D&M's Australian adventure 🇦🇺

Nach einer Nacht im Flugzeug und zweien mit Kakerlaken und Baulärm morgens, weiß man erst einmal erholsamen Schlaf wieder deutlich zu schätzen, den wir in unserem AirBnB richtig genießen konnten. Nach gemütlichem Ausschlafen, zeigte unser Host uns dann auch noch einmal die australische Offenheit und Gastfreundschaft, indem er uns anbot uns mit zum Einkaufen zu nehmen, sodass wir etwas für die kommenden zwei Wochen haben. Einkaufen in Australien funktioniert eigentlich genauso wie überall anders auf der Welt, der einzige Unterschied sind die Preise der ein oder anderen Dinge. So kosten Milchprodukte vergleichsweise deutlich mehr als in Deutschland und auch der reguläre Brotbelag greift etwas tiefer in den Geldbeutel, um nur zwei Beispiele zu nennen. Während man in Deutschland den 250gr Becher für 0,44€ pro Becher bekommt kann man für die gleiche Menge Fruchtjoghurt mit über 1€ rechnen. Es gibt zwar auch eine große Auswahl an Fertiggerichten, diese sind aber auch teurer, Tiefkühlpizza is...

Die zweite Nacht in unserem wundervollen "Hotel" war nicht viel besser als die erste. Zwar sind wir keinen weiteren Kakerlaken begegnet, aber der Schlaf war qualitativ auch nicht viel besser, sondern eher gezwungen. Dank Jetlag fällt man dann aber doch ziemlich leicht ins Bett. Nach einem leckeren Frühstück (Avocado-Toast; hier gibt es übrigens fast alles mit Avocado ;) ) ging es dann mit dem Taxi zur Central-Station und dann mit dem Zug nach Newcastle. Das schöne hierbei war, dass Newcastle dabei die Endstation der drei-stündigen Fahrt war und wir somit keine Angst hatten mussten an der richtigen Stelle auszusteigen. Die Zugstrecke geht nahe an der Küste entlang durch Täler der auslaufenden Blue-Mountains und malerisch schönen Buchten, die die folgenden Bilder zeigen. Ja, auch auf dieser Fahrt hat Denise natürlich geschlafen😉

After lunch we walked a little further around the bay and bought our Opal-Cards which is a pre-paid card used for travelling with Public Transport in New South Wales. You can compare it with a mobile SIM card where you load money on it and then this is used for every travel you make by simply tapping / swiping the NFC card when you get on a public transport like a bus and do the same when getting off. The system then automatically calculates the correct fare (even when you transfer from one to another public transport) and subtracts it from your balance. Compared to Germany this is a very easy and developed system, although it seems that you miss benefits like day-travel cards or quarter-tickets where you have savings. When we were in the bus we noticed the next difference to Germany: There was no display or voice-system telling you at which station you are. For a tourist with no knowledge of the bus lines and surroundings this can be really difficult. The Australian solution for this ...

In the morning we were heavily woken up by the noise coming from the large construction site next door of our hotel (you might remember the large machine outside from the picture, this was running nearly with the first sunlight😵 ) But at least we managed to have some better rest than on board of the planes. So we got settled and headed outside to have a breakfast in the cafe down the road ("Tropicana Caffe") for a good start into the day. The breakfast was amazing. I had a bacon and egg muffin whilst Denise chose to have a porridge with Strawberry that tasted like they would come fresh from the field.

As we both were quite tired and stressed from the immigration procedures we quickly decided to just get on a taxi to get to the hotel rather than looking for the right trains or buses struggling with all of our luggage we had. In a little small-talk with the Indian taxi-driver we found out that he came to Australia / Sydney with the same plan or approach as we did. He started to study Information technologies in Sydney but had to break early because he wasn't able to afford the costs of living and studying without having a full time job. Hopefully this issue will not catch on us as well 😳 But let's think positive heading on to the arrival at the hotel and our room. We booked the "Sydney boutique hotel" because of it's good reviews and that it should be a 4-star hotel (at least they called themselves so) and reasonable price for the location. Surely we were wondering a little how that is possible, when we made the booking, because all other hotels around were a...

  English        Deutsch There it finally was, 25-Apr-2018 or the day of the flight to the other end of the world. Now the excitement for both of us reached definitely its peak. Will we be able to close the suitcases including everything that we planned to bring? Will it be within the weight limit? Those were the most challenging questions during the past week of preparation of packing up. I just realized that I did not even take pictures of "packing room" that we used in the house of my parents to share these impressions with you 😳 But to make a long story short, we made it. Both of us had to leave some items behind which was an additional crisis - next to all the other crises during the past weeks - for Denise and both of us had a few kilo grams too much in the hand luggage. With regards to this we decided to be a bad ass and just take the risk - secretly just hoping not to be checked. Having this sorte...