The Far South

Everything comes to an end, and here I am in my last step in Australia, Darwin and the far north.
It is quite an ininteresting town and I came here only to visit the biggest national park in the country, Kakadu. It’s the land a the famous Crocodile Dundee, a tropical, hot and wet bush with swamps, a lot of Aborigene culture and of course the big saltwater crocodiles (up to 6m). So very different from the rest of Australia and supposed to be at is best at the end of the wet season, full of water.
I finally booked a 3 days tour to visit the area and frankly it was a little bit disapointing. First because it was really expensive (500$), and we haven’t seen that much (the paradox is it’s the time of the year when the park is more beautiful but most of the sites are inaccesible, even in 4WD...). Lot of waterfalls, a nice cruise on a billabong, some short walks, and nothing more...and by now I’ve started to see so many impressive places that this one in particular didn’t really amazed me.
At this stage I have to say that I was also starting to getting tired of Australia, and its aseptised anglosaxon society.
So happy to leave and really excited to take another plane to my first Asian destination, Bali.

Time as well for a short sum up of my two months down under...

I really enjoyed here
. The amazing and so different wildlife, especially kangaroos (and their meat!)
. The coral reef, absolutely unbelievable
. Melbourne relaxed and unstressed lifestyle
. The Opera House and Sydney harbour beaches
. Kangaroo Island, for a real bush experience

I didn’t like that much:
. Very unformal way of speaking...eveybody is a “mate” a buddy, “no worries”, and it seems quite fake
. Especially the “no worries” which works as soon as you walk “the line” , I’ve never seen a country with so many “laws” and forbidden things before.
. Although it is quite a multicultural society and much more informal than their Brits “ancestors” they often look like them...especially in their way of drinking.
. Skyhigh prices...sometimes so ridiculous that you have to laugh (15€ a cigarette packet for instance)

After a quiet week in Byron Bay (raining all the time, nice place, but frankly overated for me) without anything interesting to tell, I've finally been to the northen coast of Queensland.
For once the couchsurfing worked in Australia, and I've found probably my weirdest host...a gay nudist kiwi writer called Mike.
Luckily I wasn't surfing alone there, there were 2 other guys, Matt (an intelligent and funny american straight marine) and Mark (nice and funny Berlin guy)...so I had a kind of bizarre but globally nice week, seeing lot of different things like : rainforests, a wildlife hospital, a tropical island...my first dive on the coral reef (absolutely fantastic), eating kangaroo (excellent meat), discovering a very interesting book on male multiple orgasm (yes that exists!) and just doing nothing on the beach and enjoy a finally perfect australian summer weather !
My stay Down Under is almost over now...just 5 more day on the top north in Darwin...and then I move again this time for Asia (and just two more months before coming back).

I’m going more and more lazy (maybe just adapting to Aussie lifestyle “buddy” ), so I’ll just make you a resume of my week in Sydney.

I’ve seen :
Sydney Harbour with the bridge and the Opera (my first modern architectural orgasm ! fuck off Foster, Gehry and Nouvel...this is THE masterpiece), Manly beach and Sydney Harbour national park. The aquarium (amazing), lady bay (nudist beach), swimmed in a 50 m salt water pool, The Blue Mountains (just one hour from the center and really fabulous), and some of Sydney diferent neighborhoods like Kings Cross, Newtown, Surry Hills, the Rocks, the CBD...

I liked : wildlife and wilderness in the middle of the city (huge spiders, lizards and even bats in the botanical gardens), the beaches so close, and beautiful, the healthy way of life (never seen so many people jogging, swimming, surfing ...before), the mix of modern and more ancient building, it’s really a beautiful town in a perfect location. Cheap asian restarurants everywhere too, like in all Australian cities.

I din’t like that much :
Hostels (they are frankly expensive and crappy in Australia, and Sydney is no exception), public transportation (quite complicated, not efficient), street lighting very poor at night, prices (if you work here you get very high wages so that’s not an issue...but for a traveller it is ), kind of “ghettos” neighborhoods, this is probably the most multicultural city in Australia, but you don’t really feel it because the center and beaches are really “white” neighborhoods, and urban tribes don’t really mix, and last but not least, the weather !! half of my stay under rain and clouds, and the town totally changes with bad weather....bye bye this cool outdoor lifestyle...it get’s really more depressed and boring.

