Report from Australia

Hi there, now that I have some spare time I would like to fill you in on my what I have been up to in my last weeks in Australia. I did not really get round to it before. So here we go. As you might have understood I went up to Cairns for a week. I was not really in the mood for travelling, but I really wanted to see the rainforest and the great barrier reef, so I took the easy way out and got myself a fairly expensive plane ticket to Cairns. The trip takes about three hours -2000 km- and then you are there. Cairns.


I assumed that Cairn would be a nice and big city with heaps of stuff to do, but that was a bit of a disappointment. It is small and it is there for tourists. There is not much to do on your own, so you will have to take a organised tour. So thats what I did. The first day I went snorkling on a massive catamaran that speeds out to the reef in about 1.5 hours. The snorkling was awesome, sadly I did not take any photos of fish as my camera is not waterproof. After that lunch is served and you are taken to a second, also nice, snorkling spot. The second and third days I went up to the Daintree rainforst at Cape Tribulation. This is where the rainforest meets the sea and there are some stunning beaches and trees. No swimming though as all the waters are inhabited by crocodiles. Most people that die of crodile attacks are Germans, closely followed by the Japanese. On the route from Cairn to the rainforest we stopped a several interesting locations: a jungle walk - pretty neat, a nice wooden walkway to keep you comfortable -, a river filled with crocodiles - we saw only 2 crodiles and they did not seem that fierce -, a viewpoint from where you could see the spot where Steve Irwin died and Port Douglas - I do not recommend going there -. All in all a nice trip.

When I got back I did not really feel like staying in Cairns for the reasons stated above. I thus decided to go to Magnetic Island near Townsville. The Island I really nice with forests and beaches where you can actually swim. I visited a Koala village and also managed to see some Koalas hanging from the trees. After that it was time to get back to Sydney again. When I got back there I met up with Megan for a weekend in Port Stephens. Port Stephens I a nice and quiet village about 3 hours North of Sydney by bus. It has some nice beaches and walks through the forests. Supposedly it is possible to spot dolpins and whales at Port Stephens, which is something I would have liked. This is either a lie, or I just had bad luck, I did not see any. It was a pretty nice getaway anyway.

The last days in Sydney were a bit sad, as I spend most of my time saying goodbye to many nice people. I have also been looking for a graduation project to start graduating when I get back home which is starting to get somewhere.

See some photoos on flickr

In Singapore

Hi! Arrived in Singapore last night in the middle of the night. The flight from Australia to here was good and I think I will miss Sydney. I will now go and explore Singapore and hope to upload some photoos, also from Cairns one of these days. Ciao!

To Cairns and beyond...

After many days of bumming
around Sydney I am finally
moving again. This time up North,
next friday, as they are saying
it will start raining in Sydney.
I will fly with my trusted
Quantas airways to see
the Great Barrier reef and the
Daintree rainforest. I'll try to
take some photos for you
 people at home. Details below. 

YOUR ITINERARY AND TRAVEL DETAILS:

QANTAS AIRWAYS          QF0167  ECONOMY CLASS   (M)  CONFIRMED
  DEPART     04JUL08   SYDNEY                             0805
  ARRIVE     04JUL08   CAIRNS                             1110
  DEPARTS FROM:TERMINAL 1
  ARRIVES AT:  TERMINAL I
                         NVA 31DEC
 BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE: 20 KILO
-----------------------------------------------------------------
QANTAS AIRWAYS          QF0921  ECONOMY CLASS   (S)  CONFIRMED
  DEPART     11JUL08   CAIRNS                             0545
  ARRIVE     11JUL08   SYDNEY                             0845
  DEPARTS FROM:TERMINAL D
  ARRIVES AT:  TERMINAL 3
                         NVA 31DEC
 BAGGAGE ALLOWANCE: 20 KILO
-----------------------------------------------------------------

And in Sydney?

It is nice to be back in Sydney. I met up with some friends from university for a birth celebration on thursday and went to see the Sydney Biennale with Megan yesterday. Both were really nice. The Biennale is an fairly large arts event in the city and yesterday we checked out one location: Cockatoo Island. Getting there by a free ferry was fun and the Island in itself was an awesome place to visit. It used to be a Australian navy base, but has been abandoned since and now hosts the arts festival. It has cool cranes, buildings and tunnels all over the place and the art was quite nice as well. In the evening we went to see a theatre show in Surry Hills, which although I am not much into theatre, I must admit was very cool to see.

In my house in Leichhardt things are becoming quiet as most kids are now leaving for their parents for the winterholidays. This is a bit sad have come to enjoy living with them. Today or tomorrow I hope to come up with a plan to travel around Australia a bit more (North is warm) and I will let you know where I am going asap. See you!

Ah, and there should be photos on Flickr yet again.

Melbourne report

Hi, for those who were wondering what I was up to in Melbourne: here is a short report, to keep you up to date. As mentioned before I went down to Melbourne with Guido, my Italian friend from across the hall. Sonja cooked us a nice dinner and dropped us off at the busstop from where we took the nightbus. Though the night bus was cheap, the ride was hell. The ride was long (8hours) and uncomfortable. In the middle of the night we had a short stop at a rather depressing truck stop.

At 8 am in the morning we finally arrived exhausted in the city. We took up residence in the All Nations backpackers. A typical dodgy backpackers that would do fine for a couple of days. We decided to explore the city by the free circle line tram and after we went for wine in the Black Cat in Fitzroy. During the week the Black Cat turned into our favorite midnight hangout and their Cabernet Merlot turned into our drug of choice.

Melbourne is a very cool place to visit. Everything is closer together then back here in Sydney and the shopping is ridiculously good. Got myself a new pair of Onitsuka Tigers and trousers. There are a lot of arty things to see, but the nicest thing about Melbourne would be the bumming around in the many coffee and wine bars. Good times were had right there.

Should you be around you should definetely visit the Victoria National Gallery, maybe the best arts museum in Australia?, Federation Square - lots going on there, we saw the GAME ON video game expostion at the ACMI - and the Royal Botannical Gardens were quite awesome as well. We also went to see a game of Aussie Rules Football, a combination of rugby, soccer, basket and volleyball at the MCG, but that did not quite work for me. Could not figure out the game, but seeing it was an experience in its own.

See the photoos on Flickr.

Melbourne photoos online

Hi there, just uploaded a set of photoos of my trip to Melbourne. Check m out if you like it on Flickr. Details might follow tomorrow...

Back from Melbourne

Hi there! It has been a while and a lot has been going on. University ended two weeks ago and I think everything was handed in succesfully, so I should be fine. Now I need to get started on looking for my graduation project, as all courses have been completed. It is a strange thought.

Just as I was enjoying my sparetime and considering finally backing up my pictures and documents, my computer crashed last week. The thing got stuck in a vicious Windows update loop. It keept booting, configuring 0% and restart - shutting down and again. It could not be persuaded to stop doing this so I has to bring out a linux boot cd to rescue my documents and now I have got a brand new Vista running on a otherwise empty harddisk.


When the Vista ordeal was over I went to Melbourne with Guido, the Italian from across the hallway. We took a cheap night bus to get there and that took 8 misrable hours. Once there Melbourne was pretty pretty cool. It has nice and big centre and exels in shopping, coffee - and wine drinking facilities. We also saw some cool expositions in the ACMI: GAME ON a retrospective on videogame design and the National Gallery of Victoria was showing the works of Alfred Stieglitz and Otto Dix among many other things. I'll try to get some photos and maybe more stories online soon, but now I have to go and check on my laundry. See you soon...