Changes

For the last 2 weeks i worked as a cook in a beach kiosk.
I made money so i can afford to fly to Thailand.
I booked a ticket today.
The winter here was hard. people don’t heat their homes and most europeans agree that it is harsher than the european winters. Even though we get colder temperatures.
But the summer has started and i like it. Beaches with beautiful people tanning in the sun. Surfers waiting for the perfect wave. It feels like it has become a different place.
Yet i had enough.
I sold my car and i am getting rid of the stuff that i have accumulated because of it.
I am looking forward to the relaxed attitude of the Asians. It sometimes feels like most things here are about money.
I have an urge to not worry about money anymore to thrive and live, but australia seems so expensive you are on a constant survival.
It is going to be great to go back to asia, meditate and meet old friends before i go back home. Or maybe i will change my mind completely after meditating. Who knows.
I am looking forward to meeting my family and friends again, working in switzerland, and eventually starting to study there.
Loving life today, my job hired other people, so i am not working at the moment, but really enjoying my free time.
Here are some pix of the job.

The cook

The kitchen

The view

The Ice-cream

So long
Ole

Survival of the fittest

I am tired.
Not only in a literal sense, but in an emotional sense.
Australia is tiring me. Or i should say sydney is tiring me.
It is a great place to make money, but it is like a dark abyss, where when once caught it keeps you in.
That might be just slightly exaggerated.
I feel like i am having a normal life at the moment.
I feel like the splendor of past days has… well passed.
Working like a dog.
Every day I wake up in the morning walk along the beach to work. As a cook in a cute little beach cafe at Tamarama Beach. I work for 8-9 h and walk back home.
It is a simple life, nothing fancy. Sleep, work, sleep.
I get great food and my workmates are nice and money is good so that i am planning to go to Thailand soon. 🙂
My car is going to be sold and i will be a free spirit once again 🙂

No pain no gain, or so they say.
My neck is healing well, it is annoying, but not painful.

Actually i am pretty good.
Every day i see the surfers chillin on the swell, i walk to work on the beautiful coastal walk.
and i get to make nice food for people while saving money.
I have been invited to go surfing once my neckbrace is off, lets say what the doctor says.
On wednesday i will see him, and hopefully take it off for good!
I am investing my time… i learn a lot about kitchens, and business, it is very interesting, but work is exhausting at the moment.
I think i miss that counterbalance.
I am living together with 3 chilean guys, but they havent been home because it was chilean national day, and they have been out partying all night 😀
I am looking forward to the next week.
So long
Ole

2nd Jubilee at a beautiful beach

Dear readers,
i live right by the best beach of Sydney, it is incredible. Coogee for the win!
Even though the job market is slowing down i enjoy the immense beauty of my surroundings.
I am going to stay here until the 3rd of August and then a couple weeks later hopefully get a job as a chef on daydream island, hold your fingers crossed for me 🙂

I cannot believe, that ii have been gone for more than 2 years now!
It is crazy it passed like a storm.
So many experiences, so many emotions, so many impressions, so many people
And as i said before i do not regret anything.
It has been a great ride and i am sure that my journey will continue to enrich me and hopefully other people as well…whether i am traveling or not.
I am looking forward to coming back to my birthplace, my homebase. I am anxious that people “don’t get me”, but i guess i just need to train my communication skills for that 🙂
But while traveling i must say i think i found the home in me.
That’s what i think is the significance of being uprooted for such a long time. You loose the attachment to your conditioned values, and you learn to love the whole.
I am not saying you have to be uprooted to find that, it might just be easier to find.
You see that things are evenly beautiful, evenly problematic, it is the same joy or despair wherever you go. My father always used to say: “The sum of all problems is always equal”
You are not attached to your ways of thinking as the only ones, there are 7 billion people on this planet and everybody has their own little bubble. Who am i to claim the only truth.
I am extremely grateful, that i am able to travel for such a long time.
There is not may people who travel that long or CAN travel that long for that matter…i think it is extremely giving to travel and it would be a great world if everybody would travel at least once in their life.

