After my worst check-in ever (I nearly missed the flight, even though I was 2.5 hours before the departure time at the airport). It was quite early in the morning, so I took a taxi to my hostel. As expected, the driver ripped me off and I paid 20 MYR too much. Later on, I figured out that there’s a bus driving from the international airport to the city. But I’m not sure, if I had managed to do this, since it’s quite complicated for non - Asians. My hostel was rather expensive (10$ a night) but also good (hot shower, air condition).

Nearly everything is unbelievable cheap, except the alcohol. But I honoured myself with a beer, after I got my CAE result. I didn’t expect an A, since it should be quite rare and I haven’t done any homework the last 8 weeks (excluding writings). On the other hand, I’d always been talking English and read some books in English. I did exceptionally well in writing and grammar, which used to be my weaknesses.

In the evening I went to China town, where you could buy heaps of fakes (bad quality but cheap). I bought some clothes, so I won’t need to do this when I’m back. Afterwards, I met Katie, who’s from England and sightseeing with her the next day. The weather was too humid for and I sweat all the time, which I hate but I got used to it. We visited the Petronas Twin Towers and the KL Tower. In the evening we enlarged our group by 5 and went to eating Sushi. I’ve never tried it before - it’s not bad but I prefer grilled or cooked fish.

The next day, we met an Australian teacher and went to a Malaysian art gallery. I reluctantly agreed because I’m not much into arts but I didn’t know what to do otherwise. It was pretty good because there were some amazing paintings (not just some strokes). Afterwards I had to buy a ticket at the Puduraya bus station to go to Melaka. I’ve never seen something like this before. It was packed with people shouting around. Everybody wants to sell you a ticket or a taxi ride. There are around 100 counters selling different tickets for different bus companies. The ticket to Melaka cost me around 11 MYR.

Melaka

The next morning, I tried to send a parcel to Switzerland but I failed because I had to queue for about 1 hour and had to leave for the bus, which was 30 minutes late (it didn’t bother me much, since I took to the life there). I didn’t book my hostel in advance, because I thought it’s fun to be more spontaneous. It turned out to be a big mistake, since the bus station was in the middle of nowhere. After some time I got a flyer, on which they had a good offer for a hostel. I managed to take the correct bus and arrived there. My initial plan was to stay one day and visit another city but as I met some nice people there, I decided to go to an island with them the next day. As usual and mentioned before, a one day trip with me is always doomed to fail. The bus drive for the ferry took longer than expected, so we missed it. The next ferry, 2 hours later brought us to a gorgeous island, where we looked for the best beach and probably found it. There were lots of abandoned houses on the island, a little bit scary. As we wanted to go back, I suggested to take the same way, since we were short in time. However, they didn’t listen and we got lost. After running around we just managed to arrive on time for the departure. In the evening we went out and met some new people. I extended my stay by a day because I hadn’t seen anything of the city yet.

I couldn’t sleep that night, because I got bitten around 20 times by mosquitoes on the island, so I got up early in the morning to do some sightseeing and got lost again. Nevertheless, I managed to take a coach back to KL after missing the bus 2 times. I booked a night in the same hostel as before and met some people from GB with whom I had a fancy dinner in an Indian vegetarian restaurant (the food was served on banana leafs).

Langkawi

My next stop was Langkawi, a beautiful island. I learned from Melaka and booked my hostel in advance again. My choice was pretty good, since it was located closely to the sea and the guy showing me the area very nice and friendly. He told me, if I isolate myself in a room, he would take me out to the others. But this wasn’t my intention anyway. The people there were mostly easy - going. I rented a scooter and drove around the island with the others, it was simply amazing, especially the flora and fauna. There were some little monkeys on the island, which were kinda funny to watch. I visited some beautiful places. On one day I tried to drive to the main city for 1 hour to do some shopping, I reached it but it was more or less empty. In the end I can say, the 4 days there were tremendous and it’s a place worth to visit again.

Miri

The last 7 days, I stayed at a Kwok Foo’s place in East Malaysia. I didn’t realise for quite some time, that Malaysia was divided in 2 parts geographically and was wondering, why he was talking about East Malaysia all the time. My stay there couldn’t have been better. I know him from work in ABB Dättwil and it was cool to meet him again. He showed me a lot of local food, since he knew all the good places to eat good. I enjoyed the food much more than in the beginning. He had to work during the day, so I was walking around in the city and visiting some places like the oldest oil pump of Malaysia and the huge shopping centres. The people’s English there was a bit worse than in KL, so I had troubles to find some places. On the other hand, they were much friendlier. Also kinda funny was, that when some children saw me, they were waving to me. I was the real foreigner there with  big eyes. So people often looked at me but I didn’t care, since it’s a normal thing.

