Austr(al)ia: From Melbourne to Sydney

Finally we arrived in Australia after a just 4 hours flight.

Actually, I wanted to go to Australia since I was a child. Back then, my mum told me that my aunt lives at the other side of the world. Hence, I drilled a hole through the globus and the other ending showed up in Australia. The funny thing is: my aunt does not live there, she lives in Vancouver, Canada...nevertheless since that I always wanted to go to Australia!

Our idea for this trip was to start in Melbourne and go by car all the way up to Brisbane (more than 5000k's), and little bit further North to the Whitsunday Islands :)

Couchsurfing is here again the main travel incredience and we found a great host in Melbourne: Mark alias google superman :)

He lives in Port Melbourne, South of Downtown Melbourne.

When we arrived at his place 3 CSs and Marks flatmate, Yin, welcomed us. After a short chat we went on south to drive on the famous Great Ocean Road. In fact, a marvelous trip with numerous scenic outlooks...

On the Great Ocean Road...

Back in Marks appartments we started questioning ourselfs how 7 people (Mark, Yin, and 5 CSers) can possibly sleep in his 1 bedroom apartment and were already sure, that it won't gonna work...but Mark proofed us wrong. It was possible, have a look:

Yin, Steffano, Eleonora...











...Jiny, Mike, Mark, Jennifer

After a surprisingly relaxing night we explored the city as usual: per pedes. We love to walk all through cities because you can find little hidden things, shops, cafés and...sushi restaurants!
I liked the convention center and thought that this would be a great place to organize a conference ;)

Melbourne Convention Center (MCC)

Walking over the footbridge we had almost arrived in the CBD (central business district).

Footbridge @ MCC

Melbourne is one of the worlds best cities regarding quality of living and the cultural capital of Austalia, which is in fact according to many art galleries, film festivals, orchestras, choral and opera productions, an extensive live music scene, as well as a strong food, wine and coffee culture.

Our first sight was the Queen Victoria Market...full of leather bands, shoes, Ugg-boots, furniture, clocks, bracelets, little coala bears and delicious delicacies...

Queen Victoria Market

Gibts da a Wuarschtsemmeln, hah?

At the Visitor Center (next to Federation Square), you can drink a great cappuchino and try gluteen free cookies ;)

coffee and cookies!

The Atrium @ Visitor Center

Enjoying coffee and relaxing in the grass next to the Yarra river...

Chill-out time @ Yarra River side

...it is time for some culture...
Especially Federation Square is -in my opinion- a concentration of cultural activities.

Federation Square

You can enjoy Aboriginal art, eat and drink or go into the Australian center of the Moving image (ACMI). There we explored the story of the Film, Television & Digital Culture and tested new games.

@ ACMI (http://www.acmi.net.au/screen_worlds.aspx)

We were lucky because during our stay the international comedy was all over the city, so we could enjoy live comedy acts, talks and shows.

We watched one show from an US comedian, Tim Lee, who did a PhD in Biology and turned comedian after getting sick of Science. He uses key aspects of Chemistry, Physics and Biology and transforms it into a funny analogon for real life purposes like beer drinking or the naturally very strong bond between his soap bar and his roomates hair and so on.

Tim Lee @ Red Bennies

His show really showed us that it is possible to have a successful career outside of academia...even the subject can be changed completely ;)

I had the chance to talk to Tim and finally got a great shot:

Me and Tim Lee.

Outside of the comedy club we saw our first "new" animal in Australia - a ringtail possum...

Possum...possessed by the devil;)

Soooo....enough about culture? U rather want to hear kicking basses and dancing until the sun rises? U may have heard about it, but Melbourne is next to its European counterparts like Amsterdam, the city of Hardstyle and Hardtrance...and Melbourne Shuffle, a dance which looks like sliding and floating over the dancefloor. We looked up one of the clubs, 3D night club, and indeed, my heart was pumping like a drum!!!! People dress up very freaky, with colourful trousers, dread locks, hoodies and flats...to shuffle. Her one cute guy shuffling:

We stayed in total 5 days in Melbourne and we were sad to say good bye to our great host and were kinda sad that we didn't get the chance to cook Schnitzel for him :P

Bye bye Mark!

