Right now in Sydney

I just saw the sunset in Sydney and wanted to share it with you!! Beautiful.. isn't it?! Ana and me just visited the Museum of Contemporary Art of Sydney!! It was good!! It has some very nice things!! But we actually went to see the exposition of Sam Taylor Wood (as can be seen of the last picture) and were a bit disappointed.. she is UK and famous for her portraits of male actors crying!! We were not very impressed by seeing a bunch of male ACTORS crying in front of a camera.. although it's only a foto camera.. it just cant feel real.. she though insists that they were really crying.. another one of her pieces is David Beckham sleeping.. she filmed him for 1 night... Ana insists that he is actually awake.. I say that no one with that much money lays down for 1 hour and "pretends" to be sleeping... donno... oh.. and the last foto is a pond in Hyde Park... and the piece of wood you can see in the front is the reason why I have to invite Ana for a beer tonight... it was a funny game.. I lost...

Manly Beach with Geraldine

as you can see I caught up with Geraldine again.. she had her flight out of Sydney is right now on her way back to Hamburg... but it was great seeing her again.. we visited Manly Beach together.. thats the 2nd closest beach to Sydney city center and we had to take a ferry there... the weather was a bit funny cause it was very hot when we went there and it was raining when we went back on the ferry as you can see on the first picture... personally.. I think it's a great foto!! the last foto shows the Queen Victoria Building in the center of S... we went there after coming back.. its the oldest shopping mall in Australia!! and its beautiful inside!!

More about Sydney

The skyline of Sydney is pretty cool I think.. I cant stop taking fotos of it... staying with ana is great.. we have a lot of fun.. especially comparing spain, austria and australia to each other.. its hilarious!! we also spoke about beer.. thats why the foto... architecture in sydney has loads of different faces.. pictures like that one with the cathedral and the skyscraper in the background... wonderful... i took sooo many already.. I think it looks great!! oh.. and the foto with the headphones ... there is a commercial of Lenny Kravitz in the streets of Sydney where you can even plug in your headphones and listen to his new cd.. pretty cool we thought and tried it.. its pretty funny ... almost crazy I would say ..

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

I'm gettin kicked-out of the internet place.. here.. I tell you some nice stories about these fotos tomorrow!! I go to bed now!! and tomorrow I will have another exciting day in Syndey!! yeah!!

Bondi Beach

Since it was Sunday and Ana did not have to go to class we decided to check out the famous Bondi Beach. Ana's friend Marisa who is also from Santiago in Spain joined us and we took the bus to the beach!! It was a lovely day.. but... autumn has arrived.. the sun was shining and sometimes it got pretty hot but I did not feel like throwing myself into the water... no good but true.. the summer is over .. also in australia!! sniiiiieeffff!! Bondi Beach is nice.. although nothing compared to the beaches I have seen in this country.. still.. the Bay has a very lovely atmosphere and I can imagine that it's a very nice spot to spend your evenings and weekends outside of town!!

Sydney

Well... so I arrived in Sydney at 7 o'clock in the morning!! after this beautiful trip down here!! you can imagine what I feeled like after sitting for 11 hours on a bus!???! it could only become better.. and it did!! ana morena came to pick me up from the bus stop and after a couple of confusions about Central Station.. exits... mobil phones without battery and so on.. we managed to find each other!! it was good to see her!! her appartement is in a hotel building in the city center.. it's unbelievable.. but we only had to walk for 10 minutes from Central Station.. how lucky am I??!!!!! after having a decent shower and a cup of tea I was ready to explore the city... oh.. I almost forgot.. the bus driver tried to calm us a little bit down when he entered the city via the Sydney Harbour Bridge and showed us that way already the Opera House.. it's amazing.. so I had already seen the main sight of town!! That was actually quite nice... sitting on a bus for 11 hours... waking up, watching out of the window and seeing the Sydney Opera House... niiiiiice!! So after my shower we headed into town!! We went down George Street, saw Hyde Pard and finally decided we wanted to have lunch in a Japanese Restaurant!! Ana had found one that was highly recommended and so we went down Oxford Street - straight into Paddington and looked for this famous Sushi Place.. and it was worse it!! Most of you probably know that I'm not a big fan of Sushi although I had tried it a couple of times... but this place was just amazing!! everything was soooo good!! Fresh, tasty and just really nice looking!!! Great place!! I love it!! And now I love Sushi!!! Thanks to Ana and to Sydney!!