My two days in Darwin went over quite fast as I had to catch up with my blog, ask dozens of people for some promised pictures (which I still don’t have) and arranging the backpackers in Malaysia including planning the trip. I won’t see a lot there because I simply have not enough time and want to relax a bit and finally enjoy some sun. I’ve just realised here, that I should have booked my flight via Singapore, saved a great deal of money and extended the stop to 4 weeks to see Singapore and Malaysia. But if possible, I will do an Asia tour after studying and having earned some money.

Back to Darwin, in the afternoon I went shopping and to a beach with the Swiss - French and a NZ girl. As usual when I want to do something like this, a failure is programmed. The bus driver told us the wrong station to leave the bus, so we went after waiting and walking for one hour to another beach. There we saw a danger sign, warning of jelly - fishes, which can cause death but are unlikely during this season. Fortunately, we didn’t see any of them in the water (only 1m deep), so we got our refreshing bath. In the evening I cooked dinner with the CH - Frenches and headed to a pub where I saw the Swiss guys from my military service. Both of them leaving within the next days.

Brisbane

I could stay at a friends place in Brisbane. I arrived at 5:30 in the morning after having slept barely 3 hours during my flight. So I slept the whole morning at Gui’s place. He invited me to a BBQ after school, which turned out to be just sitting together and drinking some beers. It was nice, although I didn’t know that many people there. I had to leave earlier to meet Juray, a former classmate, at the Down Under bar. Later on, when I wanted to go to an ATM I bumped into Vivian and her friend. She was quite happy to see me and said they will come to Down Under for 30 minutes. 2 hours all the other Brazilians came and it was a pretty cool evening & night, which lasted until 4 o’clock (Vivian still there). I didn’t expect to see all those people, neither did they. But it was a tremendous last evening.

Last words

So what to say about my stay in Australia? I believe Reto (www.retoschaller.ch) expressed it pretty well with ‘you never come back the same as you were before’. I’ve improved my English, although lost a bit during my first part of traveling. I feel or at least I’ve improved my communication skills, got a bit more open (still too shy though). Made my first experience about traveling totally alone (England was with a friend). I don’t regret having spent all my money, since it was definitely worth it. I wouldn’t mind either to study one or  more semesters abroad.

As afore - mentioned, the pick - up time was at 6:20. Our new guide, called Wombat (like the animal), was very different from the previous ones and quite hard to understand, because he mumbled like many Aussies. After a short drive in our new tiny uncomfortable coach, I was shocked because I thought I lost my camera case with memory cards and the USB stick in it. I’m usually not the person, who takes heaps of pictures but I realised after England, that it’s a pretty important help for the memory combined with a diary (I unfortunately deleted the one from England accidentally). I didn’t care a lot about the landscape pictures but the pictures of me and other people, who would be impossible to recover. I suddenly realised how stupid I was to keep the memory cards and the USB stick at the same place and that the pictures might bw worth 100$ for me. I’ve seen leaflets before of people searching memory cards including their pictures with a reward of 200$, even though the material value is approximately 50$. Luckily and to my great relieve, I found the cam case, after examining the coach carefully the third time, in the corner behind some shoes. I’ve no clue how it got there but it doesn’t really matter. Apart from this shock in the morning, we visited many places. First thing we visited, was a termite hill, which is a quite genuine object, since it keeps the temperature of 31 degrees during the whole day. Moreover, the termites are very important for the ECO system, because not many animals can turn grass into proteins (before I thought, they just destroy everything). There were so many termite hills, that the place looked like a sacred area built for rituals. After that, we went to two little waterfalls, where we could take a bath.

We ate some kind of hot - dog - sandwiches for lunch and went shortly after to the Mary River. As we arrived there we continued with a boat cruise to see saltwater and freshwater crocodiles (from a certain distance of course). Afterwards we headed back to the camp to watch the sunset. After a good BBQ dinner with loads of kangaroo steaks, we could go to a walk in the forest to see some snakes. However, the only thing which came across our eyes was a frog, which kills the AU wildlife.

