A quick entry in between packing, washing laundry and getting ready for bed. We're back from tropical Cairns! We got there early Saturday afternoon and after moving into our loud, but otherwise nice little hostel room, walked around Cairns a little bit. First impression was that we weren't impressed. Unfortunately that didn't change much all in all, apart from a few exceptions. Cairns is small and really only seems to exist for tourists. Kind of like downtown Prague, just not nearly as "authentic", beautiful and old. People from all over the world (especially Japan, however) seem to go there to enjoy some tropical weather, sandy beaches (which are suggested to you on postcards, but don't exist in Cairns. Period.) ... and to see the greatest tourist magnet, the Great Barrier Reef, of course. In all fairness I should say that WE didn't like Cairns, because it's just not OUR kind of place. If you like souvenir shops wherever you go, kamikaze drinking, nonstop wet t-shirt and Ms Backpacker parties, however, Cairns is your place!
Anyhow. Instead of bashing Cairns I should talk about the good part of it: Nice weather, beautiful rainforest walks and waterfalls in the surrounding area and ... the Great Barrier Reef. We went on a snorkelling daytrip on Monday, which, if nothing else, made the trip to Cairns well worth it. We went out to the reef (a 2 1/2 hour boat trip each way) and then, well, snorkelling. The water was rough and freezing after a while, but the underwater world was breathtaking. Beautifully colorful corals and fish and turtles (and Patrick even claims to have seen a striped snake...yuck...). Definitely an experience!

















Yesterday (Tuesday) night we returned to Sydney safe and sound, where we spent our first rainy and last Aussie day today. Despite our first really rainy day here, our initial impression of the city was confirmed yet again: It's love! :-) No doubt it's one of the top three cities we've visited and we're very much hoping to return before too long to spend more time in the city and its surrounding areas (and to see more of Australia, of course).
For now, however, our time in "Down under" is up and it's off to the country of Middle Earth.(Much to our dismay, people keep asking us if we're adament skiers whenever we mention going to NZ ... as if there were nothing else to do there. Or is there (not)????) So, with "beanies", long johns, mittens and (hopefully) adequate raingear in our packs, we're leaving Sydney bright and early to fly to Christchurch tomorrow (Thursday). I don't know how much time and opportunity we'll have to check email and update you guys from there, but we'll try our best to send a smoke signal here and there. Again: Any travel suggestions from you guys are more than welcome.
Hope all is well in good old Germany and the US.
Good night, P & L


P.S. We are repeatedly asked if we hear anything about the Soccer World Cup "down here". Yes, we do! The Aussies are in it and cheering greatly for their team, the Socceroos (especially after beating Japan in their first game). Patrick and I cheer for Germany, by the way, just to create a counter weight for good balance here ;-)

Quite a bit has happened since the last post. We rented a little car (Toyota Corolla, which here is actually about half the size of that in the US) and after getting used to driving on the "wrong" side of the road, went on our little trip to the Great Ocean Road. An absolutely amazing piece of earth! The landscape is just stunning, ranging from temperate rainforests to beautiful beaches and rough cliffs. The weather was not always perfect, but that also meant that we didn't have to share the place with as many tourists. The first night we stopped in Lorne, a nice little town by the beach where we found a beautiful Bed & Breakfast. Due to the queen's birthday it was a long weekend here and contrary to what we overconfidently expected, we could not find a hostel that had any vacancies. So we splurged at this B&B with spa and champagne breakfast instead. Very nice! The second night we spent at a hostel that was quite overrated in the books from what we saw ... similar to the town it was in. Thus, a piece of advice: the city of Warrnambool is small, dead, boring, overpriced and can easily be skipped when touring Australia.



