Leaving my room

This is a farewell picture: Michael D., Peggy, Lochy, and me. Alas, the time has come for me to leave my room in Sydney, permanently. :(

I don't feel good at all doing so, but I have to save the cost of the rent. I sold as much as I could of my furniture and things (Gumtree was my friend again). As I'm writing this, I'm disassembling the bed to transport it to the buyer this afternoon.

I divided the remainder into things that I will take in my car and things I will leave in Sydney in storage. It was a hard decision-making with every little thing since I will leave Sydney in May and don't plan to come back for several months, unless I have to. But I just don't nearly have the space in my van to take everything with me.

From now on it's only "the bare necessities", life on the minimum. Pray that at least the car will give me no more major trouble.

I want to go up north to Queensland in May, to where the weather is warmer. But before, I will spend a week in Adelaide because Cori has invited me to come. I decided to take a flight, the distance would be quite a long drive and there is a car waiting for me in Adelaide. Keep your fingers crossed that everything will be okay. And then after that, I plan to spend a week at Evelyn's and Richard's B&B and make myself useful there. And then, Queensland.

I may now be (mostly) offline from the Internet until the end of next week.

PS: I just spoke to my dad and there is bad news: he has suffered a blast trauma from a kitchen blender that exploded while he tried to repair it. Looks like he will have a permanent hearing impairment. :(

Govindas

Last night I honoured I my Christmas present from my sister Monika. A visit to Govindas, which is an Indian vegetarian restaurant with a cinema above and has a combined "dinner and movie" offer. The food was a buffet, and was excellent. The movie was not bad either, Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino". But the thing I liked best were the cinema seats. They are not normal seats but giant mattresses with big cushions. You can take your shoes off, stretch your legs and make yourself perfectly comfortable. Why don't they build more cinemas like this?

I had invited Xiabing to join me. She's a Chinese student here in Sydney and I came to know her through her friend and former study mate of Nicola, who became a friend of my parents when she visited Augsburg 2 years ago. We've been in chat contact since last year, but somehow we couldn't catch up before. So it's good we finally met, just in time before I'm leaving Sydney.

Thank you Moni, this was a great present! :)

Garage sale

We had a big garage sale today, on my initiation. I was joined by Michael, Treska and Adele from next door, so together we had a lot of things to sell. We had great luck with the weather and the sale went good. Everybody is happy. We also celebrated Lulu's 14th birthday with cake and all (Lulu is Michael's daughter).

I needed to get rid of some stuff because I will be moving out of my room next week. And you wouldn't believe how much stuff I actually had to sell: I was actually surprised myself. Well, most of these things I had not bought but they had come with the van, or from the side of the road.

One thing I never understood is why there are no garage sales in Germany. Does anyone have an answer? Please comment.

Today is a national holiday here, BTW, called Anzac Day. Australia and New Zealand together commemorate their war heroes (Kriegshelden) from World War I, with great pathos as every year. You can probably guess my thoughts on that if you read my older blog postings. I think all nations worldwide should commemorate the victims of the wars, above all. And not so much those men who had fired the guns and dropped the bombs (and in doing so risked their lives, of course, but that's what you get when you become a trained killer -- for a good cause, of course, such as defending your country or stopping an already raging war). It won't enter my head how nations in 2009 can still uphold this old black-and-white thinking of "our boys are heroes, the enemy's boys are bastards".

So instead of showing pictures of the Anzac Day dawn church services (Morgengottesdienste), the speeches, marches, medal awards (Medaillenverleihungen) or military parades, I'll show you a picture of a cool guy who is a new friend of mine. :)

German film festival

There is a German film festival in Sydney this week, organized by the Goethe-Institut Australia. They show German films in German language with English subtitles (in two normal Sydney cinemas).

Last night I watched one film, Wolke 9. It's the one where two elderly people fall in love. I had seen the trailer of it last year, so I knew what to expect, and was not disappointed. I would give the film a five star rating. Extremely authentic, inartificial (ungekünstelt) and believable, as if it all had been real. But I know that some people found the film disturbing, and it does touch a taboo topic (sex at old age).

Videos!

Now that I have a better Internet connection again, I can share some of the videos I took in the last 2 months. I had to encode the videos to make the files smaller, so please excuse the low image quality.

I took this one to give you an impression of Tasmanian rainforest, with the sounds of birds and these giant tree ferns. This was on the west coast. Follow me on a little walk -- playing time 27 seconds.


