you guys might get the impression that I am bored because my blog is not very active and the headlines sound lame... Well thats because I got a lot of stuff to do here and hardly find time to write about it. If I got nothing to do on a weekend or after work during the week, its just a pleasure sitting on the porch an let the sun tan you :-) 28°C no clouds perfect weather.
We now got a new house mate, so we are three people now. Stu has moved in. He was featured in a movie earlier with the flashflooding (some month ago) . He finally moved in.
We got new pets now too. Three cats and a dog. The dog somehow is a bit retarded and is stupid but that makes him even more adorable.
But there is little few to report on ... Nothing happened recently, work is still the same. I finally got some approvals to do some tests, but that comes too late now. There are just three weeks left with work.
My plans of doing internship and thesis was a good idea, but the circumstances are bad here, and I joined the team at my company at a bad time. There are many other problems at the moment and my research has lost a lot of importance since I started there. At least I ll get my 20 weeks internship done.
In April I have three weeks left. I am planing to fly up to Darwin or Perth and have a look around. Just plans yet, first I need to get that ticket back to germany before I can make any other specific plans. I am trying to fly back on the 22nd of April, straight to London. I ll be back in Germany in the first week of May.
it has been a week again since last time ... wow .. time goes past quite quick here. On Wednesday after the Sales-Administration-Production (SAP) Conference (no, I am not important enough to participate there) which lasted for 3 days, it was time for some fun with the guys from work. We all gathered for the SAP Trophy cup, an annual event held after each SAP Conference. We played cricket and some other Novelty games. It was my first time on the cricket field and I didn t do too bad. I bowled some nice balls, batted superb for a newbie (well, I am still rather good at tennis) and did a good job out in the field. I even caught somebody out. During batting I injured myself with a nice graze along my underarm. Still burns like fire and has funny different colors, but that's the prize of playing cricket, unprotected :-p
Synthetic lawn on the batting line, thats where you get nice burns while skidding...
My boss. He did well too, although he isn't Australian, too
Dan just hit the ball, trying to make some runs
That's how the stumps look like after some German bloke skid into them ... sorry :-p
After the cricket and some other smaller funny games, which you usually only play on kids birthday parties we all went, sweaty as we were to the Albury Gulf Club and enjoyed a BBQ there. Cassie set up an trivia after the feed and although most questions were just Aussie-knowledge I made some points for the Production team with movie quotes and identifying celbs. It finally paid off, that I keep watched Aussie movies with Sonia the other weekend.
It's dry again, Patrick is back from the mechanics (nothing wrong, just service) and I learnt my lesson never drinking cheap cask wine, especially not a Riesling. The dry whites are okay. That's all what happened to me that week. Oh and I was short on money for some days. But finally received my salary. Guess what? Went shopping directly after I saw my account filled again.
Yesterday evening I had an awsome sunset here, everything was colored in red. Looking at the following pictures you can only guess what it looked like. It was like somebody colored the sun red. Directly reminds me of that once-in-a-life sunrise in Port August during my trip.
I am really looking forward for this weekend. Got enough movies to spent the weekend. Not much else you can do when its gonna rain that hard again. The weather is so unpredictable here . 41C on Monday and Thuesday and now this massiv amount of rain. The rain is more or less the result of Yasi which hit QLD. From the local newspaper, the bordermail:
FORECASTERS expect up to 100mm of rain to fall on the Border by Saturday night with a high chance of flooding.
The Upper Murray is expected to be worst hit, Weatherzone meteorologists predicting up to 200mm of rain could fall in that region.
"Further major flooding is almost guaranteed, with widespread 50 to 100 millimetres likely in northern and eastern Victoria and southern New South Wales between now and Saturday night," Weatherzone meteorologist Brett Dutschke said.
"Many recently flooded areas will be hit hard again, a blow to the livelihoods of thousands of people.
"The coming rain will become widespread as early as Friday as the atmosphere becomes increasingly moist and unstable.
"Saturday looks like being the wettest day as an approaching cooler change interacts with the warm, humid, unstable air ahead of it. The rain will clear on Sunday as the cooler change takes it to northern and eastern NSW."
