Sydney

Having arrived in Sydney we went to Bondi Junktion to meet our friends from school and to watch a movie with them. We parked our car in a car park, knowing it was going to be quite expensive...


When we went to our car after the movie and dinner we had to find the car park already closed (it wasn't supposed to be opened on a sunday but as it was it had only opened until 6 instead of 8). Even our desperate phone calls to the company that owned the carpark didn't help us. Our camper was locked in.

Luckily we were still with our friends and we could sleep in their accomodation. They are couch surfing and they left us their bed for the night and slept knightly on the couch or in Marco's car.

On the next day we went to get our camper back. After having told our story to the carpark keeper he let us off without paying for our stay.

We went to explore a little the city around "the Rocks".

Their was a small market and we slendered there and watched the stock.

After that we walked over the Harbour Bridge and enjoyed the view over the opera house.

Today we went to the city by public transportation. This took us a little bit longer, but was more practical as we didn't have to park our car.

We walked trough the city and the botanical garden.



Where is Oli?

View from the botanial garden

Tomorrow we will visit the zoo.

Christmas in Port Stephens 2

We spent our Christmasday with a short trip around Port Stephens.

In the morning we went to a huge sanddune that looks a little bit like a desert. (Probably one of the reasons why this was the location of some scenes in "Mad Max".)

We had lunch in a lovely restaurant in the Harbour of Nelson Bay. Afterwards, we discovered a little bit the Area.

It has white beaches with the finest sand giving the water this wonderful colour.

It was fun to climb over the rocks around the edge of the water.

In the late afternoon we returned to our pool and worked a little bit on our tan. All in all we had a fairly relaxing day.

Tomorrow we will hit the road again. Destination: Sidney!

Crowdy Bay and Christmas in Port Stephens

Yesterday we drove from Nambucca Heads to Crowdy Bay National Park.


After a wet start in the day the weather soon got better. We made our lunch break in Port Macquarie where we had attended to spend a night before we decided to stay a day longer in Nambucca.

We then followed the coastal drive and entered the Crowdy Bay National Park. The roads were sandpist of the more difficult kind. But the woods of eucalytus trees were amazing.

Having arrived at the caravan park Flo discovered she had been bitten by a leach. After Flo removed the leach panicly the leach still hung at her shoe and the bite was bleeding incredibly. Oli killed the leach following the advise of the receptionist.

iihhh, a leach!

Poor Flo..

Today we went early shopping for our christmas-dinner. We had plans for prawns-salmon-kebab. The aussis usually eat prawns on christmas so we were warned that it would be difficult to get any around christmas.

When we had filled our supplies we drove on in direction Myall Lakes National Park. We had to drive sometimes on sandpists again and at some point we had to take a farry. But the Myall Lake was very beautiful and we even saw two black swans (special for Oli who read the book "the black swan").

But there were also some huge sanddunes that were quite comparable with Fraser Island.

Finally we arrived in Port Stephens. Our caravan park is situated right at the Sea and from our Camper it's only about 20m to the water.

We started to prepare our dinner. Prawns-Salmon-Kebab with christmas trees-potatos and star-carrots. (There was more but we didn't want to overcrowd the plates.)

Now we are lying in the camper listening to some christmas music. Brings us a little bit in the mood in this warm place.

However, on Christmas it is a little lonely here in Australia just without our family. We miss you guys very much! But already in two days we'll meet our friends in Sidney. So we can celebrate Chistmas together with them.

We wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

P.S. Oli is a lot better! Only the cough remains.
P.P.S. We have no reception with our cellphone on the camp ground.

Dorrigo, Nambucca Heads

We drove from Coffs Harbour to Dorrigo, where we heard a skywalk is located in which you could walk through the canopy of the subtropical rainforest.
The road was some kilometres sandpist. And suddenly we encountered this red-bellied blake snake.

Its venom is capable of causing significant morbidity (Wikipidia)

Knowing it was poisonous we didn't get out of the car to shoot this picture...

A little bit further on we stopped at the beautiful Dangar Falls. Maybe not the highest in Autstralia but they were visible.

While the trip to Dorrigo was an adventure the Skywalk didn't lived up to our high expectations. It was a 70m long platform with some canopy on the side and a magnicificent view on the end.

All in all we were still a little disappointed and as the caravanpark in Dorrigo seemed rather a little uninviting, we decided to drive on to Nambucca Heads.

We found a very pretty caravanpark which was even cheaper than the one in Dorrigo.

Oli finally took the advice from our mothers and went to a doctor. But that was not as easy as we thought. The medical centre had already closed that day (christmas days...). We therefore decided to stay one night longer and try it again today. But in Nambucca the medical centre couldn't threat Oli because five out of six doctors were already in holiday and the remaining one was fully booked. Finally we had to drive to the next village Macksville to find a doctor and the desired treatment.

