koalabeat.com

Finally I am here again, back in Tübingen, sitting at my old desk in our new flat. I moved together with Ines again and everything is working fine. It’s been two months now since I returned. Tübingen seems a bit more boring now than it already was before. At least the trees here are becoming green again and the meadows colourful as the sun decides to stay up longer and heat up our hearts.

Uni is very busy already, as usual, so it is not too hard to overcome my aussie-homesickness. Australia is still in my mind though and I hope that I will never forget the time I had. Big Russ reminds me regularly…

It feels strange to talk to people who are still in Adelaide via facebook, skype and sms. Some of them just start to realize that they will also have to leave the country in a while. The good thing is that we are going to reunite at the Sziget Festival 2009 in Budapest. I am glad that finally a large number of people already got their tickets and really will be there in august.

Staying in touch is a challenge, but apparently it is one that can be mastered. That makes me happy.

To conclude this entry and also my whole aussie-blog, here is my full field report I wrote for my home-uni. It is written in german and will be uploaded to the university’s website as well, to help future SA exchange students to prepare for their time abroad and to get around in their new environment. If you are interested and capable of the german language, feel free to click here to download the full PDF file.

Thanks to all my faithful readers, friends and family.

Cheers
Thomas

The time has come. I finally bade Adelaide Good Bye. Read the rest of this entry »

Some of you might still remember my post about the Australian plastic-bag excess around the beginning of my last semester.

Well, finally before I leave Australia, everything comes to a happy end with the South Australian Plastic Bag Ban! I hope that the other states will follow!

Actually I wanted to learn Kite-Surfing with Richard before I have to leave Oz, but as usual I am running out of time.

At least we made it to a day Kiting (without surfboards) on the beach at Largs Bay yesterday, which was quite a lot of fun and a new experience for me. Feeling the Kite’s force for the first time, I was quite happy not to be on the water but on the beach instead. Look how high it was pulling Davinia, Richard and me into the air!
Funzies.
Read the rest of this entry »

This was one of my major highlights before leaving Australia: The WOMAD Festival in Adelaide (WOMADelaide). I was really happy to see The Cat Empire, which is probably my favourite Australian band, performing live on stage on Sunday night.
Read the rest of this entry »

Finally I made it to one of Richard’s Polevault Competitions!

It was really fun to watch him jump and see Camilo with his first pole-contact (which looks quite professional to me ).

Read the rest of this entry »

Coopers – Australian Naturally Brewed.

Probably being Australia’s best beer, Coopers have strongly supported my stay Down Under!
For this reason, I decided to go on one of their Brewery-Tours (with tasting).

Read the rest of this entry »

…so what is it? – It’s Harris Scarfe Man!

Thank you very much, Harris Scarfe Man, for being such a cool Adelaide institution!

My last day in Perth – and my last day travelling Australia.

To finish my trip, the road took me down south yesterday. I visited the Margaret River Area in the far south of Western Australia, with wine tasting, a free flight eagle display, a walk through Mammoth Cave and finally, as a highlight and proper conclusion to my “big loop” around the continent, the most southerly point of WA, where the Indian and the Southern Ocean meet.
Read the rest of this entry »

I could maybe fill several pages raving about Perth’s positive vibe. But I really want to spend my time to suck up more of it instead, therefore I’ll make it short: I love it!
Read the rest of this entry »

After we hardly had to plan ahead for more than one day at any time during our whole eastcoast-trip, I walked against a wall when I was trying to find a hostel in Perth on the day I arrived. Read the rest of this entry »

Now, as an exception, I really felt like a tourist, finding myself on an organized daytour in one of these massive four-wheel-drive coaches I always used to make fun of. Unfortunately this seemed to be the only (and cheapest) way for me to see everything I wanted to in the short time I had in Perth.

