Coober's Pedy and Adelaide

The distances here in Australia are amazing. Adelaide was once again some 1500 kilometers away. So I decided this time to spent a night in Coober's Pedy because I heard some people talking about it. Coober's Pedy is a mining-area for opal, a precious colored looking stone. Many Australians made a fortune there starting in 1915. As it gets more than 50 degrees celsius in summer people commenced to use the old mines as there homes or just dugged their own home. The backpackers I stayed in was also under the ground, some 10 meters. It was an interesting experience and the sandstone gave a good looking pattern - a brownish red white design. There are some good stories about people living there. For example there is this one guy living with his wife and a daughter in one of those underground houses. And everytime his wife needs something new he just digs in his house, enlarging the living room at the same time, until he finds some opal he can sell for a heck of a lot of money...One day was definately enough. I looked at an old mine and went to the annual horse racing which filled the day well. At night the bus to Adelaide left at 6 and wow, the bus driver was not one of the politest one...This time I did not care to much, sat in the very back, red a lot, watched the orange moon rising and eventually went to sleep after a good night beer. I arrived early in the morning in Adelaide and checked into the same hostel as Oli. We got along well so I was happy to have somebody I knew there. I even was in the same dorm. We had a nice time there, I spent three nights. On the fist day Oli showed me around, on the second day I had to do some shopping, although I was short of money, because I had to get a pair of jeans and a winter jacket - I was tired of freezing. It was an outlet mall, so things were cheap and I once again happy. Adelaide was the first town since to weeks that had some sort of civilization and hey, I liked it there. On the way back from the mall I jumped of the

bus at the beach, walked along the beach, called my gorgeous girl, and hopped on the bus again to Adelaide. The next day I went to Glenelg, a suburb of Adelaide were I spent the time on the pia, reading, writing postcards and seeing the first sunset in my life during which the sun sets at the horizon, sinking into the sea. Satisfied I went home and left early the next morning with the train to Melbourne - again an interesting experience...

Alice Springs - Ayers Rock and back

I took the day and night bus from Darwin to Alice. The ride took 22 hours through the outback. I enjoyed the ride and the first 1500 km were taken from my bus pass I purchased in Germany. This was a good idea because Greyhound Australia is really over-priced when you buy the tickets here. Well, that was good because the bus was close to empty and thus I could lie over four seats at night, giving me a good sleep. We arrived early in the morning in Alice and suddenly I felt like being in South East Asia again, not because of the looks but because some guy waited at the bus station trying to make me check-in in his guest house offering a free ride too. I thought that was quite nice and so I did that which was once again a right decision. Darwin and Alice Springs as cities do not have to offer too much so you do not wanna spend to much time there. All it has is some local attractions, Australians getting drunk at noon (not joking...these Australians cannot handle the consumption of alcohol), and tons of aboriginies that were not able to adjust to the Western life-style and became alcoholics and homeless. AgainI asked myself: Why the heck is everybody wanting to go to Australia?! In the hostel I met this German guy Oli and we decided to rent a car because that was the cheapest way to get to the Ayers Rock, Kings Canyon, and back. We rented the smallest car available and asked those to French ladies to join us so we could devide the costs by four. They turned out to be rather boring, so it was them and us. Once again we were lucky though, because they did not have a small car and so they gave us this big looking, air conditioned, cruise controlled Hyundai. Nobody would buy that car in Europe, but hey, Hyundai makes good cars! I smiled because the car was my tent and I knew, I would have a big bed. It took us four hours through the Outback to get to the campground near the Rock itself. We booked into the campground and as we found out that they would not check whether you did or not, we stayed the last night for free. After putting up the tent for the others we went to the sunset spot where dozens of cars parked to watch the Ayers Rock changing its red tones every few seconds during the sunset. It sure is an amazing show and for the second time, after them dangerous crocodiles, I was happy to be in Australia. The following day, after not having slept well because it was freakin' cold that night (1 degree celsius, 34 degress fahrenheit) we made our way to the sunrise area looking the same as the sunset area. The only difference was that you had to get out of the car and walk a little to see the sunrise. Good idea, still being an ice pickle from the night and having to get out of the car again into the cold...It was also nice but not even close to the sunset. After that we went to the cultural center where I ran into two girls which I met in Darwin. I sat down with them and ordered an over-priced coffee still hoping to warm up. After that Oli and I went around the Ayers Rock and for the first kilometer we joined a tour (free of charge - wow!) and learnt about the history of the Rock and the aborignie culture. And again I feld bad...I really do not understand their culture as it sounds more like a ferry tale to me and others. I really feld bad because I want to respect their culture but after having met all those drunks and now learnt about all that it is really difficult. The "real" aboriginies distance themselves from foreigners and you have to purchase permits to travel into their territories. So it is almost not possible to get "the real" picture of them. The rest around the Rock we walked by ourselves, some 10 kilometers. On whether or not we climbed the Rock I do not comment at this stage. It is an ever discussed issue and everybody needs to decide for him/herself whether to climb it or not. On the third day we went to the Olgas, some 36 smaller mountains forming almost one and being as red as the Ayers Rock. We did a four hour trek there and because that was not enough another one hour trek. The scenery was really nice and the sunset their an experience because it was full moon (the night before at the Ayers Rock) and that gave an awesome picture. The moon ascending from the horizon beeing orange and changing its colour the higher it gets to a bright yellow. In front of that the red mountains...exciting. Hope to get this picture stuff managed soon *g*. On the forth day we travelled to the Kings Canyon, Uli said also a must. Mmh...after climbing the canyon, again for some 4 hours I started to question myself...Yes it was nice but going there when it is not on your way...mmh, I do not know. From there we went back to Alice, 700 kilometers, me being the only one who could drive. When it got dark we really had to watch out for kanguroos and other stock. And hey, I saw two being alive and ten being dead...This four day excursion was very nice and I was happy to move on from Alice to Adelaide...

