Autor: giovanniaureel

13th of September to 14th of September
It’s hard to describe what I did between the 13th and the 14th of September, the two days I had to wait in Airlie Beach, before I could go on the boat for the sailing trip. How do you describe doing nothing, and at the same try to make it sound interesting?
But here is the true story: I spend most of the time at the beach or walking around. That’s about all I did those two days. It’s hard to go for a swim, from October until May its simply forbidden because of the jelly boxfish, a very deadly animal. Most of the people just spend there time on the beach, catching up a tan, or, if they spend to much time on the beach, a sunburn.

Friday night was finally the night I got on the boat, together with eight other travellers and 7 crew members. Yep, SEVEN crew members to take care of nine people. The reason for such a big crew was because two of them were in training and the skipper (captain) was with his wife. A very funny and nice crew, Daniel, a very funny bloke (Aussie for guy) , was our dive instructor, Clyde, the master diver, Hanna and Helen, who spend most of the time in the kitchen, Mike, who was training to be a skipper, and finally Peter, the skipper and his wife Nelly. To name the other travellers on the boat: Phillip and Christian (from Germany), Sarah, John and David (from Sidney), Steven (from USA), and finally Matt and Julian (from the UK). The name of the boat was „Romance“, ironically, eight of us nine were male…

15th of September
The 15th of September, which we most spent at the Bait Reef, started with some swimming around the boat, watching and feeding huge fishes. I was able to catch the fin of a big black fish, but the fish went mad and was able to get rid of me. Later Nelly told me that those fishes do attempt to bite people who disturb them. Lucky me…

I don’t have a diving license (yet), so the only things I could do on this tour was to snorkel and do a resort dive. Daniel took me out to the reef and I snorkelled around for about 1,5 hours. The underwater world of the Great Barrier Reef is just amazing, very colourful corals all over and an uncountable amount of fishes and other animals. We where also lucky to see a „bad tide“ a natural phenomenon that happens about 5 times a year. A very strong low tide makes the top of the reef become visibly upon the water surface.

But the snorkelling wasn’t the major event of that day, it was my first „resort dive“. After some instructions from David about how to use the diving gear, the time has come for my very first real underwater experience. I learned how to get rid of water in the mask while diving and how to breath. We first started with some breathing exercises and then made our way down to the ground by using the rope of the anchor. I always had to equalise the pressure in my ears, which was not such a big problem then I thought. We went down about ten meters and I was able to see an amazing „wood“ of corals for the first time of my life. The whole diving trip lasted for about forty minutes, and I have to admit, one of the best forty minutes in my life! If you go on a sailing trip at the Great Barrier Reef, do at least a resort dive! You don’t need any experience in diving but it would be handy if you are able to swim 😉 !The day continued with some sailing to a place called Mantaray Bay, where the diving team went for a night dive. On the way to Mantaray Bay I was able to see dolphins as they swam along the boat and jumped out from time to time, just like in Titanic.

16th of September, Whitsunday Island
Captain Cook himself named the island after he sailed through them on Whit Sunday. It wasn’t actually Whit Sunday when he sailed through them, because he didn’t thought about the fact that he had crossed the international Date line. We stopped at the island and hiked up to „Tongue Point“ (I wonder where that name came from…) to get the best view for „Whiteheaven Beach“. Whiteheaven Beach is about six kilometres long, white sand and blue water, as far as you can see. Unfortunately we had only two hours there, not enough time to enjoy the full beauty of the beach. The reason why this beach did not became my „perfect beach“ was the fact that it was the only beach in this area where people got killed by sharks (two shark attacks within one week). The rest of the day was again sailing as we wanted to reach South Molle Island before it would get dark. The day ended with some drinking games, such as „Captain Cook took his first drink“, I’ve never ever…, I kiss the ping little pig on… etc.

17th of September, South Molle Island
My last day on the boat – unfortunately… We stopped at the South Molle Island before we sailed back to Airlie Beach. South Molle Island, which lies in the heart of the 74 Wthitsunday Island has it’s own golf course, some very nice walking tracks and a huge swimming pool. Most of the crew stayed on the „Romance“ while we (the travellers) enjoyed half of the day, relaxing at the swimming pool and exploring the island. It was really hard to leave this pacific paradise to sail back to the „real world“. The day ended as many tours ended before, the crew went out to a bar with us and we chatted about the days we had spent together, changed email addresses and had a few beers together.

