The edge of the world

I followed the road to the very north-west of Tasmania. You can go on a sealed (asphaltierten) road until the mouth of Arthur River. There is a point on the coast they named "the edge of the world". When you stand there looking out to the sea, you can imagine this: if you would travel exactly westwards along the same meridian, you would not get to any other land until you reach Argentina.

An outdoor campfire night under a starry sky, with wallabys coming right to the campsite.

Arthur River is a rare example of a Tasmanian river that it is still in untouched form, as created by nature. You can go up the river 14 km in a boat cruise, which is what I did, and get into rainforest. Robert, the guide on that boat, is a really great and cool guy, he reminded me a bit of Crocodile Dundee. He told us everything about the plants and animals. The group was small, only about 10 people. A wonderful barbecue lunch was included in the package, and I had a lot of fun all day with a young family from near Melbourne and their three kids -- and the kids had a lot of fun with me.

Now what is called "rainforest" here is obviously not like the tropical rainforest. It is a temperate forest and not particularly rainy or moist. What sets it apart from the normal Australian forest is the tree species that grow in it, which are *not* eucalypts as everywhere else, and the much greater biodiversity. After a bushfire, eucalypts (gum trees) will grow very quickly and dominate the land. It is then under the shady canopy of the eucalypts, if you are lucky, that the rainforest can begin to grow. If the proto-rainforest grows well, after 350 years, one of the tree species will release a natural toxic into the soil that will kill the eucalypts, which are then no longer needed, and then the real rainforest can develop. Unless a bushfire comes and resets the whole cycle to start over from zero.

A bit north of Arthur River is the westernmost point of Tasmania, and it was a bit of an adventurous gravel road (Schotterstraße) drive to get there. There was no-one there on this magnificent rocky beach except me and an Aussie couple. They had some interesting equipment, a compressor and 270 m hose, and were just about to go diving for abalones (Ohrenschnecken). We had a chat and they told me what a mouthwatering delicacy abalones are, how very expensive if you buy them, and how abundant and easy to collect in this spot. They asked me if I had ever had abalone, and I said no, so they asked if I wanted to try one? Sure, if they tell me how to cook them! Which is what they did.

And if the day hadn't been rewarding enough already: The Lucky Man (yours truly) also got invited by the family with the three kids to join them to the pub "for tea" (meaning dinner, lamb steak, yum!).

A perfect day

Sunshine, blue skies! And today I saw so much beautiful nature that I feel like overflowing.

I stayed the night at a campsite in Wynyard (the town is named the same as the bus/train station in Sydney), just out of town directly on the beach. There were fresh flowers in the toilet block, rabbits hopping around the site at dusk, and a barbecue area with a fireplace. I joined a group of five at the fire, making tea in my kettle over the flames. When I went to bed, the sky had totally cleared up, and I admired not only the famous Southern Cross but also the Milky Way brighter than ever before. No big city anywhere near! The night was cold, but I turned on the heating and was okay. This morning I woke up early at sunrise, grabbed my camera, went out to the beach and took wonderful photos (you know, the old photographer's rule, always go for sunset or sunrise light).

After breakfast I headed off westwards along the coast road. The first stop was Table Cape where I did an idyllic cliff walk from the lookout to the lighthouse. Next, Boat Harbour Beach where I delighted in the turquoise crystal clear water and rewarded myself with a big ice coffee at the Jolly Roger beach café.

On the way to Stanley I found a nice campsite to stay the night at a place called Crayfish Creek. Unusual campsite on a piece of forest land, I loved it on first sight. Then out to Stanley, the small town on a headland at the foot of a giant rock called "the Nut". It is the core of a million-year-old vulcano. There is a cable chair lift going to the top, but I climbed it on foot. Great view. Burrows of some bird species that, I learned, flies all the way from Alaska to here(!) for breeding, and back, every year.

Back down on the beach I went for a quick swim. Found the intact skull of a penguin washed ashore - admittedly a bit yucky, but also fascinating.

The last station took me to Dip Falls, 25 km inland. The waterfall wasn't too thrilling (not much water coming down, it must have been dry here the last weeks) but the forest reserve there was great. I enjoyed the walk to the "big tree", a 60-metre eucalyptus, 12 metre circumference. Big tree ferns gave the track a "magic forest" feel.

