KM 2437 bis KM 3044 – Fleurieur Peninsula//Adelaide//Barossa Valley//Flinders Range: German beer, free WiFi and lots of wine on our way to the Outback

After a highlight like the Great Ocean Road the next stop can’t really excite you any more and that’s exactly what happened at Fleurieur Peninsula just south of Adelaide.
Apparently it’s a beautiful place with lots hiking opportunities and all sorts of Australian wildlife (well, the sorts that can’t kill you in seconds, that is). However, it may be magnificent and blooming and beautiful and whatever in spring, but now, in late autumn, it’s mostly brown and dry and boring and dead. But at least we got a closer look at (and about 50 pictures of) a couple of kangaroos, hoping happily around the area, so at least the detour was good for something.
Next stop Adelaide: Also, in spring probably a beautiful, charming place with lots of green and parks and stuff, but again: in autumn – not. Especially not on Easter Monday when everything is closed (which on the other hand was probably a good thing as our credit cards are still recovering from our stay in Sydney). All we can say about Adelaide: The local branch of the State library has free WiFi and power outlets for your laptop and it’s open even on public holidays.
Continuing on to the Barossa Valley, one of Australia’s premium wine regions, we also passed through Hahndorf. Sounds kind of German? It actually is Australia’s oldest German settlement with an according marketing strategy and lots of German beer, pretzels and sausages everywhere (at prices that suggest the stuff being sold here is actually made in Germany and is delivered exclusively to Hahndorf on a daily basis). But it was nice to have a really good German beer again, even though for that price we probably could have asked our friends at home to send us one here, that couldn’t have been much more expensive.
A lot cheaper, actually usually free, but just as much fun was the wine tasting we did in Barossa Valley, trying all the really good expensive ones, and finally always settling for the cheap ones (“Yes, could I try the Chardonnay, please? Yes, the one at 300$ a bottle…. OK, yeah, very good, but I think we’d rather take the Pinot Noir at 11,95 a bottle, thanks a lot”). And luckily our stay in the Valley also coincided with the local harvest market which might not sound quite that exciting, but was actually a great experience, just having a relaxed afternoon with the locals, listening to band playing, trying free samples of home-made bread, sausages, pies, etc. at the stands (A LOT OF free samples….).
However, after so much delicacies we went back to our simple camping life in the woods, so to speak, with a short detour to Flinders Range national park where we got to enjoy two great hikes, lots of beautiful lookouts and some more upclose encounters with a couple of kangaroos.
And now comes the part where we head of into the very heart of Australia, the Outback, probably the part of our stay in Oz that we’ve been most curious about (OK, yes, the wine was also quite high up on the list…). Stocked up with supplies and water, our fuel tank is full, so let’s see what’s it like to drive for days through basically Nothing…

KM 1170 – The Great Ocean Road: Great Road - great experience

It’s a highway wonderland, a tourist’s wet dream and just a whole lotta fun to cruise along: The Great Ocean Road, 239 km of (mostly) coast highway along Australia’s South Coast between Torquay on the eastern end and Warrnambool on the western end. Along with Highway Number One in California and the Amalfitana along the Sorrent Peninsula in southern Italy it’s said to be one of the most beautiful coast highways in the world and we definitely agree with whoever said that.
Balancing on the trademark cliffs that offer the amazing vies the road is famous for, it winds along the coast like a huge snake between the endless ocean on the left and equally endless woods of eucalyptus trees on the right. Although you have to share the experiences along the road with of loads of other tourists, this sharing takes nothing away from you own personal encounter with the Great Ocean Road. If you’re lucky (like we were at some stops) you even get some lookouts for yourself and therefore get to enjoy the amazing view even more: Take pictures by the dozen, just enjoy the view, go further out on the cliffs and feel the wind in your hair, the sun on your face and the waves crashing onto the cliffs beneath you and scream out loud “I’m a golden God!”, whatever you please to do, it’s your personal Great Ocean Road experience and great it will definitely be.
Actually, it’ll be loads of different experiences as the landscape changes every couple of kilometres: Sometimes you have beach with surfers challenging the waves, after a couple of curves you have a natural arch, after a few more you get a natural bridge, after some more kilometres you get great looking rocks out of the cliffs, like the famous “Twelve Apostels”.
Actually, like other great sights like the Grand Canyon or Angkor Wat it’s hard to describe the sights and the experience with words or pictures. Just go there yourself. Seriously, it’s worth it.

