Sydney

Hey all,

I have been really lazy the last month and I have not updated my blog for a while. It does not mean I have done nothing but I have rather taken a break from the pace of traveling to have a life closer to what is used to be for me in Amsterdam. What does that mean: work during the day, going out in the evening for a drink or a diner and partying during the week end. After this month I am about to resume the pace of traveling with Lionel who visits me from Amsterdam and with whom I will cruise the coast to Melbourne.

This month I have been lucky to live with 4 Australians in Sydney. This La Familia with from left to right Kim, Me, Jackie, Karps and Trent at Kim's 25th birthday!!!

I found the room through Tim I had met in Cairns (right hand pic below). When I say Australians I could even say Novocastrians (people from Newcastle, a city 2 hours north of Sydney). For them I am Frenchie which I take as a compliment but which in truth is not the best possible as here there are not so happy we did our nuclear tests in the 1960's in the Southern Pacific (I really have no idea why they are upset by this!!!). Anyway I had a really nice time, they took me to concerts, to beaches where there were no backapackers (a common plague in Sydney), out in local pubs and restaurants or introducing me to the haute cuisine of Australia, the BBQ!!!. They also invited me to parties with their friends where I usually ended up being the only non Novocastrian in the crowd!!!

The other big event of this month is that I have been working as a concierge in a BMW dealership. This meant driving cars over 3 different floors according to the needs (workshop, customer parking for pick up/drop off or wash, or storage parking), a lot of manoeuvring because there were a lot of cars in a confined space. The interview for the job was really easy, I was asked if I would show up everyday and if I was a confident driver: I answered yes to both but I omitted to mentioned that I have not driven more than twice per year in the past 6 years. Futhermore at the interview I was told that if I damage a car I would have to contribute to pay part of the repairs (which potentially would wipe out all the income I had earned). With this sword of Damocles above my head I started the job and even if BMW are really easy to drive I did myself a few scares in the first days. Then I grew better and more confident until I stupidly damaged the wheel and the rim of a car I was bringing for a customer. :-( But I got really lucky because it seems the car was still under warranty so I did not have anything to pay. Finally all went well, I had a good time but I would never do this as a permanent job simply because I do not like cars!!!!

Me at the desk, waiting for cutomers or driving a car from the roof to the customer parking.

Me driving a Z4 and using our walky-talky to communicate with the team.

I did not visit much in Sydney and because I am now really ill and for the third day in bed when Lionel visits the city by itself I will simply not visit Sydney (shame on me) but I was there when the incredible dust winds came last week. Obviously this is awesome to wake up with an orange sky not knowing what that means (did the French resume nuclear tests in the Pacific?) and of there was any danger. Here are a few pictures I took myself, you'll find much better ones on all news websites if you are interested.

Lionel arrived a few days ago and we spent his first day together before I became so ill I had to go to the emergencies (very good and efficient) and stay in bed. Here are a few pictures of our day in Sydney...

...and some I have taken over the month I spent here: Sydney at daylight, at dusk and at night:

Almost in Sydney

Tomorrow night I'll make my way to Sydney and my hunt for job will start again, hopefully more successful than in Cairns.

Since Coolangatta I have stopped in Murwillembah and did a very nice hike in what was a volcano 20 million years ago, Byron Bay, a really famous surf spot that has become another backpacker pit and now Yamba, the Byron Bay of 20 years ago, much more to my taste.

I'm having really nice days here and if I did not want to work I would probably stay longer. Apart from beautiful sunsets, many whales and dolphins, the highlight of this last week is that I have tried surfing.
Tried is here the most important word because god this is not easy especially for me who has never done any sport where you need balance.
As a consequence I had to learn to lie on the board (I happen to tip it over still a couple of times), get carried by the wave (this is not too difficult but when they are big they play with me like a toy, throwing me in the sand or just kick me out of the board) and stand on the board which I managed to do like 7/8 times over 5 days. By the way if you think I play like real surfers at the point the waves break, well, I have to disappoint you, I just go with waves already broken, this is so much easier.

There are unfortunately no pictures to show my performances but here is my board (that would probably suit very well with my bike).

