Sorry, there will be a break

Hi Everybody,
Just a short note to tell you all that I am now in New Zealand and really have a good time. Unfortunately I will have to rush a lot to see all there is and that won't leave me time to update my blog while travelling (not that I've done much so the last weeks). Really sorry about this. I will make it up to you once I'm back.
See you all soon.

Cape Tribulation

I was to quick talking about Magnetic Island and probably also a bit asleep so I forgot the entry about one of the most beautiful places I have been to. After Cairns I didn't go down towards Townsville but made a 2 days tour with my diving buddy Peter to Cape Tribulation where the Great Barrier Reef meets the Rain Forest. On our bustour the first stop was a river cruise where we were supposed to see crocodiles and actually saw one particularily big one called Scarface, but after having seen already quite a few it wasn't that special anymore. After a small boardwalk we went were dropped off at our hostal, which was made up of different little cabins in the middle of the rainforest. Really charming. The afternoon was spent with a walk along the beach in wonderful white coral sand and on one hand a blue turquoise ocean and the other one a lush rainforest. Our idea was to spend the night on the beach although supposedly there were crocodiles around but we thought we would be brave enough to do so. So after a nice dinner at the beach bar and it was dark, and I can tell you it was pitch dark without a moon in the sky, we made our way to the beach with a bottle of wine to make us brave. We ventured only some metres into the beach, having still the entrance to the hostal walkway close by and sat there for a while. Then suddenly Peter jumped up and dragged me along and shouted something about a noise, we both panicked for a second and ran a view steps backwards. No it wasn't a croc, it was only me making noises running with my fingers through the sand. But this shock showed us that we weren't made for sleeping at the beach after all.

The next morning we went on a horse ride along the beach and through the rainforest. That was brilliant, especially as I was able to canter along the beach which is such a great feeling of freedom. Nearly at the end of our trip we stopped at a water whole (croc free) to go for a refreshing swim. Very nice.

Magnetic Island

I left Cairns early in the morning to catch the bus to Townsville which is aproximately 350 km south og Cairns. From there I took the ferry to Magnetic Island which is just 8km away from the coast. Magnetic Island received its name from Captain Cook as when he was sailing along the island his compass spun without aparent reason and he thought that it was due to magnetic fields on the island. He later got proven wrong, it was probably just the fault of his aluminium cup with rum that made the compass react, but the name stayed. Anyway I found the name quite suitable as this island has a magnetic attraction, arriving there is like arriving in Paradise. The island is sparely populated (4.000 islander) and the tourists stay in view places as nearly 2/3 of the island is national park. I took the bus to Horseshoe bay which lays on the other side of the island seen from the ferry, and put up my tend on the camp ground of the YHA. Really great place with crazy parrots flying around and cosy huts the backpackers can sleep in. Nevertheless I decided to camp as I have been carrying around this bl... heavy tent for so long and havn't used it since the Overlandtrack.

The rest of the day I spend chilling out at the beach, although stinger season has started, there haven't been spotted any yet though it still made me nervous swimming in the see in case of an encounter with one of those dreadful jelly fish and you can't really enjoy it as much as you should.

After an early sleep in my tent, it gets dark so early here that at 7 pm it feels as though it was already much later. The next day I started with a harty bush tacker breakfast (brunch) with grilling your own toast over the fire, nice fish, pancakes, bacon and so on. During the breakfast, we were able to stroke a baby crocodile named Barbie and a snake. Later also the sleepy Koala was brought out. I didn't take a picture with him on my arm though as he is really keen on touching women's breast :-). After filling my stomach I wanted to do as much hiking as possible, but the temptation to just hang around the beautiful beaches after the first view kilometres was just to high. So instead of hiking a lot and seing most of the 16 bays, I limited the number of bays visited but swam in nearly all of them. Of course always on the watch for our slimy friends in the water. The beaches are really beautiful and as most of them are only reachable on walking tracks not many people found their way to them. After another nice and undisturbed night sleep in my pretty yellow tent I left this beautiful spot again and headed for only 2 hours on the bus to Ayr where I was diving the SS Yongala. But more about this later.

