quadbike fun and shopping

Yesterday I booked a Quad-Bike Trip which was good fun. The company had a nice offroad track at a river bed with water crossings. This was the first time I drove such a bike, it is easy to drive.




At my last water crossing I got familiar with the bike



and went into the water really fast.... to become totally wet!!





I had so many problems with my rented cars that I decided to give back my rented car and to buy a car instead. Shlomi sold me his one and gave me much tips and hints for nice trips. He was travelling here for over 3 months.



And hopefully this car, an allroad minibus with an 2.8l Diesel Engine will run smoothly. >The transfer of the car was strange, only I had to show my passport, not the seller. And you must go to the post office to transfer owernship ot the car. Diesel cars and cars heavier than 3.5 tons have to buy a road charge in advance which then put behind the windscreen.



I had problems getting the money, my daily limit was reached, so I went into the bank on Tuesday early morning to get the money there. At the first bank my cards where not accepted, at the second bank it worked and I also solved this challenge. So from now on I will drive with my own car and can go to offroad tracks suitable for 4wheel drive cars. Lets see how much fun this is......

hanmer springs and &$(/" car

After 4 days in Christchurch i changed my car and got a sleepervan.




I drove to hanmer springs, a small city in the mountains northeast of Christchurch. This is short before the city. On this river they offer rafting and jet-boat trips.




Because I started late, I arrived there at 4pm. Went straight to the information center and decided to do a short hiking trail to a beautiful waterfall.




When i came back to the car park it was after 7pm and i was the only one there (at the end of an unsealed road 5km away from the city in a forest). Wanted to start my car..... @#$%^(&* dead again. The same what happened to me 4 days ago with my other car. Of course i had no mobile connection at the car park so i had to walk 2km down to get a signal. The moskitos loved me on my way down, i was their dinner.

Called the aa service (adac) again and one hour later they came and started my car. The battery is hidden under the driver seat, good that i called them, i would never have searched it there.
Stayed the night there at a camping ground, had some great dinner and slept the first time in my car, not very good, i have to get used to it, it is different.
Today i did some hiking again and as a small reward went to the same restaurant, because it was really good.
Tomorrow i will probably do some quad biking, they offer so many action things here, this one looks promising. I never drove with these quads and here they do a guided tour with some river crossings etc.

bye bye australia, hello new zealand

Today I left Australia and flew from Melbourne to Christchurch, which is on the southern island of New Zealand. The city is quite busy, I really had problems finding accommodation and also a reasonably priced car. I could not get the car I wanted, so I got a temporary car for 4 days. I drove to my hostel, checked in and wanted to park..... and the car did not start ^#&@^#( I had to do several phonecalls until finally a guy from the road service came and replaced the battery.

Flying over New Zealand was beautiful, the mountains in the east blocked a thick stripe of clouds, over the mountains blue sky and on the western side cloudy again. I could clearly see the snow and the glaciers. The weather is nice, 24 degrees and sunny. I am sure, I will not need aircon to sleep here, it is much cooler here than australia.

I had to get up early for the flight, many thanx to Gian, that he also got up early and dropped me at the airport.

I will stay at least one additional night here, then I have to change the car and will get a sleepervan, which is a minibus with a mattress to sleep. Then I can decide whether to sleep in a hostel or in a car.

Christchurch is a nice city, looks very British. I don´t know the laws here, but some things seem to be different regarding drugs....



Also the christian people are lucky here, they can buy all their stuff in a dedicated shop:



And at night, they can go to a church, which is now used as a party area:





The next day i drove to Akaroa, which is a nice peninsula with a beautiful bay east of Christchurch. The landscape is beautiful and sometimes spectacular.


When I drove back, some fog appeared and made the scenery a little mystical. This is the end of a lake with a small house, which has two small mountains to the left and the right. The fog came down from the mountains.

Tablelands, Townsville and dive desaster

I decided to leave Port Douglas and go behind the mountains, where it should be cooler. This area is called the Tablelands, which is really nice. There are some tropical rain forests and also farms with tropical fruits, mangos, rambutans, bananas, lychees etc..
I was lucky to find a beautiful hostel at a nice lake and did some sightseeing there. They have some gigantic fig trees there. A fig tree is a parasite which starts growing at the top of another tree. it develops roots which go down to the ground. the fig is getting stronger and stronger and is strangulating the host tree until it dies. until then it has developed so many roots that it does not need the host tree.




It was raining so much that i was happy to have a car. At the end i went off the car wearing only a trouser and left my towel in the car. the rain and the temperature was quite warm, so no problem.
at late evening i was at a round lake, which was a former vulcano crater. i was swimming there alone, everyone else was gone, the rain just stopped.was quite impressive, but also a little scary.

