Blue Mountain Nationalpark

 

A view in the Blue Mountains National Park from Katoomba. It is a wonderful National Park but there is one small problem: As it is so near at Sydney it is the most visited National Park in Australia.  

 

The first Aboriginal paintings! ;-)  

 

The famous "three sistors" 

 

and the famous "three Frankonians".  

 

The gigantic Wentworth falls. The water falls down 187meters!  

 

On top of the falls. 

 

Eva liked this stone structure... 

 

The falls from another perspective. 

 

By the way: The Blue Mountains are another world heritage area of Australia. 

Expensive, loud, Sydney

We expected a lot from Sydney: Sights, beautiful places, beaches and a melting pot of many cultures. Yes it is a nice city with many cultures but it is also unbelievable expensive and very loud. There are just too many cars and too much traffic! All in all our favourite city in Australia is still Melbourne. 

 

The tiles of the Sydney Opera House built by the Danish architect Jorn Utzon in 1973. If you count the tiles you will end up with 1056006. By the way the tiles were made in Sweden. 

The opera house is also a world heritage site. 

 

A view from the Opera House to the Harbour Bridge. 

 

A good way to explore Sydney is the public ferry system. You can explore the whole Sydney harbour with the ferries. 

 

The central business district of Sydney.  

 

The famous Bondi beach. We really don´t know why it is so famous. It´s just a city beach with some surfers around. 

 

The sunset we saw at Watson Bay was gorgeous! 

 

Sydney Opera House at night. 

 

And not to forget our visitors from good old Germany: Alex and Büchimüchi. 

 

Especially for one of our followers! 

 

Cheers!  

Bendeela Campground - a cold night!

 

When we woke up after the first night at the Bendeela Campground, we couldn't believe what we saw in the morning: ice everywhere! brrr.... 

 

Also the spiders had to wait until their net was defrosted again. 

 Even our table, pan and "dish washer" were frozen...

 

After this frost in the morning, we had a beautiful day with sunshine and all sorts of Australian wildlife (kangaroos, wombats, ducks, birds...) 

Morton National Park

 

 Now it was time to put on our hiking shoes and go on a bush walk in the Morton National Park. We saw strange stone formations on our way...

 

... and once again beautiful scenery... 

 

... with a very high waterfall! 

Canberra - the capital of Australia

 

In Canberra - the capital of Australia - we visited the House of Parliament ...We were lucky and saw the Prime Minister Julia Gillert (the Australian Angela Merkel)!

 

The kangaroo and emu are important symbols for the Australians. They stand for progress and moving forward, because they can only jump or run forward not backwards. 

 

The view from the House of Parliament 

 

Jo - almost a real Aussi 

 

Inside the House of Parliament 

 

The massive Australian flag on top! 

 

Time for another beer! Canberra is inside the Australian Capital Territory. So we crossed the border to Victoria again. 

Border Crossing at Willis

 

At the town "Willis" we crossed the border from South Australia to Victoria. So we were drinking our "border-crossing" beer and thought of our friend Willi! 

 

Our first impressions from Victoria 

Quite old - Our 4WD trip through the Australian Alps in Victoria

 

After our days in the busy place Melbourne it was time again for nature and some real 4WD in the Alpine region of Australia. Yes Australia has also high mountains, snow in the winter and some winter sport regions where you can go skiing and snowboarding. The highest peak is the Mt. Kosciuszko in New South Wales with 2228m. 

 

Not for bloody tourists! When the fuck is Queens Birthday and Melbourne Cup. No worries! Let´s go on the track... 

 

One impression from the "Butcher Track" 

 

The track was really rough and we had to cross plenty of rivers. The deepest was around 1 meter deep. 

 

But two videos show more than those two pictures:

 

We never thought that a car can go up such steep tracks without any problem! Unbelievable. Maybe our Lady is the best! 

 

In the morning the clouds were hanging in the valleys 

 

This was near to our spot where we camped. And those spider webs have not been there in the evening before we went into our tent! We are not joking! 

 

Why is this sign at the end of the track?! 

 

But this 4WD trip became very expensive! We blew up one of our rear brakes. And with blew up we mean blew up. Not only the bads, also the disc and the calliper! This really sucked!  

Brandnew!!!! Our new job at Springsure roadhouse in Queensland

 

After ten days of searching we found a very nice job at the busy Springsure roadhouse. Springsure is a small village like Weißenbrunn that participates from a big coal mining boom in the outback around Emerald. 

And what looks the work like??? 

 

Eva has to restock in her first shift the shop racks together with Kayleigh an Aussie girl from Brisbane. 

 

Besides restocking we have to cook typical roadhouse meals. That means meat, meat and again meat! Just have a look at the "big breakfast". Jo had the morning shift from 5:30am to 1:30pm and had to prepare this "monster" breakfast two times. 

 

This is the dining area in the roadhouse. 

 

Here is Shane our boss. 

 

Here is Anna the "boss of our boss" or Shanes wife in the kitchen together with her son. 

 

In this building we are sleeping. 

All in all we are very happy after the first work day! Anna and Shane are very nice bosses and it is a diversified work with pretty good conditions!