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...