Personal Blog

Starting at FFM airport at the 12.11.2012 the journey starts, with a direct fly to Hongkong international airport. And an odyssey to find the Ho(s)tel! Big footnote: If you travel to Hongkong not only know the name of the street and house number. You have to know the floor! There have been around 20 hostels at my address

However visiting the so called “Peak-View” with the old-school tram was a nice compensation for that!

After that I traveled for one day to Macau, with a ferry. After visiting Macau casino’s, I had lunch in the famous “”. And I have seen the Macau tower. From every possible angle

And after having lunch in the “Garand Casino Lisboa” I took the ferry back to Hongkong. The Grand Casino Lisboa is the futuristic building here  on the left (http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Lisboa)

At my last day in HK I took the scenic Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car at the Lantau Island to the Tian Tan Big Buddha.

I finally hit Sydney at the 19^th of November. After having a look if the Harbour Bridge is still there:

I got my campervan. A Toyota Hiace, that had its best day unfortunately with somebody else (more about that later)

But I had some very nice days in Wollongong area, here is an overview about some of the beaches. I guess I have camped at 3 or 4 of the ones you can see here:

They basically look all beautiful but you hardly meet anybody at the beach. Hardly any tourists or there is just too much beach to get any kind of crowded area.

This was one of the small beaches where some locals enjoyed surfing and the view:

I of course also did not forget to go to the dropzone in Picton NSW! After an assessment jump I was granted the Australian A-License and put into the mid of the B-License.

Here a photo shot by an instructor during a relative work jump:

Around the 3^rd of December I moved on and drove in one day from Wollongong to Coffs Harbour. 600Km, pretty tough, I would not recommend to drive that much a day actually.

Coffs Harbour of course also has some beautiful beaches )

And I moved on to the next place, famous Byron Bay, and guess what, more beaches!

And along the coast line up to the Gold Coast. This is a photo taken from “Surfers Paradise” at the Gold Coast.

Weather at Surfers Paradise was not as hot as in Byron Bay. Anyhow, Gold Coast is a very touristic area. With everything from shopping malls to mega hotels along the coast line.

I then went to the Ramblers Dropzone (ramblers.com.au) at a town called Toogoolawah (not even Aussie’s can pronounce it!) There is no phone, no internet but a nice Cessna 208 Caravan, that even runs to 14.000 feet if only 8 fun jumpers sign up for a load

The photo was taken at a coach jump at 18^th December .2012. I visited Ramblers several times. In between I went to the “Sunshine Coast” to have a swim and relax.

I spend most of the time at Alexandra Headland, there was a nice little Camp site with Palms and some kind of little garden in front of every site.

The beaches … of course also very nice, probably the most amazing was Noosa beach, around 20 minutes North of Alexandra Headland.

And I spend a day in Brisbane, cruising in the ferry around the city.

After that I had an issue with my Campervan. First it seemed like the battery was just empty and a jump start would help, but it turned out that the vehicle does not recharge the battery while driving anymore.

The replacement took a while, I have been lucky to stay at Ramblers DZ during the replacement and enjoy some fun jumping (and a thunderstorm that seemed like Armageddon, with a light show you would not find in any club).

Afterwards I moved up along the coast line with hop offs in Mackey and Townsville:

To finally arrive in Cairns at the 23th of December: