit unmotivated to do great things... I met some people again, who I met 2 weeks ago in Sydney. Today I spend my day with Kenjiro, who I met in Perth. We walked around a bit.
I hope the weather tomorrow is good enough for going to the beach.

I start to get happy that I can go home. It's more a waiting in Sydney than an enjoying of the city... I would go to Eumundi again, up to cairns, to Darwin, to the Uluru and back to West Australia, I want spend more time in Melbourne... But now, I'm here in rainy Sydney... well I now that I'm not the last time in this beautiful continent...
Where shall I go next time? start in Perth and take a motor home to go up to Darwin...? Sounds good, isn't it? We will see...

Brisbane

Well, I leave Brisbane today with the bus to Sydney.
Actually, I wanted to do a trip to Fraser Island or somewhere else at the Gold Coast, but this weekend was Chinas new Year and there was not one free seat on any tour! That’s why I stood a bit longer in Brisbane. But Brisbane is a nice City with some nice things to do. It was good to be here for three days.

I’m a bit sad now because I have to be at the airport in exactly 100 hours! And I’m a bit happy to see my girlfriend, family and friends again this week. And I’m very happy to go skiing next week! I hope there is still enough snow in the mountains…

Shopping Day

I'm just a victim of the capitalism...

Eumundi

I arrived in Brisbane 2 Days ago and asked how do I get to Eumundi? After an hour train and about 3 hours bus drive, I got it! Hanspeter took me to his home. Its Hugh! He has a lot of land, rainforest, some cows, chickens and a big, nice house! Well, and a very friendly family too!

Yesterday he brought me to the beach in Noosa for swim. And we watched an movie in the evening.

This morning I took the train from Eumundi to Brisbane, it took only two hours! But the train goes only twice a day…! I’m now in Brisbane and looking for a trip in this area.

And I think I survived my cold which I got from Byron Bay… J

leave byron

Now I had 5 days full of rain in Byron Bay. I hoped that I could do the skydiving yesterday, but no way! They called my at 10 O’Clock that its maybe possible at 12… at 12 they called my and told me I can wait until 2… at 2 the weather was looking better but they told me they fly maybe at 4… at 4 they told me that they don’t fly!
I have to check out here in the Arts Factory and the angry part is, that the sun is shining today!!! I’m thinking about to cancel my bus and go today to the skydive but the bus is already payed and Hanspeter waits for my today in Eumundi.
Hm I ponder about it.

Nimbin

Nimbin is a small village where you can buy hemp on the streets. Nimbin is a synonym for the fight to legalization the cannabis. It started in the 60’s where the people looked for a place to organize an anti-war festival. Some of this people are still in Nimbin and didn’t realized that the festival is finished… well the story behind is that on this festival, the police arrested two people because they consumed marihuana. The day after, the other thousands of people went to the police station and disrobe this two guys. (there are only two policemen in Nimbin…). Since then, that’s what the story tells, they celebrate the fight against the low…

The tour took as in about one hour to Nimbin, we spend there 90 minutes, that’s more than you need to see the village, including all hemp shops, the hemp museum and the cafes. After that we drove to a park with a waterfall and because of the rain in the last two month here, the waterfall was big! After the Aussi BBQ we went back to Byron Bay and I hope now, that my Skydive tomorrow will work…

no Skydiving today

because...
rain, rain, rain and again rain...
so, i will go shopping and sleep a bit in the wet tippi!
f***!