Despite that, everything is running fine here. So long,
Finally it's getting hot... That's what I expected Australia to be like ... 10am in the morning and it was already 28°C. Nice :-) !!! We didn't reach the predicted 41°C today but 38°C is a good start into the new week!
a busy week just ended. We had a club night on Thuesday, Australia Day on Wednesday and a superhero costume party on Saturday.
All Australians are completely insame on Aussiday. Thuesday night we celebrated into Aussie day in various bars and clubs across town. Next morning was quiet tough getting up, but we finally made it to Hume lake. Nearly like lying at the beach with the difference its not salty and you can see the other side. Awsome time out, again. Plenty of beer and lamb chops of course, like (we) Aussies like it. :-)
On Saturday it was time for a costume party at Cassie's place. I dressed up as The Punisher. Nice party, BBQ, Cocktails, Beers and Pool... and a lot of crushed ice. I am enjoying my time here really at the moment. See ya next week!
after been back for a week now, I sorted all my pictures and put some on my facebook account. For those without Facebook, just follow this link. Its just 5% of the pictures I have taken on the trip, a lot more sittin her on my harddrive. But I won t upload them all.
Wenn das so weiter geht, muss ich am Wochenende in eine Sporthalle ziehen ... Die Pegel steigen und steigen ... Victoria am Absaufen ... Da war Brisbane ein Witz dagegen :-(
yes, it's true. I am back in Albury/Wodonga :-( On the one hand I am quite happy to be back and live a normal life again (with proper bed and shelter), on the other hand, I ll have to start working on Monday again. Won't be easy after 4 weeks of holidays.
I couldn't upload this vid during the trip, but that's a "short" 3 trailer roadtrain, approx. 55m in lenght. Three trailers are maximum size in the Northern Territory. If you want to see bigger ones, only in Western Australia, those "monster road trains" are allowed.
In Alice we encountered some heavy thunder storms, too.
And just as we were driving on a dirt road. Timing couldn't be worse. But I was confident all the time I could manage to get us out of the mud and clay. No worries, mate! Patrick in his elements!
We left Alice Springs and headed down south again. On your way down we drove through a very smoky area. Later some guys at a servo told me, there is a bushfire 150kms east... Strange Australia, floods and fires at once ...
Compare those two. The second image was shot just 20 minutes later after we escaped the fumes. We camped at Cooper Pedy the way back, awesome sunset this time there. And some very good pizza. The guy was Italian ... Actually the best pizza I had for ages.
In Adelaide, we did the usual sightseeing, also there wasn't much to see in my opinion. Walked through the city visited some building and sites, nothing special compared to the other towns I have been during my trip. Well, you were allowed to take a seat in the "boss" chair in the South Australian parliament on the guided tour.
"King in the castle. King in the castle. I have a chair. I have a chair."
Sorry, das passt aber zu gut, um es einfach nicht zu bringen :-D
Anyway, after two nights in Adelaide, we visited the village of Hahndorf, just some ks out of the city. Many German refugees came here. Don t ask me when, I was more interested in the good German beer and food they offer in the Hahndorf Inn. Maybe that was my last chance to get that stuff before flying back!
But gross, 12$ for Münchner Weisen ...
After this nice stop, we continued driving home. Adelaide - Wodonga is roughly 900ks ... We did it in one go, took us some hours, and we arrived by 3am in the morning. Actually, it was our first time we drove during the night. Wasn't too bad after all. Just the flooding was a bit adventurous during the night.
Flooded road during daylight are too easy, especially if it's just 10 cm or less and you see where you are driving. Plenty of other trucks around, no worries. One of the spots we encountered during the trip:
Well, too easy. But now: pitchdark, no cars around, 30cms of water over the road and a strong current flowing there. Did I mention, you didn't see the road ? Just GPS to verify your position. Thanks to Patrick we could take that road.
In the recent days we have been to Uluru, see last post.
Afterwards we went to Kings Canyon, not far from there. Kings Canyon is even more impressiv then Uluru in my oppnion! But well, everybody has to decide that for himself.
