Australia 2001 / 2002
Tuesday, March 05, 2002
I am back since a few days now. Everything starts to settle down.
The journey was long - more than 20 hours on the plane - but it was cool nonetheless. It's strange that we can travel so easily for more than 20000 kms....
I had a stopover in Singapore and took the Free New Asia Tour. It was way better than sitting for five hours at the airport.
Too make a long story short: I arrived at seven in the morning in Frankfurt and another four hours later at home. As I went to a concert that night and didn't go to bed until three in the morning, I've been up for 54 hours. :-)
Mmmh, perhaps I'll write more stuff later. Rightnow, let me quit with saying that I uploaded the last photos to my ozpix page.
posted at 06:31
Wednesday, February 27, 2002
This is ridiculous, six months in Australia are over now. It's actually hard to believe that I am leaving tomorrow... oh well... there's a 27 hour journey ahead.
Okay, here is a quick summary of the Canberra - Adelaide - Great Ocean Road - Melbourne thingy because it has to be done now, or I will never do it. :-)
First, we went to see the Treasures exhibition in the National Library in Canberra. They have original documents by Einstein, Freud, Mozart, Capatain James Cook, Martin Luther King, JRR Tolkien and many more. We had to be there at seven in the morning to actually be able to get in at eight.
We then went on to drive to Melbourne, but changed our minds while we were driving. That's a really nice thing about being with your own car. You can just stop where you want and change your plans in the middle of nowhere.
Nowhere was Gundagai at that point. They've got the infamous Dog on the Tuckerbox... it was just so funny that this is actually known by many Australians. Uh well... ;-)
We drove the rest of the day and stopped in Swan Hill near the Murray River. The next day we drove till we reached Adelaide. It's amazing how you can really drive for hours and hours and you see about five cars and have one or two turns - and these are in the "cities" that you pass every few hundret kilometers.
Adelaide was really nice. Some old buildings, a nice mall and everything is just rectangular. It's difficult to believe that a million people live there though. We stayed there for some days and took a look at the surroundings, but the weather was rather cloudy.
We drove through the amazing Grampians mountains next. Took a look at McKennzy Falls and stopped at Reads Lookout / The Balconies. This was a really fantastic view! The Blue Mountains suddenly seemed to be small! Impressive!
The other day we started the Great Ocean Road. Taking one whole day was a good choice, because again the weather was changing quite often. So we just waited in our car for a couple of minutes and the sun was shining again. We saw The Bay of Islands, Loc Arch Gorge, London Bridge, The Arch and, of course, the famous Twelve Apostles. Again, really impressive rock formations!
Well, at one point we reached Melbourne and stayed in a nice Motel in St. Kilda. This is a nice suburb directly at the beach with tons of cafes and only 15 minutes by tram from the city.
I really liked Melbourne which suprised me. I was expecting a rainy small city that is rather boring. Instead we had up to 38 degree celsius! The city is really nice with lots of beautiful old buildings, trees and many many cafes. It was really nice there.
Although, I wanted to take a train from Melbourne back to Sydney, I took a plane later. The train takes nearly 11 hours and costs AU$ 77. The Ansett flight that I got was just a bit longer than one hour and costed AU$ 95 including all taxes.
Well, this summary has to be enough... perhaps some day... :-)
posted at 02:39
Sunday, February 24, 2002
Okay, I just checked out the Tropfest website. The correct figures are 95000 people in The Domain in Sydney, 3000 people on Victoria Street in Sydney and 7000 people in Melbourne.
posted at 18:43
Still nothing about my last big trip, but here's a quick rundown of the things that I did during the last few days.
I've done a 10 km Scenic Walk from Manly to the Spit Bridge. It's supposed to be one of the most beautiful harbour walks in the world. Well, it was pretty great to see North- and South-Head (and the ocean behind them) from this point, but 10 km is really long if the sun is shining and it's more than 30 degree celsius...
Then I saw COG again. This time they played at the Fisho's. It was really cool to see them at their own show. Oh, and I got my CD signed by the boys. :-)
Yesterday, I've been at the Tropfest - the world's biggest shortfilm festival. Indeed it was massive! We arrived at about three in The Domain (It is an openair park near the Botanic Garden in Sydney.). Many people were already sitting on their blankets and had a picnic. The movies started at eight o'clock, but they had some bands on stage and some lame Intel entertainment. In the end it was *really* crowded. The offical figure is 95000 people for the 10th Tropfest! Though, I have to admit that I am still unsure whether this was just in The Domain or all Tropfest events in Australia together. Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Hobart and more were linked via satellite.
I was quite impressed by all the stuff that they've set up. In The Domain they had *three* massive screens and a stage in the middle. It was broadcasted on national television, they even had their own radio station - and I mean a FM radio station, not an Internet stream! And if you looked on your mobile, you got "Tropfest" as cell info (like Sydney CBD, Town Hall etc.)!
There were a bunch of celebs, too. I'm not good at VIP names, but I can remember that Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss from Matrix were there. She even presented a prize. There was also Gabriel Byrne from "The usual Suspects".
Oh, the movies were really good, too. :-) However, I can't describe a shortfilm here, can I?
Well, this was rather short again, perhaps I have some time to finally write about my trip later today.
posted at 18:23
Wednesday, February 20, 2002
My last week in Australia in near... uh well, I still have to write about Adelaide, Great Ocean Road and Melbourne, but the photos are finally online.
Rightnow, I'm a lot in the City and say Goodbye to everything and everyboby.
posted at 16:38
Monday, January 28, 2002
Uh well, the long weekend is over and I am back at work. As 26th January is Australia Day, we had Monday off.
On Thursday, I saw System Of A Down at Horden Pavillion in the Fox Studios (It's now off my todo list, too.) SOAD was supported by the local band COG and by Amen. COG was really awesome. Beside playing great music, it was just great to see that the band so much enjoyed playing. Well, Amen on the other hand was just plain boring standard crap and definitely not my taste. SOAD played a good set and I was quite impressed.
On Friday, we went to the Quay Cinema directly at Sydney Harbour to see Amelie. Finally. So far everybody told me me that this movie is just great and wasn't really able to say why. Well, it is witty and lovely, I'd say. It's a wonderful story and the images used express a strong feeling. I loved it and can only recommend it. :-)
Then came the Big Day - to be more precise the Big Day Out. It's Australia's biggest music festival and takes place at the Olympic Park. Plenty of stages with all sorts of bands and a nice location. I saw bands like COG (hehehe), Silverchair, System Of A Down, Prodigy, Garbage, NOFX, New Order and many more. There were also some electronic areas with great acts - but I definitely can't remember their names. You can check out www.bigdayout.com for more information.
The rest of the weekend was more quiet and relaxing. :-)
posted at 21:07
Wednesday, January 23, 2002
I just uploaded the new photos. Especially the Koala shots are really nice. :-)
posted at 18:09