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Published: April 24th 2008
Botanical garden in Melbourne
This is when I discovered how to use the timer on my camera.After 3 months in South East Asia it felt a bit like coming home, when we landed in Australia. Everywhere is clean and pretty quiet, all the streets aren't completely full with people and the traffic is very organised. The cities have lot of nice parks and gardens... It felt good to be in a western country again. It just makes life so much easier that people understand what you say, you understand them and you pretty much know how it all works!
Although I have to admit, that I didn't really remember how it all works in a western country. Those who have been to Asia know, that the only way to cross a street is to just start crossing even if there are cars and scooters coming your way, otherwise you'll never get to the other side of the street. And that's excactly what I did one of the first days in Melbourne: I just ran out on the street even if there were lots of cars. Not something people normally do in a western city. I didn't realise my mistake until halfway across the street... Another strange pattern of behaviour was, that every time I saw a
Helena's childhood dream coming true
No she didn't really want to be a formula driver, but she did once say that she's going to be president of Finland. roll of toilet paper in a store my first thought was: ooh, toilet paper! I should buy some before I run out again. And it was so hard to get used to throwing the toilet paper in the toilet and not the bin!
Our first stop in Australia was Melbourne and our plan was to work our way up the East Coast all the way to Brisbane, where our flight to New Zealand would be from. In Melbourne we stayed with a lovely couple, Petros and Nancy, who lived in a really cool and trendy neighbourhood called Prahran. I really loved Melbourne, it has a great atmosphere and a nice city center, that's easy to get around by foot. While there the Melbourne Comedy Festival had just started, so we thought we should get out and experience some culture. We decided to go for a stand up-show by a Finnish guy called Antti Hakala (homesickness maybe?). It was really embarrassing in such a way that only a Finn can make you feel(voi, mika myotahapea!) and not too good at all...
Next on our itinerary was Sidney. We cocuhsurfed again and stayed with a guy called Swaff, who wasn't
even there for the first two days, but let us stay anyway! We didn't really do anything extraordinary exciting: one museum with modern art, saw the Opera House (of course!), went to the Botanical gardens, did some shopping (really good to get som fresh clothing and throw away some of the old stuff!). We wanted to see the Blue Mountains, which are located a bit away from the city and a good place to do some trekking. We decided to put an ad on the internet to get a ride there. Believe it or not someone actually contacted us and said he could take us there for a day! We were a bit sceptical about it though. What kind of an internet nerd or mass murderer had we arranged to meet? Would we get kidnapped? Well I guess we were very lucky because the guy who met us was really nice (and pretty handsome too) and we ended up spending a fun day in the Blue Mountains with some adventurous trekking.
Encouraged by this good experience we put another ad on the internet to get a ride to our next destination, Coffs Harbour and this time too we were
lucky enough to get a ride with two young lads from Manchester and didn't get kidnapped or anything like that. We spent most of our time in Coffs Harbour looking for a bikini for Helena since we had forgotten our bikinis, towels and brand new adn sexy boarding shorts(for pictures see previous blog) out to dry in Bali... A few nights there and then we were off to Byron Bay, the Mecca for young surfers. This was our first time in a hostel in Australia and I have to say that the experience came as a bit of a chock to me. We backpacked through Eastern Europe when we were 19 and we used to stay at all these cool hostels where you could meet up with all these really cool people and go out and party together and it was so much fun! Some of you propably know exactly what I mean. Well this was the same kind of place, but with the only difference that I wasn't 19 anymore... (And besides everyone there seemed to be from Sweden, strange...) While in Byron we tried our surflegs for the first time without a teacher and with boards that were
Bats in the Botanical garden in Sydney
We where wondering what that chirping sound was and then we looked up... too small. It wasn't pretty... Two nights there and then off to Gold Coast, where we pretty much did the same thing as in Byron: surf and beach.
Our last stop in Australia was Brisbane where we had arranged to stay with Michael, who stayed at Helenas couch last summer. Michael picked us up with his car in the centre of Brisbane and that's when it finally happened. The thing we had been waiting for ever since we got to Australia: We were kidnappedl!!! Who would've thought it would be someone you already know? Michael took us to his familys farm just North of Brisbane and made us work there in their orchard for two whole days. And we loved it! You can only describe the place with one word: paradise! There were colourful parrotts chirping in the trees, kangaroos jumping around in the grass, cows wandering mellowly around with their small calves, horses running in the fields... The house itself was situated on a hill with fantastic scenery and all the doors and windows of the house were always open and in the evening there were small bats flying through the house. Michael is a great guy with
Trekking in the Blue Mountains
Here's Helena and our mysterious Mr. Internet, who has asked to remain anonymous. Looking a bit lost? loads and loads of energy(almost to the point of hyperactiveness) so we were really busy doing all kinds of things from morning until night, when we just fell into bed at around 11 pm from pure tiredness. The farm was no doubt the highlight of our stay in Oz, thank you Michael! After the short episode of kidnapping we were returned to Brisbane one day before our flight, which meant a short last minute shopping spree and a ride on the river in Brisbane during which Michael decided to rent one of the boats to live in and moved in the next day...
3 weeks in Australia went by really quickly and even if we had decided to stick to the small stretch of Coast between Melbourne and Brisbane it still felt that we were a bit short on time. And there's just so much, that we didn't get to see so I definitely feel like Australia is a place I should visit again. Still I feel like there was something missing there for me. Australia just didn't make me tick. To me Australia felt like Europe with a tropical climate and exotic nature and with a slight North
I'm king of the world!
Trekking in Blue Mountains American twist.
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