From Kings Canyon we took a dirtroad to Alice Springs avoiding the roads we have travel so far. We came past some cool gorges and waterholes where we had a swim in. Luckily it's off-season at the moment, so very few people are around here anyway. Most of the pots we had for ourselfs.
A day later we arrived in Alice. That night it had some massiv thunderstorms there and halkf of the town got flooded again. LOL. Seems like everywhere I go, the rain keeps following me. Whatever. I had the best Australian beer ever so far there, The Nothern Territory Draught. Very nice :-) . And I had Kangaroo meat for the first time in a saloon there too. Awsome!
We finally arrived here at the Urulu national park after about 1200ks thru plain desert.
Parick and me half way thru
Awsome trip. Just the driving was worth the driving.LOL. No, Flying here is cheaing, you have to drive it when you want to visit "the red center" in Australia. My last blog entry from Cooper Pedy was yesterday. Usually its around 45°C there, but the time we arrive there, it was raining. Very unusual. We fueled up some cheap uleaded stuff and continued our trip.
An other small town on the way up. Just two petrolstations a hotel and thats all!
We stayed at Marla for the night, a roadhouse.
Some guys were hanging at the bar, some dudes were eating some fries, and thousand flies around. In the night we saw our first roadtrain with more than three trailers! Made some pics the next mornig before we left. Awsome .
Here in the Naional Park we had a look at the Olgas and at Ayres Rock during sunset and the culture center. Tommorrow morning we ll enjoy the rock during sunrise and make a walk around the rock. Afterwards we ll drive to Kings canyon and then to "The Alice"
The Olgas .....
It got so hot, I had to change cloth and protect myself from this burning sun ... 36°C ... wow
It got cooler again the evening. We waited for sunset and looked a the coorchange of he Uluru ... I didn t see much though. Maybe the sunrise is more spectacular
this morning s we left Port Augusta, I saw this amazing sunrise 6am in the morning! wow !
Jetzt sind wir gerade in Coober Pedy. Auftanken und weiter gehts Richtung Alice Springs. Haben noch einiges vor uns. Leider regnete es hier in der Wuest .... Sau seltener Anblick ...
After everything is flooded up north in Queensland and there is no way the rain will stop, we decided to change our plans and drive to Alice Springs and the Ayers Rock because the weather there is much nicer. We spent New Years Eve in Brisbane. Actually I planned to come back there end off March, but well, made it there on 30th :-) ... Anywa, It was very nice weather, we had a more detailed look at the inner city again and enjoyed some sun at the Sunshine Coast.
Me and Fletcher standing offshore at sunshine coast ... That day I got a sunburn on my back ... wtf ? I got that shirt on all day ???
We also visited the Underwater Aquarium there too ... Nice stuff and creepy creatures ... They even got a FROZEN shark there ... Awsome ...
New year was awsome, we enjoyed a nice firwork from Southbanks Pier, afterwards went into City and had some "loose" time out there.
The next morning we headed off to Alice Springs. From Brisbane. 3000 Kilomters. We took the south route via NSW and the Barrier Highway as the North route was flooded at that moment. It was very nice drive, partime we had the Highway for ourselfs, we didn't saw an other car for half an hour! The distanes between human settlements were about 260ks on that highway. It was, like I said, very nice , lonely and u saw nothingh around you. Just the roud 60ks straight ahead and 60ks behind you, nothing to the side than bush and some lone tries... No hills, nothing. Plane flat land.
Hancock's Lookout, just some ks away from my current location. Nice !
On our way we went past some old mining towns, visited an abondened silver mine and had some Cornish cream coffee.
Me and Toni at one of the Mines we visited
Tonite we reached Port Augusta, just 200ks north of Adelaide, at southern ocean. I cant believe we made more than 1800ks in 3 days.... Well Patrick looks like shit now, covered in red dust, dead insects and sand everywere inside...
Tomorrow we ll headed up to Alice Springs and have a look at the Ayres Rock and other suff up there ... Again 1200ks thru the Outback, peaktemperature 45C expected for the next days on the highway. We ll buy water and other supplies tmr and head off as soon as possible. We ll try do do it in on run.