After telling Mark good bye we started our new roadtrip along the coastline towards Sydney.  The first night we stayed at Lakes Entrance, a small town about 300km down the road. The next morning we got up at 6:30 to go for a run and doing a crossfit workout at the beach. Crossfit is a cool alternative to conventional sports and a mix of pretty much everything. Very intensive, never boring, very effective. This is how we stay fit whilst travelling. If you want to find out more, go to: http://games.crossfit.com/what-is-crossfit

After a refreshing shower and a delicious breakfast we drove about 7 hours until we reached Jervis bay, a beautiful bay which is said to have the whitest sand in the world. Well, judge yourself...

Jervis Bay

The next day we did a hike in the blue mountains together with our new German friend, Chris, a parkour professional. We have seen the incredible 3 sisters: giant stone formations that look over the valley.

We and the 3 sisters.

Finally, Chris showed us some jumps and tought Mike how to do the flag:

Mike the flag.

Later on the day we headed to Sydney to meet up with Ian, our host in Sydney. This day turned out to one of the long ones and ended with a sick night...but that we gonna tell ya in our next entry ;P

kisses jiny and Mike

Goodby windy Wellington!

Hi there! I need to add one final entry about NZ.

I want to share my experiences of the ANZ Micro & Nanofluidics conference with you guys...ok I know that you have nooo f..cking idea what it is about, so I want to tell you in short.

ANZ means Australia and New Zealand...ok that was too easy.

Micro and nanofluidics refers to a tool that is used to fabricate vey very tiny laboratories, also called Lab-on-a-chip's (LOC). If u r female, u may have used one once or twice in you life after u forgot to take the pill or the condom was not so functional...yes I am talking about a pregnancy test...thats a LOC.

Example for a Lab-on-a-Chip (LOC).

U do not need a professional to take one of ur body liquids and explain u the results. U simply urinate on the stripe and the little read-out window tells you pregnant or not pregnant. There is no result that tells u "u r half pregnant!. Easy ha?
So...the conference was ectually about such devices and their fabrication/analyzation/development/problems/chemistry...etc...

One talk at the ANZ fascinated me most...from S. Khan, Prof. at the National University of Singapore; he is developing a so called microreactor. That is a LOC for chemical synthesis...
In other words, the classic chemical lab with all the beakers and flasks and green fluorescent colours can be shrinked to a size of a few centimeters.
Imagine, one day you can produce your medicine in your living room...without knowing anything about chemistry...
O.K. enough about my nerdy thoughts! What is most important at such a conference is to meet people...and i did of course!
The result: I got invited to a sushi party, where Mike was delighted to join me. The food was prepared in such a different way as we are used to in Austria. It was more like a buffet where u choose ur incredinces and can role them to a cone...yammy! THX Anika for the invitation!

Sushi!!!

At the conference I met Peter -the first cool Austrian we met so far during our travels- who does his PhD at the Victoria University of Wellington.
He invited us on Saturday to have gin tonics with his collegues ("vorglühen") and then we went out with those nice Kiwi scientists.

Mike and me and a bunch of Kiwi scientists. I know I glow! I am not radioactive and no I am not an angel.

We ended up in The Establishment at Courtenay place (the party area in Wellington).
It was really great fun and the girls know how to dress up, have a look on that nice shot:

Sexy outfits to go out!

On Sunday we decided to do something more relaxing and went to a jazz club with Patrick and Hanna.

Hanna and Patrick.

I cannot go there any more because Mike made me laugh and I had to spit my white wine all over him (the second time on this weekend)...well that was kinda embarrassing. Patrick and Hanna couldn't stop laughing about that situation, too.

