Sydney

And so our Connections tour comes to an end. Arriving in Sydney we go our own ways. Mine is to the Nomads Maze hostel. My travel agency booked me there for 6 nights, after one I left and went to the Wake Up where most of my tour-friends are staying. At least you don’t find shaved hair in the hallway in the middle of the night here, locks on the doors are working, people are friendly and helpfull and the building is not falling apart.
On our first day we went to the Opera house -ofcourse- and the Botanic Gardens. Finally a day to relax and do things at your own paste without tourguides threatening to leave us behind. At night the Side bar at our hostel serves delicious and cheap food, a bit later chairs are removed and you are kind of obliged to move your ass and dance. Good times. A walk to the harbour gets us extremely tired and I (am not so glad to) get into bed at the Maze.

Today is fishy day. The aquarium is an absolute must on your to do list. The big aquarium where you can walk underneath the water in tubes is amazing, just like walking between sharks and stingrays. After that we climb the tower of the Harbour Bridge because ze don’t really feel like spending 100$ on climbing the actual bridge. Unfortunatly the sun does not keep on shinging and as I go to the docks it starts pouring rain, my white-dot-umbrella breaks down and I get soaking wet.

I’m hoping for some nice weather tomorrow to go to the blue mountains.

Keeping you posted

Publishing posts on a regular base seems to be harder than i thought. My Connections tour is almost finished. I’ve travelled from the middle of nowhere to paradise, all by bus. Exellent.
The next two days we are staying in Byron Bay, according to the manager of our ‘bungalowpark’, a partytown. Seems to me it’s a hippietown. Tomorrow I will risk my reputation of elegance (ahum) and get myself onto a surfboard. To keep my coolness i’ll need superdupercool Billabong flipflops. This brand seems to be the hype all over Queensland.
There is an option of skydiving that appeals to a lot of people but not to me. Not just because I’m scared but also because you lose a ridiculous amount of money doing this. This is the weakness of the tour, most activities and a lot of meals are not included in the tour so you have to pay extra for them.
But still, it’s amazing to be able to see half a continent in just 19 days. You have to make sacrifices then. I can’t go photographing in ghetto’s, as Allen our tourguide seems to think I love to do.
Hopefully it will be a bit warmer tomorrow so I won’t go freezing in my stingsuit. The closer we get to Sydney, the colder…

Absolute nothingness

Finally, after three days of camping in the desert, I’m back to what you might call civilisation. Australia is big, and you realise that by driving through the outback. Wherever you look, you can see nothing except dry plants, dry trees, dry red earth and a dead rotting cow every once and while.

It is a wonderfull expierence though, sleeping under the stars in the freezing cold -it is winter over here-, getting up at five o clock in the morning to see the sunrise at Uluru (or Ayers Rock), driving a quad trough the dirt and getting the dust of half a desert on your clothes, face and hair and going to a kareoke show near the town here; Alice Springs.

Next is Cairns, wich will be totally diffrent from the outback, from what I hear.

Sorry not to be able to give you any pictures of life here but my laptop is to slow to work on my images.

Oh and I saw a shooting star Yeey!

De andere kant van de wereld

Daarheen ga ik morgen. Alles is eindelijk klaar. Ik ben er in geslaagd 26,5 kilo bagage te beperken tot 20kg, weliswaar met pijn in het hart.
De laptop gaat mee, tegen alle raadgevingen in, om het thuisfront op de hoogte te kunnen houden van mijn belevenissen en te voorzien van beeldmateriaal.
Een maand vrij van alle zorgen, toch die betreffende school, het zal eens nodig zijn.
Dus, stay tuned voor de spannende avonturen van Eveline Down Under!