Blogs from Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia, Oceania - page 7

Frank fährt mit uns zur Uni von Sydney um uns seinen Kollegen vorzustellen. Wir verbringen dort den halben Tag und kommen kaum vom Staunen, welche Möglichkeiten dort geboten werden. Wir halten uns vorwiegend bei den Mikroskopen auf: Mehrere Elektronmikroskope mit allem drum und dran, Wahnsinn!! Am meisten fasziniert sind wir aber von den Mikro-CTs. Mit diesen Computertomographen können Mikroorganismen in ihrem natürlichen Umfeld in 3D dargestellt werden. Falls das jemand von der Uni Innsbruck lesen sollte: Wir brauchen so was!! Dann geht’s zurück, packen und ab in die Blue Mountains nach Katoomba. Janet hat ein wunderschönes Häuschen mit toller Aussicht für uns gebucht. Nach einem fantastischen Sonnenuntergang fallen wir recht Müde ins Bett. Nachdem wir heute den großteil des Tages an der Uni vebracht haben und anschließend die Fahrt in die Blue Mountains angetreten haben, gibt ... read more

Firstly, welcome to all our new subscribers. I hope you enjoy the tales and pictures of our New Zealand adventure. And, maybe, get a teeeeny bit jealous! This time next week we will be in Queenstown and have already hit the slopes. In fact, by now, Alex will have learnt to ski!!! Hope there aren't too many bumps and bruises when we get home. However, there has been a severe lack of snow in New Zealand, with all ski resorts in QT currently on hold. In fact, this has been the latest start to the ski season in fifty years! While here, in NSW, the ski fields have enjoyed vast amounts of snow over the last few weeks, the last snow fall in QT was 1cm last Saturday. Just our luck!!! While the weather in QT ... read more

Where do I start?! We landed in Oz sometime in May! (getting really bad with dates, days and times!) We were met by Adam's cousin Mike which was a lovely surprise! We stayed with Mike and Amanda in West Pymble for a long weekend and they treated us to lots of fab food made with love in Mike's hosting pinny! Also a hot shower and cotton towels which we have missed! Thanks guys!! We visited Bondi and the suburbs of Sydney with Mike and Amanda and a Huntsman spider for company! Not that we realised but once we did, sometime later, Adam screamed like a 5 year old girl (Adam hates spiders!!) to Mike who came to the rescue! Mike did the honourable thing of hitting it away from the car with a newspaper and then ... read more

(See below for an update - Pressing Complete) Our day started at 6.30am for the 2011 wine grape harvest in our micro mini vineyard. After a really promising start to the season and then so many hiccups (too much rain, an attack of powdery mildew, honey eating birds breaking into the netting, fruit fly, and lots and lots more rain) our harvest turned out reasonably ok. The process for the day ... pick ... destem ... crush ... put the grapes and must (juice) into the primary fermentation tank ... add some colour extracting (organic) enzymes ... plus a specific strain of yeast for the initial fermentation on the skins ... this will continue for about 4 to 5 days and then the grapes will be pressed and the skins discarded. Also, as we progress, we ... read more

I weekenden 4-5 April var Mikkel, Martin og jeg på wakeboard/vandskitur med universitetet. Vi var cirka 40 studerende der havde sagt ja til dette fantastiske tilbud. Hawkesbury river ligger ca. 100 km. væk fra Sydney i nærheden af Blue Mountains. Omgivelserne var helt fantastiske, der var træklædte bjerge ovarlt. Jeg havde aldrig prøvet at stå på wakeboard før, så det var spændende om jeg kunne finde ud af det. Universitetet har to både som tog os ud fra solopgang til solnedgang både lørdag og søndag. Vi fik hver ca. 4 ture om dagen, hver på en varighed af 10 minutter. Dette var også mere end nok til at jeg her mandag og tirsdag har været øm i samtlige muskler i kroppen, især ryggen. Det til trods var det meget meget sjovt, vejret var godt og vi ... read more