Hi from Australia!
After more than three weeks Australia I find the time to write about my experiences in English today at the 9th of October!Australia is amazing! I’m really fascinated by the things I explored in the last weeks! It had been hard and exhausting, but also very nice and beautiful! Let me start at the 15th of September, when I had to say goodbye to my family and some of my friends! Was a strange feeling to say goodbye without knowing when I exactly will come back. The day zero, that I prepared for and was looking forward to was there! Suddenly! No, not really suddenly, but faster than I expected! Strange, exciting, wonderful, but sad on the other hand.
My friends Mareike, Ruth and me took the train to go to Frankfurt. We had a short stop in Singapore for 2 hours after 12 hours flight and took a lovely massage in the airport before entering the plane again to fly another 8 hours to Melbourne.
When we arrived in Melbourne in the morning at 4.45am, it was cold, windy… and I was unbelieveable tired, although I slept almost the whole time in the plane. We decided to give the jetlag no chance and after meeting my friend Coco (she spend 1 1/2 years working in the US and she came directly to Melbourne), a short shower and breakfast we explored the city. To be honest: I was too tired to remember all the things we did and saw. A highlight in Melbourne was to go up the Rialto Tower to see the city from the top. We saw Federation Square, Chinatown, the immigration museum, the parliament, the Botanic Garden and a lot more and explored Melbourne also with the free Citytram. In the afternoon of our second day we drove to Philipp Island (actually it was me who drove on the left side of the street!!! Strange in the beginning and the person on my left hand side always had to take care about the left mirror of the car  ) – but as you can see, we’re still alive!) – ok we drove to Philipp Island to watch Pinguins coming out of the water. We were sitting on the beach and they came along just 1 meter away from our feet! Cute!
On the next morning we took the plane to fly to Sydney! Maybe it is because I have not been so tired anymore, but I was absolutely more impressed by Sydney! The opera, the harbour bridge, the Sydney Tower including OzTrek, a wonderful made 3D-travel through Australia, the St. Andrew’s Cathedral (they already count the days and hours until the world youth day will come!), the Hyde Park, the Botanic Garden next to the lively city center, the Australian Museum with a wonderful exibition about Australian art, the history of Australia and ‘real’ strange animals, Darling Harbour, the Chinese Garden of friendship and the Sydney Aquarium is all we saw in three days and really, all of that is well worth a visit!
After Sydney: The outback! I was curious about this experience! And I can just tell you: It’s absolutely fantastic! Our flight was to Ayers Rock where our tourguide Steve picked us up. We drove to the Olgas and did a walk for approximately 2 hours. We took wonderful photos, the blue horizont, the red mountains and a lot of ‘nothing’, just desert! Amazing! We watched the sunset at Ayers Rock before driving back to our tent and before having a wonderful BBQ in the desert! On the next morning we had to get up at 4.30am!!! Hey, just to remind you: I’m on holidays!!! But it was nice to see the sunrise at the Uluru by walking around there for three hours. It was fantastic to get up and arrive that early, because we never saw a lot of other tourists and it was not to hot to walk around. In the heat we always sat in the bus to drive to our next destination. When we arrived in Kings Creek in the afternoon, we took a camel ride. I did it, because I was depressed that I did not see any wild strange animal yet and I hoped to see some snakes or something. Although I could’nt see Australian poisoned dangerous animals I liked the ride. The food was already prepared when we came back! Delicious, chicken und potatoes in big pots in the fire! Don’t know how the other prepared it, but I liked the meal a lot. Before going to bed we drank a beer at the fire and thought about the day. I thought it was a joke when anyone of the others told me, that we will go up again at 4.30am at the next morning! But it wasn’t!!! At 9.30am I finished the three hours walk at Kings Canyon! But afterwards it got that hot, that I was really happy that we started the walk that early! I have never been to the Grand Canyon in the US, but I’m sure I’ll go there! I was amazed by Kings Canyon! The night we spent in Alice Springs. After taking a long shower (really good feeling after three days in the outback… no, of course we took a shower in between there as well, but this feeling was different, like really getting clean after washing all the red sand from your skin!) we went to a restaurant where I tried Crocodile and Kangoroo. Kangoroo was really delicious and Crocodile I need to give a second chance. Did not like it too much this time… Unfortunately this pub (as all the other pubs in Alice as well) closed at 11.30pm. But it was my birthday at 12! We decided to organize something to drink and to have a little party in our tour guides house (who was off at this time obviously, but had fun to spend some more time with us).
The next day, another flight: We went to Cairns in the North of Australia. All I heard about Cairns before is true: There is no beach (not at all!), tourists everywhere, very commercial, but…: a nice point to do trips to the daintree and the Great Barrier Reef! After we had a delicious dinner on my birthday in a restaurant called Kings on the McLeod St with cake, wonderful food, really lovely staff and a lot of Cowboys (a licquor with baileys and any schnaps) we just fall very tired in our beds. On the other day we decided to relax and we really needed that day to calm down, to get organized and book some trips.
At the 27th of September we did a trip by car to Mossman Gorge where we had an interesting and informative tour with an Aborigine, Roy, through the daintree. He explained who to use plants, which plants and trees to avoid and how his tribes lives in this area in symbiose with the nature. Amazing! Afterwards we went to the waterwhole of Mossman Gorge, to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation! A interesting, but also very long day, we drove more than 400 kilometres and got a lot of new impressions!
The Great Barrier Reef we explored on the next day on a small sailing boat with just 18 passengers: The ecstasea! The crew was lovely and helpful and we had a fantastic day! The reef is like you know it from the photos! I could’nt believe it! At some points it is just one meter, but you shouldn’t touch it, because it can break! We saw wonderful plants and fishes and even a big turtle. I decided just to snorkle and not to dive and I think it was the right decision to explore the reef in a relaxing atmosphere!
The last flight together with my friends was from Brisbane to Cairns at the 29th of September. Here in Brisbane we stay at a friends house, Natalie! She is great and lovely! She and her boyfriend Pierre stay outside the city of Brisbane, it’s a fourty minutes drive. But the area here is nice and it’s good to make tours. We have been to the Gold Coast, in Surfers Paradise, at the Sunshine Coast in the Australia zoo (I had a koala on my arm and I feeded the kangoroos and also the elephants!!!), Brisbane city and we have been to Stradbroke Island to relax, walk around and lie on the beautiful beach! In total: we had fantastic days and more relaxing then the first days in the cities and the outback. Really good contrast.
On Friday the girls left and went back to Germany. I’m still at Natalie’s house where I try to relax and to prepare my further travel. On Sunday I met a friend in Brisbane, he is German and lives and works here since two years. Yesterday I went with Natalie’s boyfriend Pierre to Wellington Point. He is speedsurfer and the No. one in Queensland. Was amazing to observe him and a lot of kitsurfer. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I’ll fly to New Zealand! I will have almost four weeks time before coming back to Australia and travel to Broome and Darwin. From Darwin I’m going to fly to Singapore, than Malaysia and Thailand. I’m sure that I’ll need some time to relax then in Thailand…
I love it here in Australia, but I’m also looking forward to explore New Zealand and I promise, as soon I’ll find some time I’ll write again! I still have some problems with uploading pictures, but I hope that I can solve this problem soon as I want to give you some impressions on this way as well!
Take care and if you want to please leave a message in my guestbook or send an email.
All the best, keep in touch!
Nicki |