One very cool thing we did was a tour of Yamba, its beaches by Shane of the hostel (next to me on picture). We went to a couple of natural pools and did some jumps there. Shane made me believe (I was the most naive of the 3) that there were crocos in one pool. So the idea was to scare them with rocks each time we saw bubbles in the water, jump quickly and then get out of the water even more quickly. I did not want to jump the second time but because everyone had done it and we were doing "figures" for pictures I did it and it's only later on that Shane told me the crocos story was bullshit.

I also add a few pictures of Byron and Murwillembah, more in the albums on the right hand side

Track me on my bag

After having stored them since Bangkok (so 2 months) I finally got the momentum to sew the flags of the countries I have visited so far!!!

The picture is with Valerio who had the same will but the same lazyness so far as well so the two of us joined forces and with the help of the excellent thread of Valerio's grand mama we managed to have our flags sown.
6 more flags to come over the coming months and then I'll put France, Holland and the UK because I have lived there as well.

Needless to say I love my flags and it usually raises the interest of other travelers.

Concrete and waves game

Coolangatta is on the South of the famous Goald Coast, the place to be it seems for surfers.

I skipped Surfer's paradise because it seems to be just one more party place with many waves. But you can see it from Coolangatta and I find it really awesome from a distance. You would think this is a big city you are looking at it with all these big towers (I am 25 kms from it I assume)

Next to reading Into the Wild, learning Spanish (please do not write to me in Spanish yet I am only at lesson 14 out of 100 so I can hardly say or read anything) and sleeping my favourite activity on the beach is to look at the waves and try to understand.

Have you ever noticed how some waves are stronger than others and how some waves cancel each others strengths? Well, check it out next time because this is very interesting. So my game is to try to find out which one will be the next big one. I can stay quite a while doing it!!!
First you need something to measure the strength of the waves and this small "wall" will perfectly do

Now are the competitors (look how they show off, rolling their big tide)

But they won't make it because the lower tide going back to see denies them.

My conclusion so far is: the big waves can make it only as long as there is a weak one before (sounds like military conclusion). More watching and more conclusions soon on this.

The last thing that struck me is that, sadly, the coast is becoming concrete....following the example of Surfers paradise.

Down the Coast

I have left Cairns approximately 10 days ago and I have come across some very nice landscapes. I stopped for a 2 days cruise on the Whitsunday Islands, 2 "safari" days in Fraser Island, 2 more days in Noosa, Brisbane and now Coolangatta (see next post) where I am about to cross into New South Wales.

So far my highlight is the Whitsundays. We were 23 passengers on a sailing boat and that was my real first time there. Chilling out on the deck in the sunshine or watching the stars at night is simply awesome.

During this two days trip we also saw huge fish when we snorkeled (pictures are not mine, thanks Claire)

and we went to the famous Whitehaven Beach

I recommend anyone going to Australia to do such a cruise. If you do it at the right time you could even sleep on the deck, which we couldn't because it gets too cold at night (like 10 degrees, I did not know it could get that cold here).

Next stop was Fraser Island. Fraser is special in Australia because this is basically a big island of sand where a rain forest has managed to develop (because of the heavy rainfall apparently). Considering that there are no roads but just sands you need a 4*4 to drive around there. Our bus looked a bit like a tank:

During the two days my favourite things (except the jacuzzi of the nearby resort) were the famous Lake Mc Kenzie that has two beaches, one crowded with tourists (mostly noisy Germans) and the other one almost for yourself, very very nice and enjoyable.

and the Champagne Pools. Pity this is not real champagne but pretty cold water (apprx 20 degrees which is really cold after the 30ish in Thailand). However the really cool thing is to see the waves breaking just before the pools!!

Finally Noosa is a cute little town coastal town that has both a very nice beach where surfers come and enjoy the waves, and a national park where I saw my first koala (although I have strong questioning about the koala being put here for the tourists because we did not see anyother in the 7kms that followed). I really like Noosa simply because this is not a typical backpacker town which I find is a bit the flipside of the fact that Australia is so easy to travel.