last stop: still action

after 4 weeks travelling central and east australia we finally arrived in sydney. you haven't heard about the last two stops in noosa and byron bay. i am sorry, i was too busy with surfing...

once it caught me it hasn't let me go yet!

in nice and beautiful byron bay we enjoyed our last days and nights with party, beach, waves and .... byron is a small hippie town with stylish bars and restaurants, a scenic beach and a cliff-front, which is the most easterly point of australia the same time. an early walk at 4 in the morning to that place gave us a beautiful sunrise and a watch of humpback whales jumping out of the water.

we met again nice people like the german couple on the picture and two crazy swiss guys studying in oz.

surf world champ tom and his fans

lighthouse in byron bay

sunrise at the most easterly point

relaxing and shopping the last two days in sydney the action is still not dieing: two fire alarms woke us up the last night. after jumping down the emergency stairs it was figured out that the reason was first a cigarette and the second time a broken fire sensor.

finally we are looking forward to come back home to see our families and friends and not to forget to eat some good food again...

sunset in noosa

a taste of 2 great adventures

the last week was awesome. together with scuba diving in cairns the best experience in australia. i would like to give you a small idea what happened but i am not able to tell you the whole story here on this post. you will have to find and visit me and i will show you some more pictures to get to know how it was sailing the whitsundays off airlie beach and 4WD-driving and camping on fraser island. pure beautiful nature...


steering the maxi race yacht
through the whitsunday islands


in the middle of fraser's forest
on a sandy track


mohano wreck on fraser islands
and our team "dingoing mad"

addition: Alice Springs and Uluru

before we came to cairns we spent a few days in central australia for quad biking, visiting the olgas (Katja Tutja), the Ayers Rock and Kings Canyon.

quad biking in Alice Springs

the narrow valley at The Olgas

Kings Canyon

The Ayers Rock

Cairns - hitting the Great Barrier Reef

hi folks,
another news from downunder. this time from cairns and the great barrier reef. i went to town, grabbed a camera, sailed on the great barrier reef and saved some impressions for u. i just want to show u a taste of the beautiful and various marine life. let the pictures speak...

AUS - Sydney

it's gonna be our last country to visit on this journey. but it's still a month left.

finally i was able to buy new contact lenses. it's a lot more complicated to get them in nz and oz (australia) than in austria. my whole supply i brought with me is probably lying on the bottom of fiji's sea joining the rest of my stuff.

what we did the first night in sydney is to allow us a good german "weizenbier" (wheatbeer) and a "schweinshaxn" (pork shank) in the loewenbraeu.

after a tour in the Sydney Opera House we bought tickets for Verdi's "Rigoletto". honestly the performance wasn't very exciting but to be the SOH was a nice experience and worth it's money.

yesterday we made a trip out of the city to get some different impressions. the first stop was at Featherdale Wildlife Park. we were petting a kangaroo baby and stood face to face with a relaxed koala which was chewing its eucalyptus. i have read eucalyptus is also like a drug for koalas - just as an information. they really like to hug (people) as long as they are not enjoying their leafs. and koalas may get stressed when there are too much people around. recognizing the stressed koala looking around with big eyes for a shoulder to hug i offered him mine. and that small cuddly guy really climbed up on me with his long and strong claws. actually they didn't hurt but the park guard took him away telling me it's kind of illegal to hold them.

after being in the Blue Mountains 100km out of Sydney we visited a winery and tasted a couple of white, red and dessert wines. strange tastes for austrian tongues, but good quality. the guy next to leo, liam, joined us hitting the bars in Sydney the same night: nice experience and hot girls!

Bondi Beach in the middle of Sydney was our last destination in the south so far. although it's still winter, the temperatures are above 20 degree celsius and the water is ready to jump in.

Doubtful Sound aint a Sound

our long distance journey in new zealand led us down south to Te Anau, where Leo and me decided to avoid the mass of tourists and didn't make one day trip to the famous Milford Sound.

first crossing a lake we were guided through a power plant all built in a massive mountain. a 20km ride on a bus on a steep pathway to a fjord called Doubtful Sound. it isn't a sound actually cause a sound is made by the strong water of a sea. a fjord is digged out by the force of a glacier.

the beautiness of the nature is undescribable, though you can hardly find sunny weather in the southeastern sounds of new zealand. it's not really raining - the natives won't call it like that - it's more quite strong drizzling.

until that night we haven't really had problems with accomodation. to make about 350km of 900 on the way back to christchurch we left Te Anau to the West Coast the same night. we had already booked a cabin. the guy of the resort told us, "i'll leave the door to number 7 open and the key inside, i won't be awake after 10pm". we arrived there at 12.30am and found the doors closed. nobody was here, even not reachable. in the middle of nowhere 14km away from the next small village in the middle of the night. the 14km weren't the problem, more that even in the village wasn't anybody to give us a room for the night. the police was closed too.

fuel should reach for another 100km so we just decided to make the way to Fox Glacier 117km further. Fortunately there was a very friendly Crocodile Dundee-Cowboy-crossbreed who gave us a key. with a whole lot of sleep we were able to visit Fox Glacier and Franz Josef Glacier the next day.

