Shut up and drive

On tuesday, theMelbourne branch was short of a van for wednesday... so I volunteered to get it down there... It'll be easier selling the experience now I've driven in Australia a bit myself... The ride to Melbourne is about 870km, one way... It's a pity I didn't bring my camera for this trip, cause the landscapes were just stunning... so I drove the first 750 the same day, had a sleep in the van, and drove the last hour and a half the next day... dropped off the van, got into a stationwagon and started my journey back... I was keeping a nice pace, and that pace was just a little bit too nice for the Victoria State police... they pulled me over, and gave me a fine... appareantly, driving 128/hour is enough for a 220$ fine, and just short for taking away your license... In Belgium, driving 128 means you're being overtaken by grandma's, and policemen giving you a thumbs-up, if I remember well... Anyways... I got back to Sydney safely, and have today off to rest out a bit... and continue looking for appartments...

Last few weeks - closing that gap...

Ok... as mentioned below... I did do some things in between getting people behind the wheel of their own ford falcon... but didn't update as much as my worldwide audience is used to (you've got the right to tell me - and I have the right to remain silent ;o). Anyways.. quite a lot of my time has been going to finding another place to stay...
I've been staying at Wake up for over a month now, and it's a great place, but as I'm planning to stay in Sydney for a while, it would be more fun to find an appartment.

Unfortunately, I'm not the only one with that idea... the market is pretty tight, every appartment you visit has a bunch of other interested tenders, and the landlords usually opt for people who take a long-term lease... We had the idea to move to a two bedroom place with four people... in the picture above you can see two them when we were checking out a flat we liked but didn't get... We've more or less given up on finding that two bedroom, and are looking for rooms, shares and studio's separately now... let's hope that goes better...

But I've had some time to enjoy the good aspects of Sydney as well, for instance, a day of surfing and chilling at manly beach with the lovely Danish people I met at surfcamp... the wave's were a not really powerful enough for us - remember the weather conditions we had those days... - but at least we got some more practice... and had a good night out in Newtown afterwards...
The day after that we went for a Blue Mountains trip - again, my first attempt ended up in the mist... to compare... I had the same picture taken as a few weeks ago, but now you can actually see the famous Three Sisters... The weather sees really clear on this picture, but after we had descended the Giant Stairway, we got totally soaked by heavy rainfall... quite logical, as we were walking through a rainforest, and not as bad as it sounds... cause in these temperatures, a bit of water doesn't matter that much... After a few hours of enjoying walking through great nature around there, we took railway back up to the mountaintop... appareantly the steepest railway in the world... and better than a ride in a theme park.

On the way to, and back from Katoomba, I got a few hours of Danish lessons... It's mostly really practical vocabulary, and a great addition to what I remembered my trips to Copenhagen and from working at Roskilde last summer... By the way - Congratulations to Chris and Nic on their New York Marathon... I would've liked to join you to the celebrating/drinking trip to the Caribbean, but hey... I can't be in two places at once...

It's been a bit quiet on these pages lately... and that's mostly due to my activities in this place: Travellers Autobarn! I've stepped into the sales- 'game', and am starting to love it... Talking to backpackers everyday was something I was doing anyway... so now I can help them to transport in order making their travel dreams come true... of course I've done a lot of other stuff in the time in between... but more on that later... Got to go and sell some cars ;o)

Surf Camp

As mentioned a few days ago... just had a two day surf camp down at Seven Mile Beach... Again... the weather wasn't as good as you would expect, we really had a lot of rain, and the sun only got through now and then... But that only mattered when we weren't surfing, because once in the water... you're wet anyway... Seven Mile beach is supposed to be a good beach for learning how to surf, but due to the weather conditions, the sea was quite rough... Five to six foot waves, if that rings a bell to anyone...( I don't have a clue how they measure them, but they sure were powerfull and high...).

Surfing is really a lot of fun... It was exhausting too, but once you get up on the board, it's all worth it... I managed to stand up a few times within the first two hours of lessons, which I didn't expect to happen so soon... Monday afternoon, I got up there about ten times, and yesterday on more than half of the attempts I made... Once you get the technique, it's a lot easier than you think... and that's when it starts to feel really nice... There's is a lot to learn though, I only just started to make turns by the time this camp was over, but I'm quite convinced I'll do some more surfing in the next few months...