After a ride back through the countryside (real Australian farmland, oh boy!) we arrived safely in Melbourne for our last night there. As a small "thank you" we took our hosts out for dinner and ...get ready fellow vegetarians... Patrick actually had a taste of kangaroo! Patrick ate Skippy! Very tasty, he says. Somewhere between a good steak and a pork chop. To me it looked like the rare version of the sweet animal we had fed just days earlier. :-(

Wednesday morning we got a very early flight to Sydney with Australia's version of Southwest. Uncomfortable, but otherwise smooth, it was a short flight to a much warmer (17-18 C or around 65 F) city that also feels a lot bigger and busier, more urban and ...forgive the word...wordly. From what I've seen so far I can say I LOVE Sydney! It has got a really nice feel to it and it's hard to really say what it is. Good-mood-weather (17 C apparently is freezing for Sydney), beautiful quiet neighborhoods, bustling downtown, amazing beaches, great harbor, big parks, surrounded by mountains and ocean - I am utterly impressed, almost to the point where I can say I could imagine living here (although...I'm not moving across the ocean again quite yet). Sigh...

We've got one more day to be enamoured by Sydney and then it's off to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef in the north before we return to Sydney for one day to say good-bye and head to NZ. Those four days (Saturday through Tuesday) in the tropics will likely be our only real beach days, so we'll get a big bottle of sunscreen and get ready for some snorkeling :-)

Attached are some pictures of the last days. The first two are at the Great Ocean Road, the last one is taken at Bondi Beach in Sydney.

That's about it, I believe. I'm quite tired and off to bed, it's been a day of lots and lots of walking again.

More soon. Good night!

Ganz fix eine Nachricht am Sonntag morgen (mittag), da wir in den naechsten Tagen aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nach nicht an einen Computer kommen werden: Wir haben uns ein Mietauto bestellt, das wir heute nachmittag abholen werden. Damit wollen wir die "Great Ocean Road", eines der highlights im Sueden Australiens (und nicht weit entfernt von Melbourne), bewundern. Wir kommen dann am Dienstag nachmittag zurueck ehe wir uns von unseren lieben Gasteltern und Melbourne verabschieden und nach Sydney fliegen.
Bis Dienstag liebe Gruesse, L & P

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A quick message on Sunday morning (noon), as we likely won't come by a computer in the next few days. We have rented a car that we will pick up this afternoon to discover the Great Ocean Road, another highlight near Melbourne. We are scheduled to return the car on Tuesday before leaving our lovely hosts and Melbourne and flying to Sydney on Wednesday.
More then. Best wishes, once again, P & L

forgot one of us together...

Daytrip

Ja Mensch, das klappt ja herrlich mit dem Blog! Ich freu' mich, dass so viele von Euch schon auf der Seite waren & nette Nachrichten hinterlassen haben. Danke!!! :-)
Heute gibt es einiges zu berichten, gleich fuer zwei Tage. Gestern sind wir recht spaet los und dann aus der U-Bahn direkt in eine Einkaufspassage gefallen, wo wir uns sogar das ein oder andere Langaermelshirt geleistet haben (mussten ja leicht packen) :) Danach haben wir uns die Bibliothek angesehen - ein Prachtbau, wenn ihr mich fragt. Ganz neu und modern mit viel Glas, Marmor und Licht. Nicht schlecht, Herr Specht. Da kamen Erinnerungen an gute alte Stabi-Zeiten auf. Seufz. Danach sind wir nochmal zum Botanischen Garten gegangen und dort gute 2 h spazieren gegangen. Ein richtig toller Park mit vielen exotischen Pflanzen, kleinen Seen und schoenem Blick auf die Stadt - da wuerden wir uns viel rumtreiben, wenn wir hier wohnten, da sind wir uns einig.
Heute dann das erste richtige highlight. Unsere lieben Gasteltern haben uns auf einen Tagesausflug nach Phillip Island eingeladen. Das ist eine Insel etwa 100 km von Melbourne entfernt, auf der es Pinguine gibt. Zusaetzlicher Anreiz war die Aussicht darauf, einen Koala und Kaenguruhs zu sehen. Ich weiss ja nicht wie's Euch geht, aber ich finde Koalas so niedlich und die Gelegenheit, einen richtig echten Koala zu sehen, wollte ich mir natuerlich nicht entgehen lassen.
Ehe ich seitenweise ueber die vielen putzigen Tierchen schreibe, die wir gesehen haben, versuche ich heute einfach mal, ein paar Fotos anzuhaengen und die Bilder fuer sich sprechen zu lassen. Ich hab' mich jedenfalls koestlich amuesiert, vor allem ueber das Kratz- und Liegeverhalten der Kaenguruhs ;-) Koalas sind uebrigens nicht die hellsten Tierchen, haben wir gelernt, Eukalyptusbaeume sind wohl richtig giftig und da die guten Koalas davon leben, sind sie die meiste Zeit damit beschaeftigt, ihre Koerper zu entgiften. Ob das keinen Sauerstoff mehr fuer's Hirn laesst, oder sie doch nicht genug entgiften, weiss ich nicht, jedenfalls ist der leicht "zugedroehnte" Blick in ihren Augen tatsaechlich Ausdruck dessen, was im Koepfchen vorgeht (oder eben auch nicht). Nun gut, jetzt alles noch fix auf Englisch und dann ins Bett. Hoffe, die Fotos klappen. Gute Nacht & liebe Gruesse in die WM-Heimat (sehe hier Berlin taeglich im Fernsehen :)), Eure Lydia.

