on my way Backpacking, roadtripping and travelling the world

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to everyone! Hope you enjoyed your New Years Eve and had a good start in 2011!

Shortly after my last entry I left Brisbane in order to travel around Canberra and south of Sydney. As there were so many options to finding a room around Brisbane the main problem was, that no one has rooms for rent more then a couple of days in advance. So there was no way, to find a room for the second week in January. That's why I decided to fly to Canberra and meet Hannes and Marina who in the meantime travelled throughout south-east Asia and have been in Australia now for 3 months.

Arriving in Canberra late in the evening showed me, that there's not much happening in Canberra besides the governmental issues. I had to take a taxi in town because the public buses don't operate that late, and it wasn't even midnight.

So after a night in the Youth Hostel I decided not to spend too much time in Canberra and took the next bus to Cooma where I finally met Marina and Hannes. They were still fixing their car, but the next day the engine was put together and we left just Cooma to stay overnight just outside town on the lookout point. The car seemed to work well, but on the next morning, after 5 minutes of driving there was a noise which didn't sound good. So we stopped and checked the engine again. A small part inside the engine was loose and caused the noise, so we had to go back to the workshop and open the engine again. It took us 4 more days to finally fix the as we had to wait for parts to arrive and it was a weekend. At least I now know how to open an engine and do some fixes. On the weekend, while waiting for the parts, we drove with another car towards the snowy mountains and stayed in a nice flat. But our plan of hiking had to be cancelled because of bad weather. It had snowfall above 1400m, so I wasn't able to climb the highest mountain in Australia, Mt Koscziuszko. Maybe another time.

So we drove of towards the coast and looked for a nice place to stay for Christmas around Eden. Even though it was high season we found a nice flat we could stay in around Christmas, so we had a real Christmas Eve feast: For the first time of my life I helped preparing a turkey with stuffing, Marina made some 'Kartoffelsalat' (Swabian potato salad) and we even made some 'Sp�tzle' (Swabian kind of noodles). The Meal was delicious and we had turkey for 3 days, as it was way too much for the three of us to finish the turkey in one day.

During the whole time the weather was changing constantly and there was no reliable forecast, so we couldn't do much outdoors. But from time to time we at least tried to do some fishing or to have some smaller hikes. The best one was up to the 'Pigeon House', an awesome lookout mountain just some kilometres inland from the coast. The most adventurous part was driving on the direst road up to the parking. After all the rain in the last days Hannes had a hard time controlling the van, but thanks to his driving skills we didn't have any major problems. The hike itself was a bit steep, the last part was even going up on metal ladders, but the view from top was definitely worth it! It's amazing how hilly this country is if you just go inlands for a few kilometres. Until then I always thought Australia is pretty flat.

For New Years Eve we arrived in Sydney and were lucky to find a quiet side road to park the car overnight as prices for accommodation around New Year's are shooting up high. In order to have a nice view on the Harbour Bridge and the fireworks we took off early and found a good spot in the park on the Observatory Hill in 'The Rocks' just next to the bridge. There we spent the whole day picnicking and playing cards. I had short walk around the harbour at least to see the Opera House from the distance. In the evening then there was a smaller firework for the kids, which already impressed me. But the big firework still to follow on midnight was even bigger. From several ships around the harbour the launched parallel fireworks and had some extra special effects on the Harbour Bridge itself. It was really a great way to spend New Years Eve.

On the next day I left Sydney in order to fly back to Brisbane. On the same day I started to look for a room in a shared flat/house and after 2 days I already had seen 5 rooms and had made up my decision: Staying in the same suburb Paddington I moved a bit closer towards the city centre just next to Suncorp Stadium, the home of the Brisbane Roars soccer team. And as there was scheduled match yesterday I watched the game with Julian, the son of my former boss, and his friends. It was a 1-1 draw, but Robbie Fowler, former Liverpool player and legend, kicker a corner just in front of my seat. What a pity I forgot to take my camera with me.

I addition to the match and my moving yesterday I was at the orientation session in my university. They gave me all the information about y studies and a overlook what will be waiting for me in the next year. Next week I will have my first class, and I'm pretty excited about it!