Surfing trip and Australian farewell party

Now I have two days left in Australia before heading off to Thailand. On Sunday we had a farewell BBQ on Bondi Beach with some people whom I met during my travels and whom I already knew before.
I had ten wonderful months of traveling, saw some beautiful places, met many nice people. But I am also quite happy to get back to Germany or Europe, find a new job, flat and a city to settle. I am missing my friends and family a lot and I will be very happy to be closer to them soon :-)!

Our two weeks in Sydney and New Year's Eve

First thing was getting new haircut on December 31st from Christian - a German friend of Dirk and hairdresser from Duesseldorf ;-). Then Cigdem, Thomas, Tong, Norbert and me spent New Year's Eve in Balmain. We decided around 8 pm where to go to. We had a fabulous dinner at an Italian restaurant and afterwards we watched the fireworks from the jetty. We had a great view of the Harbour Bridge from there. The fireworks were quite short (15 minutes) but it was a great experience to see them live.

Now we are here since Christmas and we are really happy about Andrew's, Piyapat's and Thomas' hospitality. We got a room for the three of us in their house and it is so nice to have a place to stay for a while.
We visited some beaches, the Art Gallery, some pubs, different suburbs, markets etc.

Selling of the kombi and the last drive to Manly

On December 27th some people who were interested in the kombi came along and took some views. In the end a couple Michele (Swiss) and Neill (Australian) decided to buy the kombi and I was happy with this because they are really nice people.
On December 28th Cigdem, Norbert and me drove over the harbour bridge to bring the kombi to Manly where they lived. We had some farewell drinks in the Bavarian Beer House together.

We have seen around 309 other kombis on the roads within 23.700 kms. These were the road kills on the trip (only caused by other people):
Dead kangaroos: 909, dead cows: 35, dead sheep: 7, dead snakes: 2, dead wombats: 2, dead birds: 2, dead emu: 1

Drive to Sydney and Christmas BBQ on Bronte Beach

After a Mexican dinner in Fitzroy / Melbourne we started to drive towards Sydney.
During the three days of traveling around 1000 kms we visited Victoria's oldest vineyard Tahbilk, Wagga Wagga (a huge inland city) and the capital city Canberra. We didn't like Canberra so we only stayed there for some hours.
On December 24th around 6 pm we arrived in Lewisham / Sydney at Andrew's, Piyapat's and Thomas' house where we stayed the following two weeks. We had a huge dinner with around 25 people on the 24th. It was nice to experience a Christmas party with so many people in an open house. They had made delicious Thai food and we also had some drinks and nice chats.
On December 25th after exchanging of the Christmas presents and a yummy lunch Cigdem and me spent the afternoon on Bronte Beach with some drinks and watching and chatting to other people. On the beach we bumped into an Asian group and did some funny photos with them.

On December 26th Cigdem and me drove to Bronte Beach again and this time we had a nice BBQ on the beach. Later in the afternoon Dirk and his boyfriend Trevor came along, too.

The way to Cradle Mountain National Park and our hike there

We had another beautiful drive to Cradle Mountain. All over Tasmania we saw some really cheesy Christmas decorations like you can see on the photo. On the way we got into a sheep herd and had some problems to get through because we were taking too many photos ;-) The cowboys helped us to get through without hurting any sheep.

In the Cradle Mountain NP we were thinking about booking a helicopter flight but it was too expensive. So we walked around Lake Dove and enjoyed the awesome views of Cradle Mountain.

Our last night on Tassie we stayed in a caravan park in Penguin (that was really the name of the town).
On December 21st we took the daytime ferry to Melbourne but unfortunately we were freezing again.

Freycinet National Park and our visit of the Wildlife Park in Bicheno

In the Freycinet NP we found another sleeping spot right on the beach :-), Cigdem was really amazed about the Australian sky full of stars. We did a nice hike up to the lookout of Wineglass Bay and found a very nice spot for a short break in the sun.
In the afternoon we visited the Wildlife Park in Bicheno. Cigdem bought a bag full of animal feed. When she opened the bag two kangaroos with joeys came over and scared her a little bit so that she let the food fall on the ground and passed the bag over to me.

We saw heaps of kangaroos, snakes, Tasmanian devils (which were quite ugly), emu, ostrich, birds, wombats, koalas etc. In the end we really enjoyed feeding them, they were gentle and tame.

Mount Wellington and Port Arthur

After Hobart we explored the region around Tassie's capital city. The kombi made the long and steep way up to Mount Wellington from where we enjoyed some fantastic views.

In the afternoon we drove towards Port Arthur where we found our nicest sleeping spot directly in a small bay. There was only one more camper van - a nice Australian couple. We had dinner and breakfast on the beach :-)

The next morning we visited the old ruins of the convict place Port Arthur. It was interesting to walk through the ruins and getting to know something about the life there over 150 years ago.

Our trip to Tasmania and our first stops

After a eleven hour ferry trip, snoring seat neighbors and freezing temperatures on the Tasmanian Spirit ferry we arrived in Devonport - in the North of Tasmania.
We first drove through the Western Tiers mountains to get to Hobart for the Saturday markets. On the way we visited some murals (wall paintings) in Sheffield, did a short hike to the Liffey Falls and enjoyed the beautiful and quite varied landscapes. Our first night together in the wildness we stayed in a small town called Kempton. At the rest area there you also get free power!