For the last days we first wanted to relax but then we had this glorious idea! We decided to make an Austrian dinner jodl event with Gulasch, Krautfleckerl, Kaiserschmarren...Austrian music like Mozart, DJ Ötzi, EAV and "Die Hinnichen". Mike played the DJ...
Patrick was sooo sad that we have to leave so soon that he immediately started crying in the kitchen;) (Or maybe just because of the onions he had to cut)

Don't cry for us...

In total we were 12 people and the dinner was just great and all people enjoyed it...unfortunately noooo left overs...

Prost Mahlzeit!!!!

Good bye, c ya soon in Melbourne.

Tonight we gonna have a bunch of cocktails on our last evening in Kiwi kingdom and tomorrow at 6am we'll be leaving towards down under...

Cheers

a+M

The North trip 2

Hi my loyal readers!

Back in Auckland I decided to get my tattoo done at Monique's tattoo studio, where experienced tattooers help you creating unique designs. Mine was challenging and it took a while until they could meet my high demands. Buzzy, my tattooer, was very patient and she came up with a design which was exactly what I was craving for. Next day I had an appointment and it took more than 4 hours...and YES it did hurt!

Buzzy working on my back side. OUCH!

In the meantime Mike went to the Auckland Powerlifting Championships. Although just watching he was happy to be in contact with his favorite sport again after almost 6 months without a gym...and his gym mates...

Jono Radich setting a new Auckland squat record with 325kg -120kg!

On Sunday, April 1st, we left Auckland to explore vulcanos, caves and other surprises of this astonishing nature. We took a picture with our new friends Jenny and Robert, who hosted for 10 days in total, told them good bye and started heading South.

Jenny, Robert, me and Mike.

On the road Mike had to stop because he saw a very unusual herd of animals: ostriches.

I can see you!

Finally approaching the Waitomo caves we booked a tour through it via boat and saw a throng of glowworms. In NZ and Australia, caves are full of this specific species, so called Arachnocampa. As larves they spin a string hanging from the roof and glow (caused by bioluminescence) to attract delicious flys, believing flying to the sun light. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pics. But the roof of the caves looked exactly like that:

Glowworms in the Waitomo caves

Mike was really happy after we had explored those little glowy animals. Can you see the peace in his face?

Waitamo caves exit.

On the way to Patricks aunty Caroline we encountered Sauron at a rest place next to the highway.

We had a great chat about travelling with aunty Caroline, stayed the night with her in Hamilton and headed to Rotarua the next morning. We stopped at Matamata to see the Hobbiton, the hobbit village of the movie trilogy "Lord of the Rings". It looked excactly like in the movies. Here a panoramic view:

Hobbit village in Matamata.

Mike approached also one hobbit house. "Hello, somebody there?" The funny thing is, that they have houses in different sizes. This one was used to film hobbit scenes whereas smaller ones were used when Gandalf appeared to make him look bigger - clever, ha?

Mike is a hobbit.

132$ poorer we wanted to see some geyseers and went to the Wai-o-tapu thermal wondeland near Rotarua. Next to sulphur caves, and big hole in the ground the park had a nice selection of colourful pools:

Oyster pool

Campagne pool. On the edge u can collect nice chemical elements such as arsenic, antimony, silver and gold :)

Devils bath. Different sulphur compounds dissolved in water give this nice poison-green colour.

In the park we found a very funny animal; can you see it in the upcoming picture?

Can you see the animal?

In Rotarua we stayed with Patricks great aunty, Joan. She cooked dinner for us almost every night and served delicious breakfast in the morning. In return we showed her how to make Schnitzel, Kaiserschmarrn and a delicious eggplant salad, as she had never eaten eggplant in her long life before. It felt like staying with my own grandma :)

Mike, me and Joan.

