Capital of Queensland (the big state in the north east of Australia)

We had left hip Byron Bay and took the bus again to Brisbane. Here is where Silja would fly out to Japan and I would start traveling "alone" again.

Brisbane is another big city. Many big buildings and is situated around a river, like most big cities of Australia (source of fresh water!). Silja and I stayed in a big hostel, which was okay, not particurlarly good but yeah fine. The room was dark (no windows), so sleeping was great, but not that nice otherwise)
In Brisbane we didn't really know what to do, we were thinking about going to an island, a friend recommended, but when we realized it was quite far away and we'd have to leave early we decided not to (we ended up just having that one day).

I loved this church! It was so small and looked rather old and was surrounded by these huge modern skyscapers

A sea of plush kangaroos, koalas and other animals found in a souvenir shop :D

Instead we did a walk around town, visited the big botanical garden park, saw some mangroves, that grow around the river and strolled through the CBD. In the afternoon we sent a package back to Germany, wow it's expensive! 80$ for seamail and less than 7 kg. SIlja wanted to get rid of a bag and some other things, I just cashed in and sent some things back too. Though we were not comfortable with the package. It was a bit folded like a moving crate I know in Germany, but was 1000 times less stable. We packed it and while I was carrying it back to the post office the bottom just slid open and everything fell out on the bottom, like one of those slap stick moments in the movies. Just for real. Wow.
We told that to the post officer, so she'd tape it up real good, but she didn't really. I hope it gets wrapped better later on. Anyway, it's on its way and could arrive by now (we sent it beginning/middle of may) or take much longer (up to 3 months, is what they told us).

The mangroves in the park - it had just stopped raining so I didn't take more pictures =(

In the evening we went to a few pubs and ended up doing a drag queen bingo game evening. That was pretty fun an d a dutch girl we met in the hostel actually won! She got a "sausage platter" (though it was just a few sausages and more of other things). In all it was a cool last evening for Silja (or at least I thought it was cool). The next morning she left and I went on to Noosa, another hip town only north of Brisbane.

Byron bay

In the morning after our stake-out in Clybucca we arrived in Byron Bay. This is again a very frequented city. Lots and lots of backpackers, tourists and others come here. It was alternative and popular years ago and stayed popular (thanks to the beaches and nature around). So now it has changed into a rather hip city with expensive artsy shops, lots going on and a wide variety of people coming here. At least so I heard ;-)

But yeah, the many shops beg for people to browse, though I don't really care about that sort of thing. I rather enjoyed strolling on the beach or walking to the lighthouse. Silja and I had at first booked a place to stay, where she had been years ago, but it was kind of weird and everything had hidden costs (wifi, luggage storage and so on) and when the girl at the reception was really weird and unfriendly we decided to change hostel after a night. We ended up in a more party place (with it's own bar etc), but it was fine. At first!

Life hack 726: No oven and you want a pizza? No problem with this kind of sandwich grill!

After a while I realized the back doors to the rooms can't be locked from the outside, so most people tend to leave them unlocked (to have easy access) and the bathroom windows don't really close. And then there was this notice saying what to do when there's a armed robbery. You don't just hang that there, when it hasn't happened D:

At least there was a security guy at the entrance gate and the rooms had lockers (though many didn't lock it properly! ^^' ), but the back fence wasn't really that big of a barrier, so I was kind of concerned for the security. Probably just annoyed that after we had changed hostel it was again not what I had hoped for. Wifi was much better though and they had free dinner offers, which was nice. We got to know a few people on karaoke night and more or less hung out with them the next few evenings.

But before that we had a day to fill and decided to go to the lighthouse, which is a nice walk through some national park-ish area and along the way we met an australian couple. They are from Perth and were for a short holiday around Byron bay. We walked and talked till we finally arrived at the lighthouse. There they had some lunch and Silja and I headed back to the new hostel to check in properly and have our cheaper lunch.

Beaches like these are all over and around Byron bay!

See the eagle? Was a big one!

Or this big lizard sunbathing, looked similar like the one hanging out in our hostel (you can see that in my latest update post)

View of the ocean from australias most eastern point! (Silja has the fotos with the 2 of us infront of the sign)

Wild australian turkey near the most eastern point of Australia!

The nice lighthouse up at the cape of Byron bay!

The lighthouse from afar!

I wonder where everyone was going to and from...?

Sunday there was a big market going on in Byron, so Silja and I went there and she ended up buying some stuff and even ordered a handmade leather cade for her laptop! The guy was so kind to deliver it as well, because he had to make it. He agreed to do it in a day, because we were leaving on tuesday morning... But he did it and Silja no has a pretty leather case!

The market itself was huge! Many different stalls and shops were there. Leather wares, ceramic, candles, woodwork, clothes, iron stuff, coin carvings, spoon bending and more of each. Of course there were food lanes and corners too. It was pretty busy, but not too crowded, just because the area was so big! With so many different stalls and little lanes there was plenty to see and to admire!