This is the echidna. I uploaded this particularly for you, Brigitte and Michi! :)


Here I'm in the picture (Cori took the video) at Gordon dam. Listen to the fabulous echo!


At the beautiful beach on Bruny Island!


And here you can see me surfing. Well okay, it's not me. Anyway...


Now we're back on the mainland, on Easter Saturday at Tilba festival. This guy was an amazing flutist. I should have asked him what this double flute is called. Actually he was so good and special, I should have asked him for his name and business card to keep contact.


Still at Tilba festival, this shows you how "toss the boot" is played. It is more difficult than you think -- and of course great fun to watch! Everyone who wants to give it a try can play. The master of ceremonies (the guy with the balloons on his hat) asks their name and marks the distance on the ground with chalk. At the end, the winner gets a prize. Something for your next summer party or street festival?


And this is on my "hat and shoes only" nature walk at the nudist resort "River Island".

Strange Maps

If you have nothing to do on a rainy day, check out this website: Strange Maps. Good food for thought and amusement.

Resting

After a few days in an emotional low I'm gradually feeling better again.

The resting does me good. It gives me the time I need to make up my mind where to go and what to do next. So far I have not made a decision, but I'm thinking about the various options I've got. Such as:
- keep renting the room a bit longer
- give up the room but stay in Sydney a bit longer, in my van
- spend some time at Evelyn's and Richard's B&B place
- make a trip by flight to Perth or Adelaide for a week or two
- make a trip to New Zealand or Bali or Malaysia
- go to Europe for June -- maybe Iceland? -- and come back to Oz in July
- look for a working visa sponsor (bad timing for that with the current recession though)

I must admit that I do enjoy the comfort of living in a house and having my own room. To have a car is really good, and one you can live in is even better. But to have a desk, a chair and a computer with a fair Internet connection is quality of life too.

Autumn has officially started in April and you can begin to feel it. Until mid-May the climate should be pretty okay here in Sydney, then it will get noticeably colder.

My finances are still okay, but I now begin to regret some of the expenses I've spent here. My feeling is that I should live as frugal (sparsam) as possible, while still enjoying my holidays for a bit longer before going back to the treadmill of a full-time office job. I'm making a start today by selling some of the stuff I no longer need, and I found a storage space in Sydney in someone's private house where I can put some of my stuff (via LETS).

Based on my feeling that I could, possibly, have a better long-term life here than in Germany, I started to research other visa options that would allow me to start up an own small business, but that seems to be hopeless. I would have to have my own overseas business running for years before I can apply for a business owner visa in Australia. To apply for an investor visa, I'd need to have $1,500,000 to invest.

So it seems that I still only have the three options of a) sponsored working visa, b) skilled migration visa, c) partner visa. Each of these has their disadvantages... for c) I'd have to marry an Australian girl, so as of now this is just theoretically speaking!

Toll trouble

I'm pissed.

For each time I had used a toll road in Sydney in the rental car, Hertz has charged me $33 -- 6 times altogether. They add a $30 "processing fee" to each single time.

And for the four times that I had used a toll road in my own car, before I got the e-tag, I have to pay another $20 "administration charge" each because these four separate bills came in by mail while I was away and I had not paid them by the due date.

So instead of paying $13.60 for tolls I now have to pay $283.36.

Fuck!!!

Back to Sydney

I'm back to Sydney. It feels good to have a room again, with a desk to sit at and a bed that is perfectly horizontal.

Everyone else in the house has moved out meanwhile, and two new guys moved in, except for Peggy and Lochy who are still here, and Michael next door of course.

I made a map to show you where I have gone on this 8-week Tasmania trip.

You see, Australia is a big country.

River Island

My last station before going back to Sydney was River Island Nature Retreat, a nudist resort. The drive to there was considerably longer than I thought and very adventurous. The resort is located 40 km away from the next village, on the bottom of a valley, with nothing but nature around it.

The owners, Colin and Katina, bought this land and built up the resort with their own hands 25 years ago. The story is amazing. Today it has a beautiful pool & spa area, cabins, caravans and sites for camping. Just 2 days ago, they said, they had 500(!) guests here over the Easter weekend. Now there are less than 10 people, as far as I could see. The spa was nice to relax. They have a sauna too -- wood heated! -- but they heat it only once per week.

