April 14, 2010

it's been 12 months....

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn´t do than
by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream.


by Mark Twain


Today over a year ago, I boarded the plane heading to Australia via Tokyo, Japan. Now 365 days later I am still sitting in Melbourne, my homebase since the last 6 months.... I truly became to love this buzzling city over the time. It' s amazing. It' s been thrilling. It' s been crazy. It's been awesome.

12 months down under that has been 55.778 km throughout Australia (incl. the journey down under), visiting every state, spent some longer time in Perth, Adelaide, Ayr, Noosa, Byron Bay, Sydney and the most days in Melbourne.



Met heaps of amazing people from all over the world, travelled on with a few and met up again with a lot after a few months, enjoyed awesome scenery, stunning beaches, visited world heritages, had heaps of fun, endured 7 weeks of fruit picking, crazy Aussie wildlife, city days and big nite out, lots of great parties and not so grand hung over days, heaps of fun, hidden secrets and hideaways, hostel stories, .... and lots more.



Cheers for the memories and hey, 12 more months to go. whoop whoop.
Stay on for the ride.

April 02, 2010

Bay of Fires

The northeast coast boasts some of Tasmania‘ s most secluded white-sand beaches and miles upon miles of empty shorelines, waterfalls, wildlife-rich nationalparks and heaps of fishing opportunities. Bay of Fires is the coastal strip up just north of Binnalong Bay and all the way up to the ramshackle chack-town of The Gardens. It‘s called Bay of Fires after early explorers saw the fires of the Aboriginals along the shore. It‘s only accessable through minor roads.... gravelroads so to speak... and still has some free campingspots along the bay overlooking the stunning beaches. We were all in for free camping and who would‘ ve guessed that our little camper also is a fab 4WD!! He he he! Mr Maui wouldn‘t have been amused, but what he doesn‘ t know, right?! :-) So we had our own isolated camping spot for the night like 5m from the beach. Beautiful. That eve just screamed for a bottle of red and crisps on the beach. Perfect holidays! Needless to say we slept like babies that night with the lullabies of the incoming waves.

What we also disovered on our stay there? Aussies tend to bring pretty „essential“ stuff when camping out in the bush... like a satelite for TV, generator, little toilet tent,, well since no facilities on site, Oz flag and since this is a fishing nation, fishing rods of course. For the ones who are to lazy or too busy to stand there and fish, they built their own huge rods which are just stuck in the sands and the line put way out into the sea... while they chat and have a few beers with their mates outside their campers.

The next day we drove up to Ansons‘ Bay on a minor road, well, as we found out soon enough, it was gravelroad for the next 45k‘s.... Yay! We wanted to spend the night at the other free camping spot at Fisherman‘s Point... that was even more secluded than the first spot. 4WD campervan action there as well. Thank God it didn‘ t break apart... It was a bit bumpy... ahh, rough in the end. We also were almost the only ones camping out there, apart from to fishermen, a couple and another guy in his huge bus. It was us, the sea and the pelicans!

That was our last night in Tassie, after three amazing weeks we are heading back on the ferry accross the Bass Strait to Melbourne. It took us almost two weeks to finally relax and enjoy the time off, having worked every day for the last five months, excessive partying and short nights has left us somehow exhausted in the end. Now it‘s back to work, to new challenges, new stories to tell and more escapes like this to plan for and to basically work for.