Saturday 26. - Day 2

We got up at 5 o’clock to drive 2.5 hours to a water hole, where we could go for a swim once again. We went on for some short drives to see Aboriginal art. Our guide has had a very deep knowledge about their culture and it was very interesting to listen to him, even though I usually don’t care about things which happened some 1000 years ago. Some interesting points to mention:

• Some paintings are up to 50000 years
• The Aboriginal culture has remained over this period of time and is therefore the oldest religion
• There are or were many different Aboriginal cultures in Australia with different views and believing
• They realised more than 1000 years ago the danger of incest and developed kind of a gene model far before the western cultures did
• They don’t want to be mentioned after death and you should remove all pictures of them

Although it was rather cold in the morning and during the night, I was sweating during the day, because I was not used to this temperatures anymore. In the afternoon we went hiking to a lockout, where we got a great view over the Kakadu National Park (named after the traditional owners). On the way there we saw even more Aboriginal rock art and heard some stories, which the pictures are trying to tell. This part of the trip involves much more action and less driving, what makes me usually the last person going to bed, since the others are not used to it. Anyway, it’s a good contrast to the 3 day trip from Alice Springs to Darwin.

Sunday 27. - Day 3

We had to get up earlier and earlier. This time 4:30 am to drive 2 hours followed by a short walk through the park. We saw a lot of “Danger Crocodiles” - signs, however, we haven’t seen any of them because the rangers take care of it. We had to take a ferry to the Twin Falls, two little water falls (wet season is over, so there was not too much water to fall down). Swimming was prohibited due to the possible danger of getting eaten by the ancient reptiles. As usual, we took some pictures and went the same way back. Now came the fun part of driving - a very bumpy road through little rivers for about 1 hour to go to the Jim Jim Falls. But after the drive we had to hike over heaps of rocks for some time (I saw a god damn huge spider). As we arrived there, we got honoured with a tremendous beach. The actual Jim Jim Falls where at a little bit colder place, where I swam with the Czech couple. We could survive the ice cold temperature through swimming. Afterwards, we went back (I got plenty of scratches because of the nearly invisible rocks on the ground) and ate lunch. This was basically Lietchfield, Mary River and the Kakadu National Park.Actually I expected to see much more animals, not only spiders, crocodiles and frogs but the environment was gorgeous and made up for it.

Conclusively, after these 14 days I can say, that the first 6 days were the best because of the group and the guide Jordan. I was really unsure in the beginning, if having booked this trip wasn’t a waste of money but it definetly was not. The people which you meet makes the trip much more attractive than you would expect. I can talk to people in a backpackers, but it is hard to find some people who want to do the same thing at t he same time out of some 100 guests. The other thing is the time, if you have a limited amount of time, booking a trip is the best.

After two relaxing days in Alice Springs, the next trip took off on Tuesday morning 5:40 am. Only 2 participants from the first part remained. Our new guide Ken seems to be very relaxed, probably too much.

Our first stop was at a little cafe, where we could have bought Aboriginal artwork and Didgeridoos. But it was simply to expensive. I hope that such souvenirs will be cheaper in Darwin. The second stop was at the Barrow Creek Hotel, where we could write our name on the wall or even sacrifice local money to write something on it and end up on a wall with heaps of 5$ notes. We went on afterwards to prepare and eat our lunch (burgers) at a public place followed by a stop at the Devil Marbles. That’s a place with lots of rocks, which is unusual at the dessert. They’d been formed in a similar way as Uluru.

After taking some pictures pictures, our journey continued to a cuddle farm, our last stop for that day. After eating dinner followed by a slide show about the cuddle farm, which was pretty interesting, we chilled out around a camp fire. The day was rather boring, since it contained 600 km of driving and we were in the middle of nowhere. The next day would be 600km of driving again leaving 300 km for the last day.

Wednesday - Day 2

The night was awful because an animal was scratching at my tent, so it was pretty hard to turn in. Additionally, the wind was so strong, that the door was squeaking. Nevertheless, after 2 hours I felt asleep but woke up too early due to the extremely low temperatures in the morning. The morning consisted basically of driving with a stop in a restaurant, where we could take a picture with a python. We had lunch at the most remote pub in Australia, where we could see some old stuff from the time, when the pub was built. Then a 5 year old boy gave us a tour and told us some stuff about the village and its history.

The next stop at Mataranka was awesome. There was a thermal spring with an average temperature of 32 degrees. It was really gorgeous to swin in the crystal clear water after so much driving for the last several days. After the refreshing stop, we went on to the Katherine river and took some amazing pictures of the sunset and the gorge there. As in the last days, we went to a camp with plenty of tents. Finally, we got a good dinner on this tour and more then enough. After eating we sat around a camp fire drinking some beers and grilling some apples and marshmallows. I turned in much faster this night (thanks to the beer) but woke up again freezing in the morning.

