Darwin, Samson & Delilah and waterfalls

more info http://www.infilm.com.au/?p=802

Darwin is actually really small but o it felt so big after the emptiness of the great center of Australia.  So many people,  so many buildings and cars are everywhere.  We felt like going to the movies and there was an Australian movie about aboriginals titled Samson & Delilah in cinemas. Not much happened in this movie. Some people even call it boring, tedious or a lot of nothing. But that was the most exciting about this movie. Brilliant shots and very close to the situations you [can] counter in the countryside of Australia.  This movie is about the live of 2 young aboriginals who have not much to do. They live in a small aboriginal community and their live is filled with boringness, no friends, no school and no work. Samson starts every morning with a nice long sniff of petrol and sits around all day. Delilah only takes care of her grandmother.  Their lives looks meaningless and they decide to go on an aimless roadtrip with a stolen car.  Go see this movie if you can. Back to Darwin. all hostels were  full and we don’t like to pay anyway so we slept on a lawn in the main street of Darwin. (man, I love swags!!) imagine you roll out swag in the vondelpark, Amsterdam. After just one night in this huge metropolis (120.000 inh.) we rolled to a very nice small national Park in Berry Springs. Refreshing water and waterfalls, beautiful fish (not for eating) and maybe some crocodiles.  after a little swim we were ready to hit the road again and drove to Litchfield Park. Famous for it waterfalls, stunning nature and fish wo eat the crust of your legs after an injury, take a look at the pictures.  We stayed here a night and made us some nice well earned chicken curry and sat on our chairs, we soon found out that was a luxury apperently  not every backbacker could afford.  next direction:  the west coast, next desitination: unknown

Roadtrip to darwin

Melbourne to Darwin, a trip trough the central part of Australia. This is the best way to see the oldschool Australia. I Picked up my best mate ait at the Melbourne airport. Finally, we planned to travel through Australia a couple of months ago but because of unfortunately circumstances we had to postpone. We packed our brand new Mitsubishi Magna station wagon executive V6 with swags and the usual camping stuff. A swag is like an outdoor sleeping bag that you can set up in seconds and protects you from flies, snakes and eagles. Once you have slept in one you never want to use a tent anymore.

It is a 4000 km drive to Darwin, and there is a lot to see but also a lot of nothing. Trees, red dirt and asphalt are our best friends here. At the moment we are driving on the Stuart hwy which was build during the second world war. Back then it was a dirt road to connect the small towns and the airstrips. The day we started it was fucking cold outside, during the night almost freezing, now 3000 km up north the sun is shining. We are also very pleased with the possibility to visit natural warm thermal pools instead of showering at the red rooster (Australian KFC) or not showering it all. Ait is still walking in his trousers that he also wore when he was sleeping with the homeless in London.

There are some camping areas aside the road where you can camp, but that’s not good enough for us so we avoid those. Instead of that we sleep in the desert between dozens of dead dried out cows, abandoned airstrips and devil rocks. The story goes that ghosts are living at devils rock, they try to take over you body and there is no way to escape. That is why this story is a bit boring so far; my body is taking over by an petrol sniffing aboriginal. The rocks itself are amazing and you wonder why and how those stones got there.

We passed the ayers rock, alice springs, thermal pools, the east macdonnal national park and much more. And are now heading for Kakadu national park. A great park with the most divers wildlife, hopefully crocs don’t like swags.