They don't officially say so, but they seem to be the biggest nudist resort in all of Australia. I was very impressed by how beautiful and skillful they have built all the facilities here. And I like the owner's philosophy of not having too many rules and bans, but trusting in the guest's sensibility and common sense -- e.g. regarding taking photos in the area. If I were to build my own resort, I would do it very similar -- start small and build up bit by bit.

The resort has no fence around, as none is needed. You can walk into wilderness, wearing nothing but shoes, a hat, sunscreen, and a smile on your face. There are walking tracks on both sides of the river and up the hills, and if you have a 4WD car you can also go on some roads there and have fun with that. At dusk the animals come into the place -- I saw two big wombats munching the grass.

These photos were all taken with a tripod and a timer, and I think they came out really well. You can leave your hat on...

NSW speeding sign

New South Wales has different road signs from Victoria, and the one that catches your eye most is this one.

The message is interesting. My reading of this sign is something like this: "Males who drive a vehicle at a higher velocity than permitted have a small penis, in the opinion of good-looking blondes on the side of the road that watch them drive by."

Obviously the NSW government is of the opinion, or encourages the notion, that it is a shame for a man to have a small penis.

Dalmeny

I'm spending the Easter holidays at Dalmeny near Narooma. We have lovely sunny weather here and Im staying in the same campground for 4 nights.

On Friday and Saturday I saw Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba, which is a cute little heritage village, and they had a big festival with booths, food stalls, lots of good live music and various performances, including fun games such as "toss the boot" (Stiefelwerfen) or "catch the egg".

Today is Easter Sunday and the weather was just gorgeous. Sunny and really warm, still 100% summer and not a trace of autumn here at the moment. I swam in the sea and had great fun in the surf with a bogeyboard. Sometimes I would conquer the wave and sometimes it would conquer me! :)

So I'm having a really nice Easter here, with nice people around me on the campsite. We're sharing the campfire, some food, and at the moment I'm typing this on my neighbour's computer. What made the day really special though is that just before sunset I could get a running Skype connection to my parents in Germany. And thanks to the webcam I could even make a video call and show them my face, the campground, and then I took them down to the beach and showed them the sea and the sunset. That was so cool.

Tonight we'll have another campfire and I'm going to try making stick bread!

Eden

This is just a quick posting to say that I had a passing visit to the town called Eden, and I don't like it.

It is an old whaling town. And instead of being sorry for it, they seem to be proud of it -- at least that's the initial impression I got. They just recently built a memorial for the seamen who lost their lives out on the sea. They have a "killer whale museum", but no memorial for the whales who lost their lives through this biggest-sea-mammal-hunting-and-slaughtering business. To me, the term "whaling" itself is outrageous. Does anyone call elephant hunting "elephanting"?

So I hurried on to Merimbula, which I knew I liked. It was good to see it again (McD there too!) and I spent one night and the morning, then drove on.

Mallacoota (2)

"Our favourite spot on the mainland" -- this is what the Lonely Planet says about the small coastal tourist village at the south-east corner of Australia. The town seems to be a single big caravan park. And it's obvious why it is so popular: it is one of these "pockets" that I spoke of in my previous posting. Not only does it have beautiful coast with rocks and beaches, forests, rivers, and lakes, but its location is attractive: far away from the spoiling influence of any major city, halfway between Melbourne and Sydney, and another 22 km away from the highway, at the end of a long and windy access road (Stichstraße).

Last time (7 weeks ago) I was here for 20 minutes only; this time I stayed 2 days. Mallacoota was balm on my nerves. I met friendly people such as Paul from Frankston who was fishing with his daughter Francis. He had just caught a big flathead when I came, of which I took a photo, and this is how we came to talk. Before I left, they kindly gave me a freshly caught tailor for my dinner, scaled and cleaned, ready for the pan! If you're reading this, Paul and Francis, thanks again, it was yummy! :)

My car had another minor trouble, a leak at the exhaust flange. It was not a case of warranty from the Tasmanian mechanic, but he obligingly (kulanterweise) offered to pay 50% of the bill. Fair enough. So this was not an expensive repair. The weather is sunny here and my mood is slowly getting a little better again.

Back on the mainland

Finally the car is repaired and running again, and now it's high time for me to head back to Sydney. The trip I had originally planned for about 5 weeks has already become 7 weeks, and it's gonna be another week till I reach back "home".