11th of September, Brisbane to Hervey Bay

Half of the day on the bus, listening to Travis – The invisible band, my favourit CD on this trip… I guess most of the people don’t know Hervey Bay, but if I mention Fraser Island, probably everyone will say „Ahhhh – biggest sand-island of the world! “ Right, and Hervey Bay is the place you arrive at if you want to explore Fraser Island. Hervey Bay itself doesn’t offer a lot, a bit of beach, a bit of nightlife, but nothing real important. The real impressive happening in Hervey Bay takes place between about 6:00 and 8:30 pm. Thousands of „fruit bats“ huge and scary-looking animals occupy the sky.

12th of September,
I don’t feel in the mood to write about what happened in Brisbane, instead I decided to share my day at Harvey Bay, Fraser Island. The day started very early, at 4:00 am. I didn’t had a clue at this time about what had happened just a couple of hours before on the other side of the world. I first got the news on the boat, and thought the tour guide made a very sick joke. But I wasn’t sure… He was too serious, too much details, so I took my binoculars and looked at the TV-screen of another boat across the pier. I saw a fire-fighters and started to believe the story of our tour guide. Yet, it was hard to believe.

We then started our tour to watch one of the most beautiful and peaceful creatures in the world, whales, to be exact ‚hunchback whales, the fifth largest animal in the world. The first whale I saw was jumping out of the water, a very powerful moment. We later watched a group of four whales and followed them about 2 hours before we had to go back.

The five hours on the boat went by very fast, we all talked about the possibility of the story the tour guide told us, if this could be true.

All my fears came true when we finally got back to the harbour and I first walked into a restaurant which had the TV set switched on. I had planed to rent a bike that day, to go around Hervey Bay, but that was impossible for me. Instead I spend the whole day at the hostel, following the shocking news from New York. I have a relative in New York, and of course the whole Worldsurface crew, which I knew work at Wall Street.

It was a big relive to read that the whole worldsurface team was doing well, and I feel very sorry for all those, who where on the planes, in the World Trade Centre or at the Pentagon. Thanks for updating the page and sharing your thoughts, even during such a horrible event!

Hervey Bay was a very quiet and strange place that day, everybody was talking about what had happened that day, and a taxidriver told me it was the most quiet day for him ever since. It’s hard to believe what happened, I know that the world has changed that morning, it’s never going to be the same again.

8th of September, Botanical Gardens, Arriving in Brisbane
My last day in Sydney, which I spend mostly at the Royal Botanical Gardens. It was a sunny day and walking around in a green surrounding was, for my opinion, the best thing I could possibly do.

One of my favourite spots in the park was a walk that explains the history of Sydney.It showed the history of the white people in Sydney and on the other hand the Aboriginal point of few. For example: James Cook discovered Australia in 1770, the Aboriginal comment related to this note:
They (white people) say he discovered Australia, but we never lost it!
By the way, did you know that more then 700 convicts where among the first settlers which arrived in Sydney? I finally left Sydney at 6:30 p.m. to go to Brisbane, after eight wonderful days, with lots of great impressions.

9th of September, Brisbane
Days in Bris-Vegas, or the story ofhow I saved some bucks in accommodation, thanks to my mate Severin who currently studies in Brisbane. I arrived in Brisbane on the 8th of August, and after my first night, which I spent at a Irish pub in ‚Garden City'(a shopping and entertainment centre). Brisbane got it’s second name (Bris-Vegas) because of it’s active nightlife. Active nightlife…

On the 9th of August, my friend showed me around Brisbane and it’s most important sights which included a the city hall and a ferry ride on the Brisbane river. If you have some time in Brisbane, visit the New Farm Park , a very nice spot to relax and have BBQ or something like that. Later that day we visited the final ceremonies of the Goodwill Games, a major sport event in Brisbane. This included a INXS concert (the rest of the group with a new singer) and a huge fireworks. Good fun and best of all, for free.

10th of September, Campus
I spend a couple of hours in front of a PC University, to keep up with my writing for Worldsurface and to send some emails to my friends, which hadn’t heard from me for a while.

