Blogs from Australia, Oceania - page 4794

Hello my friends. Well it's the 1st of february today and truth be told - I'm still doing naff all haha. Well with nothing to really do all day apart from sitting in the sun watching the world go by, wouldn't you? Of course you would... One of my aims in Australia was to catch U2 on their world tour, but when the dates were finally released I found they wont be playing here until December. I have since purchased tickets for one of the few UK gigs, which means I will be home a tad early, sometime before 18th June. Now that I have a coming home date, I've had to do some serious planning as there is much left that I want to see. First off, I am now the proud owner of a ... read more

This week held lots of excitement: I received my first piece of “real” mail and phone call from the states followed by several outgoing calls on my end. I also celebrated Australia Day on the 26th. A fellow American (co-worker of Amber’s) invited us all over for a barbie near the beach. We spent most of our time inside watching cricket and tennis before grilling snags due to the excruciating heat. When I say excruciating, I mean it! Temperatures reached over 100 degrees with slight humidity. I felt like I was melting! We actually finished our Australia Day celebration on Saturday over at Ossian’s flat where we watched a 20 minute firework presentation from his balcony. Earlier that day, Amber and I had the chance to visit the Tandanya (a name given to Adelaide by the ... read more

So, I said I would not make any promises and here I am a little over three weeks later, feels like much longer. I spent the following few days doing the cultural touristy stuff since I was on my own, I hit the State Library, The Botanical Gardens, Museum of South Australia and Aboriginal Art Museum, some definitely more interesting than others but each definitely worth a look, some fascinating art. The Botanical Gardens were beautiful and I found myself there almost every afternoon until the rest of the crew arrived. I had the chance to spend some time with people from all over the world, with roommates from Hong Kong, Germany, Sweden and France. I spent most of my time with two guys from England one who was a worker at the hostel and one ... read more

It is just a couple of hours left for me here on the north-eastern coast of Australia. I am currently sitting in the internet cafe of Gilligan's Backpackers Resort in Cairns. This is probably the flashiest backpacker's place I have been to so far. Very good and clean rooms, well trained staff etc. Still it somehow feels wrong. I think it is because I'm a bit old fashioned and have this image of backpacking being a bit filthy thing. But as anyone travelling around Australia can probably tell, backpacking is moving to the next level: backpackers appear with Samsonite suitcases and beautycases, pulling their luggage on trolleys behind them - still a minority but probably being a harbinger of the next backpacking generation. What else is there to tell about Cairns? From my point of view ... read more

Enjoy!... read more