Our first stop was at (just another) wildlifepark. Well, actally they had two things there which I was really happy to see: white albino-kangaroos and a pet-wombat which turned out to be Big Russ’s cousin, Big Babs.
Read the rest of this entry »

My first day in Perth has been completely useless due to my late arrival. At Darwin Airport our plane was waiting for more than two hours on the runway with the passengers neither being allowed to get out nor to use electronic entertainment-devices. The reason was a broken windscreen-wiper (they told us) which they eventually did not manage to repair. Consequently we had to wait till the rain had stopped so we could take off. I am not sure if Quantas also had a plan for our arrival in Perth in case it was raining there. (…)
Read the rest of this entry »

The ‘Kakadu’ is Australia’s largest National Park and has three World-Heritage listings at a time, hence the three squares in the massive entrance-sign. It has one listing for its endemic flora, another one for its unique fauna, and a third one for its important culture, namely aboriginal people living in absolute unity with their land and having been looking traditionally after their country for thousands of years before the first white explorers even thought about approaching the red continent.
Read the rest of this entry »

Have you ever been wondering, why they have these Floodway-Signs everywhere in Australia though it actually seems to be really dry?

Have you ever been wondering, why so many Australians drive these huge 4×4-Diesel-Cars with snorkels although Diesel is much more expensive over here than unleaded petrol?

Have you ever been wondering why tourism in Australia is such a seasonal thing?

Do you want to know why I am really happy that we sold our car in Cairns instead of driving to Darwin with it?

The answer to all these questions is simple: Monsun!

Please enjoy the following road-pictures which I have taken from a Landcruiser’s co-driver seat during monsun season in the Top End.

Always keep in mind: You can drive as long as your snorkel is above the surface and if your vehicle moves side-wise, just open the doors to let the water come through. This is no joke.

[Show Slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

It has been a while since I’ve had the last one of these highly addictive South Australian coffee-drinks! Since we had left SA, there was no chance to get a Farmers Union Strong anywhere. Just the really sweet stuff is sold in every state whilst the strong brand, which I am officially hooked to, is just available in SA and…. THE NORTHERN TERRITORY!! (Here we go now!)

It felt good.

Darwin is a very special place on planet earth. With just about 80,000 inhabitants, it forms the tip of the ‘Top-End’, what the upper part of the Northern Territory is called. 
I think the Lonely Planet’s definition of Darwin this time might give you a pretty good impression of the diversity of people making Darwin a very colourful and vibrant place on earth: Read the rest of this entry »

Friday, 20th February 2009

Our car is sold! – What sounds so easy was actually a lot of trouble. Because of the recent floodings Cairns was not inhabited by many backpackers at the time and locals facing the economic crisis do not like buying cars at the moment anyways. We actually had a buyer for our car, who responded to one of our numerous adverts, had a closer look at the car, had a test-drive, let us clean it properly within hours of work, gave us his promise to buy it for an agreed $3500 and then unexpectedly changed his mind when we were meant to meet him at the registration office for transfering the ownership. He had to go back to Korea, he told us. 

Read the rest of this entry »

We successfully accomplished our mission: Our Roadtrip “Adelaide to Cape Tribulation”!

You may ask: “Why Cape Tribulation?”

Well, first of all, Cape Tribulation is the most northerly place on the east cost of Australia which can be accessed by a non-4WD car. Secondly, the Daintree National Park rainforest in far north Queensland is just amazing and Cape Tribulation is THE opportunity to have a sneak peak into it.

Read the rest of this entry »

World Heritage listed, reaching from Gladstone, Queensland up to the coast of Papua New Guinea, the majestic Great Barrier Reef is internationally known as THE number one ‘divers mecca’ in the world, closely followed by the Red Sea. The reef furthermore is the only living creature on earth which can be seen from the moon! Of course, we wanted to get much closer to it than that and thus went on a three days stayaboard trip, including 10 dives on some of the GBR’s most beautiful sites and as much snorkeling-opportunities as the bigest water-maniac could possibly wish for.
Our dive-boat, the Kangaroo Explorer, is a ship built not to go back to the harbour more often than once a month. Thus it keeps going from one dive site to another whilst the passengers are being brought and picked up by a smaller dayboat, the MV Sunkist.
Read the rest of this entry »