For monday we had booked a tour to the nearby hippy/ pothead village of Nimbin, Byron is supposedly similar relaxed and so on, though I found it to be past all that and has already turned into a "posh" hipster and yeah just expensive exclusive place. Nimbin had just celebrated a mardi grad festival (not like the one in Sydney though) and so many people were there for that. We walked around, checked some stores, but the ride there took longer than I thought and so we were there for only a few hours and had to return quite soon. Looking back I could have brought my guitalele and played with tunes with all the people hanging around the courtyards and plazas there. Many were just relaxing on benches, enjoying their smokes and some had guitars and were playing music. There were many of those groups. But it wasn't too bad, because the weather sucked. It was almost raining all the time and when we were on our way back it started pouring!

Hippie community Nimbin recieving a delivery - a bit ironic

Nimbin is an indigeneous name and is important to many aborigenes, these rocks are important in their mythology and believes, the name is ??

So luckily we were in a bus and not on the streets. The next morning we were already heading on north to our last destination together: Brisbane!

Up the east coast - first stops

After my time in Sydney I was finally traveling again. My friend Silja had joined me to go up to Brisbane! We booked "Hop-on Hop-off" bus tickets and started our journey. Only when I had booked it I realized the big downside to this all: The buses were night buses! So If you wanted to get off the track/ tourist favourites, you'd have to get off in the middle of the night. I was willing to do so and so was Silja. We had a look and were trying to remember any recommendations we got. I was told that, the small village of South West Rocks is supposed to be nice and was more or less on the way. We checked it out and only found AirBNB places (not a single backpacker hostel!) and got in touch with a lovely lady Diane. Her home looked nice and we decided to give it a go.

But first we stopped in Newcastle. A city just north of Sydney and with nice beaches. There might be more things to do, but because of the night bus situation and us wanting to visit quite a few places, we just stayed there one night. We had a short stroll on the beach and want the sun set at a nice pub place, with a cheap happy hour.

This is Tyrells house! I guess this is Highgarden? #gameofthrones

Newcastles modern lighthouse

Walkway that offers beautiful views over the beaches of Newcastle

EXCEPT WHAT?!

In the evening we caught our bus further north to the roadhouse Clybucca. While in Newcastle we had a chat with our hostess in SWR. She was concerned we'd be bored to death if we have to stay the night in the roadhouse (we'd arrive at about 2:30am) and she wouldn't be able to pick us up then. We of course understood and said she needn't worry, we can manage and want to visit the nice small village. So after that she agreed and picked us up after about 4 hours in the roadhouse. We had a short nap and then got up to explore this small place. She was kind enough to give us a short tour and tell us what there is to see. We spent the afternoon on the beach and visiting a "Gaol". Or jail. During the first world war it was an internment camp for german prisoners. They had more freedom than the actual prisoners, but were still imprisoned. But because no one really knew what was wrong with them, many people from around still used their services, they bought some of their superb bread, sausages and other products, while others would be threated by an great german doctor. He was actually big in the field of child cancer, but had to stop his research because he was put their (thanks Australia!).
The weirdest thing was, that some of their kids were fighting for Australia in the war against Germany and still most of these settlers were transported away from Australia after the war was over.

Panorama of the village beach

Kangaroos!

More!

And another one :D

This german concentration camp was a bit different than the ones in Germany...

Old jail building

Sunset after leaving the "Gaol"

Before this historical visit we walked past a campingsite with some kangaroos hanging around. Once we had left the Jail we did a walk to Little Bay where we saw even more kangas :D
Here we got picked up by Diane to do some shopping and finished with some nice curry in the evening.

Diane had some seeds outside all day long for the birds to come and feed, this couple showed up quite often

This cute lil frog was sleeping on her porch :-)

The last day Diane offered to drive us around a bit and showed us the lighthouse of South West Rocks. A cute little tower on the top of a cliff and with fantastic views around! Really beautiful =) 

South West Rocks lighthouse is a bit more classic

This Golden Orb Spider was hanging around the lighthouse!

Views from up at the Lighthouse, nice beaches to the left

and to the right!

Kookubarah sitting on an old gumtree

Then we headed down to the beach for some relaxing there, unfortunately we didn't see any Koalas in the woods or dolphins around.
Diane had an appointment in town and dropped us off there, so we walked around and enjoyed the small village life. It was our last day and we had to get back to the roadhouse and wiat till 2:30am again! So we just enjoyed it, had a stroll and relaxed with some ice at the beach.
A friend of our host took us to the roadhouse to wait there again till we would be picked up by the bus.
Only plus: We didn't have to pay for 2 nights accomodation!