Trip to Sydney

The trip to Sydney turned out to be a trip through hell ... I left Lismore at 3 in the afternoon and took a bus to Coffs Habour... I was supposed to wait there for 2 hours and then go on to Syndey.. well the 2 hours turned into 3 and the weather was just disgusting.. it was raining and the wind was blowing!! but the best part of the story so far is that there was no builing where we could wait for the bus.. it was just a regular bus stop somewhere in nowhere... g...ee...reat!! I say... thanks to greyhound I have got my cold back again!! I thought that this bad experience deserves its own post too... baaaahhhhhh... I had already heard that the Greyhound was usually unpunctual but.. come on... 1 hour in the rain.. that's no fun!!!

Nimbin

Seriously.. it was just a day trip.. but it deserves its own Post!! Nimbin.. an unforgettable experience!!! I can't wait to upload the fotos!! actually.. I will just leave it like this for the moment... upload the fotos... and if there are still any questions... I will explain it... So far I just want to say.. Jim's Adventure Tour to Nimbin... go for it if you can!!! ;)

Byron (as the aussies say)

acutally.. I went straight to Byron Bay after Brisbane.. and then to Lismore.. sorry for describing first my unforgettable experiences in Lismore!! Alrighty... so.. I went to Byron Bay after Brisbane.. took a bus... Greyhound.. and stuff.. Honestly I have to say that I did not expect too much of Byron Bay... after seeing all these towns down from Cairns and seeing that they are very similar to each other I thought that Byron Bay was just one of them... but I was wrong!! Byron Bay is different!! It has got a very different atomosphere to all the Hervey-Airlie-Townsandcities I had seen before... Byron still lives the Hippy way!! and it is great!! although not the whole town goes with the flow... it has got this touch!! I loved it!! On top I stayed at this very good hostels called "The Arts Factory Lodge" which used to be a Hippy Community and now is a Backpacker-Spiritual-Arty-Meeting Place. Besides the mosquitos I had a really good time, hanging out in the hostel and reading my book or chatting to other travellers for 2 days was great.. since the weather was not that great and I had sort of a cold I decided to chill for a little bit.. it was a good decision.. yeah!! but before leaving I checked out the famous Byron Beaches and of course the Lighthouse and the Most Eastern point of the Australian Mainland!! What a beautiful little town!!!

Lismore

after staying with danielle's parents again in brisbane I went on to enjoy as much as posible the hospitality of the Kohlman Family and went to visit Danielle's sister Bronwyn in Lismore. not just is she living there and working at the Lismore University.. no.. also my dear friend stefan (known as s-tefan on this side of the world) lived here during his 2nd practical training from our university in krems!! so I got 2 in 1!! that was good!! Brownyn was just the best!! she picked me up from the bus stop and took me home to her cute appartement.. she has just the best view!! what a beautiful country guys!!! from her living room she sees miles and miles of fresh green hills!! its amazing!! we decided to go to the cinema and got to try frozen coke for the first time in my life.. its yummy!!! the next day we hoped on Bronwyn's car and she showed me around town!! i had the best day!! it was soo relaxing to sit in the car and to go from one beautiful spot to the next one!! we went to Ballina, Casino and Grafton and I learned all that funny stuff about fairs for cows and other animals and a crazy scottish festival taking place up in the mountains!! all crazy stuff!! but good fun!! on our way back we stopped in Coraki.. where Stefan used to live (yes Stefan... you are supposed to be jealeous now.. sorry for that) and I caught up with some of his friends from town!! Niki and her parents were lovely... I truly understand now why stefan had such a great time in this tiny little town... they are great!! I also got to see the pizza restaurant where stefan used to work sometimes .. unfortunately the "Junction Cafe" was closed when we came and I could not try the famous spinach pizza.. stefan always used to rave about!! dunno..... well.. niki said she is thinking about going travelling for a bit... I .. of course .. gave her all my support.. I told her to come as soon as possible to austria.. and that way we could spend a little more time together (more than 30 minutes in Coraki)... she is of course happily invited to stay at my place!! stef.. please tell her again!!