And finally, back to the campsite. It is next to Crayfish Creek itself, which flows in a big sandy bed like a river and did its best to compete in beauty with all that I'd seen today. The thought crossed my mind: how many times is this more beautiful than sitting at the Lech river (in its modern channeled form)? 10 times? 50 times?

I cooked the ideal simple meal after such a day -- Spaghetti and tomato sauce. Had an nice chat with my neighbours. No rabbits here, but a speaking parrot who kept saying "Hellooo!" Collected some firewood for the fireplace in the camp kitchen. Watched the flames, plucking my guitar, but only very softly, overwhelmed by the impressions of the day.

The pictures I have in my head and heart, and in my camera, just from today, would be enough to fill this blog for two weeks.

Little Penguins

Yesterday I went for penguin-watching. The Little Penguin, also called fairy penguin, is the smallest species of penguin, and breeds here. To watch them, you must wait until the night falls, when the chicks come out of their nests and the adults come out of the sea.

They are naturally shy, and you should not use flash photography, which is why I can't present you a better picture than this one. But you can imagine that they are very very cute, especially when they stretch: they take their little wings back as far as possible and then raise high up on their toes, until they lose balance. This youngster still has some baby feathers (the fluffy ones) on its back.

The best month for penguin-watching is January, which is just after the young chicks have hatched and are fed by their parents. Now in mid-February there were only 2 or 3 chicks and about the same number of adult penguins on this spot.

The colony is protected by a volunteer group who is doing a very good job, having built penguin protection fences between the beach and the road, prebuilt nest burrows, viewing platforms, information boards for the watchers, and who are present in person every night with red-light torches (Taschenlampen) to show and explain everything to the visitors. For free, by the way. This is Australia the way I like it!

And where is Wawa, Schusch, Wutz und das Uuurmeli? ;)

Arrived

Have you ever experienced this feeling that you step off a car, ship or aircraft at a new place and you have this instant feeling that this is "the right place", that you have finally "arrived", almost as if you had come home?

I had this feeling yesterday night, just after I came out of the Quarantine Station at Devonport ferry terminal where they had taken away my potatoes and onions (Tasmania is "disease free" when it comes to fruit and vegetables, and so they are afraid of mainland veggies). I just drove 100 or 200 metres, and there it was, this feeling. Instant relaxation. I know that I like this island. Butterflies in my stomach.

I'm in Australia now for 2 months and although I liked it a lot, that feeling hasn't been there before. Now it is.

Spirit of Tasmania

I'm writing this on the ferry from Melbourne to Devonport, Tasmania. The ship is called Spirit of Tasmania 1. It is the only ferry operating on this line. At Port Melbourne, it took more than one demanding hour in stop-and-go before I got on the ship. But finally we took off, and are now crossing the 300 km Bass Strait to the island. It takes about 10 hours, the sky is cloudy and the sea is as calm as a mirror. This is the daytime ferry, which is cheaper as I don't need a cabin.

There is not much to do on the ship. Mainly snoozing and reading. I'm reading a book I found at an Op-shop (Second-Hand-Laden) a few days ago, titled Discovering Tasmania - The Treasure Island. Tasmania, due to its remoteness (Abgelegenheit), is very different from the rest of Australia. It has flora and fauna not found anywhere else in the world, such as the Tasmanian Devil or the Tasmanian Tiger -- both carnivorous marsupials (fleischfressende Beuteltiere). Page 7 of my book shows an old black-and-white photo of a man presenting a Tasmanian Tiger on his knees -- shot dead. There is no color photograph of this animal because all were killed by Homo Europeaensis. The last one died in a zoo in the 1930s.

The same page also shows a Tasmanian Native - a handsome man with long hair, a spear in his hand, wearing fur and necklaces. The Tasmanian aborigines (arrival 50.000 years ago) were genetically and culturally different from the mainland aborigines (who came later, 40.000 years ago). The picture is a colourized drawing. The native population is estimated to have been around 7.000 people when the Europeans invaded the island. It only took the invadors a few decades to extinct the entire native race.