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We're happy the blogging and leaving messages seems to work well. Thank you for those messages that you've left!
There are a few things to report today since we didn't write yesterday. Yesterday we discovered Melbourne Central's mall and walked around in there for a good part of the day (bringing home a few good deals on long sleeve shirts and pants :)) before heading to the impressive Victoria library and back to the Botanic Gardens. Both are highlights in our opinion. We walked around the gardens for a long time, all the plants and lakes and the beautiful view of the city are just sooooo impressive. We agree we'd spend a lot of time walking around those gardens if we lived here ;-)
Another real highlight followed today. Our lovely hostparents invited us on a daytrip to Phillip Island... a beautiful island about 100 km outside of Melbourne where one can see penguins (when lucky). Not only that, but also koalas and kangaroos. Before I go on and on about the details of every animal and what a blast we had watching them (especially the scratching and sleeping habits of the "roos" ;-)), I will just try to post some first pcitures and you can see for yourselves. By the way - we learned that koalas are not the brightest bunch in the animal world. Apparently eucalyptus is quite toxic and the little guys spend most of their time trying to "detox". Whether not enough oxygen is left for their brains or they are not getting all the toxins out we don't know. Fact is, the somewhat "stoned" looked in their eyes is telling for what's (not)going on in their brains. ;-)
Alright, that said we're off to bed. More tomorrow!? Good night and don't forget the soccer world cup starts today!

So... heute mal auf Deutsch, aber auch nur kurz. Wir sind beide ziemlich muede und geschafft, nach einem nicht mal wirklich anstrengenden Tag - und das gerade als wir dachten, wir haetten das jetlag ueberwunden und es waere gar nicht soooo schlimm gewesen. ;-)
Es war ein richtig schoener Tag heute - pralle Sonne und strahlend blauer Himmel, was das Winterthermometer gleich auf 18 Grad ansteigend liess. Sehr nett. Die Gelegenheit haben wir gleich genutzt und sind zum Nobelvorort St. Kilda (laut Lonely Planet...sooo nobel fand ich den ehrlich gesagt gar nicht) gefahren. Das Noble daran ist sicher der Strand mit ganz klarem Wasser, einer huebschen Promenade und einem tollen Blick auf Melbournes Skyline. Da haben wir uns aufgewaermt und den Hauch von Sommer genossen, den wir doch in den letzten Tagen ein bisschen vermisst haben (umso mehr freuen wir uns auf Sydney und Cairns, wo es zum Teil sehr viel waemer sein soll bevor es dann ins winterliche Neuseeland geht).
Danach sind wir noch etwas durch Melbournes volle Innenstadt gebummelt und haben uns ein paar der vielen kleinen Gassen und Promenaden voller Geschaefte, Cafes und Bars angesehen, die fuer die Stadt so typisch sind, wie wir hoeren und lesen.
Wir schiessen uebrigens regelmaessig Fotos (auch wenn die Digitalkamera mit brandneuen Batterien nach 5 Fotos schon nicht mehr wollte...), von denen wir hoffentlich auch bald einige mit Euch teilen koennen. Wir muessen jetzt nur noch einen Weg finden, die Fotos auf den Computer hier zu speisen :-)
Jetzt werden wir aber erst einmal etwas essen, lesen und die Plaene fuer die naechsten Tage spinnen. Mehr Neuigkeiten folgen...
Gute Nacht!