Back to Brissy

After staying in Hervey Bay for 1 night after coming back from Fraser Island I went straight down to Brisbane to catch up with Geraldine again. She was in Noosa for a couple of days and now we spent some time together in Brisbane again! I just spoke to David (Danielle's Dad) on the phone and I will go to visit them tomorrow .. I'll cook Schnitzel for them tomorrow night!! I think they are bit scared of my cooking but I'll convince them that I can cook traditional austrian food !! yeah.. Right now I just came back from Brunswick Street where I had a look (and a bit more) around the Saturday's street market.. it was good fun!! and ... of course I had to buy something.. after being out in nature for 4 weeks I really enjoy myself being back in the city.. I think.. I'm more a city girl... well.. I bought new sunnies.. (fake versace ones.. so not me.. I know.. but they are sooo pretty), a bracelat, a couple of rings and buttons.. too much.. I know.. but I could have bought much more... I'll meet Gerri and her friend Kathi later on for coffee and we will check out the lagoon in Brisbane... Currently I'm staying in the Bunk Hostel.. it's really cool.. its in the center of the "cool" part of town - called "The Valley" and we went out yesterday.. since it was St. Patricks Day we went ot an Irish Pub (Danielle.. we went to Dooleys.. heyhey) but we could not really enjoy ourselves.. way tooo many drunk people out there yesterday..but hey.. what do you expect on St. Paddy's Day!!

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is amazing! It's the largest sand island in the world and ... really... it's all sand you can see!!! It's beautiful!!! But hey.. pictures say more than words.. so please.. just check them out!!! I went on a 4WD (4 wheel drive = allrad) car to the island. it was an organized tour and we were 11 people in one jeep. we camped at a camping ground and cruised around the island for 3 days... the lakes on fraser are amazing... and the colours (white sand - blue sky - green rainforrest) are beautiful!! unfortunately it started raining sometimes but we never got really wet... the best fun was definitely to drive this huge car around the island... I was allowed to drive for half a day and we went off-road... no joke.. that was pretty rough... but good fun!! everyone in our team was great and we had a lot of fun... i just met a couple of than today again in brisbane and I'm sure we will go out for a beer tonight... the trip was worth the money and the adventure factor was very present... we got stuck in the sand... saw spiders and dingos (dingo danger) got eaten alive by sand flys (yuk... they are disgusting... its still itchy) besides all the tourists that are driving around the island it was a real adventure.. just when you come to one of the natural attractions - worse spot is Lake Mackenzie - you dont feel that adventurous anymore.. we couldn't see the beach anymore because there were that many people on it.. still I could catch some nice pics!! enjoy the fotos..

Town of 1770

right now I'm already in Town of 1770... this stop was actually never on my list when I planned the trip but it was highly recommended to me from heaps of people.. thats why I decided to stay here for at least one night!! but people... i think.. i might stay here for a bit longer!! after all the adventure programme and backpackers surrounding me... I ended up in Town of 1770.. I took the overnight bus down from airlie beach ( just 9 hours.... baaaahhhhh), arrived here at 9 o'clock this morning and it turns out that there is no bed available in none of the 2 backpacker hostels.. bad luck.. because I've heard that the "cool bananas hostel" was one of the bestest hostels in oz... but i guess thats fate... the guy in reception of cool bananas was actually that nice that he called another place for me and a woman came to pick me up.. and ... I'm staying now at a resort!!! with pool!! 2 minutes away from the beach... in my own room with bathroom and kitchen... and thats for only 25 AUD a night... about 15 Euros a night!! pretty cool!! thats the reason why I might stay a little bit longer than I actually thought!! hehe.. lets see how its goin.. there are also a couple of people who were on the boat with me coming to town today!! I ll try to catch up with them.. but since I'm not staying at the place where I'm meant to be... it all depends ... we will see.. hope everyone is fine at home!! i'm good!!! ana morena... espero tu llamada... lo que pasa es que casi nunca tengo cobertura con vodafone.. pero creo que aqui en Town of 1770 me podrias llamar!! bueno.. espero que estes bien!!! familie.. mir gehts bestens!!! wie ihr grad gelesen habt.. ich bin in einem resort am strand... es koennte nicht besser sein!! ich hoffe ihr uebersteht den winter gut!! man liesst ja nur horrorstories im internet!!! der schnee nimmt ja kein ende bei euch.. ihr armen!!! alrighty then... I will go shopping now.... cook dinner and watch TV in my room... yeah!!! thats holiday during my holiday!!