One of Australia national sports is comparing Sydney and Melbourne...you have to like one and hate the other, and that’s supposed to define you.
For an European it seems to be a kind of absurd battle because they look much more alike than different !
Both are really wealthy, modern, with an american urbanism (business centre and sprwaling houses suburbs) and multicultural cities, with an outstanding “•Aussie barbie” lifestyle, beaches good restaurants, nice parks....both are also very far away from eveything else, expensive and with a weather which is not always as good as expected.

So which one did I prefer ? honestly from a “turistical” point of view Sydney is more beautiful and interesting (more views, buildings and beach fun). But it is a little bit more crowed than Melbourne and has already passed the “no return• point” when a city is just too big and people get consequently more stressed and don’t care about the others.
On the other hand Melbourne, as I said before, was the most “relaxed” big occidental city I’ve ever seen, it also has more galeries and a maybe a more “cafe and go out” oriented culture (that why they say it’s the most european city in Australia ) than the more “sport and look at me “ almost californian Sydney.
Anyway I enjoyed both of them, and wouldn’t mind to live there for a year or two (but actually I don’t know what I would do in Australia after all !!).

Here we are with the cities, now I’ll spend almost three weeks on the east coast, first wwoofing again in Byron Bay and then exploring the Great Bareer Reef near Cairns.

Today I just feel tired of writing so quickly here are the pics of my 3 days trip (in an organized tour from Alice Springs to save time and money) to the so called "red centre" of Australia with the famous Kings Canyon and Ayers Rock (Uluru).
Actually the red centre was very green because of recent rainfalls (apparently it hadn't been like that for decades, and it barely looked as a desert!), the group was ok...usual boring backpackers and dumb and useless aussie guide....we slept outside, firecamps...dirty but fine, no too hot neither.
Now back to civilization in Sydney...and I love it.

So I finally made the hitchiking in a day to Adelaide, thanks to 4 aussie “red necks” the kind of old car and tuning freaks...I cut the details, but they were nice.
Then two cool days in Adelaide, another relaxing town with a lot of parks, smaller and warmer than Melbourne, maybe too quiet alghtough we are in the Festival period (one of the biggest cultural events in the South hemisphere, theatre, concerts, performances....even a play with Isabelle Hupert this year !). Once again my stay has been more enjoyable thanks to Klay (australian this time) who hosted me there in a very nice and fancy apartment downtown with a great view. Not much to see here anyway, except from the Festival shows.
Then bus and ferry to finally arrive at Kangaroo Island, 13 kms from the mainland shore.
I’m staying wwoofing at Liz and Scott’s place, who have a nice property near Pelican lagoon, in a typical bush landscape of the Island which means a Mallee tree forest (kind of eucalyptus) and actually reminds a little bit to a Mediterranean lanscape.
There I found 3 other german young wwoofers (who make me remember how “unfinished” you are when you are 19). I discovered actually that Liz and Scott are two retired aussie who use wwoofing as cheap labour force to maintain their property, they have just a big veggie garden, and great part of our job here consist in construction work for a new bungalow. We have to work much more as well (compared with my first wwoof experience ), an the accomodation is a little bit crappy (from outside it looks nice, in the midlle of a forest, but inside, you have spidernets, bats, mice...it’s really dirty, and I could spend one hour to explain how “the shower” works) !
Still the place is beautiful and quiet, the weather is unfortunately regular (a few very bad days), there’s a nice beach nearby (water is so warm!) and the wildlife amazing and literally living with you (kangaroos, wallabies, possums, birds, pelicans.... They also make their own beer, yogurt and bread, so I can’t really complain.
Actually living here is a perfect experience to understand Australian bush life...the have to collect their own water (so have lot of huge tanks they fill with rain water), and produce their own electricity (solar panels), and everyone talks as much about bushfire as how the weather is like.
The island is big, and we are a little bit lost in the middle of nowhere, so it is not as easy to visit, and I have less free days too.

Ok I finally spent 11 days here, and the stay was globally positive especially for the wilderness of the island and the wildlife watching. But time to go back to the mainland and the civilization for a few days, before going to the bush again, this time the desertic outback from the center of Australia, with the famous Ayers Rock.