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A nice, beautiful and warm day led us to the fancy suburb St.Kilda, where we spent most of the day walking along the town's beautiful beach overlooking Melbourne's skyline, enjoying the warm sun on our summer-hungry skin. Although it wasn't a stressful day at all, we're quite tired and exhausted tonight and will probably just eat, read and talk about the plans for the next few days before going to bed early (just as we thought we had overcome that mean jetlag).
We'll keep you posted, hopefully soon with some pics, as well (we just have to figure out how to feed them to the computer some time ;-)). 'til then: Good night.

First impressions

Having left Nashville on Friday (june 2nd) in the afternoon, we arrived in Melbourne safe and sound on Sunday morning local time. Although it truly seemed to be a neverending journey, the flights were smooth and on time and there really wasn't anything to complain about (apart from airplane food that is). This is the first time in "down under" for both of us, so all of this has been quite exciting, really.
In Melbourne we were greeted by the lovely parents of a a good friend, who have been gracious and kind enough to be our hosts for the duration of our stay. It's been great going from the airport straight to a warm house with soft beds , clean bathrooms and great food and not having to worry about finding something edible immediately or sleeping off the jetlag in a dorm room filled with 20 other backpackers. Thanks so much, Kev & Kath!!!
On Sunday we were too tired & confused to really do anything but take a shower (soooo good after 36 hours of airports and airplanes), sit around, nap, eat and step outside to breathe some Australian air. By 8 pm we were fast asleep and although we woke up a few times during the night, we didn't get up again until 9 am Monday. After a great "brekky" we actually ventured out into Melbourne for the first time. The day was a little cold, cloudy, and fall-y all in all, if you know what I mean. It is winter here, after all, we were reminded. Drugged up with coffee we saw a good part of downtown (Federation Square, Flinders Street Station, Swanston and Bourke streets) as well as the University of Melbourne and the neighborhoods of Carlton and Fitzroy. The neighborhoods around the university were pretty cool, quite "funky" and hip actually, just as Lonely Planet had promised. Today the weather was much better, a perfect fallday with blue skies and brisk, fresh air. We discovered Victoria Market and had a walk in the beautiful, huge Botanical gardens, saw the river and the skyline from the riverfront - niiiiiiiiiiice! Less worn out than the past few days, we're still getting ready to call it a day, so here are some first impressions of "Oz" in bullet-point-format:

• Australia seems very European (Patrick)
• ...yes, very European...and quite expensive. (Lydia)
• There are more "rednecks" than anticipated (P)
• Looks like Florida, but has northern California's weather. (P)
• Looks like Britain, feels like Britain, sounds like Britain (a lot of the time). (L)
• Good coffee (P)
• Good (better) chocolate. (L)
• No Power Bars to be found anywhere. Agonizing. (L)
• McDonald's, Starbuck's, Subway, Burger King (well...Hungry Jack's), Target, KFC ... all here. A lot like Florida after all!? (P & L)
• "Look right, look left feels like an assassination plot" someone once said. I agree. didn't know crossing the street could be such an adventure. (L)
• People smoke A LOT more than in the US. Very European, as we said before. (P & L)
• It doesn't feel as dangerous a place as it sounds (snakes and spiders and sharks and scorpions and crocs and all that).
• I like Vegemite already! (P)

That's it for today. Stay tuned. Good night.