Spank me

sailing is great!!! although we had not really enough wind to be sailing all the time.. actually we only put up the sails 3 times in 3 days and only sailed for 30 minutes each time... we were just too slow.. but it was a great feeling!! I was on a 23 meter maxi racing boat which won a race from sydney to hobart (tasmania) - i think in 2001. now its just used to sail around the withsunday islands.. it was fun.. we were 26 pax on the boat and 4 crew. it was a good bunch of people and we had a lot of fun... on the 2nd day of our cruise we went to see whitheaven beach.. thats the famous loooooong beach of theses islands.. but... it was raining.. I decided to buy a postcard of what is was really meant to look like.. still.. i will put my fotos up tomorrow!! it was still very beautiful!! besides that we went snorkeling everyday and I got to go diving again!! i think I might get addicted to that.. its sooo beautiful!! this time I saw a shark and a turtle when I was snorkeling! the adventure effect was also all-inklusive since we ran out of drinking water on the 3rd day.. lucky us there were other boats around us and we got drinking water.. but .. there was no showering.. brushing teeth.. or fun stuff like that... we were pretty glad when we entered the port of airlie beach and went to the hostels!! showering was never that funny before!! ;)

Airlie Beach

I m moving fast.. .I know... I m already down in Airlie Beach and I m going sailing today!!! I m sooo excited.. its now 12.30 and my boat leaves at 3 o'clock!! please.. nobody laughs... but my boat is calles "Spank me".. Its a sailing boat and I ll be on for the next 3 nights!!! there will be around 27 people on board, we will go snorkeling and I can go for another introductory dive!! I can't wait!!! I will let you know how the whitsunday islands are doing as soon as possible!!! can't wait to see all the beaches!!!!!!! oh.. and I met this really nice german girl from berlin/hamburg yesterday on the bus. geraldine is her name and she is a good girl... we went out yesterday and are not quite sure how many beers we actually drunk.. it was good fun... we might travel together for a little while... all good.. stay tuned... have fun.. take care

Magnetic Island

After staying for another night in Cairns (and actually having my passport on me and not in the hostel safe ... well.. shit happens .. and I had to go back to the hostel and take a later bus) I took the Greyhound down to Townsville where I got on a ferry over to Magnetic Island. what a beauty!! this island is georgeous!! I spent 2 nights in the x base hostel there and had a good time. I also hired a bike and was going around the island by bike. it was beautiful.. but who had thought that on such a small island could be soooo many hills.. god it was hot!! I ll put some fotos up as soon as possible!! you have never seen such a red head!! but the beaches and bays were wonderful and I almost felt like Gulliver on his island since there where no one else around on a couple of these beaches!! the hostel was good but nothing extraordinary people were generelly english, young and drunk... nevertheless I had a good time!! (besides stupid stinger jelly fish which are deadly if they get you in the sea.... nobody can go swimming in the sea at the moment all the way down to noosa Ive heard)

Klaudz in the Jungle

From Cairns I went on a tour up to the Daintree Nationalpark which is a beautiful rainforrest. it was amazing!! I stayed for one night in a hostel resort in the jungle and was just 2 minutes away from one of the most beautiful beaches I ve ever seen in my life!! On the way up there we went on a boat cruise and even saw a crocdile... well.. after eating croc it was also very interesting to see them actually alive ;) in cape tribulation I was hanging out with 2 swedish girls. the funny thing was that they had spent the last 2 winter seasons in austria. they were working in a hostel in bad gastein. believe it or not... I know the manager of their hostel.. (die welt ist ein dorf). we had a couple of beers in the jungle bar and talked to some crazy hippy people. it was a lot of fun.. they were actually living up there in the rainforrest.. we also heard some crazy stories about hippies living up in cape tribulation since the 50s. it was very interesting. the next day i went on a sea kayaking trip around the cape.. it was fantastic.. since its the rainy season up there at the moment the sea level was very high and we could even paddle through the trees in the middle of the rainforrest.. it was great. stew , our kayak guide was good fun and we had fresh coconuts (actually from the tree) after the tour. oh yeah.. and we heard some more stories about hippies in the rainforrest. walking bear foot through the jungle to get to our kayaks was great!! spiders and lizzards and ants are my friends now!!! on the way back to cairns we stopped at some creeks and had a swim in a clear mountain creek .. that was beautiful... the daintree NP is definitely worse a visit!!