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef

Before I flew from Darwin to Cairns I went to the famous Deck Chair Cinema. It is a great place for an open air cinema experience sitting in a cosy deck chair and sharing the movie with bats and possums (that are actually more interested in the food the spectators brought along than the movie). The actual film was a original version danish movie called Prague and the funny thing about it was that it was filmed partly in the hotel where I stayed for a convention. As the cheapest option was flying over Brisbane I had first flew down there and then got a connecting flight to Cairns where I arrived early in the morning (saved a night's accomodation). Just after checking in at the YHA Central in Cairns I went in search for a suitable diving course, and I found one which was to start soon. To fill the 1,5 remaining days before the PADI Open Water course was about to start I did what you ought to do on holidays, relax, at least for half a day. The next morning I made my way to the Botanical Garden as I was told that there is a nice bushwalk close to the airport. So I walked the Red and Blue Arrow walk, a 7,5 km track going up the hill through bush and wildlife giving a great view over the bays and the airport. While walking I had an encounter with a snake, I can't tell who of us was more scared, the snake or me, we looked at each other holding the breath (at least I did) and then the snake was the first to move, fortunately away from me. Later I asked what kind of snake it could have been and I was told that probably jus a tree snake which is not dangerous at all and not the brown snake that can kill you within hours. After walking for 1 hour and 50 minutes (didn't take me the 4-5 hours stated on the sign with the description of the track) I had a nice fruit shake in the coffee shop of the botanical garden where I met 2 English and a German girl I knew from my Alice Springs to Darwin trip. We had dinner together that same night and also went for some beers to the famous Woolshet.

Next day my diving course started. We were a group of 12 and got divided into 2 groups. The first two days we had to listen to the theory, do some tests and pool training. I was a bit scared about breathing under water but I have to say it was the most natural thing to do, once you stick your head into the water, at leat if you don't want to suffocate. The group was really nice and well mixed nationality wise. The first evening we went to Reef Teach where we learned about the fish and the other marine animals we might encounter down in the ocean. The most valuable lesson learned was probably: if something is specially pretty or ugly, don't touch it.

Then the third day we finally went on to the Reef on our Boat the Scubapro III with 32 divers on board (certified and also us the students) The fist time I ever really dived was like a revelation. There is a whole new world down there and it is really amazing how colourful and lively it is on the Reef. It is just amazing and hard to describe, especially the feeling of floating through the water, having colourful fish swim next to you and not being afraid of you at all. After 4 dives where we had to do technical stuff, such as taking off your mask and putting it on again, breath from your buddies air etc. we were certified as Open Water Divers. Great feeling. As sometimes the dive sites are deeper thatn 18 m, I also went for the adventure divers certificate which included a deep dive to 30 meters (No, I didn't get any nitrogene narcosis, unfortunately. It's like being drunk and dissapears once you go a bit higher) a night dive and a boat dive. The night dive was really spectacular. You go out into the dark water and in the beginning I was really nervous, knowing that the bigger fish like sharks hunt at night, but once you are in the water, it is just great and due to the white coral sand on the ground not as dark as exected. We saw a lion fish and finally at the end of our dive not far away from us a Reef Shark. He didn't even care about us and went on with his business, so nothing to be scared about. Well anyway, I could go on a blab about diving on and on, but I don't want to bore you. Just one more thing, food on the boat was great and so was the group. We had a nice night out all together once we reached firm land again. It is funny, but even on land again, it felt as if the ground was moving just as the rocking of the boat. And closing my eyes I always saw ocean and fish.

Me and my 2 diving Buddies Velle and Peter

Litchfield and Kakadu National Park

Our old group got split up as the vehicles for the Kakadu Nationalpark were 4 WD with less seats. Also we had a new tour guide which was probably the closest you can get to a real Crocodile Dundee, always walked barefoot, new a lot of scary Croc stories eating German Tourists and jumping from rocks high above into small water holes.

Our first stop was seing the amazing Termite sky scrapers were millions of those tiny animas live (mostly under the ground) Those buildings are highly efficently build with air conditioning and so on.

The next stop was swimming in the Croc free Florence Waterfall in Litchfield Park. The wet season up here is about to start and it is really hot an humid, making you sweat like a pig so a bath in cool water is always welcome. After lunch we went on to Water hollows, water holes were you could jump in, lay around or even dive to the ground to get some stones up. Of course I had to try, and was successful (yippiii). Then we finally were up to see some real Crocs (freshies and the tourist eating ones salties) on the Mary River Cruise. Apart from the crocodiles we also spotted white belly eagles and a lot of other water birds I forgot the name of, as well as Wallabies.

On our way back it suddenly started to rain, but not a nice Madrid shower but real Indian monsoon style rain. It didn't really stop the whole night but got also accompanied by strong wind that made you scare that the tent might fly off. But then the next morning everything was dry again, just amazing.

Next morning we went on to the Kakadu National Park which is actually the only World Heritage Site that contains a whole river system (thought you ought to know). Our first stop was the so called art gallery where aboriginal paintings could be found all over the rocks. The paintings as such dont have a great meaning, they are normally part of a story or are painted to teach their youngers. We headed on to the lookout which was actually a burial place, but still we were allowed to walk onto it, well probably like a public cementry. The view was amazing, seeing underneath the billabongs that will be carrying much more water during the wet season.