5th of September, Harbour Bridge Walk, Darling Harbour
My day started with a walk on the infamous Harbour Bridge. I guess there is no way to escape from it if you want to claim that you “have been” to Sydney. I didn’t climbed the Harbour Bridge, which is a 150 Dollar experience, instead I paid 5 bucks to walk up the stairs of the observation tower, which is just as nice.

Next was Darling Harbour, home of the IMAX Cinema, Sydney Aquarium, Chinese Gardens, the National Maritime Museum, the casino and some other major attractions. I spend about 3,5 hours in the Aquarium, walking around and watching the amazing and very colourful examples of Australian Marine life. They got some amazing underwater tunnels there and the sharks do really look very scary. Since the casino was very close to the Aquarium, I just walked over and tried some of the slot machines. Fortuna seemed to like me that day, I won 20 Dollar, walked out of the casino and had a nice dinner.

6th of September, Yoga lessons in Avalon
Wondering about the topic? To enlighten you: Avalon is a beautiful suburb of Sydney and a friend (the one I met in Bangkok) is currently living there. It’s also a nice trip by bus (or ferry) along the coast. My friend showed me around Avalon and we had a nice walk down to the beach.

I had a terrible cold that day, and needed tons of tissues, but after some yoga practice (my friend is a superb Yoga teacher) I felt much better. It was by the way my first experience in Yoga, and I recommend it to everyone who spends too much time in front of the computer (or TV).

For those who’ve never heard about Yoga: Through controlled breathing, prescribed postures (called asanas), and meditation, Yoga seeks to enhance the prana, the so called life force, that resides in the body and achieve a state of balance and harmony between body and mind.

My balance and harmony between my body and mind is now in a perfect condition and my cold was gone the very next day! 🙂

7th of September, Newtown
It was time for some changes, and I already had visited the important sights of Sydney so I wanted to get a closer look at one of the suburbs of Sydney, I decided to walk to ‚Newtown‘, which is situated about 30 minutes north-east of the youth hostel. The suburb is very nice and not as expensive then the downtown area. The buildings look quiet old (like from the 70ties) and you can buy nearly everything you can imagine. I found a cool second-hand book shop with an huge selection of great novels and non fiction as well just on the main street.

I had booked an Eco tour to the Blue Mountains, and after a 1,5 hour drive in the early morning, we arrived at the entrance of our walking trail. The Blue Mountains are a part of the Great Dividing Range, and a nice break from the city if you feel the need for some fresh air and wild nature.The blue haze, which gave the mountains their name, is the result of the fine mist of the oil, given off by eucalyptus. We started with a 3-hour hiking tour, which was a great chance to see lots of different birds and animals.

The temperature differences between the top and the bottom of the canyon is impressive and the vegetation changes dramatically as we where walking deeper into the canyon. After the hike we were rewarded with a great outlook of the “Grand Canyon“. Our next stop was at the Echo Point, where we were able to see the marvellous “Three Sisters”. After lunch I took the “Scenic railway” to the bottom of the valley, more a fast ride then a usual railway… We finished the day with kangaroo watching. My first closes encounter with those animals since I arrived in Australia.

1st of September, Wallabies VS All Blacks
If you travel Australia, you pretty soon will find out, that everybody else is doing the same stuff, at the same time. When I woke up that morning in Sydney I met Uwe (a guy from Germany) again. We where staying in the same room – in one of the biggest hostels in the world! For explanation,I first met Uwe in Darwin, later again in Alice Springs and Adelaide and finally in Sydney, thousands of kilometres away from where we first met.

But we never planed to meet at all those places! We spent the rest of the day together, exploring the city. Our walking tour started at Circular Quay, which is kind of centre for transportation. You can catch ferries, trains and busses going to every direction at this place.

There are also plenty of restaurants and little shops around and plenty of street artists, which creates a very relaxed and funny atmosphere.

Next was a walk to the “Opera House”, which took us about 5 to 10 minutes from Circular Quay. We continued our tour with a quick walk through the “Royal Botanical Gardens”, passing by the Art Gallery of New South Wales, before we did some shopping at Martin’s Place. St. Mary’ Cathedral and Hyde Park were the two major spots on our way to Oxford street. We actually bumped into a wedding at St. Mary’s Cathedral but in order not to make the whole thing a “Two funerals and a wedding” we headed on to the “Australian Museum”.

