Archives For Travel

It all started with Dominique and me thinking that 3000 km is too long to drive. That’s when we looked into flying to Darwin, but we soon discovered that a one way flight is around 400 to 500 AUD. Far too expensive for our liking. That same day we started to make a little flyer, copied it and handed it out to backpackers and put it up in hostels and internet cafes around Cairns. We didn’t actually expect many people to call, but apparently there’s loads of people looking for a lift to the Top End, as we got flooded with requests.

The next morning we met Julien, a french guy, and Yuto, a japanese bloke, in a cafe in town. They seemed nice and relaxed enough that we agreed to tackle those 3000 km together, starting at 8 am the next day.

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I’m really loving all those tourist drives you can explore in Oz when you’re driving yourself. So I thought I’ll just snap away as we drive along one. As it turned out this was one of the nicest ones so far!!

Dominique, Katrina and I left Sydney on another rainy day. The worst storm in 10 years had just hit the area and although we loved it in Sydney and at Benn’s place in Cronulla we all felt ready for a few days in the sun. We bought cheap sleeping bags, pillows, an air mattress and a pump for it, packed it all into Pumpkin and drove all the way up to Forster, a tiny sleepy town about four hours north of Sydney. It might actually be quite nice there during summer, but in winter it is quite cold and there isn’t that much to do.

The next day, after sleeping in the back of the car at some river near Forster, we were on the road again. We probably took every tourist drive in between Forster and Coffs Harbour, our next stop. This is truly a great way to see Australia. If you stay on the Pacific Highway all the way up north you might as well fly. Tourist drives lead you away from the main roads and you get to see small beachside towns, huge cliffs, amazing beaches, small serpentines through mountains and even some whales. Well, more like the water sprouts really, but still! As we came close to Coffs Harbour the drives seemed to get a bit confusing though. One just led us around in circles a few times and another ended in a car park in the middle of nowhere…

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We have finally managed to buy a car. Her name is ‘Pumpkin’, she’s a Ford Falcon and her birthday is somewhere in 1993. She’s actually had to drive a fair bit in her life so far, but she seems to be quite defiant not to let it get her down. All in all we are happy with her and she’s been a bargain for 2500 AUD.

On our first night on the road we decided against a camping ground and opted for sleeping in the car instead. So that’s two girls and one big bloke in the back of the car. Wasn’t the comfiest and warmest place I’ve slept in, but then it was a lot nicer than some other places…

The day after the Queen’s Birthday the weather around Sydney was brilliant, so Benn took us all out in his boat ‚Jack’. This is the video of our waterskiing efforts. You would not believe how much your muscles can hurt after not even 30 minutes trying to stand up.

Then on the way back, about 100 metres from our landing spot, the outboard engine died on us. Luckily we had one paddle and two water ski with us…

I did say that I’m going to introduce my travel buddies at some point, so here we go…

Dominique and Katrina are two german chicks in their early twenties. Both of them have a backround in finance and banking and both of them got disillusioned with working for a big bank. Dominique was the first to decide to take a year out from that normal german lifestyle and to go for that more relaxed and chilled out life of a backpacker. Soon after that Katrina decided too to change her high heels and smart business suits for a bikini and flip flops.

Both of them are easy going and ready to start working on their tan. They love their shopping and are both a bit upset that there isn’t any more space in their backpacks. Recently the girls discovered a fondness for Vodka Raspberry and convinced each other not to set foot in a single museum while travelling, but to spend that time rather on searching for that perfect beach party somewhere in Australia and Southeast Asia.

So far they love Australia…

It all started quite boring and innocently with a rainy 6 hour drive from Melbourne to Canberra. I had eventually met up with Dominique, one of my travel buddies (formal introductions will have to wait until Katrina, our last travel buddy, arrives in a few days), in Melbourne. She had just come back from Canberra with a friend and we decided that the cheapest option for us to get north was to drive up again to Canberra with said friend.

Once we arrived in Canberra we decided on a YHA hostel. Bad move that was. We were just sipping our second beer in a bar downstairs when I eventually met Pete, without a doubt the craziest person on this planet. Dominique had been staying with Pete for the better part of six weeks, so as soon as he came into the bar he made us get all our stuff from the hostel to move to his house. That’s one way of wasting 30 perfectly good dollars. But I just love the aussie hospitality!!