Okay enough cheesy thoughts
This Sunday i went to a Nigerian church. Last Sunday i told you i went dancing and in the bus back i met Victor a Nigerian petroleum engineer who invited me to this very cultural experience. It was a lot of fun.
I was the only white person in the room and attracted the attention of all the 2-4 year old 😀
It is crazy how there is a special Australian-Nigerian partnership program…Nigeria has the 3rd biggest Crude Oil reserve in the world.
It would seem as if Australia is doing some public relations here…

View from my kitchen

ZENsation chinese teastall

it was soo cool

hundreds of different teapots

my favorite part of the beach

the “rockgarden”

Me and Victor

the way to my little hideout with little opossums coming close to me

I found a little hideout in a teatree forest.
While meditating there an opossum came close to me it looked and came closer. Up to 1 meter!!
It was gone when i came back with an apple and banana.

So long Ole
p.s. i wanted to write earlier, but my phone doesn’t like the wordpress app…it crashed 3 times!

My neighborhood and the blue mountains

Hey ho

i moved to Coogee, 4minute walk to the beach.
It is very beautiful. To bad that it is so cold, and it started raining today… but in the morning you can sit by the beach.
It is wonderful to watch the waves crashing into the rocks and if you are lucky you see whales breaching through the sea.
You can put up your hammock in the trees and just enjoy life.
Last weekend i went sailing again, the boat “Mojo” looks like a spaceship and gets really fast. Our bowsprit broke while flying the kite/spinnaker so we lost the race. Next weekend it will be fixed and we will hopefully win!

The Beach next door

like a spaceship

the mojo

i carried most of this junk

my job as a plumber

and demolitionman

chillin

waves crashing, and wedding pie island in the back

the other side of the bay

these trees are fascinating

the trippy sculpture in the park

my home, bream st. 81

This weekend Rose and I went for a trip to the blue mountains. It is the mountain range just 1.5h west of Sydney and it is incredibly beautiful.
It is a place full with steep cliffs and waterfalls everywhere. We slept in our car, but it got soooo cold over night. It is winter here after all, and in the mountains it is even colder.
The next morning was so freezing my hands turned all numb. During the day however the sun came out and it became nice and warm.
We saw the 3 sisters, a rock formation with a special story:

Three sisters, Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo had a father who was a witch doctor.
His name was Tyawan.
Long ago there was a Bunyip who lived in a deep hole who was feared by all. Passing the hole was considered very dangerous, therefore whenever Tyawan had to pass the hole in search for food, he would leave his daughters safely on the cliff behind a rocky wall.
One fateful day, Tyawan waved goodbye to his daughters and descended down the cliff steps into the valley. Meanwhile at the top of the cliff, Meenhi was frightened by a large centipede which suddenly appeared before her. Meenhi took a stone and threw it at the centipede. The stone continued on its journey and rolled over the cliff, crashing into the valley below which angered the Bunyip.
The rocky wall behind Meenhi, Wimlah and Gunnedoo then began to split open and the three sisters were left stranded on a thin ledge at the top of the cliff.
All the birds, animals and fairies stopped still as the Bunyip emerged to see the terrified girls. As the Bunyip began to approach the girls, to protect them from harm, their father Tyawan used his magic bone to turn them into stone.
Angered by this, the Bunyip then began to chase Tyawan. Becoming trapped, in order to flee from the Bunyip, Tyawan changed into a magnificent Lyre Bird, yet in the process dropped his magic bone.
Tyawan and his three daughters were now safe from the Bunyip. Once the Bunyip had disappeared, Tyawan returned in search of his magic bone, yet this was never to be found.
The Lyre Bird has been searching for this magic bone ever since. Remaining in rock formation, The Three Sisters stand silently overlooking the valley hoping that one day he’ll find the bone and turn them back to former selves.
When visiting The Three Sisters, if you listen carefully you may be able to hear the Lyre Bird, Tyawan, as he continues his quest for his lost magic bone.

So there is definitely magic in these mountains, and as if planned, we found a magic gate that took us to an enchanted part of the jungle where we got a little lost, found some Ents, heard Dragons and saw a bigfoot on the street 😉

the blue mountains at night

and day

steep cliffs

the three sisters

the minne haha falls

mini but HAHA

the magic gate

so pretty…

me inside the ent

it this a bigfoot on the street?