I <3 Oma :D (found in Newcastle)

Sydneys short summary

In Sydney I stayed in a small hostel called the Dury House Backpackers. I stayed there for my entire time in Sydney and really enjoyed it! At first I wasn't too sure, because it seemed kind of dirty, the kitchen was small and the fridges (each room had its own) were always full and not clean either.
But in the end I just loved the company of the people in the hostel, enjoyed the evenings and didn't mind the superficial dirt. Ok - a big part was that it was really cheap and offered a lot for the money! (free rice, toast and jam around the clock!)

The wifi could have been (much!) better, but I was lucky and could reach the library wifi from my bed :D
I met many people, most lived there for a long time and others returned back after traveling around Australia or in other countries. Because I was staying in this place for a long time (I hadn't stayed in any place this long for over half a year) I think I grew very fond of everyone there and the hostel felt a bit like home.

During my stay I wanted to work, I settled for a job in labouring/ construction, because the teaching would have been a pain to get everything organised. I should have thought about that in Germany and already gotten all the forms, infos, proofs and translations. Now sending my friends and relatives on a hunt for my certificates seemed unneccesary. I did try and asked around in the department of Education and sent an application to an independent school, but they never answered. The Department of Ed. said I'd first have to file for different things (which all cost money) before my application would even be considered.
So I dropped it and did the easy White Card (an online questionaire for 40$) and then got a job soon after. I worked for a shipyard on Goat Island. An island in the Sydney Harbour which is actually all national park except for the shipyard which was founded in the early 1920s (I think).

On my way to the shipyard and a cruise ship is just arriving

I was working with these 2 famous characters: Kelso (Scrubs) and Sherlock - helped me alot on the shipyard!

The weather was really bad though. And because they needed to paint the car ferry, they couldn't because of all the rain. And so their painters did the job the normal labourers should have done and they didn't need us extra labourers (the painters belonged to the company directly, we were hired via an agency). So the weather made me loose my job.
Not a week later after I had applied for other agencies I got a call saying I could work on a construction site. I agreed and started the next day. It was much more physically challenging but was paid better. AND they wanted me to work overtime which was also nice, because then I of course got more money. I worked with different tools, like a grinder, jackhammer and drills, but mostly shoveling. Then after a week I was helping another guy with simple tasks so I hadn't my gloves with me. When they wanted me to jackhammer, I asked the office for some gloves got some and was walking out when the foreman came and he got angry, that I wanted their gloves and rudely told me to get my own. At the end of that day the foreman told I needn't come back. Later the agency told me he thought I wanted to steal some gloves and didn't want another stealing backpacker. Great...

View from the construction site in Sydney (you can see the bridge and Opera House in the background!)

I again went searching for a job. It was harder than I thought considering others were working 2 jobs and cheating to keep both. Then finally my first agency called me and told me I could go back to the shipyard. That is where I stayed till I left in the end of April. The car ferry was still on the island but slowly everthing was finished painted and we were tasked to fix everything together again, like handrails, doors and other things. Shortly before easter the ferry went into the water and luckily I was allowed to stay and helped work on the next big project, a fire tug boat from the sydney harbour authorities.
In between I had helped on smaller side projects, exchanging windows on a cruiseboat, waterblasting barnacles off pontoons and glueing other pontoons together. It actually was pretty cool working there, escpecially because it was a rather odd job (going on an island each day and working with boats was pretty awesome). Mainly the coworkers were really relaxed and friendly!

Small boat on the slit

Old boat propeller from the small boat(it should be nice and shiny!)

Big boat on the slit (the fire tug)

Happy Jakob on his last day on the bridge of the fire tug

Of course I did many other things while staying in Sydney. With the people from the hostel and other friends I went to the cinema, did different walks, visited several beaches, partied in different bars and clubs or just relaxed in the hostel with a beer. People celebrated birthdays, their last days in the hostel and then that day came for me too. Silja (the friend I visited in Auckland and with who I traveled Australia before) arrived in Australia and we planned to do the east coast. Together we went on a boat cruise in the harbour and walked in the blue mountains with my roommate John and his sister, who came to visit him before leaving Sydney.
Finally it was time to part ways with the dury gang and start traveling again!

The 3 sisters, big thing to see in the blue mountains

View over the blue mountain area

Panorama of the Opera House, Bridge and a cruise ship docked in Circular Quay (the founding spot of Sydney)

Ocean and pools at Bondi Beach

Panorama from the north coast (you can tell I like the panorama function on my phone)

I will write some more posts about this time, but wanted to summarize this quickly for most. Friday I arrived in Melbourne after doing different tours around the East Coast. Here I will stay about a week before flying to Perth.

Random pic of the day: Poor trees just might fail!

The resemblance is uncanny!

Another heads up

Unfortunately my App decided to drop my latest blog entries when I wanted to sync them, so instead I lost them. Great.
Anyway, here a short summery of what I was up to.
As you have noticed my Blogs entries are still back in February!