The we went for more swimming upon the Waterfall at Maguk. It was a croc safe zone as they cannot climb up the water fall. It was great swimming in different rock formed holes and also jumping in (I guess my highest jump was from 4 meters) and diving through arcs from one hole into the other. Really great fun.

Today we really had to use the 4 WD of our truck, it got quite shaky on our way to the Twin Falls. Really beautiful water falls, altough I'm sure they are even prettier after the rain, although probably not accessible as the whole place is flooded.

After the twin falls we carried on to see the Jim Jim falls, this time no water run down the rocks but nevertheless it wass amazing to see. It is a big water hole that is surrounded by at least 100 m solid rock which makes it amazing swimming in it and looking up.

Unfortunately after this refreshing swim our tour was ended and we headed back to Darwin where we had a nice night out with a couple (or more drinks)

Alice Springs to Darwin

Hi there again. I'm really sorry that I am sooo behind writing but I guess I have the best excuse in the world for it. I'M ON HOLIDAYS.

Well anyhow having had so many adventures it will be hard to remember exactly everything but I will try to give my best:

Driving up to Darwin:

Once again I got on the bus to meet a new group. The bus was full up to the last seat and the group pretty heterogenious, from 19 year olds up to over 60 year olds. It was great to be able to talk to so many different people and listen to their stories. Anyhow our trip took us through the outback into the tropical part of Australia. Our first interesting stop were the "Devil's Marbles". Big round stones that came up through the earth million and million years ago and were called by the white men devil's marbles as the this place was used as an assembly and resting point by shepards and when they woke up the next morning, a lot of their sheep have died. Supersticiously they thought it was the devil playing with them and that this place was bewitched but later on scientists found out that after all it wasn't the devil that killed the poor sheep but a little plant with sharp hooks that when eaten by the stupid sheep opened them up from inside and they bled to death. Strange enough also the Aboriginal people called this place Kula Kula, where the devil lost his hair. Kind of spooky, isn't it.

The next stop along the way was in Tennant Creek which is the 4th largest city of the Northern Territory with, now it comes, 4.000 inhabitants. This is less than Baiersbronn and they call themselves a city, no more jokes about me being from a village then :)

Nothing interesting to say about this place, quite far away from everywhere, typical easy build up houses, a supermarket, petrol station and not much more.

Finally we arrived at the end of the day on our camp site which was located on the cattle station Banka Banka (more than 11.000 km2 and 58.000 running beef burgers). We had a really nice kind of outback evening, sitting around the fire and grilling marsh mellows on a stick over the fire. Have to admit that it was my first time ever eating grilled marsh mellows and I have to admit its really yummy, crunchy on the outside and melted inside.

After another early start the next morning we stopped for lunch at a place called Daily Waters which has the oldest running pub in Australia. This is quite a strange place as its inside was decorated by things travellers left behind, including a flip flop tree.

By the way, I nearly forgot to mention that I finally got over my fear of snakes, shock therapy...

After lunch and a short bath in the swimming pool we went on and got finally to some of the more interesting places, the hot springs in Mataranka. Nice bath tub warm water to swim in. As a real adventuress that was a bit to boring so I went on to look for a kick and found it a bit further on where the hot springs ended in a kind of river where crocodiles were living. Francis and me were brave and took a swim with the crocs. (well actually we just dared to enter about two meters into the river and the crocs are the more friendly freshies that don't eat you just nibble at your legs if they get hold of you, and I have to admit, there was non around when we got in, but still the adrenaline kick was there. Which made the whole experience even more spooky where the thousands of huge bats that were sitting in the trees and made a lot of noise. I can now imagine what Bartman felt when he was stuck in the cave with those animals, they are scary.

Over night we stayed at the camp ground of the Kathrine Gorge National Park. Early the next morning we carried on to the Gorge to do some Canoeing. My canoe partner was Bryan, the scotsmen, and althoug he promised me he was an experienced canoer we actually were the lousiest ever, the 3 km to get down the first Gorge were more like 6 km to us as we went zig zag, but still we had a lot of fun and this place was really beautiful.

Before we arrived ein Darwin we made a short stop at a pub where the iconic buffalo Charlie out of the Crocodile Dundee movie was set up (stuffed of course). I really have to watch this movie again, especially as most of it was filmed in the kakadu National Park. When arriving at Darwin I went down with some of the people from our group to the Mindil Market, which is a hippie style street market down at the beach. Beautiful setting, good food and great music.