This island is one of the most beautiful places on earth, the book says. It is cooler than mainland Australia, but Hobart has more sunny days than any other Australian state capital, and summer temperatures range from 14°C to 30°C. The climate is mediterranean and milder than most of Europe. The island is mountainous, good for skiing in winter, and has everything a nature lover can wish for: from highland lakes to fast-flowing streams, waterfalls, huge untouched forests, and sun-drenched beaches. And what did the British invadors make of this paradise, which they originally called Van Diemen's Land until they renamed it Tasmania in 1830? A penal colony (Strafkolonie) -- one of the most brutal and inhumane places on earth.

With all that in mind, I am a little afraid of the "spirit" of Tasmania. And on this ship, I promised myself that if I come across a memorial for the genocided aborigines, or the Tasmanian Tiger, I will lay down flowers and bend my knees in a gesture of sympathy, shame and sorrow. I have to do that for myself. How else could I enjoy the beauty of the island?

And I wonder how on earth it is that civilisation and barbarism go so much hand in hand.

Kookaburra

One of the first english songs I learned in my life was in 5th grade, in my English class by Herr Reichert. Bless him, he was a good teacher who liked me and I liked him. He died one or two years ago, I saw his orbituary (Todesanzeige) in the newspaper. The song is a simple children's canon about an Australian bird.

"Kookaburra sits on an old gum tree,
Merry merry king of the bush is he,
Laugh, kookaburra laugh,
Kookaburra, gay your life must be."

Maybe my classmates who read this will remember. Kookaburra, as the song goes, has a distictive cry that resembles laughter. Play the video clip for a short recording I made last night. "Bush" is a word that Australians use to refer to any land that is not urbanized -- whether it's forest, shubbery, grassland or desert, it's all "bush". The prevailing (vorherrschende) tree here is the eucalyptus tree, which for some reason I don't know the Australians call "gum tree". It has nothing to do with the tree they make rubber from. Gum trees are beautiful, with leaves that resemble those of willows (Weiden) and smooth trunks and branches that shred their bark in strips every year. There is always a pile of shredded bark underneath a gum tree, and often these shreds, while falling, get caught in the tree itself, where they keep hanging until they rot and fall off.

And, hehe, I still remember that the last line of the song would give us children a chuckle (Kichern) because "gay", as everyone knows, means homosexual. Herr Reichert would then explain to us that the original meaning of this word was "cheerful" (fröhlich). I don't know whether Herr Reichert has ever been to Australia, but I know that he loved birds and was very active in the protection of pigeons (Tauben) in Augsburg.

En route to Melbourne

A short break in the rain allowed us to pack in a dried awning, but as we moved on, crossing the state border into Victoria, the rain caught up with us. So the weather gave us only 20 minutes to see beautiful Mallacoota (on the "bottom right corner" of Australia, one of the most relaxed holiday spots of the country) before it urged us to move on. I hope to come back here again in better weather.

We got out of the rain again 2 or 3 hours later in Lakes Entrance, another very beautiful spot on the coast. There are big lakes just behind the dunes of the shoreline, and at one point there is a small opening that connects the lakes to the sea, hence the name Lakes Entrance. The big business here is fishing, and tourism.

We luckily found a campsite with free wireless Internet and so I could reply to a couple of long due e-mails and even skype with my parents and my sister Monika -- until the connetcion broke off, seems like they had a volume or time limit.

Today (Friday) we drove the rest of the distance to Melbourne, and here Shelly and I parted. She decided not to come with me to Melbourne. I, frankly, was not unhappy about that. She was obviously uncomfortable travelling with me and her grumpiness (Sauertöpfigkeit, never mind if you can't find either word in your dictionary) hadn't made the trip more pleasant than if I had gone alone.

Now I'm back to a big city and I hate it: it had been really a relief to get out of Sydney last week, and on first sight, Melbourne seems to be even worse in terms of noise and traffic. I'm really looking forward to quiet and serene Tasmania.

Merimbula

Rain, rain, rain. I'd never have thought it could rain so much in Australia. This is supposed to be a dry country!

We've headed south from Canberra and back to the coast. This area is called the Sapphire Coast, and we're staying on a campground for two nights in a town called Merimbula.

