Tag: Backpack

Can’t believe that I have been travelling already for six months. Time flies when you’re having fun, right? Anyway, time to have a look at that past half year….

Some of the things that happened or that I did:

1. Bought a car in Australia, drove it for 7000 km and then wrecked it!
2. Watched two sperm whales, five pigs and one turtle get hunted, killed and gutted in Indonesia
3. Had 9.473 unique visitors, which isn’t that much really, but my thanks go out to those boys and girls that do drop in for a visit and maybe even leave a comment!
4. Climbed the volcano on Lombok and lost four toenails in the process
5. Drank far too much Arak/Sopi/Palm Wine…
6. Almost froze to death in Canberra
7. Took 4 different Pelni boats and was the only foreigner on any of them
8. Survived the Outback
9. 37 people have subscribed to my english feeds and 4 to my german feed
10. Dived Alor and snorkelled Banda, two places I had been wanting to visit for years
11. Visited 4 countries (Oz, England, Indonesia, East Timor) and 3 continents
12. Spent 8000 EUR on God knows what…
13. Saw the Komodo Dragons and did not get bitten, yeah!!
14. Sailed the Whitsundays. Loved that and just remembered I didn’t even put a post about that online. Well, it was only a day trip, but to make up for it, have a look at the picture on top…
15. Saw my first two Wombats and then accidentally killed them both with the car. I added some seriously bad karma on to my shoulders that night!
16. I received 4 donations totalling around 90 EUR and my Google ads cam to about 15 USD, so that’s almost my hosting fees for another 3 years, which doesn’t mean I’d reject more donations or would frown at people clicking on me ads…
17. Visited gorgeous Kelimutu again
18. Managed to brush up on my Bahasa Indonesia
19. Worked a lot on my tan
20. Read like 30 books
21. Wrote 29 posts (actually 30 including this one), which could have been more, but I was probably too busy sunbathing…or reading…
22. Took about 8 GB worth of pictures, of which maybe 2GB were worth taking. Have a look at the photos I put online!
23. Managed to free dive down to 25m with a dive time of 1 minute 37 seconds on Banda
24. Was involved in a motorbike accident in Indo
25. Was kind of involved in a car accident in Indo, which provided a fascinating few hours for the locals that happened to be there
26. The average life expectancy of my sun glasses dropped down to roughly a day
27. Met some great people and a few weirdos…
28. Managed to teach an American how to open a beer bottle with a lighter, which was hard work!
29. My Google Page Rank went on a rollercoaster; from 2 to 3 down to 1 up to 2 down to 0 ; I must be doing something wrong, but honestly, I couldn’t give a monkey’s bum…
30. Visited the youngest nation on earth!

If you want to know more about what I’ve been up to these last six months have a look at my archives or click on some of the links above. Enjoy!!

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…

A while back I had this idea. I get rid of my dive bag and put all of my gear into my backpack. Brilliant, don’t know why I hadn’t thought of that before. My dive bag is ripped to pieces anyway, so that saves me having to buy a new one. Today I decided to give my idea a try. So in went my BCD, my fins, my wetsuit and my backpack was almost full. And I hadn’t even gotten any clothes in there, yet! So, I took my gear out and put one piece in at a time and stuffed the remaining space with clothes. This will mean that my clothes will always be extremely wrinkled, but then, I don’t think I’m likely to win a Best Dressed Man Competition anyways. At least this will work, although my wetsuit will have to stay home. And this I am really unhappy about, I mean I have no problem peeing into my wetsuit (can be quite an enjoyable experience on a cold night dive), but peeing into a rental one is just gross…