The Red Centre

Finally my big tour with Adventure Tours started to see the probaby most iconic symbol of Australia- Uluru or as the white people called it Ayers Rock. We had another early start with Evil our tour guide (we could not guess why she was named like this by her colleagues and also don't know her real name, but this time nomen non et omen.). The fist stop was a Camel farm where I rode for the first time on one of those amazing creatures. It was very bumpy wiggling from one side to the other especially after it was forced into a slow trot. Now I fully understand why they are called ships of the desert, must get seasick on them all the same. Just imagine that the first explorers rode months on them, makes me shiver and my bumb hurt. The Camels arrived in Australia in order to be able to cross the desert of the centre that was impossible to do on horses or other transport means by then. Later one, when motorization started the Camel owner where supposed to kill their animals but instead they released them in the outback. The Camels adapted quite well and became wild. It is estimated that there are over 2 millions of them. In the afternoon we arrived in Kata Tjuta in the Pitjantjajara language this means means 'many heads'), the whites also call it "the Olgas". It is an impressive rock formation of different smoothed red rocks. The red colour is actually oxidation, that has formed over millions of year by the exposure to water and heat. We hiked through this amazing scenery and it got quite understandable for me why this is a sacred place for the Aboriginal people. Only the Trail of Winds that we took is open to the public, the rest of this mountain ranges is closed and can only be entered by the traditional owners of the land.

After this afternoon hike that left us all quite exhausted because of the dry heat, we took the bus to see the sunset over Uluru. I have to say that I was a bit dissapointed when we arrived at the sunset viewing point, not because of the rock which really is as spectacular as you could imagine it, but because I somehow thought (or better said, wished) that it was only us being able to enjoy this natural spectacle, but of course there were a lot of tour buses and other tourists wanting to see the same as us. Anyhow we found a spot a bit further up where not too many people gathered and enjoyed the changing colours of Uluru. It started out light red and got darker when the sun slowly went down and drew scar like shadows on the smooth rock. When the sun was about to vanish it grew paler until nearly all the colour seemed to be drained from it. Pretty awesome or beauuuutiful as the Australians would say. Unfortunately my pictures never capture completely the real beauty of the places, but to give you an idea I post it anyway.

After seing the sunset over the Rock we went to the campside. We could choose between sleeping in a set tent or in a Swag (kind of Australian sleeping bag) outside. I chose the latter option as the night was so clear and the stars twinkled in the sky. I have to say it was really an amazing experience sleeping with the stars above you out in the open, listening to the sounds of nature and watching the sky. Here far away from civilization and cities, the stars seem to shine much brighter and also much closer. I really slept well, although around the early morning ours it got quite fresh, nevermind, as we had to get up at 4.15 anyway to go and see the sunrise over Uluru.

That was also a pretty spectacular show, although I found that the Rock wasn't as pretty from this side as from the distance and the spot we've seen the sunset from. After the sun was all up we started with the 8km base walk around Uluru. Fortunately the climb was closed due to wind so even those tempted to climb up couldn't do it. I find it quite sad that the walk is still open, altough the rock is a holy place to the Aboriginals, and there are signs everywhere asking the tourists not to climb, but I have been told that once the walk was closed a big decrease in tourist numbers into the Park was noticed and therefore less money was made, so it got reopened. Already 35 people have died, falling off, having hear attacks and so on, as the rock is really steep and there are still those who think that they can climb it in flip flops. Anyway, we just walked around it and there are also several spots where taking pictures is forbidden as it is a sacred spot. There are different stories about the creation of Uluru, but it would take to long to write them down here, I will tell them personally to you when I come back if I remember them all. There are different levels of stories for the Aboriginal people that are about creation, their laws, lessons to the younger and so on. Most of the stories are to holy to be told to white people, so the stories we are able to read or hear are those that are told to the children.

In the afternoon we drove to the Camp side at Kings Canyon where we made a fire out of our collected firewood and cooked over it. After dinner we played cards and talked. Our group is really nice and heterogenous with different ages from 20 to over 60 (Canadien couple) and different nationalities. Once again I slept under the stars.

The next morning we started early to hike through Kings Canyon to make use of the freshness of the early morning hours, the heat will be hitting us soon. Kings Canyon (part of the Watarrka National park) is very impressive Gorge with walls that are over 300 meters high. We climbed up to the first lookout and then followed the trail through the different rock formations until we reached the "Garden of Eden". This is a very ancient garden with tropical plants that must come as close as possible to the biblical garden of eden taking into consideration that all this beauty grows within the shelter of rocks in the middle of a desert. Quite impressive.

We finished around 11 with our hike, just in time as the sun already hit very hard, and drove back to Alice Springs.