I just couldn’t believe how cold it can actually be in Australia during winter. And Canberra is probably one of the colder places, with temperatures around 3° C at night. So a lot of the time we just sat around the oven in Pete’s shed sipping beer, dancing to Bob Marley and laughing our heads off. I blame that for the lack of fresh content on Travel-Junkie.com. Those hangovers the day after had absolutely nothing to do with that…

We didn’t just party, though. Dominique and I went for a long drive to Tidbinbilla. The Americans have some kind of huge satellite dish installed there. There’s a small museum attached, where I found out that on some planets I just weigh 5kg while on others I’d suddenly put on 200kg. On the way there you can still see the devastating effect the bush fires from 2003 had on the area. There are vast stretches of land with absolutely nothing on it or just recent reforestation going on

What Canberra has in abundance, though, are Kangaroos. They are everywhere. We spent ages looking for the jumpy little buggers behind the Defence Forces Headquarters. And when we found them Pete went after them with the car. Sometimes they would just stop and we could get a good picture, but most of them were just happily skipping away from us. Apparently kangaroos are highly developed creatures as well and always stay close to the signs that say that you have to drive carefully for the next few kilometres…

Before coming to Canberra almost everybody had told me that it will be so boring there. I loved it. Granted, there is not that much to do there, but it all depends on the people you know or the people you meet. I had an awesome time. Short before we left, Pete set us up with Ben, a mate of his, in Cronulla, Sydney, where we stay right now. Incidentally, the night we arrived was also Ben’s 30th birthday party, so the next hangover was pre-programmed…

Today I have spent a lovely day at St. Kilda, Melbourne. It was fairly warm, at least until the sun went down, and I have finally been at an ocean again. It’s been far too long. When I walked up St. Kilda Pier I thought that this must be fantastic for a sunset, so I came back a few hours later. And I was right. I’m a sucker for sunsets…

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I really don’t like flying when that means having to sit for close to 24 hours in a plane! But let’s start at the beginning. Checked in at Heathrow and everything went smoothly. Absolutely no problems. In the plane, a 747, I found out that I had four seats to myself. I then had a look at the movie selection and there were loads of films I hadn’t seen so far, so things just couldn’t have been any better. I was well into “Blood Diamond”, just after the scene, when this old bloke stated that if they ever found oil in Sierra Leone they would all have real problems (which is one of the funniest movie lines I’ve heard recently), when I realized that I had neither a phone number nor an address of my friend in Melbourne with me.

That’s when I decided to have another glass of white wine, and believe it or not, things did look better after that. I watchd another movie and then thought that maybe I should try to get some sleep. If I would be able to kip on the leg to Hongkong, then I’d have to stay awake on the flight to Melbourne, where I then would arrive around 8 o’clock in the evening. I could just go to bed normally there and I would hardly experience any jet lag. Ready to explore the city the next day! It all sounds far too good in theory, because I was wide awake as soon as I closed my eyes!

So I watched more movies, while almost everybody around me was snoring already, and…had some more wine. When the plane touched down at the airport in Hongkong I felt a bit hung over, but at least I managed to go online and find out where I had to go in Melbourne. By the time we were allowed to reboard the plane I was so tired out, that I fell asleep as soon as I hit my seat. I slept through take-off and the first meal, then woke up just in time for the second meal and slept again until we were only about an hour away from Melbourne.

Then it was all a breeze. Get on the shuttle to the city, change into another bus that brought me to just where I needed to go. Met my friend, went out for a couple beers, had a laugh and went to bed around 2 am. Today I haven’t even been out of the apartment. I slept for most of the day feeling extremely jet lagged, but I’m ready to venture into town tomorrow. I think. I’ll keep you posted!

My bags are packed and I’m ready go. I actually managed to fit all my stuff in just my backpack. It weighs close to 16 kilos, with the bulk, maybe 10 kg, made up by my dive gear. It feels bloody heavy, but it’ll be a lot better than carrying an extra dive bag around with me. The gear will kind of garantee at least some income, so it’s worth lugging it around.

My jetplane leaves at 4 pm today, so I’ve still got a few hours to kill. Today I’m just flying to London. I’m going to visit some friends there and down on the coast in Dorset. Then on sunday I’m booked on to a Quantas flight to Melbourne with a short 2-hour-stopover in Hongkong.

I’ve spent a lot of time away from home, but I still get nervous a bit every time I leave. Once I’m on the plane it’ll be fine, though. There’s a reason why alcohol is for free on board. Calmes down the nerves. That’s a reason as well why all the cheap airlines will never be able to tap into the long distance market. People would need to spend all their holiday cash on expensive booze even before arriving at their destination.

