Australia-Day Horse racing

On January 26th is Australia Day, they celebrate themselves. Many parties or concerts are happening, I went with my aunties to a horse racing which is very popular here.
Some guys are dressing up.....



and everyone drank very much. During the day funny things happened, like some running naked over the track. Could have been this guy, I´m quite sure he could drink all the beer he is carrying alone.



And they love to bet. We were lucky and quadrupled our bet, too bad it has been only 20 Dollars.




The Australians love to bet and to gamble. Many of the pubs have gambling machines next to the dining room. After and before eating they play.... I am not lucky with these machines, but my auntie is.. Its amazing to see her winning....

Sydney 3

I´ve spent my last day in the Botanical Gardens. Besides some nice plants I saw some interesting animals. Australia has some of the most noxious animals, I dont know if this spider is also noxious, but it looked quite impressive. It was about 15 cm long.


There were also many flying-foxes:



When you enlarge this picture you can see how many of them where sleeping in the tree, waiting for twilight, their hunting time.

Sydney 2

The next day I spent at the famous Bondi Beach. At one beach bar they had Acai, one of my favorite brazilian fruits. This reminded me of some nice moments I spent in Brasil.......
Too bad it will be July when I will be there again :-(





One part of the beach is resevered for swimmers, they had to swim between the flags.



If not, then they will be reminded over loudspeakers from the famous and well equipped life guards.

Sydney

After Tasmania I flew to Sydney where I started with a bus sightseeing trip. From the open bus I saw the office building of my former employer. Greeting to all my former colleagues!! One of them is now working here...

In the late afternoon I visited the famous Harbour Bridge,


where I booked the bridge climbing tour. This is a 3,5h tour which starts with dressing up and getting used to the security equipment. Unfortunately you are not allowed to bring your own camera. They say its because of security, I think they want to make some extra money with their pics. The tour is quite expensive (250$) and for the pics they wanted an additional 100$, which I was not willing to pay. You walk up on one arrow up to the top (164m) cross at the middle and walk down at the other side. I did this at twilight, so i was walking up with sunlight, saw sunset from the top and walked down in the night with the lighted skyline of sydney. If you also want to do this tour I would recommend to do it at the same time as me, you see two different Sydneys.



Of course I saw the beautiful opera house which is situated in a perfect place within the famous harbor.

Tasmania East Coast 2

The last day of the tour was dedicated to some nice beaches. Here is "Blowhole", a hole in the rocks where the waves are compressed and pressed through.


The brown color of the rocks is the result of some minerals.



On this beach I made some nice pics, have a look at the different colors of the stones and the water.


And this is one of the most beautiful bays, called "Whineglass Bay". The name comes from the nearly perfect curve of the beach, which has the form of a ... wine glass.

Tasmania East Coast

We started our second part of the trip in Port Arthur. It is a small island which was used as a prison island for convicts, who was shipped from England. Less than 5 people have been successful to flee from this place. One prisoner tried to escape and hided himself inside the skin of a kanguruh. The menu of the guarding soldiers was not very diversified, so they were very happy to see some fresh meat for dinner and they shot him.....


The next day we made a short hike in a beautiful rain forest. In previous times there has been some mining here, this railroad bridge could have been used in an Indiana Jones film...


The tracks in this rain forest are shaded with some giant fern trees. Combined with some sun this was looking really nice.




And the target of the hike was a beautiful water fall...

Hobart

I had one day off in the capital Hobart, where I visited the famous Salamanca Market. One of the nicest things I saw there was a woolen tasmanian devil tea pot warmer.



In the afternoon I did a downhill tour from the nearby Mount Wellington. On the street it was no problem, but it also had a steep sandy off road part, which was a bit slippery. In Australia and New Zealand it is mandatory to wear a bicycle helmet. If you dont wear it you have to pay a fine.



The next day we visited an animal sanctuary with some hungry kanguruhs


and some full tiger snakes. We saw this snake also live.. without fences at our trip to the great ocean road. It is very noxious, if it bites you, you have 5 minutes left to sum up your life..... then it will be over....

Tasmania West Coast 2

We arrived in Strahan, they had very nice and big sand dunes there, over 1km deep. This was a nice contrast to the freezing mountains the day before.




At night we drove back to the beach for a spectacular sunset.



The next day was mostly driving towards the capital Hobart. We passed by a funny memorial for World War I soldiers cut out of the wood of some big trees.

Tasmania West Coast

From Tuesday January 15 till Wednesday January 23th I have been in Tasmania.
It was very nice, I booked a guided Tour, 3 days West Coast, 1 day off in the capital Hobart and 3 days East Coast.
Tasmania is a country with a very low criminality rate. If it would have been higher, they probably had to install real fences for this opium field.. Yes, you just read right.. it is OPIUM!!



The western part of Tasmania is very wild and consists mostly of a nature reserve roundabout the size of Switzerland. One part of it are the Craddle Mountains. It was really cold here, about 12 degrees with a strong wind. I did a nice 4h hike there.

On my way back to the car park I saw two typical Tasmanian animals: a wombat



and a echidna, which looks like a hedgehog and is eating ants.


On the next day we stopped at Lake Rosebery. Here it had no wind and dark water, so i could take some very nice pics with the mirrored landscape in the lake.