KM 1112 – Melbourne: Premium camping and a world record

Take temperatures between 10 and 15°C during daytime, even less at night, an icy wind, a grey sky and the occasional downpour and you’ve got all the ingredients that can screw up your stay in Melbourne. Four layer of clothing during daytime and two layers of sleeping bags at night just weren’t exactly the way we had imagined Australia.
Besides the not-so-friendly weather Melbourne was, ahm, nice. Good shopping opportunities, a relaxed feeling to it, nice downtown area, everything quite, well, nice. Probably a great place to live, however, as a tourist you’re kind of missing the big highlights that for example Sydney offers with the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
Of course that’s not to say, Melbourne sucked. When it wasn’t raining (sometimes we even had some sun!), it was nice really strolling around downtown and also especially walking down Brunswick Street, a cool, sort of bohemian area, checking out the cool (and sometimes weird) clothing stores and book stores, bars, cafés as well as stores for “Seriously Weird Shit” (and a guitar shop from Heaven!!), along with equally cool and more often weird people.
Also a highlight was the Melbourne Museum with exhibitions about Melbourne’s history, some famous Australian racehorse, about the human body and brain and about all the nice little eight-legged, fuzzy, deadly creatures that make Australia such a unique place and honestly scared the shit out of us. Maybe sounds like I’m being ironic, telling you a museum was a highlight of a supposedly cool city like Melbourne, but it actually was a great way to spend an afternoon, especially with the shitty weather outside.
Oh, and who could forget, probably the biggest highlight off them all: We were there, right there and then at Federation Square, right in the middle of the action, when thousands Melbournians set out to set a new world record – a world record in number of people dribbling basketballs at the same time… Seriously, we’re considering cancelling the rest of our trip because it just doesn’t get any better than that ;-)
Talking about Federation Square: It’s not only the heart of Melbourne, a picturesque spot and a great place to people-watch, it also offers supreme opportunities to do some camping pretty much downtown as downtown can: When we arrived in Melbourne, it was Sunday evening, rainy, cold, the tourist info on Federation Square was already closed and we just didn’t feel like doing any more driving that day looking around for a camping spot. So we just parked right there, at parking spot next to the road, about 200m away from Federation Square and stayed there for the night. It was free, it didn’t take any searching and it was pretty much the Melbourne equivalent of going to New York and camping next to Times Square. Who cool is that?! :-)
While in Melbourne, we also got ourselves some company in the van: As our campervan can fit one more person, we thought it’d be fun to find somebody to come along and do a part of the trip together (and also a great way to have another person to share the costs of the trip). So after posting our offer in hostels and online, we met with some people that wanted to come (it almost felt like for once we were at the other end of a job interview) and finally decided on a nice girl from the german-speaking part of Italy that we immediately hit it off with.
So with Andrea as our “reinforcement” we’re off to check out if the Great Ocean Road actually is as great as its name suggests.

KM 795 - Blue Mountains//Rutherglen: Misty Blue Mountains and tasty vineyards

Setting off in Sydney in a perfect sunny autumn day, our first obstacle was getting out of Sydney by driving on the left (and dealing with a huge van where everything is basically on the wrong side) without killing or hurting anybody. But it actually worked out quite alright, no casualties. And after the third time switching on the windscreen wiper (with the left hand) when wanting to use the indicator (that’s actually situated on the right) or gripping the window winder (with the right hand) when trying to shift gears (with the gear stick that’S actually on the left), I think we finally managed to remember where everything in the “cockpit” actually is.
However, the weather still didn’t work out alright and by the time we reached our first stop in the Blue Mountains, it was raining cats an dogs again and instead of the amazing views we were expecting, all we got was a wall of white fog everywhere. The next day was much better though, and the view, as we had guessed the day before, mostly was quite amazing. However, next obstacle, the car: When we wanted to leave again, the key wouldn’t turn. That was probably one of the stupidest calls I’ve ever made, calling roadside assistance and explaining them: “We have a problem with our car, it won’t start.” – “Well, could it be the battery?” – “I don’t think so, because we don’t even get to the point where you actually use the battery because the f…. key won’t turn in the ignition.” Being on a quite tight schedule, we were already horrified to be stuck in Katoomba for longer, especially when the guy with the towing truck explained to us, maybe we would have to stay a bit longer in town, as it was Friday afternoon, and maybe the problem couldn’t be fixed today. However, as it turns out, the key was just a bit worn out. The mechanic just used some sort of magic powder in the ignition and everything worked perfectly again, his only comment being: “Well, after 400.000 km, you’d be worn out, too.” Good point actually…
So we left the Blue Mountains and headed towards Melbourne for two more days of driving through the New South Wales countryside. It was a nice ride through great hillside scenery (A LOT of hillside scenery, actually), passing cute little towns on the way that you usually might expect in the American Midwest: Basically just a couple of houses and one Main Street with a couple of shops, coffee places, restaurants and bars, where the bar tendress still asks you, no matter if local or not: “What can I get ya, darlin’?!” And after having seen our first kangaroos in Australia on our first morning in the Blue Mountains, we saw some more as the journey continued. Unfortunately, they were not happily hopping around, but lying crushed beside the road. Kind of disturbs the image a bit of the nice cuddly kangaroo when you see them like this…
Our last stop before Melbourne was Rutherglen, basically one more of the above mentioned cute little villages. However, this one wasn’t only cute and little, it’s also surrounded by vineyards and therefore of course loads of places to do some mighty fine wine tasting. And guess what, we found quite a number of red and white and sparkling reasons to love Australia even more. It did stretch our budget a bit though, ending in conversations like: “Hm, that Shiraz is amazing, but 20$ a bottle, I don’t know?!” – “Hmmm… you’re right. Sooo… do we really need to pay for the camping site today?!”…
So, after some nice time in the country, we’re ready to hit the big city again. Off to Melbourne…