oakville organic sheep farm

After doing practically nothing all the time (which can be very exhausting) I figured out I needed to do something. also, I wanted to see the more rural side of Australia. I bought a willing woofer book which contains addresses of organic farms all over Australia. in exchange for the work you do you get food and accommodation for free. A great way to save some money and see parts and cultures of the country you will normally not see. I went to a place without a name but it was somewhere near Wagga Wagga. the villages overthere look like cowboy cities and it feels like you  got thrown back in time for 40 years; one street with big verandas and some house around it. the owner of the farm picked me up and we drove to his 4500 acres sheep farm. Graham is running his farm a bit different as all the do around him. instead of only growing grain, harvest it and feed it to the sheep he is creating small paddocks, grows saltbush in it and moves the sheep from paddock to paddock. My main job was to help building those paddocks which mend building fences which was harder work as laying on the sunny beach. the weather was a bit different as well, the week before I was there the thermometer indicated 57 degrees Celsius. I don’t know how warm it was when I was there, but it was pretty hot. It was not only fencing and feeding the sheep we did. I had a great camping experience next to the river, caught some ugly carps, played drums and slept in a swag for the first time, which was great. A swag is an outdoor sleeping bag with a build in mattrace. Roll it out and you are ready to go. (I bought 2 swags today for cheap donnie, whiehiew) another very necessary activity was shooting the European hares and rabbits (they are a plague). there are better rifles around, but the scooped Winchester is a beauty! lays good in the hand and reloads pretty fast. Graham went nuts on a fox (worse as a hare, they eat the lamb) but missed. angry and all he went crazy on the next hare he got in his scope and pumped 3 bullets in it. Some of the machinery looked kind of old and I was amazed that some still worked. Graham let me drive most of his machines and I liked it. I also liked the food he made me almost every day, he’s a great host. thanks mate!

Pictures under the pictures tab

How to: Prepare & cook a snake

Sometimes, when you are in the bush or desert and there is nothing else to eat you have to catch everything you can to survive. Of course you can go vegetarian and try to eat some berries or grass but you come at a point that you need some protein. If you don’t have any equipment, still, a snake is an easy catch. They don’t run or hop away like other any animals if you appear. But, some are venomous and Australia has more venomous snakes as any other country in the world. so you better be sure with what kind of snake you are dealing with. For beginners, the safest one to go after is a Python which are very common and also not venomous. still, you don’t like to get bitten by one of those, they can have dirty germs from rats or mouses and it probably will hurt as hell.  

After you found a nice Python the first thing to do is chop his head of. A machete is a good tool for this job. 

A python is not a good solution to still your hunger if you are already starving to death. After you’ve chopped of his head the snake keeps on moving for another 5(!) hours. not those aftershocks what happens with other animals but it looks like the snake is still alive and you get the feeling that his head can grow back any moment now. if you pick him up, he starts to strangle your arm, not so strong, but still scary. so hang up the snake and wait.

When he is really dead cool the snake in the fridge (if possible). now the first thing to do is get rid of skin. A python has nice thin skin on his belly so this the place where you want the cut. make a cut from the head to the tail and rip the skin off.

Take the guts out and cut of the tail before his asshole.

Chop the snake into pieces use some pepper and salt egg and breadcrumb to finish. Throw the parts on the BBQ and fry them nicely goldbrown and crispy. be sure you’ve fried them long enough so you don’t have to worry about germs and strange infections you might get.

Bon appetit! Snake tastes like fish and chicken and has a very strong structure. with an large central nerve system.

Killing spree!

Some people might feel offended by the upcoming series of me discovering the wildlife and rural side of Australia. Some posts content pictures of unusual or offending activities for western people who lives in a city and always have lived in a city. But in some parts of this country these activities are necessary to survive. Sometimes to protect their main income source and sometimes as a source of food. These animals have had a better life as those you are consuming.

99,7% pure white sand

My beloved Christina and I flew from Melbourne to Prosperpine to visit The Whitsunday islands. We landed on the smallest airport I have ever seen, they only had one lane to land and take off from, the waiting room was half outside half inside and had nothing to do with the standard security you normally hate at other airports. We had to pick up the luggage direct from a trailer parked next to the plane.
While Victoria suffered from bush fires and drought the opposite was the case in Queensland. they struggled against heavy rainfall and flooding (the fruit is gonna be expensive next year and less jobs for backpackers or locals without money).
The contrast was huge, from a dry yellow environment into a fresh sharp green one. We planned a sailing trip to the Whitsunday islands, the only reason to come here.
the Whitsunday islands is what you see in your imagination when you think about a tropical island. we went on a trip for 3 nights on a big dutch (of course) 100 year old sailing boot. This was one of the best experiences of my life. floating around, visit the most beautiful beach, walk over the finest sand (only available in 3 places on the world), do a bit of bush walking and see scary big green ants., spiders and very very very good looking butterflies. Snorkel with huge turtles, watch the dolphins and other beautiful sea creatures such as coral, clownfish or squids, get stung by jellyfishes (twice!!), watch amazing sunsets and drink some beer with all the nice people aboard.
of the 74 islands only 8 are inhabited. some are still for sale so if you have a bit bag of money but you don’t know what to do with it, I’ll come visit you…
Pictures are coming..I am on the slowest internet connection since the 16k6 modem..