Surf Trip to Byron Bay

I left Sydney without doing any great things. I had a good time with some guys from the hostel... :-)

Well, the trip took 5 day and 4 nights. First we went to the Surf Camp, about 3 hours from Sydney. Then we drove about 3 to 5 hours a day and stopped on some beaches for surf lessons and surfs. I learned how to catch a broken wave, an unbroken wave, how to stand up, how to move left and right, what a good wave is... the practice is not so easy as it sounds.
sometimes when you paddle out there away from the beach, then you just want relax on your board, sit there in the peace of the ocean!
Now, after several dips of saltwater, experience in human wash machine, and some seconds wave riding i feel tired but lucky!
If Switzerland has a sea, I'm sure that I would continue...
The last night in Byron Bay with the surf crew was a big party. they took us to the best places and discos, without entry or waiting to get in. I felt like a VIP! :-)

Now I stay in a absolutely fabulous Hostel, called the arts factory. I sleep in a 8 bed tippy! Jiiiippiii.... There is a lot to do in Byron Bay and I hope you will read it the next days... (Nimbim is not far away...!!!)

Sydney

I start to like Sydney when it is sunny. Sydney is a party place with a lot of crazy and ,I think, also a lot of stupid people!
Today is Australian Day. The full day are free concerts in the city, firework in the evening, jets flying around and a lot of people wearing Aussie-shirts, heads, flags and other funny things with the Aussie-flag. I enjoy also the weather today. It's good fun.

Bikers Paradies (Blue Mountains)

The bus started at 7.45 to the Blue Mountains. We stopped on some beautiful places with a wonderful landscape. We did some walks thru the bushes. The tour guide gave us some instructions, because there are some poison snakes and spiders in this area. But don’t worry, the snakes go away from humans (usually) but it could be, that a Boa hanging down from a tree and jump on you. But that’s very unlikely. If it happened, be calm, take a picture and wait until someone takes the snake away… The spiders should be no problem, cause they are sleeping in their holes. Don’t put your hand or anything else into this spider holes! This spiders are strong enough to bit thru your nails!

The hike was good. Also without any spiders or snakes. After lunch and an other drive we took a kind of train to go some hundreds meters directly down in some seconds. The hike back took about 2 hours! Some of the group stayed in Katoomba in the WHY. Me too. The others drove back to Sydney. They who stayed in the YHA went out for a beer in the evening and I saw Roger Federer once again winning.

On the next day I hired a bike to drive a bit around. It was a hard tail and not in the best condition but good enough for this ride. The front and the rear break are also on the opposite side as in Europe: front break is on the right side, rear is left…

The drive thru the forest was wonderful with some ups and downs. I saw breathtaking landscapes and even more trees and hills… on the end of the road was a lookout. I took some pictures of myself and of all this spider holes and returned to Katoomba.

At 5pm took us the bus back to Sydney.

Melbourne-Sydney

I’m arrived in Sydney yesterday and it was bloody raining! But here the story:

Day 1: Melbourne – Mallacoota (660 km)

We started at about 11 O’clock in Melbourne. Good bye Melbourne, see you later! After some short breaks we drove up to Eden. Cool, isn’t it? I’ve been once in the garden of Eden… wow! J But Eden has no cheep Hostel, so we drove south to Mallacoota. That’s a beautiful, small place with a big camping area and a few shops. There I could send a 6kg packet back home with a lot of that unuseful stuff I bought! The hostel was pretty and we had for 22$ a two bed dorm with own toilette and shower! I slept very well.

Day 2: Mallacoota – Canberra (440 km)

Not a lot to tell. We stopped in a small wildlife park with some funny cockatoos. And other animals. An other stop was for a cheese factory. We tasted some Australian Cheese, but hey, we are Swiss, the cheese wasn’t really good…

It was Rainy in Canberra and we were tired. In Canberra are only 2 Backpackers and they are pretty expensive! So Patricia was getting angry about that. I had no problem with it… We cooked some yummy vegetables, noodles and cream. We cooked enough to save same in a Tupperware!