Some more days in and around Sydney

Here's some more news on what I've been up to... Had a nice hike in Royal National Park... Got the train to Cronulla, and then took the ferry to Bundeena... It was a really hot day, and the park's absolutely beautiful... i did a part of the coastal walk... really nice environment, nice cliffs, beautiful beaches... saw some lizards and a snake on the way... haven't got a picture of the snake, cause I got the hell out of there... As I said... weather was really good, but there were a lot of flies around, which was pretty annoying... But all in all, a very nice trip...

The day after i took Theo's advice (see comments in one of the earlier posts), and went to Taronga Zoo... it was about time I got to see some kangooroos, koala's and wombats... Not in the wild yet, but this way I'll recognise them when i meet them ;o) It's a really nice zoo, you can walk through some parts where the animals are just hopping around you (in the case of the kangooroos anyway), for some other parts I was happy there was safety glass or bars in between us... which was probably best... That day was pretty sunny as well, and met up with a scottish guy that appareantly is staying in the most boring youth hostel around... He's probably moving to wake up soon... which is a lot more lively all the time... (see goon party a bit further)

Had a walk to the rocks with the german girl in my room the next day, and ended up in a german beer bar with extremely unfriendly staff... maybe the belgian beer cafe is a better option for next time... (for now I'll settle for Tooheys and VB... but the urge for a Westmalle is growing...). The next few days the weather was a bit less sunny than you'd expect in Australia... we actually had some rain the past two days... but we made up for it by having a goon party in our room... Goon is what they call the cheap Australian boxed wine over here, which is extremely popular amongst backpackers here... The party ended with about 35 people sitting in our 10 people room, which was pretty crowded but a lot of fun... and later on we ended up in Sidebar, meeting some dutch people... and appareantly one of them is going to the same surf trip as I'm going on tomorrow...

Yesterday was another rainy day... which ended by heavy showers in the evening.. when I was just getting back from the movies... so believe it or not... I had to buy an umbrella... The good news is, appareantly all of the water fell out yesterday, and today is a bright, clear blue sky day... so we're off to botanical gardens... if we don't end up at the beach again...

Booked the surf trip!

Today, I've booked a surf trip... there's quite a few options to do that, so it took some time to decide... in the end.. this is the one I've booked... It's on Seven mile Beach, and only for two days... that's quite short, but I guess it should be enough to see if I like it, and if I'm in any way gifted to stand on a board... If I do, I can allways book more of this stuff... or buy a board? I'm going there next monday (that's in exactly a week), and totally looking forward to it!

A bit of this and that...

ok... been a while since I've posted about what's been going on around here... I'm not going to try to remember which day was which, will be happy if I'm more or less complete... been to Manly beach last week... you have to take a ferry from Circular quay for that, which is nice by itself, seeing the Opera house from the other side for once... met up with a brasilian girl who's been studying in Sydney for some years already, who showed me around the place for a bit... the weather was excellent at the time we had left, but about an hour after arriving in Manly, it got quite clouded... had a nice time there though... Think that was monday now I'm thinking of it... Tuesday was mostly making practical arrangements.. like the adress and bank account and so on as you can see below... Wednesday I went to the Blue mountains... had a good walk up there, but it was so foggy, I couldn't even see the three sisters - one of the most famous attractions of the region... did see some nice waterfalls though, and it was nice to be outside of the city for a while... met up with a bunch of people from northern ireland during that day... and had some nice pizza with them before returning to sydney again... in the next few days, I went to the Museum of Contemporary Arts.. which had an exhibition by young ozzy artists on... and the Aquarium... where you can see fish from all sides... they have these tunnels under the tanks so sharks, turtles and rays are swimming all around you... there's even a tank where you can touch Port Jackson sharks... And for the kid reader's of this blog... I did find Nemo... he's got a lot of kids by now as well... Although the animals are in captivity, the Aquarium's definitely worth going to... I'd like to meet some of these animals in the wild, while diving... but not all of them... Yesterday went to Bondi beach, with two German girls from the hostel, and an English guy... the weather was a little better than on Maly, but still not like you'd expect an Australian beach to be... oh well, it's still springtime... it'll get better I'm sure... and it was a nice place to be at anyways... not as much surfing going on as I expected either, due to not enough waves I guess...
pictures will be added soon, camera's charging... allthough you shouldn't expect beachpics just yet... forgot the camera both times ;o)) Will try to think of it next time... Oh, and off course i met a lot of nice people at the hostel again... people keep coming and going... had some fun party nights in between of all this touristy stuff, and am still definitely not regretting coming here... and I had vegemite for the first time... came with some soup i ordered somewhere in the Rocks... it's actually quite good... wonder why everyone says it's so awful...