Roses visa is up soon, so she will do a visa run to Fiji and hopefully be back soon.

So long
Ole
p.s. i haven’t seen a single soccer world championship game. But i am happy we won the title 😉

Resume

my last post was more than a month ago.
Wow, and i promised my family to write at least one per month…tsktsk OleOleOle…
I really do not enjoy writing blog on my phone though, so please forgive me 🙂

I wanted to hitchhike from the farm to Cairns, to find a job there.
But on my last day we went to the river nearby and i fell in love.
I decided to stay there for 3 days on my own in stead. It was delightful, the occasional pickup or quad driving by (it was the weekend) was little disturbance to the serenity.
It was good to be on my own again, after almost a year constantly together with other people this was the first time i was really on my own again, just for 3 days but still.
First the ship and then Ludo.
After 3 days we had a big goodbye dinner with everybody from the farm, and me and ludo left for Cairns.
Ludo also had a little disagreement with the owner of the farm about how to treat workers so we kind of had to leave 🙂

We stopped on the way to meet 2 German friends of ours and swam in a jellyfish proof ocean net. It felt like going into a swimming pool (20m by 20m), the whole benefit of the ocean was suddenly gone…well at least there was no poisonous stingers.

Next stop Cairns, camping is not allowed in the whole of Queensland (the state we are now in) so to sleep we always drove way out of town to find a hiding spot.
We did not make the mistake to park in a driveway anymore.
Our first night was abruptly ended when the farmer honked and asked us what we were doing, me still half asleep told him some story that we were lost on our way to look for a banana farm which settled him. I even asked him for a job 😉
So we found another great sleeping spot past the airport (-16.871436, 145.731880 google maps)
Once again we were hunting for jobs, and most of you already know what followed, we became Ricksha drivers, or how they call them here Pedicabs.
Also i took my first nickname ever “Red”.
It was pretty amazing, i dressed up as the pirate “Red Ryder”, and played my favorite music all night. I had a party, listed to music, worked my body and got money for that. Great!
I mean the disadvantages were that i started work at 6pm and stopped at 6am so i kind of became a vampire, i did not know what the weather during the day was because i slept at least till 4pm. Also i did not see anything in Cairns, that you could not see during the night. I enjoyed it anyhow.
But people in Cairns now know me only as Red, which was a pretty trippy feeling.
Even Ludo started calling me Red, i did not call him Blue.
I made a relatively good amount of money, enough to afford a flight to Sydney to see Rose again.
That’s where i am right now.
I let ludo travel alone for a while. I really enjoyed the time with somebody from home, but it was weird too. Both of us kind of associated the other with the person from our memories, but it seems people change over time.
I wonder how people are going to see me when i come home, should i keep the nickname?
I think i am going to stay with Olé.
I love you guys, thank you for all the comments.

our zombie parrot

ludo

and me as limepickers

solar eclipse

Ze chocolate bar

i mean the galaxy

my river retreat

i built a solar clock to keep track of time

the river

saying goodye to the goodtimes

australia being hostile

vinegar vs jellyfish

oh i forgot to mention the crocodiles

illegal camping

 

So now i am in Sydney again and am planning to make my way back north again, with Rose this time.
And i will try to write more regularly.
So Long
Your Ole

a backpackers life

hey all my readers, how are you?
and who are you?
It would be amazing if everybody who reads this, if i know you or not, leaves a comment saying “i do”.