Day 3: Canberra – Sydney (300 km)

It was still raining this morning. We took a walk in the through shopping center and drove a bit around. Then we started to go to Sydney. We stopped once for a wine degustation, but I still didn’t found a really good wine for less money…

Sydney is horror by car! Well, we found our Backpacker and also the car-returner today. I’m happy now by feet! In the evening we watched the match from Roger Federer versus Janko Tipsarevic. It was a very thrilling match but Roger won!

last day

Huch! Today is my last day in Melbourne! That's going fast! I rent a car together with Patricia. We start tomorrow morning and we will drive to Canberra and then to Sydney. We take 3 days for that.
Today was a shopping day for me. I bought a lot of expensive and a lot of very, very cheep stuff. Maybe to much...! :-)
cu

Australian Open

YES!!! I saw Roger Federer winning... :-)

Melbourne downtown

It's now my 3th day in Melbourne downtown and I did some interessting things:

-The Melbourne Aquarium was expensiv and there were a lot of families with her young kids. too much! it was a little bit disapointing. I think, if you saw once a sea-aquaruim then you saw all of them. there are always the same animals inside...

-The market is hugh, but I still couldn't find Swiss cheese there.

-Imax 3d: That's absoloutly breathtaking!!! The 3d effects are genius! but the movie I saw was a little bit stupid. it was Beowulf. the best thing was angelina joli in 3d... but her body was complitly computeranimated... :-(

-Melbourne 360 plattform. It's on a top of a Skyskaper on the top of Melbourne and you see the City from the top. Nice landscape.

Now I have to look for a lift to Sydney. And well, today I will go to the Australian Open... Number one plays today! Hop Roger!!!

Sky High

Helene took me for a ride to the Sky-High. You have there a nice view to Melbourne. It’s so huge! On the way back home we stopped on a tourist point, where a lot of colorful birds are. You see this birds everywhere here!

In the evening we went to a park with a small lake for swimming and BBQ but it was a day with total fire ban. So we couldn’t cook in the park and we eat at home.

Tomorrow I’ll move to the city for a week and will check out all the attraction in Melbourne downtown.

Migros????

Nein, das ist keine Migros in Melbourne.
Der orange Riese ist hier (noch) nicht vertreten.
Aldi hats zwar schon einige...

My First Cricket Game

I start to love Cricket! That’s very unusual for not Australians. The rules are not so difficult when you are watching a match and somebody can explain the things. Olly watched a lot of cricket on TV and I had a lot of questions. Well, Yesterday was a Cricket game in Melbourne. Victoria versus New South Wales. (That’s the same when in Switzerland plays Basel versus Zuerich in Soccer) It was a 20:20 game that means that the Game takes not more than 3 hours.

We went there and it was good fun! The station has a capacity from 100 000 people.

Victoria wins! Yeah!

ConFest

I jointed the Confest for a week and it was really great fun. The ConFest is a Festival, it started over 30 years ago from the organisation called “Down To Earth”. The spirit of the Festival is still the same. It is a non commercial Festival where everyone can be and do what he likes to do. Everyone is accepted. That’s the spirit of the Hippies!

You could do a lot of Workshops each day. The workshops were Yoga, Tree Hugging, Story Telling, Tantra, etc. Because it was all days about 40 degrees, I was under the weather to do a workshop! I joined only once the Yoga in the morning. But there were so many other people that I hadn’t enough space to do these movements.

The highest temperature was about 44 degrees. But it was not so hard. We had a river to cool down and enough cold drinks.

One adventure I had: We were sitting for a breakfast with our neighbours as we saw a snake coming out of a stump. It was a brown snake, one of the ten most poison snakes. Well, what will an Australian do? Inform someone that he should inform someone other to bring a snake hunter. This takes its time. So we took our chairs, seated around the stomp and adverted to the people who waked next to the stomp. This was a cool job! Sitting there, watching the snake, drinking beer… after some hours, the snake hunter arrived and took the snake at the tail end and walked away with it. That’s it. J

Now I’m back in the civilisation and stay some more days at Olly’s home in Melbourne. Olly lives over an hour with the train from the centre. I will explore it from here a little bit. But, I think, next week I will go to a backpacker in Melbourne city to explore the city centre a little bit more and planing the trip to Sydney in the middle of January.