The Museum looked kind of interesting, but six dollars admission and not being in the mood for natural history and cultural diversity, we just had a quick look at the lobby and the museum shop, those parts where free of charge. Finally, we experienced Oxford street, but compared to the description in the guidebook I thought it’s quiet boring and not worth to be visited during the daytime.

At night I watched the rugby game Australians (Wallabies) VS New Zealand (All Blacks) at a pub next to the hostel. The atmosphere there was gorgeous since both nationalities where represented in the pub and every time one of the teams scored one of the groups in the pub would jump up and scream and clap their hands. Australia finally won the game, 26/23, after an amazing turnover in the last fifteen minutes.

I finished the day with a walk to the Opera House and a short visit at “Kings Cross”. Lot’s of Australians where celebrating their victory on the streets and it was kind a fun to watch them. My visit at Kings Cross at 11:00 p.m. at night was pretty scary, after five minutes, walking around I already got the offer to try Cannabis, which was a sign for me to take the next train back to hostel…

2nd of September, Manly
Following an invitation of Karen to visit her, I took a ferry to Manly in the morning. It was a very sunny day and I enjoyed sitting on the outside of the boat, looking at the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Lots of people from Sydney come over to Manly on weekends to relax at the beach. Karen showed me around and also forced me to try my first “meat pie” an Australian speciality you must not miss if you spend some time “Down Under”.

3rd of September, The Rocks, Sydney Olympic Centre
Another day of exploring Sydney, this time with a friend I first met in Bangkok on a bus. We started at “The Rocks”, Sydney’s first European settlement. Former a place for convicts, whalers, prostitutes and street gangs, today a charming place with lot’s of old colonial buildings.

After our tour trough the early history of Sydney we went straight to a very futuristic place of Sydney, the Olympic Centre. The Olympic Summer Games where held in Sydney last September. You might remember the reports about the games, millions of people and more then 20.000 athletes. When we got there, the whole area was nearly deserted, a few people here and there and I felt like an little ant, compared to the massive stadiums and the huge parks.

29th and 30th of August
The second largest city of Australia is on the one hand a very modern city but on the other hand still keeps a very special European flair. In the year 1835, John Bartman bought the area from Aboriginal people. He died soon after his deal, and John Pascoe Fawkner was the driving force behind the new settlement, nowadays well know as Melbourne.

Australian city’s have such a short history, for example my home village in Austria (Ulrichsberg) – It was founded in 1325, more then 675 years ago by a priest named Ulrich and it’s current population is about 4000 people. Melbourne was founded about 175 years ago, now it’s a city three time’s bigger then Vienna (capitol of Austria), which has a history that goes back to the Roman Empire.

But back to my short visit in Melbourne… Of course I spend some time at the Crown Casino, the biggest of it’s kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Altogether I lost a whole dollar at a slot machine, shame on me… If you are on a short budget (or lost all your money at the casino) and don’t want to walk, there is a free tram operating from 10:00 am to 03:00 p.m. It operates around downtown and you get an explanation of the most important sights.

A visit at St Kilda beach was also on my list of “Must Do’s” and I ended up as an photo model for a bunch of girls, (they where working on a school project). I was on a pier when one of the girls walked over to me and asked if they can do pictures of me… Nothing else to do I agreed so the girl hugged me and the other girls made a bunch of photos. I wonder what this school project was about…

The Royal Botanical Gardens were my last major sight of Melbourne. I enjoyed a cup of tea in the cafeteria and explored the huge park, which took me nearly three hours.

31st of August, Melbourne to Sydney
Trip to Sydney on a Firefly bus (40 Dollars). There is nothing much to say about the time on the bus, expect that we once stopped at the biggest Merino of the world (Wow…) and that one of the guys was constantly fighting with the bus driver.

25th of August, Arrival in Adelaide

My first day in the “city of churches” started with a tram ride and a visit at the beach. Adelaide got it’s second name because it was the first city where everyone had free choice of religion. In the evening I met Gerry (I met him first in Bangkok) again, who showed me around the city.