Beautiful names! They would be really apt (passend) if it didn't pour nonstop since yesterday night, after we arrived and put out the new awning (Markise) I bought for the campervan. Now, after 24 hours, everything is wet and muddy. We're only lucky to stay in a van and not a tent. And we have electrical power, so I can turn the aircon to heating mode. Shelly and I went separate ways for the whole day; she isn't in such a good mood and needed some time for herself. I, too, feel frustrated as I couldn't do much all day: went shopping and watched a movie (Slumdog Millionaire). And silently cursed the rain, my computer and that bloody wireless Internet connection which drives me crazy. I finally gave it up and am typing this text offline. I'll try to post it tomorrow at a McDonald's restaurant, they have free WiFi (WLAN). Or at our next campsite, these often nowadays have free WiFi too.

I also had to buy a new secondary battery for the van; the old one was no longer working properly.

Canberra

We're about to head off, so just a quick list of what we saw in Canberra: the Australian War Memorial, Telstra Tower, the Questacon, the National Library, the National Gallery, Mount Ainslie.

What can I say about Canberra? Not much. Many people hate the city because it is artificial, and inland at that. Its whole layout was designed by an architect, much like Brazilia. I didn't find it so horrible. But I didn't fall in love with the city either.

The War Memorial is actually more like a museum than a memorial. It does a good job at remembering the Australian soldiers who died in various armed conflicts -- above all, World War I and II, at the side of the British. The Memorial does however not do a good job at remembering the sufferings of the civilian population at the hands of exactly these same soldiers in those wars. At this Memorial, with its audio-video-multimedia shows that are so scary that small children hold their ears and bury their heads in their parent's arms, they don't glorify the war, and they don't downplay its horrors. But they completely fail to acknowledge the fact that soldiers are professionally trained killers -- nothing more and nothing less. The horrors of war are not primarily something that soldiers suffer, as it is presented here, but something that soldiers cause.

I think whoever built and runs this Memorial might really want to listen to Donovan's song The Universal Soldier. And learn it by heart. Like I did, about 15 years ago, as a young man with my guitar. Its message is something worth remembering too.

Country Guesthouse Schönegg

What luxury! The family from Koenigsbrunn who settled here created a small paradise in the middle of Nowhere, and welcomed us with the greatest warmth and hospitality you could possibly imagine. Their place is called Country Guesthouse Schönegg, an exquisite four-star restaurant with bed-and-breakfast accommodation that won practically any tourism award available. The house is about 40 km, half an hour's drive, north of Canberra.

We had a lovely dinner with the family - Evelyn, Richard, their children Katja and Matthias, and Magda (Frau Stohrer), who was really happy to see me. They hosted us in one of their six luxurious guestrooms, so we got to enjoy an upper-class accommodation that would otherwise have been way above our travel budget. Lucky us! :)

Katja (9) painted a 'Welcome to Australia' picture for me that was waiting for me in the Chardonnay Room (the guestrooms are named after the wines that do best in this area). That was so sweet of her! She wrote it in German - both kids know some German, Evelyn's English is perfect, as is Richard's German (he is a native Australian but lived in Switzerland for many years). Grandma (Magda) is practising her English, but she is glad when she can speak German, such as on the local community radio station which broadcasts in 35 languages.

Sadly, there is bad news too: Magda's husband is seriously ill and had to go to hospital today.

I stayed for 2 days; on Monday night Magda made a German dinner: meatballs (Fleischkiachla) with mashed potatoes (Kartoffelbrei) and vegetables. And finally a surprise: she had baked a cake for me, with chocolate chips on top that spelled my name: MARTIN. She is a dear (eine Seele von einem Menschen).

On the way

I left Sydney behind, and in the last minute I also found a travel mate who's going with me: Shelly, a Canadian woman, a few years older to me. The weather has changed from mild rains to heavy rains, and since we started on Friday there wasn't much we could see because of all that rain. We went into the Blue Mountains (Katoomba), then headed south towards Canberra. But we did see wild Kangaroos -- a whole lot of them! This lucky spot was Bungonia State Recreation Area where we stayed on a campsite overnight.

I'm typing this from Goulburn tourist information centre, where they have free Internet access. Goulburn claims to be Australia's oldest inland city, and they have a couple of interesting buildings from the mid-1880s. This afternoon we'll reach Murrumbateman, north of Canberra, where the Stohrer/Anderson family, ex-neighbours from my parent's house in Koenigsbrunn, live.