KM 0 - Sydney: Culture shock, cats and dogs and Austrian beer

Sydney was, after two months in Southeast Asia, a really shocking experience. And not just because we arrived with just four hours of sleep in the last two days in Cambodia. After having gotten deeper and deeper into life and travel in Southeast Asia (from westernish Singapore through more and more “authentic” Asian regions in Malaysia and Thailand, finally to Laos and Cambodia, where you don’t even have McDonald’s), it was just shocking to experience the “western world” full throttle again: One day you’re in Cambodia, everything’s kind of exotic and fascinating, everythings’s supercheap, but there’s beggars and poor vendors that are trying to sell you all kinds of stuff, the motorbike-, taxi- and Tuk-Tuk-drivers are harassing you all the time, it’s poor, dirty and smelly a lot of times. And just (in our case) one day of travelling away is Sydney, beautiful, clean, rich (but expensive), relaxed, no Tuk-Tuks, no bartering, the taxis leave you alone, just wonderful. It’s hard to describe, but it really was a culture shock, even though we were kind of coming back to “our culture”.
However, even despite the whole shock-thing, we felt immediately at home in Sydney and enjoyed the beautiful scenery and the relaxed feeling of the city. Even more so, when we were looking for a place to have lunch and found, horray, the Sidney branch of Löwenbräu, a german Brewery. So our first meal in Australia was actually German white sausages (Yes, they’re really called like that) and Stiegl beer, our delicious local beer from Salzburg.
Apart from that, we did some sightseeing, of course including the must-sees like the Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, the Botanical Gardens, etc. Unfortunately, on our third day it started raining cats and dogs, pouring down cows and water buffalos, … well, you get the picture: It was pretty fucking wet. However, seeking shelter in a huge Apple-store (no better place to seek shelter in, trust me on this one ;-) ) we remembered that we wanted to check what concerts were going on in Sydney when we’re there. So, what do you know, it’s March 31st and who’s playing Acer Arena? Fucking THE WHO!!!! So how’s that for being spontaneous: Found out at 4pm, got the tickets at 5pm and went to see Pete Townshend rock the shit out of Sydney at 8pm  What a great way to end a rainy day…
On our last day we checked out famous Bondi beach, which was fun, even despite the sky still being cloudy and a strong wind blowing. And even if you hadn't noticed the "maybe no swimming today"-weather conditions, you could check at the info point that just told you short and simple: "Weather: Not good!" Still, we even got to watch a couple of surfers taking on the huge waves that day, with our comments mostly sounding like this: “Look, there’s a surf…. Ah, not anymore, missed him” – “Wow, he’s pretty good, check tha…. Oh, nevermind.” – “Check out that turn he made, I wonder if he can… ups, no, he can’t.”
So, that’s it for Sydney, next we’re getting our own campervan and heading down south to Melbourne, probably with one or two stops in the Blue Mountains. And on every other nice place that’s “on our way” ;-)