They have funny animals here, a relict of the prehistoric called platypus (schnabeltier), which lives in the lakes and rivers and tree-kangaroos:



Then I decided to do spend my last days here in Queensland to do a dive at a wreck called SS Yongala. This should be one of the best dive sites, if have asked several people and everyone said, this is a must-dive if i could do it. It is a passenger ship 110m long and is now a gorgous artificial reef with much big fish. It was raining raining raining on my drive south to Townsville.
The closest site to go to the wreck was a city 80km south of Townsville called Ayr. I couldn't drive there because all roads have been flooded. So i stayed at motel a little outside Townsville on a hill to be safe not to be flooded also. At night the sky was totally dark then a monsoon storm started with very heavy rain and thunder.
when i woke up the next day, the motel had no power.
I tried to drive again south but the roads are still flooded, so i went into Townsville and spend the day visiting a museum with artefacts of the wreck and went to the local aquarium which is really big with a quite authentic reef. i recognized many fish there which i have seen at my dive trip a few days ago. i found a company which goes to the wreck from townsville and i was really happy because the next day was my last chance to do the dive. it takes much longer, more than 3h oneway and was also more expensive.
i had to get up very early the next day and went to the meeting point. at the proposed time, only another passenger was there. 30mins later the crew arrived....
then we went on the boat and had a heavy ride with some strong waves. some people got seasick, i took my tablets and survived.
after a 3h long journey we arrived at the dive site. everyone went in the water and got back on the boat without diving... it was chaotic there was a very strong current and the visibility was very poor. the crew explained these conditions with the strong rains which pressed out the water from the land. after 1h we went in again, i had problems holding the rope and was feeling very uncomfortable so decided not to dive. Some went down and came back after only 25mins. then surprisingly the dive captain asked who wants to do a second dive and some said that the want to do it. so we waited 1h and these guys went down the second time. I said to the dive captain that i think it is not safe to dive with these conditions. They had also newbies onboard with no experience, but he ignored my comment...
luckily everyone came back on the boat and we drove back another 3hours with more people getting seasick. in total my day started on 5.15h and i got back at my motel at 19.30h
I think they only dived because of the money. if they had to cancel the trip they must give everyone a refund. I learned my lesson, no more day trips and ask about the conditions in front ...
Today I drove back to Cairns, will spend the night here and tomorrow fly back to Melbourne to recover and organize a few things for new zealand which is my next stop. i will fly there on Tuesday.

two world heritages at once

Today I booked a tour to cape tribulation, which is the further north. It was a very small group, only a norwegian family and me. We drove with a Toyota Landcruiser through the tropical rainforest. We have been mostly lucky, it was raining only during lunch, when we stayed under a roof and at the end of the trip.

The rainforest around Cape Tribulation is a world heritage and protected under the Unesco. We saw nice mangroves trees, a baby crocodile, some wild pigs, a nice lizard and some birds. This rainforest goes till the coast, where it touches the Great Barrier Reef, which is also a world heritage. This is the only place on earth where protected ecosystems touches each other. In Australia there are 4 of them, one is shark bay, which is at the western part and one is in Tasmania, where I also have been. So I saw 3 out of 4, which is not so bad...

The northest city is Cooktown. This is the end of the sealed road. If you go further north, then you will need a 4WD car. And you should also take care, if the rain season starts and you are still there than you can park your car there............ for 4 months.

cairns and port douglas

I survived my dive trip which was great. The inner great barrier reef which is close to the coast is quite destroyed but we when to the outer barrier reef. The farest site was 75 miles off the shore. We were quite lucky, the weather was perfect, only small waves. I was not sure, if I will get seasick so I took one tablet...
On the outer reef (osprey reef) the dive master did a shark feeding which was quite spectacular. We were sitting in some kind of a atrium and 5 m in front of us was a box with a swimming device and three frozen tuna heads connected altogether with a chain. The master opened the box, the tuna heads popped out and roundabout 30 sharks tried to grab a piece of it. If you holded your breath you could hear the bones crushing...
On another dive site we did a Cod Fish feeding. A cod is a very big fish, the biggest ones are over 2m long and weight over 500 pounds. The have a very big mouth and really big pieces of food fit into it. The dive master wore kevlar protected gloves to protect his hands.
We had a professional filmer with us, I bought the dvd so i can show you how it looked like.

The last two nights I spent in Cairns, it was so hot there that I slept with aircon on. I hate aircon and always try to avoid using it, but I could sleep, so I had to use it. I was quite exhausted after the trip. We did 14 dives in 3,5 days and had to get up quite early every day.


I rented a car and drove north, the next two nights i will stay in Port Douglas, which is 80km north of Cairns. Today I went to Mossmann Gorge, which is a walk in the tropical rainforest. There is a nice river where I could cool down my body after the rainforest walk. Its very hot and humid here, 36 degrees at midnight and almost 100percent humidity. So my body is wet the whole day.
Something in the river have bitten me, I think this was a blood sucking worm, because the wound was bleeding even after some hours. I asked the locals here and they agreed with me. This worm is not dangerous.

They have very nice beaches here but swimming is only possible with a protective suit, because there are venerous jellyfish here. Its really a shame......



Tomorrow I booked a tour to Cape Tribulation, this is the end of the sealed road here. From there on you would need a four wheel drive car....