Things Happen

Dear readers,
a lot has happened since i wrote last.

The Forest was amazing! We went on a little hiking trip up to a mountain called “pigeon House Mountain” which Capt’n Cook himself named.
Sadly my camera died before i could take a single picture…
But it was very relaxing. I did a three day fast and detox and felt so refreshed afterwards.

After coming back to Sydney, i finally couch-surfed again!
I wanted to show Rose how amazing the concept of CS. Our first host ditched us last-minute, but we ended up having the best host ever! Brett is amazing! He is a chef that lived in peru for a couple years and has traveled the world, i could immediately identify 😀
He invited me to come to an innovation and design exhibition, to which i sadly forgot my camera 😦
tsktsk

Then we went to a hip-hop club where rose DJed and i beat-boxed.
It was a lot of fun and it was my first time i have been immersed in Australian underground culture.
Apparently it is the only bar in Sydney that constantly plays old-school hip-hop.

Rose flew off to Europe 😦 but i will not let that take my fun away :DSo I went off to a friendly milliner (a hatmaker) to fix my to small hat. He told me that if i annoy him enough he will teach me how to do it.
So i did, hand he showed me. It seems the old traditional crafts are dying and nowadays people do it mostly for a hobby. But here in Australia people (meaning middle and upper-class women) actually wear little hats and fascinators, because horse and dog racing is still a big thing here down under. Old English traditions i suppose.

I went to a couple photo shoots and am trying to get another modeling gig to make some money.
I moved back to my favorite place, here in Coogee it’s just the best.
One of Roses friends showed me around in the music scene of Sydney. The event was called “Fringe festival”.
It was an event similar to the “Fete de la musique” in Berlin, where every bar has a musician in their window.
So many diverse bands played! I think it was the first  time since…
yeah since when.  I don’t remember when i saw a live concert last.
How long have i been gone?
Wow over 2 Years or 111 weeks, 780 days or 18,720 hours. ( ok just for completeness, i have been gone for about 67,392,000 seconds 😉 )
Loong time.
Well you guys might need to wait a couple more seconds before Ole is back.
But i will be back, maybe sooner than you think.

ok picture fix:

 

our hideout in the outback

its still winter here

lets get rid of the deathproof car!

DJing at Hustle and flow

Me and the Hatmaker. He is not quite as crazy as in the alice in wonderland story 😉

but his workshop reminds of Lewis Caroll

Musicians in music stores, cooperating with ballerinas

in bars

and fashion outlets

oh right, i forgot to mention

i fell and hurt my neck

Thats it from your outpost here on the other side of our little blue dot in the universe.
I have become a TEDicct. Meaning i watch 2-3 ted videos a day 😀 It is amazing how much you can learn if somebody puts it in digestible form!
I can only recommend downloading the mobile app.

So long and thanks for all the Fish
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

Nong Kiaw+Muang Noi – Welcome to the Jungle

After PeeMai (thai: Songkran) I found some travel companions other than my backpack. A Kiwi couple Sanji and Catelyn (People from New Zealand), One Italian girl (Gemma) and one Dutch girl(Roos). So we were a colorful mix 🙂 We made our way by bus to Nong Kiaw. It is a beautiful “city” in midst of huge limestone walls, the Nam Ou river and Jungle where ever you look. We decided to camp near the river, which was a nice thing to do, if it wasn’t for the rain in the night…but my huge backpack includes a big tarp, so we got out dry after all 😉

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After 2 nights we went on to Muang Noi, a serene place that is only reachable by boat and was supposed not to have any electricity…but we arrived one week late.
Chinese money and a mass of seasonal tourists slowly modernize the country.
At least there was no Internet…yet.
One night and two all you can eat buffets later we started a supposedly easy one-day-trek to the next small village Ban HoySien , that really did not have electricity yet (at least only self produced)
On our way there we got to know about a tribal village that was “only” 3h trek after HoySien.
There we asked the guest house owner for the way and got a really confusing description that got us almost killed… am i exagerating? A little maybe. But if we did not have a guardian angel in the form of a local hunter appear to us, we would have walked straight into…..Damn, i almost took away the suspension.
We only saw what was coming after one more hour of walking, but i cannot make you read for one hour, can i?
The Hunter told us with an relieved face (relieved that he found us) , that the Village we were looking for was the other direction.
When we were asking what was in the way we were going he made a motion with his hands and said something like “Fire-fire” and “No-No”
We just trusted his directions and walked back, almost lost our path again and then we saw the other side of the valley lit up in flames.
It was the biggest fire i have ever seen…by far. I think the flames were about 7-8 meters high, and covered a huge area!

After we recovered from this shock, we went on…to find ourselves in the next tricky situation.
You probably know how the Lonly Planet advertises it can get you “off the beaten track” well we were literally looking for it…there was just no pathway anymore. Leeches were everywhere, crawling through the holes made for shoe laces…brrr
but we found a promising path after wading through 50m of creek…and it seemed to be the right.
We were so relieved when a Tribe couple came along this path to tell us we were back on track.
But soon our water reserves, which were not planned for a 5h but for a 3h trek, were exausted. That’s when our second guardian angel appeared, he brought us all the way to the Kamu-village showed us a small creek to refill the water (no i did not get sick from it…and it was better than dying of thirst 😉 )

The Village Ban KiuKaan is a barren, a little bit depressing place.
Everything is done for survival, the men are hunters, the women collect bamboo.
It is self-sufficient, but its not an easy life on top of the mountain.
But the children develop games anyways, with what ever they have, in this case two big flat round seeds…for a game at which i am not very good at 😀
I tried my best.
The next day we walked to Ban Hatsepui, a long but easy trek, we were really relieved after all this walking in the sun with about 39 degrees to see the Nam Ou.
Ban Hatsepui is a much more happy place, the grounds seem to be fertile, the river is directly adjacent and the children have an open smile on their faces. In short it was way easier to get integrated in the children’s activities, then in the Kamu-village. They actually invited us to play their games.
Finding a stone on the rocky riverbed, that is thrown in again and again (wow these kiddies are fabulous swimmers…butterfly, freestyle etc. with 8 years) or shooting slingshots at supposedly impossible targets.
Games i guess, that will help in later life…but so easygoing.
I really enjoyed this village. Teaching them cardgames, juggling, getting shown around in town, painting fingernails, running around etc. just having a lot of fun together.
And the Adults watched happily somebody is finally powering out their children 😀
Then we took the morning boat back to Muang Noi, and relaxed there for a few days.
And the rainy season started….but thats stuff for the next entry 😛
Enjoy:

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Now our group splitt, me and Roos have a hitchhiking competition with the other three. Who can reach Tachek first…bad only that it seems to be raining every day 😕
we will see
So long Ole