In Rotarua you can do lots of exciting leisure activities like bungee jumping, zorbing (beeing captured in a big ball rolling down the hill), shweebing, etc. In our opinion they were way too expensive and so we boycotted them; we rather spent more time finding a new treasure via geocaching. Here the pic of our first cache which has not been destroyed:

Our second geocache at the Bay of Plenty.

We stayed 4 nights in Rotarua and on the last evening we (mike, Joan and moa) booked a tour to the Tamaki village which was named after two Maori brothers. The idea of this "rebuilt" Maori village is to introduce people to the Maori culture. Today, Maori culture in NZ does not exsist any more in the way it used to several hundred years ago.
Mike was voted as the Chief to lead the group through the village and had to approach the entrance as the first one. After facing the most fearsome warriors and doing hongi (basically something like a handshake where you nudge the nose of the other person with yours), he had to accept the welcome gift of the Maori tribe and finally we were allowed to enter the village.
In the village they showed us dances, explained the meaning of the tattoo culture and trained us to do the Haka (the war dance - today still practised by the All Blacks of NZ, the world best rugby team).

Haka!!!!

For dinner they served Hangi: meat and vegetables heated up in an earth oven as you can see here:

Let's make Hangi! Patrick said if you do it wrong it tastes like rotten food. This Hangi was incredible delicious!!

After dinner: Group Haka!

After that great dinner we had a hilarious bus ride home. It turned out that the bus driver is a real comedian and we couldn't stop laughing.

The next day we drove to Ohakune where we met Patrick again in the ski lodge he is working for. After all these adventures it felt like meeting a family member. Patrick had new adventurous plans for us...he decided we can do a "little" hike, the Tongariro Alpine Crossing. This is one of the world most famous hikes. The night before we went out for dinner with the whole group and I almost choked my smoked salmon bite when they told me the hike takes 8 hours...very little ha?
I thought: "O.K., another challenge!"
The next day we got up very very early (5:40) and prepared for our endeavor. I realized that the Kiwis have a very specific hiking-styling: leggins and training shorts - very sexy:)

Right at the beginning of the Tongariro Alpine Crossing.

During easter, this hike is very popular, so we weren't the only ones who did that tour.

Sooo many people on the route.

After the first hundred meters in altitude (where we sometimes got in a "traffic jam" and had to wait up to 5 min to continue because of so many people), the crowd divided a bit because some went all up to the top of Ngauruhoe, a vulcano which looks very symmetrical. Patrick and Hannah were one of them :)

Ngauruhoe.

I decided to escape these additional 3 hours hike and continued on the normal track. 12 hours of hiking would have been too much that day. 

Reaching the highest point of the standard track we could not believe our eyes...totally exhausted and proud, that we made it we saw an Asian chick who also made it: in high heels and a pink shoulder bag...the alpine crossing...altitudes of over 2000m...climbing, rocks, ...!!! ...and she finished the track also after 8 hours right behind us...!!! For us she was the hero of the day (and we went into the cellar crying;)

Hero of the day!

The rest of the track was a scenery of astonishing natural wonders like the smoky crater coated with sulphur compounds in black and red:

crater

Emerald lakes.

The track ended in the jungle and after we saw the parking area we realized, that we really did it, the whole track. I felt very exhausted even I spared the additional 3 hours.


The next day we headed to Castlepoint, where Patrick showed us his lovely summer house. This little spot is heaven on earth and we had another little hike, including climbing, approaching windy caves and little islands ;)

Me and Mike at Castlepoint.

Castlepoint lighthouse

The smallest island I have conquered so far!

View from castle rock

Mike on the castle rock

Back in Wellington, we just want to relax and plan our trip in Australia.
I am going to a conference about nanofluidics from the 12-13th of April, actually already tomorrow...I miss Science, so let's see how nanotech is like on the Southern hemisphere ;)

After some serious family issues we weren't sure, if we can continue our journey but after all we finally decided to do so. On Wednesday next week (18th) we will fly to Australia so

see you soon in Melbourne,

Kisses Jiny and Mike :*