Thursday - Day 3

We could sleep until 7 o’clock, however, I woke up earlier as I was cold again. The first place we visited that morning, was the Katherine gorge,which provided an awesome view over several lakes. The walk was more like hiking but for only 1 hour. Afterwards, we drove for another 30 minutes followed by an one hour walk to the Edith Falls, where we could take a very refreshing bath. The temperature is comparable to Swiss lakes but the surroundings were tremendous. After walking back to the coach, we ate lunch and headed to Darwin. The temperature was much better there, about 35 degrees, a good contrast too Brisbane, Adelaide and Alice Springs.

As usual we had planned a dinner with the whole group and got a voucher for a free meal. Our party stayed at the Cavenhagh backpackers. At first, we wanted to go to the market but the taxi, which should have arrived 1 minute after ordering it, never arrived. So we (basically the English girls) decided to go straight to the pub. The free meal was, as expected, poor and not really enjoyable but it was for free after all. Luckily, the 2 Swiss - French gave me their vouchers later on, so I had enough food. The evening was pretty good, also the pub but unfortunately, we had to leave rather early due to the pick - up time, which was at 6:20 am the next day.

That group was really different compared to the one from the first trip. It had much more people who knew each other, so it was more difficult to talk to them. the group consisted of 2 Dutch, 3 GB, 2 Spanish, 1 Taiwanese, 1 South Korean, 1 Chinese, 2 Swiss - French, 1 German, 2 Norwegians and to from Czech and again mostly girls, although less that at the previous trip. So you mostly hanged around with 2 people instead of 5 or more. The trip was only half the length of the other one, which made it harder to know each other. The tour itself was not bad, since we had to drive 1500 km in 3 days.

Preparation

After some awesome days in Brisbane including a pub night from school, where I met some new people but also some old friends, which I had known before, I decided to book the long tour. I was really in a hurry due to my late decision and the flight price had risen. Additionally, the departure time was extremely inconvenient, because it was at 19:45. When I tried to book the tour, the worst possible thing happened, my credit card stopped working. So I was kind of screwed but thanks to my family, I could call the company, which activated my card again, after locking it due to suspicious transactions.

Although, I dislike stress, I did all possible things to put a lot on pressure on me, such as going to the airport without knowing my airline and flight number. Nevertheless, I’m used to this now and managed to catch the correct plane and arrived at 23:00 at the Adelaide Airport, where I took a cab to my backpackers. There I had to wait 30 minutes, because late check-ins are uncommon, before I could access my room. After some time I realised, that I was in a different time zone. So I had to go to the city to figure out the time, since it was crucial, because I had to get up at 4:30 am in the next morning.

In the early morning, I managed to jump on the right tram to the city, where the pick -up point was. I was very relieved, when I finally sat in the coach, because of my tight schedule.

Monday - Day 1

Our group consisted of 17 people plus the guide Jordan. It was an awesome group with lots of different nationalities (2 English, 1 Aussie, 1 German, 3 Taiwanese, 3 Korean and 6 Japanese). The age varied from 15 to approximately 55 with the average age being around 24.

The first day was basically driving with a stop to see Aboriginal rock art and other stops at different cafes. We saw also some little kangaroos and euros a kangaroo like species living in the mountains. In the early evening we arrived at our camp and doubled the population there. Our dinner was very Aussie style - A BBQ with kangaroo, camel and emu meat.

Tuesday - Day 2

Jordan had to change our route, because the main road had been closed due to rain (although I’m travelling through the dessert, it’s very windy and cold).

We had lunch in a little national park. Afterwards we went to a 3 hours hike to gain an amazing view over the park. The rest of the day was basically driving with short stop - overs. We ate Asian food for diner and relaxed around a camp fire afterwards.

 Wednesday - Day 3

After an early get - up at 4 am, we started driving until lunch, which consisted of sandwiches followed by more driving until we arrived at Cooper Pedy. A city which is known for its rich Opal resources. We went noodling (looking for small stones containing Opal) but I wasn’t successful and also rather fast bored of it. In the late afternoon we went on a mine tour, where they showed us how they are mining and used to mine in the past but also the underground apartments, which are more or less common there. Although, for me it would be rather uncomfortable, since you have no day light at all and heaps of sand everywhere. For dinner, we went to a pizzeria and played some pool afterwards in a pub.