Australia - a new continent to explore

I finally made my way to the other end of the world - Darwin, Australia. Much excitement accompanied me as everybody is just into that Australia thing...Thus, having a good feeling I boarded my plane at around midnight which I almost missed because of all those extra security checks - felt like flying to the US. I arrived early in the morning and the customs took me apart completely. Well, gotta admit that it was my fault after all because I had some instant noodles containing eggpaste in my carry-on luggage. Honest as I was I ticked "yes" on the immigration card, yes, I have dried food. Wrong!!! Should have left this damn thing in the plane and tick "no". It took me about an hour to get through customs and in the end they knew everything about me, my contents of my backpacks and whether I had contact to drugs...I checked into the YHA in Darwin, got the last bed so I was lucky this time. However, I realized that the YHAs are not better than any other hostel...After relaxing a bit I did some stuff I had to do, buy food, get a cellphone number, tax number and that sort of stuff you need when you wanna work in Australia. This little excursion was a shock to me because I realized that I was again in a Western culture and not in Asia anymore. The culture shock made me rather unhappy and Australia just "pissed me of". I bought a pizza and arriving at the YHA I was going to the kitchen to put it into the oven, this delicious piece of food. Next thing that went wrong: Most hostels do not have ovens, that meant that I had to prepare the pizza in the microwave...Not a good thing to do, but at least it was not frozen anymore. After my exciting pizza experience I met some guys from cologne, my first social contact. They were leaving for the Kakadu National Park the next day so I also booked the two day tour for 200 euros. That is what you do when you arrive in a new country the first days are always the most expensive ones. The trip was quite nice because I saw some aggressive crocodiles, amazing animals, and some nice nature spots which however, are also found in South East Asia. This nationalpark is the second most visited and everybody told me it is a must but after all I thought it was nice, but a must is a little exaggerated. So that pissed me of and also the fact that the whole backpacker scene here in Australia is based on companies selling trips which are way to expensive and take all the money from the poor backpackers...I hate it, backpacking is a way to travel as cheap as possible around the world, but nothing like that in Australia. And it is a fact: Australia has gotten lots more expensive within the last few years. After five days in Darwin I made my way to Alice Springs and hoped that things would change to the better...