ERROR 304 picture not found

you can get it at only 3 places in the world one of them is the Whitsunday islands. (forgot  the other two) 99,7% silica is completely different as any other sand you may have seen or touched.

The great ocean road and Melbourne

It is one of Australia’s great scenic coastline drives, amazing breathtaking views and surroundings, the 12 apostles, the London bridge which isn´t a bridge anymore and much much more. You can see koala´s getting high on eucalyptus, wild fox´ stealing your apples, kangaroos and wallabies hopping around. it is a great road, the great ocean road. I just can´t get enough of the beautiful colored sea and one of my favourite things to do is watching the waves collapsing on the rocks and beaches.

I picked up Christina from the airport in Perth. We were all happy and excited. We stayed there a couple of days, went to rottnest island did some cycling, beaching(?), drinking, laying and eating. (why do woman love subway so much?) We met a really nice 40 year old asian guy who slept with us in the same hostel room. He likes to look at people with his cell phone light while they are asleep, awesome guy.

A couple of days later we flew to Melbourne and stayed with Wayne and Simone for 4 nights. they showed us Melbourne, porterhouse steaks and smoothies. Like most Australians they where sooooo friendly really helpful and we made new good friends.

Christina, who normally ONLY wants to stay in starwood hotels, had to sleep in a camper. she looked happy…..

First week in Perth

My first couchsurfing experience. for people who don’t know what it is: it can be awesome. The idea: a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit (copy pasted that one). you ask for couchsurfing permission through the internet via couchsurfing.com. So everything can happen because you don’t really know where you end up staying. I stayed at a student house on the swansea street. yes students live in houses here and not in a 12m3 room , some even  have swimmingpools in their garden. Youngy, pup and chesty are the hosts (actually only youngy but the two others are in the package included). Youngy took me too the beach for surfing lessons on my first day in australia; can tick off that box on my to do list.  we did some cricket, swimming, soccer, watched the west coast eagles lose in the football stadium, drunk some beer and a lot more. it was awesome! Youngy and his friends treated me  like they knew me more then 10 years. I came as a stranger and left as friend.

Perth is a nice place,. the city is quite new and modern. just check the pictures.  more about perth maybe later or go to wiki for more information  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perth,_Western_Australia

Sheraton L&L

view from L&L's apartment

Still dazzled of  Bangkok I arrived in Singapore for a short stop. I stayed at loes & lex’ place, the parents of marloes, bram and sander. A really really REALLY good looking apartment complex waited for me on Shelford Road. Singapore is the opposite of  Bangkok; clean, structured and (looks) wealthy. the “greened up” everything with trees aside the road and a lot of parks. too bad I only stayed here for 1 night. Loes & lex are great hosts. I hope I can see them again in Singapore.

Bangkok

After a nine hour flight I arrived on BKK airport. Completely broken from the airberlin seat i tried to orientate a little. I hooked up with a german guy called Alex. We went outside and a taxi to the Bangkok city center. The taxi was BKK in a nutshell; dirty, chaotic, loud music and a big smile from the thai when eyes crossed in his over sized rear view mirror and of course a picture of the king. I didn”t plan a thing for Bangkok but after such a long flight and not being used to everything what happened around me, I regretted that a little. fortunately Alex had figured something out. we ended up in a nice block, i forgot the name, and went out for some drinks. All your sentences are overdosed if you see Bangkok for the first time. every 5 meters the smell, colors, noise and feeling is different. Streets are fully packed with food, bars, cloth and other stuff tourists use or buy. The Following days we saw some sights, ate some phad chai and drunk some tiger, leo or chang. 3 days are definitely short to see Bangkok but long enough if you come cold turkey from the Munich airport, traveling for the first time to Asia.