Preparing for the travel

I've been busy working on my campervan the last week to prepare it for my first long trip. It took a lot of work to clean it properly. But now it looks good and I'm looking forward to going on the road and staying on campsites. I have plenty of experience in RV (Wohnmobil) camping from my past trips all over Europe, so I feel relaxed and know what to expect and how to do things.

I plan to go south to Tasmania and then back to Sydney. I'll take my time and estimate I'll be gone for about 6 weeks until the end of March. I will keep my rented room here in Sydney during that time.

You have probably heard the news of the catastrophic bushfires in Victoria. This is such a horrific and sad story. Every day they report a higher number of deaths, and tell the stories of those who barely survived the inferno. This afternoon, when I was sitting in a cafe reading the newspaper, by the time I got to page 5 I just cried.

Still, I will be travelling through Victoria next week on my way to Melbourne. But I promise I'll be careful.

The downside

It is true, this blog has been a little too enthusiastic so far. Of course, not everything is wonderful here in "the lucky country". I'll name a couple of things as they come to my mind. This is a long posting; I'll put it all in one rant so I can go on in my preferred, more positive, fashion.

It's too hot. Two nights ago I couldn't find any sleep at night because it was just too hot. (I have no air condition in my room, not even a fan. I then tried to sleep in the car, which was a little better.) During the day, the sun makes it hard to do any work, such as working on the campervan to prepare it for the travel. Luckily I live here very near to the coast, which means it doesn't get as hot as in the West of Sydney. Here we had around 33C while further inland it went up to 40C. And luckily New South Wales is not as affected as poor Victoria at the moment, where record temperatures are scorching (versengen) the streets, and devastating bushfires rage (verheerende Buschfeuer toben). This morning the paper said "14 dead", an hour ago the TV announced the figure had climbed to 65 dead. They interviewed people who had lost not only their homes but also family members -- what dreadful sufferings. And the worst thing is that the police believes several of these bushfires had been deliberately lit. By people sick in their minds who get a thrill out of that.

Visas, jobs and rents. It is very difficult to get a working visa for Australia if you're over 30 years old. Which is why I'm now here with no job (and no Arbeitslosengeld either, of course), and finding work is a lot harder if you can't start right away but have to go through the complicated working visa application process. And even if you have found work, the pay is considerably lower than in Germany (maybe 60%), and the rents in Sydney are the highest in the country, about the level of rents in Munich, to give you an idea. The other living expenses, such as food and household items, are cheaper, thank God, and you can get many second-hand things for a good price. In Sydney you can often pick up good things for free from the side of the road (Sperrmüll). And petrol is about half the price.

The traffic in Sydney is bad. In order to cope with the increased volume of cars, they transformed a lot of streets such that you can't make a right turn at crossings, and a U-turn is often impossible for kilometres. So this forces you to often drive complicated detours (Umwege) if you want to go from A to B. The harbour bridge and tunnel used to cost $3, now it's $4 and they removed all of the cash booths in January 2009. So now you must obtain a yearly prepaid electronic tag (E-tag) for your car before you can cross Sydney Harbour. Such are the improvements here.

"A tan is the sign of traumatized skin." "There's nothing healthy about a tan." The TV, roadsigns, magazines and newspapers are full of the topic of skin cancer (Hautkrebs), it's in your eyes everywhere. I seem to remember having learned 20 years ago that a sunburn is bad, but a slowly acquired tan is your body's natural protection against UV light damage, and so a tan, as such, is not a bad thing to have. Well, no longer. The new rule is "white is beautiful".

The country has an alcohol problem. Although beer, wine and spirits are 1,5 to 3 times more expensive here than in Germany, and are not sold in any supermarket but only in specially licensed "bottle shops", it is a fact that the average Australian drinks more than the average European. Those who have the weakest resisting powers are the pitiable descendants (bedauernswerten Nachfahren) of the aborigines, from whom this country was stolen 200 years ago. The anti-alcohol campaigns and laws they come up with here are ridiculous and fail to help the situation.