A postcard?

I've got all of your e-mailadresses, and you can read up on what I'm doiong on these pages... but I kind of forgot to bring your actual adresses... so if anyone would like a personal message on a good old postcard... send your adress to my email, and I'll see what I can do! ;o)
updates will be for one of the next days...

Australian Adress

I've been making some practical arrangements in the mean time like opening an Australian bank acoount and so on... and for that I needed an Australian adress. This got arranged at the travellers contact point (actually, a Belgian girl working there arranged it for me...) - so they'll forward any mail to wherever I am... pretty handy... so if you have anything you want to send over - don't hold back (allthough e-mail is a whole lot faster - snail mail has got it's charms...) - just make sure it's not too oversized... and send it over to:

Erik De Volder TCP #11708
C/- Travellers Contact Point
Level 7, Dymocks Building
428 George Street
Sydney NSW 2000

I'm going to head over to the beach now, it's quite a bit hotter than the other days... hope you're not freezing over there!

Second day in Sydney...

Yesterday was my second day in Sydney... visited most of the 'tourist spots' around circular quai and darling harbour... when i got off the train at circular, was when i first realized i really am in Australia now... the train station gives a nice view on the opera house and harbour bridge... walked around there for abit, headed out to the botanic gardens...

where i spotted my first ibises and those white and yelow birds i can't remember the name of now... had a bit to eat there, and went on towards the Domain.. where Aussies get out to play soccer and cricket... walked through Sydney hospital,

towards Hyde park... really nice place, where a lot is going on... there was an outside prothography exhibition called Art & about, and for 'good foods month' there were a lot of foodstalls with asian food... but most importantly... this park is just a place where sydneysiders like to come hang out and meet each other after work, incredible how many people were just sitting in the grass meeting friends... very laid back atmosphere... but very crowded at some point...



Oh, here's another question to you all... which site is the fastest to upload pictures on? I can post a few here, and can get some on facebook as well, but I've taken a few hundreds already, and would like to share them... I've tried Picasa, but that's just way too slow... might have something to do with these pc's being abused by backpackers every day, but a fast application might help a bit already... Help me out on this and get tons of footage! I wouldn't like to waste my precious time on cursing on technology ;o)


Greetings from Sydney...

Australian telephone number

Just got my Australian telephone number... +61405681858 ... waqiting for it to get activated... shouldn't take long...
Just keep local time in mind (on the weorld map on the right), will you? ;o)
More news and hopefully pictures soon...

A short one.. should get out to the desert

Today, mostly went to Jumeira east.. the area with al the highrises.. I started out at Jumeira Beach Park, then went by Sati Park... and went into the business district..where they're buiding the highest skyscraper in the world.. amongst a thousand others... now I'm at Deira City Centre Mall,

I've booked a trip caled 'Dinner in the desert, which is leaving in a quarter of an hour.. wi te about it later, got to run! oh yah, and I'm off to Australia tomorrow.. Greetings to all

Arrived in Dubai...

Arrived in Dubai at 5.30 local time this morning... that's 3.30 Leuven time... after a 6 and a half hour flight... I got to the hostel quite fast by taxi, and it looks like a decent place... and the pool looks good too... haven't slept here yet, an didn't take a swim yet either, so I'll tell you later if it's really good... I've seen quite a part of Dubai already... Been to Bur Dubai and Deira, and I've seen the edge of Palm Deira (one of the new island groups here in front of the coast. One thing that's striked me from the moment I got off the plain is the humidity... at that time it was only 24 degrees, but a few hours ago, I saw it was 35... Sweaty weather, I can assure you... After putting my luggage in my room, I first tried to get on a bus towards the centre (at the busstop, I met the first people from Leuven on this trip), but appareantly, it's not that easy.... they're often full, and if they're close to full, the drivers just don't let you on... So after half an hour I gave up on that, and took a taxi, which cost me about 15 Dirham (3 euro's)... after that, I had quite a walk through an area called Al Souk Al Kabeer... which has the grand mosque, Dubai museum, an old neighbourhood (from around 1900) called Bastakiya... That's on on side of the Dubai Creek, so I took a small engined wooden boat to the other side, with quite a few modern building (a.o. the twin towers), the gold souk, spice souk...and some highrise hotels.... walked on a bit towards the huge Hyatt hotel, and passed a dozen of mosks, more souks, and somehow ended up at the chicken and bird market, and the fish market (including a shark restaurant). Except for the heat, humidity, and sun from about straight above my head, what struck me is that about half of the population is Indian, Pakistani ofr Sudanese... There are Saudi's here of course... and they're quite easily recognisable (will post some pics later on)... After walking on a bit towards the coast, I saw a part of Palm Deira (one of those Belgian products ove here), went to eat and drink something, and got back to the hostel... Luckily half a litre of bottled water only costs 1 Dirham (20 cents) in a street shop, cause my pores are all cleaned out, and I've had to refill on liquids quite often already... Tomorrow I'll head out to Jumeira... I think the rest of today will consist of a nap, and maybe a swim... As I already said.. first pictures on the way... if I find a pc where I can reach the USB ports... Greetings to everyone!