Anyhow, back to topic, a lot has happened.
We left sydney.
It was a hard decision, should i stay in Sydney with my girlfriend Rose or travel north together with my best friend Ludo.
I decided to go work on a mandarin farm up north.
We took our time and stopped along the way.
We left on the birthday of my little sister, which i forgot.
And i am soo sorry for that.
We stopped and bought a air matrace and a body board for the big waves.
We took some hitchhikers slept in Coffs harbour.
A little town where we met up with a friend from the horseback riding trip.
He made ludo drink the supposedly worst beer in australia.
According to Ludo VB was “shit but not the worst i ever drank, that was some Spanish beer”
Then we continued, we went to a surfing spot called Skennars head, it lays very exposed and has gigantic waves. Also dolfins close to the coast 🙂
Then we went to a fracking protest with people chaining themselves to roadblocks, where i met my good old pirate friend Lev again.
It is scary what rights the mining companies have here in australia, a farmer has no right to the things under ground only above ground. so a mining company can come and drill on his property and there is nothing he can do against it.
We stayed in the camp for 2 days helping out and for the first time in australia we saw alive aboriginal culture…original australian culture…
They told some of their stories, and one of the elders held a touching speech that they are taking responsibility for what is happening with the land. We white people have no idea what is going on around us, he said, it it their responsibility (aboriginal people carry “the law” of the land/the earth) to bring balance.
The next day he left to a big meeting of 500 native australian tribe elders in the middle desert.
We went on to the mandarin farm, what shock was it that the farmer told us we couldn’t start working for another 2 weeks.
Luckily there was a farm job just 12h car ride away… and we were desperate for a job.
SO here we are.
In the middle of nowhere, charters towers is the name of the town, but we live 20km away on a farm. Picking Limes and pruning grape vines.
We already saw a zombie parrot, a baby python, tons of spiders with incredibly strong nets, kangaroos in the morning sun and hunted kangaroos by our farm dog smokey…he never catches any
The money is not very good, but the people are very nice.
I don’t really know what to do next, but our friend from Melbourne knows somebody who is in labour hire/construction in Queensland. I might try to ask him for help.
Also our car registration ends today, but it is a public holyday…no good.
Anyhow my dear readers, i will take care.

If you want to see pictures and videos, please click >HERE<! Ludo writes in german, but he has a computer. Yes my computer is falling apart.
And please write a comment.

so long Ole

the Men from Snowy River

Hey there,
as i promised, here comes a picturesce post from the red continent.
We are in sydney by now, and i will slowly catch up with writing.
So enjoy.

a black snake, i almost stepped on it, but ludo saved my life

ludo and his new girlfriend

bird man strikes again

i got them all lined up just waiting for me 🙂

such amaze, much trees, many wow

a piece of real rainforest!

the concrete river

This is how i want my tattoo to look like 🙂

Mist after the rain

the view from Mt Donna Bueng

can somebody tell me hbow a car gets tracks like that?

me and kate, the friend of boinga who we built a fence for

the aequaduct

i am relaxing in the treehouse

The headquater of Boingaology

After Warburton we took the bus to Mansfield where Ron (one of the horseback riding guys) took us in his BMW and with his freshly amputated leg 3 hours in rollercoaster style to the horse hut.
The hut is right near to where the movie “The Man from Snowy River” was filmed, and the customers rode to see some of the movie sets.

Our first impression

strange lichen on every dead tree

we are cowboys…or how they are called here: Jackaroos

Look at my horse, my horse is amazing, give it a lick it tastes just like raisins”

strange insects

unicorns

showing their horn

relaxing in the hut

eucalyptus trees everywhere…with resin

we drove on washed out mountain tracks for hours, to carry the luggage of the customers

and we had good fun

the bushfires destroyed soo many trees, but they didn’t burn, they are just dead.

like ghost forests

safari feeling

our tents

after 2 weeks in the outback we went to canberra and stayed in a nice place…

We hitchiked to sydney from canberra.
Had a unfortunate WWOOFing experience and bought a car for 1/4th of the reasonable price.
but that is a story for the next post 🙂