Anyways, I probably forgot half my stuff, but that doesn’t matter. Got my passport and my tickets. Everything else will sort itself out. I must not forget to bring tissues to the airport! Hopefully, there’ll be loads of exciting travelogues and pictures in the next few years for you to read and watch, starting with my next dispatch from Melbourne in a few days.

So long and safe travels, guys…

Following my 10 most favorite places in Southeast Asia I decided to post my favorite dive spots. I haven’t been to many of the world class dive sites in the area, like Richelieu Rock or Sipadan, so this list reflects merely my personal top 10.

1. Hin Daeng & Hin Muang, Koh Lanta, Thailand
   These are my absolute favorites. There’s the big stuff, like Mantas and Whale Sharks, and little critters, like the Harlequin Shrimp. Because of the depth and the sometimes quite strong current both those sites are not really suited for greenhorn divers.
2. Batu Bolong, Flores, Indonesia
   I had a fantastic dive here with three octopus. They were following and holding on to each other while weird patterns were pulsating down their bodies. Looked like an octopoda threesome to me. Just awesome!! The current was just unbelievable; in places so strong that our bubbles went straight down…
3. Shark Point, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
   Probably the only dive site on earth, where you are surrounded by 15 turtles when doing your safety stop. Loads of different kinds of sharks and a gorgonian fan at around 20 m populated by pygmy seahorses. There can be some current, but here you always dive with the flow, so no worries…
4. Tulamben USS Liberty, Bali, Indonesia
   Loads of nudibranchs, scorpionfish, hundreds of garden eels waving in the slow current and extremely nosy parrotfish all within the remnants of a WWII freighter. Loads of little swimthroughs with fantastic light shining through holes in the hull.
5. Koh Haa Lagoon, Koh Lanta, Thailand
   This is an easy dive, but can nevertheless be breathtaking. Directly in the lagoon there are a few very curious and very cute porcupinefish, quite a few boxfish, and some garden eel. On the outer edge of the lagoon with it’s two pinnacles there’s barney, the hawksbill turtle and, if you look closely, a ghost pipefish hidden somewhere!
6. Sail Rock, Koh Tao, Thailand
   I did easily 50 dives here. If I would dive there now, I’d probably still know every fish by name. Great pinnacle dive with a chimney starting at 7m and going down to about 20m and a chance to see some big fish.
7. Tulamben Drop Off, Bali Indonesia
   I haven’t seen that much fish here to be honest, but the colors are just stunning. There are loads of huge gorgonian fans all over the site. Their colors made all the more brighter and vivid by the black vulcanic sand that’s everywhere.
8. Chumphon Pinnacles, Koh Tao, Thailand
   Chumphon, Koh Tao’s premier dive site, is a submerged rock formation covered in all different kinds of coral. There’s grey reef sharks around and the chance to see whale sharks. Loads of small critters as well. Can be quite crowded with divers, even for Koh Tao standards.
9. Simon’s Reef, Gili Meno, Indonesia
   This is a huge site starting at 14 m, going down to like 45 m, so it’s an advanced site. This is the place where I managed to capture three beautiful cuttlefish on film. Can be fantastic with visibility reaching 50-60 m. I once missed the whole dive site, due to current and bad visibility and promptly saw a huge stingray, easily 2,5 m long…
10. Temple of the Sea, Palau Perhentian Kecil, Malaysia
    Visibility wasn’t good, when I went diving here, but I could see the potential. There’s bamboo and nurse sharks and loads of barrakuda and jacks. The Temple is a pinnacle covered in soft and hard coral. When you’re in the area and you dive, then this spot shouldn’t be missed!

There are so many more dive spots I want to go to, most of all a liveaboard trip to the Burma Banks near Myanmar and to Alor in Eastern Indonesia. And I haven’t even been to the Philippines yet. If you’re not a diver yet, but would like to learn, then you should check out Koh Lanta, Koh Phi Phi or, for the more adventerous, Koh Lipe in Thailand, the Perhentians in Malaysia and the Gilis in Indonesia. There’s loads of dive sites for beginners there, loads of stuff to see and courses are not too expensive.
What’s your favorite dive sites?

Wherever there are people with money, there will be other people trying to take some of that money away. Sometimes this is especially true when you are travelling. You are far away from home and thus you might seem an easy prey.

In 2001 I met a young german backpacker, let’s call him Hans, in the departure hall of Denpasar Airport on Bali. We were both waiting for the same flight to Darwin, so after a while he came over and we started chatting. He seemed a bit nervous and soon after he wanted to hear my opinion about something that had happened to him the night before.

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