I'm leaving today!

After several months of waiting, and making a lot of arrangements... today the day I'm leaving has arrived... tonight I'll be flying from Dusseldorf to Dubai, where I will stay for two days... I'll keep you up to date through these pages, as much as I can (not bringing pc)... Do keep me informed about your life, what's going on in my city, or whatever... and send pictures!
As you all so kindly requested on friday - yes, I'll try to enjoy this trip as much as I can, and will come back! Enjoy your year as well, and think of me from time to time ;o)

A drink before I go... thanks for dropping by...

Had the going away drink yesterday, I had a great time, hope it was as good for y'all...

Thanks for dropping by, all your wishes and gifts... Nice to know some people care, and something to look forward to return to...(not too soon though hopefully)... It's getting really close now, by this time tomorrow, I'll be on my first flight... I'll miss you all, but I'm quite sure we'll stay in touch (look at the 'prepare to stay in touch' section on the right!)... For those who are thinking about joining me for a while, you're very welcome! Take good care of yourselves and each other, don't do what I wouldn't and enjoy life this year!

For those who had to go a bit earlier... I think I went to bed around 8.30, so today was quite tiring... I didn't take much pictures, thought about that a bit too late, so I've only got some of the 'last men standing'... I know the beautiful people had already gone by then - so for now I can only throw the 'interesting' ones on here ;o)

Packing and drinking day!

Today was more or less packing day... I gathered the stuff I'm taking in the two boxes in the pic, and hopefully it'll fit in my backpack tomorrow... Next to that... I actually had quite a lot of stuff to prepare... arrangements with my bank, sending in my licence plates, getting my last hepatitis shot, canceling tv subscription... a lot of stuff that was on the to-do list already two months ago actually... The last few weeks I've been saying goodbye here and there, which was both pleasant and strange... and tonight, there's more of that at de Villa... tomorrow, next to what's mentioned above, there's the De Volder family reunion... my two sisters are flying in from Spain (one of them leaves for Thailand with her husband on sunday... with a stopover in Abu Dhabi - also in the Emirates)... a lot of Volderkes in the air the next few days...

Belgians down under

At the end of this month, a Belgian team will be taking part in the World Solar Challenge, which is more or less the world championship for solar powered vehicles. It's a race of more than three thousand km, traversing the Australian continent from Darwin to Adelaide, in cars powered by nothing more than the sun. The vehicle in the picture is from Groep T from Leuven.
Good luck over there team, make me proud of my (would-be) country!

Ok, this is not even slightly related to Australia, although even over there, I'll try to keep up with their results... My favourite team Anderlecht knows its opponents in the next round of UEFA cup: Tottenham, Getafe, Aalborg and Tel Aviv. They hopefully should be able to perform better than the last few years in Champions League. Especially those Danes shouldn't be too hard to beat ;o) Other football hopes for this year: OHL to first division, KV to stay there, and good results for the U21 team in the Olympics!

From a country that doesn't exist... continued

After 121 days, there still is no agreement in forming a Belgian government, earlier I posted some British press coverage on this topic, now there's an Al Jazeera video.
It's quite interesting to see how outsiders look at this very local issue... Although I can imagine a situation like this appears strange to foreigners... Maybe it's getting about time Brussels secures it's international status, and puts some (financial) pressure to make the regions cooperate? Don't think it'll be solved before I go, maybe when I get back ;o)

End of ramadan - another reason to party on friday

Got pretty lucky with this - some of you might already know I'm not the most religious muslim around - but I'm arriving in Dubai on 15 Oct... and ramadan ends on the 12th... Appareantly, during that period, it's advised also for tourists not to eat drink or smoke in public in the daytime... Afterwards... there is a three day festive period... and that's when I'm arriving ;o) some more info

Airplane tickets - check!