Thursday - Day 4

Another early start at 5:30 am to drive even more. After a few sandwiches for lunch, we continued driving until we arrived at the Adventure Tours camp. We left our stuff there to see the famous Uluru sunset (1500 to 2000 people visit it every day). It was an awesome view but not the magical feeling as some people describe. Maybe it’s for people who believe in this and horoscopes and such stuff. The dinner was a delicious BBQ with heaps of kangaroo steaks. Since we had to sleep outside, we made a huge fire and put our swags around. My sleeping bag was to thin because I was freezing in the morning (bad memories from the army came up to my mind).

Friday - Day 5

The morning took off with a walk around Uluru, while the sun was rising. Afterwards Jordan told us about how Uluru could have been created possibly. We went for a short walk to see two other stones called Kata Tjuta. Then we had another drive to the camp near Kings Canyon (which is actually a gorge), where we slept outside again. The last dinner the best on the whole tour with special bread and chicken with different toppings. This night, I wasn’t freezing, because the temperature was higher and our fire even bigger.

Saturday - Day 6

In the morning we drove to Kings Canyon, where we went on a beautiful 3 hours walk. Our Asian friends took millions of pictures, whereas I couldn’t because my memory card was nearly full. Then we headed to a shop, where we prepared our lunch (Tortillas & salads). From now on, it was basically driving with a painful stop to see a camel herd. Unfortunately, we got stuck in the sand and tried to free us with manpower, which didn’t work. Another car stopped to our luck and pulled out our coach. In addition, there was a sand storm, so everything was full of sand (lunch, clothes, etc). Jordan dropped us off at our backpackers, where I took a shower. In the evening we went out for dinner to say good bye to the other participants from our group.

First part

Although we were driving a lot, the scenery was amazing and our group great. I met a Swiss guy from the army accidentally 3 times during the trip and on Sunday another one in Alice Springs. I’m really glad to have booked this trip and I hope the second part will be as cool as this one. I can’t upload any pictures until I’m in Brisbane on the 30th.

Plans

 22. - 24. Alice Springs to Darwin

25. - 27. Kakadu and Lietchfield National Park

28. - 29. Darwin

30.07 1:40 Flight to Brisbane

31.07 23:50 Brisbane to Kuala Lumpur

 

 

 

 

Cairns

Our journey started in Cairns after a flight from Melbourne to Cairns via Sydney. The backpackers offered a free shuttle bus from the airport to its location, which we of course took. In the beginning, we thought it’s a little bit out of the city but fortunately we were wrong. The area was pretty nice and we booked a 4 dorm share room because it was only 1$ more per night, than an 8 dorm. The next day it started raining, so we couldn’t do much more than going to the cinema and watch Get Smart, a parody of James Bond.

The next day we planned to go to beautiful beach, which the owner of the resort had recommended us. After a “short” bus journey of 45 minutes we arrived there and the weather got worse and worse. So after a few hours freezing in the Liegestuhl, we decided to go back to our hostel.

The other day wasn’t better at all, so we stayed at the resort and just relaxed and cooked some fancy stuff (which was surprisingly good).

Townsville – Magnetic Islands

We travelled by coach overnight to Townsville, where we arrived in the next morning. From there we caught the next ferry to Magnetic Islands, a small island (how surprising). We had booked a special deal, which included the ferry transfer, kayaking and 2 nights accommodation. The weather and the island were beautiful and really relaxing, because you couldn’t any different things on the island.

Airlie Beach

The peak of our travel – the sailing trip, which lasted for 3 days and 2 nights. As usual, after a long coach travel, we arrived in Airlie Beach, a little town with a shipyard with lots of vessels. We arrived at our backpackers in the evening and had to go up quite early in the next morning, so we didn’t do many things in the evening.

The next morning we checked in at the office for the sailing trip and bought some alcohol (because they encouraged us several times). After a short introduction, we boarded on the vessel, where we met the captain and his crew and all the other passengers with whom we would be the next 3 days. It was a really mixed group – there were people from Germany, Switzerland (French part), England and Canada. The ages varied from 20 to 45 (that’s a wild guess).

The trip itself was awesome and I will definitely do something like this again! The first day we drove (with the engine, since there was not enough wind) to a gorgeous beach, where all of us got sunburned despite using heaps of sun cream. At first, we thought we got huge beds and couldn’t understand why a former classmate complained, but then we realised that each bed was for two people. Anyway, it was just for sleeping. On the second day, we went to a place over the Great Barrier Reef to snorkel, which turned out to be wonderful. I saw a lot of different fishes and corals and even a big turtle.

On the last day we could go snorkelling and relaxing at a beach. So in the end we hadn’t done much more than relaxing and snorkelling. In the afternoon we arrived back in Airlie Beach. In the evening there was a little party, where all the people from the vessel met again. Conclusively, it was tremendous as mentioned before because of the good weather conditions, the people and the sailing itself.