On Saturday morning we drove to Hobart to visit the famous Salamanca Market. On the way we searched for a place to take a shower and asked a girl on the street for advice. She told us to go to the local footie ground where they had a Christmas party. When we arrived there the girl had already told her boyfriend we were coming to take a shower and five guys welcomed us and wanted to show us the showers. They also wanted to take showers with us because they were already really drunk at 12 o'clock ;-)
In Hobart we visited the market and walked through town. On the way we saw a nice vet hospital and Santa Claus on a motorbike. We had some seafood at the Constitution Dock and left Hobart later in the afternoon.
Near Kingston we found a nice picnic area right at the beach where we decided to stay for the night.

Cigdem's arrival in Melbourne and my backpacker special present

I got up at 6 am to pick up Cigdem at the airport. First thing we did was having breakfast in Brunswick in a small cafe. Then we checked in a caravan park in Coburg - a suburb of Melbourne.
The following two night we stayed in a backpacker hostel in St. Kilda to be closer to town and explored the city. We visited Brunswick, Richmond, Fitzroy, St. Kilda, the city centre and some museums, e.g. the National Gallery of Victoria. We bought two cowboy hats and wore them a lot. When we went out one night everybody kept on asking us why we were wearing these hats and if we are from the countryside etc.

Cigdem, Kerstin, Flo and Jutta made me a backpacker special advent calendar. From December 12th to 31st I had to fulfill some special tasks like wearing a German accessory a whole day, creaming the back of two strangers with sun lotion, decorating a Christmas tree and some more embarrassing tasks. When I gain 20 points I will get a present when I come back to Germany. Because I didn't have my own laptop with me and we couldn't use a computer every day I still have two more days to fulfill five more tasks before Cigdem is finally leaving Australia.

Our drive with the kombi on the Great Ocean Road

Stewart and me decided that the Great Ocean Road is a Good Ocean Road because it isn't near the ocean all the time. Most of the time you are traveling through mountains etc. The landscape around there is beautiful. We visited the Bay of Islands, 12 Apostles and the Cape Otway National Park. We stayed on a Brimbi Caravan Park in the NP and right above us in the trees lived heaps koalas. With our neighbors on the campground (an Austrian guy and a Canadian girl) we made a hike to the Rainbow Falls on the beach and I found some really amazing shells.

On December 10th we arrived in Melbourne in the evening and stayed with Stewart's Scottish friends for one night.

Adelaide, the Barossa Valley and nearby sights

My second visit to Adelaide wasn't much nicer than my first one. I'm just not really impressed about the city. For me there is no atmosphere there.
Stewart played golf in the Barossa Valley and I visited some vineyards and tried some really fantastic Barossa wines. I also visited Bethany, the first German settlement of the Barossa Valley, a lookout of the valley and a German bakery and butchery :-) I had a really nice day with good wines, nice views and some good German goodies like Vollkornbrot, Bienenstich and Leberkaese.
Close to the Barossa Valley Stewart and me visited the Herbig Tree, where a German family lived in from 1855-1860. Unbelievable how they can live in a small tree like this.

In the afternoon we visited the family Clezy in One Tree Hill. The Clezys lived in the same house in Wullenstetten where I lived from 1995-1997. They are an Australian family with eight kids and we had a BBQ in their garden. I really enjoyed the time we spent with them because they were so welcoming without even knowing us and we also played cricket there.
The next day we drove through Hahndorf and had a Weizen in the local pub.

Half Way Across Australia in Kimba

For me it was more than half way but Kimba is exactly half way between the West and East Coast of Australia. We spent some time in the Community Hotel and got some tips for visiting the Barossa Valley - the wine region near Adelaide. In the pub the Aussies tried to take the mickey of us because they told us about the dangerous drop bears ;-) Somebody told me the story about the drop bears that love backpackers and drop from the trees and bite them before so I just kept smiling. But Stewart was a little bit scared first and then realised the joke really fast. We could take a shower in the motel of the bar and slept on a rest area in town.

Longest straight road and the boarder to South Australia

The way through the Nullarbor Plain was really plain and boring. There was the longest straight road in Australia (146,6 km) and besides this not a lot to see. They announced all kinds of animals but unfortunately we couldn't spot them.

My new travel mate Stewart and our visit of the big mining city Kalgoorlie

For the travel from Perth to Melbourne I searched for another travel mate to share the long drive, fun and petrol expenses. There were some people replying to my lift offer and finally a Scottish guy named Stewart and me decided to travel together.
Our first big stop was the mining city Kalgoorlie where heaps of people fly in and out for work. It is in the middle of nowhere but the miners get really good wages there. So most of them fly there, work for two weeks and leave for the next week, then come back and so on. There are some bars where the waitresses serve in their underwear or even topless when they get enough tips. We visited the Hall of Fame - mining museum, the Superpit - a big working mine and the end of the Golden Pipeline Trail (650 km) which is running from Mundaring (near Perth) to Kalgoorlie. We were driving the whole way beside the pipeline.
In the Hall of Fame I was searching for gold and found a tiny bit that they probably put in there for satisfying the tourists ;-)

Becoming a boomerang instructor

During my stay in the Perth Hills and on the weekend of 25th-26th November 2006 in an extensive course Juergen showed me how to fly a returning boomerang correctly. He introduced me in all the safety expects and told me some stories of the development of the boomerangs and his work with the Aboriginal people. The Aboriginal people originally never used returning boomerangs because they only used boomerangs to hunt animals. We also handcrafted some boomerangs to take back to Germany.
On November 29th I got a certificate and now I am an official boomerang instructor and member of the Aboriginal Boomerang Association.
That's a very special professional training I gained in Australia ;-)!