Why? Because it was on the way! – Experiences from a trip around the world

Alright, so after having met so many great English-speaking guys on our journey in southeast asia that want to know what we’re up to in the future (on top of those we already knew before we started the trip), we decided to also do a little blog in English. If you should find any mistakes, grammar, vocabulary, spelling, etc….. well, then that’s too bad and you’ll just have to live it ;-)
Unfortunately, it took as two months to reach that decision so here’s a quick (really, I promise it won’t be long!) look at what we saw and experienced in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Of course we’ll be more than happy to discuss it with you at length over a beer when we meet the next time. So, here we go:
Singapore: Basically just another western big town, only that it’s situated in Asia and features a really high number of Chinese and Indian looking people. It is however a great place to start your Southeast Asia experience if you want to avoid the culture shock a bit and don’t dive right in by going straight to, say, Cambodia.
Malaysia: A bit more Asian than Singapore, but still, it’s easy to get around, a lot of people speak good English, so it’s pretty much the logical step after Singapore (apart from the geographical point of view which doesn’t really leave you a choice). Although the places we went to (Melaka, Kuala Lumpur, Cameron Highlands, Taman Negara, Pulau Penang, Pulau Langkawi) were not exactly of the beaten track and were definitely prepared for tourists, looking back at it right now, almost two months later, Malaysia felt really genuine compared to most places we went to later on in Thailand. And it was fun at the same time, because of the people we met (sometimes again and again and again, all the way to northern Thailand or Cambodia), because of the experiences we had, just good fun, period.
Thailand: We basically did Thailand in three parts, our stops being islands in the south, namely Koh Lipe, Koh Phi Phi, Koh Panghan, Koh Tao (Part one), Bangkok (Part two) and Chiang Mai (Part three). First the islands in the south which were absolutely amazing, one paradise-like beach after another. However, I don’t think they have anything to do with actual Thailand. They are so full of tourists and accordingly with stuff to entertain tourists and make money of them, they’re as authentic and real as Disneyland. Bangkok is better in that matter. It is chaotic, dirty, smelly, weird, dangerous, but still, it’s sexy, fun, fascinating, just a great Thai experience. We got ripped off a bit, sometimes probably without knowing, saw millions of temples, shopped our hearts out, bartered like mad for pretty much everything and sweated our asses off in the Southeast Asian big city heat. And part three, Chiang Mai and its surroundings, was probably the most rewarding one. Not only was it cooler (temperaturewise and people-wise), but it also felt more like an actual Thai city and not just something that just exists for the sake of tourism. And it was also a great stop peoplewise as we met a great group of guys that we ended up travelling with for almost a month.
Laos: Laos was kind of extreme on both ends when it comes to authenticity. On the one hand, which is our trip down the Mekong to Luang Prabang in the north and also Luang Prabang itself, it was great, it really felt like, this is Lao, that’s what happens in Laos, and even though they are quite a number of other tourists, it hasn’t lost its charm and authentic looks and feel. Our second stop, Vang Vieng, was exactly the opposite: A Laos version of Ibiza that exists like it is today only to make money of tourists. And our third and last stop, the capital Vientiane, was just plain boring, nevermind being authentic or not. On top of our experiences good or bad, Laos was just a lot of fun for the sake of travelling in a group with great people, getting to know each other, getting drunk with each other, really becoming a group.
Cambodia: Cambodia was fascinating in a lot of ways. The temples of Angkor were fascinating for obvious reasons and also, at least for us, for the fact that on the hand you have Siem Reap, the rich tourist town, which probably has nothing to do with a “real” Cambodian city, and the poor people that you saw everyday in front of the temples, asking you, sometimes almost begging you to buy from them water, books, whatever, so they could make a living. Phnom Penh, our second stop, was fascinating in a sort of sick way for its history in the 1970s when the Khmer Rouge ruled and pretty much ruined the country (I don’t have the space here to elaborate it, but I highly recommend checking this piece of history, at least on wikipedia, if you’re not familiar with it). Second it was fascinating for its traffic which was just insane, with apparently no rules whatsoever, but (probably for that reason) was a lot of fun to experience first-hand. And our third stop, Sihanoukville on the south coast, was just a great beach, already kind of touristy, but still, we had fun enjoying the beach, getting drunk and just enjoying our last days together as a group.

OK, so now you sort of know the basics of our last two months. If you want to know more and you speak German, than check our more detailed German blog at www.weilsamwegliegt.blogspot.com (or if know a German speaker with a sexy voice and matching looks, have them read it to you). Also, check our fotos, some of them you find on the left, some (more) you find in our facebook sites. And of course, if you want to ask more questions right here, right now, feel free to comment on this site anytime.