They were booked some months ago, but today I finally received the e-ticket for my flights... I'll be flying in an Airbus for the trip to Dubai... a Boeing 777 for the rest of the journey...
Meanwhile, I've realized that ramadan is still going on when I get to Dubai... so I'll have to check out how that might influence my stay there... I played a little with the world clocks on the right as well again...

Some more comedy...

Some more comedy while we're waiting... This Welsh comedian tells about his trip to Australia... and why it's better to bring a backpack instead of a trolley...Here's the video, does anyone know his name?

EMI reunion

Had a reunion with my former colleagues at EMI yesterday, it was fun to see some of those people again after more than three years... Some 'smalles' I see more regularly off course ;o) It was also surprising to see an alumni event that attracts more than double the amount of people currently working there... some pictures

Travel Insurance - Check!

As there's always a little risk involved... and the Australian government makes you... it's better to get some travel insurance for a trip like this... That's been taken care of now... another item to cross off the list... Quite expensive again... but better than having to pay full price for medical costs for instance... and if for some reason I need to make use of repatriation... it'lll be well worth the money ;o)

Swimming in the pool

The extra spare time I have fits great with the number of swimming admissions left on my card... Getting a bit more in shape might come in handy if I want to surf and dive... This year I hope to be moving around a bit more anyway, rather than sitting by a desk... If you're looking for me around noon during the remaining days here,I'll probably be at Sportoase ;o)

Bye bye Volvo

Got the car through checkup today, for some reason they've introduced a system called car pass for people who want to sell their car... which makes the checkup double the price...
It's been about a year that I've driven this car, and I've always been happy with it... I hope the next owner (aka mom) will enjoy it as much as I did... Pretty sure I'll miss the Volvo, but hey, who knows what I'll be driving in a few months? Anyways, now it's time to cancel insurance, and turn in those license plates... Getting real!

International driver's license - check!

Another practical matter I can cross off the list... Got my international driver's license today... I thought this was going to be a bank card size thing... but no, to make it nice and handy for people travelling... or for some other logical reason, it' twice the size of the regular license...
Getting my car through the checkup as well today appareantly was just asked too much... If you want a checkup to sell your car as second hand, you need to make an appointment nowadays... Wish I knew that before standing in line for half an hour... Try again on wednesday (with appointment). Oh well, at least I managed to fix the front indicator for the spectacular price of €1.29...

World record for the most admirable world record attempt?

More than 1,000 women in bikini's last Wednesday on Sydney’s world-famous Bondi Beach to set a world record for the highest number of women attending a swimsuit photo shoot.


Here's the article in the Australian, and a video

Some new reading material...

Time to get a bit informed about where I'm heading... as the working days are over, I'll have some spare time for that... Bought this guide today, and will try to figure out what's worth visiting... I've only got two full days there, so I think I'll have to make sure I plan this at least a little bit to make the stopover worthwile... If anyone has some pointers on what to visit... or any practical advice... just give a shout in the comments... I've found some accommodation in the mean time, not as expensive as I expected... maybe because the AE Dirham's value is still linked to the US Dollar?

Wonderful day for the attention whore in me!

Two weeks before take-off, and exactly 100 unique visitors on this blog... (and I can confirm that you're all unique!)
Yet another reason to celebrate!

Goodbye EY, so long Ernst & Young

Today is my last day at Ernst & Young, and after more than three years, it's time to say goodbye to my dear colleagues... Not indefinitely , cause I'll be back before they know it...
Octobre 2008 that is...

EY people, I wish you all best, and hope to hear from you from time to time! (preferably non-work related ;o))

A drink before I go?

Finally I've managed to get those invitations out... The number one priority from more than a month ago (see first post)... See y'all at Villa Tempo in about three weeks... Feel free to reply in the comments below...

In the mean time... the work countdown clock is on 3 days...

Take-off is coming pretty close now... and to answer the most FAQ of the past months once more: 14 Octobre is when I get on the plane...

... and thanks to Dorien for helping with the graphic design!

Solar Power Mobile Charger

I'm currently checking out if I can find a Solar Power charger for my mobile and ipod. Could be useful when traveling around a lot, and i'm pretty sure there will be a lot of sun around for the next year. That's while this morning i heard the first people complaining about the dark, wet and depressing 7 month period coming up over here again (in fact, it's not that bad, but some people just have a lot of dark thoughts). Anyways... if anyone knows more about these devices, or has some experience with them - tell me, i want to know what's important when purchasing one... like if the flexible ones are as good as the hard ones like on the picture...