Speaking of the aborigines, the nation, in my impression and according to what I read, still has not really worked up the topic of the British invasion, their land-seizure (Landnahme) and their genocide of the indigenous people. When they had "discovered" the foreign continent, they did not ask whether they would be allowed to make settlements (Siedlungen) here. They just took the land. And not enough with that, they cruelly killed the people from which they stole it - old men and women, young ones, children, with a presumptuousness (Anmaßung) and deadhearted violence that should not be forgotten. The sad story is very similar to what had happened just a few centuries ago in the Americas. This is our blood-stained European heritage (unser blutbeflecktes europäisches Erbe). A culture, descendant from the Romans, that overrun the planet with vehicles and weapons like one giant horrible bushfire. And after that, founded (gründeten) settlements, cities and entire new nations on that burnt and blood-drenched soil (verbrannten und blutgetränkten Erde). Nations which are today beautiful countries to visit and to live in. Every coin has two sides, and many nice things have a not-so-nice history. We don't have to feel guilty for what our grandfathers did, and we can't make it undone, not by one centimeter. But we should show awareness and regret for the dark side of European, Christian, colonization, just to become a little more humble (bescheiden) and less peacockish (stolz, aufgeblasen).

Dangerous animals. The country is full of them, as everybody knows. You have to be careful in the bush and in the water. Sharks and jellyfish and crocodiles and snakes and spiders. I haven't seen any in the wild so far. We have spiders in the garden and sometimes in the house, but not much worse than in Europe. We also had cockroaches (Kakerlaken), but I put up poison bait (Giftköder) and now that issue is pretty much solved. There are also ants, termites and other small insects, of course, like in any country that hot. I'm used to that from Malaysia.

Television. Imagine watching a movie that is disrupted every 5 to 10 minutes by 3 minutes of commercials (Werbung). Enough said. There is no such thing as a GEZ here, so I can't complain. This is free television. If you want to enjoy a movie, rent the DVD or go to the cinema.

Weisswurst and Leberkäs

Everyone in my German ex-company (see also this posting) will be happy to hear this. I finally found the shop in Sydney for German delicatessen and smallgoods (Wurstwaren). It's the Bavarian Smallgoods and Butchery in Ermington. Ricky from Nuremberg makes everything the South German heart and stomach can possibly wish for in a country on the other side of the planet. You come into his shop and feel like you're back home. It has everything that you won't find even in the biggest Australian supermarket. Of course it's expensive, but who cares?

Michael and I bought Bratwürste (big ones and Nürnberger), Weisswurst, Pfeffersäckchen, Kalbsleberwurst, Roggenbrot, süsser Senf, Hela-Curry-Ketchup, and of course the most important thing: Leberkäs!

And then we had a "German Barbecue" in our garden last night with all that fantastic stuff. I made a German potato salad, the others brought more salads, food and drinks, and everybody enjoyed the night, especially when it cooled nicely down after such a "stinker" (a hot day) as we had yesterday. Today it's going to be even hotter, and the next week it's supposed to cool down again.

Brushing up my musical side

I also found a nice second-hand acoustic guitar (a Fender DG8S), and am currently brushing up (auffrischen) my song memory: Pop songs, Medieval, Irish Folk.

And speaking of Irish Folk, I'm also currently teaching myself the tin whistle -- preferrably in our granite-tiled staircase (mit Granitplatten gefliesten Treppenhaus) because of the nice reverb (Hall) -- but only when I'm home alone! ;)

(If you're wondering what's the cursive stuff above: a German friend asked me whether I could translate difficult English words in this blog, so here you go. )

Bought a car

Finally I found and bought a campervan! It took me a bit longer because I wanted to go for a not too old Toyota Hiace Hightop, i.e. one with a higher top so you can stand inside. This one has a frightening high mileage for a 1996 model -- I dare not say how much -- but has a renewed engine and seems to be in good shape overall. Especially the second air-condition which sits on top and is powered by 240V when you're on a campground is a great value in this country.

I bought the car privately from a retired Austrian man who had it for 2 years, and I will get it on Friday when he flies back home from Sydney Airport.

And then I can get on the road within the next week!

Royal National Park

Today I've been with three friends to Royal National Park, an hour's drive south of Sydney. Proclaimed in 1879, it is in fact the second oldest national park in the world (after Yellowstone, USA).

It was beautiful to get away from the big city into nature, and I was glad for this opportunity. Equipped with bottles of water in our backpacks, a lunch packet, hats and sunscreen, we made a scenic walk along the coast. We started from Garie Beach (which can be reached by car) to Burning Palms, and the same way back, and were practically the only people on that way.