What Oli suffers from is still obscure but we're positive the heaps of antibiotics, he takes against it, will finish it off.

(Oh, and if you ever take a description in an "Aussie-Pharmacia" make sure you check the medication twice. Because we were already half on our way home when we realised that some of the medicaments were missing...)

Back in the caravanpark Oli was resting and trying to recover while poor Flo had to do the laundry all by herself...

Coffs Harbour via Yamba

Yesterday we went to Yamba. Flo had to drive all the way (for the first time...) as Oli was still sick.
It rained all day and we didn't do much. Just lying in our van and watching DVDs.

The next day we were gifted with the most beautiful weather and during the day Oli felt already a little bit better. So we started confident our trip to Coffs Harbour. Although the beaches are a little rocky and the sand is not as fine as in Noosa, it is a really nice spot for it is not as crowded as Noosa.

We used our time and the weather to do some short promenades:

And to lie a little on the beach:

Oli put his warm sweather on...

Flo found also a comfortable position...


..only for the pictures of course. Afterwards she came back to our towels and took a nap with Oli.
Now we're sitting in the camp kitchen of our caravan park which has free wireless internet! :D

Byron Bay

We continued our travel to Byron Bay. Unfortunately Oli got sick and has now since two days fever... :-(
But somehow we still try to enjoy our trip. And what should we do else...

On our way to Byron Bay we passed the small village Nimbin. It is now what Byron Bay was 15 years ago: a funcioning hippie-commune (and home of the 1973 Aquarius Festival).

While Byron due to its beautiful beaches became more and more commercialisised, Nimbin stayed mostly the way it was and looks now a little bit like a place from another world.

In the mainstreet are funny shops usually "promoting the appreciation, education, benefits, culture and freedom for all natural plants and herbs" (so the headshop "Happy High Herbs").

But the scent of the hippies and the continuing offering of illegal substances became soon to much for us and we drove on to our next goal: Byron Bay.

We were not able to see much, because Oli was mostly asleep back in the van. On our second day we had planned a day at the beach which was rather 2 hours at the beach. But we used some of our time to see the breathtaking scenic view from the lighthouse.

And of course we went despite Flo's muscle fever to the most easterly point of Australia.

Mount Warning

Finally we had to leave the Gold Coast and we continued into the hinterland a little further south. Our goal was the Mount Warning National Park.

On the way we stopped at an interesting geological phenomenon: a natural bridge. It was created by the erosion caused by a waterfall. The water formed a cave under the fall and a little upstream a deep pool was eroded. Eventually the pool broke through the cave roof, allowing the water to plunge through the hole in the cave below.

We continued further on our road and almoust missed the State Border which we crossed. We had now left Queensland and entered New South Wales. (We had to set our watches one hour forward, for all states except of Queensland change their time in summer...)

Finally Mount Warning came into view.

Mount Warning is about 1200 metres above sealevel and not far from Byron Bay which is the furtherst eastern point of Australia. Therefore the summit of Mount Warning is the point where the rising sun touches the Australian Continent first.

Of course that makes Mount Warning the most exclusive spot to watch the sunrise. And for us it ment getting up at 2:30 am (in our inner Queensland watches this was still 1:30 am...) and starting to climb the mountain in complete darkness (4.4km).

Well, it wasn't really dark. We saw the most amazing starry sky and the subtropical rainforest on the Mountain glows with bioluminiscence (there are glowing murshrooms and heaps of glow worms). After about 2 hours of walking up hill we reached the final summit climb which is really steap and makes the "big Mythen" look like a childrens Playground...

We reached the summit and saw a already brightened sky.

But for the sunrise, we had to wait about 20 minutes.

But then finally...

... the two uf us, were the first in Australia to see the sun ascening over the horizon. :D
 
P.S. Dave was totally right about my decision: only ex-W4e-students probably can understand what I was referring to.

It's my Birthday!!!

This morning I woke up, and was 25 Years old. (some grey hairs but I'm still going fine... ;-) )

My day started pretty cool! I woke up and opened my presents :-D
I got a T-Shirt and a Travelbug from Flo, Money and heaps of chocolate from the family in Switzerland and a wonderful book, with pictures and short messages from my friends in Noosa.
Thanks to everybody!

My new favorite shirt: It's going to be LEGEN - wait for it DARY

We used the day to go into the outlet stores around Surfers Paradise and as well to discover the city itself (with our new GPS).

But we spent also some time relaxing in a beautiful park.

So we gathered enough energy for the one task that was still waiting for us...

We ate a "Legendary 10 oz Burger" in the Hard Rock Café Surfers Paradise. Those who know me well, understand that this was the perfect finish for this day!

P.S.

For those who know me even better: Yes, I made a very important decision today. And I am pretty sure, that I took the right one (but of course I will not tell it here in the Internet... I'll tell it to you when I'm back in Switzerland ;-) ).



