Category: Australia

Leaving Australia tomorrow to head to Singapore for 3 days. I’ve had a lovelylovely time here in Perth, seriously, mostly thanks to Nancy and her awesome family, who spoiled me rotten. 🙂

More things I did here: Explored the beautiful Kings Park Botanic Gardens, visited the lovely Perth Zoo, another trip to Fremantle (or Freo, as the locals call it), a family outing down the coast, lunch with Chris and Gill from the Uluru tour and Scarborough Beach with Fiona (who I’d met on the bus to Monkey Mia) and her boyfriend. Oh, and played with Nancy’s three cute cats (Rogue, Melma and Lenny) and a lonely little dog named Alby on the way to the train station here. I might also have indulged in a little bit of retail therapy and caught a bit of a cold, which I hope will go away and stop bothering me.

As always, all photos can be found on Flickr here. And a cute little video of a monkey playing at the zoo:

On Monday I arrived at my final Australian destination, where I’m staying with my friend Nancy and her family. I’m enjoying myself a lot, and not just because I have my own room (even with ensuite bath!) and wireless internet… *g* On Tuesday I met up with Barbara (who I’d met in Broome) and we went to the pretty harbour town of Fremantle. Yesterday I explored Perth’s CBD (Central Business District) and went to see a concert – Panic at the Disco, Cobra Starship and The Academy Is… – which was awesome despite it getting quite squishy in the first few rows sometimes. Almost the best bit was that I ran into Panic’s drummer, Spencer Smith, in the street while out sightseeing. 🙂

As always, all photos can be found here. Less than a week now until I leave down under and head to Singapore for a couple of days…

Also, I discovered another little movie I made in Monkey Mia – pelicans vying for fish leftovers at sunset:

All day yesterday I didn’t get internet, but now it’s suddenly working again, so I’m using the opportunity to get caught up with my photos. Staying here is wonderfully relaxing – after the dolphin feeding in the morning, all you can do is hang out on the beach, read or listen to an audiobook until a glorious sunset. I also met a few nice women here – Susie and Rebecka in my dorm room, who both volunteer here, and Shan (?) from England, who was on the bus with me. Both her and I are leaving tomorrow morning – at 4am, so that’s going to be fun, but I’m really glad I had the three days here.

As always, all photos are here on Flickr. Also, I made two little movies of dolphins:

My 3 days in Broome are almost over already – tomorrow it’s 25 hours on Greyhound to Monkey Mia. I met a few nice people here, including Barbara from St. Gallen and Miguel from Zürich, so I got to talk Swiss German. I’ll also be on the same bus with Frederike from Hamburg, but she’s going to Exmouth, not Monkey Mia.

It’s been a relaxing few days. Monday evening I went to admire the “Stairway to the Moon”, which was incredible – I’ve never seen a moon that big or that golden, it was almost like a sunrise… On Tuesday me and Frederike went to Cable Beach, which is all white sand and turquoise water, and in the evening Barbara and I saw “Mongol” at the open-air cinema, which has been showing movies for over 90 years. Today I went to the beach again and walked along it to a place where you can see dinosaur footprints at low tide. Unfortunately the tide had turned when I got there, but it was still a beautiful place. As always, all photos are here on Flickr.

Also, Dave sent two group shots from the Uluru tour, which our guide Mike took at Kata Tjuta:

Left Darwin yesterday, spent 26 hours on the bus to Broome – the bus ride was better than I’d feared, as I had two seats to myself and it was quite warm. Wireless here at the youth hostel doesn’t seem to work, but they have ethernet access, so I was finally able to catch up on the photo uploading.

There are a couple of from the train, where I met Arin from Taiwan and Tina from Germany, quite a number from the daytrip to Litchfield National Park Tina and I did (where we met Vanessa, also from Germany) and of course some from Darwin, which I enjoyed a lot – sunshine, beaches (no swimming, though), stunning sunsets and meeting some old friends again: Gill, Chris and April from the Uluru tour and Mike and Lauren from Melbourne-Adelaide.

And a small movie from the Sunset Market, where we enjoyed two sets by the didgeridoo & drums combo eMDee:

As always, all photos can be found here on Flickr. I’m going to miss bumping into people I know now that I’m on the west coast! However, it seems very busy here, all hostels booked out. But because the tourism industry here is much smaller tours etc. are much more expensive and I don’t think I can afford any more daytrips. Luckily there’s a beach only a busride away from the hostel, so I’m sure I won’t be bored – if I can find a book exchange, that is, as I’m almost out of reading material! 🙂

I got myself an Ethernet cable from the desk here, because I don’t want to have to upload several hundred photos at once. At least I was able to put up the pictures from the tour – as always all are available from Flickr.

Had a lovely, lovely time on the tour to Kings Canyon, Kata Tjuta (previously known as the Olgas) and of course Uluru. The group was a bunch of nice people and, although the nights outside were freezing, it was an awesome experience. Then I took the Ghan up the Darwin, where I’ll be until Sunday, when I’m heading down the west coast to Broome. I’m having a good time here, hanging out with girls I met on the train and yesterday on our daytrip to Litchfield National Park, where we got to swim in lovely cool waterfalls…

I wanted to share the many incredible pictures I took, but the internet is very slow today, so I think I’ll try again tomorrow. Here are two photos I managed to upload, from Kings Canyon:

The journey on the Ghan was just as I’d expected – the 25 hours passed quickly and the only not-so-great thing was that I didn’t have two seats to myself and it got quite cold at night. Trains are just so much more suited to long distance trips than buses or planes, I’m looking quite forward to the trip from Alice Springs to Darwin!

Anyway, I’m now in the red centre of Australia. The train crossed miles and miles of nothing but red sand and shrubs, and the country around Alice Springs is just how one imagines Australia to be – including kangaroos and other wildlife right at your doorstep. This I learned today when I did some nice bush walks in the area, because the tour I’d booked was full and so I’m leaving tomorrow and will get back to Alice only with enough time to grab my bags at the hostel and go to the train station instead of spending another night and most of the day here on Monday. At first I was quite annoyed, but it’s hard to be in a bad mood when the sun is shining brightly and it’s warm enough to walk around in sandals and a t-shirt (although the wind is quite cold and nights are icy).

As always, here are all photos on Flickr.