The next day we spent on Airlie Beach after an early checkout at our backpackers. For dinner we eat a delicious pizza, which is something rare in Australia, since the pizzas are often in the American style, not Italian (thick base, sometimes ketchup, onions).

Rainbow Beach

Next stop Rainbow Beach after a miniscule journey of 16 hours by coach! One of the few times, when you realise how big Australia is. The name of the town fitted very well, since it was raining when we arrived. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the evening and played cards. In the next morning we went to a one day trip to Fraser Islands. We drastically decreased the average age of the people in the 4WD bus. I guess, the people at our age do the 3 day trip, but we had simply no time to do that. The weather wasn’t very promising, because it was very cloudy. The trip itself consisted of driving around and a few stops to eat breakfast and lunch and to walk through a national park. After a lot of driving we could go for a 15 – minutes flight for 70$, which I did to see the sea and the rainforest from the sky. It was not bad but not good either. Most probably due to the bad weather conditions.

The island has the only rainforest which grows on sand and should have a lot of dingoes. The problem with the dingoes is the tourists who feed them. It makes them less shy and they accidentally attack children because they want food. So in the end of the day, if you feed a dingo, it will have to be killed. Unfortunately, we saw a woman who did this, which was a tour guide. At least I saw some dingoes and got nice pictures.

Brisbane – Hometown

After another 5 hours coach travel we arrived back in Brisbane. Pascal’s host family was so nice to invite me for one night, until Pascal leaves. We spent there the evening and the next day. Today he went to the airport to fly back to Switzerland. So my second part of travelling begins.

The only thing I know that I will stay in Brisbane until Sunday and then fly to Adelaide or Alice Springs. As I am not a decisive person, I can’t decide what I should do now. I calculated a few options:

One would be to go to Adelaide and book a 14 days trip to Darwin. So I would pretty much see everything in the middle of Australia. The only disadvantage is that everything would be really planned again and I wouldn’t really have freedom. The other option is to fly to Alice Springs and book a 9 day trip to Darwin. Then I could spent some days in Darwin and do what I want there. But it would be only 150$ cheaper for seeing less, which is kind of stupid.

What I realised during my first part of travelling is, that it is also stupid to carry a 25 kg bag all the time, which is simply not made for this and therefore in a poor condition now, so I will have to find a place for my stuff and buy a big backpack for my next trip.

So that’s all for the moment, I didn’t take many pictures because it gets boring to have beach pictures only. Also I miss a few pictures, which are on other cameras. >>>Click here to view the pictures<<<

After an exhausting 10 hours drive by coach, we arrived on Saturday at 7 a.m. in Melbourne. We caught a tram, which drove us to our suburb called St Kilda, where our backpacker is located.

City (Pictures)

The city does not offer that many attractions as Sydney. It’s more for shopping and there are no pubs in the CBD, which makes it kind of boring in the evenings. The good pubs are outside and in small streets and you need to know where to go.

We visited the Eureka tower, which is the highest building in the southern hemisphere. But it was not as good as the Sydney tower because there was just the tower and the windows weren’t clean, so it was difficult to take pictures. Another ancient looking building was the cathedral, which looks pretty nice. Afterwards we went to the Immigration Museum, which was for free, because we showed our expired student cards :-). The Australian government was advertising for a long time in Britain to get more immigrants to stabilise their economy and build a stronger army.

Penguin Tour (Pictures)

We were pretty busy in Melbourne, because we booked two trips in advance. The first one, on Sunday, which was supposed to start at 11.45 a.m., so that we could still go out on Saturday evening. When we checked our voucher, the time had changed to 8.15 a.m. not allowing us to go out late. So we just went to the small pub in our backpackers and enjoyed there our evening. In the next morning, we got up quite early to eat breakfast and wait for our bus. Our room – mates were very happy, that we made a lot of unavoidable noise :-). At 8.30 a.m. the bus still hadn’t arrived, so I called the company and they told us, that the information on the voucher was incorrect and we could have slept until 11.45 a.m.

After this really bad start, we went to a small zoo, which was not very interesting anymore, since we had already seen all the animals there. Nevertheless, we took some pictures but were a little bit disappointed. The bus stopped on many different places, where we could take some pictures of surfers’ beaches, which are not really tremendous during winter. Afterwards, we drove to the main stop at our tour, a little resort where we could see some little 30cm penguins walking out from the sea into the bushes. Unfortunately, it was prohibited to take any pictures. The official reason was not to harm the penguins but it was more for money making I guess, since you could buy pictures in the shop. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the trip and it was worth to see the penguins. The free pizza dinner which was included in the tour price, was rather bad, since it was an American style pizza.