I would have liked to take the night ferry this time, but all was booked out, so I took the day ferry on Sunday. The cruise, again, was boring and everyone aboard the "Spirit of Tasmania" seemed to be frustrated by having to sit around for 10 hours with nothing much to do. This time, the sea was a bit rougher, with rain gushing. When the ship had finally landed in Port Melbourne, night had fallen. I didn't feel like doing much more driving that day, so I spent another night at my friend's place. The kids cheered me up a bit because they had such great fun with the glow-in-the-dark sticks I gave them.

Because I had lost so much time, and also because the weather is now nasty again with cold wind and rain -- autumn is clearly coming -- I decided that I would cancel my earlier plan of going a bit further west to see the Geelong, the Great Ocean Road, and the "12 Apostles", but instead, get on my way directly back to Sydney along the coast road.

By the way, yesterday Summer Time ended here, and so now the time difference to Germany is now only 8 hours instead of 10.

Oh, and while I'm writing this long posting, let me take the chance to have another rant. I'm pissed by the road safety signs they put up here along the highways in Victoria. While you are driving, every 5 minutes they bash another sign in your face telling you to "rest, revive, SURVIVE", "have a powernap NOW" "a microsleep KILLS in seconds" etc. I understand that these signs help to save lifes. But you would think it might be sufficient to remind the driver perhaps once per hour instead of every 5 minutes.

And if these signs weren't bad enough, in between they chip in signs about speeding and alcohol. Fair enough. But do they have to be worded so aggressively, as if you had already done a violation? "Think you can speed and won't get caught? Think again." -- "Slow down, stupid." -- "This is 3 standard drinks. (showing 2 bottles of beer) Only a little bit over? You bloody idiot."

Perhaps I'm a little too sensitive. After all, I should know that this is a cowboy country where "bloody bastard", when said with a smile, is a friendly mode of address. But: there is no smiley in these signs. To me, they show what the state (i.e. those who represent the state) thinks of its citizens: they are ignorant, law-breaking and irresponsible.

Note that I don't say that I'm not a bloody idiot. It may well be so. Above all, I should have had a second independent inspection before I bought that car. Never trust an inspection that was done by a friend of the seller, even if he is a certified mechanic.

Oh, and by the way, I think that grammatically it should read "These are 3 standard drinks", but I'm just a foreigner who doesn't know any better.

End of rant. So now I've seen Tasmania. And I have the feeling that I won't like the mainland too much anymore after this. When I flew back from Melbourne to Launceston last week, I had the chance to see both places from the air, and it's such a difference. Tasmania is just more beautiful because there, the people have found a compromize between using and exploiting the land. I talked to someone in Tassie about it. He agreed, but assured me that the rest of Australia does have its pretty "pockets". "Just in Tasmania, you find beautiful places, kind of, everywhere." In other words, you don't have to travel 300 or 1000 km, as on the mainland, until you reach the next enjoyable "pocket".

Another thing I learned is that if I liked Tasmania, I would love New Zealand. Just not, perhaps, in winter. So if I want to go there, I might want to wait until the next spring.

And the last 2 months taught me one more thing. You know, when I was still in Germany, I had tried to find out whether I would like Sydney better or Melbourne. Each city has its own character and pros and cons. But now I know that I wouldn't want to live in either place. I just feel too stressed in such a big aggregation of people. It's the traffic, the noise, the too-much-urbanization. A town where I am to feel comfortable in would need to have a population between 2000 and 100,000 at most.

Grmpfl

The good news is that I learned a new word for my English vocabulary: carburettor (Vergaser). The bad news is that I'm stuck here in Launceston for another 3 days.

My mood isn't too good at the moment. :(

(No, the picture is not the new engine, it's the old one.)

Melbourne (3)

Just a brief overview of what I've done and seen over the last few days in Melbourne.

On Sunday I caught up with another ex-colleague from my Malaysian times, Jackie, who has also moved to Melbourne, like Siow Boon. We all had a nice Dim Sim lunch, and then a visit to a nearby miniature railroad.

Monday was an educational day, I visited Melbourne Museum and watched an IMAX movie titled "The Human Body". On Tuesday I just walked around in the city, saw the Victorian Market, and spent more time in the library. Now it's Wednesday and I'll be flying back to Launceston today.

There's good news too: Stephan, my brother-in-law, managed to sell my car in Germany. So there'll be some money coming in which will help me survive longer without work.