So Long Ole

p.s.
If you are interested in a tour go >HERE<

p.p.s.
The song for today is: Look at my horse

one big country

Australia is so big!
I was very lazy the last month to read what happened to me please read here… >CLICK<
As it is in German, i probably should at least write a little bit of what happened.
One friend of Boinga (the tree house owner) got us to build a fence for her. our first real working experience. She was an amazing cook and a super nice person. We ended up earning 200 unexpected dollar.
That paid for our trip to another voluntary job in the “Victorian Alps”.
We went and helped out at a horseback riding tour for 2 weeks.
It was a cultural experience, on our first day i thought i can ride and then i had to be a cowboy and bring the cattle over into another meadow and my illusions were shattered…well a little the next day it went waay easier and i noticed that my boss was merely testing my riding skills. What a cheeky bugger.
I played cricket for the first time and found out that it is a lot of fun, but even if i get harassed now it seems like a coward-game 😀
You basically never take risks…but it was fun anyhow.
So after 2 weeks of driving jeeps in 4×4 through washed out mountain tracks we are now in Sydney.
We tried some WWOOFing but we fled pretty quickly as the atmosphere was not really nice.
We just bought a car and got loads of free stuff (incl. a gas stove, a guitar and 2 camping chairs) for just 500$ it still has one month of registration. We will probably use it and then sell it for 2000$ or just continue using it.
This seems just fair as we got ripped off in Melbourne.

so long
Ole
p.s. i am really lazy in writing blog as you can tell but once i edited my pix i am going to give you a picture “caramblogage”

Kangaroos, Koalas and good news

I am in AUSTRALIA!
I made it to the smallest continent.
Yesterday i got Ludi (Kopfspasmen) from the airport, we haven’t seen for more than 1.5 years.
Damn it doesn’t feel that long at all.
We will just go on as if nothing has happened…everything has changed, and everything stayed the same.

I arrived on my birthday, which was 26h long..yay my longest birthday yet.
2 beautiful ladies picked me up and we went to the Mornington peninsular.
The beach is great, the waves big and so much fun.
They totally bashed the glass out of my sun glasses 😀
After the beach we went to the hot springs which i can only recommend..great outlook over the hillsides and great ambiance.
Forgive me, i sound like a traveling catalogue 😀
We went to see kangaroos and in the koala park on Phillips island the next day…we got 1m close to koalas, which was a pretty cool experience.
Fun fact: Koalas have poisonous meat, because they eat eucalyptus leaves all day.
We considered going to the penguin parade, but 22$ was a lot for just watching penguins.
Especially when you can watch them for free on the St. Kilda Pier…yes i forgot my camera..

Now i finally found an apartment, for the next 2 weeks, really cool.
I wrote application letters to half of Melbourne (and we are going to apply to the other half on Monday),.
We have work on a cactus farm which is on a former surface gold mine, maybe we will find some nuggets (wish us luck!)
And we have an invitation of Boinga Bob in Warburton, which is really amazing.

Now we just have to find a cheap car and a well paid job and everything is perfecter 😉

but for now enjoy pictures:

My sandals died in the salt water

thank you Dad for these amazing sandals, may they rest in peace

oh my god its kangaroo jack

and his whole family

the two lovely girls who got me from the airport

land the f**** bass!!

Koala Time!!

“i am not lazy, i am just saving energy”

Our room for the next 2 weeks

This is Ludi… together will we rock this continent

so long Ole

Hobbit land

The time has come to leave New Zealand.
i had to push my flight to the 28th, because the Australian visa required me to make a spontaneous chest X-ray, as i have been out of Germany for more than 3 month…oh well.
Now i will be leaving Infinity on my birthday, leaving all my friends of the last 7.5 month behind and starting a new life. What could be more fitting on a birthday than a rebirth 🙂

I have spent the last 1.5 month in one of the most beautiful places in the world without even noticing, because i have been helping aboard the ship.
I did however do a few little trips venturing out of Auckland.
New Zealand basically looks like “Lord of the Rings” everywhere. The strange trees and plants that seem so fantasy-like in the movies are completely normal here.
I will come back here…one day, the south island is just to beautiful to miss out on it.

I feel weird leaving the boat, going into the unknown again, it is a strange feeling, but Australia is going to be amazing…

So enjoy your day, stay curious and look at the pictures 😉

parteeey

the capitan’s birthday and our christmas cake

these butterflys were so graceful, not like me trying to make pictures of them

new years eve on the hot water beach

hot water is seeping out of the sand, you just have to dig your hole 🙂

this looks like hobbit country

Ole, king of the straw

There are Kiwis eating Kiwis stuffed with Kiwis.

Kauri trees are gigantic! no really!

i am cleaning my “shoes”

taking my first hot bath in a year

our…their new engine

so long ole 🙂