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...
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| 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 ;)
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| Melbourne Convention Center (MCC) |
Walking over the footbridge we had almost arrived in the CBD (central business district).
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| 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...
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| Queen Victoria Market |
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| Gibts da a Wuarschtsemmeln, hah? |
At the Visitor Center (next to Federation Square), you can drink a great cappuchino and try gluteen free cookies ;)
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| coffee and cookies! |
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| The Atrium @ Visitor Center |
Enjoying coffee and relaxing in the grass next to the Yarra river...
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| Chill-out time @ Yarra River side |
Especially Federation Square is -in my opinion- a concentration of cultural activities.
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| Federation Square |
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| @ 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.
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| 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:
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| Me and Tim Lee. |
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| 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
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| 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...
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| 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.
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| We and the 3 sisters. |
Finally, Chris showed us some jumps and tought Mike how to do the flag:
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| 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
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