26th and 27th of August, Adelaide
Adelaide has a lot to offer, if you have enough time… For me, being short on time, it was my first break after travelling almost 5000 kilometre in 10 days (It’s about 3000 kilometres from Darwin to Adelaide, and about 1000 kilometres per trip I did) . I originally planed to stay just two nights there, but, plans change frequently… I visited the beach a few times, which is a nice trip by tram and enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere of Adelaide during the night as I explored some pub’s and bars with fellow traveler’s I met in the youth hostel.

28th of August, Barossa Valley
If you like wine as I do, there is no way to skip Barossa Valley if you have a day or two in Adelaide. The Barossa Valley is about 55 km north east of Adelaide. Many agencies’ offer day-tours leaving Adelaide in the early morning, I booked a tour with Groovy Grape, but I guess they are all pretty similar. Our first stop was the “Whispering Wall”, a concrete dam wall with an unbelievable acoustics, normal conversations held at one end can be heard clearly at the other end, more then 140 Meters away. Our next stop was Orlando, one of the oldest wineries in the valley, established 1847. Next was a lunch break and we continued with two more wineries and a distillery. I ended up with 26 different wines and 3 cocktails. My favourite was a Port Wine named “Choc a Bloc”, (or something like that), but I unfortunately forgot the name of the wineries. I wonder why… Later that day I found out that being “tipsy” doesn’t mean to be able to sleep on a bus, as I travelled from Adelaide to Melbourne.

I had to get up early, as I wanted to go to Adelaide by the infamous “Ghan”. My first stop was at the train office in Alice, but unfortunately they didn’t had any tickets left. I decided to walk over to the railway station in case some passengers wouldn’t show up. Lucky me, I got the last available seat. The trip was very comfortable and surprisingly cheap (100 Australian Dollar) compared to the bus. To travel by train trough the outback is very funny, you can watch the landscape passing by, and if you take another look four hours later, it still would look like the same.

20th of August, Bus to Alice Springs
I had to leave Darwin at lunch time to go 1500 kilometre south, to Alice Springs. A never-ending 22 hour journey.Luckily the bus was comfortable!

21st of August, Alice
A 22 hour journey on a bus is an „experience“, I never thought my back could hurt that much! It takes about 15 minutes to get from the bus terminal to the youth hostel. Not being in the best condition it seemed like an eternity to me.

Many Aboriginal live in Alice but sad to see lots of them sitting on the street’s doing nothing the whole day or even worse, drinking alcohol most of the time. I tried to talk to some of them, but it seems that they avoid talking to foreigners. A local told me that they get money from the Australian government, so they don’t have to work. All the bottle shops (the place you can buy alcohol) are closed the day they get their money.

22nd of August, Kings Canyon, Sunset at Uluru
Start of my two-day journey to the heart of Australia. Peter, the guide on the two-day trip and Glen (my former tour guide) had two things in common: Both sang a lot and loved Pulp Fiction. Peter was about to enter a Karaoke contest the following Friday, so he kept training the whole time. As soon as we left Alice, I realised that the „Red Center“ was more a green garden then a dessert. Lots and lots of various flowers, green gras and beautiful trees created amazing scenery. It had stopped raining just a week before I got to Alice and spring was just about to start. The got lots of rain the past few years, very unusual for this region.

Our first stop was Mount Ebeneser, about 250 kilometres west of Alice, a little gas station with an Aboriginal Art gallery in the middle of nowhere. Our second stop was King’s canyon, where we hiked on top and had a look into the canyon. The first white owners already thought about tourism in this area so they choose names such as “Lost City” and “Garden Eden” to attract travellers.

After a two-hour hike through the canyon we headed on to the Uluru, to watch the sunset. It was really awesome to see “The Rock” changing into all this different kind of red’s. We where also able to see Kata Juta (the Olga’s), which looked like Homer Simpson, lying on his back (seriously!).

23rd of August, Uluru, Kata Juta (Olga’s)
We had to get up early, to watch the sunrise at Uluru. As you may know, the Aboriginal doesn’t want you to climb Uluru as it is a very religious place for them. Many people got hurt or died trying to climb and the Aboriginal feel responsible for them. I respect the rules of the Aboriginal and decided to do a walking tour around the rock instead. Which was very good decision.

Kata Juta was our next stop. It’s a very important place for the Aboriginal man, as they go there to “teach” younger men. After a last stop to take pictures at Uluru we went all the way back to Alice.