Frodo in Rohan

Further south of Kaikoura we did two journeys the last two days starting in christchurch.

The first one led us to Mount Hutt, a ski field with a great view down on the canterbury plains, the flat area with lots of farmers. There was not much to do but it was fun to push our car to the limit climbing up the stony path up to the pit stop where two run-out-of-money-travellers put on snow chains on two-wheel-drive cars.

Back down on safer ground we were about to find Edoras - the place of Rohan, the mankind castle in the movie Lord of the Rings. In middle of the valley, 46km away from the Canterbury Plains, half of it again stony pathed, there is a small mountain called Mt Sunday. Most of the basically unhospitable looking wide valley is cattle's rangeland. And several arms of the freeeeezing cold river running through are dividing it.

Trying to get to Rohan, Herms and Leo gave up after crossing two more shallow arms without getting too much wet. Leo was just about to take a picture from me standing in the shallow part of the third one, when i decided to make the whole way through the ice-cold water. Arriving on the other side I had to warm up my toes running barefoot to and up on the mountain. Which brought me several thorns and splinters sticking under my skin without feeling it because of the coldness. Now I know how Frodo must have felt on his way to save the world.

Today we discovered the SH73, the road connecting Christchurch and the West Coast by making its way through the Alps of New Zealand. In Arthur's Pass Village we climbed up to a 131m high waterfall with a beautiful mountain scenery. After that a speed boat ride brought again more action in our lifes. Finally a sheep shearing demonstration and a dog demonstrating his work with the sheep gave us an impression of New Zealand's farmers' work.

Glowworms - keine Gluehwuermchen

On the way to Rotorua we stopped by the Waitomo (Wai=water, tomo=hole) Caves. Not the direct way, I know, but a good one. Equipped with the oldest wet suits i have ever seen we walked through the cold caves. They are not very exciting referring the stalactits and stalacmits. But as you go, crawl, swim, float and jump through the cave it becomes an adventure. Turning off the flash lights we found hundreds of glowworms sticking on the ceiling between their own strands they use for catching insects. this small whatevers are light and transparent worms with a luminescent top.
What you wouldn't believe is the beautiness of the nature around the entrance and the exit of the cave. You feel like in the middle of the "Lord of the Rings". And there are 365 of them in this area.

After discovering the darkness of the depth we were about to discover the smell of the depth. In

Rotorua, a small town, is the earth's crust very thin. Stinky steam comes out of several holes althrough the city. The Poliynesian Spa gave us a relaxing time and energy to our body.
Next day we should have much luck. First we visited Wai-Te-Po or the Lady Knox Geysyr. Colourful and steamy holes in a wonderful nature surrounding made us walking and talking through the park.
Half an hour before Te-Puia, the second geysyr, was closing we arrived there and asked for a short entrance. We were really lucky as the geysyr started to spit shortly before we had to leave the other park. And it was lasting more than 20 minutes which was very unusual... and an awesome experience!!!


After a stinky day in Rotorua we were driving the long way down to Wellington stopping by my former colleague Tony close to Porirua. The same night we took the ferry to Picton on the South Island and were lodging in a cuddly hostel feeling like in the middle of a family in a ski hut.

The next day, another beautiful day, whale watching in Kaikoura was already booked. The much bad luck I had with my backpack in Fiji, the much good luck we have with the weather at the right time and the number of whales we saw: about 30 sperm whales showed us their nose and back - and tail (it's a sperm whale, but i am talking about the backtail, guys) when diving into the depth of the sea.

NZ:Auckland

my first day in auckland was used to reequip myself after the "yasawa flyer" ferry between the yasawa islands has lost my big backpack on the ferry. now as i need my warm clothes most i have not much of them. today i bought new stuff like a new backpack, new underpants (yes, sometimes i change them), a new pullover, new shoes... and i really liked it, but it also really sucks. i want my stuff back... there seems to be fewer and fewer chance to get it back from day to day. all i hope now is to get enough support from my insurance.

anyway, this time there are other reasons the upload of pictures doesn't work, so there is still nothing to show you. yes, i know, it's not that exciting just to read from me. (i wass, a "botzn story", die kan interessiert; der ausdruck is unser klana running gag).

tomorrow we leave auckland to rotorua, where the sulfur geysirs are. there haven't died anybody stink like rodden eggs, but many because of freezing. that's why i got new clothes.

keep on trying watching pictures here, i keep on trying to find a computer that let me do that!