On the road again...

Although our exams are over, we'll continue this blog in English; mainly to keep it readable for Flo's French relatives.

We started our trip on Saturday pretty early in the morning (our bus left at 6:10 am). But it was good, that we left early because our train stopped in the middle of nowhere and we had to get on buses as our train couldn't continue. We arrived in Brisbane with 1 hour delay but we had still time enough to pick up our wickedcamper.


Our Catwoman Wickedcamper. Come and make me purr...

After only a short drive we reached the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise. After having checked in at the Treasure Island Caravanpark, we went to "Wet 'n' Wild" the coolest waterpark of the southern hemisphere. There were some impressive slides and Flo even felt a little nervous before taking a waterslide with a looping...

In the evening there was a Screening of "Despicable Me" that could be watched on the big screen from the Giant Wave Pool.



The big screen was not yet put up...

 It started to rain a little but apart from having quite cold, the wet weather didn't bother us... (Well, that is a little bit an understatement as we were afraid, that it will stay wet all week. The weatherforecast was pretty ugly!) The movie was funny enough to make up for the bad weather anyway!

Surfer's Paradise - Skyline

The next day we started to explore the Gold Coast until 10:00 am, when the Movie World opened. The Superman escape was really a good ride :-)

With Thunderstorm and Hurricane,
only call for Oliman!

But there was much more to see: The Lethal Weapon - the Ride, Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster and the Stunt Driver show were only some of the Highlights.

 The Ticked we bought gave us unlimited access to all three theme parks here in Surfers and therefore we went today to the Seaworld another wunderful Park. And if you have a close look at the pictures you can see that the weather got better and better (in spite to the forecast!).

We experienced the maritine life...

...and watched various shows.

So long, and thanks for all the fish...

But the wonderful experience of the Seaworld was overshadowed by the incident that we descovered when we returned to our car...

Despite this warning sign on our campervan:

our camper was broken into...

There were some items of value stolen from us, like a pretty new GPS, Flo's mobilephone with our australian SIM-Card and most scandalously, our swiss Jass-set. Luckily they didn't steal our laptop or Flo's purse with all her cards and IDs.

The later afternoon we spent, making a report at the local police station...

Well, when travelling you are always at risk for something like that. But we're staying positive!

P.S. our new mobile number in Australia is: 0061 424 555 480







Gritibänze and a wonderful day!

After a rainy weekend this week started wet again. Monday was marked by heavy rain and so we made plans to go to the Sunshine Plaza Shoppingcenter. But firstly in the morning, Flo made us delicious Gritibänze with chocolate chips.

Afterwards we went to the Sunshine Plaza and on the very short way from our house to the busstation we got so wet, that Oli had to buy new shoes to have dry feet again...

We planned to go to a screening for "Morning Glory" in the evening. But things seldom work as planned... It was a Lady's Night screening and the cinema vouchers we had didn't allow us to watch this special screening. So we ended up watching "Red Hill" a rather cheap australian thriller/horror-movie. It was pretty bad but we had our fun anyway!

Today we finally had a sunny day again. So we went to the beach to prepare ourselves for the big test tomorrow. We enjoyed the sun and said goodbye to our friend martin, who leaves tomorrow already.

In the evening, Misa, our Japanese homestay-sister, made us some mouthwatering Sushi. We had the chance to help her in the preparation and so we made some roles ourselves. We made so many sushi rolls that the five of us couldn't eat everything (and that means something, if you sit with Phil and Oli on the table!).



Misa with our sushi feast



LSD

And finally it was here - Our last day of school!

On Thursday we had a mock exam and the only thing we had to do on Friday morning, was marking the papers which took us only about an hour. Afterwards we took class photos.

In this picture we see f.l.t.r.: Carol, Matt, Sandro, Tamara, Livia, Ronny, Sabrina, Nina, Ila, our teacher Annette, Silvana, Flo, Oli, Jasmin, Eunice.

Afterwards we received our certificates (no, not yet the cambrigde certificates... just a certificate, that states our attending in the School for the last three months) and this wonderful blackforest cake.

Then we had a huge BBQ at school. We went to the nearby Coles (something like Coop) and bought more than we could eat. But the kangaroo meat was even after two huge burgers delicious (at least Oli feels that way...).

Afterwards we went to the Irish Pub and had some drinks and played cards. We stayed there until 10 pm with a short break for watching "Due Date" at the cinema.

The rest of the weekend was pretty rainy and is not really worth talking of...

Tomorrow Flo will bake us some Gritibänze (although it's hard to imagine, that it is Chrismas time, we haven't forgotten our traditions). And on Tuesday night our homestay-sister Misa will make us some sushi!

And then the next Saturday morning our trip will continue towards south with our wickedcamper!