THE END

This is going to be my last post for the moment.

It was nice having a blog in English, but in the last weeks I haven't had time to write here.

Furthermore, the traffic was very low in the last couple of months; therefore, it doesn't make sense to keep this blog alive.

Maybe I will restart it in the future.

Nothing is for sure!!!

For those who speak German,
The German Blog
is still alive.

OUT!!!

I'm still alive

Been a while since the last post, I was busy and had no time to post but here is an update of the last 4 weeks.

After Sydney I got back to Brisbane, for my last week and then I found my way to the Outback.
Did a 3 day roundtrip from Alice Springs to se Uluru and all the rest. This is magnificent and a must see in Australia. As it was quite warm during the nights and days (25-45°C) we just camped outside. Pretty nice.

The next stop after this trip was Melbourne. Even though I stayed in Melbourne I spend the first two days on the road. The first day I made a trip along the Great Ocean Road, which is very different from the Outback, but still amazing, you can see rainforests, cliffs, wild Koalas and much more. On the next day I was on Phillip Island to enjoy the nature there. The best part about this trip is the Penguin landing in the evening. By dawn loads of Penguins get to the beach and walk up to their nests, very cute.

So much about the trips, Melbourne itself is a nice place with an uncountable number of coffee shops, nice architecture and excellent food. Besides doing sightseeing I also got myself a ticket for the Australian Open. Good venue, can recommend to go there, the only minus it's overpriced.

Melbourne was my last stop in Australia and it was time to go back to Europe, but not in a single journey I stopped over in Singapore.
This is a very interesting place to visit, besides all those little quarters to see, like Chinatown and Little India, Singapore also offers a humongous amount of awesome and cheap food places. One can easily get a complete lunch or dinner for 3-5 Euros, freshly made. Besides the city centre one can also visit beaches, amusement parks and the rainforest, so there is a lot to do.

Next stop after Singapore was Germany, where I stayed for about a week and then I moved to Lisbon, Portugal, where I will be until June/July. Next updates from here will follow soon!!

Sydney

So the Sydney part is still missing. Here we go:

As Sydney was completely crowded and it was impossible or unreasonable expensive to find a place to stay, I just couchsurfed my week there. Most of the time I've just done sightseeing, must have walked a hundred miles during that week, but it was definitely worth it as I saw a lot.

Obiviously I had to post a picture of the skyline with the famous Opera and Harbour Bridge. Both are quite impressive, especially the opera at night. Other interesting places to go to are Darling Harbour (also by night) and Chinatown, loads of good food there.

The Harbour Bridge was also one major highlight at New Year's when a massive firework took place in the harbour area, that was really impressive!!! And definitely worth waiting for it all day, we had to get there at 10am to queue to get in.

I've also been to the zoo, which is on the other side of the harbour and therefore has some magnificent views of the city.
Once you're down in Sydney you can't miss out the super-crowded beaches, where you sometimes actually have to queue an hour to get the bus back. Here is a picture of Bondi Beach.

A good, cheap and effective way to move around town, are the ferries, especially the ones close to the Harbour Bridge as you get awesome views from there.
And for those who wanna dive back into time, they should visit the Luna Park, which was opened over 80 years ago.

Back in Brisbane

That's where I am, back in Brisbane. The last two weeks have been amazing.
There would be so much to tell that I can't figure it in here, so just a short description of what I've done in Tasmania. A link to pictures is provided below.

After arriving in Hobart we rented a car and drove south to explore the southern part of Tasmania. After that we went back to Hobart and drove in a long loop through the west and partly the north to Launceston. Tasmania is completely different from the rest of Australia I've seen, much greener and wetter. Hence there are lots of lakes, waterfalls (very beautiful ones), forest, etc. to see and hike around. Furthermore we encountered lost of Wildlife, uncountable wallabies roadside, even coming close up to our tent, as the possums did. Wild wombats, grazing like sheep, very cute and echidnas... very clumsy animals, but pretty fun to watch.

If one got time and want to see a completely different side of Australia, one should definitely go to Tasmania. A week should be enough to see the major attractions, but one can easily stay there for some time, just hike and enjoy the nature.

Enough of the writing, here are the pictures!

There it goes

The last week, which was also my last week at work for this year, has been more or less without anything special happening.
I took the Friday of and went to Gold Coast... quite nice and worth to see it once, especially when there is something going on, otherwise it's just another beach. And there are better ones to visit then this, especially due to the fact, that the beach is covered in the skyscrapers shadows after 4pm... Who had that brilliant idea?
To sum it up, Gold Coast seems to be more like a little Santa Monica or Venice Beach, but much smaller and less exciting.

Yesterday I've attended one more match of Brisbane Roar, this time against Central Coast and Brisbane lost 2:1. This is also another record for Roar. The other game I watched was the record for the longest winning streak in Australian sports history, but since then, they lost every match and with last nights' they leveled the teams record for most consecutive losses in history. Well, not sure if that is a record you want to break...

Anyways, my luggage is ready, cause tomorrow I'll be flying to Tasmania, where I'll spend the next week and thereafter it's time to go to Sydney for New Years!

New Job, New Party, Same Weather

Since this week I'm working in a new department and have to design maps for carbon offset areas. Much more interesting than what I've done before.

Therefore we went onside on Wednesday. The worst day we could choose with pouring rain. And as the newbie, I was walking through head-high grasses to get GPS-Data. Sounds worse than it actually was. Much better than sitting in the office all the time, so I really enjoyed that outdoor work.

Besides that we also hat our Christmas Party on Thursday, which included some Minigolf and a Bar Night afterwards. Quite funny, even if most people didn't take the game to serious and were more focused on drinking.

Nothing really special happened over the weekend, mostly stay at home and studied, as this might have been the best option considering the weather. Just today I went to the library as they were screening 'The Dark Knight'. This is a quite good feature, they are having free screenings each Sunday there.

Well, that's about it folks... Next week will be the last week at work for this year and then it's finally time to travel around!

The Australian Wildlife - A Start

Friday was my day off work and I took the chance to go to the 'Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary'. Before I start to tell you what you can do and see there, I just have to say, that this was the most amazing thing I did in Australia so far.

'Lone Pine' is the oldest and biggest Koala Sanctuary in the World with more than 130 Koalas. But it's more like a little zoo, as one can find other animals there, like the Tasmanian Devil, Kangaroos, Platypus, Parrots, etc. The area itself is at a very nice location next to the River, so one has actually the chance t get there by a cruise (which costs extra).

During the day, there are plenty of shows, like feedings, Meet & Greets with keepers and animals. As they are specialized in Koalas there is an opportunity throughout the day to hold a Koala and have a picture taken with him (costs extra again, 16$). Thought about doing that, but didn't, because there is actually another chance to get into touch with a Koala. They have Koala presentations twice a day and after that, one gets the chance to pet on. Koalas are the fluffiest things I've ever touched in life.
The talks and feedings of the Platypus and Tasmanian Devil are also very interesting, so is the Bird of Prey show, where birds actually fly just centimeters over your head, literally.

But the Sanctuary is also famous for its Kangaroo enclosure, where everybody can just walk in, hang out and feed them. This is pretty awesome, as the Kangaroos are pretty laid back you can really chill out next to them. This also gives great photo-opportunities, an example is under the post. One can also buy a bag of Kangaroo-Food for 2$. If you wanna take good pictures with them, I recommend doing that, as this is the chance to really interest them in you and your camera ;-)

I spend the whole day there, but if you don't have that much time, you can basically see it all in 2-3 hours, but if you have the time, take it and enjoy the animals, espicially that Kangaroo enclosure, it's just fun to sit on the grass and be surrounded by them.