So I am in Australia at the moment and have been working on a shipyard in Sydney for over a month. Now I am traveling again. Till today (11.5.) Silja traveled with me from Sydney to Brisbane, from where I am writing this.

I am doing well and like being on the road again. Now Silja has left and I will be traveling up to Cairns (a city further north on the east coast) alone, or maybe I'll find someone to tag along =)

Have a great week/ weekend/ day and cheers mate!

These quite large lizards can be found in many places in Australia! This one was hanging around our hostel garden

Silja and me enjoying super hero ice cream :D

Hobbiton (~ Feb 6th)

New Zealand. A country, that got a huge boost for its tourism thanks to Lord of the Rings.
After the LotR movies - where they had built several smaller hobbit holes out of plastic etc. many people went on nerdy pilgrimages to see the locations of the movie. And people asked the farmer, whose farm land was used to film the shire, if they could visit the film site. He quickly saw an opportunity and talked with Peter Jackson and the others about making it a tourist location. They agreed and so the Hobbiton fever started.
There wasn't a lot to see back then, because they had torn down everything after finishing filming the movie. But when they started filming "The Hobbit", they decided to build Hobbiton with lasting materials, more wood and stone instead of plastics and hence the tourist location and village Hobbiton was born! Soon many bus tours were arranged, parking spots were built and a small visitors centre was built a the entrance to the farm, so people could buy merchandise, book tours who came by car and just get more information about this great place.

Of course I wanted to go there as well. Since I read the books and watched the movies I had been a great fan and when I had planned to visit New Zealand that was definitely on the top of my to-do list. So after the tour in Wellington and the hike to Mount Doom this was third big thing I did for my "nerdome".
I booked the tour from the tourist Information in Rotorua and went to the Hobbiton shop there the next morning. The bus was slowly getting fuller and left on time. The bus driver showed us a few clips of the LotR and The Hobbit movies and short movies about the place, one where Peter Jackson and the farmer himself welcomed us to this tourist attraction.
We had a short time at the visitors centre near the farm to do some shopping, I was quite disappointed that this break was so short. I would have liked to browse a little more and have more time to decide if I wanted something, but this way I spent much less money there, which was probably good :D

The tours are all very well planned. They probably start every 30 minutes. A bus drives from the visitor centre to the shires entrance and picks them up there once it's over. We could see many other groups walking around Hobbiton. But being in a group you can't really just walk around, relax and take it in as you like. Our guide always was couting us so no on gets lost and made many stops to keep us together. Of course all of them planned ahead and so everyone gets the same experience and no one can complain! Depending if you book a normal tour or a banquett tour you'd be there during the day or in the evening. I don't know if the banquett evening tour is worth it, I heard different stories, so I just did the normal walking tour. And I really enjoyed it!

The bus left the visitors centre with our guide for Hobbiton itself. Once we arrived at the entrance he welcomed us and started the tour talking about the scenes, the building process and other things about Hobbiton.

Welcome!

With our guide we entered Hobbiton =)

He showed us where many scenes were shot and told us of their tricks. There are some very small and some very big doors, depending if they'd make a scene with Gandalf or with hobbits! Of course Gandalf would stand infront of a small door while a hobbit would stand infront of a "normal sized" door.

I was amazed by all the details they had made. Basically it looked like they had just finished filming the movie and left everything just as it was. Just hobbits walking around were missing!

Clothes hanging out to dry, food in small stands, a pie cooling on a window sill - everything! Just fabulous. I loved it.

Really nice, how they built everything so detailed!

Post boxes, chairs, lanterns, so many small things! Amazing!

Gate to Bilbos famous house

Of course a highlight was Bilbos house with the big tree over it. That tree was actually a fake! It was made in Japan so it'd be evergreen (but it's made of metal!). Sometimes when there was a storm or heavy winds, they might have to make new leaves, because they can fall off, but so some lucky travelers might actually get to keep a leaf from Hobbiton!

We had a beautiful day, the sun was shining and it seemed a wonderful day for a party on the party grounds! If only Bilbo was celebrating again. We saw the house, which ended the Lord of the Rings movie - Sams home with his wife. The kids he was holding were actually children from him and another one of the actors. The baby might actually turn 18 in a year or 2! She'll then get the paycheck - should be an awesome birthday present ;-)

The tour ended in the famous green dragon Inn! Everyone had a choice of an ale or soft drink. The ales and beers are being brewed exclusively for the shire! They can only be bought here and maybe in a few official LotR fan shops around NZ. So it was very nice to relax there, sit where hobbits would and drink one of their beers! Fantastic!

The green dragon!

Our guide gathered us and led us back to the bus, where we got to see some more movie clips and a farewell message from the farmer and Peter Jackson.

Eh? What's all this fuss about outside?!