Here I am, ready for my first “outback” adventure, in a camping called “Grampians Paradise” owned by Aidan and it’s funny recomposed family.
So the Grampians are indeed a mountain range, converted in national park, 300kms west of Melbourne, still in the state of Victoria.
I’m staying wwoofing for a week here, helping Aidan with his plant nursery, that means he seeds different kind of plants and tree and make them grow to sell them.. His elderly fathers deal with the camping business (they have more than 80 and move like they were 60, amazing), an that’s indeed a really lovely place.
We are just on the border of the park on the feet of the biggest mountains, Mt Williams and the Redman Bluff. The place is quite dry (end of summer), but there’s a lot of water, with small swamp, gum trees (eucalyptus), on the camping area. I live in a small caravan near the family house. The most astonishing stuff apart from the fantastic sunsets are the kangarros running freely near my caravan early in the morning or at sunset, 10 m in front of me. There are also a lot of birds, especially different species of colourful and noisy parrots. The place is really quiet and peaceful, and that’s a perfect introduction to inner Australia. I work one day and have got the other day off to walk in the park. There are many great tracks, my main problem is that I don’t have a car, so it’s complicated to move, I try to hitch hike, and I’m not very succesfull with it.
The work is not very hard, but I always deal with the most physical part (Aidan being a kinfd of old lazy hippy, with a damaged back). His wife (Va)Nessa is special as well ! she has a lot of diferent big quartz bowls, that make unbelievable and very strong sounds, and supposed to give good vibration, treat you ,etc....they also have two retarded dogs and two kids (who luckily don’t seem as retarded as the dogs).
Like every australian they have a very “local talking”...australia is “Aussie”, Tasmania “Tassie”, breakfast “breakie” , the “doggies” are crazy,and for dinner we can make a “barbie” (not wild sex with an australian dumb blonde, but a barbecue) isn’t that so funny ...? youpi (no, this one is french).
Talking about breakies, the ones Aidan makes are great with a lot of seeds, fruits and yogurt...miam miam. I have to leave finally this other “paradise”, I really enjoyed and think I was pretty lucky for a first wwoofing experience.Now I have to go to Adelaide (500 kms, from here, hitchiking...I hope I’m gonna make it in less than 2 days), the capital of the state od South Australia (yes by the way Australia is a federal state).

Australia was a teenager dream, and here I am finally Down Under, more than 15 years after ...so pretty excited !
My first destination here is then Melbourne. It’s supposed to be the most European city in Australia, but at first glance it looks like a very different kind of city...everything is so modern, there’s a lot of architectural blend (but it’s not ugly, just a little bit impersonal maybe), and a really multicultural people, with a lot of asians (Chineses, Indians, Malaysians)...it may be the first real postmodern globalized (and expensive) city I’ve ever seen...I had the feeling that if I had been “teletransported” here without knowing where I was, it would have been imposible to guess.
Actually you feel that in the CBD (central Businees District), because the rest of the town is composed of different neighbourhoods with a lot of houses and gardens, or small buildings, some of them in a Victorian or colonial style (I finally undestood the •european stuff” ) .
But for the Melbourners there’s even a bigger diffrence between the North (of the Yarra river) and the South. The north is supposed to be more alternative, with modern guys, more Berlin atmosphere, and the South more posh, with the beaches, and healthy people.

Thanks to Pablo, another wonderful Chilean guy who hosted me three days there, I could indeed feel the difference and get to know better the place. And after 2 more days discovering the town biking around (btw it’s a perfect town for biking) I came to truly appreciate Melbourne, and even started to love it a lot.

Why ? because you slowly realize that people are really relaxed here, no stress at all when they drive, when they walk, the weather is good, you can go to the beach, do some outdoor sport (kitesurf, biking, walk in fantastic parcs...) so easily. And enjoy some good bars and restaurants (good and cheap asian food everywhere), or the cultural offer (lot of theatre, museums and cultural events, ok not like Europe). Apparently Melbourne is rated amongst the most liveable cities in the world, I just stayed a few days there, but I really had this impression.
Only problem for a backpacker like me....of course it’s also very expensive! and especially right now since the Australian dollar is historically strong (more than the American dollar), and the Euro, well you know...
Actually during my 2 months in Australia I won’t have other choice than doing wwoofing for a month. That means working in an organic farm between 4 to 6hours a day in exchange of food and accomodation (I cannot have a proper job because I don’t have a working visa).
I already know where I’ll “wwoof”...first for a week in the Grampians (a national park north east of Melbourne), then 2 weeks in Kangaroo Island near Adelaide, and then a week near Byron Bay on the coast north of Sydney.
So after a really enjoyable stay in Melbourne, it’s time to move (before getting stucked here) my ass to work on the countryside !