It has been
a couple of weeks since my last message, so itll be a long one.
Grab a
beer, send your girlfriend/boyfriend home, sit back, relax and enjoy the
reading.
Ok Ready??
Here we go
As I
metioned in my previous message, I spend a couple of days in St.-Kilda
(Melbourne). Nice hostel, one penguin, Heineken L, nice beach, nice vegetarian
restaurant where you could pay as much (or a less) as you like for the meal
On Friday
we went to the Australian Open where we saw some interesting matches. I saw:
Berdych beat
Gasquet
Nah Lee beat
Zahlanova
Lukasz
Kubot/Oliver Marach beat Samuel Groth/Greg Jones
Schiavone beat
Niculesco
And!! Chia-Jung
Chuang/Dick Norman beat the Ozzies Aicia Molik/Peter Luczak
Haha, Belgium -
Australia: 1-0
After the
sunbathing in Melbourne I went for some meditation to Apollo Bay where I
started the Great Ocean Walk (GOW). Its a 100 km long track true rainforest,
on beaches, over rocks, in the fields, This track took me 6 days from Apollo
Bay to the 12 Apostles. Every night I could sleep in a hike-in campsite. Here I
could find rainwater to drink and something that looked like a toilet J
I had a
really nice week in the middle of nowhere, with only a few people to talk to.
So time enough for me to become zen J
During the
walk I saw hundreds of animals, but Ill mention only the most interesting
ones. I finally saw my first (second, third and fourth) koala in the wild, only
one meter away from my tent. The tigersnake was my next visitor and he brought
some black wallabies, an echidna,
some kangaroos, some birds of prey and a big ant and a little ant pulling on
the same leaf (but different direction) J
I was
pretty lucky on Australia-Day, cause Id put my tent on a drive-in campsite
where everyone gave me beer and whiskey. And I even joined some people on the
bbq And very funny, the next day on a different campsite, there was a very
nice couple who invited me for diner and accompanying beers.
Thats
called real survival, eat this Bear Grylls J.
The next
days where more calm and I enjoyed the stunning sunsets and listened to the
koalas and other animals who were waking up or going to sleep in the forest.
That was really amazing.
After the
GOW I flew to Hobart, Tasmania. I went with a speedboat with not much speed around
Bruny Island, visited the Cascade-brewery, joined a ghost-tour and bought my
organic vegies at the famous Salamanca-market.
Next stop
was Launceston where I had a look at the beautiful Cataract Gorge. The next day
I went on a daytour to Cradle Mountain. Unfortunately I didnt have the time to
do the Overland Track, a six-day hike true the mountains. But instead I had a
nice dayhike to one of the lookouts on 1200 meters. On the way down, we saw a
big wombat enjoying his diner not that far from the path.
That night
I went to the park with some guys I met in my hostel, who came from a
circus-festival. They brought their fire-sticks and gave a nice show in the
local park.
And because
I cant get enough of animals, I did five days of volunteering at Trowunna
Wildlife Park in the big city of Mole Creek (240 inhabitants).
Not only I
saw some new interesting animals (baby-wombats, quolls, forester kangaroos,
pademelons, tasmanian devils, wedge-tailed eagles, ), but I learned a lot about
the tasmanian devils and their facial tumour disease, and the way they breed
the species. In the evening I did like every other real Australian, I played
8-ball and drank Tiger-ale.
Yesterday I
flew to Cairns where Im now writing this message in 35 degrees (Celsius), next
to the pool at the hostel J
Tomorrow
and Monday Ill be enjoying the Daintree rainforest, on Tuesday Ill conquer
the Tully-river during a day of extreme-rafting and on Wednesday Ill be hoping
my parachute opens after free falling for 60 seconds. The next day Im going to
explore the Great Barreir Reef in a scuba diving session
Next week
Ill put my flight schedules on my blog for my return-flight to Belgium...