Great Ocean Road Tour (Pictures)

Today, on Tuesday we went to another trip, the Great Ocean Road tour. It kicked off at 8.15 a.m. and we were picked up at our backpackers. Surprisingly, our guide was waiting at the same station as we, since he overslept or something like this. But he turned out to be very friendly and was a great entertainer. As usual, the bus stopped at some beaches, where we could take some photographs and our guide Ben, explained us a little bit about the history. He was rather easy to understand, most probably because he’s a Kiwi.

Our coffee break became a little disaster, since we didn’t understand where to meet, so everybody was walking around the light house (our stop for the coffee break) and in the end he had to pick up people from lots of different places and we ran out of time.

The next stop was again to see some koalas but also to take some pictures with birds, which looked like a little parakeet. So we could take some cool pictures and it was also a great experience. The final stop was at the London Bridge. Some rocks, which look like the London bridge, even though the erosion destroyed one part.

Malaysia

I met two Malaysian people there, which gave me some travel tips and recommended me to try all sorts of food, especially sea food, since it’s very fresh there. At the backpackers, I shared my room with an Irish guy, who had lived in Malaysia for half a year and gave me some tips as well. So after these little inputs, I’m really looking forward to go there.

We left Sydney on Thursday afternoon and travelled to Canberra by coach and arrived in the evening at our backpackers. Canberra was built because Sydney and Melbourne couldn’t agree which of them should be the capital, so they built a city in the middle called Canberra. Everybody told me, that Canberra might be quite boring, since there are mostly officials working there, who go back to their real home over the weekend. Unfortunately, they were right. At 6 p.m., nearly everything was already closed and the city looked uninhabited. Additionally the weather became even worse than in Sydney and very cold.

Our YHA backpackers was very nice and clean but also expensive and you had to pay extra for every single thing. We met some very friendly people in our 10 share bedroom. An Indian and an English guy, who told us, what is worth to visit.

City (Pictures)

We got up quite early on the next morning to buy breakfast and walk to the important places, which were quite far away. After a 40 minutes walk we arrived at the war memorial museum, which has no entrance fee but is really worth to see. Despite showing ancient war items such as canons and swords, it explains plenty of historical things about wars, where Australia had been involved. Although I knew most of the Second World War stuff, I was surprised in how many wars Australia had participated and how powerful Japan was. They also wrote about the oppositions within the country against wars such as Vietnam and Iraq.

Afterwards we walked another hour to the new parliament house, which is a tremendous object of architecture. You can really see that Canberra isn’t old and its building placement looks very artificial. In addition, the streets were empty due to the bad weather, so it looked like some places in North Korea. There was no admission fee we had to pay in order to enter the new parliament house, so we decided to do a short tour inside it. Although it looks very nice, it’s not really special inside.

The next object on our plan was the old parliament house but when we arrived there, we saw that we had to pay to enter, so we changed our mind and went to the library instead, which was kind of boring for us.

Since we had to walk long distances all the time, the day was already over and we were quite exhausted because we had been walking the whole day.

Our next coach to Melbourne was supposed to leave at 8:30 p.m., so we picked up our staff at the backpackers and went straight to the coach station. The Canberra visit was interesting and I don’t regret to have been there, although the weather was unfortunate.

This Friday we flew from Brisbane to Sydney without encountering any troubles but a small delay. When we arrived in Sydney we called our backpackers, which sent a shuttle bus, which brought us to the Funk House, our hostel.

We were surprised that so many things were included, which they didn’t mention before, such as free breakfast, free dinner except on Monday, 15 free drinks in various pubs and one hour free internet per day.

The room smelled a bit bad and the other two people there are really messy but it’s ok as long as we can slip there. The bathroom is quite clean too. The main disadvantage is the location, since we are in a kind of red light district with a lot of adult shops and night clubs but also near a gay street. But we’ve never seen any of them. It’s kind of annoying, every time when we go back from clubbing in the evening that all the night clubs securities try to get you in their club.

Sydney

The city itself is very special because it offers nearly everything such as beaches, crowded CBD and parks. Unfortunately, it had been raining every day except today. But the sun’s never really shining. There’s not much more to say, just that there are some nice buildings to see and it is the paradise for all female tourists, since there are endless shopping possibilities. Something, that I immediately noticed were the strangers every where. I thought, Australia has a good social aid system but still, there are plenty of them everywhere.

Whales sighting tour

Today, it’s not raining (finally) and we decided to do a tour. They guaranteed us the sighting of whales. The tour started at 1.30 p.m. with a small ship. The sea was quite wavy but it didn’t feel bad in the beginning, except that I had some little hangover from yesterday. Anyway, we had a nice view to the city and headed in direction of the open sea, where they expected to see some whales. I guess, the used some radar to spot them. After one hour I felt really bad, so did Pascal and some children. At first, I thought we are the only weak ones, who are so weak and not able to survive the wavy sea without feeling terrible. But it got better and better and we spotted some whales. I went to the front deck, where I had the chance to take some nice pictures, although you only saw a small part of the whales.

After some time, I went back the back of the boat to see that all people were carrying bags to vomit into and they were looking really sick. As soon as I sat down I felt really bad again. As soon as they announced, we are heading back I had to throw off too. Until we arrived back at the bay, two third of the people had puked. I’m wondering if it is normal and the picture was somehow funny like after a big party. The staff was running around with napkins and bags to vomit into.

I don’t regret to have done the tour but now I feel a bit scared of our sailing trip. I guess I will have to buy some drugs to prevent this horrible feeling in the future.

So, I’ve taken the exam and the school is finished after 13 weeks studying. We had the final 3 parts last Wednesday. Unfortunately, I caught a cold the day before the exam and felt pretty bad in the morning. The same happened to another student, so we went to a chemistry to buy some drugs against the cold.

The first part was the reading, which is quite exhausting, because you have to read everything twice and to search for information, which is somewhere hidden in the text. Thanks to my sickness, I was very sleepy and could hardly keep my eyes open in the end of this part. Most probably I did worse than I could but it’s anyway over. After this part, I drank an energy drink to fix my sleepiness and it worked quite well. I was awake in the writing – part and felt quite secure in the first writing. Although, in the second one, I’d chosen the wrong subject I guess and couldn’t use my best vocabulary. In the afternoon was the final part, English in Use or grammar, which went quite well. I will get the results on the first of August, because they send all our stuff to England first.

After the exam we went to a pub with our teachers. To our surprise the left after 60 minutes because there was a big game football game between Queensland and New South Wales, which is incredibly important for all Aussies :-).

Afterwards a friend from school invited some of us to his home, so we could cook dinner and watch a movie before going to the next pub to say Good Bye to the other students. My initial plan not to drink because of the drugs was therefore quite unrealistic and naive. Then we went to our favourite pub Down Under, to which we went every Wednesday. I was very happy that some friends from FCE joined as well, because it was our last evening. I went home at 4.am, while the others went to see the soccer game Switzerland against Turkey (luckily I didn’t watch it). Somehow I managed to arrive at home, although I was one hour later at home than expected.

Thursday was an extremely bad day because I had one of the worst hangovers ever, thanks to the drugs I took against the cold on Wednesday combined with alcohol. But the others suffered from the same. Before Wednesday I planned to go to the pub night from school on Thursday but it was simply not possible. Anyway, nobody wanted to join to go to the city. Nevertheless, I had to go there to see off some friends and it was actually the first time, that I realised I will never see those guys again.

So in the end, I’m very sad to leave Brisbane and all the friends. I made some very good friends there. The Swiss, I will for sure meet in Switzerland once but the distance is still huge and even huger between the other ones from Brazil, Korea, Japan and Taiwan. As usual, I met some cool guys in the last 2 weeks but it was a little bit too late.

Brisbane

Although my friends didn’t like Brisbane that much in the end, for me it’s a great city. It offers plenty of pubs, even though the music is always the same, unless you go to an Irish pub. It is very clean compared to Swiss cities, which are not dirty at all either. I could only try a few clubs, because for the “better” ones, you need to wear a suit and leather shoes, which I don’t have.

Another amazing thing is the huge food courts, where you can eat lunch and dinner. It’s a hall with lots of different restaurants such as Mc Donalds, Thai, Turkish, Japanese, everything. It is unbelievable how much food they serve during lunch. And I like the system because everybody can buy his favourite food and then eat together at the tables located in the middle of the food court.

Travel plan

I finally did it and booked my trip for the first 4 weeks. Afterwards I go most likely to Alice Springs and Perth, since I should be gorgeous there.

The current trip includes the following cities and activities:

- Sydney

- Canberra

- Melbourne

- Cairns

- Magnetic Islands

- 3 – day Sailing trip at the Great Barrier Reeve

- Fraser Islands